1. Goodbye wallet initialization fee: While this isn't relevant to most of us since we already paid it, the "initialize your wallet" fee is no more. I remember paying $300 USD on this fee per wallet, which presents a huge barrier to entry for new degens. We won't miss you!

2. Seaport is gas efficient, saving you in fees: On average, expect to pay 35% less in gas fees on the new Opensea, whether you're buying an NFT or accepting offers in WETH. Accepting WETH offers will be way less painful, IDK about you, but the WETH gas fees killed my profits.

3. Re-approve collections to access cheaper gas fees Opensea notes that, before you start to see cheaper fees, you'll need to re-approve collections (referring to the "set approval for all" transaction). Thankfully, gas is low already, so this will be worth it for the savings.

4-1) Make offers on collections: Now, you can create offers in WETH, APE and USDC across a complete collection. Meaning - if you want a BAYC and don't care which one, make a collection offer. If someone is selling one, they can accept that.

4-2) Collection offers will increase the liquidity of NFTs - instead of waiting for a reasonable, non-bot offer on your NFT, you can look at the collection offer floor. If you see a collection offer you like, you can accept it.

4-3) One more on collection offers: this makes ERC721 listings similar to ERC1155. Because ERC1155 tokens are all the same, listings and offers are on the same page on Opensea. Anyone with that NFT can accept an offer making them more liquid. This will now be true for ERC721 NFTs.

5. Make offers on specific traits: If you want a BAYC but want a specific trait, you can also specify that with collection offers. Typing the trait you want brings up the floor for it and the rarity in the collection. (I just learned that the solid gold floor is 1000 eth 👀)

6. Easily find trait floor price A benefit of the collection offer feature: it's much easier to see the floor for specific traits. Instead of filtering for that trait, filter for currently listed NFTs, just click "collection offer" and search to see the floor and offers.

7. Currently, collection offers are only available to the top 100 collections but will soon expand to include other collections.

8. In the coming months, Opensea will be expanding its features to include:

• Bulk purchase NFTs

• Create collection royalties on-chain

Some thoughts on these features below 👇

9. Bulk purchasing NFTs: this is what @gemxyz (a marketplace aggregator) does today and is an unsurprising announcement. Remember, @opensea acquired Gem at the end of April for an undisclosed sum.

10. On-chain collection royalties: previously, the fees you set on your collection were set on Opensea. Meaning, your collection only got a cut when they were traded on Opensea. For each other marketplace like @looksrare, you would have to set this manually.

With your royalties set on-chain, it doesn't matter where your NFT sells - you'll always get your cut because royalties are now defined at the blockchain level. It makes complete sense why @opensea is doing this: the future of NFTs is decentralized marketplaces.

Right now, you have to set fees on Opensea, Looksrare, and X2Y2 separately - manageable for three marketplaces. But with Seaport, anyone can launch a marketplace. Imagine having to set your royalties on 50 marketplaces manually 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫. On-chain royalties solves this.

I wrote a thread last month that went over the changes Seaport would bring to Opensea. It's cool to see that some of these are already live! Check that thread out for other features that are planned.

https://twitter.com/atareh/status/1528126971846066176?s=20&t=-aqjI88d8JbiMao3QmbrYg

And as always, I write threads on Twitter and on substack, which you can subscribe to here.

If you enjoyed this, consider collecting this thread as an NFT. Mint this thread and speculate on it!

Before I begin, think about Seaport the same way you think about Uniswap. Uniswap changed the game with their open-sourced decentralized exchange - part of the avalanche that we now know as DeFi Summer in 2020. This move by Opensea might have the same potential because Uniswap is an open-source platform, and multiple copycats across different chains arose (sushiswap, pancakeswap). This led to massive growth and innovation in DEXs and DeFi, in general. This move from Opensea signals to the competition: bring it on, let the best marketplace win.

Ok, so wtf is a protocol? Right now, Opensea is a marketplace platform (like Facebook). The platform offers the service of letting you buy and sell NFTs. Opensea (the company) controls the platform 100% - so any changes to the code (such as accepting $APE) are centralized.

In contrast, protocols are like "standards." The one we're all familiar with is Email, which uses SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It's the standard protocol for sending emails across the Internet - every email client from Google to Yahoo uses it.

