Nansen x Surgence Labs · Proposal
Nansen Perps
A 12 week go to market program to take Nansen Perps from $185M to $1B+ monthly volume.
Trusted by
01 / Current State
The best data in crypto, attached to a perp stack nobody knows about.
Nansen has spent six years building the deepest onchain dataset in the market: 500M+ labeled wallet addresses across 30+ chains, $88.2M raised, a $750M Series B led by Accel with a16z, GIC and Tiger Global participating. Smart Money, Token God Mode, Wallet Profiler and Smart Alerts are category-defining products.
On 9 June 2026, Nansen shipped perpetuals trading through Hyperliquid, directly inside the product. Spot execution already ran on Solana and Base, routed through Jupiter, OKX DEX and LI.FI, with a non-custodial embedded wallet powered by Privy. The research-to-execution gap closed. Of the top 15 perps traded on Nansen, roughly 10 are non-crypto: SpaceX, the S&P 500, gold, oil.
The market has not caught up. Nansen is still filed under "analytics" by the entire perp trading category.
500M+
Labeled wallet addresses
$185.6M
Perps volume, 30 days
$41.3M
Perps volume, last 7 days
$2.41M
Perps volume, last 24 hours
$318.3M
Cumulative perps volume since 9 June
Source: DefiLlama, Nansen Perps builder code, August 2026.
Nansen is running a $1,000,000 trading raffle from 15 June to 23 August 2026. Ten weeks, $100,000 in USDC paid out every week, drawn every Tuesday.
How tickets are earned
- 1 ticket per $1,000 of spot volume
- 1 ticket per $10,000 of perps notional
- Referrals diluted 5:1, at 1 ticket per $5,000 referral spot or $50,000 referral perps
- Tickets multiplied by Nansen Points tier at week close
- Tickets reset to zero every Monday 00:00 UTC
How prizes are drawn
- 840 winning tickets per week since week 6
- 10 x $1,000, 10 x $500, 20 x $250, 800 x $100
- Capped at $3,000 per account per week
- Entry list hashed, randomness from ORAO VRF on Solana, published on Solana Explorer
- Winners must reveal in-app within one week or the prize expires
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
02 / Objectives
Three numbers, twelve weeks.
Nansen has the product and the data advantage. What is missing is volume, traders, and a market that knows the perp stack exists. Every element of this program resolves to one of those three.
01
$1B monthly perps volume
From a current run rate of $185.6M per month. A 5.4x increase inside 12 weeks.
02
2x to 3x active traders
Not sign-ups. Funded accounts placing perp trades through the Nansen builder code. Sourced from the Koto trader base, the 0xMedia perpdex community roster, and the organic funnel built by the Perp Card.
03
Mindshare from zero
Nansen currently holds no measurable mindshare in the perp dex category. Every conversation about onchain perps happens without it. The objective is a dedicated Nansen Perps brand surface with a following, a trailer moment the category cannot ignore, and a share card the timeline runs on for weeks.
Monthly volume run rate
Illustrative
Week 2
Brand live
Week 4
Trailer drop
Week 7
Perp Card + Season 1
Week 9
Koto and pods
Week 12
Target
Week 0 baseline: $185M monthly run rate.
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
03 / Strategy
Build the brand surface, then give the category a reason to look at it.
The sequence matters. A trailer with nowhere to land wastes the spike. A share card with no audience does not spread. A leaderboard with no traders is an empty room. Each phase creates the conditions for the next.
Phase 0
Weeks 1 to 2
Foundation and the Nansen Perps surface
Establish Nansen Perps as its own brand surface, tethered to the parent account rather than severed from it. Nansen's entire perp differentiation is that it is Nansen, the Smart Money layer with execution attached, so the surface inherits that equity instead of starting from zero. Narrative locked, positioning built around the one claim only Nansen can make: you can see what Smart Money is doing and take the other side of it in the same screen.
Channel build out, visual identity for the perps line, content system defined, Perp Card in build and QA, Koto builder code integration resolved, pod roster briefed.
Output: Nansen Perps channel live, messaging house locked, trailer in production, Perp Card in QA.
Phase 1
Weeks 2 to 4
Warm up and follower growth
Before the trailer, the surface needs a pulse. Daily perp-native content: Smart Money positioning calls, liquidation post-mortems, funding rate reads, the non-crypto perps angle that almost nobody knows Nansen offers. Traders do not follow a brand that has posted three times. Reply engagement into the perp dex conversation, targeted at the accounts already arguing about Hyperliquid, Aster, Lighter and Paradex.
