Introducing the Social Token Agency
Key Summary:
- What? The first talent agency for personal token creators.
- Why? To establish best practices around personal tokens.
- How? By combining artist management and DeFi to usher in new opportunities for creator communities.
- Who? Alex Masmej ($ALEX), Brian Flynn ($JAMM) and Coin Artist ($COIN).
Personal tokens — one of the most contentious sectors in crypto.
As a tokenized representation of an individual, brand or community, personal tokens, or “social finance” are paving a new path for how creators establish and incentivize groups of like-minded individuals.
This rising sector represents a new form of social capital — one in which financial value is directly tied to a fungible asset with real-world value. What this points to is a future in which we collectively empower the individuals and brands we interact with and support on a daily basis.
To aid in this adoption, I’m excited to announce the Social Token Agency— a management project focused on the expansion of token creator communities.
The goal of the Agency is to establishing best practices around personal token sustainability by focusing on community growth over capital metrics.
As the founder, I’m combining my active contributions to DeFi and DAOs with my roots as an artist manager through Xeno Records. (more on this below).
It’s clear that while most are pointing to price as a metric for success, 1,000 true fans are exponentially more valuable than 100,000 likes or a $1,000,000 market cap.
Before we dive into who the Agency is managing, let’s talk about the why and the how.
Finding the Standard
The industry is at a standstill when it comes to finding product-market fit. One company, Roll, has tokenizing hundreds of crypto’s top figures with forthcoming plans for celebrities to join the movement.
Platforms like Stake On Me are using bonding curves to offer a clear path to price appreciation as demand increases. Microsponsors is toying with how to auction off time and new contenders like Rally are looking to abstract away all the technical barriers. Digital nomads like dApp Boi, Ameen Soleimani, and Pet3rpan carved their own path by launching personal tokens with no service provider at all.
Every platform offers different blueprints and none have established tried and true practices to take their creators from zero to hero. Every creator is unique, and his or her token should be treated as such.
As Roll likes to say, their 10M supply, 200k tokens unlocked per month standard is like having everyone wear the same Medium-sized t-shirt. In the future, these levers will be modular, but that’s only half the battle.
Once a token is created, how do you distribute it?
As we’ve seen with the success of permissioned chat groups like KarmaDAO and DeFi Nation Signal DAO, the interest is there, but the proper foundation for real price discovery has yet to find a home. (Shoutout to Abridged for building them!)
As a creator, how do you monetize your token?
Seeing as selling on the market is commonly viewed as a red flag, we need to better explore how creators can capture the upside of their own token without tarnishing their reputation.
Enter the Social Token Agency
The Agency will play a key role in the incubation of standards that seed sustainable growth. Rather than focusing on ‘number go up’ we’ll prioritize distribution which benefits value-added participants, not those with deep pockets who happened to be the first to buy into a limited-liquidity Uniswap pool.
Getting more granular, expectations of the Agency include but are not limited to:
- Tokenized income streams
- Token distribution strategy
- Partnerships and media opportunities
- Supply tracking on CoinGecko and DeFiMarketCap
- Liquidity provisioning on DEXs like Uniswap and Balancer
Most importantly, the Agency will play a major role in communication strategies to keep communities informed on what their favorite creators have been up to on any given month.
So — what makes me think I’ve got a shot at doing this well?
The Agency Experience
For those who keep a close eye on DeFi, you’ve likely seen my writing across popular outlets like DeFi Rate, The Defiant, Bankless, and Decrypt. This gives me a front-row seat to the latest trends in crypto and DeFi at large, all of which directly apply to the incubation of a strong token economy.
Outside of writing, I’m an active contributor to the DAO ecosystem through MetaCartel and Raid Guild. I summoned a crypto-native eSports DAO called MetaClan and have been jamming on all things governance through the advent of 🔥_🔥 (Fire Eyes DAO). Communities are my jam — and those principles will play a major role in how individuals engage with the Agency’s clients.
Lastly — and probably the least known but most relevant — is my artist management company Xeno Records. Since graduating with a degree in music business, I’ve kept my creative hopes high with a family of rising musicians which have been featured on major channels like Mr. Suicide Sheep, Lyrical Lemonade, Chill Nation, and Earmilk. This experience offers insight into how to properly manage and grow a brand, all of which is hyper-relevant to a new sector like personal tokens.
Now, I’m tying all of these together by packing up and moving to LA — the center of social everything.
The Agency Roster
Enough about me, let’s talk about who’s involved.
