The New Logic of Web3 Entrepreneurship under the New Global Trade Order

Deteriorating Macroeconomic Environment - A New Order is Emerging Amidst the Crisis

The financial world is beginning to enter a chaotic era.

Since Trump reassumed the presidency, a series of economic and political measures have caused ongoing turmoil in global markets. One of the most impactful measures is the escalation of tariff policies: starting from April 5, 2025, the United States will impose a uniform "baseline tariff" of 10% on all imported goods, and will apply higher "reciprocal tariffs" on countries such as China and Vietnam, among 60 others. This has led to massive fluctuations in global markets: U.S. Treasuries faced a wave of sell-offs, with the 10-year Treasury yield soaring above 4.5%; U.S. stocks experienced severe volatility, coming close to a circuit breaker; and the U.S. dollar index fell for several consecutive days, recording the largest daily drop in several years.

The post-World War II international economic system centered around the United States is facing the risk of collapse: the rise of emerging economies has weakened the relative advantage of the U.S., while the massive debts and fiscal deficits accumulated by the U.S. over the long term are continuously eroding the credibility of the dollar. China's rapid development since joining the WTO has gradually approached and even surpassed the U.S. in various technological fields, triggering deep anxiety among the American elite.

In this context, the American decision-making body has begun to brew a new trade and financial order to maintain its global dominance. The Trump administration attempted to "start anew"—re-establishing America’s central position by creating a new rule system. This includes targeting major competitors, weakening the momentum of countries like China that are rapidly rising by leveraging the existing globalization dividends; at the same time, it seeks new value anchors to provide support for the shaken credibility of the dollar and global trade.

It is noteworthy that since Trump took office, the U.S. government's attitude towards the cryptocurrency sector has undergone a significant shift. Shortly after taking office, Trump publicly expressed concern over the development of virtual currencies, in stark contrast to his previous critical stance on Bitcoin. Some factions within the Republican Party and certain state governments have gradually embraced Bitcoin in recent years, viewing it as "digital gold" to hedge against the risks of the dollar.

Bitcoin and Gold: The New "Double Anchor" of the Dollar

As global trade and financial rules face reconstruction, the United States attempts to establish a new credit foundation for the dollar with "dual asset anchoring": incorporating both traditional gold reserves and emerging Bitcoin reserves. This strategy aims to strengthen the credibility of the dollar in the new order through a combination of physical assets and digital assets.

By the end of 2024, the total market capitalization of Bitcoin is approximately $2 trillion, which is about one-tenth of the market value of gold (about $20 trillion). From a long-term potential perspective, if Bitcoin's market value could one day be comparable to that of gold, then its price still has several times more growth potential. The United States is beginning to seriously consider incorporating it into the national reserve system.

In March 2025, the U.S. government rolled out a series of major initiatives in the cryptocurrency sector: on March 6, President Trump signed an executive order announcing the establishment of a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" and a "U.S. Digital Asset Reserve." The next day, the White House held a high-profile cryptocurrency summit, inviting industry giants as well as congressional members and officials to participate. Trump publicly expressed his support for the development of the cryptocurrency industry at the summit and promised to push Congress to quickly pass legislation on the regulatory framework for stablecoins and digital assets to provide a clear legal environment.

This series of actions indicates that the United States aims to establish Bitcoin alongside gold as a cornerstone asset of the new financial system. Market rumors suggest a target of accumulating control over approximately 1 million Bitcoins (accounting for 5% of the total supply), a quantity that is close to the proportion of the U.S. official gold reserves relative to global gold.

Of course, the inclusion of Bitcoin also helps the United States solve its own problems. For example, the huge national debt burdening the U.S. government is becoming increasingly heavy, triggering a credit crisis. If the U.S. controls enough Bitcoin reserves and drives up its price in the future, it may cleverly mitigate debt risks by selling part of its reserves to fill the debt black hole. At the same time, the U.S. is also strengthening its efforts in digital currency regulation: a recent bill proposed to bring stablecoins with a circulation exceeding $10 billion under Federal Reserve supervision, indicating that the U.S. hopes to control the issuance and rule-making of crypto dollars (dollar stablecoins) to solidify the dollar's dominant position in the crypto world.

Market Environment Adjustment and "What is Suitable to Do in the Second Half"

In the past year, the global cryptocurrency market has undergone a drastic shift from frenzy to calm. The total market value of crypto assets has fallen from a historical peak of around $3.71 trillion to about $3.04 trillion, entering a deep correction and clearing phase. Macroeconomic turmoil coupled with tightening regulations has caused many projects lacking real value support to vanish during this round of adjustment. However, for entrepreneurs who firmly believe in the long-term value of blockchain, this moment is instead the best time to build a base, accumulate strength, and nurture new opportunities.

In such a "second half" environment, entrepreneurs should consider: what is suitable for the second half? Simple traffic tactics are no longer sustainable, replaced by entrepreneurial logic centered around hardcore value. In the current market environment, the following directions hold new opportunities:

• Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem: Financial innovations around the Bitcoin network ("BTC Fi"), infrastructure upgrades, and the reconstruction of real assets and payment networks based on BTC.

• Other public chain ecosystems: Innovations that return to the essence of efficiency and profitability on public chains like Ethereum, breaking away from merely "rolling traffic" and creating sustainable decentralized finance (DeFi) applications that are product-oriented.

• Real World Assets (RWA) and Payment Finance (PayFi): Combining on-chain technology with real assets and payment scenarios to develop new models supported by stable cash flows.

