Show notes
Theme: NFT NYC 2022 Themes & Highlights Over 15,000 tickets sold, two days of speakers Hundreds of unofficial events Affordable project: Double down fewocious NFT NewsNFT Headlines: Shopify allows merchants to add utility to NFTs MoonPay Primes NFT Minting Service HyperMint - Blockworks Christie's NFT maven joins Yuga Labs to steward CryptoPunks The 2022 NFT Awards - OpenSea Blog Transcript: [00:00:00] Today on all about affordable NFTs. We are talking with Andrew about how NFT NYC went. I've been seeing it all over my feeds and in the news, I'm excited to hear how it went, but you're back. Am back I'm back home was, uh, are a lot of events going on and yeah, it was, uh, it was exciting to be there and, uh, you know, happy to, uh, get to talk about some of the events that were, were happening in the last few days in New York. [00:00:30] Yeah. I feel like this is a blend between, we're about to jump into the news, but I feel like the news is NFT NYC, but I, I want to get into the particulars and just how it was to actually be there versus like what I heard some of the FUD and upside was. So let's actually, uh, turn toward things. Uh, we saw on the news this week. [00:00:48] Yeah, we'll get into some, some headlines. Anyway. Uh, so first off we've got here that Shopify has rolled out some new NFT integration features where merchants can add, uh, what they're calling it, add utility to the NFTs, but they're able to, to token gate, uh, certain products on the site so that you'd have to have the NFT to be able to buy it. [00:01:09] Um, so I think that's a real big thing to, for Shopify to. Uh, give two merchants. Um, it makes it super easy for anybody really to be able to use an NFT as a, uh, token to gate specific merchandise, you know, be able to offer certain things to only holders of NFTs. And, uh, that's a big step here. That's massive. [00:01:30] I mean, this is a huge eCommerce platform, web two, adopting web three tech and really driving home the upside of access and utility with a capital U. That is gonna open up a lot of interesting, uh, interesting tie-ins right? Cause you can control certain types of membership. And as, as much as it makes me roll my eyes, when I see merch as like a utility, there is actual actually an ability to say, Hey, here's a physical piece of art that you can get and the NFT and they actually go together and here it is wrapped in a perfect package for you. [00:02:09] I think there's a lot more behind this one. And also Andrew, for those of you keeping score at home, the wild and crazy idea of allowing NFT access to be validated as part of the native technology, uh, Shopify one discord, none. Just if you're keeping track natively, it's a good point. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. [00:02:30] I mean, this is, I've been a big fan of shop buy shop, buy for a long time, because of all the, the way they keep adding more features. And I think this is helping them not just stay relevant, but really give their merchants. Tools that many others are not yet able to, to do, to offer. And I think it's gonna be some time till you see a lot of big companies start offering these, uh, token gated types of products, but you know, small, small merchants can start getting into it right away. [00:02:57] Now you, I mean, you ran a whole eCommerce store, you know, the game, maybe it's time for some, uh, some three, a merch start getting that's right, man. Roll it in. All right. So next headline here. We've got moon pay. They have, uh, they're starting an minting service. So at the, uh, founder of moon pay Ivan Soto, Wright was actually on stage at, uh, NFT, N Y C and demonstrated some of those technology. [00:03:19] But, uh, they're rolling out with partners, some big partners here. So they've got, uh, Fox, um, creative artist. The universal pictures, um, some other, uh, music, uh, partners as well. So they're rolling out with some pretty big names. Um, moon pay has been, um, pretty big in getting people, onboarding, uh, people from Fiat to crypto, um, and interesting that they are getting more and more into the NFT space here. [00:03:46] I'm not quite sure what this means. Other than I know moon pay has traditionally been like one of those leaders in saying, Hey, here's an on. I'll be honest. I've never gotten moon pay to work for me. It is always bugged out and I have tried it on seven non-con consecutive occasions. Well, maybe this will work better. [00:04:08] This will work better. I, Hey, I'm gonna try again at some point. All right. So this next headline, we've seen some big movement in the crypto punks market. Recently, the, uh, the floor had gotten to under 50 E and then they started getting snatched up and then word came out that, uh, they have. Uh, hug labs has appointed, uh, Noah Davis, formerly of Christie's as, uh, the head of the crypto punks project. [00:04:34] So he helped bring crypto punks to, uh, Christie's as part of an auction there, um, and has been part of that community by punk holder for some time. And, uh, you know, I think this is a good move from somebody in charge of that crypto punks project, because it did seem like they, after they acquired that. P it got somewhat lost among all of their other projects that certainly are taking much more of their focus. [00:04:56] So good to see that they are putting someone in charge that understands the history of crypto punks and what they do mean to the, uh, NFT movement. