In June this year, SRM Entertainment Inc. announced the adoption of a TRX treasury strategy, rebranding as Tron Inc. and changing its ticker symbol to TRON (NASDAQ: TRON). This move has not only enhanced TRON's global exposure and recognition, but the cross-sector impact from increased traffic and liquidity is expected to benefit the entire HTX ecosystem.

From forecasting trends to positioning within them, how did HTX Ventures develop this forward-looking perspective that has withstood market validation?

Today, we speak with Alec Goh, Head of HTX Ventures, to explore HTX Ventures' market observations, operational strategies, and future outlook.

Q: Thank you for your time. First, please introduce yourself to our audience.

Alec:

I'm Alec Goh, Head of HTX Ventures. Great to be here with you all.

I've been with HTX for nearly four years. I previously worked in M&A and strategic investments, and last year I officially took on the role of Head of HTX Ventures, which is the strategic investment arm of HTX exchange, formerly known as Huobi.

Before entering Web3, I worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, focusing on private equity, credit products, and M&A across the Asia-Pacific and European markets.

Having experience in both traditional finance and crypto-native finance, I believe this background will serve me well in the current environment where we're seeing accelerated convergence between Web2 and Web3. Building bridges between traditional finance and the crypto world is also a key strategic direction for HTX. Moving forward, I'll be working with my team to capture key market trends and facilitate more efficient collaboration between traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem.

Rise of RWA

Q: RWA has made significant strides this year. How does HTX Ventures view RWA's role in driving the next phase of DeFi growth?

Alec:

From HTX Ventures’ points of view, we’ve always been very bullish on RWAs. After stablecoins, payments, and DeFi lending achieved product-market fit first, RWA represents the next major force driving Web3 toward broader mainstream adoption.

I say this because there’s already substantial liquidity in the Web3 space. Stablecoins alone are somewhere between 200 - 300 bn, and this capital needs deployment opportunities. DeFi users are continuously seeking more efficient capital allocation strategies with clearer risk-return profiles, and RWAs provide a legitimate pathway for capital deployment.

In our view, RWA's value is primarily reflected in four key areas:

• Liquidity unlock. Many traditional assets have poor liquidity in the traditional financial system, such as real estate or private equity, which often trade at significant discounts of 20-30%. By bringing these assets on-chain as RWAs, we can unlock suppressed liquidity, creating more value for traditional finance while giving DeFi investors access to products they couldn't reach before.

• Global market access. In traditional finance, certain assets can only be invested in within specific jurisdictions. When you tokenize these assets, they can be traded globally on-chain through DeFi. Blockchain is borderless and permissionless, so RWA can reach a much broader investor base, something that's difficult to achieve with traditional structures.

• Cost reduction and efficiency gains. In traditional finance, asset transactions involve multiple intermediaries that are slow to process and typically only operate during business hours. DeFi operates 24/7 with low costs and high efficiency. This efficiency makes previously hard-to-trade, illiquid assets much more accessible for investment and circulation.

• Enhanced transparency and security. Blockchain ensures every transaction is immutable and traceable. Once recorded, it can't be changed. This transparency and the trust foundation built through consensus is extremely valuable for investors.

Given all these reasons, we've consistently been bullish on RWA, and this trend has been accelerating recently. Stablecoins have already experienced rapid growth and widespread adoption, and I believe RWA will become the next major use case driving mass DeFi adoption after stablecoins.

Q: What RWA-related projects (such as tokenized bonds, real estate, or stablecoins) will HTX Ventures prioritize in the second half of 2025?

Alec:

We believe the core growth engine for the next phase of the RWA sector will be highly mature assets from traditional finance, such as US Treasuries and other sovereign bonds.

Currently, the TVL of several leading RWA platforms is concentrated in tokenized US Treasuries. These assets are not only large in scale but also have a broad trust foundation backed by government support, with very stable and reliable returns. These assets will serve as the first step in driving RWA adoption, attracting more capital into the space. As users experience these products and build trust in RWA, they will more actively explore higher-yield products and strategies, such as real estate or private equity. We believe this aligns with market evolution logic.

Additionally, tokenized stocks are a very interesting direction we've been observing. The public has greater familiarity with stocks and is more sensitive to their price movements. Bringing stocks on-chain to enable high-frequency transparent price discovery will bring higher liquidity.

Overall, we are more focused on RWA products that have stable demand and strong institutional trust.

