charles mosc-owned
I have a favor to ask of y’all this week:
I need feedback.
I’ve found this newsletter to be completely transformative for me personally. When I write, I find that my thoughts are so much clearer. I see the NFT space like Neo in the Matrix, and then proceed to lose money all the same. Regardless, something about the pen to paper provides clarity that I wouldn’t normally get in my messy head.
But when it comes to you, the user, I’m not sure if I’m giving you anything that you actually want. Simply I ask, what is it that you people want from me???
If it’s all good and you like what I’m putting out here, then, by all means, tell a friend. I’ve found the promotion of my newsletter to be more vulnerable than sending it out in the first place, so the support would be greatly appreciated.
However, if there’s something more I can offer, then slide into my DMs on Twitter (@bivnft). No solicitations please; I’ll be providing provocative photos as part of BivDAO launching later this year so just wait.
ALPHA
Simply by just being a human being living on Earth, you probably know that Disney is basically the gold standard for collectibles. You don’t even have to follow pop culture to understand this.
That’s because their brand has a global and diehard following. But it took a recent trip to Disney’s California Adventure for me to realize how ravenous Disney-heads (what I’m calling them) are for anything that has the famous Mickey ears on it. From pins to lithographs, to merch, there has always been a great demand for the mouse memorabilia.
What’s even crazier to me is that this was all before they had comic-book IP, which historically is another subset of followers that appreciate collector’s items too. So now, it’s even more of a juggernaut than I remember (yes, they have the X-Men and the Juggernaut under their umbrella too).
My trip got me thinking: where does that leave Disney in the digital age?
Recently their CEO said they will be creating a Disney metaverse, but promises like that usually are to shareholders, and any execution of that idea will be slow.
But where are their NFTs? Surely, that’s an area where they would thrive. After all, they’ve been creating a collectibles culture around a whole mess of physical items…where are the digital ones? After a little more research I was surprised to see that Disney does have NFTs, it just lives on an app a lot of us haven’t heard of - VeVe.
For me and other Ethereum NFT holders, it’s easy to see why something like Veve might slip under the radar. A lot like Top Shot, VeVe is its own thing, using seemingly its own version of Dapper and “chain” on ECOMI (OMI). In the app, your currency is called ‘gems’, and 1 gem = 1 USD.
But despite that nonsense, what makes it appealing to me is that VeVe holds the first digital collectible marketplace with Disney NFTs.
Their collectibles are basically action figures, so it’s pretty rudimentary and unambitious (“You know those Funkos you own? What if they were digital?” was the sales pitch I’d imagine).
There’s a marketplace and collectibles from IP ranging from Back to the Future to James Bond to Disney. We’re talking about some good collections here.
My theory is that Disney is testing the waters with VeVe before diving in on their own. Once they prove there’s a market here, I imagine Disney will snap their fingers and become the biggest NFT company on the planet. Hell, they might even do it on their own chain.
Until then, VeVe is a nice bet.
While you cannot currently move your “gems” into fiat, it is backed by a real coin and I imagine, one day, you’ll be able to cash out.
The only issues I see so far are that 1) the app is clunky 2) the drops are a little weak and any Disney collectibles are even weaker and 3) the VeVe marketplace already seems to have the Disney premium priced in. You’ll have to splurge in order to get Steamboat Willy or Elsa collectibles. Yet again, the Mouse Man rules supreme.
BETA
Everyone’s IYLTH (influencer you love to hate), Beanie, was doxed on Monday with allegations of him being a serial scam artist. BeanieMaxi aka Charles Moscoe is currently prepping a response, and, in the meantime, he’s stepped away from GM Capital.
Whether he’s guilty or not (he’s certainly guilty of being a dick), the conversation we should be having is what “doxing” means for the NFT space and if it’s actually necessary.
For crypto in general, we know that anonymity is important and essential. While we are slinging JPGs of cartoon animals from a place of relative comfort, there are people in nations far less stable, who are using crypto in favor of their volatile currencies.
Not only that, but those who have crypto in nations facing political unrest can oftentimes have their entire life savings tied up in crypto in order to combat inflation or government seizure of assets.
Unfortunately, this noble ideal of “anonymity” has not translated as nicely to the NFT world. We have already seen countless projects abuse it - remember Fame Lady Squad? Claiming to be a women-run project, they turned out to just be some dudes from Russia trying to capitalize on an untapped market. Anonymity used in bad faith like this is just one of the many examples that have made us skeptical of projects who don’t have doxed leaders.
However, the Beanie issue is different. We may not have known his name, but we certainly knew what he was about and what he stood for. He pulled no punches with his tweets as he continued to attack, belittle and gatekeep those within the space who did not agree with him.
We are too caught up with “doxing” and having projects with a public face attached to them.
Instead, you have to listen to what people say and do, not what their names are. My favorite project Cool Cats has some pretty impressive leaders who are not ‘doxed’ in the conventional sense. However, they are transparent and open with their community. I do not care about their past, because so far, they have done nothing to make me question their intentions.
But Beanie? Are we surprised by any of this with him? TropoFarmer (his friend and cofounder) seems to think us not knowing the faces behind PixelVault is the problem. He’s recently changed his PFP to a picture of him with his kid *cringe* in doing so completely missed the point.
I don’t need your PFP to be of your IRL face (in fact, respectfully, I’d prefer not to see that, thank you). I don’t need to know about your family either. I just need your project to be as transparent as possible by communicating your goals, motivations, and values. I’ll interpret those and make a decision for myself. If I get burned, it’s really just my PixelFault.
DELTA
IreneDAO and EllenDAO are two projects that have capitalized on NFT “simping” this week. I’m a happily married man, so I can’t do any further research on what this means or what these projects look like.
World of Women had a historic pump to an 8 ETH floor last week. Everyone has their thoughts on it (some positive, some negative), but what I want to highlight in particular is the speculation that this year could bring many different groups into the NFT space. I’ll be giving my thoughts in detail in next week’s newsletter!