Output: Consistent posting cadence, first organic follower base, presence established in the perp dex conversation.
Phase 2
Weeks 4 to 5
Viral trailer announcement
The category moment. A produced trailer built on the collision Nansen alone owns: S-tier intelligence plus execution in the same product. Not a feature walkthrough. A statement that the research layer became the exchange.
Simultaneous drop across the Nansen Perps surface, the main Nansen account, founder amplification, the pod roster, and clipper distribution. Every asset carries a direct trade link. The point of the spike is not impressions, it is funded accounts.
Output: Category-wide awareness spike, direct trade link traffic, warm audience for the Perp Card.
Phase 3
Weeks 5 to 6
Content build up
Convert attention into belief. Proof content in sequence: Smart Money calls that resolved, real trades taken inside the product, the fee and execution comparison against standalone front ends, the tokenized asset perps angle. The market needs to learn two things before it will move volume: that Nansen executes, and that its data changes outcomes.
Output: Proof library live, product understanding established, audience primed for the loop.
Phase 4
Weeks 6 to 7
The Nansen Perp Card
The viral product loop launches here. Full mechanic detailed below.
Output: Perp Card live, share loop self-feeding, funded accounts converting into Season 1.
Phase 5
Weeks 7 to 12
Season 1 and volume scale
The restructured leaderboard goes live (section 04). Koto competition deploys (section 06). The 0xMedia pod roster activates (section 07). Community funnel converts and retains (section 08). Weekly winner content and leaderboard movement become the ongoing content engine.
Output: $1B+ monthly volume run rate, Season 1 leaderboard as a permanent product surface.
3.2 / The Nansen Perp Card
The one scorecard only Nansen can compute.
Anyone can build a Hyperliquid PnL card. Only Nansen can resolve a trader's entire perp career across every venue they have ever touched, against 500M labeled wallets, and tell them where they rank. This is not a marketing asset bolted onto the product. It is the product's core capability released early as a shareable object.
How it works: a trader connects their wallet. Nansen resolves their perp history across Hyperliquid, Aster, Lighter, edgeX, Paradex, GRVT, dYdX, Drift and Jupiter Perps. The card returns lifetime notional, venue split, fees paid, best and worst positions, a performance grade, a percentile rank, and the verdict that only Nansen can deliver: how often they traded against Smart Money without knowing it.
NANSEN
Ansem
$2.4M
Lifetime perp notional
6
Venues
$4,180
Fees paid
Top 8%
Percentile
Venue split
Traded against Smart Money · 64% of the time
On Nansen, you would have seen it first.
Rank #1,284 · Code NSNPERP-8K2
Whale
Rank #12
$41.8M
Lifetime notional
Against Smart Money 38% of the time
Mid tier
Rank #8,402
$310K
Lifetime notional
Against Smart Money 57% of the time
First timer
Rank #61,730
$1,900
Lifetime notional
Against Smart Money 81% of the time
The share card funnel
01
Connect
Wallet connects. Multi-door entry: X, Discord and email capture for traders who will not connect first.
→02
Reveal
The card renders. Lifetime notional, venue split, fees paid, and the Smart Money verdict.
→03
Share
The card posts to X with the referral code embedded in the image and the link.
→04
Climb
Referrals and traded volume move visible rank. Rank is public on the Season 1 leaderboard.
→05
Claim
Rank converts into seeded Season 1 tickets, NXP tier credit, and leaderboard position at launch.
Loop A, steps 3 to 4: referrals recruit the next trader.
Loop B, step 5 back to step 2: wins become clip content, feeding the card again.
The five loop properties
Property
Why it works for Nansen Perps
Personal injustice
The card quantifies exactly how much a trader has paid in fees across venues and how often they traded against Smart Money without seeing it. The grievance is personal, specific, and only Nansen can prove it.
Multi-door entry
Whales connect wallets. Community traders enter through Koto. Retail enters through the pod creators. Curious lurkers enter through X or email with no wallet required.
Whale self-selection
Every high notional card is a qualified lead who has voluntarily disclosed their size and venue history. Straight into white glove outreach.
Scarcity converter
Card rank seeds Season 1 leaderboard position. Early cards start ahead, which makes waiting expensive.
Data head start
Every connect is a qualified perp trader segmented by venue, size and behaviour. The campaign builds the acquisition database the product needs anyway.
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
04 / Leaderboard Architecture
One layer where there need to be two.
