At the end of yesterday's article, there was a comment:
"Currently, Web 3 is stuck finding no application scenarios. I think perhaps sports betting and adult clusters might have some real application scenarios..."
This is a question I have been observing and anticipating for a long time. However, after waiting for so long in this cycle, I still haven't discovered such a specific application scenario.
Stablecoins and stock trading, two applications that have been hyped this round, actually existed very early and are not considered anything new in the crypto ecosystem. For retail investors, at least I have never made money from stablecoins and stock trading, so I never had high expectations for these two applications. As for how high they can ultimately bring the ecosystem's applications, and specifically which asset prices they might push to generate substantial returns, that can only be observed in the future.
I am optimistic about AI + Crypto, but this is a track that ultimately requires landing on a specific application scenario to make money. From this perspective, this track has not yet produced a blockbuster application.
Seeing this comment, I suddenly thought of two things: first, the Silk Road, which played an important role in Bitcoin's development history; second, a recent adult application AI Agent on Virtual.
Readers who are somewhat familiar with Bitcoin's development history have probably heard of the "Silk Road", and even if they haven't heard of the "Silk Road", they likely know its founder Ross William Ulbricht, because Trump pardoned Ulbricht on the second day of his presidency as part of fulfilling his campaign promise.
The "Silk Road" was an early famous Dark Web where illegal items were traded, even including some extremely inhumane illegal items.
Due to the specificity of such transactions, it had an unusual preference and reliance on privacy, and at that time, Bitcoin, which had relatively good privacy, perfectly met this need. Ulbricht suddenly proposed using Bitcoin for Dark Web transactions and publicly posted his idea on the Bitcoin forum.
Shortly after his proposal was made public, Bitcoin was quickly used in Dark Web transactions and achieved significant success.
Regardless of our moral stance, the rise of Bitcoin transactions on the Dark Web played an immeasurable role in Bitcoin's early price takeoff. The Dark Web can be said to be the first true large-scale application scenario for Bitcoin.
In that era, without the support of such edge application scenarios, hoping for mainstream application scenarios to use Bitcoin and push its price and consensus to later heights would have been basically impossible and extremely unrealistic.
By analogy to the current AI + Crypto, might it be facing a similar predicament?
In current application scenarios, although I believe many scenarios combining encryption technology and AI can definitely create smoother and cooler experiences, it seems that the vast Web 2 users are not so concerned about this.
This forces me to wonder if AI + Crypto is also waiting for its "Silk Road" moment?
Might a blockbuster application in this track also appear in some edge scenarios? Ultimately triggering a "rural surrounding urban" path for this track?
So what are such edge scenarios?
I believe sports betting or broader prediction betting applications qualify, but another type of application - adult-related applications that are more private, taboo in public settings, yet have an astonishingly large user base - might also be worth paying attention to.
Just a few days ago, a such a project appeared on Virtual during its new launch, and surprisingly, while many projects were breaking issue price, this project actually rose after opening, which is truly eye-catching.
Of course, this is not to say that only these two application scenarios are worth attention, but rather that in the AI + Crypto track, some niche-focused, publicly taboo, but extremely high-demand application scenarios should not be overlooked.
On Saturday, July 12th at 7:30 PM, we will have an online exchange. Everyone can post their questions under the following post:
https://x.com/Dao_Views/status/1941136815173566847
