In the bustling world of blockchain and decentralized applications, QuickNode has established a strong position. This document will comprehensively explore QuickNode's business model, competitive landscape, potential drawbacks, and key strategies for facing off against this blockchain player.

QuickNode's Business Model - The Secret to Success​

QuickNode offers outstanding performance, with speeds 2.5 times faster than competitors. This speed is not just a claim; it is backed by actual performance metrics that you can check on their comparison page.

With the flexibility to handle over 15 chains and an incredible 99.99% uptime—along with SLA guarantees—QuickNode provides unparalleled reliability in this field. Additionally, they have successfully attracted major companies like Google, Visa, Adidas, and Coinbase. They have also drawn long-term internet investors, including 776 Ventures, Tiger Global, and Softbank.

Four Pillars of Revenue​

Node Management

QuickNode's node management platform is the company's flagship product and primary source of revenue. Utilizing a dual-layer model, it offers options for developers and businesses seeking self-service, while also providing enterprise-level solutions for larger companies. This approach caters to a wide range of customer needs, from small startups to industry giants.

• Self-Service Options: This is an ideal choice for developers or small organizations that need immediate access to blockchain networks. It provides flexibility and control, allowing them to deploy nodes and manage their applications as needed.

• Enterprise-Level Solutions: For larger companies with more complex requirements, QuickNode offers tailored solutions. This package includes advanced analytics, priority support, and guaranteed uptime. The personalized nature of this solution allows enterprises to focus on building their products without worrying about node management.

Icy Tools - NFT Development

Icy Tools, as the next pillar of QuickNode, provides unique tools for NFT development. With the explosive growth of the NFT market, the demand for tools that simplify the creation, management, and trading of NFTs has surged. QuickNode's Icy Tools offer developers an efficient and intuitive way to enter this thriving market, generating significant revenue for the company.

App Marketplace

QuickNode's app marketplace is another key source of revenue. It hosts a variety of applications built on QuickNode's infrastructure, providing a platform for other businesses and developers to sell their products. QuickNode earns revenue through commissions and listing fees. This marketplace not only provides QuickNode with a vibrant ecosystem but also offers value-added services to their node management customers.

Network Integration Fees

Finally, QuickNode generates revenue from network integration fees. Given the continuous expansion of blockchain protocols, integrating new networks is an ongoing process. QuickNode charges businesses and developers for this service, granting them seamless access to emerging protocols.

Each pillar plays a crucial role in QuickNode's revenue model, leveraging different aspects of the blockchain landscape to ensure the company's ongoing financial health. Their diversified revenue streams help them maintain resilience and adaptability, ready to face the dynamic challenges of the industry.

Rapid Business Growth​

QuickNode showcases strong growth metrics, highlighting its increasingly prominent position in the market. In 2022 alone, the company witnessed a quarterly growth of over 40% in enterprise revenue, demonstrating sustained demand for its products.

Platform usage, a key indicator of product adoption, grew by 550% over the past year. Net revenue also increased, showcasing a year-over-year growth of 370%.

Furthermore, QuickNode's user base is expanding, with new account registrations up 177% year-over-year. Additionally, endpoint deployments saw a year-over-year increase of 264%, proving the company’s growing operational scale and efficiency.

Competitive Landscape - Real-World Challenges​

Now, let’s delve into the heart of the matter. While QuickNode leads the node creation/connection market, it is not without competition. Rivals like Amazon, Microsoft Azure, and IBM are eyeing this space, posing potential threats to QuickNode's dominance. However, due to its industry-leading speed and flexibility, QuickNode has managed to maintain its position and has earned high praise from customers. But is that enough to keep it ahead in this high-stakes game?

The Alchemy Dilemma

Alchemy, with its Silicon Valley background and strong investor support, is an intriguing competitor. While it brings a lot to the market, it still falls short of QuickNode in terms of speed and product offerings. However, Alchemy's Silicon Valley connections and market buzz could play a role in the node battle. Its market valuation has reached $10.2 billion, and it is rumored to have a valuation and revenue multiple of 120x - 200x.

Infura - The Fading Star

Infura entered the arena as a pioneer focused on Ethereum node RPC. However, after being acquired by ConsenSys, it seems to have lost momentum. Despite supporting six chains, its speed still lags behind QuickNode.

Coinbase Cloud - The Dark Horse

The acquisition of Bison Trails put Coinbase Cloud on the map, but rumors suggest that Coinbase is dissatisfied with the results and may abandon the business. Additionally, the lack of publicly available speed data keeps it shrouded in mystery.

BlockDaemon - A Specialized Competitor

BlockDaemon distinguishes itself by focusing on one area—institutional-grade staking—making it less developer-friendly compared to QuickNode's primary focus.

Is QuickNode Underperforming?​

Not at all. It’s more about the vast ocean of opportunities that its competitors might dive into. Just like saying, even with the best players, you can’t win every time. This field is large enough for many players to participate, each with its unique strategies. Don’t forget—blockchain is about decentralizing power, not centralizing it. Therefore, no single player can dominate this space.

The Team Behind QuickNode - The Wisdom of Operations​

The QuickNode team brings a rich skill set to the table, thanks to their past experience in managing hosting and CDN scaling businesses. However, it’s important to note that their competitors also possess unique advantages, networks, and experiences.

Comparing BlockEden.xyz with QuickNode​

BlockEden.xyz effectively competes with QuickNode using the following strategies.

1. Offering Unique Services: First, BlockEden.xyz can provide unique APIs or blockchain services that QuickNode does not offer, such as Aptos and its indexer, Sui and its indexer. By identifying and filling the product gaps of QuickNode, BlockEden.xyz positions itself as a unique, comprehensive solution.
2. Competitive Pricing: Another way to compete is through pricing. BlockEden.xyz offers a more competitive pricing model, making it more affordable for smaller businesses or developers. A flexible, scalable pricing model can attract a broader customer base, from startups to enterprise-level organizations.
3. Exceptional Customer Service: Providing excellent customer service and technical support is another effective competitive strategy. Quick response times, helpful resources, and knowledgeable support staff are crucial for customer satisfaction and loyalty.
4. Partnerships and Integrations: BlockEden.xyz seeks to establish partnerships with other blockchain platforms or services to create integrations, making it more appealing to customers. These partnerships can expand BlockEden.xyz's reach and functionality.
5. Community Engagement and Developer Support: QuickNode has a strong developer community. BlockEden.xyz can compete by fostering a similar community and developer DAO 10x.pub, providing robust support and nurturing an ecosystem where developers and users can contribute to and improve the platform.

The key to our successful competition may not necessarily be about beating QuickNode at its own game, but rather providing unique value that QuickNode does not offer. We are looking for areas where BlockEden.xyz can excel and focusing on delivering unique APIs and exceptional services to this market.

Author: Phoenix Capital Management

Translator: BlockEden.xyz Team and Payton Chat

📌 A deep dive into the regulatory disputes and legal issues the crypto industry faces in the past, now, and predictably in the future.

