In the 2010s, cryptocurrencies had yet to establish valid use cases for Bitcoin and altcoins until Ethereum smart contracts enabled early teams to raise funds from backers scattered around the world. We’ve seen Ethereum bootstrap a global decentralized computer, giving rise to DeFi, NFTs, and various crypto primitives with less than $20 million raised by the global community.

Many other projects soon followed suit, and we observed a new dynamic whereby raising early-stage funding from a decentralized community almost always provided more value-add to the project and entrepreneur than even the best and most well-intentioned venture capitalists could offer. Through a decentralized group of investors, entrepreneurs could gain free work from evangelists, beta testers, and code contributors contributing to the project at hand. Additionally, the shorter liquidity timeframe provided a better risk-reward for early investors.

Unfortunately, ICOs are slowly being stifled and deemed 'non-compliant' with regulations that have never been clearly articulated. By 2020, their pace had slowed, with 88% of ICO tokens trading below their issue price.

Fast forward to 2025, we can see the convergence of some significant inputs that have led to the resurgence of compelling investment opportunities, but characterized very differently from ICO 1.0.

ICO 2.0

1. Update regulatory stance

We predict that value accumulation will be the fundamental reason for this round of investment tokens. Entrepreneurs and investors in this space have matured and are ready to collectively acknowledge that most tokens have profit expectations. In fact, one might argue that the confusion over how token holders are compensated, as a manual attempt to evade the Howey test, is the primary issue that has emerged for the first time.

MACE will focus on the uneven distribution of tokens, the excessive concentration of chips, and reasonably concentrate on the issue of converting profits back into fiat, which is a proper attempt to meet reasonable regulatory bodies.

2. Market trading volume

We see certain mid-market companies rapidly declining, which can reshape their business models through community-led and decentralized approaches. For example, mid-sized media companies, including newspapers and magazines, are a clear business model that can be greatly improved by using token economics to push journalists toward a higher professional track.

Cryptocurrency now has a decent entry threshold and good user-facing applications. Most importantly, the community has shown an incredible ability to publicly identify charlatans and root out bad actors, far more effective than government oversight. The brilliance of open decentralized ledgers is a particularly powerful force.

Impact and predictions

So what does all this mean for the crypto community?

In the coming years, we will see the total capital formation of DeFi, NFTs, RWAs, and many other crypto primitives reach hundreds of billions of dollars.

M&A activity will become an important part of on-chain capital formation activities. Whether traditional companies take cryptocurrency seriously and reclaim lost ground, such as in the Stripe-Bridge deal, or EVM L2s realize that only a few firms can survive and join forces, we will see M&A activities worth billions.

Moreover, mid-market Web2 and traditional companies will seek to reshape their business models as they can use token incentives in a less hostile environment. We see companies in the energy, media, art, and telecommunications sectors seriously considering token incentives, transforming their value chains into open markets, and quickly acquiring customers while utilizing cheaper labor.

We are also optimistic that regenerative financing, which merges capitalist and charitable missions, will find its place. We are very excited about how cryptocurrency will change the paradigm in a more compelling way than we have seen so far, linking reasonable capital returns with social goals.

We predict that we will see a range of new ways to select ICO participants, whether as rewards for LPs, relying on on-chain activity-based reputation, or through the use of certain proofs. The byproduct of this will be a better balance between retail and institutional/venture investors, ensuring transparency, fairness, and justice.

Like the cryptocurrency space, we will continue to see constant innovation and new ideas that bring more early financing opportunities. Many exciting new teams clearly see that the natural trading medium for artificial intelligence will be through cryptocurrency, and they are preparing accordingly. AI agents will guide themselves through token-supported fundraising mechanisms that merge debt and equity principles.

Overall, we are optimistic that the cryptocurrency community has internalized the lessons learned along the resilient evolutionary path to this point. As a series of opportunities for capital allocation emerge next year, we encourage everyone in the cryptocurrency space to be bold in speaking out, publicly highlighting the danger signals of due diligence, and steering the industry towards open access, fair launches, and projects that directly create value for society.

Its core goal is to make science more transparent, open, and efficient. Inspired by the DeSci model, not only can scientists directly raise funds from the global community through DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), but data and papers will be transparent and accessible for free to everyone, allowing all industries to raise funds fairly and justly from the global community.

MaceProtocol is committed to creating a fair, transparent trading ecosystem where any trader can create their own exclusive work, publicly auction it urgently, and trade on-chain futures contracts.

The Macecoin token distribution model is simple and transparent, with the R&D team receiving 10%, institutions 6% released over three years, and the remaining 84% raised through a fair and transparent crowdfunding model for global community investors, raising $10 million. The tokens raised are released weekly at 15% for each investor's raised tokens to ensure the value experience of Mace tokens. Early investors will have all tokens burned upon selling, effectively destroying 80% of the total MACE token supply. Of the funds raised, 80% will be used for liquidity pool additions and burned. The remaining 20% will go towards ecosystem development costs, with each expense monitored by DAO community nodes.

Fair launches represent a better way forward, and we should all strive to achieve a more equitable and transparent fundraising process. There are still many issues to be resolved, and as we move forward, some astonishing failures will emerge, but decentralized capital formation is the original killer application of cryptocurrency, and it is worth continuing to develop.

MACE is the governance token of the MACE protocol, used for governance and decentralization, whitelisting access, curation management, connecting Macedao and protocol liquidity, with $900,000 raised in pre-seed funding; $1.4 million in seed funding; investments from notable crypto venture capital firms Node Capital, Draper Associates, and Paradigm.

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