Bitcoin floats in the coffee on Startup Street

Startup Street hasn’t been this lively for a long time. On the surface, Startup Street in February seemed a bit deserted. Apart from the neatly arranged activity guides in front of the cafe, few people were seen walking around. Occasionally someone appeared, wrapped up tightly in a coat, bought a drink at a street snack shop, and left in a hurry. In stark contrast to the street scene, there were hot blockchain activities in the cafe.

Four months ago, seven ministries and commissions of the central bank issued a ban on ICOs, and Zhongguancun Street was bleak inside and out. Since October, the entrepreneurial street, which was banned from providing venues for blockchain-related activities, has become cold on the outside but warm on the inside. In the lobby of the cafe, entrepreneurs in black and gray stared at their computers, waiting for their appointments. In the secret meeting room, the cafe has become the main venue for blockchain incubation activities.

In the meeting room on the third floor of Garage Coffee, a meeting on investment guide after the cryptocurrency crash was underway. The meeting room, which was originally scheduled to start at 2 a.m., was already full before 2 a.m. The small space of about 50 square meters accommodated nearly a hundred people. The tight space made everyone's chairs close together, leaving a gap that was not even enough for people to get in and out.

A large number of young people who are starting their own businesses gather at Garage Coffee

This place is more like a university cafeteria or an Internet cafe @Visual China

The meeting started at two o'clock, and at three o'clock, people were still coming in one after another, and the chaotic seating space was compressed again. Those who came first moved to the side of the podium, and those who came later squeezed in and stood around the back row or the back door.

Every time the PPT page was turned, the mobile phones at the scene were immediately raised, and people in the back row simply stood up to take pictures. People who arrived late and just entered the door did not even have time to put down their schoolbags, and quickly took out their mobile phones and raised them above their heads. This is a paid blockchain conference, and each participant paid a "venue fee" of 50 yuan. Everyone who came did not want to miss the information that seemed to make them rich overnight.

The entrepreneurial street remains the same, with dark grey buildings watching the entrepreneurs coming and going as the trend becomes popular and unpopular. But these people who come and go are changing in every hot or cold moment.

After sharing his experience at the blockchain conference in Silicon Valley two days ago, speaker Liu Jun (pseudonym) began to promote his community plan, including paid groups and token plans. Not long ago, he denounced the behavior of bigwigs who took advantage of information asymmetry to make extra money in his public account, but now, he has become one of them.

"There are only seven or eight people in the community, but they are eager to promote their own tokens." Liu Jun has seen many money-making people at home and abroad who want to issue tokens before the community is established. Unlike them, Liu Jun established the community one month ago and made it clear that he would not issue tokens, but would create a knowledge sharing community. One month later, the number of people in the five communities reached the upper limit, and he began to plan to issue project tokens.

In August 2017, Liu Jun returned to his hometown Zhejiang from Silicon Valley in the United States. In October, after experiencing the overall market crash after the September 4 ban, he came to Beijing. He considered for nearly half a year to switch from the manufacturing and sales of American pickup trucks and Hummer accessories in the Middle East and North America to the blockchain field. In the end, his friend's experience of getting rich and the sense of achievement of becoming a big V in the circle made him decide to change his career.

Even though Liu Jun's speech was far from the original topic "Investment Guide after the Cryptocurrency Crash", it still couldn't stop the enthusiastic discussion of investors. When the free exchange session started, everyone started looking for prey. Investors and project owners had their own attraction and formed a big circle. Amid the project owners' ever-changing language, the potential investors standing by were delighted.

"Do you trade in cryptocurrencies?" has become a common greeting among strangers at events. "Trading in cryptocurrencies will only make you poorer." They usually laugh at themselves and smile at each other, but their eyes are full of pride. Someone suggested, "Let's add WeChat," and the sound of scanning codes came one after another.

Weijie (pseudonym) stood outside a small circle that was discussing the topic of decentralization. His height of more than 1.8 meters stood out among the people sitting there. "Decentralization means decentralization to China!" His words immediately attracted everyone's admiring eyes. In this circle, only the big guys are qualified to speak out. At this moment, in front of the newbies who just entered the scene, he is undoubtedly the big guy.