The big thing that protocols let you do is "transfer" your account - or interoperability. If you don't like using Yahoo because you think their layout is ugly and you're getting too much spam, you can always port it to Gmail and use their client instead.

So Opensea is helping decentralize the buying/selling/trading of NFTs by launching the Seaport protocol.

Here are the 6 biggest takeaways from reading the Seaport and what it means for the NFT space.

My 6 takeaways on what Seaport means for NFTs

1. Opensource code: With Seaport, anyone can build an NFT marketplace using the protocol because it's decentralized and open source. In the coming years, we should expect to see way more marketplaces being built More competition = better + faster innovation.

2. Decentralized: Opensea says that there is no contract owner to this protocol, and anyone can update or fork the code. To understand what this could mean for the future of NFT marketplaces, think about the ERC-721 token standard. Everyone launched their NFTs with it, until, people got fed up with high gas fees, so Azuki used contract optimizations others had found to save users money on gas. While there are some limitations with ERC721A, lots of projects now choose to use it when they can. This wouldn't happen if a centralized organization controlled the ERC-721 standard.

3. Buy or trade: Right now, you can only buy or sell NFTs for ETH or fungible tokens (APE, USDC, DAI). On the Seaport protocol, you’ll be able to trade NFTs or sell for ETH or erc-20 token. So, list your MAYC for 25ETH, or 5 ETH + 1 Azuki, or just 2 Azuki's - you have that kind of flexibility.

4. Trade for specific NFTs: When trading NFTs, you can also set specific “criteria” that the NFT must have. So, want to trade your rank 2 Azuki only for a gold BAYC? you can specify that, so only wallets with a gold ape can trade for your NFT.

5. Dutch Auction listings: Not sure what the market values your NFT at? Create a dutch auction! With seaport, you can set a start and end price, say how long you want the auction to run. The listing will decrease (or increase) the price until a buyer is found (or expires).

6. Find bugs & earn $$: Opensea is conducting a two-week audit contest with a total $1 million prize pool. Any developer can audit the code and submit reviews and errors they find, and be rewarded for their work. https://code4rena.com/contests/2022-05-opensea-seaport-contest

The marketplace landscape is set to look very different in the coming months and years. You can bet that many will choose to build on Seaport protocol, and will increasingly become the standard for NFTs

What I'm excited about most is the innovation this opens up. Because the code is open-sourced, all marketplaces will be competing for users. Who will create the next killer feature that attracts users? How quickly will the competition catch up or out-innovate?

I think this is the NFTs "Uniswap moment" What happened after Uniswap? DeFi Summer. Perhaps there's another NFT summer on the horizon soon enough...

Thanks for reading! This appeared originally as a thread on Twitter. I also write a newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

https://twitter.com/atareh/status/1528126971846066176

Tip 1: Set up gas price alerts

This is obvious, but it needs to be stated: the best way to save your eth is to perform transactions when the gas price is low. You can see the current gas price on etherscan.com/gastracker, but it's not practical to watch the gas all day,

Instead, set up alerts. https://ethgas.watch is a great website, that lets you set up email alerts. Just say enter a gas price and your email. When gas dips to your price, you'll get an email alert.

Tip 2: Replace transactions instead of cancelling them

This tip is more tactical and situational, but has the potential to save you lots on gas. It's when you have a pending transaction that you want to cancel. Cancelling a transaction can be costly, but there's a better way to do this.

\\Instead of cancelling your transaction on metamask, you can actually replace it on the blockchain - the idea here is to replace the transaction with one that uses less gas, and is therefore cheaper to execute.

Every transaction on the eth blockchain uses a specific amount of gas. The more complex the transaction, the more gas you use. An ETH transfer uses way less gas than a contract interaction, like purchasing from Opensea or swapping on Uniswap.

