The future of Ethereum, DAOs, Defi and Web3 set to become mainstream with movie tracing its history
Ridley Scott’s production company, Scott Free Productions, is slated to produce a feature film based the book, which tells the story of Ethereum, ‘The Infinite Machine‘ written by cryptocurrency crusader and journalist Camila Russo, and has Shyam Madiraju attached as director. Tom Moran, Vera Meyer, and Alejandro Miranda are also onboard, according to Deadline.
With Ridley Stott’s credits running the gamut from ‘Blade Runner‘, to ‘The Last Duel’, to Alien, to Gladiator, and too many more to count, plus production credits for Scott Free that are no less impressive, the upcoming films appears set to be big.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin will play prominently in the story, showing the early and incredible initial launch, inspired by the self-taught 19 year-old, into what is now the world’s second largest cryptocurrency (Ether) and, according to Ethereum.org is a technology that’s home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The current ‘market cap’ for Ethereum is nearly $400 billion.
The story up to the present day is fascinating enough, with the meteoric rise of Ethereum from the founding in 2015 to the announcement of this project. Particularly noteworthy is the connection between the Ethereum blockchain technology and the invention of NFTs (Non-fungible tokens), DeFi (decentralized finance), D.A.O.s (Decentralized autonomous organizations) and more.
Camila Russo, author of “The Infinite Machine”, also founded TheDefiant( thedefiant.io ) which “curates, digests, and analyzes all the major developments in decentralized finance, so that you can stay informed and smart about the most cutting-edge and fastest-changing corner of crypto and finance” according to the site itself.
The film project has already started to make waves and accomplish meaningful buzz in a deep layered, totally coherent approach to its creation. Namely, the fact that part of the fundraising for the film is taking place via NFT collections. This bold move has been incredibly well timed and successful, with the first @ETHMovie collection selling out completely within 28 hours and raising $670,000 in the process.
This funding, along with subsequent NFT collections offered are being managed via The Infinite Machine DAO community treasury, along with traditional film financing techniques. The DAO is, itself, the executive producer of the movie.
According to the official site for the film, the NFT collection sales will be equally distributed amongst the 36 intervening artist which will receive 22.5% of the budget. 10% will be sent to a community treasury pool to fund the DAO, and the 67.5% will be used for the movie.
‘It’s incredibly exciting to have Ridley Scott and the crew at Scott Free produce the movie of The Infinite Machine alongside us. I can’t imagine a better team to turn the riveting story about the people behind the most revolutionary technology since the internet into a feature film that will capture the hearts of our generation.‘
Camila Russo as per ‘DeaDline’
This groundbreaking funding mechanism, in this case for a movie that is intended to “become a blockbuster movie for the mainstream”, is part and parcel of the radical yet optimistic and hopeful changes that DAOs, NFTs, DeFi all were created to achieve, within the greater context of Web3 and the Ethereum blockchain itself. In other words, making this film is itself proof that the subject matter is alive, kicking and becoming more real (and dangerous, to some) in real time.
Traditional funding and monetary distribution channels, from the creative genesis of an idea (in this case the book) to a fully formed commercially released product and its proceeds, are by comparison, woefully inadequate and generally corrupt and unfair, according to many artists and creators super-pumped for the transition to these new methods made possible by Ethereum, blockchain, and soon, Web3.
So from the story, in both book and movie, to the NFT collections, the the DAO created to executive produce and partially fund the film, there is a thread of real-life proof-of-concept running throughout.
That proof is that, far from being a far flung, possible flash-in-the-pan, the entire saga, beginning with 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin’s idea to expand the potential of block chain, is destined to come to spectacular fruition, and sooner than you might believe.
Culminating the relatively short history of the last 7 years, all the way to the present day explosion of work, massive capital investments and development of Ethereum, along with its various applications and use-cases, we could be inexorably headed toward a moment in the near-future when the film will crash head-on into the realization of the very dream scenario it depicts. Oh boy howdy.
Below, the breakdown of the The Infinite Machine DAO funding plan:
Before the Movie Budget is Covered
Distribution of primary and secondary sales:
22.5% in an equal basis amongst the 36 intervening artists
10.0% to a community treasury pool used to seed The Infinite Machine DAO
67.5% to cover the movie budget up to $16M. That number may be reduced depending on the amount of funds raised via traditional means.
After the Movie budget is covered
Distribution of secondary trading fees and any other revenues from all collections:
22.5% will be received by the artists in this collection
25.0% will be received by the NFT Collection core team and contributors
52.5% will be used to fund a community pool to seed The Infinite Machine DAO
Camila Russo spent eight years at Bloomberg covering the Argentine market (bonds, stocks, FX) for 4+ years based in Buenos Aires; she wrote about European stocks with a focus on Southern Europe in Madrid; analyzed macro emerging markets moves for the Markets Live blog in New York; and was one of the most prolific and dedicated cryptocurrency reporters.