The team of DWF Ventures joined the crypto community gathered in Taipei for Asia Blockchain Summit 2024 (ABS 2024), where the TON ecosystem also hosted The Open Summit, and composed the key highlights from the events.
Market Sentiments
Narratives
Some significant narratives that had driven the crypto market in the first 3 quarters of 2024, such as restaking, parallel execution, AI, Bitcoin L2s, and more, have slowed down, especially as the altcoin market has not fully recovered yet.
Back to the Fundamentals
When the market sentiment becomes less exuberant, the community tends to take a more conservative approach. People begin shifting their focus away from hype and speculation, and towards more fundamental work, such as improving protocol designs, building the product, and driving real-world adoption.
Crypto Liquidity
New Sources of Liquidity
The crypto market is hoping for the next major influx of liquidity that will drive the space forward, especially when the approvals of BTC and ETH ETFs have not injected as much new capital as many had hoped.
Altcoin Supply
Although overall liquidity in crypto has increased, it has not been able to keep pace with the growing supply of altcoins being released.
Next Catalysts
In the upcoming months, the key catalysts that the community is closely watching for are the potential Fed rate cut and the US election.
Crypto Venture Capital Consensus
VC Deployments
A decent amount of crypto venture capital (VC) firms have slowed down the pace of capital deployment. Despite that, DWF Ventures remains active in seeking out good and reasonably-valued investment opportunitiesL.
Interest in TON
Many venture capitalists, including those based in the United States, are displaying interest in exploring the potential of the TON ecosystem and projects on top of it. However, plenty of them are still trying to figure out which verticals and projects are worth investing in.
TON Ecosystem
Listing on Binance
Listing of Toncoin (TON) on the Binance exchange during The Open Summit became excellent news for the participants, elevating the overall market sentiment around the project.
Growth of Developer Community
The number of those building on TON rapidly grew in the last two quarters, and the most significant increase comes from Chinese developers. They brought new solutions for onboarding retail users. For example, Catizen added the daily on-chain check-in technique into the game and used TikTok-style of viral short videos as a marketing tool. In addition, communities like TONX are making an effort to grow the network of builders on TON.
Mini Apps Thesis
TON aims to maximize their influence through mini apps and Telegram's distribution channel. To leverage game development resources needed for achieving that goal, the ecosystem has recently unveiled strategic partnerships with Cocos Engine and Tencent Cloud. Furthermore, Catizen launched the Catizen Game Center on TON, featuring over 200 mini-games for end-users.
Beyond Tap-to-Earn
While TON is known for their tap-to-earn games like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat, the ecosystem encompasses a wider range of verticals that are worth observing. These include WeChat-style mini-games, short video streaming, social platforms like dating, etc.
DeFi
DeFi on TON is developing gradually with room left for further improvement. Ecosystem’s TVL growth and the issuance of Tether helped to expand the adoption of DeFi sector in TON.
Taiwan Crypto Community
Builders-Driven
In Taiwan, there are more blockchain developers and entrepreneurs than venture capitalists or crypto institutions. Many of them work for major ecosystems like Solana and Sui Network, aiming to scale the local community for the chain.
KOL Community
The KOL culture is particularly popular in Taiwan. Therefore, it is very common to see X and Youtube influencers within the ranks of the local crypto community.
What's Next?
DWF Ventures will be attending and presenting at the upcoming Token 2049 conference in Singapore on September 18-19, 2024. As an active investor in the crypto space, we are eager to connect with founders and ecosystem builders at the event.