Author:
Jessica Feng, Investment Manager of Hash Global BNB Fund;
Henry Yang, Investment Partner, Head of Hash Global Secondary Market Funds.
TL;DL
Hash Global was the first in the industry to propose the concept that 'Web3 is to internet business what Bitcoin is to finance', relying on ecological business resources and dedicated to discovering excellent 'Web3 business' application cases within the industry.
In November last year, Hash Global was the first to propose the conclusion that 'Mass Adoption of Web3 begins with cultural entertainment'. During Hong Kong Fintech Week, Hash Global, together with ecological partners, jointly initiated the establishment of the 'Web3 Cultural and Entertainment Alliance', attracting and engaging more Web2 and Web3 cultural and entertainment projects and resources to promote the co-construction of a decentralized entertainment economic ecosystem and the Mass Adoption of Web3 entertainment.
Meet48 originated from the well-known SNH48 team in the industry. It has strong entertainment genes and profound industry know-how. It perfectly integrates the "idol economy", which is the most emotionally connected part of the cultural and entertainment industry, with AI + Web3. It has become a benchmark project for Web3 entertainment and is gradually becoming the infrastructure for the next generation of Web3 entertainment.
Hash Global's investment research team believes that, just as Netflix seized the internet wave to reshape the rules of content distribution, Meet48 will inevitably use AIUGC and Web3 to rewrite the logic of content creation and value transfer, reconstruct the global entertainment system, and promote the "Netflix legend" to reappear on the blockchain.
I. The Bubble Bursts: The Reboot of "Web3 Entertainment"
In the previous cycle, the gaming and entertainment sector created a buzz in the crypto world.
In 2021, GameFi and X-to-Earn innovatively combined financial incentives with entertainment scenarios, ushering in the first year of the Web3 application boom.
However, the wave quickly receded, and most projects collapsed rapidly after a brief period of hype: tokens plummeted, users left, and communities crumbled. Once-hot narratives such as GameFi, X-to-Earn, the metaverse, and NFTs have gradually faded from the community's view, and the market has begun to doubt whether entertainment has ever truly needed Web3.
We disagree with this view. The failure of early projects was not due to the model itself, but rather to a lack of content, a lack of real users, and the overuse of financial instruments. "Entertainment" became a shell for speculation, while the true value-creating potential of Web3 in the entertainment industry was overlooked.
We believe that Web3 technology can reshape the value distribution model in the cultural and entertainment industry, and we are also very optimistic about the biochemical reaction resulting from the combination of "Web3.0 finance" and "influence". Therefore, in November 2024, we clearly stated: "Web3 Mass Adoption will begin in the cultural and entertainment industry".
The entertainment industry naturally possesses high traffic and strong community attributes, as well as mature business models and monetization capabilities. When the intersection of Web3 and the entertainment industry is truly found, entertainment will become a key breakthrough for Web3 Mass Adoption, and Web3 will also drive the entertainment economy into a new era, which we define as "Web3 Entertainment".
Under this system, Web3's "assetization of everything" will no longer be aimed at financial speculation, but will become the foundation for underlying value distribution. We believe that Web3's token economy system will remain the core engine of Web3 entertainment, but its focus will shift from Fi (Finance) to Economy—moving from short-term financial incentives to a sustainable economic cycle.
In the past year of proposing and promoting Web3 entertainment, we have been delighted to participate in and witness a number of Web3 entertainment projects, represented by MEET48, actively implementing our envisioned blueprint under our guidance, using BNB's token economic design as a template. The core elements of this blueprint include:
1. Based on real users and high-quality content, connect and unlock ecosystem value using Web3 technology;
2. Construct an economic circulation mechanism centered on a sustainable token system that combines value and functionality;
3. Improve the token economy system in stages, and continuously enhance the token's utility as the ecosystem develops;
4. The value created by the ecosystem is returned to the token system, realizing a two-way circulation of asset and ecosystem value.
