A heartfelt letter exploring generational wealth, the future of NFT technology, and personal goals created by AI and myself, #AlexAirbrushLuna.
A Letter to My Descendents
Dear Z,
I'm writing this as a testament of my journey and the hopes I have for your futures. There are profound changes happening in our world today, and it's essential for us to understand them to facilitate our growth and prosperity.
Understanding Generational Wealth
Generational wealth is more than just tangible assets or money passed down from one generation to another. It's about financial education and values that we impart. It's about teaching you how to fish, rather than giving you a fish. As we navigate through this life, acquiring, saving, investing and growing wealth should be a part of our journey.
The Impact of NFTs on Our Future
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have ushered a new era in the digital world. They're not only changing how artists sell their work but also posing interesting applications in various sectors such as real estate, gaming, and digital identity. Their unique properties are revolutionizing ownership and asset control in the digital space.
My Goals and Aspirations
My goal is to build a strong foundation for us and future generations. I believe in leveraging new technologies like NFTs within our wealth strategy. I hope to bridge the gap between traditional wealth management and the emerging digital economy. This way, we can embrace the future while preserving and growing our wealth.
In conclusion, my wish is for you to grasp these concepts and use them to secure your future. Remember, the seeds I'm planting now are for you to nourish and grow.
With all my love,
[Your Name]
Another New Journey
Today is February 21, 2024 at 1:17am as I write my first entry on this new platform that I have found for writing and newsletters. It seems quite user friendly with a few settings that I have not found in other platforms. Getting to this point has taken quite a bit of experimentation and observation of likes and dislikes from the other platforms. From just the few minutes that I have been on the site, there are quite a few features that I am please with. First, I was able to transport my posts from the mirror to here. The other interesting feature I will dig into is its ability to communicate with WordPress. Above all, the reason I work on most of these platforms trying to find the right one which is monetization and NFT creation. This site seems to have both and allows options to get paid by fiat currency via Stripe or to your crypto wallet.
In the year 2021, I was first told about NFTs and that I should become an NFT Artist. That entailed many steps and knowledge of technology that I was not prepared for at the time. Nonetheless, we figured out how to create an account on OpenSea and begin creating NFTs even though we had no clue what we were doing. Creating is one of the easier tasks when dealing with NFTs. Especially when it is free to mint. Being on a platform so large seemed very intimidating, especially since there was so much to learn. So the G-Rated Mintable account was created for testing purposes with NFT art. This was most likely in the beginning of 2022 and I still had no clue what I was doing. I tried out several ideas and features on the site. However, I ran into the toughest challenge for me at the time. And that was importing funds into a crypto wallet. I hardly understood what that meant even though it had been explained to me.
Around August of 2022 I created Airbrushes & Airplanes on Wordpress. With determination and a one year membership, I entered the world of writing as a career. Last year the site was transferred to my daughter, Pearl, as I went off to look for the new platform to create NFT writing. As a beginner platform, it was great learning there. It truly opened my mind to the thought of monetization for whatever we create online, be it art, writing, music or video. The platform taught me several features that are commonly used on other platforms as well. Currently going on its second year, the site has achieved over 700 subscribers at almost 400 posts to this date. Quite an achievement, and as I mentioned before, it seems that this site has the potential of transferring those subscribers to this platform.
In the beginning of 2023, we continued to desire to want to get into the NFT community and make an impact. The artwork collaboration created some masterpieces, however, only one person knew anything about crypto and the metaverse. The rest of us were just regurgitating information we heard and describing ideas for that technology. Our efforts were in vain and we had to put another project on hold by the end of summer. It was a total bummer, but I do not think any of those projects are concluded and will resurface when it is their time. Proving my point to this statement was what happened next. DretheMacc referred us to DistroKid for music distribution and earning income by doing so. Leading me to reopen many of our music files that were already connected on SoundCloud but making us pennies, being that it is only on one platform for music. DistroKid submits our music to over 50 platforms, and I took the time to submit over 50 songs that can now be played by our favorite platforms, such as Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube and your favorite music platforms as well.
