There are a lot of stories about the beginning of the winter season. One of the buzziest startup in the business, OpenSea, has just announced a major layoffs.
One of the more interesting parts of crypto right now is at the intersection of social messaging and web3. He thinks that today's messaging tools don't cut it, and that there will be new opportunities for cryptographers.
Gil has already made an early bet, leading a $4 million seed round in Lines, a startup whose three co- founders studied philosophy at Harvard.
Even though it is still a work in progress, Lines's backers are happy with it. They have a vision. A growing number of people are using pseudonyms to purchase digital currency, swap NFTs, vote on proposals, and manage treasuries. There is no way to know if someone in this network is talking to the right person.
Messages can be sent from wallet to wallet and group chats based on token ownership. Handa paints a picture of a communication layer that is both ambivalent about underlyingBlockchains and the particularCrypto wallet a person is using, and that, as a result, empowering users in a wide variety of ways They can find the owner of a particular NFT, for example, or discover like-minded individuals based on the token they've acquired, or reach out to potential new contributors of a DAO.
As more people organize and transact online, Gil thinks it's a good time. He notes that in the past he wouldn't have had reason to ping an anonymous user via their wallet. There is a need to coordinate with other people. He says users want to be able to identify and interact with people for governance, to reward contributions, and so on. There are other incentives for a communication layer to be useful with NFTs and other collectibles.
There is a question as to whether enough people will agree that Lines is offering the correct solution. The value of the app will depend on how many people use it. If the startup is able to strike partnerships with platforms like Open Sea that it needs on its side, then how many people use it will be a good indicator.
When Handa and co-founders decide on a business model, they will be competing with other messaging apps that are trying to take on Telegram, which is where most web3 conversations live.
Various teams are working on identity, social layers, and communication on top of web3.
Some of these are starting to emerge publicly. Last month, a platform called Nansen rolled out a messaging app that allows users to log in with a wallet and connect to groups based on their holdings and NFTs. The app is described as a communications hub for web3 communities.
A wallet-based messenger feature was announced by Rarible.
Lines believes that it has an advantage over other people. Handa says that while he and his friends are building for web3 they have enough distance from it to build an app that people newer to web3 can use too.
Handa, who is still two credits away from graduating and very much plans to get his degree, says that they are focused on the client side use cases. He says that his thesis is about identity and web3 communications.
He thinks it helps that we haven't been in the space for a long time. We are just doing it based on what makes sense for the consumer and community. He says that they are trying to find a first use case, make a compelling product, and eventually integrate with other platforms.
Figma CEO and co- founder Dylan Field is one of the investors in Lines's seed round. According to Handa, Lines is in the market for three more engineers, and that it is using the capital to recruit.
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