K33 Research ‘Hungry’ for the Next Big Social Fi Discovery Crypto Decay

According to K33 Research analysts, Crypto users are clamoring for the next big thing in the social finance sector – despite being plagued by “perverse incentives”, they see the growing crypto corner.

In a May 8 research report, K33 DeFi analyst David Zimmerman wrote that following the recent Firend.tech airdrop, crypto users are already looking to a new social fi app called Fantasy Top — powered by the Ethereum Layer-2 network — as the next potential opportunity. .

Fantasy Top is a SocialFi game that allows users to buy and sell virtual trading cards from crypto-linked X accounts and compete in tournaments. These tournaments are paying users for their activity on the platform in ETH, a burst reward called GOLD, native “fan points” and an additional pack of trading cards.

As of press time, the starter pack of cards on Fantasy will set users back around 0.39 ETH – $1,200 at current prices.

Zimmerman noted that while the social-fi movement may be profitable for some and Virtual Top may even lead to a new product that is “fun to use,” the social-fi sector still suffers from a fundamental problem stemming from “perverse incentives.”

“Narratives are often flooded with money grabs, and SocialFi is no exception.”

Influencers are directly incentivized to reward the platform, as “heroes” earn 1.5% for their card's transaction volume above 10% of sales. Plus, you'll get BLAST GOLD and “FAN points,” Zimmerman added.

While there are several high-profile new Layer-2 network startups on Ethereum, Blast has “managed to maintain its relevance” as users aggressively farm the Blast airdrop program.

He added that even though the price of Ether (ETH) fell by 17% in April, the platform's TVL is high in USD.

The much-anticipated Friend.tech airdrop went live on May 3 and was immediately met with criticism from users, who cited several technical issues that prevented them from accessing and subsequently selling their tokens since the airdrop.

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This anger was exacerbated when several large accounts on Friend.tech were able to sell the value of the Friend token before many users could access it. $28 down to $1.93 at time of publication.

Aside from Friend.tech and Fantasy Top, Zimmerman added, a lesser-known streaming and gaming platform called Sanco GameCorp — which also offers a Twitch-like streaming service called Sanco Dream Machine and SancoTV — is also picking up steam among crypto. Native users.

“Sanko GameCorp was a project that really started and is going to spin its own L3. If we continue to see a backlash against VCs and insiders like we did with eigenlayer, this could be a major playground for the (anti-VC) memecoin craze,” he said.

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