Crypto: Waves, Institutions and Degens - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2024

Let's Get It Started uh as usual I want to make it uh with memes I want to make it funny but with quite interesting forecasts and overview of the market I think the market and the future is not possible without the past that's why this presentation my speech stretch it like this we will go back for around a half a year and we'll see how the market was developed until today and then we will take a look how the market could be probably developed for the end of the year with narratives with everything and yeah small recup is always good well let's get it started you could see behind me all the prev hot topics and things that happen oh yes okay this is was in my presentation in Singapore on talking t49 as well and the market situation was exactly like this prices was were quite uh calm nothing went up not to volatile and uh people tried to do some very risky things and Krypto was like H never touch it for normal people because no huge profits nothing but then things started changing and how it started second wave I would say it was like second half of 2023 let's do some recap of it you see here we see coin graph inter Bitcoin narratives and all the meme coins I prefer if you see that recently telegram is everywhere to do it like a chat you see it like telegram chat uh last year DW flbs deployed a lot of capital you know it and it was our strategy to buy a lot as much as we could uh cheap assets this is from my point of view the most smart uh investment decision but then things started developing more aggressively some capitals other VCS started develop funds and prices start going up a little bit of for certain coins then some retail users and some digent Traders started to playing this you know uh if Ms b mems then long short all these Futures with 125x a lot of liquidations happened but it was a lot of fun it created a lot of memes and people kind of traded inside the market no external money flow but still someone made money someone most part of people lost money but then new narrative started Bitcoin ETF and it brought some hope hope you to the market and especially for institutional because they started to blow money and you saw that Solana prices went up after salana a lot of a lot of uh meme coins went up first was Bon and this is very good example how one coin could push the whole ecosystem after Bon was pumped up around 25,000 meme coins were created on salana Market it pushed volumes insanely hardly and it pushed retail and user acquisition super nicely to the chain I think this is one of playbooks that every chain can use to grow and please pay attention if you see that something is skyrocketing it doesn't mean that something else will SC rocketing on the Chain but this one will bring more activity to the chain and it could be very beneficial for the chain itself you can trade it somehow of course it's risky but if you have some knowledge it could work then what's going what's happened next then was January we remember right that in Twitter we saw that okay BT BTC ETF approved it's pumped then no my Twitter got hacked it's dumped that's it everyone work was crying like a lot of new launch pool started because new money from normal people because BTC was very very hyped in traditional media went to the market exchanges started pushing uh listings and launch pools then it was like this then it was like this dig and uh retail users and also like just gamblers started to long as much as possible then they got liquidated of course right and what happened next what the [ __ ] what Bitcoin you are doing right and what appeared points earning let's earn points everyone started depositing ET eth other coins to change to earn points do some activities to earn points nobody knew what points would give them but everybody jumped in it and it was very fun right and because prices went up media and uh even crypto crypto people crypto Twitter had a lot of uh a lot of reasons to publish news because let's say 1,000 or 1 million if deposited on the Chain next month prices went up three times then TVO in dollar value looks like like grow three times up nothing changed no activity added but it went up and people were were very impressed because of this after that febr and March happened you see this recent recent things that we saw like a few months ago e then game f then farming points again let's do whatever then memes dog with head I remember this coin and Autumn everyone take this hat but then it's again up then this uh very set slur with this is from my point of view is like qu essential of the whole this situation and a lot of people who didn't know and who doesn't know how to make money by trading by Investments got a lot of money because of luck like prices went up a lot of people got rich and then they started send tokens to anyone to these guys like slur who just burned everything locked all the supply in the smart contract burned investor tokens and uh was crying on the amama session and didn't know what to do some of them asked how to create a PO radium it was really fun but if you take a look at this situation from a normal people perspective it's something like crazy you know people send 10 Millions here 10 Millions there just wallet address on uh Twitter just 10 Millions 20 Millions a few projects that we we are working with also fundraised like this for their uh pools just posted Twitter and then 20 M come I don't know what you need to do in real world to get this money of course it is a normal process people should do it easy come easy go people should lose it and money should be again reconcentrated on the market it's now this is the time you see everyone uh who long B TC then Solana then projects went