NinaFraser.xyz – Namecheap customer– (Portugal)
The .xyz community consists of many talented creatives using .xyz to showcase and promote their work. Visual effects specialist Christopher Kerr uses ChristopherKerr.xyz to share his professional film and television experience. Designer, artist, and software instructor Erindale Woodford displays their 3D design experience on Erindale.xyz. Illustrator Leighton Gray uses LeightonGray.xyz to highlight her variety of gaming, illustration, and podcast projects. In this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, we’ll introduce you to a multidisciplinary artist who showcases her assortment of creative work on a personal website using a “FirstNameLastName” .xyz domain: NinaFraser.xyz.
NinaFraser.xyz is the personal website of Portugal-based artist Nina Fraser. Practicing multiple disciplines, Nina has developed a substantial collection of work including collage, painting, assemblage, sculpture, and illustration. As she explains on her Info page, Nina conceives her artistic path as “a shared journey, co-creating projects and practical structures to improve our social and human experience.” Nina graduated from Winchester College of Art in Hampshire, England with a Bachelor’s degree in Textile Art. After successfully collaborating on the creation and operation of a highly-rated organic cafe and arts venue in Southampton called The Art House,1 Nina moved to Lisbon, Portugal in 2014 to begin developing her art practice in collage and sculpture. Since then, Nina has shared her work in group and solo exhibitions in England, Portugal, Germany, and the United States, and her collages have been selected for publication in the United States, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Nina’s diverse artwork is displayed in a well-organized manner for visitors to easily navigate, which can help her to attract collaborators, co-creators, and clients. The eye-catching homepage of NinaFraser.xyz contains an overview of her varied artwork. Visitors can click on any image to learn more about it, such as Tales of Turbulence and Tulips, which explores the relationship between the individual and the collective. The remarkable creation includes fragments of colorful magazines that have been arranged and pasted, blurring boundaries between painting, collage, and the photographic image. Nina created the work with the assistance of a studio intern, which gave her the opportunity to explore collaboration and the idea of sharing artistic experience. For a chronological view of Nina’s work, visitors can view pieces by year, from 2016 to present. In 2018’s Caught Up in the Field, Nina uses magazine imagery of women to explore the subject of femininity, desire, and spirituality. On this page, visitors can learn more details about the collage including its size and its inclusion in the 2019 Sublime exhibition at MUTE Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal. For a glimpse at the various publications that Nina has worked with, visitors can hover over the Print menu to select Publications. Here, you can find 10 publications that have shared Nina’s work, including Cut Me Up magazine, a collage-focused art magazine founded by New York-based artist Andrea Burgay.2 With Nina’s work cohesively displayed and organized on NinaFraser.xyz, website visitors have the opportunity to review her extensive experience all in one place. This simplified navigation makes it easy for visitors to get a strong sense of Nina’s abilities and help them consider her for a collaboration.
Using a FirstNameLastName.xyz domain like NinaFraser.xyz can help make it easier for Nina and her artwork to be discoverable online. Anyone who Googles “nina fraser” will see NinaFraser.xyz at the top of the search results page. With a professional website using a domain name that matches your full name, it’s more likely that your website will show up in relevant results. In addition, there is a great benefit to a branded email address like [email protected]. Much of her communication will likely be email-based, so it’s a great idea to use a custom email address in order to appear professional and generate trust. When you have an email address directly associated with your domain name, customers can use that email address to find your website and feel confident that they’re reaching out to the appropriate person.
Nina believes the .xyz domain is a great option for artists. As she explained to us,
“I couldn’t settle on anything else that wasn’t location-specific until I found .xyz. Being a millennial, I thought it would be fun to tap into this new domain. It doesn’t have an inherent meaning, and it sits outside of the box – in terms of how people quickly decide what it is you are doing based on your website. For artists this is nice – to be a little more ambiguous.”
We are proud to have Nina among the thriving .xyz community of artists, creators, and makers. You can learn more about Nina by following her on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and by visiting NinaFraser.xyz.
