Features / 303 posts found
Misan Harriman Shares His Vision for a More Equitable Web3
Five years ago, Misan Harriman picked up a camera for the first time. Three years ago, he became the first Black man to shoot a cover for British Vogue in the magazine’s 104-year history. Today, he’s on a mission to use Web3 to level the playing field for artists around the world. As someone who’s struggled with dyslexia and was afraid to pick up his camera for years, Harriman’s journey is as much about personal and artistic growth as it is about the democratizing potential of blockchain technology. Finding his artistic voice Shortly after he picked up his camera for […]
Op-ed: The NFT Space Won’t Grow If We Continue to Cater to Speculators
When I got involved with NFTs in 2018, it was an extremely different industry. There was almost no venture capital. At the time, the NFT space felt distinct from the rest of crypto. There was a sense that NFTs were the real use case that crypto needed — not just something to speculate on like ICOs, or a tool to make speculation easier like DeFi. Fast forward to today, and things couldn’t be more different. I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but around the middle of 2021, NFTs fully merged with the rest of the crypto world. They became […]
The Promise and Peril of Creating Art 365 Days a Year
The creative journey can often be challenging, filled with the endless pursuit of perfection and the pressure to produce work each day. But what if the key to unlocking true artistic growth actually lies in embracing the power of daily practice? Creating something new every day may sound daunting, but for artists Noah Kalina, Jonathan Mann, and Justin Aversano, it has become a way of life. Each has committed to a daily practice — to an art project that they add to every day of the year. This daily practice has shaped their art as well as their relationship with […]
Yuga Labs’ Summoning Is Here: Everything You Need to Know
The Summoning is finally here. The long-awaited next step in Yuga Labs’ months-long interactive NFT mint mechanic is sure to set the Web3 community alight. Thousands of Sewer Pass holders are getting ready to burn their tokens in exchange for a Power Source, the item needed to advance to the next stage of the mint and reveal an as-of-yet unknown new set of NFTs. The rest of the NFT world waits with bated breath; both supporters and critics of the Bored Ape Yacht Club brand are waiting to see what comes next for the project and how its effects will […]
A Web3 Cautionary Tale: The Biggest NFT Brands Had Funds in SVB
On March 10, after days of uncertainty spurred on by $1.8 billion in surprise bond losses, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed, sending a tidal wave’s worth of ripple effects throughout the financial industry. The event quickly prompted the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, and the FDIC to step in to effectively circumvent catastrophe and assure depositors of access to all of their funds, whether insured or not. While the situation is still developing, the seeming fiasco has left those in traditional finance to shudder in remembrance of the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, the context of the collapse — that SVB was […]
We Asked Experts What the Future Holds for NFTs
The goal in Web3 is to stay ahead of the curve. Whether you’re a trader trying to buy low and sell high, a creator working to get in on the ground floor of a new trend, or an art collector looking to secure works before an artist rises to prominence, being early earns you both financial gains and community prestige. Of course, “winning” in Web3 is sometimes simply a case of good fortune. The collector who just happens to mint the rarest unrevealed NFT in a PFP collection surely does so with little insight into the future. That said, there […]
Op-Ed: We Need a New Blueprint for NFT Marketplaces
One of the primary reasons I was drawn to Web3 was the concept of a new ecosystem where creators are fairly compensated for their work. Verifiable ownership of digital assets, on-chain provenance, and the ability to create and record in an immutable way — Web3 has the potential to completely disrupt the wonderful but exploitative industries of art, tech, finance, music, and more. To me, this looked like the future. I still feel this way. Despite the current actions of marketplaces, I am confident that, as an industry, we will correct the course and remember why we’re here building this […]
No, NFTs Are Not Just Digital Collectibles
The terms non-fungible token (NFT) and digital collectible are increasingly used interchangeably. Not only is this incorrect, but it’s also reductive. The term “digital collectible” minimizes the potential of NFTs as an architectural software primitive, i.e., as a set of code that can be repurposed to build more sophisticated programs or interfaces. For a reasonably simple analogy, think of NFTs as websites. Anyone with a bit of coding knowledge can create a website. They are “hosted” using a unique identifier (URLs vs. contract addresses), can store and display data (text, images, video), and can execute code to perform desired outcomes. […]
When NFT Projects Die: Lessons From Web3 Failures
The Web3 community knows that situations can turn on a dime. From the fall of FTX to Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, it has become clear that market volatility isn’t the only thing to be worried about. And all it takes is just one tiny event to set off a chain reaction throughout the NFT space. Oftentimes, this can be a positive thing, like Jack Butcher’s Checks changing the trajectory of open editions. On the other hand, events like February’s demise of the Friendsies collection can mean the inevitable spread of fear throughout the metaverse. Although the NFT space enjoyed a […]
Owls NFTs Are Driving a Resurgence in ASCII Art
Owls NFTs have been on an absolute tear recently. Having dropped on March 3, the 10,000-piece collection of randomly-generated colorful text art owls has already done more than 11,000 ETH ($17 million) in trading volume on the secondary market and currently has a floor price of 0.184 ETH. Little is known about the collection, whose Twitter account is just a month old and whose creator recently self-doxxed to reveal that they go by Rei. What is certain is that the project has rekindled interest in ASCII art NFTs and other on-chain projects that make up a remarkable part of the […]