The New Logic of Web3 Entrepreneurship Under the New Global Trade Order

1. Deteriorating Macroeconomic Environment - A Crisis is Forming a New Order

1.1 Finance begins to enter the era of chaos

Since Trump returned to the White House, a series of unexpected economic and political measures have caused ongoing turmoil in global markets. Among them, one of the most shocking measures is the escalation of tariff policies: starting from April 5, 2025, the United States will impose a uniform "benchmark tariff" of 10% on all imported goods, and impose higher "reciprocal tariffs" on China, Vietnam, and 60 other countries. In the short term, Trump's tariff stick has caused massive fluctuations in global markets: U.S. Treasuries faced a wave of sell-offs, with the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries soaring to over 4.5%, marking the largest single-week increase in 20 years; U.S. stocks experienced severe volatility, nearly triggering circuit breakers; and the U.S. dollar index fell consecutively, reaching the largest daily drop in several years. Although the U.S. later announced a postponement of new tariffs on some allied countries in exchange for breathing room, investors remain filled with anxiety about future uncertainties, as the global financial system seems to have entered an "era of chaos."

The old international economic system centered around the United States, established after World War II, is facing the risk of disintegration: the rise of emerging economies has weakened the relative advantage of the U.S., while the massive debt and fiscal deficits accumulated over the long term are continuously eroding the credibility of the dollar, leading to a decline in the dollar's share of global foreign exchange reserves. Especially since China's rapid development after joining the WTO, it has gradually approached and even surpassed the U.S. in many technological fields, triggering deep anxieties among the American elite. Breakthroughs by Chinese companies such as Huawei in key technologies like 5G chip design and communication base stations serve as a wake-up call for the U.S.: the once significant technological gap has been rapidly closed, and the traditional advantages of the U.S. in manufacturing are in jeopardy, while the younger generation of Americans is increasingly turning to finance, arts, and other fields, showing less willingness to engage in manufacturing. This series of changes signifies that the old order upon which America's dominance relies is beginning to waver.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. decision-makers began to brew the construction of a new trade and financial order to maintain its global dominance. The strategic goal of the Trump administration was not only to secure better terms in trade negotiations but also to "start anew"—to re-establish the central position of the United States by formulating a new set of rules. This contains two aspects of intention: first, to hit major competitors and weaken the momentum of countries like China that are rapidly rising by leveraging existing globalization dividends; second, to seek new value anchoring to provide new support for the shaky credit of the dollar and global trade. In this line of thought, traditional dollar credit needs stronger backing, and the U.S. began to look towards assets like gold and Bitcoin, hoping to rebuild the trust foundation of the global financial system.

It is worth noting that since Trump took office, the U.S. government's attitude towards the cryptocurrency sector has undergone a significant shift. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump publicly expressed concern about the development of virtual currencies, contrary to his previous critical stance on Bitcoin. Some factions within the Republican Party and certain state governments have gradually embraced Bitcoin in recent years, viewing it as "digital gold" to hedge against the risks of the dollar. It can be said that the U.S. is laying the groundwork for a potential new financial order, incorporating Bitcoin into its national strategic vision.

Bitcoin and Gold: The New "Dual Anchor" of the Dollar 1.2

As global trade and financial rules face reconstruction, the United States attempts to create a new credit cornerstone for the dollar through "dual asset anchoring": incorporating both traditional gold reserves and emerging Bitcoin reserves. This strategy aims to strengthen the credibility of the dollar in the new order through a combination of physical and digital assets.

Gold has long been widely held by central banks as a means of storing value, with the U.S. Treasury's gold reserves (stored at the famous Fort Knox) being a crucial card in the game of dollar hegemony. Today, Bitcoin is being assigned a similar strategic position—regarded as the "digital gold" of the new era. By the end of 2024, Bitcoin's total market capitalization is expected to be around $2 trillion, which is only about one-tenth of gold's market value (approximately $20 trillion). From a long-term potential perspective, if Bitcoin's market value were to someday match that of gold, its price still has several times the growth potential. It is precisely because of this growth potential, along with Bitcoin's unique advantages of decentralization, limited issuance (21 million coins), 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 rolled out a series of major initiatives in the crypto space: 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 following day, the White House held a high-profile crypto summit, inviting industry giants as well as members of Congress and officials to participate. Trump publicly expressed his support for the development of the crypto industry at the summit, pledging to push Congress to pass legislation regarding the regulatory framework for stablecoins and digital assets as soon as possible, in order to provide a clear legal environment. Even more noteworthy, Trump stated at the summit: "Establishing a Bitcoin reserve is like establishing a virtual Fort Knox"—in other words, the U.S. intends to regard the Bitcoin reserve as the gold of the treasury in the digital age. This statement marks the formal entry of Bitcoin into the U.S. national strategic level, being endowed with a status similar to that of gold.

