The superpower of crypto is creating new assets and markets.

Now, I try to ask the question – how could this business become an exchange? For certain businesses it’s very clear, but for others, it requires some imagination.

Let’s talk about exchanges, and where to find them 👇 One of the most common and successful business models in crypto is the exchange model which is why we've seen so many companies and protocols eventually adopt the exchange business model.

https://x.com/masonnystrom/status/1813629598065910144

There are a few common crypto business models:
- Exchanges and marketplaces
- Transaction sequencing
- Asset managers

Let's dive into some examples 👇 Exchange Model
Subset 1) marketplace models – fee on transactions
- create a new asset and market (e.g. Polymarket, Perps)
- expand access to emerging asset (Coinbase and BTC)
- convenience fee (wallet swaps)
- SaaS enabled marketplaces – Proof marketplaces

Exchange subset 2): Liquidity servicing - build valuable pool of specialized liquidity and charge acces fee to end app (e.g. hooks) or match-maker fee (e.g. swaps)
- DEXs
- Lending

Lots of people on the timeline questioning token incentives and whether they're net-beneficial or net-negative.

Some thoughts 🧵

https://twitter.com/masonnystrom/status/1809687714599678080

When combined with new products, tokens – or the promise of tokens – have proven effective at alleviating the cold start problem.

But, networks that launch with a token from the jump, must find PMF in a shortened window amidst inorganic activity or otherwise these networks are just spending tokens for limited upside.

My friend and fellow investor, @howdai27 calls this the “hot start problem” where the presence of a token limits the window of time a startup has to find PMF and gain enough organic traction such that the startup can retain users/liquidity as token rewards diminish.

Over 2 million compressed NFTs have been minted in just a few weeks.

Enabled by @metaplex's new NFT compression standard (Bubblebum), Compressed NFTs offer greater scale to NFT minting and open up a new array of use cases for Solana NFTs. But what are compressed NFTs?

Normal Solana NFTs have metadata stored in on-chain accounts

Compressed NFTs group the state of many NFTs into a merkle tree and hash the merkle root on-chain with each leaf of the tree (e.g. NFT) verifiable on-chain while the metadata is offchain

Some thoughts on NFT marketplace defensibility and value capture
nystrom.substack.com/p/defensible-n… The magic of NFTs as an asset class is that the underlying assets are composable. But, this effortlessly destroys the moat of secondary trading liquidity that marketplaces have relied on to succeed.

Artists have earned over $5m in earnings on Sound Protocol.

Let’s take a brief look at the state of @soundxyz_ Protocol & Marketplace 🎧 🧵
sound.xyz Sound Protocol by the numbers:
•$10m in NFT volume (4.4m Primary and 5.7m Secondary)
• Minted over 80,000 music
• Over 400 talented artists
• Nearly 13,000 collectors

dune.com/nicoelzer/soun…

Today, the way in which protocols build demand is often dictated by two GTM approaches:
1) Network-driven Protocol GTM
2) Product-led Protocol GTM

Let's examine when each GTM strategy works best.
nystrom.substack.com/p/protocol-gtm… 1) Network-driven protocol GTM focuses on building a protocol with broad distribution and permissionless access, and then evangelizes others to build on top of the network.

Examples: Ethereum, Polygon, Livepeer, Metaplex, Lens, XMTP, Reservoir

Every so often, a new playbook for token distribution emerges:
• Liquidity Mining (e.g. Compound)
• Retroactive airdrops (e.g. Uniswap)
• Infra setup (e.g. Helium)

Blur created the next token playbook: Sequenced Airdrops

Here's what you need to know👇🏻variant.fund/articles/what-… Disclosure: We're not investors in Blur. But given our thesis on user ownership, we think the Blur case study holds interesting lessons for all crypto projects seeking to turn users into owners.

There's still massive latent demand for NFTs from large brands that people identify with and care about.

Nike's @dotSWOOSH NFT marketplace (still in beta) has seen ~300k Swoosh IDs minted and is onboarding thousands of users each week.

The first .Swoosh collection is coming👇🏻 A Swoosh ID is basically your username for the Nike .Swoosh platform.

The ID is non-transferable and the Swoosh platform also gives users a wallet when they claim their .Swoosh ID (managed by @BitGo).

Crypto offers a blank canvas for token distribution & cryptoeconomic models.

The abundance of tech innovation in crypto often means that disruptive innovations come from the implementation of new crypto economic models or distribution mechanisms.
variant.fund/articles/the-n… Each wave of crypto is dominated by new distribution mechanisms and cryptoeconomic models.

Let’s examine three of the newer emerging models: Contract Secured Revenue (CSR), NounishDAOs, and MEV Orderflow.

The story of the web is about connecting valuable information.

Web1 linked related pieces of info (hyperlinks).

Web2 connected relationships via social & interests graphs (Facebook & Reddit).

