We need to reject the “coin everything” movement as it dilutes the value of coins as a medium as a whole and instead opt to only coin meaningful things.

When I collected baseball cards as a kid, I looked for a few things. Rookie cards (first card ever printed), Autographed, and memorabilia insert (embedded jersey swatch or similar).

Each had their own binder. The curation of each valuable thing made it valuable, mixing in ordinary, unlimited‑print cards or random Yu-Gi-Oh cards or some shit would have diluted the rookies’ importance and made it hard to see what was truly special.

Those binders are now the north star when it comes to how CC0 Studios approaches “coining things.”

Imagine a world where a rare Honus Wagner baseball card, an original Van Gogh, or a complete library of works for a recording artist was recorded and collectible onchain from the jump.

Coin Meaningful Things > Coin Everything

Scenario A: Meaningful Coin

• Each drop is finished, meme‑able, share‑worthy.

• Every collector recruits fresh fans with discovery via markets.

• Supply moves linearly; demand compounds.

Scenario B: Coin Everything (Slop)

• Drafts, throwaways, slop, & half thoughts hit the chain.

• Attention fatigue comes with each new drop making nobody excited to see what you coin next.

• Supply and demand should both rise linearly, but the demand side just falls off a cliff.

Simple takeaway: Attention on quality compounds; random dilution doesn’t.

The Flywheel

Eyeballs → liquidity → budget → more IP → repeat.

More IP → more episodes → more eyeballs → more value for the studio

For example: CC0 Studios Produced “the normal mfer,” our flagship IP → we coin it → we earn fees and gain eyeballs → we repeat with our next mini-series using XCOPY IP “GOD IS TYPING” → repeat creating a complete library of work all onchain tracking our earliest supporters of the work we feel represents our best of no WIPs & no slop, we only "coin" pieces we're proud to have in our library of work.

More IP means more episodes; more episodes mean more eyeballs; more eyeballs accrue to our existing library of work and demand for future releases, financing the next wave of IP built by the studio. A flywheel.

Collect them if you want to, don't if you don't. They're just digital collectibles.

Zora Creator Coins (Good and Bad)

The reason why I think Creator coins (on Zora and other places) will have a shot at success is because NFTs had a moment in the sun, major pain points for folks being;

1. Too slow and expensive.

2. People over-promise and under deliver or intend to never deliver. Most were scams.

3. It is hard to sell due to limited liquidity.

All of which I think Content coins improve on.

1. Both Solana & Base among others have sub 1s tx times and sub 1 cent solve this.

2. The coin is the thing. There is no future promise.

3. LP pools for coins give market price at any time.

If you want to make the argument that “well they are just valueless coins its all just vaporware” you’re gunna hate Funko pops, Disney Pins, and CSGO Skins my guy. The idea is not new, if you hate collectibles maybe don’t spend your entire day on collectible twitter bro. No one is forcing you to collect anything.

Collect them if you want to, don't if you don't. They're just digital collectibles.

Creator coins are a step in the right direction but, there is still a lot to be desired.

The Good

• The content coin idea as a whole. The messaging around content coins blew ass, but the thing itself is a step in the right direction in my opinion as a creator. The more recent creator coin as the coin tied to each content coin each of which earns LP Fees / Flywheel is a great way to enable creators (me) to issue coins to collectors.

• Storefront‑as‑a‑service. Feels like Squarespace for digital souvenir shops. We tell stories; Zora handles plumbing. See our thesis “Rollercoasters Before Souvenir Shops”

The Bad

• Discoverability This is a summary of points made min a conversation with @next_roy, the co-founder of @Atrium_nft, another crypto-native production studio. “Onchain social apps like Zora keep elevating the same Farcaster/Coinbase “power users,” turning the feed into a clout‑farm and choking off fresh voices. Until the algorithm (the market?) starts surfacing new winners, Zora still lacks true PMF despite Base network effects. TikTok works because anyone can catch a viral wave at any moment. Onchain social doesn’t offer that dynamic yet. (Pump has this a bit)

Conclusion

The curation and quality control gives value to collectibles, and that’s what content coins are. So while “coin everything” might be a good slogan to get new users on your platform and used to coining things, it misses

Supply is storytelling. Scarcity should rhyme with narrative arcs, so we curate like a museum, not a flea market, and only when the story sticks its landing do we coin something. Physical or digital, the value comes from scarcity + demand, and CC0 Studios is on a mission to become a crypto-native IP incubator that always lives by that rule.

Follow us on all platforms and collect if you want to, don’t if you don’t.

YouTube:

Zora: zora.co/@cc0studios

TikTok: tiktok.com/@mfer

Instagram: instagram.com/normalmfer_

X: @normalmfer_, @CC0_Studios

If ur a sponsor who wants eyeballs or an investor who wants to know more hit me up.

Watch Episode 1 and subscribe below. Enjoy the yapping after that. (pls actually hit the like button it helps a fuck ton).

With NFTs we saw a glimmer of what a tokenized attention economy might evolve into and with the more recent pump.fun driven memecoin mania and the even more recent pontification about the potential for Solana to democratize investing via “Internet Capital Markets,” despite its current state being far far far from what the end state of this would ideally look like, and the crimecoins taking centerstage as of late, there has been genuine IP created and value built from each of the last hyper-speculative crypto waves (NFTs & memecoins).

