Preface
For those of you that are regular readers of Logris’ work and do not know, Logris and I (DoubtStarsAreFire) run Tokenomics Explained together. We are partners in all things. Family, life, the website, and now our consulting business. In the beginning, I would minimize, qualify, and categorize all of the work that we have put into our site as, “oh we run a blog”. Probably because when we started Tokenomics Explained we didn’t have a plan. Increasingly, we do, or at least ambition.
What it started as and what it could become are now worlds apart. I’ve changed my tune. Now I proudly state —we are the cofounders of Tokenomics Explained.
I’m going to share with you the story of Tokenomics Explained because our past is the building block of our future.
The Backstory
I’ve always heard it said, “write what you know” so for a first topic answering the question “How did Tokenomics Explained start?” seems appropriate. Logris and I have been asked this exact question several times in interviews or by friends. That is usually a good sign you should write something down.
First, at heart my husband is a writer. When I met him, it wasn’t something I knew about him. I just thought he was a cute programmer boy that I was meeting to play board games. It’s taken years for me to come to the realization that he is a writer as well a programmer. I’m starting here because it gets to the heart of why we began this venture. He became interested in crypto because it combined his interests of computer science, game theory, and economics. Just like you should write about what you know, you should invest in what you know. Back in 2017, most of the social media about crypto was on reddit. This eventually led him to ethtrader and from there to ethfinance. Me, I was along for the ride. He would talk at me about crypto and I would blink at him and say, “those were words”.
I watched him ride the bull market of 2017 and then the crash. He survived the crypto winter. Eventually the food coin craze hit. All the while, Logris was riding the waves and I was following along or lurking in reddit parlance. Based on my experience and observations in my own house, I thought everyone was spending hours reading, researching, and writing their posts. Over the years, I have learned differently. Thank you reddit shit posters for disabusing me of this notion.
So why did we choose to make a website? In short, it’s Google’s fault. Ever since Logris started investing in crypto in 2017, he was a daily visitor and poster to the subreddit. All the fun in ethfinance takes place in the Daily Discussion Thread. Over the years Logris had made some stellar posts… in the daily. But, Google doesn’t index the daily. Top level posts are often reserved for announcements from protocols, highly regarded posts from the daily, or noobs that don’t know any better.
Why is this important to the story? TLDR: It’s all because of Google’s SEO.
For example: At some point in the past, you may have googled about a question you had. In the search results, there may have been a reddit post with the same question. You'd click the link and find yourself directed to a subreddit about the topic, where knowledgeable people may have already responded to your exact or similar question.
Since most of the posts on ethfinance happen in the daily thread and not at the top level (as in the example), this content is invisible to Google.
Logris was amassing a treasure trove of content and often wanted to cite it when it became relevant again. This became more pertinent when he came up with the idea for the Double Logris. People started asking about it and wanting to read more about it. His ideas, content, and discussions were disappearing into the ether as it were. So, he started using Google drive to keep track for referral, which was ridiculous. To save time and just generally make the world a better place we decided to create a repository for his writings by making this site.
About Us
Logris has his PhD in artificial intelligence. So, needless to say he’s a pretty smart cookie. Higher education at any level requires a good deal of writing. As I said, he was drawn to crypto because of his interests in game theory and economics. All of these things about him means, he uses writing to process his swirl of ideas. Then, he posts to the daily to use the collective expertise of the subreddit to help vet those ideas.
Writing helps organize my thoughts and sharing helps to harden them.
– Logris the Bard –
Okay, now a little about me. I finally made my first foray into crypto on 2019. Logris convinced me to create a Coinbase account so that I could check out the Coinbase Earn videos. So, I did it out of professional curiosity. Also, the $10 in Bitcoin they were shilling didn’t hurt either. I have 10 years of corporate learning and development experience at large tech companies. My experience spans across Instructional Design, eLearning development, graphic design, and facilitation. So, I found this brave new world of technology education fascinating.
Like many people in my field, my career has taken some twists and turns. I’ve taken classes in visual design, SEO, and social media. As a part of my own graduate studies, I’ve built multiple blogs and run my own professional portfolio website with a Learning Management System (LMS) attached. But, I’m not a front end dev. Although, I threw together a static website for Hodlercon when the DAO was in dire straits. So, I’ve got that going for me.
In 2021, the inevitable happened for a tech worker. Logris lost his job. More like the company he was working for was run into the ground due to improper management. But, I digress. Needless to say, he had some time on his hands. I knew I could make the site for him.
The Original Design
We decided that the site would be called Tokenomics Explained because that had been the major bent to his writing at that time. Logris started pulling together his content and transforming shorter reddit post into full-blown blogs and articles.
While he worked on that, I built out the rest of the site. We decided on a WordPress.org blog because of the opensource nature of the technology. It fits our vibe. I created all of the pages, graphics, and his LogristheBard logo. The logo is very fitting. His user name is based on a D&D character he used to play in a long running game.
Originally the site was going to mostly contain his PE analysis pages on different tokens. Logris would use his PE calculations to determine if a token was worth an investment. But crypto is a fast moving space so those pages grew stale very quickly. It became apparent over the course of the year that he’d rather write about new ideas and theories than get bogged down in maintenance.
The following year we started making posts that were more timeless such as the Rabbit Hole. We know this because of our site analytics and people have told us that they send the Rabbit Hole to people who ask about investing in crypto. The blog has become the major draw of the website.
The Opportunities
Like the houses in Game of Thrones, we have a house motto, “Sow many opportunities”.
We’ve had several opportunities come to us because of the site. Logris has taken on some paid writing for VC firms and slowly we’ve taken on some consulting work on the side. There is more consulting work in the hopper.
There have been a couple of long stretches without posts to the blog. This is a part-time gig for us. Logris has had a full-time job and a family to care for. This is our passion project that could eventually become something else. But, we’re not ready for him to transition into doing this full-time.
Why am I posting now? The blog has mainly been a space for Logris’ writing. I’ve always been behind the scenes. I was hit by the tech layoffs at the end of 2022. So, I seem to have a lot more time on my hands. Unlike Logris, I am now looking for a job in web3. I joined a ton of DAOs to build out my Learning and Development resume for web3 separate from my corporate career. I investigated the Bankless DAO and the Bankless Academy team for their web3 education content.
The main reason that I’m posting is I joined the Bankless Academy writers guild. I’ll be posting content on the website for the next four weeks. So welcome to stargazing. There were other options for locations to post my thoughts. I really did think about it and this seemed the best place. These will be my additions to “Logris the Blog”.
Welcome to Stargazing.
The Future
Just like in crypto, plans are shifting when it comes to the website.
What we see for the future:
- Logris will continue posting his content on “Logris the Blog”
- DoubtStars will include her Stargazing posts
- Consulting page from Tokenomics Explained team
- Developing Logris Labs project to the EthDenver Hack-a-thon
- DoubtStars will be PMing the Stake-a-thon Education Project for EVMavericks DAO
- DoubtStars will be adding an LMS system with hosted web3, blockchain and crypto education material
- Vetted list of other web3 education materials curated by DoubtStars
There is no rhyme or reason to the posts. We don’t have a calendar or master plan. It’s usually what has been banging around in Logris’ head for a while. Logris and I often discuss topics, he’ll write, and I review and edit most of the posts. That’s the way that it’s been going. With all the time and effort that’s gone into the website over the years, I think we have enough to publish an anthology of essays or turn it into a book, à la Julie and Julia. This is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. I have yet to achieve this dream, but who knows what the future holds.