Latest Articles

Insights, research and perspective on Web3, blockchain and the culture, technology and capital shaping the industry, from the team behind campaigns for some of the world's most recognised brands, IP and ecosystems.

Analysis

Token Buybacks: Why Crypto's Billion-Dollar Habit Rarely Moves Price

Token buybacks became crypto's version of investor relations, with over $1.4 billion spent in 2025 and a record pace in 2026. What a token buyback is, why Hyperliquid's works, and why most barely move the price.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

MiCA License: How Europe's Crypto Rules Became a Growth Strategy

Since 1 July 2026 a MiCA license is the only legal way to serve crypto customers across the EU. With 349 firms licensed and Binance locked out, compliance has become the biggest distribution event in European crypto.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Embedded Wallets: How Crypto Finally Fixed Its Signup Problem

Embedded wallets let people sign up to a crypto app with an email or a passkey instead of a seed phrase. Stripe bought the leading provider, tens of millions of accounts use them, and most teams still haven't switched.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto Sports Sponsorships: What the $700 Million Signs Really Buy

Crypto sports sponsorships have bought arenas, Formula 1 cars and Super Bowl slots, with results ranging from a legendary QR code to a bankrupt name on a stadium. Five years of receipts show what the money actually buys.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Institutional Crypto Adoption: The Next Whale Has a Compliance Team

Institutional crypto adoption is no longer a forecast, with tokenized assets past $34 billion and 73% of surveyed institutions planning to buy more. The new whale is a committee, and most crypto marketing can't reach it.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Generative Engine Optimization for Crypto: How to Get Named by AI

Generative engine optimization decides which crypto products ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI name when a newcomer asks where to start. Coinbase and Kraken already hold 22% of those citations, and the specific

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Generative Engine Optimization for Crypto: How to Get Named by AI

Generative engine optimization decides which crypto products ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI name when a newcomer asks where to start. Coinbase and Kraken already hold 22% of those citations, and the specific questions are still open.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

The Best Blockchain to Build On Is the One With Users

The best blockchain to build on is no longer the fastest one, because over a hundred networks are fast and cheap. The chains that matter now sell audiences, from Robinhood's 28 million customers to World's 38 million app users.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Web3 Developer Marketing: Why the Most Valuable User Writes Code

Web3 developer marketing competes for a pool of roughly 23,600 monthly active crypto developers, and that pool is shrinking. Who they are, where they live, and how to run developer acquisition like a real funnel.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Celebrity Meme Coins: Why Fame Has Never Built a Price Floor

Celebrity meme coins are the cleanest test of whether fame creates lasting value. From the TRUMP coin's million losing wallets to Hawk Tuah and Argentina's LIBRA scandal, the answer has been the same every time.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Tap to Earn: The Biggest Crypto App Ever Was a Clicker Game

Tap to earn games like Hamster Kombat reached 300 million people on Telegram, then lost 260 million of them in three months. What the clicker boom proved about crypto onboarding, and what founders should build instead.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Kaito Yaps: What Happened When Attention Got a Ticker

Kaito yaps paid people to post about crypto projects, handed out over $95 million, drowned in bots and ended overnight in January 2026. How yaps worked, why X shut InfoFi down, and what it proved about paid attention.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

The Hyperliquid Airdrop: How a No-VC Launch Beat Every Ad Budget

The Hyperliquid airdrop gave 31% of the HYPE token to about 94,000 real users, with no VC round and no ad budget. How it worked, why recipients held on, and what founders can actually copy.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto Conferences 2026: The Booth Is the Worst Deal There

Crypto conferences in 2026 draw 25,000 people to Token2049 Singapore and more than 1,000 side events around it. Why the booth is the worst deal at the conference, and how to measure conference marketing ROI instead.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto KOL Pricing in 2026: What Crypto Influencers Really Charge

Crypto KOL pricing in 2026 runs from $50 for a small account's post to more than $200,000 for a top-tier thread, and published rate cards disagree by up to 16 times for the same tier. Here is what buyers get and how to price a deal properly.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

How to Choose a Crypto Marketing Agency Without Getting Burned

How to choose a crypto marketing agency when most of the advice is written by agencies. What they do, published pricing from $5,000 to $50,000 a month, the proof to demand and the promises that should end the call.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Prediction Markets Are Media Now. How Marketers Should Use Them

Prediction markets traded about $45 billion on Kalshi and Polymarket in August 2026, and their odds now reach fans through X, the Bloomberg Terminal and the NHL. How prediction markets work, and why the odds are free media.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto KOL Marketing: Why the Biggest Influencers Perform Worst

Crypto KOL marketing is the biggest line in most launch budgets, and the data on it is ugly. Tokens promoted by accounts with over 200,000 followers fell 39% within a week, while small niche accounts did best.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

