In 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.

Despite the clickbait headline, John Wang published an article about the rise of ‘softcore gambling’, female engagement in the space, and how the opportunity for it is much larger than the classic definition of gambling lets on.

When we think of gambling, it usually involves massive payouts, large multipliers, and a ‘make it all back in one trade’ type of mentality. However, John makes the case that with mainstream adoption and younger generational preferences of social shopping, blind boxes, and proven gamification loops and features, gambling has expanded without us even properly acknowledging it.

Although I’ve seen all of these tactics before, I haven’t thought about how there are gender-leaning preferences for them, especially as a male.

John calls out the primary reasons for the success of this approach:

No total loss. Whether it’s a vinyl bunny or a $2 lipstick, you always get something. That safety net invites play.

Ritual over high-risk. Open the box, tap the wheel, post the haul—tiny ceremonies that punctuate a day. A Pop Mart fan might whisper “Please let it be the sleepy bear…” as they unbox under lo-fi music on TikTok. Compare that to GTO expected value calculations and hero calls in poker. The former is self-soothing. The latter is zero-sum conquest.

Aesthetic over Conquest: The reward isn’t resale value—it’s how the object fits a vibe, shelf, or mood-board. Pop Mart fans don’t flex prices; they curate scenes with mischievous Labubus beside Sanrio plushes. While male collectors often chase singular power pulls (“I got pocket rockets!”), female collectors tend to seek cohesive sets that reflect personal taste (“I finally got the pink bunny to complete my zodiac series!”).

Shared delight, not PvP: Memecoin traders flex 1000% PNL cards. Pokémon unboxers flex $400 pull. Pop Mart unboxers show duplicates on TikTok and ask, “Does anyone want this pink bunny?”. One is one-upmanship. The other is sharing and relatability.

Saving money over making money: Shein shoppers spin wheels for 20% off and invite their friends to unlock coupons. The thrill is in the dopamine of unlocking a deal, not beating the market.

Although the size of each transaction is small, the high retention rates, high margins, and larger addressable audience make this approach successful. Arguably more successful than the original version of gambling.

I would take John’s points one step further and argue that softcore gambling is expanding to kids. Every few months, my wife and I like to go to our local Dave & Buster’s to play some video games and earn tickets (and never spend them lol). It’s part restaurant, part arcade, part bar, aka the perfect place to have a kid’s birthday party while the parents secretly sneak a few drinks in.

We went again last weekend, mainly because I wanted to see if the Pudgy Penguins Polar Challenge arcade game was installed at this location (unfortunately it wasn’t 😭). Consistently going to Dave & Buster’s over the past few years has been an interesting and unintentional case study on where arcades are headed.

The games have gotten flashier, partnered with other IP (eg: Minecraft, Hot Wheels, Marvel, NBA and many other licensed games), and more chance-based games (some with skill involved, some pure chance-based).

In the past few trips, I’ve noticed there were a lot more coin pusher games. Users pay credits to drop coins onto a moving platform, with the goal of pushing other coins and prizes over the edge to earn tickets.

Maybe these games are meant for the bored adults who don’t have the hand-eye coordination to play your standard racing or fighting arcade games, but more of these have popped up. Many of these coin pusher games have mini-games to keep players playing longer, with extra bonuses for collecting all the characters, bonus wheels that reward big ticket bonuses, and special items. Sounds like a variant of softcore gambling, no?

The other notable anecdote was while we were doing our last lap around the arcade, we overheard a 10-year old girl excitedly screaming to her friend ‘LET’S GO GAMBLING!!!’ in front of this Big Bass Wheel machine.

In the moment we laughed at the scene, as people who enjoy the occasional Las Vegas trip. However, these observations lead to the reality of softcore gambling which is showing up everywhere.

Is it bad? In a vacuum, yes (IMO more important to teach principles around it vs. flat out saying gambling is bad). Taking a step back though, this is where entertainment and entertainment x ___________ [insert industry/activity/theme here] and the concept of engagement are headed. On the other hand, you can argue this is just the next step in gamification, not specifically gambling since there are intermediary steps involved with these Dave and Buster’s examples ($ —> Credits —> games —> tickets —> prizes). To counter that point, I still think about the announcement that Dave & Buster’s made last year, allowing betting on arcade games.

