I’ve been drawing a lot more as this year begins. iPad and procreate are probably the best purchases I’ve made in a while.

It’s become increasingly challenging for me to engage in all these NFT discords I’m part of. I guess it only took me less than a month to feel overwhelmed and unmotivated. I’ve just let all the notifications pile up and as the notifications pile up I just feel less willing to connect.

I guess there’s a couple of things making me feel a bit meh about all these discords. There are a few projects launching this month that were on my watchlist, but we are at this stage where hype and demand are higher than ever. Projects try to manage this with presale and mint lists, but as a participant you need to jump through so many hoops to get into that list. I know the rhetoric is that they want to reward engaged community members who contribute to building the community, but I really don’t understand how people can have so much ENERGY to be participating in discord activities around the clock. It really doesn’t help that I’m in a different timezone than most of the mainstream projects and I just would rather get my 7 hours of sleep.

I know having a presale list is supposed to help manage the demand and avoid gas wars, but I really don’t think it’s an effective way to improve inclusion, at least not how the presale lists are being built now. I know I know I know it’s really hard to build a community and get traction and visibility, which is why the incentives are designed in that way, and maybe I’m just overly whiny about it.

• Discord exp farming: Having an active discord chat is good, but I feel like this incentivises forced and trivial conversations. As someone who can’t possibly be staring at discord all the time, it’s also really difficult for me to insert myself into a chat with regulars saying hi to each other and talking about god knows what.

• Like, retweet, tag three friends: Shared ownership and embedded promotion on socials is important. Maybe I’m just salty that I don’t have three friends I am comfortable with spamming with my tags on twitter. To be honest, I created my current twitter account because I know this is a common mechanic used by NFT projects for promotion and I would need to do all these things if I want to get on presale lists or win giveaways. But as I build my twitter and curating my newsfeed, it became more apparent to me that I would rather prioritise more genuine and sincere content.

• Raffles and lucky draws: I was staring at the marbles and trying to visualise myself winning during one of those twitch streams at 1am one day and I just realise OH GOD I AM SO TIRED OF THIS. Sorry I have nothing else to say but it’s just way tiring.

I do like some of the other initiatives like fan art, commentary based giveaways. I realise the underlying question I had on all this is just.. what VALUE are we creating.. with all this. Are we just creating noise and shouting into a void.. or what is the point of everything. I felt so exhausted. Not like I was trying very hard to begin with.

So I started disconnecting from all this. Not like in the conscious or deliberate “I’m taking a social media break” way, just gradually letting myself off the hook for not being on top of everything. Started to just sit on my sofa and draw (while watching some brainless soap or resident evil game plays) instead of watching for discord updates or mint notifications.

It doesn’t help that I’ve made some not so good calls on buys and sells over the past few weeks. Or that the first few weeks back to work have been a total nightmare.

I don’t know. This post is just for me to whine. Okay?

🥲

There’s a reason why this space has such a bad reputation of being scammy or ponzi-esque. It’s a very wild west situation where there are huge opportunities of striking gold but also a lot of harm done within the NFT space and beyond if we aren’t careful enough. I’ve been following the tea of some major hacking incidents and alleged scams because my Netflix rotation was getting kind of boring and I’ve been conditioned to crave and consume that DRAMA, so here’s some thoughts on what I’ve seen.

Monkey Kingdom

I first heard about Monkey Kingdom because it was a Hong Kong project with a focus on Chinese lore which is honestly quite refreshing in terms of representation of non-western cultures in NFT. They created a collection of 2,222 Wukong NFTs on Solana which sold at mint for 0.49 SOL, and their floor has risen astronomically since.

More recently, they were the subject of a coordinated attack which took control of their website and discord. On 21 December, they were launching a companion collection called Baepes - 2,221 female counterparts at mint price of 0.49 SOL. The clout and hype around the original collection meant that the release of their companion collection, with the most reasonable investment thesis that if Baepes were to follow the proven trajectory, there would be a huge upside when you buy-in to the project at 0.49 SOL. Of course, there’s also a feel good element because they are donating the sale proceeds to charity.

