TGI-βΎοΈ: π Timeless Story, π Power Perpetuals, π Meme Launchpad
Our ecosystem partner β³ Timeless is building an open protocol to unlock the economic value of social capital. Learn more on its docs and download its wallet for iPhone or for Android.
Zi and Stephen are hosting again! TGI-3(sum): 3 hours of 3 friends over 3 beer π». Infinite sum of timeless friendship and harmonic hearts. βForever dinner partyβ as δΈζ£ηη΅εΈ.
Listen to our 2-hour recording on X / Twitter Spaces, Google Recorder (with full transcript), or YouTube Live:
Timeless X & Social Wallet
Zi here from Timeless. We are building an open protocol to unlock the economic value of social capital.
We know social capital operates much like financial capital β it can be invested and compounded for asset growth and upward mobility.But the value exchange of social capital is hard, because it is context dependent and non-fungible, which makes it hard to capture and measure.
We lived through the pain β when social capital was missing in action.
After handling close to 24,000 support messages,
we see builders are suspicious of Sybil attacks, users are distrustful in reward system, and collaboration is nearly impossible.
So, we are developing an social capital protocol on a layer 3 network.
It reduces transaction costs and enables resource pooling, making group and capital formation faster and easier. To start, it be useful to investment clubs, liquidity or lending pools, gaming guilds, and fan communities.
Ultimately, social capital acts like a market multiplier that can be layered on top of any transaction or experience.
My co-founder and I have been in the blockchain space since 2017; before that, I worked on product & engieering team on chrome and Android from 2006 to 2015.
Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.
Unlocking the Economic Value of Social Capital.
What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.
We are developing an open social capital protocol that simplifies value exchange.
By addressing the challenges of measuring social capital, our protocol allows developers to create social applications that enhance socioeconomic mobility. For example, this protocol will enable businesses to offer loans to the traditionally unbanked. What the credit system achieved for TradFi, social capital will accomplish for DeFi.
Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible.
We developed smart headphones with embedded sensor fusion using a pulse oximeter, a gyro, and beam-forming mics to monitor and manage an on-device smart assistant. This became a top-five Kickstarter project in 2015, attracting thousands of backers with $540,000 in funding.
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?
We have known each other for 20+ years and have collaborated on two venture backed projects.
Which category best applies to your company?
Web3, Blockchain, Social.
How far along are you?
We launched a social wallet platform in Q1 2024, serving 1.5 million users and deploying over 600,000 smart contract wallets. Starting in June, we are sharing the Social Capital Protocol design with our 150,000 community members and 30+ partners, including Linea, Taiko, Int3face, Li.Fi, WalletConnect and more.
How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.
The founders have been working on this project full-time for 16 months.
What tech stack are you using, or planning to use, to build this product?
Our tech stack includes:
Layer 3 using modified OP stack
Aggregated data availability: Celestia; Eigenlayer
Account Abstraction: Zerodev kernel
Blockchain: EVM, Solidity
Backend: Node.js, Express
Frontend: Flutter (mobile); ReactJS/CSS/HTML (Chrome extension)
Hosting: AWS, IPFS.
How many active users or customers do you have? If you have some particularly valuable customers, who are they? If you're building hardware, how many units have you shipped?
As of June, we rae serving over 1.5 million users, with 600,000 new smart wallet created. We have several key design partners: Spindle, Daylight, and active deployments with layer 2 blockchains such as Linear, Taiko, and Base.
Where does your revenue come from? If your revenue comes from multiple sources (ex. multiple products, multiple companies, or a mix of consulting and this product), please break down how much is coming from each source.
Our revenue comes from protocol fees on a Layer 3 modular blockchain, including network transaction fees, partner action fees, and staking and lending fees.
Anything else you would like us to know regarding your revenue or growth rate?
In Q1, our launch with Linea and Taiko generated $980k in volume through SocialFi minting, swaps, and LP tasks, netting 4 ETH in profit.
Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?
We recognized the potential of social capital in the digital economy. With experience in Layer 1 blockchain infrastructure since 2018 and hosting over 270 crypto community events, we have deep insights into the need for our solution.
Through our work with Linea and Taiko, and handling close to 24,000 support messages, we gained direct insights into the critical pain points when social capital is lacking. These include distrust in reward systems, suspicion of Sybil attacks, and a lack of trust and collaboration.
What's new about what you're making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)?
Our new approach treats social capital like financial capital β it can be invested and reinvested for asset growth. By integrating on/off chain connections and relationships, peer-to-peer trust, and reciprocity within a community, social capital can be quantified and tokenized. If successful, builders and users to move and invest their social capital through trust-minimizing contracts.
Currently, people use vanity metrics like likes and follows, or rely on word-of-mouth to assess social capital, which is insufficient for building trust and reducing transaction costs.
Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most?
Current competitors include web3 reputation protocols like Orange Protocol and Pentacle. While reputation is a subset of social capital, it centers on qualitative assessment reviews and quantitative metrics such as ratings. In contrast, social capital encompasses a broader range of factors, including interaction weights, intensity and frequency, and access to shared resources.
Potential competitors like Equifax could pivot from credit scores to social capital in Web3. However, this is unlikely due to their business models and regulations.
Centralized social platforms. If they decide to open up their social graphs and expose their algorithms as blockchain protocols, their extensive user bases and social interaction algorithms could make them formidable competitors.
What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get?
Social capital isnβt just about who you know or what you like; itβs about putting our shared resources to work. Social capital is emerging as the new credit system for the digital economy, acting as a horizontal multiplier. It reduces transaction costs and enables resource pooling, making group and capital formation faster and easier. This is beneficial across various sectors, including investment clubs, liquidity pools, gaming guilds, and fan communities. Ultimately, social capital can be layered on top of any transaction or experience across every market.
How do or will you make money? How much could you make?
We make money through protocol fees for transactions, staking, and collateral activities. Our social wallet platform, Timeless X, will offer monetizable SocialFi services.
We can benchmark ourselves against peers operating in the social and web3 landscape. For instance, protocols like Lens, Farcaster, and DeSo have generated protocol fees of 200 - 500 ETH (about $1.5M) in the past six months. We have the potential to reach a fully diluted value (FDV) of $300 million 18 months post our mainnet launch and token generation event.
How will you get users? If your idea faces a chicken-and-egg problem in the sense that it won't be attractive to users till it has a lot of users (e.g., a marketplace, a dating site, an ad network), how will you overcome that?
We have a negative CAC by partnering with Layer 2 networks like Linea and Taiko, which incentivize users through reward points.
To solve the protocol's chicken-and-egg problem, we aim to move wallet data from a private AWS to a low-cost, Layer 3 blockchain on Base. By joining the OP superchain ecosystem, we provide shared liquidity, security, and interoperability with DeFi services and social dApps. This transition will encourage adoption of our social capital protocol, enabling innovation and the development of new social applications.
