In many ways, the concept of digital fashion predated the time when NFT became a big thing. DressX is one of those brands that picked this emerging trend early on. In this podcast episode, co-founders Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova created DressX as a meta closet of digital-only clothing, NFT fashion items, and AR looks. Together, they seek to transform the fashion industry by integrating with the metaverse, Web3, AR, and other cutting-edge tech. They aim to demonstrate that some clothing can exist solely in digital form, promoting a more sustainable approach to fashion consumption. Find out what’s in store for DressX as you move through this conversation. Plus, BoredApes has now fallen to below $100k. Find out if this is a great time to get one to start your entry to the space.
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Listen to the podcast here
Daria Shapovalova And Natalia Modenova Of DressX, Plus: Bored Apes Falls Below $100k
This is Natalia Modenova from DressX, which is your meta closet of digital-only clothing, NFT fashion items and AR looks. I'm here on Edge of NFT Podcast, the one that brings you the cutting-edge in looks and listens. Stay tuned.
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Stay tuned for this episode. Learn how the DressX ecosystem is creating and utilizing Web3 digital fashion, allowing you to create and share your meta closet of stylish threads.
Plus, how the first purchase of a disposable camera led to a life of creativity in the fashion world.
Also, Blur and OpenSea are in a battle for NFT marketplace supremacy. All this and more in this episode.
Finally, Outer Edge LA, our awesome community-centric gathering returned to Los Angeles from March 20th to the 23rd of 2023. If you missed out, here's a way to catch up on all the interactive experiences, discussions, presentations and more. Simply go to Watch.OuterEdge.live. Register with your email address to get a full recap of over 60 captivating conversations and performances. Binge watchers are welcome. See you inside.
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This episode features Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova, the dynamic duo behind DressX, the largest digital fashion store showcasing collections from renowned brands and 3D designers. Daria, the Founder and CEO, has fifteen years of experience in fashion and is known for putting Ukraine on the global fashion map. Prior to DressX, Daria established a fashion TV show, Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days and the showroom, More Dash. With an MBA under her belt, she moved to San Francisco to launch DressX alongside Natalia. Daria has been recognized in the Forbes Under 30 Europe and BOF or Business of Fashion 500 Most Influential People list.
Natalia Modenova is the Founder and COO. She has over ten years of experience in the fashion industry. She has cofounded the showroom as well called More Dash in Paris and the international conference Fashion Tech Summit with Daria. Natalia has been a curator and expert in various fashion and tech events. Her achievements have been recognized by numerous media outlets including CNN, Forbes USA and the Financial Times. She is included in lists like America's 50 Greatest Disruptors by Newsweek and The Vogue Business 100 Innovators: Tech and Web3.
Both Daria and Natalia are highly sought-after speakers at prestigious conferences sharing their expertise on the metaverse digital fashion and fashion tech. DressX is revolutionizing the fashion industry by integrating with the metaverse, Web3, AR and other cutting-edge tech. They aim to demonstrate that some clothing can exist solely in digital form, promoting a more sustainable approach to fashion consumption. Their motto is Don't Shop Less, Shop Digital Fashion. Guys, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad we could finally do this show. We've known each other for a long time. Daria and Natalia were part of the original NFT LA Genesis Version 1.0. We have been fans of all the great work you guys have done in this space.
Thank you. We're also your fans.
We appreciate that.
We are super happy we had the chance to make the wearable NFT for this conference in LA. There were a lot of people who collected it but for someone who missed it, you missed it.
That's how it goes. DressX is at the forward edge of everything that's happening in digital fashion. You are pushing the envelope and driving it. There are so many good things to dive into about that side of things but we want to start more at the beginning and talk about the origin story or the foundation of this concept. You guys are making ways and moves and pushing the forward edge of physical fashion. What inspired this shift toward digital fashion and everything that DressX has become?
We both were in the fashion industry for a long time. There was a previous project we did together which was the showroom. We’re interacting with lots of brands who understood that there will be an entry category for all the fashion brands. We saw it in digital goods. Digital goods were a part of all the game vocabulary for so many years. We understood that there will be a need for our digital closet.
A physical closet is amazing. Every person in the world almost has those. We want to move this experience online. We started before NFT became a big thing. We started in a pre-metaverse world but still, we have the vision for your digital wardrobe on what DressX is, what it has become and what it will continue to be.
