Dialogue DoraHacks Partner: The bottom of the bear market should not be far away, and we will be more aggressive

Interviewee: Steve, Partner at DoraHacks

Interviewer: Zhu Enmin, ChainCatcher

After the collapse of Terra and Three Arrows Capital, the FTX crisis and its subsequent fallout have made the crypto winter increasingly harsh. The sluggish market, plummeting coin prices, and stringent regulatory environment seem to usher in the darkest period in the history of the crypto industry. Recently, a saying has been circulating in the crypto community: "Winter is coming."

In contrast, more and more developers and investors are shouting "LFG," viewing the crisis as an opportunity and actively engaging in development. DoraHacks and its ecosystem stand out as a bright presence. Since its inception in 2014, DoraHacks has long supported the geek movement and promoted the open-source movement through hackathons, and has timely adjusted its strategy as the geek community embraced blockchain technology. Starting in 2017, it focused on building the crypto industry and has now developed into a leading organizer of Web3 hackathons.

A notable achievement is that DoraHacks has produced many star projects such as Polygon and STEPN, and has actively developed a quadratic funding mechanism based on MACI. Additionally, over the past year, DoraHacks has organized 80 large-scale global hackathons and grants, helping over 3,000 startup teams secure more than $30 million in funding.

It is worth noting that DoraHacks was born at Tsinghua University, with its founders and core team composed entirely of Chinese, making them genuine Chinese Web3 builders. In mid-November, ChainCatcher invited DoraHacks partner Steve for an in-depth conversation. In the dialogue, Steve introduced the operational status and decentralization progress of Dora, as well as shared his views on multi-chain ecosystems like Polkadot, Aptos, and Cosmos. Furthermore, he offered his perspective on the FTX crisis and Hong Kong's new crypto policies.

Steve believes that the bear market is a good time for solid construction, and that this year has seen mainly traders leaving the market, including Do Kwon and Su Zhu. The fundamentals of builders in the crypto industry have actually been improving. He suggests that the crypto industry is very suitable for university students to learn and enter, and that students in the Chinese-speaking world should look globally and pay more attention to the development and opportunities in Web3.

Here is the full dialogue:

"Connecting hackers around the world to solve important and urgent problems"

ChainCatcher: Please share your experiences before and after entering the crypto industry.

Steve: I studied economics and finance at Tsinghua University for my undergraduate degree. I first came into contact with the crypto industry at the end of 2017, during my senior year. At that time, I wanted to become a lawyer and had already completed my application for a JD program at a U.S. university, receiving some good offers. After applying, I had some time to try something new. By chance, I saw that DoraHacks was hosting a blockchain hackathon in Beijing, so I contacted the Dora team at that time.

After getting involved, I found that the team was very young. As a geek movement organization, Dora's motto has always been "Connecting hackers around the world to solve important and urgent problems." Dora firmly believes that hackers can change the world, which gave me a strong sense of mission. In fact, the success of the Web3 industry does not depend on educational background or experience; it welcomes all smart and ambitious individuals to pursue what they want to do freely, which is also what attracts me to this industry.

Interestingly, about two months after I joined, in March 2018, the Dora team invited me to be the COO. I thought, since the team saw potential in me, and I could make significant contributions here, why not give it a try? With that mindset, I first applied for a deferral for my U.S. law school admission, and eventually decided to reject the offer altogether.

ChainCatcher: It seems that Dora initially did not focus on the crypto industry. What prompted the transformation?

Steve: Actually, the Dora team first encountered blockchain in 2015. An interesting experience was when Dora's founder Eric participated in the Ethereum hackathon organized by Vitalik and Wanxiang in Shanghai, where participants included Fantom, Da Hongfei, and Shuai Chu. However, the Dora team's impression was that blockchain technology was not mature at that time, with many organizations masquerading as legitimate while engaging in pyramid schemes, and very few real-world applications. It wasn't until 2017 that some embryonic DeFi applications began to emerge on smart contracts, and blockchain technology transitioned from niche to mainstream, gradually moving from abstract high-level designs to practical implementations.

