On April 9th, OKX Ventures partner Jeff attended the 2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival sponsored by OKX Web3 and delivered a keynote speech titled “Exploring the Future of the Bitcoin Ecosystem” at the main venue. This forum, with Bitcoin as its theme, was jointly organized by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, HashKey Group, and Nervos CKB.
Jeff first shared the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem. He stated that in the past two years, the cryptocurrency market has been continuously developing, and the OKX Ventures team has always been optimistic about its underlying value and development resilience. From the perspective of trading volume, the current upward cycle began in September 2023. As of March 2024, the monthly total trading volume has exceeded 7 trillion US dollars.
In addition, comparing it with the 2022 data released by the World Bank, the total trading volume of the US stock market is 43.22 trillion US dollars, and the trading volume of cryptocurrencies has reached the same level. Secondly, from the perspective of investment and financing in the crypto market, after the frenzy in 2021 and 2022, the total market investment in 2023 fell to about 10 billion US dollars. The focus of investment is mainly on infrastructure, gaming, DeFi, and other areas. The total investment and financing in the first quarter of 2024 exceeded 2.6 billion US dollars, which is currently in a moderate state compared to historical data.
Of course, what is worth noting is that based on Bitcoin’s UTXO, SegWit, Taproot upgrade, as well as protocols such as Ordinals and Atomicals, the underlying infrastructure for the issuance of BTC’s NFTs, Tokens, and other assets has been built. As of April 1, 2024, according to data from OKLink, Dune, and brc-20.io, the total amount of inscriptions is 64,066,164.
When discussing the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem, Jeff believes that in the background where Bitcoin itself does not have Turing completeness and does not support smart contracts, Bitcoin Layer2 has emerged to provide scalability and improve the overall performance of Bitcoin by processing transactions outside of the Bitcoin main chain.
Of course, in addition to the progress of the ecosystem, the listing of BTC spot ETFs this year is also a milestone event in the industry. At the beginning of the year, the US SEC finally approved the listing of Bitcoin spot ETFs. As of April 1, the average net inflow of funds for Bitcoin spot ETFs was 219 million US dollars, and the average daily trading volume has reached 3.37 billion US dollars.
Speaking of this year, the Bitcoin halving is another significant event in the industry. This halving is influenced by various factors of the new progress in the Bitcoin ecosystem, especially the growth of inscriptions and the listing of spot ETFs. The appearance of Bitcoin inscriptions injects new vitality into on-chain activities, and the continued growth of on-chain activities benefits from renewed attention from developers and innovation in the Bitcoin blockchain. At the same time, the widespread adoption of Bitcoin ETFs may absorb selling pressure, reshape market structure, and provide new stable demand sources for BTC prices. These factors have had a certain impact on BTC prices.
In addition to the dynamics related to Bitcoin itself, the combination of AI and crypto has also been a recent focus in the industry. Currently, we see several possible integration points from a technical development perspective:
1. Blockchain provides decentralized and permanent storage, providing solid integrity support for AI data and models.
2. The introduction of token economics will more effectively support incentives and payment mechanisms for AI in terms of data, models, and computational resources.
3. With the continuous development of blockchain technology and the improvement of computing power, it is expected that AI models can be deployed on the chain in the future, promoting the deep integration of blockchain and artificial intelligence, bringing unprecedented changes and innovative opportunities to various industries.
When discussing the investment layout of OKX Ventures, Jeff admitted that in the face of challenges and a crypto market based on uncertainty, OKX Ventures has always actively embraced industry construction and insisted on contributing its humble efforts. In 2023, OKX Ventures’ total external investment exceeded 50 million US dollars, covering multiple areas including the Bitcoin ecosystem, with a focus on infrastructure.
Jeff concluded.
About OKX Ventures
As the investment department of OKX, OKX Ventures focuses on exploring and investing in innovative projects in the blockchain technology and digital currency ecosystem. We are committed to promoting the healthy development of the industry through investment support and seeking emerging technologies and business models that can drive the advancement of the digital economy.
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