Clout: Rewriting the Rules of "Influence Monetization"

The long-dormant SocialFi track is stirring again, with an application called Clout rewriting the rules of "influence monetization."

Author: Luke, Mars Finance

The long-dormant SocialFi track is stirring again, with an application called Clout rewriting the rules of "influence monetization." Today, this platform that allows users to issue personal tokens officially launched, and its first token $PASTERNAK skyrocketed to a market value of over $80 million within 5 hours, instantly becoming the focus of the crypto market.

Digging deeper into the operator behind it—Ben Pasternak is no stranger; this 15-year-old dropout who developed a hit social app and was named in Forbes' 30 Under 30 at 25 is attempting to inject crypto genes into the influencer economy with Clout.

Notably, this experiment coincides with a golden window for the celebrity token craze. Starting with a series of tokens from the Trump family, social media influence is being quantified into tradable digital assets. What sets Clout apart is that it simplifies the complex token issuance process to the level of creating a social media account: binding social media verification, credit card payment support, and an automatic allocation mechanism for internal and external trading—this "Web2 influencer-friendly" design may be bringing a massive influx of fresh blood to the crypto industry.

What is Clout?

The essence of Clout is a bold genetic recombination experiment in the SocialFi field—it cleverly stitches together the social assetization logic of FriendTech and the low-threshold token issuance mechanism of Pump.fun, ultimately incubating a "celebrity version of Nasdaq."

Model Breakdown:

Operational Path:

This hybrid model retains the imagination of FriendTech's "social capital securitization" while dissolving the crypto threshold through Pump.fun-style technological inclusivity. While other platforms are still debating "which is more important, social or financial," Clout has already pushed the influencer economy into an industrialized mass production era with a standardized assembly line.

Who is the Founder?

Ben Pasternak is a 25-year-old Australian who developed the game "Impossible Rush" at 15, which surged into the Top 20 of the App Store in the U.S., founded the teenage social platform Monkey at 17 with over 20 million users, and pivoted at 20 to conquer Walmart shelves with plant-based chicken nuggets NUGGS. Now, this entrepreneurial genius is entering the crypto field with Clout.

His ambitions clearly extend beyond this. In a recent AMA, he compared Clout to "Wall Street + Hollywood in the Web3 era," attempting to merge financial pricing with star-making. However, history often repeats itself: in the 1990s, the trading market for sports cards collapsed due to excessive speculation; in 2023, the tokenized social graph of Friend.tech experienced wild fluctuations. When Clout equips every influencer with a mini money printer, perhaps the more pressing question is: when traffic becomes a fixed asset on the balance sheet, will social media evolve into a more efficient value network or degenerate into a financial reality show involving everyone?

Celebrity Token Craze and Business Model Analysis

When Trump's MAGA token reached a market value of $50 billion, surpassing the valuation of his technology media group (DJT), the crypto market was completely awakened—the capital mobilization power of celebrities has far exceeded the value-bearing capacity of traditional physical assets. The emergence of Clout seems to have turbocharged this "influence IPO" wave: it not only standardizes celebrity token issuance into an assembly line operation but also upgrades this crypto game into a nationwide financial experiment through a fiat entry + liquidity enhancement dual-spiral structure.

1. Timing: The "Perfect Storm" of Celebrity Tokens

The crypto market in early 2025 is undergoing a paradigm shift from "technical narrative" to "cultural narrative." The wealth creation myths of presidential families collectively validate an underlying logic: social media influence is programmable capital. Clout keenly captures this trend, lowering the token issuance threshold to the minimalist operation of "binding Twitter account + 10,000 followers," making it so convenient that traditional financial IPOs seem cumbersome.

2. Genetic Recombination: The Hybrid Evolution of FriendTech + Pump.fun + Moonshot

The business model of Clout is essentially a synthetic biology of three genetic strands:

FriendTech's "social assetization" logic: Clout distills the FriendTech essence by viewing social media followers as a type of financial asset that can be securitized and traded. This thinking aligns with the "Web2 FriendTech" narrative that emerged in 2023, where platforms like OnlyFans and Patreon attempted to tokenize social relationships and realized varying degrees of success.

Pump.fun's "low-threshold token issuance" mechanism: Clout integrates Pump.fun technology to lower the threshold for personal token issuance to the level of "binding a social media account." This approach differs significantly from platforms like Rally and Binance