crazy now things are changing but when Bitcoin was alltime high what all the project did and what all the VC did projects changed wasting schedule changed valuations crazy we have a lot of uh conversations with them and had let's say those projects who raised at let's say 10 me valuation in September in February increased the evaluation t uh fdv to 100 New 100 50 mil and they FR raced which means that a lot of cheap and a lot of crazy money on the market and this this should be distributed somehow that's why now we're are kind of flat because people deployed money on crypto and they need to do something because this is funds most of Krypto funds they have LPS LPS push them to invest because they saw this grow right but Market is flat projects trying to overprice everything and it's it's hard to find a conclusion but a few months ago it worked I know a lot of projects that rised like tens of millions just without even a pach deck and then what happened next next was very interesting thing after alltime high of course it should be some correction uh like this a for year this I know happiness could not be endless and it's okay when no no buyers anymore and only sellers it should went up uh go go down a little bit sorry and then people's Focus changed to AWA because because what Black Rock announced rwa investments from my point of view it is not related at all to most of rwa in coin market cap but our Market crypto Market is driven by emotions it's not driven by Logic it's not driven by um I know some proper investment decision this is very emotional Market it's not bad it's not good it's just you know it's just a specific differentiation from traditional markets because you cannot trade stocks like this but frankly even on traditional markets Behavior changes to this emotional stuff just take a look at Tesla take a look at X shares especially Tesla right there is no chance to get back your money by dividends there is no chance but people believe in it prices go up and Tesla stocks is like crypto you can buy cheap sell high or short high I know close position chip and make money by this it's like purely trading it's uh not pure really trading of course Tesla has some manufacturers but still Market is emotionally driven people jumped in rwa eii a lot of coins pumped a lot of prices went up a lot of people made money who invested early a lot of people what they did they got a lot of tokens a lot of tokens with overpriced prices was super high and now all of them are waiting for what for profit to secure the to to to get back their principle to get back their Investments but as we mentioned before right Market is emotionally driven and when emotionally driven people make decisions their exit decisions should be from my point of view also emotionally driven when markets are flat or even bleeding right now right now people started selling and fix and and realize losses not profits and it's a little bit Chang it altcoins went up randomly again of course when you launch tens of thousand meme coins every week if you launch tens of thousands like altcoins on dexes or Sexes every week statistically a few of them will be Superstars and everyone will talk about it but the rest you will never know and this happens now right people say okay this guys invested at 40 m valuation and this project one year ago and now it worth like 5 billion it's great it's this guys are very liky but funds LPS private investors and then normal Traders they are trying to repeat this I would say lucky ticket and find these projects that will we go up for 100x for vure funds they have like Risk Management approach they have another liquidity approach they know how to work with and this is this creates our crypto Market when a guy or a fund with let's say some money 1 million USD half a million or 10 million 20 million deploys everything in promising projects with good team but fairly speaking we have like hundreds of projects in our portfolio and well me personally I talk I talk to I know maybe thousand of them right and our Venture team would confirm if you dive deeper in any project like 95% the team is smart motivated and good but it does doesn't mean that 95% would be Superstars statistically 95% would die and uh this money should be again traded but people have expectations people cannot just accept it invest and forget that's why now we see that sellers a little bit more than buyers but people have a some expectations for the future and let's talk about this expectations little bit what happened exactly this month projects are trying to repeat display book that used to work in February in March we also have these calls and they're trying to reach okay our fdv is I don't know 1 billion uh Lo up period like two years then wasting five years it is a joke but it looks like this right everything is over subscribed but over subscribed projects like of course some of them over really over subscribed but most of over subscribed projects they are looking for money like for months and every meeting we're over subscribed it is the last chance to get get like the last 100K which is exactly not true right and it is very important to keep it in mind because this is the crypto market right you could sign some deal with some I don't know kit fa KY face instead of signature and it works everyone okay with this especially if you work with defy uh project right BTC howing is coming soon I thought my expectation was that prices should have like a huge correction on BTC howing because the whole Market all keep Twitter news everyone is waiting for ho everyone is waiting that something should happen but let's think a little bit more deeper Behind These expectations if everyone expecting that something happen and this will be very good like at least half of