Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and this podcast, if you haven't heard,
Speaker 1: has been nominated for an inn Double A CP Image Award,
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Speaker 1: Scroll to the Outstanding News and Information Podcast category and
Speaker 1: vote for Black Tech, Green Money. It's not often that
Speaker 1: we see a podcast for us by US, which highlights
Speaker 1: the stories of black innovators, technologists, venture capitalists and angel investors,
Speaker 1: scientists and engineers with this biggest spotlight. So I'm asking
Speaker 1: for you to take a moment of your day and
Speaker 1: vote for us now. So I think this is where
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can have a pretty
Speaker 1: bad misconception. The base layer technology that we're talking about
Speaker 1: is blockchain technology. The first use case, the first the
Speaker 1: first born child use case of blockchain technology is cryptocurrency.
Speaker 1: So you usually when I'm having this kind of conversation,
Speaker 1: I love to kind of have a first principles conversation
Speaker 1: around the use case and the efficacy of blockchain technology.
Speaker 1: Cryptocurrency is a use case of block pain. I'm will
Speaker 1: Luca's Mrs Black Tech cream Money. I'm gonna chew this
Speaker 1: you to some of the biggest names, some of the
Speaker 1: brightest minds and brilliant ideas. I feel black and building,
Speaker 1: but simply using tech to secure your back. This podcast
Speaker 1: is for you. Kay is an n f T strategist
Speaker 1: and founder at sting Rock Media, which helps companies all
Speaker 1: over the world craft cultural experiences and events. A frequent
Speaker 1: speaker on n f T related topics, Kayla is the
Speaker 1: prolific investor and trusted voice on blockchain technologies. I spoke
Speaker 1: with Kayla about the current n f T bear market
Speaker 1: and investor outlook and what's happening in the world of
Speaker 1: n f T s that gives investors like her hope.
Speaker 1: I think number one is there's some really interesting examples
Speaker 1: of really large brands out there that are doing a
Speaker 1: fantastic job um. Two of which would be like Reddit,
Speaker 1: um and uh Starbucks. And the interesting thing I would
Speaker 1: say that they've done UM that's unique about their n
Speaker 1: f T programs is that they're not even calling them
Speaker 1: n f T s. They call them uh digital collectibles.
Speaker 1: They're calling them it's just you know, uh Starbucks just
Speaker 1: calls it their new like Odyssey rewards program UM. And
Speaker 1: so I think that what a lot of groups are
Speaker 1: doing right now is there they a lot of fintech solutions,
Speaker 1: a lot of big brands. They have not slowed down
Speaker 1: on adopting the technology UM, but they have tweaked the
Speaker 1: way that they bring that technology to market UM and
Speaker 1: what they're calling it. The technology is the same. People
Speaker 1: just don't know that they're using it. And so I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the big differences that I've been
Speaker 1: seeing in the LATS a couple of months, is how
Speaker 1: some of the big brands have been UM using mass
Speaker 1: adoption with with blockchain and n f T. Can you
Speaker 1: make a distinction because I've heard you use n f
Speaker 1: T business before and like your tweets, you've you've you've
Speaker 1: used that, you've used that phrase. Can you describe the
Speaker 1: difference between like an n f T and n f
Speaker 1: T project and an n f T business and if
Speaker 1: there are others, can you describe the differences between those? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think, like you know, I just described a
Speaker 1: couple of companies that are natively web two companies that
Speaker 1: are adopting blockchain technology. So they're kind of in this
Speaker 1: like Web two point five UM space Web three companies
Speaker 1: are companies that have started from the community first. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times UM web two companies tend to
Speaker 1: be like products driven, and so they'll create their product,
Speaker 1: they'll create their m v P what's their minimal viable product,
Speaker 1: and then they uh, you know, get a bunch of
Speaker 1: VC money and go, you know, uh customer acquisition right
Speaker 1: UM web three companies UM. Some that I might throw
Speaker 1: as an example would be board A Yacht Clubs, so
Speaker 1: like you Go Labs, UM Artifact which then got acquired
Speaker 1: by Nike. UM are all community based companies. So they
Speaker 1: started as a community, the community bought the token, the
Speaker 1: n f T, and that was the startup. Those are
Speaker 1: the startup finances for the company to continue to build
Speaker 1: and develop as a company. UM. So it's really just
Speaker 1: kind of the ethos of like how those two world
Speaker 1: kind of use the technology. UM. I will say though
Speaker 1: that there are the vast majority of n f T
Speaker 1: companies out there are not great operators. So they tend
Speaker 1: to get really excited and get the community really excited,
Speaker 1: and um everyone buys the token and then they don't
Speaker 1: have any operations. They don't actually have a value proposition.
Speaker 1: They don't actually have a product that they that they
Speaker 1: want to continue to develop on UM. And so that's
Speaker 1: where a lot of Web three n f T companies
Speaker 1: specifically kind of stumble and fall. Um what typically, what
Speaker 1: typically do they have that makes people buy in? Celebrity status,
Speaker 1: you know, great design, great art, like, what what makes
Speaker 1: people buy into these things that have very bad business operations? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that UM. A lot of these folks are marketers,
Speaker 1: so they're really talented at marketing. They're really they're really talented.
