Written by: Cooper Kunz

• Paragraph is a blogging platform designed with internet native economics in mind 

• Posts are published on immutable, peer-to-peer, storage networks, like Arweave

• Previously, readers could mint and collect non-fungible tokens for posts they enjoyed

• Now with Doppler, each post can have an associated fungible token that anyone can buy

Paragraph has long been the top platform for crypto-native teams and authors exploring alternative economic models for monetizing their ideas. The platform has attracted notable thinkers, including Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures, who powers his blog through the platform. We also use Paragraph at Whetstone Research to publish most of our research – our writing can be found at https://paragraph.com/@whetstone. In 2024, Paragraph and Mirror joined forces, consolidating two of the most respected and adopted web3 publishing platforms.

The Paragraph team has great articulations of why the publishing industry needs a new business model. As stated on their website: 

“Ideas – in the form of stories, insights, questions, or memes – shape worldviews, bring people together, and grow richer with each conversation. For ideas to be shared, they need to be valued and rewarded. For ideas to have an impact, they must be seen and discussed. But today’s internet makes both harder than ever.

• Paid subscriptions force writers into full-time publishing — a path that isn’t feasible or desirable for many

• Paywalls restrict readership, limit audience growth, and weaken the reach of important ideas.

• Sponsorships and click-based ads dilute authenticity, harm the reading experience, and distract writers from their craft.

• Platforms maximize ad impressions, not discovery, quality, and thoughtful discourse, creating a continuous race for the bottom.

The result? We fall short of what’s truly possible: a vibrant ecosystem where ideas flourish and a thriving economy that enables more great writing to reach the world. We believe there's a better way.”

- The Paragraph Team

Paragraph has previously released multiple iterations on the economic models for how to reward those with good ideas published to their platform, with a majority of them focused on NFTs as a way to show patronage or support for a given author. In these models, authors could set specific minting fees for collecting their posts. They did not earn any of the long term trading fees of these collectibles when swapped on secondary marketplaces like OpenSea. In the latest release, Paragraph has decided to use Doppler, a smart contract protocol created by us at Whetstone Research, to create fungible tokens associated with each piece of content, or blog.

Doppler was designed from the ground up to create application, use case, or token specific markets. These markets ensure value can be accrued to the creators and token holder community in a sustainable way that makes sense for various diverse use cases. In this model with Doppler, the author of a Paragraph post owns a percentage of the total token supply. Additionally, the authors own a claim on a liquidity provider (LP) position, meaning that the author earns fees every time that the tokens are swapped in their unique Uniswap pool, which the Doppler smart contracts created.  This is a radically new attempt to create new financial markets for ideas worth sharing, and we’re very excited to see it being built on Doppler.

Step 1) Authors account with email (via Privy), Farcaster, or connect an Ethereum wallet 

Step 2) Authors write their latest and greatest ideas to share with the world

Step 3) Authors publish ideas and a unique, fungible token associated with their content 

Step 4) After publication, your readers show patronage via purchasing the blog's coin

Step 5) Authors earn trading fees, even through third party interfaces

Paragraph is using Doppler's static bonding curve to price content (aka Doppler “v3”),  starting as low as ~$750. The post’s author holds a 10% percentage of the total supply, vested over one year. As demonstrated in the user journey and screenshots above, Paragraph's opinionated defaults abstract away this complexity into a neat experience that looks like patronage, with various levels of showing support for an author. 

Paragraph's team rebuilt their market infrastructure from non-fungible token-based collections to fungible content coins for each post using Doppler in just a few weeks. This transformation gives creators a new mechanism for directly owning their content and monetizing it throughout its lifecycle, including earning from every swap. The result is a novel multidimensional onchain social graph that encourages new audiences to participate in the marketplace of ideas beyond simple patronage and collectibles. By entering these micro-financial markets early, readers can earn alongside the authors they love and support. While we're still in the beginning stages of valuing internet-native content, we believe Paragraph's marketplace for ideas shows promise.

Whetstone Research is here to help other teams integrate Doppler and customize their market structures to their applications. Get in touch with the team to learn more - contact@whetstone.cc

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