2023 Web3 Bold Predictions Part 1: The Macro

So I got a few things right this year.

I hit some home runs, but struck out a lot more. That’s by design.

Predictions are fun, but that’s not where gains are made. It’s often the opposite: being able to pivot off your conviction plays requires putting aside your ego, and that can be difficult. But it’s necessary, especially in a market that’s constantly evolving at a rapid pace.

With that in mind, I fully expect a good number of these predictions to be wrong. But it’s been a helpful exercise for me to focus on looking ahead to see where things are going. Don’t think of this as a playbook, but as a guide to see what’s coming up, ask the right questions and think through what the answers might be.

Before we dive into this wall of text (even by my own lofty standards!), I have a few caveats:

• There’s a far better chance I can safely land a plane than write a functional line of code. Anything I present here in terms of blockchain tech is based entirely off my own experiences using those networks. Outside of that I’m smart enough to know I’m incredibly stupid when it comes to how these things are created and work.
• As always: none of this is financial advice and only my opinion. Please please PLEASE do not invest more than you can afford to lose, and think long and hard before investing in a luxury JPEG or Magic Internet Money.

NFTs Detach from the Crypto and Financial Markets

Sarcasm or not, here’s Cobie coming to a key realization post-FTX crash.

Early data backs it up: there’s only so far a good NFT project and its native tokens can fall before the USD value becomes too good to pass up.

I wrote that on November 21st. Here’s the DeGods/USD chart a month later:

The DeGods floor price saw a steep drop when the FTX news hit, but rebounded a week later and is now testing previous resistance.

Zooming in, here’s a look at the DeGods price chart in USD since November:

And the Solana chart in that same timeframe:

DeGods recovered, and slowly made its way back into a previous range.

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Solana is in freefall.

And this isn’t just isolated to Solana by the way: DeGods has outperformed the Overall Crypto Marketcap during that timeframe as well:

What it comes down to is this: fundamentals for NFTs from GOOD projects should be able to withstand whatever fluctuations happen in the crypto market. NFTs that produce ROI for holders have tangible value.

But the crypto market is defined by speculation and narrative, making a definitive low hard to predict. And most of traditional crypto is incredibly overvalued, especially in the aftermath of a 2020–2021 stimulus check funded free-for-all.

Here’s the peak marketcap of Solana at $78.28B:

A quick Google search tells me Nintendo never quite hit that marketcap value in its history, nearly getting there during the stock boom from quarantine.

So yeah. The cryptomarket was absurdly overvalued at its peak, and its price action tends to be driven by the algorithms of technical analysis and movement of traditional finance markets.

But that DeGods chart up there? Following that crash, the recovery is based largely on fundamentals.

Which, by the way, haven’t been ideal during this timeframe. Lots of uncertainty on rewards with DUST winding down, in fact no staking rewards announced to date as I type this.

I’m sure it’s coming, but all of that contributes to this price level just as much as the overall crypto market. And of course, the previous high had the price of a t00b baked in.

For another example of fundamentals as the key driver for NFT projects, here’s the OG Anybodies price chart in USD from that time period:

That blue circle is the first day of the FTX crash — and despite that, Anybodies nearly hit an all-time high in its USD value!

The spike was caused by a number of big events, including:

• Release of the Toys ‘R Us x Anybodies trailer
• $STYLE trading on Dex
• $STYLE tokenomics released
• Tay Keith hoodies arriving for holders
• Frank from DeGods pumping the project
• Hype around Toys ‘R Us whitelist

And then yup, you had the crash, but then another spike up with the Pokemon easter egg revealed on the Anybodies website.

Then more fluctuations from release of the TRU map and beginning of presale for that collection (with Anybodies holders getting first access/able to mint in $STYLE)

The crash that followed doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, it follows the same trajectory: price fell after TRU minted. Entirely standard for a project that requires you to hold its original collection to access another collection. For a stronger comparison, DeGods fell about $7,000 in one day following the mint for t00bs.

This has nothing to do with FUD on either project. In fact, it makes me bullish on both, and NFTs as a whole.

Fundamentals are now driving price for projects. Not the crypto market.

As long as this industry does what it’s supposed to do, crypto and the macro economy will have about as much impact on NFTs as they currently do on other forms of collectibles and entertainment.

In those industries, quality products with proper marketing sell regardless of what Jerome Powell does.

And that’s a good thing.

