EM fam,
Another wild week in onchain experiments, and we’re back to break it down. From games pulling us in with financial incentives (and stressing us out), to Uniswap V4 unlocking new token mechanics, to what’s cooking at Paragraph—let’s get into it.
Hi friends,
A couple of quick things before we get started. If you find this type of content interesting and want to get better plugged into the new creator economy that is growing on Farcaster, join our Hypersub.
For $6 a month, you'll be first to get all our content, plus gain access to our private group chat where we dive deeper into creator trends, insights, and strategies that can help you grow your audience and make more money.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Onchain Gaming: Fun or Financial Stress?
The gaming meta on Farcaster is evolving fast, and not everyone’s sure how to feel about it. Farcade, Stokefire, and Clankermon are leading the charge, blending entertainment with financial incentives. Pichi admitted that she’s setting alarms to check crops and train Clankermons, while also wondering if she just spent $800 on a six-minute game. That’s the paradox—games should be fun, but when real value is on the line, it changes how people play.
🔥 What’s working:
Onchain games tap into social dynamics—challenging friends, competing in leaderboards, and flexing strategy.
Devs like Noah (Stokefire) are adjusting token mechanics based on market conditions, making participation more accessible.
Farcade teasing a token ecosystem has people wondering if their “play” is actually an investment.
⚠️ What needs work:
The stress factor. If games feel more like financial management than fun, casual players may bounce.
Balancing pay-to-play vs. play-to-earn. Can devs keep games engaging without them becoming pure speculation?
Apple’s crackdown—Stokefire got removed from the App Store, forcing a pivot to web.
Will this new breed of games attract more mainstream players, or are we just recreating the grind of DeFi summer in a more gamified format?
Paragraph & the Content Monetization Struggle
Farcaster’s go-to publishing platform, Paragraph, is facing heat from creators. The tool is solid, but discoverability and monetization remain pain points.
📜 What’s happening:
Token-gated content was sunset, disappointing writers who used it creatively (like Pichi’s “Power Badge” guide).
No built-in recommendation engine like Rodeo, making organic discovery harder.
Creators still looking for better monetization tools—why aren't L2s like Base funding content creation the way they fund devs?
đź’ˇ Ideas for improvement:
A Farcaster-native “who’s reading what” feed to surface great content.
Built-in monetization support—whether through grants, ad-sharing, or incentives tied to engagement.
Individual contracts for content (like Mirror) to give full provenance to creators.
Uniswap V4 & New Token Games
Devs and token creators are getting excited about Uniswap V4, and for good reason—it’s opening up new ways to experiment with liquidity and tokenomics.
🔑 Why it matters:
Hooks enable dynamic fee structures—devs can now create pools that charge fees based on real-time conditions.
Concentrated liquidity strategies are about to get weird, in the best way.
This could unlock more creative token games (think programmable rebates, evolving token mechanics, and even Farcaster-native liquidity incentives).
What wild new memecoin mechanics will emerge? Probably some degenerate ones, but we’re here for the ride.
Farcon Updates: The Hype is Real
With Farcon around the corner, the energy is building. The event is shaping up to be a hub for builders, creators, and community leaders looking to deepen their presence in the Farcaster ecosystem. With the rise of v2 Frames, and the recent Coinbase Wallet x Farcaster announcement, we are expecting major announcements from many of our favorite projects. And of course, we cannot wait to hang out with our friends at many of the meetups that will surely be planned throughout the city of New York during the event.
If you haven’t applied to attend yet, get started here!
That’s a Wrap
Farcaster’s mini-app ecosystem is thriving, but with that comes new challenges: how to keep games fun (not just financialized), how to make content more discoverable, and how to leverage new DeFi tools to push token experiments forward. As always, your Early Morning Crew will be here to keep an eye on it all.
Drop your hot takes in the EMC channel on Farcaster—what’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen onchain this week?
Last week on /earlymorningcrew we unexpectedly landed on the topic of @paragraph Many of us are power users of the platform and enjoy using it almost daily. But we got to thinking, what are some features we’d like to see added or brought back? Here’s a few: - Our own contracts (this is a table stakes for web3 content platforms) - Built-in recommendation engine for better content discovery - Improved monetization tools so creators are rewarded for their effort - Token gated content (used to work great with /hypersub) Read to see what else @pichi @0xgramajo @treegirl @raven50mm I said: https://news.cryptosapiens.xyz/winning-the-onchain-creator-game-growing-your-audience,-monetizing-content,-and-new-token-strategies
Could you say more about "Our own contracts (this is a table stakes for web3 content platforms)"?
2nd bullet is definitely something we want to work on & improve. I liked the rough idea of FC-native - maybe there's a way to lean on frames to surface like a weekly discovery type thing based on who you subscribe to, follow, etc. We also want to do some of this within Paragraph, but I think it'll be hard for that to be as impactful as enabling discovery on higher-trafficked surfaces, like FC, Rodeo, etc. (or especially Instagram, Twitter, etc.).
IMO, monetization is the most important area to work on. This will be a blend of less-risky stuff (things aimed at increasing collect revenue) and higher-risk bets (new monetization features).
I'm a little skeptical of ad networks. You're catering to direct response ad buyers who are comparing performance against Meta, Google, etc. I think it's feasible to carve out experimental budgets, but hard to really generate meaningful revenue for writers / creators. Similarly, helping writers pay each other can start to make collaboration feel tick-for-tacky, or too transactional. Some of the better parts of the internet are driven by goodwill — folks with larger audience or more resources helping out earlier-stage folks (YouTube & Substack are good examples). Those kind of ecosystem tends to have more impactful collaboration than ones where it's hyper-transactional. Still, I think you can have goodwill be a primary motivator / driving force, but backed up with payments & financial incentives. And crypto rails make that easier to execute. Re: Base paying creators, we can't really influence that, and I'd wonder how sustainable that is. Let me know if I missed any topics discussed on the pod.
This week on the Early Morning Crew we’re breaking down the latest onchain experiments and what they mean for creators, gamers, and builders: TLDR; - Onchain gaming dilemma – Are /farcade & /stokefire making games fun or just another financial grind? - /paragraph's growing pains – What’s missing for creators, and how it could fix discovery & monetization. - /uniswap's V4’s new token mechanics – What hooks unlock for token games & liquidity experiments. - /farcon-nyc – Why this could be a turning point for Farcaster’s ecosystem. If you're building, creating, or experimenting onchain, you don’t want to miss this one. https://news.cryptosapiens.xyz/winning-the-onchain-creator-game-growing-your-audience,-monetizing-content,-and-new-token-strategies