Decrypting the Unique Chinese Cryptocurrency Market: Real User Research and a Comprehensive Review of Chinese VC

Analyzing the Chinese Cryptocurrency Market: User Research and VC Review

Chinese users are only migrating and have not really disappeared.

Do you understand the real Chinese cryptocurrency market? When Chinese Coin and Hong Kong concepts are on the rise, the Chinese market undoubtedly attracts widespread attention once again. Institutions/projects that were once hesitant about expanding the Chinese market have also witnessed the power of the Chinese market that cannot be underestimated in recent shocks in Hong Kong concepts.

Compared with scattered analysis and second-hand information, we have direct communication with many partners, and based on TechFlow Shen Chao’s long-term cultivation and insight into the Chinese market, we present comprehensive and practical report content from the market environment, user portrait, VC, and communication perspectives, and explore unknown insider information.

• Lookonchain: Will the unlocking of 1INCH cause a large-scale market sell-off?
• Bitcoin New Protocol: BRC-721E
• Latest Interview with Zhao Changpeng: Being “Under the Microscope” of Regulation, Market is Recovering in Bearish Period

Whether you are an institution, project party, or individual, we hope that this part of the report can help you quickly establish your understanding of the Chinese cryptocurrency market and help you expand the ecosystem. Thanks to Min L, a co-founder of FAB DAO and the director of the market strategy of the top ten global exchanges, for his joint contribution to this issue.

* This article is excerpted from the Chinese cryptocurrency market section of the “Web3 Truth in the Asia-Pacific Market” report produced by TechFlow Shen Chao.

1. Overview of the Chinese Cryptocurrency Market

The largest market in the Asia-Pacific region is undoubtedly the Chinese market, which refers to all places where there are Chinese people, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. According to a survey report by Jintou.com, the six countries with the largest number of Chinese people except China are:

• Indonesia, with more than 10 million Chinese people

• Thailand, with about 10 million Chinese people

• Malaysia, with 7.4 million Chinese people

• United States, with 5.08 million Chinese people

• Singapore, with 2.98 million Chinese people

• Canada, with 1.77 million Chinese people

Different cryptocurrency policies in different regions have also brought different cryptocurrency user portraits.

In September 2017, the People’s Bank of China, together with other regulatory agencies, announced a ban on ICOs and the closure of cryptocurrency exchanges. Then, in May 2021, relevant regulatory agencies issued another notice to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading activities. Since then, whether it is exchanges, project parties, miners, or users, they have all begun to go global.

However, Chinese-speaking users are just migrating and have not really disappeared.

According to Triple A’s data estimates, as of 2023, the global cryptocurrency ownership rate will average 4.2% (including non-chain users).

Among them, if only Chinese-speaking regions are calculated: mainland China with 19.9 million, Hong Kong with 0.18 million, Singapore with 0.64 million, and Taiwan with 0.54 million, the number of encrypted users is: 21.26 million.

And if this data includes the proportion of overseas Chinese in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the United States, and Canada, the number of Chinese-speaking users that can be reached at least reaches 23.57 million. (The calculation formula is the number of encrypted users in that region * (the number of Chinese-speaking users in that region/total population of that region))

The concept we have always emphasized is the Chinese-speaking market, not just the mainland Chinese market. In addition to mainland China, there are still a large number of overseas Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, North America, and Europe, and this part of the population also has strong purchasing power.

For any ambitious entrepreneur, you can say that you don’t pay attention to the Chinese market due to policy reasons, but you cannot ignore the Chinese-speaking market.

Hong Kong is a bridgehead linking the global Chinese-speaking market. At the same time, Taiwan is also a place we need to pay great attention to. Even many projects that want to enter the Chinese-speaking market will first use the Taiwanese market as an experimental field.

Taiwan has decades of infrastructure construction and stable economic development, and the industrial structure of small and medium-sized enterprises makes the market in Taiwan move towards a society of moderate wealth and small comfort since the 1960s. Most Taiwanese born in the 1980s have not experienced a life of “having no food to eat”. Compared with the extreme economic gap in the mainland, the social class rigidity in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, the average salary of Taiwanese can at least meet basic needs. Therefore, Taiwanese users are more inclined to “continuously accumulate assets” rather than getting rich overnight.

Therefore, long-term projects such as lending, regular investment and DeFi strategies, and easy-to-understand trading products such as grid trading and copy trading will be more popular among Taiwanese users because they can accumulate assets stably.

On November 14, 2022, the FTX incident broke out, and the world’s second largest exchange collapsed. According to official confirmation, Taiwan was the fifth largest affected area, which indirectly represents the activity and importance of Taiwanese users in the Crypto trading market. Although Taiwan’s economic growth has not been fast in recent years, the stable economic and social environment has given Taiwanese users more confidence to seek new wealth opportunities.

However, the Taiwan market has always been in a gray area, and the government has not been able to introduce effective policies for many years. After the FTX incident broke out, several cryptocurrency asset management companies in Taiwan were also implicated, but the government could only detain them without sentencing, showing the powerlessness of regulatory laws. Therefore, the Taiwan market has become a battleground that many traders are eager to try.

II. User Profile and Investment Habits

We surveyed more than 1,000 users in multiple Chinese language communities and obtained the results of this analysis.

1- Overall, the investment amount of Chinese-speaking users in the cryptocurrency market is highest in the range of 10k to 100k USD, accounting for 39.3%, followed by 100k to 500k USD, accounting for 22.5%.

2- In the sub-areas that Chinese-speaking users pay attention to, Defi, Infra, and NFT are the top three. In terms of public chain attention, Etherum, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain are the top three.

3- In the touch habits of Chinese-speaking users, it has become increasingly international. Twitter is the primary source of information, with a share of 85.4%, followed by WeChat at 65.2% and Media at 61.2%. Most Chinese-language media also operate their own Twitter accounts.

4- In terms of exchanges, currently Binance and OKX have an obvious head advantage in the Chinese-speaking market. It is followed by Bitget, Gate, Huobi, and so on. It is worth mentioning that the current head exchanges Binance, OKX, Bitget, Huobi, Kucoin, Gate, Bybit, MEXC, etc. are all founded by Chinese.

5- The cryptocurrency market is relatively new, and of the users who are aware of the cryptocurrency market, 41% have been aware of it for 1-3 years, followed by 28.1% for 3-5 years.

So overall, although the Chinese-speaking users have relatively early awareness of the cryptocurrency market, their investment amounts show their enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency market. At the same time, due to some policy reasons, users are increasingly relying on international channels in their catalyst habits, especially for Twitter, but if localization is required, media and WeChat are still important operation positions.

