1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:29,640
Hello, hi everyone, welcome to the Open Metaverse, and welcome to week four of the University

2
00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:39,840
of Nicosia's free MOOC on NFTs and the metaverse with Punk 6529 and me.

3
00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:49,840
The topic of today's NFT art is going to be presented as always by 6529, but

4
00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:59,440
before he takes the stage, I would like to take a few minutes to discuss a little bit

5
00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:10,200
about the course logistics. So, okay, here we are, just to make sure that everyone understands

6
00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:15,200
what type of material we produce from this course and where they can find this material.

7
00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:21,280
So, each week we will be producing two main pieces of material. The first one will be

8
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:28,360
a PDF file that will contain the main presentation of the week. So, we have 12 weeks, there are

9
00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:35,080
going to be 12 PDFs in total by the end of this course. And second, one or more than

10
00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:40,360
one video for each of the live sessions. So, there will be at least one live session

11
00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:48,800
each week, like today, but especially going forward, there will also be more than one

12
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:55,960
live sessions as 6529 and I'm going to start interviewing guests, hosting panels,

13
00:01:55,960 --> 00:02:02,080
etc. So, we will be producing one video for each of these sessions and these videos are

14
00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:07,400
going to be part of the course material. Now, where can you access this material? There

15
00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:14,280
are four different places. First of all, in the course website, you can find both the

16
00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:21,840
PDFs and videos there, our GitHub account. You can find both the PDF and the videos there.

17
00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:27,200
The videos will also be available on YouTube, some of you are watching the video on YouTube

18
00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:34,480
now on live streaming, but they are also available as recordings afterward. And finally, both

19
00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:44,160
the PDFs and the videos can also be seen as NFTs in your Ethereum wallet or in OpenSea

20
00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:52,840
or other NFT marketplaces. Now, for this last part, let me clarify that for the first week,

21
00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:58,720
the material has already been air-dropped to everyone's wallet. All of you who have who

22
00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:05,600
had minted the course access token should have received the week one material in your

23
00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:12,480
wallet already. We wanted to air-drop this material to everyone because we think this

24
00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:18,920
has a historic sentimental and maybe in the future who knows some provenance value because

25
00:03:18,920 --> 00:03:27,840
it's the first material of the first on-chain course ever. But from week two onward, you

26
00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:33,920
will have to proactively go and access the material. So we will not be air-dropping the

27
00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:40,280
material as NFTs to everyone's wallets. We will be announcing this on Twitter and on Discord

28
00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:44,800
every time something is ready for you. But we also expect you to go and visit the course

29
00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:52,520
website, go and visit our YouTube channel and see what news is available there. We are

30
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:59,960
also working to develop a claim website where you will be able to go and claim all the NFTs

31
00:03:59,960 --> 00:04:08,400
you want from the course. All the PDFs, and all the videos will be minted as NFTs. You will

32
00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:13,840
be able to claim them for free. You just pay the gas fees. But it will be up to you because

33
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:21,000
we don't want to be flooding your wallet with material that you may not be interested in.

34
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:26,280
Finally, I wanted to let you know that we're working on the process of reducing the cycle

35
00:04:26,280 --> 00:04:33,440
the time it takes for us to produce all this material. But it's not always easy. So there are too many

36
00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:41,960
things happening in parallel. The transcription of the videos always takes a while. NFT minting

37
00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:49,160
is an experimental process for us. We are minting very large video files and we have

38
00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:54,600
had to test the limits of platforms like Arweave or OpenSea in the process of doing that.

39
00:04:54,600 --> 00:05:01,520
So thank you for your patience with that. So that's all regarding access to the course

40
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:09,800
material. The second thing I'd like to say has to do with the weekly breakdown. As you

41
00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:16,760
know, the course is 12 weeks long. Each week we cover one main topic. So last week it was

42
00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:24,600
PFPs. This week is crypto art. But especially from now on, as more and more guests will be

43
00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:30,360
joining us, please note that the educational coverage of each week's material would not

44
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:37,000
be necessarily confined to that week only. So for example, we may be covering art in

45
00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:42,600
today's live session. But some of the discussions and the interviews with guests related to NFT

46
00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:48,560
art will be recorded and broadcast or will be live-streamed in the coming weeks. We will

47
00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:56,320
be using Discord, Twitter, and the course website for all the relevant announcements.

48
00:05:56,320 --> 00:06:01,440
And in the website, in the end, you will be able to find all the material organized per

49
00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:08,600
week, regardless of when it was live streamed or recorded. Finally, the third thing that

50
00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:15,520
I'd like to inform you is that, as you know, we have been very busy building our Metacampus.

51
00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:21,640
So soon we will be hosting our first live session there instead of sector zero where

52
00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:30,400
you are today. As you are facing the main OM screen where you see me now, I invite

53
00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:37,600
you to hit jump to just hit space on the keyboard. And while you're up in the air, turn to your

54
00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:45,000
right. You will see there is a vast open space with one open amphitheater in the middle.

55
00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:52,240
This is where the Metacampus is currently being built. I cannot say much today, but stay tuned

56
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:58,240
for announcements in the coming days. If you want, after the end of today's session, you

57
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:04,280
can walk towards the portal to the Metacampus. This is the door that you see on the right

58
00:07:04,280 --> 00:07:09,960
of the park. You can hit E on your keyboard when you reach it and you will enter the space.

59
00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:16,440
There's not much to see there apart from the open amphitheater, but we're going to be releasing

60
00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:24,400
new buildings and new functionalities in that space in the coming weeks. But do that after

61
00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:30,040
live session, because for now, we want you to stay here because we have none other than

62
00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:39,040
Punk 6529 to walk us through the exciting space of NFT art. So, 6529, the floor is yours.

63
00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:48,840
Thank you, as always, George and great to be here as always. Let me get the presentation

64
00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:51,640
up.

65
00:07:51,640 --> 00:08:00,760
Okay, today's session is going to be a little bit different and a little bit shorter than

66
00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:12,240
some of the prior ones. And the reason is, crypto art and one-of-one art is a vast topic

67
00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:21,280
area. One-of-one art is really just another way of saying art that happens to be an NFT.

68
00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:32,400
And the art of any type. So, it's not an easy area to box in, get a hold of, put in a handful

69
00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:39,320
of bullet points. And partially because of that, we have a lot of guests coming for this

70
00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:48,880
topic area. And so, similarly to what happened last week with PFPs, but I think specifically

71
00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:55,520
for this week's session more so, probably the most of any of the week sessions we're

72
00:08:55,520 --> 00:09:04,400
going to have. I think this is, by far, the broadest, least-defined session. What I'd

73
00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:11,520
like to do today, which I think will be particularly useful for those who are less experienced

74
00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:21,440
in this space, it provide some basic background, some basic frameworks, some context terminology

75
00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:27,920
that will help you in the sessions that we have with the artists, the collectors, and

76
00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:36,040
some of the other curators in this space. And then, as we do these sessions, I want to

77
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:42,200
see what we absorb from these sessions and work it back into the presentation. So, I

78
00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:50,280
want to say this for now. This specific PDF for this specific week is going to come out

79
00:09:50,280 --> 00:09:54,440
later. It's not going to come out in a couple of days. I'd like to do the sessions. And

80
00:09:54,440 --> 00:10:00,880
I'd like, I'd like to do the sessions because we have just incredible people coming for

81
00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:09,920
the sessions. On the 28th, we have people. People are arguably the most famous NFT artist

82
00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:15,480
in the world. I think I'm going to learn a lot from the session. I think there will

83
00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:19,920
be interesting conclusions from that session. And I want to take those conclusions and

