In 2017, D’Angelo Russell attempted to prank his teammate Nick Young by recording him when he was talking about cheating on his fiancee. Naturally the video leaked; Iggy Azalea left Young and Russell’s teammates started to shun him. Russell was not an authority in the incident, he was a participant. Despite his lack of ability to enforce what might be considered “justice” in this scenario, his veillance provided information that led to consequences. Azalea used the information that Russell created to enforce her sense of justice.

https://www.sbnation.com/2016/3/30/11330390/dangelo-russell-nick-young-tape-iggy-azalea-cheating

The Many Types of Veillance

Whenever I mention sousveillance, people think that I am making it up. I’m not. It’s a real term and like many other concepts in science and technology studies makes a ton of sense once you understand it. By defining the term, we are able to discuss it working from a shared understanding.

https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1254014397539930112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1254014397539930112%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fgaborgurbacs%2Fstatus%2F1254014397539930112image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Sousveillance is most often associated with wearable technologies that allow citizens to record their interaction with authorities. I posit that the veillance that we participate in and benefit from in online communities is being pioneered at scale in crypto communities. While this type of veillance does not fall into the common definition that relies on wearables, it is certainly not sur-veillance when NFTethics tweets about a lot of VCs buying Moonbirds.

Surveillance is to view from above. Sousveillance is to view from below. Metaveillance is the watching of the watchers or the veillance of veillance — it identifies who and what is watching and the depth or range of their access.

https://twitter.com/Hydraulist/status/776391252526837760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E776391252526837760%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fhydraulist%2Fstatus%2F776391252526837760image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Since we don’t have strict legal guidelines for much of what we are doing on-chain, we lack a sense of regulation. Due to the public nature of our on-chain behaviors, however, veillance is highly possible. Public blockchain explorers allow citizens to track the moves of known entities on-chain. While we lack official authorities to use this veillance to enforce regulations, we as community members are more empowered than ever to act on shared veillance as sovereign individuals.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1437945031697084417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1437945031697084417%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1437945031697084417image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

What will decentralized veillance look like and are we experiencing it now?

DeVeil & Regulation in Crypto

Sousveillance suggests a distrust in the surveyors. It’s not quite to the level of inverse surveillance — agenda driven sousveillance — but it still suggests a lack of faith or trust in the watchers. Surveyors, due to their granted authority, have an important say in the truth of what happened. Those with access to information and enforcement can inflict meaningful consequences upon those with less access to information.

Trusting any one single surveyor is highly antithetical to the ethos of crypto and web3. It would be more palatable to have a variety of trusted sources that can act as surveyors and provide both redundancy and varying perspectives.

In this type of system, many oracles or surveyors are respected and trusted. The respect or trust given to these oracles exists on a spectrum — and likely on a spectrum for each individual at a specific point in time. The value that you give to the New York Times’ coverage of a local issue is likely different than their coverage of an issue that goes against their editorial bias.

Next I want to explore the state of decentralized regulation and decentralized veillance in crypto. We’ll start with social implementations and then move to technical implementations.

NFT Ethics

https://twitter.com/NFTethics/status/1518301410500268032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1518301410500268032%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fnftethics%2Fstatus%2F1518301410500268032image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

NFTethics is one of the most well known (and in my personal opinion least respected) surveyors of NFT actor behavior. The account hunts down perceived bad actors or at least attempts to provide insights to the behind the scenes of various NFT projects and their participants.

zachxbt

https://twitter.com/zachxbt/status/1443583283648872464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1443583283648872464%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fzachxbt%2Fstatus%2F1443583283648872464image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

zachxbt is probably the most well respected surveyor in crypto. If you do something malicious on-chain you better be looking over your shoulder for zach. Through a mix of on and off-chain analysis, zach identifies scammers and bad actors in the space. I highly recommend reviewing his work.

web3 is going just great & molly0xFFF

https://twitter.com/web3isgreat/status/1518610051388354561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1518610051388354561%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fweb3isgreat%2Fstatus%2F1518610051388354561image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

web3 is going just great is an account and media syndicate run by Molly White. Many of the veillance or publication of veillance performed by web3 is going just great is agenda driven. It’s an almost anti-crypto media outlet that gathers information about actors and mishaps.

This account and media outlet has been catching a lot of negative attention from crypto proponents but I want to take a moment to shout out Molly for being incredibly based.

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1519458294422818816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1519458294422818816%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fmolly0xfff%2Fstatus%2F1519458294422818816image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

She may be anti-crypto and she may hold values that differ from yours, but she is a highly effective communicator and operator. She is likely more technical than you (especially if you’ve gotten this far reading my gibberish lol) and she is providing an important service to the crypto and extended community around the incidents in web3 that are not going great.

Token Lists

Swinging back to technical implementations, we have a couple things to explore. The first one is an existing implementation and the second one is conceptual.

Token lists are a common way to determine the authenticity of a token on a decentralized exchange. Anyone can create a liquidity pool and anyone could swap in a malicious pool. Token lists create a way for us to limit the pools presented to us on a DEX.

Various sources of truth are offered. Each source maintains its own processes for data upkeep and receive their own levels of respect and trust from individuals. Once a token is added to the list, it becomes available to individuals that trust the list. Individuals retain permission to override lists, but communal recognition of a token address and list placement increases likelihood of token usage.

NFT Metadata

I’m out of my league on this one but I’m gonna swing at it anyway.

https://twitter.com/mattdesl/status/1484240301887787019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1484240301887787019%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fmattdesl%2Fstatus%2F1484240301887787019image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Twitter’s foray into crypto has been enjoyable — from the sidelines. As a user, it leaves a lot to be desired. One of the headline features allows users to link their wallet to their account and to display an NFT as their pfp. Twitter’s implementation of this feature is highly dependent on OpenSea’s API. Many of us would like to decrease reliance on OpenSea — creating a variety of redundant and differing providers. These providers might compete for interactivity (LOOKS vs. OpenSea) or as data providers. In this case, I am focused on data access. Data providers act as oracles — they provide a source of truth for various viewers.

Wouldn’t Twitters implementation of NFT pfps be stronger with redundant data sourcing that allowed for a variety of interpretations of that data? Should “stolen” NFTs be available for use as a profile photo? Should OpenSea or Twitter be the authority on that?

More layers of verification, more oracles, more transparency — this is how we decentralize veillance.

Reject Standards

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1355173796018184198?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1355173796018184198%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fbalajis%2Fstatus%2F1355173796018184198image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

It’s always about the meta — the watching of watching and the measuring of measuring. Citizens can band together to create new standards and citizens can then tear those down in their iterative process. Reject rejections and question the questioners. Truth is subjective.

prefer chaos

0x492966CA0Dda088C524680f34e0093f10BeFB262

Fungibility

NFTs are non-fungible tokens. There are two important pieces to that term:

• Non-fungible

• Token

To understand what is not fungible, we must first understand what is fungible! Fungibility describes whether or not an item can be exchange for another similar item without value being transferred. Dollars are a fantastic example of a tangible asset that is fungible. We can exchange dollars without any value being transferred. Bitcoin and Ether are example of intangible assets that are fungible, if we both send each other 1 ETH then no value transfer occurred (other than gas and taxable events and blah blah blah).