In addition, the user habits of the Taiwan and Hong Kong markets also have local characteristics. In terms of exchanges, in addition to using common offshore exchanges such as Binance and OKX, the three major local exchanges in Taiwan are MAICOIN, ACE, and Bitruo. In addition, BingX also has a large number of Taiwanese users, and its localization level is relatively high. The main local exchanges in Hong Kong are HKD and Kikitrade.

The social software mainly used in Taiwan is LINE, Instagram, and Facebook, and in Hong Kong, more people use WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Whether it is mainland China, Hong Kong, or others, Chinese crypto investors now often use Twitter and Telegram to obtain and communicate industry information.

Three, mainstream media and KOL

Media is one of the main channels for users to obtain information, and content is also the first stop for most people to enter the WEB3 world. An article, a podcast, or a video may inspire traditional WEB2 users to be interested in the cryptocurrency market.

Or, good content can also bring good exposure effects and long-term sedimentation of content to the project. According to estimates, the total number of Chinese-language crypto media has exceeded 100, and choosing a media with large traffic, a positive brand, and characteristics can truly bring dissemination effects to your project. Based on research, we have sorted out some mainstream media in the Chinese market for reference.

Chinese media

In a sense, there is no real “media” in the Chinese market, more are PR agencies in media clothing, and content is becoming increasingly homogeneous, with mostly mutual reproduction and translation, and reduced to propaganda machines for project parties and exchanges. But the relatively inward-looking content environment also allows each media to start exploring its own characteristics and directions.

• Wu maintains classical journalism and often reports exclusive news, with the strongest overseas influence;

• Chain Catcher’s investment fund, Cather VC, produces project research;

• Foresight News continually explores events and tools;

• Blockingnews has a more global marketing layout;

• Loftmotion and Planet keep up with fast news updates and have a long history of user and traffic accumulation;

• TechFlow Deep Tide is committed to producing original in-depth articles, one is in-depth research and analysis, and the other is expressing subjective emotions and viewpoints…

In the traditional Chinese market, Blocktempo and Chain News are the most influential encryption media in Taiwan, while Matters has a stronger community attribute.

Chinese KOL and Community

In terms of community and KOL, for Chinese, WeChat, Weibo, and Bilibili used to be important sources of information for encrypted users. However, due to censorship policies, the main source of information for Chinese users has gradually shifted to international channels such as Twitter, YouTube, etc. Many communities and KOLs that were previously in WeChat, Weibo, and other channels have also gradually migrated to international channels. Therefore, we mainly take stock of Chinese KOLs and communities on Twitter and YouTube.

As the screening rules and views on KOLs are too subjective, we have sorted out the content of several major third-party individuals as objectively and comprehensively as possible, hoping to be helpful to you.

Chinese Twitter Influencers 150+

Chinese TwitterList Collection

Chinese Alpha Influencers

List of high-quality bloggers with relatively small number of fans

Chinese Youtube Influencers 80+

Chinese Youtuber List

Recommended Chinese-speaking high-quality bloggers on Youtube

In the Taiwan market, there are also many localized KOLs/communities. The well-known ones include Mr. Block, but there are also many controversies in Taiwan; Trader Woody; Benson, who stopped updating community dynamics after FTX exploded; Brain Brother Chill Block Chain, Daily Coin Research Alvin. Degen/trading types include 2140 encrypted communities, Du Ge 777 channels, comprehensive types include Xu Ming’en/Block Power, Terence, etc., and of course, the famous Little Raccoon/Buji DAO from Hong Kong.

4. Introduction to Asia-Pacific Cryptocurrency VC Cryptocurrency VC

In the Asia-Pacific cryptocurrency VC industry, Chinese cryptocurrency VCs dominate in both quantity and overall strength. However, similar to the time of “Made in China,” Chinese cryptocurrency VCs also face the dilemma of being numerous but not strong, lacking the power of discourse.

A common criticism of many VCs is that they mostly lack their own investment methodology, prefer co-investing, and expect to hold on to the thighs of certain Western large funds. Therefore, casting a wide net during a bullish market FOMO becomes the norm, and not taking action during a bear market makes it difficult to outperform ETH’s overall net worth growth within one cycle.

A trend after entering the second half of 2022 is that many Chinese-speaking cryptocurrency VCs are reducing their level one project investments, one is turning to second-level investments and raising second-level market funds; second, VCs are starting to incubate projects more, with various accelerators, incubators, and Demo Day emerging one after another, from the level one inwardness of the bullish period to the incubation inwardness.

This article will take stock of various active or once active Crypto Funds in the Chinese market.

HashKey Capital

HashKey Capital is part of the HashKey Group, an Asian asset management firm that focuses on investing in blockchain technology and digital assets, and is an early investor in Ethereum. Currently, it is the most active Web3 investment institution in Asia, with cumulative investments in more than 200 projects spanning 17 countries and regions. HashKey Capital has a strong advantage in Asian resources, relatively strong fund-raising ability, and is the only Chinese cryptocurrency VC supported by Temasek, a Singaporean government investment fund. HashKey has been laying out in Hong Kong for a long time, from the early Cyberport to the transfer to Central step by step, and HashKey Group has obtained a virtual asset trading platform license issued by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.

Portfolio: Animoca Brands, Cosmos, Polkadot, dydx, IoTeX, Alchemy, Celestia, 1inch Network, Mask Network, Evomos, Terra, Harmony, Alliance, Mina, Galxe, Stacks, iZUMi Finance, Cobo, RSS3, Moonbeam, Radicle, Multichain, Pendle, Coinlist, DeBank, Decrypt, The Block, Foresight News, Secret network…

Website: https://capital.hashkey.com/en/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HashKey_Capital

Fenbushi

Fenbushi Capital was established at the end of 2015 and is China’s first venture capital company focused on investing in blockchain technology-related companies. It is also an early investor in Ethereum, and Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, is an advisor to Fenbushi Capital. Fenbushi Capital has participated in a large number of investments in important infrastructure and applications of the Ethereum ecology, such as Kyber Network, MakerDAO, Arbitrum, etc. In December 2022, Amber Group announced the completion of a $300 million C-round financing, led by Fenbushi Capital US, and now Fenbushi Capital has significant influence on Amber Group, with the two jointly launching and operating a Gamma fund.

