Guest: Ryan Connor, Head of Research at Blockworks
Moderator: Jack Kubinec
Podcast source: Lightspeed
The Solana Token Launchpad Coming for Venture Capital | Ryan Connor
Air Date: May 16, 2025
Summary of key points
We invited Ryan Connor to discuss the launch of the Believe app. The discussion covered a number of hot topics, including: whether Believe can become a new venture capital model, the memeization of the capital market, how to find the best fit between product and market (PMF), and the problem of grabbing orders on the Pump platform.
Summary of highlights
The norm in the tech industry is to get ahead of regulations. The key is to get ahead and let the regulatory system adapt to you. If you wait, the opportunity may be taken away by others.
Believe issues units of value that are actually scarce, such as cash flow, which is a scarce resource.
Believe is not a social app, it is more like a financial app, it does not need daily active users like social apps.
Consumer crypto is a very concrete and highly financialized reality. It is here, and will only get more exciting as regulation becomes clearer.
Pump is very successful and I am a big fan of it, but not everyone is willing to participate in that fierce competition model. There is a part of the market that is looking for a platform with a more filtered experience. If Believe can combine the innovative ability of independent developers with the user demand for a high-quality experience, it may become a very promising platform.
Believe helps independent app developers issue their tokens, which are usually launched together with their independent app projects. There is a latent demand on the supply side, hoping to realize some equity profits or raise small amounts of capital; while there is obviously a strong demand on the demand side to get venture capital-like returns in these small projects.
The key is whether the idea can succeed, and Memecoin is a very fast and instant way to form capital. Founders can vibe code an application or come up with an idea, and Memecoin can price the idea faster.
Whether it is appropriate to issue a token is a case-by-case decision. If you decide to issue a token, you need to understand how to manage community expectations and develop a long-term strategy to create continued value for the token.
A qualified issuance platform needs to be able to issue value units, support transactions, and provide price charts and grid views for evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of different tokens. However, Zora removed these features, which led to a mismatch between Zoras functional design and the actual needs of a token issuance platform, so its product logic could not stand.
We are currently at a stage where regulation is not fully clear. This puts token issuers in an awkward position - they need to remain compliant, but also know that issuing tokens is good for the product, users, and token holders; they want to give tokens more functionality, but are restricted.
Pump is an interesting chicken game that has found a good product-market fit (PMF), and people will continue to play this game. Believe attracts a group of people who are more willing to participate in growth hacker-style startup investment, such as investing in tokens with ultra-small market capitalization but real futures.
Believe that projects on the planning level may indeed dry up. Bad market timing, insufficient users, or insufficient capital and creativity may lead to a decrease in projects.
All of these apps have their own issues from a developer’s perspective, but at the end of the day it’s the core functionality that really matters. For Pump.fun, that core functionality is enabling users to play the game.
Novelty is not the key to success. Pump.fun did not create anything new, but simply packaged the strong demand for arbitrary asset issuance and trading in the crypto space over the past decade into an easy-to-use product, reducing the users usage threshold, and achieved success.
This is true of all consumer apps; they don’t create demand, but rather optimize how existing demand is fulfilled.
Solana’s latest project incubation platform
Jack:
We want to talk about the Believe app that has been very popular recently. This is a new Solana app, which is a new Memecoin launch platform that provides a pseudo-equity model for startups.
I tweeted this morning that of the 25 new tokens launched on Solana this week, 14 were issued through the Believe platform, while Pump.fun only accounted for 7. If you compare Memecoin trading over the past year, this is obviously a big change. According to the community-developed tracking tool Believe Screener, the Believe platform has had $724 million in 24-hour trading volume over the past few months.
This is undoubtedly a huge success for the platforms founder Ben Pasternak, who previously founded an alternative food startup with a very creative imitation chicken nugget product called Nuggs. Now, he has launched the Believe platform.
Ryan, I think you might like Believe more than I do, so lets start with a simple question. Believe is a Memecoin launchpad, and there are many of them out there. Whats so special about this one?
