Hong Kong Web3 Conference: Home popularity dropped sharply, RWA is a hot topic, Chinese tycoon gatherings are the most eye-catching

It was another carnival, but the conference had deteriorated.

From April 6 to April 9, the "2025 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival" co-organized by Wanxiang Blockchain Laboratory and HashKey Group was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. Since the declaration was issued in 2022, this is also the third carnival. Judging from the press conference, this four-day industry event gathered nearly 400 top experts, scholars and industry leaders from the global fields of technology, finance, security, entertainment, etc. The Hong Kong government has a high platform and specifications, and the exhibition area has also increased by 50% compared with last year. However, from the scene, in addition to the slight increase on the third day, the overall conference seems to be underwhelming.

According to many participants, the overall abortion was almost halved compared with last year and the previous year, and there were only less than 100 booths. Compared with the more than 150 last year, it was obviously shrinking, and compared with the 300 booths in Singapore Token 2049 last year, it is even more pale. It is even suspected that elderly people from Hong Kong were invited to increase the abortion, which was also jokingly said that "the coldest conference." As for why it's cold? The reasons are multidimensional. First, the conference is during the tariff war, and the market performance is not good, the nature of the bear market is prominent, and the enthusiasm for attending the conference is reduced; second, the consensus conference held in February has more or less seized the initiative. On X, it can be seen that many KOLs who have been to the consensus conference have not gone to Hong Kong again. As lively as ever, the lively side event further dispersed the flow of people in the main venue; third, it is a common problem in the industry, with no hot spots or innovations, and participants are also paying more attention to prices rather than technology. For ordinary users, participating in the conference has become a purely social venue for joining the fun.

The booth is a symbol of strength, and the popularity of the booth is a concentrated reflection of attention. As for this year's conference booth, OKX is undoubtedly the hottest and largest booth. The exchange is still the main sponsor of the conference, and the scene is also full of popularity and is the core contributor to the flow of people. The second is the Chinese Light GMGN in the MEME category. In terms of hot topics, Payfi is still the one that everyone has come to. Traditional funds have made a lot of achievements in this regard. Not only were HSBC Bank, ZAbank and other institutions hotly talked about Web3 payments during the roundtable discussion, but there were also booths at the Shanghai Data Exchange and Bose Fund. The former mainly focused on RWA, while the latter was related to the current digital currency funds, or was inspired by the "Huaxia Hong Kong Dollar Digital Currency Fund" launched by Huaxia Fund (Hong Kong).

What is quite interesting is that except for Payfi and MEME, the previously popular concept seems to have calmed down in the main venue. No one is interested in the DePin track, leaving a mechanical dog that fits the AI ​​concept to flip in the venue. The exposure of Solana and Sui, who were very popular at the consensus conference, was not prominent at the main venue. I don’t know if it was affected by the sluggish currency price. Of course, both have independent self-organized events, and perhaps the main venue will no longer be the main venue. After experiencing a round of founder turmoil, TON no longer regards itself as “the eve of the outbreak” and returns to the exhibition area from the independent sub-forum last year. Although it is also a street, its popularity is no longer very popular. This is consistent with the reality. There have been rumors that several chain game projects have defected to TON, and Web3's Web2 breaks the circle, which seems to be more difficult than imagined. The BTC ecosystem is even more unrelated to the fact that BTCFi does nothing, and the Bitcoin ecosystem seems to have truly become a "false proposition" mentioned by the market.

From the perspective of participants, KOL has become the main participant in the conference, and some netizens jokingly claimed that "the Hong Kong Conference is the KOL talent market". In contrast, VCs retreated to the front line. Reminding the lack of VC institutions at the Hong Kong Consensus Conference and the high attitude of VCs in the last bull market, the rapid adjustment of the industrial ecosystem chain also makes people feel like yesterday.

The popularity of the main venue is sluggish, but there are many intimidating activities around the area. Among the more than 100 Side events, in addition to the real technical forums and hacker trunks, various cruise ships, nightclubs, and party make people linger. Binance, OKX, and Bitget all use all their skills to promote the gathering of crowds. After drinking and drinking, I became friends on WeChat. I don’t know how many people entered the good night in resource mixing, dreams of making money and rumors. Consistent with the past, Chinese are the core group of the Hong Kong General Assembly, and overseas groups are showing a further decrease this year.

Looking at the entire conference, the most talked about was the gathering of Chinese tycoons.

At the BUIDL 2025 event site, ancient Chinese OGs such as CZ, Sun Yuchen, and Li Lin gathered together to let the market witness the rare "Smile to Eliminate Revenge". You should know that the above-mentioned conflicts surrounding Sun Yuchen's random combination into pairs have their own contradictions. Two months ago, Justin Sun accused Li Lin of concealing due diligence on social media. The two fought a public opinion war around the "30 million US dollars in financial hole within Huobi". Two months later, the photos of the two hugging each other and drinking "cup wine" were circulated wildly, and love and killing each other became an adjective of the relationship between the two. CZ and Justin Sun are the founders of the two major exchanges, Binance and Tron, respectively, and also show a subtle competitive and cooperative relationship. Just a few days ago, Justin Sun filed a lawsuit against First Digital Trust (FDT) for being insolvent and unable to fulfill its customer funds redemption. Although it has nothing to do with Binance, it has also brought CZ and He Yi to the forefront again due to the circulating protection of large investors and retail investors. In any case, the three of them chatted and laughed and embraced each other at the table were still amazing. In addition to the above OGs, Shen Bo, Cai Wensheng, Bao Erye and others also appeared at the scene. What was the collective comeback of the ancient tycoons also left unlimited reverie in the market.

