Product Bugle 1/7: Hey, Web3, how you doing?
Did Crypto crash, or just have a valuation malfunction? Is anyone still buying NFTs? Will you be spending 6 hours a day in the metaverse by 2030? And a few bits of the Product Management goodness.
After a few weeks of going deep on product stuff, I thought I’d take a slight detour this week, and do a quick catch up on Web3.
For the record, I’m what you might call NFT-curious. When I look at this world - I’m reminded of that phrase about how we often overestimate change in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term. (who said it?). I’m no expert, but I can’t help thinking it’s neither as good or as bad as some will make you think..
Web 3: so how’s the mood in the room?
After this declaration of hate for poor old Jira, my most entertaining site of the week is Web3 Is Going Just Great , which as you can see from the screen shot is a slightly ironic title, and which relishes in the latest tales of stolen NFTs and various bits of Crypto chaos.
It’s still never quite clear exactly what Web3 is. But if we see it as consisting of three elements: crypto currency; the metaverse; and the trading of digital assets NFTs: well everything’s not quite as rosy as it was a few weeks ago.
If you want a full run down, The Guardian has done a pretty thorough write up - anchored around the collapses of Terra and Celsius. Crypto crisis: how digital currencies went from boom to collapse.
Everything is down.
So Bitcoin at around $16,000 is down massively down from it’s peak of ~$45,000 earlier in Nov ‘21. But if you do a simple Year on Year view, well it’s down 35%..
Which is actually less than Netflix is down..
Ok, so yes, Bitcoin is down further from its peak - but if you’d put $100 into both Netflix and Bitcoin last June - you’d now have a lot more of the $100 you put on Bitcoin left..and who would have predicted that..?
And the crashes of Terra and Celsius? Well - if you have the time to watch this; it soon becomes clear these were the kind of insanely clever / complex/ too-good-to-be -true financial devices that 2008 taught us were a very bad idea. Guess what - something that pays 19% interest didn’t quite work out! No shit!
The excellent Prof G Podcast, does a pretty good walk through in this episode: The Crypto Crash. I’ve now listened to all of these and the pro-crypto crew make the same points: 1) It’s a buying opportunity; 2) Forget Bitcoin: Some of the decentralised finance functionality you see with Etherium really is the mainstream future. We’ll see.
Q. How much is that NFT in the window?
A. A lot less than it was a few months ago
According to Bloomberg ‘NFT sales have fallen off a cliff’. These are the 30 day figures from the NFT marketplace OpenSea - via DappRadar
Interestingly though - the drop is much more in value/ average price; rather than in the number of transactions or traders.
Again, way off the peak. No-one is paying millions of dollars for Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. But then, again, in what sensible version of the universe should they? But there’s still a marketplace there. And, the ‘celebrity does some NFTs’ bandwagon still rumbles on - if not quite as loudly as before.
The trend since January in the Nansen NFT-500 (and no, I don’t' really know how they calculate it) is again - down from a peak, but actually up YTD..
Things will only get meta..
McKinsey hit the headlines a week or so again saying Metaverse has the potential to create $5 trillion in value by 2030. The big ‘$5 tr’ number has grabbed all the headlines, but this paragraph in the conclusion that shows some of their assumptions slightly terrified me
By 2030, it is entirely plausible that more than 50 percent of live events could be held in the metaverse. More than 80 percent of commerce could be impacted by something consumers do there, from discovering brands to visiting a virtual store. Most learning and development could happen in a metaverse environment, as could most virtual or hybrid collaboration. … We expect the average internet user to spend up to six hours a day in metaverse experiences by 2030.
Six hours a day?! If that’s me in 2030, please grab me by my avatar shoulders and tell me to get out more.
Still there are plenty of skeptics. Like this perspective, from - I think - James Whatley, which you have to admire for its clarity..
Anyway, I haven’t got round to DAO’s which seem to be the fourth leg of the Web3 stool. More on them another week. If you want to read some more on this..
What’s next for Terra as the failed crypto project attempts a new path foward
Crypto has crashed, will it bounce back? Some calm and measured reporting from the Guardian
Terra to the moon and back: good write up from the excellent NotBoring
Exploring the metaverse: It’s in the Harvard Business Review! So it’s got to be a proper thing..
Product stuff
From kick-off to launch: the creation of a feature at Basecamp
I forgot to add this last week - the origin story of a feature from the Basecamp team; using their ‘Shape Up’ methodology which uses Six week cycles. Obviously a not very subtle plug for Basecamp itself (and their Email client ‘Hey’) but still a great, and gloriously detailed read.
Improve your decision making
I’ve written before that decisions are the fuel that powers great products - but getting good at making decisions is something that takes time and experience.
This guide from Gibson Biddle, on 10 Principles for better decision making is a great help though. If I had an office wall, I’d put the first principle up on it: ‘Frame the stakes, the process and the timeline’.
The bit about the ‘stakes’ is really about whether or not this is - to use the Amazon language - a one-way or two-way door decision. Ie: whether or not it’s reversible. If it is reversible (ie a two-way door), then don’t burn endless effort. More on this here.
And the bit about ‘the process’ is also vital. Who needs to be involved? How and when?
Meanwhile if you fancy a more neurological view: this from New Scientist might help
Gig of the week
Well, I had been planning to go to LCD Soundystem at the Brixton Academy, only when it came to it, I found I mustn’t have pressed the ‘Buy’ button, as I didn’t actually have any tickets (senior moment!). And so my sole musical experience of week was joining the masses to see Ed Sheeran at Wembley. To paraphrase the philosophers of Love Island: ‘he is what he is’. It’s still pretty amazing to see what he can do with an acoustic guitar, a looper pedal and stadium full of people.
My second musical experience of the week is going to be ferrying teenagers back and forth to the Wireless Festival in Crystal Palace. They’re all very excited about seeing Ski Mask.
TV Pick
Haven’t got round to the final episodes of Sherwood…but that’s still so so good. My current personal binge time is all about For All Mankind , which I’ve come to very late (just finished S1, and it’s on S3). The premise is just genius: Imagine the Russians got to the moon first, and the space race carried on…and I’d file it under ‘good, not great’ and there’s a few very laggy episodes. But still, a clever ‘sliding doors’ take…recommended.
Next week..
Back to good old PM stuff - with a focus on prioritisation.