TL;DR

• In the Ripple case, a partial victory was achieved in the programmatic sales, avoiding being recognized as securities sales. We have carefully analyzed the court's ruling logic and believe that there may be quite obvious errors in fact recognition, which has a high possibility of being overturned later.
• We've examined the historical origins and basic connotations of securities law, and believe that tokens narrated as "the project team is doing their job" are close to the securities law definition. Thus, a reasonably high proportion of tokens may be recognized as securities in the future. However, the current SEC's regulatory demands further exceed the reasonable scope of securities law.
• Staking/yield farming is more likely to be considered securities than token sales.
• Compared to the regulation of CeFi, the regulation of DeFi is at an earlier stage. In addition to securities law, more uncontroversial regulatory issues like KYC/AML are yet to be resolved.
• Even if a large number of altcoins are identified as securities, it would not signify the end of the industry. High market cap tokens are fully capable of seeking compliance in the form of securities; lower market cap tokens may exist in non-compliant markets for a long time but can still indirectly gain liquidity from compliant markets. As long as there is a clear regulatory framework, regardless of its nature, the industry can find new paths and models for long-term development.

Table of Contents​

• Long-Awaited (Temporary) Victory - An Interpretation of the Ripple Case
• Howey Test, Orange Groves, and Cryptocurrency
• Why Securities Law Exists
• Project team is doing their job = Securities?
• Recap of SEC vs Ripple Labs
• A token is just a token. A token is NEVER a security
• Looking forward - Where are the risks and opportunities?
• Securities law is not the only concern
• What if crypto loses? - Securities law won't kill altcoins
• Peace is More Important Than Victory

Long-Awaited (Temporary) Victory - An Interpretation of the Ripple Case​

On July 13, 2023, Ripple Labs received a partial favorable ruling from the New York District Court, causing a significant surge in the crypto market. In addition to XRP itself, a series of tokens previously identified as securities by the SEC also experienced a substantial increase.

As we will discuss later, we are still far from the era when the crypto industry truly embraces clear regulation. However, without a doubt, this partial victory of Ripple Labs remains one of the most important events in the crypto industry in 2023.

Below are some of the major disputes between U.S. regulators and the crypto industry before the SEC vs. Ripple Labs case.

It's not hard to see that nearly all the major disputes so far have ended in failure or compromise by crypto companies.

We still want to say, this represents the first meaningful victory for the crypto industry in its battles against U.S. regulators, even if it is only a partial victory.

There have been many detailed interpretations of the court's judgment, so we won't elaborate here. Those who are interested can read the long Twitter thread by Justin Slaughter, Paradigm Policy Director:

Justin Slaughter on Twitter:

Ok, having gone through the Ripple decision, here’s my takeaway:

Big loss for the SEC’s approach to crypto via focusing solely on enforcement, and this measurably increases the odds of crypto legislation passing this year.

Thread https://t.co/c4wOVPORVb

— Justin Slaughter (@JBSDC)

July 13, 2023

You can also read the original text of the court's ruling in your leisure time:

Plaintiff vs. Ripple Labs, Inc.

Before further interpreting this ruling, let's briefly introduce the core standard for the definition of securities in the U.S. legal system that you often hear about, the Howey Test.

Howey Test, Orange Groves, and Cryptocurrency​

To understand the disputes surrounding all cryptocurrency regulations today, we must go back to sunny Florida in 1946, to the cornerstone case for today's securities law judgment, SEC vs. Howey.

(The following story outline was mainly written with the help of GPT-4)

📌 After World War II, in 1946, the company W.J. Howey owned a fertile orange grove in picturesque Florida.

To raise more investment, the Howey company launched an innovative plan that allowed investors to purchase land in the orange grove and lease it to the Howey company for management, from which investors could earn a portion of the profits. In that era, this proposition was undoubtedly very attractive to investors. After all, owning your own land was such a tempting thing.

However, the SEC did not agree. The SEC believed that the plan offered by Howey Company was essentially a security, but Howey Company had not registered with the SEC, which clearly violated the Securities Act of 1933. Therefore, the SEC decided to sue the Howey Company.

This lawsuit eventually ended up in the Supreme Court. In 1946, the Supreme Court made a historic judgment in the lawsuit of SEC vs. Howey. The court supported the SEC's stance, ruling that Howey Company's investment plan met the definition of securities, and therefore needed to be registered with the SEC.

The U.S. Supreme Court's judgment on Howey Company's investment plan was based on the four basic elements of the so-called "Howey Test". These four elements are: investment of money, expectation of profits, common enterprise, and the profits come from the efforts of the promoter or a third party. Howey Company's investment plan met these four elements, so the Supreme Court determined it was a security.

1. First, investors invested money to purchase land in the orange grove, which met the first element of the "Howey Test"—investment of money.

2. Secondly, the purpose of investors buying land and leasing it to the Howey Company was obviously to expect profits, which met the second element of the "Howey Test"—expectation of profits.

3. Third, the relationship between investors and the Howey Company constituted a common enterprise. Investors invested, and the Howey Company operated the orange grove, both working towards earning profits. This met the third element of the "Howey Test"—common enterprise.

4. Lastly, the profits in this investment plan mainly came from the efforts of the Howey Company. Investors only needed to invest money and could reap the benefits, which met the fourth element of the "Howey Test"—the profits come from the efforts of the promoter or a third party.

Therefore, according to these four elements, the Supreme Court judged that Howey Company's investment plan constituted a security and needed to be registered with the SEC.

This judgment had profound implications and formed the widely cited "Howey Test", defining the four basic elements of so-called "investment contracts": investment of money, expectation of profits, common enterprise, and profits come from the efforts of the promoter or a third party. These four elements are still used by the SEC to determine whether a financial product constitutes a security.

For purposes of the Securities Act, an investment contract (undefined by the Act) means a contract, transaction, or scheme whereby a person invests his money in a common enterprise and is led to expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party, it being immaterial whether the shares in the enterprise are evidenced by formal certificates or by nominal interests in the physical assets employed in the enterprise.

The above is an accurate interpretation of securities from the 1946 Supreme Court opinion, which can be broken down into the following commonly used criteria:

1. An investment of money
2. in a common enterprise
3. to expect profits
4. solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party

The charm of law is truly remarkable. It often employs abstract yet straightforward principles to guide the ever-changing specificities in real-life scenarios, no matter it is a citrus grove or cryptocurrency.

Why Securities Law Exists​

In fact, how securities are defined is not important. Labeling something as a security or not doesn't make any substantive difference. The key is to understand what legal responsibilities stem from the economic nature of securities, in other words, why something possessing the four attributes of the Howey Test needs a separate legal framework for supervision.

The Securities Act of 1933, which predates the Howey Test by over a decade, explicitly answers the question of why securities laws are needed.

Often referred to as the "truth in securities" law, the Securities Act of 1933 has two basic objectives:

1) require that investors receive financial and other significant information concerning securities being offered for public sale; and

2) prohibit deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities.

"The fundamental starting point of securities law is simple - it's all about ensuring that investors have enough information about the securities they are investing in and are protected from deception. Conversely, the responsibilities imposed on the issuers of securities are straightforward, the essence of which is disclosure - they must provide complete, timely, and accurate disclosure of important information related to the securities.

The reason for such a goal of securities law is because securities, by their nature, rely on the efforts of third parties (active participants) for returns, which gives these third parties an asymmetric advantage over investors in terms of access to information and influence on securities prices. Therefore, there's a requirement for them to fulfill the duty of disclosure, to ensure that this asymmetry does not harm the investors.

There's no similar regulatory requirement in commodities markets because there are no such third parties, or in the crypto context, 'project teams'. Gold, oil, and sugar, for example, have no 'project teams'. The crypto market generally has a preference for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but this is not due to personal preferences of the regulators that lead to differing attitudes towards crypto. The distinction between regulating commodities and regulating securities is based on the intrinsic differences between the two types of financial products. Because there are no 'project teams' with an asymmetric advantage, the regulatory framework for commodity law naturally tends to be more relaxed.

