This week I ran an experiment: Read Write Earn Own (RWEO)
I thought to myself, how can I become a better writer AND help more people understand the complexities of the creator economy & web3? The answer: get more feedback on my writing.
I decided to use my daily tip allocation of $degen to reward people who read my work and provided feedback. In other words, read write earn own (RWEO):
Read my writing (this @paragraph post)
Write a comment under the frame on Farcaster
Earn $degen for their feedback (500 $degen for the each of the top 10 comments)
Own (optionally collect the post if they resonated with it)
The experiment went better than I expected 👀
Welcome to the next level of the creator economy: leveraging synergistic social incentives by rewarding what you view as positive behaviour ✨
Recap of Recalibrating & Worldbuilding
First off, hello to the 28 subscribers who joined me since my second Recalibrating Entry 🧭 ✨ I'm blown away at this response, it took me months to get this many people following on Substack 🫡
For those new here, Paragraph is the medium-form extension of my long-form Recalibrating newsletter currently on Substack & my website:
🧭 Recalibrating = align the self & find your path
🌎 Worldbuilding= practical Recalibrating & technical explanations
To help me build up my own world, please consider joining the /cal channel on Farcaster & sharing this frame/post with someone who may find it valuable.
Word of mouth is the best way to build a world with people who resonate with one another 🤝 ✨
Now, without further ado, let's dive into Synergistic Social Incentives
Note 1: I included a tl;dr and technical definition expandable section at the request of readers. Please let me know if you are confused at any concept/term and I will update these sections as needed 🫡
Note 2: None of the commentary in this post is intended to be used as legal or financial advice. The price of $degen and other tokens is very volatile, I always recommend DYOR (do your own research). Most of this entry was written on March 28, so the prices are always approximate. I have included updates over the last 3 days to give you a sense on how things have been changing since the airdrop on March 30, 2024.
▼TL;DR: Summary Of This Post
Writers and Creators struggle to earn money on the Internet, despite web3 technology
Gratitude tokens such as $degen enable creators and consumers to earn for social interactions by refreshing daily allocations without dipping into existing funds
I call this system: Read Write Earn Own, with the own layer adding tipping offchain (points) and onchain ($degen)
Introduction to $degen and how it works
Creators are experimenting with great success by incentivizing consumer behaviour using $degen (aka leveraging $degen as a marketing budget), aka the earn layer
This earn layer opens the door to solving the monetization problem of the Internet
I am running a new experiment, tied to my hypersub announcement 👀
▼Technical Definitions
$degen = ERC20 token that is tippable on Farcaster clients (such as Warpcast) to people on the Farcaster social graph
ERC20 = a token on the Ethereum blockchain (could be L1, L2, or L3)
L1, L2, L3 = layers of the Ethereum blockchain (L1 = mainnet ETH, L2 = e.g., base, L3 = e.g., $degen)
Liquidity = ability to convert assets into cash (i.e., can I sell this right now)
NFT = Non-fungible token (a way to store data as a value packet on blockchain; can be writing, art, audio, video, code, etc.)
Farcaster = decentralized protocol (like a social media version of an email address)
Warpcast = centralized client on the farcaster protocol (like gmail or outlook)
Hypersub = time-bound token subscription (i.e., monthly subscription to a creator)
Fabric = creator of hypersub
Social graph = database of identities online (usernames) and the relationship between those users (who follows who, who likes what)
The Context
For the first time in my life, I EARN money on social media 🤯 with less than 1000 followers!
As an artist who has been sharing photography, videography, and animations for years and an IP lawyer/patent agent who quit my job to pursue writing full-time, participating in this updated creator economy feels surreal.
The Farcaster ecosystem has enabled a shift in the paradigm of how we consume digital media, introducing a regular cadence of buying and selling digital assets through NFT ownership.
But NFTs have been around for years, enabling what has commonly been referred to as web3, aka the Read Write Own era (🫡 @cdixon), so what changed? Why am I so excited?
