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VAULT3D: Joshua Doner - Pioneering the NFT Frontier, CryptoPunks' Influence, and the Digital Assets Revolution
This weeks guest is Joshua Doner, partner at the gaming fund, Real Third Web! Saddle up for an episode that dissects the complex relationship between NFTs, the art world, and the digital economy. From the rise of CryptoPunks to the role of digital collectibles in empowering artists and musicians, we're laying it all out on the table.
Join our deep dive into the symbiotic world of NFTs and gaming, the revolutionary potential of direct artist-to-fan connections in the music industry, and the story that had everyone buzzing about how CryptoPunks debuted on the Olympic Stage. Joshua's insights illuminate the seismic changes afoot—how digital assets are challenging the status quo and rewriting the rulebook on creativity, ownership, and community in the digital age. We grapple with the skepticism surrounding the space and share personal anecdotes that reveal a nuanced portrait of an industry at its tipping point.
As we chart the course for the future, we touch on the many narratives of financial inclusion that cryptocurrencies champion, the exciting concept of fractional art investments, and the burgeoning ecosystem that's democratizing finance. This episode isn't just about understanding a trend; it's about envisioning a future where digital assets unlock new experiences, communities, and opportunities. Tune in for a conversation that's not just about a digital revolution—it's about the personal revolutions unfolding within each member of the crypto universe.
Josh links:
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/mynt_josh
SHILLR:
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GM. This is Boone and you're listening to Vaulted, a Web3 podcast series from the Schiller Archives. This episode was originally recorded on August 16, 2021 and features Joshua Donner, an OG CryptoPunk owner and partner at Real Third Web. In this episode, we discuss the impact of crypto networks on the economy, the intersection of NFTs and gaming, the future of regulating digital assets and much more. As always, this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon for financial advice. Boone and guests may own NFTs discussed. Now it's time to grab some coffee and dive into this combo with Josh. Good evening, josh. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good man, how you doing, kyle?
Speaker 1:I'm doing fantastic. I just went and got some Chick-fil-A, I got some coffee, got some water. Joke hopefully won't bark in the background, but if she does we'll just roll with it because we're doing this whole remote recording gig.
Speaker 2:I'm from Toronto and we only have one Chick-fil-A in Canada, so open and everyone went crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's the Lord's Chicken, right, you can't really get wrong with it, it is it is I like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it's almost like a running joke. A Chick-fil-A will never close down and it's like once you get a Chick-fil-A, that's how you know you really made it. You know what I mean. As a town or as a city, chick-fil-a is good. They don't make bad investments because I've never seen one shut down. All right, yeah, man. Well, josh, thank you, just for everyone who's listening, and I hadn't recorded it.
Speaker 1:We haven't done a podcast in probably about a month and a half, and especially within these last few months. Well, really, since March, if you've been following my Twitter, I've gone through these spurts where I just dive deep down the rabbit hole in NFTs and cryptocurrency and then I'll just not talk about it for a little bit, and then I'll dive deep down into the weeds and then I won't talk about it. I'm in one of those phases where I think I'm going to stick with it. I've been reading a lot of stories and I ran into Josh from a story that was written from Gary V's 137 PM about the recent transition from crypto punks or, I guess, the connectivity or transition, or I don't know what the right word is but basically the awareness of crypto punks on the biggest stage, arguably in the entire world, which is the Olympics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll give a little context there. I was one of the first people in the world to buy an NFT back in July 2017. There's a small group of us that were buying these things, called crypto punks, and it was really unclear of what an NFT was, its impact on the world back then. I think I bought a few of them. Well, I did buy a few of them for a few hundred bucks each and then forgot about them for four years. Then, obviously, the NBA did NBA top shot and it came into the consciousness of everyone of like holy.
Speaker 2:This is like a really interesting new monetization model for content and ownership of content and being able to sell things direct to consumer versus selling things solely through broadcasters. So that just blew open NFTs and crypto punks, because they were first became extremely valuable. And then what you're referring to, kyle, is I actually, with Curtis McDowald, took the first crypto punks to the Olympics. So he's on the men's USA fencing team and he does the individual epa, but also the team epa and his whole team actually had crypto punks as their avatars.
Speaker 2:And we put out a tweet about it and it got like 800 likes. Gary V followed them. It was just crazy.
Speaker 1:Dude. That's, yeah, I mean, and it's funny Gary's involvement in this scene. It's just it's it's amazing to see his presence and a lot of the good that he's done because he's. The reason I follow Gary is because he's a human and he's practical and he like he'll be really hype about something but he's like, look like a lot of these are going to fail. You know, like investor only would you can afford to lose. You know he's like, he's like trying to like drive on these messages and it's been really cool to see his presence. But that's actually, yeah, how I found, how I found Josh and I said this is a cool crossover, you know, and Josh actually just tagged me in a tweet today on social media and here we are doing a podcast recording about, you know, nfts and crypto punks and I had to talk about both crypto punks because it's been going crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think about Gary Vee is. Back in February we're in the crypto punks discord by Larva Labs and all of a sudden, gary Vee joins it and people just like went crazy. They're like what is happening, like Gary Dio and punks, and he's like right in there engaging with people, which is super cool for someone at his level. He gets in there and he really genuinely talks to me, responds to tweets, all this kind of stuff, and he's like yeah, I got, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 of these things. They're buying them very quietly and sure enough. You know the market went crazy. I think what it needed was that like check mark of credibility.
Speaker 1:And then once he started doing it.
Speaker 2:It's like phase banks. You know, 900 or 100 thieves. I forget the gentleman there, but yeah, Nade shot. And then a number of other, like you know Wilson Chandler, nba player, matt Cowles, founder of DraftKings like high profile people, so yeah, yeah, it's been really cool.
Speaker 1:So I'll just give you some background for me. Like I'm fairly new to it, I started getting interested back in the hype train that was Beeple back in March with the whole you know, 5,000 days and the $68 million or $69 million bid. That was when it really first caught my attention, because before I didn't really like crypto currency, like Bitcoin had its heyday, where everyone was really talking about there's a lot of buzz, like back like three to five years ago, and I'm just like this is fucking stupid. I don't understand anything about this, I don't see the real value, like, and so I bought some, like I think I bought like $50 with a Bitcoin and $50 with the XRP and then I just left it in my wallet and forgot about it. You know what I mean, yeah, man and I and then.
Speaker 1:But I think really what did it for me was the the actual usefulness and utility of Ethereum, of the smart contract, and how it. I finally found a way where it impacted me and the area that I was, I guess, pursuing, you know, and content creation in general, and I'm just and I just it all just like hit me. I fell down a rabbit hole Like I barely slept for like two weeks. You know, I'm just like this is so, this is so cool. Like how is no one else not seeing this? Like I felt like I was the only one. Yeah, like that technology is really cool.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think when I first discovered it, you know, I was like oh my gosh, this is going to change the whole financial system and I was pretty confident that was going to happen. And then I go a little deeper. I get on these platforms and I start using them and the volume is crazy. Like the volume, the engagement people are like really, this is before you know. People got interested in Robinhood and the stock market.
Speaker 2:This is early days and it's like a new cohort of investors were like they were obsessed with this stuff. You know and I was there at the first Ethereum ICO that's where I got really into the Dow and this concept that on a smart contract, you could have a decentralized ownership structure and it being backed by the largest computing network in the world or one of and it's just like yikes, that's crazy. But then NFTs come along and this is back to what Curtis and I talked about when he took it to the Olympics. It was like he is passionate about crypto and he agrees that this, hey, this is going to reshape the financial system.
Speaker 2:reshape opportunity for not just Americans, canadians, europeans, everyone in the world everyone with a cell phone and internet connection has the exact same opportunity as you have, and we've never seen that before. But Curtis, he's like how do I take this to the game, josh? How do I do? Do I have Curtis coin? Like what can I do? Like you know what, change your profile picture to a crypto pump. Like the most striking visual thing to hook someone in and tell them about crypto is through NFTs or crypto punks or any one of these projects. Board AP Ought Club Cool Cats. I love it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I wanted to ask a little bit more about you know, a little bit more about your relationship with Curtis. Like how did, like you know, are you, are you like his advisor? Like how did you come to meet him? Like what is, like, what is your role? And like what do you like, what do you do with him?
Speaker 2:Like we're, we're just friends, we got a set up through a mutual connection. And he's like hey, you got to go talk to Josh, figure out something to do. And this is like two days before he left for Tokyo. And so I came up with this idea, like, hey, use this crypto punk thing, cause I started seeing you know people well, everyone was changing their avatars to a crypto punk. I was like you change yours, don't no need to like, just use it. Like, just use five of these things, just use one of them. And so he did that, and that's how we got connected. So it was really organic. And then, once the tweet kind of went viral, the first tweet I was like man, any other athletes want to do this. And I put a call out on Twitter to all crypto punk owners saying hey, you know, team USA, there's other athletes that want to use crypto punks. And I got like a hundred responses of like people saying use this, use this. And so what we're realizing is we're seeing that I can transfer social capital, if you will, social equity, social likeness, let's say likeness to someone else.
