Full disclosure: I've never really been to Las Vegas.
I say "really" because I did pass through it as a kid. But I've never been during a time in my life when I could actually remember it and, to be honest, I've never had a huge desire. Though, I was interested in the work that Tony Hsieh was doing in downtown Vegas. And I have had people try to tempt me with the lure of good electronic music (and by good I mean not EDM).
Then all of a sudden, Refik Anadol revealed this enormous sphere that shows happy faces. And now I really want to go to Vegas. So at some point, I will endeavor to do that. But the other thought that came to mind when I first learned about the sphere was "this seems to be working, which means other cities will likely copy it and want their own version of Vegas' sphere."
This is, of course, an understandable desire. And today I learned that Los Angeles is working on a "tiny Las Vegas sphere replica" for Sunset Boulevard. Despite being "tiny", I'm sure it'll be pretty cool too. But in the end, who wants to be a replica? The aim should never be to recreate some version of what another city has already done (see "
Full disclosure: I've never really been to Las Vegas.
I say "really" because I did pass through it as a kid. But I've never been during a time in my life when I could actually remember it and, to be honest, I've never had a huge desire. Though, I was interested in the work that Tony Hsieh was doing in downtown Vegas. And I have had people try to tempt me with the lure of good electronic music (and by good I mean not EDM).
Then all of a sudden, Refik Anadol revealed this enormous sphere that shows happy faces. And now I really want to go to Vegas. So at some point, I will endeavor to do that. But the other thought that came to mind when I first learned about the sphere was "this seems to be working, which means other cities will likely copy it and want their own version of Vegas' sphere."
This is, of course, an understandable desire. And today I learned that Los Angeles is working on a "tiny Las Vegas sphere replica" for Sunset Boulevard. Despite being "tiny", I'm sure it'll be pretty cool too. But in the end, who wants to be a replica? The aim should never be to recreate some version of what another city has already done (see "
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
I am, of course, more grid than cul-de-sac, but here is an interesting NFT art project that is launching on December 12, 2023 at 1PM EST. It's called Cul-de-Sacs:
“Cul-de-Sacs” explores the banality of suburban sprawl through the anachronistic stylization of American folk art. The algorithm generates flattened representations of suburbia at range of scales, interspersed with the remnants of rural life.
The starting price is 0.2 ETH and the resting price is 0.05 ETH. What this ultimately means is that these NFTs are being offered by way of a Dutch action.
Dutch auctions are a price discovery mechanism. They start with a high asking price and then gradually lower it until a price is reached where the quantity demanded equals all of the available supply.
In other words, it's a way to determine what the market thinks a particular thing is worth. In this case, though, the resting price is 0.05 ETH. Meaning there's a floor.
If lots of people are willing to pay 0.2 ETH for this art, it could sell out right away and that will prove to be the market price.
But if few people want to buy it, then the price will gradually fall to 0.05 ETH, and that is where it will hang out until all of the available supply is absorbed. If/when that happens.
Another important feature of this auction process is that if you buy early, and the price subsequently drops, you get a refund equal to the difference between what you paid and the final achieved price (thought to be the market price).
So there is zero incentive to wait for a possible price decline; everyone ends up paying the same price no matter what. You're encouraged to bid aggressively.
And because all of this is now happening on a blockchain and enshrined in code, you can be confident that this is exactly how the process will work and that you'll get any refunds that you deserve.
The aim should be to create something new and truly remarkable. And Las Vegas did exactly that with its sphere. So much so that, one day, I may actually visit the place.
Back when everyone wanted to buy and trade crypto, my friend Evgeny started a marketplace for NFT photography called Sloika. This, to me, felt like an obviously good idea, both in general and for him specifically. Evgeny had previously cofounded the photo company 500px, and so Sloika was initially conceived of as 500px, but for web3. This is a good story.
I have collected a number of photos via Sloika and, in general, I continue to regularly collect NFTs. Of course today, relatively few people want to trade and collect NFTs. The market is largely dead. What is obvious is that there was a giant NFT bubble and it popped in 2022, along with some other asset bubbles.
But does this necessarily mean that NFTs and NFT art are bad ideas?
When I think of bubbles I often think of something that Fred Wilson wrote on his blog. His argument was that bubbles tend to be directionally right; it's the magnitude that we get wrong. A good example of this is the dot com bubble. Yes, it was a massive bubble. But it was directionally right. The internet was going to matter -- a lot it turns out.
Even if we go back to "tulip mania" during the Dutch Golden Age -- which is often brought up as the pinnacle of dumb bubbles -- one could argue that it was still directionally right. Today, tulips remain the most sold flower in the US. So we still love them; we just got a little too excited back in the 17the century.
When it comes to NFT art, I like to think in terms of these questions:
Will humans continue to appreciate art? (Seems obvious.)
