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Happy new week, clouters!
Do you feel that? It’s the winds of change 🌬️🌬️🌬️. It may not seem quite as momentous as an exchange listing or the launch of NFTs, but make no mistake — there’s substantial shifts afoot on BitClout. Doing your best to navigate them? That’s where we come in, baby. We’re here to help 🙌.
Bits on the menu tonight:
- BuzzClout: Exclusive updates from @bitcloutsignal and @bithunt ⚡️
- Ubiquitous UX drops: diamonds make the switch… forever 💎🔄♾️
- NFT showcase: 🎨 highlighting some of BitClout’s finest NFTs
- The end of an era: @BitSwap shutters its doors 📉
- @BitsTODAY roadmap update: We made it rain a lil bit … 🌧️💰
Diamondhands’ drops 💎
#1 BuzzClout
We missed you on Friday, @bitcloutsignal. Care to tell us who the movers and shakers on BitClout were today? We’re all ears 👂:
Same goes for you, @bithunt. Let’s get an update on the community projects that have been making a splash on BitClout to start the week 💦:
#2 Ubiquitous UX drops: diamonds make the switch… forever 💎🔄♾️
Earlier today, diamonds — BitClout’s innovative, seamless, in-platform tipping feature — became a lot simpler. Previously, all 💎s were denominated in the creator coin (social token) of the creator (account) that sent them. In order to turn this into currency that could be used to say, buy a latte, the recipient of the 💎s would have to first sell the senders’ creator coin for $clout, the native BitClout currency. Then, they could take that $clout off-platform via one of the exchange offramps, converting it to $ or another cryptocurrency. That’s admittedly a convoluted two-step process to go from 💎 to ☕.
Now? All 💎s will be paid directly in $clout. This makes things a lot more straightforward. Want to tip someone a 💎 for their post? You can send $clout directly from your wallet. From two-step process to one-step process 🔝.
For posterity, @tijn’s got us covered with a bit of history on what went down when the change first became an official part of BitClout’s protocol:
On Friday we covered how there’s significant community concern about this change. Many folks like paying 💎s in their own creator coin, as it offers them a use case for their coin in a world where selling even a portion of your stake in your own coin to generate income is still frowned upon. Still, @mubashariqbal offered a worthwhile perspective which we think explains why this change makes sense for the long-haul:
Is it possible that diamond flows will slow at first now that they’re not paid in creator coin? Totally. But long-term, moves that make economic transactions on the platform as smooth as possible are worthwhile. Paying 💎s in $clout makes it more likely that folks will actually be able to earn real, usable income from their BitClout endeavors 🌙. Further, as notes @Krassenstein, it makes diamonds a lot more tangible (and ideally, attractive) for new users now too:
Still, some updates on the new diamond functionality will likely be needed. Right now, diamond notifications aren’t tagged to a specific post. WE WANT THAT FEATURE BACK, @diamondhands et all!!!
Moving on. Another update that’s been happening in the background of the more forward facing diamond change? The core dev team behind BitClout has been hard at work integrating postgres, a popular open-source database.
@dharmesh first tipped us off to the developments here towards the end of the last week. If @dharmesh gets excited about something, it’s probably a solid hint we should all pay attention too 🚀.
For the non-devs and layman here (including us) … what is postgres? Lucky for us, @mubashariqbal still has the mic. Break it down for us, master 💪:
If we were to put it in our own words, we’d say the addition of Postgres will make on-chain data more easily accessible for apps like @Prosperclout whose 🍞 and butter is facilitating data analysis 📊. It will also be like a universal translator, unblocking devs who can build more elegant applications for BitClout in different coding languages. Anything that accelerates dev activity (and thereby attracts more dev talent) on BitClout is most welcome 😊.
In sum? Whether it’s changes that are easily observable on the frontend like how diamonds are paid out, or changes that only hardcore devs are observing on the backend, there’s a ton of change at hand on BitClout (as always) 🔜.
