Author: Lao Bai, Partner of ABCDE Investment Research
I feel like the new main line of this round is starting to become clear.
- PayFI
- AI Agent
- Meme
It just so happens that the last round also had three main lines: Defi, NFT, and X2Earn
Let me briefly explain why these three
The biggest theme of this round should be what Trump said in his victory speech yesterday, "Common Sense", or Anti-narrative. The market has begun to feel disgusted with To VC, To Exchange, projects that only care about narratives and only focus on technology/infrastructure. Projects must return to common sense - what you make really needs to be used and paid for (at least people can buy monkeys and punks as NFT avatars to show off, right?)
In the past two years, a lot of decentralized computing power/model training/inference projects have emerged. If you are a serious AI startup, would you really give up using Hugging Face and not buy cloud computing power from AWS or Azure, but use Web3's "decentralized" computing power/model/inference platform? Ask yourself, does this make sense?
Let me explain why I think the following three lines currently make sense
1. Payfi - Connecting to the real world
In the past two months, I have been watching and talking about the most intensive track in the primary market. It seems that many new and old Payfi projects that were dormant/growing slowly have jumped out. Stripe's acquisition of Bridge for US$11.1 billion should be seen as a landmark event.
What you may not have noticed or known is
- The amount of PYUSD issued by PayPal has exceeded 500 million (reached 1 billion some time ago)
- Osmosis and scrvUSD are both working on Debit Cards, and other Crypto Cards based on Ton or other chains are on the way.
- Are there any companies that are working with Visa/Master to engage in supply chain finance or accelerate settlement?
- Some people talk to the bank directly to bypass Visa/Master settlement
- There is a POS system based on the Solana Pay framework that provides merchants with Crypto Native Payment + Defi Yield, while not affecting traditional VISA/Master card swiping.
- There are P2P OTC deposits and withdrawals directly through the chain + ZKTLS
- Some even move the main logic of banks to the chain, directly NFT login + KYC, provide the binding of chain banks + traditional banks, which can transfer + deposit and withdraw funds, swipe Crypto Cards, and even directly transfer to traditional bank accounts.
A payment system that is more "fast, better, and cheaper", where you can directly spend your Crypto assets by swiping a card, and where deposits and withdrawals are more secure... These are all real user demands. If they are done well, there will really be people/institutions, including Web2 players, who will use them. In the end, maybe everyone will find that it is not social networking or games that will realize Web3 Mass Adoption, but the Payfi track.
2. Ai Agent - Enhance the on-chain world
In the past year or so, we have talked about three-digit AI projects, but basically did not make any moves, because I felt that the combination was a bit awkward, even for the leading and so-called king projects. You see, when Vitalik was interviewed about the combination of AI and Crypto last year, he was actually asked this question, and his answer was basically around AI helping Crypto rather than the other way around. But if the cryptocurrency circle wants to dream, Crypto "must" help AI. So we have the three tracks of the so-called "model assetization", "data assetization", and "computing power assetization" in the industry standard.
But to be honest, I have talked to many Web2 AI researchers and founders, and they look at our three tracks like they are watching a talk show.
The most impressive thing was a discussion last year about a decentralized computing power project. The founder told us very honestly that when there is a relatively large or commercial computing power demand, it will be directly handed over to their centralized computer room to run, and will not be handed over to retail GPU computing power, but it can be "packaged" at the front desk to make it feel like retail computing power is also involved. I have a good impression of this founder, although I didn't invest in the end.
It wasn’t until the appearance of Goat this year that I was really impressed.
This is not AI Help Crypto, nor is it Crypto Helps AI
This is a new thing that comes out of the combination of real AI and Crypto
- AI Agent Assets
- AI Agent ShitPost
- AI Agents form DAO
- AI Agents are responsible for the trading and buying and selling of a fund
- AI Agents’ Own Culture
- AI Agents’ Own Religion
This is something that Web2 AI cannot do, and Web3 pure Crypto cannot do it independently.
This is the best way to combine AI and Crypto at the current AI capability level.
Regarding this track, I recommend two articles
https://x.com/0xNought/status/1851283278164345297
https://x.com/starzqeth/status/1853597036421259728
Then there is the wizard @0xcryptowizard who also posted a lot about this track. You can check out his Twitter.
3. Meme - On-chain casino, no need to install
Pump.Fun has brought to the table things that many people were unwilling to admit, or could not say because of "political correctness".
Our circle is a big gambling house
But in fact, this is not a problem. We can finally face the fact that one of the main functions of Cypto is for PVP. That's OK
The problem is, it can't just be PvP
Just like what @DujunX said, "If meme and tap2earn are the future of the industry, then this industry should die, fuck!"
Therefore, Meme and PVP will become a permanent track in our circle. When more exciting, more popular, and more meaningful tracks and technologies emerge, the Meme track will account for a smaller proportion and be more low-key. When the industry lacks direction and makes people bored and disappointed, the Meme track will jump to the foreground and become more active and account for a larger proportion.
Meme may be the "little bell" track for multiple rounds of bull and bear markets in the future - It has been, and will be always there...
This is just my personal opinion, for reference and entertainment only, NFA :)
