Otis AI

-𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚍𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚗? There are mismatched socks everywhere you step; it’s like a pandemic of socks. You walk on your toes, careful not to step on any. Today is the day you learn how to swim. You are excited; it shows in your demeanor. “Oga, hurry up, na. We go leave you o.” You hear the voice of your bosom friend and classmate since the beginning of JSS1, the boy who sticks by you like glue. “No dey rush me, I dey come.” You thunder back as he sighs and tells you to hurry it up. Your room is a mess; it always is. You never remember where the ballpoint pens you so dearly love are kept; you never remember if your bag is on the top of a pile of unwashed clothes. You never remember anything, or rather, you choose to forget. “Oboi, this one goes mad o. Shey, you fit swim?” One of your friends asks, and you are tempted to roll your eyes. It is not a question you grace with a response, so you keep mute. The others come to your rescue in a flash. “No dey do like beans na, you know say we wan teach am how to swim. Sometimes this Otis dey do like person wey him brain dey glitch.” Ayo says, looking at Otis with a look of contempt. Ayo is the boy you look up to, the one most girls would kill to talk to. He looks like a cross between an American and a Nigerian, even though he keeps reminding everyone who decides to listen that he’s a full-fledged Yoruba boy. Otis is the guy everybody ignores, even you. He keeps repeating irrelevant details to fill up the silence. “No mind Otis. Na why him dey do like Otu. E no sabi anything. I go teach you how to swim, no worry.” You nod in acceptance, staring at the boy who speaks with such confidence you can’t help being shell-shocked. He’s another guy, you rever, who’s somehow good at whatever he does. Kanye is his name—the boy who does it all. It doesn’t matter what; he’s good at it. The girls used to like him until they got annoyed with him since they consider him a 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤-𝑖𝑡-𝑎𝑙𝑙 or rather, 𝐼𝑇𝐾. So, he sticks with the boys now. “I no mind am before na. Na so he dey do. We don know am. No worry, we get him password for hand.” You say with a laugh, as the others chorus. Four boys go to the swimming pool on a blistering hot day. Even the gods of misfortune could see nothing wrong with that idea. Or so you thought. The pool is a large one; even standing at 5’8, you can tell there are parts of the pool you absolutely must not enter. Girls are squealing like ducks out of the water, but you ignore them. It’s how girls are: noisemakers. Even in your school, it’s no different. In a bid to be seen, they often try to outshine the boys who do whatever they do with no regard for who’s watching. You do not like girls. You used to, but now you don’t. You are startled out of your reverie when Otis jostles you forward with a casual smirk on his face. He looks at you and winks while Ayo and Kanye watch you and Otis fool yourselves. The pool looks inviting as some girls leave it, clapping hands and whispering into their ears. You know how they are—gossip, all of them. You cannot remember where your hatred of women stems from, but you do know that it is from a valid place. You hear it’s called misogyny nowadays. Humans have names for everything, even inconsequential things. “So, how we go do am? Who goes in first?” Ayo asks, one of his hands raised. “Who cares? Make everybody enter jare.” Otis enters the conversation, using his body to push you aside from where you were standing. You stand at the pool's edge before you fall, your hands flailing in the air. The thought that you were just 5’8 feet tall in a pool over 7 feet deep strikes you as ironic. Nature does have a sense of humor, a wicked one. You smile, and you plunge into the water. The water cradles your head as you begin to see the beauty in the darkness of the water. The scenery changes; you lie in the arms of the one who broke you, staring into those deep brown eyes that seem to house all the pain in the universe. “I never taught you how to swim, did I?” She says, a sad smile on the edge of her lips. “You? How are you here?” You ask, fighting back tears. She looks as beautiful as you remember from the past, a phantom with no place to call home. “Does it matter? I guess they call this a place between worlds, right? So, you’re dying. How does that make you feel?” She speaks, and you close your eyes momentarily, wondering why she keeps picking you apart. “Why must you be the last thing I see before I die? Haven’t you done enough? You’re not even dead!” You scream at her face, but the only thing that comes out of your mouth are bubbles. “Dead or alive, I’m the one you love above all others. How does it feel to have your last moments with the only girl your family and friends abhor?” She grins at you, and you begin to see how messed up everything is. She isn’t your friend, she isn’t your family. She’s nothing. Yet, she’s everything. “Haven’t you done enough? Why do you keep doing this?” You say, knowing the fight has been drained out of you. “Because I can.” You can hear voices through the depths, but you refuse to heed them. You want to talk to her a little bit longer. “Wake up, dammit!” You hear a voice pulling you out of your private world with her, a voice that seems to break with pain. You don’t ask; you follow. “Thank God. Yes, that’s it. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine…” The voice gets a little more transparent, and you open your eyes groggily to see the panic-stricken faces of Ayo and Kanye hovering over you. They fuss over you as you cough, water coming from your mouth. Your tiredness is overwhelming; your whole being begs you to go back to sleep. But in a haze, you notice that Otis is nowhere to be found. “Where is Otis?” You ask, looking around. “He’s fine. He was the one who went after you.” Ayo replies as though it is obvious. “Okay, where is he?” You ask again, and Ayo and Kanye exchange nervous glances before they try to find Otis. But you don’t say anything because you know more than anyone else. The same way you know you can never be with 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑎, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ as most of your friends call her. You know where Otis is, and your conversation with him once rings loudly in your head. “Omo me, I just dey o. I no sabi swim. I remember when we go bar beach sef. I just dey play with sand. Me wey get that phobia for water. Wetin be the name again, sef?” Otis asks you as you hold back a laugh before replying. “Hydrophobia. The fear of water.” “Yes! Na im be that. Omo, no tell anybody sha. I wan get over am my way.” “No wahala. Nobody go hear.” You remember; you remember it all. You remember the promise you made not to tell anyone. You don’t have to look for Otis; nobody does. You know where he is. He has become one with the water. You do not remember 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ anymore; everything else flies by in a haze. Did you attend Otis’ funeral? You do not remember. Your friends try to comfort you, but it is a wasted effort. You didn’t exactly love Otis; he was more like a pesky annoying fly that buzzes around and makes a fuss. You do not care about the death of a fly, yet your heart fills up so much that you fear it’s going to burst. You do not cry; crying is for babies. You stare dry-eyed at the future of the boy who never saw 16. They say the state of a person’s room reflects the state of that person’s mind. That’s why yours is squeaky clean, not a pair of socks in sight. Perhaps you do it for Otis, or maybe it’s for yourself. Maybe your room reflects your mental state, a world empty of who you once were. There are no mismatched socks anymore, just memories of the boy who learned to drown in the guise of swimming. “You can not swim. Why, then, did you do it?” You ask the empty air. But no response comes. Not one. You’re alone with the boy you taught how to drown. A fly, that’s all he was. A pesky fly. Why, then, do you cry?

