Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg Crypto at Daily Bloomberg I Heart Podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, August eleven. Non fungible tokens, better known as
Speaker 1: n f t s, really burst onto the pop culture
Speaker 1: scene in but they've been around since at least two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. Despite current market conditions, new tokens and
Speaker 1: collections are still being launched every day, including by luxury
Speaker 1: brands like Gucci and Prada. Tiffany's, the iconic retailer, even
Speaker 1: announced a jewelry partnership with Crypto Punks, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest and most popular collections. That partnership means that Tiffany
Speaker 1: is going to sell pendants based on those Crypto Punk
Speaker 1: and f T s for around fifty thou dollars each.
Speaker 1: During July Bloomberg Live Cryptosummit right here in New York City,
Speaker 1: I spoke with industry leaders about why they're confident that
Speaker 1: n f t s will continue to be perceived as
Speaker 1: valuable and as useful. Up next, my conversation with Avery Acnemy,
Speaker 1: who's the president of Veyner. Three n s are something
Speaker 1: that people can understand immediately. They understand a piece of art,
Speaker 1: they understand a digital collectible. Helen High, Executive VP and
Speaker 1: head of Charity at Finance. In my opinion, this is
Speaker 1: lowering the barrier for artists entering into the world. This
Speaker 1: is a technological render song and digital artists people pleaser
Speaker 1: sometimes known as Emily Yatton, the wonderful youth of blockchain technology,
Speaker 1: can be um utilized for a much more. When we
Speaker 1: were first thinking about this panel, n FC prices were higher,
Speaker 1: is what I would say, And I wanted to start
Speaker 1: by reading from the statements that the CEO of Open
Speaker 1: Sea put out when they had to let go their team.
Speaker 1: And there's one thing in here that I that I
Speaker 1: want to pull out because I think it's very relevant
Speaker 1: to what we're all going to talk about, and it's this.
Speaker 1: During this winter, I expect we'll see an explosion in
Speaker 1: innovation and utility across n f T s. With the
Speaker 1: hard but important changes that we meet today, we're in
Speaker 1: an even better position to capture what will soon become
Speaker 1: the largest market on the planet. Now is our time
Speaker 1: to build. Winter is our time to build. I highlighted
Speaker 1: the words you know innovation and utility, because I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a certainly a perception, perhaps a misperception depends
Speaker 1: on your perspective, that all n f T s are
Speaker 1: are overvalued pictures of apes or things that celebrities will
Speaker 1: shill on their Instagrams and then denial later to what
Speaker 1: we're hoping to achieve. This panel is more of a
Speaker 1: discussion around the real potential possibility of what we like
Speaker 1: to say, the underlying technology, but also actual use cases.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the stage, Vainer three, President avery An Any
Speaker 1: Finance Executive, ICE resident and head of charity Helen High
Speaker 1: and digital artists people please her with Bloomberg's stacy Marie Ishmael,
Speaker 1: I want to start with you, Helen. One of the
Speaker 1: perhaps stranger things to happen in the first couple of
Speaker 1: days after Russia invaded Ukraine was this outpouring of crypto
Speaker 1: philanthropy that ultimately resulted in several hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars being raised to support the States of Ukraine, but
Speaker 1: also their soldiers and also their their populous, to the
Speaker 1: extent that Ukraine's digital minister was like talking about, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to mince and sell our own and FT
Speaker 1: and you know, the chariteable arm of finance was one
Speaker 1: of the entities that was very present in all those conversations.
Speaker 1: Can you talk more about what actually cryptophilanthropy is and
Speaker 1: not just in like the sam bankment freed wait fantastic today.
Speaker 1: If you want to donate hundred dollars to somebody, let's
Speaker 1: say Ukraine or Africa, give me a number, how much
Speaker 1: do you think out of your hundred dollars will be
Speaker 1: and in the hand of the beneficiaries probably ninety were
Speaker 1: not even even talking about corruptions. So that's the reality.
Speaker 1: This is white technology actually add values into this because
Speaker 1: crypto fundamentally it's transparency and it's trackable. Four years ago
Speaker 1: when we started by Next Charity, we were doing project
Speaker 1: in Africa doing lunches. Out of the hundred dollars without need,
Speaker 1: nineties three percent of them turn into the food down
Speaker 1: children's played. The other seven percent are the local cost.