If those industries have the ability to rise above economic conditions, then so do we. But it’s on us to build stuff they want, and not the other way around.

Normies Beat Degens

It’s evolution time!

Cue the GOAT music video:

Art by Todd McFarlane, brilliant transitions, revisiting/repeating visual themes throughout as the narrative thread tying it all together.

For what it’s worth:

• As a teenager I thought this was awesome because “People suck lolz”
• Some people are gonna agree even as adults.
• Others will interpret it as “might makes right”

Being older and wiser, my interpretation is that human beings have the ability to plan, think, and feel empathy. And we’re capable of making a choice every moment to perpetuate the suffering humans have caused throughout history, or choose to spread love and positivity.

But anyway! Let’s get back to the Web3 market and what will likely be a receipt:

Guys in their early 20s want to be successful in Web3 to skip college and career experiences.

Irony: college and career experiences lead to success in Web3.

So uhh . . . I got “a little” intense when defending the DeGods purchase of a team in The Big3.

That’s been one of my tilt points in this space — people who automatically dismiss value opportunities outside our little niche as if they’re experts in that field.

I bring it up because the Big3 purchase was a prime example of a solid opportunity outside being universally panned from inside.

For an update:

It’s all but confirmed that the Killer 3’s will be renamed DeGods this coming season — along with the other Web3 projects that purchased teams.

If you missed it, here’s my comprehensive post on The Big3.

$500K for your project’s logo on national television every week, on jerseys, plus all the merch, endorsement and cross-marketing opportunities that come with it. And the ability to sell the team whenever you want — I assume that includes another Web3 project looking to take advantage of the opportunity for jerseys and team naming rights.

Seems good! I mean you can’t even buy a home in Los Angeles for $500K. Unless you’re lucky and find something next to the gluten free non-GMO fair trade Kombucha factory with all its lovely smells.

And likely placed directly under the freeway with an outhouse for a bathroom.

Now let’s get back to degens continuing to be Down Bad in 2023 despite the upcoming NFT bull run.

Giancarlo hit the nail right on the head with this video:

I’ve seen the core NFT community consistently downplay the value of projects created by major companies. And I get it! Their first attempts at entering the space did not exactly provide bluechip returns.

But the landscape is changing, and people aren’t adjusting their preconceived notions with it.

Toys ‘R Us released a NFT collection poised to deliver IRL exclusive items and benefits to holders. With Anybodies managing most of it: they’re an established NFT brand with a strong track record of providing incredible ROI to holders.

But all we got in response was massive hate from people who hadn’t even bothered to look at the roadmap. Some of it engagement farming, others just openly cheering for it to die.

I get fading TRU at mint: it was 7 SOL without a hard “It will give you XYZ” whitepaper.

But people went overboard with hatred like someone had pissed in their morning corn flakes based on name brand value alone. Without doing any research into what it was or what the future utility will be (which, by the way, will speak for itself as it ships in 2023).

Web3 natives pin our hopes at future profits on “We’re early”. But that means nothing if you’re unable to see the paradigm shift coming.

Giancarlo makes a great case for it up there in his video. And I’ve seen it coming since 2021.

Here’s what will change the game:

Web3 Becomes a Marketing Expense

The scenario above is easily my #1 “I want to bang my head against a wall” frustration moment in 2022.

That thing I mentioned above about how an education and career experience can help you succeed in Web3? It’s a basic foundation to understand that for value to go to holders, value needs to come in from somewhere.

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Web3 native NFTs aren’t exactly raking in huge profits with their revenue streams right now.

It got to a point that I decided a crayon drawing was necessary to explain the benefits of having a real budget to deploy:

And no, an ownership group worth $4.5B does not need or want your mint money.

I was at an entertainment company when social media emerged, and no one had any idea what to do or had to do it.

The initial strategy? “Just do the thing. So we can be doing the thing.”

That’s clearly the stage mainstream companies were in under a JPEG-only NFT paradigm. Now that gas fees are loosening up, utility is becoming clear and the climate change narrative for ETH is straightened out, there’s room for them to grow out true initiatives and ecosystems.

Let’s look at Polygon’s partnerships:

These are billion dollar companies. Money from Web3 mints and royalties might as well be the pocket change Dave from accounting forgot to grab out of the soda vending machine.

