There is only one way to go about in this world, and that is forward-thinking. The music industry is no exception. The time for incorporating NFT into music is here. In this episode, Eathan Janney, Jeff Kelley, and Josh Kriger sit down with Lin Dai, Joshua James, and Adam Fell—co-founders of OneOf, which is an NFT platform built specifically for the music community to create an environmentally sustainable and artist and fan-friendly experience. Together, they let us in on the amazing things they are doing as a green NFT platform and how their music NFT startup got the support of Quincy Jones. They further discuss community-building and breaking down economic and technical barriers in the crypto and music industry, exploring possibilities to tokenize assets for the users. What is more, Lin, Joshua, and Adam share stories about heavy-hitting music industry greats—from Quincy to Pearl Jam to Doja Cat. Join in on this great conversation and discover how an NFT platform is helping the music community move forward and connect artists with fans and collectors alike.
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Listen to the podcast here
OneOf With Lin Dai, Joshua James, And Adam Fell On Creating A Green NFT Music Community Platform, Plus: Big Boy NFT, NFT Market Surge, And More…
This is Joshua James, Adam Fell, and Lin Dai from OneOf.com, the hottest new green NFT platform built specifically for the music community.
We love hanging with the Edge of NFT crew just like you.
Yes, you’re in the right place because Edge of is the 1 of 1 podcast you got to stay with.
Enjoy yet another awesome show.
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NFT curioso, get ready for another fun episode of Edge of NFT.
This episode of Edge of NFT features a Quincy Jones-backed music NFT startup with huge momentum.
There’s importance in fun facts and stories about Quincy, Pearl Jam and Doja Cat from these heavy-hitting music industry guests.
Find out when OneOf will launch and how you can get involved ahead of anyone else. All this and more on this episode. Keep reading, enjoy, and follow up for more great info at EdgeOfNFT.com.
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This episode features Lin Dai, Joshua James and Adam Fell, Cofounders of OneOf, an NFT platform built specifically for the music community to create an environmentally sustainable, artist and fan-friendly experience. Lin Dai is the CEO of OneOf. He is an entrepreneur and digital executive with decades of experience. Lin previously cofounded TAP Network, a blockchain technology company powering white-labeled rewards for major enterprise clients such as Warner Music Group, Uber and Brave.
Lin founded his first company, a social network for teens, out of his dorm room in 1999 and later took it public. He spent over ten years leading digital initiatives at major media companies such as Alloy, which is Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries, Emmis Communications, Hot 97 and Power 106. Lin is a General Partner at ChainLink Crypto Fund, a fund of funds in the digital currency and blockchain industry.
A bit about Joshua James. He’s a Cofounder and COO of OneOf. Prior to OneOf, Joshua was the Cofounder and CEO of ZIG Media, acquired in 2019 by Media Rights Capital. Joshua founded his first company, RiseTech, in college. After selling RiseTech to Equity Office Property, now Blackstone, Joshua launched the pioneering live digital music firm, Basecamp Productions, which partner with Pearl Jam to launch the groundbreaking Pearl Jam bootleg series. Basecamp was later acquired by Warner Music Group. Joshua’s clients included Pearl Jam, Kendrick Lamar, Linkin Park and Mumford & Sons.
Finally, a bit about Adam Fell. He’s the Cofounder and Board Member of OneOf and the President of Quincy Jones Productions. Adam oversees various branches of QJP such as artists management, licensing and endorsements, live, film, and television production, international joint ventures and investments. Fell has led early investments for the company in Spotify, Clubhouse, Community, Uber, Wayfair, Snowflake, and many others. Fell is also an Executive Producer of the Netflix original release, Quincy, which won a Grammy Award in the category of Best Music Film amongst others. It was worth reading all that. I don’t know if we all are aware of this but I studied jazz piano. Quincy Jones is a huge hero of mine. I appreciate having you guys all here and have a great conversation.
I assume, Adam, you also probably started a company when you’re in college like these other guys and that just wasn’t in your bio. That’s my assumption. What an amazing group of executives leading the charge at OneOf.
Thanks, Josh.
It’s amazing to talk to you, guys. Let’s start at the beginning. Let’s dive right in. Lin, what is OneOf and how did it come to be?
OneOf is the NFT platform built for the music protocol. I started talking about blockchain, in general, how it applies to the music industry with Bill Tai, who is one of the earliest VCs in the space. Fast forward to a few years ago, Bill came to me and was like, “You have to take a look at these blockchain cats.” It was CryptoKitties and we’re interested in the ability to not only primarily sell but a secondary resell opportunity on using blockchain. We’re like, “That’s a game-changer for how musicians commoditize.”
We started experimenting on different blockchains and came to the conclusion that we need to move to a proof of stake network. Through another introduction from Bill Tai, we ended up meeting the cofounders of the Tezos blockchain and decided that there are a lot of technical reasons to build our project on top of Tezos. I called up Josh. Josh, you can take it from that point of the story.