The turning point came in 2017 when about 70-80% of the hackers in Dora's community were very interested in blockchain. Almost all the hackers at hackathons were working on smart contracts and blockchain development. Dora aimed to serve hackers, focusing on the directions and problems they cared about. Thus, starting in 2018, Dora began organizing blockchain hackathons.

ChainCatcher: What significant changes have occurred in Dora's development strategy? What contributions has Dora made to Web3?

Steve: In 2018, the Dora team made two important decisions: first, to focus on the blockchain industry. Among all technology stacks, the blockchain technology stack is the most open-source and grassroots, with a lower barrier to entry, allowing anyone to quickly find a suitable entrepreneurial direction and successfully solve specific problems. Second, the geek movement is global. In 2018, we organized 31 large blockchain hackathons across 15 cities in 8 countries. It was also from 2018 that Dora firmly adopted a multi-chain approach, supporting 10 public chains at that time, including Ethereum, Neo, Nebulas, and Ontology.

In my view, Dora is the "arsenal of Web3," helping those who want to start businesses in the crypto industry to get a cold start and access the early support they need, including funding, investment, and various resources. In other words, Dora is driving innovation in the entire crypto industry. While Web3 is a very important industry and track for us, we are certainly not limited to it. We have been exploring various cutting-edge technology directions, including quantum computing, commercial aviation, and controlled nuclear fusion.

ChainCatcher: DoraHacks has collaborated with many star projects. Which project has impressed you the most?

Steve: One noteworthy mention is that Polygon participated in a hackathon hosted by Dora in Bangalore, India, back in 2018. This event was co-hosted by Dora along with Sequoia India, Lightspeed, and others. At that time, Polygon was still called Matic and was one of the four most promising projects in India. Shortly after participating in the Dora hackathon, Polygon secured investment and incubation from Binance.

ChainCatcher: The Dora ecosystem also includes DoraHacks Ventures. What are your investment criteria?

Steve: DoraHacks Ventures has three core investment criteria:

First is tools (e.g., DAO tools). Since 2020, Dora has designed and developed various tools that contribute to the crypto industry, such as multi-chain quadratic funding, which effectively supports early developers and various public goods issues.

In line with Dora's development strategy, if Dora can help developers raise funds using tools, it should also be able to develop tools itself to assist developers in treasury management and community management. One opportunity we see is the development of multi-chain wealth management tools and community management tools that can accommodate various assets.

Second is cutting-edge technologies, including quantum computing, commercial aviation, and their intersections with blockchain technology. Looking at quantum computing now is akin to looking at Bitcoin and blockchain in 2012; it is still early, with quantum hardware just taking shape and quantum software being a completely blue ocean. In fact, very few organizations in Web3 focus on these cutting-edge directions; rather, some Web2 organizations are looking at them but lack in-depth research.

Third is grassroots geek movements, primarily focusing on exceptional and early-stage tech founders who stand out from Dora hackathon competitions. We encourage grassroots participation; hackers come from all walks of life. Compared to those born with a silver spoon, the broader group of entrepreneurs and hackers often starts without good resources. Dora particularly hopes to provide a good stage to support those hackers in need.

"Cooperating with all ecosystems, not taking sides"

ChainCatcher: What is the current operational status of Dora? What are the recent development plans?

Steve: Dora's total financing has exceeded $50 million, which can support the community and teams for many years. This does not include the decentralized organizations that Dora uses to fund global geeks and open-source developers, such as Dora Grant DAO and Dora Venture.

In the bear market, we have not only not contracted but have actually expanded strategically, though not blindly. Over the past year, Dora has organized 80 large global hackathons and grants, helping over 3,000 startup teams secure more than $30 million in funding, which is a source of pride for us.

On the Dora platform, there are about 50,000 to 60,000 active developers each month, and the number of global developers that Dora can genuinely cover should be between 500,000 and 1 million. This means that the developer community that Dora can reach is larger than that of most public chain ecosystems. The number of Rust developers that Dora can reach should also exceed 100,000, and Dora has a very good strategic reserve of talent proficient in various programming languages.

