Guest: Dovey Wan, founder of Primitive Ventures
"Bitcoin can no longer keep up with ARKK -- AI is draining global liquidity, while the crypto market hasn't even reached true silence yet." Founder of Primitive Ventures, Dovey Wan, deeply analyzes the disruptive impact of AI on the global liquidity landscape, the survival crisis of white-collar workers, and the philosophy of "insensitivity" in surviving the crypto bear market in an exclusive interview on the Eastern and Western capital dialogue show "168X," bringing years of practical insights across Chinese and American technology and financial spheres.
With a background in technology, Dovey Wan holds a master's degree in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University. She previously served as Managing Director at Danhua Capital (DHVC), leading early investments in dozens of blockchain infrastructure projects like Dfinity, Cosmos, and StarkWare. In 2018, she founded the evergreen fund Primitive Ventures, operating solely with its own capital and not accepting external LPs, focusing on investing in crypto-native innovators and funding independent Bitcoin Core developers deep within the winter. Today, Primitive Ventures' portfolio covers over 50 projects across various cutting-edge fields, including DeFi, zero-knowledge proofs, Bitcoin Layer 2, and AI infrastructure.
The Great Splintering of Liquidity: When Bitcoin Can No Longer Keep Up with ARKK
"In 2024, I repeatedly say on Twitter that the liquidity supply chain of Crypto itself has undergone significant structural changes," Dovey states directly.
She uses the relationship between Bitcoin and ARKK (ARK Innovation ETF) as an example --
Before the GPT moment, the trends of ARKK and Bitcoin were highly similar: both are essentially "purely liquidity-driven assets with only valuation expansion, no value expansion."
But after the GPT moment, AI growth stocks began to generate real earnings and cash flow. After the test of the DeepSeek moment, the valuation logic of AI growth stocks became even clearer.
By mid-2025, a critical divergence occurred: Bitcoin could no longer keep up with the rise of ARKK. This means liquidity is rotating -- funds are moving from purely valuation expansion assets to AI growth stocks that can be priced based on real cash flow.
Dovey points out that for this reason, Primitive Ventures began tracking Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and SK Hynix early on as core supply chain companies for AI.
Additionally, she observes a significant trend: U.S. stocks are becoming "crypto-ized."
Driven by retail investors, dominated by highly leveraged traders, and exhibiting extreme volatility, recent flash crashes in silver and gold showcase characteristics similar to the crypto market. "Many models previously used by institutions are no longer applicable," she bluntly states. "The structure of trader profiles is also changing."
Behind this lies a deeper driving force. Those white-collar workers displaced by AI are collectively pouring into the trading market.
White-collar Workers Are Like Horses Pulling a Carriage: A Five-Year Countdown to the AI Apocalypse
Dovey presents a shocking statistic: In the first half of 2025, only 1,000 new jobs were added in New York City.
"Finance folks are unemployed," she candidly asserts. "Junior lawyers are also unemployed. So what can these people do? They have financial literacy, channels for using various financial tools, and know-how -- so they have basically all turned into basement traders."
This trend echoes an article she wrote during the GameStop event -- when financial populism combines with cultural ideologies, the structure of market participants fundamentally changes.
Dovey predicts that AI will become a new ideology. She has seen friends' three-year-old children, who just learned to speak, chatting with AI daily because their parents cannot meet the children's endless curiosity.
"The world will become very strange in the future, but many people are not prepared for this."
But what truly worries Dovey is a deeper structural fracture.
The past economic model assumed that when the economy is growing rapidly, employment will also increase. The dual mandate of the Federal Reserve, "employment and inflation," is based on this assumption.
But AI may soon break this equation, thrusting humanity into a world where "super high growth + super high unemployment" coexist.
Her judgment is very specific: Within five years, Silicon Valley giants will no longer need "specific functional engineers"; accounting, the Big Four audit firms, and many document-intensive service industry positions will also be replaced by AI within five years.
Even if these companies delay layoffs due to management inertia and social responsibility, once the burden of operational costs begins to threaten their ecological status, layoffs will become inevitable. Overall, in about a decade, the entire operational model of society will be completely reshaped by AI productivity.
