57 – The NFT Episode | Insta goes Digital Collectibles, OpenSeas and the Royalties Debate, a Market Update plus all you need to know about NFT Fest Australia!!

Tracey: [00:00:20] Welcome to the Crypto Curious podcast designed to help you navigate the dynamic world of cryptocurrency. We're here for anyone who's interested in crypto at all. Maybe you've already dipped your toe in the water. Or maybe you don't know anything about it. And this is the very beginning. But we recommend heading back to the early episodes to get your footing. However, if you're ready to dive in headfirst, then let's do it. This week we're giving you a bumper extra episode to cover off all things NFT focussed. We've got a very special guest with us today. Welcome, Greg Oakford. Greg, thanks for coming on today.

Greg: [00:00:55] Thanks for having me. What a wild day it is as we record this. 

Tracey: [00:00:59] Yeah, there's been a lot that's happened in the market and some of that does spill over into NFT land. But before we start, sort of give a bit of background on Greg. How would you describe yourself? Greg, you've been around the tracks but you've been in the industry for a while and you've been The Godfather when it comes to NFTs and you've been involved in Blockchain Australia as well, and you're putting together NFT Fest Australia which is happening in a couple of weeks and we are going to get to that and talk about that in the show later on. But do you want to give yourself a bit of a pump up or tell the listeners a little bit about you? 

Greg: [00:01:34] Yeah, well, thank you for that fluttering intro Trace. I don't know if I've been called the NFT Godfather before, but I'm going to put that in a various Discord group chat later today and have shreds ripped off me by some friends. But look, ultimately, I think I landed in this sort of weird and wacky world of web3. You know, we're on this new frontier. You know, I've always been a curious person. I sort of got NFT red pilled in early 20, 21, sort of maybe the back end of 2020 when I, you know, I was a big basketball card's collector. And I know that you and I share interests in basketball, Trace. And, you know, really that one of the key unlocks for me was understanding blockchain and then understanding digital collectables. So it felt like my childhood reincarnated with collecting basketball cards, you know, from back in the day with upper deck and fleer and hoops and all these types of cards that I still have today. And I went, this is the next iteration of it, right? So that was a key unlock for me. And, you know, I think for, you know, having worked in the sports industry previously, I've actually quite enjoyed my corporate career to date. I'm not in a corporate career anymore. I've taken a really hard sort of turn and have decided to make a multi-year bet, if not multi-decade bet on, you know, the evolution of all things Web3 and NFTs for me is my wheelhouse. You know, you mentioned Blockchain Australia before I started doing a little bit of consulting work for them in March, April 20, 21, while I was actually on annual leave from my corporate job. And that was when I really fell down the rabbit hole of meeting a lot of characters of the Australian blockchain industry. But really at that time in March, April 2021, there wasn't a lot of NFT content. There was, you know, was mainly on traditional crypto and DEFI and sort of regulation and how that fits into the picture. And I was looking around and I went, I'm very interested in this space, but not being a traditional finance person, I mean, I definitely take an interest in it. I've always skewed on the marketing and culture side of things and then really NFT sort of around April, May, shortly after that, that Australian Blockchain Week in 2021 just hit me like a tsunami. It was when Board Apes launched. It was when Garry V's V Friends launched, it was when maybe it's launched by Larva Labs. It just yeah, like I said, it hit me like a tsunami. And I have not come up for air since. 

Tracey: [00:04:05] You can say you don't come out for air, but you kind of have to be involved in it all the time, don't you? If you're not on it, you miss stuff. Like if you're out even for a couple of days, you miss it. I think that's why I. 

Greg: [00:04:16] Now. 

Tracey: [00:04:16] Is hours. Yeah, you're right. 

Greg: [00:04:18] The pace is very, very intense. I think sometimes that can be a gift and a curse. I mean, you know, I'm sure we're going to get into a few different topics over this podcast, but even things like creator royalties that have been, you know, a hot a hot topic over the last couple of weeks, even a couple of months like that changes on a daily basis as well. So yeah, it's not for the faint of heart this space for sure.

Craig: [00:04:41] So, Greg, I have to ask, did you mint a border? 

Greg: [00:04:45] I didn't mean to border it, but I actually bought a border ape at 0.368. It was my first ever purchase for Opensea, which yeah, it was. So I tell this story some. Times that, you know, in hindsight, you know, people always say like, oh, you knew it was going to happen. You knew this, this and this. And it wasn't my first ever NFT. I bought I had minted some some V friends previously and I sort of got the bug I sold, you know, the metamask thing ticking over and, you know, transaction complete. And then I would go to Etherscan and I would look at all this detail and I didn't really know what all the detail was yet. I was still figuring it out. But honestly, I was I was looking on Opensea and I went, you know, we were in lockdown, COVID lockdown here in Melbourne. And yeah, I was a little bit bored and I thought bought a yacht club. What a funny, cool name. And actually I forgot I was going to the races that Saturday and I thought this would be funny if I buy this NFT, right? I'm going to tell everyone I signed up to a digital yacht club, right while I'm at the races, just so that yeah, I knew, I knew the response I would get. And the other reason I bought a board ape and this is sort of another unlock is to sort of my curiosity around NFTs and what I think the future of the Internet will be is the first ever perk you got as a board. Eight yacht club holder was to actually ride on the bathroom wall, right? So it was a collaborative thing, a digital piece of art where you could go, Yeah, and put pixels on this bathroom wall. And the only way you could do that was to hold a board, a yacht club, you know, token. So I went to the website, I logged on, I verified my wallet. Obviously they peek into your wallet, you're verified. I got to exercise that. And you know that when people talk about utility it is as small as that is. 

