Simplicity Group Alpha

Two Logos Are Not A Partnership: Crypto loves to use partnerships for marketing, but two logos blasted on a post are not a real partnership. · Three tests before any deal: do the ICPs actually overlap, is there an integration that creates new revenue rather than visibility, and does the outreach match how the other side buys Examples of Good Partnerships: · Securitize x BlackRock: BUIDL passed 2.5bn dollars in AUM and paid over 100m in on-chain dividends, and Securitize turned the relationship into a 47m round led by BlackRock. · Legion x Kraken: Kraken reserves up to 20 percent of every sale for Legion, and the first sale, Yield Basis, raised 2.5m dollars at a 200m FDV. Full article here: https://simplicitygroup.xyz/blog/two-logos-are-not-a-partnership

Two Logos Are Not A Partnership:https://simplicitygroup.xyz/blog/two-logos-are-not-a-partnership

We outlined our GTM approach for Digital Asset Businesses: • Five phases run as a loop: discovery, market penetration strategy, brand growth strategy, then execution on both. Rush discovery and every downstream decision compounds the error • Four arenas to penetrate, each on its own timeline and stakeholder: ecosystem, partnerships, clients, and capital • Warm intros beat cold outreach by roughly 10x on reply rate, and that ratio is what makes a small team's pipeline look like a much larger team's Article Link: https://x.com/SimplicityWeb3/status/2079203209890201973

Swap your name for a competitor's in your positioning statement. If it still reads fine, you do not have a position. What our article covers ∙ Three frameworks that work in combination: Dunford maps the components, Moore writes the 17-second statement, Ries and Trout choose the category ∙ Hyperliquid, Pendle and Ondo each created a subcategory they were structurally first in rather than fighting for "best L1" or "best DEX" Article link: https://simplicitygroup.xyz/blog/positioning

GTM Campaign Highlight: Backpack Friday Points 󠁯󠁯• Backpack pays points every Friday based on that week's trading volume, with ranks that reward frequent repeat trading over a single whale-sized trade, all pointing at a confirmed 25% community token allocation. 󠁯󠁯• 650,000+ KYC-verified users by October 2025, up from 500,000 in March 2024, and $363B in lifetime volume by January 2026. Why it worked: A weekly payout gives traders a reason to come back every seven days, so the reward builds a habit; a one-off airdrop pays once and the activity leaves with it.

Most teams do not have a customer problem; they have an ICP problem. What our article covers ∙ Forrester: a clearly defined ICP drives 68 percent higher account win rates and roughly 3x sales productivity ∙ Lenny Rachitsky's finding across 30+ B2B founders: winning ICPs use three attributes, no more (how Gong, Snyk and Canva did it) Article link: https://x.com/SimplicityWeb3/status/2076603304570757145

Bit late on this one, but what happened to Bonk is a simple case of misaligned incentives, where the protocol opted for rewarding malicious behaviour with $20M instead of penalties. Our Co-Founder Alex talks about what happened exactly, and why DAOs are bad in most cases, and why they should be designed with care in cases where they're good (like Bonk). Read here: https://x.com/Alex_Fatuliaj/status/2075994201137840498

Dollar Shave Club Launch Video: GTM Campaign Highlight 󠁯󠁯• Launched with a 90-second YouTube video that cost $4,500, mocking overpriced razor brands and pitching blades at $1 a month 󠁯󠁯• 12,000 orders in the first 48 hours; 3.2 million subscribers and a $1bn cash exit to Unilever by 2016 󠁯󠁯 It worked because the video was the positioning statement: it named the enemy, the buyer and the alternative in 90 seconds This shows that businesses should spend on sharpening the message, not amplifying it; a position that clear distributes itself.

MiCA came into law on the 1st July, meaning compliance is now a legal requirement. If you're launching a token and want to target Europeans, you need to make sure you understand all the necessary steps. What it covers 󠁯󠁯• MiCA classifies your token by what it does, not what you call it, and putting it in the wrong class (utility, ART, EMT) is a €5M mistake. • All 27 EU states and any project with EU users falls under (unless user found token by itself). • Fines run to €5M or 12.5% of turnover, whichever is higher, plus €700k per director and a ban from management. Full article here: https://simplicitygroup.xyz/blog/mica-tokenomics

Our co-founder Daniel has written on prediction markets, and the only bull case that matters for them. At first glance they look like nothing more than a new venue for degens to gamble on the news. Look closer and they are a financial instrument reshaping how businesses hedge risk; the same job once handed to options, which now sit beneath over $846 trillion of derivatives. Far-fetched? The parallels to the rise of options are hard to miss; history doesn't repeat, but it most certainly rhymes. Read the full article here: https://x.com/Simplicity_Dan/status/2071909529856483546

The industry matured from 'crypto' to digital assets, and a brand built for the earlier market is not fit for the one replacing it. We've been constantly building, learning, expanding, and with it so have our clientele, from crypto projects tinkering with code to publicly traded companies with millions in revenue. Our branding had to elevate, from simplicity to institutional trust.  Whilst our trusted globe was a key part of our branding, we believe the word Simplicity has enough gravitas to stand on its own. Our network spans every continent and our work has reached more than half the countries on the planet, so the mark no longer has to make that case for us. Same people, same thesis, sharper expression. From a London tokenomics shop to an international digital asset consultancy. Onwards and upwards. New website: www.simplicitygroup.xyz  Rebrand article: https://x.com/SimplicityWeb3/status/2071518726600446209?s=20 Rebranded by LKI - @marynabarysheva.

