- August 30, 2025
Vikara August 2025 Update – From Fiat Fragility to Digital Opportunity
We are living in incredible times. Seeing a central bank governor sacked for cause, increasingly questioning the integrity of US government statistics, or watching B2 bombers fly over the head of a sitting president of a foreign adversary on US soil, this past month was surreal.
Some of these events are outputs of a failing fiat system. Political viewpoints get more extreme, grifting becomes commonplace, and ever greater risk is required to ensure as little worthless paper is held as possible. We remind ourselves of this every time the top calling chorus calling is loud.
While valuations are high, the transition from a government investment cycle to a corporate led one will be positive for earnings. The economic slowdown seems more about labour and capital markets repositioning, than something structural. At least for now.
The 2-year treasury is telling us that it sees growth slowing, but its orderly decline suggests there is no reason to panic (Chart 1). The question is how long the repositioning takes and how bold the now Republican stacked Federal Reserve decides to be during the transition.
Chart 1 – 2-Year US Government Bond Yield (2000-2024)
Source: Tradingview.com, Vikara Capital
If the transition happens smoothly, which we believe it can, and the Federal Reserve doesn’t get coerced into stimulating too heavily, there is a lot to be optimistic about. Lower rates, moderating inflation, and a sense of stability is positive for digital asset prices.
The biggest risk is Trump’s desire to run the economy hotter than what is needed. Another round of inflation is very likely if he does. While tariffs are deflationary in the short term, they are inflationary long term if demand continues to outpace supply. Let’s hope they can strike a balance.
What is important from our side, and hopefully is resonates from the macro section below, is that the probability of a period of sustained global growth is much more likely in the next few years than a global recession (while many would argue, and even we feel strange saying).
The frustration as a digital asset manager, is that the space continues to be dominated by financial nihilism from retail punters that are talking themselves into the next bear market without ever having had a real bull market. Four-year cycles don’t exist when the Fed is standing in the way.
After allocating capital into the space for past few years, it is shocking to watch the negative sentiment permeate through the market despite Bitcoin being close to all-time highs, the macro backdrop turning in favour of risk assets like crypto, with ex-Bitcoin names are cheap relative to equities.
While fundamental investors have underperformed the top 10 names, it feels like it could be turning.
Macro
We are changing our macro section to make it more focused. We will choose a handful of charts that describe our view of the macro economy as it remains the core driver of digital asset prices.
For all of the doom and gloom in the market – “the bubble is over, valuations are too high, stocks are peaking” – we see a lot to be positive about. Trade deals are progressing, peace negotiations seem positive, and US Tariff revenues are partly offsetting a dire US fiscal path (Chart 2).
Chart 2 – US tariff revenue from customs duties and certain excise taxes ($m) (2021-2025)
Source: U. S Treasury Department, @Convertbond
On top of that, 2Q25 was the best earnings seasons in 4+ years, with ~63% of the S&P 500 companies beating earnings expectations by at least 1 standard deviation. Excluding the post-pandemic recovery, this marks the best quarter in at least 25 years (Chart 3).
Chart 3 – Frequency of earnings beats and misses (2000-2028)
Source: Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, @KobeissiLetter
While August data revisions raised concerns around the integrity of US government labour statistics, it’s important to point out that most of the data across all sectors is seasonally adjusted by statisticians, meaning the data rarely speaks to what prices are actually doing.
Annualized monthly inflation impulse normalized for much of this (Chart 4). Annualizing the latest month’s change in inflation shows the current inflation speed without looking at stale data from 12-month ago, showing a current impulse is 2.4%, which is below the multi-decade average of 2.9%.
Chart 4 – Annualized Inflation Impulse (2021-2025)
Source: @nsquaredvalue
Slack in US labour markets will continue to drive an easing bias within the Fed, as US wage growth across all quartiles continues to fall (Chart 5). Trends across rental markets and consumer spending are also supportive of declines in inflation moving forward.
