Author: Yue Xiaoyu
Here comes the little essay from attending the conference!
After a busy two or three days, I finally have time to share with you my observations and thoughts from attending TOKEN2049 in Singapore this time.
At every industry conference, as the world's largest exchange, Binance's activities can be said to be the most core side event outside the TOKEN2049 main venue.
Therefore, this time when we came to Singapore, we specially set up booths at two events, one at the TOKEN2049 main venue, and the other at the BNB Chain venue.
Here I will mainly share based on these two events:
The two venues, TOKEN2049 and BNB Chain, are actually two separate circles.
We had booths at both events, so the differences between the two events were very obvious.
About 80% of the people at the TOKEN2049 main venue were foreigners, while 80% of the people at the BNB Chain venue were Chinese.
From the perspective of the venue business mix, the main venue had the most booths in two categories: exchanges and cryptocurrency payment-related projects, which also gives a very intuitive view of the current industry trends.
The BNB Chain venue, on the other hand, featured some leading projects in the BNB Chain ecosystem, covering meme, stablecoin payments, on-chain contracts, prediction markets, and so on, also representing the popular trends in the BNB ecosystem.
At the same time, the attendee profiles of the two events were completely different: most of those attending the main venue were project teams and industry practitioners; while those attending the BNB Chain event were more KOLs, traders, and large holders.
In addition, the Token2049 main venue strictly checked tickets, while the BNB venue was semi-open.
If the main venue is a business networking event for industry projects, then the BNB venue is a carnival for Chinese players.
At the TOKEN2049 main venue, there were mainly three types of people who proactively came to consult and communicate with us:
The first type were those doing cryptocurrency payments, who could provide us with fiat or cryptocurrency payment solutions.
During communication with them, I found that fiat / crypto two-way payment solutions have already become relatively mature.
Overseas compliant on-ramp and off-ramp, and localized payment infrastructure, have already become essential standard offerings for all projects going overseas.
The second type were various marketing agencies, capable of handling market promotion in regions such as Europe and America, South America, and Africa.
It can be clearly perceived that if you want to go global, you need to shift to refined regional localized operations. The differences between different countries and regions are huge, and the ways of market expansion are also very different.
The third type were other project teams and industry practitioners, most of whom came to wander around and learn about our project.
This group may not seem to be direct conversions, but it still counts as potential incremental growth in industry brand awareness and circle exposure.
My biggest feeling from attending this time is that online and offline sentiment is also split: online is pessimistic, offline is optimistic.
Usually, the overall atmosphere in online communities is rather pessimistic, full of market noise and negative emotions, and everyone seems very anxious.
But when I came offline, I found that everyone's emotions were completely different.
Many practitioners and users are very interested in our project, very optimistic about our development, and very willing to participate deeply.
Some deep users also gave us a lot of valuable suggestions and wanted to help us do better together.
I also realized something: online public opinion is dominated by emotion and market conditions, while offline activities are dominated by value and circles.
Many people online are shouting that this is a garbage market and that there are no opportunities; offline, everyone is looking for reliable projects and actively connecting with people.
People vote with their feet and are more willing to come to high-quality projects to seek opportunities.
Therefore, truly high-quality projects actually stand out more offline, and the recognition they receive is far higher than online.
This is also a kind of positive selection.
Finally, I also want to talk about whether project teams should attend exhibitions and whether it is worth coming offline.
My suggestion is very clear: for startup projects that have just begun, it is not recommended to rent a booth at the main venue, as the ROI is very low; while for projects in a high-growth period or mature period, it is very necessary.
This is because the core role of a booth at the main venue is not conversion, nor connecting with customers or discussing cooperation, but more a way to show brand strength and display one's own capabilities.
The greatest value of exhibiting at the main venue is brand exposure, letting the industry know that your project exists, and at the same time providing us with an offline communication scenario with partners and ecosystem participants.
So this model is more suitable for leading projects that have strength and need to build their brand. This is also why the core booths on each floor of the main venue are basically occupied by major exchanges, essentially to display strength.
However, not renting a booth does not mean not attending the conference. On the contrary, attending offline and communicating face-to-face offline is currently the most cost-effective action in the industry.
During this offline trip, we had in-depth communication and exchanges with long-term partners, KOLs, and core deep users, and the sense of trust established was very strong.
I have always felt that in this era, trust is the scarcest resource between people.
Ten online chats are not as good as one offline meeting.
The noise is online, the opportunities are offline.