Tracey: [00:06:31] That was.

Greg: [00:06:31] Cool. That was one of the first ever unlocks for me of what an NFT was going to be. 

Tracey: [00:06:36] So where did you hear about it? Where did you actually hear about the board? 

Greg: [00:06:40] Yeah, I think I was looking on Twitter. I mean, I'm one of those people that have actually bought my real name and sort of web identity over to Web three, which again, can be a gift and a curse as well. I mean, I remember having sort of a lot of dialogue about that, what I would do, but I was working on crypto Twitter. I was still juggling my job at the time. So, you know, I think I had stumbled upon bored apes on Twitter, you know, at point three, six, like I said, I bought, you know, the floor was probably at point two when I bought. So I went slightly above the floor. I actually bought one that I really liked the look of. And, you know, and a lot of people actually don't do that. And unfortunately, I don't have that app anymore. I got I, I pretty much got shook out in June, you know, when the markets were tumbling in May and June, the story I gave is I rode the board a roller coaster all the way up. I wrote it, you know, in terms of all time highs, significantly back down again. But this is how crazy the crypto space is, isn't it? When I say, In what world can I paint your sob story? That 100 x was actually felt like a loss, right? So because that could have easily been 400, 500 X. But the journey I had, you know, there were a lot of other perks along the way. So, you know, it was a wild, wild ride. And to be honest, if things go to plan for me and, you know, it might be ten years, 20 years down the track from a sentimental standpoint and having that part of my life for nearly two years of 18 months, I will get my wife back. And I've said this publicly before and I will get it back. 

Tracey: [00:08:22] Oh, okay. There you go. Well, Craig, you might get your what's his name? 

Craig: [00:08:26] Your pudgy penguin. 

Tracey: [00:08:27] Your pudgy penguin. You know, and I. 

Greg: [00:08:29] Penguins have good meme value, not financial advice, of course.

Craig: [00:08:32] Yes. 

Tracey: [00:08:33] And none of this is financial advice, obviously. Well, that's a pretty good intro story to, you know, how you started out. Let's crack into our first story of what's made news in the last couple of weeks and get your take on it as well. Greg But Instagram and their digital collectables, this has been hot off the press in this week's news, but creators will soon be able to make their own digital collectables on Instagram. I don't know how this will work exactly. So this will be by the Polygon network, is that right, Craig?

Craig: [00:09:06] Yeah, so it's on Polygon. 

Tracey: [00:09:08] Yeah. And people will be out to support their own to buy it on their I don't know if they'll be able to sell on their as well, but apparently Meadow's saying that there'll be no fees. I don't know how that'll work with Polygon as well, but you'll be able to showcase these mentioned Solana and Fantom wallets as well. So I don't know exactly how that will work also, but they're saying that they're going to test just a small group of creators in the US to start, and I'm not sure when that testing is happening. I think they said over the next six months I was happy to see one of the news stories that one of those testers was Valerie, who is an artist that I really like, which is pretty cool. So I don't know the timelines around this, but I'm really, really keen to see how this one rolls out because this will reach a lot of people and I'm really keen to see if we'll have these plays available on there as well, because I'm happy to that somewhere I think that people can show. What they're doing, not just their NFTs, but where they're going and what they're doing. I think that's a pretty cool option for this type of thing as well. 

Craig: [00:10:05] Well, you don't have the option to buy and sell yet. You have the option to share it to your face. If you go to your home page on Instagram now the top right is like the three lines icon and then you click digital collectables and it has everything there. But one thing that I've noticed about it is that they haven't curated it. Like, I've got all these scammy annotations in there that are clearly just being edged up to my wallet to scare me to sell. So I feel like we are still very early on the iteration of this product release. 

Tracey: [00:10:38] Is in there now. 

Craig: [00:10:39] It's in there now.

Greg: [00:10:40] Yeah. So from my understanding, there's actually been sort of updates in the last month or so. The first one is what Craig was touching on is essentially displaying your NFT and having that part of, you know, the visual interface of Instagram. They are actually the more recent announcement about sort of buying and selling NFTs on Instagram, you know, native in the app. So I haven't personally done it yet. My overall take on it is, you know, similar to Trace. I'm very bullish on Web two platforms and platforms that infiltrate our lives on a daily basis, you know, essentially integrating digital collectables or NFTs, whatever you want to call them, because I do believe the world we're heading in and it just makes so much sense to me that, you know, we all we all have lived through the emergence of these social platforms. We all live our digital lives. We all showcase and curate. 

Tracey: [00:11:40] Online to Peacock. Peacock, don't we. We want to show our stuff.

Greg: [00:11:43] Yeah. Well you know it's, it's the way that, it's the way that we communicate really socially right on, on digital platforms. Now we can go into a whole different debate about, you know, with Instagram, for example, you know, are people just showing the best parts of their lives versus, you know, the real parts of their lives? That's probably not for this particular podcast. But I do think we're going to get to a world in the coming years where, you know, just like I can look you guys up on LinkedIn or find you on Twitter or Google you or, you know, whatever it might be, and get an understanding of who you are and what you care about. The next extension of that, to me naturally, is going to be what NFTs, what digital assets you hold and what you want to show. So to your point, Craig, it's not going to be everything like the scammy ones, like it's going to be to me more of a curated feed. So, you know, it might be my moon, but it might be my ticket to the AFL grand final in 2019. It might be a music NFT of an upcoming band that I've discovered, and there's only one of 100 of these, you know, and music and NFTs all these albums. Yeah. And you, you are going to start to meet people and sort of communicate through the NFTs that you have. So I'm incredibly bullish on things like this Instagram rollout. Like a lot of people will look at it and say, oh, well, it doesn't quite work yet. And you know, it's a bit hard to use and all that type of stuff. And I'm more patient than that because I feel like being a student of the Internet and being in a sweet spot of remembering what the world was like as a kid just before the Internet, but then also remembering when the Internet came along. Right. And what the Internet was initially was just a newspaper, really. I mean, is this a read only type of thing? Yeah. You know, I would go on to NBA.com and it was like, okay, well, I'm sort of like reading a news story about basketball here. Who would have thought that we would be recording a podcast? We didn't even know what the word podcast was then like in the mid nineties we'd be dating and you know, we'd be doing all these things, booking tickets and airline tickets and movies and, you know, watching live TV on our, on our phones. Like, in my mind, we just have to be a little bit more patient with all this stuff, right? But because we're living through it at the moment and web one and web two haven't gone away, like you talk about people having to build in public and you know, there's a lot of scrutiny of citations. 

