Author: Arthur Hayes, Founder of BitMEX; Translated by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance
What's the point? Why are you working so hard?
The meaning is to feed yourself and your family, to keep them clothed and housed. But once your income is sufficient to meet the necessities of life, what is the meaning of life? In an age of thinking machines and abundant hydrocarbon energy, with so much material wealth, why do we work so hard?
The purpose of human existence is to consume art. Art comes in many forms, but fundamentally it is an experience created by humans to entertain other people. It is completely useless, but at the same time, priceless.
Let's look at some traditional art forms and talk about their uses.
Sports – A game in which humans waste their energy playing while others watch.
Eating in restaurants – a human exercise to enhance the flavor of food so that the calories can be consumed pleasurably to get on with life.
Listen to music – there is no point to music other than enjoying it.
Dancing – Humans expend precious energy moving their bodies for fun.
Viewing visual art – involves visual objects created by humans for the enjoyment of others.
Collectively, these activities are the bulk of human culture. Culture is what makes life worth living, and as such, human culture generates trillions of dollars worth of economic activity. Obviously, platforms that allow for the consumption and preservation of culture are extremely valuable.
Consuming culture in a way that retains scarcity but is infinitely scalable through public blockchains will attract the next billion users to crypto. This is the dream that is driving the 2021 non-fungible token (NFT) bull run.
Source: The Block
As impressive as the first NFT bull run was, what were people actually trading? People promised that these new digital art forms would be bought, sold, and stored in a decentralized manner. However, upon deeper examination, many collectibles are combinations of scarce, fungible digital tokens that point to centralized databases that hold artistic content. The pixelated PFP you purchased most likely points to a database owned and operated by a centralized entity. If, for some reason, that database is not maintained, your “asset” will instantly go to zero.
In 2023, Bitcoin Ordinals suddenly appeared as a means to create digital products that exist purely on the Bitcoin blockchain. The data engraved on the blockchain (called Ordinals) will exist as long as we worship Satoshi Nakamoto. Ordinals do not require applications outside of the Bitcoin blockchain to exist and persist.
Ordinals bring culture to Bitcoin, the most used and valuable public blockchain. That's why when crypto digital art sales rise, Ordinals will lead the way as the crypto wealth effect takes off. Ordinals trading volume will surge and the creativity of the community will be on full display. The best thing about Ordinals is that no matter how silly or offensive some people think the engraved art is, no one can take them down.
At Maelstrom, I tasked Akshat Vaidya, head of the investment team, to fund an Ordinals project. After careful research, we invested in Oyl Wallet. To show artists what can be achieved using Ordinals technology and Oyl Wallet features, I collaborated on an Ordinals project called Airheads.
I wanted to create authentic digital art, which I defined as demonstrating a new way to express human creativity. I instructed the Oyl team to create an art series that could only be done using Ordinals technology. The talented creatives at Oyl came up with the concept for Airheads.
Fugazi Finance
The world has instinctively realized that the current stage in human civilization is a sham. The senseless destruction of World War II gave rise to many of the technologies that power modern civilization. Peaceful, safe, and nearly carbon-free nuclear energy produces gigawatts of electricity. Billions of people can travel around the world on commercial airliners. And, of course, the most important outcome of the war: the creation of a new type of silicon-based life we call thinking machines, or computers.
The growth of population and relative human wealth since the war has been astounding. But the easy stuff has been done, and now politicians, in order to justify their existence, print money and engage in all sorts of activities that are a net drag on the human condition. Green energy may be the worst global misinvestment of our time. Because we have cheap and abundant capital that is simply a derivative of cheap and abundant hydrocarbons, politicians think they can dictate the laws of nature, not the other way around. Taking less dense forms of energy like wind and solar and expecting them to displace more dense forms like coal, gas, and oil is never going to happen naturally. And by naturally I mean without government subsidies or below-market interest loans.
The green energy scam is just one example. Many of you have lamented the inflation that has occurred since the peaceful abandonment of the gold standard by the United States in 1971. Forget the government-manipulated year-over-year inflation statistics. The nominal price of a loaf of bread is higher today than it was yesterday. In an age of advanced technology and cheap energy, it doesn't have to be this way.
No matter how the elites try to deceive you, you know this.
Your reaction is to speculate. Your reaction is to buy magical internet money. Your reaction is to inflate a “scarce” form of digital culture that you understand and appreciate.
