Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Murray Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: And this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg IHOD podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, March fifteen. I'm Annerera, Senior editor for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: In for Stacy Murray Ishmael. Some might argue that the
Speaker 1: popularity of NFTs faded as quickly as it rose as
Speaker 1: a refresher. Non Fungible tokens, also known as NFTs, are
Speaker 1: digital certificates of authenticity for anything from collectibles to art.
Speaker 1: They're usually minted on the Etherean blockchain, but are now
Speaker 1: also available on the Bitcoin chain. NFTs boomed in early
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, when the cryptomania was at fever pitch,
Speaker 1: but a steep decline in sales and prices quickly followed.
Speaker 1: As twenty twenty two crypto winter set in and digital
Speaker 1: acid bankruptcy is piled up, culminating with the collapse of
Speaker 1: FTX late last year. As we move through twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: though some crypto traders are cautiously optimistic, the price of
Speaker 1: bitcoin has risen more than forty percent, and some investors
Speaker 1: have even managed to make hefty profits selling their NFT investments.
Speaker 1: Former bond traders Ovifarouk and Mike Anderson have become well
Speaker 1: known for recently selling their iconic board apes for around
Speaker 1: seventy eight eight, which translated to roughly nine point two
Speaker 1: five million dollars at the time. That's a whopping seven
Speaker 1: hundred percent profit. Board Apes are one of the most
Speaker 1: popular NFT art collections. You may have seen them online before.
Speaker 1: They are essentially digital pictures of apes and varying outfits
Speaker 1: and facial expressions. Joining me in the studio today to
Speaker 1: discuss the ins and outs of trading NFTs or Bloomberg
Speaker 1: reporter abinav Ramnarayan and Ovifarouk, co founder of Canary Labs.
Speaker 1: Abby ov thanks so much for joining me today. It's
Speaker 1: good to have two people in the flesh inside the
Speaker 1: studio off and we do these like recorded from all
Speaker 1: over the world, so it's quite nice. I can't really
Speaker 1: see your faces properly because of the mics, but probably alright,
Speaker 1: all right, so we're starting. You're gonna you know, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a fun episode because we already have some
Speaker 1: humor from the beginning. So let's start over. Do you
Speaker 1: want to maybe give our listeners an overview of what
Speaker 1: sort of the board ape collection is, um, and why
Speaker 1: you bought it and when you first got interested, and
Speaker 1: then we can take further steps back to what you
Speaker 1: were doing before. But just to set the scene for
Speaker 1: people who may not have heard of them. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a you know, and all these things that I've done,
Speaker 1: and no one's ever asked me what are the board apes?
Speaker 1: So um, it's nice to actually figure out how I'm
Speaker 1: going to answer that question. But um, you know, in
Speaker 1: this most basic phone that just ten thousand pictures of
Speaker 1: randomly generated apes with different traits and stuff, and some
Speaker 1: are rarer than others, some are more valuable than others
Speaker 1: based on their rarity, And only one of those apes
Speaker 1: has given you access to all these various things that
Speaker 1: the Yuga Labs of the creators have done, whether it's
Speaker 1: access to new drops, whether it's access the parties that
Speaker 1: they have, whether it's access to some of the crypto
Speaker 1: tokens they've dropped, and the original drop they did back
Speaker 1: in April twenty twenty one that served as the access
Speaker 1: parcel tokens to everything that they've done since then. So
Speaker 1: when did you get interested and when did you buy
Speaker 1: your first board ape. So I actually bought them when
Speaker 1: they minted. That's when something mint and the n FT world,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing as like you consider it as
Speaker 1: an ICO or an IPO or whatever. So it's the
Speaker 1: first time they were selling it. I actually was working
Speaker 1: at Barkleys at the time in New York and I
Speaker 1: just quit my job, so I was kind of like
Speaker 1: feeling a bit emotional and stuff when I got home,
Speaker 1: and I was already trading NFTs at this point, and
Speaker 1: I basically just saw it on Twitter and thought it
Speaker 1: looked interesting because the website was the first professionally done
Speaker 1: the thing that I'd seen, And you know, I went
Speaker 1: ahead and minted them, and I think they were about
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars each at the time to actually buy,
Speaker 1: and then how much were they when you sold them?
