Author: Dayu
CRCL surged to 300, with a trading volume exceeding 10 billion. Unfortunately, I understood it a bit late—however, it’s better to be late than to miss out. I would rather be stuck in a loss than not get in at all; not getting in is even more painful than a breakup. Even if the bride price is to buy 250 CRCL, I agreed.
In contrast, the cryptocurrency market has already cooled down, and the reasons are comprehensive and deep-rooted. Simply put, it includes the following points:
- VCs who are cut or get cut will not come back.
VCs set up or participate in projects with overly high valuations. From the feedback in the comments regarding the ones I listed before, such as MOVE, Bearchain, and Eigenlayer, it is very clear which ones were setups and which ones VCs actually funded because of their ideals.
From the very beginning of the setup, they already knew who to cut and how to cut. After they cut, they won’t come back again, leaving while cursing sb — they are actually the clearest people, knowing that besides BTC, 99% of the other coins are crap.
The idealist VCs obviously thought that this wave of BTC would surge to 100,000 or 250,000, and protocols like Eigenlayer would soar alongside ETH breaking through 10,000 and 20,000, making valuations in the billions seem reasonable. However, before the tokens were even unlocked, the crypto market had already gone cold.
These VCs will not stay either, as their LPs have already lost 60-90%. The funds are either dissolving or struggling hard while waiting to dissolve. As far as I know, many first-tier funds in the crypto space are almost dissolved. The reason they keep a few people is to employ some “stay-behind veterans” to accept the tokens that project parties are supposed to issue but have not yet issued.
If you interviewed many top-tier VCs and asked them to sum up their thoughts in one sentence, I think it might be: I’m an idiot, I should have just bought BTC.
- Innovation in the industry is exhausted.
In the past few bull markets, whether it was ICOs, DeFi, or NFTs, they were all great innovations, and some things have been preserved. However, in this round, there is only one flawed innovation, which is inscriptions, but unfortunately, nothing will be preserved because everyone realizes that this is not an innovation.
Is there still innovation in the crypto space? Actually, this is a matter of debate. Internally, there should be no more innovation in the crypto space, and while we cannot assert the future, the probability of great innovations occurring has dropped from 50% to 10%; however, externally, innovation is thriving.
- Innovation outside the circle is great.
Is CRCL innovative? Yes, it aims to disrupt Visa’s $600 billion market value and take over the vast imagination of cross-border payments—because its efficiency and cost are 100 times stronger than traditional cross-border payments. From this perspective, 250 CRCL seems too expensive compared to 60, but if you believe it will reach 3000 and are not afraid of temporarily dropping to 60, it doesn’t seem like much.
RWA is an innovation, but it probably won’t be useful at all; the essence is still to issue coins and harvest retail investors.
Is compliance “innovation”? Strictly speaking, it might be a stretch to call it innovation, but compliance is actually just a bridge; its essence is the path for cryptocurrency to reach the mainstream.
Some things can be foreseen:
Compliance is a major trend. The premise for the development of the cryptocurrency industry is comprehensive compliance. Non-compliant exchanges and applications, including USDT, will increasingly face restrictions.
Under the trend of compliance, the most outstanding projects in the crypto space may gradually not issue tokens anymore, but instead go for an IPO in the U.S. stock market, where there is an abundance of capital.
In the past, the value and consensus of Bitcoin were significantly boosted by the innovation and prosperity of altcoins. However, that part has cooled down. I was worried about this for a while, but later I realized that the way we operate in this community needs a big change!
In the future, the spread of Bitcoin’s consensus will not rely on web3 breaking the circle — this is already a fallacy. The tricks used by our circle to exploit retail investors can no longer target seasoned investors outside the circle. Instead, it will rely on the integration of web2. Through compliance, in the future, people will purchase items on Amazon and Pinduoduo directly using compliant USDC for payment. They won’t need a U-card backed by USDC; a built-in wallet within the app will suffice, supporting both BTC and USDC payments.
I think the most likely form of BTC payment is not something like the Lightning Network, which is garbage, but rather wallets from official sources like Coinbase or USDC, or cbBTC hosted on the base chain supported by wallet infrastructure. For example, users can exchange BTC for cbBTC, making it very convenient to use—plus, it is hosted by Coinbase at the base level, which is relatively reassuring, and all ETFs are also hosted here.
