Monark Market has integrated the Darkblock Protocol into its marketplace, allowing creators of metaverse assets—whether environments, wearables, art, or metaverse decor—to use Darkblock to encrypt and attach their creations to NFTs in the form of unlockable content. 

Integrating Darkblock fit with Monark’s goal to provide simple, creator-focused solutions to bring the metaverse further into the mainstream, according to Michael Shoup, CEO of Monark Market.

Michael was developing his own back-end solution to help creators protect their IP when they sell it on his marketplace, and to help consumers who need to download and reupload their metaverse assets into their preferred virtual world, when he stumbled upon Darkblock.

“The idea here is we want to enable artists to be able to create in whatever fashion they like. We want them to know their IP is protected, deliver the assets in a cool way, and finally pull that into metaverses and other software like games without having to require the users to download. It would simply be there in their metaverse.” 

The Darkblock Protocol and API facilitate file delivery for Monark into the various locations the marketplace is aiming to deliver assets: Unity, Metaverses, etc. Darkblock also plans to facilitate alternative monetization streams in the future for creators on Monark, such as content rental or subscriptions.

You can already find the Darkblock viewer embedded in Monark Market (see image below). 

Go check out their newly launched marketplace and claim their free Polygon Metaverse Party Pack NFT for your next metaverse event, complete with disco ball! 

About Darkblock: 

Darkblock enables creators to distribute and monetize their content in a web3 native way. Using Darkblock, creators can encrypt, permanently store, and immutably attach multimedia content to their NFTs that’s only available to holders—comic books, movies, music, ebooks, podcasts, or 3D metaverse assets. Whether it’s through sales, ad revenue or rentals, Darklock aims to guarantee the flow of income to creators by letting them hold the keys to their content.

Website | Discord | YouTube | Medium | Twitter

About Monark Market:

At Monark, we’re experts at building experiences within the Metaverse, and know all too well the issues surrounding the industry. That’s why we’re excited to be building Monark Market: The Marketplace for the Metaverse, focused on solving 3 main problems we see within the industry today.

Website | Discord | Twitter | Medium

Our mission at Darkblock is to enable creators to harness the power of web3 and realize a new creator economy free from platform control. This series allows us to not only highlight and share the talented work of our community, but gain a better understanding of what tools we need to benefit all of us! 

And on that note, it is our pleasure to introduce Box Rocket Studio. 

Where are you located?

Georgia, California, and Latent Space.

Website / Social:

https://boxrocket.studio/

Twitter: @boxrocketstudio

What medium/tools do you use to create your work?

We are animators – Unreal Engine, Maya primarily – but also motion capture and AI systems.

Do you operate in web2, web3, or both? Why?

Both! We work as professional animators in web2 (day job) but are also building a crypto-native animation workflow. We hope to track and manage our assets with Solana programs.

What blockchain(s) do you operate on, Why?

In our opinion, if you are going to build a decentralized animation studio, Solana is the best one to do it on. Solana is clear and straightforward, it’s designed to be a network that optimizes transactions. 

Additionally, the tooling for using the Solana network is being built under our feet. Phantom wallet has beautiful UX which makes it easy to onboard. 

-Excerpts from box studio’s blog post on choosing Solana. Read the full article here.

Tell us how you are using Darkblock.

We have been prototyping giving access to digital assets to NFT holders and experimenting with Darkblock as a solution. We are developing a project where the holder of the NFT will get access to the corresponding fully animatable character rig and other digital assets. So far we have been testing it with early adopters.  The project is called Bar Bots and the early early website is http://barbots.io. So overall, we are using Darkblock to add utility post-mint. 

What tools/features are most important to you as a creator?

We essentially want/need role gated “dropbox”-like access for network members

Anything coming up? Drops? Events? Twitter Spaces?

We are close to launching our first high-end generative line, the Barbots. We intend to come out of stealth in the new year. We are devising a slow roll out/sale strategy. Head to https://barbots.io/ to learn more. 

Thank you to Box Rocket Studio for taking the time to fill out our survey. We love seeing new faces in our community. 

You can find Box Rocket Studio’s work on their project’s page. Make sure to follow them on Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube. 

