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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Sunday feature. I'm Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: Over the last four and a half years of Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed, we've spoken to plenty of founders, plenty of

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Speaker 1: people who've had an idea for a startup and given

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Speaker 1: it a crack, but there's not many that have actually

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Speaker 1: then gone on to achieve what today's guest has. When

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Speaker 1: we spoke to Robbie Ferguson exactly three years ago, his business, Immutable,

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Speaker 1: was itself about three years old. It is a blockchain

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Speaker 1: startup running a platform for online games and NFTs non

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Speaker 1: fungible tokens, as well as a crypto tooken. Now, just

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Speaker 1: a few months after this conversation was recorded, Immutable was

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Speaker 1: valued at around three and a half billion dollars. It

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Speaker 1: has shifted around a bit since then, but that's not

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Speaker 1: bad at all for a startup being run by two brothers,

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Speaker 1: and not bad at all when you consider that when

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Speaker 1: Sean Aylmers spoke with Robbie Ferguson in September of twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one, Robbie was just twenty four years old. This

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Speaker 1: is a great chat explaining an awful lot about the

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Speaker 1: way the digital world World might end up working. I

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Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Daily Interview. I'm Sean Alma.

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Speaker 2: If you're like me, you've probably heard stories about NFT's

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Speaker 2: non fungible tokens and not really understood what's going on.

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Speaker 2: A lot of those stories have been reported as extravagant novelties,

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Speaker 2: like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey selling his first ever tweet

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Speaker 2: as an a NFT for almost three million US dollars.

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Speaker 2: Along the same lines, digital art is being sold by

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Speaker 2: auction house Christie's, and original versions of songs and videos

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Speaker 2: are also being purchased as NFTs. Put simply, a non

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Speaker 2: fungible token is a unique digital token, usually part of

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Speaker 2: the Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain. The important part is that it's unique,

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Speaker 2: meaning the NFT of a digital artwork, a video, or

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Speaker 2: song or similar can be verified as the original. It

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Speaker 2: all sounds very high tech, but an Australian company is

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Speaker 2: taking it mainstream and they've just raised eighty two million

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Speaker 2: dollars to help do it. Robbie Ferguson is the co

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Speaker 2: founder of Immutable and it's my guest this morning. Robbie.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to fear and greed.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Joan, it's great to be here.

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Speaker 2: One of the great things about my job, Robbie, is

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Speaker 2: that I get to talk to experts about things which

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Speaker 2: I know very little about. How did I go in

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Speaker 2: my explanation of what an NFT is?

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Speaker 3: I think very accurate?

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Speaker 4: Actually, So, I think the important thing to remember about

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Speaker 4: NFTs is that right now, although all the news is

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Speaker 4: centered on a few use cases of it, that's just

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Speaker 4: what they are use cases, and ultimately all an NFT

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Speaker 4: is is a news technology which allows us to enable

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Speaker 4: people to own digital stuff. And that stuff could be

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Speaker 4: anything from Jack Dorsey's tweet to a piece of digital art,

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Speaker 4: to an item insider, video game, or even to a

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Speaker 4: financial asset. So the implications are very broad, and we're

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Speaker 4: just tapping the surface of what NFTs will encapsulate.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so we talk about Jack Dawsy's tweet because of

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Speaker 2: the cost of it. Why should normal people care about

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Speaker 2: NFTs at the moment we're talking about very specific things,

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Speaker 2: But is the use case potentially far greater?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I would answer why should normal people care about

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Speaker 4: bitcoin or about ethereum? And the answer I would give

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Speaker 4: to that is because it's likely going to be the

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Speaker 4: back end of the financial institutions that you use on

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Speaker 4: a daily basis in a decade, and we're seeing these

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Speaker 4: types of cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications take over centralized finance everywhere.

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Speaker 4: We're seeing new financial technology companies use DeFi as part

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Speaker 4: of their back end. We've seen an insane uptake on

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Speaker 4: adoption over the past year, and we're seeing that same

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Speaker 4: trend now applied to NFTs, except the use cases are

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Speaker 4: slightly different. So the fundamental value proposition of blockchain is

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Speaker 4: the ability for people to own things uniquely enforced almost

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Speaker 4: The example I like to use is physics, because if

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Speaker 4: I send you ten dollars on a bank account, there's

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Speaker 4: nothing to prove that I no longer have that ten dollars.