He called me up and told me all about this NFT project he wanted to work on. I said, “What are NFTs?” That was the response of quite a few people until about February or March of 2021 when it entered the natural world of consciousness. I dove into it and did a bunch of research. I got excited about the potential of bringing non-crypto heads into the crypto community. The idea that music was something fun, easy and everybody could relate to, and the potential of setting up a platform that embraced that community in a way that was not crypto facing. It was more fan-facing. That’s what we ended up doing in the long run. I needed to call my friend, Adam Fell, and get him involved. I made a call to Adam Fell about a week later and he can tell you that his response was fairly similar to mine.
It’s the exact same thing that Josh said. I said, “What is an NFT?” Since that point, it has been me learning as much as I can largely from Lin who was ahead of the game on this. The more I’ve learned, the more excited I have gotten over how this can change the game for artists. I can go into that in hours of detail but the frank reality is every other technological innovation that has come into the music industry that I’ve seen in my many years with Quincy collateralize as an existing revenue stream for artists. This is a brand new revenue stream and it’s very exciting.
Minting an NFT on OneOf takes less energy than tweeting a tweet. Click To Tweet
Let’s piggyback off of the Quincy Jones involvement as well because I felt like that was such an amplifying opportunity for him to be involved and to be an advocate for OneOf. How did that come to be? You had that tight relationship, Adam, but what were his initial thoughts? How did he get excited about this project?
There’s a simple answer to that question. Quincy has been ahead of the game on technology for his entire career. Most people don’t know that Quincy was one of the first investors in Spotify. That was because, despite his age, he has always been welcoming to technology, especially technology that can benefit artists. The conversation with him was fairly simple. This is a technology that doesn’t collateralize an existing revenue stream for artists and can make them significant money through a secure and exciting new technology. He was like, “I’m all in.” Since that point, he’s opened doors and our company has reached out to all of our contacts. People have responded well to this because of the fact that we address most of the main concerns that artists have.
Let’s dive a little bit deeper there, Adam. One of the major concerns in the music industry is the environment, global warming and climate change. What does it mean for OneOf to have a green platform? How have artists responded to that?
I’ll backtrack even further. Many of the artists that we’re now working with, if you go back in time, you’ll see press announcements about them releasing NFTs with our competitors. All of those artists that I’m specifically talking about ended up canceling those drops because of the backlash they received from their fans. That backlash was over three main things. Number one, energy consumption and therefore environmental damage. Number two, the perception of making a cash grab. This is not being about your fans but instead being about crypto-savvy whales. Third, the complication. This was something that was simply too complicated for the average music fan, so you specifically ask about eco-friendliness.
Minting an NFT on most of our competitors takes about the amount of electricity or energy that is used to power the average US household over a period of five days. This is an easily googleable fact. We are proud to say that we have a consumption rate of over two million times less than most of our competitors. Because of that, we like to joke that minting an NFT on our platform takes less energy than tweeting a tweet. Therefore, people aren’t allowed to complain about us on Twitter.
We have friends in the music industry. I’ve seen firsthand exactly what you’re talking about wanting to dive into NFTs and getting that backlash. I appreciate you elucidating, even beyond the green questions, some of the other things that are going on as far as objections. I appreciate you addressing them so we can get artists in the game and benefit from what’s going on. That having been said, people want to get in the game. We want to see the progress of things. We want to know when is the launch officially. Things move fast here. What’s your roadmap for launch?
We have quite a lot of fun stuff ahead, but the two immediate ones that we’re prepared to talk about now, which is exciting, is we have a partnership with iHeart Radio for the iHeart Music Festival in Las Vegas that we’re going to be launching on the 31st of August, 2021. We’re going to be giving away a million free NFTs to iHeart fans and music fans all around the world. One of the advantages of using Tezos is that we can mint actual, real Mainnet NFTs for an extremely low price and it allows us to give away a million, so we’re excited about that.
We hear about these 1 of 1s, 1 of 100s, 1 of 10,000s. This is the first million drop I’ve heard of. What exactly is that NFT that people are going to be able to get? That sounds amazing.
It’s a collection of a million tokens. They’re divided into sixteen different unique designs and you can collect a set of fours. If you can imagine, the detail is the iHeart Radio Music Festival is an iconic festival that went on for dozens of years and there is the logo because it’s usually held in Vegas. It’s just a poker chip. We took that concept and gamified it. There are four different suits of the poker chip. There’s the heart, diamond, clubs and spades, and then there are all these iconic artists performing, everybody from Coldplay to Billy Eilish.
We took the lineup, combined that with the four suits, and came up with sixteen different designs. Every day, you can come to OneOf.com and claim a free random one. You don’t know which one you’re getting. The collection of design is in such a manner that there’s a platinum edition piece that is only minted 1,000 copies. There is 1 out of 1,000. There are some designs that are minted 1 out of 100,000. Total combined, there’s a wide range and there are a million pieces.
