He Yi's view: The era of chasing yields may be over, and past logic no longer fits today's market.
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He Yi's view: The era of chasing yields may be over, and past logic no longer fits today's market.
Every cycle sees some projects survive both bull and bear markets, but those that truly endure across cycles are few and far between.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Yi He
Some observations, not investment advice.
2017 was the ICO era. Public fundraising directly replaced VC and PE, so the bull market of 2017–2018 belonged to OG endorsements and proxy investments. As long as you secured allocation, you could profit.
In 2021, DeFi rose and the actual market began to diversify. Pumping low-cap speculative tokens ("shitcoins") in a recursive manner allowed quick traders to make money.
Back then, IEOs still allowed negotiations with project teams to allocate portions for users, so listings were generally priced low—leading to the typical trend of "buy new, not old" during that period.
But now, IEOs are widely considered legally risky in most jurisdictions, so distributions have shifted to airdrops and market-based pricing. This means if circulation is high and initial listing prices are low, projects tend to perform more steadily (e.g., BB, Lista). However, compared to 2021, price surges still happen too fast, lacking sufficient washing-out phases.
The 2024 rally was kickstarted by BTC ETFs. The smart money this cycle belongs to blue-chip projects and farming studios—they’ve cooperated closely, generating impressive metrics. On one hand, project teams can raise larger amounts from VCs (if you observe top-tier VCs, most now manage over a billion dollars, which naturally drives up valuations of quality projects). On the other hand, well-funded projects with large user bases are confident—having millions of on-chain users means it doesn’t matter much whether a platform lists them or not. Plenty of CEXs want to list them; if not, there are DEXs, or even their own native DEX on their chain.
Trading platforms don't hold pricing power, so for highly valued projects, focus on fundamentals rather than just market cap—ideally also examine circulating supply.
Today, the market has indeed changed again. The self-destructive infighting between farming studios and L2 projects has turned into farce—the farming era may be ending. Both primary and secondary markets now have many more professional players equipped with various risk hedging tools. While this expands overall market scale, for ordinary investors, strategies from 2017’s ICOs, 2021’s IEOs and shitcoin loops, or even 2023’s farming tactics, no longer fit today’s environment.
Would a market with less VC funding and fewer projects be healthier? In every cycle, only a few projects survive both bull and bear markets, while countless blue-chip projects fail along the way. Whether Web2 or Web3, entrepreneurial success is rare—and projects that cross the chasm and endure across cycles are even more exceptional.
Investment carries risk. Enter the market with caution.
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Yi He
