Temple Times 12.23.22
News Delivered Despite Blizzard and Multiple Power Outages
Hello, my name is n0madz 🖖
I was born on Tezos, but since then, I've spread my awareness to Ethereum and Solana.
Most recently, I have enjoyed exploring writing and publishing on the blockchain and using blockchain and crypto technology to grow and build communities.
Here’s where you can find me:
About Temple Times
Temple Times is my form of giving thanks to Paper Buddha’s Temple community, so it’s a timely coincidence that this first issue came together right in time for the holiday season.
As always, just in case it’s necessary: Do your own research; I’m not imparting financial advice (in fact, I like to think I’m doing the exact opposite), and please share any funny stories.
Please hit that “Subscribe now” button above, jump into the subscriber chat, and join the conversation. If you’re in the Temple discord, I’ll post the referral code for a free lifetime subscription, so you don’t have to deal with paywalls, etc.
🍻Cheers🍻
n0madz
Experimental beats provided by GeekMyth for your audio pleasure. A sneak preview of what’s to come:
Ongoing Stories:
Gentle Reminder that Camp Netheryonder Winter Edition Approaches
Just a reminder that Jan. 20-22 and Camp Netheryonder will be here before you know it!
Produced by Sky Bravo and held outside of Nashville, TN, there’s still time to grab a ticket and join the Temple community and other artists, entrepreneurs, degens, and generally beautiful souls for a campout, creative retreat.
Here’s a helpful tweet from AllisonJoyful that lays out the fine print:
🌴SBF’s holiday in the Bahamas comes to an abrupt end 🥥
Elsewhere on Planet Earth, SBF’s vacation in the Bahamas comes to a sudden halt after he waives his right to fight extradition to the United States.
Most likely, SBF wanted to spend as little time as possible in the island’s only correctional facility, Fox Hill.
While en route to the US, two associates of SBF (one a former girlfriend, ouch) -Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang - plead guilty and agree to cooperate → not a good sign if you’re SBF.
SBF was released on a 250 million bail and restricted to house arrest at his parents’ home. Bond is also secured in part by that family home.
Here’s one article with more information.
Melon Tusk Causes Twitter Meltdown: The Scramble for Decentralized Social Media Alternatives Begins
In the bird app universe, Twitter has a meltdown after supreme leader Felon Dusk indicates widespread policy changes that amount to building virtual walls around the app and penalizing users for posting links to external social media pages (think Linktree, OnlyFans, Matador, etc.).
Sadly, unlike the blockchain, the evidence of this policy shift has now been deleted. Thanks to sites like the Wayback Machine, here’s a link to the original tweet for your reading pleasure.
Coincidentally, decentralized Web 3.0 social media solutions like Farcaster and Lens Protocol are hot topics of conversation ATM.
Here’s the link to my Lens Protocol profile.
Here’s a link to Paper Buddha’s Farcaster profile.
Long story short: own your digital identity; don’t lease it from our future world dictator.
Paper Planes
A 1/1 submitted for season 6 of Pierreo01’s People of Tezos project and Paper Buddha’s first self-portrait on Tezos, “Paper Planes,” closes at auction for 115 tez to Bantiago (or DrMarkSanchez). 🎉🍻
‘Tis the Season in the Temple Telegram
Join Temple Telegram; go ahead and do it already. You know you want to. It’s that time of year, so a jolly Buddha airdropping dope AF art in your crypto wallet isn’t out of the realm of possibility…👇👇👇
It happened to Spaze Craft; it can happen to you too.
LaserLewDude drops alpha nuggets in Temple Telegram
As mentioned, part-man, part-laser, part-mustache aficionado LaserLewDude dropped an alpha nugget that at the time of writing was still out there for the scooping with only 9 (make that) 8 editions left (had to scoop one for the n0madz family).
If you need more information, I can only say that Phase Shift leaves interdimensional technology rife with lasers and psychedelic colors in your art collection.
n0madz explores interface.social: a blockchain explorer you can relate to
Here’s the link to my Mirror article on the subject.
