We’ve written about Yield Basis here before, and now the app has finally launched on mainnet, so it’s worth a reminder as new mechanics in DeFi don’t come often lately.
The main difference from other AMMs is that Yield Basis tackles impermanent loss.
The second key difference is the tokenomics.
Users can choose to be LPs and just earn trading fees, or to receive $YB, which can then be staked to earn more trading fees. So those who don’t want the native token won’t get it, and those who want to be part of the project can opt into the protocol token - similar to Aerodrome.
On October 1, Yield Basis is holding a sale on Legion and Kraken, and the token is expected to launch shortly after. We are bullish
The main difference from other AMMs is that Yield Basis tackles impermanent loss.
You can provide liquidity and still keep full price exposure to your asset. They do this by taking about 2x leverage in crvUSD against the deposited asset.
Example: a typical LP position (e.g., BTC/USDT) moves like √P of the deposited BTC. To get full exposure, they square the LP, cancel the square root, and the position moves like P (the asset price). Gigabrain-simple explanation.
The second key difference is the tokenomics.
Users can choose to be LPs and just earn trading fees, or to receive $YB, which can then be staked to earn more trading fees. So those who don’t want the native token won’t get it, and those who want to be part of the project can opt into the protocol token - similar to Aerodrome.
On October 1, Yield Basis is holding a sale on Legion and Kraken, and the token is expected to launch shortly after. We are bullish
What Stage of the Market Are We In?
This week, the “father of DeFi” Andre Cronje announced a new product - Flying Tulip (or should we call it Tulip Mania). A good moment to take the market’s temperature.
Tokenomics
Target raise: $1B ($200M already from private investors, $800M via public sale).
Allocation: 100% of tokens to investors, 0% to the team.
Each investor gets a perpetual put option at the purchase price: you can return the tokens whenever you want and redeem your capital at cost.
The raised capital is deployed into DeFi strategies to generate revenue, which funds development and buyback & burn of the token. Flywheel effect.
Product (building everything at once)
1. Lending
2. AMM
3. Perp DEX
4. Stablecoin
5. On-chain insurance
All pitched as a super-app.
Our Thoughts
It’s effectively an experiment where investors pay only opportunity cost, while development is financed by yield on TVL (the site suggests up to $125M/yr for buybacks, and more if TVL grows).
Great narrative, but it reads like a late-cycle bull protocol: raising $1B on a super-app promise before the product exists.
Why it’s questionable
Building a super-app ≠ promising one. Even giants (e.g., Base) are taking phased steps. We’ve seen scope expansion (Aave → stablecoin; Ethena → stablecoin + perps + L2), but no one has ever shipped five complex, competitive products in one protocol and outcompeted focused teams in each vertical.
Andre’s track record. He’s a gifted visionary and narrative driver, but he often experiments with tokenomics, then abandons projects to build new ones. And the market tends to forgive it.
Professional demand. In private investor DAOs the deal has been circulating for about a month with only $200M raised. In today’s market the remaining $800M might get filled publicly, but weak VC interest is a red flag.
What It Really Is
An on-chain hedge fund that must prudently manage $1B TVL and use that revenue to build a super-app then actually follow through on buybacks.
They promise innovation, but aside from the unusual tokenomics (spiritually reminiscent of OlympusDAO), there’s little concrete so far. Hard to imagine this launching in any phase other than today’s. A useful moment to ask: how far into euphoria are we?
Respectfully,
Your Coinstruct
This week, the “father of DeFi” Andre Cronje announced a new product - Flying Tulip (or should we call it Tulip Mania). A good moment to take the market’s temperature.
Tokenomics
Target raise: $1B ($200M already from private investors, $800M via public sale).
Allocation: 100% of tokens to investors, 0% to the team.
Each investor gets a perpetual put option at the purchase price: you can return the tokens whenever you want and redeem your capital at cost.
The raised capital is deployed into DeFi strategies to generate revenue, which funds development and buyback & burn of the token. Flywheel effect.
Product (building everything at once)
1. Lending
2. AMM
3. Perp DEX
4. Stablecoin
5. On-chain insurance
All pitched as a super-app.
Our Thoughts
It’s effectively an experiment where investors pay only opportunity cost, while development is financed by yield on TVL (the site suggests up to $125M/yr for buybacks, and more if TVL grows).
Great narrative, but it reads like a late-cycle bull protocol: raising $1B on a super-app promise before the product exists.
Why it’s questionable
Building a super-app ≠ promising one. Even giants (e.g., Base) are taking phased steps. We’ve seen scope expansion (Aave → stablecoin; Ethena → stablecoin + perps + L2), but no one has ever shipped five complex, competitive products in one protocol and outcompeted focused teams in each vertical.