Speaker 1: The artwork UM is really attractive. UM. People love being
Speaker 1: a part of something that other there's kind of this
Speaker 1: like indie culture of folks not you know, oh I
Speaker 1: know about I'm an early adopter, right n f T
Speaker 1: Web three people love being like early adopters. So they
Speaker 1: love being able to like be on the bleeding edge
Speaker 1: of the next trend. UM. And so I think that
Speaker 1: that in combination with the fact that people who if
Speaker 1: they wanted to resell the n f T, they can
Speaker 1: make money off of it. So you add those two
Speaker 1: components together and making money culture tech uh, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a winning recipe. For people to to to
Speaker 1: to buy into something. Uh, the problem is that they've
Speaker 1: lost a lot of money along the way. Damn. Can
Speaker 1: you describe more about the projects? What typically is a
Speaker 1: thread between projects that are successful, that have that gave
Speaker 1: them unique or innovative, you know, features that allowed them
Speaker 1: to be successful other than the operation, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about mm hmm, yeah, great questions. So I think that, um,
Speaker 1: some I call them at st Rock, we call them
Speaker 1: value engines, And so you have to be really clear
Speaker 1: on what exactly you're offering. What is the value proposition
Speaker 1: for Sometimes you have some artists out there that it's
Speaker 1: literally just art and that is the value problem. And
Speaker 1: you've got to have the art and that's it and
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. UM. And you know, the interesting thing is is,
Speaker 1: as the market has kind of had a bit of
Speaker 1: a downturn, art projects have performed better and maintained their
Speaker 1: value better than the projects that promised you know, this
Speaker 1: really fantastic road maps. UM. So that's that's been a
Speaker 1: bit of an ironic and an interesting thing to see. UM.
Speaker 1: But other than that, UM, I think that basically you're asking, like,
Speaker 1: what makes um, some of these projects successful, some some
Speaker 1: some successful projects. UM. I think it also comes down
Speaker 1: to the funding and the runway. Uh. Some of these
Speaker 1: projects raised a lot of money they UM through the
Speaker 1: n f T, and they had the time to go
Speaker 1: and acquire like talent to help them figure it out.
Speaker 1: So some of them just had the runway to go,
Speaker 1: like figure out what they were going to offer UM doodles,
Speaker 1: for example, they hired uh, they hired uh uh Farrell
Speaker 1: as their creative their chief creative officer UM. And so
Speaker 1: between Doodles, you go labs, UM artifacts some of these
Speaker 1: other big projects, they just simply had extra funding to
Speaker 1: like help them figure out what they're gonna do. Some
Speaker 1: of them have moved really aggressively into gaming because I
Speaker 1: think that they think that that's like a really viable
Speaker 1: business model going into the new year. When you are
Speaker 1: looking at the team, who are who's building a product,
Speaker 1: a project, even um building a community, what are you
Speaker 1: looking for as an investor in n f T, Like
Speaker 1: what kind of things give you signals that say, you
Speaker 1: know what, this is likely going to be around a
Speaker 1: while because these things are in place. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Number one, the team has to be docks. And by docks,
Speaker 1: that just means they need to. They cannot be anonymous,
Speaker 1: and so you have to be able to do your
Speaker 1: due diligence to be able to look at Okay, great,
Speaker 1: let's look at this person's LinkedIn profile. Let's look at
Speaker 1: you know, what is their history of just part participating
Speaker 1: in this like overall ecosystem, um over over a period
Speaker 1: of time, so that's important. What's their background? UM? What
Speaker 1: experience do they have. They're saying they're going to bring
Speaker 1: a game, a metaverse game to market. Great, who on
Speaker 1: the team has actually done that before? Um? Those those
Speaker 1: are some of the things that you would do kind
Speaker 1: of during your own personal due diligence process. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the community. How engaged is the community? Um? If
Speaker 1: they are hosting a Twitter spaces on Twitter? Great, how
Speaker 1: many people show up? How many people are engaged and
Speaker 1: are asking questions during that Twitter space? Um? Another thing
Speaker 1: would be to look at, um, you know, the team's important.
Speaker 1: Um Uh what is the value prop? What is the
Speaker 1: business model beyond the initial n f T sale? Because
Speaker 1: if I think that a lot of people who aren't
Speaker 1: attracted to n f T s and web three, they
Speaker 1: tend to be UM kind of like libertarian uh from
Speaker 1: a kind of political slant. Um in point of view, Um,
Speaker 1: they don't want to be the product, which is why
Speaker 1: they are happy to pay money up front, because they
Speaker 1: don't like traditional social media platforms and so. Um. The
Speaker 1: problem though is that again with some of these folks
Speaker 1: who are running these projects, they're not great operators. Um.
Speaker 1: All they know to do, all they know how to
Speaker 1: do is sell n f t s to people. They
Speaker 1: don't know how to create products. And therefore those same
Speaker 1: people that don't want to be the product realize that
Speaker 1: they end up being the product again because they're just
Speaker 1: selling more n f t s two people. This is
Speaker 1: so talk about the the value proposition because so often
Speaker 1: when we hear about value propositions, Hey, your n f
Speaker 1: T gets you in the door at this party, or
Speaker 1: it gets you, you know, a ticket to you know,
Speaker 1: meet me and have lunch face to face. Like what
Speaker 1: are better things of avengers? I shouldn't say better, Like
Speaker 1: what are other things of avengers that tickets to the
Speaker 1: party that n f t s you know, really unique
Speaker 1: opportunities have provided for those holders. Yeah. I think that Um,
Speaker 1: with some of these I think that a lot of Um. Again, Uh,
Speaker 1: the industry is so nascent right, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of those business models are still being ironed up. When
Speaker 1: we're talking to clients, were like, hey, look, n f
Speaker 1: T s are not a business I wrote a tweet
Speaker 1: about this too. Business n f T s are not
Speaker 1: a business model within themselves. You already have to have
Speaker 1: an established business model that n f T s can
Speaker 1: be an added value layer to something that's already pre
Speaker 1: existing you already. You need to know that the market
Speaker 1: is there. You need to know that the solutions that
Speaker 1: you provide are already there. UM. I'll give you an
Speaker 1: example of one that we actually did UM for an
Speaker 1: education higher education product UM. Essentially it was a membership
Speaker 1: pass by your n f T. I think it's not
Speaker 1: it's not too much different than UM, like a costco membership.
