The WLD Show

Dan Robinson is a Research Partner and the Head of Research at the VC firm, Paradigm. Paradigm was founded in 2018 by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang. Today with a $2.5 billion fund, Paradigm is one the most high profile and active crypto native venture firms. Some of Paradigm’s investments include FTX, Coinbase, BlockFi, Maker, Uniswap, and Sky Mavis.

Paradigm first hired Dan as a weird experiment of embedding a protocol researcher at an investment firm. 3 years later, Dan has built an industrial research organization within the firm. Giving Paradigm an incredible competitive advantage.

Learn more about Dan and Paradigm

• Dan’s Twitter: @danrobinson
• Georgios Konstantopoulos’s Twitter: @gakonst
• samczsun’s Twitter: @samczsun
• Paradigm Website: https://www.paradigm.xyz

Articles and Research Papers referenced in episode

• Ethereum is a Dark Forest - Dan Robinson
• Escaping the Dark Forest - samczsun
• Uniswap V2 Whitepaper
• Uniswap V3 Whitepaper
• Uniswap v3: The Universal AMM Research Paper
• Liquidity Mining on Uniswap v3 Research Paper
• APE/ETH Liquidity pool impermanent loss - 0xfbifemboy
• TWAMM (Time Weighted Average) Research Paper
• Power Perpetuals (SQUETH) Research Paper
• RICKS (Fractionalized NFTs) Research Paper
• Gradual Dutch Auctions Research Paper
• Paradigm Foundry Toolkit

In this episode we discuss:

• How Dan went from Harvard Law School graduate to protocol researcher
• How Dan was recruited by Matt Huang to Paradigm
• How Dan built out the research team at Paradigm
  • Georgios Konstantopoulos kept showing up in their portfolio companies
• What is the pitch to Georgios, samczsun, and other insanely talented people to join Paradigm?
• Issues with a CLOB:
  • Very inefficient way to complete trades on Blockchain
    • Market makers typically make and close orders frequently
• What is Uniswap?
• What is an Automated Market Maker?
  • Decentralized exchange
  • Central limit order book (aka CLOB)
    • Issues with a decentralized CLOB:
      • Very inefficient way to complete trades on Blockchain. Market makers typically make and close orders frequently.
• What are the differences between Uniswap V1, V2, and V3?
• How is the price set in an AMM?
• New DEX concepts that still need to be explored
• What is MEV (Miner extractable value)?
  • Flash Boys 2.0
    • Miners continuously bidding up the right to mine first, so they can extract the value
  • What is the downside of the miners maximizing MEV? Estimate over $500,000 a day.
    • Could be a threat to proof of work mining.
• How does the research team work with portfolio companies?
  • What are power perpetuals? Squeeth
  • What are NFT fractionalized primitives? Fractional
• How the ultimate future goal for Paradigm’s research team is build the next Bell Labs

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Orion Parrott is a cofounder of Orange DAO and General Partner of Orange Fund. Orange DAO is a collective of founders of Y Combinator-backed companies dedicated to backing the most promising web3 startups. In this episode, Orion discusses the story behind Orange DAO & Orange Fund, the process of managing a DAO, and how Orange DAO helps Web3 founders.

In this episode, Orion discusses the story behind Orange DAO & Orange Fund, the process of managing a DAO, and how Orange DAO helps Web3 founders.

Learn more about Orion and Orange DAO:

• Orion’s Twitter: @OrionParrott
• Orange DAO’s Twitter: @orangedaoxyz
• Apply for Orange DAO funding
• Orange DAO’s Home Page
• Orange DAO Charter

In this episode, we discuss:

