(Suggested listening music when viewing this art: ‘Beat Dis’ - Bomb the Bass ‘Keep the Frequency Clear’ - Rollercoaster)

Liquidity mining or wash trading?

Can we wash or watch the trades clean, please?

Keep this frequency clear.

Mining with liquid: Panning for gold is an honest, simple and real endeavour. Working with the elements with minimal impact. The opportunity to commune with nature with one’s senses in a heightened state of arousal. The birds singing, the constant comforting music of water running and swirling. Smoothened stones gently clunking or the vibrations of sand shifting underfoot. The chase of a eureka thrill might be the lure but there is reward in the process itself.

Contrast the gold extraction process and the end result: the dirty and artificial environment of the markets that decides its value. Gold may be the most washed product known. From the first wash of glint and reveal, to be then condemned to a never-ending cycle of being washed in trades constantly shifting like the earth it was given up from.

There has been some concern lately over wash trading following the release of $RARI by Rarible https://app.rarible.com/
$RARI is a governance token that the market decided has some value. $RARI is distributed by percentage volume to artists’ sales and collectors’ acquisitions (liquidity mining) enhancing decentralization giving some governance over the platform. This clearly incentivizes artists and collectors to market - a positive for cryptoart. Some bad actors have engaged in ‘wash trading’ trying to game the distribution of $RARI by creating artificial volume selling to themselves. Rarible has identified this action and these actors are excluded from $RARI distribution - incentive removed.

Wash trading and market manipulation exists in all markets - there is no ‘pure’ market. This wash trading conversation is a good thing for cryptoart and provides some ‘sunlight’ to prevent being misled or manipulated by false price and volume action. Data also provides ‘sunlight’. Unfortunately for artists and collectors, Nonfungible.com has decided to exclude Rarible market history.[1] Nonfungible.com have stated they will review their position when Rarible “has taken the necessary steps and the issues are resolved.”[2] Rarible’s position is they are blocking wash traders from the platform on a daily basis. Let’s hope Nonfungible.com and Rarible can come to an agreement on this without traditional regulations and also without debasing $RARI’s tokenomics and distribution model which could be seen to be promoting platform governance and cryptoart.[3]

The cryptoart community is a supportive space. Let’s build together but let’s not build the same house on a different street.

This piece is, in part, inspired by Coldie; the individual and the art; the artist in the art. Mining with liquid. Washing sand, dirt and rocks. It’s real, it’s pure.

It deserves respect and is refreshing when someone calls it how it is instead of some conflicted outrage. Commenting on artists buying their own art:

“Let's be honest....this happens on all platforms....some artists want to buy back early pieces tho cuz I think they feel it will be more valuable later....I'm excited for early collectors to get rewarded for taste ahead of the pack….” https://twitter.com/Coldie/status/1290055778670264321

Attribution: The original image is from https://twitter.com/Coldie/status/1287592074586419201 Thank you!

[1] As of August 2020, Nonfungible.com currently discloses holding 100,000 $WHALE token and will receive another 100,000 $WHALE over the next two years.

At 100k holding this makes Nonfungible.com the 6th largest holder of the total $WHALE supply. The top two wallets appear to be distribution wallets and if excluded make Nonfungible.com the 4th largest holder of $WHALE.

Currently, if holding 200k $WHALE , this would make Nonfungible.com the 4th largest holder of $WHALE and if excluding the top two wallets, the 2nd largest holder of $WHALE.

https://etherscan.io/token/0x9355372396e3f6daf13359b7b607a3374cc638e0#balances

Nonfungible.com provides regular valuation audits for ‘the vault’ which is said to back the $WHALE token. They included the disclosure of their $WHALE holdings in an amended July 2020 $WHALE Vault Audit.

[2] https://twitter.com/nonfungibles/status/1288604823810641925

[3] https://medium.com/@rarible/introducing-rari-the-first-governance-token-in-the-nft-space-5dbcc55b6c43

https://etherscan.io/token/0xfca59cd816ab1ead66534d82bc21e7515ce441cf#balances