With the advancement on the metaverse side, Web3 side and the notion of the NFTs and the blockchain, it became easier for making this concept for people to understand it. It makes subtle sense as we all lived in an online environment during the pandemic. It's understandable that some of our habits will stand. Those will be spending time on social media. When we spend time on social media, we want to dress ourselves. Some of the clothing can exist for social media dressing. Some of those NFTs will dress people and their NFTs as well. That's fun and cool too.
This is very different from the concept of the NFT we are selling. That's exactly what Natalia mentioned. That's exactly what we did with NFT LA. There are so many other partners who we did it with. That's the thought process behind DressX but it evolved as well. The good thing is that we are very consistent in our approach. We said from the beginning, “DressX is your digital wardrobe. It will continue to become one.” We elevate the experience.
That is very forward-thinking. It's fascinating to have these new markets and domains. The digital world is offering us all sorts of new ways to conceptualize the economy and everything that we do. It's both fun and intimidating to jump in there, try to trailblaze and create a new domain. Congrats to you for seeing that coming and being a trailblazer there. Speaking of all that, with 2023, I'm curious here. Natalia, we'll kick it over to you. What technologies are you seeing that are new on the horizon? Given that, how can our audience maybe get involved in the experience firsthand?
Everyone would agree that 2023 is a year of AI. Here we go. We started in January 2023 with our community-driven AI contest in our Discord. We opened a special channel where everyone could create and co-create with us and the majority. We already released some of the items that were co-created by the community with us. It's available inside the DressX app.
We already held two seasons of such a contest. It's amazing because people can create and all vote. The community decides what goes into production and what's being launched. We don't call it DAO or anything like that. People engage with that. We prototype self-governance in this way. We also involve and engage with different partners for it. We launched items co-created with the Tommy Hilfiger fashion brand. We co-created with the community and DressX.
This is amazing because it's available as AR skin but also as a skin for Decentraland. We take it even further because this is something that we've been working on since day one of DressX. Soon, we will be releasing this DressX AI tech which instantly changes your outfit on your pictures for social media. This is exciting. You can already go to DressX.ai and sign up to be an early tester with us. It is in the early days. It's going to be developing and improving but this is something that is, in 2023, coming from us.
We’re already getting the alpha at the beginning of the show. I love it. Daria, I'd love to learn more about your perspective on how digital fashion is shaking things up on a macro level. In particular, how is it redefining sustainability and the purchasing decision process? What are some of the other aspects of the overall fashion industry that digital fashion is disrupting?
That's exactly what we see in digital fashion. Fashion and digital brands are becoming entry-level for some of the new consumers. For example, in environments like Roblox and some other Web3 environments, there is a new generation that is discovering brands through digital goods. It's fascinating to see. I see it at my home. I have a son. He's not very exposed to Web3 but he's playing a lot of Web2 games. That's how he discovers brands. It is through digital games. I'm sure Web3 will be on his horizon as well pretty soon.
Also, the way how digital goods started to influence the runways, that's what we see. Traditional fashion sometimes lacks this innovation. It is because of digital fashion that it started to take the industry by storm. Designers picked it up and started to implement it even on the runways during the fashion weeks. They are adding more innovations.
We'll see even more generative designs inspired collections, something that Natalia has mentioned and that we at DressX are using in a lot of capacity. We see how brands are approaching us at DressX. They want to find their way in the Web3 space and the NFT space because they understand that moving forward for the new generations will be an entry-level of how they discover those brands first and only then they will discover the physical goods. That's the major change with digital fashion and fashion and digital and how it is influencing traditional fashion. It becomes a new entry point for a new generation of customers and that will continue to be so.
Especially also on the advancement of the arbitrary side and how we started to use them on social media, this is also pretty big. That will only continue to evolve. In 2024, it will continue to be an even bigger trend. In Web3 and Web2 environments, we use a lot of avatars. We'll continue to use more and some companies will double down on that. That's something that we only see as a future but we, at DressX, already see it as a present because we're building it. This is forthcoming. This also will influence traditional fashion.
Let me ask you something. I've been doing a little bit of online shopping, fortunately, the good type. I've lost a little weight. I’m trying to figure out some new spring clothes. I've noticed that the recommendations from sizing to fitting have improved on a lot of websites. Is there a relationship there with the digital fashion world that's a little bit more connected where some of that data around what people like or how things fit on them will translate to the physical fashion world?
