We had four days’ worth of unforgettable Web3 experience at the recent Outer Edge LA 2023 event. Our hosts were down at the venue to give you not only the fun but also the latest and exciting news shaking up the Web3 space. In this special episode, we give you four new interviews from some of the great minds present at the event. Doug Leonard of Hifi tells us about their new product, Pooled NFTs. Jeremy Fisher shares the new version of Lucky Duck. Felipe Salgado introduces AuraDogs, the first DAO for stray dogs in the world. And Amyli McDaniel of MINTangible talks about how they turn NFTs from tokens to national assets. Tune in to learn about these cool products making their mark in Web3.
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Listen to the Podcast here
NFT Utility FromOuter Edge LA 2023 | Featuring: Hifi, Lucky Duck, AuraDogs, And MINTangible
For my first guest, we are going to speak to Doug Leonard. Doug, do you want to introduce yourself and your product?
I’m Doug Leonard with Hifi. We are here to promote our new product called Pooled NFTs. It helps you get liquidity built up for your NFT projects.
We are talking about nailing into what exactly interests you at this period. Can you tell us a little bit about what is exciting you in the Web3 space?
The big thing that we think is going to be part of the next couple of years going forward is the tokenization of real-world assets. Everything we do is laying a foundation to prepare us for that big onboarding of value that is coming to Web3.
There is going to be an expansive effort. You guys have laid a lot of foundational groundwork. What is next for you guys? Are you looking at partnerships or expanding your event presence and doing some more NFT LA Outer Edge pieces?
We are interested in experimenting with NFT projects. It helps set the foundation for real-world assets. There are only two ways to represent an asset. It is either a fungible token or a non-fungible token. With Hifi being compatible with both of those as our foundation, whether or not you represent a horse syndicate as NFTs or as ERC-20s, we are prepared for that.
How important is DeFi going to be in the NFT component? Do you think these are things that stand independently? Do you see these things eventually inevitably amalgamating into one Web3 concept?
I don't think they are going to amalgamate altogether but you are going to find certain different hybrid models that pick and choose from each other for different benefits. Fungibility is nice whenever you want to enter or exit a position or bet on a whole team. I don't think they are going to eat each other.
We are going to close with a fun question. You are into horse racing and horses. Can you talk a little bit about your horses? You have a couple. How are they performing? What is your favorite horse?
It is breeding season. We have 4 or 5 horses added to our herd. We have a couple of big wins we are coming off of. We have had one major injury from one of our star horses. There is a balance there.
You are doing tech, NFTs, DeFi and horse racing. You are a multifaceted human being.
We like to have a lot of irons in the fire.
It is good to have multiple revenue streams in multiple areas of interest. Otherwise, you live on the internet too long. That is what Twitter is all about. Thank you so much for joining us. It is an absolute pleasure.
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Jeremy, welcome to Outer Edge and Web3 in Focus. What brings you to this conference? Let people know about your project.
Lucky Ducky was launched in 2022. We have been building ever since. We are working towards a series for streaming. We want to come out here and reintroduce ourselves to people that may not have seen us before. Maybe they saw us a long time ago and got to see firsthand the claymation that goes into the project. It is a great way to show the physical part of what we do in this project in real life and at a conference like this. It has been great.
Let's sit back for a second because you mentioned claymation. Let's say the OG is Lucky Ducky. What is this new version of Lucky Ducky?
It started with 7,777 claymation trait duckies that were made from claymation traits. Every single piece I physically sculpted, shot and pieced together for this collection. It is one of the few truly handmade projects on OpenSea. We launched. We have been pitching for a year to studios and showcasing the characters, the story and all the parts of it. It is all family-friendly. It is all for young and old, very much in the guys of like Loonie Tunes. We are showcasing for our holders all the story and pitch deck, bringing them into what we have been doing behind the scenes and giving them a bird's eye view of the project, which normally you don't get.
If I'm a holder or I'm going to be a potential holder, what are these new things that I will be getting to see because you mentioned a TV show?