84
00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:26,080
feed them back into the document. So, it felt strange to me to write up all the document

85
00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:31,560
and finalize the document before we speak to some of the top people in the world on this

86
00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:40,600
exact topic. So, there will be a delay on this PDF. We'll do it after we've completed

87
00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:45,400
the sessions. And I think that's fine. So, what we're going to do today, a little bit

88
00:10:45,400 --> 00:10:49,320
of background, a little bit of background was coming. I think it's going to be one of

89
00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:57,280
our shorter sessions, which is okay. The last few sessions have run very low. And even

90
00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:02,400
though the quote unquote live session, the official session of the week is going to be

91
00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:08,160
short, the total number of sessions and the total hours for this topic is going to be

92
00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:17,600
very high. I think as we get into this week, next week, the week afterward, we also have

93
00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:23,240
a lot of guests for next week. We also have a lot of guests for the week afterwards. What

94
00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:32,000
I would like to suggest is the following. Of course, try and attend as many of the sessions

95
00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:40,840
as you can, both live or on-demand afterwards. But if you miss one, it's okay. There's going

96
00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:45,280
to be a lot of material. There are going to be a lot of sessions. You might not get

97
00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:52,320
the total number of hours of sessions of guest lectures. It's going to be significantly

98
00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:59,120
higher than a typical course. So, it's okay if you don't get told them. Of course, we'd

99
00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:04,640
love to have all of you see all of them. That's why we're doing them. But I think it's also

100
00:12:04,640 --> 00:12:11,520
okay if you don't see every single one. The other thing that's going to happen, and this

101
00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:21,960
is just a matter of logistics. Not all the sessions for week four, session four, will

102
00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:28,400
happen in the next five calendar days. That's simply because we have a lot of people in

103
00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:36,440
the next few weeks. So, we're going to stretch them out a bit over the course of the next

104
00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:44,520
few weeks, just so that the whole team can actually be there in time. And it's partially

105
00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:51,200
my availability, but also partially the availability of everyone that is helping with the course.

106
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:56,560
So, we have a lot of things to cover. We're going to spread them out of it. I don't think

107
00:12:56,560 --> 00:13:06,040
it makes a big difference. We are talking about a maximum a couple of weeks up or down

108
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:17,720
before we complete the sessions. And then we'll circle back. We'll circle back with

109
00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:26,280
the final presentation. That includes everything that we've learned and that I have also learned.

110
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:33,000
So, as I said, a little bit different, but I think okay. Okay, this week, we said it's

111
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:38,880
week four, it's art NFTs. We said we were going to discuss frameworks. So, we'll come back

112
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:45,320
with the conclusions. This is the general disclaimer. These are the guests we have and

113
00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:52,040
I'll talk about the artists a little bit more at the end. But we have a great set of artists

114
00:13:52,040 --> 00:14:01,640
and also a great set of collectors who will discuss crypto art and NFT art both from the

115
00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:08,000
perspective of the artists and from the perspective of the folks who are collecting these artists.

116
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:18,080
So, let's start with the general framework. And to me, this is a very useful slide. Again,

117
00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:24,920
for some of you, this is going to be a completely obvious slide. But for those who are newer

118
00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:34,680
to the space, I think this is a helpful way to think about NFTs that have an art association

119
00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:41,480
with them. And why do I say NFTs that have an art association with them? Metaverse land

120
00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:46,840
is also sometimes shown as a representative, represented as an NFT. Gaming objects are

121
00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:52,160
also sometimes represented as an NFT. Maybe someday our houses will also be represented

122
00:14:52,160 --> 00:15:01,040
as an NFT. But I think everyone agrees that none of these are art. So, the part of the

123
00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:11,200
NFT landscape that people look through the lens of art tends to be these three areas

124
00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:18,000
and let's go through them. The first is PFPs, which recovered last week and on the whole

125
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:27,720
most people do not consider them art. But not 100%, right? So, like, you know, we discussed

126
00:15:27,720 --> 00:15:36,000
this when we were discussing the crypto punks last week. Are the crypto punks collectibles

127
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:48,120
like baseball cards? Or are they a form of digital art? Are they both? Does it matter?

128
00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:56,720
I think most people consider the crypto punks to include both aspects. They are both, yes,

129
00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:02,960
a collectible, but they're also something like Andy Warhol's soup cans that they're

130
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:07,840
a form of conceptual art. And, you know, the same questions existed back then about some

131
00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:14,360
of Andy Warhol's work. Do you really art? Or is it just some type of marketing thing?

132
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:21,120
Well, what about the other PFP collections? Well, I think the reality is it depends.

133
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:30,440
You know, the stereotypical case of someone went and found someone on Fiverr to make some

134
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:36,680
cartoons and minted as a PFP collection. I think most people would think of that as

135
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:43,840
collectible. But there are people who have made PFP collections and they are individually

136
00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:53,720
hand-drawn PFPs by an artist who drew them in their own style. Well, it's not obvious

137
00:16:53,720 --> 00:17:03,120
to me that those are not art. So I think where most people come out is that PFPs are primarily

138
00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:09,840
collectibles, sometimes art, and that might mean that some collections are 100% collectibles

139
00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:15,160
in some art, or it might mean that some collections have aspects of both. I think that's

140
00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:22,960
where we are with PFPs. Then next week, we'll discuss generative art, which is a form of

141
00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:33,160
digital art. It's a form of procedural art. But because it has been so successful in the

142
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:43,960
NFT space, it is generally thought of separately as its own thing. And in particular, the type

143
00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:50,520
of generative art that is thought of as its own thing are long-form generative collections.

144
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:54,800
And we'll talk about this more next week, what these are, but where they are one of

145
00:17:54,800 --> 00:18:03,320
ones of X. So there are a thousand Fidenzas. That's the X. But each Findenza is unique.

146
00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:11,720
That's the one of one. So this is viewed as a distinct category. The boundaries of this

147
00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:19,000
category of generative art are actually quite clear. Long form generative art in particular,

148
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:24,160
is very clear if it's that and if it's not something else. So this tends to be thought

149
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:36,480
of as its own category. And then people discuss the category of one of one art, which it's

150
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:46,320
funny because it's not exactly a thing. It's not exactly one of one art is not a category.

151
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:57,520
It's like a generic container. It's what in the non NFT world people would just call art.

152
00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:06,320
If you think about let's say the leading site for high end curated one of one art, which

153
00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:15,560
is super rare, I think today's fair to say that's still the case. Today in 2022, there's

154
00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:31,520
no obvious style that exists for this art. Some of it is glitchy animated dark art. Some

155
00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:42,200
of it is traditional oil like painting. Some of it is photography of various types. There's

156
00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:51,760
no specific definition. It's not a category of art. It's not like impressionism. It just

157
00:19:51,760 --> 00:20:00,520
means it's almost a way to think about it. It's not one of the other two categories.

158
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:04,320
It's not a PFP collection. Those are obvious. You'll know a PFP of collection when you see

159
00:20:04,320 --> 00:20:10,920
it. It's not a long form generative art collection. That's also fairly obvious. You know them

160
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:16,400
when you see them. It could include short form generative art, like people who have made

161
00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:21,320
a generative art piece they created procedurally and they published the individual piece. It

162
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:27,200
could include photography. It could include animation. It could include video. It could

163
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:38,120
include literally anything. It's just art. And even I think the one of one is a misnomer.