Portfolio: Amber Group, Messari, Offchain Labs, Fuel, Circle, Mina, The Graph, 1inch Network, Stacks, Balancer, Moonbeam, iZUMi Finance, Oasys, Astar Network, Forkast, Coinlist, Blocking, Consensys, DeBank, DFINITY, Flow, NYM, Biconomy, Radicle, WOO Network, MathWallet, BlockSec…

Website: https://fenbushi.vc/index_cn.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/fenbushi

SNZ Holding

SNZ Holding is a crypto fund composed of engineers, blockchain promoters, and entrepreneurs who share the same belief in blockchain technology as a way to restore the original spirit of the internet and build a better future through privacy protection, information verification, distributed supercomputing, digitization of assets, etc. In addition, SNZ Holding also provides professional PoS mining pool services. Portfolio: Animoca Brands, Arbitrum, Dfinity, Avalanche, Stacks, Mina, Manta Network, Mask Network, Solv Protocol, Astar Network, NFTScan…

Website: https://snzholding.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/snzholding

Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands is a web3 game software and venture capital company founded by Yat Siu in 2014. Animoca Brands constantly expands its territory through acquisitions and has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, and GAMEE. Secondly, Animoca Brands has made a lot of first-level project investments in 2021/2022, investing in more than 400 projects. Today, Animoca Brands has become a unicorn and the most shining business card of Cyberport, but it is surprising that Yat Siu does not speak Cantonese very well.

Portfolio: Ledger, Yuga Labs, OpenSea, Kraken, LayerZero, Yield Guild Games, Axie Infinity, Consensys, Immutable, Polygon, WAX, CyberConnect, Mask Network, MOBOX, The Sandbox, Flow, Harmony, Hishstreet, Forkast…

Website: https://www.animocabrands.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/animocabrands

Seven X

SevenX Ventures was established in 2020 and is a fast-growing new star crypto investment fund in Asia. Its three founding partners and team have more than 5 years of experience in this industry. In terms of investment style, SevenX Ventures advocates “immersive investment” and provides all-round empowerment to the projects it invests in, including financing planning, product design, economic models, marketing, etc. There is a loud slogan on the official website-“Empowering Startups in Crypto & Web3.”

Portfolio: Near Protocol, Oasis Foundation, Arweave, Cyberconnct, RSS3, Bitget Wallet, DeBank, BitKeep, DAO Maker, Yield Guild Games, Mask Network, Blocking, SubDAO, WOO Network, SubQuery, DODO, Footprint Analytics…

Website: https://7xvc.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SevenXVentures

A&T Capital

A&T Capital was established in 2021 and is an early to growth stage venture capital fund for emerging disruptive technology. It is backed by Ant Group, one of China’s leading financial technology companies, and has raised $100 million for its first fund. Thanks to its financial strength, A&T Capital has invested in many well-known projects, such as ConsenSys, Sui, and Celestia. Due to the former founding partner’s scandal, A&T Capital has entered a low-key stage: deleting content on Twitter, canceling public accounts, and clearing all content on the official website… However, it must be said that A&T Capital’s portfolio is “strong,” although some of the valuations are high. In addition, A&T Capital has recruited a group of outstanding talents, producing many high-quality contents. One person should not be able to erase the efforts of a team.

Portfolio: Amber Group, Sui, Celestia, ConsenSys, Cobo, Scroll, Orbiter Finance, Gnosis safe, Debank, BitKeep, BlockSec, Blocking, Footprint Analytics…

Website: https://a-tcapital.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AT_Capital2021

Foresight Ventures

Foresight Ventures was established in 2021 and is supported by Bitget, an exchange. The total assets under management of multiple funds have exceeded $400 million. It hopes to provide comprehensive support for projects through the power of the ecosystem. Its ecosystem mainly includes: exchange Bitget, wallet Bitkeep, Chinese encryption media Foresight News, and incubator Foresight X. Thanks to the linkage between Foresight Ventures and Foresight News in brand and activities, Foresight’s overall brand has risen rapidly, and the ecological combination boxing method has been quite effective, making it a rising star among Asian crypto VCs.

Portfolio: SBlockingCE ID, Matrixport, Bitkeep, Foresight News, Shardeum, RSS3, Polyhedra, Xterio, Zebec, SBlockingce and Time…

Website: https://www.foresightventures.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ForesightVen

Dragonfly

Dragonfly was founded in 2018 by Feng Bo, the founder of Source Capital, and Haseeb Qureshi, a professional poker player. It has the strongest fundraising ability in the Chinese-speaking world and has received long-term support from Sequoia China and the family offices of founders/executives of large Internet technology companies. It has also received investment from Singapore government fund Temasek.

Dragonfly Capital focuses on three investment directions: investing in new types of crypto asset management funds as the parent fund; investing in protocols and applications that have the potential to become the foundation of a decentralized economy; and supporting technology startups that can connect the decentralized and centralized worlds.

Dragonfly Fund hopes to become a bridge connecting the cryptocurrency industries of the East and the West, helping Asian projects and investors access technology developed in the West, and helping Western blockchain projects reach the Asian cryptocurrency market, as stated on the Dragonfly official website’s slogan “Globalization from Day One.”

Dragonfly has also been embroiled in controversy over its portfolio of PayPal Finance and Amber, but overall, it is the most successful fund in practice of “Chinese LP + overseas GP” and has truly entered the ranks of the world’s top crypto VCs.

Portfolio: zkSync, Animoca Brands, Lido, Avalanche, BitDAO, MakerDAO, Amber Group, Aptos, Babel Finance, Near protocol, Mina, Consensys, Polygon, Dune Analytics, dYdX, Celo, Cosmos, Flashbots, Bybit, OneKey, RSS3, 1inch Network, Hashflow, SHRAPNEL, Debank, Element, Bitget Wallet, Ribbon Finance, UMA, Axelar…

Website: https://www.dragonfly.xyz/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dragonfly_xyz

Old Fashion Research (OFR)

Old Fashion is a cocktail and a multi-strategy blockchain investment fund. The team members include former Binance executives and investment teams, who founded it in July 2021. The founding partners include Ling Zhang, former vice president of strategic investment and mergers and acquisitions at Binance, Wayne Fu, former head of corporate development, and Xin Jiang, former director of Binance Labs and head of LaunchBlockingd. In addition to investment, OFR also incubates numerous crypto projects and has laid out markets in South America and Africa. In February 2023, the investor consortium led by Old Fashion Research (OFR) acquired the anime NFT series 0N1 Force.

Portfolio: Nansen, Mexc Global, Pudgy Penguins, WOO Network, ZetaChain, Boba Network, Rebase, Genopets, Blocto…

Website: https://www.ofr.asia/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ofrfund

NGC Ventures

NGC, short for NEO Global Capital, was established at the end of 2017. In the early days, it was closely related to NEO, but became more independent later on. It has a deep understanding of the crypto investment and financing cycle and its team members are relatively Degen. They also participate in the deep incubation and construction of projects personally, making it a relatively crypto-native crypto fund.

Portfolio: Avalanche, BitDAO, Solana, Polkadot, Render, Kucoin, Babel Finance, Highstreet, ConsenSys, NYM, MultiverseX, Algorand, Oasys, Ankr, Oasis Network, Zilliqa, Ontology…

Official website: https://ngc.fund/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ngc_ventures

OP Crypto

OP Crypto is an emerging crypto fund founded by former Huobi executive David Gan. Its website emphasizes its role as a digital asset VC with local connections to both Eastern and Western markets. Its LPs include Huobi, Bybit, Animoca, DCG, and Republic. OP Crypto was an early investor in the well-known Ethereum scaling Layer2 project Scroll.

