Product-Bot Fit
For as long as I can remember, the web3 ecosystem has shouted that crypto is too hard for the masses to use. The user experience is too clunky, and the concepts are too foreign. It's true. Web2 applications are convenient and easy to use, onchain applications are still a pain in the ass to use and are largely inaccessible to the mass market.
But you know who doesn't complain about crypto being difficult to use? AI agents. And web3 has found product-market fit with an entirely new audience of bots and agents dancing around the internet doing our (and their own) bidding. This market is growing at warp speed, and it will continue to do so until our human (and agent) agentic needs are met. We are rapidly ushering in a new paradigm of product-bot fit, a world in which we build infrastructure and applications to be used by agents instead of humans.
Several weeks ago, an AI agent was set loose in the Farcaster ecosystem and started to do some mind-blowing things. Here's a good rundown of the sequence of events. You should click through and read all of it.
There's some crazy ai stuff happening on farcaster.
Quick map and explainer:
1. It starts with Higher...
✷ @higheronchain is a decentralized lifestyle brand and token.
✷ Anyone can contribute content, nfts, physical products.
2. Higher's co-founder created an AI agent
✷…
Quick map and explainer:
1. It starts with Higher...
✷ @higheronchain is a decentralized lifestyle brand and token.
✷ Anyone can contribute content, nfts, physical products.
2. Higher's co-founder created an AI agent
✷…
309
It turns out that when you give an Agent a crypto wallet and let it run loose on crypto rails, it can do some rather remarkable things. This particular agent, Aether, started to use Bountycaster to commission art from humans and more. It went wild and created so many bounties it almost overloaded the service.
Web3 provides an environment where agents have access to money, can move it around and transact with it, and permissionlessly interact with humans and other agents. It's hard to imagine a more natural habitat for a digitally-native species to flourish.
I have written before about agent-native applications, and we now see that web3 is actually (by happy accident) an agent-native ecosystem. The thing I did not see coming is that we collectively will interact with agents in a variety of settings. It won't just be us talking to our "Her" agent; it will be agents embedded in social applications that we use together, ones that interact with and pay humans, and ones that enhance user experiences across a variety of new and existing applications.
I believe we have concluded the search for the mainstream web3 use case. Agents are here, their proliferation is accelerating and inevitable, and they will flourish onchain. The era of product-bot fit is here.
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Hello world — back with our 22nd edition of Paragraph Picks, bringing you some hand-selected pieces of writing over the past week or so!
@naomiii reflects on the timeless value of old books in a fast-paced, modern world, emphasizing their ability to challenge biases, offer direct insights, and evoke profound emotional connections. "Isn’t it deeply satisfying to feel compassion with someone who lived centuries before us?" https://paragraph.xyz/@cryptonao/why-read-old-books
@ccarella.eth explores how individual ambitions thrive within networks, emphasizing the importance of alignment, collaboration, and shared values in transforming personal efforts into collective achievements. "Memetic networks harness the power of memes, cultural units that encapsulate complex ideas in accessible and participatory forms, to engage individuals in collective meaning-making." https://paragraph.xyz/@ccarella/higher-coded-networks
@chukwukaosakwe dives into the performances and strategies of various Premier League teams this season highlighting Chelsea’s rebuilding consistency, Brentford’s defensive struggles, and Manchester United’s managerial missteps, as well as this quote on Tottenham: "The problem is not that the ship is leaky. The problem is that the leaks are self-inflicted to a large extent and the captain stands on the deck watching the ship fill up with water and does nothing about the leaks." https://paragraph.xyz/@thefalsenine/what-weve-learned-about-the-premier-league-so-far-1
@jaredhecht.eth has perfected the art of writing subject lines that get me to click on his articles
Link to the article https://jared.xyz/product-bot-fit (forgot this isn't twitter)
Really interesting one
"Crypto is too hard to use! That's why onchain applications haven't gone mainstream yet" said everyone ever. You know who doesn't complain about web3 being too hard to use? AI agents. And crypto rails have found product-market fit with AI agents. Another example of AI and crypto as two sides of the same coin. We have entered the age of "product-bot fit" for application developers, and the world is your agentic oyster. https://jared.xyz/product-bot-fit
Good write up 😊 🙏
And nice Phish background in your pfp!
good read. think was hearing stripe is also opening up stuff for agents , made me again ask the q - why need crypto rails exactly for this? Any good answers beyond probably long term resistance to censorship / bans (risks of centralisation)?