Lightspeed: Web3/Crypto/Metaverse Ecosystem Guide
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Lightspeed: Web3/Crypto/Metaverse Ecosystem Guide
At Lightspeed, we believe the next cycle will bring mainstream adoption of blockchain as both consumers and enterprises embrace the web3 framework.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Written by: Mercedes Bent,Lightspeed Venture Partners
Translated by: AlexZ, TechFlow
You've heard a lot about crypto and are wondering where to start. Or, if you're like us, you've lived through the days, nights, weekends, and holidays at this pace. The only constant in the crypto community is its speed of change.
At Lightspeed, we've been selectively investing in the space since March 2013 (our first investment was in Ripple, followed a year later by Blockchain). Over the past eight years, our pace of investment in crypto infrastructure and real-world applications has accelerated—by 2021, we had invested nearly $500 million across 40 blockchain/web3 deals (with several more transactions pending announcement). This year's investments include FTX, Solana, Terra, Alchemy, Parallel Finance, LedgerX, Blockchain.com, and others.
At Lightspeed, we believe the next cycle will bring mainstream adoption of blockchain as both consumers and enterprises embrace web3 frameworks. As we look ahead to 2022, we’ve developed strong theses across multiple domains and are excited to closely follow:
1) As investors in infrastructure software for over two decades, we’re also excited about the rise of web3 infrastructure, including new developer platforms, security, and insurance providers. Ethereum scalability via L2s is one such core infrastructure area, and we're thrilled to actively invest here.
2) We believe the next generation of NFTs will be dominated by utility and gaming NFTs that deliver functional value—NFTs that give something valuable back, such as tokens or revenue. This could include anything from character NFTs in online games (avatars) that let you earn tokens while playing, to digital billboards generating daily ad revenue, to income-generating real estate asset NFTs.
3) We believe the next billion users will join over the next five years, with some of the best use cases being gaming and social networks. For this reason, we’ve invested in web2 over the past decade—including Epic Games, Snap, Sharechat, and Splitgate. In web3, gaming and social may look very different in many ways.
4) We believe web3 is a cultural and social phenomenon, and applications in music, art, education, sports, influencers, and other areas are critical to its mass adoption.
Given our interest in the space, we’d like to share our favorite resources and what we’ve been reading over the past few weeks. As with any community, understanding cultural ties, language, builders, and supporters is essential to fully immersing yourself and grasping the ecosystem. We hope you enjoy it. We’ll continue updating this every few months, so please reach out to share any groundbreaking resources you think should be added.
— The Lightspeed Team
Table of Contents
Why Blockchain Matters?
By Mercedes Bent: A Lightspeed VC advises companies to nail down a blockchain strategy within the next 2 years (PDF)
Basics: Key Areas to Understand
Blockchain
By Coinbase: What is a Blockchain
By Builtin: Blockchain Technology Defined
Crypto
By Kate Ashford, John Schmidt at Forbes: What is Cryptocurrency
By Andrey-Sergeenkov at Coindesk: What is Cryptocurrency
By Cointelegraph: What is Cryptocurrency
DAOs
By Brian Fakhoury at UnderscoreVC: The Future is DAO
By Cathy Hackl: What Are DAOs And Why You Should Pay Attention
By Taylor Locke at CNBC: What are DAOs
By Sonal Chokshi, Zoran Basich, Guy Wuollet: DAOs, a Cannon
By Cooper Turley: DAO Landscape
By Nichanan Kesonpat: Organization Legos: The State of DAO Tooling
Glossary
By CoinMarketCap: Crypto Glossary
By Punk6529: A Guide to NFT Twitter Terminology
Metaverse
By Matthew Ball: “The Metaverse Primer”
By Mercedes Bent: Why this Time Around, the Metaverse is Different
By Sam Blumenthal: Synthetic Media, Solving the Personalization & Scale Paradox
By Ernest Cline: Ready Player One
By Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash
Web3
By Gavin Wood: Why We Need Web 3.0
By Chris Dixon: Why Web3 Matters
L1 Ecosystems
Bitcoin Investopedia Overview + White Paper
Ethereum Introduction + White Paper
Binance Introduction + White Paper
Solana Not Boring: Solana Summer + White Paper
Terra By Natalie Luu: Interview with Do Kwon + Terra ecosystem by Mario at The Generalist + Terra Docs + White Paper
Cardano Introduction
Avalanche White Paper
Polkadot Introduction + White Paper
Industry Applications
Gaming
By Amy Wu on Coinbase Podcast: Crypto Gaming
By Paul V at Pantera: Blockchain Gaming: Play to Earn
By Jon Russell at The Ken: Axie Infinity’s all work, all play model to rewrite gig work in SE Asia
By Tom Shaughnessy and Bored Elon Musk: Blockchain Gaming + BoredElon Blockchain Gaming Twitter List
By Bitkraft: Gaming: A Potential Driver of Blockchain Adoption
By Amy Wu on Bankless: Web3 Gaming 101
DeFi
By Natalie Luu: DeFi-ing the rules of traditional finance
By Sid Coelho-Prabhu at Coinbase: A Beginner’s Guide to Decentralized Finance
Art / NFTs
By The Daily Ape: NFT Organized
Sports
By Pet Berisha: Sporting Crypto
Music
By Werner Vermaak: What Is Crypto Music and How Is It Revolutionizing the Music Industry?