Non-fungible assets are all around us. Our homes, cars, clothes, and many other tangible possessions are non-fungible. If you took your child’s favorite stuffed animal away and exchanged it with another one, would they care? We, as humans, are non-fungible. Frankly, the list of non-fungible things is much longer than the list of fungible things. Another way to think about whether something is non-fungible is to ask if it is unique. Unique items are not fungible, they have characteristics that increase or decrease their value when compared to other similar items.

tldr: non-fungible = unique

To understand what it means for something to be tokenized is a greater hurdle for normies. Tokenization is the path to composability.

https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1451703067213066244?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1451703067213066244%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcdixon%2Fstatus%2F1451703067213066244image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

In 2011, Marc Andreessen told us that software would eat the world. It’s happening now. Composability enables software to build upon itself and upon other software. Standards have been created and adopted that allow tokens to move in and out of many different smart contracts to create other tokens or to execute specific functions. When an asset is tokenized, it gains access to a nearly unlimited ecosystem of places that it can be placed into.

A normie way to think about composability may be to consider how a physical dollar can be placed into various spaces to achieve desired outcomes. A dollar can be placed into a vending machine to access a soda or into the hands of a bellhop to signal appreciation. The dollar has many potential spots and due to all of the places it can be used, it is highly liquid. Tokenization allows composability, composability can enable liquidity for tokens.

tldr: tokenization = highly composable

So what’s an NFT?

It’s a highly composable and unique item.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1525703191437971461?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525703191437971461%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1525703191437971461image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Current Common Conception of NFTs

How many more times am I going to have to use BAYC as the emblem of what people think NFTs are? At this point, it’s the most high-profile collection and it embodies everything that people think of when you mention NFTs.

JPEG Summer was a blast for those involved. We day traded pictures and speculated on pictures and in the up only market we accepted the limitations of the implementations. Conceptualizing NFTs as pictures, however, short changes the developers operating in the space and the range of potential use cases for tokenizing non-fungible assets.

At the end of the day, normies think that NFTs are pictures and they think we are all pretty f-ing stupid for placing so much value on a piece of bad digital art. The most common pushback from NFT believers will sound like “community” and “utility” and I’ll take a moment to say that I think you are pretty f-ing stupid if that’s your best case for NFT technology.

You can’t just say “utility” and “community” and increase the realness or value of a piece of digital art (at least not anymore). Those concepts need to be unpacked and discussed explicitly to communicate the value associated. Similar to my pushback against the branding of “Music NFTs”, I urge you to not fall back to using “community” or “utility” to justify NFTs. You need to actually explain to others what that community is or does and what the utility is or grants access to.

https://mirror.xyz/0x581BEf12967f06f2eBfcabb7504fA61f0326CD9A/rvQKd4WCjUJ2RKm5zr34p5i9teBkgZj0ja3D87mBGYI

Novel Implementations

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1436473427813142545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1436473427813142545%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1436473427813142545image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Despite the generally uninformed view of NFTs held by most, there have been some incredible products that utilize non-fungible token technology to do truly innovative things.

Identity: ENS, On-Chain Credentials, & Getting Disco-Pilled

Ethereum Name Service is one of the oldest issuers of non-fungible tokens that stepped beyond the buy/sell pictures archetype of NFTs. Users can use ENS to buy .eth names that allow others to send tokens to them without needing to remember a 42 character alphanumeric string. For example you could send tokens to danner.eth without needing to remember my 42 character public key. Having a .eth makes your public address feel more human and applies a layer of identity to these 0xNames that are easy to forget.

Despite doing a lil dunking on the simpler NFTs, I would be remiss to note that digital identity in web3 spaces is highly informed by on-chain holdings and that pfps matter.

https://twitter.com/adriyoung/status/1486946582721269762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1486946582721269762%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fadriyoung%2Fstatus%2F1486946582721269762image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

ENS and public key usage in digital identity could go even further if we could like web2 behaviors to our public keys. These interactions don’t necessarily need to be on-chain to be associated with our on-chain identifiers.

An individual’s identity extends beyond their on-chain identity. It is made up of on and off-chain identifiers that come together to provide varying windows into self.

Some organizations have been exploring the usage of soulbound NFTs to demonstrate identifiers such as proof of humanity or proof of skill. Both Rabbithole and Drepute fall into this category.

Disco presents an alternative vision of the digital future and exemplifies the importance of nuance in the discussions that occur at the fringe.

https://mirror.xyz/0x581BEf12967f06f2eBfcabb7504fA61f0326CD9A/ttrHTYqHo3322pCfTJOVd39IpqL3UcVwXJuef4NtDc0

Check out this post for a broader overview of the identity space in web3.

https://twitter.com/dommydoteth/status/1525528169339559940?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525528169339559940%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdommydoteth%2Fstatus%2F1525528169339559940image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Unique Financial Positions: Uniswap v3 & On-Chain Cold Storage

Uniswap v3 is the most widely known example of using non-fungible tokens to represent a unique financial position. Historically, liquidity providers create a market across all price ranges. In Uniswap V3, liquidity providers can set a range that they want to provide liquidity within and receive an NFT that represents that position. That NFT could then be fractionalized using something like Fractional — it takes on the composable attributes of a token.

For more on Uniswap v3 check out Finematics or this post that I wrote last year.

Unique financial position represented through NFTs feel highly under explored. True Freeze creates an on-chain OTC marketplace for tokens. Through offering on-chain cold storage, market participants can trade baskets of tokens without incurring slippage or impacting the liquidity in pools.

https://twitter.com/charliemktplace/status/1511331284391505922?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1511331284391505922%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcharliemktplace%2Fstatus%2F1511331284391505922image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Access as an Asset: LinksDAO, GodMode, & Tokenized SaaS

One of the most interesting syndicate style DAO launches of 2021 was a group that sought to purchase and operate a golf course. LinksDAO launched an NFT that they used to raise funds and allows members to access the eventually purchased golf-course or other events hosted by the organization.

In a similar vein, Poolsuite launched a curated events and experiences NFT that allows holder to access private events or VIP lines at public events. These NFTs strike me as a headless country club memberships. Holders get access to a set of other likeminded individuals and curated events. The value of the NFT is not the photo or brand associated with the token, it’s the access to in-person events. Unlike a traditional membership fee that is paid while a participant is accessing a club, these memberships are owned and can be sold by members.

This type of phenomena is starting to play out in the digital access space as well. Traditionally, users of SaaS products pay a monthly fee for access and can cancel their memberships when they no longer desire access to the product.

Flipside Crypto is launching an NFT that acts like a Fast Pass for users and enables them expanded and priority access to offerings. At Flipside Crypto, analytics bounties are released to the public and are subsequently claimed within minutes. Those who get a claim, earn by learning and analysts can easily earn over $1000 each week by completing bounties. The NFT launched by Flipside will enable holders to claim any Flipside bounty regardless of it being over claimed. Anyone can get in line, but this token ensures that you get on the ride — similar to holding a Poolsuite NFT in a VIP line next to others who may not have the NFT.

https://twitter.com/flipsidecrypto/status/1521941544135241728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1521941544135241728%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fflipsidecrypto%2Fstatus%2F1521941544135241728image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Note: I am employed by Flipside Crypto

It seems natural to envision this type of tokenized digital access model expanding to SaaS products. A service provider may only be able to service X clients at a time and instead of managing who has access, they could issue X access tokens and allow holders to use, sell, rent, or insert these access tokens into number of composable contracts. These tokenized memberships could define SLA terms, enable data providers to manage load in new ways, or to simply add another lego to the pile and increase the optionality that we experience in highly composable environments.