Chart 5 – 12-month mocing average of median wage growth, by quartile (2018-2026)
Source: Financial Times, @elerianm
It is hard to fathom, but the data looks more like a bottom in the economic cycle than a top. Supporting this is the ratio of the Leading Economic Index relative to the Coincident Economic Index, which is at levels that have historically been consistent with the ends of recessions (Chart 6).
Chart 6 – Conference Board US Leading Index Ten Economic Ind / Conference Board Coincident Composite of 4 (1960-2024)
Source: Bloomberg Finance L.P, @KevRGordon
Our view is also supported by easing financial conditions, which has historically taken 18+ months to flow into ISM data and the real economy (it looks like it may be starting to) (Chart 7).
Chart 7 – Financial Conditions have been easing since 2023 (2000-2025)
Source: @AndreasSteno
As the US economy shifts from a public led, to a private led economic recovery, China seems to fuelling another credit cycle to turn around its economy (Chart 8). China’s credit impulse (defined as the rate of change in the flow of new credit as a percentage of GDP), is accelerating.
According to Global Macro Investor, outside of Japan, credit impulses across the major economies are all positive. Historically, this has been a powerful leading indicator of global cyclical trends, especially for commodities, emerging markets, and industrial demand.
Chart 8 – GMI China Credit Impulse 12-Month Net Change (2008-2025)
Source: LSEG Datastream, @BittelJulien
Digital Assets
Crypto Twitter (or CT) is a necessary evil. Assuming you curate a solid followers list, it can be very helpful, from gauging sentiment to idea generation. That said, there are many more accounts offering miserable advice, shilling anyone and anything that is willing to pay (the space calls them Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), although most are far from it). Case in point below (Figure 1).
Figure 1 – “Professor Crypto” won “Best Content Creator” at Token2049’s DeGen Summit KOL Awards
Source: Tradingview
LinkedIn on the other hand has gone to the dogs. Many have said the same thing. Whether it be incessant requests for software development services (even though we clearly do not run a tech biz) or throttled posts (we previously received 20x plus more impressions on our monthly investor letter, even when crypto was in the tank, for example), the quality of both the content and engagement has gone down massively. On the latter, maybe our content has gone to the dogs too.
Back to CT. Two charts that are regularly posted, both thanks to Raoul Pal, are worldwide broad money supply versus BTC (Chart 9) and BTC four-year cycles (aka Banana Zone) (Chart 10).
Chart 9 – Global M2 lagged vs Bitcoin
Source: x.com; GMI
Chart 10 – Bitcoin cycles
Source: x.com; GMI
And while the former has worked for the past 24 months and the latter is TBD in 2025, they both serve as chart porn for the crypto bros.
We’ll focus on the cycles chart since we’ve banged on enough about liquidity and its effects on risk assets like crypto.
Nearly everyone who has spent time investing in crypto has heard of, tracks and/or obsesses over the four-year crypto cycle, which is the idea that crypto prices and market sentiment follow a four-year repetitive cycle tied to Bitcoin’s halving.
Below we included a table with the price of high and low price of BTC during the last four-year period (2019-2022).
Figure 2 – Four phases of the crypto cycle
Source: Vikara Capital
But is this driven by the halving or is there more to the story. We think the latter. During the previous two halving cycles (2016 and 2020 halving’s), interest rates were low (or ZIRP) and liquidity was flowing via QE (or not via QT). So, while the halving likely did push up prices given new BTC supply entering the market is reduced by 50%, or at a minimum increase sentiment, it has more to do with monetary policy.
Below is a chart the compares the Fed Fuds Rate (LHS) and the Bitcoin price (LHS) with halving’s and cycle high prices of BTC in yellow (Chart 11).
Chart 11 – Fed Fuds Rate (LHS) vs Bitcoin price (LHS) with BTC halving’s and cycle high price (yellow)
Source: Tradingview; Vikara Capital
During the 2015-2018 cycle (halving 2), rates start at 0-25bps (ZIRP) with the first increase in December 2015 to 25-50bps. QE also ended the year prior after seven years of quantitative easing!!! BTC peaked in December 2017 when rates were still only at 1-1.25%. From December 2017 to July 2019, Fed raised rates five times to end up at 2.25-2.50%. They also embarked on quantitative tightening starting in December 2017, same month BTC peaked, through July 2019. So how did higher rates and QT affect BTC’s price? It dropped from a high in December 2017 of $19,763 to a low of $3,391 in February 2019, a drop of 83%.
