This context informs the conversations with artists and creative practitioners in this book.Often, their work with and around Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) emerges from these very concerns.Does that mean that DAOs are capable of solving the sociopolitical issues of precarity, cuts, and censorship?No. 'Free blockchain money' does not exist.DAOs do not 'magically' make more funding appear, least of all structurally so.And DAOs do not allow artists and cultural practitioners to leave behind their national contexts of austerity and repression and exchange them for some virtual utopia.However, this does not mean that engaging with DAOs is pointless in the face of these circumstances and limitations.In this publication, I ask practitioners to share their experiences, focussing specifically on the definition of new forms of agency in cultural decision-making, explorations of shared ownership in arts and culture amid widespread logics of private property and extractivism, and the making of prefigurative claims on futures envisioned from the bottom up.None of these practices will be able to replace the structures of state funding or cancel oppressive concentrations of power any time soon, but they do open up space to manoeuvre and create tactical interventions, to find each other and build solidarity, and to regain a sense of futurity together.In other words, to reimagine, reclaim, and restructure shared socio-technical futures.The six people that I interviewed represent key voices in the countercultural and artistic DAO space.Penny Rafferty is a cofounder of Black Swan -a DAO that pursued horizontal and decentralised approaches to art-making -and she pushes DAO discourse into new directions with critical and imaginative work.Erik Bordeleau is a co-founder of The Sphere -a DAO that explores new ecologies of funding to develop a regenerative commons for the performing arts -and contributes boundarypushing philosophical and media theoretical perspectives to DAO thought.Ruth Catlow developed CultureStake -a voting system for decentralised cultural decision-making that uses quadratic voting on the blockchain -and has been a central Repression of Palestinian Culture and soidarity: Independence as Resistance,' Reset! 8
This paper explores the ontological politics in China's emerging NFT scene. Drawing on digital ethnography from 2022 to 2023, it analyzes how actors invoke competing spatiotemporal framings (‘chronotopes’) of NFTs from familiar institutional sites. Under the crypto ban, NFT companies legitimize the scene as a digital extension of the art market, drawing on middle-class imaginaries of the gallery. Through corporate discourse and mobile app design, they institutionalized the gallery framing as a mode of representation and economization. A widespread price slump in the summer of 2022 sparked metapragmatic discourse on social media. Influencers and users challenged the values presumed on NFT platforms and formulated contrasting chronotopes of speculative gaming, notably the framing of the scene as a casino rigged by bookies. Their increasing resonance among users effected a shift toward the understanding of NFTs as worthless gambling chips and a more speculative mode of engagement with the technology, pressuring NFT companies to incorporate the casino framing in their platform design. This paper emphasizes the significance of local meaning-makings (semiosis) of technologies and economies, as well as the ‘chronotope’ as a framework for understanding how cultural framings of technology emerge, predominate, and fall out of favor.
This chapter surveys portrayals of money within US speculative fiction. While they may take us to alien planets or alternate universes, such works also serve to remind us how strange “ordinary” money already is. Speculative fiction has often sought to reimagine money in some more rational or explainable form. These thought experiments often propose money based on some purportedly stable and incontrovertible value, such as labor, time, energy, or motion. There is a second and somewhat distinct tendency, which envisions reputation-based currencies and other “storied moneys,” often capable of reflecting diverse incommensurable values. Then there are portrayals of large fortunes that, whether or not they come with overt speculative elements such as magic or futuristic technologies, can also take on an aura of the fantastic. In particular, large fortunes become storied money to the extent that they reflect and enact their owners’ personal characteristics, relationships, and histories. Speculative fiction also often blurs with speculative practices, from Josiah Warren’s Time Store in the 1820s to the Technocracy movement of the 1930s to contemporary cryptocurrency, Non-Fungible Tokens, and blockchain finance. This porous boundary invites the question: might money itself be understood as a kind of speculative fiction?
