Not Just Another NFT Roadmap

32 min readNov 9, 2021

You will be asking me if it has art. And I shall say…the art will be in the execution frens | @RealTokenomist

If I Launched An NFT Project | Whitepaper

TL;DR — In this Medium article I am going to set out a manifesto of how I would think, act and aim to execute an NFT project were I to be tasked with it’s leadership. I will start with setting out some observations as I interpret them, before discussing where I see a clear opportunity right now and how I believe I can provide value for money, time and social capital invested into such an enterprise.

I do not claim to be without flaws, I do not think I am without error in my interpretation of the landscape. I will simply seek to evidence my thoughts if reasonably considered to be contrarian.

Lets begin.

Don’t want to read? Listen In…

The Mission Statement

To democratize the upside opportunity of the metaverse by using consensus to support those who will make it happen

The Abstract

I have a desire to create the first NFT DAO VC in the Metaverse, and it’s driven by a vision of democratizing opportunity. That means leveling the playing field for access to upside from early stage Metaverse investment and making it easier to obtain the incubation capital to be a part of its future.

By using a DAO governance structure paired with an NFT launch, an NFT will be able to create the seed funding for a DAO led VC which will open up access to capital to those innovators outside of the established networks.

That’s it, that’s the mission. Read the Whitepaper or visit the website: https://gweimlins.com to get the basics.

Who Is The Tokenomist?

I have spent a little time in the NFT space, but I have spent longer holding, buying and selling cryptocurrency. I remember the days of Local Bitcoin and meeting people in person to trade with cash. It seems an age away and like many, I wish I had never sold a single coin. Oh well. There’s always the next cycle.

Where possible I have tried to bring cryptocurrencies into my businesses. We have been taking crypto payment for about 5 years now online at https://vapeandjuice.co.uk and https://cbdstar.co

If you google ‘buy vapes with bitcoin’ you’ll see my site at the top. Well most of the time anyway. (I do the SEO)

I am passionate about cryptocurrencies and I come at this with a fervent belief in the liberation from financial institutional control. We should own the money network.

Legacy Finance (Trad-Fi)

So what authority can I speak of regarding traditional financial markets (Trad-Fi)? In a nutshell less than some, more than most.

I worked in equities during my 20s. From investment advice to market making and corporate finance. This means I have analysed and recommended stocks and shares to a range of investor profiles, as well as helping smaller companies raise capital to enter public markets. I have been around investment class assets for many years.

In doing that, I have seen the social damage it does on a daily basis, not to mention it’s own rule setting that overlooks the privilege it has with being licensed to run a monopoly on our money. Ever been told the bank can’t tell you why you are losing your account, leaving you with nothing but questions and no second chances?

Why do banks get licenses and yet have the capacity to end businesses, jobs, and dreams without recourse — simply because you no longer fit their perfect profile. In a world of electronic payments, there is no alternative. There is access or there is exclusion.

One day — banks will not be able to have a perfect customer profile. Tomorrow’s customers will bank with Gemini, Cardano, Coinbase and more. Banks blocking crypto transactions is now just poor strategic thinking.

The damage Trad-Fi does is not limited to financial services customers, it affects millions of people globally attached to it’s ecosystem also. Seeing it first hand working on trading desks in the Square Mile.

From drug abuse, to abuse of trust. It went on, it still goes on. It is taught behaviour and comes from the top down, in nearly every dark vestige of the institution of finance.

Imagine being licensed to change someone’s financial future for better or for worse and your manager has racked up lines for your entire team in the bathroom.

I turned my life around, so now I try to help others get a second chance too.

The Backstory

By the time I was approaching my 30s, I was burning the candle at both ends at work and in my social life. A downhill slope leading me to make legally negligent decisions while working for some corporate finance clients, cutting corners with regulations after they’d changed and I was ultimately prosecuted for breaching financial regulations relating to boiler rooms in the UK.

I was an idiot. Dragging my family through a world of worry in their later years and putting others in the same boat too.

I was referred to as the UK’s Wolf of Wall Street. I am a speck on his resume, but my life was a mess and the outcome was quite rightly for the stress of everyone, a term of imprisonment. They say sometimes you don’t get punished for the crime you did, you get punished for crime in general. While my own matter wasn’t cut and dry, the way I lived my life meant I was always going to end up in trouble at some stage. I needed it.

