by Edward H. Carpenter
This article was originally published in Issue 6 of Vagobond Magazine.
In late January 2022, shortly after I began my research into the intersection of books and the blockchain, I discovered $LIT, rather by chance, having read a passing reference to the fact that Neil Strauss had supposedly published his latest book as an NFT, and that $LIT had made it possible.
This was true – and from just 892 copies of the book, there have been 542 ETH in sales – which translates into approximately one million dollars as I’m writing this, with ETH at $1898.
I quickly became convinced that $LIT represented one of the literary-adjacent Web3 communities which writers should align themselves with, even though NFT books weren’t their actual focus. In fact, since they released Neil’s book as “Project One” they’ve done video projects with Hollywood stars, iconic art pieces, and video game re-imaginings.
But, still. They collaborated with TIME Magazine for its Web3 issue and are now on the cusp of releasing a project that combines superhero PFPs and a comic book. $LIT-affiliated artists and writers have done book covers for other projects and released their own literary NFTs.In fairness, there is a lot more to the history of $LIT than can be covered in a few hundred words – the meteoric rise and subsequent fall of the token price – which made some people millions, and left others holding the bag. The internal drama, the involvement of big names from Web3, Hollywood and beyond. But all that is beyond the scope of this article – and indeed, history is still being written as the organization forms the DAO which holds 50 percent of the tokens and a large chunk of IP.
Indeed, it is the DAO which really has the potential to revolutionize the way literature evolves in Web3, due to their commitment to building projects which expand the Web3 ecosystem and the on-chain options for creators of all types – not just visual artists.
I believe the day will soon come when a Web3 writer – or a community of writers – will be able to pitch a project, partnership, or a collaboration to the $LIT DAO, and if successful, will be able to potentially access funding, technology, artists, developers, audiences and influencers – whatever it takes to move the project forward to a launch that benefits both the writer(s) and their project partners in the $LIT DAO.
Will such literary NFT projects look just like Neil’s Survive All Apocalypses? Maybe so. Probably not. $LIT values innovation, fun, weirdness and the unexpected – and they value making things that are smarter, better, and unique. So, as authors in Web3, we ought to be asking ourselves – can our stories be those things?
Because if we can imagine new forms of storytelling – or maybe just new stories – $LIT might just be the organization to help bring them to life on the blockchain.
