Newsletter: Models for Co-creation

This week we cover the final instalment of Forefront’s Economic Models of Tokenized Communities report, TCG Crypto Framework for Consumer Crypto: Building on Passion, Joel John on Memes Asset, the World App Launch, mainstream news and new Signal TL;DR (powered by AI). Let’s get to it.

Welcome to edition 140:

This week we cover the final instalment of Forefront’s Economic Models of Tokenized Communities report, TCG Crypto Framework for Consumer Crypto: Building on Passion, Joel John on Memes Asset, the World App Launch, mainstream news and new Signal TL;DR (powered by AI).

--- This edition is brought to you by Purple.

Week’s Highlight

Collaborative Report: Economic Models for Tokenized Communities

As part of our report on the "Economic Models for Tokenized Communities," the Forefront team outlined nine economic models for the sustainability of tokenized communities. As a reminder, we view tokenized communities as DAOs that are primarily focused on funding community projects.

The models discussed include treasury diversification, perpetual auctions, subscription access tokens, lifetime membership tokens, DAO drops and open editions, protocol fees, identity and collectibles, project-based revenue sharing, and project-based ownership sharing. Each model has its own benefits and drawbacks. These models enable DAOs to accumulate funds, generate revenue through ongoing token sales or auctions, charge fees for platform usage, create and sell collectibles, or form partnerships with projects for revenue sharing or ownership sharing. Careful consideration of the models is necessary to ensure long-term sustainability and alignment with the DAO's goals.

This piece -- alongside one on Nounish DAOs and another focused on DAO Drops -- is fundamental to understanding Forefront's vision for tokenized communities, the opportunity ahead of us, and the challenges we face.

If you're interested in joining these conversations and helping us produce thoughtful media at the frontier of DAOs and tokenized communities, we highly encourage you to join the Forefront community by acquiring a Membership Pass or reaching out to write!

What's Poppin'

Building on Passion. The team at TCG Crypto outlined their investment thesis in this piece, Building on Passion. TCG believes that blockchain technology can transform passion-based businesses by turning passionate audiences into passionate owners. They argue that ownership, in this context, goes beyond financial ownership and instead incentivizes customers to participate more deeply in experiences. They emphasize the value of expanding passion-based businesses vertically, focusing on existing passion arenas rather than horizontal expansion. The team then asserts that the value lies in matching consumer desire with artist need, using crypto as a tool rather than an end state. Finally, they highlight loyalty and membership, multichannel and multimedia experiences, communications, new media, and infrastructure for consumer scale as key themes to watch in 2023. Great piece for better understanding the consumer crypto market.

The Memes of Production. Meme tokens are hot again (have you seen gas prices?), but why? In this essay, Joel John discusses meme assets and their investment potential. He explores the behavior of token holders and the risks associated with investing in meme assets. Joel notes that meme assets can become lindy financial goods if supported by large exchanges, but they also resemble Ponzi schemes and can quickly lose value. He then highlights the prevalence of retail investors with small sums of money invested in meme assets and the concentration of tokens in a few wallets, suggesting that investors are driven by biases such as optimism, recency bias, and the desire for volatility to outperform peers. The piece concludes by calling for a more balanced approach that showcases the potential of decentralization and blockchain technology without promoting risky investments.

Small Applications, Growing Protocols. This piece from Packy McCormick explores the growing opportunity of "small apps." Packy explores the challenges faced by small apps in sustaining their growth and becoming enduring companies. He argues that while it has become easier to build great apps, it has become harder to sustain them due to the lack of effective business models. Packy suggests that partnering with protocols can help small apps fill the gap and capture more value, and discusses the pattern of small apps gaining popularity but eventually fading away as users move on to the next big thing. Packy then proposes a third approach where small apps team up with protocols to create something bigger and more durable collectively. He envisions a system where small apps act as customer acquisition channels for protocols, and developers share in the protocol's success through tokens.

From UGC to UGP: Consumer Brands & Co-Creation. This essay from Aleksija Vujicic of Multicoin Capital explores the concept of co-creation and its implications for brands. Brands have traditionally created culture and attached themselves to subcultures, but with the rise of social media, culture became decentralized and co-created with consumers. However, consumers did not receive financial value for their contributions. The article suggests that successful web3 consumer brands will formalize the co-creation process and reward their communities, building alongside them and sharing the economic benefits. Web3 primitives such as tokens facilitate effective human coordination and attribution, allowing brands to involve their communities in the decision-making process and route financial value to contributors. The article proposes three categories of co-creation: individual creation, cohort creation, and community creation, highlighting examples and potential opportunities for brands in each category.

