Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News
Every year at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, a new batch of tracks, projects, and stars emerges. This year is no exception.
If last year's TOKEN2049 saw most industry professionals discussing Solana, Base, TON, and BTCFi, this year's TOKEN2049 has almost everyone talking about the crypto tracks including: DAT, RWA, and Perp DEX.
The rise of DAT represents a new group of players—public companies are deeply engaging in the crypto industry. CEOs of public companies, such as BitMine's Tom Lee and Bit Digital's Sam, who have included Ethereum in their strategic asset reserves, attended this TOKEN2049 and gave public speeches. The latest data shows that BitMine holds nearly $11 billion in Ethereum.
At the TOKEN2049 conference in 2024, most industry professionals were unaware of who these individuals were, but by this TOKEN2049, they have become "stars" in the crypto industry, receiving enthusiastic attention.
These CEOs of public companies have a very passionate, even fanatical, attitude towards Bitcoin and Ethereum. For example, Tom Lee stated in his TOKEN2049 speech that Ethereum's year-end target would directly aim for $10,000 to $15,000. Regarding long-term prices, Tom Lee believes "the fair price of ETH is $60,000." At the TOKEN2049 venue, I asked Bit Digital CEO Sam under what conditions he would sell Ethereum, and he said he would never sell under any circumstances.
The continued popularity of RWA represents the ongoing deep integration of the financial industry with the crypto industry. Some new projects are emerging, such as Ondo, xStocks, and MyStonks, which are benefiting from the popularity of stock tokenization and are becoming hot projects in the RWA track.
I encountered people working in RWA-related fields at almost every Side Event, whether at Solana's events or those heading to exchanges. Some are involved in quantitative funds, focusing on finding RWA clients and hoping they will deposit funds into their products; others are collaborating with Singaporean financial institutions to provide "U.S. Treasury tokenization" services and working with crypto institutions to offer "U.S. Treasury tokenization" services to retail investors.
This year's TOKEN2049 has perhaps garnered the most attention from industry insiders for the project Hyperliquid. As a phenomenal project in the crypto industry, it has led the rise of the entire Perp DEX track. Whether it's the CEO of a Nasdaq-listed company or a newcomer in the industry, it seems everyone I met was discussing Hyperliquid and its ecosystem projects related to lending, NFTs, and RWA. At multiple events related to Hyperliquid, people formed long lines.
If the above points are differences from previous years, there are also some similarities. For instance, cryptocurrency exchanges often become one of the main characters at this event.
During TOKEN2049, it seemed that anywhere in Singapore, you could see people carrying OKX green gift bags. Inside the TOKEN2049 venue, major exchanges always occupy the central position, with OKX, Bitget, HTX, CoinW, MEXC… their booths always take up the largest space and attract the most crowds. This mirrors the situation in the cryptocurrency industry itself.
During this TOKEN2049, many projects were quite generous. For example, SafePal brought several boxes of hardware wallets to give away to attendees, with a staff member stating that each hardware wallet sells for $69 on their official website. Additionally, Bit Deer provided high-quality shirts, with staff claiming they are worth over $300. There was also a project team entirely made up of Indian staff that directly gave away watches resembling Apple Watches. Many exhibiting projects invested heavily. At some surrounding Side Events, attendees often saw project teams giving away iPhones, Apple headphones, and watches as raffle prizes.
The organizers behind TOKEN2049 are reaping substantial profits.
I learned that the Title Sponsor fee for 2023 was $300,000, for 2024 it is $400,000, and for 2025 it has reached $500,000. This year, there are 10 Title Sponsors, meaning this revenue alone amounts to $5 million.
It is reported that this year's most basic booth costs $15,000, and if we estimate based on 400 booths, the conservative revenue could reach $6 million.
According to official data, TOKEN2049 had as many as 25,000 attendees, with early bird tickets priced at $599, and tickets purchased one or two weeks before the event costing $999 each. Even if we conservatively calculate based on 20,000 attendees at $600 per ticket, the ticket revenue alone would reach $12 million.
With just these three sources of income, the organizers behind TOKEN2049 have garnered up to $22 million. This might explain why this year TOKEN2049 also rented the first floor as a venue. There is no need to worry about a lack of attendees or insufficient sponsors and project booths. At TOKEN2049 in Singapore, what people see is a "beauty of economic upturn."
This is also evident from the hotel prices in Singapore during TOKEN2049. Last year, it was still possible to find ordinary hotels for over 2,000 yuan a night. However, this year, if you wait until a few days before the conference to book, the price for ordinary hotels during TOKEN2049 has skyrocketed to 6,000 yuan a night. High-end hotels have generally risen to over 10,000 yuan a night.
During TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Foresight News counted a total of 591 official and surrounding events, compared to 281 events during the same period last year. It can be said that during this week of the global crypto event, Singapore had hundreds of events spread across various areas of the city almost every day. Such a dense schedule of activities not only attracted a surge of attendees but also contributed significantly to Singapore's tourism revenue, significantly boosting local consumption for the week.
TOKEN2049 is not only a stage for leading projects to showcase their strength and promote their brands but also a "barometer" for observing the overall direction of the cryptocurrency industry.
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