Speaker 2:And the thing with the Olympics is there's a rule 40 where you can't, you know, take a brand to the Olympics. You can't have Coca-Cola on your profile unless you're explicitly, like you know, sponsored there. You know, coca-cola actually probably sponsored the Olympics as a bad example. But you can't take after thieves or any other brand to the Olympics that way. But crypto punks are kind of like a brand, but not a brand. They're globally recognized. At this point there's 10,000 of them. So it's almost like there's Coca-Cola's logo but there's 10,000 versions of Coca-Cola's logo. Each of them are unique and a bit different and the engagement that comes along with it is incredible. And that's kind of what we tapped into for Curtis because, look, he's in a sport but he's not a professional NBA player. So for him, his prospects after the Olympics are, you know, he's really got to start at square one. He can't. You know, he's got to build his brand while he's there and this was a way of doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean because that's something that so a little bit about me. I was a swimmer for 10 years, you know, and so I've always like the summer Olympics are always my favorite, you know very similar to like this NFT and crypto punks and all these, all this technology. Like swimming is one of those just unique sports that like, unless you've done it, it's kind of not as entertaining to watch, you know, like unless you've like know someone who did it or did it yourself. But it's one of those like passions of mine that I like I just get to enjoy for a treat, like for like two weeks straight every every four years, you know, and when it comes to I don't even remember where I was going, that going with that, but like, oh, I know I was, but like, because Olympic, olympic athletes, they don't, like they don't make money for winning the Olympics, like you get the gold medal but you don't that's where I was going you don't get it.
Speaker 1:Like you get a lot of clout, you get a lot of recognition, you get a lot of pride and you get a massive accomplishment for being the best one, two or three in the world on that stage, but it doesn't like life doesn't change. When you go back home, like there's no massive surge of money that's just sitting in your account. When you get home and like like an NBA championship or an NFL championship, or you just get a fat bonus, you know, as laid out in your contract. So I just I find that very fascinating because like that happened with Phelps. I mean that happened with Phelps, like where he won all those gold medals, came back and he just like got back in the pool and kept doing what he did and this whole brand building aspect. It wasn't really as like I don't know, I guess it wasn't as culturally accepted then or it wasn't. You know what I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't as big of a deal as it is today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're right 100%. Uh, they, I do think if in the US you get a medal, you do get a payout. There is some financial incentive there, but you know 95% of athletes, or 90% athletes, aren't going to win medals. Only three out of however many compete can. And that's for you in America. There is another 160 countries in the world where there is probably very little, if any financial support whatsoever.
Speaker 2:Right, so um, you know it's this situation where it's. You know you have the Olympic games. You have a really restricted broadcasting like you can't restrain.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, none of those clips are on Twitter Like you go on Twitter.
Speaker 2:Past Olympics I used to be able to see clips of of competition. Now I can't. They have it all locked down. You know we can't go into bars anymore and watch the games with each other because of COVID, so you know. But you can't restream on on Twitch with all your friends in the chat and stuff, like it's literally set up so that you're sitting at home in a single family house that's got a cable subscription.
Speaker 1:Like that's right.
Speaker 2:That's a human rights issue, like I believe the Olympics is a human rights to view that and consume that content. No backup to Curtis. He's in a sport that is not like a, a, you know, a sport where you can make a living out of. Necessarily he's part of fencing. It's expensive so you can't take a brand with them and then also very few people are actually seeing this because you know I I'm.
Speaker 2:Canadian can't see him. I actually I tried so hard and I couldn't see him. I couldn't watch us sports. I can only watch Canadian sports and athletes.
Speaker 1:So you have a limited audience.
Speaker 2:So this is like literally was his opportunity, take one of these games and unlocked. Anyone in the world that understands what Crypto Puncts are part of that community. We're just cheering them on, supporting them, doing everything they could, jumping on a live stream to say, hey, man, we're, we're with you and that's a. That's a little bit of a, not a protest, but we'll say kind of like doing something different.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, it's, it's a way to it's a way to spark attention while still following, while still following and still abiding by the strict guidelines that the Olympic put like, puts in place. And I think that's genius of how you did that, because it's it's, it's a backdoor, you know it's, it's a backdoor and it's right onto the biggest stage in the entire world and they couldn't do anything about it. You know what I mean Like from.
Speaker 2:I think he had one follower on Twitter and in like four, one week it was up to like 650. And if anyone's ever built like an audience on Twitter, like you'll know that the first you know 500 followers take you forever to get.
Speaker 1:So oh my God, dude, yeah, yeah, it's, it's insane. And so I like I love that we're kind of talking about the Olympics because it's it represents the glow, like it punks global, Olympics, global. You know, I actually recently bought a piece from a South African artist and I have to, like look at her Twitter Name is Mariska Mariska Becker, you know, and it's like the, the style of visual art, like. Here's something that like fascinates me about, like NFTs and like what I learned about myself is that I could give I could, I could care less about like a van Gogh or like a Mona Lisa or like like do I respect, like the, the art and the time that it was painted.
Speaker 1:It probably was very voodoo to be a painter back in their time. Like I can, I can respect it, but I'm not going to go. It's not, it doesn't excite me enough to go spend like $5 million on a painting or $50 million on a painting or however much these things are worth. I'm like, but the idea of a digital collectible asset, no, I just I'm just like, oh, wow, like I can support the people who make these insanely cool visual pictures.
Speaker 2:Can you draw the Lincoln in the chat, just so I can link it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me let me talk on this, because we get a lot of these questions about the traditional art world. In the NFT world and the early NFT you know thing was very much. Hey, we're going after art essentially ownership, where we're creating digital art, all this kind of stuff creating value in the digital space, whereas art traditionally was only an analog thing. That's where the value was, and if it was in the digital sense like, let's say, music streaming it was usually being ripped off. So in this case, right now we have a digitally native art platform and the main difference is like Look, I'm not coming over to your house, kyle, and seeing what's on your wall.
Speaker 2:Personally, I don't care, I'm not going to museums and seeing what's on your wall, but you could have your NFT wallet on your Twitter profile and now hundreds of people are viewing my NFTs. And that is the difference. Like going and walking into a bar when, when you know Rown is over with like I'm gonna show people what's in my wallet and they're gonna be like holding, oh, this guy's got crypto pumps, you know, like I want to know his story right, like there's a element of you know it brings kind of I Don't want to say clout, but like there is that kind of social credit of you having, like the you know, you know group of seven painting which in Canada they're extremely famous and those are sold around the world but of other any famous artists really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, marisha, yeah, yeah, um, so if you go to either like, so I linked her Twitter there. But if you go to the second link in my wallet, um, right, there it is the. It is the intergalactic piece I Can actually share. Share it on screen here. It's a new feature on on this platform that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and this is a really cool, oh, dude, you have two world of women Yo. I do. I love that.
Speaker 2:See, this is it, man. I get a look at your wallet and I instantly know what you got. Yeah, yeah, this is by far. I'm not coming over to check your wall, kyle, but I see it in your wallet. I love this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I mean, and so it's, this is. But like you know, cuz, see, we, we have gotten so conditioned to like, right clicking and save, as it's like the most common argument about NFTs, like and Saving these pieces of work where the artist literally gets zero credit, where it gets ripped and it gets, it gets no, but like we don't, and it's like the world has gotten so used to that it's like this took so much time to actually make. You know what I mean. Like this took probably a lot of time to make, and so it's cool to be able to like, have people get their bag and provide a lot of value and provide a source of, you know, exclusivity at the same time, and build a community out of it.
Speaker 2:Can I talk on the save as thing for a second?
Speaker 2:So this is a right common, common argument the save as club and what's my favorite if you think about the early internet, like people who created fonts or created music and people are Downloading it legally, like that was a negative thing. It was like they're stealing from me. We're in this new world that's actually flipped on its head. So if you have the ownership right as an NFT and that's trading freely, the more people that are elite Illegally downloading your font or using your font and it's being used on the internet, the more distributed is.
Speaker 2:It's actually adding more value To the underlying asset, the underlying NFT. So NFTs actually solve for a lot of the piracy issues of the early internet, because value still can accrue back to the artist. And even if the artist sells that NFT if they say, hey, look, I'm gonna sell the rights of this font to someone and say, hey, look, there's, like you know, 20,000 people around the world that are using this font. You know they're commanding a higher price than something where they say, hey, no one's using this right and so it's a new business model and if they sell that, they still, as the minting wallet, are potentially collecting royalties. You can actually code into these platforms. I want to get five, fifteen percent back and something like an ownership rights and, let's say, fonts. You know you could probably charge like a 30% Feedback, because those don't probably trade it very often.