So. Many. Reasons.
With the introduction of $degen as a native tipping mechanism on Farcaster, we now have the ability to EARN without giving away our own hard-won assets/money as creators and builders.
Building off of @cdixon's framework, I believe we're in a Read Write Earn Own era.
Let me tell you a bit about my experiments in this new system ✨
Read Write Own
The title of my experiment is, of course, a hat tip to Chris Dixon (@cdixon) and his new book: Read Write Own.
I'm about halfway through this book and recently listened to 5 hours of web3 with a16z podcast interviews (I discuss and link these episodes here).
In both the book and the interviews, Chris mentions that writers are still some of the most under-appreciated contributors to the internet, noting "writers, as a whole have been left out of the Internet monetization system".
To paraphrase Chris:
The reason we are not in a golden age of writing online is because five companies interjected themselves between the creator, the writer, and the consumer. They take such a high profit that the writers are completely left out and unable to monetize.
This framing really stuck with me.
I quit my job as an IP lawyer and patent agent ~9 months ago to pursue full-time writing and photography. In that time, I have incredibly struggled to monetize my content. I experienced first hand the problem that Chris so eloquently framed.
Web3 is often praised as the solution to this problem: we can now directly purchase digital assets from creators and builders. For example, you can buy the NFT associated with this post and support me directly (or the corresponding free Zora mint that will be added to the end of this post on Monday).
In other words, NFTs enable writers to bypass the middle-people, the 5 major companies that have injected themselves between the creator (e.g., writer, builder, artist) and the consumer.
But, as @danicaswanson notes in one of her most popular writings, Writers, Web3, and Earning A Living, there is still an elephant in the room.
The Problem: Web "3"
As Danica astutely points out, web3 is not that much different from web2 when it comes to monetizing writing:
That last question stuck with me, especially after continuing the conversation with Danica on Farcaster.
How could web3 level up writers' earnings so that people could actually recognize the value of their intrinsically motivated work?
The technology is clearly possible with onchain activities like minting and selling NFTs, profit sharing, royalties in smart contracts, and more.
What is missing, in my opinion, is a social system that incentivizes readers to reward their writers for the intrinsic value they provide.
A Solution: Offchain Points, Onchain Tipping
Back in January 2022, I had an idea for a system that would enable creators to receive a certain number of "gratitude tokens" that they could pay forward as thanks when someone gave them value online.
The idea was that users could receive a daily allowance of a gratitude token that they could not use themselves, only give away. As more people participated, the supply would increase, and would eventually be put onchain via an airdrop.
Some screenshots of the day I spent planning out a gratitude token system to boost the creator economy:
There were a few more segments on my ideas for a daily allowance that people had, which refreshed each day, but there's some confidential information in those screenshots still 👀
At the time, the thought of trying to build out an ecosystem with a gratitude token on mainnet L1 Ethereum felt impossibly difficult and overwhelmingly expensive to me. There was just too much infrastructure that needed to be built. It would not have been feasible at the time.
Now, with the rise of L2s, L3s, and the social graph of authenticated identities on Farcaster, this system is not only possible, but has already been built 🤯
Welcome to $degen 🎩 ✨
$degen 🎩 ✨
From the moment I heard of $degen, my mind instantly went back to that idea from 2 years earlier for a gratitude token.
$degen has, in my opinion, changed the way we can think about distributing value online and onchain.
First off, I know the name of the token can turn people off, as it's clearly a reference to the typical degenerate casino-like behaviour of people in crypto (@cdixon calls this the casino vs the computer nature of crypto).
However, I would actually argue that, from my experience over the last month, $degen leverages more of the computer nature of crypto than its unsavoury casino counterpart. $degen tracks the social engagement between people onchain, tallying engagement, computing the output, and preparing the tokens for airdropping at a later date.
This is not a memecoin, it's the gratitude token I've been waiting for.
