"Enjoy Nouns!" with Hong Kim aka Noun 40, cofounder of Bitwise | ZEROPOD Episode 25​

"Enjoy Nouns!" with Hong Kim aka Noun 40, cofounder of Bitwise | ZEROPOD Episode 25​

April 26, 2024

Check the full episode on Youtube:

SUMMARY

Nouns aims to fund public goods through unconventional means, such as memes and NFTs, challenging traditional market dynamics and creating new possibilities for essential resource funding.

• 00:00 🚀 Noun 40 discusses the limitations of market incentives for public goods, his involvement in the nouns community, and the potential of nouns to fund real world public goods in the crypto space.

  • The speaker discusses the limitations of markets in incentivizing public goods and the potential of nouns as a new approach to funding public goods in the crypto space.

  • Hong Kim, also known as Noun 40, co-founder of Bitwise Investments and OG nouner, discusses his background and involvement in the nouns community, as well as the Bitcoin ETF providers in the US OFA.

  • The speaker discusses how he and his co-founder got involved in Bitcoin and crypto, and how they realized the potential of the market despite initial resistance.

  • Bitcoin was not initially considered a respected asset class, leading to the idea of building an asset manager and investment products for crypto to engage with traditional finance and Wall Street, but the speaker became disillusioned with the hyper capitalism in crypto and the lack of investment in public goods.

  • The speaker discusses the need for investment in foundational infrastructure in the crypto world and the different approaches to funding public goods, including the use of memes and alternative funding models.

  • The speaker discusses the concept of nouns as a form of economic energy and their potential to fund real world public goods, as well as the significance of the "void head noun" and how it was obtained.

• 13:22 📈 Noun 40 discusses the emotional connection to noun heads, the impact of NFT silliness on governance, and the gradual growth of decentralized control through continuous linear issuance.

  • The speaker started paying attention to auctions, found a void on openc, and had a nerve-wracking experience with their first secondary trade.

  • The speaker discusses their emotional connection to certain noun heads and how people can make them part of their identity, highlighting the open-minded and abstract nature of nouns.

  • The silliness and absurdness of the heads and pfps in NFTs allow people to be less serious and more authentic in governance, and the pseudonymity and identity development in NFTs have helped foster camaraderie and community in Dows.

  • Continuous linear issuance of nouns led to gradual growth in governance participants, avoiding sudden influxes and allowing for contentious votes to have a significant impact, contributing to the impressive culture of decentralized control.

  • Early on, the Nouns engaged in long-term thinking and took compensation in nouns format, leading to healthier governance and making it difficult for crypto whales to acquire a controlling stake.

  • Nouns, as described by Noun 40, are an aspirational experiment aimed at capturing economic energy and creating positive externalities, with a focus on solving market failures and supporting underfunded efforts in the onchain world.

• 25:58 🎨 The speaker emphasizes the importance of keeping nouns weird and suggests starting rounds for weirdness funding, while also discussing the benefits of offering a simple on-ramp for engagement with the potential for discovering depth and weirdness gradually.

  • The speaker discusses the high degree of craft and attention to detail in the art and code base of NFT collections, as well as the importance of being open to being a bit weird and building our own tools.

  • The speaker emphasizes the importance of keeping nouns weird and suggests starting rounds for weirdness funding, while also discussing the benefits of offering a simple on-ramp for engagement with the potential for discovering depth and weirdness gradually.

  • The speaker wants to increase the distribution of the meme and make the game more fun by engaging a wider base of casual fans economically.

  • Nouns fungible token allows people to get fractional economic ownership of nouns in a simple and safe way, addressing issues seen in previous attempts.

  • Bitcoin's accessibility through fractional ownership has contributed to its widespread adoption and appeal as an economic system.

  • Buying Bitcoin, regardless of the amount, creates a shared experience of excitement and social ties, ultimately giving anyone the opportunity to be excited about the success of the network.

• 35:01 📈 Nouns have a small number of owners and a large number of fans who want economic ownership, with the speaker discussing the importance of managing economic incentives and driving economic value back to the auction and treasury for long-term sustainability and economic throughput, as well as the potential for fans to join nouns with an NFT and aspire to be part of the governance of the Deep game and the government.

  • Nouns have a small number of owners and a large number of fans who want economic ownership, but there is currently no clean way for fans to have economic tie to the meme without complications.

  • The speaker discusses the conversion of non-fungible tokens to fungible tokens and the importance of not creating multiple token supplies.

  • The speaker discusses the importance of managing economic incentives and driving economic value back to the auction and treasury for long-term sustainability and economic throughput.

  • People buy dollar sign nouns or the noun nouns funable token to be involved in the nouns ecosystem, accumulate them, and eventually join nouns with an NFT, with governance being an aspiration for a small minority and a public service.

  • The speaker discusses the potential for a small portion of people to sustainably enjoy and aspire to be part of the governance of the Deep game and the government, and the excitement about welcoming them with open arms.

  • Owning a noun is like being a "whole coiner" in the Bitcoin community, and fans of nouns may want a badge on Twitter once they reach 1 million units.

