What is Generative Art and Why Does It Matter?| Bankless Africa Newsletter
This is Bankless Africa Newsletter, a newsletter that helps you stay up to date with well-curated news about crypto and Web3 around Africa.
Hey Bankless fam!
Interesting times we are in! The Web3 space continues to keep us at the edge of our seats; so much innovation happening and Africa is most certainly not to be left out.
If crypto bans could not stop Nigeria, I don’t think anything can. After the crypto crash in April, it was looking likely that there would be some sort of retraction but that does not seem to be happening. Nigerians have become crypto-obsessed in the best way, Kenyans are not left out of the loop as well, they are continuing to do some amazing things on their end.
Blockchain technology is evolving; we are beginning to see a lot of educational content go out, making crypto and the world of Web3 more accessible to the layman. In more recent developments, a South African developer has created a new SMS-based service which will help people send Bitcoin as texts. Amazing, right?
In our most recent podcast episode closing out the previous season, we delve into Decentralised Science. What it is all about, how we can get science to be more people based, the pain points of modern science, and a whole array of other things. We hope you will enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.
Finally, we take a look at DeFi in our learning centre. We try to understand two really common terms associated with DeFi, that is APR & APY. How do they differ? Well, you will soon find out.
Esheun (Welcome).
Contributors: Abena.eth, AB Colors, Paulito, Spirited F, Oge, WinVerse, Miss Purple, Yofi
📰 News & Opinion In and Around Africa
Bitcoin without internet: SMS service allows sending BTC with a text
Author: Joseph Hall
A cellular network (GSM) breakthrough could bring millions of Bitcoin (BTC) users who were previously unreachable by the internet-dependent Bitcoin protocol. The new SMS-based service, Machankura, was created by South African developer Kgothatso Ngako and it’s name is a South African colloquialism for money.
Kgothatso started by building an African language translation project, Exonumia, which has since expanded to include dozens of languages. Once Exonumia picked up steam, he asked, "what are the other barriers to accepting Bitcoin?" He coded Manchakura to solve those problems, explaining, "the major focus is on spending and receiving Bitcoin."
However, the service is currently custodial, which contradicts the Bitcoin concept of "not your keys, not your currencies." To counter this, he is looking for a method to use SIM cards as private keys, so that the keys can truly belong to the user.
Nigeria becomes the most crypto-obsessed nation after April crash: Report
Author: Prashant Jha
Following the collapse of the cryptocurrency market in April, a CoinGecko study showed a notable increase in interest among Nigerians. With a total search score of 370, Nigerians had the highest number of searches for the terms "cryptocurrency," "invest in crypto," and "purchase crypto" out of the 15 nations that took part in the study.
The majority of cryptocurrencies had a loss of value of more than 60% during the April crypto crisis, which decreased investor interest, trading activity, and venture capital investment.
The lack of competent financial services in Nigeria, which has been a major factor in the growth of cryptocurrencies throughout Africa, is ironically fuelling the country's growing interest in cryptocurrencies. After the April crisis, a new survey showed that countries' interest in and curiosity about cryptocurrencies had increased. In order to store and transfer their assets, Nigerians began to look to utilising cryptocurrencies as a practical substitute.
Kenya's Lami Raises $3.7 Million Ushering In a New Wave Of Insurance Offerings Embedded In Fintech
Author: kodzilla
Lami is a digital insurance product based in Kenya. It created an API (application programming interface) that it sells to other businesses, who then use it to provide custom insurance products for their customers. Lami was able to raise a whopping $3.7 million in an extension funding round; this will help the startup to solidify itself and it’s offerings. The Harlem Capital, Newtown Partners, and several individual investors are some of the few who subscribed to the extension funding round.
Lami was started in January 2020, with Griffin Insurance, a digital car insurance platform; they then progressed to the API platform that powers digital insurance products. The startup's API allows banks to offer digital insurance products to consumers, and the API is also used by various sectors, including logistics, e-commerce banking, and fintech.