Speaker 2:But yet people are going downloading fonts all the time for their Adobe Photoshop or Adobe InDesign or whatever, so it really solves a lot of those piracy issues that was saw on the early internet and that is, yeah, exciting thing. Like people don't realize, think they think NFT speculative, this like no, the technology actually might fundamentally change the internet.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think a lot of people is that. You know, for people who like us and I I you know, I know enough about you because you're on this podcast and you're involved in crypto punks Know that you're a complete nerd on the, who loves the bleeding edge. You know, like the bleeding edge, the cutting edge of any new technology that's out there. You know, and I feel the same way and the the fact that there is zero middleman now is Like a really cool thing. Like the fact that they the fact that this is on its way to To eliminating people who don't do shit in the industry but caught charge attacks for not doing shit are gonna be eliminated and they're actually gonna have to go get a job. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:They're gonna actually go do something and I it's gonna be a little like I personally think, as quickly as this is moving, it's still gonna be a while before, like I get most excited about the music scene and and what impacts this can have on that, and but I still think it's gonna be a very strong Like. It's gonna be a really hard battle because, like the music industry is so, this is the way things are and it is so the roots are so deep Across the world about how the music industry works that I just get this feeling like it's gonna be a really hard-fought battle. Like to get like music. You music musicians. The rights that they actually deserve, that they own them, like what is ownership of the song, even mean what happens to studios. Do they even play a role in this anymore, or do they just disappear Like I don't know? You know, so I'd love to know your take on that like you're just like you're like random thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:So, first off, I don't hate the middlemen. I know this is a common crypto thing. We're like you, were like our kind of the middleman, like I understand where that comes from, but we got to understand that in the early internet you needed humans and companies to build this sure that is the reality.
Speaker 2:You have to have organized labor, people working on common problems and you know that's what companies were. I think now that is shifting to you are working on top of a network, so you might see that networks, blockchains however you want to say it are actually gonna start competing with incumbent companies and you know labels. Let's say back to music. They might just see it's harder to make money and Probably part of that is like it's harder to attract new talent Because new talent is realized and they can go direct to consumer on day one and still fund what they're doing.
Speaker 2:And If you think like, let's take like an iconic Artist like Mac Miller when he was coming up, mac Miller was an independent artist for a very long time.
Speaker 2:He would have been perfect for this NFTH because he could have sold his rights and not many as rights by his collectibles to Consumers directly, earned some money and then, as his career grew, as he went from mixtapes to albums To really launching, you know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, those collectibles become more valuable. They start transacting, they trade hands so she doesn't need the record label. And what's crazy is like when you get 10,000 people that own your NFT. Let's say those are. Those people are all a big fans of you, but they're financially incentivized in your success and you now have 10,000 raving fans are like hey man, go check this out. Hey, go check this artis. So go Check this artis out. It's a brand new dynamic. We've never seen it before, and so you know, I don't hate on middleman, I just think the business model is changing and I do think Labels will take advantage of some of this.
Speaker 2:They will be liquidity providers, they will be there with money because that's what they have to offer, and and they do have some distribution, but it's just gonna be a new way of doing it that it might take a generation or two of artists to really weed that out of, like the only way is a label, and where you see most. I'm go direct to consumer, that that might take ten years still. Yeah, I know, I'm not faster, but you know, you know I could yeah, yeah, it could, it could in in.
Speaker 1:I like the way I like the way you put that. I guess I it's a common thing for Not only me but a lot of people to do, or it's just like, even though like middleman, for the most part, like are working on the network, but there's probably like 10% that are bad apples, five to 10% that are that are you know, and then we then I tend to like focus on that much and blow it up like, like.
Speaker 2:Look at the nightmare she's in right now. You know there's a lot of bad apples.
Speaker 1:There are there. I mean, you look at, taylor Swift literally Re-recorded her own album. You know what I mean. I thought that was genius and and.
Speaker 2:I'm like someone owns her the rights term, use it, and they're like a venture fund.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's nuts, it's.
Speaker 1:It's crazy that this, so this I like.
Speaker 1:I think, when you zoom out of this a little bit like what this problem, this all is, because, like before this industry came along, I did not know anything about music rights, finances, like the financial industry, how any of it worked, and I think this, in its own light, is giving someone like his and I look at and I look at the stock market. I'm like I don't want to invest in stocks, like that's boring as fuck, like that I mean, I'm like I'm sure I'll have some sort of like diverse portfolio, but like people that are like day trading stocks or, like you know, really invested in like watching the market move, I'm like this NFTs allow me to do that with something visually appealing and have a community attached to it. Yes, you know what I mean. And I get to learn while having a good time and I get to make Sometimes small, sometimes large mistakes, but like I get that, like I'm having fun doing it and I get to be around a bunch of bunch of people who are having the same experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is a story to cut you off, kyle, but this is a bunny dynamic, because selling a crypto punk is like selling a family member. I'm serious yeah and that's how it feels and it's like look, you know, the crypto run of the last run was all about tokens. Right, like you didn't care yet no attach to the tokens, but other than just like I want to make money, let's get real people and crypto were like I want to make money, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, I want to change the world, but many of them were there to make money.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna make money. You want to buy a nice house, buy a car? You know like, yeah, everyone wants a better visit, right, yeah, but crypto punks is different NFTs are different, and it's because this becomes part of your identity.
Speaker 2:This is my profile picture on Twitter and like let's go of punk 1641 here is gonna be extremely painful when I do, if I do, but it has become part of who I am and you know people know me. It's all my LinkedIn and Facebook, twitter, instagram.
Speaker 2:That's awesome yeah people know that's me from it. If I were to change out all of a sudden, it would take people a bit of time to adjust. So You're right, it is a market. It's a true market. Like collectibles, gary Vee goes out and it trades all sorts of analog things like Like basketball cards and what on that baseball cards?
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, it's no cards, but now we're seeing a digital version of that and it has those elements community. It's, like you know, selling something as part of your identity. Your expression like how do you put a price?
Speaker 1:on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and what's wild is that we're seeing this in.
Speaker 1:You know, what's the iron is that, like I'm real, like I'm pretty so, like I'm pretty rooted in the gaming community on, especially on Twitter, and it's like the gaming community the funny thing is that they have some of the most pushback on NFTs when, from what I see, they're like the biggest use case of why NFTs actually exists through weapon skins, through emotes, through for games like fortnight, valorant, cs, go, you know, like at these skins that literally provide no value to the act, like they don't make you better but they make you feel better because that is like your style and that's your way of expressing yourself.
Speaker 1:And like I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you how much I've spent on valorant because the skins are so awesome, like they have the animations and they're colorful and they pop. I mean I have a dragon for it, for a gun, you know what? I mean that like breeze fire when I reload and it's a part of who I am on this game and I and I feel that it's such an interesting thing that, like these become like a part of like who we are, what we do. And I just wanted to bring up the point of like. The irony of that, like the gaming community is some of the people that are most against it, but yet they're the people who are like proving the concept of why this actually will work. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny, but what you just described, it's that, you know, with with crypto punks. Specifically for me at least, it is all those elements. But it's like my life, right, you know? Right, I talked to clients and the reason clients are maybe engaging with me is because they see this thing and they're like what is that, josh? You know, I want to learn right.
Speaker 1:I want to understand.
Speaker 2:I see Gary Vee talk about it, I see it on the news, christie Sotheby's, they all are doing it. You know why do you have that in your profile? Can you explain that you know I've gotten more opportunities throw my way career-wise? Because this is my profile picture.
Speaker 2:It's like as all those game elements of, like you know, the skins where you know you want to show off, maybe, how good your guns are. Like I'm a big war zone fan and like I pick up some, yeah, that's like super platinum. I'm like geez man, this guy's in sweaty lobbies all the time, you know right.
Speaker 2:But like it's it is, that is it. But now we're seeing it at like the highest level of like your life and that is kind of, you know, gamer-esque. If you remember that movie from all those years ago, it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:It's, it's just an evolution of it. I think it's taking it's taking an element of something we like really enjoyed and where it's expanding it to apply to, like, the real world and like that almost is kind of a Just a headspin in and of itself. You know what I mean. Like it's kind of crazy to like think about this, because I grew up in the day where, you know, I grew up with dial-up, you know, and then we had high speed internet and but the conversation around that time was Don't meet anyone else, don't meet anyone on the internet. Everyone's out to get you, you know, don't like, don't like accept anything, don't like you can't share common interests. Like it was always like people on the other end of a computer were always Malicious and they were always bad, and everyone was so cautious and it. And now we're using these literal, these, like these represent, like these like pieces of art, these frat, like these little literal, pixelated art, and we're using that as our entire identity.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, and it's, and it actually means something now, and it didn't back then the other thing I want to add to is like, not only are using as your identity, but maybe as your career grows or your likeness grows as a human being, or you become a streamer, the value of your underlying asset also goes up in value because someone is like hey, I owned you know the first Crypto punk that went to the Olympics, or maybe this person used to own it right. Like it adds some, some value to it, which is very fascinating. What I found interesting about what you say about the gamers is I remember someone in CS go telling me that they were they're trading these skins.