Speaker 1: So there were two iterations of this. When the first
Speaker 1: time I actually minted about one hundred and fifty of them,
Speaker 1: and I sold them all within the space of about
Speaker 1: a week, and I saw them anywhere between I think
Speaker 1: there were about two hundred dollars to mint. I saw
Speaker 1: them anywhere between about two thousand dollars to like up
Speaker 1: to thirty thousand dollars each, I would say. So, taking
Speaker 1: a step further back, you were mentioning your New York
Speaker 1: days and you'd you'd quit your job. So what were
Speaker 1: you doing before and why did you quit that job
Speaker 1: to go into NFTs. Yeah. So I used to be
Speaker 1: a trader. I used to trade hiled and distress credit
Speaker 1: at Barclays. I did that for about ten years. I
Speaker 1: spent six years in London and three years in New York,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed doing it. But look, in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: I had this big every like many people had this
Speaker 1: big view on inflation and the Fed not increasing interest rates,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't express that in the book that I
Speaker 1: was trading. I was like, well, none of this stuff
Speaker 1: is going to get impacted in year one. So I
Speaker 1: once to find a way to put that trade on.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'll just do it myself. I'll
Speaker 1: just do it pa. And I've been cryptoskeptic for many,
Speaker 1: many years, and that was the first year I bought
Speaker 1: bitcoin in twenty twenty one after pacing it for so long,
Speaker 1: and myself and my colleague Michael, we were looking at
Speaker 1: potentially buying art or collectibles. These are very like inflacion
Speaker 1: proof investments, and we just stumbled on NFTs, which isn't
Speaker 1: too fair, as Michael that stummled on the first which
Speaker 1: are basically collectibles on chain. So we had this like
Speaker 1: crypt tournament to it, and we had the collectibles element
Speaker 1: to it. So the way that we used to describe
Speaker 1: it was its inflaition squared and it was obviously a
Speaker 1: very risky trade, and but you know, we knew if
Speaker 1: we took a shot as it and we were right,
Speaker 1: the upside would be a lot bigger. So this brings
Speaker 1: Abby and Abby you cover credit, right, Can you give
Speaker 1: us an overview of the macro environment, what it was
Speaker 1: at the time and how it's changed now, right, because
Speaker 1: because it's a very different situation and a lot of
Speaker 1: the narrative around bitcoin at the time, as you were saying,
Speaker 1: is like it's a hedge against inflation, whereas now you know,
Speaker 1: inflation has shut up and it's not really turned out
Speaker 1: to be great for bitcoin or any other risky asset. Really, Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I did a little bit of
Speaker 1: reporting on bitcoin when I was part of the FS
Speaker 1: and Rates team in the past, so I had a
Speaker 1: small flavor of what cryptocurrency was like. I mean I
Speaker 1: was by no means the Crypto Report or anything. I
Speaker 1: just did a little bit of work on it. What
Speaker 1: I found really interesting was looking at all the various
Speaker 1: factors that went into it. On the one side, I
Speaker 1: did see the argument that it was an inflation hedge,
Speaker 1: that crypto was an inflation hedge. But on the other
Speaker 1: on the other side of that, there was so much
Speaker 1: irrational exuberance. I mean today you look at how SPACs
Speaker 1: have completely collapsed. I mean the last few SPACs are
Speaker 1: now being flogged for nothing. You look at a lot
Speaker 1: of the IPOs at the time, they've gone down like
Speaker 1: eighty percent, ninety percent. Did look at Peloton as a stock,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, there was a lot of the
Speaker 1: rational exuberance, and um, there's no doubt in my mind
Speaker 1: that crypto was very much a part of that. I've
Speaker 1: pulled up a few correlations today. I had to look
Speaker 1: at how HIGEL European high Eel bonds UM compared to ETHA,
Speaker 1: which is I guess the closest comparable to NFTs that
Speaker 1: we can get on the terminal, And there is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a correlation UM, not a super strong correlation,
Speaker 1: but the correlation to Tesla is quite striking as a stock,
Speaker 1: and the correlation to Peloton is unbelievably striking. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's almost taking the same trajectory that I'm talking about
Speaker 1: et versus um um versus Peloton. So if you take
Speaker 1: credit markets as I would say that cryptocurrency is a
Speaker 1: souped up version of credit markets, and I would say
Speaker 1: NFTs are sort of I mean, you call it inflation squad.