We are showcasing first the pitch deck, which you need to know the basis of that type of work. We usually show it only to studio executives and people we are talking to but now we show it to all the holders. You can all see the story, the characters, why we're doing this and who it's for. That is an awesome project we have been putting together. On top of that, we are also developing backstage paths, which lets the community build a story with us, be in a writer's room and build out a stop motion along the way with us with our Duckies as voting rights.
You come from a background of working in animation in Hollywood and with major studios.
I worked on Robot Chicken for several years. I worked on Marcel The Shell, which was nominated for an Oscar. That is my bread and butter. I'm bringing all that skill and knowledge into this space and trying to bring it up a few steps with that.
It sounds like if I were a holder of a Lucky Ducky, I would learn some behind-the-scenes things that your vast experience provides.
I do AMAs frequently. I show tutorials on how to do claymation. I walk the process through how we are pitching. Everyone gets to see on the backend what we are doing with this part. It is not typical for you to see this work and how it is made.
Is there anything else on the horizon that you can share with us or is that just for holders?
If you were here, you got to see the first look at the new merch, the new plushy that we are coming out with and all the new characters that we are releasing for the pitch deck to the story and the characters. You get to meet me in person, which is cool. I will be around. It has been fun to showcase the project in a new way.
Not to play on FOMO but let's say that I got a Lucky Ducky. I'm excited about this and I learned about the project. Are you going to do more events coming up? Where can they find you next?
We are going to be mostly in LA for the time being but looking at possibly New York and Miami, the traditional NFT places but also looking at some other outside-the-box places that maybe are more mainstream places that bring the characters and the story that isn't typical for Web3. We are investigating in 2023. We are best to take it.
What if I'm interested in Lucky Ducky and I want to learn more about it because you mentioned Discord and Twitter, where do I go? What is the first port of access?
@LuckyDuckyNFT is our Twitter. That is where all those news drops. If you are on Discord, you can hang out with us and talk. We will show you the announcements there too. We have a special group chat for all the holders on Twitter. You can communicate with us directly one on one. Twitter and Discord are the main thing for the time being.
Start at LuckyDuckyNFT.com. From there, we will have all the information for both holders to learn and get with everything you are doing and for new people to learn about it. You can find the collection on OpenSea.
We are trying to spread out in as many places as we can.
We are excited to hear more about your show. As a Lucky Ducky holder, I will be trolling Discord and finding out what is going on with you all. Jeremy, enjoy the rest of the conference. It has been a pleasure to talk with you.
It has been great talking. Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much.
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We are live at the Outer Edge with another friend of ours, Felipe Salgado. He is here presenting his project. Give the name of your project.
Thank you for the opportunity, Daniel. I'm Felipe, Founder of the AuraDogs, the first DAO for stray dogs in the world. We started in 2021. We got a grant for being the first social project for stray dogs in the world. We haven't stopped. We keep leveraging utilities inside our project, like NOCO Gap, that will make able to creators, NGOs and regular artists onboard their collections and missions to get connected to different charity organizations around the world that needs help. Through the DAO, what we do is validate and elevate proposals for our community to vote on and get connected to several ways of monetizing the help.
You mentioned something about a platform that you were also promoting where people can jump in and create their NFTs. Is that something that you are focusing on?
The space needs more interaction and an easy and gamified onboarding process to crypto. We decided that new creators won't go through the same knowledge process that we did. You have to get previous knowledge of coding and deploying contracts. What we did is created a small form that is coded on the backend. It will allow you to upload your images, use AI tools to degenerate images and deploy your smart contracts connected to charity. That is another way that our business model got a new way to monetize on a specific business model that is beginning in this space.
Let's say that I'm an artist and I want to launch my collection with you guys. What do I have to do?
You have to be part of our community and our Alpha OGs. You have to mint an AuraDogs membership to unlock these token-gated features that we are setting up inside the project. That will allow you, as an NGO, veterinarian and animal activist, to upload your missions to be part of the ecosystem where you can also provide and connect to other needs inside these ecosystems. We allow you to launch your version of the animal aid and care platform inside a bigger umbrella that we are building.
What charities are you supporting at this moment?
