Today's News Recap
Exchange Acquisition - Robinhood completes $200M acquisition of crypto exchange Bitstamp.
Decision Delay - U.S. regulators delay decision on WisdomTree's Bitcoin ETF, seeking public feedback.
Stable Sights - Crypto lobbyists urge U.S. senators to stay focused amid stablecoin debate.
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Using an object-based model for parallel transaction processing
Record DEX activity in Q1 2025 with $304M average daily volume
Ecosystem spans DeFi, gaming, NFTs, and AI
Institutional interest is growing: Grayscale adding SUI, ETF filings
Partner with Nebula Block to provide lower cost decentralized AI compute
Purchased 100,000 GPU hours for AI inference and model training
Using Swan Chain cut Nebula’s AI compute costs by ~50-70%
Dynamically allocates workloads across 100+ global providers
Two Bits
Get Loudio or Stay Quiet?
By: Patryk Krasnicki
Last week, “Loud” by 0x_ultra took over. The project amassed over 20% of crypto twitter mindshare, more than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana combined. Dubbed as an “experiment” in collaboration with Kaito, Loud played with two core ideas:
What if we create a token that features perpetual incentives for social engagement?
Every week, trading volume generates fees that are distributed to the top 25 contributors of Loud's mindshare.
What if we distribute 45% of the token in an Initial Attention Offering (IAO)?
The top 1,000 contributors of Loud's mindshare were able to purchase 225,000 LOUD tokens (0.0225% of the total supply) for 0.2 SOL at a market cap of $155,000.
With the unprecedented levels of attention, crypto twitter was split. While most were yapping about Loud, some bashed it as disgraceful, claiming people sold their souls for engagement or farmed their audience. These are pessimistic takes.
Followings take time and effort to grow. Sometimes opportunities come along to be rewarded for that hard work. Doing so at the expense of your following by scamming or committing fraud is immoral and wrong. Doing so during a fun, crypto-native development where no one is being hurt and a modicum of effort is made, is fine. That is the approach most took, along with supporting their fellow content creators in being real and pursuing an allocation.
As of June 3rd, LOUD is trading at $0.0065 per token at a market cap of $6.4 million. The token launch was mostly fair, much more so than other major memecoins launched this year, like LIBRA. While some argue the experiment has failed, I say it has succeeded, and it’s not over yet. In two days, LOUD has generated $448,000 in fees to be distributed to the week’s top 25 yappers. Will the attention fly wheel accelerate, or slow to a halt? Time will tell.
Regardless of what happens in the coming weeks, Ultra has managed to pull off a masterclass in growth marketing and go-to-market strategy. While largely fueled by financial speculation, something most projects aren’t willing/able to do, Loud achieved a level of attention never before seen. The experiment resulted in:
A significant amount of value being created for over 1,000 participants.
A treasure trove of data for Kaito to iterate on its mindshare algorithms.
Food for thought for crypto projects and marketing teams.
Loud was a success. Crypto is the greatest game and like it or not, this moment is now a part of its history.