There are two clear distinguishments between the use case of size recommendation and the recommendation of how it's going to look on you. We solve the issue of inspiration and also evaluation of what it is going to be like wearing a certain outfit. This is something that helps conversion if we talk about traditional fashion retail.
Also, it helps to make a more conscious decision for you as a consumer about what you want to have, what you want to wear and how you see yourself with a certain item without the need to order it, process a payment or process a delivery and then find out, “It doesn't look like what I was imagining.” You can do it without any friction in the physical world by trying on the item in the digital format. If you like what it looks like on you, it is your style or you feel like that, you can order, see it and make the final decision.
That's helpful because Eathan's in Chicago and Jeff is in Florida. I was having these guys fly to LA to join me as I was trying on clothes. This is going to be good.
We talked about a few different macro concepts here but let's drill down a little bit further and talk more about DressX’s meta wardrobe. What's coming? What does the future look like here? Over the next few years, how do you see this truly evolving? Natalia, let's start with you.
We see that everyone will have the meta closet or the wardrobe of digital fashion. We see that every brand, luxury brand, must-market brand, fashion brand and non-fashion brand as well will have a category of digital fashion. It will be like an introductory category to the world of the brand to the universe of the brand. Every fashion brand is trying to sell you a dream. These are bricks on that this dream is built. You can have it, own it and wear it.
There will be some interconnectivity with the physical items as well through the NFT chiefs as a technology. Some of the items will leave as digital prints. Some of them will be digital-only outfits. Some of them will be complimentary digital and physical items to each other. We are moving there slowly but surely because it's not just one technology that helps getting closer to this future. It's multiple things happening at the same time. We are excited to be at the forefront of this and help others to onboard into the idea of digital fashion and start building it already.
What I can add is an opportunity to share your closet is amazing. That's what fascinates us. It's unlikely that you can invite everyone to see your physical wardrobe but you can share your digital wardrobe with anyone in the world. It's fun and cool. There is also the opportunity to gamify this experience. This is something that we're working on. That's exactly what we see as your meta wardrobe or digital wardrobe. It can be even more fun and a good complement to your physical wardrobe. Some things will coexist in both. Some of them will only exist in either of those but will be nice gameplay in between.
It's definite. It's a fact and we all agree on it. A lot of people might be like, “Is it going to happen? Is it not going to happen?” Everybody on this show can say very definitively the train has left the station. It's going to happen. Continuing to build the technology out while we're still early in the process is so critical. Kudos to you for doing that because it's important.
We love the process.
There's certainly a handful of people beyond us that think this stuff is important and going to happen. You guys have a fundraising amount of $15 million to advance the interoperability of DressX as a platform. That's a big deal. It shows a lot of support and momentum for what's going on here in digital fashion and sends a strong foundation for the future here. I’ll kick it over to Daria here. What does this raise unlock for you to be able to create?
It's a great achievement and a big milestone for the company because it is a Series A. Especially given the market situation, that's amazing that the company has proven that it's a very prospective player to be able to raise. The fund that led our Series A is Greenfield Capital. They’re the biggest early-stage blockchain fund in Europe. They're based in Germany. They invest in various companies.
Series A is still considered to be the early stage but more to the middle stage because we already built a lot of things in the process. Here is a nice click between the opportunity between the fund and how they research for the companies and DressX. There is already an ability to evolve from zero to where we were at the time of the fundraising. We want to continue to invest in our infrastructure and all of the technologies that Natalia has mentioned previously.
We want to continue to build the DressX community. The biggest idea for the company from day number 1 is to sell $1 billion in fashion digital goods. That's exactly the aim that we want to continue to be achieving. We are building everything to achieve that finally. We working with lots of partners in Web2, Web 3 and different brands.
The fundraiser will support all of the partnerships and the infrastructure first and foremost. It’s something that we've reviewed here together in the show. Building the meta wardrobe is still about the future but the future is now. It's not evenly distributed. That's exactly what we managed to do with the new fundraiser. We're very happy with all of our partners that participated.
The question is who's that quote from? Do you know who that quote is from, “The future is now?”
There is a scientist who told us. I don't remember his name. If you're sitting in front of your laptop, you can google.
I'll figure it out.
