THE WEB3 SUMMIT — Day 3
Speaker 13 What's going on? We've got our speakers ready. Welcome to day three of the web three summit. Super stoked to continue. It's been an epic couple days. Today is the final day of the summit. Everything has been recorded, so you can go back on x and watch. But, also, to remind everyone, everything will be added to our educational platform, which has not yet launched, but will launch shortly after the summit when it ends. It won't be exactly today, but it will launch very shortly after we wrap everything up. And we'll have everything there organized by talk, and we'll be adding videos into that platform. We'll be doing more interviews with people. We'll be doing more talks, more tutorials, more of even the technical stuff all to the conceptual stuff to, a bunch of exciting things. So super excited for that to launch. And, again, that will be free.
It is a public good, and it will be free forever. Our goal is for that to become the central place, the go to place when someone says, I wanna get onboarded into web three. I wanna learn about web three. I wanna become an artist. I want to become a dev. I want whatever it is, we want that to be the place where you could say, just go here. And then people can get onboarded and solve that problem for the space, bring more people in, and really create, public good for web three education. Alright. Well, we're gonna get into the first talk. Gonna bring our speakers up here in just a moment. The first talk is titled bridging web two and web three. Really excited about this. So we'll bring up TC and Ohmes. Welcome. How you doing, TC? Good to see
Speaker 7 you again. That's good.
Speaker 13 What's going on? What's up, Ohmes? Alright. Cool. Well, we'll go ahead and just dive right in. I think this is a topic that, you know, people discuss pretty frequently. And as our space continues to grow, we're gonna continue having this conversation. Again, shouting out the recent initiatives that have been absolutely awesome, for bridging web two and web three, like zero ten at Art Basel. Shout out Redbeard and Eli and, everybody on the Art Basel team that helped make that come to life. You know, initiatives like that, but also initiatives that are happening all the time here on x, things like the twenty four hours of art initiative by Roger Dickerman. They're doing a livestream tomorrow for twenty four hours straight. You know, things that attract people in. But when it comes to bridging web two and web three, I wanna ask you guys how you feel about the process of that.
Do you feel like there are rails for that that exist right now? And what friction points do you feel exist currently when it comes from when it comes to taking somebody from the web two environment, introducing them to this space that we all know and love? And I'd love to start with, TC and ask you how you feel about that.
Speaker 11 Yeah. Sure. Thanks. Amazing question because, basically, while I was in Hong Kong last week, I got friends in web two asking me about, oh, are you still collecting art, digital art? Are you still collecting NFTs? So I didn't join the space super early. I joined in 2022. So I guess, like, my friends are still very curious, and they have a lot of questions to see that why I'm still active in this space and collecting NFTs, digital art, and still talking about it. And that actually opened a lot of conversations that brought the interest when it comes to digital ownership, the vibrance of digital art, how community can play a role, how we can communicate with artists and collaborate with them that we actually touched on yesterday
Speaker 11 talk. So I just feel that, like, I'm actually getting a lot more questions in a more positive way. Like, friends around my circle wants to get in. They're interested about it. I'm not sure about whales, like, all these all these kind of trends and stuff like that, but I can see that friends around my circle are genuinely interested. And I can see that their attitudes has shifted from questioning to really want to, you know, dive deeper and to really buy their first NFTs and to start collecting digitally. So this is what I've been experiencing for the past week ever since I I I was back in Hong Kong to meet up with my friends. And I feel that the the mindset and the positivity around digital art are opening up a lot of conversations that this group of my friends are ready to get into it and to collect themselves.
Speaker 13 So it's like, you know, it's starting to happen in some sense. You're starting to get those moments where people are asking you questions again. It's almost kinda like whenever, like, Bitcoin pumps, then you go to get a coffee somewhere, and the barista is talking about Bitcoin kinda thing. Or, like, you're in an Uber, and they're talking about, like, XRP or whatever, and you're, like, getting this kind of, like, vibe that people call it top signals. But, ultimately, like, what is the friction point for that like, where can we target our focus to make it so that onboarding into Web three becomes easier? And I wanna direct that question at you, Omz. What do you think?
Speaker 7 I think we still have we still have a major obstacle in terms of stereotype and image that people have you know, there's still negative stigma around NFTs and I mean, they just loop most people will loop digital art under NFTs. Even if you say, I'm into digital art, the next question is, oh, you mean NFTs? And then there's a negative stigma there. I mean, I did so I've been doing, like, exhibitions since 2022. And the first exhibition I did in 2022, almost every person, the first thing was four dates. Right? And it was negative. It wasn't it wasn't something that was, like, said in a positive way, and I I would have to spend most conversations explaining to people why board apes don't represent all NFTs and why there's interesting art being created and all that.
And then fast forward to last month when I did the exhibition in Abu Dhabi, now it's still a similar stigma. So what and if people are still making NFTs, people are still buying NFTs. Wow. These are actually NFTs. You know, it's like, there's still that barrier at the most fundamental level, which is breaking the stereotype that people have built over the last four years. Right? And then once you build once you break that barrier, you have to replace that image with a positive alternative. Right? So when I did the exhibition Abu Dhabi, that was the main objective. Actually, it was following along these lines to showcase examples of art that would surprise people. So they would see the art. They wouldn't realize it was involved involving blockchain. They wouldn't realize it was NFTs. They would establish connection with the art first, and then when they find out it was NFTs, we'd see the reactions.
And then from there, educate people around actually what the blockchain enables artists to do, what it offers collectors, the technology itself, because technology is neutral. So I think we're still at that very, very early stage of breaking breaking the barrier around the negative stigma and educating people. And then in terms of friction, you still have challenges around, like, wallet creation. Even experienced people have issues with security, right, and get drained all the time. So that's a big intimidate intimidation, like, source of intimidation and friction point for people. And then the last point I'd make is, and which you're addressing here, Satoshi, if I wanna direct people to, like, a central place to learn about NFTs and blockchain and digital art and all that, we still don't have a place like that. The content is very fragmented.
So I'd have to give people, like, a list of links and kind of, you know, how they'd have to go through one by one. There's no, like, central place that walks people through everything.
Speaker 13 Yeah. And we're solving that. That is our mission. That's the point of the summit is to create a foundation for that. And there's obviously a lot more work to do, but we did build the foundation for it as for the technical side. So we have a course library and everything that we're gonna release, and the goal would be to have it be an a to z type of thing. So it's not just a place where there is a bunch of links, but in the actual place where you go in and it's like, okay. Step one, step two, step three. And my background is in creating courses. So and ed online education. So that's where I'm going to contribute as much as I can. And the point of it being a public good is so that there's no friction there either, so it's free.
The only thing they would do is really just log in to track their progress if they want to. So, yeah, the point though I wanna make there on what you're saying is, like, the friction points with NFTs around, like, Bored Apes. I wanna pose the question to you guys. Why do you feel that there is a negative connotation around NFTs relating to Bored Apes?
Speaker 7 Honestly, if you remember 2021, because it was all speculation. Right? It was all a frenzy. It was all very hyped. You know, there was a lot of Hollywood around them, tonight shows, celebrities, even, sorry, the attitude of some of the holders. You know, like, a lot of the holders were just it was just pure flex. Right? And it was so it kind of it fed into the stereotype of, like, the crypto bro. And, like, people are just doing things to flex and doing things because they, you know, because they wanna show off. And then there was that viral tweet, the guy, like, I remember, you're the source. If you're if you're flexing a PFP that's, like, less than I can't remember how much. Like, don't add me or whatever. That kind of that kind of attitude, think, it put off a lot of people.
And the problem is NFTs, you have everything bucketed together. So I'm I mean, Bored Apes as a PFP project with utility, fine. But when you blend it and mix it with digital art and you kind of the people get the impression that these things coexist, that's where the problem start. Right? Because then you have to then separate, and you have to separate it in people's minds that these things are not the same. Yes. We share this, you know, when sim like, kind of similar ecosystem, we use the same digital currencies and all of that, but it's a very different world. Right? And and I think the hype from BoardAge just kind of overshadowed everything else that was happening. So it kind of sucked the air out of the room, you know. And I think it's more from that standpoint that that's all most people heard about.
Right? Most outsiders, that's all they heard about. They didn't hear about, let's say, the more interesting conceptual art or, you know, different things that were happening in the space.
Speaker 13 TC, what's your take on that?
Speaker 11 Yeah. I think that was the moment that a lot of different PFP projects wants to be the face of NFTs. And, obviously, at the early days, Bored Apes got a lot of attention because of celebrities, a lot of different attention taken on time lines, social media, and such that. But I wanna try to bring out a point. It's it's so hard to bring art to the center point and to put it mainstream because I don't feel that, like, art has ever been mainstreamed even in traditional art world. So I just feel that, like, we just have to attract the people that really want to know about digital art, and that's how where you can find a crowd. Let's say, like, at Basil Miami two weeks ago was amazing, and I'm sure that the onboarding process is gonna be tricky and challenging as well.
But it actually helped to, you know, start a new page for traditional out well, just to to see how digital art can be presented and created and the message behind it. And I feel that, like, we are all ambassadors when it comes to NFT's digital art. I I just feel that, like, it's always tricky and challenging to try to find the mass audience. But in a way, it's how we can onboarding artists to the web three worlds and for them to meeting works, and they will also bring their audiences into web three just like their followers. Right? Rather than focusing on board game, I just feel disappointed on the recent launch by Murakami with another Japanese artist. I think it's mister. I think it's named by just mister, another Japanese artist. They're really great artists in real life. Right?
But they recently just launched another collaboration with Murakami, flower on the background, and the portrait art, the figurative art of mister, unique style, and just put them together. And I just feel that, like, it it actually is just, like, a slap in the face, like, digital art and crypto art had developed for the past two weeks in Miami I mean, Art Basel, Miami. And in in the middle of nowhere, Murakami san just came in and launched another collab collection with with very low effort intention, I would say. So it seems that, like, even traditional artists in the art world that come into this space having this 2021 vibes. And and everything has changed, right, because it needs to have intention. It needs to be innovative. It needs to be creative. It needs to have a narrative.
And we just feel that, like, there's still, you know, cash grab coming in, Still still feeling that, like, oh, there's space for, you know, web three believers to be extracted. I just feel that, like, there's a lot to be done given that established artists come into this art world has to has to learn and has to adapt. So there are a lot of challenges, but at the same time, I just feel that, like, we are all ambassadors that we can actually share more to to just like exhibitions. Right? Like, Om's probably getting to meet a lot of, art lovers and people that question NFTs, but he's out there, to express, to educate, and to share. And, obviously, it's so hard to just Have one to talk about it, but I think that, like, when times go by and also, like, Satoshi's mom, you have been educating for so long and what you're building right now in the future as well, that's gonna be, like, an archive knowledge that it's like a one stop shopping.
Right? Like, one click and everyone knows how to do this stuff. But I just feel that it's like rabbit hole and just how we got onboarded as well. I'm not too into crypto in 2022, and if it's not hard, I wouldn't even, like, you know, get to register my wallet, open my wallet, and try to know all these kind of stuff. So everything just needs to do it step by step. But but we just have to attract the right people to come in, and they will just follow to the rabbit hole and to learn.
Speaker 13 Really good points. I wanna cover, a few things there. So first, on the point of Bored Apes, Bored Apes success led to them being super mainstream for this space. So, you know, being on The Tonight Show, having all the celebrities buy it, I don't think that that's a bad thing. I think that the reason people conflate NFTs and Bored Apes is just because the memetics of it. And I don't think Yuga Labs did anything wrong at all. I think they did a lot of things incredibly right, and the fact that it went so viral is a testament to the the success that they had. And there's nothing wrong with that success. I think though that it took such a spotlight because the reason that people wanted to become involved is because they saw someone was turning a dollar into a thousand dollars or a thousand dollars into a million dollars.
And that is, like, the viral exciting thing that brings people in. When you really take a step back, like, for all of these major things that blow up, it's usually because the financial side of things draws people in. It's not always that, and it's definitely not only that, But that is a really powerful way to onboard a large group of people is a financial opportunity ultimately. Now thinking back to the way that we all got onboarded, and I wanna ask you guys questions about that. Like, for me, it was because I heard about crypto, and then I heard about Rarible because of Mark Cuban, Gary Vee, people posting about it who have a large audience. Rarible was cool. I started going in there, and I minted some work. People were buying my work. It was a cool interactive experience. They had a cool feed for discovering art.
It was like Instagram, but for NFTs, and I really enjoyed it a lot. And, thinking back on that, it was because of my intrigue into crypto that I started digging and going down the rabbit hole like you're saying, TC, and thinking about, like, what would recreate that experience again and how that works? Because, like, you know, zero ten, people go to Art Basel. They get involved. They mint a Jack Butcher piece right there. They're interacting with NFTs. They might not even know it. Like, at Om's exhibit, you're mentioning how people were interacting and actually being a part of the community. They didn't even realize that it was relating to NFTs. I saw a phantom scribbler making a joke about how it was like a meme he posted of a gun, and it was like, I think it was a gun.
It was like, basically saying, like, NFT it was, like, hiding the the fact that it's an NFT by masking it with the concept of digital art. And then we would talk about NFTs later. These are just interesting things to think about because, yeah, there is a stigma around NFTs. But the thing is, like, NFTs are just the layer of how these things can get traded. The digital art be is an NFT. Right? But digital art and NFT are two things. So, like, the fact that digital art can be an NFT allows us to trade it back and forth and to sell it in a different way than just, you know, posting it on Instagram. But, without getting too far into, rambling too much, I wanna focus around what you guys how you got onboarded, and do you see there is a parallel between how, like, you were curious enough to come in and and then ask the question to you both, why are you still here?
What is it about the space that makes you wanna log in every day and be a part of it? Because we all obviously love this space, and we're not leaving because we enjoy it. So I wanna ask, and we can start with UTC and then move to OMS. Why are you still here, and how did you get
Speaker 11 onboarded? So I actually got onboarded when I moved to Singapore to to new country with no friends, no community whatsoever. So I only have one friend during that time, and he works in Magic Eden. So he told me that, like, if you wanna really, like, build friendships with connections because, like, back then, NFTs, cryptos are really super vibrant in Singapore. I mean, even right now, it's still pretty vibrant. So and I love art as well. So, like, my friend was saying that, like, hey. You should actually get on Discord, you know, like, hop on eggs and, you know, try to build connection and to get to know the people, and that's actually how I started. And that was 2022. Right? And that was February 2022, and the bear market, just started. So I don't really get the the the perks from, you know, flippants, you know, like, 10 x, 100 x, that kind of crazy nonsense back then.
So funny how, like, friends that I have right now in Singapore that we always talk about art on tassels, you know, even, like, crypto art history, xCopy, SansPress, stuff like that. Like, these call groups, are the friends that I connected and built while I started in tapping into NFTs. So that actually helped me realize that, wow. This new technology, it's built different because I really got RL friends. I feel that everything is real. And up till now, these are my my buddies. These are these are my brothers in a in a new country where I caught my second home right now. So this is the foundation that I started, and then I realized that community building and having a shared interest when it comes to art is super powerful. And at the same time, I I love art, and I respect artists a lot.
And it's a dream come true, right, to able to work with them, interact with them, having conversation, building relationship, and they're now friends. So this is, like, a whole different level when it comes to collaboration in our generation. Let's say that I I worked in a big corporate. For example, if I go to, like, oh, let's say Japan tomorrow, I probably wouldn't want to meet my colleagues over there because everything is about work related, and it's so stressful. Right? But if you're, like, collectors of certain artists, that's like a meetup where it belongs to NFT communities, and we love digital art, and you just post it through, like, hey. I'll be in The US next week. Like, we'll be there. You really want to get to meet those people over there. So it's like how the common interest that brought people together and to build bigger stuff.
So I see that as a new form of collaboration for for next generation. And at the same time, it's also about the the joy of collecting and the art of collecting because you are no longer just collecting an art piece like a fanboy or like a consumer. You can actually get to interact. Imagine, like, for Sam Spread art. Right? Like, for the for the star of lu or even, like, the mask the the mask of Lucy, you get to interact with the with the with the art piece to leave a mark over there, and then you have a mask that is created based on your comments, feedback, and etcetera, and you communicate with different collectors. So that how it comes up with the network artifact. Right? So you no longer just as a consumer and through the blockchain, you can know who is collecting this art.
You make friends around. So this becomes a very core group of your friends even though you haven't met them in real life. Right? So it's the conviction. It's the art of collecting, and it's the community that makes me stay. And I always love supporting the artists because I respect them a lot. They they allow me to see things that I would won't able to see it and do it myself. So these are the factors without speculation because I didn't do the foundation for speculation when I entered this space. And you made a really good point about, yes, speculation would actually attract a lot more people to come in this space, and you can tell they left during 2022 and 2023 and even 2024. Right? And speculation, I don't see there will be sustainability within it, but but those who state, right, that's a reason for them.
And given that, like, what we're doing right here is actually why we love this space, and we want to be here not to contribute, but just to give each other an encouragement that there's, like, people that are still here that they live into it, and we're still doing this step by step to attract more believers to join us. So art as a spectrum is always so narrow, but but I feel that, like, we don't need to have a mass group of people to support. We just need, know, a cold group to do it. So that's the reasons that I'm still here and what actually onboarded me to this rabbit hole.
Speaker 13 Love that. I mean, like, really good points made. I'm gonna push it over to you, Om. One thing I wanna mention is how, you know, I came in for speculation, and then I fell in love with the space. But I did end up coming here. I came in initially because I was interested and intrigued. And the speculation is obviously a bonus because you see people winning, and you're like, what's going on there? But then I fell in love with the idea of collecting and being able to create art and minting it and sharing it with people. And I saw this is like Pokemon cards but digital. Like, to me, that just instantly clicked. I'm curious, Omz, like, why did or how did you get onboarded into this space?
And then also, why do you stay here in the space and and show up every day and contribute and do awesome things like exhibits and and all that other incredible stuff that you work on?
Speaker 7 So I I'm onboarded by accident. Late twenty twenty or mid to late twenty twenty, I came across, Trevor Jones' piece on social media, the Picasso's bull, and he had released as a physical print. So I collected the print. I I wasn't really into crypto. I collected it because I thought it was cool. So from there, I started following Trevor, and then he had a release on Maker's Place in October of that year with Jose Delbo. They did a collaboration with Batman, different, like, Batman themed artworks. So that was my first NFT, actually. It was an auction. I had to figure out MetaMask. I didn't know any of this stuff. And then I spent my first few months on Maker's Place, collecting art, had no idea about anything else. Had no idea about super. Had no no idea about, you know, anything else.
And then I have so purely out of appreciation for art. And my background as well is kind of related, so it was just a very natural thing. And then yes. So it was pure accident. I I mean, it's a cliche, but I came for the art. I didn't come to speculate. I didn't come for crypto. And in terms of why I'm still here, I mean, honestly, the main reason I'm still here is because I see the promise of the technology to offer opportunities to artists from all over the world, especially from what it's called the global South, countries and regions that have historically been excluded from the art conversation, from art like, larger art markets. Because I've seen personally, I've seen stories. I've seen artists. I've connected with artists from all over the world that I'd never dream of connecting with.
From Argentina, from Nigeria, from, you know, Asia, from The US, from Europe, I would have no way of connecting with these people otherwise. Plus, I've also seen how it has changed their lives. So I've seen how artists that were making minimum wage in their countries that were basically barely getting by suddenly started minting art on the blockchain. And next thing you know, they're making an income. They're able to quit their job. They're able to become full time artists. And so that to me is the most powerful narrative and meaning in the whole space. That's what keeps me here, to be honest with you. It's really the promise of the of the technology, what it has to offer creatives. And, like, it's coming back to the the idea of speculation. I mean, I think there's nothing wrong with speculation, and it it will attract obviously, it will attract people.
My my issue with it more is about, like, the type of people it attracts, the reason that they're coming in, the messages that are being sent, and and kind of just the energy the overall energy. Because, you know, for all the speculation that happened, there were very few people really supporting artists. It never translated. You know, we we talk about, oh, no. Eventually, it'll trickle down to art. Honestly, I'm not super convinced that that that ends up being the case. I haven't seen enough of it because it's it's still a speculation in in disguise when I do see that. And and the other thing is, like, for me, I'd love the storylines to be, you know, artists from Argentina sells the work for a million dollars, rags to riches story. Right? Like, I think to me that's as attention grabbing and as potential as a mainstream story as anything else that's come out of this space so far.
So for me, like, that's my aspiration, and and that's what I'm here for.
Speaker 13 Damn. I love that. You know, the truth is too, and there are parallels in both, both of your responses is, you know, speculation brings people in. It does, but they don't stick. It's just kind of similar to you know, I'd be curious to see people that bought a Jack Butcher receipt at Art Basel recently, are they now embedded in our culture? Or did they go to Art Basel and then saw something they liked, bought something? Maybe, you know, more of like a whale collector who bought something for 6 figures at Art Basel. Maybe it was their first NFT. Now are they embedded in our culture? And the question is, like, I've talked to some whale collectors who like, who recently collected something. I won't mention them by name, but they spent 6 figures collecting an artwork from a prominent artist that we all know here in Web three.
And they're brand new to Web three, but there's no real easy way for them to get embedded in this culture. Like, x is a way to do it, but, it's kind of interesting. It's almost like we're, you know, people come in and people are interested, but how do we get them to stick? And that's really my question to you guys. I love what Ohmes said about, you know, a rags to riches story. Like, that's really a big part of what we're building with the educational platform because if we can give the tools to people in countries that are massively talented, like in third world countries or even just, like, underdeveloped countries that can now, if they have access to the Internet, can start making art. And if they're really talented, they can make pixel art. You don't need an iPad to make pixel art.
You could just have access to the Internet. There's a lot of art you can make, generative art with just access to the Internet. The talent that exists that we have no idea about, those people getting access to education, like college level education to be able to learn about Web three and actually get involved, that I feel like will make people stick. And then that can generate the stories that bring in more speculation, that bring in more excitement. Because it's like, okay. Rags to riches story, and now here's another rags to riches story. But it's also making a big difference. It's not just a, you know, a moonshot. It's actually like self development. It's mindset development. It's all these things that actually make the world a better place, and I feel like it's such a worthwhile, mission. And that's why I'm so magnetized to it and putting in so much time and energy.
But I wanna ask you guys, like, what what do you feel like is the, like, the way that people can really get brought into this space? And how would you say if we could, like, snap our fingers, what is a way for us to onboard people in mass? We can pop over to TC or, Om, so you you unmuted there. So go ahead.
Speaker 7 I think we're still at the stage where it's in real life experiences. I think that's, like, you know, infiltrating people where they go. So, like, Art Basel is an example, other art fairs. We could and it doesn't only have to be broadly focused, like, focused on art. Why not broaden that? Why not look at other experiences where, like, music or culture is involved, where you you reach broader audiences and you find ways to to hook them in? I think we're still at that stage, you know, where it's helpful as well because you give people a local point of reference. Because I also think, like, things like workshops are very valuable, especially, again, to start with an in in person or via a local more local locally targeted kind of workshops to to onboard people because it's always good for them to have points of reference, people that they can reach out to, they can ask questions to.
I think it's kind of a second, you know, still at that stage. Right? And then as far as online, yeah, Twitter for sure is very intimidating. I don't think it's the best place for people to have their experience. Like, my case, where I got really onboarded so I mentioned Maker's Place as part of my journey, but where I got really onboarded was in the Cryptopunks Discord. Right? At the beginning of 2021, still community was still very small. So I was able to, like, sit in on these conversations with people who had been around for a year or two years and learn. Right? And that was very valuable for me. And so how do you like, the way I think of it is, okay. How do you simulate that experience? How do you offer that experience to more people?
How do you do it in ways where it can multiply and spread to different, you know, regions, countries, cities? So I think yeah. For me, that was very effective. So I think of it more like that, at least initially.
Speaker 13 TC, what do you think?
Speaker 11 I think yeah. Definitely. RLEvents is gonna be a popular pick that actually help to to promote to preach this kind of concept. I think, like, what Jack Butcher did was amazing because for the receipt, you just the minimum spending is, $1. So we just transformed, you know, the entire heart lovers, the audiences to the gens. Right? Because they would think that, like, hey. Why not? There's no harm to try. So I feel that, like, this kind of mentality, it's very important, like, staying open minded and no harm to try. I feel that it's still very tough for someone that might not have a lot of time to have to dive in and to get overwhelmed to all these kind of information, like the rabbit hole as we always say. But I think, like, through digital art and our events, it actually helped develop a taste for for the for the mass.
Like, they will know what kind of art they like. And, essentially, I still I still see that, like, art is the way to actually bring a lot more focus on NFTs. Yeah. It could be membership. It could be concert tickets. But in a way, it's just so hard to execute. But through art, I still feel that, like, it's the way that can be utilized in a in a in a more in in its fullest potential through digital art and to mint it on blockchain and to mint it as NFTs as a collectible. I just wanna shout out to another brand that also focus art. It's called Kumuseum. So the founder is also a Singaporean Wei Yang. He's actually bringing art and ownership together. So let's say I think recently, they just bought a dinosaur, like a Triceratops. So they will be specialized it into different pieces.
I think this is not, like, some sort of method that it's it's super innovative, but what they always do is the ABC, which is apart from the fractionalized NFT, you also get an asset backed collectible, which have different tiers. The lowest tier could be a figure with a fractionalized, like a of of the bone of the Triceratops as part of the the the collectible toy. And in different tiers, you might be getting, like, a one of one Triceratops skull, something like that. So I feel that, like, this is some sort of amazing fucking point. Right? Like, imagine you just tell your friend that, like, hey. I own this dinosaur, and it's you co own it, and you have, like, this collectible vinyl toy that come with it as well as a pair. So these are, like, opening talking points. Right?
And I just feel that, like, you can only do this in web three. And imagine if you have, like, a a bank c, let's say, and you fractionalized it, but at the same time, you also have a collectible that's backed up with it. That's something different. Just like Bear bricks. Right? Now if you have, like, a collab with, well, let's say, Dali or Basquiat, you don't necessarily own the Basquiat piece. You just own the Metacom fabric. But when it comes down to the road with more artists coming in, you just can do this execution with collectibles. I feel that, like, collectibles bring a a big attention, especially because of LaBubu, whether you're a fan or not, but you can see the craze across the globe. So I feel that collectibles I I still feel that, like, physical collectibles although I'm not a fan of physical collectibles, I love everything digitally.
But coming bringing both together as digital as a pair would definitely help to bring more collectors in.
Speaker 13 You know, though, too, you're talking about, like, the fun of it. That's like it it's not really rocket science when we really look at it. Like, it's fun. So, like, that's why I stayed because I was having so much fun. And then I realized what I can build, what it meant for me. And like Om said, and like you're saying, like, the impact that it can make, the the way that we can integrate it in our lives, like, once that clicks for someone, they stick. It's not about, like, oh, I have to show up for anyone else. Now you're showing up for you because you're enjoying it. Digital collectibles for me are so much fun. Like I said, the biggest realization that I had in the beginning was Pokemon cards, but they're digital. Because I grew up on Pokemon. I love Pokemon. Still love Pokemon.
Have my first edition set, all of that stuff. But, like, as soon as I saw on Rarible that people were collecting stuff, I was like, this is like if Pokemon cards were digital, but it's verifiable that you own it. So now I can flex I have my Charizard, but it's digital. So, like, that realization for me, it was just so much fun thinking about collecting stuff. And in our DNA, we literally have something in us as human beings. It's innate to want to collect. It's almost like you're finishing. You're closing a gap of sorts. So it's like these are magnets into this space, and I think that the magnets, whether they're speculative or whether they're for collecting for the sake of collecting because you just love it or because you love art or because you wanna get involved in, like, a prediction market. Like, that's one thing.
Or it's like you're at a fair or you're at Art Basel, and you're like, okay. This is cool. Magnetize you in, but now what makes these people stick? Well, speculation doesn't really seem to make people stick hardcore unless they really find another, part of this ecosystem that now is deepening for them. But I think that what really makes people stick, and this is obviously hypothetical, is having something that they feel like is now for them a a deepening of sorts or like a journey. And, the fun of the space, I think, also makes people really stick. So it's like you were talking about IRL events. IRL events are fantastic. And every time I've been to one, I've always left and been like, that was amazing. I I love that. I should do that more. But the reality is that we're always in this virtual realm.
The virtual realm is always on, always accessible. Most of us, one of the first things we do in the day, whether it's the first thing or not, I mean, you know, if you're opening your phone immediately the second you wake up or not. But we're so tapped in digitally. It's so easy to attend. We have a 183 people watching with us now. They didn't need to fly anywhere. They didn't need to book to hotel or anything like that. Like so it's like meeting people where they're at. You know? So I'm like, as we begin oh, we still actually have some more time, which I'm sort of stoked on. But I wanna ask you guys, like, how what what is, like, a really good first win do you think for people in web two that we can introduce to, like, have them really stick into web three?
Let's talk let's go to Ohms on that, and then we'll pop over to t c two.
Speaker 7 I mean, it depends. Right? I mean, for some people, it might be their first flip, their first profitable flip, right, if we're talking speculation. I think if if we're talking collecting, for me, it's like the first relationship you strike with an artist. I think that's quite a special experience, especially when you connect. Because I I still maintain that's one of the most unique aspects of the space is is the ability for collectors to connect with artists directly, to build relationships with them, to get to know them, to have access to them in ways that they may not necessarily be able to in the, like, traditional art world. So I would I would at least in my experience, one of the things with Pinot touched on earlier that really is sticky about about the space is the relationships you make.
Whether it's friendships with other collectors or relationships with other artists or with artists that you've collected work from. I think as a collector, when you collect work from an artist, it's a very it's a kind of very intimate kind of exchange. Right? Like, you become part of their journey. That's a very powerful relationship. And so you you you you wanna stay for the right. You wanna see where they go. You wanna keep up with what they're doing next. So for me, if I think of it from a collecting standpoint, I think that would be the first thing that would really hook people in, is collecting their first piece from an artist that's native to the space and and forging a relationship with that artist. I would I would guess that that would be very sticky and and keep them engaged.
Speaker 13 I love that. Really, really good point. I I agree. I completely agree. Maybe there's ways to brainstorm on how to facilitate that. I I love that, and that's why I love this conversation so much. This is fantastic. Let's let's go to TC. What do you think? For
Speaker 11 first w, the first win is to finally able to feel something, which means emotionally attached, something that you you don't wanna sell. I'm not saying that, like, selling is a crime, but but as if you are emotionally attached, it's basically you connect it to the art. You love it so much. You resonate it within there there are a million reasons why you love it, or there's, like, no reason you just love it. I mean, emotionally attached, it's it's huge, and it's it's not easy to achieve that. Right? So recently, I have a friend. It's a trader that do a lot of stock trading in in in lot two. He's now get dying deep into NFTs and trying to get his first NFT, which is art related. I'm not gonna, you know, expose which collection it's gonna be. But he's been, like, window shopping all the time.