Pump branding as a memecoin launchpad is just the toy that people point and laugh at while failing to realize the more core product, launchpad. There was a truth discovered (kinda always known, but too hard to execute (write your own contract + pay ETH gas fees) or unsafe (threat of honeypot etc.) to do without pump. People want to make, ape, and trade coins. Some of those can be tied to a headline, a charity, a fake charity, a rug pull, an innovative product, or a sketch of what might eventually become known as the next generation’s Mickey Mouse. Over time, the market and the people building the products the market uses will fine tune to optimize for value creation, in the case of memecoins/NFTs this has been often tied to art or IP. We can see early signs of this “fine-tuning” with the recent pivot from editions to erc-20s tied to each post by Zora, and launches of Clanker and Flaunch, launchpads with alternate mechanisms from pump that give trading fees to either or both the creator and the holders.

Hidden in plain sight (the forest) among an onslaught of complete garbage (the trees), fun garbage, depressing garbage, garbage that we need to make to get to the good stuff is what we’ll look back at as the foundation for a new era of crypto-native content empires.

This onslaught of garbage isn’t unique to crypto. With each new tech cycle comes it’s own garbage, and only after time will the market reveal each new tech’s native brands, influencers, and celebs - the winners.

Crypto is no different. There are and will be more crypto-native risers that will shape the next wave of adoption. FWOG, Pudgy Penguins, Higher, MOG, Nouns, Claynosaurz, mfers - these are just some category leaders at the time of writing, which we will dive further into, some may stay the majority will wither away, and there will be many more that do not currently exist.

Gut says the best of those who leverage internet capital markets will be disproportionally crypto native and they look less like jellyjelly and more like Bonk. More like henlo, or Oh Baby Games and less like dookie dash. More like normal mfer less like Brett. More like a forest less like trees…

A non-exhaustive look at previous shifts in the content empires birthed from major shifts in tech ↓

• Effect: Cheaper books → higher literacy → faster idea spread

• Winners: Gutenberg, early publishers, Martin Luther

• Losers: The church, information makers, and the literate monarchal inner circle

• Effect: Images captured & shared → rise of photographers and their journalism

• Winners: Kodak, early photo/journalists/ photographers Man Ray, Ansel Adams

• Losers: Those dudes who had your whole family stand there for a few hrs to draw them once a year.

• Effect: More channels & niches → 24/7 specialized content

• Winners: CNN, ESPN, HBO;

• Losers: ABC, NBC, CBS, Later FOX; TV stars (Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson)

• Effect: On-demand audio → talk shows, direct sponsorship models

• Winners: Joe Rogan, Marc Maron, later ALL-IN guys, other indie podcasters

• Losers: Your cousin who thought he could make it big but instead talked about flat earth theory to nobody for a few months during COVID. Trad news / opinion outlets like FOX and CNN, regular L takers it seems.

• Effect: Easy video sharing → new wave of online video stars

• Winners: Mr. Beast, PewDiePie, niche video creators

• Losers: Movie star incubation pipeline, the Weinstein tuggy tuggy cabal.

• Effect: Live-streaming + chat → interactive gamer communities

• Winners: Ninja, Kai Cenat, IShowSpeed, Amazon (acquired Twitch)

• Losers: Existing celebs / informal celeb incubators, The Disney Channel/Nickelodeon to movie/rockstar pipeline

• Effect: Direct subscription model → writers bypass traditional media

• Winners: Established Journalists (Newton, Greenwald, Bari Weiss), niche experts or cast off / canceled mainstream reporters

• Losers: Legacy media outlets (losing star talent and ad revenue), editors/gatekeepers (less control over top writers/what the news of the day is.)

• Effect: Short-form vertical video and audio first content are the new standard→ viral trends, overnight fame

• Winners: Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Bella Poarch

• Losers: The collective mental health of the youths?

• Effect: Blockchain-based content → new monetization & ownership models / price go up as marketing sry not sry to the communists reading this piece but this is actually very cool the free market is the gatekeeper (no BJ needed for screentime) and the individual can see the upside in ways previously unthinkable.

• Winners: Digital Artists, Crypto-Native builders and creators, Transaction focused AI Agents

• Losers: Traditional middlemen (record labels, galleries, platforms that rely on centralized control).

Big studios and publishers have and continue to gatekeep purse strings and distribution channels. Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe emerged letting creators tap directly into fan support, though those platforms still act as centralized middlemen who take a cut.

Tokenization can be the next evolution of capital formation for content creation pairing risk seeking capital in crypto with artists. Instead of relying on any one platform, creators can mint their own tokens or NFTs, turning audiences into co-owners, collectors, and even profit-sharing partners depending on the type of token in play. Some need nothing more than a memecoin as marketing, others may dabble in TGEs (Token Generation Events) with more steps.

“Internet Capital Markets” coined by (maybe Akshay BD?), but more recently explained by Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital refers to a new era of permissionless, always-on fundraising and capital allocation, where anyone, anywhere, can launch a coin or token, and anyone else can become an early backer/supporter/collector.

For creators, this means tapping global markets and building fan-owned / collected ecosystems around a shared vision (or meme). Solana is the leader here at the moment, that is where the hot ball of money goes to play and where the more recent breakout consumer crypto apps have launched. Base is the closest competitor at the moment who may have a wedge with farcaster, coinbase wallet and Coinbase’s existing userbase. To be seen on how this plays out. Best to just build and use product in both ecosystems.

Platforms like Echo, pump.fun, Flaunch, Meteora, Clanker, Daosdotworld and DAOs.fun further illustrate how easy it’s becoming to launch, fund, and govern crypto-native brands / ideas.

These launchpads will evolve overtime as the devs behind them see the types of winners that Internet Capital Markets churn out and design their products to more regularly king make. i.e. TikTok king made what felt like a nobody in every small town in America and copycats (Instagram Reels) couldn’t match despite being similar in most ways. Whoever can most regularly king make becomes the place where culture starts and network effects take it from there.