💡 The existence of a third party or 'Project Team' with an information and influence advantage is the fundamental reason for the existence of securities law; to curb the infringement of investors' interests by the third party/'Project Team' is the fundamental purpose of securities law; and requiring the 'Project Team' to provide complete, timely, accurate information disclosure is the main means of implementing securities law."

Project team is doing their job = Securities?​

During my study of the history of U.S. securities law, a phrase often heard in the crypto industry led me to a simple and effective standard to determine whether a token is a security - that is, whether the investor cares whether the Project Team is active or not.

If the "the project team is doing their job" matters to investors, it implies that the return on this investment is influenced by the actions of the Project Team, which clearly meets the four criteria of the Howey Test. From this perspective, it's easy to understand why BTC is not a security, as there is no Project Team involved with BTC. The same applies to meme coins, they are merely digits in the ledger under the ERC-20 protocol, with no active Project Team behind them, and therefore are not securities.

If a Project Team is active and whether they perform well or poorly, or act at all, - whether it's in terms of technical upgrades, product iterations, marketing, ecosystem partnerships - has an impact on the token price, then the definition of a security is met. Given the existence of a Project Team, they possess information unknown to other investors and have greater influence on the token price, hence the need for regulatory oversight to ensure that they do not commit acts that harm the interests of investors. The logic of "the actions of the Project Team matter" → "the Project Team can reap the benefits"→ "the Project Team needs to be regulated by securities law" is a simple legal inference.

If you accept this logic, you can judge for yourself which tokens in the crypto space are reasonably classified as securities.

top search result of "项目方在做事" on Twitter

💡 In our view, if there is an expectation or concern among investors about the "the project team is doing their job," this token highly aligns with the definition of a security. From this perspective, it seems quite logical that a high proportion of tokens are classified as securities.

The current SEC wants more than just the basic regulations. As seen from Gary's public statements, he only recognizes that Bitcoin is not a security. For most other tokens, he firmly believes they should be classified as securities. The stance on a few tokens, like ETH, is relatively ambiguous. The CEO of Coinbase also recently mentioned in an interview that before the SEC sued Coinbase, it had demanded that Coinbase cease trading all tokens except for Bitcoin, a request that Coinbase refused.

We think it's unreasonable to classify pure meme coins without an operational project team or decentralized payment tokens as securities. The SEC's demands have exceeded the reasonable scope of securities laws, which has made it harder for the conflict between the industry and the SEC to be resolved simply.

You can read more on the topic in this article: SEC asked Coinbase to halt trading in everything except bitcoin, CEO says."

Recap of SEC vs Ripple Labs​

• Let's briefly highlight a few key points:
  • XRP itself is not a security, but we need to analyze the specific circumstances of XRP sales (such as the process, method, and channels of sale, etc.) to determine whether it constitutes a securities sale. We will elaborate on this point later: A token is just a token. A token is NEVER a security.
  • The court analyzed three forms of XRP sales separately: institutional sales, programmatic sales, and others. In the end, the first type, institutional sales, was considered as securities, while the other two were not.
  • The reasons for judging institutional sales as securities sales are:

• The reasons for judging programmatic sales as not constituting securities sales are:

  1. In this case, investors are not sure whether they are buying from Ripple Labs or other XRP sellers. Most XRP trading volume does not come from sales by Ripple Labs, so most XRP buyers have not directly invested their funds into Ripple Labs.

  2. XRP buyers did not expect to profit from Ripple Labs' efforts, because:

  • Ripple Labs did not make any direct promises to these investors, and there is no evidence that Ripple Labs' promotional materials were widely disseminated among these investors.

  • These investors are less sophisticated, and it cannot be proven that they have a full understanding of the impact of Ripple Labs' actions on the price of XRP.

• It's not hard to see that the court's judgement on programmatic sales is primarily based on the fourth item of the Howey Test, which is that these investors did not expect to profit from Ripple Labs' efforts.

• The judgement of this district court does not have final binding force; it can almost be certain that the SEC will appeal. However, due to the lengthy legal process, it might take several months or even years before we see the results of a new appeal judgement. During this time, the judgement of this court will essentially form important guidance for the development of the industry.

Putting aside our position as cryptocurrency investors, and solely from the standpoint of legal logic, we believe that the court's logic in determining programmatic sales as not being securities is not very convincing.

📕 Here are two articles by seasoned legal professionals with similar opposing views. I recommend reading them if you have time, as our analysis also draws on some of their viewpoints.

• Is The Ripple Decision a Cause For Crypto-Celebration? Momentarily at Best.
• Ripple Labs Ruling Throws U.S. Crypto-Token Regulation into Disarray

First, we need to note the original text of the Howey Test: '...expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party...', which clearly points out that the source of profits can be the promoter or a third party, that is, it does not matter who the seller is. Or to say, it is not necessary for the source of the efforts to be the seller or promoter, as long as there is such a third party. Therefore, it does not matter who the investor buys from or whether the seller is the source of the returns. What matters is whether the investor realizes that the appreciation of the asset comes from the efforts of a third party. Therefore, the court's mention of blind buy/sell and the fact that buyers do not know whether they bought XRP from Ripple Labs or someone else is irrelevant to the Howey Test.

The real issue is whether investors in programmatic sales realize that the rise in the price of the XRP token they bought is related to the efforts of Ripple Labs. The court's main argument is that

1. Ripple Labs has not directly promoted to retail, nor is there evidence that their materials (white papers, etc.) have been widely disseminated among retail,
2. Retail does not have the cognitive abilities of institutional investors to recognize that the XRP token is related to the work Ripple Labs does in technology, product, and marketing.

First of all, this is a factual issue, not a logical one, which we can't demonstrate here. XRP is an old project, and we don't have a clear sense of what the retail investors were like at that time.

But from our limited experience, the vast majority of tokens with a project team are able to realize that the team's technical upgrades, early mainnet launch, better product, increase in TVL, ecosystem partnerships, KOL promotions, and other efforts have an impact on the price of the token they hold.

In the world of crypto, KOLs, Twitter, and Telegram groups large and small serve as the bridge between most project teams and users, the territory for outreach to retail investors. In projects big and small, we often hear discussions about how the 'community' is doing. Most project teams will have a token marketing/community team responsible for contacting exchanges around the world, hiring KOLs, and helping to disseminate project progress and important events.

💡We believe there is a bias in the court's fact-finding on programmatic sales in this ruling; we also agree with many legal professionals that there is a high likelihood that this part of the judgment will be overturned in the future.

(Just a week after writing this article, on the very day it was about to be published, we happened to see that the new judge in the SEC vs Terraform Labs case refused to adopt the judgment logic in the SEC vs Ripple Labs case - the logic being that no matter where the investor buys the token, it does not affect the investor's expectation that the efforts of the project team will influence the token's price.)

"Whatever expectation of profit they had could not, according to that court, be ascribed to defendants’ efforts," he wrote. "But Howey makes no such distinction between purchasers*. And it makes good sense that it did not. That a purchaser bought the coins directly from the defendants or, instead, in a secondary resale transaction* has no impact on whether a reasonable individual would objectively view the defendants’ actions and statements as evincing a promise of profits based on their efforts.**"

— Judge Rejects Ripple Ruling Precedent in Denying Terraform Labs' Motion to Dismiss SEC Lawsuit

☕️ By the way - Airdrops that don't require payment can also be considered securities sales.