And given that he's, like, having this trade in mentality, he wouldn't even, like, think of, like, oh, so how much should I spend? And but he'd rather look into the trades, so he starts to learn how to use OpenSea, how to filter the trades, and how to see what are listed, what are not, some kind of stuff like that. So what I'm trying to say is, like, emotionally attached to the art, and apart from that, it's also about the community because these are, like, your pillars. Right? These are, like, the relationships. I'm not saying that, like, oh, I I don't wanna sell because I have good friends here, but you feel that, like, you are in this to get you are not alone. You're not you're not in this rabbit hole alone, and you have all your peers that have this shared value.
So I feel that, like, emotionally attached to something, it's the first w. It's the first win.
Speaker 13 That makes a lot of sense. It's like a mixture of these things. I think it's like like, for me, when I got in into this space, I became emotionally attached to the idea of, like, the culture. I was making friends. I was making art. I was connecting with other creators and artists and traders. I was buying stuff. I was losing money instantly. That was actually the first thing I did. Bought Bitcoin, it went down, like, 20%. And I was like, oh, okay. So, like, what's going on here? And, like, bonding with others over how everyone's losing money and, you know, it's like the silly things like that. And I think, like, when we simplify things down to be silly, fun, exciting, and, like, create environments for people to make friends, we're always drawn to community.
And if it's a simple thing and if it's a way for people to connect and also, like, to level up their lives, and if it's like, hey. I'm a new person in this community. We're working on a way to build a community that is not centered inside of x, but obviously still centered around x. But, we have within the platform that we're building the educational side, an option to leverage a community. It's almost like a Facebook group, but it's not. It's built on its own custom server ultimately. And, you know, it's just places that people can hang out, I think that makes it easy for people to engage with each other whether or not it's in any specific place. It's just, I think, about solving or cracking the the riddle of, like, how do we foster the community without all of the noise and really gather everyone together because they want to learn, they wanna connect, they wanna make friends, they wanna have fun.
And that magnetizes me in personally. And then I think people stay when they realize, like, I have friends here. There was a point where I was so deep into web three. I was like, I don't know what I do without all these people that I'm, like, hanging out with every single day. I love these people. And, like, once people are at that point, they wouldn't leave. No matter what the market does, the market becomes irrelevant. Like, the market's irrelevant to all of us, I would reckon, because we're all here, and we don't like, you know, the market's gone up and down a million times. It doesn't really matter. It's about, like, us pushing forward the mission every day, connecting every day, saying GM to each other or whatever, and having fun. So I think that it there's so much to unlock still.
And if we can just create a centralized place for people to learn and then guide that, they can kind of self organize beyond that. It's not about a micromanagement thing. It's like give people a place to learn and then give people the natural next progressive steps. So I think that we're really onto something though with, like, having more conversation like this, having more discussion, having the leaders of the space like you all come here and spend your time to share your thoughts and having 200 plus people listening live, like, that is making an incremental difference. It's really about continuing it consistently and having fun along the way that makes it sustainable, I think. So yeah. You know, that I I I'm just really, like, optimistic, I guess, about the potential of everything that we're doing here.
It's like, you know, things have really simmered a lot for web three, but the potential of like, once people just realize how they can integrate it into their own lives and really, I guess, becoming clear as well on what it is and letting people just step into those roles of, okay. I could become an artist. Okay. I could be I can make generative art. I can develop something using AI or even, like, however you do it. And I can share it with people at a global scale. I can join a community where people are actually caring to give me feedback on what I'm building. I can make friends. I can see other people win and become inspired. I could see someone from a third world country become wealthy because of an art project that they launched or because of a product that they created on using web three rails.
These are all things that really excite me. And I think that the more people get understood on what web three can do for them, it becomes natural that more people are involved in web three, especially when we have such a digitally inclined generation that's being born as we speak and also the generation that, you know, the the Zoomers and, even younger than them. I think that it's just gonna be natural for them to want to be digitally interconnected through web three rails. What do you guys think about that? Do you feel like we're like, if no one did anything to push Web three forward, would it just naturally continue to grow? And, like you know? Or is it really dependent on these rails becoming more easy to access? Like, what are what are your thoughts in that realm as far as, like, where we're headed with our current trajectory?
Speaker 7 I mean, that's obviously a very big question. Right? I mean, we obviously we're all optimistic. The fact that we're still here, you know, three, four years into what some would describe as a bear market, means that we're we're optimistic and we believe in the long term potential of the technology. Again, for the use case I touched touched on earlier, which is empowering people from countries all over the world, regions all over the world where crypto itself promises them a lot. I mean, I you know, there are countries where there's hyperinflation. Right? And they the people can get locked out of their bank and all these things. So crypto serves a real need. And then when you layer on top of that, the creative potential of Web three and what NFTs have to offer, I mean, for me, that's just immensely powerful idea.
And so, yeah, I do believe it will continue to expand, and I think, naturally, all the challenges and the friction points we have today will be solved one after another. And, we get to a place where the technology and infrastructure is there to accommodate, hopefully, millions of people interacting from all over the world. And then as far as the generational shift, it'll become very natural. I mean, it's already natural by the time, you know, people in the you know, teenagers and younger children become let's say, they get to their thirties and forties and start collecting, they're gonna be thinking digitally anyway. So all of this stuff will be second nature to them. So, yeah, I do see us getting there. I see the potential. I believe in it, and I'm optimistic for the future.
Speaker 13 I agree. I I definitely agree.
Speaker 11 TC, what what's your take there? Same here, man. I mean, super bullish, super optimistic. I believe in the Internet culture and especially digital art, how it comes to place, and actually how blockchain NFTs facilitate digital art and to bring into their culture into it at the same time. And it's also how the next generation, what they're consuming right now, but in a way that I feel that the collecting behavior is also shifting. And the collecting behavior is getting a lot more vibrant as well as you can see. Pretty much the younger ones started to collect already just that in the different price tiers, that kind of perspectives. So, of course, we need to continue to build and especially for just like you, Satochis mom, what you're doing, having education column in the future.
It's super essential and very thoughtful because we just need this sort of guide instructions directory to onboard people, to get people to understand what are the basics in order to do this, do that, and then they have all these foundation. They can try they have, like, trial and error. They can they can do their own stuff. Right? So I have very strong convictions when it comes to digital and crypto art. I see that's how even my generation or the next generation, how they perceive, how they connect, how they experience, how they interact with art, with just animations, AI, three d art, and gen art, everything that needs technology that comes into place. I still love trade art, sculpture, paintings, all this kind, but I just see that digital art gives a different energy that connects to what we are right now in this generation and to the future.
So it's definitely part of the art movement, and I believe that's the reason why I also realized that digital art needs to be part of the show. And it's not just only
Speaker 11 March 2026, it's gonna be in Hong Kong as well. So super bullish, and and thank you so much for what everyone has been building and even the audiences right now. Having, like, a a summit is not easy, and to host it five hours straight for three days is crazy. And having, and and I know that you'll also be on the twenty four hours talk tomorrow. Right? And it must be so so tired. Right? It's so exhausted. But at the same time, I think it's very satisfying as well for you to to do this, and it's not easy to arrange everything. And it's the start of the final day. So give up everyone and can't wait to, you know, join and listen to the talks for the remaining day as well. And and shout out to you again, It's the great job they've been you are doing out here.
Speaker 13 Thanks so much, man. I I do wanna clarify. I'm not affiliated with twenty four hours of art, and I'm not actually speaking on their their thing they're doing, but I just have tons of respect for what they're working on. I would happily speak if Roger asked me, but I I love what they're doing, and I love how they're constantly spending time and energy building up this space and giving time and spotlights to artists that are putting in the work and sharing things every single day. And I think that's all of our, like, opportunity is to, you know, share art that we enjoy. Like, Omz was saying, like, one of the best things you can do is just sharing the art that somebody that you enjoy. And I believe that was Omz that said that potentially yesterday. It might have been Brian Brinkman, or maybe it was both of you guys. It was Brian.
Speaker 7 Just to take credit, but it was Brian.
Speaker 13 Nice. Yeah. Well, shout out Brian. He's gonna be on another, talk later today too. So, yeah, I I appreciate what you're saying, TC, and thank you for the love. And I'm super stoked and bullish. I'm excited for what's gonna be coming next. I'm super stoked to launch this platform and start really driving traffic toward the getting involved with it for people to be able to understand it and to integrate people into it and make it easy, really reduce as many barriers as possible to getting involved. And, like, if someone's interested, they can have that moment where it clicks for them that they're like, I understand that this can change my life because I see that it's changed someone else's life. And I think ultimately that's what drives movements. People show up for themselves and not necessarily just because, oh, Web three is cool. I should do that.
It's more like Web three could change my life. It could change my business. It can allow me to impact people, and that drives interest, momentum, and is very sticky, I think, well. I really appreciate you guys today and for all of the talks that you've attended this week. It means the world to us at the Digital Asset Museum, and I know people have really appreciated the wisdom and experience that you've shared. So thank you so much for being here, and, I'm really grateful. And I'm super, super stoked, and, hopefully, we'll do some more talks as well in the future. Thank you. Thanks for having
Speaker 13 Of course. Anytime. You guys are legends. Keep crushing it out there, and, we'll talk soon. Later, guys. Super stoked for the next talk, and that was an amazing talk. I I probably could riff on that exact topic for a really long time. Maybe we'll do longer stream based around certain topics where we hone in and just do brainstorm sessions, where we just come together and say, how do we solve these problems? Really, like, siloing our initiatives doesn't help much. I feel like that was the old web three. Now I feel like we're in this new web three where, like, we can really all work together. It's not just project a, project b, project c. Like, we can all work together. Super stoked for this next talk. We have Justin Galanyi here. He's in the backstage area. We're gonna bring him up in just a second.
Super excited. His talk is on, the topic of digital art. The talk is called let's take a look digital art. So let's do a quick break, and we'll be right back. Justin, super stoked. We'll be back in literally just a minute.
Speaker 12 Alright. Let's welcome Justin
Speaker 13 to the stage. Welcome, my friend. How are you today?
Speaker 13 Doing good. Doing good. I've got a really nice slide deck set up here that Justin made. So let's dive right in. I know we spilled over a tiny bit there. I'm gonna pull up these slides really quick. I should be able to share them quite easily.
Speaker 5 way, what a great last session. TC and OMS are great. I love them. They're doing really great things and, you know, outside in different spaces as well, which is really great. So
Speaker 13 I completely agree. Epic people, honestly. And
Speaker 13 Was an epic talk, I love the perspectives as well. I feel like that making a lot of progress.
Speaker 5 And what's been really lovely is you've had a couple repeat peak guests, and it's been nice to see the evolution over the last couple days. And also the camaraderie, I think that's really special, you know, in this space as well. So Oh, while you while you pick up those slides, I'll just introduce myself. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us online today. For those of you I haven't met yet, my name is Justin Gilani. I'm a curator and adviser for AOTM Gallery. I work across contemporary and digital art, curation, cultural strategy, and a lot of my projects span over The Gulf, The United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. I'm currently based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but I do travel quite a bit. Today, we're gonna it's gonna be let's take a look. How are we doing, Satoshi?
Speaker 13 I see it here. I'm just wanting to make sure that it lets us view it appropriately without having a bunch of weird toolbars. So, yeah, I do see it here. It looks like I was able to upload the slides to the platform, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 13 This is my first time using the platform. I really do enjoy this platform. It seems to work really well. It looks like it's processing. And if it takes longer than another minute, we'll just do it the old fashioned
Speaker 5 way. Yeah. We're good to go. So why don't we let it process for a minute? But anyways, I'll continue. So much of my work focuses on helping institutions, collectors, and artists understand sort of this new language of creation emerging today. And this this is from, you know, generative systems to blockchain to, you know, large scale large scale digital installations. I'm really glad everyone is here. It's been really amazing what Satoshi's put together. This field is evolving so quickly and it's rare to have a shared moment even virtually to slow down and and sort of think through these things together. Before we get into anything technical, theoretical, or historical, I wanna share a simple intention. We're gonna sort of build this together. So those that are watching live, you know, please, you know, take notes, make some notes, think about some things that maybe I'm saying or presenting.
If you're watching this later too, it's applicable. But I have a structure, but it isn't meant to be like a lecture. If something sparks a thought, hold on to it. If something feels unclear, make sure you note it. And sort of the goal is not to overwhelm, but to give you a language, context, and curiosity for thinking about digital art today. A lot of the stuff we see is on the timeline and we, you know, we're given these things, but for me, it's sort of a moment to share some of the other reasons and other people and and things that have gotten us through this moment. So thank you guys all for showing up, with your time and your attention and sort of let's dive in. Go ahead. If we can, move to the next slide. Before we talk about digital art, AI, or blockchain, I want everyone to go somewhere personal.
I want you all to think of a moment when art moved you. So perhaps if you're joining us on the live chat, maybe put it in the in the comments. But maybe it was a mosque or a cathedral. Maybe it was a mural at your school. It was maybe a piece of music, maybe architecture, a museum gallery. It could have been a place of worship where the light felt alive or even a small painting that felt bigger than you are. I know there's a lot of museums that have these really cool little small paintings like the Mona Lisa, and there's there's just lot of hype around that. I certainly want you to take a moment, and I want you to think about what made that experience feel transcendent. Was it the scale? Maybe, Shatosh, we can go the next one. Was it the scale of the space?
Was it the silence? Was it the atmosphere? Maybe it was the movements or the presence of others. If we go even to the the next slide, Shatosh, as well. I want you guys to all hold on to that feeling because that's the feeling is is sort of what the foundation of everything we're gonna talk about in the next hour. Digital artists are chasing that same emotional feeling, but just with a different set of tools. If we can move to the next slide, here's another example of of another piece that maybe it's a it's the Ghent altarpiece. The last couple pieces were the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo and and the Parthenon and the Pantheon rather, as well as the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. If we can move on to the next slide. So here indeed is maybe another place one would feel feel that sort of feeling.
You have a lot of lights, it might be in a gallery. If we move to the next one as well, sort of how we got here is sort of this list of books that I've acquired over the last year. So before we zoom into the present, let's zoom out. I bought these books, actual books, because they they show something important. Digital art has a history, a deep global rigorous lineage that spans more than sixty years. Some of these examples in this list of books is Electric Dreams from the Tate Museum. There is the, exhibition of digital witness at LACMA. There's Tina Rivers Ryan who's the the editor of Art Forum that did the electric op exhibition in Buffalo. There's, of course, the amazing book from Cristiano Paul digital art, you see above, as well as some books by Sasha Stiles. There's the the book about new media art.
There's a book by an amazing Saudi artist named Ark who is is heavy who is is is constrained to a wheelchair but is able to express himself through through digital art as well as a lot of books I've collected from Torrey Art Futures, which is a museum in in Riyadh. One thing becomes very clear with all this is that digital art did not begin with NFTs. I'm sorry to say. It also didn't begin with Instagram and it did not begin with the Internet. It began decades ago. So if we move to the next slide, Satoshi, if we sort of start thinking of sort of like an art well, I'll give you a quick art history just to get everyone up to speed so we're on the same same sort of timeline.
If we take a quick time travel and not a lecture, it just sort of reminds us that sort of cave paintings, we see here the pigments, the surface, the light, the meaning. We move to the next slide and we see hieroglyphics, sort of visual information systems. We go next to the Hellenistic sculptures, where we see form and movement carved into a marble. We move on to the next one where we see Islamic geometry. We see logic. We see recursion. We see symmetry. Centuries before the computer even. We have here we have also, you know, examples of amazing architecture as well. And if we move on to the next one, we have Hagia Sophia again where we see light as architecture as well. We keep moving on. We have this amazing renaissance, these paintings by Rembrandt where we're seeing light come in through the use of making things very dark in the background and and the sides where we have the spotlight with chiaroscuro.
If we keep moving on, we have again that example with chiaroscuro with Caravaggio where we see this light coming in, almost thinking about how new technology with screens and meets light from the back. This case, artists were using the contemporary tools of, oils and and canvas to create this light to emit, as well. We see here really these tools that artists were using at the time that were really, were really contemporary and these these were pigment making tools. So these these presses and stuff like that that would ground, pigments in the ability to make paint. If we keep continuing, we see the printing press and how that advanced arts and technology and the ability to print things with Gutenberg. And we continue to to move forward with the daguerreotype with photography. So throughout history, I'm just taking you very quickly into this amazing thing of human creation using new technologies to create things.
And I'm not saying this is digital art, but this gets us to the moments where we see art and tech come together. If we keep moving forward, we also get to the point with the moving image and we're able to see what what that has done for us too with film. Though that is sometimes thought as entertainment, those early experimenters with the moving image were were quite important as well, and we're seeing a return to that even with TikToks and stuff like this. If we keep going, we then see these early, computers, being used, like this CRT, presentation from the CRT collective using these different screens, to sort of to create art. And if we keep moving, we see an amazing work by Charles Surrey who was at the Ohio State University with his own lab and using a plotter in the seventies and eighties.
Later, Charles Surrey went on to create actual tools. You can move to that next slide, where he created tools, that are used by artists today in Blender, like texture tools and this ribbon tool. So these are works that were done in the nineties and and the early two thousands. So though they feel contemporary, these were done almost thirty years ago, which is which is quite remarkable if we think about it. And then we're also seeing him here where one of the things with that's amazing about artists, historically, they've always tested technology. And in his case, he used the computer to really test it and to push it to its limits. So he went from plotters to then using these large IBM processors and also created a lab at Ohio State that would be the home and the genesis for a lot of people at Pixar and DreamWorks and and stuff like this, these early animators that we see for a lot of these movies.
We then move on and we see Veer Mohner, and we we know a lot of a lot of has been done with her in the space and and those artists that were making things in Paris at the time. And then we also think of other artists, like, Naka, Nice, and we then get to, Lillian Schwartz, who was at Bell Labs. And I think if we move forward, we can see Lillian there working and creating these amazing moving image things at the Bell Labs, which was an amazing, thing at the time where artists would come in and we're really pushing the bounds of technology. We then move on to, actually, I don't know what this slide is, but we're good to go. But we go on to, Lee Mulliken. Lee Mulliken was at UCLA. A quick story about Lee Mulliken. We have these these centers.
We have Bell Labs. We have stuff going on in Europe. We have stuff going on at Ohio State. We have stuff going on at u UCLA, and we have stuff going on globally, but especially with the Computer, but Lee Mulliken was this painter that was living in LA, and his son, Matt Mulliken, is an artist that has showed at Basel and working, with digital stuff as well. But Lee then was at UCLA. He then was was in the new media program. I think if we move to the next next slide, we can see an example of his works. But this leads us to artists like Casey Reyes. I think if we move forward, we start we see a a book by this is Arabesque, which is an artist out of the UCLA program as well. And if we keep moving forward, we see Rebecca Allen, who is at UCLA doing stuff with craft work.
She was recently with BIVO in Basel and was on a panel and and I saw last year and I she was in Basel again this year at Miami. But basically, you know, creating stuff and all the way to Jennifer Steinkamp who still teaches at UCLA and all of these teachers get us to the moment where we're looking at I think the next slide is works by Rafiq Anadol. So, you know, Rafiq comes out of this UCLA new media. So what we're seeing right at this moment is a combination of years where Lee Mulliken was painting. He was then playing with the computer. He's teaching Casey Reyes. He's working with Rebecca or Rebecca Allen, and then also how we get then to this moment with Jennifer Steinkem and Rafiq. This is an example, of of TeamLab. So we start sort of getting into these these more immersive moments as well.
So today, museums, biannuals, and and galleries are integrating digital work, sort of these cultural cultural experiences. Digital art is sort of becomes this architecture. It's generative, immersive, response, and evolving. It's not static. If we keep moving forward, we see examples of here's fuck render at at the sphere, and we've seen so many artists. So digital art is now being presented, including this anime work that it was just at in Riyadh at Middle East, but anime was in Tulum as well. So we're seeing this influx of not just digital art as entertainment and as part of gaming or commercial, but we're seeing it as these transcendent types of experiences. So for example, this Anima example is sort of like looking all these people together with their phones up. They're collectively together in almost this sort of transcendent experience that one might experience in a religious space, for example.
And then this is an example of the book by Casey Reyes as well. I think we were out of order in the slide, but that's okay. So we'll keep moving forward. And, again, one of the things I'm here to present is that we get to see on the timeline so much cool stuff that happened at zero ten in Miami and that effort by bringing people into the space, by thinking about how we got to this moment with the different artists that presented, including Dimitri Chernyak that was with with a o two a o t m as well as the other artists that were with verse and with with Hef Gallery and the other galleries that supported a lot of these artists in their efforts. But right here is these are examples of things that are from The Gulf.
The the last example was from Manor, which is a outdoor light festival, and this is an example from Noriyadh. So you're seeing popping up these artists using digital their digital processes to create these these installations that are part of festivals that are very much well attended in especially The Gulf and whether it was in Abu Dhabi or in Riyadh. If we move to the next slide, we see the the also this I don't have the example of it, but right now the Louvre, this is a Jean Nouvelle architecture for the Louvre Abu Dhabi. And at night, there's a projection mapping across this white facade and the building just sort of becomes alive and morph. So we're seeing something that and then this is this last example is the Rayard Futures. I am gonna do a plug right now.
If there's any digital artists that are listening, Do Re Art Futures is an amazing space. This is only one third of the building, but the rest of the building is dedicated to digital arts and research researching and and sort of practice. So there's residencies available. And then I wanted to go into sort of this example of that Owen Ohmes did in Abu Dhabi. It was an exhibition called Outliers. It was it was in November. It was produced by Reimagined. It was an IRL exhibition presented at the Abu Dhabi Art Fair, which was amazing because it wasn't it was just part of the whole experience. People were just coming in. What made outliers important was it wasn't just the artists involved, but sort of the framing. This was not a a speculative crypto showcase. It was a curated exhibition that treated blockchain native and generative works as contemporary art.
It was installed, contextualized, and experienced in a physical space. Outliers asked a simple question, but a powerful one. What happens when artists treat the blockchain not as market, but as a material? And those artists were there. So we had examples from math castles, the Terraforms, we can move keep moving through the slides where the blockchain becomes terrain. We go into other works, by, Lucas Bray Connier, Brucunier, Dassault, embedding time into a smart contract. We had the next piece, Kim Ascendorf's pixel decks where pixels function as economic units. We then moved on to an amazing, large screen, and I should have put the slide with the the install by Lea Leander Leander Herzog of Infinite Gardens, you know, sort of almost thinking of collectors as gardeners. They just enveloped you. And then these these really wonderful here's some examples of the install, the piece by James Bloom, and you can see the salt piece in the back.
But if we continue, we also have this beautiful piece by Sarah Friend, Lightforms where ownerships becomes care. You have to engage with this piece, and it was a really this is an example of an install, but there was a large install where people were able to see this as well in live in live time. And and also, I really wanna comment on seeing that you can go to the next one. Matt Kane Matt Kane, these gaze this gazer. I've always seen it small, whether it's on my screen or on my phone, but to see it almost you know, I'm a bit tall guy, but to see it three times or four times the width of me, I'm also quite wide too. No. I'm joking. But needless to say, to see it large and encompassing really made it a special thing.
And there was amazing panels as well, that had a different curators from the region as well as the 100 collectors as well as Ryan Koopmans was there and and some other photographers that are using the blockchain as well. So it was a really an amazing amazing event. So big big kudos to, Ohmes. If we go back to this slide, one of the things I wanted to highlight too are some artists that are in the region as well. This is KDPixel. He just had a show in in Portugal, but as well as he he premiered in Basel as well. This is pixel art. It's really amazing because it really encompasses the feeling in Riyadh right now where there's so many cranes, there's so much building. But to do it in a way that's not painted but with pixels was is really, really special, especially the the emitting of light.
The next piece is by Turkey Al Khatani. Both of these artists were in that Dorei art futures. So if anyone is is thinking about that, these are artists to look at. They went through this program and then they were able to have a a presentation and an exhibition at the end. If we keep moving along, this is a great artist. She's just at the University of American University in Sharjah. Her name is Sarah Kramer, dealing with AI, but really an artist to to keep your eye out on, but also using the blockchain. And then we have also my oh, this is another great artist, Talal Al Najjar. He's from Dubai, but has a studio in Abu Dhabi and works with the Guggenheim at the Guggenheim. But really, I'm thinking about futurism, but not futurism as future, but futurism, like, the future now. Heritage as the future.
Future is heritage. Their work really merges heritage, geometry, futurism, and identity with computation. If we keep moving this is also I put in the mix. I yeah. I'm sorry about that because I have two others from the region, but another artist and when Om's talks about the global South, these other artists that I've had the great honor of being with too is Osinachi in in Lagos and Nigeria to see how his his practice has just expanded where he uses word to create these images, these situations, these moments in time. He was also one of the artists that was part of the Toledo residency and had spent some time in Toledo, Ohio with Adam Levine in the Toledo Museum of Art and all the amazing things that are have gone on there. There's other artists that we know in this space that have had a great time.
This is an artist too similar to Lee Mullican, but Samia Halbi. She's an amazing artist from Palestine that basically has done an she's had a reemergence with the her digital works from the eighties and nineties, but originally a painter as well. So you're thinking about painting as pixel and pixel as painting. So this is this is really, really exciting. I think if we move forward, this is also Arc, the one I talked about earlier. I wish this was in motion, but it's okay. But again, he is constrained to a wheelchair, but has found liberation and freedom through expression using digital tools to create amazing works, that deal with sort of themes and topics, that he he's he's deal he's challenged with, daily and and bringing those messages. So I think as I conclude, and I guess I did run through that, but maybe, Satish and I can talk about some of the things that I presented along the way.
But I just wanna make a couple notes as I I'm closing. You know, one of the observations we saw, especially in Abu Dhabi and in The Gulf and I've been seeing in Southeast Asia, is that collectors today are younger. They're globally networked. They're digitally fluent and experimental and transparent. As we know, access has changed, distribution has changed, and survival for artists has changed too. I mean, now artists are able to to basically be in their homes in in different country and be able to all of a sudden sell works and and have the ability to pay rent or to buy new equipment or to do new things. One of the, you know, things we we talked a lot about too as we're thinking about digital art, and I did a quick run through is, you know, AI cannot choose meaning. AI cannot choose, you know, cannot set attention.
AI cannot decide relevance. AI cannot feel beauty. In my opinion, only humans can. So I really feel that, you know, the your role as an artist, as a collector, as a curator, supporter is more important than ever. And this is the really amazing point right now with collecting digital art, with making digital art, and supporting digital art is that as we have new technologies that we're embracing to make art, we still the human intervention, the human the the human touch, let's put it that way, is still very important. So one of the things, you know, I wanna just share is, you know, painting art has evolved from those cave paintings that we saw earlier to right now where we're at with art on screens, with art printed, with art on robots, with art digitally three d printed and and whatnot.
Are it has changed, but the human behind it has also evolved too. And I think this is a really amazing moment in time for us all to be alive and and to sort of experience this. Artists have always used the tools of our time. Today, those tools include code, data, networks, and generative systems, but the goal hasn't changed. The goal is still to move us if we move forward to connect us and to expand our imagination, to help us see ourselves differently. And so anyways, I wanna thank you all for being here. That was a bit of a a sprint, Satoshi, but I I think I'm thinking I think I think this was really amazing to have everyone here together and and go through that. So, anyways That was
Speaker 13 incredible, honestly. Well done, man. Thank you. Honestly, I think we have to break this one out. What's that? Hear that. The audience applause. Oh,
Speaker 13 Amazing. So, anyways I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 5 Needless to say, also, you know, we you know, there's so much more to go into. I didn't include everyone. I know there's a lot of artists. There's a lot of things that I've left out. But I think getting different perspectives, at least this might start people to go down different rabbit holes and sort of think about, why we're here, how we're here, how we got to some of these artists that we are seeing on the timeline. I think it's really beautiful that whether naively or consciously artists have been able to continue, sort of the efforts and sort of the dialogue that other artists have historically presented us is really, really, really cool. So
Speaker 13 That was incredible. You really ran through that very fluently, and I'm I wanna ask you some questions now about the presentation. And, like, you you've obviously traveled around, and you've gone to all these different places, especially even just as of recent. You've been to all these different museums and different exhibitions and different experiences. And with all the experience that you have as a creator or curator or collector, what do you feel like a that you've learned? What has stand out, like, really been the most prominent thing that's standing out to you that you've learned about the digital art space? And how do you feel like we're trending as you see, like, where we started and now where we're at now? Where do you feel like we're headed in our space? What's next for digital art and the artists here that are creating, and what's your outlook on everything?
Speaker 5 Yeah. I have a lot of hope, in humanity, actually. I think that, I'm really excited about the younger generations that are digitally native. I I'm excited about older generations that have had ideas. There's an artist named Bernard Vernier who did a project with Sotheby's. He's always used large metal sculptures, with probability to create these moments isolated in time. So he'd have a long dangling, large, like, metal piece of metal that he would have a crane, and then it would drop into cement, and that would create a sculpture. But now today, he's able to emulate that through generative digital process. So his exploration of probability, his exploration of of time and of moments is now able to he's able to produce more and to experiment more. One would say there's beauty in this sort of, like, process of big big things and heavy things, but for him to be able to execute it like that is awesome.
But what I'm also seeing with traveling is I get to do that vibe check. And, you know, sometimes we may get a little jaded. We may get a little defeated when we see things on the timeline. We also have to remember some of those things on the timeline may be exaggerated. They may be projections. They may be taken out of context. And so one of the things I wanna tell everyone today, no matter if you're collecting, creating, or supporting, is that there's some really cool things out there, and there's something for everybody. Whether it's, you know, in in where you're from regionally or online, there are people doing like minded things, and it's very important for you to find your people, for you to find like minded. I think yesterday, I I gave a a a a advice that my father gave me is be around people that are enthusiastic about what you're doing, and you're enthusiastic about what they're doing.
So I really encourage everyone that, you know, if you weren't here in 2021, you might have missed the boat on certain projects or on certain artists, and that's okay. Because 2026 is a couple weeks away, and there's gonna be more. There are gonna be more artists. As said earlier, are TC said earlier, there's other artists that and projects that are coming out that are really exciting that are from a new artist or an older artist or or whatever that might be. So I don't know. I'm really excited from all my experiences. I'm also excited to see these new museums, these new programs, these new exhibitions, these new initiatives that are really thinking about artists that are using current tools, digital tools. And I like also trend two is sort of how digitally produced things can be presented, whether it's on a screen, whether it's printed, whether it's a print, whether it's three d printed.
There are multiple different ways in which an artist can now present works that they've created digitally.
