This thesis tells the story of DTube, a blockchain-based social media (BSM) platform positioned as an alternative to YouTube. BSM platforms are situated at the intersection of the emergent Web3 discourse and the dominant platform paradigm. These novel initiatives attempt to develop community-led alternatives to mainstream commercial platforms by leveraging emergent Web3 technologies. Using the platform biography approach, the thesis traces DTube’s evolution between 2017-2022, locating these changes within the history of the web and digital media platforms. It contributes to a broader understanding of changing discourses, technologies, and practices of the web at a crucial historical juncture.
Teknolojinin gelişmesi ile iletişim araçlarında başlayan değişim birçok farklı sektöre ve alana yayılmıştır. Bu değişimi yaşayan alanlardan biri de geleneksel oyun kavramı olmuştur. Oyunun oynandığı ortam, konsol, yazılım değişmiş ve dijital oyun kavramı ortaya çıkmıştır. Dijital oyunların sağladığı etkileşimli dünya, sosyalleşme kavramını dahi değiştirmiş ve kavramın anlamı tartışılır noktaya gelmiştir. Ancak teknolojinin ilerlemesi günden güne devam etmektedir. Blokzincir teknolojisinin hayatımıza girmesi, bankacılığı, turizmi, sosyal mecraları etkilediği gibi dijital oyunları da etkilemiştir. Satoshi Nakatomo lakaplı bir yazarın 2008 yılında bir makalesinde bahsetmesiyle, dijital para birimi “Bitcoin” dünyada adını duyurmuştur. Başlangıçta para transferinde aracıyı ortadan kaldıran bir dijital bir para olarak faydalanabileceği düşünülen bu kripto paranın inşasını sağlayan Blokzincir teknolojisi ise birçok alanda değişim yaratmaya başlamıştır. Nakatomo, Blokzincir’i; sürekli büyüyen işlem kayıtlarının listesini çalınma veya değiştirilme gibi tehlikelerden koruyarak tutan dağıtık veri tabanı olarak tanımlamaktadır. Blokzincir teknolojisinin popülerleşmeye başlaması ile birlikte ise NFT(Non-fungible token) kavramı literatürde yer almaya başlamıştır. Bir dijital varlığın benzersiz bir kriptografik anahtarına sahip olan, çoğaltılamayan, sahibi tek olan NFT’ler temellerinde yatan blokzincir teknolojisiyle sanat başta olmak üzere birçok alanda etkisini göstermiştir. Bu alanlardan biri dijital oyunlar olmuş ve NFT oyunlarıyla birlikte play-to-earn oyunları ortaya çıkmıştır. Ethereum akıllı kontratlarıyla üretilen NFT, ne kadar dijital sanat eserleri ile ünlense de günümüzde birçok NFT ve blokzincir tabanlı oyun vardır. Bu oyunları oynayan kullanıcılar token üretebilmekte (mining), oyunların NFT avatarlarına sahip olabilmekte ve en önemlisi bu yolla maddi kazanç sağlayabilmektedirler. Bu bağlamda bir kazanç mekanizmasıyla oynanan oyunlara “Play to Earn” oyunları denir. Oyunlar geliştikçe klanlar oluşmakta ve dijital oyunda bahsettiğimiz etkileşim, sosyalleşme kavramları Discord, Telegram gibi uygulamaların sohbet gruplarında devam etmektedir. Çalışmamızda NFT ve play-to-earn oyunları incelenecek ayrıca bu oyunların dijital oyunlar arasında nasıl bir yere sahip olduğu araştırılacaktır. Oyuncuların, oyunlara olan ilgisinin sebeplerini öğrenmek için Discord, Telegram gibi uygulamaların oyun gruplarında, oyuncuların yorumları toplanacak ve incelenecektir. Elde edilen bu veriler, içerik analizi yöntemiyle incelenerektir. Blokzincir, NFT, Play to Earn gibi teknolojilerin popülerleşmesi ve maddi kazanç sağlanmasıyla bu alandaki oyunlara da gösterilen ilgi artmıştır. Bu bağlamda NFT oyunlarının gelecekte nasıl bir yere sahip olacağı, kalıcı olup olmayacağı gibi sorular merak edilmektedir. NFT tabanlı oyunların detaylarının incelendiği çalışmada, oyunların geleceği de tartışmaya sunulacaktır.
