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As NFT technology develops, this whole new world we are creating is becoming more tangible and less abstract. And what a way to bring new life to your NFTs than actually interacting with them physically and digitally, i.e. phygitally! Leading the way is an innovative company called Pillz, that is pushing the envelope in what is possible with phygital wearables. In this episode, Victoria Pinne and Marat Saakyan explain how their new product bridges physical and digital experiences and acts as an extension of their owners’ digital identities. Tune in and get some ideas about how the world will look like with these wearables on the loose!

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Listen to the podcast here

Victoria Pinne And Marat Saakyan Of Pillz — Phygital Wearables For NFTs

This is Victoria Pinne.

I’m Marat Saakyan of Pillz, the Phygital fashion and tech startup that merges Web3 with the real world.

We are here on the Edge of NFT, the fashionable tech show that delivers you the most interesting projects in the Web3 space. Keep reading.

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Stay tuned for this episode to learn how Pillz is creating digital web3 wearables that stretch the imagination about what's possible for the future of fashion and how 40 people passionately working 16 hours a day for months makes for one of the coolest new hardware devices to be released. Find out which questions our guests choose to answer in a super rapid round of Quick Hitters. All this and more in this episode.

Before we move on, don't forget that our Outer Edge LA event return to Los Angeles from March 20th through the 23rd, 2023. You can catch up on all of the discussions, presentations and more by heading over to Watch.OuterEdge.live and registering with your email address. You will have access to over 60 captivating conversations and performances. Binge watchers are welcome. Netflix lookout and we will see you inside.

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In our sponsored spotlight episode, we are excited to host Victoria Pinne and Marat Saakyan from Pillz, a unique platform extending your digital identity and joining us in spirit is Mike Nassif. We will explain that later but let's introduce the crew. Victoria is the Cofounder and CMO of Pillz Incorporated, with over a decade in the fashion industry. She brings her expertise from her tenure as the Area Head of Marketing and Innovations at Puma. Marat Saakyan serves as the CEO of Pillz, a forward-thinking hardware company innovating the realm of Web3 devices. His extensive background includes experience at Ernst & Young in several years in hardware development.

Mike Nassif is joining us in spirit. His next role will be improving the bandwidth of his ISP. He is using it for this show. It's a bit spotty. We decided to pull an Audible. If he can, he will make a comment here and we might spit it out for you guys but he's here behind the scenes. Pillz offers an innovative solution that allows individuals to showcase their NFTs as a physical plus digital accessory, be it a necklace, bracelet, key chain or any other item. Pillz enhances your interaction with your cherished NFT collectibles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Let's jump in.

We are excited to have you on the show. I'm glad we could work this out.

I’m glad to meet you.

Where are you joining us from?

I'm joining from Yerevan, which is Armenia, if you know that country.

I'm in Dubai.

We got some rural travelers here. I got to get over to Dubai sooner than later. It seems to be where all the actions are happening in Web3. Let's talk about Pillz. It's an interesting extension of digital identity. It offers this tangible immersive experience with NFT collectibles and games and adds to the utility side of the house, which is something we care about deeply on the show and talk about a lot. Marat, maybe you can walk us through the genesis of the project and any special features of what you guys have been building.

Pillz is a device. It is a physical item. It started a jewelry project with some electronics. We were focused on showing and displaying your NFTs since it was expensive digital assets that people couldn't show off. After that, we understood that Pillz is more than a display for your NFTs. We started deeper work. Now it is a small computer like a smartphone in a tiny shell. It has integrated graphics and computing. It is a gaming platform like a console with games in it, like Tamagotchi games. It is a device for NFT gaming and displaying. What we aim is to become a company that creates devices for your digital identity.

Pillz aims to become a company that creates devices for your digital identity. Click To Tweet

I'm on the website, Eathan. At some point in the show, we may have an unboxing but I do encourage readers to go over to Pillz.Tech and see for themselves what we are talking about here because it is a cultural piece of physical identity to match your digital identity. It is done in a fashion-forward way and quite special.

When I lived in New York City, I would go over to New York University. They had a special Master's program where people could work on innovative usages of tag, hardware and software integrations. It was called the Interactive Telecommunications Program. This reminds me of that innovative stuff. I'm wondering if you could walk us through the genesis. How did this get started here? What other notable features of what's capable of?

I can say from my side and Victoria will say from her side. My main experience is in science and microelectronics. Our team is XPRIZE Alumni. We worked mainly on space and innovation development. We worked with unique materials and technologies. That is why we can make some unusual solutions from the technical side. We were an engineering team before we met Tori.