Now these are giant corporations looking to make money off the Web3 space. No doubt about it. But Web3 natives have a preconceived notion they’ll be doing this by directly grabbing money out of degen hands and into their pocket.

Again, that’s vending machine change to them.

Once you’re a multinational billion dollar corporation, you have much different goals and methods than say, an anon JPEG peddler looking to cash grab and rug.

Here’s an example for context: the cost of a Super Bowl ad in 2023 will be $7m.

For them, it’s worth the cost for the sake of awareness. And a lot of that value comes from competing to trend on social media with the most memorable, entertaining ads people will keep talking about. And at a certain level, a huge company needs to be included in Super Bowl ads to maintain its position.

Does this circle back to making money? Absolutely. But not in a way that takes revenue from viewer pockets.

Just the same, working on online content and social media at major companies doesn’t involve “Do X and then make Y money”. There’s an understanding that communities and a strong online presence circles back to sales.

But that’s rarely the direct goal. Instead you’re measuring metrics for the effectiveness of your campaigns, regardless of whether or not they have a direct conversion endpoint.

Think about the amount of money these companies pay for a ten second ad on YouTube that you skip as fast as possible. Or an ad in your social media feed you scroll by with zero attention given. These are significant ad spends for a very low percentage of impressions and engagement.

In contrast, look at the small but passionate NFT space: consistently high engagement and all the impressions that come with it.

The exact opposite of traditional social media advertising.

Let’s say I’m Nike, and I want to get eyeballs on a new product line. Sure, I’ll do the usual TV and Web2 marketing campaigns.

But this y00ts NFT thing sure sounds interesting! I can ship a few thousand quantity of free product to a passionate, dedicated online community with an established aspirational brand and credibility.

And then they’re gonna plaster and shout about how awesome it is all over social media? Plus they’re strong enough to get the product trending?

That’s a hell of an effective marketing campaign.

At least, that’s the potential. I’ve seen it emerging with the Toys ‘R Us NFT project and their all but official deal to bring Pokemon into that ecosystem as a reward for holders.

At toy companies, overhead is the cost. Manufacturing is pretty cheap (depending on the electronics/complexity involved).

I once worked with someone who had experience in the shoe industry, and he raved about the massive profits between small manufacturing costs and big sales revenue.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of companies are gonna fall flat on their face in this new dynamic. And that’s to be expected! But ultimately, I view 2023 as the year when marketing budgets go towards value for holders of an NFT project while building up a vocal, passionate community around it.

And by the way: the more ROI value a company puts into an NFT project, the more valuable it becomes as an asset on secondary. Then the company gains a lot of clout in the overall marketplace for the value of their brand (along with their community), which can lead to more clout outside of Web3.

Compared to other marketing campaigns, that’s a hell of a cost-effective opportunity if it can be executed properly. And it’ll be holders who stand to benefit the most.

That is, unless of course you think anon JPEG peddler and his influencers will create more reliable and sustainable value for you.

Tribes Over Wolves, Builders Over Bullshit

This is exactly what I was hoping to see at the start of the year and wrote about back in January.

Web3 technology is amazing. But the Greater Fool Theory dynamic for JPEGs that it’s built on deserves to die.

And it’s happened. People are mourning, but I’ve been celebrating.

Why? Because the wolves in our space, the influencers, trickery and hype cycles based on using people for exit liquidity are no longer able to run their plays. The ecosystem just can’t support it anymore.

And go figure: we saw an influencer knife fight a few hours after that tweet.

(No specific harm meant towards these guys specifically, just a textbook example of the influencer FUD fights our current NFT market is based on)

Three days earlier, I wrote a thread following the definitive crash in our ecosystem as royalties effectively became optional across the board.

And it was my most popular thread to date. Which is impressive considering I didn’t pump anyone’s bags!

It was the critical moment where the dam holding up a nonsense market built on no true value finally broke.

It was inevitable.

This earliest iteration of the Web3 space is quick to place our market’s failures on external forces, while putting none of the blame on ourselves.

We have useless products that no one wants to buy. That’s all there is to it.

The mainstream perception of NFTs being a casino based on Greater Fool Theory where the insiders have a huge edge is 99% accurate. Beyond something like 1/1 art, there is no intrinsic value in owning a JPEG. Value has to be created beyond it.

The era of Money Printer Go BRRRR casino gambling with stimulus checks was never going to be sustainable.

