Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger are back for more interviews from one of the biggest weeks ever in NFTs. From NFT.nyc to Dreamverse to a slew of parties and events, the first week of November 2021 was monumental. In this episode, your hosts pick the brains of guests that demonstrate how diverse the world of NFTs really are. In this episode, they sit down with Varun Bajaj (The Husl), Danny Cole (Creature World), Adam Ghahramani (Untamed Elephants, Hello fam!), and Vitaliy Raskalov (On The Roof). They discuss exciting developments in the NFT space and each guest brings in a new twist showing how much room there is to take NFTs further. From music, photography, charity, imaginary creatures, real creatures, and even death-defying feats, today’s discussion once again highlights the unlimited possibilities in the world of NFT. Don’t miss it!
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Listen to the podcast here
NFT NYC & Dreamverse Part 4: Feat. Varun Bajaj (The Husl), Danny Cole (Creature World), Adam Ghahramani (Untamed Elephants, Hello fam!), & Vitaliy Raskalov (On The Roof)
This episode is one of the incredible series we are sharing from our visit to New York City. Keep reading for exclusive access to conversations we had at the NFT NYC Convention and Dreamverse, as well as snippets from our run-in with amazing folks on the streets and in parties in private events. We will hear from the top players in NFT, from people to GaryVee, and discover everything in between. This session is cut right from one interview to the next without much chatter between to keep you the feeling of being there in reading various conversations. We will introduce our guests as they enter.
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I’m here with Varun, who’s doing some exciting stuff around NFTs in music and has an exciting new client that we will hear about on this mini-episode at NYC NFT. Varun, how are you doing?
I’m good. Thanks for having me.
You come highly regarded, and a mutual friend of ours wants us to meet for a long time, so why not meet in person in New York City in the middle of all this NFT action? Why don’t you introduce yourself, full name, what your company is doing, favorite color or whatever works?
NFT NYC: Allowing them to enter the metaverse or the NFT space and tap into that creativity is something that separates the digital asset space from the traditional space.
My name is Varun Bajaj. I am the CEO of The HUSL. We are a music-based NFT record label. What we are doing is onboarding the music world into our digital world, which is the digital assets space. That’s almost a $3 trillion asset class. The NFT landscape is ripe and prime for artists to onboard. We need to educate and bring them on, and we are the conduit for that bridging the normie world but the normies in our case are music, celebrities known all around the world to the NFT world. That’s what we do at The HUSL.
When did you start The HUSL? From my understanding, you made a major 180 degree with your own career to do this. What compelled you to make that shift?
I’m a lawyer by profession based in California but I have been in the crypto space for a very long time since 2013. That’s when I’ve got my first bitcoin. I have always loved crypto and I started dabbling in the NFT world in 2020. I’m still doing law but my a-ha moment was in 2021, a little bit after people sold that mainstream excitement and awareness because, in 2020, it wasn’t that well-known, especially in the normie world and to music executives at that time.
It’s all about mutual connections in the crypto world. They sought me out there, two big music guys. That’s where the idea of The HUSL was born. I ended up deciding, “There’s something here, and I have a lot of connections in the crypto world. Why not build something?” I quit my job as a lawyer and have been doing this since April 2021, and I’m all in.
One of my bold predictions is that I would not be surprised in ten years if creators make more money than doctors and lawyers. We are moving into a creator economy, and this is what we have available to us with all the technology around. Creators, this is our opportunity to thrive.
With doctors and lawyers, it’s a cap-type environment but with creators, especially if they are the ones who are at the forefront of what’s going on, the sky is unlimited. The potential is there. The tools are there where we are very early. Eventually, it’s going to be very saturated, and then maybe it’s a different story but now, if you are a creator, especially in the music world, it’s your time to act and understand what’s going on, and you are very early still, regardless of what everyone in the crypto world thinks. We are very early.
Speaking in very early, we appreciate it when we get a little bit of alpha on the show. Maybe you can tell us about some of the clients you have signed and what you are up to.
Everyone knows Busta Rhymes. Busta Rhymes has been with us for quite a bit. He’s exciting in the sense that he’s a star name. More importantly, he wants to learn and be that pioneer as to his peers as what’s available and capable but it doesn’t stop there. We have music moments like Steve Rifkind. We are close to signing many people. I can’t name them yet until it’s closed but they are superstars. We don’t necessarily need a household name but we want the music world to understand what’s going on. You combine the megastars with the up-and-coming ones. It creates that ecosystem that we are trying to deliver.
What are your thoughts on all the different platforms out there, both in general from layer 1 and layer 2 levels but also the music platform? Do you see yourself as doing something fairly independent or are some collaborations in the works across the landscape of music? At the end of the day, talking to a lot of these music companies that have come on the show, they are reaching out to other music companies and all hanging out together in the same sandbox.
