Writing & Ideas – Variant

Featured Writing

Memecoins as the New GTM Strategy

Li Jin

Requests for Startups for the Farcaster Ecosystem

Variant Team

Crypto as the Next Iteration of the Attention Economy

Li Jin

DeFi Opportunities on High-Performance Chains

Derek Walkush

Headless Marketplaces: Go Where the Wallets Are

Jesse Walden

Consumer

Memecoins as the New GTM Strategy

Li Jin

Dissecting the Points Meta: Best Practices for User Loyalty

Li Jin + others

Headless Marketplaces: Go Where the Wallets Are

Jesse Walden

Social

New Opportunities in the Farcaster Stack

Alana Levin

Multi-Hit Wonders: Embracing Apps With Short Shelf Life

Li Jin

Love vs. Fame: A Framework for Social Applications

Li Jin

Investments

Investing in Gevulot: A Performant Market for Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Jesse Walden + others

Doubling Down on Botto: Because Everyone’s a Critic

Caleb Shough

Investing in Blockaid: Protecting Users Onchain

Jesse Walden + others

Variant Founder Fellowship

Uniswap Founder Hayden Adams: Product vs Protocol

Variant Team

DeFi Infra VFF Article

07.27.23

Applying Lessons from Web2 to Unlock Web3 Product Growth: Casey Winters

Variant Team

Consumer Crypto VFF Web3 Video

08.02.23

What Brand Marketing Can and Can’t Do in Web3: Ryan Wyatt

Variant Team

Crypto VFF Web3 Article Video

09.05.23

Rethinking Decentralized Trust: EigenLayer’s Sreeram Kannan

Variant Team

Crypto Infra VFF Web3 Article Video

08.29.23

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Requests for Startups for the Farcaster Ecosystem

Variant Team

Crypto DeFi Marketplaces Web3 Web3 Social Article

04.01.24

Crypto as the Next Iteration of the Attention Economy

Li Jin

Consumer Crypto NFTs Web3 Article

03.29.24

Memecoins as the New GTM Strategy

Li Jin

Consumer Crypto GTM Web3 Article

03.26.24

DeFi Opportunities on High-Performance Chains

Derek Walkush

Crypto DeFi Web3 Article

03.08.24

ETHDenver Conversation: Why Sufficient Decentralization Is No Longer Sufficient

Jesse Walden + others

Jake Chervinsky + others

Variant Team + others

Crypto Web3 Article Video

03.05.24

Crypto Goes on Offense in the Courts

Jake Chervinsky + others

Amanda Tuminelli

Crypto Legal Regulation Web3 Article

02.26.24

Dissecting the Points Meta: Best Practices for User Loyalty

Li Jin + others

Jake Chervinsky + others

Consumer Crypto Web3 Article

02.14.24

New Opportunities in the Farcaster Stack

Alana Levin

Crypto Infra Web3 Web3 Social Article

02.07.24

Headless Marketplaces: Go Where the Wallets Are

Jesse Walden

Consumer Crypto Web3 Article

01.29.24

Investing in Gevulot: A Performant Market for Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Jesse Walden + others

Alana Levin + others

Crypto Investments Web3 Article

01.29.24

Multi-Hit Wonders: Embracing Apps With Short Shelf Life

Li Jin

Consumer Crypto Web3 Web3 Social Article

01.25.24

Onchain Namespaces: An Emerging Crypto Business Model

Mason Nystrom

Consumer Crypto Web3 Article

01.25.24

Requests for Startups: Crypto Projects We’d Like to See in 2024

Geoff Hamilton + others

Alana Levin + others

Derek Walkush + others

Mason Nystrom + others

Jack Gorman + others

Consumer Crypto DeFi Developers Infra Marketplaces Article

01.05.24

Building Through the Crypto Cycle: A Variant/USV Portfolio Survey on Web3 Hiring and Compensation

