Dear Reader,
November proved to be quite an eventful month! During the cascading collapse of crypto giants due to world class fraud committed by Sam Bankman-Fried, I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, home of the University of Arkansas and 20 miles down I-49 from Bentonville, home of Walmart.
I’ve been looking to invest in this area for a couple years, but last summer I learned of their Life Works Here incentive. I applied for it on a whim and was pleasantly surprised to be accepted. In late September I came to the NWA Tech Summit and got really excited by all the energy and innovation. It reminded me a lot of Boulder, Colorado, when I moved there in 1999.
Per the program guidelines, I’m committed to living here for a least year, and I look forward to getting to know the area in depth. So far I really like it. Fayetteville is affordable, easy to get around (including many miles of dedicated bike paths) and the people are very friendly and diverse. Last night I went to a meetup and met people who grew up here and others who moved from halfway around the world.
New Additions to RealWeb3db
Every time I look up, I find a new RWA project. One these I added just in the last 30 minutes (Defactor). I’d like to write more in depth profiles of these projects but for now I’m just trying get them all in one place.
Good Reads
Goldfinch Finance, one of the few bright spots in the ongoing crypto meltdown, has a post about the next phase of tokenomics.
It’s all heading to real, tangible value
I believe we’re entering a new phase of tokenomics where it will become essential to provide real value. By this, I mean some way to use the token to access particular benefits or value-driving utility. Not just the ability to vote in governance, or the hopes of some future source of value, but actual value, today.
Currently, virtually no tokens do this. Early DeFi projects like Compound and Uniswap have achieved large market caps without direct paths to value from the token. And in cases like Uniswap, the protocol doesn’t even take revenue. For these early projects, token value is often based on speculation that the protocol might eventually introduce revenue, and that token holders might eventually have some way to access it.
BlackRock CEO Says ‘Next Generation for Markets’ Is Tokenization
Despite his bullish view on the future of tokenization, the CEO said he believes that most cryptocurrency-related companies “are not going to be around” in the future, though he did say that blockchain technology will be “very important.”
Bankless State of the DAOs newsletter outlines 7 Essential DAO Skills. I’ll #saveyouaclick and list them here.
Basic knowledge of blockchain
Fast learning
Communication
Time Management
Problem-Solving
Teamwork
Autonomy
As someone who hasn’t really had a real job since the mid nineties, Autonomy should be number one, with everything else a sub-bullet underneath it.
The truth is, while most people want autonomy in an abstract sense, taking 100% responsibility for both your output and compensation is a very, very difficult skill to master. Ask any freelancer. This very human tendency will ultimately prove to be the undoing of the vast majority of DAOs, leading most to either disappear or collapse back into the command and control model typical of most companies.
That said, I believe investment DAOs like Global Coin Research and REI DAO have the most chance of long term success. Why? Because successful investing is frankly an extremely slow process that has qualitatively different production demands from most businesses.
Successful investors spend the vast majority of their time just, like, thinking and talking about things - markets, macro events, ideas, entrepreneurs, other investors etc - and very little doing actual investing. When a deal is identified, there is a flurry of due diligence which requires coordination, but until you get to a significant size (billions in assets under management), deals are rare. Successful investors spend most of the time just saying “no"” And once the capital is deployed their involvement ranges from practically zero in public markets to just a few hours per week (seat on the board, gathering and organizing data for asset management).
These are all relatively autonomous activities that don’t require a tightly integrated team. However a DAO can help investors increase their surface area in terms of ideas and opportunities, so it provides a leverage point that is harder and more expensive to create by forming your own company.
Quick Hits
80% crypto drawdowns got you down? Here’s a map of housing price declines in 2022 - this is cool because it’s built on Redfin’s API. Even more granular data would be possible with property NFTs.
Need some motivation? Here are 40 Bullshit Excuses You Tell Yourself
Events, Meetings and Webinars
How tokenization can make home equity accessible, investible and tradable (Texture Capital webinar) - December 6 at 2pm eastern
Real World Assets Consortium weekly call - December 8 at 2pm eastern
🧵 Threads
🎧 Listens
Crypto and "The Real World" - The Frontier podcast
Was 2021 Just a Gigantic Ponzi? - Bankless podcast (also available on YouTube)
Thanks for Reading!
I hope the holiday season is off to a good start and that you’re taking the time to connect with those who mean the most to you. Cheers!