Speaker 1: We have a network of partners of UM, you know,
Speaker 1: online college, UM colleges around and universities around the country.
Speaker 1: UM all Tier six or Tier five or higher accreditation.
Speaker 1: They're in our network of schools that you can if
Speaker 1: you have our n f T pass, you get access
Speaker 1: to any of those schools you can enroll. Obviously you
Speaker 1: still have to apply and get in, but assuming that
Speaker 1: that happens, you get access to those college credits at
Speaker 1: off of what retail is and so um similar. So
Speaker 1: it's almost the idea if you're familiar with like Mark
Speaker 1: Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs or if you're familiar with obviously
Speaker 1: costco um it was like wholesale college online college courses
Speaker 1: and so that was like a very um it was
Speaker 1: a very tactical and practical um application of how you
Speaker 1: have a membership pass uh that then translates into real
Speaker 1: world savings for something that people want, which is, well,
Speaker 1: some people want a college degree. And so you touched
Speaker 1: on this a little bit about n F t Art
Speaker 1: and that's one you know, vertical inside the n f
Speaker 1: T space and it was super duper hot a year ago,
Speaker 1: eighteen months ago, or any time in that window. Where
Speaker 1: are we with just n F t art and beyond
Speaker 1: the ones that have communities behind them, it's just a
Speaker 1: pretty picture. Where are we today? Is there still value today?
Speaker 1: If I'm a designer and I'm just a designer, I
Speaker 1: may not be a community builder. Is there still value?
Speaker 1: Is it still worth it for me to go to
Speaker 1: open see and publish my thing. Well, with all of
Speaker 1: these things, you still have to build a community because
Speaker 1: it's we're at the end of the day, we're talking
Speaker 1: economics and we're talking supply and demand, and that's that's
Speaker 1: that's regardless of if you're an n f T artist.
Speaker 1: That's that those rules apply even just in the regular
Speaker 1: traditional art world as well. So UM, regardless of whatever
Speaker 1: you're offering to the world, there's gonna there has to
Speaker 1: be a buyer for it. So UM. So the the
Speaker 1: value prop for um for artists. And I think the
Speaker 1: reason why so many artists are attracted to n f
Speaker 1: T s is because of the royalty component. And so
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, great, if I'm going to spend all
Speaker 1: my my time and energy creating this piece of art,
Speaker 1: I want to get as I want to be able
Speaker 1: to extract and capture as much value from it as possible. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that that the smart contract, the royalties
Speaker 1: and perpetuity is what attracts so many artists. So I
Speaker 1: was having a conversation with a nonprofit um executive directors
Speaker 1: think of think of it in the way of you know,
Speaker 1: a zoo executive director or a metro park executive director,
Speaker 1: and they were they were wondering what the value of
Speaker 1: them could be with producing an n f T collection,
Speaker 1: and you know, doing research online and learning about this,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's an argument to there's no
Speaker 1: secondary value or very little secondary value of holding that
Speaker 1: n f T. Like, so, if if I'm buying the
Speaker 1: n f T to support sustainability at my local park,
Speaker 1: what is the value to the next person who may
Speaker 1: want to buy that thing? So? Can you talk about
Speaker 1: that concept and how to fix it? Yeah? So, so
Speaker 1: two things I would say. One is, if you are
Speaker 1: that type of organization or something like that, I'm actually
Speaker 1: a really big fan of. Instead of the organization, especially
Speaker 1: like a nonprofit, like actually did a talk about this
Speaker 1: at n f T n y C. Literally, My argument
Speaker 1: was that UM UM nonprofits should actually, instead of doing
Speaker 1: their own projects, they should actually partner with artists. They
Speaker 1: actually partner with folks who have a value prop that
Speaker 1: extends beyond visiting you know, the rescue center or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. UM because instead of like having
Speaker 1: their own n f T project or perhaps doing it
Speaker 1: in collaboration, now that that nonprofit entity can have their
Speaker 1: wallet address written into the primary and secondary UM sales
Speaker 1: of the of the chain in perpetuity UM being a
Speaker 1: partner to organizations that do have a secondary uh driver
Speaker 1: for for what's going to drive the secondary sales. So
Speaker 1: that's actually that's that's typically the strategy that I actually
Speaker 1: um usually talked. Could you give an example of what
Speaker 1: that might look like. Yeah, Um, there's an n f
Speaker 1: T called I'll give you a good example. I'll give
Speaker 1: an example one that I I used literally use this
Speaker 1: at n f T MC UM a case study of
Speaker 1: this one project called Flower Girls, um. And they are
Speaker 1: it's an artist. Her name is Eva something I forgot
Speaker 1: her name. UM. So she comes from the traditional art world.