The concept of symbolic capital, introduced by Pierre Bourdieu (1986), has been applied to explain the circulation of value between game communities and the industry. The bottom-up approach can be found in the studies of so-called “gaming capital” accumulated by gamers (Consalvo, 2009), while the top-down approach focuses on the agents who hold the most power in the gaming industry (Nichols, 2013). These perspectives may require reconfiguration today: since the end of the 2010s, traditional power relations have been contested by ‘decentralized’ gaming that uses blockchain technologies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Their early adopters suggest that NFTs may disrupt traditional circulation of value to the benefit of players as opposed to major corporations. Many gamers, however, vehemently oppose NFTs in games. By combining these top-down and the bottom-up approaches, this article explains that the specific symbolic gaming capital remains systematically underappreciated in blockchain gaming, which operates along different vectors of power. To support my argument, I turn to the longest-running blockchain-based game CryptoKitties (Axiom Zen, 2017), and analyze the elements of the role-playing genre that appeared in the game during the collective process of continuous development. In the first case, these elements (‘fancies’) were added by the developers of the game, and in the second case, an RPG-like extension emerged as one of its fan spin-offs (KotoWars). I conclude that symbolic capital is community-specific in the case of blockchain gaming. It is only available to those who already possess considerable symbolic, and, much more importantly, financial capital within the crypto community.
This article examines a recent form of marketing superhero comics that has garnered extensive media attention and has been promoted as the next big step in comics production: the decision by companies like Marvel Comics and DC Comics to offer selections of their intellectual properties as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Focusing specifically on Marvel Comics’ collaboration with the VeVe app, which serves as a digital auction house through which customers can buy comics and related merchandise, this article suggests that we are witnessing the popularization of an already popular product (superhero comics) in a process that is indicative of larger transformations of the popular. As an agent of such transformations, superhero comics were introduced in the 1930s and 40s as a “low medium” with mass appeal that was critically devalued by proponents of high culture, but they are now widely celebrated as a “popular medium.” We argue that this transformation from a popular but devalued (“low”) product to a popular and culturally valued (but not necessarily “high” cultural) artifact marks a shift from qualitative to quantitative valuation that was driven at least in part by popular practices of collecting, archiving, and auctioning that have enabled the ongoing adaptation of these comics to new social, technological, and media demands. The article uses the newsworthiness of big auction sales and the sky-rocketing prices that well-preserved comic books can garner as a framework for assessing the appearance of superhero NFTs and for gauging the implications of this new media form for the cultural validation of comics.
The world has witnessed the growth of a New Economy and Culture at the start of the 21st century. Information in all its forms is getting digital and pivotal in this new era. Digital technologies have advanced more rapidly than ever in any innovation in human history and can be great equalizers by enhancing connectivity, access to trade, financial inclusion, and public services. Digital transformation has reached around 50% of the developing world&s;s population in only 20 years and transforming our societies. This transformation will continue to accelerate in days to come. If looking toward the future, distributed ledger technology, blockchain or Web 3.0, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, augmented and extended reality, and quantum computing will be the next fronts of new post-digital technologies to spark changes. These new technologies will let businesses reimagine entire industries and markets. Technology-driven cultures are creating an expanding technology identity for every consumer.
Videogames are an increasingly prominent use case for blockchain technology (what has been termed ‘cryptogaming’). Drawing on documents, such as industry presentations, social media posts, interviews and white papers, this article analyses discourses surrounding cryptogames, focusing on the claims made by cryptogame developers and investors. We ask two related research questions: What are the dominant visions of a cryptogaming future, imagined by and for various constituencies? And what sorts of values get realised in such an imagined future of game development and use? We argue that cryptogames imagine players and developers as financialised subjects, adopting attitudes and practices of risk and investment as salves to both microeconomic problems in the games industry as well as broader macroeconomic issues.
The fervor for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) attracted countless creators, leading to a Big Bang of digital assets driven by latent or explicit forms of inspiration, as in many creative processes. This work exploits Vision Transformers and graph-based modeling to delve into visual inspiration phenomena between NFTs over the years, i.e., the visual influence that can be detected whenever an NFT appears to be visually close to another that was published earlier in the market. Our goals include unveiling the main structural traits that shape visual inspiration networks, exploring the interrelation between visual inspiration and asset performances, investigating crypto influence on inspiration processes, and explaining the inspiration relationships among NFTs. Our findings unveil how the pervasiveness of inspiration led to a temporary saturation of the visual feature space, the impact of the dichotomy between inspiring and inspired NFTs on their financial performance, and an intrinsic self-regulatory mechanism between markets and inspiration waves. Our work can serve as a starting point for gaining a broader view of the evolution of Web3.
