Metacoin

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NFT

ChatGPT Tackles the World of NFTs and We Rate Their Writing

After the success of our blog post from three weeks ago — here’s a link: ChatGPT Isn’t Taking Your Job — we thought we’d experiment with the tool once again, but this time with the goal of kickstarting our own NFT collection.

So yeah, it’s self-serving as heck. (AND we’ll give you a couple disclaimers: do your own research. Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose. Also, since we created the art here at Metacoin HQ, of course we profit from any sales of the art. That’s capitalism for ya.)

But, as with everything these days, these NFTs are an experiment. Crypto is an experiment. ChatGPT is an experiment. And we put all these experiments together, and watch as it tackles the world of NFTs. How do we rate their writing? Read on…

First, the Background

The collection we asked about was the third we launched on OpenSea, which, to date, has been the leader in the NFT universe. While there have been a few competitors, OpenSea seems to be the leade rin the clubhouse.

Our collection is called “Collezione22” and the 176 pieces were created by us. (More accurately, me. At my computer.) Launched (of course) in 2022, only a few have sold — reminding me of a really off-color and rather sacrilegious Bible-related article from The Onion that I refuse to link to because reasons — so I thought “why not ask ChatGPT to create a post so I can sell more of these [expletive] NFTs?”

So I Went to ChatGPT and Asked…

“Write a 1000 word blog post as a potential investor in NFT art pieces, such as the ones at https://opensea.io/collection/collezione22 and compare their value to those that are focused on pfp or profile photos like cryptopunks and bored apes.”

Before I share the post in its entirety, a caveat: I went in and added links on any of the text where a link is appropriate. ChatGPT isn’t really great at that these days. It will get better and SEO professionals will need to ask what to do next.

Here, then, is the post:

As the world continues to embrace digitalization, the art industry is not left behind. The advent of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has revolutionized the way art is created, sold, and collected. NFTs provide a unique opportunity for artists to create digital art that is unique and exclusive to the buyer. As an investor, NFTs have caught my attention, and I am particularly interested in art pieces such as the ones found in the collezione22 collection on OpenSea. In this blog post, I will explain why I think investing in NFT art pieces is a wise decision and compare their value to those focused on PFP or profile photos like Cryptopunks and Bored Apes.

Firstly, NFTs provide a unique way to invest in art. Unlike traditional art pieces, NFTs are digital assets that exist on a blockchain. This means that they are unique and cannot be replicated or duplicated. When you buy an NFT, you own the original piece, and you can prove ownership using the blockchain. This is a significant advantage compared to traditional art pieces, which can be easily replicated, and it can be challenging to prove ownership.

NFTs also have a significant advantage in terms of liquidity. Unlike traditional art pieces, which may take time to sell, NFTs can be sold instantly on various online platforms such as OpenSea, Rarible, and Nifty Gateway. This means that if you need to cash out your investment quickly, you can do so easily without having to wait for a buyer.

Another advantage of investing in NFTs is the potential for high returns on investment. In recent months, we have seen some NFTs sell for millions of dollars. For example, the Beeple NFT sold for a record-breaking $69 million at Christie’s auction house. Although not all NFTs sell for millions, some can still provide significant returns on investment. The value of NFTs is driven by various factors, such as the rarity, the artist behind it, and the demand for the piece.

When it comes to NFT art pieces, the collezione22 collection on OpenSea is an excellent place to start. This collection features various digital art pieces from different artists, each with a unique style and theme. The art pieces in this collection range from abstract to realistic, and they are all visually appealing. This collection also provides an opportunity to invest in emerging artists who may become well-known in the future.

While NFT art pieces are an excellent investment opportunity, they are not the only type of NFTs available. Profile photos or PFPs have also become popular in the NFT world. PFPs are digital images that serve as a user’s profile picture on social media platforms. Some examples of PFPs that have gained significant popularity include Cryptopunks and Bored Apes.

Cryptopunks were one of the first NFT projects to gain significant attention. They feature 10,000 unique 8-bit characters that were randomly generated and sold for a fraction of an ether in 2017. Since then, their value has skyrocketed, with some selling for millions of dollars. Bored Apes, on the other hand, feature 10,000 unique digital apes that come with various accessories such as hats, glasses, and jewelry. Bored Apes have also gained significant popularity, with some selling for over $1 million.