She gives a vivid example: After Musk took over Twitter and conducted massive layoffs, Twitter actually became better. She believes that even if Google lays off a third of its engineers, it will still operate well.
"For each individual, how to maintain resistance to AI and immunity to AI is the most significant issue in the next decade," Dovey summarizes.
Geopolitical Game of TSMC: How a "Pretty Girl" Protects Herself Between Two Big Brothers
Another thought-provoking topic in the interview is Dovey's in-depth analysis of TSMC's geopolitical strategy. Primitive Ventures not only holds TSMC stock but has also spent two to three years systematically studying the company.
"We love TSMC, not only because it is a monopoly in wafer manufacturing, but because the founder Morris Chang is extremely wise and has a very good succession plan," Dovey states. She even made a special trip to Taiwan to buy the second volume of Morris Chang's autobiography, believing it contains a wealth of wisdom regarding business succession.
She analyzes the core paradox facing TSMC: If the Arizona factory directly advances to 3 nanometers and at a fast pace, TSMC will face the risk of "cutting off the fuel" -- the U.S. could use TSMC as the biggest bargaining chip in negotiations with China. Once U.S. domestic production capacity matures, TSMC's strategic value as Taiwan's "guardian mountain" will greatly diminish.
For this reason, TSMC chooses to collaborate with Japan to upgrade from the original 6 nanometers to 3 nanometers. This is a very clever strategic move. On one hand, it cannot allow the U.S. to cut off the fuel; on the other hand, progress in the U.S. is already slow due to professional ethics, bureaucratic systems, and other reasons. For both public and private reasons, TSMC needs to ensure an alternative path.
Dovey summarizes Taiwan's situation with a vivid analogy: "Taiwan is a particularly pretty girl, with two big brothers fighting over her." She believes that when the two big brothers are vying for her attention, this "girl" should maximize her base -- using the insights learned from the big brothers to launch her own career, so even if one day the big brothers no longer compete for her, she can still do well.
She extends this logic to a broader framework: In the past, Taiwan relied on military defense, but now AI and computing power are becoming a new type of national defense asset.
NVIDIA establishing its overseas headquarters in Taipei, the father-son-like career succession relationship between Jensen Huang and Morris Chang, and the manufacturing return policies promoted by Japan's new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi -- all these moves are reshaping the global semiconductor supply chain's geopolitical power structure.
The Silence Has Not Arrived Yet: SpaceX's Blood Draw, Insensitivity, and Bear Market Survival Rules
When discussing the market outlook, Dovey's famous article "Who Is Paying for the Bull Market" was mentioned by host Mr. Z. In the face of the current pessimistic sentiment in the crypto market, her judgment is calm and sharp.
"Emotions will certainly be lower, and prices will also drop further. A true bear market should be very quiet, with a feeling of deathly silence," she says, "but right now there are new dramatic events every day, and various conflicts continue. We are far from a point of deathly silence."
She specifically points out a significant liquidity risk event in 2026: SpaceX's IPO. It has been reported that SpaceX plans to go public in mid-2026 with an estimated valuation of about $1.5 trillion, aiming to raise up to $50 billion. If successful, it will be the largest IPO in human history.
"Just the IPO needs $1.5 trillion," Dovey analyzes. SpaceX's investors have been holding for a long time and need to realize profits; combined with the complex equity structure after its merger with xAI, this will be a 'large-scale retail investor blood draw event' covering both private and public markets, causing a huge liquidity shock to the entire risk asset market.
She also observes that the market is becoming extremely cautious: all good earnings reports are leading to profit-taking, and trillion-dollar giants like Microsoft can swing by 15% in either direction, "just like meme stocks."
The extreme volatility is changing the market's ecology. The year 2026 will not be an easy one.
For different types of traders, Dovey offers completely different advice:
If you are a volatility-harvesting trader, 2026 will be a "golden year" -- firms like QRT and HRT are making a lot of money. But if you are a directional, subjective judgment trader, you need to be especially cautious.
And as a long-term asset allocator like Primitive Ventures, she chooses to maintain " insensitivity": having enough cash reserves and being relatively insensitive to short-term fluctuations, patiently waiting for the true silence to arrive.
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