Get a glimpse of the future of cryptocurrency from the voices and sentiments of crypto practitioners.
Compiled by: Foresight News
From September 16th to 22nd, TOKEN2049 held in Singapore added a touch of color to the cryptocurrency field this year. From ETHGlobal SG to Solana Breakpoint, and then to the main venue TOKEN2049, various ecosystems could find their loyal supporters here. Practitioners, developers, and enthusiasts actively seek future application directions through the exchange and collision of thoughts.
In the hustle and bustle, Foresight News hopes to catch a glimpse of the various aspects of this event from the voices and sentiments of crypto practitioners, and also attempts to piece together the rise and fall of the future of the cryptocurrency field from the perspective of these builders.
Foresight Ventures Co-founder Forest: This Token2049 has allowed more overseas institutions and projects to see the development potential and opportunities in Asia, thanks to the excellent performance of Asian projects and friendly regulatory policies. I also see that there are still entrepreneurs creating long-term value, which is a good signal for the market. The rules of the industry have undoubtedly changed, and practical applications, real users, and income will become the criteria for judgment in the future.
Gate.io Founder & CEO Dr. Lin Han: Singapore, as one of the global financial centers, has a high penetration rate of Crypto, with a quarter of the population having been exposed to Crypto. In addition, it is an important intersection of Eastern and Western cultures, so it is not surprising that the Crypto industry summit here is exceptionally lively. I am very happy to see many new and old friends this time. Everyone is generally confident in Crypto, and various innovative ideas are inspiring. This year's hot topics include TON, the Solana ecosystem, and stablecoins. I also had the honor of being invited to participate in several sharing sessions. I personally believe that there will definitely be greater technological breakthroughs and developments in the future, driving the prosperity of the industry.
HashKey Exchange CEO & HashKey Group COO Livio Weng: TOKEN2049 is a major event in Asia every year, and this time is no exception. This year, with the announcement of the Fed's interest rate cut, there were exceptionally many people, and emotions were particularly high. The darkness before dawn has passed, and a new round of tide market is expected to come comprehensively. We continue to build and witness history together!
Zircuit Co-founder Angel Xu: Projects are spending money on activities like crazy, and VCs are generally conservative and wait-and-see. Everyone is looking forward to the bull market phase after the U.S. interest rate cut and money printing. Keep a low profile and make steady progress.
dappOS Co-founder Isabella: The biggest feeling at Token2049 this time is that everyone is more concerned about the actual products and income of a project, rather than narratives and TVL, which were concepts that supported VC valuations in the past. The old ways of playing are no longer applicable to the current market. Solidly building products and creating value for users is the direction that projects need to work hard on next.
BITWU: The current period is neither a bull market nor a bear market, but a chaotic period before the bull market starts, which is suitable for exploring everywhere. Many people say that besides the scythe, the only ones attending 2049 are those selling services to the scythe. In fact, if you pay attention and communicate at the conference, you can also see some good projects and entrepreneurs with excited and clear eyes that are clearly visible. So the industry is gradually developing, and we must have awe for the industry and, more importantly, confidence!
HashKey Capital Rui: The biggest shock to me from 2049 is the Breakpoint. This kind of event capability cannot be achieved by simply spending money. It requires aesthetics (venue layout), diversification (various project categories bringing various talents), and understanding of the community (playing with memes). This cool feeling can better enter the mainstream. It's better to find a few ecological project people to do a Bbox than to find a hundred officials and policy makers to brag at the venue. The focus of the event and the strengthening of believers/family reunions enhance faith and together showcase the vitality of the community and ecosystem to attract new users.
UXLink Co-founder Neal: At TOKEN2049, I saw many interesting directions, such as real-world payments, games and social interactions within Telegram, and high-quality games comparable to 3A games, which have given me more confidence in the Mass Adoption of Web3.0.
LFG Labs Founder Snow: The overall trend of the industry is shifting towards structuring and concentration. The reason for this phenomenon may be that the current industry's new project growth rate is lower than the audience's cognitive growth rate, and the overall information asymmetry in the industry is decreasing, making people more "picky." Institutional pickiness is reflected in being more bullish and investing less, and the threshold for aesthetics is increasing. Project pickiness is reflected in only seeking cooperation with top-tier partners. In this trend, LFG Labs, as a leading Marketing Agency in the industry, needs to be the first to complete the transition from providing valuable information to providing valuable services.