This comes from an article by John Reed Stark. In the Internet bubble of the late 90s, several companies distributed free stocks to users via the internet. In subsequent legislation and trials, these actions were deemed securities sales. The reason is that although users did not pay money in exchange for these stocks, they gave up other values - including their personal information (required to fill in when registering for stocks) and increased attention for the companies distributing the stocks, which constituted a substantial exchange of value.

SEC Enforcement Director Richard H. Walker said at the time, "Free stock is really a misnomer in these cases. While cash did not change hands, the companies that issued the stock received valuable benefits*. Under these circumstances, the securities laws entitle investors to full and fair disclosure, which they did not receive in these cases.”*

A token is just a token. A token is NEVER a security​

Don’t be misled that Judge Torres ruled that sometimes XRP is a security and sometimes it isn’t. That’s exactly the opposite of what she ruled: XRP itself is NEVER a security. “ Page 15: "XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself a ‘contract, transaction[,] or scheme’…

— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal)

July 14, 2023

As pointed out by Coinbase CLO Paul, this is the most important sentence in the entire judgement that people have not fully understood.

XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself a “contract, transaction[,] or scheme” that embodies the Howey requirements of an investment contract*. Rather, the Court examines the* totality of circumstances surrounding Defendants’ different transactions and schemes involving the sale and distribution of XRP.

Both of these judgments consistently express an important point of view:

A token is just a token - it's not like many people mistakenly believe that the court sometimes thinks XRP is a security and sometimes not - a token itself can never be a security.

What might constitute a security is the whole set of behaviors of selling and distributing tokens ('scheme'), there is no question of whether a token is a security or not, only whether a specific token sale behavior is a security or not. We can never come to the conclusion of whether it is a security or not just by analyzing a certain token, we must analyze the overall situation of this sales behavior ('entirety of …', 'totality of circumstances').

Both judges, whose opinions have significant conflicts, have insisted that it must be based on sales conditions rather than the attributes of the token itself to determine whether it is a security - this consistency also means that the possibility of this legal logic being adopted in the future is significantly higher than the judgment for programmatic sales, and we also believe that this judgment indeed has stronger logical reasonableness.

A token is just a token. A token is NEVER a security.

Digital tokens and stocks are fundamentally different. Stocks themselves are a contract signed by investors and companies. Their trading in the secondary market itself represents the trading and transfer of this contractual relationship. As the judge said in the Telegram case, digital tokens are nothing more than an 'alphanumeric cryptographic sequence', and they cannot possibly constitute a contract by themselves. They can only have the economic substance of a contract in specific sales situations.

If this legal point of view is accepted by all subsequent courts, then the future burden of proof on the SEC in the litigation process will be significantly increased. The SEC cannot obtain the regulatory power over all the issuance, trading, and other behaviors of a certain token by proving that it is a security. It needs to prove one by one that the overall situation of each token transaction constitutes a securities transaction.

The Court does not address whether secondary market sales of XRP constitute offers and sales of investment contracts because that question is not properly before the Court. Whether a secondary market sale constitutes an offer or sale of an investment contract would depend on the totality of circumstances and the economic reality of that specific contract, transaction, or scheme. See Marine Bank, 455 U.S. at 560 n.11; Telegram, 448 F. Supp. 3d at 379; see also ECF No. 105 at 34:14-16, LBRY, No. 21 Civ. 260 (D.N.H. Jan. 30, 2023)*

The Ripple case also explicitly pointed out that the court cannot determine whether the secondary sale of XRP constitutes a securities transaction. They need to assess the specific situation of each trading behavior to make a judgment. This greatly complicates the SEC's regulation of secondary transactions, and in some ways it may not be possible to complete; this essentially gives the green light to the secondary trading of tokens. Based on this, Coinbase and Binance.US quickly relisted XRP after the verdict was announced.

📕 There are some interesting discussions related to this in the Bankless podcast:

Bankless: How Ripple's Win Reshapes Crypto with Paul Grewal & Mike Selig

Again, it is still too early to consider this judgment as a definitive legal rule based solely on this case; but the legal logic of "A token is just a token" will indeed significantly increase the legal obstacles the SEC will face in regulating transactions of the secondary market in the future.

Looking forward - Where are the risks and opportunities?​

The Sword of Damocles Over Staking​

Sword of Damocles, 1812, Richard Westall

ETH staking has been one of the strongest tracks in the entire industry since 2023; however, the regulatory risks of staking services are still a Sword of Damocles over this super track.

In February 2023, Kraken agreed to a settlement with the SEC and shut down its staking service in the US. Coinbase, which was also sued for its staking service, chose to continue fighting.

Returning to the framework of the Howey Test, objectively speaking, there are indeed sufficient reasons for staking services to be considered securities.

Kraken chose to settle. So, what are Coinbase's reasons for insisting that staking services are not securities?

Coinbase: Why we stand by staking:

At its most basic level, staking is the process by which users can contribute to the network by staking their token to secure the blockchain, facilitate the creation of blocks, and help process transactions. Users are not investing. Rather, users are compensated for fulfilling this important role through transaction fees and consensus rewards paid by the blockchain itself.

Coinbase makes an interesting statement, suggesting that "users who stake are not investing, but rather being compensated for the contribution they make to the blockchain network."

This statement is valid for individual stakers. However, as delegated stakers, they do not directly undertake the task of validating transactions or ensuring network security. Instead, they delegate their tokens to other node operators who use their tokens to complete these tasks. Stakers are not the direct laborers. In fact, they resemble the buyers of orange farm in the Howey case, owning land/capital (ETH), delegating others to cultivate (node operation), and obtaining returns.

Paying out capital is not labor, because the return from capital investment is a capital gain, not compensation.

Decentralized staking services are a bit more complex, and different types of decentralized staking might eventually receive different legal judgments.

The four criteria of the Howey Test are mostly similar in centralized staking and decentralized staking. The difference might lie in whether a common enterprise can exist. So, the staking model where all users' ETH is put into the same pool, even if it's decentralized, clearly also meets the four criteria of the Howey Test.

The argument in SEC vs Ripple Labs that allowed Ripple to win the Programatic Sales point (the buyer and seller don't know each other and there is no direct selling introduction), doesn't seem to protect staking services here neither.

Because apart from directly buying cbETH/stETH on the secondary market, in the case where stakers pledge their ETH to Coinbase/Lido and receive cbETH/stETH in return, it's clear that 1) the buyer knows who the issuer is, and the issuer also knows who the buyer is, and 2) the issuer clearly communicates to the buyer about the potential returns and explains the source of these returns.

Similarly, in addition to staking on PoS chains, many DeFi products that allow staking/locking tokens to earn yield are likely to meet the definition of securities. If it is somewhat challenging to establish a connection between the price of pure governance tokens and the efforts of the project team, the logic in the context of staking to earn yield is very straightforward and simple. Additionally, the reasoning in the Ripple case that made programmatic sales not considered securities also hardly stands here:

1) Users hand over tokens to staking contracts developed by the project team. The staking contract gives returns to users, and these returns are derived from the revenues generated by the project contracts that the project team opened.

2) During the interaction process between users and the staking contract, the contract also promotes and explains the returns to users, which makes it difficult to get away with the reasoning from XRP's programmatic sales.

