#351: Vector - Adding the Social to SocialFi

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is off to a great start for the New Year! I was planning on getting back to writing pieces sooner, but I caught a nasty cold the week of New Year’s, which is what I get for being cocky about not getting sick for over 2 years.

What did I spend my time doing while sick? Among other things, I started playing around with an app called Vector.

Ok, it’s a little more than playing around when it was the top app first used after pickup and only behind X in terms of most time spent the week I was sick 😬

At this point, it feels like I’m the Tyrone Biggums (IYKYK) of Vector, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

So what the hell is Vector and why do I find it so addicting?

Vector is a social trading mobile app created by the Tensor (Solana NFT marketplace) team. The founders came up with the idea of creating a social memecoin trading experience in early 2024 and the team has been heads down building ever since. The app is still in private beta and has been steadily growing through invite codes and a sticky product.

Users can trade tokens on Solana or Base, with a large majority of activity currently on Solana likely due to the outsized focus on memecoins there and many users coming from the Tensor community which is rooted in Solana.

There are many options these days when it comes to trading platforms, apps, and mobile apps. A non-comprehensive sample:

• Wallets: Metamask, Phantom, Rabby, Rainbow

• Trading apps: Uniswap, Jupiter, 1inch

• Mobile apps: Moonshot, Bags, Vector

• Memecoin leaning: Photon, Bullx, Bonkbot

• Centralized exchanges: Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Bybit

Many of the above names started in one category and expanded across the board to capture larger market share and expand across devices. The mobile-first apps have focused on mobile, for now.

Although many of the names listed above flaunt massive trading volumes, large user bases, and juicy profit margins, none of them have really nailed social in them. Sure they have large followings on social platforms and receive tons of chatter, but in-app social features are not the focus.

Vector however, has incorporated social into the core experience loop: After a trade is made (for both buys and sells), users have the option to broadcast their trade with commentary up to 100 characters. Long enough for a short note, short enough to be read in a few seconds or less.

Broadcasts are also viewable on every token, showing buy/sell activity and they can also include links or tag other users.

The key here is users can only broadcast after a trade is made, up to 3 minutes after the trade. You can’t broadcast unless you actually make the trade, creating a skin in the game effect as opposed to taking screenshots and posting them without any way for a viewer to verify if it’s legit.

With Vector profiles, you can:

• Follow each other

• Subscribe to a user’s broadcasts for notifications

• View daily and weekly trading performance of the user’s Vector-connected wallets

• View previous broadcast and current holdings

• View a user’s X account, creating an additional layer of credibility

Stealth mode is an option that hides holdings and the exact size of trades, but a large majority of users opt for the transparent approach as Vector accounts represent only a sample of trading activity and holdings.

Vector charges a 1% fee on the value of trades, which is similar to other apps (particularly the trading bots like Photon, BullX, Bonkbot), with the fees rewarded back to the users in a variety of ways. Up to 75% of the 1% back to a user:

• User referrals: 25% of the trading fees go back to the referrer indefinitely

• Token links and broadcasts: 25% of trading fees can come from users who share links to a particular token outside of the app or broadcasts in the app

• Group referrals: 25% of trading fees can go to creators of Vector groups and broadcasts within the group

Because of the social broadcast feature, the financial incentives quickly expand beyond the traditional referral bonus that is standard in trading apps. If you don’t refer users who trade often or a lot, you can still earn through broadcasting or groups. And it shows:

Of course, only the biggest and most reputable users can earn this type of money. For active smaller accounts, getting a few dollars here and there is always welcome and a nice dopamine hit.

So far we have broadcasts, transparent trading accounts, and a layered referral and affiliate-esque model, which are all great. What reallllly raised my eyebrows was a little phenomenon with the memecoin FOMO and the subsequent “Vector Takeover” (VTO) that occurred in the app.

TLDR:

• fxnction, an influencer and trader, purchases the memecoin LLM and goes to sleep

• When he wakes up, he is up big and sells his LLM holdings for 1,160 SOL (~$226k)

• SKIGOD, another trader and reputable Vector user, is jealous of fxnction’s big win and purchases an AI memecoin, FOMO

• Typical with most memecoins, it rugs

• Atypical with most memecoins, SKIGOD decides to conduct a CTO (community takeover) to bring the token back to life via Vector buy broadcasts, hence the term VTO.

• Over the course of a week, FOMO has gone from a $6k market cap to $800k at the time of this writing, which is pretty impressive considering the fact this is an unofficial memecoin of sorts for an app in closed beta

One important detail I didn’t mention about the app’s social layer is that you can see the history of a user’s trades on a particular token, whether they are broadcasted or not.

In the above example, we can see that user ‘mooningcoins’:

• Sold $200 of CortexZero

• Broadcasted sells (red dots with pfp) and shared why they were selling

• Bought $2.08k, sold $2.49k, still holds $2.84k, and has a +136% PnL

• Has broadcasted multiple buys and sells over the past 4 days (you can view the content of each broadcast by swiping)

• Has reactions and replies from all broadcasts for that user for that particular token

• Has had 7 trades from the broadcasts (fee rewards attributed to them)

What if you don’t broadcast every trade you make?

That’s fine, and users can see that too. With ‘DerHeaMan’

• Broadcasts most of their buys green dots with pfp)

• Doesn’t broadcast their sells (red dots no pfp)

This is a refreshing view into trading transparency we haven’t really seen before and is fairly easy to follow. This type of UI also alludes to the type of behavior that will lead to the most credibility (and followers) on the app.

Although performance is the most important factor, transparency around buys and sells matter too.

Have you traded something before? If so, share or subscribe!

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If you want to pump a memecoin through Vector what do you do? Sure, like any other memecoin you have to create a social account, host Spaces, manage a Telegram group, and get a group of cult holders to hop along for the ride.

