Have you heard? The most monumental NFT gathering in the is world happening soon! Dreamverse is the world’s first NFT Festival happening on the 4th of November and features top musical acts such as Alesso and an array of OG NFT artists. Joining Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger is Twobadour, also known as the Steward of Metapurse, the world’s largest NFT fund and production studio. Today, Twobadour goes in-depth about what is perhaps the most exciting event in the NFT space. He also discusses the growth of NFT and offers advice on how you too can smoothly make your way into the space. Listen in for a fun and informative discussion on what’s next in NFT! Stay tuned for updates on NFT’s trending topics, plus earn chance to get into Dreamverse!
—
Listen to the podcast here
Twobadour Of Metapurse (Medicis Of The Metaverse) Presents Dreamverse: A History-Making NFT Festival, Plus: ADA Invests In NFT Education, ArtOfficial, And More…
Talk about disrupters, this episode features Twobadour. Welcome to this special NFTcon fireside chat with Twobadour. He’s the Steward of Metapurse, the world’s largest NFT fund and production studio. He’s a former journalist across print and broadcast, an associate of MetaKovan since 2017, a digital truffle sniffer, gets DeFi, loves NFTs and writes everything. The crypto fund Metapurse is the buyer of Beeple’s digital work, Everydays: The First 5000 Days. The Metapurse crypto art fund aims to be a tastemaker for the world as the conventional art community and buyer’s interest shift to non-fungible tokens. Twobadour, welcome. Thank you for being here with us.
Thanks, Eathan. It’s a pleasure to be here.
We’ve been excited about this show ever since we heard about Dreamverse and the chance to come and hang out with you and create the future together.
The Beeple purchase was big news and brought massive attention to the NFT space. It was an inflection point in the NFT awareness. I want to take it back a little bit further. When did you first hear of NFTs? What disrupted your life and what led to the creation of Metapurse?
I’m glad you asked about the NFTs and didn’t ask me to go all the way back to when I heard about crypto because that journey is full of missed opportunities. MetaKovan discovered Bitcoin in 2013, which is pretty early in the game. He promptly told me all about it. That package of information, which was enough to give him wings and set him off on a journey of entrepreneurship in the crypto space, left me completely unaffected. I couldn’t process it. I write and use words for a living but I couldn’t understand for the life of me what all of that meant.
Four years later, I meandered in journalism. I was in supply chain finance. I wrote about financial technology and I dabbled in advertising. For six months, I still don’t know why I wrote about multi-axle and single-axle trucks. I know all about it but it’s a complete waste of time. When I finally got back together with MetaKovan in 2017, I started to write about DeFi. All of this meandering served a purpose. The more I understood money, the more I became more socially and politically aware. I began to understand the magic of the blockchain, the necessity of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. My crypto journey became much more meaningful after that.
My life was disrupted by the COVID pandemic as it did for many people. We were all forced to look inwards at our place in the scheme of things. Suddenly, I discovered the NFT space. I heard about NFTs but we completely bypassed CryptoKitties, CryptoPunks and everything else. MetaKovan has been dabbling for it a little bit. He was taken by the idea of inalienable ownership that virtual land represented. He went on to become the largest single estate owner in Decentraland, vast estates in Cryptovoxels and whatnot.
It was a massive a-ha moment for me because all of these abstract concepts in crypto, financial independence and immutability ownership suddenly became vivid and experiential in the NFT space. They began to dance in front of me. I finally realized that I’d come home after 6 or 7 years of meandering. That’s not the short version of my journey into this space.
I could tell you’re a writer but also quite a great speaker. They were dancing in front of you. I love the way that you put it.
The idea of you meandering around it is such an accurate description. Even those of us who have been in crypto for years have always been meandering around some element of it that we didn’t go down that rabbit hole. We went down another rabbit hole because there are many different rabbit holes. I feel you on every level.
With NFTs, you get to write about them in color. There are only 4 or 5 adjectives you can put in an article about DeFi. For instance, look at the background behind you, Josh. You’ve got to hack it out. There’s so much color. You can talk in color. For communicators, writers and speakers like us, you need more meat, juice and colorful stuff in front of you to talk about. That’s what the NFT space does.
