There's a really fascinating trend in web3 developer focused projects.
I'd call it 'developer as the consumer [crypto]'. Here are some thoughts about it (focusing on chain products)...
The New Consumer Class
We love to talk about consumer crypto, about how much effort we are expending to bring crypto to every potential end-user by making it easy and entertaining to use while also adding utility.
Less talked about is that we put equal, if not more effort into the developer as consumer [crypto] - attracting and retaining developer attention on the infrastructure level using tactics traditionally reserved for consumer products.
This parallel economy emerged so strongly in web3 for two reasons. The first is simply because engineers often consume crypto as much as we build it. We’re really passionate about the culture, and we align ourselves to values within it (degen, regen etc.). Because of this, we also "consume" infrastructure in ways that mirror traditional consumer behavior:
- Choosing platforms based on affinity
- Participating in niche communities
- Engaging in emergent culture
- Making emotional decisions
The second is that infra projects will live or die by their ability to attract developers to build apps in their ecosystem, most of all chains (which we’ll primarily focus on here). More builders -> more apps -> more users -> more traction -> more builders….
This overall shift has profound implications for how crypto infrastructure projects position and compete for attention. If you are interested in how that’s done well, read on.
The Ooga Booga Playbook
Berachain offers one excellent case study of this phenomenon. While fundamentally an L1 solution in the Cosmos ecosystem with a strong technical differentiator (Proof of Liquidity), their go-to-market strategy also reads like a consumer product launch:
- Building a strong cultural identity around bears
- Cultivating an exclusive, meme-rich community
- Generating FOMO through social proof
- Leveraging influencer relationships
What's remarkable is how this approach has generated as much, if not more, developer interest than traditional technical marketing ever could. If you want your infrastructure project to succeed, I suggest you’re very intentional in your cultural architecture, including cultural moats, social proof and status games (we’ll deep dive on all these in following articles). For now, we’ll focus on two important aspects of cultural moats.
Developing New Competencies
For a project to have cultural cache, it must absolutely nail both cultural seeding and community design.
Cultural seeding
Cultural seeding is about finding your unique angle and leaning into it hard. It's not about being palatable to everyone - it's about creating something distinctive that becomes your calling card in the ecosystem.
The key is identifying a cultural lynchpin that's both memorable and memeable:
- Berachain didn't just use bears, they created an entire "ooga booga" identity that became instantly recognizable
- Celestia went all-in on their "modular blockchain" narrative, turning technical architecture into a movement
- Base positioned themselves as the no-BS, developer-first L2, reinforcing Coinbase's broader ethos
The most successful cultural seeding often has an edge to it - something that might even turn some people off, but makes your true believers love you even more. This edginess becomes part of your brand identity:
- Creating polarizing takes that align with your values
- Developing a distinctive voice that doesn't try to please everyone
- Making bold claims that set you apart from the "safe" players
- Building in-jokes that feel exclusive to your community
The goal isn't to be universally liked - it's to be unforgettable and give developers something specific to rally around. Your cultural lynchpin should be simple enough to meme, but rich enough to spawn an entire ecosystem of community-driven content and inside jokes.
Community design
Community design in crypto infrastructure is about creating spaces where developers feel they're part of something bigger than just using a tool. Successful community design includes:
- Creating multiple layers of engagement (from casual observers to core contributors)
- Developing clear pathways for involvement and contribution
- Building recognition systems that acknowledge developer contributions
- Facilitating peer-to-peer learning and collaboration
- Maintaining a balance between exclusivity and accessibility
Conclusion: Product-Culture-Market Fit
In conclusion, product-market fit is not enough - think product-culture-market-fit. Technical excellence is not any less important. Rather, we're recognizing that in today's landscape, technical excellence alone isn't enough. The most successful projects will be those that can create a perfect triangle of product, culture, and market fit.
The projects that understand this will have the best chance of success in an increasingly competitive landscape. Developers aren't just choosing tools anymore - we’re choosing movements to be part of, we are the consumer.
Always fun to collaborate with the amazing @solana_devs team. Fireblocks Flow + Subscription is a powerful tool for PSPs looking to expand the way in which they accept funds.
Settlement layers are interesting. How AI agent payment protocols rely on them, even more so.
Here's a deep(ish) dive on the topic: https://t.co/jtmTHJpnBF
🪙 @WesternUnion selects the @FireblocksHQ platform to power USDPT, its first stablecoin.