Tom Dils + others

Calder Zwerling + others

Matt Cynamon

Crypto Developers Variant Network Web3 Article

12.21.23

Lessons on Points Programs for Crypto Apps

Li Jin

Consumer Crypto Web3 Article

12.19.23

Building in the Dark: Mapping the Current Crypto Privacy Landscape

Derek Walkush

Crypto Infra Web3 Article

12.14.23

New Signs of Life in the Ethereum & L2 NFT Ecosystem

Jack Gorman

Crypto NFTs Web3 Article

12.08.23

Crypto AI Agents: The First-Class Citizens of Onchain Economies

Mason Nystrom

AI Crypto Web3 Article

12.05.23

What Onchain Apps Enable

Alana Levin

Consumer Crypto Infra Web3 Article

12.01.23

Progressive Ownership: A Model for Application Tokens

Li Jin + others

Jesse Walden + others

Consumer Crypto Token Design Web3 Article

11.14.23

Love vs. Fame: A Framework for Social Applications

Li Jin

Consumer Crypto Social Media Web3 Web3 Social Article

11.10.23

NFTs and the Post-Mint Problem

Mason Nystrom

Crypto NFTs Web3 Thread

11.09.23

The Next Big Thing in Stablecoins

Geoff Hamilton

Crypto DeFi Web3 Article Video

11.07.23

Embracing Speculation as a Go-To-Market Approach in DeFi

Derek Walkush

Crypto DeFi Web3 Web3 Social Article

10.11.23

Why Bringing Real-World Assets Onchain Is Important

Geoff Hamilton

Crypto DeFi Article

09.29.23

How DEXs Are Demonstrating Their Resilience

Jack Gorman

Crypto DeFi Article

08.01.23

Building a Truly Scalable Lending Protocol: Morpho at EthCC

Geoff Hamilton

Crypto DeFi Web3 Article

07.31.23

Why UniswapX Will Be Additive to the Uniswap Protocol

Jack Gorman + others

Derek Walkush + others

Crypto DeFi Web3 Thread

07.25.23

DePIN and DeREN: Toward a Better Classification of Decentralized Infrastructure Networks

Mason Nystrom

Crypto Infra Web3 Article

07.20.23

‘This Protocol Is Brought to You By’: An Onchain Model for Web3 Advertising

Mason Nystrom

Consumer Crypto NFTs Web3 Article

06.30.23

App-Specific Rollups: A Trade-Off Between Connectivity and Control

Alana Levin

Crypto Infra Web3 Article

06.30.23

Overcoming ‘Token Debt’

Mason Nystrom

Crypto Token Design Web3 Article

06.15.23

SocialFi: A Blank Canvas for Web3 Social Apps

Mason Nystrom

Crypto Frameworks/Theses NFTs Social Media Web3 Web3 Social Article

05.24.23

Building Base: Coinbase Engineer Jesse Pollak on Ecosystem Growth

Medha Kothari

Crypto DeFi Developers Variant Network Article

05.15.23

Centralized Dapps Through Tokenized Rebates: A Modest Proposal

Caleb Shough

Consumer Crypto DeFi Token Design Article

05.08.23

The Interplay Between AI Abundance + Crypto Scarcity

Jesse Walden

AI Art Crypto Frameworks/Theses NFTs Web3 Article

04.25.23

Libraries vs. Networks

Jesse Walden

Crypto Frameworks/Theses Web3 Article

04.06.23

Building Psychological Attachment — Not Just Ownership — Into Web3

Li Jin

Consumer Crypto Frameworks/Theses Token Design Web3 Article

04.04.23

The NFT MEV Landscape

Alana Levin

Crypto Infra NFTs Web3 Article

03.31.23

Investing in Turnkey: Removing Barriers for Crypto Developers

Spencer Noon + others

Medha Kothari + others

Consumer Crypto DeFi Investments Web3 Article

03.21.23

About the Variant Network

Jesse Walden + others

Alli Pope + others

Crypto News & Updates Variant Network Web3 Article

03.20.23

Whole Crypto Catalog: Progressive Decentralization

Jesse Walden + others

Medha Kothari + others

Alana Levin + others

Nina Suthers + others

Crypto Web3 Article

02.03.23

The Next Frontier in Cryptoeconomic Business Models

Mason Nystrom

Crypto Web3 Article

02.01.23

Productive Fees: Valuable Protocols / Extractive Fees: Valuable Companies

Jesse Walden

Crypto Web3 Article

01.30.23

More Than Semantics: “Crypto” vs. “Web3” Is About What Will Be Decentralized

Jesse Walden

Crypto Web3 Article

01.30.23

Canto: A Layer-1 Incentive Experiment

Jesse Walden + others

Spencer Noon + others

Derek Walkush + others

Crypto DeFi Web3 Article

01.19.23

Progressive Decentralization for Media

Li Jin

Crypto Social Media Web3 Thread

01.16.23

Investing in DIMO: The User-Owned Mobility Network

Li Jin + others

Mason Nystrom + others

Jesse Walden + others

Consumer Crypto Investments Web3 Article

12.12.22

Investing in Shibuya: Decentralized Creativity

Li Jin

Crypto Investments NFTs Web3 Article

12.08.22

The Long View: Web3 and User Ownership

Li Jin + others

Jesse Walden + others

Crypto Token Design Web3 Article

12.02.22

A Theory of Justice for Web3

Li Jin + others

Katie Parrott

Crypto DAOs NFTs Social Media Web3 Article

05.10.22

The Ownership Economy: Crypto & The Next Frontier of Software

Jesse Walden + others

Variant Team

Crypto Article

07.14.20

Crypto’s Business Model Is Familiar. What Isn’t Is Who Benefits

Jesse Walden

Crypto Article

04.10.20

Narrative Economics

Jesse Walden

Crypto Article

04.07.20

Incomplete Contracts (and Scaling Crypto)

Jesse Walden

Crypto Article

08.04.19

Why Crypto Community Building Matters

Spencer Noon

Crypto

09.15.18

a16z Podcast: Jesse Walden on Crypto and the Evolution of Open Source

Jesse Walden + others

Denis Nazarov

Devon Zuegel

Crypto Podcast

08.21.18

Crypto Community Building Playbook

Spencer Noon

Crypto

07.19.18