On mint date, the hackers managed to steal an administrator account on the MK discord. The hacker posted the announcement which included a link to a fake website for mints. Within minutes people poured in to mint their Baepes and the website drained their wallets of all SOL balance. The biggest loss was up to 690 SOL from @commenstar. Of course, a 1 or 2 SOL loss can also be devastating to someone when that may be all that they had.

https://twitter.com/commenstar/status/1473324880364212224

Subsequently, MK investigated and identified the causes of this hack and agreed to compensate and refund all victims. More details on their twitter.

While this was a #teachablemoment in discord security and wallet management best practices (always have a burner), to me this was more about the dangers of hype and fomo. Taking a step back, while the fake announcement was successfully posted in the official announcements channel, there were a lot of red flags on its legitimacy:

• After MK announced that they paused mints due the website overload, MK official twitter did not post the announcement that mint has resumed.

• The website was different from the original (though it can be rationally attributed to the team putting up a backup website)

• There were spelling errors in the announcement, and the new website mint price was 2 SOL instead of 0.49 SOL as previously announced.

Phishing scams often rely on a constructed sense of urgency to manipulate victims to take immediate action despite their better judgement. In this case the scammers didn’t have to construct any of that because the amount of hype around this project was already there, and it drove dozens of people to click on the fake link, not wanting to miss out on a huge profit making opportunity. This isn’t victim blaming, this is just part of how these phishing scams work.

Even before this incident, there were allegations that the MK collection was being artificially pumped by the dev team.

https://twitter.com/Investuh/status/1466027905151078403

Marketing is definitely important, and hype can make or break a project for sure. Valuing NFTs is not straightforward because it relies on a lot of intangible inputs like social capital, the same intangibles created by hype. But as a community, shouldn’t we think more about how this fomo culture is affecting us and our judgment?

Since the incident, MK’s floor and secondary sales seem to have recovered to a healthy level. They’ve also garnered a lot of goodwill from compensating their victims. MK repurchased all 513 Baepes minted during presale, and now there’s a thriving secondary sales market for those on Magic Eden too. MK is also releasing a follow up collection called Diamond Baepes to original holders of their core collection as appreciation. All’s good again these are all great moves to appease and reward the community.

This type of scam is not new or unique to MK, as several other high profile projects’ discords were also compromised and phishing links were posted. They were all compelling targets because these projects are highly regarded, manipulating the same fomo energy to cloud their victims’ judgement. How do we see clearly in the midst of hype?

Bejutsu

The fresh tea that just dropped is on Bejutsu - a project which claims to be releasing official licensed Naruto NFT. Naruto is a huge IP that many of us grew up with, when the artist @Jyothee first tweeted about this project on 27 November, everyone got so excited.

Earlier today, @okHotshot.eth and @truedank.eth dropped some juicy twitter threads showing their investigation into the legitimacy of this project.

https://twitter.com/The_True_DanK/status/1476709747164336136

https://twitter.com/NFTherder/status/1476722336632123411

TL;DR - there are many red flags that indicated the project founders @canadianClay and @Sydneyktaylor__ do not actually hold any license to produce these NFTs. All Naruto content posted on their socials have been copyright-striked by DMCA and taken down. Project founder @canadianClay then posted a neither confirm nor deny type statement:

https://twitter.com/CanadianClay/status/1476566128465956869

@okHotshot.eth also hosted a twitter Space to discuss this potential scam, and artist @Jyothee joined to tell her side of the story. Many #teachablemoments.

These exposé threads were posted way before Bejutsu made official announcement on project details or put up an official website. To be fair, there was already a level of healthy skepticism around this project because honestly it’s a bit sus that two young founders relatively inexperienced in the NFT space would be able to secure a licensing contract for one of the biggest IPs in the world, or that VIZ would engage external artists for this project when they are sitting on millions of original material and the original artist is still around! This didn’t stop Bejutsu from engaging almost a dozen artists to support their project, and launching a super exclusive discord server built on twitter engagement farming.

