Dialogue with Waterdrop Capital CEO Dashan: AI on the Left, Crypto on the Right—This Era's Oil and Gold

Author: Binance Square

Guest: Dashan, CEO and Co-founder of Waterdrop Capital

Welcome to "Blockchain 100 People." This is a live-stream program launched by Binance Square. We hope to find people in the industry who have truly done things and pushed the industry forward, and hear them tell their own stories. Today, we not only want to know what the guest has done, but also why he did it at the time.

Today's guest is Mr. Dashan. He first encountered Bitcoin in 2011, and in 2013, while pursuing his PhD, he built his own mining rigs. In 2017, he resigned from Huawei HiSilicon to enter the industry full-time and founded Waterdrop Capital. To date, he has invested in over 200 projects and manages multiple funds. In the past two years, he has also served as chairman of an AI company, applying the computing power experience accumulated from early Bitcoin mining to AI data centers.

From miner, to VC, to AI, what he has consistently bet on is the underlying productivity of the next-generation digital world. Today, we want to talk about: which choices were right, and where he stepped into pitfalls; how his heavy bet on BTC Layer 2 is doing now; whether the crypto industry is still worth staying in; whether AI is a better destination; and if using his own money, how he would view Bitcoin at this moment.

From encountering Bitcoin while studying abroad to mining it himself

Host Beca: You started mining Bitcoin in 2013. For many people entering the industry today, that was already more than a decade ago. How did you get into the circle back then? How did you solve equipment and electricity costs? What happened to the earliest coins you mined?

Dashan: During my PhD, I did circuit simulation. A single simulation often took ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes, so I had a lot of free time. I spent that time browsing various websites and magazines, and that's when I came across Bitcoin.

I was studying abroad at the time. For international students, a real pain point was how to transfer money from China to abroad without relying entirely on channels like Western Union. At that time, I felt Bitcoin was a good cross-border payment vehicle, so I started learning about it.

Back then, mining with a regular computer was already difficult, but the computers the school provided to each person were very powerful because we needed them for circuit simulation. I downloaded mining software and mined a little Bitcoin; but it affected daily use too much, so I didn't continue. Later, I mined by buying mining machines through friends in China and hosting them.

Actually, I saw Bitcoin in 2012, but I just treated it as a novelty and didn't do much research. It wasn't until late 2012 and early 2013, when Bitcoin started to rise, that I really began buying. So the earliest batch of Bitcoin I held was not all mined; most of it was actually bought.

Why resign from Huawei HiSilicon and enter the industry full-time?

Host Beca: At the time, resigning from Huawei HiSilicon to go full-time into Bitcoin seemed almost like "not doing proper work" to many people. How did you make up your mind?

Dashan: The process was very tortuous; it wasn't a case of taking one look at Bitcoin and deciding to go all in.

I first encountered Bitcoin online, and later attended offline events, but for a while I was actually afraid to truly enter the circle. At that time, I was in Montreal, Canada, and I was sort of a half-alumnus of Changpeng Zhao. One night, while walking downtown, I saw a very small shop. It was dim inside, with red and green lights flashing, and the sign read "Bitcoin Embassy."

I wanted to go in and take a look, but the doorman said that to enter, you had to have a "Passport"—meaning you had to have a Bitcoin wallet. It didn't matter whether there were coins in it; the wallet itself was the pass. I downloaded a wallet on the spot and transferred a little Bitcoin into it before I was allowed in. Inside, the atmosphere was very punk and wild: tattoos, nose rings, belly button rings—completely different from my own style. I looked around and left.

Strictly speaking, during my PhD, I hadn't officially entered the circle; I was just an enthusiast. After graduating and returning to Shanghai, the industry was very small. Some meetups had already been established, but in my view, the people in the circle were not that "respectable," so I still treated it as a niche hobby.

The real decision to join full-time came at the end of 2016. At that time, Bitcoin went through another round of gains, and I found that the Bitcoin I had mined and bought in the early days was already quite valuable, and it seemed I no longer had to rely entirely on a job. Even so, I didn't jump in completely all at once; instead, I gradually explored what I should do.

