The rise, sustained relevance, and expansion of prediction marketsIt was only about a year ago when Polymarket was off to the races, with market volume peaking thanks to the 2024 US presidential election. Fast forward a year later, volume has dropped but held impressively as other categories have expanded to fill the void.The prediction market platform has added new features to complement the topical expansion. Recently the platform introduced a breaking news tab, highlighting markets that ha...

Pudgy Penguins = The Face of Crypto?If you were to ask the average person what they think of when they think of ‘crypto’, they’d probably say Bitcoin. And for ‘web3’, probably NFTs. But what if the first thing they thought of was something friendlier, cuter, and cuddlier? That’s what Pudgy Penguins is trying to do, with the goal of becoming the ‘face of crypto’. It might not make sense to natives or people who care about the tech. However, for onboarding new consumers, it’s certainly more dig...

3 framework expanding articlesIn the last week, I’ve come across several good reads that have expanded the way I think about consumer behavior and the next chapter of building at the intersection of crypto/web3. With more accommodating regulation, chances are we’ll see these themes accelerate what this space will look like in the coming months and years.Pop Mart, Not Poker: Gambling For WomenDespite the clickbait headline, John Wang published an article about the rise of ‘softcore gambling’, ...

The SEC announces Project CryptoToday the SEC announced Project Crypto, an effort to support crypto innovation in the US. Although the signs were there (eg: ETP in-kind redemptions, dropping lawsuits and investigations against Binance, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Immutable, Yuga, Kraken, Gemini, Consensys, OpenSea, Uniswap and countless others), this is a move that not just reverses the damage done over the past several years, but productively sets the stage for the next chapter of building in cryp...

Everything is a launchpadAs crypto prices continue to grind up (hoping we all can go home to our relatives this holiday season and not be made fun of for once, jk) another theme has emerged: things are coming onchain! Yes, this is obvious and has been happening for a looooooooong time, but more as experiments. As more practical use cases are being discovered and repackaged for broader adoption, our jpegs, art, fiat currencies, financial assets, and content are all gaining legitimacy as they e...

Wallets as the next superappsWhen we think about wallets, both in the traditional and digital sense, we still think of them as a tool that holds financial assets. For the physical wallet, they hold cash or credit cards. For the digital wallet, they hold digital cash, cards, alternative assets (eg: crypto), and goods like NFTs or tickets.Speaking of wallets, here’s a meme that’s been beaten to death for all the ETH holders out there 😂 Fortunately not true anymore!However we’re seeing these wa...

Happy early 4th of July for those in the US! Web3 doesn’t stop though 🫡Anime.com launches in BetaAlthough I’m not a huge anime fan (I did grow up on Naruto and Bleach, and have watched Attack on Titan, all very good!), it’s hard to ignore the massive global fan base and cultural movement:Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service and Sony subsidiary, has 17 million paid subscribers as of MayThere are an estimated 1 billion anime fans globally outside of Japan and ChinaThe anime industry grew to...

The Crypto Advertising SupercycleIn crypto, there is the concept of a 4-year cycle, where the boom and bust phases, and corresponding prices, are attributed to the halving of Bitcoin supply emission rates.As crypto and Bitcoin reached mainstream acceptance, a new buzzword concept came along: the ‘supercycle’. With institutions, countries, and companies warming up to the idea that Bitcoin could be a store of value and currency, Bitcoin would break the standard 4-year cycle and grow into someth...

The past several weeks have been filled with positive news around stablecoin adoption:Senate passes GENIUS stablecoin bill, providing a regulatory framework for stablecoin adoption and usage in the US. It still needs to be voted on by the House 🤞Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, IPO’ed 2 weeks ago at $31 and recently tapped $200 with a chart outperforming 99.99% of memecoinsRetailers like Walmart and Amazon are actively looking into offering their own stablecoinsTech companies such ...

Alright folks, there’s a bunch of topics into today’s piece, too many interesting things going on 😉“I’m bullying you with knowledge. It’s good for you!”Rekt sells 180k drinks in 17 minutesA couple weeks ago, I wrote about REKT and the introduction a new subcategory of memecoin: brand coins. Rekt’s public push was ahead of the launch of their newest drink flavor Ship Rekt in collaboration with OpenSea. How did the drop work?Ship Rekt dropped in the form of NFTs on OpenSeaThere were two collec...