My experience with the FBI: a wake-up call to public-facing crypto people.
“Hey, are you Alexandre Masmejean, CEO of Showtime Technologies, Inc? This is the FBI calling in from Los Angeles.”
Last week I had a very strange call that surprised me so much I didn’t know whether I…
If Polygon continues to get community traction, it can have enough funding to actually pull off zkRollups
It also puts pressure on their PoS to decentralize quicker and have devs spin up their validators
Community precedes technology.
“If a small country is smart enough, they would buy a ton of Bitcoin with their local currency and announce after Bitcoin is their new reserve currency.
Bitcoin would skyrocket and that small country would become one of the richest in the world”
@naval
on Clubhouse right now 🔥
In April 2020 I had:
- $2,000 in the bank
- a travel restriction locking me in my parents’ house in Paris
- huge dreams
Today I have:
- 7M+ in
@tryshowtime
’s bank
- a 1 bedroom in San Francisco
- huge dreams
Great to zoom out.
This is a milestone for
@tryShowtime
🎉
We are reinventing social networks from the ground up with a protocol powering all social interactions.
It will be owned & governed by its users, free of Web2 advertising.
This is how we empower creators & onboard billions to crypto. ⚡️
Kids will create a crypto wallet before they open a bank account
Kids will work for a DAO before they get a job
Kids will create NFTs instead of posting on Instagram
Ethereum is currently in the “dial-up” internet era.
Next year, Ethereum 2 (and L2) is broadband.
We are not mentally ready for how fast this will change the world.
The Facebook leak shows that owning tons of user data is not an advantage anymore
It’s a *liability*
@tryShowtime
pre-loaded 100,000+ profiles without owning anyone’s content.
This is the future we’re building towards.
Ether is money... for DeFi
Ether is reputation... for DAOs
Ether is security... for Ethereum
Ether is Bitcoin... for tBTC
Ether is a ticket... for Kickback
Ether is voting... for TCRs
Ether is betting, insurance, whatever you want.
Ether is a Turing-complete currency.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR SHOWTIME?
Soon,
@tryshowtime
will go from a website displaying NFTs to become the social network that will onboard 1,000,000,000 people to web3.
I am very grateful for the team we've built and literally cannot think about anything BUT our upcoming launches.
🧵
Web3 today → Tomorrow
Web → Mobile
Ethereum → L2s
Gas fees → No gas
Metamask → Phantom / smart wallets
Crypto art NFTs → Phone camera NFTs
Music NFTs → Music NFT Royalties
Token-gated DAO → Social tokens
Seed phrase → Social recovery
Dumb airdrops → Targeted airdrops
Two major changes to Ethereum will improve its UX so much in 2023 that everyone will forget about CEXs:
• Mainstream wallets (MPC + EIP4337): self-custodial, yet indistinguishable from Robinhood: easy login & key recovery, smart guardrails.
• EIP4844: true DeFi, 100x cheaper.
Ethereum L2s are just growing so much it doesn’t make sense to build on anything else.
ZK rollups will come and just end the scalability trilemma soon enough.
Solana can act as a hedge and Cosmos as a roadmap/long-term inspiration, sure.
Is this even a hot take anymore?
Hey you
If you got excited by $YFI
Please note $UNI is making:
- more fees than yearn
- more fees than Bitcoin
- more daily volume than Coinbase
Dear
@APompliano
I warned you
Fair distribution
Yield farming pools are all ETH pairs
$UNI <-> $ETH symbiosis
$UNI is a SAINT
I’ve ideologically boycotted Black Mirror
Technology makes me dream: we can build a future where tech makes life cheaper and humans free, letting bots handle logistics (AI) + our economy (crypto)
I‘ve always chosen optimism; it’s been a delight so far ⚡️
Idea partially inspired by
@pmarca
: we need more storytelling and “high culture” based on an optimistic future with tech.
I stopped watching Black Mirror ( a great show) because I was tired of a dystopian future being the only thing portrayed in all pop culture.
This week DoorDash is a perfect example of what’s wrong with IPOs 💡
DoorDash gave $0 to its restaurants, drivers or users.
meanwhile, Uniswap gave away $500,000,000+ to their users
How does crypto fix it? Thread 🧵⤵️
Thrilled to finally share that I’ll be moving to San Francisco later this week!
