web3 / 509 posts found
Binance’s AI NFT Tool Attracts Thousands Amidst AI Ethics Concerns
Launching an AI art tool is risky business these days. While the AI-art movement continues to develop, with artists and galleries hosting competitions and physical exhibitions displaying the work of artists using the tools, society remains wary of the very concept. The general public has some reason to be; while many of the critiques lobbed at AI artistry are reactionary and based in fear, there are legitimate, ethical concerns surrounding the tools’ creation and use. But by the looks of it, popular crypto exchange Binance isn’t too bothered by the controversy. On March 1, company CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the […]
A Guide to Photography NFTs and the Future of Imagery
Never before has society been so visually saturated. Trillions of photos are taken every year, and the popularity of social media and the prevalence of image-based marketing are simply a given at this point. Clearly, image is everything. But, this proliferation of images and the infrastructure surrounding their consumption hasn’t always been for the better. At times, social media has been a particularly fertile ground for the outright plagiarism of professional photographers’ work. In October 2017, photographer Cath Simard shared a picture of a Hawaiian road on her Instagram account. It immediately went viral and was shared across several platforms […]
How NFT Misinformation is Harming the Environment
In 2019, wildlife photographer Frank Liu took a shot of a spotted Zebra. The photo was covered in National Geographic, Forbes, Smithsonian Magazine, and featured on the cover of several South African publications. Today, Liu is trying to move beyond his Web2 legacy and traditional media. He’s traveling the world building a community of artists interested in facilitating wildlife conservation using Web3 technologies. But there’s a problem. A combination of blockchain fear-mongering and misunderstandings about NFTs and the environment have thwarted his conservation efforts — and what might be one of the greatest funding opportunities many small NGOs have ever […]
NFT Marketplace Blur Is Beating OpenSea, but Will It Last?
The Web3 landscape is shifting. With the explosive rise of the NFT marketplace and aggregator Blur in recent weeks and months, OpenSea now finds itself in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar position: it now has a legitimate contender for the title of NFT marketplace leader. If Blur’s steadily growing presence since its launch last year wasn’t indicative of this change, the previous month certainly has been. In the last 30 days alone, the platform has done $1.24 billion in trading volume. And OpenSea? Nearly $383 million. In the aftermath of Blur’s token launch on February 14, activity on the platform has […]
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. […]
Web2 Media Is Broken. The Future of Media Is Tokenized.
“We need more reach.” “This will get a lot of clicks.” “The client won’t be happy with these numbers.” We’ve heard these narratives nonstop since our media careers began more than 15 years ago. They are thought patterns that have been normalized in newsrooms and ad agencies across the world. And this is just the beginning of the issues with the current state of media. The truth is this: Web2 media is broken. The traditional models and ways of doing things in media just don’t work anymore. This behavior did not come out of the blue. So how did we […]
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 […]
Exclusive: Yuga Labs Executive Talks Dookey Dash, Hacks, and What’s Next
You might say that Yuga Labs’ Dookey Dash was a success. At least, that’s what the hundreds of thousands of hours people spent playing the game and the nearly 37,000 ETH in Sewer Pass trading volume on the secondary market would indicate. When the game’s two-week run ended on February 16, few in the Web3 space were particularly surprised by the achievements of this latest gamified minting mechanism of the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem. But that near-blasé response to Dookey Dash’s smooth execution is compelling evidence of Yuga’s increasing ability to pivot to the play-to-earn (P2E) gaming sector via […]
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 […]