To do this, you need to first enable the "custom transaction nonce" in your metamask. You can do this under advanced settings

Then, when you have a pending transaction you want to replace, you'll find it's nonce on etherscan. It's found on the transaction page

Then, transfer yourself 0 eth on metamask. You'll get charged gas fee for an eth transfer. Before you submit, enter the nonce in the custom nonce field. If your pending transaction wasn't submitted, it will be dropped for this transaction, saving you ETH - because transferring ETH is cheaper than interacting with a smart contract

Tip 3: Use RPC flashbots to prevent gas lost in failed or reverted transactions

The last tip is my favourite. Essentially, you'll never lose anymore ETH on reverted or dropped transactions - Like what happens when you try to buy something on opensea and someone beats you to it, or an NFT mint with gas wars.

You can do this with RPC flashbots - I've made a short video that explains what they are and how to set it up for your metamask.

That's all for now! Use these three tips to minimize the amount of gas you're using on each transaction, and save your ETH. If you liked these tips, subscribe to my channel on YouTube, and follow me on Twitter for more web3 content

1/ Let's wind the clock back. It's 2002, we're just past the dot-com bubble, and the internet is starting to be more integrated with society. There were about half a billion people using it regularly, and 95% used internet explorer to access it

2/ What we forget now about internet back then, because it's so common place is: putting your real name on the internet was seen as risky. We all used a pseudonym back then, even if we didn't call it that. Your username or gamertag was never your IRL identity.

3/ But something started to change in the years that followed . It started with myspace and was really cemented with facebook. Social media normalized putting your real name on the internet

4/ Facebook was how you connected with others you knew IRL, and Linkedin is where you found professional opportunities. You couldn't do that without your real name, a real photo. So we all did it.

5/ We posted our lives to our facebook and instagram feeds without thinking. Every professional milestone and set back was put on Linkedin. For some, it went a bit too far - spawning memes in the early 2010's like:

6/ Throughout this time, posting your life to social media was seen as normal. But normal is relative to the times, and the normal we were given was never for us, really. As the past decade and a half revealed, we were always the product.

7/ Whatever benefit we got from freely giving our information to these platforms, paled in comparison to what they got. Execs at these companies became millionaires and billionaires - on the backs of our data.

8/ and that would never have happened, if putting our real names and pictures on the internet wasn't normalized. But norms are shifting, once again. and web3 is ground zero for it.

9/ Web3 has showed us that, you can achieve financial success, you can work, you can grow your network, without anyone knowing your name or what you look like. This is the pseudonymous economy.

10/ In the pseudonymous economy, your IRL identity and your online identity remain separate. Online, you have a pseudonym (that you pick, like we did as kids with our gamer tags, usernames). And instead of a picture of you, you'll represent yourself with an NFT.

11/ Instead of your government name being a store of your reputation, your pseudonym and NFT becomes that. Pseudonymity gives you all the advantage of building online, with complete privacy IRL.

12/ The pseudonymous approach is more equitable. Your name and race doesn't matter in this world. What matters is your reputation and the work you've done (or, your proof of work).

https://twitter.com/jackbutcher/status/1333925352738000903

13/ Working pseudonymously also means you're paid in stateless, borderless cryptocurrency - so you can work from where ever you want, irrespective of your "legal status"

13/ In a funny way, blockchain and crypto has really allowed this new economy to become viable. And the person that started this, was also pseudonymous. The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of blockchain and bitcoin, remains unknown.

13/ Like I said at the beginning, the future of work is in part already here, with online, remote work, accessible to anyone with an internet connection. In the coming years, we'll see more and more people choose to be pseudonymous online.

14/ And if this seems far off to you, don't be mistaken, it's already happening today. The @boredapeyc founders are pseudonymous. We know them only as @CryptoGarga, @GordonGoner, @TomatoBAYC, and @SassBAYC. Despite that, they've built an NFT community that's worth billions

15/ and if this future scares you, then take solace in that, at one point in time, we were afraid of putting our real names and faces online. Social norms will once again change - and this new future will prove to be more equitable, fair, and distributed.

16/ This was always the original vision of the internet. A leveller of the playing field. It often reminds of this quote by @Snowden, describing this.

17/ The future of work is pseudonymous, which is why you I go by the name atareh (.eth) I'm excited to do my part in building this new internet with all you degens. Pseudonymous or not.

This article first appeared as a thread on Twitter. Follow me on there for more.

https://twitter.com/atareh/status/1474089802983170065?s=20

1/ Before we begin, you might ask, why does storytelling matter? Does it really capture value? Let's take a quick detour and talk about one of the greatest movie studios of our time and masters of storytelling: Pixar.

