Original author: Portraits of the currency circle
Source: PANews
NO.1Please introduce yourself
Hello everyone, I am Haotian, a hard-core science author, Web3 independent researcher, previously worked in PeckShield and AmberGroup, two leading companies in the industry, and currently operates the personal X brand Haotian|CryptoInsight full-time, positioning to interpret the cutting-edge technology of blockchain from a technology + business perspective, and is committed to disseminating easy-to-understand Web3 underlying technical knowledge and industry development business observation.
Since joining Web3 in 2017, I have been engaged in security, data and other technical analysis, market investment research, etc., and the current X account has been supported by nearly 30,000 fans with a year of continuous dry content output.
After completing five years of technical learning and accumulation, I began to interpret the industry's cutting-edge technologies and hot projects on X, involving security, data, zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), AI, DePIN and many other cutting-edge fields, of which the proportion of long articles reached 80%, striving to deliver value in the output of each article.
I hope to be able to create a hard-core popular science IP in Web3 in a down-to-earth manner, get rid of the "engineer thinking" shrouded in the entire industry, make the technology no longer too abstract, so that high-quality projects can be discovered, and let more people understand Web3 in an easy-to-understand way and establish a correct investment cognition.
NO.2 What was your motivation to enter the circle?
Before entering the circle, I made a self-media IP in the field of technology and Internet, which is one of the earliest technology self-media. The content I wrote was mainly about the competition between mobile Internet brands and their product strategies, such as mobile phones, e-commerce, short videos and other business wars. About two years later, it ushered in the outbreak period of the self-media industry, which has a freer voice and cutting-edge views than traditional media, which will play a key role in the brand building of Internet companies and the establishment of user minds.
Later, there were two reasons for joining Web3, the first is because I found that the self-media industry is becoming more and more volatile, and workers from traditional news media such as newspapers and TV stations have also begun to pour into the self-media industry, increasing the pressure of competition, and the industry has accelerated its reshuffle, and only a very small number of head media can have room to survive. Second, the technology industry has entered an era of high involution, filled with a large number of public relations wars and public opinion topics, and self-media has gradually become a weapon for some brands to suppress their opponents. Although it is indeed a very profitable "business" at the moment, it does not have much sustainability in the long run, so I began to look for a new direction.
Then at the end of 2017, the madness of the cryptocurrency circle attracted me to start a deep dive into the development of blockchain technology, and why blockchain exists, and understand the idea of decentralization, the chain structure of blockchain and the concept of public chain. This kind of decentralized collaboration process of packaging transactions on the chain made me feel very novel, and I became very interested in it, so I decided to devote myself from traditional technology Internet self-media to the blockchain industry to transform into blockchain self-media.
Core content: I have created a technology self-media IP, focusing on mobile phone brand competition and product strategy. But as the competition in the self-media industry intensified, I began to feel the need to look for new opportunities. At the end of 2017, I was attracted by the madness of the cryptocurrency circle and began to delve into the development process of blockchain technology and the reasons behind it. I became interested in the idea of decentralization, the chain structure of blockchains, and the concept of public chains, especially the decentralized collaboration process of packaging transactions on-chain. Therefore, I decided to shift from the traditional technology Internet industry to the emerging blockchain industry.
NO.3 Can you tell us more about the project you are working on?
What I am currently building is a blockchain media IP, positioned as a technology + business perspective to interpret the cutting-edge technology of blockchain, I will analyze the architecture of a project from a technical perspective, and at the same time gain insight into the industry status and strategic development potential of the project from a business perspective.
The reason for this positioning is that during my five years in the industry, I found that the media was full of abstract content. Many popular science articles in the media directly translate the technical documents of overseas websites, but it is difficult for people who lack technical understanding to read and understand the content of these articles effectively.
When you read these articles, you are either watching the excitement or you don't know anything about it. I think the reason this is because the industry as a whole is driven by the mindset of engineers. Programmers are writing more of an engineer's mindset when writing documents. It's hard for them to think from a non-engineer's point of view, how to articulate these concepts so that other ordinary people can understand them.
What I do is to try to express the abstract technological frontiers and blockchain technology, as well as the technical principles of some top blockchain products and protocols, in easy-to-understand language, so that more people can understand the basic principles behind the blockchain. This is what I'm working on at the moment, and I don't think it's a simple thing to do, it requires a lot of technical understanding and learning. And I think this should be something that the entire Web3 media industry should strive to do.
Core content: I created a blockchain technology self-media IP because I found that many technical articles were too abstract and difficult for ordinary readers to understand. I am committed to explaining blockchain technology in plain language so that more people can understand the basic principles of this field.
NO.4 What is your most memorable experience in Web3
My most memorable experience is that when I first started writing popular science articles, I found that the threshold of the blockchain industry is extremely high, and if I lack an in-depth understanding of the underlying layer of the blockchain, the articles I write will be very shallow and lack communication value. So instead of working as a media, I joined a blockchain security company and systematically learned blockchain knowledge under intense pressure. In the course of three years of study, I overcame various difficulties, improved my technical understanding, and made up for the blind spots in all aspects of blockchain.
