The cryptos are becoming the least.

Original by Web3

the hong kong block chain week in april, i was most impressed not by which panel, but by a picture。

AT ABOUT 10:00 P.M., IN A TEAHOUSE IN WANCHAI, FOUR OR FIVE PEOPLE WERE CROWDED ON A TABLE, EATING DRIED CATTLE AND TALKING ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE GOING TO DO NEXT. ONE OF HIS FRIENDS, WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN A STABLE CURRENCY PAYER, SAID THAT THEIR TEAM HAD MOVED COMPLETELY TO AI; THE OTHER, WHO MADE THE DATA ON THE CHAIN, SAID THAT HE WAS NOW WORKING HALF THE EFFORT TO BUILD A DATA PIPELINE FOR AI。

No one talks about currency, no one talks about narratives, not even the word Web3 is very much used。

I didn't feel surprised. It was a strange feeling of familiarity. These guys sat at the same table three years ago, talking about DeFi, NFT, chain trip. They are the same people, the same excitement, the same whole-hearted commitment。

This trip to Hong Kong's Carnival and Bangkok Money 20/20, and after reading it, there's a saying in my head: the crypto group is becoming the least crypto。

What's left after the tide's down? After these two stops, I probably have an answer for myself。

I. Hong Kong: familiar faces, strange topics

HONG KONG FIRST. THIS CARNIVAL, THE CURRENCY RING PROJECT IS CLEARLY MISSING, AND THE LAST TWO YEARS HAVE BEEN SO FULL OF T-SHIRTS AND NARRATIVES。

This year's official theme is "Mountains, Winds, Clouds, Sea" and it's well-positioned — goodbyes and notes. Three years ago, this sentence was a blouse. But this year no one feels wrong, because there is no money to talk about, but there is an agreement。

The show took a turn and the face was familiar: OKX Wallet, Tron, Za Bank, HashKey, New Fire. But the subject they talked about changed, and the main thrust was highly focused on two words: RWA and AI。

RWA CONTINUES LAST YEAR'S HEAT, BUT HONESTLY, EVERYONE KNOWS WHO'S DOING THE REAL PROJECT AND WHO'S DOING THE SHOW. ONE JUDGEMENT I THINK IS VALID: RWA IN HONG KONG IS ESSENTIALLY THE PRODUCTIZATION OF FINANCE AND INVESTMENT — MOVING REAL ASSETS INTO CHAINS AND DISTRIBUTING THEM MORE EFFICIENTLY AND MORE EASILY ACROSS BORDERS. THIS HAPPENS TO BE THE BEST THING IN HONG KONG: INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN AND FINANCIAL PRODUCTIZATION. THE BUBBLES RETREATED AND HONG KONG WAS MORE COMFORTABLE — THE IRRITATIONS THAT WERE NOT ITSS IN THE FIRST PLACE WERE FINALLY SCATTERED。

AI, this is more interesting. Almost every panel is talking about the combination of AI and Web3, but I've heard several times, frankly, most of the discussions are at the level of "the two things should be combined." As to how to integrate and solve what problems, no one can say clearly。

My feeling is that Web3 is on AI, not because it's clear, but because there's really no story to tell. And the guests on the stage, they probably know themselves. But to survive, this is the philosophy of survival in this circle。

the hong kong dollar is not new. the license plates were issued, but it turned out that the two banks had their own rhythms, and they didn't have a hurry to raise their profile。

BUT WHAT REALLY TOUCHED ME WAS THOSE PEOPLE DOWN THERE. IT'S NOT THE GUESTS WHO ARE THE BUSIEST PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM, BUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE WEARING CASUAL DISPLAYS, HOLDING CARDS, TRAVELING BACK AND FORTH IN THE BARGAINING AREA -- DOING BDS, RUNNING COMMUNITIES, DOING CONTENT, HELPING WITH PROJECTS. THEY DON'T HAVE A PRETTY RÉSUMÉ, THEY DON'T HAVE TO SAY "PROFESSIONAL" BUT THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF THE INDUSTRY GREW OUT OF A MEAL AND A BUMP INTO THE WALL. THIS UNDERSTANDING IS NOT TO BE SEEN IN THE REPORT; IT IS TO BE EXCHANGED FOR TIME。

The ability of an industry to cross the cycle depends not only on the number of stars in the head, but also on the number of people who are willing to continue grinding without applause。

Web3's chassis is still there. But what runs on the chassis has changed completely。

Bangkok: Trojan horse with stable coins

From Hong Kong to Bangkok, it's the wind。

Money 20/20 is a purely financial technology B2B show, and it's not cheap to get in, and people come dressed like they're meeting customers. The Panel district is often open, but the adjacent commercial areas are full from opening to closing。

What surprises me is that the stabilization coin and the crypto origin company account for about a third of the exhibitors. OSL, Circle, Ripple, Fireblocks, Cobo, Pyth... at least a dozen, many of them for the first time. Money 20/20 has also added a special section this year called Intersection, which locates the intersection between TradFi and DeFi -- the stability coin is no longer on the edge of the financial technology fair, but is part of the main agenda。

but interestingly -- one third of the crypto companies, none of them sell crypto on the counter。

All they sold were payment chains, settlement corridors, asset custody. Some exhibitors simply define themselves as "Web 2.5 finance" -- one foot being encrypted, one foot being paid in the tradition. Those who come to talk about business don't care what kind of chain runs at the bottom, but it's three things: fast billing, low cost, good compliance。

i sat in the bargaining area for two afternoons, and the table next to me heard it every 10 minutes. no one talks about money prices, how to connect, how to connect, and who to follow. it's people with business to land。

