So, as those of you who follow us closely will already know, we’re currently investing a large amount of our time into creating a “learning centre”. Now both of you are probably thinking: “a learning centre? What the hell? How does that make me money?”
Let me start by saying we hear you; and based on some feedback we’ve had, we feel we maybe haven’t done the best job on communicating why this is important to us, and additionally, why it should interest you.
Let’s rip the bandaid off; the learning centre isn’t sexy. Not in the way 3 digit inflation based APY’s are or any of the other ponzinomics we all know and love. It’s boring as shit. But most things that make real value are boring. In this letter we want to talk about first the wider “moral” value of the learning centre, and then secondly about what we believe to be the real financial value of it.
What is the learning centre?
The VestaDAO learning centre aims to be nothing less than a one stop shop for all questions a newbie might have about crypto. The goal of it is to provide clear information without the use of tech jargon; if you don’t know that’s kind of our gimmick.
As it expands we hope to provide detailed explanations and how to guides on the more complex issues. Actually our first ever article in this category was on What Metis CEG is and how to take part.
The eventual aim for the learning centre is to be the first place you think of when someone in real life asks about crypto. “Go here, and leave me alone” is what we want you to be able to say, except, you know, nicer.
The moral value:
I know, I know, I promise this section will be short. Who cares about morality right? Wen number go up? Trust me, I like wen number goes up as much as the next guy (though I do secretly enjoy the salt wen number go down). That said, web3 to myself and Cobi at least, is about more than just the number.
We both generally believe in a decentralized economic system. We both believe that crypto can be a real path to financial stability for many who live in countries with volatile currencies. And we both believe that Metis is the perfect home for that future.
We believe that onboarding people to the Metis ecosystem is a good goal in and of itself; and that we’d both really like to be a part of that.
Finally we believe that the current standard of information available will mean that heavy adoption of Metis will literally never happen. Why? Because even many of the people who have been in crypto for years can barely understand half of it.
It’s okay; you don’t have to admit it to anyone. There’s thousands of 20 year old Andrew Tate simps out there who will never admit to not understanding something. But it’s a fact.
Now think about your parents, or your dumb friend who managed to get his facebook account hacked, or that person you know who doesn’t know how to google stuff properly. If mass adoption is to ever happen then THESE people need to be comfortable using crypto.
We want to make that a possibility. A common saying of ours over the past few months has been:
“There’s no decentralization without information”
-A really good looking part time web dev
The Financial Value:
Ok, so that’s the boring bit done. Let’s get onto the real reason you’re here. The money. So as I said at the outset, we feel the learning centre has REAL financial value to us, to our holders, and to the wider Metis ecosystem.
The value to the Metis ecosystem:
This one is the easiest so lets start with this. The goal of the learning centre is to act as a one stop shop for all basic crypto questions a new user might have. We fully acknowledge in it who and what we are; and whilst we will look to be unbiased within our articles they will lead to an eventual focus on Metis. It’s our home afterall.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if someone uses our learning centre for onboarding then that is a great way to foster trust. We aren’t looking to “con” people into joining Metis; we don’t think we need to. Metis has enough great opportunities that we’d happily talk openly about it, warts and all. Indeed we’ve already done this in the past in our Metis deepdive article.
Additionally these resources will be useful not only to newbies, but as resources for Metis themselves to share alongside aspects of the ecosystem they are looking to promote. It’s a lot more impactful talking about your TVL or your decentralized sequencers if your audience has some clue of what the fuck you’re talking about and why it might be a good thing.
The value to us (VestaDAO):
Okay, so what value do we see in this for us? This is one of the first questions I like to ask devs of other projects; if someone doesn’t have an answer I’m super suspicious.
So the answer to this has a few parts; some are very straightforward, others are more abstract. Let’s start with the straightforward one;
Affiliate links:
As we will be looking to create a smooth journey from buying one’s first crypto through to having your own wallet, and eventually even bridging to an L2; there will be many opportunities to monetize some of the steps involved.
We have had deep conversations about how to do this in a way that keeps the articles unbiased. This is very important to us (I know, boring right?). We have decided that all articles will be written before any affiliate opportunities are pursued to help with this and additionally that all articles will be open to direct feedback from our community.
Please hold us to account for this.
The possibility of funding:
As we wrote above we believe what we’re doing is of great value to the Metis ecosystem. Our hope is that, in addition to the other aspects of VestaDAO we have planned, Metis will see this value. We will be making an application for EDF funding based off of a platform of making Metis fun, accessible, and easy to understand. Obviously we cannot know what they will decide but based on some of the shit they’ve funde we hope they will agree with us.
The abstract value of viewership:
The final avenue of value for us is the most abstract, but also possibly the most valuable; eyes on our project. This is difficult to put a monetary value on but that hasn’t stopped many businesses making it their entire model. Many of the largest businesses around focused solely on their number of users to begin with.
Neither Cobi nor I are arrogant enough to think of ourselves as the next Facebook or Youtube; but that doesn’t mean we can’t borrow from their playbook on a smaller scale.
We view the learning centre as an opportunity to form a meaningful relationship with people new to crypto; and to have a positive impact on their experience with it. Whilst we don’t ever plan to abuse the trust formed here; we do hope it will lead to real interest in our future products as well as our current token.
The value to our holders:
It was kind of hard to know whether to include this as a separate section as it is so linked to the value for VDAO. Obviously everything mentioned in the section above will, we hope, have a positive impact on our token value. For obvious reasons we cannot guarantee this; but it is a huge part of our aim.
Obviously having some funds to play with through the form of affiliate links or alternatively funding of some description will mean that at a minimum Cobi and I can devote more of our time to VestaDAO, which we’d absolutely love. Additionally it will allow us to take action such as shoring up our liquidity to give future investors more confidence, develop and deliver additional utility for our token, and, if there is money leftover, even look at developing into a deflationary asset.
The most interesting for our token holders should definitely be our viewership ambitions. Our token is incredibly small fish right now; having more eyes on it and everything we do can lead many opportunities for growth.
Conclusion (tl;dr):
We’re doing the learning centre because we think it’s something the Metis ecosystem needs. We also think that having more eyes on us will be a good thing, especially when we’ve formed a trusting relationship with those eyes. Finally, we think there is an opportunity to make money along the way. All of this hopefully = number go up.