To be honest, the past three years of learning can be described as the darkest moment of my life, the blockchain industry has to test people's learning ability, but also test willpower, and the temptation of various wealth stories such as speculation and contracts has always been noisy, and it is difficult for ordinary people to withstand these tests. I was also a small achievement when I was working in self-media on the Internet, but it was difficult for me to give full play to my strengths when I first came to the blockchain industry, and I once suspected that I had chosen the wrong direction. The constant frustration made me feel lost, and I often wanted to give up, and even thought about quitting my job and returning to the Internet industry. But I remembered that my original intention of coming to the blockchain industry had not been realized, and I couldn't back down because of a little difficulty, so I chose to stay and decided to continue to fight to the end.
It wasn't until a year ago that I slowly found my senses and tried to output hardcore popular science content on Twitter. This process was also extremely difficult, at the beginning of the content written by no one cared, and then the bite of the head, in line with the attitude of output is learning, began to follow up and comment on every hot technology change and hot projects, slowly formed its own characteristics, and gradually attracted a large number of loyal readers. There are often fans who joke that how can you have a long dry content output every day, I don't know why, I only firmly believe in one thing, but whenever there are some hot and very confusing technical problems that are very confusing to the public, I always have an impulse to jump out and explain it to you as soon as possible, and I often have to stay up late to do research and output content.
Core content: My unforgettable experience is when I started writing popular science articles, I found that the threshold in the blockchain field is very high. In order to improve my comprehension and writing skills, I joined a security company to study, and during the three years of study, I spent a lot of time improving my technical understanding and deepening my system understanding of the blockchain industry. It is very difficult to really control some blockchain popular science articles, which is to let Xiaobai read them, and to make the technical gods feel that I have not mistaken people's children, and it is difficult to find a balance.
NO.5 How do you observe the track and investment projects?
Occasionally, someone will joke in a tweet, "I know so much, can I make money?" Now we are gradually exploring a methodology from project technology and business analysis to investment. In my opinion, there is a logic to follow from observing the track to investing in high-quality projects.
Take Layer2, which everyone is focusing on, for example, has been the focus of the mainstream industry narrative for many years, but the overall development has not exceeded expectations. From Optimistic Rollup to ZK Rollup, these technologies have evolved over the years, but progress has been slow. You can also think of the current Layer 2 as a new Layer 1, because its architectural components are no different from Layer 1, the only difference is that it needs to synchronize data with the mainnet when completing transactions. But in addition, Layer 2 and Layer 1 are similar in terms of user volume, developer demand, ecological demand, and data growth demand. The difficulty of doing a good job of Layer 1 can be imagined. For example, the last round of several chains that wanted to ban Ethereum, Layer 2 also needs to go through such a process. Therefore, investing in Layer 2 projects should not only look at technical factors, but also look at their comprehensive performance in terms of operation, ecology and market.
Secondly, I think about what kind of Layer 2 projects can attract attention since the overall trend of Layer 2 will develop very slowly? I think that modular concept projects are the dividends of the overall slow development of Layer 2, because the modular combination method is lighter, easier to integrate resources, more narrative imagination, and not easy to be hindered by heavy ecological application landing and other problems, so it will be popular in the short term. The biggest manifestation of modularity is not to achieve a token, but to try to change the paradigm of the traditional single integrated chain, reduce the cost of the entire chain market, and change the market structure.
Core content: I think there is a certain logic from observing the track to the investment project. Although Layer 2 technology is the core trend of current attention, its implementation has been less than expected, so it has given more opportunities to some modular projects, because modular Layer 2 projects have attracted much attention because of their characteristics of changing the traditional chain paradigm, reducing costs, and changing the market structure.
NO.6 Which track or project are you optimistic about?
I think AI+DePIN will be the main rising wave of the next bull market. While the concept of DePIN has always existed, it has been controversial. The focus of the controversy is that the functions of the traditional storage track seem to be useful, but they have not been recognized by the mainstream, and it always feels like a pseudo-demand for the sake of creating concepts. But after adding AI, it is different, because AI requires large model training, especially for many small and medium-sized enterprises, and the cost of deploying models on Amazon or Alibaba Cloud is too high. Therefore, they are more inclined to use distributed cloud computing power to meet such requirements and solve problems at the lowest cost. Therefore, AI has brought new vitality to the entire DePIN industry, making it no longer look old and have a broader imagination. Therefore, along this line of thought, we can find many projects around large model training and distributed cloud computing power, which have great potential for development.
Core content: I think the combination of AI and DePIN will be the main trend in the next bull market. AI has injected new vitality into the DePIN industry, making it rejuvenated and has a broader space for development. Therefore, projects around large-scale model training and distributed cloud computing power have great potential.
NO.7 What do you want to share?
If we choose to join Web3, we need to be clear about our purpose and suitable work, find what we are good at, and determine our own path. For example, if you choose to play contracts, you have to think clearly about your ability to make money off the court, how long can you last at this table? Most people make a floating profit and then lose all their principal, mainly because they choose short-term speculation rather than long-term learning and accumulation. My path is to use my learning and research capabilities to build my personal IP and accumulate resources and contacts. Then share your understanding of the project and investment experience, and make investments based on your own understanding in the secondary market. So I'm more inclined to value investing and choose a path that is less traveled, maybe with a slower cycle, but relatively stable, at least it will allow me to get a good night's sleep.
Core content: When opting in to Web3, be clear about your goals and areas of work for which you fit, and determine your own path. I chose to build my personal IP, accumulate resources and contacts, and make value investments.