Speaker 1: I would call it exuberance as well. Yeah, so, but
Speaker 1: there is a code and that I find that interesting
Speaker 1: and it actually makes me more hopeful for the future
Speaker 1: of NFTs. Then then and then anything else I've seen
Speaker 1: actually in terms of anything else you've seen, like crypto wiser, Well,
Speaker 1: what I mean is there seems to be a method
Speaker 1: to the madness. There seems to be some some logic
Speaker 1: to why it's training. The Waird is O. I see
Speaker 1: you're nodding there. Yeah, I mean, I think the big
Speaker 1: thing that we touched upon was inflation. And it's actually
Speaker 1: a common misconception that bitcoin is a good hedge for inflation.
Speaker 1: That's incorrect in my view anyway. Bitcoin is a hedge
Speaker 1: for inflation when you have a low interest rate environment,
Speaker 1: and that was the environment Trains twenty one. The FED
Speaker 1: refused to increase interest rates inflatition starts to go higher.
Speaker 1: And that means like in this in this environment where
Speaker 1: like money is cheap, if you like, everyone wants to
Speaker 1: take the highest ris possible. And that's the environment that
Speaker 1: we had. So twine Pains, We're all broke down because
Speaker 1: we still had inflation. But the fab is like, we're like,
Speaker 1: oh damn, like we have to increase interest rates now finally.
Speaker 1: And then that hits NASDAK as you said, and all
Speaker 1: the tech docs, and that has the highest correction to scrypt,
Speaker 1: which then in turn has correlation to NFTs. But I
Speaker 1: think NFT is an interesting hybrid asset class, Like on
Speaker 1: the one hand, you have traditional market correlation, you have
Speaker 1: cryptic correlation. But on the other hand, they are collectibles.
Speaker 1: Like people go out there and buy things that they
Speaker 1: want to own from an art perspective or from a
Speaker 1: from a collecting standpoint, and you know, it's the same
Speaker 1: thing when you see you might see a crazy auction
Speaker 1: at Christie's for like a banana stuck to the wall
Speaker 1: that goes for millions of dollars and people are like,
Speaker 1: you know why, Like, I don't get understand where that
Speaker 1: prices come from. NFTs definitely have that element of it
Speaker 1: where you have institutions that are collecting, you have maybe
Speaker 1: galleries that are collect and you have large collectors who
Speaker 1: are collecting and their mindsets like I just want to
Speaker 1: own the most expensive cryptopunk because I have the bragging
Speaker 1: rights for it, and that's where some of these crazy
Speaker 1: exuberant prices come from, if you like. But you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it just takes two people to tango in an
Speaker 1: auction and that's where that's where you get it. And
Speaker 1: that's where I think people have a misunderstanding of what
Speaker 1: NFTs actually are versus when trying to compare them to
Speaker 1: traditional assets. After the break, we'll hear more from Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Abena from Narayan an NFT investor Orvi Farouk on what
Speaker 1: makes a good trader and the intersection of NFTs and AI. So,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people lost money on crypto
Speaker 1: this year and NFTs. How much has your experience as
Speaker 1: a trader helps, Like would you suggest that someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't have finance experience, dosn't have trading experience, quit their
Speaker 1: job and start trading NFTs. I would say two things.