If you collect a specific set of four, those could be four of the same suit or four of the same stage, you unlock additional experiences. You get a guaranteed free NFT from the second drop, plus if you collect any of the first drop tokens, you get to enter into a drawing to win a flyaway all-expense paid VIP trip to Las Vegas to attend 2021’s concert. We envision NFT not only as a digital world asset but also can connect to the physical world in real-life experiences. That’s where it makes it exciting about NFT for music. I always say it’s different than NFT for art or basketball trading cards. We make it fun.
We’re uniquely one of the only platforms that can have the ability to mint such low minting cost that allows us to give away free NFTs. One of the three pillars of our ethos is artists first, and for every fan and environmentally friendly. This is how we want to educate the non-crypto native fans out there that blockchain is not scary and NFT is not just for crypto whales. This could be something fun for everyone.
It sounds like a thoughtful way to come out of the gate racing. Folks need to have their Tezos wallet in order to claim the NFT. Is that the gist?
The other thing we want to do and the part of the idea for every fan is not only do we want to break down the economic barrier, but we want to break down the technical barrier also. Creating a wallet and onboarding process on most other platforms is too hard for the average fan.
Especially my mother.
Your mother probably would love to collect that NFT from her favorite artist.
OneOf: Quincy was one of the first investors in Spotify. That was because, despite the fact that he’s old, he has always been welcoming to technology, especially technology that can benefit artists.
It’s hard for her to download our show, so we got to make this easier.
We build a platform that is reminiscent of a music platform or basic eCommerce platform and less of a crypto platform. We want users to be able to sign up in under three minutes and be able to claim a free one or pay for the first NFT without even having to open a crypto wallet. Credit card and debit card onboarding is a primary onboarding method for most users. Certainly, over time, users are going to learn about how great involving the blockchain and crypto ecosystem is going to be and what amazing thing Tezos are doing or other blockchain projects are doing. This is the introduction, easy and friendly gateway to blockchain in general.
We had this idea from the beginning, we wanted a sixteen-year-old to be able to sign up and purchase with a credit card in three minutes or less. We did that from the beginning. In this particular first use case. It’s even less than that because there’s no actual purchase. There’s just signing up and claiming. We’re trying to onboard as many people as possible quickly.
In that same vein, being able to control vertically all of the different elements of a project that can be helpful for any project, have you guys considered launching your own token at any point?
We’re focused on just the platform experience for the user right now. There is a lot of possibility on how blockchain and different ways to tokenize assets can benefit our users. Certainly, this is something we will continue to think about. Right now, we’re excited to get the platform launch and introduce the next 100 million users to this fun new world that previously only belong to the super nerds and crypto enthusiasts.
Let’s transition to my next question for Adam. We talked about building awareness and you have this great launch project with iHeart Radio, but taking a step back, I feel like the music industry has pioneered community building. What are your thoughts on where you go next with building a strong community here? Are we talking metaverse concerts or more partnerships with other traditional performance venues? What’s on your mind?
There’s a lot on our minds as you can imagine. Artists that have tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. The first artist that we’re launching with is Doja Cat. She broke the barrier of 60 million monthly listeners. This is a massive amount of fans cat that we get to try to appeal to. How you use NFTs and how you create engagement has to do with how creative you get with the gamification, how involved the artist is. We say in all of our artist’s pitches, we want our artists to be on the ground with us figuring out how to gamify this and how to create the creative assets.
The reason for that is we know that the artists won’t promote the drops unless they’re involved and passionate about it. If they are passionate about it and they do push it, their fan bases will be interested because digital art, NFTs and minting of different digital assets is a new thing, but these artists themselves need to get involved. When they realize how every other big deal that they do with large corporations collateralize as one of their revenue streams and this is a brand new stream, at least when I’ve explained that to most of the artists we’re working with, they’ve gotten excited.
It’s worth mentioning that social media gets a lot of bad looks and bad news these days but for artists, it’s a godsend. You have this massive community that you can reach out to quickly in a way that never existed before. In the old days, you had to rely on your record label, PR or marketing to get at them. Now you know exactly, to some degree, who likes you and who’s following you. Building a community around an NFT drop, if the artist is excited, it’s as simple as them going on social media and saying that they’re excited about this, joining in what we’re doing. In all of our artist’s drops, part of our marketing plan is embracing the artist’s community through their social media accounts where the community lives already.
It’s interesting to watch how technology has integrated with the arts as a broader category. As I listen to this conversation, I almost see NFTs almost like a new art form. I think of broad art forms like music, dance, visual arts, and things like that. We’ve had hybrids like music videos with MTV and things like this. It’s interesting how much NFT gives you the liberty to create something entirely new.
I was listening to Lin explain the benefits that you guys are planning and why these are creative fun ideas. Jeff, Josh and I were thinking about creative fun ideas for our own NFTs. It’s a new place to have creativity. We’re interested in how things evolve. Definitely, fans and community are a huge part of this if it is a new art form. I’m curious what your plans are to connect fans with their favorite artists and to build that community.