2/ Over the past 20+ years, the studio has won 18 academy awards, and their films gross ~$700 million on average. Put simply: Pixar movies perform. And while they have industry leading graphics and cute characters, you need something deeper than that to achieve this success.

3/ For that, the writers credit their success to the care and attention they pay to the story. They understand that in order to truly move an audience, you have to have a deep understanding of human emotions, motivations, and psychology. See their "22 rules for storytelling"

4/ With those rules, we've had masterpieces like Toy Story, which wasn't about toys coming to life when humans aren't around. It was about Woody learning to overcome his jealousy and share the spotlight with the new-comer, Buzz Lightyear. A lesson we can all use in life.

5/ and Inside out touched on the deeply human and universal theme of learning to accept and process your emotions. We see the consequences of what happens when we think we can bottle or outright rejecting emotions - like sadness.

6/ Pixar movies touch on deep human truths and emotions and that’s why their movies connect with the audience. Naturally, the movies do well at the box office. Getting people to pay attention is powerful and one of the best ways to to do is through a good story.

7/ Here's Pixar co-founder, Steve Jobs, on stories

8/ Stories are important, okay. Back to @10KTFshop. Before we jump in to explain how they're telling a good story in the NFT space, here's a primer of what's happened so far in that universe.

9/ On September 17th, a mysterious old Japanese man appeared on NFT twitter - Wagmi-san from New Tokyo. He promised to turn your PFPs like BAYC, WoW, cool cats into custom sneakers. NFTs Thousands of sneakers were minted over 3 days.

10/ Then, a week later, Wagmi-san opened his shop again. This time, it was backpacks. Thousands more were minted. But the mint ended early. Wagmi-san had to leave after 7 hours instead of 10, to run away from the people that were "after him". Strange…

11/ To the average observer, you might pass that move off as inexperience from the founders. "Devs probably found an error in their smart contract, made up some excuse to cut off the mint". But the people running this were anything but inexperienced...

12/ Shortly after the first mint, the community found clues that pointed to @wenewmoments running the project. Wenew is an NFT company co-founded by big names in the space (Figge, Beeple, Guy Osheary).

https://twitter.com/atareh/status/1439721745116811264

13/ The plan to cut the mint early was likely planned. Then we've learned that the bad guys were 893 - slang for Yakuza. This was discovered by the community - by sleuthing Wagmi-san's wallet on Opensea and finding the ENS domain NFT: 893.eth

14/ When that clue was discovered and deciphered by the community in Discord, we learned the game we were playing. @10KTFshop wasn't just a mint shop for cool looking NFTs. This was a story unfolding before us, and it required our participation.

15/ The questions arose naturally after we figured out who was after Wagmi-san:

• Why were they after him?

• How can we help Wagmi-san?

• and What the hell happened last summer??

16/ And this is where the brilliance of story-telling by @10KTFshop has built a strong, tight-knit community. The project doesn't play out like any ordinary one. Every "objective" in a roadmap has been used as a device that serves the overarching story. Let me explain…

17/ We didn't receive an airdrop because we held 10KTF NFTs. We were actually helping Wagmi-san hold onto his materials so the Yakuza can't steal it them. We're active participants in the story. The items have future utility too, and some sell for 2-5 eth.

18/ Then, we learned about BOSS_TOADZ, the head of the Yakuza. He went onto to purchase $30,000 worth of 10KTF items from the floor, and burn them. As a "fuck you" to Wagmi-san for not paying his protection money. See where i'm going with this?

19/ At its core, that was the 10KTF team sending us airdrops and sweeping and burning NFTs (i.e reducing the supply and increasing the floor). But the way its executed and woven into the story feels like we're being taken on a ride.

20/ We have a common enemy in BOSS_TOADZ, and we saw him buy the NFTs live (checking his wallet on etherscan). At the same time, the toadz took over discord shop radio played "disco inferno" and other “fire” tracks. This was an immersive experience and no one else is doing this.

