Reuniting in Singapore: Key Insights from TOKEN2049 at a Glance
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Reuniting in Singapore: Key Insights from TOKEN2049 at a Glance
This year's TOKEN2049 remains extraordinarily bustling.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsText:陀螺财经
This year's Token2049 was bustling with excitement, and Singapore once again became the holy land of Web3.
A year ago, the debate between Singapore and Hong Kong was still raging, but a year later, their rivalry has gradually quieted down. Despite a series of policy incentives in Hong Kong, they have failed to shake Singapore’s position as the Western gateway. With fewer controversial topics, Singapore has remained relatively low-key over the past year, its local Web3 development shrouded in mystery, existing mostly through word of mouth.
In terms of data, Singapore’s influence remains outstanding. Token2049 held locally has undoubtedly become one of the most elite and largest-scale conferences in the industry. Compared to previous editions, this year’s event expanded in both venue size and attendance, accommodating over 20,000 participants from more than 150 countries and over 7,000 companies, marking a perfect conclusion to the grand occasion.
Compared to past conferences, this year’s most notable feature was the significantly larger number of side events. While hundreds of peripheral events are no surprise during such mass gatherings, this year’s Singapore Token2049 hosted nearly 800 side events—an astonishing number that still left people stunned. During these side events, major exchanges and projects all participated actively, promoting their offerings and attracting users with a continuous stream of diverse activities, allowing the entire city of Singapore to truly experience the unique charm of the crypto community. Of course, the sheer volume of side events inevitably crowded out the main conference to some extent, as many free events clearly offered better value.
As for why there were so many side events, some analysts suggest that attending the most influential events within limited budgets has become an operational consensus. Participating in Singapore’s Token2049 itself is also part of a project’s PR strategy—beyond enabling direct access to capital and project resources, public appearances help build trust and brand image, and facilitate future community growth. Of course, this is just one perspective. After nearly a year of liquidity mismatch, most projects now seem stretched thin. According to disclosures from numerous attendees, both conference catering and promotional gifts from projects have seen a downgrade in quality.
Notably, the international makeup of attendees at the main venue was even more pronounced. Although overseas participants were always numerous in the past, Chinese attendees previously maintained a high presence. This year, however, Chinese faces at the main venue sharply declined, reflecting a stronger Western narrative. Interestingly, it is precisely at the side events where one can still spot many Chinese participants—indicating that the Chinese community remains highly active.
In terms of themes, aside from various independent segments at side events, the main Token2049 agenda was still rich and focused on current hot topics. Bitcoin Layer2 remained consistently popular, AI+DePin concepts showed enduring momentum, TON continued drawing strong attention, while ETFs and RWA representing Web2 integration are gaining steam. Ethereum regained spotlight thanks to Vitalik’s appearance. Additionally, SUI’s price surge during the conference caught eyes, with some attendees predicting major upcoming news, sparking widespread optimism.
Of course, this conference shared similarities with past ones. Beyond formal discussions on trends and development, the social scene—networking, gossip, and scandals—did not disappoint. From viral photos of "crypto aunties" to escalating "fighting scandals" and "leaked photo incidents," the atmosphere increasingly resembled Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), prompting criticism from industry insiders.
Returning to the core theme, annual summaries of Token2049 often accurately capture the state of the industry: after narratives like “Web3 Jews,” theories about East-West capital refusing to back each other, CEX dominance, and VC wipeouts, each assertion reflects the cyclical shifts among key players in the Web3 ecosystem. This year, perhaps due to the overwhelming number of side events leaving attendees overstretched, no definitive summary article has emerged yet—but trend insights from speeches remain particularly significant.
Therefore,陀螺财经 has compiled views from several conference speakers to explore the ideas and trends discussed in Singapore. Note: Content sourced from BlockBeats, Jinse, and other external sources, with minor edits and reductions.
Vitalik Buterin, Co-Founder of Ethereum
People often say that crypto is still in its early stages—that we’re still building infrastructure. Indeed, how long did it take for something like the internet to mature? Since Bitcoin’s launch, people have often debated this. But today, we face a real challenge: the crypto space is no longer in its early days.
Ethereum as a project has existed for over 10 years. In the 15 years since Bitcoin’s inception, we’ve seen things like ChatGPT go from nonexistence to sudden prominence, completely reshaping public imagination around artificial intelligence.
I believe we are not in the early stage of crypto anymore, but rather in a special phase. The primary goal for Ethereum over the next decade is to achieve mainstream adoption while preserving open-source and decentralized values.
Full speech: https://www.tuoluo.cn/article/detail-10116119.html
Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO of Circle
Regarding the future of the crypto market, Circle’s Vision 1.0 envisions a world where storing and transferring value has near-zero marginal cost. In this world, user experiences conducting transactions on these platforms would be as simple and seamless as using major software tools on the internet. We haven’t fully arrived yet, but we’re very close. I believe we’ll make progress on these utilities in the coming year. As we approach this Vision 1.0, the velocity of money circulation and real economic activity will significantly increase. With such high monetary velocity, people’s ability to gain economic benefits will be substantially enhanced.
We’re still in early days. Despite massive progress in DeFi, we’ve only just begun exploring this field. I compare the current moment to the time of the iPhone’s release, when there were countless creative ideas about mobile devices.
