Original author: LeftOfCenter
Just when everyone was carnival for the Arbitrum airdrop, Stealcam, an Arbitrum ecological photo sharing application, was quietly accumulating strength. In just two weeks, without relying on airdrop expectations or issuing tokens, the accumulated transaction volume only relied on natural growth. It exceeded 313 ETH (approximately 500,000 US dollars), and Jesse Pollak, Base development director of OP Stack’s core development team, evaluated it asMy favorite unique new product on the chain.
This Web3 product that has been a little popular recently is called Stealcam. It is said that it is a little popular because the hot spots and attention in the encryption industry are often related to TVL. From this indicator, it is indeed just a little popular or even not worth mentioning. .
However, during the product beta period with no airdrop expectations and no token distribution, this image application still achieved a certain amount of organic growth. The total transaction volume generated by the beta version was only two weeks after its launch reached 500,000 US dollars, relying only on the original image application Based on the addition of a new distribution model (intelligently combining human voyeurism + celebrity effect + owner economic model), it has attracted a large number of artists, KOLs, and VC partners to settle in, and has gained a good reputation.
What are Stealcams?
simply put,Stealcam is a photo social sharing application, users can upload pictures or video files to the platform, which is no different from ordinary Internet photography applications.
The difference is that the pictures published on this platform are not free to access, but need to steal (pay a certain fee, currently only supports ETH payment) to obtain the reveal (open picture) right, and then view the specific content of the picture.
The right to open the image is not available indefinitely. You can only view the content of the image when you are the latest opener of the image.
Each picture can be stolen an unlimited number of times, and each steal will increase by 10% based on the previous steal price and add 0.001 ETH. If a picture is very popular and there are many people involved in the steal, it is possible that it has already been stolen by others when you want to reveal after the steal (steal and reveal are two operations and require two signatures), in order to view Content, you have to steal it back again.
The income generated by each steal will fully return the purchase cost of the previous stealer, and the price difference between the two steals will be distributed between the creator, the previous steal participant and the agreement, where the creator and the previous stealer respectively get 45%, 10% allocated to the agreement.
The income generated from each steal will be returned to the previous stealer, that is, the person who was steal will receive a full refund and a share of the difference.
To sum up, Stealcam adds a layer of pixelated coding on the basis of traditional photo social applications, allowing others to pay to browse the content. buyers) are included in the profit-sharing model, thereby promoting price discovery for works.
data and team
Although it has only been two weeks since it was launched, it is still in the beta testing stage, and the user interface looks a bit rough, but as a Web3 application, Stealcam has delivered a good result in terms of word-of-mouth and natural user growth. All remarkable.
According to the data, the number of images generated by the platform has exceeded 1,1000, which can be viewed from the official websiteLatest Discovery PageIt can be seen from the latest published picture ID that the picture numbers published on the platform are displayed in the latest discovery page in order.
Posted by nazih.ethStealcam dune panelIt shows that the pictures posted on Stealcam have been stolen up to 20,000 times, the number of mints per day is up to 1,499 times, the number of steals per day is up to 4,175 times, and the cumulative transaction volume exceeds 313 ETH (approximately 500,000 US dollars). Users earn The cumulative income reached 40 ETH (approximately 68,000 US dollars).
According to the TOP 10 income rankings on the official website, the top one isNFT Artist Sh l0 ms, with an income of 4.2 ETH (approximately US$7,600), the second and third earn 3.6 ETH (approximately US$6,551) and 1.87 ETH (approximately US$3331).
WillStealcam revenue ranking listContinuing to scroll down, we find that this application, which is still in the beta testing period, has attracted investment from cryptoogs, artists and even Web3 applications. Among them, USV (Union Square Fund) ranked 14th.Co-founder Fred Wilson, he earned 0.53 ETH by publishing 10 works on Stealcam, ranked 17th is the wallet application rainbow, which earned 0.4 ETH by publishing pictures on Stealcam, ranked 25th is the crypto fund Variant Fund United The founder, Li Jin, and another Variant co-founder, Jess, ranked 79th.
The team founder is anonymousOG Racer(Twitter @0x RacerAlt) andshrimp（@shrimppepe）。
Use cases and gameplay
As a picture application, posting and sharing pictures is of course the most basic way to play. Users post pictures/videos on Stealcam and then share them with others who pay to steal to view. In addition, you can also pay to steal to view friends, colleagues, family, etc. Pictures of other people.
As an encryption application, of course, there are some gameplay features that are different from ordinary picture sharing applications. For Stealcam, this is mint and steal, and with the blessing of the underlying encryption protocol, the ownership economic mechanism is included, so that all auction participants of a picture can obtain a part of the revenue generated by the picture.
Publishing your work: Especially for artists
Let’s talk about mint first.
Mint is to upload works (including pictures/videos) on Stealcam, pixelate and code them, then publish them, wait for others to pay for steal (open pictures), and earn income.
Under Stealcams default distribution mechanism, in addition to the first steal player being able to open a map for free, every subsequent steal will generate income. The starting price is 0.001 ETH, and will increase at a fixed rate every time a steal is generated. In addition to returning the bid of the bidder who was Stealed at that time, the proceeds from the two Steals will be distributed between the creator, the bidder who was Stealed at that time (equivalent to the seller) and the agreement. Among them, the creator and The bidder who was cheated received an equal amount of income - 45% of the difference between the two bids.