This article examines the gendered symbolic order that is being created by the struggle between blockchain enabled currencies (colloquially known as ‘crypto’) and established financial institutions. Narratives from the financial mainstream both for and against regulation adopt classic psychoanalytic scripts of inter-generational conflict, as crypto is frequently described as ‘puerile’, whilst regulators adopt paternal epithets such as ‘Crypto Dad’. The gendered landscape of this debate, however, is complicated by the fact that those who advocate for minimal regulation of crypto on the grounds that it may ‘accelerate’ capitalism’s demise do so on explicitly anti-oedipal grounds. This article draws on work from feminist organizational studies that employs a psychoanalytic framework to culturally situate the narratives framing debates around cryptocurrency regulation. It explores the gendered underpinnings of concepts, values and the gendered ‘permitted subjectivities’ prominent in mainstream debates on regulation and both libertarian and critical accelerationist narratives. My contention is that the autogenerated scarcity which defines crypto’s value, and correlated ideas of lack and debasement, contribute to a symbolic order which is particularly aggressive towards the feminine, and continues the exclusions of orthodox capitalism, even in accelerationist accounts adopting an explicit anti-oedipal stance.
Ineffective Policies - Causes and Consequences of Bad Policy Choices; Using cutting-edge research and analysis, this book states the case for studying ineffective policies, demonstrates their harmful effects across policy fields and provides policy makers with the tools to reflect, identify and act upon them.
With the rapid advancement of technology, the transformation of images into digital codes has enabled computer technologies and their derivatives to be included in the art environment, production, and exhibition methods, as well as traditional tools used in artworks. Blockchain and NFT technology, which emerged because of these developments, merged with art to create a new digital art field. This new technology offers new perspectives on the preservation, exhibition and evaluation of art and plays an important role in the digital art economy. The main problematic of this study is to develop an in-depth understanding of the rise of NFT (Non-Fungible Token) technology in the art world and how this new digital art form is perceived by virtual communities. The effects of NFT on the production, distribution, appropriation, and evaluation of artworks have provoked different reactions among artists and art lovers. This study aims to reveal the value, acceptance, and criticism of NFT art in virtual communities through a netnographic analysis. In this study, the perspectives of virtual communities on NFT were examined using a netnographic analysis method. For this purpose, forum sites such as Donanım Haber, R10, Reddit, Shift Delete and Technopat, which have high traffic and active members, were selected and the content shared on these sites between January and October in 2021, when NFT was popular, was analyzed. Discussions, comments, and opinions about NFT on these sites were analyzed in depth. As a result of the study, it was determined that NFT has received various reactions in the art world, some users find this technology meaningless and speculative, while others see NFT as a revolutionary step in the digitalization of art. It is concluded that NFT offers new opportunities to artists and collectors by securing the ownership, authenticity, and trade of artworks in a digital environment.
Bilgi sistemlerinin ve kitle iletişim araçlarının teknolojik dönüşümü, dijital çağın önemli bir parçası olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. 21. yüzyılda, internetin ve bilgisayar teknolojilerinin gelişimi, bilgi sistemlerini sanal ortama taşımış ve modern hayatın pek çok alanında değişim yaratmıştır. Bu dönüşüm, kitle iletişim araçlarının evrimini hızlandırmış ve farklı disiplinler arasında yakınlaşmayı sağlamıştır. Sanat da bu değişimden etkilenmiş, dijital teknolojilerle yeni bir boyut kazanmıştır. Dijitalleşmenin sunduğu olanaklar sayesinde sanat eserleri, coğrafi sınırlamaları aşarak geniş kitlelerle anlık iletişim kurabilmektedir. İnternet aracılığıyla dolaşıma giren dijital eserler, teknik olanaklar sayesinde tekrar üretilebilir ve ticari ekosistemler oluşturulabilir. Bu bağlamda, Non-Fungible Token (NFT) teknolojisi, dijital sanatın özgünlüğünü ve sahipliğini garanti altına alarak sanatın dijital dünyadaki yerini sağlamlaştırmaktadır. NFT'ler, sanat eserlerinin dijital ortamda değerli birer varlık olarak kabul edilmesini sağlar ve sanatın ticaretini kolaylaştırır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, NFT teknolojisi ile üretilen sanat eserlerinin dijital kültüre katkısını incelemektir. Çalışmanın temel sorusu NFT teknolojisi ile üretilen sanat eserlerinin dijital kültüre ne ölçüde katkı sağladığıdır. Seçmece yöntemle belirlenen içerik analizi ile araştırılmış olan bu çalışma, dijitalleşen sanat medyumlarının kültürel etkinliğini sorgulayarak literatüre önemli bir katkı sağlamayı hedeflemektedir. Dijitalleşme ve teknolojinin her geçen gün gelişmeye devam etmesi, bu çalışmada yapılan araştırmaların ve parametlerin (ulaşılabilirlik vb. durumlar nedeni ile hedef kitlelerin değişmesi ve satış oranlarının etkilenmesi) değişebilmesi durumu bu çalışmanın sınırlıklarıdır. NFT teknolojisinin sanat üzerindeki etkileri ve dijital kültürdeki rolü, sanatın geleceği ve dijitalleşmenin sanatsal üretim üzerindeki etkileri hakkında derinlemesine bilgi sunacaktır.
