Bolero by @williambailey_ - by shares of a song or a musical catalog. Earn yield and royalties on your shares owned. I don't believe there is any KYC. Deposit USDC into a wallet and get paid royalties in USDC directly to your wallet.

Freeport Markets by @lihong062 - an investment app that is focused on curated majors, stocks, RWA's etc. When you connect your wallet it recommends tokens to earn yield or divesify. Also offers automated trading strategies, pick from one of their offerings or create your own with sliders making it easy. Buy onchain stocks easily.

TBD by @coreyj_miller - TBD is a prediction market for opinions. It has an app on World that polls users and then allows anybody to speculate on the results of those polls. For example: Should online sports betting be fully legalized? With the potential to 3.8x your money if you bet NO and its the consensus vote. Users can also create polls and earn fees.

Openbands by @0xstratos - anon forum using ZK proofs. With the internet being riddled by bots and voices that lack validity, ZK can be a solution. Its still very early, but an example could be in Europe were online censorship is rampant. Europeans can verify that they live in Europe and speak freely.

EN0VA by @jakehartnell - interesting twist on prediction markets. It's less prediction more incentivization market, meaning the participants can participate in the outcome. Make fiction becomes reality through coordinated belief. You can read more here. Their first market is whether their X account will get to 3,333 followers by October 27th.

Hotstreak by @giaset - Slick app thats been around for a bit I believe. Has everything a degen could want: make sports prop bets, rip packs to earn coins, trade memes / crypto. Prediction markets and collectibles coming soon. Sign up with phone number and uses privy. Can deposit with card or any token on Solana.

RealPhotos by @findporpoise - Take photos and verify they are real using ZK proofs. In a world of AI and fake news, RealPhotos is a place for professional photographers to verify their images using ZK. Still early, but the app can be a new truth layer for the internet, verifying viral news in real time.

Non-crypto:

Beli - Track and share your favorite restaurants with friends. Add restaurants and give it a review / score. See what your friends like and compete on a leaderboard.

Efchat by @tawniee - Ef is an everlasting chat that has no algorithms, no data tracking and values free speech. You can also create spaces for any topic. They have stripe integration and there is conversation about them adding crypto payments. Also have a feature that allow you to embed an ef chat into a live stream. It's still early right now but has 4chan/early internet vibes.

earn crypto apps:

Two of the best apps to earn your first tokens or get tokens for free are Farcaster and World App.

Farcaster:

Rips by @nazimahmed - Rip packs of tokens. Ripping packs is fun, with Rips, you open packs and receive tokens. Get a free rip a day or pay for packs. You can buy a pack for as little as $0.25 or as much as $100.

Scratch by @codybrown - Every day you get 10 free scratch tickets to earn tokens. If you like the token or branding, easily buy more after scratching. If you are project looking for distribution create a cool interesting scratch and get attention from thousands.

World App:

Superhero - Superhero is an AI agent that can do a handful of things. One of which is tell you apps where you can claim airdrops within the World App. Its a good place to start in World and is a good way to explore and discover new apps in the ecosystem.

Other games like EggsVault, Oro, TApp and Cash make it easy to earn tokens daily. If you click buttons and play a bunch of apps within World you are bound to earn some tokens.

Context by @worm_emoji - Create, bet and boost on markets. Creating a market is smooth, it uses AI to make it straightforward and pulls in the sources to resolve the market autonomously. Boosts add liquidity to markets and offers rewards for doing so. See the market I created for this weekends Ryder Cup here.

Others to keep an eye for:

PlayMini by @playhead - FOUNDER Mode starts tomorrow (9/25). 5 day competition to win the pot and earn $FOUNDER

Prediction Markets on X:
Worm - tag the @wormpredict under a X post and AI creates a market for you (just went live)

Kash - tag @kash_bot under a X post and AI creates a market for you (live soon)

SpecMarkets - tag @makeitamarket under a X post and auto create a market (launched over a year ago but shutdown)

Orica - less prediction market more p2p betting on X and telegram

non-crypto:

Turf - currently on testflight. Compete on a leaderboard during primetime NFL games. Every drive the app pushes questions to users (ex: How will this drive finish? A. score B. punt C. turnover <or> Will [player] have 15+ yards receiving this drive?). Pick the correct answer get 10 points, pick wrong get -2 points. there is a chat and more social features coming soon. Its a fun way to watch a game and potentially win money without having to put anything at stake.

