🐻 Baer Necessities (02/28/21) - Diving Down the NFT Rabbit Hole

Mar 01, 2021 4:48 am

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Howdy friends.


Writing to 135 of you from mi casa in Memphis!


This is The Baer Necessities. It's where I share the coolest things I'm learning every week on work, life, & the journey along the way. I hope you're finishing your February off strong!


Full transparency: the newsletter growth has been SLOW lately... and that's okay. It gives me the chance to really make this newsletter better without the pressure that THOUSANDS of subscribers gives you (do I even want thousands of subscribers or just a few hundred dedicated fans?).


That's why I want to hear from you. Do you like the newsletter but think I could improve? What do you want to see me write about? What would make you want to share this newsletter with all of your friends? What content do you like the most? Most importantly, what can I do to help you? I'm genuinely curious.


That's my one ask this week: tell me what you think about the newsletter. I'd be so grateful and promise it won't take you longer than 2 minutes.


Give Jonah Feedback.


Rant over. Let's get to it...


This is what I want to share with you this week:


💪 Power to the Person (diving down the NFT rabbit hole):

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What are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)? Simply put, they are blockchain-based records that uniquely represent pieces of media. If you own one, no one can take it away from you and it's completely verified on the blockchain. They are used in many different instances: digital art, gaming, music, publishing (more on publishing below) and digital real estate to name a few.


You've probably seen the explosion of NFTs with headlines like NBA Top Shot with over $32 million in trading volume in one day last week. Or you might have seen Beeple's digital art, who recently sold one of his NFTs for over $6 million. And despite this recent explosion in the NFT / digital art space, we're still in the VERY early stages.


NFTs will radically change how we view media, art, gaming, collecting, and ownership. Creators like musicians or artists have been exploited for countless years and NFTs help solve that problem. For crypto skeptics or newcomers, this sounds unrealistic and impractical. But I think there is a paradigm shift happening before our eyes, and it's important to remember: the next big thing will start out looking like a toy. NFTs look like toys today, but this will change over time.


I dove DEEP down the rabbit hole this week. And it's safe to say I jumped on the bandwagon and I'm now obsessed.


Rather than explain it myself, I'll let the experts do the talking. These 6 articles / threads are a great place to start if you want to learn:



I'm just starting my NFT journey and very open to recommendations. Do you have any other NFT resources or cool projects to share? Let me know – I'd love to hear about them!


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🔮 Mirror - The Decentralized Publishing Platform:

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This is the NFT project I'm most excited about right now. It's called Mirror, and it's transforming online publishing. Here is an explanation from their website:


"Mirror is the next big change in the long history of symbolic communication. Through a decentralized, user-owned, crypto-based network, Mirror’s publishing platform revolutionizes the way we express, share and monetize our thoughts."


This might be the biggest innovation to come to the world of online writing since, well, blogging in the early 2000s. You're able to mint your essays as NFTs and sell them on the blockchain (check out Crowdfund: $ESSAY) and . Also, the strategy they are using to grow and scale the platform is fascinating through their weekly $WRITE showdowns between writers.


It's really, really early (they just launched the MVP in December), and I think it's going to explode this year. I'd love to get on the platform to start writing on Mirror soon, so I will keep you posted if I do. I recommend following them on Twitter to stay updated.


Learn more: Mirror


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🎧 Seth Godin on The Knowledge Project

Seth Godin: Failing On Our Way To Mastery [The Knowledge Project Ep. #105]


For most reading this newsletter, Seth Godin needs no introduction (I've written about his work here, here, and here). For those who might not know him: he was an early internet pioneer, daily blogger for the last 15+ years, podcaster, and author of 20+ books (including The Practice, one of my favorite books last year).


If you feel like you're in a creative rut, this episode with Seth will drag you out of the rut, slap you around, and inspire you to get back to your creative practice of merely shipping your work. A quote from the episode:


"The mistake that so many people building something make is they get hung up on the feedback of people who it’s not for as opposed to being obsessed with the people who it is for. Can they live without it? Would they miss it if it were gone? Let’s make that. That’s what we should make."


Listen to the full episode: 🎧 Seth Godin on TKP


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🎧 Click it & Learn:


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🐦 Favorite Twitter Threads


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📊 Rapid Fire Statistics:

  • Most clicked link last week: Trends by the Hustle (use this link for $100 off your subscription!)
  • Current Newsletter Stats: 131 total active subscribers, 2 new subscribers this week
  • Last Week's Stats: 58% open rate, 14% click-through rate (CTR)


That's all I got for you this week!


Last reminder: don't forget to let me know what you think of the newsletter. It will take you less than 2 minutes and would mean the world to me.


Until next week,

Jonah


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