In the last few years, art market participants have been forced to adapt to a new environment that many considered as hostile. Their technological backwardness became a major threat during the COVID crisis and its lockdowns. Since 2020, global art market players are finally trying to seize opportunities offered by new technologies.
Pierre Sedi Nzakuna, Vincenzo Paciello, A. Lay-Ekuakille, Angelo Kuti Lusala · 5 authors
IOTA is a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) designed for the Internet of Things (IoT), featuring feeless transactions and data-only blocks for information sharing between IoT devices. Its ledger, the Tangle, adopts a Directed Acyclic Graph structure (DAG) that enables it to scale while keeping secure, fitting with the needs of IoT growth. Most of literature work address the behavior and asses the performance of the Tangle by using simulated data, only few of them are based on empirical dataset. Moreover, to our best knowledge, no research has been previously carried out on the evolution of the Tangle at its current Stardust stage using empirical data. Our study conducts a comprehensive analysis of the Tangle at the Stardust stage using real data provided by IOTA Foundation. Our key findings are that the confirmation of new blocks is two times faster in the Stardust stage, and the Tangle is currently being used far below its capacity to carry and secure data from IoT devices. Our study is the first to shed light on the characteristics of the real Tangle in the Stardust stage, which are particularly useful to understand the evolution of the ledger and contribute to its improvements in future upgrades.
Kobe De Keere, Martin Broholt Trans, Stefanía Milan
In less than two decades, cryptocurrency has transformed from being an object of interest for an obscure online community to becoming a globally desired digital asset. By acknowledging the importance of fictional expectations in the creation of economic value, this study delves into the various imaginative values that are being attributed to cryptocurrency. Through quantitative-qualitative coding of YouTube video transcripts (N: 1929), combined with Exploratory Factor Analysis, this article maps out which imaginaries on crypto are being disseminated by the YouTube algorithm. The latter is conceived not as a passive source of information but as a performative market device, steering consumer behavior. This study identifies four distinct imaginaries to which cryptocurrency consumers are exposed: investment, utility, digital metallism, and infrastructural mutualism imaginary. These shed light on the potential value consumers attribute to cryptocurrencies while opening new research avenues towards a better understanding of the different positions within the market.
This study observes through qualitative textual analysis the Discord community of Virtually Human Studio’s play-to-earn (P2E), blockchain-based videogame ‘ZED Run’ to better understand the nature of non-fungible token (NFT) applications and their users. This study emphasizes gaming and gambling opportunities related to NFTs and blockchain technology which suggest shifts towards increased risk-taking and a blurring of financial and entertainment contexts. In ZED Run, users’ interactions with designed systems, as well as interest in improving one’s understanding of the application and its associated marketplace, is motivated by interest in financial reward. This work argues this close relationship of financial interests to gaming and gambling environments risks fostering an increasingly gamified approach to financial life. Ultimately, ZED Run represents the application of media affordances to an acceleration of risk-taking and an adoption of alternative financial assets that challenge governmental authority while placing users at greater personal and financial risk.