I remember a panel with a body painter who said that her work could not be purchased and seen in its true form by art collectors until NFTs came along. That’s another example that came to mind. The world is full of sound bites about the Beeple purchase. They miss all the color in terms of what you guys are doing, which is pretty remarkable. How do you plan to build out this online platform for crypto artists worldwide through the crypto art fund?
We’re still trying to figure that out ourselves. Metapurse itself has evolved so much as a simple idea. We wanted to dip our toes into the space with some intention instead of a couple of guys knocking about and trying to buy up NFTs. Metapurse is a spearhead in terms of our intentions in this space. We started by collecting NFTs but then we’re overcome by this question, what do you do with these NFTs? The answer to that question has been a series of experiments in the space, starting with something called right share which is using a smart contract, and being able to lease or lend NFTs or even aspects of NFTs. For instance, you can either rent out a parcel in Cryptovoxels or Decentraland, or rent out the rights to build on that parcel to somebody and stuff like that.
There was a B20 project, which was an experience in shared ownership, but also an alternative to flipping an NFT or holding it in a wallet. How would you build monuments around it and make that a focal point for culture, events or stuff like that? The next experiment is Dreamverse, which is a physical manifestation of our entire journey in the NFT space. What happens when you take what people still do, imagine these virtual abstract things called NFTs and drop them in the physical world? Dreamverse is what happens when NFTs make landfall. This has been an evolution.
We’ve got to learn more about it. We’ve got a lot of questions about Dreamverse to unpack it. First, we saw this killer video on your website that we want to share with folks. Let’s dive deeper into this video. Thank you so much for doing this killer giveaway for us. For everyone that’s paying attention, we’ve got a completely sold-out event VIP experience plus seven GA tickets. Check out Edge of NFT on Twitter for that information.
We want to know more about Dreamverse. That was a sick video. That was awesome. It’s launching on November 4th, 2021. Tell us more about it. What’s it all about?
We are excited. It keeps us up at night. It keeps growing legs of its own and becoming bigger. It’s a two-part event. It’s happening on a single day on the 4th of November 2021 at Terminal 5. The first part of the event is the largest collection of NFT arts in a physical space on the planet. It’s curated by these ten OG artists that we fell in love with when we entered the NFT space. Through them, we fell in love with the NFT space.
What I didn’t want to do was to curate art by myself or by ourselves at Metapurse. It didn’t make sense to us. On what basis would I choose the artists? We did a decent thing. This idea was fabulous. Why don’t you decentralize? It seems obvious. These ten OG artists picked ten of their favorite artists in the space. Some of them are old, some of them are new, and some of them are exciting. It is also co-curated with Keith Grossman’s TIMEPieces which he launched a few years ago. They are going to be showcased at the event as well. We have a collection of work from 150 artists in that space. A lot of them are on LED screens, AR, VR headsets and so on.
The latter half of Dreamverse is this massive EDM party. Let’s face it, NFTs are not things that ought to be discussed, talked about or just shown. NFTs are experiences. NFTs are supposed to be fun and that’s where the party element comes in. We have an EDM party headlined by Alesso with opening performances from RAC and PLS&TY. At that party, we unveil The Beeple’s 5000 Days officially for the first time on massive 24-foot screens. We will also unveil a virtual space where the Beeple’s 5000 piece comes to. That becomes its permanent address. It has been designed by Holly13, the incredible architects out of New York who are designing the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center.
I can tell there’s more. We’re excited. We’re headed out to NYC. New York is a place that I have lived in for many years. I’m excited that it’s happening there. It would give me an opportunity to visit. We’re all going to be working hard to network and meet people because it’s a limited opportunity to get all these cool people together in the same space. I’ll have to have some guilty pleasure enjoying the music and the art as well. It’s going to be fun. I’m curious, who else is part of the Dreamverse dream that brought this all together?
NFT Festival: Dreamverse is a physical manifestation of our entire journey in the NFT space. It’s what happens when NFT’s make landfall.
