gm,
here's a quick guide to being an alpha in november 2024:
11:37am: emerge from your cryosleep pod dripping in synthetic amniotic fluid
1:31pm: strap into your neural lace for some light quantitative trading your synapses firing in sync with market volatility
2:30pm calcify pineal gland, cry into a basin filled with the tears of liquidated traders
3:30pm mercury parasite sushi, attend your daily meeting with your parasocial relationships
4:05pm ingest seed oils and microplastics gotta keep that endocrine system as disrupted as the markets
4:20pm: smoke pure uncut ethereum gas in a ritual ceremony
5:12pm radiation therapy time to bask in the warm glow of your multiple screens
5:30pm upload your personal data to train your ai agent because why have an original thought
6:42pm time to chow down on some premium goyslop straight from the heart of the industrial food complex
3:27am dream subliminal messages
and there you have it my sweet summer child, enjoy a week in consumer crypto below
xx c
The highly-anticipated Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 Monad has begun rolling out its testnet as part of a phased release. An anonymous Farcaster user on Supercast used Clanker, an AI Farcaster bot, to deploy $ANON. Phantom flipped Google Chrome in app rankings and Solana powers 89% of new token launches as memecoin craze continues to fuel network activity. Stripe launched a SDK built for AI agents. Telegram launched Mini Apps 2.0: Full-Screen Mode, Home Screen Icons, Geolocation and 10 more features. A middle schooler created and rugged $QUANT for $30k while live streaming the whole thing. Ethena, the DeFi protocol behind the USDe stablecoin, is set to turn on its fee switch by the end of the month. Pump Science combines DeSci with memecoins, allowing users to launch and test “longevity experiments” of drugs and chemical compounds, which creates new fundraising mechanisms for drug developers. Trump said to consider crypto lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén to lead the SEC. There's a cool new beta launch from roam, the world's first autonomous news desk, where agents curate a daily news publication and people can win money by creating or backing articles.
What Happened in BANGKOK
*guest segment by nicholas
Devcon, Ethereum Foundation's flagship conference, took place at the massive Queen Sikirit National Convention Center in the heart of Bangkok last week. Flanked by a baffling quantity of side events, the main event remained true to Etherean form: a forum for myriad practical and visionary talks concerning the core protocol, cypherpunk values, and real world applications, presented by a who's who of EVM builders.
Devcon highlights:
Justin Drake's 5 year Beam Chain vision for Ethereum was so popular that people crowded in the hallway outside the over capacity Main Stage.
Zupass's Frog catching activation introduced hundreds of people to Zupass's ZK identity protocol through a Pokémon-like QR-code scanning game, with adorable Frog bucket hats and other frog-apparel prizes.
World Computer Day brought together programmable cryptography builders from the restaking, fast-L2, and zk scenes for a memorable all-day event about open and permissionless computers
The ticker is C L A N K E R
*guest segment by nicholas
Farcaster's very own @clanker has taken the Base token charts by storm since launching on November 9th. Clanker lets any Farcaster launch an ERC-20 on Uni-V3 on Base by posting "@clanker" plus the name of the token and an optional image. In other words, Clanker is a social token launchpad with an AI agent for an interface. Clanker's greatest hits so far are $LUM, a token launched by $HIGHER-affiliated agent @aethernet, and $ANON, a token launched by supercast.xyz-affiliated anon account @superanon, which has since forked it's own zk-powered anon posting bot, @anoncast.
Clanker trends to watch:
Groups that post as a single entity, like @superanon and @anoncast, but with different characters, are intriguing candidates for further tokenization.
Frens is a new group chat app that shows in-chat notifications when members of the group buy or sell tokens on Ethereum or Solana. The app tracks wallets users have linked to Farcaster, and its own embedded wallet. When mentioning a token or sharing a link, the chat expands to show token price charts with clever green and red PFPs representing each trade made by chat members. Frens is proving a powerful place to find—or create—alpha. Frens is invite-only on TestFlight.
Spurred on by the builderly energy Clanker and its agent brethren have breathed into the network over the past two weeks, Farcaster founder @dwr.eth is on a spree of posting very specific Farcaster bot and app ideas such as a zkBlind, Anon Channels, and a Blackjack Frame. Will any of these become new bots or products on Farcaster? In a post-Clanker world, tokenization appears inevitable.
