DeSo, a decentralized social blockchain platform, announced that it has received US$200 million in financing from top institutions such as a16z and Sequoia Capital. Its founder claims to be the creator of Basis and BitClout.
Original title: “Behind the creation of Basis and BitClout, why do top VCs such as a16z fancy this 29-year-old entrepreneur? 》
Written by: DADA
On September 21, the decentralized social blockchain platform DeSo announced the completion of US$200 million in financing. Investment institutions include top VCs such as a16z, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
News of the project receiving investment from top institutions has always been uncommon, but the interesting part of this financing event is that the founder of the project, Nader Al-Naji, is also the anonymous founder of the decentralized social network BitClout.
Although someone disclosed this information before, this time Nader Al-Naji himself stepped up and publicly acknowledged this fact.
Nader Al-Naji is 29 years old, but has already created two star projects, Basis and BitClout, and DeSo is now gaining the favor of capital.
What is the story behind its entrepreneurship?
Starting a business for the first time, from a quantitative analyst to Basis
The founder Nader Al-Naji graduated from the prestigious Princeton University and completed two degrees in computer science and applied mathematics in 2010-2013. In the first year after graduation, he joined The DE Shaw Group, a financial company in New York, as an engineer/quantitative analyst in the stock high-frequency trading team.
The following year, in 2014, Nader joined Google and worked in its search engine development and advertising department. Three years of work experience in a large Internet company gave Nader Al-Naji the ability to develop and complete projects, and to get acquainted with many excellent working partners, investors and institutions.
Therefore, in 2017 Nader Al-Naji’s first ambitious project-algorithmic stable currency Basis, we saw the presence of Google Ventures.
Out of the love of Bitcoin and the research on the blockchain industry, Nader Al-Naji wants to launch Basis. The goal is to create a digital token backed by the “Algorithmic Central Bank”, which is different from the most widely used today. Claiming to support the low transparency of each stable cryptocurrency Tether with a hard currency reserve of one dollar, Basis tokens will simulate inflation and deflation algorithms to control prices, just like real currencies.
In October of that year, in an interview with Reuters, Nader Al-Naji revealed his vision for a stable cryptocurrency. Basis will develop three currency systems to stabilize its scalability and constructiveness.
The financial innovation that does not need to rely on centralized entities to hold traditional funds as a backing has moved Silicon Valley’s venture capital. In 2018, Nader Al-Naji, who was only 26 years old, led a team of 14 people from Bain Capital Ventures and Google Ventures. Investment, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, Stan Druckenmiller, Kevin Warsh, Foundation and Wing and other top investors have raised more than 133 million US dollars.
However, after Basis went online for a period of time and conducted an in-depth analysis of the regulatory environment, especially considering the tightening of securities regulations surrounding cryptocurrencies, Nader Al-Naji and his team decided to close it and return it to investors in December 2018 capital.
However, Basis’s idea of ​​an algorithmic stablecoin did not stop due to the closure of the project. In 2020, the anonymous team announced the restart of the Basis project, which was later known as Basis Cash.
It can be said that Basis Cash has inherited the mantle of Basis.
The second venture, the controversial BitClout
After a lapse of more than two years, Nader Al-Naji ushered in his second venture. He used the alias “Diamondhands” and launched BitClout, a new type of social network whose value depends on the popularity of users. It is affectionately called “Personal Name Coin”.
The emergence of BitClout can be said to have stirred up waves with one stone. At the beginning of the launch, BitClout automatically registered the 15,000 most influential users on Twitter and claimed that these users can apply for their BitClout accounts by tweeting at any time.
However, this practice of placing the personal data of Twitter users on its own platform without permission has caused BitClout to be criticized, and many people believe that BitClout is a scam.
However, BitClout soon announced financing information, Sequoia Capital, A16z, Coinbase Ventures, all top institutions.
But even with the endorsement of top VCs, it is still difficult to quell the doubts in the cryptocurrency community. And at that time, although it was an anonymous entrepreneurship, it was already revealed that Nadar Al-Naji, the founder of the algorithmic stable currency Basis, was the initiator of BitClout.
Brandon Curtis, head of the Radar Relay product of the decentralized exchange, issued a legal warning to Nadar Al-Naji through the law firm Anderson Kill, saying that the latter used his portrait without consent.
But it must be admitted that Nadar Al-Naji and BitClout have strong fund-raising capabilities. Perhaps Basis and its imitations have allowed investment institutions to see the creativity of this young man. After all, investing is actually investing.
All in all, in the criticism of opponents and the excitement of active participants, BitClout has experienced a transition from lively to cooling.
The third venture, DeSo endorsed by the top VC Tian Tuan
Yesterday, 29-year-old Nader Al-Naji once again appeared in the crypto circle with DeSo endorsed by VC Tian Tuan. As Diamondhands publicly disclosed his identity, the outline of DeSo has become clearer.
With the increasing application of blockchain, the establishment of Web 3, and the innovation of NFT digital ownership, Nader Al-Naji and the countless venture capital behind DeSo are willing to imagine the future of social media.
The future of social media is to take all content and open it up so that anyone can build on it, just like a utility. Instead of the situation today, this is a walled garden privately controlled by several companies. Its value is huge, because when data and content are open, anyone in the world can build their own content kingdom and manage it by themselves. And now social media like Facebook, Instagram will never allow users to do so. They will never allow others to access their data.
Nader Al-Naji believes that decentralized social networking will take advantage of the ingenuity of the entire world in the future, rather than being like a centralized team. “We want users to have their own data, and we want users to have the money they earn from the data. Through DeSo, we can make social network data available to anyone,” Nader Al-Naji said in an interview.
At the same time, Nader Al-Naji said in an interview that the previous practice of anonymity was because he believed that this would inspire the community to decentralize the ecosystem faster. The more people are able to issue orders without relying on centralized entities, the more capable they are Improve and build on the basis of the ecosystem.
At present, more than 100 developers have begun to build applications on the DeSo blockchain, which also confirms Nader Al-Naji’s ideas.
Now, Nader Al-Naji believes that it is the time to stand up and let people know DeSo, understand themselves, and have a true public voice and channel to officially tell DeSo’s story.
Currently DeSo has hosted more than 100 other applications as part of a plan to challenge Facebook and other centralized social networks. DeSo serves as a blockchain infrastructure to support the functions of traditional social media platforms, such as creating personal information, publishing information, and blockchain native functions such as social tokens, rewards, or NFTs.
Up to now, one of the first two experimental and controversial projects created by Nader Al-Naji has ceased operation, and the other is trying to adjust the strategy to return to the public view during the cooling off period. It remains to be seen how DeSo will develop in the future. However, compared to other projects, Nader Al-Naji, who has the ability to “make money” from the capital, may go easier.
Source link: www.shenliancaijing.com