We put together this Zoom call of all the stakeholders, the people that were putting Dreamverse together. It was overwhelming. I’ve realized there are about 100 people involved in putting this event together. We have an award-winning event firm that’s taking care of the production. We have Holly13. As sponsors, we have OneOf, Dapper Labs, Flow, Animoca Brands and Metacask. We have The Syndicate, which is taking care of the marketing aspect of this. We have a composer who is designing the soundscape for the NFT gallery.
We have all of these amazing feature artists like Drue Kataoka, Refik Anadol, Diana Sinclair, David Bianchi. I could go on for the next hour and talk about the people involved in this. The beauty of it is not just the names of people or the list of people. What surprises me to this day is that they all said yes when we approached them about Dreamverse and shared this dream and idea. They shared that dream too. They thought it was a good idea. That is so reaffirming. It’s typical of the NFT space. All of the complexities of the real world and trying to get people to work together at this scale meld away when you’re part of the NFT ecosystem.
As you name all these people that are being involved, it’s turning out to be almost like a Mecca where all these important figures can come together. I also agree that the movement is important and that it deserves this particular event. Not to draw a direct comparison but for some reason, it makes me think of A Great Day in Harlem. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with this. There was a day where all these awesome jazz musicians got together in Harlem and took a photo of them altogether. They probably all didn’t even know what a historical moment that was at that time but it is. We all look back on that as something very special. It sounds like that’s what you guys are cooking, something of that caliber. I’m excited to be a part of it as well.
It sounds like an Oscar or a Grammy speech. The list of people that contributed is amazing. Bringing many people together to do a real-life project is a very complex thing. We’ve heard time and again that when it’s folks within the NFT community that come together to work on things, people have had the best collaboration experience of their life. Over and over again from all these projects, we’ve heard this. It speaks to the community and what it’s all about, the ethos that drives the people, the projects, and everything that’s happening. It’s cool to hear that again from you.
It’s not surprising to me because you guys represent a key pinnacle moment in the history of NFTs with that purchase. Everyone wants to be there to celebrate where it’s gone from there. It’s exciting. YellowHeart, OneOf, Animoca Brands are folks that have been on our show. We felt the same energy and the same ethos from them that you’re exuding in this conversation. Of course, these are your friends and these guys want to be there to high-five and dance. It should be a great time. To clarify, there are two different parts of the event. Could you elaborate on that a little bit more, please?
The first part is the Dreamverse gallery, which we are super excited about. Quite unintentionally, it represents the largest physical collection of NFT art on the planet. It’s been curated by these ten amazing OG artists who we fell in love with in the space and through them, we fell in love with the NFT space itself. Off the top of my head are Mattia Cuttini, Sparrow, Angie Taylor, Josie Bellini, Metageist, and SnowFro.
What we did was decentralize curation. We didn’t want to do it ourselves. We lead it to these OG artists to curate other artists. They chose ten of their favorite artists from the space. It represents such an eclectic mix of art across mediums as well. We’ve got AR art, VR art, two-dimensional art, static art and animated art. It’s also being co-curated with TIME. The newly launched TIMEPieces will be on the showcase as well at Dreamverse.
The latter half of the show is an EDM party headlined by Alesso and with opening performances by RAC and PLS&TY. This is where the Beeple’s 5000 piece also will be officially unveiled for the first time on massive 24-foot screens in the background. To top all of that up, we will also unveil and announce a virtual structure designed by Holly13, the amazing architects out of New York who are designing the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center. All of this, in a nutshell, is what happens when NFTs and the ethos of the NFT space are transplanted from the metaverse into the physical world.
It starts with art and finishes with the party.
It sounds like an amazing event. We are looking forward to going there and experiencing it ourselves in person. We’ll report back on that to all of our readers but I know it will be amazing. Let’s shift gears a little bit. One of the things that many folks are interested in that are getting in the space is making wise choices with NFT purchases. What advice do you have for those that are interested in investing in the space?
Whatever he says is not financial advice.
