The Future PROOF Reveal and Road Ahead  What a way to underpromise and overdeliver. I think a lot of FUD and doubt was squashed with the Future PROOF presentation. It really set the tone for the year of building ahead and what this means in real tangible product development (not just more fanny packs… sorry Justin :-P). There was a ton of stuff presented so much I won’t go into it but you should especially to better understand the new NFT called Mythics and how the drop mechanics for this NFT will work and a demo of what Highrise will look like.  Proof of Conference  One of the biggest topics discussed was PROOF of Conference, a Multi-day celebration of web3; it will include Art exhibitions, IRL mint experiences (if you have been following what the folks at brightmoments.io have been doing, you know what this means), and talks from leading stakeholders in the space and Interest-based social events between community members. The event is going to be at Skylight Row DTLA on May 11-13 2023. There are some hotels rates locked for holders, these go live on November 18 2022 at the ProofOfConference.xyz website.   Who gets in? PROOF Collective members will be receiving a VIP pass for free. Moonbirds and Oddities have discounted passes and first access when tickets go live in January.   Data and Research  Hiring NFTstatistics.eth (also known as @punk9059) as Director of Research was an incredible decision as we have seen proven by the first 4 Deep Dives published on Music NFTs, royalties and other topics and contributions to the podcast too.   European Tour  Berlin, London, Paris, the team enjoyed some facetime with the community in various cities in Europe. Kevin got to finally meet XCOPY and the images and videos just gave a ton of FOMO to those who couldn’t come.   IRL events is now core to the PROOF mission as Kevin mentioned in one of the townhalls that being able to scale and incentivize via the Proof token or other way for the community to meet was something they were looking for.   Gold nests baby!!!  I was incredibly excited for the Gold Nest rewards, this was an incredibly thoughtful reward, each Moonbird holder got a custom Infinite Objects digital frame with an animated version of their birds.  Check the unboxing video on Twitter, for more info.   The DAO and Proof of Documentation  If you haven’t checked the Proof of Documentation at docs.proof.xyz please do, it has a ton of info in a single place and it is the best place to understand the official mission of the Moonbirds DAO.   What is the DAO you ask? The DAO was created to: “empower creatives to further the Moonbirds ecosystem, reputation, and lore. We believe this will lead to new products, NFT collections, companies, cultural moments and content — with the intention of elevating the Moonbirds brand and eventually making it a household name.”  The DAO will be funded by an initial capital infusion in ETH, NFTs and a rolling royalty piece from second market sales of Moonbirds in marketplaces.   I’m really excited for this as there is a large amount of community members who have incredible ideas that with a little bit of capital can go a long way for the brand.   Art Basel in Miami - Proof meetup and Subparliaments Event  As part of the LosLatinBirds community I’m super excited for this meetup and will be in Miami for it. There’s a Dec 1 meetup at Dante’s HiFi for many Subparliaments including Los LatinBirds, NudeBirds and others. There’s also a Proof Day Lounge on Dec 2 at Doya. More info at events.proof.xyz   That’s it for now, see you in Miami or Los Angeles birbs!

The great dilemma of CC0 2022. A week back Kevin did the very fast moving change in policy that Moonbirds art would be CC0 moving forward. This is only the art not the trademark. This had the community split right down the middle. The main complaints were that: The change was introduced too fast and without warning. This lead some holders who had licensing deals in progress to lose out on 6 figure checks. “I’m looking at you Lakoz”. This could have been done for future collections like Ravens. So buyers would know ahead of buying what the terms were. On the other side many designers and holder thought the release was great. There’s a narrative that the more the art of a collection gets out there via derivatives, the more that value gets added to the main collection. This week we had a sneak audio only preview of future proof and wow was it loaded with stuff. I recommend checking out the recording on discord for those that are holders or the summary thread by @bennyhsu_xyz for more details but here’s my take: 

-Highrise - my own explanation of what highrise will look like is like this: Close your eyes, imagine  “a fancy, futuristic, enhanced-reality, time-shared and co-op, art gallery concept in the middle of wall street”. That is what I see. A place where you own a little bit of the floor (or wall space) where you can showcase your collections, a place where you can see other collections and where the creators are always online so you can see interviews/videos/audio clips of them and of the art you are looking at. But also a place where quant butlers hangout and can help you with any analytics and insights into any piece or artist in the gallery. They also have a microbrewery on the back and great music/ambiance. 

-The DAO - just like any other will help with proposals and funding of new collabs.  But with great DAO comes great token which is what some hodlers are excited for. *shrug* “Deploying capital to community endeavors is great but if you’re not helping these things with team resources and project management then it may not work out… We want to hire people so these projects can get support and help them get launched”.

-Moonbirds - What is the goal of Moonbirds? “What are we trying to accomplish? It’s to be a big part of culture and have mainstream awareness and adoption.”

-Ravens - “We are thinking about expansions but not charging for it. Nor is it time to dilute the market with a lot of NFTs.”

-Oddities - When i hear there’s a decision we will need to make I think a “bored ape serum-like” event is coming. I mentioned this before and do think that will be the future of it. It also follows and matches the velocity mindset KRO was referring to when he said he didn’t wanted to flood the market. “We see there’s a community around Oddities. But there will be a direct tie in with Moonbirds expansion. As a holder, you will have a decision you have to make.”

-Nesting - More “surprises” ahead but slow your roll folks. Stay nested my friends. “There is a reason why birds nest. They sit on nests because they hatch things, and it doesn’t all happen on the same day.” 

-Data - I can’t wait for Future PROOF and @punk9059 to take the stage to talk about deep dive reports and analytics. 

Grails II - If you hold a PROOF pass or acquired a mint pass in secondary you were able to mint the Grails II project. The dynamics, conspiracy theories and FOMO this generated is just wild. Some artists are known (or at least we have a good idea), others are brand new. At 3ETH floor prize this should be an easy flip to 3x for those who don’t care about the art. For those that do, i think this will be a great start in your collectors journey if not already there. Me personally I like Grails 5 and 17.