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0xD62E

October 19, 2021 • 1 m read

Introducing AskMirror: Search and Discovery for Mirror

Mirror is democratizing the future of publishing. In fact, some of the best writing in the world is posted here. Yet one crucial aspect is missing from the Mirror experience: search and discovery. Finding content does not need to look like this: Today, we are launching AskMirror -- an advanced search and discovery site for the platform. We built this to enrich your web3 experience and give you a place to find, read, and follow what you love. AskMirror uses machine learning to tag and classify articles, making it ridiculously easy to discover content that inspires you. Search for articles, publications, and writers. Mirror was built in large part by its community, so we’d love to hear your suggestions and feedback. What would make your experience on Mirror, and web3, absolutely epic? Check out AskMirror at askmirror.xyz AskMirror was built by sepana.io The decentralized web is the new Internet. From Bitcoin to NFTs, DeSo to the metaverse, the revolution is upon us. But an internet is only as good as its search.So why does navigating web3 today feel like you’re using the search engines of the 90s? Search today is siloed and confusing. This is why Sepana has taken on the challenge of radically improving search and discovery for web3. We believe that a simple, powerful, and intuitive search is critical for unleashing the full promise of the decentralized web. In addition to AskMirror, we recently launched cloutavista.com, an advanced search experience for BitClout, and the DeSo protocol. Cloutavista is the embedded search engine for BitClout.com, Diamondapp, and other DeSo projects. We're looking for fellow adventurers, curious minds, and passionate tinkerers to help build a better way to navigate web3. Ping me at daniel@sepana.io if you're interested in joining the journey.

