Chamath Palihapitiya and Mark Cuban Revealed Their Criteria For Social Network in Crypto
Chamath Palihapitiya and Mark Cuban are both billionaire investors who have also shown interest in crypto. Chamath is known for his early investment and strong believes on bitcoin. While Mark has been more skeptical about bitcoin in the past and called it a bubble back when it was worth $5000 in 2017. However, his more recents positions have changed about bitcoin and crypto. He is especially interested in NFTs. Also, his NBA team - the Dallas Mavericks started accepting doge coin for purchases.
A couple of days ago Chamath tweeted something interesting that has to do with social networks in crypto:
Distributed, open source products only become relevant through developer adoption. Developers are the early adopters AND the viral marketing.
That seems to have started with bitclout and if it continues, is a very asymmetric one-way bet like Bitcoin was in its earliest days.
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I first heard about BitClout reading a post by @trumpman. He has a good summary about it. Feel free tor read his post here.
At first I didn't pay attention, took a look at BitClout a little bit and moved on. Today I saw how Twitter conversation Chamath started continued and Mark Cuban's response caught my attention. Here is what Mark says:
The problem is that its a social network that isnt social at all. IMHO, you made an enormous mistake by showing the pricing and requiring people to have coins to participate. People cant be social. They have to try to do things that increase their value. Big Difference.
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And then Chamath responds with:
The social network is just a proof of concept for the platform. The killer product(s) probably haven’t emerged yet - that’s why I think it’s important to stay focused on the number of open developer projects...and their growth.
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The reason this interaction caught my attention is that the conversation between these two successful investors on Twitter reveals that they have considered about the potential future social networks in crypto and if they see one that fits their criteria they may end up investing. I am saying "social media in crypto" on purpose. Because neither of them said anything about "decentralized social network". But I believe that is what they are talking about.
Of course they don't reveal their full thoughts on the topic but do provide some insights into their thinking about such social networks.
For Chamat, it seems three main criteria are: developer adoption, viral marketing, and growth of the projects. Now Mark doesn't present his criteria, but he shares what social network is not for him. In my understanding he is saying social media should not require people to have coins to participate, and make them do things to increase their value. His statement is within the context of what BitClout is doing.
I believe Hive has decent developer adoption. Blocktrades team and others working on the core blockchain development, Peakd and Ecency teams working on alternative front-ends Apps and more, Leofinance building Apps, Community, and bridges, Splinterlands, Dcity, and other games building their games and communities, Tribes building their own front-ends and communities, etc. There is so much more about development on Hive. I am sure there are many I don't know about. My point is all of these teams and individuals could have been working somewhere else on some other blockchain or working for someone else. They chose to be here and have been doing amazing things.
Besides Hive's features to power apps, games, and communities, Hive also has a decent size Decentralized Hive Fund which should also make it attractive for developers now and in the future.
Perhaps what we are missing is a viral marketing and exponential growth. But seeing more and more interest in alternative social networking solutions, this will also come in due time. Maybe slower growth is healthier for the ecosystem.
I am not completely sure what Marks statement means. Considering it was given within the context of BitClout, and knowing how he strongly dislikes making people buy something on some promises, I can see someone like him to find Hive as interesting project as a potential investment.
Hive doesn't require people to buy coins to participate. Buying coins to participate in governance or rewards distribution is just an option for those who would like to invest in the network. Anybody can use the network without spending a dime.
Also, Hive doesn't make people do things to increase the value of the coins. Hive provides an alternative to traditional social networks in a form of ownership of the accounts, content, and assets. It also provides participants to be part of an economy wether by investing or just doing regular things they enjoy doing on the internet elsewhere. Be it blogging, blogging, writing stories, creating art, sharing photography, playing games, etc.
In conclusion, it is interesting to see how many people are aware that shifts are happening in social networking space and how #decentralized solutions has a potential to compete with the current main networking solutions. It is interesting to see how some investors are thinking about it and potentially planning to back projects with their money early on if they see the opportunities.
If these two billionaire investors are thinking about the innovation in crypto and social networking space, there probably are many more who are doing the same thing. Hive seems to be a in great position.
I left both of them some comments sharing how they may find Hive blockchain interesting. Feel free to do the same if you use Twitter.
P.S. Ari Paul shared some thoughts showing how BitClout might not be what Chamat was originally thinking about and may have changed his mind. Here is what Ari said, but read the full thread for the context:
Except unlike bitcoin, bitclout is a predatory scam. It’s fully centralized and profits off explicit fraud. It’s also horribly poorly engineered.
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Nice find. Did anybody respond to their conversation and mentioned Hive? Probably it is way below their radar yet. How cool it would be if they would take a close look at the Hive ecosystem?
No, nobody responded. I think eventually some investors will discover Hive.
