NO.1 Please introduce yourself
Hello everyone, my name is Haotian. I am a hardcore popular science writer and an independent Web3 researcher. I have previously worked for two industry-leading companies, PeckShield and AmberGroup. I am currently running my personal X brand Haotian｜CryptoInsight full-time. I am positioned as interpreting cutting-edge blockchain technology from a technical + business perspective, and am committed to spreading easy-to-understand Web3 underlying technical knowledge and industry development business observations.
Since joining Web3 in 2017, I have been engaged in security, data and other technical analysis, market research and other aspects. The X account I currently operate has gained nearly 30,000 fans through one year of continuous content output.
After completing five years of technical learning and accumulation, I began to interpret the industry's cutting-edge technologies and hot projects on X, covering many cutting-edge fields such as security, data, zero-knowledge proof (ZK), AI, DePIN, etc., of which the proportion of long articles reached 80%, striving to deliver value in every article output.
I hope to be able to build a hardcore popular science IP in Web3 down to earth, dispel the "engineer mentality" that shrouds the entire industry, make technology no longer overly abstract, allow high-quality projects to be discovered, and allow more people to understand Web3 in an easy-to-understand way and establish correct investment awareness.
NO.2 What was the opportunity that led you to enter the circle?
Before I entered the industry, I created a self-media IP in the field of science and technology Internet, which was considered to be one of the earliest science and technology self-media. The content I wrote was mainly about the competition between mobile Internet enterprise brands and their product strategies, such as mobile phones, e-commerce, short videos and other business wars. About two years later, the self-media industry ushered in an explosive period. Self-media has more freedom of speech and cutting-edge views than traditional media, which will play a key role in the brand building of Internet companies and the establishment of user minds. With this wave of self-media dividends, I was fortunate to realize the first original accumulation.
Later, I joined Web3 for two reasons. The first was that I found that the self-media industry was becoming more and more competitive. Workers from traditional news media such as newspapers and TV stations also began to flock to the self-media industry, increasing the competitive pressure. The industry was reshuffled at an accelerated pace, and only a few leading media could survive. Second, the technology industry has entered an era of high internal competition, filled with a large number of public relations wars and public opinion topics. Self-media has gradually become a weapon for some brands to suppress their opponents. Although it is indeed a very profitable "business" at present, it does not have much sustainable significance from a long-term perspective, so I began to seek a new direction.
Then at the end of 2017, the craze in the cryptocurrency circle attracted me to start to study the development of blockchain technology and why blockchain exists, and to understand the concept of decentralization, the chain structure of blockchain and the concept of public chain. This decentralized collaborative process of packaging transactions on the chain seemed very novel to me, and I became very interested in it, so I decided to transform from traditional technology Internet self-media to the blockchain industry and become a blockchain self-media.
Core content: I created a technology self-media IP, focusing on mobile phone brand competition and product strategy. But as competition in the self-media industry intensified, I began to feel the need to find new opportunities. At the end of 2017, I was attracted by the craziness of the currency circle and began to study the development process and reasons behind blockchain technology. I became interested in the idea of decentralization, the chain structure of blockchain and the concept of public chain, especially the decentralized collaborative process of transaction packaging and chaining. Therefore, I decided to switch from the traditional technology Internet industry to the emerging blockchain industry.
NO.3 Can you tell me more about the project you are working on?
I am currently building a blockchain media IP, which is positioned as a technical + business perspective to interpret cutting-edge blockchain technology. I will analyze the architecture of a project from a technical perspective, and at the same time gain insight into the project's industry status and strategic development potential from a business perspective.
The reason for this positioning is that during the five years since I entered the industry, I found that the media is full of abstract content. Many media popular science articles directly translate technical documents from overseas websites, but for people who lack technical understanding, it is difficult to effectively read and understand the content of these articles.
When people read these articles, they either just watch the fun or only have a partial understanding. I think the reason for this is that the entire industry is driven by engineers' thinking. When programmers write documents, they adopt more engineers' thinking. It is difficult for them to think from a non-engineer's perspective and how to clearly express these concepts so that other ordinary people can understand.
What I do is to try to express the abstract frontiers of science and technology, blockchain technology, and the technical principles of some top blockchain products and protocols in easy-to-understand language, so that more people can understand the basic principles behind blockchain. This is the direction I am currently working on. I think it is not an easy task, and it requires strong technical understanding and learning ability. And I think this should be something that the entire Web3 media industry should strive to do.
Core content: I created a blockchain technology self-media IP because I found that many technical articles are too abstract and difficult for ordinary readers to understand. I am committed to explaining blockchain technology in easy-to-understand language so that more people can understand the basic principles of this field.
NO.4 What is your most memorable experience in Web3?
My most unforgettable experience was when I first started writing popular science articles. I found that the threshold of the blockchain industry was extremely high. If you lack a deep understanding of the underlying blockchain, the articles you write will be very superficial and lack dissemination value. So I did not work in the media directly, but joined a blockchain security company and systematically learned blockchain knowledge under high-intensity pressure. During the three years of learning, I overcame various difficulties, improved my technical understanding, and made up for the blind spots in all aspects of blockchain knowledge.
