Trading Attention

This post will continuously be updated and be dedicated to this one new narrative.

Want to watch Web2 heroes turn into villain ruggers? Introducing Internet Capital Markets.

If you look back at AI Agents, the majority of the profits came from trading speculation, most of them will hardly ever get back to their ATHs but the first run was so profitable that it doesn’t really matter. When I look at a narrative I ask three questions:

1. Does it have an element of novelty not seen before?
2. Can it attract new capital into crypto?
3. Does it contribute to crypto’s legitimate progress despite some short-term opportunism?

For this one, my answer was “yes” to all questions. So here we go.

Idea Snapshots

• Token: App Tokens
• General Thesis: Early‑stage Web2 founders + viral launch rails = reflexive pumps. 95 % will die, but the 5 % winners can 10‑100×.
• Risk Level: Extreme
• Potential Upside: 1,000%+

Why it’s “Good for Crypto”

Back in 2010, a few early investors invested in Uber with small amounts ($5,000-$25,000):

• Mike Walsh: $5,000 → $25,000,000
• Oren Michaels: $5,000 → $25,000,000
• Jason Calacanis: $25,000 → $100,000,000
• Naval Ravikant: $25,000 → $100,000,000

Great returns but investing in Uber that early was impossible unless you were well connected.

Until today, if you wanted to build an application and needed funding you had to raise money from somewhere—typically from VCs. Crypto can change that because at its core it’s a 100% free borderless market. The laws are still foggy on this but over time that’ll change, and this global pro-crypto stance does increase those odds.

A founder wants to raise capital for his new product? Simply tweet @launchcoin and your token is launched. If the token gains traction it also gets good trading volume from which fees are generated and 50% are given to the founder. This gives the founder enough running capital in the early stages of development.

For example, the creators of DUPE and NOODLE (both launched on Believe) received ~$300,000 in the first 24H of trading. This is significant revenue for development.

Technically, Believe is not the first “tweet to launch” project. Others like Clanker and Bankr already exist but its novelty comes from the 50% fee share and its Web2 connection.

The Attention Trade

Every year or so, a new narrative pops up and it generates ridiculous returns. ICOs in 2017, NFTs in 2021, memes in 2024, AI Agents in 2024 and now the next candidate is: Internet Capital Markets (ICM).

Personally, I only get into investments that are beneficial to the ecosystem. Look at AI Agents, they actually serve a good purpose and advances crypto forward, memes and NFTs had more of a net-negative effect so I stayed clear.

ICM tokens will slowly dissipate the gap that exists between tokens and equity (laws need to help). This means that crypto becomes able to fulfill its promise of absorbing all capital markets onto its rails. While I know 95% of them will fail over time, and yes I am trading the attention now, I also know that this is a big unlock for crypto.

The fact that many reputable Web2 builders are coming in (Ben Pasternak, Nikita Bier, Bobby Ghoshal and Alex Leiman to name a few).

The Tokens

Disclaimer: Before you read, remember that we’re just a random Instagram page and that none of this is investment advice (NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE). I’m simply highlighting new and interesting innovations in crypto and my personal take on things; and we could be wrong. Never buy anything (ever) before doing your own research.

1. LAUNCHCOIN [$275m—featured on 15 May 2025]: LAUNCHCOIN is Believe.App’s native token. You can think of it like the VIRTUAL of this meta. While I did not catch it at its lowest, the momentum its showing in the midst of a new bullish leg by Bitcoin gives it good odds of continuing much higher into the billions. But, I am reasonable and will recoup my initial investment after a 2x and will only allocate 5% of my portfolio to it.
2. BUMP [$5.5m—featured on 15 May 2025]: Miles Feldstein says he teamed up with Alex Lieberman (co-founder of MorningBrew, they have 6m people on newsletter) to create a new social media app called FistBump. This does hold higher odds of a successful product given the names involved but what I do like is that the app is not out yet which creates a bunch of speculation around it. I am allocating 0.5% of my portfolio to it.
3. PIPEIQ [$3.8m—featured on 15 May 2025]: Built by Rajesh Kadam and weirdly the announcement was made on LinkedIn (lol). His product is already live, the token is new though and the link remains unknown but his words are: “PIPEIQ will be integrated into the AI GTM orchestration to drive outcomes in ways that have not been experimented with before”. A non-product launched can create more speculation but with this one any news on a good linkage between product and token can create momentum. I am allocating 0.5% of my portfolio to it.
4. BUIDL [$3.3m—featured on 15 May 2025]: One‑click backend for Web2 devs to deploy Solana apps via an AI; token gives gas‑rebates and governs template upgrades. I am allocating 0.5% of my portfolio to it.
5. SIGNAL [$700k—featured on 15 May 2025]: When agents went big, analytics were a big part of it and a prime example was COOKIE (peaked at $300m). Accessing these launches and getting information is quite difficult at the moment, Signal built an analytics dashboard making the information more accessible. I am allocating 0.5% of my portfolio to it.

More tokens will be added.

Phases

• Phase 1: This is just another crypto scam.
• Phase 2: I didn’t expect this founder to launch here.
• Phase 3: This is the future of going public, better than IPOs.
• Phase 4: I want to launch a token.
• Phase 5: Why is it down -99%??

We’re in Phase 1 (very volatile) and if I’m right on this new trend, I’ll exit in Phase 3/4.

Conclusion

Internet Capital Markets is great in theory, and a few gems will come out of it offering a irrationally high returns that were once reserved to VCs alone. But given the anonymous nature of the internet I also know a lot of opportunistic scammers will join that trend. So I am careful, I will allocate small and recoup all initials after a 2x.

What I do like is that is it bringing non-crypto builders and investors into crypto. That’s new capital. Still though, I’m pretty bearish on 95% of the stuff that will come out of this trend but it is a trend nonetheless, and where there is a trend, there is money. So, here I am.

FAQ

Q: These ICM tokens are like equity?

A: No. Today they’re closer to royalty streams: creators skim 1 % of DEX volume, and holders speculate on that flow. Legal equity rights aren’t on‑chain — yet.

Q: Will this narrative do as well as AI Agents did in Q4 2024?

A: It could if mainstream founders keep piling in, but base case is a shorter, sharper hype cycle.

Q: Are you no longer bullish on AI Agents?

A: Quite the opposite — many ICM launches are AI/agentic products finally getting a token wrapper. The themes reinforce each other.

Q: How do you manage risk on new narratives?

A: I limit each investment at 0.5-1% of portfolio, pull my initial investment at a 2x, ride the house money until I see exhaustion (which I'll post or comment about).