It wasn't until the ICO boom came in 2017 that I saw Sequoia Capital, International Data Group (IDG), and many outstanding talents from Tsinghua and Peking University starting to enter. I thought, since these people are all coming in, it might not be wrong for me to enter this industry too, and only then did I truly go full-time. Before that, I had already been in the industry for several years as an amateur.

At that time, I didn't even publicly tell my family and original circle of friends that I was doing blockchain. It wasn't until later, when national-level attention to blockchain clearly increased, that I officially "came out." So this was not a legendary spur-of-the-moment decision, but a process of slowly understanding and slowly confirming.

How was Waterdrop Capital founded? What did it invest in early on?

Host Beca: Waterdrop Capital was founded in 2017. Where did the initial money come from? What was the first investment?

Dashan: Before officially founding Waterdrop in 2017, several partners had already made many personal investments, such as Ethereum, Cosmos, Polkadot, VeChain, and others. When Ethereum first came to Shanghai for a roadshow, two of our partners bought it at a very low price; the Chinese name "以太坊" was also finalized by another partner of ours, Juxing (Cancer), who participated in naming it and translating the whitepaper.

In 2017, ICOs were hot, with several or even dozens of new projects emerging every day. We found that relying solely on individual effort was no longer enough to compete in this industry, so we decided to form a team. The initial funds were pooled by the partners themselves; everyone contributed the same amount of money and received the same equity. Because I was the youngest at the time, everyone felt that young people should do more work, so they made me CEO. That's how a very grassroots Token Fund was founded.

In early 2018, Mars Finance held a blockchain conference in Chongqing and selected the Top 40 Token Funds, and we were among them. At that time, there were so many people on stage that they could barely fit. In 2017, there may have been two or three hundred funds similar to ours, but among that wave, I estimate fewer than ten have survived to this day.

As for the company's first formal investment after founding, I no longer remember specifically who it went to. Because before Waterdrop was founded, the partners already had many projects on hand, and we would add to them or transfer allocations into the fund, so it's hard to define who the first check was actually written to.

But I remember that the projects that truly completed exits and brought us 100x returns were only three: Ethereum, Cosmos, and Polkadot. This doesn't count Bitcoin, because Bitcoin was a personal investment, not a VC investment. There were quite a few projects with returns above 10x, and many with paper returns of 100x or even 1,000x, but by the time unlocking and actual exits were completed, 100x returns were very rare.

Where do the funds co-managed with CPIC Asset Management invest?

Host Beca: The Pacific Waterdrop Fund you co-manage with China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. Asset Management (CPIC Asset Management) had four sub-funds by 2025. What does each invest in? Is Waterdrop's capital still investing in crypto, or has it shifted to AI, US stocks, and Pre-IPO?

Dashan: Our cooperation with CPIC began in 2022. From 2017 to 2021, Waterdrop was basically in Shanghai; in 2021, the regulatory environment tightened, and engaging in crypto-related business, including investment, in mainland China faced significant compliance restrictions. So we moved the company to Hong Kong and set up the Limited Partnership Fund (LPF) compliance structure at that time.

At the end of 2022, some Hong Kong companies, especially institutions with state-owned backgrounds, may have anticipated earlier that Hong Kong would introduce new policies supporting the crypto industry. Friends from CPIC approached us, hoping to cooperate and enter this industry. At first, I didn't quite believe it: they were a large institution with a state-owned background, and we were a very small, grassroots team—how could they seriously cooperate with us? At our first meeting, I arranged to meet at a dai pai dong (open-air food stall), wearing slippers and baggy shorts, while they came in suits and ties with a large group. It was quite a scene.

Later, I found they were indeed serious. After attending 2049 (Token2049), when news came out that Hong Kong would introduce new policies supporting the crypto industry, I immediately flew to Hong Kong to push the cooperation forward and signed a letter of intent that same day. By 2023, the relevant funds were gradually established.

