@punk6529 on Twitter
1/ on a Pathway to an Op...
1/ On A Pathway To An Open Metaverse We are going to make a run at changing the arc of history. It is a Return of the Jedi vs the Death Star style mission. They have the money and the power. We mostly have our brains, our community and gm. But it might be just enough (View Tweet)
2/ A step back. 6529 has been involved in crypto since BTC summer 2013. From the first day, I was convinced that BTC and its successors would change the world, make it a better world, decentralize power away from choke points, and that this was a net good for humanity (View Tweet)
3/ I played a small role in BTC's development and acceptance. Small in the scheme of things, but important to me, and, at the time, it was a "risky" move. And since then I have been waiting for our more decentralized social systems to emerge. And waiting, and waiting... (View Tweet)
4/ 6529 has 'institutional credentials.' I am completely comfortable in the 'system' and the system is good to me. I am not a loser in our current system, I am a winner. But my heart is in crypto, I spend a lot of time on crypto IRL, and know a lot about crypto. (View Tweet)
5/ I did not seriously look at NFTs until February and within months.... ...well, I like the JPGs and by summer I had quite the NFT portfolio. So what next?
6/ The easy choice was to sit back and relax. Enjoying my IRL life while making lots of ETH looking at pretty JPGs is about as Level 4 as 6529 can get. Maybe I can even convince myself it is Level 5 ("I am self-actualizing through art") 🧐 https://t.co/sD67b7C5sJ (View Tweet)
7/ But I had a problem, and that problem is I can see a window, a wormhole, a lever that can, maybe, lead to an Open Metaverse. It is one of the most important things in the world And it is a very narrow window, both scope and time-limited Soon, it will be too late (View Tweet)
8/ It is very easy to complain that the world isn't how it should be while doing nothing about it. In fact, often while contributing to the exact problem we are complaining about (hi, crypto fam on Single-Point-Of-Failure Twitter, looking at you here) Talk is cheap. (View Tweet)
9/ Life is short and then you die frens. If Level 4 and Level 5 people like me (and a lot of crypto 🐳s) aren't willing to put some skin in the game on decentralization, then we are LARPing, we are bullshitters, we are just using "decentralization" for marketing. (View Tweet)
10/ So, in late July 2021, 6529 was booted up. The goal of everything I have been doing is to help you see the window too, to see what I see and to yearn for it.
11/ “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” - Antoine de St Exupery (1900 - 1944) ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1445468440332959755))
12/ What do I yearn for? That our children and grandchildren will remain free. That they will remain sovereign beings. That we don't sleepwalk into a panopticon society controlled by a handful of people with "God view" of a big data, machine-learning enabled system. (View Tweet)
13/ This sounds dramatic, but the trendline on this topic is bad. China is already gone. And the US and EU are creeping in the wrong direction. So we need to act now before it is becomes irreversible. (View Tweet)
14/ Acting now is a no-lose proposition: If the apologists are right and the system is not centralizing, then our efforts at decentralization will be welcomed by governments and companies ✅ If we are not welcomed, then it will have been a good thing we acted ✅ 😉 (View Tweet)
15/ For those new around here, go read the theory first. Take your time, we will be waiting. https://t.co/3D9Fga212M https://t.co/MLAtrUj0Dg https://t.co/Tiy0AbCSZB https://t.co/Q3N7BajAEu https://t.co/nhJ0KRIbqA https://t.co/DGxvuH28wl (View Tweet)
16/ OK, everyone back? Time to switch modes to "what are we going to do" Buckle up, this is going to be long tweetstorm even by 6529 standards and Twitter is going to make me do it in phases. Be patient as the tweets come in. I will let you know when we are done 😉 (View Tweet)
17/ My view is that the default outcome of the metaverse will be centralized. Big tech has the money, talent, massive reach and, interestingly, the full support and encouragement of nation-states to exercise more control, not less control. 🧐 (View Tweet)
18/ So what is left for us? There is only one thing stronger than money, reach, talent and the vast power of the Federal Government. That one thing is shared myths or memes. Memes are the apex object of society. (View Tweet)
19/ In a consumerist democracies like the US and Europe, memes elect politicians, they drive consumption (and corporate earnings) and set the direction of society at large. The system is good at memes too btw. Check out two good ones below But...
