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What does it take to design the economies of the future?
In this episode of The Art of Influence, Kade sits down with Mo Ezeldin, Head of Tokenomics at Animoca Brands, to unpack how token design can build (or break) communities.
Mo shares his origin story—from high school math teacher to losing it all in the 2017 ICO crash, to now leading one of the most influential tokenomics teams in Web3. His journey is both cautionary and visionary.
🎙️ Episode Highlights:
Why Mo believes motivation beats incentivization in token design
The real reason airdrops fail (and how to fix them)
How Animoca approaches token ecosystems, governance, and reputation
Lessons from $APE, Mocaverse, Pixels, and more
Why building trust is your best marketing strategy
Whether you're in Web3 or just navigating influence in a trust-challenged space, this episode is a blueprint for designing systems that work and last.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro01:23 - Mo’s early career shift from finance to teaching03:50 - Discovering Bitcoin and falling into the ICO craze06:18 - How losing 97% shaped Mo’s career path10:18 - Motivation vs Incentivization in tokenomics14:32 - Exchanges as extractive forces16:25 - Why good tokenomics is like parenting21:56 - Gold standards and common failures in token design28:01 - DAO governance and the future of decentralised ops32:42 - Gamified staking and Mocaverse35:51 - Best practice vs copy-paste mistakes36:50 - How to work with Animoca’s tokenomics team39:28 - Outro
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