It’s all about collaboration. It’s not a winner take all mentality. In the music world, there are different niches for everybody to operate in, especially in a creator economy. Artist is very limited in what they can and cannot do with traditional labor. That’s why if you come to the digital asset space, and especially someone like us, we allow that creativity to shine.
One of our clients was a man named Spiff TV, who’s a huge Producer in the Latin American market. One of the things he wanted to do was combine the music-based NFT with an avatar-type project. If you went to the traditional record label and pitched that idea, they think he was absolutely crazy because it doesn’t go through the traditional mold. Allowing them to enter the Metaverse or the NFT space and tap into that creativity is something that separates the digital asset space from the traditional space. Everything works together, and there are different areas for all of us to succeed.
There’s a nostalgic element to an artist like Buster Rhymes thinking about his first hit and some of those old album covers and touring moments. Are you going to tap into nostalgia?
Nostalgia is something everyone should tap into but at the end of the day, it’s the artist’s decision. We are a platform that’s empowering the creatives. Not just Busta Rhymes, any artists that want to work with us, you want to empower them with the tools of what they can and cannot do but we will never tell them what they should do.
However, I highly encourage that celebrities and stars, and even traditional people have something with a nostalgic element because nostalgia creates excitement, loyalty and people. It’s all about a story in the NFT world. If you can create something that has a story, you are going to find a collector out there that’s going to want it. I’m all about nostalgic moments that have real value out there.
Is there anything specific on your roadmap coming up? Any drops and collabs that you can speak to?
I want to give you the best offer but I can’t. Let’s say in ten days, the course of our company could change. We were close to finalizing a massive opportunity. I will come back on after that. That would be the talk.
I’m happy to have you back on, Varun. This is a mini-interview because there’s so much happening here. We wanted to capture some of these moments and amazing people we are meeting and give our readers a taste of what’s happening inside here in New York City. What has been your experience here? Have you ever met any interesting people? Had any conversations that made you think differently about the industry?
I came in not so long ago. I took the ride from Los Angeles to be here for this event.
You don’t seem that tired.
Luckily, I’ve got some sleep but my team has been here, and it’s all about networking and being in this space. As much as I want to do that, I’m mostly focused on building this thing. In the digital asset space, once you are embedded in it in the NFT world, especially as a Creator or a CEO, you meet a lot of cool people. I have a lot of respect for my peers, especially in other music projects. It’s all a beautiful family. The digital asset space is still so small that it’s like a little fraternity and sorority in a way. It’s super cool. We all have that common ground. I’m excited after this is done, so I mingle and see some of my peers.
I will throw in a little bit of alpha. We are working on planning a conference Q1 in LA, and there will be a music component to that conference, so we will have to do something cool there.
Link up. I’m right around the corner.
Where can folks learn more about the hustle and stay in touch with you if they are excited about what you are doing?
There are two ways. Twitter is probably our best outlet where we put news. It’s @The_HUSL. I’m on Twitter as well, @CryptoSteveUrkel. I have a penguin avatar. I’m very much into that whole world. We have a Telegram group as well. Discord is still growing but I would say Twitter or Telegram or my personal is where you will find us.
Varun, thanks so much for hanging out with us and joining us on some of your busy days in New York.
Thank you.
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We are in an incredible event. I’m going to explain it a little bit from a completely bare perspective. It’s a walk into an old-fashioned movie theater here in New York City. There are crowds of people jumping in a bouncy house that’s probably like a football field long at 80 feet, blue people walking around, taking pictures of people like it’s Disneyland or something. Josh, tell me, what is this in real-life terms? What’s it called?
It’s like an adult museum park for mischief, adventure and connection. The first person I met was a chiropractor that was lured into NFTs with a Creature. He didn’t know why he got one, he decided to get one, and now he’s part of Danny’s community. I’m sure there are many people that have come to you with this story but I’m curious more about the genesis of this project and what got you here.
NFT NYC: That happy place that you make, if it’s just you experiencing it, how real is it? What we consider to be reality is really just what we agree upon.
My name is Danny Cole. I bring a magical world to life because it’s fun and makes me feel very at home.
Where did this all come from? What’s the incipient moment that this idea came to be?
When I was in preschool, my earliest memory is I would get into bed and wrap my blanket around me like a cocoon. I would close my eyes and have these pre-dreams. I wasn’t asleep yet but the moment I closed my eyes, I would see stars, objects, beings, and people floating around me in space. It was this incredibly divine, safe place, a very familiar place. We start in that place of divinity. As time goes by, we are brought to the point that we forget that place even existed but you can recognize it when you feel love, nurture, and an experience of God, some might call it.
I would see something that caught my eye in space and zoom into it, and I would be there. Some of my earliest memories there are experiencing life in the ocean as a Merman and seeing that home could be in another person. As time went on, I visited that place in my conscious less and less until I didn’t remember what home felt like.
