Propagation Pricing Model: Suspicion Chain and Real World Attention (RWA)

Positive Suspicion Chain - How to Create a FOMO

I’m not sure how many of my readers have a primary school education or a PhD, but I will assume everyone has read "The Three-Body Problem." In the worldview of "The Three-Body Problem," there is an important fundamental theorem— the suspicion chain:

"I don't know if you have good intentions; I also don't know if you think you have good intentions; and I certainly cannot assume that you think I have good intentions."
In this "dark forest" scenario, civilizations cannot communicate to confirm each other's intentions, nor can they choose to remain silent and let the other grow stronger. Therefore, the only optimal solution is to strike first and destroy the other.

This is an ultimate PVP prisoner's dilemma, where all actions inevitably lead to the outcome of "ensuring destruction."

The scenario constructed by Liu Cixin is a confrontation between cosmic civilizations, while in the Crypto trading market, we can reverse-engineer a similar "dark forest zero-sum deadlock": FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

The "Positive Suspicion Chain" of FOMO Trading

In a market FOMO state, a kind of inevitable buying force forms, and we can break it down into three similar "suspicion chain" logics:

1. Eliminate the possibility of communication
Market trends change rapidly, and individuals have almost no time for sufficient communication and rational analysis before making decisions. In other words, the market does not allow "civilizations" to sit down and have a good talk.

2. Create a "zero-sum expectation" with as many people in consensus as possible
Here, "angle" refers to the investment logic of the event. For example, the profits of early buyers inevitably come at the opportunity cost of later buyers. All rational market participants are aware of this. When everyone knows that "later buyers will definitely lose," the market will form a consensus of "must buy first."

3. Create unbearable opportunity costs
FOMO is effective because the cost of missing out is too high. Watching others become wealthy from this event while hesitating and missing out leads to immense psychological torment, even resulting in devastating physical and mental harm. Ultimately, the majority of people in the market will be forced to choose to buy in, even going all in.

These three factors work together to form the "positive suspicion chain" under FOMO conditions. Its "positivity" lies in the fact that it compels market participants to take the "buy" action that aligns with the designed purpose, and it is unavoidable.

Case Study: Market Sentiment on the Day of $TRUMP Launch

Taking the day of the $TRUMP token issuance as an example, here's how this "positive suspicion chain" drives the market:

When the news of Trump launching a coin came out, the market immediately surged, and the market cap skyrocketed. Although some doubted the authenticity of the news, the market's reaction was so swift that there was no time to verify.

After a simple verification confirmed it was not a hack, the market concluded: "External funds will definitely buy," which is an irreversible trading logic (angle).

The Earth’s leader personally launching a coin is an extremely rare event; missing it would be a historic loss. The market consensus is: "If you miss out, not only will you lose money, but you might also be ridiculed by your friends for life."
Thus, the vast majority of people in the market have no choice but to buy in, even going all in.

Determinants of FOMO Trading Intensity

So, how strong is the FOMO effect of an event? It mainly depends on the following three factors:

Speed of trend formation
The faster the market reacts, the less time individuals have for communication and analysis, and the closer trading behavior is to instinctive reactions.
Consensus range of FOMO trading logic (angle)
Can this "angle" be recognized by the majority of the market? The larger the consensus range, the stronger the FOMO effect.
Scarcity and non-replicability of the event itself
The more unique and difficult to replicate the event is, the stronger the market's perception of "missing it would be a lifelong regret," thus driving stronger FOMO buying behavior.
Financial strength of the crowd
This is the variable that most people overlook—if the main group spreading FOMO lacks sufficient funds, the price will quickly collapse.

Pricing Model of Dissemination - Making FOMO Quantifiable

Greatness cannot be planned, but FOMO can.

In the Crypto market, FOMO is a market sentiment that can be engineered, shaped, and even quantified. While "greatness" cannot be planned, the creation of FOMO has traceable patterns.

If you want to create a FOMO, among the three major elements mentioned earlier, the easiest to control is the first point (trend speed). Because the initial pump and market hype are controllable by the project party. The second point (market consensus on narrative angle) involves finding a widely recognized "high pricing" angle and leveraging the market's cognitive lag (i.e., information spillover leading to lower pricing).

As for the third point (scarcity and non-replicability of the event), this is the hardest to manipulate. Anything that can be planned is, by nature, no longer scarce and thus easy to replicate. However, opportunities still exist in the market—if one can exploit the differences in market participants' perceptions of scarcity, FOMO can be created through "pricing differences."