Vibe Market by @hi_im_nico - Vibe market is an NFT launch pad meets Pokemon packs / Labubu blind box. Buy packs with ETH and open to reveal cards with different rarities. They have automatic buy backs and the randomness is onchain. It's permissionless and anybody can create their own packs. Read their docs here.

Pump Party by @arthurissir - Pump Party is mobile app that is HQ Trivia style livestream where people compete at the same time with varying interactive games. They are also going to skill-based real money competitions. You can learn more and find a link to download here.

there are a handful of emerging social apps that allow users to share their onchain actions and contextualize them:

Clicker by @kyle
Share by @scott_eth
Bloom by @c_carley
Elfa by @hypetris
Interface by @wijuwiju0x
Afterhour by @imkevinxu (non-crypto)

interesting to see robinhood enter the mix here.

Raster by @thefunnyguysNFT - many have tried the NFT marketplace aggregator. Raster may be the best attempt. It aggregates all of an artists work across chains and marketplaces. Really good tool for discovery and seeing an artists entire catalog.

Pubhouse by Lukas - every market is an ERC20 on Base. create markets and earn 20% on trading volume. Currently all attention based and markets do not have a resolution. You can learn more about their fees and buy backs here.

Ventuals by Alvin - short or long pre-IPO companies with leverage. Currently on testnet, but deposit 1 USDC and receive mockUSDC to use in app. Trade companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, Cluely and more.

Lots of prediction market stuff popping up. Best place to stay in the know for everything prediction markets in the The Prediction Arc telegram by @0xtone

Here are a few useful prediction market data tools:

1. Polysights

2. BetMoar

3. Prediction Index

Dimo - share car data for rewards. Dimo has been around for a while but I just tried it for the first time. Pretty easy signup, connect to your car's app and start earning passive. In a week I've earned 7 $DIMO (~$0.50) but haven't opened up the app. I don't drive much and only have 1 car connected, obviously small amount of income. I can see for some people that drive a lot more and have multiple connected cars it could generate some meaningful passive income. There are ways that you can level up to increase your earnings etc.

Noise by @notgabo and friends - bet on attention with leverage. Built on MegaETH, Noise currently taps into Kaito's data and allows users to speculate on attention. For example you can long or short attention of Farcaster, Polymarket and many others. It's in beta and users are betting play money but easy to use and realtime updates. I think of it as being able to long or short google trend data. Right now its crypto focused using Kaito, but you can imagine a world where the pull data from web2 products.

Dexari by @chucksbradford - mobile app for trading on Hyperliquid. Smooth app for trading on-the-go on Hyperliquid. Not legal in US currently so haven't actively traded outside of downloading app. But can send funds to created wallet and start trading. App is clean and snappy.

Non-crypto:

Triumph Arcade - Add money to your profile with Apple pay and bet on skill based games like solitaire, brick bracker, bingo and many more to win real money.

Unnamed Chat RPG - First game is Red, While + Breach with six chapters. It's a chat based game where you role play as a intelligence agent and are trying to get information out of characters. Six levels and each gets harder. Get the information you need in least amount of moves popular and then pay for more moves. Very addicting, fun and challenging.

Crypto doesn’t have a consumer product problem. It has a consumer playbook problem. The default playbook is clear:

1. Acquire users through financial incentives: airdrops, points systems, referrals

2. Capture value from day one: token launches, transaction fees

3. Monetize through speculative tokens: retention is an afterthought
   

This works, especially for early investors as tokens can generate massive upside. If timed right, even if that token drops 90% over a few years, it can still produce 10x returns. But these scenarios are few and limited. Because once you start with speculation, it's hard to build anything else. The token becomes the product.

And you can see why the pattern repeats itself:

• User acquisition is expensive and unreliable

• Investors hesitate due to unclear value capture

• Founders struggle to build sustainable business models

But this pressure leads to a landscape optimized for short-term traction over long-term behavior.

In previous eras of consumer products, some of the best investments had no monetization plan for years. In crypto, the first questions are always: “What's the token? What's the fee model? How does this capture value?”

Funding follows familiarity. In 2024, investor money overwhelmingly went to L1s, DeFi, and infrastructure. Consumer products are still massively underfunded [1]. Why? Because other investment opportunities have proven paths to capturing value:

The result: few teams get the time or runway to figure out sustainable behavior-driven models. The ones that do often fall back on early token launches, because that’s the only monetization tool anyone’s willing to fund.

Because of this, teams launch tokens too early in their lifecycle. Hype kicks in, the token pumps and the app fizzles out before product market fit ever arrives. This is well articulated as the “hot start problem [2].”

