So the latest crypto grift is non-fungible tokens (NFT) - it's like if you were to take the professional art-world money laundering schemes, and put it on the internet. These pieces are selling for crazy high amounts of money because people are speculating on their value.

I propose we start an art collective to cash in on this. I have the technical knowledge to create and trade these NFTs - but I need unique original works of digital art. It doesn't really even have to be good and it'll sell for hundreds of dollars. This is a unique moment to get in on the grift.

They're traded on sites like: https://opensea.io/

The process of creating a token takes a decent amount of up front money, like $50-$80, but the creator gets the initial sale price + 10% of future sales (depending on the platform). If anyone wants to give it a shot - I'll front everything and manage the technical side, with an agreement that the collective common fund gets a certain percent so we can fund the creation of new tokens for collective members. I wouldn't be taking anything.

I'd think it'd also be cool to donate any excess dues to fund a chapo.chat mutual aid fund, and other causes we agree upon.

  • lohs [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Crypto art trade is terrible for the environment and you're a bad person if you participate in the insane CO2 output needed to send someone a jpg.

    • QuillQuote [they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      just imagine the emissions from trying to process that soldier :sadness:

      • lohs [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        It's not processing the images that does the damage, it's all the blockchain transactions involved with crypto.

          • lohs [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Yeah, that wouldn't be a very good joke.

            The ecological impact from these single crypto art releases is on the scale of what entire families use over months.

            I was also approached by another cryptoartist asking about their footprint. They were horrified to hear it was in order of (over) a hundred tonnes of CO2. (To put this into perspective, across Europe and the US, the annual per capita carbon footprint including all industry, trade and imported goods is on the order of 10 tonnes of CO2 [42]).

            Doing this to donate the funds to someone thinking we've done a good thing is just another instance of the violence being pushed out of sight.

            • QuillQuote [they/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I thought the joke was that sending and browsing images was the big problem, the joke being this is said on an image sharing platform haha

              And wow yikes that's horrifying

              • lohs [she/her]
                ·
                4 years ago

                https://memoakten.medium.com/the-unreasonable-ecological-cost-of-cryptoart-2221d3eb2053

                http://cryptoart.wtf/#https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/styx-8054

      • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        It shouldn't be that much if it works like other photo apps that close instantly when it realises the file is corrupted. The file itself is only 52kb. But if it doesn't realise the file is corrupted and tries to process a 738 megapixel corrupted image, then yeah...