You touched on a great point. What NFT can do is not only 2D or 3D art or audio-visual art, but also over time. There is an element of 4D. Some of the best NFT projects had this permanence or perpetuity connection built in. What we are always thinking is not how do we drop an image or a piece of music for artists, but how do we drop something that allows the artists and their fans to build a stronger connection over time. This is about your biggest fans that are going to go out of their way to pay extra for that connection with you.
It doesn’t have to be a one-time, one-media file. Currently, you can only upload one file associated with an NFT. We’re thinking much deeper than that. Our first artist drop with Doja Cat that Adam mentioned a little tease here is it is entirely your token that you collect. A very limited token that get you open the door to a specifically exclusive community of other Doja Cat token holders. The first 1 of 1 on the entire platform of OneOf will be dropping the Doja Cat collection. That 1 of 1 will have a permanent utility that will get you to access every future collection.
This is something that’s part of not only building the artist community but also building the OneOf community. Those are two little teases about Dojo Cat’s collection, which is coming in early September 2021. We’re actively thinking about it. Our entire creative team believes that NFT is far more than just a piece of art or music.
Eathan, you mentioned this as an entirely new art form. There is the application of creative art, 3D animation, and all these crazy things that you can mint, but there’s also utility to the technology for all sorts of other things with regards to artists and building a community like you’re talking about. Think about how badly people want to say, “I was one of the first fans of so and so.” NFTs can prove that depending on whether or not you geogate the access to proving you were at that first concert or you bought that NFT at a certain point in the artist’s time.
If you’re releasing an NFT that’s reflective of a moment in history, if you’re releasing an NFT that is saying, “This is the NFT that’s going to finance my next music video.” Evidence of those moments in an artist’s life and career are so valuable to fans. Building community is important and art is important, but NFTs as a technology can be utilized to create that community and amplify that fandom that you’re talking about.
On that point, Adam, is OneOf a home for up-and-coming artists as well?
Absolutely. We have what’s called an Emerging Artist Spotlight. We already announced the first three artists in the program. We will be announcing the next three artists in the program. These are artists that we’re essentially giving money to help them with their careers in exchange for them doing their first NFT drops. We know that the commercial value of those initial drops is not massive, but we’re doing that because we believe in those artists and their future. That’s one thing. You guys should know, our long-term plan as a company is to create scalable solutions whereby any artist in the world can utilize this technology to benefit his or her career.
I’m pumped for this Doja Cat drop. You got me super excited about it. I can’t wait to see you guys bring on that. I know you’ve been super focused on OneOf. As you look beyond what you’re working on heads down, what other platforms or projects are you guys excited about a few years from now that you see coming down the pipe?
There’s a lot of generative art collection that’s super interesting. What Micah Johnson is doing with Aku is super interesting. It’s such a universe where he’s bringing you into this character they invented and has so much more. That was the first NFT character to be auctioned for a major studio movie. I’m super excited to see that. Keeping up with all the drops from every platform is super intense. There’s a lot of exciting things happening in the space and September 2021 is going to be a huge month for a lot of awareness, including a lot of the drops that we’re doing on our platform. The idea is we’re bringing NFT to the mainstream. This is not just crypto blogs covering this. This is drops like ours. Drops from artists like Doja Cat is going to get this into the mainstream. This is the goal. We are going to pioneer that.
There’s some amazing stuff out there. What’s cool is almost all of those things intersect with what you guys are working on. It’s like this infinite world of possibility out there. It’s an exciting place for you guys to be. At this point of the show, we always like to shift gears a little bit and get your personal perspective on a few questions called Edge Quick Hitters. They’re a fun and quick way to get to know you a little better. There are ten questions and we’re looking for a short, single word or fewer answers, but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Do you guys want to dive in and participate?
Let’s do it.
This is going to be deep.
Let’s kick it off the top. Josh, we’ll start with you. What’s the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
That’s a funny story that I tell a lot. My mother gave me an allowance and I wanted to buy the Purple Rain album by Prince when it came out. My mother thought it was dirty. She thought that it was inappropriate for someone of my age. I told her I was going to buy something else, and then I still went and bought Purple Rain, which I still listen to. It’s one of the great albums of all time.
It was inappropriate for someone your age and that’s why you need to get it.
Even in my old age now, I’m listening to Darling Nikki, if you guys know that song. I probably shouldn’t have been listening to that song at that time.
It’s so funny when kids buy these things that are inappropriate for their age. They don’t even know why. It’s the language and the euphemisms in things.
I was twenty before I realized that She Bop by Cyndi Lauper was about what it was about. I’ll let the listeners figure that one out for themselves.
Lin, how about you? What was the first thing you remember ever purchasing?
From the money that I earned for myself, it’s Super Nintendo.
That’s a good score right there. Adam, how about you?
This is an answer that’s maybe going to bug Josh because he’s a bigger fan of the band than I am. My first music purchase, at least, was Pearl Jam’s Ten.
If you just had an NFT to verify that. Let’s move on to question two. Lin, let’s start with you. What’s the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
That’s easy. I sell Starburst to my classmates in high school. I bought them at Costco then I sold them out for $0.25 apiece.