Now I spend every day, taking care of the second chance in life I got

This is why I talk under the moniker of the Tokenomist, it affords me a degree of privacy and I would rather not have old tales 90% of which are lurid fabrications to sell papers, be brought up over a decade later and affect those around me more than they already have.

My wife was recently accepted to go on Dragon’s Den. The UK’s Shark Tank. She had passed the final pitches ready to go on. She simply needed to pass background checks.

She was called up and while they couldn’t go into it, was denied. More than a decade later I am the reason, still. Her business, everything about it bootstrapped and both amazingly branded and wonderful for the environment stifled, because of old thinking.

I’ve lost card terminals for my shops despite years of good service and timely payment (We had 30 shops at the time and 100+ staff). As if I was also going to start running through obscure small transactions on the side and pocket them. I have lost bank accounts because I take crypto and because of reasons ‘we can’t go into’, over a decade later. I still can’t open an IG Index account — goodness only knows why. These things are happening years after the fact and sometimes not just to me but to those around me.

I am blessed with some sense of resilience, and others may have once felt the same, but now might be on their last throw of the dice. What happens when there are no more rolls they can have?

As to my past, I’ve done my time and those affected were made right.

I have left sufficient Easter Eggs within this article, for those who need to, to get my name. But from here, I will otherwise keep my family name out of things. Be a sleuth if you need to.

For me, I don’t want a project to be centered purely on my past OR me. I want it to be focused on what WE can do to lift others up and democratise our futures.

Why do I say all of this? Well, I speak of transparency often, so it’s only right I discuss it. I will be addressing my story in a video soon, you can hear me talk about my old life and then I hope I can close that chapter and inspire others instead. (Date TBA).

This is the reason, I operate my own businesses or advise others with theirs. Getting a job is hard when you have a criminal record, even if you’re honest about it. And I was maybe too much. Desperate for a second chance. For every application I made, I prefaced them with the honest truth. I never got a call back.

I long ago realised many aren’t ready to give people a real second chance in life. Perhaps some hate the idea there are those who can have their life reset and still outdo them. I don’t know what the reason is, but I was lucky I had supportive friends, family and was able to make changes and better life decisions. Sometimes events like these just need to happen to us.

So, since then, I have tried to help others where I can. Those who didn’t have the same access to education I did, who didn’t have parents with a roof to keep you dry when all else fails and who gets life’s door closed in their face every damn time.

This is what legacy Trad-Fi does even to those who turn their life around. It does this to reformed, evidently hard-working tax payers that employ a f**k-ton of staff across a network of stores, so what on earth do they do to the less fortunate?

F**k Trad-Fi.

In crypto I see something different. I see something exciting and I see a future led by people who have a different view on life. I think for the first time I have found a base of people that do truly judge people on what they do and say and less about what they once were.

There is no greater quote that comes close to this mindset than one of the greatest men of the 20th Century:

Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character -Martin Luther King Jr

Mission: Supporting Diamonds In The Rough?

I want to help the World’s diamonds in the rough. There are winners out there, who are yet to be discovered. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs come from the most humbling backgrounds, many of you in the NFT space, follow a famous example in Gary Vaynerchuk.

I want to create a vehicle that can provide access to the capital to breed innovative and change-making ideas within our niche, for those that don’t have the right connections, degree, accent, name or CV.

The 1st NFT DAO VC focused on seeding EVM compatible projects.

We are going to fund the future of the Metaverse and we are going to have fun doing it.

Some projects won’t dox, I wanted to ‘over dox’ here. I want you to back me because of my life experience, not leave me because I didn’t say.

I believe the story of a man who left prison with £41 at the start of the last decade with no job, no prospects of getting one, turning his life around and helping others on the way is going to be the greatest story of my life….

…and I want you on my team.

Now let’s get back on track

As someone who has advised, started and scaled startups and formerly worked as both an investment advisor and corporate financier; I sense opportunity and also mistake. (Seems so underwhelming now)

My early thoughts about the NFT community

I believe there are many NFT projects, that are little more than vehicles for founder enrichment only. Sadly.

I believe that many NFT projects are led by honest, well intentioned people who lack the experience at running a startup or a business in general. But serendipity or good marketing, or both, has enabled funding that ordinarily wouldn’t happen if they were to present their idea on Kickstarter, much less a corporate finance house.