NFTs with value, REAL value, can withhold any crypto shitstorm. Every exchange can go down, Tether can plummet. But people will still want to get into something like DeGods and y00ts for community/holder rewards, and Anybodies for being a printer of IRL mainstream exclusive brand products.

Hype projects and the influencers they rely on will become a dying breed. It’s a necessary culling to clear out space for quality projects. And most importantly, change the public perception of Web3 in 2023.

Bullshit needs influencer hype to pump it up before it dumps.
Substance speaks for itself and needs no trickery. Only patience.

The old NFT market is never coming back.

The one that replaces it will be so much better.

It will take time, and it’ll be a multiyear process. 2023 will be just the first step in that direction.

Which brings me to . . .

NFT Values Move to USD Standard

I don’t think this will be a cut and dry 100% change in 2023, but it’s inevitable. And I expect the first big steps forward will happen this coming year.

A switch to USD valuations of NFTs will do a world of good for mainstream adoption. 2022 destroyed any credibility crypto had as an honest industry selling tangible assets. The more NFTs can detach from that narrative, the more they move away from being guilty by association.

We’ve seen the USD pairings starting to happen in mainstream adoption collections, notably the recent Trump collection.

(Gotta put this here for future lolz)

For reals though, it’s a great example of USD pricing in action. “115 MATIC” would have been a giant headscratcher for a normie compared to $99.

As far as value goes, the Trump NFTs were openly mocked even in the most hardcore pro-Trump corners of the internet.

When the most devoted are laughing at Dear Leader’s product, you know we have a lot of work to do with public perception.

(Yup I know it’s MSNBC. Political bias isn’t relevant to the main point of the NFT market. I’ve conveniently linked to the relevant timestamp of Bannon and Flynn bashing on Trump for selling those “useless expensive NFTs”, feel free to skip the rest.)

And yet — they did drive volume! In a scorched earth market!

If a failed steak salesman gameshow host could drive NFT sales despite ridicule from his most ardent supporters, then there’s hope for all of us.

Especially as 2023 brings in some of the world’s biggest brands combining the best of both worlds: USD mints with unique utility and value for holders.

Crosschain Growth Accelerates

USD valuations will make the transition to crosschain much easier.

Once crosschain becomes a regular part of the ecosystem, there’s no longer a need for the assets in our core Web3 communities to retain values priced in ETH or SOL, much less the conversion rate between the two.

Crypto Wallets Become Simplified

This goes hand-in-hand with the shift to USD values.

On the subject of Toys ‘R Us, the Anybodies app that’ll power the project (along with many future partnerships) is based on this kind of normie friendly access and setup.

Crypto wallets are too confusing for the average consumer. Standard mobile security like passwords/Face ID are ideal to minimize friction.

Dust Labs’ Crosschain System Becomes Their Most Popular Utility

As a smooth brain when it comes to blockchain tech, I assume crosschain bridging between ETH sidechains would be tricky and require a good amount of work, but would otherwise be fairly straightforward to build in the future.

DeLabs migrating from Solana to Ethereum and Polygon is a different story, and will require countless hours and testing to work without errors. Once it happens, it’ll pave the way for other projects to do the same with far less effort.

And yup, I do expect more projects from Solana to bridge over. But it won’t be the end of Solana by any means (more on this later)

A Seamless Wallet for ETH’s Sidechains?

ETH proved a level of resiliency in 2022 that I didn’t expect. Much of it is thanks to the large drop in gas fees due to the bear market. But still, L2 options like Optimism and Arbitrum are smooth to use, fast and cheap.

Problem is, if you’ve interacted with these different EVM chains there’s a lot of switching back and forth between each network to access various dapps. Decentralized bridges are efficient, but transfers can take up to five minutes. I’ve mostly done this for steps to acquire airdrops, so your mileage may vary.

Still, for ETH to maintain its position on top during a period of mass adoption, it desperately needs a wallet that handles any switching back and forth, along with a seamless user friendly interface.

All these EVM networks become familiar with time, but have a steep learning curve for any user.

For a comparison, the Cosmos ecosystem requires switching networks by its very nature, yet it’s intuitive and easy because Keplr wallet is fantastic. And they’re separate environments vs. universal dapps you’d need to switch and bridge between in order to get stuff done.

Desktop wallets will likely continue to need all chains available until there’s a highly smart solution for those bridges. Mobile wallets and corporate focused Web3 experiences for normies running on ETH will probably need to pick one L2 and stick with it.

