The Catcher in De-Fi.

The Catcher in De-Fi...

(this is freeverse)

Ever wonder why at times we feel left out of the equation? Even for those who have spent the better part of their latter childhood and early adult life being a part of somthing such as the oh I don't know, the growth of the internet, just to have new Computer Science technology make you think it's one of those dreams where all hell has broken loose, with an actual portal open and The Devil's minions are mounted on armored skeletal steeds donning weaponry of yesteryear, and all you can manifest for battle is a bag of marshmallows and a slingshot? Where's Ash and his "Boom Stick" when you need him in the spirtually parallel dimensional existence we know of as dreaming?

Never fear, for that isn't true... well not in this instance, however it does appear apparent that there exists within the space a greater of two evils birthed from 5 out of 7 deadly sins, these being; envy, gluttony, greed, lust and sloth, with pride and wrath possibly the fuel to propel the motivation for the other 5.

This is far from a post on religious values. Hopefully this is an eye-opener. 

Non Fungible Truth

While we are all (Blockchainers and Cryptonauts) becoming a little bit "DAO"ish, let's reference a Daoist quote;

Three things cannot be hidden from the world [for long]; The Sun, The Moon & The Truth.

Some (most definitely not all) of these decentralised autonomous organisations, are more like decentralised autonomous organisms, of the parasitic variety, sucking the life energy out of peace loving creatures of habit and moving onto the next victim indiscriminately.

By now surely we've all seen countless posts in various online forums and facebook groups that go something along the lines of; "Complete noob here, want to get into NFTs, someone guide me please! (insert *sad face emoji* here to pull the heart strings of people who are all too obviously not too busy to stop and repeat the same answer given only days prior to another noob, and watch what others say.)"

Then the experts come out of the woodworks like there was never a shortage of people who actually know and understand the industry, so much so that programming groups and websites of large firms are practically giving away courses in Blockchain Technology & Development. (Yes that's sarcasm)

***I am not an expert, this is not expert advice.***

"Do you want to be an Artist or an Investor?", said the would be expert who never once keyed a structured search query into Google or any alternative search engines, simply scrolled through their news feed of the various facebook groups relating to; cryptocurrency, cryptoart, defi and of course the obvious NFTs (not even getting to Web3) and read through what other would be "experts" have told others to do, and quick wittedly copy paste thought (testing their A.D.D and short term goldfish memory span pertaining to that the other DeGen, who've allowed their minds to turn to mush and lost all if any ability to think freely or look beyond conventional and commercial news and media channels or outlets for their "research data" scary thought that these guys now write books also, and get published. ;) ) 

Digression... 

well sir having been an Artist possibly since birth, and realising there was a small chunk of loose change to be made; drawing people's faces, designing band merch, gig fliers and posters, as well as logos, letterheads and possibly painting murals or taking photgraphs for a pocketful of change, here I was thinking I was both; an Artist who invested all their time and money on themselves in a hope that one day the Artwork would "moon"and they could save their parents from the fate of having to work as either corporate or government endorsed domestic slaves until retirement age only to live of a small portion of the small fortune amassed in paid taxes, mortgages, loans and living expenses for the average boomer family of 2.5 or more offspring, that this aforementioned working life had to offer.

"You need utility, and a community or you're NGMI", Cryptoart and NFTs are different to "real" Art is what they are essentially saying.

Hmmmm I wonder, if we could travel back into time to when Michelangelo carved his first sculpture or picked up a piece of burnt tree branch to sketch something or tied some goat hair to a stick and mixed the charcoal off the burnt tree branch with water and started painting something, I wonder what was the utility attached to such melancholy meanderings in mixed mediums, and where was the community?

Surely there must have been a chariot powered equivalent of discord messaging, wait it was Wumpas branded carrier pidgeon recruiting advocates and followers, far and wide to "guild" up and join their pixel powered posse of Truth, Justice and the Nothing to do with Crypto way.

I believe in the movement as much as any other purist of any field, just as when watching V-For Vendetta, for the 5th time, believed that Art & Music is the revolution.

"The Revolution introduced me to Art, and Art introduced me to the Revolution." - Albert Einstein.

Enough with the creative writing, inticing freedom of thought and opening penial gland connected invisible and intangible third eyes, the reader needs information, the kind that's a cross between an extra value budget meal and a Michelin Star street food vendor served as instantly taste filled as Starbucks vanilla hazlenut decaf soy latte's of the future, decompressed like military MRI rations, just add hot water.

Sorry not sorry during these uncertain times we must sift the snowflakes, sorting the variety dubbed soft and brainwashed (wait "easily mislead" or misinformed for want of a better phrase) and the individual, one of kind types of people who drift through this existence with chameleon-esque character traits and attributes, for what is a snowflake? a non fungible, unique, one of a kind frozen singular droplet of water.

