Onboarding today is inaccessible, hard to understand, and owned entirely by influencers who earn outsized benefits from new members joining the ecosystem.

From an accessibility standpoint, think about the first time you heard about crypto — buzzwords galore: "How do I get started?" someone might ask. "Well," you'd say, "first you need a non-custodial wallet that holds various ERC-20 tokens. You're gonna want to go to your favorite centralized exchange, buy some tokens, send them to your wallet, swap some on a decentralized exchange to get some others, and, if you really wanna get frisky, lock em up in some high yield DeFi protocol to maximize your yield. You'll be farming in no time!"

If you don’t know a thing about crypto, you're probably staring at your screen like this:

Though the jargon and memes of crypto twitter bring insiders together, they do virtually nothing to help new people enter the space — the same things that provide inclusivity within crypto networks maintain exclusivity outside of them.

On a similar thread, this rift between crypto-native and non-crypto-native people continues to widen since we've yet to convince the public that crypto is more than just a "currency." In fact, most crypto isn't even a currency anyway — it's gas for a protocol, a utility for a specific ecosystem with no intent of ever being money.

Not to mention that our discourse around crypto is dominated by influencers whose opinions become laws. Thought leaders consistently tweet the same things: fortune cookie tweets or project shills to ensure they're never the last ones left holding the bag.

All these factors collide to create noise in the space that intimidates new users. We need an objective signal in the noise to educate the world about what's only possible with crypto.

Decentralized Identities & Crypto Credentials

As we move to a crypto-native world, we get to rethink the internet as it stands today. In creating web3, we work towards a vision of the internet as originally intended — an open web owned + operated by its users. With this vision comes the ability to have more portable online identities and community affiliations — something made possible with decentralized identities (DIDs).

DIDs let us link our various wallet addresses together, creating a more cohesive view of our online presence. Services like BrightID and ENS let us prove we’re human + add digital identities on top of our wallets, letting us “put our mouth where our money is,” but it’s DIDs that bring the disparate parts of our online identities into one. 

Using DIDs we can fulfill RabbitHole’s core vision of creating an “on-chain meritocracy” with crypto credentials — a means of proving one’s expertise or reputation based on their on-chain activity — but the main bottleneck to this vision is the centralization of our company.

RabbitHole must become a DAO to reach the necessary scale to achieve this on-chain meritocracy while remaining credibly neutral and aligning incentives between its users, investors, and the broader web3 community.

Why RabbitHoleDAO

RabbitHole is already the market leader in token distribution + customer acquisition for crypto protocols. We've given out hundreds of thousands of dollars in token rewards to users all around the world while pioneering a "learn-to-earn" model which incentivizes intentional participation with crypto projects over pure speculation + "number go up" day trading behavior. Picking up where Earn.com left off, RabbitHole focuses on a user's on-chain track record to award tokens + credentials based on their transaction history, helping find an answer to how we find the right person for the right job at the right time. At scale, RabbitHole will become the go-to source for work on the internet.

We believe the future of work is based on one’s contribution to various organizations to which they feel most aligned. DAOs open up a new paradigm for democratic governance and mass coordination of people with similar interests and values, and as such, it’s core to our vision to be a DAO, ourselves, to help usher in this new era.

Scaling mass onboarding while preserving decentralization

For DAOs to achieve relevant scale, traditional marketing isn't sufficient. So in our transition from company to DAO, we must build a tight-knit community of DAO contributors who can operate the network in tandem with (and eventually in place of) the core RabbitHole team.

Becoming a DAO not only lets us grow larger than a centralized company, but it also helps us coordinate + mobilize a task force of learners and earners who will act as sherpas for potential new crypto users. These contributors are called Pathfinders — crypto missionaries looking to preach the gospel and use their talents in design, marketing, engineering, and more to onboard the next billion people to web3.

Think of it this way: If RabbitHole is a game, Pathfinders are the game designers.