The current raffle is well designed for what it does. Fixed pool, uncapped tickets, revenue parity earn rates, provably fair draw. Since week 6 it spreads $100,000 across 840 winners, which is the correct trade: a wider winner base generates the social proof a sparse draw never could. Nansen reported 1 in 3 participants winning in that week's reveal.
But the $3,000 per account weekly cap, added in week 3, is directly hostile to a creator and pod strategy. The traders who move real notional hit the ceiling in days. From that point their incentive to keep pushing volume is zero for the rest of the week. A single-layer structure cannot serve retail social proof and high volume competition at the same time.
Recommendation: keep the raffle exactly as it is, and put an uncapped volume leaderboard on top of it.
Layer 2 · Season leaderboard
- Uncapped. Ranked purely on traded notional through the Nansen builder code.
- Tiered prize brackets: top 1, top 10, top 50, top 250.
- Team scoring, so pod creators and their communities compete as units.
- Season-long cumulative, with a live public leaderboard page.
Purpose: the layer creators, whales and trading communities compete on. This is where the $1B comes from.
Layer 1 · Weekly raffle
- Unchanged. $3,000 weekly cap retained, 840 winners, fixed pool, ORAO VRF draw.
- Purpose: broad retail social proof and the weekly winner content engine.
Every trade earns into both layers simultaneously
Season 1 · Live
Week 3 of 12
Season volume
$412,880,000
Active traders
2,140
Prize pool
$250,000
Individual
Teams
| Rank | Trader | Pod | Volume | Bracket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 0xTaylor.eth | Koto | $41,280,000 | Top 1 |
| 02 | mistervol | Koto | $33,940,000 | Top 10 |
| 03 | dege.sol | Perp Desk | $29,110,000 | Top 10 |
| 04 | hyperliq_kev | Solo | $24,760,000 | Top 10 |
| 05 | 0xNoodle | Nightshift | $21,350,000 | Top 10 |
| 06 | sizechad | Perp Desk | $18,020,000 | Top 50 |
| 07 | vega.eth | Nightshift | $15,640,000 | Top 50 |
| 08 | quietsize | Solo | $13,290,000 | Top 50 |
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
05 / Distribution
How the volume actually arrives.
Volume does not come from a campaign page. It comes from traders with communities, competition surfaces those communities already use, and enough ambient awareness that a trader who hears "Nansen has perps" three times in a week goes and looks.
The distribution funnel
Ignition
Trailer drop
↓
Acquisition
The Perp Card
↓
Conversion
Funded accounts, first trade
↓
Sticky
Season leaderboard, retention
Loop: referrals recruit the next trader. Leaderboard wins become clip content, feeding acquisition again.
No stage works on cold traffic. The trailer builds the audience, the card converts it, the leaderboard keeps it.
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
06 / Koto
Global Trading Competition Platform Partner Koto, a joint-venture.
Koto is a social trading and competition platform built for perp dex traders. Copy trading, follow-the-trader feeds, drag and drop TP/SL, shareable PnL cards, and a private relationship manager for larger depositors. 1,000+ active traders on the competition layer, 90K+ across the wider app.
Surgence deploys a joint solution with Koto: a bot and competition surface integrated against the Nansen builder code, with its own leaderboard running into Season 1. Hundreds of traders and community KOLs compete on it. Their volume executes through Nansen and lands on the Nansen leaderboard.
Case study · GRVT
$1.63B
Referred trading volume driven on GRVT through the Koto competition and social trading layer, over 24 weeks.
The same integration model, the same trader base, the same competition mechanic. Koto has already moved over a billion and a half dollars of notional into a single perp venue, and generated $170K in net profit for the exchange doing it. Nansen is a stronger destination than GRVT was, because the traders competing on it get the data layer as part of the deal.
Performance report
Koto Case Studies 001 and 002
Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Verified against GRVT referral dashboard and Trade.Everything KOL tracker.
GRVT referred volume
$1.63B
24 week cumulative
Exchange net profit
$170K
Generated for GRVT
Trade.Everything
$1.09B
Koto cohort, May 2026
Combined delivered
$2.72B
Across both platforms
Peak week of $197M, mature weekly average of $145M
Structurally profitable for the exchange from May 2026
Six KOLs delivered $182M each, 19.6x the next agency on the same programme
Confidential. Shared on request under NDA.
