12/21/2021
Blockchain
The Web3/Crypto/Metaverse Ecosystem Guide — From the Minds of Lightspeed
Here’s how to get up to speed in web3/crypto/metaverse
You’ve been hearing a lot about crypto and are wondering where to get started. Or maybe if you’re like us, you’ve spent your days, evenings, weekends and holidays getting up to speed. The crypto community is one where the only constant is the pace at which it changes.
We know this firsthand. Here at Lightspeed, we have been selectively investing in the space since March 2013 (we made our first investment in Ripple, then Blockchain a year later). Over the last 8 years, our pace of investing in fundamental crypto infrastructure and real applications of the technology has increased with 2021 seeing us invest nearly $500M to date across 40 blockchain/web3 deals (with a few more to be announced). Investments this year have included FTX, Solana, Terra, Alchemy, Parallel Finance, LedgerX, Blockchain.com and more.
At Lightspeed, we believe the next cycle will bring mainstream adoption of blockchain as companies across consumer and enterprise adopt a web3 framework. As we look ahead to 2022, there are a number of areas we’ve developed strong theses in and are excited to closely follow:
- As infrastructure software investors for the past 20+ years, we are also excited about the rise of web3 infrastructure, including new developer platforms, security, and insurance providers. Ethereum scalability is one of these core infrastructure areas with the rise of L2s, and we are excited to actively invest in this space.
- We believe that the next generation of NFTs will be dominated by utility and gaming NFTs that provide functional value, NFTs that return something of value like tokens or revenue. This could include anything from character NFTs for online games (avatars) that let you earn tokens when you play with them to the NFT of a digital billboard that produces daily ad revenue to the NFT of a revenue-generating real estate asset.
- We believe the next billion users will be onboarded in the next 5 years, and some of the best use cases are in gaming and social networks. To that end, we have invested in both in web2 for the last decade–Epic Games, Snap, Sharechat, and Splitgate to name a few. Gaming and social will likely look different in many ways in Web3.
- We believe that web3 is a cultural and social phenomenon and applications in music, art, learning, sports, influencers and other areas will be crucial to its mass adoption.
Given our interest in the space, we wanted to share our favorite resources and what we’ve been reading the past few weeks. And as with any community, understanding the cultural ties, language, builders and supporters is vital to fully immersing and understanding the community. We hope you’ll enjoy it. We’ll continue to update this every few months so please reach out to us to share any of your favorite seminal resources that should be added.
— Team Lightspeed
Context
Why This is Important
- By Mercedes Bent: A Lightspeed VC advises companies to nail down a blockchain strategy within the next 2 years (PDF)
The Basics: Areas to Understand
Blockchain
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
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 Packy — Great Online Game
- By Ernest Cline: Ready Player One
- By Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash
Web3
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
Application in Sectors
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
Sports
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
- By Crypto, Culture, Society
Edtech
- 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
Geographies
- Asia: India & SEA — By Hemant Mohapatra: Lightspeed’s India & SEA Crypto Market Map
- Asia: China By BBC: China declares all crypto-currency transactions illegal
- Europe By Yahoo — DeFi makes Western Europe the world’s largest ‘crypto economy’
- Africa By Africa’s Grassroorts 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 with a focus 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 who is bringing NFTs to the masses through celebrities, starting with sports.
Additional Concepts + Deep Dives
- Bitcoin maximalist
- Composability
- Proof of Competence Proposal
- 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 Schools
- 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
LearningDAOs
Podcasts
- By Sam Bankman-Fried + Matt Levine on Bloomberg: How the Crypto Market Really Works
- The Pomp Podcast
- Bankless
- Delphi Digital
- Coinbase: Around the Block
- Web3 Breakdowns
Newsletters
Telegram Channels
Fave Twitter Handles
- @vitalikbuterin
- @punk6529
- @amytongwu
- @sbf_ftx
- @meltem
- @cz_binance
- @balajis
- @CryptoWendyO
- @zhusu
- @cdixon
- @jchervinsky
- @yesladypheOnix
- @aeyakovenko
- @gaby_goldberg
- @OurNetwork__
- @ballmatthew
- @CathyHackl
- @Cooopahtroopa
- @crystalrose
NFT Artists
- https://twitter.com/PopWonderNFT
- https://twitter.com/XCOPYART
- https://mobile.twitter.com/nftsarabaumann
- https://twitter.com/gengeomergence
- https://twitter.com/kGolid
- https://twitter.com/Maliha_z_Art
- https://twitter.com/dmitricherniak
- https://twitter.com/lisacmayer
Crypto Institutional Investors (alphabetical)
- 3AC
- A16z
- Alameda Research (also market maker)
- Animoca Brands
- Binance Labs
- Blockchain Capital
- Blocktower
- Coinbase Ventures
- DCG
- Delphi Digital
- Dragonfly
- Electric Capital
- Framework
- GoldenTree
- Hypersphere
- Jump Capital (also market maker)
- Kingsway Capital
- Lightspeed
- Multicoin
- Pantera
- Paradigm
- Parafi
- Polychain
- Redpoint
- Ribbit
- Sequoia
- Standard Crypto
Lawyers
- Jeff Engerman at Gunderson
- Andy Albertson at Fenwick
- Derek Colla at Cooley
Roles
- By Eureka: How to Become a Blockchain Developer
- By Simplilearn: How to Become a Blockchain Developer
- By Jason Shah: Leaving Tech for Crypto — Part II: How to Move into Web3
Conferences
- Breakpoint Solana
- NFT NYC
- Art Basel
- Mainnet
- Moonclave
- ETHDenver
- Devcon
Market Maps
— Mercedes Bent, Amy Wu, Natalie Luu, Nicole Quinn, Ravi Mhatre, Shan Shan
About Mercedes: Mercedes is an investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners. If you enjoyed this, follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn where she’s writing about web3’s impact on pop culture, learning, and the future of income. If you’re a founder building in this space, feel free to drop a line: mbent@lsvp.com
About Lightspeed: Lightspeed is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise, Consumer, and Health sectors. Since 2000, Lightspeed has backed entrepreneurs and helped build companies of tomorrow, including Snap, Affirm, AppDynamics, FTX, Solana, Epic Games, and Cameo. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage $10.5B across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. www.lsvp.com
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