The Fed then started lowering rates in July 2019 from 2.50% and within eight months, rates were back at zero, coupled with the most obnoxious QE yet where they pledged unlimited purchases of Treasuries and MBS (policy referred to as “whatever it takes”). They also launched emergency lending facilities to stabilize corporate credit, municipal bonds and money markets. The Fed’s balance sheet peaked at $9trn in April 2022.
Chart 12 – Federal Reserve balance sheet assets (USD trn)
Source: federalreserve.gov
We know what happens when rates drop and we go full helicopter mode.
Figure 3 – Money printer went BRRRRRRRRRRR
Source: x.com
BTC started July 2019 at $9,300. By the time it peaked above $68,000 in November 2021, it had increased 630%. Meanwhile, altcoins truly entered the banana zone. From July 2019 to their peak also in November 2021, the OTHERS index (all crypto ex-top 10 tokens my market cap) increased from $12bn to $493bn, up 41x (admittedly many new tokens were added to the index during that timeframe, but you get the picture). Liquidity found a home in crypto.
The Fed then started hiking rates from 0-25bps to 25-50bps in March 2022, peaking at 5.25-5.50% in mid-2024 and still sitting at 4.25-4.50% today. QT was also implemented alongside aggressive interest rate hikes to tighten monetary conditions as inflation reached 40-year highs above 9%. Guess “whatever it takes” has consequences.
While BTC and select altcoins have done well during this period, the four-year moon cycle is largely dead. Take the OTHERS index again. It bottomed in December 2022 at $75bn and currently sits at $280bn, still well below the nearly $500bn peak in November 2021 (and this includes many new tokens added during the most recently “cycle”).
We have seen snippets of what effect lower rates have on altcoins. From July 2024, when the fed started lowering rates again (dropped 100bps), to when Too Late JP said fewer or no cuts in 2025 given inflation and tariff uncertainty, the OTHERS index went up nearly ~250%.
TLDR: lower rates and increased liquidity (looser monetary policy) = crypto go up.
This discussion also ties to the four-year cycle assumption. As outlined above, the cycles were likely driven more by monetary policy versus the BTC halving. But the dynamic has changed further with the creation of ETFs, treasury companies and a more institutional approach to at least BTC and ETH. This will dampen volatility. It has also moved liquidity off-chain meaning that if you previously wanted to buy ETH for example, you bought on a centralized exchange or a dex and moved to your self-custodial wallet. Now many market participants, especially those with size, are buying ETFs and holding in their brokerage accounts (look at Robinhood’s stock price). While hard to measure, this change has undoubtedly had an impact on crypto as liquidity is moving out of the onchain ecosystem and into tradfi ecosystems.
What does all this have to do with socials like CT or LinkedIn? Spend some time there and you are sure to get much bad advice since many crypto investors like to do it themselves. And for the vast majority, that works given funds have hurdles like minimum check size (our Aussie feeder fund is only A$25k mind you) or location.
But even more so than equities, crypto is hard to navigate. From understanding industry terminology to tokenomics models to token promoters, trusting crypto funds management to full time professionals can be advantageous. Just saying…
Instead of just providing a summary of higher profile news, we decided to take some good, bad and ugly events that happened this month and provide our take. We caveat our view may be wrong, but as a related old adage goes, everyone has one.
First, the good.
During a speech at the America First Policy Institute, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced, “Project Crypto,” a comprehensive initiative to modernize the US regulatory framework for digital assets and position the United States as the global leader in crypto markets. He also declared that most crypto assets are not securities, marking a clear break from the prior administration’s expansive jurisdictional stance and signaling a narrower application of securities laws to digital assets.
Why is this important (and good)? Let’s take a step back in time to June 2023.
The SEC announced that month that it was suing the two largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, claiming that both are operating unregistered securities exchanges.
