EN: Cryptocurrencies do not need 100% penetration.

Author | ChainDeDe

The two-day "Singapore Token2049 Conference" officially kicked off on September 13, 2023. At this grand event, heavyweight guests such as cryptocurrency experts, tech leaders, and industry leaders from different countries gathered in Singapore to deliver exciting speeches and lead the industry's direction.

ChainDeDe will provide real-time tracking and reporting of the conference and has summarized the exciting content and latest developments from the conference for readers' reference:

September 13

MakerDAO Co-founder: Official front end will block US users, praises Korea and Japan for their positive attitude towards innovation

Rune Christensen, co-founder of MakerDAO, stated at the Singapore Token2049 Conference that due to the impact of US regulations, all official front ends under MakerDAO's control will block US users. In a sense, this is an acceptable solution, as MakerDAO will continue to focus on building and serving users without violating certain regulations. MakerDAO is committed to eliminating any reliance on development companies to ensure the protocol's sustainability over time.

In addition, Christensen also mentioned that Korea and Japan are very cautious and slow in accepting cryptocurrencies, but they have a persistent positive attitude towards innovation, indicating that they are carefully formulating regulatory requirements. MakerDAO will focus on and develop these markets.

Worldcoin CEO: Cryptocurrencies will play a significant role in building universal basic income in the future

Alex Blania, CEO of Worldcoin, spoke at a roundtable meeting at the Singapore Token2049, stating that for universal basic income (UBI), although there are no exact figures, a simplified model assumes a 5% annual economic output growth and continuous linear function increase. In the next 10 to 20 years, it may be possible for certain groups to receive basic income security payments through cryptocurrencies, which is exciting. In addition to basic income security, cryptocurrencies can help us build social tools to adapt to the development of new technologies. This is significant for the future development of cryptocurrencies.

Zilliqa and Google Cloud form a strategic alliance, with the latter becoming its strategic cloud provider

Zilliqa Group announced at the TOKEN2049 conference that it has established a multi-year strategic alliance with Google Cloud. This collaboration will enhance the scalability, resilience, and data availability of the Layer 1 blockchain protocol Zilliqa. Google Cloud will become an operator of staking seed nodes (SSN) on the Zilliqa network, joining the existing 28 SSN operators, providing node infrastructure hosting services, and helping to verify network-wide transactions. In addition, Zilliqa Group has chosen Google Cloud as its strategic cloud provider to leverage Google Cloud's open, secure, scalable, and energy-efficient infrastructure and services to enhance the flexibility, resilience, and data availability of its blockchain.

Ripple CEO: Over 80% of Ripple's hiring this year is outside the US

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, stated in an interview with Bloomberg at the TOKEN2049 conference that due to the regulatory environment in the US, over 80% of Ripple's hiring this year is being done outside the US. Ripple is expanding its business in various ways, including expanding acquisitions.

Uniswap COO: Uniswap has some users in the US, facing regulatory uncertainty

Mary-Catherine Lader, COO of Uniswap, stated at the Singapore Token 2049 conference that Uniswap's product is globally available and is an international product. However, the Uniswap team is based in the US, with a physical office in New York, and has some users in the US, leading to regulatory uncertainty. Nevertheless, Uniswap is in close communication with regulatory agencies. Additionally, Uniswap is actively focusing on growth in the Asian market and is committed to ensuring that Uniswap becomes an international product.

Pantera Partner: Mobility is essential for global adoption and user reach of crypto products

Paul Veradittakit, a partner at Pantera, stated at the Token 2049 "Next Generation Crypto Projects" roundtable that cryptocurrency is an interoperable layer across global industries. Mobility is essential for the future global adoption and user reach of crypto products. He emphasized that he is focusing on crypto tracks such as global brokerage, financial infrastructure and development tools, NFTs, and gaming. For example, investing in infrastructure and middleware in the EU, gaming in Korea, and financial infrastructure in Japan. In the DeFi space, the focus is currently on decentralized derivatives, investment in cross-border payment facilitation, tokenized national debt, and yield products, all of which must adapt to local regulations in their strategies.

BitMEX Co-founder: The formula for the crypto industry is "fiat liquidity + technology"

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, stated in his speech at the Token 2049 conference that the formula for the crypto industry is: crypto = fiat liquidity + technology. He mentioned that birth rates are declining in various countries, debts are rising, especially in the US, and AI-driven new technologies are developing. AI needs cryptocurrencies, so the crypto industry is expected to experience double happiness in the future and is bound to usher in a bull market.

