It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Writing NFTs. You get to stay up to date with the best and brightest this space has to offer, support their journey, and maybe build some cool sh*t when you take into account the token aspect of these collectibles.
But it’s come to my attention that there might be some value in sharing the way I fund my collection with all of you (thanks Rafa). Who would’ve thought you could use the funds you raise through your own pieces to invest in up and coming DeFi Protocols, and earn some nice yields while we’re at it?
It’s the perfect loop: You write, invest, and collect; all in the same network.
If you’d like to learn from the pros, here’s some pointers at people I admire and follow closely when looking for DeFi strategies:
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The DeFi Edge is one of my go-to newsletters, I recently tried out Beefy Finance thanks to their MATIC investment guide. Highly recommend, no matter the size of your bags.
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How could you not love DeFi Dad? Especially when he paints DeFi with such an approachable lens? Investment is no longer for the degens, but the creators.
If I were to offer you some good advice in terms of earning yield and being able to support the creators you love, I’d point out that web3 rewards the curious, there’s no better formula than active participation. OFC, DYOR NFA, keep your funds safu (especially in times like these).
Where I can be of help, is sharing some of my information-sourcing techniques, as well as my reasoning behind being such an avid Writing NFT collector.
Navigating web3 writing.
Having established how I manage to collect around one article a week, sometimes more if my own entries sell. Let’s talk about what I know best, content. And let me tell you, there’s few places as exciting as Mirror to find the cream of the crop in that department.
But, it’s also true that finding good writing in Mirror is infamously hard to do. I’ve often told aspiring writers that their best shot at being discovered is looking for a hybrid approach. Either find a way to send your articles through email, share threads, hope for podcast appearances; anything that will get people actively seeking you out.
Well, what if I told you there’s some web3 native solutions to that as well? Besides Mirror’s new subscribe function, which I consider to be a watershed moment for the platform, there are also some little tips and tricks using your Writing NFTs’ native traits. Such as summoning up Arweave hashes coming from a specific address, or using your ENS as a type of schema.
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Here are some of the tools I use to discover new writing on Mirror:
[Unilateral / Intimate]
Forefront’s Web3 Signal Feed (FYI, you need 100 $FF to access it)
Try searching this on the twitter search bar: http://mirror.xyz filter:links min_retweets:5
“Discover New Entries” feed on Mirror’s Discord server
[Democratic / De-Personalized]
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You’ll notice the spectrum I placed them in. That’s because, as a curator, it’s essential to understand and communicate where your sources are coming from. One of the big advantages I see in tokenized media (and I don’t mean token-gated) lies in helping us overcome our unintentional biases.
The more we understand about connecting the dots from trustworthy, yet diverse, sources; the deeper our insight in all aspects of life will become. Which brings us to.
Note: I’ve also compiled some interesting tools, moments and overall cool shit build in the Mirror ecosystem here
Why make it a point to collect?
Sure, other publishing platforms offer somewhat better perks in terms of discoverability. But what none of them come close to achieving is allowing you to own your audience, or in this case, your connections.
I’ve spoken a lot about NFTs as data points, but I feel like my take on this matter could do with some clarification:
Imagine you want to learn about governance, but most of the best pieces are hidden under gibberish URLs, just look at your search bar right now to understand what I mean. How could you find the resources to understand complex topics like this?
Well, you go straight to a trusted source. In my case, I’d go looking for Chase Chapman, Orca Protocol, and 0xCadena, among others.
But, what if these three sources could be combined to find even more quality information? You could start by looking at Chase’s collection, and find a treasure trove of governance thinking. Taking it a step further, what happens when 0xCadena and Chase both have a piece by the same author in their collections?
That’s the essence of Curatorial Networks. By connecting the dots of trusted sources, you end up solving the discoverability problem web3 publishing suffers from. Keep in mind, you didn’t have to google the word “Governance” once. Just ask a friend of a friend, and you’ll end up building enough of a bibliography to become a world expert before you know it.
These kinds of connections and relationships are exactly what projects like Lens Protocol are achieving and making publicly available. It’s just a matter of time before some visionary launches a web3 music-map, or a fully fledged recommendation engine using curator data.
If that’s the case, what do I curate through my collection? I hear you ask?
Experiments. I love finding new ways of thinking and interesting applications to this beautiful web we’re building. If you’re similarly inclined, I suggest you drop me a “subscribe”.
Curation is a growth mechanic.
But that’s not all that these Networks have to offer. There’s also a curator-side to this formula.
Sure, I may go straight to Chase’s collection to learn about governance. But what does that mean for Chase herself? Through trusting her taste and expertise enough to use her as my starting point; she gets reputation, mentions, and growth: exactly what any creator needs. She becomes a node in my exploration chain, and is rewarded with a bigger reader base as a result.
By collecting pieces she’s interested in within her preferred field, she’s expanding her voice through the people she supports, and the ideas she has backed with her patronage.
In “The Contributor’s Trilemma” I pondered on what happens when your sphere of influence grows beyond what you can offer as a person. Part of that answer may be found in showcasing people who think similarly, and allowing them to connect with your audience. A little piece of your reputation they can carry with them across web3 as they themselves grow.
Collecting is so much more than just supporting your favorite writers with patronage. By signaling who you choose to back to the entire community, you’re also vouching for the author. And earning an established spot as an expert beyond the content and contributions you yourself put out.
Closing thoughts.
We need more nodes (writers) to grow this network, we need more interesting thought processes and healthy debate to push this space forward, and the only way we’ll be able to leverage these perspectives is by using web3 native platforms to plot out narratives and ways of understanding through tokenization.
I’m not here to sell you on the idea of truly owning your audience. The value in that should be self-explanatory. While Mirror may not have the bells and whistles of more popular publishing platforms, it enables so much more to be built on top.
Curatorial Networks are just the beginning of what we could achieve when the discoverability need is met thanks to our community and the data that’s kept in our collections. This is exactly why I refer to Mirror as the web3 Wordpress, rather than comparing it to Substack or Medium. The value this platform offers is so much more than just a blog sharing site.
We just need look beyond the limitations and start thinking of the potential, that’s the web3 ethos. In the meantime, all we’ve got to do to support this mission is to start collecting some dang good writing.