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In this episode of Hot Topics on Edge of NFT, hosts Richard Carthon and Josh Krieger are joined by Willy, co-founder of NounSpace, to discuss significant developments in the crypto space. They cover OpenSea's SEC threats regarding NFTs being classified as securities, the arrest of Telegram's CEO and its implications for free speech, the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and highlights from the ABGA's InnoBlock 2024 event, culminating in insights about NounSpace's upcoming launch and its impact on the Web3 ecosystem.
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Key Topics Covered:
- Regulatory Challenges for NFTs: The episode highlights OpenSea's recent SEC notice suggesting that NFTs may be classified as securities, raising concerns about the future of digital art and the potential stifling of innovation in the NFT space.
- Free Speech and Censorship Issues: The arrest of Telegram's CEO sparked a debate on free speech versus the regulation of harmful content, emphasizing the delicate balance platforms must maintain while addressing censorship and protecting user expression.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@edgeofnft/
Episode Highlights:
- "I hate to see it. I'm really starting to think that Gary and the other SEC members are just masochists because they keep picking up these cases that seem like huge uphill battles." - Willy
- "It really underscores the importance that if you have something that's truly decentralized, that you cannot stop. These governments aren't able to actually come after your centralized organization and exercise their authority over you." - Willy
For the full transcript, see further below.
People and Resources Mentioned:
- Willy Ogorzaly LinkedIn
- Pavel Durov Website
- BitFract LinkeIn
- NuonSpace Website
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About Our Guest:
- Bio: As of April 2024, Willy is working on a new project, nounspace.com, a decentralized social media app inspired by Myspace, build on Farcaster, and funded by Nouns DAO. Willy is also Head of Decentralization at the Fox Foundation (supporting ShapeShift DAO). Previously he co-founded Bitfract (acquired by ShapeShift) and JustLegal (acquired by DigitalTown) and was Principal Product Manager at ShapeShift. In his free time, Willy contributes to several DAOs, including ATX DAO, Giveth, and Nouns.
- Website: NuonSpace
- Twitter: @willyogo
- LinkedIn: Willy Ogorzaly
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Full Episode Transcript:
Richard Carthon: Welcome to Hot Topics on Edge of NFT. I'm Richard Carrathon, and I'm here with my co host, Josh Krieger. Today, as part of the Meteor partnership, we're excited to have Willy, the co-founder and product manager at NounSpace, to join us for today's Hot Topic discussion.
Josh Kriger: Great to have you with us, Willy.
Willy: Thanks, friends. Glad to be here.
Josh Kriger: For those that don't know Willy, he brings a wealth of experience to the table, having previously served as CEO of JustLegal and BitFract, both of which were acquired by major industry players. He also led the launch of successful DAOs like ShapeShift and GiveIt. And as part of the special media partnership, we'll hear more about what Willie's up to at NounSpace and one of their big major milestones coming up.
Richard Carthon: And in today's episode, we're going to discuss OpenSea's recent SEC threat. Then we'll dive into Telegram CEO's arrest, which sparked a heated free speech debate. Next, we're going to look at the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations. And then we're going to cover highlights from ABGA's event InnoBlock 2024.
Richard Carthon: Last, we'll cover the NowSpace launch and the Space Token.
Josh Kriger: It's another production of Edge of Company, a rapidly growing media ecosystem empowering the pioneers of Web3 tech and culture. Let's dive in. So this is fresh news, guys. Recently, OpenSea just received a Wells notice from the SEC, indicating that they may face legal action because the SEC believes NFTs on their platform qualify as securities.
Josh Kriger: This is pretty shocking and it could have some serious implications for creators and artists who rely on NFTs for their livelihoods Opensea is already saying that they will be fighting back But the situation raises important questions about the future of NFTs and innovation in the digital art space guys, I this just came in.
Josh Kriger: I know we're all still processing the news. What are your thoughts richard?
Richard Carthon: Yeah to kick this off. Obviously this is Massive in a lot of different ways as it could impact your typical artists, your developers, everyone who is creating NFTs put them in the category of securities, which isn't great.
Richard Carthon: This is going to stifle an entire industry. This doesn't just affect potential NFTs and all the other marketplaces like OpenSea, but potentially Ordinals. So there's a lot of waves. Of impact that this could bring. And there as part of this, open C committed to supporting creators by pledging 5 million for legal fees.
Richard Carthon: And as much as that's commendable it does highlight an even larger need for clear regulations that protect artists and not hinder them. And the fact that open C has millions upon millions of dollars to help fight this case. So there's just a lot of implications to this, but William I'm curious to hear your take on this.
