The Signal
0xkawz explains time.fun as a market for creator access: a token represents a creator's minutes, and those minutes can be redeemed for DMs, calls, auctions, or intimate live streams. The conversation stays practical about the economics — creator fees, burns, award pools, and the gap between a platform's signups and its active users — while Threadguy considers launching his own market.
Key Takeaways
- 01
TIME IS THE UNIT
time.fun frames a creator token as minutes rather than a speculative key. Creators can set distinct prices for DMs, calls, auctions, and streams; users buy the token needed to redeem the chosen interaction.
- 02
REDEMPTION MATTERS
Kawz says the platform needs actual DMs, calls, and other redemptions to work, not merely traders and holders. Its live-stream product is deliberately pitched as small, gated sessions rather than a Twitch replacement.
- 03
FEES FUND THE LOOP
Creator tokens are described as deflationary: trading and redemption can burn minutes, while some fees flow to an award pool for holders. Creators receive USDC from activity rather than an allocated token supply.
- 04
EARLY REVENUE IS REAL
Four months after the Solana launch, Kawz says creators had earned roughly $920,000 and the platform about $900,000. He cites Totally at about $380,000, donated to St. Jude's, and a roughly $75,000 set of pitch-auction proceeds.
- 05
THE TARGET IS OUTSIDE CRYPTO
The team is speaking with professional athletes, large TikTok creators, and other established names, though Kawz will not name them while legal and team discussions are ongoing. The intended payoff is fan conversion, not just crypto-native attention.
On the Record
“What creators are really doing is like giving access to their time, right? Whether that's voice calls, direct messages, you know, any sort of labor, whatever. It is like they're truly just giving their time.”
“You have to have redemptions being like taking place, like direct messages, calls, and all of that. So yeah, I mean, we're growing. We're growing.”
“For us it's like if you want to have a live stream gate it to your minute holders, have like 10, 15, 20 people in there. It's more connection between creators and their fans.”
“The thing that separates us the most is that you earn fees passively from people trading your time. Like that's huge. And you earn it a lot, right?”
The Breakdown
A creator token measured in minutes
After a brief shared complaint about memecoins, 0xkawz introduces time.fun through the thing creators actually sell: access to their time. A market launches a token representing that time, and the creator can offer structured products — direct messages, calls, auctions, live streams, or other work — with separate pricing and redemption rules.
What a paid DM pays for
Threadguy asks for the mechanical version using Totally. Kawz says Totally charges a fixed $500 for a direct message; a user buys that value in minutes, redeems them, and Totally is paid in USDC when he answers. Some flows to an award pool, some is burned, and a referrer can be paid. Kawz stresses these accounts are answered by the creators themselves.
Early platform numbers and the auction example
Kawz puts creator earnings at about $920,000 over four months and platform earnings at roughly the same level. Totally alone had made around $380,000, all directed to St. Jude's. The highest-ticket product is his Twitter pitch auction: three early-stage projects paid near $25,000 each for ten-minute pitches, making the first auction worth about $75,000 to charity. He says Totally's page has also generated substantial trading fees, even without a large volume of calls or direct-message redemptions.
The shift from Circle to token markets
Before time.fun, the product was called Circle Tech: simply pay to DM, with crypto payment rails but no trading. Kawz says that felt like a Web2 product. Adding tokens supplied the crypto-native component, while the structured products and USDC payouts were meant to avoid making a celebrity invent its own fan utility after launching a memecoin.
Scale means non-crypto creators
The current roster is still heavily crypto Twitter, but Kawz says the team is in lengthy conversations with athletes, big TikTok personalities, their teams, and lawyers. He declines to identify anyone before agreements are settled. The argument is incremental: even a thousand converted fans from each large creator would compound into a materially different user base.
Small rooms, not a Twitch war
On live video, Kawz explicitly rejects competing for the open distribution of Twitch, Kick, or even Pump.fun. The preferred format is a ten-to-twenty-person gated session with something specific to offer, such as Ansem explaining his trading process. Tiffany Fong had just made $1,000 in tips during an hour-long stream, all of which went to the creator.
Threadguy tests the pitch
Threadguy moves from skepticism about launching a token to considering an auction for a slot on his own stream, possibly with community-oriented proceeds. Kawz says creators can be as hands-on as they choose, set prices that make calls or DMs worth doing, and earn trading fees even without constant redemptions. He points to a nearly $5,000 Ansem call and says active, genuine participation matters more than daily attention to token price. The episode ends without a commitment, but with Threadguy saying he will seriously consider signing up.
Distilled from the episode transcript · Counterparty Recap Desk