Pathfinders are made up of several core working groups:

• Pioneers — content creators building web3’s Library of Alexandria, a knowledge hub complete with anything you’d need to know to get started in crypto

• Artisans — a diverse collective of designers + artists crafting NFT rewards for RabbitHole Quests + outsourcing design services to other DAOs in the web3 ecosystem 

• Stewards — scouts + alpha hunters sourcing + partnering with crypto protocols, representing RabbitHoleDAO through metagovernance + DAO expansion efforts

• Navigators — web3 developers engineering Quest templates with built-in crypto-economic incentives to upskill developers + help them participate in DAOs

• Explorers — data analysts finding signal in the noise, exploring various blockchains to compile case studies that show off the value of RabbitHole’s Quests + Protocol

We’ve already “stealth launched” Pioneers + Artisans, and we’ll be opening up the remaining roles soon. If any of these resonate with you, please reach out!

On their own, each working group provides avenues for new crypto users to get started working in DAOs while offering more experienced contributors new work & mentorship opportunities. Together, these working groups create a vast network of web3 resources, both for individual contributors and the crypto ecosystem at large.

As a result, RabbitHoleDAO can reach a larger scale than most other DAOs in the space while providing an on-ramp for members to showcase their skills and share upside in the community’s growth. But for that to be worthwhile, our DAO + protocol must be credibly neutral, allowing members to dictate the direction + depth to which it grows.

Aligning + empowering core contributors

To remain credibly neutral, an org needs to align + empower its core contributors. For RabbitHoleDAO, alignment + empowerment becomes a flywheel:

The RabbitHoleDAO Flywheel

• Stewards source protocols we work with, earning a % of the value they bring to the DAO. 

• In tandem, Pioneers create tutorials + editorial content to guide RabbitHole users through various Quests while Artisans craft artwork for NFT rewards, earning tokens in exchange. 

• As a Quest is created, Navigators develop the subgraphs necessary to verify proof-of-completion + otherwise maintain the RabbitHole Protocol.

• Finally, Explorers query those subgraphs, creating case studies to share with potential partners Stewards help source.

• And the cycle continues...

These groups work in tandem to service the core RabbitHole protocol, earning more ownership + governance power in the DAO while building a credentialing protocol that fits their needs. 

At its core, this ethos of how work gets done in the DAO aligns perfectly with our vision for an on-chain meritocracy + the future of web3 work. And once we’re sufficiently decentralized, we can use our protocol to issue objective, verifiable, interoperable credentials for the broader web3 ecosystem — credentials created by the community, for the community.

Creating a credibly-neutral credentialing protocol

Credentials from centralized institutions are subjective — they're only valuable because the institution issuing them is valuable. It's a reputational ponzi scheme.

On the contrary, credentials from decentralized networks are more objective — they let people observe work completed without a subjective value judgement on the work itself.

To create a true meritocracy, we need less of the former and more of the latter. And to get there, we need to have open discussions + build relationships with members of our community to open the door for their participation (and eventually our own company's decentralization).

Decentralization is the only way to have open + transparent networks with objective credentials. In turn, these networks align incentives between all their participants, making it easier for new people to enter the space.

Consider this: most of your crypto friends already want to bring their friends into the space (because everyone wants to be seen as a missionary), but there's never been an easy way to do so, nor has there been an easy way to track their progress as they learn. Not to mention that people want to be a part of something, and while traditional communities are great beginnings, real ownership comes with both financial and social rewards.

RabbitHole has an ethos core to web3: positive-sumness, transparency, and alignment across networks through true ownership of contributors’ work and community affiliations. When everyone owns a piece of the network + the success of that network is dictated by their actions, missionaries opt in and mercenaries opt out.

Decentralization is just one piece of the web3 onboarding + credentialing puzzle. It lets us be more transparent in our processes, align incentives with our users, and creates objective measures of work completion which, in turn, push us towards the meritocracy we've always hoped for.

If this mission resonates with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out on twitter, or join our Discord to keep up to date with all developments related to our DAO. We’d love to find ways to get you involved in whatever capacity is most meaningful to you.

Down the RabbitHole we go… 🐇 🕳

Nothing is ever free. And unfortunately, instances like the insurrection of the Capitol building, the spread of covid-related misinformation, and the rise of hyper partisan political environments have taught us this the hard way. 

In an environment where over 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, moderation functions as the core commodity that platforms have to offer. These algorithmically-programmed systems of curation maintain profitability by holding our attention on sites (to see ads) and presenting us with content that will change our behavior (to sell ads). Problem is, these algorithms have learned to “nudge” our behaviour for more sinister reasons than just bleeding our wallets dry.