The entire space reacted negatively, despite signalling from certain members of the US government, notably Elizabeth Warren, who formed an “Anti-Crypto Army” earlier that year (ultimately, she was unable to recruit any actual members besides former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and ex-Senator Brown from Ohio).
Figure 4 – Remember this massive fail?
Source: elizabethwarren.com
Gensler’s position on tokens as securities should have come as no surprise. While he previously taught blockchain courses at MIT and embraced digital assets prior to his step back into government, he telegraphed his stance that most tokens as securities during speeches at an August 2021 Aspen Security Forum and again in April 2022 at the Penn Law Capital Markets Association Annual Conference. He also went on has-been CNBC and stated (when asked about cryptocurrencies):
“We already have digital currency. It’s called the U.S. dollar. It’s called euro. It’s called the yen. They’re all digital now. We don’t need more digital currency.”
What came as a surprise was the lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance that included the SEC’s list of the “naughty 13” – SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH and NEXO. Interestingly, most of these tokens have been massive underperformers since the lawsuit was first announced.
Unfortunately, the SEC provided no supporting information as to why each was classed as a security. Additionally, it refused to answer questions proposed by the US Court of Appeals as part of the Coinbase lawsuit, while requesting an additional 120 days to reply to Coinbase’s rulemaking petition. Coinbase’s Chief Legal Counsel Paul Grewal claimed at the time that it was “unusual for the government to defy a direct question from a federal court.”
Following the SEC lawsuits, several trading platforms, including Robinhood and eToro, decided to delist the tokens on the SEC naughty list, while Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com said it will wind down its institutional service in the USA and focus on Asia and the Middle East, blaming the SEC’s stance as the primary driver.
Notably, Ethereum (Ether or ETH) was not on the List. ETH transitioned to proof-of-stake (PoS) in September 2022, with Gensler noting in 2018 that ETH was not a security but then stated that it may meet the definition of a security under the Howey Test given the change to PoS.
The Howey Test dates to 1946 when the SEC sued W. J. Howey Co. on allegations that his selling trees in orange groves promising a future return violated securities law. Leaving ETH off the initial list of securities added to the ambiguous nature of the SEC’s security determination.
Ultimately these lawsuits were dropped and the SEC racked up the Ls, but the ambiguity created by regulation by enforcement likely set the space back, at least in the USA.
Back to today. Project Crypto seeks to do the following:
- Clear Regulatory Classification of Digital Assets: Establishing distinct categories for cryptocurrencies, tokens, stablecoins, and other digital assets to provide regulatory clarity for market participants.
- Support for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Self-Custody: Encouraging innovation in DeFi and protecting individuals’ rights to self-custody their assets.
- Integration of Blockchain into Traditional Finance: Promoting the adoption of blockchain technology in traditional financial markets to enhance efficiency and transparency.
- Simplification of Capital-Raising Mechanisms: Streamlining processes for token offerings, including Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), airdrops, and network rewards.
- Creation of “Super-Apps”: Allowing platforms to offer multiple services, such as trading, staking, and lending, under a single regulatory framework.
Assuming it delivers on its goals, this is a significant step forward for companies looking to issue tokens as a means of financing their businesses. One item missing, although it may be included in regulatory clarity, is holding bad actors accountable. Perfect segway to the “the bad”.
So who took the baddie of the month award? It should come as no surprise to crypto market watchers that it was the launch of the Kayne West token called YZY. We’ve seen celeb tokens before. Think every single one has ended in a heap of trash. But this one was special given the profile or Kayne and the immediate dump.
First, was Kayne involved? Superficially, yes. Yeezy Investments, a vehicle associated with West’s intellectual property, controls 70% of the YZY token supply.
Surprisingly, but not so surprisingly, in the running for current king dirtbag of crypto, Klaus Schwab druid outfit-wearing Hayden Davis, was involved. Same dude who launched LIBRA that was connected to Argentine president Milei. Also involved was a promoter named Mikey Shelton who has launched a number of questionable projects recently.