But NFT's are different to cryptocurrency, so "What will you be investing in, in 2022, Crypto or NFTs?"

Wait what? [Did or] When did they release an EIP that stated that the ERC token standards ditched ERC721 and the new ERC1155 NFT token standards pertaining to Ethereum Request for Comment (remembering through studying the Ethereum Blockchain, and crypto network, that which we are "investing" in that this is what ERC stands for) and fork the entire standard to it's own existence outside of the DeFi, no longer value backed by a [Native Blockchain] cryptocurrency starting with Ether and filtering it's way downward spiralling to the last gwei equivalent of a Satoshi of another name? A Satoshi by any other name would be a Gwei.

Now I'm wondering if the Blockchain-Space and Cryptocurrency Networks sent that memo to Mr. Fabian Vogelsteller of Ethereum, creator/inventor of both the ERC20 & ERC721 token standard code (Solidity Smart Contracts)...or should he be tagged in a public Tweet to let him know? Hmmmm decisions, decisions to make. To Tweet or not to Tweet...

Lets get serious and reference something actually poignant, for sarcasm and creative free thinking prose is just not acceptable professional behaviour.

The following text after the image is filled with active hyperlinks jam packed with way too much info to try and squeeze into one section, be sure to bookmark the links, they will come in handy. ;) 

*Not my image, taken from website NFTrepainted

Anyone ever heard of a dude by the name of Miles Mathis (if that is his real name)... like come on it's like a funk soul Dj rhyming couplet of Styles Playlist directly referencing Myles Davis. Well I'd never ,until entering Google search query; NFT:Money Laundering  and 1st cab off the rank based on either clever SEO (highly unlikely) or relevance of content pertaining to the truth (more than likely, Google AI is a culmination of what would be equivalent to a million mind march on every library-esque database of the world at our fingertips in nano-seconds).

Coming from a background as an MC, effective prose that moves people starts with the opening line, it must spark a thought or resonate empathy with the listener/reader in the case of the written word. "The game of money laundering just went super-transparent in the past year or so, via so-called NonFungible Tokens—from now on to be known by me as Money-Laundering Chits or MLCs"  Chainalysis needs to change it's target activity to AMLC. 

Before this continues into more than a Ode to NFTs and becomes more of the Mahabarata of the DeFi. With all new trending activities both on, and offline there will always be opportunists, this is not to say by any means the entire industry comprises of such things.

However without involving any "monkey business", let's not direct slanderous words in precise direction of any particular projects that aped, and caused deformed bored "monkey see, monkey do" trendites to follow suit like the little lemmings they are, only to then be bathing apes. No hate, this is soul-freeing mind elevation and a realisation that certain "things" exist, and this activity is one of them.

In the butterfly effect chaos theory application to the Information Superhighway of; dreams, dreamers, evangilist saviours and lost souls easily devoured by the next would be cult-leader who claims to be Jesus in the flesh among any and every other type of human and inhumane being, this world wide spider web of fries has to offer.

Of course we remember and respect such cult labels in modern pop culture such as the white rhino in cross hairs, advocated and created by none other than Marc Ecko, ever learn how he started that label with less than $3000 USD? Well it was simple at the time, just get some celebrities to rock the fresh warez and peeps seeing threads brandishing the white rhino on the chest of their favorite Hollywood Director (Spike Lee being one of the first to rock Ecko) or basketball players and movie stars...

*Not my image, taken from this site also

This could fill with digression easily, not going to bother writing based on referencing since this isn't one of those pieces. Though it would be good to note that the above picture is most definitely in violation of Copyrights and Intellectual Property breaches. But #NobodyCares. Word to the wise hyperlink hopping coming.

"Copyright violations could crash the NFT part:....The United States Copyright Office put out a summary of its basic rules, which is worth a read for any would-be NFT investor. Generally, any original work of authorship, be it music, paintings, books, or any other even minimally creative tangible work, is protected under federal law. While the copyright on art exists automatically as soon as that art is “fixed,” that art needs to be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office to be legally protected (i.e., for the IP rights holder to be able to sue for infringement damages). The copyright and all associated IP rights belong to the creator of the work, but some or all of those rights can be assigned or transferred to any subsequent purchaser of the work. ..."

August 04, 2021 FORTUNE Online JONATHAN SCHMALFELD, Copyright violations could crash the NFT party

CryptoPunks V1 "Wrapped CryptoPunks" under fire.

Which Chainalysis just puts down to acts of Wash Trading.

And then just to break this piece up and make it a little more interactive, check out this article on NFTs and Copyrights

"This principle—that copyright attaches at the moment of creation—applies regardless of the medium. It doesn’t matter if it’s an oil painting, a sound recording, or a piece of digital visual art.