Ryan:
This is a good question, and I often remind myself not to jump to the conclusion that a startup project will fail. More importantly, we need to distinguish between bad ideas that are doomed to fail and those that have the potential to succeed if executed properly.
I firmly believe that Believe falls into the latter category, and I think this project can succeed.
It is different from other Memecoin launch platforms for two main reasons. First, its market strategy is very clear, targeting independent application developers and growth hackers. These people usually have a hard time monetizing their projects historically. Believe provides them with a new way to monetize by issuing tokens, which is a very attractive innovation for developers.
The second reason is that it has an additional screening layer. Many past launch platforms lacked screening for project quality, resulting in poor user experience. Believe’s screening layer is designed to meet the needs of users who want to participate in high-quality projects.
Pump has been very successful, and I think it will continue to be very successful. Im a big fan, but not everyone wants to participate in that fierce competition model, and there is a part of the market that is looking for a platform with a more filtered experience. If Believe can combine the innovative ability of independent developers with the user demand for a high-quality experience, it may become a very promising platform.
A new model for venture capital?
Jack:
To put it simply, the way Believe works is that anyone can issue a token through it. You simply tag a token when you launch it, enter the name and code of the token. The Believe team will screen all the tokens launched and only display those related to interesting startups or application ideas.
I think the complexity here is that its kind of like equity investing, but not equity in the traditional sense where you invest in a company. Im curious why a project like this should be funded with Memecoin? It doesnt seem like a good match to me.
Ryan:
What’s interesting here is that a lot of independent developers don’t have access to traditional venture capital, and venture capital isn’t very interested in this group. So the appeal of this project is that Believe can help these independent app developers issue their tokens, and these developers usually launch these tokens together with their independent app projects.
So, what is an independent app developer? They usually dont work for a big company, or have their own side projects, and they launch a few apps every year to earn income, and they may even get high returns. Take Steam as an example. Their data shows that most independent app developers earn less than a thousand dollars. Only the top 10% of high earners earn between $150,000 and $180,000 per app, while the top 1% of earners can reach $7 million. Therefore, from the perspective of independent developers, there are very few projects that can receive venture capital. Therefore, they usually do not raise funds or conduct large-scale marketing, but use precise marketing to make their apps popular.
I think this business model is acceptable. If you can create an app that generates hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in revenue per year, while it may not be the next Facebook, it is a very good result. You probably cant monetize it through equity value. If you look hard, you will find the future potential of this platform. This is a market segment that is ignored by the capital market. There is a latent demand on the supply side, hoping to realize some equity profitability or raise small amounts of capital; and there is obviously a strong demand on the demand side to get venture capital-like returns on these small projects. This demand is obvious in both trading and crypto markets during COVID. So there is a clear demand on both the supply and demand sides, which makes me very excited.
Jack:
I actually have a lot of concerns about Believe, but I still want to give these projects a chance. Because its much easier to be skeptical about everything, and youll be right most of the time. But I ask, whats the fun in that?
My understanding of this is that this is a model of capital formation in the days of vibe coding. In the past, you had an idea, might raise money for it, spend a few months coding, create a usable app, and then bring it to market. It was harder to interact with users and understand what they actually wanted, so there was a lot of friction in actually creating apps. Now, if tools like Cursor get better, you can create a new app in minutes, so the actual human capital, like the ability to create things, is no longer as important.
Now, it’s all about whether the idea is successful, and Memecoin is a very fast, instant way to form capital. Founders can “vibe code” an app or come up with an idea, launch a token based on it on Believe, and see if it resonates with the market. If the token trades well, then I build the app and launch it to the market and see how it works. If the idea token doesn’t trade well, then you know maybe you should turn your attention elsewhere. So I think in this case, “vibe coding” becomes faster, and Memecoin can also price ideas faster.
I would also like to add that Memecoin traders tend to behave in very crazy ways and their demands may be too much for founders to handle and may not be worth the effort in the end. For example, there was a strange incident last week where Jeffy Yu faked his own death, seemingly to get out of the situation he was in. My guess is that once you accept funding from Memecoin investors, they may make many excessive demands, and these people may not be your ideal investors. So I cant help but wonder, although this approach is interesting, is it worth the high cost?
