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In the Web3 world, cycles are not accidents, but norms.The alternation of bulls and bears is like the tide of capital and the four seasons of nature.For the founders, the biggest challenge is never to predict the next reversal, but how to survive between ups and downs, or even build long-term value against the trend.
Recently, a16z crypto partner Arianna Simpson shared her more than ten years of experience investing in the crypto industry on a podcast.From the shock of the Bitcoin white paper, to the product market fit of stablecoins, to the overlap of Crypto with AI, and advice to the founders.
These observations and experiences do not apply only to Silicon Valley.In Portal Labs’ view, they also provide ideas worthy of reference and reference for China’s founders of Web3 and high-net-worth investors.
The nature of a cycle
Arianna’s entry into the starting point of encryption was the shock when she first read the Bitcoin white paper more than a decade ago.But what really made her stay was not the heartbeat that moment, but the ups and downs she experienced in the next ten years.She witnessed the birth of Bitcoin, the prosperity of DeFi, the fanaticism of NFTs, and also experienced the bubble and cooling that followed.It is precisely through such long-term observation that she gradually formed a clear understanding: the crypto industry has never grown linearly, but has moved forward in a drastic wave-like manner, and emotions and capital alternately retreat.
Therefore, she shifted her focus from “predicting the next wave of wind” to “identifying who is building against the wind”.Her investment approach is more like a follower: Follow what the best founders are doing.When the strongest founders flock to stablecoins, funds should be close there; when cutting-edge teams continue to invest in Crypto × AI or DePIN, new value depressions often take shape.It is not about making grand statements first and then finding projects to verify them; it is about using the whereabouts of the front-line builder to calibrate your worldview and capital allocation.
For China’s founders of Web3 and high-net-worth investors, this methodology is more operational than “cycle prediction”.For the founders, the cooling period is not an excuse, but a kind of screening: in years without applause, the product and stack can be pushed forward, which means that the direction and people are right; for the configurers, what is really supposed to evaluate is not the popularity of the topic, but whether the team can still maintain speed, discipline and mission density in difficult years.This order of “knowing people – looking at long-term execution – talking about valuation” is better than any short-term narrative.
Stable Coin
Narrow the lens to stablecoins.Arianna’s judgment is simple: the reason why it has become the focus of the moment is not because of new speculative stories, but because both ends are really used – consumers use it to transfer money across borders and hedge local currency fluctuations; enterprises use it to settle, allocate, and make receivables and deal with it.More importantly, in the past year and a half, the two infrastructure “valves” of speed and cost have finally been unscrewed, and stablecoins have changed from the imaginary payment network to the settlement layer in reality.
This is a direct hit to China’s founder of Web3 and high net worth.For overseas teams, what is really boring is often not the product, but the capital flow: how to send money stably, at low cost and traceability to Southeast Asia’s labeling team, Africa’s node maintainers, and Latin American channel partners; how to enable overseas customers to complete payments without complex corporate processes; how to manage cyclical receivables in the US dollar environment and control exchange rate risks in the local currency environment.The value of a stablecoin is not in the “coin” but in the “track”.When you standardize funds in and out, identity verification, reconciliation receipts, and tax traces to an auditable track, the complexity of cross-border business will significantly decrease.
Of course, there will be more and more issuers, but users will not pay for every new symbol.Arianna’s intuition is: in the short term, all flowers will bloom, and in the long run, it will converge to a few stablecoins with “scale, credible, and ecological niches”; in the future, the front-end experience will be abstracted, users will hardly perceive the specific currency, and the back-end will automatically complete clearing and settlement by “rail-intercom”.
This means that in the next step, the team should not spend their energy on the impulse of “I also want to send one”, but should focus on more pragmatic designs, such as how to completely “native” your business processes, risk control and financial systems.When your products can naturally run on the path of US dollar denomination, stablecoin settlement, and on-chain reconciliation, your cross-border efficiency and credibility will be directly pulled out among the same types.
For high net worth, stablecoins are new cash management tools and a “low friction channel” for global liquidity.However, this does not mean that there is no risk. At the combination level, a chain track for “liquidity turnover” and “held currency fluctuations” is a more future-oriented combination hygiene.Simply put, two principles: be careful to choose the opponent, distribute the custody and wallet; take “compliance and interpretation” as the first constraint, rather than the final replenishment of the homework.
Crypto × AI × DePIN
Arianna stressed that supercycles are often not driven by single technology, but rather several curves superimposed and resonant in the same time window.The clearest combination today is the decentralized incentive of encryption, the centralized computing power and data hunger of AI, and the real-world resource orchestration of DePIN.
Translate it to the “landable” language of the founder of China: we have rare long-term accumulation in hardware supply chain, manufacturing and deployment, and engineering organization of edge nodes.If you can use stablecoins to connect the “contribution-measure-payment” chain to inspire real-world data and resources to the chain, and then package these resources into standardized products that can be consumed by AI (data sets, labels, bandwidth, storage, and inference time slices), you have the opportunity to become a “supply-side platform”.This is not PPT-style token economics, but serious operations: indicator definition, anti-cheating, settlement frequency, dispute handling, reputation system – all must be engineered.