While PFPs have gained significant attention, they have a few disadvantages compared to NFT art pieces. Firstly, PFPs lack the uniqueness and exclusivity that NFT art pieces provide. While each PFP may be unique, they do not provide the same level of creativity and originality that NFT art pieces offer. Secondly, PFPs may not have the

Wait, What?

Time to grade this piece. All 594 words of it.

Accuracy: B+

That was actually a pretty good piece in the grand scheme, as it talks about a few of the likely suspects — e.g. OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, Rarible — and whether it makes sense to invest in PFPs (where each is a different character) or artistic NFTs (such as the ones we created) that aren’t unique characters.

It falls short of an “A” rating, though, because it really doesn’t accurately talk about the collection I have on OpenSea. They’re all mine. I guess if someone reached out and said “I have some art!” then we’d talk.

Prose: C

It’s well-written but not too much better than what I could create myself. If I had the time.

So if “average” writing is your thing, then…that’s fine.

Following the Instructions: D-

I asked for 1000 words. I got 594. But this is passable writing, so I can’t give it an “F” grade.

Overall Grade: C

However, let’s think about this holistically. I went to a FREE website and typed in a question and got a response. And it’s good enough to put on the blog. And it might put *some* writers out of business.

But…didn’t you say that ChatGPT isn’t taking my job? What’s a writer to do?

Read My Last Post on the Topic…

Above is image #165 in the series. Art is subjective: you may find that to be a cool image, you may think it’s kinda just there. In the case of ChatGPT, it appears it didn’t think about the image at all.

The next image is #164, the original piece upon which #165 is based. 165 was created by digitally manipulating the original just enough so that it’s different, but still follows the same general color scheme and uses the original flow.

There’s very little room for nuance on ChatGPT, it appears. It does a casual glance based on the text it can find, but you’re not going to get a critique of the artwork.

So where does that leave us?

As we told you before, Google allowed us to outsource our thinking in some respects, and ChatGPT is doing the same. Does that free you up to create? Does it free you up to do a deeper dive on a subject that just cannot be explained by the chatbots?

Yeah, that’s what we think.

Seeing Through the FUD: How the Avalanche Network is Saving the NFT

(Editor’s Note: we’ve let our friend Anthony take the reins for this guest post.)

When FUD is at maximum and the bubble seems to have been thoroughly popped already, learn why the future of crypto looks bright for artists, developers, and users. I’m super bullish on Avax for at least three reasons: subnets, a talented artist community, and the best tokenomics project I have ever seen: Chikn.

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As of this writing, the markets have taken mega hits around the world. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt — better known to crypto enthusiasts as FUD — is a term that gets thrown around a lot but it’s representative of how emotionally-driven many crypto investors are and how incredibly wary most are of scams and the completely insane price volatility that crypto is known for. And they have a right to be hesitant since a reported $2.2 billion was stolen via crypto scams only in 2021 — and anyone trading NFTs can tell you that it’s like navigating a minefield sometimes. Those looking for easy money without any due diligence or attention were getting rekt by outrageous APR pump and dump scams, elaborate cash grabs, extreme volatility, and even the recent top 10 coin, Luna, getting obliterated due to a massive exploit with the UST algorithmic stablecoin.

Putting down their bloodshot eyes from their screens for a minute after 48 hours of staring at red candles, the crypto trader of 2022 is a battle-hardened veteran that is being told to go outside and take their minds off the market for a while before they go looney. Not too long ago, they were the green rookies getting into the degenerate world of NFTs and crypto trading. They have seen firsthand just how difficult trading can be — it’s said that 95% of traders lose money.

Often, people have no idea what they’re getting into as their nephew or third cousin or whoever told them to buy a dog coin back in 2017 and maybe they should have (nephew, is it too late to buy the dog coin?) and then wonder why their wallet went to 0 after plugging their metamask seed phrase into a phishing website (wait, I can’t email customer support or the SEC to get my money back?). These stories are far too common, unfortunately, and I barely scratched the surface here. 

It’s not just noobs getting destroyed also, but experienced vets that have been scammed and phished by professional, anonymous criminals taking advantage of the wild west unregulated DeFi space. But it’s all quite interesting, isn’t it? We are still here digging in our trenches.

*Insert my affiliate link to a hardware wallet here*. Just kidding, but seriously, look into getting a hardware wallet such as Ledger Nano X. Nobody will be able to make transactions without you physically using your device to approve it, which can prevent malicious code from emptying your wallet of your crypto and NFTs–it is happening all the time.

