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Tezos: Crypto's Unofficial Index Coin 😂 (Formerly Stablecoin)A quick video pointing out the fact that Tezos ( SEED_DONKEYDAN_MARKET_CAP:XTZ ) pretty much *always* sticks to the middle of the pack, as far as crypto assets goes. The pattern implies that the asset is stable/reliable in a way that often goes unnoticed. (This pattern, plus its generous staking rewards makes it quite lucrative, in some cases.) A pattern that I noticed while being active with the art collective DAO on TEIA and teia.cafe.
COINBASE:XTZUSDLong
by RyanTanaka
1
Royalties and Copyright: How DAOs Will Facilitate These in Web3So the reality of the NFT marketplace right now is that there is no way to technically enforce royalty payments for artists since it's up to the platform to decide to honor that or not. (Search the phrase online and you'll see that it's the talk of the industry right now - this includes the original artist for those monkey jpegs too, btw - she was left out of the equity deal and basically got nothing.) There might be a way to close this loophole at some point but for now, it's something both artists and collectors need to be mindful of if they really care about the ideals of Web3. The blockchain can be a double-edged sword in this way - on one hand, everyone has more autonomy and freedom to do what they want, but it's probably unwise to assume everyone will be doing things in good faith. Some platforms are already advertising them ripping artists off as a 'discount". And there's nothing stopping them from undercutting other platforms who actually are honoring the royalties in good faith. If mp3 pirating apps and other Web2 content sites are any indication, we know that the tech industry as a whole tends to be more sympathetic to the one doing the undercutting than the ones honoring the deals...because "disruption" or something. There's an inherent distrust of collective action as a whole in the ethos of Silicon Valley right now, though that's another issue altogether. Either way, a lot of the money made in Web2 were done on the backs of artists and creatives basically doing things for free. That is how the business model works, at the end of the day. But this is also the reason why we have fake-news, false advertising, dystopian narratives everywhere, and why many techies don't get the status/prestige they think they deserve despite making so much money, working long hours, and screaming a lot on social media. There's 0 chance that you'll leave a positive legacy if you're constantly screwing over the folks who're writing the songs, after all. The "Web3" movement is more fragile than a lot of people think, since once you start looking into the details you realize how easily this whole thing could just become another iteration of Web2 with crypto-buzzwords thrown on top. Bitcoin is already there, Ethereum also on its way (we'll see if the merge will help them act together), Dogecoin wants to do the right thing but doesn't know how. Aside from the good doggie Doge (🐕🥰), the recession taking these projects down a peg or two wouldn't be a bad thing, imo - it'll open up avenues for more serious projects in the altcoin category to emerge. (I do like Tezos in this regard, which I covered a few times here too.) -- When I was in the Bay Area a few years ago, I still remember a few of my friends taking "gigs" where the job was to follow some rich family around and create albums/pictures of them - for their "legacy". Beyond cringey 😬 and usually a mask for the deeper personal issues that was lurking underneath. Not to mention Silicon Valley's obsession with the Singularity, anti-aging products, and artificial-intelligence that is an implicit confession that because they will definitely not be remembered after one generation, everything must be done in order to keep their influence artificially alive. That's the sort of ethos that we're living in right now - and also why I felt like I had to leave that place, just in order to maintain my sanity. (That latter part is TBD but can't imagine how worse it'd be if I was still there, honestly.) But it's the sort of race-to-the-bottom, screw-the-creator-at-all-costs types of "content" that are perfect candidates for ending up on the trash-pile of history - which will probably include most Web2 platforms and its affiliated leaders right now. If people wanted boredom, hopelessness and gaslighting, all they have to do is go to the status quo - Web3 was supposed to be arbiter to bring something different, not more of the same. Most of the smart ones in the large, powerful institutions saw the writing on the wall and left years ago - the ones still hanging on are probably the first to go when the recession hits and people's priorities start to change. So what can be done? Well, the good news is that DAOs and blockchains allow us to organize and track things objectively, artists can collectively judge whether or not a platform is doing things in accordance to their interests and needs. In a few years, I think I can see these DAOs - neither a private company nor a traditional union - influencing the market by making recommendations to both artists and collectors out there about which platforms to use...and if the platforms want to actually survive long-term, they have to comply. This is one very practical application of a DAO (which functions similar to industry associations, trade-unions, performance rights organizations, or standard-settings orgs like ICANN or W3C) and there are many more to come - though it will require the artist to take a more active role in defending their self-interests more than they have in recent history. I know that there's a lot of artists out there who have abandoned all hope at this point - but the time to give up isn't now. Some of history's biggest achievements were done through DAO-like orgs and the idea of it becoming a thing in the near future should be a good thing, over all. The blockchain is there for us to organize ourselves, hold people and parties accountable, and most importantly GET ARTISTS PAID. That's the thing that will solve the world's "fake news" problem, and the overall malaise and hopelessness that we're experiencing now as a whole. Real art doesn't just parrot an agenda - it tells the truth, after all. The work is just beginning now, if anything. typed.art
Long
by RyanTanaka
WAVES Makes Waves. Crypto's "Decoupling" ContinuesAfter Friday's "decoupling" event, the markets have mostly stayed flat (it feels like there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty in the market as a whole right now) with a few exceptions - WAVES seems to be the big winner today, followed by AXS (Axie Infinity) and ADA (Cardano). XTZ (Tezos) had a very good week this week but at least for today, it seems to be in the red. With altcoins normally moving in parallel to each other, these trends are interesting to look at because it seems like after Friday each coin seems to have suddenly gained independence as we start to see less and less parallel motion over time. Time will tell if this "decoupling" trend continues - but so far, it seems to be the case. By the way, if you invested in LUNA right at its rock-bottom a few days ago you would have made a 5.9 MILLION % return today. High risk, high reward. 😂 I don't recommend putting your life savings into bets like these but there is something to the idea of supporting a project during its struggles since that's often how investors make their biggest returns.
