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Hello and so good to see you!
I appreciate you meeting me here at this $Fly token accepting cafe in Williamsburg so soon after your bender at the Marquee in Singapore. I know you’ve got a very tight schedule and a dinner with an alt L1 trying to poach you to build on their chain at 7 pm, not to mention a dj lesson and ketamine therapy this afternoon, so let’s get down to business.
enjoy a week in consumer crypto below.
xx c
a16z just learned what anime is. Doodles integrated Crypto Payments into their Stoodio platform, with the help of Decent. JokeRace ran a contest "where are the f*cking apps?" for founders to submit their consumer crypto projects and voters to select their favorites. Revolut is reportedly moving ahead with plans to launch its own stablecoin. Texas court dismisses Consensys lawsuit against SEC. Kamala mentioned 'digital assets' as an area to encourage innovation but didn't mention specifics. Vitalik: An Ethereum Story, a film crowdsourced with ETH, debuted last week with a worldwide theater premiere across 23 countries. This film is nominally about Ethereum and its developer ecosystem. But it is actually an opportunity to spend ~90min with Vitalik learning about him and how he got here. Next stop netflix? Daylight announced their raise of $6M from 1kx and USV to bring personalized and discoverable experiences onchain. Unlonely is moving from Base to Solana. Celestia Foundation raised $100M. $EIGEN will become tradable on September 30th. You are Undersizing the TAM of Consumer Crypto.
Farcaster is updating its CHANNELS to foster a more membership-oriented, intimate environment, akin to curating a group chat but maintaining a public aspect showcased on the protocol. This shift moves away from broad topics and moderation to a model where participation is by invitation, similar to the interactive audience and stage dynamic seen in Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces. This allows for more focused, narrowcast discussions, balancing the 'megaphone' effect on the home feed with 'cozy corners' within channels.
Spicy drop.... Edmond Lau is best known for capturing and distilling the crypto zeitgeist into painfully accurate memes. If you’re on crypto twitter, there’s a high chance that you’ve already been roasted by him. After debuting his customized IYK-chipped tee at FWB FEST, Edmond will now be launching the shirt for pre-order, limited to 2 weeks and 3 days, starting on Sept 25 at 10am EST. The tees feature Edmond’s own design and are embedded with IYK chips. Tap the chip to discover secret spicy contest, exclusive for tee holders only.
˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ As heard on Internet Explorers ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚
What if prediction markets were 1000x more expressive? Last week, Nicholas and I conducted a radial coup of Internet Explorers while Jess & Josh were in Singapore and brought on 0xSmallBrain as a guest. They recently launched their latest onchain experiment: Tmr.news, the first natural language prediction market. It's judged by AI & secured by crypto. In its current form, it's a daily prediction market for tomorrow’s New York Times headline. You type any sentence and enter an amount. You're paid out proportionally based on how semantically similar your prediction is to the true result. Predictions are judged onchain by OpenAI Data from the New York Times and OpenAI is brought onchain securely with web proofs, a new technology that enables cryptographically verifiable statements about any data on the internet. This allows them to use any model or API provider, including closed source models. The contracts allow anyone to permissionlessly create and resolve intelligent prediction markets for the semantic meaning of any piece of future content on the internet. Think markets on Elon’s next tweet, the next iPhone launch announcement, or changes to regulation. All you need is a url, regex, and expiry date.
This is a super fun experiment pushing prediction markets forward and showcasing new ways to bring about higher dimensionality and semantic intelligence. If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, go check it out and submit some predictions!
Trump joined Rug Radio on Twitter Spaces last week to shill his latest grift World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s new crypto project. On a Twitter Space with Rug Radio, he unveiled info about who can buy the forthcoming tokens, and how tokens will be allotted: 20% will go to the founding team, 17% will be set aside for user rewards, and the remaining 63% will be available for the public to purchase. WLFI, a “high-yield” project built on Aave, will feature a non-transferable governance token. The tokens are only available to accredited investors. In the conversation, Trump noted that it was the success of his NFT trading card sales that made him warm up from his previous crypto skepticism.
Overall the whole interview was a peak wordcel yapathon. It's wild to see cryptotwitter Spaces attract high-profile figures, particularly when it serves their political interests. It also underscores the growing influence of previously fringe communities in mainstream political discourse. The reaction within the broader space is mixed. While some view Trump’s involvement as a significant moment for the industry and attracting mainstream attention, others are frustrated, seeing it a grift that will only further sour the mainstream's opinion of the industry at large.
