Good morning crypto lovers,

The past couple of weeks have been eaten up by discussions on a new social media protocol called Nostr, but what is it?

Nostr is an acronym that stands for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays. Rather than write up a long blog post to explain what it is and what it can do, I’m just going to point you to some other people who have already done that. @brianoflondon on Peakd has an excellent post explaining the benefits of Nostr. He’s not the only Web3 guru who is into this new protocol. @neoxian at Hive has also stuck his nose into Nostr, which sounds kind of kinky if you ask me.

Nostr decentralized social media web3 — Source: From Pexels

A few days ago, Brave browser wrote a blog post explaining some changes to its Brave Rewards program. If you’re a Brave user, it’s worth it to take a look.

And conservative YouTube personality Steven Crowder tells why he’s fed up with the Big Con. This is a must-watch video. Crowder explains why large conservative media organizations are in bed with Big Tech and don’t actually believe in the values they claim to believe in. I could have told him that if he’d have asked. The bottom line is this: Any media organization—conservative, liberal, or whatever—is beholden to its advertisers. If it’s free, you are not the customer; you are the product. No large media organization is going to turn away Big Tech advertising dollars because they rely on that money for survival. Therefore, they adopt Big Tech values. You can agree or disagree with those values all you want, but if you’re a content creator, the only way you can truly control your voice, your message, your content, and monetization liberty is to be independent. I write about this in my forthcoming book Web3 Social: How Creators Are Changing the World Wide Web (And You Can Too!). Click here to join my book launch team.

And now, what you really came here for. Below are some of my favorite links this week from the Web3 social media locations I’ve visited.

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Bee-eautiful Words from the Hive

@young-boss-karin discusses random Hive possibilities. I really like her “mentor-to-earn” idea. I hope she can find someone to help her bring these to fruition.

@khaleelkazi asked ChatGPT what it thinks of Hive. Everybody’s talking about ChatGPT as if it’s the future of content creation. Maybe it is. There are some creative ways to use it that content creators can make bank on without getting on the bad side of Google.

@jerrybanfield discusses his social media strategy for 2023.

@freewritehouse wants to trade a picture for your thousand words.

Overheard at Read.Cash

@bala41288 is bullish on Hive. You’ll notice that content creators talk about Hive on other Web3 social media platforms, and they’ll talk about other Web3 social media platforms on Hive.

@Amjad_Ali_Waince discusses irresponsible behavior on Cashrain. Cashrain is an interesting concept. It’s a Web3 social media platform where users join communities. Content consumers send Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to the communities rather than individual creators, and that BCH is distributed randomly to the community members.

@LateToTheParty highlights how some scientific studies gaslight gas stoves. This is a great and visual read.

Published at Publish0x

@Cje95 gives a doggone good rundown of the BAT Rewards overhaul. He actually does a better job than the Brave team.

@ZeroRequiem says the walls are closing in on Nexo. I suspect they are. Last year was a rough year for crypto lenders. I don’t think 2023 will be a cake walk either.

@LeftFooted tells why he created his own token. In short, he was bored. That’s probably why he doesn’t go into any detail about the benefits of owning his token. Maybe he doesn’t suspect there will be any benefits. If there’s no purpose to it, no one can claim there’s any value to it. But then again, we have DOGE.

@Andrey Didovskiy lays it all out about the evolution of on-chain credit. The best line from this post is actually a quote, attributed to Ray Dalio: “Credit is the grease to the gears of the modern financial system.” There’s truth in that, for sure, and that’s why I’m not a big fan of debt. I won’t go into a huge litany, but I’ll summarize by simply saying that debt is slavery of the future self by the current self.

DeSo, gFam, and Torum

@Krassenstein says stick with Deso. It’s his one recommendation, and I’m kind of glad he only has one.

@Vickfella is happy and glad to be alive. We should all be glad to be alive.

On Torum, @covachong has called for creative proposals from users in an effort to improve the platform. A great idea to ask users to help improve the platform. I may submit an idea.

I’m delighted to announce that I added a gated post to gFam yesterday and the post has already earned 8 XRP. To unlock the post, users pay 5 XRP. One user has already done so. That’s encouraging.

Web3 News

Today, I thought I’d put the news at the end of the newsletter. Here’s what’s going on in the world of Web3.

Ethereum smart contracts increased by 293 percent last year. Web3 developer activity exploded in Q4. Let’s throw a party.

The communications minister in Finland wants the EU to officially and legally recognize DAOs. Maybe it’s because DAO memberships and DAO treasuries have exploded in popularity, according to the World Economic Forum.

Will Web3 reclaim the internet from tech giants? The future of freedom depends on that it does. My fear is that Big Tech will hijack it and rape it.

Japan wants to tax NFT sales.

Snark and commentary are in italics. Inclusion of an item doesn’t mean I agree or endorse the ideas presented. Of course, it also doesn’t mean I don’t.

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Cryptocracy is a decentralized newsletter published several times a week. I curate the latest news and crypto analysis from some of the brightest minds in crypto, and sometimes offer a little insightful and snarky commentary. Always fresh, always interesting, and always crypto. Original articles on Fridays.

First published at Cryptocracy. Not to be construed as financial advice. Do your own research.

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Web3 Wednesday: What is Nostr?