A little capitalist. I like it.
Starburst is super addictive. I love it. Adam, how about you?
I lived on this small street in Santa Barbara growing up. At the top of that street was the main street. When I was a kid, I remember we had a lemonade stand that we do on the weekends. That’s the first thing I remember selling. It’s funny, I remember this now that we’re doing this interview because I was looking for an old photo of me with one of our music clients that I’ve been friends with since we were five years old. The photo that my mother sent me was of the two of us sitting at the lemonade stand selling lemonade. That’s a guy named Yeti Beats who now works with Doja Cat, which is how we ended up being lucky enough to work with her.
That’s a great business.
I’m a lemonade stand guy myself, so right on.
Joshua, how about you?
This question is making me think of something that connects to our business that I had never thought of before, which was that I used to sell these limited edition buttons for this hydroplane race. Hydroplane was a boating race outside of Seattle where I was from as a kid, and they were numbered. I used to go to the sponsors and they would give kids buttons for free, and then I would go sell them in the area where the guys who were collecting the buttons would. They were worth more or less based on how many they were numbered on.
Did you use the words limited edition? That is entrepreneurial.
OneOf: How you use NFTs and create engagement has to do with how creative you get with the gamification and how involved the artist is.
They were numbered. I was eight so I don’t know if I can call them limited edition. The adults knew which ones were more valuable.
It’s an NFT right there.
Verified transaction. That’s right.
Question number three, Adam, let’s start with you. What is the most recent thing you purchased?
I wish I had a creative answer to this question that made me sound cooler than I am, but the last thing I bought was poop bags for my dog on Amazon.
It’s an awesome answer.
A necessity. Josh, how about you?
I’m going on the Amazon app and I’m noticing that similar to Adam, trash bags were the last thing I bought.
I might recommend, since you’re a green platform, biodegradable poop bags and trash bags on Amazon.
They’re called Earth Aware or something like that.
How about you, Lin?
I’m excited because I spent all night setting this up. I moved to Florida and I have a house instead of a tiny apartment in New York. I bought a 7.1 soundbar speaker for my TV. My wife was like, “Why are you waking up the toddler late at night?”
It makes all the difference in the world.
That’s why I love to do my Amazon purchases late at night.
Let’s go to question four. Josh, we’ll start with you. What’s the most recent thing you sold?
I sold some furniture when I moved from Brooklyn to LA. That’s the most recent thing I’ve sold.
Where in Brooklyn do you live in?
I was in Dumbo for the last six years or so. I was in New York for twenty years.
I was in Clinton.
Lin, how about you?
I moved out of New York so I actually found had this pro studio M-Audio speakers and I was like, “When am I going to use that again?” I sold them for very cheap. I was very upset and the guy came right away and picked it up from the apartment.
He knew he had a score there. Was it Craigslist or Facebook marketplace? How did you sell those?
It was this app. I think it was letgo or something similar.
Adam, how about you?
I’m struggling because I know it was on the Facebook marketplace. My wife and I sold something because we just moved into our house. I can’t remember what it was. It’s something like a chair or something like that.
Question number five. Lin, let’s start with you. What is your most prized possession?
That’s a hard one. I’m not really a physical item person. I haven’t shopped since we’re working from home. The one thing I can’t live without in the world is my toddler son. Just let him do that and this is more than any physical possession ever.
It makes sense. Joshua, how about you?
He stole my answer. I was going to say that my wife is going to see this and if I don’t say, “My five-year-old son Julian and my three-year-old daughter Dakota,” she’s going to be extremely upset. On the physical side, I worked with Pearl Jam for a long time and Eddie Vedder gave me his five-million-selling plaque for their second album Vs., which I’ve kept ever since. That might be the answer.
Adam, how about you, sir?
I too am required to say that my daughter is my most prized thing, but I don’t consider her a possession. I have a framed piece of sheet music above our piano and it is a piece of music from a song called The Color Blue Remains, which is a Quincy Jones song that never came out. The reason that I have that is because there was a day that Quincy walked into my office and he was livid. He walks into my office and he slams a piece of score paper down on the paper and says, “Jack cannot get the ending of this song right. I am so furious.” He goes, “This is the ending,” and he writes out the music notes for the ending. He goes, “Make sure they do that,” and he leaves it with me. I was like, “Wow.” I took a photo, sent it to the arranger and the song got fixed. I was like, “This is mine.” I have that framed in our house.
Special moments for sure. That’s so cool. Adam, let’s stick with you on the next one. Question six. If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service and experience that’s currently for sale, what would that be?
It would be a piece of property and it would be in the valley of Hanalei on the island of Hawaii.
Sounds like something you thought of before. Joshua, how about you?
I haven’t thought about this one before but the first thing that comes to mind is I would love to own a vineyard. I’ve always had this dream of owning a vineyard. Maybe we’ll see. One day, hopefully, but that’s the quick answer that comes to mind.
