As 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 enter through the mainstream gates.

One of the engines of tokenized…everything are launchpads, and there have been a series of recent events and announcements that help to accelerate the proliferation of bringing everything onchain.

And inspired by Everything is an ad network by Eric Seufert from the performance marketing world, I believe everything is a launchpad for tokenization, specifically every platform with distribution muscle.

Finance

As a very late adopter to Robinhood (BOOOOOOOMEEEERRRRR), I came across a notification that caught my eye a couple days ago. Robinhood users could sign up for access to Figma’s IPO!

Instead of buying shares of a newly listed company in the open market, users have a chance to buy shares at the listed IPO price.

App Stores

Most, if not all the apps we download come from launchpads that are positioned as ‘stores’. Developers promote, launch, and distribute their apps through these.

Ticketing and ecomm

Ticketmaster has grown from a ticket marketplace and added launchpad-like features including presales for specific audiences, promoting the right events to the right people based on their location and interests.

Ecomm apps like Nike’s SNKRS are a launchpad for exclusive releases and collabs, complemented by in-feed content.

We’re seeing the same trend happen, and unsurprisingly at a faster pace as the industry borrows the same ideas that have worked and expands on them through tokenization.

Jpegs/art

NFT marketplaces have expanded their capabilities to become launchpads, becoming partners that help facilitate more of the consumer and community lifecycle strategy.

For most projects and creators, this is an appealing option as they don’t have to create their own website, get distribution support, and have a more seamless transition from the mint to trade phases of their respective projects.

Financial (equities and more) and fiat assets (stablecoins)

Onchain financial asset enthusiasts have been banging this drum for years, and we’re seeing the fruit start to bear.

xStocks recently launched, bringing 50+ stocks onchain and across multiple crypto exchanges.

The same day xStocks made their announcement, Robinhood also announced the launch US stock and ETF tokens and a slew of other product announcements.

On the fiat asset side, stablecoin supply continues to rise, approaching $250B in circulation 🤯. In this case, blockchains are the launchpads for fiat currencies, primarily the US Dollar for now.

Content

We’re seeing another evolution of SocialFi with tokenized content from social feeds. With the new Base App (formerly Coinbase Wallet), social posts can be tokenized at the discretion of the author and traded.

In a similar vein, Zora has tokenized posts and taken it a step further with tokenized profiles termed as ‘creator coins’.

Blockchains

And last but not least, we have blockchains themselves. The OG launchpad for the onchain ecosystem and economy, the App Store of App Stores, the foundation for creators and innovators to build their houses upon.

What’s interesting with all the examples of the above is that you can make a simple and convincing argument that the above aren’t launchpads. They’re marketplaces (OpenSea, Magic Eden, Robinhood, Ticketmaster, SNKRS, App Stores) or distribution/social networks (xStocks, Base, stablecoins, Zora, blockchains) with launchpad features or capabilities.

The reality is we’re seeing the line blurring between all 3. Marketplaces are inherently distribution networks and launchpads. Distribution networks are inherently launchpads and marketplaces. Launchpads are inherently marketplaces and distribution networks. Maybe they’re just fancy buzzwords for the same thing through a specific lens, or maybe one needs to be built out first before the other legs of the stool can be extended.

The 3 are overlapping more, and blockchains and their use cases accelerate that.

Of course, this is just a concept that I’ve come up with while observing the recent announcements/launches and extracting the theme of launchpads becoming a thing (even if they don’t explicitly say so).

What is important and hopefully helpful for builders, operators, participants, and even casual observers is:

• How is my/this product/platform a marketplace?

• How is my/this product/platform a distribution network?

• How is my/this product/platform a launchpad?

• How is my/this product’s/platform’s potential maximized through each of these lenses?

• How does blockchain and/or tokens accelerate one or all of these legs?

And on the note of launchpads specifically, they’re evolving as well. Traditionally, launchpads are seen more as a 0 to 1 platform, like getting a boost at the starting line of a Mario Kart race if you time your buttons correctly. Or realistically, something like Kickstarter. Instead, I think launchpads are becoming the mushrooms of Mario Kart, accelerants to platforms and ecosystems that already have a foothold in their respective space (unless they start as a launchpad of course), helping participants go from 10 to 100 and beyond.

With that said, long live launchpads and the acceleration of them via blockchain. Because after all, everything is a launchpad 😉

Have you used a launchpad before? You have because everything is a launchpad, so launch your finger to the share or subscribe button!

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As the price of ETH has gone back up to more respectable levels in the past weeks, we’ve seen NFTs catch a bid as well, with the most notable move being ~$13.5 million of CryptoPunks swept in the course of 5 hours last weekend. This caused a positive trickle-down effect for all NFT collections that still had active teams and/or communities.

So what’s next for NFTs? Wait…ARE BRANDS GONNA GET BACK IN?! If it’s anything like this, I’m out ✌️

Maybe it’s early signs, or maybe these are one-offs, but I have noticed a couple of interesting signals with (good) NFTs, ones that are more timeless or have not only survived, but thrived since the last peak.

Today Gamesquare, a gaming media network and now ETH treasury company, acquired a Cowboy Ape CryptoPunk for $5.15M of the company’s stock, and is currently rocking it as their PFP.

This might sound reckless to some, however it seems that this is part of their treasury strategy, increasing their ETH treasury up to $250M and a $10M allocation to a ‘new NFT yield strategy’.

Well they’re certainly coming out swinging with this new NFT strategy!

Tom Lee, respected TradFi investor and Chairman of Bitmine, another ETH treasury company that currently holds 566k ETH ($2.1B, SHEESH), changed his PFP to a custom Pudgy last week.

Changing the PFP was certainly cause for celebration, but what I find more interesting is that Tom hasn’t changed it back (yet?).

And even more interesting is that since the PFP change, he’s been reposting Pudgy Penguins content constantly, which makes

Maybe it’s just the social media intern who loves Pudgies and Tom is cool with it, or maybe it’s an engagement play which is more likely though my gut feels this is still off.

A few days after Tom’s PFP switch, the Bitmine account also changed their PFP and also has constantly reposted Pudgy content, I mean wow.

I’m not gonna jinx it and obviously I’m biased as a Pudgy holder but it feels like something is afoot. Bitmine currently holds $2.1B in ETH and will continue to accumulate (their goal is 5% of supply)…and maybe they want to expand into ETH culture itself via…oh ya I said I’m not gonna jinx it.

That said, this does coincide with proclamations like this one from Garga (Yuga/BAYC co-founder and CEO):

So maybe NFTs are back, not with our WAGMI brand frens of yesteryear. Instead, with the suits who understand business and have an eye for onchain culture.

See you next week!