1. Introduction

Today, let's briefly talk about Vietnam's crypto and the Coin98 project. When I was at ETHDENVER before, I met some Vietnamese web3 builders and found out that web3 is very popular in the Vietnamese market. The acceptance of crypto by young people is very high. Even the popular gamefi project Axie Infinity is a Vietnamese project. Recently, I heard a rumor that Vietnam is going to legalize crypto, so I plan to analyze Coin98, which is also one of Vietnam's leading projects.

2.Macro situation of Vietnam's crypto

2.1 Before we analyze it, let's first take a look at the macro situation of Vietnam's crypto and establish some basic understanding.

In the past few years, Vietnam has been one of the countries with the highest adoption of cryptocurrencies. According to the "2022 Vietnam Cryptocurrency Market Report," 16.6 million Vietnamese people own digital currencies, accounting for 17% of Vietnam's population. Approximately one in six people in Vietnam owns crypto. According to research by Chainalysis, Vietnam is a leader in the adoption of cryptocurrencies, with 28.8% of blockchain projects or decentralized finance (DeFi) applications developed in Vietnam, which is a significant number. Currently, seven of the top 200 blockchain companies and organizations in the world come from Vietnam, including Axie Infinity, Coin98, and Kyber Network.

2.2 So why is cryptocurrency so popular in Vietnam? There are three main reasons:

1. Firstly, historically, due to the large-scale war that broke out in Vietnam from 1946 to 1975, Vietnam suffered from economic instability and inflation. Traditional banks could not provide good returns and had limited services. In addition, the public was keen on collecting gold to fight inflation, so cryptocurrency can be a good alternative;

2. 2. In terms of actual demand, many Vietnamese people working abroad need to send money back home. Even if they use traditional banks, the processing fees for international transactions are still high, and using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can make transactions cheaper;
3. 3. In terms of policy regulation, currently, cryptocurrency is in a gray area in Vietnam without a clear legal framework to prohibit or support it, giving the blockchain industry a lot of space to conduct digital transactions without being influenced by any central institutions or governments.

3.The Coin98 project

3.1 After sharing Vietnam's macro situation, let's take a look at the Coin98 project.

Coin98 Labs is a blockchain company headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, aiming to provide users with a one-stop crypto and DeFi service. The company's products include Wallet, Exchange, Portfolio, Market, etc., aiming to provide users with comprehensive digital financial services. Currently, the main users are in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Coin98 started as content, and the Twitter account @Coin98Analytics shares a lot of industry knowledge. It wasn't until 2020 that Coin98 launched its first product, the Coin98 wallet, which is currently its flagship product, gradually starting to build the ecosystem to solve new industry problems.

3.2 So what is the background of the birth of the Coin98 wallet?

In the past web3 usage experience, there is a common pain point that different chains have different wallet ecosystems, and a single wallet can support only a limited number of chains. To manage one's wealth, it is often necessary to create wallets on different chains, which is very cumbersome and inefficient.

Facing such a problem, Coin98 Labs' original intention was to solve the management and transaction problems of multi-chain and multi-currency, so that users can more conveniently manage and trade digital assets, and avoid creating countless wallets on different chains.

So in 2020, the first product, Coin98 wallet, was launched, which is currently also Coin98's flagship product. It is a cross-chain wallet that supports the storage, trading, and management of various digital currencies, and also supports access to multiple DEXs.

The actual experience of using it is a bit like a combination of a wallet and an exchange. Its main features include:

1. Support for multiple chains: one wallet manages all assets;

2. Convenience: you can enter the recipient's Coin98 username, ENS, SNS to transfer funds;

3. Support for linking to hardware wallets: including Ledger, Trezor, etc.

It is a bit like a super app to use, and transactions such as DEX (Uniswap, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap) and NFTs are also supported.

3.3 Project development after coin98 wallet

After the Coin98 wallet, Coin98 exchange was launched, which also supports multi-chain transactions like the wallet. Essentially, it is a DEX aggregator. Compared with some mainstream DEX aggregators such as 1inch, no special features have been found for now. Other products, such as Coin98 Portfolio and Coin98 Market, are also conventional financial functions, and no unique competitive advantages have been found for now.

Worth mentioning is the Space Gate cross-chain bridge aggregator, which supports the conversion of assets between different chains. The current functionality is relatively basic, and it currently supports the following two types of cross-chain bridges:

C98 (Solana) <> C98 (Ethereum) <> C98 (BNB Smart Chain)

C98 (Ethereum) <> C98 (BNB Smart Chain) <> C98 (Polygon)

However, it is worth paying attention to its future plans, hoping to achieve the conversion of tokenA on X chain into tokenB on Y chain, which can greatly improve the efficiency of interoperability.

Looking at the entire product matrix of Coin Labs, whether it is a wallet, exchange, or cross-chain bridge, it is basically centered around multi-chain, cross-chain, and asset trading and transfer efficiency, making operations more integrated.

3.4 Token Economics of coin98

Now let's take a look at the token economics of C98. According to the whitepaper, the total supply of C98 is 1 billion, and the current circulating supply is 216 million, with both utility and governance value.

The utility value of C98 mainly includes three aspects:

1. Transaction fees when using the exchange;

2. Staking or providing liquidity mining on AMM;

3. Obtaining membership rights based on holding C98 tokens, such as priority participation rights in activities.

The governance value mainly includes two aspects:

1. C98 token holders can make governance suggestions and vote on the functions of C98 exchange;

2. C98 from transaction fees will be stored in a fund for incentives for subsequent ecosystem development.

From the token model, it can be seen that C98 has a deep binding relationship with the product, has good utility, and forms a virtuous cycle with ecosystem development. With the news of Vietnam's crypto legislation, the token has an obvious upward trend.

Finally, let's briefly introduce the financing situation of Coin98. According to public information, Coin98 has completed multiple rounds of financing.

In November 2020, Coin98 raised $1.5 million from investors including Dragonfly Capital, Hashkey Capital, and NGC Ventures.

In February 2021, Coin98 raised $8.7 million from investors including Framework Ventures, Hashed, Spartan Group, and others.

In May 2021, Coin98 raised $10 million from investors including ParaFi Capital, Multicoin Capital, Alameda Research, and others.

By September 2021, Coin98 had raised $50 million in a funding round led by Hashed, with participation from BlockTower Capital, IOSG Ventures, Primitive Ventures, and others.

Looking at the investment background, there were many top Asian capital firms involved, such as Hashed from South Korea, and Hashkey from China.

4.Conclusion

1. Coin98 is dedicated to building a complete cross-chain ecosystem by integrating the functions of various blockchain wallets, allowing users to smoothly conduct cross-chain transactions and use DEX, and achieve interoperability between different blockchain networks.

2. Currently, from a product perspective, Coin98's multi-chain ecosystem does not have significant advantages. To some extent, it is riding the wave of the narrative surrounding the Vietnamese crypto market. After Vietnamese crypto legislation, it is believed that top Vietnamese projects such as Coin98 and Kyber Network will benefit.