The artists they have engaged are all mostly based outside of US, not active on twitter or in the NFT space. @Jyothee is the one with the largest exposure and presence in the NFT space, and has also played an important part to bring attention to this project. During the Spaces chat, her practices as an artist were also brought up for discussion (and mostly criticism). She did not acknowledge (at least publicly) all the red flags with Bejutsu’s license claim, promoted the project prematurely which also gained a lot of exposure for herself and her Dual Souls NFT collection. Historically, prior to Dual Souls, she made a lot of fan art and in some cases the work were copies from other artists. These fan art pieces were reposted to her twitter recently to help promote Bejutsu, and in these reposts there were no credits to original artists she referenced.

This whole situation is very upsetting to a lot of passionate artists and NFT collectors. Lying about a license claim perpetuates the narrative that NFT space is full of scams. For a space ripe for creativity and innovation, copyright infringement and using other peoples’ IPs or likeness is not just maliciously opportunistic but also lazy.

Further, for a movement that is supposedly about empowering artists, the project’s treatment of their artists and Jyothee’s own practices is also very disrespectful. This isn’t a no harm no foul case just because the mint hasn’t happened yet. The harm is already done to the community as a whole, and all the volunteer mods and artists (including Jyothee) who spent time on this project.

Another interesting topic in this case is Bejutsu’s discord practices. They kept their discord extremely exclusive, and people wanting to get in had to follow everyone involved in the project and camp for a discord invite. Engagement farming is common in the NFT space in general, with projects requesting people jump through hoops (like, retweet, tag three friends, discord invite trackers) to secure benefits like a pre-sale spot. After all, attention and exposure can be valuable currencies in this space with every project clamouring for market share. We should really be more aware of that fact and give our attention to the right people and projects.

Large Scale Plagiarism

Lastly, I want to talk about plagiarism. I’m not referring to derivative art and projects or discussing transformative use - that’s a topic for another day and probably needs a lot more research. I’m saying actual blatant plagiarism and theft.

NFTs do help to prove authenticity, but that doesn’t work when the art was stolen and minted by someone who’s not the original artist.

https://twitter.com/BlindHag/status/1469066025635393536

Marketplaces like OpenSea allow for lazy minting - and bot accounts can now list art stolen from artists’ portfolios and DeviantArt profiles for sale at no initial cost. DeviantArt has implemented their own tool to scan public blockchains for art stolen off their platform, and as of 10 December, they have already sent over 50,000 alerts to their users regarding potential art infringement in the form of minted NFTs alone. That is just insane and I really wonder what’s the volume of less visible theft not identified by DeviantArt.

On a smaller scale, there is a lack of verification process to prevent impersonators of artists listing stolen artwork for sale. Digital art is not new, and there’s a whole archive of artworks hosted online to be exploited. If the artist is no longer active or aware enough to file a claim, it’s really difficult for these thefts to be identified proactively by the marketplaces or the community.

At this rate, for every artist the NFT community uplifts, there’s another artist falling victim to theft from impersonators or thieves who will never trust the community or the technology ever again.

Some great articles for further reading:

• DeviantArt’s - Calling All Creator Platforms to Fight Art Theft

• Hyperallergic - Artists Say Plagiarized NFTs Are Plaguing Their Community

• The Verge - NFT Mania Is Here, And So Are The Scammers

Here’s hoping for we can all see clearer in 2022. 👁

She also shared about how the traditional art world is comprised of specific value creation chains based on social capital. We all know by now that the common gripe with the traditional art world is that those value creation chains tend to operate in a very distant, removed and opaque manner. Of course, a part of that opaqueness stems from the intangible aspect of social capital and the difficulty to recognise and measure that as a monetary value (those familiar with accounting standards would know the debate on presenting Intangibles and Goodwill as a financial statement line item). Beyond that, it is also useful to consider that with art, social value come from an elaborate network of affinity with critics, art historians, connection to collectors and institution affirmation. The problem is that these networks can be exclusionary and exploitative, but at the same time uplifting as a means of social mobility. Dilemma.

