Sexy marketing != impact. Especially in crypto.

Sexy marketing can get a token price to pump off forking a protocol onto a new network. Impact is designing, building, and battle testing a core primitive for the next generation of the Internet. That’s what the Gnosis team have done with the Gnosis Safe, which is the premier multi-sig wallet for individuals and DAOs to hold billions of dollars of value. They just crossed $100B secured…and that doesn’t even include NFT value. 👀

I could go on and on about how they transitioned the Gnosis Safe into a platform where apps can be listed, have leading projects like Coinshift and Parcel building alternative UIs on top, or launching Zodiac, the lego blocks of DAOs, for all your governance and operational needs. Just incredible execution with much less of the hype than other projects. 👏👏👏 For the trading enthusiasts, check out Cowswap as well, which solves the MEV problem with an elegant “Coincidences of Wants” design that I think will be used more and more for tokens and NFT marketplaces. You gotta love the humble, innovative builders in this space, and the Gnosis folks are top 3 on that list.🦉

🤔 Why it Matters

I’ll skip to the punchline. NFT minting, distribution, auctions, and airdrops will be built into every creator tool over the next 5 years. Images, video, audio, social, 3d, gaming, virtual world (especially). ALL OF IT.

You’ll see a slow trickle of news from tik tok/photoshop/sound cloud/twitter/etc adopting NFT mint and verification over the coming years. This is inevitable (shoutout to Thanos). For the investing-minded folks out there, bet on the infrastructure (picks and shovels) for this space in every ecosystem (Eth, Solana, Cosmos, etc). It won’t be winner-take-all (Peter Thiel’s tech monopolies are less of a thing in web3) but there will be the tier 1 players. Decentralized storage (see below), data, analytics, verification, pricing, etc. Alchemy being one recent bet. There will be entire VC funds raised on this thesis, and it’s a good bet from my view.

🤔 Why it Matters

Bitcoin : Money :: Filecoin : NFTs

Filecoin launched a year ago on October 15th 2020 and recently held its Filecoin Orbit event to celebrate and reflect on its first year of operation. The growth metrics speak for themselves:

• 12 EiB of total network storage power

• 3,362 Filecoin storage providers

• 10,000+ developers participating at hackathons

But why does this matter?

In an alternative universe, internet currency and DeFi originated in a Facebook / Google / Stripe corporate-owned walled garden. 😥 Frankly, it would have been less confusing and faster to market, but that never happened because humans need trust and there was no internet trust layer. You had to have the messiness and computational expense of Proof of Work to create Bitcoin, then Ethereum, then DeFi/NFTs and the goodness we’re lucky to have today. You needed those fundamental security guarantees to get this off the ground, even if the end consumer doesn’t care much about them today. They also don’t care about https or smtp but needed them to have amazing web apps.

Well Filecoin is Bitcoin for NFTs (particularly media) and Web3 (user-owned data). You need an unstoppable, permissionless layer as a foundation to build all the great use cases on top. There’s an alternative universe where all this activity stays on AWS (like many NFTs today) but that’s not likely to happen. Humans need that trust layer. So that’s why I’m so bullish on Filecoin over a 10 year horizon. This is how we build a user owned internet.

Celo is a blockchain protocol that aims to reduce the barriers of entry to DeFi adoption. Celo is mobile-first, supports sending transactions to mobile numbers, has low gas fees, and supports stablecoins. These make Celo more accessible compared to other protocols

Setting up your Celo Wallet.

• Open the Metamask extension on your browser and select the dropdown at the top where it says “Ethereum Mainnet.”

• Select the “Custom RPC” option, and you’ll see this form.

• Enter the following information in the respective fields

  • Network Name: Celo (Mainnet)

  • New RPC URL: https://forno.celo.org

  • Chain ID: 42220

  • Currency Symbol: CELO

  • Block Explorer URL: https://explorer.celo.org

• Click “Save”

Note: Metamask does not natively support Celo compatibility and some features may not work properly. For example, you have to pay for gas fees in CELO while using a Metamask Wallet. Using a Celo-native wallet allows you to pay for gas using multiple currencies. Follow this link for more info.

Here are a list of Celo-Native Wallet Apps

Valora

• Works on iOS and Android

• Supports Phone Numbers as addresses.

Celo Wallet

Celo Wallet

A simple, lightweight wallet for the Celo network. Manage your funds in a browser or on your desktop.

celowallet.app

• Works on Browser and Desktop

• Supports Ledger and Staking

Celo Terminal

Celo Terminal

The one-stop shop for everything Celo.

celoterminal.com

• Works on Desktop (Mac, Windows and Linux)

• Supports Ledger and Staking

Adding funds to Celo

You can purchase CELO on a CEX like Coinbase, Binance or KuCoin and send it to your Celo Wallet. This link contains a list of exchanges that list CELO

Bridging CELO from Ethereum Mainnet to Celo Network

• Purchase CELO on SushiSwap (Ethereum)

• Visit Optics Bridge and connect your wallet

• Select CELO token on Ethereum Network in the “From” option.

