This is the newsletter I've been promising you since essays on economic cycles. They're all connected so recommend to go and read about the cycles - from C. Perez view here and - others here.

Now let's dive into those underdog Web3 themes.

Every cycle has its late bloomers. The things that look silly, small, or boring - until they explode. If you study the history of tech through Carlota Perez’s lens, these are the tiny edge cases that ride the updraft of a new wave and end up changing everything.

If Web2 is in maturity and Web3 is (maybe) crossing its Turning Point, then the next 12–18 months are perfect for spotting the underdogs - the ideas that don’t yet feel like revolutions but carry the DNA of one.

So if you’re a builder, what should you be looking for?

Here are six areas I believe are poised to become obvious in hindsight - but still have enough stealth for early teams to get in, move fast, and win. And don't mistake chatter for real building.

1. Web3 Wallet UX with extras - the Next Browser Moment

   • Everyone complains about wallets. Nobody loves them. That’s a wedge.

   • Smart accounts (ERC-4337), passkeys, embedded wallets - this is kinda 1997 browser wars energy.

   • Builders who solve UX, recovery, identity, and fiat-to-token-and-back-to-fiat flow elegantly will win by default as the next billion users come online.

   • Those who make token streams work natively will capture the next finance wave because money should often be streamed over time rather than sent by discrete (even if regular) transactions. That's new meta!

   • And yes, someone will figure out who's human and who's not and tag us all. Hopefully some wallet will do it heuristically (maybe with help of social signals - Farcaster 👀?), rather than scans and biometrics which all human focused attempts seem to like - from Humanode, to Humanity Protocol, or World with their eye scanning orbs use.

2. Creator Tools for the Ownership Economy

   • Platforms like Farcaster, Rodeo, Zora, Fabric, or Paragraph are laying rails with experiments, but nothing feels right just yet.

   • The real goldmine is in the intersection of "creation - ownership - provenance" and "identity - reputation - community" - all used to reinforce each other via new forms of discovery and interest-based communities.

   • Build the TikTok algo wheel for any medium and format with provenance, and you’ll become the default.

3. Regeneration and Energy, Not Just DeFi

   • The regenerative finance (ReFi) space is still weird - but so was DeFi in 2018.

   • Projects solving carbon verification, circular economy protocols, or impact DAOs could attract large capital as ESG, climate, and crypto collide.

   • Energy should all be onchain because it's a scarce resource.

   • Bonus points if you bridge traditional climate finance with RWAs and money streams, not transactions. Almost everything circular is about flow = stream over time, not a transaction or singular moments.

4. AI + Onchain = Trust Infrastructure

   • Couldn't skip AI, right :smile. The explosion of AI-generated content is making truth and curation more expensive.

   • What if Web3 offered the receipts? Verifiable provenance. Model audit trails. Content authenticity. Check the above point 2. and you'll see the synergies.

   • If you can prove something happened - and where and when - you’ll power the next phase of digital trust. (Berryfiable compute might be close to becoming a standard?)

5. Local and Cultural Protocols

   • Most crypto projects are still too global, too abstract.

   • But money is also culture. And culture is local.

   • Whether it’s local currencies, diaspora apps, or micro-economies, there’s a huge opportunity in hyper-niche protocols that feel like community infrastructure.

   • That includes non-USD stablecoins and permissionless tooling for more than finance. Think elderly from Boston type of a coin and DAO, not just Swiss Frank stable (it's called Frankencoin).

6. Rebuilding the Social Graph

   • Friend.tech and Farcaster showed us something: people are willing to experiment with new social primitives.

   • But it’s still early. Who’s building the next onchain networked identity, or the Craigslist/Discord hybrid for communities with skin in the game?

   • Maybe it's Wunder, or maybe it's you 👉 - but there's a lot to be imagined here. I'd focus on making "small cozy corners, that live in the big, great ocean" - like better versions of subreddits, channels (on Farcaster), or communities (on X).

What Will Be Obvious in 12–18 Months

• That everyone was underestimating how bad wallet UX was.

• That token incentives without real community architecture collapse quickly.

• That building for creators is not about new platforms, but better business stacks and future-proofing them.

• That trust - data lineage, AI proofs, source credibility - is the killer use case for crypto. We just have to use the opportunity and get some AI giants to adopt it.

• That “energy + climate + crypto” is not cringe, but essential.

• That open social graphs are (still) sleeping giants!

Here’s what often helps to take advantage of the opportunity:

1. Don't pay attention to just repetitive complaints
   People don’t always know what they need, but they’ll complain about what they know constantly. Watch for weird comments too. Push your vision - that's why you're a founder.

2. Prototype Fast, Market Slow
   Build the MVP in 3 days (or 3 weeks) and let it float for a while. The best early traction usually comes from aligning with subcultures, not just pushing hype or ads. But ... 👇

3. Focus on Distribution Early
   Your first 100 real users will do more than your first 10,000 fake ones. Focus on onboarding flows, shareability, and retention from day one.

4. Study Market Cycles to Not Be Surprised By the Next
   Take time regularly and look around. Where's the world going, where's economy going, how it effects problem you're working on. There are clues everywhere.

If something feels too early, too small, or too strange - that’s a double sign. Either good or too early 🤔 Your call. One of the most important ones you'll make as a founder.

Web3 is shifting into its next era. Web2 is settling into legacy mode. AI is flooding the zone. And right in the middle of that storm, there are underdog opportunities for those who move now.

12 months from now, someone will have built the thing everyone talks about. Why not let it be you?

Till next time, let's BUILD BETTER!

BFG

ICYMI: Newsletter that unpacked Web3’s position in the Carlota Perez cycles theory, and why this moment is crucial for builders. Just read it here...

And if you know someone who likes the "Cycles Theories," bring them here, there might be an eBook droping soon - featuring breakdowns of Perez, Dalio, Schumpeter and real-world maps for tech builders and investors looking to time their moves.

Stay tuned 😉
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