Degen innovated on traditional forms of token distribution by leveraging social interactions, giving users token allocations and allowing them to distribute tips at will. User's earn degen whether they distribute their tips or not, and user airdrops are determined by tips received rather than what someone does with their allocations. Every project faces an uphill battle trying to hold onto users and attention in a space where capital is mercenary, meta shifts, and the internet races forward. It’s hard, most projects don’t succeed - no matter how innovative their product or tool, or how impressive their execution.
How will $DEGEN hold value over time? I’m sure there are many ideas, and lots of approaches the team and community will take. Here is one proposal: implement tipping delegation. Allow users to delegate their daily allowance to another FID. I’d suggest allowing delegation for customizable periods of time, reducing friction between a user delegating, and delegates tipping over time.
Delegates will ‘run for office’, pitching how they will distribute delegated tips. One Delegate might want to incentivize video content on Farcaster, another focus on charitable causes. Whatever the specific proposal, each delegate will hope to concentrate tipping power under their FID.
Why is this a good idea?
Concentrating tips means successful delegates would wield serious value, on a daily basis. Projects won't have to necessarily go viral to receive large tips, just impress a single qDAU that other users chose as their delegate.
Projects may seek funding from a channel representative, maybe an active member of /degenangels or /degenpad, and there is a positive public relations effect for Degen as tipping moves from mostly "I love this post" to both 'I love this post" AND larger, higher-impact, specific tip distributions. When these concentrated tips have high-quality effects on the network, seeding funding for a project or charitable initiative on Farcaster, we'll have specific delegates to thank for their work. Farcaster get's a more coherent source of funding, and Degens with tipping allocations can feel more secure that they are effectively distributing their tips.
Delegation turns airdrops into a funding event for projects, charities, channel hosts - whoever has received a concentrated tip from a well-allocated delegate. Not just on an adhoc basis, where whoever went viral with their tip appeal, but in a more organized fashion. Purple could receive tip delegation to make up for a lake of funding from token sales, for example.
Where tipping allocation concentrates also matters, users like @Ciniz or @Perl have turned their allocations into funding mechanisms for /wearesoearly + /ogs and /perl. This means that engagement on Farcaster can be directly correlated not just with 'project development' vaguely but with specific forms of project development. Perl and /ogs both employ a particular kind of engagement farming to capture attention and tip allocation, which they use to further capture attention. Delegation will help to spread tip allocation around the network, as the allocation system will always be somewhat gameable, subject to engagement patterns, but users making opinionated choices might act as a counter balance. The degen wealth effect is significant, delegation would distribute some of this wealth away from virality and towards collective purpose, as selected by users. Tips might accrue to a wider range of projects, a delegate could even purposefully tip projects without high engagement, a sort of ad-hoc quadratic tipping mechanism.
Many users forget to tip, I'd imagine, and other users farm tips, The more users we have tipping or farming tips, the more likely degen becomes associated with spam, or the act of tipping starts to feel like a chore. Delegation streamlines the entire tipping apparatus, formalizing it (if users choose to delegate). But it doesn’t take away from the fun social side either, many users won’t delegate.
The act of delegation is a high quality interaction. I wonder if some users only think of Degen right now as a token they might eventually receive, because some cannot even afford to hold 10,000 tokens to qualify for a tipping allocation. Delegation helps cement the token’s value in the act of giving, saying “this token is valuable, we should be thoughtful how it is distributed. Give it to your friends but also consider these 10 delegates and check out their proposals, how they would use these tips to improve Farcaster and the world beyond."
Running to be a delegate could be fun and social. Users might make videos, or mint an NFT of their proposal. It will deepen the lore fund expanded onchain activity that can be directly traced back to degen's unique distribution mechanisms. Delegation helps make the /degen meme stickier, more robust, and the utility more tangible. Delegation is associated with governance, but this is more like asking your friend with good music taste to help you pick a record to buy. You are going to buy the record anyway, but now you are leveraging your network to make a more informed purchase.
I think delegation would be fun, useful, and help to grow Degen and give the token long term, networked value. I hope that the team and the community will consider this idea!