Speaker 1: So this is why technology can really bringing real values
Speaker 1: into the society. One of the things we worked with
Speaker 1: the United Nations to offer is the refugee Crypto card.
Speaker 1: Offer them a cryptal i D and then they actually
Speaker 1: they can receive cryptos from even one dollars you know
Speaker 1: everything around the world. I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: that because dona think five dollars in crypto can also
Speaker 1: cost you five dollars in crypto right Like there, there
Speaker 1: are still significances and complexity for a lot of folks
Speaker 1: associated with these things. What has to change about the
Speaker 1: ecosystem in order to make what you're describing more of
Speaker 1: a reality. Infrastructure and education are the two most important fundamentals.
Speaker 1: I think when we were doing the project, even in Africa.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about in the traditional world, we're talking
Speaker 1: about financial inclusions for generations, and even we're looking at
Speaker 1: what actually happened for the certain industrial revolution, which is
Speaker 1: internet based. The world didn't become a better place. One
Speaker 1: percent of the population is holding ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: global wealth. This is actually why blockchain is so popular,
Speaker 1: because people believe with the folks in revolution, that the
Speaker 1: financial system is going to change get rid of a
Speaker 1: lot of the intermediaries. This is why blockchain is going
Speaker 1: to play a far more important real in the society
Speaker 1: to achieve the final free trance of values. With scriptal
Speaker 1: everything is possible, everything is possible, Everything is not yet practical,
Speaker 1: And I want talk to somebody who spends a lot
Speaker 1: of time in like the practical elements of this space.
Speaker 1: So people, please a You've had an interesting career. Um.
Speaker 1: You when we were talking in the green room, you
Speaker 1: said that one of the things you've really done is
Speaker 1: trying to push the boundaries of crypto and art, and
Speaker 1: in your most recent project, Shibilia, you had a very
Speaker 1: interesting medium boost, very based be like, well, most of
Speaker 1: this is like speculation and none of it makes sense
Speaker 1: and it's not sustainable long term. However, here are the
Speaker 1: interesting things. What for you? Are those actually interesting things
Speaker 1: in an environment perhaps less right now, but in an
Speaker 1: environment where there was so much kind of like speculative activity. Yeah, personally,
Speaker 1: you know, I've felt that the n f T space
Speaker 1: for the past um year and a half at least
Speaker 1: has been more stagnant on just sort of you know,
Speaker 1: speculative assets and focusing on you know, floor prices and
Speaker 1: who's the next person who's going to buy um this
Speaker 1: n f T and the price goes up. But you know,
Speaker 1: the floor price that you're seeing is not actually what
Speaker 1: every asset is worth, because once somebody sells them, the
Speaker 1: floor point price goes down. So just because you have
Speaker 1: the asset doesn't mean that you, um, you know, have
Speaker 1: actually that much ethereum in your or value. And so
Speaker 1: this really got me thinking, you know, why have we
Speaker 1: created a culture where everyone is so obsessed with this
Speaker 1: floor price when we the wonderful use of blockchain technology
Speaker 1: can be UM utilized for a much more And part
Speaker 1: of the UM socibia is kind of like decentralized Netflix
Speaker 1: slash Kickstarter. So just to translate that some practice, UM,
Speaker 1: the example that you use in that post was you
Speaker 1: are creating a story. That story might have two arcs.
Speaker 1: Somebody could choose to back one arc versus another arc
Speaker 1: by making decisions on a blockchain by saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to buy an n f T that's for
Speaker 1: door number one. Somebody else might buy an n f
Speaker 1: T for door number two, and then they can fight
Speaker 1: it out creatively that way. UM. Yeah, And so you know,
Speaker 1: in this way, I think the community feels like not
Speaker 1: only are they financially supporting the creation of this i P,
Speaker 1: but also that they have us say and where the
Speaker 1: direction is going, and UM makes it more sort of
Speaker 1: inclusive and collaborative. And this sort of goes back to
Speaker 1: last summer where I helped crowdfund the Ethereum documentary by
Speaker 1: selling a serious amount of teas and then we raised
Speaker 1: over two million dollars in forty eight hours, and just
Speaker 1: like that, the documentary was funded. And if anybody has
Speaker 1: ever tried to fundraise in the film industry or anything,
Speaker 1: you would know that it's usually a multi year long process.