I have been into fashion for several years already. I have been heading the Marketing in Puma and Innovations for a couple of years. I did some projects within digital fashion. It is a funny story because I have heard that my husband, who is an engineer, was talking to Marat. They had a startup studio. I pitched one of my ideas which was digital jabberly. For some reason, they liked this idea. This is how it all happened. Within all ideas which were pitched, the current idea survived and here we are.

It was 800 hypotheses and only 1 of them survived.

We appreciate the need to bring your passion for digital collectibles into real life. We had CryptoJeweler on the show. We did a cool digital experience with DressX. This is one of the pioneering areas to build in terms of the long-term future of Web3. One question I have for you, Marat, is where does hardware fit into Web3 infrastructure, in your opinion?

I may have a specific view but hardware is always the basement for software. Years ago, the internet was not so popular. Once personal computers developed and went to the market, regular people went to the internet and got access to information and communication from one country to another, from one continent to another, in seconds.

It is very hard and it is about creating infrastructure but it is the only way to make something big. Hardware and personal devices are the only way to expand the industry, make Web3 more popular and make mass adoption. If will be a tangible, funny and cute device that any person will understand, Web3 will become massive.

Let's talk about the hardware for a moment and put on your CTO hat if you could borrow from Mike but you built something here that looks like a pretty sturdy piece of hardware that people can wear. What's the battery life? How does it get programmed? How does all that work?

It's the hardest thing I created in my life. It is years of development. We weren't public but we developed it with our internal resources. It's a new version, which will go public on the 15th of June, 2023. We will survive from 4 to 5 days because we use a 4-nanometer technology process for the chipset. It's also in a pack with a charging station. It is like an Airpod case. A case for Pillz will make about one month of charging. You will have to charge your case once a month.

It has different protocols. It has NFC, Bluetooth, BLE, WiFi and hermetic. It is IP67. It has a good display, 326 points per inch. It has a temperature sensor, higher scope accelerometer, GPS and everything that a usual smartphone or top smartwatch has. We excluded some features because we wanted to make a specific device. It is specific for Web3. You can upload nothing if you don't own it. If you own NFT, you can upload it on the device. You can't upload an image and come to the community. If you have CryptoPunk, Doodles and Club, you can upload them. It is down the way from showing something via your Pillz.

Eathan, I'm still on the Pillz website. To give our readers a visual, this could be a pendant or wristband. It also has a carabiner setting. You can rock it as an assessor with whatever your look is for the given day.

It is a fashion device. One of our main concepts is to merge fashion with high technology.

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I got my Garmin watch. This one does not necessarily track heart rate variability. I was like, “ I will get a new one that does,” which models do. There is another device that is just for that but you have to hook it up to the ear lobe. It illustrates what you are talking about. Wearables have been a hot topic for decades. It is slowly but surely becoming more inherent in everything that we do.

You made an interesting point. We have all these tools at our disposal but it doesn't always make sense to put them in this package to do this and that. It makes sense to specialize and give people exactly what they want and the device they want. You have hit upon something interesting that people are going to want to do. My brain is already running away with all the fun things you could do with GPS technology, piggybacking on what is going on with Pokémon GO. It is fascinating. Victoria, could you elaborate here on how Pillz functions as a digital identity device?

We help, with Pillz wearables, to bring people's online identities sync into real life. It is not just about showcasing to which community you belong but this is super important. You can show off that you belong to a fashion, art or NFT community. It is also about gaming because we will have cool ideas behind our game. We will bring digital pets that will be unique for each holder. It will integrate everything you want to bring to it.

For example, if you are into art and you visit art galleries and museums, our device will track that. As soon as you enter some specific place, we will have partnerships with particular places within key cities. You will be able to connect to NFC tech. Your digital pet will get more proper trade within an NFT. It is a dynamic NFT. If you are more into sports, it will be more strong. It is cool. It is not just about showcasing your NFTs but it is also about gamification.

Pillz is not just about showcasing your NFTs. It's also about gamification. Click To Tweet

I also understand that you are integrating reality with Web3 gaming, which is one of the big aspects of Web3 that is unlocked through the power of blockchain. Could you expound a little bit on this, Marat?

If I can, I like to add some points about digital identity. The concept of digital identity includes that you have your Pillz and it identifies you in the physical world. If you go to some party, you can join this party by identifying yourself with Pillz. If you click Pillz at the entry of the club, it will unlock if you have NFT of these NFT parties. It will not unlock and will be closed if you don't have the asset of this collection that makes this party.