The first question will be to ask them if they’re coming in expecting an ROI. Whether they want to invest in the space or they want to experience the space. There is a very important distinction and it will drive a lot of the subsequent choices. I suppose the second part of the answer won’t change much because the only sensible way to approach the NFT space is from a context that you understand very well and in real life as well.
Unlike tokens that have zero historic context and you’re walking in blind, in the NFT space, you already have points of reference. For instance, if you are deep into basketball, start with NBA Top Shot. You’ll know why these moments are priced the way they are. You’ll know if they’re overpriced or underpriced. You’ll know if the economics around it makes sense or not because you understand basketball. If you’re into gaming, start with Axie Infinity.
If you’re a Formula 1 fan, go to F1 Delta Time. If you love art and you understand it, there’s a whole bunch of art platforms out there for you to dip your toes into. The sensible way or the smart way, whether you’re a beginner or you’re a large institution, would be to approach it from a context that you understand. I love this because it forces finance to move out of its comfort zone and engage with culture.
We started out with some of your fun imagery as you’re speaking there and thinking about you being a writer. I want to know right in the NFT space, is writing something that you’re seeing having an interesting place for it? Also, on top of that, any fun facts for us about books that you like or references for people to read.
One thing hasn’t changed, there’s still no money in writing whether it’s the real world or the NFT space. Quite seriously, I’d love for that to change. I haven’t seen any interesting or sustainable ideas around publishing on the blockchain. I’d be all over that if that happened. The thing with artists and writers, in general, is that people write or make art because they can’t help it, not because it’s a way to make a living. It’s usually a way to make a living because they know nothing else. There’s that. There’s not too much incentive to build around it but I’d love to see it.
There have been some quite transformative books for me over the last few years. Incidentally, a couple of them were introduced to me by MetaKovan. One is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and the other is Skin In The Game by Nassim Taleb. These two had a massive impact on how I look at life, finance, crypto and everything else. There is this 2,500-year-old book called Tirukkuṟaḷ. It’s a collection of couplets by the poet Saint Thiruvalluvar out of Tamil Nadu where I’m from. It’s one of those books where whatever mood you’re in or whatever decision you want to take, you flip through and you find a couplet and it instantly hits you. These three books have had a significant influence on me. I’ve enjoyed Snow Crash. I discovered Snow Crash after I came to the NFT space. You’re suddenly wearing X-ray goggles and everything makes sense to you like, “This is where that came from. This is why Cryptovoxels is like this.” These have been fun to explore.
Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate going down a little rabbit hole there. As we wrap up with our questions, the last one we wanted to ask are projects, platforms and ideas that we might not have already covered that you think could be game-changers in the future in NFTs.
There are many. I’ll leave you with maybe a general Northstar that Metapurse follows when we get into or think about investing. If an idea only makes sense now, I don’t think it’s a great idea. Part of it should have some fit into the existing ecosystem. A major portion of it should make sense to you only 3 to 5 years later. That’s how we look at enterprises mostly when we invest in them. There are obvious choices in the tokenomics, so on and so forth.
If the core idea is something that already fits like a glove into your current ecosystem, it’s not too much fun at all. It’s why we love enterprises like Alethea, which are infusing artificial intelligence and GPT-3 technology into NFTs. I had a freaky experience where they used MetaKovan’s avatar and fed the AI with a lot of GPT-3 data, a little bit of Buddhism, a little bit of MetaKovan-isms and stuff. You can have an actual conversation with it. That’s freaky. You can talk to your NFT. Stuff like that gets me excited.
NFT Festival: Ask people if they’re coming in expecting an ROI, if they want to invest in this space or if they want to experience the space. That is a very important distinction that will drive the subsequent choices.
We have a contest running on Edge of NFT for Mirror World. They are doing NFTs that have souls that you can train and talk to over time. I love that concept.
