How Moxie lost the community trust with bad comms

I’ll start with the obvious - Senpi announcement was a bomb nobody asked for (or maybe someone did?). It was akin to a soft rug pull, when even this next pivot could have been done without damage.

I don’t assume any malicious intent on the Moxie (aka Airstack, aka Senpi) team's side; they probably just didn’t think it through. Still, it sucks. Long-time contributors who helped shape Moxie’s original SocialFi model watched their work dismissed overnight. Retail traders - who believed in Airstack’s transparency - woke up feeling burned. LP providers woke-up held hostage to worthless token.

Let's look at what went wrong and how could it be prevented and let's use it as a lesson for everyone building.

How Senpi went wrong

The memo dropped without any prior notice. And there was notable quiet period from the team before.
Actually all the notice there was, was about cool new Moxie announcement.
- Agents Day - AI x Web3 | Token2049 Dubai 🇦🇪
  @epicagentsday
  
  Autonomous Trading: Moxie Keynote at Agents Day!
  
  Join @moxie_xyz founder Jason Goldberg @betashop for the worldwide launch of autonomous trading and a special announcement.
  
  Jason's presentation will include a live demo of next generation autonomous trading features that
  
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  20:06 • 25 Apr 2025
There was no roadmap for migrating $MOXIE to $SENPI at TGE.
Community calls or Q&A sessions were skipped entirely.
$SENPI is not even alive and $MOXIE is already dead.

If communication about Senpi was handled better, e.g. the same diligent way as the comms about the first big change - leaving Farcaster and fan coins - everyone could be better off.

Better Way To Do It

It would have taken just three simple steps to preserve trust and let the community reshape organically:

Announce Senpi vision
Announce the swap ratio ($MOXIE → $SENPI) and TGE date.
Publish a roadmap with deadlines and support channels.
Host regular AMAs to get new enthusiasts onboard, gather momentum, and answer negative feedback and questions.

It’s the simple fact that it could be done better which makes it suck even more. People don’t fear change, people fear sudden change. Even more in crypto.

Moxie has gone through several changes, and this message was always there - please don’t change too fast, along with - please keep it simple. The team knows, but they just decided to forget.

What happened during the first pivot from Farcaster to broader Base was pretty well handled, communicated, and announced in advance. Airstack team talked about details, reasons, and planned steps multiple times. It was written about by Jason and the community alike. Hell, I made videos and posts about it. That’s a good way to handle change without losing community.

People don’t fear change, people fear sudden change. Even more in crypto.

It was super easy to do the same thing this time - not only you would give community a chance to reshape, meaning people who don’t care about trading and AI bots could leave Moxie with grace, people who are excited about these things could talk about them loud and new people attracted by a prospect of superior Base AI trading agent could join.

It was easy to set and announce a rule, how $MOXIE translates to $SENPI at TGE, and everyone would be happy. Simple sequence, proven results.

Sure, some of us would still be sad that Moxie abandoned the unique original idea of Moxie as a SocialFi for FC to work on boring trading bots, but we could say nothing more than that we don’t like this pivot, and we wish you good luck.

What Happened

Now, I can only speculate why Jason and the team didn’t decide to go with the transparent way. I believe it was not because they wanted to get rid of the Moxie community and Moxie holders to start fresh. Probably it was just being too deep down in the weeds of trying to ship something superior and losing sight of all those thousands of holders they sold on the $MOXIE’s future. Or it was less conviction in the current pivot than the previous ones 🤔 Hard to say.

Whether from rush-to-ship syndrome or simple oversight, damage is done. Trust is eroded, and it’s a shame, because the truth is that Airstack is one of the hardest-working, always shipping teams in the space. But abandoning big ideas early and shipping fast doesn’t always mean a win.

Push on Warpcast

I’m sorry bro, I never was the one being angry at you, not a single time before yesterday. I always bullishly supported every single one of your move, against the vast majority of odds. But this last move you made really broke my trust. And trust is really hard to gain back. Sorry.

Farcaster

Maybe it’s not too late for Airstack to remember how to build with its community. If they can re-establish transparent, in-advance communication now, there’s still time to reclaim that goodwill - will they?

I think they should. Just stop hiding behind “being busy,” stop acting like hurt children whose amazing ideas are not understood and appreciated by Moxie owners. Just own the mistake. There’s no place for ego in a community game, which every project needs to actually succeed.

Jason Goldberg on Warpcast

I know that being angry at me in public has become a bit of a sport — especially from those who gave up on us long ago and now enjoy taking shots. I won’t pretend it doesn’t sting. But I’m not here to please everyone. I’m here to build. To create billions in value, as i've said many times. That might sound cold to some — but if you want to move mountains, you need focus, not approval. What the critics miss is the fire in this team. The grit. The resilience. We have a plan — one you might not like, or even understand — but it’s ours. And it’s backed by those who’ve put millions behind this vision. It’s how we’ll build long-term, sustainable value. Time will tell. For now, our focus is crystal clear: Product-market fit. Transaction volume. Real revenue. Happy, loyal users. That’s how we win — and that’s how we earn a TGE worth showing up for when ready. This’ll be my last post on it for a while. We’re heads down, building something great. Everything depends on that.

Farcaster

THE LESSON HERE - VALID FOR EVERYONE BUILDING:

No matter how groundbreaking your product, trust is built through clear communication, ideally ahead of time: announcing your vision, laying out precise roadmaps and swap mechanics, and engaging the community with regular AMAs. Let the community help you.
Avoid sudden pivots - even well-intentioned ones. They breed resentment and erode hard-won goodwill.
By owning mistakes, keeping plans transparent, and inviting feedback before they ship, teams like Airstack can turn every change into an opportunity to strengthen, rather than fracture, their community.

Let’s see what happens with $MOXIE and Senpi, and let's wish Airstack team a good luck. They will need it. 🖖

And as always, let's BUILD BETTER!

BFG

Coming Up Next:

I will finally get to those potential underdog themes and edge ideas that present opportunities for small, fast-moving teams.

And I hope you haven't missed the last essay about useful CVC framework - Customer Value Chain framework - that's how you find places to improve and win with your product or new product. Check it out 😉

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Rug Pull or Rug Missed? The Cost of Moxie’s Sudden Senpi Drop

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Rug Pull or Rug Missed? The Cost of Moxie’s Sudden Senpi Drop