#72 Elon's Twitter Revelations
Is advertising revenue or the freedom to transact more important?
GM - this is The Snapshot, edition #72.
Welcome to the new subscribers this week!
I write about NFTs/crypto, and solopreneurship in web3.
This is what I’ve got for you:
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - Sotheby’s Grails 2 Incoming
Sponsored Post - Chimpers keep chimping
Notable Sales - Opepen, Fewocious Paint, 6529, Fidenza
Creator Corner - Elon’s Twitter Revelations
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 - Sotheby’s Grails 2 Incoming
The Jack Butcher ecosystem continues to rip higher:
Opepens are up 66% in 7 days.
Checks are up 22% in 7 days.
Jack Butcher has made NFTs NON-FUNGIBLE again. How did he do this?
Simply: he took his 16,000 collection. And turned it into 200 collections of 80 NFTs. Within the sets of 80 NFTs, there is a 1/1, 1/4s, 1/5s, 1/10s, 1/20s, and 1/40s.
This gives Jack optionality: he can create 200 unique sets (potentially with unique collaborators each time) AND those sets have internal rarity (via the edition size).
NFTs are NON-FUNGIBLE again (instead of being treated as similar to each other).
Want to know more about Jack? You’ll have to dive into my longer article. on Jack from 4 months ago.
Sotheby’s next Grail sale incoming
On June 15 Sotheby’s will sell the next set of grail NFTs from the disgraced 3AC - who had amassed one of the finest NFT collections before their demise.
It included “The Goose” (pictured above) which was sold for 1800 ETH in the summer of 2021.
This is significant because after the first auction where the sales were much higher than expected, a number of generative art pieces went on a “mini-bull run”.
So it is worth watching if this second auction has a similar effect.
Fewocious announces PFP reveal in August - floor prices jumps 20%
Fewocious announced his PFP collection dropping soon.
The art looks pretty incredible!
Paint (a ticket to the new collection) was up 20% on the announcement.
Doodles announce IRL experiences
Doodles announced they will work with CAMP to bring physical consumer experiences to the masses.
Original Doodles NFT collectors will enjoy “special access: free entry, merch credits, concierge services & custom creation opportunities.”
A cool way to bring some utility to holders!
Mercedes enter NFT space
Mercedes has partnered with the generative artist, Harm van den Dorpel, and a prominent art DAO, Fingerprints DAO, to release their first foray into Web3.
Mercedes full explanatory thread
“A collection exploring the themes of velocity and perception, Maschine consists of 1,000 unique generative artworks which depict radial arrangements that spin at varying speeds, all generated from a single algorithm.”
It looks like this is an exceptionally well thought out launch from a huge company: great partnerships, web3 native team, and great artist.
Nansen, the huge crypto/web3 intelligence company, had to cut 30% of jobs this week.
In a public letter, the CEO shared that they simply grew too fast.
A number of other tech companies had to cut similar numbers not too long ago - so not unsurprising in these market conditions.
Otherside Partnerships
Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Apes, announced that in their metaverse, the Otherside, the voyagers will not be “going into battle alone” - and that they will be with “a select group of third party PFP collections.”
This sent NFT Twitter into wild overdrive. Why?
Because this means that there are other NFT collections which could be integrated into Otherside.
This means those collections will get exposure to the Yuga Labs ecosystem.
Which people get excited about - because it means the price will go up….right?
Sponsored Post - Chimpers keep chimping
Totally unbothered by market conditions and having fun with friends no matter what
“The Chimpers Effect”
The Chimpers team has empowered their community to keep chimping every single day irrespective of what is happening on the rollercoaster-ride of crypto.
IRL Chimp Champions: The Chimpers IRL meetups have been growing rapidly all over the world with the help of Little Atlas. From Boston to Hong Kong, there are Chimpers hosting meet ups all over the globe!
Twitter Spaces Champions: Prominent holders like OD and Murr have been supported to run Chimp-specific Twitter spaces for all holders to hang out together.
Art Competitions with ETH prizes: The Chimpers Art Foundation sponsor routine art competitions with ETH prizes for the winners (0.5 ETH for winner; 0.25 ETH for runners up).
Whether NFT price is up or down, the Chimpers keep chimping - and the Chimpers team continue to back their community with their time, effort and ETH.
Check out the Chimpers Twitter account for more details on how to get involved or reply to this email with any questions you’d like me to answer.
Notable Sales - Opepen, Fewocious Paint, 6529, Fidenza
Opepen edition 1 set 004 - 30 ETH ($55,920)
Fewocious 201 Paint Drop - 38 ETH ($70,700)
6529 Gradient - 19 ETH ($35,000)
Tyler Hobbs, Fidenza - 58 ETH ($108,000)
Creator Corner - Elon’s Twitter Revelations
In an hour long interview with The Babylon Bee, Elon revealed a whole host of interesting information about the Twitter takeover, how Twitter is orienting itself right now, and how it wants to position itself in future.
Here is a summary of the key points - and why I think it matters.
The Twitter takeover
Paid too much - but “$44bn won’t be much soon” (inflation!)
Twitter had 4 months to live - now they are breaking even
Current orientation
Optimising for “unregretted time” - to contrast with how people hate themselves for being on TikTok for so long
Aspiration: to be the “least untruthful space”
Twitter lost $40m advertising dollars because they refused to pull community notes (fact checking) of advertiser statements
Desire for creators to make more on Twitter than YouTube: (i) by subscriptions; and (ii) share of ad revenue
Future
Dream for X (the everything app) started 24 years - an “all encompassing financial services provider”
He believes in the freedom of information; he believes money is a form of information (this is basically saying “the freedom to transact” - though he says this has to be lawful)
Why is this important?
Though some of the information has been previously available, it is another reminder that Twitter is planning to become one of the biggest financial service providers in the world.
Again: Twitter is planning to become one of the biggest financial service providers in the world.
Musk referenced the Canadian trucker strikes and some of Paypal’s decisions to withdraw financial services for what appeared to be political reasons. He does not believe in these forms of debanking.
This is likely to mean further sidestepping of the traditional banking system; a potential integration with crypto because so much of Twitter is cross-border interactions (and it can be so cumbersome to transact internationally in the traditional system); a transformation of the Twitter business model.
The desire to encourage creators to produce longer-form content on Twitter should also lead to greater creator incentives soon.
I am looking forward to those rolling out.
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