Lami's ultimate goal is to increase insurance penetration in Africa, they will continue to introduce more insurance projects as part of their expansion. The start-up predicts that it will grow over $2 million this year alone.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Crypto Trading in Africa Up by 75% in July 2022 – Kenya Leading the Growth Spike, Says LocalCryptos
Author: CryptoGuru
According to LocalCryptos, Africa's most popular non-custodial peer-to-peer crypto platform, Peer-to-peer cryptocurrency (P2P) trading in Africa surged by 75% in July 2022. Kenya is at the forefront of the growth spurt, with about 1,200 trades created in July 2022 and over 27.44 million KES changing hands (equal to more than US$230,000).
LocalCryptos recently added Chipper Cash as another payment method available to African peer-to-peer traders. The growth of LocalCryptos in Africa has highlighted the hunger for self-custodial wallets and decentralised marketplaces that empower individuals to take full control of their crypto assets.
LocalCryptos is a major cryptocurrency marketplace that offers a secure environment for peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions using a cutting-edge non-custodial escrow service. LocalCryptos, which was founded in 2017 with a focus on security, now has over 400,000 members in over 100 countries.
Celo Announces Web3 Fund Event in Lagos, Nigeria
Author: CryptoGuru
The Celo team will be in Lagos, Nigeria, from the 23rd to the 24th of August 2022, for the next leg of their Web3 Fund event. This leg of the event follows the successful launch of the first leg in Nairobi, Kenya. The Fund aims to assist Web2 entrepreneurs in receiving financial investment from its ecosystem partners. Up to 60 Nigerian founders may apply for the call for Web2 startups and businesses.
The chosen 60 Nigerian founders will gain access to equity investors and venture capital funding, as well as other benefits of the program, including but not limited to marketing assistance, decentralised exchange listing chances, and the chance to join the Celo Alliance for Prosperity. Additionally, the event will provide founders with a fantastic opportunity to network and meet one-on-one with VCs interested in funding Web3-focused firms in Africa.
Similar to the Kenya Web3 Fund event, selected candidates will get cash investments from the Celo Africa Web3 Fund VC Partners while receiving technical support from the Celo Developer Guild and technical partners Tatum & Ape Unit.
What is generative art and why does it matter?
Author: Abena.eth
Generative art NFTs are currently some of the most sought-after NFT art forms amid the rising popularity of NFTs. The emergence of generative art platforms like Art Blocks and Fxhash has spread the awareness of these NFTs to a larger audience of crypto artists.
DEFINITION
Generative art itself describes art that has been created using a machine that can randomly produce colours, patterns, and shapes that are then organised into an artistically pleasing piece of digital work. In simpler terms, generative art can be perceived as a joint effort between an autonomous system (for example a code or a program) and an actual artist. Generative art includes randomization, algorithms, and geometry. Without the randomness, the outcome of a piece of generative art could be decided in advance by the artist. Algorithms and geometry are both tools that help produce fantastic generative art results but also the co-artists as they help shape the art itself.
GENERATIVE ART AND HOW IT RELATES TO NFTs
Generative art NFTs are digital works of art that are embedded in smart contracts and kept on the blockchain. Whether the code itself evolves into an NFT or not, generative art NFTs are still produced by executing it - the code. Artists often produce a group of pictures and add a few rules to the coding; the underlying artwork is then generated automatically by the algorithm which randomly mixes the pictures or patterns in accordance with the guidelines provided by the artist in the coding. The degree of individuality in the minted piece is what makes these NFTs so intriguing. There's also the element of surprise; since neither the artist nor the collector will be aware of the final art piece. In fact, artists can make generative art NFTs by adding code to the art that uses very unique elements to determine the final result, such as the price of gas, the wallet ID, or the transaction ID.
WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF GENERATIVE ART?
After laying out how generative NFTs are created, let's look at some of the most popular generative art NFT projects:
Autoglyphs: The first generative NFT art project, created in 2019 by LarvaLabs, who are also the CryptoKitties founders. The project developed Ethereum-based generative NFT art; their first glyph supply of 512 NFTs has since been sold out. With the accumulated sales thus far, the Autoglyphys have surpassed $41 million in gross value.