Andre’s track record. He’s a gifted visionary and narrative driver, but he often experiments with tokenomics, then abandons projects to build new ones. And the market tends to forgive it.
Professional demand. In private investor DAOs the deal has been circulating for about a month with only $200M raised. In today’s market the remaining $800M might get filled publicly, but weak VC interest is a red flag.
What It Really Is
An on-chain hedge fund that must prudently manage $1B TVL and use that revenue to build a super-app then actually follow through on buybacks.
They promise innovation, but aside from the unusual tokenomics (spiritually reminiscent of OlympusDAO), there’s little concrete so far. Hard to imagine this launching in any phase other than today’s. A useful moment to ask: how far into euphoria are we?
Respectfully,
Your Coinstruct
ICM meta and the VC money problem
Crypto is unsurprisingly cyclical.
2017 - ICO boom. A decent website was enough and users aped in money. In the end it all finished with a predictable amount of scams.
2020–2023 — “Backed by…” meta. Tier-1 funds in seed rounds = “it’s a gem, get in early” (think ZKsync, Starknet, L0, etc.).
2024 - Realization. By the time Billion dollar VC valuations hit the public, most upside is gone. Funds aren’t philanthropists: they dump on unlocks and as a result is down only. Meme coins took over - zero tech, only attention and “room to grow.”
2025 - ICM meta. We are here.
What is ICM (Internet Capital Markets)
A project sells a token directly to degens; behind the token is a real startup that generates revenue and channels it into buybacks, creating a flywheel.
In essence, we’re back to ICOs, but with emphasis on returning value to token holders via cash flow.
The market is testing a model where the public finances products and participates in cash distribution, not just in multiples.
Keep building.
Crypto is unsurprisingly cyclical.
2017 - ICO boom. A decent website was enough and users aped in money. In the end it all finished with a predictable amount of scams.
2020–2023 — “Backed by…” meta. Tier-1 funds in seed rounds = “it’s a gem, get in early” (think ZKsync, Starknet, L0, etc.).
2024 - Realization. By the time Billion dollar VC valuations hit the public, most upside is gone. Funds aren’t philanthropists: they dump on unlocks and as a result is down only. Meme coins took over - zero tech, only attention and “room to grow.”
2025 - ICM meta. We are here.
What is ICM (Internet Capital Markets)
A project sells a token directly to degens; behind the token is a real startup that generates revenue and channels it into buybacks, creating a flywheel.
In essence, we’re back to ICOs, but with emphasis on returning value to token holders via cash flow.
Key figures of the ICM narrative
Ben Pasternak - Believe. An app where anyone can launch a token; if people believe in you/your product, they support, and the founder earns from fees. A major protocl update is incoming, everyone’s waiting to see what the team built.
Mercy - Investor Center Cult. An incubator for ICM projects: selects the best, helps them grow; in return the treasury receives 1–5% of tokens.
Miya - Street. A protocol that buys equity from Web2 startups (including those backed by YC/a16z) and tokenizes it via the new ERC-S standard.
The market is testing a model where the public finances products and participates in cash distribution, not just in multiples.
Notable ICM cases
$PMX. Started as a Telegram trading bot for Polymarket; now building its own prediction market on Solana.
$VIRUS. A game studio with three releases; the latest success is Addicted, supported by Solana.
$DUPE. Building an AI search for product analogs at lower prices; the app has real usage, and the founder has launched several successful startups and raised $250M+ in total.
It feels like we’re at the beginning of something big.
Keep building.
Who’s a Market Maker and why it matters
A market maker (MM) is a contractor (exchange- or project-side) that uses team-provided inventory (tokens + stables) to keep markets liquid and tradable.
Ideally, an MM:
🔹Maintains depth and tight spreads
🔹Reduces slippage
🔹Supports key events (listing, TGE, unlocks) so the market remains tradable.
In reality:
◆ With large inventory vs. float, an MM can nudge price around events, where regulators may see manipulation. In crypto it often goes unpunished, but still carries legal risks.
◆ Professional MMs do not engage in wash trading. But crypto is still the Wild West, and some big players have inflated volumes to create artificial interest. For a team, this is both a reputational and legal risk.
◆ If an MM steps away, the bid/ask walls vanish and price can collapse anywhere within minutes. Because many oracles overweight top exchanges, a brief price hole can trigger cross-market liquidations, as seen on Friday on Binance (depegs in $ATOM, $bnSOL, $wbETH, $TON).
Who’s specifically to blame? Probably Binance itself; we’ll see which funds end up dead. CZ remains quietly silent.
Сhoosing an MM is a critical part of any token launch. Treat your MM strategy as seriously as your tokenomics.