1https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186299-d2176702-Reviews-The_Art_House_Performance_Venue_Social_Centre-Southampton_Hampshire_England.html
2 https://www.cutmeupmagazine.com/issue-8-guided-by-instinct
Formless.xyz – GoDaddy customer – (United States)
Web3 developers are using .xyz domains to innovate the entertainment industry. Crypto music publishing platform Sound.xyz aims to disrupt the music industry by helping recording artists gain more of their music’s value by harnessing the power of blockchain technology to turn songs into collectible NFTs. NFT platform Relics.xyz is designed for fans to collect and display music collectibles which include a unique visual and full-length song from Monstercat’s roster of Electronic musicians. NFT studio BCL.xyz works to help content creators and Intellectual Property owners like Dolly Parton and FOX’s The Masked Singer to build, launch, manage, and market NFT-related content and experiences. In this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, we’ll introduce you to a music tech company that aims to empower creators so they can make choices about how their content is valued and distributed: Formless.xyz.
Formless.xyz is a music technology company aiming to change the way music and other digital content is valued and distributed using the power of blockchain technology. The Boston-based company’s vision is proudly shared on their homepage: “To illuminate true human purpose through technology.” Formless.xyz is founded by Forbes-featured artist and former staff engineer at Google, Brandon Tory.1 In 2021, Brandon and Formless.xyz partnered with Grammy Award Winning songwriter Dallas Austin to release the album Unicorn.2 Later that year, Brandon was nominated “New Artist of The Year” by the Boston Music Awards.3 On June 3, 2022, Formless.xyz announced that their new Share protocol for audio and video content distribution is now available on the Ethereum and Polygon testnet blockchains.
The creator-focused Formless.xyz is determined to fundamentally change the industry in which music is served and the infrastructure used to serve it by way of “smart content.” Smart content includes instructions about content ownership and terms around consumption and exchange that would otherwise be specified by a third party distributor. The Share protocol is designed to change the way music and other digital content are valued and distributed, and is also aimed to shift how artists get compensated for their art.4 Share administers the content, or experience, as well as the rules of access to that experience. Formless.xyz has named this a Pay-For-Access (PFA) smart contract. The protocol is designed to act like a digital vending machine where the owner selects the terms of access, licensing, and distribution independent of the property on which the machine operates. A publicly available beta version will be available later this year. In the meantime, content creators and developers have been invited to sample the decentralized application intended to showcase the power of the protocol.
As shared on the company’s Mission page, the name “Formless” represents the disruption of the typical rigid identity structures associated with either music or technology. We look forward to watching the evolution of the Share protocol and everything that comes next. Formless.xyz selected the handles @formless_xyz on Twitter, @formlessxyz on Instagram, and @formlessxyz on LinkedIn, which makes them easily discoverable and promotes their website URL right in their social media handle. You can read more about this useful technique in our latest XYZ Quarterly. Learn more by joining the Discord, following the company on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, or by visiting Formless.xyz.
1https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiegoldsmith/2019/01/21/google-a-i-engineerrapper-wants-kids-to-know-its-cool-to-be-a-genius/?sh=4cd96b3940c6
2 https://open.spotify.com/album/5xH3cFrrIfucXEhXRQRx0p
3 https://bostonmusicawards.com/nominees/
4 https://money.yahoo.com/formless-announces-pre-release-availability-150000235.html
Entropy.xyz – Google Domains customer – (United States)
.XYZ’s blossoming reputation as the domain of choice for crypto and blockchain projects has inspired many remarkably talented individuals to join the movement and launch their ideas on .xyz domains. Facebook Live creator Randi Zuckerberg and venture capital firm M13 founder Debbie Soon developed their community platform designed to embrace and empower all web3 creators on TheHug.xyz. Venture capitalist Kevin Rose hosts his NFT-focused podcast on Proof.xyz, which led to the development of his record-breaking NFT collection Moonbirds.xyz1. Accomplished finance professional Alex Slobodnik created web3 chat platform NftyChat.xyz to foster community amongst ENS users, and chose .xyz because “.xyz felt new and fresh, just like web3.” In this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, as interviewed by some of our own LGBTQ+ members of the XYZ Team, we’ll introduce you to Tux Pacific, a trailblazing hacker, cryptographer, anarchist, entrepreneur, and member of the transgender community, who raised $25 million to launch an innovative crypto custodian: Entropy.xyz.
