December Update

In this style, next year, each month will have an update. These posts will be much like you probably expect.

Content

I will be adding a new category of posts, as I intend to do at least one long format post about music every month. Sometimes this will be more often. I may venture into other areas, as I intend to continue experimentation.

zkSync Era

This month we launched the meme token, $BALLS on the zkSync Era blockchain. This token is something that Jean and I have been discussing/planning for many months now. We’ve received quite a surprising amount of interest. We haven’t exactly dug ourselves out of poverty, but it is still incredibly exciting. The token has been fully generated, and we expect to reach DEX listing very soon. I’ll post about that when we get there. The future is bright, and you gotta have $BALLs!!

NFTs

I continue to offer my own art, mostly set in the fictional universe of Exoteric, on several fronts. Lens is sort of the ‘proto-release’ area with conversation and community being the core. The Uncut Network is home to the majority of low priced, readily available NFTs. In news there, the Only Shadow collection will be coming to a close in January. This region of the Exoteric World is very likely to show up again in the future. The Cost of Magic collection will move to the forefront at Uncut. Details forthcoming.

Fiction

The fictional Storyverse called Exoteric will continue to grow. Each NFT release has included some light flavor text, adding small details to the world. As focused NFT collections begin and end, so will the stories of the related region. I am working on a knowledge base that will debut soon. It will always be a work in progress. An ebook is planned covering The Only Shadow story, including the all the current images used for NFTs, as well as new art, and the story that ties it all together.

Knowledge Base

The upcoming knowledge base will be reminiscent of an RPG manual written in the wiki format. Once I’ve completed a sufficient amount of its skeleton, I’ll make it public while I continue to add to it. The Knowledge Base will become increasingly important to the Exoteric project, as I hope others will want contribute their own stories, art, music, design, etc within the Exoteric multiverse. Anyone interested is welcome to contact me at any time, but I won’t actually be seeking out other creators to collaborate with until I’ve made more of the setting public.

That’s all folks!

December can be a tough time. I hope that my efforts can provide some pleasure to others. The goal is to make my vision come to life, in a way that is fun and relatable; to create a massive fictional context, in which others want to add to themselves, becoming fans and creators.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Thank you all for your purchases, support, companionship, and inspiration.

Jack Lhasa

The Short Story

I minted my first NFT in 2021. On the WAX chain. A simple pic that I was using for profiles at the time. I spent the next 2 years doing mostly test mints. Learning how things worked on different chains and in different markets.

Minted stuff that no one else ever saw. Or I sent directly to friends. I took this across many blockchains, learning the nuances of their NFT processes. I used the following blockchains: WAX, Polygon, BSC, Pixie, Base, Optimism, Degen, Zora, & more.

What that gave me was a broad appreciation for NFTs as a medium and the skill to create them anywhere.

LENS chamged that forever. It’s so much easier on the creator, the collector, and the trader. No other protocol has anything so easily used. And now, as Lens migrates from Polygon to a dual-chain system based on ZK rollups, it is poised to change the world’s view of NFTs, as well as revolutionize web3 social media.

Lens is a Game Changer.

Originally posted on lens 04/27/2024. Edited for blog use on 12/30/2024.

Future Provings

The most pressing feature of dapps that no group is doing is NFT curation. Like a lot of people, I have tons of NFTs. Music, video, lens posts, art, literature, etc. and it’s nearly impossible to find any single NFT without trouble.

We need searchable galleries. We need to be able to organize them in a variety of ways. Some apps allow the user the ability to ‘spotlight’ or grouping into niches, but they don’t go very deep.

This is also a really important step to widespread adoption of crypto and NFTs. Owning hundreds or thousands of NFTs without a smart organization tool is incredibly draining, and eventually leads NFTs to be treated like piles in a hoarder’s house. How can mainstream users ever understand the capabilities of NFTs while their oldest NFTs sink to the bottom?

If anyone knows an app that is already doing this, please reply and let me know. As of now, orna.art is the best in this endeavor, but they are limited to Lens, and therefore don’t provide the necessity of doing this across chains and protocols.

Jack Lhasa