To kickstart the Agency, I’ve been lucky enough to establish working relationships with three of the top creators in crypto. While each of these projects will bring about their own goals and approaches, I could not be more excited to be managing such a talented group of individuals.
In alphabetical order, the Agency’s initial roster features:
Alex Masmej — $ALEX
The French Steve Jobs made big waves in crypto by being the first to raise using a special flavor of his personal token — ALEX — to help kickstart his move to SF and start his next company.
I first met Alex when he organized this meetup with Aave, Audius and MetaCartel during SF Blockchain week.
It was immediately clear that we shared similar visions for how crypto crosses the chasm by focusing on the application layer. Since then, he’s done exactly that by using ALEX to launch campaigns like “Control My Life” token voting and his newly announced “ALEX Yield Round” to seed Uniswap liquidity.
“Beyond being one of the most knowledgeable crypto writers I know, Cooper happens to be a talent manager on the side. By mixing his two passions together, he just pioneered the “Personal Token Agency” model. I am blessed that the Agency chose to manage $ALEX to help navigate new primitives and uncharted territory”
When I think of those who have the enthusiasm to take crypto to new audiences, Alex is one of the first to come to mind and I could not be more excited to help him grow his community in the coming months.
Brian Flynn — $JAMM
Next on the docket is one of crypto’s most grounded and talented builders — Brian Flynn. As the author of Jamm Session, Brian’s views and (sometimes contentious) vision for how crypto scales have brought about some of the thought-provoking conversations I’ve had.
In fact, the idea to launch this Agency was seeded by Brian himself!
His newsletter is none other than an idea generation machine, and JAMM provides the perfect means to oil it. Whether it be his experience at Dapper Labs and Flow or his latest project, Rabbithole, I’ve seen a clear future in which Brian’s creations usher in millions of new users to the crypto world we’ve all known to come and love.
Now, Brian will pave new paths in onboarding through the JammPad — a web3 exclusive site offering rewards for value-added actions to the JAMM community. The Agency will help Brian grow his newsletter through new forms of token-based access, laying a blueprint for newsletter creators for generations to come.
If you haven’t signed up yet, Jamm Session is a must-read.
Marguerite ‘Coin Artist’ deCourcelle — $COIN
Last but certainly not least is one of the most badass women I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. As the CEO of Blockade Games, Coin Artist’s deep roots in the creative community has earned her a reputation as the inventor of crypto puzzles. She was one of the first supporters of Token Controlled Access (TCA) with Metacoins and Colored Coins, a predecessor to non-fungible tokens and the ERC721 standard.
Her newest syndicate — Coin’s E-Den — offers a unique spin on personal tokens represented as fractional shards of an ERC721 NFT. The co-ownership of the NFT assigns governance to metadata, making COIN a fan-favorite Easter egg across the crypto gaming landscape. Not to mention, Coin Artist has already established a community of hackers who give the Twitter hackers a run for their money.
“Cooper has naturally emerged as the leading expert for trends in DeFi and microeconomics. I sought Cooper to manage my personal token as he is the undeniable standout poised to drive personal tokens and their use cases into maturity.”
In my conversations with Marguerite, her sentiment around community empowerment is the exact type of mindset the Agency hopes to spotlight. Whether it be through incentivized puzzles featuring prizes like limited-edition Dissolution ships or scarce Neon District wearables, Coin Artist sits on the cutting edge of gamified community incubation.
In the coming weeks, the Agency will play a large role in the navigation of her token distribution, including an exclusive launch with NIFTEX and a new puzzle made to coincide with the debut of COIN.
The Road Forward
If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to thank you for your interest in pushing the crypto envelope forward.
The first 5 people to DM me with the phrase “Long Live the Personal Token Agency” will receive an airdrop of $ALEX, $JAMM or $COIN ;)
This migration towards a true Ownership Economy is one I’ve long believed in, and it’s experiments like the Agency which help us get one step closer.
While the Agency (just me atm) is not looking to take on new clients in the immediate short term, I would love to hear about ways in which we can work together to help grow the aforementioned communities.
I truly believe 2020 will mark the beginning of a new economy in which creators benefit from the primitives us in crypto have been so passionate about for such a long time.
To stay up with the Agency, follow me on Twitter. I’m not a fan of overcommitting to new brand launches so I’ll be sharing occasional updates through Medium and in the channels of all the creators above.
Until then, here’s to building the best communities yet!
“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together”
