Reflections on Industry Changes and Project Upgrades

Recently, our project is undergoing brand and mainnet upgrades, while also working on token swaps. As a project that has been building since 2017, we are quite familiar with these standard processes. In addition to necessary compliance procedures and code audits, the main considerations are market budget, how to attract new users and increase traffic, and how to allow existing users to share in the dividends of the project's development. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation between the project party and the trading platform, with both parties getting what they need.

However, after the business communication with the trading platform, we encountered some interesting challenges. The research department raised several issues that might prevent us from going live or require an increased budget. Let me share some points worth discussing:

Firstly, they believe that our popularity and data are insufficient, especially in terms of social media and on-chain data. This makes me wonder, as a professional research department, can't they discern the authenticity of the data? Some projects' social media data clearly show anomalies, and the on-chain data also reveals unreasonable trading patterns. Especially in the field of AI data labeling, high-quality data processing has a threshold, and it is unlikely to have a large number of labelers processing the same set of data simultaneously.

Secondly, endorsements from investment institutions seem to have become an important criterion. As a project that has been operating for over six years, we have always relied on our own funds for development and have never accepted external investment. In our view, this purely community-driven, capital-free model should be commendable. However, in the eyes of the research department, this has instead become a disadvantage due to the lack of "orthodox" endorsement.

Thirdly, regarding the issue of token circulation and valuation. Our tokens have all been unlocked, and the market value is equal to the fully diluted valuation, with nearly 70% of the tokens locked in validator nodes. The research department believes this poses significant selling pressure, but this viewpoint seems to overlook the characteristics and history of our project. As a mature community-driven project, our market value is relatively low, and in fact, more attention should be paid to those projects that have high valuations right after their launch.

These experiences make me reflect that in the current market environment, some unethical behaviors seem to have become the "basic operations" for project launches. For example, data falsification, project rebranding, and manipulation of airdrops. These practices may bring some superficial "success" in the short term, but in the long run, they will only harm the healthy development of the industry.

Looking back at the ICO era of 2017/2018, despite limited resources, the community atmosphere was much purer. Everyone was focused on how to improve efficiency, enhance security, and promote the market, supporting each other when issues arose. Nowadays, this pure spirit of collaboration seems to have been replaced by various profit-driven motives.

As veterans of the industry, we have witnessed the alternating bull and bear markets and the changing tides of the market. Because of this, we cherish our original intentions even more, even though it sometimes means giving up certain short-term gains. We choose not to engage in operations that may harm the interests of retail investors or deviate from the core values of the project, because we believe that only projects that truly create value for users can develop sustainably in this industry.

In this rapidly changing industry, it is indeed not easy to stay true to one's original intentions. However, I believe that only by adhering to the right path and focusing on creating real value for users and the industry can we establish ourselves and continue to grow in the future market.