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its been a busy last week so i'll just get straight to it. also our sc07 batch will be announced soon so stay tuned for some upcoming news!!
xx c
Last week we attended /brandnew, a full day summit hosted by Boys Club held during SXSW in Austin. The event brought together some of the best thinkers and builders for a day of keynotes, panels, and workshops. It was incredibly curated and intentional as the programming explored consumer crypto and the next iteration of consumer apps and experiences on the internet.
Some major takeaways:
We're seeing (in real time) the merging of media and marketplaces, with social media apps emerging as key platforms for both commerce and patronage. The "mint" button signifies a new generation of superfans, akin to the "superlike" feature. We're also seeing the next generation of narrative engineers. Most talks brought us back to the need to distill complex web3 jargon and focus on simplicity if we want wider adoption. And stressed the importance of moving past pure speculation into utility rooted applications. Sessions also delved into the evolution and implications of muses, from newspapers to celebrities on screen to social media creators, and now more and more to AI-generated content and storytelling. Moreover, while web1 & 2 were all about the democratization of content creation, the democratization of market formation was underscored as a key aspect of Web3. All in all, the infra is good enough and it's time for consumer to have it's moment. And with all the people and projects on display who are actively building this category, it's starting to feel a lot more tangible.
We created a brand new special edition for the event which we recently minted on Zora. You can collect it for free and check out some founder interviews we did with Boys Club, Interface, and MintStars!
Internet Explorers is a weekly rundown live stream where extremely online individuals broadly explore (romanticize, even) new consumer internet experiences.
Live & online Fridays at 10am PT / 1pm ET.
Last week we welcomed Stani, cofounder of Aave and Lens, on the show. Lens went completely permissionless a few weeks ago and they’ve seen an explosion in sign ups since. They’re running a very different strategy than Farcaster by focusing entirely on the protocol and pushing application development into the ecosystem. Stani gave a great overview and explained where the most exciting experiments and pockets of activity are happening right now.
Josh & Jess also welcomed Jonny Mack from Fabric who came on to discuss their NFT-based subscription product Hypersub, which leverages protocol rewards to align economic incentives. Hypersub offers Referral Rewards for revenue generated by subscriptions and Subscriber Rewards based on early subscription and duration. This model allows subscribers to share in the success of creators, altering the subscription dynamic with added speculation, presenting a promising evolution in economic primitives.
Last week, Multicoin published an insightful post highlighting the emergence of "Publisher-Exchanges," a new class of apps leveraging crypto-assets' ability to capture, store, and value attention. They see a significant opportunity in building platforms that merge traditional marketplaces of attention (e.g., TikTok, Instagram) with crypto-powered marketplaces of value, enabling the exchange of both content and value within meaningful social contexts. They identify categories such as messengers, content networks, information markets, and special-interest communities as promising areas for development. Additionally, they predict memecoins to become dominant atomic units of value, suggesting that platforms facilitating consensus creation around memecoins could unlock immense value by becoming the primary venue for socializing and speculating on cultural assets.
Drakula, a newly launched "Publisher-Exchange" by Alex Masmej and team, merges TikTok's publishing model with an engagement points system and native creator speculation. Notably, they've innovatively leveraged $DEGEN as their go-to-market strategy, pricing all creator shares in $DEGEN rather than immediately launching their own token or using ETH. This approach effectively taps into existing social contexts, driving new demand and attention for $DEGEN while providing creators with a novel economic playground. This method represents a significant shift in attracting crypto communities' attention, offering a more integrated and engaging experience compared to traditional airdrops.
Regan's recent thread questions whether consumer applications will rise in prominence or if infrastructure will continue to dominate, echoing Joel Monegro's Fat Protocol Thesis which has seen infrastructure investments soar while consumer apps lag. Despite consumer-focused products like LDO, UNI, and GMX generating significant cash flow, they haven't cracked the top 50 coins, with the market favoring infrastructure projects like Dymension over Rocket Pool. While consumer crypto garners excitement, infrastructure is poised to maintain dominance in investment capital and token charts, leading some founders to explore vertical integration into infrastructure. However, the balance between consumer apps and infrastructure investment may eventually shift, presenting both challenges and opportunities across the space.
Watch the full episode:
We're hosting FarCon’s Welcome Party on a rooftop in Venice Beach on May 1st!!! A curated, multi-day experience, FarCon is designed to convene, connect, and celebrate the driving forces behind Farcaster's ecosystem. Get your pass.
than a founder who spends their time talking about the market, their token, or token prices in general.
TestFlight Club is the best place on the internet to get high quality feedback from over 100 highly curated early adopters. Avoid the Airdrop hunters and get your pre-launch product in front of real humans who give real, valuable feedback. Submit your product here.
The core focus is to support founders with high-quality early usage, feedback, and insights. We’ve shared early looks at … Drakula, Quests, Crypto The Game, Seam, Revel, CoLinks, Sperm Game, newcoin, t2, Sona Stream, Daylight, Focus Tree, Receipts.xyz, DrawTheChart, Lore, Yup, Gallery, Revise, and more!
Want to join the Club? We're slowly opening the doors to new members.
Cheryl Douglass
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A weekly /seedclub consumer crypto roundup https://paragraph.xyz/@seedclubhq/seedclub-network-news-mar-19-2024
Ft. @boysclub @nonlinear.eth @fabric @hypersub @multicoin @drakula @alexmasmej.eth @joshcrnls @jess @peacenode.eth @santiagoroel @sonofalli @richie @lay2000lbs & more