The Grey Swan Guild News Wrap — The Week That Was Friday, October 15th, 2021.
Grey Swan Guild — News Wrap Edition: #39 of Vol. 1
These are a series of stories and headlines we are tracking in the
Grey Swan Guild’s Global League of Sensemakers Newsroom. Here is The Great, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of what we observed this week.
Check the Grey Swan Calendar and join us in our latest events: City-focus Feature City Town Hall — Boston.
We’ve chosen Beantown as our Guild-wide profile city of the month for October. Let’s convene online as a city cohort and make sense of the world’s top challenges and next Grey Swans
And Grey Swan Atelier #8 — Thousand Day Radar — Three Year Trends.
Wayfinding the volatile and ambiguous path to 2025. In one of the Guild’s biggest inititatives of the year, we are asking Guild members to put on their three year radar and take us out to 2025.
This week’s theme is Tales from The Crypto.
In the last two months, I have been very closely involved with what the Gaming community is, whether it be taking the reins of my own games interacting with other people around the world or being able to try a premium game a week in advance of it’s release.
It’s given me a chance to think about the future and I started a project to combine those worlds. AKA Gaming + NFTs. https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/agustinborra Love to hear what you think!
I’m just so happy to edit on this theme this week. There’s so much going on in gaming, crypto, and NFTs right now. So much that will alter how we consume, how we relate, how we organise work and home life. You might think some of the down-sides to what I’ve categorised as good. No-one knows quite how it’s going to play out in the future. But this is here, it’s big and we need to talk about it.
So…Let’s Wrap.
Why not join us on Sunday, October 17th at 8am (PST) 11am (EST) / 4pm BST on Clubhouse to engage with your favorite Grey Swan Guild Wrap Editors, including Sylvia Gallusser, Sean Moffitt, Agustín Borrazás, Rob Tyrie, Ben Thurman, Louise Mowbray, and Antonia Nicols.
The Great 😇
- New FTX US NFT Market a godsend for esports. On Monday October 11th the US-based crypto currency exchange FTX announced the launch of its NFT marketplace. On release the marketplace will feature Solana based NFTs with support for Etherium based NFTs coming in the near future. FTX’s NFT marketplace will give users the ability to both mint and transfer NFTs. Brett Harrison, FTX’s president said in a statement
“With the launch of this platform, we hope to provide both US and global users with a regulated marketplace that is intuitive and responsive to their needs.”
While the news about this new marketplace makes the rounds, we are itching to know how this will impact the various esports industry organizations and partners of FTX going forward.
2. Gary Vee Doodles Sell for $1.2 Million USD at Christie’s Auction
Vaynerchuck’s five artworks — Tremendous Tiger, Gratitude Gorilla, Empathetic Elephant, “Diamond Hands” Hen and “You’re Gonna Die” Fly — were used in part to create his VeeFriends NFT series, a collection comprised of 10,255 token NFT projects that run on the Ethereum blockchain.
The collection was part of Christie’s Post-War to Present contemporary art live auction that took place in New York City.
Christie’s described Vaynerchuck as “one of the most forward thinkers in the business.”
“Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance, and the internet,” the auction house wrote in a description of the lot. “He acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior.”
3. Think $60K is the top? This Bitcoin fractal suggests it’s the next bear market bottom.
The idea that BTC price action moves in cycles — with a bearish phase and a bottom of 80% of the blow-off top — has become widely accepted.
What is much harder to believe in current circumstances, however, is that $60,000 may just be the price floor of that potential 80% correction.
Using Fibonacci sequences, TechDev showed that each Bitcoin bear bottom fell within an identical range. This accounts for both the sub-$200 lows in 2014 and the roughly $3,200 floor in December 2018.
Given Bitcoin’s cyclical metamorphoses, the next logical retracement therefore has anywhere from $47,000 to $60,000 as a target.
“I know no one cares about macro during a pump. But the last two BTC bear markets bottomed in the 1.486–1.618 log fib pocket of the previous cycle,”
The Good😊🙌
- How Henry Ford Envisaged Bitcoin 100 Years Ago.
