ILL 🦅

Helping build @hawksnest_sol. Investing in 1/1 Art & NFT projects that develop products & services. SaaS GTM strategy IRL. Banner: @OparhamO

[ILL 🦅 @Illumin0tti]

Thank you Emmy for showering me with 6,250 Diamonds and getting me to shamelessly tweet this out. If you're a Solana OG head to https://t.co/JcwmxArMHa to claim the Diamonds you've earned

[Hawksnest.sol @Hawksnest_sol]

The Drip was purchased on @exchgART by @aamperiodsol

Welcome to the Nest!

[0xBeni @0xBenii]

1.35B $JUP will enter @solana soon
Here is how the ecosystem prepares for it👇

@DriftProtocol gives 2X Point boost for trading $JUP spot and perpetuals

@Kamino_Finance will offer $JUP lending, incentivized vaults and juicy points

@solflare_wallet provides a seamless claiming process for $JUP

@MeteoraAG DLMM will be the homebase of $JUP where you can earn fees right away

@DLN_Trade provides cross-chain limit orders and same-chain trade into $JUP

@Vybe_Network will have a live network graph showcasing the birth of $JUP

Borrow $SOL against your $JUP with @texture_fi or lend end earn 3 digit APY on $SOL

@multisig v3 and v4 offers a $JUP airdrop checker and claimer

@marginfi isolated $JUP pools launch on Day 1

@ZetaMarkets will have $JUP perpetual from the start

@RaydiumProtocol kicks off $RAY incentivised $JUP/$SOL CLMM pools

@solblaze_org teases bSOL x JUP x $BLZE

@HawksightCo prepares LP's with $JUP campaigns from Day 1

@phantom dropped smooth $JUP checker and in wallet claim site

@solendprotocol launching leveraged $JUP pool on launch day

@cubexch teased $JUP launch on the exchange

Can't wait if @orca_so @solanamobile @PhoenixTrade @mangomarkets @Lifinity_io have something in mind for the launch

History is being made ☄️

[Hawksnest.sol @Hawksnest_sol]

The Producer was purchased on @exchgART by @FakerIsDad.

Welcome to the Nest!

[ILL 🦅 @Illumin0tti]

@OParhamO @Hawksnest_sol WOW. Love the HawkTrons ™️

[Smyths @SmythsNFT]

Double Take: Snapshots Lined Up.

First, for Smyths claiming Meegos in the first 24 hours.

Second, set for staked ascended Smyths. Clock starts 24 hours post public mint.

Expect surprises. That’s all.

[JulesL.art 🎣 hOOkt @JulesL_art]

Want to know a little more about art and @Hawksnest_sol?
Check out our latest article in @ShillZine along with an eclectic gallery of amazing art curated by @Pixeltoy

[Hawksnest.sol @Hawksnest_sol]

The Hawksnest DAO wallet has received the below editions!

Thank you to @xlopez1907 for the donation!

Steady Lads - @Resistt_
Christmas for All - @Tainaker
Soul Crystal - @24Kenva
B O Y - @muimooi
SMASH - @ItsJakeWhiskey
Poliminia - @basketNFT

[ILL 🦅 @Illumin0tti]

@JulesL_art @Hawksnest_sol @Xizz_sol_nft @Deji @Flat_idea @DabsMalone Great quick read to get to know more about what artists are up to in the next. Awesome work @JulesL_art

[JulesL.art 🎣 hOOkt @JulesL_art]

Second edition of Art news from @Hawksnest_sol
The nest welcomes these new members to the growing art community. @Xizz_sol_nft Pixel Art, @Deji illustration and storytelling, @Flat_idea illustrator, @DabsMalone an artist fascinated with the mysteries of the Universe
.../2

[👾◎Parham◎👾 @OParhamO]

Episode 3: The Search🔎

Are you following along? This is the third episode of my 'The Story Behind' series, where I share the inspirations and narratives behind my art pieces and curate my various collections. 👇

I listed Episode 2&3 on @mallow__art ! Hope you enjoy it!

[👾◎Parham◎👾 @OParhamO]

I'm excited to invite you all to an upcoming Space hosted by @Hawksnest_sol ,
where I'll be sharing my journey into art and showcasing my artworks. It's going to be a fun conversation, and I would be honored if you could join me.
Don't forget to set a reminder for the event!👇

[Oligarch ⚔️ @Oligarchxyz]

Oligarch is thrilled to announce our Art Contest!

We are looking for an exceptional artist to add to our ranks and join our community. This competition will act as an audition for an artist to join us as a member of Oligarch and creator in residence, bringing their considerable talents to the group. Join us and showcase your talents!

[Tainaker🌱 @Tainaker]

Burn 50 Coyotes, get a random Coyote 1/1. Moving the collection to a separate @exchgART account!

I'll share my platform to do the swapping.

I'll stream while making the 1/1.
This dynamic will only be held during the month of July.

Give me prompts here fot the 1/1s!

Most liked gets 10 SOL.

[Slorg @SlorgoftheSlugs]

Last week I interviewed @litexo, founder of @BadEnvClub.

