New Opportunities for Web3 Entrepreneurship Amidst Macroeconomic Turmoil

Deteriorating Macroeconomic Environment - A New Order Emerging from Crisis

The financial system enters a period of turbulence

Since Trump came back to power, a series of unexpected economic policies have triggered turmoil in global markets. The most impactful is the escalation of tariff policies: starting from April 2025, the United States will generally impose a 10% "baseline tariff" on imported goods and impose higher "reciprocal tariffs" on over 60 countries. In the short term, this move has caused severe fluctuations in global markets: U.S. Treasuries faced sell-offs, U.S. stocks experienced violent swings, and the U.S. dollar index fell sharply. Although the U.S. later delayed the imposition of new tariffs on some allies, investors remain worried about the future, and the global financial system seems to have entered a period of turbulence.

The post-war international economic system centered around the United States is facing the risk of disintegration. The rise of emerging economies has weakened the U.S. advantage, while the massive U.S. debt is eroding the credibility of the dollar, leading to a decline in the dollar's share of global foreign exchange reserves. In particular, China's advances in many technological fields are approaching or even surpassing those of the United States, triggering deep anxiety among the American elite. These changes indicate that the old order dominated by the U.S. is becoming tenuous.

In this context, the U.S. decision-makers began to contemplate building a new trade and financial order to maintain its global dominance. Its strategic goal is not only to strive for better terms in trade negotiations but also to attempt to re-establish America's central position by formulating a new rules system. This includes two aspects: first, to strike against major competitors and weaken their momentum in rapidly rising through globalization dividends; second, to seek new value anchoring to provide support for the shaky credit of the dollar. Under this thinking, the U.S. has begun to turn its attention to assets like gold and Bitcoin, hoping to rebuild the trust foundation of the global financial system.

It is worth noting that the Trump administration has undergone a significant shift in its attitude towards cryptocurrencies. After taking office, Trump publicly expressed concern about the development of virtual currencies, reversing his previous critical stance. Some factions within the Republican Party and certain state governments have gradually embraced Bitcoin, viewing it as "digital gold" to hedge against the risks of the dollar. It can be said that the United States is preemptively positioning itself for a potential new financial order, incorporating Bitcoin into its national strategic vision.

Bitcoin and Gold: The New "Double Anchor" of the US Dollar

As global trade and financial rules face restructuring, the United States is attempting to create a new credit cornerstone for the dollar with "dual asset anchoring": this includes traditional gold reserves as well as emerging Bitcoin reserves. This strategy aims to consolidate the credibility of the dollar in the new order through a combination of physical assets and digital assets.

Gold has long been widely held by central banks as a means of storing value, and the gold reserves of the U.S. Treasury are a key asset in maintaining the dollar's hegemony. Now, Bitcoin is being assigned a similar strategic position, viewed as the "digital gold" of the new era. By the end of 2024, Bitcoin's total market cap is estimated to be around $2 trillion, which is only about one-tenth of gold's market cap. From a long-term potential perspective, if Bitcoin's market cap were to one day match that of gold, its price still has several times the room for growth. It is precisely because of this optimistic growth potential, along with Bitcoin's unique advantages of decentralization, limited issuance, and high liquidity, that the U.S. is beginning to seriously consider incorporating it into its national reserve system.

In March 2025, the U.S. government made a series of significant moves in the cryptocurrency sector: on March 6, President Trump signed an executive order announcing the establishment of a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" and a "U.S. Digital Asset Reserve." The next day, the White House held a crypto summit, inviting industry giants and officials to participate. Trump publicly expressed his support for the development of the crypto industry at the meeting, promising to promote relevant legislation and provide a clear legal environment. More notably, Trump stated: "Establishing a Bitcoin reserve is like establishing a virtual Fort Knox" - in other words, the U.S. aims to treat the Bitcoin reserve as the gold of the digital age. This statement marks the formal entry of Bitcoin into the U.S. national strategy, granting it a status similar to that of gold.

This series of actions indicates that the United States wants to position Bitcoin alongside gold as a cornerstone asset of the new financial system. In practice, the U.S. government has already accumulated a considerable amount of Bitcoin reserves and plans to increase its holdings further. Market rumors suggest a target of accumulating control over approximately 1 million Bitcoins, a figure that is close to the proportion of U.S. official gold reserves in the global gold market. Although this target has not yet been fully realized, the trend is evident: some U.S. state governments are taking the lead by approving the purchase of Bitcoin with public funds for reserves; at the federal level, executive orders and legislative proposals are being made to "legitimize" Bitcoin. If the U.S. dollar can be partially anchored to physical gold and digital gold in the future, complemented by blockchain technology to establish a new international settlement system, then the U.S. is likely to seize the initiative in future global financial games, sustaining the vitality of the dollar system.

Of course, the inclusion of Bitcoin also helps the United States solve its own problems. For example, the enormous national debt burden on the U.S. government is becoming increasingly heavy, triggering a credit crisis. If the U.S. controls enough Bitcoin reserves and boosts its price in the future, it could cleverly alleviate debt risk by selling part of these reserves to fill the debt black hole. This idea of "diluting debt with crypto assets" has become a new vision for U.S. financial strategy. At the same time, the U.S. is also making efforts in digital currency regulation: a recent bill proposed to bring stablecoins with a circulation exceeding $10 billion under Federal Reserve supervision, indicating that the U.S. wishes to control the issuance and rule-making rights of crypto dollars to solidify the dollar's dominant position in the crypto world. Dollar stablecoins + gold + Bitcoin together outline the prototype of a new dollar order - maintaining the dollar's legal status while being supported by physical and digital assets, thus enhancing its risk resistance.