Dora firmly follows a multi-chain strategy and currently has very good cooperative relationships with 70 to 80 Web3 ecosystems. In the coming year, we will expand our collaborations to 200 to 300 ecosystems and applications. In the process of expanding our multi-chain and multi-application strategies, we can provide developers with more resources, and the traffic on the Dora platform will continue to rise.

Additionally, we will continue to invest resources in cutting-edge technologies, including quantum computing, commercial aviation, controlled nuclear fusion, and their integration with the blockchain industry. Although these directions are still in their infancy, we are willing to be the first to take the plunge.

ChainCatcher: Why did Dora choose the DAO track? How do you view the relationship between DAOs and companies?

Steve: We began focusing on DAOs and DAO tools in 2020, as decentralized governance is a very important topic. We believe that DAOs represent a significant opportunity, and more DAOs will certainly emerge in the future. However, currently, aside from Gnosis Safe, there are not many particularly user-friendly DAO tools in the industry. From my understanding of existing DAOs, including Bankless and Friends With Benefits, which are well-known in the Western circles, they are not very mature in terms of market capitalization, organizational models, or business models.

Moreover, many hacker projects in the Dora community also pursue decentralization, hoping to eventually turn their projects into DAOs or protocols, which drives us to create good DAO tools and explore effective DAO governance models and mechanisms.

We previously thought that DAOs would eventually replace companies, but now we tend to believe: First, DAOs will not replace companies; DAOs are DAOs, and companies are companies, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Second, there is no need for DAOs to replace companies. Both companies and DAOs can use good tools, such as Gnosis Safe.

ChainCatcher: The Dora team has stated that it aims to gradually decentralize governance. Is Dora Grant DAO part of this?

Steve: For centralized organizations, we can see where the limitations and ceilings are, such as the number of team members, topics, and research being limited. Decentralization can further expand our capabilities and influence. One thing we have always wanted to do is to decentralize DoraHacks. Although we have the advantage of funding developers, it is also natural in the Web3 industry to want to include our community in the decision-making process for funding early projects.

Initially, we designed Dora Factory, aiming to create a toolkit to build and improve tools like quadratic funding for use by organizations of all sizes, which has already been achieved. Later, we used the Dora Token to decentralize some of DoraHacks' operations. Dora Grant DAO is the first decentralized open community funding organization, which is essentially a specialized initiative to fund very early hacker projects.

Our definition of very early projects is those that have never raised funds and have a valuation of less than $10 million, regardless of whether they have participated in Dora hackathons. Dora now has stable income, and we will conduct funding rounds periodically, taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars from the treasury to regularly fund developers' projects.

In the funding process, we hope to involve the community by allowing them to participate through staking Dora Tokens to receive vcDORA, which grants them voting rights on projects. The community can see all the projects, and each project will submit a proposal to the Dora community. We will also screen the details of all projects that make it to the finals. The community can vote based on these proposals and the quality of the projects, and based on the voting results, we will issue grants to the projects.

The first phase of Dora Grant DAO will allocate $400,000 to fund 6-10 hacker teams. These projects will continue to provide benefits to the vcDORA community during their development, such as opportunities for early project or product testing, chances to interact within the early community of the project, and so on, potentially becoming part of the Dora ecosystem in the future. We also particularly welcome and encourage positive interactions between community projects.

ChainCatcher: DoraHacks has recently launched the Aptos Grant DAO. Can you provide more details?

Steve: In terms of the development path of the Move language, Aptos is more aligned with grassroots developers, which is highly consistent with Dora's development path and core philosophy. Therefore, we prioritized collaboration with Aptos in the Move language.

We have officially initiated the funding plan for the Aptos Grant DAO, planning to hold a round approximately every month or two. In the first round, we allocated $30,000 and 4,000 APT, and we will continue to provide similar funding to support Aptos ecosystem developers over the long term, working together to develop the global developer community.