After 2 years on & off, this is it 🥳 🇺🇸
Anyone vaccinated who I need to meet?
Showtime is live! Discover and show off your NFTs:
This is by far the thing I’m most proud of - still so early.
Super proud of our team and people who helped make this happen:
@Alex_Kilkka
@nicoglennon
@akhi1n
Grateful to know you all!
#itsShowtime
We’re excited to reveal Showtime 🎉
Showtime is a social network to browse and show off your NFTs across Foundation, Zora, Superrare and more!
Creators, share us your profile
#ItsShowtime
It’s insane how working on a user-facing web3 app teaches you about the state of the industry
Here’s a list of “should we build it ourselves or trust an early-stage startup to solve it for us” dilemmas
NFT indexing
in-app wallet
paying users’ gas
deep-linking
on-chain analytics
Today I’m thrilled to announce that
Showtime has been acquired by
@Meta
! 🎉
Over the past year, we loved working with Mark, Stephane & the rest of the Meta team.
We join forces in our mission to create a creator-owned, developer-friendly, and open social graph for the world.🧵
Truth bomb: I was rejected by
@beondeck
SIX TIMES before making it
I had to literally DM Erik Torenberg to get in, or else I would be rejected again because I don’t fit “standards”
Then I found my cofounder instantly 💫
Society is simply testing you: can you break down walls?
Unpopular opinion: we need more superstars CEO.
Superstars shouldn’t be solely entertainment. They have a great power to inspire people.
Elon Musk is the only star I see, because of his marketing/PR genius. We need way more, because the second-order effect of Elon fans are big.
Next week in NFT NYC, let’s fight back against Meta and create a DAO that pushes a different narrative and funds open-source metaverse products
If not us then who? Who’s down to help?
Historical NFT collections 🖼
@larvalabs
Cryptopunks: first collectible NFTs
@justinaversano
Twin Flames: first photograph NFTs
@artblocks_io
Art Blocks: first generative art
@dhof
Loot: first composable NFTs
What's next?
Who you are based on your $ETH entry price:
$0-100: genius, Thiel Fellow
$100-500: dark web drugs buyer
$500-2000: DeFi head, NFT artist
$2,000-10k: tech twitter FOMO
$10,000+: everyone else
Hot take on Reddit digital collectibles: they’ve done it right.
Crypto, like any technology, is made to be abstracted and invisible. You’ve been told the opposite simply because it is currently borderline impossible to do so, but the underlying web3 infra is changing very soon.
Stoked to unveil the piece I’ve been working on with
@a16z
: Why Creator Tokens Will Precede Community Tokens
It’s also the first time that I write retrospectively on the $ALEX token. TLDR thread below:
Tech people background: Stanford, Berkeley, in their 20s, FAANG engineers, generalist VC associate, all Americans
Crypto people background: lumberjack, pornstar, molecular biologist, Elon Musk’s brother, could be 17 or 54 and from literally anywhere ???
Built different
This $UNI airdrop should remind ALL OF US the value that users bring to networks
Facebook is worth $726B
They could have pretty much done the same and give $FB to early users
I am betting that this future will happen and we will all be better off
I keep coming back to this prescient
@balajis
tweet.
Six months later I crowdfunded 20,000$ via the $ALEX on-chain ISA.
This allowed me to move to SF and found a startup
@tryShowtime
- Balaji even showed support at my pre-seed 🙏
As background, a personal token would allow anyone to directly invest in you.
You’d be a business, man — and receive all incoming revenue through an on-chain corporate vehicle.
Selling tokens would sell rights to this revenue, like a crypto version of
@LambdaSchool
ISAs.
The "creator economy" is the crypto economy. Full stop.
It's almost impossible to make a living in Web2 outside of click-bait.
It rises the floor for how much you can make online, attracting creators who can finally make a living without being desperate about monetization.
Introducing Drakula $DEGEN Onchain Creator Fund
Our goal
@Drakulaapp
is to reward the incredible work of video creators like you with 20M DEGEN (~$333,000) – up to $1,000/week per creator.