Gui Lin (pseudonym), who came here with the purpose of looking for good projects, admitted that he was "very disappointed" at this conference because there was no link to foreign resources at all. He claimed to be from Microsoft, had created his own input method, and had many inventions. He entered the market near September 4 and clearly felt the hot and cold levels of the market.

He is currently engaged in online singing education for adults and plans to link music education with blockchain. Therefore, he attends two blockchain in-depth conferences almost every month to learn relevant knowledge. He originally disdained to participate in these activities that were held in the name of blockchain but were actually cryptocurrency exchanges, but in order to accumulate projects and network resources through the activities, he accepted it.

Like Guilin, the scholar also felt that he had gained nothing. "This meeting is too low-level, there is not even a big boss!" The scholar, who spent more than an hour rushing from Daxing, was unhappy. He was upset about participating in such a low-end and meaningless meeting. But when he entered the free exchange session, he changed his previous arrogance and took the initiative to join in other people's conversations, showing his superiority as a senior industry insider in his words.

Before leaving, the scholar posted a message on his WeChat Moments, "A large wave of new entrants are ready to enter." The accompanying picture showed participants who were shoulder to shoulder but attentive at the event.

Harvest Project

"Luckily I have talked to a project owner, otherwise I would have come here for nothing." The scholar admitted that he participated in such activities "to cut off the project owner." His business is called an incubator, which is equivalent to an intermediary for matching projects. What the project owner needs is "white paper, community operation, project promotion, exchange resource docking and other one-stop services, we can help contact." But this trip was not satisfactory, and no target customers of the blockchain incubation industry were actively sought at the scene.

Fortunately, the scholar met someone who had a project and wanted to list it on the platform. Someone told this person that he could list it on Huobi for 30 million, and the scholar said that he could list it for 15 million. In 2018, the price of listing on the trading platform has risen with the popularity of digital currency, from 8 million, 10 million, 12 million to 15 million or even higher now. The market price changes at any time, and not everyone in the circle knows it, so the project party will also be the one to be cut.

In a circle where connections are everything, it is either easy or difficult to launch a project on a platform. The launch of a project issued by a poker tycoon may be done with just one sentence, and basically everyone will respond. Even without the tycoon standing up to speak, as long as it is said that "Li Xiaolai" also holds this coin, it will be snapped up. But there are also many cases where people don't want to be paid. If you want to be listed on mainstream platforms such as Huobi, OKex, and Binance, in addition to reviewing factors such as project content, technology, and team background, the influence of the initiator has become a more important factor.

The widely circulated picture of the currency circle poker card comes from the Internet

"Blockchain may not have as many uses as imagined, but to me, it represents a group's yearning for fairness, openness, justice and financial freedom." The scholar is in his early 170s, thin, and has to smoke a cigarette and pace back and forth after sitting for a while. He smoked three cigarettes in the one-hour conversation.

Unlike blockchain technology companies, which often have small offices and are located in cramped locations on the outskirts of the city, project incubation companies are usually decorated in an exquisite and elegant style. Shusheng's company just moved, and the distance is not much different, but the space has expanded from a few rooms to an entire floor.

With the belief that "working can only bring freedom in life, and trading in cryptocurrencies can bring financial freedom", Shusheng switched to blockchain last June. Supporting this belief are the real stories he has come across. For example, the self-media of digital currency fanatic Liu Jia uses ambiguous words to advertise through point analysis. The number of readers of each article is fixed at around 50,000, and one article can receive hundreds of thousands. "This is actually cooperating with the banker to cut leeks, but he has been able to earn tens of millions from June 2017 to now. The entry fee of the group he created is 1 BTC, and there are more than 100 people in the group."

After the career change, his life became "cryptocurrency trading as the main job and working as a side job". The advantage of the new job was that the company provided accommodation, and he lived in an apartment just one street away from his workplace. In the nearly 50-square-meter room, there was a double bed and a bunk bed, and there were only two people living there, the scholar and another colleague.

The scholar's room has a comfortable beige and pink background wall. The sofa, cabinets and other furniture are all brand new. On the table at the entrance, towels, electric kettles and other daily necessities are mixed together. The quilt on the double bed is piled up in a mess. A pair of white slippers and a pair of black leather shoes are thrown aside by the bed. The room faces south, and there is a red sofa by the window.

