The truly intelligent bottom-fishers may not only buy cheap assets but also talents, resources, users, and future markets in the next cycle.

Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News

Some institutions are secretly bottom-fishing in Web3.

According to my on-site investigation and statistics, at the 2026 Hong Kong FinTech Week, more than 100 companies had booths, but only 7 were Web3 companies, less than one-tenth. They are HashKey, DCS, RedotPay, Obita, AllScale, Interlace, and Native Group.

From the perspective of main business, apart from HashKey, which is a licensed virtual asset trading platform, the remaining 6 companies are related to stablecoin payments, wallets, or related financial infrastructure.

After communicating individually with these 7 companies on-site, my biggest impression is: it is not easy for anyone. In a bear market environment, no business is easy to operate, and no one can make money effortlessly.

Stablecoin issuance is facing increasingly fierce competition; stablecoin payments have limited profit margins and significant compliance and operational costs; virtual asset exchanges continuously face security risks... With the speculative boom fading, and a new growth cycle not yet arrived, every Web3 practitioner still at the table is experiencing their own difficult moments.

Interestingly, on the other side of the industry, I have seen many institutions and individuals actively "bottom-fishing" in Web3.

During the Hong Kong FinTech Week, I interacted with professionals from Mirae Asset, Elephant Bank, Huaxia Fund, Futu, Waffo, Deloitte, and others. They are actively exploring Web3 business and are investing significant energy into launching new products.

I also observed some noteworthy phenomena: someone is preparing for the qualifications related to the responsible officers (RO) of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, some are actively promoting cooperation with traditional financial institutions, and others are trying to integrate new technologies like stablecoins and RWA with traditional financial businesses, searching for new business opportunities.

On one side are native Web3 players struggling to survive in a bear market, while on the other side are traditional financial institutions and newcomers seeking opportunities.

Interestingly, people from different backgrounds are viewing the current Web3 landscape through different lenses.

Some native Web3 practitioners still believe in a four-year cycle, thinking that we might be at the bottom of a new cycle; while some traditional financial institutions believe more in business drivers. They see that the US crypto ecosystem is continuously innovating and developing, and they believe this trend will eventually spread to Hong Kong and more regions, bringing new market opportunities.

Bottom-fishing in Web3

If we only look at the booths, it seems that there isn’t much space for Web3 at the 2026 Hong Kong FinTech Week.

However, upon deeper observation, another side emerges: although there are only 7 pure Web3 companies, there are far more institutions laying out Web3 than one might imagine.

They may not define themselves as Web3 companies, nor do they necessarily invest directly in cryptocurrencies, but they have already begun integrating virtual asset businesses into their core business systems.

On-site, I interacted with professionals from Mirae Asset, Elephant Bank, Huaxia Fund, Futu, Waffo, Deloitte, Standard Chartered Bank, and other institutions. Their points of entry vary, but they are all looking for commercial opportunities in the next phase of Web3.

Some institutions start from assets.

A representative from South Korean financial giant Mirae Asset Securities revealed to me that they are about to launch a new RWA product. Not long ago, Mirae Asset Securities issued tokenized financing notes on Solana.

Some institutions start from payment scenarios.

A person from cross-border payment company Waffo told me that in addition to familiar scenarios like foreign trade, gaming, and live streaming, in the past year, with the rise of the AI short-drama industry, there has been a demand for stablecoin acceptance in this sector. The new digital content industry is creating new cross-border payment needs.

Some institutions directly incorporate Crypto into traditional financial services.

The licensed digital bank Elephant Bank in Hong Kong has already supported the buying and selling of BTC and ETH, incorporating virtual asset trading into its banking service system. For banks, this means that crypto assets are beginning to be considered a category of investment assets that traditional financial services can cover.

Additionally, some institutions have begun exploring more complex financial products.

A respondent from New Fire Group told me that its RWA arbitrage product has been running in practice for over two months, reporting an annualized return of 14.5%, with a maximum drawdown of 0.29%. This suggests that some digital asset financial institutions are no longer satisfied with simple cryptocurrency trading, but are starting to experiment with combining traditional financial assets with on-chain trading mechanisms, exploring new investment strategies.

Moreover, there’s a group of participants that are often overlooked: compliance tech companies.