Lite is one of the most important voices in all of web3 — and through his project he seeks to 'pop the bubble' we find ourselves trapped in.

Without further ado, I present the full interview:

1. What is the most accurate view of an NFT project in regards to the relationship between holders and founder? Is it like a Kickstarter? Is it like buying equity in a company?

This is something I always ask myself. There's people who don't believe NFTs are kickstarters — but this is truly one of its main functions. Its an amazing way to raise funds, as long as you are transparent, because you don't have to take VC money. This is definitely one of the most popular use cases, but I like to think about it as buying into a culture. I don't really view NFTs as assets.

A lot of times there is confusion, even from the founder's side, because they think they are giving people this legitimate asset that is supposed to act as a stock.

There is still a lot of conversation that can be had around that, and in the future it could evolve into that. But as things stand, this is misleading, and the fact that we've seen most NFTs have trended to 0 in the last year shows these things aren't really assets.

2. What have been the biggest milestones in terms of NFT project development since you've entered the space? What are the series of metas we've been through, and have they had a lasting impact?

This is a crazy question, because being here for 2 years going on 3, I've seen so many different metas. The whitelist meta and how that was basically a huge cash-grab ponzi era. Then I've seen the meta of 'utility', which really was people scrambling to create solutions to problems which they invented. And nothing good really came out of that meta to be honest — although many people tried.

But this then lead to a meta of what we mentioned earlier, with "NFTs as investments". The most significant thing I've seen in my entire time in this space is something that's happened recently, and its simple — its with pudgy penguins.

They've taken this approach of stepping outside of this bubble by providing people with toys. The toys are physical, and sold in locations where kids can actually buy them. The interesting thing is that it links back to web3, in a way that's not overwhelming or super weird for people.

I think its fascinating because you can see a lot of projects on Sol like Claynosaurz who can easily dip into that territory.

Someone was telling me that with anime, most of the sales stem from products, and most of those products happen to be toys. So toys are a good way to get people involved in something, especially children.

Perhaps people have faded everything else web3 has to offer, but they can relate to a physical product. And I think this is where the space goes next. The next meta will be how we can step outside this bubble of web3, and how we can provide real utility to the real world, and bridge it back in a way that isn't overwhelming.

3. I've noticed that in some projects, such as Doodles, the strategy to 'focus on the business' has been met with backlash from some community members. What do you feel is a proper middle ground between building out a business and maintaining the community?

Its important to remember your roots. There is a way to do it, that pudgy penguins is nailing — and their community gets it.

But I think there's a way not to do it as well. These projects are starting out in web3, and that's who builds you up — and to pull the carpet out from peoples feet is not cool, if you intend to disregard them completely.

I think the middle ground is always communication and having a tight knit community who understands each pivot, with a founder who can express their vision.

4. What is the most dysfunctional thing about web3? What assumptions do you think we make as projects and participants, that we may have internalized and do more harm than good at this point?

I think the most dysfunctional, yet most beautiful thing is the fact that everything is so open because you are truly building in public.

And maybe at the core of it, people are impatient. I think the space could practice more patience when it comes to projects and people, because we need to get back to reality.

Great businesses are not built in a week, month or even a year. And if you do decide to treat it as an investment, and you do believe in the founder and vision, then you need to give that vision room to breathe.

If it works out, great. If it doesn't, that's a gamble you took. But also as a founder your word is bond. You have maybe 2 or 3 chances to get this right. You cannot say you'll do something and fail to follow through, so you need to be careful. Because you have to realize how impatient people are.

5. Do you think the dominance of twitter as the arena for interaction in web3 is something that will last, or is it merely an artifact of the old ways of doing things?

I was hoping that web3 would hop over to Instagram, but Instagram decided to remove NFTs. And maybe that was for the best, because they are pretty much pay-to-win.

I like twitter a lot, because it is like the court of public opinion. It is super fast and you can see instant communication. There's no other platform like it, and its so interesting because it works well with the highspeed culture of NFTs.

I know a lot of creators who have been frustrated with the way twitter has outages or handles its reach, or makes random updates. And I hope twitter understands that and realizes they have a good thing here.

Because if someone else wants to be more inviting to web3, we might hop over there and that could be a huge L for them. But I love twitter. I hope they are able to keep it going for us.

6. Being loud and nasty on twitter can sometimes be a substitute for value, and it usually is rewarded. How do we overcome this negativity bias, or do you believe it will take care of itself on a long enough timespan?

This happened on Facebook badly during the elections. And at the end of the day, its something inside human nature — we just like drama.

Something in our algorithm likes it, and I don't know if there's a true fix to that. If you make content that's well thought out and wholesome, you may get a decent amount of views. But if you fabricate images or stir up drama, suddenly you have 10s of thousands of eyes on your content.

I'm not sure there's a way to avoid that, but I think the best everyone can do if you're serious about web3 in the long term is to be careful when cultivating your following. Don't just follow anyone, and make sure you are muting people who are toxic.

