Founder of IOSG Ventures: The Eastern crypto community cannot always be a meme; the Eastern community needs a raging fire

Author: Jocy, Founder of IOSG Ventures

Recently, I happened to see the story of Tianxingjian, and the Hundred Days' Reform is vivid in my memory. It's hard to imagine that in a dynasty like the Qing, there were young people willing to risk execution to follow Emperor Guangxu, advocating for new laws that were over a hundred years ahead, learning from the West to counter the West, disregarding personal safety, and promoting the study of Western reform laws. Although the final outcome was a failure, their spirit and actions left a significant mark. Such young people and pioneers have become role models admired by later generations.

The spirit of these young people is equally important in today's crypto world. Currently, many practitioners are shouting against the "Western powers," but in reality, they are engaging in Restaking and layered mining with one hand, and liquidity pool front-running with the other, constantly posting memes and "shitcoins" on Twitter. Everyone knows where the problem lies, yet they compromise for immediate benefits. Both Eastern and Western crypto communities are currently caught up in the frenzy of meme speculation, which is akin to opium; it is an input of Western opium, and currently, the leading memes in the BN space come from the West. Entrepreneurs and community builders may lose their way due to this noise, and the Eastern crypto community is deeply entrenched in meme speculation. Many entrepreneurs, after witnessing the success of memes, begin to doubt their entrepreneurial direction and original intentions. I believe entrepreneurs should resist memes and not shift their entrepreneurial focus towards them, nor engage in a production line approach to hype memes!

We need young people who balance being grounded with looking up at the stars, especially those entrepreneurs who can shoulder the ideals of Eastern crypto. Such young people should not only engage in trading-related activities during this bull market or the last one, but should focus on building infrastructure and protocols, creating a better community atmosphere. Instead of allowing aspiring developers and young people to immerse themselves daily in various stories of getting rich through memes.

To reiterate my stance, I do not oppose traders who advocate for memes in this market. Personally, I have been part of the Dogecoin community since 2013 and have always liked this community, but I do not wish for meme traders to become the most mainstream faction in the Chinese community. Since the approval of the ETF, I have clearly felt a rapid emergence of entrepreneurs from the US and Europe, who have received ample capital support from American funds, while some major American funds internally claim they do not invest in Chinese Web3 entrepreneurs. In the crypto era, there seems to be a significant difference and divergence between the East and West, from technology to community. While Western technology continues to emerge, the Eastern crypto community is caught up in the hype of memes, which is clearly not a healthy development trend.
Meme speculation has a certain lottery effect; the probability of winning for later participants will continue to decline. Meanwhile, like opium, memes will create path dependence for early beneficiaries, with more people endorsing memes in the community (similar to compradors). The community easily reinforces such money-making paths, but this does not make our technical protocols and community more unique and powerful. Early participants may profit from it, but this short-sighted behavior, this gambling game, and the legends of getting rich will ultimately lead to the bursting of this bubble, becoming a disaster for the Eastern crypto market, replaying the story of NFTs from the last bull market cycle. I firmly believe that most leading Eastern entrepreneurs will persist in their frontline ventures, finding their own piece of the puzzle in infrastructure or application joy, keeping pace with and even leading the mainstream protocols in the West.

Perhaps the crypto market should not be divided into East and West; it is a decentralized world. In the past few cycles, we have seen the myriad faces of Eastern and Western entrepreneurs: the success of Western entrepreneurs has its reasons. Rune Christensen, the founder of MakerDAO, has been in Web3 entrepreneurship for many years, successfully increasing his protocol's revenue significantly in the high-interest rate and bear market environment in the US. In March of this year, he launched the Endgame plan and various SubDAOs, including the Spark SubDAO focused on lending protocols; the founder of EigenLayer had an overloaded meeting schedule during ETHDenver, personally communicating with partners and streamlining each meeting to 15/30 minutes. It can be seen that in this global competitive market, many entrepreneurs are sprinting on the front lines; the founder of Uniswap, originally a hardware engineer, self-taught Solidity to create fifty lines of streamlined code, leading the industry in Dex AMM innovation. They have always focused on product design and protocol understanding, pursuing a leading position in the industry. Eastern entrepreneurs are the most resilient and powerful group; we also see many outstanding individuals, but they still need more support and positive feedback from the community. The Eastern community should be more united and strong, spending time discussing how to learn from the West to counter the West, and facing how to support a stronger Eastern mysterious community force. When the community and entrepreneurs reach a consensus, it will also bring more positive feedback to the protocols.

As a fund originating from Asia, IOSG will invest in and support more Chinese entrepreneurs in this cycle, helping them better enter the Western market and become mainstream. You cannot imagine that in three to five years, the mainstream of this industry will still be memes. As we ride the waves of the crypto era, everyone inevitably becomes a wave rider; under the footnotes of the times, everyone is small, but do not overlook the negative energy that all the calls to invest in memes bring to the Chinese community.

In summary: We should be more united and face future challenges together. The community needs higher ideals and vision, and some people need to stand up for the future of the Eastern community. Crypto is not just about memes; there are many infrastructure and application opportunities waiting to be explored and discovered, which are the true industry alpha. IOSG will promote the long-term development of the industry and community by investing in and supporting young people who are at the forefront, helping Eastern entrepreneurs shine in the global market.

Note: The accompanying image is from the Dogecoin community.