Tracey: [00:14:02] Yeah. 

Greg: [00:14:03] The builders in the nineties in the early 2000s really just had the traditional media to be accountable for now, you know, there's a spotlight on everyone in every nook and cranny.

Tracey: [00:14:14] I think, like you said there, I really love the idea because I'm big on my gigs and my concerts and I've been to so many and I really wish I've gotten my ticket. But that's different. I can't transfer those. Now what I'm wondering is like I've bought, you know, amuse NFT the album through Serenade but that stuck on one blockchain and I've got my NFT on another blockchain. You know, what we're missing is connecting them all. I still feel at the moment we've got these. We don't have a bridge to bring everything together. So Med is doing something here. Someone's doing something here. We're still very fragmented, you know, everyone's doing things that are still, you know, nothing's really merging together. And I feel that's probably our issue right now. 

Greg: [00:14:56] Yeah, I think that's fair. And there's. From my personal habits. Like, I mean, I'm not a maxey of any particular blockchain. I mean, most of my holdings are on Ethereum, but that doesn't mean I don't classify myself as an eighth maxi at all. I start, I have stuff on flow, I have stuff on Tezos. 

Craig: [00:15:13] The only person that has something on Tezos as well. No one uses Tezos. 

Greg: [00:15:18] I It depends what pockets you sort of where you're looking in. From an art perspective, a lot of great artists use Tezos. They particularly before Etherium went to Proof of Stake because a lot of the artists that were, you know, had ESG concerns of deploying on a Etherium. But ultimately, you know, there's a number of apps that I use, you know, just even something as basic as Rainbow Wallet to display my NFTs. Right. And, you know, I think things like on cyber are pretty cool, you know, the online digital galleries and stuff like that. But I do agree it's, it's, it's quite hard to have everything in one place at the moment. But, you know, I'm reasonably bullish that all of that is to come. Right. And to your point on ticket stubs, strips, I mean, I did this in 2021. I had a lot of the ticket stubs from concerts, sporting events, just significant moments of my life. So you get nostalgic nostalgia sort of looking at them, right? It's almost like the timestamps of your life really in a way. And being able to have those, like a lot of mine are dog eat and you know, the ink is fading and probably, you know, nearly all of them will be unrecognisable in 5 to 10 years time. So having those digitally and knowing that they can't be faked, knowing that, yeah, you know if you went to a concert and there were 10,000 people there, there are only 10,000. You know, the, the true on lock in my mind or at least one of the true unlocks around NFT is and just, you know, blockchain in debt in general, whether it's creating a scarce digital currency or whether it's creating a scarce 10,000 drop of ticket stubs like that is a game changer. We have grown up in an Internet of abundance and copy and paste and, you know, LimeWire and Napster and rip this for free and do that for free. We're now moving to an Internet that can enable scarcity. And I think that that is really, really cool. Yeah.

Tracey: [00:17:16] I'm a big fan of that kind of thing for exactly what you've just outlined there. But yeah, I think again, just to round out that story, I think what Instagram is doing is bringing a lot of eyes into the space. So, I mean, that's always that's always a really good thing. So a big tick for that one. Moving on, let's talk about something that Craig and I and Blake have spoken about in the other podcast, which is Royalties and the NFT space. And another announcement that's happened in the last week that you can help us clear up here. Greg is open and sees their stance on NFT royalties and this has been a big debate and I'm going to read this quote and there's been some toing and froing. And even just as we've jumped on here, you've said that there's been another change here, Greg, but open seas came out and said, and I'll read this out. There's been a lot of discussion over the past few months about business models for NFT creators and whether creators fees or royalties are viable. Given our role in the ecosystem, we want to take a thoughtful, principled approach to this topic and lead with solutions. Now, this was said on November the sixth, and this was because they were going to give the rights back to creators as to whether they charge royalties and how much is this correct?

Greg: [00:18:30] Yeah. I mean, it's probably worthwhile for your listeners to take a quick step back because I think that still this is not widely sort of known common knowledge even now. It's always been the case that royalties of NFTs have actually been enforced by marketplaces. It's not actually at the smart contract level. So, you know, Opensea obviously had the lion's share of attention, particularly sort of in 2021 and still into 2022. But a lot of other marketplaces have been spun up that are trying to compete with Opensea. So back to our board, what we were talking about before, if someone sold a board eight for ten grand, you know, early on in 2021, two and a half percent would have gone to yoga labs, the founder of Bought Apes, and two and a half percent would have gone to Opensea. So essentially as the seller of that token, you would have got 95% of that sort of sale and then that two and a half percent to the Creator, in this case the board eight yacht club through UGA Labs. That would have got paid out sort of. I can't remember the frequency of payout, it might be once a fortnight or once a month. Right. And so it doesn't happen instantaneously when the transaction goes through, but the payment to creators is actually sort of essentially gated by Opensea or these marketplaces. So I think that's an important sort of scene set up. 