There are mainly four funds:

One is an early-stage project VC fund, which has been fully invested, with about 40 projects;

One is a secondary market fund focused mainly on altcoins, which has now been liquidated;

One is a pure Bitcoin fund, which has actually performed the best. It follows a large-cycle approach: buy Bitcoin in bear markets, sell in bull markets, and trade no more than twice a year;

Another is a Real World Assets (RWA) fund, specifically looking at RWA-related assets.

We also tried a quantitative fund, but stopped halfway through. Overall, the digital asset funds co-managed with CPIC still focus on crypto and do not invest in other tracks.

However, Waterdrop's own proprietary capital has indeed begun to look at opportunities outside crypto over the past two years. At the end of 2024, we observed that apart from Bitcoin, many altcoin directions that relied on narratives but lacked real-world implementation were finding it hard to continue attracting liquidity. So we wrote a report titled "New Liquidity High Grounds Beyond Crypto," with the core discussion being US stocks.

At that time, we had many unrealized projects on hand, so we began to suggest: if a company has revenue and profit, it doesn't have to insist on issuing a token; it can also consider going public. As a native crypto institution, we still believe tokens have many advantages, but that doesn't mean all projects must take the token issuance route. In unregulated markets, when founders issue tokens, they are essentially binding their long-term credibility to that token; issuing a token is not always the better choice.

Starting from the end of 2024, we focused on crypto-related stocks and also seized the subsequent DAT (Digital Asset Token) opportunity. At the same time, we pushed some portfolio projects to pivot to AI, and at least two have made good progress, with one currently advancing toward a Nasdaq listing. These are all results of the layout made in 2024.

Why bet heavily on BTC Layer 2 in 2024?

Host Beca: In 2024, the BTC ecosystem was very hot, and Waterdrop was one of the institutions that made many moves. Some people also considered you a major promoter of that round of BTC Layer 2. What opportunity did you see at the time?

Dashan: My view on X at the time was very clear: I was very bullish on the Bitcoin ecosystem, but not so bullish on inscriptions (Ordinals inscriptions). Early inscriptions, like many meme coins today, lacked real value support and relied mainly on hype and community. It could be played as a cultural phenomenon, but should not be invested in as a serious investment.

Looking back, I still stand by that judgment: the Bitcoin ecosystem is developing better and better, while not many inscriptions have survived. Bitcoin is the largest and most stable type of asset in the industry, and the gap between it and other coins is widening. Whether Ethereum or other coins, if you look at their price trends relative to Bitcoin, most cannot outperform Bitcoin in the long run. Of course, in every bull market, there are a few outperformers, but it's not easy to repeatedly catch them.

For institutions, betting heavily on the Bitcoin ecosystem was also the right choice. Over the past few years, many crypto VCs have struggled, and many peers are no longer active or have even disappeared. If Waterdrop had invested in the same themes as everyone else, it might also have been dangerous; it was precisely because we bet heavily on the Bitcoin ecosystem that we achieved relatively good returns.

In bear markets, altcoins generally perform poorly, and not every project in the BTC ecosystem has done well either; but compared horizontally with narratives like the metaverse, NFTs, Zero-Knowledge (ZK), and Game Finance (GameFi), the Bitcoin ecosystem is still relatively good. Among the projects we invested in, such as River, Lorenzo, Particle, Merlin, and Bsquare, at least a dozen are still developing well. They support the net value of our latest fund and allow us to be accountable to LPs.

However, I don't think BTC Layer 2 itself is particularly "great" or irreplaceable. The background for pushing this direction at the time was: Ethereum once saw a large number of highly homogeneous Layer 2s, possibly numbering in the hundreds or even thousands, and very few survived in the end. Bitcoin Layer 2s total only a dozen to twenty-something, so the survival rate of projects in the ecosystem is relatively higher. They still need to get through this bear market and, as Bitcoin's market cap grows, find capabilities that are hard to achieve in other ecosystems, including Ethereum Layer 2, to build their own moat.

"Truly high-quality projects should not issue tokens; they should go public directly"

Host Beca: You once said, "Truly high-quality projects should not issue tokens; they should go public directly." This statement went viral and was interpreted by some as pouring cold water on the crypto industry. More than a year later, how many projects have you persuaded?