Q: What challenges do you see in scaling RWA adoption? How does HTX Ventures address these challenges through its investment portfolio?

Alec:

In terms of portfolio, HTX Ventures continues to evaluate optimal capital allocation strategies within the RWA sector. Tokenized stocks and tokenized U.S. Tokenized equities and tokenized US Treasuries have reached considerable maturity, with on-chain implementation presenting minimal technical barriers.

The next significant challenge centers on integrating unlisted traditional financial assets into DeFi ecosystems, a considerably more complex undertaking. The primary obstacle involves establishing verifiable legal ownership of underlying assets. Specifically, ensuring that on-chain traded instruments maintain valid legal title remains unresolved across the industry, as no existing project has comprehensively addressed cross-jurisdictional legal complexities. Assets recognized under one regulatory framework may lack validity in alternative jurisdictions, creating substantial operational challenges.

This represents a compelling opportunity for both project development and institutional investment, given the substantial value creation potential for successful solutions. However, resolution requires significant time investment, resource allocation, and careful market demand alignment. Asset tokenization viability depends fundamentally on demonstrable market need rather than technical feasibility alone.

Current RWA focus remains concentrated on established asset classes such as US Treasuries and public equities, which offer relatively straightforward tokenization pathways. Further sector advancement requires participation beyond venture capital and crypto-native entities, necessitating traditional financial institution involvement to provide trusted infrastructure and regulatory frameworks.

HTX Ventures has identified clear market gaps and actively seeks investment opportunities addressing these challenges. However, we have not yet deployed capital in this specific area, as current infrastructure solutions lack sufficient sophistication to meaningfully address the fundamental challenges outlined above.

The Crypto-stock Spriral and The Liquidity Overflowed to Ecosystem

Q: The "crypto-stock spiral” has gained lots of attention. Tron Inc. is definitely a prime example. How does HTX Ventures assess the potential of this model to bridge crypto and traditional markets?

Alec:

On this question, we're seeing multiple ways this plays out: one is putting traditional assets on-chain, the other is bringing blockchain assets into traditional finance. Both are performing well lately and seem to be picking up speed.

TRON Inc.'s TRX treasury strategy is really encouraging to see - it shows that traditional financial players and stock investors are starting to warm up to crypto assets, and some of these companies are actually doing pretty well. From where we sit, this trend is fascinating, and I think we'll probably see more crypto companies testing the waters in traditional capital markets down the road. But it really comes down to how mature they are from a compliance standpoint, how transparent their financials are, how solid their governance is, and what the market environment looks like.

Right now, the companies actually making headway here are mostly the OG projects - the ones that have been around longer and have strong brand recognition. They've got that head start when it comes to name recognition and building trust, which makes it easier for them to get accepted.

Bottom line, we're bullish on this trend. We think it's good for the market overall and it's going to keep building momentum.

Q: With giants like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs showing interest in crypto, what role does HTX Ventures play in facilitating institutional capital inflow?

Alec:

We're not just investors, and we're not just seeking investment returns – we want to drive industry development forward.

Beyond funding projects and helping them grow, we also provide advisory services and introduce projects to other key players both within and outside the industry. That's our fundamental work.

Additionally, we establish thought leadership and increase our presence by publishing online articles and participating in offline traditional finance conferences. We use a gradual, gentle approach to educate traditional participants about what Web3 can offer. This is because it's a system very different from their original world. Although Web2 and Web3 are accelerating their convergence, many concepts haven't been fully grasped by Web2 users yet.

For instance, next month I'm attending a traditional finance VC event in Jakarta. In the past, these types of events rarely invited Web3 projects or institutions, but now many organizers realize that more and more people are interested in Web3, though they still don't understand this field.

What we do is fill the cognitive gap between Web2 and Web3 through participatory education, building effective communication bridges.

Take Tron Inc., which we discussed earlier, as an example. This model allows traditional participants to engage with crypto assets in ways they're familiar with. All they need to do is purchase stocks through traditional brokers. After building awareness and trust through this approach, these users will next explore genuine on-chain participation. We believe this adoption path is clear and is slowly being realized.

As industry participants, our responsibility is to gradually educate users and help them easily adapt to this process. While this takes time, conducting training and educational work will inevitably accelerate this progression.

Q: The Crypto-stock Spiral brings regulatory concerns as well. How does HTX Ventures balance risks when investing in projects related to this trend?

Alec:

This is a new, early-stage field, and balancing risks indeed presents quite a few issues that haven't been fully covered by regulation yet.