To be honest, these three years of study were the darkest moments of my life. The blockchain industry tests people's learning ability and willpower, and the temptations of various wealth stories such as currency speculation and contracts are always noisy. It is difficult for ordinary people to withstand these tests. I was also successful in self-media on the Internet, but it was difficult for me to play my strengths when I first came to the blockchain industry. I once suspected that I had chosen the wrong direction. The continuous frustration made me confused, and I often wanted to give up, and even thought about resigning and returning to the Internet industry. But I remembered that my original intention of coming to the blockchain industry had not been realized, and I couldn't back down because of a little difficulty, so I chose to stay and decided to continue to fight to the end.
It was not until a year ago that I slowly found the feeling, so I tried to output hard-core popular science content on Twitter. This process was also extremely difficult. At the beginning, no one was interested in the content I wrote. Later, I gritted my teeth and followed up and commented on every hot technology change and hot project with the attitude of outputting and learning. Slowly formed my own characteristics and gradually attracted a large number of loyal readers. Fans often joked that how could you output long and practical content every day. I don’t know why, I just firmly believe that whenever there are some hot and confusing technical problems that confuse the public, I always have the urge to jump out and explain them to everyone as soon as possible, and often have to stay up late to do research and output content.
Core content: My unforgettable experience is that when I started writing popular science articles, I found that the threshold in the blockchain field was very high. In order to improve my understanding and writing skills, I joined a security company to learn. During the three years of learning, I spent a lot of time improving my technical understanding and deepening my systematic understanding of the blockchain industry. It is difficult to really master some popular science articles on the blockchain. It is difficult to find a balance between making novices understand and making technical masters feel that I have not misled the students.
NO.5 How do you observe the track and investment projects?
Sometimes people would make fun of me under my tweets, asking me if I could make money if I knew so much. I was speechless at first. Now I have gradually figured out a methodology from project technology and business analysis to investment. I believe that there is a logic to follow from observing the development of the track to investing in high-quality projects.
Take Layer2, which everyone is paying attention to, as an example. At present, Layer2 has been the focus of mainstream industry narratives for many years, but the overall development has not exceeded expectations. From Optimistic Rollup to ZK Rollup, these technologies have been developed for many years, but the progress has been relatively slow. You can also think of Layer2 as a new Layer1, because its architectural components are no different from Layer1. The only difference is that it needs to synchronize data with the main network when completing transactions. But apart from that, Layer2 is similar to Layer1 in terms of user volume, developer needs, ecological needs, data growth needs, etc. The difficulty of doing a good Layer1 is imaginable. For example, like the several chains that wanted to abolish Ethereum in the last round, Layer2 also needs to go through such a process. Therefore, investing in layer2 projects cannot simply look at technical factors, but must look at its comprehensive performance in operations, ecology, and market.
Secondly, I will think about what kind of Layer2 projects can attract attention since Layer2 will develop very slowly under the overall trend? I think that modular concept projects are the dividends of the slow development of Layer2 as a whole, because modular combination is more lightweight, easier to integrate resources, more narrative imagination space, and not easily obstructed by heavy ecological application landing and other problems, so it will be popular in the short term. The biggest manifestation of modularization is not to achieve a token, but to try to change the paradigm of the traditional single comprehensive chain, reduce the cost of the entire chain market, and change the market structure.
Core content: I think there is a certain logic in observing the track and investing in projects. Although Layer2 technology is the core trend of current attention, its implementation has not been as expected, which has given some modular projects more opportunities, because modular Layer2 projects have attracted much attention due to their characteristics of changing the traditional chain paradigm, reducing costs, and changing the market structure.
NO.6 Which track or project do you think is good?
I think AI+DePIN will become the main rising wave of the next bull market. Although the concept of DePIN has always existed, it has always been controversial. The focus of the controversy is that the functions of the traditional storage track seem to be very useful, but it has not been recognized by the mainstream. It always feels like a pseudo-demand created to create a concept. But it is different after adding AI, because AI requires large model training, especially for many small and medium-sized enterprises, it is too expensive to deploy the model on Amazon or Alibaba Cloud. So they prefer to use distributed cloud computing power to meet such needs and solve the problem at the lowest cost. Therefore, AI has brought new vitality to the entire DePIN industry, making it no longer look old and having a broader imagination space. Therefore, along this line of thought, you can find many projects around large model training and distributed cloud computing power, and these projects have great development potential.
Core content: I think the combination of AI and DePIN will become the main trend of the next bull market. AI injects new vitality into the DePIN industry, making it revitalized and having a broader development space. Therefore, projects around large-scale model training and distributed cloud computing power have great potential.
NO.7 What would you like to share proactively?
If we choose to join Web3, we must clarify our purpose and suitable work, find the field we are good at, and determine our own path. For example, if you choose to play contracts, you have to think clearly about your ability to make money outside the field and how long you can last at this gambling table? Most people make a floating profit and then lose all their principal. This is mainly because they choose short-term speculation rather than the path of long-term learning and accumulation. My path is to use learning and research capabilities to build personal IP, accumulate resources and connections. Then share my understanding of the project and investment experience, and make investments based on my own understanding in the secondary market. So I prefer value investment and choose a path that few people take. The cycle may be slower, but it is relatively stable, at least it allows me to sleep well.
Core content: When choosing to join Web3, you must clarify your goals and suitable work areas, and determine your own path. I chose to build personal IP, accumulate resources and connections, and make value investments.