Tracey: [00:19:51] So that's what you're saying. The reminder is not written into the contract of the actual NFT, but it's done through the. Platform, whichever platform you're selling through.

Greg: [00:20:01] That's correct. In the current sort of at least on the Ethereum blockchain. You know, the NFT standard, the AOC 721 or the AOC 1155. Those contracts do not enforce royalties. Now, will there be a contract or standard spun up that potentially can? You know, I don't profess to be a technical expert, but my intuition and, you know, the conversations I've had with people previously is, you know, I'm sure another standard will come along. So, you know, that's probably a good scene setter in terms of what open season. You know, you mentioned before, Trace, how quickly this space moves. And, you know, this is a great example. On Sunday Opensea Sunday Australian time, they have now said now on the 10th as we record this that they are essentially backtracking. The TLDR is where they put out something and I got to say it was a little bit confusing to me. I've been quite head down and you know, it's hard to be across absolutely everything, but I might be butchering some of the finer details. But at a glance on Sunday, it was sort of like, we're going to bring in a new way where, you know, if you take your NFT collection to other marketplaces, when you come to Opensea, we're essentially going to blacklist certain collections or certain tokens. Now, again, I might be butchering the details here because I haven't been across it fully. It does take a while to dig into these topics. And I'm just to head down with NFT first at the moment, but all I, all I saw was a massive backlash from some prominent creators, including Australia's own Betty from Dead Fellows, where on Sunday night I saw a lot of hate being thrown open seas. Way to say, if you do not respect creator royalties you are going to stuff this up forever on essentially. And you know, I, I can share in that sentiment in the sense of I think that one of the enticing things of the NFT space and you know, the artists were the ones that kicked it off the most in the beginning was, you know, these royalties being paid in perpetuity was a game changer. You know, previously an artist would sell their work. Once I, you know, I do a painting, I sell it to Craig. Craig then sells it to you. Trace I don't see any of that revenue that Craig's made from you right NFTs change that because you could set a custom amount and you know you would do that at the marketplace level, like I said. So you might say to Opensea, when you deploy your smart contract, when you deploy your collection, that if these ten paintings get sold every time one is sold, I want 5% or 10%. 

Craig: [00:22:44] So what does Opensea get out of creating it for creators like obviously Opensea worried about their bottom line. They want to make their own cut. Why are they so hell bent on giving it back to the creators? Because they want to attract talent. Like, what's the logic here? 

Greg: [00:22:59] Now what? It's a bit of a race to the bottom at the moment, because some of these new marketplaces that have been spun up that are either doing smaller fee splits, so opensea are still charging two and a half percent. So there are some marketplaces that have spun up and said, come sell on our marketplace. We charge 2.5%. Right. And then what is happening is for collectors, they are going to other marketplaces to buy. You know, I've got a couple of moon beds, so let's just use main beds as an example. I think moonbat royalty is 5%. So if I was selling that on Opensea, I would lose seven and a half percent of my total sale if I went to one of these other marketplaces that are not enforcing royalties. Someone could buy my moon bed for a little bit cheaper, right? I mean, talk about being in a bear market at the moment and the royalty that I might give instead of selling it on opensea as as the holder instead of seven and a half percent, I might be able to sell that with only a 0.5% fee. Right, because other marketplaces are not enforcing those creator royalties. So that so opensea in my mind, you know, and I don't envy and in their position at all, I think it's a, it's a very, very hard sort of gentle. We're not gentle, but they have to be gentle about their approach because you can get so much backlash as they did. They're looking at this and going, well, if we don't pivot, if we don't move and try to compete with these other marketplaces that are essentially undercutting us and look, opensea, the other marketplaces are able to do this right. Like Opensea doesn't own the NFT space. They've just been a prominent player. So it is a race to the bottom at the moment. But Opensea have backtracked as of about 90 minutes ago, and they are you know, from what I can say, this is about a 20 tweet thread. So I'm trying to sort of rate it in real time as as we talk here. But ultimately, I see it as a as a backtrack. And things are going to remain the same, at least for now. But it's very tricky. Key situation at the moment, the royalties. I think we're living through a moment in real time where, you know, in five, ten years we'll look back and go, I remember like, you know, Betty and Bobby, hundreds and a bunch of these sort of prominent NFT creators where were rallying the troops, you know, late on a Sunday night Australian time and then couple of days later opensea backtracking and you know, so. So it's a very interesting debate. I mean, some of the other things have been thrown around, which I don't love. I mean, I get confused just trying to think about it sounds overly complex. People have spoken about, well, you know, let's have different theories of NFTs within a collection. So again, you know, using moon birds as the example, you know, people have said, well, you know, if someone buys an NFT into a collection but doesn't pay the royalty like. So essentially there's two prices, right? You get to buy the moon bed by paying the royalty or you buy the moon bird by not paying the royalty. If you don't play that, pay the royalty, you won't get all the benefits as a hold up. But to me that just starts making collections, you know, the haves and the have nots. And you're not going to have, in my opinion, the same type of community vibes. It's going to it's it's just it's a headache for me to even think about. 

Tracey: [00:26:11] Someone will do that, though. I bet you someone will do that. But yeah, yeah. I don't say. 

Craig: [00:26:15] What's the vibe like? Obviously I feel like removing royalties is good for the user, but bad for the collection, for the artists, for, you know, people like you said, the board of your club, etc.. So like what's the vibe with these creators? Because they sort of want to keep the vibes going and, you know, giving people a good price, but also they need to make their bread as well. Like, what's the vibe like for the creators? 