I believe that many NFT projects are simply decentralised businesses. Similar to a worker co-op, these decentralised communities have the potential to own the decision making and destiny of their entity.

I believe that NFTs are so much more than a jpeg and digital art. But it is this personal social expression that many have adopted via digital art that has drawn my attention to a paradigm shift. The emergence of a new form of tribal behaviour, ‘digital tribalism’.

Humans are tribal by their very nature. The collective force of a tribe was once a commodity used in trade, it is commodity for sports clubs with leveraging their fan bases and it will be the case that NFT united communities will generate value also.

Black Ceasar the famous pirate and his group of former freed slaves, were equal among men at sea and traded their skill, cunning and brutality in return for pay or a share of the spoils in a world that was not known for racial equality.

The Independent Thracian tribes, such as the Bessi and Dii were mercenary tribes who would sell their might for land and gold.

Metcalfe’s Law talks about the value of networks. It is how we value social platforms before monetisation. It’s one method anyway. It is this tribal interpretation and the understanding of Metcalfe, that lead me to believe in many cases a united, active community may be the greatest asset for an NFT project.

Consider it your database if you were an e-commerce business, your black book if you were a salesperson and so on. A smart NFT project will work to leverage the power of that community through sponsorship, endorsement and as brand ambassadors.

For this reason I believe there is a problem with NFT projects that conduct small runs of assets and I am surprised that few have taken on advertising strategists from early on. I believe it would be prudent to have a report produced early on to best understand the opportunities.

The more Twitter or Social Media profiles occupied with your project’s signature, the more eyes on your NFT. The more eyes, the more interest, the more royalties the more likely you are to stay relevant. Of course, those royalties keep the project ticking over.

Sample Investment Ideas For DAO

Some ideas behind the types of investments that could be made by a DAO, include Dapps/software to drive engagement or adoption of a sidechain, or a new Layer 2 solution.

It could be the funds to flesh out a new metaverse gaming concept in return for an airdrop of tokens to all NFT holders.

It could be a wallet application or something even as simple as my own concept I am working on such as Clockbox, a time lock wallet app to give everyone diamond hands. Don’t worry, I won’t force it on you. It’s more to illustrate the types of ideas out there.

Much of the resource required for many Dapps and NFT projects right now are in human capital. If we find a suitably skilled team to back, they may not need much financial firepower to get the ball rolling and that breeds vast potential upside for the DAO.

Roles Of People Needed For The NFT Team

I have gone into length recently over what I would do were I to launch an NFT project. I will expound on these going forward. But first I want to discuss the type of people required were I to launch an NFT project.

Advertising Strategist: The role may be consultative and would be to develop a range of monetisation strategies to work toward to leverage the value of the community. This will help shape the direction of the project based on the likely holder profile.

Social Media Manager: This role is not to be an afterthought. Twitter is the future front end of Discord if not already. Few in the Twittersphere impress me right now for content creation. Hapebeast have set the world of Discord alight, it’s clearly had investment, Sappy Seals also make me laugh daily on Twitter. They couldn’t be more different. Both have amassed engaged followings. It is not a role to cut corners on.
Discord Ninja: I have seen the stress of constant repetitive questions on Discord users. It can lead to bickering and a negative mood. I have also seen some clever modifications that some have done. Bots can answer repeated questions if the content has been created and the triggers have been set up. Words like ‘Floor Price’ can create auto messages that send people to a floor talk channel. If Discord is the waiting room for our Metaverse, then we should invest in it. This means mods from a variety of time zones and individuals who can pay attention to the small details. I will leave no piece of content unwritten, we should have no reason to leave users unable to find answers.

Solidity/ERC721 Lead Developer: No NFT project can exist without one of these people, whatever the Ethereum chain.
PR Manager: The role is to amplify the brand to a broader crypto or affinity audience. Produce online column inches and increase awareness of our mission. This is a role to help us find the talent of tomorrow, to put us in front of those that can add value to our network. It is not to help us pump a floor price. There will be no PR work around that task. Organic growth is the only way.
Crypto Investment Analyst: The role is two fold. Firstly to help develop a treasury wallet asset management strategy to ensure funds do not diminish in the face of inflation with risk mitigation in mind. Secondly to help us understand the fundamentals of potential IDO/ICO opportunities such that we may participate with eyes open in launches that can drive the NAV (Net Asset Value) of the NFT’s Treasury Wallet. Current launchpad platforms reward higher multiples of airdrops to bigger investors. As an NFT DAO VC we can expose members to a more efficient share and more opportunities than they alone can participate in. Improving their ROI and reducing selection risk — potentially.

