FOMO co-founder Se Yong says the mobile social trading app is not trying to become another crypto trading terminal. In a 43-minute interview with host Maurits in August 2026, he described it instead as “a trading app for the rest of us,” built around a larger goal of becoming the social graph of finance.
Se Yong said FOMO has passed 1.3 million users in 18 months, is recently adding about 30,000 users a day, generated more than $2 million in fee revenue this week, and has reached a latest valuation of $550 million.
What FOMO is trying to solve
Se Yong framed the product vision in simple terms: seamless trading, social interaction, and an experience that feels exciting rather than technical. He said conventional crypto terminals still expect users to work through public keys, wallet balance percentages, and bridging steps that make little sense to most people.
That is one reason FOMO shows balances in U.S. dollars instead of SOL or ETH. Se Yong said a mainstream user who sees $100 turn into $98.52 is likely to think the platform took money from them. Once trust is gone, he argued, it does not come back easily.
He also pushed back on the idea that valuation, capital raised, or fee numbers are the real way to judge the company. The internal focus, he said, is users and influence. He summed up that mindset with a blunt line: if the product is going to die, it should die now, not later, because the market should decide quickly whether it works.
The first users and the early growth problem
According to Se Yong, the outside view of FOMO misses how hard the early period was. Even after the team raised money from 140 angel investors, user numbers stayed below 140 for several months.
The real change came from an early cohort that formed between May and July 2025. He said those users sent feedback every day and helped the team keep iterating on the product. Rather than chase scale immediately, the team focused on serving the first 50 to 100 users well and listening closely to what they actually wanted.
By his account, the polished version people see today came out of repeated trial and error, not a clean launch.
His own trading history and the missed trade behind FOMO
Se Yong said he entered crypto in 2021 through Avalanche, at a time when a leaked RPC node opportunity was circulating. He went from a few hundred dollars to the mid-five figures quickly and later traded across Ethereum, BNB, Tron, Solana, multiple Layer 2 networks, Sui, and Injective.
The experience he called most important came around two years ago. Friends of his found Keira on Base, put in about $10,000, and eventually made seven figures. He said he liked the narrative and the backing behind the trade, but setting up a Rabby wallet, finding a bridge, and choosing the right frontend felt too annoying. He passed.
That friction, in his telling, lasted about 45 seconds. It was enough to kill the trade and became the direct reason FOMO was built to remove the “last mile” barrier for ordinary users.
He also said his own style was never that of a trader who spends 16 hours a day scanning fresh pairs. He tends to take only a small number of narrative-driven trades each week, does not claim to be great at selling the top, and usually leans toward holding longer. Among the trades he pointed to were the GME token after the Roaring Kitty documentary and Pandora, the ERC-404 project. That personal limitation shaped the product. FOMO, he said, is being designed for regular users, not just hyper-online professionals.
Se Yong’s all-time top traders
Asked to name his “Mount Rushmore” tier of traders, Se Yong listed five names:
- GCR, whom he described as a legendary GOAT, while noting the rumors around Binance insider ties
- Kobes, as an example of early high-conviction trading
- Flood, for strong conviction in speculative narratives
- Ansem, for catching narratives such as Solana and WIF, even if the charts may look rough
- Change, who currently ranks No. 1 on the FOMO leaderboard
He added that some traders are already active on FOMO, but what he really wants to see is a new wave of traders with public, verifiable track records.
The KimChi effect and trader celebrity
Se Yong said the KimChi episode broke beyond crypto-native circles to the point where ordinary people were texting each other about it. He took that as a highly bullish signal and said, “The next KimChi will be born on FOMO.”
When a real bull market returns, he expects FOMO to show multiple eight-figure P&Ls within six months and for the top 100 leaderboard to turn over completely.
His broader point was less about one cycle and more about permanence. P&L, he said, is temporary. Legacy lasts. Money fades, reputation can fade too, but public trading records stay visible. In that framework, traders are turning into a new kind of star whose influence may extend beyond traditional celebrity.
The creators he rates most highly
Se Yong also named five crypto content creators he rates highly, without putting them in order:
- Maurits, for pulling mainstream users into crypto, trading, and finance in a way he described as attractive and aspirational
- Rasmus, whom he called a generational performer across poker, Mars coin trading, and live content
- ThreadBoi, whom he labeled undisputed for expanding from crypto into finance content while staying consistently productive, including calls such as Leopold
- Oranje, for onboarding mainstream users through YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok and for understanding consumers well
- Ansem, who started as a trader and then became a creator with a distinct angle through Bubble, Moonshot, and the Ansem coin
He said these figures are unlikely to remain known only inside crypto and argued that content is one of the key engines of onboarding.
