TL; DR
Sidekick is a Web3-native live streaming platform that integrates TikTok-style content flow, Huya-style monetization mechanisms, and on-chain execution capabilities. During live streaming, users can tip and participate in airdrops, allowing content creators to become distributors of real-time assets.
As the crypto attention market becomes increasingly saturated, the effectiveness of marketing tweets and ranking activities is diminishing. In contrast, live streaming is a more trustworthy and higher-conversion form of communication suitable for building visibility and credibility for meme tokens and VC-backed projects.
The platform has achieved initial success in the Asian market, attracting over 1,000 KOLs focused on the live streaming field. Sidekick is currently planning to expand its content domain and encourage deeper community participation.
Most team members come from Web2 and have rich experience in live streaming platforms and global market expansion capabilities. Sidekick has entered the seventh season of BNB Chain's MVB accelerator program and has received support from YZi Labs, Altos Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, and Hashkey Capital. They have also collaborated with Solana Foundation, Base, and OKX Wallet, and joined the Google Cloud Web3 Startup Program.
Looking ahead, Sidekick has the potential to evolve from a live streaming platform into a modular infrastructure layer, driving diverse on-chain activities through real-time content and becoming a core component of project operations.
Why live streaming is crucial in Web3 promotion
Sidekick is a Web3 content platform built around live streaming, covering market commentary, chain games, and other content. It applies the model of "live streaming e-commerce" to the crypto market, creating LiveFi infrastructure that allows KOLs, traders, and project parties to interact within the same space.
The rise of Web3 live streaming is not accidental but reflects a structural issue in the crypto ecosystem: low marketing efficiency and an increasingly saturated attention market.
Starting from Q1 2024, with tools and platforms like Pump.fun, BONK's LetsBonk, and Raydium Launchpad emerging, the threshold for issuing tokens has significantly lowered. AI-driven smart tokens further accelerate this trend. The volume of token issuance has increased more than 50 times compared to Q1 2024, while the number of active wallets on mainstream Layer1s has also doubled. However, the exposure mechanisms for tokens have not expanded concurrently, making it difficult for early projects to gain attention.
Institutionally, from Q1 2024 to Q1 2025, VC investment amounts continue to grow, but funds are increasingly concentrated on a few star projects. These projects, due to valuation and liquidity pressures, also demand higher market attention.
In this context, "distribution efficiency" and "information transmission" become more critical. Project parties not only need to create products but also win the attention game. As Sidekick founder Jonny said, the criteria for evaluating token projects have shifted from fundamentals to their ability to attract early attention.
Among all options, KOLs are the key driving force in generating project attention. While marketing agencies can help find top KOLs, it is expensive and has limited reach. A new question arises: how can project parties reach and activate mid-tier KOLs to improve the ROI of marketing investments?
Many InfoFi platforms have addressed this issue by introducing leaderboard-style airdrop mechanisms—project parties allocate airdrops based on the dissemination heat on Twitter/X. This indeed brought broader participation and incentivized mid-tier KOLs to produce content. However, this mechanism also had side effects: KOLs tend to release uniform, similar content, leading to content homogenization, user fatigue, and affecting promotional effectiveness.
Thus, the question evolves: how can project parties, especially startups, stand out amid the vast amount of information, quickly establish trust, and continuously output differentiated content?
Live streaming exhibits multiple structural advantages in the context of Web3 promotion. Compared to static tweets or pre-recorded videos, live streaming allows content creators and audiences to engage in real-time, unscripted interactions. This dynamic communication mechanism enhances transparency, allowing viewers to not only assess the content but also observe the storyteller's behavior, intentions, and credibility. These features are also one of the reasons for the rise of live streaming e-commerce in Web2. In 2023, China's live streaming e-commerce GMV has surpassed 4.9 trillion yuan, and similar models are gradually becoming popular in the European and American markets.
Web3 itself suffers from severe information asymmetry and high trust costs, making live streaming a suitable means to reduce uncertainty and build trust.
The age structure of crypto users also supports the adoption of this form. Approximately 60% of crypto users globally are aged between 25 and 44, and this group also constitutes nearly 50% of Twitch's core users. This indicates a high cultural and behavioral compatibility between crypto users and live streaming.
The trend of the industry adopting this functionality has already begun: in 2024, Pump.fun integrated live streaming functionality, allowing creators to introduce tokens in real time. The 'Crypto' category on Twitch has also attracted over 4,600 daily viewers, comparable to mainstream categories such as NBA 2K25 and Call of Duty.
In addition to structural advantages, the attention distribution path of live streaming aligns with actual user behavior. The Sidekick team has observed a typical five-step discovery path:
In Telegram/Discord groups, people share token contract addresses;
Discussions in private communities;
KOLs on the platform recommend to fans;
Gaining broader attention on the X platform;
Ultimately converting into trading volume.
This indicates that the communication path of a project relies on trustworthy individuals to tell stories, verify legitimacy, and establish early trust. Live streaming, as a form of real-time human interaction, is the ideal tool to accelerate this process.
Sidekick: From Attention to Action
Sidekick is a live-streaming-centric crypto market discovery platform that focuses on real-time market interpretation and project interaction. It responds to profound changes in Web3 user behavior: attention scarcity, rapid narrative shifts, and trust becoming key for users adopting projects.
By deeply integrating live streaming with trading modules, Sidekick realizes real-time interactions between project parties, content creators, and audiences. It brings the logic of live streaming e-commerce into the LiveFi scene, allowing narrative and community participation to truly merge.
