Darren Kleine

Avi Felman recently joined Friend.tech, the controversial social media app that financializes public profiles with “keys” — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/friend-tech-taxes">previously described as “shares”</a> — purchased to connect and invest in personalities.



“I get personally offended when people sell my shares,” he says.



On the 1000X podcast (<a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Tr23HIsQS7b3Prq3D1CMg?si=62a9403eeca349cc">Spotify</a>/<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empire/id1554930038?i=1000625538426">Apple</a>), the head of digital asset trading at GoldenTree jokingly warns his audience: “If you sell my shares, I will see it and I&#8217;ll be upset about it and I will — I don&#8217;t think I can threaten people on this podcast — but I will be very upset with you.”



Cumberland’s global head of trading and podcast co-host Jonah Van Bourg is intrigued by the new app. “Let&#8217;s say that I am a novice, aspiring day trader,” he says. “I read crypto Twitter, I follow a few influencers. I could theoretically buy those influencers’ shares on Friend.tech and get invited into private conversations with those influencers.”



“I theoretically might be able to learn something about the market that could help me do a better job profiting from it trading,” he suggests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Financialization of people is inevitable</h2>



Felman agrees on the app’s potential utility, adding that the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/friendtech-social-sec">financialization of people</a> is inevitable, given the blockchain technology that currently exists. But Van Bourg questions why the app needs to involve crypto at all.



“It&#8217;s just the easiest way to transfer value on the internet,” replies Felman. “If you&#8217;re going to have value transfer on the internet, crypto&#8217;s the best way to do it.”



Felman says the app follows a tried and true formula — the assignment of monetary value to access. Whether it’s getting a table at a nightclub or sitting down for a lunch with Warren Buffett, access costs money, Felman argues. “I view this as a natural extension of that.”



The tech allows celebrities to engage more directly with fans, Felman says. “People are willing to pay for access to people that they idolize,” he says. He also likes the betting element of the app.&nbsp;



“You can resell that access,” he says. “Potentially, if you get access to somebody early on, you can make a lot of money by betting that this person is gonna be huge.”&nbsp;



Felman imagines betting on someone’s future success using the app. “I don&#8217;t know exactly how they&#8217;re going to be successful, but I know that this person is going to be successful — and I want a piece of that.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A refreshing change from memecoins</h2>



Van Bourg mentions the success of the app in its early stages, noting it is currently the third-largest revenue generator in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> network, following only the mainnet itself and ether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/eth">ETH</a>) staking service, Lido. He says the “proof in the pudding” is the fact that people are spending “real ETH” on the app.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/friendtech-social-token">Decentralized social media app Friend.tech is surging</a>



“Imagine instead of buying a concert ticket,” Felman says. “They just spin up an account for the concert and the first thousand people to buy shares are the only people that go to that concert.”



“There are so many random things that you can do with this, which is why I actually think that there&#8217;s a lot of money to be made here.”



<iframe loading="lazy" frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BWG9312094678" width="100%"></iframe>







Van Bourg notes that a few previous iterations of similar concepts have been created in crypto, only to have quickly fizzled out. “But that doesn&#8217;t mean that the technology itself isn&#8217;t perfectly conducive to this use case,” he says.



“It&#8217;s just refreshing to talk about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/friend-tech-bullish-bearish">something other than Pepe</a> or Barack Obama Sonic Harry Potter coin. I&#8217;m just sick of that stuff.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>
</ul>

1000x

Friend.tech: Flash in the pan or inevitable future of crypto financialization?

Jack Kubinec

<div id="highlights-block_633b45b1a1a3c" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Cumberland and GoldenTree cast a combined 8.1 million of 13 million votes</li>
 <li>11 million of 13 million total votes were cast by just five wallets</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sushi-dao-holds-election-for-chief-executive/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The SushiSwap DAO hoped to set a new precedent</a> for transparency and crypto governance by holding a first-of-its-kind election for its chief executive, known as the decentralized protocol’s “head chef.”  



But <a href="https://snapshot.org/#/sushigov.eth/proposal/bafkreifkvrkobnbzy6j7th244kcvbryg2qiq4digepljyaqgnnnlwdvyza" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voter turnout</a> was collectively low, giving quite the runway to five whales — including the kingmakers GoldenTree and Cumberland — leading to what some SushiSwap community members have dubbed a lopsided result, carried out in the very early days of governance and activism in the Web3 world. 



While activism has had an established, and SEC-regulated, framework in equities for decades, corresponding Web3 governance proposals have been plagued by low voter turnout and dominated by deep-pocketed token owners.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Ultimately, the two venture firms cast the deciding votes. In fact, if every other voter opposed their pick, the financiers still would have come out on top, considering just 391 of some 18,000 eligible Sushi wallets cast a virtual ballot. Of 13 million votes — one per token — 11 million came from the five big-money wallets.



Jared Grey, former CEO of DeFi platform Eons Finance, carried the election with 83%, though Andy Forman and Kenneth Hurley, who finished second and third, respectively, each garnered more votes from unique wallets.&nbsp;



Grey received support from key whales. Ten million of his 11 million votes came from four anonymous whale wallets.&nbsp;



The largest whale wallets in the election, which cast four million votes apiece, belonged to venture capital firms <a href="https://www.goldentree.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GoldenTree</a> and <a href="https://cumberland.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cumberland</a>, Grey and Hurley told Blockworks.&nbsp;



Representatives from the prominent traditional finance asset managers approached Grey and other candidates after one of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL03oyFX32uZfNpcT8_EYubJcoijIut-S-" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sushi’s AMA calls</a>, Grey told Blockworks. Hurley said the two firms pressured Sushi insiders to back Grey during a private meeting ahead of the election.