I posted a very unsuccessful meme last week on Pawn Stars for NFTs:

Pawn Stars is actually a mad depressing show. You see all these people come in with stuff they’ve passionately collected over the years just to be told nah they are trash. Sentimental value is also personal and doesn’t translate in the secondary market. The hosts get to lowball them because some collectors markets are just so illiquid or that liquidity is not transparent. Like any market, the problem of information asymmetry and moral hazard is key.

So let’s embark on my exploration of marketplaces in the context of #NFTart with these reflections/ ideas/ concepts in mind.

The Future is Digital

Marketplaces’ core function is to connect buyers to sellers. In the traditional art world, the primary market place consists of galleries and art dealers, and the most prominent secondary market place is the auction houses. There is a symbiotic relationship between the primary market and secondary markets, as auction sales has a strong signalling function in valuing an artist’s entire current and future body of work even in the primary market.

Though often credited or touted as game-changer brought by the NFT format, efforts to break out of this established marketplace framework and bypassing these institutions, are not inherently new or unique to NFT marketplaces or web3.0. We have already been moving to a more creator-centric domain as the internet affords to almost anyone a huge boost in visibility and reach. Artists can already bypass the gallery-dealer structure to sell directly to their audience through their websites and social media pages. However, this doesn’t, and would never, be enough to bring about a paradigm shift in the art market. As discussed earlier, the social capital or value attached to art is based on a whole chain of affinity and is not wholly captured simplistically by a willing buyer - willing seller relationship. You don’t buy or sell art like any other commodity product like you would buy an apple or a new hairdryer (though some say the dyson airwrap is a work of art which justifies its price tag, I would respectfully disagree).

On to the next part - data. Another super fun word for everyone. A key challenge in the art market is determining the right price. Pricing is so important because overpricing an artist can be a career ending mistake. Certain galleries and dealers are extremely successful because they hold the right information (or connections to information) that help them set the right price. They have the data points that others don’t. The problem statement is clear, the art market is not transparent which indicates the lack of information and data resulting information asymmetry. So let’s get the data and let’s make it more transparent! I can see the pitch deck already. Remember “There’s an app for that”? In this case, there are many apps for that:

• ArtFacts: Your trusted guide to the Art World. ArtFacts is a data aggregator with the objective “: to quantify and digitise art facts, making the art world more transparent, allowing anyone to increase their knowledge and make better business decisions concerning art”

• Artsy: For the love of art. Artsy is a marketplace of which a huge component of its core offering is data aggregation which enables users “to discover, buy, and sell fine art”

• ARTDEX: A free digital archive for the art community “devoted to breaking down the traditional walls between emerging artists and art consumers in favour of a new democratic model of engagement based on full transparency, maximum flexibility, and meaningful exchange.”

• Arthena: Leading the pricing revolution by providing “quantitatively-driven financial solutions for the art market.” I’m not too sure how to categorise this one? Maybe a data analytics solution if that means anything to anyone.

• Magnus: The shazam for the art market, where you can see an artwork’s past transactions in the palm of your hands. Now defunct and pivoted to classes by founder Magnus Resch.

Magnus stands out from this list not just because its founder decided to deviate from the norm of finding a name that contains the word “Art” (in favour of naming it after himself no less), but because of its juicy history. The tea is that the app was removed from the App Store in 2016 because of allegations of data theft, after its competitor ArtFacts snitched on them to Apple. The funny thing is, the director at ArtFacts Marek Claassen was tipped off on the fact that Magnus may not have been obtaining the data through legitimate means when he read that “the app was powered by a database with no less than eight million auction and gallery prices”. Turns out Magnus built itself with stolen data from existing databases (like ArtFacts) and individual galleries. Ok I’m sure no one is laughing with me right now, but let me explain why this is funny.

Inherent to this movement exemplified by all the organisations above is the idea of democratising art. However, these data providers are still reliant on the data owners in the primary and secondary markets to be willing participants in their revolution. I’m sure Marek Claassen understands more than anyone how difficult that is. Not just because data collection and data entry are the most tedious jobs ever, but because it takes effort to convince these players to get onboard. It’s never easy to give up power and control.