Meme Degen @OXNinaNina: The issuance of MEME tokens has reduced the involvement of VCs, accelerated the issuance cycle, and gradually become a significant sector of wealth effect, with its attention being on par with the hottest TON and SOL at this Token 2049. Although there are recent views that the participation of so-called "conspiracy groups" and professional institutions such as market makers has gradually eroded the original community culture of MEME, there is no doubt that the heat of MEME has driven the participation and investment of more on-chain players, allowing users who have never touched blockchain to truly experience on-chain interactions. This is undoubtedly an important way to promote Mass Adoption of blockchain.
Bitget Chinese Language Head Xie Jiayin: Token2049 is a phenomenal cryptocurrency feast, where every exchange, public chain, and project is striving to show off. It is worth discussing that this conference has broken the "market downturn at every conference" curse, and everything is moving in a better direction. In fact, starting from this year, quite a few Web2 unicorn brands and celebrity artists have shown a trend of actively reaching out to Web3. This includes our official strategic cooperation with La Liga, promoting the spirit of cryptocurrency through sports competition to accelerate the popularization of cryptocurrency in the sports field. I believe that Web3 has entered the public's view.
HashKey Capital Marketing Director Siya: Side Events are more exciting, and it is a positive "stealing the show," where the independent narrative ability of many top projects has been validated, from a single dominant position to a variety of flourishing, unlocking the vitality of the large ecosystem. In terms of the race, Depin, AI, and Ton Mini Game are all very interesting. It is worth mentioning that the momentum of Solana Breakpoint Day is surpassing 2049. The attendance rate of overseas project parties, core community players, and developers, as well as the seating rate at the speaking sessions, is very high. The form of exhibition activation is more straightforward and interesting. In terms of activities, in addition to the world's first immersive drama with a cryptocurrency theme produced by us, Decode: Legacy, we have also seen various fresh activities such as hiking, durian tasting, and combat sports (Karate Combat). Many marketers have begun to break free from the mindset of summits, receptions, and parties, challenging the direction of event planning with more stickiness and experience.
Puffverse Co-founder and COO Lya L: This cycle lacks a phenomenal gaming project, and the gaming track also lacks a breakout point in a specific direction. Therefore, there is still a lot of uncertainty in Web3 games. But I think that in this industry, uncertainty has always been there, and the only constant is how to better transfer traffic from traditional games to Web3 games and how to tap into more Crypto-Native users interested in games and turn them into Web3 game enthusiasts. At 2049, it is still exciting to see everyone's enthusiasm for games, and this should be our biggest gain at 2049.
CKB Eco Fund Partner Baiyu: The current emptiness in the cryptocurrency industry needs a new breakthrough. Returning to the unique technical stack of Bitcoin POW + UTXO is a feasible path.
Morph Co-founder and CEO Cecilia: This year's Token2049 was half revelry and half calm reflection. Where is the value of our industry, and how can blockchain move towards mass adoption? Looking forward to seeing more developers willing to settle down for long-term construction.
SafePal Co-founder Veronica: This year's Token2049, whether in terms of venue setup, attendance, or peripheral activities, was grander than in previous years. Especially, there were noticeably more ordinary people interested in the blockchain ecosystem this year, which has filled us with confidence in the future of the ecosystem. Looking forward to the next year's Token2049 reaching even greater heights!
StakeStone Founder Charles K: The BTCFi topic took up a large portion of this year's Token2049. It can be foreseen that BTCFi will experience a rapid growth in the near future. However, the biggest problem in this area at the moment is the lack of a good liquidity asset to unify liquidity across the entire chain, which is also the problem our BTC products are most committed to solving.
Web3Brand Host Starzq: In the 5-day Singapore Crypto Week (Token2049 & Solana Breakpoint & Network State Conference), Token2049 has gone further on the path of hype, but the lack of novelty has left insiders confused about how long it can be sustained. Solana Breakpoint allowed you to find many new applications, restoring a bit of confidence. The Network State Conference was full of consumers, making you hopeful for the industry. In summary: old narratives are ignored, consumer applications are eagerly anticipated, and everyone in the crypto circle cares.
