Primer: Aftab/DC Investor has been a longstanding and committed member of the Ethereum community. In this episode, he shares how his previous work experience as a management consultant has shaped his investment decisions in the space. After leaving his job and becoming a full-time professional Ethereum community member, he shares with listeners his thoughts on the various sectors in the space.
Origins
Based in DC. Hence, the handle DC Investor
Worked as a public sector management consultant for the past 15 years
Because of his work experience, he focuses on the real value proposition of projects and less on the hype
Been in crypto since 2013, sold it all during the bear, came back in late 2016/early 2017 to discover Ethereum
Similarities between past work experience and Ethereum
Ethereum is a complex system, much like an organization
When he enters an organization, he forms hypotheses, collects data to test these hypotheses, diagnoses problems, and comes up with solutions
In Ethereum, he thinks about how all the different DApps work together and interact with one another
Focuses on where the true durable long term value lies, which requires a different form of thinking and analysis. Some projects do not solve a real problem or provide unique value in the space. Even if it does provide value, it is commoditized or not differentiated enough from its competitors.
If he could identify an issue with Ethereum and solve it?
Scaling Ethereum
Actually working with the Eth 2 Core Dev team as a community advisor helping them think through the dynamics of the merge from Eth 1 to Eth 2
Layer 2 platforms are not run by the Ethereum Core Development team, but by private enterprises (Loopring, Immutable X, Starkware, zkSync). All is being done in a free market basis.
"What is Ethereum scalability like?"
"The more [Layer 2] competition that you have, the more organic this type of development is, the faster it can move, and the more value you can add to more people."
- DC Investor
Highway problem of adding more lanes or scale it up so much (Eth 2 + scaling solutions) that it becomes a non-issue?
Subsequent layers will provide a lot more capacity
"Layer 1 block space is incredibly valuable. And the value of that block space actually does not really diminish as more capacity is added on the margin."
- DC Investor
"Ethereum as being the ultimate home and settlement layer for a lot of these economically important assets"
- DC Investor
What are you doing currently?
Left his job in January this year
Full-time professional Ethereum community member
Speaks with community members, app developers, and core developers every week/day to get a pulse on what's going on.
Take those perspectives, look at the ecosystem as a whole, and share that with people
Angel investor, informal and formal project advisor
Involved with DApp governance
Thoughts on NFTs and how they have evolved
Heard about NFTs way back in 2017/2018. Cryptokitties introduced the concept of non-fungible digital ownership
Gaming collectibles made sense to him as he is a lifelong gamer
Currently, gamers do not own their items in a game economy. Selling them for real money meant breaking Terms of Service. Gaming NFTs mean that the gamer actually owns the asset.
On Social Tokens
Current models of social tokens are still fairly crude
Probably going to experience the same boom and bust
Not sure whether tokenizing earning potential or tokenizing someone's time is the culmination of what is possible with social tokens
Utility as a piece of art and the artist/personality using them to engage their fan base
On DAOs
Have begun to look interesting. DAOs now have real economic coordination power that they can exercise
Currently, a lot of DAOs are coordination disasters, either in progress or waiting to happen
DAOs are hard to scale in a meaningful way. Needs a strong personality at the forefront to shepherd the way
DAOs have to appoint executives/executive committees. These people have to be paid to incentivize them
Checks on power: Centralize some authority, but still have the power to remove them
Importance of DAOs to set their ethos and philosophy early on, so that they have a pillar that they are building from
On Governance
Approach governance from multiple angles
Not in favour for Layer 1 protocols to have governance as they should be credibly neutral platforms
For apps, there is potential for governance. Apps can continue to be dynamic and evolve around the will of a community.
On DeFi
NFT artists can now take part in the DeFi economy
"It [DeFi] represents this permissionless composable financial layer, which anyone in the world can participate in, and it is censorship resistant."
- DC Investor
On the Metaverse
"[The Metaverse is] absolutely going to be a huge driving force in not just in crypto but in society for the next 20 years."
- DC Investor
A lot more people has become more comfortable with spending their lives online
What is missing now is a consumer friendly experience that ties everything together
Epic Games is investing heavily into creating a metaverse
How do we onboard more people?
UI/UX is still clunky, but progress has been made
Running your own nodes --> metamask --> hardware wallet support
In the future, people may not need to manage their private keys anymore. Most likely they can restore their accounts using social recovery
Subsector he is most excited about
The intersection of all the subsectors
Financialization of NFTs and using NFTs as economic collateral is an interesting space
In-game NFTs. Potential to grow into a billion dollar-size economy
Most appealing NFT category
Art/Collectibles have the most activity
In the near-term, gaming. Platforms like Immutable X are taking off and there is support for higher throughput gaming transactions
Full VR-driven social experience in virtual lands, with a timeframe of 5 - 10 years
Twitter brand building
Did not actively think about Twitter brand building
Used Twitter as a diary to write his random thoughts and ended up with more followers
Was posting on Reddit before getting on Twitter
Hated Twitter because there's too much noise, but joined just to keep track of trader sentiment
Became a FUD fighter against misinformation being spread about Ethereum
Generally shitpost on Twitter; does not care about curating comments for a particular audience
Launched a newsletter called the Catalyst to detail his long form posts
5-year plans
Want to see decentralization win
Remain agile because the space is hard to predict
News/updates to share
To Artists: pay attention to Ether as an asset and to DeFi
"Take the time to learn because these are the things that are the future and your efforts as NFT artists are helping to create that future."
- DC Investor
Single favourite NFT that he owns
Autoglyphs
Collection from Dimitri Cherniak's "Ringers"
Most controversial thoughts
Eventually see a big crash in NFTs across the board. But highest tier of NFTs will be affected less
Long term, the value of NFT is going to be far greater than some people think, even the people who are participating in the space actively now
"A lot of high quality organic Art NFT is from really talented artists will probably remain on Ethereum"
- DC Investor
Crypto in 3 years
Crypto being more ubiquitous than what people think
Where can people find his gallery
NFT Gallery: gallery.so/DCinvestor
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