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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When more important ideas are written and captured on permanent-storage blockchains or "crypto networks", timestamped and digitally signed (which Mirror is attempting to make easy and mainstream), then AI algorithms should be able to automatically cite and credit the originators of ideas.
For example, if a researcher is writing a paper (hopefully on a client backed by Mirror), the software will be able to scan all articles that have ever been posted before, and automatically find the appropriate reference for a given idea, if a reference exists. This will improve the writing experience for the researcher, and will also prevent the appropriation of ideas.
For example, African-American activist Tarana Burke started the grassroots Me Too movement in 2006, to help sexual assault victims after being assaulted herself. Later, white actor Alyssa Milano popularized "me too" with a viral tweet urging harassed and assaulted woman to tag “#metoo” in social media posts.
In light of the incredible influence of the campaign, it is important that Tarana Burke herself receives credit for the origins of the meme, and that expanders, benefiting from scale, are prevented in principle from receiving all of the influence and credit.
When crypto networks are more popular and AI is more powerful, such prevention would be feasible. AI algorithms, working tirelessly in the background, would know the origins of all ideas, being able to understand concepts and trace an immutable record of all published ideas.
Another example would be color schemes; as Kevin Lo argued, the rise of pastel color schemes began with feminist artists, propagated through Tumblr, and eventually reached Pantone. The origins of the trend might be trivially provable for machines in the future — so trivial that they're done automatically at each point of propagation. Another advanced example would include photography styles. The list goes on...
When more important ideas are written and captured on permanent-storage blockchains or "crypto networks", timestamped and digitally signed (which Mirror is attempting to make easy and mainstream), then AI algorithms should be able to automatically cite and credit the originators of ideas.
For example, if a researcher is writing a paper (hopefully on a client backed by Mirror), the software will be able to scan all articles that have ever been posted before, and automatically find the appropriate reference for a given idea, if a reference exists. This will improve the writing experience for the researcher, and will also prevent the appropriation of ideas.
For example, African-American activist Tarana Burke started the grassroots Me Too movement in 2006, to help sexual assault victims after being assaulted herself. Later, white actor Alyssa Milano popularized "me too" with a viral tweet urging harassed and assaulted woman to tag “#metoo” in social media posts.
In light of the incredible influence of the campaign, it is important that Tarana Burke herself receives credit for the origins of the meme, and that expanders, benefiting from scale, are prevented in principle from receiving all of the influence and credit.
When crypto networks are more popular and AI is more powerful, such prevention would be feasible. AI algorithms, working tirelessly in the background, would know the origins of all ideas, being able to understand concepts and trace an immutable record of all published ideas.
Another example would be color schemes; as Kevin Lo argued, the rise of pastel color schemes began with feminist artists, propagated through Tumblr, and eventually reached Pantone. The origins of the trend might be trivially provable for machines in the future — so trivial that they're done automatically at each point of propagation. Another advanced example would include photography styles. The list goes on...
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