If new product entrants want to capture mindshare but each can carve out market share for specific types of launches with new features and or focus on other ecosystems, they may find something there.

Flaunch, for example, is leveraging Uniswap V4 hooks to auto-buy back tokens with trading fees to align that community and incentivize to hold, if the incumbent loses market share this could become normalized.

Other novel features will also pop up, maybe auto coin buybacks but dev has the choice to have a % of buybacks automatically go toward an existing coin to align established communities with new ones. Maybe a Flaunch style auto-launch that locks liq pools on Base and Solana with an auto-buyback split between the two pools.

Someone will try to kill the incumbent with new features and the market will do its thing to determine if the features warrant migration from the status quo. Though new features are easily replicated by the incumbent w/the advantage of network effects so we’ll see.

Note, this isn’t me picking winners. The most probable outcome is that most of these wither into the ether, but they are a non-exhaustive list of decent shots on goal that I have come across / am building myself. We will categorize these coins into memecoins, brand Coins, IP coins, and no coins.

Many of these will be fleeting but they seem to be among the stickier ones I’ve come across.

• $Higher the token is a Brand Coin on Base that fair launched via tokepad.xyz with little to no utility and higher itself is a headless brand.

• There is a core team, or creators might be a better way of putting it, who co-authored The Higher “Greenpaper” is Jihad Esmail & LGHT.ETH.

• The vibe is inclusive of anyone that wants to better themselves, specifically stating designers, artists, & visual creatives, developers & product minds, writers & speculators,” and really anyone looking to better themselves or something in any way.

• The community has mad a shit ton of up arrow / green optimistic related memes and reaction pics, tools to create and spread these images, merch, and a lot more.

Takeaway for me here is:

A coin can be an effective way to build a headless brand and align a group of people to create new things for it. The token doesn’t need to reach or maintain a billion-dollar market cap (its all-time high was $130M, and it’s currently at $10M). It has lost more than 90% of its value and managed to retain a community that cares and continues to build value.

In the tweet below Jihad lays out why brand coins (higher) have could have legs, saying “Most tokens are prisoners to a meta, bound by fixed narratives that make their way to the next "current thing." Over the last year, we've seen: AI agent coins, data coins, dog coins, Trump family coins, scenecoins – each ebbing and flowing, only to be dropped for the next big thing.”

jihad

@jaesmail

Brand Coins

If attention is all you need, then a token that can shape and amplify the attention on the current thing in a values-aligned way becomes the most valuable asset imaginable.

While other projects must succeed within their defined scope, brand coins can continuously…

107

9:58 AM • Jan 20, 2025

• $MOG or Mogcoin is a “culture coin” with little to no utility, which fair launched on the Ethereum L1 and has since bridged to both Base and Solana.

• Though not dubbed a “brand coin” like Higher did, MOG has established a mascot based on the Joycat emoji 😹 and multiple specific artistic styles (AI generated, comic book-esque drawing above, and original meme making from crypto-native artists in which this Joycat mascot wearing “moggles” or Pit Vipers glasses.

• Key people involved are Kmoney, Batzu, and MikeThree.

• Grassroots & Viral: Originated as a meme on TikTok, $MOG grew a dedicated following by leaning into humor, meme culture, and community in-jokes (e.g., “mogging” the plebs).

$MOG’s rise illustrates how a meme coin can evolve into a robust cultural movement when grassroots engagement leads. MOG has clear look/branding, showing that “culture coins” can secure mainstream attention and adoption without traditional marketing playbooks. MOG focuses on the vibe and MOG as a movement over constantly shilling the token.

• $FWOG was a pump.fun memecoin / IP coin on Solana the token has no utility. Fwog positions itself as a token for fun and cultural value rather than a functional asset.

• Branding, outreach, and future initiatives stem from a loosely organized group of enthusiasts rather than a central team.

• FWOG’s origin on pump.fun and being a Solana-native token sets it in a rare tier of memecoins to reach king of the hill status on pump and holding a high marketcap, despite massive dips recently, the community and artist remain very active.

• The art was created by Wut, who was recently hired by Yuga Labs, adding credibility / staying power of to the Fwog IP/meme in the space.

pump.fun served as the meme king-maker during the recent memecoin mania and while there were a lot of things good, bad, cute, ugly, etc. pump king made this new IP which has maintained a cult-like following despite pretty massive price drops. IP can sustain and even thrive post-mini speculative bubbles, see also our next example, mfers.

• mfers is twofold an nft collection, 10,021-piece NFT collection by @sartoshi_rip. There was a primary mint at 0.069 ETH. The artwork is under CC0 (public domain) licensing, known for its humor and strong community engagement. And later a memecoin; mfercoin, one of the first memecoins/tokens in general on Base associated launched. No presale, initial liquidity (locked for 200 years) from a small token allocation and airdrops to mfers community members (see distribution above) and at mfer.com.

• normal mfer: An animated series by @cc0_studios explores lives of the themes through two characters a boy and a girl who are "terminally online." Created by Alex Orrelle and myself, it expands the "mfer" universe with storytelling and character development.

• CC0 Studios: A production studio building creative worlds from public-domain, crypto-native IP. Partners with platforms like Atrium to produce short films.