Note: On Blue Chip NFT Purchases

As for the purchase of blue chip assets by current NFT projects for their treasury, this is fine if bought with good timing, but these often offer equal asymmetric upside as large cap cryptocurrencies but with higher trading costs.

Not efficient.

The idea of fractionalising these assets and then airdropping them was coined by Winter Bears founder Nushi — Ponzinomics. This is not a dividend, this is not paying profits. You have just bought into a project only to have your money returned from new investors. This is problematic. Where does growth capital come from — is it sustainable?

Were I to launch an NFT project, we would be looking to protect and grow our base of capital to deploy into presale Dapp and Token launches and seed funding innovations in the Metaverse.

Creatives: While our art may be in the execution of something positive we all like a nice PFP right? I have a concept in mind and I have an artist working on something as we speak. Your jpeg will be your access card to the private member’s VC club in the Metaverse. If this goes nowhere else, I still have some nice drawings. I also believe you can never have enough creativity around you, socials and community engagement need people who can inspire visually.
Bookkeeper: I said transparency matters. We will be maintaining management accounts and these will be listed on a publicly accessible Dropbox/Google Drive link with where reasonable, links made to receipts. A bookkeeper will help us work on keeping spending transparent but help us work toward sensible spending. It is our goal that each year the DAO VC has a budget which can be approved or denied and amended by token holders.

DEFI Legal Counsel: This will be a consultative role. It may require in the early days simply working with an experienced financial regulatory team in the most commonly target jurisdictions to ensure we can operate within a defensible and appropriate manner. The industry is embryonic, the advice is too. We can not take these matters lightly, I know only too well. Reports will be published in private holder channels and via email.
Editor: The impact of literary clarity on an audience cannot be overstated. I am not an editor, but I do understand that something as small as a poorly worded sentence or spelling error on a mission critical document can raise red flags. I personally use Grammarly as it’s crazy not to, but I will be recruiting the services of an editor to improve our written output quality.
Comedy writer: I admire brands such as Paddy Power on social media as well as well timed tweets from Twitter’s own team. Humour is powerful for building a united community and for its virality.

Twitter are the Don of Twitter. From funny tweets taking a pop at Facebook…ahem Meta, to engaging up close with their followers.

Sappy Seals as I’ve mentioned earlier in the paper are leaders within the NFT space with their ad-hoc humour. Active, wildly in your face and sometimes I feel like whoever runs it, doesn’t sleep.

Paddy Power the British and Irish betting company bring smiles on Insta and Twitter to millions, and they absolutely speak their demographic’s language.

Being funny doesn’t come naturally to every business or project’s social media and trying too hard comes off awful. I think there is scope for a comedy writer within any project looking to leverage high crypto attention platforms. Twitter is a must win. Creative artworkers, with comedic writing, partnering with a social media manager would stand us in an advantageous stead. Short term flippers will probably appreciate it too.

Community Leaders: I would be looking to establish early on a list of nominees to become representatives, a parliament if you will on behalf of all holders. These leaders will attend monthly digital board meetings, can propose ideas, vote on issues and if majority is reached can veto specific items. There will need to be a charter or constitution established to ensure there is no inertia created, but the ultimate goal is that as a leader of a DAO I could at the end of a term be voted to renewed, replaced or allowed to retire down to being simply a fellow hodler. The DAO will need to work to build that framework and infrastructure. This will likely require us to take advice as a group to find out the best route for this. Those with experience in trade union affairs, or establishing community engagement groups would be fantastic inclusions.
Community: We need individuals who believe in what we seek to achieve. It is not a community if the mass of the conversation revolves around short term factors. I will act to implement a system to reward stable and longer term holders. I will act to make it useful to own the NFT.

This is not an exhaustive list, and some aspects would need to be in place before minting would begin. It is however unreasonable to recruit the full team without successful minting of an NFT as the project would be without the funds to begin to work on it’s aims.

The standard of personnel matters and as you can see, it is not reasonable to suggest the full complement would be attracted, bedded in and operational in less than 30 days. For those who are already contracted elsewhere they would have notice periods.

