MetaCartel 2020 Recap
The blossoming chili tree of Ethereum
From a working group 3 years ago to now, a network of DAOs and individuals, we all have the spirit of the dancing chili in our hearts. MetaCartel stands for a builders ethos for the decentralized web, a culture that will continue to exist long after our DAOs decentralized and fractalize across the ether.
Long live the Chilli, long live the Cartel.
So what happened in 2020?
In 2020, despite our setbacks, we were a busy bunch.
🌶 MetaCartel Ecosystem
- [Feb] ETHDenver: JamesW lead the way, organizing our hacker houses as head field marshal, we came out in full force.
- [April] Dragon Quest: MetaCartel runs its first virtual hackathon, with over 100+ participating hackers and 30+ submissions.
- [May] Formation of MetaCartel DAO Paladins, the ops group
- [May] Migration of the DAO from Moloch v1 to Moloch 2, led by Paladins
- [Oct] MetaCartel is backed with funding by the Ethereum Foundation
- [Nov] MetaFamily: MetaCartel DAO & MetaGammaDelta begin joint calls
💸 MetaCartel Grants Program
In 2019, we gave 15 grants, to which 13 of the 15 projects are still live and operational. The grantees collectively raised $5.5M+ in financing with nearly 33+% of all grantees either going on to complete a fundraising round.
Some highlights include:
- Zapper Finance raised $3M+ and most used dapp in DeFi
- Gelato Finance raised $1.5M with future plans to DAOify
- DAOhaus (raised 250k pre-seed) as a DAO
- MetaFactory (100k+ revenue and launched $ROBOT)
- Fantastic 12 (the team went to ship 88mph)
- Mintbase (raised $1M seed fundraising round)
- KnownOrigin (marketplace revenue 500% growth)
- Sablier (acquired by Mainframe)
- MetaGame (launched DAO and token market)
- rDAI (v2 launching soon)
- Kickback (now running digital events on xDAI)
- Rocket NFT (shelved, Alex Masmej working on a new product now)
- OneClickDApp (still operational)
- Pepper4D (shelved)
In 2020, we also distributed a total of 15 grants, but with a focus on funding supporting early stage DAOs and directed our efforts towards supporting new teams emerging out of hackathons. Some highlights:
- Signal DAO (early Collab land prototype, now with 30k+ DAUs)
- Snapshot, light weight governance for DAOs
- Overlay, long or shot DeFi data streams with leverage
- Boardroom, governance aggregator (closed $2.2M funding)
- iEarnFinance, DeFi yield aggregator ;)
- MetaGammaDelta, crypto sorority as a DAO
- MetaClan, an experiment in eSports + DAOs (shelved)
- MetaFuel, merging telegram + web 3 (shelved)
- FestDAO, crypto events hosting DAO (shelved)
- Loft Radio, crypto powered LoFi radio
- DAOSquare, China based DAO community
- Umbra, Ethereum stealth payments
- Primal Portal (regulated CF platform launching 2021)
- Tree/Whaler DAO, elastic supply token that rebases for charity
- Mindful, portfolio alignment for degens
- Llama Finance, solving DAO treasury management
- SpaceDX, DeFi space exploration game
MetaCartel Family Projects
Our individual incubated projects also had a busy year regardless.
🐉 Venture DAO
- First-ever investment DAO to launch on Ethereum.
- First deployment and usecase of Moloch v2
- Deployed and launched with Moloch v2 during ETHDenver in February.
- Raised $5M+, currently $10.5M+ in AUM, and over 80+ DAO members.
- 20+ investments including. 5 MetaCartel grantee projects.
- Proved that community-owned and run venture funds were possible.
- Investments in:
MetaCoin/Reflexer Finance, Zapper Finance, Republic, Pocket Network, DeFi Dollar, Boardroom, DAOhaus, NIFTEX, PoolTogether, Karma DAO, Gelato Finance, xDAI, Potions Labs, Reality Cards, EPNS, BrightID
🤖 MetaFactory
- First ever digi-physical (NFT + Tangible) product marketplace focused on fashion and crypto/streetwear culture.
- MetaFactory Signature Brand and Wicked Sunday Club launched as first community-managed brands. $100K+ in revenue.
- Flagship YFI.01 hoodie has sold out. All MF Genesis Bombers have been delivered to original members.
- MetaFactory launches $ROBOT platform governance token — including retroactive distribution to all brand members, project contributors, product designers and buyers.
- Full platform governance handed over to community members.
⚔️ RaidGuild
- Decentralized dev shop as a coop run via a DAO, launched early 2020.
- 78 Guild Members with 20 raids completed, generating 177k+ in revenue.
- Launched 🔥_🔥, a tokenomics design branch (Eats token world), currently working with Aave, RocketPool, Zapper + more…
🏡 DAOhaus
- Hackathon project emerges as a fully funded Moloch v2 DAO
- Completes a 250k community raise via Moloch v2 DAO model
- December First: Launches v2 Alpha — https://alpha.daohaus.club
📺 MetaMedia
- Season 1 of “The Spicy Take” successfully concluded with 12 episodes
- Will continue as MetaRadio
🐙 MetaGame
- 20+ active contributors
- Launched self sovereign digital society with its own currency (SEED) powered by SourceCred
- MyMeta web3 universal profile system beta launched
- First physical MetaFam outpost created in Denver, CO
- On boarded 10 founding guilds
- $100k+ in liquidity and market cap of $800k for SEED
“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.”
We don’t know what 2021 will bring us, but we are one more year into our work to create a decentralized web, to accelerate and advance the ethos of crypto, and to do what we originally came together to achieve.
