Ready, Player One ? The Fantastic Future Of Blockchains And Crypto-Driven Wealth
Every physical and virtual object will find a use case to be on a blockchain. The efficiency of blockchains will increase substantially, the cost to use will come down substantially, and good, thoughtful startups, the top 1%, will actually make the world a better place. The Internet, smartphone and AI revolutions are building blocks for a blockchain-connected future, with fewer intermediaries. All along this, enormous crypto wealth will be created, and the time is *now* to plan your career where you get to earn and not just watch.
Background
Please read these three posts I have written about crypto and blockchains. I take a very skeptical, and a detailed look. I didn’t sleep for 2–3 nights writing these. There is a lot of fluff in the crypto world — I try to separate the bullshit from the real deal. My goal is not to become a crypto influencer, but these are my notes for myself and others (although I got invited to an engaging crypto community after writing these; from personal trainers, to sheikhs, to doctors — a wide variety of folks have also started showing up in my follower lists — everyone wants an edge in the crypto world). You can follow my tweets on crypto here.
A week ago, I knew very little about this. Three weeks ago, I had not even heard of Coinbase. I was too busy with “life” and other projects and missing out on the crypto-driven wealth generation happening. Since then I have read over a dozen ICO whitepapers end-to-end, traded in (very little) BTC/ETH/ICO tokens and post-ICO tokens, and now, I am writing my own tokens, smart contracts and able to design detailed crypto-economies in my free time. I see the light, the crypto ladder, and happy to share with you :)
Level -1: Become a crypto bullshit artist and do fake ICOs
Do an ICO, never actually launch a meaningful product and make a fool of everybody. Go directly to jail, do not collect an orange lamborghini on the way. Additional sub-levels: become a crypto celebrity, pump and dump coins, scammers, spammers and other crypto criminals.
99% of the ICOs today are in this category. However, the market will correct due to various forces. Do not do this, please. It is better to be at Level 0 than at Level -1.
Level 0: Ignore cryptoland altogether and sing kumbaya
World of people who can’t or won’t get on a path which helps them earn any cryptocurrency-based wealth. This level is still better than Level -1. But more, higher value is around the corner in the years ahead. You might be working for a company which could find itself significantly displaced due to business model disruption brought forward by blockchain startups. You could be holding stocks which increasingly become worthless as Amazon/FB/Google decimate industry after industry with their reach and innovative ability; and as yet even more Silicon Valley originated/inspired startups disrupt the world. One more billion people on the planet in the next decade, advancing globalization, and AI/automation — shouldn’t you be worried about how to gain a step up in such a world ahead ? Or what happens in a world when crypto creates even further income inequality — which side of the equation would you rather be ?
Level 1: Use products and services where you earn crypto
Make use of the incentive mechanisms for many blockchain startups where you get paid in their token for using, referring their product and so on. This will however leave you frustrated and yearning for more. What will you do with $5 crypto income ?
Level 2: Casual crypto day trader
Work harder, get better jobs, and buy limited amounts of cryptocurrency of a promising ICO with your after-tax dollars after carefully studying the prospects. If you are coming in after the speculators have had their run, you are already too late and paying for the profits of the earlier investors. Still however this is the too-little-too-late stage, although some early early birds here have had enormous luck as the New York Times reported recently. Given the prospect of better returns than stocks, greed will drive this market to trade and speculate even more. You need to be very, very cautious converting your $, bitcoin and ether into tokens of new crypto startups.
Level 3: Work for a crypto startup and get paid in tokens+$$
Develop your profile, network and get work assignments at startups which pay you in that startup’s cryptocurrency — which is available on public exchanges for trading, so that you get immediate liquidity (based on a vesting schedule is fine). Free giveaways of good number of tokens need to be a part of your compensation package; in addition to standard salary. Think twice about accepting a job at a startup which can do an ICO but is not and is not giving out tokens. You need to think about wealth creation for yourself in the longer run. This is the new way — why should you lose out on this opportunity in life ? You need to be a part of the startup’s growth; and in a young startup, ideas come from a lot of different places and a lot of different levels of seniority. Ask the question: What’s your crypto strategy ? There are crypto bullshit artists making a lot more than legitimate folks, so why shouldn’t the good people, actually building useful products, not be rewarded ?
Level 4: Be a part of the ICO success team
Develop expertise and be involved at inception of a credible startup’s ICO and get rewarded with good number of tokens to help drive it to be a massive success. Advisors, special consultants, senior blockchain developers and management. The right talent here can mean the difference on the scale of tens of millions of dollars or more. This is the team equivalent to the underwriting team which brings in traditional IPOs.
Level 5: Invest in multiple ICOs as a professional investor
Spread your bets with deep investments across a range of crypto startups. Think the Winklevoss twins and Peter Thiel’s bets on bitcoin earlier on; the next generation of big investors are making their bets on the best crypto startups of today/over the next 5 years. Markets have proven that equity finding a liquidity event in the public markets after 7–10 years is not as lucrative anymore as a bonafide’s startup’s ICO. Talent, ideas, mindshare, business model innovation is running towards crypto/blockchain use cases — that’s where the next generation of substantial wealth will be generated as well. IPO might become an optional target; but an ICO being a must. Although the IPO might be used to drive up further positive signalling for the tokens. Currently, tokens don’t have listing/regulatory requirements as long as they are not an outright security so they are having a free run and enable instant, global participation.
Level 6: Launch your own crypto startup and design your ICO
Launch your own credible startup and do your own ICO — be at the creation phase and decide what/how many/to whom tokens get allocated. If you can design a good enough product+economy, drive usage and buzz, you might be able to create a sizeable crypto-driven fortune for yourself; have a partial exit event today (instead of 10 years down the line) and continue building on with your dreams. This doesn’t prevent you from getting the advice of experienced VCs/advisors/and others. This also doesn’t prevent you from having a governance model in place which is focused around maximizing the value of those tokens.
Level 7: Dream bigger and more audacious: protocol-level token ICO
Go one step beyond doing an ICO for just your startup, but instead design a protocol which serves as a foundational layer. Ethereum, Telegram Open Network, and many more.
Level 8: Satoshi
At this point, you wish you were anonymous, like Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin. You need to find a different game to play as you have already mastered this.