In the Aptos Grant DAO funding plan, we plan to involve the vcDORA community in governance, where holding vcDORA will grant voting rights for Aptos projects, and we will share more specific details later.

Aptos is a key collaboration project for Dora, and we also aim to expand our collaboration model to more ecosystems. For example, our second core ecosystem of interest is the Cosmos ecosystem. We believe that the Cosmos ecosystem is the second most decentralized ecosystem after Ethereum, with many good collaboration opportunities, and unfortunately, it is greatly undervalued in the Chinese-speaking world.

ChainCatcher: Dora Factory is based on Polkadot's infrastructure, but the development of the Polkadot ecosystem seems to be lacking. Will you make adjustments?

Steve: Dora Factory is a protocol layer incubated by DoraHacks, providing infrastructure for the global geek movement.

Initially, we planned to integrate many applications primarily on Polkadot's parachain infrastructure. However, the development of the Polkadot ecosystem has not met our expectations. The reason we chose Polkadot was partly due to the belief that it might be more mature than other infrastructures like Cosmos. Our investments in the Polkadot ecosystem include the Kusama parachain launched by Dora Factory this year, quadratic funding, and various applications like multi-signature. Despite the recent controversies surrounding the Polkadot ecosystem, we still have confidence in it.

In fact, regardless of our views on Polkadot, Dora has a core strategy—cooperating with all ecosystems. We are neutral towards ecosystems. Many times, the industry requires us to take sides, but we actually do not take sides; we hope to cooperate with everyone to provide the best support for developers.

Dora's infrastructure is also multi-chain, with versions for Polkadot, Ethereum EVM-compatible, and non-EVM-compatible chains. We have already deployed multi-chain quadratic funding protocols and MACI governance protocols across more than 30 ecosystems. As for vcDORA, as an economic model for open community governance, it is based on the Ethereum DORA token. Fundamentally, we are one of the few truly neutral teams in the industry that embraces multi-chain.

"Being more aggressive in the bear market"

ChainCatcher: Dora has always maintained close cooperation with universities. Is there a synchronization in the attention of domestic and foreign universities towards the crypto industry? Are domestic students interested in Web3?

Steve: Dora itself was born out of Tsinghua University and has collaborated with domestic universities since its inception. The first hackathons in Chinese universities, including Tsinghua, Peking University, and Fudan University, were organized by Dora. Additionally, Dora has maintained good cooperative relationships with global universities such as Harvard and MIT. From my interactions with universities around the world, my intuitive feeling is that domestic universities are relatively disconnected from the crypto industry and lag behind foreign universities.

Currently, in the domestic university landscape, institutions like Zhejiang University, Tsinghua University, and Peking University have produced some good projects in the crypto field. However, compared to top international universities like Stanford and Berkeley, domestic universities do not match well with the crypto industry and cannot keep up with the forefront of innovation or produce the best projects in the industry. This is related to the broader environment where Web3 is not primarily developing domestically. I sincerely hope to see domestic universities align more with international standards in teaching and research.

The good news is that students in domestic universities are highly interested and continuously follow the latest information in the crypto industry. The characteristics of university students are that they are smart, eager to learn, and quick to absorb knowledge. Although they may not have confirmed their areas of interest early on, they can systematically study and discuss knowledge, and even find entrepreneurial directions directly on campus.

Generally speaking, university students can approach Web3 through three avenues: first, through personal exploration, gaining firsthand information about the industry via platforms like Twitter; second, through courses, where some universities have good professors guiding relevant academic discussions; and third, through peers, as some domestic universities have established blockchain clubs that are gradually growing.

ChainCatcher: Based on your own experience, would you recommend students and those around them to join Web3?

Steve: I evaluate the crypto industry as a place where one can earn money while learning. In the five years since I entered the field, I have been learning continuously, especially now, as new projects and knowledge emerge almost daily. This is actually much more efficient than passively learning in university.

