A blockchain entertainment studio. www.SingularDTV.com Dec 29 Is SingularDTV What the DAO Should Have Been? Funding the New Entertainment Economy Zach LeBeau, CEO of SingularDTV It’s been one year since the DAO and its infamous “hack”. Looking back, it feels like a long time ago. So much has happened with Ethereum since.
During the fallout of the DAO, the thought of launching applications on Ethereum seemed very far away. And now, as SingularDTV nears the launch of its first applications, it shows just how far Ethereum has come in a year. As I mentioned in a previous blog, “Launching Blockchain Applications in 3,2,1…” , we brought artists from around the world to our studio in NYC to demo two of our applications — “Tokit” and “LaunchPad”. It was an amazing experience bringing artists, hosts and presenters to the recording of our launch demo to discuss Ethereum, decentralized computing and SingularDTV. A year from now the words “Ethereum” and “SingularDTV” will spread further than we can anticipate. Even popular television shows like Silicon Valley are bringing the concept of a decentralized internet to the mainstream.
I’m referring to the first episode of Season 4 when Richard tells Russ he wants to “build a decentralized internet”. Russ responds by saying he “would fund that”. The man playing Russ Hanneman is Chris Diamantopoulos, a great actor and friend of SingularDTV. Chris Diamantopoulos, Silicon Valley’s Russ Hanneman, with SingularDTV’s Zach LeBeau. Chris is in town performing in the Broadway musical, Waitress , so naturally we invited him to our set to talk about Silicon Valley and where the producers got the idea for Season 4’s storyline. Our good friend Sam Cassatt of ConsenSys wrote a blog article asking the question, “ Is Silicon Valley Season 4 About Ethereum? ” Well… after talking to Chris we now know the answer… Apologies for the tease, you’ll have to watch the entire discussion with Chris about Silicon Valley and Ethereum during our upcoming launch event.
We’re not only launching our first 2 apps, we’re launching a new wave of crypto-artists. I’ll leave the concept of the crypto-artist for another article. For more details about the first wave of crypto-artists and use cases for our apps, check out the below “behind the scenes ”video of SingularDTV’s “Tokit” and “LaunchPad” release. Behind the scenes of SingularDTV’s demo launch. The rise in the value of ETH and SNGLS tokens has rendered our previous business model obsolete. We’ve entered a new level of responsibility and production power.
At the moment — and of course volatility is a constant in crypto — SingularDTV has DAO-like resources to invest in projects that will grow a decentralized entertainment economy and fuel the proliferation of Ethereum. But as mentioned above, the DAO hack happened almost one year ago — June 17, 2016. It’s caused quite a bit of reflection for us here at SingularDTV… When the DAO launched it took Ethereum by storm. It was sensational. A huge rise in the price of ETH, a heart-stopping “hack”, a controversial hard fork and the birth of ETC. There was intrigue, politics and posturing — makes for a good book. The DAO was a great idea and an even better experiment which resulted in a more mature Ethereum. A “Decentralized Autonomous Organization”, the first vehicle of its kind to issue a token programmed with governance features enabling token holders to vote on projects to fund, presumably projects that add value to the blockchain.
A brilliant idea. Watching it unfold was surreal. Many of us quickly realized that achieving a quorum for a successful vote to allocate funds to build projects was unlikely.
Many DAO token holders weren’t interested in supporting projects. They were interested in making money from the rising value of the DAO and ETH. We were even positioning SingularDTV back then to apply for DAO funds and mount a marketing campaign to rally token holders to reach a quorum, but then the hack happened and the DAO experiment was over. An example of the first pioneers rushing to the top of the mountain, only to get swept away by a storm and pounded on the rocks below. But they paved the way. I watched what happened and vowed it would never happen to SingularDTV. What the DAO was unable to achieve, SingularDTV is making a reality in a somewhat different way.
The DAO taught us that we are not ready for Smart Contract Systems to hold such large amounts of money while at the same time dealing with the edge cases that governance causes. SingularDTV recognized this and established the CODE structure — Centrally Organized Distributed Entity. By combining the best of centralization and decentralization in our business model and by creating a simple, elegant and impenetrable Smart Contract System, we can effectively and efficiently do what the DAO intended — invest in projects that raise the value of Ethereum. More specifically, invest in projects that raise the value of the SingularDTV entertainment economy. I am happy and pleased to announce that we will be spending a significant part of SingularDTV’s resources on the creation of scores, possibly hundreds of Ethereum and SingularDTV-centric projects. Of course we already mentioned an ETH reward to SNGLS token holders. That will happen after our first applications become active, but what is most effective for increasing the value of our entertainment economy and the SNGLS token, is using SingularDTV resources to create more content and applications.
Once our first 2 apps launch, “Tokit” and “LaunchPad”, artists and creators will have the ability to launch their own tokenized ecosystems. At about the same time, our decentralized exchange will launch, setting a new standard for crypto-exchanges. The launch of these 3 applications mark the beginning for artists and creators to begin producing content that will be placed on SingularDTV’s distribution portal “EtherVision”. Every week after the release of “Tokit” and “Launchpad”, and until “EtherVision” launches, SingularDTV will select projects created on “Tokit” and listed on “LaunchPad” to fund. It can be anything from films and television to podcasts and ebooks. When we launched our SNGLS token Oct. 2 of 2016, our MVP was our Rights Management Gateway (Tokit), our distribution portal (EtherVision), a documentary on Ethereum and the first season of our sci-fi television series “Singular”.
This has grown now into an 11 application entertainment economy. (We’ve actually got numbers 12, 13 and 14 on the drawing board too.) We’re hiring the best documentary filmmakers in the business to make our Ethereum documentary, and we’ve been strategically waiting to cast Singular when our profile raises in the entertainment industry. When our first apps and crypto-artists launch, SingularDTV will reach new heights. This rise will help ensure an increased budget for our sci-fi series and the securing of the best talent possible. To learn more about SingularDTV, visit our website at www.SingularDTV.com and join our slack to get in on the discussion of building a decentralized entertainment.
If you are an artist looking for funding, please send us a synopsis of your idea and its budget level to [email protected] See you around the blockchain… Zach LeBeau, CEO of SingularDTV .