Entropy.xyz is the online home of Entropy, a decentralized crypto custodian aiming to revolutionize the way crypto is stored. The Brooklyn, New York-based startup offers services that specialize in creating a decentralized network harnessing advanced threshold cryptography. TechCrunch recently featured founder and CEO Tux Pacific in praise of raising $25 million for Entropy’s seed round led by technology venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz2. Previously, Entropy.xyz completed a $1.95 million pre-seed raise in January 2022. Learning of Entropy.xyz‘s momentum and Tux Pacific’s powerful individuality inspired us to reach out to learn more.
.XYZ regularly celebrates our diverse community, and we wanted to take this incredible opportunity to bring visibility to Tux and their experience as a member of the transgender community. Representation matters in so many ways. It can serve as an opportunity for marginalized people to find community support and validation. If there are other members of the transgender community looking to make their way in tech, perhaps getting to know more about Tux can help encourage them. Additionally, exposure through media representation (including this #WebsiteWednesday) can aid in the reduction of stereotypes of marginalized groups, like the LGBTQ+ community. We applaud when someone who has the opportunity to represent their identity group, especially within the field of tech, makes conscious efforts to use their influence to remind others that their communities not only exist, but are doing great things. We are appreciative of Tux for taking the time to speak with us.
XYZ: You recently expressed to TechCrunch that you’re accustomed to forging your own path, and lacked relatable role models while you were growing up. What advice would you offer to a member of the LGBTQ+ community who may feel alone or isolated, but is looking to forge their way in tech?
Tux: Kill your idols. Be so unique that they can’t look away or forget your name. We stand on the shoulders of giants who all carved their own paths in eccentric loneliness. Your eccentricity is what will force you to carve your own path, but it will also attract similar eccentrics who will make that easier.
XYZ: That is powerful. Many people give up safety in order to live their most authentic and eccentric lives, and it can be a bold move to make. Sometimes it is necessary for survival, and sometimes it is born out of the urge to be the change. Did you set out hoping to become that role model that you never had yourself? Or was it an added bonus?
Tux: I don’t really want to be a role model. I’m almost certain that those who may look up to me will find themselves disappointed by many things. I set out with my own personal aspirations and I am seeking to accomplish them. I suggest others do the same with or without my inspiration
XYZ: The term role model is something that can carry additional weight and expectations. Representation is often just as valuable. Simply being visible and sharing information about your own path can make such a difference. We’re grateful that you chose to share more of your story with us! Are you comfortable sharing if you’ve faced any particular pushback as a founder, related to being trans or having they/them pronouns? Speaking of – have you seen Pronouny.xyz?
Tux: I have seen Pronouny — it’s a very cool project! The only pushback I’ve received, thankfully, are various bits here and there of transmisogyny. When you’re in a position of power (which so few trans people find themselves in), you will find that the other common inhabitants of power begin to warp their perception of reality to your own in a game of mimicry to either impress or otherwise get something from you. Whether or not they truly believe in your liberation and freedom is a different topic. I would suggest to other trans founders that they try and find similar positions of power to inhabit such that it becomes nonoptimal for folks to give them any “pushback.”
XYZ: For those that are not familiar, the term transmisogyny is a form of discriminmation, harassment, contempt, and other negative experiences directed at and experienced by trans women and transfeminine people. We have listed some resources at the bottom of this post that are tech communities centered around supporting LGBTQ+ groups, which can be of help when combating these experiences. Were you motivated by anyone/anything in particular during the ups and downs of the journey to becoming a founder?
Tux: My biggest inspiration is my favorite poet – an Anarchist from Italy by the name of Renzo Novatore. His poetry has delivered me from the most trying of times. Renzo’s poetry has been so influential that I have taken his name as my own – Tux Novatore Pacific. The words of Bell Hooks (RIP) have also been quite impactful.
XYZ: We learned from the Techcrunch article that you previously worked at cryptography network NuCypher, where you acquired advanced cryptographic techniques. You then applied these techniques to your innovative crypto custodian. Can you tell us how you first became interested in crypto?
Tux: I started off in the hacker space. You know the folks at DEFCON, HOPE, etc. Naturally, I became interested in privacy very young. I got intrigued by encryption and cryptography. Shortly after being hired for my first software engineering gig, I met a sysadmin who happened to have a degree in mathematics. He showed off some cryptography-related math (actually Shannon’s Entropy equation, which I now have tattooed on my wrist) and it was all downhill from there. The obsession began.
XYZ: For some reason, the word “Entropy” is giving us Bill Nye vibes. We know that “Entropy” means a lack of order or predictability – How did you land on that name?
