Internet Capital Market ( ICM ): New Paradigm or Another Round of Speculation?

The Internet Capital Market ( ICM ) serves as a crypto-native alternative to traditional Capital Markets, allowing entrepreneurs to raise funds directly from the online community through tokenization, bypassing the cumbersome venture capital and IPO processes. Platforms such as Believe App are leading this transformation on the Solana chain, where users can easily issue and invest in projects by simply @-mentioning the platform on social media.

Despite issues such as regulatory gaps and low entry barriers, ICM still demonstrates strong potential for mass adoption, especially in promoting Web3 through a simple user experience and viral marketing. 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, transforming it from short-term speculation into a new paradigm of capital formation.

Limitations of Traditional Capital Markets

In traditional Capital Markets ( TCM ), entrepreneurs often rely on expensive and time-consuming financing methods such as IPOs or venture capital, facing numerous challenges:

For financing parties, they need to deal with cumbersome processes and complex procedures, making it difficult to focus on product development and community building.

For investors, early opportunities are often monopolized by large institutions, making it difficult for ordinary investors to participate.

This inefficient and closed model leads to a misalignment of incentives between creators and supporters, reflecting the market's demand for more open and direct financing methods, which is the core issue that ICM aims to address.

Definition and Advantages of ICM

ICM is a new narrative in the crypto industry that allows entrepreneurs to raise funds for their products directly through the internet, without the traditional cumbersome processes, simply by tokenizing their ideas to gain investor support.

Unlike traditional markets, under the ICM model, investors hold assets directly through self-custody wallets, completely controlling ownership and liquidity. This not only lowers the participation threshold for ordinary people but also allows project parties to acquire startup capital more efficiently.

ICM Ecosystem Status

The concept of ICM is highly aligned with the Solana strategy. The Solana Foundation has proposed the vision of building an "internet-native Nasdaq" that allows anyone to freely participate in the Capital Market.

The current leader of the ICM ecosystem is the Believe App on Solana. This platform allows founders to directly issue tokens through social media @ accounts, attempting to disrupt the traditional venture capital model and provide a decentralized, community-driven alternative.

The development of Believe began when Web2 entrepreneur Ben Pasternak issued a personal token in January. Although it eventually collapsed due to technical issues, the platform subsequently transformed to focus on project tokens and launched the core token $launchcoin. After being shared by well-known founders, it quickly gained attention, with several project tokens successfully issued and achieving high market values, pushing the platform's overall market value to $314 million.

Success Factors of Believe

Compared to similar platforms like Clanker, Believe has significant advantages in multiple aspects:

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

2. User Experience: The Believe issuance process is simpler, the interface is more intuitive, and a mobile application has been launched that supports fiat currency purchases, significantly lowering the barriers to entry for Web3 participation.

3. Narrative and Vision: Believe emphasizes supporting the development of real projects rather than pure speculation, making it easier to resonate with the community and attract users pursuing long-term value.

Challenges Faced by ICM

Although the concept is attractive, ICM makes trade-offs between efficiency and security.

1. Lack of founder responsibility: No commitment to any delivery obligations, lack of保障机制 to ensure goal achievement.

2. Token and project disconnection: To avoid being regarded as securities, tokens are essentially similar to souvenirs, with a huge disconnect from the underlying project value.

3. Narrative is abused: Many projects package themselves as "supporting innovation", but in essence, they are still creating short-term speculation.

Future Development Directions of ICM

To avoid becoming short-term speculation, the ICM platform needs to:

1. Optimize the economic model and set up a penalty mechanism to incentivize the founders to continuously update the project.

2. Establish a DAO mechanism to enhance transparency and the sense of responsibility of the founding team.

3. Build deeper practical value and promote truly meaningful community governance.

4. Integrate projects with real application scenarios to attract a broader user base.

If ICM can continuously evolve around the concept of "Internet Capital Market", it is expected to become an important force in promoting the popularization of Web3, rather than just a fleeting hype platform.