I was very lonely and not happy to be alive. When you are in that place, you have two options. You accept where you are or you make where you are a place that you are happy to be because there’s no changing that. You don’t get to leave but you can bring to the place that we are all stuck in a place that you want to be. That is Creature World.
You may have an alternate description of this but I like to tune in for the readers. For the last minute or two, Danny described as his eyes closed. Would you have an alternate description when it said your eyes became your skin or can I say your eyes were closed?My eyes were closed.Community is important to you, Danny. You put this huge fiesta together. Can you tell us in your own words what does community means to you as a part of this whole creation that you have brought to this Earth?
That happy place that you make, if it’s just you experiencing it, how real is it? What we consider to be reality is what we agree upon. In order to make something real, you need everybody to agree that it’s real and experience it together. That’s an 80-foot bouncy house adventure course where we say, “I’m in the Creature World tonight.”
The important point here is people have talked about community for decades. Civilizations were built on community but at some point along the way, we forgot that community isn’t dictated by one person. It’s created by the community. People had created this idea of community when it was cult, whether it was this leader that didn’t necessarily have the community’s best interest at heart. It’s clear that you have your community’s best interests at heart, and you are manifesting community in what you are creating. What’s next, Danny? What is the calling of your community from here?
I don’t know if I want to talk about it. In the domain that you cover, we put out 10,000 unique avatars. They do something, and nobody knows what yet. They are about to find out. I’m happy to get back together and talk about it but it would be weird if this were the moment I decided to spill the beans.
People like to spill the beans on our show. We don’t have the luxury of doing them in person and sharing drinks with them to get them to spill the beans but they still do.I don’t drink.Let’s pause here and let you enjoy your amazing party. You are welcome. Our home is your home. Let’s get back together again soon.Before we go, do you have any call to action for anybody whose reading? We often send people to social things like that. Whatever your call to action is for the person reading, let’s get that before we end.
Stream Junior Varsity.
We appreciate this moment with you, Danny. Thank you for sharing your reality and making it our reality as well, and taking us to that moment of origination. It was beautiful. I appreciate it.—We are in the wrap-up zone at the Arlo. It’s a cool lounge. My girlfriend was excited that we were going to have a chance to talk because this gentleman created the project that enticed her to buy her first NFT. It’s on a topic tier to an art, which is the care well-being of endangered elephants. Adam, it’s exciting to meet you in person here and learn more about all the cool stuff you are doing in the NFT space. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself, and we will dive in a little deeper?
It’s great to be here, and thank you for having me. My name is Adam Ghahramani, I’m here to represent two projects, Untamed Elephants, which is dedicated to saving the elephants using NFTs, art, and community, and Hello Fam, which is releasing NFTs backed by physical stored wine.
Let’s start with the elephants. After we went to Thailand and had a chance to see some elephants that had been abused, I’ve got it right away. These are magnificent creatures, and it’s very expensive and complicated to take care of them. They have their quirks and personalities, and they eat a lot. What inspired you to start this project? What was the genesis story around it coming to beat?
We have an interesting history. We were created by another team early on. Untamed Elephants was the very first NFT project with a charity component driving it. Since then, almost every NFT project has donated a percentage to charity. Usually, it’s a one-time donation. We are driven by helping elephants throughout everything we do. How the leadership transition took place is I was working on Hello Fam, and the community needed someone else to step up and take over Untamed Elephants. I had all the resources and a deep love for the nonprofit and elephant world.
We have seamlessly taken over. The first thing that we did was strengthen our nonprofit bonds. We have a two-way relationship with three different elephant nonprofits, 2 in Kenya for African elephants and 1 in Sri Lanka for the most endangered elephants in the world, Sri Lankan elephants. They are in our Discord, and we do co-events with them. Their CEO dropped by and thanked people for their support. We are launching an elephant rescue mission in Sri Lanka coming soon where NFT holders can participate, and the CEO of the nonprofit can take them all over the country with us to get some behind-the-scenes on elephant rescue.
Tell us a little bit about the original collection, what the experience has been in terms of growing that community, and what’s coming up next.
All the elephants have a cool streetwear type of art to them. They are all a little bit bored and slackers, and they are all dudes. One of the first things that our team and community said is, “In the elephant world, the matriarchs lead the herd, so let’s make a new collection of untamed matriarchs rarer than the elephants.” We’ve got a great Italian fashion designer artist who’s a woman who can drive the female angle. We are launching that soon. It’s free to claim if you own two untamed elephants or a small Mint price to Mint as well.
What are the outcomes you have produced so far? How much money has gone to these nonprofits, and what are your goals for 2022 with continuing to give? We have seen projects slap on the charity of social impact stamp without real long-term goals but my understanding is this is a sincere, earnest effort to help these elephants for a long time. What have you done so far, and what are your hopes for the future?