164
00:20:38,120 --> 00:20:52,080
You know the one of one in this context came in as a distinction between the PFPs because

165
00:20:52,080 --> 00:21:00,160
the PFPs are also a one of one of X type format. Your crypto punk is a one of one of

166
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:08,680
10,000. So what people meant casually here was that it's not that. It's not part of

167
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:15,120
a broader collection. It's an individual piece. Now it doesn't mean necessarily that the addition

168
00:21:15,120 --> 00:21:25,040
size needs to be one. You could have a photograph and instead of minting it as a literal one

169
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:33,240
of one, you could mint it as a addition of 10. And I still think it falls into this category

170
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:38,560
what people call one or one art even though it's actually an addition. I wouldn't break

171
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:47,560
out additions as their own category. So and then I think an area that people get somehow

172
00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:57,720
confused or mixed thing about is what people call crypto art. Crypto art is not a horizontal

173
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:05,720
definition like one of one art. It's a vertical definition. It is a definition of something

174
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:15,480
like an art movement. It's a definition of a distinctive style. It overlaps with the early

175
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:25,040
days of one of one art. In the early days of NFT based one of one art, most of that was

176
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:32,160
crypto art. Today, that's not the case. Today, you can find art of different types that

177
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:41,320
is linked to those are one of one NFT. And so I think the right way to think about it is

178
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:50,360
crypto art tends to be one of one art, but not all one of one art is by definition crypto

179
00:22:50,360 --> 00:22:58,440
art. We'll talk a little bit more about this in the next section. But you can play around

180
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:05,200
the margins of these four circles, but I think they're broadly helpful. They're broadly

181
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:13,480
correct. It's broadly a useful way to think about art oriented NFTs. And again, I separate

182
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:19,960
those from gaming oriented, metaverse oriented, utility oriented NFTs. Those are different

183
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:27,680
things. So in these three buckets or four buckets, it's a useful framework for thinking

184
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:32,920
about NFTs. It's interesting. I'm going to bring a topical point into this discussion.

185
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:40,760
It's not in the slides, but I was treating about it this morning. A lot of people are

186
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:51,280
saying that it's very good what happened with Reddit recently. Reddit, or the Reddit community

187
00:23:51,280 --> 00:24:01,960
historically was I think quite anti NFT. And then Reddit launched polygon based NFTs.

188
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:09,720
But labeled them digital collectibles. They actually are NFTs. But they didn't use the

189
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:21,400
term NFT. They use something friendlier. And it's been a success. And so it's very interesting

190
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:30,800
to me to think about what that might mean. Because again, you have a similar overlap,

191
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:38,560
you have overlapping circles, not every digital collectibles in NFT. Not every NFT is a digital

192
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:46,320
collectible. Nobody is going to think that a refric and a doll will look at one of it

193
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:53,960
as a digital collectible. It's a possible work. Not everyone is going to think that a

194
00:24:53,960 --> 00:25:01,920
unique access token is digital collectible. It's a utility NFT token. And so I have mixed

195
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:07,600
feelings, not exactly my word, interesting feelings about this. I'm glad that now millions

196
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:16,080
of people on Reddit are now using NFTs. And if what needed to be done is to call them

197
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:25,200
digital collectibles. That's fine. It's a form of consumerization. But I also would say

198
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:35,640
that it is everything about the token ultimately being hidden in the marketing and branding

199
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:40,640
may or may not be right. Because a digital collectible could also be stored in database.

200
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:47,560
It's fine. It doesn't require being on a blockchain. And I think we're not going to

201
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:57,840
end up with one non NFT definition of NFTs. Because it's very common, this idea, we'll

202
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:04,040
just call them digital collectibles. Well, sure, some NFTs are digital collectibles.

203
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:09,920
Mostly a subset of one of these circles. But a lot of NFTs are not digital collectibles

204
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:15,920
and they would, you know, certainly a lot of the artists in the second two buckets,

205
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:20,160
I think would be quite unhappy or insulted if you said, oh, oh, look at this digital

206
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:27,680
collectible you've made, right? But it has been helpful in these last few weeks of Reddit

207
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:33,960
of getting an option. So we'll see how it plays out. So these definitions matter and

208
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:40,040
don't matter. They're helpful. They're not complete. I think they help, but they're

209
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:48,440
never perfect. And yet they are used and there's a bit of social construction happening on

210
00:26:48,440 --> 00:27:01,440
what they mean and where you use them. Now, most one of what PFTs didn't come from, you

211
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:07,960
know, didn't come from the heavens brand new. There's a tradition of, there is an art tradition

212
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:17,120
that from which they spray, that's the joy. Most one of one NFTs are not, in fact, they

213
00:27:17,120 --> 00:27:29,280
have a physical sculpture carved in marble visible in your courtyard. That's not likely

214
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:33,960
to be a good one of one NFT, right? I mean, you can't represent it natively. It doesn't

215
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:41,720
really have anything to do with a blockchain doesn't have any use computers. A useful way

216
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:49,240
to think about, you know, where they came from in the history of art is the joy. We have

217
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:57,120
had digital art before. We had cryptocurrencies and public blockchains. In fact, we have had

218
00:27:57,120 --> 00:28:06,800
digital art even before we had widespread use of personal computing. And Warhol famously

219
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:16,360
made some digital art in the early 1980s when most people did not have a PC. And like with

220
00:28:16,360 --> 00:28:28,240
other categories, there is a fuzzy and emergent and evolving definition of digital art is.

221
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:33,760
If you see what computer is going to say, that it says something like the first bullet

222
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:40,920
point, but it incorporates digital technology in the creative process or in the presentation.

223
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:55,440
Okay. I think in 1960, that would be a pretty hard boundary. And it would be useful for

224
00:28:55,440 --> 00:29:04,360
defining the piece of art because digital tools were not very widespread. And so you

225
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:13,760
could say, again, if it involved digital art, a digital tool of some type, that's digital

226
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:26,640
art. Well, today, there's digital tools everywhere. And even works of art that I don't think you

227
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:33,440
would think of as digital art might have passed through digital tool. This is an example that

228
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:38,160
I mentioned here. You could take a photograph, take it on film, because you want that certain

229
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:45,680
grain or aesthetic or what have you, you could scan it, make some changes in photoshopping,

230
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:53,000
print a piece of paper or piece of aluminum, what have you, you have a physical installation,

231
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:58,000
here's the photo. It would not be obviously the case that someone say, Oh, this is digital

232
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:06,760
art, but it did involve a digital tool along the way. It's hard to get away from digital tools

233
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:15,840
in 2022, right? Like where we spend a lot of time using computers. And so the more advanced

234
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:24,960
thinking, advanced, in quotes, more contemporary thinking, let's say on what digital art is

235
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:32,920
that the digital art, the piece of art interrogates the digital medium in some way, right? There's

236
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:40,040
some real meaningful interaction with the medium, not just somewhere you use the digital tool

237
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:51,880
in the creation. But like everything else, everything else of this type, it's a fuzzy boundary.

238
00:30:51,880 --> 00:31:02,920
I think you cannot definitively classify every piece of art in the world into digital art and

239
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:12,520
not digital art. Also, another thing to think about is this comes up a lot in one of these.

240
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:22,760
Digital art, pre the internet, pre widespread PC usage, usually came with a physical installation,

241
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:33,440
right? Because how do you actually, how do you actually display it? And so yes, there was the

242
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:39,400
part that was digital that might be a piece of computer code or graphics. But then there would

243
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:46,120
be a machine or a broader installation that embedded it. And of course, that still happens

244
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:51,760
today. There are all types of interesting digital art installations that have a physical

245
00:31:51,760 --> 00:32:03,560
representation. And that's normal. And some of those will end up on NFT as we'll talk about one

246
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:14,840
in the next slide. But where NFTs have found a very strong fit with digital art is an art

247
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:22,840
that's 100% digital. That is not a digital, some digital code, plus a physical installation.

