The investment targets are mainly focused on popular tracks such as gaming, social, and BTC L2 network.

Author: Wenser, Odaily Star Daily

In April 2024, the Web3 asset data platform RootData released statistics on the financing activities of KOLs in the past six months. According to the data, dingaling ranked first with participation in 21 project financings, followed by GmoneyNFT and DCF GOD in second and third place, respectively. Today, Odaily Star Daily will analyze the investment strategies of these KOLs and search for new Alpha from this table.

https://x.com/RootDataLabs/status/1779848819364245812

Popular Tracks: Gaming, BTC L2, Social

Based on the information in the table and the official website of Rootdata (link), many KOLs mainly invest in gaming, social, and BTC L2 network. Among them, the following projects have received recognition and investment from a significant number of KOLs:

• eesee: 7 KOLs have invested in it. It is a decentralized aggregation trading and lottery platform within the Blast ecosystem, mainly providing additional liquidity and trading market services for digital assets, tokens, and RWA for both buyers and sellers. It uses a special token cash-back mechanism to offset the negative effects for users who do not win, with winners receiving lottery pool rewards and losers receiving points linked to future rewards. The token ESE is currently priced at $0.08, with a 24-hour trading volume of $1.82 million.
• Mezo: 4 KOLs have invested in it. It is one of the latest Bitcoin L2 networks, created by the developer Thesis team. It previously completed a $21 million Series A financing led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin, Hack VC, Draper Associates, and others. Mezo utilizes a "Proof of HODL" points program to utilize the idle Bitcoin of holders, with the longer the holding time, the higher the user's "HODL score multiplier." It has not been issued yet.
• GAM 3 S.GG: 4 KOLs have invested in it. It is a Web3 gaming content platform. According to its official introduction, it has already launched 400+ games, aiming to attract gamers to join web3 through game discovery, content, live streaming, and community activities. GAM 3 S.GG's super application simplifies user experience, provides opportunities for early access, plans content to highlight popular web3 games, and eliminates barriers for beginners. The token G3 is currently priced at $0.177, with a total market value of $170 million.
• Scallop: 4 KOLs have invested in it. It is the lending market of the Sui ecosystem. It is dedicated to building a dynamic money market, providing high-yield lending, low-cost lending, AMM, and asset management tools on a unified platform, and providing SDKs for professional traders. The token SCA is currently priced at $0.61, with a circulating market value of $18.54 million.
• MetaStreet: 4 KOLs have invested in it. It is a liquidity expansion protocol for the Blast ecosystem's NFT credit market. Its main product is a capital pool that provides secondary market liquidity for NFT-backed bills, allowing participants to deposit funds to earn returns from a diversified investment portfolio of NFT-backed bills. Participating institutions include Dragonfly, DCG, OpenSea, Nascent, and other star capitals, and it previously completed a $25 million financing. It has not been issued yet.
• Reach: 4 KOLs have invested in it. It is a SocialFi collaboration platform designed for creators and contributors within the Web3 community. Reach allows anyone wishing to promote their content to utilize a user group for participation, verification, and auditing, and to pay them for their contributions to network effects. As a Discord Bot developer, it allows creators to easily set tasks to promote their content. Tasks can be customized based on the target audience, including following, liking, retweeting, and commenting on tweets on the X.com platform. Some tasks also have rewards (ETH) sponsored by the creator, while others have leaderboard points rewards that can be used to purchase tasks. The token REACH is currently priced at $0.045, with a total market value of $4.888 million.

In addition, the DeFi track is also a focus of attention for many KOLs, with products such as Kodiak, Orbit Protocol, and Particle receiving significant attention.

KOL Characteristics: Mostly NFT Players

It is worth mentioning that in the list of KOLs surveyed this time, the proportion of NFT players is relatively high. Individuals such as dingaling, Gmoney, Block Gentleman, Grail.eth, Zeneca, and 0x Sun have avatars or IDs related to NFT elements, and are well-known KOLs in the NFT market.

Similarly, the previous Memecoin craze also started from NFT players and gradually spread to different groups in the crypto market. In my opinion, the main reasons why NFT players are active in the investment market are as follows:

• They have significant community influence. KOLs in the NFT track generally have strong cohesion within their community and significant influence, making them valuable for content marketing and gaining recognition from investment projects.
• They have good cultural aesthetics. Unlike KOLs in other tracks, NFT track KOLs not only consider team background, capital support, and project resources when judging project quality, but also value a project's cultural background, aesthetic appeal, and operational methods. Therefore, they are more inclined to invest in teams and projects with certain aesthetic abilities, and are less likely to favor poorly made projects.
• Seeking new breakthroughs in the NFT market. Due to liquidity issues, the NFT market has been underperforming in recent years. Therefore, NFT track KOLs are more motivated to seek new growth points and breakthroughs, which is one of the reasons why many NFT players have flocked to the primary and secondary markets in large numbers. To some extent, this is also a choice made out of necessity.

Common Characteristics of Targets: Emerging Ecosystems + Mature Models

In addition, through the analysis of KOL investment projects, we can also see that in addition to Ethereum staking tracks such as Ethena and Ether.fi, the investment targets they choose are mostly concentrated in emerging ecosystems with mature models that can be used for reference, such as:

• Blast: As a Layer 2 network backed by the "point system aggregator" Blur, Blast has gradually grown into an ecosystem-rich "application-oriented network" through strategic operational activities such as point systems, gold point rewards, and Big Bang events. Whether it's gaming, social, DeFi, or NFTFi, Blast's points are the "best selling point" of the product, attracting numerous teams and investors, including KOLs, to rush in.
• Berachain: As an L1 public chain that completed a $100 million Series B financing and has a valuation of at least $10 billion, Berachain's ecosystem is also gradually developing. Its positioning as a "community-driven blockchain network" with strong meme attributes has made many KOLs pioneers and advocates of this ecosystem.
• Sui Network: Supported by the Move language, Sui's high throughput, low latency, and asset-oriented programming model have gained recognition from many projects. According to recent data from the Artemis platform, Sui's on-chain daily transaction volume briefly surpassed the Solana network, reaching as high as 41 million transactions. In the long term, casual games are a major advantage for Sui. The previous Paris Sui Basecamp event also showcased the highly active state of this ecosystem to the market, providing a good foundation for the implementation of mature models.

Conclusion: KOL Financing Rounds are Normal, Maintain a Calm Attitude

Previously, KOL financing rounds became a periodic hot topic in the crypto industry. Many people have a negative view of this, believing that KOL financing rounds will lead to the abuse of influence by KOLs and prompt ordinary users to FOMO and follow the crowd. Some people believe that KOL financing rounds are a manifestation of market forces replacing the important role of institutional investment to some extent. Of course, some people are disdainful of this, considering the drawbacks of KOL financing rounds, and often the amounts received by KOLs do not necessarily yield high returns. After all, there are high-risk factors such as "project rug, security risks, and a cold market sentiment," which can easily lead to KOLs becoming "free labor" or even "spending money and effort, only to end up with nothing."

In response to this issue, the attitudes of overseas KOLs are more moderate. Loopify, the founder of Endless Clouds, and the well-known overseas KOL OSF have made relevant remarks. From being unknown to gradually accumulating resources through their own efforts and content output, they have become the choice of many projects, although it may seem like a cliché, the reality is indeed so.

So, instead of complaining, it's better to accept it and then find your own Alpha. Perhaps, the next big name in the crypto world could be you.

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