Figure 5 – Linked early wallets in both YZY and LIBRA
Source: x.com @dethtective
What is clear is that select individuals, either linked to the chaps above or directly, bought tokens very early. And sold on the rise. In traditional markets that is what is known as trading on insider info. In crypto, it’s seemingly legal and in fact, many KOLs lament that they wish it was them. Regulation to smash this type of activity can’t come soon enough, but given crypto is decentralized, not sure how they will enforce it, especially in markets without regs.
We raise this because many unsuspecting token buyers do little work to understand who is behind a token launch and buy out of FOMO or because it’s a celeb coin. But fact is the celebs have very little to do with the token once live and the grifters who partner with said celebs use the token buyers as exit liquidity. Evidence below.
Chart 13 – YZY token price performance
Source: Dexscreener; Tradingview
YZY went from zero straight to $1.50 post launch, likely driven by insiders/snipers, then went as high as $3.18 less than an hour later, falling to $0.90 three hours after launch. YZY now sits at $0.53, leaving anyone who entered that wasn’t an insider, REKT. Bad.
Last, the ugly.
While crypto is full of innovative projects targeting financial democratization, trust minimization and censorship resistance, for example, it also is burdened by many projects with solutions looking for a problem. Story Protocol (IP) is one of them in our opinion.
Story Protocol is a Layer-1 blockchain and open intellectual property infrastructure that allows creators to register, license, and monetize creative assets, including images, music, text and AI models.
It is backed by VCs including 16z Crypto and Polychain Capital. People used to cheer is but in our opinion, heavy VC involvement is yellow flag as a starting point given they will likely sell tokens as soon as liquid and their cost basis is often very low given that they provided the seed capital. That said, once the dust has settled on the VC unlocks, there can be an opportunity to buy tokens at a discount to previous rounds. We have a number on our radar at the moment.
So, what is ugly about Story? We’ll start with one key metric – FDV/annual fees. IP trades at a circulating supply market cap of $1.8bn and an FDV of $6bn. They had $24 in protocol fees yesterday. Annualized that is $8,760 in fees. So FDV/Fees = 684,931x.
Chart 14 – IP daily fees since launch
Source: DeFiLlama
It also has only $23.9m in TVL. That’s a market cap/total value locked of 251x.
How about future activity? According to their own website, they have 39 projects live on mainnet. Going to need a lot more to back into a $6bn val.
Next is tokenomics. As noted above, they have a large pool of investors who invested at significantly lower valuations. This pool represents 21.6% of the capital stack, with another 20% owned by the team. That means >41% owned by investors and the team. 25% of tokens were unlocked at launch, with the remaining 75% locked for four years and released linearly over time.
We also know that there have been secondaries in the market, meaning the team and/or investors are looking to offload locked tokens, likely at a discount because why not when your FDV/Fees is nearly 700,000x.
Figure 6 – IP token ownership
Source: Story Protocol
Normally we would just ignore tokens like this but what caught our attention was the founder leaving to start a new venture, only five months after token launch.
Math’s might explain why. Say he had 2% of token supply (probably had more as the primary founder). There are 1bn tokens outstanding. So, say he has 20m tokens. Price has ranged between $2.65 and $7.10 since launch, currently sitting at $5.95. 25% of tokens were unlocked at TGE. Let’s say his average out was $5 per token. That is $25m clear plus the other 75% of tokens in the bag worth $89m at today’s token price. Nice work if you can get it, but optically ugly.
This is exactly why we try and avoid VC heavy tokens with big unlocks until 1. the unlocks are cleared or mostly cleared and 2. gives time to determine if the business is real or was just a founder/VC grift.
People may ask why include the bad and ugly as it reflects poorly on crypto? Well, crypto is filled with landmines. We mention it above, but as more projects launch, the diligence required to determine where there is and isn’t an opportunity gets more challenging. We spend all day, every day in this world, working to position the fund to take advantage of businesses working to solve actual problems while avoiding the YZY’s and token unlock dumps of the world. That’s why.
Tokens
Regular readers of our monthlies (been sending these out for over three years now, time flies) have seen a shift from memes are all grift (99.9% still are) to these are here to stay to every diversified portfolio needs to have exposure.