Let's free ourselves from TikTok & shape our onchain future together. Learn more/apply ⬇️
Thrilled to unveil free minting.
Creating a NFT has never been easier.
Live on Polygon for whitelisted artists, instantly tradable on Opensea (until Showtime marketplace rolls out) 👇
ANNOUNCING 𝐹𝑅𝐸𝐸 NFT MINTING
Apply now to be a Genesis Creator:
⭐️ Create art & collectibles for free
⭐️ From 1 unique to 10,000 editions
⭐️ Soon open to all
⭐️ Live on
@0xPolygon
BONUS: to celebrate, early Showtime users can claim our Genesis NFT drop, link in thread 🎁👇
Facebook first connected Harvard students, then connected the world.
Amazon first sold books, then sold every imaginable item.
NFTs first traded digital art, then it will trade all internet content.
.
@maticnetwork
deserves praise for what they do in the Ethereum ecosystem.
got a grant crazy fast from their team to help build
@TryShowtime
— very pro & friendly interaction.
Whilst OR might heat up the competition, Matic has been a reliable, *live* L2. Thanks
@sandeepnailwal
!
I raised $7M with purple hair from the Catacombs of Paris at 5AM a year after creating a meme coin on Crypto Twitter
If that doesn’t convince you that the world has no rules and you too can improve society, I invite you to watch this excellent short speech by
@FEhrsam
:
New-age crypto startup starter pack:
-
@a16z
crypto Startup School is the new YC startup school
-
@pioneerdotapp
is the new hackaton
-
@on_deck
fellowship is the new networking
-
@villageglobal
is the new seed VC
-
@tokendaily
is the new hacker news
Would you consider dropping/earning NFTs on
@0xPolygon
instead of Ethereum mainnet if there was some extra perks?
(e.g. no gas fees, dropped to more people at once, cheaper, extra utility etc)
First I thought $YFI would suck up all DeFi yield farming solutions, becoming the best crypto-native yield aggregator.
Now with StableCredit I’m thinking:
Is $YFI building an entire DeFi stack to suit their needs?
AMM, DEX, insurance, SoV... sounds like a whole ecosystem to me
Today's the day: the much-awaited
@realkrsna
digital collectible is now available on Showtime.
Unlock a never-heard-before track. Collectors enter a raffle for a signed concert jacket ✦
Buy KR$NA’s token on Showtime now:
25,000!
Thank you Twitter, you did a whole lot for me 🙏
My goal is to a̶i̶r̶d̶r̶o̶p̶ ̶$̶A̶L̶E̶X̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶w̶e̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶w̶e̶e̶t̶ build the future of NFTs, social tokens and web3 social networks!
gn
[THREAD] Last month I started a Telegram group around what I firmly believe will be the next huge
#DeFi
trend: undercollaterization.
Here are my takeaways and pieces from the brilliant people who took part in the discussion:
Netflix MicroDAO
- 5 people stake $250 (assuming 10% interests)
- Interests pays Netflix
- Each get the password
After 19 months, Netflix is free. Add $50 for handling fees, give out the password via encrypted IPFS metadata, take a fee and profit
Yes, 2022 is the year of DAOs.
Not the same type of DAOs as you’ve seen so far, though.
1. Creator-led versus community-led
2. One-click onboarding versus calls
3. Sharing financial upside versus token-gating
It’s been here right in front of you the whole time.
This year crypto apps will go live without MetaMask, crypto exchanges, gas fees
nor latency
Crypto is about to disappear in the UX and that’s the most bullish thing ever
After talking to so many of y’all artists in the space — NFT NYC is overdue for a change.
The conference was incredible until 2021, where NFTs became too cool and profitable for it to preserve its culture purity at scale. It became a noisy mess of influencers.
So here’s my plan…
⏰ Tick-Tock, TikTok's time is up!
Introducing Drakula: an onchain app where everyone earns using social media.
📈 Trade social media creators
🩸 Earn for doomscrolling
🔗 Crossposted on
@farcaster_xyz
Live now! Linked next tweet:
Proud to announce
@Drakulaapp
paid out $200,000 to creators in the past 6 days.
Creators and users should get paid for their social media usage.
An Onchain Fund for our creators and users is coming soon… 🩸