In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: The Repricing Will Be Violent (by PhoenixxDown)

• Meet Your Neo Tokyo Council: Jeff Treves (by Block Editor)

• Ethereum Holders NGMI (by Flower83)

It is once again that time! Council appointments are here again and there are now four spots to be filled in this application period. Some changes to the structure have been made, which you can review in the Discord announcement from Firestorm.

The Leads and Council have helped implement over 100 proposals and features in the last 2.5 years. If you think you have what it takes to lead us into the golden bull run, then get your applications in here.

This is how things shaped up with the NT content:

Interlinked Episode #39 featured a firm favorite of ours here at Neo Tokyo News: Aron Beierschmitt, the CEO of Laguna Games and creator of Crypto Unicorns. Discussions included the economy of Crypto Unicorns, passing on Game of Thrones IP, and a deep dive into the play & collect game itself.

Planet Mojo AMA - Ben and Nick met with Mike Levine, the founder of the award-winning game studio, to let us in on what’s being built over there, including their mobile game Mojo Melee, which is available for download on the Apple Store and Google Play Store. Listen back here.

Meet Your Citizens - Block sits down with fellow Council member Cryptoetheus to learn about his past, from being a stand-up comedian, to a goat farmer, and currently to one of the most respected cogs of the NT machine in the AMA division!

NFT Market Monday - ButWouldYa took the helm of Market Monday this week, bringing his signature high energy to the discussion with in an episode which was one of the best yet! The topics included exit strategies, the potential bull run of utility coins, and the continued rampant rise of meme coins. Additionally, I shared my thesis on why Retardios are poised to become the blue-chip NFT collection of this cycle. Listen back here.

A STACKED citizen panel was announced for Rare Evo with Scott Herman of WAGMI Games, Sw4gn3r of Star Atlas, Firestorm, and Josh Jones of Cornucopias scheduled to speak about the role web3 gaming will play in mainstream adoption.

Ktrap dropped us another update, and it’s looking okay for Neo Tokyo, all things considered. Bytes were up 85% on the week. Did you catch the bottom?

It’s worth mentioning that in our most recent MM, Race4TheWin remarked that the future looks very bright for us here in The Citadel. The impression I got was that where bytes and NT assets are concerned, the repricing will be violent, and it could be sometime in the near/moderate future. Just my feeling, I have no inside info, but my bags are packed.

Until next week, citizens.

• Discord ID: jefftreves

• Entered Crypto: 2021

• Joined NT: S1 Mint

• Expertise: Art and Illustration

• Most Known For: Riddle illustrations

• Reason for Joining Leads: Love of Neo Tokyo and networking

• One Word: Sincerity

• Outside Interests: Music

A Neo Tokyo council member and the founder of BirthMark app, Jeff Treves joined Meet Your Citizens this week to give us his story. An illustrator by trade, Jeff has experience in several art forms throughout the years including illustration, animation, music, and of course, tattoos. Among his many accomplishments, he’s done work for Disney, Mattel, Scholastic, and Fisher Price which was outsourced to the agency he worked for. He also worked as an animation director for a YouTube kids production, but that got put on hold during COVID, which is around the time he ventured into the world of crypto.

There was a transition period during COVID where Jeff spent time balancing working in studios vs. working at home. Bitcoin started making headlines around then, and it wasn’t the first time it hit his radar. He read enough to start talking to family in friends and they gathered some money to invest collectively. His first NFT was a Doge Pound NFT and within a few months he was all in.

Working in the art industry, concepts like digital rights and also stolen IP were very real in his world. The tech just made sense! Jeff’s work has been duplicated and monetized without his consent thousands of times. He had always thought digital art needed a system of protection. Jeff started to read and absorb as much knowledge as she could, even reading documents like the 200 page Citibank report about the future of Bitcoin. He also started learning some JavaScript so he could understand how smart contracts worked.

Most people in the 2021 time period were learning about crypto from YouTube and Jeff was no different. He quickly discovered Ellio and Becker and they made some great calls, including his Doge Pound NFT, and Jeff started making money by following their advice. So when they announced they were dropping a project, Jeff knew he had to get in. He minted on Day 1 along with Group 3. He had a cousin on the journey with him and the poor chap didn’t have enough ETH to cover gas and missed out. According to Jeff, his entry was pure luck because he never considered loading up with ETH for gas prior to the event.

Now within The Citadel, Jeff has helped out countless builders with his skill set including Citizen Capital where he designed their Transcendance collection. He also did time on the Design Division and Neo Tokyo Vision. Ten of his best illustrations are unreleased and may or may not be a part of the next Hand competition!

