By/Alec Goh (Head of HTX Ventures)
The narrative of Web3 has long revolved around "freedom" - breaking intermediary monopolies, optimizing inefficient systems, and overturning outdated rules. By 2025, this social experiment is entering a new phase: mainstream institutions and regulators are beginning to recognize its potential and paving the way for upgrading the paradigm of digital identity and asset management.
From governments signaling the potential of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset to traditional institutions accelerating their entry, today's Web3 now possesses abundant liquidity, mature infrastructure, and global consensus. But as a trading platform and venture capital firm deeply rooted in the industry, we need to ask: How can this transformation truly create long-term value?
The crypto world has always been known for its "speed": rapid development iterations, fast capital flow, and even faster narrative shifts. Under multiple pressures, founders can easily fall into the inertia of pursuing short-term velocity. However, to build a truly sustainable Web3 project, teams must learn to "detach" - temporarily step away from code and market noise, and return to fundamental questions: Who are we serving, and what real needs are we solving?
The history of traditional finance has long proven that all systems that transcend cycles are based on nothing more than risk management, transparency, and user trust. Web3 cannot bypass these three tests. To build a credible ecosystem, project teams must focus on sustainable value creation, not be obsessed with speed races or speculative games. Security and trust must be in the genes, not an afterthought.
In HTX Ventures' observations, the industry has revealed promising explorations:
Bitcoin practical breakthrough: Such as Babylon activating Bitcoin's on-chain security through staking protocols;
Real asset tokenization wave: Breaking traditional financial access barriers and releasing long-tail asset liquidity;
Stablecoin payment network: Significantly reducing cross-border trade friction and reshaping global commercial infrastructure;
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure): Reconstructing traditional monopoly domains through shared models, allowing Web3 services to truly reach physical scenarios.
The common point of these cases is: Using blockchain thinking to deconstruct real pain points and deliver user value through products. To transform this trend into industry norm still requires systematic effort:
Step One: Anchor Real Needs, Avoid Self-Indulgent Innovation
Project teams need to repeatedly ask: Are users willing to continuously pay for the solution? Does it fill critical gaps in traditional systems? Whether reducing cross-border remittance costs by 60% or enabling 1 billion people to access high-yield financial instruments for the first time, Web3's killer applications will inevitably be born from "real-world interfaces".
Step Two: Design Anti-Attenuation Economic and Governance Models
Token release curves, fund management mechanisms, DAO governance frameworks - these designs must serve the long-term health of the ecosystem, not early interest groups. For example:
Avoid token unlock rules that peak at launch;
Adopt dynamically adjusted contributor incentives (like Babylon's Bitcoin staking model);
Reserve progressive decentralization space for DAOs (rather than code-locked control);
Introduce black swan resistance mechanisms (such as Shell Finance's fair liquidation through DLC technology).
Only when capital flow and value creation form a closed loop can a project truly accumulate network effects.
Step Three: Embed Risk Management into Protocol Genes
Smart contract audits are just the baseline; truly robust systems require:
Permissionless fault escape channels;
Multiple oracle data redundancy verification;
Crisis response protocols prioritizing stress testing.
As institutional funds enter, stress resistance will become the core metric distinguishing "speculative toys" from "infrastructure".
Conclusion: Speed Creates Bubbles, Value Sediments Trust
When sovereign wealth funds incorporate Bitcoin into their balance sheets, when workers receive cross-border salaries via stablecoins, Web3's legitimacy will no longer depend on slogans. Every token distribution plan, every governance vote, every line of smart contract code is adding bricks to the industry's trust foundation.
The Web3 of 2025 will ultimately belong to the "slow companies" - those who prove through verifiable transparency, accumulative user value, and resilience against extreme market conditions that beyond technological frenzy, there are more important stories worth writing.