Airheads is a series that exploits the inflation imposed on us by the elite. It does this both aesthetically and technically.
From an aesthetic point of view, Airheads is a series of characters based on balloons. Imagine Jeff Koons' balloon-like characters, they are playful but depraved. These balloons are metaphorically filled with the inflation of our time. They are fat and beautiful because we have all experienced inflation.
From a technical perspective, Airheads is the first Ordinals series to use a ranking system, where the size of your wallet determines your rank. Unlike other series that have random attributes, Airheads has a clear hierarchy. This approach utilizes recursive inscriptions to push the boundaries of what a collectible can represent, making Airheads the only series truly designed for those who invest early and take the most risk.
details
Airheads are unique Bitcoin Ordinals designed to display and flaunt your wealth. Each Airhead is an inflated balloon-like character generated using recursive art to visually represent the size and value of your digital portfolio at the time of minting. There are 10,000 Airheads available, and these characters use ordinal rankings and tier distinctions to reflect the weight of your assets in the leaderboard, making it a fun and competitive way to display your wealth.
• Special roles and tiers: Airheads are evenly distributed across 10 tiers, with each tier representing a different level of portfolio size. Some of the most exciting roles may appear in the lower tiers, which adds an element of surprise and value.
• Packaging Variants: Each Airhead comes wrapped in one of 25 mystery packaging variations, assigned at random. Some packs are themed to match characters across tiers, making them unexpectedly rare and more coveted.
Overall, it looks like this sexy Airhead. Note that certain body parts are naturally large; some characters are just built differently ;).
How do I get Airhead?
To get Airhead, you have a few options:
Whitelist application:
Whitelist opens on August 6th. Apply using the Oyl wallet. Follow @airheadfun on Twitter and complete tasks to earn XP (Experience Points). Even with a small wallet you can make big bucks. Participate and climb the leaderboard as you complete each task. All applicants who win an allotment must pay a minting fee.
Compete on the leaderboards:
Bring your Bitcoins, Ordinals, BRC-20 and Runes to climb the rankings. The goal is to amass the largest portfolio in the Oyl ecosystem to earn the most impressive and inflated Airheads, reflecting your top position on the leaderboard. The larger your portfolio, the higher your ranking and the more prestigious your Airhead. You must be in the top 10,000 to receive an allocation.
Buy a Whale Pass for 0.069 BTC:
Guarantee yourself Airhead by purchasing a Whale Pass. Send whale passes to a whale wallet (such as your vault or ledger). When that whale wallet activates it by sending it to the Oyl wallet, all assets in the taproot address you sent it to will also count towards your leaderboard position, providing a significant advantage (if you are indeed a whale).
Gain XP and rank high
XP is earned by holding and growing Bitcoin, Ordinals, BRC-20 and Runes assets. There are over 15 eligible assets in the BRC-20, Runes and Ordinal series that qualify to earn XP. This boosts your ranking on the leaderboard, helping you become the fattest, most bloated Airhead. The goal is to amass the largest portfolio and leverage your wealth.
Install Oyl Wallet
Get the Oyl wallet from the Chrome Web Store and explore the in-wallet trading experience at Oyl.io. Get ready for the whitelisting opening on August 6th by creating or importing your wallet and transferring Bitcoin, Ordinals, BRC-20, and Runes. Once whitelisting opens, watch your XP accumulate and climb the leaderboard for a chance to mint Airhead.
Tithe
People in the spiritual business usually say that 10% of your income should be donated to a church, synagogue, mosque, etc. As per tradition, Maelstrom will pay a tithe to Lord Satoshio using the funds raised from the Airhead airdrop. A portion of the funds earned will go toward our Bitcoin Developer Grant Program.
future
My goal is to show what can be achieved using Bitcoin Ordinals technology and the user-friendly Oyl wallet. I sincerely hope that artists will take notice and be inspired by this series to bring their contributions to the human experience to life. If Airheads can inspire others, it will solidify its status as a first-of-its-kind series and retain value for a long time to come.
We all know that the corrupt elites roaming around the world in our names will not stop printing money. We know that inflation-induced human suffering will continue unabated. But at least we can have some fun, inflate our Airhead, make it really fat, and tell those who despise cryptocurrencies to please my Airhead.