I talked to a crew about a new release of a wine where they’re going to do some limited edition NFTs with the wines that are all artistic. I’m sure you could put all your crafts together at that point and throw in some LPs with each bottle of wine.
It’s everywhere we look. Lin, how about you?
I’m totally not allowed to buy this but I would like to buy a seat on either Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic. I’m a wannabe space nerd and it would be a dream to go out of space. My wife certainly told me, “You only have one wife and one son. You’re not allowed to go out of space.”
Wasn’t that the reason someone turned down a trip? Who was that?
The guy that bought it ended up not going. I’m not sure. I don’t think the reason ever came out.
Maybe his wife wouldn’t let him.
He’s probably got a kid.
My wife would let me so I don’t know what that says.
I’d just be like, “I’m going to Vegas for the weekend,” and then like, “I’m back.”
When he said that, does that mean, “I was going to look at Vegas from outer space for the weekend?”
Something along those lines. Question seven, Joshua for you. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be?
That’s an awkward question. I like to laugh. I think I have a good sense of humor. Most people that know me would say that and I would love to see that. I feel like people don’t laugh enough. More laughing is good.
Lin, how about you?
I like my son to be more calm. He is a high-energy little dude. He runs around and I was like, “I’m not like that at all.” I’m perfectly fine sitting in the corner reading a book when I was little. I remember that. I’d like to pass that on.
I feel like all those toddlers go through a stage like that. I have one. I don’t know about others. Adam, how about you?
Someone wise told me that humility is just the willingness to learn. If I could pass on or wish any trait onto my daughter, it would be humility.
Let’s do the opposite here. Lin, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
Competitiveness. I’m super competitive and I don’t think you need that to be happy in life.
It can be a double-edged sword. Joshua, how about you?
My answer is probably similar to Lin’s, which is, I like to win. That’s good most of the time but sometimes that can get you in trouble both personally and professionally. Maybe a little bit less competitive.
You guys are in a good space because there’s room for a lot of winners in the blockchain space and a lot of cooperation and partnerships among projects that are in the same niche.
If you happen to visit Venice, you don’t want to get involved in any pickleball with Josh because it goes sideways real quick. Adam, you had a good laugh when I asked the question to Lin. What do you think?
For me, there are a lot of things that I don’t want my daughter to inherit from me. I definitely have a hard time living in the present moment. I spend a lot of my life looking forward to the next vacation and this company becoming a success. Looking forward to things rather than being incredibly appreciative for the moment I’m in, being present and enjoying that. I hope that my daughter can be better at that than I am.
That’s it right here. Stay in the now. I’m going to stick with you on that. What did you do just before joining us on the show?
I downed very quickly a bowl of brown rice because I was feeling jittery from my coffee and hadn’t eaten anything. My lunch which my wife brought in hadn’t arrived yet.
I know this state very well. Jittery only on coffee. You need to eat something.
Lin, how about you?
My wife brought me Chick-fil-A and as I was approving our preregistration site going live minutes before we jumped on the show.
There’s a theme here in this industry. Partners in crime are willing to interrupt meetings inconspicuously to provide food. That is a part of the industry, for sure.
Joshua, what were you up to?
My answer is quite boring. I was eating a cobb salad. That’s what I did right before this.
Did you have to bring that to yourself, Joshua?
I don’t usually like to use the delivery services but we’ve had a crazy day, so I DoorDash my salad. If they’re a sponsor, then go DoorDash.
They could be but not yet.
We’ll send them an invoice. Question ten, Joshua, what are you going to do next after the show?
I am going to wrap up a few work things and then I promised my son that I would take him to the beach after school, so we are going to the beach after.
Are we neighbors, Josh? I’m in Venice.
I’m in Manhattan Beach. We’re neighborly.
Two Guns coffee over there. Amazing.
I’ve gone there a couple of times.
There are a couple of Two Guns. There’s the one in Manhattan and there’s also the one in El Segundo which is closer to us because I’m in Playa Del Rey like you on this side.
Eathan, please take a note to drop another invoice. Adam, how about you? What are you doing next?
My wife is, for the very first time, leaving me alone with the baby. She is flying out of LAX and that means that I’m on daddy duty. I decided that I’ll be driving up to my mother’s house. Grandma is going to help me. I have to figure out what I need to bring in terms of bottles, nipples, diapers and all that fun stuff. I’ve never done this so I’ve got a packing job ahead of myself.
Yes, you do. It’s always nice to get an assist from mom.
It’s necessary.
Finally, Lin, what are you doing next?
I’m going to call my friend to check if any of our close group of friends has gotten anything from the Naomi Osaka drop. I certainly didn’t. This is the problem with most other platforms. There are so few items available. I just want to be a fan. I’m not looking to flip this. If there was a higher quantity, I would have been a perfect happy fan getting a memento for Naomi Osaka but I didn’t get it. I want to see if any of my friends got it.
