The grace period for asking “WTF is an NTF” has come and gone. Now, you should be informed, or at least have a semblance of this crypto “art” acronym in the daily banter of life. In this issue, we break down this growing asset class and some opinions on whether this is a crypto trend or something you should be taken seriously.
Cole
what we are listening to…
All about NFTs (a16z)
From "I've never seen anything like this before" to "is this like ICOs all over again" to "it's just a jpg I don't get it" to "but what about the energy use!" -- this special deep-dive episode from the a16z Podcast network breaks down everything you need or want to know about NFTs... while cutting through the noise for what’s hype/ what’s real. (listen)
what we are reading…
NFTs, Explained (The Verge)
There’s nothing like an explosion of blockchain news to leave you thinking, “Um… what’s going on here?” That’s the feeling I’ve experienced while reading about Grimes getting millions of dollars for NFTs or about Nyan Cat being sold as one. And by the time we all thought we sort of knew what the deal was, the founder of Twitter put an autographed tweet up for sale as an NFT. Now, months after we first published this explainer, we’re still seeing headlines about people paying house-money for clip art of rocks — and my mom still doesn’t really understand what an NFT is. (more)
A Brief History of NFTs, and a Look Into the Future (Linkedin)
The unprecedented ascent of NFTs, today in the art world may be an incredible innovation for artists to create and monetize their work. It could also be an efficient and novel way for collectors to purchase and store value -- and even artfully display their treasures to the world through virtual galleries. Or this could simply be an impressive trend, expressing a whim of the nouveau riche, the freshly minted millionaires of the crypto bull market having some fun with their swiftly acquired, substantial gains. (more)
Where Crypto, Gaming, and Capitalism Collide (Bloomberg)
To understand why Mark Zuckerberg thinks “the metaverse” is the next frontier, consider the case of Sam Peurifoy. The 27-year-old chemistry Ph.D. from Columbia University left his job at Goldman Sachs at the height of the pandemic and is now seeking out his fortune in crypto by playing video games. (more)
#coletakes
car radios: is (was!) there a greater feeling than the disc jockey de jour nailing track after track while you were driving along? No.
self-help books: when traveling through the airport, I always stop at Hudson News and pursue the latest books. It saddens me to see so many self-help books gracing the stands. Useless dribble that publishers have convinced “experts” to rephrase their takeaways so the book spine is a minimum of 200 pages.