• Orion’s Orange Fund Co-General Partners
  • Ben Huh - “who is like the master of memes.“ Cheezeburger, Inc
  • Don Ho - Managing Director at Quant Stamp
• How Orion transitioned into web3
• How Orange Fund and Orange DAO interact with each other
• How Orange DAO was created to experiment with being a DAO
• Building tools to help scale the network
• The Howey Test
• Choosing a traditional LP/GP structure for Orange Fund to ensure they meet SEC regulations
• Tools OrangeDAO has built:
  • LFG: on-chain reputation tool to track deal sourcing. https://lfg.orangedao.xyz
  • Gem: on-chain identity tool for token-gated communities. https://badge.orangedao.xyz
• What value does OrangeDAO create?
  • Access to a strategic network, founders, and investors
  • Office hours
  • Validation
  • Providing flagship customers and users
  • Access to the VC network
• What type of startups does Orange DAO look for?
  • GameFi, guilds, in-game assets, DeFi protocols, DAO tooling
• When evaluating a company, Orange Fund places a lot of emphasis on the team.
  • Has the team had past successes?
  • Are they ready to build together?
• How has Orange Fund’s investment process and decision making changed?
  • Continuously working on investing in companies even before joining YC.
  • Given the “super angel strategy” and the current state of the market, not too much has changed.
• What Orion’s most excited about the future of OrangeDAO
• How to apply for Orange DAO funding

Lessons and key takeaways:

• If you’re creating a venture firm, here is a high level set of questions to answer and steps to take:
  • What size check are you cutting?
  • How often do you expect to give a check?
  • How much are you looking to raise?
  • How many investors will you likely raise from?
  • Once you’ve answered the questions above, speak with a securities attorney to find the legal entity which bests supports your requirements.
• Alternatively, if you’d like to invest in web3 start ups without setting up a VC, you can use crowd funding platforms such as Republic or Angel List to invest.
• Web3 VC investments are typically completed via SAFE or SAFT contracts
• The innovation of Orange Fund is that the 20% carry normally given to GPs is distributed as funds to the Orange DAO treasury instead.
• Orion’s recommended resources for setting up a DAO:
  • Origami
  • CoinBooks
  • Multis
• Recurring lesson: If you’re interested in web3, just get involved and/or start building.
• If you’re a VC fund looking to stand out to founders, two powerful items to provide are:
  • Access. Access to other respected builders & founders
  • Validation. Respected users using your app and validating it’s utility
• Orange DAO found it difficult to communicate vision and hired someone to run sharing the vision full time.
• Orange DAO organized and runs itself in the following manner
  • 3 governance teams - devs, governance, treasury
  • These teams set visions and scope work for people and sub-committees
  • Sub-groups or committees create proposals to complete work. Or just do the work and create a proposal on how this type of role should be rewarded.
• Orange Fund + DAO’s tech stack
  • Airtable: Forms, data
  • Stacker: No code apps
  • Groove: Customer support CRM
  • Finary: Investment discussions
  • Notion: Content
  • LFG: Sourcing
  • Gem: Identity
  • Discord: Communication
  • Camp Social: Community growth
  • Coordinape: Unofficial snapshots
  • Snapshot: Voting
  • Gnosis: Treasury
  • DexBot: Token Swaps
  • Liquifi: Token vesting and payroll

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Jacky (TaipeiCity.eth) is the cofounder of Shibuya. Shibuya is NFT artist PplPlsr’s project bringing long-form animation to Web3. At the age of 30, Jacky quit his job as a software engineer at Instagram. During Covid, Jacky spent a year in Taiwan. It was Taiwan where he experienced DeFi Summer and began creating animated NFTs of his oil paintings. Jacky is also the host of the Chinese-language podcast, Left-Side Escalator.

Learn more about Jacky and Shibuya:

• Jacky’s Twitter: @taipeicity_eth
• Jacky’s Instagram: @jackywangadventures
• Jacky’s Art
• Jacky’s Writings
• Jacky’s Podcast: Left Side Escalator
• Shibuya: https://www.shibuya.xyz/about

In the episode we discuss:

• How Jacky became a self-taught developer
• Jacky’s time in Taiwan during DeFi Summer
• Why Jacky left Instagram
• Jacky’s journey into art and how he started an art exhibition featuring his art
• How Jacky started his podcast, Left Side Escalator, and monetizing his podcast
• What is Shibuya and how he cofounded the project with PplPlsr

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Yang You is the Lead Product Designer at Syndicate. Syndicate’s Web3 Investment Club product allows friends, angel investors, and web3 communities to create and run investment clubs as a DAO Yang is also a member of VectorDAO, a collective of top tier Web3 product designers.