Speaker 2:This must have been 2015 and, yeah, all of a sudden my head like that oh my gosh, a digital asset could be valuable. And I actually at the time this before I really knew about Bitcoin or Ethereum I was like that is a very powerful concept. A digital asset, a scarce digital asset, that's a. That's incredible. That could be worth real money. And then when Bitcoin came along, like in my awareness in 2016, like that's when I got into the space, you know, I had that pretext of that conversation I had with someone that was trading these skins and I was like off to the races. I knew digital assets were gonna be huge thing and like two trillion dollars, nothing what it will. The market cap might even two trillion less than that. Now, yeah, like gold is 10 trillion.
Speaker 2:So people understand the market size of gold is 10 trillion Dollars and if you stack Bitcoin and gold up side by side and you say store value Transmissionally, you know, can I transact with this? Is it accepted around the world? You know? Do I have custody of my own keys? All these like feature sets? Bitcoin is like check, check, check, check, check. Gold can't do any of this stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, right, it can't right like it.
Speaker 2:No one gives a shit about gold anymore. I'm sorry, peter Schiff, no one cares. So look, if Bitcoin hits that point, like what are you talking? We're talking like almost like a million dollars a coin. I think that is like almost the trade of a decade, and it's completely decentralized. That's just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's yet for real, it's a, it's a head, it's a head case like it. And like I was actually having a conversation with my buddy today I because he's in, because what I'm recently seeing is now you're like the profile picture, nfts have like really been taking off, but now I've been seeing a lot of photography, photography artist really taking off and he's kind of like making his ways a photographer and like still doing free shoots for people. And I'm just like hey, have you heard about this? And he's like, yeah, but like I don't really know, and I like I had a hard time trying to. The challenge I have is like trying to Break this down for someone who either has your interest or who doesn't know anything about it, or you know what I mean and like just trying to explain the concept and how it applies to them.
Speaker 1:I Like I want to say I hope I helped. I know I planted a seed, but he's like thanks, man. Like you kind of just like left me in the space I was when I first heard about Bitcoin in 2015. I had no idea, you know, cuz I I don't really know my niche yet I'm dabbling here and there and so I'm just like it's almost like a vomit, like it's almost like an information vomit. I'm like this is what it is. Here's how could apply to you. Here's what you do. Here's how you do it. Here's what other people done. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's wild right now I'm pulling up Justin Aversano. So Justin Aversano is a photographer that did a series called Twin Flames and it's a hundred pictures of twins so everyone is twins and he did this before like really NFTs and essentially brought this body of work into the NFT space and just kind of was involved with the Crypto punks community. So he was really involved with taking the Crypto punks and putting them on billboards in Miami, putting on billboards in New York and putting them on billboards in London.
Speaker 2:So I have is is Twin Flames collection. So you go open, see a collection, dash Twin Flames. It's rated 1600 Ethereum, so 1600 Ether. Its floor price is 60 Ether. So this guy, I am assuming getting at least like 5% of all these transactions. So to your photography buddy out there, you know, show him this page and be like look, justin, you know could have made here 800 Ether off or miss, I'm not 800 Ether, but, um, you know about 82, maybe 200 Ether off this collection. I don't. I don't know what he gets when these trans acts, but you know that is a very good living.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah and, and, like Gary Vee, has part of this collection. Very reputable people has owned part of this. Question. It even for the. It's not even about selling it. It's about saying that, hey, gary Vee owns a piece of my collection.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm right, because, in part because in parts of it, in a couple of these other NFT communities I'm a part of, a lot of people are actually hustling for Gary's attention. You know what I mean, like they're trying to figure out how to get, how to get Gary to get the plug on this new, you know, on this new project, and he really went above and beyond for world of women. I mean that was a really like he actually put their Instagirl, like he put their website in his Instagram bio. I mean that's, that's massive no of course you know the woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%. What a. What a cool project man.
Speaker 2:So I got into a Twitter beef a little bit with someone who is like you know, gary, this is cringe. Like you shouldn't be Peddling these projects, all this kind of stuff. I'm like you know what actually this project deserves attention. This is an amazing project and they're all female artists and the artwork is actually great. Like it looks very, very good, yeah, and it's traded well. And you know what all he did was say look like I believe in these artists, I believe in this art, I believe in this project. You know it's freedom of speech, right. He disclosed his positions and all of this. He's been very transparent and you know, I think that's amazing. He just supported independent artists that can now make a living, they can pay their bills, they can feed their families, they can go on and do amazing things. Like we are literally the Renaissance of the, the 1500s or whenever it was. We are seeing another Renaissance for art right now. It's it's just incredible, seriously.
Speaker 1:And I've looked back at, like there, the the Renaissance period in art, like not studied it, but, like you know, like of course I've read about it, seen it like way in, like in books and movies and like things like that. I'm just like what a cool time, you know, like what a what a cool time that that was, like the vibe, like the level of energy and level of vibrance that it brought to a community, and it's like we get to experience that. Now it just looks different and I think part of the people, like people don't really realize what it is until it's gone. Like damn, like we just really live through that. You know what I mean Like, and it's cool to have the awareness of like this is it, like this, this is it. You know what I mean. Like we are, we are smack dab in the middle of it and we are figuring this thing out again and we are taking history, we're applying it to a new technology, we're applying it in a different way, but like it, it I don't know. It's just it's hard to like really argue that and it's hard to like Ignore it, I guess, is the right word, because one of the coolest things that I was able to do so.
Speaker 1:In my place of business there is we have we have a couple ERG groups and one of them is our, you know, is our women's network, where we, where we help women get into leadership positions or bring awareness or break, give them tools to do that.
Speaker 1:And I shared this because, you know, in my company I'm probably like one of three people out of a thousand person company that, like, knows what NFTs are, you know, much less cares about him.
Speaker 1:And I brought this up and I said in the group and this actually inspired One of the one of the women in tech where she was like you know, I've done these oil paintings, you know, when I have time, but right now I have a kid. But I but she actually pulled up her entire portfolio In the group chat, got all of this love from it and she's like I'd love to learn a little bit more about this. You know, and it was because I brought this world of women project up, you know, to the group, like, and it's like that Could be a spark. Yeah, she's probably making decent money in tech like you know tech like but she could probably work a lot less and do more what she loves doing by doing something like this. You know what I mean and what a cool Like, what a cool thing that I like I didn't expect that to happen, yeah, and female representation.
Speaker 2:Crypto has been very small, like.
Speaker 2:I think it's maybe 10, 15%, if I were to guess like very, very small. It's traditionally been a very, you know, male dominated Industry, but we're seeing that it's like real. A lot of Women are being brought into this industry through NFTs, a lot of artists, and it's awesome, like it absolutely is awesome. You know we didn't see the first run, but we are really seeing it now and, yeah, anyways, projects like this, I just think you know, are great. I'm glad Gary is supported. It's probably changed the, the, the livelihood of the team that put that together. Their families are, you know, forever changed in a great way. So I'm I'm very proud of what, what the space has done.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I mean, and when you look at more, like we're calling it like this digital Renaissance again, but like I feel like, if you look at this from a bigger picture, like how society has evolved from the first Renaissance, you know, and even just even rewind it just a generation or two. You know, our like, my parents, like had to Find a job that paid the bills. It may not been what they love to do, but it, but it paid the bills. It did. Well, we got to go on vacations, we got to do these things like, but it what it had.
Speaker 1:It, you know, in my mother probably is a little bit less of an example this, but the amount of hours that she had to put in was Ludicrous. Like she worked in the oil industry and so she was putting in 50, 60 hour weeks like a, like a mad woman. She did really well, but for the amount of effort that she put in was absurd. We are, we are living through a generation where Now you can actually match what makes you happy and what makes you money Together. You know, it's not that it hasn't been done in the past, you know, but it's been reserved for the exclusive 1% who, like, are willing to go through a lot of shit and a lot of discomfort and a lot of like Unknown, yeah, but now it's like democratizing that in a way.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, it's never been a market for it, right like right how many? Are as just people are like. Unless you're that 1% of Artists or even less that may like really make money out of it, there is no market for what you do. That's historically in the case, like unless you go through an auction house, it's gonna take 30% of 40% of your fees. There is no market for what you do.
