"As long as you clearly explain your vision and make everyone feel relevant, feel that you are solving their problems, people will care about you."

Interview: XinGPT

Guest: Yan Xin, Sign

Xingpt:

Recently, the Sign social network has been very popular, with everyone sharing Sign avatars and various related content. I want to ask, how did you design this? Why can it engage people on social networks? This kind of gameplay seems quite rare.

Yan Xin@Sign

To be honest, we have discussed this among ourselves. I realized last year that it's actually very difficult to sustain a VC coin. Even if you have a very successful product that makes money, you have a good business, but why would you issue a coin? I think a great coin often relies on airdrops to bring traffic, but after the airdrop, it often disappears.

Last year had a significant impact on me. The market was very bearish, and everyone was struggling while we were continuously raising funds. For example, since I started my entrepreneurial journey, I have been trying to get VC recognition while developing products. But objectively speaking, if you want to issue a successful coin, what you need most is not VC recognition. VC recognition is no longer valued by retail investors, right? VCs were originally meant to bring in retail investors, but now retail investors no longer recognize VCs. If you keep chasing VCs and can't catch up, it becomes very difficult. So later I realized that building a community is the most important thing, and since last year, I have been researching how to build a community.

Everything we are doing now is not purely for the hype of the TGE. We started building the community at the end of last year, even before the TGE was a thing, but we used our own approach to create a consumer community. Building a community is very different from creating a VC coin; you can't just talk about the product, right?

You can't talk too much about features; what you want to give people is not just a feature. People are interested in you not because your features are amazing or because your product is great, but because they like your vision, your vibe, and your culture. So we have put a lot of thought into this.

Actually, we started this at the 2049 event in Singapore last year. At 2049, we held a party, and at that time, we had physical products like sunglasses. We actually started this in Korea last year and have been consistently building since then.

Xingpt:

I think another issue is that you are actually a B2B product. Even now, B2C products may not necessarily have players actively using them, like meme or gamefi projects, which are more like B2C. You originally started as a B2B product, and even now, the token table is also B2B. So how do you make a B2B product recognized by the C-end, or how do you help them understand or like the project in the absence of usage scenarios? This could be quite a troublesome issue.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, I think the first point is that building a community is a separate matter from being B2B. For example, SpaceX has nothing to do with retail investors; it is a rocket launch company, but that doesn't stop them from building a community among retail investors who watch their rocket launch videos every day. As long as you clearly explain your vision and make everyone feel relevant, feel that you are solving their problems, or think that what you are doing is cool and impressive, people will care about you.

This doesn't matter whether you are B2G, B2B, or B2C. If your marketing strategy is to say, 'We are making a modular, whatever layer, for some algorithm problem,' then you are finished; retail investors will definitely feel it has nothing to do with them.

If what we are doing aims to make all information verifiable globally like blockchain transactions, for example, when a Chinese person applies for a U.S. visa, they won't need to provide so many proofs, and various information can be directly verified. When a Chinese person moves to the U.S., they won't have to start from scratch with credit scores. If people feel these issues are indeed worth solving, they will care about them.

Of course, you are right; pure B2B is still very difficult, so this year we will also do some B2C things. In the coming months, we will align our projects with Worldcoin and Pi, and we will launch our own Sign App. We won't create a public chain, but we will make our own super app, and we can use 30% of the tokens for incentives. This app will actually be our distribution channel, and everyone will have it, which can hold assets. We will include U.S. stocks, services, and our own app. This year, our theme is B2G and B2C, collaborating with twenty countries to create IDs, issue social security, and negotiate such collaborations to provide them with sovereign blockchain solutions.

As for community activities, such as online karaoke and online poker tournaments, these are all directly B2C, and we will incorporate all of these.

Xingpt:

Then I think we can go back and talk about this because we have known each other for a long time. Initially, you benchmarked against DocuSign, then moved to attestation, then to the token table, and now you want to do UBI. What was your thought process when searching for PMF? I think one good point you have is not chasing trends. For example, when it was very popular in Dubai, you were doing DocuSign, which is actually quite niche. Later, attestation was also not a hot topic at that time; the hot topics were ZK and public chains, and now the hot topic is actually memes. It seems you have consistently avoided chasing trends; is that intentional, or did you just not catch up and decided not to pursue it? What was your thought process in finding PMF? Is it more about seeking external help or driven internally?

Yan Xin@Sign

I think there are two points. The first is to pay attention to internal coherence. For example, we initially did ethsign, and at that time, the team was inexperienced, and DeFi entrepreneurship was already quite advanced and complex, with a lot of money involved. Such products may not work in the long run; when a startup initially raises some money and puts it in, if the money gets stolen, it’s over; NFTs also weren't suitable for us. So we chose a niche product intentionally because we didn't have the strength to compete with others.

