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Hi friends 👋,

Happy Monday! Last week was a big week around here.

On Monday, Mario and I published a piece on Discord. That afternoon, Discord CEO Jason Citron replied to my tweet with a preview of Discord’s first web3 integration. The replies were fierce — I was getting 15 new notifications per second — and Citron pulled back.

While that was happening, I made my first CNBC appearance to discuss Rivian’s IPO (the company closed the week at a market cap so steep, $110 billion, you’d need a Rivian to climb it).

That night, The Economist published a piece that Chris Dixon and I wrote on web3, and on Wednesday, I announced that I’m joining Chris and team as an advisor to a16z Crytpo. Nothing changes here at Not Boring — I’ll still be in your inbox once or twice every week, and Not Boring Capital is full steam ahead — but I’m excited to learn from the world-class team at a16z and work with them to bring web3 knowledge to a wider audience.

Finally, on Thursday night, I crossed 100k Twitter followers, which is a meaningless accomplishment that still felt good. It means a lot to me that so many of you are willing to give me some of your valuable time.

There’s a good chance it’s all downhill from here, but let’s try for an encore.

First, the first Not Boring Syndicate investment, Composer, launches today 🚀 Learn how to get your alpha back at the bottom of the email.

And one more thing…

Let’s buy the US Constitution together.

Let’s Buy the US Constitution

Yesterday morning, I was in the middle of writing a typical Not Boring Monday essay. This one, which I may still write, was about the idea that while people are waiting for “real use cases” for web3, a set of new web3-native use cases is emerging that might be more important than the “real” ones.

I planned to write about the Olympus DAO forks, the ENS airdrop, NFT fractionalization, appraisal, and lending, and this wild adventure that began on Thursday: ConstitutionDAO.

ConstitutionDAO is what it sounds like: a DAO organized to purchase a copy of the United States Constitution when it goes up for auction at Sotheby’s this Thursday at 6:30pm ET.   

I first heard about ConstitutionDAO on Thursday, when Graham Novak, Austin Cain, and Julian Weisser told me about the plan and I joined the Discord. It was a blast, but I was too busy writing to get more involved. Yesterday morning, when Nicole Ruiz reached out and asked if I wanted to help out the contributors, my first thought was, “I’d love to, but I’m busy writing tomorrow’s newsletter.” 

But like three seconds later, my second thought was, “You’re not turning down the opportunity to contribute to a history-making DAO so you can write about DAOs, right?”

Who was I kidding? As Nic Cage said in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, “Those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.” My mind was made up. In the words of Con Air Nic Cage, “Well, Baby-O, it's not exactly mai-thais and yahtzee out here but... let's do it!”

I scrapped the essay I was writing. Instead, I decided to spend the next 24 hours participating in and writing about ConstitutionDAO. 

As corny as this paragraph sounds, I couldn’t be happier with that decision. It’s 9:18pm ET on Sunday as I type this. The team just opened up contributions. I just committed my biggest ETH purchase to date. Twitter is buzzing. The Discord is buzzing. There’s a sense of non-partisan American patriotism I haven’t felt in a long time, and a feeling of pride that web3 is making this possible.

It’s fucking cool to see a group of strangers on the internet get so excited to make history together. As contributions opened last night, messages like this kept popping up on the contribution page (they’re still going):

And this one, which came in right after I made that graphic above.

One more… 

Sorry, last one, promise: 

I’m not crying, you’re crying. 

Anyway, this won’t be my most well-written piece ever. I’m writing it in real-time. I’m distracted on Twitter and in the Discord. Whatever I write in here today will be stale by the end of the week. But this is by far the coolest thing happening on the internet this week: 

• It’s the first time a copy of the US Constitution will go on sale in 33 years 

• It’s the only remaining privately-owned copy and the proceeds are being donated to a non-profit supporting democracy education.

• The DAO has over 7,900 members in its Discord server, well over $10 million in soft commitments in two days, and $3 million in committed funding on Juicebox in <12 hours.

• It’s a bridge between web3 and America that should have existed already.

• We, the People, are going to buy the Constitution. 

Plus, I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink explaining why web3 is important and how some it it works, but ConstitutionDAO is an in-progress look at how DAOs work and what’s possible with web3: 

• A Liquid Super Team of 30 core contributors from leading startups and web3 protocols joined forces 

• To set up a safe and compliant DAO

• That let’s anyone with an Ethereum wallet contribute to the purchase of the US Constitution

• All set up in three days thanks to composability, dedication, and vibes. 

And here’s the best part: I’m not just writing about it, you can get involved. We have until Thursday to raise enough money to make a winning bid for the Constitution. 

If you’re already deep down the web3 rabbit hole, the mechanics will be familiar, the prize is just bigger and more consequential than you may be used to. 

Even if you’ve avoided web3 until now, there’s a good chance you care about the Constitution. This is your opportunity. Watch the onboarding guide. Set up a Rainbow or MetaMask wallet. Join the Discord. And commit to contribute funds.  

I have no financial incentive to write this post. The core team won’t get any distributions, and they’re not paying me for this. If you want to contribute, you should think about it as purchasing a keepsake as opposed to investing in an asset. At the very least, you’ll have a new fun fact for icebreakers and a new icebreaker for cocktail parties. 

So buckle up. In the lightly edited words of National Treasure Nic Cage: 

[We’re] going to [learn about] the [ConstitutionDAO]:

• Founding Story. Seven days to buy a 234-year-old document.

• An American Idea. web3 and America are more similar than they appreciate. 

• How to Build a DAO in Three Days. What it takes to build a DAO.

• Let’s Buy the Constitution. A guide to buying the Constitution of the USA.  

• Historical Context. The historical sale of a historical document. 

This is an inside, real-time look at how to form a DAO, raise $20 million from thousands of people, and win an auction to win the US Constitution. We may be participating in history. Our story begins either in 1787... or last Thursday. 

Continue Reading Online

Composer Launches Today!

Last summer, we did our first syndicate deal ever for Composer, started by my good friend and former colleague, Ben Rollert. I wrote up a memo, and 38 brave Not Boring souls invested in the company’s pre-seed. Earlier this year, First Round led the company’s seed round, and today, Composer is launching! They’re live on ProductHunt right now (check it out and show them some love!) and you can go sign up and start trading today. 

Composer is an automated trading platform that allows you to build a portfolio of hedge fund-like strategies. Here’s how it works. 

Most of us aren’t professional traders, so we pick stocks that we like, maybe sell if things change or we need the money, and try futilely to time the market. If you picked a basket of companies that I’ve written about since launching Not Boring and bought them all last December, you’d have underperformed the Nasdaq since.

But with Composer, you can pick stocks you like, build automated strategies around them, and let the robots do all of the trading. For example, if you took the companies I’ve written about and invested in the one with the best 5-day performance each month, you’d have outperformed the market dramatically. 

Each strategy is called a Symphony, and you can follow your favorite investor’s, pick from Composer’s hand-made set, or build and implement your own as easily as you’d buy a stock. You can run back-tests, paper trade them to see how they perform live, and connect your brokerage to put real money behind your Symphonies. See for yourself, go check out the Not Boring Symphony.

If you’re an investor but not a trader, like me, you’re probably missing out on that sweet, sweet alpha. Go get your alpha back. Sign up for Composer today: 

Get Your Alpha Back

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Thanks for reading and see you on Thursday,

Packy