Interviewer | lasertheend
This article only represents the interviewee's perspective and does not represent Wu Blockchain's view. Readers are advised to strictly comply with local laws and regulations and not participate in illegal financial activities.
In this interview, Yan Xin, co-founder of Sign (formerly EthSign), reviewed his complete transformation path from miner, crypto trader, crypto VC to Web3 entrepreneur. He emphasized that he chose to bet against the trend on the Web3 application track during the 2021 bull market. Despite initial financing difficulties, he ultimately secured investment from Sequoia across three regions through a clear direction and continuous advancement.
Yan Xin proposed that crypto and community are strongly bound, and the significance of Token lies in establishing participant consensus and governance rights, rather than being a simple financing tool. He advocates the "community first, product second" construction logic, criticizes the short-term orientation of airdrop culture, and shares how Sign builds sustainable community participation mechanisms through cultural symbols, mechanism design, and application tools.
Audio transcription completed by GPT, potential errors may exist. Please listen to the complete podcast:
Xiaoyuzhou:
https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episodes/67eea0690decaeb094c81bc6
YouTube:
First Crypto Experience: From Laboratory Mining to Early DeFi Speculation
Shang: Could you introduce yourself and how you entered the crypto industry, and what were you doing at that time?
Yan Xin: I'm Yan Xin, CEO and co-founder of Sign. I first entered this circle through mining, then transitioned to crypto VC, and four years ago we established EthSign.
At that time, it was actually quite simple. I graduated with an EE (Electrical Engineering) degree, so most of my career path was to enter large companies like Intel and AMD. Working in these companies made me gradually realize that we were only responsible for a small part of the entire massive industrial chain. Each large company has a very complex industrial chain, like developing a basic circuit that gets packaged into a chip, which then becomes a terminal product sold. The money is distributed level by level, and the part we do can actually obtain very limited returns.
Then someone in our laboratory was saying we could mine cryptocurrency. The crypto mined doesn't need to be shared with anyone. We were very poor at the time and felt during our internship that this was an excellent opportunity. At that time, the so-called Degen play was not today's DeFi lending pools, let alone PVP Memecoins, but various Altcoin mining based on PoW. We needed to modify mining algorithms to mine these new shitcoins and then quickly sell them.
So we were standard Degens at that time, systematically learning and researching through this process, and gradually going full-time in crypto because we could make money. The returns were actually quite good then, mining one or two hundred dollars a day, which would be several thousand dollars a month, which was a lot of money. Mining itself was also a kind of trading strategy. Because these small coins were very volatile, sometimes a coin might 10x if you didn't mine it, but after mining and selling, there might be no one to take over, with no liquidity on the chain.
The PoW game was quite fun back then. I remember once we were mining a chain, and suddenly we found that almost all blocks were mined by ourselves. We were initially happy, but later realized this meant no one was competing with us for mining anymore, no one was mining anymore, and this chain was probably going to die, with the team having already abandoned it. When no one is playing with you, you start to think - where did everyone go? If no one is mining this chain in the market, you can hardly expect anyone to come back and buy these coins.
(Translation continues in the same manner)At the time, we did not choose the most popular track. We judged that the hottest Non-Fungible Token track had already entered a narrative bubble stage, with many "storytelling" elements. VCs usually package early simple products very complexly, such as turning Non-Fungible Token into NFT-Fi, Memecoin into Meme-Fi, adding "Fi" to everything. This is the inertia of VCs, who need narratives, but as entrepreneurs, you must determine whether a track is in its early or late stage.
We felt that Non-Fungible Token was not suitable for our team's capabilities, and the golden age of DeFi had also passed, so we ultimately chose a relatively niche direction - building a Web3 application. At that time, Web3 was not a mainstream narrative, but I was an early investor in Polkadot and was very familiar with the Web3 concept, so we decided to layout in advance.
We were developing a Web3-based application product, and fundraising was extremely difficult. In the early stages, almost only our closest friends and those who supported our long-term vision were willing to evaluate us. There was a period when we also faced whether to accept less-than-ideal investments under pressure, but we judged that the trend had not truly arrived, so we chose to persist and continuously advance the product and delivery.
By the end of 2022, Web3 finally took off, and people began to see that Web3 applications have real users and realized that this direction has a future. It was at this moment that we received investment from Sequoia.