I do think if any developer can pull off that need for a user friendly ETH ecosystem wallet, it’ll be Phantom. They were the biggest catalyst for Solana’s growth. If they can tackle this much bigger problem of connecting sidechains without the effort from a front-end user, it’ll be a massive accomplishment.

And for all I know, Polygon will be able to scale with speed and every other EVM sidechain becomes obsolete.

But until then . . .

Polygon Meets Reality

As a y00ts holder, I’m very bullish on the business opportunities presented by the Polygon move.

But to keeps it real, I was never impressed by the user experience of the network. And I was shocked they became the blockchain of choice for just about every major company’s Web3 initiatives.

This year I couldn’t argue with that reality.

Next year is Polygon’s turn to face reality.

Some of the issues I’ve had with Polygon this year include:

• More expensive gas fees than Arbitrum and Optimism.
• Slower transactions than both those networks (not to mention Solana).
• Transactions during peak hours going through but not completing.
• Not being able to stake MATIC on its own native network — it has to be done on mainnet ETH instead. Terrible look in terms of a fully developed ecosystem standing on its own.

Listening to the Polygon team on Twitter Spaces, they’re keenly aware of these issues and working hard to fix them.

They’ve got all these thingees on their website that I assume will improve the user experience, so we’ll see if they . . . do . . . the good things.

Saga Rallies the Troops for Solana

Part 2 of my Web3 predictions will focus entirely on the DeLabs and Dust Labs ecosystems. As a part of that, I do think we will see the y00ts Polygon move take additional volume away from Solana.

But it’ll be temporary. And Solana’s tech, along with its passionate developers will define the network far beyond being just a distant #2 NFT ecosystem.

The Saga announcement was my Steve Jobs iPhone moment. But it’s gonna take a lot more effort and time to get the rest of the world on board.

And that’s fine! I don’t think the goal of Saga is to instantly convert the world to Web3. It’s an excellent first step to start putting out innovative apps that wouldn’t be possible using a standard smartphone. And we know adoption of the next jump forward is inevitable.

It’s a welcome focus in 2023 for the passionate Solana dev community: a product exclusive to the network that 100% represents the future of our industry; and the best way to move on from the FTX nonsense that had nothing to do with them or the blockchain.

At this early stage of Web3, I really see Solana as Apple to ETH’s Microsoft’s MS DOS. During that time, Apple was far from its current dominance, mainly relegated to true tech geeks devoted to its quality of software.

Over time, Apple conquered the market by focusing on the easiest user interfaces possible. I see Solana in a very similar lane.

It won’t happen overnight, and I don’t think you can say Solana will rise like a phoenix from the ashes in 2023. But I expect the work put in this coming year to pay dividends down the line.

Instagram Integration vs. Mainstream Acceptance

Mainstream perception of NFTs is at an all-time low. See aforementioned Trump digital cards: even his most ardent supporters laughed at it (yet it still minted out 45,000 and produced volume, go figure).

But Meta sees an opportunity to generate a much needed revenue stream, and I expect they’ll be successful. Instagram accounts will be able to mint their own NFTs, and marketplace transactions will be seamless within the app.

Most notable here is the utility being promoted. Personalities on Instagram will be able to use NFTs and associated tokens to monetize their brand through holder rewards and exclusive access. It’s a very similar model to Patreon, which Web2 users are already familiar with.

I think once Instagram users get their first taste of NFTs as utility, it’ll help reduce some of the resistance within the broader mainstream audience. They’ll be able to recognize NFTs aren’t just pictures you right-click save, and I’m sure Instagram will make the carbon neutral feature of its blockchains front and center to correct that narrative.

Instagram wants creators to normalise NFTs

Native Web3 users will also be able to use their NFTs by connecting their wallet — I assume a feature similar to Twitter’s ownership verification hexagon.

On that note, I’m most interested to see where our Web3 PFP standard fits into the Instagram UX. In our little niche we put high value on our PFPs as status symbols and identities, but the same can’t be said for popular Instagram accounts. They need to have their personal picture and brand environment front and center. Yet they’ll also want to encourage their followers to buy and use their NFT collections as PFPs.

The best solution I can think of is dynamic PFPs, rotating between a picture of the user, and their NFT PFP art. Not sure how they’d implement it. But either way, if a visually oriented company is leaning heavily into Web3 as a much needed revenue stream for its business model, there’s no reason to maintain a static profile picture standard that feels outdated in their new environment.