WLong
by RyanTanaka
3
Decentraland (MANA) Launches its Desktop Client. How is it?Decentraland recently released its beta version of the desktop client - how does it look in its current state? From egamers.io: "Players will now experience performance enhancement upgrades with cleaner graphics, faster processing speeds, and improved stability by adding the client’s option. The client is only available for Windows in beta, with the developers welcome any feedback while more operating systems will come shortly." egamers.io The client allows for faster processing speeds, lower loading times, and opens up bigger possibilities for content creators to do things on the metaverse in ways that were previously not possible on browser-based platforms.
Long
by RyanTanaka
Tezos Joins the Metaverse Race. How Does it Compare to Others?Tz1and, a metaverse project based on the Tezos ecosystem (XTZ) has been slowly gaining some traction lately. Is it an early stage project worth investing in? A look at how it stacks up against the other major metaverse platforms out there. Project - World Explorer? / Decentralized? / Selling Points tz1and - Yes / Yes / Support of artist communities and indie creatives Decentraland - Yes / Yes / Most support from business and corporate organizations Sandbox - No / No / Celebrity attention and media hype, strong financial performance in 2021 Monaverse - No / No / Professionally designed and curated metaverse projects Cryptovoxels - Yes / No / Runs on mobile, one of the oldest metaverse projects out there As mentioned before, the metaverse and Web3 projects are all still in its early stages so anything could happen. But it's good to know what's been happening, either way. www.tz1and.com
Long
by RyanTanaka
5
Tezos (XTZ) Completes its Ithaca 2 Upgrade. What's Next?This event largely went unnoticed by the media, but Tezos (XTZ) underwent a major upgrade to their protocol as of this week. The upgrade deals mostly with scalability issues - as the oldest Proof-of-Stake system in the market, XTZ arguably one of the most technically advanced blockchain platforms in the world right now. In the early days of the crypto industry Tezos decided to go straight into Proof-of-Stake instead of with Proof-of-Work like the others did. (Technical superiority doesn't always translate into business success but it is worth pointing out that XTZ is already where ETH is moving towards right now.) The recent Ithaca 2 upgrade includes: - Increased throughput (faster transactions times) - Lowers requirements for node staking from 8000 Tez to 6000 Tez (roughly 20-24k. ETH node requirements are 100k+) - Improvements in privacy, security, and better compatibility with zero-knowledge proofs/rollups/sharding methods overall I do think that Tezos is an underrated project right now since the project has been dealing with real-world use cases in the Proof-of-Stake model that coins like ETH, DOGE, and BTC have yet to face - potentially creating an opportunity for a leap-frogging event to occur. The chain also has the advantage of having attracted the attention of artist communities around the world (Hic et Nunc, https://TEIA.art, hen.radio), many of whom were gentrified out of ETH's ecosystem due to high gas fees, which shouldn't be underestimated since attracting users is often the hardest thing for platforms to do. This puts Tezos in a very good place in the next few years as the race for #NFTs and metaverse projects starts to ramp up - these products will be judged by their artistic quality, and the platform with the highest concentration of artistic talent will likely win. Anything could happen so everything is still TBD, but the race may have just gotten much more interesting as new contenders for #Web3 relevance continues to grow.