Case Study: Evolution of FOMO in Crypto AI Narrative (November 2024 - February 2025)

A typical example is the rapid rise and fall of the Crypto AI narrative. This cycle roughly went through the following stages:

Create an information gap, preventing traders from communicating: VC institutions and behind-the-scenes groups used meme coins as vehicles to quickly raise market enthusiasm, forming a fast-paced market where traders could only passively follow without enough time for rational communication and discussion. If a method other than memecoins, which allow for quick capital inflow and feedback, had been used, this narrative could not have generated FOMO.
Utilize cognitive hierarchy differences to expand the target audience of the "zero-sum angle" narrative from AI professionals to general Crypto investors who broadly recognize AI as the future, further covering ordinary traders who do not truly understand AI but know it is a trend.

Due to the high cognitive threshold of the AI topic outside the Crypto circle, many in the market could only make FOMO investments based on the intuition that "industry leaders are pushing the AI track."

High replicability leads to narrative cooling: AI, as a technology, has high replicability and does not possess long-term scarcity.

This also explains why the AI narrative only lasted about three months and subsequently cooled down as traditional AI projects like Deepseek gained traction, leveling the market's cognitive gap, leading to the emergence of numerous similar AI trading agents, causing the narrative FOMO to fade.

Pricing Model of Dissemination

Based on this, we can abstract a mathematical model for the pricing of narrative dissemination, focusing on how the pricing of a narrative changes with the distance of dissemination d, simulating how a narrative/event/project transitions from being ignored to being widely discussed, from being sought after to being disregarded. Since I graduated from a vocational school, thanks to ChatGPT, if you are like me and find this too long, please jump directly to the summary section:

Where:
P0: Initial pricing at the origin of event dissemination (usually the highest)
e−βd: Trust decay factor, controlling FOMO intensity (the speed at which market trust declines)
Sγ: Scarcity of the event (the scarcer it is, the slower the pricing decline)
e−Rd: Replicability of the event (the easier it is to replicate, the faster the pricing decline)
A(d): Attractiveness of the event to different groups
V(d): Crowd value, measuring the financial strength available to different audiences during pricing

Explanation of Core Variables

Trust decay factor e−βd
The further the dissemination distance d, the weaker the market's trust in the event, and FOMO diminishes.
Affected by cognitive cost C(d): the higher the cognitive cost, the harder it is for the market to understand the event, leading to faster trust decline (β increases).
If cognitive costs are low, the event spreads more easily, and FOMO lasts longer (β decreases).
Scarcity factor Sγ
The scarcer the event, the more the market is willing to maintain a higher price, and the slower FOMO declines.
If the event is highly scarce (like the $TRUMP launch), the narrative pricing can remain high for a certain period.
If the event is not scarce (like the AI narrative), the market will quickly cool down due to increased supply.
Replicability factor e−Rd
If the event is easy to replicate, the market's enthusiasm for it will quickly decline.
High replicability events (like AI tokens): FOMO only lasts a moment.
Low replicability events (like Musk's coin launch): narrative pricing declines more slowly.
Audience attractiveness A(d)
Different groups find the event attractive to varying degrees, determining the spread of FOMO.
Influencing factors: the match between the event and the audience (λ).
The cultural background, market experience, and trading habits of the audience; the larger λ, the lower the match, and the weaker the attractiveness.
This can be modeled using a Gaussian distribution:

If the event cannot attract a broader audience, FOMO dissemination will quickly end.

Crowd value V(d)
V(d) represents the trading financial strength of the crowd at distance d in the market.
The financial strength of different groups determines the driving force of FOMO trading: early entrants are usually high-capital traders (institutions, whales), having a greater impact on prices. After spreading to the periphery, the main participants are retail funds, weakening the influence.

Assuming a power-law distribution:

Where:
V0 is the initial financial strength at the event dissemination origin (like VC, whales)
δ is the capital distribution decay factor, controlling the flow direction of market funds:

Small δ (stable capital flow): peripheral crowd still has strong financial strength
Large δ (rapid capital decay): peripheral crowd mainly consists of small retail investors, making it hard for FOMO to sustain.

Impact of Crowd Value

If V(d) declines too quickly, meaning the peripheral crowd consists mainly of small funds, then even if FOMO spreads, the trading influence will be weak, leading to insufficient price support.
If V(d) declines slowly, meaning the periphery still has strong financial backing, FOMO trading will last longer.

