I’ve been watching the Virtual Genesis Launchpad cycle unfold. It’s been one of the most revealing stress tests for this new wave of Base-native launches. ▸ Early movers crushed it → $173M in profits to the top 500 wallets. ▸ Late retail → Down bad ~$4.8M in losses. ▸ Now high open interest, longs getting bled, funding rate +0.88%. Someone’s still hopeful, but you know it’s not the market. What’s actually happening under the hood? → Institutional flows are reshaping the meta. I’m seeing less community allocation, more high-frequency bot dominance, and instant post-launch exits from early holders. The $PREDI 13x was real, but so was the volatility whiplash that followed. But $ARBUS, $ROOM, $BIOS, $WACH, etc. is decreasing in price, avg of -70%-80%. → Liquidity tells a different story. The VIRTUAL-ETH pair on Base is thriving, with Aerodrome LPs pulling a 356% APR. That’s 4x higher than the average alt. Traders are active, LPs are hungry, but the crowd feels uneasy. → And yet, Base season is still alive. The ones who understood the game stayed patient. The rest faded too early, front-running exits without watching the broader liquidity curve. My read is this is no longer about first-come-first-serve. It’s a test of narrative timing, wallet behavior analysis, and knowing when not to chase a green candle. The game changed so your strategy should be too.