Overnight, the hottest narrative in the crypto field became "Internet Capital Markets", with numerous crypto projects and founders from the Solana ecosystem, led by the new Launchpad platform Believe, releasing this phrase, which, along with "Believe in something", became the new slogan to kick off the on-chain bull market.
What exactly is the so-called "Internet Capital Markets", and will it be just a fleeting hype slogan like the previous "Content Coin" in the Base ecosystem? What related targets are available for selection?
Financing Method in the Post-VC Token Era
In a financing PPT from a few years ago, Solana mentioned creating an "on-chain NASDAQ", or a blockchain running at NASDAQ's speed. From the current crypto ecosystem perspective, Solana has indeed achieved this in terms of speed. However, as "asset issuance" gradually becomes the biggest meta-narrative in the crypto field, Solana becoming just a NASDAQ that provides trading functions has become less appealing.
After experiencing updates to a series of products like Pumpfun, Timefun, and Clount, Solana's high throughput and low latency make it suitable for building a global decentralized capital market, rather than merely mimicking NASDAQ's trading model. The market currently needs an open, permissionless financing and trading ecosystem that covers various assets from meme coins to Non-Fungible Tokens to startup projects, which aligns more closely with Solana's technical advantages.
Solana Foundation Chairman Lily Liu is a proponent of Solana's commitment to building "Internet Capital Markets", explaining in various online and offline occasions that Internet Capital Markets refer to creating global financial infrastructure through blockchain technology, allowing the 5.5 billion internet users to participate in asset trading in capital markets. This vision defines ICM as a decentralized financing method, breaking down traditional financial barriers (such as complex paperwork and high thresholds).
In late December 2024, Akshay BD, head of Solana ecosystem's Superteam, mentioned the concepts of "Internet Capital Markets" and "F.A.T. Protocol Engineering" in the Solana 2025 marketing memo. He believes that in 2024, enterprises will directly "go public on the internet" and be able to reach over a billion investors holding private keys - who will vote for their desired future with their funds, not limited to stocks, but covering all asset classes, cultures, and concepts worth owning.
The recently rapidly heating up AI token platform Virtuals is doing the same thing. Its launched point-based token issuance mechanism Genesis allows users to accumulate points through purchasing Virtuals ecosystem tokens, staking VIRTUAL, VADER, and other channels, and gain access to participate in new project issuances, which is an option for new projects to issue tokens and successfully cold start.
However, the Virtuals ecosystem is mainly concentrated in the Crypto+AI track, while the platform currently receiving the most attention is a token issuance platform called Believe, formerly a social influence asset platform Clout. Believe platform's slogan is similar to "Believe in Something", where users can reply @launch with a token name under any tweet to turn it into a token.
Since its launch on April 27, Believe has demonstrated strong market explosive power. Not only has it gained attention from mainstream Solana ecosystem projects and founders, but its revenue is also impressive. According to Believescreener data, Believe platform's estimated income in the past 24 hours reached $7.62 million, with creator income reaching $3.81 million.
With the platform token LaunchCoin's surge, other tokens launched by the Believe platform have also gained market attention, and these tokens are categorized under the previously mentioned "Internet Capital Markets" concept, as they have created actual products compared to tokens on Pump.Fun that only have an image.
ICM Related Concept Tokens
The current ICM concept leader is the Believe platform token LAUNCHCOIN. In fact, Believe is no different from previous token launch platforms technically - if you have an idea, you just need to @launchcoin with a token name on X to create a token. If others believe in your idea, they will buy your token. As the creator, you can extract fees to put the idea into practice.
LAUNCHCOIN currently has a market cap of $235 million, with a 24-hour increase of 220%.
Related reading: 《LaunchCoin 200x in a day, How did Believe create a $200 million large MC memecoin after zeroing? ｜ 10 0x Retrospective》
BSCREENER
BSCREENER is the platform token of BelieveScreener, a dashboard platform for Believe, initiated by @nanowisp, who stated that token transaction fees will be used to pay for website and hosting costs. No token utility, no reward mechanism, no roadmap - just a simple token to help keep the project running.
Currently, BSCREENER has a market cap of $13.6 million, with a 24-hour increase of 2500%. As the token was recently launched, its subsequent performance remains to be observed.
DUPE
DUPE (Deal Unlocking Price Engine) is a "finding alternatives" tool proposed by @nikitabier and @ghoshal. Just add "dupe dot com" before any product page link, and the system will automatically help you find cheaper similar products.