Another important context is “authenticity”.The existence of deep fake content is not terrible, what is terrible is an environment that cannot be verified.Verified timestamps, generation paths, equipment signatures, and traceability of the operation subject are all “new water, electricity and coal” for future content and commodity Internet.This is an increase in the current Chinese team that does brand overseas, second-hand transactions, and luxury goods circulation.Do the hard and right thing: Make “authenticity verified” the default, rather than a paid option.
Let’s look at AI Agents again.It is irresponsible to hand over a credit card to a semi-mature agent for “self-service online shopping”; but it is practical to give it a wallet with a limit, revocable, auditable, and allow it to complete a set of transactions in a clear strategy (subscribe, purchase APIs, pay commissions).In other words, “the wallet is the permission system.”The real application is not a “universal agent” that is boasting, but a “limited rational agent” that is vertically deeply cultivated – in a highly constrained business domain, the on-chain wallet is used to bind permissions, budgets, logs and opponents.
Financing and Governance
The financing environment of 2020–2021 may leave many Web3 people with the illusion – no deck is needed, no model is needed, and investors will give you outlier terms in a Twitter private message.
Arianna to put it bluntly: it was a “illusion at dusk”, not the norm, and today we should return to our basic skills.Prepare materials that can be used, present indicators honestly, and set financing goals in a conservative but exceeding position; rather than close a reasonable round of money first and then snowball, than open the mouth and end up with no grains.
For the founders of China, the more realistic order is: first run through the base, and then talk about money.First, the engineering resilience of technology and products, performance, risk control, observable, operation and maintenance; second, compliance and policy paths, KYC/AML, cross-border data domain, funds and data flow auditable, tax and invoice closed loop; third, verifiable commercial closed loop, real payment, unit economy is positive, and the payment rhythm is stable.In publicly available narratives, talk less about “coins” and do more supply-side infrastructure: for example, use DePIN to standardize computing power/bandwidth/sensing data into billable APIs, or use RWA to digitize existing assets and embed them into the compliant issuance and clearing process.Wait until these three things have a chain of evidence, and then use milestones to replenish capital in segments instead of letting financing lead the business.
Governance also needs to return to common sense.The 55-5 opening is not fair, it is inaction.Equity, board of directors, retained matters, vesting period, cliff period, founder’s departure clause, intellectual property ownership are not sexy, but each one determines whether you can survive the first big storm.Arianna doesn’t even shy away from the advantages of “single-man founding” – at least she won’t break up with herself.Portal Labs suggests that instead of tangling with the “number of partners”, it is better to write the “list of rights and responsibilities” and “conflict resolution mechanism” in place; rehearsing the worst situation clearly can run faster at the best time.
Competition and expansion
Being plagiarized is not news, but being addicted to laning is.Arianna’s approach is to grab the narrative back: define the topic with product rhythm, key metrics, and customer stories, rather than directing traffic to opponents.For the Chinese Web3 team, it is especially necessary to make up for the “infrastructure” of PR and communication: professional brand teams, media whitelists, KOL advocates, user community product education, and technical documents transparency.Narrative is not PR rhetoric, but evidence you continue to deliver.
At the same time, out of control of growth is a good thing and a crisis.When the service water level line is broken, it is necessary to deal with it in a graded manner like fire protection: first protect the safety of funds and user assets, then ensure availability, and then optimize the experience.When necessary, limiting current, opening temporary whitelists, outsourcing customer service and risk control, and even fast bridge compensation for computing power are acceptable choices.Write the “disaster preparation plan” when the weather is calm, don’t learn it on hot searches.
Mergers and acquisitions are another signal.Traditional giants have begun to be buyers in crypto, and “puzzle-style mergers and acquisitions” within the industry are also emerging.Ideals are of course you are a merger, but excellent mergers and acquisitions may also be the best solution for teams, users and early shareholders.The evaluation criteria are simple: strategic fit, user value, team continuity, and respect for the technical route.Leave emotions to your circle of friends and leave terms to lawyers.
Do the difficult and correct things for a longer time
The market will not give the founder a standard answer, and the cycle will not be.So, don’t be busy predicting the waves, stare at those who can still push the system forward in the wind, and allocate time and resources to them.In the context of China, the answer is simpler and more difficult: the slogan is not just shouting, but the account book, system and compliance draft should be made solid; growth is not a hot search, but a stable and reusable supply and collection; competition is not a lineup, but a narrative right in your hands and a continuous delivery to grab the topic back.
If you want to leave a sentence for China Web3, Portal Labs believes that it should be to do difficult and correct things for a longer time, pursue less subject matter, and see who is still present in ten years and whose system is still running.The cycle will continue to rise and fall, but what really determines the outcome is never the weather, but the foundation on which you build a house.