This is turning content into currency 🎩 ✨
A Brief Overview Of How $degen Tipping Works On Farcaster
A reminder, none of this is financial or legal advice in any way. Dealing with monetized tokens comes with risk and I advise you to do your own research always. Read degen.tips for more details.
That said, $degen removes some of this risk by operating offchain as "points" before moving onchain as $degen tokens.
Each eligible account with a daily tipping allocation is able to give points by replying to casts with # points $degen (exactly that format). Framing a reply to another person's cast with that phrasing gives that user the # of points you specified.
For example, I shared my read write earn own experiment with @coopatroopa.eth and he rewardded me for the innovation 🫡 thank you 🎩 ✨
Each eligible tipper gets a daily allocation of $degen that refreshes at (I believe 12:00 am EST).
The tipper's daily allocation then drops by the amount of points they gave away, until they get to 0. The next day, the tips refresh and they're able to give out their full allocation again.
At the end of the month (March 29th) there was a snapshot of the points each user has received. On March 30, the airdrop claim opened. Connecting to degen.tips with the Farcaster verified wallet enables you to claim the points you have accumulated from people tipping you over the last month.
It is at this moment, claiming the airdrop, that the points were converted to tokens that you can then buy and sell.
The only requirement (that I am aware of) to RECEIVE tips is that you have a verified ETH wallet on your Farcaster account.
To GIVE tips, you must have:
10,000 $degen in your verified wallet;
at least 3 casts;
waited 48 hours since you connected your wallet.
My guess is that this system enables people to earn 10,000 $degen one month by providing value, receive the airdrop at the end of the month, and then begin giving out tips the following month.
You are able to earn for your positive behaviour in the ecosystem, which allows you to claim the airdrop at the end of the month and begin operating as a tipper in the next season.
Elegant 🎩 ✨
For context on the approximate monetary value of tipping with $degen, let's take a look at my experiment.
My Experiment: Read Write Earn Own
On March 25th, I asked myself: how could I incentivize feedback on my writing in a synergistic way?
In other words, how could I leverage my $degen tipping allocation to reward people for reading my writing and providing feedback? I am always looking for ways to recalibrate my writing so I can maximize the value it provides my readers (you 😌✨)
I decided to use a portion of my $degen daily allowance (5000 points) to give 500 points to the 10 best responses to my last paragraph post:
For context, at the time, $degen was worth $0.017 USD, making each 500 $degen tip = $8.50 USD.
Not bad eh? Getting paid for reading my post and letting me know your thoughts. Earning.
But that's not all. The airdrop has yet to happen (on Saturday). At the time of writing, $degen is currently worth $0.023 USD, making those 500 points = $11.50 USD.
NOTE: I wanted to provide contrast by leaving the above paragraph in. The airdrop happened on March 30, 2024. At the time of this update (March 31), the value of $degen is $0.053 USD, so 500 $degen is now $26 USD.
Of course, the price of the token will fluctuate in value. The key here is that I was able to give out ~$10 USD (now $26) to people at no cost to myself.
Effectively, people who took the time to read my post and write a comment could earn $degen as a thank you. I could reward them for their time and energy. Gratitude 😌
Optionally, if they found my writing of value, they could thank me back by minting one of the Paragraph or Zora tokens associated with the post (which @bfg & @lucaonadventure.eth did 🫡 thank you very much).
Of course, readers could in turn, tip me back for my writing if they find it valuable 👀
I was able to leverage my daily $degen tip allowance as a marketing budget to promote my own work AND reward readers for giving me value in exchange. Win-Win.
Synergistic Social Incentivization ✨
My Experimental Results
The results were better than I expected! I had one person collect my writing, about 6 people subscribe to future entries, one person collect my free Zora mint, and 12 people provide detailed, helpful feedback.
The type feedback ranged a lot! I was pleasantly surprised 😊
Some people gave feedback on what they were confused about (one of the most valuable forms of feedback), on the format of the article, and still others on the art and aesthetic of the work.