Greg: [00:26:40] I mean, a lot of creators are very, very upset with these marketplaces, and I think justifiably so. I do think, though, that we need to think about it in two ways, like before and after. These creators didn't have the option or the ability to create digital art in such an easy manner, and then sort of get it out to the world and have places like Opensea where you can sort of sort through all these wonderful pieces of digital art that wasn't available for it. And it came along. So the promise of being able to, you know, create digital pieces of art and then sell them as NFTs has not been taken away. What has temporarily been taken away in some aspects is the royalty component of that. Right. And that was a big promise of NFTs and it still is a big promise of NFTs in my mind. We're just in this sort of period of flux where, you know, we're trying to figure out, do we need a new NFT standard where it's, you know, enforce that the contract level. Like what is going to happen? I think for creators that are relying on royalties to survive, it's a big punch in the mouth, right? But ultimately, the ability to still create and sell online hasn't gone away. So the vibe, I think, particularly in the art community, has been, you know, like I said, this is this a big punch in the mouth and we need to do everything to fight it. And I know I'm on board with that, but I do think unless you can enforce it at the contract level or enforce it in a different way other than sort of optional royalties, what we spoke about before, people are always going to do what's right for them, right? Like, you know, as much as you would hope. As you know, I've seen people even go out and say, like, you need to be an artist, that you want your community or you want your collectors to want to pay that royalty. And I think that's great. And I think that might work for people as big as people. 

Tracey: [00:28:35] So easy to say. 

Greg: [00:28:35] That, yeah, it's easy to say it's harder, it's harder to execute. So, you know, pay for AFP collections like Dead Fellows that I mentioned before, like moon birds, like bored apes, etc. They are trying to build global brands anyway, so if they're trying to rely on royalties to keep them afloat, I think that was always probably going to be a losing strategy anyway. But I feel for the artists in particular in the current climate.

Tracey: [00:29:03] Yeah, well look, I think we'll leave it there, but look, it's an evolving ecosystem right now and there's a few bumps that clearly need to be ironed out. So let's just see where they go. But it's really interesting that open seas are flipped on that. So maybe we'll just see where that one pans out in the next week or so. Moving on, let's talk about NFT London, which didn't look too good. Unfortunately, there were a lot of photos that were floating around social media and Twitter with some, you know, almost empty rooms and different events. Although in saying that, I saw one or two pretty good events that looked relatively packed. So kind of been all bad. I've got a bit of a theory on this as well, and it's the fact that things in the UK are great. You know, at the moment as far as, you know, the macro scene and finance goes in general, I got a few really good mates that are over there at the moment just chatting to them on the weekend. And it's a bit of doom and. In general over there. Woe is me is the sentiment. So, you know, maybe people just didn't want to get along with something like this at the moment. That was my thoughts anyway. What do you guys think?

Greg: [00:30:09] Yeah. I mean, I've only seen a handful of photos and that can be a little bit deceiving at times. You know, someone can take a photo at the back of the room and maybe the speaker's just finished and, you know, it's. Yeah, it's hard to know, right? It's hard to judge off essentially a headline. It is. Look, I attended NFT NYC. Was it the best conference I've ever attended? No. But would I go back again? Most likely. And the reason I gave that sort of weird answer is it's a melting pot for the space for art, at least in the New York New York event. It's been going since 2019. A lot of the who's who of the NFT space in the major projects go there. So, you know, I, I had a blast in terms of the actual events in and around NFT and was. 

Tracey: [00:30:53] Taking. 

Greg: [00:30:54] The conference was probably, you know, in my opinion, too many speakers and not enough curation in terms of, you know, the topics. And, you know, you saw people that would get up on stage and, you know, three speakers later on the same topic. So you had the same, you know, different speakers speaking to the same topic, you know, three sessions in a row. But, you know, ultimately I was there for three events in the US, you know, V Con, which is Gary V's first event that he ran. I thought that was the best of the three. I went to consensus and then I went to NFT NYC. So you know I'm not across NFT London too much other than the pitches you probably saw to trace. I believe there was a Solana, you know, event happening at the same time and and maybe even an Ethereum ecosystem event happening at the same time too. So whether it was a calendar clash or not, I don't know either. But yeah, I'm heads down with my own events and am not paying too much attention to what's happening overseas at the moment. It's about NFT Fest here in Australia. 

Craig: [00:31:55] So you've obviously been to V con, which I'm very jealous of on Groovy Fanboy. So what parts of that are you bringing to NFT fests like what's the lowdown with NFT Fest Australia? I'm sure that you've got a lot of conference experience now. So what do you bring to your event? 

