Is Living the Dream (LTD) a Slowly Waking Unicorn Poised for Greatness?
One Dream, One Community
Unless you’ve been asleep for the past two years (and if you have you should probably get that checked), you’ll likely have noticed that memes now rule the crypto roost. Investors might say they yearn for utility projects but the harsh reality is that many don’t go the distance, with prices dwindling and coffers draining as development drags on and holders move on to greener pastures. Of course this isn’t always the case (read Chainlink), but you get the picture.
Memes projects on the other hand are literally everywhere, jostling for space and squawking for attention like hungry chickens — they’re skittish, they’re noisy, and sadly, most of them are a bit pointless.
Indeed, some 5000 new meme tokens launch every single day, yet only approximately 3% of them ever go past 1 million MC, with the rest vanishing faster than you can say ‘rug pull.’
Still, for every TrumpFunInu and PepeFootCream waiting to steal your hard-earned dollars there are, of course, the glorious unicorns that burst out the gate and never look back, creating incredible communities in their wake and more than a handful of millionaires along the way. These are the types of projects investors dream of.
Shiba Inu was one such project.
Following in the early meme pawprints of DogeCoin, the token rose to unfathomable heights (over $40 billion at ATH) and is still sitting on an eye-watering $10.5 Billion dollar MC at the time of writing. But the real beauty is that whilst most meme tokens only have their own inherent value to rely upon, Shiba soon began to add external value to itself via utility, such as ShibaSwap (decentralised exchange), BONE (governance token), and Shibarium (Layer-2 blockchain). The kicker was that it had the affordability and community to allow it to do so, and by extension created a thriving ecosystem and dedicated group of followers / holders known lovingly as the Shib Army.
Expanding the Shiba Inu Ecosystem
By creating such a thriving, friendly, and popular subspace within the DeFi sector, Shiba Inu effectively opened the proverbial floodgates, allowing a slew of excellent projects to follow along in its wake, with many being backed by the very investors who added a shocking number of zeroes to their bank balances courtesy of the OG SHIBA itself.
Differentiating themselves from the simple, cheap copycats that invariably arrived and burned out within days — (Missed Shiba Inu? Don’t forget to buy Miss Shiba Inu and lose all your money overnight!) — these true SHIB ecosystem projects came to the table armed with their own utilities and seasoned teams. There are too many to list in one article, but two notable entrants include staking company, K9 Finance, which allowed hodlers to stake assets while remaining liquid, and Bad A.I, which brought a digital wave of smart AI products to the space, including chatbot S.A.R.A.H. (Yes we know she can be annoying, but we love her anyway). As a result all of these projects have done extremely well, carving out their own well-earned spots deep within the Shib ecosystem.
However, there is one other project that could end up turning all the Shib Army heads and is the perfect love child of utility and meme. It’s also one that aims not only to add a bunch of value to the ecosystem, but to also solve a major issue within the space at the same time.
Welcome to Living the Dream.
LTD: The Perfect Hybrid of Meme and Utility
Living the Dream — more commonly known as LTD — is a Shiba Inu ecosystem-focused project, which launched primarily on the Ethereum network. (For immediate clarity it is not a Limited Company despite the name; that said, the title does lend an air of credence and legitimacy to the proceedings, which undoubtedly the creators were aiming for). LTD has lofty ambitions too — aiming to become the ecosystem’s next big player, carving its niche by merging Web2 and Web3 ad platforms, enhancing token utility, and creating a unique DeFi social platform fueled by the massive Shib Army.
The project itself might look like a meme at first glance, but it has utility at its heart. Furthermore, being unashamed to embody a blend of meme culture and genuine utility has allowed the project to encapsulate the best of both from the very start. Like any true meme it’s bright and colourful and it’s most certainly selling you the Lambo Life, through the use of its suave Bond-esque Shib mascot, who can typically be found wearing a suit and sipping a cocktail in some opulent tropical setting. However the gloss is simply the showy part — a veneer not only designed to attract attention, but to overtly state how it actually wants its investors to end up: Living the dream — just like those who originally invested in Shiba Inu.
And it has a plan on how to get there.
The LTD mascot might be taking centre stage, dazzling everyone with colour and lights, but the real magic is taking place behind the scenes. For starters, the development of LTD has been deliberate and strategic, with the team building its base foundations and hype for over a year. Indeed, the project was so popular before launch that the founders even had to offer out 1000 IDO lottery tickets for random spots on Ape Terminal back in late August so that more people had a fair shot of getting involved. (The previous seed sale and presale both sold out in a matter of hours, showing the clear hype surrounding the project from its inception onwards).
Since then, LTD has gained a committed following and popped its head up at very notable events, including being Title Sponsor at Futurist — Canada’s biggest Blockchain event in August last year — hosting a cross-city cruise that hit capacity, and giving away more goodies than you could shake a branded pen at. The project was loud and proud and positioned itself as a serious contender in the crypto community. This early visibility was crucial in building investor confidence and expanding its reach, which is why the project had already built up an impressive community by the time it launched.