BitMEX Co-founder: AI needs decentralized storage, and Filecoin is a solution

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, stated in his speech at the Token 2049 conference that AI-driven new technologies are developing, and AI needs cryptocurrencies and decentralized storage. He believes that Filecoin is a solution. He mentioned that he holds and is optimistic about FIL. He also mentioned that choosing potential cryptocurrencies from "Shitcoins" has three criteria: must be a listed token, must have dropped more than 90% from the 2021 high, and must have a direct connection to AI. He believes Filecoin meets these three criteria. Although Filecoin has dropped over 99% from its 2021 high, its utilization is growing, with institutions such as CERN, UC Berkeley, and others already utilizing the Filecoin storage network.

Former Coinbase CTO: Establishing a decentralized network state is possible, desirable, and profitable

Balaji Srinivasan, former Coinbase CTO and author of "The Network State," stated in his speech at the Token2049 conference that establishing a decentralized network state is possible, desirable, and profitable.

He mentioned that the conditions for the birth of a network state are already in place, and businesses have formed interconnected networks of people globally, with community identity being the core of today's society. Tech giants such as Nvidia and Tesla have already joined the crypto wave, and El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, so a network state may emerge in the near future.

In a network state, digital citizens will emerge, and further diplomatic recognition will have social and political implications for the network state. Traditional states and social media giants generate significant GDP and market value through large populations or users and high ARPU. In the future, the scale achieved by network states through SaaS (Society-as-a-Service) can make them comparable to traditional states and social media giants.

Father of Smart Contracts Nic Carter: Implementing ZK Rollup on Bitcoin is currently crucial

Nic Carter, the father of smart contracts, stated at the Token2049 conference that he hopes more countries will use Bitcoin. He believes that implementing ZK Rollup operation code software on Bitcoin is currently crucial. This is relatively easy and should not be too controversial. He mentioned that this move will help expand the development field, and this technological innovation has already been validated on Ethereum. If the Bitcoin community adheres to their initial vision of drawing innovation from other blockchain areas, they will take action.

Ripple CEO: The US is currently the only country that crypto startups should avoid

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, stated at the Token 2049 conference in Singapore that the US is currently the only country that crypto startups should avoid. He hopes that the US can learn from the practices of countries such as Singapore, the UK, the UAE, and Switzerland to formulate policies that encourage crypto innovation while protecting consumers. Garlinghouse attributed the responsibility to the SEC, calling its actions a political war against the crypto industry.

Stacks Co-founder: The emergence of Ordinals is a watershed moment for Bitcoin development, attracting capital attention

Muneeb Ali, co-founder of the Bitcoin Layer 2 network Stacks, stated at the Token2049 conference that 2023 is a very important year for Bitcoin. From 2017 to 2022, the period of the Bitcoin block size civil war, which was a dark period for Bitcoin, as there was not much development work during this time. In 2023, I believe there has been a watershed moment, partly due to the emergence of Ordinals. Bitcoin transaction fees have risen significantly, increasing by over 50 times, attracting strong interest from capital and developers, which has also had a positive impact on L2 layers such as Stacks. Stacks will play an important role as a Bitcoin L2 extension in the future.

Bitcoin Evangelist Dan Hled: New applications like Ordinals will be the next milestone for Bitcoin

Bitcoin evangelist Dan Hled stated at a roundtable meeting at Token2049 that he is currently very focused on new applications on Bitcoin. Bitcoin's primary adoption comes from users in Asia and Western Europe who speculated and traded during the speculative cycles of 2013, 2017, and 2021. Speculation was what initially attracted and drove people to trade. Even before Bitcoin had any value, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed this hypothesis. Those speculators and hodlers became holders because they truly understood and were educated about Bitcoin, which is why they became holders. This is the reason there is a bottom line in bear markets, because there are true believers. Speculation is their way into the market, and then they hold and make money. Currently, there are very few speculative games for Bitcoin, and most of it is spot trading. I noticed at NFT NYC that many users buy NFTs for 0.1 ETH and then resell them for 0.3 ETH. They have no knowledge of how ETH works or about monetary policy. But this is how they get to know ETH. I realized that this is the same mechanism through which people are introduced to Bitcoin through spot trading. Therefore, the emergence of more applications such as Ordinals, NFTs, options, futures, DeFi, and others on Bitcoin will be its next milestone, leading to greater adoption and the next bull market.

