Leofinance is a morphing into something entirely different than what it was originally conceived. This is something that is of benefit since we know the industry is very young and technology changes. Ultimately, when looking at technological disruption, it is hard to see how it is going to unfold. Often it strays long from the intended purpose.
For example, when the foundation for the Internet was being created, who knew that people would end up wanting communication 244 characters at a time. That was not expected as a major use case.
Nevertheless, that is exactly what happened.
So what is happening to Leofinance? Let us dive in and see if we can make some sense of it.
The Original Design
When I first came across Leofinance, it was a fairly simple concept. It was modeled after Seeking Alpha with the goal of becoming that on blockchain. The vision was to create an open financial site where the community decided what articles where noteworthy. This is in keeping with the proof-of-brain premise that Hive uses.
We saw the ecosystem enhanced with the layer 2 token, adding in the monetization concept that is a foundation of Web 3.0. Ultimately, the goal was to incorporate a larger cross-section of content creators who financially benefited.
Today, there is nothing radical about this. Basically it is in keeping with the concept of a community on Hive.
Hence, this is the foundation upon which Leofinance is built. We can still find it in the long-form content section.
The Evolution
Over the last few years, Leo expanded. It got into decentralized finance (DeFi), establishing projects on both Binance Smart Chain and Polygon. There are a number of liquidity pools along with one on Ethereum.
Since it is a financial community, this was something that made sense. Through trial and error, a lot was learned. My view is that these projects are far from dead, simply on the back burner. These are a valuable part of the Leofinance ecosystem.
Another topic that came up in August 2020 (I still remember the conversation) was the idea of microblogging. This was something that I felt was crucial to Hive and Leofinance seemed to be a platform that was trying things out.
It took a long time but it finally rolled out in August, 2022. To say it was a long two years is an understatement.
Of course, the first version was not great but it was functional. This led to the new user interface, replacing the entire front end that was used since the inception.
We now have the emergence of what was, at one time, slated to be Project Blank. That, too, went through iterations as we learned and processed more information. The industry is a great teacher.
LeoThreads is a general use case feature. This means that any topic is acceptable. Unlike long-form content, we can see how this attracts a wider audience. This is a major step forward.
The Future
Now we get to the fun stuff.
Leofinance is taking a cue from Elon Musk. He is intent on building the Everything App, which will, in his words, become the largest financial institution in the world. Leave Twitter aside, the is the mindset that Leofinance is taking.
It is developing the Everything App. We are going to see features added that enhance the social media experience. This we can see with the addition of threads. It is likely that we see shorts (video) incorporated at some point. Then we have the entire financial arena to consider. That is why I noted that the other projects are not dead.
At some point, Leofinance is going to have to expand into DeFi in a much deeper way. My expectation is that it starts to set up ways that people can leverage that value that is created on here.
For example, what if one had $500K in digital assets. If this person was interested in getting a house, instead of going for a mortgage from a bank, a loan can be acquired using the assets as collateral. This is obviously going to be a part of finance going forward.
What if, the assets were Leo based? Here is where things can get very interesting.
Of course, it helps that we got tidbits over time as to the thinking that is taking place. The Everything App concept is not just mirroring Elon with social media but finance. That said, we are operating on blockchain, something he is not doing.
This means we have a larger ecosystem with features that can be incorporated into the UI. In the past I mentioned the internal exchange. It is already part of the base code, available for anyone to integrate. There is even some open source software that was designed for this.
Here we have just one example of what is possible. What other features on Hive can be built into the UI? We will see but I am sure there are others.
A Business Model
Ultimately, Leofinance is working on building a business model it can keep replicating. When dealing with something new, flexibility is required. Since we see how the industry changes, we have to be adaptable.
The idea is to create the basis for Web 3.0. We are seeing the merging of social media with finance. Obviously there is more to do on the former, something that was given a boost by LeoThreads.
One of the main keys is community. Here is the overriding question: how can we grow the community that uses Leofinance on a daily basis.
Again, we get tidbits of insight regarding this with talk of partnerships that arose from the Zealy campaign. I am sure there are other ideas floating around.
The point being is anyone who was on threads recently knows about ad revenue. It is where we can see the potential for a lot of money flowing into the ecosystem. We talk about threads and page views. Ultimately, the numbers we discuss are rather pathetic.
How do we get 1 million page views per day? This is a question that is starting to figure in the discussion. Here is where we see a massive shift in mindset.
The ridiculous can become the norm. This is something that people have to remember with technology. Network effects are powerful and most still do not live with a true understanding of exponential.
In closing, the point I want everyone to take away is there are ideas and discussions floating around of how to achieve this. The bar keeps moving because Leofinance is a morphing, expanding platform.
The time to talk in thousands is done. It is time to move into the millions. The potentiality for Leofinance is there. We can see the path of how this forms.
Now it is putting in the work to make this come to fruition.
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