Markets in February

Even though we have seen some turbulent days in late February, the entire month was again quite extreme for the major Crypto Coins at least. Remember: What happened in the past is no indication for the future!

Startups stat of the day

Dispo, Los Angeles

Source: Twitter

What’s the deal:
David Dobrik is the latest social media celebrity to launch his own app and it seems he has taken Silicon Valley investors by storm the same way he has been exiting GenZ subscribers of his super popular YouTube channels.

Dispo is Dobrik’s take on a creative photo app. The idea came by watching his friends using disposable cameras and not worrying about the images immediately. And this is exactly what Dispo does: The photos you shoot within the app will appear (“develop”) 24 hours or even later.

• Why it matters: Dispo is designed to give you an unpolished, authentic & non-editing involved experience. There are no filters and just an option to turn the flash on & off. This is an entirely fresh approach to photo apps or photos in general in today's social media driven environment, where filters are standard and where you cannot be sure about an image's authenticity.

• But: It will be interesting to see whether users really want an unfiltered experience in the long term and whether Dispo will have a chance to establish itself as a new photo based social network.

• Our Take: We consider an unfiltered photo experience as a good thing for young consumers as this has the potential to take away a lot of pressure caused by over-edited photos. Further, the rise of Dispo shows that a combination of authenticity and social media power can result in superpower.

• Newness factor: 5 out of 5 ⭐

Topic of the Day

Non-fungible Tokens: An Introduction

Source: Shoto

What is a NFT: NFTs of non-fungible tokens are crypto assets, which cannot be exchanged with one another or broken down in smaller values such as crypto currencies. Every individual NFT is unique and authentic. They cannot be duplicated and often act as collectors items.

What the fuss is all about: The NFT market has grown significantly over the past couple years to up to $250m in 2020 according to BNP Paribas. Especially in 2020 growth was 299% and in 2021 the market is expected to more than tiple again.

NFT products can be anything from digital artworks to digital fashion items, collectible sports cards, virtual real estate and digital characters. Already brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton & Nike have begun exploring the market by generating digital goods for their consumers.

Why can NFTs be worth millions: NFTs follow the same basic principles as Bitcoin. The number of tokens is limited and cannot be duplicated. Further, the tokens are easily verifiable and can always be traced back to the original creators (which is more you can expect from classic art). Those characteristics ensure that owners “fully possess” their digital assets and know that those are the only ones of their kind.

So, how do you get some: Currently NFTs can be exchanged mostly for crypto currencies such as ETH & WAX on platforms such as Opensea & Nonfungible.

Our take: It can be argued that NFTs are on their way to be established as THE new digital art asset. GenZ is particularly fond of digital assets and we think NFTs are here to stay. At some point we might have digital tokens with the same price tag as a classic Van Gogh or Jackson Pollock painting. Already now a NFT by comic artist Chis Torres sold for nearly $600,000.