NFTs, NBA Top Shots, Robinhood's PR Nightmare, Oh My
Solo episode today and we’ve got a lot to cover. We’re going over Facebook and the Australian government, the new craze of Top Shot and NFTs, Robinhood’s PR crisis, and the importance of brand trust, and some more. Here's your cheatsheet:
Facebook?
Facebook had blocked news links in Australia two weeks ago as a new law neared passage. The legislation includes a code of conduct that would allow media companies to bargain individually or collectively with digital platforms over the value of their news content. A lot of people had problems with this. Users became upset when a flood of false or misleading pages filled the information void, spreading bogus theories on the perils of 5G wireless technology and false claims about Covid-19 vaccinations. So anyways, Google started striking deals with media companies, but Facebook held firm against the proposed legislation.
WTF is an NFT?
Non-fungible token (NFT) are digital assets that represent a wide range of unique tangible and intangible items, from collectible sports cards to virtual real estate and even digital sneakers. One of the main benefits of owning a digital collectible versus a physical collectible like a Pokemon card or rare minted coin is that each NFT contains distinguishing information that makes it both distinct from any other NFT and easily verifiable. Because all NFT data is stored on a blockchain, they cannot be destroyed, removed or replicated.
So what is an NBA Top Shot?
It’s basically a digital sports collectible item. What you can do is buy NBA moments, aka highlights. An iconic LeBron dunk, Tyler Herro’s first point, whatever it may be. The Top Shot itself is a little cube. The highlight pops up and the cube rotates to reveal stats, or final score of whatever player/moment you bought. If you buy a Top Shot, you now own that moment. It says “owned by” on the bottom of the cube, and you’re the proud owner of a limited edition one of 50, maybe one of 500, maybe one of one.
Basically these have value because the people in the marketplace agree upon it, same way as they do with old baseball trading cards or other collectibles. But these can go beyond sports. Logan Paul made trading cards of himself and sold them. You can go to nbatopshot.com to buy moments, or you can go old school and just trade moments with other owners.
Robinhood's PR Nightmare?
As everyone remembers, last month the Robinhood app, notoriously used by retail investors, announced it was “restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC and $GME. Their whole brand was based on getting the average person interested and involved with the market. Company slogan is “democratize the stock market”… But pulling this stunt fueled the “men in suits” mantra, a mainstream narrative that alludes to how powerful people on Wall Street are the ones actually manipulating, bullying, and controlling the market without ethical checks and balances. Keep in mind, the name Robinhood is ironically centered around the idea of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
And there you have it. More explanation of this all in the episode, plus covering a Coca-Cola fuck-up, Smith College in a racially-charged debate, and a great ending & fuck-it talk from our guy over at Million Dollars Worth of Game, Wallo. Full episode + everything Token HERE.