Speaker 1:And you know resell value on it. Sorry, and you get no. You get no resell value exactly. You don't even know what happens.
Speaker 2:Like a crypto, I can see every single wallet that's ever owned, every single NFT. That level of transparency like when I it's it Regulators kill me. Because I think that if good regulation comes through in the next 12 months, there will be a million jobs created in in the corresponding year in this industry and I think it'll be a huge entrepreneurial renaissance. People Will will that the industry will explode, people will hire. There will be a tons of companies that are building on top of these crypto networks. Like we're talking about an entirely new economic model.
Speaker 2:And like it pains me to see someone like Elizabeth Warren, who is a progressive person, who's like fighting for the little guy and all the you know, big Wall Street, all stuff. She doesn't get it. Either she's, yeah, academically dishonest. She either is getting paid To act out against crypto or she just is so ignorant doesn't understand it. Like those are the three options. Give me other options, because I don't see them. Because if she truly understood this industry, I Was able to buy a house this year because of crypto. If I didn't have crypto, I don't know what I would do. Like am I gonna work in a garage, like as a mechanic? Like that's just not my thing.
Speaker 2:I like to me. I was built for the internet and so, anyways, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's million jobs.
Speaker 2:I, if you're here with Elizabeth Warren, if you're listening to this, I need you to rethink your mindset, okay.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you know what.
Speaker 2:I'm a warren fans.
Speaker 1:I was, you was and I'm like US politician.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how bad it is, bro. That's literally how frustrating it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, no, 100%. And I would imagine if it's, if it's the, the, the, I guess, the, the ignorance on it, if it's like just the, the refusal to accept. You know, a lot of times with humans, just like with anything, we don't understand, we tend to fear it, and we see one bad experience and we blow it up to make it out to be like everyone's, like this kind of like what I did with the middleman analogy, you know, I mean, they're not everyone who's did that is is all bad, there are some bad apples. But the way I said it was like oh, now we get to, you know, fuck the middleman. You know we get, get rid of them. You know what I mean, but it's, it's the same argument, you know. But people, because they don't understand it, they'll find one bad argument, like it's bad for the environment, you know. Or like the the whole. You know what I mean, like what?
Speaker 2:you're doing little argument, by the way, it is it?
Speaker 1:is, it is, you know, but I, but what the it's, it's the and you know, but they don't see the improvements that this community is trying to make to fix that. Yes, like I feel it. That's, it's like okay, but Did you, did you read the rest of the story? You know, not saying that's not a valid argument is completely valid. But, like, did you read the whole story? Are you active? Are you watching? And most people aren't.
Speaker 2:Well, we live on our earth with finite resources, right, so we can't have a carbon-based economy forever. It's never gonna work. You need to build a massive digital economy so that you can limit the carbon usage but you can still have economic prosperity. And watching enables us to do that and scale that out right, like this day of like having net 30, net 60, net 90 payments and like humans with excel sheets moving things and we call enough your bank and being like hey, like I need you to move money from this one.
Speaker 2:It's never like, that's old world stuff, that's never coming. We are not going back to that. It in the future, machines and algorithms are gonna call smart contracts Hundreds of times a second to request payments that are literally thousands of a penny for you watching a youtube video. Like that is coming, that reality is coming and you know, no Regulation that they're proposing right now in the current infrastructure bill is ready for that. They don't understand what is happening. Um, anyways, I digress, but you know it's crazy so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. So something that, like you would mention you you just mentioned it, you also mentioned it in in in our dms a little earlier when it comes to like regulation, like what is what is right? Regulation, like in your words and you're in your world and your view, like what is that? What does that mean? You know, like, how do you even propose that? Like how, like what is like? Because that that's something I don't, I honestly know nothing about. So I'm just like it's more of a curiosity thing for me to learn.
Speaker 2:And a full transparency. I'm not a lawyer or regulator, but what I would say, is not financial advice. Yeah that maximizes freedom and economic opportunity and minimizes potentials for scams and investors getting hurt. So, whatever framework, those are the two goals. If Gary Gensler came out at the sec or the cftc or whatever and said we're going to create a new financial regulatory system for crypto and our two objectives are to maximize economic activity within this ecosystem and minimize Stams to investors and that's all he said, I would be that's amazing, right, you know?
Speaker 2:and maybe stams and I'll add on, like things like money laundering and terrorist financing which honestly, is a tiny percent of what Crypto is today, of the market size, versus what everyone thinks it is, and, let's be real, the largest money launders in history. Or HSBC. Okay, so let's let's call a spade a spade, you know the largest system of you know using for for buying drugs and stuff is called the US dollar. There's one node and like a 27 trillion supply and it's concentrated in like 0.01 of all wallets.
Speaker 1:I was literally about to interrupt you and say that, yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah, what's? It's true, though, like it's, like it's, it's like sure, I'm sure people use it for money laundering, I'm sure people use it for like really shitty activities, but but it's like you're acting like that didn't happen before this. That's like the way the way the story is being told is like this is just never happened before this bitcoiners invented money laundering apparently, which is not true, by the way.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's not, it's it's. It's an evolution of a shitty, of a shitty behavior. It's an evolution of a shitty thing that was shitty to begin with but I want regulation like this.
Speaker 2:Bitcoin is going up right now, it seems as positive to regulators saying we're gonna regulate the space and do something with it and like something at this point is better than what we had been in for the last six years, which is a gray zone.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I am I I vote this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess, like from my thing is like you know, how do, like it's like cool, like we have this idea, like we want regulation, like how do we actually prevent scams from happening? Or, when scams do happen, how do we link wallets to people or like is that a thing you know? Because that's part of what makes crypto cryptos, that you don't have to like Attach yourself to a wallet. So what does that even mean? You know, like that's, that's where I come into, like I'm before that, I'm just like, but where does that happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tough because you get into like two issues. So issue number one as soon as you link identities to wallets, you have this issue around, like social engineering attacks, where people then can find your identity, find your wallet, figure you out, you know, figure out how to get to your coin base, etc.
Speaker 2:So that's the first issue. Uh, the second issue is I mean, to do that at scale is just really difficult. Like they say they want to do it in this bill. Uh, for instance, there's a line in the infrastructure bill that says if you're a transmitter of cryptocurrency, you have to find the identity of these people. What they don't realize is a, technically, an ethereum miner that mines a block is transmitting cryptocurrency. They're enabling that exchange, but they've written this piece of regulation thinking that, like this is a centralized broker dealer doing this. They don't understand that like, for instance, a smart contract on d5 that is doing these things no, no one runs that. That's literally like completely decentralized.
Speaker 2:So I don't know the right answer there. Um, I don't sure if you think the identity problem should be An on-chain thing, like I think there's some solutions that are being generated there. Um, you know, maybe this is a better way of putting it. Like you know, my identity can be anonymous to the world. Uh, what I'm doing on chain, but maybe to the irs or the in can of the cra, I do declare that this is my wallet. They read my wallet. They should be able to figure out my tax stuff.
Speaker 2:It's all right there. They can see it. Um, so I think that is a good solution where yourself like Identifying yourself that way. I know crypto people are gonna hate that, but at the end of the day, if we want this to be a sustainable big industry, we have to do something, like you know we can't not pay taxes and stuff like that. I don't, I don't believe in that whatsoever.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's kind of what I was getting at is like there's a whole culture in the whole like thing that's been built up Like around, like what's made bitcoin kind of, or, like you know, cryptocurrency kind of, thrive in general. You know it's the, it's the, you know the, the minimal, like it's the gray area, like what makes it shitty is also kind of what makes it like cool, like you know, yeah, yeah, and it's it's, it's, it's it's new and there's nothing around it. So people can kind of do what they want and do as they please, and that's. There's a part of that, you know, especially being, uh, you know, like on the other side of drug addiction. Like you know, half of the battle or half of the thrill of doing, you know, of doing things that are illegal, is the fact that it's illegal or the fact that you're doing something that isn't quite like. You don't know whether it's right I mean right or wrong, you know. You know if you get caught with it, it could be really bad, but you're not, so you keep doing it.
Speaker 2:Um, so and I'm part of that ethos Sorry, uh like maybe yeah, yeah. Those is like it's a response to regulators being Silly, like maybe it's a response to regulators being mean. You know that are the regulators like. People fear the IRS. They and I get it's the tax ban.
Speaker 2:But if the IRS said, hey look, we're. We want to work with the crypto industry to find like a win-win here, like I feel like most majority people in crypto would be like all right, I'm willing to work with you, right, I'm willing to find out what's fair, to pay my fair share Lairly 95 of crypto would be a behind that. I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah 100 because?
