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Metaverse / xR NFTs and digital objects visual art

·Oct. 2, 2020

Fintech in the Metaverse, plus NFTs, Crypto Art, and Epic Games

Today, we’re joined by Angela Dalton to explore the fun and fantastical world that sits at the intersection of gaming, immersive technology, crypto and economics, namely, the Metaverse.

Angela is the Founder and CEO of Signum Growth Capital, an M&A advisory firm focused on emerging opportunities in fintech, especially blockchain, and digital media.

In this conversation, we discuss expectations for both recreation and work in a digital future, technological advances in recent years that underpin coming changes to immersive virtual experiences, the economics of virtual worlds and more.

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big tech gaming & sports Metaverse / xR NFTs and digital objects Social / Community visual art

·Jul. 25, 2021

Getting ahead in Facebook’s Metaverse by earning the Harvard of NFTs

Facebook is building towards a Metaverse version of the Internet, in both its hardware and software efforts. What are the implications? And further, how does one acquire status, work, and social capital in such a world? We explore the recent NFT avatar projects through the lens of Ivy League universities and CFA exams to understand some timeless cultural trends.

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central bank / CBDC digital transformation generational change mega banks narrative zeitgeist philosophy visual art

·Jan. 25, 2021

What 1840s “Free Banking” and the 1910s Cubist movement suggests about DeFi and economic machine evolution

This week, we look at:

The nature of innovation hubs, and how close groups of actors within a particular environment can be massively, fundamentally productive. Take for example the 30 million years of the Cambrian explosion.
The difficulty of experimenting with banking and money frameworks, the limits of traditional econometrics, and an overview of “free banking” in the 1840s.
How evolutionary theory can help us think about selection of economic models, and the hyper-competition and hyper-mutation that we see in crypto. DeFi protocols, like BadgerDAO and ArcX among hundreds of others, are experiments in designing different monetary policies and banking regime experiments in real time.

We have never before had such acceleration in the design space of the economic machine, subject to evolutionary pressures, built by a closely-wound nexus of developers. It is a fortune for the curious.

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decentralized finance NFTs and digital objects visual art

·Sep. 10, 2021

Art Blocks CEO Erick Calderon on Generative Art, Blockchains, and the NFT movement

In this conversation, we chat with Erick Calderon is the founder and CEO at Art Blocks, a platform for creating on-demand, generative art pieces. Since its launch a year ago, Art Blocks has garnered the attention of many, including auction house Sotheby’s, which recently sold 19 of the platform’s pieces in a deal totaling $81,000. Calderon, a native Houstonian, uses the online handle Snowfro, which stems from a snow cone stand he used to own.

More specifically, we touch on projection mapping, generative vs. algorithmic art, machine learning, smart contracts, the constructivist art movement, Artblocks’ unique approach to NFT algorithms and minting, NFT flipping vs. scalping, gas price wars, flashbots, dutch auctions, and the massive demand for anything Artblocks in the world today and the justifcations behind such demand.

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decentralized finance NFTs and digital objects philosophy supply chain / trade visual art

·Feb. 8, 2021

Non-fungible tokens and crypto art (like Hashmasks) will create multi-billion markets for digital objects with financial features

This week, we look at:

Hashmasks, CryptoPunks, and other large NFT / crypto art projects generating tens of millions of USD trading volume
Perceptions of financial value, as well as whether it matters to have an “original” digital art piece relative to its digital copy
The intersection of collectibles with decentralized finance, and its collateralization, tranching, lending, and trading, as well as a view on 2021

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Crypto DAOs gaming & sports Metaverse / xR neobank NFTs and digital objects Social / Community visual art

·Aug. 23, 2021

Creating, Transacting, and Storing Value in the Financial Metaverse of NFTs, DAOs, and DeFi

The evolution towards a financial metaverse is rapidly accelerating, with the growth in generative assets, profile picture avatars, the emerging derivative structures that build on their foundation, and DAOs that govern them. This article highlights the most novel developments, and builds the case for what a digital wallet / bank will need to be able to do in order to succeed on the way to this alien destination.

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DAOs eCommerce marketing microeconomics NFTs and digital objects Social / Community visual art

·Jul. 4, 2021

Luxury and Fashion market structure applied to finance, NFTs, and DAO

Luxury and fashion markets are structurally different from finance or commodity markets in that they seek to limit supply in order to generate value. This increases price and social status. We can analogize these brand dynamics to what is happening in NFT digital object markets and better understand their function as a result.

We’re not cool. That’s why we’re in finance.

But people want to be cool. As highly social and intelligent animals, we want and need to belong, differentiate against each other, and negotiate for status. We create signals and hierarchies to create pockets of relational capital, which we then cash in for real world benefits.

Such mammalian realities are contrary to the economic rendering of the homo economicus, the abstracted rational agent making choices in financial models. In 2021, our financial models are waking up and instantiating themselves, becoming Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), spun up by DeFi and NFT industry insiders, and implemented into commercial actions onchain.

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artificial intelligence big tech China civilization and politics paytech visual art

·Aug. 27, 2019

Fighting Chinese Artificial Intelligence with lasers and American Crypto with European Central Banks

How do the Americans and the Chinese have such different ethical takes on privacy, self-sovereignty, media, and the role of government? We can trace the root cause to the DNA of the macro-organism in which individuals reside, itself built over centuries and millenia from the collective scar tissue of local human experience. But there is more to observe. The technology now being deployed in each jurisdiction -- like social credit, surveillance artificial intelligence, monitored payment rails, and central bank cryptocurrency -- will drive a software architecture into the core of our societies that reflects the current moment. And it will be nearly impossible to change! This is why *how* we democratize access to financial services matters. We must be careful about the form, because we will be stuck with it like Americans are stuck with the core banking systems from the 1970s. But the worry is not inefficiency, it is programmed social strata.

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DAOs Metaverse / xR NFTs and digital objects visual art

·May. 3, 2021

The top 5 NFT trends for 2021, and current state of the NFT market

This week, we discuss the current state of the NFT markets, and our top 5 trends for NFTs beyond the initial hype:

Incumbent media NFTs and enterprise IP networks
Programmatic and generative art, and the blockchain medium
Digital Museums, DAOs, and the growth of the Metaverse
What it means to own the NFT: IPFS and multi chain support
Integration into DeFi and traditional portfolio management

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exchanges / cap mkts identity and privacy marketing Metaverse / xR NFTs and digital objects Social / Community visual art

·Oct. 6, 2021

User-Generated Finance and Cultural Financial Instruments, via Snoop Dogg, Dapper Labs, and $1.5B Decentralized Social

The structure of capital markets precedes the innovations that come from it. High frequency trading, passive ETF investing, SPACs, and crypto assets all telegraphed their value proposition before becoming large and meaningful in scale. We are now seeing a new market shape emerge, one that starts with community and builds up into financial instruments that are cultural and social. This analysis looks at the most recent developments in the overlap between decentralized social and cultural work and related financial features.

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