More gamification, more skin in the game, and more wagering (from points/credit to money). And it will look different and be molded to each demographic, generation, and environment.

Do you think gambling is becoming more prevalent? Flip a coin: Heads, share this. Tails, subscribe!

Richard Chen of Varrock VC shared his thoughts on what the next cohort of builders will look like and who they’re be building for: Crypto-native vs. Crypto-adjacent. TLDR:

• Crypto-native businesses are focused on building for power users and retaining them. This is difficult because power users tend to be mercenary and focused on incentives, leading to poaching/vampire attack risk

• Crypto-native businesses are also oftentimes open-source, leading to even less of a moat

• For crypto-adjacent companies, crypto is a feature, not the product

• The founder archetype for successful crypto-adjacent projects will be very different from that of crypto-native projects. More polished and commercially-minded vs. understanding crypto-native degens and focusing on a cult of personality.

Richard makes great points and observations that led to his conclusions in the article and it makes sense. There will always be great crypto-native businesses and products, but the reality is the world is much bigger than this corner of the Internet. And those people don’t have nor want to understand the intricacies of the blockchain, what a Layer 2 is, or what ‘NFT’ stands for.

They just want products that help them make money, save money, save time, be entertained, connect with others, or be entertained. And if the crypto is a feature that helps them do that, great!

0xKyle of Defiance Capital published a piece around the future of Internet Capital Markets (ICM), a term popularized earlier this year. This time, we’re seeing the term used with less of the memecoin or startupcoin frenzy and baggage of the past.

0xKyle walks us through the evolution of ICM and where he thinks we’re headed with it.

The most notable point he makes is that in this new era of ICM,

THERE IS A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY. FOR INVESTORS. TO BE OPERATING PARTNERS. ALONGSIDE TEAMS.

Within the context of the article, I believe he’s referring to VC’s, not your average retail investor (speaking of ‘investors’, I can feel the ick of all those LinkedIn profiles with ‘crypto investor’, ‘NFT investor and advisor’ creeping up as prices go up).

But if we look through the lens of ‘retail’, has applied for some time and applies even more today. Rephrasing 0xKyle’s point more colloquially, there’s a massive opportunity for community members to be operating partners alongside teams.

NFTs

One of the best examples of this is through NFT communities.

Bored Apes led the way several years ago, with entrepreneurial holders creating businesses and leveraging their PFP as an asset. Pudgy Penguins continues to provide licensing opportunities to their community members through the Overpass platform.

And a common path to working at one of these NFT collection turned companies is starting off as a community member.

Memecoins

With almost all memecoins today, the creator (or ‘dev’) of the token sells early on, running off with a small gain to prepare for their next hundred memecoin launches.

If the meme is good enough, the existing holders conduct a community takeover, or CTO of the memecoin to grow the holder base, coordinate marketing efforts, and ultimately increase the market cap.

In these scenarios, these ‘investors’ have the opportunity to be operating partners in their own right, proliferating the meme and corresponding token.

Ecosystems

The strongest ecosystems have enabled this type of relationship as well, turning their users or ‘investors’ into diehard community members and eventually builders, a type of operating partner, in the ecosystem.

A great example of this is Hyperliquid, an onchain trading platform that has seen insane growth over 2 years and expanded beyond trading through the HyperEVM layer.

A disproportionate number of these builders started out as users, traders, and airdrop recipients, and graduated to becoming operating partners in their own right.

Or rather:

User ➡️ ‘Investor’ (via airdrop or buying the token) ➡️ ‘Operating partner’ (aka builder)

Each of these articles focuses on vastly different topics, but there is one prevailing meta-theme: change

• Pop Mart, Not Poker: Gambling For Women - Change in how gambling can be perceived and how it differs between genders/preferences

• Building for crypto-native vs. building for crypto-adjacent - The profile for the ideal crypto builder is changing as the opportunities for integration and addressable audience grow

• The Evolution Of Speculation - The change and evolution in how participants can be involved and to what degree

And whoever makes the most of these changes, wins 🏆

See you next week!