Later, I became very concerned about two things: the first is internal consistency within the team. For example, our transition from ethsign to the token table is coherent because most people signing agreements are involved in investment and financing, and moving from signing agreements to executing them with smart contracts is a natural progression. The second is the coherence from ethSign to Sign Protocol—moving from protocol signing and verification to on-chain, to all digital information being able to be signed and verified on-chain. Ethsign is still based on Sign Protocol, and we have many users. So we pay special attention to internal coherence; if there is too much fragmentation internally, it will abandon all past accumulations and destabilize the morale of the team.

I also pay close attention to market needs. For example, we noticed mid-last year that the unlocking period was very long, and people wanted to unlock and sell coins; these were actual needs we observed, and we felt we could do it, so we went ahead and turned it into a business market observation.

Chasing trends in the crypto space is actually very difficult because trends usually only last for three months. By the time you realize it’s a trend and start chasing it, it’s often too late. Generally, you have to do it first, and when the trend comes to you, you have a chance, like Virtuals, because others are already there. Then, when the trend arrives, it takes off. You say Myshell wants to follow this trend, but after a few months, by the time it gets listed on Binance, it’s no longer a trend. So it’s very difficult for startups to chase trends in the crypto space because the time is too short.

Xingpt:

By the time you unlock, the project is no longer trending.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, what we can do now is to become more traditional. We are building a company with revenue that can make money every month, and we are focusing on directions we believe are impressive. In the current market, most people no longer believe any stories; if you talk about public chain communities, no one believes it; if you talk about ZK, no one believes it; memes have also been played out, and everyone has lost everything.

We can only continue to do what we believe in, which is to build and strengthen the community, allowing those who have never used the crypto space to start using it. So we are starting to collaborate with countries to expand our territory, rather than pursuing bigger trends within the inner circle.

Going back to the earlier point about building a community. The current marketing standard is to collaborate with KOLs, letting them speak for you, which is essentially competing for a moment of heat within a fixed circle. But you know this is not sustainable; KOLs are promoting new coins every week, and people won't always stick with your coin; they have new coins to sell every week. The reason the crypto space is not developing well now is that the inner circle is so small, with full-time people and limited liquidity, but the money is finite. So it doesn't work. Pi has inspired me a lot because Pi users only play with Pi and don't touch other coins. So I think it’s essential to find your own territory, have your own real user base, and install your Sign App within that user base, preventing them from touching other coins.

Xingpt:

Yes, I find it quite interesting. Serious project teams looking at Pi might have biases; those with an IQ of 100 might think Pi users are "low IQ," but as you said, Pi still has a strong ability to occupy mental space. We might not want to touch other CX issues, but occupying mental space is indeed very strong.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, let me show you something impressive. We have done a lot of research—this is a store in Korea that accepts Pi payments.

Xingpt:

Can it really be used for payments? Or does it just show that it can?

Yan Xin@Sign

In Korea, merchants need to pay 220,000 won to Pi to support Pi payments for a year; they have to pay to use it. These are all offline stores, including small supermarkets that sell wigs and offer haircuts.

In my opinion, Pi is the closest to a true digital currency. You say you issue a coin, and I have reflected on this in the past. Since entering the space, the narrative in the crypto world has been hijacked by VCs. VCs have their own theories, saying that this coin has utility tokens and governance tokens, but after all these years, does having utility really make it worth that much? How many utilities have you seen that can be worth billions? Can gas really be worth that much? Governance tokens are even more ridiculous. The truly impressive coins are those that combine community and cryptocurrency; the larger the community, the more utilities it will incubate on its own, and it will create governance on its own, not dictated by the project team. The best coins are those with a huge community; Vitalik only wrote the client, and everyone runs that client. Etherscan wasn't created by Vitalik either. The most impressive thing is to build a community that gives everyone the opportunity to participate; you can't just let people buy coins; you need to give them the chance to contribute and earn tokens, allowing them to play on their own. So, it's about building a framework rather than just creating a platform. This is the essence of a coin, not that set of VC theories.

Xingpt:

Right, you can't just rely on making money or looking at prices to buy.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, this kind of model is not sustainable and may not even work. If you don't have something from the start, unless you have some paradigm shift, or Elon Musk shouts for you, or Trump helps you create a big platform, otherwise, you can't get started now. There are too many platforms now, and even if one takes off, the actual model is just the early people profiting at the expense of the later ones. As long as new people don't come in, the platform will collapse.