There's a panel on the speaker's direct challenge desk: Pix in Brazil has been transferred free of charge, and what are you doing to stabilize it? The answer on the stage is simple — Pix to solve domestic problems, cross-border. This is probably the most honest position for stabilizing currency payments: instead of replacing local payment systems, the traditional financial chain, which crosses borders, has never worked well。

Thanks to Finternet's invitation, I had an interview with Sumsub, and I was particularly impressed after that. The company that did the KYC/KYB, the first clients were the Web3 project - the exchange, the wallet, the DeFi protocol. But now their biggest incremental customers come from Web2: payment agencies, banks, and offshore businesses. Instead, Web3's big customer background became endorsements, allowing them to cut more smoothly into traditional financial markets. Web3 trained them, Web2 was the real market。

you see, that's what i'm saying: the crypto's the least. it's not "in" traditional finance anymore, it's fully integrated -- you can't tell which is the stabilization currency company at the fair, which is the fintech. even if traditional financial institutions do not do stable currency business themselves, their clients will force them to access it。

The stabilization currency did not break into the castle of traditional finance. It went through the back door and the tunnel was paved when the people in the castle found out。

III. AI LABEL INFLATION

The tunnel was paved, but new labels were placed on it。

At the Bangkok Fair, I counted about eight out of ten of the walk-through booths, either AI or Agentic Payment, Agentic Wallets, and Agentic Banking。

Picked a few products and asked: What is the most mature of your AI modules using case? The answers are vague and essentially point to the future of A2A (Agent-to-Agent). As for the true volume of transactions, there was a good deal of silence。

A company that had been engaged in stable currency payments in previous years had made a choice that many people thought but had not yet done. When the infrastructure is crowded enough, then the tunnel is crowded with a bunch of like-sized tunnels. Instead of waiting for water, instead of a river with water, we're going to kill Al, the pay-or-pay solution for this hot industry. Not to label AI, but to service AI. It's a much clearer idea than the vague A2A concept at the fair: don't wait for Agent to pay for himself, first to fix the pain that AI has today。

But it's like Web3 in 2021 -- infrastructure first, killer-level applications still don't know where. But one thing is different: 2021 was when demand was created, and today's agentic payment has at least one real premise -- that AI angent does grow at the index level, and sooner or later they have to pay and collect. The question is not when demand does not exist, but when and in what form。

In the window period of "when to come", tagging is the safest option。

What if we get there

And then what

It was clear that Hong Kong and Bangkok should be seen together。

In Hong Kong, financial productization — RWA, financial management, asset management — is a combination of product design and distribution channels, and the business thinking of the cognac circle. Bangkok is a payment route — a stable currency for cross-border settlement, with compliance plates and local channels. Together, it's what the block chain really left behind after the Web3 retreat -- financial infrastructure。

Not DeFi Summer's income party, not NFT's all-people FOMO. It's a root tunnel, a license plate, a partner。

Boring, but true。

Web3 was drawing cakes that went into centralization and re-construct everything. The retreat was followed by patches and extensions of the centralized financial system. The encrypted punk revolution didn't happen. But the pipes are laid inside the walls — something that may be more permanent than revolution itself。

The tunnel is paved, but three issues remain:

• Can it still be done? There were too many companies doing capital at the Bangkok Fair, and the space for differentiation was shrinking rapidly. The new entrants need not re-engineered passages, but the water that should flow from finding them — who can embed the stability coins in the HF scene and who is the winner of the next phase. Not the one who makes the tunnel, the one who uses it。
• Applying solutions is the direction. The infrastructure is thick enough to begin to migrate to the application layer. The first wave of money was made by broadband companies in the 2000s, and the real big deal was the treasure-hunting and Twitter that later ran over. The stabilization coin is approaching that turning point。
• I've been tracking this field for a while. Visa, Mastercard, Stripe are all set up, and the X402 protocol is moving forward. But from protocol to landing, it's not technology, it's a trust framework and a sufficiently large cross-border trading scene, otherwise it's on demo and panel。

But then again, for the first time in 2021, when someone spoke of a stable cross-border payment, it was probably the same treatment - "The concept is sound, the landing is early." Five years later, the stabilization currency has been incorporated into the hair vessels of traditional finance. Agentic Payment may be at the same stage. Just this round of windows will be much shorter。

V. At the end

on the plane back, it's not about the panel, it's about the table in the teahouse。

ONE IS GOING TO AI, ONE IS WORKING ON THE DATA LINES FOR AI, AND THE REMAINING FEW ARE TALKING ABOUT GETTING STABILIZATION MONEY PAYMENTS INTO MORE BUSINESSES. THREE YEARS AGO THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT ANOTHER WORLD, BUT ONE THING REMAINED THE SAME — THEY WERE THERE, THEY WERE WORKING, THEY WERE THROWING THEMSELVES INTO THE POOL。

The most unique place in this circle is not the front line of technology, but the natural attraction of this kind of person — no matter how cold the water is, let's go down. The tracks change, narrative changes, but this wild sense of participation does not disappear. It just changed。

The revolution did not take place after the tide had receded. But the group of the crypto, with their strokes, speed and survival instincts, is penetrating into the larger battlefields of traditional finance, AI, cross-border payments. They no longer shout, but they are more dangerous than before。

Because this time, they put on a suit。

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