DWF Labs Founder Andrei Grachev Shares Observations from Token2049, Notes Attendance Significantly Lower than Previous Years
DWF Labs founder Andrei Grachev summarized his impressions from this week's Token2049 event, noting that attendance was significantly lower than in previous years, and meetings needed to be booked in advance, but it was still suitable for face-to-face communication with global participants.
He pointed out that tradfi and RWA became the hottest buzzwords, with institutions everywhere, but most lacked end users, making it difficult to form effective demand.
Payments have become the new narrative, with almost everyone engaged in payment services, all requiring liquidity support for payment scenarios.
Grachev has been active in crypto liquidity and market-making for a long time. DWF Labs has previously participated in multiple token investments and market support, and has promoted stablecoin-related projects like Falcon Finance.
This observation reflects a shift in the conference from large-scale social interactions to appointment-based business meetings, with increased institutional participation but still insufficient end-user adoption, while payments and RWA became the main discussion points.
In crypto industry events, institutional capital and traditional financial terminology dominate, with liquidity demand concentrated on payment and RWA scenarios. Projects with actual users and payment infrastructure benefit, while those with only institutional participation but lacking end users face pressure.
After the event, he expressed anticipation for next year, and DWF Labs subsequently announced that a complete weekly report would be released soon.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
As the founder of DWF Labs, Andrei Grachev has long been involved in token market-making, secondary market purchases, and institutional liquidity provision, historically allocating undervalued projects during market downturns and promoting stablecoins and yield products. This Token2049 observation continues his tracking of institutional trends.
The capital pathway is for institutional funds to enter the crypto and RWA sectors, but the lack of end users leads to insufficient demand, with payments becoming the new focus and driving liquidity needs, motivated by the search for viable use cases amid increasing institutional participation.
This is similar to past cycles where institutions focused on infrastructure and payments after entering the market, and it closely resembles cases of lagging end-user adoption during the integration of traditional finance and crypto; currently, we are in a phase of rising institutional participation but insufficient end users, with a warming narrative around payments.
Essentially, this represents a restructuring of the industry chain: crypto activities are shifting from retail social interactions to institutional business and payment infrastructure, driven by the entry of institutional capital and the gap in end-user adoption, concentrating liquidity resources on payment scenarios.
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- Institutions are everywhere, but users are scarce.
- Payments are the new currency, liquidity is the fuel.
- The conference had fewer attendees, but more meeting appointments.