Xingpt:

Right, new coins on Binance can't even rise now; their circulating market cap is very low. How do you view the issue of coin prices? Is it a pressure for you?

Yan Xin@Sign

It is definitely pressure; after all, we have financing, and we need to make money for our investors. Recently, we even repurchased the money from pre-seed investors, so the coin price is certainly important.

But I think how to maintain the coin price and push it up is like I said; you need to have your own system. We now have product capabilities and business capabilities; first, the company needs to survive, not relying on selling coins to make money. Secondly, the business needs to develop, and on this basis, we need to transform it into a model where it's not just our team working to earn, but the community contributes and earns tokens. I believe mining models are the most reliable.

Xingpt:

It still has to be PoW, right?

Regardless of Ethereum or Bitcoin before, PoW is the way to go. Now UBI might be about everyone contributing something else.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, let everyone contribute, whether it's traffic, whether it's putting in Perp DEX or U.S. stocks. You hope that the money from monetizing traffic and the coins mined can balance out or be discounted; if you can maintain that balance, there is an opportunity. Pi can basically balance out now.

This is the expansion direction I can see. The benefit of PoW is that everyone is contributing; if you don't contribute, you don't get coins, unlike PoS where later people are always picking up the tab for earlier ones.

Xingpt:

OK. For example, do you have specific thoughts on what the community contribution forms for Sign will be in the future? Because each contribution form has a different path, like Worldcoin relies on iris scans to sell identities, and Pi relies on completing tasks and social interactions.

What do you think Sign will be like, or are you still thinking about it?

Yan Xin@Sign

We have thought it through quite clearly. By the way, I want to say that the problem with Worldcoin is that it is not about continuous contribution but rather a one-time contribution of iris scans, which cannot be sustained. You accumulate a lot of information, but you can't monetize it, and you can't get the money back; there is no ongoing reason to see it.

But for example, Pi relies on community traffic, and selling ads can balance out. We will learn from it, essentially merging Worldcoin and Pi; Worldcoin has various utilities. For example, it has mini apps that can be wallets, identity verification, etc. However, Worldcoin lacks user engagement; it's an app made by Americans, and you receive money once a month, so you have no reason to open it every day, and the traffic won't grow. Pi needs to be opened every day, and with high traffic, it can sell ads. Just like Alipay, it has normal services and also has things like Ant Farm that engage you daily. We will do similar stitching. What I am doing this year is collaborating with countries, for example, offering them a Tax Deck, building a chain, linking to ID systems, social security systems, and launching UBI systems, essentially helping them distribute national funds and collaborating with their stablecoins. In the future, for example, with UAEPS, when you get an ID card, it becomes a KYC-verified stablecoin account.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, we are doing these normally. The goal is to get the installation volume of the Sign App to 10 million or 20 million. This way, we can place ads and apps, like hyperliquid, U.S. stock trading platforms, and various services. Taking a 10% cut from U.S. stocks is quite normal, right? Buying U.S. stocks for Turks is already costly. We can promote good services and assets worth promoting globally, and even pensions and insurance can be done. For example, creating a fund on Wall Street to manage pensions valued in USDT. This is our goal.

Xingpt:

Right, just focus on building the user base first.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes. User contributions actually mean that we currently have four types of SBT in our community, and there will be similar ones in the future Sign App. When you enter, it's like choosing a profession in World of Warcraft, for example, Serious Builder, working together to create things; Support Warrior, which is the reply guy, giving likes and interacting with others daily, providing emotional value; Orange Blood, which is about inviting others to join; and there are also staking-related elements.

Xingpt:

I understand; there are still some social functions. Your example of Alipay is quite good; Alipay is also a kind of SBT, registering with an ID card, binding a bank card, corresponding to a blockchain address, and then having some social activities. The concept of on-chain Alipay is quite interesting.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, it's Alipay for the whole world.

Xingpt:

This is very interesting. I think combining it with stablecoins is also very meaningful. In fact, there aren't many solid narratives in the crypto space right now; Bitcoin is definitely one, and stablecoins are another. If it can be combined with stablecoins, that is also a direction. How do you view the industry trends or developments? It feels like everyone is quite confused now; the market is sluggish, there are too many VC coins and meme coins, and no one knows how things will develop in the future.

The second point is that both VCs and entrepreneurs don't know what to do; those who issued coins also want to pivot, which is quite difficult. After entering the space, I haven't encountered this situation. In 2018 and 2019, although it was a bear market, everyone knew they were working on public chains like Solana. It was hard to raise funds back then, but the direction was clear. Now everyone is doing AI and new things, but there is actually no confidence, and no one knows what the next narrative in the crypto space will be. What do you think?

