Social Token Roundup: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
There is no end to the number of people who have remarked that crypto is like the wild west, so today we’re kicking things off with a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly…
The Good
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
Fred Rogers
🇺🇦 How is Ukraine using crypto to fund the war? (paywall), the Economist gives an overview of the government accwtping cryptocurrency aid. They highlight Come Back Alive and their move to crypto after getting kicked off Patreon, and the launch of UkraineDAO, which has raised $8 million.
🇺🇦 One of Roll’s own earliest supporters, investor Alex Iskold, has revived the 1K Project to provide direct relief to Ukrainian families. CNBC reports he has raised more than $3.5 million. (And they are looking for volunteers.)
The Bad
👎 No one is cares about Zuck Bucks. The big rumor is that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is looking into “social tokens” or “reputation coins.” This isn’t the first time the company has failed to get into cryptocurrency but The Verge points out that this time it is “unlikely” to be crypto and suspect Meta is desperate for win.
The Ugly
☕ You’ve heard of greenwashing, but Starbucks trying out cryptowashing. Anti-union CEO Howard Shultz announced the random idea of Starbucks NFTs while addressing workers amid a union drive. Something tells me that workers fighting for their rights are not going to be won over by a corporate NFT initiative. (It’s certainly not helping the stock price.)
Who's On A Roll
Harrison First ($FIRST) and Beauty School Dropout ($DRPT) had a deep conversation on The Roll Up, our new b-monthly Twitter Spaces event. Listen in to hear their origin story and how they are using social tokens and other web3 tools as musicians.
And speaking of Harrison, check out his post about all the ways he has incorporated web3 into his life as an musician: How To Use Social Tokens as a Web3 Artist
Skeenee of SKULL held a community meetup at the Non Fungible Conference in Lisbon. We love seeing virtual communities meet up in real life!
Worried about impermanent loss? The team at PCC have you covered with their Impermanent Loss Calculator. You can “Add prices for the entry & exit, the value of the LP, and the exposure duration, and get a better understanding of the potential IL for the liquidity pool!”
WhaleShark ($WHALE) was a guest on Tatler TV talking about NFTs, the metaverse, and cryptocurrency:
“Most people would call me a hoarder,” [WhaleShark] joked. “And with more than 400,000 NFTs, it’s a little difficult to refute. However, the difference between a collector and a hoarder is that … all my NFTs are my children; and I know every single one of my 400,000 children.”
Keeley Bumford, aka Dresage, has a vault of royalty free samples, stems, early demos, and other artifacts that community members can buy for 50 $DRESG.
Groovypedia teased the upcoming launch of their NFTs, which you’ll be able to get using their social token $GROOVY.
Vault Empowers held a session with Nichole Lynel this week. You can join their discord for ways to get engaged with the community and earn their social token $VAULT.
Token Governance + DAOs
On Monday Coinbase teased something coming soon related to BAYC, ApeCoin, and the Coinbase Wallet… and later that day announced they are creating an interactive three-part film with the BAYC and ApeCoin communities starting with a casting call for all Bored Apes and community votes that guide the creative process.
The article Memes of Production: DAOs as Financial Flash Mobs and Hyperstructures from the team at Cabin is required reading. Building off Jacob Horne’s Hyperstructure piece from January, the Cabin folks highlight two kinds of DAOs:
“financial flash mobs and hyperstructures. Each taps into a unique quality of DAOs that isn’t feasible via traditional corporate structures. They represent different extremes of on-chain coordination: fast and hot, or slow and long.”
And, spoiler alert, these two categories are connected:
“... successful DAOs will figure out how to distill a potent meme, use it as a financial flash mob to gain initial resources like capital and contributors, and then use those resources to embed the meme into a protocol that can live on as an on-chain hyperstructure.”
A fun article from Pavel Bains thinking about the rise of 50 Cent and how it relates to DAOs.
He points out that rather than take a traditional record label deal, an artist on the rise today could start a DAO instead, but it takes a special kind of artist. Bains points out that a DAO may not be for everyone, but an artist with “the rare combination of superior talent and business savvy” that can harness the power of a DAO.
New Money
We’re excited to announce the launch of $TUS, the new social token from the Take Up Space community with a focus on education, resources, community, and funding to help create the next generation of diverse leaders! Congrats!
Watch This
CTO and Co-Founder of Roll Sid Kalla talked to Marco Montemagno about how we think about social tokens at Roll and how it works from minting, distribution, liquidity, and more!