I vaguely remember that in the crypto bear market of 2022, crypto VCs looked forward to the narrative of the next round of bull market, and generally made the following speculations:
1. Ethereum is the engine of the bull market and the most certain;
2. ZK technology has brought about a substantial expansion of L2, and the on-chain infrastructure has entered a mature stage;
3.AA wallet and MPC wallet lower the threshold for ordinary people to enter the crypto world;
4. Games and social networking will bring mass adoption (Mass Adoption);
With the above belief, even in a bear market, many VCs still bet on Ethereum infrastructure such as ZK/L2 with a valuation of more than US$1 billion. In their view, such investment has ultra-high certainty.
Are there any problems with this investment decision?
In fact, no, just as around 2016, Alibaba was fully betting on consumption upgrades and new retail. According to normal circumstances, residents must be getting richer and more willing to buy more expensive products.
Crypto VCs have the same idea, betting on consumption upgrades in the crypto world, more cutting-edge technologies, real large-scale applications (Mass Adoption), and user cognitive upgrades. After all, the world is always moving forward.
But the reality is always very absurd. As we all know what happened later, consumption did not upgrade. Instead, Pinduoduo, which was betting on consumption downgrade, moved from outside the Fifth Ring Road to the center of the stage. It even surpassed Alibaba in market value and completed Flip.
Just as the market value of WIF, the MEME of the crypto world, surpassed that of Ethereum L2 ARB, it is equally shocking.
In the encryption world, a more naked "consumption downgrade" has been staged.
consumption downgrade
The ZK technology perfection and large-scale application that crypto VCs expected have not yet appeared. Funding options started from the Bitcoin MEME inscription, starting a bull market, and extending to the full explosion of the Solana ecological MEME.
Does the crypto world need a better experience? It is necessary in theory, but not that important in practice.
In 2017, everyone used fast centralized exchanges to trade, and then transitioned to using DEX with high fees and slow confirmation in 2020. In this cycle, a large number of retail investors simply used EXCEL to participate in Inscription transactions directly in the WeChat group, which was very primitive but very happy. .
In 2017, retail investors started investing in ICO websites with beautiful UIs. Now, they only need to send an address on Twitter to receive tens of millions of dollars in half an hour.
In the past, every NFT/MEME project thought about "doing things", making games and products, and emphasizing implementation; now, retail investors are advising the project, "Please, don't do things, don't implement it, just make MEME honestly and float in the air." Just fine." Even the oracle machine actively deleted the "prediction" (price feeding) function and joined the ranks of MEME.
In the past, a project needed to struggle to raise funds, frequently change the narrative, stay up late and work overtime to develop the product, and ask people everywhere to find connections to get on the exchange. After three years of hard work, the final market value was less than 100 million U.S. dollars, and was scolded by the community; now, a MEME project , no official website required, market value of US$1 billion in three days, quickly listed on Binance...
So, what went wrong?
The market is right
I believe that the market is always right.
The downgrade of consumption in the business world is due to demand, that is, the wallets of ordinary people have not kept up, and the middle class is sluggish.
The downgrade of consumption in the crypto world is a complete misalignment of supply and demand.
As far as supply is concerned, what infrastructure and consumer applications are available today? The zero-knowledge proof has been proven for so long. What has it proved?
In terms of demand, the wealth effect is still the first driving force, and transactions are the real need. The simpler it is, the easier it is to understand.
Under these conditions, MEME assumes the heavy responsibility of cryptocurrency Mass Adoption. There is no cognitive threshold, no product commitment, the culture and community cannot be priced at multiples of valuation, the chips are dispersed, and the fundraising is fair, whether it is retail investors or money laundering dog houses, Or exchanges/market makers can rush to make profits there...
Solana, a high-performance public chain known for its low handling fees, is an important infrastructure of MEME.
The rise of Solana is also a Pinduoduo-style victory, and cheapness is the way to go.
Question to embrace
Question Pinduoduo, understand Pinduoduo, and embrace Pinduoduo.
Will the crypto world always be so MEME-ridden and bastard-minded? Of course not, the crypto world will see real Mass Adoption, but not now.
Remember, in this cycle, MEME is the real Mass Adaption. Even the popular AI coins are essentially MEME disguised as AI.
Solana and Robinhood will be important MEME infrastructure in this cycle.
In this cycle, every serious project party should have a CMO (Chief Meme Officer).
As Musk, the godfather of Dogecoin, said, “Whoever controls MEME controls the world.”
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