What should a good project look like? I think at least it should be able to make money. Many web3 projects boast revolutionary and innovative features, but when asked about income, they seem to stall. Projects like $AVA that quietly focus on serious profit-making are too few. However, I've recently researched a good project called dappOS, and their newly launched spot trading feature based on its intent network, Intentex, is quite meaningful. They are also currently conducting an airdrop with Binance Wallet, so everyone can go experience it and grab a thousand bucks.
1. Founders:
Ty Shen
Tsinghua University, majoring in Mathematics and Software Development. Ty Shen previously founded Tsing Visual, a company focused on virtual reality (VR) technology, which was acquired in 2016. He is also the former CTO and co-founder of Alchemy Pay. (This part is questionable as there is very little information about Ty Shen online; these experiences come from press releases, and he has not publicly appeared or has a Twitter account.)
2. Investors:
The investment lineup is very luxurious, not only with Binance, POLYCHAIN, Ouyi, Tron, and ZhiMa, these blockchain giants, but also with IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital, these old-school venture capital firms. The strength of these two venture capital institutions should be well known among those involved in entrepreneurial investment in China. Here’s a brief introduction to IDG Capital.
IDG Capital, ranked among the top 5 Chinese venture capitals, not every venture capital can be sanctioned by the U.S.
How powerful is IDG? It has been sanctioned by the United States.
A few days ago, I strongly recommended AVA, saying it was the Ctrip of the crypto circle, and IDG shares my view.
In 1999, invested 430,000 USD in Ctrip for a 12.5% stake, which today is valued at 5.885 billion USD, yielding a return of 13,686 times.
In 2003, invested 1.5 million USD in Home Inn. Later, during the privatization process, these shares were worth 212 million USD, yielding a return of 141 times.
In 2000, invested 1.5 million USD in Baidu for a 5% stake.
In 2000, invested 1.1 million USD in Tencent, obtaining 20% equity.
That's right, IDG invested in two of the three major Chinese internet companies back then.
Look at their return rate.
Entering the new century, IDG hasn't fallen behind. Just look at this key investment portfolio; it's making a fortune!
IDG's investments in the crypto circle are also early and differ from other crypto VCs that like to invest in projects with no profit potential, solely relying on token issuance for funding. They invest in companies that can be grounded and profitable. In 2012, when the blockchain and digital asset industry was still in its infancy, they made angel investments in Coinbase, becoming the first investment fund in China to invest in a Bitcoin company. Coinbase later became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States and successfully listed on NASDAQ in April 2021, bringing IDG Capital thousands of times the return on investment. Furthermore, IDG Capital has been involved with Bitmain, the world's largest mining machine developer, imToken, the largest mobile Ethereum wallet, Circle, the company with the most digital asset-related licenses in the U.S., and Liquid, Japan's largest licensed fiat-to-digital asset trading platform.
3. Operating Model:
dappOS is creating an on-chain exchange, which is a proven business model. For example, the leading on-chain exchange, Uniswap, reached a monthly trading volume of 38 billion USD in November, with a total fee of 5.44 million USD, ranking sixth among DeFi protocols. So how does dappOS stand out in the fierce competition of on-chain exchanges?
1. Intent Execution. Intent refers to the user's intention. The biggest problem with current on-chain trading is its complexity, which has become the greatest barrier for the public to participate in blockchain. Intent execution means dappOS aims to be the user's on-chain trading AI butler. Users only need to state their purpose, similar to browsing Taobao. All other details are handled by dappOS. Anyone who has traded on-chain knows how cumbersome, slow, and unsafe on-chain trading can be. Now, you can trade on-chain just like with centralized exchanges. The release of Windows 95 completely changed the complexity of computer operations by introducing a user-friendly graphical interface integrated with internet browsers. This significant shift allowed people without a technical background to perform complex operations with just clicks and drags. Consequently, the number of internet users surged from 14% of American adults in 1995 to 46% within five years. Today, the Web3 ecosystem is at a similar turning point, and dappOS is working hard to solve the complexities that hinder broader user adoption of blockchain.
How simple is it? I completed the airdrop in just five steps, without using any brainpower; this is the easiest airdrop I've ever done.
2. Intent Spot Trading IntentEX.
IntentEX allows you to delegate your order to professional service nodes in the dappOS intent execution network and allows service nodes to complete the final settlement on the opBNB chain. This design not only enables users to seamlessly trade assets across any chain within intentEX but also fully leverages the high speed and low fees of opBNB, allowing users to trade faster and cheaper while enjoying a good trading experience. Additionally, these service nodes, based on the internal order book, can help users capture institutional-level liquidity through dappOS network nodes.
Compared to traditional on-chain exchanges, IntentEX has the following advantages:
Full market liquidity: Through dappOS's professional service nodes, users can capture institutional-level liquidity and quickly match optimal prices.
Lightning-fast transactions: Settling on opBNB allows for very fast execution of trades; additionally, dappOS's OMS mechanism can sometimes exceed the block speed of public chains for transaction confirmation, allowing users to enjoy a trading experience close to that of centralized exchanges.
Low fees: Settling on the high-speed, low-cost opBNB incurs a trading fee of only 0.1%, lower than most on-chain exchanges.
Decentralization and Transparency: All transactions are publicly recorded on-chain, ensuring the security and transparency of transactions.
The formation of exchanges has led to the concentration of liquidity, which is the foundation of an exchange's vitality and economic function. If the market becomes difficult to complete transactions due to a lack of liquidity, then the market loses its foundational existence. Currently, an increasing number of chains and exchanges are causing blockchains to become more fragmented, turning into isolated islands. Although there were cross-chain bridges before, they required users to manually bridge chains, with high learning costs and low security, where a single mistake could result in lost funds, much like a small boat. What IntentEX aims to create is a major cross-sea bridge.
4. Trading Volume and Revenue:
Since DappOS is a relatively new project, its trading volume, user base, and revenue may be influenced by various factors, so specific revenue data cannot be provided. However, during the cooperation period between DappOS and the perpetual contract platform GMX, significant achievements were made, such as achieving 6,000 weekly active users and nearly 150 million USD in trading volume from January to March 2024, with peak daily trading volume exceeding 10 million USD.
5. Market Value:
On July 20, 2023, seed round financing led by IDG Capital and Sequoia China, with a valuation of 50 million USD.
In March 2024, in a Series A financing led by Polychain, raised 15.3 million USD, with a valuation of 300 million USD.
Summary: Top venture capital institutions' investment, Binance's traffic support, a story that is sufficiently imaginative, and based on my operational experience, they have already realized 80% of what they initially boasted. However, the founder's mystery and the lack of user numbers and trading volume cast some uncertainty on this project. Of course, venture capital does come with risks, and compared to most current blockchain projects, this one is relatively grounded. The only uncertainty is whether and when the project will issue tokens. It’s worth noting that the current valuation is already 300 million USD, and if they issue a token that immediately reaches 5 billion USD, there may not be much room for growth. I just hope the project team can think bigger and help us retail investors take off.