You can also ask ChatGPT. Either of those.
It is William Gibson. I’ve googled it. Sorry, ChatGPT. Old habits.
ChatGPT is behind a year so for any new data, we have to wait to be loaded up anyway. Sometimes, Google's still going to win out. Google's coming up with its product, which will be interesting to see how that faces off. We would love to talk a little bit more about some of these partnerships that are being unlocked here.
We've worked together for two years. That's one example of the many partnerships you're doing with different companies in Web2 and Web3 with artist collaborations. Are there any specific collabs coming up that we should be on the lookout for that you can share at this point officially? Natalia, do you want to kick us off there? Is there anything up your sleeves that we could talk about?
We are the type of company that prefers to build something first and then announce it. I remember so many times us coming to rejecting to announce a partnership until we build something. We still look at this mode. We expand our partnerships with blogs, meta and all the avatar fashion that is coming. We continue our partnership with Snap and deepen it, especially considering their Snap Partner Summit announcements.
We already integrated the mid-journey tools in our internal and external pipeline. This is super exciting. In 2023, we started with multiple collabs with brands like Tommy Hilfiger and IPSA, which is a beauty brand. We will do more in the beauty space in 2023 so watch out. It's going to be fun. Continuing partnerships and collabs is an important part but also developing our product is a very big priority for 2023.
That is very cool. You have to balance both things. By the names of the partnerships you've done so far with some of the juggernauts in space and technology, I'm sure we can look for more big news to come. Congrats on all that success.
Thank you.
We got to look beyond the world of DressX. You have lots of partnerships and collaborations with other folks. Let's go beyond even what we talked about here. For each of you, what projects have you been keeping an eye on? What inspires you or gets you pumped about the Web3 space outside of even the people you're directly partnering with? Daria, let's start with you.
It’s probably the opportunity. We're creating this Web3 together. DressX is one of the first companies in the space. The ability to create an industry that is not in the moment of giving birth to itself and the major stakeholders is the most inspirational part. Also, to be able to bring those brands that Natalia has mentioned and that we all know that are coming from the traditional world into Web3 is an inspiration on its own because we can create a lot of things. Life is all about creation and co-creation. That's what continues to inspire us. We can navigate the market and tell the brands, “This is the best way for you to enter this market.” That's how we would see this brand entering Web3 and the metaverse space.
Receiving these great comments from our users is what continues to inspire us to see the product, be approached by people and receive the comments that they love using DressX or they tried it out and the concept of digital fashion. It also comes from our background that we're both Ukrainian. You probably know that. We come from Ukraine, which is not evident that you can go and purchase something luxurious. It's a very different market there. To give everyone this opportunity to wear even brands, at least in digital realities, is so cool because it's a real democratization of fashion without going into mass markets. That’s what’s inspirational.
With the sustainability factor, we can change things in the sustainability part in the way that not all clothes should exist physically. Some of them can exist in digital-only formats. This is so exciting because that can save resources for some of the brands. They will continue still to monetize because they're still selling those goods but in digital format. This is the change of the perception. This is an opportunity to rebuild a lot of things in the fashion industry and digital fashion using Web3 tools. This is amazing. Maybe Natalia will add something on top of that.
The energy of the space and all that you're getting from the space is serving as this major inspiration for you. Natalia, let's head to you. Are there any specific companies out there that are inspiring you or projects that are inspiring you that you're not yet partnering with?
On a personal level, I'm a proud holder of Murakami Clone. I'm following whatever is going on in that universe, for sure and the founding team of friends. It's great what they've built so far. It's nice to see where it is all going. They are inspiring a lot of people but also showing that it's not the only way. There are lots of opportunities how to shape whatever you want to build and how you see the future of brands of fashion, IP and wearables.
We did the drop with Cult & Rain, which is going to be a very strong player in this whole Web3 fashion universe. We are close with everyone who is building anything in the space from the fabric to the materials to Red DAO people. It's all a big contribution to the future of the industry that we are getting into together.
Speaking of the other projects, it's been a quiet time on one hand but on another, whoever is still around, kudos to them. There’s 10KTF and a bunch of different projects that are around. It’s time to see what a sustainable approach is in terms of building it not just as a project but as a long-term business or value-creation machine for all of the participants for the economy in general. This is how I look at it rather than overnight hyped success and then not knowing where it is going next.
