NFT God Newsletter 9/15: Doodles Breaks Silence, Magic Eden Gatekeeps, Starbucks Enters Web 3

The Daily Alpha 9/15- Happy Thursday everyone! Came across an interview with Scott Adams the other day (creator of Dilbert) and he had some really interesting insight on success. To be successful in this world you have two options: Be the very best at one specific thing, or be in the top 25% of two things. Options A is incredibly difficult and reserved for the Michael Jordan's of the world. Option B is fairly easy, just requires a little planning and work. It's going to be nearly impossible to be the best at any specific skill, your competition is immense, and just thinking about it is intimidating. But find the cross section of two different skills, and become really strong at them, that's where you can find success just by working hard. For me, my cross section is writing and technology. My challenge to you: think about what two skills you can be the top 25% in and what the cross section of them might look like. If you have good ideas email me [email protected]. Would love to hear your skills and chat about them! Hopefully can give some advice or just bounce ideas. Anyway, onto the alpha-

Contents:

1️⃣ Latest Twitter Thread

2️⃣ 1% Better Every Day

3️⃣ NFT Stories of the Week

4️⃣ Email of the Week

5️⃣ Favorite Tweets

Latest Twitter Thread:

1% Better Every Day: Diversified Investing

This week’s ‘1% Better Every Day’ is about diversified investing. With a shaky macroeconomic environment going on and almost all assets in in the market taking a hit, there's never been a better time to expand your investing knowledge. After talking with a lot of you over email/DM's it seems like many people lack experience or knowledge when it comes to stock investing. I'm not going to sit here and tell you what to invest in, but I'm happy to share some resources that I've found really helpful during my financial education. Some background: I got into NFT's because of traditional finance. Me and a close friend of mine started an investment portfolio together and totally dedicated ourselves to learning all forms of investing. It eventually led me to NFT's. Anyway, here are some resources I found that took me from 0-1 when it came to stock investing.

Stock Market For Beginners (Youtube course: 1 hour): Love this video, and it's completely free. If you use Youtube the right way you literally have an entire university available to you without the criminally high costs. I found this video to be simple and easy to digest, especially for beginners.

Complete Foundation Stock Trading Course (10 hours): This course was actually what got me into my financial journey. Udemy had a sale where every course was 15 bucks and I picked it up. The instructor did an incredible job of giving an overview of how the financial markets work and got deep into technical analysis. After you watch the first Youtube video I'd check this out. Udemy always has sales going on. When I checked just now this course was 30 bucks. Well worth the price of admission for the in depth knowedge you get here.

TastyTrade Options Course: After I became knowledgable on stocks I started doing some research into options. Options when used improperly, is basically just high leveraged gambling. Options when used properly is actually a conservative approach to making entries into positions and earning passive income. Strategically selling puts is actually how Warren Buffett enters many of his positions. I highly recommend this free course from TastyTrade on the right way to trade options.

Hope these links are helpful to you! Feel free to email me [email protected] with your thoughts on investing. Would love to hear where you are on you financial education journey and what you're currently learning/investing in. For me, I'm currently building a dividend portfolio with my friend I told you about, so much of my education is around dividends. Look forward to hearing from you!

Today's News:

🔥 Doodles Breaks Their Silence

🔥 Magic Eden Demands You Pay Creators

🔥 Starbucks enters Web 3

DOODLES BREAKS THEIR SILENCE

After going a full month and a half without tweeting, the Doodles Twitter account broke their silence on Tuesday, announcing they raised a new round of funding at a $700,000,000 valuation. Later that evening, they hosted a Twitter space where to their credit, they answered every question. It turns out though, that this round of funding was already announced months ago during NFT NYC. Reactions across the space were loud and immediate, as it seemed anyone not holding a Doodle was angry and anyone holding a Doodle was slightly less angry.

The Doodles team gave several excuses including they were busy building a company, they need to hire a social media manager, and they don't want to dilute their brand with bad tweets (ironically the Doodles 2 collection size will be in the millions range). Here's my one issue with how this was handled: the Doodles team just came off as out of touch. Is it right that a multi million dollar company's performance is determined solely off the frequency of their tweeting? No. Does tweeting have any material impact on the actual NFT product? No. But at the end of the day, this is the Web 3 culture. This is what 99% of the space wants and expects. To deny that is to deny the culture that made the team of 11 all millionaires. If the culture that is paying tens of thousands of dollars for your product wants you to hit tweet every once in a while, you probably should at least hit retweet here or there. Is it logical in the least bit? Absolutely not. But that's the web 3 game you chose to play. Pretending like that isn't the case is just out of touch with your customers, community, and the space as a whole.

