The Metaverse Podcast - Tokens Inside NFTs, with Ben Lakoff of Charged Particles
Primer: Charged Particles enables users to deposit digital assets inside their NFTs. In this episode of the Metaverse Podcast, host Jamie Burke speaks with Ben Lakoff, co-founder of Charged Particles, on his background, the use cases for Charged Particles, and his thoughts on regulations.
Background
Has a background in corporate finance
Ended up in private equity. Did a bit of angel investing towards the end of his corporate career
Got into crypto because he made an angel investment into a Thai crypto exchange
Started his first company creating tools for crypto traders. It ended up failing as most of their treasury is in crypto during the bear market
After that, he did a bit of consulting and angel investing
Also hosts his own podcast
Co-Founder of Charged Particles
History Of Charged Particles
Rob Secord was dreaming up Charged Particles in late 2019 — the idea of NFT holding other assets
He launched a Twitter account and a Discord server ideating on this concept
Their proof of concept came out in May 2020
Aavegotchi was inspired by Charged Particles, but their focus is on gaming
He met Rob in Gitcoin Kernel. Started as an advisor to Rob and helping him think through the business case of the project
Both of them worked on it throughout summer 2020
They ended up raising initial pre-seed funding in December 2020, followed by another seed round in February 2021
Launched on Mainnet and subsequently on Polygon
Offers an API and SDK for people to easily build using this tooling
They are at a pre-product-market fit stage
“Oh my gosh, think of these things as compact containers, putting things inside of them in new unique ways.”
- Ben Lakoff
What Made Him Join Charged Particles?
Being an operator is over-glamorized on social media
Has always wondered why he would voluntarily go back to being an operator
Thinks that the use case and potential for Charged Particles is far too compelling
High Level Overview Of Charged Particles
They take NFTs and give them their own smart wallet which can hold other assets
The smart wallet has its own address where people can deposit tokens to it
Charged Particles enable people to do new unique things
Use Cases
Governance
Issuing NFTs with governance rights to the community
The NFT have a different voting weight when compared to the ERC-20 tokens of the project
The ERC-20 tokens could be locked into the NFT to have even more voting weight
Interest-Bearing Instruments
Have an integration with Aave
Interest-bearing assets could be deposited into an NFT
Originally, they called the interest “charge” and the NFT “particles.” As interest accumulates within the interest-bearing assets, it becomes a “charged particle”
“This was the idea of Charged Particles. Particles are the NFT, you add interest-bearing assets to that NFT. And as it accumulates interest, it accumulates charge and thus becomes a charged particle.”
- Ben Lakoff
Organization Of Charged Particles
Organized into guilds
Book of Alchemy is a play-to-earn game built on top of Charged Particles
Their music guild has been doing crazy stuff lately. They have won Unchained Music that’s doing music distribution
The guilds are currently centralized right now. They subscribe to the idea of progressive decentralization
Each guild has elected their own leader that perform autonomously from Charged Particles
Currently, the music, gaming, and developer guilds are the largest guilds
Have a couple of guilds that are focused on altruistic operatives — donors deposit assets into an NFT, with the accumulated interest being directed to a charity
Have an ecology guild doing tree plantings and a carbon fashion guild that sold a t-shirt with $10,000 in it as an NFT
Thoughts On Regulations
Crypto is bleeding edge and exists in a gray area
The regulations were created in 1930/1940s. Very difficult to apply them to our current world
Important to talk to a lawyer before doing anything in the space
Most things will end up being classified as securities. Hence, people have to be super careful
Unlocking NFTs as collaterals is also very difficult as we cannot apply a blanket price across an entire collection
Investor/founder tokens being placed inside an NFT makes it a security
Paragons DAO just launched yesterday. Their founder tokens are locked within a Charged Particles NFT. The NFT comes with a beautiful design. If the founder tokens gets withdrawn, holders would still have a very beautiful NFT
What Excites Him About 2022?
Excited about the prospects of Charged Particles
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