Day: December 16, 2021

What’s Next for Friends With Benefits?

Anthony B

Crypto has always had an accessibility problem. It goes without saying that this stuff is difficult to use. It’s one thing to buy some Ethereum on Coinbase –it’s another to actually step beyond that walled garden into the world of decentralized applications, where you won’t find any guardrails to help you along the way. You’ll need an unhosted wallet (which you control rather than a third party), for starters, along with an intimate knowledge of token swaps (what’s “slippage” all about?) and plenty of cash on hand for the network’s…

Why I Spent $29M on a Beeple

Anthony B

Before this year, crypto was a cult. In 2021, crypto became culture. The movement was both catalyzed and led by the standard-bearer of digital art, Mike Winkelmann, known to the world as Beeple. No one in crypto had predicted that art would be what would bring crypto into the mainstream before this year, but here we are, and I am very grateful for the new energy and new entrants into our community. Human One, Beeple’s masterpiece digital sculpture, capped the year as perhaps the most important non-fungible token (NFT) ever…

Music NFTs Are Set for an Explosive 2022

Joan Westenberg

Take Spotify. With nearly 400 million active users, half of those paying, it is by far the most widely adopted and popular music streaming service. There are around 8 million artists on Spotify who fight for attention daily, only to be overpowered by more renowned counterparts like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Kanye West. It’s a challenging landscape for any artist if they aren’t at the top, especially when artists aren’t able to wholly capture the proceeds from their work. “Rights holders” on Spotify pocket up to 70% of streaming…