Redeemable Tokens & Unisocks

https://twitter.com/mikedemarais/status/1523491801860292609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1523491801860292609%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fmikedemarais%2Fstatus%2F1523491801860292609image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Another class of existing NFTs are those which represent real world items. Unisocks are an ERC20 tokens (fungible) and benefit from the increased composability around fungible tokens compared to non-fungible tokens. That’s not to say that non-fungible token implementations won’t have more options than fungible tokens in the future but based on development trajectories it is the case now. Thankfully, we can convert fungible tokens into non-fungible representations and non-fungible tokens into fungible representations…

What’s Possible?

NFTs aren’t pictures. They are highly composable and unique representations that can act as inputs in a variety of situations, can provide access to digital and physical goods, services, or experiences.

What isn’t possible?

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I studied Science and Technology Studies in university. It’s a strange field that explores the history and philosophy of knowledge and technology. Professors in the science and technology field are obsessed with the history of the bicycle and combining concepts that have no reason to exist together. There’s a lot of discussion of pseudoscience in STS and on how using realities or frameworks from one discipline to understand another can be dangerous and have no value. Candidly, it’s a field full of pseudoscience, contradictions, and defining obvious concepts — I wouldn't have wanted to study anything else. A background in STS is helpful when dealing with the interdisciplinary aspects of cryptographic technologies, macro & micro economic markets, and endless psyops.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1525703275970015232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525703275970015232%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1525703275970015232image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

In this piece we’re going to throw out all respect for reality and participate in a little pseudoscience and psyops ourselves. We’ll mix and play with concepts that have little to no reason to be combined, we’ll talk about bicycles, markets, and burn out.

How Bicycles Stay Up

Strangely, the science behind how a bicycle stays upright is almost as convoluted as the history of bicycle design. The reason that the current implementation of two-wheeled pedal technology looks like it does, is due to societal impact. We didn’t have to end up with the safety bicycle as a our primary implementation, but here we are.

Did you know that there are different types of bicycle for men and women?

Bicycles for women have a lower center support bar because they needed to be able to get on while wearing long dresses. That’s the type of ground breaking information you can learn by studying STS!

If you search for information about how bicycles stay up, you’ll find a lot of complicated descriptions of the gyroscopic effect. We’re going to throw that out the window and say that bicycles stay up because they have momentum! Bicycles stay upright because they remain in motion. It’s easy to image that if someone stopped pedaling a bicycle, they would fall over, right? So all it takes for a bicycle to stay up for another moment is one more pump. Continued pressure on the mechanism that maintains momentum allows the participant to continue their engagement without crashing.

When it comes to progress, the most important aspect is not falling apart. As long as you continue forward, you will reach your goal. As long as you can push one more time — pump yourself forward one more time — you will be fine. All that you need to do is survive and persevere. WAGMI.

On Momentum

A rising tide lifts all boats. The acceleration of gains experienced when boosted by a larger market shift can be extreme. Impacts from these effects are further exacerbated by environmental factors and meta-discourse. In high upside environments, participants often see themselves as geniuses. Attributing success to self is far easier and comfortable than recognizing uncontrollable factors and upside or access to such provided by an extended network. Success can feel as if it comes from within, when in fact it is accumulated through and supported by an exogenous network.

Smooth trails and high powered set ups create false geniuses.

False genius leads to excess and gluttony. In high acceleration environments, it’s easy to become desensitized. The speed and adrenaline of repeated successes is addicting. Few attribute their success to riding on the coattails of others. Few realize they are standing on the shoulders of giants. After riding your bicycle down a hill, coasting becomes possible. As long as you can stay upright, you can continue forward and use that momentum in your favor.

On Crashing

When I was four years old, I rode my bicycle around my parents driveway in bigger and bigger circles until eventually I ran out of driveway and found myself sitting in a creek. Things got too relaxed and my loose hands led to a less than picturesque outcome.

When you realize that your rotation is too large — or that your speed is too high — it can be overwhelming. There is a moment between high velocity and the crash that is palpable; too much to handle or control.

As the crash approaches, a stillness can be felt… an inevitability of what is about to happen. Many of us felt this in early May 2022 when the Terra ecosystem collapsed and $60b evaporated. Impacts were felt personally, by friends, by firms, and by the wider market. As it happened, it was hard to look away and it become difficult for actors to know whether they should keep pedaling or get off.

When bubbles pop, it’s messy. In times like this, it’s important to have a support system. Crashing is easier when you realize that you have support. The network that got you here is the one that can keep you here. Look around and pick each other up. This is a strange space to operate in — much of what we do feels so new but also so natural.

Tandem bicycles are not common, but neither are the crypto spaces that we operate in. Aspects of them may seem familiar but something about them is different.

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Meaning of Meta

Over the past year, the term “meta” has lost all that defines it. The metaverse discourse has been pure drivel and to most, metaverse refers to a VR world where people walk around and look at NFTs. Candidly, it’s fucking stupid. Discussion of the metaverse has been sorely lacking nuance and our definition and understanding of meta is unfairly appropriated by Facebook and the attention that we give to Zuckerberg’s definition of the metaverse.

Meta has a meaning and it’s awesome. It’s a concept of self-reference.

Please stop calling dystopian VR pipe dreams ‘the metaverse’

The metaverse is all around us. It’s more prevalent than inflation and has been for years. Humans in highly developed locations haven’t habitually touched grass for generations — the real world has been continuously slipping away from us as we continue to coordinate and communicate through digital means.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1525703350095958017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525703350095958017%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1525703350095958017image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Meta-Discourse

When an event occurs, ‘capital N’ news starts to circulate. Historically, news is delivered by trusted sources — in our current zeitgeist, that “News” could be broken or reported by anyone. Anons and pseudonyms are as trusted as official sources.

I consider the news to exist in a general bucket of Discourse. Discourse is the layer above the Event where discussion and framing of the Event takes place. Meta-Discourse operates a level above Discourse and is where discussion and framing of the Discourse occurs. Meta-Discourse is commentary about commentary.

https://faculty.bemidjistate.edu/bdonovan/metadisc.htm

In primary school, students are often taught to look for primary sources. When I went through this stage of my education I mistakenly understood this as primary sources being the only sources of value. As I continued in my education, I came to understand that secondary and tertiary sources are important components to understanding an event. Secondary and tertiary sources are best utilized when you understand the perspective or agenda of the author.

A highly accessible (and highly non-inflammatory) example of Meta-Discourse occurs through The Ringer’s media distribution. The Ringer is a podcast network and blog where podcasters and authors discuss sports, television, music, and other pop culture topics. In some cases, The Ringer breaks news but in many cases The Ringer participates in Meta-Discourse and draws attention to the way news is being broken or being discussed. The team at The Ringer is world class at this and they know what they are doing. It’s hard to listen to a Bill Simmons podcast and not to hear him reference “the aggregators” who cherry pick content Simmons and his team produce. It can also be hard to listen to a Bill Simmions podcast in general due to his undying Boston homerism.

The Ringer have become such a large distributors of ‘lowercase n’ news that their commentary on the events and the news surrounding those events can find their way back into the news!

A player could sign an extension, the news could be broken by ESPN, Simmons could comment on his podcast about the extension and the news, aggregators could pick up his comments and those comments could then be examined by a piece on ESPN. Discourse leads to more discourse; and discourse about discourse is meta!

