Tang Yi, Executive Director of Qiming Venture Partners: Supporting Chinese Web3 entrepreneurship and holding an optimistic attitude towards the 2024 market.

Qiming Venture Partners is a globally leading venture capital firm with 17 years of experience, which began investing in the cryptocurrency field in 2019 and has currently invested in 16-17 projects. The company's investment strategy primarily focuses on supporting Chinese entrepreneurs in the development of the global cryptocurrency market.

Tang Yi stated that Qiming Venture Partners is optimistic about the long-term potential of the cryptocurrency and Web3 industry. He believes that, from a technological and talent perspective, this market is very attractive, with many excellent engineers and developers involved in product development and research across various fields. The original intention of cryptocurrency is to build a value network where users can own and quickly exchange digital assets, value, and identity. From the current situation, this industry is similar to the early days of the internet in some aspects, having established some de facto standards globally, such as the format and interaction rules of digital assets.

Regarding investment strategy, Tang Yi explained that although Qiming Venture Capital invests 70% of its funds in Series A or B rounds, they have made internal adjustments considering the particularities of the Web3 industry, allowing for earlier seed and pre-seed investments. At the same time, for projects that have entered a growth stage or have a higher valuation, they also have the capability to make significant investments to support their ecosystem development.

Qiming Venture Partners has a wide range of investments in the Web3 field, including user entry points, infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs, and gaming, among other areas. Their invested projects include the self-custody wallet imToken, the crypto financial company Matrixport, and the Ethereum scalability project Scroll.

Regarding the current market environment, Tang Yi expressed a relatively optimistic attitude towards the market improvement by the end of 2024, but also emphasized that the market rhythm is difficult to predict accurately. He advised invested projects to maintain sufficient long-term capital reserves and preferably have sustainable income and value capture to cope with possible market fluctuations.

In terms of investment pace, Qiming Venture Partners hopes to maintain stability, but acknowledges that during a bull market, the investment pace may be relatively fast due to intense competition. In contrast, the investment situation during a bear market may be more conducive to the healthy development of the ecosystem and projects.

Tang Yi believes that it will take time for Web3 to achieve widespread adoption. Currently, the user base of Web3 products is at least two orders of magnitude lower compared to Web2 products of the same level, and there is also a significant gap in user experience. He pointed out that the cryptocurrency payment experience and underlying infrastructure still have many areas that need improvement, and these issues may take several years to resolve.

For Web2 entrepreneurs entering the Web3 space, Tang Yi expressed his welcome. He believes that these entrepreneurs possess strong technical skills, execution capabilities, and product awareness. As long as they are willing to invest time in learning the characteristics of Web3 and user needs, they can quickly adapt and achieve success.

Finally, regarding the phenomenon of some Web3 entrepreneurs turning to the AI field, Tang Yi expressed understanding. He pointed out that the current Crypto industry is facing a lack of new use cases and scenarios, while significant breakthroughs have indeed occurred in the underlying technology of the AI field. However, he also reminded entrepreneurs that whether in AI or Crypto, there will be many challenges at the application level, requiring long-term exploration. He suggested that entrepreneurs choose their direction based on their own interests and abilities, and be aware that both fields carry uncertainties.