Unlike the above-mentioned popular Chinese tycoons, Vitalik, who represents the Western camp, is in a completely opposite state. Against the backdrop of Ethereum falling below $1,500 and the currency price was sluggish, founder Vitalik undoubtedly received only criticism and accusations. The magical scene was born from this. Vitalik on stage made Ethereum a world computer. The crowds below the stage collectively complained about when the price of coins will rise, and the conflict between the technical and price factions is looming. If you are not careful, you will be about to break out. In private occasions, the discussion has not decreased. What is interesting is that many industry insiders mentioned on X that CZ and Vitalik appeared at the same time, and CZ is more popular than Vitalik. The surge of people follows the rise and fall of mobility, which indirectly reflects the migration of faith. Perhaps compared with Vitalik, CZ, which currently has a more "Internet celebrity" sense, has indeed a higher influence on the crowd. After all, in the on-site price prediction, 800 has become a common number that ETH is used to, and BNB at least has the potential to call orders.

Overall, from the smugness in 2023 to the crowds of people in 2024, and to the cold popularity now, Hong Kong has witnessed the decline of BTC from US$17,000 to US$100,000 to US$82,000, and the entire process of bear market to bull market and then to the junction of bull and bear, the conference also perfectly reflects the current situation of the industry. The lack of hot spots and innovation and the lack of real applications seem to have been deliberately ignored. The bear market has begun to take shape. Exchanges are anxious to attract new products. Project parties are full of misfortunes, retail investors are struggling to guard altcoins, and VC bullets are coming to an end. However, the bear market has many advantages, with less noise and low cost. It is the critical period for polishing products, which is conducive to the standout of good projects. On the other hand, the circulation of new assets and the flow of money are the key, traditions and emerging are integrating, and supervision continues to improve, which is both an opportunity and a challenge. But if we want to gossip and social justice are still the present situation. The mystery of Brother Sun’s girlfriend and egg literature are circulating wildly, and the bustling crowds of people are different, and mismatch seems to be reflected in the development of the industry.

The topic has turned to Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong's Web3 development has not been satisfactory for various reasons, the ecosystem has been initially formed. From a policy perspective, whether it is RWA pilot or stablecoin supervision, Hong Kong's openness in Web3 is firmly at the forefront of the world. At the conference, Chan Mo-po said that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Financial Affairs and Treasury Bureau and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority are also formulating regulatory systems for Hong Kong's stablecoin issuers. The second policy statement on the development of virtual assets will also be released this year. Up to now, the government has allocated HK$50 million to support Cyberport to promote the construction of the Web3 ecosystem, attracting many Web3 companies to settle in Hong Kong.

According to Chen Haolian, deputy director of the Hong Kong Treasury Bureau, as of September last year, Hong Kong has more than 1,100 financial technology companies, with an annual growth of more than 15%, covering a variety of fields such as digital banking, virtual insurance, and virtual asset education platforms, including 8 licensed digital banks, 4 licensed virtual insurance companies and 10 licensed virtual asset education platforms.

The policy also followed. On April 7, the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission issued a Circular, which clearly allowed virtual asset spot ETFs to participate in on-chain pledge activities under the framework of prudent regulatory. At the same time, relevant restrictions on virtual asset trading platforms will be relaxed simultaneously, allowing licensed trading platforms to provide pledge services to customers.

Although Hong Kong's window effect is limited at present, in the long run, if we want to break the circle from traditional institutions, Hong Kong, which integrates collective regulations and openness, is still the most suitable development soil. From this point of view, spectators should probably be more patient with Hong Kong.

Gyro Finance also attached a short essay from some participants on X to give you a glimpse of the opinions of current industry insiders in the current cycle. Due to the length reasons, you can go to X to view the original text.

AB Kuai.Dong@_FORAB

1. This should be the coldest Hong Kong conference. Friends who are doing exhibitions generally complain that investment is difficult this year, while friends from the media complain that project parties are getting fewer and fewer orders.

2. Many colleagues from the Institute of Technology have more or less wanted to go back to the exchange to work this year. Although the salary is fixed and it is relatively screwed, the advantage is that someone pays the salary + The big platform has a face to say that it is once again confirmed the saying that the bull market wants to make trouble and the bear market wants to go to work.

3. The projects that completed the issuance of coins a few years ago are thinking about taking advantage of this bear market to do something so that in the next bull market, they can issue coins again. The old guys who issued coins recently are basically worried, as if they are wrong in everything they do.