When we talk about “copyright”, we’re really talking about multiple rights (sometimes called a “basket of rights”). These include the right to control who makes copies of the original work; who can sell, license, or otherwise transfer the copyright in work; and who can make derivative works from the original. Derivative works are new works based on a pre-existing work (a sequel, a remix, that sort of thing).

Typically, when someone buys a work of physical art, they are only purchasing the physical object. They are not purchasing the copyright in the work. The rights enumerated above remain with the artist.- taken from David Lizerbram & Associates:MARCH 11, 2021, NFTS & COPYRIGHT LAW, What is an NFT, and how does copyright law come into play? (the link NFTs and Copyrights)

"While there are no laws yet relating to cryptographic assets, legal systems should largely be able to adapt existing laws and principles to blockchain technology as was done for online activities." - Lawyer Monthly: NFTs and IP Law: Who Owns What?

Let's digress and pose a thought, anyone ever think to ask Co-Founder and legendary cryptographer of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, what NFTs he's bought and hodling in his bags? I've not read or seen anything relating to such notions...there was that one time Shiba Inu gifted one of his dead wallets a truckload if $SHIB and he donated and burned it sternly stating to "Never do that again..." [you] they should ask first before sending tokens [to him or something to that effect. Why dear reader, do you think that is?

If you haven't yet, grab a bag of chips and or popcorn, a bottle of fizzy cordial or a jug of hot joe and watch this video. Don't be an audio visual TL;DR type of "researcher". (it's a doozy at a whopping 2hrs+ well worth the insightfulness he brings to the table)

49:37 ""...While a few sellers legitimate or otherwise made off with undeniably big paydays, hundreds of thousands of artists bought in only to find that there wasn't a new revolutionary, heavily trafficked audience of digital art collectors..." 

This would resonate a strong chord in I'm sure more than an entire facebook group of would be "NFT Creators" if they'd only diversify their "updated" valid sources of their "knowlege of the game" further than the [paid] YouTube influencers and their "peers" in the group who realistically don't give a pixelated rat's backside as to what other people's thought processes are, and have given up on shilling, or promotion even before they began their Art Career', and really just hope that there's people in these groups that turn out to be "investors" and are interested in 1 or more of their generative code algorithm which they didn't write, or find on google 90% of the time and either paid a guy on fiverr a couple of bucks per design or, bought an "NFT Art Generator" for a little over a hundred United States Dollars, coz in the cryptocurrency world of being Anti-Fiat currency that's the done thing to do if you're sole purpose for breathing the Ether in the Cryptospace stratosphere is to GRQ (Get Rich Quick).

At first this was going to go in the direction of discussing where the state of NFT's is, and the potential it holds, but in being a New Funky Trendsetter, the thought was had to mention such things as Coachella's adoption of NFTs as potentially new forms of festival tickets and passes.

Or the European Nation housing one of the first Blockchain cities of the world Estonia, adapting a proposed digital passport for E-Estonia whereby certain documents would be coded in what we the (geeky) people would presume to be null value Non Fungible Tokens, holding immutable personal identity documents of their E-Citizens on file in a privatised permissioned blockchain developed for Government use only directly connecting each Government Agency to each other in a hands free P2P node network of pure genius, to benefit the majority safety of the majority of it's citizens governed by the laws of digital democratic consensus vote, generated by real people in real time, unable to be forged or replicated or fraudulent in any way, shape or form. Nah, that would be boring and going against the "normal" behaviour we are supposed to display.

Oh snap! I forgot the part about NFT standard tokenisation of proof of existence or proof of creation, being assigned to produce such as fruit and vegetables or canned goods, for our future supply chain blockchain networks to track the source of defective products or contaminated food supplies that poses the greatest threat of all, spreading more communicable diseases like mutated flu viruses that share the attributes of what could be better described as "Airborne Aids" or non sexually transmitted diseases, like we need another Pandemic Crisis inside of a current Pandemic Crisis, Sars Cov 2.2022 The Inception strain.

By now the though of who TF is this guy and what gives anyone authority to speak such heathenous untruths... it was at the "Oh snap!" in the paragraph above here, I was about to pull the pin and conclude, but felt that a few more lines of senseless narrative were required to validate my own existence as a wordsmith. 

One love... don't believe the hype, and Art is Art as the saying goes, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

This time I'm not so much referencing or quoting from the bibliography and footnotes attached in the bottom section above comments, more so this is what I read and watched to get penning the first pixelated font form on this piece of prose.

And if you got this far...tbc

Thanks for reading!

Oh in case anyone's interested I renovated one of my , and will be finishing it off over the weekend, it will advertise services for my knewly acquired knowledge of the industry and aspects of Blockchain Development such as Web3 integration, coupled with Graphic Design, Multimedia and Concept Art among other things. Peace!