Ryan:
Indeed, issuing tokens brings many complex issues. We have seen in some advanced projects that founders not only need to manage business, sales, development teams and marketing, but also need to manage a community. And the members of this community may not be the mature or patient investor group you ideally want.
In addition, issuing tokens may also bring some negative signals. For example, in the traditional stock market, if a companys stock price falls, people usually think that this is a negative market evaluation of the companys prospects. But in the field of cryptocurrency, this is not necessarily the case. Unpredictable price fluctuations often occur here, such as drastic changes caused by high leverage operations. Therefore, issuing tokens may add a lot of additional pressure and burden to founders.
I think whether it is appropriate to issue a token is a case-by-case decision. If you decide to issue a token, you need to be clear about how to manage community expectations and develop a long-term strategy to continue to create value for the token.
There are some confusing things at the moment, such as the lack of documentation on the Believe platform, which is clearly in a very early stage, having only been online for a few months, and the latest version has only been running for a few days or weeks. So, how will this platform develop in the future? For example, will there be a unified standard for token distribution? Will vesting be standardized? I noticed that the team has discussed these issues publicly on the X platform and said that they are pushing for these standardization measures, which shows that they are on the right track.
It is worth mentioning that the Believe team provides some best practice guidance and expectation management for token issuers, which is unique in the current market. They have obviously done a very deep study on this issue. Remember, Believes main customers are practitioners from the traditional Web2 field, who are not familiar with cryptocurrencies. Therefore, Believe needs to help these customers adapt through guidance and education. I see some signs that they are taking this task seriously.
Meme-ization of the capital market
Jack:
JellyJelly skyrocketed overnight, but then quickly fell back. This morning I saw that it was still well below its previous high, but in recent days, with the popularity of the Believe app, its price has rebounded. Part of the reason may be that the market has given it too high expectations, but in fact, its liquidity is very poor and almost no one is willing to trade it. So I wonder, when doing Memecoin, is any publicity good publicity? Or is this approach likely to have a negative impact on the performance of his video app after it goes public?
Ryan:
I dont know much about the specific situation of JellyJelly. But I think that the close connection between the current crypto capital market and the Memecoin market does bring some problems. The Memecoin market is often full of chicken games (a concept in game theory), market manipulation, and irrational behavior of retail investors. Therefore, some strange phenomena will appear in the market. For example, when certain tokens are listed on centralized exchanges (CEX), the price will fluctuate extremely. Just like when Bonk was listed on Coinbase, the price soared to 50 cents at one point. Although it is not so outrageous, this kind of crazy price fluctuation is indeed common because many investors always buy first and then learn the details.
However, the market is gradually normalizing. There are fewer extreme cases like Jelly, fewer Layer 1 (L1) tokens trading at high premiums, and fewer cases where Layer 2 (L2) projects can get billion-dollar valuations by simply launching. While the market is unlikely to completely normalize in the short term, it is definitely moving in the right direction. Although there will be a lot of topics for people to discuss or complain about on platform X in the process, overall the market is gradually normalizing, which is a good thing.
Is the Zora model realistic?
Jack:
Ryan, I have a question for you. You were on the podcast a while ago and you made some criticisms of the Zora model. Your point was that the value of content itself is going to zero, so it doesnt make sense to issue tokens on Zora. It stands to reason that the value of most startups or ideas is also going to zero. So why are you bullish on Believe but pessimistic on Zora?
Ryan:
My pessimism about Zora stems mainly from the nature of the content. Content is highly abundant and non-scarce, so the value should not belong to the content creators, but to the aggregators because they are responsible for curating and integrating the content.
More importantly, Zora is essentially a token launchpad. But in order to cater to some user groups in the Ethereum community, who are often concerned about the confrontation between big companies and small companies and the monetization of creators, Zora removed the key functions of a token launchpad. A qualified issuance platform needs to be able to issue value units, support transactions, and provide price charts and grid views for evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of different tokens. However, Zora removed these features and instead emphasized some visual features that, although they look beautiful, are of no help in evaluating financial returns. This led to a mismatch between Zoras functional design and the actual needs of a token issuance platform, so its product logic could not stand.