248
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:35,200
But things that are 100% digital, where they can move around the internet at internet speed,

249
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:47,640
without not at UPS or DHL or FedEx speed. And the NFT solves the problem of ownership and

250
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:57,200
provenance and duplication. And that has been a very powerful combination, right? Because when

251
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:07,640
you had a 100% digital pre NFT piece of art, it's very hard to handle provenance and ownership

252
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:13,240
and deduplication. If there's a physical installation, you can, right? If someone says, I've made

253
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:18,600
them digital art. And now this art plays on this specific screen and this specific sculpture.

254
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:24,880
And now you have the sculpture in your house. It's very clear that the sculpture is in your house.

255
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:33,280
It's not in someone else's house. It can't just be copied. But if you were making as X copy was

256
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:45,840
interesting illustrations on Tumblr, and they're 100% digital, well, there's no particularly

257
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:53,760
obvious way to protect them. There's not particularly an obvious way to say these belong to 6529 or

258
00:33:53,760 --> 00:34:05,280
these belong to George. And so NFTs by solving this issue for digital art, 100% digital art,

259
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:14,960
are going to, are going to, I think, be extremely supportive of digital art. I think they're going

260
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:24,240
to lead to an explosion of digital art. And this, to me, is super interesting, right? I think this

261
00:34:24,240 --> 00:34:38,800
is what's happening anyway. And I just don't see how that stops because it allows all the benefits

262
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:48,080
of being digitally native without the pre NFT downsides of it. Now, having said that, and for

263
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:56,360
everything I just said, there's always a counter example slightly to show it. This is a piece of

264
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:05,840
art by Raffa Ganadol, who's an incredible artist. We bought this in one of the NFT 6529 funds. And this

265
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:12,320
is a very complex hybrid piece. And I'm going to describe this not because it's a wonderful piece,

266
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:19,680
it is a wonderful piece. But I'm describing it in order to think about the types of things that can

267
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:29,200
be done. So this is the Gaudy House. Raffa made an incredible light show on the Gaudy House,

268
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:37,600
where the light show itself holds information from environmental sensors in the Gaudy House in

269
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:45,280
Barcelona to UNESCO site. And then in a physical installation, that's a Rockefeller Center,

270
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:52,720
or as the screen and that screen shows what is happening from the environmental sensors and

271
00:35:52,720 --> 00:36:03,680
the light show. And further, the code and the models are linked to an NFT and this was all sold

272
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:14,720
as an NFT. And so this is hybrid, this is obviously digital art, but in its digital art that was

273
00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:25,520
minted and collected as an NFT, but with a huge amount of hybridization and touchpoints to the

274
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:35,920
digital world. As we get further into the evolution of NFTs, we'll see more of this. I still think

275
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:41,920
most NFTs will be 100% digital for the reasons that you're older, but I think you will also see

276
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:49,760
innovators like Raffic do innovative things like this piece. And I can't tell you what it's going

277
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:55,280
to be. That's why we need people like Raffic now. I would have never thought of this before I saw

278
00:36:55,280 --> 00:37:06,960
it once I saw it as it was incredible. And so even when we're in the NFT world in the area of one

279
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:16,320
of one art, you still might have a hybrid aspect, both in the creation here, in the creation of

280
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:22,560
the environmental sensors are hybrid. And in the presentation where it can be presented,

281
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:31,840
yes 100% digitally, but also into the physical world. Again, this is for background knowledge,

282
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:43,200
most of you know this. Unlike PFPs, and most generative art collections that tend to

283
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:51,200
primarily be bought and sold on generalized platforms, like open-sear literature,

284
00:37:51,200 --> 00:38:02,480
one of one art has historically invented and collected on specialized platforms for one of

285
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:09,840
one art at the very high end super rare is the most famous today. But the auction houses,

286
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:14,320
the traditional auction houses are making their own platforms. Foundation is quite popular,

287
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:20,880
the one in the right. And there's been a variety of them, but there is a somehow specialized

288
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:28,720
ecosystem that supports this. So this was used, I think hopefully useful, background for this.

289
00:38:28,720 --> 00:38:35,680
Let's talk a little bit about crypto art, which is that is a subset of one of one art. And

290
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:49,040
here I am going to absolutely liberally borrow from Artnome, who I think has been the best

291
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:57,440
writer on this topic. And later in the semester, even though Artnome is not an official guest of

292
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:04,480
week four, I think is week six, perhaps officially, we're going to talk to Artnom and really dig into

293
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:14,320
this topic because Artnome has just been early and excellent to this topic. And his view is that

294
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:21,840
the first crypto art started with the Rare Pepes. Like the punks, the Rare Pepes

295
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:33,200
probably sit on a bridge between collectibles and art. But I like the crypto punks that was a

296
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:40,480
unified project. The rare peppers were more like a platform. So there were many, many artists

297
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:50,400
who made Rare Pepes and all in different styles, but with the Pepe being the unifying team.

298
00:39:52,240 --> 00:40:04,240
And I think he says, he says, but he thinks it's the beginning of crypto art. We'll discuss this

299
00:40:04,240 --> 00:40:11,680
with him. And is it okay with crypto art? What's some type of framework to think about? This is

300
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:17,600
Artnom's definition. I think we're going to hear other definitions as well. But I think it's a good

301
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:27,600
starting point. And he has eight parameters. I think some of them are definitely true. I think

302
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:35,280
some of them are a little bit aspirational. But let's go through them. So these first five,

303
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:42,960
I would say, are more about the medium itself, but it's digitally native. It is a geographic

304
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:51,120
agnostic that is democratic and permissionless. And I think this is quite a big difference from

305
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:57,680
the traditional fine art scene. The traditional fine art scene is highly permissioned. You do

306
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:08,240
have to pass through, for better or for worse, quite strict tradition. And I think the people

307
00:41:08,240 --> 00:41:12,720
who are the creators as in all pre-internet businesses think they're playing a very important

308
00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:21,440
role in curation, it's how they preserve quality, supply, and things like that. But the

309
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:34,560
NFTs aren't like that, right? Anyone can mint. And then some combination of the audience,

310
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:40,160
the market, the artist will retrospectively decide if they value it or not.

311
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:49,040
Decentralization, we've discussed this at length. I do think blockchains are a more decentralized

312
00:41:49,040 --> 00:42:00,000
way to create transport art in the off-chain system. And anonymity, pseudo-nimity, which of course

313
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:06,560
has existed in the traditional art world as well. Nobody really knows who Banksy is to take a recent

314
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:12,880
example, but it is more common in this space as we discussed. And so these are, let's say,

315
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:23,920
platform-y type concepts. And then when we get into the substance of the world, the substance of the

316
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:35,440
world, it does tend to be highly memetic. And I think this comes from its roots on the internet.

317
00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:45,600
And it's funny, it's like evolution. It's not exactly that you have to make memetic work to

318
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:56,240
make a crypto art. It's that if something is memetic, it spreads more, it becomes more well-known,

319
00:42:56,240 --> 00:43:01,280
it gains more attention, it gains more social construction and say, oh, this is crypto art.

320
00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:07,360
And there is, it's like evolution. It's not like the way evolution works isn't that

321
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:13,840
animals and plants wake up one day and say, oh, I need to evolve into a better version of myself.

322
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:21,040
The way evolution works is that there's a variety of different things being tested

323
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:27,120
in the environment. And some evolutionary changes are more fit for the environment and they spread

324
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:35,600
further. I think this is what happens with the memetic nature of

325
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:49,520
crypto art, because it is internet native. And one way to, probably the main way to get attention

326
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:55,840
in an audience is this, which is somehow different than the main way to get attention.

