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|3 min ReadInside the KOL round: influence-first funding rewrites the playbook
Lucca Menezes
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
In today’s market, influence is capital. The old pipeline was simple. VCs wrote checks, KOLs talked, retail provided liquidity. That spell broke in late 2022 as VC winter hit, exits slowed, and secondary markets refused the bag. Retail quietly returned on waves like Blast, ZKsync, and Friend.tech. Projects realized reports do not move crowds. Influencers do. So they redesigned the game around attention.
Enter the KOL round. Projects allocate low-priced tokens to KOLs, often cheaper than VC terms, ahead of TGE. KOLs hype, create FOMO, then get partial unlocks on listing. It looks like a win. Sometimes it is. Over the last seven days, XHunt tracked 3860 posts mentioning “KOL” versus 3078 for “VC,” a sign of where the heat is moving. The story, though, is messier than the pitch.
Winners, losers, and the trust games in between
Results sit at both extremes. In bull cycles, the triangle can work. Projects raise and trend. KOLs get early entries. Retail rides momentum. In tougher markets, liquidity thins, prices dump on listing, and locked KOLs cannot exit. KOL said he backed more than ten KOL rounds last year with zero profit, and sometimes tokens never arrived. called out structural traps, from missing tokens to rule changes after price rises.
There are big wins. Headline KOL said his best trades were Aster and Mira, taken at low valuations when sentiment was dead and teams were strong, then listing into a bull push. Aster at 50,000 ticket became 0.088 and sold near 4.71 million for roughly 444 percent returns. Others barely moved. WalletConnect’s unlock delivered about 1.5 times to ICO and KOL buyers.
Then the blowups. SatoshiVM’s SAVM ripped above 0.075. ZKasino changed terms after user lockups and pulled assets, leaving participating KOLs accused as conflict-laden promoters. Eclipse whispered 1 billion Series A, yet listed with about $380 million circulating cap and never landed Binance perps, according to . As KOL put it, the real sin is not losing money. It is using a fan base to bail out one’s own principal.
The incentives clash. Projects want loud launches and green candles. KOLs want to protect reputation and exit risk. Retail fears being the exit liquidity. Unless the product is strong enough to hold all three forces, the triangle snaps.
The agency layer and how players get picked
Most KOL rounds run through agencies that design price, allocation, and unlocks, recruit influencers, and enforce content. Good ones add floors, bonuses, or return rights to manage risk. Names cited by market participants include LFG Labs, JE Labs, BlockFocus, Shard, XDO, Mango Labs, Cipher Dance, and 4XLabs. For new KOLs, the first door is often an agency, not the project.
Access is earned. Build credible content. Stay active in X spaces and AMAs. Use data tools like to benchmark ranking, audience, and strengths. XHunt’s “soul index” is now a reference for some agencies and teams. Screening should mirror private deals. Check valuation and FDV. Study unlock schedules for supply cliffs. Look for real institutional backing. Note which top KOLs joined and whether funds and individuals co-invested. Vet the agency’s track record. Probe team history and any past controversies. Read the fine print on content approvals, floors, or return clauses.
KOL rounds are not charity. They are a narrow door for retail to touch primary pricing in a market where narrative, community, and speed rule. The mechanism is imperfect. Accountability can be blurry. But in a system still forming norms, influence-first financing is the native workaround. In this era, influence is capital. And everybody knows it.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.