Believe is completely different. It issues units of value that are actually scarce, such as cash flow, which is a scarce resource. Looking ahead, we can imagine it launching some kind of revenue sharing mechanism or rights for token holders. On top of that, the Believe app provides price charts and other tools that allow users to evaluate the financial characteristics of the token. It is a true token issuance platform with the necessary functions to trade and evaluate potential financial outcomes. Therefore, Believe is fundamentally different from Zora.
Believe is very different because its actually a scarce unit of value. The cash flow is scarce. If you look into the future, you can imagine some kind of revenue sharing or rights relationship with token holders. And on top of that, I can look at a price chart on the Believe app and assess the relative financial characteristics of the tokens in the app. So Believe is an issuance platform that has the functionality needed to trade and assess potential financial outcomes, and thats what differentiates it from Zora.
Zora can always fix these issues if they want. They can just be honest and admit that they are a token issuance platform without pretending to be a social media tool or creator monetization platform. They are fully capable of doing this, but so far I have not seen them take action.
Opportunities and challenges of regulatory arbitrage
Jack:
I would like to add that Memecoin is actually a big opportunity. For example, when I visited the Pump website, I didnt like the content and most of the Memecoins looked ridiculous. But in the Believe app, all the tokens are curated and make more sense. After clicking on the tokens, you will find some interesting startup projects. One project I saw was an AI agent that can access your social media history, which made me wonder why Grok cant do this. Maybe its because of privacy issues, but I always wanted Grok to give suggestions based on my tweets, but it cant do it.
However, I also want to speak up for the users of the crypto community: Is this model somewhat unethical?
From a high level perspective, the founders launched Memecoin and attracted investors to invest in these tokens, but the investors did not get actual equity rights. We all know that the value of Memecoin will eventually go to zero, and the key is the timing of entry and exit. Although Believe provides an anti-sniping mechanism, I am not sure how effective it is, and insiders may still find a way to trade. I checked Believes creator documents, which mentioned that if the founders do not promise returns, ownership or financial rights, and the tokens are obviously just for fun, then there may be a legal safety zone. This does avoid legal risks, but it also feels like encouraging ordinary investors to participate without giving them actual rights, and the founders may benefit greatly from it.
Ryan:
I think it depends on the specific situation. If the capital market is free and open, and someone issues an arbitrary unit of value, I believe the market will price it reasonably.
But we are currently at a stage where regulation is not fully clear. Although we can see a trend towards clear regulation, it has not yet been truly implemented. Although legislators and regulators have sent signals, we do not yet have a clear legal framework. This puts token issuers in an awkward position - they need to remain compliant, but also know that issuing tokens is good for the product, users, and token holders. They want to give tokens more functions, but they are restricted.
So what should they do? Wait for the day when the regulations are clear? But the norm in the tech industry is to get ahead of the regulations. Think about it, if Uber or Airbnb had fully complied with the rules at the beginning, these companies might not exist at all. The key is to get ahead and let the regulatory system adapt to you. If you wait, the opportunity may be taken away by others. For example, if Believe does not seize this opportunity to become a token issuance platform for developers, it may be replaced by others.
Of course, app developers who choose to wait may also fall behind. So I think its very case-dependent. Obviously, each case needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis because there will be people who try to take advantage of this open market and do some fraudulent things. But Im excited about the curation tools that Believe provides and the regulatory clarity thats not too far away. Im willing to give most issuers some credit.
Jack:
But the risk of doing so seems to be passed on to users. The founders could perhaps add some promises, such as providing access to future equity to those who hold Memecoin. For example, Trumps Memecoin provides some securities-like functions, such as providing dinner opportunities for the first 220 holders. But it seems that Trump himself may not face legal problems for this. So, Believe may be fine, but you still pass the legal risk on to users. They hold these tokens without any actual rights or benefits, but they seem to accept this. Even if, like Zora, it is repeatedly emphasized that the token will not have value, there are still people willing to trade it.
