The Four Pillars of Investing in Crypto

This article explains the investment logic of the Four Pillars research team and their reasons for holding assets.

Author: Four Pillars

Compiled by: Bai Ding, Xian Ran

Note: Four Pillars is a Korean investment and research institution. The team has in-depth insights into market and industry development trends. Based on their own research and judgment, they have invested in many star projects such as INJ, SUI, Ethena, Virtuals, and Hyperliquid. This article is a research report that explains their investment logic and reasons for holding positions. Four Pillars members deeply express their views on future market development. I recommend you to read it.

Whenever we talk about our research in blockchain, there are always people who ask: "What coins should I buy now?" "Which projects are worth investing in?" In fact, the responsibility of VC researchers is to analyze blockchain-related technologies and determine market trends, rather than to provide investment advice, so we are usually reluctant to answer such questions.

But what’s special about the Four Pillars research team is that we are both industry observers and deep participants in the crypto market, so instead of giving vague “investment advice”, we would rather directly disclose our position structure and explain the investment logic.

You may be curious: What assets do these Four Pillars researchers who are immersed in blockchain research all day long hold? What is the basis for their decisions? Before explaining each investment target in detail, we will use a chart to visually present the team's overall holdings:

From the above chart, we can easily find that the team's holdings show diversified distribution characteristics, covering multiple tracks and ecosystems. Next, we will analyze the investment logic of each researcher one by one, as well as their judgment on the future potential of these assets.

Steve: Ethereum’s dominance is declining, so focus on products with PMF that are already in the market

Portfolio: Sui, Injective, Jito, Ethena, Azuki, Rootlets, Kumo

Smart contract platforms are no longer winner-take-all

Four Pillars was established in May 2023. At that time, there were a number of new public chains that were regarded as challengers to Ethereum. They all collapsed after the Terra collapse and the FTX incident. At that time, Ethereum firmly occupied the market dominance. But I was sure at that time: in the next bull market, Ethereum's market share will definitely fall back to around 30%. There are three core logics:

First, the scale of users entering the market in the new cycle will be far greater than in the past;

Second, incremental users will inevitably bring diversified value orientations;

Third, Ethereum cannot meet the needs and preferences of all groups.

The Ethereum ecosystem places the "concept of decentralization" as the highest priority, which makes me notice its key contradiction - to achieve true "Mass adoption", it must be compatible with user groups who do not regard decentralization as the ultimate value.

Of course, the essence of blockchain technology requires "a certain degree of decentralization", but I believe that not all scenarios require Ethereum-level decentralization. On the contrary, other value dimensions such as execution efficiency, compliance framework, user experience, etc. may have higher priority than decentralization. This diversity of value orientation will continue to stimulate market demand for other public chains besides Ethereum.

Subsequent market performance has verified my judgment: compared with 2023, the current market share of Ethereum has stabilized in the range of 20-30%. As of January 9, 2025, the market value of Ethereum is 398.5 billion US dollars, and the total market value of the entire crypto market is 1.35 trillion US dollars.

And I think the biggest problem of Ethereum ecosystem is not the technical level, but its arrogant attitude that "everything will eventually belong to Ethereum". To some extent, this runs counter to the decentralization concept they advocate. The open world that blockchain tries to build will never run according to the will of any particular group. Therefore, I think it is almost impossible for the smart contract platform field to form a winner-takes-all situation in the future.

Because anyone can create a new public chain, innovation may emerge at any time. Over time, more and more people will become familiar with blockchain technology, and the threshold for using new public chains will continue to decrease. Smart contract platforms are likely to maintain fierce competition. Of course, this does not mean that we will return to the era of random chain issuance. In the future, the number of major public chains participating in the competition may decrease, but new frameworks and platforms will continue to emerge, and the existing leading public chains will continue to improve their infrastructure.

Based on this judgment, new blockchain frameworks and technologies have always been my focus. My interest in Sui will continue until 2025, and it is at the forefront of the field of "new infrastructure technology". In addition, I believe that public chains like Solana and Injective, which rely on their respective advantages to build