Tux: In cryptography, we require that keys be random (or unpredictable), which we would say “a key is of high entropy” should that be the case. In fact, we can measure the amount of randomness via Shannon’s Entropy equation. I settled on the name Entropy because of the relation of Shannon’s Entropy to threshold cryptography and distributed key generation, and also due to my history with it as my sort of rabbit hole moment with cryptography.
XYZ: $25M in funding is quite a feat. Was there anything that you did or were exposed to that you felt prepared you to push through the hurdles to get this funding?
Tux: My preseed raise haha. Fundraising is hard, but only in an annoying way. If you have a solid idea, with a solid team, and a solid vision, then the convincing part isn’t difficult – it’s the social, emotional, and logistical parts that are difficult. Having gone through the preseed, I knew what to expect and how to execute better. It definitely prepared me for it. Additionally having a mentor to help guide you through things makes things so much better.
My advice to any other would-be founders is to find a fundraising buddy – someone who is raising money at the same time as you, perhaps in a similar field or even tech. Your fundraising buddy should be willing to help you with some hurdles, and you should be willing to help them with some hurdles. It’s all about cooperation.
XYZ: What factors, if any, contributed to your decision to build on .xyz?
Tux: For whatever reason, crypto has decided that .xyz domains are ours. For us, the .com wasn’t even interesting. I immediately purchased Entropy.xyz the moment I decided on the name.
Many thanks to Tux for speaking with us, and allowing us this opportunity to learn of their experiences. You can learn more about Tux’s crypto custodian startup by joining the Discord, following the company on Twitter, or by visiting Entropy.xyz.
For additional assistance and support for LGBTQ+ in tech, please consider the following resources:
TransTech
Lesbians Who Tech & Allies
LGBTQ in Technology
QueerTech
Out in Tech
LGBT Tech
oStem
StartOut
1https://www.yahoo.com/video/moonbirds-shatter-opensea-records-240m-170054768.html
2https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/08/the-trans-queer-anarchist-crypto-founder-seed-round-a16z-andreessen-horowitz/
The diverse .xyz community consists of innovators, dreamers, and makers from different backgrounds, lifestyles, social experiences, races, and religions. In this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, we’ll proudly introduce you to some inspiring websites in the .xyz community that explore and celebrate Black culture.
Grelysian.xyz – Squarespace customer – (United States)
Grelysian.xyz is the online home of Gossamer Rozen (a.k.a grelysian), a self-identified transgender, nonbinary, femme, Filipino, and Black fine artist and tattooer. The New York-based artist has been making art primarily to understand their identity and to examine and connect with the world around them. Popular NFT-focused podcast Proof.xyz featured Gossamer on the June 2, 2022 episode. In the episode, host and venture capitalist Kevin Rose joins Gossamer for the live minting of Tigerbob, their collection of 1,000 NFTs made from handmade tiger designs.
Gossamer has created culturally-focused NFT projects such as Mrammou, a collection of hand-drawn NFTs in the form of animals, objects, and humans. According to the website’s description, these small drawings, made entirely by hand, are created with colored pencil and ink on paper. They are interpretations of Akan gold weights, which were cast in brass and used as a measuring system for gold dust, the currency used by the Akan people of West Africa for 500 years. Gossamer shares that they were inspired by this tradition, and have been exploring their African heritage and learning about the culture of their ancestors. You can learn more about Gossamer by following them on Twitter and Instagram, listening to their Proof.xyz interview, and by visiting Grelysian.xyz.
TheCulture.xyz – GoDaddy customer – (United States)
TheCulture.xyz is the online home of digital lifestyle platform The Culture. The platform is the product of Miami-based media agency Hip Rock Star Advertising, which is aimed at producing forward-thinking content to reach the BIPOC community. Readers can be informed by articles on everything from national and local Miami news, music, fashion, events, and lifestyle.