Willy: Yeah, I hate to see it. I'm really starting to think that Gary and the other SEC members are just masochists because they keep picking up these cases that seem like huge uphill battles. Like they're going after some of the most trusted, most reputable and also most profitable companies in the industry who have very strong legal teams and who have very strong cases in the court of law.
Willy: So not only have they gone after OpenSea, but they went after Coinbase, ConsenSys, MetaMask, Uniswap, and this latest one seems like Maybe one of the hardest cases for them to actually win, which is just wild because there are actual scams and frauds out in the industry that they could be going after that could actually help protect investors.
Willy: But I want to see how this is going to actually help protect investors at all. And it's a pity to see it, but I actually don't have a lot of confidence that Gary and SCC are actually going to win this case. It seems like it would have huge implications, like you're saying, the crypto industry, but all sorts of collectibles and all sorts of industries.
Willy: I don't really know what their strategy here is here. Typically, you would expect the regulators to want to go after some of the low hanging fruit cases that they know they can win. And so far their track record has just been abysmal. And this latest case doesn't seem like it's going to have any hope of improving it.
Josh Kriger: Yeah I appreciate your perspective, Willie. And I tend to agree with you. We've seen some wins for the industry recently against the SEC. From a relative perspective, right? The ripple resolution was certainly more favorable than it could have been.
Josh Kriger: I do wonder where this motivation comes from, to pick up a case like this at this time in the industry. But I'm going to stay cautiously optimistic. Being that's my general demeanor in life. And certainly in matters like this I'm very optimistic that we'll get through it.
Josh Kriger: As an industry I expect a rallying cry across the whole industry over the coming days.
Richard Carthon: Yeah. I don't think this is the last we're gonna hear of this and we'll be sure to keep covering this as more evolves from it, but now we're going to get into our next segment, which is focusing on Telegram CEO's arrest that sparked a free speech debate.
Richard Carthon: So. Pavel was recently arrested in France, and it started this conversation around censorship and online expression. Because Durov's arrest led to charges regarding the spread of illicit material on the platform, and raised alarms about the implications for free speech. Especially given Telegram's role as a communication tool, Authoritarian regimes.
Richard Carthon: So this incident underscored the challenges of both balancing the platform's commitment to free speech and also the need to address harmful content and potential scams. So Josh, like, how do you take this initial news?
Josh Kriger: Yeah, it's been interesting to see how the industry has responded. We've seen leaders like Yatsu, chairman of Animoca brands.
Josh Kriger: Vocally advocate for the right to speak free speech. And I think they're real, similar to what Willie just discussed. There's a thin veil of reality. Legal precedent for this type of decision was made by france. I don't know why Gerald decided to go to france probably wishes he didn't go to France but I think as the pressure mounts for governments particularly in the EU to regulate content more strictly The future telegram and his commitment to free speech definitely hangs in the balance.
Josh Kriger: This is another sort of cliffhanger when it comes to where the resolution is going to fall out. Willie, what's your perspective?
Willy: I agree with all of that. And yeah, feel for the telegram ceo. Yeah, I think these governments are showing that there's really no limit to how far they're willing to go to control centralized organizations and to exercise their immense power, which is really sad to see.
Willy: It's certainly not the values that we have here in America. And so it's sad to see this is happening more and more in Europe. And it seems even though those weren't the values that America was founded on, it seems like even our government is trying to exercise their control more and more.
Willy: And I think it really underscores the importance of decentralization. I think part of this could be driven by the fact that they are feeling threatened by this technology, but it really underscores the importance that if you have something that's truly decentralized, that you cannot stop. These governments aren't able to actually come after your centralized organization and exercise their authority over you.
Willy: And even if they could, there's nothing you can do. So there's a big difference between oh, I can't give this information or I can't stop this, Versus I won't do it. So, sad to see. And I hope that he wins this case and can set some positive precedent because it's a very slippery slope that I hope the world doesn't continue to go down.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, it's been interesting to see the evolution of Telegram beyond the features that. I knew when we used it back in 2017, 2018, we've talked about hamster combat, which has passed 300 million gamers at this point. I think I just became a grandmaster yesterday, guys. I'm pretty excited about that, but fundamentally.
Josh Kriger: Telegram is used for so many different things. Yes, there's some nefarious actors, but right now, there's open source games that these folks could interact within and do things in too. It really puts a huge sort of precedent on the ability of platforms to control what people do on them.