I say this to set expectations. Great people are already likely to be great for someone else. That being said, we will be actively sourcing from within a future audience by building shortlists from those who sign up at Gweimlins.com to the email list.

There are also other skills myself and my likely future partners can bring to the table. Web dev, marketing strategy, graphic design etc

What can you expect from me as a leader?

I believe in ownership of mistakes, I believe in transparency, I believe in hard work, I believe in giving opportunity and I believe in the importance of correct messaging.

This means the following:

You will find dev team active in Discord
You will receive twice weekly announcement updates on set days. Even if is there less to update that week, it’s important to maintain constant comms.
I would operate a weekly AMA/Stream
I will be making funds available for internal grants to develop our own ecosystem. Want to make a podcast? Maintain a blog — run our Youtube? Wars are won by armies with the deepest pockets and greatest resources — generally speaking. We will invest within the community to ensure awareness.
100% of royalties will go into a public wallet. Expenditure will be able to be matched via visible book-keeping management accounts — there will be a delay, accounts are not done real time but you can still monitor the wallet and will be able to track spending. Expenses will be receipted. Money that is needed to be turned into fiat will be able to be matched up with accounts. The DAO VC will pay founding team based on a percentage of investment profits. Rewards are for results. Figure is likely to be around 10% but this is a thumb in the air number and will need investigating for viability. Founding team relates to leadership NOT staff. Staff are not going to work on a reward basis only.
I will not talk about the floor price just as cryptocurrency foundations don’t talk about their coin price. What I will work on if leading a DAO VC is to grow the NAV. It would be my goal of adding the last established NAV to the top of a discord channel list. The frequency of updating may be monthly, it may be weekly. It needs to be reasonable and acceptable to the vast majority. I will also of course talk about our pre-agreed investment and divestment plans — where appropriate. This may be sensitive and may need to be within locked communication channels with holders or with community leaders. We cannot be seen to front run, or inside trade or any of the possible permutations there. The financial focus of a DAO VC is to outperform the market and provide value to members of the DAO. This is done by having an investment philosophy for different assets. This would be established with professional consultation and would give some insight into ROI expected as and when assets achieve a certain level. This is not an overnight plan to be put together. I would expect this to be something approved by and voted on by community leaders in a transparent manner.
I will never support the notion of ‘floor sweeping’. This is no different to a Ponzi scheme paying out money from new money entering a fund. Sweeping the floor is inorganic, it is nothing to be proud of. It is the NFT equivalent of buying followers. It is not real. It tricks potential investors with artificial demand and is a poor use of funds. Funds should be spent investing to grow value, not pleasing short term traders. Our goals will not be met by meeting theirs. Royalties are generated from short term traders, but I believe that for those minting, the funds that will then be made available for VC style investment will suffice to produce returns to write home about. I spoke about the red flag that is floor sweeping recently. Caveat: there are times when projects will buy some NFTs of theirs from the floor for giveaways, marketing or starting a liquidity pool — this is different and is not a permanent activity. If you ask me to sweep the floor, I will aim to send you this passage of text via an anchor link using a bot in Discord. It is beneath all of us.

I will be creating an incubator level monthly shark tank ultimately to be conducted from a Sandbox Metaverse Clubhouse. This is the goal and I would purchase land from day 1 post Mint, to make this possible. This is a longer term goal but we will provide a short term solution via Discord/Zoom or similar available tools presently available. There will be a capped level and you will need to hold the NFT to pitch. This will be external to normal investment or ecosystem grant projects. We would likely make a prize available for best pitch but open it up for other holders to invest if they so wished to also. This would be a unique benefit for holding the NFT. It is a working concept in my head as I type this and I am leaning toward the idea that there is a cap on what one person can support with — such as 0.01 Eth and the goal is to have broad support from lots of holders and it not be purely based around ‘for profit’. There will need to be some vetting and due diligence to avoid misuse. The community should vote on whether that the project as a whole should earn a stake in the concept for use of the ecosystem to pitch for seed funding from holders. (Working concept) Again, this process needs engagement from the community to perfect and will not be ready in days. There may be no interest in this once implemented, there may be much. It could produce some amazing content for market outreach and it is unique. It would be my aim to hold the first event by the end of the 1st Quarter post mint.
I will not list on Layer 1 Ethereum 1.0 — I believe the future of NFT and Metaverse projects will be on Layer 2. I will be actively pursuing an Immutable X listing. I am not averse to Solana and I can see the world becoming interoperable, but I feel we will stand out as an Immutable listing.

