Subscribe
For the last few weeks, I've been playing around with a new social platform called Rodeo. It runs on the Base blockchain (which is an Ethereum Layer 2 chain), but you don't really need to be aware of this or understand how it works behind the scenes. If you've ever used Instagram, then you will already know how to use this platform. You can upload photos, scroll through photos, and heart photos.
But what's unique is that you can also "collect" photos. This requires a very small amount of Ether (0.0001 ETH), which works out to somewhere around ~$0.33 today. But there's also the option of just buying credits with your credit card and bypassing the need for an external crypto wallet. Whichever option you choose, you are minting an NFT to your wallet every time you "collect" a post. This is whether you are aware of it or not.
What this then does is send the creator reward money. Every time someone collects/mints a post, the creator of that post earns 0.00005 ETH (~$0.16 today). And already, there are users on the platform who have collected thousands of dollars in rewards as a result of their posts. It is also possible to earn referral rewards. If I collect a post and someone sees that I did it and then collects it, I earn a percentage. I can also send direct referral links (similar to how people on IG share posts via DM).
So despite looking a lot like Instagram, this is a fundamentally different platform under the hood. There is an embedded economy where artists and creators can get paid directly by collectors. At the same time, the platform itself collects a fee from interactions and transactions and so, in theory, there's no need for them to turn to advertising and selling our personal information.
There's also no reason that any user needs to remain wed to Rodeo. When you collect a post, an NFT is minted and it goes directly into your crypto wallet (assuming you've connected your external wallet). That crypto wallet is yours and you can do whatever you want with its contents, including selling the NFTs on some other marketplace or gifting them to a friend or family member for Christmas.
So other than the fact that the biggest audiences are on platforms like Instagram and X, I'd much rather share my photos on a platform like Rodeo, where I have full control. This is also why I switched my blogging platform from Wordpress to Paragraph and why I've started using Warpcast alongside X. It's the same idea. This has always been the promise of blockchains, but it's amazing to see it playing out with all of these new platforms.
I have no idea if Rodeo will ever surpass Instagram as the dominant photo sharing platform. But I have a high degree of conviction that our online lives will eventually migrate onchain. It's for this reason that I largely don't care about the daily fluctuations of ETH or BTC; I'm far more interested in the software that is getting built out on top of these chains. That is what will generate the demand for these cryptocurrencies long-term.
For the last few weeks, I've been playing around with a new social platform called Rodeo. It runs on the Base blockchain (which is an Ethereum Layer 2 chain), but you don't really need to be aware of this or understand how it works behind the scenes. If you've ever used Instagram, then you will already know how to use this platform. You can upload photos, scroll through photos, and heart photos.
But what's unique is that you can also "collect" photos. This requires a very small amount of Ether (0.0001 ETH), which works out to somewhere around ~$0.33 today. But there's also the option of just buying credits with your credit card and bypassing the need for an external crypto wallet. Whichever option you choose, you are minting an NFT to your wallet every time you "collect" a post. This is whether you are aware of it or not.
What this then does is send the creator reward money. Every time someone collects/mints a post, the creator of that post earns 0.00005 ETH (~$0.16 today). And already, there are users on the platform who have collected thousands of dollars in rewards as a result of their posts. It is also possible to earn referral rewards. If I collect a post and someone sees that I did it and then collects it, I earn a percentage. I can also send direct referral links (similar to how people on IG share posts via DM).
So despite looking a lot like Instagram, this is a fundamentally different platform under the hood. There is an embedded economy where artists and creators can get paid directly by collectors. At the same time, the platform itself collects a fee from interactions and transactions and so, in theory, there's no need for them to turn to advertising and selling our personal information.
There's also no reason that any user needs to remain wed to Rodeo. When you collect a post, an NFT is minted and it goes directly into your crypto wallet (assuming you've connected your external wallet). That crypto wallet is yours and you can do whatever you want with its contents, including selling the NFTs on some other marketplace or gifting them to a friend or family member for Christmas.
So other than the fact that the biggest audiences are on platforms like Instagram and X, I'd much rather share my photos on a platform like Rodeo, where I have full control. This is also why I switched my blogging platform from Wordpress to Paragraph and why I've started using Warpcast alongside X. It's the same idea. This has always been the promise of blockchains, but it's amazing to see it playing out with all of these new platforms.
I have no idea if Rodeo will ever surpass Instagram as the dominant photo sharing platform. But I have a high degree of conviction that our online lives will eventually migrate onchain. It's for this reason that I largely don't care about the daily fluctuations of ETH or BTC; I'm far more interested in the software that is getting built out on top of these chains. That is what will generate the demand for these cryptocurrencies long-term.
At the time of writing this post, Bitcoin is up ~129% YTD. One Bitcoin is now US$101,256.70, which is a big deal in that it's a nice round milestone and it sounds like an impressive number to most people, including me. The result is that more people now want to buy Bitcoin, hence the above image. Now, this may turn out to be a good time to do this, or it may not be, I really have no idea. But as a crypto believer and long-term holder, I'm certainly happy to see this momentum.
At the same time, the current crypto market makes me want to buy less of it. Ethereum, which makes up the majority of my holdings, is also up this year. But I was dollar-cost-averaging more of it over the past few years when it was dropping and sentiment seemed to be against it. That, to me, felt like a better time.
My favorite investing framework is one that I have written about many times before on this blog and one that people far more successful than me like to talk about. It goes something like this: you want to be right about things that most people think are wrong. Said differently, you want to aim for non-consensus bets, and that's because it's pretty hard to find value when everyone else is chasing the same thing. Markets are competitive.
So as a general rule of thumb, if you can find opportunities that you believe wholeheartedly in, but that many people think are dumb, then directionally, you're probably getting warmer. Obviously, you can't believe in something and then be wrong about it. That's not productive. But if you start with something that many/most people are critical of and then work backwards, you might find something interesting.