MAGIC EDEN DEMANDS YOU PAY CREATORS

This week popular Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden announced they will be implementing a new controversial tool called MetaShield. MetaShield enables creators to edit and censor any NFT's that have been detected to be trading on 0% royalty marketplaces. For those that don't know, creator royalties while referenced in the smart contract, are not 100% enforceable. In fact, if a marketplace chooses to, they can remove the creator royalty entirely, leaving no other source of revenue (if this was the only source of revenue for creators). If Magic Eden detects an NFT is being listed on a 0% royalty marketplace, creators now have an easy way to change metadata in the NFT so they can do things like: blur the image, name the NFT "DO NOT BUY", or overall destroy the rarity.

The debate over royalties is nothing new. Many believe crypto and NFT's are about freedom, and if you're able to trade without royalties then there's no issue with it. The other camp believes innovation will be stifled if we remove fees. You've probably heard both sides a million times so I won't comment on that, but what I will say is this: nothing in Web 3 is as decentralized as you think. The fact that creators can edit metadata when you perform actions they don't like is as centralized as it gets. Let's look at Web 2 collectibles for instance: Pokemon cards. If I buy a pack of Pokemon cards then light a Pikachu doll on fire Nintendo has 0 recourse over my property. They can't edit my cards so my Charizard isn't holographic anymore. It seems like NFT's are ironically way more centralized than collectibles in Web 2. Keep that in mind next time someone wants to sell you some utopian narrative around how NFT's and crypto are the decentralized future that gives the power to the people.

STARBUCKS ENTERS WEB 3

Starbucks announced this week they will be releasing their first NFT set on Polygon titled "Starbucks Odyssey". Through Odyssey, rewards members will be able to complete "journeys" that will earn them stamps. These stamps will be Polygon NFT's that will be resell-able on the Odyssey app to other members. With these stamps you'll be able to redeem a wide array of rewards ranging from cups of coffee to Costa Rica trips. You'll be able to level up and trade these stamps with others.

As a technologist I'm happy and as an investor I'm sad. On the technology front this is awesome news for NFT's as it clearly validates the technology and makes other major corporations take notice. Having one of the largest companies in the world adopt the technology is a major leap forward for mass adoption. On the investing side, this means absolutely nothing. There is no path whatsoever from your mom going to buy a caramel machiatto to then logging onto Opensea and buying a $150k JPEG of a monkey. This will onboard approximately 0 people into the NFT buying and selling you're used to today. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This will keep technology moving forward and speed up innovation in the space. But don't expect a bull run on the speculation front because of this. Keep in mind, there will be many use cases to NFT's, not all of which will be speculation on JPEG's.

Email(s) of the Week

Last week I asked you guys to send me your morning routines and how you prime yourself for the day. Got more responses to this topic than any topic before it. I wanted to include a few here. Thank you to everyone who emailed me. I sincerely appreciate each and every one of you. Any opinions or feedback on the newsletter? Send an email to [email protected]. Happy to have a conversation! Include your Twitter too so I can follow and credit you! Please show some love to everyone who emailed in and throw them a follow!

@De_PlomaNFT:

Mon, Wed, Fri

1. Wake up

2. Workout

3. Read crypto newsletters and write down my thoughts (recently been putting my thoughts on Twitter)

4. Make coffee

Tues, Thurs

1. Wake up

2. Read a book for 30 minutes

3. Make coffee

Have to have that coffee

@JYP_crypto:

This is JYP, love the “1% better everyday” section you have, it’s inspiring to learn how you do things that better yourself and it’s always easier to just follow. I want to share how I changed my morning routine after reading the same book, Atomic Habits, in the past I would used to immediately check my socials after walking up like Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok and sometimes I would spend an hour on bed watching Tiktok/Youtube videos which isn’t an ideal way to start. So now, when I wake up, I would not touch my phone, drink a class of water, take a small piece of paper and write down the one task I need to accomplish today. I figured out it’s always better to write down your goals than to just think about it. It’s easier to visualise and the chance of doing it is higher.

@criptoescultura

I have a very similar morning routine, but instead of writing, I have breakfast while playing with my cat, and enjoy the morning breeze in my terrace, looking at my plants, checking on them too.

A good and easy morning routine makes ALL the difference in your days, no matter whether they are good or bad days.

My Favorite Tweets of the Week

Thank you so much to everyone who's replied to my tweets or emailed me this week! Look forward to hearing from more of you soon! Take care and have an excellent weekend!