1. Qin Chuci, can you briefly introduce yourself to everyone?
Personal experience: I am a full-time entrepreneur who just graduated from Pennsylvania State University this year. I have been exposed to this industry since I was in college. I majored in CS and Math (computer science and mathematics) and started to work mainly in the technology circle. . During my internship at university, I worked as a full-stack engineer at Lenovo headquarters and now as a Deloitte analyst, so I got to know many technical experts.
Entrepreneurship experience: Then I started doing research and development when I was a sophomore. The last project I worked on was called Stonk, and I was the CTO at the time. Stonk is a short video + social networking + US stock brokerage app. You can think of it as Flush + Douyin. In June last year, we obtained a valuation of 20 million and successfully raised financing from Lionsgate. Now this app has been successfully launched. We are currently obtaining the financial regulatory qualifications of New York State, and we can use our Stonk app in the future. US stocks US stock trading.
Project 1: Overseas Circle Before Stonk, I also worked on another project called Overseas Circle. It was originally a social tool for American international students to socialize, but later I discovered that there are many businesses and local real estate agencies and used car buying and selling agencies to do some business matching in overseas circles.
Because American food delivery platforms charge very high commissions, they order food through group chats or tools similar to Moments. The Doordash here in the United States is Uber Eats (you can think of Meituan and Ele.me). Their commission is on average 25% to 30%. In fact, many merchants cannot accept this, so they will create their own social networks privately. group, and then let everyone place orders directly in the social group. Many Chinese people happen to be using my platform to order takeout.
Project 2: Stonk The startup Stonk made us feel that "short video + social + a traditional industry" is really a great way, but Stonk chose this U.S. stock brokerage platform.
Things currently being done:
Project Three: Yummy Ninja The current project "Yummy Ninja" is a combination of "overseas circle" and "Stonk". It is generally the direction of "short video + social + takeaway track". On this basis, we have added Web3 elements.
Because I came into contact with blockchain relatively early, I think DEX (decentralized exchanges) such as UNI and DYDX will become more and more common in the future, and I also think that embracing Web3 is the current trend. This is why I One of the reasons why I decided to quit my last startup CTO position was to choose my next startup.
In the overseas circle project, I found that everyone really comes together because of a certain interest, a certain kind of community, or a certain kind of fan effect. Let everyone participate in the operation of the entire system on their own, whether it is the act of ordering food, or pulling others into a group to order food, this is really like a prototype version of distributed operation! Isn't this the so-called DAO?
So this is also an opportunity. I want to use the concept of Web3 or DAO to subvert the traditional, centralized, or pyramid management model. I want this flat, distributed management model to replace the traditional, centralized management. model.
Personal introduction: Bachelor's degree in CS and Math, double major. I worked as a full-stack engineer at Lenovo headquarters and the Big Four in the United States. I started starting a business and doing projects in my sophomore year. I am now an entrepreneur in the web3 field.
2. How did you come into contact with crypto?
When I was a sophomore, I happened to have an elective course, and it was about crypto. Because he just started a class, that is, as long as you sign up/attend/take the exam, you will get an A, and then I signed up. Because of this, I started to get in touch with the crypto market, and then in 2019, There were probably quite a lot of opportunities in the crypto market at that time, so I was lucky enough to be exposed to crypto at that time.
Core point of view: If you learn about crypto in university courses, your exposure to blockchain overseas will be better than at home.
3. What do you think is the most attractive thing about the crypto industry?
I think he attracts me the most. Maybe it is the concept of DAO. I mentioned that I founded a club in school before and then started a business called overseas circle. It was a very coincidental situation. If you are sufficiently inspiring, or in other words, the overall motivation and individual motivation, when you reach a rather wonderful state, it will come naturally to many people. Organize and contribute to this organization. The club I ran before already has more than 70 people in the school, which is considered a relatively large club.
This is actually the reason why I started yummy business now, because the epidemic has just begun. Many restaurants use takeout platforms, and the commission is too high, so they will specifically come to my forum to post some posts, such as posting menus, and then many people will post in this way. There are some forms of mutual aid here in the United States, such as asking neighbors to help deliver food, which is a bit like a utopian form.
Then later, when I actually came into contact with some courses on this encryption, I learned that there is a term called DAO. There is a term called this decentralized, distributed self-made organization. I was thinking, isn’t this the same as the community I built? Isn’t this the same as the people in the forums in my entrepreneurship? So I was thinking if we could transform the current thing into the so-called web3. Would it be better? That’s why I started working on the yummy project.
Core point of view: Because I have started a business similar to a DAO organization before, I feel more attractive after being exposed to the concept of a DAO organization. There is a market pain point of inefficiency in web2's US takeout market, and the web3-oriented yummy project came into being.
4.Do you have a favorite track right now?
My favorite track is DAO. Of course, this is also the reason why I gave up my previous business and entered this business. My last startup was stonk, but you can think of it as a "flush" with the addition of the "Douyin + Xiaohongshu" function. But actually what do I think? The centralized trading platform will definitely be gradually cannibalized and outlawed by this decentralized trading platform. I think this may be a trend, but I don’t know if it will last ten or twenty years.