WTF Happens With Twitter?

I took notes for this section a few weeks ago as Elon Musk started to take the reigns of Twitter. And things moved so fast that I had to scrap what I wrote.

Twitter serving as a Web3 springboard seemed like a no brainer. Elon is a crypto friendly owner, and not in the BTC obsessed vein as Jack Dorsey. Despite what you may feel about Dogecoin, it is fun, easy for transactions, and the infinite supply makes for a better crypto version of spending cash than BTC.

Or at least I think so? People with background in economics have promoted this idea.

Dogecoin aside, Elon has ambitions to make Twitter “The App of everything”, and you can tell he knows Web3 has to be a part of the plan to make that goal a reality.

Now? Who the hell knows. He’s caught a lot of flack for bad results from his decisions, along with erratic personal commentary as CEO. At times it seems like he’s already having buyer’s remorse.

At the same time, despite being overstaffed Twitter had a lot of glaring holes in the quality of its product. A culture change within the company was badly needed.

Guessing what role Web3 will play on Twitter in 2023 isn’t relevant until we see what happens with Twitter itself. It feels like Elon is recognizing that focusing this level of effort on Twitter is pulling away attention from his core business. With Tesla stock down 72% on the year, I expect he’ll hire a CEO to run the day-to-day granular details of Twitter.

Further Web3 integration of Twitter seems inevitable, especially given that the platform needs a revenue stream. As a visually oriented platform, Instagram should pave the way to correct negative preconceived notions of NFTs in the mainstream. It’ll create an easy lane for Twitter to follow, but they’ve got to clean up their own house first.

Starbucks and Disney NFTs Stumble

I actually think Disney will pull off an excellent Web3 ecosystem, but it’ll take time and a bit of failures to figure it out.

As much as Starbucks seemed like an easy layup (count me among them), judging by their press releases and early beta they are at the “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks” phase. And that’s fine! They see the value and they’re early adopters. Their app makes NFTs an easy add that fits right in with the customer experience.

The underlying issue with both of these is a tough demographic to onboard. Starbucks’ demographic is completely different than the average NFT degen, and Disney first caters to early elementary school kids, along with their parents.

(Yes I know there are people obsessed with Disney in their 20s-30s, but I’m speaking to their brand focus)

Star Wars and Marvel Succeed Under the Disney Umbrella

While I think the core Disney brand will struggle to find its footing (but eventually get there), Marvel and Star Wars under its umbrella should do extremely well out the gate.

Star Wars already dipped their toe into the waters of Web3 this year with a Stormtroopers PFP collection.

. . .

Srsly?

I actually don’t know the status of these — they were supposed to mint in October but there’s no secondary listings I can find, and the website from press releases seems to be down.

Either way, Star Wars along with Marvel have done pretty well on Veve, but it has a limited audience and a fairly isolated marketplace that runs on mobile.

Whatever infrastructure Disney is setting up to support its Web3 ecosystem will give these brands the ability to integrate a lot more utility and experiences. It’s an easy adoption demographic for their fans. Success just requires a solid product and marketing vision.

Especially Star Wars! It’s a brand with a strong history of valuable collectibles. Their 1970s action figures set the bar for brand merch that all IPs try to achieve. Provide a mint of their limited edition initial collections marketed as the next chance at that opportunity 50 years later, and it’ll be the biggest gas wars we’ve ever seen.

Star Wars fans just want collectibles. Add utility on top of that and you’ve got a winner.

Assuming quality control.

(Gold Trooper there with the martini slaps though, ngl. Absolute grail.)

Marvel is more open-ended and not on Easy Mode like Star Wars given its film-centric brand. But it’s done well on Veve and I expect it’ll do quite well within a Disney-built ecosystem.

Teens Push Everything Forward

I was a kid/teenager when dial-up internet and AOL gained popularity, and I’ve watched each new iteration of technology emerge and evolve: broadband, ecommerce, mobile, social media, etc. And I’ve been in boardrooms for many of those advances.

Current/soon-to-be teenagers and Web3 adoption is the strongest match of demographic to new technology I’ve seen in those 25 years.

And it’s not even close.

Minecraft and Steam are strongly anti-NFTs. Roblox and Epic Games (publishers of Fortnite) are bullish.