Mismatched Socks

HYDRAULIC ELEVATORS AND MOTORS

Bernice Bobs Her Hair

The popularity of NFTs has been on the rise for the past two years. Massive NFT collections like Bored Apes Yacht Club and Cryptopunks have continues to trade over the floor price of $100K+ even in a bear market. Those who got in early made thousands in profits from these NFT collections, however, with such steep floor prices, it’s almost impossible for the majority of investors to afford one today. But there is still one way for these investors to still invest in high-end NFTs like the ones mentioned above—fractionalized NFTs. Fractionalized NFTs are quite literally fractions of an NFT that you can buy to claim partial ownership of an NFT. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what fractionalized NFTs are, how it works, and how to buy one. What are Fractionalized NFTs? Before we dive into the world of Fractionalized NFTs, let’s have a quick look at what NFTs are. NFTs or Non-fungible tokens are a type of unique and unreplicable ERC-721 token that can be owned as digital property and the ownership can be validated using blockchain technology. Therefore the owner of such a property can prove their ownership and have the right to sell it to someone else. However, the problem with traditional NFTs, especially blue chip NFTs, is the high entry barrier for investors. This is where Fractional NFTs come in to solve the problem. Fractional NFTs or F-NFTs, in simple terms, are NFTs that has been divided into a number of fractions and sold in pieces using tokens. For example, if an NFT has been divided into a thousand fractions, each fraction will be worth 1/1000 of the total price. So when you buy one fraction, you’re essentially buying one piece of a large asset. In technical terms, an NFT in the Ethereum blockchain follows the ERC-721 token standard and therefore is non-replicable. However, if you create a finite number of ERC-20 tokens and link it to the original NFT and lock it up inside a smart contract, those ERC-20 tokens essentially mirror the value of the NFT. This works similarly to how stablecoins work. $USDT tokens are pegged 1:1 to the $USD. Now imagine you divide $1 into 100 cents, and create a stablecoin that is pegged 1:1 to 1 cent (in our case the fractions), then 100 stablecoins would equate to $1 (the whole NFT). In the event that someone collects all the fractions, in our case all 100 of them, they can initiate a buyback function call. This will lead to the recovery of the original NFT and will burn the fractional tokens. In some cases, buyers can stake their F-NFTs in the ecosystem and earn rewards from it. However, holders of F-NFTs won’t have access to special rewards, airdrops, or any other perks issued by the NFT creators for the original holders. It’s not clear if the owners of the original NFT who executed the smart contract will still enjoy the perks albeit giving up a chunk of the ownership. Depending on different platforms, certain features of F-NFTs vary, however, the core idea remains the same. For example, Mutant Cat NFTs fractionalized their shares by creating $FISH token. If you buy $FISH tokens, you own a piece of a certain NFT. You can also stake that token to get more $FISH tokens as rewards. The Benefits of F-NFTs F-NFTs do offer the best of both worlds. The extremely high price of certain NFTs makes it impossible to afford one for the majority of people. While those who can afford to buy a Bored Ape or a CryptoPunk have to allocate a major chunk to a single asset. F-NFTs solve this problem by allowing investors to diversify, and a few other ones. Affordability As mentioned above, F-NFTs make NFTs affordable to invest in. It’s impossible for regular investors to afford an NFT like BAYC#5199 which was sold for 425 ETH. However, if it was fractionalized into a million pieces, an average investor could have a piece at a fraction of a million dollars. This makes NFTs a more democratized asset penetrating investors of all social