GCR

This article is a translated article from Odaily, with some minor edits from the team at GCR.

Last week, a group of participants whose cumulative net worth of 100 billion yuan came together at the Dragonfly Capital Summit, and many well-known investors in the traditional China Internet circle all gathered together. This above group photo of the some of the most important guys in China internet space blew up the internet and took the Chinese world by storm.

What does this cumulative value of this above photo signal? In the picture, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the Ethereum, known as the V God in China, stands in the center position, his dressing style separating himself from from the domestic traditional Internet circle and the investment circle.

From left to right in the above photo, Shen Nanpeng, global executive partner of Sequoia Capital, Feng Bo, founder of Ceyuan Ventures/ Dragonfly Capital, Vitalik, founder of Ethereum, and Wang Xing, founder of Meituan, the Yelp of China. On the far-right side of the picture, one man who only showed only half of his face, is thought by netizens to be the founder of Toutiao, Zhang Tao.

Feng Bo’s shoes, Vitalik’s’s watch

In the cryptocurrency circle, the names and faces of Shen Nanpeng, Wang Xing, Zhang Tao, Vitalik and others have long been familiar. After the photo broke out, many people curiously asked on Weibo and the community. Who is the man in the purple on the picture? ?

In fact, the picture of the man in the big purple suit, Feng Bo, was the most mysterious guest at this conference. In the media’s eye, Feng was dubbed as one of China’s first generation of investors. As early as 1994, Feng Bo represented the US  investment company Robertson Stevens to invest in the domestic mainland market. At the same time, because he is not often interviewed by the media, Feng Bo is often referred to as the most mysterious investor.

After that, Feng Bo’s Ceyuan investment arm successfully invested in a number of well-known Internet projects in China such as Thunder (a Chinese company), Vanke Eslite, Qihoo 360, Douban, PPS, Public Comment, and Century Jiayuan. It is worth noting that the investment projects that were showcased in Crunchbase also included OKcoin, an exchange established by founder Xu Mingxing in the early days. OKcoin is now a well-known company in the cryptocurrency circle.

At the same time that this photo was spreading like wildfire on the Internet, it also ushered in the spoof comments of netizens.

Some people commented on Feng Bo’s shoes, which you can purchase for a whopping price of 30,000 yuan, or 4000 dollars. Vitalik’s Swatch watch appeared cute in comparison. 

Additionally, with the photo’s circulation, the media began to speculate, are Chinese VCs entering the blockchain spaces now?

Ethereum holders online also commented in forums: “folks, this shows that the big players in China are optimistic about Ethereum, it is for sure going to go up, what are you waiting for?

The Closed Door Dragonfly Capital Summit 

The agenda of the Dragonfly Capital conference was shared with various cryptocurrency groups last week.

The conference topics covered the future of cryptocurrency, smart contract platforms, centralized financial infrastructure construction, exchange landscape, investment trends, decentralized finance (DeFi), and next-generation technologies.

While the event was off the record, some Chinese media highlighted some takeaways.

When asked what is currently happening in the industry- “ What do you think should have happened but still hasn’t happened?”, Vitalik  says it is “the progress of the wallet”, formeer Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu believes that it is “payment using cryptocurrency”, Paradigm Fund Partner Fred Ehrsam think of it as “more and better games, predicting the market.”

At the same time, according to Ethereum ecosystem developer Lane Rettig, echoing Vitalik: “Technology is growing at a slower rate than I expected. Five years ago, I thought we had completed PoS and sharding now. Ethereum is the same, but all other projects are also static. We underestimate the importance of the community. Two years ago, I firmly believed that if you built good technology, they would naturally establish yourself. Now, we see that good technology will not appear if you don’t invest in the community, otherwise it won’t be so good.”

When it comes to competitors who let Vitalik feel the pressure, Vitalik responded: “NEAR is doing very well. Dfinity- I used to think it was a very difficult competitor, but they themselves encountered some unexpected challenges.”

Are the Chinese VCs entering crypto?

Shen Nanpeng, the global executive partner of Sequoia Capital, an important individual in the traditional Internet circle, was not the only attendee highlight. Other famous figures such as the world’s largest mining machine manufacturer, Bitmain, Jihan Wu, Ethereum founder Vitalik . Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, well-known digital currency exchange OKCoin founder Xu Minxing, well-known exchange Huobi founder Li Lin,  and Facebook’s blockchain project Libra node participant and custody solution Anchorage founder Diogo Monica.

For the traditional Internet circle, these crypto figures may be unfamiliar. In addition to Shen Nanpeng, who is worth 30 billion yuan, and Wang Xing, who is worth 40 billion yuan, the value of some other currency figures cannot be underestimated.

Jihan Wu himself recently climbed the list of Hurun’s rich list with a price of 17 billion yuan. Ethereum, created by Vitalik, is valued at nearly 30 billion US dollars. Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, has also founded the largest crypto venture capital fund in the currency circle, with a fund size of more than one billion US dollars.

It is rare to see so many big shots in the cryptocurrency circle. Of course, Feng Bo’s credibility is indispensable.

In October 2018, the media reported that Dragonfly Capital, the organizer of the conference, completed a $100 million fund fundraising. Investors included Shen Nanpeng of Sequoia Capital, Bao Fan, founder of China Renaissance, and Xu Xiaoping, founder of Zhen Fund. And also, Baidu founder Xu Yong, Mei Tuan chairman Zhang Tao, Mito founder Cai Wensheng and Bitmain CEO. According to reports, Dragonfly Capital has more than 20 investment projects in the blockchain field, including well-known blockchain projects such as Basis, Spacemesh and Oasis Labs.

In other words, many of the participants were LP or invested in Dragonfly Capital.

Wang Xing, the CEO of Meituan, did not appear on the agenda. Nevertheless, he is a familiar face in the cryptocurrency circle.

Although building his empire on the internet days, Wang Xing often updates his understanding and evaluation of new things in the blockchain via his social account Weibo. Another live picture shows that Wang Xing is likely to be seated in the second row of the meeting.

 After the photo of the group photo broke out, some netizens began to discuss whether Meituan was going to transition to the Blockchain.  They event speculated with a 2025 view of Meituan’s app joking about the integration of blockchain in every one of its services- including Airplane Chain, Travel Chain, etc.

It is still unclear what conclusions the traditional Internet circles founders have reached at the end of this crypto conference, but at least for the folks in the cryptocurrency circle, they may have finally observed a “collective entry” of the Internet conglomerates.

Disclosure: Joyce Yang, founder of Global Coin Research, is a personal investor in a project named in the article, Near Protocol.