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Speaker 4: It's just a line on a database somewhere enforced by

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Speaker 4: that back But if I give you, say a physical

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Speaker 4: ten dollar note or a physical item worth ten dollars,

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Speaker 4: the rules of physics enforce that I no longer own

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Speaker 4: that because only one instance of that can exist in

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Speaker 4: the world. It's literally assets. Now we can do that

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Speaker 4: same stuff with digital assets. We saw it with bitcoin

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Speaker 4: and ethereum for fundable stuff so currencies and NFTs now

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Speaker 4: allow us to do that for any unique digital object,

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Speaker 4: and the implications are huge. It's come out in the

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Speaker 4: form of art, which is awesome and sexy, and people

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Speaker 4: are getting really excited about the huge volumes. But I

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Speaker 4: actually think some of the mainstream use cases that are

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Speaker 4: going to come out are the ownership of in game

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Speaker 4: items in video games, the ownership of unique financial assets.

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Speaker 4: There's a huge topology of financial assets that aren't fundable

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Speaker 4: in vator at all. Whether they are insurance contracts which

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Speaker 4: ensure a unique set of circumstances, whether it is a

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Speaker 4: term deposit which is distinguished from other term deposits based

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Speaker 4: on it's yield rate and the nature of the underlying

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Speaker 4: asset being held. All of these assets can now be

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Speaker 4: held in a unique manner with the same benefits that

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Speaker 4: blockchain is brought to fundable currencies.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a few things there. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: take a step back and I'm going to come to

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Speaker 2: the financial example, because I think that's really interesting the

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Speaker 2: way I'm thinking about it, it's kind of like a

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Speaker 2: Grand Master painting or something like that, or even a

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Speaker 2: money or something like that which someone owns the original

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Speaker 2: though there are lots of prints of it around the place,

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Speaker 2: but someone actually owns it. And what we're talking here

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Speaker 2: is that digital taken You own the original digital asset.

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Speaker 2: What happens in terms of do you own the rights

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Speaker 2: to reproduce it? Do you own so when I'm thinking

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Speaker 2: of the money I'm thinking of to reproduce the mona,

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Speaker 2: theoretically at least you're supposed to ask for permission to

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Speaker 2: do that. Is that the same in NFT?

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Speaker 3: That's a great question.

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Speaker 4: How I poster that is, if you buy, say a

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Speaker 4: rare piece of art, do you suddenly get the rights

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Speaker 4: to reproducing that artwork, to distributing it, to putting it

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Speaker 4: on T shirts? And the answer is yeah, well it depends, right,

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Speaker 4: It depends on the particular arrangement of the IP. And

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Speaker 4: so I think the same AUNTT applies here, which is

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Speaker 4: that's kind of the beautiful thing about NFTs is it

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Speaker 4: doesn't actually rely on law or IP rights to enforce value.

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Speaker 4: It's just you own the thing. But obviously different IP

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Speaker 4: rights could be associated based on whatever contract you're organizing

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Speaker 4: with the owner of that IP.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So if you're tepping this to the use case

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Speaker 2: for everyday people like me. Potentially, then NFTs can come

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Speaker 2: into their own We're talking about fairly bespoke contracts without

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Speaker 2: financial contracts, insurance contracts, that type of thing, Is that right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: So I would say any financial instrument which is unique

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Speaker 4: in nature so you'd want to trade uniquely, should and

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Speaker 4: will be encapsulated by NFTs at some point in time.

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Speaker 3: And there are huge amounts of this.

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Speaker 4: So, as I said before, any insurance contract you have

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Speaker 4: is generally going to be fellow unique. You're ensuring maybe

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Speaker 4: a particular property, you have a particular set of risk

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Speaker 4: parameters based on the people procuring that insurance, and if

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Speaker 4: you want to make that tradeable, and that the world

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Speaker 4: is leaning towards everything being tradable, whether that's at a

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Speaker 4: consumer a consumer level, or whether that's at a business

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Speaker 4: to business level to enable you know, reinsurance and better

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Speaker 4: forms of risk management and more competitive business models. Where

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Speaker 4: go to see everything trend toward that, and suddenly we

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Speaker 4: can take that say insurance contract encapsulated as an n

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Speaker 4: FT and have it be traded with that value proposition.

