How Writers are Flourishing Despite A Crypto Winter

Hint: It’s by writing.

Crypto winter?

It’s no doubt that we’re in a crypto winter right now — rising interest rates and a global recession stemming from the aftereffects of COVID-19 policy have resulted in low cryptocurrency prices and less demand in Web3-adjacent spaces like NFTs and ‘Web3 gaming’. With the market value of all cryptocurrencies dropping over 60% — falling from $3 trillion down to $1 trillion — we’ve seen layoffs and collapses at some of the largest crypto companies like Coinbase and FTX (yikes), and the end to this winter is not yet in sight. Consequently, it’s impossible to predict when this market’s low crypto prices, low NFT sale values, and low(er) general interest will end.

What about for writers?

As a writer who only recently got into Web3, the crypto winter was definitely disheartening to hear and read about. Nevertheless, I’ve been keeping tabs on how emerging Web3 technologies can benefit writers specifically and I’ve noticed an interesting positive trend during this crypto winter. While the creation and success of traditional NFT art and art collections has dropped by potentially over 75%, text-based NFTs are continuing to flourish. Last month, a writer published this article about how he was able to earn over $600 and make over 100,000 impressions within his first month on In Writing, a text-NFT marketplace. I’ve been doing research on In Writing, as well as on other text-NFT platforms such as Storya and textarea, and these platforms have managed to maintain over 10,000 MATIC of trading volume (in the case of In Writing), or raise over 23 ETH (in the case of textarea) even during this crypto winter.

In Writing

I onboarded with two of the three platforms — textarea required 0.1 ETH per mint, which was too much for me for my purposes of experimentation — and definitely preferred In Writing. It was immediately obvious why the platform was doing well — writers could mint, for free, with a few clicks.

In Writing’s ‘writing’ interface (inwriting.io/write), where I’ve written my initials. To mint, all I had to do was give it my Web3 wallet address — no payment necessary, not even for gas!

I minted my signature in under 30 seconds by giving it only my crypto address, and I validated that the NFT was successfully minted and in my wallet (proof below!)

Proof of my successful mint — it’s at the top of inwriting.io/read, as of the writing of this article (December 7, 2022)!

With some more digging, I saw that In Writing is also working to fight plagiarism with a manual verification system (which I have applied for!), and with a ‘smart contract’ that means that the text of every NFT must be unique (e.g. the same text can’t be ‘minted’ twice). I thought the platform was really cool, and their completely-free-mint feature made it incredibly enticing for myself as a writer to try it out. The next steps for me are to publish some of my own writing and list it for sale, and if you want to see how that goes for me, I’d appreciate a follow on Medium!

Writing Through the Crypto Winter

Not only was it easy to mint on In Writing — I noticed a lot of writers have been finding financial success on In Writing despite the crypto winter. I mentioned earlier that Mason Kenning was able to earn almost a thousand dollars in his first month on In Writing, and while I was exploring the website, I found this poem below that sold for over 800 MATIC (over $700 USD at the time of writing). I dug deeper, and found a common element between Mason’s account and this poet’s account — they were both prolific writers that had been minting, and presumably writing, all throughout the crypto winter.

The aforementioned poem, which had been listed and bought for over 800 MATIC ($700 USD at the time of writing)

As with everything, it seems that the key to prospering as a writer during this recession and crypto winter is to push forward and continue honing our craft — after all, there will always be readers (and investors) looking for nourishment.

It’s not all good though…

Don’t get me wrong — text NFTs, like all NFTs, are still impacted by the crypto winter. Although they aren’t as impacted by lower sales volume or buyer interest, the low cryptocurrency prices of crypto winter are still impacting our bottom line as writers. MATIC, the cryptocurrency In Writing uses, for example, is over 30% under its “all time high” value. This means that when you sell an NFT on In Writing, you might be getting the same amount of cryptocurrency — 100 MATIC, for example — but if you want to convert that back to $USD (or whatever your currency of choice is), you’ll get 30% less cash than when MATIC was at it’s best (before the crypto winter). Essentially, even though you might be making the same sales, the crypto winter is forcing you to make a choice between sacrificing liquidity or sacrificing income. Unfortunately, that’s the impact of global events like a crypto winter: just like how in a recession, you might be forced to take on a higher mortgage or lower-paying job.

Wrapping up

Despite the impacts of the crypto winter, I’d recommend for writers especially to hunker down, write more, and mint their writing on text NFT platforms such as In Writing. In a time where there is less money and less people dedicated to (or even involved in) the crypto space, it shows dedication and genuine belief in Web3— something that, although a bit foolish in my opinion, is really valued and respected by other members and investors in the Web3 space. Furthermore, having NFTs and writing minted during the crypto winter proves, in a space that is unfortunately ridden with scams, legitimacy. Lastly, it’s free — you have nothing to lose! Best of luck to all my fellow writers and crypto enthusiasts, and I look forward to seeing where platforms like In Writing and technologies like textarea are at after this crypto winter.