Internet Capital Market: New Trend or Another Round of Speculation?

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 the cumbersome venture capital and IPO processes. Platforms like the Believe App on the Solana chain are driving this transformation, where users can easily issue and invest in projects by simply @mentioning the platform on social media.

Despite criticisms such as regulatory gaps and low thresholds, ICM still has strong potential for mass adoption, especially in promoting Web3 to Web2 users through a simple user experience, fiat payments, and viral growth. 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 transforming it from short-term speculation into a new paradigm of capital formation.

In traditional Capital Markets, entrepreneurs often rely on expensive and time-consuming financing methods, such as IPOs or venture capital. This path presents many challenges, such as lengthy application processes, complex legal procedures, and the need to cater to investors' preferences. For investors, early investment opportunities are largely monopolized by large institutions, making it almost impossible for ordinary investors to participate. This model is not only inefficient and lacks openness, but it also leads to a serious misalignment of incentives between creators and supporters.

ICM allows entrepreneurs to directly raise funds for their products via the internet, simply by tokenizing their ideas to immediately gain investor support. Investors hold assets directly through self-custody wallets, fully controlling ownership and liquidity. This approach significantly lowers the threshold for ordinary people to participate in investments and enables project parties to obtain startup funds more efficiently.

Currently, the leader of the ICM ecosystem is the Believe App on Solana. This platform allows founders to directly issue tokens via social media @ accounts, attempting to disrupt traditional venture capital models and provide decentralized, community-driven alternatives. Believe's simple user interface, mobile app, and fiat payment capabilities significantly lower the participation threshold, attracting a large number of Web2 users into the Web3 world.

However, there is a trade-off between efficiency and security in ICM. Founders can easily issue tokens without committing to any responsibilities, lacking a safeguard mechanism to ensure they fulfill their initial goals. To avoid being classified as securities, the platform has established strict legal compliance requirements, but this has also resulted in a disconnection between the tokens themselves and the underlying projects.

The original vision of ICM was to support founders and projects, but it is currently being clearly abused. Among the projects ranked at the top of the platform's market value, many are essentially still meme coins. To avoid becoming a target for short-term speculation, the ICM platform needs to build deeper practical value around the concept of "Internet Capital Market," including promoting meaningful community governance mechanisms, establishing a system of continuous responsibility for founders, and integrating projects with real-world application scenarios.

Overall, ICM is not just a short-term meme hype; it indeed has greater potential. By providing a simple and intuitive way of use, ICM can attract and convert a large number of Web2 users without requiring them to have deep Web3 knowledge. To truly make a lasting impact, the ICM platform must become an innovative platform that inspires creativity, drives projects, connects the masses, and facilitates the popularization of Web3.