The scholar drew aside some curtains, took out the book "How to Invest in Digital Currency" that he often read, and smoothed out the fold marks on the book. "I used to think the world was dark, but now I think it is bright." He said, looking at the key points in the book that he folded. The afternoon sun shone through the window, passing over the sofa and onto the wooden floor. The outline of the scholar reflected on the ground and the layers of mud shoe prints were extremely clear.

"You must have faith, otherwise you won't be able to sleep at night, after all, you are just speculating in air." His only focus in daily life is to speculate in cryptocurrencies. HPY, NXT, etc. are all cryptocurrencies that he has recently invested in during the private placement stage. However, the regulatory situation has not been good in the past two days, and the value of the currency has dropped from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. However, he is not worried at all, "Just work peacefully, anyway, it will go back up after the Chinese New Year."

In January, the central bank cut off the bank and third-party payment channels for virtual digital currencies. His company’s mining pool accounts for 5% of the world’s mining power. Under pressure from regulators, the boss began to look for mining sites abroad, and the atmosphere in the company became a little tense. “The boss has been flying around the world to talk about this these days. I forgot where exactly, but it was something like ‘Stan’.”

The scholar plans to make 3-5 million next year and then quit, and use the money he earns to invest in the real economy. "Human greed is endless." On the day of the 9.4 ban, the scholar emptied all the digital coins he had borrowed 20,000 yuan from Ant Huabei and lost a lot. Although the account was paid off early and the principal was multiplied several times, the shadow of wealth turning into a bubble in an instant forced him to be cautious.

"We are very cautious about projects now. We just heard this morning that the project we connected with was copied by others." Zhongyuan is tight-lipped about project information because the information of the project we connected with and incubated was taken away by fake investors not long ago, and the situation is very tricky now. Losing the core, creativity and value of the ICO project means losing the appeal to investors. For the project party who sells creativity, even if they are good at telling stories, this is fatal.

Zhongyuan looks a lot like Yue Yunpeng, both in figure and appearance. His incubation company was established not long ago, and the boss is not considered a big shot in the industry. But "this is a circle of acquaintances, and the incubation projects are all found by the boss relying on the reputation he has established in the circle. We only connect and incubate." ICO projects have been pouring out since September 4, and everyone wants to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune. There is an endless stream of people looking for Zhongyuan's boss to incubate projects. His task is to organize and plan offline activities, first establish a community, promote the negotiated projects, and then market them through activities under the name of blockchain.

“Don’t worry about whether you understand it or not, just invest money first, and all problems will be solved.” He believes that you will definitely get cut when you first enter the market, and only when you get cut can you understand what investment is. But he himself has never invested in a single coin because he is very conservative.

Zhongyuan is not the only one who thinks this way. "It's useless to know so much. If you want to enter the market, just buy some Bitcoin and Ethereum. Throw 20,000 yuan in it and experience the real feeling of investment." Dong Ji (pseudonym) didn't even raise his head, his eyes were always fixed on his mobile phone, with a pair of thick black-framed narrow-rimmed glasses on his nose, and he was dressed like a typical science and engineering man.

“Either be greedy and fearful, or be greedy and fearful.”

"Having experienced the 9.4 regulation, you know that those things are nothing now."

Since January 2018, the wind of regulation has been getting closer and closer, but the enthusiasm for blockchain projects has not diminished at all. Zhongyuan has forgotten how many projects he has incubated from January to the end of the year, but the recent unusual busyness has made him feel very tired. On the evening of the 7th, he changed his usual habit of working overtime until nine o'clock and went home two hours early, "even though there was nothing to do when he got home."

It was his birthday that day, and his colleagues were still working overtime when he left. After leaving get off work early, he found someone to have a hot pot meal as a birthday ritual. Walking on the street of Wudaokou, he cracked melon seeds while walking. He talked about his hobby - hip-hop music. He talked about a series of hip-hop singers he liked, including the former non-mainstream girl CK.

After spitting the last melon seed shell in his mouth casually on the roadside, he lit a cigarette. Before the New Year, he was still following up nearly ten projects, and there were eight or nine projects in the process of negotiation. Two activities after the New Year will be held in March, one is a regular investment event, and the other is a product launch, both of which need to be planned in advance. Thinking that his task is not easy, he smiled and wrapped up his unzipped black jacket.