Speaker 1: She has a huge community already. UM. Part of the
Speaker 1: project is they wanted to make sure that they were
Speaker 1: giving back to the community, so they give to women
Speaker 1: and girls shelters. Um. And so as a part of
Speaker 1: they have a gamified component where they have like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to bore you to death, but it's
Speaker 1: like they have seeds and these different it's like very garden,
Speaker 1: you know, themed is the n f T. And so
Speaker 1: they have like this game ified thing where you plant
Speaker 1: your seeds and water the seeds and watch the flowers
Speaker 1: grow and this whole thing. Right, Um, But as people
Speaker 1: get into the game and they're playing it and they're
Speaker 1: treating their n f t s back and forth. That's
Speaker 1: the volume that's happening on the secondary um. And because
Speaker 1: of the partnership they have with like the women shelters
Speaker 1: and things like that, those nonprofit profits are are benefiting
Speaker 1: um from all of the transactions happening on that on
Speaker 1: that smart contract. So um, you had tweeted six months
Speaker 1: ago maybe about you were you were at Basil at
Speaker 1: art Basil, and you were talking about you wouldn't you
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe that the world of crypto is falling apart
Speaker 1: if you were in that environment, because the energy was
Speaker 1: so palpable. I want to particularly talk about the you know,
Speaker 1: the falling apart, you know part of that comment there,
Speaker 1: and because there is a sense that crypto isn't what
Speaker 1: it was cracked up to be. We were Some people
Speaker 1: lost a bunch of money, you know, whether they were
Speaker 1: where they aped into stuff and whatever. People lost money.
Speaker 1: And there are some people who are really really big winners.
Speaker 1: It just came out a couple of days ago. Peter
Speaker 1: TiAl pulled out a bunch, you know, right before the
Speaker 1: market crashed. And so how does he know who knows,
Speaker 1: But the idea I wanted to discuss is what is
Speaker 1: your take on the world of crypto and it's long
Speaker 1: term value. So I think this is where I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people could have a pretty bad misconception.
Speaker 1: The base layer technology that we're talking about is blockchain technology.
Speaker 1: The first use kid is the first the first born
Speaker 1: child use case of blockchain technology is cryptocurrency. So usually
Speaker 1: when I'm having this kind of conversation, I love to
Speaker 1: kind of have a first principles conversation around the use
Speaker 1: case and the efficacy of blockchain technology. Cryptocurrency is a
Speaker 1: use case of blockchain So, um, cryptocurrency is not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: This is I think a lot of people. So if
Speaker 1: you go back and kind of do some history, um,
Speaker 1: seventeen was the last time that there was a really
Speaker 1: big influx of users and and and onboardings into the
Speaker 1: block blockchain and crypto space. One was just the last
Speaker 1: most recent version of that. So um, if you look
Speaker 1: back at any of the trading charts since the beginning
Speaker 1: of Bitcoin in two thousand nine and ethereum in two thousand,
Speaker 1: I think it was like twelve. I think, Um, this
Speaker 1: this kind of rise and fall is normal to be
Speaker 1: quite frank, and you don't lose money if you don't sell.
Speaker 1: So there's no such thing as there's There are realized
Speaker 1: gains and realized losses um. And so everyone who has
Speaker 1: held and gone through um all of these cycles over
Speaker 1: the last decade have gained so UM. So if we're
Speaker 1: looking it really depends on what perspective. Perspective your chart
Speaker 1: is that you're looking at your chart, um. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking at in the last filled months, well then yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone's crying right now. But if you look at the
Speaker 1: next three years until the next bitcoint goole cycle, UM,
Speaker 1: if you hold, perhaps you'd be giving people kiss. Cryptole
Speaker 1: goes up, crypto goes down. Some people believe us all
Speaker 1: the fantasy in the first place, and others are true believers. Myself,
Speaker 1: I foundationally believe that there will be a mainstream digital
Speaker 1: currency now, whether it's ethereum or bitcoin or some other
Speaker 1: actions yet to be seen. But I do believe at
Speaker 1: my core that there will be a digital currency that
Speaker 1: is widely accepted. Is this then a good base idea
Speaker 1: for investing k Let's peaks on it. Yeah, No, I
Speaker 1: I agree wholeheartedly. Um. That is the question back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen. Uh, it's what we called like
Speaker 1: the I c O boom um um uh initial exactly.
Speaker 1: And so there are a lot of really terrible projects
Speaker 1: out that didn't do anything, and so the same it was.
Speaker 1: I mean just look at the you know, copying paste.
Speaker 1: What happened in one is the exact same thing that
Speaker 1: happened back then. Um, you got a lot of people
Speaker 1: excited about making money. Nobody actually wanted to provide value
Speaker 1: to the marketplace. Cool, it was a big bubble, it popped, um,
Speaker 1: but the real players I do feel confident. Um, bitcoin
Speaker 1: is the most Like if you were to look at
Speaker 1: this on like a on a on a on a
Speaker 1: line and look at you know, on one end you
Speaker 1: have the most decentralized blockchain, and then on another end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, you have, um, the least decentralized blockchain.
