Crypto Prophet's New Year Proverb for 2022

Author: Odaily

2021 is coming to an end, and 2022 is about to begin.

In 2021, the Crypto industry continued to experience intense cycles and fluctuations, with multiple hotspots emerging and various sectors rotating. Everyone who persisted in their beliefs and executed their insights has reaped rewards, leaving annotations for themselves and the industry over the past year.

At the end of 2020, we gathered a group of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors from the industry to launch a special year-end project titled "Slapping Thighs in 2020, Smacking Faces in 2021." They summarized the past and predicted the future, and aside from lamenting the missed opportunities of valuable projects, the flags they set for 2021, such as "Bitcoin breaking $50,000," "ETF approval," and "top ten market cap reshuffle," have all become reality.

Thus, we decided to continue this interesting series to see who the remarkable prophets of the new year will be.

We interviewed over 20 industry practitioners who have been deeply involved in the crypto space with 4 questions:

1. What was your proudest and most satisfying investment/decision in 2021?

2. What do you regret the most in 2021, and why?

3. Please set a flag for yourself or your company/institution for 2022.

4. Based on your judgment, set a flag for the industry.

Here are the answers, Enjoy～

Mable Jiang, Partner at Multicoin Capital

1. I went all in on Project Galaxy, Cyberconnect, and Dialect.

2. As the first person to talk to a leading NFT trading platform, I foolishly passed on the seed round and then missed the private placement round. I realized that one should never underestimate the learning and growth speed of excellent entrepreneurs.

3. A third 1000x will emerge. (Odaily: Who are the first two?)

4. Five out of the top ten will be reshuffled. (Odaily: Last year, Mable predicted that the top ten reshuffle has already happened.)

Wang Li, Founder of Babel Finance

1. I held onto my coins.

2. I didn’t explore DeFi and NFT enough.

3. Babel Finance's customer satisfaction will be 100%.

4. At least 10 of the top 50 private companies globally will directly hold Bitcoin, and over 20 sovereign countries will recognize Bitcoin as one of their legal tender or strategic reserve assets.

Tiaozi Ge, Head of Chainlink China

1. I completely missed out.

2. Work delayed my earnings. (Odaily: Did you manage to buy more Tang Chen Yi Pin as you mentioned last year? Tiaozi Ge: Mysterious smile.)

3. Integrate all blockchains and decentralized applications.

4. Smart contract technology will enter traditional fields.

Vincent Niu, Partner at Sky9 Capital

1. I became an investor in Nansen after being an early user.

2. When the Gamefi sector started mid-year, as the founder of DappReview, I have been supporting blockchain games since 2018 and witnessed the growth of Axie and Sandbox, but I didn’t fully capitalize on this wave of Gamefi.

3. I hope to have a bit more time to play games and take a break next year.

4. There will be no bear market next year. (Odaily: Borrowing the boss's good words.)

Chen Yuetian, Partner at Huofeng Capital

1. If it’s an equity investment, I personally invested in Weiling Cloud; if it’s blockchain-related, I participated in the investment of Meson Network; if it’s a personal life decision, I started an independent investment management company to explore some investment attempts.

2. I often regret being too gullible every year. I constantly need to realize that I am much more reliable than the "social average," so I need to verify carefully when dealing with people; too many are not trustworthy.

3. Stay safe and operate normally.

4. Equity investment has no way out; primary market investments will scale towards blockchain; or this industry will disappear, and primary market investments will no longer be possible in China.

Jocy, Partner at IOSG

1. DeBank (followed up in two rounds)/ Illuvium (second-largest investor)/ Arweave (the first institutional investor discovered during the project's low point). Sticking to long-term support for the projects and teams we believe in and witnessing their growth together is what we are most proud of.

2. Aztec didn’t give a better offer than Paradigm, and I missed the opportunity to lead the investment. Axie Infinity, we discussed three rounds of investment opportunities with the team over the past two to three years (from a valuation of 5m to 50m to 500m), but ultimately did not invest. At that time, our understanding of Gamefi was inadequate, and our fear of the failure rate of projects in a bear market made us conservative, causing us to miss a unicorn. However, it is precisely because of these face-slapping cases and reflective experiences that institutions can go further and become clearer.