Web3 creates an ownership graph based on what we own & value
nystrom.substack.com/p/the-types-of… There are a variety of types of value graphs that have been leveraged to create social networks and platforms.
• Social graphs - Facebook and Instagram
• Interest graphs - Reddit, Pinterest
• Social & Experience graphs - Linkedin
• Knowledge/search graphs - Google

There are a variety of consumer crypto trends that are emerging (🌱) or continue to rapidly expand (🚀).

Let’s briefly examine six of these trends🧵

• Web3 loyalty
• Dynamic NFTs
• NFT licensing
• Phygital objects and infra
• Web3 social
• New marketplaces #1 Web3 loyalty

Web3 loyalty enables permissionless loyalty programs for cross brand collabs/benefits.

Some exciting examples:
New loyalty programs (LinksDAO)
Platforms (e.g. Passage, Hang)
DEXs for loyalty points
Cross brand loyalty tokens (e.g. class pass for loyalty).

Throughout the 21st century, the primary catalyst for new consumer behaviors has been novel social technologies: the Internet, mobile, social networks.

Blockchains and tokens will shape the next decade of consumer behavior 👇🏻 Broadly I categorize consumer behavior on a spectrum of "Skeuomorphic" to "Emergent".

• Skeuomorphic Behavior - resembling existing behavior, but changes consumption format or perception

• Emergent Behavior - closer to net new behavior changing both format & perception

Collectively, PFP projects possess the greatest market cap of any NFT category (~$12B).

The significant valuations often beg the question, how will these companies monetize their PFP collections?

The answer: the largest brands in the world monetize by merch & PFPs might too🧵 Some PFP projects have started to issue physical merchandise and goods like Cool Cats, Pudgy Penguins, Doodles collectibles, and Nouns Coffee.

Token incentives are a new form of customer acquisition cost (CAC). Each dollar of token incentives corresponds to a new customer or fees/revenue.

Projects should ensure their token acquisition cost (TAC) and token incentives to rev ratio is competitive within their market. Revenue per user should exceed TAC on some time basis. TAC ratios also differ by projects (lending vs DEXs).

Like all startups, its okay for your token acquisition cost (TAC) or $ of token incentives per $ of fees/revenue to be negative to obtain users.

Two important trends in the financialization of sports:

1. Sports betting's continued growth from favorable regulations.

2. NFT fantasy sports are one of the strongest web3 consumer applications.

Total Secondary Sales
• Sorare: $400m
• NBA Top Shot: $1B
• NFL All Day: $42m

https://twitter.com/Blockworks_/status/1567505459342458880

NFT fantasy sports is a game of collectors to die hard players.

Sorare card owners:
1 card: ~153k
5 cards: ~100k
10 cards: ~65k
25 cards: ~30k

With a variety of leagues by Sorare, there will be casual players to people who take it more seriously than their Yahoo fantasy league.

Most crypto community messaging happens on platforms like Slack, Discord, Twitter, Reddit, etc. because there's no easy way to communicate between wallets.

Wallet to wallet messaging is going to be a massive unlock for crypto social applications.🧵 Standardized wallet to wallet messaging can enable:

1) Generalize communication between wallets and users (e.g. ENS to ENS)

2) Social between NFT communities / asset ownership

3) Crypto-native comms based on on-chain events

4) Slack like cross-community communication

Liquid staking is accessible for L1 assets like ETH and SOL.

But liquid staking is needed by all assets:
• Layer-2s(@0xPolygon)
• Apps(Audius)
• Middleware(@Livepeer and TheGraph)

Tenderize is a liquid staking & yield generation protocol for web3🧵
nystrom.substack.com/p/tenderize-we… At its core, @tenderize_me offers a liquid staking protocol.

The benefits of liquid staking boil down to the first lesson in an undergraduate intro finance class – the time value of money.

A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

Tenderize gives that dollar today.

There are more billion dollar fashion brands than there are billion dollar cryptonetworks.

So then, why haven't fashion NFTs been as widely adopted?

Let's explore 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

https://twitter.com/ljin18/status/1547265797080330240

Brands are incredibly valuable and continue to prove out how the most valuable assets are intangible.

Fashion is about brand value. People want Jordans and Hermes Kelly handbags. I don't make the rules.

https://twitter.com/masonnystrom/status/1400083059362480129

Today is my last day @Messaricrypto.

While I won’t be sharing what I’m doing next at [redacted] yet, I am reflecting on some of the lessons I’ve learned working as an analyst at Messari over the past two years.

1/ I joined Messari in 2020 as the 4th research analyst and Messari’s first “Web3 analyst” back when that just meant, “cover everything but DeFi and Layer-1s”. Today Messari has an incredibly successful product suite across market intelligence, governance, and research.

The Disneyfication of NFT projects is happening in real-time – but unlike Disney, the foundation isn’t being built on love stories.

Today, the @BoredApeYC Brand/Ecosystem is collectively worth ~$25 billion (which for reference is about ~12% of Disney's current valuation).

1/4🧵 2/4 Just as Disney built its success on the tailwinds of Snow White, NFTs are in a similar position, with early brands like Axie Infinity and BAYC attempting to build economic empires on the backs of profitable NFT collections.