Social Tokens: The Future of Community

Learn how social tokens are silently sweeping crypto creative communities by storm.

To the Token Tuesdays faithful,

This week’s edition comes with a big announcement.

Starting today, Token Tuesdays is now independent.

As a subscriber, nothing about the newsletter will change. The only difference is that this outlet will slowly integrate more and more web3 native primitives, ultimately moving towards a future in which all content is token-permissioned.

For now, I’ll be turning off monetization and focusing on one pillar article per month. All articles will be free and will cover a number of projects.

Please hear me when I say a new wave is coming, and that I’ve never felt more confident in helping to shape it.

With that, let’s get into the magic.

——————

Social tokens are here to stay.

Personal tokens, community coins, creator coins, you’ve likely heard it all. While the name isn’t important, the premise underpinning the collective whole is.

Characterized as tokens that derive value from the growth of shared communities, social tokens are leveraging the most enticing aspects of web3 with new narratives around adoption, viral marketing, and ownership.

In the past few months, I’ve doubled down on social tokens.

This all started when I created the Personal Token Agency - a management collective to establish best practices around social tokens working alongside crypto-native creators.

Coopahtroopa 🔥_🔥 @Cooopahtroopa

Introducing the Personal Token Agency A management project for personal token sustainability by focusing on community growth over capital metrics ✅ Ft. @AlexMasmej @Flynnjamm @coin_artist 0/

medium.comIntroducing the Personal Token AgencyAs a tokenized representation of an individual, brand or community, personal tokens, or “social finance” are paving a new path for how creators establish and incentivize groups of like-minded…

At that point, the social token ecosystem consisted of a handful of experiment-friendly creators like Alex Masmej ($ALEX), Brian Flynn ($JAMM) and Andrew Lee ($KARMA).

While these were not the first social token creators, they were the first to treat it as more than an afterthought, marking a tipping point for me and my curiosity around the topic.

Since then, we’ve seen an explosion of high-profile creators go live with their own social tokens, including but not limited to:

• Coin Artist ($COIN)

• Whaleshark Pro ($WHALE)

• RAC ($RAC) < Alpha

• Evan Van Ness ($EVAN)

• Spencer Dinwiddie (Calaxy)

• Friends With Benefits ($FWB)

• Pak ($PAK) (SoonTM)

While the list goes on and on, the key takeaway here is that social tokens are no longer a hobbyist trend, it is a thriving sector that is very much here to stay.

Whether it be the overlay of governance, composability, and adoption-driven development or the simple narrative of ‘share in the upside of your favorite creator or brand’, social tokens are the next logical stepping stone in bringing web3 to a mainstream audience.

What’s Next?

This Thursday, I’ll be releasing a thought piece on Bankless called ‘The Bull Case for Social Tokens’. I’ll touch on the extensive issuer ecosystem that’s emerging, the suite of distribution tools rising with it and the aggregators tying them all together.

Until then, trust me when I say this is the most exciting sector I’ve seen since the early days of DeFi, and one you don’t want to be sleeping on in the coming months.

With an incredibly nascent, yet highly intuitive set of tools of protocols quickly creating the foundation for social tokens to thrive, the upside to be capture as an early adopter of active social communities is one set to rival the biggest DeFi runups of the past year.

For now, I’ll leave you to check out the Forefront market for a glimpse into some social tokens worth keeping an eye on.

See you next Tuesday!

Disclaimer: All information in this newsletter is purely educational and should only be used to inform your own research. Token Tuesdays does not offer investment advice, endorsement of any project or approach, or promise any outcome. This is prepared using public information and does not account for anyone's specific goals or financial situation.

DeFi x NFTs = NFTfi

Three tokens leading the DeFi x NFT Crossover

This week’s Token Tuesdays comes as a special edition. Three tokens in one article!

While everyone has their eye on 10,000% APY’s, I’m setting my sights on new sectors blossoming under the radar.

NFTs - or non-fungible tokens that are verifiably unique from one another - are starting to see token economies emerge to bet on their collective upside, rather than the price of a single token.

Anthony Sassano | sassal.eth 👨‍🌾 🏴 @sassal0x

The NFT space is going to go into exponential growth mode over the next few months. Place your bets accordingly.

While the notion of digital art, collectibles, and land are commonly touted as the pillars of the NFT ecosystem, a few notable projects are starting to bridge the gap with DeFi and the popular narrative of governance tokens.

This is. NFTfi.

Aavegotchi - GHST

As a crossover between Aave and Tomogotchis, Aavegotchi’s are digital pets fused with interest-earning aTokens. You can imagine Axies or CryptoKitties, but with aDAI underpinning each creature for a stable, passive value base.

Users can collect Aavegotchis and level them up to equip different wearables and compete in select challenges.

This week, Aavegotchi rolled out its governance token - GHST - utilizing a community-centric bonding curve that rewarded early contributors with priority access.

