If you haven’t heard about Nounspace yet, no worries, we’re only about a month old. TL;DR - We're building a Nounish Farcaster client inspired by Myspace. If you have heard of us, congrats! 🎉 (you’re very, very early)
Today, we're announcing the next major evolution of Nounspace - $SPACE
We believe that the final frontier of social media will be owned by its users and community, and that the social network with the strongest community will win. With this in mind, everyone will have access to the same opportunity to earn $SPACE, the governance & utility token for Nounspace soon™.
On June 14th at 1:11pm UTC, we will open our stake-to-earn program based on the MOR20 fair launch model:
Deposit stETH
Earn $SPACE daily
Withdraw your stETH anytime
The MOR20 standard SPACE is launching on allows anyone who deposits stETH to allocate their yield to one or more specific project(s). In exchange for allocating their yield to help fund a project, such as Nounspace, stakers are rewarded with a daily stream of the project’s native token (distributed in proportion to their yield vs the overall emissions).
Half of the yield allocated to Nounspace will be used to purchase SPACE. The SPACE is then paired with the other 50% of the yield and deposited to a DEX liquidity pool. This enables fair price discovery in advance of the launch, and establishes liquidity to provide more stability to the token price afterwards. You can read more about the details of this model here.
How did we get here?
We had the idea for Nounspace on March 14th, submitted a proposal in the Nouns x Farcaster competition on March 23rd, and received a $100k grant from Nouns on April 1st. On April 27th, we posted a 4 week propdate, dropped The Third Space on April 29th, and just 5 days ago revealed what we've built so far at Farhack 2024.
As soon as we started working on Nounspace, we received inquiries from multiple interested parties regarding how Nounspace planned to structure itself and raise funds. While this may sound like a dream come true for many entrepreneurs (including myself 11 years ago), this isn’t the Nounspace team’s first rodeo. Our journeys in web3 have shown us there’s a better way.
Specifically, the new fair launch standard developed by Morpheus, MOR20, caught the team’s attention and seemed like the answer to our questions. If you’re not familiar with Morpheus yet, I strongly recommend checking them out at mor.org. While I shouldn’t have to convince anyone that AI is important, some people, particularly those wielding tremendous power, unfortunately believe that AI must be centrally controlled. In case you missed it, the recent Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence dictated that the development and deployment of AI systems above a certain scale will be subject to strict licensing requirements and centralized oversight.*
These provisions create substantial barriers for open-source initiatives and smaller organizations seeking to innovate. Much like the government's past attempts to restrict encryption, this regulatory approach risks stifling the free and decentralized development of a profoundly important technology. If left unchecked, it could lead to a future where only a select few gatekeepers, beholden to government dictates, can shape the trajectory of artificial intelligence. Morpheus presents a compelling alternative vision - one that prioritizes openness, transparency, and broad participation in the AI revolution. As we stand at this pivotal juncture, it is crucial that we resist excessive centralization and defend the freedom to build and share AI technologies for the benefit of all.
Nounspace is supporting this mission by developing the MRC21: Non Fungible Agents smart contracts in a way that supports Smart Agents and Fidgets as well as enabling Nounspace users to discover and embed a growing library of Smart Agents on their space or homebase (alongside Fidgets).
So, when you’re building something as important as the decentralized network for AI, it’s self-evident that the only logical way to launch the token is fairly. This same logic applies to what we’re building with Nounspace: the future of social media, or as we like to call it, the Modular Onchain Universe.
We’ll share more details as we get closer. For now we just wanted to let you know it’s coming. In the meantime, be sure to follow our progress in /nounspace as well as Morpheus and other projects fair launching on the MOR20 standard on mor.org/ecosystem. Nounspace is taking notes from Morpheus' and other MOR20 projects fair launches, and will be sure to implement lessons from each. Speaking of which, last night Morpheus published this Launch Guide which included learnings from the MOR launch on May 8th.
You can also learn more about Morpheus and their fair launch mechanism in these 2 podcast episodes featuring Morpheus contributors, David Johnston and Erik Voorhees, and nounspace co-founder (and ATX DAO contributor) Willy Ogorzaly.
Decentralizing AI with David Johnston: a Dive into Morpheus and the MOR Token’s Fair Launch
Erik Voorhees: Shaping a World of Open Innovation in Crypto and AI
If you agree that the future of social media is community-owned, join the nounspace community and let's build it together.
To infinity and beyond,
nounspace founders 🧑‍🚀🚀
*Section 5(b)(ii) of the order requires AI providers to "obtain a license from the Department of Commerce" for models exceeding specific computational thresholds, effectively concentrating the most powerful AI capabilities in the hands of large, regulated entities. Furthermore, Section 7(c)(i) mandates that licensed AI systems must implement "approved safeguards" and submit to ongoing audits, granting the government significant control over their operation.
Disclaimer
This is our current plan, but nothing is set in stone yet and plans are subject to change.
