Reflections on "Community"

Some communities at least take the first step to have some sort of access dependent on your token activities, usually a Discord server or channel. But access is only the first step to membership. Permissions are too closely tied to access right now, and status is left as too abstract a concept.

We are likely entering a 2-4 year period where founders — Web3 founders in particular — will overshoot in their reliance on token incentives to drive their communities. Like Charlie Munger, they are right, but not fully right. We will learn a lot from their experiments and mistakes, but if you want your project to succeed, don’t forget the heart.

In an excellent post, Kim reflects on the challenges of token-based communities:

Community tokens > Social tokens. For the past couple years, social tokens were a hot topic when discussing the future of crypto-native consumer apps. The thought went, “wouldn’t it be cool if you could invest in people the same way you can invest in stocks?” Bitclout’s initial traction was a sign that there’s demand for this type of product. But s... See more