The Market
Long ago. Used to write state of DAI, I’m bringing back the same energy.
Last year was the best worst year in crypto. Institutions arrived—but they didn’t buy our bags.
Right now, crypto has a demand problem. Retail has not shown up for five to six months, and institutions did not replace them. The reflex to “press buy” during upward momentum is gone. The 2016–2023(?) playbook no longer applies. Hell the playbook is changing every 6 weeks.
Short-term extraction replaced long-term accumulation. Products like pump.fun pulled forward what would have been future liquidity/volume. We never saw a true blow-off top, and the four-year cycle is breaking down (IMO evolving, but i digress).
Crypto is no longer early. It is exiting adolescence and entering an early-majority phase. That shift matters: users expect clarity, trust, and outcomes—not raw unpolished primitives. Pour one out for the yams and the pickle.
Structural Problems Across the Space
Most crypto products fail for the same reasons:
• Discovery is broken — users don’t know what to do or what/how to trust.
• Decision fatigue is real — too many options, no guidance.
• Risk is poorly communicated — performance and downside are opaque.
• Interfaces overwhelm — data dumps masquerade as UX.
• Trust is fragile — users can’t easily verify safety or intent.
These are not theoretical problems. They directly block adoption and monetization.
Retail demand may be soft, but our platform is finally positioned to execute.
What changed:
• Adding new chains is now cheap, fast, and repeatable.
• Wallet blockers take days, not weeks.
• We can support broad surface area and real depth at the same time.
Our strategy is not to invent new markets. It is to execute better than competitors who are still shipping abstractions without outcomes.
Near-Term Product Strategy (Clear and Narrow)
Our short-term user experience focus is simple (1H2026). Be the platform where you can:
- Get any asset
- Earn yield on what you have
- Take additional risk deliberately
Everything we build must reinforce at least one of these.
Current Execution Priorities
- Monetized DeFi (Highest Priority)
This is our new revenue opportunity.
- Integrate Yield.xyz for earning opportunities.
- Ship publicly, gather feedback, and iterate to production quality.
- Generate revenue via yield performance.
- Chain and Swapper Coverage
Distribution matters. Capturing people in any ecosystem is truly multichain.
- Catch up in the “chain game.”
- Prioritize chains by transaction volume, TVL, and revenue potential.
- Work sequentially, not opportunistically.
- Exception: grants (e.g., Starknet) can elevate priority.
- Leverage HD wallet account abstraction as an execution advantage. And expand on AA.
- Agent Expansion as Differentiation
Agents are not experiments, they are leverage.
- Build on the existing agent.
- Focus on features that reduce manual effort and decision load.
- Apply learnings back into the core app.
- Prioritize automation, batching, and quality-of-life improvements.
- New Products That Monetize Immediately
We will ship smaller, focused products that capture attention and revenue. Evaluated in our new process. Here are some on the docket:
- ShapeShift API alpha is live.
- Polymarket-style mobile prototype exists.
- Evaluate perps.
- Finish notifications and mobile-first experiences.
- Revisit past ideas with real monetization paths.
- many many more.
- rFOX as a Real Business Case, eventually a protocol
No token shenanigans. One narrative: real rev share.
- February marks the first USDC distribution.
- Actual revenue shared with stakers.
- This is proof of a sustainable model, not speculation driven shell games.
How We Execute
We are building AI-assisted products with depth, not clones with breadth.
This is why we now track initiatives in Linear instead of individual tickets. It reduces bottlenecks while preserving accountability and follow-through. It allows us to validate quickly and move into polishing if there is demand.
Our directional goal is $100k in monthly revenue. Not expected in Q1, but achievable. We’ve hit this before, let’s do it again and get to MRR.
Long-Term Vision: Where This Goes
In August, we soft-launched our agent. It already supports multichain swaps and limit orders on Solana and EVM. I still maintain from my first forum post that in the future, Agents will eventually handle most financial execution. 60% of the traditional equity investing is in ETF’s, people like trusting passive flows. Manual portfolio management is a transitional behavior. I think we have a real shot at being inspired by LLM in the background products like Granola or Wispr Flow. If you read this Adam Fishman blog (How Granola Grows), you’ll see what I mean.
The opportunity is not just “AI + crypto.” or “prompt-based-finance”
The opportunity is removing friction between intent and execution, with an LLM that’s got your back.
We believe in:
- Reducing decision fatigue
- Displaying clearer risk
- Actions taken on the user’s behalf (human-in-the-loop)
- Charging only when execution happens
The future interface is not a complicated dashboard. It is guidance, confidence, convenience, and follow-through.
What We Must Build to Get There
To deliver this, we need:
- Long-running automations
- Account abstraction that isn’t overwhelming or risky
- Systems that meet users where their funds already are
- Clear UX paths for both passive and high-risk users
- fantastic notifications to close the loop
- like, a dozen other things
Crypto overwhelms users with information. A trusted execution partner that helps users decide—and only charges to act—is a massive unlock.
Why We Can Win
We understand more chains and swappers than almost anyone. We already operate across 14 swappers and 26 chains. We also understand the realities, quirks, limitations, and push of LLM-driven systems. We’re moving with the speed of a team 10x the size.
We already made this platform usable. Now we make it inevitable. Bulletproof. User-controlled. Broad. Utilitarian.
Strong floor first, no ceiling after.
Onwards FOXes ===> to the future.