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How Blockchain Technology Could Upend Hollywood
Could Blockchain really cause an upend to Hollywood?
It’s become a common refrain that big franchise blockbusters rule the box office. However, what was once considered an eccentric concern is now widely accepted. Simultaneously, we are seeing a more diverse range of talent on and off-screen. Web3 has some thoughts on both.
According to a UCLA report, women and people of color have made significant gains in the film industry over the last decade. Since 2011, the number of non-white actors in leading roles and receiving writing credits has quadrupled. Over the same time period, the number of people of color in the director’s chair had tripled.
During that time, the proportion of women in leadership positions more than doubled. The most encouraging statistic, however, was that female director had increased fivefold in ten years. For many moviegoers, this statistic comes as no surprise. Greta Gerwig (Ladybird, Little Women) and Chloé Zhao (Eternals, The Rider) have emerged as industry titans in the last half-decade.
However, as socially conscious filmmaking has grown in popularity, so has the number of blockchain-based projects with similar goals.
Making a Difference with Blockchain
One such project is Astrolucha, a utility non-fungible token (NFT) collection designed to help fund films, TV series, and other media for marginalized groups. They believe that more representation is required. According to official statistics, 19% of the US population is Latino/a in 2021. It does not take a statistician to see that it does not correspond to what is displayed on the screen.
“Astrolucha arose from a deep desire to see more diversity in entertainment,” says one of the project’s co-founders, Moisés Zamora. “I wanted to solve a long-standing problem: why can’t people of color be the heroes of their own stories?”
Zamora also created the Netflix series Selena, which is based on the life of the charismatic Queen of Tejano music, Selena Quintanilla. A critically acclaimed series that helped Quinanilla’s place in Mexican-American music culture.
Its intellectual property and aesthetic are based on the luchador concept. Wrestlers who are both professional and free-flowing, as well as colorful superheroes. They have created a trading card game based on that concept and plan to develop a live-action series based on it. “Hollywood loves intellectual property, so that’s what we’re doing,” he says. “We want to make sure we’re set up for success, so we’re going to create a DAO and a community that’s incentivized to collaborate and help each other.”
It is clear from their discussions with BeInCrypto that the goals of their project are more reformist than revolutionary. “Astrolucha’s goal is not to replace Hollywood, but to expand it and provide more opportunities for Latino/a and other marginalized creators.”
Filmmaking Democratization
For context, former Disney CEO Bob Iger made a surprise comeback last month. Bob Chapek, his brief predecessor, presided over a period of commercial turbulence. Nonetheless, by 2021, Disney films would account for 25% of the total film market share in the United States and Canada. Because, despite a global pandemic, owning a quarter of one of the world’s largest film markets was insufficient. Of course, Chapek was fired for a variety of reasons. But the fact that even that metric wasn’t enough to save him is telling.
However, in keeping with the spirit of Web3, there are projects whose mission is to level the playing field. Blockchain’s inherent decentralized nature can be used to democratize film. Unlike studio mega-producers like Marvel’s Kevin Feige, film industry DAOs can act as a healthy counterweight.
Of course, the very nature of moviegoing – butts on seats – is a form of democracy. But, according to Lauren Magura, co-creator of Film.io, we can go even further. A decentralized funding structure represents an opportunity for them to build an inclusive decision-making fan and creator community. “Blockchain technology enabled us to develop our proprietary Vault Lock technology, which protects your original ideas by recording all project entries on an immutable public record,” she says. “By its very nature, blockchain ensures fairness and transparency, ripping away the curtain that has long obscured the film-making industry.”
With traditional top-down industry structures, however, some creators will always keep a distance from their viewers. “We can see films that better reflect their audience by democratizing film through blockchain,” she says. “Humans are creatures of habit… If a dominant gender and/or race is in charge, we will see a dominant gender and/or race on screen.”
Giving Talent Its Proper Place
Although many blockchain projects have similar goals, they are not the same. Austin Worrell, a co-founder of KINO, took a circuitous path into the film industry. He grew up wanting to be a film actor, and he is classically handsome. His family business, however, abruptly and violently imploded while he was still young. “There were a lot of lawyers involved; I recall that vividly. But I recall wondering, “Why didn’t the lawyers fix this?”
Austin chose to become a lawyer himself, motivated by a sense of injustice and enraged by the legal system’s fog. He co-founded ElonGate after attending Miami University and the London School of Economics. A philanthropic Web3 company named after a Musk-related meme. Five hundred thousand people invested, and the company quickly grew to a half-billion-dollar market cap. “It gave me an incredible firsthand realization of the power of this new era of digital presence online.”
KINO was born from a combination of passion, years, and experience. A central criticism of the project was that only some employees reaped the benefits of a successful film. Others worked just as hard, putting in the hours but not seeing any residual income. “You poured your heart and soul into creating this incredible story, and only a few people ended up with percentage points and ownership.”
