Moonlanding Gems: Q1 2025

The first quarter of 2025 reminded us that markets don’t move on fundamentals alone. Even as regulation turned constructive and real-world adoption accelerated, macro headwinds disrupted momentum across digital assets. Volatility reasserted itself, flushing out excess and forcing a reckoning across high-beta tokens. But through it all, the projects we back kept building.

In this update, we look beyond price action to focus on what truly matters: product milestones, user growth, and team execution. These are the drivers of long-term value — and the lens through which we continue to allocate with conviction. Despite a choppy macro tape, our core thesis held: teams that build relentlessly, ship with precision, and engage real users will come out stronger — cycle after cycle.

Here’s what stood out this quarter:

HairDAO

The decentralized science space is notoriously long on vision and short on execution — HairDAO is, of course, the exception. In Q1, they unveiled their sixth DAO-owned patent, launched a tele-health platform that connects directly with patients, and appointed Dr. Blake Bloxham — a heavyweight in hair restoration — as Chief Medical Officer.

Holyheld

This quarter was Holyheld’s quiet glow-up. With the BRRR token deployed across 15 chains, the stack is technically live — and the only thing holding back ignition is final decision on go-to-market. Meanwhile, they’ve signed an exclusive two-year deal with one of the top crypto hardware wallet with a million-plus user base, bringing real distribution leverage, among others. The back-end? A virtual liquidity engine ready to route any token or fiat to BRRR, on any chain.

Glitter Protocol

Web3 still lacks Google-level usability. Glitter Protocol is building that index layer — and then some. They’ve started rolling out an unstoppable front end powered by ENS + IPFS + their own open indexing layer, making censorship-resistant apps as easy to launch as WordPress sites. Their AI governance agents are already live and active in ENS and NAS DAO. Now backed by an ENS grant, they’re going after Web2 devs in tight markets like China with toolkits that abstract away blockchain complexity.

Crystalfall

Building AAA titles in Web3 is brutal — but Crystalfall is quietly pulling it off. Q1 brought additional funding, plus advanced talks with a leading local tech fund to close the round. Two standout engineers joined the team, including a founder who exited a similar studio — and just wanted in as he shared the vision. Playtests are live, Steam is next, and despite minimal marketing, they’re now sitting on 17k wishlists and growing.

CLUB

CLUB is making football games social, mobile — and blockchain-native. In Q1, they went live in 80+ countries, cleared full approvals on iOS and Android, and briefly hit #4 in App Store sports — beating even EA Sports FC. Over 6k organic installs in March, plus a strong retention curve, validate the core gameplay loop. Now it’s a race to scale marketing and hit the hard launch ahead of the EPL 2025/26 season.

KlimaDAO

KlimaDAO quietly put up their best month on record in January, processing over 10,000 on-chain retirements. More importantly, they onboarded India’s Universal Carbon Registry, giving them a direct pipeline into a major carbon credit source — and signaling real integration into the global RWA ecosystem. With the Klima 2.0 dual-token model rolling out, a more robust on-chain carbon economy is coming into focus.

Composable Finance

Composable checked several key boxes in Q1: They listed their Mantis intent layer, finalized their chain-agnostic oracle, and continued to solidify their role as the liquidity bridge between Cosmos and Polkadot.

Talisman

Talisman has moved beyond being a multichain wallet — it’s shaping up as a liquidity gateway for advanced users. This quarter they shipped in-wallet staking for TAO, integrated Autonomys Network for native AI yield tools, and won a $600k Polkadot treasury grant to fund mobile expansion. The TGE “soon” is on track, and the stack keeps getting deeper — with expanded keyring support and a swap module rounding out the user experience.

Silent Protocol

Privacy has been a talking point for years — Silent Protocol is doing the heavy lifting. Their Q1 milestone? A massive 1,000+ contributor trusted setup ceremony, laying the cryptographic foundation for their zk-powered Ghost Layer. At the same time, they opened developer channels, released technical essays, and signaled a mainnet-ready launch once audits are in. Privacy that works with compliance is hard to do. This protocol might just crack it.

We’ve seen how far these teams have come — and how much further they’re about to go. Q2 is shaping up to be a ride. Buckle up — it’s just getting started.