At the FinTech Week event, I encountered more than one such compliance tech firm. Some companies that originally served traditional financial institutions are also actively seeking opportunities in the Web3 market. From personal identity verification (KYC), corporate background checks (KYB), to on-chain transaction monitoring (KYT) and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions, compliance capabilities originally serving traditional financial institutions are also extending to the crypto industry.

Looking at these cases collectively, you’ll find that Web3 is entering the traditional financial system from various directions: asset management institutions are exploring RWA, payment companies are seeking stablecoin acceptance scenarios, banks are expanding digital asset trading, financial service institutions are developing new investment products, and compliance tech companies are providing infrastructure for the entire industry.

There is a common logic behind this: while many crypto practitioners are still waiting for the next bull market, some traditional financial institutions have already begun preparing for the next round of growth.

They may not necessarily believe in the four-year cycle, nor do they think that now is the absolute bottom for asset prices. What they care more about is: can stablecoins generate real payment demand? Can RWA enter the traditional financial market? Can digital assets become part of bank wealth management? What kind of compliance infrastructure will the future crypto industry need?

This might represent another form of "bottom-fishing."

In the last cycle, people bottom-fished BTC, ETH, and various crypto assets; whereas in this cycle, some institutions are bottom-fishing for business, licenses, infrastructure, and tickets to the next market.

Bottom-fishing: it’s not just institutions, not just assets

In the past two days, I met two friends.

The first friend is preparing to become a responsible officer (RO) licensed by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. As I understand, in the first two years when Hong Kong began to strongly support virtual asset trading, relevant talents were extremely scarce, and a few ROs could earn an annual income of 4 to 5 million HKD.

What she wants to bottom-fish is a scarce ticket to the core resource圈 of the Web3 industry.

The second friend told me: "Now is a good time to bottom-fish Web3, relationships, attention, and core users."

I asked her why.

She said that this time at the Hong Kong FinTech Week, you will find that most companies and individuals are relatively pessimistic. Many financial institutions, traditional payment companies, and crypto VCs that once went all-in on Web3 have begun to give up; many traditional media people have left this industry; and many smart people who used to look for speculative opportunities in crypto have turned to AI or investing in US stocks.

But from another perspective, this precisely means opportunity.

As more and more people leave, attention, talent, business resources, and core users may become easier to obtain.

The current Web3 involves not just asset bottom-fishing, but also relationship bottom-fishing, resource bottom-fishing, attention bottom-fishing, and even core user bottom-fishing.

Moreover, I believe there are also innovative tracks that have yet to truly break out that are worth bottom-fishing.

Looking back over the past few years, the approval of the BTC ETF in the US and Trump's election with explicit support for crypto have all become important catalysts for the industry to enter a new stage. Now, the follow-up legislative process of the Clarity Act, as well as the new congressional landscape after the US midterm elections, may also influence the next phase of development in the US crypto industry.

If bottom-fishing talent and resources is accumulating chips for the next cycle, then searching for yet-to-break-out innovative tracks is to find the real growth points for the upcoming cycle.

However, compared to waiting for the next policy catalyst, I am more focused on those innovations that are already brewing but have not truly exploded:

• Tokenized stocks: From Robinhood to Hyperliquid, more and more platforms are exploring stock on-chain and on-chain trading; RWA is much more than just government bonds and money market funds.
• Stablecoin payments: The industry chain has gradually matured, but there is still significant growth potential in merchant adoption, real payment needs, and business models.
• NFT: When images, communities, and speculation are no longer the main growth drivers for NFTs, can it shift towards more practical uses like digital identity, membership rights, digital collectibles, and on-chain asset certificates?
• Prediction markets: Can they further enter daily life from politics, sports, and trending events, becoming new information discovery and decision-making tools?
• Agent economies: While everyone talks about AI and Agent payments, truly commercially viable products aimed at external users are still yet to appear.

These five directions share a common point: stablecoins have gradually formed a relatively mature industry chain, while tokenized stocks, NFTs, prediction markets, and agent economies have yet to form similarly mature industry ecosystems.

This indicates that there is still a wealth of infrastructure, business models, and application scenarios waiting to be explored.

Many people feel that there are no new stories in crypto. But my feeling is quite the opposite: the industry chain for stablecoins is gradually maturing, while some other tracks have not even truly started.

Perhaps, the eve of the next round of Web3 innovation cycles is today.