Analysis of Mainstream Trends in Web3 and Investment Opportunities

Looking back at the predictions made a year ago about the main line of Web3, it seems that about half of them were accurate. The current main trends and secondary trends are roughly as follows:

1. Stablecoins and Real World Assets (RWA)

The most noteworthy projects in this field currently include:

• CRCL: As an investment target for Circle's position in the stablecoin market. Although the current price still appears overvalued, considering the growth potential of the stablecoin market in the future and the recent price correction, it may be a good entry opportunity.

• PlasmaFDN: As the only investable stablecoin public chain project currently, its financing scale, ecological construction, and social influence are all ahead of competitors. Although the current valuation is high, with the mainnet launch, its total locked value (TVL) is expected to reach a foundational level of 3-4 billion dollars.

• ENA: The Ethena project, as a representative of decentralized stablecoins, has seen its USDE issuance exceed $13.5B. At the same time, it has launched a centralized stablecoin USDTB, which is about to surpass $2B, and plans to launch its own RWA public chain, Converge.

• Ondo: As the first project to enable 24/7 trading of US stocks without KYC requirements, Ondo holds a significant position in the RWA field. If you are optimistic about the trend of borderless US stocks being tokenized, Ondo is one of the few investable options.

2. AI Agent

Although some AI agent projects predicted last year did not achieve breakthroughs, this year there have indeed been some AI agent projects with potential product-market fit (PMF), such as HeyAnonai, gizatech, Almanak, and ReiNetwork in the Web3 field.

It is particularly noteworthy that the halving event of Bittensor will occur in early next year. As a leading player in the industry, Bittensor currently has several subnets generating revenue, and overall, it is the most promising project to achieve breakthroughs in the Web3 AI field.

3. Meme Coin

The Meme coin market has remained hot since last year, even leading to a situation where various launchpads and Pump platforms are competing for market share. However, Pump still maintains its leading position and has begun to venture into the live streaming field, heading towards a Web3 version of TikTok. In the Meme coin track, Alpha changes every day, but Beta has only one: Pump.

4. Prediction Market

Prediction markets are becoming a potential new mainstream. Data from platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi continues to grow, and multiple new prediction market projects are emerging in the primary market. Experts believe that the development of prediction markets could disrupt the traditional insurance industry, as it allows users to directly access and hedge transparent probabilities and risk exposures.

However, this sector lacks investable targets in the secondary market, and investors can only wait for projects like Polymarket to issue tokens.

Conclusion

From another perspective, this round's main focus may be on projects that “have real income and profits and buy back tokens”. From this viewpoint, Hype and Pump may be two tokens worth paying attention to.

In addition, in the Payfi/stablecoin/RWA sector, besides the projects mentioned earlier, Tempo is also worth paying attention to. Although it was previously thought that Tempo might not issue tokens, the latest information indicates that it may eventually do so. The optimism towards Tempo is primarily based on Stripe's service to millions of merchants as a B2B channel and the involvement of Paradigm, a well-known VC in the industry, in its development.

In the future, the public chain of stablecoins may form a pattern of coexistence between Plasma (To C) and Tempo (To B) as dual kings.