Despite this dim outlook, over 500 individuals not too long ago took over the campus of Idyllwild Arts Academy, a personal arts boarding faculty in Idyllwild, Calif., for a weekend competition that local media deemed to be the “crypto Woodstock.”
The occasion was referred to as FWB Fest, and the artists, writers, musicians, software program engineers, start-up founders and creatives who gathered had been all united by way of their membership in Friends With Benefits, a crypto-based on-line social membership that you need to buy a token to affix.
At FWB Fest, crypto’s downturn was welcomed. “I don’t think this festival would have worked six months ago,” stated Alex Zhang, 26, one among Friends With Benefits’s leaders and an occasion organizer.
The individuals at FWB Fest weren’t the everyday crypto convention attendees who jet between Miami and San Francisco. Many had been working artists or artistic professionals. They had been there as a result of they consider that the blockchain, crypto’s underlying expertise, can be utilized to construct a greater world by way of group and decentralization.
“The thing that’s happening on a bigger level,” Yancey Strickler, the previous co-founder and CEO of Kickstarter advised a room of fellow attendees throughout a session titled “Beyond Crypto,” “is that we’ve had many decades of extreme and increasing individualism as the primary value, where each of us are expected to stand on our own … but now we’re recognizing the hollowness of that, and the loneliness of that and the grind.”
“I think we’re all getting our sea legs after decades of neoliberal market brain individualism,” stated Austin Robey, a Friends With Benefits member and co-founder, together with Strickler, of Metalabel, a platform that provides instruments for on-line collectives.
While the crypto world’s public picture has been largely outlined by a model of hyper-capitalist libertarian individualism, attendees at FWB sought to leverage the crash to usher in a distinct, extra inclusive techno utopia centered on group and creativity.
“Crypto is obviously divisive, and there’s a lot of language and tools that we are comfortable using that don’t translate to the mainstream,” an attendee stated. “But how we’re going to have a greater positive impact on more people’s material lives is by building tools on public ledgers that aren’t hyper-financialized.”
A $100 million group chat
In 2020, entrepreneur and artist Trevor McFedries started exploring the best way to carry a extra mainstream viewers to crypto. He’d lengthy been on the forefront of artwork and expertise, having constructed an organization that created the primary digital influencer, however after the pandemic hit he started delving into the world of Web3, the broad and considerably fluid time period that serves as shorthand for a brand new sort of web that’s constructed on decentralized blockchains. While Web 2.0, the present iteration of the online, is outlined by a handful of massive tech corporations that personal and management person content material and knowledge, advocates of Web3 see its decentralized techniques as resulting in extra egalitarian possession.
In a single weekend, McFedries created a specialised cryptocurrency token and despatched it round to his mates in the music, artwork, design, and tech worlds in addition to to some Twitter followers.
The “FWB” token granted them entry to a Discord group referred to as Friends With Benefits. The group features as a DAO, or “decentralized autonomous organization,” which is mainly a blockchain-based co-op the place every token holder owns a stake in the group.
In the 2 years since, Friends With Benefits has taken off. Buoyed by the crypto increase, the group chat grew right into a full-fledged on-line social membership, producing media consideration and attracting 1000’s of high-profile members together with celebrities and music artists like Erykah Badu and Azealia Banks.
As the group scaled, the worth to buy a token to achieve membership additionally grew, at one level reaching $175 for a single token. Last yr, Friends With Benefits raised $10 million from traders together with the enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz in a funding spherical that valued it at $100 million.
The group used the funding, in half, to broaden offline. It hosted occasions and events in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, rising its cultural footprint. At one level the group mentioned a futuristic dream of at some point taking on a defunct liberal arts school and internet hosting a competition. When it was found {that a} pal of a pal labored in admissions on the arts academy, after some negotiation with the college and native city officers, FWB organizers landed the venue, and FWB Fest was born.
Crypto utopia in the woods
Throughout the weekend, Idyllwild Arts Academy was remodeled right into a utopian summer time camp the place dialogue teams and talks in the course of the day on subjects like “Social justice and web3” and “Where do NFTs go from here?” gave method to night performances by musicians together with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova from the anarchist feminist group Pussy Riot, experimental digital music producer Oneohtrix Point Never, and rapper JPEGMAFIA. James Blake performed a piano set.
There was a pure wine backyard, ambient sound baths the place attendees may sip mushroom tea, late-night stargazing and a pool occasion. Andrea Hernandez, founding father of the publication Snaxshot, who has turn into an oracle in the meals and beverage world for her capability to identify up-and-coming merchandise earlier than they make it to grocery retailer cabinets, curated a customized snack sales space, and NFT market OpenSea collaborated on a gallery of digital artwork.
Throughout the weekend, administrators Adam Faze and Ari Cagan chased down attendees for interviews for an upcoming actuality present backed by Mad Realities, a web3-oriented manufacturing firm, primarily based on the competition.
Outside of the talks, nonetheless, the subject of crypto appeared secondary, if it was talked about in any respect.
Greg Bresnitz, the cities and occasions programming lead for FWB, stated that was intentional. FWB, he stated, was actually about “using Web3 as a coordination mechanism for culture.” “For the last two years [crypto] has been at the forefront,” he added, “and now with the crash it folds into the background.”
Other attendees agreed. “There are a lot of people here who are relative novices to web3, but are really into culture and that’s their entry point into FWB,” stated Cherie Hu, founder and writer of Water & Music, an impartial publication and analysis DAO targeted on music and expertise. “I haven’t even heard many buzzwords or people talking about crypto in the corner,” stated Patrick McDermott, an artist in Los Angeles.
Because of the serendipitous nature of its founding, Friends With Benefits by no means began with a mission assertion or marketing strategy. “It started as a scene” stated Zhang. “Most people who are part of a scene can’t recite the mission statement of a scene.” During one session, on the second day of the competition, members brainstormed on the best way to broaden FWB into new endeavors, whether or not it was product launches or one other competition.
Everything about FWB Fest was organized in conjunction with FWB Discord members. “The community is full of people who work in varied industries, so when we put on events we try to hire from within the community,” stated McFedries.
Zhang stated he thinks of Friends With Benefits as a metropolis. “New York City, for instance, throws festivals,” he stated. “There are also restaurants, museums, parks, etc. FWB feels less like a company and at this stage, and more like a small town that’s got a vibe.”
Despite the current contraction in the crypto market, everybody at FWB Fest remained steadfast in their dedication to utilizing the blockchain, crypto’s underlying expertise, and stated they hope that FWB’s success will usher in a brand new period of web3, constructed round group and inclusivity.
“We’re trying to build while we can before big awful corporations come and ruin it for everybody,” stated Joshua Eustis, a music artist generally known as Telefon Tel Aviv. “Capitalism is superimposed on our way of life and our financial system and the fact that web3 is currently wildly inadequate to correct for that, is not enough of a reason for us to abdicate our responsibility to shape it in its early condition.”
“If we don’t,” he stated, “some a–hole will later and we’ll have to use it.”