Wilguish, APAC Ecosystem at Wormhole Foundation: My view of the public chain ecosystem has always revolved around two extremes, one being the consensus extreme, representing the unquestionable Bitcoin and its gradually growing second-layer ecosystem; the other being the performance extreme, represented by Solana, which just launched the 1 million TPS Firedancer validator client. An ecosystem that hesitates between these two extremes will eventually lose its luster.
This trip to Singapore coincided with the first interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve since 2022, marking an important turning point in 2024. It is predicted that more liquidity will be released back into the risk market over the next two years. The integration of traditional and innovative finance, the fusion of real and virtual applications, will bring about a third spring for the cryptocurrency industry.
Dorothy, Chief Growth Officer at AltLayer: Everyone is saying that BreakPoint outperformed Token2049, and Solana's thriving ecosystem outperformed Ethereum's ecosystem, which only talks about alignment. Using Loi's metaphor in our event sharing: Ethereum is like the United States, a powerful but loose federation, where each state does its own thing and has its own small abacus. Solana, on the other hand, is like Singapore, a small and beautiful centralized government leading everyone in one direction. The Solana Foundation is more like a commercial company, directly supporting payfi and gaming, among other tracks. So it's not that Ethereum is not good, but a vast and diverse land naturally lacks unity, and a large ship is hard to turn around. Solana is still catching up with Ethereum, with a small base and naturally high multiples. Of course, the Ethereum Foundation still needs to learn from Solana and focus more on the promotion of the application layer. In addition to the often mentioned farcaster and polymarket, more mid-level applications can be promoted to reach the broad Ethereum community, so that the community can be more vibrant. The recent collective revival of OG DeFi projects and the emergence of a new batch of meme projects prove that Ethereum has always had extremely strong vitality and can erupt at any time. So ETH holders don't need to be anxious, build and hodl, we will all have a bright future!
PolyFlow Co-founder Raymond Qu: This Token2049 brought together a large number of PayFi project parties and players. Because everyone sees a common trend, which is that the first step in driving mass adoption is payments.
Japanese KOL Joe Takayama: I felt like TOKEN2049 was the biggest crypto event in history and saw a strong expectation for a bull market. However, people are so tired of events. We had to make a good strategy to make TOKEN2049 effective.
VALR CMO Ben Caselin: This year’s edition of Token2049 in Singapore might have been the best one yet in terms of participation and quality of conversation with participants in the space from all over the world. It has been a great pleasure for us at VALR to be a Platinum Sponsor at the event as we continue to grow in Asia and beyond.
Paul Delio, Chief Business Officer at CARV: At Token2049, my team and I took part in over 50 panels, meetings, and after-parties. This highlights the strength and growth of the Web3 industry, as projects work together and drive progress. With more projects embracing the concept of data sovereignty in their projects, I believe AI optimization will be the next major breakthrough in the Web3 space.
Tiff Huang, MagicEden (ME) FOUNDATION Director Go-To-Market: Token2049对我们非常有益。我们得以与大量生态系统合作伙伴会面，并提高人们对即将推出的$ME的认识，这是一个将反映跨链上链消费者dapp活动的代币。
Jess Houlgrave, CEO Reown: 来新加坡参加我们行业和社区的这一重要时刻，为我们提供了一个理想的平台来宣布推出Reown，我们的新Solana AppKit，并当然还有关于WalletConnect基金会和Connect Token（WCT）的消息。作为来自欧洲的我，看到亚太地区对这一行业的采用、热情和决心总是令人赞叹不已，这也是与我们的合作伙伴共度美好时光的绝佳机会。
Sungmo Park, Monad APAC Lead: 今年的Token2049对Monad来说是一次非常富有成果的活动。在整个周内，我们能够在多个侧边活动中展示我们生态系统项目和社区的实力。我们还能够与有竞争力的新项目和有兴趣在Monad上构建的强大项目建立联系。
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