Jacquelyn Melinek Shares After Korea Blockchain Week: Many Teams Rebranding Projects as AI, the Term Has Become a Visible Cliché
Jacquelyn Melinek listed five on-site observations after Korea Blockchain Week, which took place from September 29 to October 1 in Seoul, with the first day being a closed institutional summit and the following two days being an open main conference. Her conclusions are based on conversations at the venue, not the official summary from the organizers.
The first observation is AI overload. Many teams are rebranding their projects as AI, and the term has become a visible cliché. Her judgment is that some are just grasping at straws when they can't find product-market fit, and there are far fewer teams that are truly creating differentiated or meaningful products. She advises caution towards those claiming to be "doing AI."
The second observation is the shifting identity of founders. Several venture capitalists told her that more new founders are no longer positioning themselves as crypto founders in their pitch materials and hackathons. The underlying technology is still blockchain, but companies are being categorized under AI, fintech, and financial infrastructure. What defines a company are applications, such as payment services, rather than the underlying technology, like stablecoin-driven businesses.
The third observation comes from executives at the intersection of traditional finance and decentralized finance. They believe the crypto community misunderstands the position of banks and large institutions: many institutions have already viewed this technology as inevitable, discussing how to profit more from it rather than whether to participate at all. The fourth observation is transaction structure. 24/7 trading, perpetual contracts, and related products are seen as growth accelerators; some teams believe this volume will be led long-term by decentralized exchanges due to first-mover advantage. She does not rule out mainstream exchanges catching up later, stating that it is still early. Discussions around tokenization have decreased overall, while tokenized stocks continue to appear repeatedly.
The fifth observation is the attendance structure. She noticed high exposure attendees from American companies, Korean companies, and government roles, with traders being a distinct category in the venue, corresponding to retail interest. She speculates that more Korean companies are privately assessing this market than publicly stating their positions. The conference agenda itself included stablecoins, tokenization, custody, settlement, and the overlap of AI and on-chain finance, which does not fully align with the focus she heard.
This is narrative trading, not a single financing round. Buyers are venture capitalists still searching for the next thematic round, founders wanting to integrate blockchain into payments and infrastructure, and institutions treating the technology as a revenue enhancement tool; sellers are teams continuing to raise funds under AI or crypto labels. Funds are flowing from the "crypto founder" label to payments, financial infrastructure, and tokenized stocks, with 24/7 trading and perpetual contracts sustaining trading volume. Beneficiaries are exchanges and infrastructure that can deliver volume or institutional revenue, while those under pressure are AI rebranding teams with no differentiated products.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The main narrative of crypto conferences has changed several times. In 2017, project teams in Seoul and New York relied on initial coin offerings for funding; from 2020 to 2021, decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens rebranded the same teams, and in 2024, after the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S., institutional seats will replace retail forums. The AI rebranding at KBW connects to the generative AI funding wave after 2023: teams unable to find product-market fit are changing their on-chain stories into model stories. Melinek's filtering criterion is whether there is differentiation, not whether the term is used.
The capital path has shifted from "issuing a coin" to "occupying an application category first." Payment companies hide stablecoins in the settlement layer, calling it payments; financial infrastructure companies turn clearing and custody into modules that banks can procure. The institutional counterpart is BlackRock's distribution in tokenized money market funds and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange incorporating crypto derivatives into its existing clearing member system. Banks want interest margins, custody fees, and settlement time differences, not community tokens. Founders removing the crypto label aim to enter these budgets, not abandon the underlying technology.
A comparable situation occurred around 2015 when fintech companies avoided discussing Bitcoin and only talked about cross-border payments. Circle later emphasized dollar liquidity, placing blockchain at a lower level in product descriptions; Coinbase retained its exchange identity, relying on trading volume and custody fees from institutional clients. The current stage is a renaming period before control: 24/7 trading and perpetual contracts are still led by decentralized exchanges in terms of first-mover volume, while mainstream exchanges are still catching up in terms of time slots and products. The repeated emergence of tokenized stocks and the cooling of generalized tokenization indicate that buyers want tradable equity codes, not real estate on-chain stories.
Structurally, this is an industrial chain reconstruction. The mechanism is that regulation and bank budgets are only open to applications that can enter financial statements, so company identities shift from technology to categories, and revenue shifts from issuing coins to transaction fees, custody fees, and settlement fees. Korean retail traders support the venue's foot traffic, while corporate assessments remain private, reflecting two sides of the same structure: retail provides liquidity narratives, while institutions decide which tracks can charge fees. AI label overload is a superficial crowding during a narrowing financing window, not a diffusion of technology itself.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Where labels multiply, it is usually not a place where products improve.
Occupy application names first, then hide underlying tracks to access budgets.
Retail provides foot traffic, while institutions decide which tracks can charge fees.