To make matters worse, we’re completely blind to what’s going on behind the gold-plated doors of Silicon Valley. Under Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act, platform companies basically have sole discretion in how they’re able to collect, collate, use, and sell our personal information. 

Oh, and did I mention that we get no share of the profit. While Zuckerberg basks in  “Meta's” rising stock price, we’re fighting over what’s fact versus fiction. How can we create a strong public sphere if we can’t even agree on the issues we face? 

To state the obvious here: this is bad, really bad. Time’s up tech giants. We must move away from the current data climate and work together to foster a more open and democratized distribution of the “new oil”–aka, user data. 

Sure, opting in and out of advertisements for a cut of the profits is a step in the right direction, as Brave browser and the BAT (Basic Attention Token) have shown, but this solution only covers part of the equation. 

Imagine having access to your entire data registry, without having to ask the platforms that collect it to “please” share it with you. Gaining awareness into how platform companies use AI models and marketing segmentation to drive profit from our user behavior would do more than just offer transparency. We're talking about flipping the tables from platform ownership to user ownership, giving you the power to rent, sell, stake or withdraw your data from wherever it may be used.

Only through blockchain can users handle their valuable information through a tokenized package: don't like what Facebook is using your likes for? Withdraw their access; found a new AI research team that you really vibe with. Take part in their growth by helping to train their models. Possibilities are really endless when each and every one of us controls our grain of the sand. This could enable us to shape the future we want, not what our overlords at Silicon Valley decide is best for us.

Not everything is sunshine and butterflies though, there's a ton of hurdles to overcome before this idyllic vision can become a reality, most of them coming from within. Legal measures like GDPR, the Cookie Law and the upcoming (hopefully) update to Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act barely scratch the surface in terms of giving people the agency they deserve. When it comes to how accountable platforms are for the real-world effects of the content we produce, and the value they extract from it, we need to have a voice. 

Funnily enough, some steps in the right direction have been made by the same people that got us here in the first place. Microsoft, Nokia and other leading-edge companies are currently setting the ground for modular, smart contract-based, and decentralized datasets leveraging all of the advantages of the blockchain to guide AI research and usage into a more equitable industry of the future.

Whether or not they'll stick to that promise is up to us, but the opportunity is there. Decentralization is our chance at having a say in how our data is used, it's up to us to keep that agency and not serve it up again for MANGA (formerly FAANG) to exploit as they see fit.

Written by @anay_sim and @sumin_of_note

New Pathfinder guides:

Enjoy some fresh new guides this week to bring you even further down the rabbit hole.

• Setting up/Bridging Funds on Celo by @bvajresh 

• How to Stake OHM on Olympus by @zach_davidson

Pathfinder updates:

Editorial Update:

Zach Davidson published an instant classic on the blossoming RabbitHoleDAO and why decentralization matters. Learn how RabbitHole plans to guide the next billion people into web3 while preserving decentralization. DM Zach if you want to get involved with the next stage of our decentralization efforts.

Quest update (DAOhaus Quest):

The DAOhaus quest is live this week! If you’re interested in becoming a member of a DAO, and learning how to create and vote on proposals, this one’s for you!

Since it’s launch on Monday, over 1,500+ unique proposals have been submitted on DAOhause, and the number of DAOhaus votes has skyrocketed (see graph below). As we onboard the next billion users into the web3 ecosystem, these stats reinforce our belief that participation > speculation. 

Check out the quest here and act quick to get your reward. 

Pathfinder question of the week:

As we build up our media ecosystem, we wanna know what kind of content you’d like to see from RabbitHole? From TikToks, to YouTube videos, to more niche blog posts – anything is fair game. 

Jump into the RabbitHole #WeeklyHop Discord channel or tweet us @pathfinders_gg to let us know!

Section compiled by @juanna.eth and @jonahbaer.eth

Rabbit of the week:

In the age of surveillance, we often don’t know who has access to the data we create, much less how they have been using it against us. It’s going to take an army of Sherlock Rabbits to solve this problem. Join the discussion on the #WeeklyHop Discord channel to share your thoughts on how we can crack this case together.