In this episode, we discuss Yang’s journey into Web3 design, what good Web3 design looks like, and the human side of Web3.

Learn more about Yang You:

• Yang’s Twitter: @_yangyou
• Yang’s Website: https://www.yangyou.space
• Syndicate: https://syndicate.io
• VectorDAO: https://vectordao.com

Episode notes and links:

• Yang’s Good Design in Web3 Talk for AllianceDAO
• Yang’s Designing for the Humans of Web3 Talk at EthDenver
  • Yang’s Slides from EthDenver Talk
• Yang’s journey from civil engineering to design
• How Yang advanced as a designer
  • Short courses on UI design and Research and Strategy
  • UX research: empathizing; removing your biases; understanding core user problems
• How civil engineering contributed to being a designer
• Yang’s first problem at Anchorage
  • How do we bring what institutions are familiar with and know (necessary for the survival of their business) and introduce these same actions to Crypto.
• What SyndicateDAO is and what they’re attempting to achieve
  • Enabling regular people to invest their money, or time to re-distribute who gets funding in Web3
• How Yang found and joined Syndicate
• Syndicate’s Web3 Investment Club Product:
  • Setting up a legal entity (optional)
  • Name the team
  • Set the rules - who can deposit, up to what amount, close time to deposits (written onto the smart contract)
  • Then, you can send an invite link to co-admins to deposit, track cap table.
  • Auto-track cap tables
  • Distribution.
• What is “good” design in Web3? What’s a good framework to think about good Web3 design
  • “Good design in Web3 isn’t that different from Web2 and what good design currently is.”
  • New topics: identity, governance
  • Principles:
    • Amplified decision fatigue and how to mitigate it.
    • How to help people understand and manage the new roles they are taking on
    • How to deal with the growth in noise and spam
    • Design as a practice: Building more intentionally towards the pluriverse
• Challenges to better designs, summarizing what’s happened over multiple transactions
  • Graph protocol
• CCS - Crypto, Culture, and Society
  • Austin Robey
• GitCoin
  • Quadratic funding
• One of Yang’s favorite communities / resources to help onboard to the space
  • She256
  • SheFi
• If you were to hire a new designer, are there specific concepts you’d onboard them to?
  • Aha moments:
    • How BTC vs. ETH addresses work behind the scenes
    • Working closely with the engineering team and asking them to walk through each step of an EtherScan
      • How to trace where a transaction came from
      • Association b/w a user’s contract and the club wallet representing the group of funds AND the user’s wallet
      • Getting an understanding of meta-data that’s on chain, so designers can help convey this information to users
• How has it been to work for a Web3 company? Advice? How do you think about it?
  • https://medium.com/@jillrgunter/trends-and-timescales-a9b738be3e97
  • Don’t look at tokens.
  • Take a long term approach

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Imran Khan is the cofounder of AllianceDAO. AllianceDAO the world's first digital startup nation, accelerating the top 1% of Web3 founders. In the last two years, they’ve accelerated more than 210 startups including 15% of the top 100 DeFi projects by market capitalization. Their companies include 0x, dYdX, Kyber, Olympus DAO, Paraswap, Ribbon Finance.

In this episode we discuss the origin story of the accelerator, what he looks for in Web3 founders, and his learnings from forming a DAO.

Learn more about Imran and AllianceDAO:

• Imran’s Twitter: @lmrankhan
• AllianceDAO Website: https://alliance.xyz
• AllianceDAO Announcement

Episode notes and links:

