TechFlow news: Yi He, co-founder of Binance, posted on Binance Square stating: "2017 was the ICO era—simply securing allocation guaranteed profits. In 2021, DeFi rose; users rushed into meme coins and recursive schemes, profiting as long as they exited quickly. 'Buy new, not old' became a hallmark of that period. However, today IEOs are widely considered legally risky in most jurisdictions, so projects now rely on airdrops and market pricing. When token circulation is high and initial listing prices are low, projects tend to perform steadily, such as BB and LISTA. Yet compared to 2021, price pumps remain too rapid, lacking sufficient accumulation phases.
The 2024 rally was ignited by BTC ETFs. Tier-1 projects and bounty farming studios jointly generated impressive metrics—on one hand, projects can now raise larger sums from VCs; on the other, well-funded projects with strong user bases grow increasingly confident. With millions of users on-chain, whether a platform lists them becomes irrelevant—plenty of CEXs are eager to list, and if CEXs don’t, there are DEXs, or even native DEXs on their own chains. Exchanges no longer hold pricing power. Therefore, for highly valued projects, investors must assess fundamentals rather than relying solely on market cap—circulating supply should also be carefully examined.
Today, the infighting between farming studios and L2 projects has devolved into farce, signaling the possible end of the farming era. For ordinary investors, strategies from 2017's ICOs, 2021's IEOs and recursive schemes, or even 2023's farming tactics, may no longer fit today’s market."