• Cryptocurrency concept stocks: Pay attention to the rise of "blockchain concept stocks" in traditional capital markets, as well as the new path of Web3 startups moving towards stock market listing.

Entrepreneurial opportunities around BTC: BTC Fi, BTC Infra, BTC RWA & PayFi

Although Bitcoin has long been regarded as "digital gold" and its mainnet features are relatively simple, a recent series of technological and application advancements are injecting new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Around the BTC network, we see three major entrepreneurial opportunities:

• BTC Fi (Bitcoin Finance): Creating new types of financial assets on the Bitcoin network. Recent protocols such as BRC-20, Runes, etc. have sparked a wave of issuing token assets on the BTC mainnet; the Taproot Assets protocol (TA protocol) launched by Lightning Labs makes it possible to issue stablecoins, bonds, and other financial assets in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Representative projects such as Bedrock, Solv, etc. focus on building decentralized financial services such as lending, trading, and derivatives on the Bitcoin network.

• BTC Infra (Bitcoin Infrastructure): Reshaping smart infrastructure on Bitcoin. The industry is attempting to create a smart contract layer for Bitcoin similar to Ethereum. One approach is to develop EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechains or Layer 2; another approach involves solutions native to the Bitcoin protocol family, such as the RGB protocol and Lightning Network, which are Bitcoin-native Layer 2 technologies. Representative projects like Unisat, Merlin, and B² focus on building Bitcoin's Layer 2, middleware tools, and more.

• BTC-Powered RWA & PayFi: Unleashing the potential of Bitcoin in the realm of real-world assets and payments. RWA based on the Bitcoin network is gradually emerging, such as the tokenization of U.S. Treasury bonds and physical assets. At the same time, the "PayFi" model, which relies on payment infrastructures like the Lightning Network, is bringing Bitcoin back to the payment stage. Representative projects like LNFi focus on enhancing the practical application efficiency and user experience of Bitcoin in RWA and payment scenarios.

Entrepreneurial opportunities around other public chains: efficiency-driven and product-oriented entrepreneurial logic

Apart from Bitcoin, other public chains (such as Ethereum, BSC, Solana, etc.) are also nurturing new entrepreneurial logic and opportunities. After experiencing the DeFi boom and the public chain war, the industry is beginning to return to rationality, with two major trends emerging:

• Returning to the underlying logic of "making money": whether it is lending, trading, market making, or derivatives on the chain, as long as it revolves around capital circulation, there will definitely be ways to validate business models and paths to profitability. In the current environment, only businesses that can "make money" have the confidence to weather the cycles.

• The public chain ecosystem is shifting from "traffic competition" to "efficiency competition", with product-oriented entrepreneurship on the rise: Early public chains and protocols were keen to build up high incentives and package stories to "compete for traffic" in order to attract users and funds. However, this type of growth driven solely by narrative is difficult to sustain. Now, capital favors practical projects that enhance efficiency and improve user experience.

Sustainable Entrepreneurship Model: Cash Flow Driven Path Selection

Whether in the Bitcoin ecosystem or other public chains, creating sustainable cash flow has become a watershed for whether entrepreneurial projects can go far. Traditional capital markets are beginning to evaluate crypto startups using the standards of mature companies, with "cash flow" and "profitability" becoming key assessment criteria.

Currently, some crypto projects with real business models are becoming bridges connecting Web3 and traditional capital markets. These projects usually have clear revenue sources, stable cash flow expectations, and good compliance adaptability, which have attracted significant attention from traditional institutions and are seen as the most likely potential targets to enter mainstream capital markets through IPOs or mergers and acquisitions.

• DePIN stands out particularly among multiple niche tracks. It constructs a distributed infrastructure network oriented towards the physical world by managing real resources such as computing, electricity, and bandwidth on-chain, combined with economic incentive mechanisms, naturally possessing a SaaS-style revenue model. Representative projects include PEAQ, Jambo, OORT, and Swan, which together form the key supporting layer of the DePIN ecosystem through machine access, Web3 mobile devices, AI data storage, and computing power sharing.

• The AI+Crypto track demonstrates strong potential for integration. By combining AI Agents, on-chain identities, and micro-payment mechanisms, it promotes data interaction and resource scheduling among agents. Projects like Footprint focus on data analysis engines, while DeAgent.ai builds a decentralized AI Agent protocol to provide services for Web3 smart infrastructure.

• The RWA (Real World Assets) sector is rapidly developing, with the ongoing tokenization of on-chain U.S. Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, real estate, and other assets, and it is expected that the future market space could reach $10 trillion. Representative projects such as The PAC provide asset mapping services within a compliance framework, promoting the on-chain circulation of RWA within compliant structures.

• PayFi has become the most active track in on-chain transactions. In 2024, the trading volume of stablecoins surpassed $15.6 trillion, exceeding Visa for the first time. Projects like Aisa are combining stablecoins with AI wallets to build payment infrastructure that supports automation and real-time settlement, catering to e-commerce, cross-border, and machine-to-machine payment scenarios.

Crypto Concept Stocks: A Structural Integration into Mainstream Finance

Classification of Cryptocurrency Concept Stocks ###

The wave of "crypto concept stocks" emerging in traditional capital markets is an important symbol of the integration between the crypto industry and mainstream finance. These listed companies participate in the blockchain industry in various ways, providing investors with diversified investment options. Based on differences in business models and operational focuses, crypto concept stocks can generally be classified into the following categories:

• Asset-Driven (BTC Reserve-Centric): The strategy of such companies is to treat cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as a core part of the company's balance sheet, amplifying the public by holding a large amount of cryptocurrency.