That’s all folks! With the conclusion of the sale last week, The Metaverse Flamingo is officially the first-ever @metaverse Instagram post NFT.
As you may know, this Flamingo jump-started it’s race on Tuesday the 21st of December. And from beginning to end, it never slowed down one bit.
The bidding for this gem went strong all the way to Thursday — successfully capping at $6.603 respectively. All of which will go into the Punk Fund to back & educate artists on the monetization opportunities of NFTs.
But now, don’t let this quick announcement distract you from one fact: this Flamingo started its journey long before we opened the doors for this sale.
Posted on January 28th, 2012, by Thea-Mai Baumann, this gracious Flamingo was the very first post under the handle @metaverse. It takes its roots from the seed of pioneering, at a time when Facebook hadn’t even bought Instagram over.
An early adopter herself, Thea witnessed the humongous potential of Web3 firsthand — kickstarting her own augmented reality company long before users could catch Pokemon with their iPhone.
As Paula Kilgarriff, our Business Development & Partnerships, reflects:
“Me and Thea met at a Shanghai nightclub in 2012. All I can remember is her walking up to me in this leotard, pimping this sort of ‘Hologram Nails’. I at the time had no clue what it was all about. Thea was definitely an early adopter of the technology we now label as Metaverse content.”.
It’s safe to say, having enough foresight to predict where the online landscape was heading paid off. Receiving offers as high as $4M for the rights to the handle. Offers which she declined earnestly, hoping to sit on what the future may hold.
But to think all of this good fortune could’ve ended on one horrible crashing halt.
Months before this auction was live, Thea woke up to the shocking news that her account had been disabled without rhyme or reason. As it turns out, with Facebook’s new rebrand to Meta, Instagram’s algorithm fired off & flagged Thea as ‘an impersonator’ — a claim which confused her to the core.
Luckily, her foresight went beyond the sole creation of a handle.
Over the years, as she went about handling Metaverse Makeovers — her augmented reality company — she witnessed how Big Tech exerted their influence in the online world. Censoring anyone & everyone that didn’t meet their agenda.
This stirred her to create a backup of her account on the blockchain just a few days before the incident — in order to have full proof of ownership.
She reached out to Clout.art, in the hopes to make an NFT out of her first post — fully aware of how NFTs are a gateway into Web3 — and in the process, she became the first official creator to join the team.
As she reflects on her experience with Clout.art, Thea says:
“It was very user-friendly. I think the only thing that would cause a bit of a paradigm shift is the concept of Metamask & wallets. But overall, it’s pretty straightforward and most importantly, free.”
Looking forward into the future, she plans to give way to an exciting project that may hold the key to give power back to the community:
Decentralize her entire @metaverse handle.
One thing is to mint your posts — giving the chance to your audience to own a part of your history. But quite another is to give them the opportunity to stake for your entire account. No particular individual or entity would own the handle. Instead, anyone could have parted ownership — which would mean the stakers would have the right to decide what type of content & platforms are created in the Metaverse.
It would represent a huge game-changer for the landscape of the web. And quite frankly, it’s a bold proposition. But that’s what the whole concept of Web3 is all about — rekindle the power of the people. But anyways, these are just a few pointers that are currently being discussed at the moment.
For now, we’d just like to thank Thea for the vote of trust she placed on the platform — on top of all the people who placed a bid for The Metaverse Flamingo.
Your contribution will not go in vain. You all got the chance to be involved with a small piece of history.
Until next time. Sway on!