Most folks know Henry for creation of the mass consumption automobile, but who knew that he also envisaged Bitcoin? Well it seems that his thinking went well beyond cars. Henry Ford was not a fan of war so his vision was to come up with an energy based currency to replace gold. He felt that gold was the harbinger of global greed and wars. Ford’s proposed currency would be backed by an energy measurement in kilowatt-hours and “be issued only to a certain definite amount and for specific purpose”. Interestingly, the banking system that existed then is still the same today and despite his attempt to change banking systems 100 years ago like today they are not interested in alternative currencies that diminish controls of the current system. Will Bitcoin finally break this cycle of bank control over 100 years after Henry tried? - Bacardi pairs purpose with NFTs to empower fan investment in music diversity. Bacardi launches NFT’s as part of digital marketing strategy. In the category of the Good — Bacardi’s has taken NFT’s to the next level in their digital marketing strategy. Their latest effort aims to shine a light on the underrepresentation of women in the music production industry. Three NFT ‘mixtapes’ will be auctioned off on the new NFT marketplace, Sturdy Exchange. In addition each collectible allows the buyer to earn an income from the streaming royalties of the NFT. Cheers!
- Mark Cuban-backed Alethea AI is building a metaverse of NFT avatars.
Intelligent NFT avatars, trained using machine learning, can offer services automatically (while you sleep). Could this be a building block for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations? Which could fuel a mainstream metaverse that creates new value in our economies? On the dark side, if the training data is biased, the metaverse could be a really dark place for those not participating in training and designing these avatars.
The Bad 😬
- Visa, Mastercard and Ripple plant flags in the NFT market.
NFTs gained attention earlier in 2021 following a series of purchases tied to celebrities. The fast growth in NFT purchases that followed in the ensuing months has attracted Visa, Mastercard and Ripple, which have made separate forays into the NFT market. Visa’s CryptoPunk purchase happened around the same time as Mastercard’s entry into the market by auctioning off an NFT and Ripple’s announcement of a $250 million fund for NFT creators. - $7 Trillion Worth of Stocks Are Exposed to Crypto Risks. At least 52 companies representing $7.1 trillion in market capitalization have some exposure to cryptocurrencies, according to an analysis by MSCI (a golbal equity index). They range from all-in players like Coinbase Inc. to Bitcoin balance-sheet “holders” like Tesla Inc. and MicroStrategy Inc. to those dipping a toe into crypto-market services such as JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The growing importance of the volatile digital asset class brings with it an assortment of challenges for investors and companies alike; as they try to assess the environmental, social and governance risks that come along with it, the report says. These include questions about everything from greenhouse gas emissions stemming from mining coins, to a lack of accounting standards for crypto; and questions about transparency surrounding how the networks are run, according to MSCI.
3. Payments giant Stripe says its reentering the crypto market. Payments company Stripe announced it’s building out a new crypto team to help build out the “future of Web3 payments,” according to public statements posted to Twitter on Tuesday. Stripe, which had once been among the first to support Bitcoin payments before leaving the market a few years ago, has been watching for the right time to get back in. But how those plans will play out is still largely unknown.
Reached for comment, Stripe declined to share any additional insights or details about its strategy, pointing only to its new public statements and its earlier blog post
The Ugly 😱
- Coinbase announces NFT waitlist, following lead of rivals Binance and FTX. Coinbase is breaking into the market for non-fungible tokens, announcing Tuesday the waitlist for access to Coinbase NFT — making it the latest crypto firm to dive into the speculative frenzy.
The new offering — which is being spearheaded by Coinbase’s VP of Product, Sanchan Saxena — will allow users to mint, purchase, and showcase NFTs. To start it will support Ethereum-based NFTs, but it has plans to expand to other chains after it launches.
2. The Launch of Neopets NFTs has some backlash. Neopet Metaverse users were first confused then angry about a Neopets NFT. It would appear the launch of their NFT was a debacle on the highest order with: communication issues, dissatisfaction with the base product, taking fan-created artwork as their own NFT and conflicting with many of the values of Neopets users. It also called into question the value of an NFT when the company keeps the underlying ownersership of likeness and character of the NFT being purchased.
