Writing & Ideas – Variant

Featured Writing

Progressive Ownership: A Model for Application Tokens

Li Jin

Jesse Walden

NFTs and the Post-Mint Problem

Mason Nystrom

Love vs. Fame: A Framework for Social Applications

Li Jin

The Next Big Thing in Stablecoins

Geoff Hamilton

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

Derek Walkush

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

Alana Levin

DeFi

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

Derek Walkush

Why Bringing Real-World Assets Onchain Is Important

Geoff Hamilton

How DEXs Are Demonstrating Their Resilience

Jack Gorman

Web3 Social

Variant Team Chat: Speculation as Growth Strategy for Social Apps

Li Jin + others

Web3 Social Networks: The Case For and Against Financialized Approaches

Li Jin

SocialFi: A Blank Canvas for Web3 Social Apps

Mason Nystrom

Investments

Modulus: Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning for Decentralized Protocols

Jesse Walden + others

Doubling Down on Botto: Because Everyone’s a Critic

Caleb Shough

Blockaid: Protecting Users Onchain

Jesse Walden + others

Filter:

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

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

DIMO: The User-Owned Mobility Network

Li Jin + others

Mason Nystrom + others

Jesse Walden + others

Consumer Crypto Investments Web3 Article

12.12.22

Shibuya and 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