• The origin of Chicago Defi Alliance as an Informal Industry Group
• The super power of being in Chicago - home to 60% of the market makers globally
• Defi Alliance’s first accelerator batch included dYdX, Kyber, Set Protocol, Synthetix
• Why Imran loved the first accelerator batch
• Why Imran believed in DeFi
• How it felt being at the center of DeFi and seeing it explode during DeFi summer
• Why Alliance finally raised a fund
• How the fund actually helped glue founders and market makers together
• What Chicago DeFi Alliance’s initial major offering was:
  • Capital
  • Regulatory help - Specifically regulations around trading
  • Product + go to market strategy
• How Web3 founder applicants have changed:
  • First batches started as tinkerers
  • Chris Dixon: What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years
  • Today’s applicants are FAANG talent
• Imran’s favorite founder stories
• AllianceDAO helps startups deal with regulations
  • How to building product, keeping in mind that you could be sub-poened.
  • Dane - Corporate governance
  • Mike - General Counsel Clearbit/Atrium
• Legal market fit. Sufficiently de-centralized and compliant
  • Keeps de-centralization and also a strong argument if something was to happen
  • 30% trading; now it’s how do you start your company; how to structure your DAO (should it be a foundation), where to incorporate
• Building effective products
  • Tokens can be a great customer acquisition strategy
  • Pros and cons: your customers are your investors
  • Build something people want
• New Web3 founder mistakes: not taking enough time to study the space
• How Imran assesses Web3 startup ideas
  • Originality of idea
• Traits Imran looks for in founders:
  • Resilience, creativity, thoughtfulness, leadership, empathy, sense of urgency
• What’s the best way to recruit talent?
• How Imran’s perspective on tweeting has changed
• Why a Web3 company is more challenging than Web2
• Why Alliance transitioned to a DAO and what the process was like
• How DAO’s can represent new, digital nations
• Imran’s take on NFT valuation
• What Imran is most excited about in the space
• Who is Alliance DAO looking for?
  • CTO - to help spearhead the bleeding edge of what the DAO should look like 5 to 10 years out.
  • Head of Partnerships:
  • Head of Marketing:
• Where Web3 founders go to apply: alliance.xyz

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Charles Du is the CEO and cofounder of Fast Break Labs. Fast Break Labs is building VBA, a Web3 game that allows basketball fans to strategize as general managers of their own virtual basketball teams. They just raised $6M with Patron and Pantera Capital leading the round.

Angel investors include Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai’s Family Office, Sacramento Kings co-owner Aneel Ranadive, and Marc Merrill the Co-Founder of Riot Games. In this episode, we discuss the inspiration of VBA Game, how the game works, and future plans and considerations.

Charles and VBA links:

• Charles’ Twitter: @gmcharmander
• VBA's Twitter: @vbagame
• VBA's Website: https://www.vbagame.com
• Explanation of game play: https://vbagame.medium.com/welcome-to-the-vba-f83b5701f7c7
• VBA's Medium: https://vbagame.medium.com/

Episode notes and links:

• Charles’ first exposure to basketball
• Charles’ playing basketball
• How Charles’ got excited about building VBA game
• Zed run: https://zed.run
• https://vbagame.medium.com
• How VBA Game’s goal is for managers to spend a lot of time talking to their friends, creating back stories, etc...
• VBA vs. Fantasy basketball’s core loops
• How VBA is “Fantasy, fantasy basketball”
• VBA game’s core loop
• The initial VBA team
• 7 initial players + potentially buying players from MagicEden
• VBA Player attributes and play styles
• How VBA simulations will run
• What’s given to GM’s at the end of games for more analysis
• Is VBA game thinking about GM’s hiring coaches or acting as coaches?
• How Charles thinks about player progression / regression work?
• NBA2k (https://nba.2k.com/) + MyGM fantasy sports
• How many players can someone hold?
• What was difficult to build?
  • How the fundamental simulator work?
  • What was on chain vs. off chain (player attributes)
• Evolving simulations + strategies
• How Charles thinks about reporters on the game
• Blaze ball
• How one Crypto Coven line, generate via GPT3, drove Charles to buy his CryptoCoven
• How did Charles refine the core loops and key problems to solve with VBA game?
• How Charles learned to code
• What unique Web3 role Charles is looking to hire for - COMMUNITY MANAGER!
• Have you met Joe Tsai?
• How Charles’ experience on the Facebook integrity team helped him think about and address potential risks to the game
• “Adversarial thinking”
  • https://www.smokescreen.io/adversarial-thinking-improving-cybersecurity-with-ants-and-barcodes/
  • 2018 NSA NCCP Workshop - Adversarial Thinking poster.pdf
• Where to mint a pack?