Chainalysis Co-founder and CEO: Cryptocurrencies are becoming the infrastructure that enhances the financial sector

Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Michael Gronager stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that the FTX incident has caused significant harm, which is an important lesson. Many institutional participants feel fearful and embarrassed due to their interactions with FTX. However, he believes there is another very important matter. Cryptocurrency is no longer just about cryptocurrencies; it has shifted from focusing solely on encryption to focusing on how to become infrastructure for enhancing other areas of finance to obtain better interest rates. This is truly happening. As far as I know, 75% of banking transactions are conducted through blockchain in the form of stablecoins for national currency exchanges.

Nansen CEO: Nansen is currently not heavily reliant on AI technology

Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that the company has a highly skilled research and analysis team, and most of their work is based on heuristics and algorithms, with minimal use of AI. The company has been exploring things such as trying to predict whether a wallet belongs to an exchange based on its transaction patterns. He mentioned that AI may, to some extent, take on some of the work done by crowdsourcing and has become a way to leverage collective intelligence on the internet. Therefore, if you can ask the right questions and the machine has context, training your AI and extracting that context from the internet will help with your annotations. However, he believes this will not completely replace humans; it is about humans and machines working together.

Yuga Labs CEO: Investments and foresight in the Asia-Pacific region are unparalleled globally

Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that his experience in the Asia-Pacific region dates back several decades, from the early days of Google to the present Yuga Labs. He has witnessed not only entrepreneurial spirit but also unparalleled levels of foresight and reshaping in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some gaming companies in Korea are considering using Web 2.0 to create flagship IPs and introduce them into the Web 3.0 environment, which would not happen in the US. The regulatory environment in the US is not as friendly as in other parts of the world, but it is starting to change. One obvious reason is that they see the actual benefits, which, if done correctly, will contribute to economic growth through investments and potential employment prospects.

Animoca Brands Co-founder Yat Siu: Web3 industry actively providing advice to governments

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu stated at the Token2049 roundtable meeting that the Web3 industry is actively providing advice to governments, and Singapore is one of the most advanced places in the world in the crypto field. Indonesia and Hong Kong, China, have also started allowing retail investors to trade cryptocurrencies. These exciting developments, although not widely known to the general public, especially outside of Asia, are actively happening, enhancing market confidence and gaining recognition from regulatory agencies, further boosting the credibility of the crypto industry.

ImmutableX Co-founder: Expect 40% to 50% of games to launch next year, but 90% will fail

ImmutableX co-founder Robbie Ferguson stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that the current infrastructure is gradually improving, and the world's largest third-party app stores are considering how to embrace Web3. Web3 games have received a significant amount of investment. However, unlike DeFi, which can launch something quickly after receiving $100 million in funding, game development typically takes 2 to 4 years, sometimes even 6 to 7 years. In his view, 40% to 50% of games will launch next year, but 90% will fail, and the successful 10% or 5% will redefine the entire industry, with transaction volumes surpassing the total of other games. Games are driven by user activity, and he expects this to be even more true for Web3 games, driving the development of the entire industry and providing a template for others.

Axie Infinity Co-founder: Business models in the Web3 gaming space need more innovation and experimentation

Axie Infinity co-founder Aleksander Leonard Larsen stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that business models in the Web3 gaming space need more innovation and experimentation. He mentioned that Web3 needs a large number of rapidly launched games that focus more on core experiences rather than investing heavily in marketing expenses.

He also pointed out that too much focus on the next top game may be just to please the crypto social media, rather than actual users. Successful games like "Candy Crush" have inspired the need for Web3 games to attract various types of users and provide more innovation. The experimental nature of Web3 games is the key to attracting hundreds of millions of users and achieving success.

Bullish CEO: The crypto industry is increasingly reliant on the US dollar and needs to figure out how to coexist with the centralized world

Bullish CEO Tom Farley stated at the Token 2049 on September 13 that the current situation in the digital asset space is not good. Everyone talks about decentralization, but the industry is increasingly reliant on the US dollar. However, the US dollar is centralized, and regardless of where you trade in the world, it ultimately goes back to the Federal Reserve. The crypto industry needs to figure out how to coexist with the centralized world in order to achieve the decentralized utopian vision in 50 years. The exchange industry does not operate in a way that coexists with the centralized, regulated world. Unfortunately, the US government needs some kind of relationship.