This paper provides an overview of how the focus of youth gambling research has evolved since the foundational work of the 1990s. Over the last two decades, research in youth gambling has advanced from having a principal focus on under-aged access to adult commercial activities to understanding the impact of gambling-like content in social media and gaming. The process of digital convergence and ‘gamblification’ has blurred the boundaries between activities, and the rise of gambling and gaming ecosystems. Research suggests that early exposure to gambling-like content (e.g. loot boxes or social casino games) may lead to a transition to commercial gambling. Here we provide an overview of current evidence, important technological developments and conceptual analyses; and, current directions in digital technology and their potential impact. The potential now exists for the merging of multiple classes of activity: gaming, gambling and speculative trading as a result of blockchain technology. The paper underscores the importance of the need for future studies to capture the breadth of gambling and gambling-like activities available to young people. It also indicates that pathways into gambling may arise within other population groups (e.g. gamers, digital asset investors) rather than from direct exposure to commercial gambling products.
Non-fungible token (NFT) is a variant of tokens that can be used to represent unique and valuable digital items. NFT can prove true ownership of virtual assets in game spaces, allowing it to be utilized in computer games. It is an emerging field that attracts a great deal of academic and professional interest. Nonetheless, there are critics of the NFT game, and some may compare it to a Ponzi scheme. The purpose of this study is to identify the recent research trends in the field of NFT game research. We discovered 23 NFT game articles by searching the SSCI/SCI Expanded, Scopus, and IEEE Explore Library databases. The study summarizes these 23 articles in order to reveal the major issues addressed in the literature. Recent research on social media influencers yields fundamental insights from these findings.
Am 11. Mai 2022 veröffentlichten E. Glen Weyl (Microsoft Corporation & RadicalXChange Foundation), Puja Ohlhaver (Flashbots Ltd.) und Vitalik Buterin, der Gründer von Ethereum, einen Beitrag unter dem Titel »Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul« auf dem SSRN-Prepint-Server (Weyl et al., 2022). Bei näherer Betrachtung zeigt sich aber, dass – neben ein paar gesellschaftlichen Visionen in Anlehnung an Eric Hughes’ »A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto«– der Kern des Vorschlags recht einfach ist und weitgehend eine Art von Blockchain-basierten Spielen mit zu verdienenden Punkten, Eigenschaften analog zu Fantasy-Rollenspielen bzw. beschreibenden NFTs, wie bei Avataren im Metaverse, beschreibt.
The purpose of gamification in cryptocurrencies is to improve user engagement through game-thinking (Kabita, 2020; Rodrigues et al., 2019). Yet, it is unclear whether participants are motivated by the desire to have fun or to generate money. This study intends to explore the elements that encourage people to participate in cryptocurrency gamification by analysing perceived enjoyment, perceived profitability, and demographic variables. Data was obtained from Thai nationals residing in Thailand who have invested in digital assets or plan to in the future. Using multivariate logistic regression, statistically significant factors were identified. The data indicate that Thai investors’ interest in cryptocurrency gamification increases with age and student status. Also, people are attracted to the gamification of cryptocurrencies since they may be both interesting and lucrative. The study argues that it is essential to assess the risks associated with the gamification of cryptocurrencies. This will ensure that individuals who wish to earn money do not lose it. In addition, the likelihood of financial exploitation through cryptocurrency gaming must be evaluated. This is required because the risk of individuals being victimised through scams increases as the number of persons who play these games grows.
The growing popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has created a new digital collectibles asset class and market. NFTs are unique digital tokens built on blockchain technology that can represent anything from art, property rights, certificates of authentication to sports collectibles. The use of blockchain provides the framework for digital ownership and brings the notion of scarcity to the digital NFT asset class. With the emerging NFT market and growing consumer base little work has investigated the factors behind NFT interest and participation. Using a dataset of 26,444 tweets on NBA Top Shot, one of the largest and most popular NFT platforms for digital sport collectibles, we use exploratory data and content analysis to generate insights from NFT Twitter messages. Our results suggest that both hedonic and utilitarian factors are driving NFT tweets and should be considered by NFT platforms to encourage participation. Our results show that consumer messages on NFTs are based on the ability to demonstrate ownership, compete against other collectors, provide personal enjoyment and for the opportunity to receive financial returns. This research is one of the first to examine the factors exploring NFT Twitter messages and our results provide early insights for practitioners and academics interested in exploring NFT digital collectibles.
