Beyond Tokens: The Era of Onchain Points
Points are sweeping across the crypto ecosystem, following their catalyzing role in the launch of Blast ($800m TVL on launch), increased Rainbow usage, and many DeFi projects in the Solana ecosystem. This raises the question: are “points” merely a gimmick to spur speculative adoption for early users, or could they present a sustainable new primitive for consumer crypto apps? Drawing from experience in helping develop various points systems over the past year, and now launching a platform dedi...
Bountycaster
Bountycaster is a new service for creating and completing paid bounties online, leveraging cryptocurrency, decentralized social networks, and AI. Bountycaster leverages the Farcaster network for identity and content. Users sign in with their Farcaster account and post bounty descriptions to the Farcaster network. On the backend, Bountycaster monitors posts to Farcaster, and uses AI to parse the bounty content. The service elegantly interweaves four powerful new technologies in a simple way:Bo...
Measuring the Success of Mirror Crowdfunding
Four months ago, our team launched Mirror Crowdfunding. We have had a number of successful campaigns - attracting a median participation of 54 backers per project, and raising a total of over 134 ETH ($351,400 at time of writing) for books, essays, software, newsletters, and public goods. This essay is a critical exploration of the success of Mirror Crowdfunding so far. I also argue that a rare combination social exchange underlies these campaigns - generalized and productive.What is a Mirror...
CTO of Mirror
Beyond Tokens: The Era of Onchain Points
Points are sweeping across the crypto ecosystem, following their catalyzing role in the launch of Blast ($800m TVL on launch), increased Rainbow usage, and many DeFi projects in the Solana ecosystem. This raises the question: are “points” merely a gimmick to spur speculative adoption for early users, or could they present a sustainable new primitive for consumer crypto apps? Drawing from experience in helping develop various points systems over the past year, and now launching a platform dedi...
Bountycaster
Bountycaster is a new service for creating and completing paid bounties online, leveraging cryptocurrency, decentralized social networks, and AI. Bountycaster leverages the Farcaster network for identity and content. Users sign in with their Farcaster account and post bounty descriptions to the Farcaster network. On the backend, Bountycaster monitors posts to Farcaster, and uses AI to parse the bounty content. The service elegantly interweaves four powerful new technologies in a simple way:Bo...
Measuring the Success of Mirror Crowdfunding
Four months ago, our team launched Mirror Crowdfunding. We have had a number of successful campaigns - attracting a median participation of 54 backers per project, and raising a total of over 134 ETH ($351,400 at time of writing) for books, essays, software, newsletters, and public goods. This essay is a critical exploration of the success of Mirror Crowdfunding so far. I also argue that a rare combination social exchange underlies these campaigns - generalized and productive.What is a Mirror...
CTO of Mirror

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NFT collectibles (e.g. Nouns, Punks) enable communities with verifiable membership via token ownership.
Social forums like Mirror can use ownership verification to legitimize an account's voice within these communities, producing social capital for a pseudonymous avatar - without revealing the identity of the owner. This allows anonymous individuals to reliably coordinate, transact, and advance group values - an innovation in global collective action.

Buying a collectible NFT signals investment in a community. On August 24, an account invested 140 ETH (~$450,000) in an NFT project called NounsDAO, purchasing the 17th Noun via auction. The signal is reinforced over time if the account holds the NFT as the resale value increases. We can verify this signal by viewing their transaction history.
After the purchase, the buyer did something else worth noting: They created a Twitter account called Noun 17 - as if to speak on behalf of the Noun. The Twitter account only has 95 followers at the time of writing, and unfortunately we cannot verify NFT ownership on Twitter. But on Mirror we can verify ownership.
Mirror is a crypto-native publishing platform that links accounts to Ethereum addresses, so we can verify that a writer owns an NFT like a Noun.
Verifying ownership legitimates the writer as a member of the community. As more crypto-native social networks come online, owners of collectible NFTs will have more spaces and forms in which to express themselves - enabling a multifaceted identity project for the avatar. A Noun can produce identity through narrative on forums like Mirror.
Mirror also has a crowdfunding tool, where DAOs are raising funds for various causes. A publication called BLVKHVND just used it to raised 337.75 ETH (~$1 million), establishing their online gaming organization.
Although NounsDAO can collaboratively govern a large treasury already, these tools give each Noun the autonomy to enact leadership using their own social capital.
When we generalize from Nouns to every NFT community, we see the inevitable power of social networks that can verify Ethereum accounts.
NFT collectibles (e.g. Nouns, Punks) enable communities with verifiable membership via token ownership.
Social forums like Mirror can use ownership verification to legitimize an account's voice within these communities, producing social capital for a pseudonymous avatar - without revealing the identity of the owner. This allows anonymous individuals to reliably coordinate, transact, and advance group values - an innovation in global collective action.

Buying a collectible NFT signals investment in a community. On August 24, an account invested 140 ETH (~$450,000) in an NFT project called NounsDAO, purchasing the 17th Noun via auction. The signal is reinforced over time if the account holds the NFT as the resale value increases. We can verify this signal by viewing their transaction history.
After the purchase, the buyer did something else worth noting: They created a Twitter account called Noun 17 - as if to speak on behalf of the Noun. The Twitter account only has 95 followers at the time of writing, and unfortunately we cannot verify NFT ownership on Twitter. But on Mirror we can verify ownership.
Mirror is a crypto-native publishing platform that links accounts to Ethereum addresses, so we can verify that a writer owns an NFT like a Noun.
Verifying ownership legitimates the writer as a member of the community. As more crypto-native social networks come online, owners of collectible NFTs will have more spaces and forms in which to express themselves - enabling a multifaceted identity project for the avatar. A Noun can produce identity through narrative on forums like Mirror.
Mirror also has a crowdfunding tool, where DAOs are raising funds for various causes. A publication called BLVKHVND just used it to raised 337.75 ETH (~$1 million), establishing their online gaming organization.
Although NounsDAO can collaboratively govern a large treasury already, these tools give each Noun the autonomy to enact leadership using their own social capital.
When we generalize from Nouns to every NFT community, we see the inevitable power of social networks that can verify Ethereum accounts.
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