Using Darkblock or know a creator who is? Access our Google form here for a chance to be featured on our socials and maybe even collaborate with the Darkblock team! 

Darkblock: Tell us who you are and what you’ve built? 

Ms.Gekko: In real life, or as we say our ‘alter egos,’ I am Mandy and I’m a CPA by trade. I’ve been in the accounting industry for about 20 years. That’s the nine to five and then the five to nine is in web3. We got started with a company called VeVe, and that was where we collected our first NFTs/digital collectibles. We moved into OpenSea, started collecting on Tezos, opened an art gallery, and here we are today—‘G3 Connects,’ connecting people in web3. 

Grebflow: I am Grebflow online, I am Jennifer in real life. My nine to five is an attorney by trade. I work for a federal judge here in Los Angeles. As for the five to nine, let me go back and tell you how Mandy and I first met.

VeVe is what brought us together. We both found VeVe around the same time. My brother and I were investing in cryptocurrency, we found the token that VeVe works with, which is called the Omi Token. He came to me and he says, ‘look at this project…they have an app, they have all this IP, and they’re gonna be working with DC and Marvel.’ So I ran into my teenager’s bedroom and shoved the app in his face and said, ‘don’t you think this is cool?’ And, because he’s a teenager, by law he’s required to shrug and kind of make a grunt. So he did. And I said, ‘let me rephrase this, don’t you think other people will think this is cool?’ And he said, ‘Oh yeah, they’ll buy it up.’

So we both independently did our own research…we both saw this would be hype. Mandy and I were two of some of the founding women of VeVe and we decided to create a group where, though it was inclusive of both men and women, it was specifically founded to welcome women into the NFT space. To have a safe place to land, ask questions, be comfortable and confident. We started doing livestream videos interviewing people on the VeVe team and sharing with the community.

We eventually got introduced and we became fast friends.

Tell us about the transition into the metaverse.

Ms.Gekko: When we started to look at the metaverse at the beginning of the summer, we were trying to take the Tezos artists [we had been supporting and collecting from] from regular shilling on Twitter spaces or just having a profile on Objkt to bring them into OnCyber and show them how to set up galleries. But now we’re bringing them right into the metaverse. So they’re gonna start with that immersive experience and have the ability to promote and advertise in a brand new way that we’ve never seen before and on a global scale.

G3 Connects is your company, who is your audience? What is your product?

Ms.Gekko: That’s a really good question. We dabble in pretty much anything that has to do with web3 and the metaverse. The most frequent types of people we have conversations with are artists. We bring them into the gallery…either we set it up for them or we give them the tools to go off and make it on their own. Once they get their head around, ‘Okay, here’s my gallery, what do I do now?’ That’s where we come in. You have to sit down and figure out what is going to drive you and others to spend time in the metaverse. 

The other group is the Twitter Space tech people. These are the people we talk to every day. These are the crypto and NFT people. We say, ‘don’t you want somewhere to show your NFTs off?’ Or ‘Come in and see what I’m doing?’ That’s where we’ve gotten a lot of traction. 

Grebflow: Our business connects all of the spaces we work in…the gallery, the fashion, the meeting with artists who are onboarding from the physical space…they haven’t even come into the NFT space, right? They want to know what blockchain do they mint on, how many NFTs do they mint? What’s the price point they should have? Where are we in this climate, in the bear market, where should that land? There’s a whole host of questions that we have when we meet and consult with them. And so when you try to nail us down, you’re not going to be able to. If you ask us next week, we’re gonna add something else. We’re very open. 

You’ve built almost a yellow pages of the metaverse…

Ms. Gekko: Yes, so we’ve got meta event planning, art, music, wellness, gaming, education. Plus, at the middle we have the hub, which is the calendar of events. This is basically anything that we know that’s going on in web3. We encourage people to reach out to us. So if you are on Twitter and you have something to promote, please reach out to us. We want to give back to a space that has taught us so much. We have learned that it’s trial by fire. We have paid our tuition through monetary loss, asset loss, sleep loss, all kinds of things. It gives us a very unique perspective. Coming from the accounting side and the legal side, that’s where we can also build our own contracts and financial statements. In a couple of years, look out for a legal and accounting firm in the metaverse.

What is your take on Darkblock?

Ms. Gekko: Do you know that gif on Twitter of Jonah Hill going…

Yeah.

We are avid NFT collectors. There has to be utility. The unlockable part is a must have. When Grebflow talks to artists, she has to talk very frankly about mint sizes, prices. She explains what is selling and for what amount. She doesn’t hold back. But one of the things that we can recommend is ‘add utility.’ That’s where the unlockables come in…We have so many environments that we wanna be able to rent. We also have so many incredible pieces of art that maybe you don’t want to spend a hundred dollars on, but you want to rent that piece of art to show at your party for a night. Once that is available and the masses come, we will be ready. That will be our income stream. We’re not going to wait to start when that’s possible. We’re going to be ready to turn the key and open the door. 

Tell us about the web3 space.

Grebflow: Everyone’s working together. Not everything has to be a money grab. It’s about relationships…I have access to folks who are willing to help, who can help, who want to share ideas. And it’s not about stealing and trampling over each other. There’s a different vibe in this space compared to the competitive worlds that we each come from. Especially women in those competitive worlds where we’re fighting even harder to stay on an even keel with men. We hear the whispers of women in web3. Let’s onboard more women and allow this space to be where women shine. We’re [women] known for making those connections and bringing people together. 

Any advice?

Ms. Gekko: What I always like to close out with is this: challenge yourself to figure out what your role is in web3. Don’t wait for things to happen and say, ‘oh, I could do that.’ Do it and do it now. 

Big thanks to Ms. Gekko and Grebflow for taking time out of their jam-packed days to sit down with us and chat about the metaverse. We love what you are doing for the space and are excited to be in your corner! 

Tune into Darkblock Presents every Thursday on Youtube Live and make sure to send us your questions, topics, and guest suggestions!

Our mission at Darkblock is to enable creators to harness the power of web3 and realize a new creator economy free from platform control. This series allows us to not only highlight and share the talented work of our community, but gain a better understanding of what tools we need to benefit all of us! 

And on that note, it is our pleasure to introduce MegaRetro.

Where are you located?

Denver, Colorado

Website / Social:

https://potentpotionsworld.com

@MegaRetroNFT @PotentPotions_

What medium/tools do you use to create your work?

Many. Procreate, Photoshop, After Effects, Visual Studio Code, Thirdweb, Darkblock!

Do you operate in web2, web3, or both? Why?

Both, to create multiple avenues to build an audience.

What blockchain(s) do you operate on, Why?

Polygon: eco-friendly, mass adoption, fast transactions, low gas fees, layer 2 blockchain

Tell us how you are using Darkblock.

We are using Darkblock to distribute and control access to our comic books in a web3 native way. Anyone can flip through the comic, but the story content pages will be blurred out using Darkblock’s protocol.

What tools/features are most important to you as a creator?

Darkblock! Controlling access to our comic books and animations is critical…It is also important for us to have a platform that works like a storefront for our content, or that has the ability to embed into my website.

Anything coming up? Drops? Events? Twitter Spaces?

We will be releasing our ‘Comic 1’ (using darkblocks!) Q4 2022. We are going through beta-testing and bug-fixing currently with @PrizemArtNFT to ensure the final product on the blockchain is solid for the foreseeable future. We will start advertising the Comic 1 release to Series 2 @PotentPotions_ holders about 3-4 weeks before it’s available. It’s essentially an expensive airdrop for holders of our NFTs. The Comics will also have NFT cover art with many trait possibilities creating rarities within even the cover artwork on the comics. This is cutting edge technology and we are so happy to integrate Darkblock! 

Thank you to MegaRetro for taking the time to fill out our survey. Comic books are a passionate use case of ours, and we love seeing how you are integrating and monetizing your work with our protocol. 

You can find MegaRetro’s work for sale on OpenSea here! To stay up to date on future drops, subscribe to his ‘secrets’ newsletter, follow his twitter accounts (@MegaRetroNFT, @PotentPotions_), and join his discord!

Using Darkblock or know a creator who is? Access our Google form here for a chance to be featured on our socials and maybe even collaborate with the Darkblock team! 

Darkblock: How did you transition from traditional museum curation into digital?

I worked for almost 10 years for the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. I was always more focused on contemporary art and research-based contemporary artistic practices. I’m actually quite new to Web3. I heard about NFTs and I was like, ‘What’s going on here and how will curating work?’ Then I decided to join the amazing team at All.Art/SolSea. 

How does a curator rotate collections? How do you decide what you want to show?

One of the collections that I was in charge of had around 2,000 objects. The process of curating is much slower in real life than in the Web3 space. Some [IRL] exhibitions can take two or three years. It takes a huge team of people working closely with designers, architects, etc. There is a lot of collaboration.

Do you encourage artists to join not only the digital space but NFT land? 

With virtual reality, I think you should look at it kind of critically. Digital art is perfect for NFTs. But if you are working with art whose materiality is important, then maybe not. 

I worked on one exhibition that had so many pieces not ideal for VR. To tell you the truth, it was hell to make that exhibition. Not for me personally, for our 3D techs. In some cases, you shouldn’t turn your art into NFTs.

What you can definitely do and think about is adding different layers of story to the artwork. For example, if you have a painting with different layers, you can deconstruct the artwork and NFT-ize certain parts of it.

Overall, I believe that traditional art or physical art should still exist.

Are there any trends in AI art that you are seeing?

Yes, we’ve seen a significant advancement of AI, especially in the past few months. This artist, Sophia Elvis, takes participants’ dreams and turns them into art using 70% AI and the rest traditional art in Photoshop. It’s amazing what you can do with prompts and entering different things…you can get amazing stuff with AI, it’s a bit scary.

Tell us a little about the last VR exhibition you did.

The last one we did featured a Puerto Rican artist. While we were working on the exhibition, Hurricane Fiona happened. So he would send emails saying ‘Sorry, I didn’t have electricity this week,’ but still send these ideas. A lot of the things he sent were visual materials, like the pink wallpaper you see in the corner. He was passionate about the project and it was really such a pleasure to work with him. It was really a feeling of artists, curators, and designers working together and overlapping not only in real life but in this space as well.

How many virtual halls or exhibitions does All.Art have?

We have around 20 halls available and they vary on how customizable they are. For example we put one artist in a huge temple like the Pantheon called “Temple of Dreams.” She makes this beautiful AI art that works well in the space. But once you use a space like this [temple] for something, you can’t use it too much, it becomes a bit boring and people have already seen it. Hopefully we will work on creating more art galleries, but for now we have about 20 spaces we can use and then a few custom made or clone VR exhibitions. 

The experience of building an exhibition is so different. Working in the physical world, when you want to make an exhibition, someone has to build it. Here, you just have some clicks. Sometimes it feels like I am playing Sims again.

Are there plans for interactivity?

Absolutely. Yes. We can be interacting in five minutes! They’re [the exhibitions] all available for viewing on the web. But they’re also available on headsets on the VR All.Art App, one of the products of the All.Art universe.

For artists without a large following, what do you recommend for them to get involved?

For me, I really don’t think the number of followers on Twitter or Instagram is necessarily the main criteria. We have some really great artists who have 1,000 followers, not 5k or 10K. One of the main things to get on the radar is—and I know it can be a hassle—to apply for collection verification. People are usually scared like, ‘I’m not gonna apply for collection verification because I don’t have all the followers.’ Doesn’t matter. Apply. You just have to be a real person who wants to try and we’ll work the rest out together.

Big thanks to Jovana for taking the time to sit down with us and chat about NFTs and the future of virtual exhibitions.

Tune into Darkblock Presents every Thursday on Youtube Live and make sure to send us your questions, topics, and guest suggestions!

Our mission at Darkblock is to enable creators to harness the power of web3 and realize a new creator economy free from platform control. This series allows us to not only highlight and share the talented work of our community, but gain a better understanding of what tools we need to benefit all of us! 

And on that note, it is our pleasure to introduce Songs of Eden.

Where are you located?

Sweden

Website / Social:

www.songsofedenmusic.com

@songsofeden

What medium/tools do you use to create your work?

Logic, DaVinci Resolve

Do you operate in web2, web3, or both? Why?

Both! I have a 250k web2 audience that I am trying to onboard into web3. 

What blockchain(s) do you operate on, Why?

Eth. It’s the biggest and everybody is familiar with it.

What tools/features are most important to you as a creator?

TV app and getting straight into Spatial via Darkblock.

Tell us how you are using Darkblock.

I use Darkblock for the ability to add utility post mint.

Anything coming up? Drops? Events? Twitter Spaces?

A lot….:)

Thank you to Songs of Eden for taking the time to fill out our survey and for always spreading the word about Darkblock in your community! 

To stay up to date on Songs of Eden’s work, subscribe to his music wherever you listen and follow him on social! (Instagram and Twitter)

Using Darkblock or know a creator who is? Access our Google form here for a chance to be featured on our socials and maybe even collaborate with the Darkblock team!

Our mission at Darkblock is to enable creators to harness the power of web3 and realize a new creator economy free from platform control. This series allows us to not only highlight and share the talented work of our community, but gain a better understanding of what tools we need to benefit all of us! 

And on that note, it is our pleasure to introduce Prizem.

Where are you located?

San Francisco Bay Area, California

Website / Social:

spatial.io/@prizemartnft

@PrizemArtNFT

What medium/tools do you use to create your work?

Code

Do you operate in web2, web3, or both? Why?

Web3, digital art focus

What blockchain(s) do you operate on? , Why?

Solana, super low transaction fees (no gas wars), credit card like crypto experience.

What tools/features are most important to you as a creator?

Tools to help create and connect with my community

Tell us how you are using Darkblock.

I use Darkblock as a way to give back to Prizem holders and projects I partner with. Darkblock also has great documentation and team members. I collaborate often with SongsOfEden and PotentPotions. SongsOfEden provides concert videos for NFT holders and using Darkblock for those videos instead of OpenSea’s shared contract just made sense. Potent Potions is launching a comic book that I helped develop a flippable NFT book for. We used Darkblock so only NFT holders can unlock the locked pages. 

What are you most excited about in web3?

Freedom! My local environment is too small for me. I feel the need to spread my work/feelings around the world. Web3 opens the doors of the world to my art. All it needs is patrons!

Anything coming up? Drops? Events? Twitter Spaces?

I co-host Twitter spaces every Metaverse Monday @ 12pm PST!

Thank you to Prizem for taking the time to fill out our survey and be such an integral member of the Darkblock community! We look forward to following your Darkblock journey. 

To stay up to date on Prizem’s work, join his weekly Metaverse Mondays @ 12pm PST! 

Using Darkblock or know a creator who is? Access our Google form here for a chance to be featured on our socials and maybe even collaborate with the Darkblock team! 

Our mission at Darkblock is to enable creators to harness the power of web3. We want to build a new creator economy free from platform control. This series allows us to not only highlight and share the talented work of our community, but gain a better understanding of what tools we need to benefit all of us! 

And on that note, it is our pleasure to introduce creator Isabelle Gouget.

Where are you located?

France

Website / Social:

https://isabelle-gouget.com/

https://linktr.ee/isabellegouget

What medium/tools do you use to create your work?

Pastel, Blender 3D and/or Photoshop

What blockchain(s) do you operate on?

Tezos

Tell us how you are using Darkblock.

Protecting my artwork is very important, that’s why I use Kalamint. On Kalamint.io, you cannot easily copy the image using right-click-save. I use Darkblock to provide a digital file that the buyer can print for their personal use. That way, the world can still benefit from my artwork, even outside of France, and I can live off my art.

What are you most excited about in web3?

Freedom! My local environment is too small for me. I feel the need to spread my work/feelings around the world. Web3 opens the doors of the world to my art. All it needs is patrons!

Anything coming up? Drops? Events? Twitter Spaces?

 I have an Exhibition in France October 22-30th, 2022:

https://isabelle-gouget.com/25-salon-des-artistes-peintres-et-sculpteurs-de-pontivy/

It’s almost Christmas…think about me when looking for a gift   

I am also preparing a puzzle game with NFTs. The goal is to bring together all the pieces of an image. The first to buy all the pieces in order wins a prize! Darkblock allows me to provide a model of the image (for reconstruction), a user manual, and the ability to download the purchased piece of image. The first puzzle piece is already listed here if you want to partake! https://kalamint.io/editions/6615 

Thank you to Isabelle for being our first featured creator! We look forward to following your Darkblock journey! To stay up to date on Isabelle’s work by signing up for her newsletter here.

Using Darkblock or know a creator that is? Access our google form here for a chance to be featured on our socials and maybe even collaborate with the Darkblock team! 

Darkblock: Where’d you come from? How did you come up with Exchange Art? 

 I actually came from PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was a director in the technology consulting practice. To put that in perspective, it’s a level below partner. I saw an opportunity with web3, and I didn’t wanna miss it.

I saw a clear market gap within the Solana blockchain for fine art. So as a marketplace, we went in that direction. If we think about the previous 12 months from when we launched, it was about $200,000 in sales. Now…it’s considerably more. We’ve had  over $11 million paid out to creators and collectors in the past 10 months.

Exchange Art just closed a $3.2M seed round. What are you planning to do with the money?

When we first started Exchange Art, we actually bootstrapped it. Then we did the raise but that happened at the heart of the bear market. If you’ve ever fundraised, it is not the most ideal market conditions. Despite this, we were able to raise at a very fair valuation. In terms of what we’re doing with the capital, it’s really about continuing to build tools for Exchange Art. Exchange Art is the leading fine art marketplace on Solana. Our bread and butter is not focusing on, what is called in the industry, a Degen trader (someone that doesn’t care about art, they want a collectable they can trade). We care about creators. Our focus is to continue to provide amazing tooling so that creators can go to market in many different ways. That is very different from, let’s say, an OpenSea or Magic Eden. They’re very focused on building tools so that traders can trade a high velocity of speculative collectibles. We just aren’t in that business. They are so different in terms of what they stand for and the behaviors of the users that collect them. 

How do you get a creator like John Le Studio into your ecosystem? 

John is not just a normal talent, he is an extraordinary talent. He is like the Moebius of our time.  I’m putting him up there with some of the greatest illustrators that ever walked. It’s not just his ability to create, it’s his ability to brand, communicate, and articulate the meaning in his work. That’s really his X factor. I think he’s going to have as big of an impact on Solana as XCOPY had with Ethereum. In fact, he’s doing things that XCOPY never did. For example, he went to Capitol Hill to talk on behalf of Solana on the benefits of the blockchain for artists. Very smart guy, very talented. We are thrilled that he continues to sell exclusively on Exchange Art. 

How do you make yourself a 1/1 artist-friendly location?

For us, it’s really about talking to the users. Community is everything. From day one, I wanted to provide a platform for creators to unlock their potential. It’s not just on our core platform, it’s also our marketing channels. That’s one of the things that has really differentiated us. Also, I always wanted to be accessible to help artists. This is a tough world. This is a new world. It’s a completely different paradigm shift on how artists sell. I want to make sure each one of them unlocks their potential. Our incentives are directly aligned to the artist making more money. 

It’s in our best interest to provide coaching sessions, workshops, all kinds of capabilities that teach them how to market, how to communicate their work, and new techniques that can unlock future creative works. Helping grow collectives, helping grow collector investment DAOs, and helping grow this core ecosystem beyond just the platform is what has enabled Exchange Art, and for that matter, Solana, to continue to grow. It’s doing things differently, right? Like there are material differences between Ethereum and Solana that I think are really cool. There’s a lot more of these collectives that exist within Solana.

So you’ve got the fine art market nailed down. What about other media types? 

One of the things that I wanna do is open up capabilities that can unlock future markets. Like, how do you provide utility for music? Maybe you put music within a profile. All of a sudden this music NFT that I have has scarcity and value within a platform. One of the things I keep thinking about is, what can I do that allows us to have this core business very focused, but also enable an ecosystem. There probably is going to be a dominant music marketplace and that’s probably not gonna be us. But how can we partner to help their growth? Ultimately, my goal is to get as many humans onto Solana as possible. I recognize that there’s gonna be different businesses that exist within Solana. The idea of only having one marketplace, that’s not gonna enable the growth of the ecosystem right now. You need specific tooling for specific use cases. So I think you need to allow certain markets to develop independently from an aggregator. 

You’ve added a new chat feature to your website…what was your thought behind this?

The idea is to be open and inclusive. With fine art, the reality is that it’s a devil and a good. It gets expensive. And there are a lot of artists that have friends that want to show support but cannot afford to put in a bid. We wanted to create a situation, an environment, an event around an auction where friends can support friends. They can root them on and create excitement. It’s also a great way for collectors to kind of talk a little smack which is fun. It’s less about being social and more about making things fun.

What are you excited about in the pipeline that you can talk about?

We’re moving from a Web2 login for creators. They [currently] use their email to log in, but now they can connect their wallet and manage their profiles from multiple wallets. So that’s really exciting. It’s kind of simple, but it’s something that I think is an important step to moving to Web3.

The other thing that I’m excited about is for creators to be able to ‘follow’ and the integration of a deeper notification system. One of the things people don’t realize about how crazy our product market fit is, is that people are being retained without a retention mechanism. Right now, people are coming back organically. They’re not coming back because we’re pulling them back. So it tells you the real potential of what the next month looks like when you actually have a retention mechanism in your funnel that can pull people back. So the ability to have email notifications and that whole notification flow is a big theme over the next quarter.

The other thing that we’re looking at is the potential of unlockables. That’s something over the next quarter that we’re definitely exploring with y’all. Again, our goal is to continue to provide tools specifically for artists and give them new creative capabilities. Cause like what do unlockables provide? That’s a new way creators can market, right? Every single new contract that we deploy, whether it was buy now, offers, auctions, the additions, all of these are new ways that artists can market. Unlockables is another way that artists are gonna be able to market. That’s really our focus, how do we keep building cool tools for artists.

The lessons learned in Web2, building an audience, keeping people notified. This mechanism that’s been built. How do we bring that over to Web3 without violating that?

It’s not really about Web2 versus Web3. It’s a question of whether you want to be a platform or an aggregator. That is actually the fundamental question. With a platform, the whole makes more than the platform. Whereas if you look at Facebook, their perspective is, ‘I wanna make the most money.’ The creators do not make money relative to how much money Facebook makes on advertisements. It is a completely disproportionate relationship.  If you look at their most recent model, I think it’s like 47.5% that they want to take in the metaverse. That is a question of values and principles. Do you wanna be a platform or an aggregator? Microsoft—great example—chose to be a platform. They could have extracted an immense amount of value from the software industry. They chose to let an ecosystem grow. Right? You see companies like Apple today. They’re choosing to act more like an aggregator than a platform. They continue to restrict innovation in Web3 en mass. So that’s more the question I ask. Do I want to be a platform and allow people to make tons of money and grow the whole pie? Or do I want to eat the world? It’s a tough thing as a company because you’re always trying to grow, but that is the fundamental question you always have to ask yourself…what do you wanna be?

What projects are you guys working on? Are you playing in this big PFP community? 

There are amazing opportunities to invest in talented artists and the amazing art that they create.  We wanna make sure that they [the artists] get education around those opportunities. So we partnered with DeGods. We’re also partnering with Degen Apes. There’s a lot of really amazing PFP communities. We got some exciting stuff with the MonkeDAO that’s coming. For us, anything that is generative is not on Exchange Art. We draw a really clear line that we wanna be known for something. I think that brand awareness, growing, and educating communities on why we are special and different, has been really critical to our growth. People know what to expect when they come to Exchange Art. They do not want to see things like generative projects. There are plenty of sites that can do that. That’s what makes us really special is that clear brand identity.

Big thanks to Adam for putting on one more hat this week and answering all of our  questions. Hopefully there will be more Darkblock x Exchange Art content on the horizon.

Tune into Darkblock Presents every Thursday on Youtube Live and make sure to send us your questions, topics, and guest suggestions!