Further, so what if we give the data to the masses. It just brings to light and amplifies the existing networks and structures. It’s a great step forward for sure, but just because I have the information about an up and coming artist who has received validation from known collectors in his past transactions does not mean I can buy his work. Galleries are notoriously discerning about who they sell to, and it doesn’t always go to the highest bidder (in terms of monetary value). A buyer’s social standing and reputation has an effect on the art they collect and the artist’s future prospects which may not be best determined by monetary value. An artist is also not a company or a factory churning out art. Even when valuing companies, past successes do not indicate future performance. Oftentimes, it’s the human-ness of artists that make their work so compelling and valuable. How do you capture that as a comparable data point?

An Open Sea

We all love to hate Opensea.io. But DAMN it’s such a great name. To me, the open sea is a very powerful imagery which evokes feelings of overwhelming possibility in discovery. What better way to describe the new frontier built on blockchain? (Cue: that song from Moana.) The excitement behind blockchain, crypto, NFTs, web3.0 is that it gives us the tools to build completely different structures and formats.

It’s the start of my third week in the NFT space now, so I have a total of 2 weeks worth of experience in the NFT marketplaces to share here. Let’s go!

Transactions in the NFTart space are carried out on the underlying blockchain networks they operate on. When you buy or sell an NFT, you are moving that unit of data stored on the blockchain from one address to another through cryptographic hash. Each transaction is then recorded on the blockchain. When you buy an NFT, you are buying a proof of ownership (like a super fancy receipt). The unit of data or NFT is a symbol of the art piece that is recorded on the blockchain. The art piece itself is a separate thing. Most of the times, art traded in the NFTart space is digital art and the digital file is stored somewhere else like IPFS or even an AWS database. The NFT will then contain a link to where the file is stored.

The technology is new and so it creates new marketplaces to enable the new way of transacting. For the next part I will discuss marketplaces for ETH NFTs because that’s what I am more familiar with. It was actually a huge pain to go through these platforms’ help articles so there might be some inaccuracies in the fee structure parts.

Opensea.io

Opensea.io: The amazon of NFT trading because we all hate it but it’s so hard to avoid. Being the largest marketplace, you get a large numbers of users looking for things to buy, but the interface is so bad for art discovery. It’s also not built exclusively for NFTart. Even though it’s bad for discovery, it’s still super popular as a secondary market because of the wide user base.

• Platform fee: 2.5%

• Royalties: Up to 10%

• Creator Gas: for minting and first listing, and if you accept bids

• Seller’s Gas: for first listing, and if you accept bids

• Buyer’s Gas: for each buy transaction

• Sell mechanisms: Fixed price, timed auctions, editions

Rarible

Rarible: I really have nothing much to say about Rarible. It’s a lot like opensea but it accepts credit cards?

• Platform fee: 2.5% on both seller and buyer’s sides

• Royalties: Up to 10%

• Creator Gas: for minting and first listing, and if you accept bids

• Seller’s Gas: for first listing, and if you accept bids

• Buyer’s Gas: for each buy transaction

• Sell mechanisms: Fixed price, timed auctions, editions

• Accepts credit card

Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway: Nifty is Gemini’s NFT Marketplace. I guess a huge draw of Nifty is the no-gas feature which is made possible because they operate on a custodian model.

• Platform fee: 5% and 30 cents (what?)

• Royalties: Up to the creator

• Sell mechanisms: Fixed price, timed auctions, editions

• Accepts debit card or Gemini balance

MakersPlace

MakersPlace: This market place is built for creators. There is a built in royalty fee of 10% for each transaction, and accepts both fiat (credit cards) and cryptocurrency. Its discovery interface is pretty basic though and you mostly just filter for collection / artist. An artist profile page has an easy navigation to view all transactions under this artist. Funny thing is.. they enforce certain additional features. There is a minimum price (“to cover production costs”), and place a minimum bid increment of 10% above the most recent offer. Their FAQs and help pages are really hard to navigate also.