CEX listing is graduation, not growth; you have already raised, built a community, and shipped product before you even start the conversation. Negotiation begins months before TGE, and your listing manager is the 1% relationship that decides whether your token clears T1 or sits in tier-3 limbo. Upbit alone takes months of community prep, and perps are the volume lever you build pre-spot when the day-one order book is thin. Benedetto Biondi, Founder of Folks Finance, delivered a lecture on the real mechanics of CEX listings: the building model of valuation that puts CEXs at the top of the stack rather than the foundation, what exchanges charge in security deposits, token percentages, and fiat fees, and the tokenomics patterns that get projects listed today (postponed unlocks, longer cliffs, 0% TGEs, and CEX multisig holds). Watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs_XVoxJkC4

Picking a launchpad is not really a choice between launchpads; it is a choice about how you want to trade money for distribution. CEX launchpads leave the founder with 60 to 80% of what's raised; decentralised vehicles leave 93 to 97%, curated 90 to 95%. The difference is who shows up to your TGE and what you net at the end. FDVs across the board are too high, and an open auction is the only mechanism that lets the market price you honestly. Matt O'Connor, Co-Founder of Legion, delivered a lecture on the four launchpad vehicles (CEX, decentralised, curated, airdrop), why retail is more vesting-sensitive than VCs and how that should shape your round, and what moves the needle at TGE: day-one Binance plus Coinbase or Kraken, Upbit follow-up, market maker retainers, and OTC desk access. Watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emryqlnpCJc

Building with no exit in mind, then trying to engineer one at the last minute and discovering the acquirer was never going to buy what you built is all too common. Acquirers pay for revenue, EBITDA, users, volume, AUM, licences, and defensible tech; they will not touch ideas, moatless tech, fake users, or expired narratives. The cap table, the IP documentation, and the KPIs you set on day one are what determine the multiple, not the pitch you make on day 1,000. Harison Frye, Co-Founder of Acquire Fi, delivered a lecture on building for acquisition from day one: the real valuation ranges (2 to 10x revenue, 2 to 15x EBITDA, AUM and licence multiples), the deal structures that decide founder net (asset sale, share sale, acqui-hire, token dissolution at close), and what drives exchanges, market makers, and institutions to acquire in the first place. Watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5Hnnud83Mw

Going from $0 to T1 VCs is not luck; it is months of working up from middlemen to the funds that move markets. You can spend a year hearing zero commitments, then watch every fund commit in the same week once narrative alignment lands. Sending the same deck to every VC kills the round before it starts; each one needs a custom pitch tied to their thesis. Benedetto Biondi, Founder of Folks Finance, delivered a lecture on how he raised from Borderless, Jump, OKX, and CB Ventures: how to set VC deadlines (and when to extend them), how narrative alignment won Folks Finance its private round lead, and why VCs increasingly want token warrants alongside equity to derisk their position. Watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSZl-htKgFg

Token modelling work is a minefield of jargon and overengineered spreadsheets that nobody on the team can read. Deterministic models answer the questions a project usually has; agent-based models cost ten to twenty times more and are rarely worth it in crypto, where the question that matters is whether your token is held or sold, not which simulated agent did what at hour 3,427. The point of a model is not to predict the future; it is to understand the levers you control before you launch. Our Co-Founder and Director Alex Fatuliaj, delivered a lecture on picking the right modelling approach without overpaying: when deterministic models are enough, where stochastic randomness genuinely changes the answer, and the rare cases where agent-based modelling is worth the cost. Watch the full lecture here: https://youtu.be/F9d5M_UUyu8

Almost all tokens launch at the wrong FDV because the number was chosen by vibe, not by maths. A defensible FDV is supply meeting demand, with buy pressure measured against the months it has to last; pick the number any other way and you are guaranteeing the dead chart that follows TGE. Allocations and vesting compound the same problem, since the cap table you set on day one is the seller you face for the next four years. Our Co-Founder and Director Alex Fatuliaj, delivered a lecture on building tokenomics that survive TGE: the buy-pressure-times-months formula for a defensible FDV, the allocation mistakes that crash tokens within months of launch, and vesting designs that protect price action without killing early contributor upside. Watch the full lecture here: https://youtu.be/FXWOJPWDy0A

Token launches list four or five utilities and then wonder why none of them stick. A token cannot do every job at once: a medium of exchange has to be liquid and circulating, whereas a governance token needs to be held to retain value, and a fee token needs to be captured or burned. Stacking those mandates onto a single asset is what turns a token economy into a slow-moving crisis. Our Co-Founder and Director Daniel Malinovski, delivered a lecture on token utilities and policy: how to design utility around real demand drivers rather than narrative, how regulatory exposure varies by utility type and jurisdiction, and why a list of utilities on a one-pager is marketing, not an economic system. Watch the full lecture here: https://youtu.be/cMaXS7CUkuU

Crypto teams burn between $50K and $500K a year on events without ever measuring the return. Zachary J, Co-Founder of Party Action People, delivered a lecture on getting real ROI from events: • the three pillars (thought leadership, • marketing and PR, networking), • why covering a bar tab is often better ROI than a full activation, • how hosting your own event can lock competitors out of your target audience. Watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EspMQiJi5k

A community is not a follower count. It is a group of people who can be mobilised, segmented, and converted with intent. Nikita Smohorzhevskyi, CIO of Solus Group, delivered a lecture on running a community like a chessboard, not a Discord: • how to map Team, Ambassadors, and Members, • how to build double-ended funnels that turn users into recruiters, • how to apply the AAARRR Pirate framework (Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Referral, Retention) to community growth. Watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUkTYdmlb4Q