• mfers leverage CC0 IP to inspire creative derivatives (like normal mfer, animated mfers, crazies, sketchy mfers, and more). normal mfer is an example of how an NFT IP can evolve past a collectibles into narrative-driven media for all to consume regardless of their knowledge of or ownership of the specific or any NFT, and how Onchain CC0 IP can be hyper efficient culture Legos.

mfers started as an NFT at 0.069 ETH, now sitting around 0.2 ETH, and later spun off into a memecoin, mfercoin, which hit $0.3198 (~$130M market cap) before dropping 97% to $0.0097. Price tanked, but the brand didn’. the NFT still moves, the meme still hits, and the community keeps building.

This is what CC0 and onchain IP do best. mfers isn’t stuck in one format, it’s an NFT, a meme token, an animated series, and whatever else people decide to make next. Market cycles come and go, but mfers are hard to kill and easy to proliferate.

• Bold has to be one of the most thoughtful artists about what he chooses to put onchain. This is especially notable given that he creates in such high quantity. Bold makes comics multiple times a day about current events in the space and mints only a select few, some on Zora as editions others as PFPs he is commissioned to make. I don't even think these are onchain actually.

• His most notable onchain footprint was inscribing 100 1/1 pixel-art PFPs inscribed on Bitcoin making ordinals, thus, the name: “BOLDINALS”

• BOLDINALS minted at 0.01 BTC each via a whitelist or early supporters and prior collectors. Sales on Ethereum NFT marketplaces (for earlier works).

  

Bold’s success in building his character’s IP came in the crypto space despite not having a memecoin or all that many ways to collect his work. Bold shows that there are other ways to build an audience in the space and build a character people love and relate to than price go up.

Ending with the obvious.

• Pudgy Penguins is a recognized Ethereum NFT project noted for playful art and an active community. They’ve built a solid reputation that now supports further expansion.

• $PENGU is a Solana-based token bringing memecoin culture and potential utility into the Penguin universe. This initiative broadens the project’s scope and opportunities.

• By expanding from Ethereum (NFTs) to Solana (token), the project aims to engage different crypto user segments and drive wider adoption.

• Physical toys and apparel have increased brand visibility and provided additional revenue streams.

• Minted at 0.03 ETH each, with active secondary trading. Entrepreneur Luca Netz acquired the brand for roughly $2.5M in ETH, providing more resources for growth.

• $PENGU ****Distributed mainly via airdrop to Pudgy Penguins holders and active community members, creating organic momentum on Solana.

Pudgy Penguins: Ethereum-based NFT collection & $PENGU: Meme/IP token on Solana, with potential future

Pudgy Penguins shows how an NFT brand can operate across chains and media, from collectible tokens to real-world merchandise, while maintaining engagement and revenue. Launching $PENGU on Solana underscores the potential for cross-chain growth when a recognized NFT project ventures into a new network.

internet capital markets lead to internet content empires.

many such cases.

Deadline

@DEADLINE

NFT Collection Pudgy Penguins To Launch YouTube Series

deadline.com

NFT Collection Pudgy Penguins To Launch YouTube Series

Pudgy Penguins, the NFT collection and toy brand, is getting an animated YouTube series.

324

10:00 AM • Feb 27, 2025

Honorable Mentions Include: Azuki, BAYC, DickButts, Claynosaurz, Meet Quack, Cool Cats, Doodles, Sugartown, Bodogos, Kanpai Pandas, Wassies, Nubcat, Nouns, Pizza Ninjas, Quantum Cats, Tensorians, MadLads, Bitcoin Puppets, CryptoPunks, Nakamigos, Tweaks, Franken Punks, Taproot Wizards, Retardio, DeadFellaz, Sappy Seals, Tiny Dinos, RektGuy, Cryptopunks, Meebits, Creatures, Smowls. and of course, Milady.

Disclosures: I hold $mfer, mfers, $pengu, and a Boldinal.

The Status Quo: Souvenir Shop Syndrome

Crypto creatives have gotten into the bad habit of building souvenir shops before rollercoasters. The money has largely been there for the taking, but it’s mostly bread and circuses at the end of the day - eternally chasing the next thing to hype without really having a reason to build what you’re building.

Oh, the narrative is Solana bad because Solana go down - I should become Ethereum-aligned as a way to perform future potential. Oh, the narrative is utility is the be-all and end-all, I should airdrop tokens, fungible and non, to anyone holding my token, diluting the direction of what has meaning within my ecosystem. Oh, the narrative is X so I should write thought pieces on X, and if the narrative is Y I can pivot to writing thought pieces on Y. Or, and how about maybe, you opt to have some semblance of a ball sack, AKA an honest product.

There is nothing inherently wrong about a souvenir shop or even something that borders on a lottery, but when creators disguise souvenir shops as visionary endeavors (an amusement park with state-of-the-art roller coasters) while primarily seeking to capitalize on current trends for a quick buck, you create a dishonest product.

Products that openly position themselves as "souvenir shops" or "lotteries," are necessary, inevitable, play a unique and valuable role in the ecosystem, and like it or not, honest.

Casinos have always had PMF.

These projects do not pretend to offer more than what they are (in their current form); exciting, hype-driven experiences that provide quick thrills, the potential for rapid gains, entertainment value, and even help accelerate the growth of and awareness of a new meme/idea. No user is being misled.

Similarly, if your goal is to crowdfund using crypto-native rails, be honest about that. Alliance’s Crypto Startup Ideas list highlights an example for scientific research in the quote below, explaining how matching risk-seeking crypto capital with speculative ideas is also a big unlock, this is also the case for creative ventures. Creatives should leap at the crypto industry for this very reason, but they stay at arm’s length because the amount of dishonest creative crypto products have vastly outnumbered the honest ones.