Dashan: That statement itself is not complete. What I meant was: truly high-quality projects can choose to go public; if a project can only issue a token, it is probably not high-quality enough. But some projects can both go public and issue tokens, and then it depends on which market has better liquidity. When crypto market liquidity is better, they can issue tokens; when stock market liquidity is better, they can go public. That is the company's choice.

If a company has no room to choose, going through a regulated capital market is usually more compliant and safer. But that doesn't mean there are no high-quality projects in the crypto industry. BNB, Uniswap, and others are all very high-quality, with profits and business capabilities no less than many companies in the stock market, and they could very well have both options.

We have indeed persuaded quite a few projects. In our portfolio, there are more than five projects queuing for listing. Besides DAT-related companies, there are at least five projects that are truly listing based on their business.

Take Good Vision AI as an example. It was originally a small company and had also considered issuing a token. We saw that it had real revenue, so we suggested not forcing a token issuance in an altcoin bear market, but instead investing another round of money, expanding the AI business line, growing revenue, and then pursuing a listing path. Its revenue grew from $200-300 million in 2024 to about $7 million in 2025, and to about $70 million this year; under narratives like AI and computing power infrastructure, listing became a more reasonable choice, while issuing a token might bring new regulatory problems.

Of course, the regulation of token issuance and ICOs is dynamically changing. The US is also discussing a new ICO regulatory framework, where different financing scales may correspond to different requirements. If such rules are implemented, ICOs or token issuance may usher in new opportunities. Tokens are financial instruments that appeared later than stocks, and are not necessarily inherently inferior; they may even be more advanced instruments. The key is the market and regulatory environment at the time.

Does pushing projects to go public raise the bar for entrepreneurship?

Host Beca: After all, technical teams that can truly go public are a minority. Does your advice raise the threshold for entrepreneurship? Is going public much harder than issuing a token?

Dashan: You have a point, but entrepreneurship was never supposed to be a low-barrier endeavor. In traditional industries, starting a business is a matter of life and death. If you start a business with your own money, you lose your own savings or your parents' money; but once you raise external funds, especially from unqualified investors or community retail investors, you harm more families.

We experienced the ICO bubbles of 2017 and 2018. The early people who dared to do ICOs were those who dared to eat crabs, and most of their projects were quite good. Many are still alive today, at least they didn't run away. But by late 2017 and early 2018, many people realized that just telling a story could raise money, so they started scamming and running away. It seemed to lower the barrier to entrepreneurship, but in reality it led to a mix of good and bad, and ultimately bad money drove out good.

So, as long as you are taking other people's money, even retail investors' money, the bar should be high. When a founder issues a coin, they are binding their lifelong reputation on-chain. Ten or twenty years later, people will still dig up the coin you issued back then that later went to zero to judge you. Issuing a token is a responsibility and should have a certain threshold or regulation to make founders more cautious; unless you are only doing an anonymous meme coin, where everyone knows it's entertainment and a game. As long as you stake your personal reputation, connections, and resources on issuing a token, you must take it seriously.

What advice do you have for crypto entrepreneurs who want to go public?

Host Beca: What advice do you have for crypto entrepreneurs who hope to take their projects public?

Dashan: Listing a crypto project is completely different from issuing a token, and it is even harder than listing a traditional internet company. Traditional internet companies mainly consider users, revenue, and data; crypto projects also have to deal with compliance and regulatory issues. But once successful, your competition in the public market will actually be more advantageous because there are fewer options to choose from. Issuing a coin means competing with thousands or tens of thousands of projects; in the crypto sector on Nasdaq, there may only be a few dozen stocks. Truly good projects are more likely to stand out.

I have two pieces of advice.

First, do real business, not just tell stories. Especially for a Nasdaq listing, there are requirements for revenue, company size, and customer base. You must have real customers and real business.