Fireblocks for treasury and settlement.
@dynamic_xyz for embedded wallets.
@TresDotFinance for financial operations.
🌎 Rolling out in the Philippines and Bolivia. Global through 2026.
A Dynamic account and our docs MCP is all you need to add wallets to your app.
Add the MCP to your editor, tell your agent what to build, and ship.
Works with any provider that supports MCP, including Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor.
Cannes cooked this weekend.
@ETHGlobal Cannes brought incredible builders, and we're proud to highlight the projects using @dynamic_xyz that show us where crypto is heading.
Here are our winners and honourable mentions 🧵👇
Prediction markets, built on Dynamic.
@Polymarket is the protocol. The frontend is up to you.
With @dynamic_xyz's embedded wallets and Polymarket, you can build any prediction market experience and plug it into your app.
Let your users trade everything.
We just published the Agentic Finance & Stablecoin Report. Really proud of this one.
At our last Demo Day, one of our engineers built an AI agent that makes real USDC payments through x402 on @dynamic_xyz and @FireblocksHQ. No checkout flow, no humans in the loop. The agent moved money, which means it needed a wallet, spending limits, and policy enforcement. Same infra we built for human users.
If crypto is the electric grid, wallets are the outlets. That's true for humans today, and it'll be true for agents tomorrow.
Huge thank you to @handotdev at @mintlify, @ScottWu46 at @cognition, @nemild at @ycombinator, @ivanhodl at @moonpay, @TalZackon at @TresDotFinance, @ethanyish at @AlliumLabs, and many more contributors who made this possible.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
The agentic finance convo moves fast and the FOMO is real.
Today, we're launching our Agentic Finance & Stablecoins Report to help teams make the right infrastructure decisions now, while the window is open.
The good news: most agentic activity is still experimental. The teams we work with are shipping for real users today while preparing to support agents as they come.
The report maps:
- The payment protocols powering agent-to-agent commerce
- The consumer and institutional frontiers where agents are already showing up
- The infrastructure stack for teams building agentic applications today
Reply AGENTIC for the free report in your DMs.
YCombinator announced they're funding startups in stablecoins ($500K).
Getting to Demo Day with traction means two things: ship a working product fast, then iterating every week to show growth.
Dynamic is backing @ycombinator builders with credits to ship faster.
What you can build:
- Secure onboarding
- Embedded wallets that scale from one user to millions
- New onchain products weekly, from stablecoin cards, yield, and more, without rebuilding core infra
We help companies like @papaya_global pay workers in 180+ countries. With the same infra, you can build the next billion dollar stablecoin company.
Building this batch? Email [email protected].
Dynamic embedded wallets now power global payroll at scale.
@Papaya_Global's Banco Wallet will use Dynamic for account issuance across 180+ countries.
- Instant onboarding
- Fiat and stablecoin settlement
- Built for distributed workforces paid in seconds, not days
The new trading stack has two components.
1. Your existing custodial wallet (like @FireblocksHQ) for core assets.
2. Non-custodial embedded wallets (like @dynamic_xyz) that unlock DeFi.
Number 2 is key. It lets users access perps, prediction markets, and yield without leaving your app.
Crypto complexity stays completely invisible and you can easily integrate in a weekend.
If you're thinking about your exchange roadmap and want to chat, feel free to reach out.
AGI might be around the corner, but until then, learning is still cool.
Join me on February 10th at 1PM EST in a live workshop on all things @sentry and @nextjs. We'll go over instrumentation, best practices in observability and debugging, and of course, AI.
Link to signup: https://t.co/CgvNu7TMKX
Noble is building the enterprise-grade infra for stablecoin issuance for legacy financial and payments systems.
As more apps launch on @noble_xyz, one thing matters most:
users need to get onboarded and transact without friction.
To make that possible, Noble standardized secure and fast wallet onboarding across its ecosystem with @dynamic_xyz.
Builders get embedded wallets, social login, and multichain support out of the box.
The result: faster launches and cohesive experience from day one.
Introducing Audit & Event Logs.
Gain full visibility into every action taken across your organization, from developer changes to configuration updates, with a unified audit stream that builds trust.
Now available in your dashboard!
The @noble_xyz claim portal is open until Dec 31!
Designed by Noble, this experience shows how Dynamic powers white-labeled, cross-chain airdrop flows — connecting Cosmos to EVM without friction.
We're proud to power wallet infra on Noble 🙌