Speaker 2:because they're being idiots no, sorry, I shouldn't say that, because they're being Maybe a bit non-understanding or they're they're kind of flexing the muscles a little bit. It's like you know. You know it's hard to find that middle ground.
Speaker 1:It is, it is. But you know, I think, like with a lot of things, that like there's so much momentum that I don't think it's ever just gonna die. You know what I mean, like it's we're gonna. We're gonna come to like some sort of an agreement, but there's gonna be a lot of push and shove in both directions. Um, but it's the mark you can also.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying, man. That's what makes it great. It may take forever to get to a decision, but it usually is the right decision, or you know, the quote-unquote right decision for the majority they were gonna tax email in 2000s, early 2000s, with an email tax.
Speaker 2:So you send a certain amount of emails you have to, I don't even know that you don't know.
Speaker 2:So if you google email tax, they were gonna pass a bill on this. And people just said, look, this is ridiculous. Like can you imagine that the amount of business, economic activity and like Just collaboration that happens over email, like, and they were then gonna tax all that, like they would have stifled the economy? And so I still think the same things gonna happen. There's very smart people in the government that are looking at crypto and that are huge fans. They just can't publicly necessarily speak out all the time. There's some, some congressmen that are very no and congresswomen that know what they're doing. They're very intelligent and they own crypto themselves. Some of them own crypto. And so, um, hester Pierce at the sec, she is constantly standing up and saying I don't agree with this sec policy, I don't agree with this Um, you know ruling against this crypto company. You know we have those people. We just got to get the others paying attention because, look, we want to create a million jobs next year. We need them on our side, so call your congressman, your, your prime minister in Canada?
Speaker 2:Whoever it is, let them know what is.
Speaker 1:What what's really interesting, though, is so you look at Again, like there, a lot of this is like changing the way things are, and I'm on a macro level, you know on a large scale, and I'm really for that. The area that I am curious about it, I'm fascinated with, is that, like, kind of like when coal mining became irrelevant. You know what I mean. Like what happens when you know all, yet we create these million jobs and we create, we create this in crypto, we create a lot. A lot of people get to find their passion. Like people like me, like this is a cool time to be alive for someone like me, like cuz, I was always subtly depressed. It like there was nothing like this. You know, as I was making my way in my career and I'm like, then this happened. I'm like, oh my god, this is cool.
Speaker 1:But what happens to people who don't Want to understand technology, who don't or maybe aren't as keen about it, like to learn about it? Like what jobs go away. What do these people do? I mean, I guess they adapt. You know what I mean. Like you, it's kind of like the way things are when people change. You have things change, you have to adapt, or you know, kind of be left behind. But I just I'm very curious about how that's going to play out, like if this happens and this goes through. I think I'm personally for it. But on a broader scale, like, what are the? What's the reaction gonna be from people, like when they have to change Something that's been so rooted as a part of their life? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I talked at a CFA, ontario, which is chartered financial accounts, and I told them that and this was a year ago I said that in 12 months, you'll see companies starting to add this to their balance sheets. This is going to happen and you need to start paying attention to this.
Speaker 2:And sure enough, tesla, galaxy, digital, all these companies square, they all have added it, micro strategy and number of other private ones, and more will be announced. I guarantee it. Sure, you know, I don't think this disrupts jobs in the way people think, or people get left behind. Okay, and there's one thing I've learned about this industry is people are so willing to reach out to people and help them understand, give their time and, like, bring people in. This is a a community that is incentivized, both because they're passionate, but also financially to have as many people included in this system as possible. So financial inclusion and crypto is light years at a financial inclusion In the legacy financial system. So, to your comment, I would even ask you know, hey, wall Street, or the legacy system, what are you doing to include the other four billion people in the world that don't have financial services? Like let's?
Speaker 2:get let's get real for a second. There's large swaths of the world that either they don't church trust their financial institutions, they don't trust their, their central bank, but yet they can download a wallet on their phone. Everyone has a phone in the internet connection and they can access the same financial ecosystem that a high frequency trader on Wall Street Is who is playing around with crypto stuff. We've never seen that in history. So I am fervently believe that, like this community will help people, it will. It's brought a lot of prosperity to people that didn't have access to these things. So you know, I just think the legacy system was much worse in financial inclusion than crypto is.
Speaker 1:I can get behind that hundred percent. I I just like to ask these because, like it's, it's, it's the argument that people bring up. You know it's, it's the argument that people like it, it's and it's a fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a massive change the way we do things and it's like and I think part of it as well is going back to like our you know, our parents generation. Is this idea around work and what it actually means? And it's like you work to your 60 or 50, then you retire, you know, and then you kind of just like like, waited out. I know, for me that's not something that is really appealing to me. Like I, what if I'm doing what I love? I want to work for as long as I can, you know because if I add something sorry yeah, I'm not sure, I'm sure, all right.
Speaker 2:so let's think about this first side. If you wanted to work in the financial sector and you come from a Marginalized community in the United States maybe you didn't go to a great college or university and you want to go work in that sector what are your chances of getting into that sector?
Speaker 2:Very, very little, very few opportunities, and the reason is these are large, centralized Institutions, that their incentive is to hire people from top universities. Hey, my dad knows your dad that kind of right System, right, if you look at the crypto world. You don't have companies, you have a network and a network. You don't need to ask anyone or apply or try and like the network, doesn't care what. Where you come from social-economical, economic, I you know the color of your skin or where you're from geographically.
Speaker 2:It's the internet. So you know, my thing is like I think it again will create more opportunity for people that didn't have access to go work at Goldman Sachs. They can now go work in this ecosystem and, whether they work for a company or they work for themselves by Providing value to someone else, who then someone else pays them from another part of the world, like I think that's inclusion in my opinion, because you're not going to a company, you're going to work on top of the network, and there's a very big distinction there.
Speaker 1:I like that. No, I like that, and where I was going with it is that there's a mindset around, like you know, just having enough to like Be okay. You know what I mean. Like that's like you know there were it's, it's a mentality and I grew up with it, like you know. It's like you know you need to save this amount. You need to live like like not frugally but, like you know, really be like disciplined about a lot of these things and like you, just because there's not, basically it was like there's like this underlying tone of like, making this top level of money, making this like insane amount of money, is not really that possible Like, that's at least the way it was communicated to me.
Speaker 1:Whereas just like, get a job that pays like a hundred thousand a year. You know what I mean. Like, if you can get to that point. You know, invest in some stocks. Do this be pretty typical? Be pretty like. You know like, just Be like pretty real list. You know realistic about it.
Speaker 1:That was the word that would. That was used because it's like, but that argument or that statement, or the way that was transmitted to me at least, was like, basically just tell me like, yeah, those like people that make a lot of money on business or they they're a movie star or they're an actor or they're a Content creator. If that's not really not that possible, you don't really want to take a bet on that, you don't really want to like get involved in that, because it's just not really a thing. You know. It's almost like it was recognized as like not realistic or not reality. But I think that now that there is this democratization, like to your point, like this inclusivity, and this democratization of money-making, money making opportunity through things that actually make people happy, I Think it changes the game.
Speaker 2:Here's another thought on this. How many people do you think out of a hundred know what a central bank is Like, truly understand what a central bank does?
Speaker 1:like understand what it does or know what it is.
Speaker 2:People probably have heard it in headlines and stuff like that but it knows what it does.
Speaker 1:Oh, probably, maybe one or two.
Speaker 2:One or two, I would say it's. It's almost like, yeah, probably one or less than one. Yeah, you look at it over at scale. I'm one of those.
Speaker 1:I'm one of those like I like. I'm the one of the people who don't know, like I don't know how the central like. So that's like I'm part of that.
Speaker 2:99 right how much was housing up last year in the United States Because in Canada was up. The average index for housing was up 25%. Last year, during the greatest economic crisis and complete lockdowns I we've ever had, what was housing like in the US?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know, let me, let me probably is probably up crazy.
Speaker 2:I do know that in the states those are crazy. What my point is is, like people don't understand what a site what if Central bank does and that it create is the money creator, essentially.
Speaker 1:In about 2.5 trillion in value the.
Speaker 2:How much was it up over? Like 2018, 2019, 20 in 2020? I don't.
Speaker 1:Know, but it just like the, the highlighter, like the, it says the housing market gains more value in 2020 than in year since 2005.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the thing. I don't know the exact number in Canada it's 25% and that's the average. And if you were to ask someone, hey, like, how much did your wage go up over the last year? Well, it definitely didn't go up. 25%, I can guarantee you that.
