Crypto Exchanges are in Serious Trouble | Se Yong, fomo

FOMO began as an effort to make on-chain trading feel more like using a consumer app than juggling wallets, websites and Telegram tools. Co-founder Se Yong said the product uses embedded wallets and simplified onboarding and offboarding, building on the founders’ experience at dYdX, Uniswap and OpenSea. It started on Solana, then expanded across chains and added perpetuals; its setup lets users trade across Base and Solana from one cash balance without handling separate wallets or bridging funds themselves.

Se Yong describes FOMO as a social platform supported by trading, not a trading app with a social layer. It connects conversations and opinions to crypto, prediction and on-chain markets, with activity concentrated in crypto but including some stocks and real-world assets. FOMO has 2.5 million total users, about 700,000 daily returning users and roughly 150,000 daily active traders. Se Yong says around 75% of users return in a given month, which he believes compares more favorably with social platforms than with trading apps.

Early growth came in sharp bursts. A TikTok creator’s posts about a token that was easy to buy through FOMO helped lift daily traders from about 40 to 400 in one day, with volume also increasing tenfold. The team treated that as an early indication of product-market fit while acknowledging the base was small; growth from roughly 400 to 4,000 users followed FOMO’s launch on Base. Se Yong says activity later became steadier, with users, volume and revenue rising gradually from around June 2026. Referrals’ share of users fell from about 60% to 15% during that period.

FOMO raised about $2.2 million at a stated $20 million valuation, though most investors received terms based on a $17.5 million valuation and some received lower terms depending on commitment size. Se Yong said the financing was equity with a token award. Benchmark later invested $15 million at a $100 million valuation, when FOMO reported about $2.5 million in annualized revenue. The host separately gave an approximate estimate of roughly $1.5 million in revenue per day. Se Yong also said FOMO’s Series B came when annualized revenue was about $30 million, but the amount raised and current valuation were unclear in the discussion. The company has roughly 20 to 24 full-time employees, including about 12 engineers.

The company is moving away from performance marketing and toward brand-building and user-generated content on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, with the goal of reaching people who are not already in crypto. Se Yong said brand spending is difficult to evaluate through direct measures such as spend-to-signup conversion. FOMO uses on-chain trading as its starting point because, in his view, users want to trade on-chain and existing options are inadequate; planned areas include stocks, perpetuals, real-world assets, yield and prediction markets.

Se Yong said crypto exchanges have expressed interest in FOMO, but conversations have not progressed to an acquisition proposal. He sees trading apps as potential competitors, while arguing that crypto remains too small for the market to be zero-sum; he cited Pump.fun as an impressive launchpad also moving toward trading. FOMO is not planning a token under its current approach: Se Yong said the priority is to become a trusted financial application and eventually pursue a public listing. He would reconsider a token if ICOs returned and on-chain revenue distribution and user participation became feasible.

Se Yong’s target for 18 months out is 150 million users, roughly split between the United States and other countries, with at least two-thirds having made a transaction and at least half, he hopes, having never made a financial transaction before using FOMO. He wants FOMO to become the social graph for finance and a leading place to discover tokens, assets and stocks. The company had operated for about 18 months at the time of the interview; Se Yong said the categories are gaining recognition but the market is more crowded, making execution and speed the central risks. He also recalled a Twitter account hack a few weeks before launch, when someone issued a token from the account and the team feared lasting reputational damage; he said people ultimately forgave them.