Anyone who can make a living doing what they love should consider themselves lucky. Yet for blockchain copywriter and Etherpoet Margaret Corvid, also known as MargaretLabour, her luck never stopped, all thanks to her day job. Since selling her Reply Guy NFT for 50Ξ ($110,000), a gift from Twitter for tweeting her NFT poem, it’s back to business as usual for Corvid, whose recent streak of crypto successes is barely luck; not by a longshot.
“I only owned the NFT for I think like an hour, and then I picked up my phone and there was an email from Rarible, and I looked at it, and then I started swearing and shouting at my husband,” Corvid recalls. “And then, obviously, I had questions, so I went to my favorite servers which are Etherpoems and Taylor.wtf’s Discord—they’re full of really wise people—they gave me good advice, so I took the bid,” she said. “And then I looked in my fucking Metamask and there was $110,000 in there.”
While acknowledging that none of this is financial advice, Corvid shared her philosophy about cryptocurrency, which has always been to not use it as a speculative tool primarily, but more so to invest sweat equity—i.e., labor, in exchange for cryptocurrency.
“I don’t want to be spending this principle really at all,” Corvid said of her cryptocurrency coffer. “I want to be earning crypto through the sweat of my brow,” she emphasized. Corvid is currently taking poetry commissions in addition to her work as a copywriter for NFT artists. Painter and art collector Dario De Siena is among her current contractual and collaborative clients.
“I looked around the markets, like OpenSea, and I immediately saw a need for someone with my skills,” Corvid said. I saw a lot of really talented artists with amazing work, but they don’t necessarily carry the confidence in presenting their work in words and descriptions,” she realized. “This is something that I can do.” Corvid’s way with words helps artists articulate what they want readers to connect with about their art—whether it’s helping to establish their identity and brand story in their artist bios, or crafting the narrative for artist statements, grants, contest submissions, artist residencies, exhibitions, and more.
Corvid also writes about the creative process and symbolism in an artist’s work, which she is uniquely skilled to articulate. Her role as a writer and poet in collaborations with other artists often serves to connect visual and literary elements. Being involved with a branded content agency in fiat, Corvid knows how to work through the editing process and give the client exactly what they want. Her experience contributing to publications like The Guardian affects her ability to deliver freelance copywriting services at the highest professional standards.
When you’re working for crypto, you have to be your own bank. That’s the whole point of decentralized finance, which can lead to financial freedom and generational wealth. DeFi isn’t easy to learn, and if it was, everybody would be doing it. It’s a privilege and a given that you’re down for doing your own DeFi when you’re banking on the blockchain.
Remember doing decimals in math class? Did you ever take a home economics class and talk about Compound interest or dollar-cost averaging? That’s the essential math we need to grasp to be our own brokers. Yes, our computers can solve these equations, yet we need to know what to ask them in order to benefit from knowing the answer.
Corvid started counting crypto in 2012 when she first bought Bitcoin. Now that NFTs are here, there’s no question where her focus is, and of course, she’s at the forefront of the crypto art movement. One of her clients even pays her in NFT collectibles. “Those NFTs perform better than any currency I got, so yeah, I’ll take ‘em,” Corvid says. She’s doing the math.
Since becoming 50Ξ richer, Corvid rolled up her sleeves and returned to work as a writer—like her 15 minutes of Twitter fame never happened—except now she’s the proud new owner of a CryptoPunk; one of the very first NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain. Corvid’s CryptoPunk purchase for 17.7Ξ has effectively minted her belief in the crypto community she is writing and fighting for every day.
“Instead of looking in my wallet, and knowing I had $110,000Ξ yesterday, then seeing I have $101,000Ξ today, this CryptoPunk sort of hedges me a little bit and I actually feel a lot calmer about it now,” Corvid reflects. “I’m a lot more confident.” Her CryptoPunk makes her an ambassador for blockchain culture and a visible reminder of stored value. CryptoPunk owners command a level of respect in the crypto hierarchy of notoriety and influence that is immediately bestowed upon their owners. As a cultural status symbol, CryptoPunks enhance the value proposition in every crypto space they occupy. While presenting itself as a privileged asset of choice among a forward-thinking few. CryptoPunk ownership embodies Corvid’s enduring presence in the NFT community even while her immutable legacy is still being written.