Speaker 1: The first thing I would say is that we had
Speaker 1: a massive, massive advantage having been institutional traders for seven
Speaker 1: or eight years. Should retail traders be investing in this market? Well,
Speaker 1: I have to say a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: probably I'm sure they've lost a lot of money doing it.
Speaker 1: But I've come across and met so many people who
Speaker 1: have zero experience in trading, zero work experience at a bank.
Speaker 1: A lot of them haven't even gone to university. Some
Speaker 1: of them are probably seventeen to eighteen years old, and
Speaker 1: they would make like three times more money than anyone
Speaker 1: else on bulls on the City of London. Because trading
Speaker 1: you don't need the education for it. You haven't. You
Speaker 1: have to have a natural aptitude for knowing where the
Speaker 1: momentum is going, understanding how to manage a risk, understand
Speaker 1: how to have discipline. And that is a natural thing
Speaker 1: that you can't um, you can't teach, you can't train that.
Speaker 1: It's it's it really is a natural skill set. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I've met so many people are like, wow, like you
Speaker 1: should be if you went and spent a year trade
Speaker 1: in high your bonds. You have made more money than
Speaker 1: anyone else because you understand how to take risks, you
Speaker 1: understand when to take profits. And those are two things
Speaker 1: you don't need to go to university for. You don't
Speaker 1: need a career in finance for. And so I would
Speaker 1: say yes, like maybe retail investors should have more protection
Speaker 1: and there should be you know, more regulation to to
Speaker 1: help that. But should retail investors not trade NFTs, not
Speaker 1: trade crypto? Absolutely not. You should give it a go,
Speaker 1: and you never know you might be good at it
Speaker 1: because it's a skill that you don't practice or learn
Speaker 1: it in any other or many other facets of your life.
Speaker 1: And I think you need to try it to know
Speaker 1: if you're good or not. Basically, what are the biggest
Speaker 1: things that are like things that you watch out for
Speaker 1: right Like this last year you could have lost money
Speaker 1: on FTX, Block five, Gemini, like a number of places
Speaker 1: that you know where your money could have been locked up.
Speaker 1: So you know, how do you how do you manage
Speaker 1: all these risks? It's not just a question of like,
Speaker 1: you know, a trade downside, it's like you could lose
Speaker 1: all your money, all your collateral, everything from one day
Speaker 1: to the next. Yeah. Number one rule of any trading investing,
Speaker 1: if you're doing it personally, is only invest or gamble
Speaker 1: gamble with then I will use about gamble because there
Speaker 1: is an element of that with money. I wanted to
Speaker 1: say it before and you were describing the situation, but
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, let's be nice, but you said it.
Speaker 1: So go on with money that you can afford to lose.
Speaker 1: So if you have your net worth and crypto, then
Speaker 1: take nine percent of it out because or fifty percent
Speaker 1: of it out because there is huge how risk in crypto,
Speaker 1: and like FTX and block finding, all this stuff was
Speaker 1: a big example of that where I know people who
Speaker 1: were some of the best traders in crypto who lost
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in the whole net worth and FTX
Speaker 1: because of just like some blacks one event. And so
Speaker 1: the number one rules, don't invest more than you can
Speaker 1: afford to lose. Number two rule, which would have staged
Speaker 1: you for FTX, And the golden rule of crypto is
Speaker 1: not your keys, not your crypto. So and if you're
Speaker 1: not self customing something, so by that I mean you
Speaker 1: don't have it in your own wallet. Way you're the
Speaker 1: only person who has access to it and has the
Speaker 1: private keys to it, then it's a risk. And that's
Speaker 1: the problem with FTX because if you have your crypto
Speaker 1: one in exchange or if you're staking it, then you
Speaker 1: don't have access to it like someone else has access
Speaker 1: to it and controls your money. And this is the
Speaker 1: whole original thesis of bitcoin anyway. So you know, with
Speaker 1: those two things, you already eliminate something like eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the risks, and then from then on it's like
Speaker 1: learning by doing, you know, like remember the shady characters
Speaker 1: who told you to buy something and it went down,
Speaker 1: Like remember that time you got greedy and didn't take
Speaker 1: profits and you should have sold half of what you
Speaker 1: have set yourself rules, guidelines and stick to them and
Speaker 1: strip the emotion out of it. Those things. You I
Speaker 1: really think you can eminate a lot of risks by
Speaker 1: doing that, and most people just don't take these these steps.
