# Meme Maxis week 17

**Published by:** [pandelic](https://paragraph.com/@pandelic/)
**Published on:** 2022-11-14
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@pandelic/meme-maxis-week-17

## Content

Highlights and meltdowns around the Meme Maxis, week of Nov 7 – cover excerpt by paulwilsonimage. A most splendiferous welcome to our new members, ChrizRoc and AbuSpinky aka Zamunda 🎑The Emperor Has No WalletYour humble stenographer is, as of this writing, mostly still a tourist in the NFT world – living partially online, with the not-unhefty baggage of a self-dox, and partially offline, among sensible humans who have no reason to pay attention to digital tokens and whose expressions range from confused to please stop talking in response to the question, “How fungible are they?” Picture my bemusement: after dinner out with a delightfully normal friend on 8 November, the owner of the ceviche stand happens to ask her employee within earshot: “Did you hear about FTX and Binance?” and my friend and someone at the table next to us both chime in with an affirmative. A whale going belly-up makes waves all over. FTX, just days ago the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, falls from great heights, taking down with considerable clamor every floor of scaffold that once built it. Today, Sam B. Fried (FTX’s founder and public face) sits detained in the Bahamas, facing the possible repercussions of his truly dizzying kaleidoscope of deception, theft, and misuse of customer money.https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1590029177813860352ReadyPereOne recaps the events of the day in fluent master-maxi-memetician:CZ = head of Binance, the largest crypto exchangeCrypto-skeptics and the crypto-curious will raise questions at this point: has crypto died, and also … did it ever deserve to live in the first place? These are understandable concerns, particularly given 1) the dissolution of FTX including all the funds it has promised to safeguard, 2) the immediate, colossal tumble in crypto valuations across the world, both leading to 3) significant widespread financial ruin and 4) a severance of trust in crypto institutions and even crypto technology itself. Apart from all that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Despite this earthquake directly underfoot the NFT world and its participants, the crypto community has been impressively resilient. Offers of mutual aid and even financial support are not difficult to find; bad-faith and misunderstanding-laden arguments from crypto-skeptics are countered and decisively swatted away. Less than a week from the fallout, and there’s a growing consensus to rebuild what broke, and return to the principles that give crypto networks their strength: increased decentralization, self-custody of funds, skepticism towards power holders. The creators and collectors of art, music, and culture hosted collectively, on public databases (blockchains), have never been stronger in their resolve to keep building. How do we know that? We look at what members of the community are doing for one another. Each day since FTX and Friends went poof, we’ve seen more giveaways by NFT Artist Twitter. Here are just a few roundups: aRegularDad’s RektArt Deca gallery, ParaChica’s thread of seventeen open-editions, and seven free mints listed by Airshiptycoon. …or in blocknoob_’s words:Lukecannon727’s also got this:Though if you’ve a hankerin’ to go after monsieur B. Fried, aRegularDad has organized a hunting party:How have the Meme Maxis been riding out the storm? With (macabre) humor, shitposting, and always kindness. For anyone who wants a dose of that, fmiasp’s Winnie keeps us levelheaded –Meme Card 33 – Feeling Lucky?Veteran artist 6529er wades deeper into AI-generated rivers with his latest meme card, the 4th in season 1’s Use a Hardware Wallet series. The announcement thread takes us through its stable-diffusion iterations, including hilarious yet illuminating poster examples along the way –Playing on ideas of retro chic and gender expectations from the 50s, we find our inquiry into the “appropriateness” of this meme immediately sideswiped by a flipping of the script by fmiasp –Mr. In A Square Pixel is on a rampage this week, also winning the OMbuidling derivative contest put on by tonysellen.eth (with judging help from 6529er and Burnasso)! (Tony’s announcement) –This whole video is fantasticAnd speaking of staying in school, UNIC hosts multiple classes this week, all of which are listed at the Fall 2022 Live Sessions page. Here’s the Week 6 kick-off: …then don’t miss Punk6529 with Erick/Snowfro as well as Punk6529 with ARTNOME, both insightful supplementary sessions.dG / dMemeaRegularDad muses on various meme cards in this thread-journey –When she’s right she’s right –By none other than ParaChicaArt MaxisSo much goodness this week! HugoFaz commemorates the ethereum transition to its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism with The Merge, continuing explorations of overlap between metaverse/virtual worlds and the physical one. It’s been an ongoing open edition for the past month and ends a day after this publication (announcement) –GeekieBunny’s first NFT auction, in collaboration with norcal_guy (announcement) –Paulwilsonimage’s lunar eclipse composition is not to be missed (announcement) –apeinacoupe’s “selfGrowth_WIP3” is a stunner, as are all the pieces in the series (announcement) –not to mention his mind-bending submission for Cath Simard’s contest:Deconstruct_eth announces another gorgeous piece –It’s part of their Bauhaus collection, with a total of 12 collectibles (ex airdrops) where the edition sizes continually decrease in quantity 🤯Inspired by Kandinsky's "Free Curve to the Point", 1925, and "Circles in a Circle", 1923Mystery and storytelling abound in Zigmarillion’s “The Guardian” (announcement) –G9ralt curates gabscanu.eth’s “Dancing Palms” for the Open Metaverse’s gradient gallery (teleport precisely into the OM location) (announcement, including more of gabscanu.eth’s work) –Meme Card 34 - GM IndonesiaJordHammond announces his bright and sunny shot of rice-mill workers, made from 40 distinct images, for the latest meme card:…must you get it notarized by G9ralt’s special signature priest? That depends on whose view of property law you subscribe to:intrepid_p brings the phenomenon of Steve (a visual corollary to the phenomenon of Aurora) to the blockchain, now available on SuperRare. His announcement thread provides invaluable backstory, eye-popping making-of photos, as well as the fascinating details of his collaboration with astrophysicists via coauthoring of a scientific paper –…and reminds us, especially if the going gets tough, to check out this absolute unit in high-res glory:Burnasso celebrates the venerable smart contract with the peace and wonder of this open edition: 322 holders as of this writing, and still climbing (announcement) –Happy meme-seizing and life-seizing to all ~ 🐿

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