# Business Models Related Articles

HTX News Center provides the latest articles and in-depth analysis on "Business Models", covering market trends, project updates, tech developments, and regulatory policies in the crypto industry.

From Being Ignored to the Venture Capital Queen Investing: Has AI Revived This Ultra-Niche Sector?

From obscurity to receiving investment from the "queen of venture capital," AI has revitalized the ultra-niche social networking track. In recent years, the social networking sector experienced a deep freeze in venture capital, with high-profile projects like the video social app "Huayin" (founded by a former WeChat core team member) and the offline-online dating app "Single's Tavern" ultimately failing. These failures underscored the immense difficulty of challenging WeChat's dominance in熟人社交 (close-contact social networking) and the general lack of scalable monetization paths for niche concepts like metaverse, female-only, or Muslim community apps. However, a shift emerged in 2025. "Liangpei," an AI-powered matchmaking company, secured a $2 million angel round from Today Capital, led by renowned investor Xu Xin. Its approach uses AI conversational profiling to create detailed user matches and charges only upon successful connections. Similarly, projects like "Pixel Rhythm" (reportedly focused on AI-assisted content creation for Gen Z overseas) and "Moobius" (AI-native group chat) signal a new trend. The investment logic has fundamentally changed. Instead of pursuing broad, traffic-driven "platform dreams" to compete with giants like WeChat, Douyin, or Soul, the new wave focuses on using AI as a tool to solve specific, high-pain-point problems for targeted, niche user segments. The path to viability now lies in achieving healthy cash flow by solving a concrete problem rather than chasing massive scale.

marsbit07/15 08:41

From Being Ignored to the Venture Capital Queen Investing: Has AI Revived This Ultra-Niche Sector?

marsbit07/15 08:41

From Transaction Fees to Stablecoins: The Revenue Drivers and Economic Moats Behind Web3 Business Models

"From Transaction Fees to Stablecoins: Revenue Drivers and Moats in Verified Web3 Business Models" This analysis explores five established Web3 revenue models, examining their drivers and long-term sustainability. 1. **Transaction Fees**: This model is highly cyclical, with income tied to market activity and user risk appetite (formula: volume × fee rate). Growth depends on expanding the market, gaining market share, and maintaining stable fees amid intense competition. 2. **Stablecoin Reserve Yield**: Revenue stems from the scale of issued stablecoins and the interest earned on their underlying reserves (like US Treasuries). While predictable with strong moats (high user migration costs), growth is tied to adoption as on-chain dollar infrastructure and is sensitive to interest rate cycles. 3. **Funding Rate Arbitrage & Lending Spreads**: Protocols like Aave and Ethena profit from capital supply-demand imbalances. Similar to transaction fees, this model is cyclical and driven by user leverage demand during bullish market phases. 4. **Block Space Sales**: Chains sell computational resources (formula: demand × gas price). A key challenge is the ongoing decline in gas fees due to technological advances and competition among L1s and L2s. Future viability hinges on whether demand growth can offset falling unit prices. 5. **Protocol-Level Service Fees**: Similar to SaaS, this model involves charging other protocols for essential services (e.g., oracles like Chainlink). Revenue scales with ecosystem adoption. The primary moat is high switching costs once integrated, making market leadership crucial. In summary: Transaction fees and funding spreads are highly cyclical. Stablecoin yields and protocol services build strong, durable moats. Block space sales face the structural challenge of perpetually declining unit revenue despite growing demand.

marsbit07/11 00:05

From Transaction Fees to Stablecoins: The Revenue Drivers and Economic Moats Behind Web3 Business Models

marsbit07/11 00:05

Who Will Make Money in the Age of Agents?

Who will capture value in an era where AI Agents become the primary blockchain users? Existing crypto value capture theories assume human users. "Fat Protocols" (2016) posited that protocols capture the most value as applications commoditize on open data, but this weakened as blockchain infrastructure proliferated and became interchangeable. The emerging "Fat Apps" theory argues applications capturing user relationships (like wallets and aggregators) win by controlling distribution and monetizing user flows. Agents fundamentally disrupt this logic. They don't value UX, brand, or convenience, bypassing the front-end moats of fat apps. This leads to several possible futures: 1. **"Headless" Apps**: Current app leaders (e.g., wallets) strip their front ends and become API infrastructure for Agents, preserving their value capture. 2. **Protocol Renaissance**: If integration is easy, Agents skip aggregators and interact directly with protocols, reviving the fat protocol thesis. 3. **Pricing Power Collapse**: Agents' rational, frictionless price shopping could commoditize the entire stack, compressing margins toward cost. Value flows to Agent owners or end-users. 4. **Unprecedented Activity**: Agents could enable entirely new, high-frequency economic activity (e.g., machine-to-machine commerce), expanding the total value pie. 5. **A New, Unnamed Model**: As with the internet's attention economy, a novel, unforeseen business model may emerge. Likely, human and Agent ecosystems will coexist with distinct value capture dynamics. For builders in the Agent realm, the key question shifts from UX to competitive advantages like liquidity, latency, or settlement guarantees that retain automated users.

链捕手05/27 13:51

Who Will Make Money in the Age of Agents?

链捕手05/27 13:51

The Divergence in Value Logic Between Eastern and Western Crypto KOLs

The article explores the fundamental differences in value logic between Eastern and Western crypto KOLs. The author, drawing from experience with venture capitalists in both regions, observes that Eastern perspectives focus heavily on practical, tactical aspects of projects—such as revenue models, tokenomics, and operational logistics—treating crypto ventures like traditional businesses. In contrast, Western narratives prioritize grand, aspirational stories capable of promising 10x to 100x returns, often glossing over practical details to attract major capital. This divergence leads to opposing definitions of "key opinion." Eastern KOLs tend to deconstruct and critically analyze, while Western ones build on ambitious, high-concept narratives aimed at securing large-scale investments. The author notes that although the most influential narratives and capital formations often originate from the West (e.g., restaking, Rollup, FHE), many of the industry’s most profitable ventures (like CEXs, DEXs, payment systems) are dominated by Eastern players. Structural factors, such as lower capital costs in the West due to institutional backing, and cultural differences—Eastern societies being more pragmatic and battle-tested—contribute to this divide. The author concludes that Eastern KOLs shouldn’t be seen as "degenerate" but as fundamentally oppositional in approach. Success, they argue, lies in challenging Western narratives with Eastern value logic, forcing the global conversation to engage with a more grounded, critical perspective.

marsbit01/16 10:06

The Divergence in Value Logic Between Eastern and Western Crypto KOLs