Legal & Risk

Beyond selection risk of picking the wrong NFT project and funding risk I see the core risk to any investment in an NFT project seeking to return value, as a legal one. Namely regulatory. I will discuss this here, albeit without prejudice and it is a lay view.

In order to return value we need to do it in a way that doesn’t breach financial regulations in major national hubs. This is because the on-ramps will be the gatekeepers of funding as they will be pressured to halt listings of projects that have questionable mechanics. If a government cannot stop a cryptocurrency, it can threaten those platforms present in their jurisdiction from listing them.

This means projects that return guaranteed or likely passive income are potentially a criminal enterprise in some regions. Unregulated investment products being sold is a criminal matter in the UK for example.

Similarly collective investment schemes where assets are held on behalf of others with a pooling of money, are regulated operations in the US and UK. Investing in an NFT that acted as a collective fund could be an issue. If you purchased an NFT expecting a financial return, this potentially breaches the Howey Test and classes it as a security. There is a path to avoiding these problems and it may come via this route I will now set out, albeit with a few more details.

I would list and mint an artistic only NFT project (Details to be made available via Twitter and Email soon). If the process is approved by legal counsel then NFT holders would receive an airdrop of a DAO token. The DAO token entitles everyone to govern within a fully decentralised organisation, from hiring, to spending, to investment decision making and beyond. The DAO would be seeded by the art project with capital from the art mint.

The DAO would continue to be funded by royalties from secondary sales too— we would need to understand how the mechanics of that can work without crossing red lines. We know that Ethereum when it formed was considered a security, but over time has become sufficiently decentralised enough to no longer be classed as a security.

Where the DAO token has not been bought and is a free airdrop then user’s have not invested in it in expectation of a return. DAO token holders would receive utility tokens to spend in the Metaverse. Within the Metaverse we would establish a marketplace. The marketplace would be listed with full and fractionalised items for sale, that can be withdrawn from the metaverse into the holder’s wallet and traded or held for posterity. We believe this presents a viable way to return value to those who back the concept of an NFT DAO VC and ensures the project remains within an acceptable framework.

Through this method, holders would not need to necessarily stake and there would be no guarantee of profit as is the nature of what we are all aiming to do. That is, help new ideas emerge — they don’t all hit home runs. Importantly for the future of a royalties, it would reduce the risk of being removed from a secondary platform.

It does create the issue of what will be the purpose of the initial drop and that is something I would ultimately like to avoid by not having to do the second drop if we can.

Therefore it is likely that these will retain use for allowing access to the pitch events, involvement in the Metaverse but not a DAO governance token that can be rewarded for participating in governance of the NFT DAO VC.

This is a similar situation that Star Atlas has developed with it’s Atlas and Polis tokens. One is in game currency, one is DAO. Their needs are different and we will take responsible steps to ensure we follow the correct path. This will not be something that is resolved overnight.

Time Horizons/Expectations

I shall keep this section short. I anticipate that the project will not achieve significant returns in it’s first year. I anticipate that we will not see a workable, enjoyable Metaverse concept in that time either.

I envision it will take 4–12 weeks post mint to iron out the legal DAO framework we seek to work on, and a clear principle set for returning rewards to governance token holders. Once we understand and have the mechanics in place, we of course need as a community to make investments and obtain returns.

I am aiming to build something more than a hype project, but a constantly evolving community led venture that will survive a crypto winter and even thrive from one. Please do not mint this project if you anticipate speculative gains in weeks from factors outside of the project’s control. Nothing is promised, this is merely a manifesto.

Macro Outlook

Heading into 2022 I anticipate a drop in the wider cryptocurrency market at some stage. We are seeing valuations for projects with no realistically viable ecosystem that are north of $50 Bn. Much of the market is still driven by speculation as a reason for holding tokens and not for use case.

