Web3

I highly recommend reading the book, but wanted to take a stab at proposing some inflections that exist within crypto that have been top of mind for me.

The new existence of low cost global permissionless payment rails. For the first time you can now send or accept money from anyone on earth for fractions of a penny. With the improving UX of crypto ... See more

The symbiotic relationship between L2s and Ethereum is undeniable. L2s thrive on Ethereum's infrastructure and security, while Ethereum benefits from the increased activity and increased demand for ETH, making it a better store of value.

This framework implies a return to patronage – we are not paying for utility, we are funding the story, the taste, the culture, and its support and proliferation.

Ironically enough, patronage is an even older media business model than advertising or subscriptions. During the Renaissance, patronage was symbiotic – it afforded patrons cultural capital... See more

The subscription access business model results in a creator’s dilemma. If their best content is paywalled, how will they demonstrate the value of subscribing to new readers? If their best content is paywalled, subscribers have no way of accurately assessing the quality of a creator’s work.

By 2028 NFTs will be analogous to the United States’ huge underground salt caverns that store crude oil reserves. Mountains of financial, health, education, social, gaming & behavioral data will be widely accessible. Some individuals (<10% of the United States population) will be running their own local models on a tapestry of on-chain &... See more

Disrupting traditional finance or improving global payment rails are two of the more widely accepted future use cases for crypto, while we argue there’s room for a third in DePIN.

Crypto is not an established field like public equities so asking for a “ DePIN basket ” the same way you would look for exposure to Industrials or Consumer Staples is nonsensical. This is the equivalent of short-term narrative trading startup equity in our view.

We’ve talked about crypto very little thus far. Blackbird’s membership cards are NFTs, its loyalty token is $FLY, and network participants can earn ownership in the network with $F2, but we’ve focused on what those different products do for restaurants and their customers, not on the nitty gritty of the tokens themselves.

That is a great thing.

Blac... See more

Fred Wilson pointed out that being onchain opens up the opportunity to build an AmEx-like loyalty program where all the loyalty points are onchain.

“$FLY is like a stablecoin. It’s not something like Bitcoin where you buy it and hope it goes to $100k,” he said. “But the idea of taking loyalty points onchain is a big deal.”

Specifically, it will all... See more