They_will_know_me_by_my_words.txt That’s my words. Not some words I was first to post.

At their core, blockchains are powerful tools of documentation. A shared, immutable time-stamped record. As such timing and provenance matter and I was tempted to mint some etches as soon as I heard of them. The degen urge to have a low mint number and claim words. But the more I thought about etch, its potential, and what makes them interesting the more wrong that felt.

Documenting something only matters if what we are documenting mattered in the first place and being the first to be recorded only matters for original ideas. As we've seen time and time again the blockchain in itself does not prevent forgery and as much as we like to joke NFT aren't jpegs that are interesting or valuable in themselves. It's only within the right context and in connection to their creators - and sometimes owners - and their stories that they became meaningful.

Visual artists have shown the power of this medium over the last few years. We have seen an explosion of new art and art appreciation, but non-visual forms of expression remain largely untapped. There are experiments around music and in many other areas that are interesting, but few things excite me as much as the potential of the written word. I'm no visual artist and I'm no poet. But each of us has a unique voice and original thoughts.

There are endless interesting use cases for recorded written words that are interesting: Observations, announcements, questions, stories, protocols, agreements, reminders, instructions, responses, rules, diaries… I will play around with them and look forward to seeing other experiments.

I don't know if etches will succeed in becoming a relevant format whose records retain significance. Since I have started thinking about etches I can't stop thinking about potential iterations. How do we combine, remix, and reference different texts and visuals with each other? Chances are something else will solve these questions, probably many things. But I'm thankful to Matt and Deca for adding to this process. Your contribution shall forever be recorded.