Long
by RyanTanaka
NFTs and the Future of Cyberwarfare (Money vs Culture)The Russian invasion of Ukraine this week has prompted many people in Web3 to rethink what an NFT is and what it could potentially be used for. A look at what the CIA and Western powers did during the Cold War and how we could see another resurgence in "cultural production" methods in crypto-based projects in the wake of this crisis we see today. URL to Vitalik's Tweet showing his support for the Ukrainian government: twitter.com
Long
by RyanTanaka
Royalties, The Hidden Gold Mine in CryptoDecentraland (MANA) has recently added royalties payments to their wearables market -- it might seem like a small thing right now, but testing out economies in "for fun", low-risk products like avatars pave the way towards more serious applications like NFTs, copyright, and asset markets later on. Right now, the crypto community is still unlearning the bad habits of Web 2, which is one-off NFT sales boosted by marketing and/or celebrity status in exchange for short-term gains. But that is not where the real money is -- the combined amount of the small business communities will outshine any of the current projects a 100x (literally) if they can get the ecosystem running correctly. The secret to crypto mainstream adoption is figuring out how partnership/distribution deals can be automated in a fair, clear way and the ones that figure it out will take the whole pie, imo. Also a reminder that fair royalty deals usually work in favor of small businesses, which is 99% of the market. More detailed post, here: mirror.xyz
Long
by RyanTanaka
Polygon (MATIC) to $4.00Polygon (MATIC) is right on the doorstep to retesting its prior all time highs set back in May at $2.70. Technically and fundamentally MATIC has a strong narrative that will most likely push this cryptocurrency into another price discovery phase. Ethereum scaling, gaming, play to earn, NFTs, and the metaverse are all narratives of what MATIC is involved in. I believe positive momentum in Ethereum's price will slowly trickle down to MATIC. Once we break past $2.25 resistance area for MATIC I do believe we will grind up to the 1.618 Fibonacci extension of $3.97 setting a new all time high in the weeks or months to come. Local Support: $1.90 Major Support: $1.50 Current Resistance: $2.25 Much peace, love, health, and wealth.
MLong
by peacefuljustin
Decentralized Storage for NFTs and More - STORJ, Filecoin, CHIAHave you guys noticed that there isn't any video NFTs out there? That's because there's nowhere to store them right now on the blockchain. STORJ ($STORJ) has done well this year due to the fact that people are seeking decentralized storage systems due to massive demand for #NFTs. Filecoin ($FIL) has yet to make a move but in my opinion that's because they're targeting enterprise and institutional money Chia ($XCH) is an interesting system that uses Proof-of-Space algorithms to verify transactions, similar to Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work. It's a very obscure project but it could potentially have big upsides once the ecosystem matures since it's a way for miner-types to make a few extra bucks with the HD space that they have sitting around. Either way, decentralized storage systems being a thing in the future seems like a sure thing at this point. Hedge your bets accordingly. 👍
SLong
by RyanTanaka
NFTs and Private Clubs for SHIB - Social Spaces for Crypto CoinsWhat’s fueling the rise of SHIB? There’s some evidence that they’re engaged in a marketing blitz right now, which is fueling the dramatic price increase we’ve been seeing in the last few days. Will it last, though, is the question. (Video version below, btw.) I took a dive into Shiba Token’s websites and announcements, looking for something resembling an actual product. Their NFT-based “social club” was the closest thing I could find -- basically using a SHIB-based NFT as a “ticket” of admission to their own “private clubs”. (Hence the fancy top hat and suit -- and developing a smoking habit too, apparently, lol.) Crypto Apes and a few other NFT projects out there have done similar things, with much success -- people seem to like hanging out with like-minded folks, apparently. shiboshis.shibaswap.com Regardless of what you think of the project itself, I do think that the fact that even SHIB is getting into the “NFT as a social signal” market shows that this is probably where crypto will be moving towards in the near future. It’s often not about the NFT itself (NFT of a rock? Who cares?) but what the act of buying something signals to the rest of the world (I am someone with an ironic sense of humor -- let’s hang out!). Best not to take this market too literally, imo. So, what does this mean for projects like Dogecoin, who’s probably feeling the pressure right now? One thing DOGE fans don’t like to talk about is the fact that their coin’s main selling point (stable, useful) actually runs counter to the idea of their coin “mooning”, making everyone rich. It doesn’t seem like they’ve come to terms with that, yet. But they do have the advantage of having a strong community backing with real developer support, so the upcoming DOGE-ETH bridge and DOGE-based meme-NFT markets could be their saving grace. In my opinion, what will “save” DOGE from falling into obscurity is the community support behind DOGE-minted NFTs, which will be very tough for other coins to compete with since the energy behind it won’t even be close. But the way for DOGE fans to get rich off of this stuff would be through the NFT market, not the coin itself. SHIB itself is pretty clear that it's a coin made for speculation -- whereas DOGE has taken the nobler route of making a coin that might actually be useful for people to use. You can't have it both ways, though, and we're going to see this dynamic play out internally as the two coins start to compete with each other.
COINBASE:SHIBUSDLong
by RyanTanaka