I own 5x as much $QR as anything else on base. It was a fair launch via clanker so I had to buy it all on the open market. And I did not front run everyone. I bought in over time at various prices. That’s called betting on yourself. That does NOT mean this bet is guaranteed to work. But I will always bet on myself. Eventually, I will win.

More valuable than the money, I have invested my time. Just a few months so far. Not a ton in the context of a lifetime, but I am not in the business of wasting months. I will not continue to work on something I do not believe continues to be a good use of my time. I want to be very clear about that.

The NFT collection for every color on the internet. /basecolors basecolors.com

Meanwhile, I believe Base Colors is benefitting from my working on another interesting crypto project (QR) and continuing to grow my personal audience. If I am a success, long-term, and NFTs don’t die completely, and base does well, I believe Base Colors has a good chance to be a great success as well, even if I don’t work on it explicitly much more than I already have. Remember, NFT collections do not necessarily require continued work to do well (i.e. CryptoPunks), but with Base Colors I felt there were months of work post-launch that would be good for the project, I am very happy with what we built over those several months, and I know that there are still at least a few interesting things that I can do.

So when it comes to @qrcoindotfun, I want you to understand that I’m going to do my best to do what I think is best every step of the way. If I have a better idea that I feel demands my attention, I may work on that instead. I write this today because things are going well. I can confidently say I am more confident in QR than I have ever been. Now, that can change quickly. My belief has had many ups and downs already. But I’ve had plenty enough on average to keep on working hard.

I basically started this project by accident. I launched a token via clanker called QR coin ($QR) representing a seed of an idea which I thought could be interesting. I had no plan to make it my priority focus over an extended period of time and I didn’t even start working on it in earnest until a few weeks after that when it somewhat serendipitously evolved from a casual clanker I launched to increase the probability I might actually work on it, to an idea that I began actually working on.

At launch, I debated lowering the auction starting price from $2 to 20 cents because I wanted to ensure we got at least 1 bid and I didn’t know if anyone would bid $2 on day 1. That auction went for $3,303. Our auction prices have had their ups and downs but today we have our first bids over $100 in 2 weeks and 3 different people have bid above that level. We got 5,000+ people to add our mini app, most of them in the last week. We’ve had $16,000 worth of winning bids and multiples more than that in total bids. We have been profitable (I am not paying myself). And the $QR coin price is right around all time highs ($500K). I have a clear vision on next steps to increase both our value proposition to auction winners and the level of participation in our auctions, and I am excited as ever to work on this today.

I am not sure I could be more transparent than this. I have also been posting alerts when the token price is near all-time highs to flag for $QR holders that they could sell at that time, almost certainly for a profit, and get off the ride while they’re ahead. This is unusual and I certainly do not have to do this but one of the hardest parts about building an investable thing for me is the potential for people to lose money for believing in me.

I am confident that a bet on me, long-term, is a good one, but it would be irrational for me to say that any individual project I work on will be a certain success. The odds are stacked against any new and sufficiently different creative project. Most of them do not work out but some of them work out big. $QR is one of these kinds of projects. It is not my first and it will almost certainly not be my last. I’m having a lot of fun working on it, and I’ve been working very hard. I believe it is interesting. And we are starting to do some things that would not have been possible pre-crypto.

If you’ve supported QR so far, thank you. If you have not previously but decide to start now, I appreciate that too. And if you support me generally but are not a fan of this particular project, I totally understand.

I was inspired this morning to share some longer form thoughts after a few months working on this. The problem of effectively communicating with one’s supporters on a project, especially in crypto when there are tokens involved, is a non-trivial one. Long-form writing feels helpful towards solving it. OK, now back to work.

That does not necessarily mean such a thing could not be worth my time again later. For example, I did not feel that continuing to push hard on Base Colors was worth my time after several months of doing so, and not because it wasn't going well. I would be quite surprised if my time working hard on @basecolors is finished. After several months and a lot of success (~30,000 colors minted, ~$100,000 revenue, several awesome collabs, established itself as the colors collection on base, etc.), I felt it would be best if I gave the project some time to breathe. I believe I know the next big thing that I need to do with it, and I felt it was too early still to do that thing.