Dear Bankless Nation,

Web3 presents so much potential to radically change the way we live and work. As web3 adoption increases, we’re discovering more and more use-cases that shift the narrative of what was once narrowly focused on democratizing finance. With the advent of NFTs, web3 has introduced whole new worlds of possibility, and web2 is finally coming around to making deeper integrations with it.

For example, Instagram has recently announced deeper implementation of NFTs with their platform. Kouros provides the scoop in Curated News.

Regarding the community potential and possibilities, DAOs have taken community ownership to new heights. Kaf brings us up to speed on a community that is democratizing NFT ownership.

The Rug has celebrated gap week by taking time off, though Perchy’s still putting stylus to screen, bringing us another installment of Chippi Corner. And DustyEye announces a presentation in partnership with our very own Grendel, set to take place over two days in the Somnium Space metaverse and Art Mall in Milano.

We’re not missing a beat.

Welcome to Decentralized Arts.

Contributors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild (Grendel, Kouros, Kaf, nonsensetwice, Frank America)

This is the official NFT newsletter of BanklessDAO. If you were a Premium Member of the Bankless Newsletter as of May 1st, 2021, you have been subscribed to this newsletter at launch. To unsubscribe, edit your settings here.

Curated NFT News

Instagram To Enable Creators To Mint And Trade NFTs

During its Creator Week 2022 event, Meta announced an update to its creator monetization system. The new update will allow creators to share, buy, and sell NFTs directly from the photo-sharing platform.

At launch the feature will be only available to US creators but they will roll it out to other countries eventually.

Instagram will use the Polygon blockchain to let users mint and sell NFTs and Meta will cover the gas fees until 2024.

WHALE MEMBERS

The community behind the NFT Vault valued at millions of dollars

By Kaf

Let's do a little review of history.

The Age of Discovery marks the beginning of the expansion of collecting. Kings and nobles started to compete to see who held the greatest number of valuable objects. During this time, the “cabinet of curiosities” became a trend. These were rooms where collectors displayed and discussed their collections with visitors. They were the predecessors of the modern museum.

Now let's go to the year 2020.

The digital art market is exploding thanks to NFTs. Artists like Xcopy and Beeple appear. Collectors from all over the world see this as a great opportunity and rush to buy.

In Discord, communities of NFT holders begin to emerge where crypto art, lands, photography, and music are discussed.

Among all the collectors, WhaleShark stood out, holding some of the most valuable NFTs on the market. A social entrepreneur and investor, WhaleShark has set out to revolutionize the world of collecting. In his desire to end the status quo of collecting, he created Whale Members, a DAO that owns a public vault valued at over 75 million USD!

What is Whale Members?

The community defines itself as “an omniversal membership club for the digital native, focused on immersing our WHALE members in the renaissance of digital art and culture.”

WHALE distributes physical and metaverse content, knowledge, and experiences to a new generation of digital fans. It is powered by the club's native social token, WHALE, backed by a public vault that maintains digital art and photography, digital music, decentralized games, and metaverse content.

At launch, the vault was a collection of NFTs personally owned and managed exclusively by WhaleShark. He decided to share his success with the community.

Pak asked him “Why?” WhaleShark responded.

With the introduction of the WHALE DAO in September 2020, the community gained control over the vault, allowing WHALE token holders to vote on decisions about the project's community, budget, events, and asset management in The Vault.

Some of the high profile projects where WHALE Vault is a leading asset holder include NBA TopShot, Gods Unchained, Cryptovoxels, Sandbox, and many more.

As one of the largest digital art collectors in the world, WHALE Vault is also the largest collector of works by Pak, Hackatao, XCopy, and many other top digital artists and designers.

According to the latest report from Nonfungible.com, the collection is currently valued at over 75 million USD.

You can see the collection in Opensea. 

WHALE tokenomics

Built on the ERC-20 token standard, WHALE tokens are primarily backed by the NFT collection stored in The Vault. WHALE's secondary value is driven by its recognition, use cases, and commerce.

This model stands in contrast to the traditional cryptocurrency valuation model, in which currencies, such as bitcoin (BTC), derive value primarily from the social acceptance and use cases of their respective underlying networks.

