My tl;dr (paraphrase) on why @Hyperlane's AVS (via @eigenlayer) is interesting
1/ Hyperlane is focused on enabling the modular expansion of rollups. Rollups can use Hyperlane to permissionlessly connect to other rollups and VMs with fast/cheap bridging. With the addition of the Hyperlane AVS, any rollup, from any framework (e.g. OPStack, Arb, AggLayer, etc) can connect with any other—without needing to source liquidity or validator sets to secure that connection.
Why Hyperlane AVS for this? More below:
Canonical rollup bridges claim to be super secure (secured by Ethereum L1), but require a 7 day wait.
3rd party bridges improve on speed, but often sacrifice on security and connectivity to other rollups.
Jan 21 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Headless Marketplace: a market leveraging global (onchain) identity, money, and data while distributing locally, wherever a users wallet already is (e.g. inside a Telegram group chat or Farcaster feed)
Most marketplaces are destinations: users have to travel to a website or open an app, signup for an account, put in a credit card.
With headless marketplaces, the destination is wherever the users attention already is—and increasingly, thats where their $ will be too...
Nov 4, 2022 • 16 tweets • 2 min read
Will Web3 end up like traditional open source, where (application) protocols end up as open source commodities, and products capture all the value on top?
🧵
Last year I argued protocols that capture fees should buck against that future, and offered a strategy on how to do it:
But as noted in the original proposal, it was always meant as an MVP for something bigger.
If approved, that something could be UF.
Aug 2, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Achieving sufficient decentralization is a goal of many projects in web3, but how to do so has remained mercurial.
Excited to share a playbook for founders and lawyers, written by @boironattorney, advisor to @variantfund and Chief Legal officer at dYdX
variant.fund/articles/suffi…
First, some backstory. “Sufficient decentralization” was coined by the SEC’s Williams Hinman. In 2018, he argued the Ethereum network had become sufficiently decentralized because no single, identifiable, coordinated group drove the protocol or value of ETH.
Jul 28, 2022 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
Announcing Variant Fund III🚀
We’ve raised $450M in total across 2 new funds:
At $150M, our third seed fund is sized for the dedicated focus of backing founders at the earliest stages + our $300M opportunity fund supports projects as they grow.
If DeFi is money legos, and NFT are media legos, Ceramic enables data legos.
But what is it actually? 🧵
Ceramic is a decentralized data network that makes data composable across applications.
If networks like @ArweaveTeam are Web3's hard drive, @ceramicnetwork is its database, where you read/write/query structured data for applications.
Feb 15, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
DIMO is building a user-owned IoT platform that allows drivers to collect and share vehicle data, earning ownership in the platform's marketplace for their contributions.
If you like Helium and have a car, you'll like @DIMO_Network.
DIMO’s marketplace allows developers to build applications that consume these driver-provided data.
Relevant use cases include battery optimization for electric vehicles, insurance, vehicle sharing, financing, and utility grid management.
Dec 13, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
DAOs superpower is fluid, hierarchical leadership.
🧵
Historically, the most successful member-owned orgs— like co-ops, mutuals and credit unions—converged on hierarchical decision making, similar to that of corporations: a management team appointed by shareholders.
but there are bottlenecks for DAOs to buidl internet scale products
Nov 9, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Music NFTs are where digital art was in 2020:
About to redefine the value and (100x) the business model of the medium forever. 🧵
Music is the most criminally undervalued and under monetized media-type relative to its consumption.
I am increasingly convinced that 1-of-1 song NFTs are the wedge that will catalyze a dramatic shift in how artists make money and fans value music.
Feb 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Love to see old friends experimenting on the bleeding edge.
This NFT includes publishing rights to the song.
This is the idea that sparked my journey from music to crypto.
Soon all IP will be onchain, direct to creators, and we'll obviate copyright w something better.
publishing royalties are part of the legacy music copyright system. they are rights for use of the song *writing*, which is different the recording of that song.
(e.g. a song can be performed/recorded by multiple artists)
Feb 15, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
Crypto will be the "port of entry" for all internet media.
My thoughts on NFTs, finally in one place (on @viamirror) 👇
@spencernoon has stewarded (and backed) an incredible community of builders by championing data driven insights, and creating venues for builders to do the same through @OurNetwork__
Dec 7, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
NFTs are very early in the irruption-installation phase of Perez' hype cycle.
I'm optimistic they are going to work with mainstream audiences, but what is the wedge?
If I had to guess, it'll play out as follows 👇
1/ Irruption becomes frenzy alongside the backdrop of a crypto bull market. Digital artworks sell for $MMs, grabbing headlines, creator and collector attention.
1/ Being able to "invest in whats in the fridge"—brands whose products and services are used or recognized globally—is now globally accessible, as it should be.