The markets have been buoyant and there are macro-economic clouds appearing that suggest something must give. Inflation is not abating, I do not believe Governments or Central Banks are necessarily in close step on the causes or the solutions. This will cause uncertainty. Potentially the market is beginning to lose trust on decision making. Political decisions and rational economic based decisions are perhaps losing that lockstep. We are seeing it with Jerome Powell allowing demographic employment stats to determine tapering plans. This is for the honourable desire to improve social inclusion but inflating a multi-trillion dollar currency may not be the solution.

Column: Bond markets show rising risk of Fed, BoE policy errors

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - The U.S. and UK bond markets are sounding the economic alarm bell. Yield curves in both…

www.reuters.com

Reuters — Bond Markets Showing Risk Risk Of Policy Errors

We may see a tightening of fiscal policy and interest rate rises, leading to a slowdown in economic growth, recession, job losses, redundancies, insolvencies, bankruptcies and defaults on mortgages. The solution to getting out of this will be the opposite.

Carl Icahn says the market over the long run will certainly 'hit the wall' because of money…

Longtime activist investor Carl Icahn said Monday that the U.S. markets could see major challenges over the long term…

www.cnbc.com

These issues may be 18–24 months out before rising rates and declines in income growth but not in assets combine to cause economic shock, but that may time well with an expected surge in cryptocurrency asset prices once more. At this stage, the metaverse and related hardware will be more developed and adoption for decentralised products will be greater.

Raising capital now and not fully deploying, or drip feed deploying it, can see us be in a strong position to see outsized returns. This could be a great time to mint but not a great time to invest as a DAO. That being said, the time could be very soon upon us.

For this reason I am being overtly pessimistic, I am being negative toward expectations of value return in the near term (1–12 months). I am doing this as I wish to actively push away those who see this as a ‘quick pump’ because we have some nice buzz words. I have not invested huge sums of time learning about this space, to play to the lowest denominator. I know what could be achieved and I know why we are doing this.

We are going to find the innovators of tomorrow who are otherwise overlooked, who against adversity are still developing concepts and products that can benefit all of us. We are going to back them and we are going to eat the breakfast of Trad-Fi.

If you share a similar philosophy then let’s talk what’s next.

Utility of an NFT

This is an ever moving feast, that being said, there are some elements of token holding functionality I would like to provide clarity on my support of. This is over and above the core mission of the project to return value for supporting it. (The core mission stated in the beginning of this paper)

Governance Token

In the act of creating a DAO, a token would be required to participate in governance decisions. Rewards from net profits will be paid for that governance. Those governance rewards will be more giveaway style in our early existence as the project will be yet to make tangible profits. Instead it may relate to raffle tickets to be automatically entered into draws for free tokens of other projects or prize draws, vouchers etc. This would be a transition solution due to obvious factors.

We may follow the path, if feasible of some projects that allow you to still accrue reward tokens to spend on aspects such as changing your NFT name or making modifications etc. Nifty Degen Legends offers such utility. This will be done to encourage engagement, it will be done with the liaison of the community and will be agreed upon by the majority of voters. Needless to say, once we are actively investing this should change.

Governance will be for decisions such as picking projects to invest in, taking profits, voting on new community leaders to represent etc.

IDO Buyers Club

Below is a list of the reward breakdowns for staking your Cardano Occam Razor Token. Note you get less per token staked if your holding is smaller:

There is a multiplier that rewards larger stakers. Smaller (the majority) of those investing in the cryptocurrency space will have a lower reward per pound/dollar staked in real terms and have lower exposure to multiple projects. This incurs selection risk and reduces comparative return.

I believe a ‘buyer’s club’ approach will enable an NFT DAO VC to access launchpad IDOs like this in a way that enables all to access the maximum multiplier and full suite of offers. An economy of scale effect.

There will be projects that fall outside of the DAO VC’s investment thesis and we will look to build a members club that we are a leader in implementation to foster this as a ecosystem project within our community. Access is available only to holders of one of our NFTs. A clear long-term utility for investors.

Shark Tank Style Pitch Club

Small seed fundraising pitches will be presented via Zoom etc and ultimately within a Metaverse Clubhouse or whatever form tech developments take. Access to pitching will be for NFT holders and need to have some basic pre-vetting. This will be for small projects that perhaps don’t hit the thresholds for VC funding or incubator funding with the community VC.

It may be for pre-startup planning and potentially would reward the DAO VC with a small stake or future stake rights to the project if moved forward, as remuneration for using community access.