Those are mind-blowing and mind-bending stuff, for sure. This has been an amazing conversation. Thanks so much for joining us and spending your time with us. For our readers, if you’ve enjoyed this conversation, keep tuning in at EdgeOfNFT.com. You can also subscribe to our newsletter. Get the latest news and information on special contests and all kinds of fun stuff. Keep an eye on our socials for a chance to win tickets to Dreamverse, this amazing event that we talked about. We’ve already given away over $25,000 in NFTs and we don’t plan to stop anytime soon. This is going to be one of the sweetest giveaways we’ve done yet. Keep an eye on it and enjoy.
That wraps up our segment one. We’re ready to jump into our next segment called Edge Quick Hitters, which is a fun and quick way to get to know you a little better. There are ten questions and we’re looking for short single-word or a few words answers but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Twobadour, are you ready to dive in?
I suck at this.
That makes it easy. No expectations. Question number one, what is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
This is a fun story. When we were ten, we didn’t know better. We had these little piggy banks in which we used to drop cash. This was a long time ago. If I told you the exact time, I’d look a lot older than I am. Back in India, there was this friend who’s selling tiny colored baby chicken. It’s weird and freaky but go with me on this. They were painted pink, yellow or sometimes orange. My brother and I were fascinated by it.
We decided that this little piggy bank was our money so we broke it. We went and bought a few chickens and came back. My mother was waiting for us outside. We didn’t tell her that we’d gone out. She asked us, “Where did these chickens come from?” We said, “We bought it?” She said, “Where did the money come from?” We said, “We broke the piggy bank.” She said, “Who did you ask?” We said, “It was our money.” My mum was resting her hand against a little branch in the garden. She broke that branch and gave us a nice little hitting. That’s the first thing I remember buying.
No one has done that thus far. Candy is the normal answer. That’s a special response.
You purchased yourself a punishment.
What’s the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
People make art because they can’t help it, not because it’s a way to make a living. Click To Tweet
Tickets to an event, incidentally. I went door-to-door and sold tickets to an event in my hometown because my aunt ran an event agency and I sold tickets for her.
Do you recall what the event was?
It was a music concert. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. It’s not like it is now.
It’s come full circle. Question three, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
A sandwich. It tasted good too.
Question four, what is the most recent thing you’ve sold?
I haven’t sold anything, quite honestly. That’s one weird thing about the NFT space. We haven’t sold a single NFT. We’ve only bought, produced and maybe commissioned but we’ve never sold an NFT. I’d love to keep it that way.
You probably have sold some tickets to Dreamverse at least.
I supposed so. The VIP tickets are sold out.
That’s good to know, the Warren Buffett method of holding on and hodling for the future. Number five, what is your most prized possession?
NFT Festival: NFT forces finance to move out of its comfort zone and engage with culture.
It’s a pair of Voxelized sneakers. It was designed by n0shot who’s one of the cofounders of Async.art. I remember it distinctly because it was when I went over the edge and came completely addicted to buying an NFT. I can’t remember ever wanting something so bad. They’re cool sneakers. It’s these ocean green sneakers, Voxelized. n0shot does this cool thing where he creates these product videos out of them. I had to have them. In spite of all of the NFTs that I have bought on behalf of Metapurse, the fifth and last pair of these sneakers is my most prized possession.
We’ll have to go check those out. Question number six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service or an experience that’s currently for sale, what would that be?
Honestly, nothing. I’m not interested in that. If you asked me how I wanted to spend the next $100 million, I’d have an answer for you but it wouldn’t be about buying something.
Let’s go there.
It’s not part of your list.
We’ll move on. Eathan will draw it out of you a little bit later.
There might be something hiding in it.
Question number seven, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be?
A sense of wonder. I’m glad to have been through professions like journalism and drive things. I’m not jaded. I’m not cynical. I’ve been able to retain my sense of wonder. Thanks to my association with artists. I’ve been touched at a very deep level by artists. That’s the one thing I’d like to pass on.
Question number eight, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
If an idea already makes sense today, it’s not a great idea. Click To Tweet
I don’t know if it’s feasible but FOMO maybe.
We can all relate.
You got to replace the FOMO with JOMO, Joy Of Missing Out, “I feel fine. I’m happy.”
#JOMO. Question number nine, what did you do before joining us on the podcast?
