Im getting emotional

Gcookie, 

Building in crypto sometimes feels like a long duel.

Not the glamorous kind.

More like standing in the dust, squinting at the horizon, pretending you’re calm while quietly wondering if today is the day everything breaks.

Everyone looks relaxed.

Everyone says they’re “excited.”

Everyone is definitely lying a little.

Especially this year, WHAT A YEAR.

And yet, somehow, things still get built.

This year at Cookie wasn’t one big moment.

It was a series of small standoffs.

Weekly decisions. Product choices. Campaign launches. Algorithm tweaks. Emails sent late. Metrics checked too often. Trust earned slowly.

So instead of a victory lap, this is a pause.

A look back at what actually happened.

$21.2M in rewards distributed

Over the year, $21.2M was distributed in rewards.

Not as a grand gesture.

But as a steady signal.

Creators showing up.

Projects committing.

Campaigns running week after week, quietly proving that attention can be measured, valued, and rewarded without turning into a circus.

Mindshare became a thing (a real one)

This was the year mindshare stopped being a metaphor.

We launched Cookie SNAPS Mindshare Campaigns, then Capital Mindshare Campaigns, not to invent a new buzzword, but to give shape to something everyone could already feel.

Who actually moves conversations.

Who sustains them.

Who shows up when novelty wears off.

Attention stopped being noise.

It became something you could point to, reason about, and build on.

26+ Projects entered the arena

More than 26 projects trusted Cookie this year.

Different sizes. Different stages. Different ambitions.

What they shared was a willingness to try a different model, one where creators weren’t just distribution channels, and campaigns weren’t just bursts of activity, but systems that could compound.

That trust mattered.

It still does.

200,000+ Creators (And the responsibility that comes with it)

The creator community crossed 200,000 this year. We are incredibly grateful for our community although sometimes we fuck up a bit.

the ecosystem grew, so the system had to grow up with it. So we updated the algorithm.

Quietly. Carefully. Intentionally.

It meant prioritising originality over volume.

Signal over repetition.

Contribution over participation.

Not everyone loved it.

Change rarely feels good in the moment.

But campaigns became healthier.

Content became sharper.

And the ecosystem became more aligned with what it’s actually meant to reward.

If you’ve been part of this year, as a creator, a builder, a reader, a project analyst, this Wrapped is yours too. You can check your end of year performance review on cookie.fun

Feel free to share it.

Quote it.

Send it to someone who was in the trenches with you.

Almost every week, we wrote to You

Almost every week this year, a newsletter went out.

Sometimes long.

Sometimes niche.

Sometimes it was dead ass hilarious ngl.

To everyone who kept reading, thank you.

These emails became a place to think out loud, to reflect in public, and to document a system while it was still being built.

That matters more than the open rate.

Looking back

This year wasn’t about domination.

It was about direction.

About choosing to build infrastructure instead of hype.

Systems instead of shortcuts.

A space where creators, projects, and capital could interact without pretending the work was easy.

If this year was about laying foundations,

the next one is about seeing what can be built on top of them.

Thank you for standing in the dust with us.

Got questions? Feedback? You know where to find us 📞, we’re here to help you get organized, even if we’re still figuring out our own lives.

Until next lesson,

stay cookish. 🍪