Why trading became boring, then changed again
Looking back at the weakest part of the bear market, Se Yong said there was a three-month stretch without a single project above $10 million and that the surrounding content environment was filled with low-quality noise.
For him, the bigger issue was what happened after users made their first money on a viral TikTok coin. They often gave it back quickly because they had no real information feed telling them who was making money, what those people were holding, and where the narrative was moving. As a result, they left.
He said FOMO uses a social graph and public leaderboards to fill that gap. Users can track top traders in real time, read their thesis, and follow momentum. The outcome, in his account, is that average trade size has fallen because the user base now includes more of the long tail, while the total market on the platform has grown materially. He also said most users now come from outside Crypto Twitter, especially TikTok, Instagram, and referrals.
What Clans is meant to do
Clans, Se Yong said, is still in early beta. Users can join a group, see members’ positions in real time, and compete together on a shared leaderboard.
The longer-term plan is to extend that transparency to perpetuals, prediction markets, spot trading, and yield products. He argued that trading should be social and can work as a team sport.
He also outlined future directions for the feature, including internal chat, direct recruitment from the leaderboard, subscriptions, shared treasuries, and even shared addresses for receiving airdrops. The underlying idea is to bring influence and monetization that used to sit in the shadows into a more public and transparent setting.
How the company hires
FOMO’s hiring process is unusually closed. Se Yong said the company does not post open job listings and instead looks for people through trusted networks.
He said the team screens for three things above all: real understanding of the mission, high integrity, and willingness to work hard. Retention, in his view, rests on fair compensation, genuinely interesting work, and a culture that supports personal growth while making people feel comfortable.
He summed up the ideal job as building cool things with friends. The intensity may be rising, he said, but the underlying culture is not changing.
Why mobile comes first
Se Yong argued that crypto trading has to become mobile-first for the same basic reason Robinhood and Webull did: there are far more phone users than desktop users.
He said crypto apps can now deliver a smooth experience for mainstream users, whereas earlier Web3 products often felt clumsy even to crypto-native users. He singled out designer Chelsea for praise, calling her the GOAT and saying she understands both people and product.
He also said the industry burned through billions of dollars while moving slowly. What feels different now, in his view, is that users are finally willing to stay instead of treating the trading terminal like a slaughterhouse.
Why public P&L and leaderboards matter
For traders, Se Yong said one obvious draw is speed. Cross-chain trades on FOMO currently take three to five seconds, with a one-second target, and users do not need to bridge manually.
But he placed even more weight on social capital. A public leaderboard can prove skill over time in a way that screenshots never can. He repeated the same line here: P&L is temporary, legacy is permanent.
He described Clans as a way to make team competition feel more like sports or gaming. For advanced traders who do not create content, public records can still generate status, trading flow, and alpha.
The founder’s day-to-day life
Se Yong said his mornings are usually quiet. He posts, exercises, or thinks. After that, he is online for roughly 16 to 17 hours a day and rarely feels truly off work, even on vacation.
He described FOMO as the most committed he has been to anything since getting married and having children.
On competition, he said repeatedly that he welcomes it because the objective is to expand the whole pie, with Robinhood and Coinbase as reference points, rather than hide inside a niche. He also made a striking comment about company risk, saying the biggest risk is “never having a crisis.”
What drives him, he said, is influence rather than personal wealth.
Books and podcasts he recommended
Se Yong said he uses a barbell approach to learning, mixing classics with newer material.
On the classic side, he mentioned Zero to One, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and books by Frank Slootman.
On the newer side, he pointed to the All-In Podcast, especially episodes tied to Sacks as well as interviews with Dyson and Shopify founder Tobi, and also recommended Mickey Malca’s material on Rubicon.
He said he studies these modern large-scale builders for the habit of making things and showing the work publicly.
The through line of the interview
Across the conversation, Se Yong kept returning to the same thesis: FOMO is trying to move crypto trading out of a small-circle terminal war and into a broader financial social network aimed at mainstream users.
He used his own missed seven-figure trade to explain why reducing friction matters. He used his emphasis on trust to explain why balance display, public records, and social structure have to be redesigned together. And he used the idea of legacy to explain why influence and transparency matter more than short-term gains alone.
In his account, those three things — users, influence, and public transparency — remain the company’s true north.