Based on its extensive experience in social games and idol development over the past decade, MEET48 has taken the lead in developing a preliminary verifiable model.
II. Web3 + AI + UGC: Web3 Entertainment Will Usher in an Era of Co-creation Economy
What makes this cycle unique is that the boundaries of technology are being completely broken down.
Generative AI is lowering the barriers to creation at an unprecedented pace, making mass creation possible. New-generation models, exemplified by Sora2, are reshaping the underlying logic of content production and social interaction. Against the backdrop of the gradual decline of platform-monopolized content models (such as Youku and iQiyi), AI will further drive the content industry towards user co-creation (UGC/AIUGC).
In the AIUGC era, content assets will experience explosive growth, and the structural flaws of the Web2 model will be further exposed—the inherent conflict of interest between platforms and users makes a fair value distribution mechanism a perpetual paradox.
Content production has long been decentralized, but the profits are still firmly in the hands of the platform: users create value, and the platform captures that value.
The future of UGC will inevitably be built on a more open and equitable value cycle. Web3 will become the foundation of this system, providing mechanisms for ownership confirmation and circulation, and leveraging the productivity released by AI: the combination of the two will drive UGC to evolve from "user-generated content" to "user co-creation economy".
We believe that Web3 entertainment is entering a new growth cycle. With the maturation of Web3 and AI technologies, the production and distribution paradigms of the content industry are being redefined.
III. When Disruptive Technology Meets High-Quality Content: MEET48 is Reshaping the Industry Landscape and Moving Towards Becoming the Netflix of Web3
Technology is never the goal, but a tool to unlock the value of content. The real game-changers are not platforms that "talk about technology," but teams that know how to use technology to create high-quality content and break through to new audiences.
MEET48 is a prime example. This behemoth from the traditional entertainment industry, which once created Asia's top idol IP, SNH48, and the phenomenal rhythm game (Audition Online), is now leading the "idol economy," the most emotionally connected and user-sticky sector in the entertainment industry, towards the integration and transformation of AI + Web3.
MEET48 has become a blockbuster application in the BSC ecosystem, boasting over 3.8 million active users and 500,000 on-chain wallets, with over 100 million on-chain interactions, consistently ranking first among BNB Chain social applications. The project has been selected for the BNB Chain MVB program and has received strategic investment from YZi Labs. In June 2025, MEET48 completed the $IDOL token TGE and was simultaneously listed on Binance Alpha, PancakeSwap, Bitget, Gate, and MEXC; as of November, the project's FDV market capitalization exceeded $164 million.
From creating a blockbuster app to building an ecosystem, MEET48's vision is to become a benchmark project in Web3 entertainment and build the next-generation Web3 entertainment infrastructure. In its initial phase, the team adheres to a content- and user-centric philosophy, starting with its strongest advantage: the idol economy. It will deeply integrate its years of accumulated idol development system with AI technology and Web3 mechanisms to inject a content ecosystem with genuine participation and user engagement into Web3 entertainment.
In the wave of digitalization, idol culture is also moving towards a new stage of virtualization and intelligence. AI technology has broken the boundaries of physical performance, enabling virtual idols to possess the ability to provide 24/7 companionship, interaction, and personality extension that is difficult for real people to achieve. The commercial potential of virtual idols is also being rapidly validated: Hatsune Miku in Japan and Luo Tianyi in China have already become top cultural IPs; and with the breakthroughs in generative AI, traditional entertainment giants are also entering the market: South Korea's SM Entertainment was the first to launch the virtual idol Naevis; Netflix also launched the virtual groups HUNTR/X and Saja Boys through the animated film (K-Pop Demon Hunters), breaking multiple records for real artists on platforms such as Spotify. As a16z pointed out, the development of virtual idols is growing into a potentially huge multi-billion dollar industry.
However, these still fall under the centralized "platform-based star-making" model. MEET48, on the other hand, is among the first entertainment giants to break free from the Web2 framework. With its keen industry insight and nearly two decades of experience in content operation and technology development, MEET48 is using AIUGC tools combined with Web3 mechanisms to truly democratize the "power of star-making."