This is just the tip of the fudding iceberg, and even experienced veterans can get fooled by a professional scammer. Fortunately, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and silver lining to all of this. That light is the limitless ingenuity of the human spirit and how the cooperation of developers and artists on the Avalanche Network are redefining how NFTs are utilized, including pioneering art, tokenomics, community, and Avax Subnets. The silver lining may be that all these shenanigans and growing pains are happening now while crypto is still in its infancy — like my mom said, it’s better to get chickenpox when you’re a kid than when you’re an adult. The future looks good as we learn from expensive lessons and mistakes and build and grow into a more inclusive and safer Web 3.0 experience. Avax is leading the way on this development and I’ll briefly explain why I think this.

Three reasons why I’m bullish on AVAX

1. Avax Subnets

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Scaling is a major problem for the most popular networks. Ethereum could be said to be a victim of its own success — with more people using it come the insane eth gas fees we have reluctantly grown accustomed to, with many people using some kind of app to track gas prices and only do their business on off-peak hours — which could still be way too expensive for practical, transactional use. Not to mention that claiming rewards from the node projects right now costs more in Ethereum than they are actually making in claims, effectively killing even the “best” node projects such as Strong Nodes.

Avalanche is helping to solve this problem by building the foundations that create attractive opportunities for project developers. Subnets allow devs to build their own custom chains using their own custom native token as the gas fee. These networks can be optimized based on the needs of the organization or project. At least a few DeFi projects have already utilized subnets, namely DeFi Kingdoms and Crabada, and I know at least DFK is still under constant development despite some recent horrible price action with their token (but I could say that about literally every token right now including Bitcoin — although I shalt not fud as I’m still bullish in the long term). On those projects, gas fees are paid not in Avax, but in that project’s own native token, which basically means the gas is ridiculously cheap. 

GameFi is particulary suited to being hosted on its own subnet, as the game tokens can be used to pay for gas fees

Avax subnets are still in the baby stages and there’s so much potential for this tech. Entire blockchains could even be ported over to Avax subnets. You can look here for a “subnet demo” filled with lots of neat statistics and links.

Read the official website for more info about Subnets and why there is such massive potential for this technology.

2. Artists are pioneering the use cases and utility of NFT on Avalanche, with very affordable prices (unlike Eth)


A Swarms bee in Avax style

Artists are wisely utilizing the NFT as another primary sales avenue, and for good reason because it is allowing independent artists — especially independent female artists — a chance at making revenue. Historically, artists have always had clients or benefactors and so this is a continuation of that. 

However, artists collaborating on NFT projects are changing the game. These are high-powered NFTs that are sometimes breaking technological limitations and changing the idea of what an NFT is and can do.

The Swarms

For example, Swarms is a brilliant art project that gives super-detailed 4K HD bee art as part of an imaginative world that is an analog to our own world and culture, inviting the NFT owner to be a part an interactive artistic experience. There are seven different bee variations, called genotypes, and each bee has six body parts of varying rarity. You can evolve your bee by sacrificing another bee, which levels up your current NFT to “GEN II”. The NFT metadata changes as well as the artwork, giving you a brand new NFT that is based on the “genetic material” of the previous NFTs. It is an awesome blend of tech and co-creative storytelling. Swarms develops collaboratively with the Swarms NFT community, dubbed the Beekeepers.

The awesome lore gives context to the art and makes ownership fun and exciting. The project is clearly just in the early stages with a long and exciting roadmap. You can check out some of the articles I wrote about Swarms for more info — it’s awesome.

Web 3.0 Dieselpunk Metaverse

Metropius is a new multimedia Dieselpunk project which just launched their first NFT collection a few weeks ago. Minting a Metropius NFT allows one to claim an actual hard copy comic book for each NFT they mint. Years in development, Metropius is an award-winning animation that has expanded to include comic books, GameFi, a board game, merch, four NFT collectables, Augmented Reality (AR) and other perks. It has a long roadmap with neat rewards for holders. The metaverse will eventually be fueled by the $DIESEL native token which will be exchangeable with Avax. You can see my article about it here. There’s lots of active development going on with it.

There’s a lot more going on in the Avax art department, but these two are my favorite art projects right now, and it would be a good introduction to the type of creativity happening on Avalanche. It’s a great blend of pioneering tech and artistic ingenuity.

For the general user, Avax NFTs are also way more affordable – most NFTs are minting for only 1 or 2 Avax. Avax had an all time high of $134, which is considerably less than Ethereum’s high of $4732, with most NFTs minting for a bare minimum of a few hundred dollars and often trading for much more. Right now, you can buy a Swarms NFT for just under $60.

