The Wanxiang Blockchain Conference held in Shanghai in September this year was held one week after the Token 2049 event in Singapore. I believe everyone has read a lot of essays about the 2049 event, but I have hardly seen any essays about Wanxiang Blockchain. Let me share some of my thoughts.

1. The Wanxiang Blockchain Conference should be said to be the largest centralized event in the blockchain field in mainland China. Last year's Wanxiang Blockchain Conference was changed to online due to the epidemic, so the last offline Wanxiang Blockchain Conference was two years ago in 2021. I also participated in the 2021 event. Comparing the two events, this year's feeling is that the popularity and number of participants in the event are weaker than two years ago. The main factor is that the current market is still a bear market.

2. The most direct comparison during the bear market is: during the Wanxiang Blockchain Conference two years ago, there were many side parties, four to five large and small events every day, and many of them were held in five-star hotels around the Bund. This year's side events are not as numerous, but the choice of venue is rarely in five-star hotels, and venues are free if they can be chosen, which shows that in the bear market, everyone's event budget has become smaller.

3. There are fewer project booths in the conference venue this year than two years ago. In the previous years, there were many peripheral products, T-shirts, hats and bags at the activity booths, but they were rarely seen this time. At a booth this year, participants could participate in the lucky draw after completing a series of check-in tasks, but only a few people completed the check-in in the two-day exhibition.

4.      Two years ago, there were several large public chain projects hosting events in the series of events. I clearly remember that one event was held at a special venue in Magnolia Square, which not only provided a variety of drinks and food, but also allowed people to experience VR games on site. However, this year, there are very few public chains hosting events, and the store in Magnolia Square has closed down. This event is mainly for various new Web3 projects and various communities to support the event. I personally feel that the events with higher quality and greater gains this year are the events hosted by several technical communities.

5.      Judging from the number of participants, the number of participants during this conference is not small. However, the number of investment institutions participating in the event is much less than two years ago, which reflects the coldness of the primary market. The last bull market in the blockchain field attracted a lot of capital, including the attention of traditional investment institutions, but after many thunderstorms last year, many traditional capitals that were very interested at the time were scared away.

6. Two years ago, many friends from traditional financial institutions and Internet giants came to participate in the event, but this time, there were few. Instead, many old faces who have been in this industry for more than five years were active in various events. This year, I also met a few old friends or project parties I had communicated with before. In less than two years, although everyone is still in this industry, many of them have switched to new projects and new institutions.

7. There don’t seem to be many new hot topics in this year’s conference. RWA is the one that people talk about the most, but RWA is not a very new concept. The reason why it has become popular again is that Hong Kong is currently making some policy attempts in this regard. AI is undoubtedly a very hot topic this year. There are also some topics around this topic in the two-day conference agenda. However, although AI and Web3 have intersections, they are essentially two different industries. There are also topics about NFT, but I didn’t see much new content.

8. In addition to these topics, I am also personally concerned about blockchain games. When I talked to some friends and said that our main investment direction is blockchain games, many people’s first reaction is no longer "Gamefi", but "full-chain games", which also shows the current popularity of full-chain games.

9. Topics about Hong Kong’s open policies accounted for a large proportion of the discussion. At least two guests were representatives from the Hong Kong government and the Legislative Council. This is certainly a good thing. The rise of the East and the decline of the West is a topic that many people discussed after this year’s Hong Kong Web3 Conference. However, when discussing Hong Kong from the mainland, there is a feeling of “the rise of the South and the decline of the North”.

10. In general, there are not many international faces among the guests and participants of this year’s event. Two years ago, Vitalik Buterin at least gave a speech via remote connection, but not this time. The limited number of foreigners do not have a background in large organizations, which is very different from international events such as 2049.

Overall, although the popularity and internationalization of this year's 9th Wanxiang Blockchain Conference has declined, it is still the most important event in the domestic Web3 field. After three years of the epidemic, it is not easy to reopen offline. The discussion content of the event seems to be not very novel and lacks new narratives, but this is also the current situation faced by the entire Web3 field. Will the new narrative drive the market recovery first, or will the market cycle recover and brew a new narrative? This seems to be a question of which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Looking forward to seeing you at the 10th Wanxiang Blockchain Conference next year.