💡 In summary, projects that offer staking services (in PoS chains, in DeFi projects) have a higher likelihood of being classified as securities due to

1. clear profit distribution, and
2. direct promotion and interaction with users.

This makes them more likely to be considered securities than projects that are generally "doing their job" by the project team.

Securities law is not the only concern​

Securities law is the main focus of this article, but it's important to remind everyone that securities law is only a small part of the overall regulatory framework for crypto — of course, it's worth special attention because it is one of the stricter aspects. Whether a token is ultimately regarded as a security, commodity, or something else, some more fundamental legal responsibilities are common, and many regulatory agencies outside of the SEC and CFTC will get involved. The content involved here is worthy of another long article, we will just briefly give an example here for reference.

This is the responsibility related to Know Your Customer (KYC) centered on anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF). Any financial transaction must not be used for financial crimes such as money laundering and terrorist financing, and any financial institution has the responsibility to ensure that the financial services it provides will not be used for these financial crimes. To achieve this goal, all financial institutions must take a series of measures, including but not limited to KYC, transaction monitoring, reporting suspicious activities to regulators, maintaining accurate records of historical transactions, etc.

This is one of the most fundamental, undisputed basic laws in financial regulation, and it is a field jointly supervised by multiple law enforcement departments, including the Department of Justice, Treasury/OFAC, FBI, SEC, etc. Currently, all centralized crypto institutions are also complying with this law to perform necessary KYC on all customers.

The main potential risk in the future lies in DeFi, whether it is necessary and possible to make DeFi comply with similar regulations as CeFi, requiring KYC/AML/CTF; and whether this regulatory model might harm the foundation of blockchain value, permissionlessness.

From a basic principle point of view, financial transactions are generated in DeFi, so these financial transactions need to ensure that they are not used for money laundering and other financial crimes, so the necessity of regulatory law is undoubted.

The challenge mainly lies in the difficulty in defining the regulatory object, essentially these financial transactions are based on the services provided by a string of code on Ethereum, so is it the Ethereum nodes running this code, or the project parties/developers who wrote this string of code, who should be the regulatory object? (That's why there are controversial cases caused by the arrest of Tornado Cash developers.) In addition, the decentralization of nodes and the anonymization of developers make this oversight thinking even more difficult to implement — this is a problem that legislators and law enforcers must solve, it is questionable how they will solve these problems; but what is unquestionable is that no regulator will allow money laundering, arms trading and other activities on an anonymous blockchain, even if these transactions account for less than one ten-thousandth of the blockchain transactions.

Actually, just on the 19th of this month, four senators from the U.S. Senate (two Republicans and two Democrats, so it's a bipartisan bill) have proposed a legislation for DeFi, the Crypto-Asset National Security Enhancement and Enforcement (CANSEE) Act. The core is to require DeFi to comply with the same legal responsibilities as CeFi:

In an effort to prevent money laundering and stop crypto-facilitated crime and sanctions violations, a leading group of U.S. Senators is introducing new, bipartisan legislation requiring decentralized finance (DeFi) services to meet the same anti-money laundering (AML) and economic sanctions compliance obligations as other financial companies*, including centralized crypto trading platforms, casinos, and even pawn shops. The legislation also modernizes key Treasury Department anti-money laundering authorities, and sets new requirements to* ensure that “crypto kiosks” don’t become a vector for laundering the proceeds of illicit activities.

— Bipartisan U.S. Senators Unveil Crypto Anti-Money Laundering Bill to Stop Illicit Transfers

Ensuring Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) in DeFi transactions is a key regulatory challenge beyond securities laws. Regardless of whether a token is classified as a security or commodity, there are strict rules against market manipulation. Resolving these issues in crypto is a future challenge for the industry.

Below are some typical forms of market manipulation. Anyone involved in crypto trading will likely recognize them.

Here are some common forms of market manipulation:

1. Pump and Dump: This involves buying a security at a low price, artificially inflating its price through false and misleading positive statements, and then selling the security at the higher price. Once the manipulator sells their shares, the price typically falls, leaving other investors at a loss.
2. Spoofing: This involves placing large buy or sell orders with no intention of executing them, to create a false appearance of market interest in a particular security or commodity. The orders are then canceled before execution.
3. Wash Trading: This involves an investor simultaneously buying and selling the same financial instruments to create misleading, artificial activity in the marketplace.
4. Churning: This occurs when a trader places both buy and sell orders at the same price. The orders are matched, leaving the impression of high trading volumes, but no net change in ownership.
5. Cornering the Market: This involves acquiring enough of a particular asset to gain control and set the price on it.
6. Front Running: This occurs when a broker or other entity enters into a trade because they have foreknowledge of a big non-publicized transaction that will influence the price of the asset, thereby benefiting from the price movement.

What if crypto loses? - Securities law won't kill altcoins​

We lack sufficient legal and political knowledge to predict the outcomes of these legal disputes, but objective analysis leads us to acknowledge that the logic of U.S. securities law supports classifying most tokens as securities. So we must deduce or imagine what the crypto industry might look like if most tokens are considered securities.

Some tokens may choose to comply as securities​

Firstly, purely from an economic perspective, the compliance cost of being publicly listed isn't as daunting as it might seem. For large-cap tokens with a FDV of over 1 billion, they are likely able to bear the cost.

A simple market value comparison reveals that many tokens have comparable market values to listed companies, especially those with a 1bn+ FDV. It's entirely reasonable to believe that they can handle the compliance costs of a listed company.

• The U.S. stock market has about 2000 companies with a market value of 100mn-1bn and about 1000 companies with a market value of 1bn-5bn.
• In the current bear market environment for altcoins, crypto has about 40-50 tokens with a FDV>1bn, and about 200 tokens with a FDV of 100mn-1bn. It's expected that more tokens will join the 100mn+/1bn+ value rank during a bull market.

We can also refer to some research on the compliance cost for listed companies. One relatively reliable source is the SEC's estimation of the listing compliance costs for small and medium-sized companies:

Their research shows that the average cost of achieving regulatory compliance to enter the marketplace as an IPO is about $2.5 million**. Once they are established, small-cap companies can expect to pay about **$1.5 million in ongoing compliance costs every year.

The conclusion is that there is a ~2.5mn listing cost, and a ~1.5mn ongoing annual cost. Considering inflation over the years, 3-4mn for an IPO and 2-3mn for annual recurring costs seem reasonable estimates. Additionally, these numbers positively correlate with the size of the company, and the costs for microcap companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars should be below these averages. Although it's not a small amount, for large project teams with hundreds of members, it's not an unacceptable cost."

"What's more uncertain is how to resolve these projects' historical compliance issues.

Listing a stock requires an audit of the company's financial history. Tokens, unlike equity, would need to disclose different content for listing, thus requiring a new regulatory framework for clear delineation. However, as long as there are clear rules, there are ways to adjust and deal with them. Companies with historical financial problems can also get the chance to go public by restating their historical statements.

While the cost of compliance is acceptable, it is also quite high; so, are project parties incentivized to do so? There's no simple answer to this question.

Firstly, compliance will indeed impose many burdens on many project parties and limit their operational flexibility. They cannot engage in "market value management," insider trading, false advertising, and coin selling announcements, etc. These restrictions affect the fundamentals of many business models.

However, for projects with particularly large market values, gaining greater market liquidity, accessing more deep-pocketed investors, and obtaining comprehensive regulatory approval are essential conditions for them to move to the next level, whether from the perspective of market value growth or project development.