(Re)introducing World App. Sam Altman's crypto project, Worldcoin, rose to prominence last year with a controversial vision for a universal basic income (UBI): a crypto token that can be distributed in equal quantity to everyone in the world. This week, Worldcoin is back with a new launch: World App, Worldcoin's crypto wallet, built on Polygon, which is the first product from the startup that anyone, anywhere will be able to download. The new app is one part minimalist crypto wallet, and one part passport for the AI era. Alex Blania, co-founder of Worldcoin, argues in his launch tweet that World App "will evolve into a toolkit to empower individuals in the Age of AI, enabling the usage of proof of personhood, the equitable global distribution of digital currencies and ultimately a path to AI-funded UBI." It remains to be seen whether the company will reach its utopian aspirations, and there are plenty of skeptics voicing the probability of the opposite results.

Coinbase on Pepe. PEPE, which was issued around three weeks ago with a comically huge supply of 420 trillion tokens, has been leading memecoin activity. The token is based on the Pepe the Frog meme, which first surfaced on the internet nearly 20 years ago as a comic-strip character. Last weekend, PEPE became the fastest Ethereum token to reach the $1 billion mark, before crashing more than 50% in the following days. PEPE isn't supported by Coinbase, but they wrote about it (and later apologized) in a recent newsletter and got some facts wrong about the meme, sparking controversy throughout the community. Gemini, on the other hand, is supporting the PEPE token on their exchange, a move that marks a stark difference in philosophies between the two major exchanges.

Latest on Mainstream...

Crypto exchange Bittrex has filed for bankruptcy in the state of Delaware on Monday, months after announcing it would wind down operations in the US and weeks after being sued by the SEC. The exchange believes it has estimated liabilities and assets both within the $500 million to $1 billion range, according to a court filing shared by Randall Reese of Chapter 11 Dockets, a bankruptcy tracker.

Market makers Jane Street and Jump Trading are retreating from crypto trading in the U.S. as a regulatory crackdown on the industry has intensified, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the decision. Both firms are still making markets and not abandoning the crypto industry entirely, Bloomberg said citing the person. However, Jane Street is scaling back its global crypto expansion plans, while Jump Crypto - the digital assets trading unit of Jump Trading - is pulling back from U.S. markets, although it's still planning to expand internationally, the news outlet reported citing two people familiar with the matter.

Finally, Binance has announced that it would cease operations in Canada, citing the challenging regulatory environment. This happens weeks after the country issued a series of new guidelines for crypto (exchange regulations, investor limits, mandatory KYC and more). The company expressed optimism to return once the regulatory environment improves (We'll see).

Community Updates

This week, we're hosting a Town Hall for Forefront Members on Tuesday, May 16th at 11:30AM ET. The Town Hall will cover immediate plans for the Forefront community, gather feedback, and open discussion for the direction of the DAO. It will be held in the Forefront Discord, open to all FF Membership Pass holders.

Signal Bites

Accountability in an Onchain World

This piece by Chase Chapman discusses the challenges and opportunities of building accountability in blockchain-based systems. The article highlights the need to balance innovation with accountability and encourages critical thinking about the implications of blockchain technology.

DAOversity Report

How NFT communities can foster creativity and collaboration, build trust, and create value beyond the monetary? This report by BanklessDAO x TalentDAO highlights the importance of relationships within these communities and their potential to transform ownership and creativity in the digital age.

▹ Updates - FWB Fest Lineup
▹ Deep Dives - Web3 Infrastructure Networks
▹ Opinion - On Gitcoin
▹ Drop - Protein [Community] Drop
▹ Watch - Crypto Bros
▹ Interesting - Subcommunities
▹ Crypto - Tether Q1 Report
▹ Web2 - Twitter New CEO
▹ Techy - Lens SDK

◎ Check out Signal  for daily top web3 social headlines

For the Culture

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The information in this newsletter is not intended to constitute legal, financial or investment advice and should not be construed or relied upon as such. Any opinions reflected are the opinion of the author(s) of the newsletter only and not necessarily of Forefront. Please DYOR.