Kent Babin

@kentb

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507 Followers

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Started on Squid Game 2. Ten minutes into the first episode, it struck me that the existence of the police officer and his desire to find the island means the second season doesn't have to rely on the "games where people die" premise that so shocked us in the first season. I can already sense the imminent showdown and am looking forward to see how it unfolds. Good technique for fiction writers out there!

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Happy New Year, everyone! Here's to a 2025 of great fiction. 📖 🎞️ 📻

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Finished Black Doves last weekend. Enjoyed it, but still prefer the pace and irreverence of Slow Horses if pushed. I think that's because modern spy thrillers are hard. It's too easy to fall back on the tech. Black Doves felt more like a Kill Bill style action thriller. Fantastical, indeed, as @tokenizedhuman points out, but also whimsical. You never really think that the fate of the world is on anyone's shoulders. It's very much a series of personal redemption arcs rolled into a story. This makes me think we're in for a longer series. Those character arcs need time to play out. Now watching The Madness. Anything but whimsical that one.

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Anyone want to accept @nounishprof's invitation to watch Outer Banks? Personal note: I couldn't even bring myself to watch it during the darkest days of the pandemic- and strike-fueled series voids. I did, however, watch a season of Singles Inferno and untold Spanish melodramas. 😂

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Anyone else want to get their Fiction Wrapped in before the end of 2024? Details in the cast below! @christin @tokenizedhuman @feeei @cameron @aviationdoctor.eth @dauleah @kbc @chukwukaosakwe @markmcclure.eth @naomiii @borrowlucid.eth

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Oops, forgot to cast this in the channel.

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Here's my Fiction Wrapped for 2024! Favourite read: Citizen Orlov by Jonathan Payne https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B8T2VVG1 Wasn't the best written or most interesting, but it has the quality of being so against the grain in the genre that I can't help but appreciate the author for going out on a limb. I've tried to do the same with my own novels but haven't received anywhere close to the same acclaim. 😂 Favourite watch: A Spy Among Friends https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15565872/ The cinematography and pace of Ripley almost got it top spot, but A Spy Among Friends was really really good. It follows Kim Philby's exfiltration from the UK and early life in the Soviet Union, but hypothesizes that the British met with Philby in Lebanon to convince the Soviets that he was a plant and could therefore not be trusted. Honourable mentions: Bodkin, Ripley, A Man in Full (series), The Diplomat

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It's time for the inaugural Fiction Wrapped here on /allthingsfiction! 🥳 What does that mean? You're going to tell us about your year in fiction. - Favourite thing you read and why + link - Favourite thing you watched.... - Favourite thing you listened to... - Any honourable mentions Quote this cast so everyone can see your answer!

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Need to put my money where my mouth is: - Regime change isn't easy, Harold. - It is until a lowly plumber decides to play mercenary. - You know I'm not really a plumber. - You unclog shit for a living. What other name is there? Come to think of it, you did the exact opposite this time. But that's beside the point. Now I have the prime minister screaming at me wondering why on earth the dictator is still in his palace and your face is plastered across every screen from here to Cape Town. - Are you done? - Patronize me at your peril, I swear. - I wouldn't think of it. - Then for all that's good and holy, what the hell did you think you were doing? - They're dirty, Harold. - Who? - The team you sent in. They planned to take the country for themselves. - But that's the bloody point, isn't it! We can't have these countries running themselves of their own free will. How do you think we built this country? Hard work? Ha!

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6 hours to go until the end of the @octant Epoch 6 Snapshot vote! @carboncopy-refi would sincerely appreciate your vote if you haven't cast it already. We're building the information and data hub for the ReFi space. We want to help the great projects in the space demonstrate and promote their ecological and social impact. 2025 should be a big year for us as we look to integrate data streams into our impact dashboard and build an ecosystem management tool that can be used by any other on-chain ecosystem. Thank you! 💚

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Where does ReFi go from here? 1) 2025 seems like an important year. A potential bull run means more money coming on-chain, better investor interest, and stronger media interest. Some of the core infra built during the bear market will finally have a chance to prove itself in the spotlight. 2) Generating verified on-chain ecological credits is one such piece of infra. Both Regen Network and Open Forest Protocol plan to issue significant numbers of credits next year. Question is: will there be a big enough market for them to drive scale? 3) The other thing that needs to make significant progress next year are the investment instruments and currencies that aim drive capital to impact projects. Hard to imagine degens and the like interested in 10% gains when 1000x gains are on the table, so who are the end users going to be? A lot of energy has been put into converting degens. Perhaps that isn't the right strategy.