“One of the biggest problems plaguing scientific communities is the lack of funding. And the lack of funding stems from the risky and speculative nature of scientific discoveries. On the other hand, crypto capital is risk-seeking, open-minded to new speculative ideas, and abundant. The idea is to match the two groups.

A "souvenir shop" in the context of the crypto creative space refers to projects and initiatives that are built primarily to capitalize on immediate hype and trends, without a strong foundational vision or long-term value prop. These projects often prioritize short-term gains over sustainable growth and meaningful impact.

• Do they tweet low-effort content?

• Do they extract engagement or add to a conversation?

• Do they have a stated mission?

• Can you quickly identify a stated mission as bullshit?

• Do the actions of the team contradict the mission?

• Is their roadmap just the 🔜 emoji?

• Does their communications strategy drastically change when price go up / down?

• Do team members talk about price more than product?

• Does the founder take screenshots of market cap more than they ship features?

• Do they shift buzzwords & tag lines to fit “the current thing?”

This is not to say a bet on a souvenir shop can’t hit, but Jesus Christ just build something honest and believe in something other than the existence of a greater fool.

A "rollercoaster" in this context represents a project or initiative that is built with a strong foundational vision and designed to provide meaningful experiences to its audience. These projects focus on long-term engagement, innovation, and genuine value creation.

• Do they have a clear and inspiring long-term vision?

• Is their vision reflected in every aspect of their work?

• Can you easily understand their core mission?

• Do their actions align with that mission?

• Are they actively engaging with their audience beyond superficial interactions?

• Do they create content that sparks meaningful conversations?

• Is their growth strategy focused on long-term sustainability?

• Are they prioritizing quality over quick wins?

• Are they consistently bringing innovative ideas to the table?

• Do they anticipate trends and proactively adapt?

I see cc0 studios evolving into a creative studio that lives on the frontier of crypto content creation, experimenting with novel nft/memecoin/onchain music/media etc. minting tools and platforms. But, first, we have to earn it. As Luca Netz would say, “create value before you ask for it back.”

https://x.com/LucaNetz/status/1794461210458325264

Because we believe the future of content creation and consumption will be onchain, tokenized, and increasingly more speculative, we are building our amusement park first, roller coasters in the form of TV shows, Instagram reels, TikTok videos, GIFs, comics, games, IRL film screenings, art galleries, and rooting this content in internet/crypto culture. We become a crypto-native content machine that has earned the right to thoughtfully experiment with financialized products.

Think of it as if Kevin Rose just took his own money and made cool shit before selling you pictures of birds instead of selling you pictures of birds and quitting. We will win, not because we are curious and want to experiment with onchain IP and forms of content creation, but because we spent time laying a foundation for these experiments.

Because we are taking the time to build on existing web2 and crypto infra, we can pick our moments and experiment in a way where there is no question that we created value before asking for it back.

Learn more about the amusement park we’re building below. 👇

Want to help fund this initiative? DM @0xlawl on Twitter / @lawl on Warpcast

https://mirror.xyz/0x0aA54D91A27C8DE32F61677C3ca958692fB8fc5e/tDa36QCdIpzdp4Kow1--WHPa1H7nsNZZG7VDWusK180

Intro: Why Decentralized Disney Didn't Catch On

Last cycle, both retail investors and VCs latched onto the idea that crypto could give birth to a "decentralized Disney." Despite many a seed check and high hopes, this vision hasn't materialized. Why?

Sure, bad UX, high transaction fees, slow speeds, and lacking infrastructure played a part. But the main point of failure is failing to realize that the foundation for a decentralized Disney already exists, thriving on the internet through the rapid spread of memes.

Gen Z is desperate for a show in their language - the language of internet culture. The 3 guys 3 girls in their 20s trying to make it in NYC meta is kinda fucking played out my guy.

Doge, Wojak (Feels Guy), Chad, Giga Chad, Trad Girl, Soyjack, Doomer, NPC, Zoomer Wojak, Virgin Wojak, dogwifhat, Popcat, Pepe the Frog, the Are ya winning, son dad and son, Schizo, Yes Chad, Midwit, LoFi Girl, Simple Jack, Retardio, Milady, Intellectual Chad, etc.

The amount of characters and derivatives of characters the internet produces has no limit and is increasing exponentially in every direction (good, bad, ugly, left, right, wholesome, extremist, hyper-financialized, etc).

We don't need to create new intellectual property (IP). Instead, we need to curate the organic, beloved communities and visual languages that already exist. Memes are the backbone of Internet culture, and their decentralized nature embodies the spirit of crypto. We don’t need to invent new IP. And we certainly don’t need to let hundreds of people slow down the creative process.

What we need to do, is curate existing, organically developed, and beloved communities.

Look no further than the diagrams below to see that there’s no shortage of character and content creation/development.

While decentralizing the creative process promotes diverse contributions, it often results in fragmentation and inconsistency. A centralized curator (in this case I propose CC0 Studios fills this role) can manage these contributions, ensuring a unified vision and maintaining quality control. This approach pulls from the strengths of decentralized creativity while providing the structure needed for coherent and marketable content.

By centralizing curation, we can streamline communication and ensure a more cohesive final product. You don’t want to fall victim to the too many cooks scenario.

CC0 Studios and normal mfer aim to leverage existing Internet and crypto-native memes and intellectual property to craft content that speaks the language of the Internet. By living at the intersection of internet-native culture and crypto-native meme culture, we will create a library of hyper-spreadable and shareable online content. This strategy, backed by communities with aligned financial incentives (for example, if you own an mfer NFT or the $mfer coin why wouldn’t you share the normal mfer GIFs?), seeks to bring these characters to the masses, bringing about a new wave of digital culture with both creative and economic benefits.

