Polygon and Seven Seven Six have created a $200 million initiative that will back projects at the intersection of social media and Web3
Partnership
The motivating force behind Web3 is that a better version of the Internet is possible. Version which empowers users over platforms. It is a response to a pervading sense that the current instantiation as represented by the social media giants has strayed too far from the early Web’s open source ideals. The result is, as one Facebook engineer famously quipped, the best minds of our generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.
While protocols like the Ethereum blockchain are attempting to build infrastructure that would allow information to be both decentralized and cryptographically verified, projects built within the Web3 framework are focusing on creating DeFi alternatives of popular centralized social media sites and other services that have been traditionally centralized since the rise of the internet from the late 90s and the internet boom of the early 2000s.
The announcement to invest $200 million into social media and blockchain platforms follows Polygon’s recent acquistion of the Mir protocol. After previously acquiring the Hermez Network (now Polygon Hermez) for $250 million in August, Polygon paid $400 million for the Ethereum scaling startup Mir. Ohanian’s venture firm, Seven Seven Six, has a number of investments in blockchain and Web3 including Sky Mavis, Droneseed, Better Brand, and Stoke Space. Ohanian recently backed the NFT project Heir co-founded by NBA legend Michael Jordan and his son Jeffrey Jordan.
Quotes
“We are still in the early days of Web3 and the most obvious opportunities right now are in gaming and social. This initiative will do just that, with a focus on gaming properties and social media platforms built on Polygon’s scalable infrastructure. We’ve already seen some of the best product founders in our portfolio start building on Polygon and I’m excited for Seven Seven Six and Polygon to play a big role in shaping what the new internet looks like.” shares Ohanian.
“These past few years have brought a dawning realization that social media business models have a profound impact on our world. With Web3, users create the values, control the network, and reap the rewards. This is not just a different way to share lolcats online, though we love those. We are inventing new high-fidelity means of transmitting culture itself.” shares Polygon co-founder Sandeep Naiwal.
“The motivating force behind Web3 is that a better version of the Internet is possible, one which empowers users over platforms. It is a response to a pervading sense that the current instantiation as represented by the social media giants has strayed too far from the early Web’s open source ideals.” Polygon stated.