What’s unique about GHST is the DAICO model being used to allocate funding. The 11M DAI collected from GHST sale is routed to an AavegotchiDAO, governed and distributed by GHST holders. The core team is currently requesting just 50,000 DAI per month, used largely for community growth campaigns preceding the official launch.

Aavegotchi @aavegotchi

/7 $GHST token is launching on Mainnet very soon. 🚀 Learn more about our DAICO and the upcoming AavegotchiDAO in this handy new article 👇 medium.com/@aavegotchi/aa…

medium.comAavegotchi GHST Token Distribution Pre-Launch Primer 🚀Lern: Everything you need to know about the upcoming $GHST token pre-sale and bonding curve distribution

With a diehard community and a blossoming governance token, GHST is showing strong signs of leading the NFTfi movement.

Rarible - RARI

As a rising NFT marketplace, Rarible has been turning heads with its innovative tokenization opportunities including yNFTs - or NFT-based insurance covers underwritten by Nexus Mutual.

Rarible @rariblecom

Today we're releasing support for NFT #yinsurance, launched last week by @iearnfinance and underwritten by @NexusMutual to cover DeFi protocols risks. Example: this contract is covering 200 ETH worth of @BalancerLabs smart contract risk valid until 27 October 2020

Rarible distributes governance tokens using ‘markeplace mining’ in which 75,000 RARI is allocated each week evenly between buyers and sellers.

While the project suffered from a streak of wash trading in the early days, it’s since turned to governance to help address this issue through the inclusion of commissions for buyers and sellers on each marketplace transaction.

In its current form, the 2.5% commission to buyers and 5% commission to sellers will be routed to a cold storage wallet owned by the core team, rather than being governed directly by RARI holders.

SoonTM, this will be handed over to a Rarible DAO. Still, the inclusion of incentives to sell NFTs is the first in a blossoming market and one worth keeping a close eye on in the coming months.

Meme Protocol - $MEME

What happens when you combine liquidity mining with legendary NFTs? You get Meme Protocol. Here’s my story on what you need to know.

After spinning out of a degenerate Telegram group, Meme has created one of the most creative forms of liquidity mining to date.

In short, users stake MEME to earn non-transferrable pineapple points. Those pineapple points can be used to mint NFTs of varying rarities, capped at a fixed supply.

This week, the first set of legendary NFTs were minted, selling at a market value of 7.7ETH and then reselling at 77ETH. What happened next speaks to what I’m excited about the project.

DeFi Dude ⟠ (defidude.eth) @defidude

Someone bought one of the legendary $MEME NFTs for 7.77 ETH earlier today, and just resold for 77 ETH. The kicker? The guy who sold it for 77 ETH donated 68 ETH back to the community multi-sig fund. He kept 2 ETH out of 70+. Crazy.

Meme ($MEME) 🍍🍍🍍 @DontBuyMeme

After being bought for 7.7 ETH earlier today, this was immediately re-listed and bought for 77 ETH on @opensea. Is that you @SergeyNazarov ? $MEME @ChainLinkGod @chainlink #NFTs https://t.co/rQkM9WKZg9

With a blossoming ‘citadel’ backed by an ambitious roadmap to give Meme NFTs more utility, it feels like MEME is one of the most organic governance tokens out there.

Flying under the radar at a sub $10M cap, I’d expect the protocol to see a lot of attention if it’s limited edition NFTs continue flying off the shelf as they have to date.

NFTfi Shines

Outside of the three tokens mentioned above, the trend of governance in the NFT sector is one that will only continue to grow in the coming months.

While it’s clear that many NFT projects need to do some catch up to compete with the top token models we see in DeFi today, this trend is a strong signal for anyone looking for a hedge against yield chasing.

For me, the crossover of creative onramps fused with DeFi primitives gives Ethereum-based assets a whole new meaning.

Be sure to stay tuned as I’ll be diving into the growing sector of social tokens next week ;)

Disclaimer: All information in this newsletter is purely educational and should only be used to inform your own research. Token Tuesdays does not offer investment advice, endorsement of any project or approach, or promise any outcome. This is prepared using public information and does not account for anyone's specific goals or financial situation.

The Rebirth of bZx Protocol

Exploring bZx's relaunch and the case for BZRX

Yield farming is all the rage.

Every project is now incentivizing liquidity and this trend is only going to get 10x more competitive in the coming months.

However, there are a select few projects approaching token distribution and liquidity mining in a sensible fashion. One of the biggest things missing from this new wave is a lack of focus on security and long-term sustainability.

To this end, we want to spotlight bZx Protocol - a financial primitive for shorting and lending behind Fulcrum and Torque.

bZx is fueled by a native token BZRX which made a big splash in it’s Initial DEX Offering in July. While talk of the token has somewhat died down in DeFi circles since the launch, we’re here to shine a light on why the token has grown steadily since distribution and how the upcoming protocol relaunch is poised to capture a new wave of value for protocol users and tokeholders alike.