A market maker (MM) is a contractor (exchange- or project-side) that uses team-provided inventory (tokens + stables) to keep markets liquid and tradable.
Ideally, an MM:
🔹Maintains depth and tight spreads
🔹Reduces slippage
🔹Supports key events (listing, TGE, unlocks) so the market remains tradable.
In reality:
◆ With large inventory vs. float, an MM can nudge price around events, where regulators may see manipulation. In crypto it often goes unpunished, but still carries legal risks.
◆ Professional MMs do not engage in wash trading. But crypto is still the Wild West, and some big players have inflated volumes to create artificial interest. For a team, this is both a reputational and legal risk.
◆ If an MM steps away, the bid/ask walls vanish and price can collapse anywhere within minutes. Because many oracles overweight top exchanges, a brief price hole can trigger cross-market liquidations, as seen on Friday on Binance (depegs in $ATOM, $bnSOL, $wbETH, $TON).
Who’s specifically to blame? Probably Binance itself; we’ll see which funds end up dead. CZ remains quietly silent.
Сhoosing an MM is a critical part of any token launch. Treat your MM strategy as seriously as your tokenomics.
❤1
We’re partnering with Pivot for their Open Demo Day!
Pivot is a Web3-native accelerator helping early-stage startups turn ideas into real, scalable products. Their network connects builders, investors, mentors, and ecosystem partners to give projects the momentum they need.
We’ll be supporting teams with tokenomics strategy and design.
See you there
👉 Register: https://luma.com/thhguc11
Pivot is a Web3-native accelerator helping early-stage startups turn ideas into real, scalable products. Their network connects builders, investors, mentors, and ecosystem partners to give projects the momentum they need.
We’ll be supporting teams with tokenomics strategy and design.
See you there
👉 Register: https://luma.com/thhguc11
The Token Podcast's new episode is live
We sat down with William, co-founder of Sproutly RWA, to talk about
- How they’re tokenizing carbon capture,
- Partnering with giants like Lufthansa, and
- Building a new asset class for Real World Impact (RWI).
Watch here: https://youtu.be/cxjgeGBiNAg
We sat down with William, co-founder of Sproutly RWA, to talk about
- How they’re tokenizing carbon capture,
- Partnering with giants like Lufthansa, and
- Building a new asset class for Real World Impact (RWI).
Watch here: https://youtu.be/cxjgeGBiNAg
Monad airdrop = Vampire attack 2.0?
Monad released an airdrop checker and will distribute tokens to 230,000 wallets. Only 5,500 of those belong to Monad’s own community, the rest are external addresses from the broader crypto audience.
What is a vampire attack?
Simply it is when a new project sucks liquidity/users from established protocols by offering better incentives (high APR or future tokens).
Classic examples in the past are
1) SushiSwap forking Uniswap in 2020. LPs migrated for SUSHI rewards, temporarily draining billions in TVL.
or
2) Blur, which used incentives to lure NFT traders away from OpenSea.
What Monad did
$MON airdrop hits power users from Ethereum, Solana, and beyond, like DeFi depositors on Aave, Solana NFT holders, and traders on Pump.fun or Hyperliquid. So this is a new wave vampire attack: no straight fork, and the project is already widely known in the industry (unlike Sushi/Blur at launch).
The question is how relevant it is to give tokens to users who didn’t use the product not because they hadn’t heard of it or were loyal elsewhere, but because the product wasn’t live on mainnet yet (even though everyone knew about Monad thanks to its large VC raise).
We will see the answer together pretty much soon.
Monad released an airdrop checker and will distribute tokens to 230,000 wallets. Only 5,500 of those belong to Monad’s own community, the rest are external addresses from the broader crypto audience.
What is a vampire attack?
Simply it is when a new project sucks liquidity/users from established protocols by offering better incentives (high APR or future tokens).
Classic examples in the past are
1) SushiSwap forking Uniswap in 2020. LPs migrated for SUSHI rewards, temporarily draining billions in TVL.
or
2) Blur, which used incentives to lure NFT traders away from OpenSea.
What Monad did
$MON airdrop hits power users from Ethereum, Solana, and beyond, like DeFi depositors on Aave, Solana NFT holders, and traders on Pump.fun or Hyperliquid. So this is a new wave vampire attack: no straight fork, and the project is already widely known in the industry (unlike Sushi/Blur at launch).
The question is how relevant it is to give tokens to users who didn’t use the product not because they hadn’t heard of it or were loyal elsewhere, but because the product wasn’t live on mainnet yet (even though everyone knew about Monad thanks to its large VC raise).
We will see the answer together pretty much soon.
