Animoca Research Report: Sidekick, Building Real-Time Trading LiveFi Infrastructure

Just as live streaming has completely changed the e-commerce landscape, Sidekick also hopes to initiate similarly profound changes in the Web3 ecosystem.

TL; DR

Sidekick is a Web3 native live streaming platform that integrates TikTok-style content flow, Huya-style monetization mechanisms, and on-chain execution capabilities. During live broadcasts, users can tip and participate in airdrops, making content creators real-time asset distributors.
As the crypto attention market becomes increasingly saturated, the effectiveness of marketing tweets and leaderboard activities is diminishing. In contrast, live streaming is a more trustworthy and higher-conversion form of communication, suitable for building visibility and credibility for meme tokens and VC-backed projects.
The platform has achieved initial success in the Asian market, attracting over 1,000 KOLs focused on live streaming. Sidekick currently plans to expand its content areas and incentivize deeper community participation.
Most team members come from Web2, possessing rich experience in live streaming platforms and global market expansion capabilities. Sidekick has entered the seventh season of the MVB Accelerator on the BNB Chain, receiving support from YZi Labs, Altos Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, and Hashkey Capital. They have also collaborated with the Solana Foundation, Base, and OKX Wallet, and joined the Google Cloud Web3 Startup Program.
Looking ahead, Sidekick has the potential to evolve from a live streaming platform into a modular infrastructure layer, driving diverse on-chain activities through real-time content, becoming one of the core components of project operations.

Why Live Streaming is Crucial for Promotion in Web3

Sidekick is a Web3 content platform built around live streaming, covering market commentary, blockchain games, and more. It applies the "live streaming e-commerce" model to the crypto market, creating a LiveFi infrastructure that allows KOLs, traders, and project parties to interact in the same space.

The rise of Web3 live streaming is not coincidental; it reflects a structural issue within the crypto ecosystem: inefficient marketing and an increasingly saturated attention market.

Starting from Q1 2024, with the emergence of tools and platforms like Pump.fun, BONK's LetsBonk, and Raydium Launchpad, the threshold for issuing tokens has significantly lowered. AI-driven smart tokens have further accelerated this trend. The volume of token issuance has increased more than 50 times compared to Q1 2024, while the number of active wallets on mainstream Layer 1s has also doubled. However, the exposure mechanisms for tokens have not expanded in tandem, making it difficult for early projects to gain attention.

At the institutional level, from Q1 2024 to Q1 2025, VC investment amounts have continued to grow, but funds are increasingly concentrated on a few star projects. These projects, due to valuation and liquidity pressures, also demand higher market attention.

In this context, "distribution efficiency" and "information transmission" become more critical. Project parties not only need to create products but also to win the attention game. As Sidekick founder Jonny stated, the criteria for evaluating token projects have shifted from fundamentals to their ability to attract early attention.

Among all options, KOLs are the key force in generating project attention. While marketing agencies can help find top KOLs, it is costly and has limited reach. A new question arises: how can project parties reach and activate mid-tier KOLs to improve the marketing ROI?

Many InfoFi platforms address this issue by introducing leaderboard-style airdrop mechanisms—project parties distribute airdrops based on the dissemination popularity on Twitter/X. This indeed brings broader participation and incentivizes mid-tier KOLs to produce content. However, this mechanism also has side effects: KOLs tend to post uniform, similar content, leading to content homogenization and user aesthetic fatigue, which affects promotional effectiveness.

Thus, the question evolves into: how can project parties, especially startups, stand out in a sea of information, quickly establish trust, and continuously produce differentiated content?

Live streaming demonstrates multiple structural advantages in the context of Web3 promotion. Compared to static tweets or pre-recorded videos, live streaming allows content creators to interact with audiences in real-time, unscripted ways. This dynamic communication mechanism enhances transparency, enabling audiences to not only evaluate content but also observe the behavior, intent, and credibility of the storyteller. These features are also among the reasons for the rise of live streaming e-commerce in Web2. In 2023, China's live streaming e-commerce GMV has surpassed 4.9 trillion yuan, and similar models are gradually gaining popularity in Western markets.

Web3 itself suffers from severe information asymmetry and high trust costs, making live streaming an ideal means to reduce uncertainty and establish trust.

The age structure of crypto users also supports the adoption of this format. Approximately 60% of global crypto users are aged between 25 and 44, a demographic that closely aligns with Twitch's core users, accounting for nearly 50%. This indicates a high cultural and behavioral compatibility between crypto users and live streaming.

The trend of the industry adopting this feature is already unfolding: in 2024, Pump.fun integrated live streaming functionality, allowing creators to introduce tokens in real-time. The "Crypto" category on Twitch has also attracted over 4,600 daily viewers, comparable to mainstream categories like NBA 2K25 and Call of Duty.

In addition to structural advantages, the attention distribution path of live streaming aligns with real user behavior. The Sidekick team has observed a typical five-step discovery path:

Someone shares the token contract address in a Telegram/Discord group;
It is discussed within private groups;
KOLs on the platform recommend it to their fans;
It gains broader attention on the X platform;
Ultimately converts into trading volume.

This indicates that the dissemination path of a project relies on credible individuals telling stories, verifying legitimacy, and establishing early trust. Live streaming, as a form of real-time human interaction, is the ideal tool to accelerate this process.

Sidekick: From Attention to Action

Sidekick is a crypto market discovery platform centered on live streaming, focusing on real-time market interpretation and project interaction. It responds to profound changes in Web3 user behavior: scarce attention, rapid narrative turnover, and trust becoming key for users to adopt projects.

By deeply integrating live streaming with trading modules, Sidekick enables real-time interaction between project parties, content creators, and audiences. It brings the logic of live streaming e-commerce into the LiveFi scenario, allowing narrative and community participation to truly merge.