Speaker 13 Yeah. It's really beautiful to see how museums are really adopting more digital exhibitions and digital, like, mixtures of, like, digital digital art that's actually being displayed IRL, like, through interactive type of stuff. And I'm curious how you feel about the interactive the interactivity of art exhibitions. And do you feel like that is a pathway for people into web three, how people can interact with these works and potentially make them understand more about the underlying technology. Do you think that we're in a position where we're seeing more museums like, you know, like, TeamLab, for example, is an incredible digital art museum, but there's nothing really there about NFT technology or blockchain technology per se. But how do you feel about, like, interactive art exhibitions and how they could potentially open the door for people into web three?
Speaker 5 I know, for example, like, I think even at zero ten, there were some, you know, new collectors that came into some of the booths, and they were very excited by the prints collected. And then there was an onboarding process as well that they bought the pieces with crypto, and so there was a need to create a wallet, and stuff like that. So I think they're subtle. I also don't necessarily know if it needs to be here's a sign how to do it. And I think it is I mean, if we think about it, at one point, this will just be very easy. I think Coinbase is announcing something today. I know that, you know, OpenSea has interoperability with different chains. I think there's a lot of efforts to streamline the technology, and it will also almost be like how credit card transactions are, a lot of stuff behind the scenes.
So to what degree I think we need to be literate in in the process of a transaction, I'm not sure. But I do think artists like Jack Butcher and others that use blockchain as a medium, that's another thing versus blockchain as a as a utility per se. So I agree with you that, yes, I don't see much at TeamLab, but one of the beautiful things when I was in Tokyo at TeamLab, one of their experiences was going into their tea room and having a cup of ice cream and a hot green tea on a on a table that had projection mapping on it. And because of the cold and because of the heat of the tea, It made the animation or what was projected either grow or die based on the the sensory the temperature sensory on the mats, I presume, that was in the dark room on the table.
So I'm not doing it any justice by explaining it, but I was in awe by the presentation. And so it was less about the technology and more about the experience. And I think for me, that is very important as we went through that thing. We have Hagia Sophia, we have the Sistine Chapel, we have these transcendent experiences. Are we worried about what bricks were used or what mortar was used or what if it's a right angle or, you know, what angles the architectures, I don't know. But it's that feeling that I get. So in many ways, I I I that's sort of my answer to that question.
Speaker 13 Yeah. TeamLab really has gone above and beyond and created some insanely cool interactive experiences. You can go on YouTube and see people basically filming the experiences. Obviously, it's different than experiencing it in person. I have not experienced it in person, but I have looked at it and researched it extensively because it's so cool. And I think that there's a lot of room there for integrating blockchain tech or at least, like, you know, for the sake of creating more of a provenance for how people interact with these things. But something that TeamLab does that's cool is they basically allow for the way that you've interacted with their exhibit as you go through it. At the end, you can actually, like, print custom T shirts and custom, like, mugs and stuff, which is really, really interesting. I love that.
But imagine too if it was also the provenance of that being on chain somehow really truly recorded and preserved. But I wanna ask you a question about, like, how you feel, you know, with all of your experience with art as a whole. Like, what do you feel like really makes a piece of art stick with you for a long time? I feel like the viewers can really benefit from hearing your perspective on, especially the artists out there listening, your perspective on what do you feel like makes art really stand out to you? I know you touched on a few things yesterday on, like, heart, mind, and conceptual, pieces of works and how those three facets really make a difference. And, there's kind of those three parts of to every work if they really hit those marks. But I wanna kinda hear more from you in that regard.
How do you feel about like, what makes a work really stick with you long term?
Speaker 5 So real quick, just to go through for those that didn't join us yesterday, one of the things I love is hand, which is technical skills or, like, skills. Like, are are they using paint? How are they using blender, cinema four d? Like, how are they using the software, the the tools, the the materials that they have with their hand? Then it's head. So it's the concept. Do they have an idea that makes me like, woah. That's cool. I've never seen that before. Oh, they've really thought about this. It's a body of work. It's like it's they they own this sort of concept. But, really, the real ownership and authorship comes from the heart, and that's through one's individual life experience. So if we see something on the timeline today and we're like, woah. They are using AI or they're using this tool amazingly.
They have an amazing head concept with it. But you know what? I'm also seeing not only their process and their concept, I'm seeing them or they're allowing me to see me and my experience as the viewer, my heart, my soul. It's tapping into something. I think a couple of the the every panelist have said over the couple days, collectors and those that have acquired art, it touched me or it made me think in a different way or it made me cry. So not only is the artist maybe sharing their heart, but also the collector and viewer participant, is is sharing their heart too. But the thing that so for me, all three of those in, like, really outstanding work when all three of those are jiving together. Not we just don't have the technical skill and there's no concept or no heart.
All three of those need to jive. That's like my trivecta. I think Oum's talked about it being process, vision process being hand, vision being head, and and values being heart. So whatever your matrix is, I think that those are really great. But something that's and this comes from a a collector mentor of mine that, you know, I I got to I got to grow up in LA in my twenties where it was like, you know, people were supporting James Terrell and having them put in their homes, not because they were a million dollars, but because they believed in James Terrell. Was when older artists and younger artists and galleries and were popping up, and it was just such an amazing time, especially in the early you know, in my twenties. And I had a lot there were amazing collectors there too.
And one collector, named Blake Byrne was very special to me. He always talked about when an art an art needs to talk to him. And when it stops talking to him, then he can sell it. He can give it to a museum. He can let it go. Because at the end of the day, we're just custodians. We're just holding these pieces, and they they will live longer than we will, especially these digital pieces or these other pieces that you you maybe use new technology. They will live beyond our presence on this earth. So one of the things is, like, does this still speak to me? Is it still talking with me? And if maybe sometimes the piece you've moved on from it, especially early works that one may have collected, they may not those pieces may not talk to them.
But if you're looking at a piece every time and you're seeing something new or you're feeling something, that means it's talking to you. And I think that's that provides longevity and and one a need for one to continue to hold it as a custodian collector.
Speaker 13 Very interesting. So for the collectors listening, what do you feel like you look for in work when you're looking at an emerging artist, for example? Not just like an established artist, but an artist that is you know, maybe you're seeing them on the feed, you're starting to see them more. What is it that you look for as far as, like, cues, whether, like, internally or things that you typically find yourself gravitating towards that attract you to an artist, especially in the emerging side as they're still figuring things out and finding their taste potentially, finding their style even. What is it do you feel like that attracts you to a certain artist and their work?
Speaker 5 You know, in an interesting way, the more you look, the more you see. And it's sort of like you you know, someone told me that I I I think I talked about it last night, but before a collector friend of mine in LA, who's a football player, bought his first piece, he took a year to buy it because he figured out what he liked. He went to museums. He read books or he read things or he watched videos. He sort of just really enjoyed that that process and then figured it out and then bought. And so that's his advice. Take some time to figure out. And that's where I sort of go into the more you look, the more you see. So maybe people don't feel inclined to go to a museum, but there's there's visual things around us all the time.
One of the things amazing at AOTM is this artist residency we do every three months. Annika Berman started this when she joined AOTM, but it was basically we take them through this process of looking, and they're so amazed by all these visual cues that are around them. And you'll start they'll start seeing, like, triangulation. Is there, like, a focal point? And then it sends my eyes somewhere else, and it has this amazing composition. Is there a balance of color? Are they using these tools in interesting ways? So as I'm looking, I just because I see so much stuff, I mean, I look at my backlog from my phone, like, every day I'm seeing so much art, not just in real life, I'm seeing it. I so scale affects it and the environment affects it. And when it's placed by something else, it affects it.
Whereas on the timeline, we might not have that much, but we are inundated with images. And so when I see something that sticks out, that's when I and I have that feeling. It's not just visually seeing it. It's like, I feel it. That that shows up. And I do wanna take this moment because I think it's very, very important is there's a lot of emerging artists out there. There's a lot of artists. I think even in your last digital art museum sort of curation, there were so many artists that I saw, and there's a lot of submissions. And so that's similar that when I went through, it's that thing that sticks out that gives me that creates a feeling. And I think that's a big thing is, like, what is the the piece that's creating a feeling?
And going back to what I was saying about emerging art, I would encourage everyone today, tomorrow, this week before the holiday ends, find someone or something that you've never seen before. And also, like, emerging artists too, like, be mindful of, like, economics as well. I think the beautiful thing is when someone invests in you early, and it's not because it's a big price. It's because someone believes in what you're doing, and that allows for, like I talked about yesterday, this pyramid of collectors. At one point, you price people out. At the bottom of the pyramid at a at a fair price, you're able to bring more people into your ecosystem, into your fold. But I really challenge anyone that's listening today, whether you're an artist, put your artwork out there, tag me. Actually, tag me, and I'll be glad to to to look at your art, to talk about your art, to give you actual real feedback.
That's one thing in this space we don't actually do is give real feedback. There's a lot of praise, and there's a lot of quiet stuff, but I'll gladly give you fifteen minutes and we can chat through. And I can let you know how I feel about the head, the heart, and the the hand with your work. It's very easy for me, but also you need to also be open to that type of feedback as well. And so and then for the artist, there's that. Put yourself out there. For the collector, put yourself out there too and maybe collect something you never thought about collecting before or something that really evokes a feeling, in you or in in your, in your mindset.
Speaker 13 That is an incredible offer, I would say. To anyone listening, definitely take Justin up on that. That's a really awesome thing to have somebody critique your work. And, of course, being open to hearing that somebody whether Justin or anyone, how they feel about your work, it's giving you an a a viewpoint into something that it's very difficult to see when you're on the creator side. That's why I'm such a proponent for curating because it as an artist, especially as an artist, because after you do an in-depth curation as an artist yourself, you begin to look at your own work differently, and I think it helps you really grow. But as a collector as well, doing a curation or participating in one, hence why the digital asset museum, we build a board for each cure curatorial initiative of collectors, curators, people in the space that are actively involved to go through all of the works and give their feedback and learn about each artist.
And I think it really does a lot regardless of whether the art artist is included in the and curation. They're still getting eyes from these people. But even as an aside from that, I wanna focus on what you said there at the end, the collector. Now, like, what would you say to collectors who are maybe they've collected one work or maybe a few works or they collected some works, like, a year ago or maybe back when NFTs, like, gave them this rush and then they were participating. Just really in the bucket of collectors who are not, they're still getting started rather with their journey. What would you say to these collectors to build your collection, building their taste, building what they look for? How do they get more involved, and what would you say to them to do? Should it be getting more closely involved with artists, talking to more artists?
How do they really build out their collection with a specific taste in mind?
Speaker 5 You know, I think this is a great space now that, you know, there's a lot of access to artists. I think that's great. At the end of the day, though, artists are actually what I call and I'm not I'm not saying this in a in a weird way, but baby geniuses. They need to be cared for, and they also need to be elevated as well. And so this very close net with collectors and artists is fine, but when business is involved, sometimes that's where an intermediary like gallery is sort of helpful. It's not for everybody, and everyone you know, there can be a debate about the percentage, and I get that. If the work isn't being actually displayed in a physical space and there's not rent from the you know, there was not a physical rent for the gallery or whatever.
But to have someone help champion you along the way is really helpful. And that affords then for the relationship with the collector to be almost like a friendship and familiar, and it's not necessarily business related. Because we all know what happens. Sometimes with business, it gets a little complicated. It little gets a little hairy. There's especially in this space, there's not these defined standards or rules. I'm very excited about this. I'm very excited to break the system and find new ways, and this will grow a new type of intermediary or a new type of champion that I think is very important. I would encourage collectors. Yes. You can have these relationships with the artists, these creators, but maybe also there's an opportunity for you to have a camaraderie and relationships with other collectors, with curators, with other people that are supporting in the space.
So, again, as I've opened and invited artists and creators to hit me up in the DMs or tag me, I'm more than happy to talk to collectors as well, not to sell you anything, but to look at your collection and say, hey. You might not know this or you might not see this, but I'm seeing a common thread here. This is pretty amazing that you're actually into the color blue and that it has to deal with architecture. And why is this? Because your personal taste just as a a you know, when we talk about hand, head, and heart, it's sort of applicable maybe to a collector too because you are developing a concept. You are excited about certain tools or certain technology, and your own hard experience plays into it too. So the invitation is to collectors as well as creators or anyone in the system.
Hit me up. Tag me. I'll look at it. Give you fifteen minutes, and we can I'll give you feedback, not to sell you anything and not to be critical of your work, but to maybe see things from an outside perspective that you don't even know you're doing or things that you don't even know about. So anyways, that's a little plug for it, but I think I would encourage a lot because this is the beautiful thing about the collector too. I get to see collectors all over the world. I can plop up. I plopped up in Sydney. I'm in Madrid now. I'm all over the world. If I no matter what industry a collector's in, they're in medical, they're in trains, transportation, illegal, whatever they're in, it doesn't matter. The art brings us all together, and you get to meet people with different experiences, and it's such an added bonus of collecting art, of being in the system of supporting art.
It's really, really special. I don't know how to, you know, express my my excitement about art and what it's given me and afforded me throughout my life, but I really encourage everyone to really meet up with each other and also take me up on my invitation as well.
Speaker 13 Yeah, man. I mean, I really hope that people do. I definitely will work to take you up on invitations such as these, like, because you are a wealth of knowledge. You're very deep into the space, and you're so generous with your knowledge and with your wisdom and experience. I really appreciate that. Tons of respect for you for that too. I think that it really helps push the space forward having the conversations that you facilitate. The content that you facilitate pushes the space forward. Specifically, if you haven't seen Justin's content, go to his page. Go to the video tab. Go to the images tab. Specifically, I really enjoy the content you make when it's your, like, green screened onto video, like TikTok file content, I guess you call it or however. But I I really enjoy that content because it's like the for example, you did a really awesome deep dive on the Infinite Images exhibition at Toledo.
If you haven't seen that, incredible. Definitely go check out Justin's content. But as we get towards the end here, I do wanna ask about one thing, which is what is your take on you kinda touched on it a little bit on the kind of collector and artist handshake that happens. I obviously think that, you know, it's it's more beneficial if the artist is not directly selling to the collector because that way it maintains this, I won't call it a facade, but I will call it, like, a, an energy that, you know, if the artist themselves like, okay. Do will you buy this for 1 eth? And they're like, well, will you sell it to me for 0.69? And it's like, okay. Like, you know, it's different than when you're dealing with a gallery or an intermediate individual, whether it's a broker or whatever.
I think it creates more of an excitement for the collector to be buying it through an intermediary to keep that, like, energy around the artist and that mystique around the artist much more prestigious in some way. But I think it's cool that in web three, we could sell direct. However, what are your thoughts on that as we kind of come to a close on the talk? What are your thoughts on how like, the collector and artist handshake in this regard?
Speaker 5 I think sometimes it works really well, and there's things that, like, have have worked well for artists. I think one thing that we don't take in consideration is that an artist is not necessarily even though we think of it as a product and there's an exchange of something and, you know, maybe it is a product, it's still something they've birthed and it's something very personal to them. No matter if it's an addition or if it's, like, you know, they're pushing out a lot of things, it's still part of them. And so when things get personal, that's where, like, the professional personal balance comes. I think the ideal situation is contracts that it is a split contract with a gallery that facilitates those conversations.
And as soon as the artwork, it's almost escrowed, and I think I mean, there are examples of this, but as soon as it you know, as the money is sent, it's distributed a percentage to the to the intermediary and a purse and the percentage to the the artist and the assets given accordingly. I think that is really amazing thing. I think that would help a lot of the the things in the the traditional or the other art world that has historically art market that's historically existed. But I love that there's these relationships. But, again, it's funny. We've seen artists that, you know, it's it's they're relieved when they don't need to talk about one eighth versus point six nine eighth. They're relieved when they can just go to MARFA and, you know, just hang out and be with an artist.
Because, you know, even in that other art market too, the artists will commingle with the collectors and supporters and curators as well, But they those are at dinners. Those are at openings. That those are fun things for them to do. The other thing too is in this phase two is the curator role too, and and that's that's been historically there as well as an intermediary that can help guide that process as well. So I think, you know, we have a lot to to work through. I think there's some really good examples of it, but I will say to any artist that it might not be their cup of tea, that's fine. Find your find your champion, and that'll work for you. For the artist that it is their cup of tea and it works for them, it's amazing. And everyone will find what works for them, but don't feel pressured.
Do not feel pressured. And send me a DM. I'll help you figure out who's your champion or maybe maybe I'd love to hear stories of how actually artists are also working with collectors and it works fine for them because I wanna hear best best case practices and stuff like this that work. Because at the end of the day, we need we need these things to work because there are these amazing technologies and there's these amazing opportunities that come from that. Before we do sort of wrap up, because you did talk about my generosity and and invitation, I do wanna express to everyone that no matter if it's collector, curator, artist, you guys cannot believe how much I get from you. It's the life that's breathed into me. So that's why I'm I'm open to things like this. But I do have value.
Like, a lot of how people have value. So I really encourage everyone to share with each other as much as they can. You know, we talk about they're not being gatekeepers in this ecosystem, and I think that's really important that the gates are not up and that people are able to to connect with each other. So and my generosity only comes through so much generosity that's given to me daily.
Speaker 13 Yeah. Absolutely. Moral of the talk for sure. Reach out to Justin. He is a wealth of knowledge, and he's very generous with his time and energy with these topics. And overall, I think it's incredibly beneficial for collector, creator, talk to Justin, see what he's got to say about what you're doing Mhmm. Especially when he's making an offer like that. That's super generous. And also, again, very generous of you to be here today and spend your time. Oh, no doubt.
Speaker 5 We're all here we're all here for a reason, and we all show up for a reason. And, you know, we have different reasons, but, like, I'm very excited about what this space has provided me. I'm excited to see what's going on all throughout the world, and I'll let everyone know there is a space and a place for everyone, and it's really exciting. So
Speaker 13 Hell, yeah, man. That that was incredible. I really appreciate you for being here and for taking the time today.
Speaker 5 And, again, like, I I could yesterday. Thank you for what you do. Again, we we need all these type of all these types of different types of efforts and initiatives. So thank you for the space, and I'll see you soon.
Speaker 13 Thank you. Appreciate that. See you soon, brother. Bye, man. We'll we'll get the next talk queued up here. That was incredible. Justin really is a wealth of knowledge. What a guy. Like, incredible. Incredible, honestly. So I'm super stoked for, the next talk as well. We're gonna take a short sixty second break here, and we'll get into the next talk, which is what it means to support artists in a fast changing market, a panel with three more incredible people. I wanna be Jared Paz and Benjamin Meadows, all three who are on existing panels this this week. This is definitely gonna be a good one. So get ready for that, and we'll get started here in just sixty
Speaker 13 Alright. We're back. What's going on? How's everybody doing? We've got wannabe, Ben Meadows, and Jared here. How are you guys doing? Good. No complaints.
Speaker 8 Love to hear it. Living the dream as always, my man. Appreciate you having us on another time this week.
Speaker 13 Absolutely. Pleasure is ours. We've got about 382 people viewing with us live right now. Love to see it. Do some quick intros here again, if you guys didn't catch the previous talks. We'll start with Jared. Jared is the founder of Eight Nap Art, which was created out of the passion for digital art and for supporting artists. Jared is a massive proponent for artists, and I'll always love seeing him on the timeline. The mission for eight NAP is to assist artists in their journey by providing support and growth opportunities as an artist accelerator. Definitely check out eight map dot art if you haven't already. An incredible platform, and they do really awesome curations. Moving over to Ben Meadows. Ben, has been on a couple talks so far. Ben is incredibly well spoken, awesome guy.
He's a blockchain veteran and digital artist with over a decade of experience navigating the intersection of crypto and culture, experienced speaker and educator, and he's exhibited his works at galleries and events around the world. And he served as a curator for established digital art orgs and a financial steward for major community projects. Ben overall too is just an awesome guy, another person with a huge wealth of knowledge. And wannabe, really stoked to have wannabe with us again today, an avid web three collector and trader. He's super knowledgeable when it comes to this space, and he's actually living and breathing the space, engaging with the space, buying and selling, and actually in the trenches, which, you know, that's where you can really trust the experience is being really shared from a place of actually living it.
He started in late twenty twenty one with just under 2 ETH and no knowledge of the art scene and has been supporting artists and trading ever since. Last talk, we spoke about his growth as a trader and a collector. Really awesome. And if you didn't hear that, definitely go back to the previous day, and that was on day one, and listen to that. But, yeah, let's go ahead and dive in. The concepts and panel topic for today is what it means to support artists in a fast changing market. We're gonna go around and kinda riff on a few different questions that I have for you guys. Because supporting artists in a fast changing market like, supporting artists, it's more than just buying work. It's more than just saying GM and replying. So I wanna ask you guys, what does supporting artists mean to you beyond just purchasing an artwork?
And I wanna start with Ben and hear your take.
Ben So, obviously, we talked about buying. Right? That's the easy one. Right? You you support them financially. But I think sometimes selling is also, a way to support artists. Right? If you place a piece in a secondary way, and you and you place it intentionally. Right? Whether you place it with you know, somebody that really wanted the piece reaches out to you, whether you do it through an intermediary, whether you sell it without tanking the floor price of their collection, and and it and it shows movement in secondary sales. Right? I mean, sometimes I'll put a web offer on a old, you know, collection from somebody, that hasn't shown movement in a long time,
Ben it creates a sale. And I mean, selfishly, I get a piece that I wanted, but it also supports that artist, by showing that there's some secondary movement. Obviously, sharing art, right, always supports. Right? Whether that's something as simple as a retweet, a quote tweet. We had Lynette on yesterday. She'll be on next. You know? She she does a great job of, you know, commentary. Right? Looking at a piece and and really diving into it and writing about it, that's a way to support. On the converse of that, critique can be a form of support. Right? Especially if it's, you know, solid, you know, criticism, constructive criticism. You know? But even just saying, hey. This is a really great piece. Technically, it doesn't resonate with me. It's getting it in front of more eyes, and maybe it gets in front of the person that it does resonate with.
And then I would say the last thing is show up. Right? And and by that, I mean, whether that's in real life, you know, showing up to somebody's gallery show, whether that's, showing up to their, you know, Twitter or x spaces. I mean, there's lots of times that I've, hopped on just to be another viewer. You know, maybe I'm in the middle of something with business, and I can't can't pop up on stage and talk about it. But, you know, I wanna show my support by just being another person in the audience. So I think there's a lot of ways, outside of purely spending money on art that you can support artists. Those are the ones that come to mind first.
Speaker 13 Great points. Jared, what do you think?
Speaker 8 I'm gonna sound really generic with anything you can give. Right? And and it's it's every point that we've that we've we've touched on. But I think that each person can can provide at scale with different ways. And I think that you should lean into to whatever that is and challenge yourself to to give a little bit more than than you thought capable of. And and and that means by, like, it sounds weird to say this, but, like, scroll an extra five minutes and give a couple likes or put notifications on for your favorite artist so you can get a a or platform, shameless plug, for a a like and retweet. Right? Something that gets a a little bit of exposure. We're all fighting that algo. Nobody likes it. And, you know,
Speaker 1 and let's be honest, like, you know, today is
Speaker 8 the middle of December, you know, 2025, December 17. It's like, market's down. Not everybody's, like, has liquidity. So whether it's an addition or supporting in any way possible, I think just showing up. Showing up and then the other thing that I would say is being a champion for the people that you resonate with, you know, and trying to expand. It's one of the core missions that I have right now is trying to expand the the NFT art space outside of our bubble and finding ways to advocate for it. And it's what I call planting seeds. Right? Like, maybe somebody doesn't buy an NFT or buy art or even like something today. But if you plant enough seeds and, you know, curate around that, that some of them are bound to grow on a long enough time line. So just be be an advocate on in in any authentic way possible.
And I know it sounds like really generic. I think Ben hit on a lot of the actionable items, but, mean, I just show up and and give more than you than you take from the space, I think, is the best way to do it.
Speaker 13 I agree with I agree with you. Like, we're in a awesome space where we can connect with people quite simply because it's very digital. So even just, you know, reaching out to someone in you know, if you're we're all agreeing that the space, you know, price is down. It's like it's not things are not just popping off instantly. Reaching out to someone and saying hello and saying, hey. How are you? I thought of you. It goes a really long way, you know, for these creators. See how these artists are doing. People that have dedicated their life to building and creating in this space. It's refreshing to receive a message and leverage the connectivity that we have. I wanna ask you, Garrett, or Wannabe, What does supporting artists mean to you beyond just purchasing a piece?
Speaker 9 Yeah. So I think that they hit on a lot, but, I mean, you know, the connections are a big thing. You never know what can come from it. An example of that is, and I'm sure that they both have experiences, is you start talking to artists and, you know, you say, hey, you know, this artist has a similar process. Maybe you should chat with them. And then next thing you know, you know, they're dropping a collab piece and things like that. I've had a lot of smaller artists that end up connecting with each other through just basic talks that, you know, I've started in in our groups and stuff, and it leads to them dropping collabs, you know, inter intermingling their communities and growing and things of that nature. Like they said, it's no it's no, like, secret or anything that we've been in a hard market.
Everyone is tapped for liquidity. It's hard to go out and buy piece after piece after piece in a way to support, but there are easier ways and, you know, you made a great point. You can just reach out and talk to them, see how they're doing. At the end of the day, we're all people. And it's important to remember that because as soon as we start worrying only about the financial side, you know, we we really start to go downhill as a space. And we've seen that through things like Meme Coins and things like that where, you know, these communities, they start off rampant, they start off vibrant, but then the only thing that people care about is is their bag up or down? When do they cut their loss? And, you know, it it leads to a hard time for a community to actually thrive, when you just take the financial standpoint at view.
Speaker 13 Yeah. I mean, like, interesting take on, you know, just thinking about what if the entire market just didn't exist? Like, removing the financial side completely, how then do we support artists? Like, just posing that question and thinking about what are these things that we could do that are completely outside of buying or selling their works. So what do you feel comes to mind in that case? And we start with, we'll start with Garrett.
Speaker 9 Yeah. So, you know, everyone has different needs, especially these artists because it's global. It's not just, you know, a one size fits all for how you can support them. You know, some of them are struggling financially, so you can you can get them in and kind of teach them the way of how to trade, what to trade, what to look for so that they can build on top of their art, you know. If they have other revenue streams and it frees them up to focus on their art full time, again, just connecting them with other artists, other people who can also give, you know, better tips and things like that to help see their process differently again because I have no art education or anything like that. So it's hard for me to go in and be like, oh, yeah. Well, have you used this tool or this?
Especially with the rise of AI, you know, it's hard for someone like me to actually feedback on that other than, you know, I like this art because of x y z. So just getting them in the right communities and right spaces to also just help be elevated. You know? If you take someone who's considered a, you know, a power figure, well, iron sharpens iron. So if they're going there, learning from them, it'll help push them to also be the best that they can be.
Speaker 13 Interesting. Jared, what are your thoughts? Removing the idea of the market entirely, how how do we support artists in that case?
Speaker 8 So I think one of my hidden superpowers in web three stems from my corporate world, and it's being a connector. You know, it's not something I'm boasting about on the timeline. But, you know, as Garrett was talking about, like, whether it's connecting artist to artist, artist to institution, artist to collector, I think finding a way to utilize your network and the communities and connections that you we've all spent an inordinate amount of time, whether intentionally or unintentionally cultivating, is one of the the big unlocks for our our system and potentially putting, connections in place that maybe aren't, immediate, but being maybe immediate to for in context from the artist, but being able to put connections in place that help facilitate growth and expansion of their their artwork and their craft, I think, is is it's hyperscalable if done properly, and it's something that has an asymmetric return, in my opinion.
So that that's kind of what I would default to is, you know, we we talked about it on Monday, but I think x DMs are one of, if not the most powerful things in our space right now. I know we can all bitch about the the the DMs being messed up currently, but the reality is is that we're one or two degrees of of separation from you know, we don't even need Kevin Bacon. We're just one or two degrees of separation here from anybody that you wanna get in contact with and, you know, utilizing that and and connecting like minded or maybe even, you know, complementary type of individuals is, I think it just has an asymmetric return right now, and it's it's something that invigorates, maybe you can't tell by my excitement, every single day.
Speaker 13 Yeah. One point on DMs is, like, really, I agree with you. I think it's the most powerful thing that you can reach out to virtually anyone. It's better than an email, I think, in in a lot of ways. But if you're wanting to broadcast something to a large group of people who are waiting for your notification, I think that email is probably easier because it's one to many. You can't really do that with a DM without putting people in a group chat or building a custom bot Which actually is quite possible, but you risk getting, you know, flagged with x and stuff. But, you know, I mean, the curations that I've done in the last six months have entirely happened because of xDMs, because of reaching out individually to every single artist, keeping in touch with them, reaching out individually to every single person on the cocuratorial board, keeping in touch with them, providing these things.
I'm always an advocate for when an artist reach out to me and says, hey. I'm launching this new thing. I always wanna take a look. And if anything, with the new DM setup, it's actually easier to keep track of messages that you haven't read because it now on mobile has an unread tab. At least for me, it does. I know it might be different for others. But... It it
Speaker 8 does. And that's a really good point is the unread tab. It pissed me off when they initially rolled it out because it it highlighted how much I hadn't responded to some people. But my OCD and not wanting any unreads in my inbox, it's a amazing, amazing tool for for managing the the the comms. It... It's... You hit the nail right on the head with that one.
Speaker 13 Yeah. I was actually screenshotting how it says, you know, you... Like, you've... No more messages, like, just for myself because I was stoked that I went through all of my unread messages. Whether I answered all of them or not is actually a different story. But when you click on them, it will make them disappear. And then you actually have acknowledged at least all of the messages. So... Yeah. But without the aside, moving over to Ben, again, on the question of, like, how do you support artists removing money from the scenario? Like, no buying, no selling in this question, but, like, how do you support artists outside of that?
Ben So first of all, y'all are making me feel bad because I still got a whole bunch of unreads in my in my DMs that I gotta go through. It's like a never ending battle. So I would say, first of all, plant seeds outside of the space. Right? So we've talked about, you know, retweeting and commenting. But sometimes just in real life, show somebody a a piece, right, that... That's cool that they wouldn't be exposed to outside of the space. Right? I did it just the other day with somebody. I said, hey. Look at this. Let me show you some things. And so, you know, you take away the category of NFTs or the financialization, and you're just showing somebody a cool piece of art. So I would say, number one, just one on one. You know, it's the old...
If you tell that person and that person tells 10 people, and next thing you know, a million people know about it. So and then I do think touching base in the DMs can be really powerful, in a nontransactional way. Right? I mean, there was... Number of years ago, my wife and I had a big anniversary. I wanted to see if an artist would make a print of a particular piece. We weren't even talking money at that point. Right? It was just, are you willing to do it? Will you do it? Turned out we couldn't get the details to work out. It was really cool. One of the biggest artists in the space. Happy to answer my DM. We chatted about it. Wished us, you know, nice anniversary. And then another artist heard about it because I was asking around, hey. Does anybody know?
