Sidelined No More: Aptos Influencer ‘Buzz’ Joins Crypto Network as Advisor

An Aptos influencer has officially joined the company as an advisor after his meme-fuelled “community takeover” helped pump the APT token’s price in February, renewing developer interest in the network.

Pseudonymous X user Buzzlamic Jihad, who is called Buzz by his friends and family, told Decrypt that he hopes to address Aptos’ image problem and position it as a premium stablecoin network—harking back to the original Libra vision from Facebook in which Aptos was founded.

He said that one way he aims to do this is by leveraging his personal connections with the co-founders of the President Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, two of whom were mentors to the shitposter.

“Buzz is an inventor and true Aptos missionary through and through,” Ash Pampati, head of ecosystem at Aptos, told Decrypt. “I’m excited for him to come on board as an advisor to expand everyone’s imagination of what is truly possible only on Aptos.”

Surfing the buzz

Back in February, Buzz was partly responsible for a 17% pump for Aptos’ APT token as the crypto community started to notice the memes he had been posting for months. The then-little-known social media user had been spamming “Aptos lookin’ good here,” “sidelined?” and “motion not priced in yet” in unwavering support for the layer-1 blockchain. These phrases have since become canonical crypto memes, with major crypto figures and companies embracing them.

The buzz, pardon the pun, was so effective that Pampati told Decrypt in May it helped to revive developer interest in the network, in an unexpected display of the power of memes.

At the time, people wondered how a seemingly random X user could have such a large impact. It turns out Buzz has a history in growth marketing, specializing in Facebook advertising, and claims to have generated millions with this venture. 

During that period, Buzz told Decrypt, he was mentored by Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, successful Facebook marketers who went on to co-found World Liberty Financial. At one point, Buzz said he lived with the pair in Puerto Rico and was briefly their business partner.

Given his history with Facebook, now Meta, Buzz explained that he was immediately attracted to Aptos as it was formed by developers from Libra—a now-defunct stablecoin project led by Facebook.

The deeper he dug, the more he liked about Aptos, and he started posting about it under the pseudonym Buzzlamic Jihad. After the February pump, Buzz claims he was offered a role in marketing at Aptos but turned it down. Over the coming months, he continued conversations with the Aptos team and has now signed a deal to become an advisor.

In many ways, Buzz joining Aptos as an advisor is comparable to if meme stock influencer Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill joined GameStop—a rumor that once circulated on the internet.

As the possibility of joining Aptos emerged, Buzz reached out to Folkman after years of not being in contact and told him, “Let’s run it back.” He helped connect Folkman with Aptos CEO Avery Ching, with the pair meeting at the White House crypto summit in March. Following this interaction, and without further help from Buzz, World Liberty Financial agreed to list its USD1 stablecoin on Aptos—which was announced in October at Token2049 in Singapore.

Repositioning Aptos

But this is just the beginning, Buzz told Decrypt. He intends to continue to leverage his relationship with the World Liberty Financial team to attract “net new buyers” to Aptos, fix its image, and position it as a premium stablecoin network. He went on to hint at bigger potential collaborations to come, although nothing is set in stone.

“I think it’s very relevant right now because you see chains like Plasma, they’re doing very well. Everyone was talking about them. Now you even have Circle, they’re launching the Tempo blockchain,” Buzz said, referencing the Plasma stablecoin network. “They’re basically doing Libra 2.0 … so the idea is validated. Aptos has the technology, it’s just frustrating that they don’t have the right messaging.”

Now officially working for Aptos, Buzz hopes to have a direct hand in fixing this messaging. He also told Decrypt that he has some “bigger goals” which, if he achieves, he will be paid more for. That’s not to mention that he’s requested that he be paid entirely in APT tokens, as a sign of his belief in the network.

After making his name by asking people if they’re sidelined, Buzz is finally no longer sidelined himself.

“I am trying to community takeover,” Buzz told Decrypt. “That started as a meme, but as it progressed, I’m like, ‘Maybe it’s actually possible. Could I actually do this?’,” he said, adding, “This isn’t a joke anymore. I’m actually working on it.”

“It’s lookin’ good here,” he finished.