$MOTHER... The rise of celeb memecoins has sparked a lot of debate. While they have often been tainted by scammers exploiting consumer demand, the celeb is usually just a hired figurehead. This counterfeit market has created a lot of distrust, but celebs like Iggy are arguing that genuine celeb tokens, such as her own project $MOTHER, can bring real value to the entertainment and culture aspects of crypto.
She went off in the above thread about all this and shared her frustrations. In it, she says how she believes Eric Wall's criticism stems more from his desire to maintain his persona as a "coin killer" rather than an understanding of the facts. She argues that any genuine celebrity meta is not harmful to the crypto space, but rather, it is counterfeit tokens that cause damage. She was also frustrated that they wouldn't let her go through with her presentation performance art at Breakpoint, saying it was inappropriate to bring anyone on stage to dance because of the “regulators” and because her performance “would go too viral and then people won’t talk about the other serious things at the conference in the press” (which seems like an industry problem not an Iggy problem). Despite the backlash, Iggy says she's going to keep pushing the project forward and is doubling down on her ability to build strong, lasting online communities and leverage viral marketing plus "digital escapism", skills she has honed throughout her career. Let iggy cook.
On another note...The SEC forced a $750k settlement with Flyfish Club, a dining club, for "unregistered securities violations" over the group's membership NFT sales. Flyfish had sold around 1,600 NFTs to raise $14.8M for the construction of a members-only restaurant and bar in NYC, with NFTs priced between 2.5 and 4.25 ETH. The SEC claimed that the NFTs were marketed in a way that led investors to expect profits, either by selling the tokens at a higher price or leasing them to others seeking access to the restaurant. Despite the high demand and trading of these tokens in secondary markets, their value eventually dropped significantly below the original purchase price, and Flyfish earned an additional $2.7M in royalties. However, the SEC’s enforcement action sparked criticism from its own commissioners, who questioned the focus on Flyfish’s NFT program. They argued that Flyfish NFTs had a concrete use — granting access to a physical restaurant — and should be classified as utility tokens rather than securities. Despite some buyers viewing the NFTs as an investment, the commissioners noted that intent does not transform a non-security into a security, much like art is not considered a security even when collected for speculative purposes. They emphasized that NFTs provide creative ways for artists and businesses to monetize talent and access, and the Flyfish Club’s NFT membership model was simply an innovative way to sell access to an exclusive dining experience.
Meanwhile... GOP congressional leaders grilled Gary Gensler over the agency’s handling of airdrops, demanding clarification on how they differ from traditional rewards programs and damning the agency’s regulation as “Politicized.”
And lastly.... OpenSea has pledged $5M to help cover legal fees for NFT artists and developers who have received a Wells notice from the SEC. Several organizations, including a16z crypto and Stand with Crypto, have partnered to help offer legal services and consultations to artists and creators facing potential government action — or who simply want to ensure they’re pursuing their NFT projects in a legal and compliant manner. And UNFK amassed over 100k signatures in a petition against GG's regulatory decisions.
Catch up with more consumer crypto updates by watching last week's episode:
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Subjective NYC is hosting its first-ever annual SUBJECTIVE Art Festival at LUME Studios in TriBeCa from September 27-29. With over 150 leading artists and curations by ArtXCode, Verse, Superchief, and more, the festival celebrates art and technology across six floors of immersive installations. Expect panel discussions featuring digital art thought leaders, as well as nightly live performances. It’s a space to explore, connect, and dive deep into the evolving intersection of art and tech.
Grab a ticket and use the discount code SEEDCLUB for 30% off, or $20 off of a weekend pass! See you there xx
Base, Titles, Refraction, Hug, and AAWH Art Collective are throwing an event on October 3 in Brooklyn to teach you how to train AI models on your artwork and earn on Base. RSVP here.
when algorithms decide direction
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Lol didn’t think the regulators would include the conference team, let iggy cook indeed. Thanks for writing & sharing 100 $degen 10 $hunt 10 $00 🍖 x 100 10 $build 5 $fomo 5 🎭 100 $WILD @tipothehat 🔥🚀🎩