Token2049 experience: No one cares about the old narrative, but consumer applications are highly anticipated

Author: Starzq, Ruby Wang; Source: Web3 Brand

The 5-day Singapore Crypto Week (Token2049 & Solana Breakpoint & Network State Conference) has finally ended. I am now exhausted and writing this short essay in the hotel. On the one hand, it is to make a summary, and on the other hand, it is to bring you some different perspectives.

Because it was my first time to attend Token2049, and I also attended 3 conferences in one go, overall it exceeded my expectations:

• Ranking of interestingness: Network State Conference > Breakpoint > Token 2049

• At Token 2049, I felt a strong business atmosphere and high-level topics (of course, the invited guests were all big names);

• At Solana Breakpoint, I felt an active product construction atmosphere, engineering culture, innovation in the financial industry, and the importance attached to the Chinese-speaking community;

• At Network State Conference, I felt the most diverse attendees and speakers, the most cutting-edge Network State attempts and progress, and I could truly appreciate the pan-cryptocurrency/tech community’s concern for society, health, and private property, as well as everyone’s yearning for the state of super individuals who can freely live a global life. If you are not in the Crypto / Web3 circle, this part is still attractive. In fact, I did meet non-Crypto people at this conference.

In addition, we found a way to "buy for zero yuan" at this conference, saving 2,000 US dollars, and we will share it with you haha.

Below is my summary and feelings about these 3 conferences, enjoy!

1.Token2049: Big names gathered, old narratives ignored, consumer applications became popular

Token2049 has been criticized for "high ticket prices" and "business venues" every time, but it must be said that the guests invited are really good, especially the OKX Main Stage on the first day:

• Balaji: Sharing "Technological Democracy"

• Polymarket founder Coplan, Founders Fund partner Joey, Alliance DAO founder Wang Qiao: Discussing Building Web3 Consumer Apps

• Arthur Hayes: Sharing the impact of macro on the currency circle

• Polychain founder Olaf: Sharing Crypto x AI

• Vitalik: Share views on the future of crypto, sing "Castle in the Sky" and "Spirited Away"

• Vitalik, OKX CEO Mingxing Xu, Circle CEO Jeremy: Continue to discuss the future of crypto

• Polymarket founders Coplan & Balaji: Fireside chat

• Internet celebrity studying immortality Bryan Johnson: Released Don't Die App

• Snowden

• …

These high-level guests shared high-level topics, but listening to them once is enough, there are too many cakes to eat; in addition, there are 3 main stages with dozens of speeches, and there is really nothing new. More people choose to go for business and socializing.

It is worth mentioning that “consumer applications” were repeatedly mentioned in the sharing of Vitalik Buterin, and it can be said that everyone is looking forward to it, but very few of them have made it out of the circle. No wonder Coplan, the founder of Polymarket, was arranged to appear twice.

Coplan’s sharing in the “Building Web3 Consumer Apps” panel was also very sharp, not giving VC any face at all, and once again reflecting his spirit of independent thinking:

Confrontation 1:

• VC: We pay more attention to whether an application uses the characteristics of Crypto;

• Coplan: The most important thing is that the needs of consumers are met, and there is no need to emphasize Crypto.

Confrontation 2:

• VC: We will pay more attention to applications with gamification design, which can attract more users;

• Coplan: As a consumer, I like Temu (Pinduoduo overseas version) very much, but "gamification" is not the most important thing. The core of Temu is to get the product selection and price right.

My own feeling is that I finally saw a product manager-type founder. If the founder or the industry doesn’t care about demand and users, what qualifications do they have to talk about “Mass Adoption”?

In addition, more and more founders are investing, and VCs are having a harder time these days.

2. Solana Breakpoint: Full of product updates, Demo Day-like experience, and emphasis on the Chinese community

In August, Solana released a short video mocking the current status of “crypto conferences”: there are more speakers than audiences, all sickles, no leeks.

Then it was announced early that it would “do something different” with its own event Breakpoint.

My feelings are, “It’s really different”, “It’s a bit interesting”, and it basically meets my expectations

The most intuitive: the official souvenirs are different.

Unlike the paper bags, T-shirts, and a pack of small advertisements of token2049, the official product of Solana Breakpoint is a thick tote bag + double-layer jacket, which immediately raises the level.

Most interesting: Demo day-like keynote sharing

There are very few panels in Breakpoint. Instead, there are one after another 5-15 minute keynote sharing:

• Basically no nonsense, all product introductions and updates. The last page is the QR code of the beta version. We took notes on Jupiter, helio, phantom, Hivemapper, travala, friends can click on the link to experience it

• This format is very similar to Apple's press conference or CES, and at the same time pushes the project party to deliver new product features at this node, rather than just telling stories

There are also several impressive points

• Solana places great emphasis on engineering culture. Tensor said on the spot that he only has 2 engineers; the participants around him often see that they take out their notebooks and start typing code when they are tired of listening

• The Solana Foundation itself is also very down-to-earth, with basically no big words. Lily Liu, chairman of the foundation, opened the speech The sentence in the speech, “Build for users, Not for podcasts“, I understand it to be both a reflection on the current crypto conference and a requirement for Solana

  

• The proportion of European and American participants is very high, and I saw several families pushing strollers to the scene. I guess there is no one at home to help take care of the children. It’s amazing

In addition, Solana has a very distinctive community Superteam. Community members can earn cash by making content around the project and getting grants, which is a good way to integrate content creators and marketing. It is combined with applications, but unfortunately it does not cover the Chinese-speaking area.

