Culture drives society.

It influences what we wear, what we buy and what we listen to.

We’re entering a phase of society where you can invest in the culture you ascribe to.

This post is about why I believe collecting culture is the key unlock for web3.

OG Web3 Culture

The concept of collecting culture in web3 is not new.

When you look at every phase of NFTs from the past 3 years, there is one thing in common - culture.

CryptoPunks were free to mint. They now have a floor of 64 ETH.

Chromie Squiggles were unsold at 0.1 ETH for many months. They now have a floor of 14.5 ETH.

Both are valuable for one reason - culture.

They represent a specific moment in internet history and are owned by the pioneers that made that possible.

They’re a status symbol, and a way to show that you are a part of the early generation of believers in digital assets.

But they represent an existing generation.

Collectors who have poured their blood sweat and tears into the space.

Those who lived through the bear market and lived to tell the tale.

But it’s time for a new generation of collectors.

New Web3 Culture

Collecting culture needs to be synonymous with the content we experience everyday.

Whether it’s Spotify, Instagram or Tiktok - culture is presented to us every moment.

Rather than collecting a pixelated avatar or generative art, the new generation will collect content.

Now - referring to all art as content is definitely diminishing. So let me expand on that.

Content spans multiple media types.

A song that took weeks to create is much deeper than someone who just snapped a selfie and posted it with no filters.

BUT - they both end up in the hands of the same people. Fans.

Fans are the key driver of the next generation of collectors.

It doesn’t matter how much time went into the input - it matters how much it resonated with the output.

So, the easiest way to define the difference between OG Web3 Culture and New Web3 Culture is a shift from art to media.

And here’s why this is important.

Collecting at Scale

The reason early NFT collections gained so much notoriety is that they made people rich.

There are countless stories of someone buying an NFT for less than 1 ETH and selling it for 100+ ETH.

This is life-changing money.

But this is not the norm.

Finding 10,000 people capable of spending tens of thousands of dollars to join a community does not scale.

So - we need to reduce the financial barrier to entry and increase the number of people capable of collecting.

And how do we do this?

By expanding what can be collected, and for how much.

Content is literally limitless. There will always be more.

So - in a world of endless content, what makes it valuable?

Paperclips.

Focus on the margins.

1 ETH to 100 ETH is a 100x return.

0.01 ETH to 1 ETH is a 100x return.

My bet is we will see many many more collections go from 0.01 ETH to 1 ETH than we will from 1 ETH to 100 ETH.

Here’s how.

Culture Markets

What does a market for a song look like?

For a TikTok? Or a Tweet? Or a podcast?

The reality is - today it doesn’t really exist.

There are countless platforms that allow you to mint and collect all forms of content - but none have really made their way into mainstream in a meaningful way. 

So this is the focus.

How do you get 100,000 people to collect a song?

How do you get 1,000 people to collect a blog post?

By releasing a lot of them. By removing the need for every collection to be an incredibly rare piece of art.

Because that’s the new meta. Owning everything.

Reputation comes from the collective sum, not from one individual asset.

Your “portfolio” should have 1000s of NFTs. Not 3-5.

Instead of focusing on those NFTs worth $10,000, why not have a portfolio of 100 NFTs all worth $100. They amount to the same price.

But we need better infrastructure.

Crossing the Chasm

Vertical specific platforms allow us to better understand why we would want to collect specific types of content.

The reason Sound works for collecting music is because it is a music platform.

The reason Glass works for collecting videos is because it is a video platform.

The reason Mirror works for collecting blogs is because it is a blogging platform.

This is extremely important to highlight because today, we largely rely on generalized marketplaces.

OpenSea is home for everything. And there’s a tremendous amount of value in that.

But if you want to collect a specific type of media, you need a specialized product.

And this is the key trend to watch for.

Projects like Reservoir allow creators to create their own secondary marketplace.

0xSplits allows creators to pay out their collaborators on-chain.

The true challenge is as much about accessibility as it is about culture.

In the absence of culture, all markets will hit a ceiling.

So - the goal is to focus on NFTs being minted for $10 or less.

Focus on the collector buying for $10 and selling for $50.

This is the margin that gets the whole world to use web3.

Wen Bull Run?

My guess is that we’ll see another bull run in web3 in 2025.

I believe that we need to see a net new pocket of creators to break with web3 at their core.

We need 1000 more Beeples. 1000 more XCOPYs.

But they can’t only be about web3. They have to have fan bases that go far and wide beyond their collectors.

Collecting is a bottom of the funnel action.

To get someone to collect, they need to be a fan.

To get someone to be a fan, they need to see you. A lot.

So - collecting culture leads us somewhere new.

Yes - 1000 True Fans is great.

But why do we need to stop there? Why not have 10,000 true fans? 100,000 true fans?

This is where the world is headed. And those who realize this will be the ones who take the cake.

Collecting Culture will drive the next bull run.

Are you prepared?