🥛 7 chains owning VC mindshare rn 🧠

GM. This is Milk Road, we obsess over crypto like your dad does over lawn care.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ 7 chains owning VC mindshare rn
✍️ PumpFun increased creator earnings 10x
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Bitcoin to $1.3M! Bitwise’s Long-Term Thesis + Q4 Playbook w/ Ryan Rasmussen & Jesse Eckel
🍪 Ondo Finance brings 100+ US stocks & ETFs to Ethereum

KGeN ensures your product reaches real users and drives real growth. Request a demo to grow your protocol.

Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index.

COTD: VC MINDSHARE BY CHAIN/ASSET 📊

We know, we know – no one wants to get rich slow.

But taking a long-term view is one of the easiest unlocks you can make as an investor.

It can make even the dumbest of us (see: our general manager, Tyler) look like investing geniuses – because instead of requiring multiple precise moves, it only takes one key decision:

To buy & hold a fundamentally strong asset.

Sure, the decision to sell is also a factor – but holding long term means selling is less of a ‘make or break’ moment, and more of a ‘eh, I could’ve made a little more/less if I had sold a little earlier/later – but I still came out on top’ kinda moment.

The hardest part of it all: picking the asset.

And yeah, Milk Road PRO teaches you how to do exactly that – but today, we want to add another tool to your arsenal:

VC mindshare.

Most Venture Capitalist bets are big, early, highly researched, and held over 5-10 years – which means we can get insight to where the smart money might be flowing by tracking their chatter.

So here are the top 7 projects taking up the most VC mindshare right now:

Source: Messari

But of course, there's a catch…

First: this ain’t a one n’ done solution. Like all research tools, this should be used to help shape your strategy, not define it.

Second: just because VC’s are talking about an asset online, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re backing it.

So here’s a simple sniff test, in the form of a question:

What’s driving this VC chatter? (Proven long-term viability, or the recent news cycle?)

Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Hyperliquid, Base Chain: They’ve all found varying degrees of product-market-fit in their relative spaces, and have proven a certain amount of economic viability.

Chainlink and World Liberty Financial: They’ve each gotten some love in the news cycle recently!

Chainlink recently got a shoutout in the White House Crypto Report and is now being used to bring US GDP onchain (hell yeah!).

Meanwhile, World Liberty just launched and is backed by the Trump family.

…but does this make them a viable 10-year buy n’ hold?

That’s the question you need to answer.

And if you don’t yet have the right tools in your research arsenal to do so:

Here’s the process we use to prove out a token’s long-term viability.

35M USERS, REAL REPUTATION

In a world full of DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi…

None work without VeriFi.

VeriFi = Verified Distribution Protocol for AI, gaming and consumer apps.

And the leader of this shiny new sector?

It’s KGeN: building the VeriFi infrastructure for the next wave of web3.

Here’s what you need to know about KGeN:

Active network of 35M+ users (actual humans, not bots)
Annualized revenue of $33.3M (massive ARR pre-TGE)
Cash-flow positive

If your protocol wants real users and real growth, KGeN might be your secret weapon.

Request a demo to grow your protocol.

PUMPFUN JUST INCREASED ITS CREATOR EARNINGS BY 10X 💵

Network effects are hard to compete with.

‘Cause once a platform has a whole bunch of users, it’s hard to coax them over to a new one.

E.g. Microsoft’s failed livestreaming platform, Mixer, was offering big creators anywhere between $10M and $50M (each) to leave Twitch. Many took it. Mixer still tanked.

PumpFun wants to become a dominant player in the livestreaming/social space:

Source: @pumpdotfun

We love that kinda energy!

…but saying something and actually doing it are two very different things.

So how is PumpFun going about realizing this goal?

Their latest move (as of ~24hrs ago) has been to permanently increase creator rewards by 10x. 👇

Source: @pumpdotfun

And so far, it’s putting up some impressive early numbers.

Of the $3.26M worth of creator earnings racked up over the last 7 days – 73% of it was generated within the last 24hrs.

Source: adam_tehc/Dune

Ok, ok – BUT!

If a trillion dollar company like Microsoft can’t manage to topple even one of the social platforms in PumpFun’s sights – how’s Pump going to hit all three?

Short answer: no idea.

Long answer: no idea, but they’re getting creative – and we love it.

See, this new creator earnings program skews in favor of small creators – early on, they get a larger chunk of trading fees for any memecoin they launch, and less if/when it blows up.

This means they’ll get more money up front, and as they grow, that income should stay relatively consistent as they begin to receive a smaller piece of a larger pie.

Again – we have no idea if this will be enough to move the needle at Pump’s targeted scale…

But an out-of-the-box solution that favors a ton of small creators, instead of a handful of big names (à la: Microsoft)?

We back that approach.

And if word of mouth whispers are anything to go by, it’s getting at least some attention from those outside of the crypto world, so far. 👇