Narratives
Latest Meta: Onchain Trading Cards
Crypto has got a new asset class to tokenize: trading cards.
But firstly, what's the appeal of collectibles/trading cards? The short answer is cultural/emotional significance.
Collections like Pokémon cards evoke childhood memories and shared experiences. They're also tied to our identities and social signaling. High-value cards are status symbols. Kinda like crypto punk PFPs on Crypto Twitter.
So there's an active community surrounding these cards. They trade, collect, and show them off. And these cards have even outperformed traditional asset classes (eg, the S&P) over the years.
A new wave of protocols is bringing these cards onchain via tokenization. And these have benefits.
- Low fees. On eBay, the fee is high. (12.9% on sale price up to $7500.) More specialized venues like auction houses will charge even more.
- Tokenization = way more utility. For example, users will be able to easily borrow against tokenized Pokémon cards. Many teams are already working on this.
- Better trading infrastructure. Crypto is a much smoother settlement layer. It'll also be available 24x7.
Others will list many more benefits, like vault and authentication service. But traditional platforms support these features as well, and crypto protocols don't have any such noticeable advantage.
Ultimately, to be sustainable, these protocols need to attract non-crypto collectors.
$CARDS: The Alpha play
The Collector App is the leading protocol in this sector.
It launched its native token, $CARDS, on August 29th. Grinded down to ~$8.4M till September 2nd. And since then, it has pumped ~900% to ~$86M.
Collector is an ecosystem built around tokenizing real-world trading cards, like Pokemon cards.
- Anyone can send OG cards to the Collector.
- The app will secure it in a vault & insure it as well. The user will get an NFT representing a legal claim over it, which can be traded.
- Anyone can burn this NFT and get the original card back.
These NFT cards can then be traded on Collector & other trading marketplaces as well.
Their hit product was a virtual "gacha" machine. Users deposit USDC for a chance to pull a rare tokenized Pokémon card. It has been very successful.
The project has been live since last year. Since early 2025, it has had consistent activity.
- To date, Collector has minted >29k NFTs.
- Done >$80M in pack purchase volume. And >4.3k purchasers.
- You can review more metrics from this dashboard.
So the project has some PMF.
But that doesn't guarantee value accrual for its token. You can check the tokenomics here. Only 25% is truly allocated to the community. When early backers exit the positions, there should be enough demand to meet it.
The money generated is going towards purchasing more valuable cards for their Gacha product. They need more valuable cards for users to gamble on gacha. So $CARDS can be seen as a bet on Pokémon card narrative as well.
Beta plays
Like any sector, there are many protocols in this sector. Below are the ones on my radar.
If you're genuinely interested in opening packs and trading cards, check those out. You can also try them out if you want beta plays or want to qualify for their airdrops.
But personally, I don't try to chase every single mini-narrative.
Long-term success of these protocols isn't guaranteed in any way. Traditional card collectors often like physically holding the cards in their hands. Crypto protocols don't provide that.
Current outperformance of these protocols seems to emerge from crypto-natives piling onto a few consumer protocols that actually do something. Instead of memecoins, they're just bidding on "useful" protocols. But they don't have an "emotional connection" to the underlying cards. And that's necessary for collecting to be sustainable.
If you're genuinely interested in collecting, you can participate in the narrative. Personally, I'm looking for signs of non-crypto collectors adopting these protocols.
Sponsored by HeyAnon
HeyAnon is Coming Out of Beta
AI-powered crypto is taking a big leap. HeyAnon is coming out of beta.
What is HeyAnon? It's an AI-powered DeFi assistant.
At its core, it's a chat interface that acts as your personal DeFi assistant. You talk to it like you'd talk to your techie cousin. You tell it what you want, and it executes. Simple.
On top of that, they've also built Gemma, an AI-powered research assistant, and HUD, a browser extension packed with useful tools. But we'll get to those later.
With HeyAnon 1.0, there are a lot of new awesome updates.
- Upgraded AI engine.
The app will be running the latest AI model. Better model = better app.
- Custom Delay Tasks with Trigger-Based Actions
Want HeyAnon to monitor your vault APR and reposition when the yield drops below a threshold? You can set it up It can now schedule and execute actions automatically, based on triggers you set.
- More natural interactions.
Before, you had to use "@" symbols for HeyAnon to execute your commands.
With the new update, that's gone. You can now interact with any of HeyAnon's protocols, modules, or functions by simply writing a natural prompt - it can now fully understand your intent without needing to be told.
Just describe what you want to do, and HeyAnon will figure out the rest.
And that's just scratching the surface. Other highlights include:
- Built-In Accuracy without Inspector AI
- Full contextual awareness of Integrations and Features.
- Advanced Problem Solving and Proactive Suggestions
As I said before, Gemma is its AI-powered crypto research tool. It'll also have updates like an expanded context window to support prolonged conversations.
A New User Interface is Coming
HeyAnon has teased a new UI that'll simplify the user experience ever further.
- Saved prompts to easily follow your complex AI workflows.
- A portfolio widget to monitor all your assets and protocols you're interacting with.
- Quick actions will allow people to execute actions like swapping and bridging from a button.
- The existing chat interface with HeyAnon and Gemma is still available on the right side of the UI.
There are more features within the UI, but I haven't used it yet. But from the teaser alone, I'm excited to use this much smoother UI.
More importantly, they will be offering automated strategies with single-click access.
