so, hi there.

it's been a while since my last plan update.

welcome back!

there a LOT of fud out there, and i wanted to take a few minutes and put together a short (not!) document talking about the use cases of nfts -- there are already lots of posts out there talking about some of the more red herring things like energy use. i encourage you to dig around for those.

note: my own take on this energy business? it's knee-jerk, moral panic craziness. my thoughts basically boil down to two salient truisms:

1. blockchain is the first time in human history where energy use isn't tied to local population
2. blockchain is such that the cheaper you can get energy, the more profit you'll make.

however, importantly, there's not really a document collecting stories about how nfts are sold, so i figured i'd scribble one up. maybe make it something people can share when they run into questions out in the world.

it's a personal pet peeve of mine when people respond to the right-clickers who claim ownership over a jpg with, "yeah, but try and sell it!"

because there's more value in your nfts than just selling them.

. . . and, welp, here goes.

we get these questions a lot. trust me. you're not the first person to ask it. and, yes. we've all thought deeply about it. it's why we own them and you probably don't.

the answer? it depends.

i can hear you now. "that's a dumb answer."

no. not really if you think about it.

think about other stuff you own -- what can you do with it? sure there are items with high utility. like a power drill or a bottle of dish soap or the couch in your living room. but what about things that are just there to look at? like, the posters on your walls? or the knick-knacks on your desk? maybe the books on your shelf?

i suspect there's lots of stuff just there to look at in your house.

"but those are inside my house, and just for me!"

well, you and friends who come over, neighbors looking in your windows, any repairmen who show up. and, don't forget, the pizza delivery guy!

besides, there's this concept of bumper stickerss for your car. and lawn signs. i mean, the whole point is to show them to as many strangers as you possibly can.

and don't even get me started on outside halloween and christmas decorations!

(insert a whole diatribe right here about social signalling and community building . . . but that's another post for later.)

my point is: even for physical things, what you can do with them depends on what they're for.

for example, with cryptopunks, you can really just say you own one. but, with bored apes? the license is very permissive.

in fact, this bit right here?

iii. Commercial Use. Subject to your continued compliance with these Terms, Yuga Labs LLC grants you an unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy, and display the purchased Art for the purpose of creating derivative works based upon the Art (“Commercial Use”). Examples of such Commercial Use would e.g. be the use of the Art to produce and sell merchandise products (T-Shirts etc.) displaying copies of the Art.

it says you can do anything with your ape you want -- from selling t-shirts to making a feature film about them to pulling together a musical act.

it really does help to start thinking of a lot of these nfts less like random art, and more like individual memes or brands.

aside from universal music asking you to start a band?

ha!

well, practically speaking for the rest of us, actually, we can do lots!

but, i'm sure some examples would help!

also note, there's LOTS more out there than what i'm talking about here. these examples are just some of my favorites from my personal portfolio. other people will have different nfts that do different things, i'm sure.

anyhow, here's a list of benefits i personally received and you didn't, even though you right-click-saved my nft images.

to be fair, cryptopunks don't actually do much on their own.

however, they're mostly about access.

meaning, owning one can get you into all the right back channels. this is because there are generally two cases where someone owns a punk.

1. they recognized the power and got into nfts early. (raises hand!!)
2. they spent a ton of money. (puts hand back down . . .)

which is why it's interesting -- what do you think early innovators and wealthy benefactors are talking about in those secret back channels?

they're talking about building things.

lots and lots of things.

punks are access.

i dearly love my wizards!! first, they have a super-permissive license, like the bored apes, where you can do anything you want. i could literally make a movie about my wizard, which, of course, would make millions of dollars at the box office, and all of the profit would go straight into my pocket.

i mean, that's neat and all, but the community is the also the best one out there. "lore, not floor!!"

since we own the ip together, many of us write about the adventures of our wizards in the book of lore. for example, here's the entry i wrote when i sent my wizard into the sacred flame, and he turned into a ghost orb.

