BFF Community,
We have officially hit a bear market both inside and outside of crypto. Like many of you, the BFF team has spent the last several weeks reading news headlines with dread, watching our wallets with anxiety and talking amongst friends with concern. We’re all looking for clues for what may happen next.
This rollercoaster of emotions is normal, and even healthy, when you consider the rapidly changing conditions. But we don’t see volatile markets as a reflection of the future of Web3. The blockchain and the promise of a more progressive and decentralized Internet is not going away. That’s why amid all this change, our commitment to BFF’s mission and our goals to build for the long term has never been stronger.
“The silver lining is every time there is a downturn... builders stay and build for longevity with better fundamentals,” Founding BFF Swan Sit said in a Twitter Spaces with us this week. “It’s an incredible opportunity. It’s a gift of knowledge of what we should be building on.”
We see ourselves as those builders Swan speaks about. BFF launched in January, with a plan to break down barriers preventing women & nonbinary people from staking their claim in Web3. Today, we hear regularly from our community — more than 150,000 friends across platforms and growing — that not only does BFF feel like home, but they are now immersing themselves more and more into the space.
We’re just getting started. Here’s a look at what the team is focused on building right now:
We are creating new pathways for fellow builders. Venture capital investment in blockchain innovation hit $10 billion globally in the first quarter of this year. And yet, the entrepreneurs benefiting from those checks look the same as the founders we saw in Web2: Less than 5 percent of crypto entrepreneurs are women. That’s why we are announcing BFF Launchpad this Fall—an accelerator program for BFF Bracelet holders that will support female and non-binary founders who are looking to launch new technology and initiatives in the Web3 space. This program — which will be built with direct involvement from our community — will create more opportunities for education while offering participants special access to products, experts and more.
We are thinking SuperCreatively to deepen opportunities for connection and learning. The future of building connection and education within Web3 is creating communities within communities. This week, we announced our first micro-community in Discord: SuperCreatives. SuperCreatives will be a space within BFF where artists, writers, brand builders, and lore creatives can share their craft with the community through discussions and workshops. Available to BFF Bracelet holders, micro-communities will hit on a variety of different topics and areas of expertise, all with the goal of elevating the potential and power of our community.
Beyond micro-communities, we are constantly expanding ways for you to connect virtual or IRL. Last week, our hearts sang as BFF’s came together at Consensus in Austin. And next week, we’re hosting multiple events for holders at NFT NYC, including a party in partnership with our friends at HUG and a networking event with MAVION and many of our Founding BFFs. We’ll keep creating these in-person touchpoints for the community as we plan for the big event: BFFCon, slated for Fall of 2023.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing new opportunities for BFF Bracelet and You holders to learn from experts on how to navigate the bear market. And who knows, we may even reveal a new charm for our bracelet holders who kept growing with us during these turbulent times.
We are doubling down on our commitment to belonging and inclusion in Web3. While the tenets of Web3 bring the promise of a more equitable future, we know that promise won’t be realized without a comprehensive and actionable plan. At BFF, we are thinking about that plan with two primary components: the Web3 Pledge and the Belonging and Mattering Council.
The pledge serves as a commitment to pursuing and upholding exceptional DEI standards for the brand. And the council is a hand-selected group of individuals — internal and external — who will respond to and suggest ideas and plans set forth by the diversity, equity and inclusion committee on public-facing initiatives. We’re excited to announce more details soon on both projects.
We are building our own software, and actively exploring real world utility. We believe that the best brands in the space are those who are building true technological moats. The BFF team is in the early innings of exploring ideas around our own software that could not only enable smoother onboarding of users into BFF, but could be utilized for the broader Web3 community as well. We believe that NFTs are much more than just JPEGs with a market-determined price tag. The most sustainable brands will be those that provide their communities with guaranteed access to real world experiences and opportunities. We are continuing to evolve our thinking on this front and will have more to share over the coming months.
During all this, we know many questions remain unanswered. Will the market continue to fall? Will we have another recession? Will we be talking about Web5, Web6 or Web7 next month? Jokes aside, rather than search for answers that are outside of our control, we want to hear directly from you.
As we navigate this downturn together, how can BFF better support both the crypto-curious and those who are building and investing in the space? We put together this short survey with the hopes of finding out and informing our roadmap moving forward.
Stay well, BFFs!
The BFF Team
This is not financial advice. If you don't want to spend money investing in crypto or Web3 — you don’t have to. The intent of this article is to help others educate themselves and learn.
Brit Morin and Jaime Schmidt are Co-Founders at BFF
