Thread by @strassa2

Crypto observations from a relative outsider:
1) The best big picture idea coming out of crypto is the idea that you can bootstrap and fund businesses differently than how most businesses are being funded today.

The idea that you can fund a business or a project from users/customers is the most powerful idea in crypto today and I hope we see people take this idea and really run with it. People will pay a premium for a product or to use a protocol if they are also getting a voice at the

governance table and a piece of the future economics. I would love to see this idea take off and see more businesses funding themselves this way and not via the traditional VC world.

2) Crypto is becoming a huge part of culture. While you won’t see me buying Shiba, I at least understand what is going on here. Communities are being formed around culturally relevant memes.

Like it or not, it’s clear culturally relevant memes have value as people like to be a part of clubs. Bored Apes took this big picture idea and executed it perfectly.

Big picture I think crypto infrastructure will be commonly used as membership cards to all sorts of different exclusive clubs—not just discord chats. And these membership cards will have value.

3) People should care about tokenomics more than they do. I really enjoyed listening to @Cryptopathic on the @uponlyTV podcast. It was good to see someone deep in crypto thinking about tokenomics. Governance on its own is worth extremely little economic value.

Many supporters of protocols that have a pure governance token will say things like “well one day we’ll vote a change that will give the token value”. This is definitely possible but it’s really hard.

Someone can fork the protocol pre-fee—and extra costs will show up in an ecosystem. People don’t like when you raise prices on them. Uniswap is an example of a protocol where they probably can turn on a fee one day. But most will not be able to.

4) People should also really care about how much activity on a platform is driven by short-term subsidized activity. TVL is pointless if people are lending and borrowing with themselves to harvest a shitcoin, for example.

I think the protocols where there is unsubsidized economic activity are generally overlooked for whatever the hot farm is. You can not just compare TVL without context.

5) NFTs are awesome but people need to zoom out a bit. If the NFT you are looking at is not going to be relevant in 2 years, and you aren’t there to flip it quick, you’re doing something wrong. Punks, Squiggles, Fidendza, Ringers, Pepes, even Apes all likely will be relevant.

But most wont matter in 2 years. Tons of $$ is removed out of this ecosystem by gas, Opensea and mints. While NFTs are here to stay, that doesn’t mean the ones people are buying today are going to be relevant or hold their value.

There is going to be a ton of amazing generative art coming in the future. A ton more 1/1s. A ton more PFPs. A ton more projects. If you’re putting real money in just make sure whatever you’re buying will matter in 2 years. Most fail that test.

6) The part I really don’t like about crypto are all the anons. I know there are good reasons to be anon, but it removes a layer of accountability. It is so much more likely that some garbage happens with an anon, than someone who isn’t anon.

Almost all the rugs and shady NFT projects have an anon behind it. When people stake their real name and reputation to a project, they are way more likely to do the right thing. If I was investing real money in defi/NFTs/tokens I would prefer a dev team consisting of real names.

It’s been a fun journey getting to know this world a bit and I look forward to more learning.