7. A component of your thesis involves the fact that bad actors are prevalent in the space. Very few have suffered repercussions for their behavior, and in fact many have been rewarded. Over time this causes resentment, and is likely at least a factor in the space losing participants. How do we reduce this?

This is a question that I'm passionate about because when I first entered the space, I noticed the constant issue of influencers who would shill things and giveaways they knew were rugs to people who didn't know any better, just like me. They were shilling things to their followings, rugging people. It was really nasty, and its something that stuck with me.

I think the best way we can overcome is taking it upon ourselves to be the change we want to see. So that looks like making educational content for people coming into the space — even something as simple as a tweet.

Just think about yourself when you first entered the space. What are things you wish you had that may have helped you avoided any of the traps you fell into?

8. You state that education may not fix several of the spaces problems. I'm wondering what % of the population do you think are moved by educational efforts?

Its interesting because looking at the data, something like 16% of the US has interacted with crypto, and probably less with NFTs.

Suddenly education within the web3 space confined to this bubble doesn't make the most sense.

On a more holistic level, how can you expect to educate people who never heard of this thing or don't like it? Education to me means stepping outside the bubble and using things like Stepn for example to sugar coat it. There were people using Stepn who had no idea about crypto, but they had to learn a little to receive their funds.

If you happen to make something or create a product outside the bubble that helps people, that is your optimal opportunity to educate in a practical sense, because you have managed to capture their interest.

9. How do you intend to get your physical products into the hands of a real world audience?

The wrong way to do it is to try to print 50,000 shirts that have NFT memorabilia on them.

I've always been a fan of streetwear, so I'm wanting to make clothes that don't necessarily look like they were made in web3 at all.

And the way we get people curious is through the NFC chips we embed as a tag on every item. You tap a chip with your phone and suddenly you mint an NFT. We want to be careful though, because rather than say mint, we say verify to get them comfortable with the idea of ownership.

Then we want to end it there. We do leave them with our links and information to get into web3, but on the surface everything is web2. And by doing things and delivering things to people that feel familiar, we can draw in this audience.

Because the idea is to get them to touch web3 for a second, not to try to fully immerse them.

10. I saw Vibhu from Driphaus mention that the word 'NFT' itself has become tainted, and we are better off overhauling the entire lexicon. Do you agree with this?

A lot of people dislike NFTs and the culture surrounding them. And we could try to argue and throw facts at them, but they don't care. And so we need to take a step back and not only say how can we make this more digestible for people, but also how can we use language that isn't jarring.

What is it about crypto and NFTs that make people hate them? What I came to realize after speaking to people with these beliefs is: 1. they think its bad for the environment & 2. when people in the crypto world are up, they are jerks and try to flex on everyone.

If they're down its because it was all a Ponzi and they're just rugging each other. By hearing these things and listening to people, I was able to come up with so many good ideas that revolve around changing the language of the space.

Its a huge thing for us, and a great example of what were trying to do with this idea of changing language but also repackaging the idea of web3 and using creativity to find ways to get it into people's hands.

11. There's a popular video of a man dancing alone at a music festival. Then over the course of 10 minutes, another man joins him, and suddenly everyone rushes over to participate in the dancing. Do you believe this analogous to what web3 adoption will look like?

I think that's absolutely what it looks like. When shopping carts were invented, people refused to use them. They had to hire actors to model them before others started using them naturally. There's a lesson in that, and I think its 2 fold:

1. What can we make that is extremely practical?
2. How can we guide people towards it?

12. Who would you say is your target audience? How do we break out of the mold of making the target audience for every project the entirety of web3?

The Degen is such an interesting archetype because its the person you cannot please. They have a gambling addiction, and addictions cannot be cured unless you want to be helped. So the Degen is effectively looking for a cure in a founder that can pump his bags. And it just becomes this endless loop of gambling.

What I'm interested in is the person almost a bit tired of Vegas. The person who wants to go somewhere else. I'm interested in the people who care about culture. I want to attract the visionaries in this sense, and create a group of creators who have somewhere to feel at home, rather than having to worry about bags or staking.

I think there needs to be a refuge from the noise, because the noise never stops.

13. What would you say your biggest obstacle is as a project?

Right now its trying to condition people out of the NFT mentality. We aren't trying to be a project that you speculate on. We want to be a culture, a business — we want to actually do things in the real world.

That's going to require patience from people, but also depends on us actually delivering. Our execution matters too.

Keeping promises and then respecting people's time and attention is something important to me. And its going to be hard, at least initially, because were doing things that haven't even been tried before.

[Meegos @MeegosNFT]

It's a Meegos world, we are just living in it.

[ILL 🦅 @Illumin0tti]

@Hawksnest_sol Been a ride. Grateful for @Hawksnest_sol and the amazing ppl who have joined to make it what it is.

[Hawksnest.sol @Hawksnest_sol]

Hawksnest is growing, collecting art, & trading more each day.

We wanted to highlight how our community functions, & let everyone know how you can join or participate. Let's get into it!

A thread 🧵

[Toughies @TOUGHIES100]

The final Toughie is live 🚨

100/100
Starting Bid: 1◎
Duration: 24 hours