For us, we mainly focus on two aspects:

• Team Commitment & Compliance: Our evaluation dimensions include both underlying infrastructure and the team's emphasis on compliance and security. If a project demonstrates a genuine, steadfast pursuit of compliance and security, we view this as a positive signal that helps us build confidence in our risk assessment.

• Long-term Value Creation: We want projects to abandon short-term hype mentalities and instead focus on genuinely building their core business with solid fundamentals, polishing their products and capabilities from the ground up.

Overall, we place great emphasis on team strength and their proactive commitment to addressing risks. While this field is still in its very early stages and many issues haven't been fully resolved, as long as teams demonstrate a clear path of continuous investment in tackling these problems, we can gradually build confidence.

TRON's MicroStrategy-Inspired Public Listing Strategy

Q: Tron Inc. has established the "TRON Treasury Strategy," incorporating TRX into its strategic reserve assets, which has driven significant growth across multiple aspects of the TRON ecosystem (such as JustLend DAO, SunPump, USDT dominance, etc.). How does HTX Ventures view Tron Inc. and its TRON Treasury Strategy's positive role in enhancing the visibility and liquidity of TRON's portfolio projects?

Alec:

This plan will significantly strengthen the exposure and liquidity of blockchain governance token, channeling attention and capital from traditional finance into the on-chain world. Once TRX tokens gain higher recognition, and even TRX-related entities are included in mainstream index data like NASDAQ, this trust and liquidity in TRX will transmit to other projects within the ecosystem, further driving the prosperity of the entire ecosystem.

This creates a positive feedback loop:

• public listing → visibility → enhanced token liquidity → faster adoption of downstream applications → network expansion

From investors' perspective, we are actively seeking projects that can amplify this positive spiral.

Protocols like JustLend and SunSwap have already significantly benefited from this narrative and capital inflow. In the future, we plan to leverage collaborations, partnerships, grants, and accelerators to further translate the momentum generated by the TRON Treasury Strategy into sustainable growth.

Q: The TRX MicroStrategy plan is helpful to raise institutional awareness. The goal is to make TRON-related entities eligible for inclusion in traditional finance mainstream indices. Should this model prove successful, would HTX replicate the same approach across the broader HTX ecosystem? Is it possible for this approach to be replicated on HTX?

Alec:

We have been actively exploring various possibilities in this field. The adoption of the TRX treasury strategy by NASDAQ-listed Tron Inc. is quite significant. It's attracted considerable attention and created positive impact, generating positive feedback across the entire TRON ecosystem.

Regarding HTX and others, I can't share more details due to confidentiality reasons. But we definitely see this as an interesting trend with positive impact. We're actively evaluating similar directions.

Broader Investment Outlook of HTX Ventures

Q: Beyond RWAs and crypto stocks, which emerging sectors, such as artificial intelligence, SocialFi, Layer 2, does HTX Ventures believe have tremendous potential in the second half of 2025?

Alec:

Before answering the question, I think we should first review which sectors have driven crypto ecosystem development over the past year.

One clear trend is that the crypto market is maturing. It's shifting from a highly volatile, niche market into one with regulatory discussions and policy support. Even the US, which wasn't particularly friendly before, is now actively promoting supportive policies and establishing clear regulations to explore crypto development.

Additionally, the crypto market is further integrating with the global macroeconomy. The USD liquidity cycles, interest rate cuts, and US stock indices on crypto markets is strengthening. Crypto assets no longer rely solely on "internal narratives" but are being incorporated into broader global multi-asset investment frameworks.

For the future, I believe the trends for the second half of the year and beyond will be defined by three major factors we are closely tracking as well:

• The US favorable policy tailwinds, with these policy benefits being replicated globally, ultimately supporting crypto development.

• Macro market changes, including USD cycles, liquidity environments, and the evolving correlation between crypto assets and the dollar index and equities.

• Institutional flow and depth, including continued ETF (spot/futures) capital inflows, improved derivatives market depth, and the development of more professional financial and compliance infrastructure.

We believe the innovation momentum for the next phase will largely depend on further regulatory relaxation and the improvement of key financial infrastructure. Against this backdrop, we remain bullish on the RWA sector because it's becoming a bridge connecting traditional finance and Web3. On one hand, it introduces compliant capital and institutional-grade risk management frameworks. On the other hand, it brings Web3 regulated asset types with real yields, attracting more capital and talent and accelerating the crypto industry's mainstream adoption.