Blockchain can give you ownership, whether you’re a big star or an up-and-coming actor, a cameraman or a production designer, he says. Someone needs to stand up for Hollywood’s middle class. We don’t have to rely on the goodwill of the powerful because we use a trustless economic system. “Blockchain enables that transparent, immutable, and accessible ledger.”
For many people, Web3 is the best solution.
Unsurprisingly, blockchain was central to everyone BeInCrypto spoke with for this article. Crowdfunding has grown in popularity as a grassroots method of project funding over the last decade. Why are you doing it this way? After all, getting involved in the Web3/crypto space can be contentious at best. Why not make things easier on yourself and swerve this space entirely?
Principles are more important to many people than optics. “The very ethos of the blockchain speaks to solving these problems,” Lauren of Film.io continues. “All support and funding metrics are stored on a transparent blockchain ledger, providing immutable security and a transparent record of your project’s growth.”
Aside from technology and principles, there is an infectious and palpable sense of ambition in this community. A clear-eyed and sincere belief that hard work and sound principles can yield great results. “I want to see a KINO film at an award ceremony in five years,” Austin says. “It’s not really about the technology in some ways; it’s just another way to make great films.”
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DAVOS 2023: At #WEF23, policymakers and business leaders were eager to distinguish between distributed ledgers and cryptocurrencies. Not crypto, but blockchain.
From climate solutions to humanitarian aid to moving on from FTX’s stunning collapse, the second day of the World Economic Forum’s 2023 annual conference saw discussions focused on the promise of the technology underlying cryptocurrencies, rather than the often speculative financial assets themselves.
The day opened with a panel of traditional banking professionals seeking to draw a line under the FTX issue, noting that, while the cryptocurrency industry is in crisis, other products founded on distributed ledger technology are not.
“It’s critical not to mix cryptocurrencies with CBDCs, stablecoins, and DLT… they’re all quite distinct,” PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman stated. Despite the bitcoin crisis, “the underlying tech has operated well,” according to Schulman.
“The promise of a distributed ledger is that it may be faster and cheaper to settle transactions concurrently with no middlemen. That is really significant.”
Importantly, unlike past waves of “blockchain, not bitcoin,” which generally referred to permissioned blockchains, the talks on Tuesday were OK with public ledgers such as Ethereum and the Stellar network. Lynn Martin, President of the New York Stock Exchange, seems to adopt a similar stance, citing the potential benefits of blockchain in making share issuance more efficient or allowing financial exchanges to be settled quickly rather than days later.
“Some of the technologies have now been embraced and used to truly make processes considerably more efficient,” Martin added.
Former Indian central bank governor Raghuram Rajan later repeated that promise of broader blockchain uses.
However, TradFi’s commitment to the industry may eventually be tested: When questioned, Schulman, Martin, and State Street’s Ronald O’Hanley all claimed artificial intelligence, not blockchain, was the most exciting technology.
Carmen Hutt, treasurer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, detailed such an application – a recently launched blockchain payment solution for distributing humanitarian aid in Ukraine – just across the street from the forum’s main congress center, in a historic church transformed into a neon hub for hosting discussions about the future.
Hutt revealed during a panel discussion hosted by CoinDesk chief content officer Michael Casey that the pilot project, which was launched in December using the blockchain platform Stellar network, is significantly more sophisticated than one might assume.
Donations via the blockchain promise “transparency and visibility,” and the Commission has a platform ready to send relief immediately, according to Hutt. “What an incredible offer… We can deploy $500 million today if we acquire $500 million. So this isn’t going to take weeks or months,” Hutt explained. (Later that day, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister praised the contribution of virtual money to the military effort.)
Further along the legendary “promenade,” industry heavyweights ranging from Solana and Ripple to the Global Blockchain Business Council teamed together to develop a climate project that would use blockchain’s transparent record-keeping to assist in improving carbon emissions and credit tracking.
Although authorities have mostly focused on the potential of crypto contagion to financial stability, a string of bankruptcies last year that wiped out billions of dollars in retail investments, most notably Sam Bankman-FTX, Fried’s may have underlined the need for a shift in their focus.
For the lone banker on the conventional finance panel, the events of 2022 must shift regulators’ focus away from the risk of lenders bringing down the whole financial system and toward the risk of individual customers being duped by crypto frauds. “It’s not that regulators have disregarded [financial innovations], but if it’s not going to generate systemic danger, I’m not sure why we should focus on it.” For More Blockchain News, Click Here.
Blockchain has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with applications spanning from new cryptocurrencies to their potential uses in various sectors, making it important for business leaders, industries, and regulators to have a deeper understanding of the technology and its potential applications.
While blockchain has yet to achieve widespread acceptance, it has the potential to drive significant digital transformative changes and generate new possibilities throughout the corporate landscape, from banking and finance to infrastructure and healthcare.