3. Dong Cheng Xi Jiu, IOSG hopes to grow rapidly with Asian funds and share the investment culture and achievements of the Eastern market with the West, and compare with Western investment institutions!

4. Large-scale deployment of Layer 2 expansion and Gamefi/SocialFi will rise and then fall.

Bowen, Smrti Labs

1. I have been an LP in this crownless king, CRV.

2. I missed some early momentum judgments of ETH challengers.

3. I hope to create an On-Chain Game that everyone loves.

4. GameFi 1.0 Play to Earn; GameFi 2.0 Fun to Play; GameFi 3.0 Fun to Pay.

Yang, Partner at Spark Digital Capital

1. Led the investment in Superfarm, invested in 2020, hodled in 2021, with a maximum return of 2000 times, looking forward to 2022's performance.

2. I bought too little NFT land; at the beginning of the year, everything seemed expensive, but now it seems the prices are reasonable. In the new year, besides continuing to acquire land, I also plan to set up a renovation team and be a contractor.

3. Continue to bet, grow alongside the industry and portfolio, and invest in two truly disruptive projects that can transcend cycles. I believe I will definitely wait for a ROYAL FLUSH.

4. From the industry trend, more outsiders are not just curious and observing, but are genuinely participating and getting involved. From all levels, I still believe that blockchain will become a true mainstream world infrastructure. From a profit perspective, making money will become more difficult, but don’t leave the table; the blockchain industry is an infinite game.

Su Ye, Partner at ArkStream Capital

1. I invested and made two rounds of follow-up investments in the metaverse project Realy, which is creating the cyber city blueprint I envisioned.

2. Watching AXS drive the entire Gamefi to take off, I regret not recognizing this future unicorn when I met the Axie team in Vietnam in 2018 due to my biases.

3. To become one of the Chinese VCs that outputs the most content/views to the English-speaking world.

4. In the Web3 era, social forms will be flattened, and the boundaries of national races will gradually fade. In the future, our first sentence when we meet will not be "I'm Chinese," but "I'm from xxx DAO."

Yu Jun, Partner at A&T Capital

1. I founded A&T Capital with like-minded partners. Currently, we have invested in over thirty projects, and I am satisfied with each investment, believing they bring not only financial returns but also drive the development of this industry.

2. I gained 10 pounds, overworked and gained weight.

3. Lose 10 pounds.

4. Gamefi 2.0 will emerge; some will Play to Earn, while others will play for fun. Among those playing for fun, many will genuinely pay for fun, creating a positive feedback loop business model.

Haze, COO of Pionex

1. Participated in the investment of LIV and the donation to PEOPLE, actively engaging with new things, aligning knowledge with action.

2. I have been paying attention to AXS; I played it very early but found the gameplay too poor, so I missed out; when I saw CryptoPunk, it was only 12 ETH, but I didn’t study why it was so valuable, just thought it was expensive. So I didn’t participate, carrying biases, and later missed BAYC as well.

3. Help more users utilize grid trading bots for rational trading.

4. The industry is developing too fast; the imaginative space is much larger than before, making it hard to judge. The only solution: do a good job of investment allocation, hold steadily, and grow with the industry.

Amber, Head of Dapper Labs China

1. I formed the Dapper Labs China Avengers team, where each member is an elite of the team.

2. I didn’t spend enough time on fitness, but at the end of 2021, I initiated participation in a fitness DAO, hoping to always be in the best shape to face new challenges.

3. Let ordinary people feel the charm of blockchain, with a small goal of reaching ten million users.

4. An interconnected Web 3, with more composability; our destination is the stars and the sea!

James Wo, Founder of DFG

1. I can hold DOT better than almost everyone.

2. I sold SOL as soon as it was listed.

3. Most of what I hoped for in 2021 has been realized, and I hope for steady growth in 2022.

4. Supercycle.

Joanna, Co-founder of Jsquare Group

1. Heavily invested in Metaverse, NFT, and Gaming.

2. Everything is satisfactory, except for having my schedule upside down all year; next year I need to cherish my life more.