It can be said that this approach of including bidders (stealers) into the income distribution mechanism from the beginning is very suitable for artists to publish works. Similarly, this also links the ownership economy with community contribution, and distributes income with the support of the underlying encryption protocol. an effective practice.
In the current crypto bear market (the NFT market is even more bearish), most NFT works have almost no trading volume after the mint is completed. The so-called bottom price is just a psychologically expected selling price that Holders deceive themselves. It can be said that there is no trading volume. Lack of liquidity is the dilemma currently faced by most NFTs.
In this case, if the bidder (stealer) is included in the revenue sharing system from the beginning, that is, as long as the work taken over can be sold, 45% of the price difference income generated will be immediately paid to the bidder, then, for NFT Liquidity will generate positive feedback and promote price discovery of NFT works.
Since we acknowledge that liquidity is important and price discovery is so difficult in todays NFT market, those who contribute to the final price discovery of a work are important contributors and deserve a share of the works revenue soup. This is also the core of the ownership economy, that is, participants in a community should receive part of the value generated by the community, and the proportion is positively related to their own contribution value.
In Stealcam, this fairness is reflected in:
The creator of the work will receive a permanent royalty share of the work, that is, 45% of the difference between each steal and the previous steal will be automatically allocated to the author. This means that as long as the image is sold on the market, its creator/publisher will always receive a share of the sales, which is equivalent to a permanent copyright share.
In addition to getting all the refunded steal costs, the Stealer can also get 45% of the premium generated by a single steal (that is, the price difference between two steals).
Steal contributors can receive 45% of the revenue generated by a single steal. Considering that they contributed to the price discovery of the current transaction of the work, this is a very reasonable distribution, while for the publisher, they receive Each auction earns another 45% of the price difference. This allocation runs through every auction, so it is equivalent to a permanent copyright.
When we are still debating whether creators’ royalties should be optional or mandatory, and whether the NFT market should be dominated by buyers or sellers, such a compromise distribution mechanism of “no more, no less” may be Its a solution worth considering.
Of course, if the fan economy is also taken into account, for example, the publisher itself is the community or person in which the bidder participates (whether it is a writer, musician, director or artist), then participating in the auction in this way is no longer a matter of It is purely a money-making move, but a matter of community participation and making money on the side.
Stealcam also provides publishers with a very friendly fan management interface. On the top fans tab of the personal account page, Stealcam ranks each users fans based on the steal count indicator and views their own fans interaction data.
It is worth noting that although Stealcams user interface is still a little rough, it shows full sincerity in the income withdrawal function, that is, the income generated from each auction will be immediately withdrawn to the users wallet without delay. You need to withdraw it manually, and you can see the income you are currently earning displayed in your wallet.
Buying and Investing Strategies: How to Make the Difference with Steal
In addition to publishing and sharing works and always enjoying a 45% permanent royalty on the price difference, users can also earn income by stealing other peoples works.
The most secure way to participate is to get the right to flip the steal picture for the first time, with 0 cost + very little gas fee. As long as the next stealer appears, you can earn 0.001 ETH, but that’s it. Even if the latter work is photographed for 100 ETH, it has nothing to do with you. This is the most stable and risk-free way to participate.
Another way is to choose to join the auction in the middle and late stages of a popular work. According to the platform rules, the price of each steal will increase by 10% based on the previous steal. Therefore, the later the time of participation, the greater the revenue share. The higher the risk, the higher the corresponding risk factor. Of course, this method has certain costs and higher risks. If the work cannot be stolen by the next person after taking over, then you will be the final taker of the work. Therefore, when choosing, you need to consider market expectations, such as works released by celebrities/well-known artists/or popular communities, etc. This is the so-called celebrity effect.
How else can you play? Expectation management, stunts, and spy photos
In addition to regular gameplay, what other potential usage scenarios and gameplays are there for Stealcam?
Publishers can release a series of early know trailers through Stealcam, allowing fans to reveal and take a peek. Fans can obtain the right to reproduce the pictures through Stealcam, and build momentum for future works to be released by stimulating fans/users curiosity and spreading word of mouth. These works should not be restricted by format. In addition to pictures, they should also support auditions of music works, movie trailers, etc. Creators are not limited to artists, but should include creators in a broader sense, including musicians, directors, writers, photographers, e-sports anchors, actresses, AI virtual characters, communities and corporate brands, etc.
In fact, there are already corporate brands starting to operate on Stealcam. For example, the NFT social platform Showtime releases future product features by casting NFT on Stealcam.spy photosShowtime is not the only product that uses Stealcam to preview new features. Rainbow Wallet also attracts users attention by releasing spy photos of future features of the product.
Rainbow Wallet on StealcamSpy photos of future product features released
For the crypto industry, which is closely related to financial investment, spy photos mean alpha, a preview of a project’s new features, or the announcement of a roadmap, which are absolutely attractive to crypto users/currency holders. However, this This special kind of spy photos is an arbitrage of information differences, so the information is revealed later and becomes less attractive, which requires an auction pricing model with customized functions.
It should be noted that there are currently many fake accounts pretending to be celebrities on Stealcam. It is recommended to confirm carefully when stealing. Since Stealcam currently only supports Twitter authorization authentication and also supports anonymity, the only way to verify is to view the tied account on the publishers personal page. Whether the specified Twitter account is my own.