❤2
P/E for Perps
With the shift toward “real business” in crypto, equity-style valuation multiples are appearing, but adapted for tokens. For example, Hyperliquid now has its own P/E.
SWPE (Supply-Weighted P/E) is the classic Price/Earnings adjusted for effective supply: locked $HYPE tokens are excluded since they don’t create short-term sell pressure. The metric better reflects what can actually hit the market.
How SWPE is used (in theory)
If 30-day revenues are rising while SWPE is falling, that can signal undervaluation: at a lower multiple, each dollar of revenue has a stronger price impact via buybacks.
That’s exactly what the screenshot shows right now.
We are confident we’ll see more of these equity-style metrics carefully adapted to on-chain realities.
With the shift toward “real business” in crypto, equity-style valuation multiples are appearing, but adapted for tokens. For example, Hyperliquid now has its own P/E.
SWPE (Supply-Weighted P/E) is the classic Price/Earnings adjusted for effective supply: locked $HYPE tokens are excluded since they don’t create short-term sell pressure. The metric better reflects what can actually hit the market.
How SWPE is used (in theory)
If 30-day revenues are rising while SWPE is falling, that can signal undervaluation: at a lower multiple, each dollar of revenue has a stronger price impact via buybacks.
That’s exactly what the screenshot shows right now.
We are confident we’ll see more of these equity-style metrics carefully adapted to on-chain realities.
MegaETH - what valuation is realistic?
The team is selling 5% of $MEGA via an English auction (min cap - $1M, max - $1B). In short: whoever bids higher gets the allocation.
The final price will likely land at $1B FDV, since on Hyperliquid’s pre-market the project is already trading around $4.2B FDV. In that case, tokens would be distributed to roughly 5k wallets, with a $2,650 minimum allocation.
Worth recalling: earlier this year MegaETH sold 5,000 “fluffle” NFTs at a $600M FDV. Expecting a lower valuation now would be odd, and the team knows it.
Market context
Recent months show a trend of lofty valuations and new chains without real MAU: $MON sits around ~$6.5B pre-mainnet. So what prevents $MEGA from being $4B+, given Dragonfly and Vitalik Buterin backed early rounds?
Meanwhile:
◆Tokenomics remain undisclosed
◆Token utility is still an open question.
The main question - does crypto really need another L2?
The team is selling 5% of $MEGA via an English auction (min cap - $1M, max - $1B). In short: whoever bids higher gets the allocation.
The final price will likely land at $1B FDV, since on Hyperliquid’s pre-market the project is already trading around $4.2B FDV. In that case, tokens would be distributed to roughly 5k wallets, with a $2,650 minimum allocation.
Worth recalling: earlier this year MegaETH sold 5,000 “fluffle” NFTs at a $600M FDV. Expecting a lower valuation now would be odd, and the team knows it.
Market context
Recent months show a trend of lofty valuations and new chains without real MAU: $MON sits around ~$6.5B pre-mainnet. So what prevents $MEGA from being $4B+, given Dragonfly and Vitalik Buterin backed early rounds?
Meanwhile:
◆Tokenomics remain undisclosed
◆Token utility is still an open question.
The main question - does crypto really need another L2?
Interim results of the MegaETH ICO
— Deposits without lock: $692M
— Deposits with lock: $64M
— Almost everyone bid at the max price - as expected.
— Max cap: $49.95M - the locked deposits alone could fill it.
Most likely, the team will allocate the majority to lock-in participants to reduce sell pressure at TGE.
If you didn’t do the testnet / don’t hold the fluffle NFTs, participating likely isn’t worth it, though the team said even those who don’t get an allocation might receive some mainnet rewards.
— Deposits without lock: $692M
— Deposits with lock: $64M
— Almost everyone bid at the max price - as expected.
— Max cap: $49.95M - the locked deposits alone could fill it.
Most likely, the team will allocate the majority to lock-in participants to reduce sell pressure at TGE.
If you didn’t do the testnet / don’t hold the fluffle NFTs, participating likely isn’t worth it, though the team said even those who don’t get an allocation might receive some mainnet rewards.
Proud to team up with Medici Expert.
Together we’ll help teams:
◆ Ship clean, compliant token models + investor-grade whitepapers (MiCA/VARA-ready)
◆ Secure the right licenses and banking rails, faster
◆ Set up holdings & entities with ongoing reporting/audit support
◆ Stand up end-to-end compliance (docs, AML audits, staff training)
Learn more:
Coinstruct: http://coinstruct.tech
Medici Expert: https://medici.expert
Together we’ll help teams:
◆ Ship clean, compliant token models + investor-grade whitepapers (MiCA/VARA-ready)
◆ Secure the right licenses and banking rails, faster
◆ Set up holdings & entities with ongoing reporting/audit support
◆ Stand up end-to-end compliance (docs, AML audits, staff training)
Learn more:
Coinstruct: http://coinstruct.tech
Medici Expert: https://medici.expert
❤3
Gonka
In a recent interview, the David and Daniil Liberman unveiled their new project Gonka — a decentralized AI protocol.