Niches & Echo Chambers

Discourse can create echo-chambers but those spaces are further enforced by the Meta-Discourse and community driven engagement with the Event. As smaller circles spend more energy discussing the same events, homogenization of views occurs. Opinions of events can become highly crystalized due to the reinforcing nature of Meta-Discourse that is taking place between authors and participants with homogenous backgrounds and opinions. In cases like this, the Meta-Discourse can take over Discourse and can even become larger than the Event itself. Meta-Discourse supported Echo-Chambers can then lead to a new Event…

When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, there was certainly a lot of Discourse. The Event was framed with a wide range of contextual information that existed on a spectrum of reality but the polarization of homogenous actor groups created differing views on the Event that overtook any worry about what actually happened. Conservative Echo-Chambers fueled by long lasting Meta-Discourse (Q Anon, Breitbart, anti-MSM sentiment, etc) lead to the January 6th Capital Insurrection. Events create Discourse, Discourse fuels Meta-Discourse, Meta-Discourse supports Echo-Chambers, Echo-Chambers can create an Event.

Above I referenced The Ringer as a highly accessible and non-inflammatory example of how Meta-Discourse takes place. I’ll take a moment to continue to touch on the more inflammatory but still highly accessible examples of Meta-Discourse that occur in main stream American political news. CNN, Fox News, and other participants are also masters of this game. The instituions break the news, provide commentary, hold panels to discuss each other’s commentary, and so-on.

Media outlets like CNN, Fox News, The Ringer, and others benefit from playing at multiple levels within this hierarchy of Discourse. Regardless of proximity to the actual Event, there is content to be created and content to be sold. Ongoing content creation and opportunities to generate revenue streams from that content align incentives in such a way that inflammatory Meta-Discourse is arguably the most desirable way to participate in content creation. Not only can media outlets break news, comment on it, comment on other’s comments, they might even be able to drive another news cycle through their ongoing crystallization of homogenous views that are being pressured cooked in an Echo-Chamber.

Lore

When used productively, Discourse and Meta-Discourse can lead to the generation of Lore. Through retellings, stories evolve and become legends.

https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?s=r

Lore is not something to be created — it comes into being through Discourse around events and through framing and contextualizing events. History can be rewritten and cannon can be retconned.

Lore comes through homogenous communication patterns and repeated dissecting or discussion of the same stories and concepts. In this way, Echo-Chambers are fantastic places for lore to grow. Forcing lore may be impossible, but it may be possible to guide and foster it through events and contextualized Discourse.

Get off the couch. Go participate in some Meta-Discourse.

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I’ve spent the past couple weeks re-bingeing The Sopranos in between responding to DMs, posting on forums, and facilitating a variety of operational groups.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1521711165625311234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1521711165625311234%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1521711165625311234image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

As always, I decided that nothing made more sense than combining two things that I’m spending time on into one piece of nonsensical content.

Before we jump in, I want to preface this with a recognition that there are probably tens or hundreds of posts that could be written comparing various aspects of The Sopranos to the multitude of experiences that participants in web3 encounter. This will be mostly surface level, I’m going to leave a lot unexplored and leave myself and others space to write more in the future.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1525703454232027136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525703454232027136%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1525703454232027136image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Mafia Hierarchies & DAO Pods

There are two aspects of the Mafia hierarchy that stand out to me when thinking about their team structure in the context of a DAO. At the top level, we see the Consigliere that provides guidance to the boss but does not have direct hierarchical power over other members. At the bottom level, we see the Associates that support a number of different teams without a direct allegiance to a specific team.

Going from the Mafia hierarchy to a DAO pod hierarchy is not a major leap. A core team is responsible for delegation to various working groups. A council provides advisory input as well as access to an extended network. Pod Leaders work with Core and their Contributors to move things forward. Some Contributors may be local to a pod, some may be more nimble or less initiated and work across a number of pods.

Contributors who want to increase their involvement may seek more formal positions and eventually may seek leadership positions.

Being Made & Becoming Part of Core

As associates of the Mafia increase their engagement, they work towards becoming a “made man” and earning respect and protection of their peers and the extended network. To be sponsored for the initiation ceremony, individuals must be nominated by another made man. Sound familiar?

In DAOs, it’s not uncommon for Core election processes to kick off with a nomination from an existing Core team member. Those who hold power and/or influence are often the best situated to extend and increase the power and influence of others.

Buttons & Badges

Becoming a made man is also called earning your button. In on-chain, digital organizations we use a number of signifiers both on and off-chain to demonstrate someone’s position amongst the crowd. POAPs have been used to represent someone’s attendance or participation in an event, on-chain reputation systems will continue to provide badge systems for identity and hierarchical purposes.

Read more about the future of digital identity could look like…

https://mirror.xyz/0x581BEf12967f06f2eBfcabb7504fA61f0326CD9A/ttrHTYqHo3322pCfTJOVd39IpqL3UcVwXJuef4NtDc0

Social Regulation & Support Systems

The Mafia does not respect or seek out official authorities when an issue arises, they take out their own dirty laundry. Mafia captains and soldiers manage their spaces through a level of enforcement and regulation that exists outside the traditional authoritative hierarchy. Social regulation and support systems are key in DAO spaces where leaders may come to the forefront and fall to the back depending on the need or their performance. As a whole, DAO members raise and limit the reach of each other all while providing various support systems that provide a foundation for success.

Skin in the Game

When you’re in the mob, you have skin in the game. Not only is your livelihood tied to the organization, your life is on the line in day-to-day operations. Obviously, by participating in a DAO you aren’t risking your life but you are putting your reputation on the line and you may be taking a financial risk depending on any financial barrier to entry or any expected earnings from your participation in the organization. Beyond the direct risks, indirect risks such as wider market turmoil can impact the landscape and create a shifting foundation upon which an organization may need to pivot on or maintain status quo during.

The Allure of The Game

From the outside, being part of “the game” is highly attractive. Those that are in “the game” seem well connected and in power. External individuals may be excited by the proximity to the action that they feel by spending time or interacting with those who are exposed to the very real risks associated with being highly active. Individuals who are actively part of a DAO are at far less risk than those engaged with the Mafia… that goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway cause we’re hunting word counts this week).

The truth (both in DAOs and in the Mafia) is that being part of “the game” is a lot less glamorous and a lot less exciting than it appears from the outside. I can’t speak to Mafia engagements, but I can speak to DAO activities and note that while the day-to-day internal work is not glamorous, it is highly exciting and fulfilling.

Creating structure out of nothing, activating contributors to engage, and making things happen is hard work.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

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Low Stakes, High Upside Opportunities

Could anything be better?

Properly directioned asymmetric risk enables us to identify opportunities wherein we can perform an action with access outsized upside. We can risk 1 unit with the potential to gain 10 units. If things don’t work out, we lose 1 unit. If things work out, we gain 10 units. Iterative testing in low stakes and high upside opportunities empowers us to move quickly with a chance of landing upon an implementation that is highly successful.

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1525703553435807744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525703553435807744%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1525703553435807744image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

What are some cases where we can try things quickly, manage our downside, and expose ourselves to upside?

Writing More

Let’s start with something dumb. Feel free to skip to the DAO Tooling section if that’s what you’re here for!

What could you do that is low stakes and high upside?

Write more. That’s what I’m doing (literally right now, right here). It’s easy to put words in order and to put them out into the world. You have no idea where those words might take you…

https://drakedanner.medium.com/why-im-writing-more-7dd3f690ed36

DAO Tooling

https://twitter.com/0xJim/status/1512067676386082816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1512067676386082816%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F0xjim%2Fstatus%2F1512067676386082816image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

For the past 6 months, there has been endless vitriol aimed at the plethora of DAO tools that are being built. It IS funny tbh.