Summary of the Pricing Model of Dissemination

Although this formula may not be precise, it reveals an eternal market rule:
For any event, the further the dissemination distance, the higher the audience's understanding cost; the further the dissemination distance, the lower the price the audience is willing to accept.
Events that are scarce, non-replicable, and targeted at specific audiences see their narrative pricing decline more slowly, while easily replicable and complex information events rapidly depreciate during dissemination.
For the scalper, the red shadow area is the best "harvesting zone."
The intersection of the cognitive cost curve and the narrative pricing line indicates the death of the narrative.

Real World Attention - Maximizing the Common Denominator of Pricing Dissemination

We are constantly paying for information:
Supermarket sales, Black Friday discounts
FOMO to buy meme coins, speculation on real estate
Political movements, even wars
Some costs are monetary, others are life.
This is not a matter of "Degen vs. Normie" or "Ponzi vs. Legit," but rather the underlying logic of the human attention economy.

So, how do we build a dissemination model with high narrative pricing? What is the greatest common denominator?
This leads to my self-created concept—Real World Attention (RWA).
RWA Definition:
The most valuable narratives must attract attention events that are not only outside the core high-frequency users of the crypto circle but also have the potential for "viral dissemination" among audiences with an average global IQ.
It ensures the broadest audience while also covering those with high trading value.

If you don’t believe it, try answering the following questions without looking at the answers:

1. Why do "presidential coins" and "celebrity coins" always have a market, regardless of market conditions?
These events face a globally predictable cognitive group, and the unacceptable cost of missing out creates a positive suspicion chain.
Presidential coin launches: especially for presidents of major countries, the cognitive audience is the widest, so no matter how much it gets scammed, there will always be buyers.

2. Why do many non-American celebrities struggle to launch coins?
Audience issue: North American celebrities have audiences that are often active on crypto platforms (like Twitter), and their information can directly or indirectly reach the crypto circle; whereas non-American celebrities have lower audience value.
The crowd emerging from the dissemination origin has high cognitive costs, leading to naturally lower pricing.

3. Why do event-based tokens perform better than celebrity coins, even with the same celebrity involvement? (e.g., $MAGA, $PNUT, $Jailstool, $Vine, etc.)

There are three reasons:
Dramatic tension: The event itself is more attractive, capable of drawing in all onlookers from the crypto circle, enhancing the match between the event and different groups.

Dissemination audience vs. fan base: The dissemination audience is a dynamic process, consisting of those activated by the event who respond; whereas celebrity fans are a static, fixed value.
Celebrity coin launches can only activate a small portion of a fixed audience, while an event can activate a broader group, expanding dissemination distance.

Scarcity: Events inherently possess scarcity attributes. For example, although Liu Xiaoqing and Mao Amin are similar, Mao Amin was involved in tax evasion, while Liu Xiaoqing found a boyfriend 30 years younger at over 60 years old—events like this are both rare and eye-catching.

Why do many complex AI, DeFi narratives and intricate funding models struggle to break out?
Cognitive costs are too high (β is too large).
In the secondary market, the common cognitive range is too small, leading to low pricing, making it difficult to form a positive suspicion chain, and even effective dissemination is hard to initiate, let alone FOMO.
Why do new coins from large developers and major players in meme coins trigger FOMO?
For the memecoin audience, this is a natural positive suspicion chain zero-sum scenario.
If you don’t buy in, you’ll never get in.
Data and monitoring tools relay information in real-time, requiring no additional cognitive costs for the memecoin audience.
The only issue is that once it spreads to the outer circle, the outer audience may judge themselves to be on the periphery and choose not to enter.
Why do pure legit and tech narrative VC coins perform so poorly in the secondary market?
Same as 4.

In a sense, Real World Attention (RWA) is even more valuable than Real World Assets, because forming a consensus based on attention is much easier than forming a consensus on assets.

An American might struggle to recognize the asset value of a rural bungalow in Thailand; however, if a TikTok video from local teenagers becomes a meme, an American might resonate with it just the same.

Insights for the Market and Project Leaders

The era of relying on a narrative, model, or system to explode is over. Plans that cannot be recognized by dissemination and market pricing will never reach the possibility of "exploding" or "breaking out."

If it cannot be recognized by dissemination and market pricing, no plan will ever have the chance to "explode" or "break out."

