Conversation

I was tickled last year by

’s “Patronage as an asset class,” which proposes a market-priced patronage “asset” by layering Harberger taxes (e.g. pay 5%/yr of last sale value) on top of NFTs. blog.simondlr.com/posts/patronag Has this been tried (outside Simon’s demo) yet?

blog.simondlr.com

Patronage As An Asset Class — simondlr.com

By combining the incentives of patronage, profit & collectibles, we can create a new tradable asset class that supports the funding of the commons. In addition to supporting artists and open source...

John Lam

@john_lam

Feb 9, 2021

I read the article, and I wonder what motivates new buyers to participate outside of perhaps speculating on the volatility of ETH? They are, after all, anonymous so it's quite different than being a top tier patron of say, the Met.

Replying to

and

Two slants on this come to mind: 1. It can be arranged so that you’re *not* anonymous, and e.g. the current owner’s name is displayed in some well-known location. 2. (less persuasive to me, but…) People bid up rare baseball cards despite owning them anonymously.

5:14 PM · Feb 9, 2021TweetDeck

Replying to

and

I'm new to this crypto thing - would linking your id to a well-known location de-anonymize all your other crypto transactions? Or would you create a new id for each patronage? On your second point, I still wonder if this is speculating on ETH vs. the value of underlying asset.

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Feb 9, 2021

You could create a new ID for each patronage if you wanted to preserve anonymity, yes. Also FWIW, I don’t see the crypto/ETH element as particularly load-bearing here; a centralized implementation would have an ambiguous mix of upsides and downsides by comparison.