Syndicate
A web3 platform for investment clubs
👋 Welcome to the sixth issue of The Syllabus from Invisible College – a weekly newsletter that will help you navigate the complex world of web3. To get this newsletter delivered to your inbox, subscribe here:
Before we begin, a disclaimer – nothing here is financial advice. We’re analyzing projects that we find interesting in the hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them as well.
With that, let’s dive in.
The first recorded investment club was founded in 1898. This was during the era of the Wild West, when it was challenging to differentiate between speculative opportunities and outright scams. To spread the risk of investing, groups of people pooled their financial and intellectual capital together to take advantage of promising deals.
The crypto market is often referred to as a modern-day Wild West, with new projects launching nearly every day, an unclear regulatory environment, and the potential for riches to be won. So naturally, investment clubs are making a comeback. That’s all thanks to Syndicate and their new product that enables groups of web3 enthusiasts to team up and form investment clubs.
Investing with friends
With Syndicate, individual investors can pool their resources to invest in both crypto and off-chain assets. In just a few minutes, anyone can create a wallet, invite friends to contribute funds, and start making investments as a DAO. And you can do it all for free. Just pay gas.
But why would you want to do this?
Because by pooling information, investment clubs let members make more thorough investment decisions. And by combining capital, they reduce transaction costs and increase bargaining power. They let the same individual investors make fewer, more diverse, and more significant transactions instead of many small ones.
What Syndicate Offers
Syndicate provides investors all the infrastructure they need to manage an investment DAO including:
Tokens to contributors
Dashboards to track performance
Cap-table management tools
For investment clubs that wish to invest in off-chain assets, Syndicate provides the option to attach a legal entity and even offers other auxiliary services through partner organizations such as:
Legal document templates
Bank account creation
Tax filing assistance
Payment facilitation
Regulations and Restrictions
By positioning its premier product as an Investment Club creator, Syndicate is taking advantage of the fact that Investment Clubs are currently unregulated by the SEC. However, this unregulated status comes with a few conditions.
Investment clubs must have fewer than 99 members. Additionally, no member can charge carry or management fees and each member must be involved in every decision. Investment clubs are also not allowed to solicit funds publicly, and ownership is non-transferable. While any individual can start or become a member of an investment club using Syndicate, if a club wishes to invest in off-chain assets or startup equity, all individuals must be accredited investors.
Currently, Syndicate does not directly supervise whether Investment Clubs follow these guidelines but instead relies on each club to self-monitor.
Investment clubs began as informal offline entities, which is likely the reason for their lack of regulation. With Syndicate bringing investment clubs into web3, it’s likely that regulators will catch up at some point in the future and demand stricter monitoring of internal club activities. But until then, the sun’s shining, and it’s probably a good time to make hay.
Want to create your own investment club on Syndicate?
Check out their investment club tool demo
Explore their website
Read their documentation
And finally, if you’re ready – create your own club
Other projects we’re exploring
Ceramic – A decentralized data network for building Web3 applications with composable data
Honey Finance – A protocol that allows people to borrow using their NFTs and metaverse assets as collateral
$CAR – A new NFT project from the conceptual artist @SHL0MS featuring 999 “exquisitely filmed fragments of a detonated Lamborghini Huracan.”
Invisible College Recommended Reads
The Slow Death of the Firm | 6-minute read
A piece that examines the raison d'être of corporations, and explores how decentralized organizations could replace them.From Co-ops to DAOs | 9-minute read
Marc Rubinstein highlights the parallels between Co-ops and DAOs, and shows why DAOs enjoy the benefits of both cooperatives and shareholder-owned corporations.Ownership and the American Dream | 22-minute read
Packy McCormick advocates that ownership of assets should become America’s primary economic strategy in this article. An interesting read that will help you grasp the impact that web3 could have on the real world.
Community Updates
The Public Sale Has Started 🚀
The Decentraliens public sale has started! To mint your Decentraliens visit the Invisible College website here.
This video will walk you through how to mint.
What you should know
Mint Limits – There are 10,000 NFTs in the Decentraliens collection. You can mint as many as you want for 1.5 SOL each (plus a tiny amount for gas).
What you’ll need – To mint, you’ll need a Solana wallet (we recommend Phantom). You can buy Solana using exchanges like Moonpay or Coinbase. Here’s a quick video that will show you how to get SOL from Coinbase into your Phantom wallet.
Access to Invisible College – Holding at least one Decentralien will give members an all-access pass to the courses, events, and learning community we plan to co-create at Invisible College.
Timeline – the public mint will last until March 21st or until we run out of Decentraliens, whichever comes first. If there happens to be any Decentraliens left over, they will be put into the community treasury.
Upcoming Events
🍬 Mint Related Events
Decentraliens Public Launch Party – Mon (2/21) @ 12 pm PT (Twitter Spaces)
The Future of Invisible College w/ Josh Constine – Tues (2/22) @ 2:30 pm PT (Twitter Spaces)
🧠 Web3 Learning Events
How to Fund Web3 Projects w/ Evan Armstrong – Wed (2/23) @ 12 pm PT (Twitter Spaces)
DeFi Deep Dive on The Anchor Protcol – Fri (2/25) @ 12 pm PT (Discord)
🙌 Community Events
Town Hall – Thurs (2/24) @ 12 pm PT (Discord)
Invisible College Orientation – Fri (2/25) @ 9 am PT (Discord)
Events Calendar
Want to get Invisible College events on your Google calendar? Just click this link to subscribe to our events calendar.
Invisible College, is a learning DAO that helps web3-curious builders and creators explore and launch projects. If you’d like to learn more about our community and get smarter about web3, check out our Discord server.