Avax also has a super great community, mostly through Twitter and Discord, and there are often Twitter spaces with giveaways and talks and lots of developments being shared by not only the artists but also developers and other community members such as myself. 

3. Stake-to-Earn Tokenomics: Featuring Chikn

When I buy an NFT now, I’m wondering if I will get any benefit from it. Sometimes, sure, I buy one just to support an artist I like, and that’s it. However, more and more NFTs — whether to compete or whatever — are offering various utility and the most popular of this is probably the stake-to-earn tokenomics model, where ‘staking’ your NFT will generate tokens which are then useable within the project’s ecosystem to upgrade the NFT. The token can also be traded for Avax/USDC/other coins (which is the real end game for these projects — people are looking to earn).

One project definitely worth looking into is Chikn.Farm.

Out of every NFT project I’ve encountered that offers utility or earning potential, Chikn is by far my favorite. 

It’s really quite simple which makes it so smart and compelling. Chikn NFTs lay $EGG which can then be used to upgrade the Chikn, but EGG is also used for other NFTs in the system including the Farm and Roostr NFT, which all work together to create a neat little game where you can choose to upgrade your NFTs, thereby generating more tokens in the future, or just selling them immediately on a decentralized exchange, or DEX, such as Trader Joe which is the best and most popular Avalanche DEX.

Anyway, super smart projects like Chikn have proven that NFT stake-to-earn projects can have both very interesting art as well as profitable and sustainable Tokenomics. And what’s really great about it is that they are basically passive income nodes that are MUCH easier to liquidate, since the NFT itself is generating daily tokens and there’s no need to lock anything up for long term-if markets go south, you can sell (and in a successful project like Chikn, you will find a buyer — Chikn NFT floor price is currently 32 Avax as of this writing –it minted for 1 Avax each last November).

Bullish on Crypto and Super Bullish on Avax

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Although I barely want to glance at my portfolio right now as I’ve been pretty unskilled at catching bottoms recently, I do believe that just buying and holding Avax for the next few years will end up being a profitable investment, regardless of any short term fluctuations. It seems the general sentiment is bullish but we are just being subjected to macroeconomics that takes its toll on everything. In any case, it’s a very interesting space to be involved with. I think once the real potential of subnets are realized, we are going to see a price explosion on Avax similar to Ethereum. If Avax had even just half the market cap of Eth, the price would be around $400–500. As of today we are about $22–25. And remember when Ethereum dipped to $80 and you wished you emptied your savings into it then? NFA at all but just saying….

~ AntCat

NGMI: Why You Should Sell It All And Become A Monk

You don’t really think we’re gonna make it, do you?

Internet sub-cultures are a wonderful thing. Sometime last year, a combination of NFT purveyors and OG crypto traders started to adopt the phrase “gm” as a means of wishing each other “Good Morning.” It’s really a fine line here. Do it right — simply use the two letters, don’t use capitals, don’t repurpose the General Motors logo — and you’re part of the crowd. You’re Shiv and Tom in the screenshot below. Happy. Complete. Enjoying a good time. Celebrating life.

Do it wrong and you’re Kendall Roy, the punch line of the joke everyone but you is in on. (Watch the video. Cringe with us.)

Shoehorning a Succession reference into a blog post notwithstanding, “gm” evolved and “WGMI” was added shortly thereafter — at least by my measurement of the timeline, which could be off a hair, don’t hold me to it, DYOR and all that — to underscore the optimism that the crypto and NFT communities bring to the world. We’re Gonna Make It.

OR “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” as both McFadden and Whitehead reminded us sometime around 1979*.

We’re Gonna Make It! The optimist is on board: crypto is the future! NFTs are adding value to the economy and giving artists new life!

The pessimist reads the asterisk below.

* IIRC, the song was adopted by the 1979 Baltimore Orioles as their answer to the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates’ choice of “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. The Pirates came back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Orioles in the 1979 World Series; I won 50 cents off my Dad.

Which Brings Us to Our Point: NGMI

Shortly after either learning about the WGMI acronym or reading about the untimely demise of Messrs McFadden and Whitehead, new lingo was created: NGMI. Not Gonna Make It.

How Bout That Portfolio?

Egads! That kinda stinks, right? We launched the Growth Portfolio a couple weeks back on this here site and our goal was to give you, Gentle Reader, a basket of those coins that can give you the best opportunity for potential success. Big coins, mid-sized coins, up-and-comers that are taking advantage of the NFT-based web3 economy: it’s all there!

