1/ @placeholdervc has always encouraged networks allowing people to earn the majority of a native cryptoasset, but liquidity mining has become a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
2/ Speaking with a team recently that’s building on a newer layer-1, they asked us if we, as an institution, *wouldn’t* stake.

Stating that in their ecosystem investors are foaming at the mouth to liquidity mine, but it’s clear those investors are short-term oriented.
3/ As @jmonegro has analogized, you wouldn’t take dividends from a company at the Series B stage, so why are we encouraging institutional investors to sap early rewards from the broader community?
4/ Early-on, people I respect encouraged this type of mining, and this is no swipe at them.

I believe they did it out of good intention, and experiments should be run, then learned from.

As is predictable at this stage of the market, the opportunists have perverted the idea.
5/ @placeholdervc is constantly debating where institutions should be involved in governance and earning, within cryptonetworks.

@mlphresearch wrote this brief reflection: placeholder.vc/blog/2020/6/13…
6/ As an early-stage investor, we help fund, design, and navigate the nascent stages of a network.

We are a partner to the entrepreneurs.

But we know our role is as a 3-10 year placeholder, that should get diluted, eventually ceding our place to others.
7/ If your liquidity mining strategy is full of institutional investors to pump your numbers, then you’re missing the point.
8/ The dream here is for the everyday person to earn their wages, and store their capital, in cryptonetworks.

But that requires limiting how extractive a large player can be with their capital.

Mechanism design needs more work here.
8/ Once a network is live, reward labor & consumers, not capital.
9/ @cjremus @ChainflowPOS is focused on lowering institutional extraction, and I know there are many other efforts (feel free to add them here).

Values over value.

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More from @cburniske

10 May
In the turbulence of 2019, @placeholdervc would run optimistic exercises to stay grounded. This was one:
We now run a combination of optimistic and pessimistic exercises from #crypto's current perch.

People naturally asking, when's the top?

The truth: no one knows, exactly.
While we're in one predicted range at $2.5T in total #crypto value, the vibe from 2021 is supply inflation, speculation, and innovation. People saying, Up Only.
Read 10 tweets
8 May
Price tweets get the most CT play because culturally we’re obsessed with money.
Money is the most liquid and fungible capital, convertible with varying amounts of slippage into other types of capital.
Culturally we made this trade to have money be *the* common denominator a long time ago.

It’s been amazing for “productivity,” but appears increasingly imbalanced.
Read 4 tweets
5 May
Every doge has its day.

But watch out for the days after "its day."
While $DOGE makes me queasy for what happens after this parabolic rise, there's a part of me that's also amused.

As the world gets increasingly automated, stripping humans of our meaning from work, we turn more to self-reflection (on the absurdity & wonder of life).
Different forms of art provide this self-reflection, and similar to @EpsilonTheory's recent post on #Bitcoin , $DOGE (with Elon's help) is making its own artistic statement on society.

If it makes you sick, it might be doing its job.
Read 5 tweets
2 May
Innovation concentration is higher in bear markets than bulls.
Bull markets bring a flood of attention, capital, and talent, which expands crypto’s reach.

But they’re also awash with noise, and as values rise complacency can settle in even amongst the committed.
In bear markets, investors and entrepreneurs both feel a sense of urgency.

Even if they retain conviction, the world and Mr. Market is screaming they’re wrong.
Read 7 tweets
28 Apr
The 0 to 1 moment is an institution seriously considering a #cryptoasset like $BTC at all.

Once there, stepping into the rest of crypto is incremental in comparison.
Cryptoasset purity was important for establishing $BTC's credibility in the early knock-off altcoin years.

With the credible innovation we now see in the rest of crypto, such purity will soon appear just as antiquated as the Puritans.
Once a trend is established, people naturally ask:

What's next?
Read 4 tweets
25 Apr
Large unlocks of tokens are a complex event that interface with market psychology.

Simply put, large unlocks can be bullish catalysts in bulls, and bearish catalysts in bears.

They unlock liquidity to continue the prevailing trend.
Emerging from the 18/19 bear market into this bull, some were surprised to find bullish price action after an unlock.

Similarly, when we descend into a bear from this bull, some will be surprised to find unlocks serving as a bearish catalyst.
Relatedly, take extra care with the intentions of communities that have tokens with fully-diluted valuations that dwarf the circulating value.
Read 4 tweets

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