"'Illegal harvesting' can be fierce, but the 'leek field' is small; 'legal harvesting' must be restrained, but the 'leek field' is large."

As the project scale increases, the balance between the potential benefits of non-compliance and the opportunities brought by the vast market and capital access post-compliance increasingly tips towards the latter. We believe that leading public chains/layer2s and blue-chip DeFis will take this step towards a completely compliant operational model.

Long-term coexistence and interdependence of compliant and non-compliant ecosystems​

Of course, most project parties won't be able to embark on the road to securities compliance; the future crypto world will consist of both compliant and non-compliant parts, each with clear boundaries but also closely interconnected."

Such a coexistence pattern already exists today, but the influence of the compliant ecosystem in the crypto world is still relatively small. As the regulatory framework becomes clearer, the influence and importance of the compliant ecosystem will become increasingly significant. The development of the compliant ecosystem will not only significantly increase the total scale of the entire crypto industry, but also "transfuse" a large amount of liquidity to the non-compliant ecosystem through the rise in prices of mainstream assets and resulting liquidity overflow.

💡 Large projects will become compliant, while smaller projects can remain in the non-compliant market and still enjoy the overflow of liquidity from the compliant market. The two markets will complement each other ecologically, proving that securities laws will not be the end of crypto.

Peace is More Important Than Victory​

On the judicial side, the SEC vs Ripple case has yet to be settled, and the SEC vs Coinbase/Binance cases have just begun - the settling of these cases could take several years.

On the legislative side, since July, several crypto regulation bills have been submitted to both houses, including the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, Responsible Financial Innovation Act, Crypto-Asset National Security Enhancement and Enforcement —— Historically, more than 50 crypto-related regulatory bills have been submitted to both houses, but we are still far from a clear legal framework.

Statistics on the passing rate of bills in the US House of Representatives throughout history. On average, Congress receives about 7,000 bill submissions each year, with about 400 being enacted. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics

The worst outcome for the crypto industry is not that most tokens will eventually be classified as securities, but the loss of time and space for the industry to grow, and the waste of resources and opportunities, due to the long-term lack of a clear regulatory framework.

The escalation and intensification of conflicts between regulators and the crypto industry is good news, as it means that resolution is nearing.

The verdict for Ripple Labs was announced on July 13, and the next day, July 14, is the anniversary of the French Revolution. This reminds me of the unrest in France after the revolution; but it was also during that chaotic time that the foundation of modern law - the French Civil Code - was born. I hope that we can see that, although the crypto industry is currently experiencing chaos and turmoil, it will eventually find its direction and way out, establishing a set of norms and codes that can coexist harmoniously with the outside world.

Code civil des Français

📎 Phoenix Capital Management is a fundamental-driven cryptocurrency hedge fund. The founding team has held key positions in several multi-billion dollar hedge funds. We strive to use a rigorous and scientific methodology, combining top-down macro research with bottom-up industry insights, to capture structural investment opportunities in the cryptocurrency industry and create long-term returns that transcend bull and bear cycles.

You can find all our writings here: Writings .

🤩 Hiring! We are actively searching for crypto researchers to join our team. If you are interested, please send your resume to [email protected]. Details can be found here.

Disclaimer:

This content is for informational use only and is not intended as financial or legal advice.

Any mistakes or delays in this information, and any resulting damages, are not the responsibility of the author. Please be aware that this information may be updated without notice.

This content does not promote or recommend the purchase or sale of any financial instruments or securities discussed.

The author may hold positions in the securities or tokens discussed in this content.

In a study by GetDX, Microsoft Research and the University of Victoria in Canada, 25 factors were identified that affect the software development experience, and it was found that the productivity of software engineers is mainly influenced by three dimensions: feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state.

Goals

• Perception of ease in delivering software
• Employee engagement or satisfaction
• Perception of productivity

1. Feedback Loops​

Feedback loops play a vital role in software development by optimizing the value stream and reducing delays in software delivery. The faster developers receive feedback, the quicker they can make necessary adjustments and course corrections. Research indicates that frequent deployment and shorter lead times can double the likelihood of meeting performance goals.

To improve DevEx, organizations must focus on shortening feedback loops. Slow feedback not only interrupts the development process but also leads to frustration and delays. Identifying areas where tools can be optimized or human processes improved is essential for enhancing the feedback loop process.

2. Cognitive Load​

Cognitive load refers to the mental processing required by a developer to perform a task. As the number of tools and technologies grows, developers face an increasing cognitive load, which can sometimes hamper their ability to deliver value.

High cognitive load can arise due to issues such as poorly documented code or complex development processes. To improve DevEx, organizations should eliminate unnecessary hurdles in the development process. This includes emphasizing organized code and documentation, as well as providing easy-to-use, self-service tools that facilitate a smoother workflow.

3. Flow State​

Flow state is a mental state characterized by full immersion, energized focus, and enjoyment in an activity. Developers often describe this state as "getting into the flow" or "being in the zone." Achieving a flow state leads to higher productivity, innovation, and employee development.

Studies have shown that developers who enjoy their work and frequently experience the flow state perform better and produce higher-quality products. However, delays and interruptions can hinder developers from reaching this productive state.

To enhance DevEx, organizations should focus on creating optimal conditions for the flow state. This includes minimizing disruptions by clustering meetings, avoiding unplanned work, and batching help requests. Additionally, fostering a positive team culture that gives developers autonomy and opportunities to work on fulfilling challenges is crucial for facilitating flow state. Leaders should promote environments conducive to these conditions.

Conclusion​

By focusing on the three core dimensions of DevEx - feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state - organizations can better understand and improve developer productivity. By optimizing these areas, teams can experience significant improvements in their output, ultimately leading to more successful delivery of software.

What is Optimism?​

Optimism is an EVM equivalent, optimistic rollup protocol designed to scale Ethereum.

• Scaling Ethereum means increasing the number of useful transactions the Ethereum network can process.
• Optimistic rollup is a layer 2 scalability technique which increases the computation & storage capacity of Ethereum without sacrificing security or decentralization.
• EVM Equivalence is complete compliance with the state transition function described in the Ethereum yellow paper, the formal definition of the protocol.

Optimistic rollup works by bundling multiple transactions into a single transaction, which is then verified by a smart contract on the Ethereum network. This process is called "rolling up" because the individual transactions are combined into a larger transaction that is submitted to the Ethereum network. The term "optimistic" refers to the fact that the system assumes that transactions are valid unless proven otherwise, which allows for faster and more efficient processing of transactions.

Overall Architecture​

op-node + op-geth​

The rollup node can run either in validator or sequencer mode:

1. validator (aka verifier): Similar to running an Ethereum node, it simulates L2 transactions locally, without rate limiting. It also lets the validator verify the work of the sequencer, by re-deriving output roots and comparing them against those submitted by the sequencer. In case of a mismatch, the validator can perform a fault proof.
2. sequencer: The sequencer is a priviledged actor, which receives L2 transactions from L2 users, creates L2 blocks using them, which it then submits to data availability provider (via a batcher). It also submits output roots to L1. There is only one sequencer in the entire stack for now, and it's where people critisize that OP stack is not decenralized.

op-batcher​

The batch submitter, also referred to as the batcher, is the entity submitting the L2 sequencer data to L1, to make it available for verifiers.

op-proposer​

Proposer generates and submitting L2 Output checkpoints to the L2 output oracle contract on Ethereum. After finalization period has passed, this data enables withdrawals.

