dear WTO, unblock me
a critically acclaimed weekly consumer crypto roundup
Zǎoshang hǎo,
so i’ve become an international trade expert. not formally, of course—i don’t need credentials when i have raw intuition, a wellness LLC, and a bloomberg terminal. the u.s. and its geopolitical frenemies are lobbing tariffs like it’s olympic pickleball for dying empires, and somewhere in a geneva basement, a wto official just dry heaved into a paper cup of duty-free espresso and a stack of g7 resolutions last updated during obama’s first term. and then today, trump tweeted it was a great time to buy and then—an hour later—paused the trade war entirely. textbook vibes-based governance. I didn’t realize diplomacy could be conducted like bravo tv, but here we are—hair-pulling, sanctions, and one exhausted moderator muttering, “girl the tariffs.”
meanwhile here in crypto, $1.5B was liquidated in 24hrs, and the charts resemble a cardiogram of a founder being told to “pivot to ai” mid-pitch. i’ve been DMing the commerce secretary about replacing tariffs with seasonal trade perks—like bonus port access for countries that don’t start currency wars before Q3. he hasn't responded, which is exactly the kind of resistance you'd expect from someone trapped in old economic paradigms.
in protest, i’ve begun wearing only fabrics sourced from countries currently in trade disputes, like Italian silk transshipped through Vietnam to evade Chinese origin rules. it’s uncomfortable and wildly expensive but to me it’s an important lesson in economic game theory and the ever present truth that perhaps comfort truly is the greatest discomfort of them all.
anyway, enjoy some mostly accurate reporting below.
xx, c
A points system wont save you
Last week, Joseph hopped on the show to share his research on onchain loyalty programs, confirming that these systems are attracting bots, not building real communities. Here's the scoop from his findings:
no real connection between point and quest completion rates,
ease of completion and low cost are driving participation,
adding wallet thresholds killed completion rates by 90%, and
even tiny rewards (like $0.01) brought dormant wallets out of the woodwork, proving bots are just chasing easy profits.
If you're somehow still hoping a crypto points system will save your product, we've got bad news for you
80M+ quests show
★ Rewards ≠ retention
★ Vanity AU metrics ≠ community
★ Copy-paste tactics don’t create copy-paste outcomes
★ Incentives should amplify purpose, not
80M+ quests show
★ Rewards ≠ retention
★ Vanity AU metrics ≠ community
★ Copy-paste tactics don’t create copy-paste outcomes
★ Incentives should amplify purpose, not
16
Joseph pointed out the perverse incentive structure: projects are chasing vanity metrics to hit exchange listing quotas or investor expectations, which ultimately hurts them. The money spent on attracting bots—users who just want rewards—ends up being wasted. Once those rewards are distributed, those bots leave, and the project's metrics plummet, scaring off the real builders. A big red flag was the lack of data-driven decisions around how points were allocated. Teams were copying models without understanding the dynamics, which made the whole thing feel like a game of blind copycat.
Joseph argued that gamification needs a total overhaul. Instead of using points just to boost numbers, projects need to think about the user's journey. Take Duolingo, for example, where gamification isn’t a feature, it’s the product itself—designed to support the user’s path toward mastery. Meanwhile, many crypto projects are just tacking on point systems to prop up their own metrics. The real solution? Focus on meaningful engagement. Ask, "What is the user trying to achieve?" and build systems that support that with proper feedback mechanisms.
Appcoins, AI SEO
Ohara just dropped appcoins, pushing vibe coding forward—where builders can launch tokens alongside their apps, with 10% allocated to creators, vesting over 12 months. The idea is simple: in a world where software can be generated instantly, we need better ways to distribute and value it. Ohara lets anyone create full-stack apps, and now, creators can launch their own appcoins tied directly to their software. Users can buy coins for the apps they love, enabling new forms of community ownership, monetization, and discovery. It’s a step toward turning software into dynamic markets, and pushing the onchain creator economy into overdrive.
That 12-month vesting period feels off considering how short-lived viral apps tend to be. Still, the team’s engaging with their community and iterating, acknowledging that we're early in figuring out token distribution models for this type of product. You can join them over here.
Meanwhile, AI is flipping the script on content discovery. Users are increasingly interacting with the web through LLMs, and Zeno shared insights into how customers are finding products through Claude’s recommendations. This is the dawn of AI SEO, where llm.ext formats optimize how models process content, and tools like Profound help boost visibility. Being included in LLM data is a huge win because it creates a next-level long tail distribution, where big players just dominate based on all the existing content they’ve already captured. If you’re not in that mix, it’s a tough place to be.
Let’s talk about AI SEO.
A lot of new users are signing up to our product because AI models are recommending it.
Here’s what we did so far…
A lot of new users are signing up to our product because AI models are recommending it.
Here’s what we did so far…
Open Social
The open social ecosystem is heating up. Lens Chain just launched with robust infrastructure for social apps—think built-in storage, token gating, and a full-stack platform that’s both developer-friendly and user-centric. Meanwhile, Farcaster continues to gain momentum, thanks in large part to its thriving Mini Apps ecosystem, tipping features, and token distributions.
Farcaster’s Mini Apps function like an onchain open app store, offering everything from defi tools to to creator tools to casual games, all with slick UX and native notification support. The new V2 framework has made it easier for teams to build and deploy directly into the social feed, with hundreds of apps already live and many more on the way.
the simplest bull case for farcaster is that we’ll need an app-native feed as software becomes content, vibecoding becomes the new posting, and the number of applications being released 1000x's
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Universal is putting dragon costumes on the Boston Dynamics robots, and they are insanely cute
no crying in the highly levered offshore fake money perpetual futures shops
200% tariff on podcast equipment for people who work in crypto or ai
We can clone a wolf that’s been dead for 13,000 years but we still have to approve the same token to swap it on each individual L2
consumooor crypto wrapped erry week https://paragraph.com/@seedclubhq/this-is-a-great-time-to-build-djt
https://paragraph.com/@seedclubhq/this-is-a-great-time-to-build-djt