10T Holdings CEO: Bitcoin and Ethereum have established network effects and are core crypto assets

10T Holdings CEO Dan Tapiero stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that Bitcoin and Ethereum are core assets in the blockchain space and have established network effects, rapidly developing over the past year. Bitcoin and Ethereum differ from other assets, which are still in the venture capital stage. He mentioned that the bear market has ended, and opportunities need to be seized during market panics. Despite the impact on market sentiment during the FTX collapse, Ethereum's price did not reach a new low, which is a positive sign. He also stated that now is the opportunity to invest in crypto assets, Web3, and blockchain companies, as the valuation discounts in these markets reach as high as 60% to 80%. Some traditional private equity investors are withdrawing from this space, which presents a good investment opportunity, as many mature companies are raising funds, with funding amounts reaching $50 million, $100 million, or higher. There is a survival bias in the blockchain space, providing opportunities for investors.

Franklin Templeton Chairman: Bitcoin ETF is considered a traditional ETF, crypto assets will open up new investment opportunities

Franklin Templeton Chairman and CEO Jenny Johnson stated at the Token 2049 on September 13 that although Franklin Templeton has applied for a Bitcoin ETF, a Bitcoin ETF is also considered a traditional ETF, and it cannot trade all day on trading platforms, and in fact, it is priced only twice a day. However, crypto assets are different; they can trade 24/7, and smart contracts can ensure accurate knowledge of the underlying asset pricing during transactions. Therefore, she firmly believes that crypto assets will open up new investment opportunities. She also stated that Bitcoin is the biggest disruption in financial services and may be difficult to invest in because governments always control currency. She revealed that a governor of a certain state in the US, with whom she communicated, is strongly opposed to anything related to digital assets. Every time there is a cybercrime, they demand payment in Bitcoin, which cannot be traced.

Scroll Co-founder: Scroll is currently in the testing phase, and the mainnet is about to launch

Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that Scroll is currently in the final testing phase and will soon launch the mainnet. He also mentioned that he hopes to see more developers building applications that solve real-world problems. Many large-scale applications have already been deployed on Scroll's testnet, such as Uniswap, and it is expected that after the mainnet launch, more Ethereum applications will be deployed on Scroll 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

Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that typically, enterprises have B2B and B2C models, but for Ethereum, it has been more like a U2C model, which is the "user-to-chain" model. However, Ethereum is now 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 Token2049 roundtable discussion 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 due to space limitations. The Rollup upgrade is like a skyscraper, allowing more activity on the same surface. However, even so, its capacity still cannot meet the demand. Therefore, the ability to surpass the Rollup upgrade, like reclaiming land expansion at sea, 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: Token minting costs are lower on Layer2 currently, but Ethereum's data costs will continue to decrease

Offchain Labs co-founder Ed Felten stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that there are tens of billions of dollars in liquidity 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) amount. This is because transactions are cheaper and gas fees are lower on Layer2. Another interesting development is that, in addition to having the largest amount of bridged value from Ethereum on Arbitrum, more and more projects are choosing to launch tokens directly on Arbitrum. Currently, the native tokens on Arbitrum have more value than the bridged ETH or tokens. He believes this is an increasingly evident trend, where the cost of minting and managing tokens is also lower on Layer2. EIP-4844 will be launched in the coming months, which is the first step towards the direction mentioned above. However, he believes that over time, the data costs on Ethereum will also decrease, making it not far higher than the cost of general business data storage. People still hope to operate at lower costs, but the advantage of external data availability solutions will diminish as Ethereum enters a phase where data availability becomes the most important part of its protocol.

Placeholder Partner: Bear markets are a good time to launch crypto projects

Placeholder partner Chris Burniske stated at the Token2049 roundtable discussion in Singapore that Ethereum was launched in mid-2015, during the bear market of 2014 and 2015. Solana had a similar situation. The benefit of launching projects during a bear market is that the valuation starting point is lower, and all investors can benefit from price increases. Chris also emphasized the importance of understanding market cycles: "Three Arrows Capital believes the previous bull market was a supercycle that will never collapse again. This view may lead people astray. Accepting the cyclical nature of the market is an inherent feature of the market, as it is composed of people, and humans themselves have strong cyclical tendencies."

