#its so very shady
It’s a money-making scheme, lads. The podcast, the so-called “TV show”, they aren’t the actual product. They exist to promote and sell the actual product: their “metaverse” with all its contents, including NFTs.
They’re being vague about this on their social media - you’ve probably seen the mentions of “Xavatars” and “metaverse”, but no specific explanations of what that actually means. So here’s a quote from their LinkedIn, geared towards investors and business partners rather than social media followers and potential customers:
“… we are creating an animated show, The Sync Report, populated by XAVATAR avatars as a marketing tool and revenue generator. With the creation of the animated show we are expanding the development of the metaverse which our XAVATAR avatars will be able to populate, explore and utilize which allows for promotion of the space and sales of components of the ecosystem.”
What does all that mean? I’m not a business partner, I haven’t heard the full sales pitch, I don’t know all the details. This is what I do know, as far as I understand it:
A metaverse is a digital universe, a combination of the internet and virtual reality, where you can interact with people virtually. Like an online video game, except there’s no game. Note that the metaverse doesn’t actually exist yet, it’s a thing that the Facebook folks are working on.
The idea with “metaverse” and NFTs and all of that is that ideally, everythingwill be monetised. An online world where everything is for sale and everything costs money.
TSR are building their own metaverse called the Xataverse. The “TV show” will take place in this ‘verse, which basically means that if you want to watch it, you will need to enterit. You do that by getting a Xavatar, which is an NFT. Presumably, you will need to buythis Xavatar, since NFTs cost money. The NFTs of Colin that they’re selling will function as Xavatars.
Again, quoting from the LinkedIn, these Xavatars will “enable users to access various opportunities within our platform” and “participate in “metaverse” content shows, such as video podcasts, news, entertainment, and any kind of broadcast, and create virtual objects, all of which can easily be converted into NFTs”. Again, similar to a video game really, except there’s no game and you’re using real money to take part. Everything is monetised.
By the way: the wallet they want you to use is MetaMask. Which only works with Ethereum, so you’re locked into using Ethereum, one of the currencies that use a ridiculous amount of electricity and is contributing to climate change and the energy crisis. It’s also been falling in value lately, so if you buy, say, $100 worth of Ethereum today, it might be worth $70 in a week’s time.
Oh, and in order to set up a digital wallet and use it, you need to hand over your credit card details and personal ID information.
The “show” is a marketing tool and revenue generator. It exists to make money and promote this digital universe, just like NFTs exist to get people to invest in cryptocurrency. In my opinion, they got Colin on board in hopes of dangling him before his fans to draw them into this Xataverse thing. You want to “see” him on this “TV show”? Buy cryptocurrency, buy a Xavatar, and come right on in! You want more exclusive content? Buy tokens for that! Help drive up the value of the ‘verse and its associated NFTs, so that investors will think this is a valuable thing to invest in.
I also have, shall we say, some doubts that a little company in Kerry is going to manage to create something that Facebookis still working on. Again, the metaverse is still a hypothetical thing, it doesn’t actually exist yet. I think there’s a very real possibility here that once these NFTs drop and they’ve either sold enough or convinced some investors to give them money, the whole thing will just… fade quietly away. It wouldn’t be the first time that happens. But even if it doesn’t, again, the whole thing is a money-making scheme, it’s not about the podcast or the show at all, it’s not about Colin, it’s about using those things to create value, to get people to get involved in and commit to this “Xataverse” and spend money on it.