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Speaker 2: So if we go down this path, what I can

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Speaker 2: imagine is that NFT has become a much more efficient

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Speaker 2: way of trading all sorts of instruments in the future.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly efficient, and most importantly, they're exposed to all

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Speaker 4: the innovation that we're seeing in defire today. So it

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Speaker 4: means that let's say you have your insurance contract and

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Speaker 4: you know it's worth some particular amount. You can then

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Speaker 4: use it to be staked as collateral and gain a

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Speaker 4: loan in a fundable currency that you could use more readily,

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Speaker 4: or you could use it in some other type of

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Speaker 4: DeFi contract. And it's this instant interoperability with every kind

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Speaker 4: of other decentralized financial institution build as an application. That's

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Speaker 4: the true kind of power here.

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Speaker 2: Okay, stay with me. Robbie will be back in a minute.

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Speaker 2: My guest this morning is Robbie Ferguson, co founder of Immutable.

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Speaker 2: So the search of the market for anfts has been

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Speaker 2: quite incredible. I was reading some numbers and it's gone

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Speaker 2: from being measured in one hundreds of millions dollars to

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Speaker 2: the billions of dollars a quarter on quarter. Why such

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Speaker 2: growth do you think?

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Speaker 3: So?

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Speaker 4: The majority of the growth in NFTs over the past

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Speaker 4: year has been in collectibles and art, so really valuable

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Speaker 4: financial assets where people are buying it with probably the

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Speaker 4: expectation of they'll increase in value in the future. And

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Speaker 4: this is how we've seen, you know, literally NFT volumes

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Speaker 4: go from say twenty million a month to hundreds of

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Speaker 4: millions in some cases even billions, which is pretty insane.

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Speaker 4: And then I think we're starting to see volumes pick

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Speaker 4: up in gaming as well, which is quite exciting. And

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Speaker 4: the startup quote here and this is how we originally

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Speaker 4: got into the business, this is why we regally took

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Speaker 4: it up, is way back in twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 3: We were looking at when.

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Speaker 4: An NFT first came out in the form of crypto punk,

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Speaker 4: which obviously has made a name for itself over the

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Speaker 4: past couple of months, and we thought this was the

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Speaker 4: technology that would allow people to take items in video games.

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Speaker 4: And people pay literally one hundred billion US dollars per

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Speaker 4: year to purchase items in video games to consume content.

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Speaker 4: They're not purchasing Robbie why, Because it's their identity. It's

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Speaker 4: how they purchased entertainment. It's you know, why would you

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Speaker 4: purchase a Red Sox jersey or you know, a cool

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Speaker 4: piece of memorabilia. It allows them to connect with their friends.

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Speaker 4: And this also includes you know, utility based consumables such

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Speaker 4: as in candy Crush, buying gems that allow you to

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Speaker 4: progress the next stage. But importantly, what it's not is

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Speaker 4: it's not buying the box, DVD or you know, game

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Speaker 4: disc that the last year to actually access the game.

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Speaker 4: People spending on in game content, and of course they're

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Speaker 4: getting completely ripped off because they can't sell any of this.

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Speaker 4: If you buy a skin in Fortnite, if you buy

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Speaker 4: trading cards and heartstone, you don't have any ability to

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Speaker 4: resell that ever, you have zero rights, and even marketplaces

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Speaker 4: like Steam are incredibly controlled and incredibly restricted, and you

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Speaker 4: really don't have any assurance that they won't just reprint

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Speaker 4: a whole bunch of that item in the future and

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Speaker 4: you remove it to zero by inflation, and so that

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Speaker 4: entire market would be instantly replaced by a varsity superior

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Speaker 4: model if it were done with NFTs, because now people

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Speaker 4: have the option to sell it, they can have guaranteed scarcity.

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Speaker 4: So you could say this Fortnite skin is only one

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Speaker 4: of ten thousand to ever exist, and that's really radical

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Speaker 4: in a digital context. We've literally never been able to

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Speaker 4: do that before and The final thing, and probably my

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Speaker 4: favorite thing, is for the first time ever, we can

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Speaker 4: have digital providence. And the example like if here is

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Speaker 4: the gloves Muhammad Ali to use to knock out George

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Speaker 4: Foreman in the Rumble of the Jungle, worth far more

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Speaker 4: than any other making kind of that glove from that year,

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Speaker 4: and the reason are you can prove that he wore

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Speaker 4: these gloves to knock out George Foreman. And for the

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Speaker 4: first time ever, we can now apply that context and

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Speaker 4: providence to digital assets. So you could take the skin

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Speaker 4: that Ninja, a famous streamer, uses to win a tournament

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Speaker 4: in Fortnite, and he can auction that off in the

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Speaker 4: moment and say and prove to everyone that that did

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Speaker 4: the asset was used by him to have that particular experience,

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Speaker 4: which is really really cool.