The beauty of many of these DAO tools is that getting started on them is dead simple. Thanks to the composability offered by crypto, usually all you need to do is have contributors ‘Sign in with Ethereum’ or authorize your Gnosis Safe. These tools sit on top of the existing rails and augment them. If you’re in a newly formed DAO and aren’t trying out tools, you’re leaving opportunity on the table. Active DAOs have true volume through their systems that can impact or be impacted by implementation of new tool suites.

In MetricsDAO, we’ve experimented with a number of tools and as we continue to play with different options, we continue to become more comfortable with the idea of trying things in low stakes situations. Signing up for DAO tools (especially right now) requires almost zero commitment. As long as you perform diligence from a security standpoint, there is nearly no downside to try out DAO tools.

Let me walk you through a few of the tools we’ve tried out, what our evaluation process was like, what our experience has been, and what we’ve learned.

Parcel

As we began to scale our payments to contributors and participants up, we quickly realized we needed better tools than what Gnosis provided. We used Disperse for a number of batch payments, but the process still left a lot to be desired. When we discovered Parcel, we saw an opportunity to address our needs around batch payouts. Parcel enables us to import CSVs and to send transactions from our multi-sig easily.

When we used Disperse, we had to make a distribution from the multisig to a hot wallet and then use the hot wallet to perform the multi-send. With Parcel, we can simply upload a CSV of payments and then approve and execute that transactions from the beautiful Parcel interface.

Parcel was one of the first tools that we added to our stack at MetricsDAO and naturally we were slow to implement it. We researched competitors, tried to do an analysis of what we needed now and what we thought we would need in the future. We took a long time in our evaluation phase and continued to use Disperse and other less than ideal processes until we decided to try it out.

Now that we’ve started using Parcel, we haven’t stopped. It’s a huge help when managing a multisig that makes hundreds of transactions a month. The Parcel team has been a joy to work with. They have been quick to implement bug fixes and feature requests. I cannot express enough how grateful I am for the Parcel team and for the product they have released and continue to iterate on.

Wonderverse

Bounty boards are much more common in web3 than in Web 2.

Wonderverse was one of the first DAO tool demos that I got to see. I was hooked and impressed from the moment I started to understand the tool. This tool allows pod leaders or other operators to create a bounty board of tasks to be completed. It’s best described as a web3 Jira with payment associated to each story. With Wonderverse, a project manager can atomize pieces of the project and assign value to each one. Contributors can take on those atomized pieces of work and receive pay if their work is approved. From a DAO perspective, this makes contributions more permissionless and encourages consideration of how various individual tasks are valued.

From a contributor perspective, Wonderverse allows a contributor to see available tasks across a number of DAOs they are associated with. Imagine that as a freelancer you can see tasks that need completed at a number of organizations and the pay associated with each task. This atomization of work empowers contributors to pick up the tickets that best fit their skillset.

When I saw the Wonderverese demo, I saw a glimpse of the future.

In MetricsDAO we’re starting to implement Wonderverse for our MARCOM pod. Our leader (shout out Rochelle), can set a content strategy and work with our leaders to determine pieces needed. This crew can then post the desired content along with payouts to Wonderverse. Contributors can claim these pieces of content and submit them for approval. The leader is empowered because they can make the work highly available and contributors are empowered because they can understand the payout associated with each piece of content they create.

Wonderverse was another tool that took us a long time to truly implement. To be fair, the tool had not launched when I first saw a demo. We tried to jump at it as soon as it was available and we’re in the process of getting contributors onboarded now. I’m excited to see how this tool empowers our MARCOM pod to scale.

Drepute

Once we started to realize that we could implement these tools in a low stakes, high upside way it became easy to see how a variety of tools could be utilized. I spent the end of April looking into on-chain identity and I’ve been following the discourse around on-chain reputation for the past few months. I was introduced to the drepute team and had the chance to see a presentation and demo. Drepute operates somewhat similarly to Wonderverse insofar as it allows the creation and management of a bounty board. Drepute, however, allows a DAO to mint reputation augments badges. An individual who completes a long form writing piece could have a badge minted to their account that demonstrates their abilities. Theses badges are soulbound (non-transferable) and therefore enable users to take their work history with them on-chain.

We have yet to start using drepute in MetricsDAO but we’re excited to play with it and to find ways to mint proof of contribution badges to participants and contributors.

Clarity

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1506720420648689670?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1506720420648689670%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrakedanner%2Fstatus%2F1506720420648689670image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Notion is all over DAOs and honestly I’ve never felt older. I finally started to grasp Notion this past week and it’s super cool! But is there a more web3 native tool that meets the same need?

Enter Clarity.

Clarity provides an interface similar to Notion. If you don’t know what Notion is, it’s like a super powered Google doc/site that lets users collaborate and create enriched documents (also consider yourself lucky???). Clarity allows users to ‘Sign in with Ethereum’ and to contribute to a number of shared documents, projects, etc.

We’ve started using Clarity in MetricsDAO to manage various aspects of our business development efforts. One of our contributors (hey Arti!) got the tool stood up and seeded with relevant information. From here, we’ll start to try to use it and we’ll see if it sticks. If not, all good! If so, awesome.

At the end of the day, we in MetricsDAO see an opportunity to try a number of tools and to see what works. As we continue to identify and adopt tools into workflows, we and our community learn more about the options available.

Move Fast and Create Standards

https://twitter.com/provenauthority/status/1522262422198767618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1522262422198767618%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fprovenauthority%2Fstatus%2F1522262422198767618image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

As we start using more products we create more opportunities for them to catch on and to become part of our workflows. As Evin notes, usage turns specs into standards. We can put something into the world but we cannot force it as a standard. Usage provides volume and enables an implementation or tool to become standard.

At the current time, DAOs can provide access to meaningful volume that allow tools to get used and for meaningful amounts of feedback to be generated. As a testing ground, an active and nimble contributors base is able to pivot quickly and to standardize adoption when fits are found.

0x986E16d524C9B8A4a3c0a2614759497d3Df7c712

Need something else to read? Jump back to the main branch…

https://drakedanner.medium.com/milady-market-goblin-town-eae994c40f7

“Who am I? … Who are you?”

Some idealize crypto as an anon utopia with zero paper trail — what up Monero — but those of us that spend time on-chain know that much of what we and our friends are doing is parsable. As we continue to spend time as digital citizens, we will continue to augment and enrich our experiences through data sharing that allows us to find the right spaces to blossom.

Operations and Information Security

As you go down the rabbithole, you start to hear about “OpSec” — and once you get down to where you think the rabbithole ends you start to think that you understand OpSec and InfoSec.

None of us are ready for the future of citizen operations security. It feels incredible to believe that everyday individuals will be prepared to handle multiple sets of private and public key pairs.

Operations security is a term most often used in military contexts and is a process that evaluates risks associated with information leaks. It provides frameworks for analyzing how information shared can be weaponized against the sharer by adversaries. Information security is a framework to mitigate risks associated with data access vulnerabilities through trusted source access. Together the concepts of OpSec and InfoSec evaluate the likelihood of information being shared externally and the power of that information in a malicious actor’s hands.

I’ve yet to properly explore these topics and it is easy to see less technical individuals as completely unable to engage with the responsibility related to public / private key pair management. For the purpose of the rest, we will assume that the everyday person develops adequate key etiquette and is mindful of OpSec and InfoSec.