21/ The world building and using twitter, etherscan and NFTs to drop clues, makes this story feel like a movie being played out, live on the blockchain. And you can see the positive effects of that in the community

22/ There is 0 price or floor conversation. The tight-knit community sticks up for each other, supports each other in contests they're in; we host educational seminars to help people understand NFTs, we make custom POAPs for the community.

23/ If you want to get involved, it's a great time to jump in. Wagmi-san has 6 rolls of tape for his camera. The first snapshot taken got us all airdropped materials for us to hold onto. Which means there are might be 5 more airdrops to come...

You can buy a shoe or bag on Opensea here. And jump into the discord here

This article first appeared as a thread on Twitter. Follow me on there for more.

https://twitter.com/atareh/status/1450877572854779911

Let's find out

1/ We can't start this thread without a bit of history on Supreme and how they've impacted the culture. Let's wind the calendar back to 1994 - when Supreme first launched - not as a brand, but as a skate shop in SoHo by founder James Jebbia.

2/ Jebbia wanted to create a clubhouse for NYCs budding skateboard scene, a place where counterculture kids could hang out and feel accepted. But Jebbia only saw Supreme as a retail store, not a brand. Until he met Kenichi Omura, a Japanese businessman.

3/ Omura saw the demand and hype for Supreme in the Japanese market, so he contacted Jebbia and ended up opening up three stores in Japan by 1998 Except, Supreme still really didn't have their own clothing - so Jebbia assembled a young team, that began designing Supreme merch.

4/ It's hard to say why the Japanese market was so enamoured with Supreme so early on, but having that early base of support - which included appearances on MTV Japan as early as 1996 - helped accelerate the Supreme's growth and popularity worldwide

5/ That was in the late 90s/early 2000s. Fast forward to today, Supreme is valued at a $2 billion, and the world is crazy for it. So much so that a lottery system is in place for their weekly drops.

6/ To get the opportunity to buy Supreme from one of their 13 retail stores, you'll enter a lottery on Tuesday. If selected, you get texted a time and place on Thursday. There, you'll end up waiting 3-5 hours in line before being able to purchase.

7/ While Supreme drops started off with just clothing, they've added variety, from the expected to the unexpected. You still get shirts and sweaters, but there's also pinball machines, staplers, and... bricks.

8/ Regardless of what's on sale, Supreme drops sell out, week after week. Partly because of how coveted the brand is in the culture, partly because of the resale value.

9/ This is where Supreme's story gets interesting. In store, Supreme products are priced with a premium but not insane. A sweater costs $168. But because they focus on limiting their supply - the resale market price is high. Sometimes up to 5-10x it's actual retail price

10/ Scarcity is a big driver of Supreme's success, but it's not the only thing - people think wearing Supreme is cool. Wearing the brand puts you in with the "culture". Displaying the logo is a statement about who you are as a person. This is called signaling - and we all do it

11/ By definition, signaling is a hidden way to communicate things about us to others. Humans love signaling - we're doing it all the time, even if we don't know it. Usually, we do things convey to other people that we are intelligent, successful, attractive, etc.

12/ if you look close enough, a lot of human behaviour can be explained by signaling. Like why we buy expensive engagement rings, wear $50,000 Rolex watches, or displaying NFTs as our pfp on twitter.

13/ When you display a cryptopunk or a BAYC as your pfp on Twitter, you're signaling to others that: I was an early adopter of NFTs As the price of these projects have skyrocketed, it began signaling success, wealth, and authority within the NFT community

14/ So if you're wondering why people pay a 5-10x premium for Supreme, it's because of signaling. People want to belong, and signal to others that they're also cool and understand the culture, that they can afford to wear expensive clothing.

15/ Okay, so that explains a bit of behaviour around Supreme: it's scarce, wearing it makes you cool, and it's also expensive. All good signals to send to others. Where does BAYC fit into all of this?