September 14

Sam Altman: Worldcoin scanning devices expected to release a new version every two years

Worldcoin co-founder Sam Altman stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore on September 14 that Worldcoin scanning devices are expected to release a new version every two years, with better security and imaging. He also mentioned that for cryptocurrencies to achieve mainstream adoption, they need to be more user-friendly, suitable for certain more important use cases, and subject to clearer regulations. The current biggest obstacles for Worldcoin are operational challenges and biometric resistance.

MakerDAO Co-founder: MakerDAO to launch new stablecoin and governance token early next year

MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore on September 14 that MakerDAO will introduce a new unified brand, with a temporary name. DAI and MKR users will not be affected and can be repriced at a ratio of 1:12000. The new stablecoin can be used to mine new governance tokens.

Rune Christensen also revealed that the new stablecoin and governance token will be launched in early 2024, with plans to support subDAO mining. In the second quarter of 2024, subDAO tokens will be issued, which can be mined using the new stablecoin.

MakerDAO Co-founder: MakerDAO will have 4 subDAOs covering community, finance, and technology

MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen introduced MakerDAO's subDAO plan at the Token 2049 event in Singapore on September 14, stating that MakerDAO will have 4 subDAOs: Sakura, Spark, Quant, and Qual. Sakura is a community-oriented subDAO; Spark is a DeFi subDAO for the latest technology; Quant and Qual are subDAOs for finance and institutions, with Quant focusing on the intersection of technology and finance possibilities, including expanding RWA, market-making, and large-scale high-speed tokenized trading, while Qual is focused on specific finance (such as private credit and its tokenization) and the regions of China, India, and Southeast Asia.

Worldcoin CEO: US regulators want to regulate cryptocurrencies like they do Apple

Worldcoin co-founder and CEO Alex Blanian stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore on September 14 that communication with regulatory agencies and policymakers, especially since the official launch of Worldcoin, is an important part of his current work. The crypto industry, especially since last year, has faced significant challenges. He said, "I go to many countries, and I just want to figure out their general regulatory framework around cryptocurrencies. Everyone knows the regulation in the US. The US Congress and regulators are debating how to regulate cryptocurrencies like they do Apple. But similar situations are happening around the world, and regulators in various countries are also discussing how to regulate cryptocurrencies as a whole. I think this will make progress and must make progress quickly. The main problem we all face now is that most of the products we have built have not yet become mainstream. Or very few products have become mainstream. But this will change eventually."

Castle Island Venture Partner: Expect US dollar stablecoins to occupy 95% market share

Castle Island Venture partner Nic Carter stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore on September 14 that stablecoins have five major trends: dominance of US dollar stablecoins, rise of interest-bearing stablecoins, rise of crypto-backed stablecoins, on-chain dollar stablecoinization, and offshore dollar stablecoinization. He predicted that US dollar stablecoins will occupy 95% of the market share; within two years, over 30% of stablecoins in the market will be interest-bearing stablecoins, and over 25% of US dollar stablecoins will be crypto-backed stablecoins; over 70% of on-chain transactions will be stablecoin transactions; countries and regions such as Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE, and Bermuda will become major jurisdictions for the issuance of US dollar stablecoins.

CZ: Establishing regulated fiat OTC channels is the current key issue

CZ stated in the "Virtual Fireside Chat: CZ" segment at the Token 2049 event in Singapore, "In my view, the key issue is the OTC channels for exchanging fiat currency for cryptocurrencies. At the beginning of this year, due to strengthened regulatory policies, many traditional institutions exited the OTC market. But at the same time, we also saw some new institutions entering the market. This industry already has tens of millions of users. I think doubling the number of users could bring the total industry user base to a billion people. For most banks, if they only serve one country, they will have very few users. A billion users is already very large for a bank. We can bring tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of users to these traditional financial institutions and benefit from it. So, we see many traditional financial institutions hoping to seize this opportunity. Therefore, I think that while the higher use cases of cryptocurrencies are important, in order to attract more people to join the cryptocurrency space, we must convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies, and vice versa."