We are now working on a brand new web3 financial and payment infrastructure called NFT-F. The most important thing is to make NFT more effective in linking the real economy. We can even use it to change the way people work in the future and improve existing management and employment models, instead of just selling JPG pictures. Our vision is also that all industries involving commissions can be redone in the form of NFT-F.
And in order to implement and practice NFT-F, and constantly improve the details of NFT-F during exploration, we have already prepared an application scenario for NFT-F, Yummy Ninja.
This is a web3 short video social takeout platform. Compared with existing centralized takeout platforms, Yummy Ninja can help users save more, see more, and earn more.
We also hope that we can use the promotion and popularity of the Yummy Ninja case to further promote our NFT-F, which can subvert the traditional industry. Just in time, our Yummy Ninja takeout app is ready, and we will be here next Monday Yummy Ninja is in closed beta testing on the first day. You can download it from the US App Store or Google Play and give it a try.
The biggest advantage of our food delivery software is to use DAO to replace ZTE's pyramid management model. We can use this to save management costs to the extreme. We also want to use this advantage to help us build a fan economy. In this case, we can Differentiation from various traditional platforms, whether it is takeout, short videos or social platforms.
We will also use NFT-F for individual incentives. NFT-F is an NFT bound to something that can bring continuous income, and when the bound thing starts to make profits, the holder of NFT-F will also receive a share of this profit in real time and automatically. .
And we will develop a series of peripheral services around this main service, such as URI and smart contract hosting, deployment, triggers, oracles, as well as valuation and query systems. (In fact, you can also think of part of the NFT-F ecosystem as the web3 version of Stripe, or web3's fintech, interfaces and services)
The current trend of NFT is really bad. First of all, the intrinsic value of goods in the NFT market is not directly proportional to the price. There are many speculators. The price is determined by speculation rather than supply and demand. The market and transaction model are chaotic.
The current NFT market also urgently needs a new NFT application scenario to revive the confidence of the entire market. Even if NFT-F joins the hype, it can at least actually help the real economy and help a certain restaurant to truly increase their real sales. This is also the positive externality of NFT-F.
Core point of view: Use the DAO organization and the fan economy to bind the benefits to form individual incentives and bring sustainable benefits. The current NFT market also urgently needs a new NFT application scenario to revive the confidence of the entire market.
5. When do you think the next cycle will arrive?
I think it is already the next cycle, because the currency circle to the bottom of the retracement is generally 80%-85%, which is between 15000-12000. I have been investing regularly and divided the position into 5 parts. The second batch will be opened after the fixed investment is over. I basically use Coinbase for fixed investment, because it is a listed company subject to US supervision. Like FTX, which is both a referee and a player, it is inevitable that there will be problems. The US market prohibits this behavior by order to avoid the emergence of rat warehouses, otherwise it will be unfair to users.
I personally think that Bitcoin is a living antique. It will have the same value as a living antique in the future, just like the artworks of Leonardo da Vinci and Monet, which will be included in history textbooks, just like Monet, for example, who created this Impressionism. And this Satoshi Nakamoto created a distributed ledger.
I am even more optimistic about the future of Ethereum, and I firmly believe that the total market value in the future will exceed that of Bitcoin. I am also buying a large amount of eth. No matter how drastic the price change will be, even if it drops to 500 US dollars, I will still invest and hold it. In the long run, the price of eth will inevitably reach more than 10,000 US dollars. In the end, it doesn't matter whether you get on the bus for 1,500 or 500.
I have close contacts with people from the Ethereum Foundation, and I will always hold more than 32 spot eth.
Core point of view: I believe that Bitcoin has historical value, and I am more optimistic about the future development of Eth. The market value will exceed Bitcoin, and I am dividing my positions and investing in Eth.
6. For a project, do you think the most important thing is to make the cake bigger or divide it well?
I think dividing the cake may be more important for start-up companies. Dividing the cake well and working with the company's employees to make the cake bigger and stronger is a mechanism for sequential distribution. For me, I think we should first divide the cake, and then share enough cake with the members, and then let the members hold the cake in their hands and build it together, so that we can become bigger and stronger collectively. In fact, many outsourcing companies are like this too. Then in fact, it is easier for entrepreneurial teams from outsourcing companies to come in and believe in this project, such as stepn. In fact, their development speed is quite fast. Around October last year, they set up a project to do this project, and then very quickly, in March this year, I was discussing with my friends. I think I positioned him at that time. This is an interesting step in web3.
Because Qubu was very popular in China in the early days, stepn is the Qubu of web3, and successfully broke out of the circle. It is easier to get started and spread. They distributed the cake well in the early stage and allowed many Both early users and the team have gained very large benefits, promoting the success of the project.
Now yummy has been launched in the U.S. app store. You can download the product for trial use. Everyone is welcome to make valuable suggestions.
Core point of view: dividing the cake is more important than making the cake. The way of dividing the cake affects whether the cake can be bigger.