Hi there!

It’s been a minute - both Laura and yours truly have been swamped these past few weeks (I’m sure you can relate between all the pre-TGE chaos, Kaito leaderboard wrangling, and KOL management nightmares spread across a dozen spreadsheets).

But we’re still here - and yes, the (mini) podcast is still growing.

In fact, we recently launched an episode with Levva (an automated smart vault portfolio management platform, currently in the middle of their liquidity bootstrapping phase).

And what do you know? That episode helped pull in over a quarter million dollars in liquidity within just the first few days. Turns out, minting podcast episodes onchain - whoever came up with that crazy idea (Lucas… cough cough) - is still one of the most effective ways to reach the right audience. In Levva’s case, minting the episode even pushed minters straight onto the leaderboard for their first $10M $LVVA incentive season.

We’ll keep experimenting with this format, like we already have with Soon, and Treasure.

Shameless Plug

If you’re planning a launch, incentive campaign, or any major event, pairing it with a podcast + onchain mints can be a real booster shot for your presence and your token holder base.

From what we’ve seen, up to 10% of boosted minters go on to buy more tokens - and two weeks later, 92% still hold them. (Hell, I can’t remember the last time I held an airdropped token for more than three minutes)

What’s Changing

What you’ll notice in this newsletter going forward is a bit more of a personal touch. I love the high-value, “freshly squeezed” orange-juice content in newsletters like Cookie.fun’s, but bringing Laura on to co-write was precisely to add more consistency, another perspective, and a personal tone.

I’d honestly forgotten how much I enjoy writing in a more personal voice - something that resonates beyond just bullet points and rinse-and-repeat updates.

So, depending on who’s writing, you’ll notice the tone shift a little. (Consider it part of the charm.) And don’t worry -we’re not here to clog your inbox. From now on, you’ll hear from us every two weeks.

Events Are Coming (oh no… not again)

For those of you planning on KBW or Token2049 this year, my humble two cents (after attending both last year): skip the Token frenzy unless you’ve got a specific target like SuiFest or the Network State conference. Instead, stick with KBW in Seoul - much cleaner, more professional, and, frankly, a much higher-quality crowd.

That’s all I’ll say for now, but I really hope Korea keeps the same standard this year.

We’re even considering organizing a morning run across Seoul. If you’re interested, reply back. If we can rally at least 5–10 people (hopefully not too hungover), we’ll make it happen.

Personal Takes

Oh yeah. Finally, those.

This week’s favorite hot take? Blame it all on the InfoFi platforms - Kaito, Cookie.fun, Bantr, and the sea of copycats popping up across every chain.

The doom premonition is that InfoFi is dying (shocking, I know). And, as Justin Vogel put it in a post not long ago, this meta is burning out even faster than the last one. (Points meta, anyone? Yikes.)

I was on a Space recently with Apurv, the Intract crew, and Bantr’s founder, and we broke this down almost play-by-play. The cycle goes something like this:

Sound familiar? We’ve lived through the airdrop rush (‘20), the quest frenzy (‘21–‘23), then the points obsession (yup)… and now this.

Monad Card Frenzy

I’ll keep this short: hands-down the biggest hype CT has seen since Sam Altman dropped his 2022 punchline on crypto.

~5,000 active CT accounts got access, each able to nominate three friends.

Mindshare targeted directly, mindshare exploding sideways - this was frankly psychological warfare done to perfection, with all of us watching from the front row.

Shocker: I didn’t get one. (Guess they know I’m still bullish on Sui 🫠).

But the numbers don’t lie: 67% CT mindshare (shoutout Kaito for tracking) is insane. If there’s a lesson here for projects, it’s that the “change your PFP” play is still king (not to mention both cost-effective and viral) in whichever shape or form you might want it to take.

That’s enough for today - I’ve already been badgered for the past 20 minutes to finally join my family for dinner. I’ll be back with more impressions in two weeks.

And hey, if you’re in Bangkok or Hanoi anytime soon, hit me up - coffee’s on me.