Both batcher and proposer submit states to L1. Why are they separated?

Batcher collect and submit tx data into L1 with a batch, while proposer submits the commitments (output roots) to the L2's state, which finalizes the view of L2 account states. They are decoupled so that they can work in parallel for efficiency.

contracts-bedrock​

Various contracts for L2 to interact with the L1:

• OptimismPortal: A feed of L2 transactions which originated as smart contract calls in the L1 state.
• Batch inbox: An L1 address to which the Batch Submitter submits transaction batches.
• L2 output oracle: A smart contract that stores L2 output roots for use with withdrawals and fault proofs.

How to deposit?​

How to withdraw?​

Feedback to Optimism's Documentation​

Understanding the OP stack can be challenging due to a number of factors. One such factor is the numerous components that are referred to multiple times with slightly different names in code and documentation. For example, the terms "op-batcher" and "batch-submitter" / "verifiers" and "validators" may be used interchangeably, leading to confusion and difficulty in understanding the exact function of each component.

Another challenge in understanding the OP stack is the evolving architecture, which may result in some design elements becoming deprecated over time. Unfortunately, the documentation may not always be updated to reflect these changes. This can lead to further confusion and difficulty in understanding the system, as users may be working with outdated or inaccurate information.

To overcome these challenges, it is important to carefully review all available documentation, to keep concepts consistently across places, and to stay up-to-date with any changes or updates to the OP stack. This may require additional research and collaboration with other users or developers, but it is essential in order to fully understand and effectively utilize this complex system.

Streaming or Recurring Payments​

Token steaming means sending recurring payments in real time, like water flowing into its target. There are two kinds of payment innovations:

• Payout, or payer-side innovation: Business owners use it for payroll, subscription, token vesting, corporate treasury, etc. The customer is mostly on the sender side, optimizing how to send out salaries or token equities to your employees securely, cost-effectively, and automatically, like "Workday + Carta + Brex for crypto".
• Accept payment, or payee-side innovation: Merchants use it to accept payments and allow customers to checkout, like "Stripe for crypto".

Account Abstraction​

As of the end of 2022, the most prominent web3 payment protocol is probably EIP-86/EIP-4337 for Account Abstraction. It uses smart-contract wallets to decouple private key ownership from asset account ownership. The protocol is still a work in progress on Ethereum, but Visa has implemented auto payments for self-custodial wallets on Starkware in its internal hackathon.

There will be three major sources of the slowdown

1. less sign-ups: new businesses are going to dry up
2. more churn: logo churn is going to be higher
3. less ARPU: seat contraction. Tailwind of enterprise growth in the industry is gone

Authorization determines whether an individual or system can access a particular resource. And this process is a typical scenario that could be automated with software. We will review Google's Zanzibar, Zanzibar-inspired solutions, and other AuthZ services on the market.

Zanzibar: Google's Consistent, Global Authorization System​

• Google's = battle-tested with Google products, 20 million permissions check per second, p95 < 10ms, 99.999% availability
• Consistent = ensure that authorization checks are based on ACL data no older than a client-specified change
• Global = geographically distributed data centers and distributes load across thousands of servers around the world.
• Authorization = general-purpose authorization

In Zanzibar's context, we can express the AuthZ question in this way:

isAuthorized(user, relation, object) = does the user have relation to object?

It's called relationship-based access control (==ReBAC==). Clients could build ABAC and RBAC on top of ReBAC. Unfortunately, Zanzibar is not open-sourced nor purchasable as a out-of-box service.

Zanzibar Architecture

Why is Zanzibar scalable?

• Use Spanner as the database
• Leopard indexing system
  • flatten group-to-group paths like a reachability problem in a graph
  • store index tuples as ordered lists of integers in a structure, such as a skip list, to achieve efficient union and intersections among sets.
  • async dataflow client > aclserver > changelog > Leopard indexing system
• How to maintain external consistency? Zookie protocol - Clients check permissions with a timestamp-based token.

Auth0 Fine-Grained Authorization (FGA)​

Auth0 FGA is an open-source implementation of Google Zanzibar. Check the interactive tutorial at https://zanzibar.academy/.

For enterprise developers in the context of microservices, how to use the managed solution of FGA?

1. Go to the FGA dashboard to define the authorization model in DSL and relation tuples, and finally, add authorization assertions like automated tests (this is great!).
2. Developers go back to their services and call the FGA wrapper's check endpoint

Unfortunately, I don't see changelog audits and version control to rollback in case developers break things in the FGA dashboard, probably because FGA is still a work in progress.

OSO​

With Oso, you can:

• Model: Set up common permissions patterns like role-based access control (RBAC) and relationships using Oso's built-in primitives. Extend them however you need with Oso's declarative policy language, Polar (DSL).
• Filter: Go beyond yes/no authorization questions. Implement authorization over collections too - e.g., "Show me only the records that Juno can see."
• Test: Write unit tests over your authorization logic now that you have a single interface for it. Use the Oso debugger or REPL to track down unexpected behavior.

Ory Keto​

Keto is an open Source (Go) implementation of Zanzibar. Ships gRPC, REST APIs, newSQL, and an easy and granular permission language (DSL). Supports ACL, RBAC, and other access models.

Authzed SpiceDB​

SpiceDB is an open-source database system for managing security-critical application permissions inspired by Google's Zanzibar paper.

Aserto Topaz​

Topaz is an open-source authorization service providing fine-grained, real-time, policy-based access control for applications and APIs.

It uses the Open Policy Agent (OPA) as its decision engine, and provides a built-in directory that is inspired by the Google Zanzibar data model.

Authorization policies can leverage user attributes, group membership, application resources, and relationships between them. All data used for authorization is modeled and stored locally in an embedded database, so authorization decisions can be evaluated quickly and efficiently.

Cloudentity​

It seems to be an integrated CIAM solution, and there is no standalone feature for enterprise authorization. Documentation is confusing...

Open Policy Agent​

The Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open-source, general-purpose policy engine that unifies policy enforcement across the stack. OPA provides a high-level declarative language that lets you specify policy as code and simple APIs to offload policy decision-making from your software. You can use OPA to enforce policies in microservices, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, API gateways, and more.

OPA was originally created by Styra and a graduated project from Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

Permit.IO​

Permit.IO is a low-code AuthZ platform based on OPA and OPAL.

Scaled Access​

Scaled Access is an european company that was acquired by onewelcome. It offers rich context-aware access control, real-time policy enforcement, fine-grained authorization, and relationship-based access control. There are APIs in the documentation but no SDKs.

Casbin​

Casbin is an authorization library that supports access control models like ACL, RBAC, ABAC in Golang. There are SDKs in many programming languages. However, its configuration is pretty static in CSV files, and it's more for corporation internal and less for customer-facing authorization.

SGNL​

This service looks pretty scrappy - beautiful websites without any content for developers. No doc, no video or self-service demo. I suspect its positioning is for non-tech enterprises. Not recommended.

Summary​

Here is a preliminary ranking after my initial check. Ideally, I want a LaunchDarkly-like AuthZ platform - easy to integrate and operate, fully equipped with audit logs, version control, and a developer-facing web portal.

