Insights and Thoughts from the First Bitcoin Asia Conference in Hong Kong

On May 9, 2024, Hong Kong welcomed the first Bitcoin Asia Conference, marking a new height for the Web3 industry in Asia. The current prosperity of the Bitcoin ecosystem is closely linked to the Asian market, including developers and project parties from Asia. The choice of Hong Kong as the first stop of the conference may be due to this consideration. Participants mainly discussed the current status and future development of the macro Bitcoin ecosystem and Layer 2 technology, with discussions centered around the financial attributes and transactions of Bitcoin. The conference brought together exhibitors from project parties, mining machine manufacturers, wallets, ETF exhibitors, and exchanges, with over 1500 attendees over two days, and the guests were all major contributors from various segments of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Here are some key insights and personal reflections I gained from the conference:

Conference Highlights

The core of this conference revolves around the demonstration and discussion of the Bitcoin ecosystem, with a particular focus on new tools and platforms aimed at optimizing trading strategies and improving trading efficiency. Some of these tools and platforms are developed from a Layer 2 perspective, while others address solutions from the native chain perspective, with a focus on resolving the core pain points of the Bitcoin network: scalability, security, and smart contracts.

Challenges in Infrastructure Development

Many entrepreneurial projects in the current Bitcoin ecosystem focus on building infrastructure, which is crucial for improving transaction speed, ensuring transaction security, and expanding the network. These are the cornerstones that support the long-term sustainable development of the Bitcoin network. Although facing financial and technical challenges, their importance cannot be ignored. The numerous wallet exhibitors at the exhibition also reflect the different stages compared to the Ethereum ecosystem. For true development, the Bitcoin ecosystem needs infrastructure even more.

The Rise of Layer 2

Layer 2 projects emerged as a prominent theme of the conference, showcasing how to address the scalability issues of the network by building new layers on top of the Bitcoin protocol. The development of such technologies is not only a cutting-edge exploration of blockchain technology but may also lead the Bitcoin network toward a more efficient and scalable future. The two projects that have been discussed the most and have already taken shape are Merlin Chain and Dovi.

Although Layer 2 technology theoretically has great potential, I believe that these technologies have not yet fully addressed some of the concerns of investors at this stage, especially traditional investors who focus on security and stability. Perhaps these conservative individuals need entrepreneurs to explore more direct solutions from the perspective of the native chain. I think it is still too early to develop applications on Layer 2, especially applications like GameFi. There are still many infrastructure issues that need to be resolved, such as how to improve transaction speed and processing capacity, which require more technological innovation and market validation.

In contrast, technology projects that focus on the entire chain have already developed relatively mature solutions to address cross-chain, compatibility, and efficiency issues. For example, a certain trading platform that has recently gained a lot of attention can simplify interactions between different blockchain networks by providing cross-chain interoperability, thereby achieving a more efficient and convenient blockchain ecosystem. It allows the flow of assets and information between different blockchain networks, solving the current blockchain island problem. Users can seamlessly transfer assets and data between different blockchains without relying on intermediaries. This project has already integrated multiple mainstream blockchains, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Polkadot, providing broad support to meet the needs of different users.

Communication with Bitcoin Holders

In conversations with some Bitcoin whales, I found that they can generally be divided into two types of thinking patterns: one is more conservative, tending to hold Bitcoin for the long term to enjoy its appreciation over time, increasing passive income and befriending time; the other is more willing to actively invest in supporting Bitcoin infrastructure and new projects to promote the lively development of the ecosystem. During a conversation with one of the Bitcoin holders, the other party mentioned a certain project. He indicated that if the project could really achieve its technical goals, he might change his conservative attitude to a more aggressive one, after all, DeFi Summer has earned him quite a bit of money, and certain fixed-income projects are also a way of asset appreciation that old money thinkers particularly like.

But in fact, he may not yet know that there is already a project that has achieved the ability to share native assets without adding extra security assumptions. It combines zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and MIPS architecture to achieve the goal of efficient computation while protecting privacy. Its Entangled Rollup can verify and transmit the consensus of different blockchains without requiring additional consensus assumptions. At the same time, the blockchains integrated with their zkVM can interoperate, allowing local liquidity to flow across different ecosystems.

Forked Activities Before Bitcoin Asia

In the Forked event before Bitcoin Asia, DePIN and AI remained hot topics. Forked is an event outside the Bitcoin ecosystem, and unlike other peripheral events that focus on the Bitcoin ecosystem, the participants of the Forked event are mostly from Europe and the United States. They are not as concerned about the Bitcoin ecosystem as Asians are, but are continuously discussing the potential of DePIN and AI in the future development of Web3. These discussions demonstrate the high attention and investment enthusiasm different markets have for these fields. Especially in terms of the number of participants, it is significantly higher than that of other peripheral events that focus on the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Conclusion

The rise of the Bitcoin ecosystem and the listing of Bitcoin ETFs in multiple regions are undoubtedly beneficial for the entire crypto industry. I hope to see more bursts of new technologies and the birth of good projects in the days to come.