hiii,
just another day in new] york] city], holding back tears at the apple genius bar because i]spilled]an]oat]cappuccino]on]my]keyboard]. mostly i just really wish big tech would take a gentle pause on AGI, ai agents, machine learning, etcetcetc and pivot to making some fully aquatic devices.
4
anywayzzz here are some highlights from this week in consumer crypto, delivered to you straight from my new macbook proooooo.
xx c
As part of the latest arc in the global war on crypto, Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev was found guilty of money laundering $1.2B through his app by a Dutch court and sentenced to 5 years in prison, setting plenty of dangerous precedents and making crypto/tech development generally a super not safe space to innovate. But don't worry, it's not all bad!! Because we got AI girlfriends this week. Also, StabilityAI launched Stable Artisan, which basically lets you create high-quality media directly within Discord.
Zora unveiled its upcoming mobile app, so now you can more easily shill your normie friends on onchain creation. Privy previewed its new global wallet system. Songcamp is building a music-first Zora client. Uniswap dropped a commemorative mint for the 5-year anniversary of Unisocks. Base now has 46% of all transactions related to SocialFI. The YUP token launched on Base. Pods rolled out crosschain mints. Runes are responsible for 45% of all Bitcoin’s transactions since launch. Starting this week, all Hypersub creators & subscribers who hold a minimum of 500k $Enjoy will receive a 3x boost on their tip allocation. Roaring Kitty (memestock kingmaker) returned, causing GME to skyrocket and I've just been waiting for CNBC reporters to pivot from dragging memestocks to memecoins. I literally cannot get myself to care about FantasyTop but if you can, heres everything you could possibly want to know about the game taking CT by storm.
Internet Explorers is a weekly rundown live stream where extremely online individuals broadly explore (romanticize, even) new consumer internet experiences.
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Zora acquires mint.fun
Last week, the founder of Context, Worm, made headlines as their flagship product, mint.fun, was acquired by Zora, coinciding with the release of their latest project, rug.fun. Context has evolved from its initial web3 social feed to focusing on mint.fun, which is an NFT mint aggregator that gained significant traction during the last bull. Despite launching meme.market earlier this year, it struggled to gain attention. Now, with rug.fun, a memecoin creation game where coins compete for liquidity, Context aims to address the challenge of aggregating attention and energy around memecoins, potentially reshaping how we might think about productizing memecoin consensus building.
Creating and maintaining a culturally infectious memecoin is GODS WORK, It requires a relentless meme team, passionate core community, and a shocking amount of luck. While some memes gain immense value through bizarre social context, the majority struggle to attract attention amidst the noisy wastelands of pump.fun, dexscreener, and crypto twitter. There may be an opportunity to develop products that concentrate attention on select memecoins or subcategories, potentially aiding their breakout. But who knows, maybe this wouldn't work and natural internet dynamics are necessary for their success.
Is the infra cycle over?
Last week, four pure play consumer products broke into the Top 15 protocols for fees generated. Josh wrote a piece over a year ago outlining emerging business models for consumer crypto projects, highlighting membership, first-party drops, curated drops, identity products, collectibles, services, tx fees, and network value (token) as opportunities to keep an eye on. It’s quite clear now that creating a context people want to transact within, facilitating a high volume of txs, and taking small fees is the killer business model of consumer crypto -- just look at Zora, Friend.tech, Unlonely, Fantasy.Top, Pump.Fun, Sofamon if you don't believe us.
there's no upside in it for retail anymore and it's boring as hell compared to the consumer products, memecoins, and scenecoins that are emerging
why would someone buy and hold a $5B mcap random infra token when they can play more fun, understandable,…
Despite this, consumer projects remain undervalued compared to infra, indicating a potential correction once the market realizes consumer products have all the leverage because they can vertically integrate. Nonetheless, user numbers today are still so small (15k DAUs for Pump.fun, 10k DAUs for Friend.tech, 1k DAUs for Fantasy.Top) and it’s hard to see anybody outside of our little bubble using these products in their current forms. Regardless they are printinggggg and should continue riding this wave, but the real challenge lies in transitioning to mainstream adoption (many such cases).
A call for a consumer token renaissance
Current token models and distribution methods are broken and almost every new airdrop and token launch is struggling to engage users. Everything is overfarmed and nobody actually cares about the tokens they’re receiving. We’re entering the consumer crypto cycle, and we’re going to need new consumer-centric token models to go with it.
1) tokens, not points
2) don’t farm the farmers - teasing and creating ambiguity around a token distribution to grow your numbers…
Attempts to squeeze consumer tokens into protocol frameworks have been awkward, as users don't actually want to govern anything and prefer tokens that offer clear utility and ownership within projects. Models like $FRIEND demonstrate the importance of integrating tokens into the social and experiential aspects of products to engage users effectively. Social distribution mechanisms and capturing value from speculation are also key components for future consumer token models, which should ultimately be designed to build the scene and distribute ownership and value over time.
Blast degenomics
Blast is gaining attention for designing strong incentives that have been effective in growing it’s ecosystem, particularly through its Jackpot wins, Blast Points and Blast Gold program. Half of Blast’s upcoming airdrop is going to Points holders, and half to Gold holders. Their latest engagement campaign is very very degen and dials up the incentives yet again. This approach has boosted projects like Fantasy.Top, making them more compelling with increased attention and liquidity. While questions remain about sustainability and staying power, Blast's strategy in the crowded L2 ecosystem is positioning itself and its projects for success by fostering engagement and utility.
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Google is illegal because it helps you find front ends.
The internet is illegal because it lets you access Google.
Your brain is illegal because that is where your impulse to access the internet originated.
Ethereum / Flashbots / Eigenlayer
But it’s actually
Solana / Pump Fun / Telegram
There's a notion that AI will help cut down costs and increase efficiency. However, Marc presented a strong counterargument by referencing Jevon's paradox.
Jevon's paradox:
The Jevon's paradox…
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