Crypto is still an industry undergoing rapid transformation
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Crypto is still an industry undergoing rapid transformation
Two conferences, two crypto worlds.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Zhou Zhou, Foresight News
Crypto remains an industry undergoing hyper-fast evolution.
There’s been a thought lingering in my mind: “Aside from policy-driven developments like ETFs, this cycle hasn’t seen real technological innovation in crypto.” Yet after attending the Foresight 2024 conference, one impression stood out clearly—crypto is still an industry rapidly iterating and transforming.
Organizing an annual industry summit offers a valuable opportunity to review the entire year's progress in the crypto space. Unlike the Foresight 2023 event held in April last year, nearly every aspect of this year’s Foresight conference—the invited speakers, panel topics, audience discussions, and even logistical details—felt dramatically different.
The key guests have changed. Lily Liu, Chairwoman of the Solana Foundation, attended this year’s conference. Over the past year, Solana has re-emerged as one of the brightest ecosystems in this cycle, repeatedly shaking the industry with innovations such as Saga (Solana’s mobile phone), pump.fun (a meme coin platform), and blinks (on-chain links). "Solana possesses three major advantages: high performance, capital liquidity, and talent mobility. It hosts the second-largest developer ecosystem globally," Lily Liu said during a panel discussion, citing these as core reasons for Solana’s renewed success.
Steve Yun, Chairman of TON Foundation, also joined the summit. In the first half of this year, the TON ecosystem suddenly exploded, with several mini-games gaining massive popularity. Steve Yun shared some staggering figures from the TON ecosystem: "Hamster Kombat reached 239 million users within three months of launch; Catizen achieved 400,000 active on-chain users and generated $20 million in profit within five months."
How attractive is TON to project teams? Ming, PR lead at HashKey Global, shared recent data: "Our TON-based Web3 game Da Jindog launched on July 2nd and had accumulated 3.5 million registered accounts by August 20th." Generating millions of users in just over a month is enough to make many Web3 builders seriously consider building on TON.
Steve Yun at the Foresight Conference
Even private conversations among attendees have shifted. Founders attending the Hong Kong summit are now passionately discussing a team oceans away—Base.
From Friend Tech and Farcaster to the meme coin frenzy, Base has repeatedly broken into mainstream awareness and captured native crypto users. As the public blockchain of Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, Base is now regarded by many entrepreneurs as one of the most promising blockchain ecosystems in this cycle. In my conversations with founders, it’s clear that Base has become their new battleground of choice.
Two Conferences, Two Worlds
"We’re planning to migrate from Blast to the Base ecosystem," a project founder told me.
At Foresight 2024, multiple founders from various ecosystems told me they were either preparing or had already begun moving into Base. Some are building DeFi applications, others are working on AI+Crypto projects or stablecoins—but they all share one commonality: serious consideration or active migration to Base.
"Base has more traffic and offers greater support to builders," the founder explained.
Today, Base has become one of the largest traffic hubs in Web3. The number of cumulative on-chain addresses on Base has surpassed 100 million, with over 500,000 new addresses added daily in the past month alone. And this growth shows no signs of slowing down. Jesse, founder of Base, noted that last week saw 4 million active addresses on Base—a new record high.
Image source: IntoTheBlock
In the past two weeks, Base’s daily active addresses have exceeded the combined total of Arbitrum and Optimism. As one of today’s most vibrant ecosystems, Base continues to draw waves of new entrepreneurs. Of course, some who’ve already entered the ecosystem report challenges when adapting to Base’s unique environment.
"Base doesn't seem to prioritize the Asian market right now," one crypto professional told me, recounting a previous conversation with Base’s ecosystem lead in Singapore.
"We want to enter Base, but the KOLs there aren’t part of the same circles we used before—that’s a hurdle," said a founder from the Blast ecosystem.
These discussions stand in stark contrast to last year’s summit. At the Foresight 2023 Web3 Conference in April last year, Base had only just launched. Though over a thousand people attended, almost no one mentioned Base—neither positively nor negatively. Today, not talking about Base is unthinkable.
Two Web3 conferences, two entirely different worlds. The hot topics debated in April last year are vastly different from those dominating conversations in August this year.
The five sectors currently generating the most excitement in crypto—and potentially home to the next generation of super apps: Solana, TON, Base, Blast, and the Bitcoin ecosystem—were barely noticed at last year’s summit. Now, they’re widely seen as future trends likely to go mainstream.
Blast shares a similar trajectory.