327
00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:01,760
So the audience is, I don't know, the Gaussian picture, a great artist, and holds a cocktail party.

328
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:07,360
And then through a variety of steps, someday you're in a museum and the art history books.

329
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,400
And that's, of course, another way. And there's nothing wrong with that way.

330
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:17,840
But it's not an internet native approach. So I think that does tend to be a memetic aspect,

331
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:24,880
please. Self-referential, here he means within the crypto industry, which makes sense. I mean,

332
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:35,600
these are the early works of a community that lives on blockchains, that thinks blockchains

333
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:40,400
are important, that things, crypto assets are important. So it's logical that a lot of the

334
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:47,920
early works touch upon that and don't touch upon, I don't know, the episode in reinforced.

335
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:57,200
I say that for a reason, I'll come back to it. It's often collected by the crypto patrons,

336
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:03,360
which again, makes sense to people who are most likely in the beginning to buy a token to find

337
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:09,040
an NFT potentially valuable or people who previously found a Bitcoin or Ether valuable.

338
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:20,080
Prioritist is more a general platform point that the intermediaries do tend to take lower

339
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:26,640
take rates than in traditional art, for better or for worse. And then dankness, which is a hard

340
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:37,760
concept. I'll go with Artnome's definition as a potency of expression and creativity

341
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:46,160
is a good way to say it. I was thinking when I was looking at the slide, if I could think of

342
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:52,240
a better way to say it, then I don't think I can't think of a better way to say it. So is this a

343
00:45:52,240 --> 00:46:00,080
reasonable starting point? I think Art Nome wrote this in 2018, so we're going to come back and

344
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:06,320
speak to him in 2022. And a lot of these things have now changed in the broader one-to-one space.

345
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:17,360
The Solgado, a fantastic photographer, minted a collection of several thousand photographs

346
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:24,240
of the Amazon rainforest. That has nothing to do with this. It's not self-referential to crypto,

347
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:33,200
it's not particularly pneumatic, but it's an amazing collection of work. And it's now an NFT,

348
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:41,600
so that's a one-of-one with not crypto art. And it will be interesting to me to see how much

349
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:52,240
crypto art can continue to hold coherency as a lot of digital art rolls in to

350
00:46:52,240 --> 00:47:06,160
NFTs. Because I'm of two minds of this, right? Like one version just might be as

351
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:14,400
individual artists and all different artistic genres, minted NFTs. The initial

352
00:47:16,720 --> 00:47:21,520
approach of crypto art will get better. I mean, it's not a matter of certain to happen in

353
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:29,280
any case. But the alternative point of view is that there will remain a tradition of crypto art

354
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:34,720
within the broader context of one-of-one art. And we will continue to see it and it will speak to a

355
00:47:36,240 --> 00:47:41,760
community of collectors who are more crypto-native, which might be different than a community of

356
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:48,400
collectors who are just not necessarily, their values don't necessarily align with crypto assets

357
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:53,600
and that principles per se. But they do see a nice piece of digital art and they'd like to

358
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:57,280
buy and it happens to be an NFT. And that's fine, but it's almost

359
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:07,200
parenthetical to the underlying piece of art. So we just have to see how this evolves and we'll

360
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:13,760
have to see how art did feels about this in 2022, because things have definitely changed since 2018.

361
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:23,360
Yeah, so these are examples, right? Like everyone would definitely say that

362
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:31,840
X-copy is crypto art oriented and Matt Caine will talk about this. We'll talk about X-copy in a bit.

363
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:37,200
Hold the iPhone so too. For most, this is an amazing artist. It makes amazing NFTs

364
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:52,960
about more their personal emotional journey. And are they incredible and important one-of-ones

365
00:48:52,960 --> 00:49:02,000
in the NFT space? Yes. Are they particularly obviously crypto art that they have to do with

366
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:16,000
self-referential mimetics to crypto assets? Not really, right? So it's going to be a fuzzy border,

367
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:22,320
I think in many ways. I want to take a moment to mention the Last

368
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:35,040
Robbies. It's an interesting piece of NFT lore. And for those, I was very confused about these at first,

369
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:41,120
when I first claimed this place. And so I'm going to use this to share some insider knowledge for

370
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:54,320
people who weren't that deep in that space. And Robbie Barrat was asked, I think I have a type of

371
00:49:54,320 --> 00:50:03,840
there, it's an H, was asked in 2018 to, he had made a portrait that had AI generated,

372
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:12,160
in part 7, it was divided into 300 frames. And it was at a Christie's summit and the participants

373
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:21,040
thought like a scratch card, but if they scratched the card, they'd get the key that would allow you

374
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:33,680
to claim the artwork. And the reason these became incredibly famous is most people threw them away.

375
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:40,720
Most people came to this art plus tech conference, it's 2018, and NFTs hadn't done very much by that point,

376
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:46,960
they're okay, I can't be bothered. They throw them through them away, that's why they're the

377
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:57,520
lost Robies. And initially, 12 were claimed, I think now we're close to 40, we're in the mid-30s,

378
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:03,760
and it's believed there might be another five or 10 floating out there where the participants

379
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:07,440
still, know where they are, they might have not scratched them and claimed them yet they

380
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:19,520
have them. But most of them are lost. And it's a story that has taken on symbolic meaning,

381
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:26,320
symbolic meaning from the perspective that the traditional artwork didn't initially

382
00:51:28,240 --> 00:51:34,960
recognize NFTs, recognize this type of work, and literally threw them away. And the funny part is

383
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:45,520
these now trade for 1 to 200, 250 ETH, so anyone who did throw them away is probably kicking themselves

384
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:55,200
because it's 200,000, 300,000, 200,000, 250,000, they trade for these types of prices. Now of

385
00:51:55,200 --> 00:52:02,160
course if everyone had claimed all 300, well the supply would be much larger plus the story

386
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:06,880
wouldn't have this type of resonance, and so they wouldn't be worth that amount of money,

387
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:13,120
so it's one of those. The ideal scenario is as a participant of the conference and everyone else

388
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:20,720
throws their ways, and you keep yours. And I note this because this is an interesting and

389
00:52:20,720 --> 00:52:26,880
seminal event in the lore of NFTs, of one of one NFTs in particular. Now Robie actually stopped

390
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:33,440
minting NFT shortly afterwards for a variety of reasons, but the story has taken on a

391
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:46,160
power of its own, let's say. People, now most people who don't know much about NFTs

392
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:55,200
have still heard of people, and I'm very excited and honored that people will join the course later

393
00:52:55,200 --> 00:53:07,760
in the week. People very famously has had the largest NFT sale by a wide margin, and it's interesting

394
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:17,280
because it was that NFT sale was largely because there became a competition in that option between

395
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:29,440
two very rich crypto folks, which drove the price up to $69 million, but also it's important to

396
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:40,400
know that like that work called Every Days was that one piece of art people every day has been

397
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:49,280
making a new piece of art since 2007, which is rather incredible accomplishment. A lot of people

398
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:54,160
say, oh, I don't like his art or I do like his art regardless, I use some glittery colors you like

399
00:53:54,160 --> 00:54:01,840
over that level of commitment every single day to come up with a new piece. And I would say

400
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:08,960
these pieces do have some level of, you know, for sure they have social commentary, some of the

401
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:14,320
later ones do have crypto commentary, and they obviously started before Bitcoin existed, so they're

402
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:21,280
not all crypto commentary. And they were all brought together into one piece called Every Days,

403
00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:29,680
which is 5,000 pieces of art. So, yes, 69 million a lot of money, and it is the highest NFT sale

404
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:36,080
by a wide margin. I actually think the second highest is also people's as in the 20-something

405
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:43,840
million range, which was an individual piece, not like Every Days was. But it is also 5,000

406
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:50,800
individual pieces of work. So, I'm going to plot my pocket calculator here.