I’m thrilled that we have donated $55,000 so far, and it comes at the perfect time. Our Kenya partner uses the funds to jail one of the biggest poaching kingpins in the world. Our Sri Lanka partners were devastated by COVID. Their volunteers can’t travel as much. The elephant quarters are all messed up, so every small donation to them that they personally thank us. For our elephant rescue trip, we are paying a lot of money to them as well, so those funds will be great. Every product we release moving forward will have an elephant charity component, and we host weekly Stampede Sunday charity drives where you get raffle tickets for donating to charity as well.
I’m not entirely familiar with the layout of the model but what’s your perspective with paying the internal bills to keep the lights on? Any of the funds used for the team or do you make money by buying your own elephants to support the cause? How does the royalty breakdown work, and how do you sustain this over a long time?
NFT NYC: What we really want to do is actually start empowering the community to start understanding what clinical trials and cancer treatment are and cutting through a lot of the pseudoscience that’s already out there in the ether.
Thankfully, when you are mission-driven, everyone is willing to pitch in. A lot of people volunteer to help. We can get better deals with partners. I ran an online art community for a couple of years, so I’m used to doing things very guerrilla-style. It’s more investment in time. NFT projects don’t take that much money to do. It’s just time, biz dev, partnerships, and we all love elephants and are all willing to put in the time. In Funding, I’m not concerned about. If it takes us 2 to 3 years to be profitable, that’s fine. I have plenty of bankrolls to help, and all our team is passionate. We are willing to wait.
What are your goals for 2022 in terms of funds raised? Do you have any goals in mind?
It’s a big picture. We would love to raise $1 million. I know it’s a wild goal because we are at $55,000 now but the more we can partner with big brands and corporations who we are talking to all the time and with our charity and elephant angle, the more we can get there. We have the matriarchs launching, some products in the pipeline, some other NFT projects in the works, and publishing a cool artist NFT collection acting as a studio for them as well, with a cut going to elephants. We have a lot of things in the works.
One of my first exposures to elephants in danger was when I was studying bird song as a biologist when we found out about the creativity we see within the animal kingdom. I studied the songs of birds but also ran into people studying birds to make art, as well as elephants who paint, who played the gamelan, and all this stuff.I’m interested to see if you can incorporate that in the future and bring some elephant art into the NFT world. That would be awesome. We want to get a little bit into your forthcoming project or the things that are right on the plate at the moment. Were you doing something cool with wine? We would love to hear about that. Why don’t you dive in and give us some foundation there?
One of the big promises of NFTs has always been where the NFT acts as a ticket for a real-world asset that’s somewhere else. You don’t have to manage the asset, and you can use the NFT to trade, buy, sell, and have liquidity. We were one of the first projects, Hello Fam, to do this and do it in the wine industry, where we have collectibles like boutique luxury wine, we take care of all the storage somewhere else, and you get an NFT. The NFT can have rarity too, so if you Mint a rare one, your wine is stored in a bigger bottle or you can put something on the label. That’s our project.We launched our first one, Genesis Vintage, not so long ago and launched our second one in collaboration with Untamed Elephants called Pink Elephant Parade, sparkling rosé. Our model is we are going to look at NFT communities and say, “We will do your merch drop, create a wine for you, store it, release an NFT of it, and have rarity where you can win your NFT on the label.” While we do that, we are also looking at other real wineries and being like, “If you need help with NFT technology, we have an audience of passionate NFT wine buyers. We know the tech, and we can help you transition.” That’s the goal with Hello Fam.
Interestingly, the overlap we see between you can think of wine as almost a collectible. There’s a strong synergy with NFTs in an item that is up to discretion for artistic and flavorful preference, and people to get into communities around things they love. That’s cool. We will wrap up soon and make sure we want to get info on where people can find out more about you. Anything else to put on the plate about the wine project?
A lot of people who are new to NFTs don’t understand NFTs until I tell them about the wine project, and something goes off in their heads. They were like, “This makes sense. I don’t want to store twenty cases of collectible wine. I don’t have a wine cellar. I don’t want to deal with the physical good but I want to invest, and an NFT is the perfect liquid proxy to do that.” We have released our first two, and we are talking to other NFT communities to release theirs. Everything we do, our Genesis Vintage holders will benefit from. That will always be our flagship NFT. It’s like an NFT wine club as well.
It makes so much sense to me, and it’s creative. Wine aficionados are passionate, and a lot of them are also cost-driven. For some reason, the most popular wines in the US always have animals on the front. Is there a possibility at some point to have an Untamed Elephant wine collection collaboration?