And they ended up gifting us a piece. Right? No no money changed hands, but it's one of my favorite pieces. I love to tell the story. Right? It's it's probably more worthwhile in some ways than if they made a $102,100 bucks, or whatever it would've cost to sell it. Because now I tell everybody, I love this piece. I'm not gonna sell this piece. This is the meaning this piece has. And that was just from a DM just reaching out, asking questions. Other day, I had a... It started as a financial question. Hey. Would you list this piece? Or at the... And the artist said no, and I fully respected why. We chatted about it a little bit, talked about price points. And next thing you know, we were talking about, you know, it was my birthday, and what was I doing? What's my favorite video games?
And we're chatting about that, or we're chatting about going on hikes in the woods and wild horses. And, you know, and that's fun because it's it's... You know, it takes the transactional financial nature out of it. Artists are people. Right? They wanna talk to people. They wanna connect with people. Right? Whether that's other artists, collectors. So I do think, you know, when I get a DM from somebody, I don't... You know, it's the old LinkedIn thing. Right? Everybody's always trying to sell you something. I I wanna know sometimes that they're just saying, hey. How are you doing? I love it when they say, hey. Do you wanna see my upcoming pieces I'm working on? Right? And we just wanna discuss either the breadth of it or the style. Sometimes they will ask questions, right, about pricing. You know? What do you think the right price is on this piece?
How would you value this? Or, you know... And that's a fun discussion. Nobody's trying to sell anybody anything. We're just, you know, going back and forth. And then I will say the other really fun nonfinancial thing that's happened to me before is, you know, once in a while, you'll trade a piece with somebody. Right? An artist to artist trade. Right? And I've got some really cool pieces like that that almost makes them nonfinancial. I'll never sell them, you know, if it's a one on one trade with another artist. And even that, I'll I'll twist your question a little bit, Satoshi's mom. So sometimes it's not about the sale. It's about how the sale is done. Right? And Jared will know this story. Couple years back, Delta Sauce had a a thing going on in LA. He had his, issues collection coming out, very nostalgic collection, and it resonated with me.
And instead of minting the base on the blockchain, I really wanted to hand him dollars for an issues. Right? Take it really nostalgic and old school. Delta loved the idea, and we literally met in person in LA. I pulled out cash, handed him cash, and Jared was gracious enough to transfer the piece into my wallet. Now the dollar amount was exactly the same as if I'd meant it. Right? In a lot of ways, it was probably less because then Jared had to figure out what the heck to do with this wad of cash. But the story and the narrative, Delta loves to tell the story. I like to tell the story. You know? That wasn't financial in the sense that nothing changed. You know? But it it created a story that we could tell, and it created a connection in terms of me and the way I viewed the piece and what it meant.
So, yeah, I think there's a lot of ways you can support artists nonfinancially. The sky is sort of the limit, you know, in terms of, what you can think of.
Speaker 8 I wanted to double click on one point that... By the way, issues was released on eight now. It was an amazing event that you attended to. It did bring to the point that, Delta never gave me my cut of the mint price in cash, but we'll we'll let that one go. All joking aside, I wanted to, like, double click on a point that you made about, like, engaging because we're all humans and without a need. And I think Gary Vaynerchuk calls it, like, jab jab. Maybe there's an extra jab in there. I'm messing up his quote, then right hook. And the point being is, like, I I deploy this very frequently. It's one of the things that I love to do. It's just like, hey. How's it going? What are you doing for the holidays? Start a conversation because we're all humans. Like, I... I'm actually genuinely interested on what people are up to doing. And then at some point... So when you're
Speaker 8 saying, oh, by the way, have this thing or there's this other thing, it's not transactional. You're creating a a human side to think. So, brilliant brilliant point, that Ben brought up, and it's one of the the little tactics or tricks, in the DMs that I that I absolutely love to deploy.
Speaker 13 Yeah. To that point, I, you know, I enjoy when people reach out and we have a conversation. Also, though, too, I do like when people are straight to the point. I feel like, you know, there's a graceful way to be straight to the point, but also, like, sometimes I get DMs that just say, hey. And then you're like, oh, well, I don't even know who this person is. So then they end up kind of just getting left on red, or, basically, you kind of just don't end up answering or you just say hi. And then, you know, I guess it continues forward. But, like, I totally do agree with what you're saying, though. Like, it's about the heart and the and the intention behind what you're bringing. And, yeah, Gary Vee's... He has a book actually wrote on it, Jab Jab Jab Right Hook, classic marketing fundamentals.
And I do agree with what you're saying. And I wanna also kinda segue from there into asking you guys about, like, on the patronage side, as a supporter of artists and believer in the space, what does healthy patronage look like versus unhealthy patronage? I'm curious on your takes, and I'd like to start with Jared and then work through all of your guys' takes on this.
Speaker 8 Man, I was actually hoping you didn't start with me this time. That's a really great question. What does healthy patronage look like? I I will lead it. Although I'm a builder in the space, first and foremost, my... You know, I'm a collector. It's where my love for, you know, NFT art really started. And I I think healthy patronage is is collecting and advocating with intent with with honorable intent, if that makes any sense. And what I mean by that is, like, running around... I think if you're gonna flip and you're gonna do some of this other stuff, like, that's fine. You know, it's where I started also. I think it's it's inherent to the space. But, you know, being able to to connect with the art, understand the the story behind the art and repurpose it in a package that's, like, authentic to yourself and advocates for the the artist and the art is a is a really, really positive thing.
And I I think that's the best approach to it if you're if you're trying to go in with that really positive intent. I also recognize that not everybody can can buy art and some of the art that we all love. You know, full disclosure, my favorite piece of art in the entire ecosystem is less selfie by xCopy. Given the recent sale, it is now clearly outside of, my financial, reach. But, you know, it doesn't mean that, like, even in this moment, I'm not advocating for something or or or giving it. It's it's time in in the spotlight. And I think that finding that stuff to scale... And look. I'm not even opposed to engagement farming to some degree. Because I think that, like, if you're gonna do it, you know, get the eyes, get the clicks, and then you can advocate for something that...
Or an artist or a piece of art or a release that resonates with you and it it gets into the timeline and into the views of of more people, you know, that's, I would say, net net of a positive. So, I don't know if that's clear and actionable, but I'll I'll take pause there just in case anybody wants to add anything.
Speaker 13 Well, also too, like, on the unhealthy side, I'm curious on, like, your guys' takes on what unhealthy patronage looks like in the in the current dynamics in the space.
Ben So I'll give I'll give two thoughts on healthy patronage first. So I would say relationship and intention are probably the two most important things. Right? And so, well, let me let me let me give healthy, and then I'll give unhealthy. So healthy is wanting the best. Right? If my intention is, I want good for that artist. Right? I I don't want them to sell me, you know, a piece for a penny if their current floor is a $100,000. That's not wanting the best for them and vice versa. Hope they're not trying to, you know, sell a piece to me for $10 when they know darn well, you know, that their market rate right now is a thousand or 5,000, and they're trying to, you know, pull the wool over my eyes. So intention. Right? Wanting the best for each other and having a intention for a continued relationship.
Right? Like, it... It's not a onetime transaction. And then beyond that, right, from a healthiness standpoint, I think it is doing what you can to support. Right? So I don't have, you know, twenty four hours a day. Even if even if I don't have unlimited funds, I also don't have unlimited time. Right? So I do what I can to helpfully support other artists, while still supporting my family, my job, my other things. So from an unhealthy standpoint, one of my favorite quotes is, expect... Expectations are the seeds of future disappointment. Right? And it's not it's not saying any expectation. Right? If I'm gonna eat a doughnut and it tastes like a doughnut, that's probably a reasonable expectation. But if I think it's the best tasting doughnut I'm ever gonna have and then I go bite into it and it's not, I'm probably gonna be disappointed.
So I think the same is true patronage or patronage that, you know, unhealthy, looks like unhealthy expectations. Right? If I expect to get rich off of this purchase from this artist, if this artist expects me to just have unlimited funding, or buy every piece they ever release, if I if I expect that because I bought this, now you have to do what I say or you have to make this thing the way I want it to or... So I think it's about expectations, intention, relationship, and simply healthily and reasonably wanting the best for each other and the market as a whole.
Speaker 13 Yeah. Those are good points. I'm curious, Garrett, what what do you think as far as... We'll start with, like, the unhealthy patronage side of things in the space, like calling out maybe things that you have seen before or really just in the general scope of supporting artists. Maybe a collector thinks that they're supporting them, but maybe it's actually more harmful than it is helpful. I'm just curious, like, what comes to mind for you in that realm?
Speaker 9 Yeah. So, about two years ago, there was this certain collector who pretty much only bought from females in... I don't know what the right word is, but countries where, you know, money was money was more tight. And so he essentially was buying pieces from them and, you know, expected other favors in return. And now the... Some of these artists, they they didn't necessarily see a problem with it because they were getting their bills paid and things of that nature. And, I mean, the dude, he he had funds. You know? He he wasn't a he wasn't a small fish. He he had funds and, I mean, he would go on splurges buying these. And he essentially created a little cult of sorts where if he was buying their art, I mean, they they were at his disposal where if someone...
You know, there were there were stories where some of the artists, you know, they would come out and they would be like, hey. Like, this is not right. He's wanting me to do x y z just for buying my art. Like, I'm hearing other stories from other artists. You know, we need to bring light to this. And, I mean, they would go and he would he would tell pretty much his cult, like, hey. If you want me to keep buying your art, go mass report this account, go say that it's false. You know? And, I mean, it came out where there were enough credible artists coming out saying, hey. You know, it is very true. Here are DMs from him. And, you know, unfortunately, that is a very real thing in our space because the financialization is so real for many.
I mean, you know, people do have to get their bills paid and, you know, not everyone's standards are always the same. But leaving those type of expectations and things like that, you know, we as a space have to come together and be like, you know, I understand your needs, but there are just better ways than feeding into that type of behavior.
Speaker 13 Yeah. Like, basically, the whole umbrella of, you know, kind of supporting an artist but with a condition. I think conditional support is just not really beneficial. And, you know, it's different if it's, like, a business thing. But, like, as soon as you're, like... It's almost like, you know... I remember when I was younger, I had this friend that would be, like, doing favors for people. And then afterwards, he'd be like, dude, can you do this for me? And then somebody would be like, no. And he'd be like, but I did this for you, and I did this for you, and I did this for you. And it's, like, similar with artists, and I think... And even it's way worse actually with artists because artists are putting something out there that's very vulnerable. It's part of their heart and soul that they're sharing.
And by being a collector, you're getting to engage with that person's heart, really, something that they made. And if you're then using that to take advantage or to try to, you know, like, create some sort of condition. It... I mean, it's different to just ask and say, hey. Like, would you support this thing without any expectation? So, yeah, that... That's quite interesting. I'll I'll give a personal personal anecdote. I think that when collectors start getting upset with artists for launching too many things. For example, like, say, you know, the recent launch of regular punks by Shapi, an awesome awesome pixel artist. People are getting upset and mad at the fact that this launched. People were talking trash on the timeline about, like, this is a grift. I feel like we should be celebrating artists launching stuff.
And there was a long time where there's this, like, stigma around, like, artists making money, that it's, like, a bad thing. And and I think that there's a weird conversation. I'm curious on any takes from you guys on this realm on how certain artists are allowed to make money. And then when other artists make money, it's like a grift if they're not, like, part of this certain crowd. And I'm curious on the nuance takes you may have in this realm because I think we need to eradicate all... This is my personal opinion. Eradicate all of the behavior around anyone getting mad at artists launching stuff. And if an artist maybe launches a series of one on ones and then immediately after launches another collection, Why is that a bad date? Is there...
Like, I don't think there's any such thing as too much supply for an artist, a a living artist who is eventually not gonna be here forever. I think that, especially in this digital world, collectors sometimes get angry with artists and, start badgering them and telling them what to do. And then they start saying things like, hey. I bought your thing. Like, don't do this. Like, you know, trying to protect their floor price. Again, this is all rooting back into, like, expectation. I mean, if x copy went out and started minting, like, every single day a bunch more work, do you think that these big whale x copy collectors would be happy about it? I would hope so, but maybe not. Right? And why? If so, why not? And these are just kind of points to chew on.
I'm not saying that everything I'm saying, everyone must agree with, but I do think that we should eradicate any sort of witch hunt in the space. There was a lot of that. I feel like, it's not healthy, and, people should be more, people should just be more compassionate overall when it comes to those kinds of things. But I'm curious. Does this bring Any feelings for you guys? Any takes that you wanna chime in on in that regard?
Ben I'll I'll give a couple hot takes on that. So Okay. First, I would say bad actors should be called out in general in our space. Right? Sometimes people get protected because they're too big to fail or what have you. Right? And whether that bad actor is a collector that's acting really,
Ben in a really depraved manner, right, like Garrett was alluding to, or whether it's an artist. There are artists that I have done technical work for in the past, and I never got paid. Right? Now I chose not to, you know, put them on blast publicly, but I've got my personal ledger of these two or three guys never never paid me time and time again. There are project founders that, you know, I will, I will admit all all names to protect the innocent. But a long time ago, I was I was chatting with a founder about, you know, some technical details around the release. And I said, look. You know, I think it's worth a little extra money and a little extra time to honor the art in the best way possible. And they said, yeah. I don't think so.
And we're talking maybe 1% of the total, you know, to to sort of upgrade the level of, you know, experience that the collector would have and the way we were. And and to me, that really rubbed me the wrong way. So that goes back to, for me, it's not wrong to make money. Right? I have nothing against anybody making money. I've got a long career in business making plenty of money, and there's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is when the focus is greed and money. Right? And that's true in business the same as it is in art. Right? If all I care about is make you know, enriching myself as much as possible and not my customers, I'm probably not gonna do great long term as a businessman. The same is true as an artist. Right?
If all I care about is enriching myself as fast and as much as possible, That's not the point of art. You're not you're not you're not being a good artist if the art isn't the so for me, it's not about how much money. It's about how important is the money in relation to everything else, right, to the art, to the experience, to the to the end user, the person that's experiencing it and enjoying it. I'll say the same thing, couple other points. I I don't worry too much about scarcity. You know, I agree with you. Things are gonna be lost. People are gonna be, you know, lost to time, both artists and collectors. So scarcity happens naturally no matter what. There's, what, 8,000,000,000 people on Earth. All of these numbers are very small in relation to that. My first edition that I ever released back in '22 had four thousand months.
You know? You know, is that smart or not? Who cares? It was about the art. I had fun. People liked it, and I never really thought twice about it. So would it piss people off if x copy started mending, you know, 10 pieces every day for the rest of his life? Probably. But I also love that in the sense that Justin talked about it before, you know, that that here, there's space for everyone. Right? There's opportunities for everyone. There's no gatekeeping. And and one of the things that first got me into blockchain over a decade ago was disruption and decentralization. So I am very against gatekeeping and and the same institutionalization that exists in the traditional art world and the traditional finance world. I I want disruption. I want us to break some stuff and break rules. And so I love it personally from an art standpoint.
Finance totally aside, go break some rules. And that's true of something I've seen that's a you know, kinda gets under my craw, as they say, is styles. Right? Artists like to like to experiment with different styles. Right? And sometimes you hear that's a bad thing, right, that they they change their style and the market's reacting poorly to it. And first of all, from an art history standpoint, I think that's very shortsighted. Right? When you look at a museum or an exhibition, you're seeing that artist's most famous style or you're seeing a curated collection of their pieces. They generally have more breadth over the course of their entire career. And so sometimes, think in this fast moving, young, nascent space, we're a little naive. You know? Oh my gosh. I can't believe he experimented. Well, these guys have been making art on chain for a few years.
Let's give it a few decades and see how it all pans out. So for me, it's, don't make it about the money, call out bad actors, and break stuff. You know? Try new things.
Speaker 13 Really sound takes. Jared or Garrett, do you guys, have any rebuttals or any type of, like, how do you feel about all of all of the discussion?
Speaker 8 When it comes to supply, I think it you know, kind of as it suggested, I have no qualms about a tight supply. I have no qualms about an, you know, an unlimited supply or, I'll call, a large supply. I think the the thing that I always connect with is, like, authenticity. Like, what's authentic to you? And I think that there's this, you know, you know, Delta saw since his name came up earlier. When he had his meme card released, like, him and I were talking, and he he allowed listed anybody who had collected one of his pieces previously. And it's it it amounted something like 7,000 unique wallets. Now, obviously, there's not that many users because I I probably have Delta sauce pieces across three or four wallets. So, like, read between the lines and, like, whatever it is.
But I thought that was, like, really interesting because, like, he has stuff that's accessible from, like, rodeo to a couple bucks to, you know, one of ones that are thousands. And the point being is the supply to me is, like, whatever is authentic to the artist. And I think the the hot take here is, like, do what makes sense. And to Ben's point about, I'll call it FAFO, you know, how many pieces of work are, you know, on the cutting floor of Picasso and never got to see the light of day, or they get you know, sketchbook gets discovered, you know, after his passing or whatever the the the means may be. The beauty of the blockchain is we now have historical evidence of it, and it's in theory, assuming the chains are up forever, which, you know, my core belief is, you know, there's a 95% certainty that happens.
You know, there's this, like like, IRL documentation of the progression of people. And and I look forward to to that level of, transparency into the art to be able to in twenty, thirty, forty years, a lot of art historians to be able to look back in a very candid fashion and have definitive evidence of the trend the the progression in the development of certain artist's style, especially with, like, technological advances. Like, AI is advancing at an incredible rate right now. To me, this is no different than, you know, back in the day like, centuries ago when Canvas and acrylic came out and, like, people started using acrylic on Canvas differently. Like, who cares if you use a a brush versus, you know, a a bristle brush versus a, you know, another tool?
Like, this is a really amazing time, and I feel very privileged to be able to do it because we're gonna look back on it and say, holy cow. Can you believe like, even so much so in, like, the Redrum project that we released, Metamorphosis, part of the metadata is what version that he used of the program that was, like, the baseline for his imagery. I just think it's interesting. Like, nobody cares about it. Nobody's collecting around it today. But, you know, when you take this long term perspective of, you know, years to decades, there's gonna be some sort of, like, historical, aspect to it. And I think the blockchain is just the the the ultimate tool for for long term storytelling here.
Ben I'm I'm gonna jump in and riff on something Jared said real quick. So when when acrylic paints came out, right, they dry much faster than oil based paints. Right? And so a piece that would take a week, a month, months to make, you could make much faster because acrylics dry much fast. Right? And it caused this huge uproar. Right? And then photography came out. Same thing. Now you can take multiple photographs much faster than you can paint. Now we have, you know, AI, digital artwork that can be made very quickly, people's every days. Right? I mean, there's there's stuff that can be done very quickly. And yet back when people were arguing about oil paints and acrylic paints, what was the population of the world? 10% of what it is now? Less than that? So, like I like to say, the future is both faster and weirder than we think it will be. Sometimes I wonder if we're having arguments that are gonna be absolutely meaningless a hundred years from now.
Speaker 13 Very interesting. I love the point though about, how, like, making like, it's kind of, I guess, outside of the scope of, the whole thing, but, like, Redrum putting the model, basically, that he used in his work. Super, super cool. I think even helping artists to understand, like, how do we support artists long term? Helping them to understand these little things that collectors may be looking for and that we personally would be think is interesting, opening those ideas up to artists, creating the dialogue for that discussion. And I I wanna ask about, like, what do you think is the best way to lift an artist up? Like, I'm not talking about just, like, posting about them, but I mean, like, putting them into the upper echelon of artists that, like, can sell more.
Like, how do we help artists sell more, and what can a collector do, and what's the best thing that they could do in order to really make that impact for an artist? And let's go to Garrett. I'm curious on your take.
Speaker 9 Alright. So that's a pretty tough question, because it's really gonna come down to the artist. Again, like like we've said a couple times, I think the biggest thing that a collector like myself with no art history and no any of that, the best thing that I can do is help network them with other artists that are, you know, more so seen as the quote unquote popular side who make those bigger sales, make more sales. That's what I would do more so to champion them, aside from, you know, posting about them, talking about them. A big thing is how can we spread that outside of the space, obviously. And so one thing that some artists that I've been following for a while have been doing is they've been doing, you know, like, little merch drops. Killer Acid has them all the time.
Devil in detail did one with Daniel and Olivia. And so what I did was I went and picked up some of that stuff and essentially just gave it out to people who know nothing about web three. You know? I told them, hey. You know? You can scan that chip right there. You can claim the NFT. You don't have to know what it is, but, you know, you can just say that you have it. And, you know, if it's a good quality product like a shirt, a hoodie, anything like that, people outside of web three will wear it, not necessarily knowing what it means, but it typically leads to them wanting to understand just a little bit more about what they have so that when they can go and tell someone, like, hey. Yeah. Like, this is this. You know?
It's it's also an NFT that's an addition, and it's from an artist who lives in Florida. And, you know, she's she does digital art mainly. It just gives them some talking points so that they can go and also spread the word even if they don't fully understand what they're talking about. But it's like they said, it doing stuff like that, it helps plant those seeds into other people inadvertently to where they kind of just wanna wanna know the space and then also learn more about that artist.
Speaker 13 Nice. What do you think, Jared? Can you repeat the question again?
Speaker 8 Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I'd like I've got it, but I just wanna make sure I'm
Speaker 8 riffing on something shit that doesn't matter.
Speaker 13 Totally. Yeah. So the question is, what is the number one thing that we can do as collectors to uplift an artist to make them sell more?
Speaker 8 I'm a sound a little bit like a a broken record, but I think it's, like, being authentic to yourself and engaging, especially, like, in DMs in an authentic fashion that that brings value. You know, like, you referenced earlier the DM of, like, what's up or hey. Right? Like, that doesn't bring any value. But one of the things that I like I mean, again, I'm I'm running a platform, so I'm trying to you know, when I'm engaging with artists and we're strategizing and for context, like, I love deep and meaningful relationships. Right? So I I wanna do business with the the people I enjoy doing business with. If I told you some of the artists I said no to, you you guys would fall over just because, like, I didn't vibe well. Right? And it's not to say one thing or another.
It's just like Red Room and I spent eight months curating his set. Right? Sigmax and I are gonna release something in January, and we've been working on this for, you know, the better part of nine months. So I'm engaging in an authentic fashion. And for me, being a collector first, I'm I'm an engineer by schooling. I like the details. It's part of the reason why we we so for me, like, the way I I structure the engagement with artists is, like, we ideate around the theme. Once we go deep into the theme, we get the the style and the art dialed in, and then we start to, you know, dig into the metadata traits. Because I think the metadata, it it helps collectors connect with a a collection in a deeper in a deeper manner. And so for me, that's how I'm engaging.
I'm looking at the the metadata. I'm looking at the traits. I'm looking at things aesthetically. And, you know, I don't do it just for, like, eight and a half artists. Again, won't say who, but, like, there's an artist who who's got an algorithm that he's he's fine tuning right now. And we're going back and forth just in DMs about, like, how to tweak it, you know, what palettes, what textures, things of that nature to to start to integrate. So to come full circle to us, like, I think you have to engage in a way that's, like, authentic to yourself, and you can let but all brings value to to the artists. And I think that for each one of us, it's it's unique. But I think if we if we take a look in the mirror as a collector, there's something important or something that resonates with you in becoming somewhat of an expert or sharing that knowledge with those who are willing to listen.
Right? I just don't blast people's DMs trying to start off the things that you you you think is important. But going back to that jab jab right hook, you know, like, when an artist reach out, like, oh, yeah. I'm more than happy to look at this. I can sure. I'll look at this collection. Yeah. We can tweak that. That that's where I think that the the the power of a collector can, like, be asymmetric in the returns. And I would I would really encourage you know, I hate throwing around this name a little bit because it's it's always funny to me. But, like, just because you're not bat soup yum and you aren't, like, you know, spending tens of eat a week doesn't mean you can't have a positive impact on the space.
And I think that, you know, to give a a little shout out, I did a a mini show in Marfa this year, and Steven Miller did the curation for it. And I knew Steven was talented, but they when I saw it, I was like, holy shit. This is exceptional. Right? And I think that there's a lot of people in this space who have a particular eye. And, you know, Garrett, like, led a couple times of, oh, I'm not a professionally trained art. Guess what? Neither am I. I'm a civil engineer. Right? Like and we're but we all have been drawn to the space, and we're all able to, you know, bring our unique perspectives. And the thing I love about it is the the high level of curation both in people's I mean, look at Jedi Wolf's collection. This is, like, institutional level curation on x copy and AI.
I mean, just one of those collections alone is, like, we'll we'll go down in history as, like, monumental, and he's curated two of them. So I think that the the curation level with the you know, here is off the charts. And anybody listening who is either too timid or, you know, maybe has some self doubt, I I'd encourage you to, like, really put out some content around the curation and and start to be a beacon of light. And I guarantee artists will naturally gravitate towards it or have some sort of resonance with it that allows for further expansion of not only the artist, but our our ecosystem. Because the timeline's weird. It's fickle at times, but it's also weird where you you could all of a sudden, like, drop into somebody's feed and inspire something and and have that proverbial butterfly effect.
Speaker 13 I think, like, yeah, you know, helping them to you know, you're giving your perspective, which in your perspective, think you you would think that it would make them sell more if they tweak this or do this or just kind of coaching them. But from you know, with their permission, not just, like, saying, hey. Do this. Like, reaching out to them, but, like, working with them. Like, especially if they come to you and say, hey. Here's my PDF of my upcoming collection, offering them constructive feedback or asking them about the collection or maybe, you know, like, the traditional thing that museums do. It's like, if there's something that maybe is confusing to the work to you, it's not about, like, hey. I don't like this part of the work. It's it's really about understanding why did the artist decide to do this? What was the intention behind this?
And if the intention is just, oh, I don't know. I just felt like it or, like, you know, that's one thing. Or it's like, oh, well, this is really the reason why I did this. It could make you gain more appreciation for the work. In my experience with artists and curations, sometimes you'd see a work, and at first, it's not really hitting for you. And, you know, like x copy says, if it hits, it hits. Right? Like, you could look at it. Maybe it's not hitting at first glance, but then you read about the work, and then it absolutely hits because you're totally now understanding it in a new light. I think that helping helping artists to deepen the way that they explain their work and contextualize work is another massive way to help them sell more. And as, like, a closing note, Ben, what are your thoughts on this topic?
Ben Real quickly, passion. Right? I mean, rabid passionate fans, is you know, helps anybody sort of achieve that next higher level. Right? I mean, we've seen that with music artists. We've seen it within the, you know, more traditional sphere that, you know, they they've this is true of traditional artists. There's some just absolutely rabid collector that, you know, loans works to a museum or or, you know, collects an incredibly curated collection. And then when they get older or die or you know? And they Champion their favorite artists. Right? You could have a million people collect your art, but if all of them are like, it's a nice thing, that's different than having those just absolutely passionate fans. And then the other thing that I like is what Garrett was saying a little bit about exposure. Right?
I mean, I I've got hats for, die with the most likes, or I've got shirts that have Vinny Hager stuff on them. And this is a really easy example. I remember wearing Marfa, and, I was introducing my wife to Vinny Hager, and she's like, who's that? And I'm like, here. Here's a picture of his of his stuff. You've seen this before. And she's like, oh, I know that guy. I like him. You know? Or f dot. Right? He's doing that mural in Brooklyn right now. Right? Like, I think that level of exposure is huge because people see it, and it lives in the back of their mind. And they're not thinking NFT or even NFT artist. It just sort of sits back there. You know, Natasha Postpuk has some stuff at Target, right, of all places.
But it's that exposure and that normalization, that then when you see it, you know, as fine art or on the big screen as it were, it's already there. You know? It's already embedded in the back of your mind, and it's part of the cultural awareness. So passion and exposure, I think, can help artists in this space.
Speaker 13 It's really been a lot of awesome takes, from the panel. I appreciate you guys being here, sharing your takes, sharing your wisdom and experience. Thank you for spending the time with us. Super stoked on on how all of these talks come together, but this has been really, really an awesome time. So I really appreciate you guys being here. Thank you.
Speaker 8 And thank you for hosting this. You know, for anybody listening, and I'm sure there's been a lot of content, but whether you're listening live or or after the fact, what you're doing at the Digital Art Museum is tremendous. And I think, you know, we need to support the people who are supportive. So if you're out there, give damn a follow. If you're not gonna plug your stuff, I I sure as hell will. But, you know, to put on a a three day, you know, forum with bringing some, like, really great thought leaders in the space, obviously, not me, but the other people on the panel and and guests, they're it's it's intended to to bring value. And what you're doing is planting a ton of seeds. So cheers to you, Satoshi, for what you're doing, and cheers to to Dan, the the initiative. It's just been an absolute rocket ship of an experience, and and thank you for everything you're doing, man.
Speaker 13 Yeah. That means a lot. Thank you, Jared. I appreciate the recognition and the shout. I I really do. Honestly, thank you. We're gonna keep pushing forward and keep doing some cool cool stuff. So just the beginning. Alright. Well, we'll wrap this talk here, and we'll take a quick break. We've got our next panel in the backstage, so I'm really stoked to dive in. Thank you again, Wannabe and Jared and Ben. It's been awesome chatting with you guys. The next panel here, we like I said, we've got our panelists backstage. Matt Medved will be joining us, Lynette Grant, and Matt Wood, if I could. So we have two Mats on the panel. Really stoked on the next topic as well. It kind of bleeds in nicely into what we were just discussing. We're gonna be discussing the philosophy and mindset for collecting digital art.
So I'm I'm really stoked to dive in with these incredible minds. We'll take a really quick break, and then we will
Speaker 13 Alright. Alright. Let's welcome our panelists to the stage. Welcome to Matt, Lynette, and What If I Could, also known as Matt. Stoked to have you guys here. And I'm just gonna do some quick intros for these incredible folks. Starting with Matt Medved, the cofounder, CEO, and editor in chief of Now Media, which most likely you've heard of Now Media. They've been creating incredible content in the space and really, an epic source of journalism for the space. I really enjoy their email list as well. So definitely sign up for their emails and check them out. They've got some, cool paid stuff as well. You can join and become a member and get more inside information from them. Really, really cool. Matt also founded Billboard Dance in 2015. He grew it into a global leader in electronic music, and he led Billboard's broader vertical content strategy.
Obviously, you've heard of Billboard. So, Matt, welcome. Really happy to have you here. Lynette Lynette was with us yesterday. If you tuned in, it was an epic talk. Lynette Grant, her bio reads as an art collecting nerd who joined Web three because she ran out of wall space and a tech and data leader IRL. Lynette definitely has a lot of art on her walls. That's for sure. And really stoked to chat with Lynette. She has epic takes and a very level headed way of looking at this space. So I'm really stoked to have you here again. And What I Could What I Could is an epic artist. You should check out his woodworking capabilities. This guy is incredible. Literally, go and scroll his feed. Check out the work he creates. An epic soul as well. He's working at the intersection of woodworking and tech through physical creations and interpretations of digital art.
