The Good Part About Blockchain Transparency

I love when you guys comment on stuff. It keeps me honest and always challenging my own beliefs. There was great engagement on Russia, SWIFT, and the Urgent Need for Privacy Coins. I think the level of economic sanctions that we’ve seen recently, not just against Russia but also civilians in Canada, has shown the need for private value exchange. CBDCs are going to happen. It is inevitable. And that reality likely means the end of paper cash as legal tender.

For people who wish to maintain some semblance of privacy, currencies that hide sender, recipient, and value total are needed. While I’m very clearly partial to Zcash (ZEC), there is a case to be made for Monero (XMR). While I’m not sure that Monero is as private as it is advertised, what Monero can claim that Zcash can’t is the coin’s intended privacy is the default functionality. The Zcash blockchain allows for visible transactions. I’m completely okay with this and let me explain why.

When Transparency is Good

Part of what makes decentralized currencies so appealing is that you can use them to support anyone or anything. Like the people in Ukraine, for instance. And that got me thinking, transparency in charity is actually good in most cases. We learned donating Bitcoin to the truckers in Canada can get you in trouble with the state-regulated financial system in that country - that’s bad. But I’d imagine donating Bitcoin to a less controversial cause like building a non-profit hospital would be fine with the clown prince of Canada. Here, we can see personal discretion regarding transparency is important.

The fact that Ethereum is so easily trackable can actually be very helpful in the NFT space. Beyond the data mining capability that the blockchain provides when seeking a market edge, knowing ETH addresses allows us to differentiate between real projects and scams. I’m sure you’ve heard, the crypto space is full of scams. Check this out:

Webzee isn’t even a popular NFT project and yet there are three scam collections trying to bamboozle people who don’t know any better. This is why the proper process for buying NFTs has always been to follow trusted links and to avoid large non-curated marketplaces like the plague. Unless, of course, you actually know what you’re doing and know what to look for.

A Bid Drop Coming?

Mint Songs is a bit more like OpenSea than a more curated NFT marketplace like SuperRare. This is why it’s so important for artists to share their actual NFT links with their fans as opposed to making them go look for them on their own. Me though, I’ve found the discovery process to be half of the fun. I actually like scanning through the marketplace looking for opportunities. If I’m not sure of something on Mint Songs, I always do research before buying. Did the artist tweet about the listing? Is it on their Instagram? Generally when the artists mint on Mint Songs, they tell their fans so their fans can go buy the NFTs. That’s really the entire point. A couple weeks ago, I found something that I thought was pretty interesting when scanning the artists page.

This is the user account for an entity claiming to be The Mac Miller Fund. Mac Miller was a Pittsburgh-based rapper who passed away in 2018. Even almost four years after his passing, Mac Miller still has 18 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The Mac Miller Fund is associated with the Pittsburg Foundation and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for young musician grants. And yes, when you get to the Mac Miller Fund profile on Mint Songs, you can see the ETH address associated with the profile.

This is the address: 0x638b19D04b8f5F9Eb3a2F3513F3949E1014ADA34

That address currently has a zero balance on the ETH chain, but it holds 150 ERC-721 mints on Polygon on the Mint Songs token contract. We just can’t see what they are on the platform yet. But if the naming on the profile is any indication, it looks like some unreleased Mac Miller music is about to wind up on Mint Songs. If it’s real, this could be really exciting for Mac Miller fans, music NFT investors, and Pittsburgh musicians looking for a fund raise. And the transparency of the blockchain will allow NFT investors (or donors) to see exactly where those funds go if they stay on-chain.

Disclosure: I’m not an investment advisor. I merely share what I do and why I do it. You shouldn’t take anything I say as investment advice and always do your own research when making investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies, tokens, STONKs, and digital trinkets could all go to zero. I have no job and I live in my wife’s basement. I’m the last person on the face of the earth who you should listen to for financial advice or life advice. I’m not featured on trustworthy financial news sources like CNBC or Bloomberg and I don’t wear a necktie when I make my trades. I hold dozens of Mint Songs NFTs and multiple Webzee NFTs.