We released one. It’s called Pink Elephant Parade. It’s a sparkling rosé. Pick your favorite NFT community, and we are talking to them about making it an NFT wine for them.
It makes so much sense. I love the pizza DAO. I wonder if there’s collaboration there, too. Is there at some point a wine DAO where we make sure everyone in the world has a chance to try some delicious wine?
There are so much cool things you can do with NFTs like fractionalized wine, getting some expensive million-dollar wine and fractionalizing it, DAO votes, which you mentioned. It’s all this stuff we are looking at.
Adam, this has been so fun. There are a lot going on in your world for folks to keep tabs on. Where can they keep tabs on all this cool stuff and projects? Please drop all the relevant information to our readers, and we will get the word out.
For Untamed Elephants, the best place is to follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/elephantnfts. For Hello Fam, it’s Twitter.com/hellofamwines. We have Discord for both projects. We are super active there. We have giveaways all the time. We are always happy to help first-time NFT buyers navigate all the tech stuff to get started.
Adam, thanks again for your time. I hope we all have a chance to unwind after this crazy week and have a glass of wine.—We have a friend named Major Dream that we met in Puerto Rico, who is a bright soul among many other bright souls in this awesome space at NFTs. He said, “I’m working on this cool biotech project. You’ve got to talk to Tony Chen about it.” Here we are, and we are talking to Tony Chen. Give us a quick intro of who you are, your role, and your project, and we will dive into some questions and let people know about what’s going on.
Thanks so much. I’m Tony. I run cancer NFT. It is the first clinical treatment NFT out there in the world that we are able to see so far. The idea is you buy this NFT, and we will help you get on to cancer clinical trials for free. That’s the pitch. Major Dream went into it with me and fix.
I was talking to Major Dream about your project. I have worked in biology a little bit myself in that space, so I know it can be quite complicated. There are lots of approvals and things around the government and institutional level. Kudos if you can structure this in such a way that it benefits people because sometimes, these things stand in the way of people getting treatments and the cutting edge of medicine.
I will try to explain it the way I heard it, and you can clarify. What Major Dream was saying is if you are someone who’s interested in these treatments, instead of having to bear the expense of it when it reaches the market, by having the NFT, you get access. It’s almost like this level of provenance. In a very serious way, it’s like when we talk about people getting early on a band that they like or something like that and getting credit for doing that.
Keep in mind, one of the key points that a lot of people don’t realize in the clinical trials and cancer treatment industry is that clinical trials are all free, worldwide, everywhere. In fact, the access to that information is all fully public. It’s very easy to go to ClinicalTrials.gov, punch in a couple of keywords, and you can start looking for trials that are available near you. What we are selling with this NFT is the specificity of that information and the expertise in navigating through a very complicated process.
The thing to keep in mind is to Major’s point when you get a commercialized drug, and the drug is FDA-approved, they tend to cost like $250,000 to $500,000 per patient over the duration of their treatment. A lot of these new clinical trials are usually pairing a standard of FDA-approved drug with some new combination therapy. That’s like an extra additive effect.
If you are willing to try out the combos, which generally if there’s a good scientific rationale that you probably should be willing to try it from the general common sense scientific review perspective, then usually you are getting that expensive drug that’s already approved for free. The nature of what we are doing with cancer NFT is we want to set up essentially a community of concierge, white-glove service that helps walk a cancer patient or a loved one through a very difficult time in their cancer journey.
For folks that are reading, one question that may come up is, “Why NFTs? What’s the pricing here, and is it beneficial or detrimental for those prices to rise over time? Is there a price ceiling to prevent that from occurring where the normal drivers of royalty and those types of things are not part of your process?” Talk to us about the economics and the rationale for doing it.
The fundamental question of why NFT is there is going to be a very strong community-based function behind this in the long run. In the short run, the goal is to sell the NFTs, provide the service, and render immediate care to cancer patients. Whoever needs it should get it, and they should be able to get onto these trials and assess which ones are good for them. In the long run, to your point there, what we want to do is start empowering the community to start understanding what clinical trials are, what cancer treatment is, and cutting through a lot of the pseudoscience that’s already out there in the Ether.
Here’s a statistic that’s very relevant here. Generally speaking, for cancer patients, about 1% of cancer patients ever get onto a clinical trial. That’s absurdly low. Clinical trials are competing for patients now. You have an issue where there’s clearly a gap in the people providing the clinical trials, and there’s a knowledge gap in the people who would be participating in the trials. Our NFT and the community of the brain trust, the knowledge basis, is there to help bridge that gap. That’s on the fundamental principle level basis behind it.
To address your question about the talk in economics, we are still figuring out the pricing around this, but we are thinking around 4 to 5 ETH is going to be the price of an NFT. You buy this NFT and get the white-glove service into perpetuity. There was a percent royalty for each resale, and that confirms the transfer of the ownership of that NFT from patient A over to patient B, and patient B will continue to get serviced by our team of the top 1% of doctors, scientists, immuno-oncologists, etc.