Speaker 1: I would say, So, where do you see now opportunities
Speaker 1: with with NFT is that you know what's interesting? Right?
Speaker 1: Because the names we keep hearing are the ones that
Speaker 1: we're around during the rally. Is there anything new that's
Speaker 1: like interesting or anything you know, funner like even not
Speaker 1: from like an investing perspective, but like an art perspective,
Speaker 1: you're an art you're you're also an artist, right, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this idea of the digital Renaissance, which I know
Speaker 1: sounds really funny but cheesy. Yeah, a bit cheesy, I
Speaker 1: know I might love to use anyway. But if you
Speaker 1: think about the world and where it's going, and you
Speaker 1: know this whole concept of AI and chat GPT, and
Speaker 1: you had this segment of art which is generated by code,
Speaker 1: whether it's AI art or generative art, and it's all stored.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is stored on chain or is
Speaker 1: generated on chain, And like intellectually, I think that's very interesting,
Speaker 1: and it's actually used to create and produce arts. And
Speaker 1: if you think about art as in the history of
Speaker 1: art overalls spans thousands of years, and you have different
Speaker 1: periods like the Renaissance, et cetera, where you could collect
Speaker 1: early pieces and generative art is not a new thing,
Speaker 1: but genest of art on chain is a relative a
Speaker 1: new thing, and there's probably only existed for three or
Speaker 1: four year So I think it's a great, big opportunity
Speaker 1: to actually collect what will become pieces of history because
Speaker 1: it's new, you've never really had it before, and NFTs
Speaker 1: only really started in what twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, So
Speaker 1: you're at like you're five years into what could potentially
Speaker 1: be decades or even centuries of this idea of art
Speaker 1: on chain and art generated by code. And I think
Speaker 1: this whole AI buzz thing is going to keep getting
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger and bigger, and it will be in
Speaker 1: many elements of our lives. And um it's application to art,
Speaker 1: I think it is very very interesting and presents a
Speaker 1: big art made by computers basically, and then and then
Speaker 1: it's the NFT of that of that art made by computers,
Speaker 1: essentially art made by code, and um it's then they're
Speaker 1: made as NFTs. But you know, if you if you
Speaker 1: want to get really geeky and nerdy about it, there
Speaker 1: there are more aspects of it, like like something that's
Speaker 1: provably random is the art doesn't exist, the code exists,
Speaker 1: and when you go to actually mint your piece, um,
Speaker 1: you don't know what it's going to be until it's
Speaker 1: created and it's minted, and it still looks good because
Speaker 1: of the way that the code was written. So and
Speaker 1: you're sure no one came up of it, came up
Speaker 1: with it like in the last month when all the
Speaker 1: AI stocks were going up, and like, let's find out
Speaker 1: find a way to show something new, right like they
Speaker 1: were thinking about it before. It's got a narrative to fit,
Speaker 1: to fit the selling need. Generative art has been around, no, okay,
Speaker 1: around for a while, and I think the best things
Speaker 1: are things that are high value, that have been high
Speaker 1: value for at least two it three years. But um no,
Speaker 1: this is this is not me, This is not I'm
Speaker 1: using Bloomberg as my exit liquidity thing. Good. I'll be
Speaker 1: right back with Bloomberg reporter Abina Ramnarayan and bond trader
Speaker 1: turned NFT founder of I Farouq as we discussed the
Speaker 1: future of NFTs and what it's like to have snoop
Speaker 1: dog by your digital art. So what about sort of
Speaker 1: the macro environment right like, because if you we look ahead,