Lol nice find, there truly is abhuge difference between social media on crypto and decentralized social media on crypto, however if what they seek is a that type of social media on crypto that is decentralized, then Hive is their best bet if they are lucky to find it on time.....
I just opened bitclout now, I’m closing it back thanks for the heads up
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The conversation is about social network powered by blockchain technology. Just not sure how important decentralization is for them. Normally, that would be one of the top criteria.
I also think HIVE hasn't found that killer app yet, Splinterlands has been the closest so far but no one has really cracked it with the normies yet
That is true. It would only take one winner app to take Hive to the next level adoption.
Chamath is right. The killer products we have at HIVE are not known to many. It's time we change that @geekgirl. Marketing is a big pain point for the growth of this amazing ecosystem. We need more people to talk about Hive outside of Hive. We need to make efforts to put ourselves in front of people like Chamath & Mark. If one of them realizes our potential, it's going to be the start of a new age for us.
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Many Hive people already share about Hive in various places like Twitter, Fb, Reddit, etc. Maybe it is not done enough, or maybe it is not done right and some view this in negative as trying to shill some random coins.
I agree with @chekohler that it will take a killer app built on Hive for it to get the recognition it deserves.
Oh yeah, you are right, we need that dark horse on Hive. One killer app that could blow everything out of proportion. I feel it will come in due time if we keep on supporting the current & the new projects. They would develop over time with periodic improvements and maybe one day, at least one of them would get us the eyeballs we crave for.
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The problem is that HIVE is not well known and it doesn't help that the search engine doesn't rank HIVE very high due to the HIVE stock. I don't know if I like Bitclout or not. I don't think I would want to throw away my BTC for those tokens. I am hoping Project Blank becomes the killer Dapp for HIVE.
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That’s a great point. Given the energy, skillz and building efforts of Leofinance team, Project Blank is definitely something to be excited about. That might be it.
I think what Hive is missing is the viral marketing, that one App that can catch the world's attention like the way Tiktok did!
Do these two billionaires not really have an idea about Hive?? There was also a time when Jack Dorsey was talking of Hive but using different names, something called Bluesky.
Anyway I know one-day people will get tired of being censored on traditional social media and seriously look for alternatives and we shall welcome them here hehe
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Bluesky project was announced even before Hive existed. I remember writing “letters to Jack” posts about steem when he first announced bluesky and intentions to seek decentralized solutions. I would assume they would have looked at Hive also during their research.
It comes down to a solid proof of concept as you and others mentioned in the comments in a form of one truly successful App powered by Hive that can attract people even beyond crypto realm.
Your post was promoted by @jfang003
Thank You Amr!
For all we have done on here, Hive is still a blogging platform when it comes to social media. Thus, we still do not have an application that appeals to the masses. Twitter is so popular because of the fact that everyone can post short thoughts on there. Facebook is popular because people can post short, stupid thoughts.
That does not fly on Hive. Even the tribes are following the same model. As noted by @Jfang003, we need ProjectBlank to be able to offer that killer DApp.
Another major step forward will be 3Speak's decentralized video storage app. Once that rolls out, we can push that towards all the YouTube people and people like Cuban will not be able to deny what it can do.
It is a major piece of infrastructure for the decentralized world.
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You are absolutely right. I agree with everything you said. Project Blank and Speak Decentralized Video Network can push Hive to the next level and prove once again that Hive is more than a blogging platform.
3Speak and ProjectBlank (Twitter for Hive) are going to initiate a mess around here. Also, if ProjectBlank brings what we expect, it is absolutely going to kill Dbuzz in terms of short thoughts and these stuff.
Well, I kinda disagree with you at this point. I, an ex @cityofstars member, who just started sharing thoughts using @k2x account who has 0 tokens almost wasn't able to do anything. I was following people that I like reading their articles. at the middle of that, I couldn't do anything due to lack of RC. Thanks for @thehive who got my back. So, in terms of participation in the network to do usual things. small amount (small investment) of hive is required.
Overall, Nice article and thank you for sharing :)
Yes, you are right. A new account with 0 HP will quickly run into the resource credit limits. It is by design to prevent spam.
To comfortably interact with Hive blockchain, only small amount of Hive Power is needed. There are many on Hive who will happily delegate these small amounts to the new users, so they can use Hive without any resource credit limitations and build up their own hive power.
I have done this in the past, and will be happy to do so again for tens or hundreds of users if anybody faces these limitations. There are many who would do the same. All new users need to do is ask and use them.
I believe any new user can accumulate enough hive power with their participation in no time, so that they don't have these limitation anymore.
For these reasons, I think new users are not really required to buy coins. If you know anybody who are having resource credits limitations and would like some hp delegated, let them know. I will be happy to help.