To finish rounding out the question around, “should there be some price ceiling?” I thought about that for a while. Honestly, I keep coming back to the answer being no, and there shouldn’t be. The rationale is that at the end of the day, we are here to help cancer patients. Even if it were free, they are going to get help somehow through one of the people in our network in our community anyway.
After a certain point, the NFT itself stops being about that specific function anymore. It becomes a symbol for the community. It becomes a symbol for the idea that it’s about increasing the transparency of the clinical trials process and helping people get onto better care for themselves. That’s the general view of what we are thinking about from a philosophical perspective.
NFT NYC: Cancer NFT is the first clinical treatment NFT out there in the world.
What about cancer patients that can’t afford 4 or 5 ETH? What are your thoughts there?
A little bit more background for our project and why we started to do this initially first, I am a biotech Founder. I ran cancer biotech for several years. I took a drug from the idea stage through to the human clinical trial stage. In the evenings and weekends, myself and my team of doctors and scientists were already helping our friends and loved ones to get onto clinical trials for free. We are never going to turn a cancer patient away.What we have done is we have turned the thing that we were evenings and weekends while we were grinding away providing this extra service because we thought it was the right thing to do. We are turning that into an actual, sustainable business model. People who can buy the NFT should. People who cannot are going to contact us via one of the communication channels. It’s easy to find us.
I’m helping my friends go through clinical trials now while I was here at the conference. One of my friends texted me at 1:00 in the morning, being like, “My uncle got late-stage refractory cancer. I thought of you for a moment. Is there anything you can do to help us?” I said, “Let’s go.” You send me X, Y, Z info, whatever this info is, their disease burden, prior treatment history, disease pathology reports, all those types of things by the scientific things where they are physically in the world, and we will match them up to the actual available clinical trials in the US, Europe, and Asia, wherever.
The goal is to match up the inclusion-exclusion criteria of those trials to the specific tumor info of that patient to make sure that there is a solid match and handhold them through the process. We were always doing that for free for the last several years. We’ve got good at it, and we can do it pretty fast and easy to deploy all the stuff.The standard operating procedures and all those things are already in place, so now we want to make sure that we have a community to be able to support the long-run sustainability of this effort and not be able to help a small handful of my friends who happened to know me. I’m going to be able to help a much larger group of people at the time.
As I’m thinking about it, nothing stops an advocate for this type of treatment from buying one of these.
It is something new and evolving that we will have to make sure that.
Those projects are coming out now. Did they allow you to rent your cure NFT?
I’m invested in a project like that.
Which one?
Sophos, it’s a new project. It’s for renting out central cards.
It’s important to give you credit for the innovation. Gary Vee has made that point throughout this conference that we don’t always have all the right answers and everything that’s going on. You shouldn’t expect it. The burden of expectation of a crystal clear roadmap is not required to get started, and nor should it be.
With that preface in mind, why couldn’t some benefactors buy these and rent them out or grant them out to folks that need this type of care? It sounds like within the consideration of HIPAA and making sure that you know who you are treating and supporting. There are a lot of possibilities for folks to help each other within the model that you are creating. Is that the vision?
Entities are going to change the entire game. It’s pretty clear that we are seeing that. I see that there is going to be a balance between the degenerate crypto incentive business model versus the actual social good aspect of the mission of what we are trying to do. For us, we tried our best to be able to walk that narrow lying a little bit of thread that needle. The thinking on the greedy, selfish side is you buy this NFT and use it for yourself. You can gift it to your mom, uncle or whoever has cancer, etc. Have them receive treatment for a while, and when you are done, sell it to someone else. Someone else will buy it.It’s probably going to appreciate in value, and that other person will continue to receive that service. To your point, we are also seeing the idea that benefactors, people who are intent on being able to buy these things and turn them into a nonprofit as a sub-component or sub-down, or those types of natures, those are all fine and good. We totally embrace those. To your point about the rental market, there is that thought. We are going to make sure you are giving me a lot of food for thought here. I’m grateful for that. We will make sure that we go back.
We are called Edge of NFTs, so we like to think about these edge cases.
I like it, and it makes a lot of sense. As someone who is invested in an actual rental NFT product, we need to make sure that this scenario is fully accounted for. That’s my homework. I’m going to take it back and make sure I get it done.
Around the big city of New York, it has rent control. There are many special places where there are lots of ideas there. As Josh alluded to open roadmaps, we love the creativity and the space that people are bringing. There are a lot of potential here. As we always say, we are just scratching the surface but it feels like we are a tiny bit deeper here in this convention where all these people have come together. We are going to have to go soon, unfortunately, but we will connect hopefully. You mentioned people could reach out to you, whether they want to buy something or understand their options that may be free. Tell people how they can understand and find out more.
