ORC Trade Dialogue Chain Catcher: What is the purpose of building the Southeast Asian market?

Author: ORC Trade

On November 10th at 9 AM Eastern Time, ORC Trade held the latest AMA session. Leo, an investment manager from CatcherVC, was invited to participate in this event to discuss the market development strategies of Chain Catcher in Southeast Asia.

Background:

Recently, Hunter He, a partner at Chain Catcher, announced at the "Age of Crypto" event in Bangkok that Chain Catcher is forming a team to focus on the growth of the Southeast Asian crypto market, emphasizing innovation in crypto applications, localization efforts, and developer training. What is the purpose of this?

Questions:

Host: Could you please provide a detailed introduction to Chain Catcher and CatcherVC, so that our users in Europe and America can better understand the experiences and current achievements of Chain Catcher and CatcherVC?

Leo:

Hello everyone, nice to meet you. I am Leo from CatcherVC, responsible for primary market investments in application layers and NFT tech, currently focusing on NFT/DeFi/infrastructure.

CatcherVC is a blockchain venture capital firm based in China and Singapore. Our portfolio includes some very successful examples, such as Alchemy Pay, ALEX, Blocto, Scroll Tech, Orbiter Finance, Metis, Thales, XY Finance, PawnFi, and Strips Finance. Our vision is to help Asian entrepreneurs connect with Silicon Valley and the world.

At the same time, we also operate the well-known Chinese blockchain media, Chain Catcher. Chain Catcher is a leading blockchain media outlet in China, established in 2018, with over 200,000 readers and followers, including CEOs of major tech companies and Web2 developers.

Host: What characteristics do Chain Catcher prefer in the crypto projects they invest in? When investing in projects, products, or founders, which do you think is more important?

Leo:

We invest in various sectors of web3, whether it's DeFi, NFT, infrastructure, etc. When investing, we place more emphasis on: first, whether the team has a clear plan, whether the product is innovative enough, and whether the founder has sufficient confidence in what they are doing, which I believe is the most important.

In a bear market, teams that can survive are far more valuable than those that only have innovative ideas.

Host: When does Chain Catcher believe the next bull market will arrive? What sectors should we pay attention to in the next bull market?

Leo:

While investing, we pay more attention to the macro economy because we believe that all investment activities cannot be separated from economic cycles. We are also more willing to actively believe that the economy will gradually recover starting in the third quarter of next year. ZK zero-knowledge proofs will become a future trend, and NFT tech will play a more important role in web3.

Host: In the current bear market, can you give some advice to entrepreneurs and users from an investor's perspective?

Leo:

Be prepared; this may be a long and difficult battle:

1) Continuous cash flow,

2) Relatively conservative business strategies,

3) Paying more attention to product vulnerabilities than ever before,

4) Never ever give up; always maintain sufficient confidence in what you are doing.

Host: Why does Chain Catcher focus on driving growth in Southeast Asia? Especially regarding the support for localized innovative products and developers in Southeast Asia?

Leo:

Through our in-depth research and collaboration in Southeast Asia, we found that each region has its own characteristics:

Singapore and Hong Kong have a large number of investment institutions, making them suitable for seeking financing opportunities.

In Thailand, the Thai royal family has laid out many web3 industries.

Vietnam and other Southeast Asian regions have a solid foundation in web3 gaming.

Southeast Asia has the most passionate developer teams, relaxed political policies, and a friendly Asian cultural environment. In the past two years, we have seen significant development potential in Southeast Asia.

Host: Chain Catcher believes that innovation at the application level is an important driving force for the explosion of the crypto industry. Can you explain why?

Leo:

From the historical perspective of traditional industry development, the return on investment in the infrastructure sector is far less than that in the application sector. Therefore, we firmly believe that the biggest opportunities in blockchain have yet to come. We believe that the real explosion of blockchain will occur at the application layer, marking an era of large-scale applicability for web3.

Host: What are Chain Catcher's future plans?

Leo:

The Southeast Asian market is the starting point for our global investments. In the future, we will promote the globalization of products and investments. First, we will improve the Southeast Asian market and use it as a base to radiate throughout the Asia-Pacific region. During this period, we will conduct thorough research and market operations. At the same time, we will also vigorously recruit local talent to increase the local labor employment rate and allow web3 to thrive locally.