Pause — Let’s Disco

Watch this.

We’ll come back to Disco — a lot of the above and below is an expansion on concepts raised by Evin so take a breath and watch the video. It does a better job of exploring the future than this does.

Key Rotation vs. Soulbound NFTs

Soulbound NFTs are under-explored and easily implemented. They allow issuers to publicly and with finality mark addresses with an identifier. As I’ve seen more projects deal with bots and struggle to identify known good actors in sustainable ways, I’ve started to see soulbound NFTs as a one size fits all solution that allows trusted credentials and various accreditations to be associated with a public key.

In the above presentation, Evin pushes against soulbound NFTs for a variety of reasons. Quick run down on the anti-soulbound view (again, from Evin):

• no consent

• opposite of web3 promised autonomy

• an attacker could mint a nude to your account

• inability to signal consent related to NFTs to external parties

• potential for illegal content to be permanently attached to account

• reliance on front-ends to hide undesirable content

The case against soulbound NFTs is the case for key rotation. If you amass undesirable un-burnable tokens, you can simply move your assets to a new set of keys. Transfer the important things to your new account and distance yourself from the old account.

Key rotation is a healthy practice for InfoSec ; generating new keys and discarding old keys makes it harder for attackers to access protected assets. Soulbound NFTs are terrible for OpSec, they make it harder to conceal connections between various operational accounts and therefore create more attack vectors.

Social Identifiers & DIDs

I know there are a lot of you in this room that have made love for dids

— Evin

idk what a “did” is but fuck it we ball.

They are a link between our data, our reputation, and our public addresses.. they are like off-chain data backpacks that allow you to control and sign information associated with your identity.

— Evin

There’s also an aspect to VCs that allow higher key rotation than traditional on-chain accounts that I am not yet totally grasping.

There are verifiable credentials (VCs per W3C) that can be shared between keys — an attestation between keys that share information about one party to another. These “VCs” are also non-transferable.

Again, nearly captioning Evin (so please watch the video) but also going to ask some questions…

How is a “VC” different than a soulbound NFT?

ZK badges received pushback because they could be created then sold…

Are “VCs” a zkp that is soulbound? Cause that would be bomb.

I’m think that I am getting closer but I have more research to do. I’d also like to shout out caden for providing more clarifying insight into DIDs and various nuances of protocol implementation.

Verifiable credentials will allow individuals to prove their skills through on-chain methods that also maintain their privacy.

https://twitter.com/zach__davidson/status/1514296964367613953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1514296964367613953%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fzach__davidson%2Fstatus%2F1514296964367613953image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Rabbithole has been an active proponent of on-chain credential issuance and their CEO Brian Flynn has been active in his journey towards developing a framework for the issuance of these types of tokens.

https://twitter.com/Flynnjamm/status/1510993700356517890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1510993700356517890%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fflynnjamm%2Fstatus%2F1510993700356517890image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

As issuers continue to evolve and citizens continue to learn how to implement proper OpSec, digital identities will be empowered to develop and to be maintained.

Disco

But what if we think beyond the chain…

There is a plethora of data begging to be linked to our on-chain accounts. I wrote about this recently scoped to on-chain analytics and tweets.

https://drakedanner.medium.com/public-keys-as-primary-keys-a7f5c542385b

Disco provides a way for an individual to curate their digital identity through a mix of on-chain and off-chain data sources.

There is a digital future where we are empowered to curate the many facets of our identity through purpose driven nodes. The me that I am here is different than the me I share with my friends IRL. The me that I share with my friends IRL is different than the me that I share with my parents.

There is a mix of on and off-chain experiences and credentials that can provide various windows into who we are.

As we continue to amass these experiences and credentials, we would benefit from mindfulness regarding our OpSec and InfoSec. We should remain conscious of what we choose to expose to external parties.

Disco provides a framework and infrastructure for strategic implementation of multiple identities in web3. A cluster of on and off-chain identities can be expressed through a variety of lenses. Specific slices of our personality can be provided when needed and to those who need it. Various aspects of our identity and personality/ies can be exposed in the spaces relevant to their exposure.

Who Am I? Who Are You?

The outward expression of our self should and will be controlled by us as we progress further technologically and societally. While it is comical to expect existing citizens to adopt these standards and to implement the concepts presented, the future is bright and the possibilities are endless.

gm 🌞

0xd76471b419df9716EEE698bd1C6426D3e21C536c

There has been a lot of chatter around Music NFTs over the past 6 months and I have only recently started to see explanations that are interesting and extend beyond buying fractional ownership of songs.

I read this thread last week and think I finally started to understand what “Music NFTs” means.

https://twitter.com/fascinated/status/1516539250661117966?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1516539250661117966%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Ffascinated%2Fstatus%2F1516539250661117966image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Prior to this, Music NFTs have seemed hand-wavey to me and the most often used examples were revenue sharing on royalties.

https://twitter.com/AlexMasmej/status/1499882611921068033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1499882611921068033%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Falexmasmej%2Fstatus%2F1499882611921068033image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Retail access to royalty revenue streams already exists (see Royalty Exchange) just as retail access to fractional positions in art has already existed (see Masterworks). NFTs offered retail investors a more fluid and composable experience when investing in digital art or tokenized versions of physical art. Much of what we have seen in this space is related to speculative upside on art-based asset appreciation. Until I read the thread by @fascinated I failed to conceptualize a large influx of capital to fractional royalty ownership and revenue flows beyond hype driven investments.

There are, of course, other loud proponents of Music NFTs who have been further defining the asset class. As I have some of those individuals muted, however, I haven’t been paying attention. I’ve taken an actively ignore approach to Music NFTs up to this point — it’s not been something that has excited me.

“Music NFTs” and Conceptual Branding

The term “Music NFTs” has annoyed me for months and I’m not the only one.

https://twitter.com/bitcoinPalmer/status/1512126291436318726?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1512126291436318726%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fbitcoinpalmer%2Fstatus%2F1512126291436318726image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

fwiw, Palmer is poking fun at the “Music NFTs” tweets.

People will literally tweet “Music NFTs 🚀🚀🚀 ” and everyone else will pile on and say “Yeah music nfts rock”. It’s taken months for me to better understand what people refer to when they talk about Music NFTs. I think that “Music NFTs” is the wrong way to describe this type of asset. It’s lazy to talk about tokenized access, revenue sharing, and social tokens related to musicians as music NFTs. There is room for further definition and crystallization of these concepts.

Another quick note on branding and naming…

Please stop referring to Regenerative Finance as ReFi. ReFi means re-finance and is commonly used in the mortgage space. I’ve seen crypto proponents advocate for usage of traditional financial terms rather than defining our own and I believe they have a point. Why do we use TVL instead of AUM? In this case, TVL may have a different meaning than AUM and therefore the distinction matters. In the case of ReFi, co-opting a traditionally used term will create more confusion than value.

This is all to say that the label we use to refer to concepts matter. Music NFTs is a lazy way to talk about the opportunities and value creation mechanisms related to tokenizing the relationships between artists and fans.

Access as an Asset

Right now, access is often bought on a per use basis or through a subscription. It’s a cost for the accessor and a revenue generator for the entity providing access. In music, there are access products inclusive of meet and greets, sound checks, exclusive music, etc.

Each IRL access event likely has its own ticketing. Once the buyer has acquired and used the access, the value for the accessor has ended. Their takeaways are memories and pictures — trophies of their early emotional and/or financial investment in the artist.