Yan Xin@Sign

I also feel that way. In early March, when I returned to New York and talked to several project founders there, everyone was quite confused. I think we still need to find a big narrative; we can't focus on small narratives because small narratives pass quickly. Now, it's dangerous to casually invest tens of millions of dollars in something that will be out of fashion in three months.

So what I am betting on now are things that are as big as possible, like the ID system we are working on, which can be used globally. Right now, if you use an ID for KYC, the exchange takes a photo, but it can't verify your passport; it can't verify it like a transaction. We want to make it that way.

I believe the future digital infrastructure will be world-class. World currency is the first world-class thing, Starlink is a world-class communication network, and in the future, more and more infrastructures will be world-class, with ID cards, banks, and degrees all verifiable globally. This is the direction we have been blindly pushing forward.

This is the only direction I find credible; accumulating in this area is not afraid of going to zero because it is the trend of world development.

Additionally, we need to find specific pain points. For example, why are small countries willing to cooperate with us? They don't issue their own stablecoins; using the existing payment system incurs an 8% fee every year, and the entire country's 8% electronic currency flow goes to Visa, which is actually worse than the crypto space. So there is an opportunity; they want to issue their own national currency and create their own payment system, and we help them do that. I believe that even though it is not popular now, in 5 or 10 years, this will be a trend. As long as the company is alive, I dare to keep going.

Xingpt:

I understand. Besides the direction you are pursuing, as an investor or observer, what other new directions do you see that haven't taken off or that no one is doing?

Yan Xin@Sign

What I am optimistic about is actually what I am doing myself. For example, I think we can create a mini religion (mini community). What does that mean? It was something Murad mentioned when he was milking memecoins at the beginning. This term has had a significant impact on me. With AI developing so rapidly, within five years, there will definitely be 1 billion people unemployed; these people can't do R&D, and they can't compete with robots for manual labor. These people need small platforms to keep them occupied. I think creating a mini religion, where this network is not just a tool to get work done faster, but a platform for everyone to provide emotional value to each other, would be amazing. Right now, we measure people by money and work, but in the future, machines will be able to do that, and people should just provide emotional value to each other.

Now, even in dating, it's about whether you can provide emotional value; nobody is starving; no one is looking for you to feed them.

If we can create a system that provides emotional value to 10 million people, that would be incredible.

For example, we are building a community that allows everyone to listen to me, but rather lets everyone reply to each other, like, and interact; it's a network, not just point-to-point communication between me and everyone. I think there is a significant entrepreneurial opportunity here, beyond crypto.

Our company currently has three business segments: one is building the community; the second is working on sign, focusing on G-to-G collaborations and the Sign App; the third is the token table, which is about being a broker in the crypto space, putting various assets on-chain. Now that everyone has USDT, which is already internationalized, can we buy different assets based on USDT? For example, recently gold prices have risen, and it's hard for Chinese people to trade gold; we allow everyone to use USDT to buy any asset and put those assets on-chain for trading. I want to include U.S. stocks in the Sign App.

Xingpt:

But FTX and BMan's biss have done this before, and it seems they were all paused due to compliance issues. Does trading U.S. stocks still rely on compliance?

Yan Xin@Sign

It could be, but compliance is changing; after Trump came into power, basically, anything can be done, and compliance has a chance. We don't have opportunities in mature markets.

Xingpt:

Right. How do you view this wave of AI? Recently, AI and robotics (outside the crypto space) have been very popular, and many crypto projects are also pivoting to AI, focusing purely on AI. Do you think this will impact the crypto space? Will attention and funds be diverted?

Yan Xin@Sign

This is the objective reality, and it's quite healthy. Any industry needs to continuously filter out a wave of people while bringing in a new wave; what remains after the filtering is the future of the crypto space.

Some people, like me, can't do AI and won't do it, so I just ignore it. Some people who are dual-career can enter the crypto space in Silicon Valley and retreat to AI.

Xingpt:

I understand. When do you think the next big market in the crypto space will come?

Now that the ETF is here, the cycle is different from what everyone expected. The previous BTC price predictions based on a four-year cycle have been falsified. Now, if we want to think of a new cycle, there are many different theories about it. For project development, the cycle is very important; what to do in a bull market and what to do in a bear market is also a significant point of consideration. What do you think?

Yan Xin@Sign

I blindly believe in the four-year cycle, and I think last year when Bitcoin reached $100,000, it was actually quite accurate. Using logarithmic scales for Bitcoin's annual index, it has always been linear in the past, and last year reaching $100,000 was also very accurate; it just hasn't reached $150,000 or $200,000 this year. If it does reach those levels, it will be spot on again; overall, there is still an opportunity.

