This week, we will focus on a slightly different subject – a new and novel use case for the blockchain and our Serenity Shield StrongBox®️. This new application will alter how we remember ourselves, our loved ones, and even history itself. And yet, it will allow us to do what comes naturally and much more.
Some of this may come across as a bit futuristic, yet much of what will be discussed is almost here and only just around the corner in terms of technology development. Here, we will explore something that will ultimately transform how we as a species engage with the past, including our memories and legacies.
The Forest and the Trees
Generally, people in the digital asset space fall into one of two camps of extremes. On the one hand, we have the ‘degens’ community – a group of high-risk crypto traders hoping to make millions from almost nothing. Typical plays for members of this group can range from fatuous, no-utility NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club to more impulsive investments in non-transparent projects as they hope to ride a FOMO wave from rags to riches overnight. Contrastingly, on the other hand, we have the super-utilitarian, financially disciplined community of self-proclaimed ‘HODLERs’ who only want tangible, measurable, commercial value and evidence of utility before entering any investment. One group misses the forest, the other the trees.
NFT technology can open up an entirely new set of markets and use cases that we have only scarcely begun to imagine, much less implement. Soon, we will be helping people secure their very memories in perpetuity and on the blockchain. That day is coming, and it waits just around the corner. This technology presents us with the opportunity to transform our economy and our actual culture.
The Digital Stage
The Old Bard once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players….” Pretty much any of the major social media platforms provide testament a’plenty. This has proven a truism throughout the whole of human existence. Humans have an innate drive to create records that we were here, lest we be forgotten. The nature of humanity, from the cave paintings in Lascaux to the latest dance craze on TikTok, all represent humanity’s profound urge to make our mark on the world, so others will know that we were here and that we did stuff. It’s a common, ubiquitous, and persistent trait that has remained a part of our character as a species since literal prehistory.
It should be no surprise to anyone that this tendency would find some form of outlet in the digital realm. Of course, why should it not? The digital world is one of human art, created by minds and hands for our use and enjoyment. We as a species find ways to express ourselves, and we do so using the tools close at hand.
One of the ways that many people archive memory is through still images and two-dimensional videos. Kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, pharaohs and conquerors all made marks on the world. They all sought to record their triumphs, big and small, for posterity. Through commissioning artists and artisans of all types, they paid others to make marks for them. As society has gradually grown less authoritarian and individuals continue to gain more autonomy over their lives, so too do we all like to document our lives.
New Age Cave Paintings
From scrapbooking to home movies, people will continuously innovate and adopt new technologies. As new technology gets adopted, the cost of documenting things gets cheaper. Securing our legacy of memories becomes easier. One of the unique aspects of the digital era so far has been its effect on culture. Technology has enabled humanity’s primordial desire to document our lives with sound and video in extremely high definition and then share it with the rest of the world in a mere instant.
Now that digital technology to record and playback practically everything we see and hear sits in the palm of our hand, its ubiquity will drive the need to protect and save important recordings and pictures. Almost everyone who desires to catalogue important visual or audio memories for personal and commercial uses will need to archive and curate them.
Strange Days, Indeed
Perhaps you have seen the amazing near-future smart, realistic late-90s sci-fi thriller Strange Days, starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. The important part here lies in the MacGuffin. To keep it brief, here is the premise. The US military-industrial complex develops a new technology that allows for the digital recording and playback of memories in a perfect technicolor resolution that can then be shared and re-lived. The technology, initially intended for high-level, high-fidelity espionage, manages to find its way onto the black market, and people use it for all sorts of reasons.
We have our own version of this technology, although recording memories straight from the brain still stand firmly out of reach for now. The metaverse, and the technologies upon which it will be based, will provide some of that same novelty and utility as seen in the film and, with it, entirely new use cases that we have only barely managed to imagine. The metaverse will present humanity with a new form of interaction in real-time and long after time has passed.
That’s So Meta(verse)
There will come a time in the very near future when people pass their digital memories down through the family in much the same way that physical family heirlooms have always been passed down through the generations. Whether great-grandmother’s silver mirror, or grandad’s old watch, we want people to remember us, and we want to remember people.
Clearly, not all heirlooms need to be physical, though. Many families have cases of Super-8 films, Polaroid pictures (shaken, not stirred), VHS tapes, negatives, or even audio recordings of their now-deceased family members. Saving and protecting those mementos can be expensive, and they eventually wear out. Luckily, we have already reached the point where these cherished recordings can be digitized and saved in digital perpetuity, stored under the highest grade of encryption.
The Next Frontier
The technology to record has not stopped, either. We now stand on the precipice of being able to record fully-immersive 3D recordings and save them for future generations, forever. We have already seen holograms of some recently deceased musical artists. A hologram of Tupac Shakur even “performed” at Coachella. It is simply a matter of time until we can render 3D recordings of ourselves in real-time, save those recordings inside the metaverse, revisit those recordings, and have them completely encrypted and protected from hackers.
Not only does this mean you can leave those sweet messages of familial love to your next of kin in full 3D, but the commercial applications will also know practically no limits. Imagine being able to lay out complete succession plans, explained in detail, by you to your successors. Not only that, it will be protected in our StrongBox, accessible only to those to whom you grant it.
Join Us
The simple fact of the matter is this. Technology will continue to change. We could no sooner stop the tides than the march of technological development. If we are to make full use of it, we need to understand it and ensure that it works for us, not against us. We want to invite you to join us on this journey. The responsibility for ensuring these new and novel technologies remain human-centered falls to us, and we welcome the company.
Please join us on our Telegram channel. You will be the first to know about official project announcements and developments there. Additionally, you can also find us on Twitter, Discord, and our website. Please visit our whitepaper and previous articles here for a more in-depth discussion of our project. We are always available on all of our platforms to assist with your questions.