Another way to break this down:

• Token too early = hot start death

• Airdrop abuse = mercenaries churn

• Fee switch too early = liquidity rug

• No habits = washed retention curve

When should a token be launched? In my opinion once:

• A daily active behavior exists

• Retention curve flattens

• The app has at least one repeatable economic action worth taking a cut on

Sequencing matters. Launching a token too early can create false signals, growth that looks real but disappears once the incentives dry up. Speculation can be a growth accelerant, but it can’t be the foundation.

Speculation has been the defining growth engine of consumer crypto. To be clear, it’s worked. The most successful consumer apps to date were all built around financial upside:

• Coinbase → buying and selling tokens

• OpenSea → buying and selling NFTs

• Polymarket → betting on real-world events

These platforms used speculation as a hook. But they also found a second loop, a behavior or utility that made users stay:

• Coinbase → a crypto bank 

• Opensea → art discovery

• Polymarket → truthseeking

Take Polymarket: most visits don’t result in bets. People come to see how the market is pricing real-world events. The speculative layer brings them in. Information is the retention loop and makes them stay.

Some will argue: “But tokens do more than drive speculation, they align users with the product early.” That’s true. Tokens let users own upside, not just participate. That is powerful. But if there’s no behavior to align around, the token becomes the product. Tokens can amplify behavior but they can’t replace it.

This post isn’t anti-token or anti-speculation. Tokens are powerful. Speculation is a legit form of engagement. It’s not the problem. It's just the only monetization model we’ve actually proven.

The real issue is we’ve put too much emphasis on building the entire stack around financial upside.

We are beginning to see early signs, far from proven but promising:

• Contribution as Ownership

  • Example: Paragraph → rewards contributors and builds long-term ownership

• Curation as Value

  • Example: Zora → turns curation into an onchain reward

• Participation as Earning

  • Example: JokeRace → submit and vote to earn 

Maybe behavior first products never scale. But we don’t know yet, because it's barely been tried. If one breaks out, it will change the way we fund and design products.

They still have a lot to prove but Farcaster is one of the clearest examples. Farcaster had the benefit of time and funding. Most teams don’t get years to experiment before ramping up financialization. Farcaster is more the exception than the rule, and that’s part of the point: today’s system isn’t set up to support teams building behavior-first.

They’ve spent years building without a token or leaning into monetization. They focused on behavior: posting, following, minting. Only after users showed up daily for years have they begun to layer in financialization:

• Frames as distribution and monetization rails

• A native wallet for payments and rewards

• Token incentives from community native tokens, not their own

It reflects another truth: understanding stated vs revealed preferences is a superpower.

Using the Farcaster example, crypto users say they want decentralized social media, but their revealed behavior is they stay on X for the reach, alpha and culture. 

Farcaster seems to get this. It uses revealed preferences to Trojan horse the stated goal of decentralized social.

Sequencing matters. Without a core user base and sticky behavior loop in place, the incentives fall flat. 

It’s easy to see this as a contradiction:

I say: “We need clearer value capture for consumer crypto.”

I also say: “Monetization should come later, after behavior is proven.”

It’s only a contradiction if you assume monetization = token launch. What if value capture is a progression:

Many of these monetization tools such as fees, rewards and tokens can work. But timing matters. Again, they should amplify behavior, not replace it. Deploying them before there’s something worth amplifying is what breaks the loop.

Today, speculation is the hook. That’s not a failure. It’s how crypto has grown. My hope is that the next wave of products will have a different hook, one rooted in behavior, identity and culture.

• Hook: Social, creative, cultural behavior

• Habit: Daily engagement loop

• Capture: Layered in after usage is real

The next great crypto product won’t be built to make people rich. It’ll optimize for behavior. And if it works, the upside will follow.

Here are a few ideas that are cryptonative but rooted in behavior and culture:

Stablecoin powered loops [3]: Polymarket is the first breakout app using stablecoins, there will be more. One idea is to use yield-bearing stablecoins to power reward systems to fund creative or community action. Stake on creators with a stablecoin and some of the yield goes to funding.

Presence as participation with location: Sharing locations is one of the most popular social behaviors (Snapchat, Instagram stories, Foursquare). Example: a geomapped social app built on crypto rails that creates an open framework for tradeable location-based assets and a public ledge of participation.

Taste as behavior with micropayments [4]: It’s been tried, it hasn’t worked at scale but with more users onchain, the emergence of stablecoins and proper infrastructure, it's close. Example: Curation platform for links, videos, tweets. Curators earn a micropayment when others click or save. Taste becomes a monetizable behavior.