oh, and speaking of the sacred flame, that was a free nft they airdropped to us which were selling for 2 eth (about $8,400) on halloween. and, just because we owned wizards.

so, they're lucrative to own, too.

this is a really fun one.

basically, because i owned a punk (see above), i was able to grab a shoe nft (which is also a real-world, physical shoe). and, because i have that shoe, i can mint a bunch of their upcoming clonex avatars before anyone else.

and, given the existing rtfkt nfts are now going for about $64,000 apiece just to get in early on the mint, i'd say they're pretty hottly anticipated.

tho, personally, i'm really excited to wander around in the metaverse with mine instead of selling it.

my metakey is basically like a membership card for the entire metaverse. i've gotten literally dozens of free perks including everything from exclusive event access to airdropped wearables in decentraland.

the entire point of the metakey is to provide extra value for its holders in as many places as possible.

you can read more about it on their site.

these guys are more straight-up utility. sure, they're fun and have interesting narrative associated with them, but the main benefit is all of the forth-coming partnerships within the thorchain defi ecosystem.

similar to the metakey and cryptopunks, thorguards are effectively membership tokens.

if you don't know who alison wonderland is, i recommend checking out her music.

she's created an entire world, and is building lots of gamified experiences to go along with it. from the interactive in-world puzzles, to her exclusive live shows. it's an entire study in how to build cool stuff alongside your fanbase.

but, of course, you need a dragon to participate.

i do love the concept of urbit os -- it's a weird, quirky, and potentially powerful virtual metaverse, where you reserve space inside. if you have an id, you can boot up the operating system, and surf the decentralized world of content.

lots more info on their site.

and, of course, the nft, not just a jpg, is the key to get in.

botto isn't really an nft, but a digital, generative ai artist owned by the community.

yup. really.

botto drops nfts each week, built from a complex ai, and the community votes to train the ai for the art creation.

and, in order to bootstrap their governance, they airdropped tokens to all holders of these nfts:

• Artblocks Curated
• Artblocks Playground + Factory
• Async Art
• BAYC
• Cryptopunks (me!!)
• Meebits (me!!)
• SuperRare
• Hashmasks (me!!)

so, just by owning those nfts, i was airdropped about $7500 worth of tokens for free.

are you seeing a pattern?

just by participating in the community, your time and attention are rewarded.

but you have to have the nft, not just some random jpg on your computer.

speaking of participating and being rewarded . . . let me present ens. aka, the ethereum name service. it's kind of like dns, but better. you can link a name to more than just an ip -- eth address, bio, ip address, email, all kinds of things. it's essentially a useful identity marker for the metaverse.

this is a case where the organization has decentralized, effectively fractionalizing ownership of the service to everyone who ever used it. those people were then all airdropped governance tokens which represent voting rights and a share of the service's revenue among other things. it's kinda like owning a small part of a company.

that being the case, since i registered my ens name back in 2017 (yes, 4 years ago), they airdropped me around $50k in tokens.

no right-click-saved image on your computer will get you fractional ownership of a revenue-generating organization.

probably not, honestly.

so, what are the benefits? it really depends. what are you looking for? what do you like? how do you personally want to affect this new metaverse filled with nfts?

there are a ton of games and experiences coming around the corner. teams like animetas, the wanderers, avarik saga, nftworlds, sandbox, decentraland, loot project, nft dungeon, nifty island, etc. (i mean, now, i'm just scrolling through random projects of nfts i own) there's a HORDE of content getting built by these teams, piece-by-piece with all these wonderful toys. it really is amazing.

none of these even take into consideration other blockchains than ethereum. like, zed run on polygon, for example. or alien worlds on binance smart chain! or star atlas on solana!

and, not to mention, the few projects i'm actively building myself.

there is so much out there, and SO MUCH of it is really cool and has real value. i haven't felt this way since i started working on the web back in the mid-nineties. it really is like living in the future.

except it's all owned by us, not big tech.

because we are all building this stuff.

not them.