Second, since you choose to go public, you must truly embrace traditional finance. Founders cannot only interact with the community, shout on X, or hold meetups; that mainly relies on retail investors, and what you can do is limited. You need to deal with Wall Street funds, hedge funds, market makers, and regulators, and enter the formal, mainstream circle. For example, go to business school, build connections with traditional fund managers, founders of listed companies, or entrepreneurs, and learn their rules and resources. Whichever circle you play in, you must truly integrate into that circle.

From Crypto VC to AI company chairman—does this mean you are no longer bullish on crypto?

Host Beca: After nine years as a Crypto VC, you became chairman of an AI data center company—a big leap. Outsiders might think your confidence in crypto is not as strong as your confidence in AI. How do you respond?

Dashan: Not at all. The theme of my recent speeches has always been "Crypto on the left, AI on the right: the gold and oil of the digital age." I am bullish on the two most important new assets and two new industries of the digital age: crypto and AI. They are two sides of the same coin, and they are opportunities for young people in this era.

Every era has its own dividends. Real estate, oil, and automobiles were the dividends and advantages of the previous era; our era has given rise to crypto and AI. We accumulated our first pot of gold in crypto over the past decade or so, and after gaining some accumulation, it is natural that we should also enter the other major theme of this era—AI.

But we cannot blindly enter AI. Some people ask me whether to speculate on storage, optical modules, or invest in Agent platforms. I think these may not be our strengths. Our greatest accumulation in the crypto industry is computing power, mining farms, and mining machines. We have invested in many mining farm and mining machine projects, and converting Bitcoin mining farms into AI Data Centers (AIDC) is a natural progression. We have electricity and sites in hand, so doing AIDC gives us an advantage over traditional teams entering directly.

Moreover, AIDC supports "dual mining" (mining both Bitcoin and AI workloads): if Bitcoin's price returns to a very high level, we can mine Bitcoin again; if an AI bubble occurs, it won't go to zero. That is why we entered AI and why I serve as chairman.

Good Vision AI initially focused mainly on token routing (designing computing power usage solutions), designing computing power usage solutions for enterprises and users. We invested relatively heavily and hold a high equity stake, so I serve as chairman, essentially taking responsibility for my own investment, not just a financial investment with one or two percentage points like a typical VC. This role is temporary; once the company is strong enough or we exit, the enterprise should be handed back to the founders.

The company currently has a layout from underlying computing power and computing power centers, to mid-level computing power services, to upper-level joint R&D with AI Agents, including trading Agents, drug discovery Agents, and gaming Agents. It can integrate with our original layout in the crypto industry. This is also the first time after many years of investing that I have joined a startup team more deeply. Looking at it now, the company's financing and listing progress are both relatively fast, and the momentum is good.

I am not bearish on crypto; on the contrary, I am even more bullish. In this cycle, I started buying Bitcoin gradually from $80,000, and continued buying when it fell to $70,000 and $60,000, ultimately buying at a relatively low point; my current Bitcoin holdings are larger than in the previous cycle. My favorite title in my personal bio is still "Bitcoin Evangelist," and it even ranks ahead of Founding Partner of Waterdrop Capital and Chairman of Good Vision AI.

If miners all go to AI, who will take over crypto infrastructure?

Host Beca: Many AI data center teams now come from mining backgrounds. They understand computing power, operations, and can endure hardship the most. If everyone goes to serve AI, who will take over crypto infrastructure?

Dashan: No need to worry. The fact that people and capital can flow actually shows that the industry is healthy. If an industry always has only the same group of people and no one ever leaves, that is what should worry us: why would new people come to take over? If holders don't circulate, external capital won't dare to enter.

It is normal for crypto OGs (original gangsters) to cash out Bitcoin to buy houses, cars, and improve their lives. Investment should improve life, and consumption also drives the development of other industries.

Miners going to AI does not mean they are permanently leaving crypto. In a bear market, if the same site and the same kilowatt-hour of electricity yield higher returns serving AI than mining Bitcoin, people will naturally switch to AI; but when Bitcoin returns to a higher price, they will come back. This is not a harm to the industry, but rather a promotion.

