Original Author: Jerry@TPDAO
In parallel with the enthusiastic Token2049 event in Singapore, the Western Web3 industry conference is also conveying emotions. This is a convergence of Eastern and Western thoughts and actions in the midst of the market turmoil in the bear market. Unlike the strong sense of home court and responsibility in the “Hong Kong Insights” conclusion in the surge in Hong Kong in April, "Token2049's Afterword" will give us a better third-party perspective to observe, reflect, learn from, and criticize—of course, we do not intend to criticize deliberately.
The macro aspect of the market is not lacking in money. You see, during those days of Token2049, the most expensive nightclubs and venues with the best sea views were all taken over by the crypto world. This small observation angle behind it harbors the foundation of value judgment—traditional exchanges, large institutions, and traditional financial capital that currently have money in hand are still continuing the narrative means of speculation, hype, and bubbles from previous bull and bear cycles, and have not evolved into the infrastructure and application ecosystem construction layers along with the crypto world.
Therefore, we boldly judge that the enthusiasm of Token2049 in Singapore is surging with signs of decline—these traditional exchanges, large institutions, and traditional financial capital will gradually be marginalized or even abandoned and detached by the crypto world. The creators of these most active market factors in the Singapore market have entered a period of decline.
If you cannot understand the background of our narrative, you may feel that such judgment is a bit untimely. You see, the hottest topics in the main forum of the conference are compliance and regulation. And this is the basis for our further judgment.
If the theme discussion were to take place in Hong Kong, as in the Hong Kong event in April, we would agree with this theme judgment and further believe that Hong Kong is likely to become the world's largest market in the integration process of the crypto world and sovereign finance—although it is difficult, there are a series of difficult problems to solve, which we discussed in "Hong Kong Insights" and will not be repeated here.
By comparison, the United States has become the worst choice for Web3 entrepreneurship under continuous SEO attacks, even if it has the best technology and projects domestically, it is also looking for opportunities to leave the United States. The Middle East centered around Dubai, as well as Latin America and Southeast Asia, have the best soil for nurturing native crypto markets, but it is not integration, because the local sovereign governments also have the motivation to break the US dollar order. Singapore is relatively awkward. Even though it now has an international foundation, on the one hand, it is trying to cooperate and prosper with the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia in deep market integration, but on the other hand, it is concerned about its association with the US dollar market, making it difficult to make a choice and ultimately rely on both sides.
Outside the enthusiastic Token2049 social scene, there are also some practical discussions and progress made by builders who are dedicated to development. We have excerpted relevant information from "Singapore Token2049" and "Western Web3 Summit," and supplemented it with information that conveys the signal of "construction," even though we did not attend the event.
1. ShapeShift Founder Erik Voorhees: Redemption is Our Own Responsibility
Permissionless, I like this name, it is one of the words that best captures the essence of our industry. All of this began with the invention of Bitcoin about 15 years ago. Why is that moment important? Because it is permissionless. This attribute is more essential to cryptocurrencies than any other. This attribute has been given to all good projects in this field. If something is not permissionless, we should at least consider it as a stepping stone to that goal.
But why is permissionlessness so novel and so difficult to achieve? In the field of currency before the emergence of cryptocurrencies, all fund flows required someone's permission. You might say that cash is permissionless, but if you want to send it across any distance, it is not. Try to carry $10,000 through customs, and you will quickly be reminded that it is not feasible. No, cash is not even permissionless, although it has many advantages, it is disappearing from society.
So we should be grateful that a permissionless form of digital currency was invented, because it came at a very timely moment. Why is all this important? Considering that almost all economic activities require money. In a world where most people struggle to put food on the table, the economic field is actually the arbiter of life and death for billions of people. Most people do not have the luxury of pursuing passion. They work, they toil, they trade because they need to live. Therefore, money is crucial to our human existence. Therefore, we should care about its quality, we should care about its nature, we should care about who controls it.
Permission is usually subtle, but it is everywhere. Every time you pay with a card, you are granted permission. It seems that permission is only whether you have enough money. But in reality, there is another more subtle layer of approval happening.
Banks, financial institutions, governments, many strangers along the line, whom you will never meet, all bless every transaction you make, and you do not notice it, because as long as you behave like a citizen, permission exists. But if you need permission to spend money and make transactions, then you need permission to exist.