We dive further into the idea of CC0 NFT IP as hyper-efficient culture Legos in the article below.

https://mirror.xyz/0x0aA54D91A27C8DE32F61677C3ca958692fB8fc5e/EPuZQk84D5cvkcqSWmO-4PVDctjWeUl2-obGPBXCb9U

The future of entertainment isn't about creating a new Disney, it's about recognizing and nurturing the decentralized Disney that's already here. By curating and animating the vibrant meme communities that thrive online, we can create a new paradigm of entertainment that's high-quality and rooted in internet culture.

For a look behind the scenes at the universe cc0studios is building check out the video below and follow us on Twitter @cc0_studios.

Want to help fund this initiative? DM @0xlawl on Twitter / @lawl on Warpcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzXcT_rTpUQ&t=3s

From Money to Culture Legos

Popular among those emersed in DeFi narrative-driven meme-making, the term “Money Legos” is used to easily visualize the first principle of composability. It maps a seemingly unapproachable subject for most noobs, decentralized apps (dApps) built on blockchain rails) onto something almost every 4-year-old understands (Legos). Onchain composability isn’t restricted to moneyness, some of the best examples of onchain composability are non-financial. It applies to anything built with the intention to be combined in a way that is independent but also can function seamlessly together.

I am, as you might have guessed based on the title of this piece, talking about public domain intellectual property and the user-generated content (UGC) that has been and will be created using it.

Just as financial protocols on the blockchain can be pieced together like Legos to create new, innovative financial products, CC0 IP assets can be combined, modified, and built upon to tell new stories, reach different audiences, build new worlds, and churn out the next generation of dank memes.

CC0 IP is the most future-proof and exponentially growing horse in the race.

• The Base Layer (The Blockchain)

  • Where the sausage gets made. There is no onchain IP without the chain itself. The base layer is identical to that in the “money Lego” example.

    Having your IP on something as hardened as an immutable ledger gives that IP a certain “content permanence.” I know A wallet signed B transaction in C block, that’s the original. I also see that X wallet signed Y transaction in Z block at a later time, that’s the derivative.

• CC0 IP Assets

  • The ERC-20 token standard maps pretty obviously onto his less fungible sibling token standards ERC-721 and ERC-1155 and their non-Ethereum equivalents. This is where the first instance of IP tends to take place, be it within a 10k PFP collection like mfers, or a 1 of 1 like Grant Riven Yun’s “Cow.”

• Content Platforms and Derivative Works

  • Once the IP has been thought up, put onchain, and placed into the public domain - if the IP resonates with people, the IP will be reimagined in different styles and mediums at a rate a centralized entity could not keep up with. A process which not too long ago I dubbed “the mfer effect.”

https://twitter.com/0xLawl/status/1611092698638737443?s=20

Below is one (there are many) concrete example of the “mfer effect” and the culture Lego thesis playing out.

Vitalik Creates Ethereum → ERC-721 Token Standard is created → Sartoshi creates the 10k PFP collection “mfers” → Heresmy creates “mfer avatars” → mfers are playable characters in the newly launched UGC-focused game “Nifty Island” → another mfer builds an island that reached the top 50 in global popularity

https://x.com/Nifty_Island/status/1716888351952023800?s=20

Many such cases.

“No! Look at Pudgy Penguins! You’re shilling your bag the only model for an NFT collection to be successful and reach a broader audience is to do what Pudgy Penguins is doing!”

Luca Netz who is in a league of his own and an absolute fucking monster, along with Pudgy Penguins are the exception, not the rule, and even he saw the value in tapping into the Nouns community (one of the most well-known CC0 NFT IPs) when he proposed a collab.

https://x.com/LucaNetz/status/1721921588096835822?s=20

Below see the two short films produced by CC0 Studios. Here you can see the blending of multiple onchain CC0 IPs in one animated world. A living onchain reflection of the culture legos we mentioned to begin.

https://youtu.be/VOWSQwsVGTA?si=Pcmr2EoLRvOpXQ1e

Here is another example of the “mfer effect” and the culture Lego thesis playing out in the second film above:

Vitalik Creates Ethereum → ERC-721 Token Standard is Created → Sartoshi Creates the 10k PFP collection “mfers” → Studio TBD makes an mfer inspired THC product “mini mellow mfers” → CC0 Studios produces crypto-native CC0 IP → Studio TBD and CC0 Studios hop on a call and drum up a positive sum idea where mini mellow mfers will be featured in the latest CC0 Studios short film and CC0 Studios will be given an affiliate link and take X% of sales generated through said link…

Here it is if you’re feeling spicy 👉 tbdshop.io?aff=9

Why is onchain CC0 IP hyper-efficient?

• Even with a great key man comes key man risk. A concept, mleejr described well in a tweet one time…

  “mfers have no ceo, ruler, or king…no key man risk. mfers dont have centralized entity execution risk…meaning there isnt a company calling the shots about what to do and build with mfers.. mfers are the utility…its like a cryptopunk but you can build whatever you want with it.”

  Most well-known art in the public domain gets its IP designation from copyright expiration but if that story, painting, character, or meme, was initially placed in the public domain, the proliferation would get a giant head start.

  If initially placed in the public domain, the art itself is less connected to any potential negative actions from the artist. This is especially notable in the crypto space where people love to over-promise and under-deliver on highly speculative assets and in a world where cancel culture looms large.

• If you are beholden to someone you can’t operate without the influence of that person. In crypto, this “person” is often a VC or angel investor. While they may be well-intentioned, their job is the make a return on their investment not proliferate dank memes (regrettably). While each party’s goals may be able to be accomplished simultaneously, the potential for conflicts of interest that stymie juicy and holistic memetic goodness are almost infinitely more likely to exist.