Speaker 2:Right so we're having this dynamic where things are getting more expensive, housing's getting more expensive, oil is like 80 70 bucks a barrel and it keeps going up. You have just consumer goods. If you went to a grocery store and at least I'm recognizing this where I'm starting to buy things, I look at my thing. I'm like I didn't buy any meat or steak and my bill is like $40 for just vegetables. Right, but the cost of living is going up and People's wages aren't growing at the same rate. It's. You have this dynamic where money is being issued into the system to kind of plug the hole from COVID, which is, I think, great. I'm glad they've, they've made sure that people have checks, like in Canada, for instance. Yeah, back in February 2020, when COVID's first hit, every Canadian who was laid off had $2,000 bi-weekly deposits into their bank account. Yeah, yeah, okay, like you in the state for having like issues. The systems like maybe oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Someone wanted to sign the checks. Boom in Canada. Our social systems were ready to go and, like boom, people had checks. They didn't worry about putting food on the table.
Speaker 2:The problem when a bank or the central bank Creates that money or the government spends it, the central bank has to create it to plug that hole. Is it Causes the price of assets to go up? Interest rates are pinned at zero and so very few people understand the effect a central bank has on their life. But right now inflation is not 2%. I can guarantee you that inflation is probably 15% In the United States, but it's kind of hidden like it's hidden in yeah, yeah, they don't look at statistically so and housing being a big one of those, that's probably the largest cost center. So you know, my point here is is like in that environment, you have very few opportunities to kind of insulate yourself from it. Right, and unless you have stocks, real estate assets, it's very difficult to you know where. You have the single Bitcoin which came along and said, hey, we have a fixed monetary supply where guaranteed scarce digital asset. It's almost like in the way your iPhone or the apps in your phone delivered value to it.
Speaker 2:Bitcoin is giving you a application that you can, kind of you know, head yourself against that system and you know this is kind of why Bitcoin went on a big run from 10k to 60k was this idea that central banks around the world are printing money and we need a way to protect our wealth, and you know that's why the stock market's hitting all-time highs. All these things are happening, but I think what I want people to do is just Google central bank, understand how they work, because more this time now, more than any time in history, it affects how we live and how we can afford to live. Our parents right. Next idea with it they dealt with high interest rates. So my parents is first mortgage I think was like 15% on their mortgage, so you know like it's, but then they had bonds that were yielding 8%.
Speaker 2:Right, like they could put money in bonds and get a return. But bonds and GICs now are yielding zero and and that's a hard environment to save in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is. So I mean, no, I, I enjoy that, so wanted to. I want to like Bring it full circle almost, because we've gone into like a few different directions. No, no, no, that's that's the whole point. Like that's my favorite. That's that's why I do this. Is I like no script, I like no planning, I like just having a conversation and going in like a million different directions. But I want to bring two things that we chatted about together. Is you know, going circling back to crypto punks in the very beginning, and I want to talk about some of the DeFi aspects in the Fractualization. Do you know so, like? So I actually I technically don't own a punk, but I own, like point zero, zero, zero, one of of the hoodie, of the of the hoodie punk, and so that actually I invested 20 bucks and now that's worth like $50.
Speaker 2:You know what platform Did you do that on?
Speaker 1:fractional art.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I like it. Yeah that's a new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So If you follow DZ on Twitter, he's actually I don't know if he's the creator of this, but he, I think he's one of them. I don't, I don't know enough to confidently say that, but he's the one who's always active in chat, putting the rooms together, knows a lot about this, he's, he plays an important part in it. That's what I do now, yeah, and and now I like so Fractionalization, you know. So my understanding and this could be completely off, like so just, but I saw this.
Speaker 1:I'm like cool, this gives me what I saw as a consumer, as someone who's Not green but light green, you know, to the community. I'm like I get to have a steak in punks. Like I get to, I get to be a part of this community, even if it's like like I literally have point zero, one, zero, four percent ownership in a hood in the in the punk and punk 7171, hoodie, hoodie with a pipe. Now, with that fractional, like when it now, when I bought into that, there's a there's almost like a buyout price, when they, when they decide to fractionalize it and basically like, once the buyout is complete, then people who bought into the fraction get a percentage back, if I understand that correctly. I don't know if that's right, but it was a small enough investment that I'm like you know what, I'm just gonna do this and figure it out as I go along.
Speaker 1:So, fractional art like what is this like? Now that I've invested in it, you know? Like, what is this kind of? How does this work? Like, what is like? Is this like an evolution? Like, because this seems like punks are like driving the way for new innovation. Because, like this is the only we're one of the few real NFT assets that seems like it could pull this off. So I just want to get your take on, like when punks are taking this and like what is the drive behind this and what value is this going to create?
Speaker 2:Yes, so a little context. A crypto punks. The floor price is a hundred and twenty thousand US dollars right now, so very people can invest in that. It's not approachable and I've actually seen this Twitter room where everyone, like there was like five or no, it's probably like ten people that had the hoodie with the pipe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, d, I was one of them, yeah these.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm like dude, this is fractionalized thing. It's like creating these communities, these clans, within punks of they're all using the same profile pitch. I think that's amazing. That's so cool. So there's a few platforms are doing this. Zora just announced a, just saw it protocol or they're a protocol, but they just announced a punk related fractionalization Tool. I've like looked at it for like 30 seconds Apparently it's like, kind of like a party where you, you know, I'll get in and buy this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can see everyone's like where their mouse is. You can see all the people and the investments that people slash like NASDAQ is.
Speaker 2:It's actually really cool, it's, it's fun. I know about fractional for a while and I I love it, this aspect of it. There's also one called NFTX.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm at.
Speaker 2:X is like an index. So essentially people are taking crypto punks, they're putting it in this vault and so there's a hundred and fifty punks or a hundred and thirty three punks in this vault and you can actually buy a Know a part of that Index. Let's say it's kind of like an ETF and the liquidity it sits on top of the sushi swap. So sushi has a you know a pairing with the punk, I guess NFTX vault and that's how you trade it. You know I full transparency. I've never done fractionalized punks. I've also never put my pump in, because if you put it in you lose the capacity of the individual pump.
Speaker 2:You can redeem back a that pump, but if someone else goes in and redeems it themselves, then they get it. So it's a great thing for investing, like if you want to buy a floor punk, you don't necessarily care individually about it, you can just put it in as an asset. And last I saw it was like 45% APY, so it's like pretty, pretty good. That's like really good yield.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so like I. Just I look at this and I'm like okay, now that I see it going up in value, you know what do I do with this? You know, like, like, like, do I liquidate it? Do I just wait till it keeps going? Do I trade it for a theory? I'm, do I? You know what I mean? So, and that's, I guess that's the point, and my thing is it's I don't understand how yields work in traditional finance. So now that I'm in this world, I'm like this is a great way for me to understand it, because it actually is fun like it. It seems a little bit easier to understand. So that's, I guess, where I'm coming from is like, now that I own it, it's like okay, now, what do I? What does that mean? You know, like, what do I get to? Do I get voting powers? Do I get rights? Do I like what is it? That's just what my whole thing is like. What does this even mean?
Speaker 2:you know, I think you should change your profile picture to it. If you own like a little bit of these, you do that and do hashtag new profile and explain what you've done. This is a tweet that you should do literally tomorrow. I will retweet it. Do hashtag new profile pic. Say hey, you own $50 or 0.00 or whatever percentage of this punk and tag these. Tag me in it like whatever, will retweet it and we'll get you a bunch of Crypto punk followers.
Speaker 1:That's what you do Hell yeah, man.
Speaker 2:No, this is here's the investment utility, right. So like you're buying something for its likeness, right? It is part of this massive community and an easy way for you to get additional social media following and all those stuff is just $50 here and be part of that, and right. We've always seen investments that are like you know before dogecoin and the meme coin idea like that, yeah, so this is all pretty new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, it's cool man and like I've I've explored with like changing it not on like public profiles, but I'm like like on my discord, like I'm not in discord but like I have a gilded server and so I changed on gilded and it felt pretty cool, but I'm just like. That was just yeah. I mean, I saw it, I randomly saw it like because I feel like my attention span with how many new projects I just get overwhelmed because I it feels like I see a new one every like five minutes so hard on Twitter. It's it's it's unbelievable, like it's hard to like like live your actual life and stay up to date with everything that's happening here. It's unbelievable. But I just thought that was a cool opportunity. I'm like you know what? It's a small investment, like I don't need to like go invest like even a hundred dollars. You know I didn't have a hundred dollars to invest at the time. I was like I have 20, you know, so can I, can I do that?
Speaker 2:Let's do some data people. So, if I go all time on crypto slam, crypto punks have transacted 600 million dollars, which is a little different from the Larva site. Larva site, I think it's 800 million. Mm-hmm, let's try. Yeah, 804 million, almost a billion, it's not even out of billion.