I dunno. Seems like Anybodies spending $400K on game development with a project featuring some of the biggest entertainment brands in the world hints at a first step in that direction?

Regardless of the spark or opinions from different publishers: this generation will flock to NFTs once they become in-game assets. Publishers who refuse to do it will quickly evolve. I don’t even think it’s because they’re making a business decision — given how much they talk up environmental impact I legit think it’ll stem from a general education of what Web3 tech can do beyond JPEGs.

Anybodies Becomes a Bluechip Ecosystem

To be specific I’m not saying the Anybodies OG collection cracks the Top 10 this year — though it’s definitely possible and I’m trying to stay conservative.

What I am saying is the full portfolio of mainstream brands partnered with Anybodies will make it into an evergreen ecosystem with a large marketcap. Maybe not at the level of Yuga and DeLabs, but it’ll end 2023 in striking distance of that top tier.

Once the full picture of their app and value prop rolls out with the first few brands, other companies and the NFT market will “get it”

The only challenge will be for the team to scale with the amount of opportunities on the horizon. They’ve run a tight ship, and there will be a massive pivot in bandwidth coming.

It’s a good problem to have.

Common Sense Regulation

Guys.

This is you.

Have some self-awareness and stop throwing a tantrum.

The crypto market acted like incompetent, irresponsible destructive teenagers on meth this year. A “grow the fuck up” moment is a perfectly acceptable Fuck Around and Find Out result of that.

Along the same lines: stop saying you’re the one of the few enlightened heroes our world needs to save us from tyranny.

I’m not gonna be a condescending dick here and pull up Schoolhouse Rock to remind everyone about how a law is passed, but here’s the deal:

First, there are many pro-crypto politicians in congress on both sides of the aisle. And I’m sure they’ve got lobbying interests too.

New Crypto-friendly Politicians Are Headed to Washington — Blockworks

GMI PAC gives the industry some leverage within government

GMI PAC, Inc.

There are a lot of different factors at play here when it comes to writing laws:

• Any crypto regulations must pass through the House, Senate and Executive Veto.
• Not sure if you’ve noticed . . . but there’s a big political divide in America that makes polarizing laws very hard to pass.
• Even if the Fed unleashes an Orwellian nightmare of CBDC’s, it’ll have to pass muster for privacy laws within the court system, all the way up to a heavily conservative Supreme Court.
• The US is in a mindset of “Do the opposite of China”. Which means they’ll also want nothing to do with the authoritarian nature of Chinese CBDCs. Any politician voting for it is handing the other party a layup talking point for future elections.
• High motivation to see the growth of Web3 as an economic lane for emerging technology where America doesn’t have to compete with China.
• Yes, 98% of politicians are completely out of their element when it comes to the basics of Web3.
• But as incompetent as you think government is, they’re not about to pass laws without due diligence. Especially ones that could be deeply unpopular.
• Individual states, such as Wyoming and Texas, are strongly adopting crypto. And their representatives largely reflect that financial interest.
• It’s obvious this year’s issues started with UST/LUNA. It’s made regulation of stablecoins the #1 government priority in crypto.
• If you don’t want your stablecoins fully backed and guaranteed because “gubberment bad”, you’ve got weird priorities.

I’m not a lawyer and I haven’t been monitoring the political movements.

But you’ll notice something!

I . . . Googled it. And spent about ten minutes seeing what was up in the News section.

I didn’t automatically become unhinged, assuming we’re all going to be enslaved under CBDC’s to get the COVID vaccine with the chemtrails so Bill Gates can continue world domination working with the Fed to force us to eat Beyond Burgers under the guise of climate change while he eats babies in a pizza parlor basement.

Better to, you know . . . take a little time to read up on what’s actually going on.

You can read the top-level details of the Lummis-Gillibrand bill here:

Key US Senators Introduce Crypto Bill Outlining Sweeping Plan for Future Rules

It leans towards classifying most crypto assets as commodities and not securities, falling under the authority of both the CFTC and FTC depending on the details.

Oh! And transactions under $200 would be tax free. That would be amazing.

Click here for more details on the strong level of support and representation for the crypto industry (for some reason CNBC won’t populate a thumbnail)

The Warren-Marshall Bill on the other hand is . . . not so great.

EVERYONE FUCKING PANIC DEMOCRACY IS DEAD AND AMERICA IS NOW NORTH KOREA!!

Oh, wait. I can Google the thing.