Speaker 1: Let's describe what that means for people who may not
Speaker 1: get centralizing. Decentralized means before you go too far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so decentralization is it's really like the reason why blockchain
Speaker 1: was created in the first place. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to in the history, but the reason why bitcoin
Speaker 1: was created was out of the housing crisis of two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Essentially, the idea that we were as
Speaker 1: as you know, my parents put their money into real estate,
Speaker 1: put their money into therefore one case, as you know,
Speaker 1: that's what everyone was told to do, is like the
Speaker 1: safe way to invest your money. UM. And yet you
Speaker 1: have banking bankers who do UM uh fractional reserve banking. Right,
Speaker 1: they're allowed to leverage the funds of inside of you know,
Speaker 1: your bank account. You put your money into the bank
Speaker 1: UM or into some type of investment vehicle. They take
Speaker 1: those funds, invest them, they give you a percentage back
Speaker 1: of what they make. Right basically how it works. They
Speaker 1: lost their money, they were doing really risky UM investments UM,
Speaker 1: and they lost your money. They lost your investment UM
Speaker 1: and so essentially because of that, the value of you know,
Speaker 1: putting your money into those investments. So anyways, long story short,
Speaker 1: the person or people Satoshi Nakamoto who created bitcoin was
Speaker 1: piste off and was like, UM, instead of putting our
Speaker 1: money in the hands of the government, we want to
Speaker 1: be self sovereign and control my own value, and so
Speaker 1: I created UM bitcoin and UM. The idea of decentralization
Speaker 1: is that no one entity. Most centralized currencies are you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, central bank or central reserve issues that currency.
Speaker 1: The I D is that no centralized entity UM issues
Speaker 1: the currency. And it's also deflationary because there is a
Speaker 1: max supply. So the idea is that, um, you can
Speaker 1: print more, you cannot print you cannot print more bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and so over time, as more people adopt and use it,
Speaker 1: it becomes more and more valuable. And what you were
Speaker 1: saying previous to that was if you look at the
Speaker 1: bitcoin on a line and you you were going to
Speaker 1: go down the trajector, I would't. I wouldn't bring you
Speaker 1: back to that. Yeah, exactly. So in a spectrum of
Speaker 1: like most decentralized is bitcoin, Um, you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of different validators all around the world. Um. You think
Speaker 1: about a WS and they have like centralized hubs where
Speaker 1: there's where their servers live. And that's why AWS is
Speaker 1: able to provide you know, hosting services to companies all
Speaker 1: around the world. UM, imagine a WUS. But like AWS
Speaker 1: doesn't own all those servers. We do right as as
Speaker 1: just individual people. I can run a validator on my
Speaker 1: computer right now. You can run a validator on your
Speaker 1: we're all keeping Bitcoin running. UM, no one owns it. Essentially,
Speaker 1: no one person and no one entity owns it. So
Speaker 1: that's what decentralization means. On the other end of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: because people have seen how valuable these networks are. UM,
Speaker 1: you have companies that have you know, created their own blockchain,
Speaker 1: which means it is aws essentially and so UM. It's
Speaker 1: this is why it's so important to understand and to
Speaker 1: really be educated on the the a b c's of
Speaker 1: blockchain and why it was created in the first place. UM.
Speaker 1: So going back to your original question of like what
Speaker 1: block chains are going to survive over time, I think
Speaker 1: bitcoin is a really good bet simply because it's the
Speaker 1: most decentralized no one controls it. UM. That's also why
Speaker 1: bitcoin is also the hardest to build on top of
Speaker 1: because no one controls it and no one is in
Speaker 1: charge of actually maintaining like the technology is fantastic. There
Speaker 1: Bitcoin UM foundations and you know dows decentralised autonomous organization
Speaker 1: sans UM that vote and have governance and say, okay, great,
Speaker 1: we're going to vote to agree to upgrade this part
Speaker 1: of the network. UM. But no one owns it, and
Speaker 1: so Bitcoin is really safe. In my opinion, Ethereum is
Speaker 1: also really good. Ethereum is kind of the middle of
Speaker 1: the road. They're they're decentralized enough in my perspective. Uh,
Speaker 1: but you also have people who are really intentionally building
Speaker 1: on top of it. So you've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: companies n f T s. Let's talk about n f
Speaker 1: t s for example. People are not building n f
Speaker 1: t s on top of Bitcoin. People are building n
Speaker 1: f t s on top of Ethereum. So it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just an interesting use case to look at. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what how are people using the technology? And more and
Speaker 1: more companies um are are using Ethereum. So those are
Speaker 1: some of the blockchains I think are our safe butts.
Speaker 1: And so there are people who are still excited about
Speaker 1: purchasing n f t s. And since we're talking about decentralization,
Speaker 1: you could hold you could put an n f T
Speaker 1: on a WS and because you're just referencing it, right
Speaker 1: the artwork, Yes, you're referencing the artwork. So can you
Speaker 1: talk about the value in knowing where your n f
Speaker 1: T the artwork is is hosted? Sure, Yeah, that's okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I to two parts to that.
Speaker 1: One is that I don't know that that is necessarily
Speaker 1: like the artwork in the same way that people can
Speaker 1: like copy and copy in um like download the artwork.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's actually the value of the
Speaker 1: n f T. It's really the serial number. So like
Speaker 1: even if the artwork itself is not on chain, if
Speaker 1: it's hosted being hosted on like I, uh, you know
Speaker 1: Piniata for example, we've used to pinata as a service
Speaker 1: to host the artwork and things like that. Um, it's
Speaker 1: really about like the artwork tied to the tied to
Speaker 1: the serial number, almost like the certificate of authenticity if
Speaker 1: you will, that it that does live on chain. So um,
Speaker 1: there are some projects that are like our artwork is
Speaker 1: on chain. Cool, Okay, that's fine, that's uh sure if
Speaker 1: that tickles your fancy. UM, I personally care to know
Speaker 1: that that artwork tied to the serial number. That's what
Speaker 1: I care about, is the serial number that says this
Speaker 1: serial number owns that artwork. As long as that serial
Speaker 1: numbers on chain, that's personally what I care about. And
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about your company a little bit,
Speaker 1: and you you help companies and organizations grow and manage
Speaker 1: you know, the communities that they that they are desiring,
Speaker 1: even hybrid communities that they're desiring to collect UM, what
Speaker 1: are ways that companies and organists that are not super
Speaker 1: sophisticated can you know, use the blockchain to engage their people.
