Written by: John "JAYEL"

It's time to start getting your focus together for the new year. What are you doing? What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? What do you need to do to get there?

COVID is no longer an excuse for why you are not making the progress you want. As it always has, the world moves on with or without you--time stops for no man or woman! Let's have a celebratory New Years and kick the crap out of this 2022.

For some transparency, at the time of this writing, the newsletter is sitting at 24 subscribers. Thank you very much to those of you who have subscribed and read these letters over the past three weeks. However, I'm being dead-serious when I say that I will Venmo you $10 if you get some of your friends to sign-up! Please! I want to grow this thing and grassroots marketing is the best marketing! Let me know who you sent this to and I'll send you some cash if they subscribe. This third letter had no new subscribers from my second newsletter.

OK, enough with the begging; Let's get into all the reasons why you're here right now!

🥷 Jack Dorsey versus the Metaverse

At the end of November, Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and Square (now known as Block), resigned from his CEO role at Twitter. Since his resignation, he has been a lot more vocal about his web3 opinions on Twitter--especially this past week.

In short, he believes that the Ethereum ecosystem is already owned and being milked by VC (venture capital) and other institutional investors. This is the anti-thesis to what many people think and love about this revolutionary part of the internet: They believe that it is for and owned by the people--it's decentralized after-all, isn't it?

Before I continue, I must state that I agree with Jack Dorsey on this subject and many, many, MANY people disagree with Jack Dorsey on this subject. The interesting part of it, is that so many of the people who rabidly disagree with Jack are VCs and other prominent web3 influencers themselves.

I didn't have much of a dog in the fight until I started to see some blatantly uneducated opinions come from some extremely influential technologists and investors. People think that Ethereum didn't have any venture investments made at its genesis, which is false. 10% of the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) for Ethereum was funded by Joseph Lubin, a venture capitalist. Since then, tons of investors have poured money into the coin and other projects that run the entire ecosystem, such as Coinbase, Opensea, Polygon, and the list goes on and on...

Investors don't talk about businesses publicly unless they have something to gain from it--it's just a simple fact. So, why would all of these prominent VC firms be discussing and gloating over web3 innovations (which are all taking place on the Ethereum blockchain)? Simple, because they have financial incentive.

To wrap this section up, Silicon Valley VCs are going to prosper very well from the web3 innovations, yes. However, like all new technology, there is a ton of opportunity for us little guys--probably more now than ever. Social media loves to try to destroy people with uncharacteristic opinions when it doesn't fit the narrative that they're used to. Venture capital has always been the pioneer in our technological advancement, don't get in a sissy-fit because they are at the starting line of web3. Just get ready to run with them and enjoy the ride.

🏝 FTX CEO dubbed over Island Boy

For some light-hearted fun, here is Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO and Founder of crypto exchange FTX, getting dubbed over the sensational Island Boy freestyle.

This was made earlier in the winter when SBF was discussing leaving the FTX HQ in Hong Kong and relocating it somewhere in the Caribbean.

🦧 BAYC flips CryptoPunks

Earlier this week, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project flipped the OG CryptoPunks in floor price. In laymans, this means that the cheapest BAYC NFT became more expensive than the cheapest CryptoPunks NFT price.

This is big news because for the entirety of this NFT bull-run, CryptoPunks has been the pinnacle NFT project to own. BAYC has been on the rise in a big way, but I don't think people really expected this to happen so quickly.

One big perspective that I've had change from this, is that maybe these big NFT projects don't have as long as a runway as everyone may have originally thought. Attention on the internet is so short-lived in the first place, and now we're talking about buying and selling JPEGs as investments? The ADHD is rabid in an environment like this; People want to go towards what is hot and drop what is not. I think there will definitely be success in holding projects long term, but I also think a large percentage of these even high-profile projects will hit rock bottom in favor of what's hot. You must remain diligent with your holdings and pay attention to the market at all times.

🎶 Music to work and jam to

This week's music is my favorite mix that I've posted in my letters to date. I listened to it the whole time while writing this week's letter. Vintage Culture live at the Brooklyn Mirage in NYC. A legendary venue with a legendary performance to match, I know you'll enjoy it--especially all of my fellow House lovers 💙

🆘 OpenDAO gives free airdrop

DAOs are the new hot thing in web3. I won't go into much detail about them in this letter, but I did want to highlight one that I discovered on Christmas Eve.

OpenDAO offered a free airdrop for users who have bought anything on the Opensea NFT platform. If you bought an NFT with Ethereum in the past, you can connect your wallet to the OpenDAO website and claim free $SOS tokens.

At first I thought it was a little suspicious, but so many people on my Twitter timeline were discussing it, I decided to YOLO in and it was legitimate (thank god). I honestly don't care much for what the OpenDAO is about, but I feel like I had to talk about it because it gave me $300 worth of tokens for free, which I am going to be swapping into Ethereum.

My final note on this, is that I think most DAOs are complete bullshit. The only exception to this, in my opinion, is the ENS DAO (Ethereum Name Service). Anyway, if you've bought things on Opensea, go ahead and claim your free $SOS tokens and get some free money--Merry Chrysler.  

🎮 $500k gaming circuit for women

This is exciting news to talk about as someone who has spent decades in competitive esports and specifically within the game of Counter-Strike.

I have always viewed Counter-Strike as the pioneer for competitive and professional gaming, and they've proved that point true once again with this announcement. Earlier this week, ESL, the leading tournament organizer for Counter-Strike, announced their new initiative #GGFORALL.

The initiative is designed to tackle discrimination, promote mental wellbeing and progress environmental sustainability in esports. It will start with the all-female tournament circuit in 2022 that will have teams compete for a total of $500k in prizes.

Females need more representation and opportunity in the exploding gaming and esports scene, and it's amazing to see Counter-Strike taking the lead here in these evolving times. This is not something you see with any other game out there--none even come close.

👋 Farewell to 2021

As always, thanks for reading and remember to share this newsletter for some free cash! As requested by a fellow friend and reader, I will be sharing some of my longterm outlook and prospects on NFTs, crypto, and the metaverse at long. It may be what my entire next letter is about, but we will see what next week brings.

Also, I will be starting to record video and audio-form content for these letters in the coming weeks. So, lots of exciting things coming.

Happy New Years 🎇
Your friend,
JAYEL