Platform Features
The 'trust-action' closed loop built by Sidekick originates from product design: it absorbs the interactive mechanisms of Web2 platforms while possessing Web3 trading capabilities. It integrates the core functionalities of TikTok, Huya, and Bilibili:
Creators produce content in real-time, and viewers can monetize it through tipping, gifting, advertising, or even subscriptions, forming a strong interactive and convertible content ecosystem.
Business model
Sidekick provides two main profit models for broadcasters: one is audience tipping through virtual gifts; the other is the creator incentive program provided by the platform.
Ordinary users are another core role of the platform. They watch live streams, obtain market interpretations, participate in real-time comments, and can win rewards through airdrop activities within the platform.
The third component is the project parties or advertisers. They enhance exposure and community engagement through live AMA sessions, airdrop activities, or product placements, and can collaborate with broadcasters to create content, viewing broadcasters as performance-based marketing channels.
As an infrastructure and matchmaking platform, Sidekick charges commission income from collaborating projects, similar to intermediary service fees.
Team Introduction
Sidekick is led by founder Jonny, who has extensive experience in gaming, live streaming, and investment. His career began at China's largest internet café brand, Wangyu Wangka, where he was responsible for its European market expansion. He later founded a gaming companionship platform, Bixin, gaining deep insights into player behavior and the live streaming ecosystem.
Under Jonny's leadership, Sidekick was selected for the seventh season of BNB Chain's MVB accelerator and received support from investment firms such as YZi Labs, Altos Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, and Hashkey Capital. At the same time, Sidekick has collaborated with Solana Foundation, Base, and OKX Wallet, successfully joining the Google Cloud Web3 Startup Program.
Market Strategy
Sidekick's market expansion path is divided into three phases, corresponding to different user groups and content structures:
Phase One: Targeting crypto-native users, especially those active in private community groups within the Chinese community but with weaker representation on public platforms like Twitter/X. This phase focuses on building a loyal user base.
Phase Two: Expanding to entertainment creators. These individuals may not be professional players but excel at enhancing the live streaming experience through humor, plot, or emotional engagement, increasing user stickiness and platform retention.
Phase Three: Entering more vertical content fields. Sidekick does not intend to compete head-on with gaming live streaming giants like YouTube, Huya, and Douyu, which have significant advantages in IP licensing and esports resources. Instead, Sidekick chooses to delve into the niche track of 'real-time crypto market content', forming a differentiated advantage and having greater flexibility to explore new content, new creators, and new monetization methods.
This three-phase path is community-driven. Many users proactively change their profile pictures to Sidekick styles and spontaneously create tutorial content, without direct incentives from the platform. This grassroots growth method creates a positive feedback loop of strong participation and loyalty.
The team itself is also deeply active in crypto communities, regularly participating in meme coin trading and KOL discussion groups, continuously gathering frontline feedback and keeping up with changes in the flow of attention and narrative trends.
Competitive Landscape
As the integration of live streaming and crypto market interpretation becomes increasingly close, the so-called 'LiveFi' track is seeing the emergence of various product paths. These products can be roughly categorized into several types: third-party live streaming platforms for Twitter/X, token issuance platforms with optional live streaming features (like Pump.fun), live streaming models integrated with games (like Abstract Chain), and exchange-native live streaming interfaces (like the product Binance is developing).
These paths reflect different platforms' understanding of 'what role live streaming plays in the crypto ecosystem':
Twitter/X third-party tools were the first to implement live streaming features but lack Web3 native functionalities, such as cryptocurrency tipping.
Pump.fun's live streaming feature focuses on how meme coins can create viral liquidity through live streaming. Live streaming is more of a means to assist in dissemination.
Abstract Chain focuses on GameFi projects, primarily targeting creators and users in Europe and America.
From a foundational logic perspective, most platforms still view video content as a 'promotional layer' or 'additional functionality'. In contrast, Sidekick positions live streaming as the core interface for trading, not a supporting role but the main axis of the product. It integrates content creation, token trading, and community interaction, embedding tipping and airdrop incentives as native monetization tools, allowing the actions of content creators and audiences to naturally revolve around on-chain interactions.
At the same time, exchanges like Binance are also deploying live streaming features, but these live streams only serve tokens that are already launched. In contrast, Sidekick's creators can freely live stream around any asset—whether it's a newly launched product or a niche narrative token. This gives Sidekick a stronger trend adaptability, enabling it to more keenly capture community-driven enthusiasm and speculative cycles.
A typical case recently emerged: a broadcaster live-streamed the entire process of hyping a meme token and achieved community takeover (CTO) during the process. Viewers could not only see his actions in real-time but also participate in discussions and interactions directly. This form of live streaming gives the content itself transparency and participatory nature.
In terms of regional layout, Sidekick has established a solid foundation within the Chinese creator and viewer community and has signed over 1,000 KOLs focused on the live streaming field. This dual advantage of 'breadth of content supply + depth of creator stickiness' will play a key role in the fiercely competitive battle for attention.
Conclusion: The Next Step of LiveFi and Protocol Integration
As the market continues to evolve, Sidekick is gradually transforming from a content platform into a Web3-capable infrastructure layer. It is not just a tool for information dissemination but also a real-time discovery engine—closely integrating content delivery with user actions. In this process, Sidekick is no longer just a "content layer" but an "execution layer" with conversion capabilities, able to turn viewing behaviors into on-chain actions.
In the future, Sidekick has the potential to expand into more on-chain scenarios, such as token issuance, IDO sales, whitelist subscriptions, and even lending. The platform will continue to introduce modular components to serve more protocols and application projects.
Just as live streaming has completely changed the e-commerce landscape, Sidekick also hopes to initiate similarly profound changes within the Web3 ecosystem.