Portfolio: Scroll, Blockingrticle Network, Merit Circle, nftperp, Aurory, Ethos, Connext, Astra Protocol, Stardust…

Official website: https://www.opcrypto.vc/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OPCryptoVC

Bixin Ventures

Bixin Ventures is a subsidiary of Bixin Group, one of Asia’s largest crypto wallets with over 1 million registered users. Its founding members were early adopters and promoters of Bitcoin and its ecosystem. Bixin Ventures has its own technical accumulation and professional insights on MOVE language and is an investor in Aptos and Sui.

Portfolio: Arweave, LayerZero, Aptos, Sui, Sei Network, EigenLayer, Mina, Algorand, iZUMi Finance, Pendle, Bitget Wallet, SHRAPNEL, Ondo Finance, nftperp, Ethos…

Official website: https://bixinvc.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bixinventures?lang=en

ABCDE Capital

Founded in 2022, ABCDE is a Web3 fund co-founded by Huobi co-founder Du Jun and Metropolitan Capital founder BMAN, with a size of $400 million. In terms of investment style, ABCDE is more inclined to lead projects. Currently, nearly 80% of the projects it invests in are led by ABCDE.

Portfolio: PolyHedra, Debox, 0xScope, NFEX, Cysic, Elven, MetaTrust, cointime, Blockingrticle Network, CoinCatch…

Official website: https://www.abcde.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ABCDECapital

Hash Global

Hash Global was founded in 2019 and is a Web 3 venture capital firm that focuses on global Chinese teams and projects. It focuses on investing in two areas: 1) global Chinese founder teams; 2) early blockchain projects that promote the integration of Web2 and Web3. Hash Global has invested in more than 50 projects covering 7 tracks and manages assets worth more than $300 million. It has extensive cooperation and contact with Liang Xingjun, one of the founders of the well-known Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group.

Portfolio: Mask Network, DeBank, RSS3, rct AI, PlatON, NFTGo, SBlockingce and Time, SeeDAO, Blocking, 0xScope, DAOSquare, TokenScript…

Website: https://www.hashglobal.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HashGlobal

RedlineDAO

Redline DAO is a crypto investment institution in Asia that provides a one-stop service for early-stage teams, including incubation, financing, operation, marketing, media promotion, exchange relations, and liquidity management. The original Redline Capital was a blockchain fund that focused on early-stage projects in the blockchain industry and invested in over a hundred blockchain projects. It has a background in market-making and quantitative trading.

Portfolio: Conflux, Mask Network, Fantom, Celer Network, Mina, DODO, Algorand, Filecoin, Dfinity, iOST, Aura Network, Boba Network, WOO Network…

Website: https://redlinedao.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedlineDAO

Web3.com Ventures

Web3.com Ventures is the Family Office of Shuai Chu, the founder of Quantum Chain. It not only invests in many first-class projects, but also is a LP of Hashkey Capital and Aninmoca.

Portfolio: rct AI, MetaOasis, Cysic, Era7, Delphinus Lab, Relation, Prodia, Amethyst, Cassava Network…

Website: ventures.web3.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Web3com_VC

Arcane Group

Arcane Group is a global multi-stage venture capital company headquartered in Singapore that invests in the next generation of entrepreneurs in the Web3 era. It is also a Family Office with assets under management of $500 million. Arcane is committed to finding pioneers, using the power of blockchain technology to completely change existing systems and structures, and creating solutions that can make industries better.

Portfolio: Animoca Brands, Discord, Yuga Labs, Consensys, Foresight Ventures, Blockingrticle Network, Polyhedra Network, NEST, Gameta, Outland…

Website: https://www.arcanegroup.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArcaneGrp

Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC)

Infinity Ventures Crypto is a crypto fund with resources in Japan, Taiwan, and mainland China. It originated from Headline Asia (formerly Infinity Ventures) and has close relationships with it. In February 2022, IVC announced the completion of a $70 million fundraising, with Circle, Digital Currency Group, and Animoca Brands participating in the fund’s investment.

Portfolio: Yield Guild Games, Thala, Oasys, Scroll, Delysium, Zebec Protocol, RSS3, HighStreet, Xterio, OP Games, Web3Go…

Website: https://www.ivcrypto.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ivcryptofund

IOSG

IOSG is a research and thesis-driven crypto investment institution that focuses on four investment principles: 1. ambitious and resilient teams and founders; 2. ground-breaking projects that add value to the entire Web3.0 ecosystem; 3. outstanding operational and delivery capabilities; and 4. a focus on building strong communities with massive user bases. IOSG places a relatively high emphasis on brand building, releasing in-depth research reports every week and regularly holding IOSG Old Friends Reunions to connect investors and entrepreneurs from the East and the West.

Portfolio: zkSync, Consensys, IoTeX, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polkadot, NEAR Protocol, MakerDAO, EigenLayer, Stacks, Cosmos, Celer Network, Vechain, Filecoin, Synthetix, Conflux, Starkware, Celestia, Mina, Gnosis Safe, Mask Network, 1inch Network, Scroll, Treasure Dao, Illuvium, 0x, OneKey, UMA, Bigtime, Astar Network, Galxe, Decrypt, CyberConnect, Liquity, iZUMi Finance, Aavegotchi, Centrifuge, Moonbeam, DODO, Oasis Network, Ocean Network, Ontology, Footprint Analytics, Aztec Network…

Website: https://iosg.vc/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/IOSGVC

DFG

Digital Finance Group (DFG) was founded in 2015 and currently manages assets worth over $1 billion in its own funds. DFG manages three strategic special funds: the risk equity fund, the Polkadot ecosystem fund, and the crypto fund. In 2021, DFG sold its holding company LedgerX to FTX. In terms of investment style, DFG tends to have heavy positions in specific crypto assets at the first and second levels, was once a core supporter of ETC, and later became a major holder and supporter of Polkadot. DFG also has a brother fund, Jsquare, which is driven by research and technology and manages assets worth over $150 million in its own funds.

Portfolio: Ledger, Circle, CoinList, Ava Labs, Solana, Amber Group, Big Time, Render, Dao Maker, Metis, Shradeum, Astar Network, OP Fames…

Website: https://www.dfg.group/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DFG_OfficiaI

LD Capital

LD Capital was founded in 2016 and has invested in over 300 companies with its own funds, covering first and second level investments, FOFs, etc. It manages assets worth $1 billion and emphasizes providing multi-dimensional post-investment services to invested projects, including talent recruitment, economic model design, ecological cooperation, technology development, community and media relations, and financing. LD Capital is willing to be the first investor in a project and provide founders with confidence and support in the most difficult times. In Asia, LD Capital is considered a representative of extensive investment, but according to its founder, LD Capital will be more selective in the future and focus on providing higher quality and more dedicated post-investment services to projects and accompanying their growth. Starting in 2023, LD Capital will focus on secondary market investments.