Wintermute Co-founder: Approval of spot Bitcoin ETF is inevitable, but it will still take a lot of time to prepare for listing

Wintermute co-founder Evgeny Gaevoy stated at the "Institutionalization of Digital Assets" roundtable at the Token 2049 event in Singapore, "To some extent, the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF is inevitable and will happen sooner or later. I think what people may misjudge is the timing, because even if the SEC ultimately approves these products, they will still need some time to prepare for listing and for managers to allocate. Therefore, we need at least six months to start seeing funds flowing into these products, but the more realistic scenario may be one to two years. But as I said, it is bound to happen. From this perspective, it is difficult to say how much impact it will have on the price, but I think once we see real funds flowing in, that is when we will return to substantial development."

Worldcoin Parent Company Co-founder: Complete decentralization within the next five to ten years, will not retain user iris data

Worldcoin parent company Tools for Humanity (TFH) co-founder and CEO Alex Blania stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore that the current Worldcoin needs to be produced by others, but they will find a solution, which is a major focus area for the engineering department. In the coming years, they will achieve a truly meaningful level of decentralization: they will be completely decentralized within the next five to ten years, without any control. Regarding ORB iris verification, he said, "When you register for verification, ORB will first check if you are a real human, and once that check is passed, it will take a picture of your eyes. In fact, the eyes are the only place with enough information to verify if it is a human, the face, fingerprints, or anywhere else won't work. Then, a unique code is calculated from that picture, signed by ORB, and this code will be the only thing uploaded from ORB to the network, and the iris data will be deleted. The code will be uploaded to the database, compared with all other users, and if the uniqueness check passes, you as a user can verify that you are included in that set through your proof of knowledge, which means that we and the user login service do not know who the user actually is. So once you register with ORB and get the World ID, the data will be deleted."

DeFiance Capital CEO: High-interest rate environment is one of the reasons for capital outflows from the market

Selini Capital CIO Jordi Alexander stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that since the FTX crash, more uninformed retail liquidity has left the market. Many people now have insider information, whether it's legal or other specific matters. This makes the work of market makers more difficult. Therefore, very few market makers can survive in the face of this type of liquidity. I believe this situation will continue unless more retail investors want to trade, in which case we won't get better liquidity.

GoldenTree Head: When facing token selling pressure, consider whether it has been priced in

GoldenTree head Avi Felman stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that when news of token supply emerges, whether it's Bitcoin the government is about to sell or investors about to sell unlocked tokens, you have to consider how much of it has already been priced in and who is doing the pricing. There are two ways of pricing: the first is people shorting the asset in anticipation of this supply entering the market, and the second is people waiting to buy until after the unlocking occurs because they are concerned about the negative impact on the market. Therefore, some capital is waiting on the sidelines, observing at what price these tokens will be sold, hoping to buy at a better price after the unlocking. Just like in 2021, a lot of capital was waiting to buy assets like Solana. Some specific assets have been excessively hyped. So, if you see some assets that have been unlocked for a long time, it is very likely that they have already been priced in.

Tangent Co-founder: NFT market expected to see some revival next year

Darryl Wang, co-founder of the Crypto Investment Club Tangent, stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that looking back at the past 12 months of the NFT market, even the most steadfast holders have seen a lot of surrender. NFTs are an asset class, and in 2021, we saw the first step of how to create more liquid assets. I believe there are many smart builders working hard to develop the necessary infrastructure to facilitate more of these types of transactions. Looking at the prices of NFTs today, or those NFT protocols with liquid tokens, their current prices are quite low. But when speculative enthusiasm returns, we expect some revival next year. I think this asset class is worth paying attention to.

Father of Smart Contracts Nic Carter: Stablecoin issuers may be forced to start paying interest to holders

Nic Carter, co-founder of Castle Island Ventures and the father of smart contracts, stated at the Token 2049 event that currently, the US dollar is the accounting unit for 99% of stablecoins, which is much more than the share of the US dollar in foreign exchange reserves or international trade. This situation will continue, with US dollar-denominated stablecoins holding at least 95% of the market share. The lack of interest payments on stablecoins has led to a contraction in the stablecoin industry. Now that there are 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 US, which will accelerate the trend of offshore stablecoinization. In addition, the rise of crypto-collateralized US dollar stablecoins is a good thing because it turns crypto assets into a store of value and stablecoins into 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 US dollar stablecoins will be issued with crypto assets as collateral, rather than US dollar assets. Today, this ratio is less than 5%.