• Select “Celo” as the destination network.

• Once you click on Bridge, you will have to confirm that transaction with your wallet. This step requires gas.

Congratulations! You have now successfully bridged CELO from Ethereum Mainnet to Celo Network.

Bridging Funds to CELO from Ethereum Mainnet.

You can use Ubeswap to bridge tokens from the Ethereum Mainnet to Celo.

• Visit app.ubeswap.org/#/bridge and connect your Metamask Wallet.

• Select the tokens that you’d like to bridge and approve the token. This step requires you to pay gas in ETH.

• Once approved, you can bridge the tokens to Celo Mainnet.

• Make sure to add the token to your Metamask Wallet.

Note: If you’re using a Metamask wallet, I recommend sending some CELO to your address from a CEX and then bridging funds as Metamask allows you to pay for gas fees only with CELO (unlike Celo native wallets)

Congratulations! You have now learnt how to setup a Celo Wallet and Bridge Funds.

0x6e31

June 14th, 2022

A fifth floor window at the north west corner of an apartment block. The internal window frame is substantial and supports a single pane of glass in 4:3 aspect. Moulded aluminium with glossy black industrial paintwork, the internal window frame protrudes into the room considerably. From the present position a direct perspective on the street below is only possible via a narrow columnal opening that descends from the upper left of the internal window frame and is defined at its left by the edge of the internal window frame and at its right by the south west corner of a monolithic corporate building that faces the apartment block on its north side. Beyond the apartment’s internal glazing is a cavity whose depth corresponds to the width of the electric shutter mechanism mounted along its upper edge, housed in brushed aluminium casing with black componentry. The shutter is operated by a switch, out of view at the lower right edge of the frame. Now the shutter is fully open. The external window frame presumably dates to the apartment block’s original construction. It is a thin cast iron design with clear pearlescent lacquer coating. Two panes of glass and a single vertical support centred in the frame. Now there is rain on the external window. The external window frame has been renovated judging by its condition and the condition of the plasterwork, roughly textured but skilfully rounded, that integrates it with the internal window frame. Now there is condensation on the internal window. This whole arrangement determines that the present position is withdrawn and, to repeat, the vantage on the street limited. The lowest vector that the eye can maintain reaches street level along the western facade of the monolithic corporate building. Visual information from the north and east sides of the apartment block can only be retrieved via reflection in the sheer glass south facade of the monolithic corporate building. Its surfaces are clad in opaque, tinted glass that recasts any and all light that makes contact with it in saturated oranges and warm pinks, as if it were emanating from a fictive, perpetual sunset.

Now there is animation at the north west corner. A disorderly squad of riders begin to cohere in the lower left of the frame. Something draws their attention to the north. Hoods up, their oversized oversaturated waterproofs neutralise their postures. Impossible to decipher logos and liveries from the present position and their shifting formation too vague to gauge intent. Now a foreign rider in full fluorescent pink waterproofs, moving fast, makes an incursion into the damp grey air against the soaking grey street at the upper left of the frame and descends parallel with the left edge of the columnal opening, approaching the apartment block from the north west. Leaning back on their escooter they decelerate suddenly, capably, into the corner, bringing them to within a few metres of the retreating squad. Their upper body twists away as they force a tight anti-clockwise curve, too close to the apartment block to be directly visible now. As they transition onto the reflective surface of the monolithic corporate building the fluorescent pink of their waterproofs, out of gamut, is re-rendered in deep rubine red and magenta. For two, three, four seconds their form modulates rapidly as it traverses the facade of the monolithic corporate building then decelerates again, curving clockwise now, rounding the north east corner of the apartment block, blurring and disappearing. A sense that the buzzer is overdue intensifies the anticipation of its electricity uncomfortably. If locking the escooter to the railings outside the apartment block. If ascending one flight of stairs to the apartment block. If scanning the list of names on the buzzers at the entrance of the apartment block. Then perhaps the door held open by someone leaving. Then possibly one lift out of service. Waiting. Now in the doorway to the fifth floor apartment blood smears and streaks, virtually black on the sheer sleeve of the full fluorescent pink waterproofs held to their lip. They kneel and unzip their pack, its intensely silver foil lining blowing out under the artificial light. They lower their head to their left shoulder to keep pressure on the lip and prevent their hood from completely obscuring their view. Retrieving an object they mumble an apology for it being damaged, their wrist is fucked though so could ... Otherwise they’ll be on fucking pointless gigs for the rest of the night ...

This text is part of an occasional, unauthorised series set in an extended universe based on David Rudnick’s Tomb Series.