A brutal wake-up call for anyone who went bullish on alts after BTC's new ATH in March.
I, too, was too bullish, expecting the usual shift from BTC to ETH, followed by a pump in alts.
Didn't play out. ETH lagged, and most alts had short rallies only to crash hard.
My degen playbook was rather conservative, with a focus on staking L1 tokens as 'productive assets' - you can stake and use them to farm their ecosystem airdrop tokens.
The strategy was to sell airdrops back to L1 tokens which should've driven up L1 coin prices (like USD printing boost major stock prices).
I believed $ETH would outperform due to its status as the most productive asset in crypto, particularly because of high-yield airdrops via restaking.
Indeed, millions of dollars were issued in airdrop tokens like ETHFI and REZ, with EIGEN and other LRT governance tokens set to launch soon.
Despite these high-yield opportunities, ETH failed to generate FOMO.
Everyone was likely already overexposed, having loaded up on ETH and BTC during the bear market.
Still, everyone who actively farmed with ETH are probably doing much better than the ETH spot would indicate.
And more $$ is coming with $EIGEN unlock. No big regrets here.
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$SOL eco performed well initially with $JTO and $JUP. Their successes did boost $SOL price as FOMO kicked in.
Then the $W airdrop did okay, but each subsequent airdrop saw a sharp decline in rewards ($TNSR, $PRCL, $DRIFT) with $CLOUD being the most disappointing (relative to expectations).
Right now, Solana is a memecoin playground, but innovative DePin and DeFi protocols are waiting for their moment when memecoin fever dies down.
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Bitcoin's ecosystem, boosted by BRC20s and NFTs, initially did well— we got multiple airdrops just by holding 'blue-chip' NFTs. But then Runes launched, and everything nosedived.
I believe Runes will bounce back once the infrastructure, especially DEXes gets improved.
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Other L1/L2 ecosystems fared much worse.
• Injective dApps lacked quality, and the airdrops were negligible.
• Starknet's $STRK airdrop flopped, failing to spark a "wealth effect" in the ecosystem. Despite high DeFi Spring rewards, protocol airdrops were a letdown.
• SEI did well with NFTs initially, but DeFi dApps and airdrops felt short.
• SUI's ecosystem has high-quality dApps but they aren't generous with airdrops and SUI's unlocks weigh heavily on price.
• The Cosmos ecosystem is bogged down by infighting, airdrops have dried up, and they must bounce back from recent exploits.
• Arweave's community expected higher allocation of $AO for $AR holding but got just 36%
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What's next?
• Stacks postponed the Nakamoto upgrade to late August, and hopefully multiple airdrops and faster block times will create some FOMO.
• Still waiting for $EIGEN trading launch with 2nd airdrop and Swell, Kelp, Puffer token launches.
• Multiple Eigenlayer AVSs are building and gearing for token launches (hopefully with generous airdrops to restakers).
• Symbiotic and Karak are challenging Eigenlayer and might try to front-run EIGEN launch if market conditions improve.
• Fantom migration to Sonic will test if "rebranding" with a new ticker can bring excitement to the "old" token
• Will DeFi OG tokens bounce back when/if memecoin mania fades and degens tire of low-float, high-FDV tokens?
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Ultimately, these internal catalysts depend on favorable macro conditions and ETF flows—our casinos just aren't enticing enough to attract a new wave of retail degens.
But in case the market rebounds, the DeFi degen's playbook will need to be reevaluated with the focus on the most innovative ecosystems that continue to build and reward users generously.
Which ecosystems are you betting on?