OKX Valuation Holds at $25B: Who Invested and What They Bought

The OKX valuation stayed at $25 billion in a round reported on 6 October 2026, with Standard Chartered and Circle joining the NYSE's owner as investors. Who is on the list, what each one gets, and what it means for crypto teams.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Pump.fun: What 18 Million Token Launches Teach About Launching

Pump.fun has hosted 18.67 million token launches, the biggest launch experiment ever run. Two-thirds of those tokens died on launch day and about 1% graduated, and the survivors share one unglamorous trait.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Vampire Attack in Crypto: What Works and What Doesn't

A vampire attack in crypto uses a rival's public onchain customer list to lure its users away with rewards. SushiSwap, Blur and LooksRare all tried it, and the data shows why the users rarely stayed.

Ankhlabs Reasearch·
Analysis

Did the CLARITY Act Pass? Why It Failed and What Happens Next

The CLARITY Act failed a 49 to 50 Senate vote on 15 September 2026, 11 votes short. What the crypto market structure bill was, why it failed, what has happened since, and what it means if you own crypto.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Tether (USDT): How a $1 Token Became Crypto's Most Profitable Company

Tether (USDT) made more profit in 2025 than Coinbase made in revenue, and USDT holds about 60% of all stablecoin supply. How Tether makes money, why USDT beats USDC, and why nobody has knocked it off the top.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto User Retention: You Bought the Wallets, Now Reach Them

Crypto user retention fails for a simple reason, which is that most protocols have no way to contact the wallets they paid to acquire. The numbers behind the problem, and the channels that bring users back.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Why Play to Earn Failed: The Game That Paid Wages

Play to earn made Axie Infinity $1.3 billion in a year, then lost about 90% of its players when the rewards dried up. Why play to earn failed, and what it proves about paying users to stay.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

AI Crypto Influencers: What aixbt and Truth Terminal Proved

AI crypto influencers like aixbt gathered 300,000 followers and moved token prices within minutes. Then AI agent tokens fell from about $16 billion to under $4 billion. What survived shows what trust is actually made of.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Web3 Lead Generation: The Reply Guy Doesn't Scale, the System Does

Web3 lead generation built on one hungry person working the DMs caps out fast, and cold outreach averages about a 3% reply rate. How crypto teams build an outbound system that reaches funded projects at the right moment.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto Marketing Strategy: Stop Selling to the Same Ten Million People

About 741 million people own crypto, yet most crypto marketing strategy is aimed at one crowded room of insiders. How to market a crypto project to the people crypto Twitter never reaches, through mainstream ads, Reddit and AI search.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

AI Marketing Agents Got Cheap. Now Aim Them at Real Outcomes

AI marketing agents can now post, reply, research and report around the clock for almost nothing, so most teams point them at volume. How to aim AI marketing agents at buyers, wallets and booked calls instead.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Crypto Clipping Campaigns Beat Content Teams If You Pay for Results

Crypto clipping campaigns turn a crowd of independent creators into a distribution engine at $1 to $5 per thousand views. How clipping works, why views mislead, and how to pay for wallets instead.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Founder-Led Marketing: Why Your Founder's Account Is the Channel

Founder-led marketing is the highest-trust channel a web3 company owns, and most founders' accounts have gone quiet. Why trust moved to people, and how to run the founder's account as a system with targets.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Liquidity Mining Buys Launch TVL. Here's How to Keep It

Liquidity mining can fill a new protocol with billions in deposits, then watch most of it leave when rewards stop. How liquidity mining works, why the capital leaves, and how to build liquidity that stays.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Stablecoin Adoption: Crypto's Biggest 2026 Story Is Boring on Purpose

Stablecoin adoption is the biggest crypto story of 2026, with supply above $300 billion and $390 billion in real payments last year. Why "it works" now beats "it might moon" when you market a web3 product.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

AI Shopping Agents: Your Next Customer Might Be a Bot

AI shopping agents now read, compare and increasingly buy on behalf of people, and AI-referred shoppers convert 42% better than everyone else. How these agents work, what they reward and where web3 products have a head start.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Airdrop Marketing Strategy: Create the Value, Then Capture It

Between 78% and 94% of airdrop recipients sell most of their tokens within 90 days. An airdrop marketing strategy that plans the capture step from the start, using onchain targeting and performance-priced distribution.

AnkhLabs Research·
Analysis

Token Launch Strategy in 2026: The Launch Isn't the Plan Anymore

A token launch strategy built around launch day stopped working, and 93% of large tokens launched since 2024 now trade below their launch price. What replaced the hype playbook, and where founders should spend instead.

AnkhLabs Research·