by Evan Feng & Dmitry Lapidus
After a short convention hiatus and a essential summer time of crypto regulatory uncertainty within the US, it was a becoming time to go to Singapore for one of many 12 months’s largest crypto conferences. This 12 months’s TOKEN2049 occasion was a worldwide showcase for web3, and emphasised the significance of constructing real-world use circumstances of blockchain adoption.
The occasion introduced collectively builders, traders, native and worldwide retail, and a report variety of executives talking on the occasion together with Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Binance CEO Richard Teng, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, and, maybe unexpectedly, rapper and $MOTHER memecoin creator Iggy Azalea. After hours, attendees flocked to curated networking dinners, partied at massive scale brand-marketing occasions, and coded at hackathons for Solana Breakpoint — the community’s annual convention that adopted TOKEN2049.
On the bottom, builders confirmed robust curiosity in bettering safety and user-experience onchain, with a purpose of abstracting web3 complexities away to assist usher in mainstream adoption. Given this narrative, we observed that TOKEN2049 had extra customers in attendance than the Ethereum-focused Devcon occasion collection, and felt just like the early retail-oriented Consensus conferences.
Tapping into Asia’s Web3 Ecosystem
Alongside Hong Kong, Singapore stays one of many twin crypto hubs for Asia. Singapore is turning into an more and more essential Japanese hub for web3, with many exchanges, startups, and funding companies having a powerful presence within the nation. When in comparison with the US, Asia-based crypto tasks noticeably have a stronger give attention to client functions and the facility of memetics to drive distribution as seen within the TON ecosystem because it strives to emulate the success of WeChat’s mini-apps. As an alternative of the know-how behind a product being its sole successful differentiator, native traders additionally are likely to search for prior Western VC funding as a proxy for future success and market relevance. CoinFund has native Asian Funding Workforce members, and by attending TOKEN2049 to characterize the model, communicate on panels, attend occasions, and meet with founders throughout the ecosystem, the workforce is working to develop the present variety of Asia-based founders throughout our portfolio. We stay excited in regards to the area and proceed to see indicators of a big and constantly rising alternative set of tasks, builders, ecosystems, customers, traders, allocators and extra that drive loads of exercise and innovation.
Present Crypto Narratives & TOKEN Takeaways
The present conversations in web3 are likely to revolve round consumer-facing merchandise in DePIN, DeAI, and plenty of tasks are additionally specializing in gaming. No matter web3’s current technological improvements, the occasion centered closely on US elections, which was shocking, contemplating the context of the occasion. Whereas the market continues to be in search of indicators of improved US regulatory readability following the upcoming election, builders in attendance have been enthusiastic about making consumer-focused web3 merchandise and functions.
Other than regulation, there have been a number of world narratives that dominated the occasion. Solana has began to seize the eyes of the mainstream, because it exhibits indicators of institutional adoption with Franklin Templeton asserting the launch of a tokenized mutual fund on the community. Equally, long-running Ethereum venture Sky, previously referred to as MakerDAO, is increasing its native USDS stablecoin to Solana — an essential step in elevated adoption on the community.
Gaming has begun to resurge as an essential space for crypto adoption. Whereas TON-based constructing has dominated the gaming narrative over the previous a number of months, as 2025 approaches, we heard stronger perception amongst attendees that gaming might reemerge as a extra confirmed supply of recent consumer adoption to web3 at a extra sustainable and broad-based degree of success throughout a number of L1 and L2 ecosystems. As we head into the subsequent 12 months, tasks are centered on creating worth seize in-wallet, with discussions round a rising pattern of onchain messaging and mini-app mixtures, just like Telegram. With elevated give attention to constructing client infrastructure and abstracted onchain experiences, crypto adoption will doubtless develop with these new use circumstances throughout new areas.