Josh Kriger: Other platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, instant messenger, you name it. There's a lot of platforms out there that sort of there's implications here. The free speech battle, I think, is going to be a powerful one. That's going to go on for a long time from here. So we'll continue to carve this news.
Josh Kriger: In the meantime, let's talk a little bit about the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations, otherwise called DAOs. So their impact on governance within the blockchain ecosystem is pretty fascinating, and they are gaining traction as a model for decision making, to allow communities to manage funds and projects transparently.
Josh Kriger: Recently, development showed that several high profile DAOs are emerging, Focusing on community driven initiatives and social impact.
Richard Carthon: Yeah. So Josh, I'm glad we were able to talk about this. One, because I don't know if you can see, but I'm wrapping my ATX Dow shirt. I am heavily involved in the local Dow here in Austin and Willie is as well and can speak to it also.
Richard Carthon: And was part of ShapeShift which again, I won't steal his thunder, I'll let him speak to that as well, but I think that was our awesome in a lot of ways, but one of the challenges that are definitely going to be coming up and into the future. Are the regular regulatory uncertainties and security risks.
Richard Carthon: And how people are approaching it. I know one way that ATX DAO has been monumental and how we're trying to move things for it is creating a structure in which other cities and other communities can come together and. And utilize what we've built to continue to progress styles and have some legal framework that is safe.
Richard Carthon: We're set up as a nonprofit. There's some legal limitations around what kind of nonprofit we were set up as, but it gave us that framework that we can now do way more with it. And I think that the same way that when LLCs first came out in around the eighties, nineties, it took us some time before it became like, the standard across the US and how organizations were set up.
Richard Carthon: I think DAOs have that opportunity to eventually become that standard as well. But Willie, what's your, what's been your take on DAOs?
Willy: I couldn't agree more, Richard. You're preaching to the choir. I'm a big fan of DAOs, even though, like you said, we're in very early stages of the DAO cycle.
Willy: It was only possible for the first time, eight years ago when Ethereum first launched, like before you had decentralized smart contract networks. It wasn't possible to have a truly decentralized organization. So it's pretty exciting that for the first time in human history, we have this new way to coordinate.
Willy: And I do think it's the next evolution. I think DAOs get a lot of flack, I think in part because they are so early. And to be fair, we really haven't had any DAOs yet surpass the success or the size of a centralized organization. So the jury is still out on can DAOs really scale?
Willy: Will we see DAOs be, like, the most successful, largest organizations in the world in the future? I think we will get there. And part of the reason I think that is that it's just, it's the best way for communities to coordinate. And you can, if you want to, you can design a doubt to look very much like a centralized organization.
Willy: If the community wants to, they can appoint a CEO, and they can have different departments and managers. That's absolutely possible to do with the Dow setup. Cause you can design it however you want to look right. The core thing that all does have in common is that it's an on chain treasury managed by the community.
Willy: If you did design a DAO to look just like a centralized organization, the key difference would be that instead of a board or instead of shareholders, really, because you, again, couldn't theoretically have a board. But instead of shareholders, you have the token holders, the community. And I see so many benefits from that just the permission list, the autonomy like it's not, it was not possible again before for just a group of people to actually trustlessly manage a treasury together.
Willy: And now it is so we're seeing doubt tooling improved rapidly over the past few years. And over the coming years, it's going to continue that trend. We're seeing some awesome projects experimenting in all sorts of different directions for how to make DAOs work the best. And yeah, so it's happening.
Willy: And I'm excited to see this experiment continue. I'm very bullish on it. And I also just think it's better. We no longer have to rely on some of these archaic systems of the past, like lawyers and contracts and courts to actually coordinate and get stuff done. Like we can now have that happen.
Willy: Freshfully and autonomously, which is super powerful. And yeah, and noun space is actually, I guess that's a topic that's coming up, but we'll be launching our DAO in about two weeks. So excited to talk about that in a bit.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, awesome. Let's cover that a bit. Since you brought it up, this is pretty exciting news.
Josh Kriger: You're going to give us the inside scoop, but just to give a little bit of context to folks down space has been making waves in the crypto world with its recent launch of customizable social media platform on forecaster protocol, which is the new, one of the new decentralized media protocols and what sets it apart as ability for users to create more personalized spaces using drag and drop.
Josh Kriger: Many apps that you guys are calling digits. And this is an open source platform that not only encourages creativity, but also empowers users to take the shape of their online experience. And you have this space token launch on September 12th. So break it down for us.
Willy: Thanks, Josh. I'd be happy to. And I'm sharing my screen.