them or a part bought some coins and are waiting for BTC H to sell it on the news but if everyone knows this news who will be waiting would be waiting for this news to buy why it it doesn't seem like smart decision of course some dudes will do it but I'm not sure but then our Traders they are not bad Traders they're nice Traders but it's geopolitical fault and everything crushed because before hoing right last week okay people still waiting for hoing but I would say noise is much much more cmer and what happened during this time is it started in January but I mentioned it only like this we see new projects new narratives that are coming to the market not coin join the chat Just for information we don't have Investments on NCoin I have no not coins at all right it's not like promotion but it is a phenomenon which we have on the market a project like quite I would say like stupid clicker right but it's the 35 million people was were clicking this but but right and earned it this is a huge audience and now we don't know how it could play how exchanges feel by it how people will trade it right but it's interesting to see and this project what they prop push audience okay good luck let's see what would happen and then volatility started but what's going on behind the scene institutions still continue to buy right we buy other people buy on liquid markets from projects from good investment because now the best time to bargain right it's hard to close the round harder than it was like one go and projects Founders most of them also are driven by emotions right and you can bargain in very good conditions and you can find very good guys because people try to deliver something and another good thing which bull market brought to us this is exchange requirements everyone are looking for really good ones most of exchanges I mean good exchanges most of exchanges are looking for a project and end users and Traders they see much better project than like one year ago and okay now we still have like a few billions long position on BTC and I do believe like maybe 10 billion long positions in altcoins this Friday this Saturday or Sunday we'll show how it could play what would happen let's see and then as I announced in the beginning let's try to do some astrologist work and forecast what could happen and what would happen like in this year from my point of view we have some interesting things that didn't play yet the first of them it is ETF on E because it was discussed black Rog is discussing it sa discussing it and it was postponed but I do believe that this narrative should be played this year because rwa everything is based on ethereum infrastructure everything is based almost everything of course like uh on erc20 or Layer Two which is related to ethereum infrastructure right and when everything related to things that big big uh structures like black rock or SEC pushes like rwa assets based on something I think they should have some control or ability to regulate it that's why I'm quite for 99% sure that this year we will should see uh eth ETF on eth then second thing uh regarding the second wave of the market right if you take a look again behind the prices yes we reached alltime high for Bitcoin reached alltime high for some altcoins but if you take a look at the fundamental metrics it was reached by money inflow on BTC not in crypto exchanges but in the funds also maybe a bit in coinbase the rest was done by crypto people who holded assets who had uh some usdt and just bought because traffic to exchanges Google search request nothing changing from 2022 it's like flat new people people are not interested to join crypto normal people maybe they are interested but there is no hype and I think we have like a huge huge huge upside here even if this interest would reach like 2021 uh highs it's easily should push the prices from here like much higher I cannot predict right I do believe that nobody could predict if someone says that hey BTC will cost like 500k or 100K or 90k it's just like this h I'm a Str just right but no but it should it it should be priced much higher then another thing uh regarding other assets right once BTC is higher people will sell but if we remember this is emotionally driven Market people would make like easy money what they will do with easy money again that's all the history that we went through for the last 20 minutes would be repeated again people would started deploying it in weird protocols send people to someone to in Twitter send people to strangers play with uh Futures play with meme coins and it will be repeated again maybe now new narratives would join us but who knows but this should be repeated and then a few things that again I think should be hot now this is undervalued narratives it it could be it could look like already priced in but I think it's still undervalued it is Perpetual dexes if you take a look at raising volumes if you take a look at traffic it's growing from my point of view we are at around 2019 in terms of Dex Port volumes versus sex Port volumes you remember what happened in 2020 when the five summer it went up a it went interent up crazy there only one there is only one thing should be fixed it is normal referral program and it is sex level of experience for def de Traders and then it's done I don't say that Perpetual dexes will compete with binance or with other exchanges right and will kill them no but it will grow it will grow like extremely and another things it is Stone EOS system I don't know if it they perform good if not but it has telegram nobody else has telegram that's why we also invested I do believe that it could be played nicely let's see and long-term narratives that are always in our Market at rwa as we said right black rock announc it it doesn't mean