Sushi DAO members were disheartened by the election’s dominance by whales.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I guess DeFi is no different than [TradFi], except that this has the veneer of choice,” a DAO member <a href="https://discord.com/channels/748031363935895552/1009910713017438228/1026027197250687036" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote on Discord</a> after the election. </blockquote>



Venture capital backing aside, the Sushi community has <a href="https://discord.com/channels/748031363935895552/1009910713017438228/1026510556057829416" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">generally positive feelings</a> about Grey. For his part, Grey is unconcerned about venture capital participation in the election.



“I got the impression from those funds that I spoke with that ended up voting for me, that they’re very much in alignment with what people want,” Grey said.



SushiSwap, once <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201125082236/https://defillama.com/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">among the largest</a> DeFi protocols on the market, has been roiled in <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/update-cto-resigns-as-sushiswap-struggles-arca-submits-restructuring-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">leadership controversy</a> for much of the past two years, sliding to 19th in total value locked (TVL) among DeFi protocols, <a href="https://defillama.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">per DeFiLlama</a>. Head chef candidates were under pressure to roll out detailed plans for how to restore Sushi to the upper echelons of DeFi.



In an interview with Blockworks ahead of the election, Grey said he hoped to “do a forensic style audit on [Sushi’s] treasury” and make the protocol “operationally lean.”



Hurley was less optimistic on venture capital’s alignment.



“When I talked with the one VC firm, he said, ‘Oh, well we all have the same goals in mind, and that’s to get the Sushi price up,’” Hurley said. “That’s not necessarily my goal. I want to move the crypto space forward.”



Grey stressed that DAO governance is a work in progress, considering DeFi is in its infancy and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bipartisan-stablecoin-regulation-has-a-slim-chance-of-passing-this-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regulation</a> remains opaque. Sushi is currently weighing the <a href="https://forum.sushi.com/t/sushi-meiji-restoration/10969" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Meiji proposal</a>, aimed, in part, to reduce the voting power of whales. In the meantime, Grey still sees the election as a step up from executives being nominated behind closed doors.



“At the end of the day, [the election is] one of the more fair ways to get executive leadership in these roles,” Grey said. “I’d like to see some version of this process get adopted by more DAOs, so we can improve on it.”



Cumberland and GoldenTree did not respond to requests for comment.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>
</ul>

Cumberland

SushiSwap ‘Head Chef’ Election Settled by GoldenTree, Cumberland

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_624af03a29568" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Framework Ventures and Delphi Digital are two of the leading investors in the round</li>
 <li>Polemos announced a strategic funding round of $2 million in November</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Polemos, a GameFi platform and play-to-earn guild, announced a $14 million seed round on Monday. This brings the startup and forthcoming decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to a $100 million post-money valuation.&nbsp;



The capital will go toward staff expansion, gaming investments and tech development, Polemos co-founder Sascha Zehe told Blockworks.&nbsp;



“We have significant costs for the development of the tech, and that is one part where we want to heavily scale both the team and also contractors to build even better and faster [on the] main tech stack that we&#8217;re aiming to put into the space,” Zehe said.&nbsp;



Polemos currently has around 25 employees but expects to reach at least 50 by the end of the year.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Framework Ventures and Delphi Digital are two leading investors in the round.&nbsp;



Michael Anderson, co-founder of Framework Ventures, told Blockworks that gaming guilds like Polemos are the “potential next phase of what an esports franchise could look like.”



“Guilds [are] something that have existed in games for a long time, but now that we have NFTs, we have massive swaths of players that are coming into these games. The role of a guild has a much more pronounced function within this ecosystem than previously,” Anderson said. “It’s one part asset management, one part technology company, and one part recruiting and marketing.”



Other participants in the round include QCP, GoldenTree, IOSG and LD Capital, along with the founders of Sushiswap, COTI, Tokemak and Altered State Machine.



Last year, Polemos announced a $2 million strategic raise at a $40 million valuation.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>
</ul>

GameFi Platform Polemos Secures $14M Seed Round

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_6216a7ee49b33" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Dubbed Zebec Pay, the product is a tax-compliant, on-chain payroll processor that pays employees via USDC or other stablecoins within seconds</li>
 <li>Within a few months of launching, the protocol has over 250 projects built on the blockchain</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



A Solana crypto payment processor closed a $15 million venture round as demand for the proof-of-stake protocol lingers after its explosive growth last year.



Zebec’s Series A round was led by Distributed Global and Solana Ventures. The company did not disclose its latest valuation.



Other investors include Alameda Research, Circle, Coinbase, GoldenTree Asset Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners.



The platform enables continuous, real-time settlements and can be used to send and receive money for investments, payments and subscriptions. Dubbed Zebec Pay, the product is a tax-compliant, on-chain payroll processor that pays employees via USDC or other stablecoins within seconds.&nbsp;



Support for USDC “onboards a new generation of workers to the digital asset economy,” Circle Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Green told Blockworks.



&#8220;For crypto-curious employees, providing an option to allocate a portion of their paycheck into crypto is an easy way for them to get started, without having to transfer funds from a traditional banking system,&#8221; Fox-Green said.



<a href="https://zebec.io" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Zebec</a> launched in November 2021 and has raised $21 million in all and plans to raise additional funding “soon,” Founder Sam Thapaliya told Blockworks. “Our goal is growth and to grow fast.”



The protocol now supports more than 250 projects. Zebec additionally plans to launch a debit card that supports fiat-to-crypto conversion — a major force, in Thapaliya’s eyes, when it comes to driving mainstream crypto adoption.



The protocol is focused on scaling partnerships with products focused on a range of crypto products, including fractionalized non-fungible tokens (NFTs), yields and options, he said.&nbsp;



“People are doubling down on this idea of continuous money, and this is just the starting point,” Thapaliya said.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>
</ul>