Artifact News is shutting down

Famed Instagram founder Kevin Systrom's attempt at building an AI-curated news app called Artifact has failed - the company is shutting down.

artifact.news

The startup came to realize that the market opportunity wasn't big enough to warrant continued investment.

Most founders who landed a hit like Kevin did with Instagram don't dare to enter "the arena" a second time. Not only because it's hard but ultimately because the chances of succeeding are small. Hat tip to him for still being hungry and willing to risk things.

Popular NOSTR client Damus financially unsustainable

End of last year developer William Casarin noted that they would likely have to stop developing NOSTR's most popular client - Damus - for lack of a sustainable funding or revenue model.

This screenshot is in fact taken from Damus

This goes to show how early we still are in developing sustainable revenue models for app-layer infrastructure. While a lot of innovation has happened on the protocol layer since Ethereum's inception, apps have been widely ignored.

Farcaster introduces Frames

The web3 social protocol Farcaster introduces a new feature called "Frames". A frame is a micro-app that can be embedded into posts, allowing users to interact with them directly from their feed.

There appears to be a lot of hype around it. Jesse Walden, founder of Variant Fund, calls them the biggest unlock in composability crypto has seen to date.

While I feel this statement is vastly exaggerated, frames are a good idea and will make Farcaster feeds more interesting. Kudos to the team.

The Lens universe is growing

Lens, another web3 social protocol, developed by the team behind lending protocol Aave, continues to show growth.

According to founder Stani, a diverse range of apps is emerging:

How these individual apps are performing is unclear. So far, I have yet to meet someone who's actually using a Lens-based app.

Everybody's talking about Points

Points are the latest trend in an industry that struggles for mainstream adoption. Points are effectively off-chain incentive programs, rewarding people for using an app. Famously introduced by Friend Tech last year, they have become a popular mechanism among wallets and other apps.

Here's an entire podcast episode on points. Viewers discretion advised.

0xDesigner releases their favorite dApps of 2023

0xDesigner has become a popular twitter account for sharing cool ideas for web3 apps. Recently, they released their top 10 apps on Ethereum in 2023.

Check them out here.

Friend Tech announces v2

Friend Tech was 2023's most successful web3 social app, measured by almost any metric. But alas, they faded into irrelevance as quickly as they rose to fame.

Now, the team is preparing for the launch of Friend Tech v2. Here's what we know:

What do you think this means? Let me know in the comments 🤡

Paypal Mafia launches Slack Competitor

Famed builder, investor and podcaster David Sacks who was involved in the early days of Paypal has decided to launch a Slack competitor called Glue.

I would agree that Slack's days are numbered. Since its acquisition by Salesforce a couple of years ago product innovation at slack has stalled. In a recent episode of the All in Pod, Sacks talks about his thinking behind launching Glue.

The worst off though aren't companies stuck in Slack hell, it's really communities who started to use Slack back when they had a decent free plan.

Warner Music and Polygon Labs kickoff accelerator

Warner Music Group and Polygon Labs Announce Recipients of the Inaugural Web3 Music Accelerator Program to Power the Next Great Evolution of the Music Industry through Blockchain Technology.

The two recipients are MITH and Muus Collective. Especially notable here is MITH, as it's a web3 fan engagement plaform.

We wish them good luck 🍀

Coinbase launches onchain attestations

Onchain verification leverages the Ethereum Attestation Service to enable the issuance of Coinbase-verified, onchain attestations. Initially, you’ll verify that you have a valid Coinbase trading account and your country of residence (optional). These verifications can be tied to any self-custodial Ethereum (EVM) wallet address and are non-transferrable to other addresses.

This could come in handy for application developers. More info here.

Gitcoin launches new on-chain stamp for sybil-restistance

The builders behind the successful quadratic funding platform Gitcoin have released a new version of their Gitcoin Passport service called the Sybil Defense Passport ETH Stamp. The new onchain credential harnesses onchain transaction history combined with Gitcoin's advanced predictive model to verify the unique humanity of each Ethereum account.

More info here.

Próspera launches Network State in Honduras

Neocolonialism has a new face: Próspera. According to Wikpedia, Próspera is a semi-autonomous city established under Honduran ZEDE laws, inspired by the concept of charter cities and cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai. Through low taxes, privatized government, social services, and self-regulation, the city hopes to drive economic development and innovation that the city argues would not occur under normal government frameworks.

Social services such as health and education are planned to be privatized and financed from taxes, fees, and the sale of land to new residents and investors. Individuals can apply for "e-residency", which allows them to register businesses in Próspera and benefit from the local tax and regulatory structure.

Residents must sign the city's social contract and pay an annual fee to live in Próspera, which is $260 for Hondurans and $1,300 for foreigners.

The project is managed by Honduras Próspera Inc. The company is financed by several investors and venture capital firms, including Balaji Srinivasan, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen.

What are your thoughts on this?

DAO treasuries are at an all-time high

According to industry website deepdao.io treasuries have hit an all-time high since beginning of 2024.

Tracking started in December 2020

Are DAOs back? Well... maybe not in the way we all hoped for. In a recent article on Wired journalist Julia Ebner published a controversial opinion piece on DAOs, calling them a dangerous, unregulated phenomeon for right-wing extremists.

Oopsies. Read a great counter statement by OG crypto lawyer Preston Byrne.

The end

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