A Decent Publication™

Presented by CryptoLink.Tech

Volume 1 | Edition 18 | October 19, 2023

Opening Thoughts

Good morning and happy Thursday, my friends. It’s a great day for a great day and that calls for a bit of alpha!

If the hints the last few weeks didn’t give it away, then the new header for the publication surely did—Or maybe it was the fresh look for Chain Reaction.

The creation of Decent Media™ has officially begun and we are cooking up a good one. The best part for you is that Chain Reaction is right in the middle of it all. Our readers will always be up to date on the latest in the Decent Media world, allowing you to stay informed and ahead of the game.

I teamed up with a few friends of the CryptoLink team to create an answer to a few different problems we saw in this space:

• A lack of large brand options for media content in web3.

• Fragmented content creators in a competitive content market.

• A void of reasonably priced and well-trafficked advertising.

• Few media brands that appeal and expand to an audience outside of web3.

Gary (CEO Gauss), Mac (CBDO Gauss), and I have led the charge over the last few weeks organizing the initial idea and operational structure. The plan for launching the brand in full includes onboarding initial creators/brands as well as starting a Medium.com publication for writers to start contributing.

Our mission is to create a collaborative environment for creators to work together under one umbrella as opposed to fighting the content battle on their own. We want to build a structure that allows individual content brands to grow and flourish on their own terms with a support to scale.

From a structure standpoint think Barstool Sports meets Morning Brew and takes a decentralized/co-op spin to it and you are close to what we are going for. We are still fleshing out a lot of the details, but we plan for the company to have a co-op element to its structure and begin to lay the rails for creator ownership in media.

While any creator can technically own their own brand on YouTube or Spotify right now, we want to enable creators to scale at a pace they may not have been able to before. With a centralized entity for sponsors, advertisement, editing support, and content marketing along with a brand that can stick with a wide audience we can bring more power to individual creators while allowing them to grow and retain their brand.

The branding choice was made for the reasons I mentioned above. Decent Media is a brand that can stick. It’s infinitely expandable and as a bonus, makes for some great merch mock-ups.

Why am I telling you all of this?

For one, I’m f***** pumped.

Other than that, this is a call to action. If you are a creator of any sort and have an interest in growing your brand with us, please reach out. We want writers, podcasters, YouTubers, space hosts, and any other type of creator out there. The best part is that you aren’t limited to web3.

From gaming to environmentalism to cigar reviews to Wally ranting on Thursdays, we are curating a horizontal spread of content for the current generation of consumers by the next generation of content creators.

If you aren’t into making content, then you will surely have plenty to consume. While we will be attacking this with full force, we won’t be watering our content down like other sources. Our trademarks are going to be quality, truth, and entertainment.

For those of you that always wanted a CryptoLink hoodie, I think we might be able to do you one better. It’s one thing to wear a tech company on your chest, it’s another to wear this:

The initial lineup of content includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Nomad Network (Wednesdays @ 5PM EST on X @CryptoLinkWally @E4Echelon)

• Marketing Mondays (New Schedule TBD)

• Fireside Fridays (Friday Afternoons on X @GaussGang)

• REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED

• REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED

• Chain Reaction Newsletter (Thursdays @ 6:30AM EST)

• TBA Podcast

• TBA Newsletter

Along with those we will have a few different writers that will be contributing to the Medium site.

The last I will say on the matter is that the CryptoLink community may be seeing a familiar face in the mix over at Decent Media soon. I’m not at liberty to say for sure, but I’m positive the community will be happy if I can get this individual on board.

There is not a ton of news in the web3 space this week other than a few big headlines that we will cover. You will notice a new format and brand for Chain Reaction this week—to be completely honest I’m not sure if it’s staying like this or changing in the future. I’m testing out assorted styles and figuring out which one best suits our identity here at Chain Reaction.

On to the World of Web3!

World Of Web3

This section covers major recent developments and trends in the world of digital assets. Keep your finger on the pulse with all the biggest stories and updates from the last week.

With Great Power: Cointelegraph Intern Tweets Fake News

With a great following comes great power.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Cointelegraph learned a lesson in this area of study this week when one of their interns jumped the gun and published a tweet that will live in infamy for ages in web3 (3 weeks). The Cointelegraph writers and employees share a group chat in Telegram with some ‘sources’ they use to get stories out early. One ‘source’ in this group sent in a message on October 16th claiming that the SEC was not going to appeal the IShares ETF, if true this would be a huge win for the crypto space.

In an unfortunate manner we didn’t have to wait long to see the effect that kind of news would have on our beloved space since the intern decided to turn around and tweet the news out before it could be confirmed. The news, of course, would shortly be confirmed as FALSE.

Check out this exchange…

Within a half hour of the post being sent the Cointelegraph team edited the post to say “reportedly”. Within another half hour they confirmed the report as false and deleted the tweet in question.

Just an honest mistake, right?

What kind of harm could one tweet do?

Over $100 million in liquidations and a price spike/crash that is hard to find in the wild.

There has been enough speculation on the validity of this “accident” and I’ll leave the speculation there. But it is odd that someone messed up at the largest media outlet in web3 THAT bad, knowing what kind of capital would be sitting on the sidelines waiting for an announcement like this one.

Anyways, let this be a cautionary tale regarding being the ‘first’ into something. Those who bought in those first 15 minutes got rekt hard. Be careful out there, folks.

MetaMask Troubles: Apple Shortly Removes Wallet from App Store

On October 14th MetaMask users on Apple products were unable to download the app because it was removed from the iOS App Store.

Panic ensued on X after the news was dropped though MetaMask quickly assured users that it was only temporary and was unrelated to any sort of malicious behavior.

