Culture / 400 posts found
5 Web3 Projects Fighting for Racial Justice
Web3 isn’t necessarily known for its inclusiveness or its diversity. And while the NFT space needs to ensure it’s doing everything it can to not pigeonhole itself into a one-dimensional club for the financial and social elite, the perception that it’s dominated by white men is increasingly becoming a stereotype. According to research from Charles Schwab, a larger percentage of Black Americans own crypto than white Americans. Twenty-five percent own some form of crypto compared to just 15 percent of white Americans. That statistical split jumps to 38 and 29 percent, respectively, when looking at investors under 40 years old. […]
Deep Fake: The World’s Largest AI Art Exhibition
The AI art movement is accelerating fast. And because the very concept of AI art sits at the center of one of the most contentious cultural debates in recent history, the creators driving the trend forward seemingly have both nothing and everything to prove to those attempting to delegitimize the technology and its use. Against a hostile backdrop, artists continue to push the boundaries of what can be accomplished with the help of civilization’s latest art tools. And the proliferation of those tools and the enthusiasm with which they’ve been adopted by millions across the globe means that physical exhibitions […]
The Friendsies Fiasco: Rug Pull Rumors and Leadership Woes Explained
What is happening over at Friendsies? The kindness-themed NFT project, headed by FriendsWithYou founders Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III, raised some major eyebrows in the Web3 community on February 21 when they tweeted that they’d be putting “a pause on Friendsies and all future digital goods for the time being.” Specifically, they cited market volatility and an inability to deliver the project as intended as reasons for the pause. Without further explanation, the team then deleted the Friendsies Twitter account. From rug pull accusations to a public offer to take over Frendsies, we dive into everything that happened next and […]
Tokenized Minigames: The Next Big Thing in NFTs?
Many have theorized that the convergence of NFTs and gaming would bring about a unmatchably robust sector of blockchain interoperability. Yet, although a wide range of Web3 gaming endeavors exist and have achieved varying degrees of success, it seems that none so far have risen high enough to achieve the ultimate goal of NFT stewards: mainstream adoption. But is mainstream adoption really what the blockchain gaming sector should be gunning for? Sure, taking NFTs from niche to mainstream is an admirable goal that, more often than not, seems to be universally accepted throughout Web3. But who are the true beneficiaries […]
The Harvest: Per Kristian Stoveland’s Love Letter to Science Fiction
Per Kristian Stoveland’s artistic mind inhabits the liminal space between the logical and the playful. A visual artist who fell in love with coding at a young age and the co-founder of the Oslo-based design studio Void, Stoveland has recently found a home for his love of generative art and graphic design in Web3. On January 18, 2023, he released his latest NFT project, The Harvest, on the generative art platform Art Blocks. With a current floor price of 7 ETH and more than 2,684 ETH in trading volume on the secondary market, Stoveland’s first big entry to the Ethereum […]
What Can Web3 Do for Turkey and Syria?
It’s difficult to frame the scale of the devastation and loss of human life that has taken place in southern Turkey and northern Syria in the last week. The numbers only do so much to convey the gravity of the disaster; on February 6, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep at 4:17 in the morning, instantly leveling buildings and killing thousands across dozens of municipalities. As people began to sift through the rubble to rescue family members in the bitter Anatolian winter air, a second quake hit, nearly as strong as the first, registering at 7.5 […]
Bitcoin Ordinals Wallets Have Arrived
The rapid rise of Bitcoin Ordinals continues. With over 123,000 Ordinals inscriptions now forever written onto the Bitcoin blockchain — and a thriving trading and auction scene for the most sought-after (read: low inscription number) tokens and collections — Bitcoin’s status as an NFT ecosystem has been secured. While the chain’s version of NFTs has begun to proliferate in recent weeks, those looking to actually interact with the chain and obtain an Ordinal have had to deal with an opaque, sluggish, and centralized tech framework. It was only a matter of time before Web3 developers started to fill the demand […]
NFT Marketplace Wars: Blur Tells Users to Ban OpenSea
Yesterday, NFT marketplace Blur finally allowed users to redeem care packages for $BLUR, the platform’s native token. The event was highly anticipated and resulted in a significant market surge over the last month. Ultimately, the royalties-optional marketplace secured over $430 million in trading volume in the last 30 days. And yesterday, the money continued to flow. The event saw several top traders rake in more than $1 million worth of tokens. According to data from DappRadar, Blur’s 24-hour trading volume was around $9.5 million, making it second only to OpenSea, whose trading volume was approximately $12 million. Now, it seems that Blur is going […]
Exclusive: Tyler Hobbs Unveils First Physical QQLs as Paintings
The Alpha: Contemporary art institution Pace Gallery will present a physical exhibition featuring new work from generative artist Tyler Hobbs at its New York gallery from March 30 to April 22. This marks Pace’s first exhibition dedicated to a single artist’s Web3 project. Titled QQL: Analogs, the exhibition will feature 12 large-scale works from Hobbs’ experiments with a new algorithm called QQL, which he developed alongside fellow generative artist Dandelion Wist. The pieces — shared exclusively with nft now — were created using a subtractive process with a custom plotter and painted by hand. Speaking to nft now, Hobbs notes […]
Jack Butcher’s Checks Are Burning. What’s Next?
When Jack Butcher introduced his Checks project to the NFT space, he did so with a single sentence: “This artwork may or may not be notable.” Since his initial Tweet, it’s become clear that not only are Checks notable, but the collection marks a major shift in NFTs for the first time in nearly a year. Although still convoluted to some, Checks has emerged as the frontrunner of the newly incepted open edition (OE) craze, as well as a timely commentary on and criticism of Twitter verification under Elon Musk’s ownership of the platform. As the project continues to take […]