Linda Xie on How Mini-Apps Are Helping Farcaster Take on Web2 Social Media - Ep. 838
Legacy social media platforms lock you in, control your audience, and exploit your data.
Farcaster aims to fix those problems. But how can it attract developers and users in an already saturated media environment?
Developer Ecosystem Lead Linda Xie joined the show to explain:
How Farcaster addresses social media’s structural flaws
How Farcaster’s mini-app ecosystem is helping to grow the user base
The most popular apps taking off on the platform
How the whole crypto community could benefit from gathering on Farcaster
Why she believes crypto communities belong on open, portable networks
And why her family’s history helped her grasp the significance of Bitcoin in 2011
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Bitwise
Linda Xie, Developer Ecosystem Lead at Farcaster
Previous coverage of Unchained on Farcaster and social media:
Farcaster Wants to Win Over Crypto. Here’s How It’s Different From ‘Crypto Twitter’
Ethereum Accounts to Post on Social Media More After Criticism
How Decentralized Social Network Farcaster Hopes to Eventually Get to One Billion Users
What is Warpcast Wallet?
Farcaster’s Snapchain
Farcaster’s mini-apps
Understanding Farcaster: A Sufficiently Decentralized Social Graph Protocol
Timestamps:
🤝 0:00 Introduction
🤯 3:55 How an unusual situation in her family got Linda crypto-pilled
⚖️ 7:57 How building legitimacy at Coinbase was crucial for the industry
🪜 10:20 Xie’s journey from VC to founder
🌐 13:04 How crypto’s adoption has evolved around the world
🔍 16:44 Why Linda decided to build and focus on Farcaster
🔧 23:31 How Farcaster addresses social media’s structural flaws
👀 31:14 How mini-apps build Farcaster’s user base
💲 37:32 Why Warpcast Wallet is a “game changer,” according to Linda
❓ 40:19 How Snapchain is used for storing data
👷 44:29 What types of developers the Farcaster ecosystem attracts
💡 45:20 How Linda aims to make Farcaster easy to understand
✨ 49:50 Linda’s favorite Farcaster mini-apps
😀 55:10 Attracting the whole crypto community to Farcaster
Thank you to our sponsors!Guest:
Links
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How Memes Can Help Crypto Go Mainstream - Ep.157
Linda Xie, cofounder at Scalar Capital, reads her essay on how the crypto community can successfully use memes to help people understand the technology.
Thank you to our sponsors!
CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained
Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/
Kraken: http://kraken.com/
Episode links:
Linda Xie: https://twitter.com/ljxie
Scalar Capital: https://scalar.capital/
Read Linda's full essay at: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-memes-can-help-crypto-go-mainstream/
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How crypto will change the world with Linda Xie
On this episode, Abadesi interviews Linda Xie, co-founder of Scalar Capital. Scalar Capital is a San Francisco-based hedge fund specializing in crypto assets. Linda is also an advisor to 0x and former product manager at Coinbase.
In this episode:
Her extraordinary story of hustling to get a job at Coinbase, what it was like growing with the company as it scaled from only a few employees to one of the best-known companies in crypto, then leaving the company to start a fund with a fellow employee.
How she first became interested in crypto (back when Bitcoin was $200), the coolest projects she's come across in the space, and the most exciting (and world-changing) applications of cryptocurrencies.
The investing thesis at Scalar Capital, what kinds of companies they're looking to invest in, and how they use the power of communities to source deals.
Of course, we also talk about some of her favorite products and what she uses to become more productive, including a chatbot that can improve your emotional health, a way to simplify scheduling meetings, and an app that lets you save highlights from physical books by taking a picture with your phone.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to AngelList and FreshBooks for their support. 😸
Quotes from This Episode
“I feel like people know a lot about crypto, they just feel like they don’t because they are very overwhelmed by information and news articles that people are posting.”
“I wasn’t even positive that I wanted to do this yet, I was just floating the idea to him and he was like, 'yeah, that sounds awesome. Do you want to put in our two weeks today?' I was like, wow, okay, I’m not quite sure if I’m ready.”
“It’s important to be able to ask dumb questions in a room. As a product manager, the worst things is if you’re totally missing something that someone’s telling you and you built the wrong product. You need to be comfortable asking someone to explain things to you.”
Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode
Calendly — Simple, beautiful scheduling.
Highlight — Save and share highlights from physical books.
Superhuman — The fastest email experience ever made.
Trello — Organize anything, together.
Woebot — A chatbot to improve your mood using CBT.
20VC: Scalar Capital's Linda Xjie on Who Will Win The Smart Contract War, The Future of Exchanges: Centralised or Decentralised & The Pros and Cons of Differing Privacy Coins
Linda Xie is a Co-Founder & Managing Director @ Scalar Capital, one of the leading crypto asset funds to have been born over the last few years with Linda becoming one of the most prominent figures in the space. Prior to co-founding Scalar, Linda was a product manager at Coinbase where she worked with regulators and law enforcement. Before Coinbase, she was a portfolio risk analyst at AIG. If that was not enough, Linda is also an advisor to 0x, the critical infrastructure layer in the emerging financial stack built on a foundation of Ethereum token standards.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Linda made her move into the world of crypto joining Coinbase back in 2014 and how that led to her founding of Scalar? What were her biggest takeaways from seeing the first-hand scaling of Coinbase?
2.) What is a privacy coin and why does it matter? What are some of the dominant legitimate uses for privacy coins? From ZCash to Monero to Dash, there are many players in the space, what are some of the core benefits and tradeoffs of each platform? What is the fundamental problem with privacy coins today?
3.) What is a decentralised exchange, why does Linda believe it is inherently important? How does Linda assess the current exchange environment today? Where does she see it moving over the coming years? What have been some of Linda's biggest learnings advising 0x? Given the mission and ethos of crypto, does Linda believe that centralised exchanges fundamentally go against the core ethos of the space?
4.) How does Linda perceive the state of ethereum today? What are some of the core challenges facing ethereum today? How does ethereum compare to alternative smart contract platforms? What is their differentiation? Will we see a winner take all/most market within smart contract platforms? Will we see smart contract platforms be regionally fragmented?
5.) How does Linda address the fundamental challenge of valuing tokens today? What has been her preferred model in doing this to date? How does Linda assess the mega raises we have seen over the last year? How does Linda think about preventing projects from raising huge rounds just to stay in step with the mega raises of their competitors?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Linda's Fave Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Linda's Most Recent Investment: Kadena
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