Images reproduced in print and on screens are mediated images. Long ago, the domain of the mediated image witnessed an elemental format war from which the rectangular emerged victorious. Images. Are. Rectangular. Every contemporary imaging medium is optimised-up-to-the-eyeballs for the rectangular. Yes, despite the fundamental circularity of the lenses attached to practically every camera and optical imaging device in pictorial history, their conical light has traditionally been projected onto rectangular canvas, rectangular film, and rectangular digital sensor. All light that exceeds these rectangular bounds was lost to an invisible void.

How did the rectangle come to command such monolithic authority? What forces will reshape mediated images in a post-lens, text-to-image and image-to-image era in which even the circular has been rendered obsolete? Here I share six high-level historical conceptions of the image edge and call on graphic designers, artists, and content creators to reclaim our formats from the monotony of the rectangle.

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Thomas Bewick, 'A History of British Birds', 1797

Graphic labour

Look at this lazy old squire. Little does he know that the thicket in which he is snoozing is the site of tireless graphic labour! While he wastes an afternoon, Thomas Bewick, his creator, toils at an unyielding hardwood surface with a steel burin. Hunched over his work table, Bewick can justify only those marks necessary to convey the scene. His edges exploit and disguise this constraint by assuming the naturalistic contours of clouds, leaves, rocks and grasses.

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Nineteenth century photograph, artist unknown

Liquid epoch

Do you see it? A magical being preserved by a moment of alchemy! Photography itself begins as a fluid apparition, an image emerging from liquid chemistry that stains its substrate unpredictably. This anonymous early photographer hopes only to invoke, not master these elusive processes. Enthral to the sheer wonder of their images, they care not for formal neatness. This image displays its unstable edges unashamedly.

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Nineteenth century portrait, artist unknown

Tight spaces

The early history of photography is a list of precious metals, and the expensive matter of the image was ever a factor in its visual composition. This respectable lady occupies a close-fitting oval frame not only for its quintessential elegance, but because she can’t afford to have her photographer waste literal silver and gold capturing and fixing insignificant background details. The economising of the photographic creates capital incentives that will converge, inevitably, on the most efficient format.

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Jeff Wall, ‘8056 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles …’, 1996

Full image

Artist Jeff Wall reminds us that lenses produce circular images which become darker and less sharp at their edges. But since lenses commute light — light that beams down eternally from the sky! — these imperfect extremities can simply be cropped off by a rectangular frame inside the camera. Whatever, it’s free. Film and photographic paper, though, are costly to produce. From this basic disparity between input and output the rectangular industrial complex results. Once instituted in the hardware of the darkroom and the print factory, the rectangle’s oppressive hold on our pictorial imaginary is complete.

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Wireframe render of the University of Utah Computer Science teapot, 1974

Digital primitives

This new field of computer graphics seems to be going nowhere. Stick to the numbers, University of Utah Computer Science nerds. No, but really, the visuality of even this relatively simplistic form is so computationally expensive that it requires the complete disintegration of foreground, background, surface, and pictorial space simply in order to appear. It will be decades before digital objects can occupy believable simulations of three dimensional space. Until then, this polygonal pot has a nascent superpower: its edges can be revisioned from an infinity of potential perspectives.

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Holly Herndon, untitled, 2021

Latent visions

With the advent of images conjured by artificial intelligences, the assumption that images are rectangular has become suddenly skeuomorphic. Pixels are now virtually as abundant as light. The valuable rare earth elements in our devices can maintain several vague layers of abstraction from the images that their screens display. At the edges of this self portrait by artist Holly Herndon the corruption of the rectangle from within is already begun. Her conjuring tools don’t want to preserve the compositional etiquette of foreground and background. They abhor the straight line, the flat plane, and the right-angle. Complex and contorted edges are what they crave. They want to sculpt total, allover imageness.

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Uncage the image!

Why should our image conjuring tools be bound by the rectangular repository of historical images on which they have been trained? Why should our graphics conform to the rectangular frames that conservative publishing platforms unthinkingly provide us with? The hegemony of the rectangular is vulnerable, but it would be naïve to expect it to relinquish its hold. Equipped with our inscrutable new tools, the moment to overpower this omnipresent right-angled oppressor has come.