407
00:54:50,800 --> 00:55:05,680
If you divide 69 million by 5,000, you get to 13,800, which is arguably not an unreasonable

408
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:13,760
amount for a successful artist to have one of their pieces so far. It's just that people

409
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:21,440
turned out to be a very successful artist and really worked very hard over a long period of time

410
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:28,480
to create this. So, we've talked to people about this and many other things in the coming days.

411
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:40,320
This caused a lot of consternation in the non-crypto world that both, oh, is this really art? Is the

412
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:47,360
art good? Is this money laundering? Is this, wow, did anyone do this? But I don't know. Someone

413
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:52,960
works for a decade, create over a decade, creates 5,000 pieces of art and just happens to solve

414
00:55:52,960 --> 00:56:01,120
them all at once. It's not quite as wild as people might think. Now, ex-copy, I think most people would

415
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:15,120
agree, ex-copy is a crypto art artist. I would think, I think this is probably fair, most people,

416
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:22,320
if they wanted to give you a definition, an easy definition of a crypto art, artists would

417
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:33,520
point to ex-copy. It's uncontroversial that his work is in the crypto art genre. It tends to be

418
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:44,800
very, it tends to be a little bit dark animated glitchy and often refers to

419
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:54,160
themes that have to do with crypto art, crypto assets and so on. So on the bottom left is right

420
00:56:54,160 --> 00:57:05,760
click save as guy, which is a piece of art that reflects the common criticism of these that you

421
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:15,760
can write click save. And so this, there's a lot of people who are not exactly sure if they're crypto

422
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:23,280
art artists. Xcopy, I am pretty sure, is. And it's just amazing to see the evolution, right,

423
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:37,680
like he, he worked on Tumblr is at some point he discovered cryptocurrency and NFTs and his early

424
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:46,320
work would sell for $100, something like that. And recently this year, he made an open edition

425
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:53,040
or anyone could mint as many as they wanted and it minted out at 23 million in 10 minutes for an

426
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:58,960
open edition and his largest pieces have, or his most expensive pieces have sold in the

427
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:07,920
one to eight million range. But this is also, I think, a reflection of how early we are in this

428
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:18,880
movement as well, right? Like, I mean, Xcopy, who I think most people would say is a prototypical

429
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:28,320
crypto art artist. A few years ago, four years ago, not 10 years ago, was an artist whose piece

430
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:40,800
has sold for $100. And this has been, you know, we're in the period where this genre has taken

431
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:48,400
form and taken shape and has grown from being something that a very tiny handful of people

432
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:54,240
paid any attention to, too. A slightly less tiny handful of people, right? We're still,

433
00:58:54,240 --> 00:59:03,040
I think, in a world where if you surveyed 10,000 people in the world at large, without any

434
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:09,280
particular orientation to them being crypto people, I don't know how many would know

435
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:15,280
of ex-copy, but it won't be that many. And so we will see, you know, how this evolves,

436
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:26,800
if it becomes, if it becomes a broader movement, and if it becomes a broader movement with the

437
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:32,000
folks who were there in the early days. And so these are all things that we're going to learn

438
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:46,800
along the way. This is just some data to give some context of volume of, yeah, this is volume

439
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:53,680
on the major one-of-one oriented marketplaces. And so as you can see before,

440
00:59:53,680 --> 01:00:04,640
say, March of 2021, volume was, hey, it looks like there's nothing on the chart, but there

441
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:12,000
are data points on the chart, they're just invisible. It was effectively no volume before

442
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:19,280
March of 2021. It's when the first pickup happened with the first very large sales of alien crypto

443
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:33,440
punks. There was a lot of activity last summer when crypto at large was very gloomy. And it's been

444
01:00:33,440 --> 01:00:41,840
much quieter recently. And as you're trying, I'm trying to look at super air through that data.

445
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:48,000
We're kind of back, and this is how everything is in the NFT space at large, we're kind of back

446
01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:55,040
to the first half of 2021 for kind of super air, maybe a little bit foundation, say the first

447
01:00:55,040 --> 01:01:03,360
quarter of 2021, maybe a little bit higher for super air. And, you know, this is, again, it's

448
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:08,400
going to be one of those very interesting topics, because people outside the space,

449
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:20,880
like all you see, NFTs are just a bubble. NFTs are over. And while not making any forward-looking

450
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:25,440
projections, I have no idea exactly what's going to happen. This has been the history of

451
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:33,120
cryptocurrency, right? It spikes, it booms, it collapses. And when it collapses, it tends to

452
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:40,000
collapse in price and volume at the same time, where people lose interest. But then it tends to

453
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:48,720
come back in waves. And so this is, this is going to be more of a builder type period,

454
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:55,600
where there's not automatic free money floating around. And we'll see which artists,

455
01:01:55,600 --> 01:02:04,560
which other application builders stick around and do interesting things in the space.

456
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:11,440
Yeah, so this is interesting. If you look on the left-hand side,

457
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:18,800
there has been more of a change in secondary volume, collector to collector,

458
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:22,560
than there has been in primary volume. Of course, primary volume is down quite a bit,

459
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:30,480
the primary volume artist to collector has not fallen to the same amount. And the number of active

460
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:38,800
collectors have not fallen to the same amount. What has happened is a drop in prices. And a drop

461
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:45,200
in price is both because the price of ETH has fallen, and also because the price of a lot of

462
01:02:45,200 --> 01:02:54,400
this artwork in ETH has also fallen. So the interesting, the underlying usage data on the right

463
01:02:56,400 --> 01:03:06,480
has less of a drop than the US dollar data. But anyway, you look at it, these are very small

464
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:16,880
absolute numbers. These are tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of collectors. And this can mean

465
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:24,560
one of many things. It could mean A, maybe this doesn't happen. I doubt that's the case, but it

466
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:31,920
could mean O, or quote-unquote early, and this will pick up in a different cycle. But that might

467
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:37,280
not mean that super rare or a certain notice pick up in a different cycle, maybe in a different

468
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:44,560
cycle, something new picks up. And so maybe the thing that gets mass adoption hasn't been invented

469
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:52,800
yet. We just don't know yet. So it's interesting to see, and I think it's interesting to see this

470
01:03:52,800 --> 01:04:03,840
in the context of, in some ways, I think NFTs have taken on a much bigger mind share and reaction

471
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:14,640
in the world at large than their actual mathematical point. I've said this before, I said this

472
01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:22,480
was almost all my presentations. NFTs are about 1% of the crypto market space in terms of market

473
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:29,440
capital. They certainly get more than 1% of the attention. And I suspect one of the reasons they

474
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:41,520
get that type of attention is unit bias. So when Ethereum trades from 800 to 5000 or

475
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:47,760
Solana from three to 100, these all sound like small numbers, and you don't think about what

476
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:54,480
Dogecoin trades underneath a dollar. And so they're like, okay, well, plus the dollar,

477
01:04:54,480 --> 01:05:00,080
I mean, maybe that's sensible, or it's 50 bucks, maybe that's sensible. That sounds like the price

478
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:06,800
of a stock. And people don't think that the market cap for those in the tens of billions of dollars

479
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:13,840
through most of, through most of 2021, Doge had a larger market captain, the whole NFT space.

