Disillusionment can be a strong feeling, it defines your choices, can change what excites you, and mold a new path you previously would have never thought of going down. I would say that with the current state of the world, disillusionment is widespread. Whether it is dead-end jobs and financial frustration whilst the top 1% continue to grow their wealth, or paying a chunk of your hard-earned salary to a government you don’t trust or believe in. Or perhaps it is climate anxiety whilst nobody is really doing much, the list can go on, but I will stop there.
Do not worry, this is not a dragging article on the current state of our society, we get enough of that on every day news, but rather a perspective of optimism stemming from the aforementioned feelings and how a chance encounter opened the Web3 world to me professionally, introducing me to the Fixers and the PENTS ethos.
Community, Mentality and Fixers PENTS
What struck me first going through the Fixers Discord, contrary to past more ‘degen’ ones for a multitude of crypto projects, was the diversity, honesty and genuine sense of unity I found in the group. Joining calls and meetings, I slowly learnt more about other Fixers, projects that are being worked on, all with great enthusiasm and thought to myself: “Wow, this is how a working group or company should ideally be. But wait — this is not a company, it’s a community of people that found themselves here most likely motivated by feelings such as… disillusionment.”
Coming from a background in Live Entertainment and Marketing, dealing with established and traditional corporate and societal structures, I have always been one to want to push things outside the norm. Usually the motivation was to spur a change in habits but also in mentalities, something I tried to achieve in my half-native Philippines through promoting a diverse cultural landscape in entertainment, trying to give new options and make people realize that you can break free from certain societal or professional structures. And it is within them that you find the elements that keep them in place — gatekeepers, ego, centralized structures of power, greed, corruption, you name it!
With that in mind coming to the Fixers, I felt a breath of fresh air. There was no space for ego, for being superior to others, or for not earning oneself’s position based purely on merit. More than anything it was the passion, which entails the first pillar in the PENTS approach. I believe everyone in the Fixers was guided in some way by PENTS even before joining — whether it was someone’s narrative, their passion that connected them to Web3, the longing for education in a new and exciting space, looking for new structures to fit into, or the transparency of the blockchain.
It is specifically this combination of individuals that really gives strength to the Fixers, with the different backgrounds, experiences and skills. Bring this into a community and apply it to the projects you work on, and it becomes a truly win-win scenario.
Having been disillusioned with the ‘trad’ professional reality, joining the Fixers opened up a new world and proved my hopes right. This new reality of decentralized structures with a common goal does actually exist, it is out there. You just have to find the right avenue in, and make the jump if you believe in it, which I did and here I am thankfully. No more disillusionment, an enthusiasm to work and create, and being emancipated out of traditional professional structures into Web3 have changed trajectories for me.
Rewinding a little, it all came down to a night at the pub where I met fellow Fixer Marmaladex — the wordsmith in our ranks who will most likely have his comments on this article as well. I was out to see a friend in common who introduced us both, when the convo went straight into crypto and Web3 (of course), he mentioned the Fixers to me and given my current situation, my ears pricked up. I could feel the sincere way he was talking about his experience and, being a “people person”, I followed my instinct of staying in touch with him. A few weeks later I was on the phone with our own Oliver, founder of the Fixers, and the rest is history! A big shout out goes to Marmaladex and Oliver for believing in and valuing what they both thought I could bring to the table.
It has been around 2 months I have been with the Fixers now. The people I interact with daily, the projects I help support or directly work with, the amount I am learning on Web3 and other topics, the past experience I can share with others, are things that I highly doubt one could do EVERY SINGLE DAY, in other companies, agencies, or working groups. All this on top of feeling that one truly adds value and is valued fairly for it, is truly emancipation through PENTS and Web3.
Now To Actual Belief in Blockchain’s Potential
Since I got my personal trajectory and perspective across above, I will now focus on how I see that notion of disillusionment translated into other industries that can be re-shaped by Web3.
Let’s start with music for this article, which has been my passion since I was around 13 years old. The music industry has traditionally been concentrated at the top, with a few big commercial labels dominating, a few streaming platforms dictating earnings, resulting in independent artists mostly not being able to make a living out of a passion they hope to turn into a career. The mechanisms in place, coupled with the need to stand out and self-promote on social media, have never favoured up and coming artists to “make it”, unless given a deal by some of the gatekeepers in the industry.
Enter blockchain and Web3. I would just like to name a few projects that I see as having the potential to challenge the norm.
I would start with Royal.io, who recently released music by Diplo, Nas or the Chainsmokers. For each of the releases, they sold limited amounts of NFTs that represented a % share of streaming royalties to the music, meaning fans can actually own a piece of the music and earn from it, based on its success. This is for established artists, however on the flipside, imagine the day an independent artist can raise funds from their fanbase to fund a new album — have a community behind to push for its success, who in turn directly earn a share of sales in return for supporting. Talk about truly connecting fans with artists!
Another is Audius, a streaming platform dedicated to allow artists to earn directly based on the amount of streams from their music. Unlike traditional platforms where one only earns decently after hundreds of thousands of streams, which is also extremely hard to achieve financially if one is an independent artist, Audius compensates artists fairly without having such a high threshold of streams, thus giving a better chance of earning. In addition, if you are a top streamer for a given week and you end up on playlists, you earn more. Again this is the spirit of emancipation through Web3, and true meritocracy in a creative craft which lacks in many creative industries.
I could go on about the topics of Play-to-Earn (P2E), Move-to-earn (M2E), the rising climate finance movement on blockchain, and more, but might leave that for some other articles.
All in all I hope this piece brought together some common threads of how Web3 can truly change everything from industries to personal trajectories, united by the nature of the technology and the people it attracts. Stemming from the common denominator that CHANGE IS NEEDED to stand up to the current status quo and unite against what is holding us back, emancipation through Web3 and PENTS is something I can truly attest to!
