The Format #053
Bigger and bigger unicorns, bazaar agents, sneaky therapists and the Game of AI Thrones.
Happy Friday!🌞
Today we’ll be looking at:
Unicorns aren’t what they used to be 🦄
How to get in the market for an AI agent 😍
The people watching you during AI therapy 👀
(wind)Surfing into AI domination 🏄♂️
Anyway let’s jump in…
Agents in a Bazaar
I think we’ve discussed the concept of a cathedral vs a bazaar a few times before, it’s a concept that goes all the way back to a book from 1999. The general concept here is that the future of the internet, and specifically the future of AI agents could play out in a couple of ways (or more likely some hybrid of both)
a) The Cathedral → Tightly controlled, vertically integrated services managed by a few large players. This has been pretty much what we’ve seen with AI models and products so far. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google. All Cathedrals.
b) The Bazaar → “A decentralized, permissionless ecosystem of independently developed, loosely coordinated agents — an internet more like an open marketplace than a centrally planned system”
If we do enter the age of agentic bazaar then blockchain will not just be a useful technology for agents, but an essential one. Why? Because the bazaar will require micro-payments between chains of untrusted agents for trustworthy and provable services, which (funnily enough) is something that web3 thrives at.
Since agents don’t have eyes to sell ads too (well actually that’s a whole other thing for another day…) the fundamental business models of the web will have to change.
If this shift is towards agent to agent micro-transactions I, for one, would like to make sure that all this value is captured by a decentralised and transparent blockchain that many people can benefit from, rather than a centralised and opaque mega-corp.
Data Ownership in the Age of AI
As individuals we all create and own a HUGE amount of valuable data. The splits from our past 25 (almost) 5k runs. Valuable. Our tweets and cringe linkedin posts. Valuable. The biometric data from when we’re asleep. Mega Valuable.
The problem, though, is that while your data is valuable in theory, the reality is that it’s hard to monetise your own personal data, as you have no leverage as an individual.
As you may have guessed (from my many previous discussions about this) the solution to this is creating networks. Bringing together groups of people, and with them masses of their data to form what Vana has described as a Data DAO (or a “labour union” for data).
With this much bigger pool of data they can then collectively make decisions over what happens to it or how it’s put to use. This could include anything from creating a decentralised data marketplace or even creating a user-owned foundational model.
Since we are entering an era where data and compute seem to be the currency of intelligence, the ability for users and companies to be able to benefit and extract value from the data becomes ever more important.
Everything is Technology
This essay is A LOT, but here’s my attempt at capturing the general argument being made:
Everything is technology. The vast majority of innovation, value created and profit being made right now is in technology
Every industry currently dominated by large incumbents will come to be dominated by tech companies
As tech companies enter these markets that previously had no VC involvement. The total VCAV (Venture Capital Addressable Value) goes up.
The winning tech companies typically end up being larger than the entire industry they replace.
VC’s are positioning themselves to capture more and more of this value.
This is why funds of $10B+ (megafunds) are becoming increasingly common
And are likely to actually make back their money from the fund.
They are investing in technology.
And technology is eating the world.
That being said there is so so so much nuance and richness inside the actual essay from Packy McCormick so I’d encourage you to carve out 20 minutes and give it a read.
It’ll completely change how you see the VC game, and give you a glimpse into the strategy games that are happening behind the biggest VC’s closed doors.
Joseph Schumpeter wrote that “Constant, relentless change is the hallmark of capitalism.” My contention is that as this capitalist churn happens, technology companies will replace non-technology companies.
Other articles + videos we’ve found interesting this week…
OpenAI’s $3B Windsurf move → We have well and truly entered into the Game of Thrones era of AI. This acquisition from OpenAI (after failing to acquire Cursor) seems to be an attempt to capture the developer workflow and all the super valuable behavioural data that comes with it.
Request to Build: Better Developer Tools for Non-Developers → The line between dev and non-dev (both very loaded terms) has became ever more hazy. Dev tools need to make a few changes, including offering ‘vibe coder docs’ or a markdown file for their entire docs that can be exported and added to ChatGPT.
Why Infinite Scroll Wins and Your dApp Doesn’t → What do Fortnite, Instagram and Duolingo all have in common? They hard-wired uncertainty x anticipation into their apps, and in doing so got their users to keep coming back. You don’t have to turn your dApp into Vegas, but if you ignore variable-reward psychology you’re users will use your dApp once, never to return.
Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou is my personal favourite playbook on how to get this right.
AI therapy is a surveillance machine in a police state → Zuck, Altman and the other Big Tech boys have been (directly and indirectly) urging you to pour more and more highly personal info into their chatbots—while cheering on a US administration that’s hoarding and combing through personal data at will. With the potential for (hidden) ad injection into chats and much more, just be careful what you share on the internet, even if it’s to your best friend ChatGPT.
Introducing x402: a new standard for internet-native payments → Coinbase’s latest standard allows developers or AI agents to, in just a few lines of code, add stablecoin payments directly into interactions on the web. Get ready for many more payment standards that treat AI agents as financial equals.
Why DAOs need to rethink governance beyond tokens? → It turns out that coordinating decentralised organisations or communities comes with a whole load of problems…
People don’t vote.
People do vote but don’t have the knowledge to vote well.
People delegate votes to 4 or 5 people who operate most DAO’s
A whale can swing a vote that the community disagrees with.
This article suggests that one-person-one-vote could be a better alternative, but also that DAO’s desperately need a way to offer “genuine rewards for active, thoughtful engagement”. That’s where our Community Co-pilot comes in…
Meet the $1M AI Agent from Dolce & Gabbana → The Dolcelorian isn’t really an AI agent, or rather that isn’t the point, it’s a way to tell a story, a way for Dolce & Gabbana to connect with their community. The story is voted on by the community and they can earn the $DOLCEL token by getting involved.
The future of commerce isn’t just decentralised — it’s storified, tokenised, and community-led.
What we’ve been up to…
The general theme across the Open Format team is consolidate (what we have), improve (the experience) and grow, this has involved…
A lot of time spent chatting to and onboarding new communities. The goal is 100, so if you know anyone who would be interested in testing out our Community Co-pilot please let us know 💜
Adding slash command rewards to the agent so that community managers and moderators can easily reward community members without ever having to leave Discord. 💪
Adding Telegram support so that now the Community Co-pilot can be in both your Discord and Telegram community. More knowledge for your community brain!! 🧠
Massively improving the onboarding experience. We know the current experience is far from ideal so we’re giving the whole Intelligent Communities platform a bit of well needed TLC. 😍
Working with the awesome team at Outlier Ventures to continue to improve and refine our infrastructure and token plans. 👀
Andy sharing all the alpha on what’s coming soon in Happy Hacking 😎
That’s all for this week.
Have a great weekend, Dan and the OPENFORMAT team 👋🏽
Join our community
Join our Telegram group, The Format, for relevant news and conversations.
Check out our website (feedback much appreciated!!)
Join our Discord to get all the real-time updates on what is being built with Open Format
Subscribe to our YouTube → we are currently running a build series where we are streaming the whole process as we build our new product in public
