Braintrust: Fighting Capitalism with Capitalism

Braintrust is a clear distillation of an incredibly important point: good tokenomics can enhance a strong value proposition, but can’t replace a strong value proposition. 

If the need to issue tokens as rewards outstrips token buybacks, Braintrust will still pay out of the treasury, but if they’ve designed the system right, that means they’re only increasing the circulating supply when participants are doing what the network wants them to do even beyond what client fees can afford to pay down...  It’s like if Ub... See more

Instead of increasing the fees you charge all of your users, Gurley recommends that marketplaces figure out other ways to make more from those users who want more from you. Back then, he brought up advertising as an example. If you can get some of the suppliers in the marketplace to pay for ads, you can effectively earn a higher take without needin... See more

Like the time when Braintrust’s token launched on Coinbase and traded up to above $40, and armies of bots “watched” the short videos in the Braintrust Academy library in order to pick up the BTRST tokens Braintrust offered to incentivize people to learn more about the network. When incentives are baked into everything and backed with a token, you n... See more

The long and short of it is that now, there’s a direct link between the token price and network volume. More volume creates more demand for the token. As the network grows, there will be more fees to buy more tokens from the open market.

The simple idea behind Braintrust is that it is a talent network that charges Clients an industry-low 10% fee and actually pays Talent a negative take rate by rewarding them with tokens, and that the only way for those things to change is for the users who would be impacted to vote to change them.

There is no free lunch here. Things that are good for the network inflate the circulating supply, which may be bad for token holders. If you’re a token holder who operates in the network, that’s fine: you’re OK with dilution if it means a lower take on your economic activity. If you’re a purely financial investor, that’s not as great. The float of ... See more

Braintrust’s market cap is $315 million, its fully diluted market cap is $896 million, and in December, it announced a fresh $100 million token sale to Coatue, Tiger, and existing investors to fund grants to grow the ecosystem.  

one key way that a user-owned network can outperform a purely investor-owned one: by giving away something that’s more valuable to recipients than it is to anyone else.