@HyperliquidX 💦💦💦
With only 1 month left of the year, and going into 2026 soon, I feel like we are standing in front of a shift for tokens and token valuations.View quoted post on X
It's pretty clear that the current regime (2021–2025) is on its way out. I am talking about the low float, high FDV, where the insanely high valuations eventually lead to a slow bleed of the token.
Classic airdrops, yield farming, pre-deposits, points programs, ICOs. We have tried it all. But the only thing that sticks long-term is something the users want, e.g., Hyperliquid.
Seems like the classic huge airdrops are slowly being replaced by pre-deposits, points programs, and recently ICOs. It's not an airdrop per se, but it gives yield/points/lower FDV (which presents some upside). But still, the biggest question remains, and it is for what use do we really need the new token?
After 10/10, we've seen a huge drop in interest for altcoins, and it feels like something new is brewing. If we're going to continue with producing new tokens, we need a model where tokens are unlocked based on performance of some kind. Founders need to be incentivized to keep building even after TGE. It shouldn't be the end.
And why can't projects just launch at a low FDV? Because traders and bots will capture most of the upside in the first minutes, effectively “arbing” that cheap valuation away from the community the team wanted to favor. Raising at high valuations lets teams secure more capital with less ownership dilution in the token sense, which is attractive to founders and VCs.
We will probably see more ICOs going forward, but I expect this field to become saturated as well soon, which means that the upside in most of them will be non-existent. I like the approach MegaETH had with a capped sale at a low FDV, only for believers in the project.
The perfect tokenomics doesn't exist yet, and the reason for that is a combination of no PMF, lack of use cases, heavy inflation pressure, and few incentives for founders to keep up the good work after TGE. Hyperliquid is close though, by allocating 97% of its trading fees to buy back and burn HYPE tokens, huge airdrop, zero VCs, a token that gives fee discounts by staking. They have built a loyal user base we haven't seen since the Terra Luna days (but this time without a ponzi).
As we move into 2026, the projects that succeed will be those that align founders, users, and investors around genuinely useful token models. How this will end up looking remains to be seen.
