#24 On new ways of speculating
ERC4D, ERC404, mining AI, zkTLS, and node sales
Sometimes I feel like I need to write something very profound or well-researched here. But I’m just gonna fire away with some half-baked thoughts now.
Generally you need either novel tech or a new token distribution mechanism (i.e., method to speculate) to kickstart a proper bull run.
In 2013/14, we had the PoW craze (way before my time), novel tech.
In 2016/17, it was ICOs, new distribution mech.
In 2020, it was the first time DeFi was possible and we went crazy with farming literal yams, novel tech.
In 2021, we had NFTs (essentially illiquid sh*tcoins) introduced via free mints, and launchpads, IEOs, and IDOs with bonding curves, and so-called “DeFi 2.0” with (3,3) game theory, ponzis and APY’s that don’t even fit the length of your screen. New distribution mech.
In 2022-24, the most popular meta were the second coming of airdrop farming fueled by Jito (along with the growth of industrialized sybil farms), points farming (popularized by Blast/Blur), pre-sales 2.0 (i.e., just sending ETH / SOL to someone’s addy), and LBPs on Fjord Foundry (still remember those?). Arguably these are all just slightly modified distribution mech and nothing net new.
So what are the slightly more interesting “tech” / distribution mech I’m seeing in 2024?
ERC-404 (PANDORA), the short-lived craze which is somewhere between an NFT and a token (tech?)
“ERC-4D” (INCEPT) which is an ERC-6551 token that acts like a wallet which can own other tokens / NFTs. Reminds me of FuturePrimitive (tech?)
Baseline’s programmatic liquidity (thick liquidity at “floor price”) and their “up-only” tech which, spoiler alert, did not go up only (remember $YES?)
Node sales were hot for a minute but are very similar an ICO with tiered FDVs and a vest. Aethir raised ~$150M, Xai raised ~$40M, Sophon raised ~$60M, etc.
I think zkTLS could be an interesting way to distribute tokens and introduce non-Web3 users into the Web3 world. I thought Tea protocol was pretty interesting as it was giving out tokens to web2 open-source contributors.
“Mining” meta, mainly with AI protocols. There are a few protocols going the “21M BTC no investor / team allocation” route. You probably need to set up your rig via Runpod, Paperspace etc., but these suffer from insanely high inflation (as with BTC in the early days). There are also protocols like ORE which congested Solana at its first launch, and can be mined with CPUs
And of course the most obvious new tech / distribution was Pump.fun’s “unruggable” way of launching new tokens, which is only possible on faster chains like Solana
All this is just to say that I’m sitting here waiting for a new on-chain innovation to pique my interest.
This post was inspired by this tweet by DeFiIgnas, imo one of the very few CT personalities worth following who doesn’t shill you some small cap coin.
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