A beginner’s guide to NFTs & The Metaverse

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. I am no expert, I am just an entrepreneur building a braincare company called Heights, and spend most of my professional time reading about neuroscience & mental health.

However, I’ve been on paternity, had extra time to read and am an enthusiast/hobbyist/curious nerd and nothing more than that who loves to learn about the intersection of tech and culture, and as a new dad, I’m keen to learn about what world my daughter is going to play in!

Why am I writing this?

Over the last few months I’ve been geeking out hardcore on NFTs, crypto and the ‘metaverse’.

If that mostly sounds like jargon to you, ignore/delete/why did you even open this — but if you are finding yourself curious — then read on.

I wanted to write this post because there’s a saying in neuroscience: “When you read something you learn it once. When you share it — you learn it twice, cementing new neural pathways”. So I’m doing this as much for me, as for you.

I’m also doing this because I am not selling you anything. Most people in crypto/NFTs are selling you something so how can you trust them? This post is to share what I’m learning — try to turn it into real world examples to make sense of it, and hopefully take you on a journey (with a sleep deprived new dad).

I believe some of the great next opportunities on earth are coming in this space a bit like when we moved from publishing to the internet. Being early, taking an active interest, and learning what the next wave is, is not just personally interesting, I think it’s an essential role of an entrepreneur anyway. The reason Heights is going so well is because of the broad interests outside of our space that fuel new ideas and approaches to do things differently…

If your instinct is like — “meh, sounds like a load of rubbish to me”, then realise that you already sound like your parents did when you told them what was cool (and turns out you were right and they were wrong…usually!)

Here’s my TL;DR warning because on paternity, I’ve got no work and other than changing nappies, not sleeping, and pretending I’m even 10% as useful to have around as my wife… I’ve got some time to read…