I am reiterating all of this today because of our current market dynamics: crypto is way up, as you know, but many real estate markets are way down. For example, here in Toronto, few people are buying pre-construction homes, whereas a few years ago, they were lining up and banging down the doors of sales offices. We have moved from consensus to non-consensus.
This is making for a challenging development environment. But at the same time, I think it's a wonderful opportunity for people looking to buy/rent a home and for real estate companies willing to grind it out and be creative. Legacy deals will need to get worked out and competition is only going to lessen as groups leave the market to focus on other things, like buying Bitcoin above $100k.
More specifically, this is what I'm excited about right now as a developer:
It is significantly easier to buy wonderful real estate. There's far less competition, and so the opportunity is there to structure creative deals. This is especially valuable for smaller companies like ours.
You have to know what you're doing to be successful. The market isn't going to bail you out. You need to roll up your sleeves and execute on your strategy.
Creativity and new ideas are now being rewarded. A red hot market only strengthens our bias toward the status quo. Everything is working, so why change? Except now it's not. So what are we going to do?
Market cycles are a healthy phenomenon. And I think we'll start the next cycle in a better place. Housing will be more affordable and projects will be better tailored toward end users, among other changes. But in the interim, there is now this great opportunity to be right about things that most other people think are wrong. And that's because so much feels wrong. But that's okay. Because it's actually the exact precondition you want.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this post should be construed as investment advice. I am long Ethereum and Toronto housing, and I don't plan to change this, but you should do your own homework.
Cover photo by Saad Salim on Unsplash
Crypto Citizens are a collection of 10,000 NFTs that were minted between 2021 and 2024, starting first in Venice, California and ending in Venice, Italy. Each of their 10 locations has a sub-collection of 1,000 pieces and I am the owner of CryptoParisian #112, because, well, Paris was the next best city for me after they egregiously skipped over Toronto.
This is one of the most ambitious projects in the NFT art community and, now that they've completed their world tour, they've just released a documentary called Venice to Venice. It is currently being screened in private venues around the world, but eventually there will be a world premiere at a film festival. This is when I presume they will land in Toronto!
If you'd like to watch the trailer and/or mint it, click here.
Photo: Seth Goldstein
At the time of writing this post, Bitcoin is up ~129% YTD. One Bitcoin is now US$101,256.70, which is a big deal in that it's a nice round milestone and it sounds like an impressive number to most people, including me. The result is that more people now want to buy Bitcoin, hence the above image. Now, this may turn out to be a good time to do this, or it may not be, I really have no idea. But as a crypto believer and long-term holder, I'm certainly happy to see this momentum.
At the same time, the current crypto market makes me want to buy less of it. Ethereum, which makes up the majority of my holdings, is also up this year. But I was dollar-cost-averaging more of it over the past few years when it was dropping and sentiment seemed to be against it. That, to me, felt like a better time.
My favorite investing framework is one that I have written about many times before on this blog and one that people far more successful than me like to talk about. It goes something like this: you want to be right about things that most people think are wrong. Said differently, you want to aim for non-consensus bets, and that's because it's pretty hard to find value when everyone else is chasing the same thing. Markets are competitive.
So as a general rule of thumb, if you can find opportunities that you believe wholeheartedly in, but that many people think are dumb, then directionally, you're probably getting warmer. Obviously, you can't believe in something and then be wrong about it. That's not productive. But if you start with something that many/most people are critical of and then work backwards, you might find something interesting.
I am reiterating all of this today because of our current market dynamics: crypto is way up, as you know, but many real estate markets are way down. For example, here in Toronto, few people are buying pre-construction homes, whereas a few years ago, they were lining up and banging down the doors of sales offices. We have moved from consensus to non-consensus.
This is making for a challenging development environment. But at the same time, I think it's a wonderful opportunity for people looking to buy/rent a home and for real estate companies willing to grind it out and be creative. Legacy deals will need to get worked out and competition is only going to lessen as groups leave the market to focus on other things, like buying Bitcoin above $100k.
More specifically, this is what I'm excited about right now as a developer:
It is significantly easier to buy wonderful real estate. There's far less competition, and so the opportunity is there to structure creative deals. This is especially valuable for smaller companies like ours.
You have to know what you're doing to be successful. The market isn't going to bail you out. You need to roll up your sleeves and execute on your strategy.
Creativity and new ideas are now being rewarded. A red hot market only strengthens our bias toward the status quo. Everything is working, so why change? Except now it's not. So what are we going to do?
Market cycles are a healthy phenomenon. And I think we'll start the next cycle in a better place. Housing will be more affordable and projects will be better tailored toward end users, among other changes. But in the interim, there is now this great opportunity to be right about things that most other people think are wrong. And that's because so much feels wrong. But that's okay. Because it's actually the exact precondition you want.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this post should be construed as investment advice. I am long Ethereum and Toronto housing, and I don't plan to change this, but you should do your own homework.
Cover photo by Saad Salim on Unsplash
Crypto Citizens are a collection of 10,000 NFTs that were minted between 2021 and 2024, starting first in Venice, California and ending in Venice, Italy. Each of their 10 locations has a sub-collection of 1,000 pieces and I am the owner of CryptoParisian #112, because, well, Paris was the next best city for me after they egregiously skipped over Toronto.
This is one of the most ambitious projects in the NFT art community and, now that they've completed their world tour, they've just released a documentary called Venice to Venice. It is currently being screened in private venues around the world, but eventually there will be a world premiere at a film festival. This is when I presume they will land in Toronto!
If you'd like to watch the trailer and/or mint it, click here.
Photo: Seth Goldstein
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