3. Signal’s founder is trolling with an NFT that’ll turn to shit if you buy it.
He seems to be doing this to point out the potential fragility of NFTs, which are supposed to act as a sort of permanent record of owning a piece of art or media. They’re unique digital tokens that are stored on the blockchain, but in most cases, it’s actually just the record that lives on the chain — the image is stored elsewhere. That means that people shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for them could be at the mercy of image hosts who are operating independently from the blockchain.
The Tapestry
Meme of the Week
WILLIAM SHATNER BOARDS BLUE ORIGIN SPACE FLIGHT
Upon returning to Earth, William told Jeff Bezos that the trip was “unbelievable” and something “everybody in the world needs to do.”
He added: “What you have given me is the most profound experience. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. I hope I never recover from this. I hope I can retain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it.”
Chart of the Week
Term of the Week
Minting
Minting is defined as the computer process of validating information, creating a new block and recording that information into the blockchain.
Imagine the blockchain as a digital book of records. Just like paper pages, these digital pages can only store a limited amount of information. So new pages are created regularly to store more information. Those pages are blocks in the blockchain.
To keep the blockchain network running smoothly, only one block can be created at a time. Proof of stake is the minting process of controlling how blocks are created and how data is added to a block. Here’s how proof of stake happens:
- To be eligible to participate, users are required to deposit and risk a large number of cryptocurrency, this is known as a “stake”.
- People who provide a stake (known as “forgers”) are randomly selected to record and verify information on the blockchain.
- Forgers participating in proof of stake cannot spend or move their stake. If they are caught recording false information or doing something against the rules, they risk forfeiting their entire stake.
- In most proof of stake systems, the larger your stake the greater your chances of being selected to record and verify the blockchain.
- Forgers are willing to endure the cost and risks of staking for the chance to earn transaction fees paid by users of the system.
With over 1,500 cryptocurrencies and many more being created each month, many new interesting ways of maintaining the blockchain are regularly being explored and discovered.
Photo of the Week
A red deer stag bellows at sunrise during rutting season in Bushy Park in London, England, on October 13, 2021 (stack those sats)
Video of the Week
Battlefield™ 2042 is available on November 19, 2021. Discover Battlefield™ Hazard Zone — A tense, squad-focused survival experience combining edge-of-your-seat gameplay with the best of the Battlefield sandbox. Inserted as a four-member squad, you must locate and retrieve critical Data Drives scattered throughout the battlefield, while competing against opposing squads with the same objective and local militias. Succeed by gathering the Data Drives and choosing when to extract before a storm overtakes the area in this high-stakes, one-life experience. Every bullet, every skirmish, and every decision counts. Battlefield 2042 is a first-person shooter that marks the return to the iconic all-out warfare of the franchise. Adapt and overcome in a near-future world transformed by disorder. Squad up and bring a cutting-edge arsenal into dynamically-changing battlegrounds supporting 128 players*, unprecedented scale, and epic destruction. Pre-order now for exclusive cosmetic items and more:
That’s the Wrap! Your thoughts?
Why not join us on Sunday, 17 at 8:00 (PST)/11am (EST) /4pm (BST) on Clubhouse to engage with your favourite Grey Swan Guild Wrap Editors, including Sylvia Gallusser, Sean Moffitt, Agustín Borrazás, Rob Tyrie, Ben Thurman, Louise Mowbray and Antonia Nicols.
See you next week for Edition #40 where we will ponder and ruminate on the week that was, what it means for the future, and Wrap it for you.
The GSG Medium is The Message
Visit our Medium channel every Friday for a weekly wrap on the world’s biggest challenges and other fresh articles and points of view The Guild is sharing. Please drop by our Grey Swan Guild website (greyswanguild.org) for more publications and articles about how we make sense of the world ongoing and also the raft of possibilities to participate as a Sensemaker.
This Week’s Grey Swan News Wrap Editor: Agustín Borrazás, with help from Esmee Wilcox and the Editorial Team: Sylvia Gallusser, Sean Moffitt, Louise Mowbray, Rob Tyrie, Scott Phares, Ben Thurman, Doyle Buehler, and Antonia Nicols.
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