8 Reasons Why Unchained Decided to Stream on Pump.Fun

People (mostly but not only ETH maxis) got riled up when we started streaming on Pump.fun. 

I think people viewed the decision in a very narrow way, and after I was interviewed on The Rollup about it, I realized that I had a lot to say on this subject. In fact, the thoughts that led me to that decision were decades in the making. 

I want our audience to understand why we did it and how Pump fits into the larger perspective we have on where media business models are headed. 

Tune in LIVE today as I discuss why Unchained is going all-in on Pump! Watch on X, Pump, YouTube, or Twitch.

Bring your questions - I might answer you live!

8 Reasons Why Unchained Decided to Stream on Pump.Fun

Our announcement sparked controversy — and then backlash to the backlash. Here’s our thinking.

When Unchained decided to stream on Pump.fun, it generated a fair amount of criticism. (For safety reasons, here's the official Unchained contract address. It is the only one that exists. Please don't get scammed.) 

Scoopy Trooples, an Ethereum OG, was the first person to condemn me: 

That set forth a stream of both judgment and support. Seraphim Czecker, formerly of Ethena, tweeted: 

Luke Youngblood of Moonwell added, “If you can do a @zora creator coin why not do a PumpFun one too. Equal opportunity creator coins. Ecosystem maxis are so tiring...”

As Czecker and Youngblood pointed out, a lot of the criticism came from more Ethereum-aligned people, perhaps since Pump.fun is the most successful app on Solana. 

But I don’t think ETH maximalism spawned all of the criticism. 

Many people have particular issues with Pump.fun because memecoins are extremely risky — even for crypto — and have been prone to scams and sniping. And obviously, the platform has had problems in the past with streamers threatening self-harm or violence to others or animals.

We are not disregarding these valid concerns. 

So why did Unchained start streaming on Pump? The reasons are varied, with some more crypto-focused and others stemming from my nearly 30-year career in journalism, during which time I have witnessed the decimation of my industry alongside the rise of the internet. I’m open-minded to finding new solutions for a problem that has anguished me for decades. So here’s why we’re trying Pump.fun out.

1. We have long used all crypto media platforms.

Unchained is already on pretty much every crypto media platform: Zora, Pods, Fountain, and now Pump. (RIP Drakula.) If we have missed any, it’s unintentional and we will likely remedy that in the future, such as with the new version of The Base App. 

Over the last decade-plus, learning about crypto, I have heard multiple theories about how this technology could empower the media industry. Just as I was early to falling down the crypto rabbit hole, of course I’d like for my publication to be early to any blockchain-powered media business models that emerge.

2. We are moving to a streaming model.

Unchained started as a podcast, and that model has worked well for a long time. Over the years, we’ve evolved to make all our podcasts available as videos as well. But ever since Trump got re-elected, the pace of news in crypto has accelerated, and now every week features more newsworthy stories than we can cover in two episodes a week. Also, since it takes roughly a day to turn around any recording, the shortening of the crypto news cycles has made some of our podcasts outdated even by the time they get published. 

On top of that, moving to livestreaming opens up new audiences. X, the crypto community’s central water cooler, promotes live-streamed content in a sticky area of the mobile app and on desktop. With our new focus on more up-to-the-minute news, we’re actively looking for audiences who are interested in this more immediate, TV-style medium. Pump offers exactly that.

3. We want to be on the frontier of evolving media business models.

My first job in journalism was at Newsweek in 1998, the year the publication was constantly breaking news about the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton scandal, which was the biggest story of that year. 

At that time, the top editors at Newsweek, who for reasons I do not know were called “The Wallendas,” had extremely cushy lives. I remember the top editor for my group had a big office with huge windows through which we could see him play solitaire all day. (My impression was that he’d been put out to pasture to head up the website, which was the podunk backwater cousin to the glamorous magazine in 1998.) They took long lunches and town cars to and from our Midtown offices near Columbus Circle. They were at the top of the journalism game, and their lives reflected that.

A little over a decade later, Newsweek was sold for $1. 

I have seen similar tragedies play out so many times on small and large scales. Not just the shuttering of numerous worthy publications, but also mass layoffs at my own workplaces, or industry-wide layoffs post-Great Financial Crisis, after which nary a journalism job was posted anywhere. And when one was, a deluge of laid-off journalists would apply for that single spot. 

Sprinkled on top of those waves of decimation are the personal stories of incredibly talented friends who left the industry. It pains me to know so many brilliant writers who cannot pursue the career I feel would make the most of their natural-born gifts.

