Humans are hardwired to tell stories. Communities are hardwired to spread them. We love stories because they help us learn about ourselves. We love sharing stories because they help us connect with each other.
Stories and characters, aka “Intellectual Properties” are the gravitational force of all entertainment. It’s what brings creative talent, audiences and investments together. While content production is equally essential (“content is king”), “IP ownership” is the foundational layer of the entire entertainment value chain.
It’s time we rethink this “foundation”. That’s IP creators.
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In 2020, Danielle Trussoni and I launched Crypto-Z as an example of a modular franchise. We launched it as an audio drama podcast. The first episodes were hits (+400k listens) and we took the concept to Hollywood where we got a purchase offer from a premium studio.
The deal meant selling the IP, the foundational layer of our entertainment product, and all the rights that mattered in perpetuity. Once signed any new material created by me or Danielle would automatically belong to the studio. This is customary.
What most people don’t know is that once acquired, 90%+ of IPs acquired are never even produced and end up locked away… aux oubliettes as the French used to poetically call the king's prison, where you might be sent for unknown reasons and be “forgotten”.
Eventually the Revolution came… As I was falling down the web3 rabbit hole, I realized that Ethereum could solve not just the “oubliettes problem” but all incentives alignment problems of the current entertainment industry. From gatekeepers, to deal flow, to production, to audience participation, to curation; to creation and back again…
Crypto-Z is going to be the first fictional universe governed by holders, creators and fans. It will be the first story-driven-protocol-of its-kind to pave the way for many more to come.
For context, Crypto-Z is a mind-bending X-Files meets Jurassic Park sci-fi open-world. Creatures believed to exist only in stories of legends and folklore are appearing around the globe! We are now recruiting elite agents, the best of the best, to capture them all!
We are connecting IP with the best of web3 to give collectors, creators, and fans a new entertainment experience that blends social, identity, and ownership.
THE AGENCY: the first roleplaying protocol to fund creative missions to grow and expand the Crypto-Z universe.
Holders are invited to become secret agents and choose from one of 6 character classes and take part in a global creature hunting adventure. Not unlike Pokemon, the Crypto-Z lore is made of close to 2k true and verifiable creatures of legends from around the world (twice as much as Pokemon ;-).
You already know stories of legends like the Unicorn, the Kraken, or the Yellow Dragon, but I bet you have never heard of the Yacumama, the Jeoseung-Saja, or the Kitsune. Each of these stories are going to be an auction event we call an Encounter! And each encounter has a unique story to tell and share...
100% of the proceeds are sent to the agency Treasury.
The Treasury can only be accessed via Missions.
Agents (holders) have approval rights on all Missions.
While preparing and leading missions is reserved for specialized agents, greenlighting the Agency's next project is every Agent’s prerogative. The more encounters the more sway in the Agency.
Stories are for connecting, not consuming–the potential of web3 publishing.
We are building our own web3 publishing platform. Why? Because we seek to solve two major challenges in the publishing and entertainment industry today.
1– Publishers no longer know how to connect creators with their audience and hold IPs hostage.
2– Self-published creators are taking over but can’t keep up with AI and the web2 induced news cycle speed.
Entertainment needs to go social so that content can be free.
We are building the first publishing & creator platform that doubles as a social media network where creators can not only publish their own original stories but find and own their audience beyond the walls of our ecosystem.
Crypto-Z.com will be powered by a new economic model that relies on high velocity collectibility, wide distribution and crowdfunding tools allowing creators to build and innovate beyond pay walls.
Low-priced collectibility, everyday!
Long form stories struggle to capture the attention of audiences online and creators often have only themselves to rely on when it comes to doing the hard work of generating and nurturing an audience.
Influencers, while being at the center of publishers' marketing launch strategies, are almost never rewarded for the success of the products they helped launch. Trends show that self-publishing is progressively taking over the market but only with fast archetypal content.
Our publishing platform embraces some of those trends with a different approach.
We focus on, on-going serialized stories, bite size collectibles, high-velocity pace publishing.
The success of ARG or other native forms of social media storytelling shows that live-publishing and participatory content can help generate massive audiences. Webtoons, Wattpad, Kickstarter, Patreon, Amazon Direct Publishing have become massive successes by simply providing new tools and relying on user generated content.
Rebundling all of those tools at the service of an IP protocol, merging publishing distribution, crowdfunding and social media, in an all-in-one web3 platform, imbued with Ethereum values, is in essence the adventure we want millions of users to embark on.