Ryan:
If you visit Trumps token website, you will find that they clearly state that these tokens are purely collectibles. Many token issuers circumvent legal issues by providing some kind of threshold access, such as designing it as a membership card rather than a security. As long as the token does not involve rights to future cash flows, there is still room for legal defense.
But at the end of the day, I would not put the blame on the founders and the platforms. The problem is that we have lacked a clear legal framework over the past few years. In fact, regulatory clarity should have been achieved eight years ago, but it has not happened.
Jack:
When I was browsing on Believe, I noticed that it has two tabs: New Projects and Featured Projects. As you mentioned, Believes curation of Memecoin does have an advantage over Pump, which improves the user experience. But if thats the case, your core users may quickly run out of tokens to invest. And while the vibe coding era allowed for the rapid creation of many mini-apps or projects, it still doesnt match Pumps simple model of upload a JPEG and issue a token. This model once drove Pumps rapid development.
Is there a limit to Believe? For example, will users decide after three days that there are no more interesting ideas to invest in and return to Pump?
Ryan:
I dont think so. For early users, each platform will have its own position. Pump is obviously an interesting chicken game and has found a good product market fit (PMF), and people will continue to play this game. Believe attracts a group of people who are more willing to participate in growth hacking (Growth hacking refers to a strategy or model that quickly promotes the growth of startups through innovation, low cost and high efficiency. This method usually focuses on user growth, market expansion and product optimization, and emphasizes the use of data-driven decisions and non-traditional marketing methods to achieve rapid breakthroughs.) Startup project investment, such as investing in tokens with ultra-small market capitalization but real future. Of course, there will be some overlap between the two markets, because many crypto users are aiming for 10x or even 1000x returns.
I think these market caps should stay low. For example, a $20 million market cap is a very good result for a reasonably valued project. This is an ideal state. Some of the tokens we are currently seeing have market caps of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, which are obviously too high for the niche market that Believe is targeting. Therefore, any downward adjustment in the current market cap of Believes token, I think, is healthy because it is more in line with financial reality.
As for whether the projects on Believes curation layer will dry up, I think it is possible. For example, bad market timing, not enough users, or insufficient capital and creativity may lead to a decrease in projects. I would not be surprised if Believes popularity declines due to insufficient users, capital or creativity. But I welcome any market adjustments to the current market value of Believes tokens, because they are indeed a bit over the actual level. The market value of these tokens should be closer to the level of small startups, rather than reaching higher valuations at every turn.
Has the Believe app found product-market fit?
Jack:
I think most social media apps have this concept of infinite scroll, algorithms that keep pushing content to users and it seems like theres no end. But Believe has an end, and I wonder if this will be like Zora, something we talk about a week later and forget about.
Ryan:
Believe is not a social app, it is more of a financial app. Therefore, it does not need daily active users like social apps. I think the ideal situation is that users are active once a week or once a month, not every day. If you are not targeting daily users, you don’t need a design like “infinite scroll”. This is also why many financial apps don’t have this feature, because users are not expected to invest every day. In these very niche markets, it doesn’t make sense to do so.
Analysis of the panic buying problem of Pump.fun
Jack:
I don’t know exactly how it works, but I heard that Believe has partnered with Meteora to introduce a bonding curve with an anti-bot mechanism. In simple terms, transactions will be charged higher fees before the token reaches a certain market value, and when the market value exceeds this threshold, the fees will be reduced.
This design is in response to a core problem of Pump.fun: the vast majority of tokens are snapped up immediately after release, even within the same block. If you are just an ordinary user looking for a 1000x return by browsing Memecoin, you may have missed the token as soon as it is released. If you can prevent large-scale snapping up by raising the cost, it would be a good improvement. However, it seems that no one is really discussing this issue. Do you think users really care?