Daniel Keyes

0xed62

October 4, 2024 • 4 m read

my retrospective on Personae

A few weeks ago, we made the challenging decision to pivot our energy away from Personae, the company I've been working on for the past couple of years. We pioneered new ground, we failed to build retentive products, and ultimately we decided to return investor money and re-enter the startup idea maze from scratch. Looking back, it's been a classic startup journey of ups and downs. I'd like to take some time here to ramble out some closing thoughts. This may be the first in a multi-part series but it may also not. Candidly, I'm mostly doing this for myself. Being publicly retrospective+vulnerable is therapeutic. But I hope it also serves other founders struggling to bring cutting edge tech to market. It's a unique and lonely journey and the rough edges one picks up by grinding through it might have generalizable learnings. Fwiw I'm not leaving crypto or startups and I only feel better armed and more excited going in for round 2! what was Personae? Personae was founded to innovate on what it means to be pseudonymous online. We saw two trends: 'client-side' zero-knowledge proving becoming cheaper and faster verifiable reputation (i.e. that could fit in a zkSNARK) becoming more relevant online via crypto (and key-based cryptography) adoption We believed that the advancement of both of these trends would mean that soon 'porting' reputation seamlessly between public accounts would be possible and relevant to internet activity very soon. Of course, as is the case with most startup failures, our timing wasn't quite right. Verifiable reputation just didn’t become important as fast as we thought. While we still had conviction, we were taking a two pronged approach: improve the ‘client-side’ zk-proving stack build an explosive, retentive product using 1 In short, we succeeded massively at 1 and failed massively at 2. In startup terms, product/technology risk was never an issue; we had the capabilities to build anything. Distribution/market risk was huge though and we never made a product that stuck. Rather than linking to all of our past work, I'll just link our github (LINK) for now and share a few bullet points on what I'm most proud of: pioneering the idea of 'zk-identity' creating and testing a reputation-bearing pseudonym scheme pushing on the frontier of field-agnostic zk-proving implementing and productizing some of the first zk-based consumer apps on timing As it turns out, the future is really really hard to predict. A huge learning for me is that it's best to build momentum on things that are certain even if you're simultaneously making long-term bets that are speculative. It's hard to keep a team motivated and excited when there isn't real growth and user retention but it's also hard to build something visionary and creative without imagining a future that's different from what exists today. This inherent tension is something that I'm taking very seriously into the next venture. My ideal skeleton of a company needs to hit both criteria out of the park: short-term growth+retention+momentum long-term vision+creativity Lots of the failed or slowly dying crypto companies I see around me satisfy only one of the two. Those satisfying only 1 are doomed to rug their community as soon as the founders have made enough money. Those satisfying only 2 are doomed to build open-source 'art' forever. art vs. technology Have you ever stopped to question why it is that we have so much open-source 'technology' that doesn't have any path to users in crypto? It's an odd thing. Technology, by definition, should be useful (i.e. with usage). When did we decide that something didn't have to be useful to be 'tech'? I think it's worth taking a harder stance on calling all of this what it is: 'art'. This applies to crypto infra just as much as crypto application. As far as I'm concerned, zkVMs are art (whose patrons/consumers are VCs and other technologists). There's nothing wrong with making art! I consume a lot of art. This blog post is art. But it's not technology to me unless it’s useful. There are many groups of people building this sort of art with technology market valuations driving expectations. I think this is a huge miscalibration that's yet to cause a lot of heartbreak/disillusionment. In all honesty, Personae was in this bucket and our decision to pivot/change direction came from this realization. We made a lot of great art, but we hadn't signed up to be artists. If you're a fellow founder who's finding him/herself building art, it may be worthwhile to do some soul-searching/introspection on that fact. Is this where you wanted to be? Did you want to build a technology endeavor or an art studio? conviction vs. flexibility Being 'separate' from Personae for a few weeks has given me time/space to re-examine my priors about the industry and the future. Turns out, lots of beliefs I held as 'convictions' necessary to keep the vision strong were worth amending. Enumerating these could be a blog post of its own so I’ll save them for the time being, but I’d like to talk a bit about the conviction-flexibility tradeoff here. I suspect that minding the conviction-flexibility tradeoff is one of the most challenging psychological tasks for founders. It's absolutely necessary to be strong willed and put forth grand vision to create movement, but holding onto a belief when reality has shifted so as to nullify it is startup suicide. Self-serving as it is to say, I think that proficiency in minding this tradeoff can't be taught. There just isn't a pithy synthesis that can be read, understood, and immediately implemented successfully. This seems to be one of those things that you only learn the heuristics for by going through it and having rough times. onwards We're open sourcing all of our tech over the next couple months on github. Art as it may be, I hope the ideas become ones that others build on or at least that stoke other founders' imaginations. I think 'portable reputation' is an incredibly powerful idea and although I don't think it's worth building a company around again, I think it's worth considering how to utilize it as a bootstrapping mechanism for new products. I know I'll be looking for ways to bring these ideas into new things I build. Onwards.