Speaker 1: We really think about it UM in from the from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of community, and actually talked about this at afrotech.
Speaker 1: I talked about how can as a consumer, how do
Speaker 1: you get the most out of your consumption? As a creator,
Speaker 1: how do you capture as much value out of what
Speaker 1: you're creating? UM? And then as a community and as
Speaker 1: an ecosystem, how do you have your your incentives aligned? UH?
Speaker 1: And I think that that's ultimately UM. How we think
Speaker 1: about it is how do we create ecosystems and communities
Speaker 1: where it's a sustainable community, where all incentives are aligned. UM.
Speaker 1: I really like, I really like the use case of
Speaker 1: memberships personally. UM. The idea of creating like a parent
Speaker 1: n f T is how I typically call it UM.
Speaker 1: Going back to let's let's for example, go back to
Speaker 1: the example of like the higher education project that we did,
Speaker 1: there was a parent n f T and that parent
Speaker 1: n f T basically produced two other n f t
Speaker 1: s every year, and that n f T was your
Speaker 1: access that you could burn to you know, uh, get
Speaker 1: your discount, claim your discount for each semester um. Because
Speaker 1: that that n f T, that second child n f
Speaker 1: T was decoupled from the parent one. Now you have
Speaker 1: the control as a consumer to say, Okay, great, I
Speaker 1: want to be a member of this group, but I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily plan on using the benefits of being a
Speaker 1: member of this group today. So because I have my
Speaker 1: n f t s, my other n f t s
Speaker 1: that represent the benefits of my membership, I can store
Speaker 1: them away and use them later, or I can sell them,
Speaker 1: or I can gift them. And so it's giving people
Speaker 1: in your in your in your community, and in your
Speaker 1: membership organization more control and in fact more value for
Speaker 1: being a member within your organization or or within your community.
Speaker 1: So that's typically kind of the way that we think
Speaker 1: about U n f t s, at least at this stage.
Speaker 1: There's things like ticketing for events. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: other use cases that we're that we're kind of exploring
Speaker 1: with as well. Um, but I just know for myself
Speaker 1: as a consumer, I'm like Okay, Well, if I own
Speaker 1: this on chain and the only way that I can
Speaker 1: extract value from it is by selling the n f T,
Speaker 1: well I don't want to sell the parent n f
Speaker 1: T because that's like how I continue to get benefits.
Speaker 1: And so you have to be able to extract and
Speaker 1: decouple the main membership n f T from all the
Speaker 1: benefits that you get from that n f T. Particularly
Speaker 1: because we've brought up organizations. I'm interested in your take
Speaker 1: on because if you've got a token out there and
Speaker 1: you can't control whether somebody resells it, you can't control,
Speaker 1: you know, how you distribute them in the first place.
Speaker 1: People can apply to be able to purchase, but the
Speaker 1: resale is up to you or me, right, And so
Speaker 1: if we create a project that says we want to
Speaker 1: save the whales, I'm making I'm making this up. We
Speaker 1: want to save the whales. And now you've and we've
Speaker 1: all bonded together to create this thing we've all got
Speaker 1: in n f T, I decide I don't like whales anymore,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna sell it to a killer, Like how
Speaker 1: do you protect That's a very gruesome way to set
Speaker 1: this up, But how do you put all the all
Speaker 1: the po folks are gonna come. Like, how do you
Speaker 1: protect the community is let's say we're creating anyone for
Speaker 1: all black techies, and now you've got people who are
Speaker 1: not you know, even allies, who are buying this thing
Speaker 1: because somebody sold them. Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker 1: So this is UM. Last year, UM, there was so
Speaker 1: Vitalic P. Terran, who's one of the creators of the
Speaker 1: Ethereum blockchain, wrote a white paper called UM talking about
Speaker 1: s bt s or soul bounds tokens and UM it's
Speaker 1: basically a non sellable n f T. And so this
Speaker 1: is a really good use case for things like that
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't sell, like your social Security number or
Speaker 1: your driver's license or your passport. UM. These are things
Speaker 1: that are unique identifiers to an individual. UM. So that
Speaker 1: actually allows an individual to create an identity based off
Speaker 1: of data on chain. Right like right now, when we
Speaker 1: think about like, you know, identities and with the metaverse
Speaker 1: and web three, we're thinking about the p FP that
Speaker 1: pick the picture that are what about the actual substance
Speaker 1: of the person UM And that's where soul bound tokens
Speaker 1: come into play. And so we've actually been Um, we're
Speaker 1: kind of in the process right now of of of
Speaker 1: of creating a couple of use cases around spt s UM,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's a solution for something that
Speaker 1: you're talking about that actually again kind of goes back
Speaker 1: to the model that I was just describing of like cool,
Speaker 1: now that you're in you're cemented into this group, and
Speaker 1: now you get these other like kid n f t
Speaker 1: s that represent your membership, so you can sell those things, um,
Speaker 1: but you can't sell the SPT that is tied to you.