And his journey in the space began as a fight for sobriety using Web three and his art as a creative outlet and an escape. His work gives him clarity, purpose, and a way forward. Each piece reflects growth, iteration, and redemption. There's a lot of soul in Matt's work, would if I could. And, I highly recommend you checking him out and following him as with all the people on this panel. So I'm stoked to dive into the talk. Again, welcome. This talk is tall, titled philosophy and mindset for collecting digital art. I wanna just start off the talk by asking, starting with med med med. I wanna ask you, do you feel people collect art at the deepest level? What is it to you that feel you feel magnetizes people to make that decision to purchase and actually, you know, own art?
Speaker 6 That's a great question. First off, thanks for having me. Excited for this conversation. You know, I think at the at the fundamental level, like, art reflects experience, right, our lived experiences. And so, you know, I I think, I think it was, Pablo who recently posted about, kinda asking why collectors you know, what what draws us to specific artworks? And I think for me, you know, it it starts with, like, a gut feeling. It starts with, like, a gut level resonance. They're you know, seeing something that that makes me feel a certain way or, you know, captures an experience whether that is whether that reflects my own or or or is aligned with my own or not. And sometimes, it gets very it's even more interesting when it does not. But I think some level of, like, human connection and shared experience, it it lies at the core of what of what attracts us to to specific pieces.
I also think, you know, that, as especially in in this space where a lot of the boundaries, and the middle traditional middlemen that existed between artists and collectors have been broken down, relationships with artists also play a very key role. You know? I I I think, you know, I think back on on some of the art that I've collected. And in almost every case in the in the digital space, I've either had some sort of relationship with the artist or that relationship was created shortly thereafter. You know? And so that that is something that's easy to take for granted here in the web three space and in digital art, but that is not always the case. In fact, it's not usually the case in the traditional art side of things where, you know, you're usually, going through a gallery.
And, in many cases, some sometimes the artists aren't even still here to to to connect with directly. And so there's there's it it it's very interesting in that in that side. You know, I think what one thing especially when it comes to this space is, I I think recognizing some of the things that that we that we feel bring value. So whether that's cultural relevance capturing a time I think I said something along the lines, like capturing a time in a timeless manner. I I think that historical value also plays a major role, especially here in in the digital art space where this is all relatively young. Right? Digital art has existed for decades, but this this movement of on chain digital art, is is very fledgling, relatively speaking. And what's interesting and I think exciting about the blockchain is that we can actually trace it.
It's immutable. You can see who was here first, who did this first, who who was a pioneer here, who was there in the early days, minting work. And I think that's why we've seen certain artists, artists of ex copy, artists of some of these these OG artists. We've seen their work take on, this almost mystique among collectors, because of that historical relevance, and and what that means for the culture. And so, you know, I I remember in the early days when I was trying to help contextualize this space to, people who didn't get it, I would often say that, you know, a, you know, a digital artwork, we we evaluate in in many ways in the same ways that we would, a physical artwork. It comes down to, like, a collector preference. It comes down to cultural resonance. It comes down to relevance.
It comes down to history. It comes down to, like, that artist's role within a greater movement. And, you know, what what's, I think, interesting and exciting about it is that, when you zoom out, we're still very much in the early innings of it. And so we're gonna look back at these times these times, I think, as quite formative times, in the development of of this, of of digital art, on this medium.
Speaker 13 Really well said. Really well said. A lot of epic points. And, also, Delta Sauce wanted to mention that Matt is looking sharp. I think he's talking to both of you guys, so I wanted to make sure that that popped up here. I love how you mentioned in the beginning too how it all kinda starts out in the gut. I really do believe that that's the truth. Like, it's almost like an innate type of thing. Is it in our DNA? Is it in, like, the like, all the way back in the prehistoric times where people collecting things? I I believe yes. And and I think that it's very interesting when you look at it in that perspective. And also, like, zooming out as well, as you mentioned, the timeline of where we're at is truly fascinating.
It really is formative times for digital art collecting right now, especially when, like, yesterday, we talked on displays and how there really aren't any true go to solutions for digital art displays. That's how formative these times are. Really, it's more of an advanced thing to be able to display digital art nowadays unless you just throw it on a TV. And most of the display is happening through our cell phones or just through our tech devices, which is not really designed to display art as a museum would, for example. So a lot of really epic points there, and I'd love to, have Lynette, touch on that and kind of relay too and maybe riff on how Matt really like, he started off. Is this a gut thing? Why do people collect art at the deepest level?
Speaker 10 So, because I love just how open and vulnerable Matt would if I could, is about just some of the things that art does for him. I will also be open and vulnerable, as well. So there are mental reasons why people collect, and so I've recently started to understand more about, the concept of giftedness and, being on the autism spectrum and how that actually presents in women. And so one of the things that's really interesting is, generally, we do a lot of studies on how it presents in boys and in and in men. And one of the things that you may do is you'll meet that little boy who's just like, I know everything about trains. I know everything about dinosaurs. I know every dinosaur that possibly exists. Right? And so, apparently, in girls, it's very similar, but we kind of learn, oh, well, people don't like it when you always talk about that really weird thing that you like.
And so what tends to happen is that girls collect. And so, I remember a very formative conversation with my mom, and my mom just sends me this message because she's in childhood education. She's like, I think that you might be on the spectrum. And one of the things that made her think that is that I have collected for as long as I have been born. And so, like, I had an eraser collection, and I had a pencil collection and a pencil sharpener collection. And people were always bringing me treasures from around the world because I was the little girl that had just all of these little collections, and you'd have this little shoebox of collections and things like that. And so, basically, what I'm saying is I think that we are innately wired, not just in that gut perspective, but I think mentally, emotionally.
That there is a part of us that wants to take our passion and turn it into something. And, for some people, it is collecting. And so I loved learning that about myself. I didn't see it as anything that was like a bad thing. I'm like, oh, this is great. Now I have another reason to collect a lot more things. Right? And as you can see, like, I never stop. Like, once I get into things and I love it and I'm like, oh, I love this. Can I have 27 of them right now in all different flavors, shapes, and sizes? So I think there's just something about who you are and how you're wired if you are a collector. Because you also have those people who are like, I'm minimalist. I don't want anything anywhere in my space, and I'm definitely a maximalist.
And you guys are in my safe space. The rest of the house is way more curated in here. I just, want to have the most joy possible. So I believe that the things that you love, you find different ways to show those passions. And, there is something, I think, in our brains that allows you to just have as many of the things as you love as possible in the way that works best for your personality. I think the other philosophy of why you collect and how you collect is what you need to get out of that thing. So for me, there's art that I love, and I think we spoke about this yesterday in our talk where Ben was saying, like, there's some art that I can appreciate, but I would never put on my walls. Right? There's some darker things.
There's some, you know, artists that maybe I wouldn't wanna surround myself with in my happy place, but that doesn't mean that I don't love and appreciate looking at those things. But it's like everything around me are the things that I love or the things that make me happy or the things that make me feel something. So in my room, for instance, the only thing on my walls is art that has words in it so that when I wake up in the morning, I see the things that make me feel good, the things that make me wanna get out of bed, and it's all text. There's very little visuals in those. And for me, that's like that point of that collection is to motivate me and to make me wanna get out of bed and to see text as art.
And so what I would just say is I think, the philosophy of collecting to kind of make it so that we can pass it over to Matt, what if I could? I'm gonna find a way to do this. We don't wanna say Matt one and Matt two. Maybe it's Matt m and Matt w or something just so it's a little bit easier for us.
Speaker 6 You can call me med med med med med med. Med
Speaker 10 med and Matt. We'll do that. In that way, at least we know who we're we're pushing to. But I would just say that as a philosophy, knowing who you are as a collector and what you need in your life to be like ownership is additive to me in some way. I think that really is if you can get to the bottom of that for yourself, then that's really a way that you could articulate your philosophy.
Speaker 13 Yeah. I think, like, I I love what you touched on about, like, first of all, I appreciate you getting vulnerable with the the viewers and with all of us here, talking about you, like, as a child and growing up and, how you always like to collect. I think that it does really it is a testament to how we truly have it in us. It's very innate that we want to collect. Again, the topic of the talk being the philosophy and mindset of collecting. I really do believe there is just, like, so much evidence for us being innate collectors at many levels, and it does scratch some itch that we have to complete things or to finish in certain areas things. And I feel like now with this world of digital art collecting, it allows us to really expand beyond what would be the constraint of physical space because, you know, as a physical art collector, you only have so much space.
And as we talked yesterday, Lynette, you mentioned how you got into NFTs partially for the reason of having more space to collect. And I think that it does open us up in a different way in the future how people will collect things in mass potentially. Collections will be so large, over time, especially as digital art has just begun. And I personally or I shouldn't say digital art has just begun, but collecting digital art has just now really become more of a, common thing for people. And, obviously, It's still very niche. But personally, I have over 3,000 NFTs, and I've just got involved in the space in early twenty twenty one. So, like, I'm not sure how much how many NFTs you guys have, but not saying a number is even about the significance, but more so about like, I would never be able to have 3,000 things sitting in my house.
Really, it would be a lot. So it's just interesting to kind of reflect on these types of things and the philosophy behind it all. And I wanna roll it over to what if I could and, talk to you about the same thing. Like, what do you feel is really the deepest, reason that people collect? Why do you collect? And what are the things that you look for when adding things to your permanent collection?
Speaker 2 Great question. Love the responses from everybody else on the panel, and thanks for, letting me join. This is awesome. Yeah. A a big part of my story into getting into web three and art in general has come from just a a battle with sobriety. Like, I my drug of choice is alcohol with some other things mixed in. And for, you know, almost a decade, I kind of just went through a a cycle of, you know, self inflicted harm in that way. And I think it took a long time, and I won't tell the whole story, to realize that I was chasing things that I liked from, like, my childhood or the feelings that made me remember what it was like to not just be stuck in kind of a a career that I didn't love or a path that I was being forced to take.
And it was almost like this, I was seeking some level of escape, but, you know, just a drug ended up being the easiest route to find that until I started to infuse some, like, creativity. And, some of the rehab programs that I went to, I would do, like, art centered, like, therapy as a component of that, and I kinda started to feel myself almost, like, brighten up inside. And so it's easy to talk about in retrospect, but, like, at the time, I didn't really realize what was happening. And then when I, like, finally came through, and started to catch a little bit of time and being sober, I found Web three through my brother who is also was also on a similar path and found sobriety before I did. And he's like, dude, you gotta check this out.
And it was more about NFTs and kind of the gaming element of it at that time, but that launch into the space and kind of, like, seeing the way collections were being developed as almost like many businesses kind of related a little bit to where my head was already at in terms of just my my career progression. But what it also did is, like, there was such an onus on who's the artist behind this collection of 10,000 pieces. And I started to kinda really hone in there, and some of the early collecting I did was more about finding the art that existed in the space back in 2021, and just by unknowns. One somebody that's not around anymore in the digital space, but I followed for years now in LA is, Amy Smith, who's phenomenal. I have a piece downstairs that I love.
I had a digital piece of hers on Polygon. It was the first NFT I bought before jumping into some other larger collections that were more, like, tokenized. I still remember that, and I remember that that's what made me most happy during any of my time leading up to getting back to more, like, art collecting. So fast forward to, like, 2022, early twenty three, and, like, the downturn in the market, my early entrance in this space was about profit, which did not pan out. Don't I mean and I wrote out the low times through art and wanting to reconnect with the pieces and the things that I, like, lit up about. And a lot of it ended up relating to, like, some of my sobriety journey or some of the things that I connected with through my early childhood and, like, being a military brat and moving every couple years and not having things that were really mine going from place to place.
And so it all ended up circling into this like, I was seeking to find elements of or reminders of my story out in the world or in other stories. And so there's this component of my interpretation of art when I see it and what it makes me feel. Maybe completely different from the way the artist intended it, but I resonate with that, and I will happily hold it and maybe share the story with the artist. And there's other elements where, like, I will connect with a piece, and then I connect with the artist. And I understand that there's a direct tie. The interpretation is exactly the way that it was meant. And sometimes that actually I wouldn't say it makes it more of an important piece to me, but it adds more depth, I think, to my collection as a whole.
It almost turns it into a soul bound thing for me. Like, it is no longer about profit. This means something at at a much deeper level. So for me, that's kind of the way that I look at collecting and have looked at collecting through, like, my timeline here in web three.
Speaker 10 I feel like I just have to say one thing to you, what if I could, and one is that you shared that artist with me when I had reached out to you, because of your connection to Masquerade and the observation that you had left there. And so the fact that that, you know, that Amy Smith means that much to you and that her art resonates with you, I think, is a beautiful part of your story and just who you are. Also, I find it really interesting that you mentioned being a military brat because I'm an army brat, navy wife. And, I do think for me, that is a very that's sometimes why I articulate why I love things so much is because you lived in a million houses, but it wasn't your house, and it wasn't your home until you brought in your stuff.
And then it was home. And so I do think when you are in one of those more, like, transient sort of of, you know, lifestyles growing up and literally me getting married and moving into that same lifestyle being a navy wife, it's like when the pictures went on the wall, it became home. And, so I and my husband literally would be like, look. Let me set up the kitchen for you and put up your art. Then I can go do what I want. And I was like, yep. Then it's home, and you can go do what you want. So I just found that that was a really interesting concept to rip off of because I do think we have that in common. And it is very much, I think, part of the philosophy of collecting is what makes you feel like that's your home and, you know, puts that stamp on it.
Speaker 13 Yeah. I love that. I love the perspectives. I love the idea of really reflecting on how the identity that we kind of see. Like, we talked yesterday a bit on how collecting is kind of like looking into a mirror. That's, like, kind of my own philosophy of how I see myself in the work, and it makes me feel gravitated towards completing the loop, which is ultimately, like, me collecting that work and holding on to that work. And usually, in those cases, it's never a thought about reselling the work because the purpose of buying it is not to really capitalize on it. It really is it's to, more so capitalize on completing that loop of, now it's it's in my hands again, and it's kind of like a part of me that I'm collecting, yet the artist and I have met on that vibrational level through the work.
So it's very unique thing, and that that's my next kind of point that I wanna make about, and I wanna direct this at Medved and, hear your take on how you feel identity really plays a part in your collecting, and what do you feel deserves like, how do you decide on what you feel deserves a spot in what you would consider a permanent collection?
Speaker 6 Yeah. It's a really good question. I think identity does play a big role. I mean, I think that a lot of, the movements that have really characterized the space, you know, whether it's crypto punks or, like, the rise of the PFPs and all that have been, like, rooted in the power of digital identity. Right? And so I think that as people build out their collections, they also think about what does this say about me? What does this reflect on me? I mean, people you know, like, in the traditional world, being people, you know, go to art fairs or they go looking for pieces, you know, they're often thinking about, I wanna hang this on my wall, and I want this to be here. And, like, how does this, you know, how does this present to the people that, you know, I host or that or that come through or that that I live with, and and what does this say about me?
Right? On the in the digital side, I I think, you know, there's there's that element as well, and we're not limited by wall space. Right? So there's it it is really interesting to think about. In my own, like, collection, I you know, a couple a couple examples stand out. You know, I remember, I remember collecting I was very early collector for Alpha Centauri Kidd. And, you know, he, I I I'm I think I own the only full set of his Tezos works, and I think I own both of his one of ones on Tezos. And, you know, that was because he had reached out to me early, and I hadn't I hadn't even seen the DM. You know? I I actually I I went to when we did our first gateway for for Now Media, I went to DM ACK because I wanted to curate him for the Christie's auction that we were doing as part of that.
And I saw that there was this whole, like, message chain. And I went back, and it turned out that he had actually created a one of one for me on Tezos, like, FormedMed. And he had made it a free claim, and someone else had claimed it because I just missed it. And I remember I was like, do you know, like, that that I felt that more than, like, any other like, I wanted that piece more than, like, any piece on earth. And I was like, why is that? It's because of identity. Right? Like, he literal it's this is an artist that I I really respect, an artist that I had already started collecting because I you know, what would appeal to me about his, about his work was, like, the intersection of, like, memetics and, like, he was he, I think, has done a great job of, like, continually evolving the actual, like, mediums and and the, his technique and process while still, like, retaining, like, his kind of signature energy and and aesthetic, which is a lot easier said than done.
But I remember, like, there was the fact that there was this token out there that, like, one of my favorite artists had made for me that, like, featured my CryptoPunk in it that was, like, literally called for MedBed, and that it wasn't in my collection was, like, maddening. Right? Luckily, this this story has a has a happy ending. I was able to once once, you know, I it was in this wallet that was, like, pretty inactive, and it was from his, and and it was from an it wasn't from his main account. So, I was, like, thinking about, do I write, like, a note and mint it as an NFT and send it to this wallet and then final luckily, Object actually implemented, offers, short like, you know, shortly after. So as one does, I made a 69 TES offer.
And about a month or two later, it was, it was accepted. And, it was very felt very fortunate to to add that piece to collection. And and to this day, it's still, like, up there in terms, like, with my punk and with, like, certain things as, like, a piece that I'll probably I'll never part with. Right? And I you know, why is that? Why is that? Because of and it I think it ties back to the identity. It's like it's you know, it was like a a gifted commission from an even though I I didn't ask for it. It was a gift, you know, from him, that that, you know, is is was made for me. It just it hits differently. Right?
And and and so, like, that really kind of opened up my eyes to the power of, like, identity, in especially out even at going beyond, like, the digital you know, the the the PFP side of things, but into the digital art space, you look at, like, the people every days. And, you know, when people get when people make it into a people every day, it's like a mama made it moment. Right? That ties back into the power of identity in the space. Right? And so I also think a lot about, you know, some of the things that I've collected. Like, when I found out that Ralph Steadman, the artist who worked very who worked with Hunter s Thompson and did the illustrations for all of his original, works, when I found out that he at, like, the age of, like, I think 80, was starting to mint pieces on the blockchain.
Obviously, his family was, like, helping him with it, but he was, like, the one that was super interested in this. I think it was his daughter who was, like, helping him actually do it. But, once I found that out, I was like, I have to have them all. Like, I was just, you know, I was I'm just collecting each of them. Why is that? It's because Huntress Thompson played a huge role, in inspiring me to like, as a writer and as a journalist. And so, you know, that was something that was very important for me to to bring into my collection. And that what I was from those, I wasn't really expecting those to appreciate value. It wasn't about ROI. It wasn't about, like, any of those things.
It was really about I I need to have a piece of this, right, because this represents something that is very significant for me and my journey as a as a journalist and as a writer. And so, you know, I think, like, when you can resonate with things like that, you know, it it obviously, it has a real impact. And so, you know, I I remember, you know, and and it's something that you can also connect other people up. But when I first met, Rahul Paul, who, you know, from RealClearVision, he's also a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan. When I told him that Ralph Stedman was minting on the blockchain, he was like, what? Where? Like, you know, at that point, was always Tesla's. He hadn't done his nifty gateway drop yet. But, you know, I had he was ready to learn a new blockchain, you know, and and all that just to to go out and find it.
And so that that, I think, speaks to the power of it. And, you know, I think when when I look at when I look at my collection, I do think that there are a lot of things that that say something about who I am. Right? And so those are just a couple examples I could go on and on, but I'd love to hear what some of the other speakers have to say.
Speaker 13 So good. So good. It's really there I mean, also to just going back to the one point on the identity of, like, if you were included in a Beeple every day, that's just kind of, like, this moment in the space where you're just like, this is amazing. Even if you're not in the in the every day, but, like, it's an every day that means a lot to you because it's reflecting on a moment that meant a lot to you. That says a lot about what drives us to collect things, what drives us to go out of our way. Like, I personally love nostalgic art. I've made a lot of nostalgic art that reflects moments from my own childhood, like, different things just like playing brick breaker on BlackBerry or lava lamps or, like, playing guitar hero or the little rug that we all know from being a kid.
Like, I see these elements in work, and it makes me want to collect it because I feel like I'm collecting a part of myself. And I feel like artists listening could really benefit from thinking and reflecting on this, not necessarily saying you should include only nostalgic things in your art or anything like that, but more so the theme of including something in your work or making a theme in your work that people can step into and at least just reflecting on this idea of how it may drive more interest and attention and conversation around what you're doing. It's just a very unique thing how the human mind works and why we're driven to make certain decisions. And I think collecting is just one of those awesome things that we can do to really, like, close that gap.
So I wanna ask, Lynette about your, because as you said, you're an avid collector, you've always enjoyed collecting, and you don't think about selling stuff that you collect. When you collect, how do you feel your identity plays a role in it? And what do you think of when you think, okay. This deserves a spot in my permanent collection.
Speaker 10 So I wanna segue off of something that you said into that question. So, somebody that I believe did this really, really well was Snow Fro recently, Eric with Lyft. So I got to make a digital sprite for that. And, it was very important to me, right, to have one because I you know, the auction got kinda crazy. I wasn't able to get one, so I'm stalking the secondary. And you think I'm stalking the secondary for the floor? No. I'm looking for one that has my little dancing sprite in it, not in the background behind the l. Like, I wanted to be, like, front and center. It was important to me. And I think much like Medved when he was just like, the that that's my token. Like, that's mine. And I'm like, nope.
I'm supporter number one in this one, and I'm sitting on top of the l, my name is Lynette, so this is the one I gotta have. Right? And then Mitchell Chan, when he did his video game piece, the overture piece, and he let me sing in that one, and my voice got to be a part of it. Of course, I'm gonna collect that piece. And, I mean, they didn't do it, I think, for that. They just knew that I had a passion, and I was like, you know, I am a gamer girl in my soul. OG gamer played every single thing from Pong and the Commodore 64, Atari 2,600, you know, all the way up to, you know, like I said yesterday, the five consoles I've got sitting in the room right next to me. Right? But, you know, gaming and that nostalgia, nostalgia's selling everywhere.
I go to Comic Con, and I've been blessed to be able to go to San Diego Comic Con for, like, the last eleven years. And the amount of nostalgia sales. Like, a vendor's like, look. If you wanna, like, make your profit up for this booth, you make something that will touch nostalgia. Like, generation x, generation next, millennials, we are spending money on things that give us good memories and vibes. You do something eight bit, you played a Pac Man on it somewhere. You have, like, you know, a space invader, and it's, like, in sale. Right? Because we've got expendable capital, and we're trying to reclaim that. So I just wanted to basically, you know, piggyback off of what you said, that nostalgia 1000% is a way to sell and allowing people to be a part of this digital space because we do feel like it's formative.
We want people to know that we were here. There's not many firsts in this world that are left. Like, we've discovered much of the planet. That's why people are trying to go to the ocean and go to space. You know, there's not many places where you can seek that, quote, unquote, dopamine hit of being, like, first. Like, remember when you were the kid and you were, like, running through the car first just so you could call shotgun? That is an innate as us as, like, you know, collecting. And so I think that a lot of us are here. We're the pioneers of this space, and it's mostly just hard, and there's mostly just losses. And so when you get an opportunity to do something that feels good as a pioneer in this space and you get to be a part of something and you get to be remembered, I think everybody just wants to leave a legacy and know that people will remember their name when they're gone.
So, as to, like, what gets to stay in
Speaker 10 everything. I am your quintessential diamond hands. In fact, if you look up in the dictionary of crypto and you say, what is a diamond hands? My picture is there complete with, like, colorful afro. But it's just like me. I want all the things forever and for always. But I will say I collect in the digital space exactly like I collect in real life, and, that has done me a disservice. I will say if you're talking about onboarding people into our space, there is a huge, huge gap in between what works, I think, in physical collecting and what works in digital collecting. And that the whole thing, when you start collecting art in the real world, they tell you is buy what you love, and you'll never have a loss. Right? That's what they tell you if you're gonna collect in physical.
And I can tell you right now, if you buy what you love in the digital space, you will not like, it's like if you're buying something, the floor is low. If you're not, like, looking if if 50 other people aren't looking at the thing that you like, then you're like they're like, I mean, you can buy that, but nobody knows who that artist is. Right? That's not how it is, I think, in the real world. Like, most of you see on my wall, I know the names of these artists. I know that's Alex Zhang. I know that's Irma Rivera. I know that's Alex Grant. But do you guys For that? No. Do you guys care about that? No. But, also, it's like you looked and you're like, maybe that's a cool picture, and you know that's Princess Leia. Or, like, hey. Is that Lulu from the fifth element?
Right? It would be lovely to be able to have these conversations in digital art without the judgment that comes along with it. Because there is a little bit of a negative stigma when you just collect with passion in here. So I think you have to be a very strong collector in the digital space to actually collect with your identity because there is a little bit of, oh, what's the foreprice on that, or where did you get that from? Oh, you got off of object? Well, what else is that artist doing? What are they connected to? And I think in order for us to be welcoming for people who are here for the art, I think we have to be more accepting as a community for the nerds who are gonna be like me or just like, nope.
Do not follow my wallet for anything that looks like like, legitimately, I should get a tattoo right here that says not financial advice. Unless, of course, it's like do the opposite of everything I do, and it could be financial advice. Because I just buy what I love. I buy from people who make me smile, and that is my identity. And I'm very strong in my conviction about that. If it doesn't make me smile, if I wouldn't put it on my wall, I'm not gonna buy it. And so I think I even have a little gallery I made in OpenSea where you could do that where it was just, like, stuff I'm not embarrassed about. And it was literally just my joyful stuff that was, like, negative money where you have to pay somebody to take it from you.
And so that was kind of a funny bridge into somebody who's gonna be a little bit more logical than I am. But it would be nice if we could have vibe collecting the same way that we do vibe coding right now, and people just buy what's on their heart and people love them for it, and they praise them for it, and not just like, oh, well, let's go on to zero. Who cares? It made me happy, and it gave me joy, and I love it. So, over to you, Wood, if I could. It's gonna be easy for you to add value after that because that was literally just vibes for, like, a good 35¢.
Speaker 2 I love it. I'm sitting here thinking, okay. So Lynette and I are the same person. Honestly, like and I don't mean to jump in front of Satoshi if you wanted to pitch it in a different direction. I I was just gonna jump into a little bit of identity if that's cool with you. But the vibe collecting thing, like, that's where I've come to really respect and love Tezos and Object the most. I mean, I I set a monthly this is a limit, of, like, I throw a $100 on into Tezos every month, and then I just, throughout the month, every few days, find a new artist, explore a little bit. I like that. It's seven Tezos. Boom. Add it to the collection. Like, I feel a little bit more connected and proud of my Tezos collection most of the time because it's more true to my actual self.
And I feel like that is a little bit of a stigma in the space, and it's hard to distance yourself from what's perceived value in web three and what truly makes you happy. And if you can find that medium, then that's awesome. Like, I think that those are pieces of work that you'll always have in your collection or at least I will. Because I think that there's this balance or maybe struggle between personal identity versus social identity. Right? And the social identity aspect being the communities that you're connecting to as a result of the art that you're buying, whether that piece or that addition actually means something to you personally or whether it means something to that community that you want to continue to be a part of. And I I sometimes struggle between those two. Modest is a really great example of that.
I've I've connected early with some of, Modest art, specifically the shadows collection when it was dropping, because the prompt when he threw that out there was more about, like, hey. If you tell me what your shadow represents to you, and I'll I'll make one or two for a few people that are commenting. And I I love that kind of exploration in terms of somebody else's art, but being interpreted from your own feelings or your own thoughts on at least the subject. And so I collected a bunch of the shadows, and then I've collected a few things from him throughout the last couple of years where I've, one of my favorite things in this space when I'm looking at a new piece is to not fully understand why I resonate with it right away.
Like, to have to sit with it, because it's this notion of, yes, that is pinging me personally, and I'm seeing a component of my identity in it, but I don't know what that is yet. So it's almost like I'm finding out more about what my own identity and my own personal identity is by exploring why my attention's been grabbed by a piece of work. And Modest has done that a couple of times, but then there are times where there's a addition that'll drop, and I'm like, I gotta get the addition. I don't love it, but the entire network and the entire community is like, you gotta get one. And so there's this element of, like, social identity and peer pressure that comes into play, and I get caught up in that on occasion. But those are the only pieces that I'm like, okay. Cool.
I'll sell that for the next one. And when that time comes, I really still struggle. Like, I look at my collection and I'm like, what do I have to offload, or or do I have to go get more ETH in order to buy the next thing that I like? And I can't offload things. Like, I get so personally tied to it. So, you know, I I think that that both the personal and the social identity aspect of the space that we're in is is a strong tie for both collecting and, retaining art.
Speaker 10 I don't wanna take too far off, but I did wanna say something that I think was really important there. And, Medveda, let me know if you hit the same way. But you mentioned modest, and modest, I became aware of, but it was his what it remembers. And it was those, family photos, and I remember seeing that work for the first time and seeing black families, right, that were depicted in such a beautiful way. And Amy, when I reached out, Modest was like, that's actually one of my favorite outputs of the whole thing is just these families. And it was just like, I saw myself, but in an AI capacity where normally we aren't. Right? And so, but if I look at other work from Modest, they don't necessarily resonate with me, like you've said.
So it's just like I mean, I love a lot of the exploration that he does, but I wouldn't go out and buy every piece. I think that's an interesting thing that happens to collectors too is once you buy one thing, they're reaching out to you. Like, hey. I'm dropping the next thing, and maybe the next thing isn't your jam. Right? And so I've had to have very open conversations with some artists who are just like, hey. I'm Matt. And I'm like, look. What I loved about your last piece was this, but, like, what isn't really? I'm just like, you know, somebody with I was like, I've got this great opportunity for this. And I'm like, actually, I don't do nudes. I just don't that doesn't mean I have any problems with them. It's just in my personal collection, I just don't need nudes.
Or, like, if it has a curse word in it, I'm probably not gonna collect it. And it's like, that doesn't mean you should do you, freedom of expression, but you're asking me to buy it. So I guess the question that I was kinda pushing back out is, like, do you guys feel pressure from a philosophy of collecting to collect an artist that you you love, but, like, maybe that piece isn't really your damn, and, like, you start to feel that pressure. I've had to be, like, very clear. Like, I know the things that I don't do, but I feel like sometimes it does kind of impact the way that an artist will kind of, you know, connect with me.
Speaker 2 Yes. I I have felt that same pressure, and it's just a personal hang up, I think, which is actually those dynamics and those kind of, DMs have made me a better communicator in real life because I've become a little bit more direct about why, I'm not as interested in something with no disrespect whatsoever, but, just not a piece that I, you know, plan to spend, you know, point o six nine on, because x y z. But looking forward to the next, it was it felt awkward at first, I had let let myself be forced into, like, buying things that maybe I wasn't as happy with years ago, because of that exact dynamic. And then, I guess, I strengthened my own resolve or got more comfortable with it, which I think has been, you know, helpful here in, you know, in general.
Speaker 6 Yeah. And that's interesting, interesting thing to bring up. You know, I I can't I haven't felt that pressure so much, but I think it's also because of uniquely because of my position in the industry as also, like, a platform that that supports artists in other ways than collecting, like, through the editorial and the social and, like, video and, like, content. So a lot of times, like, you know, artists will come to me first for support and coverage on their drops versus necessarily, like, seeing, like, seeing me as a collector first. Right? They see me first as a as a media, outlet or or a content platform that can support and help amplify their work. And I think if I collect the work, it's almost like a like a like a value add, like a bonus. Right? You know?
