Richelle Steyn
My Backstory
After 20 years in corporate IT, I made a hard-fork onto a road-less-travelled and started a personal journey to out-of-the-ordinary places. I was disillusioned with the life I was living and the work I was doing, and looking for work with a deeper purpose and meaning in an environment that was healthy, nourishing and that filled me with a sense of aliveness. That was 10 years ago.
Today, equipped with different values and geopolitical street-smarts, I feel I have a better sense of the emerging future. The younger generation has a very different social operating system, with less appetite for stress and sweat-shop type working conditions and work culture. More importantly, the existing “Game A”, “for profit” and “power-over” paradigms do not align with their values and needs.
The journey I started ten years ago has inspired me to create different models of business (socio-economic ecosystems) that offer new types of work opportunities, for a wider range of diverse human characters, circumstances, values and needs to better serve our emerging future.
Cryptocurrency (DeFi) and NFT Art
My first experience in the world of Cryptocurrency was in late 2021 when I created a BTCPAY server and added Bitcoin as a Woo-commerce payment option to my WordPress website. At the time, I was on a crypto trading course and dabbling with crypto arbitrage. Running a small business with an international audience and a South African bank account was a major headache at the time and I was excited about the potential of DeFi to solve this problem. I stumbled upon NFT Art researching different forms of crowdfunding as a way to finance new start-ups.
Art Stoke
Art Stoke Commons communicates a long-term vision to build new business (socio-economic) ecosystems that (also) solve real-world problems to better serve our emerging future. Art Stoke Commons is not just about creating a marketplace; its about empowering artists, redefining work environments, and tackling issues like intellectual property and royalties in the digital art space. I’m passionate about using technology to foster meaningful change in our local communities. I care deeply about the creative economy and the potential of artists and art to shape culture and society in a healthy way. For this, artists and creators need to thrive in a decentralized space with full control over their work. This is the mission of Art Stoke.