Definitely join the community success. I get it. There are so many cool drops happening. That’s it for Edge Quick Hitters. Thanks so much for playing with us and sharing a little bit more about you and your perspectives. We’re about to move into some hot topics. The first one on the list here, “Vines creator is now working on NFT blockchain video games.” Supdrive is an on-chain fantasy console where the games themselves are NFTs. You can think of it as art blocks for games. These games all run on the Supdrive virtual firmware. It’s a toolkit that allows games to be written in concise instructions that are gas friendly and ideal for on-chain storage.
I heard it in a previous interview that somebody had created an NFT game and then you could buy it as an NFT and it went defunct. The creators stopped working on it but somebody bought it and revived it. This is very interesting stuff. I know you are focused heavily on music but what have you seen in games that you find interesting?
Gaming is a huge area of opportunity for NFTs. There are a lot of guys doing great things adjacent to what we’re doing. Genies are doing great things with artists and digital outfits on their avatars. We’re talking to several other companies. There’re a lot of these virtual worlds, metaverse or gameverse that are exploring the idea of can NFTs represent an access token, unlock certain content, merch or characters? There are a lot of potential ways to collaborate with us. We have NFT that’s officially from music artists.
In most cases, they’re Genesis NFT. What does that mean? You take the major artist NFT, log in and verify that you’re the owner of that NFT and maybe that unlocks a special character. Maybe that unlocks a special performance. We’re very early in the world in that. This is another example of how the physical and digital world could intersect.
I’m excited about this concept. We’ve talked to some pretty interesting folks in the gaming industry. What Guild of Guardians is doing trying to create a game of a lifetime, where they have 140,000 people on their waitlist. Our blocks have been consistently at the top of OpenSea in secondary sales. It’s the same platform our partner at Bright Moments uses for CryptoVenetians and CryptoNewYorkers. Co-creation in the generation of a game as an NFT is pretty awesome. This is a thumbs up for me. I want to see what they’re able to pull off here. Does anyone else have any thoughts?
NFTs have existed in early formatting games for years. People look to gaming as a big part of the next frontier for NFTs in a very explicit way. I’m all for it. We’re seeing founders and team members across the board supporting the intersection of NFTs and all other formats and interoperability across games, metaverses and so on. That’s what I’m seeing as the future here.
Joshua, did you have something else before we move on to the next topic?
OneOf: It’s worth mentioning that social media gets a lot of bad looks and bad news these days, but for artists, it’s a godsend. You have this massive community that you can reach out to quickly in a way that never existed before.
All of these ideas, including ours, comes down to is it fun? Is it compelling? Is there something interesting about it? Is the game fun? There was this brief period of time that I’m sure we all remember from mid-March to early May when it seemed like you could pull something out of your pocket and throw it at the wall as an NF T and it would sell for a lot of money. In the end, that’s not the future of NFTs. There needs to be a story and an idea or something compelling, fun, exciting and collectible about it. That’s going to be the thing to decide if it’s a success or not. Is there something compelling about it?
On that point, I heard this factoid that OpenSea did as many sales in one day as they did all of 2020. For people who think that there’s a bubble here that popped, that does not add up. All of the sales in one day are equivalent to 2020.
We like to say that some of it are luck of timing to be totally honest with you. We like to think that we have a bit of a second-mover advantage. We got to watch what happened in the last few months, both the up and the down, and now the back up again. See what works, what didn’t work, what’s compelling, all of that.
There are a lot of intersections between what you guys are talking about and what we’re doing. When I think about the most compelling artist drops, some of the things that artists are going to want to release are high-priced items that are scarce, 1 of 1s. I also think that there’s the gamification of the lower-priced NFTs. When you get into the gamification of the lower-priced NFTs, a lot of the ideas that we’ve been circulating are around sets. Those sets can be completed in different ways. You can buy all five, but you get that set and that unlocks another universe. What about if the fifth of those five is a video game you play that you have to beat to get that fifth? What if that fifth is you proving that you’re the biggest fan of the said artist? Look at what Marshmello and Travis Scott are doing in Fortnite and the massive opportunities there are to use NFTs with fans. The possibilities are endless. We are excited and if you’re a big video game developer, we want to work with you.
Let’s move on to the next hot topic. This one brings back memories for me. I don’t know if anyone else. “Big Boy goes from burgers to blockchain with new NFT launch.” There used to be Big Boy when I grew up. I thought it was a local thing. I didn’t know anybody else knew about Big Boy. I used to eat a Big Boy. I haven’t eaten one in years.
I didn’t know Eathan until I met him in person after sponsoring the show. He’s a skinny dude. The idea that Eathan eats a Big Boy, I find that paradox very amusing. You guys eat Chick-fil-A, have you tried Big Boy?
Big Boy is the one that Dr. Evil in Austin Powers went into space in, is that it?
It’s a Big Boy. That’s the mascot.
Josh is right.
I know what you’re talking about but the mascot went into space with Dr. Evil in Austin Powers.
Great callback. It’s amazing. It’s Bob’s Big Boy.
Trivia for you, who did the Austin Powers theme song?
Quincy Jones.
You made it too easy, Adam.
