BOOK Token : The Path to Decentralize Knowledge
https://medium.com/@book-token/book-token-the-path-to-decentralize-knowledge-1ee651d657c3
Some of you may or may not know, but I’ve been working hard on my project, Spatium Stories. I am hoping to have a beta version done by end of Summer!
The whole premise behind the platform is to have a way for authors and readers to publish and read books as NFTs.
I am building Spatium Stories on the DeSo blockchain to utilize a lot of ingrained social features.
But I’m not the only one with the idea for an NFT book platform. All in all, there are at least 2 others doing it pretty well. I personally don’t feel like there is any competition. I think we are all on different blockchains and ultimately have the same goal:
Decentralize the publishing industry.
One of the other platforms doing this is called Book Token. They recently launched and have already minted exclusive copies of Frankenstein and Dracula as NFT books. Each sold out of thousands of copies in a matter of minutes!
The article I posted is kind of old, but it is the debut of Book Token’s ideas.
I really resonated with the article because without knowing Book Token existed, I had a lot of these same thoughts. In fact, Spatium Stories’s values and mission pretty much align 100% with Book Token.
I highly suggest giving it a read.
Some of the main highlights I’ll leave you with are:
The publishing industry is old…like really old. Only banks are older. And it hasn’t really changed much over time.
You don’t actually “own” a digital book. You have rented a license to read the book. Amazon still owns the book.
Dangerous things happen when someone else controls which books you can own. Look at what’s happening in the school system today.
What to Expect on Coinbase and Other Crypto Exchanges During the Ethereum Merge
https://decrypt.co/107572/coinbase-crypto-exchanges-ethereum-merge-what-to-expect
“Buy the rumor, and sell the news” is certainly one way to describe the upcoming Ethereum merge.
I’ve discussed this briefly before, so I’ll give you the 5-second update:
Ethereum is moving to a Proof of Stake system as opposed to a Proof of Work. This means it is better for the environment and also adds in some deflationary things as well.
It’s been in the works for a long time now, but it finally looks like the official merge with happens once and for all in September!
By the way, the word “merge” is kind of a software term I guess. All it means is that the Ethereum network will do an official upgrade to this new system.
Coinbase came out and announced that while the merge is happening they are going to shut down the ability to trade Ethereum. They don’t want any issues occurring in the midst of the upgrade and so they are just going to shut it down.
They have done this in the past when other networks have had major upgrades.
So all in all, very normal for Coinbase, but very exciting that they already announced it. I think that means this merge will actually happen!
How do we get readers from Web2 to Web3?
https://medium.com/@readlnetwork/how-do-we-get-readers-from-web2-to-web3-a8928adc5efa
Readl is another one of those NFT book platforms I talked about earlier.
I thought this was a great article and an even better question.
Web3 has certainly become a buzzword recently, but few know what it really means. In fact, if you google around, you probably won’t find like one exact definition.
If I had to define it, I’d say the biggest part of web3 is this key idea of ownership.
We want to move from a model where Facebook, Google, and Twitter own your content and your data, and move to a world where you own your content and data.
Why?
There are a ton of reasons why, but I’ll focus on one main issue creators have.
In the current world, if you are a creator, the only way to make money is by hoping the algorithm of YouTube or Instagram likes you, you get enough followers to join some partner program, and then you get a portion of their ad revenue.
It’s all about ads, it’s not really about your content.
Web3 changes things up so now it’s all about the creator’s content again!
The hard part of Web3, however, is it involves a brand new set of technical skills to learn. We have wallets to log in with instead of a username/password. What does that even mean?
Readl, like Spatium Stories, believes the next wave of NFTs will involve readers. Specifically with NFT books.
But the question is how do we convince people that are happy with buying digital books on Kindle to make the switch?
Most of these NFT book platforms won’t have the same number of books as Amazon, they won’t have the ease of purchase with a “Buy Now” feature (you’ll might have to pay with cryptocurrencies), and there won’t be a fancy Kindle to read them on (not yet at least).
And so we need to have something else to incentivize them. Here are some of Readl’s ideas:
Unique content, exclusively available as an NFT
Stories rather than long books: short content (fiction or non-fiction), combining text and audio
Stories that create a multimedia collection around an author or a genre
Exclusive “meet the author” events for the collection owners (IRL / private chats)
Access to advanced reading material
Right to vote for or even participate in future stories
Possibility to monetise contributions