Ryan:
I feel like in these ultra-low market cap situations, users dont really care. As a user, and having observed a lot of Memecoin user behavior, my feeling is that the amount invested is generally small. Its more like a sports betting behavior, especially on Pump.fun, where users are looking for high returns similar to multiple bets. Therefore, paying additional fees is not important to them. People who play this game are usually prepared to lose these funds. So, this fee has little impact on their decision-making. But the mechanism itself is still quite interesting. I think on Believe, there is indeed a need for a stronger anti-buy mechanism because these tokens may involve future equity attributes, and being bought up may cause large price fluctuations, which is not good for the health of the market. On Pump.fun, the buying behavior does not seem to have such a big negative impact, and it can even be said that it still works in this mode.
Jack:
I think sniping will still happen, even if the fees are slightly higher. If some Silicon Valley growth hacker launches a token, someone could easily set up a script to buy it the instant the token is released. This will likely continue to happen. While this mechanism may make sniping less random than Pump.fun, it is still feasible in the case of Memecoins release. If you know that the creator you sniped is likely to be featured on the Believe platform and receive higher attention and market performance, then sniping can still be profitable even if you pay a higher fee. So Im not sure this mechanism will really eliminate sniping. Of course, as you mentioned, this mechanism may be necessary, but ultimately it is more about increasing the heat of discussion on social media and not necessarily significantly changing user behavior. A lot of tokens do get sniped or traded inside, which makes me personally disappointed in the use of these tokens. But the goal of the market is always to find the next 1,000x return opportunity before someone else.
Ryan:
From a developer’s perspective, all of these apps have their issues, even the ones that perform well, such as bugs, unethical behavior, and account abuse. But at the end of the day, it’s the core functionality that really matters. For Pump.fun, that core functionality is enabling users to play the game because it’s fun and potentially financially rewarding. I’m sure the developers will try to address these issues and find mitigations over time. It will be a cat and mouse game, but ultimately these issues won’t hinder Pump.fun’s success. Just like Mev (maximum extractable value) won’t hinder the success of blockchain or Nasdaq. These issues do exist, but the benefits are clearly greater in comparison.
Summary and Future Outlook
Jack:
I want to bring up one more point, Believe reminds me of Kickstarter. While it seemed novel when we were discussing Believe, its more like a combination of Kickstarter and Memecoin. The idea is to provide crowdfunding support to people who dont have access to venture capital or other fundraising channels. This model already existed in Web2, but its strange that it hasnt really made its way to Web3. And going back to the securities law issues we discussed earlier, Kickstarter usually promises backers some rewards, such as T-shirts or funded board games, and they seem to be doing well.
What is the fundamental difference between Kickstarter and Believe? If Kickstarter can operate legally under securities laws, why cant Believe?
Ryan:
I dont know much about Kickstarters specific model, but Im guessing that it probably has some KYC (identity verification) or screening process for authenticating investors. Also, I think there may be an exemption in the law that if the amount raised is low enough and the number of investors is limited, you dont need to follow the normal securities law process. Im not a legal expert, though, and this is just my guess, but these are probably the main differences between it and Believe.
As for novelty, I dont think it matters. For example, Facebook, its name originally came from the universitys Facebook roster; Snapchats Stories feature was later copied by Instagram and renamed Reels, which eventually became successful. So, novelty is not the key to success or failure. Pump.fun is a good example. It did not create anything new, but simply observed the strong demand for arbitrary asset issuance and trading in the crypto field in the past decade and packaged these needs into an easy-to-use product. They just reduced the users usage threshold and succeeded. Many consumer applications are like this. They do not create demand, but optimize the way to achieve existing demand. So, although Believe is not novel, it is entirely possible to stand out through some optimization in details.
Jack:
Has the Believe craze over the past few days changed your perspective on the consumer crypto space? Can you summarize what this means for the space?
Ryan:
I think consumer crypto is a very specific and highly financialized reality. I don’t think of it as a decentralized Instagram or Twitter, but more like some fun consumer apps that are adjacent to gambling and have unique innovation capabilities. Pump.fun is a classic example, it has generated cumulative revenue of $700 million since its launch. More and more founders are focusing on this highly financialized experience. So consumer crypto is here, and as regulation becomes clearer, the prospects for this space will be even more exciting.
