NFT 新構想：用 NFT 自下而上講故事，顛覆傳統自上而下講故事模式

NFT 新構想：用 NFT 自下而上講故事，顛覆傳統自上而下講故事模式

用 NFT 講故事，可以成爲講故事的一種有力方式。

撰文： Simon de la Rouviere，Untitled Frontier 首席執行官

編譯：Perry Wang

一個好的故事會讓你有所感觸。如果對故事擁有所有權，會讓這些情緒更加強烈。用 NFT 講故事，可以成爲講故事的一種有力方式：對新舊故事都是如此。

過去幾個月，多個項目一直在探索這個故事與 NFT 的交叉點。不過，各項目傾向於採用更類似自上而下的方法，而 NFT 可以且應該探索自下而上的講故事方式，成爲新的傳播媒介。

自上而下的故事是要告訴我們一個怎樣的故事。比如，你去電影院觀看《星球大戰》系列影片，或者玩 Bethesda 出品的新角色扮演遊戲時。而自下而上的故事是我們自己編纂關於虛構世界的故事。比如，當你買了星戰的光劍，在院子裏跑來跑去，嘴裏發出嘶嘶聲伴奏，用力把網球扔向你的狗時。當你玩《魔獸世界》遊戲時，在暴風城外的小酒館角色扮演時。

我在本文中想分享 NFT 在實踐中的樣子，以及我對未來的看法。

自上而下講故事的 NFT 項目

這些示例的主要目的是用媒體向觀衆講述故事。它確實包含粉絲貢獻和互動的例子，但主要故事仍然由創建個人 / 團體 /DAO/ 企業主導。

自上而下的故事可以在 NFT 中採用直接文學的形式。

Excerpts of Gridlock (Dec 2020)

這是我自己對直接文學 NFT 的嘗試。這些是我的小說處女作《Hope Runners of Gridlock》的摘錄。您還可以點擊查看我對作家的 NFT 藏品的 更多初步想法。

Few Understand (2021)

加密作家 Kalen Iwamoto 系列小說 《Few Understand》的一條故事鏈。

還有一個新興的詩歌場景，增加了口語和視覺元素！

Wild One (2021)

阿爾忒彌斯·懷爾德 (Artemis Wylde) 一首詩的朗誦，伴有視覺元素。無法在此處嵌入視頻，請點擊觀看！

一系列新項目已經出現，其目的是講述發生在 NFT 之外的虛構故事。在這些示例中，NFT 是故事本身的載體、元素或角色。從某種意義上說，這些項目將 NFT 視爲可銷售的商品。 這是一種新的衆籌形式（有提前預售，也有後期銷售）。因爲這些項目還包括選擇「你自己的冒險」或「貢獻自己想法」的能力，所以它更多地介於自上而下和純粹自下而上的小說之間。

Stoner Cats (2021)

Stoner Cats 售出了超過 800 萬美元的斯通納貓（stoned cat）。除此之外，還推出一部講述這些貓冒險經歷的系列動畫片。NFT 持有人將能夠對其中一些故事進行投票和共同創作。

Glue Factory (2021)

與 Stoner Cats 類似， 粉絲可以購買即將上映的系列動畫片中的馬匹。他們還在試驗作家小屋和人才基金（如果你所持有的品種出現在片中，就可以從中獲利）。

Deadheads (2021)

類似的構思。動畫片+ 影響故事的部分能力 + 3D 藏品。

Aku (2021)

Aku 講述了一個想成爲宇航員的年輕黑人男孩的故事。他的太空頭盔讓他可以探索很多世界。 Aku 分章節發佈，實際視頻片段被髮行爲 NFT。它已被選中製作成電影。

Untitled Frontier (2021)

在這裏安利一下我自己的項目。Untitled Frontier 製作免費科幻小說，並以 NFT 的形式銷售故事中的數字商品。我們切實計劃及時激勵更多自下而上的故事。

Pillheads (2021)

Pills 是圍繞以太坊的敘事包裝，渲染了以太坊相關的項目和個人。Pills NFT 持有者可以投票和爲內容做出貢獻。在某些情況下，他們探索做「任務」，這是一種獨特的體驗，粉絲實際上與以太坊互動，以增加故事和敘事。

Elektra (2021)