I held my wife’s hand and took a nap.
Did you have a dream in the Dreamverse?
I close my eyes and all I think about is Dreamverse. It’s weird. It’s almost like Groundhog Day. I keep reliving various versions of what it is going to be like. One day, it was an absolute nightmare. Everything was screwed up. Nobody turned up. For some weird reason, Dreamverse was happening in a single-screen movie theater back home. The toilets were broken and all of that stuff. Now, the dream was good.
I’m getting more pumped up about it the more you talk about it. I cannot wait. Question ten, what are you going to do next after the podcast?
Talk to people about Dreamverse. I’ve got more calls and more conversations. I have an interview with one of the featured artists lined up. I’m looking forward to getting into that process, why they were at Dreamverse and how they created that particular work of art.
Your passion comes through every step of the way in every question we asked. It’s awesome. That’s Edge Quick Hitters. Thanks so much for indulging us there. It’s fun and great to get to know you a little bit better. We may have some hot topics to dive into. What do you think, guys?
NFT Festival: If the core idea is something that already fits a cloud in the current ecosystem, it’s not too much fun at all.
I do feel like it would be appropriate for you to haze MetaKovan and make him have to do the Edge Quick Hitters at some point in the future.
Yes, I need to get him to do that.
The first hot topic in the hotspot here. Benjamin Franklin said that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Cardano’s Commercial Arm to invest $100 million in DeFi, NFTs, and Blockchain Education. “Emurgo, the commercial and venture arm of Cardano, is investing $100 million to boost decentralized finance, NFTs, and blockchain education efforts for the world’s fourth-largest blockchain.”
I don’t know if you guys thought of this as an investment in education when you invested in Beeple. We’ve seen over and over again a lot of what’s driving the growth of this space. It doesn’t work if only one person is involved. Everybody’s got to know what’s going on. Once they do and they get involved, then that’s when it works the best. Do you guys consider yourselves educators as well? What do you think about education in NFTs and blockchain?
It’s a responsibility and one that pulses people incident as they call it. We feel that responsibility has been thrust on us. Irrespective of how much money you throw at it, what’s more important to figure out is your intention behind it. What do you want to educate people on? It isn’t like you can package crypto into a syllabus and shove it down people’s throats. For one, it becomes obsolete instantly. What is it that you want to educate? What is it that you want to propagate? Those are very important to answer.
For us, we’ve figured it out over time. This process of working with artists has been the most transformative aspect for us. It taught us a lot and also investing and dealing with artists-led entrepreneurs and artist-led companies. It elevates the way you think about the space and understand the space in profound ways.
An alternative way of educating people is by osmosis, by giving them experiences like Dreamverse, and engineering little moments of serendipity. People like you and I can meet because of the NFT space. Who knows what creative forces will collide at Dreamverse and what interesting projects will pop up after that? The beauty of the NFT space is that I don’t have to learn about what a blockchain is, what Bitcoin is, what’s the entire history and all of the technical aspects before diving into the deep end in the NFT space. All it takes is one meaningful conversation with a creator in the NFT space. I’m sorry, I meandered a little bit. This is all I’m thinking about.
It’s a great answer. Often, our answers to people who don’t quite get something are interested or maybe are not interested, but they have all these questions to say, “Invest in a little something. Get your hands dirty so that you have a reason to pay attention to what’s going on.” Things then start to make sense to folks of why things are special.
There are so many dollars getting pumped into the ecosystem and it’s amazing. I love seeing it spent on education. It’s truly amazing how few people do understand NFTs, even on a fundamental level. Never mind the game-changing nature of them and what can happen here in the near future, as well as in the distant future. Any chance I get, I try to talk to folks, especially younger folks and ask them to dip their toes in and learn a little bit about it. It’s going to be there with them for the rest of their lives, for sure. It’s amazing to see so much attention now focused on contributing knowledge to the ecosystem.