Greg: [00:32:10] Yeah, absolutely. So I think conferences often are, you know, to me it's sort of like it's the content. And did you get a little bit smarter and did you walk away with 3 to 5 people that you wanted to hear from and you hadn't heard from previously, or that you just stumbled upon at this conference that you didn't even know existed before you went to that conference. And then you either make a relationship with them or you follow them on social media. And all of a sudden you've you've you've come away with some value, right? From an education standpoint and from unearthing a few speakers and a few people that were saying interesting things and I think v con for me knocked it out of the park from that, from, from that side of things along with many others. So I am, you know, other, other people just think conferences should be all about the parties and the networking and just sort of meeting new people. I think that is a key component of conferences. But I also think if you are going to pay to go to a conference, I'd prefer to be engaged in the content itself and learning something and stumbling upon some new speakers that are saying interesting things than just the parties alone. Right? All the networking alone. So for me, the key takeaways of any good conference, like I said, is to get something out of the content, learn something new, stumble across some new speakers that you hadn't heard from before. But then on top of that is to build new relationships. And I think one of the interesting things we're seeing in the NFT world is, you know, previously over the last sort of 10 to 15 years when we've seen the emergence of social media, is we would meet someone in real life at, you know, your mates barbecue or this party or that party or whatever social event it was. And you would add them on Facebook, right? We maybe don't do that as much anymore because, you know, most grandparents are using Facebook these days. But, you know, it'll be can I add you on Instagram or, you know, let's connect on LinkedIn if it's a business setting. So you're taking what was initially an IRA connection and you're extending that digitally. What we're seeing now with NFT is and I think this is a pretty cool phenomenon that's sort of happening, if you're meeting people in discord and on Twitter that own the same NFT as you and you're in a community and you sort of you're sharing these digital interactions with them. And then those projects or those NFT communities, whether they are structured or unstructured, are having social events where you're actually talking. So it's that the flipping of what we've seen for the last 15 years, where you're meeting digitally first and you're extending that relationship IRL. And I think it's a really, really cool aspect of NFT that not many people are talking about yet, but they will be in the coming years. 

Tracey: [00:34:48] Now it sounds like you've like you're going to bring all the best parts to, you know, NFT fest Australia so who are who the headlines are who are you excited to. Be talking to who you really jazzed that you've got coming to the event.

Greg: [00:35:01] I mean, it sounds you know, when you're running the event, it's hard to sort of stay humble, isn't it, when you're trying to. Look, I'm biased. Obviously, I've co-founded this event, but yeah, I mentioned Betty from Dead Fellows before. We've got Vulture coming to Melbourne from psychedelics. Anonymous, you know, DCL blog for those that know Maddie from the Mediche, you know, Kevin Rose, who's the founder of Proof and Moon Beds, Kevin will be doing a virtual fireside chat, so we have about 3 to 4% of our total speakers will be virtual like it's Thanksgiving week in in America. So they have decided to participate. But the interview will be contextual to the room. So you know, you'll have someone that's interviewing them on stage in Melbourne and we'll have huge big projector screens beaming those people in. It won't be livestreamed. So the only way you can see that interview is to be at NFT Fest. But on top of that, you know, Jimmy Dorsey so if you know avatars and you know night we mentioned Vai friends before Craig nameless NFT they were actually working with Gary to bring very friends to life you know in 2021 for those that follow, you know, the AFL, we've got Cricket Australia involved, we've got Ridley Plummer from Tennis Australia, we've got Australian Grand Prix, we've got New Zealand Rugby League and BATS is flying over from New Zealand. So she's heading up their Web three strategy. We have the Who's Who of the NFT world in terms of PSP projects, we have the who's who of Australian sport, we have a lot of music, NFT start ups and musicians that are coming. So I know you're in Perth, so there's a local web three Start-Up called Ocean for Music. They will be joining us in Melbourne. So you know, it's a smorgasbord of all things NFT is I still think, you know, we started this conversation around bored apes and bored apes are always interesting. But to the standard person still I think a lot of NFTs get confused with. It's just a cartoon animal picture. What is happening under the surface is much deeper than that. And we think that we've got a line up that sort of rivals any Web three NFT event globally. 

Tracey: [00:37:18] So will it be the case of a regular music festival where you come in, you've got your line up and you have to make a decision on who's clashing, like who you're going to see and who you're not going to be able to see. 

Greg: [00:37:29] It definitely is. We have three rooms and it's by design, so our first two rooms will be more on your keynote interviews panel type of sessions. Our third room, you know, we're working with our gallery here in Melbourne to really bring that to life where it's going to be an experience room. So there'll be 1 to 1 sessions, you know, what is an NFT? What is a POW app, what is a smart contract? There'll be demonstrations, there'll be live music performances as well. So, you know, Cav Temperley from as Eskimo Joe Wow. He's coming over. He's working with Ocean Flow music. So, you know, we're really excited to have some of the artists to write about. Like, we've got some amazing photography, NFT artists, you know, Giant Swan, who essentially does art in virtual reality. So, you know, he's coming along, you know, there's a really eclectic mix of speakers and artists that are helping us. And on top of that, you know, we decided, you know, when we put this thing on that we wanted to keep a community vibe to the event. You know, our previous two iterations of NFT Fest have been free events. The first one was online only with no hard costs. The second one was paid for by Blockchain Australia. The third one, we are charging a ticket price. We think it's a pretty reasonable ticket price for two days, but we're giving 50% of that ticket price back to the speakers and artists. 

Tracey: [00:38:55] That is amazing. 

Greg: [00:38:56] Help us. Yeah. That helps us put on the event and you know, I don't know whether we're the only one that's done this before, but I don't feel like I've come across it before. So, you know, we're really excited to deliver something. 

Tracey: [00:39:09] So just thinking ahead, because I'm sure this is going to be a great success. What about South by Southwest next year? That's in Sydney, isn't it. I can imagine there'd be some kind of NFT flavour to that. Are you guys chatting with them already or.

Greg: [00:39:22] No, no chatting with those guys at the moment. But yeah it's, it's exciting that it's, that it's coming to Sydney. 

Tracey: [00:39:28] Look I think to round out today's chat with you, we'd love to get a market update. I mean me, Craig.

Craig: [00:39:35] Alpha. 