Web2 giants and Web3 projects entertain a complex relationship. They cooperate to maximize their chances of survival, yet they also compete through a combination of dynamic factors and anti-competitive strategies. The present contribution untangles Web2 and Web3’s relationship, explores their distinct value propositions, and outlines what may be one of tomorrow’s enforcement priorities for antitrust agencies.
The goal was to develop a concept for the useful application of tokens in the learning platform of the Blockchain Academy Mittweida (BCAM). Thereby, imparted knowledge about the blockchain should become tangible for users. Based on the research of existing concepts, different ideas were developed and their use was tested. In the process, the specifics of the e-learning sector as well as those of blockchain technology are considered. Combining tokenization, e-learning, and gamification, a token model was finally developed, which is technically based on a smart contract of the Ethereum Blockchain. The model includes tokens that users can collect and exchange for badges. The badges are in turn represented as NFTs.
Since the popularization of digital music downloading and streaming services beginning in 1999 with Napster, artists have struggled to recover financially from the decline of physical album sales. Streaming services like Spotify have been scrutinized for low royalty payments to artists—an issue that was exacerbated over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Following the successful debut of non-fungible token (NFT) collections by musicians including Grimes, Kings of Leon, and deadmau5 early in 2021, some of the biggest mainstream reporters in music began calling NFTs the future of the music industry. The decentralized funding structure NFTs offered appeared to provide a solution for compensating artists fairly; however, in practice, NFTs have primarily only benefitted musicians of celebrity status. This article provides a brief introduction to non-fungible tokens and examines why they have appealed to musicians. Additionally, it establishes the difference between visual art NFTs and music NFTs by situating the latter within both historical and neoliberal capitalist understandings of musical value. Drawing from evidence demonstrating how NFTs have been used in practice, this essay suggests that by assetizing music, NFTs re-legitimize the undervaluing of musicians by establishing them as productive laborers in technoscientific capitalist societies.
This paper inquires into the dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project. We present Ethereum as animated by three such imaginaries: the world computer (technical), productive money (economic) and public goods (political). We examine how these imaginaries are materialized, carried forward and evolve through the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on how Ethereum’s prefigurative logic underpins this dynamism. In our analysis, we pay particular attention to how the imaginaries overlap and often generate contradictions that nonetheless do not seem to undermine the cohesion of the project. We introduce the concept of ‘prefigurative imaginaries’ to describe how prefiguration works to create multiple, mutually entangled but distinct imaginaries.
Atte Oksanen, Heli Hagfors, Ilkka Vuorinen, Iina Savolainen
OBJECTIVES: Cryptocurrency trading has gained popularity over the last few years. Trading is facilitated by online platforms that enable 24/7 trading. Cryptocurrency trading is potentially attractive to gamblers, and it may increase their gambling problems. Furthermore, cryptocurrency trading might be a particularly harmful activity for those gambling offshore. We investigated whether cryptocurrency trading predicts excessive gambling over time. We also analyzed how cryptocurrency trading combined with offshore gambling is associated with excessive gambling. STUDY DESIGN: This was a population-based longitudinal survey study. METHODS: We surveyed a sample of Finnish people aged 18-75 years (N = 1022, 51.27% male) at three time points in 6-month intervals: April 2021 (T1), October to November 2021 (T2), and April to May 2022 (T3). Of the original T1 respondents, 66.80% took part in T2 and T3. Outcome measure was excessive gambling using the Problem Gambling Severity Index, and the predictor was cryptocurrency trading. We adjusted models for onshore and offshore gambling online, excessive gaming (Internet Gaming Disorder Test), excessive internet use (Compulsive Internet Use Scale), excessive alcohol use (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), and sociodemographic background factors. We used multilevel regression models to investigate within-person and between-person effects. RESULTS: Cryptocurrency trading has increased in popularity over time. Within-person changes in cryptocurrency trading predicted increased excessive gambling. Excessive gambling was also generally more common among cryptocurrency traders. The full model that was adjusted for the number of confounding factors showed that cryptocurrency trading had a within-person effect on excessive gambling. Of the confounding factors, offshore online gambling, excessive gaming, and excessive internet use had within-person effects on excessive gambling. Offshore and onshore online gamblers and excessive gamers showed more excessive gambling than others. Those participants who were both cryptocurrency traders and offshore gamblers showed significantly higher rate of excessive gambling than others. CONCLUSIONS: Cryptocurrency trading is a risky activity and associated with a higher rate of excessive gambling over time. Such activity is especially risky among offshore online gamblers, who could view cryptocurrency trading as another form of gambling or as a way to make money for gambling. Policymakers and counselors should be aware of the risks of cryptocurrency trading.