For context: they’re serial founders from Silicon Valley (sold Kernel AR to Snapchat for $30M; launched a VC fund that “invests in people", not companies; and build Product Science, an AI-driven performance optimizer for apps).
Gonka is an open protocol that unites GPU owners worldwide into a single compute network for AI. GPU holders earn the $GNK token, while AI labs and countries gain access to distributed compute without relying on the chip monopoly. The project is community-driven, non-VC, focused on compute sovereignty.
It may sound like another larp, but it addresses a real problem.
Today, GPU capacity is concentrated around the U.S. and NVIDIA; exports are restricted, and many countries struggle to build local clusters due to quotas. The idea echoes Bitcoin: a decentralized compute network, but this time for training AI models rather than mining per se.
Tokenomics
80% - miners
20% - founders’ allocation
The token isn’t trading yet, it can only be mined.
Around the same time, Pavel Durov announced Cocoon - another decentralized AI compute project with rewards planned in the TON ecosystem;
plus was released a one hour film on Bittensor.ai - one of the leading decentralized AI players.
Looks like we’re on the verge of a new meta - DePIN for AI.
In a recent interview, the David and Daniil Liberman unveiled their new project Gonka — a decentralized AI protocol.
For context: they’re serial founders from Silicon Valley (sold Kernel AR to Snapchat for $30M; launched a VC fund that “invests in people", not companies; and build Product Science, an AI-driven performance optimizer for apps).
Gonka is an open protocol that unites GPU owners worldwide into a single compute network for AI. GPU holders earn the $GNK token, while AI labs and countries gain access to distributed compute without relying on the chip monopoly. The project is community-driven, non-VC, focused on compute sovereignty.
It may sound like another larp, but it addresses a real problem.
Today, GPU capacity is concentrated around the U.S. and NVIDIA; exports are restricted, and many countries struggle to build local clusters due to quotas. The idea echoes Bitcoin: a decentralized compute network, but this time for training AI models rather than mining per se.
Tokenomics
80% - miners
20% - founders’ allocation
The token isn’t trading yet, it can only be mined.
Around the same time, Pavel Durov announced Cocoon - another decentralized AI compute project with rewards planned in the TON ecosystem;
plus was released a one hour film on Bittensor.ai - one of the leading decentralized AI players.
Looks like we’re on the verge of a new meta - DePIN for AI.
❤1🐳1
Are airdrops still needed?
Over the past year, more projects have been running public sales right before TGE. At first this came with airdrops, now it’s increasingly without them.
Pump.fun was the first big example: everyone forgot about the airdrop, the token mooned on buybacks, and FUD vanished with it.
Now we’re watching Monad vs. MegaETH.
MegaETH hasn’t announced an airdrop and there’s noticeably less FUD than around Monad, which did a drop but not at the size users expected.
Why:
◆ Users are most of the time sybil farmers who overvalue their “work” and are unhappy with results 9 times out of 10.
◆ Teams know this. Airdrops still help with early user acquisition, but sales are more attractive: projects get cash, investors have skin in the game, and there’s a clear price anchor.
◆ Previously, airdrops were the only safe way to decentralize distribution; now the industry isn’t afraid to run sales (citing the Trump era and shifting regulation).
As the result, projects that never promised an airdrop feel fine not doing one. Those that lured users with points programs try to sit on two chairs: a sale brings funds and liquidity, while few percents are left for the airdrop (after exchange promos and Kaito yappers).
If you promised an airdrop, expect crisis PR around TGE and it’s unlikely this trend changes anytime soon.
Over the past year, more projects have been running public sales right before TGE. At first this came with airdrops, now it’s increasingly without them.
Pump.fun was the first big example: everyone forgot about the airdrop, the token mooned on buybacks, and FUD vanished with it.
Now we’re watching Monad vs. MegaETH.
MegaETH hasn’t announced an airdrop and there’s noticeably less FUD than around Monad, which did a drop but not at the size users expected.
Why:
◆ Users are most of the time sybil farmers who overvalue their “work” and are unhappy with results 9 times out of 10.
◆ Teams know this. Airdrops still help with early user acquisition, but sales are more attractive: projects get cash, investors have skin in the game, and there’s a clear price anchor.
◆ Previously, airdrops were the only safe way to decentralize distribution; now the industry isn’t afraid to run sales (citing the Trump era and shifting regulation).