• Platform fee: 15% commission on each sale

• Royalties: MakersPlace withholds 12.5% of each secondary market sale. 2.5% will go to MakersPlace and the other 10% will go to the creator as a royalty. (Not sure if this includes the 15% commission)

• Creator Gas: for minting and first listing, and if you accept bids

• Seller’s Gas: for first listing, and if you accept bids

• Buyer’s Gas: for each buy transaction

• Sell mechanisms: Fixed price, timed auctions, editions, collaboration

• Accepts credit cards but at a fee

Foundation.app

Foundation.app: Another marketplace built for art. There is a certain degree of “curation” in that creators can only join FND through an invite from the community. Creators earn 85% of a primary market sale, and there is a built in royalty of 10% for secondary sales. Their interface looks a lot nicer and more modern, but discovery is also limited to “Type” of digital artwork - 3D, Image or Video. What’s really nice about FND is the social aspect, which from the invite-only mechanism shows that they put social connections as a key feature in their marketplace. On an artist’s profile, you can see who they are invited by and how many followers they have on FND. As a collector, you also get a nice looking profile to display your collection. It’s very familiar because it’s a bit like instagram.

• Platform fee: 15% on primary, 5% on secondary

• Royalties: 10%

• Creator Gas: for minting and first listing, and if you accept bids

• Seller’s Gas: for first listing, and if you accept bids

• Buyer’s Gas: for each buy transaction

• Sell mechanisms: Fixed price, timed auctions, editions

KnownOrigin.io

KnownOrigin.io: This is another great name really. I like that KO has a very creator centric approach and they are always adding features to their platform. It’s a marketplace with a lot of interesting features and constant updates. For creators, they have the unlockable content function to indicate where there are unlockable features for token holders (e.g. making a higher resolution file, or different file format available). I also like their collaboration feature where users can set up to 5 ethtereum addresses as a collaborators on an edition. We all love a good collab and making that visible on the platform and part of the code to automatically split the funds and on-chain payment splitting will hopefully drive more creative collaborations in the digital art space. They have also built a donation feature where users can donate to selected charities through the platform and the donation will be sent directly to the organisation’s eth address, all in the spirit of transparency of course. This has also enabled them to launch charity drives like the Choose Love collection. Coupled with the collaboration feature, users can easily see the allocation of funds to the charity and the artist for each artwork. They also have a gallery on decentraland and cryptovoxels. There’s not much of a discovery feature though.

• Platform fee: 15% on primary, 2.5% on secondary

• Royalties: 12.5%

• Creator Gas: for minting and first listing, and if you accept bids

• Seller’s Gas: for first listing, and if you accept bids

• Buyer’s Gas: for each buy transaction

• Sell mechanisms: Fixed price, timed auctions, editions, collaboration

• Accepts credit card payments

All the marketplaces offer a degree of curation in choosing certain pieces to feature on their platforms, with varying standards. The real beast of a curatorial-driven platform is Artblocks.io. It’s like David Zwirner of the NFT world or something (until David Zwirner apes in and take that place of course), their stamp conveys a strong message of affirmation which help drives the value of their curated artworks and artists in both primary and secondary markets. Another interesting platform I’ve been keeping an eye on is Async.art. They both focus on generative works and I absolutely love how generative art has gotten a huge boost from the NFT market. The philosophy of generative art seems very suited for this code driven space.

After looking at all these marketplaces, I wonder if we’ve reached or are even close to any new frontier. Yes, NFTs has opened a huge audience to art. In fact, built in royalty system is a huge gain for creators. In terms of transparency, there’s nothing more transparent than transactions recorded on the blockchain right? Anyone can go on etherscan and trace exactly where and when and to whom NFT is sold and for how much. However, it’s also interesting how the market is still moved by major tastemakers like key curators or collectors. Not to mention, traditional auction houses remains to be strong players in the NFT secondary market.

How do we use the chain to quantify or measure social capital? How do we use to to build a new value creation chain? There’s really nothing stopping anyone from co-opting this technology into the existing systems. The major players can all remain the same and we can just join in on the game.