Blockchain is defined as “a distributed ledger that records transactions chronologically and publicly,” according to one source. Its database is shared across a network rather than being held in a single location, which enables a high level of information control and transaction transparency.
However, there has been so much hype surrounding blockchain on all sides of the debate, that it has become increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction.
A study by Vorhaus Advisors, a Los Angeles-based digital media consulting firm, found that only 25% of people in the United States understand what blockchain is.
According to the same poll, 62% of people believe blockchain is the same as cryptocurrency, and 48% believe it is the same as bitcoin.
This lack of understanding of blockchain has caused confusion, skepticism, and fear about its use, which spreads across all sectors of industry and government, influencing not only business but also policy.
The fact is that blockchain technology has the potential to fundamentally alter how organizations and individuals trade products and information, and part of that revolution is already underway.
Blockchain has the potential to improve any business in which transactions require a permanent record and the confidence of many parties. Furthermore, it has the potential to dramatically simplify paper-intensive enterprises that require an accounting ledger.
Here are three real-world blockchain use cases to illustrate how adaptive, widespread, and disruptive it can be:
- Banking and Finance: Finance and banking have received the most attention regarding blockchain and for good reason. It’s an entirely transactional industry. For example, blockchain can convert paper-based functions such as letters of guarantee (documents provided by a bank that assure suppliers be paid for the goods or services they supply in the event that the payor is unable to pay) into a totally paperless, digital, and transparent process, helping to eradicate fraud and forgeries.
- Rethinking Healthcare: The pandemic’s unexpected demand for remote healthcare and other medical-related activities has moved the emphasis on delivering clinical treatment in a virtual or data-driven manner. As a result, the various medical data silos across healthcare providers can be integrated into a single shared blockchain network for secure and efficient data sharing.
- Supply Chain: Blockchain can also be used to improve supply chain management. A blockchain network can provide a single source of truth for the entire supply chain, from the origin of raw materials to the final delivery of goods to the customer. This can help to improve transparency, traceability, and efficiency in the supply chain.
In conclusion, blockchain is a powerful technology that has the potential to transform many industries, but it is important to separate the hype from reality. It is essential for business leaders, industries, and regulators to have a deeper understanding of the technology and its potential applications to fully harness its potential.
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According to the findings of a recent survey that was carried out by CasperLabs, it is anticipated that business adoption of blockchain technology will increase over the course of the following year in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.
This is the case even though there are knowledge gaps.
Despite the fact that the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries have undergone significant change over the course of the past year, people and companies continue to display an interest in the area.
The results of a recent poll that was conducted by CasperLabs and Zogby Analytics revealed that businesses had a particularly upbeat outlook on the potential applications of blockchain technology.
The questionnaire was sent to a total of 603 “decision makers” employed by a variety of commercial firms in China, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, in that order.
Almost all of the businesses that were asked about their usage of blockchain technology responded that they did so in some form, and almost all of those businesses (87%) also stated that they intend to make financial investments in blockchain technology during the next 12 months.
This phenomenon is especially widespread in China, where more than half of the respondents want to put money into blockchain technology by the year 2023.
According to Ralf Kubli, a member of the board of directors for the Casper Association, businesses are continuing to look to blockchain technology for solutions despite the recent turbulence:
“It is incredibly heartening to see businesses recognize that blockchain technology is not a threat but rather a solution,”
Companies who are now implementing the technology are reaping the benefits of two of its primary characteristics, namely security (42%) and copy protection (42%), both of which are proving to be highly useful for these organizations.
Those who work in IT-based operations are using blockchain technology for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to improving the efficiency of internal processes (for which 40% of users employ it), improving the efficiency of supply chain operations (34% of users employ it), and improving the efficiency of software development (30% of users employ it).
According to Kubli’s projections, the year 2023 will mark a pivotal turning point for the widespread use of blockchain technology, particularly in terms of offering practical answers to real-world challenges and producing long-term value.
In spite of this, a significant study shed light on the flaws that are commonly seen in CEOs of corporations. The vast majority of respondents (73%) feel confident in their comprehension of blockchain technology.
Despite this, 54% of those who replied continue to regard the words “blockchain” and “crypto” as being identical. In spite of the fact that the vast majority of respondents feel positive about their comprehension of blockchain technology, this is the result.
In a similar vein, it has been argued that the most significant obstacles to adoption are a lack of developer talent, a lack of tools, a lack of interoperability, and pessimism regarding the industry as a whole.
All of these factors contribute to a general sense of pessimism.
In spite of this, practically all of the people who took part in the survey stated that they would be more receptive to embracing blockchain technology if they had a better grasp of how their coworkers are utilizing it.
Education, in addition to accessibility, has been a challenge and a barrier for a significant amount of time for those people outside the space who seek to interact with the technology and engage with customers. This has been the case for many different causes throughout history.
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