It was a huge boost hearing what people liked and didn't like, and I've already incorporated the feedback into this entry 🫡
Also, as an added benefit, the engagement to that post boosted my daily $degen allocation, which has been increasing since I ran the experiment.
I'm now able to give out 16,578 $degen points, which amounts to $378 USD at the time of writing 🤯
Each day.
I plan on doing many more experiments to come, so stay tuned ✨
update on March 30: 16,578 $degen is now worth $500 USD 🤯
Update on March 31: $degen allocation has been reduced (likely to account for the massive spike in price. I now have 8,028 $degen.
At $0.053 USD per $degen, that means I still have ~425 USD of daily tipping allowance
But... How Does This Help Writers & Creators If You're Giving Away Tips?
$degen tipping is doing something we haven't seen before in the creator economy: it's giving liquidity to people who bring value to the overall Farcaster ecosystem.
@danicaswanson and @adrienne refer to this as conversational liquidity pools. $degen just gave that pool a financial value, and it's having a massive boost on innovation and creator monetization.
A very important point to note: this liquidity is not given out by some random Big 5 algorithm designed to maximize advertising revenue, but is being controlled by each individual tipper.
Each person is given the power to incentivize behaviour they think makes the world (or at least, Farcaster) a better place.
It could be financial, artistic, thoughtful, mindful, relaxing, philosophical, helpful, etc.
Tipping can be used to swap for NFTs (more on this below), so artists are able to give out value via their digital assets and tippers are able to reciprocate without dipping into their own funds.
It can be used as a sign of gratitude for those who help you online (I often tip people when they answer my questions or provide valuable insight).
It can be whatever you want ✨
That's the whole point.
As the liquidity builds and people are able to give out more $degen, I believe we will see more incentives arise through social contracts between creators and consumers.
As more and more people socially incentivize with rewards for valuable content sharing behaviour, I believe we will see the system favour the people long-left out of consistent creator monetization: the writers.
If we can help make it the norm to reward people for writing valuable content that builds up the ethos of the ecosystem, writers are incentivized to write more valuable content that will educate and inspire others.
It's a socially synergistic incentive system.
We just need a few people to start spinning the flywheel so that we can all ride the momentum together ✨
Examples Of Experiments This Week
So far, I've referred to the issue with monetizing writing online, but the same issues apply to builders and creators (artists and knowledge workers).
I thought I would share some notable examples of other experiments people have run this past week.
@briantoups (Starboy) gave out a beautiful astrophotography piece "Wheel Of Fire" in exchange for a 1000 $degen tip (thank you 🫡).
@nomadicframe did the same with Golden Smile for 2000 $degen.
@coopahtreepa.eth used the budget for marketing his record label to reimburse collectors of music NFTs
@nathanabauman agreed to give 50,000 $degen as a reward to a collector for buying his NFT at 0.25 ETH 🤯
@inceptionally and @jonathancolton pooled their $degen to give out 30,000 points as part of an "itookaphoto" contest, giving out additional tips for their runner ups (which I was pumped to receive 😊).
Remember, an NFT (non-fungible token) is representative of any value packet online. It can be used for art, writing, time, code, literally any intangible asset.
You can now swap this value packet NFT with the liquidity of $degen that increases every day as people refresh their daily tipping allowance.
What can you experiment with? 🤔
Today's Experiment
To expand on my own Read Write Earn Own experiment, I am incentivizing socially synergistic behaviour with this post. I currently have 8,028 $degen to give away ~ $420 USD✨
I plan to experiment a lot over the coming weeks. To start, I will share a frame on warpcast in /cal and will allocate my $degen tips in the following ways (while supply lasts):
I will give ~100 $degen (~$5 USD) to each person who comments with quality feedback & recasts the post;
I will give ~150 $degen (~$8 USD) to each person who collects the free Zora mint of this post and subscribes to my Paragraph.
