Internet Capital Market ICM: New Trend or Another Hype?

The Internet Capital Market ( ICM ) is a cryptonative alternative to traditional capital markets, allowing entrepreneurs to raise funds directly from online communities through tokenization, bypassing cumbersome venture capital and IPO processes. Platforms represented by Believe App are leading this transformation on the Solana chain, enabling users to easily issue projects and invest by simply @ mentioning the platform account on social media.

Despite issues such as regulatory gaps and low project thresholds, ICM still has strong potential for mass adoption, especially in simplifying user experience and providing fiat payment gateways. To achieve long-term development, the ICM platform needs to promote founder accountability mechanisms, optimize the token economic model, build DAO governance, and realize real utility, thereby surpassing short-term speculation and becoming a new Capital Market formation paradigm.

Limitations of Traditional Capital Markets

In traditional capital markets, entrepreneurs often rely on expensive and time-consuming IPOs or venture capital financing. This model presents numerous challenges:

• Financing faces lengthy application processes and complex legal procedures, making it difficult to focus on product development and community building.
• Early investment opportunities are monopolized by large institutions, making it difficult for ordinary investors to participate.
• Inefficient and lacking openness, misalignment of incentives between creators and supporters

These structural issues reflect the market's demand for more open, direct, and participatory financing methods, which is the core problem that ICM aims to address.

The Essence of ICM

ICM is a new narrative in the cryptocurrency industry, allowing entrepreneurs to raise funds for their products directly through the internet, obtaining investor support simply by tokenizing their ideas. Unlike traditional markets:

• Investors hold assets directly through self-custody wallets, fully controlling ownership and liquidity.
• Significantly lower the investment threshold for ordinary people
• Project parties can obtain startup capital more efficiently.

Current Status of the ICM Ecosystem

The Solana Foundation has proposed the vision of building an "Internet-native Nasdaq", where anyone can freely participate in the Capital Market. Currently, the leader of the ICM ecosystem is the Believe App on Solana, which allows founders to issue tokens through social platforms.

The development of Believe has gone through several stages:

1. In January, Web2 entrepreneur Ben Pasternak launched his personal token $Pasternak, which reached a market value of 77 million USD at one point, but ultimately collapsed due to technical issues.

2. In late April, the platform was renamed Believe, shifting its focus to creativity and projects, and launched a new core token $launchcoin.

3. Multiple projects such as $GOON and $NOODLE were successfully launched on Believe and achieved high market capitalization, with the platform's overall market value reaching $314 million at one point.

Success Factors of Believe

Compared to other token issuance platforms like Clanker, Believe has advantages in several aspects:

1. Ecological Impact: The transaction volume and activity on the Solana chain far exceed that of the Base chain, providing greater growth momentum for Believe.

2. User Experience:

   • The issuance process is simple, just fill in the token abbreviation and @ the platform account.
   • The interface is intuitive and simple, with a mobile application.
   • Supports direct credit card purchases, no Web3 knowledge required

3. Narrative and Vision: Emphasize supporting the development of real projects rather than merely hype around memes, which is more likely to resonate.

Challenges Facing ICM

Despite the appealing concept, ICM makes trade-offs between efficiency and security:

1. Lack of Founder Responsibility: No commitment to deliver or assume legal obligations, lacking a保障机制.

2. Narrative is being abused: Many projects wrap themselves in "supporting innovation", but in essence, they are still meme speculation.

3. The token is disconnected from the project: the token is more like a digital collectible, not representing equity or revenue.

Development Direction of ICM

To overcome current challenges and achieve long-term development, the ICM platform may consider:

1. Optimize the economic model: establish a penalty mechanism to incentivize founders to continuously update the project.

2. Establish DAO mechanism: Increase community voting rights and feedback rights, enhance transparency.

3. Deepen Practical Value:

   • Promote meaningful community governance
   • Establish a system of continuous responsibility for founders
   • Integrated Real-World Application Scenarios Project

4. Maintain Competitive Advantage: Continue to lead in the competition with traditional token issuance platforms.

If ICM can evolve around these directions, it is expected to transform from short-term speculation into an innovative platform that promotes the popularization of Web3, achieving a more lasting impact.