Part of this shift has to do with the epiphany that human culture is fundamentally memetic (this is nothing new, but it took time to acknowledge and embrace this fact…better late than never). Younger generations are fully embracing this reality as evidenced by social media, meme coins and the overall way they are choosing to live. We are going to do a deeper dive on this and what it means for crypto in a future report.
Now given the millions of memes that have launched over the last two years, how does one determine if it has the potential to be the next DOGE, PEPE, WIF, MOG, SPX6900 or whatever meme has had staying power, which are mostly dogs and cats so far.
We look at five key categories, which are also ranked by importance below.
- Narrative: is the idea or concept easy to understand or relatable to more than just a niche audience (we’d say masses, but crypto isn’t there just yet)? Does it have staying power?
- Community: how big and strong (or maniacal) is the community? How hard do token holders work their bags (parlance for social media engagement)? Are token holders and community members growing in numbers?
- Team: who is the team? What is their goal with the project outside financial gains? Are they crypto OGs who won’t fade the token price move up, assuming there is one?
- Content: is the quality of the content high and is new content constantly being produced? Is there a credible website and socials with memes one can share?
- Chain: what chain is the project on? Think it has to be on Solana or Ethereum or don’t bother.
A token we believe checks all the above boxes is…Unstable Coin.
Unstable Coin (USDUC) launched via pump.fun on Solana on May 19 and has gone from launchpad to a $43m market cap today in three plus months. Price chart below.
Chart 15 – USDUC token price performance
Source: Dexscreener
A metric that is tied to #2 and #3 above is the ability for the token to rug, meaning large token holders and/or devs sell and/or pull liquidity and it effectively goes to zero, is time since launch vs market cap. Or the slow cook factor. The chart above demonstrates a consistent grind higher, meaning token breadth is increasing as the community grows, leading to an up and to the right chart, significantly decreasing the chance of an outright rug. Unstable Coin is well beyond this risk in our view.
What is Unstable Coin?
Using the above framework, we start with narrative or meta. While both can often be short-term or transitional (think metaverse as a meta in 2019-21, which is now ded), lasting narratives can cook. Stablecoins are permanent. So, the narrative becomes a movement.
Refresher. Stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value by pegging to an underlying asset, largely fiat currency, are all over the media – both social and mainstream. Even most normies, who have no idea what a cryptocurrency is or does, have heard of stablecoins.
Tradfi is embracing stablecoins while the US government is promoting them. Goldman Sachs released a report called “Stablecoin Summer” on August 20, for example.
Figure 7 – GS calling for a stablecoin gold rush worth TRILLIONS + Stablecoin Summer
Source: Fortune, Goldman Sachs Research
This mainstreaming of stablecoins is evidenced by the GENIUS Act, the first federal regulatory system for stablecoins that was signed into law by President Trump in July, major companies exploring launching their own stablecoins, and USDC issuer Circle going public with the stock going parabolic.
Even the Trump family launched a stablecoin called USD1, developed through their crypto venture World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
The backdrop is set. Enter Unstable Coin.
Unstable Coin is based on the idea the volatility is utility or as they put it:
“USDUC is a reverse stablecoin, a token that proudly refuses to peg. Where volatility isn’t the problem, it’s the product.”
Its very name is a critique, a parody of stablecoins that have come to dominate digital finance.
This has resonated with many in a short period of time with both the community and number of token holders growing substantially. Community growth has been entirely organic with no paid shills and few KOLs promoting (thankfully, more on that below) and now totals over 4,300 members on X with the token holder count approaching 10,000. Unstable Coin X account itself has >8,000 followers.
Figure 8 – USDUC token holder count on Solana (RHS) and Ethereum (LHS)
Source: x.com
More importantly, the community is rabid. We’ve spent time observing the various number of different raiders or posters on CT, who are all in. Consistently posting high quality, engaging posts. The token has attracted attention from large Solana-focused CT accounts, who are investors or protocol owners versus KOLs (again, more on that in next paragraph). This is what makes a movement coin go higher for longer.