- Cross-network arbitrage
- Stablecoin liquidity farming
- Delta neutral funding rate arbitrage
It could be more beneficial for normal users to access these strategies from HeyAnon rather than implementing them themselves.
HeyAnon has already built all the API infrastructure for Binance, Bybit, Kraken, Mexc, OKX. So they'll be able to capture alpha across DEX and CEX markets. Users won't be able to replicate this infrastructure easily.
While the new features are exciting, the older products are already making waves.
HUD: Intel in Context
HUD is a Chrome extension that overlays the information you want on the platforms that you already use. It'll make crypto research 10x efficient.
For example, did you find an interesting token on DexScreener?
No need for jumping between 10 apps for 10 different metrics. The Hey Anon HUD will bring the data to DexScreener directly.
It's like wearing smart glasses for DeFi. You'll see key information directly over your trading interface. Clean, real-time insights. No friction.
Below are the categories of information it'll overlay on your application.
#1. Onchain metrics.
HeyAnon has built their own real-time infrastructure to collect and organize onchain data. And with HUD, they'll overlay all the relevant data on your Solana trading platform
Below are some of the onchain metrics that'll be available.
- First 100 buyers
- Bubblemaps clusters
- Current & historical Top 10, 25, and even 50 holders
- Smart money, Insiders, KOLs
- Bundlers
Dynamic overlays will show who's buying, holding, selling, and where. You'll know if a KOL just bought, if early whales are accumulating, or if insiders are dumping.
It's really useful to know the entry price for KOLs and other whales. It'll help you determine whether they're going to dump soon or not. This can check if they have "skin in the game", so to speak.
With HUD, you'll get an instant visual readout of average entries for:
- Top 10 holders
- KOLs that fully sold
- KOLs that partially sold
- KOLs still holding
But there's a caveat: they don't have onchain data for all chains equally. For example, if you're viewing a Solana or Avalanche token, you'll be able to see a ton of onchain data. But other chains don't have as much support - yet.
We can expect HeyAnon to expand support for as many chains as possible in the future.
#2. Technical Analysis
While I'm not a big fan of TA, it does have some utility.
Key support and resistance levels are important psychological factors that can influence the market. Moving averages are useful in understanding trends. And so on.
So you do need insights from TA, ideally, without having to spend hours drawing imaginary lines. And HUD can help you with that.
With HUD, you can ask it to
- Analyse chart
- Generate trading strategy
- Overlay indicators on the chart
- And more.
And these have been extremely effective. According to the founder of HeyAnon, Daniele Seista, HeyAnon has entered the top 10 referrers on Hyperliquid by average trader profits. Apparently, every single trader we refer is profitable.
So HUD is a proven product. And they're already generating good revenue using the HyperLiquid builder code feature. Other referral programs include Axiom, Photon, and gmgn. They'll continue to integrate with more trading platforms.
The value from these products will flow to $ANON. Right now, they're voting on how to use referral revenue.
We're heading into a future where AI agents will manage our strategies, execute our trades, and optimize across protocols—all while we sit back.
And right now, HeyAnon looks like it's positioning itself as the command center for DeFi management.
🚀 DeFi Catalysts
Pump.fun announced Project Ascend. It aims to make the memecoins more sustainable & aligned with their communities.
Linea released its airdrop checker. The token will launch on September 10th. Many are complaining about it on the timeline due to lower allocation.
Yield Basis is getting ready for the mainnet launch. It allows users to provide liquidity and earn yield without the risk of impermanent loss.
Euler Finance introduced EulerEarn. It's a set-and-forget way to access yield strategies in a single deposit.
World has integrated Stripe into its World App. Users can now directly onramp to crypto within World App.
Zora has added support for short-form videos. Users will be able to discover and trade these as well.
Arbitrum has partnered with Succinct to convert the Arbitrum stack into a zk-rollup stack, which is technically superior to optimistic rollups.
ETH Strategy is partnering with Ether.fi as part of its treasury yield strategy. They'll be deploying to more battle-tested protocols.
Kamino Finance introduced its USD Benchmark Rate. They aim to promote it as some sort of "risk-free yield" in DeFi.
Ondo Finance has tokenized stocks and ETPs on Ethereum. The product isn't available for US users.
PumpFun released the leaderboard. It can create some competition between top KOLs. It's part of their attempt to make Pump more social.
📰 Industry News
Solana is getting its high-profile Treasury Companies. Reportedly, Galaxy Digital, Multicoin Capital, and Jump Crypto are raising $1B for Solana DATs.
Stripe, the online payment giant, officially introduced its own L1 chain. They're working with a lot of institutional partners, from Visa to OpenAI.
Ethereum Community Foundation introduced BETH. It's a token representing burned ETH, which can theoretically be used to incentivize more burning.
Solana governance passed SIMD-0326, the Alpenglow consensus upgrade. It aims to reduce txn finality from ~12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds.
Kraken has begun to run all of its Ethereum validators on Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) with SSV Network.
🐦⬛ X Hits
- Best BTC yields.
- The bull case for Zora.
- Market map of the Based rollups.
- Buying pressure from Fluid's proposal
- Can Tempo, the chain from Stripe, win?
😂 Meme
Until next time,
Edgy
Today's email was written by Edgy and Yayya.
DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT a financial advisor. This content is for education and information purposes only. Crypto and DeFi are risky and speculative. Please do your research before investing.
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