And so a lot of and which is nice because, I mean, in some ways because it means I mean, there's ways I can support artists that are nonfinancial, which is which is always nice as well. But, you know, I think it is it it it it is a it that that also comes with its own, you know, kind of, like, pressures and and and conversations. I mean, it's interesting when you say modest. I I remember we we did a, a NextUp article on on Modest, around one of his of more recently earlier this year. And NextUp is our is our feature series at at, and our media support rising artists specifically. And, you know, we I remember we launched it in, like, '21 or '22 and, you know, like, all the artists that we called, like, those early days was, like, our ACK. It was, like, Gossamer.
It was, like and you look back on that list, it was, like, Casimard, like, Julie Pacino, and it was, like, they all went on to, like, kinda blow up during that wave. And so the next up series became a really like, something I'm very passionate about because I love supporting rising artists. It's also a way to support rising artists that I think are doing really cool things. But, you know and and, you know, it it isn't, contingent on my liquidity at any given time, right, which is kinda nice. So I I would say that, like, a lot of times, artists will come to me saying, hey. I have a drop. I have a release. I have something. And the and with the expectation of, like, hey. Can I get support on it? Can I get, like, you know, some some some help you amplify versus necessarily, like, can you collect it?
But I will also say that, you know, there have been some sometimes artists who have come to me for every single drop or every single thing, and and I'm just like, look. Like, obviously, I wanna support you. I think you're great, but, like, we also have to be here for the whole ecosystem. Right? And so, you know, for example, we have our podcast. We only do the when when the podcast is in season, we do that once a week, which means that even in a year where the where the where, like, 21, where, like, the podcast, we just we just do it straight through the entire year, there's still only 52 episodes, which means, like, you kinda only get one. You know what I mean? Like, if you're if you got one, it's definitely only one. And and so I always tell artists it's like, same as some of our bigger features.
I'm like, let's time it around something strategic because it's not like we can just do a podcast every time you have a drop or a or a feature every time you have a drop. It's like, what is the most impactful? A lot of times when artists will come to me if, you know, say, hey. Like, look. I'm I'm thinking about what this year looks like, and I really want now media support. I'm like, what's the biggest thing you're doing this? Like, what's your number one priority? Like, what's the what's the thing that, like, you know, you wanna amplify the most? And let's plan to do it around that because otherwise, you know, it it's otherwise, I think it's a missed opportunity, because, you know, when when time comes, it's like, well, we've already given you this feature. I have all an entire ecosystem to support.
So that's where I sometimes will will have felt some pressure around, like, you know, from artists in that regard. But I think, you know, just being really, like, leveling with them and saying, like, look. We're we have to be here to support everyone. And to me, it's about what is what like, let's make every app that and impactful at that. Right? Let's make sure that, you know, if we're gonna do a feature, it's supporting the biggest series. Or, like, if you're gonna hop on our Twitter space, like, let's make sure you have something to talk about, right, versus just like otherwise, I think it's kind of a missed opportunity. So that's that's kinda how I how I how I navigate that.
And then, you know, I think it's it's almost more of, a pleasant surprise for a lot of people when I end up collecting a work because they they don't necessarily think that even though they know I collect works, they they think about the media side first, and then the collection side is almost like a, like a bonus. And so I actually like that because I can also really you know, it's like the surprise and delight kind of thing. You know, I I think what Matt spoke to I I actually feel really similarly around the Tezos ecosystem. You know, we're we've we've partnered with Ardentezos and and that that, and that and that crew. But even long before we were partnering with them, you know, I collected on on. I collected on object, on FX hash, and all that. And the distinction there and I'm still a big Ethereum guy.
So, you know, I love Bitcoin. I'm and I think that the future is multichain. But the one thing that I do really appreciate about the Tezos ecosystem, I just wanted to get this point in there, was that, because there's so much amazing work available at very low price points, I can also do what kinda like what Matt said about, like, allocating a certain budget that's really just for patronage. You know? Like, I'm I'm buying I'm buying or collecting art there that I have no intention of ever selling. I'm not thinking about ROI. And I remember during the 2122, that bull run people always love to talk about the bull runs. The bull runs were amazing, but they're also stressful. You know? Like, there there there was a lot of, like, you had to maximize the opportunity and all these things.
And at the time, like, collecting on Ethereum during the bull run was also stressful because it was like, how do I allocate my resources to maximize opportunities and, like, things like that? Meanwhile, was building a media company and, like, all of these things. I actually found collecting on Tezos to be quite, therapeutic. Like, it was almost like a way to, like, turn my brain off. You know? At the end of the just feel like, oh, that's cool. $3, $5, like, boom. You know? Like, oh, I like that. $10. Great. Like, it was just like it just felt really good, and it was a totally different part of my brain than I was using on, like, the rest of the other side of it. And what I what I found was that and this I this I think is what's really cool about that ecosystem is that because of the there are lower barriers to entry in terms of gas fees and transaction fees and things like that.
There are a lot of artists from developing countries who who who mint on Tezos for whom $10, $15 may actually be quite significant. And that I remember, like, there was a there was a pixel artist that I really liked on there. And I, like, discovered his work, and I just thought it was neat and cool. And I, like, I collected a few pieces, and then I tweeted about it. And the whole, like, the whole collection sold out. You know? And and then he he wrote me this incredibly, like, heartfelt note about how, like, you know, he's from, like, a small village in, like, rural Argentina and, like, this and his collection selling out, I think it was around, like, 3 to $500 in total, which was life changing
Speaker 6 him. You know? It was like a really totally and that felt really good because it was just very organic, and and, you know, it was all from a place of just, like, pure appreciation. And so to be able to hear that that that that I've been able to help through that support, an artist, you know, sustain their career. I mean, that's that's what I'm all about. You know? And so, there's it's easier that there there are kind of moments to make an impact like that on in that ecosystem. And so it's one of the reasons why it's it's close to my heart.
Speaker 10 I feel like we haven't let Satoshi talk in a while, so I'm gonna but I feel like I do have to say there are some bangers in Tezos. The problem is there's a lot to sift through. Right? It's kind of like you think of, like, the Android app store, Android girl in my soul versus the Apple store, and there's that, like, curated space where certain things come into their end. But, like, I found Konek Zapata who did, their Genesis piece on SuperAir. And I have never gotten into an auction bidding war, and I got into it for that. And then I looked everywhere else, and so much stuff on Tezos. Right? And so I just, I do think that the one thing that's really wonderful about, you know, the Tezos space is that it gives artists, even artists who are on Ethereum, opportunities to play around and do different things in a safe space and, not have to worry about what sells and what doesn't.
So for instance, I think Casey Reese is like, we are doing stuff on Tezos. It's like a place for me to be able to play and explore my art. So I do really love the fact that it is that playground. It allows you to discover new amazing people. And, like, for instance, I'm like now everything that Conan's about it has. I'm like, I want all of it now in my space. And I've been kind of doing the same thing of just, like, looking for these artists and pushing them out there. But sorry, Sushu. Yeah. Will get back to you. It was just interesting that you kind of, you know, brought that together, and I think, emerging artists is always something that we're not gonna grow if there's not more people making art. The same 100 people aren't gonna sustain us. We need a lot more amazing humans doing beautiful things.
Speaker 13 No. I honestly absolutely love all of the conversation, and I love how it's been flowing. It's been an incredible conversation. And, honestly, you know, when you're hosting or moderating, it's the easiest, of course, when the panel is flowing so incredibly well. So, no, of course, I've I've really enjoyed this. It's been amazing. I I wanna make some comments as, the talk is coming to a close on, several of the things mentioned. So, Tezos is an absolutely amazing place to just collect for the sake of collecting. And for anyone listening, go to objectobjkt.com and just have some fun. I think the mechanism for discovery there is incredible as well. Like, the way that the site actually is set up, it's beautiful because you can also follow collectors and see you could follow artists and collectors and see what they're minting or collecting, and you can kind of go down these little rabbit holes.
I was talking yesterday on how I'll have a 100 tabs, and they'll just be kind of like all these little works that I've set aside bookmarked on Tezos. And it's just so so much fun. I think, again, wrapping back into what we're doing or what we mentioned in the beginning is the identity of it all. Being able to collect and enjoy and collect for the sake of collecting, I think, is a very fun exercise. And I love that Matt mentioned that he does it on a monthly basis with a small budget towards collecting. But then also, like Medved mentioned, how collecting for five tests, 10 tests to somebody in a third world country can be really, really impactful for them. And, you know, I think that the more that we can extend the education for artists out there on how to get involved in platforms, whether Eth or Tez, to really be able to get their art out there.
There's so much talent out in the world, and they don't necessarily know how to get themselves out there from a branding perspective or creating perspective or minting on any of these blockchains. And that's why we're doing the Web three Summit is to build this educational platform. All of you guys are contributing to it, this public good free forever educational platform to provide college level education To anyone in the world with an Internet connection. And like Medved mentioned about pixel art, pixel art is something that you can make without an iPad. IPads cost, you know, hundreds of dollars, thousands actually. And pixel art is something that you can make for very cheap. There's free programs, but also aSprite, an amazing program. Anyone in the world can have access to that.
We're also working on creating partnerships between the digital asset museum and these other platforms as the Digital Asset Museum's a nonprofit to have them grant us subscriptions to or licenses to these platforms and, allow us to gift those plat those licenses to people in need or people in these third world countries to be able to get them started. So anyone listening who is like, hey. I'd love to contribute to that as a person doing tutorials or an artist that's teaching, don't hesitate to reach out to me or the Digital Asset Museum directly. We have a lot of awesome things planned in this regard that I'm excited to announce in the coming weeks, and the platform will go live in the coming weeks as well. But I just wanted to touch on that because I think it's so powerful and so fulfilling to play a role in someone's life when to us, it might not mean that much in that exact moment.
But then to the person that you're making a contribution to by collecting their work, whether it just resonates with you or, whatever reason, it's a really, really powerful thing, and I think the ripple effect goes far beyond what we're able to even witness ourselves. And I think that's the best kind of ripple effect. So, yeah, I just wanted to kinda touch base on all of that and also mention about how the voices on this panel today, absolutely incredible voices. If you're not following all three of these people, definitely do so. Medved to your platform for, you know, king making, queen making, these artists. Ultimately, that's beautiful. And I think even whether you have a large media platform that you're building or you have just your a 100 followers on Twitter, being able to post and share about these artists that you collect is such a beautiful thing to do, and the ripple effect on that is far beyond what you might even realize.
Maybe you only have a few people who follow you. But taking the time to sit with the art you collect, I think, is so important, and also it allows you to maybe reflect on it in a way that you could share if you're comfortable. Even if you don't share, I think it's beneficial. Sharing it with the world and reflecting, sharing, and other people will discover these artists. It's it's an amazing process overall, and I think it adds value to so many different people in so many ways. So, yeah, that's my mini spiel kind of catching up on all the talking that I didn't get to do. I'm just kidding. But you guys have been so amazing, and I really, really appreciate the time from everyone on this panel today. Thank you so much. We did we're about to start the next panel.
So I just wanna say thanks again. Thank you, Medved. Thank you, WoodifIcould. Thank you, Lynette. You guys have been amazing. This has been an awesome talk. I'm really grateful that you, joined us today.
Speaker 10 Grateful for you. Have a wonderful day. Bye, guys.
Speaker 13 Very much. Chad, bye bye.
Speaker 6 Thanks, everyone. Great conversation.
Speaker 13 Appreciate everybody. Our next panel, we'll get started here in just a minute. Just again to reflect, what an amazing talk. I love talking on the mindset and philosophy of collecting. I think collecting is one of the most fun things we can do because it's a personal journey, but also it makes such an impact in other people's lives. Whether you're collecting on Tezos for a dollar or you're collecting on ETH for a dollar or a thousand or 10,000, These are ripple effects that we're creating in the world by impacting artists through our collecting decisions. And as a collector and a steward, you can really do a lot for artists just by talking about their work. We'll take a quick break, and we'll get started. Just a minute break here. And I'm stoked for the next panel, which is creating art, growing a brand in web three featuring Brian Brinkman, Delta Sauce, and Saris, Santiago Saris, three incredible artists. So this is gonna be an amazing one. Alright. We'll be right back.
Speaker 13 We're back. What's going on? We got our epic panel here. What's up, Brian?
Speaker 13 Hello. What's good, Delta Sauce? Great to see y'all, and I'm stoked for this panel. This is gonna be an awesome one. I think this is our first full artist panel. So really excited to dive in just That's good. On all topics of art, the creation process, the branding process, and actually, as the talk states, creating art and growing a brand in web three. So quick introductions. Honestly, if you guys have been here, we've had all three of these panelists on in previous panels. But I do wanna do a quick intro. Brian Brinkman, an award winning multimedia artist who utilizes his career in animation and motion graphics to create fun and inventive ways to convey ideas about creative processes and the crypto art space that are both approachable and appealing. Brian has very unique artworks that he creates that really do involve the collector and also, just the thought leader in the space overall and a great human being.
Really grateful to have you with us today, Brian. Santiago Santiago Serres is an Argentinian digital mixed media artist who explores chaos, delving into the human mind through mixed techniques that combine biometric data, artificial intelligence, and generative art. And so much more than that. Santiago is an amazing human being and really has such amazing taste as well. If you didn't catch the talk yesterday from Santiago, that was incredible. Definitely go back. That was at 1PM yesterday, so the second talk, building a successful artistic practice. Some really awesome insights. Really appreciate you being here today as well. And, of course, Delta Sauce, an absolutely amazing soul. Delta Sauce is a Dallas based digital artist whose work explores memory, nostalgia, and the emotional terrain of liminal spaces through the lens of AI. Delta's work, you absolutely need to go scroll his feed. He shares an amazing amount of work.
He's always sharing incredible stuff, and the way that you express nostalgia is some of my favorite, as an artist. Also, Delta's bio reads as, he spent, it says, rooted in early experiences spent in his father's woodworking shop. His creative journey began with a fascination for the act of creating and a reverence for process that continues to shape his approach to art today. Absolute legends on the panel. So I'm stoked to dive in. Again, the panel topic is creating art and growing a brand in web three. So I wanna start the panel off and just kinda start generically and ask you a question on what is building a brand mean for an artist in web three in your words, in your own take? And let's start with Delta sauce on this one.
Speaker 4 For me, building a brand is about building relationships and, like, building a sort of community that can,
Speaker 4 you know, you can discuss your artwork, talk about your artwork, and show your artwork too. So I I look at building a brand as just building, like, authentic relationship, sharing yourself authentically with, like, a large group of people, and that takes a lot. So, like, you know, it takes a lot from you as an artist. So, like, that's really where I look at building brands, especially here in web three and, you know, online.
Speaker 13 Santiago, what do you think as far as, like and I know some of the stuff we touched on yesterday too is very relevant here. But, like, Delta's saying, being ultimately, being genuine and building relationships, what do you think building a brand means for an artist in Web three?
Speaker 1 To be honest, I completely agree with with Delta. It's about authentic relations and authentic connections. And, also, I think we should add, like, we need you need to to create your own language, your your own authenticity. I mean, try to find that that voice that defines your your identity because at least build a brand. It's about build an an identity, and it's a really interesting exercise when you try to ex extrapolate your identity and think about it as a kind of brand because you start, like, getting the insights that you will need to to start planning how you want to to create your your growth or your objective.
Speaker 13 Interesting. Yeah. So it's like the way that we're interacting with people out there is the brand, ultimately. But also at the same time, it's the way that we're holding ourselves, the way that we're conveying who we are and what we're building. So building off that, Brian, what do you think is what does it mean to build a brand for an artist in Web3?
Speaker 14 Yeah. I mean, building on what they already answered. I think it's about building a digital
Speaker 14 what's the word? A digital identity across multiple mediums. You know, there's a website. There's social media. There's physical business cards, you know, stickers, doing everything you can to spread the word. All of those are the things that eventually connect you to the community, and you have to kind of build out the infrastructure for people to find your work, find out about your work, find you, know where to congregate with other people that are of interest in that. And so it's like Discord, you know, WhatsApp, DMs, all this stuff. I I feel like the way we build our brand is, like, sprinkling content across all of those things at the same time.
Speaker 1 I would like to to add something something else because I think that we we talked a little bit about it yesterday that how sometimes you need to be a little bit extroverted to to present your work. And if you are introvert, it's it's really, really difficult, and I totally totally understand that. So try to figure out how to extrapolate your your identity into a brand. We will help you to figure out how to talk about it without considering that you are talking about you. So it's a really powerful tool that will help you also to to find to find the the structure that you will need to develop the the career itself, like a communication strategy, how much I will post, what what will be my my kind of tones, which topics I would like to share, and all those things helps to to build the the brand and also the identity, trying to put yourself outside
Speaker 13 Yeah. And and on, like, you know, the topic of your, like, frequency of posting and, like, actually getting it down on paper, which is what Brian talked about in previous talks. Cyrus, you also talked about, And Teltas, also, and I have talked about this in personal conversations of how really just kind of, like, getting it down on paper as to what it is you're looking to do. So, like, whether you're planning to post or you're scheduling posts or you're thinking about, like, how you're going out into the world, you know, that's just one strategy. I think it's really a powerful thing to do. And if it makes you feel like it eases a sense of the chaos or the chaotic nature of being out on social media and sharing and building your brand, because there's also the strategy like, yesterday, I talked to Gavin Mueller was one of the most interesting and best talks, honestly, in, the way he explains the simplicity of how he goes to the market, the simplicity in how he views his practice.
It was very refreshing because it made me feel like I can relax into the idea that it doesn't have to be complex. And I'm curious, Delta, on your thoughts of, like, when it comes to branding, how can we simplify the process, especially for any emerging artists or new artists, even someone who hasn't created any art recently even, but they're like, no. I want to put my art out there into the world. How do we simplify the process of building a brand in web three?
Speaker 4 I I would say look at it from the perspective of, like, what is your north star? What what is your reason for creating? Like, what is the driver of that? And, like, you that's you know, can be as simplistic as, like, for me, it's nostalgia. Like, that's the north star. That is my brand. You know? It it's, you know, this it's a simplistic concept, but it has an emotional depth behind it. And that is how I've really branded myself moving forward. Like, that's the thing that I wanna be known for. So, like, finding that north star and that north star can always change. Like, you could always change with the times, change with maturity, like, you know, change with your experience currently. You know? So, like, just finding that north star and just, like, attaching yourself to it, I think, is very important.
I think and, again, that is, you know, what I'm looking at when, you know, when I look at my brand. Like, I and then when I look at my artwork, like, I want it to be attached to that singular concept and idea.
Speaker 14 I think there's there's another aspect to what defines our brand. We can try to define it, but, really, what often defines an artist in our space is whatever their biggest project is, usually because it has the most volume traded. And then, you know, they'll say, oh, he's the squiggle guy. Oh, he's the skull guy. You know? And that artists need to take into consideration whatever they put out into the world as the most abundant work will often define their brand whether they like it or not.
Speaker 13 Super, super true. I think too when you're building your your brand, your brand ends up being built based off sometimes, like, the most viral thing that you do. And, basically, like, say you're, you know, building and people aren't really noticing what you're doing, you're not really getting, like, crazy engagement or anything and not much input from the outside world on it all. But then you do something and it takes off. And then all of a sudden, you have a ton of growth. And from my experience, curious to hear your guys' experience, it's really always been when I'm doing a project launch. And by project, I mean, like, a collection or some sort of, gearing up to give something out into the world, sell something, whether that is art or whether it's a token or whether it's some sort of offering that I'm providing to the marketplace, that's when my brand has grown, like, in, like, a straight up line for the most part.
And then when I'm not launching things and not really, like, up making offerings, my my growth hasn't really been, like, up only. It's just kind of, like, sometimes stagnant. Maybe I'm posting old works or maybe I'm posting about, you know, just re like, not really adding that much to the mix. So I'm curious, like, what your guys' experience is. Like, do you find that you grow when you're doing launches? Is that, like, something that also you can say, yeah. I I agree with that, or do you feel like you have a different take on this? Are there ways to grow without doing launches? And I'd love to hear your take, Santiago.
Speaker 1 In my opinion or in in my experience during the the last, like, five years, I I kinda split it in in into, like releases are really important to to growth because they they talk about you. They talk about what you do. They they are, like, the purest expression of your brand and your art and whatever. But, also, a kind of consistency on the message that you want to spread. You know? That's what I was talking about a few minutes ago about this the the topic that you want to to have do during your career or the North start that Delta was saying that it could change whatever you you want. But if you have it, it could help you a lot to find those insights to grow.
Because, I mean, like, maybe you can grow a lot on on socials by sales, for example, or you can grow by networking, or you can you can grow by trying to get by out with some content for some. So there are too many strategies, and everyone should pick the one that fits better for for themselves. For example, I I don't like to be all the time on socials because my my work takes too too many time for for production. So what I try to figure out is, okay, when is the best time to to post and what I should post during that
Speaker 1 time? Okay. I will have a release, for example, today. Okay. When is the best time to to release that post? And, okay, the releases date are, like, the most present days because you need just to try to make the wheel move. You know? Because when the post found that limit of reach, it start just moving alone. So it's try to figure out how you can tweak that, but for that, you need to be present because it's the only way to find the the insights. It's a kind of, like, practical social
Speaker 13 Really like the the idea of focusing back on the North Star and really making the intention. So it's not really about, like, a certain strategy going with your brand. It's about thinking about your North Star and then letting the actual, like, strategy unfold for what works best For you and build that identity up of who you want to be seen as. And maybe it's not then just about, like, doing a launch that generates that notoriety or generates momentum. I'm curious, like, how you guys feel on that. Like, are there ways outside of doing launches to grow your audience?
Speaker 4 I I would say 100% yes. I I... You know, I've been... I haven't really done a big... I did a big release earlier this year, but I've been, you know, sharing a lot of do artwork, you know, engaging with people socially. And, like, I've seen a lot of, like, growth over the last few months, like, in terms of followers and engagement. So, yeah, you you can grow over time. It's just about, like, how much time and energy you want to put into your social media platform. Like, I... I'm very heavy on the whole Twitter side because, like, I get paid to tweet. I get... You know, and I grow quick on Twitter. I can't do this to that over on Instagram. I'm a very slow grower on Instagram, but I try to post as much as I can on Instagram and also schedule posts.
Like, I schedule a lot of posts. Like, I don't wanna be online all the time. I don't wanna be locked in all the time. So, like, scheduling post is another, like, hack that I found for, like, just growth over time. And, you know, also, what what Santiago was saying, like, the algorithm and stuff like that changes all the time. Like, it's always changing, always learning. So, like, to be locked in all the time to, like, min max the algo is is, you know... You're not really doing art anymore. You're not really an artist at that point. You're just, you know, a content creator and, you know, you're just, you know, browsing social media. So, like, I, you know, try to keep a, you know, try to keep a scheduler for for tweets and whatnot and engagement. Just like...
That is a way to grow without you having to put, like, a 100% of your time and energy into.
Speaker 13 Brian, what's your thoughts?
Speaker 14 Yeah. I mean, sadly, I do not get paid to tweet. But what I find is mixing up the content. You know, if I only posted about my art, it would come across as shilling. I try to look at the day and try and hit a few points. One, try to share at least one piece of past art. One is to share art by other artists in the space that I've collected or I think is cool or support them on their drops. And then the other, which I find is probably the most effective, is making humorous commentary about the space, making some jokes, some memes, whatever. Like, that's the kind of stuff... Like, we've mostly captured the art audience at this point. And so how do we capture all these other kind of crypto native people that are dabbling in the art?
And that's gonna be through humor because that's what's gonna spread to that corner of the space. And so, you know, early on, I I did this nifty gateway drop back in 2021, and it didn't sell out. And it took all summer to sell out until I went on a podcast that was NBA Top Shot podcast, and I showed my art. And a bunch of Top Shot collectors were like, oh, I really f with this. I'm gonna go collect it, and it's sold out. And it's because I branched out into this other audience. And I think that's that's a big part of building a brand in the space is outreach.
Speaker 13 I love the idea... Oh, sorry. I know you're gonna say so. I'll just say real quick. I love the idea of posting humorous stuff because I definitely probably don't do that enough. I did, though, in my initial arc of growth on social media, on x, Twitter, I used to shitpost a lot. And I feel like now that I've become more in this role of, like, building a more, like, I guess, serious brand in some way. And I guess maybe artists can fall into the same type of energy as well, I'm sure. But just, like, keeping it not so serious is actually great because it also, like, breaks things up. It gets more people into your, like, flow of how the algorithm is sharing yourself. I love that you mentioned that, and I also think Brian's really good at that too.
I really enjoy Brian's, like, kind of, like, more shit post act... Esque shares. So, yeah, I I figured that was worth mentioning. I'd love to go back over to you, Santiago. You were about to mention something.
Speaker 1 Yes. That... I I would like to mention that what Brian was saying, it's I I mean, in my case, it's really hard to to apply. Like, I I don't know why, but I'm not good with humor writing. It's crazy. But it's really important because it... It's help you to show, like, your human part, which also is really important, not only in the space, in any space. You know? Like, because you... If you don't do that, you became, like, a a kind of robot or work a solid. And I I don't know which it works, but it's really important to keep that. And, also, one one thing that I think it's important to to consider in terms of your social strategy is is that you should try to attach it with your sales strategy. Because I don't know. If you will have a... For example, something random.
Like, if you want to have, like, more sales, just try... If you try... Sorry. If you try to amplify your collector base, like, some additions, you will need to be more present on socials to to to spread the world... The the word than if you want just to to spread the word about, like, a one on one or just a a series made of, like, four, five, six one on ones. I mean, like, the strategy should be attached to the commercial strategy because depends of... On which you choose, you will need to change your your efforts on
Speaker 13 Yeah. And, you know, that also said, like, instead of, like, being a robot, which, like, sometimes it's it's like, okay. If we're just posting, like, art, art, art, art, and then we're like, here's our next release. Here's our next collection. Art, maybe share some other stuff, maybe retweet some friends. That still is great, I think. But the thing about making people understand you're not a robot, you're a human being. Like, on that topic, I'm curious how you guys decide what to share publicly versus, like, keeping private. Like, do you feel like you just have no filter, or do you feel like you put up a sort of filter at some level? Like, at what point is it not beneficial or productive to share what you're thinking? Is there that point? Does it exist? I'd love to hear your guys' takes.
And if we can go to Brian, I'd love to hear your take specifically and then also go around to everyone else.
Speaker 14 Yeah. It's something... When I first joined the space, I was very open about, like, I'm working on this project. Here's a work in progress, and I enjoyed that aspect of it. What changed over time is as you start to get momentum, you start to work with platforms and projects, and then there's a timeline and a a a a... What was the word? Release schedule. And you have to be more strategic for, like, bringing out work. I find sometimes if you share a work too early by the time it releases, it feels old. The the attention span in the space is very short. And so over time, I've gotten much more... You know, don't share with... Until, like, within a week of a drop because that's the attention span's maximum. But in my Discord, I'll share works in progresses occasionally with, like, you know, my Brink works holders and stuff like that.
And, you know, there's something still fun there, but at least on a public space, I've been more... I don't know. I've held back a lot more than I used to, which is a downer at times, but it, you know, it's kind of the the nature of the beast in the space that you have to, like... Especially when you work with galleries and platforms and all that, you kinda have to work within their schedule to a large degree.
Speaker 4 I I I deeply agree with what, you know, Brian says. Like, I used to be more vocal and open about things, but, like, as, you know, things have progressed over time, it's just, like, I've had to pull back because, like, again, you work with the platforms and you don't wanna, like, share too early because, again, it feels old. So usually, like, a week ahead or, you know, even, you know, even if you wanna spring a little bit of a surprise on, like, a smaller drop, like, a day ahead, like, one day before,
Speaker 4 that typically works because, again, the attention span here is extremely short. And,
Speaker 4 way the algos work, like, they don't want you to repost the same image over and over again within a week span because, like, they end up hiding that. So you have to be really careful and strategic on that. And, also, like, I'm I'm of the same caliber. Like, I I have a group chat here on Twitter that I share works in progress as well as ideas that I have,
Speaker 4 discuss what I'm working on, like, very openly. So,
Speaker 4 know, having those sort of groups and those sort of outlets of, like, people that are really interested in what you're doing is very important in my opinion.
Speaker 12 Cyrus, what... What's your thoughts on it?
Speaker 13 Well, I think I think you're still muted.
Speaker 1 Sorry. I agree with what the guys are are are saying each. I I mean, like, in in communication, there is something really important to understand that is, like, any channel has its its own purpose. So if you want to share your daily basis, it's very... If you're do... If you do it in your inner circle, I don't know, using DMs or using Discord or or whatever message app that exist. But, for example, on on Next, we know that the post the post leaves really, really short time. So if you try to communicate a teaser, like, three weeks before the the release, you will get, like, delayed over over the time, and you will need to do it again. And do it again until you release the piece. But when you release the piece, you showed the same thing, like, three, four, five, ten times before.
So it's not new anymore because it's it's it's not unseen. That's what I... What I'm trying to to mean. But at the same time, regarding with the the... They asked the question about, like, share the... What what we think. I I think that that's why having a brand is so important because that brand will will help you to kind of delimit the feel that you will use to play. And if you pick your limits according what what you want, you will feel you will feel really comfortable because it help you to, like, divide your your... Not... Yeah. Yes. The the career and and the life. You know? Because the the career of an artist, it's really attached to the to the personal life of the artist. So having this kind of of idea or strategy will help you to split a little bit between your private life and the public life.
And which topics you will jump on and which topic you will try to to avoid because maybe they they doesn't work for for you. For example, I... In my case, I'm not a kind of guy that are... Is always just always just posting opinions and all the stuff. I I mean, I'm I'm really, really private with with all these things until I found a topic that that that I said, oh, okay. This is interesting. And I know about it, so I can speak about it. You know? Because I I can try to, I don't know, like, found... Try to defend the topic or or my opinion. And that's what I I found that it's really important to have in mind sometimes because sometimes we get lost in the in the community, which this kind of of things, you know, or or or maybe, like, daily topics that appears, which something they don't help you a lot to communicate your brand on...
Or they are not attached to the to the values of your brand, which are... I mean, like, your values as as human.
Speaker 13 Really good points. Really good points. Like, you know, I've seen drops that artists announce a month in advance. And by the time it gets there, you're like, this feels old now because it's, like, been being harped on every day for a month. And then I've tested all sorts of formats. I've tested announcing a week in advance. People get hyped about it, but then the time the launch comes, sometimes people are like, okay. Now all the hype was kind of wasted on the announcement, which is something I've experienced. It doesn't always happen that way, for sure. It can definitely be helpful. I've also tested announcing two days in advance and three days in advance. I found that to be a good sweet spot. I found personally, and you guys, I'd love to hear your takes too on, like, for me that if I announce something three days in advance, then I get the max of the engagement I can squeeze out of one post, which lasts about three days.