• 42:49 🔑 Fungible tokens can be converted to NFT format, allowing users to choose a noun that speaks to them and redeem it for social status without taking on economic risk, with emphasis on the interchangeable nature of tokens and the potential for growth in the nouns economy.

  • Fungible tokens can be converted to NFT format, allowing users to choose a noun that speaks to them and redeem it for social status without taking on economic risk.

  • The speaker discusses the interchangeable nature of non-fungible tokens and fungible tokens, emphasizing the importance of allowing both to have voting power and the value of building provenance and emotional attachment to specific NFTs.

  • Speculation around the nouns fungible token is not worrisome and is a reflection of the brand weight and provenance built over the past few years, with the potential for speculation leading to the realization that the noun nfts are undervalued.

  • The speaker discusses the relationship between fungible and non-fungible tokens, the potential impact of auction prices on the nouns economy, and the potential for growth and expansion of the nouns fan base.

  • The speaker discusses the impact of non-fungible tokens on the market and the potential for positive resolution, but acknowledges the uncertainty of market behavior.

  • The implementation of Alpha on timeline is being worked on by the verbs team and discussed with Foundation lawyers for regulatory risk, with both processes expected to be resolved in a matter of weeks.

• 57:44 👾 Noun 40 discusses the importance of minting behavior in the nouns minting economy, funding public goods and supporting projects through NFTs.

  • Noun 40 discusses the excitement and encouragement of minting behavior within the nouns minting economy.

  • Nouns should fund public goods that otherwise would not be funded and continue to give everything out for free, even if it cannot be monetized.

  • Nouns can be used to fund public goods through the creation and sale of NFTs, allowing for the possibility of memes to support projects and initiatives.

  • The speaker discusses the connection between the Deliver Don upgrade, the film it was named after, and the concept of minting NFTs as a way to support public goods while still generating revenue.

  • Supporting brands that give back to the Earth and implementing a more concave and smooth distribution of public goods without centralized decision-making is the way to go.

  • Minting NFTs needs to be easier and more streamlined, as the current process is cumbersome and time-consuming, but the speaker is hopeful that it will improve in the future.

• 01:05:58 🎨 Noun 40 discusses incentivizing NFT collections, the cultural value of successful NFTs, generating revenue through signed art pieces, and the convergence of different channels for incentivization.

  • Noun 40 discusses using Zora's feature to support NFT collections that split mint revenue, incentivizing with a matching pool, and the importance of putting a cost to permissionless actions.

  • Nouns can ensure that people who mint content get attention and real revenue by incentivizing popular mints and making it economically meaningful for creators.

  • Successful NFTs can become culturally valuable and lead to speculation and market growth, as seen with the farcaster OG NFT, and the yellow Collective is a proof of this concept.

  • The speaker discusses how revenue can be generated through selling signed art pieces with a unique cryptographic footprint, which aligns with the DAO's mission and allows others to also sell signed art with attribution.

  • Noun 40 discusses the convergence of different channels for incentivization and the ability to allocate different amounts of eth to different behaviors.

  • The speaker discusses the possibility of using a bot to automatically filter and organize Zora mints based on their split, and suggests that creators could also manually submit their mint links with context.

• 01:14:41 🚀 Moonshot projects and societal engineering challenges, support for onchain world initiatives, importance of community governance and decision-making, focus on domain experts and users, potential for universality and impact of nouns, excitement for governance possibilities and enjoyment of the project, and discussion of changes in the crypto market and impact on nouns.

  • The speaker discusses the importance of funding moonshot projects and societal level engineering challenges, as well as the significance of supporting onchain world initiatives such as lobbying for cryptocurrency and fighting scammers.

  • Agora and other open source tools are used for governance and decision-making, with the local community being better judges of their needs than external investors.

  • The speaker discusses the importance of focusing on domain experts and users, the potential for nouns to reach a level of universality and impact, and the value of being Nish in their field.

  • The speaker discusses the potential for cultural understanding of nouns and the development of a new delegation model for governance in the next six months.

  • Delegation tokens allow for easy transfer of voting power and the speaker is excited about the possibilities in governance, expressing appreciation for the time put into nouns and emphasizing the fun and enjoyment of the project.

  • Noun 40 and the speaker discuss the changes in the crypto market and the impact on nouns over the past year.

INSIGHTS

Key insights

• 🌍 The concept of building economic energy for public goods through memes and unconventional approaches challenges traditional market dynamics and opens up new possibilities for funding essential resources.

• 🚀 The conviction that there is something multi-decade happening in the crypto market is what drove the founders to get involved, regardless of the hype cycle.

• 🌍 The idea of using memes to fund public goods through Nouns presents a completely different and potentially controversial approach.

• 📈 The continuous auction model, despite initial inflation, leads to healthier governance and makes it difficult for crypto whales to acquire a controlling stake in nouns.

• 💭 Nouns has an aspirational optimism to it, aiming to create unbounded positive externalities and overcome the criticism that crypto is all for nothing.

• 🐇 Nouns have never failed on the dimension of having an infinitely deep rabbit hole for the deep fans side of things.

• 📈 Nouns is unique with a small group of owners and a large number of builders and fans, stretching out further than most NFT projects.

• 💰 Nouns should fund public goods that otherwise would not be funded and continue to have a public good nature by giving everything out for free.