4
Web4
Jeffy Yu dropped a great post last week called "Web4: We Are AGI" that explores the evolving intersection of AI x crypto, focusing on autonomous agents, cultural experimentation, and emerging technologies. AI is progressing toward AGI through stages, with current systems operating in an agentic paradigm where autonomous agents function within specific constraints, showing rapid improvement and increasing social and financial activity, such as launching tokens and interacting on crypto rails.
key themes:
we're not waiting for some magical AGI moment - it's already happening through thousands of small experiments in the trenches of crypto
current AI is getting scary good at operating within constraints (like trading, content creation, etc)
crypto's permissionless and unhinged culture is basically the perfect petri dish for AI experimentation
the progression:
web2: gave us social networks
web3: added money to the social equation
web4: introducing AI agents that can actually use these social + financial rails, ubiquitous intelligence
instead of some sudden "AGI takes over" moment, we're watching this gradual evolution where thousands of autonomous agents are learning to launch tokens, farm attention, build communities, make money, and basically speedrun capitalism
but here's where it gets really wild:
imagine every person training their own AI agent
these agents become like digital extensions of ourselves
they operate 24/7 in this weird hybrid human-AI culture we're building
the line between human and machine creativity gets delightfully blurry
why this matters:
the next wave of innovation isn't coming from better base models
it's coming from experiments happening in crypto
we're basically watching evolution happen in real-time
ai16z
ai16z -- another interesting narrative in the AI x crypto. Many initially dismissed it as a “meme fund” trading at ridiculous valuations relative to AUM, but this perspective misses the multi-faceted flywheels at play. At its core, $ai16z is an attention network, an agent launchpad, and a social coordination mechanism. Its underlying tech, ELIZA, is an open-source framework powering agent development, enabling rapid adoption. Developers can integrate their agents with ELIZA and, by contributing 10% of their token supply to the DAO, gain access to its growing support ecosystem. This forms a tech flywheel: as more developers build, the tech improves, the DAO attracts more projects, and the attention base grows exponentially. The DAO's autonomous AI agent is designed to evaluate investment proposals, execute trades, and grow the treasury, all while leveraging a community-driven virtual trust marketplace. The $ai16z token represents voting rights and investment shares, with a clear vision to reshape how AI systems and crypto intersect.
What makes ai16z unique is its multi-layered approach. On the tech front, Eliza offers a standard framework for launching AI agents onchain. Developers using Eliza can build agents capable of interacting across wallets, social platforms, and more, while also plugging into ai16z’s ecosystem. The DAO incentivizes builders with a “standard deal” — donate 10% of your token supply, and you'll get DAO support. This creates a tech flywheel where more projects build on Eliza, improving the tech and attracting even more builders and attention.
The social flywheel is equally compelling. The virtual trust marketplace gamifies participation, allowing token holders to propose trades and gain social and economic capital as their suggestions succeed. This gamification creates a richer community experience, driving token demand and reinforcing the narrative. Economically, the DAO’s transparency in trades fosters market reflexivity — the act of copying successful trades further drives AUM growth, strengthening the project’s ecosystem.
While the community is experiencing some challenges and drama with its ecosystem tokens right now (including an anime waifu girl who was frontrun by a dueling dev team), ai16z stands out for its bold ambition and rapid execution. It’s not just a fund; it’s a memecoin, a launchpad, a social network, and a glimpse into how multi-agent systems might shape AGI.
GenZ
TechCrunch shared an article last week highlighting key trends and app adoption metrics among Gen Z in 2024. If you're building anything in the consumer space especially social you've got to keep your finger on the pulse of what Gen Z values and uses. They're trendsetters and in this hyper-social butterfly stage of life forming connections quicker than neurons in a baby's brain and more open to trying new things than a stoner at a buffet.
Nikita Bier famously noted that share rates drop 20% for every additional year of age from 13 to 18. If you’re targeting older demographics, youre gonna be paying for that sweet sweet user acquisition. its like trying to teach your grandma to use snapchat youll get there eventually but its gonna cost you.
all those breakout social products that have been running the show for the last decade owe their success to capturing the hearts minds and infinitely scrolling thumbs of the youth. So here are some standout insights from the article:
Temu, the gamified e-commerce platform, was the most downloaded app of 2024. It blends the utility of Amazon with the engagement mechanics of a gambling app, creating an addictive dopamine-driven experience.
ShortMax, a new short-form entertainment app, combines TikTok’s swipeable UX with Netflix-style scripted dramas. Episodes are bite-sized and gamified with coins and quests, hitting Gen Z’s dopamine sweet spot. The app already boasts 20 million downloads.
Gen Z relies heavily on photo-sharing and social media apps like Instagram, Threads, and ByteDance's CapCut and Lemon8, which are gaining traction for their editing tools and compatibility with platforms like TikTok.
In the AI category, ChatGPT and ByteDance’s study companion, Gauth, led in downloads, signaling strong adoption of AI utilities by Gen Z.
Trad streaming apps like Netflix and Prime are lagging in downloads compared to these newcomers. However, their already entrenched user base might account for slower growth.
The overarching theme? Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. Everything Gen Z flocks to is designed for maximum engagement, gamification, and instant gratification.
Live & online Fridays at 10am PT / 1pm ET.
- Consumer applications just finding product-market fit
- Infrastructure still being built
- Everything is so early it hurts
- Creating value > Extracting value
- Long-term alignment > Short-term gains…