Go to our website, CancerNFT.io or follow us on Twitter @CancerNFT. It’s that simple. We are always around. We have a Discord set up for our patients. Our doctors and scientists are standing by and ready to go to start helping the patients here. We have standardized the process for them to get the questions queued up to make sure that we start getting them cared for. For people who are curious who want to understand and learn more about cancer space, we are already going to start building up the community there. It’s easy to find us either of those two.
Thanks, Tony. We appreciate your time.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you all.
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We are wrapping up again in NFT NYC, doing some impromptu interviews here at the Arlo Hotel. Shout out to them, even though they don’t quite know what we are doing in this room here. We have some connections with the owners of the chain.
It is a little bit better than our first show when we’ve got here, where Eathan, Jeff, and I met each other for the first time. I have seen them both in real life. We did our show but the CEO is a pretty frizzy company on a queen-size bed.
To give credibility to the Arlo, this is how they set up their hotels very intentionally to facilitate this thing where people get together and get some work done.
It feels like a small, chill conference room.
We are practicing some of the skills we have learned in this space, which are agility and efficiency using what’s available at the time and getting it done. We weren’t planning to do so many interviews at this conference but you meet amazing people like Vitaliy here, and you have to not only learn the story but share the story with others because it’s special content. We want everyone reading to know what’s going on in space, and who are the leaders and revolutionaries that are changing society and making history in real-time.
This caveat or the particular session may feel a little bit dry or boring at times and a little bit technical but stick it through, and you will appreciate it.
Vitaliy here has some crazy stuff. Tell us your name, so we get that all setup and what you do.
My name is Vitaliy Raskalov. I’m from Russia. I came especially to New York City for NFT, and I do urban exploration stuff. We climb illegally in interesting underground places like rooftops, tunnels, and all of that stuff. In New York City, we have a pretty huge community. We have even been arrested for trespass.
I have been arrested so many times in a different part of the world but our first time is in America. We recorded and took photographs of all actions and shoved them as NFT. On NFT, you can buy not only a photograph but the story behind the photo from the person who did that, which is pretty cool. This is like that.
What clicked for you when you brought NFTs into your world? What was the moment where you are like, “We should do this within NFTs?”
It was not so long ago. My friend introduced me to NFT. We did serious things sometimes. We climbed on the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. You can go to jail for three years. Also, I have been banned to visit this country again. They put me on the blocklist because CNN made a bigger article about that, so it goes even to the government of Egypt. It’s one of the stories that you can buy as NFT. In NFT, you have so much opportunity to keep doing your art because people support you.
NFT NYC: We take photographs of all these actions and shove them as NFT.
What inspires you? You mentioned the word illegal. Is it pushing the boundaries of law, justice, truth, and society? What’s the driving force behind it?
In my case, it’s more on curiosity. I’m too curious. It’s illegal because you are not allowed to do that but I would like to do that and take some beautiful photographs to create some art.
I feel so bad for your parents.
The funniest thing is my mom is my biggest follower. She followed me everywhere. My parents are pretty fine with that.
We interviewed this 21-years-old young fellow, Danny, who sold this incredible NFT collection. He made a ton of money through this incredible party with an 80-foot inflatable, bouncy house for adults and an open bar. It was a beautiful dream come true, inspired by his childhood imagination. These things are going on in the space, and we were asking like, “Are his parents cool with this?” He’s a very interesting character. It would be interesting to find out what’s behind all of that. Who bought your first NFT, and what was that experience like?
It was insane because I have done that for a long time. I have been on a huge personal exhibition in Germany and Switzerland Art Basel. The highest price for one work was 5,000 Terra, and I had to pay 40% taxes to the Switzerland government. In NFT, I did it in the first month. For one work, people pay me even more. The maximum worth was 1.5 Terra. I did it in a very short time. For the exhibition in Switzerland and Germany, it takes to this price maybe 6 or 7 years in a few months, which is insane.
It’s a good mark for what’s possible with NFTs for creators to inspire them. It sounds like from a pricing perspective that you take in some interesting criteria for how to price your NFTs around what you are doing. I’m curious if you could elaborate on that a little bit.
The reason why prices are different is mostly that for some of the missions. If you want to climb in Jesus Christ, which we did in 2015. I live in Russia, and you need to do some work to afford to travel to Brazil, stay there for a long time, prepare the plan, and all of that stuff.
It involves travel, complexity and risks.
In Brazil, they will shoot first then ask.
You think of that in other forms of art, the amount of thought and time that goes into the art, the cost of the materials, it all matters. You have been around some inspiring folks for a week, and we have talked about how amazing this week was for us as an experience. Thank you, NYC NFT, for bringing us all together. What’s next? What inspires you in terms of your journey from here on?