In my view, the crypto industry is very suitable for university students to learn and enter. Students in the Chinese-speaking world should pay more attention to the development and opportunities in Web3. Through observations of the global market, I have found that Web3 has clearly become one of the most important potential employment directions and industry tracks. Especially in a time when many industries are laying off workers and experiencing downturns, the best capital and elite talents from Web2 are investing significant energy into exploring investment and entrepreneurial opportunities in this space. Missing out on this would be a great pity.

I used to actively encourage everyone around me to join Web3. However, now I am not as keen on having everyone join, because the cyclical nature of Web3 is strong and it is very internationalized, which may not suit everyone. I would recommend that everyone pay attention to blockchain because it can bring good values such as freedom and democracy, but I would not invite people around me to join it.

ChainCatcher: Is there a threshold for university students to enter the industry? What experiences and advice do you have for entering the field?

Steve: There is indeed a threshold for university students entering the industry. The environment for developing Web3 in China is quite unique. Currently, working in the Web3 industry in China, whether in development or business development (BD), requires compliance with domestic policies. Of course, there are many excellent companies operating domestically. If students want to find good job opportunities, they should look globally, with nearby options being Hong Kong and Singapore. To achieve greater development in Web3, I strongly encourage everyone to look globally, as there will be more room for growth and opportunities.

Additionally, there is currently no particularly good channel that aggregates all job opportunities. For students looking to enter the industry, they should pay close attention. I know that some people in the industry compile job lists and update crypto recruitment information daily. There are also channels to see which positions are currently in high demand. At the same time, they should pay attention to recruitment information from major ecosystem projects in the industry. For example, Aptos is currently looking for an Asian lead and particularly outstanding Asian team members. There are actually many good opportunities like this, and I know that many relatively mature companies and ecosystems are seeking Asian leads, developer relations, BD, etc. I also know that many startup teams are looking for capable members.

Students looking to enter the industry should also focus on enhancing their own qualities. First, proficiency in English is essential, as a large amount of information and communication in the crypto industry originates in the English-speaking world. Second, they should have the ability to learn quickly, as the crypto industry is constantly iterating, requiring the learning of many new things daily. Third, they should be able to adapt to global work, as most organizations in Web3 are decentralized, with team members distributed across different time zones, necessitating flexibility in adapting to this mode of work and collaboration.

From my own example, joining Dora was a risky decision at the time, and shortly after joining, I was appointed COO. I want to share with students that they should not be afraid to take on significant responsibilities early on, as this can lead to richer growth experiences. They should also not fear failure, as the best time for people is when they are young, making it worthwhile to take on seemingly risky and challenging tasks. In fact, in Web3, as long as you work hard and persist, the probability of success is quite high. Over the past five years, I have seen countless examples of this. Dora particularly supports university students in learning and joining Web3 and will invest more resources and energy to provide assistance in the future.

ChainCatcher: Recently, Hong Kong introduced new crypto policies, sparking heated discussions in the industry about the development of crypto in Hong Kong and Singapore. How do you view Hong Kong's prospects in Web3?

Steve: Hong Kong was previously a center for Web3 in Asia, especially during 2017 and 2018, when it had very good projects and excellent capital. However, for various reasons over the past few years, Hong Kong has somewhat lost its voice. I am in Singapore, and I can observe that in the competition between Hong Kong and Singapore, more talents are currently choosing to go to Singapore, which is a fact.

Compared to Hong Kong, Singapore not only has trading companies but also startups in various directions such as gaming, the metaverse, NFTs, and social media. Previously, more than half of the crypto institutions in Shanghai set up their Asian headquarters in Singapore, and most international crypto institutions, such as Nansen and the Ethereum Foundation, also chose Singapore as their Asian headquarters. Due to pandemic control policies, Singapore's talent attraction and community cohesion have been better than Hong Kong's. Singapore's talent introduction policies, such as work visas and permanent residency, have also become relatively open recently.

