Memo - Global Coin Research

October 24th, 2022

Overview

Global Coin Research (GCR) is a community-based DAO for crypto researchers and investors with its token, $GCR. GCR group generates content & newsletters, hosts events, and does co-investment on a community level. GCR’s vision is to create a community-driven DAO to source Web3 deals (decentralized VC).

Right now GCR community mainly focuses on two things: one is community-based media content creation, and another is a community-based investment.

Tractions

GSR has 31k subscribers, 100+ events, 6k+ validated members and has $31M community fund for investment, including $1mn for Pre-Seed and Seed fundraises, $5mn+in Liquidity Mining rounds, and over $25m in Growth Equity.

Since May 2021, GCR has cumulatively deployed $40mn into 60+ deals, including $34mn with partners and $5.5mn as a DAO. GCR members have access to 120+ crypto/non-crypto investment opportunities and met 100+ founders, covering sectors including Social Token, DeFi, NFTs, Games, and Infrastructures.

We’ve seen the community size of GCR continuously grow since May 2021. The firm was founded in 2015 and it looks like May 2021 is a turning point for its growth.

User Demographics

38% of users are from US&Canada.
80% of the membership base are in their 20s and 30s and work in crypto/tech/finance.
Avg investment amount is ~$125k in the next 12 months
Avg DeFi holdings are $250k, and NFT holdings are $125k

Background and History

Founding - Joyce Yang founded Global Coin Research in 2015.
Upgrade - GCR has upgraded to GCR 2.0. Key changes include Membership Tiers, Deal Dashboard, and Angel Network.

Highlights

Membership

The user needs 100 $GCR tokens to join the Discord community. GCR currently has different membership tiers to join, including Pioneer (100 GCR), Gold (700 GCR), and Gold Pro (2,000 GCR).

Their membership could be separated into 4 tiers, as shown below. We could notice that from Tier 1 (paid membership), the members start to have governance rights. Gold and above Gold members have more rights in investment-related discussions and decisions.

Community-based Content Creation

The community generates GCR’s content, which will be published on the website and newsletter. The content includes articles, podcasts, and news. GCR has editors review all submitted content from the community and decide for modification, rejection, and approval. Users could earn $GCR tokens by contributing to content creation. The website has complete guidance on qualifications and standards. GCR has high-quality content generated with deep data analysis and in-depth analysis about a specific topic. (eg. comparison between Sui and Aptos). They also partner with outside institutions to generate good content.

GCR community host monthly learning events together and invites community mod to share their knowledge in industry insights, technical analytics, and project reviews. GCR also encourages members to propose topics

Investment

Deal Sourcing: any community member could source the deal
Due Diligence: If the community reaches quorum, would proceed to due diligence.
Investment:

GCR DAO treasury received a carry of 5% on deals invested by the DAO after paying incentive allocation to the deal lead and operations lead. After Mar 18, 2022, the carry increased to 9%.

GCR has launched Angel Network to support the portfolio companies. Gold and Gold Pro tiers of members could support these companies in marketing, recruiting, and other resources needed for a portion of investment carry.

GCR has invested in some famous projects such as Decrypt and Gnosis.

Fundraising

GCR has raised $1.2mn

Institution: IDEO CoLab Ventures, 1kx, Valhalla Capital, HanDAO, and GBIC
Angel: Gabby Dizon and Beryl Li (co-founders of YGG), Jaynti Kanani (CEO of Polygon), Zhuoxun Yin (co-founder of Magic Eden), and Jenil Thakker (CEO of Coinvise), Alex Mesmaj, (CEO of Showtime), Miss Bitcoin Mai

Seed Club is the incubator and would receive 2% allocation of community treasury.

Treasury

GCR’s unvested carry portfolio is at roughly $370k across 60 deals. GCR’s aggregate treasury position is listed below -

Tokenomics

$GCR Information

Total Supply: 10 million $GCR. GCR is only used for governance and membership access.
The distribution -
- 70% are allocated to the community treasury by airdrop, media contribution, and treasury.
- 20% are allocated to the team and advisors and 10% to the future team.
51.6% are held by the treasury, and 11.7% are held in Matic (ERC20 Bridge).
Token Vesting plan: 40% is vested today; 30% would be vested in year 1; 20% would be vested in year 2; 10% would be vested in year 3.

Token usage and earnings

Governance in the community. The token could be used to govern publishing, treasury and operation via the community actions such as proposal and voting.
Liquidity. Users could stake their GCR by swapping to USDC in Uniswap to earn
Access. Token is access to different member tiers and community activities.
HODL. GCR would launch its rewards pool soon for users to earn the GCR tokens
Earning GCR. Community members could earn GCR by media creation and attending bounties.

The token could also be bought via the secondary market, or swap from Uniswap. Users could earn the tokens by contributing to GCR media and attending bounties/contests.