We find ourselves now selling art on Square, not Shopify. Monetize writing on Pearls-Empire.blog and music through DistroKid. I found Poetizer to submit my poetry and even printed a couple copies of my poetry book "All About U". It is fascinating to me that the song All About U has received just as many plays or more than all the other songs combined, currently at around 3.2K plays on YouTube. I heard Spotify was heading towards paying off major artists not small artists with their new algorithm and I quit paying attention to their app. YouTube seems to be more enticing in the reason that while I am working on my subscribers and other qualifications to get paid by YouTube, I am already getting paid by them through DistroKid. Therefore, YouTube is a platform that seemed fitting for both music and art videos as I grow my audience and career as a Content Creator. I reached 178 out of 500 needed to reach first stage of getting paid through YouTube, so there is quite a bit to go. Also, on DistroKid the last time I viewed the amount we made was in November 2023, when we had only been connected for only two months. DistroKid advices that it can take up to two months for platforms to submit their stats and payment. So we only received $20 at the time. There has been many plays since, so I am excited to see our wallet when I finally reconnect to their portal.
Finally in October of 2023 I had enough income to become a student at the ARCrypto.io community. I was in definite fright mode when I first started. However, I eventually learned how to maneuver on Discord and attend Zoom meetings along with much of the knowledge that I was seeking about cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Networks on the Blockchain. As much as I was learning, I felt I was still far from my goal of figuring out how to purchase my own NFTs and then show others how to do the same. I have gone over the information for the basics as many times as it took to understand the fundamentals, so it took me a while. There were days I felt overwhelmed with so much new information as still far from my goal. No matter the difficulty, the journey has been exciting. When I thought I figured things out, I kept going back to the G-Rated Mintable account to try to purchase some NFTs that I created. There were a few times that I just lost money and I still lose some from failed transactions and platforms that don't perform well. Finally by the end of last year, 2023, I learned how to purchase my own NFTs and teach my daughter how to create an account and also purchase a couple of NFTs.
As mentioned, I have lost money in experimenting. I would say in the realm of a couple hundred dollars. Not much when looked at in the long run but for immediate moves that went wrong, they sure created disturbances, plus every transaction cost gas fees and if anything gets lost, there is almost NOBODY to help you out. So even though we were able to buy and sell a few NFTs, it is too costly for mistakes at the moment. There were bigger investments to focus on than spending money on our own NFTs. There was progress on this aspect, but very slowly. The first client I attempted to teach, I took mostly fiat and put up the NFT for very low value on the blockchain. The first client ended up not following up on his end and left me with these NFTs on the site that should have been purchased but weren't, added to all the other NFTs that weren't sold. For this year, 2024, I am determined to follow up on the goal, especially now that we figured out how to purchase and sell on the blockchain. The next customer I had seemed more intrigued by the NFT digital art than the first, but I still charged him less on the blockchain and accepted more fiat currency than I should have. I was still shooting for the first sell, so I was willing to negociate with the concept that I tried out of recieving half the money in fiat up front to purchase materials and necessities. Upon completion I would recieve the second half of the payment in form of NFT, to also serve as proof of purchase on the blockchain for the artwork I created for him in the real world on his wall at his studio.
This sell went well, securing our first NFT artwork sold on the blockchain with a smart contract. This is an exciting step for me because it has shown me that the plan worked. Now I just need to perfect it. This also helps establish my value for future clients. This concept intrigues me quite a bit because I can show how much clients paid and what quality work they received from the artwork they purchased all on the blockchain through apps like OpenSea. Prior to this, I did not see a way for me to show clients this is how much I am getting paid from my other clients unless I opened up my private accounting books maybe. Even then, there hardly ever was artwork tied to the contract or receipt. On the blockchain, every movement of the artwork is public including resales and such. The great news is that moving forward, I am able to use the NFT contracts with clients. Even though, currently most of my clients are not involved with crypto, therefore I have to teach them the basics, such as creating a wallet on Metamask, keeping security a recovery phrases safe and purchasing my artwork. Not as easy at the moment as swiping a credit or debit card, but I am a pioneer and this is my current journey. At one time it was a challenge using an electronic card unless you were spending over $5 for example. Then people started freaking out and asking for touchless payment methods and now there are plenty ways to pay. Needless to say, we have a much more clear direction with the NFTart, but there is still so much more to learn.
I still do take on the job title of being a writer and have been searching for a way to become an NFT writer as well. While I am at it, I am also keeping my eyes open for how to best create NFT music with the ease I have in making it through DistroKid. I still have not even scratched the surface with #NFTartwork and here I am looking for #NFTwritings and #NFTmusic. As the AI wrote for me above with the topic I gave it, all of these steps I am taking currently are to create generational wealth and pass it down to both my daughter and granddaughter, both middle named Pearl. Now that I am creating momentum, it seems wiser to work on all three instead of just one for me at least. Most people in real life still act like crypto is a bad work or like I am speaking a foreign language when I start talking about Defi and NFT technologies. Therefore, I like to think of myself of being ahead of the curve. Even in the ARC community, Coach Igor mentioned that we are some one percent of the one percenters of people getting involved and learning this cryptocurrency network system in a way where we are essentially becoming our own bank, as Gven Sariol mentions.