He joined the council simply because he loves this community. Based out of Turkey, there are not a lot of networking opportunities for him locally and Neo Tokyo has solved that issue for him. “It's the only unique semi autonomous community structure that you can find in the NFT space,” Jeff said. When Neo Tokyo was first formed, Jeff was inspired by the structure, or lack of. “We were told, all right, here's a server for you, here's a setup. Do whatever you want. There's nothing. We're not going to do anything. We're not going to do anything for you. We're not going to move a finger. You're just going to build here and network,” Jeff said. And the structure was exactly what made this community.

His current focus is Birthmark App, a marketplace exclusively for the tattoo industry. “Blockchain shares the same DNA with the tattoo industry because they want to be permanent and immutable,” Jeff said. The tattoo industry never really had a true e-commerce model and Jeff plans on unlocking that. Blockchain solves all the problems that web2 cannot for trading tattoos.

They’ve been building the app since March 2021 and haven’t stopped since. They launched on Base and you can currently buy tattoos online through the platform. A purchase gets a buyer the tattoo designed as an NFT plus the real life inking session and it's all locked in the smart contract with the buyer controlling the funds. Users can also speculate on tattoos and sell them on secondary.

For citizens looking for advice, Jeff is your go to for all things animation, 3d animation, production, and illustration. He’s also learned a lot on some marketing strategies and principles that he’d be happy to pass on.

Outside of work Jeff is actually a part of a rock band that has been recording since 2017. They have an album and are currently working on recording their second.

Follow @trevesstudioes on X to stay up to date.

These days there is a lot of negative sentiment in the markets towards ETH. ETH has failed us. Or have we failed… IT? Too early to say, but what is apparent is the toxic relationship we are currently in… or have been, for a while. For many holders, this is simply not working anymore and they want out.

What is also very clear is that the ETF approval did nothing positive for the price action so far, and people are starting to panic (bag holders) or make fun of the situation (those that sold and are enjoying “Solana Summer.”) So, we are now seeing quite a healthy level of jokes and memes on social media this week, reflecting the overall sentiment from these two opposites. The situation is serious… and seriously bleak.

Here is the painful fact though. This is the weekly ETH/BTC chart for approximately the last two years. A very consistent bleed:

Lets try and find a few reasons for this abysmal price action and ETH underperforming:

1. It is slow and expensive. Well… DUUUHHHH, right? Nothing new here. Nothing we didn't already know. However, this time around it is becoming a bit more impactful, since DeFi, devs, builders, projects, NFT communities and memes have been moving to other (cheaper & faster) alternatives and ETH isn't considered the “only serious L1 with smart contracts” anymore.
   

2. It doesn't have many good memes. And this is perhaps the big one. With memecoins being at the forefront of the attention economy of this bull cycle, it is no surprise that the market narratives drive the overall prices of the chain it is being built on up with them. In essence, the battle for where the party is at is important. And ETH has been losing in this regard against Solana for months now. Remember last cycle? When NFT’s were the hot stuff? Back then a lot of collections were on ETH, and it gave it the spotlight.
   

3. The Ethereum Foundation, the OG’s, some old wallets and Vitalik Himself are selling in bulk. This is a serious issue. Like, where is the conviction, you guys? It's like devs insta jeeting their own coin, it's like VC’s or teams selling new coins at first unlock… It doesn't exactly scream confidence. It feels like a betrayal.  
   

4. Scalability issues & ecosystem fragmentation. Ethereum failed to scale despite many L2 (or even L3) attempts and is still expensive. Furthermore, all that these L2 chains actually achieved is fragmented liquidity and in many cases more chains than products building on them, effectively diluting the overall liquidity as well as the entire user base. The toxicity of the airdrop farming space is also adding to this negative impact, since a lot of “organic” growth and metrics have been artificially pumped up due to people expecting rewards and not being genuinely interested in what projects are actually about. Other L1’s have a much more sincere participation.

As a bonus, here are some of the most juicy memes from this week to brighten your day (and the fact that your bags have been massively underperforming if you are holding this seller’s coin):

So, there you have it. It has been a nice ride. But all relationships end eventually.

I will be selling and buying Solana. Better late than never.

All content from Neo Tokyo News is for entertainment purposes only, and not financial advice.

That’s it for our 56th edition of the Neo Tokyo Newsletter. Be sure to subscribe and share with your friends so you don’t miss out on future content.

Make sure to also follow Neo Tokyo News on Twitter.

And check out our Neo Tokyo News Website.