What is "ICM"? The new narrative of Solana supporting a market capitalization of 400 million.

A number of encryption projects and founders led by the new Launchpad platform Believe in the Solana ecosystem have released this phrase, which, together with ‘Believe in something’, has become a new slogan to kick off the on-chain bull run.

Written by: shushu

Overnight, the hottest narrative in the encryption field has become “Internet Capital Markets,” with a number of encryption projects and founders, led by the new Launchpad platform Believe in the Solana ecosystem, releasing this phrase, which, along with “Believe in something,” has become the new slogan to kick off the on-chain bull run.

So what exactly is the so-called “internet capital market”? Will it become a fleeting hype like the Content Coin of the Base ecosystem? And what related assets are available for selection?

Financing Methods After the VC Coin Era

In a financing PPT a few years ago, Solana mentioned that it wanted to create an “on-chain Nasdaq”, or a blockchain that operates at the speed of Nasdaq. Looking at the current encryption ecosystem, Solana has indeed achieved this in terms of speed. However, as “asset issuance” gradually becomes the biggest meta-narrative in the encryption field, Solana becoming a Nasdaq that only provides trading functions has become less appealing.

After the updates of a series of products such as Pumpfun, Timefun, and Clount, Solana’s high throughput and low latency make it suitable for building a global decentralized capital market, rather than merely imitating the trading model of Nasdaq. The market currently requires an open, permissionless financing and trading ecosystem that covers a variety of assets ranging from meme coins to NFTs and startup projects, which aligns more closely with Solana’s technical advantages.

Lily Liu, the chair of the Solana Foundation, is an advocate for Solana’s commitment to building “Internet Capital Markets”. She has explained in various online and offline settings that Internet Capital Markets refer to creating a global financial infrastructure through blockchain technology, allowing 5.5 billion internet users to participate in asset trading in capital markets. This vision defines ICM as a decentralized financing method that breaks down the barriers of traditional finance, such as complex paperwork and high thresholds.

At the end of December 2024, Akshay BD, head of the Solana ecosystem Superteam, mentioned two concepts “Internet Capital Market” and “F.A.T. Protocol Engineering” in the Solana 2025 marketing memorandum. He believes that in 2024, companies will go public “on the internet” and will be able to reach over one billion investors holding private keys—who vote for their desired future with the funds they hold, not limited to stocks, but covering all asset classes, cultures, and ideas worth owning.

The recently warming AI token issuance platform Virtuals is also doing the same thing, with its newly launched point-based subscription mechanism Genesis. Users can accumulate points through purchasing Virtuals ecosystem tokens, staking VIRTUAL, VADER, and other channels, and gain access to participate in the issuance of new projects. This is a choice for new projects to issue tokens and successfully cold start.

However, the Virtuals ecosystem mainly focuses on the Crypto+AI track, and the platform that has currently received the most attention is a token issuance platform called Believe, which was previously a social influence assetization platform named Clout. The Slogan of the Believe platform is similar to “Believe in Something”; users can reply @launch followed by the token name under any tweet to turn it into a token.

Since its launch on April 27, Believe has demonstrated strong market explosive power. It has not only attracted the attention of mainstream projects and founders in the Solana ecosystem, but its revenue has also been quite impressive. According to Believescreener data, the revenue of the Believe platform in the past 24 hours is estimated to reach 7.62 million USD, with creator earnings amounting to 3.81 million USD.

With the surge of Believe’s platform token LaunchCoin, other tokens launched by the Believe platform have also gained market attention, and these tokens are categorized under the aforementioned concept of “Internet Capital Markets” because, unlike the tokens on Pump.Fun which only have an image, they have created actual products.

ICM Related Concept Coins

The current ICM leading concept belongs to the Believe platform token LAUNCHCOIN. In fact, there is no technical difference between Believe and previous token launch platforms. If you have an idea, just @launchcoin on X and write the token name, and you can create a token. If others believe in your idea, they will buy your token. As the creator, you can withdraw fees to bring your idea to life.

LAUNCHCOIN currently has a market value of 235 million USD, with a 24-hour increase of 220%.

Related reading: “LaunchCoin 200 times in one day, how did Believe create 200 million dollars in gold dog after going to zero? | 100x review”

BSCREENER

BSCREENER is the platform token of BelieveScreener, which is a dashboard platform of Believe, initiated by @nanowisp. It states that the token transaction fees will be used to cover website and hosting costs. There is no token utility, no reward mechanism, and no roadmap - just a simple token to help keep the project running.

Currently, BSCREENER has a market value of 13.6 million USD, with a 24-hour increase of 2500%. As the token was launched not long ago, its subsequent performance remains to be observed.

