Over the past several years of my journey in crypto and web3, one trend has been clear and encouraged me to remain optimistic despite all the ups and downs: Consumer apps are improving at a rapid pace on many non-technical dimensions: accessibility, onboarding, GTM, design, and UX. And time has passed, we’re within striking distance of the web2 apps and user flows that have been hyper-optimized thanks to a multi-year lead. When Shreddy from Defi App reached out to me a few months ago to see i...

Consumer Crypto M&A ThemesOver the past few months and in particular the past few weeks, we’ve seen a string of higher profile M&A moves in crypto. Some that came across my radar: Republic acquired exchange INX for $60M, Kraken acquired crypto futures trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5B, Coinbase acquired ad platform Spindl, and Ripple acquired institutional service provider Hidden Road for $1.25B. Talk about big numbers! 🤑 Among all those eye-watering figures and headlines there has also...

Earlier this week I came across this cast from Dan Romero, founder of Warpcast, on Farcaster:Dan makes several insightful high-level points about the state of airdrops, issues surrounding airdrops when faced with their goals, and where they’re headed over time. As a recipient of various airdrops, it’s been interesting to observe the various approaches and tactics projects implement to bootstrap said usage pre-airdrop while quickly pivoting to retention post-airdrop.You make a good point sad c...

Sei might acquire 23andMeI certainly didn’t have this on my bingo card for the unfolding 23andMe saga, but earlier today Sei announced that they were exploring the acquisition of the bankrupt genomics and biotech company.What’s 23andMe? It’s a genetic testing company founded in 2006 that became popular with its DTC (direct-to-consumer) model which became a popular gift during the holidays and a borderline fad. Call me a grumpy old man, but it felt weird giving my DNA data to an organization t...

Over the past two months I’ve spent some time on Abstract, a blockchain built by Igloo Inc. (also the team behind Pudgy Penguins). Although there are something like 1399489529 blockchains in existence at this point, I’ve leaned into Abstract ever since Luca Netz shared his vision around Abstract’s ‘consumer-specific blockchain’ approach in contrast to the ‘generalist’ blockchain approach.And if Abstract is actually dialed in to being a consumer-focused blockchain, chances are they’re going to...

CTG is back for S3!One of the areas of innovation I’ve consistently been excited about in blockchain has been around how experiences can be empowered, enriched, and/or expanded with the tech, and Crypto The Game does just that with online interactive gameshow experiences.A quick recap of what CTG is:Participants mint Player NFTs for 0.1 ETH (~$215 at the time of mint)There are up to 800 players who can participate, and the last one standing after the 10-day game takes home the 80 ETH potPlaye...

Fantasy Top expands across chainsOf all the consumer apps I’ve used in the past year, there’s only a handful I’ve used on a near daily basis. Besides the usual suspects of wallets and NFT marketplaces, one of them has been Fantasy Top, a fantasy sports meets Twitter influencers game. If you want to learn more about Fantasy and learn how the app has evolved over the past 12 months, check out my pieces on them (clearly I’m a fan…tasy Top player 😜):#274: Fantasy SocialFi ft. Fantasy.top and Per...

In Defense of MemecoinsThe last week was a rough stretch for everyone (myself included for R&D purposes 😉) in the memecoin trenches, and well deserved. What initially seemed like a country launching a hyped memecoin turned into a rapid unraveling of insiders, bribery, and a game that has become rotten leaving many participants high and dry.Hayden Davis of Kelsier Ventures, one of the main characters of the Libra scandalAlthough many memecoin traders had an idea of how rigged the casino was d...

NFTs ≠ equity…or could it?NFTs are a lot of things. They represent ownership, culture, creativity, membership, a receipt, and many other things. However, when it comes to the concept of NFTs and ownership, it gradually became clear that holding or owning a NFT did not mean the holder owned a share of the company that issued it. NFTs ≠ equity.As the NFT ecosystem matured, that tune slowly changed. With careful legal guidance, select projects explored how NFTs could be converted into equity own...

Boys Club's ETHDenver EventConference season has kicked off again, with NFT Paris underway this week and Consensus Hong Kong next week. The North American circuit kicks off with ETHDenver in a couple of weeks (I’ll be there so holler if you want to meet up!) and the event invitations and Luma pages are flying around in group chats. One event has taken a different approach to promoting their event though: Boys Club. What’s Boys Club? It’s a startup founded in 2021 focused on bringing more wome...