Are you ready to $JAMM?
The premium for decentralized networks & the launch of $JAMM
JammSession is a newsletter about the latest trends and stories of crypto & gaming. Each week, I jam on the latest trends and happenings of how the story of mainstream adoption is unfolding.
When I was working on Flow at Dapper Labs, one of the core tasks I had early on was figuring out how to position it in an industry full of noise. While we were confident in our technical offering, it was hard to show why users or developers had to care.
We boiled it down to 3 key points:
Flow was a blockchain for everyone - for brands and individuals alike. This matched to the multi-node architecture of Flow (anyone can run a less powerful node to help decentralize the network while larger brands can run more powerful nodes to help bring scale to the network)
Flow is the blockchain for open worlds - “Open worlds” was a nod at the gaming industry and what the world that Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games have spawned.
Flow is built for users first - Instead of building for developers first, Dapper built applications for users: this would draw in developers to build on top of those applications and showcase the benefits of composability & high throughput.
This leads me to the main topic that I want to cover in this week’s Jamm Session. I don’t think many people in the community realize what’s happening outside of Ethereum and acknowledging some of the potential benefits that these new blockchains might offer. It’s easy to dismiss them as another layer-one after seeing the tragedies of other supernode layer-1 blockchains.
Since the “CryptoKitties moment” in 2017, there was a new wave of smart contract blockchains that tried to solve for the scalability trilemma.
The Search for the “Killer Application”
These smart contract blockchains have now been live for the past few months and are patiently waiting to play their first hand and try to attract their “flagship applications.” Last week, there was some news that FTX (one of the fastest-growing centralized exchanges) is building Serum, a non-custodial exchange, on top of Solana.
This is significant for several reasons. First, if FTX can pull off what Binance couldn’t (successfully gain market share with a DEX), then developers would want to build into the liquidity that’s on FTX.
This also comes at a time when many successful projects are looking for a home like Reddit and Audius. Reddit just finished the Reddit Scaling Bake-Off last week with 20 submissions. Audius, which is currently built on POA (xDAI), is the horse to watch. If Audius stays on PoA on layer-two, then you will have many projects follow a similar path. Projects don’t want to be first movers in many cases with unproven technology.
The premium for decentralization
The Ethereum community needs to realize that there is a demand for cheaper fees, higher throughput, and a lesser degree of decentralization. And that’s OK. Similarly to the food that they eat, or the clothes that they buy, consumers can be more price-sensitive and would value decentralization less.
With the rising fees on Ethereum (not to mention its price), it’s worth finally asking the question if users are willing to pay a premium for more decentralized networks. The answer appears to be yes, but it will be fascinating if other smart contract blockchains start to attract mass consumer experiences.
Developers will have to ask themselves whether they would instead want to create high average t/x size, low throughput applications, and optimize for average revenue per user or rather high throughput and low average t/x size.
Are you ready to $JAMM?
While talking to many folks who’ve launched community currencies in the past few months (like $KARMA and $ALEX), the number of templates to use these currencies have evolved (and even increasing rapidly).
Right now, there are products like Abridged’s bot to gain access to a telegram group/discord channel if you hold a token, and there will soon be more templates that enable community currencies to be used effectively.
I wanted to dive in with the Jamm Session readers with the launch of $JAMM to see how we can use a community currency to build a sustainable monetization platform that’s independent of platforms.
Why $JAMM?
I’ve always loved taking Improv classes because it forces you to be optimistic about the outcome. The “Yes and” game reminds me of crypto. Collectively, we’re building our lego pieces and are trying to find exciting ways to combine them playfully. I’m going to do something similar with $JAMM. Each month, I’ll add a new element to $JAMM to make it more useful using existing templates.
The ultimate goal of $JAMM is to curate a group of individuals who want to try out the weird and whacky things in crypto. This newsletter was always highlighting how creators can use crypto to monetize, and now we must dogfood ourselves to lead others into the new passion economy.
What can I use $JAMM for?
On the first Sunday of every month, I’ll be launching a new component of $JAMM. Here are some things that I’m planning:
Exclusive access to a Telegram Channel to talk about new $JAMM initiatives (You can join this today with 1000 $JAMM - Click here to join and follow the instructions)
Exclusive access to new crypto products that partner with Jamm Session (think Product Hunt exclusively for $JAMMers)
Exclusive $JAMM Session newsletter that does product deep dives with a subscription payable in $JAMM
Programmable $JAMM Swag!
Will your newsletter change?
While the content will always focus on how crypto will enter the mainstream, I’m thinking of ways to monetize the newsletter with $JAMM gradually. At some point, the content will only be accessible with $JAMM. But don’t worry, there will be ways to earn $JAMM.
JAMMing on Rewards
Each week, there will be new ways to earn rewards:
Liquidity JAMMing (supplying liquidity on Unsiwap)
Sharing Jamm Session posts on Twitter
Delegating to my address for governance votes
While rewards aren’t live yet, stay tuned for more details on this.