📝 Web3 Field Notes #19 – Bitcoin on every Mac

OpenSea "Pro" launches. Ticketmaster starts token-gated sales. Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is gaining traction. Exploring NFT ownership. The Bitcoin whitepaper hides on every Mac. New start-ups & more.

Marc Baumann

Apr 07, 2023

Hey, it’s Marc. I write about Bitcoin, Web3, and technology. ✌️

Welcome to another issue of my obsessively curated field notes (💎at the bottom👇 ).

⏱️ Reading time: 4 min

"Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.”

– Merovingian (The Matrix Reloaded)

📚 Key Reads

Building psychological attachment — not Just ownership — into Web3. I recently wrote about "A Web3 Community Formula for Brands", where I described how important purpose and culture are for building up (Web3) communities and digital assets need to become more "personal". Li's concept of psychological attachment deepens this perspective. Highly recommended! By Li Jin from Variant Fund. Link
NFTs, music, and ownership. Some key perspectives on ownership, which also apply to other verticals. It’s all a bit more complicated. Link
NFT regulatory issues - a 2022 review and 2023 preview. Again, it’s all a bit more complicated. By James Gatto from Sheppard Mullin. Link
Go-to-market in Web3: new mindsets, tactics, metrics. By Maggie Hsu from a16z. Link
Difficulty of user acquisition in Web3. By Thomas Issa from Outlier Ventures. Link
The dark matter of finance: trust. Fantastic op-ed arguing that even Bitcoin banking would be fractional reserve banking. By Byron Gilliam from Blockworks. Link
The Bitcoin Monthly. By ARK Invest. Link

🚨 What caught my eyes

✨ Web3 + NFTs

OpenSea, now the 2nd biggest NFT marketplace behind Blur (according to volume), launched OpenSea Pro. Boom. After losing ground to Blur in recent months, which lured in users with lower fees and BLUR airdrops, OpenSea now strikes back. Similar to Blur, OpenSea Pro focuses on NFT traders, aggregating over 170 NFT marketplaces. It offers advanced order types and optimized gas fees, among others. Fees are in a race to the bottom, and marketplaces compete for market share and volume (which comes from traders), because that’s where they make money. David Phelps called it the paradox of exchanges: a) go after the 1% of users who represent 99% of transaction volume. b) or go after the 99% of users who represent the 1% of transaction volume. Some argue that the focus on traders and lower (royalty) fees destroys NFTs' artistic and cultural esteem and crowds out creators - the ones who’ve built all this. Link
Ticketmaster, the largest ticketing company globally (based on ticket sales), introduced “token-gated ticket sales”, allowing artists to offer exclusive access to concert and event tickets to eligible NFT owners. This will be a no-brainer for superfans (they receive priority access, seat selection and the best prices, with no bots and no waiting) and artists alike (they can price discriminate). Here we go: The “thousand true fans” theory is at play. Link
Also ticketing: Argentinian low-cost carrier Flybondi has expanded its partnership with NFT ticketing company TravelX to offer all tickets as NFTs on the Algorand blockchain. This allows passengers to buy tickets in advance without having to define their travel plans or who the travelers will be. In return, Flybondi is able to reduce customer service costs and increase its revenue from trading fees. The airline is small (fleet of 10 aircrafts), but hey: Finally the real-life benefits of blockchain we’ve all been waiting for. Link

🌎 Crypto & Macro

Renowned law firm Cooper & Kirk issued a paper on Operation Chokepoint 2.0, describing how federal regulators are acting “arbitrarily and in capricious fashion” against the crypto industry. This is the first time that this claim, initially brought forward by Nic Carter, is taken up outside of crypto. Link
Apparently, the Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden on every Apple Mac computer manufactured since 2014 (~200 million). To find it, open Terminal on your Mac and type the following command: 𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙣 /𝙎𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢/𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙮/𝙄𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙚\ 𝘾𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚/𝘿𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙨/𝙑𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙎𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧.𝙖𝙥𝙥/𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨/𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙚𝙨/𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙙𝙤𝙘.𝙥𝙙𝙛
Why?

If you’re new here, we welcome you to join 3’856 bright + avid readers by subscribing here:

🚀 Hot Web3 start-ups:

Nansen.Connect: A Web3 native messaging system to replace Discord.
Bonfire: Create digital spaces for your community.
Tokenproof: Create token-gated experiences.

I’ll be speaking at NFT.NYC next week. Let me know if you want to meet!

That’s all for now, folks.
Back to building! 🚀

– Marc

💎 An Easter egg for dematerialzd.xyz readers🐰

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