Web3 changes culture: $YEEZY, $FWB and $50m pixelated avatars
Zora is empowering creators, $FWB is building digital cities and Nouns DAO wants to be an open protocol experiment for the NFT world
Hello world 🌏
If you missed last week’s issue on NFTs vs Ponzi Schemes and an overview of DAOs, you can check it out here!
What we’re learning about the world this week
Web3 is a cultural shift.
It feels intimidating to learn about Web3 because it is first and foremost a technological shift. Putting technical terms aside, why not learn about how it touches upon human culture? So this week, we’ll learn about:
👟 Zora: Helping artists create their own NFT auction house
🤝 Friends with Benefits ($FWB): The Web3 home for creatives
🏦 Nouns DAO: Pixelated avatars with a $50m treasury
👟 Zora
Helping artists create their own NFT auction house
If you love sneakers or limited-edition items from your favourite artists but dislike getting ripped off by scalpers, you’re going to find Zora dope. With Zora, artists and creators can launch their products and then continue to capture value in their resale/secondary market.
The Yeezy problem
If you’re lucky, you can cop a pair of Yeezys at their RRP ~$220 when they drop. But we all know that’s almost impossible - we'd have to buy off sneakerheads/scalpers for 3 to maybe even 10 times the RRP. Just imagine how much money resellers like Sneaker Don have made from flipping kicks.
The problem here for the creators and artists? Kanye and Adidas get nothing from these flips, literally $0. To be honest, Kayne’s already a billionaire so this is the least of his concerns. But for many artists and creators out there, not being able to capture secondary market value is a huge problem.
The Zora auction house
Zora wants to empower creators to launch their own NFT auction house which lets them capture secondary market value. Here’s how:
Enable creators to create their own exchange like StockX or GOAT but without the middle-person
Using crypto and tokens, products can be priced dynamically based on supply & demand
Creators earn a % from all the buy and sell transactions, capturing value that wasn’t accessible previously
In May 2020, André Anjos (@RAC on Twitter) released 100 casette tapes that were only redeemable through his Zora-token $TAPE. One of those were sold for as much as $13,000. He then launched a $RAC token where members have perks like joining a private Discord server and receiving exclusive access to merch drops on Zora.
Anything for the fans?
Gone are the days when fans camp out and line up for days just to cop a pair of 🔥 kicks. On Zora, a fan could buy 1 $ARTIST token that they could choose to redeem physical goods with or sell it at an appropriate price on a transparent, open and internet-native marketplace.
Recap and dive deeper
Creators rely on platforms for their livelihood. Zora wants to remove the middleperson and put the power back into the hands of these creators. Fans get to support their favourite creators in a more open and transparent way.
🤝 Friends with Benefits ($FWB)
The Web3 home for creatives
A token-gated community of creatives, thinkers and artists. I don’t blame you for thinking that it’s a blockchain-powered Tinder though. If you’re over the fact that it’s an interesting choice of name, check out their manifesto.
Culture x crypto
NFTs have allowed artists and creators to sell their work to people who appreciate them but there wasn’t a place for these individuals to vibe with each other, jam on ideas and build a community bound by shared values, incentives and experiences. The answer to that? A cultural membership powered by crypto - Friends with Benefits.
To join as a full member, you need to own at least 75 $FWB which is worth ~$9,000 as of October 23, 2021. If that’s too hefty, you could choose to buy 5 $FWB tokens to join their local membership. In general, members gain access to events, parties and different products.
FWB Seasons and Cities
Living in the metaverse is all the hype nowadays, but FWB is all about bringing digital and physical experiences together (URL x IRL). The majority of their experiments so far have run in phases or specifically, Seasons. Each Season has a clear agenda in making the community more vibrant, self-policing and engaging. They are currently in Season Four.
Think of each channel on Discord as its own neighbourhood. FWB is experimenting with the idea of Cities. Currently they have three Cities - London, NY and LA. These Cities elect their local leadership, run events and different local initiatives.
Just like how Sydneysiders are different from Melbournians - they have different interests, share different values and embrace different cultures. With that in mind, the goal of FWB Cities is to connect and embrace the diversity that exists in these different local communities and networks. How would these networks connect with one another on a local and global level?
Recap and dive deeper
FWB is the Web3 home for creatives and artists. Initially starting out as a Discord server, its team now has 30+ core contributors, with FWB Cities in London, NY and LA.
🏦 Nouns DAO
Pixelated NFTs with a $50m treasury
Are these just expensive avatars?
ONE NOUN, EVERYDAY, FOREVER.
Noun 1 was sold for Ξ 613.37 or $1.84m on August 08, 2021. In their own words, “Nouns are an experimental attempt to improve the formation of on-chain avatar communities.”
Unlike a typical NFT project with huge upfront drops of collectibles, noun.wtf takes a different approach by auctioning only 1 Noun each day. 100% of the proceeds are deposited into the Nouns DAO treasury, currently worth Ξ 11570 or ~$48m. 1 Noun gives you 1 vote - that means you get to shape the project’s roadmap as long as you own a Noun. If you like the artwork but don’t have Ξ 100 lying around, you could generate your own Noun (no voting rights tho) by going to their playground.
The Nouns Virtuous Cycle
Although it may seem like another exclusive club, the creators or “Nounders” actually liken the project to Ethereum - an open-source protocol that can impact cryptocurrency and governance. They call it The Nouns Virtuous Cycle.
Think of it this way, VCs have a huge pool of money to invest in potentially world-changing startups; similarly, by being a Noun owner (LP) and contributing to the treasury (fund), the treasury can fund experiments built on top of the Nouns project.
The unNoun future
Here’s the thing: understanding Web3 projects requires us to tweak the way we analyse projects e.g. financial feasibility and utility. While the immediate impact of a project like Nouns is unknown, but we are already seeing it being a better attempt at overlapping culture, financial incentives and governance as compared to what existing organisations have tried.
How will this shape our online identities? We don’t know for sure. But pixelated avatars are only the first step of this huge experiment - you are in the early innings of Web3.
Recap and dive deeper
Nouns DAO was created by 10 prominent crypto individuals such as @supergremplin (CrypToadz) and @cryptoseneca to improve the formation of on-chain avatar communities.
Just through these 3 projects, we can already see how Web3 touches upon a creator’s livelihood (Zora), how it can take embracing cultural diversity to the next level ($FWB) and even help people build their internet persona using on-chain avatars (Nouns).
I hope you enjoyed reading this week’s issue as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you reckon someone else would enjoy this as well, feel free to share it with them or on social media 😊
We’ll see you next week!