After bumbling around for a few weeks in my tech journey, I started to concentrate on narrowing the scope of my efforts. As my teacher from #100devs Leon Noel keeps saying, I needed to go deeper, not wider. Learning bits and pieces had left me with chunks of material that I progressed through, but I was struggling to make the transition to being able to create functioning apps and programs on my own. The Trough of Sorrow is real ya'll!

That's where finding resources like the good folks at thirdweb comes in handy! Though I had been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2017, getting to deploy my own smart contracts and tokens was something I had just written off being able to do myself. But then came buildspace and thirdweb, taking a sledgehammer to that frame of thought with every added module. Within an hour of discovering them, I had written my first smart contract using my terminal. By the end of the weekend, I had created a web3 app which users could connect to with a Metamask wallet. Just like that, I was hooked. Instead of going out and buying my nephew a present, I decided to build him a DAO where he could provide added access to fans of his music. Next I used a module to deploy an auto-generated #nft collection. Here, users could click to mint, then have an nft created with a background of a randomized color, and a randomized string of words which I had pre-selected, such that each nft displays an empowering phrase. The idea being that people could interact with the collection, in order to "Plant Purpose."

Successfully completing a few projects(though not without several hiccups) left me with a newfound confidence. It had happened. I had been able to take an idea of mine and follow through on to it's iteration. This was a huge step for me. And it will be for you too! Don't forget to take a minute to appreciate this accomplishment. Remember a few months ago when you didn't know how to access the terminal of your pc? Or last month when you got so frustrated after ten hours of being stuck on a buildspace module that you didn't touch a computer for a week? It happens.. So, what now for us fledging developers? I had already enrolled in #100devs to continue building my foundation, therefore my next instinct was to try and challenge myself by participating in the #thirdwebhackathon.

Coming up with a project took me a while. As in, I started a total of 3 new projects before eventually settling on adding some new touches to an old idea. If you read my previous post, you may remember me mentioning a street art museum. The concept is something I have toiled with for years. Growing up in NYC, and especially right off the 7 train in Queens, I developed a fascination for street art. But as thrilling as poignant pieces are to find because of their fleeting nature, their impermanence was always something I struggled with. Even in a city like Berlin which embraces "graffiti" culture, you will see a revolving door of paint coats over course of years. Would the M.O.M.A. take down their Monet's? Could you imagine the Guggenheim without Kandinsky? Why don' we give the same reverence to street artists and their contributions to the fabric of a city?

With STR33T, we could do just that. Each nft is tagged to commemorate the artist(s), year, and city in which the respective pieces lived. Amsterdam, Berlin, Denver, London, and NYC are all currently represented. Imagine being able to peruse collections based on city and year. Walking through memories of vacation's past and then being able to own a digital token of that moment, even once the physical manifestation of the art has long been dismantled. Now that we got the sentimental part out of the way, let's get down to the specifics. Currently, the contract is composed so that it would issue out a payment to my wallet for 40% of the sale price after a purchase. But, why just 40% you ask? In my mind, it felt wrong to make money off of someone else's art(the street art in photos) without compensating them for their contributions. Thus, a 50/50 split felt appropriate, and that 50% is deposited straight to the treasury and left to be claimed by artists. The last 10% also goes to the treasury and in essence, it serves as a commission for using the STR33T platform, and can be used to support activities which fall under the mission of "Preserving Paint."

If you notice, you can navigate to the Mint of the Month and mint an nft using a thirdweb embed. Ideally, this could be used to discount a token with lagging sales or to feature a limited edition token for a premium. In a more complete version of this portal, users will be able to apply to join the platform and add to the collection, sell their own nfts, and in effect, help curate the museum. This could even be modified to be a DAO. Could the group scale efforts and use the treasury to then buy a physical venue for the museum to exist within, complete with rotating galleries and paid staff? Those possibilities are just that for the time being. But thanks to #thirdweb, their modules, SDK's, and embeds, those possibilities are infinitely closer to becoming tangible realities than in year's past.

Once again, thanks for reading! If you found this article helpful, or have thoughts/suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or let's connect on Linkedin!