ls

ls.mirror.xyz

0x2333

Oct 3 • 2 m read

GnosisDAO Surpasses $3 Million Invested to Tokenized Treasury Bills

GnosisDAO leveraged Centrifuge Prime to create a legal structure to invest in Tokenized Treasury bills through the Anemoy Liquid Treasury Fund (LTF). GnosisDAO’s decision to invest in RWAs is simple: they gain access to diversified yield sources, leverage a legal infrastructure created by Centrifuge to stay compliant, expand asset classes, and benefit from ongoing management and support from Centrifuge via Centrifuge Prime. Why Centrifuge? More and more onchain investors are turning to RWAs to capture high yields that are uncorrelated to crypto volatility. According to RWA.xyz, the tokenized RWA market currently sits at $11.5B and BCG projects it to grow to $16 trillion by 2030. Centrifuge was an early pioneer and visionary for real-world assets and has since developed standards and communities that have shaped the industry as we know it. Centrifuge has financed $640M in assets to date, and currently has a TVL of over $300M. Centrifuge is a creator of the ERC-7540 standard, Tokenized Asset Coalition and RWA Summit. Centrifuge offers the infrastructure and ecosystem to tokenize, manage, and invest in a diversified portfolio of real-world assets, with fully collateralized asset pools, investor legal recourse, and an asset-class agnostic protocol encompassing structured credit, real estate, US treasuries, carbon credits, consumer finance, and more. Beyond its onchain financial infrastructure, Centrifuge’s ecosystem includes a DAO supported by a diverse community of finance professionals and developers. Why Centrifuge Prime? Centrifuge Prime offers an all-in-one package of the functions and services needed to manage a diversified portfolio of real-world assets – one that is resilient, compliant, and easily scales to meet the needs of decentralized organizations. Purpose-built for DeFi native organizations, Centrifuge Prime provides: Resilient and compliant legal infrastructure Robust and capable tokenization platform Expertise in working with DAOs Institutional-grade assets and managers The GnosisDAO investment—part of a larger $10 million initial pledge—represents a key step forward in growing the GnosisDAO treasury through RWA yields. The first investment was into Anemoy LTF, a regulated, fully onchain, and actively managed fund for direct access to U.S. Treasury yield. This allocation is part of an initiative to help diversify GnosisDAO’s treasury management by incorporating RWAs. GnosisDAO uses a DAO-controlled Safe managed by Karpatkey, ensuring full transparency and security. DAO members get full transparent reporting into this portfolio through Centrifuge Prime, with the ability to view and monitor the Safe directly. These investments are facilitated by Centrifuge and backed by its robust legal structure, ensuring safe investment of RWAs that can integrate seamlessly into GnosisDAO’s existing treasury processes while supporting future developments within the DAO. Summary + Look Ahead In summary, there are many benefits from this collaboration, including: Diversified Yield Sources: The allocation provides GnosisDAO with additional and diversified sources of yield. Legal Infrastructure: Centrifuge worked closely with the GnosisDAO to create a legal framework that ensures security and compliance with RWA investments. Ongoing Management + Support: Because Centrifuge Prime provides dedicated access to the Centrifuge ecosystem and community, the team will work to provide ongoing support for the RWA portfolio allocated through Prime. Transparent Reporting: DAO members have full visibility into the portfolio through Centrifuge Prime and can directly monitor the Safe managed by Karpatkey. View the Gnosis investment dashboard on Centrifuge here. "We're proud to support GnosisDAO as they expand their portfolio to include RWAs," said Bhaji Illuminati, CMO, Centrifuge. "We see this initial investment as a small step in a long partnership. We're looking forward to deepening our relationship with Gnosis across their verticals, as we strive to grow these investments, scale RWA access for their entire ecosystem, and deliver greater investment opportunities for their community.”

centrifuge

centrifuge.mirror.xyz

0xf35A

Oct 2 • 1 m read

How To Make the Most of Your LGG Winnings

For 11 days, Lineans competed in the Linea Guild Games, entering the world of Unfettered Awakening, killing zombies, and doing their best to stay alive. On this journey, Lineans weren’t alone, accompanied by avatar companions representing the first four guilds: Efrogs, Foxy, FrogwifCat, and Linus. You may have even caught a live stream of our Linea team member and resident LGG legend, Christopher, taking on the Chapter IX Finale. The whole experience was made possible by Linea, Unfettered Ecosystem, Hyperplay, and Game7. Guilds and individuals competed for a total of $100,000 in ETH (to be distributed later this week) from Linea, $SOULS tokens from Unfettered Ecosystem, and various meme tokens supplied by each of the four guilds. By now, you’ve got a bag full of $FOXY, $CROAK, $LINUS, $WEF and $SOULS and if you're a degen you're likely figuring out how to get the best yield. We've got you covered! Here's some of Linea’s top defi dapps where you can exercise those tokens. Lynex, Powered by Clip Finance Users can earn attractive yields on $SOULS by providing liquidity through the SOULS/WETH gauge on Lynex. This gauge is expertly managed by Clip Finance, which simplifies the complexities of concentrated liquidity, allowing LPs to stake and earn passively with ease. Additionally, Lynex supports $LINUS, $FOXY, and $CROAK. Each token has its own dedicated gauge, allowing users to provide liquidity and earn Lynex rewards while benefiting from veLYNX voter engagement. This creates a sustainable and dynamic flywheel between users, protocols, and liquidity providers, fostering long-term growth and collaboration. Maestro The original TG trading bot allows users to swap memes without leaving the comfort of Telegram. Its automatic buy and sell options make trading easier by letting your strategy do the work for you, maximizing your returns while effectively managing risks and unexpected costs. For future meme investments, be sure to take advantage of its snipe capability, which gives degens the ability to buy memes faster than on other markets. Zerolend This lending and borrowing protocol has created unique meme markets exclusively on Linea, allowing users to deposit or borrow against their memes. They currently support $FOXY & $CROAK. \- Stay tuned as Linea’s entertainment multiverse continues to grow and connect with your fellow guild members on X and Discord.

