What is DTF, why we built it and why we are getting WET You have probably seen a lot about DTF and getting WET on the timeline recently. But what is DTF really? DTF (Decentralized Token Formation) is our attempt to make on-chain capital formation fair and transparent, the way it ought to be. The first launch is happening Dec 3rd with the chads at @humidifi as they launch $WET. Here’s everything you need to know.

Why We Built DTF - A Return to Crypto Ideals One of the core tenets of decentralization and cryptocurrency is to enable the free flow of capital. In the early days of the industry, this also meant the ability for anybody to contribute capital to projects and founders that they believed in, and participate in their growth journey from an early stage. In return, conviction was rewarded both financially and socially if the projects took off. The ICO meta of 2016-2017 in many ways contributed to the Golden Age of DeFi that came in 2020. It was a lot less about who you knew and more about whether you were good at picking the right horses to back. Reading the white papers, participating in the community, talking directly to the core developers and others in the project. Learning more about what the project believed in, and what made it unique. And then participating financially, and socially, if you believed. Participants weren't just investors, they were evangelists. Even though some projects failed, connections with other like-minded people were created in these shared journeys, many of whom would work to build other projects together. This was lost as the era of private placements and VC deals took over. It became less about giving everyone a fair and level playing field. Instead of competing in the free market of ideas, project founders started competing for the attention of GPs at mega-funds. Instead of building something to change the world, it became more about building something to sell to someone else to return a profit to investors who believed in nothing but the dollar. It became functionally impossible for an average person to invest in projects. Retail participants were always late (you never had access). The white papers were released only at the token launch. And by then, it wouldn’t matter. VCs had bought up everything at 20m FDV and were realizing their 10-100x returns in the market. It used to pay to believe. Today, your belief pays the VCs.

The Problem with Modern “ICO” Platforms In recent years, there have been attempts to create “ICO” platforms. Most of these were syndication platforms that claimed to allow participants to “invest on the same terms as VCs”. But most of the time the terms weren’t the same. Participants simply invested in the latest VC round, already at a 8-9 figure valuation. And the VCs who “led the round'? Well they might have had a discount that wasn't disclosed. Refund rights. Preferred liquidity terms. The ability to hedge their positions. These platforms were simply a way to throw a bone to the “community” or to pretend a community existed at all. Now this may have been fine if projects were completely transparent, and participants knew exactly what they were getting into - but most times they didn’t. VC or team supply of tokens would be allegedly locked up, but somehow the “foundation” was always selling. Project tokens sat in a single on-chain or custodian wallet, poorly labelled and with mysterious transactions occurring and no clarity on token movements.

The Solution - Transparency, Certainty and Fairness DTF was built to address this. We want to go back to the days when participants could have conviction in a project and know, for a fact, that believing in something or someone does not make them a fool. We want to create an environment where the relationship between a team and its supporters are synergistic rather than antagonistic. Where it’s possible to believe in something and win together or lose together. So we built a product which forces disclosure of where 100% of the token supply goes - all on-chain, in clearly marked wallets. A product that is actually an initial offering of coins - with no ambiguity as to when the token goes live. We use the Jupiter product suite to programmatically lock-up tokens that are disclosed as locked up. We use the Meteora product suite to ensure that there is sufficient liquidity for tokens. We use the first-come-first-served mechanism of old to avoid oversubscription whale games. And perhaps most importantly, we work only with projects which we ourselves believe in, to enable not just capital but also community formation.