Special thanks to bZx for sponsoring this post to make it free to read!

Token Picks are normally for subscribers only, so be sure to sign up for articles like this delivered right to your inbox every Tuesday!

The bZX Ecosystem

bZx currently offers two flagship products:

• Fulcrum - For tokenized lending and margin trading

• Torque - For fixed-rate loan origination

Users can lend any crypto asset, more in line with Aave’s wide-set approach than Compound’s conservative listing strategy. The ability to take out leveraged positions like 3x longs on supported assets offers another layer of composability for traders to collateralize positions with extra leverage.

This goes to show that bZx is more than just a lending protocol, and is one which is likely to add more products to its stack in the coming months.

Back to the Drawing Board

It’s tough to discuss bZx without shining light on the attacks that plagued the protocol in February. While we won’t go too deep into this, the protocol suffered serious losses which have resulted in the inability for users to borrow or trade over the past 6 months.

What’s worth noting is that bZx compensated every affected user out of pocket, along with a buyback program for iETH LPs who faced illiquidity following the protocol being restricted.

Now, bZx is gearing up for a relaunch that has undergone extensive auditing. This includes a lean, elegant product experience that is twice as efficient on gas costs.

Here’s what you need to know.

bZx Revamp

The relaunch of bZx will feature a new and improved Fulcrum 2.0 along with an updated version of Torque featuring Flash Loans.

Alongside the protocol upgrade are new incentives and features like:

• Sustainable Yield Farming

• Collateral Management

• Gas Token integration 

• Order Histories 

• Liquidation Engines

The takeaway here is that the protocol will become drastically more efficient, opening up value capture mechanisms to both arbitrageurs and tokenholders alike.

Why BZRX?

Outside of the classic DeFi narrative of earning tokens for using the product, bZx’s approach to liquidity mining feels much more sustainable.

“Each time a user pays a fee, 50% of the value of the fee is refunded to them in the form of BZRX.” - BZRX V3

This rebate-like model is drastically different from other liquidity mining opportunities where users earn exponentially more in token value than the amount of fees paid to the protocol. This is why Compound recursive lending + borrowing has gotten so extreme. Borrowers literally make a profit for spinning their assets to harvest governance tokens.

“The bZx protocol is taking a slightly different approach by directing rewards toward active users”

With this model, oracle-based pricing makes it so that liquidity mining is not exponentially profitable, rather a sustainable means of only distributing tokens to those adding more value to the protocol.

Taking a quick look at what these fees are:

• Origination fee: 0.09%

• Trading fee: 0.15%

• Interest fee: 10% of interest paid

As fees are accrued by the protocol, half go towards the DAO while half go towards an insurance fund until the DAO decides otherwise.

These conservative rebates come in tandem with an attractive boostrap period in which 0.5% of the BZRX supply will be released per week based on the quantity of fees generated for that week.

A total of 2% over the first four weeks, giving BZRX farming a competitive advantage over a project like Balancer in which only 0.145% of tokens are released each week.

BZRX Staking

For BZRX token holders, collecting fees is as simple as staking to the DAO via the Staking Dashboard. More on BZRX staking here.

What’s unique about bZx staking is users can enter the DAO with three different assets:

• BZRX - Vanilla tokens with 1:1 voting

• BZRX LP/BPT - Liquidity positions in BZRX-based pools on Uniswap and Balancer

• vBZRX - Vested BZRX representing a claim on underlying BZRX

This dichotomy of staking provides flexibility for every ecosystem actor to participate, something which many projects ignore when considering how investors and LPs are able to dually capture the upside of the project’s growth while adding value in other areas.

Alongside the dashboard is a handy Staking Calculator, allowing users to track their monthly cash flows in different situations.

BZRX holders can also redeem their tokens for insurance, a direct benefit of the protocol being battle-hardened to deal with crisis-level events.

The Case For BZRX

In recent weeks, the price of BZRX has been steadily climbing in anticipation of the protocol relaunch.

We expect that the introduction of sustainable yield farming in tandem with a growing treasury will make bZx one of the more consistent players in the rising degen landscape of DeFi meme coins.

Having undergone a crisis type event, we can rest assured that bZx is taking security extremely seriously, a major win in the land of unaudited smart contracts rising today. Backed by community insurance and a well-thought-out governance schema, we expect BZRX to quickly find its footing in an ever-growing DeFi landscape.

With Aave just today topping the DeFi Pulse leaderboard, a community-operated lending, margin and borrowing protocol has endless upside in the midst of a DeFi bull market.

To stay up with bZx, be sure to follow them on Twitter!

Disclaimer: Fitzner Blockchain is long BZRX. All information in this newsletter is purely educational and should only be used to inform your own research. Token Tuesdays does not offer investment advice, endorsement of any project or approach, or promise any outcome. This is prepared using public information and does not account for anyone's specific goals or financial situation.