480
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:22,720
But because NFTs have attention getting sales, this one NFT sold for 8 million,

481
01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:29,360
69 million, 1 million, half a million. It catches people's attention for good and for bad,

482
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:33,360
that's why I'd like to learn more of this, or it catches people attention and say, oh, well,

483
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:39,360
this must be fake. It must be a scam. It must not be real. How can someone pay that amount of money?

484
01:05:40,080 --> 01:05:44,160
But it's not really the right way to look at it. The right way to look at it is on a

485
01:05:45,040 --> 01:05:48,400
total market perspective. And the right way to look at it is

486
01:05:52,560 --> 01:05:59,520
how much intangible cultural value are we representing with NFTs in general, with one of

487
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:03,520
ones in general, and this is a large number or a small number. And then it absolutely turns,

488
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:08,400
it's so very small number. And so what that means is that we're arranged to be seen,

489
01:06:08,400 --> 01:06:11,600
but it's clearly a small number and total absolute value.

490
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:24,800
Yeah, this is also interesting, right? Again, for an, this goes nicely with my PowerPoint,

491
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:33,840
per all of the, oh my gosh, NFTs are very, very expensive in popular press type logic.

492
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:42,960
The average NFT sold on super, super air being the quote unquote elite site behind

493
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:49,840
what's highly curated, the most expensive artist looks to have spent most of the last year and a half

494
01:06:49,840 --> 01:06:58,640
below 5 ETH. And at some point 5 ETH might have been $15,000. Today 5 ETH is, you know,

495
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:04,480
six or seven thousand dollars. Okay, I mean, these are not unusual numbers

496
01:07:05,680 --> 01:07:11,680
for work coming from, you know, serious artists. If you go and say, oh, I bought a piece of

497
01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:18,880
art from a serious artist and I paid $6,000 for it, when people are obviously going to be

498
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:26,800
shocked with us, but because you do have these power law outlier sales, I think they do create

499
01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:32,480
perhaps a misunderstanding of how the space in general is structured.

500
01:07:33,920 --> 01:07:38,400
Now, as I've been done in a body mirror, which I am, I'm going to go very quickly,

501
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:47,680
just to give you a little bit of background on the guests coming in this week. People,

502
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:51,840
I did not repeat in the slides. Oh, as I do have a slide here, but we discussed, we don't need

503
01:07:51,840 --> 01:07:59,520
to discuss again. Claire Silver is an amazing artist who focuses on AI art. So in addition to

504
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:05,360
all the general one-on-one art things we already discussed, we'll also discuss the AI controversy,

505
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:12,560
you know, of the general type is AI art art. As we said, it happens with every single new movement

506
01:08:12,560 --> 01:08:24,400
so it will happen with this one. Sam Spratt is a classic one-of-one artist, makes these very

507
01:08:24,400 --> 01:08:30,560
tight, very evocative series. We'll talk about him. He's a pre-NFT artist as well, so I think

508
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:39,520
we can talk about that and transition pre-post NFTs. Sasha does some very interesting things

509
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:43,680
with poetry. I love this quote on the left, I'm going to just read it out loud.

510
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:49,280
Oral language and written text were invented as time machines, data storage systems.

511
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:55,120
Poetry is the original blockchain, a way to save ideas using devices, meter, rhyme,

512
01:08:55,120 --> 01:08:59,520
accidents, et cetera, that make them easier to remember and almost impossible to forget.

513
01:08:59,520 --> 01:09:02,640
I think it was my favorite quote in this whole presentation, but that was amazing.

514
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:09,280
I believe that the whole is an incredible photographer. It does,

515
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:16,240
you know, his most iconic work, I think, in the NFT space are the Aeroglyphs, where he has drones

516
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:23,120
create light art over national landscapes, but he's done amazing things he did the National

517
01:09:23,120 --> 01:09:34,880
Geographic cover recently for Stonehenge. We can talk with him about NFT photography. Isaac Wright

518
01:09:34,880 --> 01:09:45,600
Drift has another incredible story. Drift has climbed a lot of very high buildings and taken

519
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:50,480
incredible photographs of those buildings and was put in jail for this and then was released.

520
01:09:50,480 --> 01:09:58,320
And so I think it was going to be a lot of things to discuss, not just about NFTs itself,

521
01:09:58,320 --> 01:10:06,160
but about non-conventionality and society, and we'll see how those things all come together.

522
01:10:07,440 --> 01:10:10,320
Blessing, that was very interesting.

523
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:26,240
And so it's a different constraint. Constraint to a phone for the photography and then it's also

524
01:10:26,240 --> 01:10:35,040
been today's NFTs. Priyanka is going to tell us about the borough. The borough is a Southeast Asian

525
01:10:35,040 --> 01:10:41,440
collective who are in the NFT space. And so, I think it's a really interesting topic,

526
01:10:41,440 --> 01:10:48,080
both with Blessing and with Priyanka. What do NFTs mean for internationalization, right? I mean,

527
01:10:48,800 --> 01:10:57,840
would the artists, let's say, in the borough or in South Asia? Would they have had access to

528
01:10:57,840 --> 01:11:08,080
a collector like me? I don't live in India, travel to India, but I don't live in India.

529
01:11:08,080 --> 01:11:11,680
If they were in a gallery in India, I'd almost certainly not know about them.

530
01:11:13,120 --> 01:11:17,680
But online in the NFT space, I've collected from some

531
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:27,920
members of the borough and this global environment and seeing people from around the world,

532
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:33,040
different cultures, different approaches. I think it's one of my favorite things about the NFT

533
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:41,120
space and just I also feel very new. I think at the very, very, very elite level of collectors

534
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:47,200
and artists, the people who can hop on a plane and go to a show in Hong Kong and Singapore and

535
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:53,920
New Delhi and New York and the artists who have enough of a following that people will get them

536
01:11:53,920 --> 01:11:58,640
into those shows. Yeah, sure, you could collect internationally before, but that's a very elite

537
01:11:59,360 --> 01:12:07,680
environment, a more normal environment. For even people who, you know, take this type of stuff

538
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:13,360
seriously, it's much more plausible to collect from around the world, to see different perspectives

539
01:12:13,360 --> 01:12:21,920
from around the world in the NFT space than it is in the traditional art system. And Ena,

540
01:12:23,040 --> 01:12:24,880
you know, we're going to talk about a couple of things.

541
01:12:28,000 --> 01:12:36,320
Yes, her art has some really interesting ideas on how NFT art and one-on-one art can also be used

542
01:12:36,320 --> 01:12:40,960
for social change and so we'll see how those things play out. So, I mean, it's going to be

543
01:12:40,960 --> 01:12:46,720
an incredible set of folks. We also have Art None, who I think is very relevant to the topic.

544
01:12:47,280 --> 01:12:55,120
So, hopefully, what we managed to accomplish today is you and me will go into these other

545
01:12:56,720 --> 01:13:01,360
interviews or panels or see how it serves them with a common initial framework.

546
01:13:02,480 --> 01:13:05,680
And then, hopefully, through the course of the next two or three, because we will enhance our

547
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:09,280
framework. We will learn some things. We'll come back and see how we can enrich it.

548
01:13:09,280 --> 01:13:18,000
And then kind of pull this together. So, I think, yeah, that's it for me in this session.

549
01:13:21,280 --> 01:13:26,080
I guess I could take some questions. I have a little bit of time. I can take some questions.

550
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:41,120
Let me just check if the team wants to feed me any questions that have come up. Give me one second.

551
01:13:41,120 --> 01:13:58,160
Some questions. If there are, we'll go for there.

552
01:14:11,120 --> 01:14:26,560
Okay, I'm seeing a few questions. One question was,

553
01:14:28,960 --> 01:14:34,720
to get my view on digital collectibles versus NFTs as a term, I ended up discussing that.