However, Hong Kong is closer to the mainland, and in the long term, it can benefit from strong support from the mainland, which can provide excellent talent resources, including university students and mature technical talents from major companies like Tencent and Huawei. Hong Kong also has robust capital to support entrepreneurship. If the crypto industry can thrive again in Hong Kong as policies become more relaxed, it would certainly be a good thing. Regarding Hong Kong's new crypto policies, I believe that all policies encouraging the development of the crypto industry are good policies. We believe that ultimately, sound regulatory decisions will benefit the industry's development and facilitate the entry of talent and capital.

Overall, I believe that Hong Kong's future crypto policies will be more open, attracting more talent and excellent teams.

ChainCatcher: FTX led a $20 million Series B round for Dora in May this year. Did the FTX crisis have any impact on Dora? How do you view the impact of the FTX incident?

Steve: We regret the occurrence of the FTX incident. Throughout Dora's development, FTX Ventures provided funding and daily collaboration, for which we are very grateful.

Compared to the investors and institutions unable to withdraw funds from FTX, the impact of the FTX incident on Dora is relatively small. Dora was not financially affected at all, and FTX Ventures, as a minority shareholder, does not have influence over Dora's operations and decisions. Furthermore, this was an equity financing, so it would not significantly impact our tokens.

The FTX incident will undoubtedly have far-reaching effects on the crypto industry. Unlike fully compliant exchanges like Coinbase, FTX was a force within unregulated exchanges, and its unregulated nature actually represents the inherent characteristics of crypto, which naturally does not wish to be regulated. However, the emergence of the FTX crisis, which caused significant losses to many in the crypto community, is undoubtedly a major blow to the crypto industry. The trust of the crypto community in reputable institutions and the perception and trust of the Web2 industry towards Web3 will be severely impacted, leading to a series of chain reactions.

Conversely, FTX was actually a centralized entity in a decentralized world, and this further validates the importance of decentralization. People may be more inclined to trust on-chain data, on-chain operations, and completely permissionless, self-custodial trading models rather than custodial systems where assets are entirely out of control. This is somewhat akin to the "Mt. Gox" incident, which was also a significant event in the development of the crypto industry. Many people exited due to substantial losses, but it will not destroy the entire crypto industry; rather, it will make the industry stronger.

Looking at this year's events with Luna and FTX, global regulation of the crypto industry will certainly tighten. Whenever regulation becomes stricter, it tends to suppress industry development to some extent, stifling enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, trading, and participation in the Web3 world. However, the issues with centralized exchanges will always exist, and it is hard to say whether Binance will encounter problems in the future.

ChainCatcher: How do you view this bear market? How is Dora responding to the bear market?

Steve: One direct impact of the bear market on developers is that the resources flowing into the market will decrease to some extent. The money invested in the crypto market is significantly less than in a bull market, and the initial valuations of projects may drop considerably compared to the bull market, leading to greater sacrifices for developers. Many institutions have not experienced previous bull-bear cycles and do not know how long this bear market will last, making them shortsighted and hesitant to invest. In a bull market, good projects are fiercely competed for by institutions; despite high valuations, they may struggle to secure funding. In a bear market, however, everyone tends to be more cautious.

It is worth noting that while the crypto market experiences bull and bear cycles, this year has seen mainly traders leaving the market, including Do Kwon and Su Zhu. The fundamentals of builders in the crypto industry have actually been improving. Whether it is Ethereum L2 or new public chains like Aptos and Sui, they are enhancing the underlying performance of the industry, actively building ecosystems, and the global developer community is continuously growing.

I believe that the bear market is a golden period for supporting early developers; they particularly need us, and we are very willing to support them. The bear market is also a good time for solid construction. Although teams that cannot find product-market fit (PMF) may fail in the bear market, teams that can persist, build solid products, and find good directions will emerge during the bear market, which has often been the case in previous cycles.

In fact, we should not be far from the bottom of the bear market. Dora has already begun to focus on funding and investing in particularly good early founders, which is something we have always done but will be more aggressive in the bear market. In a bull market, we primarily gather more resources for developers, playing the role of a platform; in a bear market, when projects struggle to receive good support, we will step up to support them.