basil (propagation arc)
@itsbasil
928 Following
12534 Followers
6 replies
5 recasts
41 reactions
19 replies
1 recast
84 reactions
25 replies
5 recasts
76 reactions
1 reply
1 recast
13 reactions
3 replies
2 recasts
26 reactions
the only people in crypto who care primarily about money are 90% of crypto
bitcoin literally set out to recreate it
the only time i think this was any different was during 2017-2018 when eth clicked for a huge swath of tech folks & in 2021 when daos were coming online, nfts were parabolic, and the promise of consumer crypto became something real
during those times, we may have moved closer to a 70/30 or even 60/40 split, but since then, particularly since pump,
we’re back to 90/10 at an absolute minimum
to me, this is evident when observing any community, chart, or even ct as a whole, over the last 2-3 years 9 replies
2 recasts
52 reactions
3 replies
1 recast
26 reactions
>most important missing primitive
i think the highest-leverage path is where memetic content, tokenized ownership, and distribution mechanics converge. you can't separate them. memetic content paired with a well-designed token becomes social capital. social capital then becomes distribution. distribution becomes user acquisition. and users—especially ones with skin in the game—become the most powerful force in token adoption
technically, i can’t offer much. but on the human side, i’ve thought about this quite a bit. the most powerful thing you can do for your token is to enable an autonomous, incentive-aligned, mimetic marketing & bd engine. i’ve written about this before. the more distributed your token, the higher your odds that a holder becomes a user. the more users you have, the faster the mimetic flywheel spins
look at thiel & girard. he understood mimetics well enough to take 10% of facebook. today, we have a similar opportunity: social data, incentives & mimetic mechanics can be aligned to build powerful, self-propagating systems. we’ve seen this in practice—degen, tipn, noice. someone receives a token, it appreciates, they feel ownership, they push it publicly, they tip it forward. that distribution loop continues until it's self-sustaining. the goal is simple: build an army that works for you while you sleep. is that not what wealthy people do? they don’t trade time for money—they build systems that accrue value 24/7
as for missing primitives? the lowest-hanging fruit is still tipping. some claim it’s dead. i couldn’t disagree more. tipping funded degen, which hit a $100m cap & now has total strategic flexibility to pivot. it seeded deployer with tnx100x. it helped push noice to $17m. it continues to drive thousands of micro-interactions every day. and people say it's "menial"? who says a tip can’t be the size of a grant? wake showed us otherwise. proxy showed us otherwise. these aren’t just gestures—they’re economic signals
tipping also gave rise to downstream builders like downshift, and it funded daos that supported projects like bracky & even clanker. i’ve argued before: tipping is the lifeblood of community formation & without community, there is no social layer. there is no network. tipping isn’t dead—it’s inevitable across crypto-enabled social
on the other side of that coin are tools like kaito, bankr & checkr. they’re building the analytics layer for mimetics—the infrastructure to track contribution, volume & impact. while tipping largely activates the bottom half of your community (the long tail), these tools enable real-time visibility & upward mobility. someone writes a killer post, it drives volume, the data reflects it, they’re rewarded. now they're more visible. now they post again—this time even more bullish, to even more followers. that’s mimetic compounding
further, with rev-share tokens around the corner, neglecting your token is a death sentence. some will argue "your token isn’t your product." that might've been true for vc-funded multi billion-dollar protocols born a half decade ago like arb or uni. but today, it's nonsense, perpetuated & disproven by bad performing governance tokens. your product & token are deeply intertwined. traders & investors won’t engage with your product if the token is a ghost town, and you need both. it’s all connected. nobody’s partnering with clanker if the token is sitting at $230k. nobody’s tipping on noice if it's down-only. that’s just the reality
then there’s ecosystem alignment—especially in smaller, tighter networks like farcaster. if you’re not clanking & you don’t already have 20k+ followers elsewhere, good luck launching here. this ecosystem is intimate. everyone holds each other’s tokens. we’ve been here, building & dming, for 3 years. distribution here isn’t just luck—it’s earned. if the leaders don’t embrace you, your mimetic engine won’t catch. your token won’t spread. you won’t get partners or users. the feedback loops die
so that’s the qualitative stack every builder should consider:
– how do i align with the ecosystem i’m launching into?
– how do i get my token into as many hands as possible?
– how do i convert holders into users?
– how do i recruit those users into evangelists?
– how do i accelerate and expand the loop?
yes, maybe your token works better with other mechanics, with staking. or a rev-split. or a buyback program. fine. the implementation details vary. but the foundation is the same: social capital, incentive alignment, ecosystem integration & mimetic distribution. traders matter. attention matters. but bull-posting evangelists who carry your message every day across the network—that’s the holy grail
once you're there, it’s about building momentum & pivoting to/addressing the market’s needs. so you ride the wave until that moment comes, then you capitalize. that’s how you reach escape velocity, exuberance aside
https://farcaster.xyz/itsbasil/0x6d91d4f0 4 replies
4 recasts
26 reactions
0 reply
5 recasts
28 reactions
13 replies
4 recasts
49 reactions
4 replies
3 recasts
28 reactions
6 replies
1 recast
23 reactions
i’ve thought about in-game economies, tokens & ecosystem design nearly every waking second for the past two years
not casually—obsessively, pathologically; like a madman replaying the same dream with slightly different mechanics; a new approach, a different experiment, but the same objective
it started as curiosity, became instinct, now it’s religious intuition. this isn’t a “space” to me—it’s a worldview, an extension of how i see value, trust, coordination, progress—the future
fc had a chapter, but i’ve since moved into more recursive loops—where game loops, economic loops, social loops & incentives collapse into one
i don’t have hot takes on anything else, or at least nothing that you should take to heart. i barely even know what day it is. this is the one thing my brain recycles, all day, everyday 5 replies
5 recasts
40 reactions
9 replies
3 recasts
42 reactions
6 replies
3 recasts
23 reactions
5 replies
1 recast
29 reactions
6 replies
1 recast
27 reactions
12 replies
0 recast
40 reactions
3 replies
0 recast
31 reactions
6 replies
1 recast
20 reactions