So one of the highlights this time was the launch of Solana’s official Chinese community Solar the night before breakpoint. The atmosphere was great, and I attached my recorded feelings

1. The Solana community is very cohesive and attaches great importance to the Chinese-speaking community (this is also reflected in the fact that breakpoint held its first conference in Asia). This is in stark contrast to the dispersion and individual play of more than 50 ETH L2

2. Everyone was full of energy and interacted frequently, which was in contrast to the slightly serious venue of token2049 (Community first, not PR first)

3. The density of beautiful women is super high! The ratio of men to women is relatively balanced

3. Network State Conference: The most diverse attendees and speakers, exploring the future life of super individuals

If token2049 and solana breakpoint It is essentially a "cryptocurrency conference" where everyone comes to work; the Network State Conference is more like a "super-individual gathering":

• No one comes to "work", but I saw several friends who bought tickets half a year ago and came to attend the conference;

• The participants are not pure cryptocurrency people, and their common feature is their yearning for the state of "super-individuals who can freely live a global life"; the guests that day were also super-individuals. The two who interested me the most were Naval and Pieter Levels, an independent developer who earns 420,000 US dollars a month.

• The topics shared revolved around "how to provide better living facilities for super-individuals in the network state", covering physical facilities, community, health, transportation, finance, culture... very diverse;

• The meeting started at 10 o'clock, and the meeting started at 9:50 Everyone started queuing at the door, and rushed in to grab the front row as soon as the door opened. In contrast to the sparse crowds at the cryptocurrency conference, I suddenly felt the enthusiasm of attending the TED conference 10 years ago.

Attached is First-hand experience of Ruby:

The proportion of Chinese people in the venue was not high, but the friends I met today were very interesting and genuine. Even two female friends flew to Singapore last night and went straight to Changi Airport after listening to the meeting today just to attend today's meeting. They are concerned about the implementation of Network State and are loyal fans of Balaji and Naval.

Although the most eye-catching discussions about Crypto are always about price and making money, I really felt at the NS conference that everyone cares about society, life, and health; and being able to integrate Crypto as one of the tools and take action to change society and life is the practical way to really break the circle.

After all, what can ultimately bring people together for a long time and appreciate each other is never just interests; it is common hobbies, interests and values.

The amount of information is so huge that I will post some live photos first. Later we will do a separate program to talk about Network State Conference and Network School.

Balaji's opening

We have created new companies such as Google, new communities such as Facebook, new currencies such as Bitcoin, and new countries such as Network State. Is it possible to establish them?

Popup city practices in various places: Argentina, Montenegro, California, Honduras...

Distribution of cryptocurrency wealth and global passport recommendations:

• Globally, there are 560 million cryptocurrency users, with a total wealth of 2.3 trillion US dollars

• 170,000 people with more than one million US dollars, 325 people with more than 100 million US dollars, and 28 people with more than 1 billion US dollars

• The 8 fastest growing passports, sharp-eyed friends can take a look at which countries they are from

The most popular post of the day was shared by Naval

ShareA Note

• Solving your material situation (financial freedom) is the foundation on which you can build your life
• Wealth = ability to affect change • If ChatGPT can copy it, you probably can’t profit from it
• Creativity is solving problems in new ways • Real value is solving problems that are not yet known
• Self-improvement is real progress
• Naval’s greatest achievements stemmed from his fascination with nature
• “Loneliness is the fate of all great souls” - Schopenhauer
• Book recommendations: The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality
• Satisfy material needs by creating what society needs
• You can’t buy: a healthy body, a calm mind and a house full of love
• Don’t chase respect; it makes you famous and makes you a (usually painful) celebrity.

Awkward moment: Super independent developer Pieter Levels said he didn’t particularly believe in Crypto yet (but he had friends working on the ZK project), and Balaji promoted it for several minutes on the spot, haha, I’ll organize it and share it with you later.

4. Why, as content creators, do we come to participate in Singapore Crypto Week, and how do we "buy for zero yuan"?

Friends who are familiar with us know that we pay close attention to the consumer applications and use cases of Crypto/Web3, because these are the ways to bring more incremental users into Crypto.

The Solana chain focuses on consumer applications, and it is the first time to hold a conference in Asia. We think we should learn from it. We checked the official website immediately and found that a ticket costs $499. Even if you apply for Creator, it costs $199, which is still a bit expensive.

Then we found that there is a small word "Media Pass" on the breakpoint official website! If you have your own media position, you can apply for it. I immediately opened the form and filled in the items. It was also very simple. After filling it out, I received a confirmation email the next day. Great!

Using the same method, we also applied for the Media Pass of token2049. However, this time it is more strict. Each media can only issue two to the editor-in-chief and deputy editor-in-chief, so we wrote the title as Co-Founder (the average Co-Founder in the currency circle finally came in handy haha).

There is another small detail. When applying, you have to write the official website and company email address. This is when you can see the benefits of having an independent domain name. Combined with cloudflare, you can directly generate an email address with the suffix web3brand.io. It is very classy.

This also reflects the benefits of accumulating content and knowing a little bit of technology. Interested friends can refer to it.

5. The happiest part: meeting a lot of netizens

One of the benefits of Crypto Week is that it brings everyone into a space at the same time, making it convenient for friends who usually communicate remotely or interact with netizens on Twitter to meet in person.

So we met a lot of netizens at the venue and side event, including guests who have been on our podcast but have not met yet.

Super thanks to our reader Kelly (also one of the podcast guests!) for helping us find a super chill venue to organize a reader gathering, and we met 20 netizens at one time.

i people said that there is indeed a big difference between chatting online and meeting offline, and everyone has become more three-dimensional.

There are still many friends who added contact information but did not meet for various reasons. See you next time!