Q: HTX Ventures emphasizes Web3 and sustainable business models. In the volatile crypto market, how do you define "sustainable innovation"?

Alec:

It's completely different now from those early hype-driven stages. Our core focus is on fundamentals - we dig deep into teams and products that truly have product-market fit. We've moved past the industry's very early, primitive phase.

We're no longer chasing hot trends and high prices. Those heavily promoted altcoins with wild price swings haven't performed well in this cycle. The market has made it clear: fundamentals are what matter.

Second, we focus heavily on compliance and security. The accelerating clarity in regulatory frameworks is a positive driving force for the industry. So while we focus on fundamentals, we also invest significant energy ensuring compliance and security resilience.

We believe this dual focus on "fundamentals plus compliance and security" not only helps with long-term returns, but also drives Web3 evolution in the right direction.

Q: How does HTX Ventures promote collaboration among its portfolio companies to drive innovation across the ecosystem?

Alec:

Pure capital support - basically any venture capital can do that; but as the strategic investment arm of an exchange, we also provide professional advisory, insights, info gaps, the right networking, the right partnerships, etc..

Let's say BTCFi, we have high participation in the Bitcoin ecosystem. We'll introduce trust-worthy infra like Babylon to our staking partners, as well as institutions that hold large amounts of BTC and want to participate in staking.

And we have listing advisory, explaining, connecting, and following up. In short, we have a very comprehensive approach that serves projects throughout their entire lifecycle, to help our investments succeed in the crypto space.

Q: As a pioneer in blockchain investment, how does HTX Ventures plan to sustain its edge in identifying and nurturing "the next crypto unicorn"?

Alec:

First, we invest significant resources in research to understand user interests and needs, as well as investigating what leading projects are building, so we can capture emerging trends in the industry early. This work is more on the passive sensing side, because it focuses more on market signal capture and research.

On the forward-thinking side, I'm also trying to look ahead and predict the future, and I've shared these insights in some recent events and articles. A direction that's particularly attractive to us right now is connecting the crypto/Web3 space with the traditional world, and we're actively pushing this forward.

Forward-Looking

Q: What regional differences do you see in RWA adoption? For example, what are the different focus areas of Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and the United States?

Alec:

Users in different countries/regions indeed have significant differences in their investment preferences.

In Japan, Singapore, and to some extent Hong Kong, users are more like traditional investors - most of their capital goes into real estate investments. So early RWA adoption in these regions will likely focus first on real estate.

Japan's relatively clear regulatory stance will be one of the main drivers for RWA development. Recent stablecoin legislation progress in Singapore and Hong Kong provides a compliance foundation for capital-efficient on-chain activities and product innovation. The stablecoin framework especially provides fundamental support for cross-border liquidity and settlement efficiency.

As for South Korea, I'm not entirely sure about its development. But from an investor point of view, the Korean market is quite unique. Korean traders tend to favor tokens with high upside potential rather than asset-backed or yield-anchored products. The product-market fit for real estate RWAs in Korea still needs further validation.

Q: Based on HTX Ventures' investments and market insights from 2024, what are your main predictions for the second half of 2025?

Alec:

As I shared earlier, I believe future industry trends will definitely be driven primarily by policy, institutions, and traditional equity investors. Once these users gain relevant experience and build trust by participating in crypto markets through simpler methods and safer channels, they will ultimately shift their attention and capital on-chain. We see this as an unstoppable trend.

Q: Finally, what advice would you give to entrepreneurs and investors navigating the blockchain sector in late 2025 and early 2026?

Alec:

Looking back at the last cycle, many projects, especially L1s, raised massive funding but had mediocre price performance after TGE.

The current market is highly volatile and unpredictable. My core advice to everyone is: continuously improve market adaptability and build resilience. When better development directions emerge, pivot decisively. Be prepared for volatility while staying prudent.

More importantly, always stick to the long-term vision of creating real value for end users. This is the only path to sustainable success for projects. Don't chase every new trend or temporary hype, long-term vision is what matters.

About HTX Ventures 

HTX Ventures is the global investment arm of HTX, integrating investment, incubation, and research to identify and discover the best and most innovative projects in the market.​​ With more than 10 years of history, HTX Ventures has the foresight and resources to develop and grow potential new projects with cutting-edge technologies and emerging business models. Through HTX Ventures's support in financing, resources and advisory, these new-generation projects for Web3.0 and Defi will path the way for a new future for blockchain in the year 2030. 

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