💖 Onchain Observations

Happy weekend friends 💖 

Welcome to Create Your Rainbow - a newsletter created to understand the role of community, culture, and meaning at the edges of technology. 🌈

Time to read - 5 minutes

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Two things happening in tech:

• Sadly, I couldn’t make it to Venice for Farcon this week. If you also couldn’t be there, check out all the photos, new friendships, pickleball tournaments, panels, hackathon winners, videos from events, and more at the /farcon channel.

• While OpenAI may be releasing a new product soon in the form of a search engine and possibly a new model shortly after, I’m left wondering…why? Do we need another search engine? And what happened to the mysterious gpt2-chatbot that appeared and suddenly disappeared?
  This clip from Satya Nadella is an interesting development.
  According to him, Moore’s Law is Out > Scaling Laws are In 👀 

Getting into the groove of writing again after feeling, frankly, a bit lost on what I’ve wanted to say. So, we’re back to basics this week with some observations, a little news, and a few community announcements.

Paragraph Takes a Look in the Mirror 👁️ 

And out comes a new entry into the growing number of Farcaster clients. This week, Mirror and Paragraph, two titans in onchain publishing, announce an acquisition. Paragraph raised $5M to accelerate the onchain publishing space and will be taking over the Mirror product, design system, and brand. However, the team behind Mirror is already busy in the kitchen cooking up a new Farcaster client called Kiosk, giving social onchain commerce some competition. Love the logo, love the name, love the concept. A+

As for myself and all the content creators currently publishing on Mirror, I’m not really sure what will happen. This uncertainty on the future of either platform after such a move is definitely nerve-wracking. Especially since, over the past few months, I’ve been getting questions from creators on which platform to choose to launch on. I personally love Mirror; it’s one of my favorite products I use. I hope this means that Paragraph’s designer and editor will soon get a bit of a facelift. My reasoning for choosing the beehiiv/Mirror combo has always been that I like having a friendly newsletter-style interface for email readers (beehiiv has the best editor, hands down) and a separate place for long-form onchain essays without extra distractions. Plus, it’s a great way to receive support through minting.

Will update here if there are any upcoming changes to this plan.

Onchain Summer is Baaaaaack

I don’t know about you, but I’m already feeling Summer-ish, even if I’m very much enjoying that Spring has offered a download of impeccable vibes.

If you were here last year for Base Onchain Summer, you’ll be familiar with the premise. Here’s the rundown and how to build with Base this June-August:

From June 3 through August, Base is inviting all onchain builders to create, imagine, and play with what’s possible onchain with $2M in prizes, gas credits, and grants. I’ve committed to building with Base this year, and Onchain Summer is just one more way to do that. I hope you do, too. Submit your idea to the Base team here to get featured! More on what I’ll be releasing for Onchain Summer below!

What is the Base team looking for?

• Live onchain this summer (or winter if you’re in the southern hemisphere): Projects that are launching or live between June 3 and August 31. 

• Do something that’s never been done before: Create engaging, real-world experiences—the more innovative, the better. Use compelling content and storytelling.

• Make something accessible to everyone: Whether it’s a game, social app, artwork, trading, or commerce flow, Onchain Summer is for everyone. Keep it low-cost and available to a high volume of users.

• Friendly enough to bring a billion people onchain: Recommend abstracted and smooth onboarding experiences (e.g., those powered by a smart wallet or paymaster).

Have fun and stay based 🤘 

Observations: An Essay Collection

Last Summer, I wrote Expansive Communities for this newsletter and published it as a standalone PDF with additional diagrams and illustrations.

Though I’ve been a little reserved the past few months, it’s because I’ve spent every waking moment in some form of learning. As a creator and builder, I want to take this Onchain Summer to give my formal observations in a collection of essays.

This section of each newsletter is incredibly special; it’s my dedicated space to share my own observations of what’s happening and to imagine what it’s like to experience a more wholesome, better, more inviting internet. While I don’t yet have a theme to share with you, a release date, or a mechanism for collecting to announce, I have a few ideas for making Onchain Summer just a little more wholesome than the last.

Community Happenings

• SheFi Cohort 11: If you have yet to go through a SheFi cohort, or maybe you’re an alum and want to come back, a new set of classes is starting soon. Apply to Cohort 11 now and have a magical time!

• Boys Club: To literally no one’s surprise, Net Gala was an absolute hit. Excited to see some experimentation and creativity in events like this, where communities really get to share their drive to innovate with tech at a party, have a good time, and embody every sense of who they are. That’s just what Boys Club does.

• Take Up Space: It appears zines are landing in mailboxes. The Take Up Space Zine is finally here! It’s coming soon to Crowdmuse, and you should totally pick one up. Will update when I have more details.

Hunting and Gathering 🔗 

Watch This

• If you’re a content creator or using Blast and haven’t heard of @jenndefer yet, you really should check out her content. She’s creating loads of tutorials, and even though I’m not participating in Blast, there’s tons to learn from her content and confidence.

Read This

• The Artist is Online is a piece about the history of digital performance and how artists can imagine experimenting with their online presence. Highly recommend these words by Maya Man 10/10

When you’re ready…

Here’s how I can help you 🤗 

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