A coat check ticket, a magic spell

I don’t make or sell art online, so this is just a theory, but one of the advantages of the centralized platforms seems to be democratization of the ability to promote yourself. Value comes from the amount of attention and interest (which I want to say is true for any piece of art, combined with the scarcity factor), so it’s an interesting thought ... See more

Each object maintains a perfect provenance—a chain of ownership back to its creator. That’s legitimately useful; it automates something that can be onerous, even treacherous, in the ~analog~ context.

My intuition is that it will be very important for Zora and its peers to act as central galleries and marketplaces. So, perhaps we’ll find ourselves in another situation (there have been many) where the decentralized promise of the bl — ch — lures people onto a somewhat more traditional, centralized platform — albeit one with some interesting prope... See more

The whole thing is silly, but a lot of things are silly, and humans do them anyway, and derive great pleasure in the doing.

I think all of this feels more natural to people who are immersed in the fine art market, or the market for rare limited-edition sneakers, etc. (I am not!) These are markets in which scarcity by design is a huge part of the fun, and that’s not true for all, or even most, markets for creative work. (I’m thinking of the market for, say, streaming TV ... See more

When it’s minted, an object can have a profit-sharing agreement burned into its soul. Let’s say I sell the object I minted to the influential collector Katerina Hash-Jones and, simply by dint of her ownership, its value skyrockets. (Katerina only buys the best.) She sells it for 10X what she paid, but/and because of the agreement embedded in the ob... See more

What else can you do with Zora? You can buy and sell, of course. The vibe is “cool internet art gallery”. You find an object you like, place a bid, and, if you win, your name goes in the ledger. You can keep the object forever, luxuriating in its aura, or you can sell it again.