One moment.

Sens. Warren and Marshall introduce new money-laundering legislation for crypto

Here we are:

“The bill seemed to be thrown together at the last minute and intended to set the tone for further discussion in Congress. It has no chance of being considered in this session.”

The reality here is the opposite of what alarmist conspiracy types expect.

It’s lawmaking. It’s boring as fuck, slow, plodding, with lots of conflicting interests and difficulty reaching consensus. By all account this needs to be figured out piece by piece rather than just one sweeping bill that puts us at the mercy of ANTIFA crisis actors under the George Soros biweekly ADP payroll.

NFT Regulation Takes a Backseat

Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to regulation of NFTs and their tokens. But I can’t see the government going after benefits for NFT holders before they’ve set laws and precedents with the much bigger mess of overall crypto laws and regulations.

By then, with the corporate adoption mentioned above, I expect companies will figure out ways to reward holders within reasonable guidelines. For example: getting a cool, exclusive Pokemon item from a Toys ‘R Us NFT doesn’t feel like it would pass the Howey Test.

If the shadow cabal that secretly runs our government does go after our Charizards? Then all bets are off.

Bitcoin Lightning Round

Let’s do it!

• Bitcoin maxis miss out on this huge wave of adoption because it’s against their religion.

• They continue to punch themselves in the face, pushing Satoshi’s Holy Sacrament deeper into its shrinking niche market.

The fundamentals of mass adoption as a global reserve currency or whatever become increasingly narrow:

• The US resists in order to maintain global dominance of USD.
• EU resists due to climate change concerns.
• Third world countries cringe at El Salvador’s results.
• Citizens in authoritarian governments decide the risk/reward of buying Bitcoin isn’t such a great idea regardless of what some morons post on Twitter.

• CEOs look at Michael Saylor setting $1B on fire and decide putting Bitcoin on the balance sheets may not be the best idea for their career reputation.

• Mass adoption helps the overall crypto market slowly detach from Bitcoin.
• Maxis finally get what they want! Detachment from unholy “shitcoins”.

But I don’t think they’ll like the result.

• If BTC isn’t outright flipped by ETH in 2023, its dominance in the market continues to drop to levels with strong resistance for upward movement.

There is one upside strength we saw for Bitcoin in 2022:

As everyone panicked to get their tokens off exchanges, nothing seemed safe. Was USDC backed? Or BUSD? Definitely not Tether.

At least you knew Bitcoin wasn’t going to see a domino effect collapse. So in that sense, it did was it was designed to do.

However, I expect regulations in 2023 to firmly establish guardrails for stablecoins, which will keep all the fundamental shifts above in place.

I’m not saying “Bitcoin is Dead”. I am predicting that the rest of the crypto market will perform much better and push it into its own niche where it will continue to do Bitcoin things.

You (Yes You!) Are the Unicorn

Some comforting words of advice I’ve given to people in this space who feel like they’re on a hamster wheel going nowhere:

Remember how up there I said Disney and Starbucks are going to struggle out the gate to make their Web3 platforms successful?

That’s when they’ll be backing up the Brinks truck to hire you.

I’ve lived this story a few times now:

• New technology emerges.
• Large company desperately needs someone who knows their shit to run the department with minimal supervision.
• Very few people in the workforce have that level of knowledge in The New Thing, much less experience, education and/or professionalism.
• They throw money at the problem. Specifically, throwing money at you to take care of it.

This isn’t going to happen by making degen plays all day and talking about what to mint in Discord. People think that’s the way to get a full time job in Web3.

It’s not. At least, not if you want a good salary, benefits, health insurance and all that good stuff at a stable company.

In the meantime, you should:

• Work with projects.
• Create good content.
• Cultivate a reputation of someone with integrity who works hard, knows their shit, gets along with others and cares about the quality of what they produce.
• Use that to network and find opportunities.
• Have a history of work that can fill a portfolio and looks good on a resume.
• Take online courses or finish college with a specialty in what you want to do in this space.
• Collect references that will be helpful once you apply doxxed with a major company.

The number of people who will have all that together is going to be incredibly small.

So if you believe in the future of Web3 and want to do it full time, my suggestion is to think of it in terms of real-world professional opportunities instead of this weird, unreliable niche we’re currently in.

That’s how ygmi. No hopium needed.

Part 2 coming up next. All DeLabs and Dust Labs!