hey guys,
i just wanted to let you know that i was in such a flow state writing this that i missed my flight to los angeles. when they told me my only option was to spend .25 eth to be rerouted to Atlanta, i felt an autumnal sadness. but I, as a woman of gallantry and taste (say demure one more time i dare u), am now back in the amex lounge eating lo mein thinking about the consumer crypto paradox. which paradoxically, isn't much of a paradox at all.
16
enjoy a week in consumer crypto below
xx c
MetaMask partnered with Mastercard and Baanx Group to introduce the world’s first Mastercard debit card that enables instant spending directly from your self-custody wallet. Jeet is building an app designed to hold KOLs and CT traders accountable for the tokens they shill. Since Zora enabled secondary markets on Uniswap, 320k wallets have collected from 27k collections since launch, driving 374 ETH in mint volume and 1,271 ETH in secondary volume. That secondary volume is very notable because that was effectively 0 before. Meteora x Moonshot announced a launch that allows memecoins to lock liquidity while still maintaining the ability to claim fees earned through the pool. This allows both creators and early holders of Moonshot tokens to maintain claim rights on fees in perpetuity from the locked liquidity that gets pooled during the bonding curve period. Party introduced Sets which makes it easy to create an NFT collection with different rarities. Sofamon Gacha Machine, powered by Base, is live!
Baseline is a new tokenomics engine that sits on top of uniswap and actively manages the liquidity to provide a guaranteed and increasing baseline value for the token and a baked in credit facility with no liquidations. Paragraph added support for Coinbase Smart Wallets. The Ethereum Stories crew made a short film to tell the Uniswap story ft. Hayden. Uniswap added UniswapX support to its mobile app. a16z crypto is leading an $80M Series B financing of PIP Labs, developer of Story Protocol to support them becoming "the infrastructure for AI systems and creative people to happily co-exist." Slow Rodeo is launching their first brand next month through a NYC pop up during the US Open finals.
The Consumer Crypto Paradox, Surprise & Delight
Last week we welcomed Jarrod Dicker of TCG Crypto on the show. Jarrod recently put out a post called The Consumer Crypto Paradox, where he outlines how in web2 it’s very uncommon for consumer companies to even consider monetization until they have a huge and retained user base, whereas in web3, projects are often focused on capturing fees right from the start.
Yet, measuring an application's success by revenue or volume straight from launch limits its potential to capture a broader audience. Crypto is sooo focused on revenue velocity but right when the meta moves, that revenue disappears. That's not how you build durable consumer businesses.
For example, apps will often require users to deposit funds during onboarding, which Jarrod likens to a paywall in web2—an unnecessary barrier when trying out an unfamiliar product. While many crypto products today have speculative and financial wedges, there’s a need to design more free-to-play experiences that allow users to engage before having to deposit, bridge, or buy any crypto. The focus should shift from immediate monetization to building products that are sticky, critical, and exciting—revenue can come later, in a more meaningful way. We need to rethink the current incentives in crypto, moving beyond the short-term money grab to foster creativity and deliver lasting value to users. If you really in onchain business models, build products and experiential community-driven worlds that showcase the benefits of being onchain, build for the long-term, and don't worry about revenue from the start. Give people a reason to care. That's not to say there's no benefit in early monetization, especially when attention is ephemeral and the product creates a context where people want to transact. But as JMo says...
"revenue quality is more important than revenue velocity."
If crypto is actually going to be exciting, it has to expand and unlock something that is net new additive. Successful user acquisition, media distribution, and community discourse are all downstream of having something interesting to talk about, and facilitating surprising experiences is firepower for that.
Consumers crave unpredictability and they are drawn to experiences where the outcome isn’t guaranteed—think about avoiding movie spoilers, chasing rare concert moments, or the thrill of a sports game. In the crypto space, this feeling is amplified, with the market’s volatility, meme culture, and the constant shift of attention creating an environment where no one really knows what’s next. The element of surprise in crypto keeps people coming back, driven by the thrill of the unknown.
I’ve always felt that the best products aren’t judged by what they do, but how they make you feel. Evoke feeling from a product and experience, and people will crave it. The more crypto can push on an element of surprise, the more we’ll find reasons why people can’t help but come back. Here we are now, entertain us.
This also explains why all these pump fun and polymarket derivative products continue falling on their faces. The OG products have already tapped into all the surprise and excitement from launching prediction markets or memecoins with bonding curves, leveraging that novelty to build strong network effects. The real product here isn’t just the interface—it’s the experience. They’ve brought together meme creators, market speculators, degenerate liquidity, and a devoted community that keeps the experience fresh and entertaining. To compete with them, you need to focus on delivering a more powerful emotional response and unexpected moments, not just minor tech improvements.
On Interoperability ...
In web2, we build products, then work on building flywheels that retain users within a network for that product. Create a product, which then creates a network. Yet, in web3, we start with a network - the set of onchain, onboarded users. As Nitya put it, the most successful consumer crypto experiences make themselves an indispensable part of many flywheels. Crypto is a network, and the most important apps occupy a place of prominence in the most important multi-app user journeys.
For any sort of app to breakout, this must continue to be true. Crypto’s unique advantage, on top of the opportunities unlocked by tools that enable better financialization and speculation, is interoperability-- users can onboard once, then transact everywhere onchain. Why do the duplicative work of onboarding users fresh over and over again? We all just want to be able to do something on one app that can be recognized on another.
It’s where the magic of interoperability will run wild, and we loved 0xDesigner’s thread compiling all his designs related to it. Here are some favorites:
Catch up with more consumer crypto updates by watching last week's episode:
Live & online Fridays at 10am PT / 1pm ET.
internet explorers every friday, live n online. this week featuring special guest Alex from Dimo!
thank u i didnt know that
Found his insight stress test framework very useful. Here’s how he applies it to Airbnb:
Releases a token early, recognizes the end state is entirely unclear, and maintains optionality on how it’ll evolve in futureHas mechanics to distribute tokens over a long time frame to users / participants that are creating valueCaptures…