It’s difficult to answer because, for me, I still need to think about what happened in the last couple of days. This has been insane, especially for me from being in a different country and mentality. I need some time on that.
He’s clearly positioning himself for another interview in a couple of months and saying what he’s cooked up, which is fine because you are cool, and I’m having a good time.
It was a good time. I met so many people. It’s like Birmingham. I have been to Birmingham a few times. Every person is unique, and you feel pretty good all the time, especially I’m very new because I’m from Russia. Generally, it is to do some missions. More world now is more open and new places to discover.
We met you in less than an hour to go that we wanted to get this interview. I’m being a little presumptuous but we will cook something up for NFT LA, which Edge of NFT is going to host a convention in Los Angeles.
I’ve got an idea for you to chew on. Sometimes, we throw in some suggestions. You have done art where it’s about what you have done. Why not put some ideas out there as NFTs, and if someone buys the NFT, you do it, and then they get the result? You throw ten different ideas out at different prices and see what people buy.
Instead of one, you use all of the funds from everyone with the highest bid and you give us 15% royalty.
You should do that. You let the community choose what happens next and maybe start a DAO to fund it all. You never know.
You buy this NFT and basically you get the white glove service into perpetuity. Click To Tweet
If I die, I will become a very big artist. If I have been injured or died during the mission, the community decided, “It’s pretty fun. I like that.”
Please buckle your seatbelt and wear your harness. We like you a lot and we don’t want you to die. That would be a terrible result of this suggestion on our show.
It was a black sense of humor.
It’s your art form but be careful.
I tell that in every interview. I tried to do everything. If I feel it’s too far away from me, I want to do that.
I’m going to say this is not financial advice, nor suggested for kids at home. You are a very special artist, and you feel this in your DNA but those reading should not emulate your practices in any shape or form.
We will try to include some video for the folks that will check this content out.
You can show my favorite stunt where we did action in Hong Kong. We would climb on the roof, find the computer, connect our USB cord with our reader and hack the billboard. We put our video on the biggest billboard in Hong Kong City, and our video was there for 24 hours because we lugged up the roof and the maintenance guy could not go and change the video on the computer. I have that as NFT with galleries. It’s a pretty fun story.
Where can folks learn more about what you are up to, check out your NFTs, and participate in your journey as an artist? Where can we go?You can give us some links, Twitter or whatever works.
My Twitter account is @Raskalov. You can find a link on the OpenSea, and also, you can google On The Roofs. You can find it on Wikipedia page, a lot of stuff and articles on different websites like CNN, BBC, and all that stuff. We did many different things. I was banned and not able to visit four countries like China, Belarus, Brazil.
Don’t get banned from the United States. We enjoyed hanging out with you. We have a conference coming from LA, so at least wait until after that conference.
It has been a pleasure, and we will be in touch in the future.
That’s a great wrap for a New York Edge of NFTs road trip. We are off to Miami next, and who knows where after that. Thanks for your time.
We will see in Miami. I will go there.
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We hope you have enjoyed this special bonus content from our time in NYC. We have reached out the limit of NFTs. Thanks for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventurous on starships, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey also much better. Go to iTunes, rate us, and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Don’t forget, as a member of Edge of NFT ecosystem. You are a part of the community to find by collaboration and co-creation.
We are giving you an opportunity to plant seeds with us, go deep roots, and prod branches together through NFTs. We are breaking ground on our own special NFT collections. Please head over to SpiritSeeds.xyz to find out more about our collection of only 100 Spirit Seed NFTs that will ever be Minted. That has been created with collaboration with NFT influencer, Nicole Buffett. Stay tuned to our Discord to be found at EdgeOfNFT.com/discord.
We have the inside scoop of the upcoming Living Tree NFT drop. Between these projects, we aim to plant tens of thousands of trees with you and onset thousands of metric tons of carbon emissions. At the same time, you will get special access to our giveaways and events, as well as even more opportunities to co-create and collaborate with us. Check out EdgeOfNFT.com/discord to join our Discord and plant your roots within our community now. NFT NYC ConventionDreamverse
Important Links:
- The HUSL
- Spiff TV – Instagram
- @The_HUSL – Twitter
- Telegram – The HUSL
- @CryptoSteveUrkel – Twitter
- Danny Cole
- Untamed Elephants
- Hello Fam
- Twitter.com/elephantnfts
- Twitter.com/hellofamwines
- Major Dream Williams – LinkedIn
- Tony Chen
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- CancerNFT.io
- @CancerNFT – Twitter
- @Raskalov – Twitter
- On The Roofs
- Wikipedia – Vitaliy Raskalov and Vadim Makhorov
- iTunes – Edge of NFT
- SpiritSeeds.xyz
- EdgeOfNFT.com/discord
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