The final chapter examines how the rapid expansion of technology from the second half of the twentieth century led to the rise of new techniques and categories of art, beginning with the use of film and video, and ending with internet and digital artworks, including those made by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, interactive virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and works linked to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). However, a major problem is caused by the obsolescence of both hardware and software, meaning much new media art is inherently short-lived, and this, combined with their technical nature, makes their preservation an increasingly specialised field. The second part of this chapter looks at some of the strategies adopted by different organisations with regard to the complex issue of time-based media conservation, and discusses how international collaboration has led to a more unified approach and methodology.
from the release of Joseph Pulinthanath's Bangle (Mathia, 2004) to Jacob Tripura's Song of a Flute (Sumuini Khorang, 2022) becoming a new-wave sensation, films and video-cinemas in a complex sociopolitical milieu are proliferating across the far-flung frontiers of Tripura, Northeast India.1 Joseph Pulinthanath's feature-film narrative combines mainstream Bollywood love-story tropes with distinctly Tripuri2 elements that include local customs and folk beliefs, the isolated Tripuri village setting, and the use of the Indigenous Kokborok language. Jacob Tripura's award-winning Kokborok-language short establishes its independence from commercial Indian cinema of various sorts through its powerful minimalist story that takes audiences into the world of an impoverished Tripuri husband and father who is thoughtlessly killed as he returns from the local marketplace to his remote home, exposing the dark underbelly of corrupt political forces. These productions serve as a prism through which the multifaceted dimensions of society, culture, and language are refracted. As screen media assume new forms, interface with evolving technologies, and interweave the intricate threads of linguistic diversity, the cinema landscape of Tripura emerges as a microcosm of a dynamic cinematic ecosystem marked by Kokborok, the primary Indigenous tongue, reverberating alongside Bengali, the Indic language spoken by the non-Indigenous majority in the state as well as West Bengal, parts of Northeast India, and Bangladesh, to create a unique linguistic heterogeneity. Although rooted in specific cultural legacies, the confluence of the Kokborok and Bengali languages in locally produced Tripuri cinema3 reveals deeply ingrained historical narratives that reflect the region's sociopolitical metamorphosis.This article explores the intricacies surrounding the emergence of effervescent film culture in Tripura, where the locally produced Kokborok- and Bengali-language films and music videos serve as profound articulations of identity, political-cultural struggles, resistance, and hybridity. The discussion uses Tripuri cinema as an umbrella term to analyze Kokborok-language and Bengali-language screen productions, which exist alongside features, short films, and music videos in other languages to constitute the array of cultural texts produced and consumed in Tripura, irrespective of the natives’ linguistic dispositions. Employing the overarching banner of Tripuri cinema to describe the provincialized work in a region historically relegated to the shadows of canonical Indian cinema, this article sheds light on the production, distribution, and extensive consumption of small-scale locally produced Kokborok- and Bengali-language films and music videos—or, in Appadurai's (198) and Larkin's (407) terms, “parallel modernities”—that flow outside the confines of traditional theatres, cater to linguistically defined audiences, and are characterized by unique infrastructural and narrative strategies. In doing so, the discussion illuminates the other fragmented but multifaceted industrial and cultural practices that have orchestrated Tripuri cinema's recent manifestations, which involve both emulations of and challenges to mainstream Hindi cinema and the evolving negotiations between industry demands and the infrastructure that sustains them.The lacuna in scholarship concerning Kokborok and Bengali films in Tripura prompted the article's research, which was conducted at Jadavpur University, India,4 and involved archival sources and materials such as VCDs, DVDs, and digital formats, complemented by interviews with key industry figures, including acclaimed filmmaker Joseph Pulinthanath, cinematographer Sandip Debbarma, film scholar and filmmaker Prajapita Debroy, and photographer-filmmaker Alston Kalai. These discussions illuminate the fascinating dynamics of the Kokborok and Bengali film cultures, revealing technical inconsistencies and filmmaking strategies, as well as issues of representation, specificities of language, and popular forms. They show that modern technology's widespread availability and affordability have empowered aspiring filmmakers in marginalized locales. However, Tripura's homegrown film industry remains relatively unorganized, which necessitates identifying key elements that shape its narrative and aesthetic ecosystems amid organizational challenges.Considering questions of cultural hybridity,5 the article delves into how Tripuri Kokborok-language and Bengali-language films navigate tradition and modernity, while simultaneously borrowing from and defying prescribed Bollywood cinematic norms. In subsequent sections, the article examines the role of Tripuri films and music videos in