These aren’t final answers. They’re starting points. The current playbook has dominated because it’s worked. But it’s worth asking: what else could?

1. What will people do onchain everyday, without being paid to?

2. What are some alternative monetization models for consumer crypto apps beyond speculation?

3. How do we build consumer crypto apps that create lasting behaviors instead of relying on financial incentives?

4. Are there examples of crypto apps today that have successfully onboarded non-financially motivated users?

   
   

[1] Galaxy Q3 2024 & Q4 2024

[2] Great piece on “The Hot Start Problem” by Mason Nystrom

[3] Apptoken Thesis laid out by Standard Crypto

[4] Paper by Nick Szabo written in 1999 about the potential problems around micropayments: The Mental Accounting Barrier to Micropayments

thanks to six, cooper and drew for the feedback.

Ohara.ai by @brexton - No code mini app builder, allowing anybody with a creative brain to create a mini app. Many of the apps today are simple games or tools but users can create apps in <10minutes. If I can do it you can too. We need more apps and excited about making it easy for anybody to launch new apps. Recently started rolling out their testflight for iOS app.

Guess.bet by @0xKunda- a simple telegram game in which you pick which image you think most people playing like. The higher your streak, the more "candies"/reward you get. Can play for free or add USDC to your wallet to play in tournaments for real money.

Lunch by @worldwidelunch - Lunch is a shared Twitter account. Users create posts to be shared on a joint account X that can be voted on in a Tinder style UX. Swipe right if you like the post, swipe left if you don't. Get enough votes and the post gets posted to X. Compete on a weekly and alltime leaderboard. Currently in private beta.

Fido by @eth_jb - Simple app to save and earn using DeFi. KYC using bridge and start earning yield as soon as you put money in. See your portfolio tick up every second.

Non-crypto:

Corner: A social app that lets you curate coffee shops, restaurants and places that you like to go. See what people are recommending near by and visit friend pages to see what they have curated. In its simplest form its a more social yelp, without the longwinded nasty reviews.

here are two products working on this that i have yet to try myself, but look interesting and i plan to try asap.

Chedar by @hudson - Chedar is an iphone app that allows anybody to scan a qr code to receive tokens. they currently just use coinbase wallet and support Base assets ETH, USDC and Brett. Simple app right now but feels early

Burner by @digit - sleek card that is a self custodial wallet that you can gift to somebody with preloaded USDC or can be used a personal hardware wallet. It has its own OS and uses NFC chips for easy use and access to applications. Similar to EtherCards but no seed phrases etc. Could be a great gift for family and friends during the holidays.

Other products i tried:

dot.fan by @gtm- Dot is hypercasual onchain pixelart games. Play games for free, or pay a cheap price (~$.50) to compete on a leaderboard for rewards. Dot is UGC so artists can create assets and games that users can purchase to use withUsers can create assets that can be purchased and used to play in games.

Fluid Key by @moritz - With social trading apps and wallet tracking becoming much more popular, Fluid Key is a good place for wallet privacy. Fluid Key is essentially an onchain Coinbase, everytime you send money to your fluid key wallet it spins up a new address so your holdings aren't known. Currently you can swap in app with more features coming soon.

Roc Camera by @july - Its currently in preorder so haven't used it yet but product looks amazing. Think we continue to see more ZK consumer usecases over the next few years. As AI continues to get better, its going to be hard to separate real from fake. Roc camera uses sensor attestations, ZK proofs, and TEEs to authenticate photographs.

Yapster by @salvino - Create memes, vote on memes, make the best meme and win money. Yapster team gives a topic of the day and users use in app meme templetes to create. Slick, fun app that is currently in beta.

Future.news by @entropybender - Future News contextualizes Polymarket markets with news articles and X posts. It time stamps articles and posts so you can click anywhere on the chart and see what made the market move during that time.

Adjacent News by @0xperp - Adjacent news is a suite of products for prediction markets: data, trading charts, extension to view inline markets on X and news sites, and more.

Off Market by @ace - IPO prediction market. Their first market is up: Will OpenAI IPO higher than $157B (Y/N). Bet with USDC. Use code: EARLY to try it.

Wow by @zora - Base memecoin launcher; different mechanics than other launchpads and like how Zora continues to integrate the referral fee structure. Dreamcoins.fun is the first product built on the WOW protocol. Using AI, Dreamcoin makes any prompt into a token and launches it automatically.

Non-crypto:

Daze - a messaging app with more creative suite tools allowing users to communicate in a much more creative way than just text, static memes and gifs. Don't find it particularly interesting but probably the wrong demographic.

