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With that, let’s get to onchain culture.

• Consumer crypto has long yearned for a breakout mainstream application with the ability to onboard a new generational cohort of users from outside of our industry. In an effort to drive this vision forward, Onchain Culture projects - those spanning social, creator economy, DAOs, memes, gaming, gambling & more - have brought in $562.7M in combine funding so far in 2024. This trend was led yet again by the gaming vertical, which accounted for 65% of investment capital inflows to the category.

• DAOs are the de facto mechanism for onchain communities to organize. The leading 10 DAOs currently control $23.6B in treasury assets. L2s are revenue generating machines for their DAOs - the top three DAOs by AUM are all L2s, holding a whopping $14.1B (43% of the $32.2B currently sitting in DAO treasuries). Despite Arbitrum crushing Optimism in total DAO votes (5.3M vs 1.7M), proposals (303 vs 155), and participants (316k vs 148k), Optimism has still accumulated $1.8B (34%) more AUM.

• Web3 Social has emerged as a central hub for onchain culture to proliferate outside the walls of Crypto Twitter and governance forums. Farcaster (342k profiles) and Lens (325k profiles) are the early players dominating this category - Farcaster however, has pulled into a dramatic lead in 2024 with 5x the DAUs (56k vs 11k) and 86x the daily posts (1.1M vs 14k) as Lens. As a caveat, Farcaster posts are heavily influenced by DEGEN tipping comments (85% of all casts) - if we isolate for just Posts (no comments, mirrors, tips, recasts, etc..) across these two, Farcaster has 180k daily vs Lens with 10k daily.

• In the internet-native reality show Crypto: The Game Season 2, 800 players competed for a 72 ETH prize pool. Players' slots were NFTs, creating an "open economy" influenced by the broader crypto landscape. As the finale approached, whales accumulated significant voting power, with 130 votes across seven wallets. The biggest whale, labeled "Whale 1" or "35on733.eth", held 45 votes alone. This concentration of voting power in the hands of a few players shaped the dynamics and strategizing during the finale.

• Despite concerns about whales voting selfishly, the data shows mixed motivations. Whale 1 (35on733.eth) publicly supported the winning player #733, who pledged to donate the winnings to the Tornado Cash legal defense fund. Two other large whales, CabalKiller and King Wilbert, threw their combined 26 votes behind the 3rd place candidate 0xJeff, possibly driven by an "anti-cabal" sentiment rather than pure self-interest.

• The winning player #733 received a total of 171 votes, with 66 coming from just three whale voters (35on733.eth, Stani.eth, and Yalor.eth). In comparison, the 2nd place candidate Ted received only 54 votes total. While the whale votes alone didn't guarantee player #733's victory, their early votes likely influenced others to rally behind the charitable cause and tipped the scales decisively.

• 💦🔬 Tx-Level Alpha: This transaction shows the final transfer of the prize money to the Free Alexey & Roman Legal Defense Fund. Please note that any donations should be made through their Juicebox page, not sent directly to the wallet shown in this transaction..

• Drakula is a web3 short-form video app that incorporates a native tipping mechanism called DRIP points, along with enabling the purchase of Creator Tokens for speculation and collection. It accepts both DEGEN and ETH for acquiring Creator Tokens. Recently, Drakula achieved a milestone, surpassing $873M in total DEGEN volume. DEGEN has emerged as a primary tipping token across Decentralized Social (DeSoc) platforms and among enthusiasts, gaining popularity since its introduction in Farcaster.

• Every creator on the platform generates a unique token, tradable among users for collecting and speculation purposes called Creator Tokens. The rate of daily new Creator Tokens launched has gradually decreased from its peak of 4,825 on Mar 14. To date, users have launched over 21,000 creator tokens on the platform.

• The highest circulating creator tokens thus far are @bokjusa, @alexmasmej (founder), @polymarket, @drakula_intern and @il_pyug. On May 5 the costs to acquire creator tokens for the top 5 based on price are below. The top creator, bokjisa, only has 1 Drakula video at this time but has a following on YouTube of 36.5K subscribers and 686 videos.

• Alex Masmej, the founder of Drakula, provided some additional metrics — 42% of all Farcaster power user checkmarks have signed up; the average user session is 7 mins. And there have been over 10,000 sessions with over 3 swipes on the feed.

• Polymarket is a decentralized betting platform for real-world events. Unlike traditional platforms, it uses cryptocurrency and blockchain, so users set the odds. 2024's debates on Bitcoin ETFs and US elections fueled major user activity and trading volume. On Jan. 10, coinciding with Bitcoin ETF approval, trading volumes hit a record $6.3M, with 1.22k daily active users. This trend persists, with over $41M in trading volume over the last 30 days.

• Betting in 2024 is wild! People are placing wagers on everything, including Elon Musk's tweets (one for $227,000!). This variety is driving up trading with 38,000 bets in 30 days with most (34.77%) being small stakes between $10 and $100.

• In 2024, as the BTC ETF approval date approached, Polymarket experienced a notable increase in new users, with January 10 marking a spike of 504 new users. Overall, the platform's active user base nearly doubled throughout the year. On average, 10% to 15% of daily active users were newcomers.

• 💦🔬 Tx-Level Alpha: Forget casinos, buy shares in bets! Here's how: Think stock exchange, but for wagers. Each bet (like "Trump wins election") has shares priced by supply and demand. You can snag some, just like buying tokens. See a price you like? Enter it, and if it matches, you're a shareholder in that bet! (e.g., buying 425 "Trump wins" shares at $195).

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