Speaker 1: And similar to what Helen was saying, there's all this
Speaker 1: you know, paperwork and bank wires and everything that's involved.
Speaker 1: And so this is a wonderful um opportunity that Krypto
Speaker 1: can open up for us. And this is something that
Speaker 1: I'm personally more interested in, and I definitely feel like
Speaker 1: more people will start to see this sort of value
Speaker 1: as we're headed towards a more bearer market and people
Speaker 1: are focusing on things beyond just speculation. So one of
Speaker 1: the polls that we did on Twitter, we asked the
Speaker 1: question what would have to change about n f T
Speaker 1: s to kind of like bring them back, And one
Speaker 1: of the things that people identified was security features, which
Speaker 1: is to say, like not constantly getting hacked, not having
Speaker 1: not you know, having the verified Instagram accounts of boardy
Speaker 1: be compromised. And then people connect their wallets to it
Speaker 1: and lose all their n f t s or otherwise
Speaker 1: engaged in fishing scams. And I raised that because everything
Speaker 1: that you all are describing is operating in like this
Speaker 1: almost like a countervailing wind of an environment, where like,
Speaker 1: here's a really interesting idea for philanthropy, here's a really
Speaker 1: interesting idea for creative fundraising. And then a bunch of
Speaker 1: people are there like what if we made your lives
Speaker 1: really difficult? How are you and you know, if we're
Speaker 1: able to get your kind of perspective on this, like
Speaker 1: what are the kinds of things that you are seeing
Speaker 1: that is countering those difficulties. Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: So about a year and a half ago we started
Speaker 1: it ter um like by Gary Fainer Tech. We started
Speaker 1: to get really into the world of n f t s,
Speaker 1: both through a collector perspective, launching Gary's project, which is
Speaker 1: called The Friends, and then launching Painer n f T
Speaker 1: which is a company that I run and just rebranded
Speaker 1: to Dain Earth Eat. And the reason that we continue
Speaker 1: to be extremely optimistic and excited about the space is
Speaker 1: we believe that the consumer blockchain is going to revolutionize
Speaker 1: not just the next iteration of the Internet, the next
Speaker 1: iteration of consumer behavior. Um, we've talked about art, we've
Speaker 1: talked about philanthropy being too sort of immediate use cases
Speaker 1: which have propelled the early wave of n f t s.
Speaker 1: I think gaming and sports and collectibles kind of is
Speaker 1: included in some of the like examples of things that
Speaker 1: have already hit. But beyond that, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: that the n f t s can be. As as humans,
Speaker 1: we spend it tremendous amount of our time on digital
Speaker 1: devices and digital screens, and that number is only going
Speaker 1: up up, up, But people don't actually own things in
Speaker 1: their digital experiences. UM, maybe some of your kids play
Speaker 1: roadblocks and you give them robots for their birthdays or
Speaker 1: something like that, So that's or you're into gaming and
Speaker 1: skins and um, those are examples where you can start
Speaker 1: to pay money for things digitally and for those digital experiences,
Speaker 1: but it's not interoperable. Like you haven't you have your
Speaker 1: roadblocks within your existing that ecosystem. You can't take it
Speaker 1: with you, uh two meta, you can't take it with
Speaker 1: you to Fortnite. Those are all different experiences, and what
Speaker 1: we think is that n f t s are really
Speaker 1: the tip of the sphere for the broader web throe ecosystem.
Speaker 1: N f t s are something that people can understand immediately.
