#69 AI girlfriends - the next step for AI?
3 reasons why we must befriend AI now
GM - this is The Snapshot, edition #69.
Big announcement: after 69 editions, I have rebranded the '“BCheque Papers” to “The Snapshot”.
Nothing changes though!
You can get the Daily Snapshot every day on Twitter
And this weekly Snapshot newsletter into your inbox 1x per week.
This is what we’ve got this week:
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - Elon pumps Miladys
Sponsored Post - Lil Nouns DAO
Notable Sales - Fidenza, MVP, Pepe, Alpha Centauri Kid
Creator Corner - AI girlfriends - the next step for AI?
For sponsorship enquires, please DM me on Twitter.
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
Have a great day,
B
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - Elon pumps Miladys
Elon pumps Miladys
After pumping an NFT collection a few weeks ago (which I wrote about here), Elon was at it again this week.
The Miladys have been considered a controversial NFT collection because of their ‘4chan vibes’ (check out their website here) - but nevertheless this tweet sent the 10,000 piece NFT collection up almost 100% after the tweet.
Pretty crazy graph.
Euphoric god candle up, before coming back down to earth quite quickly.
The internet tries to have fun while it can!
Pudgy Penguins raise $9M
A breakdown of some of the Pudgy investors
Despite the awful macro conditions at the moment, the Pudgy Penguins team managed to raise $9M in their seed round.
Whilst it was not disclosed at what valuation this was raised, I think it demonstrates the immense confidence various people have in Luca Netz, the CEO, who has cultivated not only a loveable brand across social media platforms in Web 2, but also a strong community of web3 native people who love the Penguins.
I cannot stress how rare this has been for web3 companies: to keep expanding and become profitable outside of web3, whilst simultaneously keeping token holders happy.
The Penguins are running a masterclass on this.
$PEPE for payment
From Penguins to Frogs, OpenSea integrates $PEPE for payment.
I wrote about how this coin went up so outrageously here - up to a $1b marketcap from nothing in just a few weeks!
Whilst this is a fun piece of news, I don’t think it means every one will be swapping their prized USD / ETH for $PEPE to be used as a day-to-day currency.
DeGods go live for Buy-Now-Pay-Later on BLEND
Blur, the most popular NFT platform, launched the latest collection - DeGods - onto its Buy-Now-Pay-Later functionality (which allows buyers to buy an NFT for a fraction of its real price).
DeGods price pumps but then settles quickly
Every time this happens the market does the same thing: people buy really aggressively as soon as the news is out (and some people front run the news)…
Then the price corrects quickly.
It appears that the speculators still broadly control the price action.
Chimpers GIFS hit 15m views
From Penguins, to frogs, to chimps, the Chimpers team keep putting up crazy numbers on other platforms.
Their GIF views went from 3 million to 15 million in 24 hours.
They are clearly striking a chord, and the team are paving the way for Web 3 IP to build out across platforms in the same way as the Penguins are (the frogs not so much!)
The US anti-crypto stance continues
I have written much about the anti-crypto sentiment from the US establishment.
This week we saw two funny examples of this.
First, President Biden tweeted that Democrats wanted Congress to cut “tax loopholes that help wealthy crypto investors.”
This elicited all sorts of responses on Crypto Twitter, pleading with the internet to inform us of the loopholes because of how much everyone had paid in tax the last few years.
But more than that, it was a statement flagged by the Twitter Community Notes feature, which is usually reserved for potentially inaccurate statements.
“Virtual currency is treated as property and general tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. When investors sell virtual currency they must pay tax on any capital gain. There is no evidence of “Loopholes” to avoid this.”
Twitter Community Notes
Okay, so that wasn’t that funny - just dumb.
This is actually funny.
You have to watch this clip from a US House meeting where Mr Sherman says:
“Cryptobros think they can just make money out of thin air!”
“We make money out of thin air…but we are the US government!”
Sponsored Post - Lil Nouns DAO
Do you have cool ideas but need funding?
I have received a multi-month sponsorship from Lil Nouns DAO worth 6 ETH ($11,000) to deliver this message to you - so I’m in a position to say Lil Nouns DAO could be able to fund you too.
The Lil Nouns DAO has a significant treasury for funding passionate, thoughtful and committed creators in this space who want to proliferate the Nounish message - this funding could be yours, just like it was mine!
How does funding work?
Lil Nouns DAO releases routine bounties called “props” to which you can submit your ideas to win that funding.
What’s an even bigger deal?
Lil Nouns DAO owns almost 20 Nouns - which means we are in the perfect position to support your biggest ideas by leveraging those Nouns to sponsor your proposal and vote for you in Nouns DAO itself (TLDR: this gets you exposure to the much larger Nouns treasury).
If you are curious about contributing to a cutting-edge DAO and getting paid for your big ideas at the same time:
Check out the Lil Nouns DAO website for more details or reply to this email with any questions you’d like me to answer.
Notable Sales - Fidenza, MVP, Pepe, Alpha Centauri Kid
Fidenza - $80,000
Memeland, MVP - 57.5 ETH ($105,000)
Matt Furie Pepe - 18 ETH ($32,820)
Alpha Centauri Kid - The Broken Keys - A collection of 48 1/1s - 731 ETH ($1.35M)
Tophat CryptoPunk - 109 ETH ($201,879.99 USD)
Chromie Squiggle - Full colour spectrum - 15.4 ETH ($28,300)
Creator Corner - AI girlfriends - the next step for AI?
Listen to this audio of the AI Snapchat star, Caryn Marjorie - who will offer virtual girlfriend services: “emotional and physical experiences just like a human does…but delivered digitally.”
If you have had no luck in the dating app hell hole, AI is here to the rescue!
In seriousness, there are some numbers and a business angle to get into here. Let’s go!
How much money has the real Caryn made?
Virtual boyfriends pay $1 per minute for various interactions, ranging from simple chitchat to making plans for their futures together, and even more intimate exchanges
According to Fortune, Caryn has generated $71,610 in revenue in just one week
Caryn expects to make around $5 million per month if 20,000 out of the 1.8 million individuals who follow her on Snapchat subscribe to CarynAI
How is this AI faciliated?
The Forever Voices team analyzed 2,000 hours of Marjorie's old YouTube content to train the CarynAI model, which they developed to simulate her speech and personality.
They utilized the advanced features of GPT-4 to create a highly realistic version of Marjorie, capable of producing believable responses and interactions based on her natural behavior and mannerisms.
What can we learn from this monetisation of the tech?
I have said this many times already: as an independent individual trying to make money on the internet we must be experimenting-with-a-view-to-leveraging-this-technology now.
My 3 reasons:
This tech has the potential to provide a new revenue stream for content creators, who can monetize their digital likeness and personality (in a way this already exists with the internet);
AI-powered people can engage with fans and followers on a 24/7 basis, creating a deeper sense of connection and engagement (in a way this already exists with the internet too);
Soon we will be able to feed our existing content into AI so that it can produce new native content, which will significantly reduce our workflow (THIS is what is truly brand NEW about the tech)
I believe using AI now is like making the suggestion to someone in the 90s: “maybe you want to have a play around with this thing called the internet.”
We must push forward; we can’t stay still; we must innovate.
Those who do not will become obsolete… like those who refused to learn computers/internet/email.
Don’t be one of those people.
We must be humble enough to know things don’t stay the same forever, and though it may be difficult, we must continue to learn and grow.
Have a great day,
B
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the NFTs mentioned in these newsletters