So why do we accept a world where you can only freely transact if strangers conditionally approve it? This is certainly not freedom. You may not realize it, but what we are building is a modern society's economic defense against state plunder and restrictions. We say "no" to the continued infringement of permission. Saving us from this phenomenon, redemption is our own responsibility.
2. MetaMask Facilitates Snaps to Subvert the Ecosystem Interaction of MetaMask
On the eve of Token2049, Consensys announced the public launch of the first version of MetaMask Snaps. According to the official website, MetaMask Snaps are features created by third-party developers that MetaMask users can directly install into their wallets.
Initially, MetaMask Snaps will provide 34 Snap features, including transaction insights that can identify potential security vulnerabilities, interoperability with non-EVM blockchains such as Bitcoin, and practical functions such as Web3 notifications. These 34 Snap features have been security audited and manually added to the whitelist by the MetaMask team.
In July, MetaMask plans to launch the Snaps protocol by the end of 2023, allowing anyone to securely extend the functionality of MetaMask's system, enabling wallet users to access new applications and perform cross-chain protocol interactions. MetaMask previously described Snaps as "an open-source system that allows anyone to securely extend the functionality of MetaMask" to create new Web3 experiences. This means that developers can use Snaps to build specific functions on top of MetaMask.
3. Some Progress on "Layer2"
Scroll Co-founder: Scroll is in the testing phase and will soon launch the mainnet
Ye Zhang, co-founder of Scroll, stated at the roundtable discussion at Token2049 in Singapore that Scroll is currently in the final testing phase and will soon launch the mainnet. At the same time, he expressed hope for more developers to build applications that solve real-world problems in the future. Many large-scale applications have already been deployed on Scroll's testnet, such as Uniswap, and it is expected that more Ethereum applications will be deployed on Scroll after the mainnet launch to solve various real-world problems.
Polygon Co-founder: Ethereum is transitioning to a "chain-to-chain" model and will become the foundational settlement layer in the future
Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, stated at the roundtable discussion at Token2049 in Singapore that typically, enterprises have B2B and B2C models, but for Ethereum, until today, it has been more like a U2C model, which is the "user-to-chain" model. Now Ethereum is transitioning to a "chain-to-chain" model. This means that in the next 2 to 4 years, Ethereum will become the foundational settlement layer, providing security, settlement guarantees, and security features to these chains.
Matter Labs CEO: Solving data availability is expected to improve Ethereum's performance and scalability issues
Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski stated at the roundtable discussion at Token2049 in Singapore that Vitalik Buterin has set a vision centered around the Rollup upgrade. He likened Ethereum to an island that can only build small houses, limited by space. The Rollup upgrade, on the other hand, is like a skyscraper, allowing for more activity on the same surface. However, even with this, its capacity still cannot meet the demand. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond the capabilities of the Rollup upgrade, much like reclaiming land from the sea, which will open a new chapter for Ethereum. EIP-4844 and sharding cannot solve Ethereum's problems. A key challenge in Ethereum's development is data availability, which is currently the most expensive and scarce component, affecting transaction prices, execution, and storage. zkSync has two methods to address this issue: using state differences instead of call data, and extending data availability off-chain and seamlessly interoperating with Rollup accounts. These methods are expected to improve Ethereum's performance and scalability issues.
Offchain Labs Co-founder: Currently, token minting costs are lower on Layer2, but Ethereum's data costs will continue to decrease
Offchain Labs co-founder Ed Felten stated at the roundtable discussion at Token2049 in Singapore that there is liquidity of tens of billions of dollars on Ethereum, with a small portion already bridged to various Layer2 networks. On Layer2, there is higher activity compared to the Total Value Locked (TVL). This is because on Layer2, transactions are cheaper and gas fees are lower. Another interesting development is that, in addition to the largest amount of bridged value from Ethereum being on Arbitrum, more and more projects are choosing to launch tokens directly on Arbitrum. Currently, the value of native tokens on Arbitrum is higher than the bridged ETH or tokens. I believe this is an increasingly clear trend, that the costs of minting and managing tokens are also lower on Layer2. EIP-4844 will be launched in the coming months, which is the first step in the direction mentioned above. However, I believe that over time, the data costs on Ethereum will also decrease, so that they will not be much higher than the cost of general business data storage. People still hope to operate at lower costs, but the advantages of external data availability solutions will diminish, as Ethereum enters a phase where data availability becomes the most important part of its protocol.
