Crypto excels at tokenization. Every viral moment or emerging meta gets tokenized, fueling capital formation, and price discovery. However, it consistently falls short on post-launch engagement. We need more experiences that turn speculative energy into lasting participation.
Until we build post-asset issuance experiences that convert groups like NFT and memecoin audiences into long-term users, many will stay stuck in trading UIs, and crypto will keep leaking cultural momentum to Web2 incumbents.
In this post, I'll discuss what we can learn from web2 and the opportunities ahead that could help crypto better retain attention through engagement.
I've been surprised by how stark the differences are in how each industry distributes culture.
Web2: Creativity-First
Attention scales through creativity
Open TikTok and you can watch culture snowball in real time. Take the italian brainrot phenomenon. A few creators fused random objects and animals into bizarre new characters. That opened up Pandora's box. Now the internet is flooded with dozens of Brainrot characters and hundreds of thousands of pieces of content around them. Creators are using every tool in their arsenal to explode the virality with highly engaging experiences. In just a few months, these characters have been animated, narrated with episodes and storylines, and much more.
It may sound silly on the surface, but there’s real demand and adoption flowing to the platforms enabling this creativity: gen-AI content tools, CapCut, etc.
To put the scale into perspective, users have now posted over 400k videos on tiktok about this genre. Multiple mobile games around the genre have reached 5m+ downloads (Brainrot Merge - Drop Puzzle, Brainrot Tip Tap Challenge).
Web3: Speculation-First
Entertainment and token distribution is front-loaded
In crypto, culture largely revolves around the chart. A viral moment leads to a race to Pump.fun launches. On-chain activity becomes the content, flexing and tracking wins/losses. The main actors are speculators and the highly reflexive activity benefits tools that service trading, namely DEXs, trading bots, wallets, dexscreener, etc. For most people, a memecoin experience begins and ends with a swap UI. The blast radius of a successful token launch is constrained primarily to mainly trading related products. I would like to see it spill over into the content/entertainment landscape as well as it does in web2.
The 2021 NFT boom first exposed the post asset creation problem. Memecoins face the same issue, although they have lower expectations. When most value and attention is front-loaded at the formative part of a launch, what incentives remain to continue building stories around the asset?
The tokenization layer is more competitive than ever. Launchpads are being commoditized and they will begin to expand their offerings as well (See Pump, Believe app) whether native builds, partnering, or acquisitions.
However, one of the biggest white spaces in consumer crypto is what happens after token creation. Think we'll see a bifurcation of products here on a) content focus b) liquidity and gamified trading
Here are a few experiments I'd like to see more of next:
Novel token distribution – Leverage protocols like Doppler to allocate a portion of supply for devs who build apps or games around the core asset. Distribute those token rewards to devs of the most used games and verified users based on skill (ZKTLs <> onchain rewards)
AI-no code platforms producing the next-gen influencers: The rise of the meme-native game designer archetype. Spin up experiences around any emerging meta. Rosebud AI, Ohara, Devfun
Creative editing suites: Web3 social networks embracing the success of TikTok’s CapCut or Instagram’s Edits, funneling creativity back into the platform. Early examples of complimentary products to social networks include Poster.fun and Titles XYZ.
Social casual games platforms: Multiplayer shareable games designed for virality and shapeshifting quickly to whatever is the meta (ie hot or not swiping)
We are already seeing the rise of the experience layer: Pump.fun livestreams, Rug Rumble: competitive layer for token communities, Multiplier.fun: crypto arcade for token communities, and more.
The cost of creation is collapsing while the ease of creation is soaring. NFT communities would have dreamed of this setup a few years ago.
Account abstraction, AI-assisted content and app generation, etc have proven that experiences once requiring months of capital can now be shipped in a weekend.
Attention is expensive, but building engaging layers on top of existing tokens and communities has never been cheaper or faster.
Crypto has mastered capturing attention; mastering how to keep it is next. This will encourage more users, devs, and creators to come into the space and help grow the total onchain activity generated throughout the life cycle of the assets.
Keep in mind that infra goes viral when it unlocks a magic moment (onboarding - Privy, content creation - Ghibli trend with ChatGPT, mini-apps - Farcaster). There is a lot we can learn from web2 and how virality can quietly pull forward much of the infra powering it.
Although NFT and memecoins came to mind first as they’ve faced some of the biggest challenges on experiences, the broader experience layer is applicable to most projects with or without tokens.
The beauty of the magic moment is it can happen anywhere, anytime.
Does the next aha moment come from a crypto abstracted product that directly meet web2 users first in the context of where they spend the most time (tiktok, youtube, etc) vs crypto-natives (twitter)?
Will event-driven onboarding make a splash? It shouldn’t be underestimated either as this is where large audiences with similar interests collide (ie NBA Playoffs). If a few fans really like what they are presented with, chances are many others will too.
Could zktls be the bridge that turns boring data into a fun package of flexing, social content, and rewards (Supercharged Spotify wrapped)?
If you are ideating on or are already building in this category to serve post launch communities, I’d love to chat! DMs open.
Let's build the experience layer to make attention last.
Alex Gedevani
