Art Basel week is upon us, and FWB is upon Art Basel. I myself am in Miami and definitely not typing this on my couch in Philadelphia. In fact, I am in the lobby of the Miami Hotel in downtown Miami. A DJ is playing a Miami Bass remix of Will Smith’s song “Miami” while I sit across from noted Miami resident DJ Khaled as he’s 

on the phone with the “CEO of iTunes” talking about “add[ing] the most powerful servers.”

 Yes, I am truly in Miami and not just obviously making stuff up and referencing a DJ Khaled Instagram post that I consider to be one of the canonical works of modern flash fiction.

Okay, you caught me. I am not in Miami. But a bunch of TL;DR’s fearless correspondents are, and we’ve got the lowdown on literally everything you need to know, plus other bits and bobs from the Discord that you may have missed over the holiday week. — 

As the FWB community prepared to take its talents to South Beach, our members shared their plans in a series of digital events. Here they are:

By now you’ve all heard that FWB has been nominated for “DAO of the Year” at the inaugural 

. This invite-only gala is being held at the Faena Forum, where they will be honoring excellence in the blockchain ecosystem. If FWB wins, Zhang advises all the FWB canaries in attendance to assemble on stage to help accept the award!

FWB technologist and exhibition-maker Kelani will be hosting 

“New Realities” at the Pérez Art Museum Miami

. PAMM’s mixed reality experience immerses viewers in unexpected interactions. Contact @kelaninichole for more info!

 will be held through Dec 3. FWB artist Hamzat (@hamzatinc) has multiple sculptures on display within the 

 Booth B28 will serve as both an incubator and a showcase for diverse international artists.

 the can’t-miss event of the week! This all day affair will be highlighted with speaking engagements, curated music, and premium beverages. FWB members should 

Open Borders X Underground Violet Rave is a 

 at Wynwood’s Purple Bodega from 6pm-4am.

Resident NFT artist @Johnsville will be hosting a 9:30am 

 meetup. The boardwalk run route will be between two and three miles, starting at the Art Deco Welcome Center. RSVP in advance.

An FWB exclusive Art Basel Pool Party will be hosted by @Fabiolalariosm and @MoisesDSanabria from 11am-4pm. Unwind poolside before the big FWB x Uniswap evening event! Flamingo Point has alcoholic beverages available, 

pop-up is gonna be an all-night Wynwood heater for the ages. International icon Honey Dijon will headline, with support from house legend Derrick Carter, Detroit deity DJ Holographic, and Miami’s own B3B Roujeee Tunes. Don’t forget to 

For more events, check out the community-driven resources below:

Art Basel Miami 2022 Event Guide by FWB’s

Serotonin 2022 Web3 Ecosystem & Satellite Events

Friends with Benefits is the social club for Web3 creatives, and as such most of the cool stuff you see going down at Miami Beach this week has a noticeable FWB connection. Most of us have our own projects and careers going on and use FWB as the place to tie it all together — a common room where we gather from all corners to make sense of this new paradigm. It’s also a good place to shitpost. So it’s with this preamble that I present but three of the most notable FWB-adjacent Art Basel Miami Beach activities this weekend.

 is an official Host Partner of Art Basel Miami Beach and as such have a giant baller activation in the Collector’s Lounge. Not only will you get to view every piece collected by this decentralized museum, you’ll be the first to try out their new decentralized infrastructure they’ve built to run it.

 produces the “world’s best-smelling sunscreen” and will be familiar to anyone who picked up a goodie bag at FWB Fest this year. Built by the legendary leisurists over at 

, Vacation is throwing a corporate cookout holiday party and card-carrying Poolsuite members will receive guaranteed access and a gift upon entry.

 — an ancestral remembrance project disguised as the coolest food and wine club on Earth — and is speaking at 

. Confluence is an event focused on sharing knowledge about new financial markets and the impacts of climate change.

We’re here for, and proud of, all our alumni. — 

 in Miami Beach is a really cool spot to have coffee and work remotely and (hopefully) is not going to be too full. (1875 Purdy Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139) 

 is a Cuban coffee shop that’s very calm and not packed. (1504 Bay Rd #106, Miami Beach, FL 33139)

 is a Latin American spot with breakfast and lots of Argentinian empanadas — perfect for a quick bite! (1542 Alton Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139)

 has the best pizza in Miami. I can eat half of the big pizza so if you are near Wynwood, definitely go for it! (3328 N Miami Ave, Miami, FL 33127) 

 has the city’s best burgers, and they have craft beer and wine. (2003 N Miami Ave, Miami, FL 33127). 

 is a two-floor Cuban restaurant with drinks and a balcony on the beach — it gets a little packed, but if you’ve got the time, check it out! (760 Ocean Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139)

