I. Introduction

The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies now sits at over $2-3 trillion as of 2021. While most of the financial activity remains on centralized systems, decentralized finance (DeFi) has experienced a particular surge with roughly 90,000 users at the start of 2020 to 4.28 million by the end of 2021. These decentralized systems are uniquely poised for growth because they have the potential to confer greater security, privacy, and lower fees to users. As blockchain technologies become more mainstream, the real and perceived barriers to using decentralized marketplaces will decline.

One of the major contributors to decentralized finance, as well as decentralized marketplaces more generally, is the emergence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). By tokenizing ideas at their most basic level and assigning ownership and authenticating them, NFTs create marketplaces where none would have otherwise formed as a result of transaction costs and other barriers. Already, the market capitalization of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) sits at an estimated $23 billion and some estimates suggest that it may grow by 186% between 2021 and 2026. These estimates, however, do not even include the many additional applications of NFTs that are likely to emerge outside of visual art.

Wild and West sits at the crossroads between Web2 and the burgeoning Web3 universe. While our profitability and impact began through targeted investments in social media and technologies during the Web2 era, we are now fundamentally shifting our focus to ideas and organizations that are establishing a presence in Web3 with at least some charitable and/or philanthropic component.

Because we now have the cultural context and technological tools to tokenize ideas of any shape or size, we believe now is the best time to focus exclusively on Web3 projects. Moreover, given that a precondition to a successful Web3 project is community, we believe that charitable contributions are no longer a luxury or act for organizations, but rather a necessity and opportunity for organizations to truly decide and commit to their priorities – and then reap the returns after following through.

Talk is cheap in an era with too much information. However, all our investments not only solve practical problems for consumers, but also serve a broader purpose of making a brighter future.

II. Our Philosophy and Service Offerings

Every investment we make and every project we help on is fundamentally about solving a problem that has a long time horizon of roughly 30 years and of significant magnitude. We are not interested in short-term projects – even those that are legitimately profitable – especially if they do not have a meaningful social impact. Our world faces a wide array of serious challenges and we believe that the only way we can make a dent on them is by focusing our attention on them, avoiding distraction.

Assuming that the idea is big and long-term enough, then we scrutinize the team and determine whether they are appropriate for the task.. We focus on three dimensions of character.

• Trust – can the team be trusted, even when we are not looking?
• Reliable – can the team actually execute, not just talk a good game?
• Smart - does the team have the intellectual firepower to succeed?

Over the past 5 years, we have had a team of roughly 20 people and launched projects that have received donations of over $250 million. Wild and West focuses primarily on two services:

• Equity investing – we provide capital to great, long-term ideas that might normally be dismissed by traditional finance because of their longer-horizon focus.
• Creative consulting – we create and execute Web3 services, ranging from digital art to minting NFTs to establishing digital communities.

We believe that the time now is digital: everything that has a physical representation will soon have a digital representation – and we are committed to being a leader in this space. We have a particular focus on producing Web3 content that is the highest quality of content possible.

• Design – whether creating a website or redoing a logo, our team can provide you with the best designs and ensure your product looks and works perfectly for your customers.
• Development – given that code is the basis of all tech products today, we ensure that our code is efficient and scalable so that your product gets to market quickly and effectively.
• Smart contracts – whether you want to create a DeFi application or NFT platform, we have the talent to program dApps that are easy for your customers to interact with.
• Marketing – with the surge in DeFi users and dApps, standing out is essential to ensure that your idea is not lost in the noise. We have invested over $50M on ad platforms to generate over $300M in revenue for our clients. We are experts at launching great brands.
• Community management – especially in the DeFi space, community is the heart of every product. We can help you in formulating and implementing the right strategy, whether it is managing a Discord or Instagram channel, so that your customers are heard and appreciated.

We find it worthwhile to stress that community is not a transactional activity for us. Technology can never replace the indispensable role of social interaction and relationship; it, ranging from NFTs to the metaverse, should exist to enhance and complement the human experience.

Part of our unique services offering is an overwhelming attention to detail on cultivating community through the power of art, music, and story. We have seen time and time again throughout history that community is the most powerful foundation and engine for growth and change. If people are fragmented, their efforts create friction; if they are unified, they create serious force. We believe that this unity and unrelenting focus on creating value for people will produce a better Web3 world.

