Happy Cat PriceHAPPY

Yesterday I moderated a panel about growth at the Arbitrum Day during @eth_milano. Featuring @DanDeFiEd, @francescoweb3, @ClBlockchain, and @DarrenCamas, we shared thoughts on how to grow a protocol and its community. Key highlights from the conversation: 1. There Is Las Vegas and There Is Wall Street. While Solana gets most of the hype, Arbitrum is quietly building the infrastructure that’s onboarding institutional players. Projects like @plumenetwork, @convergeonchain, and @RaylsLabs, three of the most promising RWA-focused chains, are all building on Arbitrum. That says a lot about where it's headed. There isn't going to be a winner-takes-all, but different ecosystems for different use cases. You can frame it this way: • Solana = Las Vegas • Arbitrum = Wall Street 2. Telegram vs Discord After discussing and sharing personal opinions about both Telegram and Discord, we came up with this take: For early-stage protocols, Telegram tends to work better, as it requires less overhead and is "leaner". Discord makes more sense once your community grows and you need a structured approach. @ClBlockchain explained how @pear_protocol uses Discord to share trade setups, alpha, and more, which naturally requires organized spaces beyond a single chat. 3. Founder-Led Marketing Still Wins. @DanDeFiEd shared how just being vocal (sharing wins, struggles, and thoughts) brought more attention and users to Rysk. I added how I ignored @megaeth_labs for months, thinking it was “just another L2.” But once @0xBreadguy joined and started posting consistently, I've not only dived into MegaETH but into the whole ecosystem. Moreover, having a personal brand nowadays helps you, in any industry, to make new connections, find jobs and opportunities, and open almost any door. Founder-led marketing might be the best strategy in terms of ROI you can adopt. 4. Kaito: From Net-Positive to Net-Negative. The conversation around this topic lasted quite a bit. @DanDeFiEd said how, initially, as with every new thing in the space, Kaito brought a lot of enthusiasm and pushed founders, KOLs, and even smaller accounts to share their thoughts. That was great. But once leaderboards were added, mercenaries have taken over with thousands of new "writers" farming with low-quality posts. Somehow, as it happens with liquidity across DeFi, which tends to move wherever the incentives are higher. @DarrenCamas highlighted how projects should see Kaito as any other strategy rather than the ultimate solution to acquire mindshare. Analyze the cost, KPIs, potential return, and all other variables like they would for anything else. We also noted how top protocols like Pendle, @HyperliquidX, @aave, @maplefinance, and others aren't even using Kaito. Yet, they have more mindshare than the majority of projects that paid to launch their leaderboard. 5. VCs & Community Inclusion This topic started with @DerrenCamas saying how happy he is that ICOs are back and community members can have an upside to the protocol. On that (and after other considerations), I've ironically said "So in the end, the root cause of everything is VCs". @DanDeFiEd and @DerrenCamas replied saying that bad VCs are the issue of everything, not all VCs. VCs are necessary. Bad VCs are the problem. @DarrenCamas was very honest about this and told us his startup got more value from angels than VCs. @DanDeFiEd added that Hyperliquid, which everyone in the space praises for how it built itself from the ground with no external support, is a 1-in-10,000 story. Most startups need funding to scale. However, one key concept is that everyone wants to make money. Hyperliquid made users rich. By doing so, users remained loyal to the platform and invested back part of the airdrop into the ecosystem. In this regard, for projects, it makes sense to not announce an airdrop, which tends to attract mercenary capital, but rather do it suddenly and reward their users (not those who sometimes talk about it) as Hyperliquid did. If you reward the community, they'll likely remain loyal to you. Ultimately, you can't change human nature. There will always be bad actors, as it happens in all industries. But you can adopt strategies to reduce such behavior. 6. Too Much Supply, Not Enough Demand Related to the point above, there is too much supply and not enough demand. Supply = protocols Demand = users Builders keep building, but the user pool isn't scaling. This imbalance hurts everyone. Projects have more difficulty in acquiring users and finding PMF quickly, thus having to rely on VC to expand their runway. This dynamic makes it easier for bad VCs and actors to exploit founders with bad terms and predatory behavior. 7. Will Regulation Save Us? Not Exactly. When I asked @DanDeFiEd if regulation could help by unlocking institutional distribution, his answer was nuanced. Yes, distribution helps. But what matters more is the social layer. Filtering out bad actors, not just onboarding more players. @francescoweb3 brought up @ethos_network as a promising model, which paired with things like Kaito, could help build better filters for credibility in crypto. That’s a wrap. I might have forgotten some other interesting points. It is what it is. Shoutout again to the panelists for the insights, to the audience for listening to this long-ass panel, and to everyone who organized Arbitrum Day at @eth_milano and the entire conference. P.S. The location was astonishing.

NATO'S RUTTE: PUTIN CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT BE VERY HAPPY WITH OUTCOME OF NATO SUMMIT

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Feel underallocated on btc but feel like I still have time to just give in and become a XRP guy. They seem happy