The West is responsible for concept issuance, the East is responsible for project development, the West is responsible for capital concentration, and the East provides liquidity.
Written by: Zuo Ye
The high risks and rich rewards of the Age of Exploration gave rise to modern finance, with stocks and corporations originating from this period. Through continuous short-term speculation, the long-term colonialism spanning several centuries has shaped the world we know today, repeatedly evoked in the name of the spirits, promoting the growth of cryptocurrency.
Why A16Z is Powerful, and Why ABCDE is Closing
As long as a species has a sufficiently broad geographical distribution, geographical variation will occur.
ABCDE has been deeply hurt by the BTC L2 track, having invested a total of 40 million dollars over three years. Faced with the prospect of not seeing higher returns, they have directly entered the post-investment phase (refer to previous articles: the winding down phase of crypto VCs, what YZi has invested in).
As early as 2023, some Chinese VCs began to shift to the secondary market, or stopped raising new funds, focusing on nurturing already invested projects on Binance or Gate, hoping to exit some to minimize losses. The transformation of Web3Port is correct, but unfortunately, it has become a bit greedy.
Never try to earn the last penny, or you will become the focal point of emotions and the target of criticism. However, the person who said this, Li Superman, has also turned into a doomsday cucumber; the allure of money does not shift with personal will.
A16Z does not think this way. From the perspective of absolute return rates, Silicon Valley VCs who prefer long-term investments may not be as good as Chinese VCs, but a16z raised 20 billion dollars for AI, and even the minimum investment for their startup accelerator (CSX) is 500,000 dollars, while the overall scale of Crypto funds exceeds 7.6 billion dollars.
This is no longer a mutation; it has already merged into the existing ecosystem and even the future ecosystem.
Securing investment and securing investment from a16z are two different matters.
If we broaden our perspective, the cryptocurrency industry is beginning to show the following pattern: the West is responsible for concept issuance, the East is responsible for project development, the West is responsible for capital concentration, and the East provides liquidity.
Chinese entities like Binance still hold significant liquidity, and Bitget is also known for its proprietary market-making business. But why are we gradually taking pride in "internationalization" at all levels from exchanges to VCs, treating the Chinese-speaking market as a secondary one?
Image description: a16z American Dynamism, image source: a16z
In terms of exchanges, stablecoins, and even compliance, we are still presenting a backward fundamental appearance. We do not spread emotions; we only share facts. We are at a historical turning point.
What has existed in Web2 is now intensified in Web3.
After DeepSeek R1's "export to import," traditional VCs, which had gradually quieted down since 2018 along with Chinese concept stocks, are beginning to revive. However, it must be acknowledged that the concept of USD + BVI + VC + Chinese market has gradually disappeared.
More and more internet strategic investments are becoming independent or being canceled. Local government industrial guidance funds are increasingly fond of "hard technology" and localization, while central-level planning focuses on future industries. Financial state-owned enterprises and central enterprises pay more attention to policy trends and value preservation.
The reasons for the decline of ABCDE, or the entire Chinese Crypto VC scene, are actually self-evident:
A16Z can love America and the dollar; companies invested in Silicon Valley inherently possess a global nature, with new global information capitalism embedded in their genes.
Chinese VCs cannot directly embrace the Chinese market; they can only rely on the Western halo, competing with peers in the role of selling liquidity in the Chinese-speaking market.
After A&T disbanded, major internet companies basically do not look at Web3, local governments and state-owned enterprises mainly discuss chains, while they are wary of coins, let alone participate in investment and market-making. The few state-owned and private financial groups testing the waters in Hong Kong and Singapore seem more like a strategic defensive posture.
The dollar is a product, and the American market is the forefront of the global market. A16Z has a low fundraising threshold and a massive scale, but compared to the global market, there still exists a significant potential for profit.
A16Z can fail 1,000 times until the next Meta or Google appears.
Mobilization or Speculation: Where is the Chinese Cryptocurrency Circle Going?
Neanderthals had beautiful stone tools but were foolish craftsmen.
In Western history, finance has always been a means of mobilization. Behind the Dutch tulip mania and the British South Sea bubble were the immense successes of the Dutch and British East India Companies. In contrast, Spain and Portugal, which insisted on royal monopolies, lost the world after seizing silver from the Americas.
The failure of the two Iberian nations was not due to a lack of silver flowing into the industrial sector, but rather a lack of awareness of financial and social participation; the innovation of a single king was insufficient to change the fate of a nation.
Each Generation Has Its Own Legends
Chinese VCs are no different; the high demands and quick returns from LPs are not the problem. The inability to meet these demands is the issue for VCs. A16Z does not solve this problem, but YZi (formerly Binance Labs) has a preference for trading products, ranging from DEX to various CEXs, including FTX.
Similar to Arthur Hayes' family office Maelstrom, which does not care much about market trends but instead follows its own aesthetic preferences, demystifying everything while respecting innovators. It has been proven that Ethena Like / Delta Like products are becoming mainstream market choices.
Innovation does not happen in the high ground of Twitter traffic; more often, it resides in the hearts of individuals. Founders who have gone through countless hardships need money, a big name, or support from key figures and nodes, which is not for outsiders to know.
Assassins Resist the Technological Lords
The future is not necessarily progressive; the larger trend among various platforms is to become "lords" of the information age, blocking the paths of latecomers in the name of technology and progress. For example, Blue Origin's all-female space travel team, and Vitalik's mention of the Risc-V concept after transitioning to PoS, show that neither DAOs nor foundations can prevent individuals from exerting influence.
We need new people and new paths for innovation.
Which will come first, the technological singularity or a surprise attack? Hyperliquid may be sophisticated enough, but the impact on Binance and USDT is still not significant enough.
Speculation is Not Long-Termism
The current reality is that our role is as a dumping ground for tokens, sitting on the largest liquidity, but we have no means to resist Western VCs, policies, and exchanges. Money can unite sufficiently, but humans are inherently self-interested.
If some people are known as long-termists, then remember that SBF loved to eat vegetarian and promote effective altruism. Of course, Movement Labs has already proven that being friends with Trump is more useful than this.
Speculation is speculation, and long-termism is long-termism; speculators will never acknowledge long-termism.
Bitcoin has only been around for 17 years. Holding Bitcoin for profit, guiding others to hold and trade Bitcoin for profit, and profiting by exchanging your Bitcoin for your own tokens—who is real and who is fake is clear at a glance.
Long-termism is similar to effective altruism; first, one must solve how to survive until the day the results are confirmed.
Conclusion
Income is a series of events; the waves surge, revealing the true heroism.
Cultural traditions, like TVL, can also become liabilities for projects, with creditors merely waiting to exercise their rights. Attracting projects with garbage terms is no different from futures trading with dead ends.
The imbalance between the East and West, from the Self-Strengthening Movement to Bitcoin, may seem distant and unrelated, but in the broader view of the world, it has already established a causal relationship.
The only question is whether our generation of cryptocurrency practitioners can construct public goods aimed at the whole world from the local liquidity market, trading globally and profiting therein.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