People who only recognize money

"Is social security a Ponzi scheme?" Liu Hui asked the question as usual. Amid the whispers, a full-throated voice shouted, "Yes! Social security is the biggest Ponzi scheme!" That person jumped to conclusions and wanted to justify the name of the cryptocurrency circle, without considering that social security is endorsed by the state. This is another blockchain event on Startup Street. The fact that it was only a week away from the Lunar New Year did not affect its popularity. Because it was noted that recording was not allowed, some people brought thick notebooks to take notes while listening. Some people even came all the way from Xinjiang just to contact companies that needed mining farms.

Liu Hui was considered a top boss in this conference held by Mofei Capital. At the end of December, the team he formed forked Ethereum and forked EMO. At the end of January, the main chain of EMO was also launched. For him, the level of this conference was obviously not enough. He usually attends events ranging from 399 yuan to 899 yuan. He only stayed at this event with a fee of 39 yuan per person for 10 minutes.

Blockchain salon organized by Mofei Capital Photo/Li Ling, AI Finance

"Brother Hui, get me a room." On September 5, Liu Hui was recuperating in Shangri-La when Xu Jian (pseudonym) came to him in a state of panic, saying that he could not use his ID card to get a room and that it was dangerous, and asked him to help get a room. Xu Jian looked "extremely nervous" and his eyes were full of panic when he spoke. After entering the room, he didn't say a few words, and lowered his head, buried between his shoulders. He was afraid to talk to people.

On September 4, seven ministries and commissions led by the central bank issued a joint announcement, defining token issuance financing as illegal public financing. The ICO project withdrawal tide began, and Liu Hui's friend, Xu Jian, the head of Game Chain, was the first to bear the brunt. Xu Jian was not only worried about Game Chain's need to return the coins, but also afraid of being criminally punished and arrested. He was trembling with fear. He wandered around Shenzhen in fear, waiting for the next move of the regulator. The worst plan was to flee abroad from Hong Kong immediately if there was a jail term.

Two days before September 4, Liu Hui happened to be in Shenzhen for a project. He stayed in a hotel every day and swam in his spare time. He had no idea what happened that day. It was not until Xu Jian arrived that Liu Hui realized that the industry had become a mess, but he didn't care.

In May 2017, ICOs suddenly spread across China like seaweed. As one of the first Chinese to accept Li Xiaolai’s Bitcoin decentralization ideology, Liu Hui did not catch up with the Bitcoin wealth-making train.

He began to travel around various ICO projects and hosted roadshows. From the end of May to the beginning of September, he hosted more than 20 events, averaging at least two per week. The busiest time was August, when he traveled to three cities in two days, from Beijing to Shanghai, and from Shanghai to Wuhan.

In his memory, among those projects that used blockchain to tell stories, some project initiators did not even understand what blockchain was, and in many cases, the stories of blockchain were not told smoothly. But this was the glorious period of ICO. Even though chaos and disorder filled the market, ICO was still hot. Liu Hui often went to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Chengdu. In these places, ICO projects would be hotly sought after, and the activities were packed, and there was no worry that no one would come to see them.

After September 4, ICOs are still hot. The enthusiasm of investors for ICOs made Qiu Chen, co-founder of Mofei Capital, call it "too crazy". "That group of people don't even know what blockchain is, they just buy coins crazily. After the event, they become leeks to be harvested." Qiu Chen witnessed the madness of the leeks with his own eyes.

What he remembers most vividly is that once the free exchange session started, the scene became chaotic, with noisy voices filled with the solicitation of project parties and the information about cryptocurrency speculation revealed by investors in their mutual flattery. A rough entrepreneurial plan was packaged as a tool for making money with unlimited prospects, and investors, eager for information but unable to get it, became new leeks.

Murphy Capital is located opposite the Sculpture Time Cafe on Zhongguancun Street. This 50-square-meter space is filled with almost all the daily necessities and office supplies you can imagine. Passing through the two tables in front of the door, there are two cubicle-style desks placed by the window at the innermost. This is not only the office location of Murphy Capital, but also the venue for blockchain activities.