Speaker 1: They understand a piece of art, they understand a digital collectible,
Speaker 1: they understand the concept of rarity um, and that then
Speaker 1: sort of opens up the broader ecosystem of metaverse and
Speaker 1: blockchain and crypto, which we think is going to be
Speaker 1: really fundamental in the next iteration of how consumers use
Speaker 1: the Internet. With that said, in the last eighteen months
Speaker 1: has been a lot about speculation and hype and you know,
Speaker 1: flipping and trading, and there's been a ton of activity
Speaker 1: in that space that's cooled off tremendously in the past
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. We actually think that's healthy for the
Speaker 1: space to sort of take out some of that over
Speaker 1: financialization that scares away mainstream consumers, makes them think that
Speaker 1: crypto is incredibly speculative and risky and they're going to
Speaker 1: get hacked. Because when you look at the broader ecosystem,
Speaker 1: even within n f t s, there are like for example,
Speaker 1: tess os Um and for example what Dapper has built,
Speaker 1: offer solutions that are not as risky as sort of
Speaker 1: ethereum main neet super expensive n f t s that's
Speaker 1: what grabs the headlines. But the reality is that is
Speaker 1: going to be a tiny fraction of the total user
Speaker 1: base of how people interact with n f T s
Speaker 1: in the future. So people these are I want to
Speaker 1: get back to this idea of art because art markets
Speaker 1: are also prone to speculative frenzy of different kinds. How
Speaker 1: are you finding both as an artist but somebody who's
Speaker 1: working on art funding, the differences between you know, the
Speaker 1: traditional fine art markets and this sort of web three
Speaker 1: ecosystem in which you're increasingly operising. I just think that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the past, maybe there has been some
Speaker 1: kind of stigma against digital art or people just don't
Speaker 1: see it as real art, and now, you know, I
Speaker 1: think there there's sort of more acceptance to it because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, art is subjective and
Speaker 1: it's all about just expressing yourself through different mediums, right,
Speaker 1: and so people with digital art just do it on
Speaker 1: a computer versus u in the traditional art market. In
Speaker 1: terms of the speculation, um parts, I think that's just
Speaker 1: always going to be part of something that is inherently subjective.
Speaker 1: It's very very hard to what makes an a beautiful exactly.
Speaker 1: But um but I think what I personally find interesting
Speaker 1: and this is just some personal passionate mine is the
Speaker 1: concept of storytelling and you can do that through digital
Speaker 1: art or you know, traditional art. Stay tuned for more
Speaker 1: of our conversation about n f t S, originally recorded
Speaker 1: in July during the Bloomberg Live Crypto Summit in New York.
Speaker 1: If I'm an artist, I want to steal my aunt,
Speaker 1: I need to find the art gallery committing of my
Speaker 1: next ten years innings and then make sure they accepted me.
Speaker 1: And then there's a potential maybe I'm becoming to be known.
Speaker 1: So that's actually a very difficult journey. I mean, the
Speaker 1: probability of successful it is also very very small. But
Speaker 1: today this ant is very different. For for example, in Binus,
Speaker 1: while we build a centralized platform, we only charge one
Speaker 1: percent of the fee as a platform, everybody you can
Speaker 1: exhibit art you know in there, and actually it's not
Speaker 1: Binus determine the price of your art. It's actually the
Speaker 1: market drives of the art. So in my opinion, this
Speaker 1: is lowering the barrier for artists entering into the world.
Speaker 1: And also it's going to benefit the people who appreciate
Speaker 1: that this is a technology who render song I do
Speaker 1: find that and everyone to ask you this because like
Speaker 1: the history of Inner it's really about community, right, So
Speaker 1: like when Gary van Intertruck was like wine and then
Speaker 1: he had a media agency and was doing community management
Speaker 1: like whatever, the sort of the platform through which he's
Speaker 1: expected he's expressing his various ideas. There's always been this
Speaker 1: idea of an ecosystem of community, a sense of solidarity
Speaker 1: for it for a particular in group. What about that
Speaker 1: are you seeing or is infusing as it were like
Speaker 1: Zanners three? Because what I'm hearing from both Hell and
Speaker 1: people Pleaser is this idea of doing something or participating
Speaker 1: in something bigger than you, whatever the financial incentives might be.
Speaker 1: That's a very ustute observation that community and has been
Speaker 1: critical to Veneer's journey over the last like twelve years
Speaker 1: of of having the Vada company. Um and I think
Speaker 1: that what you're also getting at as cultural relevance. It's
Speaker 1: like where people are actually paying attention is where we've
Speaker 1: structured a lot of our business opportunity. And certainly, like
Speaker 1: without a doubt, there's a community around sort of crypto
Speaker 1: traders and there's obviously varying levels of stabbiness within there
Speaker 1: there's also a community around n f T collectors UM,
Speaker 1: people who collect n f T s. Of course, some
Speaker 1: for sort of trading and that hobbyist activity, some because
Speaker 1: they're passionate around certain groups of artists or certain groups
Speaker 1: of you know, intellectual property owners. Whether we're talking about Nickelodeon,
Speaker 1: or we're talking about MLB, or we're talking about Gary vs.