In addition, new people are quietly entering: traditional companies, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), risk control and market strategy institutions, as well as some payment and internet companies, are gradually allocating Bitcoin. Bear markets are often when large Western institutions lie in wait and enter.

I think one of the biggest opportunities in crypto right now is RWA, especially tokenizing Pre-IPO private equity. For example, splitting and tokenizing private allocations of companies like Anthropic and OpenAI that have not yet gone public, and putting them on-chain for trading. Even if traditional retail investors or high-net-worth clients are very bullish on a company, they may not have enough capital or channels to access early-stage shares; if they can participate in small amounts, 24/7, and in a tradable way, more traditional users will enter the crypto market.

So it's normal for some to leave and some to enter. Leaving is not necessarily because they are bearish on the industry; it may be because they found a more profitable opportunity. After making money, they may still come back to buy Bitcoin. Crypto and AI should not be favored over one another or belittled; they are two sides of the digital economy. AI practitioners should understand the importance of blockchain, and crypto practitioners should also see that AI is one of the important application scenarios for blockchain.

Is there an AI bubble now? How to distinguish real demand from sentiment?

Host Beca: You also do US stocks and AI. The AI bubble has been discussed for over a year. Can we still chase it now? How do you distinguish real demand from market sentiment?

Dashan: First, a disclaimer: this is not investment advice, just personal views.

My conclusion is that AI currently has no bubble, but no bubble does not mean there won't be one in the future. From the front lines of AI computing power, it is now completely a seller's market. Any computing power about to come online in the US or Japan may be snapped up immediately, and computing power deliverable in the next six months to a year is often booked out in advance. Large language models have deeply penetrated daily life, and usage of tools like DeepSeek and ChatGPT is still growing. Financial reports from hardware companies like chip and storage makers are also very strong. All of this shows that demand is real.

But real demand does not mean the financial market won't crash ahead of time. Stock prices will focus on two risk points.

The first is whether expectations reverse after large AI companies go public. Even if current financial reports, profits, and earnings are all good, institutions may exit six months or even a year in advance if they anticipate a bubble a year later, rather than waiting for revenue to actually decline. The stock market trades expectations, not the present. Pay attention to whether orders, trends, and market narratives change after large companies go public.

The second is the potential computing power oversupply after autumn 2028. According to data at the time, US investment in AI infrastructure exceeded $500 billion in 2025, and is expected to at least double to $1 trillion in 2026. These AIDCs take at least two years from construction to launch, and concentrated production will likely occur after autumn 2028. By then, computing power supply may increase more than tenfold, and the key is whether consumption by applications like AI Agents can also grow more than tenfold.

If demand grows rapidly in sync, the industry can still move upward; if demand fails to keep up while supply increases significantly, computing power oversupply may occur. This is not uncommon: internet fiber optics, submarine cables, highways, and other infrastructure have all gone through cycles of large-scale construction, oversupply, bubble burst, and then gradual repair and full utilization. AI computing power may also go through a similar cycle.

Will the US midterm elections impact crypto?

Host Beca: If the US midterm election results are unfavorable to crypto, will the industry be hit hard again and return to a bear market? Would you adjust your positions because of an election?

Dashan: I attended the Hong Kong Bitcoin Conference and spoke with people close to Western governments. The current US administration claims to be crypto-friendly, and Trump is often called the "crypto president." Since they have received support from the crypto industry, they need to deliver something to voters before the election, pushing some bills or at least introducing favorable policies.

So, before the midterm elections, I am not that worried about the market. As for the Clarity for Digital Tokens Act, what I've heard is that there is a lot of resistance and it may not pass; but the market is also anticipating other possible positives, such as whether the US Treasury will buy Bitcoin on a large scale. If funds at the level of tens of billions of dollars enter, it would have a significant impact on Bitcoin's price.

My judgment is that there may still be opportunities in the pre-election phase, but the closer to the election, the more cautious we need to be: if the election results are very good, Trump may not need to continue emphasizing crypto issues; if the results are bad, the opponent's crypto policies could also create pressure. My current position is still relatively heavy, but entering the sensitive pre-election phase, I will pay close attention to changes.

