Ben | The Fundamentals Guy

There will be times I am wrong - I will acknowledge that and get better. I will not fear monger, doom, or lie just to get clicks. I will be an honest, forward moving, transparent voice in crypto.

@DefiIgnas Great content here.

Two protocols generate 69% of all crypto holder revenue. The rest of the “investible” market is embarrassingly small. I put together a list of 132 tokens across 12 narratives that might survive the bear market. Read it here: ignasdefi.com/p/the-investib…

@Flowslikeosmo Near had caught my eye multiple times with fed generation band active users, but I think a dive into their top apps is worth it.

$NEAR is fundamentally undervalued. Intents are generating widespread adoption ~$541M in weekly volume ~$950K in fees Meanwhile, they continue to increase the rate of adoption under which AI enables privacy first trading (Iron Claw). Agentic payments are scaling, and Near is positioned to capture a lot of that flow. Data: @tokenterminal

😂

@0xNairolf Unfortunate that transaction counts are 99% down from December. Is x402 really the new meta? Pulled from the same dashboard as you

all x402 transactions are happening on three chains: - solana - base - polygon will be very interesting to see how that changes with tempo mainnet launch whoever captures agent payments first has a massive moat

@wagmiAlexander I’m deep in dune, TT, and defilama daily

@wagmiAlexander Did you manually aggregate? If you need a hand with any of this work I’d be more than happy to help. My life calling is to bring clarity to our space

For too long, our industry has sold a lie. Tokens given to users are costs, but tokens given to teams / investors to subsidize costs are not. If this industry is going to grow up, tokenholders deserve a more honest accounting. And if no one else is going to do it... we will.

@coingecko @zachxbt @WheresBroox @AxiomExchange How about jail?

@zachxbt @WheresBroox @AxiomExchange Insider traders now:

1/ Meet @WheresBroox (Broox Bauer), one of the multiple @AxiomExchange employees allegedly abusing the lack of access controls for internal tools to lookup sensitive user details to insider trade by tracking private wallet activity since early 2025.

@0xAR1Flows With inflationary tokenomics, no revenue sharing, team vesting cliffs and the only value is that you get to vote on proposals that you don’t read - or never vote for that matter - it makes sense.

Metals up coins down Stocks up coins down Oil up coins down Treasuries up coins down AI Capex up coins down Global liquidity up coins down Fed cuts rates to 0% coins down Money printing up coins down Consumer spending up coins down GDP up coins down Home prices up coins down

@0xAR1Flows Hopefully we are seeing a stall in fear though.

They’re about to run metals back up alongside equities while keeping crypto down only. Absolute pain for the crypto industry. At the same time, all you see is the big boys buying more bitcoin, clarity passing soon, and more.

I find it difficult to make strategic moves at the seemingly bottom of the market. Lots of investors have left optimism due to Base separation. There will always be downward momentum that push projects lower in declining markets, but when do we decide that the project has longevity… Once prices have returned? Once projects evolve or build out more partnerships? Fundamentals ?

@ruggedpikachu @jaired So the data just isn’t pulling?

@jaired Great that the explorer didnt migrate then

The last transaction on the Polkadot chain happened 4 hrs ago by a guy named Daniel. He moved 5 DOT Including the one transaction yesterday and two the day before that brings us to a total of 5 transactions in the last couple days. 2.880.000.000 Billion Dollar FDV $

Update on the OP fundamental analysis. Suprchain metrics are extremely Base concentrated. TVL, fees, apps, leans 70%+ there. OP Mainnet, Unichain, Ink, Soneium are all tiny slices. High txn chains dropping. Base leaving creates large concentration risk. Adoption outside Base needs to find ground. Closing out OP position in this difficult market until superchain, or mainnet metrics return…even if they are doing buybacks. Source here: #gid=915250487" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u…