Portfolio: Flow, Mina, Assembly, CoinList, Certik, Near Protocol, Illuvium, Big Time, Render Network, Ankr, Celer Network, MEXC, NYM, Flare Network, Algorand, StarryNift, DAO Maker, Boba Network, SubDAO, DAOSquare, Star Atlas, Alien Worlds…

Website: https://ldcap.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ld_capital

Fundamental Labs

Fundamental Labs was founded in 2016 and emphasizes fundamental analysis and investment, focusing on on-chain indicators, financial indicators, team technical backgrounds, community health, and other dimensions. The amount of single investment ranges from 500,000 to 50 million US dollars, covering all development cycles of the project. In addition to its investment business, Fundamental Labs’ parent company CTH also has digital asset management company IDEG and WEB3 infrastructure solution provider Atlas. Fundamental Labs has a close relationship with Hong Kong Baili Group.

Portfolio: Avalanche, Coinbase, Cannan, Polkadot, Conflux, Kyber Network, Stacks, Filecoin, Decentraland, RSS3, Mask Network, SingularityNET, Loopring, Golem, Vechain, Binance.US, Blockstack, NEAR Protocol, Certik…

Website: https://www.cth.group/what_we_do/fundamental_labs/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/fundamentallabs

Folius Ventures

Folius Ventures was founded in 2020. Founder Jason @MapleLeafCap is a well-known WEB3 influencer (KOL) on Twitter, a Chinese who has long worked on Wall Street, familiar with the capital game rules of the East and the West, not only has a global vision, but also understands Eastern entrepreneurs, which makes Folius Ventures a bridge connecting the West and the East. Folius’ slogan is “We are committed to supporting Asia-Pacific and Chinese entrepreneurs (We love ABlockingC founders)”, and Folius Ventures can provide project support in the following aspects: (1) in-depth research content, allowing project parties to obtain more reports and recognition (2) business support, such as token model design, IR, development, business growth (3) endorsement of project brands and introduction of more core investors in current and subsequent rounds. Some entrepreneurs said that Jason’s advantage is his expertise in “non-consensus” investment, especially in the secondary market; secondly, he likes to invest in mature entrepreneurs who have been verified.

Portfolio: NEAR Protocol, STEPN, Nansen, ConsenSys, Scroll, Galxe, Debank, Onekey, Ethsign, Jambo, Cyberconnect, Solv Protocol…

Website: https://www.folius.ventures/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoliusVentures

EVG

EVG is a cryptocurrency fund based in Hong Kong, with support from many of Hong Kong and Korea’s top family offices. EVG is a deep partner of Animoca, with cross-holdings between the two companies, and has participated in the incubation and investment of multiple projects in the GameFi/NFT field. EVG has two distinct characteristics. First, relying on its extensive and powerful global resource network, it provides financing services (FA) to many projects and institutions. Second, in addition to purely financial investments, EVG is better at deep incubation of projects, incubating projects such as Kikitrade, Aspen Digital, and Vibra.

Portfolio: Animoca, Dapper Labs, Kraken, Sandbox, Flow, Blockto, HighStreet, Crema Finance, OP Games, iZUMi Finance, rct AI…

Website: https://www.evg.co/

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/evg_ventures

Cobo Ventures

Cobo Ventures is the investment arm of the digital asset service platform Cobo, which provides custody, DeFi funds, Cobo SaaS, and a series of other services, has accumulated more than 300 institutional clients worldwide, and has custody of more than $3 billion in assets. It is committed to building infrastructure for various DeFi fields. Cobo Ventures mainly invests in the DeFi field, including DeFi infrastructure, applications, smart contracts, and cross-chain, but also explores the metaverse, GameFi and other fields. The slogan of Cobo Ventures is “We’re Wise Money”, and it can better help DeFi project parties to develop by relying on Cobo’s technology, funds and resource network advantages.

Portfolio: iZUMi Finance, Safeheron, Orbiter, Gammax, Flashwire, Li.Finance, EdgeSwap, Orderly Network, TwitterScan…

Website: https://www.cobo.com/ventures

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cobo_Global

Continue Capital

Continue Capital was established in 2016, and both co-founders were early evangelists of the Ethereum community. Pima, the lead co-founder, has invested in more than 40 projects such as Cosmos, Qtum, Tezos, Polkadot, Iost, Zilliqa, and Quarkchain, and is the largest personal investor in OmiseGo, Zilliqa, and Polkadot in China, and named $ATOM in Chinese. The other co-founder, Xiahong Lin, is based in Silicon Valley and is a former Twitter mobile developer and founder of a blockchain company. Continue Capital focuses on boutique investments, only investing in projects that they understand and have researched, but they have made few moves so far.

Portfolio: Polkadot, Hedera, NEAR Protocol, Cosmos, Celer Network, Filecoin, RSS3, IOST, Balancer, Qtum, Tezos, Zilliqa, Harmony, Coinlist, Algorand, Octopus Protocol…

Website: https://continue.capital/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ContinueFund

Incuba Alpha

Incuba Alpha is a cryptocurrency fund based in Japan that focuses on early-stage entrepreneurs in the decentralized finance (DeFi), DAO, and Web3 fields. Incuba sees itself as a strategic partner for startup companies, offering support in areas such as token economics and governance mechanisms design, marketing positioning, and community building (especially in Japan).

Portfolio: Near, Mask, Ethsign, iZUMi Finance, Aki protocol, RSS3, SignalPlus…

Website: https://www.incuba.capital/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Incuba_Alpha

Caballeros Capital

Caballeros Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on Web 3 protocols, projects, and founders, with a focus on the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. It critically thinks about how to empower founding teams and actively supports native crypto projects. Caballeros Capital has a strong ability to find early Alpha and has received recognition for its portfolio.

Portfolio: Polkadot, Sentiment, Ren, Polynomia, Radicle, OP Games, Ocean, ZKX, nftperp, Eclipse…

Website: https://caballeroscapital.com/#/home

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaballerosCap

Smrti Lab

Smrti Lab is an open-ended hedge fund that invests long-term in emerging cryptocurrencies on both public and primary markets, with assets under management of 140 million dollars. Smrti Labs’ investment style is mainly BTC/ETH long strategy, early-stage investment, and hedge funds, mainly investing in emerging crypto infrastructure with liquidity tokens.

