This startup is building a crypto-friendly LinkedIn; here’s how

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“We fundamentally believe that in the distant future everyone will become a crypto person,” said Meritverse co-founder Jacob Claerhout. worked on some projects

Meritverse, billed as the “professional metaverse network,” was launched on Thursday, with the goal of becoming a more crypto-friendly LinkedIn, co-founders Jacob Claerhout and Boris Gordts told Blockworks.

“Basically the product we’re trying to create is sort of Google Maps for the Web3 that makes it easier to navigate in this new era. [of the internet]”said Gordts.

To create a profile on Meritverse, users need to enter their wallet address or Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to ensure authenticity and prove that they have worked on certain projects. Profiles display user logins, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) they have contributed to, and their participation in various crypto communities.

“[Similar to] LinkedIn, you can see where someone has worked before or who they know. People should be able to trace these relationships in order to collaborate [and] hire to go much easier, ”said Claerhout.

However, Meritverse has an advantage over LinkedIn because users can guarantee their chain work experience while centralized networks do not yet have this capability, according to Claerhout.

“We enable people, in a verifiable way, to show who they are as a professional, their talents and their skills,” said Claerhout.

The platform, which was just launched on Product Hunt, is gaining increasing interest and engagement in DAOs. There are over 180 DAOs with $ 10.3 billion in assets under management (AUM) and nearly 2 million contributors, according to data from DeepDAO.

DAOs are a new governance structure made possible by the Internet and cryptocurrencies. Think of a DAO as an online community with a shared bank account, group chat, and often a mission statement.

ConstitutionDAO has raised $ 48.9 million from more than 17,000 investors, with the aim of purchasing a copy of the US Constitution at Sotheby’s Auction House in November. DAO members received governance tokens for contributing to its fund, giving each person a vote on what would happen with the landmark document.

Although the group ultimately lost the bid for billionaire hedge funds Kenneth Griffin, the ConstitutionDAO briefly put the concept of decentralized governance structures in the limelight.

“Our thesis is basically that these DAO workers or the people who contribute DAOs live the future of work. We think if we build a product for them the rest of the world will come in and catch up in the next 15 years, ”Gordts said.

” The ups and downs ”

The Meritverse co-founders had already made headlines after closing their first startup together less than 24 hours after launching its beta last year.

Visionrare, self-proclaimed as a “great startup investing game,” allowed users to buy synthetic stocks – in NFT form – of startups that gamers believed to be tax success. The project has been criticized for whether its commodity offering was legal, with many questioning whether its shares were considered securities.

Visionrare later said they “underestimated the legal complexities” of the project once launched, according to a statement from the company. Claerhout said the decision to shut down Visionrare “was not an easy decision, [but] it was not a major decision either.

“We got more press attention than maybe we should in the sense that we were a two month old project,” he said. “It’s obviously a huge privilege to build in public and be part of the global discussion. “

“The main thing we learned [from Visionrare] was that we are a great team. We can build and ship things quickly. We move fast and sometimes break things. But we’ve learned that we like to work together through the ups and downs, ”Claerhout said.

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Morgan chittum

Morgan Chittum is a New York-based journalist covering Markets, NFTs, the Metaverse, and Digital Assets. Prior to Blockworks, she was a street reporter for the New York Daily News, where she wrote about homicides, extremist groups, state politics, and other critical topics in New York City. She was a Media and Journalism Fellow at the Poynter Institute, where she focused on data and investigative journalism. It is published in American Banker, Yahoo News, Chicago Tribune and more.

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