Murphy Capital started to invest in blockchain in the second half of last year and started to hold blockchain events in December. In just the two months from December to February, Murphy Capital has made a clear difference.

Qiu Chen remembers that when the free events were first held, such a small space could squeeze in 80 to 90 people. The events were always packed. The scene was usually noisy and disorderly, and there were only two types of people who came: those who wanted to invest in projects and those who wanted to harvest leeks. One moment they listened to the legendary stories of the big guys' skyrocketing wealth, pretending to learn from the big guys' investment experience and project judgment basis, and the next moment they gathered in a group to discuss which coins could make money faster.

"This circle only cares about money!" Liu Hui doesn't care about anything except money. He is very bothered that he didn't play poker because it means that his assets are not high enough. He still remembers that he often had dinner and parties with Li Xiaolai in 2013, but was ignored by Li Xiaolai in 2014. At that time, he occasionally sent messages to Li Xiaolai and left messages on WeChat Moments, but Li Xiaolai never paid attention. But in December 2017, the turning point came. Only 10 minutes after Liu Hui's forked coin news was released, Li Xiaolai contacted him through WeChat and asked: "Did you make EMO? I want to invest in it?"

Now, he says with a big smile: “Li Xiaolai is the main investor of EMO.”

Liu Hui became a big shot in the industry after the September 4th Incident. At that time, all domestic ICO projects were wiped out, and he noticed forked coins. In his opinion, the progress of ICO projects was too slow, and they had to be bought and sold, and most of them were private placements, which were suspected of illegal fundraising. For forked coins, you only need to give the coins to the original holders for free, and there is no legal risk.

"Having tasted the taste of making money quickly, I don't want to go back to the old days of trying so hard to negotiate with a client. Issuing coins is the most profitable." He found that everything has a cost, but issuing coins has no cost. Regarding the value of issuing coins, Liu Hui said, "Don't make value judgments, value judgments can kill people. Just issue coins, it's that simple."

He doesn't care about the outside world's doubts and comments about the fork. "Whoever wants to say it can say it. Everyone is here to make money. Is it wrong for me to make money?" He made an analogy, "This thing is like having sex. You have to do it according to your own feelings." He had a greasy smile on his face.

Arty

Just like lights in the dark easily attract moths, the bigwigs in the Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Street activities have been hailed as the light source in the dark night of blockchain by a group of irrational people, and they are happy to be slaughtered by them.

"I am quite grateful to Li Xiaolai because he made me make money." Lv Jie participated in Li Xiaolai's ICO project before September 4, and was refunded the original price after the ICO ban. After the boom, because he participated in the last ICO project, he registered again on Li Xiaolai's new platform and got 500,000 worth of coins.

In addition, his friend told him that he saw with his own eyes that Li Xiaolai had 105,000 bitcoins in his wallet. Therefore, Lu Jie believed that Li Xiaolai was not short of money. "He doesn't care about the millions of dollars, why would he cut the leeks?"

He looked at his watch and saw that the time was almost up. He was ready to act quickly. But just a few seconds later, before he could even blink, the project was shown as sold out. "We waited like fools every day for the time to start, and we were quite happy. How crazy it was, it was gone in ten seconds. Ten seconds, it really felt like you wanted to give money to someone but no one wanted it." After October, he followed Li Xiaolai's website to invest. The projects launched on Li Xiaolai's website have to be snapped up. A few are launched every day, and they are all sold out in seconds. On Li Xiaolai's website big.one, he has invested in nearly 6 ICO projects, and each project is so popular that it needs to be snapped up in seconds.

After investing in digital currency, his life is completely different from before. "Every day when I wake up, I find that I have lost millions, and when I sleep, I have millions again." He always feels anxious because money comes too easily. Although he knows that this is not good, everyone does it, so he comforts himself, "What's there to be afraid of? At most, I will lose everything, right?"

In this circle, while you dream of getting rich overnight, you must also be prepared to lose everything overnight.

Lü Jie admitted that this was crazy, but he thought he was a rational person. "I have been a child of other people's families since I was young, and I have grown up to be a standard good child. I don't smoke, drink, or go to places like nightclubs." He has a white face and is tall. He wears a black sweatshirt and sweatpants, and a pair of shiny leather shoes. He often uses body movements when speaking, and looks very confident.