Late night: I love secret bars! If you are in the mood, 

 South Beach is a good option! Tacos and booze and you enter through a secret door — you’ll find red velvet couches, a full bar, and live music! (1220 16th St, Miami Beach, FL 33139) 

 is an old-fashioned bar underneath South Beach’s Stiles Hotel — go to the stairs leading to the restroom, and you’ll be teleported there. (1120 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139) — 

There are two types of people this week: Art Baselers and the rest of us saps. As a card-carrying member of the latter group, I’ve been steadily working through the Twelve-Step Program for the Laughably Basel-less, and I’m currently stuck in the “lol Art Basel probably sucks lol and all the cool-looking things are probably fake lol” step. You can safely deduce from the number of “lol”s in the step that I’m not coping well at all — a feeling I’m sure you’re familiar with. Well fear not, fellow saps, @drewcoffman has our backs. Last week Drew channeled his inner Fat Joe and scrolled 

 replete with all 210 books recommended on FWB since time immemorial. And as you’d expect, this isn’t just Crypto 101 and Crypto 102. The topics covered here run the gamut from philosophy to design to surfing to data portraits to olive oil. In fact, I’m pretty sure I picked up the word “gamut” from one of them. Fellow non-Baselers, this is our Library of Alexandria. — 

Random question, but have you heard of Vitalik Buterin and the fine artist Christian Kulendran Thomas? Hahaha jk of course you have, because they are cool and you are also cool and that is how things like this work. Anyways! Vitalik and Thomas are doing a talk together that’ll be 

hosted by the KW Institute for Contemporary Art on December 7

, where they’ll discuss Thomas’s exhibition 

 “a ploy to suppress capitalism by making more of it”), as well as the ~mysterious~ new project 

. Make sure to stay plugged into FWB’s Discord in the coming days, because I hear tell that we may have some special info about this to share very soon… — 

THIS WEEK IN MEMES: I AM THANKFUL FOR MEMES

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we started getting our seasonal sprinkling of family memes, most notably the evergreen meme of 

summoning the chronically online outcast of the family to the dinner table.

, and we rediscovered a concerned mother’s 

entry for most inappropriate TikTok dance

. In the context of the holidays, even the 

 start to feel like a fawning grandmother describing their favorite grandchild.

 Don’t let that keep you from turning to the little things that bring you joy. It’s a great time to 

reflect on all of the blessings we already have

As much as I’d love to sit here and tell you that I have something else to talk about other than the mess that’s been created by the FTX fallout, I don’t. One of the things that’s wild about it all is how SBF went about getting his shares in Robinhood, which are apparently worth $620m as of yesterday via his shell company, Emergent.

Here’s how it worked. BlockFI was a creditor to FTX that lent to Alameda, who then lent to Emergent. This shell company bought Robinhood shares that were then pledged as collateral to guarantee to BlockFI the loan to FTX that was used to bail out BlockFi itself. If such circular finance is confusing, don’t worry because I’m still wrapping my head around it too. What I will say is 

Black Dave here with this week’s anime recommendation. In the spirit of Art Basel, I’d like you to check out 

, one of my favorite anime series of 2021. Written by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, 

 is the story of high schooler Yaguchi Yatora diving head first into a love of fine art. Despite a lack of experience and fierce competition, Yaguchi chases his dreams of becoming a fine artist. Catch this easy-to-binge, 12-episode bad boy in full on Netflix right now. (

 is named after Picasso’s Blue Period from 1901-1904, when, following  the suicide of his friend Carles Casegemas, he painted near-monochrome blue work.

Since this is the first edition, I figure this a good time to introduce myself and this new section of TL;DR. I’m Dave, Black Dave in the streets, and I’m an artist (music mainly), working at the intersection of anime, streetwear, and hip-hop. (You can find me on 

.) I’ve been watching anime for over 20 years, getting my start from the Dreamcast game 

. I’ll be using this space to recommend anime movies and short anime shows — not just the action stuff, but romance, thrillers, horror, time travel, mystery, and any other genre as long as the work is great. — 

Hip-hop fans of a certain age (i.e., people in their thirties) came up in the blog era, which was one of the most magical times in music. We had trusted curators, even entire publications, who we could count on to tell us the best new music to listen to — and I can’t even begin to explain the elation I’d feel when an artist I’d already been paying attention to got featured.

The reason I bring this up is because this level of careful curation is almost entirely absent in the world of Web3 music. There’s a lot of new music coming out, but because there’s no trusted place for me to go to discover the very best of what’s coming out in such a nascent space, I end up being too overwhelmed to figure it out. Where is the new Complex Media? What’s the new version of getting five mics in 