Of course, Sequoia's joining did not mean everything became easy. We are about to celebrate our fourth anniversary, which has been a long entrepreneurial journey. Many people only see that we received Sequoia's investment, but in fact, it was a result of long-term persistence and investment. At least at that time, Sequoia's joining made many people truly realize that this product and idea had real problem-solving capabilities.
Shang: After Sequoia invested, I suppose many people started rushing to invest in you, right?
Yan Xin: Yes, FOMO emotions were very strong. Sequoia itself has few investments in the crypto field, and this was the only time Sequoia China, India, and the US invested together - and it will never happen again because Sequoia China and India have now become independent.
So that round was indeed quickly completed after Sequoia led the investment. But the market is always changing, and after financing, the industry entered a new adjustment cycle, and Web3 also faced some doubts. So we had to readapt and continue to find a true product-market fit. This is a long-term process, not a story that ends with one round of financing.
Why Issue Tokens: Building a Consensus Network Rather Than Pure Financing
Shang: So how do you view the matter of issuing tokens?
Yan Xin: I think it's a very special and exciting thing. Once you choose to issue tokens, you're essentially starting a "crypto maritime expedition". Issuing tokens itself has no upper limit, but it also brings many limitations.
I'm often asked: "Your project can already make money, perhaps earning $20 million annually, so why issue tokens?" But I think this question itself starts from a wrong perspective. Issuing tokens is not about making money. You can counter-ask: Why do exchanges that are already making so much money still issue tokens? The reasoning is the same.
First, I believe tokens are a means of interacting with and establishing relationships with the community. It's actually an entry point to the "Stakeholder Economy". For example, when you use OpenAI, you pay daily to use its products and help train models, but you can never be a shareholder, right? For most people in most countries, owning its shares is almost impossible. In this relationship, users are always just users - passive consumers.
But with a Token, if users can obtain a certain token share by using the product and participating in the community, they become partial owners of the project. At this point, you no longer treat users just as customers but as project co-builders. This relationship is healthier and more long-lasting, and I find it very meaningful.
Secondly, the Token itself is an independent "product" or "asset". I often think about when, as a founder, I am seriously polishing a product and when I am polishing an asset. The methodologies for these two things are completely different, requiring different investments of energy and strategies.
Over the past three years, we have already refined the products under Sign to be quite mature. Next, we hope to build and manage it as an asset. This is a new challenge, but also something with enormous potential, so we decided to do it.
(Translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text)Yan Xin: I think this is a particularly interesting topic. Building a community must first start with "culture". If a project carries a certain spirit or direction, its cultural theme needs to be defined very clearly from the beginning, and it must be distinctive enough to attract people who truly resonate with you.
In fact, building a community is not about "attracting everyone" but "finding people who are on the same wavelength". People in this world are different, and it's impossible to make everyone join your community, which would be futile. You must first be clear about who you are, what values, cultural tendencies, interests, and vibe you have, and then express these clearly. Only then can you attract people like yourself.
In fact, most people are lonely inside, and many hope to find resonant people and groups on the internet. For example, the Bitcoin community gathers people who dislike the US dollar and support decentralization, and Bitcoin became an emotional and faith anchor for everyone. When we build our own community, we also need this kind of "spiritual anchor", our own sign, our values.
For example, we believe the greatest significance of blockchain is that it serves as a platform that can provide global asset and service rapid publishing capabilities to everyone. So our customized culture is globalization; we hope to become a global family, welcoming people from different countries and backgrounds. In this process, we have a good product to support, which can accelerate this globalization narrative and truly let people "play along".
Initially, we just clarified our concept, then gradually visualized these ideas, making them part of our brand identity. For instance, we have an orange small heart, orange Sign Glasses - these visual elements slowly start attracting people to join. Once they come in, the community begins to grow naturally.
We won't force everyone to do something, but let people spontaneously organize based on the vibe. Some start making Memecoin, some create Meme content using our community elements; others launch various activities like Poker Tournament - even an organization called "Old Poker" grew out of this. These things are community-generated, not planned by us, and I believe this is the core of a healthy community.
How to view Airdrop culture: Airdrop is an entry point, not the purpose
[The translation continues in this manner, maintaining the professional and nuanced translation of the original text.]I was originally not a community-oriented person, typically in the VC style. However, through the process of building a community over the past few years, I realized that the existence of a community is not the need of founders, but the need of the entire world. The world needs people who can seriously and continuously build communities. I am also willing to continue doing this.
Shang: That's right. The success of crypto itself has already verified this point to some extent. Well, thank you, Yan Xin.
Yan Xin: Thank you, Shang.