And it’s getting pummeled, as is everything else.

The Biggest Dogs

BTC is below $40,000, ETH has dropped below $3000. The end is nigh!

This Blog Post’s Title Is Tongue-in-Cheek

We really don’t know how to make sense of this market the past couple weeks. Our own holdings are down nearly a third since the beginning of the year. We won’t even begin to call a bottom, or else we’ll look like this guy.

Or we could guess that this guy (below, Fed chair Jerome Powell) will bring new people to crypto writ large through the Fed’s (possible) creation of something called “digital cash:” this is one of those “CBDCs” being bandied about in other countries.

We also *could* start talking about new NFT developments — seems like everyone is getting in on the action, right? — and see that the challenges to OpenSea from Crypto.com and Coinbase probably say we’ve only just begun.

Our Point: Don’t Give Up Just Yet. Or Do Give Up.

In any event, here are a couple concepts to embrace:

  • Do Your Own Research. “DYOR” is one of the acronyms we use often around here. Don’t rely on us to tell you what to do. Sniff out a few other folks, check into CT (“Crypto Twitter”) and find out what people are talking about.
  • Experiment. We’ve gotten in early on a couple coins. We’ve also blown it on a couple, too. (Our stake in this one, for instance, was purchased when the price was about 80 cents each.) And we’ve created a series or two (or three) of NFTs, with limited success. But, again, we’re not afraid of experimentation.
  • Enjoy the Ride. The main reason yours truly is involved in this space is because he finds it bloody fascinating. Not every project is going to be eye-catching to you, not every token launch is going to make sense, and not every bit of lingo is going to be clever. If it’s not fun, then maybe it’s not for you?

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Keep at it. Or become a monk.

We’ll be here either way.

Rocks and Bored Apes; AlphaBettys and Prison Raccoons; and Our Own #Sketches2021

Welcome to the wonderful world of NFTs. The alternate title for this post is “NFTs are crazy, right?”

As we have discussions with people in and around the cryptocurrency universe, we feel we’re almost always needing to provide evidence of our own bona fides. Typical conversations:

“Oh, you got $4,000 from Uniswap? Well, have you ever made $150,000 off of airdrops?”

“I bought my first Bitcoin at $20!”

“Gee, you shouldn’t have sold your $ETH; I met Vitalik once and he’s the real deal.”

These discussions remind me of the typical indie-rock tropes, like “well, I saw Arcade Fire when I was a student at McGill,” or “I saw Fishbone at the Lost Horizon in Syracuse in 1991.” (The second one is true for me; for the record, though, none of the crypto ones are my own story.)

The subsets of crypto have developed their own parlance, and the early adopters are known by the lingua franca of “yield farming” and “LPs” (for DeFi) and, for today’s it girl, NFTs, things like “1:1” or the “Floor” or “Up Only.” (To say nothing of the overriding crypto lingo that is, simply, the word “Few.” As in: “Few understand.” As in: “check out this LP from the band Morphine, they’ll be bigger than Pearl Jam. Few.”)

Enter the Rocks and the Bored Apes.

Item: someone paid a lot of money for a picture of a rock. These rocks (all of which can be found here: Ether Rocks ) would be “selling like hotcakes” if there were tons of them but there are only…wait, you’re telling me there are 100 of these? Hold on one second, someone paid $2m for a JPG of a rock?

A couple things should be noted here: one is that this is a limited supply JPG — only 100 total here, which is REALLY limited — and it’s also what’s called a “1:1,” or “1 of 1.”

Other projects have decided to make their artwork limited but not limited to only one piece. Like this collection, from a startup called DADA, which has five or ten of each piece of artwork.

Well, it appears we missed the boat on the rocks. Maybe there’s another project we’re not too late on…ah, I see here there’s something called the Bored Ape Yacht Club and we might be able to get one of these beautiful Bored Apes?

Oh, you have to call Sotheby’s?

Good thing we got in on THIS one early…oh…wait…we missed it.

N.B. these are limited to 10,000 different 1:1s. So it’s possible a lot of people are sitting on a lot of money today; it’s also possible that you aren’t one of those people.

What to do, what to do…

Not Too Late For THESE NFTs, Are We?

Still time to jump into the pool with both feet. Right? Here we go…AlphaBettys!