一個神奇的項目，粉絲們共同創造一個故事+音樂。 舉個例子

自下而上講故事的項目

雖然這些自上而下的項目旨在促進交互性和貢獻，但它們仍然主要由項目本身「認可」或「實施規範化」。當粉絲以不請自來的方式，憑藉擁有 NFT 取得掌控權，將故事修改爲自己的版本時，就有了自下而上的講故事。而不僅僅侷限於允許粉絲投票或貢獻內容。

這就是將 NFT 嵌入講故事的新奇有趣之處。與之前的其他傳播媒介不同，它更直接地讓粉絲可以將情感時間投入到世界的構建中，而且還可能因此獲得相應的經濟回報。同人小說並不新鮮，在過去我們已經看到了一些大獲成功的案例。《五十度灰》最初是《暮光之城》的同人小說。 《時間的救贖》（The Redemption of Time）最初是劉慈欣《地球往事》三部曲（《三體》、《黑暗森林》、《死神永生》）的同人小說，最終作爲重量級作品出版。不過上述幾例是極其罕見的。同人小說存在巨大長尾。包括正式出版的作品，也包括孩子們在後院自己創造的角色。

NFT 帶來的是能夠將故事和溯源添加到 NFT 中，作爲虛構世界的一部分。如果成功，它實際上可以爲該作家帶來價值。一個模擬示例如下：粉絲從商店購買了一把光劍，對其進行了一些修改，然後開始專門爲那把光劍寫一個故事。如果同人小說取得成功，他們可以將光劍作爲豪華套裝商品出售，代表添加到這一世界中的那個故事。你可以看到：在前數字時代的模擬世界中，很難做到這一點。

NFT 能更容易賦予所有權 + 溯源。它可以將同人小說提升爲融合到核心產品，融入介於商品 + 同人小說 + 投資 + 所有權之間的新傳播媒介。想象一下能夠購買 / 擁有星戰中的絕地大師歐比旺·克諾比（Obi-Wan Kenobi）並添加到角色的故事中。社交媒體用戶掛上他們的頭像 NFT 就是這些承諾的典型例子。嘻哈巨星 Jay-Z 的 CryptoPunk 有了新的出處，僅僅是因爲他在 Twitter 上「佩戴」了它。這其中沒有製作出任何故事，但部分故事也來自元互動。Jay-Z 的 CryptoPunk 積累了更多價值，僅僅因爲他擁有它。

以下是一些自下而上講故事的早期項目示例，粉絲接管 NFT 並在原始項目之外添加新故事。

Punks Comic (2021)

一個有趣的實驗，圍繞 CryptoPunks 講故事。要閱讀相關漫畫，至少需要擁有 10,000 個 NFT 之一。如果粉絲選擇「燒燬」其漫畫，還有一個額外的機制允許他們訪問 DAO。

Jenkins The Valet (2021)

可能是我個人最喜歡的例子。團隊選擇了一隻「無聊的猿猴」來作爲一個「貼身男僕」，成爲「遊艇俱樂部」所有故事中的主角。粉絲可以購買作家小屋 NFT 來爲故事做出貢獻，該故事最終也將發行爲唯一的 NFT。其中存在很多層次，但主要有趣的部分是這種特定的猿猴已經積累了廣泛的新出處和故事。

Citizen 2890 (2021)

雖然沒有明確添加新小說，但由 FlamingoDAO 購買的一個外星 cryptopunk 在其 Twitter 賬戶中盡情展示。這個想法也是 Fuckin’s Trolls 項目想要激勵的東西。

透露個小祕密，一個值得關注的公司 / 項目是 Alethea。它讓 NFT 持有者可以在其 NFT 後面添加一個 GPT-3 角色，允許他們將原生和簡單的故事嵌入其 NFT 中。NFT 持幣者因此更容易進入一個虛構的世界。

前進

除了可以供 Twitter 用戶使用頭像 NFT 裝扮個人資料之外，可能還有更多自下而上講故事的例子，但尚未得到廣泛嘗試。這個領域裏有很多選擇，粉絲們可以聚集在一起，購買現有項目的 NFT，給它一些潤色和新故事，如果效果很成功，繼續這樣做，或者在投入時間和精力值後選擇出售 NFT。也許 PartyBids 是一個很好的開始方式。

