A Utopian Revolution in the Making

An overwhelming aspect of operating in the web3 space is the number of new projects and tools that are being launched every day. We are lucky to have contact with a vast network of social token creators and get to talk about what tools they use and what pain points they still face, but  we are still surprised week after week with the launches of resources or projects for creators in web3.

Speedinvest and Antler have created this Creator Economy Startup Map which breaks down a number of projects, companies, and organizations that deal with either direct monetization or offer creator tools. And you can view an Airtable of the 2022 Creator Economy Report they put together of all 144 companies. This blog post is essential reading for anyone paying attention to the future of creators!

For those not yet steeped into all things web3 Kevin Roose of the New York Times has put together one of my favorite introductions to crypto: The Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto. He starts off with something we can all agree on:

“My strongest-held belief about crypto, though, is that it is terribly explained.”

Kevin Roose, The New York Times

And then goes on to write the best up-to-date broad summary of crypto I’ve ever read. I’ll be forwarding this to all my aunts and uncles who wonder what I do for a living. 🙂

– Mike, Community and Creator Evangelist at Roll

Token Governance + DAOs

The biggest news in tokens has been the launch of ApeCoin. This follows a number of huge recent announcements from the expanded universe of Yuga Labs but more interesting to us is seeing the biggest NFTs in the world follow the same web3 pattern as many smaller projects:

  1. Launch NFTs
  2. Issue a token
  3. Become a DAO

While the order isn’t always the same (sometimes the DAO or token comes first), on the path from NFT to DAO lies the ever important governance token. While endorsed by Yuga Labs, the ApeCoin arrived from the ApeCoin DAO, an entity that is separate from Yuga Labs (no member of the ApeCoin DAO board are Yuga Labs employees). 

Whatever your thoughts are on the dominance of BAYC in web3 it’s going to be fascinating and educational to see how the community members use their new governance token, and how the holders of the ApeCoin take ownership of their future.  

While he starts off with a little skepticism, some of which is much deserved, Guardian columnist John Naughton’s conclusion in his “Are blockchain-based DAOs really a utopian revolution in the making?” article highlights the revolutionary nature of the DAO and how we have to know our history:

“… there’s something touching about the DAO idea. It seeks to break the stranglehold of hierarchical organisations dominated by a few and replace them with more democratic structures. In that sense, they’re reminiscent of 1960s and 1970s attempts to create communes for breaking the grip of the nuclear monogamous family and creating more collegial structures for domestic life.” 

John Naughton, The Guardian

This theme is reiterated by Nicole de Ayora in her post Mission Mainstream: We’re All Gonna Make It (Literally) where she points out that:

“The dominant, top-down, one-to-many corporate structure is reflective of the power imbalances we face on centralized platforms. It became clear that a mission-driven, passionate community of contributors could replace the role of the all-powerful CEO — and Web3 would enable people to govern their own path forward.”

Nicole de Ayora

Rising $TIDE

After launching $TIDE and integrating it into his stream, Brady McKenna, the host of Dapp Stream, recently introduced a TIDE/ETH liquidity pool on Uniswap. There’s now an easy point of access for anyone who wants to accumulate some $TIDE, which among other things can be used for 1-on-1 consultation with Brady himself.

You can see the liquidity pool here, and buy $TIDE here.

Watch This

Nathan is the co-founder of the $PCC token, host of the Performante YouTube Channel, and a full time crypto trader. We talk about his token, the desire to better educate about crypto, and how value in a community is truly measured.

Catch the episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple.