Welcome to the Graveyard Shift Weekly Recap. The goal of these blog posts is to provide context going into each weekend's graveyard shift twitter spaces.
Yes you can mint the article for under $10 if you would like and that is more to support our efforts each week and make the twitter spaces better.
How to use mirror on Optimism
- Go to Hop Exchange Bridge
- Send a small amount of ETH to Optimism Layer 2 from ETH mainnet (EXAMPLE)
- Navigate to the GraveyardShift mirror
- Select any blog entry
- Connect your wallet to mirror and switch to the optimism network when prompted by metamask
- You will now see the small amount of ETH you sent to the Layer 2 and you can mint the article
- Congrats you now have a NFT on OP and you might get an airdrop in the future for using OP
Tweet of the day
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Squirt11es Thoughts
What a crazy week in crypto! Even with less people on crypto twitter there is plenty happening. From discord hacks, to Yuga security team calling out hacks before they happen and the industry wanting drama so much that Elon selling BTC in the past was represented as a current event.
On top of all that, ETH has been grinding upwards. Refusing to be defeated by the macro market and crypto FUD. I’ll talk about the merge more in the coming weeks once we pass the last testnet dress rehearsal in early August.
Back on topic, this week we saw every example of why it’s important to resist the temptation to sprint through the market. When everyone is getting desperate for gains it’s easy to take advantage of those people sprinting.
Multiple discords compromised and multiple big twitter accounts hacked. No need to get into the details about how these things happened because that’s not the point of my thought here.
If you see an account make a surprise announcement with time sensitive actions for you to take, stop sprinting! Slow down and think to yourself, is this limited time opportunity worth losing all my NFTs. Is the app asking me to confirm a transaction that costs gas? If true, simply stop.
This industry will smack you in the back of the head until you slow down and think before taking action.
If a project or twitter account is compromised try to show some compassion to that account because they are the victims who got socially engineered into losing their followers' money. Not saying they are at no fault but take the opportunity to educate people instead of running them out of town.
Stay safe and have a great week!
Phibacka31 Thoughts
Death Nut Challenge - WOW. I am glad I’m alive today. I actually LOVE spicy foods, but that last nut for the Death Nut Challenge is ridiculous. The thing is, it was fun. It was another way to bring a community(BAYC) together in the most ridiculous way. I think that’s the truly underrated and not thought of part about NFTs. A rock solid community can do wonders.
A Look Back
Dapper Labs- I really have been in the reflecting space in life and in NFTs and wow has a ton changed. I was thinking back to the run up of Top Shot and thinking I would soon be retiring with all of the Lebron and Zion moments I had collected. Boy was I wrong. The thing is though, it wasn’t Dapper’s fault. Well some of it was, but we all should have known when every Ish Smith (Sorry Ish, I am sure you would kick my ass) moment was going for over $75-100 USD. That is not sustainable. Dapper succeeded though. They truly changed the game and brought in a MASS of people who now make up a bedrock of the NFT space. Pretty neat when you think about it.
The thing that they did that was genius was almost “hiding” the idea of the blockchain and crypto to the average every day sports collector. The truth of the matter is, if we can bring people in with kid gloves with alternatives to using crypto that includes credit and debit cards we will see this space explode. I know that I wasn’t truly ready to go full time crypto love when I first got into NBA Top Shot in January 2021, but guess what it did. It got me into the ecosystem. It opened my eyes to what crypto and blockchain CAN do if we would like it to. I thank Dapper for that.
RUGS! - Another aspect that I have marinated on in my reflection time are the amazing relationships I formed through actual rugged small projects. Yes, you heard that right, RUGGED projects. That truly was where I felt like home. I was able to make true friends in those small communities that would help shape my trajectory through NFTs to this point as well. Now of course some of those relationships have changed but goodness am I glad I had that crew with the Nameless and Keys projects to lean on throughout this journey.
BAYC- I just have to think back on BAYC. The idea of them GIVING AWAY a Bored Ape because they hadn’t sold out after 5 days. THAT IS INSANE, and shows just how much the NFT game has changed. I remember tagging a good friend in the space and him DMing me asking to not tag him as he was constantly tagged in giveaways. Im glad I did, as we both ended up minting Bored apes and still hold to this day.
I also think about the founders. My goodness have things changed. There is no world in which they thought their project would be what it is today. A pilar within the space. I imagine them stressing over delivery and not disappointing as the bar has consistently been raised for them, and for good reason. I think of the early days where there were only a few hundred, 1,000 people in the discord and we were shooting the shit with Gordon and Garga and fam. WOW has a year made an enormous difference. In that vein I truly believe they are far and away the leaders in the space and will continually have pressure through it all. Thank goodness for that strong bedrock of a community that has continued to innovate within and outside of the YUGA ecosystem. That’s what a strong community can do. It can change the trajectory of everything.
Most Will Fail- My last thought is on the more “sad” side of things. As I’ve reflected it has become so clear how many of the projects over the past year will not make it. Most of the time it has little to do with what they have done, but rather how the space as a whole has reacted. That’s the toughest part as a founding team. The target is continually changing and adjusting. The “META” changes as much as some of you degens change your underwear. We will see what happens, but without funding teams will fall apart. Maybe some will join forces, maybe some will be acquired, but in the end only a few of the projects to this point will truly make it. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the ride. The big wigs are coming and when they get here the stakes will be raised. We shall see who’s ready.
Dontfeedwolfeth Thoughts
Twitter, Discord & Accountability
With all the Twitter compromises as of late I’m surprised to not see a Gordon Goner equivalent tweet, that substitutes the word Discord for Twitter: “Twitter isn’t working for web3 communities. We need a better platform that puts security first.”
The irony is that Discord is more web3 than Twitter. Discord has zero advertisements, requires little to no KYC and is very much a self-custody system. Discord can also be token-gated thanks to Collab and Vulcan, making it as Web3 as we are willing for it to be. The compromises on Discord are more avoidable and we have more power to stop them by employing the right people to manage Discord.
With Twitter, we are at the hands of a central authority that provides limited tools to manage the rampant scams and issues. Furthermore Twitter collects our data and it appears that data can be used to compromise us.
But I’m not here to try and win the debate over Discord versus Twitter. I’m also not here to attack Gordon, Betty, or any of the other influential voices who take a strong stance against Discord but remain mum when it comes to Twitter. I’m just trying to point out the irony and also remind everyone of the common denominator across all these attacks and compromises.. Our wallets.
Issue with our Wallets
How we manage the assets in those wallets. How users are still minting from their main wallets with little to no research into what they’re connecting to nor any understanding of the transactions they are signing.
I’ve already had multiple rants on improving UX, making wallets easier to use and not easy to compromise. But what I haven’t done yet is mention Tokenproof and champion the idea of services that allow us to connect our wallets once and utilize the utility of NFTs elsewhere without having to connect the asset again to anything else. I’m not sponsored by or affiliated with them, neither is the Graveyard Shift, just a huge fan of what they are doing and trying to encourage more products to emerge like that.
User Security
Lastly, I do want to say that those of us who are here now and operating in this space must do so with the understanding of the high risks we are taking. Therefore it is on each individual to protect themselves. Purchasing a ledger is one step, but ensuring you aren’t connecting your ledger-connected metamask to mint is another step. Separating your assets into multiple wallets and having a hot minting wallet separate from your cold storage is another step. Considering having a separate device for crypto/nfts and not carrying it on your mobile phone is another step. Security can go deep.
All of us are accountable for our actions.