This is the time. People are, hands-down, building. It is a builder's market as things are shaking out here for the future. I appreciate you sharing so much about what DressX has been up to and will be up to here in the future. Your staying power has been demonstrated. It has also helped meaningfully buy a big capital infusion. I'm sure that helps take some weight off of your shoulders and give you additional bandwidth to experiment, build, get out there and mix it up. Kudos for that. Especially with everything swirling around us, it's a huge accomplishment. I know it will set you up for success going forward. We appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
That wraps up segment one. We have a couple of different moving pieces here that happen at the end of segment one. Daria is catching a plane to go continue to spread the word for DressX. We'll say adieu to you, Daria. Thank you so much again for your time here. Josh also will be peeling off for a little bit of travel. We'll be back a little bit later in the episode for one of our later segments. Thanks to each of you for all your contributions. We appreciate it. We'll talk soon.
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
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We're moving on to our next segment. Natalia, this is a segment that we call Edge Quick Hitters. It's a fun way for us to get to know you a little bit better individually. These are ten set questions. We're looking for short answers, single words or a few words but we might ask for a little bit more detail here or there. Let's go. Question number one, what is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
It was a camera.
Is it a thing that you still have sitting around somewhere?
I don't. It's a pretty disposable one. I had a mechanical one. It was cool and old-school but I didn't want to use it. That one, I still kept. This was one of the first automatic cameras.
Question two, what's the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
I don't remember the first one but the largest one was a collection of one of the designers at one of the huge multi-brand stores.
Question number three, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
That was a present for the brand. It was a present from their wishlist. It was at their baby shower.
You've given it to this person?
It's coming. It's flying. It's being delivered.
Could you share what it is or is it going to ruin the secret?
Yeah, I guess. It is a baby shower present.
It’s one of those. I got you. Eathan and I have been involved in those even if it was outside of it.
We wouldn't even be able to have a good guess being the guys here.
Question number four, what is the most recent thing you sold?
I have to check if anything on The RealReal was sold because I sent a bunch of stuff. Here we go to the fashion again. It is the longevity of the items. They need to keep it for a long time or not. It is having the feasibility to have a secondary market for things that have a value still but maybe you don't need it anymore. It's great how The RealReal as a platform embraced it and developed it. It was one of those MSGM gold pants or something like that.
I’m not surprised it circles back to digital fashion. It's all good. We'll go with question five then and that is what is your most prized possession?
Can we skip and get to the next one? I've got to think for too long.
No worries. You don't have to answer that one. We can skip. Everybody gets one pass.
Would you want to go back to it or skip it entirely?
Maybe we skip it because I've got to process this in the back of my mind.
We'll say her most prized possession is the ability to skip when she wants to skip.
It’s freedom. Freedom is the greatest value for me.
Question six, if you could buy anything in the world, something digital, physical, a service or experience that's for sale, what would it be? What are you thinking about buying?
I'm thinking about this processing power. Some data centers would be a nice purchase.
With all that AI, you got to have somewhere to process the thing.
It’s the first data center we've had. If you could buy anything, you might as well go ahead and buy Amazon web services in its entirety.
It is not quite for sale though.
Can you buy out a public company?
Theoretically, I guess. Every stock is for sale. We'll move on. Question seven, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
It would be never stopping.
Persistence. We've seen that in the short amount of time we've known you in the last couple of years. It is most on display. Let's flip that. Question eight is if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
I still consider myself a lazy person so the laziness.
The lazy never-stopper. That's a new one.
Another thing is FOMO. It's a big driver on one hand but on another, it is sometimes too much.
It can rear its head in this space in a number of ways.
I have a new term. You have FOMO but then, what if the FOMO thing you had FOMO for, you're like, “UH-OH NOMO. Why did I even want that thing? I stayed up all night to get a score of this NFT.”
That is another part of the Inception movie.
Is your term FOMO No? Is that it?
It is UH-OH NOMO or something like that.
It’s FOMO OH NO, I got it.
There you go.
Question nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I was finally answering emails because all the mornings, I had calls. We have a team in Europe and a lot of partners in other parts of the world. Mornings are always for them. Finally, I got to my emails.
Are you an inbox zero person? Do you like to keep that inbox clean or not?
Honestly, I would love to but I am not sure if I can get to zero. There are too many things going on.