Higher Notes by Sean - the higher community continues to generate higher themed apps. The latest is a effectively a iphone notes fork. I've been using it for all my higher related thoughts and motivations.

Spinamp - not a new app, but find myself using it more lately as more musicians put music onchain and the quality is improving. Find new minted music, create playlists, follow artists to get notified for new releases etc. This set by Daniel Allan is on repeat at the moment.

Prophecy Market by @codybrown - if this than that (IFTTT) markets for anything onchain. Cody has a great writeup on his project here. Put skin in the game for future predictions that automatically get executed when an event occurs. They are currently doing one experiment at a time. The first was around the SpaceX launch.

Non-Crypto:

Stretch15 - I've been trying to stretch more and this is a free and simple app that reminds you to stretch everyday and gives you clear instructions and exercises. You can upgrade for a more specific needs and targeted areas.

Try Your Best (TYB) by @tyhunnny- Earn collectibles (NFTs) and coins from brands by completing challenges. Use those collectibles or coins to redeem coupons for brands. Also have a leaderboard to climb to earn perks from brands. Crypto is abstracted away, chat feature for brands, challenges are light-weight and social in nature.

Zien by Peter Holsgrove - Recently minted Parker Ito's collection. Zien has the option to redeem a physical in 4 different sizes built in. A proper UI/UX and ease of redeeming a physical is great and something that was missing, glad to see somebody leaning into it.

Non-crypto:

Soundmap - Pokemon Go like app for music where you can collect different songs. It's extremely gamefied and lots of payment options, don't fully understand it yet but has some steam on socials and happy to see anybody building interesting things around music.

Jars AI - Easily create interactive mini shows using AI. Add your custom storylines, select from templates like newsroom, shark tank and more.

Bags by @finnbags: Easily buy memecoins; global chat feature. Log in with twitter account then connect phantom wallet.

Wanna Bet by @limes.eth / @ncale.eth: peer-to-peer betting; easily make bets with friends. Create a bet with USDC, ETH or WETH set the parameters and a judge.

River.Ph by @0xTranqui / @salieflewis: reminds me of early version of tumblr. Put images onchain. Images are curated by channels. Sign in with Privy; easily put images onchain like uploading a file. On Optimism, Arbitrum Nova and IPFS.

Holderscan: track holder count for tokens across any chain. Probably been around for a bit but just came across it. Simple product for good data on token holders.

Non-Crypto:

AfterHour: twitter like feed for stocks; connect brokerage accounts and track, share portfolio easily. Similar to Bagz and Moonshot etc but better imo.

Babyname: tinder like UI/UX to swipe baby names. Sync it with partner and you can easily see what names you both agree on.

Always love trying out new apps, crypto related and otherwise. Lots of great products get shipped every day. There is lots of noise and discovery is hard. Hopefully this can be a place for people to discover new things being built and encourages them to try new products.

Onchain Photo Apps:

Moshi Cam by Gallery - Uses passkey for login. Mint and collect polaroid style photos in an instagram like feed for cheap. Use custom borders for your pictures. On Base

Perma by Future Primitive - Another Instagram app using film role styles as filters to enhance photos. Like and collect photos (coming soon). Also a - currently in beta join waitlist here.

Popset by Sergio and Sven- Instagram like app powered by Solana. Onchain aspects are completely stripped away - web2 log in. Mint and collect photos. When posting photos can enable minting and set supply. Currently in Beta - download testflight here.

Others that I have not tried yet but look forward to trying: Rodeo by Foundation and Zora app

Other Apps

Base Token Store by Myk.eth - Search for any token, NFT and easily by in an e-commerce like experience. You can use the Coinbase Passkey wallet or connect a wallet. On Base.

Speculate by pushingmarkets - prediction markets on Base with PWA. Log in with email or wallet. On Base.

Goverland by Steexx - Mobile app for everything you need DAO related. Vote, see current and past proposals, explore DAOs and getting key DAO insights. Download the app here.

Social Fun by pump.fun team (?) - twitter like social feed with real time pump.fun buy feed on the side. Connect with Phantom wallet. On Solana.

Fastmind by Nyx - connect data to a wearable and earn rewards. set up competitions to compete weekly challenges with friends. Sign up for waitlist here. On Solana.

Non Crypto:

Fair Game - Your everything golf app. Join groups with friends, track stats, share live scorecards, share pictures, add wagers to matches and more. Download here.

Yuka - scan food and cosmetic products to get a health impact score. Example: scan sunscreen barcode to see quality of ingredients used. 100% independent.