As the result, projects that never promised an airdrop feel fine not doing one. Those that lured users with points programs try to sit on two chairs: a sale brings funds and liquidity, while few percents are left for the airdrop (after exchange promos and Kaito yappers).
If you promised an airdrop, expect crisis PR around TGE and it’s unlikely this trend changes anytime soon.
❤2🐳2
Buybacks are already an industry standard.
In a recent proposal, Uniswap’s CEO shared that the DEX had long wanted to return value to token holders, but they were tied up in legal battles with Gary Gensler’s administration.
Now, with the political climate in the US shifting, a new path has opened, and with it, a new value plan for $UNI.
Uniswap now plans to:
◆ Turn on protocol fees and use them to burn UNI.
◆ Send Unichain sequencer fees to the same UNI burn mechanism.
◆ Burn 100 million UNI from the treasury (about 10% of supply), representing what would have been burned if fees had been on since launch.
◆ Alongside this, they’ll turn off interface fees.
All of this means Uniswap becomes a buyback machine on the level of Pump.fun, burning $38M per month.
For comparison: buybacks on $PUMP are $35M, and $HYPE is $95M.
In a recent proposal, Uniswap’s CEO shared that the DEX had long wanted to return value to token holders, but they were tied up in legal battles with Gary Gensler’s administration.
Now, with the political climate in the US shifting, a new path has opened, and with it, a new value plan for $UNI.
Uniswap now plans to:
◆ Turn on protocol fees and use them to burn UNI.
◆ Send Unichain sequencer fees to the same UNI burn mechanism.
◆ Burn 100 million UNI from the treasury (about 10% of supply), representing what would have been burned if fees had been on since launch.
◆ Alongside this, they’ll turn off interface fees.
All of this means Uniswap becomes a buyback machine on the level of Pump.fun, burning $38M per month.
For comparison: buybacks on $PUMP are $35M, and $HYPE is $95M.
❤1
How the ICO Meta Changed in 2025
OGs remember 2017: anyone could ape into any ICO with any amount, no KYC - a playground for manipulation.
In 2021–2022 CoinList arrived: KYC became the norm, but users eventually created account farms and overwhelmed CoinList with volume.
By 2025 the ICO meta is back. KYC is a basic standard, and successful launchpads now add investor scoring:
◆ Kaito Launchpad relies on AI parsing of X (Twitter): a high Kaito score boosts your odds and allocation size.
◆ Legion uses a composite score - on-chain, X, GitHub + a motivation letter, then the protocol team hand-picks holders.
◆ Buidlpad tightens geo filters and gives better terms to active users of the protocols that are raising.
As the result, it’s getting harder for a regular participant to get into a sale with obvious upside - the line often never reaches them.
So, second-tier launchpads are popping up:
🔹 Legion has external curators Nozomi and Cookie (same rails, lower thresholds).
🔹 Buidlpad launched Vibe with smaller sizes and simpler projects.
🔹 Each chain is spawning local platforms. On Solana alone: MetaDAO, Soar, Believe, Pump.fun, Daos.fun, Letsbonk.fun, Heaven.
It feels like there are already more launchpads than quality projects to launch on them.
If you’re a strong builder, the window to raise a presale is open. The hardest part isn’t launching technically, it’s winning attention and cutting through the larps.
OGs remember 2017: anyone could ape into any ICO with any amount, no KYC - a playground for manipulation.
In 2021–2022 CoinList arrived: KYC became the norm, but users eventually created account farms and overwhelmed CoinList with volume.
By 2025 the ICO meta is back. KYC is a basic standard, and successful launchpads now add investor scoring:
◆ Kaito Launchpad relies on AI parsing of X (Twitter): a high Kaito score boosts your odds and allocation size.
◆ Legion uses a composite score - on-chain, X, GitHub + a motivation letter, then the protocol team hand-picks holders.
◆ Buidlpad tightens geo filters and gives better terms to active users of the protocols that are raising.
As the result, it’s getting harder for a regular participant to get into a sale with obvious upside - the line often never reaches them.
So, second-tier launchpads are popping up:
🔹 Legion has external curators Nozomi and Cookie (same rails, lower thresholds).
🔹 Buidlpad launched Vibe with smaller sizes and simpler projects.
🔹 Each chain is spawning local platforms. On Solana alone: MetaDAO, Soar, Believe, Pump.fun, Daos.fun, Letsbonk.fun, Heaven.
It feels like there are already more launchpads than quality projects to launch on them.
If you’re a strong builder, the window to raise a presale is open. The hardest part isn’t launching technically, it’s winning attention and cutting through the larps.
