highlight.xyz is an open-access platform for creating and collecting digital art and culture.

/highlight

The creative social network. ✳︎ rodeo.club

one costly decision by @zora that the team/ecosystem might feel in the future: completely cutting out every other minting options except coining. 

coining and tokenization economy experiments are fine, but many of Zora’s creators loved the platform for 1/1 and open mints. that’s gone now, and those creators will naturally explore — and possible fully move to — @rodeodotclub @highlight @manifoldxyz and other platforms

sharing direct feedback from an artist i spoke with @farcon 

“i’m not minting on Zora anymore, despite having most of my open editions and 1/1s on the platform. i just couldn’t mint there, i don’t want to ‘coin’ my art. it’s different model, and both my collectors and i prefer other types of minting”

for the record: told this directly to the team as well.

Zora is one of my fav brands in crypto, yet this decision was somewhat upsetting. perhaps it’s still not too late to show thoughtfulness toward the artists who contributed (!) years of their work, effort, trust and personal networks to the platform/ecosystem.

imho forcing artists to only ‘coinize’ art/content feels like a violation of creative self expression. you can’t force/cage artists — it just won’t work. artists are rebels by nature, and rebels don’t settle.

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coining will be undoubtedly adopted at larger scale+be profitable and unlock new use cases for crypto. it's been tried before many times (we called it 'NFT fractionalization'), but the market didn't care. personally experimented with this and NFT galleries in '19-'20. 

focusing is absolutely respected, and ofc there're always trade-offs. it just feels like there could be an optimal solution in there, Dylan shared a good example in the comments of possible dedicated UI that interacts with old Zora contracts and powers that old experience that so many love(d).

overall, excited to see where the future of onchain art, provenance, and creative self expression will evolve, and at the same time believe it'll happen in many shapes and forms vs. a single standard.

more thoughts:

https://warpcast.com/rev/0x5003e958

i miss the NFT form factor for collecting content.

i know coining things helps creators maximize value capture and create efficient markets yadda yadda...

but from a collector perspective, i just want to collect a bunch of @caitcavell content, have one place to go back to rewatch, prove my fandom, and find other users that also fangirl.

anyone that enjoys @caitcavell content has the same humor and quirky taste as me and i want to be friends with them. 

i've spent several ETH over the years collecting @lght.eth for this reason. most of that money i'll probably never see again and i'm ok with that.

but does @ted buying a bunch of content coins signal that she's fan or is she waiting for @caitcavell to go viral to dump (a good bet imo)?

collecting becomes noise when the market is more efficient.

another validation @0xdesigner 

https://warpcast.com/0xdesigner/0xcab35316

this, literally this.
that's why i don't collect anything on zora — it doesn't feel like collecting at all.

so many of us — another feedback by @yonfrula

artist · creative director at @rainbow — /groupies · /yon-experience

so many of us — another feedback by @yonfrula 

https://warpcast.com/yonfrula/0x0025ef66

A creative soul with an inquisitive mind. Music/Art/Organic Gardening/Gaming. Web 3 explorer. Always seeking knowledge.  Build something beautiful!

Zora opened the door to NFT's for me.  Minting was finally affordable!  

Have coined several new pieces, but I find myself missing the old method.  

People can't mint old collections...it's unfortunate. 

Hopefully they will make coining optional and bring back the old functionality.

yep! having an option to mint a specific amount, have an open mint, or coinize the art/content feels like a good solution

I agree with this stance. I recently released a new NFT on Zora and was forced to make it into a coin rather than having people collect the image like I have had in the past

It would be nice if users could coin and collect art across all platforms

considerably unserious // building idle rpg /animarising

collectors love 1/1s too. was just chat with @itsbasil about how fundamental it is to the feeling of "collecting" something.