Hong Kong Web3 Week Recap
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Hong Kong Web3 Week Recap
The crypto circle is just a makeshift show, everyone's putting together schemes.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsCompiled by:陀螺财经
April 9 marks the final day of the Hong Kong Web3 Festival and also signifies the end of Hong Kong Blockchain Week. As vibrant as ever, filled with networking and check-ins, Hong Kong once again gathered a crowd of crypto enthusiasts under the name of Web3. Amid diverse interactions among retail investors, projects, KOLs, VC/PE players, and even government representatives, the path forward for Hong Kong and crypto continues to unfold.
Within this setting, "mini-essays" have become an essential part of major events. Participants either eloquently discuss trends, concisely highlight key points, or simply vent emotions. While opinions may differ, through these unique martial arts-style debates (a metaphorical “wulin”), observers who couldn’t attend can still grasp current hot topics and sense the mood and atmosphere of the crypto industry through reflections on its present state and development trajectory.
In light of this,陀螺财经 has compiled selected mini-essays from X (formerly Twitter), hoping that views of Hong Kong Web3 from participants will spark further thinking.
Dov Wo@dov wo
VC Perspective Mini-Essay from Attending Hong Kong (Full of Bias):
1. In a bull market, products don't matter—narratives and sentiment matter more. Memes have repeatedly proven this. At least half of your fundraising should be used to pump the token price.
2. The most critical skills in this bull cycle: market manipulation ability and shilling ability. If you lack manipulation skills, practice shilling. I'm helping some project teams find KOLs for promotions—feel free to take my paid gigs. Many projects invested in by Binance and OKX can't find suitable domestic or overseas promotion channels; artificial prosperity and fake buy-side demand are necessities.
3. VCs’ status is deteriorating—slow unlocks, high valuations, retail investors no longer recognize us. If you can't bring extra resources to a project team (e.g., exchange relationships, regional resources and communities, economic model design, promotional capabilities), most pure financial-investment VCs are just becoming victims. Take one recent project I was approached about—the KOL round’s valuation is lower than the VC round, and their unlock schedule is better too. (This project is led by a top Western VC.)
The idea that KOL > VC isn’t baseless—it's real. That’s why I’m launching a small boutique KOL agency to sell picks and shovels.
4. The hottest ecosystems were Berachain, Solana, and Bitcoin; Ethereum ecosystem was relatively inactive, with a popular meme being Layer 69 (a funny parody video made by Solana mocking ETH).
5. Side events had huge crowds—there might have been hundreds of side events during this festival. In contrast, main venues were nearly empty. Project teams should reconsider whether expensive main venue booths are still worth it. For example, neither Berachain nor Solana had main venue booths—they hosted their own events instead. OKX did both booth and event activities at peak level, while Binance didn’t host any events at all.
6. Regular people must become KOLs—find your niche. If you promote shitcoins, focus only on shitcoins; if you analyze deeply, stick to deep analysis. Either way, you can land good paid promotions. I pay KOLs who shill shitcoins anywhere from 200U to 2000U per post. VCs who can’t shill won’t survive; KOLs who can’t shill won’t earn money. With traffic, numerous project teams will approach you for collaboration, giving you better information and more resources. Please re-read point #2. Question the shill masters, understand the shill masters, become the shill master.
7. This year in HK, fewer people talked about compliance and licenses, more discussed market manipulation and resource accumulation (perhaps because I’ve reached a higher level where I can understand and participate). Right at the entrance of the main hall were the largest booths—OKX and DWF. Now everyone knows who has resources and who has money.
Ethan yu@EthanYu2020
Drank for Two Days, Listened to Big Talk:
1. Chinese institutions are FOMOing into Bitcoin ecosystem and restaking; institutions with Western/global DNA are FOMOing into DePIN on Solana; a few are FOMOing into Cosmos-related Berachain; some institutions, burned by GameFi last cycle, are now pushing it anyway out of necessity. But in the end, they all converge—to make big cuts. Valuations are absurdly high.
2. Almost universal consensus: there are way too many golden dogs on Solana, and the get-rich-quick effect keeps going. Recently, those Base-based shitcoin pumps have flowed back into Solana.
3. It's not that KOLs are more powerful than VCs—it’s because KOLs have flexible capital, can freely post/shill/delete tweets, and enjoy friendlier unlock terms. What would you do if you asked an institutional official account to shill? On the flip side, institutions aren’t dumb or flush with cash. If you come asking for $1M at a $100M valuation with a 36-month full exit timeline, and without listing on Binance or OKX, who’s the fool—me or them?
4. There are indeed many newcomers and aspiring entrants—youthful, proactive, eager to learn, unburdened by past industry baggage. They go all-in without hesitation. But there aren’t enough newbies yet, which means the bull market is still early.
NP Hard @xingpt
HK Conference Mini-Essay:
1. Startup barriers keep rising this cycle. Newly entering domestic wild teams can only launch shitcoins or operate farming studios. A minority work on Bitcoin ecosystem projects. Raising large funds is extremely difficult.
2. Dilemmas faced by Chinese project founders: How can we attract investment from Western funds? / Dilemma of Chinese funds: How can we invest in Western projects?