And then I've also tried launching the day of, so, like, what would be known as a stealth launch, and you announce it the day of. All of these strategies, though, I do combine with doing what I like to think of 90 to 95% of the work in DMs. So I reach out to every single person that I know individually and message them individually. There's no bot. There's no nothing. Like, it's just me messaging them. And I'll have some sort of, like, template, but it won't apply to every single person. And, I'll usually customize every single message. And, yes, it does take quite a bit of time, but it creates this many conversations. And, usually, I'll do it... These are all my secrets, I guess, I'm explaining now. Usually, I'll do it late at night because late at nights, people seem to either be online or active, or they'll wake up to the message in their inbox.
At least, you know, people are on all different time zones. I'm on Eastern time. And then the next day, like, I'll send all these messages out, maybe a 100. And then the next day, I'll have all these conversations waiting to respond to, and I'll go through and respond to every single one. And, usually, it would be me reaching out and asking them to do something. It's not just me telling them. So I'm curious to hear your guys' takes, but, like, this seems to work for me to broadcast a message out to people. It is time consuming, laborious. But an example would be, hey. I'm doing this launch. I'd love to invite you to give feedback, or I'd love to invite you to take a look. Here's, like, can I send you a link? Some sort of ask will be made, and usually, it's best if the ask is something that makes them feel included.
And then by the time I launch, all of these people already are aware. So now I have another reason to reach back out to them and say, hey. The post is now live. Now, another little growth hack Delta mentioned, you don't wanna post the same image twice. Same thing as too, if you send your link of your tweet to, like, a 100 people, it will... Usually, the algorithm will, like, know... Notice somehow that you've done that and somehow start to throttle it, it seems. The way you can get around that is by launching it from an account that is not the account you're DMing everyone on. That can kind of get you around it. So for example, if I'm messaging about the digital asset museum from Stoshi's mom's account, I can send that link from Stoshi's mom's account, and it doesn't seem to bar and throttle the engagement the same as if I made the tweet from Stochi's mom's account and then send it to everybody.
Those are just a couple different little silly things. I'd love to hear any hacks you guys might have, but those seem to work for me. And I always, again, love to refer back. Do 90% of the work over DMs for a launch. And then when the launch does actually happen, most people are aware of it privately. And then on the timeline, it's the first time it hits the timeline when that launch period is happening, whether two days prior or even day of. But I'm curious your guys' takes on this delta. I'd love to hear your take. I know you're filled with growth hacks, with with x, and you've really gone deep with the algorithm. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 4 So I I I love what you're saying. I... And I completely agree with that. Like, the 90% done in in the background and, like, the 10% done publicly. I... Another suggestion that I, you know, I've been, you know, taking home for the past few months is, I have, like, three to four calls with, like, collectors every week, like, with someone, whether it be a collector or even an artist. Like, I... I'm always having calls with people and just having one on ones. And, you know, it... It's an hour of my time, but, like, you know, it... It's always worth it. And it's not usually about my artwork. It's just about, like, connecting with people and resonating with them and asking how their life is. And, you know, but speaking back on the algorithm in Twitter, like, you know, you're actually punished for sharing tweets in group chat unless everyone engages with that tweet, like, liking it and retweeting it.
You're very punished because it counts as a view and a view without engagement is actually a negative against that tweet. So, like, if there's a group chat of 200 people and only two people as a 200 engage with it, but everyone else sees it, Twitter thinks, oh, a 198 people looked at the tweet, didn't touch it, so it must be bad. So, like, those are a net negative. Like, I try to avoid posting, like, any sort of content in group chats because unless everyone engages with it, it's actually gonna just be a net negative. And, like, I've been telling people this, like, on and off. It's just like, these, you know, group chats where everyone's just posting content and, like, trying to get their tweets retweeted are just the net negative overall.
Speaker 14 I did not know that. One... I mean, I don't have a lot of, like, growth hacks. But one thing that I did on my drop a few months ago with Brinkworks that I think I'll continue to do was I made a sim... Essentially a public allow list opportunity that people had to go fill out a form with their Twitter handle and their ETH address. And that step was enough of a pain point to, like, weed out a lot of the bots and stuff. But what it did was once the drop went live, it allowed me to then feel comfortable DMing people and saying, hey. You were interested. You filled this out. I just wanna let you know it's live if you're still interested. I personally am uncomfortable getting into, like, collectors DMs and, like, shilling.
But, like, that was enough of, like, a welcome in knock on the door kinda thing that made me feel less nervous about it because they had already expressed interest. So is that... You know, that... That's something to consider.
Speaker 1 really interesting. I mean, I I never thought thought about it because it's interesting because you are building, like... Or finding a reason to to connect with them, but more organically. And and that's really, really cool. But... Because there is a reason for for that DM. You know? It's not only like, here's my my new collection. In in my case, I I don't feel really comfortable, like, sending messages. I mean, also, if I know the the collector, for example, if I... If the collector is my friend, I also don't feel, like, really comfortable just sharing something new. Like, he he... Hey. Here's my my my collection. Just checking. It's like I don't know. I prefer just they found it organically because I try... I I really like that kind of of connection with the with the work when it just appears on on your field.
And for that, it's where I I like to to play with a kind of strategy if I got a release, for example. I will... For example, you see... I I released something really big today, and I was working, like, for three months. But I never showed anything of the... Of this series during these three months because I I I like to keep it for myself. And for example, three days before, I post just a a kind of sneak peek or just a clue. Okay. I I enter... I started, like, the conversation around the topic of the of the series. So the next day, just one or two posts about this topic. Not the series, just the topic. And then then two days before the the release, I post the the teaser.
And this is, in my opinion, important because I found that if you post your teaser to your teaser really close to the release date, when you release your series, the post that will get too many attention will be the teaser, and the people will be lost on the date. So you need to to to separate them, like, a little bit between, like, one or two days. And when you release, the people know that you released... Like, you posted your your teaser, like, two days ago, and they understand that that teaser, it's connected with with the release. And, also, in what I find, like, a kind of insight that really helped me a lot for presenting, like, my work, it's try to find a kind of way to present it, like, in a video.
Just sharing the old experience around the series and trying to present not not only, like, each piece, present it as a as a project itself. That helps a lot to contextualize what we were talking about, like, contextualize what is around, like, each work and around all the series.
Speaker 13 Yeah. Epic. Epic take right there. That's... You could just tell you guys are all speaking from experience because these things are not just so obvious. I feel like they're... You learn these things through taking shots on goal, learning how the environment and audience reacts, and learning how the algorithm works. Delta Sauce didn't learn how the algorithm works just from, like, reading a book because there is no book on this information. It's literally... I'm I'm still always learning new information. Just like Brian said, he just learned that this... Which I've also found that to be true from Delta's perspective. I actually learned that from Delta on how the algorithm doesn't like if you share a link with a group and if you use it as if all those people... Now sometimes it does still work. Like, you could still have the post go viral, but, you're taking the risk that not enough people engage.
But back to the point though on doing series versus one off works, I wanna ask you guys about that. How has your experience been posting one off works versus posting, like, a project or a collection? Like, I feel like a proper launch is always personally more effective than, you know, I made this work today because I kind of was in the vibe, and I wanna share it, which while as an artist, that might feel like the more fun thing to do because it's like you're in the moment. You're making the work. You put it out there. Maybe someone will buy it, and maybe it'll, you know, get a lot of steam and attention. But I'm curious, like, how do you guys view doing, like, releases of one off works versus series? Do you find that one or the other is more effective, or do you find that maybe it maybe it doesn't matter?
What is your take on that? Let's start with Delta. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 No. No. I I was gonna say it... It's a mixture for me. Like, I I do one big series a year. I've I've done this since 2022. I've done one big series every year. And these big series, it usually take, like, five to ten months depending on, like, you know, the scale of it. So, you there's a lot of risk behind that. There's a lot of, like, you know, uncertainty behind, like, alright. How is this gonna be received? How is the market gonna accept this? Like, timing of it. And, also, there's a lot more work going into the launch of that because it's usually with the platform. Like, I... I've never done, like, a solo big series, you know, on my own. It's always with the backing of a platform. So, you know, there's a lot of, like, you know, itineraries that, like, we're gonna do this then.
We're gonna do this for the lead up, this for the lead up. And it's a lot more work. And I I I personally, like, from experience, I I love one offs. I absolutely love one offs. I have so much fun doing one offs. But I... I've come to learn over the years. Like, it's a mixture. It's like, you know, one big launch a year, one big series a year. The rest are, you know, smaller miniseries is what I would call them, smaller projects. But, like, a lot of the work and energy for that year goes into this one big project. And then, you know, you could space out, you know, sprinkle before and a little bit after these smaller projects.
Speaker 13 Interesting. Brian, what's... What is your take on series versus one off releases?
Speaker 14 I mean, series are certainly the collector's choice of of the past years. I think just from a price appreciation standpoint, they do better because you have dozens of people all posting about the same thing, and it has kind of a network effect to it. The way I've looked at it is one of ones, small series, and straight up additions. Most of the time, the one of ones, I'd say I do maybe four to five a year. And they're usually only done in conjunction with, like, Super Rare Gallery or Sotheby's or Christie's or... I did one at Art Basel Switzerland with Paintbox earlier this year. They're always these kind of group show, one of ones that are in a prestigious space. And I... Those are the pieces that I usually put in kind of a few weeks of work into, but try and make them a little bigger and more animation and more more effort put into them.
But for that same reason, I only make a few a year because I want them to feel special. I think one of ones are always gonna be kind of the most special ones that true collectors tend to go for because those are the ones they're gonna hold long term and support you with. But, you know, the market right now favors affordability, and, you know, an addition of a 100 is gonna do better than a one of one. And then a series is where, you know, you can get away with, like, 30 to 50 to maybe even a 101 of ones. And I, you know, I think there's there's kind of a place for each of those, and I look at how I release as, like, the fewest one of ones, a medium amount of series, and then the most as additions.
That way, there's different price points for every collector. But...
Speaker 14 I I don't... I think it's important that all artists do a little bit of each.
Speaker 1 That's that's really, really interesting. I I really like because both of you have, like, different perspective, and that's that's interesting. Because, for example, in my experience during, like, my first years, it... I try with just releasing, like, one on ones without context, just just the piece. And it was really, really hard to to move because I was... I will... During that time, I I posted a lot and I was like, okay. The people saw it a lot. And if it that... Doesn't get sold, you know, you will keep just posting it, and it get... Gets, like, old. What I found during this this year that worked for me... Because when you start, like, you will need to have a kind of consistency during your your production. It's maybe just try to focus on maybe three to four series release with a small quantity of of pieces that will help you to keep your portfolio updated.
And when you you reach that kind of limit, you can just focus on one big project and maybe, like, two series during the the year. For example, right now, I'm I'm changing my my work methodology into this. My past works was, like, divided between, like, four series during the year, not more, each of them with, like, five or three pieces. And right now, I feel, like, comfortable changing changing that that methodology into something which is more related to to, like, one big project or two per per year and try to focus on on the complexity, on the technology, on on the way that the project will evolve during the year and not only on dropping, like, for Sirius during the the year. In my case, I don't have, like, a cool experience doing editions to to be honest, But I think that it's really important to to create your your network and your community.
Speaker 13 Yeah. Yeah. These are... It's so interesting to hear the different takes. I feel like it's so valuable to have these kinds of exchanges of, like, ideas and what's working and what hasn't worked. And I think that it'd be really beneficial to do this more often with including multiple artists, even having, like, a round table of, like, up to, like, 10 people maybe do, like, a couple hour talk or something, like, once a month. I don't know. I mean, personally, I just find it so interesting to hear from the perspective of other artists and creators and builders who are taking shots on goal. And I think that if we can all share what we're doing and what's worked for us and what hasn't, obviously, it's not a one size fits all. What works for one artist might not work for another. However, I think that it's really...
The perspective that I hear from you guys is so beneficial to me, and I hope, you know, we have 725 people listening right now according to the StreamYard setup. And I think that people listening can really take so much from these perspectives, especially, you know, artists and creators who are going to market. Like Brian mentioned, the market's favoring affordability right now. That's a very interesting take. Because if you go to market and you're trying to sell like it's 2021, well, the market's not responding to that as much. Maybe for certain artists, it might. But for the general... You know, if we're trying to stack odds in our favor when we're going to market, like, when I mentioned about DMing people, I think there's definitely right and wrong way to do that, by the way. So more nuance might be required based off of what I'm mentioning.
I think that it's important to think about how do we invite people in to give them an opportunity to play a role in what we're building. And then that subconsciously also gives them more of a reason to want to share, engage, or maybe even collect what it is that you're doing or engage with. It's it's... Obviously, all these things go both directions. Doesn't always happen the same way. But I love hearing all of these perspectives. Curious, like, what you guys think as far as... Right now, what what do you feel is, an underrated lever that artists can pull in in a a market that's more centered around affordability with launches and releases? Do you feel that there's, the right way for artists to, really do things in a certain market like this? And, like, is the answer to just release less?
And in the case that, you know, it's a full time artist, how does a full time artist sustain their career in times of thin liquidity and more affordability focused markets?
Speaker 4 I I would say diversification of income. Like, I highly recommend that having multiple streams of income that are not, you know, centered around web three at all. Like, I have started to open up the... Those different channels, whether that be selling traditionally, whether that be selling prints on my website, you know. I get paid to tweet, which helps a lot. You know? So just diversifying that level of income, I I think, is very important to survive the downturns of the markets because you... You know, this isn't just a one off. There's gonna always be downturns in the market, you know, and you have to survive each wave as they come. So scrolling away money is another good suggestion as well, especially if you're a full time artist, like, putting away money. And also from my perspective, like, personally, reducing my cost of living to the bare minimum has helped tremendously on just surviving long term. Like, surviving just
Speaker 5 months without any sales. Like, just,
Speaker 4 you know, everything down to the bare minimum that I need to sustain myself has been very important. And another thing that I tell artists that, you know, find success is, like, you know, please don't go out and buy that Lambo. You know? Don't don't spend all that money right away because I've seen so... Like, I've heard horror stories from artists that,
Speaker 4 ended up spending... They they they made a lot during the bull market. They spent it all, and they had no money... No runway. They had no runway to sustain them during the the bear market. So, you know, I I... I'm very frugal with my money, and that... That's how I've been able to do this full time since 2022.
Speaker 14 Yeah. We need a whole, like, accounting class. I mean, if you sell your art and make money, take half of that out for taxes into USDC, and then go put it into some interest bearing APY and earn 4% of it until tax season comes around, and you might be able to make some extra money. There's a lot of, like, little things like that you can do, like, kind of passively earn. But I think Delta is spot on diversification. I think, you know, it's tough to encourage people to be risky, but investing in other artists that are up and coming has paid off at certain times. I would say 95% don't, but 5% of them do grow and become bigger, and you can reap the rewards of their success and be a part of that journey. And that...
You know, when I look back at my twenty twenty one, I made more flipping a board ape than I did on almost all my art sales. And, like, it's a bunch of dumb stuff like that, but, like, being a participant, not over risking. I'm I'm a real believer in never spending more than 1 eth on any NFT. I'd rather buy a bunch of smaller artists and, like, help them grow and be a part of that journey than going and buying an x copy. No no disk to x copy. Think he's awesome. But, like, I think a lot of us artists will try to pair it these big collectors that are swinging around a lot of money, but they have money to swing around. And I think, you know, it's okay to do this as a part time side hustle. You don't have to go full time into the space.
I... It took... You know, I was in... I was working two full time jobs for the first year I was in the space until there was a point where I was like, okay. I think I can make a go at this. But I think a lot of people kinda come in, they might have expectations that are unreal. And, also, you know, people that had moments that have to kinda go back to work, that's okay. Just keep making art. The only way that you kind of fail in this space is if you if you give up. I think as long as you're continuing to make art, people don't really care if you go back to your day job. They just want you to keep pursuing your passion. That's why they're investing in your work and supporting you. But, yeah, I think, you know, we're gonna hit another bear market.
We're probably at the beginnings of it, not to be a, you know, predictor, but it's gonna be tough. And as we see, it goes in cycles. And so I've personally found as an artist, I had more success during the bear market than the bull market. The bull market, there's a lot more noise. People trying to do drops and all this other stuff. In the bear market, your your marketing stretches a lot further because there's not a lot of drops. Like, right now, there's probably only, like, three or four kind of drops a day that are getting attention, and that's pretty good. You know, that... That's gonna capture a lot of eyes. So don't necessarily think like, oh, I missed the moment.
You just have to go into this and go, well, you know, maybe it's having a no reserve one of one series auction and letting the price find itself, or maybe it's doing an open edition that has, you know, a low cost and kind of recapturing current collectors. Because I think we take for granted a lot of the collectors we had four years ago were just not here anymore. And there's a whole new set of collectors that we have to kind of reconnect with and remarket ourselves, reintroduce ourselves. A lot of the people that are collecting right now have no idea what we did three years ago, and we have to reeducate them and share that stuff. And we were constantly having to kind of re... Restart a little bit. And so I think that's just, you know, a big part of it. But I'm rambling, so I'm with...
Speaker 1 I I agree with what you were saying and with Delta. Like, diverse... Diversification, it's it's key if you want to be full time full time artist. And, also, what is key, it's plan your life. Like, okay. I wanna be full time artist. Okay. How... What I what I should do to reach that? Okay. I should do this and this and this and this. I mean, if you want to be full time artist before of that, make sure that you have a website, for example. I mean, sounds really, like, easy, but that's key because that's what what makes the the the different. And, also, I mean, for example, in my case, I'm full... I'm a full time full time artist during... Since the last year. Before of that, I was running my own creative and software studio, like, for five years. And right now, I have it.
Like, I'm not running it, but the studio still exist and still working. So in a moment, I need some help, for example, for my production or they need my help for something. We can do we can do it because I'm still being part of of it and being a partner there. So you you need to figure out different types of plan... Of of plans because you don't know what will happen on the future. And, also, you can rest on what is happening today. Maybe today, you're say... Selling, but I don't know. Maybe in two years. No. So the only way to make sure that you will be okay, it's just dividing... Diversifying your Investment or your or your efforts. I mean, it's that creates the security and the peace that you will need to be a full time artist.
Because when you are a full time artist, then you need to figure out how to manage the the motions, how to manage, like, the deadline, how to manage the social social media thing. You need to figure out how to manage a lot of thing. I I I mean, like, it's really cool, but, okay, it's it's also a job where you you need to do different different tasks the different task. So you will need a plan, and that will make you feel more secure to jump on the on the next stage. I think I I saw the the career as a kind of let's say, it's there where you are just go going up, doing different steps. And to give the next steps, you need to figure out how to do the how to reach different goals. And then you can move to the next one.
But you need to go step by step and try to don't get rush because when you try to to when you rush and you start just try and you can't manage the anxiety, for example, there is when when the mistakes happens. And, I mean, it's fail failing, it's really important, but there are different types of failing. You know? Like, some mistakes can hurt you a lot and some don't. So it's better if you focus on the easiest ones than taking the risk that you will regret
Speaker 12 maybe in the future.
Speaker 13 Yeah. You know, it's an interesting thing to think about, like, the paradox of, like, when you look at the most successful, like, innovations of time, how so many of them were when where they were built when that creator's back was against the wall in some proverbial metaphorical way or real way. It's very interesting how, like, innovations sometimes happen when you're pushed. Kind of like Santiago, we mentioned yesterday, like, burnout can sometimes push you to a point where you then realize, like, wait a second. This is what is the most important. This is what I really need to work on or this or, like, some hardship forces you to innovate in a way that you wouldn't have earlier. But at the same time, saying that you don't want to put yourself in a hardship in order to innovate. Right?
It's more like that people find themselves in that position and then have to, but it doesn't need to be that way. But it's just kind of interesting to kinda look at that and think about that. And I think, like, on Delta's point on diversification, I think really, like, aiming for more sustainability in some way. Like, one thing that I really love that we talked about in a previous talk is the Brinkworks token fund FundingWorks model is so interesting and unique, and I think that it really could be massive for so many more creators. Obviously, it requires that you have an audience that's willing to, you know, invest in you. It takes time, and building that audience though is part of your sustainability. And I really should say building those fans because there's a difference between having an audience and having fans.
Like, you can have an audience temporarily because you did something cool and people are like, oh, you know, that's what's happening right now. That's the cool thing right now. And then fans, fans stick with you through ups and downs. Fans support you consistently and sustainably in a different way. And I think building your, you know, 10 true fans, 100 true fans, and then the classic adage of a thousand true fans. If you have a thousand true fans, I mean, you're you're set. Right? But even in web three, if you have 10 true fans, you're gonna go a long way. If you had 10 people who repost your post every time that you make one around a release, that's gonna go a long way. So, really, like, with that in mind, making those connections. Who are your 10 true fans? Start with one true fan.
Who's your one true fan? Connect with that person. Talk to them. Let them know what you're doing and check-in on them. See how they're doing. I think that the diversification is not always just okay. Time to get back to my desk job. While that can definitely bridge you, I think that also diversification can mean thinking through other sustainable ways to create business as an artist, whether it is, like Delta mentioned, selling prints. Maybe you start making a prints business. I know some artists sell more in prints than they do in NFTs. Maybe it takes off through other channels like Instagram or, an email list. Building an email list is something that a lot of artists don't do because it's just kinda technical. But in the traditional realm of business, like web two vibes of business, building an email list is the, you know, the the core building block, the core fundamental.
And it helps when you have a list that you can ping when you're doing a release. So building a list is pretty cool, I think, and and worthwhile. But, yeah, you know, those are just different thoughts. Again, I really do like the the Brinkworks model. Super cool, and I think more artists should try to consider how that can work. And, also, just, like, even some some sort of subscription based model, which I haven't cracked, but I think these things generate sustainability. Right? Like, if you have a 100 people spending $10 a month on a subscription, it's usually that not 90 of them 90 of them are not gonna cancel tomorrow. Right? If anything, maybe a percent percentage would. So then you have more of a predictable business you can actually build upon. And I think it's also creating the rails for those things.
Like, if you're an artist and it's kinda like, okay. Like, every time I post, if that gets engagement and then it goes viral, then I just bought myself two months more of runway from my recent release or six months more of runway. That works until it doesn't. Right? Even for the biggest artists, if that's the model that they're using, it works until it doesn't. Even for the biggest rappers, the biggest music artists in the world, that's why they end up going broke is because, well, if they're not doing, you know, concerts, they're not on the road, then they're not generating revenue. And plus, if you're buying it you know, totally different topic. But if you're buying a diamond encrusted Lambo every day, you can only buy so many of them. Right? I mean, even the richest people in the world can only buy so many of them.
So it's just different things that I've learned on the journey. I think one thing I would mention is that, like, if you have a big release and you do really well, setting aside a portion of that is super smart. It's it's fun to just be an ultimate degen and just, like, take your whole stack and just be like, boom. Like, throw it into something because you saw some guy on your feed made, like, a crazy 100 x return off a million dollars. So now you're like, I wanna be that guy. And, you know, it's just a dangerous game to play. But, I'm always learning from different people in this space. All three of you are great examples of people that I'm I mean, even just in this talk, taking so much value from. So I really appreciate you guys coming here and spending your time.
All of you on multiple talks during this summit has been an incredible, incredible summit because of you guys coming here and all the other panelists coming to talk, share wisdom, spend time and energy with this audience, and really contribute towards the public good. Really means a lot to me and the Digital Asset Museum, and I just appreciate you guys. I'm really grateful for you all.
Speaker 14 This is a lot of fun. Great job.
Speaker 4 Great great great talk, guys. Thank you.
Speaker 1 Thank you so so much for to everyone. And, Satoshi, your your your the work you're the job you're doing as a as a as a moderator, man, it's easy for real.
Speaker 13 I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you, Santiago. It means a lot. Definitely pouring my heart in, and I have a lot of fun doing it. So I appreciate you guys for the feedback and the appreciation. We're gonna go into the next talk, which is actually a solo talk from me. So I'm gonna talk on mindset and on building in web three, a lot of which we've covered here in this talk. But I'll wrap up the summit. This will be the end of the three day summit, and, this is the last panel of the three day summit. Perfect timing where the lights seem to have Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm just in the dark. I'll need to figure that out. Well, we'll take a quick break. Thank you guys for being here again. I really appreciate y'all, and I'm stoked for the next time we can all get together.
Speaker 14 Same. Everybody go check out Santiago's new drop. Yep. Go check it out, guys. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 1 Thank you so much. Really appreciate you all. See you.
Speaker 13 Later, guys. Peace. Definitely check out Santiago's new drop. I have to check it out. I have to check it out. We'll take a quick break, and then I'm gonna come back. And the next topic is, mindset for building in web three, and we'll get into that. Just for a quick preface, I've been here since 2021. I've tried to build a lot of different stuff, had success, had a lot of failure, and I'm excited to chat about all of it and dive deep and hopefully impart some wisdom to anyone listening out there. Looks like we got 752 people out there currently listening, which is so fun and awesome. I appreciate all of you for being here and spending some time and enjoying the summit. I will be back in just a moment, and we'll dive into the final talk.
Speaker 12 Alright. Alright. We're back.
Speaker 13 Hopefully, it's not too dark in here. I'm really stoked on this to wrap up the summit and, to really talk with you about what I've experienced in Web three. I've been in this space since early twenty twenty one, and it's been an awesome, awesome experience. I started in the traditional realm of business when I was, like, 16, 17 years old. I never actually really had a real job. So, personally, it I was always an entrepreneur. And when I went to college, I I went to Florida State University, starting off with just some background just to understand kind of where I've come from. I started in I was basically going to school for premed track to become a doctor. And, ultimately, I went to FSU. I partied. I was in a fraternity. I was basically joined a network marketing business.
I basically started realizing that I could become an entrepreneur for and work for myself in the case of really, like, I was at school to go get a job, right, to become a doctor. But I realized that I can actually make a life for myself without having to go down that more traditional path of go to school, get good grades, get a job. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that at all. I just found that for me, I felt more inclined to want to really pursue the path of being an entrepreneur. And, ultimately, I ended up, graduating from Florida State with a biology degree, but I knew pretty early on that I never was going to really use that. It was more of something, I guess, that would be nice to have, but, I still paid my own way through school, through loans, through working jobs.
At one point, I had three jobs. I would work in a biology lab. I would work at the gym at my school, and I would be doing other, like, odd jobs for teachers and different people in the school, working just for a few hours a a week sometimes, sometimes more. But, basically, I always have this entrepreneurial spirit, and I, you know, I worked through network marketing businesses. It never really was a thing. I never really had success with it. But when I graduated, I started having success with affiliate marketing. So I would basically team up with brands to sell their product for them. This is back in, like, 2015, 2016 when I graduated. And, basically, what I did would be involving just kind of like some guerrilla marketing tactics or organic marketing tactics to share these offers with people. And they were digital offers, mostly coaching programs, different things like that.
And, basically, I would go out and, go on Facebook, and I would share stuff, and people would engage with it. And then I'd message them, you know, the whole nine yards. But I would sell these digital programs, and I realized I didn't have to be the actual person who created the program in order to sell it. And I can earn a commission since the program was digital. I would be able to earn a commission from it that, and deliver that product, but a large commission would be able to get granted my way because the product itself was not needing to be, like, fulfilled by the creator. It was just access to a digital product like a course or a coaching program. And I started having a lot of success doing that, and I realized I wanted to be, like, full time doing this.
And I started going full time. I was making fantastic money for myself at that time, and people were reaching out to me. How do you do this? How are you having success with this? So I started teaching people. And, basically, you know, fast forward, like, two years, we had over a thousand students. Myself and a partner at the time, business partner, had over a thousand students in our coaching program. And we had built a course around how to do affiliate marketing. So I went from doing affiliate marketing myself to actually teaching people what I learned, and we had over a thousand people learning from us. And it was really fulfilling and amazing, and I always enjoyed teaching people. From all levels of when I was in college. I would do all sorts of stuff. And, it would always be around education, and I love doing presentations.
I love doing public speaking. I really appreciate all the love from everybody on my moderation for the summit. Like, these are things that I really enjoy doing. I enjoy talking to people, and, I enjoy asking questions, and I enjoy educating people and teaching. And, ultimately, I got to a point where I realized that I didn't wanna do affiliate marketing coaching anymore, and I wanted to get more into, traditional consulting. So what I did was I started along the path of becoming a traditional consultant. So I started another business, and then I sold my previous business to my partner at the time. And that chunk of change that I got, I used to reinvest back into building something else. And I realized pretty quick that I didn't want to just build a consulting business anymore. I wanted to do something more passion aligned, and that's really when I found NFTs.
This is, like, late twenty twenty getting into crypto, early twenty twenty one getting into NFTs, buying my first Bitcoin and Ethereum. All that stuff led to me find Being NFTs. And, I was like, no. This is the way. Like like I said in a previous talk, I, realized that NFTs were pretty much like Pokemon but digital. And I was like, alright. That's how it clicked for me in my head. And I learned about it from Gary Vee and from Mark Cuban. And, ultimately, like, seeing that, I started collecting. I remember my first NFT I bought was this, like, Pokemon card esque NFT, and I bought it because Mark Cuban had it in his wallet. And I was like, Mark Cuban bought this? There's only, like, five of these, and it was, like, $600.
And I spent, like, $300 in gas plus $600 to buy the NFT because I thought it was, like, rare Mark Cuban was holding it. It was interesting. It was my first NFT purchase. Quickly realized that it was Justin Mark Cuban's wallet because someone transferred it to him. I was like, okay. I didn't know that that could happen like that. So I basically I still have that NFT, and it's just that that bit of my journey. And I was like, alright. So I just bought this for $600 from somebody. That means that somebody just made $600 from something they made in this world. So I was like, okay. I wanna make art too. I think it'd be fun. And I've always loved drawing, and, like, I would draw, like, funny stuff. Like, my friends would think it was hilarious.
Like, I would draw these, like, funny pictures of, like, people or, like as a kid, like, sometimes I draw, like, our teacher on, like, a scrap piece of paper, and it was just silly. It was caricatures. Right? When I was a kid, honestly, maybe it might have been not it it kind of rude potentially to draw somebody. But the reality is I was a kid, and I thought it was funny, and it and we would draw these funny caricatures. And people would love them. They would get so much joy out of them. Even the teachers would get joy out of them. And, I always loved doing that. So I kind of, like, ended up taking that into my journey as a creator. And, again, this topic of this talk is mindset for building in web three.
So the reason I'm telling all of this is because I want you to understand, like, where I came from and why it's all this is relevant and to know that, you know, you can understand that I've taken a lot of shots on goal in this realm, and you can understand that that's why you could, potentially listen to me, and trust what I'm saying. So, ultimately, I got involved, started making art, downloaded aSprite. I think it was $9 or $11 or something, and I started making pixel art. And my first thing that I made was this actual avatar, this avatar I have on this cup, which is my profile picture. My profile picture was the first bit of art that I made, and that's why it's still my profile picture. It was based off Cryptopunks, obviously. And CryptoPunks, I thought, were so interesting, cool, and, exciting.
