Analyzing Why Huma Succeeded & What Projects Binance Actually Likes (A Manual for Project Parties on Listing Based on First Principles)

Recently recommended projects have directly listed on Binance's spot market consecutively (Sign and Huma).

First, let's define what success is: In the PreTGE stage, listing on Binance/OKX/Upbit in Korean won against spot is considered success, especially on Binance/Upbit.

Continuing to explain why Huma has significant results:

- It is the largest use case of USDC besides payments, with PMF.

- Founder Richard was a sufficiently successful entrepreneur in the past.

- The handling of public relations crises and responses to the community are very appropriate; the logic presented is also very grounded. This is rare among those who have already achieved financial freedom, and what they are doing is more for dreams and self-realization, not just for money.

- The social volume exploded, continuously topping the Kaito charts (a significant plus).

Why are these things important? We need to think from the perspective of exchanges; if you were Binance, what projects would you want to list?

🌟 Exchanges have only two core metrics: user acquisition and trading volume, which are first principles.

I believe Binance looks at three types of projects: 1️⃣ Real PMF (the least common), 2️⃣ Able to attract enough new users (rare), 3️⃣ Trading volume (most common).

1️⃣ Real PMF: This type of project is the least common and is crucial for the overall innovation in crypto. Whoever creates something that withstands scrutiny and generates real value contributes to the benefit of the entire industry. It will definitely be listed on Binance.

- Huma's business is very solid, which is rare, SSS level.

- Sign's $15 million business revenue is very good, but is currently limited to web3, SSS level; once other businesses are completed, it will be SSS level.

2️⃣ Able to attract enough new users: Refers to bringing in a significant number of new web2 users to the exchange. Representative examples include Notcoin, Dogs from the TON ecosystem, PI (which exploded in new user acquisition on okx), and last cycle's stepn, etc. These are indeed consumer-oriented.

- Acquiring new users for Huma in web2 is relatively difficult, but interestingly, it can attract many users from Japan (because there are few high-yield financial products in Japan), so the regional characteristics of Japan are also very good, A-level.

- Sign's product is B2B, but the community is very meme-oriented; however, it is still primarily composed of users from within the circle, and the community is very excited with high engagement; currently at S level; after launching the Sign App, it will be super SSS level.

3️⃣ Sufficient trading volume: Simply put, it reflects the overall sentiment of the crypto community and where attention is focused. Spending money to find KOLs for promotion follows this path. Relative to the two previous types, this is also popular, because projects from the above two categories are generally few, and the projects of each exchange usually focus on those with relatively high popularity, thus maintaining a basic trading volume beta strategy.

4️⃣ There is a fourth type that involves projects which can strategically collaborate with exchanges; there are many angles to this, so I won't elaborate further, but we can discuss them case by case when we encounter them.

Sidebar:

- Many things are easy to think about; you just need to change your perspective and consider yourself as an exchange. Starting from first principles, you can easily see who is good.

- Exchanges certainly hope that each project is a hexagonal warrior, with PMF, new users, and trading volume, but there are very few such projects in one cycle.

- There is competition among exchanges, and we must maintain a frequency of new listings; otherwise, traffic will be taken by competitors.

- In my opinion, the inscriptions from okx back then put Binance in a passive position; it was neither an option to list nor to avoid listing; if listed, it would hand over to okx, and if not, it would lose trading volume, and new users would only go to okx.

Most projects have false data, false TVL, false PMF, and false popularity. None of the dimensions stand out, so a large amount of money is needed to be poured into the market to try to penetrate from a popularity perspective.

Do you understand? Will you list it on Binance now?

Binance's launch of Alpha directly killed the competition; this operation with BNB is legendary, and CZ's thinking has become much clearer since his return.