4. This year, VC peers generally show a polarization state. For example, the valuation given by the previous projects was too high. This wave was cleared by the market, but when they encountered many new projects in the future, the valuation was very cheap.

5. CZ and Vitalik's event appeared at the same time. Unexpectedly, CZ is more popular than V God, which made everyone take a photo with CZ. CZ complained that you should also look for Vitalik.

6. Last year, when everyone was still arguing about whether there was a problem with Ethereum, it seemed that there was a thorough consensus this year. Whether it was the scene where Vitalik appeared or private occasions, there were questions and discussions everywhere.

7. I asked several market makers and institutions. Most of them looked at ETH below 800. They mainly bet on revolving loans and ICOs. The wave of people left the panic. However, in June 222018, everyone also saw this, and finally touched 880.

8. This year, there are obviously fewer white foreigners from Europe and the United States who come to attend the conference. Even in the technical field, the proportion of foreigners is less. Two years ago, everyone was very Fomo about Hong Kong stories and were willing to come from a distance. This year, there seems to be no more craze at that time.

9. This time I met many old men who do hair masturbation. To some extent, some old men did change the economic situation of their families because of hair masturbation. At the end of last year to the beginning of this year, although the witch buried some studios, they also made a lot of people.

10. Although it is still a bit difficult to evaluate the promotion of Hong Kong's compliance, Hong Kong has become an interesting crypto exchange center, with undercurrents surging, and many project parties who cannot go back generally come from Singapore, while coin speculation guys generally come from the mainland, and have created many interesting frictions and collisions between each other.

11. Some top Chinese bloggers have not only the currency circle in the industry, but also involve trendy brands, medical beauty, Hong Kong stock listed companies, etc., and have gradually formed a very large-scale industrial network, which is becoming more and more similar to European and American brokerage and investment companies.

DeFi Teddy@DeFiTeddy2020

VC coins that only talk about narrative will not be able to support high valuations; Meme coins have existed for a long time, but dividends are disappearing; projects return to fundamentals and PMF (product market fit); RWA is slowly rising; AI X Crypto is looking for PMF, which may explode in one day; future projects will have two exit methods: IPO and TGE.

VC: I can't make any investments, and I'm taking fewer moves. I mainly focus on exit and level 2, and I'm barely watching AI;

Project party: The original road is not working, crazy pivot, the word I care about most is Runway;

Investment Research KOL: The market doesn’t want to read the content, and I don’t know what else I can do.

ZTZZ ฿@ZTZZBTC

KOL: The quality of this KOL is far inferior to that of KOLs in 2017-2018. Now think about it, the hard stuff output from KOL of 1718, the motivation to cause trouble, and even the long-term vision, is also the top group on the Internet.

Project party: Sure enough, real gold is revealed in the fire, and interesting projects and teams have begun to appear in the bear market. But it is not very clear where the hot spots of the next round are. In addition, many VCs lost their pants, so now everyone is in a state of cautious investment. If you are a new entrepreneurial project partner, don’t give up thinking and don’t stop working hard. Most of the people who enter the circle to do projects in this round are people with excellent education, and the commonalities are very obvious. There are indeed fewer heroes in the currency circle. Some projects are still alive, but are dead. Too many project owners are eager to find a way out.

There is indeed a chance to overtake on the curve in the on-chain exchange track. It shouldn't be a BOT robot. We are not sure what the final form of this product will look like, but the moment this thing really appears will be like a supernova explosion, bringing impact and challenges to the hegemony of the CEX exchange.

cryptoHowe.hl | 0xU@0xcryptoHowe

The quality and atmosphere of the conference were less than one-fifth of last year. I remember that there were quite a lot of new projects in the venue last year, and even the Meme project owners bought booths. This year, I scanned my eyes and basically all of them are big Infra and technical service providers. Everyone has no money to see if they can see the naked eye. There are quite a lot of new people here this time, but not many elderly people come. At the same time, the KOL content this time is very high. There are much fewer project parties and VCs.

The dog-beating tool track is still very popular. Recently, I have talked about several new dog-beating tools, but the overall function and UI are actually similar. Even some large institutions start to make such tools by themselves with the mentality of betting on the wrong side rather than letting go. This indirectly shows that many people still think that Meme still has the possibility of continued explosion in the future. However, it is not good to make tool-based products, and it is difficult to differentiate. It basically relies on early occupation of ecological niche, mid- and late stages of various marketing promotions, and team's own connections. The most cost-effective Meme track is still the casino > tools and facilities > plates.

RWA and AI are the two topics that everyone discusses the most. RWA is actually something I didn’t expect. I thought everyone would talk about Alpha like Meme AI. In general, the RWA track is basically difficult to falsify, but its essence has little to do with Crypto. It can be simply understood as a new direction that traditional old money is seeking to meet compliance requirements and raise money faster and easier. The business is mainly toB toG, and retail investors have basically no way to participate.

After asking about everyone's expectations for the market, they basically look at it after June, but I personally think that June is indeed a little faster, and the certainty in the second half of the year may be greater. Be patient.