Speaker 1: V Friends, there are communities around each of these programs.
Speaker 1: And what I think is different this time around versus
Speaker 1: what we saw and Web too, which was the fostering
Speaker 1: of a community on social media and enabling people to
Speaker 1: communicate globally across the world someone they may have never met,
Speaker 1: having a direct one to one communication with a brand
Speaker 1: or celebrity that they like, UM or an athlete. This time,
Speaker 1: when you participate in this n f T ecosystem, that
Speaker 1: you actually have aligned incentives. Back to the example that
Speaker 1: Helen was just giving for that Latin American artist, if
Speaker 1: that Latin American artist had, you know, had a group
Speaker 1: of collectors, they would probably interact with them at different
Speaker 1: art shows, even if they're very successful, and you know,
Speaker 1: the first pieces would have sold for hundreds and a
Speaker 1: thousand and ten thousand but if that you know, first
Speaker 1: Genesis piece that originally sold for hundred was selling for
Speaker 1: a million, that Latin American artist doesn't benefit from that.
Speaker 1: UM and n f t s unlock this ability for
Speaker 1: collectors and creators do have aligned incentives, and of course
Speaker 1: that strengthens the bonds. But community um of people who
Speaker 1: are passionate around a specific subject, our hobby UM tokenized
Speaker 1: hobbyism is going to be something that we increasingly be
Speaker 1: very interesting coming up, like more and more, whether you're
Speaker 1: really into a game or you're really into an artist,
Speaker 1: a group of collectors having a form to engage and
Speaker 1: all sort of being in the wave together of benefiting
Speaker 1: from appreciation or depreciation is the case may be, UM,
Speaker 1: I think that this is a really interesting use case
Speaker 1: for that community to actually have aligned financial incentives in
Speaker 1: the future. What about n f t s, what about
Speaker 1: these conversations about the environment and the ecosystems? Like have
Speaker 1: to actually change in order to better address these pretty
Speaker 1: robust criticisms. Maybe I will start with two things, regulation
Speaker 1: and education. We really think that actually the regulation is
Speaker 1: actually going to bring more successful rotation for the whole industry.
Speaker 1: So actually in bindus particular things Lastly, we actively work
Speaker 1: up with regulators around the globe trying to develop the
Speaker 1: regulation to ourselfs if we believe in a society, we
Speaker 1: need to bring the whole penetration right, you're know, going up,
Speaker 1: So that's very important. And education is very important. I
Speaker 1: think today there's so much formal. Lots of people lost
Speaker 1: money because of formal because people don't really understand the
Speaker 1: underlying sub sets. So it's very important actually to do
Speaker 1: the ducation, particularly is they use I think those two
Speaker 1: things that very close to our heart. It is honestly
Speaker 1: have stage genuinely interesting that most of the folks on
Speaker 1: all of the panels they have been like, please regulate
Speaker 1: me more. It's not something you may have expected coming
Speaker 1: in today. All right, With that, thank you all. We
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking the time, like your friends, keeping
Speaker 1: on the next episode of Bloomberg Crypto. The crypto universe
Speaker 1: can be complex, can be unpredictable, but our job as
Speaker 1: editors and reporters is to track every single one of
Speaker 1: these developments and translate the most interesting and importance of
Speaker 1: them into stories. Bloomberg Crypto senior editors Dave Lukta and
Speaker 1: Anna Airera will join me for another edition of Friday
Speaker 1: in the Editor's Room, we'll take a look at the
Speaker 1: highs and lows of this week. Crypto discussed the biggest
Speaker 1: stories that we're covering and give you a peek at
Speaker 1: what's driving markets right now. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a
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Speaker 1: very Galina. Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Sharon Burriro Associate producer is Ty Butler. Desta wonder
Speaker 1: At is our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm
Speaker 1: Stacy Marie Schmal. We'll be back tomorrow.