During the Foresight 2023 Web3 Summit in April last year, Blast hadn’t even launched—no one mentioned it. Yet within just over six months, Blast evolved from a controversial newcomer into one of Ethereum’s top-five L2s by ecosystem热度. Today, everyone knows Blast, and countless projects have rushed into its ecosystem. Although interest cooled quickly after its airdrop concluded, the foundational infrastructure has already taken shape.
The Foresight team was fortunate to invite Pacman, founder of both Blast and Blur, as a guest speaker at this year’s conference, joining us via an online fireside chat.
When asked whether the NFT boom would return, he responded that despite new experiments like ERC-404, there hasn’t been any true innovation in this cycle yet. On the topic of popular projects migrating from Blast to Solana, Pacman said he respects their decisions—migrations are normal in the industry.
Solana, TON, Base, Blast, and the Bitcoin ecosystem… none of these were meaningfully discussed at last year’s Foresight conference in April. Today, they are central concerns for practitioners and naturally became key panel topics at this year’s Foresight summit.
Comparing the agenda shifts between the two annual summits reveals just how fast the crypto industry evolves. Some organizations didn’t exist or were just launching—like Base and Blast. Others were considered outdated—like Solana. Some were doubted whether they could succeed—like TON. And some weren’t even recognized as legitimate sectors—like the Bitcoin ecosystem. Yet today, these are precisely the hottest ecosystems—these are where the future lies.
In just over a year, the crypto landscape has been completely transformed—everything feels different.
Change and Continuity
Change is the norm in crypto; continuity points toward its future.
At last year’s Foresight conference in April, two major themes dominated: “Hong Kong + Crypto” and “AI+Crypto.”
Back then, both sectors were just beginning to gain traction, already hailed as important future directions. This year, they remain central topics—but what’s changed is that instead of mere speculation, both now have tangible, real-world applications.
“Hong Kong + Crypto” has taken initial shape. Two companies—HashKey and OSL—have emerged as licensed crypto firms in Hong Kong, with HashKey targeting retail users and OSL focusing on institutional clients.
A crypto exchange executive who wished to remain anonymous told me: "HashKey Global is already generating $200,000 in fee revenue per day—an achievement reached just two weeks after launch."
"Futures trading contributes roughly 50% of that revenue," the executive added. After a difficult regulatory negotiation process, Hong Kong’s compliant crypto exchanges are finally starting to expand internationally.
Beyond exchange operations, the “Hong Kong + Crypto” ecosystem has already formed over a dozen practical sectors, including crypto ETFs, crypto brokerages, asset management, custody services, data providers, insurance, insurance brokers, stablecoins, and more. Each sector includes anywhere from three or four to dozens of companies.
At Foresight 2024, we invited representatives from five different sectors of Hong Kong’s regulated crypto industry to share their experiences over the past year. These included Matrixport, a leader in Asian digital assets; Circle Technology, a player in Hong Kong’s stablecoin space; HashKey, the leading crypto exchange in Hong Kong; HUO Fire Tech, a Hong Kong-listed company focused on crypto asset custody; and Bitrace, a crypto data service expanding into Hong Kong.
A year ago in April, I couldn’t find a single representative Hong Kong-based crypto company with real operations to invite to the Foresight summit. This year, the situation has completely reversed—a compliant crypto industry ecosystem has taken preliminary shape, all within just over a year.
Of course, some earlier unrealistic expectations have been shattered. For example, the total market cap of Hong Kong’s crypto ETFs remains extremely low—less than 1% of their U.S. counterparts. Similarly, Hong Kong’s exchange and stablecoin businesses are still far behind giants like Binance and Tether. But what about one year from now? Two years?
“AI+Crypto” follows a similar path. There are now numerous companies dedicated exclusively to this intersection—some building Web3 AI large models, others developing Web3 AI applications, and still others constructing Web3 AI infrastructure.
The TAO ecosystem has emerged as a leader in this field. Grayscale, which led the way with Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, has also launched a fund for TAO.
Last year, we titled our AI-related panel “Web3’s Future Amid the GPT-4 Wave,” inviting media figures, AI entrepreneurs, and traditional investors. This year, the panel title is “AI+Crypto: From Narrative to Application,” and all our guests are founders deeply embedded in this niche—perhaps reflecting the maturation of the AI+Crypto space.
At the 2023 Foresight Conference, “Hong Kong + Crypto” and “AI+Crypto” were barren deserts. At Foresight 2024, they’ve grown into lush grasslands teeming with hundreds of companies. By the time Foresight 2025 rolls around, towering trees may well be rising from this fertile ground.
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