Speaker 2:So, like, what's interesting about punks is like, if you own one punk, you own 0.01% of the supply, right, yeah, just by owning one pump, one of ten thousand on a asset that you know, if you were to go 0.01% of like some of these top projects on coin market cap, like you would have to pay millions of dollars to get that kind of Allocation from punks. You spend a hundred K and you have that allocation. So it's yeah, there's a lot of value, I think, in punks that aren't recognized by the rest of the community just yet. I think it's just because they're very liquid. Like you know, it's hard to buy them. It's hard to, but now that we're seeing D5 come after this, I think it's just gonna fuel like a really big boom here. So I'm like hyper bullish still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, I have to because I'm like this is, this is a. It literally eliminates the barrier to entry, because I could have put in five dollars and still been a part of this community.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know what I mean and and I think that's just the coolest thing is that, like and I think I answer my own question is that, like you, it buys you the Opportunity you, like you, it's a social currency. Like it doesn't matter, like really, what I do with it, but Just by investing in it and doing this and showing, showing that I did it, it makes me a part of that community which can yield other opportunities in the future.
Speaker 2:Yes, and like this is like bleeding edge stuff, like we're talking. The most cutting edge stuff on the internet right now is ANFTs, but also like things like fractionalized punks and stuff like and that aspect with marketing, and like Brand awareness and branding like all very, very new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, man, so it's. It's exciting to see you know. One question I had, like, as we like wrap things up here, man, like is you know we have crypto punks? Is like the the headline, you know it's like it is like the project. It was one of the. It was, it was the innovator I'm not the innovator, but like it was one of the first of its kind. Where do you see yeah, now there's like a gazillion profile picture. You know projects that are starting up. You know 10, thought limited 10,000. You know all these different cool types of artwork. Where do you really see like NFTs going next, like you know? Do you see Crypto punks evolving to something different? If so, like what is that? Or like what do you think is like the next move for the market?
Speaker 2:So there, if you look at crypto punks, there's 2,600 holders. If you look at board a yacht club, it's about 3,500. Me bits 8,000, you name it. You go to these top projects and if you look at the TAM or the total address on market of wallets that own these things, we're talking like a handful of the internet, very small, like less than a handful. It's like maybe 10,000, 15,000 people. So the market size is is tiny. However, the awareness of NFTs, whether it be in popular media, on LinkedIn, like even people you never thought would be crypto people know about it is massive Like. So there's this massive disconnect.
Speaker 2:So I think kind of the next wave. The first wave was large projects. Second wave is like all right, market places are built. The third wave is really about okay, what kind of experiences can we create with these things? I'm working on a few of these projects. I just became CEO of a company called mint dot la, so my NT dot la and we're building essentially a lazy comm competitor which is a visualizer for your NFTs and we have a tool, kind of prong system, so you either connecting a wallet or you just have a login and so you know you might have large parts of the internet that want to interact with your NFTs. I think gaming is the really natural way to do this and then for NFT owners, you might put your, your your NFT on this on the system you know, spin up a game with it. Let's say it's something like really simple.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say it is, because I'm like actually trying to build this so but it's very simple internet game, but it's using the NFT and then you, as the NFT owner, say hey, go use this link, you can play my game with it, and I just think there's a lot of like really interesting things there. So I think the next big wave is like people that don't have NFTs are using the int IP, or you playing experiences are using experiences of people that do have them. The point is like what I did taking a crypto punk to the Olympics. You know I said Curtis.
Speaker 2:Here's my NFT use it to me. There's a lot of great parts of doing that. Like Curtis called me, every day at the Olympics, he sent me videos of you know KD people singing happy birthday Ken Durant, like in the tunnel and like it brought both our worlds together. So, yeah, I think the next big thing is like alright, what kind of experiences can we create and how can we allow millions of people that understand what NFTs and crypto are to the very few that own these assets and kind of bridge that? So I Don't know if that's the I like sure you're looking for, but that's what I got.
Speaker 1:No, there was no answer I was looking for because I didn't really have one.
Speaker 1:You know, like I, like I just it's, it's hard for me, like I'm in that phase where it's hard for me to like zoom out a little bit like cuz, like I'm so In this like learning mode, and then I just have to step out, I'm like, okay, what's actually happening?
Speaker 1:You know, like stepping out of my own experience, stepping out of the FOMO, stepping out of like Okay, like breathe, like don't look at the internet, don't look at open sea for like an hour, like what's actually happening right now and what is the next step? And so I know I that's the reason why I asked is because I haven't really lived through an era where something has been this exciting to me. I know the last thing that really was kind of like this was the adoption of the internet, like web 2.0, but I wasn't really old enough to comprehend or understand, like what People were saying, what that actually meant, what was actually happening right in front of me. And so I guess, just like that's like where I lean into people who have been through things like that and that understand the history behind this and how this isn't any different.
Speaker 2:That's who I'm relying on you know, the financialization of of digital media on the internet is gonna be profound and we are like literally four months into that process or six months into that process.
Speaker 1:So what a time to be alive man financialization of the internet.
Speaker 2:Let's go.
Speaker 1:I love it, dude. I love it. Well, josh, man, it's been an absolute treat to have you on. I think we need to do another one of these, I'm sure, in the future, because I'm sure a month down the road there will be like 18 new things to talk about in this space anytime. Yeah, man, and any anything. So I'd like to like you, because a lot of my audience Are is is not for at least my assumption. You know, I don't. I don't fully know. A lot of my audience probably doesn't fully understand. You know crypto, nfts, or like at least that you know to the level that that you do or that I do. If you had to give any sort of advice to someone who's just like just not financial advice, but just like coming into the scene to like understand, like what we're at here and like what we're doing, like what would you? Where would you point them like? Where would like, what direction would you even point them in? To start, Two things.
Speaker 2:So, information wise, I think the best podcast on the internet other than yours, of course, kyle is the pop Podcasts by Anthony Pompilio. Anthony Pompilio maybe can link it pop podcast. I've learned so much through Uh Pomp there. He's amazing. It's so my great people on there. I think that's information. He's like a really Bitcoin focused guy but he brings on a lot of people. That's really good perspective. Uh, you know, I think if you're new here, you know, don't feel like you have to spend a lot of money here. Like I think everyone should own 50 hundred dollars. Like, go to cash app and download it, go buy a little bit of Bitcoin, a little bit of Ethereum, a little bit doge, if you want, like.
Speaker 2:But don't buy it as an investment, buy it to be part of a movement that's happening and Learn, get involved, go you know, mike Novelgrass is an ever egg from Galaxy Digital is another really great voice in the space and Just see what's happening and I just think it's cool to be part of a movement that, like, is disrupting things. And so, yeah, go get a metamask account, send your ether from the where you buy it, your coinbase account. Go send it to your metamask account and just get good at that skill, because that is a skill set. So oh it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'd recommend. Definitely go buy an NFT, but, you know, spend point zero, one ether or less on it. Go find a way to maybe get a free NFT. There's plenty of ways now to get free NFTs. So don't spend a lot of money but do experiment, because I think long term that is a good thing for the future.
Speaker 1:I Think you hit it like the nail on the head is like it's it's a lot of it's.
Speaker 1:The mindset towards this, which is the one I've had, is like I go in investing something that I'm prepared to lose, like I would like it doesn't matter, like whether I have it or not, but like to me, like in order to I can read about this and listen to all the podcasts I want you know, and but until I actually experience it as a user, I don't have any perspective. Like I have no unique perspective. I just have the jumbled perspectives of people that I enjoy to follow, but I have no, I have no Like foundation behind anything that I say, and that was like the difference between me in March versus me now Is that like I was like really excited about it, but I was still very reluctant to invest in it. I'm like I still don't know. You know like it's exciting, but like there was like this barrier that I'm just like I can't do it go on Twitter and DM Crypto punk owners or board AP Ock Club owners and just be like hey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I use your profile picture for 30 days or something like that, and see what they say. Oh, I guarantee a lot of them will say yes, to say hey, I'm trying to learn, I want to be part of the community, and just they'll say, go, go for it, yeah, yeah man like my Twitter. Anyone DMs me and says, hey, I would love to use a crypto punk as my avatar. I will allow you to use one of my punks absolutely.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, man, I mean I'll put, I'm gonna, I do, I do transcribes of all this podcast. I'll, I'll link a lot of those things, link your socials, link everything in the in the show notes as well, that way that we can rock a roll man. But Josh, it's been a treat, we're gonna have to do this again, happy to make your Queens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely have a great night. Everyone Be safe.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Schiller vaulted podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. As we close out today's episode, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite audio platform and leave a five-star review to ensure you never miss an episode and to help others discover the vaulted podcast as well. To stay updated on upcoming episodes, as well as our weekly Twitter space schedule, be sure to follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Schiller XYZ. Once again, thank you for tuning in and remember if you're looking for it art is everywhere and it's up to us to appreciate and explore the emotions it brings to our lives. Until next time, this is Boona signing off.