Here’s a cool graphic that has nothing to do with interface.social:
JBurn Closes Out the Year With Surprise Drop
JBurn can’t stop dropping fire tracks on the regular, and this one is no exception. Minted on the Solana marketplace Formfunction, the 1/1 “Smooth” closed at auction for 21.32 sol or $242 USD at time of hammer 🔨
Press Play above if you want to have a listen.
In-Depth Analysis on the State of Crypto Wash Trading
hildobby analyses the data and presents their findings in an easily digestible format.
One big point gleaned from the article is that marketplaces that offer tokens to incentivize activity also display the most amount of wash trading.
The vast majority of wash trading volume comes from LooksRare and X2Y2.
These two platforms are wash trade central - with 98% and 87% of their respective volumes driven by the activity.
While these two are almost completely dependent on wash trades for volume, note that only a (significant) minority of their total trades are washes - 25% for LooksRare and 22% for X2Y2.
For those willing to dance with the Darkside, sounds like there’s money to be made in wash trading if the platform offers token incentives, DYOR.
Next Year, Next Lifetime: A Trip with MendezMendez
Less than 24 hours to claim your copy of MendezMendez’s open edition, I Guess I’ll See You Next Lifetime.
You’ll need three copies to collect a complete set. See the details below but remember, “On December 25, you Die to Redeem and choose your fate in the afterlife.”
Full Disclosure: I’m too broke (it’s the holidays 🤷♂️), but I will scoop one copy. If anyone else wants to scoop one copy, I’ll contribute my copy to Temple so we can have a full set of whatever comes next in the Temple family archive.
LMK in the poll below if you’re interested.
National Geographic (@natgeophotos) announces its arrival into Web 3.0 with a collection featuring 16 photographers, 135 years of NatGeo photos, and ultimately 1888 NFTs (or digital collectibles) up for grabs. Exclusively available on Snowcrash (WTF is Snowcrash, BTW?).
Starbucks Gamifies Coffee in Web 3.0
In similar news, Starbucks opens the waitlist for its digital collectible, Starbucks Odyssey.
From the little information available on the website, it will be hosted on the Polygon blockchain; no crypto wallet is required because these “Stamps” (Starbucks’ slang for NFTs) can be purchased with a credit card; and, technically, money is not required to participate either since the “Stamps” can be earned through something called “Journeys.”
So, in a nutshell, Starbucks is using Web 3.0 to introduce gamification to the coffee industry.
As someone who one day wants to own a franchise of coffee shops operating on a CaaS (Coffee as a Service) basis, this confirms my own belief that the entire world is moving to a subscription-based model.
Destroyer of graphic design and founder of MidJourney founder David Holz Gets Grilled.
In other news, Midjourney founder David Holz sits down to a confrontational, hard-hitting interview with Forbes contributor Rob Salkowitz.
Suppose you don’t like paywalls, LMK. I might have a PDF copy lying around…
Paper Buddha contributes a resource - “NFTs and Generative Art: Women Working with Code” - compiled by Aleksandra Art (@aljaparis), highlighting female creative coders creating generative art.
Messi is First Man in History to Have Two Golden Balls!
Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits the United States for a meeting with President Biden.
My read on the situation is that someone in the Biden administration watched David Letterman’s interview with Zelenskyy and decided they were long past due to get a piece of the Zelenskyy action.
Letterman’s interview with Zelenskyy on a subway platform deep underground with missile sirens going off is way more hardcore than Biden’s meeting with Zelenskyy in the White House, IMO.
The National Lampoon had this to say regarding the topic:
This is also your gentle reminder that National Lampoon Studios has been teasing its own NFT collection for some time now.
Here’s my referral code if you’re interested:
n0madz new years resolution alert: lie, cheat, bluff, steal, finagle my way into writing for National Lampoon Studios NFT team.
Who is George Santos?
And why hasn’t anyone compared his story to Anna “Delvey” Sorokin’s story yet?
🎉congratulations 🎉you made it to the end of our first newsletter.
You’re a person among people, a giant that walks with mountains. I appreciate you and your time, and I hope you and yours have a most excellent holiday season. To the New Year! 🥂🎊
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