Blockchain felt like tech nerd-ish for a lot of people. The opportunity to make money wasn’t enough for them to dive down the rabbit hole. When you incorporate NFTs into the future, that’s the bridge that we all needed to make this education stick. We think, act and live three-dimensionally with all of our senses. With NFTs, you can incorporate all of the senses in different ways that wouldn’t be possible without NFTs. You got the tech but now we have this new, richer and more exciting world that everyone can participate in and understand. If you bought something online, if you’ve taken a photo, then there’s an element of NFTs that already makes sense to you from the jump.
NFTs are now the vehicle for all crypto. A lot of people, creators, artists and communicators in the periphery of crypto didn’t have a foot in the door because they were all on the sidelines. With the NFT space, you get to commit a lot and jump in properly. Now they all start to make sense because you can pack DeFi into NFTs, you can pack financial instruments into NFTs. It’s a perfect vehicle to understand it better.
A quick follow-up before the next one. As you were laying all of that out, Josh, understanding NFTs is in some sense understanding ownership. It’s broad and there are many ways for people to get in. What we’re seeing is because all of these different ways are becoming available, it’s becoming more accessible to people to learn about it.
The next thing on the hot spot here is a question about, can existing companies successfully pivot into NFTs? What’s your opinion, yay or nay? Here are three NFT stocks that have been noted with high growth potential. DraftKings is trying to get into the sports figure NFT market. Cloudflare is providing NFT infrastructure. Also, eBay is now allowing NFT sales on its enormous online marketplace. I know eBay came up before. I forget who the guest was. There’s some skepticism there. It’s like, “Nice try eBay.” These other two seem potentially promising.
Among the three of them, I would bet on DraftKings because there’s this innate fantasy sports component to NFT culture in terms of picking the winning NFTs and the idea of integrating who you want to win contests. Fantasy sports and NFTs seem integrated. We’re going to have the CEO of DraftKings on the show at some point. I’m excited about that one. The other question in my mind is, do they go into the space with old thinking or do they try to create the magic along the way?
To me, it looks like a bell curve for the most part. The bell curve relates to how the regular customers start to understand crypto in the NFT space. I don’t see any reason why all of these three companies won’t make money in the short term. They hit a point where the user realizes, “These are not decentralized. What am I doing on this platform? What exactly am I buying?” If we’re looking at an NFTization of an existing business model, I don’t think that will last long. They can’t pivot and retrospectively move into the NFT space. The best they can do is probably hive off an NFT version or build something entirely new for the NFT space. Unless it is blockchain or NFT native, you’re not pushing the boundary at all.
It seems like there’s an uphill battle for those existing companies. It’s the form follows function concept. These are behemoths. They were built on centralized concepts and ideas. It’s a tough road. Maybe they can get there and the opportunities for acquisitions and mergers with companies that were purpose-built to serve the NFT ecosystem may be the path to success there. I know a lot of the people that are involved in these projects are longtime NFT players in the space. I’m sure that helps. It starts with great people who probably share a lot of the same ethos we’ve been talking about on the show. Time will tell.
Let’s hit the next one here. Another step towards owning the Jets for our friend, Gary Vee. Dealer Vito Schanbel and Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck Launch NFT platform. They’re calling this ArtOfficial, a new online auction platform that will feature NFTs by established artists. The platform is pronounced like the word artificial. Like other NFT enterprises, ArtOfficial will stage sales that sometimes come with added perks for buyers. In an auction, the buyer of Clemente’s Milarepa’s Dream, an image of a heart pierced by a white flag, would be able to have their portrait painted with the artist within the year of purchase.
That sounds exciting. Gary is trying to stake a claim as a leader in the space and is doing a pretty good job. Among us, we’ve been talking behind the scenes about launching our own NFT project, which will happen soon. We’re inspired by some of the things he’s doing. His NFT holders might get drops from artists that he wants to feature or projects that he thinks are exciting. Good for Gary. This is right up his alley as we’ve been saying from the start. How closely have you been watching what’s going on with Gary Vee, Twobadour?