When we reframe access as an asset instead of a product, we can start to better understand some potential paths forward for tokenized access related to artists and fans. Instead of ticketing meet and greets for each city in a tour, artists could mint tokens for the entirety of the tour. Fans could then purchase, utilize, rent out, and re-sell these assets depending on their availability to attend various events. As a super fan, I might want to retain my access to an artist’s in person events despite my inability to attend each event. I could then rent my access tokens to other fans or sell my access. The artist can earn a revenue on each subsequent transfer of the access token.

Tokenized IRL access is occurring in collectible pfps where a token may be your ticket to an event. It’s not a new concept, but it’s under-explored and overtly linked to ownership of a speculative asset. These experiences and engagements can be bifurcated. The tokens associated with an artist can extend beyond a revenue sharing token that also supplies access. Music NFTs more likely refers to a number of token offerings associated with an artist.

Investing Early in Culture and “Selling Out”

Many of us have had a favorite artist that no one else knew about before us. We knew about them before they were big! And we act like this makes us special or signals the sophistication of our taste.

There’s a bittersweet reality about one of our favorite underground artists “making it” — it’s unfortunate and ironic. As a fan, our value decreases! There are now more fans than ever and we are no longer special. The artist reaps the rewards of their work and we fade into the background despite our evangelism.

What if there was a way for fans to earn value from the artists success? A quantifiable way to demonstrate the reality of being early to and believing in a musician before their big break. While royalties remain a simple way to capture or access this value, there are likely much more creative ways to structure relationships. Musicians could offer positions in their success that are later bought out by record labels. These trend towards social tokens and/or ISAs and provide a new way for patrons to support artists and for artists to return value to their early supporters.

How can we re-frame the experience of an artist “selling out” to be beneficial to their early fans who are now one in a million?

The State of “Music NFTs”

https://twitter.com/Cooopahtroopa/status/1516598888114831360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1516598888114831360%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcooopahtroopa%2Fstatus%2F1516598888114831360image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this. There are individuals and resources out there that can point you to projects that are exploring the Music NFTs space.

I’m going to continue to ignore the “Music NFTs 🚀🚀🚀 ” tweets but I’m excited to participate in more nuanced discussions around tokens in the context of patronage, access, and revenue sharing.

https://twitter.com/jarroddicker/status/1514343802080800783?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1514343802080800783%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fjarroddicker%2Fstatus%2F1514343802080800783image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

In 2021 we saw NFTs come into the public consciousness, we saw developers earn their wings, and then we learned that the underlying contracts sucked.

Disclaimer

I don’t know if this is technically accurate. I’ve spoken to developers within my network about various implementation aspects but I am certainly grasping at straws. Consider this non-technical writing about technical concepts — I am attempting to explore potential paths forward and their implications.

Feel free to roast me on Twitter for not knowing anything!

https://twitter.com/drakedanner/status/1508240069525708805?s=20&t=l94TIqJan71heD17H2mzhQ

Today’s NFTs

I’ve spent the better part of the past six months trying to keep up with everything NFTChance has been publishing and developing. As far as I am concerned, he’s leading the space — not with flashy color palettes or gimmicky release mechanisms — with true optimization and new implementations that push the boundaries on what an NFT should be and what it can be.

In December 2021, Chance released an article about how to develop a more gas optimized contract for NFTs. In his words: OpenZeppelin ERC721Enumerable is wildly inefficient.

https://nftchance.medium.com/the-gas-efficient-way-of-building-and-launching-an-erc721-nft-project-for-2022-b3b1dac5f2e1

If you skew technical, take a look at his article and his code to dig into the nitty-gritty of his adjustments. If not, then stick around here and I’ll share some quick highlights.

Nuclear Nerds launched with a gas optimized contract. When the team minted their allocated items, they minted 111 items using .11 ETH in gas (call it .001 per item). The market loved it.

https://twitter.com/sartoshi_nft/status/1470928208077930502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1470928208077930502%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fsartoshi_nft%2Fstatus%2F1470928208077930502image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

So naturally all developers started implementing this new code to make things more affordable for their holders, right? No, of course not.

https://twitter.com/wholisticguy/status/1472837440486318080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1472837440486318080%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fwholisticguy%2Fstatus%2F1472837440486318080image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Chance likes to say: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I prefer to recognize the reality that you cannot force standardization across a decentralized industry overnight. Or maybe that you can’t control the way technology is used — you can build a classroom but that does not mean people will learn in it.

This made me wonder though… could developers mitigate these failures by offering an optimizing wrapper contract later?

Sure, the mint is over and potential gas savings at that stage can never be realized, but could steps be taken to make subsequent on-chain interactions with that token more affordable in the future?

NFT Wrapping: A Response

I don’t think we have ever seen a project launch with the goal of wrapping later. Wrapping is a response, not a plan.

CryptoPunks launched initially as an ERC20 in 2017. This was prior to the introduction of the ERC721 standard. As the ERC721 standard became commonplace and NFT marketplaces came into being — a path needed to be created to enable CryptoPunk holders to use these marketplaces. Enter Wrapped CryptoPunks: a way to wrap your ERC20 Punk in exchange for an ERC721 representation. The ERC721 immediately fits into more slots in NFT infrastructure than the ERC20.

Wrapping is a response, not a plan — the way wrapping is designed, deployed, and used can be extremely impactful to the cohesiveness of NFT collections

Mimetic Metadata: Future Proof NFTs

In February 2022, Chance released a new article on how to create an extendable NFT collection. He took aim at the Doodles team’s approach to launching Space Doodles through a one-for-one wrapping mechanism.

Remarkably, the market managed to find another implementation that is just as bad for creators and holders! The Doodles team has decided that instead of increasing the total supply of tokens in the ecosystem, the holders will have an option to forfeit their token into a vault in return for a new token from the Generation 2 collection.

Chance also touched on a concept that I’ll get to in the Trifurcation section…

However, wrapping tokens into new collections makes this a monumental task for every market participant. Every step along the way, we introduce a new collection to be sifted through, and the generational art is not even natively explorable at any given time. Meaning that you cannot see your Space Doodle or the attributes of that Space Doodle through the initial Doodle Contract. Instead, you will need a second-level tool like OpenSea or a personal gallery.

https://nftchance.medium.com/mimetic-metadata-how-to-create-a-truly-non-dilutive-nft-collection-in-2022-746a01f886c5

Chance’s solution to this is called “mimetic metadata” — I’m still working on wrapping my head all the way around how it works and for the time being, I’ll leave further explanation to him. Read his article and check out his code while I dance around the concept and pontificate on my understanding of it.

https://github.com/nftchance/nft-nondilutive/

Again, though, the market noticed and acted upon Chance’s work — remember I told you he’s pushing the boundaries.

The Fluffy Polar Bears team read about mimetic metadata and saw a path forward to mitigate some of the impacts felt by their historical implementations. The team has three contracts live (two ERC721s and an ERC1155) and through mimetic metadata have devised a way to merge these collections while leaving themselves flexibility to future evolution.

https://fluffypolarbears.medium.com/introducing-the-fluffy-movement-12a53cbf4e4b

The Fluffy Polar Bears team was managing three contracts and looking to create a cohesive collection.

Not only does the team recognize that existing contracts use to much gas for transfer functions, that their ERC1155 contract didn’t play nice with NFT infrastructure built for ERC721s, they demonstrated that wrapping is not only a way to upgrade a single collection — it can be a way to bring many disparate contracts together into one collection.