Traditionally, crypto investors would be ecstatic to get a “call” from a KOL, meaning a shill from a CT account with a large following. While this brought attention and possibly price appreciation, it also brought traders and short-timers who wrecked the chart any time there was a move higher, with the KOLs using the new entrants and volume as exit liquidity. The Unstable team has done an excellent job at discouraging these types of investors (one of the founders blocking KOLs, which is unheard of), instead embracing the smaller holders and encouraging participation in various community groups, leading to greater promotion of the Unstable brand and onboarding of more normies. This is the way.
Onto the team. The core team is comprised of five team members, all who have been involved in digital assets and memes over multiple cycles. Ranging from Popcat, where Cuppy led a revival from a rug to a $2bn market cap, to Mini and Housecoin, they have founded and led multiple community driven meme coin launches.
Figure 9 – USDUC core team
Source: Unstable Coin
Importantly, all are heavily engaged in the day-to-day marketing, posting and promoting the token with witty content round the clock, including streams and/or podcasts style interviews, promoting the Unstable story.
What milestones have been reached in the short time since USDUC was launched?
- Listed USDUC on Kraken, arguably one of the hardest exchanges to obtain a listing, when it was still a microcap
- While a native Solana token, LayerZero built an omnichain bridge that allows investors to buy USDUC on Ethereum
- Partnered with oracle platform DIA to provide reliable, transparent, and customizable data feeds for future USDUC DeFi integrations
- Bridge to Base chain complete with launch in near future
Summary: this isn’t their first rodeo and it shows.
Onto content. This directly ties to numbers 1-3. First, does the narrative allow for the creation of engaging content? Check. Does the community help in creating high quality, engaging content. Check. Does the team have the experience, knowledge and ability to create viral content while also understanding how to onboard the average roofer? Check.
Last is the blockchain. USDUC was launched on pump.fun on Solana. While we’ve been negative on pump.fun historically, they have made changes to the platform such as revenue sharing, launching a Creator Fees for Community Takeovers (CTO) mechanism, where teams can apply for what is effectively a grant to revive abandoned projects, and increasing the minimum amount raised on the bonding curve. We still believe there is far too much grift in the launchpad system (and in crypto in general), but at least pump.fun is working to improve the platform.
USDUC participates in pump.fun’s revenue share through pump.swap, pump.fun’s DEX, where 50% of the protocol’s revenue is allocated to the creators of the specific tokens being traded. Creators earn 0.05% of the trading volume for their specific coin, paid in SOL.
As of August 22, when the USDUC price was ~50% lower, the USDUC treasury stood at $260,000, with a DCA of $750 per day of new buying via the pump.fun AMM. But as the market cap grows, so does the pump.swap AMM volume, giving a massive boost to the USDUC treasury, with 50% of the treasury funds used for USDUC token buybacks. This tokenomics flywheel is what many crypto projects are missing. This is also important as many crypto projects run out of tokens to sell to fund their business, hence leading to under or unfunded businesses, although this applies more to utility tokens versus memes.
While we are extremely selective in any meme coin purchases, Unstable checks all the boxes required for a token to do well. Think it may be time to become Unstable.
Luke McFarlane
Co-Founder & Portfolio Manager
Vikara Capital
Mark Riccio, CFA
Co-Founder & Portfolio Manager
Vikara Capital
Contact Us
Vikara is a liquid, open-ended fund investing in digital assets (excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum) with no lockups (add or redeem monthly). Vikara’s proprietary investment and rigorous risk management processes aim to outperform the broader digital asset markets. Founders have over 40 years combined investment experience at Millennium, Balyasny, Platinum, Merrill Lynch and Macquarie.
Vikara, in Sanskrit, describes the process of change. Its definition is constantly evolving, changing with economic cycles, technology, and geopolitics. It is a transformation of thought or logic, a modification in the direction of travel, an alteration in action or participation. It is one thing to want change, but another to drive it. We believe in a world where commerce doesn’t need intermediaries. Where people are paid directly for content, time, and effort. Where privacy, data and free speech is given, not something to opt-in for.
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