About Fem3 Voices
Earlier this year, Newstand published Alli's article, "Fem3." The piece outlined the importance of including women and nonbinary (NB) individuals in building the foundations of Web3. "Fem3'' argued that we all can, and should, commit to onboarding and retaining more diverse talent and voices into this space. That commitment includes uplifting successful women and NB-led projects, work, and perspectives. This series, "Fem3 Voices," aims to do just that.
This interview series highlights the voices of powerful women and NB players in the web3 ecosystem. Each interview will be recorded on Twitter Spaces and accompanied by a subsequent article on Alli and Regan's mirror pages.
Most recently we met with the incredible LDF, Head of Partnerships at Disco.xyz and self-proclaimed “Chief GM Officer of the open metaverse.”
GM? GM
LDF wasn’t always GM’ing her way across the multiverse. In fact, she began her career working in tech advertising. At the time, she was familiar with crypto but didn’t think it seemed engaging or “fun.” When she discovered NFTs for the first time she was able to take the idea of self-custody and ownership of information and apply it to media. As someone in marketing, she was aware of the value that online content could provide and had watched several influencers on Instagram and other platforms derive it. As a creator herself, she saw the value it could provide but couldn’t help but wonder, “who actually owns this content?”
For years she had watched those around her complain about the billions of dollars they were spending on advertising their products across influencers and platforms, describing this phenomenon as “a necessary evil.” To LDF, she says “whenever someone says there is a necessary evil, in my head red flags are going off that there’s an opportunity to disrupt.” That chance to disrupt, she says, became evident with NFTs: “ NFTs were the moment where I was like oh shit this is how blockchain actually changes data ownership and not just financial ownership.” She was hooked.
Partnership! At the Disco
Early on in her web3 journey, LDF met Disco’s CEO and founder, Evin McMullen. At the time, LDF vented to Evin about all of her ideas around individuals and their data: “I was like I’ve always had this idea of people owning their own data and like companies not having to hold it or deal with security concerns or personally identifiable information like I don’t know how that would work.” According to LDF Evin just sat there, listened and said “yeah so this technology exists and it’s called verifiable credentials.”
At the time, there were no plans in place to bring the ideas Evin and LDF discussed to life, but after weeks of “hounding”, discussions about verifiable credentials, and many GMs, Evin told LDF she was officially building: insert Disco.
So, what is Disco? It’s hard to condense Disco into a few words, but LDF emphasized their focus on “digital identity.” To deconstruct what that really means, LDF uses the idea of our ID’s.
In the physical world, we bring our ID to several places and we get to walk out with it. You can see if they take a photo-copy, or not, so you know what data they have on you. Indeed, what if digital identities functioned more like they do in our physical world? LDF notes that “online we’ve never been able to perform these same types of actions by keeping one copy of our information in our control and then present to these parties as we need it.”
And what do they need all this data for, anyways? Using the concept of ID’s, LDF takes it a step further to discuss how our digital identities can also serve our personal privacy. For example, to get into a bar in the US, you need to show your ID to prove your age. However, an ID has a lot of information a bouncer doesn’t need (address, organ donation status, etc). An ID is “an overshare of information.” For example, when we need to show our ID, you can take that to different places and you don’t need to allow places to keep that data. LDF says, “you just give it to them in the context of that interaction that you’re performing and then you go on about your life.”
Disco believes that individuals should be able to choose how and when they reflect different components of their identity– to ensure that they are able to only share what’s necessary or what they desire to in the context of their on and off-chain interactions. As Disco puts it “You are the shining center of the party,” and you should be able to “reflect your identity to the world however you choose.” Their project helps you do just that– own your data and control it.
Own It
LDFs advice for others in web3 can be summed up into two words: “trust yourself.” LDF believes that community is the “superpower of web3” and that users should trust themselves and their perspectives. A key difference LDF noticed in web2 is a “clear distinction between creators and users or customers. There is this line in the sand.” She firmly believes that focusing on building community will be how web3 will succeed over web2.
This ties directly into her advice of trusting yourself: “Trust yourself, don’t feel bad for following the things that spark your interest. If you genuinely believe something, go after it, and talk to the people who are working on the things you care about.” In web3, there doesn’t need to be a line in the sand. Instead, creators and users should mutually trust each other to create a space that serves everyone’s needs. In web3, there is no need to be another cog in the machine, or to shove yourself to fit into a box.
Good Evening (GE)
For LDF, every time of day is a GM. However, since this concludes LDF’s Fem3 piece, it’s a good evening (GE). Clever, we know.
To keep up with all things LDF, follow her Twitter.
Alli is the Director of Education of Events at Variant Fund, a first-check crypto fund investing in the ownership economy.
Regan just graduated from USC and now is joining Opyn as an Associate of Community & Research
If you have suggestions for future interviewees, feedback, questions, etc. please DM us!