There is a maximum supply of 10 million WHALE tokens, allocated as follows:

• 10% is reserved for the founder and founding team (granted for 24 months from May 2020)

• 10% is reserved for private sale (purchased over 20 months)

• 42.6% is distributed to the community at a rate of 40,000 WHALES per month

• 37.4% is reserved for the WHALE Foundation and acquired over 120 months

WHALE tokens allocated for community distribution can only be obtained in limited ways, such as selling NFTs to the WHALE Vault in exchange for WHALE, or participating in staking activities conducted by WHALE partners.

Of the 40,000 WHALE allocated to community development each month, 25% is set aside for team and association stipends, 25% is used for Whale community rewards, and the remaining 50% is for "Hold-2" rewards. 

Governance

Decentralized governance is complex. Therefore the collective effort of WHALE DAO and the WHALE team is needed to make and implement decisions for the project.

The DAO currently operates exclusively on Discord, though there are plans for website integration and use of third-party tools in the future.

To increase community engagement, they have created different roles to accommodate engaged members and reward them accordingly. The main categorization of roles in the community are Hold-to-Play (H2P) roles and WHALE DAO

• The DAO-Whale role is open to members who lock 1000 WHALE, which entitles them to post a proposal twice a month, as well as being able to vote in the senate. The DAO-Voter role allows members who lock 500 WHALE, to access the vote in the senate, but cannot present proposals.

• The Hold-to-Play (H2P) role is a mechanism within the community that ensures that people who have a token amount of WHALE in their self-custody wallet get exclusive access to benefits such as airdrops, tips, rewards, and exclusive information.

Due to the nascent and ongoing development of sophisticated DAO mechanisms in the crypto space as a whole, the platform faced initial limitations and barriers to its transformation. However, the DAO is now in its 4th season and they are still looking for ways to overcome these obstacles.

What's coming?

The WHALE community is one of the largest NFT and social token communities with over 20,000 active members worldwide.

Creating an ERC-20 token backed primarily by an NFT wallet is an innovative concept, and the WHALE crypto project was the first to do so.

Web3 is an experiment in itself and we are under construction.

It is fascinating to see how projects emerge that seek to democratize actions that were previously reserved for only a few. The power of democratization offered by DAOs, web3, and crypto as a whole allow communities like Whale Members to arise.

Whale's vision is long term. If the community gets it right, the Whale Members Vault could be one of the most valuable collections ever.

Chippi Corner

By Perchy

DustyEye - Milano Digital Week

DREAM OF A DECENTRALIZED SCIENCE 

Saturday 12 November, from 7.30 pm to 9.00 pm
ART MALL - Via Torino 64, Milan
Led by Alessandro Isidoro Re (journalist / writer),
with Marco Grendel (Polygon, BanklessDAO),
and a contribution from DustyEye (chronowanderers)

Alessandro will discuss with Marco about the prospect of decentralized science, the open ecosystem for disseminating scientific knowledge in a transparent and accessible way.

For the occasion, the spokesperson for the DustyEye group will report on a case of Decentralized Science dating back to the 23rd century.

A MODEST TECHNORITUAL 

Sunday 13 November, from 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm
SOMNIUM SPACE & ART MALL - Via Torino 64, Milan

We will evoke a stormy feeling of Friendship between Humanity and Artificial Intelligence synchronously between two worlds.

For each Digital Avatar we see ourselves among the bytes of Somnium Space, inside The Edge of Pluritime building, designed by Lelrah. For Analog Avatar the appointment is within the walls of the Milanese Factory Art Mall.

LINK TO METAVERSE - https://somniumspace.com/parcel/3469?elv=-0.38

______________________

WEB: www.DustyEye.com
IG: @DustyEye_DE
TWITTER: @Dusty_Eye

Meme

A small joke contributed by The Rug.

Decentralized Arts is written and produced by a small team of contributors who are passionate about art, both visual and written, and its growing place in crypto and NFTs. With each edition, we aim to bring you not only the most current and relevant news in the NFT space, but also explorations in what it means for our culture and societies for this market to continue to grow and expand. When everyone is an owner of art, we all gain a deeper appreciation for it.

With great appreciation for you, we thank you for reading and subscribing to Decentralized Arts.

Cordially,

Grendel, Kouros, Kaf, nonsensetwice, and Frank America