Variant

Wrote a blog post with Calder Zwerling and Matt Cynamon about the state of hiring and compensation in web3 as we wrap up 2023 and look forward to the new year. Our key observations and insights resulted from an extensive survey conducted by Variant and Union Square Ventures. Check it all out here! 👇 https://lnkd.in/gnfrP7nZ

We founded Variant on the thesis that the next generation of the internet would transform users into owners through tokenization. But the application layer has yet to see a proven model for using tokens to grow networks. Rather, distributing tokens has often impeded sustained growth and retention by attracting speculators and mercenaries. Because of these failures, many dismiss application tokens as a category error, but we don’t see it that way. We believe the answer is to keep iterating token design toward a more bottom-up and opt-in ownership distribution model that we call “progressive ownership.” This approach focuses on deepening loyalty among users of applications with product-market fit, and it takes 3 steps: - Build products that serve users’ needs (establish product-market fit) - Use onchain revenue sharing to drive growth, retention, and defensibility (must have revenue to share) - Allow power users to level up into economic ownership by trading income for tokens (go beyond revenue sharing) Read the full playbook here: https://lnkd.in/gENdXryC

We were thrilled to lead the Blockaid Series A round. Protecting users' activity onchain is mission-critical to the success of the crypto industry. Blockaid’s engine monitors things like smart contracts, frontends, and URLs in order to protect users from phishing attempts, fraud, and scams. Over the past year, they’ve been working in stealth with some of the biggest names in the space. Every team in the crypto space should be thinking about security. Read more from our announcement post: https://lnkd.in/eiq_wcuz

We are delighted to lead the Modulus seed round. AI is clearly changing the world. But so far, we haven’t seen many major new AI-enabled applications in crypto, because the bar for putting machine learning models onchain is higher than in traditional software settings. AI has also been a centralizing technology: most AI models run on centralized, opaque systems. Modulus is bridging this gap with zero-knowledge machine learning, which uses zk cryptography to prove that the computation done by machine learning models was done correctly, extending the trust assumptions established by smart contract blockchains to offchain models. Read more on why we're so excited about Modulus and zkML: https://lnkd.in/es4zFbaF

Our newsletter issue this week pays homage to our inaugural class of Variant Founder Fellows, who worked hard all summer and 'graduated' last month. Read up on these two-dozen exciting early-stage crypto projects, get some of the same wisdom the fellows received from our speaker sessions, and see the graduation NFT custom-designed by artist Ix Shells. Make sure to subscribe to the Variant newsletter through Mirror. https://lnkd.in/epJ9pkqE

Today the whole Variant team is thrilled to announce that Jake Chervinsky will join us full-time as our chief legal officer. Jake, the former general counsel at Compound Labs and more recently the chief policy officer at Blockchain Association, has been one of the most vocal educators for our industry through his succinct breakdowns of what’s happening in DC, and has worked to convince policymakers that web3 innovation should be embraced, not feared. Read Jesse Walden's blog post welcoming Jake here: https://lnkd.in/erQHSMqK

Is speculation a feature or a bug? The recent buzz and divided reactions to Friend.tech prompted a debate inside Variant on the broader question of whether appealing to speculation is a viable strategy to bootstrap new crypto social networks. We posted the chat straight from our Slack. As always, we welcome input from builders. https://lnkd.in/e6pnmtP3

Are you subscribed to our newsletter? Each issue gives a direct window into what we're watching and what excites us most right now in #crypto. In the latest issue: we dive into the data behind this DEX summer; our investment team shares their biggest takeaways from #EthCC in Paris; and links to our other new essays on topics like #DePIN, liquid staking, and #DeFi lending. Make sure to subscribe, and catch up on the first two issues if you missed them: https://lnkd.in/eH-3YVNf