Alicante on the Blockchain
This article was originally published on March 20 in the print edition of Informaciôn, a newspaper based in Alicante, Spain. Below is a translation provided by its author. The article was not sponsored.
Alicante on the Blockchain
January marked the twentieth anniversary of the start of the development of what is considered the largest reference work on the Internet. Hands up anyone who has not consulted Wikipedia at least once!
According to data provided by this online encyclopedia, this project, carried out collaboratively, has managed to involve millions of people over the years. Volunteers who have shared knowledge in its more than fifty-six million articles, in 321 languages.
And what need was there for an encyclopedia when there were already websites specializing in all kinds of subjects? The fact that everyone had the opportunity to share content and participate in its editing. Could this content be deleted or censored? Yes, of course.
Only that content that is on the blockchain will remain immutable to the changing of opinion of a foundation, organization or other form of centralized control. If you need an example just look at the controversy about our right to information and the disappearance of news related to current affairs.
There is a tool that I have already told you about in this corner, DARA, with which you can upload/share/save on the blockchain any content from Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook or a blog is very simple. Once it is done, even Facebook, for example, could not delete the saved post on the blockchain — artistic nudes are in for a treat. Congratulations!
Coinciding in time, in the same week that Mark Zuckerberg announces that “soon” Instagram will integrate NFTs, in what in my view is nothing more than the umpteenth announcement in a quest to make headlines and show that his companies are not lagging behind, Felix has been born. The first dictionary on the blockchain: one word, one NFT. By going to saveaword.com you can consult it, although for the moment it is only in English, other languages will soon be included.
I have made reference to Wikipedia’s twenty years with every intention of putting in perspective the effort, the mobilization that has been necessary for us to be able to count on the free encyclopedia today, and the task that lies ahead.
Felix was born last week with a first objective: to upload to the blockchain the words that currently make up Wiktionary. The same foundation behind Wikipedia is also behind Wiktionary- Wiktionario in Spanish-, a web-based dictionary that started in 2002, but which depends on a centralized system, a foundation, and now thanks to Felix, words are part of a decentralized system from which they will not disappear, but they will be updated and will be accompanied by different designs.
This image you see is the NFT of the word Alicante that GiC Art has minified — converted into a digital file on the blockchain in its basic form. All of the thousands of words that have already been minted on Felix have their corresponding NFTs and they all look the same.
Now comes the second, more artistic part, the part that can make Felix an art gallery. Leave the Alicante definition permanently visible to the world in such an “unluminous” way doesn’t make much sense. Poor publicity we would be doing to Lucentum* in this case.
What would be a better way to advertise Lucentum? It could be a photograph, a computer-designed image, a painting or any other artistically elaborated image. It could be and it will be, because as guardians of the NFT of Alicante we are going to make sure that the image of our city is not undermined.
I finish by congratulating Pepe the Frog, an important figure in the world of crypto, of the NFTs and of which I will speak to you on another occasion because today I have run out of paper.
Nuria Menargues (GiC Art)
About The Immutable Network
The Immutable Network was founded in May 2021 by a cryptocurrency columnist who published on the now defunct thedailychain.com news site. Rather than republishing his work conventionally, he founded The Immutable in an attempt to provide simple and easily accessible products for mass preservation of documents, by properly packaging cutting-edge technology for mass adoption.