DUPE

DUPE (Deal Unlocking Price Engine) is a tool for “finding alternatives,” proposed by @nikitabier and @ghoshal. Just add “dupe dot com” before any product page link, and the system will automatically help you find cheaper similar products.

Currently, DUPE’s market capitalization exceeds 50 million USD, with a 24-hour increase of 30%.

AURA

AURA is the platform token of Aurascope, which is a camera-first mobile application that allows users to scan real-world objects, places, and people to understand how they affect your energy, track your daily score, increase your collection, and compete with friends to stay in sync with the environment, rewarding contributors who post on the platform. Its founder is former VC and Rising Star partner @sabakarimm.

AURA currently has a market value of 9 million USD, with a 24-hour increase of 800%.

BUDDY

BUDDY is the platform token of CreatorBuddy launched by @AlexFinnX. CreatorBuddy is an AI assistant that has the posting privileges on your X platform. You can ask it any questions related to your past content. The features include 8 AI tools: content coach, algorithm analysis, content creation, reply assistant, account research, historical review, brain dump, and inspiration generation.

BUDDY has a current market value of 12 million USD, with a 24-hour decline of 4%.

FITCOIN

@fittedcloset An AI-driven virtual wardrobe app where users can upload their clothes, mix and match outfits, resell idle items, and share with friends. Currently, it has over 300,000 downloads and 300 million+ social media views, with more than 1 million clothing items uploaded on the platform.

FITCOIN currently has a market cap of nearly 7 million USD, with a 24-hour increase of 96%.

In addition, the Believe platform also features the short video app Giggles, where user interactions can earn encryption rewards; the tool SuperFriend that helps developers “visualize understanding and dialogue with code libraries”; the prediction market platform PNP that does not require liquidity support; the application Kayyo focused on AI combat training, providing personalized training plans; the tool CreatorGen that can generate hyper-realistic AI influencers; and NinjaChat, which integrates multiple top AI tools. All these different applications have issued their own tokens on Believe, and readers can visit the Believe dashboard for more information.

The true proposition of ICM, who will tokenize good assets?

Despite the hype surrounding Believe causing the market value of Launchcoin to continuously rise, there are still many voices of doubt within the community, arguing that “Internet Capital Markets” is just another illusory token generation bubble, akin to last year’s AI Agent frenzy, which has not generated much actual value in AI applications, but is merely a carnival of funds and traffic.

However, if we look further, we will find that these phenomena actually imply a structural transformation - the crypto world is moving from “fictional narrative” to “real arbitrage.” As Akshay BD explained in his latest tweet, from the perspective of the capital market, crypto has effectively solved the problem of lowering the barriers to asset acquisition. No matter where you are, as long as you have a mobile app and some stablecoins, you can freely invest in any on-chain asset, without needing to navigate complex banking and brokerage systems or wait weeks to set up an offshore account. This kind of “freedom” of accessibility is unimaginable in the traditional financial system.

The problem is that crypto has not yet solved the “issuance mechanism of quality assets.” The current token market is flooded with a large number of worthless meme coins, shell projects, and hype concepts. This is not the fault of the technology, but a natural result of regulatory gaps and distorted incentives. In traditional markets, securities issuance has clear thresholds, processes, and information disclosure mechanisms, while on-chain, anyone can issue tokens at will, with liquidity instantly catching up, and speculators rushing in. This “highly free” issuance mechanism actually makes it harder for truly valuable assets to stand out.

Akshay believes that building a system that allows “high-quality assets” to be issued in the same convenient way is the next step for Solana to consider. In other words, the ultimate goal of “Internet Capital Markets” should not be “anyone can issue a coin,” but rather “making those good assets that are originally difficult to issue and access become within reach.”

The criteria behind it are whether the asset can benefit from the current special economic/geopolitical environment, and whether it is difficult to purchase through traditional brokers and banks. If both conditions are met, then it has reason to be “tokenized.”

For example, in the past decade, the reason why the US dollar has become the dominant on-chain sovereign asset is not because it is technically easy to tokenize, but because global users have no choice when resisting the devaluation of their local fiat currency. The rise of Bitcoin in the 2010s was also a form of “environmental arbitrage” — positioning itself as a decentralized hedge asset in the context of excessive money supply. Today, if we can identify similar “structural demand assets” and truly achieve “free access” through on-chain issuance, this would be the true meaning of ICM, not an empty narrative, but the realization of institutional dividends.

From this perspective, Believe and LaunchCoin may just be a starting point, a prototype, an “experimental breakout” with obvious entertainment and bubble characteristics - it may not leave behind a value accumulation, but the mechanism path it attempts to open is indeed a necessary route for a part of future assets. Ultimately, “Internet Capital Markets” will not be about everyone casually issuing a coin, but about everyone being able to conveniently purchase good assets.