Naturally, the web3 space went into full chaos-mode and took X by storm to air out their concerns to their friends who would then also panic.

In the end MetaMask was added back to the App Store within a few hours but not without a fair share of users sharing their thoughts on why this happened.

One suggestion was that this had to do with Apple’s 30% tax on transactions in apps launched on their platform. This is just one of many issues, most of them being technical, that are hindering the web3 space from growing faster.

This has been my largest gripe with tech in this space, interoperability can’t exist until web3 can be seamless on mobile devices. Right now, users must use the MetaMask app like a browser and interact with web versions of dApps and sites.

The problem lies in the state of the consumer market. According to a quick search on Statista, Apple’s iOS accounts for over 50% of the smartphone users in the United States. If builders in web3 are not capable of building dApps with iOS and launching them on the App Store, we will NOT see any sort of “mass adoption” any time soon.

Apple is the biggest winner in the smart technology sector because they have redefined user interface and experience to be so seamless that a two-year-old can navigate their devices. They have created a style and template for device interface that guides the user along. Web3 can’t compete with that, it needs to embrace it.

That takes a bit of cooperation from the OS providers, though.

This is a major issue in web3 that is not talked about enough. Think about how easy it really is to use your iPhone or Android. We will never actually sacrifice that for some nerdy tech and meme coins. Adapting sooner than later is imperative.

Tech Trends

Here, we explore the latest technological advancements and innovations in the tech space. AI, Blockchain, Digital Creators, and more will be explored in this section every week.

Painting Your Dream: Meta Makes Progress on Mind Reading AI

This one is a bit trippy so hold on to your trousers.

Meta is currently developing an AI model that can take non-invasive scans of the brain and turn them into images. This technology utilizes magnetoencephalography (MEG) scans combined with an AI model to reproduce images created in the subject’s brain in response to visual stimulation.

Cointelegraph made sure to note that this model currently relies on pre-existing training on the specific subject’s brainwaves to reproduce accurate images. Check out the demo from Meta’s X account here:

Obviously, the tech has a way to go before it becomes useful in application, but the initial stages of its development are cool to watch. One way to look at it is to remember where AI image models were in October of 2022. If I recall correctly, we had just gotten the first iteration of stable diffusion in September of that year, now we have Dalle-3 which is lightyears beyond Stable Diffusion.

Keep an eye on this stuff, Anon.

Democratizing Language Model Rules: Anthropic Plays with Powerful Concepts

The world of AI is ever-changing and hard to keep up with. Every day there is a new story of some sort of novel application of language and image models.

Last night I found one that was a bit more unique than your run of the mill AI article.

Anthropic is a company that is developing an AI Large Language Model (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT with a slightly distinct set of rules.

What are those rules? The users got to choose them, collectively, in this experiment with 1,000 people across ‘diverse demographics’.

Anthropic is taking on the challenging task of solving AI guideline dilemmas. Every LLM, like GPT, is built with a set of rails or bumpers. Like bowling, these rails keep you from taking the AI outside the pre-determined bounds of acceptable content.

Instead of deciding those AI boundaries as a centralized entity, they aimed to combat AI creator bias by polling 1,000 individuals on a set of rules for the AI to play by. In result, they found that this first test churned out “slightly” improved results in biased response yields.

This is a fascinating realm of thought, and it surely raises some interesting questions.

Does this model produce a truly diverse AI model, or does it create an echo chamber bot?

Could this idea solve the problem of creator bias in AI?

Check out the rest of their study here:

CryptoLink Connect

Here, we delve into the latest and greatest in the CryptoLink ecosystem, as well as its partners.

ETHEREUM UPDATE

We have officially onboarded FOUR validators on the Ethereum blockchain!

Not much else to say here other than SOON.

On To the Next One: Updates from the Future

I think heard something about Gauss soon.

Might be nothing.

👀

Interchain Intel

Chain-specific information to better your understanding of the crypto landscape. From new project launches to the latest blockchain upgrade, you’ll find it here in Interchain Intel.

F.E.R.R.E.T.: Gauss Launching New Reward System

Our furry friend has influenced his fair share of ‘product branding’ in our corner of web3, hasn’t he?

Gauss recently announced their new system regarding rewards for WINGS, DINGS, Zealy, and other competitions of the sort. F.E.R.R.E.T. NFTs will be rewarded to winners moving forward and retroactively, replacing the old system for rewards. (The old system is still tracked on Excel)

The NFTs will be redeemable for one Ferro Card NFT and a GANG allocation equal to the NFTs tier.

F.E.R.R.E.T. is an acronym for Ferro Earned Reward & Redemption Electronic Token and is simply the latest and greatest in the ever-expanding cross-project Ferret ecosystem.

Gauss also recently announced that Noble Swap, GUD, NFT Marketplace, PAPER, OBURN, and all other launches they have planned in the short term are scheduled to go live VERY soon.

Stay tuned and show our friends at Gauss some love.

Final Byte: Wally’s Wisdom

No Decoded this week, only because there is too much to do and too little time!

I’m thrilled to bring this group of people a media brand they can rely on and trust in. The individuals that are going to be a part of the Decent Media journey have spent the last year building separate communities and we are finally creating the mechanism to tie them all together.

I wish you a wonderful Thursday and an even better weekend. Be sure to give the Decent Media X account a follow, the link is up in the Intro!

I don’t have much for you in the way of wisdom this week, so I decided I’d outsource that.

I love you all!

Best,

Wally
CryptoLink Marketing/Branding
Decent Media Co-Founder

ZEALY CODE: Is it time to retire this?