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]
      ·
      edit-2
      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...

  • lohs [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Any excess funds you earn from selling crypto art will be more than offset by the environmental damage you've done by engaging in it.

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

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

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I don't know what you all think about money or monetary policy, but in the context of any revolutionary project I think we would want to bring monetary policy under the control of a socialist state, if not abolish the value form entirely along with the state. Blockchain currencies could serve a role in accomplishing this, but this is opposite to the goal of all major cryptocurrencies currently in use.

      • lohs [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Made a dedicated post on it to raise awareness of the people here, comment over there for the algo and discussion

        https://hexbear.net/post/90651

    • Koolio [any]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      So long as it's original / unique. That'd be a pretty good way of making them - and I do believe that's one of the main flavors of NFT art.

    • Koolio [any]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      Could be a whole HexBear collection.

      And have at least part of the proceeds go to running the site.

  • vsaush [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I wonder what would sell well, and if you could just train HyperGAN on it and generate a few thousand decent-ish pics.

  • unperson [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    How do you get people to 'buy' your 'art'? I see many collections on that site with a single 'owner' and a couple of AI spam hoarding all the attention.

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    No idea wtf this is, but if you need hexbear art here you go, this was my first post on here.

    https://hexbear.net/post/832

    Oh shit I just realized this link won't work because image hosting is borked at the moment

  • ElGosso [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    how "not good" are we talking? Like can I do up some MS paint stick figures?