Speaker 1: you know it's we've had crypt so downturns before, we
Speaker 1: said many times, but you know the macro environment was
Speaker 1: kind of the same throughout and the reasons why I
Speaker 1: crashed or like crypto specific, what's the outlook now for
Speaker 1: like the world you're you're like broadening out sort of
Speaker 1: person um. I mean, it's very hard to be definitive
Speaker 1: about it, but I would say that crypto probably has
Speaker 1: another sell off in it. Um yeah, sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not if I'm not sort of agreeing with on this,
Speaker 1: but I mean, essentially, we've seen a little bit of
Speaker 1: recovery in most risky assets. So once again, this we've
Speaker 1: talked about this correlation between m NFTs and crypto and
Speaker 1: the credit market and all of these assets. What they
Speaker 1: have in common is that they're risky and that investors
Speaker 1: take risk when they buy them. And we've seen risky
Speaker 1: assets in general rally quite a bit at the stud
Speaker 1: in the first couple of months of this year, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the rationale for that rally is
Speaker 1: completely solid. So I think there could be another painful
Speaker 1: sell off in risk in general, and I would imagine
Speaker 1: that crypto is a part of that. So I do
Speaker 1: think the immediate future is uncertain, very uncertain. The long
Speaker 1: term future, I mean, once again, I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: encouraged by the fact that it has behaved like a
Speaker 1: risk asset, and it's not just behaved in some kind
Speaker 1: of completely random manner. So I suspect this here to stay.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why CRYPTO and nft is rallied
Speaker 1: quite strongly in the last couple of years is that
Speaker 1: a lot of capital was available. There was stimulus checks
Speaker 1: in the US, there was a lot of leverage available.
Speaker 1: People are able to take on debt to buy things.
Speaker 1: All of that has gone. So whether or not this
Speaker 1: is gonna if it's ever going to go back to
Speaker 1: the heady heights of twenty twenty one or twenty twenty personally,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. But I'm but I'm putting myself
Speaker 1: on record here and so maybe I'll be proving horribly
Speaker 1: wrong and all vocation. Fortunately we're not traders here, right,
Speaker 1: We're not the traders, so like it's fine, we're not
Speaker 1: We're not. Actually, have you could just say what you
Speaker 1: what you see? Is there anything that you miss about
Speaker 1: bond trading? Yeah? I have you actually asked me that
Speaker 1: as I walked in, and um, it's been a while
Speaker 1: since I've been to the city and I got the
Speaker 1: tube and everything, so I was like kind of having
Speaker 1: flashbacks of of getting to go into the office. But um,
Speaker 1: I think though, I think the answer is yes, Like
Speaker 1: when you're on this side of the fence where you
Speaker 1: know I'm just sitting there making my wrist decisions, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, on days with the markets down, I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: that kind of stucks, but there's nothing that I can
Speaker 1: really do to act on it. I miss it because
Speaker 1: when you're on the trading floor and you're trading pile
Speaker 1: bonds or distress bonds or CDs and there's like five
Speaker 1: percent swings and stocks and you know, like twenty thirty
Speaker 1: forty points swings and bonds, and you're there as a
Speaker 1: market maker and someone's calling you and it's like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: I need a price in this, and I need a
Speaker 1: price right now, and you have to kind of think
Speaker 1: on the spot, and it has this thrill and excitement
Speaker 1: that you don't get in the world that I'm in
Speaker 1: now because I'm not constantly being asked for a price.