I was like, holy shit. This is unreal that people are actually buying this stuff. I remember when I first came across Punks, they were, like, I think, like, 3,000 or 5,000 floor. And I didn't buy any, but I was fascinated by the idea of, like, a generative collection of pixel art. And, ultimately, that's how I ended up making that first NFT. And with that, I made an addition of seven minted in on Rarible of my PFP, and I went on a walk with a friend. And, this is back in 2021. And then, crazy enough, I come back and they've all been sold. Or, actually, no. I think I sold a couple, but they ended up all selling. I was shocked. One of my friends even reached out to me. He was like, dude, hold one on hold, like, hold one to the side for me.
I wanna buy this. And I was like, this is so wild. Like, people are buying my art. Like, what's happening here? So I just immersed myself fully, and, it was an incredible the beginning to an incredible journey. So I started buying more art. I started selling art. I started having people collect my work and reach out to me. I started people reaching out to me for commissions. I remember I had my first 1 ETH commission or 0.69 ETH. I was later commissioned for, like, a 5 figure solid commission to make a bunch of art for this, group. And this was like me blowing up in some way as an artist. And in 2021, obviously, things were different. They were, I guess, in some way easier because there was more volume and liquidity. But still, I was making my own art and a lot of just fun pixel art additions, and I really enjoyed making them.
And it was, like, the purest version of making art because I did not have any expectation. And on Rarible, I started getting airdropped. Rari token because I was active on the platform. I rise to the top 15 or top 10 for the month, and I had all this volume in Ethereum, and I'm making ETH from selling art. This is when I had gone full time. I took the leap, jumped in. And I always loved, you know, nostalgia, video games. I still do. Still enjoy video games. Shout out to Silksong, one of the best games ever. If you haven't played that, go and play it. But, anyway, I always love the nostalgia and, like, the thinking back to being a child. I think that's why I really enjoy making pixel art, and I've had that arc, throughout all of my artistic career is it all kind of feeds back into nostalgia.
And, you know, learning about Cryptopunks, then learning about glitch art, and starting to experiment in different realms. Eventually, I got to this point of making my first NFT collection called Stonies. And back in 2022, this was, early twenty twenty two. And it was a collection of 2,222 works. It took me, like, a year to make. It was all hand drawn pixel art, animated, and some of these have, like, over a 100 frames in the traits, leading to these really complex outputs that I hand curated. So we had, like, 8,000 outputs that me and a dev that I can met completely add on, we made, and I handpicked 2,222 of those. Went to market with them, and they sold out almost instantly in, like, minutes. And that was a big moment for me realizing, like, wow. Like, this is substantial.
Again, granted, this isn't a time of, like, hyperintensive excitement around NFTs and collectibles. It's not necessarily the same market today, but this was a time when I then just got even deeper into the space. So that was my first, like, major collection after making, art of my own, just like editions and maybe, like, one one of one, if any. Mostly just editions, pixel art, experiment with Tezos. But then I made this character, this, like, stony character, and, basically launched that, had success, and then just got into trading. I got started trading a lot, buying a lot of NFTs. I would sweep collections and then sell them, like, aggressively. I had so much fun trading. I got into a community. Shout out to the metaverse HQ community. Learned so much. And all along, building in this journey, taking the the things that I'm learning by being an active participant.
So, like, I traded a lot, so I understood what people wanted when you're launching something. And I collected a lot, so I understood, like, what people were interested in in collecting, and I I participated. And I think that's so important in web three is to is to be able to participate and actually learn from being a participant in the market is, one of the biggest, most important takeaways. Like, if you wanna build your career in web three, you really should become a participant. Now I did that to the extent of trying everything. So I would sweep NFT collections, sell NFTs. I would do leverage trading. I would do regular trading. I would do perps. I would do all sorts of stuff, and I tried virtually everything. This led me to being a top point o 1% volume wallet on for NFT trading.
And, basically, I, you know, immersed myself so deeply. I never left the space. Never. Eventually, I launched another collection called Potheads, which was another silly, like, collection of generative works that I mean, you call it generative, but it was $696.09 supply. We launched that very cheap mint. There's, like, 70 different characters with a 100 different backgrounds meshed together to create 7,000 ish works. $696.09 supply. And that was my, like, second collection, and that was fun. I really created this, like, gamified environment where we then launched, Stonymon, which was like a rift on Pokemon, and we called it, like, a parody collection. And we gave those away, half of them away for free. It was a supply of 69 collection. Gave halfway for free to random potheads holders. So engaging the community, building out the Discord, building out all this fun stuff, and rewarding the community.
We handed out and I'm probably missing things here. Like, we handed out different NFTs to give for whitelists for the collection for potheads, which happened before, so I'm kinda backtracking. But, ultimately, my point is that we're engaging the community that we had. And it was all in the name of fun, all in the name of kind of degeneracy and excitement and not taking everything so seriously. And that really was successful because we built an audience of people who wanted to hang out, and, we would do Twitter spaces, and hundreds of people would come, and we would talk. But all along, I was very interested in helping other artists. So, like, even way back to the beginning, I made this thing called Nifty Mentor. We had, two people who, one, was a close friend.
Another was a person I met in Web three who ended up buying the toke the Nifty Mentor token, and I mentored them for, like, a month on how to launch NFT collection. I always had this interest in teaching people. It was just in me, I guess. And even still, like, we made a Stoney factory, which was, like, based off the main collection Stoney's. It was a factory where I'd help incubate artists' collections, and then we would launch them as white list to my existing audience. We did that. We did several collections. Some were successful, some weren't so successful. Some sold out, some didn't. And, again, back to the same theme though about engaging the audience, giving back to the audience, and learning along the way, being fearless along the way. I think the mindset of being in web three, it's really key to be, fearlessly experimenting and to do things without caring about what everyone's gonna think, really.
Just do it. Obviously, you don't try to hurt anyone. I'm saying to really, like, think though, like, what do I want to experiment and try and do it fearlessly? Because ultimately, at the end of the day, like, if you're not doing anyone harm, you're you're working towards making something, putting something out there. You should be sharing from your heart and really fearlessly experimenting. And it ends up then creating obviously, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you have success, sometimes you don't. But in these cases, it was all about trying to lift up others as well because that's where the most fulfillment would come from, I realized, would be actually helping other people to win. When I saw that I would give somebody advice on selling their collection and then it sold out or when I would tweet about someone's collection and, like, share my take on it and then it would sell out.
Like, that I realized was really, really exciting to me even more so than selling my own art. So I kinda started kept I kept going down that path. And, obviously, too, like, just trying different things in the space that that different things that happened. Like, when Dark Farms made the BOEM presale, I participated in that. After that, I was like, I wanna make a nostalgia token. I I had this idea in my notes from so long ago. Like, what if I can make a nostalgia token, something that everyone can participate in that would be relating to nostalgia, and we can, like, preserve nostalgia? We ended up launching that. It ended up being one of the, I think, the top in the top 10 for highest presales generated. Our team didn't make any money from this. We literally took the entire amount generated, which was over $3,000,000, and just put it all into liquidity pool.
And that was an absolute journey. Launching that token, there's thousands and thousands of people who participated in the presale. We dealt with the backlash of people saying, why did you do it this way, or why did this happen and this happen? Like, the price goes down, so you have people start getting upset. That's the thing you'll learn with web three too if you're new to web three. Like, if you launch something and you even have a a hint of speculative energy to it and it doesn't go up only, you're likely gonna deal with people who are upset. So you have to learn how to deal with people. You have to have the mindset of being, definitive in what you're deciding to do. I saw a lot of people that did similar things like other presale people.
I won't name them, but, they ended up bending over backwards for the people that they were that were, like, coming after them. And the reality is in web three, you you have to stand firm on what you're deciding to do. If you're gonna do a launch, you have to say, like, this is what I'm doing. You have to say, like, this is the the way that it's all being laid out. And if anybody if you do something and then you need to backtrack, you need to be really transparent. Right? And in a lot of cases, I guess the moral that I'm trying to express here is that if people start coming after you, the normal response might feel like, okay. I need to apologize to everyone. Well, the reality is that's not actually what you should do.
You should really think about what you decided to do and why you decided to do it, and don't let people push you around in web three. The space may be very different now than it was maybe even just a year ago. But even still, I see friends doing a launch like RegularPunks recently launched as of the time of this recording, which a friend's person I know named Shape Shapey and the team, Michael, both creators. I think there's other people on the team too. Creators and builders, people that are I have respect for. And then there's people talking trash on the timeline because they sold out their mints and generated, like, 200 k plus in mint revenue. People are saying this is a cash grab. This is a grift. Well, the worst thing for them to do would be to go to the timeline and say, I'm so sorry for launching.
I'm so sorry for doing this. And that's what I see some creators do is they start bending over backwards for the people talking trash about them. And in my experience, it's never the right thing to do. You have to hold true to who you are and what you're doing and the reason that you started to do it to begin with. And, you can fight back to these people. You can shitpost back. You can, let people know that you're a real person and that you should that you're you're not just gonna let people trample all over you. Because in this space, similar to the video game space, you can get trampled all over for having success. And I'm not trying to make, like, a pity story or anything. I'm saying this because I want people to know that if you launch something and you're taking shots on goal, inevitably, you're gonna hit something.
And if you have people that are angry because of your success, just remember, like, the reason that you did it and stand true and hold firm. That's one of the most important things to do. And the people that I saw in the presale era and all these other things, even in the current era of launching, that have success and then people start getting upset, if you start bending over backwards to say, I did this wrong. I apologize. It's not it's not the way. And I'm telling you that from experience. You have to hold true, and you have to stay true to your heart on what you did and why you launched and really be the the best way to put it is to just hold steadfast and be headstrong in what you what you created and, realize that things come and go.
Like, you can't also set yourself up the mindset in web three to set yourself up to have to work on one specific thing forever because people are gonna get mad at you if you move on to the next project. And there's a lot of nuance in that because you don't wanna, like, put people in a position where you're like, okay. This is the next best thing since sliced bread, and then you never talk about it again because it didn't work or whatever. You have to be transparent from the start on, like, look. This is an experiment, or look. This is, like, something I'm trying out. Like, this might not work. You'll still inevitably have people that are upset with you in this space. But this is, like, real talk, like, real, like, founder to founder, founder to builder.
Like, you're gonna have people in this space that are not gonna love what you're doing inevitably if you're taking enough shots on goal. So that's a key part of the mindset of building in web three. It's not like building in traditional business where traditional business, people fail all the time and nobody cares. Well, for some reason in web three, it's not really like that. If you fail, people kind of expect you to continue to work on the thing that failed over and over and over until until you die, I guess. But the reality is that's just not how business works. Like, you have to continue to try new things, and, I think the best thing you can do is just be transparent with your community upfront on what you're building and and that it might not work. And in the case, you know, of launching tokens, things have changed a lot.
Now people expect that tokens go to zero, but not that wasn't always the case. People expected that tokens should go to infinity and just up in a straight line. So when you would launch something like a token, it'd be very risky. Now virtually everyone's almost launched a token. Not everybody, but a lot more people have because they've realized, okay. Like, the it's more acceptable for me to do this now, especially when you have loud voices like Jesse from BASE. Like, they you know, Contentcoins and FXhash now is creating art coins, and there's you know, pump fun made it easy to launch a token. Before all of that, there was it wasn't as easy. So, things have changed a lot, but that's another lesson. Things change in Web three, and you have to be here every single day, really. You don't you don't have to do anything, I guess.
But if you wanna have success in Web three, you should be here every day participating even if you're not posting every day. Just be here participating, engaging, seeing what's going on. Follow the newsletters like Arty's twenty four hour of art or Tyler Did It has a really good newsletter as well. Go follow that. There's a couple. If you go to DeezFi, or I think his handle now is just Deez. If you don't know Deez, he's an OG in crypto space. He has a really good article on finding signal among noise. Go search for that. It might be in his highlights tab. These are places where you can kinda get a pulse on the space on any given moment. I think that one of the best things you can do is just be active and really take risks. Try stuff. Launch stuff. Talk with people. Ask people.
But realize that you're on your own stage. You're your own individual. So, like, realize that you're you're doing the experiments on the stage. However, there's gonna be an audience, and that audience may come and go. You'll generate fans like we talked about in the previous talk. Fans are different from an audience. Fans stick with you over time. Audience comes and goes. Now you're on the stage doing your experiments. It's great if you have people you can relate those experiments to and be you know, consult with them on it. Find your tribe of people that you like to stay in touch with and share what you're building, people that are doing similar things, pushers and builders and believers of the space. All of this leads me to the point of, really today.
So moving to this point of doing all these different kinds of launches, trying stuff, being fearless with what we're trying, what we're building, dealing with people head on, not cowering and hiding if things go wrong. You see people, they step back because they need to have a mental health thing. Right? Like, if you've been in crypto for any amount of time, you'll know that ultimately people they do a launch and then people get mad at them, and then they say, alright. I need to step back because I have to have a mental health break. Well, the reality is that's not helping anybody. I mean, like, you you really need to just face whatever happened head on, face your audience head on. You did something actually really wrong, I'm not talking about just launching something and then it doesn't work out.
I'm talking about, like, actually doing something that's malicious, then you probably should leave the space, to be honest. So I'm not defending bad actors, but I am defending those who have a good intention, launch something, and then end up getting lack and backlash. And in those cases, you face it head on. Don't cower. Don't hide. Face it head on, and people will respect you more is what you'll find. People will say, no. I I respect the way that they dealt with that. A really good example is, like, Kevin Rose. If you were here when Kevin Rose launched Moonbirds, they went to, like, infinity floor price virtually overnight, and then, obviously, they went down in price, down in price, down in price. Just like anything, it's it's not able to withstand infinite price action forever. But then, you know, he played this whole sob story.
And, again, I don't know Kevin Rose, but what I will say is, you know, he's on podcasts now then talking about how, he has to go to a special doctor. He needs to do ketamine therapy and all this stuff, and all of that's probably true. But I remember seeing, I think the handle is, Daniel got hits, which maybe he changed his handle. A really fun account to follow. I don't know if they changed their handle. I believe they might have. But he posted and said, if Kevin Rose would have just said, screw you guys. I actually just bought a yacht because of you. Thank you. And I hope you have a great day. And just left and just dipped. I mean, not literally, but, like, was just like, screw you guys. Thanks for the free yacht.
He would have had way more respect instead of the pity me pity me game, which ended up in everyone really talking shit about them and ganging up on them. And there's weird psychology that comes into play when people start ganging up on one on one person in the space. I think it's the ingredients of everyone being anonymous and then everyone seeing like, oh, well, this person's done something bad or oh, it's okay. Sorry. Somebody trying to walk into our area. But, ultimately here. One one moment.
Speaker 13 Anyway, what I was saying was, like, Kevin Rose ultimately could have faced this scenario in a different way. And I think that we can all learn from that. And, you know, the space changes. The space is not the same as it was. But I think that you have these battle scars over time. And if you're a person who wants to really build here for the long term, you can't hide and cower from, any backlash you might receive when you're not intentionally trying to hurt anyone. You're just launching stuff as a creator, a builder. You're maybe you leave a wake of destruction in your way, but, I mean, in traditional business, that happens. I mean, like but nobody cares because in traditional business, things are just different. But you need to know how to handle yourself and deal with that kind of thing.
And I think that's a big portion of this mindset talk. And I wanna get to the point now, though, where we are now birthing the digital asset museum. The digital asset museum was a an idea that I've had for a very long time on how we need to preserve all of the incredible things happening in this space. The link rot, the, all of the things happening that just fall through the cracks. Every day, there's drama and excitement, and, maybe things are quieter now. But the digital asset museum, the purpose of it is to preserve the history as we're living it. And, of course, we're going to go back and preserve everything from the day of the Bitcoin white paper up until this point. And all of this, you know, building a nonprofit, all of it is funded by either our own initiatives such as curations or from actual sponsors and donors.
And building a nonprofit is very different than building a traditional business because you're not selling a product. You're you're selling belief in a mission. And this mission that we're on with the digital asset museum was birthed back in 2024, and I realized I was like, this space needs a museum for web three. It needs a museum built by somebody actually that has lived and breathed this space. And that has been me as a trader, builder, really just an entrepreneur doing fun stuff in web three since 2021. Not the most OG of OGs, but somebody who's really gotten my hands dirty in so many different aspects. And I would never leave because, I mean, I had a realization a while ago that, like, even if money didn't matter, I would still wanna be here, you know, making art, making projects, making cool stuff, launching stuff, and, just gaining experience along the way, connecting with people, and solving the problems of the space.
And so we filed for nonprofit to do that. Took about almost a year, I guess. We launched the digital asset museum to the public in May 05/01/2025. And, basically, then only a month and a half later, we launched our first curation, which was Genesis, and that was 55 artists we curated through a process that involved a board of 30 curatorial or cocurators, and we had over a 100 artists submit work to be a part of it through a cohort. It was not an open call. We created a cohort of artists we wanted that I personally, as lead curator, wanted to feature in this collection. And then we cocurate the collection together among 30 of us, on a board, double blind boards, so people don't know who else is on the board.
And they are, basically, they, they don't know who else is on the board, and they vote blindly, just knowing like, without knowing the the data of who else has voted on that artist, and they vote yes or no. They get feedback. They learn about new artists, most importantly. So not every artist makes it into the final curation. However, every artist gets their eyes or gets eyes on their work from creators, collectors, curators in this space that I curate onto a board. And it was an awesome success. We generated a lot of revenue by doing that. We paid $50,000 around to artists in that process. And when I say a lot of revenue, I I guess, you know, that's subjective. And building a nonprofit is not free. We have employees. We have a a team. We have monthly expenses in in all sorts of ways.
Plus, you know, we have to sustain ourselves as well. And it only goes so far, and we're we're all learning in this process how to build something like this. But the mindset again is you're always learning. You're taking action. You're learning, and you're seeing what works. And being transparent with everyone is also like a skill to learn. For a while, I was not posting as we were doing so much building behind the scenes. We're applying to all these different grants. We're doing all like, a 100% of the work through DMs, nothing on the timeline. We wanted everything to look really, like, good when we're posting. But in reality, it's okay for things to get messy. It's okay for things to be uncertain, and it's all part of the process of learning and growing. We had our first curation, and we then did another curation.
And that time, we curated twice the amount of artists. We had 99 artists in that the DAMPAX curation. We had 50 people on our curatorial board. It was a massive endeavor. It was all almost 200 p or was actually, over 250 people involved to make it work. However, it's a different mechanic, blind reveal. And, also, we did it over the course of thirty days instead of just two days like our initial curation. But I tell you all of this to let you know kind of an inside look on what it takes to launch stuff in web three. It takes a lot of grit, a lot of determination, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of confusion, a lot of trying new things or paving new paths that haven't been paved before. Building a museum, that's a whole other topic, but I will cover on that a little too.
Like, this space deserves a museum built by one of its own. I see now there's museums like Node launching an amazing initiative backed by a lot of liquidity by very wealthy patrons and donors and founders. And that is an amazing initiative, and I hope that that lifts up Web three in an amazing way. I think that the Digital Asset Museum is very unique in that it's really built by an emerging artist, an emerging builder without an intense amount of wealth to start it off and built in a way that we're really cocurating this entire process. Everything we've done has been cocurated. We've managed to build a permanent collection of just about just under 200 works, and that's from, I believe I don't have the exact numbers on hand, but over a 150 artists or if not just about a 150 artists from over 20 different countries from around the world.
And we did that curating that work from the actual artist one to one working with them. They submitted that work for this launch specifically, for that curation specifically. No other museum in history has done anything like this from my research where they've cocurated the collections to build the museum's permanent collection, which will one day be shown IRL in the permanent establishment from the permanent collection of the Digital Asset Museum. So we're building a museum together here in Web three, and I'm just now beginning this arc of sharing all of this stuff way more transparently and openly to really build our tribe and build our audience of people who really want to be a part of this, not just through DMs, but really being vocal through video and other means of explaining what it is that we're doing.
It's very unique, and I think that even just for me, it's taken time to really hit and to set in and to really make sense even though I've been the one that's birthing this mission through me. And in a lot of ways, it's a mission that came to me. It's not all my own idea in some ways. I think that it ideas come to you, and then they go. Like, I've talked to people that have said, oh, I had a similar exact idea to what you're doing with the digital asset museum. But there's a difference between having an idea and then taking action and jumping through all the hoops to make it come to life. And inspired action is really, really, really powerful.
And if you can be in a place where you're able to tap in and listen to that inner voice, then I think that the universe ends up doing wild incredible things through you because you're somehow acting as a conduit of the universe's truest vision, which I do believe for our space is to have an incredible web three museum that tells the story of this space that goes through every single day and says what happened on this day. Not whether x is better than y or whether this was better than that, but we're our mission is to say this happened, and that's one of our pillars. Another one of our pillars is education, and that's what we're doing here with the web three summit is we're building a platform for the world to have access to completely for free, fueled by sponsors, generous sponsors, donors who are seeing the vision of what we're doing.
And that vision is to bring a college level education around web three to the world, to the masses. And we have different ways and mechanisms of driving traffic towards the initiative. Of course, all of this has been organic. On our post. Initial post about it, we have about 50,000 views. All of this stuff is very organic, and we still have just barely scratched the surface of where this will go. Our vision is to build a Khan Academy meets master class, but for web three education, public, good, free to access forever for everyone, fueled by sponsors and fueled by generous people who see the vision of us wanting to empower the world around how to get onboarded and welcomed into Web three, building community around that. But we shared a bit on talks today about how we want to allow for people in third world countries, if you have access to the Internet, to be able to become a full time artist.
How would they do that? They need to get onboarded. They need a place to go that says, hey. Do a b c d e f g, and that will get you to the point where you can mint something on chain in all different aspects. And we've been so we've had a success with people being willing to to donate their time to come and speak and share their experience and their wisdom. And we're gonna continue doing that with the launch of this upcoming platform, and that will happen within the coming weeks. We have this foundation now of the summit to really be able to share with people, say, hey. Look. Like, these are the the talks that we initially did, but we're already planning all these different talks from different experts in the fields of Web three that they're donating their time and energy to this public good.
Of course, they're gonna have full attribution of the the talk, and everyone will know that they are you know, they'll be on camera or or however it'll work. But they'll share their wisdom and takeaways. And that is, an incredible way of, again, co curating, co building all of this. This museum, the Digital Asset Museum, every aspect of it virtually has been co built. So we're generating the money from donors and from sponsors, yes, but also from co curating collections of artists of the moment, stamping that moment down in time and saying these are the artists that we believe in long term. These are the artists that are here now that maybe they won't be here making art in five years potentially, but we're betting that they will. We're betting that those artists are gonna go on to become great.
And imagine back in the times when, you know, like, the the eras of art that happened where artists came together and they would make art together and they would converse together. We're in that era right now but for digital art, and that is wild to think about, and we're cocurating those collections around that era doing it from the trenches, literally hands in the dirt here. We're not on some high horse. We're building it as we are living it, and we're building it with the people who are here in the trenches as artists, traders, builders, devs, and coming together, inviting them together to contribute to the mission. So we have our pillar of education. We have our pillar of preservation, and also our pillars of inspiration and community. So building community is still and we're still getting started with all of that.
We're still getting started with, getting everyone together, and it's definitely not something you solve overnight. But what I will say is this summit, I believe, has been a success in that right now, there's 800 people watching live, that we're able to really generate a campfire around the a digital campfire in the space that people can get around. And this is just the beginning of it. Would I say that, you know, everything we've done has been a 100% perfect? Well, no. I think that if I could go back, I would have posted more or I would have shared more with initial collectors of Genesis or I would have reached out to every single person every single day if I could have and told them what we're doing. We're still building our channels for sharing. We're still building our channels for being able to broadcast one to many.
We're still building our connections with collectors and, you know, different whales in the space and historians, and we're still building out everything. And and it's all happening live in real time, And we're not gonna pretend that we know everything, but we will say that we're working every single day. We're working hundred hour weeks. We have a very small team right now, but we're working hundred plus hour weeks. And, it's not just to say that we are, and we're not bragging that we are, but it's because there's a lot of work that we wanna accomplish and curations and, preservation initiatives and summits and planning and doing all that plus the nonprofit side, the legal side, handling everything. It all takes it take hundred plus hours a week, but I would have it no other way. I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.
And this is what I believe is my mission as a builder and creator. And, you know, back to the topic of the talk, mindset in web three, I feel like we can kind of end on this note of you maybe understanding a bit more about my mindset as a builder and creator. And how I feel about building in this space and the mentality that it takes to build in this space. And also, like, where we're at as mindset of, you know, a builder in Web three, where I'm at with the the mission of the Digital Asset Museum. And I think that doing more things like this, more streams, more live interactions, more live calls, we have a lot in the future coming up that we look forward to launching and inviting more people in and getting the space excited about.
And when the day comes that we launch the Digital Asset Museum IRL, it's gonna be an incredible, amazing thing that we invite the space to, and we have an amazing, awesome setup and party and excitement, a really powerful special moment. And that moment will come in the future, and I'm super excited about how everything is coming together to that point. Overall, I'm just really proud of our space. I'm proud of Web three, where we're headed, and what we've accomplished. And, yes, we had a massive run up in 2021, 2022. Yes, there will be more bull markets. Yes, there'll be more bear markets. But one thing's for sure, the community that's come together in this space is unlike any other. And if you're watching this right now, you are part of that community, and you know the way that this space is.
You know how genuine and real and amazing and vulnerable and exciting that digital art is and can be. And I really think that we're just at the tip of the iceberg for what is going to come in the coming years. The first museum of Web three, the first, museums of, preserving Web three and digital art and putting digital art on the pedestal that it deserves to be on and championing these artists. Right now, you know, you've heard many people say, and maybe it's even become a cliche, that you're in the room with the Picassos, the Warhols, the Basquiat's. Well, that's true. I mean, you can reach out to these people and talk to them over DM. And right now, they're not being heralded as as such necessarily. Maybe some of them are.
But the the focus and truth of it all is that we're in this early stage, and you're playing a part by every single day showing up to this space, every single day laying the brick that only you can lay. So what I really want anyone to take from this talk is you are making a difference in web three by simply being here every day and participating. And inside of you, there's a voice. And if you can hear that voice and it tells you what your unique purpose is within this space, you know, really, like, listen to that voice, reflect on it, and think about how can you take action on that specific thing that only you can do.
And that's the purpose of this whole entire summit and the educational platform and fostering connection among all of it is so that we can really give people the tools and the the inspiration and the foundation and the community to really take the action towards that thing that only they can really do and bring to the world through Web three rails. And whether that is you being in a specific business and integrating Web three into it or learning more about web three and how to get onboarded and then it becoming something that you end up putting a product out into the world that changes the world. It's all about the ripple effects that we can create and the ripple effects that we won't even be able to see because the the ripple effect, it just becomes so large that it's beyond our own comprehension.
So I really think a good way to end this would be it's right on 06:00 on the dot now, which should be the end of the summit. I wanna say I really appreciate everybody who came here, the 809 of you watching right now. And I really appreciate everyone who spent time with the summit, everyone who, of course, came and spent their, time and energy speaking, everybody who is resonating with this vision, everyone who's showing up to the space on a daily basis. You're making a difference even though maybe in the timeline, it might sometimes feel like you're not or sometimes feels like you're insignificant or no one's listening. But you being here is making a difference by just simply pushing forward whatever it is initiative that's in your heart, whether it's an art collection or a token or something that you would dev.
But I hope to encourage people to ship stuff. Send it out there, and hopefully, the mindset of like I explained in this video can bleed through, that you have the mindset to send things out and to be strong enough to deal with any public backlash or success that comes your way with those launches. And just know that every launch that you make pushes our space forward. The space grows and has when space has a 100 different drops in a day from artists, all thoughtful and intentional, that's when our space is, like, at its crazy peak. Like we said in the previous talk, Brian Brinkman was saying how there's three to four launches a day maybe right now. Well, imagine if there's 10 times that, a 100 times that. How would we even get to that point Would be from people coming into the space and building and taking risks and putting their hearts into it and doing it with compassion.
So overall, the mindset of building in web three is all about just really understanding where we're at right now, understanding, you know, you're gonna get your hands dirty. Don't be afraid to, and don't be afraid to take a risk in this space. It can be massive how it pays off. And, either way, you're gonna learn something special. So I wanna again say thank you to everybody who's been a part of the summit, whether as a listener or a speaker. And I really look forward to launching the educational platform in the coming weeks, hopefully even sooner, and continuing to build on that platform a free public good, free forever. And I want you to invite whoever it is that you wanna onboard into Web three into this platform, and we're gonna work to make this the best place in the world, the go to place to onboard anybody into web three, literally from starting a wallet to starting as a collector to starting as a builder to starting as a trader to starting as an artist, and everything in between.
This is all through the public good that is the digital asset museum, and I'm just blessed to play my small part in being the conduit of so much of the vision. Satoshi's mom is a a funny moniker, but in reality, Satoshi's mom is really just this voice that speaks through me, and I'm just a conduit for it all. I really am so grateful for every single person that has contributed to this space and to where we're going. And I hope that this next era of web three is us all working together, uniting towards what we want this space to be. I think that's a great note to end things on. I will quickly see. Yeah. I think that's a great note to end things on. Much love, and, I will see you in the timeline.
Speaker 12 Oh, one last thing.
Speaker 13 One very last important thing. I want to thank all of the sponsors that made this possible. Again, this summit is completely fueled by the generosity of donors and sponsors. And I wanna thank every person who's given to the Digital Asset Museum along the way. But specifically for this summit, thank you to NightShare, our lead sponsor, an incredible human being who was very generous enough to be our lead sponsor for this specific event. Thank you, NightShare. You powered this summit in a major way. I wanna also recognize the, incredible people who, supported with supporting, sponsorship slots. It really means everything because your support actually fuels this, and it's it's not over. It's still the support that is fueling the educational platform as we continue to grow. There'll be more sponsors. There'll be more slots. There'll be more opportunities to put your name on what we're building.
And that's the whole purpose of it all is to include people, to let people understand that they now have their name on all of the time, energy, sweat, blood, sweat, and tears that were pouring into making this all come to life. So, again, NightShare, thank you. Cindy, a supporting sponsor, MJ Data, OXMQQ, Jason and Danielle Patterson, the DeFi Fund, Autonomous Artifacts, Spuma, Killian Moore, OkDJAN with BaseThanos and Endri, Felix Felix Felix from CypherDudes, Odeus, and Etowas. Thank you all for your sponsorship, your belief in this mission. All of it is going directly towards fueling this platform and building out public good web three education for the masses, a free forever public good. So thank you for your sponsorship. We appreciate you.