I suggest taking a look at how this migration process will take place — there are some top down actions that could mitigate (or exacerbate) concepts discussed in the next section.

In the case of CryptoPunks and Fluffy Polar Bears, wrapping is presented with a specific goal — that goal can be to expose the items in new spaces, to optimize them, and/or to coalesce items from multiple collections into one.

Trifurcation: The Fracturing of NFT Collections

Fluffy Polar Bears took action as a team to migrate their projects. What happens when the community takes action to migrate items?

We all spent way too much time talking and thinking about Pudgy Penguins in 2021. When it became apparent that the team behind Pudgy Penguins was not living up to the expectations of their holders, a community fork became available. Holders were then able to exchange their Pudgy Penguins for a new Wrapped Penguin. Similar to Doodles and Space Doodle, the collection was being split. Dissimilar, however, was why the split was happening and the subcultures that came into being through the split.

https://twitter.com/Vince_Van_Dough/status/1479627916136878084?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1479627916136878084%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fvince_van_dough%2Fstatus%2F1479627916136878084image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

You’ve heard of the trilemma but what about trifurcation? It’s not truly a 3-way split but it attempts to communicate the reality of stasis vs. optionality. Some holders will not take action resulting in static items that remain on the original contract — others who are more active will likely face a wave of wrapping contracts to place their NFTs in new spaces.

So far we’ve discussed 3 types of migrations:

• Optimization (CryptoPunks, Fluffy Polar Bears)

• Coalescent (Fluffy Polar Bears)

• Community Fork (Pudgy Penguins)

But that’s not it. Let’s take a look at NFT bridging.

https://twitter.com/wormholecrypto/status/1440815723916320769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1440815723916320769%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fwormholecrypto%2Fstatus%2F1440815723916320769image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

Wormhole allows users to move their NFTs from one chain to another. An NFT minted on Ethereum can be moved to Solana. The original item is locked in a contract on Ethereum and a representation is minted on Solana. The item now lives in the Solana ecosystem and can be bridged back to Ethereum to unlock the original ERC721 at any time.

But that’s not it. Let’s look at NFT unbundling.

https://twitter.com/gakonst/status/1433596713189711872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1433596713189711872%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fgakonst%2Fstatus%2F1433596713189711872image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

LootLoose allows users to unbundle the items in the Loot bag into individual pieces, those individual pieces can then be traded or moved around in any way that is supported by an ERC1155. If a user collects all of the items needed, they can re-bundle them to claim the Loot ERC721 from the contract. What’s to stop someone from launching a contract that allows you to take any of the ERC1155s and bundle them for a new ERC721?

Split two ERC721 into many ERC1155s, mix and match those ERC1155s to create two new ERC721s. To access the original ERC721s, both of the new items must be unbundled and re-assembled. This is all to say that while we’re cleaning things up and migrating items to optimized contracts, we’ll likely also make new messes as we explore the functionality that can be possible through various wrappers.

We’re likely going to trend towards a place of user optionality. Holders will have multiple options when deciding what to do with their items: team sanctioned wrappers that optimize and coalesce, community forks (and potentially multiple), bridges, unbundling, and new options that have not been brought to market yet. Despite all of this optionality, users may not take any action!

My hypothesis is that existing NFT collections will begin to exist in multiple states despite team attempts to bring collections into more a cohesive and optimized state.

Market Impact

In traditional high value collectibles, we may see items fall into three or more categories — privately owned, institutionally owned, and destroyed.

When the items are initially created, they exist in a state where they can begin to move into the hands of collectors. Over time, some of these collectibles may be lost, destroyed, or forgotten — through this the supply available to collectors shrinks. If the collectible is highly valued — potentially seen as historically important — then institutions and syndicates may begin to try to buy them up too. Again, the supply available to private individuals shrinks and the original collection is now split into three categories of availability.

I am not saying that the institutions are going to buy your bags.

I am trying to demonstrate how traditional collections trifurcate and to begin to think about how we may see this happen with on-chain collections.

Consider NBA Top Shot — a closed ecosystem with one marketplace. Items are for sale or they are not, holders are attentive or they are not. Items cannot be truly lost, but access to them can be. Collections that exist in a more composable space such as Ethereum mainnet, however, can begin to enter many varying states of availability.

Once the original collection is distributed there are simple realities such as lost private keys that take assets out of circulation. There are optimizing wrappers to increase composability such as ERC20 CryptoPunks being wrapped for ERC721s. There are bridge wrappers that allow a user to lock their asset on one chain to instantiate it on another. We’re just scratching the surface of NFT wrapping…

Consider a collection that had a community fork which wrapped some of the original assets for a new token. At the same time, a new chain has made this collection available through bridging, which requires wrapping the original asset on the originating chain before minting it on another. The original project creators have not given up in this case, however, and have also launched an optimized contract wrapper which gives owners a gas optimized and more future-proof version of their existing asset. Despite all of these options, some holders simply will not act on any of them and will retain the original asset.

The collection now exists in many states:

• Original

• Optimized

• Community Fork(s)

• Bridged

• Unbundled

• Bundled

• etc

The collector base to buy and sell these items is split. Each state of the collection has a smaller collectible set than the original collection. Each sub-community has split and started to develop their own subculture of the original collection.

https://twitter.com/WrappedPenguins/status/1496083459437363200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496083459437363200%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fwrappedpenguins%2Fstatus%2F1496083459437363200image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

We’ve seen these subcultures come into being with traits in the past — but the distinctions were based on attributes of the items, rather than state that the item exists in. Moving between trait based subcultures is far more fluid than moving between state based subcultures.

There’s the Cheetah Gang — a cross collection grouping of assets and holders that prefer cheetah traits.

https://twitter.com/Stoniphantom/status/1445448430965309440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1445448430965309440%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fstoniphantom%2Fstatus%2F1445448430965309440image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

This is just organization of holders based on a trait, there is no real technical distinction of these items — they exist in the same state even if they exist across multiple collection contracts.

The Pudgy Penguins community fork, however, is a technical split resulting in differing integrations.

https://twitter.com/WrappedPenguins/status/1494279953067782145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1494279953067782145%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fwrappedpenguins%2Fstatus%2F1494279953067782145image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07

So What?

Nothing. Hope you have fun. Just kidding. Kind of.

Keep your eyes on projects that might move this way, consider the potential outcomes and cost of acting or not acting. But I think more than anything…

Recognize that we are always iterating and we cannot always plan for the next step

I am personally more interested in the accumulation of actions taken by holders rather than top down implementations foisted upon holders.

The contract owner can likely force changes to holders through freezing the transfer of original items and minting replacement items that follow the optimized contract implementation. But how will holders react? They’ve been drinking immutability and self-custodial kool aid from the likes of 6529 and other influencers peddling the future of collectibles. How will they react if the project owner forces a change to their assets?

How will assets that are stored in liquidity pools (NFTX, NFT20) and syndicated escrow accounts (Fractional.Art) handle a case where the contract owner freezes actions related to the original tokens? How big of a mess can we make and how will we continue to find new ways to clean up those messes before making new ones?

We’ll likely see more teams work to clean up their existing messes through the introduction of wrappers — and we’ll certainly see more and more messes be created.

Want to send me some unwrapped NFTs? I’ll accept fungible tips too.

0xf32C6D263E6d7758429495F3c7Db4Ad353865242

edition://0xe37FC6eD73ADB131380105DC027ab4842B327fF7?editionId=0