What the Koto track delivers
- ✓Bot and competition platform integrated against the Nansen builder code
- ✓A dedicated Koto-side leaderboard feeding the Nansen Season 1 leaderboard
- ✓Hundreds of active perp traders and community KOLs entered into the competition
- ✓Recurring prize pool competitions run on a monthly cadence
- ✓Shareable PnL cards from Koto reinforcing the Nansen Perp Card loop
- ✓Target contribution: $500M+ per month at steady state
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
07 / Creator Distribution
Asian KOL Distribution through 0xMedia, our Sister Company.
Surgence deploys the 0xMedia perp dex roster through our partnership with Joel and the 0xMedia team. This is not a general crypto KOL list. It is the specific roster of traders, trading community founders and perp-native creators who have run volume campaigns for the perp dex category.
Deployed on GRVT. Deployed on Paradex. Deployed across the perp dex venues that have grown fastest in the last twelve months.
What makes this roster different: these are operators with communities that trade, not accounts that post. They are measured on notional delivered, not impressions. Each one brings a community that follows them into a competition, which is why the pod model works on a leaderboard and fails on a brand campaign.
Coverage across · CN · TW · HK
Everything
Perps / Token launch
$1.97B
Perps referral volume
670
Referred users
20%
Of platform lifetime volume
First month of a multi-tier referral funnel across the Chinese-speaking market, run through closed groups, KOLs and community distribution.
Paradex
Perpetuals dex
$98.86M
Trading volume, 30 days
1,902
Active referees
$25,987
Trading fees generated
Affiliate and referral program coding referred wallets under a dedicated 0xMedia code, including individual traders running $5.68M and $7.19M each.
GRVT
Perpetuals dex · Ongoing
$700M
Monthly volume mandate
Milestone
Performance linked delivery
A live performance-linked mandate measured on volume delivered rather than impressions. Reported results are added as the program reports.
Engagement in progress
Rootstock
Regional reach
$275M
Peak DeFi TVL
$50M+
Bridged into network
Included as evidence of regional distribution depth rather than perp volume. Narrative and community work across Chinese-market channels over an ongoing partnership.
Full 0xMedia case study pack and the named roster with per-creator volume data are available on request.
01
Briefed on the mechanic
Every pod creator receives the Perp Card, the Season 1 leaderboard structure, and team scoring. They know exactly what their community is competing for.
02
Communities enter as teams
Team scoring on the uncapped leaderboard layer means a creator's community competes as a unit. This turns individual trading into collective competition, which is what actually drives sustained notional.
03
Volume attributed and reported
Every pod is tracked against volume delivered through the builder code, reported weekly. Allocation is weighted by region and proven notional.
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
08 / Retention
Where acquired traders stay.
A trailer creates a spike. A card creates a wave. Neither retains anyone. The community layer is what converts a curious first trade into a trader who is still there in month three.
Discord and Telegram build out
A dedicated Nansen Perps community layer. Not a support channel. A trading floor: positioning discussion, Smart Money alerts, leaderboard standings, live trade talk. Structured with rank-gated access so leaderboard position converts into status.
Events and competitions
Recurring trading events run inside the community: weekly challenges, pod versus pod competitions, Smart Money call-outs, whale watch sessions. Every event produces content and every event pulls volume.
10x engagement and mindshare content
The community becomes a content source, not just a content destination. Member wins, leaderboard climbs, big positions and close finishes get clipped and pushed back out to the top of the funnel.
Retention mechanics
Rank-gated roles, streak recognition, season-long cumulative status, and the ambassador structure that turns the most active traders into distribution.
01
First trade
Trailer or pod creator sends a funded trader into the product.
02
Card shared
The Perp Card gives them a reason to post and a referral code to spread.
03
Community joined
Discord and Telegram convert the share into a daily surface.
04
Leaderboard ranked
Public rank and team scoring give them something to defend.
05
Season regular
Streaks, rank-gated status and ambassador roles keep them trading.
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
09 / Scope
What Surgence delivers.
An embedded growth layer, dedicated team members across every category below, paid monthly, cancel anytime. Weekly volume and attribution dashboards standard.