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Kevin Jiang is a design researcher at Medium and the cofounder of CafeteriaDAO. A curated community and digital platform for people passionate about food. We talk about creating Coffee Omakase, building CafeteriaDAO, and how he crafted his own Web3 University with Crypto Coven, Seed Club, and Kernel.

Learn more about Kevin and CafeteriaDAO:

• Kevin’s Twitter: @caffeinatedkev_
• Cafeteria DAO Twitter: @cafeteriadao
• Cafeteria DAO’s Manifesto: https://www.cafeteriadao.com/manifesto
• Seedclub Twitter: https://twitter.com/seedclubhq/status/1490757788867305473

Episode notes and timestamps:

(02:52) How Kevin got into Web3

(04:30) What is Coffee Omakase

• The Kona Coffee Omakase Kevin set up: https://www.konacoffee.nyc/coffeeomakase
• Kevin was stoked to meet Arden Cho as an Omakase guest
• How Kevin built the coffee omakase:
  • Intro: palette warmer
  • 3 coffees in a row, with a focus on strong contrasts in flavor and preparation method
  • Coffee w/ dessert from Fouet bakery
• Kevin’s notion templates on coffee:
  • Low fidelity: Grind size, brew time, tasting notes
  • High fidelity (for specific recipe tastings): Low fidelity + Flavor, Intensity, Enjoyability
  • Finalizing a recipe
• How Kevin thinks about building the Coffee Omakase
  • Origin of bean - Altitudes, lots, processing methods
  • Roasting: Light (have more clarity/fruitiness), medium, dark (more nuttiness / chocolate notes)
  • Brew method
• Most important factor(s): The roast date and a fresh grind.
• Favorite dark, off the shelf coffee for drip? “Buy full beans and get someone to grind it!”

(17:51) Why Kevin was so inspired by Crypto Coven

• How Kevin was invited to speak about his DAO learnings in CryptoCoven
• Crypto Coven is a Web3 talent accelerator
  • Meta Angels
  • Companion in a Box
  • @____jacklyn

(27:15) What is CafeteriaDAO?

• Determining CafeteriaDAO’s purpose and if a DAO was the right structure for the company?
  • Knowing what community means to you
    • Knowing what you want to enforce
    • Knowing what you want to stand out
    • Knowing what you value
• Wanting to have a very curated community, that is strong, dedicated, and safe to meet IRL.
• The top topic Kevin is thinking about: inclusivity
• Seed club: https://seedclub.xyz (Y-combinator for DAOs)
• Balancing a DAO w/ a standard corporate entity if you’re doing IRL events.

(35:01) What the process was like to get into and be a part of Seed Club.

• Apply through a portal
• Accepted applicants participate in a token race: Started on mirror
  • Originally, a “write” race https://mirror.xyz/race
• The people who hold seed club, can vote
• Accepted companies invest 3% of their tokens into Seed Club
• What’s different about Seed Club’s token?
  • It’s a non-transferrable ERC token which has no liquidity value. It’s a locked token which was dropped to early alumni.
    • It’s mostly used for governance.

(40:01) Where CafeteriaDAO is today.

• First Token
• First Crypto native dining experience
• NFT ticketed dining experience

(41:47) How participating in @KERNEL0x is also helping Kevin build CafeteriaDAO.

• Kernel: https://kernel.community/en/start
• “What trust means on the internet”
• “How value is determined”
• How Kernel is like a liberal arts school

(44:45) What feature Kevin is focused on the most:

• Ensuring there is a structure in place to teach MM’s what to expect and where things are going.
• CafeteriaDAO’s vision
  • Creating new incentive models in restaurant businesses, to create more fairness across chefs, owners, restauranteurs, waiters.
  • A new editorial program which can have more equal coverage:
  • More decentralized editorial platforms. Eater or Infatuation.
  • How to better facilitate relationships b/w consumers and chefs.
    • Ex. NFT for discord and discussion
  • All in one community / platform: funding, media,
• How important a town hall is.

(52:58) What DAO leaders do you love speaking with / look up to right now?