Vector’s social layer turns the performative into the verifiable.

If you look at SKIGOD’s broadcast history on FOMO you can see that it’s all green. SKIGOD has made hundreds of broadcasts and they’re all buys. No red dots, $0 sold, buying through the highs and lows over the past week.

The best part is the UI for sellers on the right-hand side is cutoff because the number of reactions and comments are too high 😂

SKIGOD is the best example of this as he’s the figurehead for the FOMO VTO effort, and there are a handful of other users who boast similar buy-only type of broadcast histories.

In the broadcast above, SKIGOD purchased $2 of FOMO ($1.98 is net of the 1% trading fee). The primary goal of these buy broadcasts isn’t to buy more FOMO, rather:

• Keep attention on FOMO

• Consistently display his conviction and show that he’s still holding

• Encourage others to buy if they haven’t yet, or buy more

• Tag other notable users, applying social pressure to get them to buy

• Make an announcement (eg: Spaces going live in an hour, join the Telegram group, etc.)

These are effectively multi-purpose sponsored posts disguised as a buy. Any FOMO buy broadcast coming from SKIGOD gets more attention because of the social signaling baked into the UI.

Broadcasts also have one more use case when done en masse — The top broadcasted tokens show up on the search tab in the broadcasts category. FOMO had over 3,600 broadcasts on the first day (and is still sitting at the top with 1,175 over the past 24 hours).

Can all of these components of the social layer be gamed? Sure:

• A user can have a broadcast history of only buys and a ton of them while having wallets outside of Vector selling….but you can see how much they’re holding on Vector

• A user can spam broadcasts to promote a memecoin they hold…but the user’s track record still matters

• A token can spam broadcasts to claim the top spot on the Broadcast tab…but other users will still do some basic due diligence on the token and see who’s broadcasting or what the token is

Though these pieces can be abused, there are natural social feedback loops that reinforce good behavior on the app.

Although I’ve used a fair number of products and traded memecoins, after using Vector I can confidently say I have not truly been ‘in the trenches’. That said, Vector makes the trenches a more pleasant experience, adding in the social component and a UI for a boomer like me.

No shade to them, pump.fun was literally made for Gen Z with its shaking buttons and spazzy UI that updates every second. Pretty sure you’ll get an ADHD diagnosis if you use it for a month (and rich if you’re dedicated to the pump.fun dark arts).

Vector makes it easier to move further out on the risk curve and that might mean different things for different people:

• Trading shitcoins or lower cap tokens

• Trading certain verticals of tokens you normally wouldn’t

• Following users you normally wouldn’t and see what they’re trading and why

• Understanding different token metas (eg: this morning was a Chinese-themed meta because of the Tiktok/XiaoHongShu trend lol)

After dipping my toe into the low-cap shitcoin (I’m talking 5, 10, $20k market cap) arena, I can confidently say that I am not made for those streets. That said, I do have more confidence walking down them if I want to take a brisk stroll for old time’s sake 😂

Just as centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance make it easier to buy and trade crypto for everyday people, Vector does the same on a relative basis for the tokens that don’t get listed by these CEXs. These apps organize, streamline, and clean up some of the chaos in the trenches and repackage them for the masses.

And of course, we can’t forget the novel social layer the team has built on top.

Maybe it’s me, but I’ve never really gotten a good grasp on what SocialFi is. I mean what IS it?

As more products and platforms in crypto enter the realm of SocialFi, I believe I’ve mixed up the term SocialFi with decentralized social, eg: Warpcast or Lens. You could say that Farcaster and Lens are decentralized social platforms and SocialFi, as the content itself can be financialized through various mechanics like social tipping.

SocialFi is literally two words mashed into a term, since crypto’s top feature is financializing anything and everything (mostly a good thing haha):

Vector’s foundation is finance first, and they’ve added the social on top.

• Finance: trading tokens

• Social: Broadcasts, groups, reactions, replies

The team isn’t reinventing the wheel. They’re creating a new tire type of tire for degens that’s also normie friendly (I can see this app becoming very popular with the right conditions).

All the actions you can take on the app are familiar, crypto-native or not: buying, selling, broadcasting, reacting, following, setting up notifications, referring others. The blockchain component is almost abstracted away, trading is fast and smooth 99% of the time, and wallets are created via Privy.

Similar to other SocialFi apps and platforms, we’re also seeing the niche influencer effect play out, which has happened on friend.tech, Warpcast, and elsewhere. Users that don’t have a large following on established platforms have an opportunity to gain a large following on Vector through trading performance.

And this isn’t isolated to Vector and trading tokens. We’re seeing this happen in the creator/collector/large edition digital art world with platforms like Zora and Rodeo. These platforms lean social first with the financial component of users paying to mint and creators earning from them. But recently, we’ve seen them beef up the financial and transactional layer making it easier for users to transact.

• Social: Posts, likes, replies, shares

• Finance: Collecting, buying/selling, offers, trading

SocialFi is in tradfi as well, with Afterhour being the best comp for Vector, Reddit-style conversation into stock trading. As you can see, the character limit is muuuuuuch more than 100 characters lol.

We’ll see how Vector rolls out to a broader audience and my gut tells me that there is a broader audience outside of crypto that would enjoy using this type of app.

Although it’s not viewed as such at first glance, trading is a social activity. We consume the opinions, wins, and convictions of others while sharing our own occasionally or often depending on our preferences.

Vector enables these behaviors in a way we haven’t quite seen before.

See you Thursday!

…and if you made it this far here’s some referral codes. If you really want to try the app out, I encourage you make some trades to see how it actually works.

Download the app on mobile and enter an invite code:

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