Stripe’s L1 PM ad shows a skill crypto teams should value more: "Concise, evidence-based storytelling ability." Listen to Thomas Lee on any podcast. Unlike us on CT, he’s not focusing on TVL, tx count, fees, or other onchain stats. Instead it's: - Stablecoins - Tokenization - ETH productive yield - Strategic scarcity via treasuries He compares ETH now to BTC pre-2017: gaining institutional recognition and real world use. It’s an easy, sexy narrative for big money. ----- Now, I rarely get excited about yet another DEX, lending protocol, aggregator, DA layer, L2 or whatever. Because most projects obsess over their 5% edge vs market leaders… …and fail to explain WHY their protocol actually matters. It's a tough job! Few projects are good at that. - Pudgy Penguins (good vibes spreading) - Worldcoin: proof of humanity in the era of AI - Hyperliquid: Not just a perp DEX, but a movement to replaces CEXs - Liquity: the last chance of a truly decentralized stablecoin - Polymarket: Truth in the fake news era ------- How to make people care about your protocol: - Founders: tell us why you’re building it. What’s the deeper motivation beyond money? (Read Luca Netz’s reason for buying Pudgy Penguins) - Explain the important problem you’re solving. @payy_link got me instantly with “private card payments,” a thing every other card gets wrong. - Make us dream of a better future with your product. New zkEVM L2 for DeFi? Boring. Mantle & Gnosis visions of blockchain neo-banks? Exciting. - Use your token to make us dream of winning together. Build a community, not an exit liquidity. Share the upside. ---- I get many product pitches in my DMs daily. Most are just feature lists. If you want to stand out in 2025, you need a story worth buying into.