CZ: Hoping to see blockchain-based social media platforms emerge

Binance founder CZ Zhao stated at the Token 2049 "Virtual Fireside Chat: CZ" segment that he hopes to see a blockchain-based social media platform emerge because today there is only Twitter. This application can be developed based on blockchain, and we can address different issues such as spam, scams, and identity verification, but most blockchains today may not be able to handle the interaction on Twitter and the large amount of data generated by events. But now with Layer 2 and other technologies, I believe we are just one step away from achieving this goal.

CZ: Cryptocurrency does not need 100% adoption

Binance founder CZ stated at the Token 2049 "Virtual Fireside Chat: CZ" segment that cryptocurrency does not need 100% adoption. The global internet adoption rate is only about 60%. Therefore, if the adoption rate of cryptocurrency is currently around 5%, this is the proportion of people with some cognitive skills. Perhaps the proportion is now higher, between 5% and 10%, and we can say that we have crossed the abyss. Once we have crossed this stage, growth will be exponential. We are on the edge of this stage. We are still in the early stages, but not very early anymore.

Galaxy Managing Director: Approval of spot ETFs will help cryptocurrency be seen as an asset class, not just an investment tool

Galaxy Managing Director Chris Rhine stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that in conversations with many institutions, they believe that the approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs will be a huge regulatory milestone, helping cryptocurrency be seen as an asset class, not just a potential unregulated investment tool. So, most of the feedback I've heard has been positive. On the other hand, the involvement of large institutions will involve a time factor. The approval of products in many large banks' wealth channels has been very difficult. Now, there is finally a new wealth management model emerging, which will make it very easy and accessible, with lower costs, for investors and interested parties to gain exposure to cryptocurrency.

Temasek Managing Director: Complete crypto infrastructure is necessary to facilitate institutional participation

Temasek Managing Director Pradyumna Agrawal stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that the participation of many institutions is taking place against the backdrop of traditional infrastructure. In this context, there is not only traditional infrastructure, but also more transparent assets. So, in my view, what is really needed here is some kind of bridge that links these two worlds, meaning that if you want broad institutional participation, you must have critical infrastructure. This infrastructure can be used for risk management and deploying other asset classes, digitizing all infrastructure, and tokenizing all these asset classes in some form.

Gemini President: SEC is trying to slow down or stop crypto development through enforcement actions

Gemini co-founder and president Cameron Winklevoss stated at the Token 2049 event that companies may be affected by misleading the public and may get into a lot of trouble, but the SEC doesn't seem to care. They actually have no vision for how to regulate in the future, so they are just trying to slow down or stop its future development through enforcement. So why don't they make regulations? I think it's because they actually don't know, or have no concept of what the crypto market should be like, and they can't keep up with the pace of crypto and AI. They will soon become irrelevant.

Galaxy Managing Director: Tokenized markets may see a prosperous future

Galaxy Managing Director Chris Rhine stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that in more developed areas, the traditional financial sector will not only pursue efficiency but may start with the least liquid asset classes. Because you don't move liquid asset classes into illiquid market spaces, and currently the tokenized market space is illiquid because there really isn't much trading in the market right now. But tokenizing a very illiquid asset is harmless because you are not sacrificing liquidity. As we continue to build and develop the market, I believe the traditional financial world will undergo a simplification process and efficiency improvement, with a growing market that provides all-weather functionality. This takes time. The scale of the tokenized market may be a technological adoption curve, slowly moving forward, and then suddenly experiencing rapid prosperity.

Galaxy Managing Director: Cryptocurrency becoming mainstream requires appropriate introduction of centralized safeguards

Galaxy Managing Director Chris Rhine stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that original crypto investors are very focused on decentralization, but when you really want to expand a technology, you need to provide safeguards for users. My view is that to truly bring cryptocurrency into the mainstream, more centralization needs to be introduced, which helps build trust with users. If there are problems, someone will stand by their side to provide assistance, rather than a completely decentralized system. I believe that in the next five to ten years, we will see more and more companies and enterprises entering the crypto space. They will sit on top of decentralized blockchains, but they will establish protective packaging around services and products. This helps provide insurance terms for users and larger institutions, reassuring them and letting them know they will be supported.