4. "Stablecoins," "AI+," "RWA," and "New-Generation Exchanges"
Father of Smart Contracts Nic Carter: Within two years, 25% of USD stablecoins will be issued with crypto assets as collateral
Currently, the dollar is the accounting unit for 99% of stablecoins, which is much higher than the share of the dollar in foreign exchange reserves or international trade. This situation will continue, and dollar-denominated stablecoins will hold at least 95% of the market share. The lack of interest payments for stablecoins has led to a contraction in the stablecoin industry. Now, with interest-paying stablecoins, existing markets will be forced to start paying some interest to holders. However, for regulatory reasons, interest-paying stablecoins cannot be issued in the United States, which will accelerate the offshore trend of stablecoins. In addition, the rise of crypto-collateralized USD stablecoins is a good thing, as it uses crypto assets as a store of value and stablecoins as a medium of exchange. This is something that is very much in line with the native nature of crypto. So I believe that within two years, 25% of USD stablecoins will be issued with crypto assets as collateral, rather than USD assets. And today, this ratio is less than 5%.
veDAO: Web3 Investment Decision Platform Driven by AI Technology
First, the first version of the veDAO homepage is ranked based on the daily and 7-day discussion volume of industry KOLs. As long as there is veDAO, popular projects, and projects with topics, I will not miss them.
Second, veDAO captures the number of followers of the project's official Twitter account, the discussion volume of KOLs, the number of KOL followers, the number of token whales' attention, and the number of NFT whales' attention, and marks these data to form dynamic changes. Whether it is an increase, decrease, or no change, or the data itself actually continuously provides investment decisions to users, but different people will have different ways of understanding.
Third, veDAO currently has 22,200 Twitter accounts of industry KOLs. You can see pure comments from industry KOLs on the project. We also combine the functionality of chatgpt, summarizing the content into relatively short texts, describing the advantages and disadvantages.
Fourth, veDAO established an expert committee in May this year, and more than 140 institutions have joined, including capital, funds, exchanges, KOLs, and media. The governance committee is mostly composed of industry KOLs, so the referentiality of the results will be higher. At the same time, the functionality of chatgpt summarizes all expert comments into relatively concise analyses, also divided into advantages and disadvantages.
Fifth, Smart Money, real-time updates on-chain Smart Money dynamics shared with veDAO users. We will use veDAO's internal algorithm to organize the commonalities of Smart Money operations, presenting the most simple, direct, and scalable reference value information to users. Using on-chain data, it intuitively and quickly displays the real-time dynamic changes of tokens, combined with Smart Money signals, effectively assisting investment decisions. While tracking excess returns, veDAO stands on the shoulders of giants, minimizing investment risks to the greatest extent.
BGT: "Exploring Event Release: Web3 and RWA" Series
Following Hong Kong and South Korea, BG Trade held an event on September 13 at Temasek Ave 3 in Singapore, continuing the theme of "Exploring Event Release: Web3 and RWA."
BG Trade CMO Hakan discussed the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) and BG Trade's approach to redefining this evolving field. BGT aims to be a Web3.0 native asset, while also providing holders with airdrop opportunities for tokenized assets of future listed companies.
BGT serves as a bridge between the traditional stock market and the crypto world, planning to build an ecosystem that anchors tokens and traditional stocks at a 1:1 ratio, breaking down barriers between the crypto sphere and the stock market. For token holders, they can acquire corresponding stocks of listed companies by purchasing tokens. For listed companies, they can tokenize stocks, allowing users outside their listed trading area to easily manage asset allocation. This will achieve more free and efficient cross-regional and cross-domain asset allocation.
BGT is a pioneer and demonstration in building this ecosystem, becoming the first tokenized asset anchored by a Hong Kong-listed company. Through the BGT project, the process of standardizing the tokenization of listed company stocks will be standardized, and more listed companies will be helped to achieve coin-stock connectivity, building a brand-new coin-stock ecosystem.
Olivex: Token2049 unveiled the Olivex 2.0 plan
Security: Olivex will further strengthen its security measures to ensure the highest level of protection for users' digital assets.
Trading Experience: Olivex 2.0 will provide a faster, smoother, and more reliable trading experience to meet the growing demand for digital asset trading.
Features and Tools: Olivex 2.0 will introduce a range of new features and tools to help users better manage and grow their digital asset investment portfolios.