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The Culture shares important national news, such as President Biden’s appointment of Karine Jean-Pierre as press secretary, making her the first Black woman to serve in the role, and local Miami news, such as the announcement of The Juneteenth Experience, a multidisciplinary, immersive performance scheduled to take place at the historic North Beach Bandshell. The informative and entertaining platform also promotes its live-streaming program My Two Cents, which presents news, entertainment “and everything in between for the culture.” You can catch My Two Cents every Friday at 6PM on their YouTube channel. TheCulture.xyz makes it easy to stay up to date via their branded social media. They have chosen matching handles across Twitter @TheCultureXYZ, Instagram @TheCultureXYZ, and Facebook @TheCultureXYZ, which makes them easily discoverable and promotes their website URL right in the handle. You can read more about this helpful technique in our latest XYZ Quarterly. Learn more by visiting TheCulture.xyz.
TheBlackArts.xyz – Google Domains customer – (United States)
TheBlackArts.xyz is the online home of the Black Arts Project (BAP), a curated NFT project aimed at celebrating and supporting Black creativity in the web3 space. BAP is a collaboration with established and new Black artists in the design, music, and art fields designed to create exclusive and innovative NFT collections that will be used to support Black causes.
The Black Arts Project officially launched on March 1, 2022. The project’s first collaboration is with artist Aurélia Durand, illustrator of the New York Times bestselling book This Book is Anti-Racist. The collaboration features a collection of 10,000 unique generative NFT artworks that will launch TheBlackArts.xyz’s mission to create an inclusive web3 creative community harnessing the power of the Black Arts. For more information, follow the project on Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram, join the Discord, or visit TheBlackArts.xyz.
Websites such as Grelysian.xyz, TheCulture.xyz, and TheBlackArts.xyz demonstrate the importance of merging community and culture into tech. We are inspired to showcase these platforms that are paving the way for the next generation.
Paper.xyz – Google Domains customer – (United States)
The .xyz community is home to more and more innovative platforms aimed at making web3 a comfortable space for everyone. Community platform TheHug.xyz is aimed at developing a more equitable web3. Social networking platform Lore.xyz works to connect amateur and experienced crypto investors. NFT-focused podcast Proof.xyz provides insightful coverage on web3 developers, new NFT platforms, established creators, and emerging artists. In this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, we’ll introduce you to a San Francisco-based payments processing company aimed at helping developers, creators, and brands accept payment for NFTs using credit cards and cross-chain cryptocurrency: Paper.xyz.
Paper.xyz is the online home of Paper, a crypto-focused payments processing company working to address the challenges around the user experience for non-crypto natives in the web3 space. The innovative platform has developed a checkout flow that works with credit cards and supports users without crypto wallets to make buying, using, and holding NFTs easier for everyday customers. Shortly after launching, Paper.xyz closed a $7.3 million seed round after a $2 million angel investment, for a total investment of $9.3 million.1 The round was led by VC firms Electric Capital and Initialized Capital with participation from leading video game live streaming service Twitch and event management and ticketing website Eventbrite. Paper.xyz aims to use this new capital for hiring, expanding the wallet’s infrastructure and security and making the product usable across more blockchain networks.
The payment platform allows users to create wallets through their email addresses and purchase NFTs with credit cards across the Polygon, Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche blockchain networks to provide non-crypto consumers a “frictionless” bridge for entry into the marketplace. In the future, Paper.xyz will roll out a software development kit (SDK) intended to support the capability of brands and developers to build a custom checkout experience. Users will be able to create a branded environment for the Paper wallet so it only displays the NFTs for that brand, as opposed to displaying all the different NFTs you own.
✨One of deadmau5’s fans just minted this @head5 via Paper. Looking good!https://t.co/WYHEc3gvnN
— Paper.xyz (@papercheckout) March 24, 2022
In the past few months, Paper.xyz has worked with various bands and artists. In April 2022, Paper.xyz helped digital media brand and YouTube collective Yes Theory on a new NFT project aimed to help fund the release of their feature film documentary Iceman. Fans of electronic music producer, DJ, and musician deadmau5 can mint NFTs from the artist’s head5 collection via Paper.xyz.
Paper.xyz was co-founded by James Sun, a former product manager for leading video game live streaming platform Twitch. As James explained to us, “We chose to build on .xyz because the domain represents a new wave of web3 companies, and a lot of the great names have not been squatted by individuals/companies who don’t intend on using it to build a great product.”
As more individuals are familiarizing themselves with the web3 landscape, forward-thinkers like James are helping make the venture less intimidating. You can learn more by following the platform on Twitter and by visiting Paper.xyz.
1https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/10/polygon-among-9-3m-investment-in-paper-to-help-onboard-nft-buyers-via-email/