3. The most comfortable Chinese crypto professionals right now: large secondary market traders and top-tier KOLs.
Allen Ding 鼎@0x_Allending
Been super busy in HK these days—quick thoughts, hope they help.
1. Still bullish on the overall market—firmly bullish.
2. The ETH/BTC ratio will inevitably reverse. Current pressure stems mainly from low odds of an ETF approval in May + EF facing lawsuits + lack of fresh narratives. Yet I still believe ETH is currently the only chain capable of accommodating large-scale financial inflows and boasting the best developer community. Once actual monetary easing begins, capital will naturally flow back into ETH. Plus Eigenlayer is about to launch—that should drive an AVS bull run.
3. Solana’s strategy itself is sound. It has already become my top altcoin holding. However, too many sentiment-driven meme coins pollute its ecosystem—recently Ore caused normal transactions to fail. I’m currently focusing on DePIN; Ebunker has launched a DePIN finance platform enabling users to better participate in DePIN projects.
4. If you like trading sentiment, look into opportunities within other Layer1 ecosystems—their foundations are brewing their own meme seasons.
5. Again emphasize: During a bull market, trading based on insider info offers the highest capital efficiency—as long as you have reliable sources, breathing equals earning. How to get reliable sources? Make friends. Make reliable friends.
6. The greatest alpha comes from the process of low-liquidity assets turning into high-liquidity ones. I’m closely watching NFTs and meme sectors recently—feel free to recommend in comments.
7. Everyone is building a Layer—especially Layer2s.
8. Crypto is all makeshift operations—all self-organized schemes. As long as you can gather a few key angels, recruit several major overseas institutions, and secure either Binance or OKX listing, congratulations—you’ve locked in a $1B valuation floor.
Kay Capital@keyahayek
1. I used years-worth of accumulated points to book a hotel room for a few hundred bucks, while the projects I invested in stayed at the Grand Hyatt for 5K.
2. Investors patch things together; project teams buy cars and houses.
0xNatalie@0xNatalie860
—“Observations from the 2024 Web3 Hong Kong Conference”
Bitcoin Ecosystem: Quite a few Bitcoin ecosystem projects—focused on trading, asset issuance protocols, mining hardware. All Chinese teams, but quality varies significantly in both technology and product.
CKB events drew massive crowds. They’ll soon focus on Lightning Network, and their ecosystem is developing faster than expected. Feels like everyone owns or once owned CKB, with most expressing optimism.
Solana Ecosystem: Mostly DePIN projects observed, AI+DePIN layered mining. Expect similar Solana-powered mining devices to emerge continuously—watches, bands, rings, various AR wearables. Unlike phones, these track health data and let users choose whether to share with data projects for rewards.
AI: Mainly privacy and data-related—using AI to process various data. Also saw many legacy projects pivoting to AI. Strangely, fewer AI projects than expected, and hardly any Chinese AI-native projects spotted.
TON Ecosystem: TON has grand ambitions and clearly wants to grow its ecosystem aggressively. Heard they offer strong support to ecosystem projects. Their booth faces the entrance and is packed every day.
A few final notes: Some payment/Web2.5 projects understood Web3 deeper than expected; foreigners are more optimistic than Chinese about bull market longevity; OKX’s booth was lively, though foreigners showed little interest—most visitors were Chinese; gaming and meme projects know how to party, hiring handsome guys, beautiful girls, and cosplayers to promote everywhere—it’s hard not to notice.
Caesar On The Moon@czreth
Three-Day Reflections from Hong Kong Web3 Festival:
1. Solana ecosystem dominated by Western retail and institutions, primarily pushing meme coins. The most visible coin at Hong Kong Web3 was $PENG, which surged 10x before crashing back down, erasing nearly all gains.
2. Chinese VCs are now chasing Bitcoin superiority—not just attracting traditional investors into BTC, but now panic-FOMOing into the BTC ecosystem, building various Bitcoin Layer2s and programmable UTXO projects.
3. TON ecosystem is largely European-led, highly FOMO-driven and community-powered. Most interesting is notcoin—massive surges of airdrops, click-to-mine games, gambling, and Telegram-based gaming projects emerging rapidly.
4. DePIN and RWA are now the top choices for traditional IT professionals transitioning into Web3. Saw projects like distributed WiFi mesh networks and decentralized EV charging stations—mostly targeting Southeast Asia, with Singapore as the main hub.
5. Massive influx of newcomers—highly educated, highly motivated individuals striving to build dreams in Web3. Local Hong Kong and Singapore projects are beginning to appear. However, general awareness among newcomers remains low. The lack of hustle among locals in Hong Kong and Singapore is striking. Entrepreneurs from Shenzhen and Hangzhou will meet up at 3 AM to chase opportunities, whereas getting a Hong Kong or Singapore youth out at that hour probably requires sex.
6. Hong Kong remains an international business hub and gathering place for old Chinese money. Despite recent pressures from Western countries, it continues to strive and fight hard.
7. Traditional crypto VCs are being rapidly squeezed by established wealth and emerging DeFi funds and community capital. Next-gen VCs are growing via social media—similar to Silicon Valley, but Web3 evolves even faster.
8. Airdrops are rapidly becoming a primary tool for projects to enter markets and capture users. As the bull market progresses, more and more projects will use airdrops, leading to increasingly intense battles between project teams and airdrop farming groups.
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