This is the last one. Question ten, what are you going to do next after the show?
Honestly, I have another call. We're kicking off. There are a lot of things on the plate. It's very exciting.
It sounds like something's brewing over there.
The next time we connect, you'll see us wearing a lot of cool accessories.
That’s a little hint there. Check it out. That's Edge Quick Hitters. Natalia, thanks so much for sharing with us. We appreciate it.
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For the next segment here, let's check out our Swoops check-in here. We are officially basketball team owners, if only, in the digital universe. There is a lot to check in on so let's go ahead and check this out. Swoops is a fun sponsored segment we've been doing. It's a digital interface where you can have your basketball team, have these different players with their stats and play other digital teams. It’s all NFT Web3 integrated. It’s lots of fun. Let's go ahead, jump in and take a look here. The first thing, though, what we want to do is to take a look at what kind of team we got here and talk about what kind of record we're building, what kind of gameplay looks like and stuff like that.
When we are logged into the Swoops app, we can check out some different scenes. Particularly, we're looking at our Outer Edge Travelers team. We've got sixteen games played. Other teams have played many more games. I have to figure out exactly how that's rolling out. Josh, I don't know that things are going incredibly well for us. The Kirchhoffs Electric Society seems to be whooping our asses.
They’ve stacked their team and have been playing a lot. We've learned some things. We have a beat-up on the B team. We're going to play some more games so we'll have some new stats to share with the world.
We would hopefully do well against the B team as opposed to the A team. Our records are rolling along. We're not complete losers. We may have a chance to move forward here. Let's check a little bit in the games and stuff like that. In this case here, we've got a game where we played the B team. This would be one of our winning games. As you play through the gameplay, you get to reveal how the game proceeded. You get to see the stats coming in live here. They're showing different points, assists and different things going on here by both teams.
This is one of our better games. It's a head-to-head with the B team. By Q4, when all is said and done, we had a pretty awesome score. By the end of it, we were in the 80s and they were in the 50s. We can be proud of this game. We can look back on it to find out what our strengths are. That will be a good one to review to see what's going on. The B team does have Tron Starks. We will reveal one of our players' names. Tron can be a regular first name for robots probably. That would make sense.
One of our losing games here would be the Kirchhoffs Electric Society. They seem to know what they're doing. I'm not sure exactly why. In this particular game, we sure did lose pretty hardily here. They ended up somewhere in the 80s and we were in the 50s or something. That's all learning opportunities. Josh, what do you think? How can we do better? Do you have any ideas?
We're going to have to look at what's going on in terms of the Waiver Wire, first of all. While our top guy is a five-star, there are some of the other guys that aren't cutting it. We're going to be out looking at what's going on in the Waiver Wire and getting ready to upgrade our team so to speak.
I'm excited about that possibility. In the locker room of the Outer Edge Travelers, you can see our roster of players. We have the capability to change the name here on Swoopster-893. It is officially time for us to announce the name of this player. If you've been paying attention to our socials, you would know it. He is an incredible guard. He has five stars and incredible stats. We got at least one star on the team. He's going to have to bend his ego to try to pull the whole thing together and create something out of this rag-tape group. Do you want to say the official name, Josh, of this player?
I'll let you do the honors.
It's going to be Tron Stockton. The other team had Tron Starks. We have Tron Stockton. Tron is almost like John for robots.
It's a popular first name but I still like it. I appreciate our fans and their recommendation. That's what we're going to roll with. We'll keep going into the season.
We can take an individual look at some of these players. We'll start with some of the other players we haven't named yet. We'll put out maybe some other polls on the socials and come up with some names there. We'll leave that for a future session. It's fun to look at your players and what kind of styles they have. We have five.
In this case, all got their stats and vibe. There are some pretty cool-looking players here. Some of their stats are not in there yet. That's because of the games. Maybe they haven't played the games yet so we don't have those stats yet. This guy's dope, Swoopster-987. He’s got a fun pair of sunglasses going on, a blue mohawk and a purple jersey. This is awesome stuff.
One thing we want to check in on is the leaderboard. We are very far down on the list but also, we haven't played as many games as some of those leaders on the list. For example, the ranked number one, Chefs Kitchen, has 10,168 wins. We got a lot to go to get some games under our belt and get some experience and stuff like that. We are not number one. We are well down into the territory of maybe the 90s or into 100. We are 133. We're trying to make our way to the Swooper Bowl. It's one game at a time. It’s 1 dunk and 1 free throw at a time. Do you have any thoughts on our chances at the Swooper Bowl, Josh?