❤3
Aqua by 1inch: TUV (Total Unlocked Value)
If liquidity is water, DeFi still pours it into a hundred cups. 1inch is proposing a faucet that can fill several at once.
Aqua is a new shared-liquidity layer: your capital stays in your wallet but can work across multiple strategies simultaneously (AMM/RFQ/limit orders/auctions, etc.) with no locks and no transferring assets into third-party pools.
How it works (simplified):
You set wallet rules (permissions). On demand, the protocol pulls exactly the liquidity needed for a trade and returns it with fees (pull & push; auto-compound). Virtual balances let the same capital back multiple strategies in parallel.
The focus shifts from TVL to TUV: not how much is locked in protocols, but how broadly and efficiently the same dollar is utilized over time (your funds remain withdrawable at any moment, yet can earn extra yield while idle).
In doing so, Aqua aims to solve liquidity fragmentation and provide liquidity on demand wherever it’s needed.
A basic initial use case is supplying liquidity to solvers - they find optimal swap/arbitrage routes and share a portion of the profits with LPs.
If liquidity is water, DeFi still pours it into a hundred cups. 1inch is proposing a faucet that can fill several at once.
Aqua is a new shared-liquidity layer: your capital stays in your wallet but can work across multiple strategies simultaneously (AMM/RFQ/limit orders/auctions, etc.) with no locks and no transferring assets into third-party pools.
How it works (simplified):
You set wallet rules (permissions). On demand, the protocol pulls exactly the liquidity needed for a trade and returns it with fees (pull & push; auto-compound). Virtual balances let the same capital back multiple strategies in parallel.
The focus shifts from TVL to TUV: not how much is locked in protocols, but how broadly and efficiently the same dollar is utilized over time (your funds remain withdrawable at any moment, yet can earn extra yield while idle).
In doing so, Aqua aims to solve liquidity fragmentation and provide liquidity on demand wherever it’s needed.
A basic initial use case is supplying liquidity to solvers - they find optimal swap/arbitrage routes and share a portion of the profits with LPs.
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Will Monad fail to hit $400M?
Right now the $MON presale pool on Coinbase sits at $155M out of the needed $188M, with 2 days left.
On Polymarket, trading implies 67% odds of $300M+ and 33% for $400M+.
Technically, Monad’s raise targets still look more than achievable, but with pre-market pricing +50% vs presale, a stronger inflow would’ve been expected.
Why?
🔹 KYC frictions seem tougher for parts of emerging markets vs. Pump.fun/MegaETH.
🔹 $MEGA ran 4x on pre-market (even with unclear timing); Monad lists on the 24th, yet sits at only +50% (only, lol).
🔹 Market mood: BTC 86k and $MON on Hyperliquid has been drifting down all the time.
Watching the final hours closely - most of the capital usually arrives right at the end.
Right now the $MON presale pool on Coinbase sits at $155M out of the needed $188M, with 2 days left.
On Polymarket, trading implies 67% odds of $300M+ and 33% for $400M+.
Technically, Monad’s raise targets still look more than achievable, but with pre-market pricing +50% vs presale, a stronger inflow would’ve been expected.
Why?
🔹 KYC frictions seem tougher for parts of emerging markets vs. Pump.fun/MegaETH.
🔹 $MEGA ran 4x on pre-market (even with unclear timing); Monad lists on the 24th, yet sits at only +50% (only, lol).
🔹 Market mood: BTC 86k and $MON on Hyperliquid has been drifting down all the time.
Watching the final hours closely - most of the capital usually arrives right at the end.
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$TNSR is a perfect example of why, without legal protections, a token can end up as exit liquidity.
The Tensor team had two products: Tensor NFT Marketplace and Vector.fun. Both routed 50% of all fees to the $TNSR treasury. That was the token’s core value.
Then Coinbase acquired Vector along with the team.
The token and the NFT marketplace were left to an “independent foundation.”
Founders got paid by CB.
Token holders got zero from the acquisition.
In the 48 hours before the announcement, the token did an 11x move (from $0.034 to $0.365) on $1.9B volume. A wallet linked to the Tensor treasury bought 725k $TNSR at $0.045 and sold around $0.38, netting roughly $156k (+740%).
Now they propose 100% of marketplace fees to the treasury and partial supply burns, but that’s nothing in comparison with acquisition upside left for founders.
Until a token has a legal wrapper with real holder rights, it’s just a pretty package for a founders’ exit.
At Coinstruct, we architect differently.
The Tensor team had two products: Tensor NFT Marketplace and Vector.fun. Both routed 50% of all fees to the $TNSR treasury. That was the token’s core value.
Then Coinbase acquired Vector along with the team.
The token and the NFT marketplace were left to an “independent foundation.”
Founders got paid by CB.