preserving cultural heritage, destabilizing conventional narrative structures, and serving as catalysts of resistance to established cinematic patterns. Through a combination of film analysis, ethnographic observation, and interviews with key stakeholders of the industry, the article sheds light on the evolving landscape of Tripuri cinema, emerging trends, and contemporary practices; the role of infrastructure in the production, distribution, and exhibition of these audiovisual narratives; and how technological advancements redefine the aesthetics, narratives, and impact of local productions in Tripura. Emphasizing the convergence of technology, economics, politics, and culture, the study positions Tripuri cinema within the larger discourse of Indian cinema to generate a new historiography of Indian films on the periphery, one that centers marginalized screen productions that talk back.Sharing borders with the international territory of Bangladesh to the north, south, and west and with the Indian states of Assam and Mizoram to the east, Tripura, India's third-smallest state, reflects a complex fabric of diverse political and cultural experiences, comprising as many as nineteen Indigenous and several non-Indigenous communities that interact both harmoniously and contentiously with the mainstream national culture. Throughout history, Tripura has been a wellspring of cultural abundance and diversity, stemming from an amalgamation of various dialects, languages, and cultures fostered by the state's diverse ethnic groups and subgroups. From the ancient rhythms of folk music to the evolving choreography of Indigenous dances, Tripura's cultural continuity unfolds as a dynamic narrative, resonating through the ages. Historically, the region's demographics have exponentially shifted; where the Indigenous Tripuri communities, who were the original inhabitants of Tripura, once dominated, they are now reduced to approximately 30 percent. In contrast, the non-Indigenous Bengalis constitute a substantial 70 percent (approximately) of the population, according to the 2011 census.6 This demographic inversion, however, does not diminish the historical significance of Tripura as a cultural hub, tracing back to its early Sanskritization7 and interactions with Bengal. The royal court of Tripura, a historical bastion of cultural patronage, fostered the growth of music, dance, poetry, literature, painting, theater, and photography, albeit initially in Bengali due to the absence of a script in the Indigenous Kokborok language. Despite this, the cultural resilience of Tripura endures, exemplified in the making of the first feature-length film of Tripura in Kokborok, Longtharai (Dipak Bhattacharya, 1986), by a Bengali native. The film depicts a Jhumia8 romance in the scenic landscapes of the state's Longtharai hills, showcasing the convoluted interplay between cultural diversity, demographic shifts, and the evolving artistic expressions of the region (Barma 8).The initial wave of Kokborok-language films in the late 1980s and 1990s explored the representation of Indigenous communities and the challenges faced in the wake of globalization. The Peak of Life (Langmani Haduk, Ruhi Debbarma, 1993) exemplifies this trend while also exploring the complexities of patriarchal norms in a Tripuri society. Inspired by the conventions of social/family melodramas in Hindi cinema, this film set a precedent for Kokborok-language productions that challenged the status quo and reflected the changing times.At the same time, native to Tripura and distinct from its larger counterparts in West Bengal (Tollywood) and Bangladesh (Dhallywood), the Bengali-language Tripuri cinema emerged in the early 1990s with Transformation (Rupantar, Debasish Saha, 1991). The film, borrowing conventions from West Bengal's Tollywood cinema while retaining a raw Tripuriness,9 echoes local concerns about sustaining folk performative traditions at meager wages against the sweeping tides of modernity and urbanization.Although Bengali-language films from Tripura share similarities with Bengali films from West Bengal and Bangladesh in terms of narrative conventions, aesthetic diversity, and filmmaking techniques, they also reflect the cultural nuances and historical trajectories of Bengali-speaking communities across the region. These films serve as mirrors to society, reflecting the hopes, struggles, and aspirations of the Bengali people. The use of music, folk melodies, and traditional songs enhances emotional impact and cultural authenticity, while visual storytelling techniques, cinematography, lighting, and mise-en-scène create evocative imagery and convey poetic symbolism. Nonlinear narratives, flashbacks, and character backstories add depth to the emotional core of the films, forging a tripartite narrative bridge that mirrors cultural motifs within the Bengali-speaking community, both nationally and internationally (Barma 26, 37–40). It is worth noting that Tollywood, rooted in Kolkata's rich cinema heritage since the 1920s, is celebrated for its aesthetics, diverse genres, and preservation of Bengali culture and the long-standing influence of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) on art-house as well as commercial cinemas. On the other end of the spectrum is Bangladesh's distinctive Dhaka film industry, which reflects its intricate cultural journey through Bengali-language Bangladeshi films, narrating national struggles and sociopolitical evolution, since the Tripuri films also an role in and to the state's exemplified by the of film and by the Bengali in the region. 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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.