One of these didn’t cost us too much — 0.19 ETH for this one, number 7888 in the collection — and there’s a chance that the market will heat up. Or maybe it won’t, and we’re holding onto an asset class that’s going to be like our POW Tokens. Time will tell.

Other projects we’ve dived in on include something called Space Shibes (DISCLOSURE: we were part of the early group of investors in this project) and Shael Onions and some sort of panda/raccoon prison/pool party mashup. (See below.)

If You Can’t Make Sense Of It All…

Neither can we. So we launched another project of our own.

The Official Logo

The first couple projects were lower-price experiments with NFTs. We began our journey with the Obvious Statement Collection. Next was the “One Hundred NFTs.” Both were more graphic design projects than art projects.

And the above projects are best described as NFT Avatars: if you get a Crypto Punk, your goal is to use that punk as your PFP (profile photo). (In case you’re wondering, we missed the boat on that one, too.)

Actual NFT artwork, like DADA or the work of someone like Meg Thorpe, is the same animal but a little (or a lot) different.

Our goal with our own project, “Sketches2021,” was to create one-of-a-kind pieces; modern, simple sketches with bright colors. We’d also make it a limited number (we settled on 256 thanks a little to a suggestion from our friend Von who calls himself “Lazy Crypto Guy” on Twitter) and we’d go for a floor of 1 ETH.

We’ve released the first 100 pieces and they’re all on OpenSea as we speak. The entire set is complete — we worked on them during Summer 2021 — and the rest will be launched in short order. Perhaps with a giveaway or two, stay tuned. (For now, we started with the first dozen on the web page here: Sketches2021 on Metacoin.

What’s The Point?

We’ve been asking that question about a lot of what’s in the crypto universe since it launched. Will Bitcoin really disintermediate the banks? Will Ethereum really have a layer that allows for transactions and tokens everywhere? Will these DeFi lending platforms do anything? Will these digital avatar JPEG thingies make me rich?

Time will tell, folks. Time will tell.

Obligatory Blog Post About NFTs

We actually thought about posting an article that was just a bunch of Greeking text: you know, “Lorem ipsum” and the like, over and over again, for paragraph after paragraph. We’d drop in a couple NFT references, maybe say OpenSea with a link to OpenSea, and we’d be sure to include hashtags.

After all, #NFTs are having a moment; so much of a moment that Saturday Night Live tried to explain them on last night’s show.

(Metacoin Grade: B+. Clever, some cute references, just nerdy enough. McKinnon’s Yellen wasn’t too convincing, though.)

Of Course We Have Our Own NFTs

That’s right, it wouldn’t be a crypto bandwagon without everyone jumping on board, and that includes Team Metacoin, whose Obvious Statement collection aims to take advantage of the intersection between memes and finance. For instance, here’s one piece we’re auctioning off:

(If you think we think anyone’s going to bid 10 ETH on this, you misunderestimate us.)

But Why, Though?

A rather apocryphal story from college goes like this: Philosophy professor arrives for final exam, hands out the little blue exam books, and writes the final exam question on the chalkboard. “Why?”

Student opens his exam book, writes his response: “Why not?”

Student gets an A.

Akin to the wise student, most of the involvement in NFTs these days — by everyone from athletes to gamers to Taco Bell — is a little about chasing the shiny object and a lot about sensing an opportunity whose opportunity cost is minimal. While it took Metacoin years to understand what the heck is going on in this whole crypto universe, it really only took a few minutes to create an NFT and plop it on the blockchain. Can you really blame Mark Cuban for leveraging his billion-plus dollars to try to make a billion-plus more?

Here’s a brilliant point from a recent interview with Bloq.com’s Phil Gomes (and you can watch the 5-minute snippet below): People love to collect things. You can’t really do much with a collection of dollars, or Satoshis, but you sure as heck can do a lot with a collection of NFTs — you can admire them, you can collect more, you can brag about their one-of-a-kind-ness.

Where’s This All Going?

Often, you’ll hear Bitcoin and crypto pundits say things like “it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” or “we’re in the first inning of a nine-inning ballgame.”

And you’ll also hear traditional financial pundits ask if you’re old enough to remember the Beanie Babies craze of the 90s, and how kids were bankrolling their college educations with just a few collectibles — but the same pundits are also suggesting that it is just that, a craze whose time was just a blip on the financial timeline.

The answer is probably somewhere in between. Some of these things have sorta kinda jumped the shark. Some others? Real staying power — we think.

And, since this is an obligatory NFT post, we should use an obligatory close:

Watch this space for more.