Revelling In The Pointlessness
From its initial auspices as a store of value, the sector of industry known as “web3, crypto and the blockchain” has grown in value and versatility. Much of this has been derived from the capacity for this corner of the internet to attract significant talent and attention.
The principles of decentralisation that underpin its expression form the foundations upon which all manner of creativity is being unleashed.
- NFT’s have unlocked new ways of interacting with, collecting and incentivising art.
- Defi has expanded routes to capital formation, distribution, and global aggregation.
- Decentralised social has enabled the composable formation of communities that own their social graphs and are empowered to build
Yet to many, it still seems pointless.
Lens
Lens Protocol is a decentralized Web3 social graph on the Polygon blockchain. It empowers users with full ownership, control, and customization of their social interactions. With modularity and interoperability, developers can seamlessly integrate applications. Lens Protocol redefines social media, emphasizing decentralization and user autonomy.
There are several ways to engage with and access Lens. It is permissionless, meaning anyone can visit lens.xyz to create a Lens profile. There is a flat fee of roughly $10 USD (March 2024). Then once you have a profile there are several ways to access the protocol (ecosystem) with a number of developers innovating around the UI/UX for connecting with each other.
These include
Kaira - The next-gen social media built by wizards.
Hey.xyz - Decentralized, and permissionless social media app.
Phaver - Share-to-earn decentralized social platform.
Orb - Hub for artists, creators, degens, memes & networking in web3.
Yup - Social network for Curators.
$Pointless
One such developer within the lens ecosystem is Sydney.
He noticed a phenomenon where airdrop farmers* were increasingly being farmed themselves. Points programmes with the implied promise of future rewards led many to spend countless hours and dollars to the benefit of beneficiary project teams that would then either do nothing in reciprocation or offer negligible value in return.
* Airdrop Farmer — People who, in anticipation of receiving “free” internet money, battle test a new application and/or chain by undertaking lots of transactions; depositing liquidity; completing tasks to spread awareness etc
In response, he launched the first memecoin on Lens
$POINTLESS | Twitter | Lens | Polygon Contract
Which today has a market cap of $200k, liquidity of $12k and was imperfectly launched with a mix of bots and real users accumulating the allocation. That being said there is a base of 121,962 holders (March 2024).
In total I believe Sydney (the top wallet) spent somewhere in the region of 1000 MATIC to set the coin up with liquidity as well as spending many hours sending the airdrop in batches about 170 times. There are eight pointless billionaires, who were simply lucky — in the right place at the right time — by virtue of being early and onchain. These include prominent community members like Jessy Fries and dydymoon. Read his $POINTLESS article to understand the ups and downs so far including being added as a native currency one can use to collect NFT’s on Lens.
Artistic Interpretation
Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.
To me the unintended raison d’etre of pointless is to help us question whether anything really ever is?
Post-it Notes: initially viewed as a failed adhesive because they didn’t stick well.
QR codes: initially viewed as having limited value outside of tracking auto parts.
Whether the memecoin lives or dies is inconsequential. However the underlying ideals it has the potential to represent are essential.
Experiment
So, as one of the billionaires, I am running a campaign to give away my pointless wealth. It’s both for fun as well as an exercise in proliferating the meme.
Goals
- Carve a pathway towards building useful applications
- Contribute towards improving the UI/UX ease & enjoyability on lens
- Accretive value creation harnessing the community’s memetic energy
Rewards
I have committed 5M a day for twenty days, as has Sydney and Dydymoon.Which is 300M over twenty days going to those who are early, on-chain and active.
Day One — Complete
Airdrops were sent out to
Liquidity providors: hynixx.eth cosmosjuno.eth ebnuw.eth, massivehit.eth
Papajams.lens followers: ipinternet.eth from Bangladesh; dawanah.eth from Nigeria; steenstones.eth from the UK; tuomaspigg.eth from USA
Lens Post NFT collectors: eduardmsmr.eth tinyrainboot.eth dydymoon.sismo.eth arjantupan.eth
Final Notes
- If you have an ENS attached to your lens profile it makes it way more likely to be selected. Alternatively just write your wallet address in the comments alongside the action you have taken.
- Followers will be selected from sydney_bro.lens and dydymoon.lens for rewards going forwards.
- To add liquidity go to https://app.uniswap.org/pool and paste in the $pointless contract address 0x9B8cc6320F22325759B7D2CA5CD27347bB4eCD86 as the token alongside your MATIC, 1% fee (exotic pair), full range. Start with small amounts to learn about impermanent loss.
- Not financial advice, these collectible tokens are for fun and art so please only engage with discretion, care, and due diligence.
After all, they’re pointless…right?
Connect
- Farcaster @papa — https://warpcast.com/@papa
- Lens @papajams — https://lenster.xyz/u/papajams
- Twitter @papajimjams — https://twitter.com/papajimjams