Everyone keeps talking about the OP Superchain thesis failure so I gathered up the numbers. Monthly active addresses: •opBNB: 15M •Base: 5.7M •Arbitrum: 4.2M •OP Mainnet: 600K 365D fees: •Base: $70M •Arbitrum: $23M •OP Mainnet: $14M 365D transactions: •Base: 3.8B •opBNB: 1.3B •Arbitrum: 1.1B •Soneium: 540M •World Chain: 538M •OP Mainnet: 535M OP P/F (FDV): 36x And shat does this mean to me? The OP Stack is winning but the OP Mainnet is not. Adoption IS real. Value capture at the token level is fragmented - which we kind of already accept. WHEN revenue share from Base weakens/disappears, revenue share will take a hit, but I’m highly sure it’s not shown within OP reported metrics. It’s positive that OP has one of the top L2 P/F multiples because comparison is all we have in crypto. If Superchain revenue aggregation becomes enforceable and scales across chains like opBNB, Soneium, World Chain, etc., then the multiple makes sense. If not, then adoption can grow while token capture stays capped. I don’t like catching falling knives and so it’s important to continue to watch: •infra adoption •direct capture •Optionality priced in OP stack is growing, but will its dominance create token value flow? P.s. can the @Optimism team have some more input while their projects gets dragged through the dirt?

@PredictionDeskX @0xAR1Flows food for thought

We read the Federal Reserve's new 40-page research paper on Kalshi so you don't have to. Three economists (two from the Fed Board, one from Johns Hopkins) spent months analyzing whether Kalshi's prediction markets can actually compete with Wall Street's traditional forecasting tools. Here's what stood out: > Kalshi has correctly predicted every single Fed interest rate decision the day before the meeting since 2022 > Fed funds futures, the tool Wall Street has relied on for decades, performed worse than Kalshi with statistical significance Kalshi outperforms the Bloomberg survey of professional economists on inflation forecasts > The paper calls Kalshi "the most mature and comprehensive prediction market for economic forecasting" > Polymarket gets one line about operating in a "legal gray area" > Kalshi is the only market that shows you the full range of possible outcomes for GDP, inflation, unemployment, and payrolls > The researchers plan to publish Kalshi's distributional data daily on a public website called EconFutures(.)com for policymakers and researchers > The paper positions Kalshi's CFTC designation (same classification as the CME) and market making from Susquehanna as structural advantages over competitors > Retail access through Robinhood and Webull is framed as a feature, giving the Fed a window into how everyday investors view the economy

@entigdd @Optimism Do you think the superchain thesis holds up long term?

it's not uncommon for a company the size of coinbase/base to want to have as much control as possible of everything with a custom stack they can: - simplify (whereas OP Stack needs to be able to handle multiple things for multiple operators) - avoid development politics and upgrade with the features they want at the speed they want - avoid paying rent when in a (honestly) unfair relationship where they're probably contributing more to OP than what OP gives them

Terrible news for @Optimism. I always thought their business model was flawed and this confirms it. Getting new chains on their stack is very expensive, and successful ones will always find a way to become independent and avoid paying rent. Base was likely the biggest contributor to the Collective in fees. They just lost almost all in all metrics they use as part of the Superchain or Optimism ecosystem. Very good news for @base though. Source: app.hex.tech/61bffa12-d60b-…

@eth_mty @entigdd @Optimism So if I’m hearing you right, OP gives base $180m to then generate revenue and before they even recoup that investment, BASE leaves?

@neverquitcrypto @entigdd @Optimism OP gave Base ~$180M USD to use their stack.

@intangiblecoins So are you saying that layers that are built on OP stack are inherently centralized?

first, coinbase might be sick of paying optimism to license the OP stack. i pointed out last summer that coinbase was paying more to optimism than ETH L1 in fees. surely they'd prefer to capture those fees themselves as well. second, coinbase might have decided (rightly) that base isn't decentralized enough to avoid registration as an exchange (or something else) for tokenized stocks (i made these arguments loudly last fall). third, coinbase might have decided base isn't decentralized enough in genera. sec 302 of the CLARITY act defines "non-decentralized finance trading protocol" and there's an argument that the definition would capture base, forcing it to submit to regulation by market regulators. (centralized sequencing, after all). in response to my criticisms about base's central sequencer, coinbase CBO shan aggarwal told me on stage at token2049 in singapore last fall that base "has a path to decentralize" (effectively admitting it was centralized)... i suspect this is their move to further decentralize it wonder what coinbase will do here. kraken's pursuing based rollups for ink (more decentralized) is good and one option to be more decentralized. but something tells me this will become a federated blockchain with a decentralized (possibly permissioned?) validator set (i.e., tempo, canton, etc). these are all the 'rage' right now despite having failed throughout all of crypto's history