Incentives are powerful. They help us build systems that shape human behavior, leading the right people to do the right things at the right time. Most incentives that we see rely on extrinsic motivations like reputation or money— things that come from outside of ourselves. This contrasts with intrinsic motivation, which appears from within us as an enjoyment of something purely for its own sake, with no expectation of additional outcomes.When we look at social communities on the web, recogniz...

Incentives are powerful. They help us build systems that shape human behavior, leading the right people to do the right things at the right time. Most incentives that we see rely on extrinsic motivations like reputation or money— things that come from outside of ourselves. This contrasts with intrinsic motivation, which appears from within us as an enjoyment of something purely for its own sake, with no expectation of additional outcomes.When we look at social communities on the web, recogniz...

or, The Death of Communities via a Thousand Incentives Before getting into VC a year ago, I spent most of my 20s as a builder in crypto, primarily trying to understand the role that token incentives could play in the successful achievement of community goals. The first product I built and launched was The Bounties Network, which was one of the first Ethereum protocols to grow >$1m TVL. We worked with a lot of your favorite early tokens/DAOs, and the goal was to build an open marketplace (ie h...

or, The Death of Communities via a Thousand Incentives Before getting into VC a year ago, I spent most of my 20s as a builder in crypto, primarily trying to understand the role that token incentives could play in the successful achievement of community goals. The first product I built and launched was The Bounties Network, which was one of the first Ethereum protocols to grow >$1m TVL. We worked with a lot of your favorite early tokens/DAOs, and the goal was to build an open marketplace (ie h...

There’s an old saying in venture that says “first time founders focus on product, and second time founders focus on distribution”. This describes how product builders often expect that they can achieve growth purely thanks to the quality of their product, rather than by investing energy into creating repeatable patterns that will help them consistently attract attention and users to their product. However, there’s another element here that I believe a lot of crypto founders are missing, and t...

There’s an old saying in venture that says “first time founders focus on product, and second time founders focus on distribution”. This describes how product builders often expect that they can achieve growth purely thanks to the quality of their product, rather than by investing energy into creating repeatable patterns that will help them consistently attract attention and users to their product. However, there’s another element here that I believe a lot of crypto founders are missing, and t...

Crypto has a fixed-supply problem. We’re obsessed with assets which can’t be diluted. It makes sense - the original reason why Satoshi invented blockchains was to have an asset which couldn’t be diluted the same way fiat currencies have. The novelty of this digital scarcity has led to the exponential price growth for Bitcoin, and since then we’ve seen thousands of tokens launching with similar scarcity, in the hopes that it would spur their own appreciation in the market.Bitcoin across timeTh...

Crypto has a fixed-supply problem. We’re obsessed with assets which can’t be diluted. It makes sense - the original reason why Satoshi invented blockchains was to have an asset which couldn’t be diluted the same way fiat currencies have. The novelty of this digital scarcity has led to the exponential price growth for Bitcoin, and since then we’ve seen thousands of tokens launching with similar scarcity, in the hopes that it would spur their own appreciation in the market.Bitcoin across timeTh...

Four tribes, alike in volatility In fair cyberspace, where we lay our scene From ancient chains they claim autonomy Where civil wants make civil memes obscene — Willtoshi ShakamotoEnter: The CryptoanarchistStoic. Technical. Principled, perhaps to a fault. They find the blockchain not in search of wealth, but for sovereignty. To them, the laws of code supersede the laws imposed by petty nation states. They are builders, auditors, privacy purists — allergic to KYC and indifferent to price. Whil...

Four tribes, alike in volatility In fair cyberspace, where we lay our scene From ancient chains they claim autonomy Where civil wants make civil memes obscene — Willtoshi ShakamotoEnter: The CryptoanarchistStoic. Technical. Principled, perhaps to a fault. They find the blockchain not in search of wealth, but for sovereignty. To them, the laws of code supersede the laws imposed by petty nation states. They are builders, auditors, privacy purists — allergic to KYC and indifferent to price. Whil...

In Paul Graham’s famous “Be Good” essay, he outlined how startups could find product-market-fit: make something people want. If we believe that our token is the product, then the question we’re left with is: how do we make a token that people will want? The first piece of advice Paul gives is to not worry too much about the business model in the beginning, although he admits that creating value without worrying about capturing it is the definition of a charity. In crypto, we see that things h...

In Paul Graham’s famous “Be Good” essay, he outlined how startups could find product-market-fit: make something people want. If we believe that our token is the product, then the question we’re left with is: how do we make a token that people will want? The first piece of advice Paul gives is to not worry too much about the business model in the beginning, although he admits that creating value without worrying about capturing it is the definition of a charity. In crypto, we see that things h...