Platform Features

The "trust-action" closed loop built by Sidekick stems from product design: it absorbs the interaction mechanisms of Web2 platforms while possessing the trading capabilities of Web3. It integrates the core functions of TikTok, Huya, and Bilibili:

Creators produce content in real-time, and audiences can monetize it through tipping, gifting, advertising, or subscriptions, forming a highly interactive and convertible content ecosystem.

Business Model

Sidekick offers two main profit models for streamers: first, viewers can tip through virtual gifts; second, the platform provides a creator incentive program.

Ordinary users are another core role on the platform. They watch live streams, gain market insights, participate in real-time comments, and can win rewards through airdrop activities within the platform.

The third component is project parties or advertisers. They enhance exposure and community interaction through live AMA sessions, airdrop activities, or product placements, and can collaborate with streamers to create content, viewing streamers as performance-based promotional channels.

As an infrastructure and matchmaking platform, Sidekick charges commission income from cooperating projects, similar to intermediary service fees.

Team Introduction

Sidekick is led by founder Jonny, who has extensive experience in gaming, live streaming, and investment. His career began at China's largest internet café brand, Wangyu Internet Café, where he was responsible for its European market expansion. He later founded the gaming companion platform Bixin, gaining deep insights into player behavior and the live streaming ecosystem.

Under Jonny's leadership, Sidekick was selected for the seventh season of the MVB Accelerator on the BNB Chain and received support from investment institutions such as YZi Labs, Altos Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, and Hashkey Capital. Additionally, Sidekick has collaborated with the Solana Foundation, Base, and OKX Wallet, and successfully joined the Google Cloud Web3 Startup Program.

Market Strategy

Sidekick's market expansion path is divided into three stages, each corresponding to different user groups and content structures:

Stage One: Targeting crypto-native users, particularly those active in private groups within the Chinese community but less represented on public platforms like Twitter/X. This stage focuses on building a loyal user base.

Stage Two: Expanding to general entertainment creators. These individuals may not be professional players but excel at enhancing the live streaming experience through humor, storytelling, or emotional engagement, increasing user stickiness and platform retention.

Stage Three: Entering more vertical content areas. Sidekick does not intend to compete head-on with gaming live streaming giants like YouTube, Huya, and Douyu, which have significant advantages in IP licensing and esports resources. Instead, Sidekick chooses to enter the niche of "real-time crypto market content," forming a differentiated advantage and having greater flexibility to explore new content, new creators, and new monetization methods.

This three-stage path is community-driven. Many users actively change their Sidekick-style avatars and spontaneously create tutorial content without direct incentives from the platform, leading to a strong sense of participation and a positive feedback loop of loyalty.

The team itself is also deeply active in the crypto community, regularly participating in meme coin trading and KOL discussion groups, continuously gathering frontline feedback to grasp the flow of attention and changes in narrative trends.

Competitive Landscape

As the integration of live streaming and crypto market interpretation becomes increasingly close, various product paths in the so-called "LiveFi" track are emerging. These products can be roughly divided into several categories: third-party live streaming platforms for Twitter/X, token issuance platforms with optional live streaming features (such as Pump.fun), live streaming models integrated with gaming (such as Abstract Chain), and exchange-native live streaming interfaces (such as the product being developed by Binance).

These paths reflect different platforms' understanding of "the role of live streaming in the crypto ecosystem":

Third-party tools for Twitter/X were the first to implement live streaming features but lack Web3 native functionalities, such as tipping with cryptocurrencies;
The live streaming feature of Pump.fun is positioned around how meme coin issuance can create viral liquidity through live streaming. Live streaming is more of a means to facilitate dissemination;
Abstract Chain focuses on GameFi projects, primarily targeting creators and users in Europe and the United States.

From a fundamental logic perspective, most platforms still view video content as a "promotional layer" or "additional feature." In contrast, Sidekick positions live streaming as the core interface for trading, not a supporting role, but the main axis of the product. It integrates content creation, token trading, and community interaction, embedding native monetization tools such as tipping and airdrop incentives, allowing the behaviors of content creators and audiences to naturally revolve around on-chain interactions.

At the same time, exchanges like Binance are also deploying live streaming features, but these live streams only serve tokens that are already launched. In contrast, Sidekick's creators can freely live stream around any asset—whether it's a newly deployed product or a niche narrative token. This gives Sidekick a stronger adaptability to trends, allowing it to more keenly capture community-driven excitement and speculative cycles.

A recent typical case emerged: a streamer live-streamed the entire process of hyping a meme token and achieved community takeover (CTO) during the process. Audiences could not only see his operations in real-time but also directly participate in discussions and interactions. This form of live streaming imbues the content itself with transparency and participatory qualities.

In terms of regional layout, Sidekick has established a solid foundation among Chinese creators and audiences, signing contracts with over 1,000 KOLs focused on live streaming. This dual advantage of "broad content supply + deep creator engagement" will play a key role in the fiercely competitive battle for attention.

Conclusion: The Next Step of LiveFi and Protocol Integration

As the market continues to evolve, Sidekick is gradually transforming from a content platform into an infrastructure layer with Web3 capabilities. It is not only a tool for information dissemination but also a real-time discovery engine—closely integrating content delivery with user actions. In this process, Sidekick is no longer just a "content layer," but an "execution layer" with conversion capabilities, able to turn viewing behavior into on-chain actions.

In the future, Sidekick has the potential to expand into more on-chain scenarios, such as token issuance, IDO auctions, whitelist subscriptions, and even lending activities. The platform will also continue to introduce modular components to serve more protocols and application projects.