Started moving liquidity back into non-gaming token plays. Yes, I've been publicly dicking around with gaming and NFTs for about two years, but pulling the plug on that now. I love gaming, but it's not a market you are going to make any returns on right now. I pushed hard there for a few years, thinking products and teams were more ready than they are, but have been mostly met with a string of disappointments, products that are not ready, and straight-out scammy lying founders who fuck their community come TGE. I will follow along with some of my already-made investments (I still hope we see a breakout in gaming), but my focus is going to be on investing in narratives where you can make money now. So with that out of the way... What I am excited about now is that the market has started valuing protocols generating revenue. Utility is back in vogue, baby. Interesting to see the CZ dynamic play out with Aster and I am placing bets on where future liquidity will go. The entire space is honing in on the @Aster_DEX vs @HyperliquidX battle and betting on the CZ ego trade. I think it's a good bet. We know CZ wants to take on Hyperliquid, which poses an existential threat to CEX, and specifically Binance's long-term dominance. So it reasons he's going to open up that liquidity wallet to make this happen. Instead of chasing the alpha trade, I'm looking at some other undervalued defi products that will also benefit as liquidity begins to flow into the wider defi landscape. My thoughts are that attention is on anything backed by CZ and @yzilabs with a strong DeFi tie will get bid hard. Seems logical that some of the less well-known @yzilabs defi protocols that have not had a direct CZ shill (yet) are going to catch some buys. It's risky to make your trade based on one single individual's actions, but let's be frank: CZ is a force of nature in the crypto space, and the man has an ego the size of Alaska. Anyone who's been around over the 2021-2023 CZ vs Sam saga with FTX can see exactly what CZ will do to win. It's not unreasonable to bet he will pull the same sort of energy into (trying to) defeat Hyperliquid. In light of that thesis, and the expected liquidity pump the BSC eco stands to gain, I plowed down two new bets (low six figures) into several other @yzilabs backed projects that will catch some of that liquidity. 1) THENA ($THE) @ThenaFi_ which is another DEX PERP Binance Smart Chain defi product, also backed by @yzilabs. THENA has been around for almost five years now, and it's pulling in millions in revenue year with its PERP DEX product. It's not exactly a 1-1 comparison with ASTER and THENA, and clearly CZ has chosen Aster as his main horse to the PERP DEX race, but the differential in market caps is enormous between the two. The token pumped 2x some days ago (.70c) but has backed off down by 40%, so I took a position on the dip (.42-.47c). Thena's FDV is 126M compared to Aster's 15B. That's over a 100x differential between the two. It seems reasonable that Thena could run. Seems reasonable. It still looks just as good when you compare circulating market caps, though I will note the token distribution for $THE is much more distributed and equalized vs Aster in which something like 90% is controlled by a couple wallets and the real circulating is in the single digits perhaps. You could call this a beta trade to ASTER, betting on other PERP DEX products, or other YZI-backed projects. But given the solidly increasing revenues, and the market cap differential between the two, I went in hard here. 2) HEMI ($HEMI) My other big bet here is one project I am quite excited about, and I think can run: @hemi_xyz. This could well THE dark horse coming out of YZILabs. It's not directly competing in the same narrative space as Aster / Hyperliquid which I also like (not a derivative narrative). Hemi is a Layer 2 BTC which will unlock defi applications on BTC. It's a VC backed project with a solid cap table of backers which give this some real legs. The whole BTC layer 2 thesis has been a back-pocket thesis of mine for a while now, but it's been early yet. I have taken positions in private sales for @MezoNetwork and BoB. This "new" upcoming narrative seems to be maturing and may well start ripening. I have a feeling this is a future narrative that CZ is going to start pushing hard on BSC. DEFI on BTC is an enormous potential market in the marking. The infra has not quite been there yet, but it's getting there. And I see HEMI is a well-positioned bet here given the YZI backing. HEMI is basically "Binance's / CZ's still unshilled bet on BTC Defi. Being the premier Layer 2 BTC product built on BSC, this could be a big market cap product. Now Binance *just* listed Hemi today, thought the TGE was about a month ago. There are clearly some market makers at work here. I gained initial exposure via the @monprotocol Hemi launchpool which turned out to be worth just shy of $100k. A huge win there, which shows how underrated farming the Mon Launchpools can be. I have doubled down on my position in Hemi recently, adding more capital in on the bet this is going to be a highly pushed narrative by CZ soon. I bought in at .04c, .07c, and .09c. Will be adding even more shortly. I like that HEMI is NOT just a beta play to Aster, but in its own space. The narrative is there; it just needs a spark. And maybe CZ will light it. Will be moving more capital into a few other bets. I want to take fewer but higher-conviction bets in what I see as undervalued tokens with real products that generate actual revenue in new upcoming narratives. NFA here or telling anyone a trade. Just my own personal thesis here and where I am putting some new capital.