Art Blocks: A successful generative NFT art project totalling roughly $994 million in sales. Art Blocks produces abstract art like Chromie Squiggles, Didenzas, and Ringers on the Ethereum blockchain.
Ringers: Canadian artist and programmer Dmitri Cherniak, created this 1,000 piece collection of generative art NFTs. Identified by a number of "strings and pegs", the ringers have become one of the most popular NFT collections on the Art Blocks platform. Its floor price at the moment of writing this is 44.9 ETH.
KnownOrigin: A blockchain-based artist platform for digital artists who wish to sell NFTs. It has a main and secondary market, but KnownOrigin art may also be traded on OpenSea.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GENERATIVE ART
Generative art allows us to focus on the act of invention/creation more than the traditional aspect of what art is; because of this, the generative art projects and specific pieces that have already been created and established themselves as positive reference points help new creators & collectors alike in determining the ‘true value’ of the art, particularly amid this growing interest in generative NFTs. There are a ton of reasons to be enthusiastic about generative art, but at the heart of it all is one essential idea: dealing with the substance of what creates our new digital worlds, which is what generative art is able to do genuinely. The secret is the code; with it, our next lives will be constructed. If we want to create a positive, human experience in the future non-physical environments we continue to innovate on, we must explore code artistically to see how it may be re-imagined, re-examined, and re-purposed. One step in that direction is generative art, which seems to become more crucial every day.
BLACK GENERATIVE NFT ARTISTS TO LOOKOUT FOR
Mask of Ether: In a bid to add more African voices to the blockchain community, Masks of Ether, an NFT collection inspired by African traditional art, seeks to promote diversity and inclusiveness while showcasing the richness & diversity of African cultures on the Blockchain.
Black Arts Project: The project's first collection, a curated NFT initiative that promotes and celebrates black innovation, includes 10,000 original generative NFT artworks. The project’s objective is to build a diverse web3 creative community and produce works that will in turn promote significantly Black concerns amongst community members. Most importantly, it is also making efforts to promote diversity in a field that is already unbalanced when it comes to race & ethnicities.
WHAT TO TAKE AWAY ABOUT GENERATIVE ART NFTS?
Art Blocks has become the preferred platform for generating art. According to its website, the platform focuses on "genuinely programmable on-demand generative content." Fxhash is another well-known NFT marketplace that is built on the Tezos network. Ultimately, if the sales figures are any guide, generative art NFTs are in great demand and highly valued. Although there is a good chance that this demand will persist, it is still too soon to predict how they will do in the long run. There is little doubt that the fame of the artist and the historical importance of the works have a key role in determining their worth, as seen by many top generative art collections.
Last but not least, as usual, conduct your own research before making any investment choices.
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📚 Learning Centre
APR vs APY - Defi Download Newsletter
Credit: EthHunter
APR is an abbreviation for Annual Percentage Rate and it represents the amount of yield (interest) a depositor earns in a calendar year on a given investment. For example, if you were to deposit 1,000 USD worth of DAI into Aave, which is offering a 5% APR on DAI deposits, the amount of yield earned on that deposit in one year would be $50, or 5% of the deposit.
Often the best strategy is to redeposit the yield that is generated back into the principal to “compound” the yield to earn a bigger return, also known as the “let it ride” scenario from blackjack. However, each protocol is different, and the protocol you deposited the principal into dictates your ability to withdraw your yield, and how often the yield is available to claim. It’s also important to note the transactions needed to claim yield rewards incur gas fees for both the redemption and staking or depositing back into the protocol. For small investors, the transaction fees often eliminate the yield generated from the deposit, thus making this form of return better suited for bigger investments. This brings about the need for a different kind of yield; enter APY.
APY is an abbreviation for Annual Percentage Yield, which is just the product to solve that scenario. It deposits the yield generated back into the pool automatically to increase the principal amount of your investment. APY is the yield “auto compounded” into your original deposit for you at a predetermined interval. This creates a scenario in which more yield from your deposit is added to the base principal every cycle, stacking your bags and making the deposit amount increase over time without any extra input from you. Understanding the difference between APR and APY will make a difference in your investment strategies and make you a more competent investor.
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