You do bring up a good point. We do need to figure out better ways to make sure new users don't face these limitations. Do you know what is the smallest amount of hp that is needed to use Hive without rc limit issues?
Thank You.
I am not really sure though, but I guess 20HP is the minimum. currently, I have 50HP (delegated). which is enough in my case. Currently, I doing a experiment which is rising from scratch (from 0 HP) to see how it works.
People talk about altcoin gems as a pipe dream. Yet we are sitting on one. Never changed my mind about that.
After years of ripping consumer data on Facebook, I like that Chamath has fully done a 180. He recognized that we need to stop creating massive conglomerate networks and move to a decentralized option. I wonder if he knows anything about our community here
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I think, Blocktrades team and others working on the development are not interested on marketing aspect and I see that as a huge difference. We are building something without a vision on how to promote or sell the idea to the world. And assuming slower growth is healthy is not true over a long period of time. We are past one year, after the new birth.
If you think about it, what Blocktrades and their team does for Hive is just incredible. In fact, if it wasn't for Blocktrades I am not sure Hive would even be possible. They are super talented and skillful when it comes to blockchain technologies, and having blocktrades as part of the core blockchain team is awesome. That is probably the most important part of this idea and journey we call Hive. Blocktrades do what they are really good at that is core blockchain development. They have been working on blockchain technologies even before Hive. So it is great for all of us Hive participants and believers in decentralized social media to have them as part of the community. Since they are mainly skillful and knowledgable about software, I doubt they have are specialized in marketing. I am sure they would welcome any marketing ideas and efforts. In decentralized Hive it is up-to the rest of the community to engage in marketing and come up with innovative ideas to spread the word of Hive.
That said, I think we have accomplished a lot within just one year. It is really impressive. I believe there are more good things to come our way. At the same time I do understand internal struggles and difficulties we face as a decentralized community. But we can overcome the challenges and keep building the future of the web. I am optimistic.
Seems so, because I had some conversations directly with him. But then who is going to lead that effort is the question.
I believe @lordbutterfly is leading the marketing efforts (but I'm a very new Hiver, and may be incorrect.)
Still, it may be worth checking out his profile as his marketing proposal did secure funding.
Never give up
So true.
RC delegations will open the door for the world on hive. Power users can pay transactions for the users with RCs. Its a big deal because the inflation control in untouched.
A app like leo can use all there RCs for onboarding and value the own token more.
Same for games and other community. I also think its RCs can be something like venture capital, Investors pay the RC, Developer can build and user can use it for "free". I think really awesome business models can pop up with it.
Other "social" cryptos like bitcloud are years behind.
Yes, you are right RC delegations will be a big change/addition. I forgot about it. Thanks for reminding that this feature is being worked on.
Blocktrades doesn't think Rc delegations will be such a big thing. I have the opinion, every use case for Hive is a good one.
Besides the fact, RC delegation makes everything smoother ( if done well in code).
BitClout is showing what can be done with Hive.
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We have several funded social media apps on Hive. What are they doing to promote their projects?
It's funny ironic that Leofinance, is not a funded project, do not have a top ranked witness and yet seems to be pushing their app harder than other funded social apps.
I will never understand what the whales choose to give incentives and what they choose not to fund. Just seems like a friend and family plan to be honest.
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I replied and retweeted it, thanks for bringing this in our attention
Good luck in your all endeavors
Read how this all have started with Toruk
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Doesn't this create even better opportunity for Hive to promote itself? I think this is the case. Maybe we can educate these billionaires on Twitter. I'm not using Twitter. Maybe @leofinnace can try dropping some words :)
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what's not here are people ... they are important for social projects
I love this post.
I've seen some of the controversy about bitclout, but I had not seen Chamath or Mark's stance on it.
I believe your line about viral marketing & exponential growth is an incredible important one, so I'm hoping LordButterfly's Hive Marketing project with Ignite makes a positive impact in that regard.
For Mark's point on how 'socializing' should be 'social' for social's sake, and shouldn't be focused on increasing the value of a token, it may be true Hive doesn't do this directly, but Hive's complexity and high barrier to entry is another way it prevents socializing and keeps the platform 'more empty' than things like Reddit, Instagram, or Facebook.
Another disincentive to 'pure socializing' is that a new user eventually learns that to have a low rep score, or negative attention from whales, or minimal Hive Power can quickly devalue their ability to socialize (at least in the short-term.)
So for an investor like Mark, those 2 things may be major turn-offs, but I'm justs guessing.
Either way, this is a really interesting topic, I love that major players are giving 'decentralized' social their attention (even if it only starts with bitclout's conroversial centralized version.)
Thanks so much for this @geekgirl !
https://twitter.com/mehdicrypto09/status/1414821958907277317
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