We focused on games. We created our own game. It is a story of creating your digital pet from Cellz to the complete pet and transferring it from mobile to the Pillz device and playing with social mechanics. We were inspired by Tamagotchi, Pokémon GO, Cyber Car and Nintendo DS. It is an old technology. It is about finding new people and communicating with them. Two people, with these pets meet, can breed their pets and get new digital pets. They will have children. They will also be minted as NFTs. All interactions are inside of a blockchain. It all exists in Web3 and physical reality at the same moment.

There will be a lot more people running around with illegitimate children once these get exciting.

This is a major information that you shared with us. I appreciate you putting an exclamation point on the previous question. CryptoKitties was great but if you imagine your technology was around when CryptoKitties came out, how much more viral would CryptoKitties have been at that moment?

Any other cool things to mention about the gaming features or do we pretty much cover it?

We are making software development kits for other game dev studios. We make games on our platform. We are making standard game mechanics for NFT collections to gamify their collections. If you upload your Doodles or different NFT asset on Pillz, it becomes more functional. We started development with a different hardware company that also makes something like Tamagotchi. We are creating an incredible game. We will announce it in a couple of weeks.

The first Pillz collection is scheduled for June 2023. Are there any exciting aspects of the first collection that our readers can look forward to that you haven't covered already?

The collection will be special because it is limited. We will have another batch of collections later but this one will be limited to 5,000 NFTs claimable for devices. After personal claims devices, they will get a playable character. Besides that, you will get a whole full package. You will get general fittings. That is something exclusive for this collection because we are not sure that we will add everything within the next boxes within the next drops. Users will be getting all three fittings. You can mix and match your device with different fittings. You will have a super cool unboxing experience. Maybe we can show it.

We expect you to ship these to us.

It will have a 20% discount. It will be $199. Its early bird is 5,000 devices batch. You will get the device, three fittings, a carabiner, a pendant and a bracelet. You will get your Cellz. It is a basement of your character for Cellz Universe in our game. It is a usual experimental demo kit delivering it but it is a bit different. That will be in the early bird.

For our readers, we got a cool cardboard hipster box. It has a ripcord type of opening experience.

There is a pill-shaped box, which makes sense there. It is like geriatric pills. There is a cylindrical thing that pops out and little micro cylinders that pop out of that. This is brand new. The pill is like a protective layer of plastic. It looks like it's not only something that you open up. You get to find different pieces and assemble them in a fun way. It looks like he is lacing up like a chain. There is a chain version with a pendant that you could wear around your neck.

One of the great things is engineering. You put it with a 90-grade angle. It's on magnets.

It rotates within the frame. This also doubles as a fidget spinner.

You also have a carabiner.

I can pop it on my back. When you said carabiner, I was imagining something like climbing but this is a fashionable carabiner. You could pop it out of the pendant in a smooth way and pop it into the carabiner.

It is also like a fidget spinner. It has a charging station in its charging case. One of my favorite details about this charging case is that it has not only a magnetic connection to the Pillz but it also connects with MagSafe with my iPhone. It charges iPhone and Pillz.

It has another cylinder. There is a cylindrical theme, although some of them are more like hockey puck-shaped cylinders. It is a magnetic hockey puck-shaped device where it can charge the device and your phone. It is all part of the bigger kit. I'm assuming you plug in that hockey puck and charge that up and it can recharge.

That's how it works.

You would connect it to the app, which is either Android or iOS, to program it.

It is easy and funny that you upload our application. It is safe. You log in with your MetaMask, trusted wallet or any other wallet ledger. You connect your crypto wallets. In your library, you can find your NFTs. You choose your NFTs. You can upload it with NFC. By touching your iPhone with your Pillz, it transfers to your Pillz. It has secure connections. It is very hard to explain. Only Mike can explain for five minutes how it works and why it is so safe.

We will find another time for Mike to get on and get into the technical side. Appreciating that this is a sponsored segment, we are always authentic with the types of folks we have on the show and choosing them. I'm impressed. I have a background in physical goods and CPG. I dabbled a little in fashion. I know how hard it is to build something like this and make it elegant, especially post-COVID supply chain world. I can only imagine how difficult it is. You guys are coming in at $199. Personally, it feels like a reasonably attractive price point. Kudos to you guys for working hard on something so special. I'm proud of you all.

Thank you. It is hardly connected with COVID supply chains and things in Taiwan and China. It is hard to get chips and microelectronics.

I thought you were passing it along an assembly line, the three of you and putting it all together. At least you got some cool outsourcing. I would have assigned Josh to mold the metal and put the chip inside. You guys are smarter than I would be.

It is a big work of a big amount of people. It is about 40 people working for 16 hours a day. We didn't stop. Now, it's about 80 to 100 people working to launch. It is the biggest project I worked for my life.