Humility is just the willingness to learn. Click To Tweet
It took a second, though.
Most of Adam’s trivia questions involve Quincy Jones.
It probably will do well because it’s a nostalgic brand like GameStop and whatever. If the memes start going to do well like a Big Boy collectible or NFT would do well. It feels a little bit like a cash grab or a PR stunt to get back into the news. I came from the brand and advertising world. There are a lot of interests for sure but there are also two ways of approaching this like how do we capture this as a PR moment? How do we do an NFTP? How do we authentically make this a part of the strategy?
There are some brands that are putting a lot of thought and care into this. There’s always the young agency guy that’s like, “Let’s do an NFT for whatever.” I’m sure you’ll probably do well. I’m probably going to regret not buying a Big Boy NFT but it feels a little bit like it could maybe not be so authentic to the community.
It’s a pass for Lin with some mild potential FOMO, got it.
It could be one of those cash grabs that’s so out of left field that people fall in love with it. The launch of NFT is going to happen on August 31st, 2021 and it’s going to be partnered with Everett, Washington-based toymaker, Funko. Let’s see. I might pick one up. I don’t think I’m going to eat a Big Boy again in my life but I’m going to pick up some NFTs.
On that particular day, I’m going to be focused on getting my OneOf NFT, not the Big Boy NFT personally. I’m just saying.
You changed my mind.
Next on the list, “Sports NFTs sales plunge, but the overall NFT market is surging with $7 billion in sales.” We covered that a little bit. A lot of stuff going on in NFTs. I bought an NFT, a dino pal. Did you buy one, Josh?
I don’t have a dino pal. We’ve got the DINOMONKS. We got frogs for Frog Land. I’m getting excited about these NFTs. My purchasing rate has increased relative to previous months.
It’s a hot market.
It keeps evolving. It’s grown from the roots of the meme coin culture, meme stock culture, WallStreetBets, and all that fun stuff. It’s so cool to see it evolve quickly over such a short period of time, relatively speaking. It just keeps going from the avatar NFTs to animal NFTs. We’re starting to see some cross-functionality built-in. NFTs on top of NFTs. It’s insane and so much fun.
Particularly in the sports area, we’ve got DraftKings coming into the mix with autograph and partnering as well. There’re these blurry lines. Some of you guys probably heard about the Owen one NFT drop that hit things hard. There’s a rumor that Logan Paul is going to wear an Owen one mask in his next fight. Everything is blurring together.
I love the community aspect of this. A lot of this is early success stories in NFT. Creators are reinvesting in other projects. I go pick up random NFTs. I don’t know if these things I like to store, artists or groups I like to support. There’s a lot of that going on. By and large, the platform still are catering to a very small group of active traders trading a lot. What our project differs in is, hopefully, we’ll bring on millions or tens of millions more new interests that previously are non-crypto native people into the mix. It’s a fun world. Imagine what will happen if we are successful in bringing ten million new users into the ecosystem.
We’d love it. That’s what we’re all about on the show. It’s co-creating the future and supporting the communities that exist, and bringing new NFT curious minds into the space. We’re all for it.
It’s been amazing having you on the show learning about OneOf and you guys. Talking about hot topics is awesome. We want our readers to also get excited about OneOf and everything you have going on. Where should people go to find out more about the project or the roadmap that you guys have?
Go to our website OneOf.com. Pre-registration is open and the first drop will be live on August 31st, 2021.
On socials, any good places for people to keep an eye out for fun announcements?
You can join us on all social. The handle is @OneOfNFT on Twitter, Instagram, Discord, Facebook. Come hang out with us.
We talked a little bit about the million NFT giveaway. It’s hard to top that. We may also come up with something fun to do after this so keep an eye on our socials as well for a little collaboration with OneOf on the giveaway front. We’ve reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFT. Thanks 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 also much better. How? Go to iTunes, rate us and say something cool, then go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole.
If you want to help co-create Edge of NFT with us, got a guest you want to see on the episode, questions for hosts or guests, or an NFT you’d like us to review, drop us a line at Contact@EdgeOfNFT.com or tweet at us @EdgeofNFT to get in the mix. Lastly, be sure to tune in for some more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Thanks.
Important Links:
- OneOf
- TAP Network
- ChainLink Crypto Fund
- Media Rights Capital
- Blackstone
- Quincy Jones Productions
- Bill Tai
- CryptoKitties
- Tezos
- iHeart Music Festival
- Aku
- letgo
- Genies
- Guild of Guardians
- OpenSea
- Bright Moments
- CryptoVenetians
- DraftKings
- @OneOfNFT – Twitter
- Instagram – @OneOfNFT
- Discord – @OneOfNFT
- Facebook – @OneOfNFT
- iTunes – Edge of NFT
- Contact@EdgeOfNFT.com
- @EdgeofNFT – Twitter
- Vines creator is now working on NFT blockchain video games
- Big Boy goes from burgers to blockchain with new NFT launch
- Sports NFTs sales plunge, but the overall NFT market is surging with $7 billion in sales
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