Now, after the ETF, the correlation with U.S. stocks has increased, influenced by macro factors, but overall, the crypto space is still very small, just a few trillion dollars. As long as we wait for the wind to come, it can rise again. Why do I blindly believe in the four-year cycle? Because I haven't seen any reason to change the cycle; I think the determining factor of the cycle is retail memory. After a while, everyone forgets how they lost money last time and enters the market again. FTX hurt everyone a lot, but in two years, people won't care anymore because didn't hyperliquid rise again last year? People don't care whether it's decentralized or centralized; as long as someone shouts for it, they will come back, and there won't be any problems.

Mathematically, the cycle will gradually lengthen, but it won't happen quickly. The essence is the collective behavioral game result of people, which is a very fixed pattern. Because it has always been four years in the past, I haven't seen any reason for it to change.

Xingpt:

I think you've always had a good grasp of the rhythm. In the bull market of 2021 and 2022, you raised funds, and in the bear market, you looked for cash flow or cash flow businesses. How do you grasp this cycle? What should you do in a bull market, and how to survive in a bear market (as an entrepreneur)?

Yan Xin@Sign

Of course, it relates to the company's stage. First, let me boast a bit; I have actually never missed predicting a bear market. I successfully bottomed out when I entered the space in 2018, and I also successfully bottomed out in 2021 and 2022. I have always blindly believed in MVRV, believing that the core valuation in the crypto space is that people will not sell when they have lost a certain amount. Overall, it is still within the planned range. Now that we have reached Series A, the company can produce products and make money; in a bull market, we continue to amplify, tell a bigger story, and gain more attention and users. In a bull market, there is an opportunity to talk to the government, while in a bear market, everyone thinks the crypto space is a scam, so we just need to develop quietly, and it goes back and forth like this.

Xingpt:

Do you think there will be a wave of market recovery this year or next year? Now VCs have transformed; some are doing market agencies, some are doing secondary markets, and some are just lying flat. I don't think this situation will exist long-term. Do you think there will be a recovery, or will we have to wait a long time?

Yan Xin@Sign

The market will definitely recover, but the industry landscape may not return to the past. So many VCs now were actually born from the last wave; there weren't that many before. Most VCs actually lack judgment; they just follow the leader and throw in some money. The real VCs are those who can build networks and provide endorsements; everyone in the industry knows that capable people are very few, and such VCs will continue to survive. Those without capability will die off, which is normal, and they will go do something else.

As the industry matures, more and more people will come in. In 2017, it was all about concepts; anything related to blockchain was impressive. By 2022, everyone slowly started to understand Bitcoin, and now we are moving towards ground promotion. Whoever can get outsiders to use it will be able to expand the circle. The profile of talent needed in this stage is different from before; like Alipay, which initially did custody and later pushed it to be used by everyone, involved two different groups of people. In the future, we will need more traditional people who can execute and promote on the ground. It will no longer be the VCs who just shout for it.

Xingpt:

It's more like the O2O era, where you distribute goods and deliver food, unlike the first wave of the internet, which was all about online site management.

Yan Xin@Sign

Yes, that era has already passed.

Xingpt:

Attention is sinking deeper and harder to obtain.

Yan Xin@Sign

In fact, the people in the world who truly understand Bitcoin and decentralization are those who entered the space in 2013, 2015, and 2017; they have repeatedly entered the space. Now, to expand, we can only look for people with IQs between 50 and 70; this group of people doesn't care whether you are decentralized; they only care about whether they can benefit. The language and strategies you use to communicate with them are different; they are no longer the group that believed in "the future of decentralization."

Xingpt:

You are right. The current focus on pure technical narratives or halal narratives cannot take off; it's a self-circulating loop within the circle, unable to break out.

I think the biggest problem now is the lack of positive externalities; the internal narratives lack positive externalities. This group of people has already come in; only ground promotion or UBI can attract new users.

I am wondering if we can use non-crypto methods, such as creating AI applications or consumer applications, to first bring users in and then tokenize them, not issuing coins initially, and then expanding into the crypto space once the user base is established. Do you think this path is feasible?

Yan Xin@Sign

I think there is no need to "expand into the crypto space"; it should be said that we can only "shrink into the crypto space." The users of AI, payments, and applications are far larger than those in the crypto space. You can issue coins, but there is no need to play with crypto VCs and users; you can issue a coin based on the AI user base for everyone to play with, without needing to return to the familiar crypto space. There is no need to have the crypto degens and VCs buy your coins; they will sell them after a week. From a certain perspective, these people are meaningless to you. They won't hold your coins. Their buying only increases trading volume for Binance, which is of no use to you.

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