Kyle Samani, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital
Ethereum has evolved for nine years, during which three pivotal developments stand out. First, the rise of DeFi as blockchain’s most important application. Though DeFi had progress before 2020, its real explosion came during the 2020 DeFi “summer”—five years after Ethereum’s launch. Second, Ethereum’s October 2020 decision to adopt a roll-up-centric scaling roadmap. Third, Ethereum’s 2022 transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
Currently, Ethereum is no longer the center of value capture. The roll-up-centric roadmap explicitly shifts transaction fees and MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) from L1 to L2, L3, and even L4. While this successfully pushed transactions to L2, it also moved most value creation away from the Ethereum asset itself. Now, almost all transactions occur on L2—with over 90% taking place there.
From Solana’s perspective, we have three unique advantages that are nearly impossible for other communities to replicate—reasons why we’re more bullish on its future. First is token extension functionality, launched earlier this year, offering features tailored to payment companies and major global asset issuers—built-in yield, confidential transfers (hiding sender and receiver), asset issuance and revocation capabilities. These features were developed directly based on demands from payment firms and Wall Street, and are now live on mainnet. I emphasize this because beyond DeFi and other decentralized financial tools, we must also meet regulated financial needs. Without these integrated functions, regulated financial institutions cannot go on-chain at scale.
Second is the upcoming new Solana client, Firedancer, developed by Jump Trading. Third is hardware scalability tied to Firedancer. One of Solana’s design principles is natural scaling via parallel hardware—a core concept embedded in system architecture, key to achieving our vision of building a decentralized Nasdaq. In contrast, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a single-threaded processor. Though they’ve talked about parallelization for nine years, there’s been no real progress. We believe this full embrace of parallel processing will become increasingly evident in the coming years, especially as on-chain assets grow.
Star, CEO of OKX
The crypto industry won’t simply replicate traditional financial structures, because at its core, it remains a technology-driven sector. Many new technologies will render these conventional market structures unnecessary, giving rise to far better alternatives. Self-custody is a great technological advancement.
Throughout human history, when we created wealth—like gold or silver—we kept it at home, under the bed. In the digital age, when we earn money, third-party agents manage it for us. I believe self-custody technology gives society a choice—allowing individuals to control their own funds rather than relying on others. I believe this will lead to a better future.
Shayne Coplan, Founder and CEO of Polymarket
To build a good product, start from marketing and outreach by first establishing a core user base—identifying the user profile who genuinely loves your product. Take time to understand how to focus on building a useful product. Once you’ve built it, clarify its market positioning: How does it compare to competitors? What unmet needs exist in the market? If a project starts marketing before truly creating a useful product, they aren’t really doing effective promotion.
After identifying target users and clarifying the intended audience, find suitable distribution channels to reach them. Polymarket typically starts with specific vertical markets. Developers should focus on building practical products, understand their market positioning, and assess whether they fulfill latent or unmet needs compared to competitors and alternatives.
On audience engagement, Shayne emphasized rapid product iteration as crucial.
Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen
If Harris wins the election, she may continue the current administration’s relatively unfriendly stance toward the crypto industry. However, her victory could benefit crypto businesses outside the U.S., as American companies might move operations overseas. He revealed that some founders and CEOs have already stated they would consider relocating their businesses if Harris wins. Svanevik stressed that from a global perspective, non-Americans might actually prefer Harris winning, as it would drive more crypto business outside the United States.
Vance Spencer, Co-Founder and General Partner at Framework Ventures
If I were starting a fund from scratch today, I’d be extremely focused. That’s how we started in 2019. I might move to India, China, or Hong Kong. I’d try to concentrate on a regional market or dive deep into a specific niche. I think the hard part about starting as a venture investor now is the intense competition. We still haven’t seen any fund in this cycle deliver breakout performance—nobody has invested in a project and gotten a 1000x return and then become a “big player.” Of course, maybe expecting that now isn’t realistic.
I think the period from 2018 to 2022 was uniquely exceptional in this industry’s history, so I don’t believe everyone here can expect to grow from a $10 million fund to multi-billion dollar scale.
Arthur Hayes, Founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom
Today is Fed Day, when the Federal Reserve begins cutting interest rates. ETH is an internet bond with a staking yield of about 4%. As long as Fed rate cuts cause market expectations of U.S. Treasury yields to fall below 4%, ETH will become attractive—and the ETH bull market will reignite.
He also said that as the Fed cuts rates, new winners and losers will emerge among crypto tokens. Tokens yielding higher returns than U.S. Treasuries will win—such as ENA, ETH, ETHFI, PENDLE—while RWA tokens like ONDO will lose.
Qiao Wang, Investor at Pump.fun
In crypto, I don’t think gamification is necessary to build and succeed with a consumer app. Fundamentally, user stickiness matters—high retention stems from solving real core needs for consumers. Gamification is indeed interesting and improves retention, but it’s not sustainable. If your product has flaws, people won’t want to use it. Even if incentives bring them in, they’ll leave immediately afterward. I don’t believe any amount of gamification can overcome that.
However, in highly saturated markets—especially those with severe product homogenization—gamification is most visible. In such cases, companies must artificially maintain customer loyalty and retention, because switching costs between products are low.
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