Speaker 1: So maybe you still have like a you know, maybe
Speaker 1: only one a thousand people in your group. And when
Speaker 1: someone says, hey, I no longer want to be a member,
Speaker 1: great you can burn. You can have a burning mechanism
Speaker 1: that burns so that they're no longer an active member
Speaker 1: within your community. Um. And then now you have a
Speaker 1: spot that's open and available for someone else. But then
Speaker 1: you have a vetting process and maybe some kind of
Speaker 1: application process to see if you want them in your group.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at the ocean of opportunity, are still
Speaker 1: out there to be had by innovators. When you think
Speaker 1: about black techys and black innovators, where should we be
Speaker 1: looking for our lane when it when it comes to
Speaker 1: the blockchain, not just n f t s and not
Speaker 1: just cryptocurcy, but the blockchain and that ahole. Where would
Speaker 1: you like to see more of us and make that
Speaker 1: case please? Yeah? I think that there's still um what
Speaker 1: is it? What is this saying that? Like when when
Speaker 1: there's a gold rush, UM, sell sell thee Yeah, yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: there's still plenty of picks and shovels to to be
Speaker 1: sell sold. So UM. Most of the biggest winners UM
Speaker 1: in this most recent uh you know, UM bull cycle,
Speaker 1: it was open Sea. Who's a marketplace. It was the
Speaker 1: exchanges who were just essentially selling you and creating tools
Speaker 1: for you to buy and sell crypto. UM. Those were
Speaker 1: the companies that did the best. And so when I
Speaker 1: think about even the tools and products that we're thinking
Speaker 1: about building ourselves, it's okay, great, what are the what
Speaker 1: are the SaaS products that make it easier for people
Speaker 1: to UM build on create the tools to help other
Speaker 1: people build and so UM, whether that's logistics UM, I
Speaker 1: think uh, like I think FedEx and ups um are
Speaker 1: creating their own internal block chains UM to help them
Speaker 1: not a cryptocurrency simply just blockchain to help them with logistics. UM.
Speaker 1: I know that Amazon's creating their own coin. UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of companies are creating this so and I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest issues is helping more and more
Speaker 1: people to onboard successfully and quickly. UM. And they're being
Speaker 1: less friction so security measures. UM. These are all things
Speaker 1: that you can just honestly just try to sign up
Speaker 1: for meta mask and discover like five businesses that you
Speaker 1: could probably make because you're like, take, this process sucks,
Speaker 1: so uh, there's lots of opportunity. And because you just
Speaker 1: said that, because I love that you just said, because
Speaker 1: you know this process sucks quote unquote, because it was
Speaker 1: a quote I think it was Paul Graham. It might
Speaker 1: have been Paul Graham, might have been Market Injuries who
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, there is the wealth is made
Speaker 1: before the user interface is actually easy to use. That's
Speaker 1: not that's not the actual words to use, but that's
Speaker 1: the point he was making. And so when the user
Speaker 1: interface is super easy, the people who were a billion
Speaker 1: things have already made their money, right, And so it
Speaker 1: was very difficult. It was a strong learning curve for
Speaker 1: so many people just to figure out what the blockchain was,
Speaker 1: and so how do you admonish people to not be
Speaker 1: afraid to jump into this thing? You start talking about wallets.
Speaker 1: Now you got hot wallets and cold while let's talk
Speaker 1: about meta mass, talk about you know, coin base, and
Speaker 1: all you see is bad news, bad news, bad news.
Speaker 1: How do you, um, how do you preach this to
Speaker 1: where there's easy entrees into these opportunities? Well, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. Necessarily I'm not going to encourage
Speaker 1: for it to be easy, because I think to your point,
Speaker 1: it's in the it's in the friction where the where
Speaker 1: the fortunes are made, right like, um, it's it's being
Speaker 1: able to come up with the you know, the technology
Speaker 1: that makes the smooth paved road, um for everyone else
Speaker 1: to be able to follow after you. Um. So I
Speaker 1: think that it is, you know, number one, what is
Speaker 1: your expertise, where are you good at naturally, what are
Speaker 1: you doing currently that makes you money great? Identify that
Speaker 1: and then as you start exploring. We have a community,
Speaker 1: so people are welcome to join that and to join
Speaker 1: our community, but it's really focused on helping other people
Speaker 1: who are builders in Web two to start becoming builders
Speaker 1: and Web three and so um, yeah, we go through
Speaker 1: the basics. We go a lot of the stuff we
Speaker 1: talked about on this right on this on this episode
Speaker 1: of what is the blockchain? What's decentralization? Why does decentralization matter?
Speaker 1: This is literally this technology was built out of philosophy.
Speaker 1: So if you don't understand the philosophy of it, um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be hard to wrap your mind around why
Speaker 1: the technology even is is so fiction filled to begin with, Well,
Speaker 1: why don't we just do well because it's not decentralized.
Speaker 1: You asked the question, well, why isn't the artwork on chain?
Speaker 1: Well does that matter? Right? Like, these are all the
Speaker 1: things that you have to kind of like start taking
Speaker 1: those baby steps and understanding I'm getting your hands dirty. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing is just don't be afraid.