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that that goes away ebbs and flows, but I think, you know, the, the window where you could have grabbed a punk for a mere $50,000, if you figure the sort of like where the prices intersected, uh, maybe, maybe something we note is like, oh man, that would've been the best investment ever or we'll see. [00:05:26] Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. . And then, uh, so last one here is the 2022 NFT awards. So this was part of NFT, N YC, um, open sea helps put this on. And so I attended some of this and I. I mean, you can check that the link here for some of the winners. I think a lot of the categories seem sort of, um, like, they were just made specific to give to specific projects in many cases. [00:05:54] Um, and it seems sort of, um, I'm not sure that this is something that the industry is, is looking for at this point, because it wasn't very well attended. And, um, you, like I said, they. They seem to come up with with awards that would fit or fit, uh, certain winners, most of the winners, weren't there to accept the awards anyway. [00:06:14] So, um, a little disappointing overall to that, but, um, maybe not necessary. Well, wait a minute. Top gaming collection by transactions Z run. I'll tell you what highest volume collection on the polygon blockchain Z run. Best NFT artist was X copy. Oh, best emerging NFT R uh, artist. Uh, FIUs that's one. That's been on our list. [00:06:40] I'm there's we have best NFT artists, best emerging N NFT artists and best established NFT artists, and then best digital NFT artists, best non, I mean, these are, you know, I get some of these, you know, there, but hold on. There's one at the bottom here with the best NFT podcast, using three A's in it launched in 2021 run by. [00:07:01] Two crypto dads. We won it three a oh man. We got it. We got it. we got it. I love it. I had you for a second for yeah. Yeah, no, no, I'm sure. Um, you know, people are checking now though. They're checking that link. See if we got anything and um, no, but best NFT media rug, radio. I mean, we've mentioned, uh, the rug radio folks before. [00:07:28] Very interesting platform and recommend that membership one. Yeah, it's definitely worth browsing through. Um, you know, I think maybe, maybe this will start to develop a little further if they do continue with this, but, um, definitely needs a little bit more, a little more marketing around it to get people more excited about it, to, uh, for it to, to expand and, and grow. [00:07:49] Yeah. All right. So the NFT NYC, I, I saw there were over 15,000 tickets sold, but some news showed, like there were like 50,000 people. I'm kind of confused as to the attendance numbers of like, were there larger events that. I don't know, you know, I, I think there are a lot of, I mean, there were hundreds of unofficial NFT NYC events, so just events going on around the city, um, that were going on during the same time, but weren't part of NFT, N YC. [00:08:21] So I think in many cases there were probably people there that weren't, that didn't get a ticket to the event itself. Um, I did have a ticket and went to some of the events. Even that I was really only able to get to, to a handful of those just because there were so many other things going on that I was also trying to get to. [00:08:38] And, you know, there were a lot of these, uh, I mentioned this before, um, in our preview episode, but there were a lot of, uh, physical galleries that were showing pieces. And that was something that I was trying to prioritize, getting around to, and, and seeing these pieces. Being displayed on some pretty impressive, uh, impressive setups. [00:08:56] Um, but I think that's probably why the numbers, uh, vary a bit. And, you know, we also don't really know how many people ended up attending. I'm sure there were, there were people that did not attend, uh, after getting a ticket, you know, maybe based on some of how the market has moved. over the last few weeks here. [00:09:13] So, what was the sentiment? Was it a depressed Fest degens drinking? I heard some jokes about how this was like basically college, where people went to learn nothing and drink their sorrows away and stuff. what, what was, what was the vibe? You know, I was worried about the vibe, you know, definitely in part because of the market and wasn't sure what it would be like. [00:09:31] And, you know, for the most part, it felt like people were still pretty, uh, pretty optimistic, you know, maybe not about the price in short, in the short term. I think people are pretty optimistic about all of the things that are being built. You know, you still see that it's bringing thousands of people, you know, whatever number that is, but it's bringing thousands of people together, um, in ways that really weren't happening before this. [00:09:53] So I