Will humans continue to want to collect things? (This is arguably a fundamental human instinct.)
Will provenance and authenticity continue to matter in art? (Blockchain technologies are really good at this.)
Perhaps the only question that remains is whether people will want to collect digital art. But even this feels fairly obvious to me. The challenge, I think, is that the display side of the market needs to be more built out. Because alongside the instinct to collect things is the instinct to display them. That's why NFTs initially took off as profile pics on social media.
So as a start, I think more, better, and cheaper displays would be a big help. There's something very different about projecting an NFT in your living room versus having it live in a crypto wallet on your phone or computer. You need to really experience it, just as you would a conventional piece of art. And like all art, context matters.
I haven't yet invested in a dedicated NFT display, but I plan to do that in the near future. And I'm looking forward to displaying my collection of NFTs, including the one at the top of this post. It's a drone shot of the west side of Toronto in the middle of winter, and it was gifted to me by Evgeny. Thank you for that. It's an honor to have it as part of my art collection.
I am, of course, more grid than cul-de-sac, but here is an interesting NFT art project that is launching on December 12, 2023 at 1PM EST. It's called Cul-de-Sacs:
“Cul-de-Sacs” explores the banality of suburban sprawl through the anachronistic stylization of American folk art. The algorithm generates flattened representations of suburbia at range of scales, interspersed with the remnants of rural life.
The starting price is 0.2 ETH and the resting price is 0.05 ETH. What this ultimately means is that these NFTs are being offered by way of a Dutch action.
Dutch auctions are a price discovery mechanism. They start with a high asking price and then gradually lower it until a price is reached where the quantity demanded equals all of the available supply.
In other words, it's a way to determine what the market thinks a particular thing is worth. In this case, though, the resting price is 0.05 ETH. Meaning there's a floor.
If lots of people are willing to pay 0.2 ETH for this art, it could sell out right away and that will prove to be the market price.
But if few people want to buy it, then the price will gradually fall to 0.05 ETH, and that is where it will hang out until all of the available supply is absorbed. If/when that happens.
Another important feature of this auction process is that if you buy early, and the price subsequently drops, you get a refund equal to the difference between what you paid and the final achieved price (thought to be the market price).
So there is zero incentive to wait for a possible price decline; everyone ends up paying the same price no matter what. You're encouraged to bid aggressively.
And because all of this is now happening on a blockchain and enshrined in code, you can be confident that this is exactly how the process will work and that you'll get any refunds that you deserve.
The aim should be to create something new and truly remarkable. And Las Vegas did exactly that with its sphere. So much so that, one day, I may actually visit the place.
Back when everyone wanted to buy and trade crypto, my friend Evgeny started a marketplace for NFT photography called Sloika. This, to me, felt like an obviously good idea, both in general and for him specifically. Evgeny had previously cofounded the photo company 500px, and so Sloika was initially conceived of as 500px, but for web3. This is a good story.
I have collected a number of photos via Sloika and, in general, I continue to regularly collect NFTs. Of course today, relatively few people want to trade and collect NFTs. The market is largely dead. What is obvious is that there was a giant NFT bubble and it popped in 2022, along with some other asset bubbles.
But does this necessarily mean that NFTs and NFT art are bad ideas?
When I think of bubbles I often think of something that Fred Wilson wrote on his blog. His argument was that bubbles tend to be directionally right; it's the magnitude that we get wrong. A good example of this is the dot com bubble. Yes, it was a massive bubble. But it was directionally right. The internet was going to matter -- a lot it turns out.
Even if we go back to "tulip mania" during the Dutch Golden Age -- which is often brought up as the pinnacle of dumb bubbles -- one could argue that it was still directionally right. Today, tulips remain the most sold flower in the US. So we still love them; we just got a little too excited back in the 17the century.
When it comes to NFT art, I like to think in terms of these questions:
Will humans continue to appreciate art? (Seems obvious.)
Will humans continue to want to collect things? (This is arguably a fundamental human instinct.)
Will provenance and authenticity continue to matter in art? (Blockchain technologies are really good at this.)
Perhaps the only question that remains is whether people will want to collect digital art. But even this feels fairly obvious to me. The challenge, I think, is that the display side of the market needs to be more built out. Because alongside the instinct to collect things is the instinct to display them. That's why NFTs initially took off as profile pics on social media.
So as a start, I think more, better, and cheaper displays would be a big help. There's something very different about projecting an NFT in your living room versus having it live in a crypto wallet on your phone or computer. You need to really experience it, just as you would a conventional piece of art. And like all art, context matters.
I haven't yet invested in a dedicated NFT display, but I plan to do that in the near future. And I'm looking forward to displaying my collection of NFTs, including the one at the top of this post. It's a drone shot of the west side of Toronto in the middle of winter, and it was gifted to me by Evgeny. Thank you for that. It's an honor to have it as part of my art collection.
