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

Deteriorating Macroeconomic Environment - A Crisis is Forming a New Order

The financial world is beginning to head towards a chaotic era.

Since Trump returned to the White House, a series of economic and political measures have caused continuous turmoil in global markets. Among them, the biggest shock is the escalation of tariff policies: starting from April 5, 2025, the United States will impose a uniform "baseline tariff" of 10% on all imported goods and impose higher "reciprocal tariffs" on 60 countries. In the short term, Trump's tariff stick has led to massive fluctuations in the global market: U.S. Treasuries faced a wave of selling, with the 10-year Treasury yield soaring to over 4.5%; the U.S. stock market experienced severe turbulence, at one point nearing a circuit breaker; the U.S. dollar index fell for several consecutive days, registering the largest daily decline in years.

The post-World War II international economic system centered around the United States is facing the risk of collapse: the rise of emerging economies has weakened America's relative advantage, and the massive debt and fiscal deficits accumulated by the U.S. 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 anxiety among the American elite.

Against this backdrop, U.S. decision-makers began to brew a new trade and financial order to maintain their global dominance. The strategic goal of the Trump administration is not only to negotiate better terms in trade talks but also to "start anew"—by establishing a new rule system to re-establish the central position of the United States. This contains two aspects of intention: first, to strike at 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, providing new support for the wavering credit of the dollar and global trade. In this line of thinking, traditional dollar credit needs to be strengthened with stronger backing, and 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 since Trump took office, the U.S. government's attitude towards the cryptocurrency sector has undergone a significant shift. Shortly after taking office, Trump publicly expressed his 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 "Double Anchor" of the Dollar

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 assets 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 being a crucial underpinning of dollar hegemony. Today, Bitcoin is being endowed with a similar strategic status—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 capitalization were to one day match that of gold, its price still has several times more room for growth. Because of this growth potential, along with Bitcoin's unique advantages of decentralization, limited issuance (21 million coins), and high liquidity, the United States is beginning to seriously consider incorporating it into its national reserve system.

In March 2025, the U.S. government announced a series of significant measures in the cryptocurrency space: On March 6, President Trump signed an executive order to establish a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" and a "U.S. Digital Asset Reserve." The next day, the White House held a high-profile cryptocurrency summit, inviting industry giants as well as members of Congress and officials to participate. Trump publicly expressed his support for the development of the cryptocurrency industry at the summit, promising to push Congress to pass legislation on the regulatory framework for stablecoins and digital assets as soon as possible to provide a clear legal environment. Even more noteworthy was Trump's statement at the summit: "Establishing a Bitcoin Reserve is like establishing a virtual Fort Knox"—meaning that the U.S. intends to view the Bitcoin Reserve as the gold of the treasury in the digital age. This statement marked the formal entry of Bitcoin into the U.S. national strategic level, assigning it a status similar to that of gold.

This series of actions indicates that the United States intends to use Bitcoin alongside gold as anchoring assets for a new financial system. In practice, the U.S. government holds a significant amount of Bitcoin reserves (mainly sourced from law enforcement seizures, etc.) and plans to further increase its holdings. Market rumors suggest the goal is to accumulate control of about 1 million Bitcoins (accounting for 5% of the total supply), a quantity close to 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 already apparent: some U.S. state governments have even taken the lead by approving the purchase of Bitcoin with public funds 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 seize the initiative in future global financial competitions, 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 mitigate debt risk by selling part of its reserves to fill the debt black hole. This idea of "using crypto assets to dilute debt" has become a new imagination in the U.S. financial strategy. At the same time, the U.S. is also making efforts in digital currency regulation: a recent bill proposes to bring stablecoins with a circulation of over $10 billion under Federal Reserve supervision, indicating that the U.S. aims to control the issuance rights and rule-making power of crypto dollars (USD stablecoins) to consolidate the dollar's dominance in the crypto world. USD stablecoins + gold + Bitcoin, together outline the prototype of a new order for the dollar—maintaining the dollar's legal status while supporting it with physical and digital assets to enhance risk resistance.

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

In the past year, the global cryptocurrency market has undergone a drastic 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 deep correction and liquidation phase. Macroeconomic turbulence (such as rising inflation and interest rates) combined with stricter regulations has led to the disappearance of many projects lacking genuine value support during this round of adjustments. However, for entrepreneurs who firmly believe in the long-term value of blockchain, this moment is the best time to build a foundation and nurture new opportunities—when the bubbles of the previous cycle have burst, it is a great opportunity to quietly refine products and emerge with strength.

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

• Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem: Financial innovations surrounding 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 efficiency and the essence of profitability on public chains like Ethereum, breaking away from purely "traffic competition" 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-world assets and payment scenarios to develop a new model supported by stable cash flows.

• Cryptocurrency Concept Stocks: Pay attention to the rising wave of "blockchain concept stocks" in the traditional capital markets, as well as the new path toward stockification 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" and its mainnet functions are relatively simple, a series of recent technological and application advancements are injecting new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem. We see 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 a foundational platform for issuing various financial assets. The recent rise of protocols like 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 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 variety of assets. Representative projects such as Bedrock and Solv are focused on building decentralized financial services like lending, trading, and derivatives on the Bitcoin network, advancing the financing and asset issuance capabilities of BTC.

• BTC Infra (Bitcoin Infrastructure): Redefining the intelligent infrastructure on Bitcoin. To compensate for the shortcomings of BTC's native capabilities, 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 Layer 2 solutions (such as BTC L2 with Ethereum smart contract capabilities) to expand the DApp development space on 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, building 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 and middleware tools to enhance the development ecosystem and scalability of Bitcoin.

• BTC-Powered RWA & PayFi: Unlocking the potential of Bitcoin in the realms of real-world assets and payments. RWA based on the Bitcoin network is gradually emerging, such as tokenizing US Treasury bonds and physical assets, with Bitcoin providing a globally verifiable settlement mechanism as a settlement layer, endowing such assets with a 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—such as combining AI agents with Bitcoin micropayments, enabling real-time microtransactions 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 the practical application efficiency and user experience of Bitcoin in RWA and payment scenarios, empowering the payment and circulation of BTC.

Overall, the Bitcoin ecosystem is fully awakening from the underlying protocols to the application layer. Whether it's issuing assets on the BTC mainnet, building a smart contract layer, or using BTC for the settlement of real assets and instant payments, Bitcoin has the potential to become a fertile ground for the next stage of innovation and entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurs, re-evaluating the possibilities of the Bitcoin network may uncover undervalued golden opportunities.

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