3. Make more % in 2022.

4. Everyone discovers: Ah, it’s really fragrant.

Wayne, Founder of Axia8 Ventures

1. Aligning knowledge with action, firmly implementing participation in the industry.

2. I couldn’t provide more support to many projects.

3. Continuously expand internal technical capacity, enhance product output, and explore the unknown with more entrepreneurs to gather strength.

4. There will be many huge opportunities ahead, from cross-national policy differences, diverse business model innovations, web3 native data construction, to the linkage of non-crypto hardcore technology & blockchain, all of which will drive exponential economic activity.

Li Hua Yi, Founder of LD Capital

1. We are satisfied with most of our investments in 2021. Besides return rates, we emphasize interaction, participation with the industry, and each project collaboration has different experiences.

2. Early on, we overlooked the rise of new public chains, such as Solana and AVAX. Although we participated in these, it was relatively late, which is also why we are now focusing on the smart contract Assembly created by the IOTA team.

3. I hope LD can invest in more quality projects, advancing the institution's global business and continuing to enhance post-investment services.

4. Blockchain and crypto applications will expand from the native user base to the entire internet, achieving real landing and consumer-level user scale, bringing explosive opportunities for the industry, allowing outstanding people worldwide to participate in innovation without borders or permissions.

Kennen, Co-founder and CEO of BCA Network

1. BCA held the world's first offline NFT exhibition at UCCA Lab in March this year, where Beeple and CryptoPunk made their first appearance in China, drawing more attention from the overseas crypto world and media to China's crypto art scene.

2. I regret not buying more CryptoPunk at the beginning of the year; I didn’t align knowledge with action.

3. MetaOpus will become a rising NFT Marketplace in the crypto art field, changing both the art and crypto worlds.

4. In 2022, a diverse range of NFT subcategories will quickly emerge, such as music NFTs developing rapidly; the entire industry will also see a proliferation of DAO organizations, with DAOs being applied and practiced in a broader sense. In summary, everyone can own their favorite NFTs and join their preferred DAOs.

Tian Ran, Head of Mask Ecosystem

1. Mask successfully issued assets, and the mini-program ecosystem is taking shape, with low-cost accumulation of AGLD and SOS.

2. I played OHM very early but withdrew early, missing most of it. I completely underestimated the multi-chain ecosystem.

3. The Mask social family bucket (including several social components incubated through investment) can fly together, with over a million monthly active users.

4. Maybe there won’t be a particularly large bear market?

Sleepy, Co-founder of WeirDAO, Crypto Artist, and Rhythm Author

1. I bought Bored Ape Yacht Club at a floor price of 0.2 ETH.

2. I sold Bored Ape Yacht Club at a floor price of 40 ETH. (Odaily note: The current floor price is 59 ETH.)

3. I hope WeirDAO becomes an internationally renowned artist collective; I want to lose weight down to 160 pounds.

4. NFTs will enter thousands of households.

Lurpis, Founder of Bifrost

1. Successfully bid for the Kusama parachain in the first round, which currently seems to be the most cost-effective batch of parachains.

2. SALP supported Polkadot a step too late, missing the most active time for Polkadot slot auctions, with the total minting amount (TVM) missing about $200M.

3. In 2022, I hope TVM reaches $5.5B.

4. Web3 is the next hotspot, but not the Web3 that VCs talk about; it’s the Web3 that Gavin talks about.

Yuxian, Founder of Slow Mist Technology

1. I attach great importance to regulations in various countries, especially in China, as this is key for long-term development decisions.

2. In 2022, safety comes first; other aspects are not critical.

3. The blockchain industry continues to develop unremarkably in China, with no big surprises. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies continue to flourish and excite overseas, but risks persist.