Compared to Li Xiaolai, whom he had never met, Lv Jie trusted Zhao Dong more. Lv Jie was paying attention to a Singapore ICO project initiated by Zhao Dong. He decided: "Give the money to Zhao Dong, he will invest it, he has the resources in this area and is more professional, I trust him."

In October 2016, Lü Jie had just arrived in Beijing to work. He met his online friend Zhao Dong in a loft in Lifangting, Haidian District. Zhao Dong's office had been used for many years and the space was a bit cramped. Lü Jie remembered that Zhao Dong was wearing a plaid shirt and casual pants, a typical programmer's outfit. He had many mobile phones and used his computer and mobile phone to communicate with different people during the conversation.

The coffee shops on Startup Street have become a transit station for all kinds of information in the blockchain industry. Everyone who sits there to talk about blockchain, in addition to talking about money, cashing out, pumping up stocks and other open secrets in the industry, also talks about jokes like the "exaggerated" Sun Yuchen being blocked by a man in a suit.

Blockchain event being held in Garage Coffee Photo/Li Ling from AI Finance

There are all kinds of legends circulating on the entrepreneurial street.

"I have several mining farms abroad, and I also made other investments before. But since I started working with digital currency, I basically stopped caring about other assets. It's simple, this makes too much money, and nothing else is interesting." In a cafe, a middle-aged, slightly fat man who looks inconspicuous is telling the person sitting opposite him about his road to wealth. Throughout the conversation, all the numbers heard are basically in billions.

At that time, almost everyone sitting next to them showed disdain. After sensing that everyone was not very interested in the awkward conversation, he left early. But no one realized that this middle-aged uncle who looked a little wretched was the Martian who was supported by many people in the community.

Martian Xu Zijing has Australian citizenship. After September 4, all ICO projects were stopped. He began to use his foreign identity to frantically promote the ICO project Super Cash. Super Cash increased nearly 5 times in one month. So he made a bet that if it did not reach 1,000 yuan before 2018, he would "eat shit live".

Finally, the price of Super Cash stopped at 300 yuan. As a last resort, the Martian fulfilled his promise and live-streamed his shit-eating. He took a transparent glass bowl and symbolically scooped a mouthful of the brown liquid mixture in the bowl, with an extremely disgusted expression on his face.

Lone technical guy

In Zhongguancun Startup Street, there are all kinds of people. The trust model without intermediaries has been misinterpreted and has become a cover for those who follow the trend to make money. The consensus mechanism has become the unspoken rule of the pyramid circle where only the big guys are obeyed. None of the capabilities claimed by blockchain can solve the weaknesses of human nature. But there are still ascetic lone walkers who hold the bottom line.

"We who work in technology don't make money that we shouldn't make. If we want to invest, we invest real money, not to sell reputation or air. This is a new industry that makes money quickly. If you don't have awe and a sense of mission, you won't be able to do it for long." Wu Yuanwen, CEO of Jingtong Technology, firmly believes in the true value of blockchain technology, but he didn't expect human greed to be so crazy.

He hasn't slept in for several months, and now 4 hours of sleep a day has become his normal state. He went to bed at 2 o'clock last night and got up at 6 o'clock this morning. He had an appointment to discuss a project at 9 o'clock, and just finished the discussion at 10 o'clock, and another one came at 11 o'clock. "This is also good, at least it proves that this is a sunrise industry." He said with a little bitterness. On his square face with clear contours, the dark circles under his eyes due to long-term lack of sleep did not affect him. When he spoke, his bright eyes were full of determination.

The state of extreme lack of sleep started in November after September 4th. He hasn’t had a weekend for a long time. Every weekend he either discusses projects or attends blockchain activities. Now, being able to sleep in on Sundays is his biggest luxury. It was almost one o'clock in the afternoon, and he hadn't had time to eat lunch yet. He got a phone call and had to go to discuss the project right away.

As a technical person, he is also a frequent visitor to the Café activities on Startup Street. He is usually invited to give technical talks and never participates in cryptocurrency activities. After the industry winter solstice on September 4, when activities began to increase in December, he felt that the turning point for solving technical problems had arrived.

