Wintermute EthCC observation: DeFi is headed for Vault, and the founders are no longer in a hurry to issue a currency

Original by: Wintermute Ventures

Original: Deep tide TechFlow

Introduction:Joscha Kupferberg, investment manager of & & & & & & & & ; Winter Ventures, participated in the EthCC conference in Cannes, bringing back a line of observation: VC is more cautious but still on the way, the founders are generally not rushing to issue currency, and DeFi builders are rushing to Vault, the new banking function is becoming a frame rather than a differential advantage, and AI Agent's use in encryption has almost completely returned to trading robots。

@wmt ventures push:

What is the encryption builder doing now

"Vault is the new Perps." That's a repeated word at the EthCC conference in Cannes. The conference reflected a broader shift in industry: fewer noises, more institutional faces, and the fact that the founders were doing their work quietly rather than chasing the rhythm. Our investment manager  @joshakup  spent a week in these conversations. here's his observation。

EthCC atmosphere

UNLIKE SOME PESSIMISM, THE ATMOSPHERE ON THE GROUND IS GENERALLY POSITIVE. EARLY BUILDERS, VCS AND FAMILY OFFICES, WHICH ARE ACTIVELY FUNDED, ARE COMBINED AND CONSTITUTE RELATIVELY HEALTHY. THE ONLY OBVIOUS SHADOW IS LAY-OFFS — THE WHOLE INDUSTRY IS STILL REAL AND WIDESPREAD。

ENCRYPT VC

VC is more cautious, but still active. The direction has shifted to late-stage seed wheels and later stages, where there is pull and product market convergence to assess. The era of pure vibes betting moonshot looks over。

The founder no longer pursues the coin

Most of the early founders of Joscha talked about not making the issuance of tokens a priority. Focus is on producing economically viable products first. The choice of tokens is the following topic — if any。

It's a subject worth tracking

Several warming trends:

• Foreign exchange in the chain is becoming a serious issue
• Privacy-oriented DeFi is emerging as a serious track, and more and more projects are exploring institutional levels. Example
• Predicting substantial pull in the market and increasing competition for liquidity infrastructure and incentive design

Vault is new Perps

DeFi builters are working on their heads, increasingly focusing on institutional examples and RWA. If there's a theme you can't get around, it's the vault. From Vault infrastructure, revenue products to re-loading, tactical detectors and ratings, the entire track has become highly condensed into this category, followed by stable currency and new banks (neobank)。

New banks are no longer differential advantages

Many notable TVL DeFi projects are accessing third-party service providers to provide new banking functions: access to gold corridors, bank cards, and revenue pools. This is a reasonable practice for retaining users, but the logical assumption is that the new bank itself does not constitute differentiation。

AI Agent sent back almost all the trading machines. People

Most of the AI Agent examples in encryption seem to have turned 180 degrees back to trading robots. Joscha wanted to bring back some new ideas, but no. This is the only area that has yet to surprise him。