Internet Capital Markets: How to Identify “Real” Tokens Amid Speculative Waves?
In recent days, the cryptocurrency market has witnessed an explosion of Internet Capital Markets (ICM) tokens, especially on the Solana ecosystem. Tens of thousands of new tokens have been created in just a few days through the Believe app, making investors confused in distinguishing between truly valuable projects and “speculative bubbles”.
Some experts have commented that most of these tokens do not reflect equity ownership as originally defined by ICM, but simply represent “attention” – a form of Attention Capital Markets (ACM).
ICM Tokens or Just a Trend?
According to Yash Agarwal – co-founder of AI platform SendAI – most of the newly launched tokens have no real connection to the operations of the applications they represent. “They do not bring ownership of revenue or assets. They only represent the level of attention from the community, and that is enough to promote short-term speculation,” he shared on the X platform.
Yash warns that if investors do not understand the nature, they can get caught up in the FOMO spiral and miss out on real long-term opportunities.
6 factors to evaluate quality ICM tokens
To support the investor community in the right direction in this wave, Agarwal proposes an evaluation framework consisting of 6 key criteria:
Virality: Does the application have a self-spreading mechanism? Does it integrate features that encourage sharing or inviting friends?
Team commitment: Is the project founded and operated by a serious team, or is it just a byproduct to catch the trend?
Feedback and improvement: Is the application regularly updated and improved based on user feedback, or is it just focused on “shill” tokens?
Real blockchain integration: Does the project actually apply blockchain technology or is it just a marketing gimmick?
User retention strategy: Is the application designed to maintain long-term interaction, or is it just short-term attraction to pump prices?
Development status: Has the project launched or is it still in the design? Real projects with products are always more trustworthy.
Community warning: Don’t let coin memes overwhelm your vision
DeFi Mars – an on-chain analyst – also warned the community about the phenomenon of “copying and pasting” coin memes on the Believe application. ICM, he argues, should not become another meme coin craze like Doge or PEPE, but should focus on meaningful projects built by teams with a long-term vision.
“Only quality will survive in this new cycle of capital markets,” Mars asserts.
In the same vein, analyst Miya argues that using Believe to launch a series of junk tokens is undermining the original mission of the platform – which was designed to replace traditional venture capital funds with a blockchain-based crowdfunding mechanism.
The Future of Internet Capital Markets: Tokenizing Equity
Agarwal believes that in the next phase, ICM will not stop at just representing attention. “We will see the emergence of tokens that actually represent ownership stakes in the application – a full tokenization of equity on the blockchain,” he says.
Additionally, he predicts that specialized user interfaces will emerge to help filter out high-quality projects, while independent research organizations and token analysis newsletters will become increasingly necessary – similar to how traditional financial analysis organizations operate.
Conclusion
While the ICM wave is becoming a new “meta” in the Web3 world, investors need to be alert to distinguish between hype and real value. Applying rigorous evaluation frameworks, combined with an understanding of blockchain technology and equity models, will be the key to selecting the right project among the sea of tokens floating in the market.