Back in Ecuador, we are supporting some home shelters. We have been supporting this sanctuary called Savia. Ever since we partnered up with my friend Rasmus that is over here from Copenhagen, Denmark, we partnered up with animal protection. We onboard a sanctuary of elephants back in Thailand. We are collaborating with them to create the first NFT collection with elephants that will connect to living elephants in the real world that have always been paired and had a terrible life. They have the chance to be a sponsor of animal activities.
Thank you so much, Felipe, for being here. We will talk to you next time.
Thank you.
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I'm joined by Amyli. How are you doing?
I’m great.
Tell me more about your project.
I'm the CEO and Founder of MINTangible. We digitally bind intellectual property and royalty rights directly to NFTs on chain. In essence, we are giving creators the ability to put an instruction manual on NFTs so buyers know what they can and can't do with their NFTs. As a result, it turns an NFT from being a token to a national asset that has certified rights of value.
For example, let's say I'm an artist. Can you help an artist develop all of that parts?
We MINTangified a collection from a traditional artist. She bound digital collectible rights to her NFTs. People know that when they buy her NFTs, they can't use them for commercial purposes and develop derivative works. They can't put it on posters. It is a scarce digital collectible. Those rights were declared by her as the artist. We authenticate the wallet.
That artist feels so much more comfortable because she knows her IP is protected and she's created a real digital limited edition collectible for her community. They have something valuable now versus before no one knew what the NFT represented or what they could do with the art. She was always worried like, “Does this protect my IP rights? Does this give me the rights to royalties?” Using MINTangible, all of that is clarified. It is transparent to the community and is on the blockchain. Anybody can pull it up at any given time.
How are you guys handling the onboarding of new artists and collections through your platform?
We have made our platform extremely user-friendly. It has four simple steps. An artist can certify and declare rights to any NFT either before minting, during minting or after minting. It only takes four steps and a couple of minutes. We have focused on the fact that we are trying to build a trusted brand that takes care of all the complexity for them. It makes it simple and easy. It makes it easy to access. That is all the complexity of our product behind the scenes.
From an artist's point of view, they don't have to sign transactions and do all that stuff or do they?
They do the four steps. You need to sign on using the same wallet that deployed your contract or that created your NFT. That is the way we know that it is the right owner that is making the declaration. They have to choose a set of license terms. They can either pick an open source license agreement, which there are plenty that are being created. We provide open-source licenses for digital collectibles. We will be bringing them out for music, NFT, cases, gaming, literary, commercial and PFPs. They can upload their own license. They have to buy their own attorney.
What is your favorite?
I love the art of Leila Pinto. I don't know if you have heard of her.
I'm not sure.
She has been doing a decent amount of NFTs along with a partnership we have with RealNifty, which is a platform for Fidgital. She certified her collection with MINTangible. I feel excited to know that the IP matters are for both her and her customers. We've also done one here locally in LA. Have you heard of Nomad Blvd?
No, we are not sure.
It is a collection of some of the LA artists like Ali Sabet and Gabe Weis. Two of them are here at the conference. We certified their NFTs. They wanted to make sure that the artists' rights were protected as well as the collectors that we are getting. That is another one with some cool art that we have done.
I like what you are doing for this space. Let's say I'm a community member and I want to join you guys. How can I find you?
You can find us at MINTangible.io. We are also on Twitter, @MINTangible_io. We are also on LinkedIn because there are a lot of brand and IP folks that are innovating in this space that are on LinkedIn. We put out a lot of good content there. We will also be launching our NFT community called the IP Warriors, which is all about educating on how IP can be a superpower and how you succeed in monetizing, distributing and building IP assets in Web3. That will be a community that we will be launching.
Thank you so much for joining us. I do appreciate you. I like what you are doing. I hope that it turns out great in the future.
Thanks so much.
Have a good one.
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We have reached the outer limit of the show. Thanks for exploring with us. We got space for more adventures on this starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to iTunes, rate us and say something cool. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole.
Important Links
- Hifi
- Web3 in Focus
- Lucky Ducky
- @LuckyDuckyNFT – Twitter
- Discord – Lucky Ducky
- OpenSea – Lucky Ducky
- AuraDogs
- MINTangible
- RealNifty
- Nomad Blvd
- MINTangible_io - Twitter
- LinkedIn - MINTangible
- IP Warriors
- iTunes – Edge Of NFT
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