Token holders got zero from the acquisition.
In the 48 hours before the announcement, the token did an 11x move (from $0.034 to $0.365) on $1.9B volume. A wallet linked to the Tensor treasury bought 725k $TNSR at $0.045 and sold around $0.38, netting roughly $156k (+740%).
Now they propose 100% of marketplace fees to the treasury and partial supply burns, but that’s nothing in comparison with acquisition upside left for founders.
Until a token has a legal wrapper with real holder rights, it’s just a pretty package for a founders’ exit.
At Coinstruct, we architect differently.
❤1
How teams burn treasury on buybacks for nothing
We talk a lot about buybacks, but some teams use them absolutely straightforward. Case in point: $WLFI.
The team periodically buybacks from a reserves wallet, but does it in a way that significantly moves the market.
One wallet typically pumps price by 1–2%, while a second bot wallet pushes 8–15% (I’ll leave the addresses in the comments).
That spread goes to arbitrageurs, the chart looks choppy, and the team ends up with a higher average buyback price than necessary.
How to do it smart and bake buybacks into tokenomics:
🔹TWAP/VWAP execution with sliced orders + randomized intervals.
🔹Set limits as % of volume/liquidity, not a fixed $.
🔹Public dashboard: rules, budget, execution (transparency reduces FUD and rumor front-running).
We talk a lot about buybacks, but some teams use them absolutely straightforward. Case in point: $WLFI.
The team periodically buybacks from a reserves wallet, but does it in a way that significantly moves the market.
One wallet typically pumps price by 1–2%, while a second bot wallet pushes 8–15% (I’ll leave the addresses in the comments).
That spread goes to arbitrageurs, the chart looks choppy, and the team ends up with a higher average buyback price than necessary.
How to do it smart and bake buybacks into tokenomics:
🔹TWAP/VWAP execution with sliced orders + randomized intervals.
🔹Set limits as % of volume/liquidity, not a fixed $.
🔹Public dashboard: rules, budget, execution (transparency reduces FUD and rumor front-running).
❤2
1 USDT is effectively backed by only 87 cents.
S&P Global Ratings lowered USDT’s rating to 5 - the lowest possible score on their scale. We checked Tether’s reports to calculate the risks. Spoiler: the math isn’t very pleasant.
The main reason for the downgrade is the growth in the share of high-risk assets. Over the last year, it grew from 17% to 24%. Tether looks less like a digital dollar and more like a hedge fund.
USDT has a total of $181 billion in reserves (as of the 09/30/2025 report).
Of this, safe assets (US Treasuries, REPO, cash): $139.8 billion.
No questions here.
But here are the risky assets ($41.1 billion or 24%):
🔹 Secured loans: $14.6 billion (issued to whom? possibly the affiliated Bitfinex).
🔹 Precious metals: $12.9 billion.
🔹 Bitcoin: $9.8 billion.
🔹 Certain "other investments": $3.8 billion.
Let's simulate a stress test.
Imagine a crisis where Bitcoin and Gold drop by 50%, and secured loans + "other investments" turn out to be unrecoverable (go to zero).
The company is left with $151.1billion in assets. Liabilities to USDT holders are $174 billion (amount of USDT in circulation).
The real value of 1 USDT becomes $0.87.
Yes, this is a pessimistic scenario. But the lack of reserve segregation and the registration in El Salvador (where oversight is minimal) do not add optimism.
S&P Global Ratings lowered USDT’s rating to 5 - the lowest possible score on their scale. We checked Tether’s reports to calculate the risks. Spoiler: the math isn’t very pleasant.
The main reason for the downgrade is the growth in the share of high-risk assets. Over the last year, it grew from 17% to 24%. Tether looks less like a digital dollar and more like a hedge fund.
USDT has a total of $181 billion in reserves (as of the 09/30/2025 report).
Of this, safe assets (US Treasuries, REPO, cash): $139.8 billion.
No questions here.
But here are the risky assets ($41.1 billion or 24%):
🔹 Secured loans: $14.6 billion (issued to whom? possibly the affiliated Bitfinex).
🔹 Precious metals: $12.9 billion.
🔹 Bitcoin: $9.8 billion.
🔹 Certain "other investments": $3.8 billion.
Let's simulate a stress test.
Imagine a crisis where Bitcoin and Gold drop by 50%, and secured loans + "other investments" turn out to be unrecoverable (go to zero).
The company is left with $151.1billion in assets. Liabilities to USDT holders are $174 billion (amount of USDT in circulation).
The real value of 1 USDT becomes $0.87.
Yes, this is a pessimistic scenario. But the lack of reserve segregation and the registration in El Salvador (where oversight is minimal) do not add optimism.
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