Speaker 1: I started this in UM at the end of seventeen,
Speaker 1: I dove deep into n f T or to blockchain technology,
Speaker 1: started investing lost money. UM help parents, you know you
Speaker 1: got a little bit it is it is right like,
Speaker 1: and they're like, Okay, well I made a mistake, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's not like I had a lot of money
Speaker 1: at the time, so it was just being willing but
Speaker 1: part of part of this experience is the value of learning.
Speaker 1: And so if you're willing to kind of um, not
Speaker 1: to say that you need to be willing to lose
Speaker 1: money in order in order to learn, but um, but
Speaker 1: but you know, you gotta be able to be in
Speaker 1: community with other people who are committed to learning about
Speaker 1: this space as well, and it's they're what they're learning
Speaker 1: is going to rub off on you as well. It's
Speaker 1: interesting you say that, and because I've heard so many
Speaker 1: people say almost the opposite about it's not so far
Speaker 1: a departure from what you just said. Is like you
Speaker 1: do have to just get in to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Like if you're spending your all your time on the
Speaker 1: sideline reading books and you just have to get in,
Speaker 1: you have to buy something by you know, an n
Speaker 1: f T or you know, convert some money over to
Speaker 1: etherory or whoever. So I'm going to give you a
Speaker 1: couple of different examples, and i want you to tell
Speaker 1: me what you would do. So you got a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars and we do that, it's thousand dollars, five hundreds
Speaker 1: at a hundred dollars, what would you do dealing like
Speaker 1: what like, what would you do you want to get in?
Speaker 1: Should I buy an n f T all have to invest,
Speaker 1: you know, discretionary in this particular vertical is a hundred dollars?
Speaker 1: What do I do with it to get the best education?
Speaker 1: And then do it f five hundred and a thousand?
Speaker 1: This is good, This is good. Okay, So I think
Speaker 1: step one hundred dollars um what I would do a
Speaker 1: lot of that by the way, yeah, um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think a hundred bucks, So I would I would literally
Speaker 1: actually just uh convert it into ethereum, go to an
Speaker 1: exchange um, convert by some set it all up, buy
Speaker 1: some ethereum, put it into your metal mask. So basically
Speaker 1: by the etherrem on exchange put it into your metal
Speaker 1: math um. And now you have gas fees and so
Speaker 1: um even with like some of these and at these
Speaker 1: free n f T projects out there, Uh it's like
Speaker 1: free plus gas. Yeah. So gas fees are the toll
Speaker 1: by the way, they're just there's just a toll. If
Speaker 1: I get on a turnpike, you're paying to play exactly
Speaker 1: the transaction. It's it's what pays because there's no again,
Speaker 1: there's no centralized company that's paying the engineers to make
Speaker 1: sure that the blockchain stays running. You're paying the folks
Speaker 1: who are keeping the blockchain running. That's what it is,
Speaker 1: UM and so UM. There are plenty of free n
Speaker 1: f t s, and free n f T s are
Speaker 1: actually a trend right now because because we're in a
Speaker 1: down market, you have a lot of folks who are
Speaker 1: putting out free n f t s. So what I
Speaker 1: would do is I would put that hundred dollars into
Speaker 1: gas fees, and you're met a mask wallet and go
Speaker 1: and go n f T hunting for some free n
Speaker 1: f t s and have just enough gas money to
Speaker 1: be able to actually mint the free n f T
Speaker 1: That's what I do. Five dollars I would UM, I
Speaker 1: would take that initial hundred dollars, put it in the
Speaker 1: gas fees, take the rest of that four hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and just buy ethereum and keep it in your wallet
Speaker 1: and take it off of the exchange and put it
Speaker 1: at the very least into your meta mask wallet. And
Speaker 1: I assume once we get to a thousand dollars, I
Speaker 1: can tell you what I do after that thousand dollars. UM,
Speaker 1: I would do those first few steps, but you know,
Speaker 1: put a hundred dollars into gas fees. I think with
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars you can you can get away with
Speaker 1: buying one n f t UM with the price of
Speaker 1: eight being at around dollars. Right now, most n f
Speaker 1: t s are selling at like you know, UM, at mint,
Speaker 1: at launch UM, you know, around point zero five maybe
Speaker 1: point one eight, so that's a hundred fifty bucks UM.
Speaker 1: So you can go and buy an the thing, though
Speaker 1: again is doing that due diligence. Who are the who's
Speaker 1: the team? Are they publicly known? Publicly known? What are
Speaker 1: they trying to accomplish and build? Awesome? Alright, make sure
Speaker 1: that you get on the allowed list because of course
Speaker 1: they're trying to do supplied to the demand dynamics as well.
Speaker 1: So you gotta be involved in the community UM, which
Speaker 1: usually is going to be on Twitter and Discord. So
Speaker 1: get involved. That's free, getting involved as free UM. And
Speaker 1: then if you get onto the allowed list, the v
Speaker 1: I P list UM meant your first nf team for
Speaker 1: like a Black Tech Green Money is a production to
Speaker 1: Blackvity Afro Tech on the Black Effect podcast network and
Speaker 1: I Hired Media is produced by Morgan Dabon and me
Speaker 1: Little Lucas. But Thedditional Productive Support by Sarah Argony, Rose
Speaker 1: mc lucas. Special thank you to MIKEAE Davis and Vanessa Serrano.
Speaker 1: Learn more about my guests of the tech this roout
Speaker 1: that's an Innovatives at afro tech dot com, Join Black
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