No, this is NOT a belated April Fools’ Day joke.

Quick aside: did you know that the apostrophe was after the ‘s’? I’ve been writing April Fool’s for the past 3 decades like the fool that I am…the more you know (cue music and animated 90’s rainbow…or is it 90s’ rainbow? Mind rattled. Let’s Let us try to avoid apostrophes for the rest of this post…

Ok, ok. Back to NFTs. Last month I celebrated my 36th trip around the Sun, and after some very deep, very meditative thinking and perhaps a couple too many glasses of Prosecco, it suddenly dawned on me--I am gettin’ old! Too old for TikTok, too old for Olivia Rodrigo (I’m more on team “good 4 u” than “drivers license”, probably mostly due to yet another ambiguous apostrophe), too old for loose-fitting jeans and making Dad shoes look cool…the list goes on and on.

But I don’t want to be too old for web3. I know, I know--“web3” is right up there with “espresso martinis” and “natural, organic, locally-sourced orange wine” as one of the trendiest, catch-phrase-iest, possibly overhyped things to talk about right now (I take that back--espresso martinis are actually quite delicious). And I’ve probably spent more time than most reading, listening, and talking about the “next revolution of the Internet”, but so far it’s been a lot of consuming and not a lot of doing.

This discussion reminds me of a book I read in elementary school called Walk Two Moons (“read” is probably a generous term--I really only remember the cover artwork) that taught an important lesson--don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.

I thought this was a bit absurd since I have large feet (and, yes, the sayings are true--I do have to buy large socks) and it would be uncomfortable to walk around in a tiny pair of shoes--not to mention walking without a break for two straight months seemed like a daunting task--but there’s a valuable lesson in there if you don’t take it too literally.

I’ve been judging the heck out of web3, crypto, and all-things hodlers, but I haven’t spent the time to really understand what it’s all about. So, my plan for the next couple of months (well, more realistically, let’s target the next couple of weeks): let’s dive deep into the magical world of web3, roll up my sleeves and see what this is all about, and come back with a more informed opinion about the pros and cons of proof-of-stake v. proof-of-work, if impermanent loss is something I need to be worried about when staking in a liquidity pool, and why more people aren’t making mushroom-related jokes when discussing non-fungibility.

Whether it’s on this blog or if I get really fired up and dust off my YouTube camera, I’m looking forward to documenting my journey!

…

Wow, I got so heated about proper apostrophe usage that I almost forgot the entire point of this article…my first NFT! Well, it’s official--I’ve minted my first NFT! I’m trying to keep these write-ups short, so I’ll probably save the details of my NFT minting story for another day (spoiler: it’s not that exciting!), but for those loyal few who made it this far, a quick preview:

ethereum://0xabEFBc9fD2F806065b4f3C237d4b59D9A97Bcac7/9590

On sale at your local Sotheby’s auction some time later this year!

Yours in running (and now web3?),

Mocko