20/ ...we now have with NFTs the potent meme-technology ever developed. Unlike the past, anyone can own a part of a powerful meme. "The medium is the message" and there is currently an open space, a gap before the medium is claimed by the system. We have to grab it now. (View Tweet)
21/ There are two main messages to the execution plan that I would like you to take away from today: 1) NFTs are people 2) Memes > land wtf is 6529 talking about again? (View Tweet)
22/ "NFTs are people" Behind every punk, BAYC, coolcat, wassie, toadz, there is a living breathing human being. Someone who makes decisions about how they live their life, what they spend money on, where they volunteer their time and who they vote for. (View Tweet)
23/ The 10,000 punks are a open publicly-readable, but pseudonymous, database of people who most strongly believe certain things about crypto, about NFTs and about the future Think about that Then think about that again Then think about that again until your jaw hits the floor (View Tweet)
24/ The same is true for BAYC, for squiggles, for cool cats, for wassies, for toadz. NFTs are a combination of identity and social organization, with zero membership criteria, fully global, composable. Anyone can make a product for punks to opt-in to (View Tweet)
25/ We have never had a social organizing tool this powerful. NFTs are the same class of solution as BTC, but looser, more abstract, more human. Buying a BAYC does not commit you to a super-strict set of rules like "21M BTC only" but that is OK, because humans are non-fungible (View Tweet)
26/ Every BAYC holder can extract and interpret their own meaning from BAYC. It will not and should not be the exact same thing for each individual. We are humans, not drones. But like on average, BAYC holders will think/act more alike than non-BAYC holders. (View Tweet)
27/ This is how all societal myth-building institutions work. The Republican Party The Democratic Party The Catholic Church The United States Marine Corps The ACLU Greenpeace Each member is different, but the group has broadly coordinated goals. (View Tweet)
28/ NFT communities will be exactly like this. Some people will be truly dedicated true believers. Some will help a bit Some will be along for the ride Some will be there for the free pizza and beer Some will be sent by enemies to sabotage the show This is fine, normal. (View Tweet)
29/ Why do I say "gm" to all of you? Because it is a reminder that behind those avatars are real life people. I say "gm" at home, at work, to people in a coffeeshop. Why wouldn't I say gm to you too? Also, gm https://t.co/ZWypPG9eCr (View Tweet)
30/ Memes > land I believe the metaverse is going to come and it is going to be fantastic. In ten years, the resolution will be high, the features will be bountiful, the dopamine traps will be honed to perfection. And so I spent a lot of time worrying about this (View Tweet)
31/ Why was I worrying about this? Because "start off with nothing and build the winning decentralized metaverse tech stack" is not a winnable fam project. It is nightmare battle against hundreds of competitors trying to do the same, with infinite corporate and VC budgets (View Tweet)
32/ So the problem I was been struggling with is "what does it mean if we are going to go off to build a 6529 decentralized metaverse?" Do we all go buy plots in Decentraland? Sonium? Galleries in OnCyber? And by next year, 100 more. (View Tweet)
33/ None of these seemed like winning strategies. This is basically betting humanity's future on "will you make the right VC bet on a winning platform in the most hotly contested space in tech" Too hard. Back to the drawing board. (View Tweet)
34/ I had to work hard on this one. Really hard. This was the part where I had to stretch my thinking the most. It was really hard. Even today I just see an outline of it. A glimmer on the horizon, but I see it.