• If you make no promises you can not break one. Promises in this context relate more to promises made to your “community” (a term in crypto so overused at this point I want to blow my brains out) than to a VC.

  If Bored Apes don’t build a metaverse, or build one that’s lackluster, or build one that just doesn’t meet the expectations of one particularly loud “community member,” you could be fucked.

  If DeGods bridge to a chain at the wrong time, or DeGods don’t bridge back at the right time, or DeGods don’t bridge to the chain of choice of one particularly loud “community member,” you could be fucked.

  If Moonbirds restrict IP rights, or if Moonbirds make their IP CC0, or if one particularly loud “community member” wants to make everyone else’s IP CC0, but restrict their own so they can start an obscure on-demand merch printing store…you could be fucked.

• Blockchain is hard to kill so its native IP will be too. A blockchain’s inherent resilience and decentralized nature make it exceptionally difficult to alter or erase. This means that once IP is recorded onchain, it gains a level of permanence and protection against tampering that traditional forms of IP storage cannot match. That is if the IP is onchain and not just uploaded to IPFS.

• More/New proliferation incentives exist onchain than offchain. As highlighted by Qiao in Alliance’s Crypto Startup Ideas piece, tokens can serve as a continuous prediction market for real-world events.

  Most people want continuous, unlimited upside. They don’t want to be limited by discrete, binary outcomes, which is the case in traditional prediction markets. We believe truly crypto-native prediction markets are actually meme coins in the form of plain-vanilla fungible tokens, like $BIDEN and $TRUMP.

  In this case, the market at hand relates to politics, and the coins are fungible but, these memecoins can just as easily relate to art and be non-fungible.

  You have a monetary incentive to proliferate and create. And if there are no IP restrictions on how you can proliferate or create you are more likely to do just that.

• If you don’t define what you’ve made, or how to use it, people will make what they want. Perhaps best understood through the prevalence of the mantra better to ask for forgiveness than permission within Silicon Valley circles and other communities on the frontier of innovation, if you eliminate all barriers in the innovation or creation process you are more likely to innovate and create.

• Steal like an artist. I guess this section is just citing popular phrases to make my argument for me, but popular phrases are popular for a reason. No one says, to restrict IP like a businessman when trying to make cool shit, Zuck aside perhaps. If artists are going to steal anyway, why not just embrace it?

• “All fiction is fan-fiction” was a phrase used often by Francesca Coppa, a professor of mine, that really hammers home the silliness of IP restrictions in a world where people do what they want anyway. Harry Potter is just some fan-fiction of Lord of the Rings and James Bond with some magic. And given the accelerating pace at which we all consume and create content, our ideas are more meshed together today than ever. So, unless you are specifically taking the Luca Netz approach (good luck champ)…why not just make your work CC0 🤷‍♂️

• CC0 IP is more likely to represent the everyman. If you can represent everyone the path to becoming a Veblen good might not be fast, but your path to becoming a household name may be. Case in point there are countless crypto founders and Influencers who refer to their communities as mfers in addition to the project they founded or use as their identity.

  This is not a slight by the way, rather I think it shows just how engaged these folks are with their target audience. The fact that mfer had a meaning before the NFT collection isn’t lost on me either, but it’s hard to ignore how seamlessly this everyman character makes it into every community’s vernacular. It would seem mfers live rent free in the collective mind of brypto bird app for some reason.

• Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the proliferation. While the late Charlie Munger may not approve of his quotes being adapted to speak highly of onchain activity, the quote is highly relevant. The proliferation of onchain CC0 IP is accelerated by the existence of a speculative token. “SpeCUlaTioN bAD!” No, in the case of CC0 IP and onchain IP more broadly, the existence of a token that can be speculated on crates a realizable upside if the community builds something people find value in.

  In recent years, technology has progressed to a point that it has abstracted away tedious or even dangerous parts of life that had previously been considered normal. Just 100 years ago air conditioning was rare in the west, today it is business as usual. As society becomes more and more conditioned to these advancements given to us by technology and the risk-takers who made them, we have begun to operate under the illusion that comfort is freedom, and engaging in industries or technology with an upside or downside is in some way taboo. Yet, gambling is increasingly pushed on us. We can’t watch TV for more than 5 minutes without having Kevin Hart push a risky parlay down our throats. That’s predatory and fucked up. It’s as if we are being told to strictly take risks to have fun instead of taking risks to improve the world. If we want to try to build something of use, or creative that has a speculative aspect to it, this illusion of “comfort as freedom” steps in and paralyzes us from building cool/useful shit.

  Comfort is not freedom. Freedom is freedom. Don’t be paralyzed, speculation is a feature, not a bug.

• Everything Everywhere All at Once - When something is onchain, transparent, composable, and immutable, its permanence safeguards the work against censorship or alteration and establishes a perpetual, open-source artillery of creative assets that can continuously inspire new creations. In other words, they are hyper-efficient culture Legos.

  CC0 IP is the most future-proof and exponentially growing horse in the race.

End of blog. Thanks for your time motherfucker.

P.S. Thank you to Anaroth, and David Hoffman for their feedback on drafts of this piece and to Bold Leonidas for illustrating the cover image.

That being said - a collector should be able to collect if they want to. So, to appeal to the wide range of folks both already onboarded into web3 and those who are not, who may fall on any point of the spectrum of willingness to spend money on a jpeg/mp4, we have created multiple nft creation streams for different types of collectors.