think there, you know, the people that do show up, they're pretty committed to, to the space. And I, I think they're, they're seeing that. There's still all these events going on. There's still companies here. There's still building, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot going on. You can see how this event, I mean, I see how the event has changed just in what is it? [00:10:11] Six or seven months from the, uh, the last one that I was at and how much more, uh, how much more knowledge there is about NFTs from the outside. We're still, you know, as we know, we're still a long ways from, from where most people understand them and it's, it was encouraging to me to see that so that people were weren't thinking, uh, you know, thinking like this all might really go away. [00:10:35] You know, I think we've, we've talked about how it feels like there's people just continuing to, to, to build things so that when. When something does turn around, like all, everything works. It's all people are here. There's collectors that understand this there's new platforms all the time. And, you know, I think we're seeing that there's just more and more, uh, more and more infrastructure being, being built right now. [00:10:56] And, and that was definitely, uh, being talked about a lot at different events that I was at, you know, I wasn't, well, I, I didn't get to any of the, a Fest events or anything like that. I'm sure that had a, uh, had its own culture. Um, You know, I can't comment on. So they took over the south street Seaport, they had a giant ape down there. [00:11:14] They, it was like inflatable and they'd like took over a ship or something. Oh, okay. I knew that there was a, uh, NFT, there was a big outdoor event, uh, music event down in the Seaport area. So I, maybe they were, uh, you know, trying to make sure it was seen by many others that maybe did not have tickets, you know, did see some, some, uh, signs for ape Fest around some, some apes spray painted around on. [00:11:41] Sidewalks, um, promoting the event, I guess, or, you know, trying to, I don't know if it's as much promoting it or trying to make people feel like they're, you know, trying to induce. So some FOMO it's all FOMO. So FOMO based economy. Yeah, we, yeah. Right. We do know that FOMO is a big part of NFTs and oh yeah. [00:11:57] That's part of the utility. Um, the ability to spread to spread FOMO, um, like agen, I'm curious too, because you went to the last NFT NYC six months ago was. Or it was, it was let's see, like early November. It was. Yeah. Um, so yeah, this was, this did come pretty quickly after that. well, what I mean then, and now how would you compare? [00:12:19] Are they stepping up their game? Are they just playing the hits? Is this, is this, uh, increasing in momentum despite the market overall? Yes. I mean, the event itself was, you know, there are there's over a thousand speakers. I think they said over 1500 speakers. And the idea is to try to get as many, to give as many people, a voice as possible that does become, becomes a lot as an attendee to try to find the events that you AC or the, the talks that you actually want to go to. [00:12:49] And I hope that they would, that they will start. Being a little, they, that they do a little bit more curation with their speakers. I mean, I understand that they want everybody to have a voice, but I think we need to help the people that are attending by giving them some, by narrowing it down a bit. Um, but outside of the official event, I think it's, it's really growing. [00:13:11] Um, there's more and more, there's more and more interest in. Companies, and you're seeing these other galleries pop up. You're seeing, I mean, there's, there are these parties. I mean, for pretty much every collection it's, every big collection seemed to have some event somewhere. Um, and that's that wasn't necessarily, there were a lot of parties at the last where a lot of events, a lot of projects had a presence, but it felt much more substantial this time in that. [00:13:35] Anybody, any of any project that really wants to be serious, I think has, you know, almost you have to kinda, you have to pay to play and then you have to have a party and it has to be admittance, you know, with your Ft. It's, uh, I mean it's showing value of membership and that's kind of where they have to, to, to flex a little bit in our discord. [00:13:56] You posted what? Just looked like an epic picture of the fallacious. Party. Oh man. Yes, I should talk about that ferocious party. That was cool. So that was over in Brooklyn. The only time I only time I had to get outta Manhattan but I I'm sure there are some other Brooklyn events going on. Uh, but it was, it was a really cool event, big warehouse space. [00:14:17] It felt so well done. Like, I mean that you can see that they have done this before, but a. Very just professional check in it's it almost felt like a theme park as you're going through the line and it's got a road on the, um, on the little, you pretend road on the, um, that you're walking in as you get in line and you can go get your, yo…
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