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Alliance DAO sees SocialFi, stablecoins and AI as big focus for emerging web3 startups
The accelerator just had its demo day, showcasing 12 teams
Jacquelyn Melinek
May 07, 2024
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Alliance’s All12 demo day shows growth opportunities for old and new web3 sectors
Alliance DAO, a web3 accelerator program, had a demo day for its most recent cohort, All12, on May 2. Check out the 12 projects here.
“We pick the top one percent of founders,” Qiao Wang, founding member of Alliance DAO, said on the Talking Tokens podcast. Out of 1,503 applicants for its latest cohort, only 0.8%, or 12 teams, graduated. This cohort had a 38.7% increase in total applicants, up from 1,083 for its All11’s program.
I sat down with Wang to discuss the state of the web3 startup world and where crypto developers and founders are focusing their attention.
The top areas Wang is seeing growth in is in SocialFi (consumer products), stablecoin payments in emerging markets, and decentralized AI.
“The crypto consumer products that are working are at the intersection of social and finance,” Wang said. “I really feel this whole SocialFi vertical is on the verge of reaching mainstream [adoption.]” The major missing piece for it is greater experimentation and founders building new things, he added.
As for stablecoins, it’s “virtually free,” which is resulting in it taking off in Africa and Latin America, Wang said. Almost every startup he spoke with, in those two regions and have a live product, are growing at a pace of “at least 10% month over month…I think they have real product market fit.”
Lastly, the AI space obviously has a lot of “hype and a lot of fluff,” Wang said. But there’s potential for decentralized AI to be a huge theme built out through blockchain technology as the need for data transparency grows.
Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.
The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️
For this week’s Tuesday episode, I spoke to Qiao Wang, founding member of Alliance DAO.
We dive into how Alliance picks startups for its cohorts, what successful projects have in common, the struggles and successes through bull and bear markets and what he’s following in the market, among other topics.
Talking Tokens episodes are released on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at 6AM EST or YouTube at 12PM EST every Tuesday and Thursday.
Make sure to subscribe to keep up with the latest episodes. Feel free to leave a review and tell us your thoughts!
Monitoring blockchains
Looking at some of the biggest developments onchain.
Solana Renaissance Hackathon announced its winners after over 1,000 projects submitted to the event, making it the largest online Solana hackathon to date
Optimism and Base launched Onchain Summer II with 600 ETH and 600K OP tokens, worth about $3.67M in rewards for those building on the Superchain
Aptos-based Echelon Market was the fastest growing DeFi app by TVL growth in April, according to CryptoRank data
Taking on the tokens
The total crypto market cap decreased less than 1% in the past 24-hours to $2.36 trillion. It is up 4.8% over a 7-day period.
As for the largest coins by market cap…
Cryptocurrency | Price | 24h % | 7-day % |
|---|---|---|---|
Bitcoin (BTC) | $64,093 | -0.30% | +4.17% |
Ethereum (ETH) | $3,103 | -1.73% | +2.34% |
BNB (BNB) | $599.65 | +1.08% | +3.75% |
Solana (SOL) | $156.95 | +1.77% | +21.37% |
These metrics were taken at 7:15 AM EST.
Other numbers we’re eyeing…
The stablecoin market cap on NEAR hit an all-time high over the weekend at $362M (chart below)
Money and people moves
Latest updates on crypto startups that secured funding and industry players who are starting something new.
Former LA mayor joins Coinbase (Blockworks)
Brett Reeves leaves Citibank and TradFi to join BitGo EU team
Paragraph raises $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures, takes over web3 blogging platform Mirror (The Block)
Crypto venture capital funding hits $1B for second straight month (Cointelegraph)
Talking points for the road
Here’s some headlines and topics that you can talk about at your next dinner party, crypto event or on a first date to look smart (results may vary.)
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