That nearly three-decade-long history of witnessing these broken media business models makes me very open-minded to what might fix it. Could Pump be it? Maybe? Even if not the exact current iteration, possibly a future iteration. And if not, I certainly won’t regret having tried. One of the best pieces of advice my mom ever gave me was that you only regret the things you don’t try. So I’m happy to experiment with Pump.fun. (And for those of you who followed my debate years ago with Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly about NFT creator royalties, you may recall I was an ardent supporter of creators being paid those royalties.)

4. I’m an early adopter.

Something that it took me decades to see is I’m the kind of person who does things LONG before they become mainstream. So long that it actually took me until I was in my 40s to see that numerous of my weird quirks from a decade or two prior had finally become a part of everyday life. 

Crypto is an obvious example since I became obsessed with it in 2015, when the price of Bitcoin was $200-ish. It was considered “criminal money,” and I had to practically beg my Forbes editors to let me write about it. Yoga, for which I completed my first teacher training in 2000, is another one. When I spoke on a panel at my 5th-year college reunion in 2002, I created a minor sensation when I mentioned that I had tried online dating — something that ChatGPT now tells me maybe only 1% of the population had tried at that point. In 1998-1999, I began using an online bank, which ChatGPT says less than 0.4% of U.S. households were doing at the time. 

I even started bringing my own bags to the grocery maybe 15 or so years before they started charging you for store bags. One time at the grocery with my mom, she kept hissing at me to put my bags away and asking me why I couldn’t be normal. I felt so vindicated over a decade later when I was living in California, and she came to visit and supermarkets across the state had just started charging for store bags. 

5. Web2’s business models aren’t the be all, end all.

A tragedy of Web2 is that creators get likes while the platforms make all the money. I don’t think anyone finds this an incredibly fair setup. Pump’s MO is very different. Creators can earn far more than they can in Web2.

It almost feels like the reason people are mad that we’re getting creator rewards for streaming quality content onto a new platform is some vague notion that creators shouldn’t make money. I think crypto could make it normal for creators to profit and, in the future, people will reflect on the backlash and laugh at all the pearl clutchers.

6. Just because bad things have happened on Pump.fun doesn’t mean Pump.fun is inherently bad.

The way that bitcoin used to be seen as something for criminals, the same criticism could be levied at knives, cash — and memecoins and Pump.fun. All technologies are neutral and used by both good and bad actors.

On top of that, Pump.fun is the most successful company to come out of the most recent crypto cycle, earning several hundred million dollars’ worth of revenue in its first year. With its new vision to go mainstream and take on big-name social media and streaming platforms, why wouldn’t we want to be on there early?

7. Our audience’s attention should be directly monetizable.

One of the most popular business models for media is advertising, in which brands find an audience that they want to target. Then they pay the media company to get some time in front of that audience. This is a tried-and-true method, but an indirect one. For a diversified business model, media companies should additionally monetize their audience’s attention directly. 

How that should happen in the world of crypto is not totally clear. Pods does it by selling NFTs of episodes. Zora does it with ”creator coins,” which, in my opinion, is just a different name for memecoins. 

Pump.fun’s way of doing it appeals to people who enjoy speculating or trading for sport. A lot of crypto people have group chats in which they discuss trading. Is it so crazy that they might want to put some money into something related to an Unchained episode that they like? Is it so unthinkable that fandom or enjoyment of entertainment and media should translate into dollars and cents (or SOL in this case)?

8. It opens up new ways to engage with our audience.

Although none of our reasons for launching on Pump.fun involved the memecoin per se, we have received suggestions for what we could do with it that seem like interesting ways to interact with our audience. We’re internally working on some ideas for our engagement across all crypto media platforms that will help us better connect with our audience and even spark ideas for content for our shows, newsletters, and other products. 

Unchained’s Policy Around the Memecoin 

Just to be clear, we as a company did not buy the token, nor did our employees. In fact, to remove any potential conflicts of interest or misaligned incentives, we are prohibiting any of our employees, contractors, or contributing writers from purchasing this token. We do not want to allow even the perception of impropriety or favoritism towards any blockchain, project, or token to impact our reputation.

Streaming on Pump is about distribution and creator rewards, and we do not want any editorial or business decisions to be impacted by the price of a memecoin.

Conclusion

Innovation requires doing different things. I’ve already outlined some of the media industry’s many business problems. Looking forward, I know the future will in some way financialize attention. What that will look like is TBD, but Pump.fun, along with Zora, The Base App, Pods, Fountain, etc., are all part of the early attempts to build that vision. 

Since Unchained is one of the oldest crypto media companies, why shouldn’t we test these out? 

Crypto is in its adoption phase. I’d regret it if we sat on the sidelines and waited to see what everyone else was doing and going the safe path. I’d rather be a pioneer — just like I was when I became obsessed with Bitcoin in 2015.

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