@vgr
Popup cities don’t yet have an investable thesis investors can take to their LPs. At least not one that looks any different from municipal bonds, which are a generally unattractive asset class, in the *best* case. Here’s my mapping:
L1 tokens = frontier real estate with unclear political rights = telcos
DeFi networks = pickaxes business ~= enterprise software VC
Decentralized social = mining ~= consumer web VC
Popup cities = saloons in gold rush towns ~= municipal bonds * coworking spaces
I wouldn’t invest in any of it personally under “normal market” conditions regulated by existing governments
None of if makes sense unless you assume some degree of state capacity failure. Maybe not apocalyptic like Bitcoin, but some failure. So all are bets that look something like a short bet on a failed state bond (like say shorting Pakistan bonds) multiplied by one of these familiar things. As purely financial bets, all look terrible. The reason to invest has to be emotional narratives. Like a space program