[Recap] The Role of Entertainment in Driving Widespread Crypto Adoption

On February 25, 2026, The Tie hosted an Innovator Webinar on how entertainment—collectibles, gaming, streaming/social distribution, and game-like market mechanics—can drive the next wave of on-chain adoption. Heidi Pickett (Chief Business Officer, The Tie) moderated a conversation with Matt Szenics (Director, ME Foundation / Magic Eden), Efe Kucuk (Head of Gaming, Trilitech / Tezos), and Spencer Soloway (Head of Business Development & New Protocol Integration, ApeCo / ApeChain).

Watch full webinar here:

While the conversation focused on consumer-facing use cases, the panel consistently brought it back to an institutional framing: how to separate durable adoption from hype, which operational risks matter most for entertainment ecosystems, and what standards make these experiences credible at scale.

Entertainment Adoption: Beyond Short-Term Speculation
The panel discussed entertainment driven adoption as a category that can include both pure fun and speculation-driven engagement, particularly for crypto native audiences as long as the mechanics are designed sustainably. The core signal for real product market fit, however, was framed as repeat behavior: whether users keep coming back and expand into additional experiences over time, rather than appearing for a single moment of activity and then disappearing. 

Magic Eden’s evolution was used as an example of how entertainment adoption often starts with a single entry point and then expands. Matt noted Magic Eden’s early consumer traction began as a NFT marketplace and launchpad (launched on Solana in 2021), and has since grown into a broader suite of products beyond NFTs, including token trading and other speculation adjacent experiences across chains. He also emphasized that one way to gauge product market fit is tracking how users’ onchain behavior expands over time, especially when a single consumer product can offer multiple entertainment experiences rather than just one activity. From the ecosystem side, Spencer emphasized that entertainment chains need to give users something next after the initial moment of participation. ApeChain’s framing centered on moving beyond one off NFT drops into more persistent engagement anchored in Otherside through avatars, wearables, and other connected experiences. Efe positioned Tezos’ gaming push as an infrastructure and ecosystem enablement effort, where longterm adoption depends on developers shipping experiences that users actually choose to keep playing.

Onboarding and Wallet UX: Match the Experience to the Audience
A key theme was that onboarding should be designed around the product and the intended user, not around crypto purity. Efe described how the onboarding path changes depending on what the crypto component actually does and who the user is. He contrasted a casual mobile game example (Candy Crush like) where crypto might primarily serve as a reward distribution layer making it reasonable to simplify onboarding and progressively introduce crypto rails versus a more market driven experience where users actively buy/sell, which requires deeper onboarding and clearer security expectations. Efe also highlighted that the level of abstraction must be deliberate. In more mainstream consumer flows, teams may use embedded wallet patterns and then guide users on what to do with rewards later (including how to convert value off chain), while more crypto forward products require clearer funding flows (e.g., acquiring USDC) and more explicit wallet interaction. Matt reinforced a similar point from the consumer product side: if the first time experience feels too complex, especially when wallets are front and center, users drop off before they ever reach the fun part of the product.

Risk and Safeguards: Entertainment Has Different Failure Modes
The panel highlighted that entertainment ecosystems fail differently than DeFi heavy stacks. Instead of primarily being about pooled liquidity and smart contract exposure, entertainment failures often show up as experience failures from downtime, unpredictable execution costs, or infrastructure bottlenecks that break user trust and retention. Spencer positioned ApeChain’s institutional readiness around reliability and predictability. He emphasized uptime, minimizing fee spikes, and maintaining predictable execution conditions noting that ApeChain uses flat fees to reduce the user experience risk that can occur when chains become congested. He also pointed to crosschain reality as an operational consideration (including safe bridging in and out) and the importance of having institutional grade tooling available even when a chain’s center of gravity is entertainment rather than DeFi. On the Magic Eden side, Matt focused on safeguards for chance based and social collectible mechanics. He highlighted the importance of provable fairness and transparent randomness verification for chance based experiences, citing Magic Eden’s “Lucky Buy” as an example of a product built around random number verification with documentation that users can inspect. He also underscored practical protections that matter for consumer markets at scale: clear disclosures and anti bot defenses drawing parallels to familiar web2 high demand moments like ticketing and concert drops, where bot activity can quickly destroy trust.

Regulatory Reality: Designing for Global Markets
The discussion touched on how entertainment mechanics can trigger different legal interpretations across jurisdictions, particularly where products resemble regulated gambling or betting categories. Matt framed this as a global distribution challenge. He noted that teams often need to be selective about where they go to market first, leaning on best practice licensing approaches that can unlock broad coverage even if certain jurisdictions remain more constrained. The panel also discussed how the U.S. posture could evolve over time. Matt referenced prediction markets as a category influencing the regulatory conversation, noting the parallels institutions often draw to regulated web2 equivalents (e.g., DraftKings style markets) and the practical realities that shape those regimes. Spencer and Efe reinforced the platform level view that chains are permissionless environments from developers building a wide range of experiences and long term success still implies global reach, including the U.S. even if the compliance burden varies by product type.

Ecosystem Growth: What Attracts Builders
A notable section of the conversation focused on what draws builders to entertainment ecosystems beyond incentives. Spencer emphasized that ApeChain’s builder strategy is not grants first. He pointed to distribution and community as a core differentiator highlighting the pull of the Yuga/Bored Ape brand and the value of giving builders access to an existing community that’s willing to try new experiences. He also emphasized reducing overhead through hands-on support and practical enablement including credit style support and infrastructure relationships that make building cheaper and faster. Efe echoed the industry’s shift away from grant driven behavior. He described grants as having created unhealthy incentives across the sector, where teams could chain hop instead of building sustainable businesses. He outlined a more embedded support model: hands on assistance (including product and go to market help), and in some cases operating more like an investor/incubator approach focused on long term teams. He also made a practical point that influences builder decisions: beyond incentives, developers look for real user volume and activity because distribution ultimately determines whether a product can scale.

Looking ahead
The webinar reinforced that entertainment can be a powerful gateway to on-chain adoption, but scaling it requires more than novelty. For institutions evaluating this category, the signals that matter are increasingly practical: durable engagement, reliable infrastructure, credible integrity mechanisms, and distribution strategies that reflect regulatory realities and consumer expectations.

The panel also shared specific near term items to watch across each ecosystem. On the Magic Eden side, Matt previewed “Dicey”, an upcoming separate consumer brand from the team behind Magic Eden targeted for launch by the end of Q1. He framed success in measurable terms, encouraging viewers to focus on usage/engagement signals and volume once it’s broadly live and not just narratives.

On the Tezos side, Efe emphasized continued expansion of gaming initiatives, tooling, and real-world assets (RWA). He noted more entertainment and gaming products are expected to launch through Q1 and Q2, alongside efforts to support teams building intentionally for crypto audiences.

On the ApeChain side, Spencer highlighted continued momentum around Otherside. He referenced growth in Otherside participation including more avatars and the opening of  “the Nexus” world, plus a distribution partnership with Amazon Gaming that has already supported new digital item channels including avatar related activity, wearables, and other content. He also pointed to the Otherside development kit as part of enabling more builders to create new experiences over time.

Across all three, the consistent takeaway was clear: entertainment driven crypto adoption will be won by teams that ship products people genuinely enjoy using while meeting the reliability, integrity, and risk expectations that institutional partners increasingly require.