"ICO revival? WLFI co-founder: providing equal opportunities for everyone" - Can Decentralized Finance bridge the gap between traditional institutions successfully?

At the 2025 Consensus Hong Kong conference, WLFI co-founder Zak Folkman made a thought-provoking statement: "Our goal is to build products that connect traditional institutions with Decentralized Finance," and further emphasized a more socially significant mission - "Make ICOs Great Again." This thematic speech not only injected new vitality into the future development of the cryptocurrency industry but also sparked widespread discussions on the deep integration of ICOs, Decentralized Finance, and traditional finance.

At the core of all this, Folkman believes that the encryption industry needs not only 'high financing,' but also to promote the development of the industry, providing equal access to information and investment opportunities for everyone. The introduction of this view has not only had a strong impact on the current ICO market, but also opened up new ideas for our future investment opportunities.

1️⃣ WLFI goal: Breaking down the barriers between traditional institutions and Decentralized Finance

1.1 The Gulf Between Traditional Finance and Decentralized Finance

The emergence of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology has brought a huge impact to the traditional financial system. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) provides more transparency and efficiency, but also comes with a lot of uncertainty. The goal of WLFI is to build a "bridge" to help traditional institutions better connect with decentralized finance, thereby leveraging the advantages of Decentralized Finance to solve the pain points in the traditional financial system.

This is not a simple technical challenge, but a difficult problem involving many aspects such as the market, law, regulation, etc. Folkman emphasizes that traditional financial institutions often maintain a cautious attitude towards accessing Decentralized Finance platforms due to their lack of understanding of decentralization. The goal of WLFI is to more closely connect the two through innovative products.

1.2 Insights for traditional institutions: The era of embracing Decentralized Finance has come.

In fact, the rise of Decentralized Finance has brought great threats to traditional financial institutions, but also provided new business opportunities. By digitizing and decentralizing traditional financial products, financial institutions can achieve lower costs, higher efficiency, and stronger market adaptability.

The vision of WLFI is not only to enable more traditional institutions to enter this digital, decentralized market, but also to address institutions' concerns about transparency and fairness. By helping them connect Decentralized Finance and blockchain technology, WLFI has opened a new gateway to the future for the traditional financial system.

The revival of ICO: From a financing tool to a tool to drive industry development

2.1 The historical regrets and new opportunities of the ICO market

As we all know, **ICO (Initial Coin Offering)** was once a craze in the crypto industry, attracting a lot of attention from investors and startup projects. However, with market saturation and increasing regulatory pressure, ICOs have entered a bubble period, and the credibility of ICOs has plummeted due to many unreliable projects.

However, Folkman believes that the ICO market still has enormous potential, but it needs improvement and redefinition. "The smoothness of token sales is not important, the key is to drive the development of the industry," he said. This seemingly simple statement reveals the key to the future development of ICOs - to transform it into a force that truly drives the industry forward, rather than just a means of raising funds.

2.2 Redefining ICO: Let Everyone Participate

Folkman emphasizes that ICO should not be just a game between big investors and venture capital (VC), but should allow every ordinary investor to have the opportunity to participate. One important advantage of the crypto industry is 'Decentralization', which means that anyone can participate in this process, promoting fairness and equal opportunities.

WLFI's ICO hopes to truly achieve this, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to participate, not just wealthy investment institutions, but also small investors and the general public. The realization of this goal will bring new vitality to the ICO market and lead it back to the mainstream.

3️⃣ The future of the Decentralized Finance industry and the challenges of WLFI

3.1 Continuous Innovation and Challenges of Decentralized Finance

The rise of Decentralized Finance signifies the disruption of traditional finance, with emerging products such as decentralized exchanges (DEX), stablecoins, liquidity pools, and more. However, despite providing greater flexibility and transparency, ensuring its compliance and security remains a challenge for the industry.

WLFI as a project connecting traditional finance and Decentralized Finance, its future success requires not only innovative technology but also efforts in regulatory compliance and market education. Only in this way can we gain more trust from traditional financial institutions and further promote the comprehensive development of Decentralized Finance.

3.2 Investor Education and Market Acceptance

The rapid development of the cryptocurrency market has also dazzled many investors. Despite the huge market potential of Decentralized Finance, there is still significant uncertainty. In such a volatile market, investor education is particularly important. How to ensure the security of investors' funds while maintaining the spirit of decentralization? How to increase market participants' acceptance of emerging financial instruments? These will all be important challenges facing WLFI.

4️⃣ Conclusion: The integration of Decentralized Finance with traditional finance, how will it develop in the future?

WLFI's vision is very ambitious, it is not just about promoting a single crypto project, but trying to open a door for deep integration between cryptocurrency and traditional finance industries. By connecting these two fields, WLFI hopes to make cryptocurrencies play a more important role in the global economy.

Whether WLFI can achieve its goals or not, the trend of integration between Decentralized Finance and traditional finance is inevitable. With the development of technology, the maturation of the market, and the gradual improvement of regulatory policies, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology will revolutionize the global financial system.

**What do you think of the vision of WLFI? Do you think Decentralized Finance can successfully break through the barriers of traditional finance?** Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section, and let's discuss the future trends of the cryptocurrency industry together.

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