Thread by @ogiberstein

One of my favorite topics to explore recently has been @templedao.

It's fascinating to watch the project grow and the community take off.

Over the past few days I have written a few threads about the power of its community and also Temple Defend.

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1) Today I want to ...

2) look closer at the project's launch.

Launching tokens is hard and easy at the same time. In theory, pretty much anyone can release their own ERC20 tokens but only very few of them gain legitimacy and truly take off.

The 'oldest' launch, akin to an immaculate conception...

3) has been Bitcoin. It's considered a 'fair' launch because in theory, everyone had the same chance to 'mine' Bitcoin from day 1. Of course, information asymmetry meant that only very few were mining early on.

Then came ICOs. Founders sell tokens in various auction or sale

4) formats to investors. Notable examples are Ethereum itself and the many projects that launched between 2016-2019.

Pre-mines that were often cash-grabs by the founding teams, gas wars of people trying to invest and mis-alignment of community interests (wen lambo?) were...

5) only some of the issues with ICOs. The model worked to an extent but most would struggle to name an ICO that launched truly successfully.

DeFi Summer of 2020 saw interesting innovations coming up: first of all, fair launches came back in fashion: @iearnfinance's liquidity..

6) mining launch, airdrops to early users (@Uniswap) and other forms of 'reward for activity' are being tried. In a way we are returning back to the roots of launching a crypto: 'Proof of Work', just without the computer mining farms...

There's a problem here though. Most ...

7) of these launches have not helped in creating a strong community around projects.

Easy to see why: mercenaries come for liquidity rewards, farm & dump. Airdrop receivers might have little reason to get involved in a given project and just dump their tokens. We've all been..

8) there!

@templedao is taking all of this a few steps forward. Enter the 'Proof-of-Engagement Launch'.

People value the most what they had to work hard for to get. They feel the most attachment to their fraternities and universities when it took them hard work to enter...

9) Elite army units have their own rituals and in-group methods to 'vet' newcomers and so on. Membership rituals add value and strengthen the bonds of 'community insiders'. @RobertCialdini describes this well in his famous book Influence.

What does this have to do with ..

10) @templedao? The team is running one of the most sophisticated token launches in the history of crypto.

The launch is fair, prolonged over a period of nearly a month and only open to the 'deserving'. Every single participant has to earn their 'right' to invest by proving ...

11) their dedication and commitment to the protocol and the community. Active and helpful participation, producing content [like Twitter threads!], posting memes, etc all counts.

The community is on its toes and I am already seeing immense momentum. Imagine the value ...

12) that the accepted 'insiders' who are lucky enough to join the #fireritual and invest early on into @templedao will see in being part of this community.

There's a final ingredient that is required for success: greed and FOMO. Even if we don't like to talk about it ...

13) human nature is what it is and one of the reasons we found ourselves in Magic Internet Money is the potential for high returns.

As @Fiskantes rightly said in a podcast, the best projects find ways to make their early adopters very wealthy. Just look at @OlympusDAO.

14) Luckily, @templedao's mechanics are perfectly suited to a) develop a long-term sustainable project, b) with a strong community and c) the potential of massive returns to the members who stick around. A similar dynamic to the now-famous (3,3) meme popularized by the #Ohmies.

15) So to round this up, we have a project with very interesting tokenomics, mechanics, product and a launch deliberately crafted to build a cult. We are seeing an economic, sociological, psychological and technological experiment - all mixed into one.

To witness this with my ..

16) own eyes is literally why I have joined this space and I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Credit for the inspiration for this thread goes to @whoy3k

If you got curious and want to read my other threads on @templedao, have a look here:

https://twitter.com/ogiberstein/status/1442162267638874118

17) and here (Temple Defend Mechanism explained):

https://twitter.com/ogiberstein/status/1442616887939112960?s=20

18) The best explanation I have read about @templedao was provided as always by the great @korpi87

https://twitter.com/korpi87/status/1441901618866245634?s=20