Teknolojinin gelişmesiyle birlikte pek çok alanda yenilikler yapılmıştır. Bu alanlardan biri de sanattır. Genel anlayışla sanat, galeri gibi kapalı mekanlarda, sınırlı kişilere yakından bakma imkanı sunarken, teknolojinin sağladığı imkanlar dahilinde sanatın oluşum ve dolaşım alanı genişlemiş, dünyanın bir ucundan diğer ucuna sanat eserine erişim sağlamak mümkün hale gelmiştir. Günümüzde popüler bir konu haline gelen, hızla yükselen, sanatı tuvalden sanal ortama taşıyan sanat alanlarından biri de NFT (Non-Fungible Token)’dir. NFT'ler, benzersiz ve değişmez dijital varlıklardır. Bilgisayar destekli teknolojinin kullanılması yeni bir olgu olmamakla beraber, sanat piyasasındaki geleneksel dinamikleri yıkan bir yapıya sahip olan NFT, dijital sanatın önemli ortamlarından biri haline gelmiştir. Özellikle sanat, oyun ve diğer sektörlerde sıkça kullanılmakta olan NFT’ler, sanatçılara birçok avantaj sunmaktadır. Araştırmada, NFT ve içeriğindeki; blokzincir teknolojisi, ethereum, metaverse (sanal evren) gibi kavramlar tanıtılmaya çalışılmıştır. Blokzincir teknolojisiyle birbirine bağlanan zincirlerin, bilgileri nasıl koruduğu, aynı zamanda metaverse ile birlikte gelecekteki sanatçılar ve izleyiciler arasındaki etkileşimi geliştirebilecek sanal dünyaları keşfetmeyi nasıl başarabileceklerinden bahsedilmiştir. Bu bağlamda NFT’nin önemli sanatçılarından olan, eserlerinde yapay zeka ve dijital manipülasyon tekniklerini kullanan Ender Diril’in, dijital sanat ve NFT’ye yaklaşımı, eserleri üzerinden NFT dünyası ortaya koyulmaya çalışılmıştır.
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.
We study the task of generating profitable Non-Fungible Token (NFT) images from user-input texts. Recent advances in diffusion models have shown great potential for image generation. However, existing works can fall short in generating visually-pleasing and highly-profitable NFT images, mainly due to the lack of 1) plentiful and fine-grained visual attribute prompts for an NFT image, and 2) effective optimization metrics for generating high-quality NFT images. To solve these challenges, we propose a Diffusion based generation framework with Multiple Visual-Policies as rewards (i.e., Diffusion-MVP) for NFT images. The proposed framework consists of a large language model (LLM), a diffusion-based image generator, and a series of visual rewards by design. First, the LLM enhances a basic human input (such as "panda") by generating more comprehensive NFT-style prompts that include specific visual attributes, such as "panda with Ninja style and green background." Second, the diffusion-based image generator is fine-tuned using a large-scale NFT dataset to capture fine-grained image styles and accessory compositions of popular NFT elements. Third, we further propose to utilize multiple visual-policies as optimization goals, including visual rarity levels, visual aesthetic scores, and CLIP-based text-image relevances. This design ensures that our proposed Diffusion-MVP is capable of minting NFT images with high visual quality and market value. To facilitate this research, we have collected the largest publicly available NFT image dataset to date, consisting of 1.5 million high-quality images with corresponding texts and market values. Extensive experiments including objective evaluations and user studies demonstrate that our framework can generate NFT images showing more visually engaging elements and higher market value, compared with state-of-the-art approaches.
