✖️ When web3 platforms die, communities can rebuild: a Hic et Nunc case-study
And: Decentralized music festivals; UMG's NFT 'Supergroup'; Daniel Ek's military tech investment; Water & Music tokenizes; Britney Spears; YouTube ditches dislikes
Last week, one of the most popular NFT platforms, Hic et Nunc, was taken down by its founder "in an irresponsible act of rage". Imagine Daniel Ek or Mark Zuckerberg hitting the off switch. These things happen, though. Some people may recall that MySpace shut down popular music platform imeem on the same day it acquired it in 2009.
This time it’s different though. Through the decentralized nature of the web3, Hic et Nunc’s community has rebuilt within days and will organize themselves differently to create further resilience. Nothing important was lost. Here’s how.
TECH
👁 Crypto wants to be seen (Kayvon Tehranian)
"Once understood, crypto is powerful in its simplicity. But it actually becomes more complicated the more you bury it under layers of abstraction."
Kayvon Tehranian, founder & CEO, Foundation
🏟 Welcome to RefractionDAO (RefractionDAO)
“RefractionDAO’s goal is to become a decentralized global creative community of artists, curators and fans focused on moving culture forward through collectively reimagining live experiences in the physical world and in the open metaverse.”
🌊 Introducing $STREAM: A new tokenized research framework for the music industry (Cherie Hu + crew)
“We believe Web3 can serve as the rails for a wholly different set of incentive structures for music-industry media and education — one that incentivizes quality over quantity; that rewards curiosity and skill-building over “expertise” or seniority; that better reflects the diversity and ingenuity of its readers; that puts artists and creators at the center; and that encourages more transparent, fluid knowledge-sharing in a historically opaque, exploitative and low-paying business.”
🦍 The World’s Largest Record Company Is Creating an NFT Super Group (Lucas Shaw)
That the announcement only talks about the Bored Ape NFTs and not about music gives this a very gimmicky vibe. However, it’s still interesting in terms of what this may mean for the valuation of other ‘apes’ by Bored Ape Yacht Club. In that sense, people doing big things with the artwork increases the overall valuation of the art by that artist (incl that owned by other people). This will be a really common dynamic throughout the next decade.
📆 Song a Day is becoming a DAO (Jonathan Mann)
1. SongADAO (S.A.D) owns copyright, collects royalties & money from daily auctions.
2. S.A.D NFT is a song/video that comes with a unique illustration
3. A S.A.D NFT makes you eligible to be a member
4. Members direct the funds and can earn $ by helping the DAO
X
👎 YouTube gives dislikes the thumbs-down, hides public counts (Mitchell Clark)
I’m not a big fan, as it makes it harder to tell whether a video is going to be just filler or will actually have good content. The only thing you have to go by now is the view count / like count… For music and other arts, I think it’s welcome though.
🪙 Economic opportunities for our avatars (L’Atelier)
“As the efficacy and capability of these technologies continue to scale, so will their reach and consequence. In many countries this is likely to enshrine the political and economic status quo in stone and resist unpermissioned mobility. The potential for a technological caste system is looking more and more likely.”
⚡️ Now That Britney’s Free, Will We Turn on Her? (Jude Ellison S. Doyle)
“The underdog cycle worked its familiar magic. Everyone loves Britney Spears again. It says something fairly horrific that Spears’ abjection had to be this extreme in order for her reputation to turn around. But now, Britney is free. She’s won. Which means something very dangerous: We may not feel sorry for her anymore.”
💣 Daniel Ek’s investment group announces first bet in defence startup Helsing (Eleanor Warnock)
“Helsing believes it has an edge in creating algorithms able to be trained with relatively small amounts of data. Its software platform processes data from sensors and cameras on vehicles and systems to create real-time views of battlefields.”
To be clear: I’m not a fan of music money going into military tech.
👂 The Dawn of the Artist-Driven Future with Jack Spallone of HIFI Labs (Music Tectonics)
“In this wide ranging episode, Jack Spallone, Head of Crypto at HIFI Labs and major player in music+crypto's early days, maps how Web3 has emerged from past attempts to deal with music assets using blockchain, and how the whole ecosystem has been guided by artists and collectives taking control.”
$ENS Airdrop
Hi everyone - if you followed my Web3 primer earlier this year, set up a wallet and registered your name as a .eth domain on ENS, you’re eligible for their airdrop.
In short: they’re starting a DAO and they want their users to have a stake. This stake is represented in tokens. Since ENS is really essential infrastructure in Ethereum, these tokens are already quite valuable.
You can find the claim info here.
MUSIC
I’ve been jamming to this super high energy tune by German rapper Haiyti.