(Opinion) Follow @punk6529 on Twitter, a thread ~
The following post was scraped directly from @punk6529 on Twitter
Punk 6529 is one of the most insightful and well thought out actors in the NFT space
To be clear, this is less a blog post and more a consolidation of a great 99 tweet thread. If you prefer to read directly from the source, tweet link embedded below
Punk6529 "On a Pathway to An Open Metaverse Dated October 5th
"On A Pathway To An Open Metaverse"
We are going to make a run at changing the arc of history.
It is a Return of the Jedi vs the Death Star style mission. They have the money and the power. We mostly have our brains, our community and gm.
But it might be just enough
A step back.
6529 has been involved in crypto since BTC summer 2013.
From the first day, I was convinced that BTC and its successors would change the world, make it a better world, decentralize power away from choke points, and that this was a net good for humanity
I played a small role in BTC's development and acceptance.
Small in the scheme of things, but important to me, and, at the time, it was a "risky" move.
And since then I have been waiting for our more decentralized social systems to emerge.
And waiting, and waiting… 6529 has 'institutional credentials.'
I am completely comfortable in the 'system' and the system is good to me. I am not a loser in our current system, I am a winner.
But my heart is in crypto, I spend a lot of time on crypto IRL, and know a lot about crypto.
I did not seriously look at NFTs until February and within months...well, I like the JPGs and by summer I had quite the NFT portfolio.
So what next?
The easy choice was to sit back and relax. Enjoying my IRL life while making lots of ETH looking at pretty JPGs is about as Level 4 as 6529 can get.
Maybe I can even convince myself it is Level 5 ("I am self-actualizing through art")
But I had a problem, and that problem is I can see a window, a wormhole, a lever that can, maybe, lead to an Open Metaverse.
It is one of the most important things in the world. And it is a very narrow window, both scope and time-limited. Soon, it will be too late
It is very easy to complain that the world isn't how it should be while doing nothing about it.
In fact, often while contributing to the exact problem we are complaining about (hi, crypto fam on Single-Point-Of-Failure Twitter, looking at you here)
Talk is cheap.
Life is short and then you die, frens.
If Level 4 and Level 5 people like me (and a lot of crypto folks) aren't willing to put some skin in the game on decentralization, then we are LARPing, we are bullshitters, we are just using "decentralization" for marketing.
So, in late July 2021, 6529 was booted up.
The goal of everything I have been doing is to help you see the window too, to see what I see and to yearn for it.
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
- Antoine de St Exupery (1900 - 1944)
What do I yearn for?
That our children and grandchildren will remain free.
That they will remain sovereign beings.
That we don't sleepwalk into a panopticon society controlled by a handful of people with "God view" of a big data, machine-learning enabled system.
This sounds dramatic, but the trendline on this topic is bad. China is already gone.
And the US and EU are creeping in the wrong direction.
So we need to act now before it is becomes irreversible.
Acting now is a no-lose proposition:
If the apologists are right and the system is not centralizing, then our efforts at decentralization will be welcomed by governments and companies
If we are not welcomed, then it will have been a good thing we acted
"what are we going to do"
Buckle up, this is going to be long tweetstorm even by 6529 standards and Twitter is going to make me do it in phases.
Be patient as the tweets come in. I will let you know when we are done
My view is that the default outcome of the metaverse will be centralized. Big tech has the money, talent, massive reach and, interestingly, the full support and encouragement of nation-states to exercise more control, not less control.
So what is left for us?
There is only one thing stronger than money, reach, talent and the vast power of the Federal Government.
That one thing is shared myths or memes. Memes are the apex object of society.
In a consumerist democracies like the US and Europe, memes elect politicians, they drive consumption (and corporate earnings) and set the direction of society at large.
The system is good at memes too btw.
We now have with NFTs the potent meme-technology ever developed.
Unlike the past, anyone can own a part of a powerful meme.
"The medium is the message" and there is currently an open space, a gap before the medium is claimed by the system.
We have to grab it now.
There are two main messages to the execution plan that I would like you to take away from today:
1) NFTs are people
2) Memes > land
"NFTs are people"
Behind every punk, BAYC, Coolcat, Wassie, Toadz, there is a living breathing human being.
Someone who makes decisions about how they live their life, what they spend money on, where they volunteer their time and who they vote for.
The 10,000 punks are a open publicly-readable, but pseudonymous, database of people who most strongly believe certain things about crypto, about NFTs and about the future
Think about that
Then think about that again
Then think about that again until your jaw hits the floor
The same is true for BAYC, for Squiggles, for Cool Cats, for Wassies, for Toadz.
NFTs are a combination of identity and social organization, with zero membership criteria, fully global, composable.
Anyone can make a product for punks to opt-in to
Every BAYC holder can extract and interpret their own meaning from BAYC.
It will not and should not be the exact same thing for each individual.
We are humans, not drones.
But like on average, BAYC holders will think/act more alike than non-BAYC holders.
This is how all societal myth-building institutions work.
The Republican Party
The Democratic Party
The Catholic Church
The United States Marine Corps
The ACLU
Greenpeace
Each member is different, but the group has broadly coordinated goals.
NFT communities will be exactly like this.
Some people will be truly dedicated true believers.
Some will help a bit
Some will be along for the ride
Some will be there for the free pizza and beer
Some will be sent by enemies to sabotage the show
This is fine, normal.
Why do I say "gm" to all of you?
Because it is a reminder that behind those avatars are real life people.
I say "gm" at home, at work, to people in a coffeeshop.
Why wouldn't I say gm to you too?
Also, gm
Memes > Land
I believe the metaverse is going to come and it is going to be fantastic.
In ten years, the resolution will be high, the features will be bountiful, the dopamine traps will be honed to perfection.
And so I spent a lot of time worrying about this
Why was I worrying about this?
Because "start off with nothing and build the winning decentralized metaverse tech stack" is not a winnable fam project.
It is nightmare battle against hundreds of competitors trying to do the same, with infinite corporate and VC budgets
So the problem I have been struggling with is "what does it mean if we are going to go off to build a 6529 decentralized metaverse?"
Do we all go buy plots in Decentraland? Sonium? Galleries in OnCyber? And by next year, 100 more.
None of these seemed like winning strategies.
This is basically betting humanity's future on "will you make the right VC bet on a winning platform in the most hotly contested space in tech"
Too hard. Back to the drawing board.
I had to work hard on this one. Really hard. This was the part where I had to stretch my thinking the most.
It was really hard. Even today I just see an outline of it. A glimmer on the horizon, but I see it.
My answer to this question is "memes > land", that controlling the memes matters more than the specific metaverse tech stack in which you present them.
Come again? What does this mean? Examples, always examples.
If the Louvre burned down, if the concrete and steel was gone, but the Mona Lisa was saved.
Is it over? Are we done with the Mona Lisa? Bin her, move on?
Or do we build a new Louvre, new concrete, new steel?
The Louvre is beautiful but replaceable. The Mona Lisa is not.
Let's play this game in our world
Would you come see Sunshine in OnCyber? Would you see him in Decentraland? How about in Somnium?
What about in "whatever comes next?"
My answer, my vote, my gut is "yes".
If so, summer.jpg > land
... Read the rest of the tweet thread here: https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1445477975953063942
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