弄清楚如何促進自下而上講故事並不容易。它是凌亂的、倉促的，還可能有一些令人討厭的陷阱。貢獻的質量可能很差，也可能是徹頭徹尾的仇恨。當前的加密市場有大量對社會所有成員都不友好的 Meme。話雖如此，但在 NFT 出現之前，有一些合作講故事的項目取得成功的例子。這些都不是新問題。我在一篇 相關閱讀 裏講述了與有限與無限故事寫作的更廣泛的主題。

圍繞這些自下而上項目的一個大問題是知識產權（IP）問題，以及如何對待 IP。一些自上而下的項目現在和將來可能仍會嘗試保留對 IP 的權力。但是我認爲，從長遠利益來看，這是錯誤的方法。NFT 之所以能產生價值，正是因爲它可以嵌入到新的環境中並吸引自己的故事。 如果限制獲取，就意味着關上了這扇大門。大部分價值將歸於 NFT，而不是 IP。話雖如此，一些項目會弄清楚如何有效地管理這個中間地帶。不過，把握航向確實難度更大。

就像（thejaymo.net 創始人） Jay Springett 回覆的那樣。你想要的是 寬鬆式 IP 許可和能力強大的粉絲。我們將迎來小說和講故事的新時代，我很高興看到這一切全面綻放！如果我錯過了任何例子，敬請分享！

What Ethereum Investors Should Know About NFTs and These Cartoon Cats

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“Stoner Cats” is a cute and funny adult cartoon about cats that get up to all kinds of misadventures. It’s voiced by big-time celebrities like Mila Kunis and Chris Rock, but you can’t find Stoner Cats on any cable network or streaming platform.

To watch it, you have to buy one of the show’s NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, using a cryptocurrency called Ethereum. The initial run of “Stoner Cats” NFTs — collectible, unique images of cats in the digital animation style of the series — has already sold out, at .35 ETH apiece, or just over $1,000 (depending on the price of Ethereum). That’s a lot of money to watch an animated series about cats.

“Stoner Cats” turned to NFTs as a way to crowdfund production after facing difficulty getting the show cleared through traditional Hollywood routes, says Lisa Sterbakov, production director at Orchard Farm Productions, the company behind the series. Production partner Mila Kunis had the idea to tap into the crypto-adjacent NFT phenomenon that popped up earlier this year, she says.

NFTs — which have drawn attention from mainstream companies ranging from American Express to Gucci — are most commonly built on the Ethereum blockchain. For investors betting on a long-term increase in the value of Ethereum, more people buying ether for NFTs has potential to be a very good thing.

What Are NFTs?

First, let’s break down the term ”non-fungible.”

Fungibility has to do with whether or not something is interchangeable. Think about cash — like a dollar bill, says Dr. Merav Ozair, a fintech professor at Rutgers Business School and a leading expert on blockchain technology. If you go to the store, the cashier is not going to care which of your dollar bills you use to pay — they are interchangeable, and therefore fungible.

Even cryptocurrency can be fungible. It’s generally not a good idea to make purchases with Bitcoin, but if you do use it to transact with a merchant, it doesn’t matter which particular portion of your Bitcoin holdings you spend.

If something like cash is fungible, then non-fungible is simply “everything that is unique,” says Ozair. “It could be a video, a photo, something from the physical world like real estate.”

But what about a “non-fungible token?”

A token is a digital representation of an asset created on a blockchain. Tokenizing something means “it has a code and the code will say exactly when it was created and what features it has,” says Ozair. “And because the blockchain is transparent and traceable and trackable, everyone can see what happens to the token.”

So a non-fungible token is a digital representation of a unique asset that exists on a blockchain, and it cannot be interchanged with another entity. Because NFTs exist digitally, you can make NFTs for digital assets like photographs, video clips, and even tweets.

Why Are NFTs So Expensive?

When it comes to NFT prices, “Stoner Cats’” NFTs may be considered a steal: some NFTs are selling for millions of dollars. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, sold his first tweet as an NFT for $2.9 million in March, for example. But can’t anyone still go to Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account, scroll all the way to the bottom, and see that tweet for themselves?

Yes, anyone can view the tweet, but now only one person owns that tweet. To NFT collectors, it’s a distinction that matters.

“Anyone can see the Mona Lisa. You can even take a picture of the Mona Lisa, blow it up to a great quality and hang it on your wall, as an almost-exact replica,” says Ozair. “But the photo is not the original. Only the museum can say ‘This is the original one,’ and they have documentation and experts to verify that it is.”

