Excited to announce we’ve raised $7M led by @a16zcrypto CSX to build a factoring protocol for venues and deliver loyalty rewards to fans We’re the first web3 company to onboard legendary venues like LPR and H0l0, driving $4M in ticket sales in the past year alone

Inflation would have taken a $35 concert ticket to about $50 today. The jump to $350 came from a change in how the music business makes its money. Fifteen years ago, the concert was an ad. Artists made their money selling albums, and the tour was there to sell more CDs. Then streaming showed up and wrecked that. Spotify pays about $0.003 to $0.005 per play, so an artist with 10 million plays in a year makes around $30,000. Money from recorded music fell so far it hit bottom in 2014 at $13.1 billion, down from $22 billion in the CD days. The album stopped paying the bills. So the tour became the paycheck instead of the ad. For many working musicians it now brings in up to 80% of their income. Even Taylor Swift, the biggest streaming artist alive, made 91% of her 2018 money on tour and under 6% from streaming. When the live show is the only thing left to sell, it gets priced that way. Then there is who controls the tickets. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010 and never let go. Ticketmaster now handles about 80% of tickets when they first go on sale at major venues, and Live Nation owns or runs close to 78% of the big outdoor amphitheaters. In April 2026, a jury in New York found the company ran an illegal monopoly that overcharged fans. Live Nation made a record $23 billion in 2024. Fees pile on top. A 2018 government report found fees add about 27% to a ticket's price, and a look at 40 recent concerts put it closer to 28%. That turns two $100 tickets into a $256 bill. To be fair, the venue keeps most of that fee, not Ticketmaster, whose own share is only a few percent. The biggest jump came from something newer. After the pandemic, promoters saw that fans would pay almost anything, so they turned on dynamic pricing, the same way airline seats cost more as a flight fills up. Bruce Springsteen's $400 seats shot up to $4,000 and $5,000 the moment they went on sale. Live Nation's own finance chief said it plainly: stadium tickets are now priced to scare off scalpers. That means setting the official price at whatever a scalper would charge, so the extra money goes to the artist and Ticketmaster instead of a reseller. The $35 ticket made sense when a concert sold a $15 album. The $350 ticket makes sense when the concert is the product, the streaming money barely counts, and one company controls almost the whole path to the stage.

Are fans really getting the best shot at getting fair priced tickets in first place?

Epic Comeback / Epic Yield 👏 Last night's presenters @gregfeibus / @SkyEcosystem @abhihereandnow / @tmrwfinance @KYDNimale / @KYDLabs @val_usa_crypto / @ManifestFinance @megmehta / @privy_io @kisaguncan / @useamplifi Special thanks to @RSSH273 and @CooleyLLP for sponsoring the night. See you in September

calling it: global abs will be a go-to crypto event within 2-3 years. here is the capital that you actually want onchain

also check out @KYDLabs @KYDNimale

Knicks. @solana change that fucking logo.

RT @KYDNimale: @lzminsky, yo prediction markets god. One of our historic music venues in NYC is doing a Knicks watch parties. We need fre…

Meet the Mentors Guiding InkWorks Cohort 00 🧑‍🏫 Building the future of tokenized finance takes more than capital. @inkonchain mentors bring expertise across infrastructure, product, growth, distribution, investing, and education - helping founders turn promising projects into products that users actually adopt. 👇 ▫️ @anticustody — Deep expertise in programmable payments, USDC settlement, and real-world financial infrastructure, head of growth for @KYDLabs & @tixprotocol ▫️ @MarcinRedStone —Co-Founder @redstone_defi | Oracle & data infrastructure leader powering billions in secured onchain value ▫️ @GSkrovina — Head of Fintech Crypto @Lazer_HQ | Product execution specialist with experience shipping 250 fintech and crypto products ▫️ @arlery — CMO @OctantApp | Growth, grants, ecosystem strategy, and crypto media expertise ▫️ @emilylai — Head of Marketing @Ostium, advisor for @hypepartners | Proven DeFi GTM operator helping teams find product-market fit and scale distribution ▫️ @anay_sim — Investor @bcap | Investor perspective on consumer crypto, market positioning, and venture readiness ▫️ @wminshew — Founder @0xSplits | Builder of onchain revenue and financial infrastructure primitives ▫️ @claudedonze — Consumer Crypto @greenfield_cap | Consumer crypto investor helping founders sharpen product and growth strategies ▫️ @ProofOfEly — Educator focused on making complex onchain products understandable to mainstream users And shout out Ink core team to help these projects thrive 🗣️ Cohort 00 is live → ink.works

Ay yooo @solana change that logo quick to Knicks colors. Pick a side @Pedromiranda, @vibhu , @toly.

new logo and @nyknicks in 4

Knicks in 3

View from a packed house at the Reed Smith private credit roadshow in London. KYD’s own @anticustody shared more about @tixprotocol’s credit offering with major players from @Blackstone, Fortress, and Citi. Time to diversify into human experiences.

Announcing our first 3 speakers for the 2nd Quarterly Yield Pitch on June 10th in NYC. @abhihereandnow / @tmrwfinance - Lending for creators @kisaguncan / @t1protocol - Margin on Polymarket @KYDNimale / @KYDLabs - Entertainment Finance

Really respect how @saumil has been engaging directly with hard questions from fans on Ticketmaster, bots, access, pricing, and resale. As a builder in live events and a former Ticketmaster employee, I think this kind of direct dialogue is long overdue. A few questions:

For years "crypto will change creator-fan relationships" was a promise. This weekend it was a trending topic.

For years, web3 promised to change creator-fan relationships. Instead, social tokens, memecoins, and creator coins turned fans into exit liquidity. The real unlock: creators like @KINGJARED300 owning their audience, accessing capital, and building community on KYD powered by invisible @solana rails. forbes.com/sites/azeemkhan/2…

This is a must-watch for anyone who loves live music. The next major asset class isn’t another financial product. It’s human experience. And it’s becoming more scarce. Venues are closing. Shows are getting canceled. Fans are being priced out. Artists are losing upside. That has to change.