Journey as an NFT Writer
Started off on Readl after doing some research at the beginning of the year. This was after feeling overwhelmed with just learning cryptocurrencies and numbers, trades and vocabulary that was mostly new to me or not well understood for quite some time. I still wanted to research about NFTs and writing. I used the trusty Google search to at least find articles on those topics that lead me to trying out the platforms that I have been working on prior to this one. Readl has an attractive view and feel that made me think this was the writing platform I would call home. I re-learned a valuable lesson when I was on this platform after taking time to write out information I really wanted to say and not being able to access it. What is worse, I did not save the document anywhere else. I brought in two or three of my associates to join me in testing the purchasing and reading process in this app. Instead we received errors on the NFTs we minted, losing money and the information written that was supposed to only be accessed by the person who minted the writing. I reached out to the help team on discord because that is where most of these apps lead to for an attempt to find assistance. I did not receive any and did not wait around much for them to answer.
"Back to the drawing board" as being an artist, I sometimes like to quote. More than likely I first heard it in drafting class. Here is an interesting article about the origins of that phrase. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/back-to-the-drawing-board.html Technology has reached this phase where we can pass knowledge and links very easily, crediting the sources where we found the information. However, so much of this tech now is new to me, I am learning so much and wear myself out with so much knowledge sometimes. Hard lessons learned with money lost, but I have to keep moving forward. I looked for another platform to experiment with by going back to Google search once again. That's when I read about the Mirror. Although the previous app had a much more appealling look for the buyer's experience, there were too many unanswered questions that left me stuck and feeling like my buyers would not get the same experience as buying one of the author's publication that actually worked. Looking in the mirror offered new opportunities and a chance to rethink how I wanted to begin the story. The first 15 entries on this platform came from the mirror. The idea was to continue the series All About U, with all the letters filled with stories that carry lessons for the reader.
Mirror has offered features that I enjoyed experimenting with. It seems that the NFT writing that is minted on the site will show up on OpenSea. Tested to assure it works by myself and my daughter, the reader does get to read the NFT writing entry they minted and received ownership of, unlike prior site. Making a collection of NFTs was easy enough to navigate but viewing the NFTs on the site has been the challenge. Currently I was not able to implement the NFT artwork onto the NFT entry, but I am still researching and testing theories. It is worth continued use of the platform and keeping up with future development. I found it challenging to organize files and categorize them according to the topics that I desired writing about. That is why it is one continuous series I named All About U. The gaps in the entry numbers began happening when I had a thought or direction that did not fit with the next chapter in the series. I believe this is the reason why I went back to the drawing board and back to Google search again and found Paragraph.
Paragraph has features that I am familiar with from working with Mirror and WordPress. It also offers ways to get paid with crypto, possibly fiat currency or both as well. There are plenty of tools that I have yet to play with, which gives me the impression that this platform is one that I would like to invest time in persuading to the audience we have established on Pearls-Empire.blog. It seems beneficial to actually continue working on each platform, for each has its pros and cons, and with the ability to link them to this location is a major plus for my work featured on Paragraph. A major advantage that I see is the ability to link the projects and subscribers from other platforms and giving readers the opportunity to mint and learn about having ownership of NFTs. And this is only from observation of setting up my account and creating my first draft. I have not even gotten started yet! I will continue working on the different platforms while a full migration occurs over time if necessary. The stories in each platform will remain in their native site and find their way into this platform as well, which is one of the key features that really attracted me to this site. The following stories:
Traveling Through The Trails - A Journey Traveling through the Trails Searching for a Home written on WordPress. It is about a handful of teenagers traveling from Central America through Mexico on their way to the US by foot. Most of the story was channeled to me to type on the blog and I went as far as not naming any of the characters, in order to have some kind of interaction with the reader or allow the readers/producers to name them any names suiting.
XY Travels - Which ironically I was going to turn into XYZ Travels. This story was a test story on having a portion of the story set up for members only type features to attempt to increase funds for the website on Pearls-Empire's blog. Plus it was written in such a way that you were almost reading an entirely different story when you paid for the membership, taking you on a seamless experience from one chapter to another. Whereas, if you only read the preview of the chapter, it gave an intro from another perspective, say in terms of algebra for example.