Backed by a fan base of 30 million and copyrighted music resources of over 40,000 tracks, the MEET48 platform has built a complete creation and value cycle system:
1. AIDOL Producer: A one-stop AIUGC toolset that supports content generation such as character creation, stage design, and performance.
2. Mars Protocol: A content asset tokenization solution that provides monetization models;
3. Metaverse: An immersive social and creative space that enables the long-term accumulation of users and assets.
Meanwhile, based on a deep understanding of the industry and experience in various models, MEET48 proposed a new Web3 model oriented towards the creator economy:
1. Proof of Creativity (PoC): Replaces computing power or staking models with the value of creation, and community members and fans complete the content value certification by voting with governance tokens;
2. Virtual World Assets (VWA): Incorporating virtual characters, works, and content into a tokenized circulation system, providing a foundation for assetization and commercialization for the creator community.
PoC enables content creation to have a shared value, while VWA gives content an economic form, together forming the underlying support for the AIUGC era.
When platforms cease to be monopolists of value and instead become tools for empowerment; when creativity is unleashed and content is empowered and incentivized, value can truly return to users, and the potential of the creator economy can be truly unleashed. This is a unique opportunity brought about by AI + Web3, and it will inevitably become the direction of the content industry's evolution.
Seizing the wave is just the beginning; the ability to implement it is the key to success. Unlike most Web3 entertainment projects that remain at the conceptual stage, MEET48 possesses the most scarce and systematic implementation capability in the Web3 field:
1. On the technical level, MEET48 possesses unique data and algorithm barriers. Twenty years of accumulated music and dance data provide a natural advantage for model training; a research and development team of over 500 people covers areas such as 3D virtual humans, large-scale music and dance models, AI entertainment intelligent agents, and metaverse social networking, forming a systematic technical system that allows the "idol development" model to be fully upgraded in the intelligent era.
2. At the operational level, the team has created phenomenal games such as Audition Online and built the SNH48 ecosystem, which covers five sub-groups, more than 300 artists, and 30 million fans. It has the experience and advantages of implementation that are difficult for other teams to replicate.
3. In terms of traffic, MEET48 will put SNH48's voting mechanism on the blockchain during the cold start phase to inject early traffic into the AIUGC platform; launch the Web3 virtual idol game (AuditionsGO); and join hands with Tencent Video to create the world's first AI Idol competition program to help the product break into the mainstream.
The entertainment and content industries have always been the most penetrating sectors of the internet, and the virtual idol sector, which integrates AI technology, has the best chance to be the first to achieve mass adoption. MEET48 has accurately grasped this opportunity and is leveraging its four major advantages—model experience, technology system, operational capabilities, and traffic base—to be at the forefront of this transformation.
Just as Netflix seized the internet wave and reshaped the rules of content distribution, MEET48 is using AIUGC and Web3 to rewrite the logic of content creation and value transfer, reconstruct the global entertainment system, and promote the "Netflix legend" to reappear on the blockchain.
IV. From Applications to Infrastructure: Building a Web3 Entertainment Ecosystem Empire
MEET48's goal is far more than just an application.
In its early stages, MEET48 was a "star-making dream factory" in the Web3 world, breaking down centralized production barriers with AIUGC and truly returning creative rights to users; and in the more distant future, it is moving towards a grander endgame—becoming a Web3 entertainment infrastructure that reshapes the underlying rules.
Driven by this vision, MEET Labs has incubated the lightweight gaming platform GamingFi, initially forming a cross-content ecosystem matrix. And this is just the beginning. MEET48 plans to develop an EVM-compatible Layer2 PoC sidechain within the BSC ecosystem, creating a closed loop encompassing users, assets, technology, and applications.
Technically, EVM-compatible Layer 2 is no longer a technological barrier;
In terms of applications and users, MEET48 has a large fan base and mature product implementation capabilities;
At the asset level, AIUGC addresses the supply side of content assets (VWA), while the PoC mechanism establishes a value consensus and ownership confirmation system.