• Jon Yan from VectorDAO
• High Witches of Crypto Coven: community building and management
• Alex and Ruby Justice of FWB: what their flows look like.
• Tina from Station: the difference b/w building a company vs. a DAO.
• Xuannu from Crypto Coven: @xuannu_eth
  • Inking a Smart Contract

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Bitter Rivals. A Dream of Glory. Betrayal. Redemption.

What happened this past round of Dark Forest has to be the most epic space saga of all time. dfdao’s Lindsay Presswell and Tony (ChaosGod) take us through the history of dfdao and orden_gg’s rivalry. 

And the epic battle that took place in Dark Forest v0.6 Round 5.

Learn more about dfdao and Dark Forest:

• Past WLD episode which explains the Dark Forest game, with Will Robinson
• Lindsay Presswell’s Twitter: @llpresswell
• Tony (ChaosGod)’s Twitter: @cha0sg0d_
• dfdao Twitter: @d_fdao
• dfdao Gitcoin Grant: https://gitcoin.co/grants/4875/dfdao-dark-forest-gaming-collective
• orden_gg Twitter: @orden_gg
• Dark Forest Twitter: @darkforest_eth
• Dark Forest Round Replays: https://blog.zkga.me/

Episode timestamps:

(01:26) How Lindsay and Tony got introduced to dfdao
(06:34) Round 1: the formation of dfdao
(10:05) What is it about Dark Forest that hooked Lindsay
(13:57) What is it about Dark Forest that hooked Tony
(17:22) Round 2: The Remembered
(27:43) Round 3: The Intergalactic Yolo
(32:00) Round 4: The Astral Colossus
(37:12) The new rules introduced in Round 5: Junk Wars
(39:21) dfdao’s strategy in Round 5
(51:35) The strategy is failing and back to the drawing board
(55:05) The Death Star
(01:01:53) The Betrayal
(01:08:17) The Redemption
(01:14:00) dfdao’s Gitcoin Grant
(01:18:00) Getting involved with dfdao

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Dan runs Product at Orca Protocol. Orca Protocol makes governance accessible by creating tools around a DAO’s most basic primitive: people. Will and Dan met up at ETH Denver, and we catch up on Dan getting a photo with Andrew Yang, the evolution of DAO voting, how Orca protocol is helping drive meta-governance, the risks of token weighted voting, and Dan’s favorite articles.

Dan and Orca protocols links:

• Dan’s twitter: @itsdanwu
• Orca’s publications: https://orca.mirror.xyz
• Orca’s website: https://www.orcaprotocol.org
• Orca Protocol’s twitter: @OrcaProtocol

In this episode we discuss:

Before we get started, if you’re new to DAO’s, we like this article for explaining them:

• https://future.a16z.com/building-and-running-a-dao-why-governance-matters/
• Getting a photo with Andrew Yang at ETH Denver: https://twitter.com/itsdanwu/status/1495100959864745987
• The ReOrg podcast: https://www.reorgpod.com/
• How to become a PM at a web3 company: Join the discord and just start speaking, listening, and contributing
• John and Jules
• Similarities and differences b/w Web2 vs. Web3 PM
  • Where you speak to customers
  • Tech stack
• DAO characteristics
• How Orca protocol helps DAO’s
• The stage / type of Web3 DAOs Orca is best for
• Typical pods that Dan sees implemented
  • Meta-governance committees
  • Grants committee
• How voting typically works.
• Token-weighted voting governance attacks
  • https://twitter.com/justinsuntron
• The evolution of voting from single votes to delegates to meta-governance daos
• Fei protocol listing on index to get listed on AAVE
  • https://snapshot.org/#/index-coop.eth/proposal/QmZa8WsStWo84iz1wGCsPzuM1TJTAi4DvsP2yvhu7669CZ
• DAO set up basics and best practices
  • Working agreements
  • The Ready: https://theready.com/
  • The Ready’s podcast: https://www.bravenewwork.com/podcast
• Dan’s dream person to interview: Obama

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Will Chang gives Andrew Hsu a breakdown of his experience at EthDenver 2022. We also discuss the future of the podcast.

If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!