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Speaker 2: In a sense, it's just an evolution really of what

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Speaker 2: happens in the physical world, because it is a digital

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Speaker 2: world now and anyone under the age of forty is

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Speaker 2: far more digital than physical in many ways, and just

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Speaker 2: how they consume things, how they live their lives, how

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Speaker 2: they entertain themselves. So it's really just an evolution from

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Speaker 2: physical to digital and owning that sort of assets.

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Speaker 3: That's exactly it.

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Speaker 4: Immutable EE mission statement is to make digital worlds real,

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Speaker 4: and the reason is we think that people will self

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Speaker 4: actualize and live their life lives in digital universes. In

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Speaker 4: the future, people will spend a huge ton of time

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Speaker 4: in virtual reality and gaming. We're already seeing it, and

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Speaker 4: it's important that those people have property rights that are

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Speaker 4: just as strong as in the real world.

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Speaker 2: So you've raised eighty two million dollars. What are you

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Speaker 2: going to do with the money? What's the plan for Immutable.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the vast majority it will be spent on hiring

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Speaker 4: some people, to be honest. So we're doing a global

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Speaker 4: expansion through a few main ways. Obviously, we have our

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Speaker 4: internal content God's unchained in build of Guardians, which we're

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Speaker 4: really excited about, and we'll be bolstering those teams to

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Speaker 4: help take their mainstream and hit.

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Speaker 3: Millions of users.

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Speaker 4: And we also have our protocol so Immutable lex, which

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Speaker 4: is our scalting infrastructure, and we'll be building an engineering

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Speaker 4: team that's significantly lives than the one we have today.

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Speaker 4: And we'll also be building a global go to market team,

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Speaker 4: so business development, success integration.

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Speaker 2: So it's about gaming, it's also about becoming a marketplace

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Speaker 2: some extent.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, we call ourselves a exchange protocol because we actually

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Speaker 4: have the protocol that powers marketplaces, so we don't care

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Speaker 4: about people coming to our website. What we're doing is

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Speaker 4: allowing anyone to build a business based on NFTs. Whether

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Speaker 4: you're a game and you just want to credit inside

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Speaker 4: your game and allow people to trade from there, you know,

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Speaker 4: whether it's our upcoming integration with open c which is

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Speaker 4: the largest NFT marketplace, which means anyone will be able

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Speaker 4: to trade an asset on a mutable X via open See.

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Speaker 4: Our goal is to be this global liquidity and scaling

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Speaker 4: layer behind these digital assets.

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Speaker 2: So facilitator as much as anything else exactly. Okay, so

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Speaker 2: you're doing some very cutting edge things. How does Australia

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Speaker 2: generally stack up against the rest of the world in

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Speaker 2: this area.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I actually think Australia has been punching above

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Speaker 4: its weight in terms of crypto. So we have some

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Speaker 4: really cool home growing startups here. There's Cain who founded Synthetics,

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Speaker 4: which is now a decentralized organization that was you know,

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Speaker 4: he's referred to as the father of defive farming, so

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Speaker 4: he really basically popularized this idea of staying and farming

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Speaker 4: in DeFi protocols, which is the ability to bootstrap the

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Speaker 4: growth of a DeFi application by incentivizing newss with tokens

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Speaker 4: for being early participants or risk cats in that protocol.

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Speaker 3: So that's been really cool.

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Speaker 4: And then we're actually seeing a bunch of other startups

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Speaker 4: get funding literally even today, whether they're building on different blockchains.

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Speaker 4: So I think Australia is one hundred percent punching above

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Speaker 4: its weight. And with the popularization of NFTs, we're seeing

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Speaker 4: a huge influx of demand to Immutable, whether it's people

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Speaker 4: wanting to come and work in the blockchain industry or

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Speaker 4: specifically on NFTs because of the applications they seek to entertainment.

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Speaker 2: It's been really awesome, Robbie, this has been one of

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Speaker 2: the best lessons I've had in months, possibly years. I

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Speaker 2: have learned so much.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad to help you on it's exciting stuff.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: That was Robbie Ferguson, co founder of Immutable. This is

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Speaker 2: a Fear and Greed daily interview. Join me every morning

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Speaker 2: for the full Fear and Greed podcast with all the

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Speaker 2: business news you need to know. I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy

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Speaker 2: your day.

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Speaker 4: Oh I me