III. Illustrative Portfolio of Projects

We believe in creating real social impact – not just talking about it. Every project that we say yes to is a solution to a big problem with at least some charitable component. To provide structure and clarity to investments, we like to focus on Web3 projects that fall into one of the two following categories:

• Education – we believe that the current infrastructure for K-12 and higher education is not poised to produce compassion, gritty, and capable cohorts for the coming generation. We want to help lead the way by establishing new modalities for human capital accumulation.
• Metaverse – we believe that everything we see in physical reality will have a digital representation, but it is incumbent on us to do it right and use metaverse capabilities to enhance our physical lives, rather than replace it. The metaverse provides new opportunities to create sensory experiences – for better, or for worse, so let’s make it for the better.

With that in mind, we now enumerate several illustrative examples of ongoing projects.

1. Picture for Profile NFTs for the Los Angeles Dream Center

Our partnership with the Los Angeles Dream Center (DC) is our flagship philanthropic project. They have been a fixture in the community and world for nearly 30 years, providing food, shelter, education, and other resources to the most vulnerable. The DC not only provides for basic needs, but also helps each person reach their full potential through training and community development.

Given the impact that the DC has had on families and people of all backgrounds, we are working with them to launch a 10,000 PFP NFT project that showcases testimonies of their impact and provides the first-ever non-profit experiment in the Web3 space. Each NFT is individualized with both a video and audio testimony. The resulting NFTs will be used in the launch of the Dream Center in the metaverse where NFT holders will receive 10 DC tokens each day, which can be saved to purchase additional digital assets, sponsor DC outreach activities, or traded.

By tokenizing experiences and emotions that the DC has had over the past three decades, Wild and West will create a marketplace for people to experientially participate in the DC community and see the fruits of the investments on a more authentic basis. That marketplace will ensure the financial sustainability of the DC’s efforts and invite more people to be part of the journey.

2. Blueberry

Blueberry is one of the highest selling digital wearable creators over the past decade with over 20,000,000 digital assets sold. They empower self expression by producing digital fashion in the metaverse. Consider, for example, Second Life – the original metaverse that mimics real life.

Unlike many other Web3 organizations that focus exclusively on investment, Wild and West can get deeply involved in operations. For example, Abraham Gomez serves as Blueberry’s chief of staff. While Blueberry has traditionally focused on Web2 experiences, they are now beginning to move into Web3, so Abraham will be focused on leading up those investments and projects.

3. Toniq Labs

Toniq Labs builds professional tools and services on the blockchain. They are building Stoic, a blockchain wallet for the Internet Computer, that will provide basic wallet functionality as well as token storage (traditional and NFTs), token minting/distribution and direct application integration. Stoic will be used to login to applications on the IC, manage ICP, tokens and NFTs securely, login through multiple interfaces (e.g., Google, Twitter), and mint and distribute tokens directly in the app.

They are also building Exponent, a token platform, that will provide users with tools and on-chain services to design, deploy and manage NFT and traditional tokens. They will provide decentralized marketplaces by developing an extendable token standard for the internet computer, a headless wallet for invisible token management, a built-in exchange protocol, and tooling for developers.

Wild and West is helping Toniq Labs through general advising services, redesigning their website and general blockchain tools, and taking ownership over all their marketing materials and strategies.

4. Island DAO

The Island decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) represents the greatest collective effort to create a self-governing and physical real-life community. Motivated by the increased crime rates, deterioration of quality of life, and overall politicization in many cities across the world, particularly over the past two years, we believe that blockchain technologies can help people organize and live effectively together. In particular, DAOs create a framework for self-governance by providing participants with not only an opportunity, but also incentive to vote and participate in the governance process. That contrasts with the challenge in many democratic societies where voter turnout, especially in state and local elections, is far below 50%. Low turnout, in turn, affects the quality of candidates and selection of ideas and policies that ultimately get chosen and implemented.

Our partnership with the Island DAO involves its design and architecture, ranging from the logistics of buying an island to building out the metaverse capabilities. Ownership of the island is going to be determined by the release of a token and NFTs available for purchase. We are working especially hard with them to produce the design and collection of NFTs that reflect specific plots of land that individuals will be able to buy. We are also working on the architecture of the island to ensure that all the buildings and activities create an environment that fosters creativity and community.

5. Web3 LA

Wild and West will be organizing an annual event in Los Angeles focused on the full suite of Web3 activities. Whereas NFT NYC is an excellent event, it has a narrow focus on NFTs. However, Web3 is much bigger than just NFTs, so Web3 LA will include content and networking around crypto, distributed ledger technologies, and more. The inaugural event is set for May 2022.