This series of actions indicates that the United States intends to use Bitcoin alongside gold as a new anchor asset for its financial system. In practice, the U.S. government has already accumulated a significant amount of Bitcoin reserves (mainly sourced from law enforcement seizures and other channels) and plans to increase its holdings further. Market rumors suggest a target of accumulating control over approximately 1 million Bitcoins (about 5% of the total supply), a scale that approaches the proportion of U.S. official gold reserves in the global gold market. Although this goal has not yet been fully realized, the trend is becoming apparent: some U.S. state governments have even taken the lead in approving the use of public funds to purchase Bitcoin for reserves; at the federal level, executive orders and legislative proposals have been made to "normalize" Bitcoin. If the U.S. dollar can partially anchor physical gold and digital gold (Bitcoin) in the future, supplemented by blockchain technology to establish a new international clearing system, then the U.S. is likely to gain an advantage in the future global financial game, extending the vitality of the dollar system.

Of course, the inclusion of Bitcoin also helps the United States solve its own problems. For example, the massive national debt burdening the U.S. government is becoming increasingly heavy, triggering a credit crisis. If the U.S. controls enough Bitcoin reserves and pushes its price up in the future, it may cleverly resolve debt risks by selling part of its 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 strengthening its regulatory efforts on digital currencies: a recent bill proposed to bring stablecoins with a circulation exceeding $10 billion under Federal Reserve regulation, indicating that the U.S. wants to control the issuance rights and rule-making rights of crypto dollars (dollar stablecoins) to consolidate the dollar's dominant position in the crypto world. Dollar stablecoins + gold + Bitcoin together outline the prototype of a new order for the dollar—maintaining the dollar's legal status while being supported by physical and digital assets to enhance risk resistance.

2. Market Environment Correction and "What is Suitable for the Second Half"

Over the past year, the global crypto 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, with the market entering a deep correction and clearing phase. Macroeconomic turmoil combined with stricter regulations has led to the disappearance of many projects lacking real value support during this adjustment. 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 gain momentum, giving birth to new opportunities — as the bubble of the previous cycle has burst, it is a good chance to quietly refine products and accumulate strength to stand out.

In such a "second half" environment, entrepreneurs should think: what is suitable to do in the second half? Simple traffic strategies are becoming unsustainable, replaced by entrepreneurial logic centered 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: Innovating on public chains like Ethereum to return to efficiency and profitability, breaking away from merely "driving traffic," and creating sustainable decentralized finance (DeFi) applications that are product-oriented.

• Real World Assets (RWA) and Payment Finance (PayFi): Combining on-chain technology with real assets and payment scenarios to develop new models supported by stable cash flows.

• Cryptocurrency concept stocks: Pay attention to the rising wave of "blockchain concept stocks" in traditional capital markets, as well as the new path of Web3 startups toward becoming publicly traded.

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

2.1 Entrepreneurial Opportunities Surrounding 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. We are seeing three major entrepreneurial opportunities surrounding the BTC network:

• BTC Fi (Bitcoin Finance): Creating new financial assets on the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin is no longer just a static store of value, but is evolving into an underlying platform for issuing various financial assets. Recent protocols such as BRC-20 and Runes have sparked a wave of token asset issuance on the BTC mainnet; the Taproot Assets protocol (TA protocol) launched by Lightning Labs has made it possible to issue stablecoins, bonds, and other financial assets in 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 that supports a rich array of assets. Representative projects such as Bedrock and Solv focus on building decentralized financial services like lending, trading, and derivatives on the Bitcoin network, promoting the 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 functionalities, the industry is attempting to build a smart contract layer for Bitcoin similar to Ethereum. One approach is to develop EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechains or Layer 2 solutions, expanding 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 focus more on enhancing privacy, scalability, and payment efficiency, creating a lightweight and cost-effective on-chain execution layer for the BTC mainnet. Representative projects like Unisat, Merlin, and B² focus on building Bitcoin's Layer 2, middleware tools, etc., to enhance Bitcoin's development ecosystem and scalability.

• BTC-Powered RWA & PayFi: Unlocking the potential of Bitcoin in the realm of real-world assets and payments. RWA based on the Bitcoin network is gradually emerging, such as tokenizing U.S. Treasury bonds, physical assets, etc., with Bitcoin serving as a settlement layer providing globally verifiable clearing mechanisms, granting such assets a highly trustworthy value anchoring. At the same time, the "PayFi" model, emerging from payment infrastructures like the Lightning Network, brings Bitcoin back to the payment stage—such as combining AI Agents with Bitcoin micropayments, enabling real-time small payments between machines and between humans and machines, providing efficient payment solutions for scenarios like SaaS services and data exchange. Representative projects like LNFi focus on enhancing Bitcoin in the