Summary of the five key points of ETHCC

1. Imbalance in investment between infrastructure and applications

Whether it is Vitalik's speech or the on-site communication, most first-tier investors have realized the imbalance between infrastructure and applications, and more interest has begun to shift to consumer applications. Paradigm has also raised new funds for consumer-oriented investments, but the imagination of consumer applications on the scene is still limited, mostly limited to imitations like pump.fun and tgbot products. It is an inevitable trend for on-chain transactions to become smoother and more prosperous. Pump and tgbot are relatively successful initial forms, and other forms of products may appear in the future.

2. Popular narratives: AI is the hottest from top to bottom, while memes are the hottest from bottom to top

Investors from many leading VCs are still optimistic about AI. The basic logic is that this wave of LLM innovation has brought great potential for productivity improvement, and cryptocurrencies can provide training incentives and solve the initial revenue dilemma of many AI models. The Open AGI Summit held by Sentient, a top AI company with $85 million in financing, was also very lively. From AI infra to agent application stores, there are almost web3 projects in the works, but the bubble is generally high, and there are many projects with a valuation of over 100 million in the primary market.

The meme craze and beneficial effects caused by Solana have led to more exploration in this direction in the community. Institutions and project parties have gradually become interested, but they are all in a grassroots and early stage. TON and other non-mainstream public chains also have some applications under construction, but most of them are of poor quality.

3. High-performance public chain: grand narrative and the replacement of the old with the new

In this round of bull market, several high-funded parallel EVM or high-performance public chains have naturally become new stars, such as Monad, Megaeth, Bera, etc. They are all popular projects, and they have attracted a lot of attention even if the main network or even the test network has not been launched. Base does not focus on offline activities, but the on-chain ecology has developed very well, becoming one of the most promising soils. In the previous round, the ecology of several so-called high-performance public chains was quiet, and the special sessions were sparsely populated, and it was difficult to attract the interest of users and developers. This shows the importance of timing and vibe tone in the early stage of the ecology.

4. DeFi and NFTs have difficulty generating new interest and funding

I personally feel that there are not many DeFi projects at the event, and DeFi topics are rarely seen at the event. NFT seems to have become a term that is rarely mentioned. Except for a few DEX perps in the new ecosystem led by top VCs and a few mature projects, it is difficult for emerging DeFi projects to establish a moat of user trust in a short period of time.

5. The industry is gradually maturing, and the Matthew effect is becoming more prominent

To put it more bluntly, some new crypto money has become "old money" in the past two or three cycles. From investment institutions to the core circles of project parties, the grouping is becoming more and more obvious. Many institutions no longer use a wide net to invest, but rather focus on cultivation, and the key person at the top has mastered the ability to make the market believe in their narrative. For institutions, they can only choose to participate in the core circle or have the ability to create their own narrative; for project parties, more glamorous endorsements and powerful resources can get financing, or another way is to find a PMF that can generate profits in the market, such as Pump's exchange-like model.

Summarize

In general, encryption is still one of the best industries. The exploration of the application layer, the improvement of infrastructure performance, more compliance and widespread acceptance, and the unparalleled circulation advantages under the trend of reverse globalization, there is no need to doubt whether it is a bull market, it only takes a little time and confidence.