Currently, DUPE has a market cap of over $50 million, with a 24-hour increase of 30%.
AURA
AURA is the platform token of Aurascope, a camera-first mobile application where users can scan real-world objects, locations, and people to understand how they affect their energy, track daily scores, increase their collection, and compete with friends to stay in sync with their environment, also rewarding contributors who post on the platform. Its founder is a former VC and partner of Rising Star, @sabakarimm.
AURA currently has a market cap of $9 million, with a 24-hour increase of 800%.
BUDDY
BUDDY is the platform token of CreatorBuddy launched by @AlexFinnX, an AI assistant with your X platform posting permissions. You can ask it any questions related to your past content. Features include 8 AI tools: content coaching, algorithm analysis, content creation, reply assistant, account research, historical review, brain dump, and inspiration triggering.
BUDDY currently has a market cap of $12 million, with a 24-hour decrease of 4%.
FITCOIN
@fittedcloset is an AI-driven virtual wardrobe application where users can upload their clothes, match outfits, resell idle items, and share with friends. Currently with over 300,000 downloads, 300 million+ social media views, and over 1 million clothing items uploaded.
FITCOIN currently has a market cap of nearly $7 million, with a 24-hour increase of 96%.
Additionally, the Believe platform also has short video app Giggles, where user interactions can earn crypto rewards; SuperFriend, a tool helping developers "visually understand and dialogue with code repositories"; PNP, a prediction market platform without liquidity support; Kayyo, an app focusing on AI combat training and providing personalized training plans; CreatorGen, a tool for generating hyper-realistic AI influencers; NinjaChat, which integrates multiple top AI tools, and other applications that have issued their own tokens on Believe. Readers can visit the Believe dashboard to view them.
The True Question of ICM: Who Will Tokenize Good Assets?
Although the hype of Believe has continuously increased Launchcoin's market value, many in the community still raise doubts, believing that "Internet Capital Markets" is just another empty token generation bubble, similar to the AI Agent craze at the end of last year, which did not produce much actual value in AI applications, but was merely a carnival of capital and traffic.
However, if we look further, we will find that behind these phenomena lies a structural transformation - the crypto world is moving from "fictional narratives" to "real arbitrage". As Akshay BD explained in his latest tweet, from a capital market perspective, Crypto has effectively solved the problem of lowering asset acquisition thresholds. Regardless of location, as long as you have a mobile app and a bit of stablecoin, you can freely invest in any on-chain assets without navigating complex banking and brokerage systems or waiting weeks to open offshore accounts. Such "freedom" of accessibility is unimaginable in traditional financial systems.
The problem is that Crypto has not yet solved the "issuance mechanism for high-quality assets". The current token market is flooded with numerous meme tokens, shell projects, and speculative concepts with no intrinsic value. This is not a technological fault, but a natural result of regulatory absence and distorted incentives. In traditional markets, securities issuance has clear thresholds, processes, and information disclosure mechanisms. On-chain, anyone can easily issue tokens, liquidity can instantly follow, and speculators quickly rush in. This "highly free" issuance mechanism actually makes truly valuable assets harder to stand out.
Akshay believes that building a system that allows "high-quality assets" to be issued with the same convenience is what Solana should consider next. In other words, the ultimate goal of "Internet Capital Markets" should not be "anyone can issue a token", but "making good assets that were originally difficult to issue and access readily available".
The underlying judgment criteria are: first, whether the asset can benefit from the current special economic/geopolitical environment, and second, whether it is difficult to purchase through traditional brokers and banks. If both conditions are met, it has reason to be "tokenized".
For example, in the past decade, the US dollar became the hegemon of on-chain sovereign assets not because it was technically easy to tokenize, but because global users had no alternative when fighting against their domestic currency depreciation. Bitcoin's rise in the 2010s was also a kind of "environmental arbitrage" - positioning itself as a decentralized hedging asset under the background of monetary over-issuance. Today, if we can identify similar "structurally demanded assets" and truly achieve "free access" through on-chain issuance, this is the real meaning of ICM - not an empty narrative, but a realization of institutional dividends.
From this perspective, Believe and LaunchCoin may just be a beginning, a prototype, an "experimental breakthrough" with obvious entertainment and bubble characteristics - it may not leave value precipitation, but the mechanism pathway it tries to open is indeed the necessary path for some assets in the future. Ultimately, "Internet Capital Markets" will not be about everyone casually issuing a token, but about everyone being able to conveniently buy good assets.