All About U and G-Rated Stories - originally written on mirror after the first few G-Rated stories were lost in another platform. Now available on this platform as well. The All About U, Z letters I write to my family would more than likely be present tense situations, ideas and projects along with hardships and lessons being learned. They also highlight past and future experiences and how they all tie together for knowledge and information I would like to pass down from generation to generation with the belief that it is important where you come from to know where you are going. On that note, G-Rated Stories takes the reader as far back as I could go with the current knowledge I hold about the travels and struggles of us as an immigrant family who worked their way to citizenship. Constantly working for that dream of entrepreneurship.
ICT Records Music - Inspired Creative Thinkers, or ICT Records was created in 2018 with music that my daughter and I recorded with assistance of Ed Miles and a few others. The music we made were also stories of our lives and the trials and tribulations we overcame in our Post Traumatic Growth journey. I created an account where I write the lyrics to the songs on Genius.com/Alex-AirLuna.
Research and Development as an NFT Writer
I keep in mind and point out to my daughter quite a few times that I am experimenting with all these features. With the lessons I learned, it confirms that it is necessary to test the waters with experimental posts and pictures as I continue to develop my skills. I have not put out my better or best work yet. However, 2024 is serving as the benchmark of executing theories into actions and teaching clients peer to peer trading networks for purchasing the artwork. There is still research and development with the setup of the NFTs we am creating, learning as we go. The presentation and teaching our clients how to become investors is just as important moving forward, therefore it is necessary to also research best ways to provide the information to our clients in order to help them set up their wallets and make their first purchase, along with important security information for best practices.
Tying the physical with the digital work and now I have discovered the proper name they have given these types as Phygital NFTs. This means that there is a real work asset tied with the digital asset. It is not necessary but definitely gives the purchaser a feel of getting something of value that they can see and feel for themselves. This is a topic in which I see myself highly involved in, is creating that bridge from the physical to the digital world. The real world and the Metaverse world. By saying that I am agreeing with my client to create this artwork for a certain amount of crypto and providing the physical along with the digital copy into a smart contract, I am creating a bridge for my current clientele to enter the crypto world, even if it is just for the ownership of that one project we created and agreed on in the physical realm. Can you imagine if you minted any #AlexAirbrushLuna NFT project now at current market value and one day on some form of news outlet you hear that the current value of the artwork has hit, I don't know, let's say a couple million or so per each NFT. All of the sudden you recall me telling you to sign up, create your wallet and purchase my artwork as an NFT for proof of purchase. Quite an exciting future! I will be creating one of my next NFT newsletter about this topic on Paragraph coming soon.
The other project currently in development on creating Phygital NFTs and tying them to writing and publishing, physical and digital realms, we have Pearls Journals and Writing Material that will be creating as NFTs as well. My theory behind this is to purchase NFT Journals that are blank, label and number them tied with the purchased NFT and write in them. Have different journals for different topics, since I am studying to become a pilot for one journal, studying to be involved in decentralized finance, and writing about the effects of changing to a positive mindset along with spiritaul experiences, thoughts and visions I made have. Upon completion of each journal, I will buy another blank journal and continue the series for the particular topic. The completed journals can either be kept in a safe, sold or transferred to my descendents, tied to NFT digital copies. This process can be done through the several topics that I enjoy writing about. This process could also possibly be used by my daughter and other family members, in order to pass down knowledge and information tied with value to our family and to people interested in our work.
Future as an NFT Writer
The subscribers on Pearls-Empire.blog along with some posts that I would like to repost is one thing I will be focusing on moving forward. When I have figured out exactly what I will be dedicating my time and efforts along with money and assets in, I will begin to bring my network from several sources into one pinpoint. I have high hopes that this is the platform heading in the right direction.
While XY Travels represents an era set around now and near future, XYZ Travels are stories at least about a decade from now. Not sure at the moment about the dates for release. There are future songs and releases always in the works. I will continue writing All About U letters on the Mirror. Newsletters on Paragraph with ideas I would like to have as NFTs. I will be collaborating with the AI, experimenting with that feature as well. The top few paragraphs were written by the AI system with a paragraph on the topics I wanted to write about.
This is my first NFT writing on Paragraph. Thank you for reading, take care, peace and love.
AlexAirLuna
