Crowdstrike Almost Took This Newsletter Out | Issue #80

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Gramajo’s Corner

Had an interesting week this week, got sick towards the end/still sick while I was editing the podcast but we still delivered (including this newsletter). If you want to check out my latest podcast episode you can listen and collect below. I will have a 10 minute summary of the episode posted on here later this week.

I announced a free tier last week which no one took me up on which stung a bit but that is life. But it did get me thinking about if people still found value in the weekly newsletter or not. So far it does appear people do (based on a pole I am running below), but I guess not enough to go an extra step? Who knows, it is a weird time in the market right now.

I am still running a meme challenge on Farcaster for the best alien memes and there have been some pretty good ones. People still have two more weeks to submit so I will remind people closer to the end. Last few items, I am doing an art collab with Cap'n at the end of this month which will be a limited run compared to my MEK drop. Later this week I will also be dropping issues #2 of Cool Shit Spotlight as there are some bangers in there that OAC members have gotten a preview with Deescuss.

Knowledge

Someone had the question of where all the Power Badges resided physically or based on the location data they shared. Kevin from the Neynar team delivered this for us. My hunch was we would be heavy in the USA and that assumption to be right. If we include Canada as well, North America really makes up a huge chunk of the power badge users on Farcaster.

Art

Before getting into it, I found it absolutely hilarious that Apple ran and ad that basically should have been a Ripcache x Apple commercial. Regardless, as a privacy nut, this is why I gravitate towards Ripcache's work. CCTV cameras are everywhere and the fact Ripcache is also exploring drone tech in his art is right in line in what the evolution of mass surveillance. Add the fact that alot of his art is fully onchain and I become even more bullish (and many more reasons).

The bear market has taken another company, this time KnownOrigin. This market has not been kind to many, hell it might even take me at some point as well. But definitely sad to see another OG in the space go down.

This one was a spicy one. SuperRare announced an idea to launch their own L2 or an Art specific L2. And some people were pissed and others excited. I guess however you look at it, at least people care. It could have been worse like announcing something and no one caring (lol me). I personally am on the side of being optimistically positive about it. Mostly because based on the conversations I have had and see on Telegram and other places, it seems that some of the ideas the team wants to explore are having auction be on an L2 but then art gets settled on L1. The other part it seems is having art from different platforms under a unified naming system, which is something I think has hindered art as a whole in the space. When artist have collabs, they should be able to get tagged or tag their art and verify that they indeed have a collab. That level of metadata would help with searching and cataloging. There are other ideas being thrown around, so make sure to read the message and responses below. Will definitely keep a close eye on this one.

Shortly after talking about Nishant last week with the customs he was making for collectors. SuperRare announced a curated release with Nishant with some really dope 1/1s and more.

Tech

Oncyber announced one of the wildest pieces of news in the space this past week. Oncyber is mostly known in the web3 space for allowing users to build digital online experiences specifically when it comes to art. They do other stuff as well but this is what they are mostly known for in the space. Or as they phrased it "In V1, you had art galleries to modify. In V2, you have art galleries, platform racers, 3D scrolling websites, mini games, and more." They went full Mario World Maker and it seems that there are ways to earn money if people use experience more than others. Either way, this is ambitious and I really want to dive in and give it a go.

Polymarket is a crazy ass place where you really tap into human sentiment. If you are familiar with the fear and greed index then you will know what this is. It is basically that but for anything you can image, want to know how people are feeling on who will win an election, you can see that onchain because people will bet/have skin in the game. Polymarket had two big announcements this past week, Nate Silver who is Mr. Data Guru/prediction market person has joined them as an advisor and they launched their frame which should drive adoption/usage as now you can interact with the app without ever leaving Farcaster.

Privy has received some funding from Coinbase Ventures which is well deserved as they are the ones powering a ton of apps. Embedded wallets are just crazy ass tech that really does make it frictionless to onboard newbies to crypto without them knowing.

Speaking of apps powered by Privy, Blackbird announced Pay With Fly. Blackbird is looking to do what Resy and other apps have done but onchain. From loyalty programs, onchain check ins and more. There aren't any Blackbird locations near me here in SF but once there is, I will for sure check this out. I've been monitoring Blackbird for a bit and with Chase and Amex fighting over Resy, Tock and other apps like them this space is heating up.

I think one the best things about a decentralized world is that if you don't like the way something is being done, you can go build something yourself that is better and more inline with what you want. This is really great for Farcaster clients. One of the newer clients in the space, wildcard.lol has taken this idea to heart and has been pumping updated left and right for some time now. So it was time to talk about them. They recently announced their new webapp, frame support, more tipping coin support, algo improvements and more. Really great job to the team on the lightening updates.

VentureClub announced a new frame to fundraise onchain. Just like the team who made it easy to incorporate a DAO in Switzerland we now have a team trying to make it as easy as possible to fundraise your next venture. I know this probably seems nuts, like why on earth would VCing onchain be a thing? Same way that we don't understand why we would want to tokenize Pokemon cards and bring them onchain. The use cases are still to be figured out, but just like in that example where now I can borrow and use my card as collateral the opportunities of how this is used in the future can change how companies do fundraising. Having an NFT saying you invested in Gramajo's next venture may not seem enticing but you doubt human psychology, it is why we have hipsters. People love to boast they found something and invested early in it before others. It is a signal and this will tap into that and more.

Notable Sales

Absolutely insane piece by Joe Pease and well deserved new owner of it as well, congrats Blondie

Coats we once wore by DieWithTheMostLikes sold to VVD. I really do hope we see more monochrome work as this piece is a great exploration of this style by Die.

A Warothy has traded hands. I love me some ACK and this sale just reminds me of the absolutely crazy drop ACK did with these.

11ETH Sale of The Beast by XCOPY.

Everlasting Sakure by Derech aka one of my favorite photographers in the space sold this for a personal ATH. Congrats Derech and to the collector on getting this amazing piece!

I've been waiting for this SuperRare Genesis by BrainDead for a minute and the 1st piece did not disappoint. Will definitely make a move for the next piece as I am ultra bullish on this artist.

No one will ever celebrate you like you can for yourself so with that said I recently sold my 2nd fully onchain gameboy photography piece for 0.1 ETH. I had zero clue this happened till it was done.

Upcoming

I know some people don't like Fake Rares but this got my hyped AF man. Ordinal Fake Rares is something I've been thinking we needed and it is coming later this week. 100% will be keeping my eye on this collection and hope that it is not a one time thing.

I have a BTC and Monero node running right now and they are in extremely small form factors so I am happy to see this become a thing with ETH as well. Not the biggest fan of it being Lido but hey, we are least moving in the right direction.

Collectibles

I have a problem where I used to collect vintage football ("soccer") jerseys. This one is so dope, it captured an old era of the 90s so beautifully.

KITH x USA Mens Basketball a match made in heaven. Again, as a 90s kid it captures the essence of that era so nicely. These mfers know how to cater to my demographic haha.

Lastly, some big news here, PSA is now getting into grading comic books and magazines. PSA wants to flex those muscle and assert their dominance over others with this move.

Meme Of The Week

Unless you lived under a rock, a ton of the internet went down on Friday and this one made me lul.

Fin

Have a great rest of your week!

CIAHOAD-Rick James

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If the Ambassador tier is out of reach, I now offer a patron tier that you can check out here. I also encourage you to check out my podcast and YouTube for more content.

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