Leveraging its complete technology system and the ecosystem support of BNB Chain, MEET48 is committed to becoming a benchmark for Web3 entertainment, integrating and attracting more cultural and entertainment IPs, content, and applications that are transforming to Web3, jointly building the EVM and BSC ecosystem, and promoting the ecologicalization and long-term sustainable development of the Web3 entertainment industry.
Just as Binance started as an exchange, built BNB Chain, and became the financial infrastructure of Web3, a "NASDAQ on the chain," MEET48 is also moving along a similar path—using AIUGC as the engine and Web3 as the foundation, reshaping the entire chain logic of content production and value distribution, and creating a "Netflix on the chain."
As the ecosystem expands, the value created within the system will continuously flow back to the bottom layer, opening up a growth space of tens of billions of dollars for MEET48 in the first phase.
V. The sole carrier of billions in ecological value: IDOL is replaying BNB's value leap.
IDOL is the core value carrier of the MEET48 ecosystem, positioned similarly to BNB in the Binance ecosystem. Its value capture mechanism is also highly similar to BNB, which can be analyzed from two aspects:
1. Functional Attributes: As a functional token, IDOL undertakes multiple core functions in the ecosystem, including voting, purchasing virtual goods and services, forming stable use cases and demand for holding the token;
2. Asset attributes: Directly linked to ecological growth through a destruction mechanism.
BNB relies on quarterly automatic burning and fee burning to create a deflationary effect, while IDOL also employs a "dual burning mechanism":
Voting Pool Destruction: A fixed percentage of IDOL tokens will be periodically destroyed from the voting pool generated by the SNH48 (and future virtual idol) voting activities.
Transaction fee burning: Daily transactions and interactions within the ecosystem will continuously reduce the circulating supply of IDOL.
Supply-side deflation and demand-side growth have created a healthy token circulation mechanism, enabling IDOL's value to grow in tandem with the ecosystem's growth.
We believe that IDOL is currently like BNB in 2019—its ecosystem is on the verge of explosive growth, and the market has not yet fully priced in its potential. In the future, with the full expansion of the Web3 entertainment ecosystem, IDOL will become a core carrier of billions of dollars in value.
VI. Conclusion: MEET48 Leads the On-Chain "Netflix Moment," Driving a New Wave of Web3 Entertainment
Just as Netflix reshaped the global content distribution landscape with its streaming model, MEET48 is leveraging its deep experience in content and product operations, as well as its systematic breakthroughs in AI and Web3 technologies, to reconstruct the production and value distribution paradigm of the content industry and launch Web3 entertainment centered on empowering the co-creation economy with value-functional token design.
As a pioneer in this wave, MEET48 has been the first to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating Web3 with entertainment. Building upon a massive fan economy, a mature business model, and a monetization system, MEET48 has achieved a shared understanding of value and revenue between its IP and its fans through Web3.
In the future, MEET48 will continue to explore and build, guided by its own successful practices and using PoC Chain as an incubation platform, to drive more projects to accelerate along the Web3 entertainment path, jointly shaping a new landscape of decentralized entertainment economy and ushering in the "Netflix moment" for Web3 entertainment.
Disclaimer
This report is for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute any form of investment advice, opinion, or recommendation. Hash Global is an investor in MEET48 and holds $IDOL tokens through its funds. Therefore, the content and opinions expressed in this report may contain some bias. Readers are advised to exercise caution when referring to this report.
This report may contain forward-looking statements. The judgments made are based on the current market environment and publicly available information, and may change in the future due to market, regulatory, and technological factors. Crypto assets and DeFi projects are high-risk and highly uncertain; investors may face the risk of losing all their principal.
This report is not tailored to the financial situation, investment objectives, or risk appetite of any particular investor. Readers are advised to fully understand the associated risks and consult independent legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions.
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