Willy: If you guys want to actually see this in action. The best way to understand non space is to see it or even to just use it. And actually like 30 minutes before this call, we opened up access to all Forecaster users to come use NounSpace for free. So we've been live for two months and speaking of DAOs we first started April 1st this year when we got 100, 000 grant from Nouns, which is one of my favorite DAOs, arguably like one of the highest functioning DAOs out there with the large treasury and a lot of very engaged community members that passionately review and vote on proposals.
Willy: And we also just put our proposal up asking them for another 250k to continue building now that we've delivered above and beyond our first proposal to them. This is the homepage of NounSpace. And as you can see here we've got a few of these little fidgets. We're basically eating our own dog food here.
Willy: And we're showing how anyone can use these fidgets to share the content and the functionality that they want to with their audience. So here's the type of stuff that we want to share with the user when they visit our homepage. They can mint our early access NFT which will give you free premium access to noun space for life, as well as early access to new features.
Willy: Plus we will be announcing very soon. I think before this airs, but tomorrow we're going to announce that NOGS holders will be getting an airdrop of these space tokens and we'll be getting a stream of space tokens. going forward, at least until the community decides to change that. So we've got a fidget here where you can connect your wallet, mint NFTs.
Willy: This is just a gallery fidget. This is an iframe fidget that we've plugged a video into, and this is a frame fidget. So if you're familiar with Farcaster, there's hundreds, maybe thousands at this point of these frames, more getting built every week that you can embed and rearrange on your space or home base.
Willy: And of course, we've got a Farcaster feed. For those that aren't familiar with Farcaster, it is the fastest growing decentralized social protocol. Is really getting a lot of traction and I strongly recommend checking it out, creating an account and then signing into nonspace. So you can basically customize your forecaster's public profile as well as your home base, which is a space that only you can see.
Willy: So a great way to basically track the community is the content, the functionality that's important to you. So I know, so I'll stop there. I'll see if you guys have any questions. And then I imagine we probably want to talk a little bit about this, the space token.
Richard Carthon: Absolutely. So for all those who are listening to this and then get to see the visual, make sure you go check that out over on YouTube.
Richard Carthon: But one of the things that I thought was really cool is that you blended a couple different interfaces. Like me, it felt like Pinterest meets Twitter meets MySpace. And being able to bring all that UI together and like the customization that's in it was really cool. And like this different stream of information that you're able to pull and also customize it to where it's like your own look and feel.
Richard Carthon: I like that a lot. And also all of the different variables of ways that people who are becoming involved early are effectively being able to help move and shape where it goes next. So those are some of the initial things that popped out to me. Joshua popped out to you.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, I agree with all the above.
Josh Kriger: It's a really nice look and feel for this idea of not only decentralized social media, but decentralized community building and owning your own data, owning your own identity, owning your likeness, your experience on social media. How many times do we want to change the look and feel of our experience, but we have no control over that.
Josh Kriger: So you're giving power to the people in some really unique ways. So I find it really cool, Willie, what you guys are up to.
Willy: I love everything you guys said too. It's literally exactly what we're trying to do is give the power back to the people. That's what we say in this fun launch video.
Willy: That you see on the home base when it's all right. And I did not actually watch that video. So that just came, straight from my brain. Tell us a little bit more about the space token too.
Willy: Yeah. So the fair launch has been live since June 14th. We built on top of the Morpheus fair launch, which you guys may be familiar with is a, they're a decentralizing AI project that built this new fair launch model that launched in February.
Willy: And they had like over half a billion dollars of stake deposited at one point. And we worked with them along with some other teams to help take this new, super cool, fair launch model and make it available to other projects like NounSpace to be able to deploy their own token and fair launch. So we did that on June 14th.
Willy: And at our peak, we had like over 2, 600. of StakeDeep deposited. Now we have 1920 StakeDeep deposited. Hopefully that will go up with this big announcement that we're about to put out. But basically all this StakeDeep that's been deposited, it doesn't go to non space, but all these depositors are earning space tokens every block.
Willy: Proportional to the amount of Staked ETH they have deposited relative to everyone else. And on September 12th, we're going to take all of the yield that's been generated from this Staked ETH, and we're going to kickstart a space Staked ETH liquidity pool on base. And what that means is that anyone who deposits Staked ETH, Can withdraw a hundred percent of their stake teeth anytime after seven days, there's a seven day lock once you deposit.
Willy: But after that you can withdraw anytime and keep all the space that you've earned up until that point. So it's very different from any other token launch model I've ever seen. I think it improves upon a lot of the core challenges that tokens and liquidity pools and DAOs have faced in the past.