linea

linea.mirror.xyz

0x1864

Oct 1 • 2 m read

Announcing the UF Grantee Delegation Program

In this post, we introduce the UF Grantee Delegation Program, which we are piloting with Atrium Academy and ScopeLift. This initiative will grant these organizations, which are current Uniswap Foundation grant recipients, with voting rights to empower them to actively engage in the Uniswap Protocol Governance process. At the core of the Uniswap Foundation’s Governance vertical is a dedication to building an effective delegate stakeholder group whose actions and votes will support the long term sustainability of Uniswap. In pursuit of this goal, we launched the GovSwap event series earlier this year to promote a culture of collaboration and collective advancement. These delegate gatherings, held in tandem with major conferences (ETHDenver, ETHCC and continuing in Bangkok at Uniday before DevCon), do more than just bring delegates together; they serve as catalysts for intellectual exchange and strategic alignment.While GovSwap has been successful, we aim to continue this momentum by further strengthening our delegate base. As we brainstormed strategies, we asked ourselves: What makes a good delegate? In this exercise, we have identified key traits that epitomize the ideal delegate: Deep awareness of Uniswap's pivotal role within the DeFi ecosystem The ability to independently analyze and evaluate governance proposals Commitment to the long-term vision and success of Uniswap Genuine interest and active participation in the governance process Since updating our grant allocation strategy to allow for larger and longer-term engagements, we have engaged with and funded many teams that exemplify these qualities. With that in mind, the Uniswap Foundation is pleased to launch the UF Grantee Delegation Program with initial participants Atrium Academy and ScopeLift. Under this program, these grantees will receive delegated voting rights for 500,000 UNI each, on renewable six-month terms. The Grantee Delegation Program is possible because the Uniswap Foundation holds voting rights to 2.5 million UNI, previously the minimum required to submit governance proposals. Following the recent reduction of this threshold to 1 million UNI, we are reallocating up to 1.5 million UNI to support active governance engagement by our grantees. About the Selected Grantees Our grants program has effectively identified individuals and teams like Scopelift and Atrium Academy, who embody our core ideals and can help to raise the bar for all delegates. Scopelift has been enhancing Governance through research and system upgrades, while Atrium Academy operates the Uniswap Hook Incubator, teaching hundreds of developers globally to build v4 hooks at no cost. Their consistent achievements underline their capacity and readiness for expanded roles within our ecosystem. "Atrium is honored to be chosen as a delegate," states Bhaumik Patel, co-founder of Atrium Academy. "We’re eager to participate actively in proposals and advance initiatives that will grow Uniswap and the broader DeFi ecosystem." Echoing this commitment, Ben DiFrancesco, founder of ScopeLift, remarks, “ScopeLift is proud to have collaborated with the Uniswap community in various capacities over the years, and it's truly rewarding to deepen our involvement through this delegation. We are excited to contribute our engineering expertise to the Governance process and are dedicated to advancing Uniswap's role as a pioneer in decentralization and transparency.” Accountability Grantee delegates will be required to adhere to the Delegate Code of Conduct; they will also abstain from voting on any proposals in which the UF asks for additional funding. Each grantee has signed a contract that ensures the UF cannot otherwise influence how they vote. This contract also stipulates conditions under which the UF can recall these votes, which include inactivity (missing 3 consecutive votes). Advancing Governance Together As we make progress in Uniswap Protocol Governance, this initiative is part of a larger narrative that values collaboration, strategic innovation, and community empowerment. Scopelift and Atrium’s delegations are a pilot; as they prove to be successful we hope to roll out delegation opportunities across our network of grantees. If you are a grantee and are interested in becoming a delegate, please let us know! Each step we take is about building a resilient, informed, and proactive community that thrives on collective success and shared visions for the future. Congratulations to Atrium Academy and ScopeLift for being on this journey with us.

uniswapfoundation

uniswapfoundation.mirror.xyz

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