Will brings on Evan Lai to chat about what we learned in Web3 this week. We discuss Punk6529's OM project, Beanstalk and Ronin hacks, Tristan Eaton GEMMA NFT burn, VBA game NFT card reveals, and more.

Links

• Punk6529 tweet thread introducing OM
• Beanstalk hack explained
• Ronin hack explained
• Tristan Eaton GEMMA NFT
• VBA Game

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Phil Huang is the founder of DeFiCon. DeFiCon is a nonprofit conference with a mission to elevate the ethos of peer-to-peer crypto. Speakers from DeFiCon 2021 include NFT journalist Andrew Wang, Bored Ape Yacht Club artist All Seeing Seneca, Congress Legislative Director Conor Carney, and Axie Infinity Esports Program Lead Zyori.

In this episode we discuss:

• How Phil became a board member of Karate Combat
• How Phil put together DeFiCon
• How he got All Seeing Seneca to do the art for DeFiCon’s NFT tickets
• How did they get such A-list guest speakers?
• What kind of goals are priority for DeFiCon 2022?
• What Phil is excited about in crypto and DeFi right now

Learn more about Phil and DeFiCon:

• Phil’s Twitter: @TheHuangWay
• DeFiCon Twitter: @DeFi_Conference
• DeFiCon: https://deficon.nyc
• Karate Combat: https://www.karate.com
• Karate Combat is hiring Product, Devs, and Community builders!  https://www.karate.com/jobs

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Astrea is Crypto Coven’s Coven Cultivator (Community Manager). We discuss how Astrea helped cultivate such a strong community unlike any other NFT project.

A big theme we’ve heard from all of our Web3 guests is that community is the key to success. Crypto Coven, one of the top NFT collections, has a community that I believe is unparalleled in the space. This episode is hopefully the beginning of a series of episodes where we learn about different aspects of what makes the Crypto Coven community so strong.

Learn more about Astrea and CryptoCoven:

• Astrea’s Twitter: @astrea_eth
• Crypto Coven Twitter: @crypto_coven
• Crypto Coven Website: https://www.cryptocoven.xyz
• Xuannu: Inking a Smart Contract

Episode notes and links:

• How Astrea got involved with Crypto Coven
• What is a full moon ceremony?
• What did the early days look like when cultivating the community
• What type of “cultivator” experience Astrea had and how she translated it to Crypto Coven
• Reasons why humans gather together and form in communities
  • Looking to connect with others
  • Coming together over shared interests
  • Share values with another
• Event planning: whether IRL or Digital - it’s about creating a container
• How high growth and an influx of people spurred the quick set up of community guidelines
• Had to create a set of community guidelines: backbone to enforce rules of engagement
• How do some of the rules differ?
  • Lore not floor - Don’t tolerate people coming to a discord to sell
• How Astrea has worked with hard conversations
• Pact Keepers: Discord moderators
• How Astrea manages her own mental health
• Community Managers of Crypto Coven:
  • Pact keepers: Setting the container
  • Librarians - building out Web3 educational resources and brewing new ideas around panels
• Lessons from enforcing the CryptoCoven guidelines
• What is community?
• How to build community
  • Guidelines
  • People to teach and nudge and guide - the guidelines
  • Provide art for inspiration
  • Cultivating a space for support and idea sharing
  • Cultivating enabling people to be exuberant and themselves
• Thinking more about:
  • How culture is what begets community
  • Culture often centers around really great art
  • The witches have charmed us all into gathering here in a community
  • How society has historically had very rigid standards for what makes great art
  • Book by School of Life: What is culture for?
    • Art redeems us
    • How we find companionship
    • How we genuinely engage in it
• Tangible action of how to build a strong community:
  • Keeping an ear to the ground on what kind of events to put on
  • Big picture thinking
  • Adapting the inspiration to the medium to make it feel meaningful to attendees
  • Throwing events to create experiences so witches feel heard, seen, and can learn from each other.
• Who gets to throw the events and how do they happen?
• How to be a community curator:
  1. Set guidelines and provide inspiration
  2. Nudge and teach people to adhere to culture
  3. Help people navigate and learn from the community
  4. See the community, listen to the community, notice what they need, provide inspiration, encourage people to be themselves and help
  5. Recognize who has expertise, connect people to gaps, help these folks share their expertise, patch their holes to they will be successful helping the community.
• Why has CryptoCoven been so successful?
• Some of Astrea’s favorite community moments
• What the process was like to get a custom witch?
• Have you seen any unhealthy signals that you now monitor?
• Astrea likes to “Underpromise and over-deliver”
• Astrea is thinking about “Converging the physical and digital spaces”

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Will brings on Evan Lai to chat about what we learned in Web3 this week. We discuss where NFT value comes from. We use Bored Apes, Azuki, Doodles, and Crypto Covens as examples. We also talk about the difference between EthDenver and Bitcoin Miami.

Will's Twitter thread on where NFT value comes from: https://twitter.com/wiiichang/status/1510825521008951299

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Ed Chang is Head of Gaming of Ava Labs. Ava Labs is the team behind Avalanche. An L1 that is the fastest smart contract platform in the blockchain industry.

Prior to Ava Labs, Ed was the Senior Director of Partnerships at the gaming company Electronic Arts. Prior to EA Games, he was the Entrepreneur in Residence at The Chernin Group, a media company that invests in, owns, and operates other media companies. where he primarily focused on e-sports and gaming opportunities. Ed was also the founder of Basikz Agency. A gaming influencer agency and consultancy.

In this episode, we discuss how Ed is helping Avalanche build out its gaming ecosystem.

Learn more about Ed Chang and Ava Labs:

• Ed Chang’s Twitter: @EdC
• Ed Chang’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/etchang
• Ava Labs - https://www.avalabs.org
• Ava Labs’ Twitter: @avalabsofficial

In this episode we discuss:

• What convinced Ed to jump into Web3
• What Ed was doing prior to Ava Labs
• Why Ed chose Avalanche
• How does Avalanche compared to other protocols
• Ed’s goals for Avalanche: Become the “Netflix of web3 games”
• What’s the pitch for games coming onto the platform?
• What it was like for Ed to drink from the Web3 fire hose.
• What’s the difference between Web3 and Web2 games?
• What are the programs that help new developers build on AVAX
• What makes new games stand out?
• What trends is Ed seeing in Web3 gaming?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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