The popularity of blockchain has brought new opportunities to technology companies. Traditional companies are afraid of missing out on blockchain just like they missed the opportunity of the third-generation Internet revolution. Companies rushing into the market are eager to seek access to blockchain technology. This is a rare opportunity for him.

Sports events will also be an area of ​​future blockchain technology applications. @Visual China

He did not expect the blockchain to explode in 2017. The ascetic status that began in 2013 was suddenly reversed, and Jingtong became known as a blockchain underlying technology company. "In the past, we were looking for companies, but now companies are looking for us. It's completely the opposite." More and more businesses are coming to him, and Wu Yuanwen is almost every day discussing cooperation. The employees are not having an easy time either, "Now they work overtime until eleven or twelve o'clock every day."

But he still remembers the hardships and indifference of human nature before the boom. At that time, it took at least three or five rounds to negotiate a project. Under the premise that the company was interested, it would take several months to half a year to reach an agreement. Once, it was difficult to negotiate with an interested party, but they stood up at the last step. "In fact, there was no other way. After the ICO ban, no one dared to touch this technology."

Wu Yuanwen has seen the madness driven by desire, so all the projects he finds will be screened carefully, and the chance of being rejected is 50%. He has seen many project parties who were working on Internet games yesterday and are about to work on blockchain today. He was deeply impressed by an artificial intelligence project that was once rejected. "The team is obviously put together temporarily, unstable, and has no real support. The project party has no AI-related background. There is no entity and no technology, so it is obviously a scam."

In the early days of the ICO resurgence, his team tracked new projects in the industry every day to learn about new innovations. But now, a complete project incubation industry chain has been formed. "For 200,000 yuan, you can write a white paper based on your oral instructions, plus packaging concepts and private placement agents, and a one-stop service for raising money." Tracking is no longer meaningful.

He also has more or less interactions with the big guys in the poker world. He admits that the big guys have indeed invested in some good projects, which has promoted the implementation of industry projects. But more importantly, the big guys make money in any way they want, without any bottom line. "A group can charge 500 to 600 ETH for joining the group, which is equivalent to 5 or 6 million to join the group to buy information."

The blockchain was originally intended to solve the problem of fraud in value exchange and achieve fair and transparent information, but it has rebuilt a strict barrier to the acquisition of valuable information in lies.

Yang Mai (pseudonym), who entered the market very early, is also one of the bigwigs who has participated in many blockchain activities on Startup Street. He knows that not only the community, but also the exchange has money specifically used to pull the price. The plan for pulling the price is made in advance, and there is also a plan for when and to what price. For example, the currency that was previously listed on Binance must be pulled up after it is launched. The coin worth 3 yuan during the ICO can be pulled up to more than 300 yuan.

However, for project issuers, listing on exchanges and market value management are very risky. Large exchanges have a large number of users, and the funds for empty plates and market value management are a huge expense. Small exchanges, which only require a small amount of funds to raise the price to an ideal position, have become the first choice for some project issuers.

"If they are responsible for everything from white paper to ICO to listing and market value management, is 30% too much for me?" A traditional financial institution once asked Yang Mai. He knocked on the table and said, "If they are not willing to write a white paper, what kind of project are they doing? It sounds like a joke, but there are many such cases."

Wu Yuanwen thought this was crazy. He started working on the underlying technology of blockchain in 2013 and had experienced the most difficult stage of entrepreneurship. He knew that the most lacking thing in technology was money. But he didn't understand, "The blockchain industry is not short of money or people now, and there are plenty of resources. Why not really do something? Any lousy project can raise hundreds of millions of yuan, and the investment return of a project with only a dozen pages of white paper can be as high as dozens or hundreds of times. Is this normal?"

He just came back from Xiong'an yesterday and is currently negotiating with the government and businesses. "There is an interest at the moment," he said with a smile on his face, slowly swallowing a sip of tea. Xiong'an's digital city positioning provides a huge scenario for the application of blockchain technology, and he feels that his company is very promising.

"Don't invest in domestic ICO projects, it's really nonsense." Yang Mai told the last participant who came to see him, and left with his tired body and huge suitcase. Soon, he would take a plane home and temporarily stay away from the crazy crowd on the entrepreneurial street.