35/ My answer to this question is "memes > land", that controlling the memes matters more than the specific metaverse tech stack in which you present them. Come again? What does this mean? Examples, always examples. (View Tweet)
36/ If the Louvre burned down, if the concrete and steel was gone, but the Mona Lisa was saved. Is it over? Are we done with the Mona Lisa? Bin her, move on? Or do we build a new Louvre, new concrete, new steel? The Louvre is beautiful but replaceable. The Mona Lisa is not. (View Tweet)
37/ Let's play this game in our world Would you come see Sunshine in OnCyber? Would you see him in Decentraland? How about in Somnium? What about in "whatever comes next?" My answer, my vote, my gut is "yes". If so, summer.jpg > land
38/ So with this logic, I will lay out the first two parts of the plan. Don't worry, there are another 5 more. 😂😂😂 "NFTs are people" means 6529 Fam https://t.co/jzH7DofCtY (View Tweet)
39/ What this means that there are some of us, maybe 50,000 today, maybe 500,000 in 6 months, maybe 5,000,000 in a couple of years, maybe 50,000,000 in a few years that believe the metaverse should be open And each one of us might be able to make a small difference in that fight (View Tweet)
40/ For most people, I would be thrilled with small actions. Maybe you can talk to your friend? Maybe you vote for the slightly less control freak candidate in your local election. Maybe you will learn to hold an NFT in a non-custodial wallet? Across enough people it matters (View Tweet)
41/ But 6529, the 6529 fam is 100% centralized and controlled by www dot twitter dot com right now. Yes, this is correct and this is bad and we are going to change that. Everyone in 6529 fam will get a free NFT, now and forever (you will probably have to pay for gas) (View Tweet)
42/ I am a rarity sniper collector. I am quite good at it. But super-expensive is a dumb way to build a large community to change the world. The price of entry to 6529 fam should be ideally $0. For now, it will be the cost of gas on ETH, but in time other L1s/L2s, why not? (View Tweet)
43/ We need a 6529 Fam NFT so we can find each other permissionlessly. Will there be roadmap? No A governance token? Also no Will the price go up? Well supply is infinite What will we do? Whatever you want (View Tweet)
44/ @6529er has been working on something. It is not final, but it is indicative of where we are headed with this. Is this final? We are not sure yet, but it is in this direction.
45/ But if it is free, won't we have a signal-to-noise ratio problem? Yes, yes, in fact we will. We need an anti-Sybil attack measure. See "Generation 1" in the card? I took a snapshot of this account's twitter followers last night and that will be the authentication key (View Tweet)
46/ It is possible I might take another snapshot in the next couple of days. I believe I know how I plan to do this, but I want to test it a bit, so I reserve the right to change my mind. But 'free' and sybil attacks go together, so I will fight back 🥷🥷🥷 (View Tweet)
47/ What is the timing on fam card? I think the next few weeks. What if you missed on on the snapshot? Don't worry, there will be another one. I am not trying to exclude people, but just preserve the signal. More on this at the very end of the thread. (View Tweet)
48/ Let's move to Project 2: 6529 City. 6529 Fam is totally abstract, totally decentralized and yet I think very powerful for this reason. It is just a way for people who believe in decentralization to take steps in that direction. The "City" is a step more tangible (View Tweet)
49/ Today we live in a metaverse composed of twitter and discord avatars and opensea and a bit of various virtual land platforms. Bit by bit, this metaverse will become more real, more tangible, more visual, more rich, more engaging (View Tweet)
50/ In 10 years, I believe you will not be a 24 x 24px avatar in a text based feed on my laptop screen. In 10 years we will be chilling in some type of augmented and virtual reality that feels quite real. So along the way, we will take steps in that directions (View Tweet)
51/ What does this mean? We will set up shop in various metaverses and start feeling what it feels like to take more substance. For now, it is not very important what parameters they have because I think the tech stack will change over and over again. I want to get the feelz (View Tweet)
52/ I have very much enjoyed working my galleries in @oncyber_io so for the next few months I will be testing different ideas there. Is it decentralized? Only in some ways. Can it rug me? Not really. I can just pick up the Tulip and go somewhere else (View Tweet)
53/ Will present day OnCyber be the metaverse we have all been dreaming of? No, definitely not. But we need to start playing around with UX, UI, interactions to understand what works and what doesn't. Do you have to come to OnCyber? Nope, start playing around wherever (View Tweet)
54/ This leads me to a serious point, to an important point, to why I am collecting for the 6529 Museum, to why I have spent $10s of millions on JPGs. I lived in NYC for many years and so NYC analogies come easily to me. So let's think through some analogies (View Tweet)
55/ Why is the MoMA important to NYC? Is it the gift shop? Is it the cafe? Of course not. The value of the MoMA is that it: a) attracts tourists to NYC b) improves the quality of life for residents c) sends a message about innovation in the city & attracts people to NYC (View Tweet)