By Samantha Hissong: A Field Guide to Music’s Potential Crypto Boom
By Debbie Chia: Music Crypto Projects List 2022
By 3LAU: Building the Future of Music On Chain
Entertainment
By Daniel Kuhn: What Happens to a Social Token When Its Creator Dies?
By Mercedes Bent: Creator coins & the future of income
Educational Technology
By Kassen Qian: DAOs as University Replacements
By Mercedes Bent: Web3, Crypto, & Learning
By Jomayra Herrera: Learning, earning, and web3 — why I’m jumping in
Regions
Asia: India & SEA — By Hemant Mohapatra: Lightspeed’s India & SEA Crypto Market Map
Asia: China By BBC: China declares all cryptocurrency transactions illegal
Europe By Yahoo — DeFi makes Western Europe the world’s largest ‘crypto economy’
Africa By Africa’s Grassroots Cryptocurrency Adoption and Baobob
LATAM By Contxto: Top 13 Latin American Crypto
Lightspeed: Our Favorite DAO + NFT Communities
Amy: BAYC and FingerprintsDAO — both are amazing communities
Mercedes: My two favorite projects are Crypto Coven and Mad Realities. Both are female-led communities focused on storytelling and entertainment. Crypto Coven’s community is designed around witches. Here’s a great article about how they built it. I’m a member and NFT holder of both!
Nicole — VeeFriends: a fascinating example of a creator fusing his community’s values with NFTs. I also love Autograph, which is bringing NFTs to the masses through celebrities, starting with sports.
Other Concepts + Deep Dives
By The Deep End: The Pseudonymous Meritocracy with Bored Elon Musk
By The Hub: What is the pseudonymous economy? Balaji Srinivasan
By Delphi Digital: Introducing Lockdrop + LBA: A Novel Token Launch Mechanism
By Defi Vader: the Era of Guilds
By Richard Goldman: Blockchain Gaming Guilds, what they are, and why they matter
By Fortune: Beijing and Washington grapple with crypto in their own unique fashion
By Ravi Mhatre on Bloomberg: The Future of Crypto Regulation
By Leeor Shimron: Bitcoin is the Separation of Money and State
By Ephrat Livni: Can Crypto Go Green?
By Sam Lessin: Facebook’s Decade-Old Missteps Should Be a Lesson for Web3
Players
Accelerators
Crypto Education Platforms
Binance Academy https://academy.binance.com/en
Parethean https://www.parthean.com/
Buildspace https://buildspace.so/
Anthony Pompliano’s Crypto Course https://www.pompscryptocourse.com/
Ledger Academy https://www.ledger.com/academy
Republic Realm Academy https://www.republicrealm.com/realm-academy
Learning DAOs
Podcasts
By Sam Bankman-Fried + Matt Levine on Bloomberg: How the Crypto Market Really Works
Real-Time News
Top Crypto Newsletters On Substack
Telegram Channels
Notable Twitter Influencers
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