hey Grants Lab leadership team,
great seeing you at the weekly meeting this week. i am proud that we are taking the recent market downturn in stride and remain steadfastly focused on results + are staying optimstic.
in the meeting today, people were comparing GTC in 2025 to the legendary ETH drawdowns of 2019 ($1400=>$70), and SOL’s legendary 2023 drawdown of ($220=>$9)… i think its great to foster this energy because it lets you see that it is possible to survive that kind of token drawdown, and emerge stronger + better than ever!!! i LOVE this energy.
but also as someone who lived through those times, and who has the scars to show it, i must counsel caution: i feel a need to highlight the survivorship bias of comparing GTC to ETH or SOL. for every ETH or SOL there are 10 projects that didnt make it through that time. there is NO GUARANTEE GTC is one of the survivors.
if youll allow me one owocki-ism, i’d like zoom out. i believe that web3 is an evolutionary ecosystem. in abundant times 100s of experiments will blossom. in scarce times, 97% will fail. but 3% that survive will be the keystone species of next boom. innovate, iterate, evolve, repeat. its elegant, even beautiful! this is all powered by market selection (similar to how nature is powered by natural selection). the market CHOOSES projects to succeed or fail based on their narratives or cashflows (sometimes both).
the truth is this. ETH and SOL had communities that hunkered down in hard times, rallied together. they were adventurers on a hazardous journey. and at times they had to deal with low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. all the time, safe return was doubtful. but they got honour and recognition in event of success.
i’m not saying that GTC is exactly like ETH, SOL, or any other token. we are our own thing, and we have to decide what’s right for us. what is our north star? what is our roadmap? how much pain tolerance do we have along the way? we own our own destiny on the path ahead.
the good news is we have prepared for this scenario. we have enough stables in the bank to fund all of our 2025 commitments through the year. thats a lot of runway.
to extend it, personally i think the right move is for all business units to get serious about getting profitable soon ( It's time for Gitcoin to get profitable ). because come 2026 the budgeting convos will likely be WAY different.
i have conviction in the following subDAOS + their leaders and direction:
- for GG, i believe that mathilda + co will lead us there.
- for GL, i think Meg + the leaders around her are the ones to do it.
- and for allo.capital, me and Rena will lead the charge.
- passport is crushing it. more on this soon.
- i do not have line of sight to how things are going at KERNEL/publicworks.fm
gl hf