But these early wins are only half the magic. The project has also secured its firm placement within the Shiba Inu ecosystem through partnerships with some 42 web3 companies and projects, including some of Shiba Inu’s own official partners — including Bad A.I, K9 Finance, Welly’s, and Airian. These alliances have allowed LTD to leverage the established networks and user bases of these projects, further integrating itself within the larger SHIB ecosystem. The KOL machine is paying close attention too, with LTD being supported by a staggering 17 of the top 20 SHIB influencers on Twitter, and followed and tweeted about by the official Shiba Inu account itself — a testament to the project’s broad appeal and the trust it has garnered among industry titans.
LTD’s early success is also a clear showcase of what can happen when a project focuses on building and establishing value quietly before the fact, creating a ton of utility and goodwill behind the scenes without the henpeck distractions of ‘wen marketing?’ ‘wen binance?’ and ‘wen billion dollars in my wallet?’ Indeed this strategy has allowed them to actually get ahead of schedule with their products and services (shocked pikachu emoji), something almost unheard of in the crypto space.
So what are these utilities? Glad you asked.
LTD Utilities: Hybrid Advertising and DeFi Social Media
What truly sets LTD apart from the countless hoards of meme-looking projects that have come before is its dedication to its practical applications, which allow it to fly very free of its flashy roots and establish true inherent value through key products. The principal utility LTD is leading with is a decentralised advertising platform, designed to act as a bridge between traditional Web2 advertising and Web3. But why is that needed?
Because advertising in DeFi right now is BAD.
First of all it’s prohibitively expensive, with every service middleman having about 3 more middlemen in the same chain, each wanting their cut of profits and often plucking costing numbers out the air depending on what mood they’re in — and typically not doing a great job when all is said and done, if they even do the job at all. To make matters worse if the work does get done, the space can be so fickle that what worked yesterday no longer has any bearing today. Simply put, trying to market successfully in the DeFi space is like trying to shoot a target blindfolded while hanging upside-down from a tree in a storm. You might get lucky, but it’s more likely you’ll get nowhere close — and probably get a headache in the process. Web 2 isn’t much better either, with centralised companies gatekeeping access to audiences and charging a small fortune for momentary access to help justify their own continued existence.
Both spaces are yearning for better advertising services, where you get reliable, high quality services with great reach for reasonable prices — and this is exactly what LTD is creating with their Decentralised Digital Advertising Dashboard (DDaD) platform. The concept was created by project co-lead Shib Dream, himself the creator of ShibArmy.co, the largest publication website covering the whole of the SHIB ecosystem. All advertising services offered will be fully vetted and catagorised for easy navigation, and the platform itself also offers full serve and self serve options, as well as ad sourcing, advanced targeting, and advert placement defragmentation. The platform also has a fully customisable interface, allowing users to control their advertisements without relying on any centralised third parties if they don’t want to.
So, a pretty good change then.
The second main utility is Dreamers.social, a social media site aimed at people within the DeFi space. This utility has already proven a success, launching on October 22nd — several months ahead of schedule — and garnering a lot of positive attention. The platform allows users to engage with each other within a decentralised framework, focusing on user privacy, control, and the vibrant, community-driven engagement that meme tokens are typically known for (minus the swearing and obsession with Pepe, probably). The platform is also designed to complement LTD’s advertising solutions by offering additional channels for interaction and promotion within the social media site itself, thus amplifying its own ecosystem.
LTD: The Waking Unicorn
LTD itself has had quite the journey since its launch on 29th August this year. It burst from the gate with a not-too-shabby starting market cap of $1.3 million and grew to an impressive all-time-high of a touch over $6 million shortly afterwards. This initial surge was fueled by a combination of strategic marketing, strong partnerships, and the clear vision laid out by its two founders, Dream and Sentinel.
The project is already featured on a handful of centralised exchanges, and has made efforts to increase its own value by taking part in dedicated token burns. 1% has already been burned from total supply, with further burns planned in the near future — with the overall aim being to decrease supply and increase value. Whilst the market cap of LTD might have fallen somewhat (which is essentially every single crypto token at some point in its lifecycle) the team are ever-present and engaged within and with the community (always a good sign) and seemingly consistently looking at ways to improve value (even better sign). Of course much excitement revolves around the imminent launch of the advertising platform, which will of course bring shiny funds with it — to be used for further burns and development. No one seems to be worried about the current price, and it’s easy to see why with everything LTD has in the pipeline.
All-in-all Living the Dream represents a new wave of meme-skinned tokens that are a lot deeper under the surface and refuse to be pigeonholed. It has built on the successful foundations laid by its parental Shiba Inu, while ensuring it has the substance to back up its own hype. With strategic partnerships, innovative utilities, and a crystal clear vision, LTD is well on its way to becoming a cornerstone in the Shiba Inu ecosystem. Indeed, supported by rock solid community engagement, unique branding, and wealth of practical applications, LTD could well have all the makings of another unicorn, one that a whole new wave of investors could potentially ride to the top of that elusive DeFi mountain.
Now that would be living the dream.
N.B. Please note that The Wordsmith is not a financial advisor and anything written above should not be taken as financial advice.
