My plan with M3dia.xyz is to use it as my own personal nudge into learning about different aspects of decentralized media.
On the surface, it’s not entirely obvious that 0xSplits fits this theme, but for me, it’s an example of why crypto is so cool.
It’s a piece of infrastructure that allows for more efficient and automated revenue splits, which in turn, opens up lots of opportunities.
It seems likely that 0xSplits will become a nearly invisible piece of the tech stack that can give Web3 media companies superpowers that their traditional Web2 counterparts don’t have.
Better still, it’s free forever and doesn’t require maintenance or intermediaries to use.
How is 0xSplits being used today?
As the name suggests, It’s being used to split up money. Some examples of projects currently using it can be found here.
But, let’s take a quick look at one of the most interesting examples to date - Camp Chaos by Songcamp.
Chaos was an 8-week experiment that brought together 77 contributors to create a headless band. The whole experiment is super interesting but I’ll skip most of the details and let you read on your own.
The TLDR is that a bunch of NFTs were sold and those funds needed to get split up among all the contributors.
From the 0xSplits app, we can see a bit clearer how all of this works.
Over 450 ETH has been distributed to 78 addresses with split percentages ranging from 20.17% all the way down to 0.18% for the lowest earning contributor.
It’s worth taking a second and reflecting on how much of a pain in the ass it would be to do this using traditional payment rails. I don’t know how or if this would work using something like PayPal or Stripe but I suspect it would be an awful experience to attempt.
You can also see all of the activity that has taken place on this split since it was deployed.
Because this split is mutable, it’s possible for the Songcamp multisig to make updates to the split, which they’ve done a few times. But you’re also able to make an immutable split that can’t be updated later.
As you can see, 0xSplits automatically distributes funds to everyone listed on the split.
In this distribution, .339 ETH was distributed amongst 78 wallets on ETH L1, which sounds like a gas nightmare. But it actually wasn’t bad at all.
Granted, users still need to withdraw these funds, costing more gas, but withdrawals actually seem extremely gas efficient. Plus, users can always let funds accumulate for a while before making a bigger withdrawal.
And, this is on ETH L1, so it’s safe to assume that in the future we’ll see more usage on cheaper L2s.
So there you have it, a headless band distributing funds in a cheap and automated way to 77 participants.
It doesn’t take a ton of imagination to think of other ways that 0xSplits could be used to make payments cheaper and more efficient or lead to business models that couldn’t exist otherwise.
0xSplits does more than just splitting up funds
You can use 0xSplits to build a lot of custom disbursement types. They’ve got several core contracts that devs could stack together for their unique use cases. But most will likely want to use their pre-built templates as that simplifies things and solves the most common needs.
The three templates currently available are Liquid Split, Recoup, and Diversifier.
Liquid Split
Liquid Splits are just like the Songcamp example used earlier. The difference is that they use NFTs to make ownership transferable. So, any member receiving their revenue stream from a split could now go ahead and transfer that to another address. That opens up opportunities like being able to sell a revenue stream or even potentially getting a loan based on past earnings.
Recoup
The recoup template is quite cool as it gives the option to first send funds to a Recoup Tier prior to distributing funds to the Profit Share Tier.
You can also add multiple addresses into the Recoup tier where each one doesn’t begin getting paid out until the previous addresses is paid completely.
As an example, you could set $10,000 USDC as the amount and token to recoup. Then allow 60% to go to the first address, 30% to the second, and 10% to the third. Then all remaining funds after the $10,000 USDC has been paid out will be distributed in the profit share tier according to the specified split.
This could be useful if one group of people financed a project and need to be paid back before profits get distributed to others.
Diversifier
The diversifier template combines a few core contracts to automatically swap an income stream into multiple tokens, according the the weight you’ve assigned them.
The most obvious use case for this is to automatically set aside a portion of income to be withheld for taxes. But you can obviously use it anytime you want an income stream to be split into various tokens.
How to use 0xSplits?
Using the pre-built templates on their app and withdrawing funds is extremely straightforward.
Russ Matthews, who was involved with the Songcamp example used earlier has created some great videos on 0xSplits on their YouTube channel. They’re quick and easy to follow.
You can also find some more tutorials here.
0xSplits is an example of why crypto is inevitable
Crypto can sometimes feel a bit too philosophical or abstract for most people to get excited about.
But, even the biggest Bitcoin skeptic should be able to look at something like 0xSplits and appreciate what this new technology is enabling. It’s fucking cool.
I suspect eventually that most people that use 0xSplits will have no clue that they interacted with the protocol. It’s perfect as an invisible hyperstructure.
A not very creative use case that I’ve had in the back of my mind involves trying to tie together various protocols.
So, you can imagine a website that uses Lens or Farcaster to allow users to create content. Then use something like Slise to monetize via ads. Afterward, you could use 0xSplits to automatically distribute the funds to the most value-creating members of your community based on whichever social metrics are preferred.
Granted, that’s a pretty basic and lazily thought out example, but these types of platforms are only going to get better and easier to incorporate. You could also do things with subscriptions, bounties, NFTs, etc and then distribute that income in a much fairer, efficient and transparent way than what’s currently possible in Web2.
So much friction has gotten removed from this tech in the last couple of years, it’ll be really exciting to see how all these elements can get lego’d onto each other and create awesome experiences for users. And 0xSplits is an amazing protocol to have running in the background.