Tracey: [00:39:36] A bit of our attempt to do a bit of a market update each month on what's going on. But obviously, you know, we're in crypto winter. That means that it's obviously NFT winter as well. It has been for some months now. But can you give us a bit of a round out? And I know that you said you've been kind of head down Bournemouth at the moment with getting NFT fest sorted and that is, you know. A huge feat. And I and we've just said that, you know, you need to be completely focussed on what's going on in the NFT space and even a day or a few hours out. You know, you lose track of what's going on. But can you give us an update, a quick market update on what's going on and what you see has happened maybe in the last few months and where you see it, not that you've got a crystal ball, but where do you see the market going perhaps in the next few months as well? 

Greg: [00:40:20] I don't know where the market goes in the next few months because I think, you know, I'm not a macro economist and I don't. I don't even think macro economists know where the market's going in general. What I would say in my observations, particularly sort of, you know, April was sort of the last big month for the NFT market. I mean, Etherium had been sort of slowly going down price wise, you know, from sort of I think maybe December or January to April. But there's a lot of big NFT drops that happened in April. You know, there was Gary V's V Friend series, too. There were Moon Birds that came and then there was sort of the other side land by Yuga Labs where there was a big gas war. And that was what almost marked the top right for the NFT market and crypto market. Within a week of that other side drop, we saw the lunar crash, we saw them, we saw Celsius three. I see all that stuff that happened. So, you know, over the last six months it hasn't been as fun or profitable in terms of having what we experienced in the past 12 months prior. But what is held up probably a little bit stronger than, say, PSP projects in general has been the art side of things. And it's not every art project but you know, things like currency squiggles, things like For Dances and Ringers by Dmitri Cherny. You know, I think there are a couple of ways that you can think about NFTs and, you know, you can think about them from the PSP perspective, like the dead fellows and bought tapes and things like that that we've spoken about today. But also there are the generative art collections, there are other collectables like music NFTs. I think music NFTs are still very, very new. I think they will definitely have their day quite soon. You've obviously got sports collectables as well, but I really think what you need to do is to think about why are you buying first and foremost? And I know this sort of sounds a little bit cliche, but ultimately if you're buying for the price to go up and that's fine, you know, we all experiment with that and we all want that to happen. Understand what you're buying and what your exit point would be as well. But I also think that the utility that was so hot, you know, any time, any time a project mentioned utility or future utility or roadmap, you know, on the speculation side of things in 2021 and up until, let's say, April 2022, you know, the price sometimes would really shoot up on future value, you know, expected future value. And that got overcooked a little bit. So I think projects as a whole now, PSP projects are struggling. Some of them are holding up pretty decently, but some of them have dropped significantly in the last six months because the market has cooled. And that's why I think we're seeing the emergence of art again. And because art promises nothing else than art. Now, can an artist actually surprise and delight collectors and say, hey, we're going to airdrop you this or we're going to drop you that? Absolutely. But ultimately, there's less pressure. There's less external dependencies on a piece of NFT art. Then there is even if you're holding a board, eight pride, you know, because board apes and perhaps, you know, dead fellows, moon birds, etc., they are playing in the attention economy. Right. And people forget about them. You're probably going to correlate with a drop in floor price, whereas, you know, art is just art. And I do think that, you know, longer term, you know, having less external dependencies is a good thing. Like I know a few pieces that I hold, I don't even worry about checking the floor. I just know that it's a long term hold, whereas some of my pay a fee projects I'm probably a little bit more active in in sort of monitoring where they are. 

Tracey: [00:44:03] So can I ask you a question then when it comes to those the art and the RFP and where things are at right now, if we are going to be in this bear market, which we are now for another 6 to 12 months and then NFT and maybe just push to the side a little bit. And people there's a lot of people out there who kind of forget about Kryptonian taste for a while. And when this next bull market does happen and we've got a whole new wave of retail that comes into, say, the crypto market with fresh eyes or who are introduced to NFTs for the first time through this bull market and maybe Instagram or whatever. And they've never heard of pay fees. And when they first look at NFTs, will they want fresh new NFTs or will they look back at these older collectables? Or will there be something new and exciting like I don't, you know, will they go to these OGs or will they be on this fresh new thing? Where will be the balance? 

Greg: [00:44:59] It's a really good question and a question I think about a lot. I think the answer is both, you know, not to sit on the fence, but ultimately there will be new collections, there'll be new attention that is driven to certain collection utility. 

Tracey: [00:45:13] Yeah. 

Greg: [00:45:14] Yeah. But I do think that, you know, even if you think about physical collectables, whether they're comics or, you know, sporting cards or Pokemon cards or whatever it is, like historical collections in a physical world and historical paintings, it does come down to narrative, too, right? Like, what is the narrative on, you know, why are creamy squiggles so expensive? I mean, the narrative is it's it was the first collection that kicked off art blocks and, you know, was one of the very first generally of art projects on Ethereum. And it doesn't really need to do anything more than that. It just sits there. Right. And, you know, will people want to own a piece of history that they can display? And I think one of the things we haven't spoke about today, too, is we often get in this weird scenario where we go, you know, it has to be digital only or it can be digital and physical. Right behind me in the next room, I have two of my NFTs that are printed on a canvas. So I, yeah, I bought them as NFTs and I and I downloaded a high res version and I blew them up. And, you know, it holds special to me that I can have that in my house, but I can also display it on my digital profiles as well, you know, back to our Instagram stuff before. So, you know, I think that I think the answer will be both. I think there'll be new stuff that we didn't even expect. But I'm I'm reasonably confident that many of the early art projects and probably, you know, collections like Cryptopunks that really, you know, it's an easy one to say, but I think Cryptopunks are going to be, you know, very, very sought after in the coming years and decades ahead. When you think about they kicked off the whole PSP craze, you know, as the first sort of true ten K digital collectables collection, PSP collection and I just don't see them going away anytime soon. Will the price fluctuate? Absolutely. But, you know, it would be nice to be be nice to have a crypto punk in the bag. I would say. 

