@jpren.eth

Building a hit consumer social product is hard (one company every 5-10 years). Building a social platform or protocol that other products rally around is harder (one dominant platform or protocol every decade or longer). Building a social product and a social protocol for a ever-changing crypto audience is the kind of challenge few have the courage to even attempt. It's easy to criticize from the nosebleed seats -- I've done it myself. Dan and Varun have had to navigate not only building a product and protocol that people want, but also the changing macro and culture that are out of their hands and frankly, anyone's hands. I'm not trying to an apologist for MM, but will share my raw thoughts and reflections building consumer facing products in crypto over the past few years. In 2021, many (including me) would have thought that crypto was going mainstream and that more people would care about its cultural values of censorship resistance, credibly neutral platforms, and composability. These are incredible values and they benefit people. Then 2022 (Terra Luna, FTX) happened. Many ideas got regulated out of existence. It was pretty bleak. So much so that the only things I saw happening on-chain for everyday crypto users were free NFTs mints. Builders flocked to conferences to navigate this era of uncertainty. 2023-24, builders started launching memecoins, then the tools proliferated and everyone started launching memecoins. It was one of the few token formats that could exist within the existing regulatory framework. There was a trading frenzy, and many crypto users, even builders, became traders. The problem was that the onchain activity of memecoin trading was mostly taking place among existing crypto users. It wasn't something that really grew the pie of crypto users by bringing in folks who weren't already involved. Fast forward to today, some "business" aspects of crypto is going mainstream as a technology (e.g. stablecoins) and an institutional asset class (e.g. Bitcoin), and trading is becoming more accessible both with crypto and traditional assets with new consumer financial products. But many of the cultural aspects of crypto hasn't really landed yet for everyday people. Building in hit in consumer requires more than just a great product in isolation. Timing is an under appreciated factor. Some of the most successful products and platforms help accelerate a movement during a relevant cultural moment, which often coincides with a technology platform shift (e.g. the Internet, mobile, Bitcoin, AI). I'm excited to see MM and other consumer teams (including our team at @frens) keep fighting the good fight, and to create products, platforms, and protocols behind the next great movements.

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