For entrepreneurs and investors in them, we hope to build an obvious community to be part of. This is no small venture on it’s own and we will post mint be speaking with fundraising groups who host such events for consultation and advice on best practice. Community participation, staked voting etc will all potentially form part of the working project here. This alone could be sufficient utility for many to enter the family.

Staking via Liquidity Pools

I have listed already some of the utilities of token holding were I to shape an NFT project. One not covered yet would be creating a liquidity pool with an Immutable friendly platform. Those on L1 Ethereum can use NFTX.io and make a market between Eth and their NFT.

At the time of writing I am unsure of the opportunities that exist in this regard for IMX projects but we will be seeking out the most user friendly and robust system. It is my belief that while this will appeal to some as it is a buzzword, the project has sufficient scope to reward holders and long term holders at that.

Once again, I see no sense in launching an NFT project on L1 and we will be at the mercy a little of awaiting developments on L2 platforms. If such a solution is found this would be one of the few cases where as a project we would buy a quantity (small) of NFTs to seed the LP and then produce video and written content to clearly explain exactly how to stake and use. I see all too often the lack of clarity many have over using these pools.

Not everyone will want to use an LP to earn a share in trading revenues but for those who do, we will be seeking to provide one.

Further Opportunities For The Project

Over and above the stated opportunities for the project, there is also the value of the community as an ambassador for brands. From something as simple as a sponsored banner on our Discord, or channels for advertising partners who offer both discounts and cashback to the treasury wallet for our use of these discount links — we can leverage our network effect.

Leveraging the goodwill of other NFT communities by investing modest stakes (even if token sums) in their art drops will enable us to fall on the radar of a like-minded market. This is a low cost form of marketing that can boost interest in our project from NFT buyers, and may even cost us nothing in the long run.

Given the quite explicit nature of our project’s aims and ambitions, we have very clear overlapping interests making it easier to present our group to advertisers.

As the project matures, more avenues to leverage our work will appear. I remind you of my stated aim to commit investment within our own ecosystem to produce media content that has reach beyond our community. This too, has the potential to return value to us all.

Next Steps

If you are interested in what I believe can be built please drop your email on the website at Gweimlins.com and we will announce the next steps as we determine interest. Or find our soon to be populated Twitter and turn the notifications on. We will be working to put together roadmaps, FAQs, completing the website and traditional expected resources found in a Discord before we release the links to these. Lets get this right before we start minting NFTs and getting tied up in knots.

Quick FAQs

This is a very brief list of some pre-sale questions. I have not added questions covered in the paper. We will be monitoring questions asked in comments to determine the ideal FAQ on a Discord Channel to ensure all queries are addressed.

Will there be a roadmap and when?

Yes, and prior to mint. We will not ask for money without setting out initial plans. If we couldn’t do that, then it would mean we can’t do it for ourselves. When will it be? Prior to mint. Any ideas roughly? Prior to mint. I believe this paper sets out what most would be looking for in one, but one will be issued before we move to minting.

What happens if we don’t sell out?

At this stage and it’s a wish but not in stone, if we fail within 7 days of public mint to achieve 50% sold NFTs then we will hold a vote within the community to determine if we should refund less the obvious (and evidenced) costs for running the mints.

When is mint expected?

We would like to run the mint before Mid Jan 2022, but it may be sooner if marketing suggests to. All will be informed by email/Twitter.

How much is mint?

We will be establishing a mint price in the coming weeks. At this stage, white list mint will not be above 0.0420 Eth — public sale will be not above 0.069 Eth.

In an ideal world we would offer a discounted OG list perhaps 0.03 for those who help grow our reach.

How many will I be able to mint?

I am not a fan of the shortcut that some projects take enabling bots or professional traders buying up huge numbers of tokens to then flip for short term profit.They do this so they can sell out. I believe a good project with a unique proposition will sell out anyway.

I will be taking feedback from those in the space to establish a fair system that best ensures a higher ownership level from day 1. 3 sounds like a good number. Maybe OGs can take a larger number, or if they are in an advisor capacity and are required to vest. I will take advice on the matter and make the final decision once I establish interest in the project before launch.

Where will mint take place?

At this stage it is my intention to mint on Immutable X marketplace.

How do I mint on Immutable X?

I will produce a video tutorial prior to any prospective mint on Immutable X explaining how to do this. This will be accessible via my Youtube channel and in a Discord channel when ready.