Speaker 1: It's just as simple as that. I just like sometimes
Speaker 1: I say that as someone just asked me to like
Speaker 1: make a market on an ether you working on board
Speaker 1: as or something, because um, you know, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say like maybe I'm somewhere I'm definitely a risk
Speaker 1: seeker and maybe somewhere with real seeker, and um, that
Speaker 1: element of it. I think the fast paced nature of
Speaker 1: it I think I miss and um, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I can recreate that for myself now without going
Speaker 1: back to work working for a bank, but I would
Speaker 1: I definitely miss that part of it for sure. All Right,
Speaker 1: so you had you had a very famous purchaser or
Speaker 1: one of your NFTs, Maybe start by telling us what
Speaker 1: sort of NFTs you make other than you know, buy them,
Speaker 1: and then who this famous purchaser was, who was very
Speaker 1: known to crypto circles, right is it? Yeah? Um, so
Speaker 1: I actually I actually used to create a lot of
Speaker 1: digital art when I was younger, before I went to university,
Speaker 1: and when I got back into NFT, I just got
Speaker 1: the itch to start drawing and creating again. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, I create like additions or one of one
Speaker 1: artworks which are animated pieces. A lot of them is
Speaker 1: like based on being a maid and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I have this collection called Wrecked Guy,
Speaker 1: which is like eight thousand images of like a skull
Speaker 1: drinking out of the bottle on The idea is like
Speaker 1: this is someone who always gets wrecked in crypto or
Speaker 1: training or whatever. A lot of people are right, which
Speaker 1: is a lot of people, Yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: right now exactly. That's basically it. And yeah, so we
Speaker 1: launched the collection. I launched the collection in May of
Speaker 1: last year, and a couple of weeks later, the Snoop
Speaker 1: Dogg actually bought a couple of them, which was which
Speaker 1: is very surreal. It was a strange moment. How did
Speaker 1: you know that Snoop Dogg was buying them? Like? How
Speaker 1: does that happen? So I was actually especially on like
Speaker 1: a stag with my friends in Newcastle and we're all like,
Speaker 1: you know, drinking and stuff, and so I was like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg just brought one of you unts And then
Speaker 1: I was like what. So I looked at his Twitter
Speaker 1: account and he posted it. I think he wrote something
Speaker 1: like time to get wrecked or something like that. And
Speaker 1: he has a public Ethereum wallet, so you could see
Speaker 1: that he owned it in his wallet and that he
Speaker 1: purchased it. That's very cool. Does he still have it?
Speaker 1: Do you know he still has I believe he has
Speaker 1: two of them. Yeah, he still has them. Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: So I guess to wrap things up, what's your biggest
Speaker 1: pet peeve now the NFT world? Like what needs to
Speaker 1: be fixed? Like for it to be more efficient, and
Speaker 1: you know, to raise some doubts if you have any
Speaker 1: doubts about it, Like what is the biggest pain point?
Speaker 1: I think the biggest pain point is there are still
Speaker 1: way too many bad actors and if you take the
Speaker 1: NT market as a whole, I really think ninety percent
Speaker 1: of it is garbage, Like I really do. Sorry, so
Speaker 1: sorry if I offend anyone with that comment. We didn't
Speaker 1: say the ninety is right, Like everybody can think they're
Speaker 1: part of the ten exactly exactly, and it just encourages
Speaker 1: too many bad actors and people are coming to people
Speaker 1: know they can sell things very seamlessly and make money
Speaker 1: without actually fulfilling the roadmaps they put out or right
Speaker 1: having the right intentions and be just you know, every
Speaker 1: month or every couple of weeks, you just get another
Speaker 1: NFT project which it says, hey, we're going to build
Speaker 1: a mess verse game and conquer the world. And the
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, three months later, they've all just
Speaker 1: run up the money, and that something that needs to
Speaker 1: be fixed. I think I'm not like a no regulation
Speaker 1: guy foldy sexualization. I think you need responsible regulation for
Speaker 1: this industry to thrive and achieve mainstream adoption and I
Speaker 1: think laws around like communication and maybe having some kind
Speaker 1: of like quality control aspects before coming to market. These
Speaker 1: sources of things I think need to be there to
Speaker 1: stop there being a flow of money out of in
Speaker 1: some retail investors into people with bad intentions. All right,
Speaker 1: on this very very responsible note, Thank you again for
Speaker 1: joining me. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reporter Abinav from Narayan and Canary Lab's co founder
Speaker 1: of a Farouk. You can find more of Abinav's reporting
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal and on Bloomberg dot com. For more,
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