Portfolio: Galxe, CyberConnect, Ancient8, Dfinity, Flashbots, Mobilecoin, Celestia, ZetaChain, BreederDAO, Blast Royale, Ancient 8, P12, Delysium, MirrorWorld…

Website: https://www.smrtilab.xyz/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smrti_lab

Binance Labs

Binance Labs is the venture capital and incubation arm of Binance, led by Binance co-founder He Yi, with a fund size of around 7.5 billion dollars. Although Binance Labs’ core team has undergone several major changes in the past three years, it has invested in more than 200 projects in over 25 countries, covering almost all of the Web3-related tracks. In terms of investment style, Binance Labs prefers to get deeply involved in early-stage projects and has extremely strong bargaining power.

Portfolio: zkSync, LayerZero, SBlockingCE ID, Symbiosis Finance, Sui, Celestia, Aptos, Injective, Certik, Axie Infinity, STEPN, NYM, Axelar, Polygon, Dune Analytics, Astar Network, Multichain, 1inch Network, Mythical Games, Biconomy, Chiliz, Celer Network, Mask Network, PolyHedra, Hooked Protocol, Ankr, Hashflow, BlockingncakeSwap, StarryNift, Wombat Exchange, Terra, The Sandbox, Moonbeam, Kava, Harmony, Oasis Network…

Website: https://labs.binance.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BinanceLabs

Huobi Ventures

Huobi Ventures is a global investment arm of Huobi, aiming to empower Huobi’s global strategy through capital operation, promote the common growth and interests of global partners. In the last bull market cycle, Huobi Ventures gained a larger return by investing in and exiting Terra and Matic, and then participated in the investment of Matter Labs and Offchain Labs.

Portfolio: zkSync, Animoca Brands, Arbitrum, Conflux, Optimism, NYM, Immutable X, Biconomy, Circle, Stacks, Celer Network, RSS, IOST, Oasis Network, Pyth network, ren, Oasys, Highstreet, Terra…

Website: https://www.huobi.com/en-us/huobiventures

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HuobiVentures

OKX Ventures

OKX Ventures is the investment arm of OKX, with an initial capital of 100 million US dollars, focusing on investing in blockchain infrastructure, Layer2, DeFi, NFT, Metaverse and other areas. OKX Ventures will provide a wide range of post-investment services to investment projects, and has formed a resource network with local media and KOLs in China, Silicon Valley, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia to help entrepreneurs from different perspectives. In addition, projects that OKX Ventures is deeply involved in and invested in will be recommended to OKX, and will have the opportunity to access a wide range of OKX products, services, promotional resources, users, and brand endorsements.

Portfolio: Matter Labs, offchain Labs, Sei Network, Metis, LayerZero, Scroll, ssv.network, Big Time, RACA, octopus Network, Rage Trade…

Website: https://www.okx.com/en-in/ventures

Twitter: https://twitter.com/okx_ventures

Mirana Ventures

Mirana was established in 2021 as an investment arm of Bybit, dedicated to supporting crypto companies, protocols, networks, and DAOs in transitioning to a more decentralized society. It mainly invests in crypto companies that have strategic relevance to Bybit and BitDAO, with investment scales ranging from $200,000 to $20 million.

Portfolio: Matter Labs, Animoca Brands, Galxe, Oasys, Scroll, Ancient8, EthSign, iZUMi Finance, BlockSec, UMA, Mirror World, Tsunami Finance, Orbiter Finance, EPIC LEAGUE…

Website: https://mirana.xyz/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mirana

KuCoin Labs

KuCoin Labs is the investment and incubation department of KuCoin, which invests in early-stage projects and helps project teams continue to grow. KuCoin Ventures, also within KuCoin, focuses more on strategic investments.

Portfolio: Symbiosis Finance, Pyth Network, LiveArtX, Solcial, DAOAquare, Coinweb, Aura Network, Lifeform…

Website: https://www.kucoin.com/land/kucoinlabs

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KCLabsOfficial

Gate Ventures

Gate Ventures is the venture capital department of cryptocurrency exchange Gate.io, focusing on investing in decentralized infrastructure, ecosystems, and applications.

Portfolio: Oasys, StarryNift, Aspecta, WOO Network, LiveArtX, Dora Factory…

Website: https://gate-ventures.com/

M-Ventures

M-Ventures is a comprehensive fund under the MEXC Group, committed to empowering innovation in the cryptocurrency field through strategic investments, mergers and acquisitions, FOF, project incubation, and other methods. It has invested in hundreds of projects.

Portfolio: izumi Finance, Aura Network, KYVE, WOO Network, prePO, Orderly Protocol, TwitterScan…

Website: https://m-ventures.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MVenturesLabs

Bonfire Union Ventures (Mask Network)

Bonfire Union Ventures is the investment department of Mask Network, committed to investing in the revival of open networks and a wide range of decentralized social products and protocols. Mask Network founder Suji has a wide personal influence in the Asian crypto world, and Bonfire Union Ventures investment director Tianran Zhang operates the highest-quality crypto community in the Chinese crypto world, bringing together entrepreneurs, crypto VC investors, and dollar fund investors, making it a large resource hub.

Portfolio: Oasys, 0xScope, Shield protocol, Rct AI, Galxe, Ethsign, Cyberconnect, RSS3, NFTGo, Showme, Orbiter Fiance…

Website: https://mask.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BonfireUnion

Y2Z ventures

y2z Ventures (formerly known as Gen Universe Capital) was established in 2021 as a long-term venture capital fund focused on the metaverse and Web3. Its brand positioning is “From yesterday to Gen Z,” and it is dedicated to supporting young people and startups who are committed to building metaverse infrastructure, creating metaverse content, and promoting Eastern culture. y2z Ventures has provided assistance to many Web3 entrepreneurs in their early stages and in difficult times, earning recognition and respect from the Chinese world, especially young entrepreneurs.

Portfolio: RSS3, Mask Network, Delysium, Blocto, Matrix world, degame, Cedar, Orbiter Finance, BlockingNONY, Blocking, SeeDAO, NFTScan, Ethsign, rct AI, Mexo…

Website: https://y2z.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/y2z_Ventures

Zonff Blockingrtners

Zonff Blockingrtners is a venture capital firm established in 2016 that invests in technology companies from seed round to later stages. In addition to the cryptocurrency field, its investment areas also cover cutting-edge technology, biotechnology/healthcare, and consumer markets. One of Zonff Blockingrtners’ main focuses is on startups that create value for the decentralized economy. It has completed multi-domain asset allocation across blockchain ecosystems, including quantitative hedge funds, computing power funds, and NFT art funds (VulcanDAO).

Portfolio: IoTeX, Polkadot, Conflux, Certik, Algorand, Celer Network, IOST, Mask Network, Delysium, Solv Protocol, DODO, Zilliqa, Orbiter Finance, Crema Finance…

Website: http://www.zonff.partners/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZonffBlockingrtners

CatcherVC

CatcherVC is a cryptocurrency investment fund initiated by the core team of Chinese-language cryptocurrency media Chaincatcher. It seeks to explore innovative projects in the blockchain world with a research-oriented approach and share its resources and insights with all stakeholders to provide true and lasting value.