CME Global Head of Crypto Products: Regulatory clarity in the crypto space is becoming more apparent, private economic business is a necessity

CME Group's Global Head of Crypto Products, Giovanni Vicioso, stated at the Token 2049 roundtable that just as we need regulatory agencies to work together, everything is aimed at protecting users and ensuring asset security. Instead of formulating nationalist regulatory policies, it is better to establish more universal policies. We have seen regulatory strengthening, moving from past accusatory regulation to more explicit rules and standards. Additionally, in this field, private brokerage business is necessary, and we hope to see developments in this area soon.

Circle Co-founder: Asia is the most important region for Circle's international expansion

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire stated at the "Fireside Chat: Jeremy Allaire" segment of Token 2049 in Singapore that the Asian market itself is the most vibrant and fastest-growing market globally, unrelated to cryptocurrencies, fintech, or other factors. This market is incredibly dynamic and full of vitality. Moreover, in terms of leading the adoption of Web3 technology, companies and builders across the entire region are engaged in a lot of activity. Clearly, the demand for digital dollars still exists widely across the entire Asian region. Therefore, this is a very critical region for us. In terms of our international expansion investment, Asia is undoubtedly the most important region.

Circle CEO: Three things are needed for mass adoption of cryptocurrency

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore that three things are needed for mass adoption of cryptocurrency: 1. Legal certainty. This is a prerequisite for cryptocurrency to achieve tremendous growth. 2. Technical issues. This is important because we need to be able to support applications that can scale to hundreds of millions or even billions of users. 3. Addressing user experience issues. Allowing ordinary people to enter the crypto world without needing to understand things like private keys and mnemonic phrases. Similarly, users should not need to buy crypto tokens to pay gas fees. Technologies such as gasless transactions and smart account wallets will abstract the user interface into a state where people can seamlessly access it. What we are seeing now is leading Web 2 companies with hundreds of millions of users connecting to Web 3 infrastructure, but adopting a very simple, user-friendly, and secure user experience, while still being able to integrate with blockchain natively. Therefore, the paradigm shift in user experience and the adoption of this paradigm by Web 2 companies will be a breakthrough. The convergence of all these factors will make 2024 an extraordinary year for cryptocurrency adoption. I believe we will see a significant increase in the number of users, although not yet.

Justin Sun: Stablecoin payments will remain the most common use case for crypto applications in the next ten years

TRON DAO founder Justin Sun stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore that he believes that in the next ten years, the most common daily use case for cryptocurrencies and blockchain will still be stablecoin payment transactions. Recently, we have seen stablecoin market capitalization exceed $30 billion. Currently, it is about $50 billion, with daily trading volume exceeding $12 billion. Therefore, I believe that in the next ten years, trading volume may be 100 times more than it is now. This is why I believe that eventually, most people will use stablecoins and blockchain without needing to understand all these technical details.

Justin Sun: Mass adoption of Web3 requires a very powerful blockchain that supports multi-chain interoperability

TRON DAO founder Justin Sun stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore that blockchain, as a theory, provides a way to change all Web 2.0 applications into decentralized structures. For global developers, they can build something that gives data and privacy back to users. Before achieving this ambitious goal, we still need to build a lot of infrastructure to support it. First is payments, people need to make payments for these applications. Additionally, I believe we need to have a very powerful blockchain because this means you need to process tens of millions of transactions, which is core infrastructure. He also expressed strong support for multi-chain interoperability. I believe different use cases will eventually adopt different blockchains. Different blockchains are designed for different purposes. Therefore, there will eventually be many blockchains and many trading platforms to meet people's needs for different blockchain purposes. This is why we are investing in Layer 1, Layer 2, trading platform businesses, and stablecoin businesses, and integrating them together.

Justin Sun: Transparency and global consensus are key to building trust

TRON DAO founder Justin Sun stated at the Token 2049 event in Singapore that he has two secrets to building trust. First is transparency. After the FTX collapse, everyone realized the importance of transparency. So now, every major blockchain and trading platform globally uses zero-knowledge proof reports. HTX also collaborates with third parties such as Nansen and DeFiLlama to generate transparency reports. Everyone can know where their assets are on the blockchain. Additionally, global consensus is also important. We need everyone to agree on the same agenda and the same theme. Before this, I think many people were hoping for topics like US regulation, Bitcoin spot ETFs, and Ethereum spot ETFs, which are also topics we are discussing. US regulation has become very uncertain, so we see places like South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong becoming very promising. This is why ultimately we need people's collective efforts to push the Bitcoin price to a new level.

Live Scenes from the Conference:

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