KOL and trading community coordination
- 0xMedia perp dex roster sourcing, briefing and management
- Trading community founder outreach and onboarding
- Pod team structuring and team scoring coordination
- Volume attribution per creator, reported weekly
Leaderboard and Koto coordination
- Koto bot and competition platform integration management
- Builder code attribution resolution and testing
- Season 1 leaderboard structure, brackets and team scoring design
- Ongoing competition cadence and prize pool coordination
Content and creative support
- Nansen Perps social build out and daily content engine
- Viral trailer production and campaign creative
- Proof content, clip production and UGC amplification
- Weekly campaign moments and leaderboard content
Community funnel support
- Discord and Telegram build out and structure
- Event and competition programming
- Moderation, onboarding flows and cohort management
- Ambassador and rank-gated status systems
Product and strategy support for the share cards
- Perp Card mechanic design and user journey
- Cross-venue data logic and verdict design
- Referral and rank architecture
- Season seeding and conversion into leaderboard position
Design support
- Nansen Perps visual identity within the parent brand system
- Card, leaderboard and campaign asset design
- Social template systems and creative libraries
Reporting and program management
- Weekly volume, trader and attribution dashboards
- Campaign rollout sequencing and calendar management
- Partner coordination across Koto, 0xMedia and Nansen teams
- Milestone reporting against the 12 week volume target
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs
10 / Commercials
A retainer for the work, a milestone for the outcome.
Nansen carries a fixed cost for the build and the coordination, and a variable cost that only triggers when volume actually arrives. The retainer covers the modules in section 09. The distribution tracks are priced separately so they can be added or paused independently. The milestone layer is where Surgence gets paid for performance, and it costs Nansen nothing if the volume does not land.
10.1 Part one / The retainer
GTM Campaign
$20,000
Per month
Full execution. Surgence runs the campaign end to end.
- Season 1 two-layer leaderboard architecture and bracket design
- Perp Card mechanic, verdict logic, referral and rank design
- 12 week campaign sequencing and rollout plan
- Koto and pod strategy, structure and briefing frameworks
- Weekly advisory sessions and program review
- Nansen Perps social build out and daily content engine
- KOL and trading community coordination
- Leaderboard and Koto coordination
- Community funnel build out, events and retention systems
- Product and strategy support for the Perp Card
- Weekly volume, trader and attribution reporting
$5,000 additional for full creatives support
GTM Campaign + Creatives
$25,000
Per month
Everything above plus the full creative engine in house.
- Everything in GTM Campaign
- Viral trailer production
- Campaign creative for every phase
- Perp Card, leaderboard and asset design
- Clip production and UGC creative direction
- Social template systems and creative libraries
The creatives module is where the trailer moment lives. Running it externally adds a coordination layer and a two week lag to the phase 2 drop.
10.2 Part two / The distribution tracks
Koto competition track
$20,000
Per month
Koto is a social trading and competition platform built for perp dex traders, with 1,000+ active traders on the competition layer and 90K+ across the wider app. Surgence and Koto deploy a joint solution: a trading bot and competition surface integrated against the Nansen builder code, running its own leaderboard that feeds directly into Nansen Season 1.
Traders on Koto compete in recurring prize pool competitions. Their positions execute through Nansen Perps, their volume registers on the Nansen builder code, and their standings appear on the Nansen leaderboard. Koto's shareable PnL cards reinforce the Perp Card loop rather than competing with it.
- Proven at
- $1B+ in volume driven on GRVT through the same integration model and the same trader base.
- Includes
- $10,000 one-off integration fee for bot and platform setup in month one, plus a $10,000 monthly minimum prize pool. From month two the integration line converts into prize pool, so the competition scales without the monthly number moving.
Trader and Creator pods
$20,000
Per month
The 0xMedia perp dex roster, deployed through our partnership with Joel and the 0xMedia team. Traders, trading community founders and perp-native creators who have already run volume campaigns for the perp dex category, on GRVT, Paradex and the venues that have grown fastest in the last twelve months.
These are operators with communities that trade, not accounts that post. Each pod is briefed on the Perp Card and the Season 1 leaderboard, enters their community as a team on the uncapped layer, and is measured on notional delivered rather than impressions. Allocation is weighted by region and proven notional, concentrated across Asia, the Gulf, Turkey, CIS and LatAm where the perps product is actually available.
10.3 Part three / The volume milestone layer
Surgence takes a milestone payment when monthly perps volume through the Nansen builder code crosses a threshold. Baseline is Nansen's current run rate of $185.6M per month. Nothing pays out below it. The milestone is assessed monthly and paid in the month it is hit.
| Monthly volume through the builder code | Milestone payment |
|---|---|
| $500M | $15,000 |
| $1B | $20,000 |
| $1.5B | $30,000 |
Milestones are not cumulative within a month. The highest threshold reached is the one that pays.
surgence.io · Confidential · Nansen x Surgence Labs