What is Decentralized Ops?
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What is Decentralized Ops?
Welcome to DeOps Weekly — the newsletter for running your business on-chain.
I’m Gil, co-founder and CEO of Gilded.
And I’m thrilled to welcome you to the very first edition of DeOps Weekly.
Below, I’ll introduce the concept of DeOps and some resources for you to check out.
But first…
🔮 What to expect from DeOps Weekly
I know what you’re thinking: Just what I need…another crypto newsletter 🙄
Good thing this isn’t like other crypto newsletters.
This is the weekly email we’ve needed for a long time. A newsletter for web3 operators, by web3 operators.
But it’s definitely not for everyone!
It’s not for DeFi yield farmers or NFT degens (though there’s a good chance you might also participate in degen activities).
DeOps Weekly is for a very specific set of knowledge workers: operators who want to level up their high-growth web3 organizations.
It’s for founders, C-suite execs, operations leaders, accountants, financial analysts, or anyone who wants to reduce risk and help their company run more efficiently on-chain.
Expect weekly tips and frameworks to level up your company’s operational processes — whether it’s financial reporting, internal controls, payroll, NFT royalties, or anything in between.
And who knows what else we have cooking down the line 👩🍳
If this sounds like the newsletter for you, make sure that you’re subscribed.
This Week’s Topic:
⚙️ DeOps: Operate with confidence in web3
We now live in a decentralized economy. And with this new economy, we need clarity and better tools to thrive.
That’s where Decentralized Ops (or DeOps) comes in. DeOps is the combination of philosophies, practices, and operational tools that increases an organization’s ability to reduce risk and scale in the decentralized economy. It brings together every aspect of operations — financial reporting, billing, payments, compliance, and business intelligence — and unifies them to achieve operational excellence.
Why DeOps matters (and why us): I’m in the trenches with you. I’ve run a crypto organization for four years now. And every day, I work through complex problems with web3 operators and finance teams.
I’ll always have more to learn, of course.
But working with so many organizations gives me (and my colleagues) a bird’s eye view of these unique challenges and the best practices to address them. And now, I want to share these lessons with you.
The reality: For finance and ops teams, decentralization changes the nature of business. There’s a new language to learn:
On Paper → On Chain
Currencies → Digital Assets
Ledger Entries →Transaction Hashes
Accounts Receivable → Protocol & Mint Revenue
Accounts Payable → Bounties & Royalties
Human Resources → Community Management
The problem: There’s a lack of standards and best practices when it comes to operating in crypto. Everyone’s researching and figuring things out ad hoc. But we all have to answer the same questions.
What are the internal controls — policies and procedures — we need to put in place when handling crypto in order to mitigate risk?
What do we need to know in order to keep up with the engineering and product teams in our organization — who are often running several steps ahead?
What can we do today to ensure that our organization is primed for growth and an evolving regulatory landscape?
The solution: By giving the problem a name and a face (DeOps), we can start to identify solutions. Specifically, we need three things:
A place to share industry news and best practices. This is why we launched DeOps Weekly and the Decentralized Ops podcast.
Unified tooling that brings together your operations at the enterprise-level.
A community to rally around. DeOps is a framework for running your back office efficiently and securely. But more importantly, it's a community of operators who are passionate about building the next generation of the web.
Bottom line: Let’s bring together the brightest minds to create a framework for operating with confidence in web3.
From the DeOps World
📚 What we’re reading
Web3 innovations are testing the limits of existing legal frameworks
That’s why a16z recently released their “Can’t Be Evil” NFT Licenses to help alleviate this ambiguity.
“The CBE licenses serve three core purposes: (1) Protect creators’ IP, (2) Grant NFT holders a baseline of rights that are irrevocable, enforceable, and easy-to-understand and (3) help creators & their communities unleash the economic potential of their projects.”
FASB agrees on fair-value accounting for measuring crypto assets
Businesses have waited many years for clarity from the FASB on how to account for digital assets. Crypto assets are recognized as “indefinite-lived intangible assets” with a traditional requirement to test for impairment. This requirement doesn’t fit well with the realities of crypto assets.
Now, the FASB has condoned the usage of fair-value accounting, which should clear up the uncertainty in financial reporting. While they won’t recognize NFTs or (some) stablecoins yet and the guidance still needs official approval, it’s a huge step in the right direction.
Read more on The Wall Street Journal
Varying approaches to the NFT royalty debate
Over the last several months, there’s been a lot of controversy over how NFT royalties should be handled. Everyone (and every NFT platform) seems to have an opinion. While larger NFT marketplaces like Magic Eden recently moved to optional royalties, other platforms like Aspen introduced NFTs with Terms and Conditions to provide the ecosystem with a legal basis. Wherever you stand, it’s important to stay on top of this evolving conversation.
Hear from Magic Eden’s co-founder on the Unchained Podcast
Listen and Learn
🎧 Introducing the Decentralized Ops podcast
Along with this newsletter, I also launched a podcast for web3 operators: Decentralized Ops.
If we want to thrive as an industry, we need to have transparent conversations around the unsexy parts of crypto — accounting, treasury management, financial operations, and more.
Tune into Episode 1 to hear about how Gilded’s in-house CPA and Solutions Expert Alyssa Rambeau found her place in the crypto ecosystem and all about the future-building work she’s doing.
If you found this edition useful, feel free to share with anyone that might be interested. Got feedback or a topic you’d like me to cover? Leave a comment or drop me a line.
Cheers,
Gil
Brought to you by Gilded 💡
This newsletter is strictly for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. As always, do your own research.
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