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For Quick Hitters, we will play it safe. We will ask you guys to pick a couple of your favorite Quick Hitters and tell us which ones your best answers are. Before we do that, what is your roadmap look like going forward? Anything we missed that we should mention for readers that they should look forward to or did we cover most of it?

I can tell you more about the roadmap. We launch our first batch of 5,000 devices on the 15th of June, 2023. In the summer of 2023, we will launch public sales. We have unlimited with capacity drop and only by time. After that, we closed sales for more than half a year before we stabilized our production processes. When we get devices in stock, we will continue our sales.

The specific thing is that you can not only buy your device in a delivery type. You can buy NFT. It is claimable and burnable. You can go to our website, burn it and make your delivery or you can sell it to anybody on the secondary market. We think that because more than half a year we will not make sales, there will be a lot of people who will buy 1,000 to 2,000 devices like NFTs in a row and sell them on the secondary market for the next half a year.

It is going to be interesting. It was great to hear how many people are working on it. It adds more information about the depth of this project and how impressive it is.

We are going to have an open edition time-limited drop after the upcoming limited one. We end sales, as Marat told. We intend to do a few limited collaborations with NFT collections like blue-chip NFT collections and high fashion brands. We do a lot in terms of the fashion aspect of our brand. We have a concept of co-creation with artists. We are proud that we were already featured in Vogue Business, High Bay and many other media outlets. That is something important to mention within our roadmap.

I'm receiving a message from the Ether here. He did have some interesting comments. He said, “Besides the security aspect, it is great to mention that there is a diversity of options to authenticate in the app. They have more than 1000 wallets on multiple blockchains, email, OTP, HOTP and a unique way to fuse those options in the Pillz ID and ingest digital assets like ERC721, ERC1155 and other standards.”

“For the record, Pillz is not a cold wallet. They do not store private keys, wallet telemetry or NFTs themselves anywhere on their infrastructure. You don't have to worry about that aspect of it. It is all stored solely on the blockchain.” I have never channeled before but I did a great job. Josh, what do you say we have a little bit of fun and move on to Quick Hitters in a fun and quick way with these guys? Are you up for it?

Yes, let's do it.

We have communicated the list to you. We also know there is a little bit of a language barrier. You were asking us to clarify some of these questions. Instead of doing the whole Quick Hitters and having you answer each one of them, both of you, why don't you pick 1, 2 or 3 from the list that you think are fun answers and tell us your answers to the Quick Hitters? Does anything stand out to either of you already? Victoria, do you have any ones that you picked?

I thought one of the questions was psychological. If you could buy anything in the world that is for sale, what would it be?

It is a great question to ask someone in the world of eCommerce and fashion.

It was difficult but the first thing which came up to my mind was I would love to buy a flight to the moon or Mars if you could buy it.

They might let you go to Mars for free if you are willing to go but it is a one-way ticket.

I found the question, what is the most recent thing you sold on social and in person? For weeks, I don't go out of my home. I don't buy and sell anything. The most recent thing was in January 2023. I sold 400,000 shares of Pillz Incorporated.

Let us know if there are any others that particularly stand out to you. Otherwise, we can move on. Anything else you are dying to answer from that list? Marat? How about Victoria? No pressure. Are you ready to move on, Victoria or do you have another question?

We can move on. The rest of the answers are regular.

Thanks a lot for playing along. That was fun. Thanks for mixing it up with us that way. Before we wrap here, we always like to find out where readers can go to learn more about you and the project you are working on. One of you can share those details on socials and websites.

We are presented within almost all social networks. Instagram, Twitter and TikTok are @PillzTech. Discord is Pillz and our website. I think I have mentioned everything.

It turns out we have a giveaway, which is cool with you guys. It is a free mint of the Pillz NFT, dropping June 15th, 2023. I wish I was eligible for this but we have to give it to the audience. I’m excited to participate. Thanks for that. Any other details you want to mention about that or is it pretty much covered?

It is covered.

Look out on our socials for details. Thank you so much for joining us. We are excited about it. I’m impressed with what you have accomplished. We have officially reached the outer limit of the show. Thanks for exploring with us. We got space for more adventures on this starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey much better.

How? Go to Spotify or iTunes. Rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great Web3 content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.

Important Links

• Pillz
• Interactive Telecommunications Program
• XPRIZE Alumni
• CryptoJeweler – Past Episode
• DressX – Past Episode
• Instagram – PillzTech
• Twitter – PillzTech
• @PillzTech – TikTok
• Pillz – Discord
• Spotify – Edge Of NFT Podcast
• iTunes – Edge Of NFT Podcast