I feel that the new main lines of this round are starting to become clearer, namely
PayFI
AI Agent
Memes
The last round was also about three main lines: DeFi, NFT, and X2Earn.
Let me briefly explain why it is these three.
The biggest theme of this round should be what Trump said in his victory speech yesterday, "Common Sense", or the Anti-narrative. The market has started to feel nauseated towards projects that only focus on narratives and only pay attention to technology/infrastructure. Projects must return to common sense - what you create must really be used and purchased by someone (at least with NFTs, people can still buy monkeys and Punk avatars to show off, right?).
In the past two years, there have been a bunch of decentralized computing power / model training / inference projects. Just imagine if you were a serious AI startup, would you really give up using Hugging Face, not buy cloud computing power from AWS or Azure, but instead use Web3's "decentralized" computing power / models / inference platforms? Ask yourself, does this make sense?
Now let’s talk about why I think the following three lines make sense currently.
1. PayFi - Connecting to the real world
In the last two months, the most intensive track I have seen and discussed in the primary market feels like many new + old PayFi projects that were dormant / developing furtively have jumped out. Stripe's acquisition of Bridge for 11.1 billion dollars can be seen as a landmark event.
You might not have noticed or may not know that
PayPal's issuance of $PYUSD has already exceeded 500 million (it recently surged to 1 billion).
Osmosis, scrvUSD are both working on Debit Cards, and there are other Crypto Cards based on Ton or other chains on the way.
Some are cooperating with Visa/Master to develop supply chain finance or accelerate settlement.
Some are directly negotiating with banks to bypass Visa and Master for settlement.
* There are those providing merchants with Crypto Native Payment + DeFi Yield POS systems based on architectures like Solana Pay, without affecting traditional VISA/Master card swiping.
Some are directly using on-chain + ZKTLS for P2P OTC deposits and withdrawals.
There are even those who are moving the main logic of banks onto the chain, directly using NFT logins + KYC, providing on-chain banking + traditional banking binding, allowing for transfers + deposits and withdrawals, swiping Crypto Cards, and even directly Swift to traditional bank accounts.
A more "fast, good, and economical" payment system that directly allows you to swipe your Crypto assets for consumption, with safer deposits and withdrawals... These are all real user needs. If done well, there will really be users / institutions, including Web2 players, willing to use it. In the end, everyone might discover that the key to achieving Web3 Mass Adoption is neither social nor gaming, but this PayFi track.
2. AI Agent - Enhancing the on-chain world
In the past year and more, I discussed hundreds of AI projects, but didn't really take action because it felt like the combination was a bit awkward, even with those leading and so-called king projects. You see, when Vitalik was interviewed about the AI X Crypto combination last year, he was actually asked this question; his answers generally revolved around AI helping Crypto rather than the other way around. But in the crypto space, to dream, it is "necessary" for Crypto to help AI. Hence, we have the so-called "model assetization", "data assetization", and "computing power assetization" tracks as industry standards.
But honestly, I have talked with many Web2 AI researchers and founders, and they view our three tracks like watching stand-up comedy.
Image source: (Deep Tide TechFlow)
What impressed me most was a decentralized computing power project we talked about last year. The founder very "honestly" told us that when there are significant or commercial computing power demands, they would directly hand it over to their centralized data center to run, not to retail GPU computing power. However, they can front-end "package" it to give the feeling that retail computing power is also participating. I have a pretty good impression of this founder, even though I didn't invest in the end.
It wasn't until the emergence of Goat this year that I really had my eyes opened.
This is not AI Help Crypto, nor is it Crypto Helps AI.
This is a new thing that truly combines AI and Crypto.
AI Agent issues assets
AI Agent ShitPost shout orders
AI Agents form a DAO
AI Agents are responsible for managing a fund and trading
AI Agents have their own culture
AI Agents have their own religion
This is something that Web2 AI cannot produce, and pure Crypto from Web3 cannot accomplish independently.
This is, so far, the way I personally feel best reflects the integration of AI X Crypto at the current capability level of AI.
About this track, I recommend two articles
https://x.com/0xNought/status/1851283278164345297
https://x.com/starzqeth/status/1853597036421259728
Also, wizard @0xcryptowizard has posted many things about this track, and everyone can go check out his X.
3. Memes - On-chain casino, no more pretending
Pump.Fun has brought many things that many people were unwilling to admit, or could not say due to "political correctness", to the forefront.
Our circle is just a big gambling house.
But actually, this is not a problem. We can finally face the fact that a major function of Crypto is for PVP, and that’s OK.
The problem is, it can't just be PvP.
As Mr. Du said, "If memes and tap2earn are the future of the industry, then this industry can go to hell, fuck!"
So memes and PVP will become an eternal track in our circle. When more exciting, more groundbreaking, and more meaningful tracks and technologies emerge, the proportion of the meme track will decrease and become more understated. When the industry lacks direction, becoming tedious and disappointing, the meme track will jump to the forefront and become more active, taking up a larger share.
Memes might be the "bellwether" track in the future's multi-cycle bull and bear markets - It has been, and will always be there...
This is just one opinion, for reference and entertainment only, NFA :)
[Disclaimer] The market has risks, and investment should be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions presented herein are suitable for their specific circumstances. Invest at your own risk.
This article is authorized for reprint from: (Deep Tide TechFlow)
Original author: Lao Bai