First, we will leverage Zora’s creator rewards program. This platform enables fans to acquire unique content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and special moments at negligible costs (fancy speak for Free). While a significant portion of the NFT sector extracts substantial value from their fanbase, Zora’s reward system permits creators like us to benefit incrementally, all while ensuring that the fan, collector, or consumer can acquire content with minimal financial strain. Frankly, we're not sure why this isn't the industry standard.

Read more:

https://support.zora.co/en/articles/8192123-understanding-protocol-rewards-on-zora

We recognized the challenge gas fees presented, especially when targeting the "every collector" and those that have yet to mint their first NFT - the bounce rate when someone sees a $50+ gas fee is a metric I'm afraid to know. Hence, for these free mints, we opted for an ETH L2 solution, Base.

Put plainly - that's where the collectors are, and while we're open to exploring other chains in the future, our current approach leans into what our audience knows best.

While part of the decision was just gut, Base's strong affiliation with the Nouns DAO community resonated with us, especially considering our aligned values rooted in the value of CC0 IP.

We understand and value the influence of 1/1 art collection curators. Not just for their financial contributions, but more importantly, for their role as industry trendsetters and tastemakers.

With this in mind, we're launching exclusive auctions for 1/1 NFTs of each episode. The proceeds will be channeled into producing the subsequent short film to "cow." it will feature OSF’s "RektGuy" and Grant Riven Yun and Andrew Mitchell’s “Primera.”

To understand the idea further, take a look at the 2x2 matrix below.

https://zora.co/cc0studios.eth

Don't want to do either of those things? That's cool too and we're happy you're following our content.

To demonstrate this commitment, CC0 Studios has partnered with Atrium, to produce a series of short films and social shorts leveraging their network of artists and creators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n54RGMtp444&t=10s

Reimagining the Crypto-Native Narrative: CC0 Studios endeavors to push beyond the current speculative scope of crypto-native content. Harnessing the power of public domain, crypto-native intellectual property, our mission is to establish brands that prioritize art and storytelling over financial speculation, believing in the long run, creative games tend to be positive-sum games.

CC0, or "Creative Commons Zero," refers to a public domain license where creators have relinquished all their copyright and related rights in their works. This means anyone can use, modify, and share the content for any purpose, even commercially. Still curious? Read this: NEW FAQ ON NFTS AND CC0

See also Punk 6529’s thread on the subject.

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1611999180117118978?s=20

Leveraging CC0 intellectual property (IP) provides a unique advantage to creators, it's akin to having a launch pad that's already been built. Instead of grappling with the challenges highlighted in Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One,” you're beginning from an established vantage point.

When sculpting brands from CC0 sources, there's the invaluable asset of pre-existing communities at your disposal. Such communities are treasure troves of enthusiastic, committed members who not only actively consume content but are also often driven to champion and amplify it further. The uphill battle many nascent brands face in attracting an initial following is substantially eased in this setup.

Consider the potential of intertwining multiple CC0 communities to create a singular, expansive brand universe — much like what CC0 Studios envisions.

Reaching that coveted milestone of 1,000 true fans might not be as prolonged a journey for those leveraging CC0 IP as it would be for brands building their identity from the ground up.

• Culturally Aware: In the world of crypto, being culturally tuned is essential. Atrium recognizes the nuances of the crypto community and caters to them, but not in a way that would alienate a non-crypto-native audience.

• Decentralized and Transparent: Collaborating mostly in channels like Discourse, Discord, and various DAO governance channels Atrium has a history of building in public.

• Pulling from talent that exists all over the world, Atrium makes it easier to connect with those artists and find the animation style that matches a producer’s vision.

• Atrium has experience building out high-quality crypto-native cc0 IP with their work on the Nouns Movie.

  Nouns DAO has funded its first feature-length animated film, The Rise of Blus: A Nouns Movie, which features popular NFT characters from the Nouns community. This marks the first-ever animated movie to be funded by a DAO. The film is produced by Atrium, an animation studio and network of independent artists and creators who have previously worked with Pixar, Netflix, and Marvel. - Nouns DAO and Atrium Launch First Animated Movie Funded by a DAO via NFT Now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTk3pgPOu4g&t=7s

“With some inspiration from Studio A24, Atrium is focused on creating artist equity. Not just providing people a new opportunity to create, but for artists to feel empowered to do their best work.” - Supriyo, Atrium Founder

“One of my favorite things about Atrium is seeing people begin to believe that more is possible. I’m a firm believer that creating changes you, and I am glad that people are having that experience.” - Anaroth, Atrium Head of Community

Also, learn how Atrium’s 3D Print Guy is bringing Grant Riven Yun’s “Cow” to life.

https://atriumdotart.substack.com/p/behind-the-scenes-with-cc0-studios?r=1g9rxo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

i’ve always really connected with the “mfer” character - one of the older and more resilient cc0 crypto-native brands derived from the popular “are ya winning, son" meme.

their creator, sartoshi, once said:

“you can state a roadmap that says where you will go, but you can also plant seeds and see where they grow” - via Twitter and in “what are mfers”

https://mirror.xyz/sartoshi.eth/QukjtL1076-1SEoNJuqyc-x4Ut2v8_TocKkszo-S_nU

cc0 Studios is the natural next evolution of mfer.world, a previous series of animated shorts i produced focusing solely on the mfer character. i hope cc0 studios proves to be a seed growing into something people love.

take a look at the past work below.

Follow the project on X at @cc0_studios, @atriumnft, @0xlawl, and learn more at cc0studios.com.

If you’re an artist or producer interested in collaborating please contact us on X or the Atrium Discord.