To be honest, not closely. I was up to date a little with the VeeFriends thing. After that, I’ve been keeping track. What I love about Gary Vee is the energy that he brings to the space and the unfiltered faith and enthusiasm that he has for NFTs. There are no caveats when he speaks about crypto and NFTs. That’s rare in this space. I love that. Also, I love how he infuses these cool ideas of utility and access, which are the things that can create those bridges between the virtual and real when it comes to NFTs. That’s what you want ultimately. Godspeed to what he’s building. I suppose my one word of caution in this would be I don’t think we’ve yet discovered proper alternatives to existing economic models in this space, whether it’s auction houses or marketplaces. I haven’t seen anything spectacular there yet. I’m curious to see if Gary Vee is able to pick that part.
He seems like he’s trying. I like the partnership approach to what he’s doing. He’s built this community and a group of loyal followers. He’s making a bigger pie for everybody by bringing these partners into the fold, sharing some of the benefits and utility through these other projects with his current VeeFriends holders and vice versa. There’s some cool stuff brewing there.
NFT Festival: The beauty of the NFT space is you don’t have to learn about what a blockchain is, what Bitcoin is, the entire history, and all of the technical aspects before diving into the deep end. All it takes is one meaningful conversation with a creator.
I’m interested to continue to watch what he’s doing now and what his plans are for the future. He said that he wants to do this for the remainder of his life, which all of us can say as well. He’s out there mixing it up. This is one of those projects that he’s trying to bring forward to add to the ecosystem. Lots of great stuff there. Amazing time chatting with you, Twobadour. Mind-blowing stuff here overall. We’re looking forward to getting together with you in person.
Likewise. Thanks so much, Jeff, Josh and Eathan. The best experience is in small doses. My sympathies, you put up with me for about an hour.
We try. You have so much going on. We want to make sure folks know where to go to find out the latest and greatest of what you’re up to. Where should they go to learn this?
They can follow me on Twitter, @Twobadour. I’ve got tunnel vision. Everything’s around Dreamverse. Dreamverse.life is an excellent place to keep track of things.
Josh, maybe you wanted to give another bit of detail on this giveaway contest that’s forthcoming.
We’re super excited to work with you guys on a rather big and unique contest. The VIP tickets are sold out and they’re generously giving our followers access to one VIP ticket as the grand prize and then seven general admission tickets. Come to New York City on November 4th, 2021 and hang out with us, Edge of NFT. Pretty much the entire who’s who of the NFT community will be there having a great time. This is going to be a contest that people can learn about on Twitter. It involves doing some different things to maximize your chances of winning these tickets. We’re looking forward to hanging out with whoever does win in real life on November 4th, 2021.
Keep an eye on our socials and you’ll get the deets. 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 all so much better. Go to iTunes, rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole.
Do you want to help co-create Edge of NFT with us, got guests 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 next episode for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important links:
- Beeple
- Metapurse
- MetaKovan
- Cardano
- Dreamverse
- CryptoKitties
- CryptoPunks
- Decentraland
- Cryptovoxels
- @EdgeOfNFT – Twitter
- TIMEPieces
- Holly13
- OneOf
- Dapper Labs
- Flow
- Animoca Brands
- Metacask
- The Syndicate
- Drue Kataoka
- Refik Anadol
- Diana Sinclair – Twitter
- David Bianchi
- YellowHeart – past episode
- OneOf – past episode
- Animoca Brands – past episode
- Mattia Cuttini
- Sparrow
- Angie Taylor
- Josie Bellini
- Metageist
- SnowFro
- NBA Top Shot
- Axie Infinity
- F1 Delta Time
- Sapiens
- Skin In The Game
- Snow Crash
- Alethea
- Mirror World
- Async.art
- Cardano’s Commercial Arm to invest $100 million in DeFi, NFTs, and Blockchain Education – CoinDesk article
- DraftKings
- Cloudflare
- Dealer Vito Schanbel, Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck Launch NFT platform – Lebanonews article
- ArtOfficial
- VeeFriends
- @Twobadour – Twitter
- iTunes – Edge of NFT
- Contact@EdgeOfNFT.com
.webp)
.webp)
.jpg)
.webp)
.jpg)
.svg)