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What's holding ReFi back? 1) Relatively low levels of funding. Institutional investors are hesitant due to the lack of commercialization potential of ReFi; the space isn't ready for retail investors to fill the gap; large donors prefer to distribute funds via intermediaries. It all adds up to a lot of projects fighting over a small amount of money. 2) The "blockchain will fix the carbon markets" narrative grabbed all the headlines during the last bull run (due to revenue potential and subsequent venture funding) but the result put ReFi in a small box. Carbon tunnel syndrome, they call it. When things didn't go as planned with the carbon markets, ReFi was left for dead. Vaporware/scams didn't help either. That ReFi buidlers kept on buidling through the bear market tells you a lot. 3) ReFi also lacks a consensus definition and narrative. We all have a different way of describing it, from programmable money to Web3-powered ecological and social impact, which only serves to confuse people.

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Why should anyone care about ReFi? 1) For those of us in crypto, it's an opportunity to promote a positive narrative to skeptics; a way to demonstrate how crypto is doing good in the world. 2) It's creating new ways to invest in sustainability and regeneration. Last I checked, sustainable investment options were pretty grim. ReFi projects are building those options for crypto natives. They may not offer the 10,000x potential of memecoins, but the chances of getting rekt are also a lot lower. 3) It's filling the grassroots funding gap. Something like 97% of all funding to African NGOs passes through Global North NGOs first. A classic rent-seeking scenario that has been a foundational part of the crypto narrative since day 1. We have the tools to cut out the intermediaries. Now we just have to do it. 4) We need frameworks to accurately value nature. This isn't specific to Web3 or ReFi, even, but why not us? Why not an industry that has staked its reputation on creating new value mechanisms?

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Currently in 29th place. Need to get into the top 18! If you've staked $GLM on @octant, vote for us here: https://snapshot.box/#/s:octantapp.eth/proposal/0xbe14cdafb5f910c068d83b5e99a27e9a34fa3a3646b3926796d1cf772000af0a We'd be eternally grateful!

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I would be remiss if I didn't mention regenerative agriculture in the context of ReFi. The goal is a shift away from monoculture farming to beneficial practices such as agroforestry and syntropic farming. We know that the vast majority of food production in Africa and Asia is done by smallholder farmers. But we also know that monoculture farming is seen as the most lucrative (and harmful), although some studies suggest yields can actually increase with regenerative practices. Either way, small holder farmers need economic assurances before investing in a transition. Ecological credits are considered one solution. ReFi has the frameworks in place to help small holder farmers verify and issue credits for activities such as preserving tree cover, practicing polyculture, and conserving water. Shamba Network and Regen Network are working towards this. Another is regenerative farming yield as collateral in a larger regenerative economy. @kokonutnetwork is leading the way in that area.

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As promised, @christin, here are some examples of ReFi projects across the different categories: 1. Grants to projects and individuals - @climatenetwork @gitcoin @maearth @celo @refidao 2. Rewards for climate- and social-positive activities - DeCleanup, Arkreen, AquaSave, Treegens, Beach Collective, Cleanify, Litter Token, UCO Network 3. Retail investments in impact ventures - @ethichub @refimedellin ReFi Hub, Unergy, Alternun, penomo, $EARTH 4. Universal Basic Income allocations - ImpactMarket, GoodDollar, Circles 5. Ecological credit verification and sales - Regen Network, Open Forest Protocol, Shamba Network, Carbify, Glow Foundation We have an expansive list of projects working in the space at https://carboncopy.news/projects

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