Willy: There's so yeah, it's live right now. We're going to put a bunch of. out as we get closer to the launch. So details on how you can qualify for the airdrop on September 12th for users as well as details on what some of the space's first utilities are going to be at launch. And of course, details on this, the non space DAO, which will be governed by the space token holders and receives a 20 percent of the emissions.
Willy: Of space tokens.
Josh Kriger: Where did folks go? Willie to unpack what you shared with us more to learn more about space token and noun staff.
Willy: Yeah. I would head over to non space and then we have this fair launch icon.
Josh Kriger: Let me redo that. I said, noun Dow instead of non space. So we'll just edit that.
Josh Kriger: Willie, super cool. All that stuff you guys have cooking. Where do people learn more about non space and the space token?
Willy: So the best place to go is nounspace. com. We've got lots of information there and you can find a link to the fair launch. Soon this will all be natively integrated, but right now we have this separate dashboard where you can deposit state teeth.
Willy: You can see how much space you've earned on September 12th, you'll be able to claim your space there. And there's also links to more information so you can dive down the rabbit hole and then also just come join our discord. We've got a super active community and that's one of the things we're really hoping to do over this next couple of weeks to start to really grow the initial Noun Space DAO community.
Willy: So if this is something that you're interested in, definitely jump, jump into our discord and say GM and get involved.
Josh Kriger: Cool. We appreciate you sharing your community with us and this partnership, and I certainly love learning about innovator projects like this. They're really at the edge.
Josh Kriger: So thanks for sharing that with us. Speaking of the edge, you guys have heard about our upcoming travels, Richard and I, and some of the other edge teams we're heading over to Asia. We'll be in Korea blockchain week next week and then Richard's going to be in the Philippines for a really cool web three AI event.
Josh Kriger: And then we get over to Singapore and we're very proud to be a media partner with token 2049, do some other really cool events with our partners like bit layer. However, that's not where it ends. We are for the third year in a row media partners with the ABGA that stands for the Asia blockchain gaming association.
Josh Kriger: These guys have done a great job of rallying the whole Asia blockchain community that cares about gaming together and exposing that community to a global audience. We've learned a lot from being part of these events and getting to know all the cool games going on in Asia, which of course has been like a building epicenter for the gaming industry for a long time.
Josh Kriger: So this event is September 16th and 17th. And the theme is Builder Centered Innovation. They're going to have some really great speakers. They'll be at the Singapore Expo. And we'd love for everyone to come by. We're going to have a link to, to grab your ticket. Richard, any thoughts on this event?
Richard Carthon: Yeah, like I like the emphasis on the community driven approach.
Richard Carthon: And that's what makes InnoBlock stand out compared to a lot of other gaming events inside events that are going on around token 2049. There's going to be a ton of VCs participating in different public blockchains that have been creating these games that people are building on top of and discussions around the future of web three.
Richard Carthon: I'm really excited because this is one of the first times you're going to have a conversation also about both AI and Bitcoin ecosystems and how that intersects with gaming. And just with how bullish I am overall in the Bitcoin ecosystem, it's a conversation I'm really excited to go hear more about.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, absolutely. Interblock is continuing to innovate. They keep upping their game when it comes to this event. So look for our socials and show notes on how you can grab your ticket to In a Block 2024. And with that's a wrap for today's Hot Topics. Today we discussed OpenSea's recent encounter with the SEC threat, examining the arrest of Telegram's CEO, which has ignited a fierce free speech battle.
Josh Kriger: We've explored the growing prominence of DAOs. We also had a chance to learn about what NounSpace is up to with their upcoming space token and how they're integrating with Farcaster. And lastly, we highlighted some of the reasons you're going to want to be at APGA's InnoVac 2024 event. In Singapore on September 17th and 18th.
Richard Carthon: I want to give a special thanks to Willie. Thank you so much for being a part of this and for sharing your insights on how NounSpace is set to revolutionize social media through decentralization and community governance. These developments are redefining what we think about digital interaction in the future of the internet.
Richard Carthon: We wanna hear from you.
Josh Kriger: What are your thoughts on DAOs Web3, privacy, the future of social media, and of course, this recent SEC threat to the fate of NFTs.
Richard Carthon:So share your insights with us on socials. Stay curious and keep pushing the boundaries. Your voice is crucial in shaping the future. Thank you for tuning into the edge of NFT.
Richard Carthon: I'm Richard Hon here with Josh Krieger and Willie signing off. Stay secure, stay curious and catch you on the flip side.
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