#3 NFT showcase: 🎨 highlighting some of BitClout’s finest NFTs
Did you all enjoy the NFT showcase on bitclout.com today? The second rendition of the showcase featured a stellar lineup of works and artists, including @pamelaanderson’s second ‘PAMMIES’ drop as well as lots of BitClout OGs such as @ludo’s 20k block snapshot (with a $27k bid!)
Given that the showcases are still in the V1 stage(it’s really just a scrollable feed), we figured we’d shout out some more NFTs and NFT series that caught our eyes in recent days. We’re committed to shining light on awesome NFTs until the community builds solutions that provide greater discoverability on BitClout ✨. With the volume of NFT purchases cooling, we still have an important role to play here 🥶🥶🥶:
While there’s been no shortage of profile picture and avatar-based series on BitClout of late, @FUCKEDUPCATS blows many of them out of the water with the level of detail and the lifelike sculpting that went into their art. It helps if you’re a cat lover like @nvo is, but these things are just undeniably dope 👑. Don’t be surprised if you see BitClout OGs sportin’ these as their PFPs soon:
@HPaulson’s “BitClout DVD”
Perhaps this one resonated with @ASG because he’s old enough to have spent more of his life watching DVDs than Netflix. Or maybe it’s the sleek animation, as well as the playful contradiction between an older technology and BitClout, which sits at the bleeding edge of the creator economy. Whatever it is, we love @HPaulson’s NFT, and reckon it’ll make the perfect screensaver (and long-term investment) for one lucky owner.
@ChetBLong’s photography 📷
There are many stunning photographers on BitClout. We’ve covered a number, including @PaulMP, @danophoto, @samhorine, and more. Another stellar contributor we’d like to highlight? @ChetBLong. Not only is he a strong contributor to the BitClout community (helping organize events like @Cloutsgiving in NYC), but he takes some pretty epic nature shots as well. See below for one tasty example that also made the NFT showcase on bitclout.com. Bidding here may well wrap soon… can we crack the $1k mark?
#4 The end of an era: @BitSwap shutters its doors 📉
On a less awesome note than all the NFTs out there, @BitSwap, which was technically the first non-OTC exchange to launch for $clout (albeit only for a few fitful days at first) is closing up shop:
While we wish things had ended for @BitSwap on a higher note, we likewise thank them for taking a solid swing at the decentralized exchange route for $clout and for playing no small part in our own BitClout journey. Edition 05 of @BitsTODAY was all about @BitSwap founder @Sigil after all. @nvo remembers it like it was yesterday 😇. We were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed back then, weren’t we, @Sigil? 🐿️
More info on the decision to shut down the effort can be found from the @BitSwap team here. We trust the team behind @BitSwap will do their utmost to make all investors and exchange participants whole to the extent possible. If you find this to not be the case in the coming weeks, let us know.
#5 @BitsTODAY roadmap: We made it rain a lil bit … 🌧️💰
From @nvo’s vantage point writing up this issue, there’s quite a storm pouring rain down on Washington D.C. ⛈️. Of course, the capitol wasn’t the only place where it was raining recently, either…
We did a little thing over the weekend. As was stipulated in the whitepaper that accompanied our original NFT releases on BitClout, we paid out 50% of all proceeds to the artists who helped us design the covers that accompanied editions #1 through #50 of @BitsTODAY. While it wasn’t life changing sums of $clout, we were stoked to send $33 to all the artists who have been part of our journey so far for each cover they designed 💸.
Here’s what folks had to say. We hope y’all didn’t spend it all at once!
Admittedly, looks like people didn’t read our whitepaper and needed a refresh on what was going on 😅. Of course, we should have expected that. Who reads whitepapers anyways?
Wondering how to get your paws on one of our NFTs? We’ve got 10 editions of our NF50 still avail! Check em’ out here.
Interested in working on art for one of our next 50 editions? For that, reach out to @nvo or @dripcult. We promise we don’t bite :)
How’d we do today? Appreciate u tuning in. Take it easy & we’ll c u Wednesday ✌️.
Much love,
@BitsTODAY
