Vulgar entrepreneurial projects

On the weekend, a friend I hadn't been in touch with for a long time sent me a WeChat message, asking if there were any interesting new projects in the crypto ecosystem lately.

I regrettably replied that during this cycle, I hadn't discovered any fresh projects in the crypto ecosystem, except for a few niche areas.

My friend lamented that for a long time, he and his buddies had been feeling very bored. They were hesitant to engage with other markets (like the stock market), had little interest in meme coins, and while they consistently held Bitcoin and Ethereum, they were looking for other long-term potential projects worth holding, but just couldn't find any.

I share the same sentiment.

Now, even some of the ecological media I frequently read are reporting on trivial news, and sometimes I find my interest in reading them quite lacking.

In the past couple of days, I looked at the important financing projects summarized by Messari for each month this year, which can basically be divided into four categories:

1. On-chain perpetual contract trading platforms (Perp DEX) ignited by Hyperliquid;
2. Various infrastructures related to stablecoins, such as L1 and payment platforms;
3. Various tokenization platforms related to RWA;
4. Miscellaneous, but mainly focused on various infrastructures, such as data on-chain.

At a glance, these projects have distinct characteristics:

• There is little innovation; they are just throwing money at it, hoping to secure a position in the race.

For example, 99% of the projects in the first category are just imitations of Hyperliquid, appearing to have no originality.

This is clearly a trend to turn a sector into a red ocean.

• The project teams are almost devoid of grassroots; they either rely on big players or are entrepreneurs coming from traditional financial institutions.

The most obvious examples are the projects related to stablecoins and various RWA projects.

• Compliance and close relationships with regulators have become the "capital" that many projects boast about.

This is also very evident in stablecoin and RWA projects.

• I originally thought that pseudo-blockchain projects would only appear in certain regions, but they have surprisingly become popular overseas as well.

For instance, in the fourth category, there is a data on-chain project that openly claims to use a permissioned blockchain, and then employs privacy technology to protect user data on-chain.

I find it strange: can't this type of thing be done without blockchain?

Some overseas internet giants that place a relatively high value on personal privacy protection already have good privacy measures for data, with data being processed before transmission or storage.

What need is there for blockchain here?

Wouldn't a distributed database suffice?

Are there still venture capitalists investing in such projects?

Recently, dozens of projects that have been hotly invested in over the past few months fall into this category. There is neither the "grassroots" entrepreneurship vigor of past cycles nor the inherent decentralization of the crypto sector.

I even find myself missing some of the "absurd" projects from previous cycles. Because they were distinctive and innovative, they gave off an absurd feeling. Often, great and disruptive projects emerge from the absurd.

If a startup project is immediately understandable to everyone, and everyone knows what it does and who it is imitating, how much space and potential can such a startup project have?

These projects are merely a competition of resources, where the last one standing is the one who can outlast the others.

I still prefer those grassroots entrepreneurial projects that break new ground and are truly blockchain ventures. Unfortunately, such projects are too few in this cycle.

The current crypto ecosystem feels less like a new ecosystem independent of others and more like a segmented track of the traditional ecosystem.