56/ In other words, the MoMA provides public goods (positive externalities) to NYC. That is the point of the 6529 Museum too. It will provide public goods, positive externalities to 6529 City This is not just generically the strategy, it is specifically my collecting plan (View Tweet)
57/ I have not been collecting to maximize ROI or aesthetics. I have been collecting to maximize 'hard to copy' Why? If I am right, one day vastly richer people and institutions will start buying NFTs and will swamp me. Good for value, bad for 6529 Museum mattering (View Tweet)
58/ If the 6529 Museum only had 15 high quality punks, would it be an important museum in 10 years in the metaverse? probably not. Others will have many more So I have been looking for collecting themes that only 5 or 10 or 20 institutions can do, so the Museum will stay unique (View Tweet)
59/ In particular, I zoomed in on a horizontal collection of early on-chain generative art, particularly Art Blocks Curated, that there can only be a few of in the future. I will discuss the details of this another day (View Tweet)
60/ Same logic applies with the vertical squiggle collection. There will be only 20 places in the whole metaverse you can see all squiggle types and 6529 City will be one of them. And one of 10 where there is a variant perfect or full spectrum (View Tweet)
61/ This is not to brag or make more money, but because memes > land. Building or controlling a permanently differentiated JPG collection is an orders of magnitude more cost-effective way to have leverage in metaverse than trying to build the winning one (View Tweet)
62/ And then there are our uber-meme warriors, the two JPGs that possibly would be enough to stake a decentralized city and nation all by themselves, even if we had no other JPGs
63/ So the goal is not to build the MoMA of the metaverse, but the NYC of the metaverse. The 6529 Museum is my skin in the game. It is me staking tens of millions of dollars, soon to be hundreds of millions of dollars, of public goods and saying "I am all-in here"
64/ Or, to put it differently, here is the plan for the 6529 City
65/ OK, but what specifically are we going to do? I have no idea. I am going to head in a certain direction and if you like it and want to come along and do interesting and fun things, that is great. If you don't, that is also great. (View Tweet)
66/ But I don't want to live in 6529 City, I want to live in Sin City or Miami City or MoonCat City! Great! You can still be part of 6529 Fam and build your MoonCat Miami Beach City. My city skeumorphism runs to NYC so that is how I think of cities, but that is personal. (View Tweet)
67/ If you make a cool Mooncats-on-Miami-Beach, then we can all visit. The great thing about the metaverse, is we are all just a click away (View Tweet)
68/ OK, what is next? Well, we have interesting messages we want to send to the world and I can't do them all myself so we need a platform to get these messages out. So #3 on the list is 6529 Studio, an NFT studio focused on outreach, fun and experimentation (View Tweet)
69/ 6529 Studio is going to have three general collections: ✅ WAGMI: Large collections (>1,000 to much much more) that are meant to onboard people to NFTs ✅ Right Click: Rarity game collections to make @Vince_Van_Dough and me weak in the knees ✅ wut: weird stuff we want to try (View Tweet)
70/ I am delighted to let you know that the first project of 6529 Studios is to help bring Sunshine to the world. @XCOPYART and I have been talking about this since the day I collected summer.jpg We both agree that Sunshine should not just sit on the wall of the 6529 Museum (View Tweet)
70/ So we are working together to bring Sunshine out into the world at large, to be our ambassador of WAGMI to the rest of the world. Sunshine 🤝WAGMI 🤝🍾 Launch is not imminent, but a hint of what we are thinking: "sunrays"
71/ The second project will be "No Shame" that has been inspired by the amazing @dmitricherniak work "It's such a shame I fixed this bug" As @dmitricherniak says: some of the best beauty and art comes from mistakes and we should not be ashamed of them, we should celebrate them.
72/ The immediate goal of this project is broadly to encourage artists to share their best 'mistaken' work. @dmitricherniak has kindly accepted to curate some pieces for this project. But more broadly, we want to help artists build their confidence in their voice. 🤝 (View Tweet)
73/ There are more projects in the pipeline, more ideas, but these two should give you a flavor of what we have in mind. Like everything else, 6529 Studio is on a mission 🚀 (View Tweet)
74/ Next project, 6529 Capital. Organized capital is going to come into the space and it is going to come in size. And it will swamp the early native-NFT individuals. Since this is going to happen, might as well be jujitsu-ed to serve decentralization objectives (View Tweet)
75/ I am very proud to announce an extraordinary team that will be working (with me) on this project, some of the finest collecting minds in the world. I don't think I can do them justice so I am just going to blurt it out: @krybharat @ac_collecting @bonafidehan @phon_ro (View Tweet)
76/ Also I would like to thank the team for allowing me to make my favorite slide I have ever made in my life.