classes and not just millionaires. Diversification Following the point of affordability, diversification is the next big benefit of F-NFTs. Even if some people can afford these high-value NFTs, a wise approach to investment is not putting all your eggs in one basket. Diversification leads investors to find a way to keep investing in high-risk assets like NFTs with limited exposure and F-NFTs enable that. For example, if you like a $150K cryptopunk, but don’t want to make that big a commitment in the bear market, F-NFTs can solve your problem. You can buy up 30% of the asset and still call yourself an owner. As a result, you can take home a good chunk of money when the NFT rises in price, while in case of downfalls, you won’t have to incur too much loss. It’s a win-win situation for you. Liquidity The problem with Non-fungible assets whether digital or physical is binary ownership—you either own it or you don’t. NFTs suffer from the same problem because there can be only one owner. So if one person buys an NFT, there is no way to buy/sell that NFT until that person sells it and it’s back in the market. But with an F-NFT it is always tradeable thanks to the ERC-20 tokens, anybody can have a piece of it at any time. Price Discovery Fractionalized NFTs will let the market decide the value of an NFT without bias or sudden context-shifting incidents. For example, the announcement of the Otherside metaverse shot up the price of BAYC NFTs and the Ape token. Similarly, celebrity NFTs often tank because of incidents in their personal lives. But when thousands of people trade an NFT, the chances of someone impacting the price individually decrease. The price movement becomes much more balanced or nuanced instead of depending on a single owner. Existing Usecases of F-NFTs So where are these F-NFTs? Who is using them? Actually, quite a lot of people are minting F-NFTs from last year. We saw Grimes sold her art * *as fractional NFTs and sold the fractions for $10 each on Otis. Newborn 1 & 3 The Doge NFT which was the inspiration for Dogecoin was bought by the PleasrDAO and they it into 17 billion pieces. fractionalized The DAO bought the NFT at a valuation of $4 million. And after fractionalizing it, the individual tokens were priced at $0.019, a pretty low entry barrier for anyone. Popular NFTs like Bored Ape and CryptoPunk have also been fractionalized several times. The cryptopunk#8726 was fractionalized on and later sold profiting the investors. Fractional.art The same event took place with BAYC#5264, which was sold for 169.9 ETH on Fractional as well. Where To Buy/Sell F-NFTs? Just like normal NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea or Magic Eden, F-NFTs have their own marketplaces. These are the 3 best marketplaces for Fractional NFTs: Fractional.art Fractional.art is the most popular NFT platform where you can invest in premium NFTs like BAYC and Cryptopunk. You can also mint your F-NFTs by locking up any NFT you own. Rally Rally is another great marketplace for fractional NFTs. It also lets you invest in other fractional collectibles like luxury watches and vintage video games that could make some nice profit. Otis Popular artists like Grimes have used Otis to fractionalize their NFTs. You can also trade other NFTs besides F-NFTs. Otis is a great platform for NFT portfolio management too. Closing Thoughts Fractionalized NFTs open up a new horizon for NFTs with new use cases and more flexibility. While there are risks to democratizing an already speculative asset, fractionalizing seems like a more natural progression. We can safely presume a lot of NFTs in the future will be fractionalized leading to the creation of NFT index funds, staking, etc. What do you think about F-NFTs? Let me know.

OTIS AI

otis.ai

-- employees

Since n.d.

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OTIS AI

otis.ai

-- employees

Since n.d.

COMPANY RANKING

OTIS AI

EVERGREEN INDEX #8097

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