I will give ~300 $degen (~$15 USD) if you collect this post on Paragraph & subscribe;
I will reimburse people who subscribe for 3 months to my Hypersub (more details at the end of the entry 👀)
note that the degen may vary depending on daily price*
The synergy of RWEO arises in a few ways, but a main one as a writer is that I am able to trade my $degen tips for ETH when you purchase one of my NFTs. I can convert my daily $degen allocation into ETH that allows me to pay my bills and debts and you receive $degen which is redeemable at each airdrop.
In this way, I am directly and instantly rewarded for my writing, potentially solving the issue discussed by Chris and Danica.
Note: this reimbursement mentality is just one way to foster connection. Over time, I hope to inspire people to recognize the inherent value in writing itself so we can get away from the reimbursement style of tipping and tip for behaviour we all want to see as part of a sustainable creator economy ✨
Please consider collecting the Paragraph post, Zora free mint, or tipping me $degen if you found this article of value ✨ This writing is now my full-time job and I'm trying to maximize the time I can spend writing and educating people in this space 🌎
Updated Note (March 29, 2024): Since I started writing this post, the price of $degen has fluctuated between 0.022 and 0.027, so please keep in mind that all USD values in this article are estimates.
Updated Note (March 31, 2024) the price of $degen is now $0.053 USD
So much is changing so quickly, it can be incredibly difficult to keep up with it all... which leads me to:
ANNOUNCEMENT: Introducing The Recalibrating Hypersub 🧭 🧠 ✨
I am incredibly excited to announce my Fabric-based Hypersub subscription: Recalibrating 🧭 🧠 ✨
Since I quit my job 9 months ago, I have been building resources to help people understand the creator economy and web3, while building a sustainable creation system to build in a way that optimizes for positive mental health.
Now that I have so many resources available, I want to take my Recalibrating Experiment to the next level: token-gated access.
3 Month Reimbursement
To build off of what @yb started yesterday, I am allocating a portion of my $degen today to reimburse people who pay for 3 months of my Hypersub: Recalibrating.
How Does It Work?
My hypersub membership is 0.002 ETH/month. For three months, that is 0.006 ETH, which, at time of writing, costs approximately $20 USD.
I have allocated $degen over the next few days to "reimburse" people who pay for 3 months of my hypersub by giving them $degen (e.g., ~600 $degen, which at the time of writing, 600 $degen = ~32 USD).
What Do You Get?
The core ethos (philosophy) of Recalibrating is that everything in life is in constant flux, making our ability to deal with change the greatest skill we can foster.
Accordingly, my plan with the Recalibrating Hypersub is to start small & sustainable and build more as I go.
In other words, the perks will change as I grow and experiment, Recalibrating along the way 🧭✨
To start, here are some base perks of subscribing to my Hypersub:
Airdrop of Free Zora Tokens (at least once a month);
Monthly Photography-Based Art Drop (work in progress 👀);
Token-gated group chat on Farcaster (Warpcast);
Access to token-gated Paragraph content (more details on my hypersub);
Airdropped pods tokens from my podcast (coming soon);
Hypersub-only $degen tipping posts (a work in progress, very much something I am recalibrating so do not expect much on this front at this point)
Thoughts for the future...
What Next?
I am planning on experimenting a lot over the next few weeks as my $degen allocation increases and I think more deeply about the future I want to build in this creator economy. The synergistic social incentives I want to put out there in the world.
I have been working on building a sustainable creation system for 10 months since I quit my job, and for the first time, it feels like we might be able to build it into a reality, together ✨
Stay tuned ✨
P.S. Collectibles
There are four ways you can support my writing on Paragraph:
Subscribe to future entries, my Substack, or my podcast🫡
Share this post with a friend (if you add your wallet address, you can get referral rewards)
Collect this writing token (100 available at 0.001 ETH)
Collect the cover art token (infinite supply & free on Zora)
