Utility pays: how Bastyon tackles real problems without banking on altseason

In late February CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said that the 2025 altcoin season would be “selective”. In his view, only projects with strong fundamentals and a resilient business model can outperform the broader market.

Amid the hype around meme-coins, Pocketcoin (PKOIN) stands out — the native cryptocurrency of Pocketnet, a PoS blockchain. It powers Bastyon, a decentralised social video platform and a marketplace for mini-apps such as Barteron.

According to the project’s data, Bastyon’s monthly audience exceeds 1.6m active users. Together with the project’s team, we explain why, amid a glut of speculative tokens, it is worth focusing on projects with real applications.

A question of prospects

One of this cycle’s dominant trends has been meme-coins. Their defining feature — at least at launch — is a complete lack of practical utility. Such assets are typically rooted in internet humour, social narratives or topical events.

In 2024 several industry figures voiced concerns that the meme-token market resembles disguised gambling and could, over time, drive developers away from the sector.

The trend peaked with the launch of Official Trump (TRUMP) a few days before the inauguration of US president Donald Trump. Just 19 days after listing, cumulative investment losses in the token reached $2bn. Since then its price has steadily fallen, and The Block’s GMCI Meme index has fallen 90% from its December peak.

Creating long-term value is rare for such projects — few even aim for it. Communities hunt for new themes to tokenise and traders dream of getting rich quick, but it is chiefly insiders who profit.

“Meme-tokens have no fundamentals to ‘land on’ when the market falls. Everything depends on the community’s attention, and it easily switches to a new shiny coin. If you invest rather than speculate, choose projects with real use and active users. You are unlikely to make hundreds of Xs, but you will significantly reduce the risk of losing more than 90% of your capital,” — assert Bastyon.

Against the trend towards uselessness

Unlike speculative projects, PKOIN is used for advertising and barter settlements within Bastyon’s ecosystem, as well as in real commerce.

The platform attracts 1.66m unique users a month, allowing advertisers to buy traffic at $0.28 (or 25 rubles) per thousand impressions.

The Bastyon app has 172,000 downloads on Google Play and 54,600 installs over the year in the App Store. The desktop application has 46,352 downloads from GitHub.

“These figures confirm organic growth and real user trust in the project, which sets PKOIN apart from many other tokens,” ― the Bastyon developers note.

They add that one of PKOIN’s most attractive features is staking with returns of up to 30% per annum. To obtain it, simply buy the token on the PKOIN website or on exchanges (at the time of writing XT.COM, DigiFinex and Tapbit) and launch a node via Bastyon. A step-by-step guide to purchasing the token is on the project’s website.

On the decentralised marketplace Barteron you can sell food, clothing, real estate and services for PKOIN.

“This is the value of PKOIN: unlike speculation on meme-tokens, which ends in tears, this cryptocurrency is used by ordinary people for real deals. And everything happens in a decentralised, censorship-free environment,” — Bastyon comments.

Recently the team released Wrapped PKOIN (WPKOIN), a wrapped version of the token available for trading on Uniswap and other decentralised exchanges. WPKOIN holders can earn up to 20% per annum if they lock tokens in the smart contract.

“PKOIN’s rating on CoinMarketCap has risen to 4.2. This figure is on a par with Solana and higher than Cardano, although their capitalisations are 5,000 and 2,000 times larger than Pocketcoin’s,” ― the developers note.

In the near term they plan to launch new mini-apps built with the Bastyon SDK.

Conclusions

The Bastyon developers believe the hype around speculative projects is temporary. In the long run, those offering real value will survive.

In 2025 the meme-coin trend is gradually waning. The market is undergoing a sharp correction, and projects without fundamentals have minimal chances of surviving the next bear phase.

Pocketcoin is a live ecosystem with real token usage inside the Bastyon social network. Users can not only spend PKOIN within the platform but also earn up to 30% per annum from staking.