Craig: [00:47:13] I feel like Travis, you almost have to treat it as the 2017 RCO boom in Russia. Like, yes, we had new things that came, but if you slept on the O'Jays, you would have missed synthetics, you would have missed Binance, you would have missed all of the maybe the 5% of tokens that did really well. I think that's the same as what was seen in that haze. 

Greg: [00:47:32] Yeah, I think it's a good way to put it, Craig. And I think the other fascinating part of it, and there's no doubt that, you know, NFTs are being hit in this bear market, but I actually think they are holding up better than probably most people expected. And maybe I'll eat my words if we do this again in another week, because we're experiencing some pretty shaky and, you know, interesting territory at the moment with the whole whole EFT debacle. But ultimately, you know, floors and you know, NFT communities have held up pretty well. And I think it's because there's just a different dynamic to NFTs and there are fungible tokens in my opinion. 

Tracey: [00:48:10] And with that I wanted to round out today's podcast and ask you your favourite NFT. So one that you've got that you wouldn't get rid of that you would you kind of it's a long term hold so maybe for you that is a piece of art. Greg is there one that or perhaps you sold it, you want to get it back? Obviously, we found that out today. You plan on getting yours back. So what's your favourite NFT? Doesn't even have to be obviously, you know, a super rare one, but have you got a face or two?

Greg: [00:48:36] Yeah. So I think one would be it's an artist called hot, you know, my it's called an A march. There's a roundabout 1100 of them. I minted it in January 4.5 eth. I got it actually as part of being the proof collective member, which is a thousand membership cards essentially to, you know, hardcore NFT collectors. It's founded by Kevin Rose, but they did a collaboration with Hot You. You know, it's one of my printed ones here and in the back. I just love it. Like it, it, it didn't cost me a lot of money. Couple of hundred bucks I could have sold it for, you know, maybe $10,000 back in January when when people wanted one of this thing. And it's still sitting at a reasonable price, nothing like 10,000. But I don't see myself selling that. I think. 

Tracey: [00:49:27] It should. 

Greg: [00:49:27] Be a yeah, yeah, I do get attached so that, that, that particular one, it just speaks to me. It was at a time and a period in my life when I minted it that it just resonated with me. And I know that there are certain NFTs in my collection that will be very hard to sell. But I'd also say, you know, probably the first ever V friends token that I bought, you know, the account and like that kicked off this incredible wave. Like that was my first and if. On a theorem. And that kicked off this incredible journey. Right. 

Tracey: [00:50:00] What about memories? Isn't it? Memories and emotions when you first bought them and you know they mean something?

Greg: [00:50:05] Yes, it is. And and and it's pretty hard, like back to our sort of differences between fungible and nonfungible tokens. Right. There are, you know, if someone will counter this and say, oh, well, you can, you know, divide an NFT up and you can sort of split it up and sell a hundred bits of it or 10,000 bits of it or whatever. But ultimately, most of the time you are selling an NFT or you're keeping it. Like if you hold Etherium and you hold ten grand of a theorem and you go, I want to sell down half. You can sell down half. You can't sell down half of your NFT. And that's why I think there's a different emotional attachment to many of these in space as well. 

Tracey: [00:50:41] It's yours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What about you, Craig? 

Craig: [00:50:45] There's something about you. Have you put it on the floor? You have to, like, put it up for bid, and then one person has to buy it. You know, there's something about, like, it's so illiquid and like, it's so personal. Like, you're like, this is very degenerate with a Twinkie in its mouth. You know, this is my pudgy penguin with a skivvy, you know what I mean? It's like I've been telling my dad about crypto for years, and then I told him that you could buy your own unique NFT and it has, you know, your own unique characteristics. And he was like, Come in. I was like, I've been telling you about Etherium since it was $100, and now you're in, you know, these entities. But crazy for me, my favourite is probably Jersey. I've sold a lot. Actually, I've sold them. Um, yeah, the sold six jersey was my greatest regret. Greg is a bit like yourself. I was literally showing my dad how to sell, and it turned out to be like a top 50 rare degenerate on Solana. And that was probably my greatest regret in life. But it is what it is. 

Greg: [00:51:44] We all have them. We definitely all have them. 

Craig: [00:51:46] Yes, that's for sure. There you are. 

Tracey: [00:51:48] Go. So we need to say thank you so much for coming on here and clearing up a bunch of things for us. You are definitely very, very knowledgeable in the NFT space and I think a lot of users would have really appreciated you coming on here. And if people do want to hear more, more regularly about NFTs, then Greg has the Ethan Bird YouTube channel. You can find him and listen every week and go into the weeds with him for NFT stuff. But also please check out NFT fest. We will put a link in the show notes below so you can find out a lot more about how you can get involved in that in Melbourne in a couple of weeks time. The dates are. 

Greg: [00:52:27] 23rd and 24th of November, but we have a couple of events around the 22nd and 25th too. But yeah, 2020 324 NFT fest dot com that I use got all the details and tickets. 

Tracey: [00:52:38] There you go. Check it out. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure and hopefully we'll get you back to talk about all things NFT again. 

Greg: [00:52:47] Thank you, Chase. Thanks, Craig. It's been a blast. Cheers. 

Tracey: [00:52:50] And that's it for this week's episode. Again, if you want some more details or if you want to ask more questions about NFTs, please hit us up on podcast at podcast@getbamboo.io Or hit us up on any of these social media channels. Once again, please write in, review us wherever you're listening to your podcast and we'll see you next week. Bye for now. 

Craig: [00:53:10] See you guys.