It's still a long season. We've seen in other sports where teams come back at the last minute. They upgrade their team and they're into the playoffs. Don't count us out.
We still got a chance. The Kirchhoffs Electric Society, we're coming for you. We'll remember that sweep. We'll come back and make you eat your circuit boards. Before we wrap here, we would love to let people know how they can continue to get involved here and play along with us or even against us if you want.
If you're interested in what's going on here, it's fun stuff. You can sign up for the SSN1 presale. Swoop is introducing a batch of players for season one, including a presale event on 5/18/2023. To gain access to the presale and get your hands on one of those players, go to PlaySwoops.com/Presale. Use the promo code EDGEOFNFT. We'll check in again with you soon on this one.
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Eathan, the word on the street is we have some Hot Topics to discuss.
Let's hit 1 or 2. We could do that. Hot topic number one is Bored Apes and Crypto Punks are all below $100,000 as NFT momentum stalls. For prices for blue chip NFT collections, CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club both fell well below $100,000 worth of ETH for the first time in months as a broader NFT market slumped to trading stats not seen in years.
It is interesting that those NFT prices would stall out a bit, especially because there's even more than a bit of a run-up in terms of the price of ETH and Bitcoin. It's quite a lot higher than it was at the beginning of 2023. I don't know what we think about this. With blue chips, is it a buying opportunity or are they going lower? What do we think about this? Do you have yourself a CryptoPunk or a Bored Ape, Natalia? If not, are you ready to grab one?
I don't have 1 of those 2. It’s a good time for everyone who believes in the space and the projects to grab one. I'm not doing it yet. The floor is still pretty high. It dropped but let's go out there and ask who's ready to buy.
You did put that in your investment deck. Is the $100,000 of that $15 million going to go towards a CryptoPunk?
We can wait for either a new project or another floor because we don't know how long the winter will be.
Talking about FOMO NO, you know that in twelve months, we're going to be looking back at this conversation and say, “I should have grabbed one of those when it was below $100,000.” It’s always happening. It's interesting. It's the ebb and flow of the market. In general, the popularity is not going anywhere. It's just that are you willing to pull the trigger, which is so hard to do when it's a price point that's that high. In general, it's a big dollar amount for almost anybody. That’s interesting.
You never know too with these floor prices. That's the floor price probably on the open market too. Chances are you might even be able to negotiate a lower price if you did a direct sale and find an owner that's ready to let it go. Prices ebb and flow. Is it time to buy? Who knows? Would you rather get real estate or a CryptoPunk? I don't know.
I don’t know about your circles but I see that the second purchase after a successful purchase of NFT is real estate.
That's the move.
The question is what comes first and what comes second. If there is real estate there, then you go with NFT.
Before I move to the next one, I have one last comment. The interesting thing about the Bored Apes especially and the CryptoPunks get wrapped into this too is you're not just buying a piece of art. You're buying into a community. That's probably one of the biggest things that a lot of people who own those items are most curious and excited about.
It's also that question of whether is it the time you want to enter into that community. To be honest, even though you spent $100,000, there is probably some work involved. You're getting involved in being a part of that community, contributing and showing that you care and want to contribute. It's a complicated decision. Is there anything else on that or should we move to the next one?
Let's roll.
Next up, OpenSea Pro retaliates against Blur’s dominance in the NFT market. OpenSea Pro was rebranded and unveiled to court active traders from Blur. The latter was eating away at OpenSea’s market share since its launch last October 2022. The counter-offensive proved somewhat successful as data suggests that the new polished NFT aggregator has surpassed Blur by daily transaction count.
I have to say this reminds me of LooksRare. LooksRare came on the scene. It was this decentralized version of OpenSea. Everybody's excited. You had the Looks token and that was sailing. I'm pretty sure that the activity on LooksRare is pretty minuscule at this point. OpenSea has maintained its dominance in comparison to a competitor that came in and looked like it was threatening.
What do you think, Natalia? The question for all of us is even though OpenSea is pretty well-established, there's certainly a history of well-established tech-type businesses that do get superseded. Look at MySpace, Internet Explorer or something like that. There was a point at which something came along that did better.