Global Expansion: Olivex plans to expand its services globally, providing convenient digital asset trading experiences to more traders.
5. BitMEX Co-founder and Former CEO Arthur Hayes: The Largest Bull Market in Risk Assets Since the Great Depression
Why do I believe that the next bull market may start in early 2024? This will be the largest bull market in risk assets since the Second World War and the Great Depression, not only in the cryptocurrency field, but also in the field of risk assets. Fundamentally, what is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? I got this saying from Robin Paul, that it is population growth, productivity, and debt. When there are not enough children, who will drive this growth to repay the debt? What solutions have central banks and governments proposed to solve this problem? How do we maintain GDP growth—by printing money.
Since 1970, we have increased from 110% to 360%. The worst part of this chart is not just the terrifying 360%, but also the alarming acceleration. It took us 10 years to increase the growth rate by 100%, while during the COVID-19 pandemic, we only took two years to increase it from 250% to 360%.
From a global perspective, we are in the late stage of a debt disaster. While each country has its specific reasons for unsustainable debt, at a global level, we can see that we are using accelerated debt issuance to compensate for nonexistent growth.
Although we are in Singapore, we operate under the dollar standard, and the monetary policies of most countries reflect U.S. financial policies. Therefore, I have spent a lot of time discussing the Federal Reserve and financial policies.
If you are a holder of U.S. Treasury bonds, by 2026, the U.S. will have to roll over nearly $8 trillion in bonds and find people willing to accept this debt at prevailing market yields. Now, imagine if the whole world faces this problem, where there is too much debt and insufficient population growth. How will they achieve this? Who will buy this debt?
When the government has a pile of debt to issue and no one is willing to buy it at an affordable yield, what will the government do? They will print money.
Therefore, if I look at the liquidity problem of fiat currency from a global perspective and from the perspective of the U.S. as the reserve currency issuer, this will be the largest currency issuance market we have ever seen, but no one here is willing to buy these things at these yields.
6. UniSwapX: A System Solving the Economic Incentive Problem of Counterpart Intent
The AMM protocols of uniswapV1-3 face issues such as user costs, transaction prices, trading paths, routing services, and LP incentives. The current market situation of Swaps can be said to be completely surrounded by MEV in the on-chain memory pool, with almost every large-scale Swap facing the risk of being sandwiched. Users always transact at the worst prices, and the profits are taken by MEV.
The introduction of UniSwapX attempts to address the above issues by fundamentally changing the AMM trading mechanism from another dimension. By definition, UniSwapX is a new permissionless, open-source (GPL), auction-based routing protocol for trading across AMM and other liquidity sources. It is considered one of the most advanced and practical solutions to the economic incentive problem of counterpart intent.
Conclusion
It's difficult to cover all the highlights in one article, and there may be omissions, which may lead some friends to misunderstand the intention of this article. Therefore, in the conclusion, we respond to the opening statement from a different perspective to further explain our standpoint—passion contains decay, and silence harbors vitality.
Feedback from the event suggests that many friends who had lively discussions at the Hong Kong event did not appear at Token2049 in Singapore, which is somewhat disheartening. However, this feeling is likely a misconception— as mentioned at the beginning, the most active participants at 2049 are major institutions, traditional finance, and established exchanges, who have been inactive for a long time. Even though there is overvaluation in some foundational projects, the current market contains crypto projects that are closest to the core narrative of the crypto world since Bitcoin, and they are increasingly distant from major institutions, traditional finance, and established exchanges. They are unable to enjoy the beta returns of the crypto world. If they are not content with relying solely on luck to compete for alpha returns, they will be engulfed in the delusion of trying to integrate into the crypto economy.
Therefore, Singapore, which seems to be filled with these major institutions, traditional finance, and established exchanges, also exudes a sense of decay, just like them.
On the contrary, the development of crypto world infrastructure, the practice of intent trading, the development of Web3 application layers, and the composability that RWA brings to DeFi will bring vitality to the crypto market and empower Web3 efficiency, along with the corresponding value of native token assets in this cycle. Who will occupy this high ground?
Therefore, we intentionally selected the above six "key points" to inspire each other!
Note: This article is produced by ThePrimediaDAO, with some content provided by ThePrimediaDAO's ecosystem partners on-site, and some content referenced from ForesightNews, CoinVoice, Cointime, MarsBit, Gyro Technology, PANews, Chain Catcher, and other friendly media's on-site reports.
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