Portfolio: Scroll, Metis, Orbiter Finance, Dmail, Alex, Blocto, GuildFi, Solv Protocol, PlatON, Bloktopia…

Website: https://www.catchervc.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatcherVC

Waterdrip Capital

Waterdrip Capital, named after the powerful weapon “waterdrop” in the famous science fiction novel “The Three-Body Problem,” was founded by OGs in the Chinese cryptocurrency industry in 2017. Its co-founder, Cancer, is the Chinese namer for Ethereum. Waterdrip Capital aims to accurately invest in the most promising blockchain startups and empower them with diverse resources.

Portfolio: Scroll, Metis, Blocto, Desmo, Moonbeam, Footprint Analytics, Dora Factory, SubDAO…

Website: http://waterdrip.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/waterdripfund

ArkStream Capital

ArkStream Capital is a crypto-native fund dedicated to accelerating Web3.0 unicorns, early support for many star projects such as AAVE, Polkadot, FLOW, etc., and its predecessor is the crypto marketing agency BlockArk, which has introduced many projects into the Chinese-speaking region.

Portfolio: Secret Network, REALY, Blockingrticle Network, Blocto, Anima, Ankr, Oasis Nework, DAOSquare…

Website: https://arkstream.capital/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ark_stream

Red Building Capital

Red Building Capital is Taiwan’s first venture capital company focused on integrating blockchain technology and digital technology. It is a venture studio setting that empowers venture capital. It not only invests funds, but also actually helps new startups grow in business. The overall style is biased towards incubation. Red Building Capital is named after the red building symbolizing Honglou in Taipei Municipal Jian Guo Senior High School.

Portfolio: Klaytn, InsurAce, Dappio, Blocto, YIN, Reef Finance, Blockingrsiq, Kyoko…

Website: https://www.rbcap.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedBuildingCap

Matrixport Ventures

Matrixport Ventures is the venture capital department of Matrixport, the largest crypto financial services platform in Asia. The co-founders of Matrixport include Wu Jihan, the former CEO of Bitmain, and Ge Yuesheng, the former executive director of Bitmain.

Portfolio: LayerZero, Galxe, Bitget Wallet, Orbiter Finance, GammaX, Ethos, MarsBit News, Ethsign, Sentiment…

Website: https://www.matrixport.ventures/

Youbi Capital

Youbi Capital was co-founded by senior Wall Street investment experts, Bitcoin mining pool owners, and crypto investors.

Portfolio: Avalanche, Yeild Guild Games, Octopus Network, Algorand, NFTGo, iZUMi Finance, Pendle, RSS3, Mask Network, Debank, platON, Footprint Analytics, DAOSquare…

Website: https://www.youbicapital.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/youbicapital

Sblock Digital Capital

Sblock Digital Capital was founded in 2018 and is a crypto fund dedicated to research and investment in the future of blockchain and technology.

Portfolio: Certik, STEPN, The Graph, 1inch Network, Octopus Network, MultiversX, Celer Network, Hashflow, Dmail…

Website: https://sBlockingrkdigitalcapital.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/capital_sBlockingrk

C² Ventures

C² Ventures is an early-stage Web3 investment company, founded by former Huobi executive Ciara Sun.

Portfolio: Galxe, CyberConnect, Ancient8, AlienSwap, Blast Royale, Orderly, Pocket Protocol, Ramper, Tanssi Network…

Website: https://www.csquared.vc/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CsquaredVC

In addition to the above crypto VC firms, there are also many high net worth and uniquely influential angel investors in the Chinese market, such as:

• Li Xingjun, co-founder of Fosun Group, often appears in financing news for various projects and has invested in 0xScope, Smart Token Labs, and others;

• Former Chain News editor-in-chief Liu Feng’s fund BODL has invested in Smart Token Labs, Keystone, and others;

• JDI Global founder Wang Yiming has established Wang Ventures;

• Former Danhua Capital managing director Dovey Wan is an angel investor in many star projects such as GMX;

• Former LD Capital partner Blake is also actively involved in early-stage investments in various projects as an angel investor;

• Dodo founder DaiDai also initiated the establishment of Puzzle Ventures, which invested in Aurora, GoPlus, and others.

Traditional Funds

Given that many traditional dollar funds are constrained by policy frameworks, LPs, management scale (too large is not good for investment), decision-making mechanisms, etc., traditional dollar funds often exhibit some opportunistic tendencies in Web3 investments. Many investors who once wanted to go all in on crypto have turned to AI, and the explosion of several unicorns in the crypto world has also made many traditional investment institutions fearful and hesitant.

However, we still see many traditional dollar funds active in the cryptocurrency primary market, even becoming core investors in many high-valued first-tier projects.

Currently, traditional funds that are active in the crypto primary market or perform well in it include Qiming Venture Partners, XVC, Sky9, BAI Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Atlas Capital, Sequoia China, IDG, Matrix Partners China, SIG, ZhenFund, GGV Capital, Northern Light Venture Capital, and Tencent’s investment department. In addition to investing directly in projects, many traditional dollar funds are also LPs of numerous crypto funds.

In the crypto bear market, Crypto Funds tend to be more cautious and cannot invest large amounts in overvalued projects. Therefore, traditional dollar funds with huge assets under management have become the only fundraising option for many overvalued projects. For example, Layer2 scaling project Scroll and Taiko’s last round of financing were both backed by traditional institutions, with a single institution investing tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

In terms of portfolio, IDG is currently the best-performing traditional dollar fund, having participated in Coinbase’s seed round investment in 2012, invested in Ripple in 2013, Circle in 2015, Bitmain in 2017, KuCoin and imToken in 2018, and Matrixport in 2019… More recently, it has been co-investing with Circle/KuCoin.

The crypto primary market continues to be depressed, and dollar funds themselves face great challenges in fundraising and attention. Please cherish the traditional dollar fund investors who are still actively exploring and investing in Web3 projects.

5. Suggestions for Chinese Market Promotion

From our actual communication experience, in the past two years, due to market policies, many overseas projects have deliberately avoided the Chinese market. Even if some projects have the idea of expanding into the Chinese market, they will be relatively cautious or try to avoid participating officially. However, starting from this year, the attitude of many project parties towards the Chinese market has undergone a significant change.

Even from the perspective of policies, not doing the mainland Chinese market, but the Chinese market outside the mainland, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, North America, Europe and other regions, is still a strong source of purchasing power, and benefits from the dividend of Chinese engineers, there are a large number of developers, and has become the object that many public chain ecosystems have to attract.