Even the most battle-hardened ground promotion teams will struggle to succeed if there is "no angle."
Conversely, an ordinary project can inexplicably explode if it triggers real-world attention.
When launching, you need to plan dissemination like this:

Draw boundaries: If the main system of the project is difficult to meet the dissemination model, designate a part specifically for dissemination to ensure it does not affect the main system.
Set the system: Use assets like meme or NFT that can rise quickly and do not allow time for communication;
or adopt incremental pricing mutual assistance models (like VDS, Taishan crowdfunding, Fomo3D).
Choose angles: According to RWA logic, select narratives with low information complexity and broad audience coverage.
Create events: Generate events with dramatic tension as vehicles for dissemination, designing the capital inflow as a real-world attention event (e.g., "An 80-year-old lady unexpectedly wins millions" or "TST dev addresses join forces to dominate the pool, Pangu community rules BSC").

Let’s take @ethsign as an example:

The narrative of EthSign itself is very difficult to promote: B2B/B2G applications:

Token Table token distribution platform
A crypto alternative to Docusign
Digital identity
From the perspective of retail investors, especially young retail investors, the entire project screams two words: boring.
@realyanxin made a smart move by directly segmenting a "Orange Dynasty" (sounds like a Northeast bathhouse) theme for the B2C end.

To create dissemination and form a positive suspicion chain, Sign chose to pump an NFT and conduct airdrop pre-events as vehicles. The airdrop also selected an absolute black box mechanism that cannot be farmed, minimizing communication possibilities.

Through a $16 million financing announcement + Binance Labs investment + a large number of KOLs wearing orange glasses to create viral elements + community cult activities, the entire project’s B2C dissemination message collapsed into a meme, maximizing the audience matching in the crypto circle and lowering cognitive costs.
The covered crypto KOLs are also relatively high-value trading groups.

This is already the optimal solution for this type of non-B2C project. Even with all these designs, Sign still needs to invest a lot of manpower to conduct high-intensity community activities and education to artificially enhance audience matching, reduce cognitive costs for peripheral crowds, and maximize dissemination distance. Fortunately, the Sign team has a group of event marketing talents who can genuinely attract attention during execution.

If you are a traditional CX project,

Your event dissemination core is all about community leaders. Covering KOLs in the crypto project may require an excellent agency to schedule calls in two days.

However, CX community leaders, regardless of how familiar the relationships are, generally need to meet offline, give lectures, and then treat them to dinner before they can start disseminating and generating orders. Even the most inner circle has high cognitive costs (β is large). And when community leaders spread to their own systems, this process needs to be repeated.

In an era where young people no longer hold "systems and organizations" in high regard, this method incurs higher costs for external dissemination. This means more educational resources must be invested, raising the cost of dissemination from the origin, creating a vicious cycle of dissemination.

So what you need to do is:

Reduce the complexity of the model and narrative, keeping it within the scope of three sentences: What is it? How to play? How to manage risks?

Design a zero-sum scenario that requires no explanation to establish FOMO. This scenario is mainly for dissemination and can be an independent complete product or an entry point designed for a larger scheme.

Design the capital inflow as a real-world attention event. For example, "An 80-year-old lady is dragged by her grandson to play with a scheme, unexpectedly winning millions, and the grandson, envious, takes his grandmother to court" or "TST dev addresses also join the pool to jointly dominate, Pangu community rules BSC."

If you are a pure meme dev or meme infrastructure,

Here, meme refers to any type of low liquidity asset that is launched on-chain without permission, with no mechanism for chip distribution bias or price discovery human intervention.

And Dev or infrastructure refers to the initiators related to the launch of this category of assets.
According to the pricing model of dissemination and the positive suspicion chain, there are only three truly useful resources:

On-chain active market makers: who know how to control the rhythm and manage chips for fast-paced schemes.
Network promoters: like Connor Gaydos of Enron coin, Abbey Desmond who turned Gatwick Airport into Luton Airport, or China's "Guo Meimei," "Fengjie," event planners who can stir real-world attention.
Precise trading KOLs and widely covered public media/KOLs: they can activate broad market consensus.

Other traditional "fundamental narratives" in the crypto circle are basically unimportant—the dissemination does not rely on them to complete, but rather as a story sold to exchanges, market makers, and industry bigwigs.

Final Thoughts

I have come to realize that any model I put out will become a common knowledge, raising the competitive threshold within the circle. However, I am truly fed up with large groups of people brainstorming narratives and then seeking my advice (flattery). Another purpose of this article is to hope that project parties can thoroughly read and understand it before scheduling a call with me.
If you are not a project party but an aspiring KOL working hard to build a personal brand, keep going and constantly stir things up to attract attention. This is actually the main point I recognized in @EnHeng456 and @Elizabethofyou: they are truly good at creating events that attract attention. This is a very rare ability. With more practice, you too can create your own "Enron."
Noblemen and commoners, is there any difference?

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