Market Environment Adjustment and "What to Do in the Second Half"

In the past year, the global cryptocurrency market has undergone a dramatic shift from frenzy to calm. The total market capitalization of crypto assets has fallen from a historical peak of about $3.71 trillion to around $3.04 trillion, entering a phase of deep correction and clearing. The turmoil in the macroeconomy combined with stricter regulations has caused a large number of projects lacking genuine value support to vanish during this adjustment period. However, for entrepreneurs who firmly believe in the long-term value of blockchain, this moment is actually the best opportunity to build a foundation and prepare for new opportunities—when the bubble of the last cycle has dissipated, it is a great time to focus on refining products and accumulating strength to stand out.

In such a "second half" environment, entrepreneurs should consider: what is suitable for the second half? Simple traffic tactics are no longer sustainable; instead, the entrepreneurial logic revolves around hardcore value. In the current market environment, the following directions hold new opportunities:

• Bitcoin ( BTC ) ecosystem: Financial innovations around the Bitcoin network ( "BTC Fi" ), infrastructure upgrades, and the reconstruction of real assets and payment networks based on BTC.

• Other public chain ecosystems: Innovations that return to the essence of efficiency and profitability on public chains such as Ethereum, breaking away from purely "traffic competition", and creating sustainable decentralized finance ( DeFi ) and other applications with a product-oriented approach.

• Real-world assets ( RWA ) and payment finance ( PayFi ): Combining on-chain technology with real assets and payment scenarios to develop a new model supported by stable cash flows.

• Cryptocurrency Concept Stocks: Focus on the rising trend of "blockchain concept stocks" in traditional capital markets, and the new path towards stockization for Web3 startups.

Next, we will analyze the above ideas and explore specific entrepreneurial opportunities worth paying attention to during the macro pullback period.

Entrepreneurial opportunities around BTC: BTC Fi, BTC Infra, BTC RWA & PayFi

Although Bitcoin has long been regarded as "digital gold," its mainnet functionality is relatively simple. However, a series of recent technological and application advancements are injecting new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Around the BTC network, we see three major entrepreneurial opportunities:

• BTC Fi(Bitcoin Finance): Creating new types of financial assets on the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin is no longer just a static store of value, but is evolving into a foundational platform for issuing various financial assets. The recent rise of protocols such as BRC-20 and Runes has sparked a wave of token asset issuance on the BTC mainnet; the Taproot Assets protocol(TA protocol) launched by Lightning Labs makes it possible to issue stablecoins, bonds, and other financial assets within the Bitcoin ecosystem. This means that the Bitcoin mainnet is expected to take on more value-bearing functions in the next cycle, upgrading from "digital gold" to a value storage network supporting a rich array of assets. Representative projects focus on building decentralized financial services such as lending, trading, and derivatives on the Bitcoin network, promoting a leap in BTC financing and asset issuance capabilities.

• BTC Infra(Bitcoin Infrastructure): Reshaping the intelligent infrastructure on Bitcoin. To address the shortcomings of BTC's native functions, the industry is attempting to create a smart contract layer for Bitcoin similar to Ethereum. One approach is to develop EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechains or Layer2(, such as BTC L2), which possesses Ethereum smart contract capabilities, to expand the DApp development space of the BTC network. Another approach involves solutions native to the Bitcoin protocol family, such as the RGB protocol and the Lightning Network, which are Bitcoin native Layer 2 technologies that focus more on enhancing privacy, scalability, and payment efficiency, building a lightweight and economical on-chain execution layer for the BTC mainnet. Representative projects focus on constructing Layer 2 for Bitcoin, middleware tools, etc., to enhance Bitcoin's development ecosystem and scalability.

• BTC-Powered RWA & PayFi: Unlocking the potential of Bitcoin in the real-world asset and payment sectors. RWA based on the Bitcoin network is gradually emerging, such as the tokenization of U.S. Treasury bonds, physical assets, etc., with Bitcoin providing a globally verifiable settlement mechanism as a settlement layer, endowing such assets with highly credible value anchoring. At the same time, the "PayFi" model emerging from payment infrastructures like the Lightning Network brings Bitcoin back to the payment stage - for instance, combining AI agents (AI Agent) with Bitcoin micropayments, enabling real-time micro-payments between machines and between people and machines, providing efficient payment solutions for scenarios like SaaS services, data exchange, etc. Representative projects focus on enhancing the practical application efficiency and user experience of Bitcoin in RWA and payment scenarios, empowering BTC's payment and circulation.

Overall, the Bitcoin ecosystem is fully awakening from the underlying protocol to the application layer. Whether it is issuing assets on the BTC mainnet, building smart contract layers, or using BTC for clearing real assets and instant payments, Bitcoin has the potential to become a hotbed for the next stage of innovation and entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurs, re-examining the possibilities of the Bitcoin network may reveal undervalued golden opportunities.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities Surrounding Other Public Chains: Efficiency-Driven and Product-Oriented Entrepreneurial Logic

Apart from Bitcoin, other public chains ( such as Ethereum, BSC, Solana, etc. ) are also nurturing new entrepreneurial logic and opportunities in the field. After experiencing the DeFi boom and the public chain battle, the industry has begun to return to rationality, and two major trends have emerged:

• Returning to the underlying logic of "making money": Whether it is lending, trading, market making, or derivatives on the chain, as long as it revolves around capital flow, there will definitely be ways to validate business models and profit paths. In the past few years, a large number of DeFi projects attracted funds through incentives such as liquidity mining, but after undergoing the baptism of a cooling market, those models that cannot generate sustained fees and profits are gradually being eliminated. In contrast, similar to traditional finance, on-chain businesses with clear revenue sources (, such as transactions.