betashop.eth
7mo
“a lot of people have tried to apply web 2 product models to web3 and that’s failing. They’re focused too much on trying to manage and control tokens as utility like you would manage a web2 product outcome — and what they failed to recognize is that tokens are a new type of enthusiasm market, measuring more the meta sentiment about the product or the content than the underlying utility of it. Tokens are (currently) better at representing sentiments than utility.”
— yat siu, animoca
He went on to also say that, of course, that also makes it harder for tokens to sustain value as people shift their attention to the next meta
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This is what I always think too because it's looking as if people are just in a project just for the money not its utility
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but even real utility isn’t always enough to keep a token “alive”... We’ve seen genuinely useful tokens flatline just because the narrative faded or the momentum shifted. Utility helps, but attention, belief, and timing still rule the game in this early meta economy. The Metaverse cycle is a perfect example :)
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I agree with you that even tokens that have utility … ie. are really useful for something meaningful … can flatline, that’s normal - but they don’t go to zero and die
Attention is only short term game at the start, then only utility can keep your attention (ie. you will come back)
No amount of “belief” can replace utility - that’s just web3 Degen wishful thinking 😄
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Yep, spot on. Right now, the meta sentiment behind tokens is shaped by a small group of very online people - easy to sway, easy to spin. But in a truly global onchain economy, sentiment should reflect the broader world, not just the loudest rooms. Until we get there, the mission is simple: build better experiences and keep bringing people onchain.
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Then why don't builders focus on building long term value than "meta" "hype" . Focus on creating world. If ppl only worried about share price one would end up like GE focus on short term meta and long term destruction of their unique engineering capabilities. I guess mindshare is cool but focusing too much on it one would better create pump.fun
What do you imagine he means by saying ‘trying to control the outcome’ what is he talking about, do you imagine, what does it look like - this concept that’s being presented, that doesn’t work?
Very astute observation. Tokens do gage the meta very well. When it loses popularity, or people move b onto the next Shiney thing, they value attributed to one token begins to fade away. (Which is problematic to those left holding the bag)
In the context of web3, As a Farcaster user with a relatively low FID (365k or something) The tokens had great communities...We eventually saw which projects were there to experiment, build and see what happens vs the purely extraction ones. After some time away from Farcaster, there are new Metas I'm not really aware of or vibe with. I would really like to see some of the Farcaster "Staple" tokens make a comeback.
Know if this talk was being recorded?