Respect time, respect business - Looking at the true value of Web3 IP from the fifteen years of Pop Mart.
Today I want to talk about the matter of Web IP.
I really enjoy buying Pop Mart, and I always go to browse Pop Mart whenever I go out.
If you had asked me before I bought Bubble Mart, "How can a small toy sell for 10u, dozens of u, or even more? What makes it so expensive?"
I might respond with: "I don't understand, maybe it's just an IQ tax."
I am my friend who brought me into the hobby, and the first blind box I opened was Dimoo. There were many more afterwards.
It can be said quite truthfully that at the time, I even thought the first IP of Pop Mart, the character Moli, was a bit ugly. However, after getting into it, I suddenly understood why this industry could become popular worldwide—because trendy toys do not sell products; they sell emotions, they sell a feeling of being understood, projecting a part of the user's own emotions onto a virtual character.
Today I finished watching Wang Ning's interview about Bubble Mart's fifteen years, and I finally understand why this company has been able to grow from a small shop to the current industry ceiling.
The core brand philosophy of Pop Mart over the past fifteen years is actually very simple, yet incredibly solid—respect time, respect management.
Do not chase trends, do not be greedy for speed, do not rely on emotional fluctuations, but instead, for over a decade, continuously refine roles, culture, collection systems, and user experience bit by bit.
On the contrary, Web3, this sentence sounds more like a luxury.
In Web3, a project's lifecycle often only allows for three emotional fluctuations:
Three days of enthusiasm, three weeks of FOMO, three months of retreat.
Many projects claim they want to create the "Bubble Mart of Web3," but essentially, they are trying to accomplish in three months what others have taken fifteen years to achieve.
However, these two events in the past few days made me realize that Web3 users are actually much more willing to pay for "emotional value" than we think, it's just that the approach is different.
👉 The first thing is that Fwog, which is very popular on Sol, has released 21,000 physical blind boxes in reality. I originally thought that Web3 users wouldn't buy them, because the traditional perception is that Web3 users care more about profits than collecting. But the result was: 21,000 blind boxes were sold out instantly.
My feeling about this matter is that Web3 users are not unwilling to buy emotional value; rather, they are willing to pay for "symbols they identify with" and "narratives they believe in."
This is the same logic that made NFTs popular in the first place — not because they can make money, but because they provide a sense of identity, social symbolism, and cultural resonance.
When digital IP can transcend the screen and become tangible, it is no longer just a JPG, but transforms into a cultural carrier. This narrative upgrade is something that Web3 rarely achieves.
👉 The second thing is the Hakimi meme on BSC from a couple of days ago. Due to the new packaging event of Jiuyang soy milk, Jiuyang's stock price surged, and the Hakimi meme on the chain also rose.
This is a typical overflow of Web3 narrative: real events trigger capital sentiment → sentiment feeds back to on-chain assets → price drives discussion → discussion reinforces symbolic meaning → symbols then reshape asset value in reverse.
Once a character from Pop Mart is referenced in popular culture, it can form a "second life." This time, Hakimi has achieved the same thing in the Web3 era using a "meme approach."
So the question arises: Since physical world trendy toys have been popular for so long, why is it so difficult for Web3 to achieve "Pop Mart-ification"?
I have seen quite a few projects trying实体 × blockchain:
Some people are making Pokémon-style on-chain cards, and there are DeFi products that want to combine the revenue structure with physical goods.
The direction is actually correct; it’s just that the underlying logic of Web3 makes this path harder to navigate than expected.
🔸First, the rarity system cannot be unified: physical entities rely on physical rarity, while NFTs rely on traits rarity. If these two systems cannot be transparent, verifiable, and synchronized on-chain, a trust gap will inevitably arise.
🔸Secondly, the secondary market chain is not transparent: on-chain tracking is possible, but the physical supply chain is not fully transparent—shipping, inspection, anti-counterfeiting, cross-border logistics, and damage compensation, none of these can be easily resolved by blockchain.
🔸The third is that the consumer mentality is completely different: trendy toy users pursue "I like it," while Web3 users pursue "Can I cash out?" If these two points cannot be reconciled, the lifecycle of a project cannot even last to the stage of "building IP."
So I gradually realized that the existence of Web3 is not about the opportunity to "copy the bubble tea market," but to create a new species that has never appeared in the physical era: financializable cultural assets.
The Web3 IP that can truly succeed in the future will definitely possess three points:
🔸First, symbolism (communicative power)
——Even without marketing, it can naturally spread through memes and narratives.
🔸Second, it can be financialized (on-chain capability)
——It can be traded, can be split, and can provide liquidity, it is an asset.
🔸Thirdly, narrative extensibility (cross-domain capability)
——It can move from on-chain to offline and back to on-chain to form a cycle.
You will find that these three points are not achievable by traditional trendy toys.
This is also why Fwog can be popular both on-chain and in the real world,
Why can Hakimi rise because of real events?
Why are memes becoming the biggest winners in this cycle?
Because their narratives cross dimensions.
And cross-dimensionality is the strongest weapon of contemporary IP.
Looking back at the fifteen-year story of Pop Mart, my greatest feeling is not its ability to create IP, but its faith in the concept of "time" —
A brand does not grow big through viral moments, but through sustained operation.
A character is not shaped in a day, but is cultivated bit by bit by the users.
A culture is not born from a single event, but is accumulated from a hundred thousand moments.
The Web3 era will evolve narratives, narratives will appreciate symbols, and symbols will give life to assets.
Since I opened the first Dimoo until now, I have confirmed one thing:
The truly powerful Web3 IP in the future will not just be "cute" or "quirky," but will be able to combine the emotional value of trendy playthings, the financial value on the blockchain, and the dissemination value of memes across three dimensions.
Pop Mart has proven over fifteen years:
Respect time, respect management, only then can a brand stand firm.
And Web3 will prove itself in the next decade:
Respect the narrative, respect the symbols, only then can IP live long.
Whether in the physical world or the on-chain world, the true value that can transcend cycles always comes from time.
If you ask me which Web3 IPs are doing quite well right now, it might be Pengu.
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