When we first kicked off work on Myco over a year ago, we had a simple thesis: that the value accruing from a community's activities should flow back to its contributors. Over this time we've created a platform that lets anyone launch DAOs which are co-owned by their members, putting economic ownership in the hands of the many instead of the few. We've combined powerful economic tools with new types of social spaces which are optimized for healthy community building, to bring a...

When we first kicked off work on Myco over a year ago, we had a simple thesis: that the value accruing from a community's activities should flow back to its contributors. Over this time we've created a platform that lets anyone launch DAOs which are co-owned by their members, putting economic ownership in the hands of the many instead of the few. We've combined powerful economic tools with new types of social spaces which are optimized for healthy community building, to bring a...

Boost VC was the first institutional fund that was brave enough to deploy into crypto back in 2013, and we’re also the first crypto fund that was brave enough to expand the investment thesis to include hard-tech startups as well. Since then we’ve led investments into dozens of companies which are standing up entirely new markets from scratch — from Radiant building mobile nuclear reactors, to Gigamune developing new kinds of in-vivo cell therapies, to Starfish Space pioneering a more sustaina...

Boost VC was the first institutional fund that was brave enough to deploy into crypto back in 2013, and we’re also the first crypto fund that was brave enough to expand the investment thesis to include hard-tech startups as well. Since then we’ve led investments into dozens of companies which are standing up entirely new markets from scratch — from Radiant building mobile nuclear reactors, to Gigamune developing new kinds of in-vivo cell therapies, to Starfish Space pioneering a more sustaina...

Today we’re announcing that we’re sunsetting the Myco platform, and shutting down all of our operations related to the project. We started this project two and a half years ago with a number of hypotheses about bottoms-up community building, and we’ve been delighted to experiment with a variety of novel ownership mechanisms that can enable hyper-participatory communities to scale. Unfortunately, it’s become clear that this space is still quite early, and that a majority of folks are just begi...

Today we’re announcing that we’re sunsetting the Myco platform, and shutting down all of our operations related to the project. We started this project two and a half years ago with a number of hypotheses about bottoms-up community building, and we’ve been delighted to experiment with a variety of novel ownership mechanisms that can enable hyper-participatory communities to scale. Unfortunately, it’s become clear that this space is still quite early, and that a majority of folks are just begi...

One of the main benefits that crypto protocols offer us, and certainly one of the reasons they’re valuable to humanity, is permissionless ecosystem participation. The best crypto protocols deliver new rulesets that helps thousands of individuals collaborate and produce value together without needing to trust each other. A decentralized application with a large number of stakeholders self-selecting to be in their orbit will be more productive (and therefore more valuable) than an alternative t...

One of the main benefits that crypto protocols offer us, and certainly one of the reasons they’re valuable to humanity, is permissionless ecosystem participation. The best crypto protocols deliver new rulesets that helps thousands of individuals collaborate and produce value together without needing to trust each other. A decentralized application with a large number of stakeholders self-selecting to be in their orbit will be more productive (and therefore more valuable) than an alternative t...

This essay came out of a memo I originally wrote for Boost VC’s investment into Punks, and outlines why we believe punks are a generational blue-chip asset. Boost VC has been backing crypto founders and companies since 2013, and we’re excited to add punks to the portfolio. To begin lets state the obvious: NFTs are dead. Well… sort of. Organic liquidity entering the NFT market remains quite low relative to what we saw last cycle. At the same time, NFT natives are continuing to develop the spac...

This essay came out of a memo I originally wrote for Boost VC’s investment into Punks, and outlines why we believe punks are a generational blue-chip asset. Boost VC has been backing crypto founders and companies since 2013, and we’re excited to add punks to the portfolio. To begin lets state the obvious: NFTs are dead. Well… sort of. Organic liquidity entering the NFT market remains quite low relative to what we saw last cycle. At the same time, NFT natives are continuing to develop the spac...

For part 1 of this post, please read https://m.mirror.xyz/Xr0TX6_b6TSB5Ui90mvfixrlfp2fgmhOtzQbM3CXegk Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of connecting with Thom, an artist/ creative/ polymath/ 21st Century Renaissance Man, who was keen to dive head first into crypto. After seeing the sudden rise in popularity of CryptoPunks (but not being able to purchase one of his own), and the very low quality of ‘bootleg punks’ being sold on OpenSea, Thom decided to take matters into his own hands: he ...

For part 1 of this post, please read https://m.mirror.xyz/Xr0TX6_b6TSB5Ui90mvfixrlfp2fgmhOtzQbM3CXegk Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of connecting with Thom, an artist/ creative/ polymath/ 21st Century Renaissance Man, who was keen to dive head first into crypto. After seeing the sudden rise in popularity of CryptoPunks (but not being able to purchase one of his own), and the very low quality of ‘bootleg punks’ being sold on OpenSea, Thom decided to take matters into his own hands: he ...