Of course, many people with a lot of money here may feel that this is not self-custody, but the opinions of a minority are not important; the hundreds of billions of dollars in ETFs are the conclusion.
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Through the reasons mentioned above, I have gained a comprehensive understanding of the current cryptocurrency market both inside and outside. I used to often say, “Fish where there are many fish.” Moving forward, whether we are investing or speculating in cryptocurrencies, we should think along these lines.
I have summarized several questions that need to be asked before making investments/speculations.
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Will outside capital be interested in this thing?
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Is it easy to speculate on this thing?
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Is there a lot of room for imagination with this thing?
Therefore, I feel that the funds from outside the circle are currently focusing on stablecoins and compliance, which is a direction that needs to be given special consideration.
There are not many investable targets in this regard.
If the stablecoin CRCL falls back to 60, countless people will want to jump in, making it difficult to drop in the short term. If you don’t want to predict, then don’t watch; just wait until it drops before considering. Nothing will keep rising indefinitely. If you’re experiencing FOMO, it’s better to buy a base position first and then do your research. In the future, keep dollar-cost averaging down to 60.
Recently, I have spent a lot of time researching Hashkey’s platform token HSK. The FDV market cap is over 400 million, but the company’s cash burn is estimated to be more than 400 million. HSK is an exchange platform token and also the gas for the Hashkey public chain, which somewhat resembles the strategy of Coinbase + Base.
With the concept of a compliant track and the current craze for stablecoins, he has played roles such as OTC settlement (the OTC business should have kept the company afloat by now). Therefore, just by listing on exchanges of the level of OKX, the liquidity will be sufficient to ride a wave of trading under the current fervent enthusiasm.
However, the downside is that the business is poorly managed. I’ve heard that there is a lot of internal friction in the company, and they probably still haven’t found the right person. It would be best to find someone who has made a lot of money in the crypto space, understands the crypto world, has ideals, doesn’t care about salary, and can ensure that the business is done well to share enough profits in the future. However, for short-term speculation, it’s better not to waste your energy on “teaching others how to do their jobs.”
From a sense of national pride, I am quite looking forward to the emergence of an Eastern Coinbase. Coinbase has a market capitalization of 100 billion, while here the FDV is 400 million; OSL, which previously had similar energy to HashKey, is listed on the Hong Kong stock market with a market cap of 7 billion, but its business volume is only 1/10 of HashKey’s.
CRCL is investment, hsk is speculation - investing in US stocks, hsk speculation is quite good.
Currently, HSK has a relatively larger depth on Gate, but it is still far from enough. Similar to the period of inscriptions, ORDI was initially only available for purchase on Gate, and it wasn’t until it was listed on Binance that liquidity finally became comfortable.
In the meme space, I feel that participating in conspiracy schemes is pointless and not interesting at all, it’s just pouring water on friends; and traditional ones are also not fun.
Based on the logic of the stock market, I believe that only Memes that are of interest to outsiders have a future.
Currently, there is only one labubu, and I’m glad to see it has remained relatively strong; if it crashes, it will be gone. Many people haven’t researched labubu’s popularity and don’t understand how hot this thing is.
Brands like Parado, Chanel, and LV have seen a continuous decline in performance, while Labubu has become the most discussed term among wealthy women, with stores now opening next to luxury goods.
Labubu is the main force of Pop Mart, and there will be movie promotions coming up. The strategy of Pop Mart is not to create more and more IPs, but another focus is actually to hope to create a century-long IP.
Labubu is now more popular abroad than domestically, with unboxing videos spreading spontaneously on TikTok, gaining much more traction than PEPE and similar ones.
People who don’t understand memes might wonder what this has to do with your junk coin. In fact, once you understand PEPE, it becomes easier to understand labubu; both are bought overseas and only rise in China after that. The PEPE frog is a meme on the internet; what does it have to do with the crypto world? It’s just that PEPE initially stood at several tens of millions.
What outsiders understand now, the only cultural thing that will continue to spread is labubu, and this level of popularity cannot be compared to the three-minute hype of Old Ma posting a picture.
Meme, if you’re going to gamble, bet on the long-term with a high ceiling.
Current position BTC hype hsk labubu, interested parties, please do your own research before buying.
Stock market pdd, unh, Coinbase, Tencent, etc., and added a small speculative position in CRCL.