that BlackRock will go to binance and buy some rwa assets but it creates expectations it creates Trends it creates people's formal money will be deployed and funds they're also closer to trade F they are trying to listen to Big guys they will deploy in this projects and support this industry gamey it's constant narrative in crypto because games is simple it's very easy to explain to everyone you can ask I know any random waiter and ask them about crypto nobody could know right but if you ask random people about games everyone knows that's why it's very easy to onboard people for gaming of course layer one two and three uh chains and this narrative will be played why because with this narrative investment funds communities projects could play a really big game valuation is always high listings are always good you can do a lot of things there you can promote it like differently you can do whatever with defi with chains it's easy and it has a lot of things and a huge upside and of course eii it is going to our lives it is going everywhere and similar to AWA it should go up and memes memes it's like game fire right but it's crypto native stuff people love memes because in crypto 247 markets with no restriction with no uh limits everyone can make money and then everyone can spend money whatever right uh he or she wants and then K is the best it is super volatile it is like you know 20% seven casino when every meme talken issuer is trying to build its own unique slot machine to engage with more people right and it works 25 m coins launched then is done one Bon happened it's kind of like this and the last I want to say this was not Financial advice I just trying to deliver some interesting things in a meme ma manner with some fun I hope you enjoyed it and uh yeah if you have like a few questions I'm more than happy to answer like three or five yeah just let me know yeah okay well now okay so yeah looking at meme tokens and you know like that very specific and kind of exotic ecosystem I was wondering now for you know like bigger players like DWF Labs did you yourself get involved into meme tokens the market is that like potential part of your portfolio and something that you look at as an investment opportunity of course of course yes uh we involved we invested quite a lot in mem coins in different ones I don't remember we could check in our social media right but we have like more than 10 in our portfolio and for example the biggest one of them recently was flocky which overtook some even Layer Two Chains in terms of fdv right it's just like a bright example right of course we have because uh this is an opportunity and as a Trader as an investment firm we have to leverage this opportunity otherwise it would not smart but of course with a certain risk management yeah hi there uh going back to your discussion about real world assets right now real world assets are dominated by Black Rock uh putting out us treasuries and very big things like that do you see a real world assets Marketplace being uh created and growing for smaller assets that are real uh but they're smaller assets at the end of the day I think it could happen because for example yesterday I had a chat with swamp project uh which works with uh several countries to build some World toned uh Market B for real world toned assets I think it would happen right uh but it from my point of view it will grow up together with uh Mass adoption of at least able coins because if you want to interact with tokenized assets you should have a framework or should have a possibility to buy or sell it right if a normal people cannot use credit card they should use crypto right but not a lot of normal people can use crypto then we should be able to use the credit card it depends on the legal framework I think I think your question is good and it could happen from my perspective again right maybe started from Switzerland Singapore Hong Kong UA and of course the us because they have the most most major regulation and they are more open for kind of trying something new that's if I answered your question I don't know one one more question one more question yeah and uh yeah let's have fun yeah hi um so missed the start of the talk but um on all this on the meme ecosystem which do you think are going to be the Apex memes off this cycle which are going to be the Doge and the shib and also which chain do you think each chain is going to have multiple Apex memes or a single one that's going to be the winner it's a good question I think the market and I the market doesn't know which chain should be the winner right what we know now ethereum has the biggest tvl salana has the biggest number of trans the biggest trading volume that's what we have now right but tvl has a lot of layer to we don't know which one chain will which one will be used we also have a lot of layer one and we don't know which one will be used right from my perspective is eum will be like a B2B chain for layer toos maybe for one or two layer tools for different regions Solana seems very promising but now it's at least it's used right and new change I don't know as I said right even T has a lot of hundreds of million users but no defy right we don't know if Market will buy it I think now we are in the stage when you if you remember this personal computers like 20 years ago to plug in some devices like mouse or keyboard or or display you should use a different socket now we have type- C now we have USB I think it is just a point of time but from my perspective it is if maybe Solana and uh a few layers that will facilitate people's needs it could be something on ZK and something of something else yeah that's if I answered your question I know okay thank you very much guys uh thanks for joining and enjoy your week