A direct example is that the project party’s consideration of the Chinese market has changed from “whether to do the Chinese market” to “how to do the Chinese market well”. As the main group of the Asia-Pacific market, the Chinese market has a large base, rich projects and communities, and it is very important to work with partners with good reputation. Therefore, if you want to do well in localization, it is particularly important to recruit team members who are familiar with the local market and culture.

From a focus standpoint, the focus of Chinese-speaking users is not significantly different from that of the international market. However, in the public’s impression, Chinese people generally do not like pure Chinese team projects because there are too many rug projects (similar phenomena can be seen in some overseas communities) and there is a lack of top star projects that bring wealth effects. However, this phenomenon has improved recently due to the rise of “Chinese narrative” and the excellent performance of some Chinese-language projects.

Generally speaking, Chinese-speaking users will pay more attention to a project due to the following characteristics:

• Potential airdrops: When describing your marketing activities, you can set some potential airdrop expectations in some copy or links, which will make more users or influencers willing to share your project.

• Non-Chinese team projects: More emphasis on international backgrounds and past successes.

• Big institution endorsement: Partners here include not only VCs, but also some high-quality project parties, market makers, etc. If your financing amount is large enough, it is also recommended to show it, which will make people more willing to participate in your project.

• Operational capability: “Will the project party pull the plate?” “Who is the dealer?” These words often appear in major Chinese-speaking communities. Although the description is a bit too “down-to-earth”, it also reflects that users not only pay attention to the fundamentals of the project, but also attach great importance to the actual operational capabilities of the project.

However, recently, due to the theft and mysterious operations of many projects endorsed by large institutions, the brand effect of large institutions will be slightly reduced.

Another thing that must be mentioned is KOL. Due to the influence of Twitter in the Chinese-speaking market, coupled with the sensitivity of channels such as Weibo/WeChat, many Chinese-speaking KOLs have come to Twitter. However, the following points should be noted when doing marketing on Twitter:

• The quality of fans is greater than the quantity of fans: Twitter is a channel that is very easy to be disseminated. As a brand, you should provide high-quality dissemination content to high-quality KOLs, and select KOLs who specialize in digging deep into the brand’s track, first cover the quality of fans, and then cover the brand.

• Don’t have the same copy, but let KOLs have room for play: Recently, due to the widespread dissemination of almost the same dissemination content by some project parties, and finally rug, many Chinese-speaking users will see after seeing the homogenized content. Resentment. In the traditional PR strategy, there is a term called “disassembling the manuscript”, which means reporting the same content from different perspectives. This strategy is also applicable to Twitter. At the same time, we must remember that the more high-quality KOLs, the more their own style and cherish their feathers, and brands should try to make important KOLs produce customized and feature-rich content.

• Twitter should be one of the integrated strategies, not the only channel: Due to the social attributes of Twitter, its greater value lies in the secondary dissemination and interpretation of content. Brands should have good content precipitation first and then use Twitter for secondary dissemination. At the same time, pay attention to timing and dissemination rhythm.

These are just some examples, and the actual execution should be combined according to the characteristics of the project. For brands entering the Chinese market for the first time, they can also gain attention through media and activities.

You can try to cooperate with some projects with Chinese background for joint activities, understand the atmosphere of the Chinese community, contact and screen the first batch of Chinese users. Afterwards, you can consider expanding some news channels and expanding the influence. After having the first wave of Chinese users, communicate with them more and listen to their suggestions and feedback on the project itself.

Afterwards, release a more in-depth and complete introduction report to form a comprehensive Chinese content precipitation. When a new user wants to learn about you, having an officially recognized and comprehensive content presentation will onboard new users faster and better. What is needed is comprehensive and popular, not scattered content. In fact, many Chinese-language content comes from overseas secondary compilations, often resulting in inaccurate and incomplete content.

Specifically, which methods are used depends on your specific dissemination plan and content. Of course, no matter what channel is used, the content of the dissemination needs to be adapted to the local language and culture in order to better stimulate users’ interest, such as using local language/memes to increase dissemination power, etc.

For the Taiwanese market, we invited local users who have worked in the exchange for more than ten years to share the local market situation, including:

• Compared to making money, most stable users prefer stable growth, e.g. loans, regular investment

• To gain users’ trust, you need to work hard with localized brand representatives to lead the community

• Taiwanese people like gambling, but the conservative ones are small bets with big wins, e.g. IEO, LaunchBlockingd

• Community management emphasizes stable and high-quality content, e.g. Deep Tide

In the Taiwanese market, KOLs have high credibility. Therefore, when launching a Web3 project, user trust can be increased through the power of KOLs. For example, when FTX entered the Taiwanese market, by setting the role of community partners, a real person appeared in front of Taiwanese users, eating and gathering with users, conducting live broadcasts, and actually conducting transaction operations on the scene and sharing successful or failed experiences, demonstrating actual performance that can withstand market tests, all of which enhance user trust.

Tips for cooperating with KOLs:

Cooperation efficiency: When writing promotional copy and creating images for KOLs, make sure they match the KOL’s tone to increase cooperation efficiency. It is recommended to use ChatGPT, as it may be smarter than the human brain in this regard.

Cooperation quality: Ask KOLs directly where improvements are needed and provide feedback regularly to improve cooperation quality.

Relationship maintenance: Gifts should be thoughtful and can be chosen for important people around the KOL to make them feel special. If the gift given to the KOL is a flashy product that everyone has, the KOL can thank you for the gift when posting.

Even if Taiwanese users have not really entered the market, they have heard of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether, and even more directly, NFTs and Metaverse. To eliminate users’ doubts, do not discuss underlying technical issues with them, but compare them directly to things they are familiar with. For example, the USDT earn APR on an exchange exceeds 3%, while the annual interest rate on a US dollar demand deposit account at a Taiwanese bank is only about 1%. If you put your money in a bank, you will lose it if the bank goes bankrupt, but if you use a distributed ledger on the blockchain, everyone will record how much money you have, making your assets safer.

According to Meta’s 2023 data, social media usage among the population over 18 years old in the Taiwanese market has reached 95.4%, with an average daily spending time of 2 hours and 6 minutes on social media. The channel characteristics of Taiwanese users are very prominent. Good management of social media is basically half the battle won, but managing social media requires the most time to accumulate trust. The only suggestion for operating a social media community in the Taiwanese market is to “be a loyal audience of your own community.” Taiwanese users will not actively share news, and using engagement rate as a KPI may disappoint you (but Europeans may be even more disappointed haha). However, if the content released by the project party is something that the audience as a viewer expects and wants to see, there is no need to worry about conversion rates.

The market is ever-changing, and being ready with a product does not mean the market is ready to welcome you. Hopefully, this content can help you better understand the Chinese-speaking market and develop appropriate marketing strategies.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!