Web3 has a retention crisis - less than 10% of users stay within dapps.

But why?

Insight from V from Proximity Labs (Near)

Ready to co-create before Devconnect?

Welcome to Oz city! 🌄

Oz City is a two-week pop-up village in Patagonia for 100 builders at the frontier of AI agents & decentralized systems.

It’s both a residency, co-working, bootcamp, hackathon, demo day with funders, and nature-fueled co-living by the lake. 🧠🏕

📅 Nov 1–16

Early-bird applications are live

Web3’s biggest bottleneck isn’t a lack of developers — it’s the absence of meaningful product-market fit and real user value.

The metrics show steady developer counts since 2022, but the ecosystem remains dominated by a handful of truly impactful dApps.

The problem?

Builders often replicate the same dozens of protocols across chains instead of creating genuinely new use cases or solving real user needs. Attracting developers ultimately depends on delivering actual utility, not just better tools or infrastructure.

Developers want clarity and opportunity: ecosystems that invest deeply and selectively in solving specific problems outperform those chasing broad grants or ephemeral hype.

Success hinges on a few key pillars:

💡 Clear value prop — e.g., Stellar’s roots in cross-border payments or concrete use cases like stablecoins
🌐 Community & users — real growth comes from engaged, sticky users, not just developer counts
🛠 Developer-first doesn’t mean just slick SDKs — it demands tangible end-user utility and integrated support (like audits and marketing)
🚫 Avoid “solutions in search of problems” — roll-ups or chains without clear purpose struggle to sustain development and users
🚀 Innovation beyond cloning AMMs or lending protocols — radical new financial instruments or truly user-friendly UX create fresh markets

The ecosystem must think beyond “developer experience” as shallow tooling and fund builders who solve actual problems. Yes, simplifying onboarding is critical, but no amount of polish makes up for a lack of real-world value.

So here’s the challenge for builders:
Are you building merely to attract developers or to empower real users? Because the next era of Web3 will be won not by the slickest SDK but by products that rewrite what utility means on-chain. How will you prove your product matters?

The future of Ethereum is in Based Rollups

Don't believe us?

Then listen to Alon Muroch, CEO @ SSV Labs

EPIC WEB3 IS COMING TO KBW AND TOKEN2049 THIS SEPTEMBER.

WE HAVE 3 EVENTS.

DON’T MISS THEM 👇

🚀 dApps & Mini-Apps Day - a full day of keynotes, panels, workshops, and networking on dapps and mini-apps.

Messenger-agnostic - covering Line, Kakao, Farcaster, and more!

📅 Seoul, September 22

🌎 Real-World Adoption Day - explore how Web3 is revolutionizing finance for institutions and enterprises.

Panels, showcases, and top networking with 350+ leaders and 20+ speakers.

📅 Singapore, September 30

🧠 Agents Day - the Agentic Web is not a far-off vision, it’s happening right now.

Agents Day is where AI meets crypto to enable autonomous systems without gatekeepers.

📅 Singapore, October 1

📜 Timeline: The fall of Story Protocol

💰Aug 2024 (before launch) – PIP Labs, the core dev, raises $80M Series B (a16z-led). Total funding later cited at $130M+.

🟢 Feb 13, 2025 – Story Protocol launches
A blockchain for registering IP and setting usage rules. IP token goes live.

🚨Aug 16–17, 2025 – Cofounder Jason Zhao steps back
• Leaves full-time role after 3.5 yrs → focuses on new AI venture Poseidon.
• Stays on as advisor; cofounder SY Lee becomes CEO.
• Price reaction: token ~$5.80, basically flat.

💭 The criticisms
1. On-chain activity? Just $26.6K lifetime fees; $23 in fees on Aug 17.
2. Tokenomics: ~50%+ in team/foundation hands, only ~30% circulating, big unlocks ahead.
3. Deal optics: Heritage Distilling announces $220M placement, incl. $82M buy at $3.40/token from Story Foundation → to be repurchased on open market in 90 days. Seen by some as liquidity stunt.

📊 Bottom line:
Big investments ≠ great product.

Ever wonder why so many tokens are losing their value after a day on the market?

Here’s an explanation from Mário Alves, Co-founder & CEO @ Garden

Ethereum is a net win for all.

From Robinhood’s choice of Arbitrum L2 to the growing momentum behind Ethereum, it’s clear – collaboration is key.