77/ I think it is important that at least some capital providers remain in NFT native hands for a variety of reasons I will explain later If you think you can help here, please get in touch (View Tweet)
78/ On to the next one: 6529 Education I won't spend too much time on this because it is obvious. We need a huge amount of education to help people onboard and be successful in the space. Tweetstorms are great, but we need more structured content. Will work on this too (View Tweet)
79/ 6529 Labs The goal is an open metaverse. the open metaverse will not be just 6529 fam. I view the open metaverse as a series of city-states and communities ringing the globe. So we are going to try to open-source what we can that will help others also build. (View Tweet)
80/ A good example of the type of project I have in mind here is the decentralized, open-source license builder to allow artists to communicate the precise license they would like to use. This won't be built just by 6529 Labs, but we can help catalyze the project (View Tweet)
81/ 6529 Policy This is for a bit later, but in time we will need to ultimately effect change in the real world. I am flagging this for now and will come back to it early next year I believe (View Tweet)
82/ Now let's take a break and have some fun with @6529er. We said earlier that the fam card is free to maximize access and that is correct! But one reason punks are a signal is because people put skin in the game when buying (or not selling a punk) (View Tweet)
83/ So we will run some small experiments too within the 6529 Collection which is not part of the Studio, is just interesting things 6529 wants to do. @6529er made the 6529 logo and it one of the most impressive logos I have ever seen (View Tweet)
84/ So time to introduce him more formally to the world as an artist with 6529 Gradient, his interpretation of his own logo. It is 100 different shades of the logo from all white to all black Here is #0, #33, #67, #100
85/ This collection will be extra decentralized. Each image will be both minted on chain as an SVG and also 'backed up' on IPFS. If both IPFS and ETH are not functional at some point in the future, well, it was fun everyone, but crypto did not make it. (View Tweet)
86/ What is the model here? We will mint these and keep some and auction some at a pace that will be determined solely based on our whims and schedule. If we get around to it, #1 will be auctioned tomorrow. We are definitely keeping #0 for the 6529 museum. 🥳 (View Tweet)
87/ Is there a roadmap? No Is there a governance token? No How about a treasury to sweep the floor? No Why are there only 100? Because we are giving 80,000 and counting free NFTs! Should you buy it? Only if you like @6529er's art at a price you can afford. (View Tweet)
88/ Nerd alert. My first time setting an all-time high price was a Perfect Spectrum squiggle. The PS squiggles are a nerd choice, less flashy than the HyperRainbows, but more mathematical. I view the Gradient logos this way too (View Tweet)
89/ Also, there is one more thing. #50 is going to be extra special. Like our friends the squiggles, it moves. 😱 Good luck getting that out of my hands @6529er (View Tweet)
90/ Now a few more things and we wrap this up. Over the last few weeks, I took some seed investors into 6529, primarily for their very large 🧠s I did not warn them re mega-thread so I am not going to dox them, but let's say they are household names in decentralization. (View Tweet)
91/ They can decide to dox or not as they choose, but regardless, they have spent a lot of time in crypto, their heart is in the right place and I hope they will enjoy riding on this mission. (View Tweet)
92/ I will introduce again: @6529Guardian who is a giga-🧠crypto regulatory attorney who is here on team 6529 to help ensure the system does not catch us on a technicality & @itsjpower w/ crypto & finance background who is building out our end to end infrastructure (View Tweet)
93/ I have been asked before so I will address. I, the person who tweets here, am an individual. I have also made no commitments to any institutions or others re 6529. If I say that I will do something, I can commit to it. (View Tweet)
94/ In other words, you still have to trust me, but you have a single point of trust which is me. I am not an agent of some other ultimate Final Boss. This will not be true for most institutions and people you meet in the coming years. https://t.co/iG3ushvFcj (View Tweet)
95/ And because I think ahead, you don't exactly have to trust me, an individual, but a trust I have set up specifically to go on this mission. So if I have an unfortunate jet ski accident*, the show goes on. *Though pls have police check it out carefully bc kindof fishy tbh (View Tweet)
96/ Now you are excited and want to help in some specific way, please get in touch: @6529capital @6529studio (team/artists) @6529Labs @6529Education @6529help DMs are open, but team is small so be patient. Also for sure twitter is going to freeze the accts as they warm up (View Tweet)
97/ You might want to give this another look in light of tonight's plan. 😉 https://t.co/jzH7DofCtY (View Tweet)
98/ The plan is hard, the mission is almost impossible, the odds are against us, but, isn't it more fun that way? I'm going to go for it. I hope you will too (View Tweet)
99/ Because in my heart of hearts, I believe that if we do it right, "this time, we've got them" LFG 🚀👊🔥 (View Tweet)