Tokenomics and Protocol Value Capture

Oct 25, 2026

Thread Guy Surveillor - Trading Small Markets, Zero Leverage, and Calling the Altcoin Bottoms

• Surveillor Surveillor’s CARDS buyback thesis includes employee-token alignment and a possible limited commitment. He says the team is working through buybacks and argues a one-year commitment could suffice. Thread Guy rejects permanent or 100% buybacks …
• Surveillor’s PUMP thesis goes beyond launchpad fees. He says the app is nearing $300,000 a day in fees, roughly on par with FOMO, and sees on-chain social trading as a valuable narrative. …

Oct 23, 2026

Market Bubble It's worse than you think w/ Tulip King, Eli Ben-Sasson and Saeed Badreg

• Tulip King Tulip’s portfolio framework separates coins that are money from coins that make money, leaving ETH and SOL under pressure to justify their valuations. His argument is that stablecoins increasingly supply collateral and trading denominations, while scaling reduces the fees native tokens …

Oct 22, 2026

Delphi Digital The Worst Is Behind Us

• Jason The Year Ahead themes are money and better token designs. A speaker argues that value-accruing tokens can build loyalty, while crypto’s unlocks are further along than those in AI equities. Jason has …

Oct 19, 2026

Empire Which Businesses Will Survive AI? | Michael Dempsey

• Michael Dempsey Liquid crypto looks more attractive to Dempsey than new crypto venture investment. Venture has been “pretty much dead for two years,” while fully distributed tokens beginning to accrue value can be assessed fundamentally …

Oct 16, 2026

The Edge Podcast You Know Zcash, But Railgun Lets You Use Any Asset Privately Across All Ethereum DeFi

• Alan RAIL’s utility is security governance: staking contracts hold “70-plus percent” of total RAIL, and stakers review upgrade proposals (such as the Base deployment) as “guardians of the Railgun ecosystem.” Transaction fees fund rewards from the treasury, distributed every two weeks; Alan thinks the year will end with just over $2M in rewards to …

Oct 12, 2026

Empire Kamino's Plan To Make Tokenized Assets Actually Useful | Michael Weisz

• Michael Weisz The token is intended to align Weisz, employees, investors, and Kamino’s operating success, although its full design remains undisclosed. Nearly all of his prospective upside is in Kamino tokens, with team unlock stages tied to $1 billion, $2 billion, $3 billion, $5 billion, …

Oct 9, 2026

The Edge Podcast Why Fundamentals Are Finally Winning and Where This DeFi Investor's Putting His Money | The Thesis

• Kyle Kyle’s central call is that crypto is finally rewarding businesses with persistent usage, revenue and tokenholder alignment, with Hyperliquid as the proof case. Meme coins offer “no ceiling” but also “no floor”; once their differentiators blur, investors return to usage, revenue, TAM and growth. He …
• The investable shift is being reinforced by reflexivity: Hyperliquid’s success makes investors demand buybacks, better disclosure and stronger token economics from everyone else. Its roughly 99% buyback model changed expectations, while investor-relations tools and reports from Blockworks and DeFiLlama can force …

Oct 7, 2026

Delphi Digital Crypto's $150 Trillion Opportunity

• Delphi Digital The panel’s low-stress strategy is increasingly to own category leaders, though challengers can outperform when expectations diverge. Pump’s revenue barely changed while successive launchpads cooled, suggesting their innovations could become future features for Pump. Yet …
• Guy Young Guy’s hardest founder lesson was choosing whom to involve in capitalizing a project. Ethena responded to its low-float/high-FDV stigma by buying out weaker venture investors, clarifying token–equity alignment, and directing …

Oct 2, 2026

Empire Everyone Is Watching AI While Crypto’s Bull Market Builds | Weekly Roundup

• Santiago Roel Santos Crypto’s investable expression has shifted from “long stablecoins” to “how do I go long a token?” The prior answer included Coinbase and Circle; today the hosts point to Backpack and Securitize, with Robinhood potentially offering a …

The Edge Podcast Is It Time to Buy ENA? Ethena Pay, The Equity Basis Trade, and The Token Cleanup

• Lito The ENA cleanup was presented as eliminating the visible token-supply overhang. A fund bought tokens from existing investors who had sold during their unlock, around the 7-cent low, while remaining investor vesting was …

Oct 1, 2026

Frictionless Tokenized Stocks and Global Liquidity with Armani Ferrante CEO of Backpack | EP 169

• Armani Ferrante Backpack’s BP tokenomics explicitly reject the industry’s TGE-as-exit model. Users received 25% at TGE, another 37.5% is reserved for growth tied to major product or geographic milestones, and the final 37.5% sits in …

Sep 30, 2026

1000x MARKET UPDATE: Alts Ripping, Economy Crushing, Scammers Scamming — What’s Next?

• 1000x Their preferred alternative is positive-sum crypto backed by “good product, good revenues, good team.” Avi bought ZRO after interviewing Brian Pellegrino and shorted ETH to isolate the alpha, while Robinhood’s rollout of perpetuals through …

Sep 29, 2026

Thread Guy Papertrade Launch, 1000x Leverage & Onchain War Stories - blurr

• blurr Token emissions are strongest when the bankroll most needs recapitalization, creating a potentially unbounded but economically decaying supply. blurr could not recall the initial figure precisely, saying it might be $100 or $1,000 per paper before tentatively describing $1,000 for …

Sep 28, 2026

1000x Crypto Is Rebuilding The Financial System — And Opportunities Abound

• Bryan Pellegrino The proposed ZRO value-accrual loop is unusually explicit: gas demand, protocol fees, and Atlas buybacks. ZRO will pay Zero’s priority fees and blockspace; Pellegrino’s “mental” expectation is that LayerZero’s messaging fee switch activates …

Frictionless What Gives Tokens Value? with Mike Dudas, Managing Partner at 6MV | EP 168

• Mike Dudas Dudas’s central token test is brutally simple: explain where value accrues and how it reaches holders. Tokens and equity can coexist only when their roles are complementary and management communicates the bridge between them. Pure governance …
• Crypto’s investable opportunity is shifting from speculative infrastructure toward durable application-layer cash flow. High-throughput chains, deeper liquidity, stablecoins, money markets, prediction markets, and tokenized real-world assets kept operating …

Sep 25, 2026

Market Bubble You are not bullish enough, with rasmr

• rasmr L1 tokens should be valued as money and long-duration platforms for onchain activity, not merely as claims on today’s fee income. Buyers of SOL and ETH are underwriting an onchain economy that might eventually host hundreds or thousands of successful applications; rasrm …
• NFTs may return as sticky ownership instruments tied to businesses, revenue, and community privileges rather than simply as illiquid pictures. Their earlier strength came partly from holders identifying with a Bored Ape, CryptoPunk, or a penguin and refusing to sell; future versions …