From Declan Fox, Director of Product Management @ Linea

A sleeping BTC whale just chose ETH, and the way they did it matters.

They used futures to get in fast, then closed them and kept buying spot. That reads like a position they want to hold.

At the same time, big buys showed up off-exchange through BitGo and Galaxy. Quiet fills, less slippage.

🧮 Result: BTC had a shaky weekend. ETH dipped, then bounced faster and even poked to new highs before cooling. That’s what real spot demand looks like; pullbacks don’t stick.

🪙 Presenting a new partner for dApps and Mini-Apps Day - @monetag

Monetag is a platform for monetization of desktop, mobile web and Telegram Mini App audiences, remnant ad inventory and social traffic!

😉 Catch them in Seoul!

📅 September 22, Seoul

🔗 RSVP here

dAGI Summit — October 24, San Francisco

The only event this fall where OSS founders and frontier AI researchers sit down together to discuss how open AI infrastructure will actually get built.

📍Oct 24, SF, Open Source AI Week

cyber•Fund / Delphi Ventures / OpenAI / Liquid AI / Amazon Web Services (AWS) / NVIDIA / Snowflake / Lightning AI / Ai2 / Cline / Letta / OpenMind / Prime Intellect / Pluralis Research / Nous Research & more!

⚡️ Only 30 early adopter tickets left, use code FRIENDSOFDAGI for 10% off.

🎟 Reserve Your Spot

⚡️Oz City has joined as a residency at Edge City Patagonia! ⚡️

Join our residency and network of founders who are building at intersection of AI and Web3.

👀Oz City participants get Edge City access at a special $945 rate:
• That's 50% off compared to standard Edge City tickets
• Covers Weeks 3 & 4 (November 1-16 — your Oz City dates)
• Full access to all Edge City infrastructure and programming

We are creating a Hub for AI Founders and Builders.

👉Apply now! https://luma.com/ozcity_patagonia

25,000 people attended Token2049.

There were countless discussions across different topics.

We compiled and analyzed Twitter sentiment to identify the 3 main narrative takeaways from the event.

🔥 RWAs, Perps & Prediction Markets lead the narrative

The top 3 themes dominating conversations this year are RWAs, Perpetuals and Prediction Markets.

Stablecoins also made plenty of noise — a possible sign of growing institutional adoption and bigger players entering the space.

👔 More serious people, less fluff

The vibe has changed. Token2049 isn’t just for degens anymore — it’s for builders and long-term investors. The crowd feels more professional, focused on real collaboration and sustainable growth.

🤖 AI Agents: the quiet builders

You might think the AI Agent hype is gone, but it’s just evolved.

The noise has cooled — now it’s about real products, not just buzzwords. Think of it like Layer 2s or modularity: the hype fades, but the innovation keeps building.

💡 Overall takeaway:
Token2049 feels more mature. Less hype, more substance. The next cycle might just be built by the people who stayed focused.

AdoptionCon 🛬 Argentina!

Introducing AdoptionCon: your go-to hub for diving into the next wave of the global mass adoption — from stablecoins and tokenization to dApps and PayFi.

Prepare for:

🟢 Two stages packed with high-impact talks
🟢 50 world-class speakers
🟢 1,000+ attendees
🟢 Local flavors and authentic Argentinian bites

📅 Nov 19, Devconnect

RSVP here 👇
https://luma.com/adoptcon25

Agents Day: new edition in Argentina 🇦🇷
​AI owned 2024–2025; now decentralized AI turns intelligence into an on-chain asset class.

Meet Agents Day (6th edition): verifiable agents meet decentralized compute and real DeFi/prediction-market liquidity — with playbooks, demos, and partners to build, fund, and scale.

​Who’s going to be there
​Agents Day brings together a builders, founders, and VCs from:

🤖 AI agents & marketplaces
🏗 Decentralized AI infrastructure (DePIN, compute, ZK)
⛓️ L1 & L2 protocols
💱 DeFi & trading apps
🛠 Developer tools
📱 dApps
👛 Wallets & custody

Event is free, but don’t forget to register:
https://luma.com/agentsday-argentina

Telegram = reverse adoption?

Telegram isn’t the adoption — it’s the distribution OS

Learn why that matters with Pavel Altukhov, Co-founder @TACbuild