On a personal level, I like Blur. I believe that there should be a space for not just competition but competition for improvement or progress. That's how even monopolies become better if there is competition. OpenSea is lucky to have such a rival. There should be a space for everyone anyways because there is still always a niche and a community. There is still someone who needs another way to do certain things.
It's an interesting positive look at the competition. If you're the leader, it almost is nice market research about what you ought to invest in next if that is the right direction for you. Sometimes, you focus on what you're focused on. If a competitor comes along and they're doing something that's drawing users away, it is a good indicator that you should go to the top of your build list. Are we going to see someone surpass OpenSea as the lead here or have they secured it for decades?
It’s possible but I take Natalia's view. Competition tends to be good. It pushes you to be innovative, develop and stay on your toes to avoid complacency, which will creep in no matter what if you don't have some drive to improve. It's great when it's market conditions, competitors or dynamics around supply and demand that drive this innovation. That's what's great about having this open competitive environment.
They were developing quickly. They were working on OpenSea Pro and then there you go. They've released it and they're staying on their toes. Based on what we've seen with certain things and how they navigated challenges, whether it was the insider trading stuff they dealt with a while ago or this and accelerating a release of something that seems to be a product that the market's responding well to, they're making it happen over in OpenSea. They will continue to be a dominant player.
With that said also, think of the AI market, like Google and what they're doing with AI. They saw what was happening and what the potential was with ChatGPT to surpass it. People use ChatGPT for the same search stuff that they would've otherwise used Google for. They have barred. That's in beta but they accelerated the release of that. It's going to keep them on their toes. That's exactly what's happening here. It's good to see OpenSea respond to that and deliver something cool in response because it ups everybody's game. That's my take.
That is a good comparison too. Google's been working on AI for decades so it is interesting to see someone come up and say, “We're going to jump in here and make a splash.” The next segment here that we love to do is a bit of a shout-out. Natalia, is there anybody or any projects, collaborators or friends that is worth mentioning that you'd like to shout-out before we move on?
I would like to bring up Diverge, which is a digital fashion brand. Also, I mentioned already Cult & Rain. We are excited about how those two are making base around.
Speaking of competitors, is there some competition there like healthy competition or is this a different domain?
I wouldn’t say so because DressX’s ecosystem and the first drop of Diverge happened in DressX. This Cult & Rain drop happened under DressX. We’re more collaborators here.
That brings us to the end of the show. We appreciate it, Natalia. Before we let you go though, we got to make sure everybody understands where to follow DressX and where you prefer to send people to become part of your community. Where should we send them?
If you are fond of NFTs and interested in getting some on-chain fashion, follow whatever we are doing on our Twitter or directly at NFT.DressX.com. We have some free mints there. Try to find it. You will be able to wear it right into the DressX app. If you use MetaMask, don’t forget to link up the same account. If you are more on the AR part and fun fashion for social media, follow us on Instagram. It’s @DressX. If you want to create with us, you are welcome to Discord.
We know where to find you. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again soon. I also wanted to mention you’re going to be seeing a bunch of new faces. We’re starting to pull together additional team members that you’ll be seeing on this show, folks that haven’t participated in this show before. Some new hosts are going to be coming in and mixing things up. We’re excited about that.
There’ll be spots where I’m not here, Eathan is not here or Josh. We’ll have some other people coming into the show. They are members of our team and others that are going to help continue to drive this train forward along with some other things that we can’t announce quite yet but we will very soon. Everybody, get excited about that. Eathan, did you have one more thing?
No. We’re not going to spell our alpha too early. That was a good call, Jeff.
No worries.
Jeff will be pulling back to focus on some other stuff with the project. We may see even less of him in the future. We appreciate his presence.
We’ve reached the outer limit for this episode. Thank you for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on this starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all also much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes. Rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Also, look us up on all major social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- Watch.OuterEdge.live
- DressX
- Discord - DressX Digital Community
- DressX.ai
- Cult & Rain
- 10KTF
- The RealReal
- Swoops
- PlaySwoops.com/Presale
- OpenSea Pro
- Blur
- LooksRare
- Diverge
- Twitter - DressX
- NFT.DressX.com
- @DressX - Instagram
- Spotify - Edge Of NFT Podcast
- iTunes - Edge Of NFT Podcast
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