In the long term, I remain bullish. The two US parties are not necessarily simply one opposing and one supporting on crypto issues, because there are already many crypto asset holders in the US, and neither side dares to ignore this group. Looking at the four-year cycle, even if the short-term market weakens, one should remain cautious; Bitcoin will still have its next bull market in the future. Again, this is just personal judgment, not operational advice.

What should retail investors pay attention to when participating in Pre-IPO?

Host Beca: Many people are now participating in Pre-IPO, but many projects spike at the open and then fall back, very similar to the K-line (candlestick chart) of crypto projects after listing. If retail investors want to participate in Pre-IPO, what advice would you give?

Dashan: First, it is very common for Pre-IPO projects to spike to a high price on the first day of trading and then struggle to return to that high for a long time. The interest games, manipulation, and information asymmetry in traditional financial markets are no less severe than in the crypto world; retail investors are naturally at a disadvantage.

The first thing retail investors can do is trade time for space: if you truly believe in an asset, hold it long-term and don't let short-term manipulation force you out. Take Bitcoin as an example: if you bought it early and held on, no matter how the market fluctuated, and didn't easily get shaken out, the long-term result might be different. Of course, if you want to buy altcoins, you must be more cautious in selecting truly high-quality assets.

Second, try to get allocations as close as possible to the cost of early investors and institutions. Now some projects are trying to tokenize private allocations from earlier rounds and put them on-chain for trading. If retail investors can participate at prices close to institutional levels, rather than taking over at high prices after the open, the risk-reward structure will be completely different. For example, if the early equity shares of a high-quality company are tokenized, and retail investors obtain them at a low cost before listing, then even if the price falls after listing, they may still have a good safety cushion and liquidity.

I am bullish on the direction of tokenizing Pre-IPO private equity of high-quality companies and putting it on-chain. It lowers the threshold and cost for retail investors to participate in high-quality assets and increases flexibility. In contrast, assets that institutions are completely unwilling to buy and that rely only on stories to attract retail investors to take over are probably not good assets. High-quality assets that institutions already hold at reasonable costs are worth further study; if retail investors want excess returns, the key is to strive for costs close to institutional levels, rather than taking over at emotional highs.

This is similar to the logic of early ICOs in 2017: at that time, on-chain assets were scarce, and participants transferred money directly to protocols; the main advantage of institutions was capital scale, but retail investors and institutions were relatively equal in terms of eligibility for a single participation. In the future, if more on-chain protocols can allow retail investors to obtain early shares of high-quality assets in a fair and transparent way, retail investors will have a greater chance to narrow the gap with institutions.

What is the most essential difference between those who go far in the industry and those who disappear midway?

Host Beca: You started mining coins in 2013, then did investing, mining farms, and now AI. What is the most essential difference between people who go far and those who disappear along the way?

Dashan: I think there are two points.

First, whether you are a long-termist. If you want to go far, you need to look far ahead, not just at your feet. If you only focus on short-term gains, you won't see the pitfalls ahead and can easily fall into them as you walk. You need to know what to do and what not to do.

Second, whether you have principles. You can't make every kind of money. You need to think clearly about what you are good at and what you like, and then make money that puts your mind at ease and makes you happy. Everyone's energy is limited.

Conclusion

Today, we are not just talking about Mr. Dashan's fourteen years alone; we are also talking about the experiences of a group of people in the industry: from pursuing a PhD in 2013, to becoming a VC in 2017, to betting heavily on BTC Layer 2 in 2024, and now turning to AI. All choices point to the same question—how to bet on the underlying productivity of the next-generation digital world.

There is no standard answer to this question. What we heard today is the answer of someone who has been active in the industry for a long time, constantly making choices, constantly reviewing, and constantly adjusting direction. For you in front of the screen, what matters more may not be copying his answer, but asking yourself: why do you stay in this industry? And what will you bet on next?

Thank you, Mr. Dashan, and thank you to all the viewers who have watched until now. "Blockchain 100 People," see you next episode.