Oh well, more to think about I guess.

Disclaimer: I’m not an artist, or a curator, or a collector, or anyone working in the art world. The closest I got was an internship at the local museum when I was in high school and even then I was in the Business Development division and mostly helped to liaise with sponsors and donors, and organise galas for rich people and what not. Thanks for reading my hot takes anyway!

gm; week 2 of nft life 🤯

Some reflections:

On hype - coming from a controls background in finance, my initial aversion to the whole NFT hype stemmed from how I see that this a Wild West situation replicating the ugliest parts of finance (pump and dump, wash trades, insider trading with gated communities).

On art - it’s hard to put a value on art and the art market is notoriously opaque with auction house antics. NFT/tech isn’t enough to really solve all these problems. Existing infrastructures are being co-opted into the NFT space and sometimes it feels like more of the same.

On utility - a couple months in and I’m sure everyone is tired of pfp projects with boiler plate roadmaps already. Because the tech is still so new, it’s really hard to discern the real builders who are innovating on project utility.

Now on to the good stuff 💕

@crypto_coven was my first mint and it’s not hard to see why they are so popular with first timers. The high witches and other members of their community are so patient and helpful and their library is a treasure trove. Until recently there was hardly talk about price floors, mint progress, rarity score, or raids. They let their art and work speak for itself and damn it was a powerful message.

The reveal was very nerve wrecking and seeing my cremini at 1am at night gave me a fright ngl. She is like... staring into your soul! I’ve grown so fond of her and now that I’ve parted with her I kinda miss her. Strange.

Was so drawn by what the High Witches built and the interaction on discord that I had to mint a second one. Another impressive achievement for coven was that they had really steady growth over the week, and solid sales on secondary. I guess the art and lore were really powerful and relatable. The magic is real 🦋💫✨🔮🧿

@alphagirlclub is having a shaky mint now but their team hasn’t stopped delivering on their promises. They don’t hold their community hostage to push the mint rate and went ahead with reveals, setting up the treasury, purchasing land on sandbox for future engagement.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1469801124337098760

@sad_girls_bar gave me the warmest welcome even though I’m kind of a late entrant. Their approach is dark and humorous and their artist is amazing. The look is so distinct and I’m so glad to have bought in. Sadness and alcohol is the best pair 🍸🖤🤍

Artist collectives and curation platforms are such a powerful way to connect and increase visibility for artists. I listened to @artofanalu’s sharing and she’s so genuine and that really comes across in her art. How do we make sure great artists aren’t buried by all the noise?

I’m so happy to see my culture represented in @Weir_DAO @Reva_fyw. Their response to my question about advocacy for Chinese aesthetics in NFT art space also made me reflect more about accessibility, appeal and the dangers of pushing ethnocentric tribalism.

Also read Reva’s blog post on this series. She raises interesting notes about how “I found that many traditional Chinese decorative patterns contain a lot of generative art logic.”

https://www.revafyw.com/blog/through-the-window

Very excited to support projects building with a view of the bigger picture. Islands, Mirror, Gallery are great spaces for me to explore and follow because they help bring the works beyond marketplaces and make them a lot more accessible.

I’ve also just lost my first gas war so I guess #achievementunlocked? Need to build emotional resilience to deal with the disappointment of missing a good mint.

Still so excited to explore further. Generative art and programmable art are such interesting concepts and useful for examining the relationship between art and the creator. I’m a believer of against interpretation (iykyk or reach out to me and I will share more).

I also really appreciate the humour in this space. Think it’s an indication of self awareness and playfulness which I so deeply crave (😈,😇). We are still so new so can’t go around pretending like we’ve got it all figured out right?

@Grim__Syndicate is my first foray into SOL and I also love the work they are doing. It’s been 2 months since their release and they continue to engage and deliver. Very targeted giveaway here with a clear purpose which I appreciate.

Shoutout to my first online friend @ladygrey1111. Some explorer camaraderie really helped me feel more connected and less alone.

Onwards to more exploration! 🚀🛸