• Pick a broad set of advisors
  • 3 ~ 5 years ahead of the startup’s current status with fresh experience that they could recall things and provide immediate help
  • Late-stage advisors: better in strategic thinking; not good for too specific details.
• Compensation: Advisor option grant: 0.25% ~ 0.75% monthly over two years

What doesn't work?​

• Throwing money at the problem
  • Sponsor a hackathon without proper docs that help devs to get started.
  • Not seeding your community with ideas & examples
• Build excellent tools but tells no one about them and how to use them.
  • Assuming you have provided ==enough context== in your contents
• Spend too much time on low-leverage work like answering questions

What works?​

• Set clear goals: foster apps, integrations, mutual help, and word-of-mouth built with your tech.
  • a system of new useful apps built on top of your tech
  • integrations between your tech and existing products
  • helping other devs in your community
  • telling their friends about your tech
• Provide useful content: Libraries, APIs, docs, tools, smart contracts, education, etc.
• Establish long-term relationships: tutorials, videos, podcasts, workshops, meetups.
• Ride the hype: explain how your tech works with the popular tech and dev tools.
• Create superstars in your community.

How to improve docs?​

• Improving docs is high-leverage work.

  • ==Every minute spent making your docs better is worth an hour of answering individual questions - stack overflow.==

• Understand your developer personas.

  • Listen to your customers every day.
  • Categorize your customers.

• Developer's questions are useful clues to improve your doc.

How to categorize your developers?​

Segment by skill level - seeing the table of skill levels to what they need:

Segment by role / intent

How to support superstars in your community?​

• Make them feel special and highlighted
• Promote what they are doing
• Create sharing opportunities for them to reach border community

How to run a better hackathon?​

• Know your customer - are they willing to build on your tech?
• Know your co-sponsor - are they as high quality as you?
• Know how to get started - people are unprepared, having limited time, and over-whelmed by your and others' techs

How to run a better bounty?​

• It doesn't work to Incentivise people to do simple and stupid tasks.
• What works is to make productive and derivative improvements.
  • Get smart devs to develop something new
  • Crowdsource tutorials and educational content

What do you mean by useful content?​

• periordical sharing
  • web3 research
  • tech deep dive
• official websites/doc/demo
• articles to various channels

It takes time for good technology to gain popularity. From the chart below, we can see that, even for the Internet, it still takes 17 years for 50% of US households to adopt it, no matter how profoundly it has changed our lives today.

That’s why I am always respectful towards all kinds of innovations - no matter how small it appears today, who would imagine it will take over the world tens of years later?

As a builder or businessman, we have a product or service to sell, and the question is - how to speed up the process for it to take over the market?

The Model​

Everett M. Rogers came up with Five Intrinsic Attributes of Innovation in his Diffusion of Innovation Theory :

• Relative advantage: how much is the product perceived as better than the existing standard? We often ask, is this product 10x better than the existing one?
• Compatibility: how easily can I apply my experience to the new product? Customers hate changes even with new versions of an existing product, not even mention utterly new products with entirely new features.
• Complexity: Is it easy to use?
• Trialability: Is it easy to try?
• Observability: Is it obvious for people to observe the change?

The Chasm​

In addition to the intrinsic attributes above, there are interactions between the innovation and the market segments. We call it the technology adoption lifecycle (TAL), which categorizes customers on the market into five pieces.

The Chasm theory indicates that there is no smooth transition from early adopters to the early majority because those two market segments want different value propositions. Crossing the Chasm applies the “D-Day analogy” to solve the problem - focus, focus, focus! Focus is all it takes to attack each segment one by one - like D-Day - you take over the beach first and then move to the next target.

The Math​

Every entrepreneur would dream of a beautiful S-curve for their innovation to diffuse into the market. So to unveil the math curtain, let’s see how Scott Page explains it in the book model thinker, Chapter 11: Broadcast, Diffusion, and Contagion.

The abstraction here is to partition the population into two groups:

• informed: people who know or have something and
• susceptible: those who do not.

Group informed starts empty, and group susceptible is all the relevant population exposed to conversion. The growth curves are in various shapes with various models to convert people from susceptible to informed.

r-shape for broadcast model​

This model assumes that

1. people capture info from public channels, and there is no word-of-mouth / mutual reference between individuals
2. once converted, there is no moving-back

And then we get this formula

• $P_{broad}$: the broadcast probability
• $I_{t}$: the number informed at time $t$
• $S_{t}$: the number susceptible at time $t$
• Initially, $I_{0} = 0$ and $S_{0} = N_{POP}$
• $N_{POP}$: relevant population
• $N_{POP} = I_{t} + S_{t}$

We could learn from the model that...

• In this broadcast model, all susceptible will be eventually converted to informed, and it is just a matter of time how soon it will complete.
• To maximize informed, we should maximize susceptible first. It means that our ads should reach as many potential customers as we can.
• To speed up the conversion, we should make our ads as high-frequent and impressive as possible.
• With the formula above, we could make a rough prediction for future sales with the ones in the previous two periods.

s-shape for diffusion model​

This model assumes that

1. people capture info by mutual reference and there is no public channel
2. once converted, there is no moving-back
3. people are randomly mixed

And then we get this formula

• where $P_{diffuse} = P_{spread} \bullet P_{contact}$

We could learn from the model that...

• How fast the conversion happens is determined by how frequently those people contact each other and how much they would like to share the info.

mixing of r-and-s-shape for Bass model​

Most consumer goods and info spread through both broadcast and diffusion. Usually, for the same product, companies are running ad campaigns; meanwhile, customers are referring new customers.

susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model​

All the models above assume no moving back from informed to susceptible. We seldomly abandon our adoption of many home appliances - dishwashers, air dryers, etc. However, it is not the same for fashion styles, diseases, and ... your brand in the real world. In this case, things are contagious only for a particular time. People may forget your product as time passes by and then get recovered.

Let's introduce $P_{recover}$ the probability of recovery, then we get the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model.

For disease control, the infected will rise first, and we hope it will eventually drop.

However, we hope the informed will rise to the top for our products. The SIR model produces a ==tipping point==, aka, ==basic reproduction number ($R_{0}$)==.

Products with $R_{0} > 1$ spread through the population, while products with $R_{0} < 1$ dissipate.

Take COVID as an example. Its $R_{0}$ is 2 to 3. $P_{diffuse} = P_{spread} \bullet P_{contact}$ and that is why people wear masks, keep distances from others and avoid crowds to lower the diffuse probabilities.

$R_{0}$ is the ultimate question for marketing - would your marketing be contagious enough to fight against forgetfulness?

By the formal definition, the mass media version of the tipping point is usually wrong. For example, a kink is not a tipping point in the chart below for the number of Google Plus users in the first 14 days. Instead, $R_{0}$ is the real tipping point.

Elements of GTM - Reach, Frequency, and Quality​

Finally, here is the summarization of all components that are worth optimizing for go-to-market campaigns. Please note that spreading information carries costs, unlike diseases, so we need to consider ROI.

• Reach channels
  • Customer Segment Size: Make sure your ads are going to the susceptible targets, as many of them as possible.
  • Customer Segment Attributes: The more each person in the segment is likely to contact and share the info, the more contagious the group is. It would help if you prefer people with a strong frequency and willingness to share information. (Attacking visionaries first!)
• How-to
  • Frequency: Make sure people cannot ignore your message by conveying it multiple times.
  • Quality Conversion Rate: Make the ads likable and memorable. It's usually something they are familiar with but still a surprise.
  • Make it big and fast. Don't forget that people will forget! Ideally, make diffusion rate > recovering rate.
• ROI. Don't spend too less or too much on customer acquisition (LTV:CAC = 3:1).