16/ There's quite a lot of similarities between the two brands Owning and displaying a BAYC on twitter is already a status symbol - pretty easy to spot But you can't go around the street showing everyone your NFT portfolio - that would be weird

17/ So that's where BAYC merch comes in. In the same way that your ape NFT is a signal to others in the digital world, merch is an IRL equivalent. Because the merch is exclusive to holders, its also a status symbol - a way to signal others in meatspace that you're in the club

https://images.mirror-media.xyz/publication-images/IV472_w2CJpFPp1K0TFte.png?height=900&width=600

https://images.mirror-media.xyz/publication-images/IV472_w2CJpFPp1K0TFte.png?height=900&width=600

18/ Which is why BAYC merch resells for an insane premium, just like Supreme. Buy for $75, and resell for $499 online. This is scarcity and signaling at work

19/ The parallels to supreme don't stop there. Much like the long line ups to get into Supreme, many apes waited for hours to get merch at NYC's pop up store, or get tickets to the exclusive Bored Ape Yacht party.

https://twitter.com/mbhdoteth/status/1455244884844027905?s=20

20/ While it's obvious both brands have tapped into the same energy, there's still one big difference between them, it's this difference why I think BAYC will rapidly surpass Supreme: BAYC is a web3 brand

21/ A web3 brand is simply a decentralized entity - whether its decentralized through with NFTs, a DAO, tokens or all of the above. A core principle behind web3 is that, the people that engage with the project the most should also be part owners. Web3 is public from day 1.

22/ Compare that to the old model: a private company creates a product and markets and sells it. The people that purchase the brand are consumers. Only wealthy people, VC firms, private equity get a chance to own part of the company, until the company goes public.

23/ So with Supreme, you'll always be a consumer, not an owner. With @boredapeyc, you're part owner. You have an actual asset (the NFT - wen token), that grows in value as the brand does - which you can sell anytime

24/ As part owner, you also get access to exclusive perks and events: BAYC merch pop ups, the yacht party at NFT NYC. Soon, there will be a private clubhouse in Miami for apes too. Being a Supreme consumer doesn't gets you access to those kinds of perks.

25/ I'm not saying Supreme isn't a world-class brand, or that it's model is broken - it's worked for them and they've been in the game for 27 years. What I am saying is, there's a far a better way to launch a brand, thanks to web3 and NFTs.

26/ In fact, @BoredApeYC is already beating supreme at its own game: creating a desirable, scarce item that's led to a high resale value in the after market. Let me explain.

27/ As long as the Bored ape founders continue to grow the brand, and make it *the* NFT community to be in, the price for apes and mutants will keep going up. There are only so many apes, and everybody wants em. This is where being a web3 brand really shines.

28/ Every time an ape sells on the aftermarket, @yugalabs is getting 2.5% royalties on every sale. Forever. As the brand grows in value, that 2.5% ends up being a larger dollar (read: ETH) amount So in may 2021, Yuga labs got 800 eth for selling out the original apes...

29/ In the 7 months since, they've earned ~5115 ETH just from the royalties on after market sales - not including mutants. Growing a brand that gets percentage royalties brings in exponential returns, which allows you to grow faster.

https://twitter.com/jackbutcher/status/1439949660559380487?s=20

30/ Guess how much value Supreme has captured on all their after market sales in the 27 years they've been around? 0%. None. Even though that's where most of the value of the brand is being exchanged.

31/ All that to say, Supreme is severely limited by the old model - always in a delicate dance between generating enough revenue on each drop so they can grow, while still making sure each drop is scarce enough

32/ In the long-run, based on the math alone, I think @boredapeYC outgrows Supreme. Now, a lot of this comes down to execution, and Supreme has been in the game for 27 years, while Yuga only 7 months. But Yuga labs track record so far has been supreme, and we 🧡 the founders

33/ I have strong conviction that @GordonGoner, @CryptoGarga and the rest of the founders will continue to grow @BoredApeYC into a world-class brand. The evidence suggests that so far.

34/ We already have @stephencurry30 and @shaq in the club, and ball players rocking BAYC kicks in an NBA game. How long until @kanyewest gets an ape too?

https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/1456085611467608065?s=20

35/ The next few years and decade are slated to be an exciting ride for all of us here early in NFTs and crypto. With BAYC launching a token in 2022, a blockchain game and their DAO, this is the premier project to be in.

36/ I'm looking forward to watching all of this play out from the Miami clubhouse with my fellow apes. and hopefully by then, i'll have a bored ape to accompany my mutant too.

This article was originally posted as a thread on twitter.

https://twitter.com/atareh/status/1458858405146284033?s=20

To support my work, you can own this article as an NFT.