Open access
3 source records
Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis
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.
S Sarumathi, Altaf Raja, Alok Kumar, Aman Yadav · 5 authors
With the advancement of technology around the globe lead to a rise of technology called Blockchain and amazing technology that completely eradicates the centralized network. Blockchain Technology has got its applications from finance, gaming, supply-chian etc. One of Applications of this amazing technology are NFT’s(Non Fungible Token’s) That act as a digital assets in the world of Blockchain. NFT’s can be any form of data from art, music to video etc. The interest of NFT’s have been growing in every field of various industries like fashion, gaming, etc. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are transferrable rights to digital assets, such as art, in-game items, collectables, or music. The phenomenon and its markets have grown significantly since early 2021.The information about the NFT’s are stored onto the blockchain Where each information is kept encrypted and prevented from attack as its impossible to alter the data in the blockchian. This cutting-edge technology continues to grow and capture the attention of the masses as more applications of NFT’s are identified with time. The System proposed in this paper allows consumers to transfer encrypted content and write it to NFT’s. Various consumers can approach the content of NFT’s by mentioning their purchase or endorsement. Confidential information is licensed for a period of time, after which the information is appropriately deleted.
This whitepaper introduces RIV Coin, a cryptocurrency that is fully stabilized by a diversified portfolio of invested reserves that are evaluated by professional independent third parties, and auditable and provable by the protocol. It is born and managed as a decentralized token, minted by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). All wealthier Users are then accepting a redistribution of income, to the benefit of those who have purchased less tokens. In cooperative Game Theory, maximization of the economic benefit of the ecosystem is achieved when players' incentives are perfectly aligned. The proposed model allows for alignment of incentives: decreasing the risk exposure by wealthier Users, but implicitly increasing that of smaller ones to a level perceived by them as still sustainable and never creating ultra-speculative positions. In other words, wealthier Users stabilize the risk associated with the market value of portfolios in which the reserves are invested in Centralized and Decentralized Finance, without falling into the bet scheme. Users indirectly benefit from the access to the rewards of sophisticated cryptocurrency portfolios hitherto precluded to them, as well as having access to a real redistribution of wealth, without this turning into a disadvantage for the wealthy User, who benefits from the greater stability created by the huge influx of smaller Users. Therefore, the progressive growth becomes additional value that tends to stabilize over time, optimizing RIV Coin on the systemic risk level.
Bu makalenin amacı; kapsamlı bir literatür taramasına dayalı olarak, NFT (non-fungible-token: misli olmayan kripto varlıklar) kavramını işletmeler ve tüketiciler perspektifinden değerlendirebilmektir. NFT; resim, oyun, ses gibi bir dijital varlığa sahip olmak için blok zincire kayıtlı bir haktır. Bir benzeri olmayan, şifrelenmiş dijital varlıklar olan NFT’ler temsil ettikleri dijital varlıkların menşeini/kaynağını koruyarak, önceki sistemlere göre daha kolay ticaretinin yapılmasına, değiş tokuş edilmesine, kimliğinin doğrulanmasına ve transfer edilmesine olanak sağlamaktadırlar. Sanat, koleksiyonerlik, oyun gibi alanlarda görülen NFT uygulamaları yaratıcı içerik üreticilerinin olduğu kadar şirketlerin ve markaların da ilgisini çekmektedir. 2021 yılında hızlı büyüme gösteren NFT pazarı lüks tüketim markalarının yeni tüketici kitlelerine ulaşmasını sağlamıştır. Günlük tüketim markaları da genç tüketiciler ile bağ kurmada ve sosyal sorumluluk kampanyalarına dikkat çekmede NFT uygulamalarını kullanmaktadırlar. Farklı tüketim deneyimleri yaratma, tüketicileri dijital topluluklarda buluşturma yoluyla da NFT’ler tüketiciler ve işletmeler için değer yaratabilme potansiyeline sahiptir.