Gandalf Lore

Firstly, a heartfelt acknowledgment to @a16zcrypto – Building anything potentially innovative is a little like casting a spell. It requires the right components, perfect timing, and more than a bit of ✨magic✨. Our time at Crypto Startup School provided just the right alchemy. The experience guided us through the labyrinth of possibilities, inspiring us as we built Gandalf.

Even for the most degen among us, the vast majority of online content is still generated with “web2” platforms. WordPress alone accounts for 43% of the entire web, this blog included. We expect this pattern to hold for the foreseeable future, and it’s easy to see why.

Whether it’s creating surveys with Google Forms & Typeform, organising knowledge in Google Docs/Notion, or building documentation in Gitbook etc, there simply are no better alternatives. Their supremacy stems from a combination of mature technology, excellent familiar UX and wide distribution.

There’s a ubiquitous belief that web3 technology (on its own) offers enough utility such that rebuilding existing platforms with web3 rails will be enough to convince end-users to switch. We don’t think that’s true.

Due to a unique combination of trade-offs, the blockchain today is only game-changing for a relatively narrow subset of applications. That’s why interoperability with web2 tools & content is super important as it’s the only way to leverage the advantages of the two paradigms to create truly new, functional and better experiences.

So what is Gandalf?

Gandalf is a service that lets you restrict access your content to only holders of an NFT (or token), regardless of where that content was created. With Gandalf, you can tokengate anything!