So you could find Jack Dorsey’s first tweet right now, take a screenshot, and save it to your desktop. And you can hang a hyper-realistic poster of the Mona Lisa on your wall. But you cannot make any ownership claims over them in the way the NFT owner or museum can.

“The power of NFTs is authentication,” says Ozair. “You can authenticate that this one is the original one.” Just like authentication is what sets the priceless Mona Lisa original apart from a $20 poster, it can also increase the value of original digital assets to certain buyers.

What Should Investors Know About Buying NFTs?

Buying an NFT is like buying a collectors item or a piece of artwork. The NFT just verifies that whatever you purchase is authentic.

“As a hobby, this can be fun and interesting,” says Theresa Morrison, a CFP with the Beckett Collective. “A select few NFTs will rise to the collectible status as society attaches and reaffirms the item’s value.”

And that’s the gamble: “Good luck picking ‘the one,’” she says.

But for investors interested in Ethereum and cryptocurrency more generally, NFTs could have another effect. They’re typically created on the Ethereum blockchain — which is the second largest cryptocurrency by volume. Because NFTs are trading on the platform, and you have to buy them with ether (Ethereum’s native coin), more interest and activity in NFTs could mean more people are likely to buy into the Ethereum network — a good thing for investors, says Michael Angelucci, a CFP and financial advisor at Level Financial Advisors in Buffalo, New York.

“It’s the demand for the coin driving the price up,” Angelucci says.

People who bought a “Stoner Cats” NFT were able to use it as a key to access the show, and their limited run of NFTs made it possible to “reverse finance content,” says Maaria Bajwa, principal at SoundVentures, the venture capital and private equity firm that assisted the project. “We used NFTs as a new mechanism for both content creation and content distribution.”

For crypto investments, experts recommend sticking with the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum. And this type of innovation is an example of why investing experts say Ethereum, unlike Bitcoin, has more inherent utility — which in turn spells potential for it to continue increasing in value as a foundation for more such innovation.

If NFT technology interests you, that might be a reason to add Ethereum to your crypto portfolio, instead of buying up NFTs as a store of value.

At best, NFTs are a “very aggressive and highly concentrated position,” Morrison says. “If it wins the payoff is big, however not many people will celebrate.”

Most long-term investors will be better served by allocating only a small portion of their portfolio (less than 5%, and never at the expense of meeting other financial goals) to cryptocurrency rather than to an NFT, says Morrison. “Buy an NFT for fun, because you like it. Buy Ethereum, Bitcoin for investment.”

Mila Kunis’ Animated ‘Stoner Cats’ Series Released as NFTs

What’s the kitty been smoking? Fan favorite actress Mila Kunis (That 70’s Show, Family Guy, Bad Moms) has released the new animated series Stoner Cats, by far the highlight of this past month. Kunis teamed with Chris Cartagena (The Grinch), Sarah Cole (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), and Ash Brannon (Toy Story 2) under the Orchard Farm Productions banner to create the show, which features (surprise, surprise) a bunch of weed smokin’ felines. Each episode is slated to run 5-7 minutes.

Interestingly, the first episode of the series was released as 10,420 NFTs on July 28th, which sold out within 30 minutes. Each episode was sold for .35 ETH, or approximately $8 million in cold hard American dollars. While NFTs are still new, strange, and misunderstood by many, there is a huge market for those wanting to own a piece of entertainment history.

The experimental series’ Manifesto explains, “At Stoner Cats we believe that storytellers deserve an outlet where they can be valued and supported without having to bow to the machine of big media. So we’re tilting the model on its head and testing a new architecture using NFTs that can connect storytellers directly with their audience and essentially decentralize content production.”

How can you watch the show if you don’t own a NFT TOKEn (nice)? That answer is a bit hazy. It currently seems that only owners can watch the exclusive content. Hopefully that changes soon because we’d really like to watch the fuzzy shenanigans. Either way, the series begs the question: is this the future of entertainment?

Stoner voice talent includes: Kunis as Fefe, Seth MacFarlane as Dave/Reginald, Ashton Kutcher as Baxter, Jane Fonda as Ms. Stoner, Vitalik Buterin as Lord Catsington, and Chris Rock as Hamilton.