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You’re not the only one feeling less euphoric about this cycle — at least when it comes to altcoins. 

So far, we’ve seen relatively low FDVs for projects like WLD, SUI, TON and HYPE, per data gathered from the Crypto Narratives Telegram chat. That list was more than doubled in 2021. 

Maybe times have changed and we’re not quite in the same bubbly environment, but I think it sums up the lack of appetite here. 

Guess it’s time to hunt for the next big narrative. Maybe this one’ll be kinder to alts.

Meanwhile:

• Bitcoin’s up to $83,000 this morning, a 2% increase over the past day.

• The overall crypto market is bouncing back after two days in the red. The market’s back up over $2.68 trillion, a 4% increase over the past day.

• DEX volume’s up to $12.1 billion, a 6% increase over the past 24 hours per Blockworks Research data.

🧸 New kid on the block

Let’s wind the clock back for a second: remember Blocktower’s merger with Arca? 

Let me refresh your memory. Last year, Arca announced that it was snapping up Blocktower, but there were some caveats. The venture capital side of the business, for example, was not included in the merger. 

Today we’ve got an answer to what’s next for them: The team formerly behind Blocktower Capital — Thomas Klocanas, Steven Venino, and Winnie Lau — founded a new firm called Strobe.

For Klocanas, it made sense to be more independent. And then there’s the bonus of staying small when most shops in crypto expand while things are good. Plus, their focus now is only VC and they don’t have to worry about other sides of the business. 

“Our internal determination was that what served our LPs and our strategy and our portfolio the best was thus far, having been very patient, very contrarian and largely independent, despite having been under the umbrella of another asset manager, Blocktower,” — which let the team focus on longer-term venture investing, he told me. 

The team’s in the fourth year of deployment with its $150 million first fund, which they still deploy capital out of and expect to do so for the rest of the year, according to Klocanas. 

The team is expected to “kick off a new $100 million raise” for its second fund. Klocanas told me that the timeline for that second fund is slightly in the air, though it could happen in the “coming weeks to months.”

While Klocanas was tight-lipped about the announcements we can expect to hear, he teased a couple of investments that’ll be announced shortly… just to pique your interest. When I hear more, trust me, we’ll be talking about it. 

Beyond Strobe’s debut, Klocanas and I spoke about the current environment — namely that I’ve been told it’s a bit annoying to be a founder right now with everyone so obsessed with narratives and token prices and not so focused on the fundamentals of it all. 

For Strobe, it’s about finding companies that’ll not only be around in five years (aka a millennia in crypto) but also projects that have a focus on the aforementioned fundamentals because, understandably, something like revenue is nice. 

“We take the view that it's not sustainable to trade billions of dollars if you're not making hundreds of millions of dollars empowering hundreds of millions of users,” he told me.

A lot of the founders they’ve backed recently have experience building up multiple projects. They have Morpho, Athena, Ledger, TYB, Aptos and Maple Finance all under their portfolio, if you’re looking to get a sense of who they’re interested in.

Klocanas said the founders he looks for aren’t necessarily the ones posting a lot on CT, but rather they’re “deeply obsessed” with pinpointing and solving for a problem using crypto as leverage. 

Now we’ll just have to keep an eye on Klocanas, Venino and Lau’s next steps.

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• Franklin Templeton wants to launch an XRP ETF, joining other firms like Grayscale.

• European regulators are reportedly taking a closer look at an OKX service after it was used by perpetrators of the Bybit hack to launder some of the stolen ETH. 

• Taproot Wizards is holding its first-ever public sale, offering over 2,000 Wizards.

🍁 A new leaf

$1.9 to $2.64 billion. 

That’s the amount of potential revenue that Dragonfly thinks US users have missed out on thanks to geoblocking. 

Okay, really, it’s more because of the regulatory environment — or should I say former environment. 

“As of 2024, we estimate that 22–24% of all active crypto addresses worldwide belonged to U.S. residents. Our sample of 11 projects generated a total value of approximately $7.16 billion to date, during which approximately 1.9 million claimers participated worldwide with an average median claim value of around $4.6 thousand per eligible address,” Dragonfly wrote.

As we’re all aware, projects have had to protect themselves by excluding US users from the party. Sad. 

If we want to go outside the box, it’s not just crypto folks that have lost out on potential bags. 

“The federal tax revenue loss from these geoblocked airdrops ranges between $418 million and $1.1 billion, with an additional $107 million to $284 million in state tax revenue foregone,” Dragonfly wrote. “These figures do not account for further tax revenue that could have been generated from the capital gains taxes upon the eventual sale of these tokens.”

Oof. 

Unless you’re a total contrarian — or anti-crypto — the consensus is that the last couple of years have not given us the regulatory clarity that crypto needs to survive and thrive. 

Clearly, the data points to that, but it also begs the question: Wen regulatory clarity on airdrops? 

Right now, it’s not clear, though Dragonfly used its study to present a case that argues airdropped tokens aren’t securities under Howey.

As for recommendations, the report suggests that non-fundraising airdrops include a safe harbor that would protect them. It would include issuer disclosures, insider lock-up, consideration, functional platform and token post-launch and, finally, strict rules to target manipulation. 

A safe harbor could be grandfathered into previous airdrops, too. Bonus points if the projects have to hand over data that demonstrates they’ve complied with the standards set forth. 

I know we have a lot going on when it comes to trying to figure things out from a regulatory perspective at the moment. But clarifying and protecting both the firms behind airdrops and their users could give crypto a much-needed boost.

Brought to you by:

ZKsync is accelerating institutional blockchain adoption and the rise of tokenization. Institutions choose ZKsync to move tokenized assets securely across enterprises while preserving privacy and governance. With gasless transactions, seamless onboarding, and scalable ZK infrastructure, enterprises can transfer financial products and data privately using ZK Stack — an open-source, trustless blockchain platform designed for speed, low costs, security, and interoperability without sacrificing control.

Learn more at ZKsync.io/empire.

On our minds: Exchange rulemaking