554
01:14:34,720 --> 01:14:44,320
Anyway, same thing, Reddit, and why they feared the word NFT. Oh, they feared the word NFT because

555
01:14:45,280 --> 01:14:51,200
NFTs got a lot of very aggressive, bad publicity in the mainstream press.

556
01:14:51,200 --> 01:15:06,800
To me, shockingly so. The general approach was end-to-end negative on every dimension.

557
01:15:08,960 --> 01:15:20,080
And for no particularly obvious reason. It's just the type of reason that people don't like

558
01:15:20,080 --> 01:15:27,200
new things. They were possibly some legitimate questions about environmentalism, which again,

559
01:15:27,200 --> 01:15:31,360
I don't want to get into this. It's a complicated topic. I'm not convinced the proof of work isn't

560
01:15:31,360 --> 01:15:40,960
that is positive also. But in any case, you had non proof of work, blockchain is the whole time.

561
01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:47,120
And either on an absolutely well-communicated pathway to proof of stake. So anyone who was saying,

562
01:15:47,120 --> 01:15:57,280
oh, well, NFTs are going to destroy the environment at best not well-educated in the topic,

563
01:15:57,280 --> 01:16:05,440
and at worst, you know, misleading. Now that either is proof of stake,

564
01:16:05,440 --> 01:16:10,320
if it was on a proof of stake system, obviously traditional art is worse from the environment than

565
01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:18,560
NFTs by a gigantic marsh. Making something physically, taking it to an art convention,

566
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:24,960
flying people there to see it, running a gigantic concrete building, a museum with

567
01:16:25,600 --> 01:16:32,240
HVAC and security and people in order to see it, flying to New York to go to the moment.

568
01:16:32,240 --> 01:16:37,280
All of these things are like orders of magnitude, more carbon intensive than NFTs.

569
01:16:37,280 --> 01:16:46,640
And so people who, in theory, a month ago, were super, super upset about the environmental

570
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:54,240
impact of NFTs. If they really, really, that was the real issue, one would assume today they'd

571
01:16:54,240 --> 01:16:59,760
be promoting all artists to use NFTs and be trying to shut down or limit physical art.

572
01:16:59,760 --> 01:17:08,800
I haven't seen a single person say this. And so it makes me wonder if the real reason was

573
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:16,560
environmentalism in this case, or something else. You know, the rest of the rest of

574
01:17:16,560 --> 01:17:23,600
the criticism was, I don't know, just wild. Mostly it was over the bucket of, oh, I don't know,

575
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:29,280
there's a, there's the normal crypto bucket. It must be money laundering. I mean, this,

576
01:17:30,480 --> 01:17:35,440
it's the answer to everything planned. People don't know why something's happening. And

577
01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:43,360
in other words, effectively it's, they're too expensive. But if they're too expensive,

578
01:17:44,480 --> 01:17:48,480
it just means collectors are overpaying artists.

579
01:17:48,480 --> 01:17:56,800
But it struck me as a very strange thing for the mainstream press and the art press to be

580
01:17:56,800 --> 01:18:03,200
really upset that artists are now getting paid more money. I mean, it was not obviously the case

581
01:18:03,200 --> 01:18:08,560
to me two or three years ago that the world of large was concerned that artists were making

582
01:18:08,560 --> 01:18:13,120
too much money and we had to cut down on their money. The world of large has always been concerned

583
01:18:13,120 --> 01:18:19,200
that art and culture tends to be underfunded and artists tend to be underfunded. And suddenly

584
01:18:19,200 --> 01:18:23,920
there's a mechanism where they're being very well funded. And somehow this is also a problem.

585
01:18:25,920 --> 01:18:31,600
Even though, unlike traditional art, right, the, the funding is creating at a minimum,

586
01:18:31,600 --> 01:18:36,880
a visual public good, you can see the art everywhere. And in the case of CC zero, an actual public good.

587
01:18:36,880 --> 01:18:56,320
And so this, this, I think is the general question of coping mechanism when something new happens

588
01:18:56,320 --> 01:19:03,520
and you don't understand it, you'll complain that you're, I think all the things is like,

589
01:19:03,520 --> 01:19:08,880
I don't like this. I'm starting there emotionally. I don't like this. And now I'm going to think

590
01:19:08,880 --> 01:19:16,480
about the reasons that I don't like it. The one that I should probably find this article before

591
01:19:16,480 --> 01:19:24,560
it vanishes, right around the people's sale, there was a newspaper article being New York

592
01:19:24,560 --> 01:19:29,920
Times art editor, which went on and on and on of like crypto art isn't any good and maybe it's not

593
01:19:29,920 --> 01:19:34,080
real art. It's like you've kind of been kidding me. How come when you're having this discussion

594
01:19:34,080 --> 01:19:40,320
in 2021? The whole art movement you're going to decide is not actually art because,

595
01:19:41,120 --> 01:19:47,680
I don't know, it's too key. It's too man of the people. It's something, something like that was

596
01:19:47,680 --> 01:20:01,680
the argument, which is obviously absurd, right? Sothe net effect of all this

597
01:20:02,560 --> 01:20:06,640
was that for a lot of civilians and if he's got a bad name?

598
01:20:09,200 --> 01:20:14,640
And the reason I got a bad name, I think is not hugely necessarily something that if

599
01:20:14,640 --> 01:20:21,520
T space the wrong thing, there are people who did wrong things in the space, but the press on NFTs

600
01:20:21,520 --> 01:20:29,520
was unrelentingly bad, a relentless leader. And so I didn't understand it. I didn't.

601
01:20:30,560 --> 01:20:37,200
I couldn't imagine someone feeling this way about Bitcoin, where the, because Bitcoin had a bunch

602
01:20:37,200 --> 01:20:43,920
of assumptions that you should have a deflationary currency or a fixed currency or a gold standard

603
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:49,520
based currency. And I can imagine someone in from a traditional macroeconomic perspective saying,

604
01:20:49,520 --> 01:20:54,160
no, this will be very bad for society, because we need to be able to use national sovereign

605
01:20:54,160 --> 01:20:58,880
currencies to manage the business cycle and we could for employment have the very sophisticated

606
01:20:58,880 --> 01:21:02,560
counterargument that most people don't make, but at least some sophisticated people made it.

607
01:21:04,240 --> 01:21:12,480
Why there was a very negative reaction to a bunch of people want to give a bunch of artists a lot of

608
01:21:12,480 --> 01:21:21,120
ether. This seems like an unambiguous societal good, and it should have been celebrate. But

609
01:21:21,920 --> 01:21:28,960
this is where we are. I think we're going to go through a phase where a lot of companies want to

610
01:21:28,960 --> 01:21:36,720
say it's digital collectibles, it's digital assets, it's all of these things. I think it's fine. I

611
01:21:36,720 --> 01:21:41,200
think it's natural. It's how they get their feet wet. I'll make a prediction. I'll make your

612
01:21:41,200 --> 01:21:46,720
prediction in front of hundreds of thousands of people. In the end, we will use the term NFTs.

613
01:21:48,000 --> 01:21:57,840
I remember this phase with cryptocurrencies at large when was out of 2014 to 2018

614
01:21:59,200 --> 01:22:06,160
where everyone said, okay, well, we like this idea. It's good. But we need to talk about blockchains,

615
01:22:06,160 --> 01:22:12,400
not crypto assets. Crypto assets are scary. I talk about blockchains. Blockchains are not scary.

616
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:18,560
And if it's an enterprise blockchain from IBM, even better, that sounds very not scary at all.

617
01:22:19,680 --> 01:22:27,520
And this happened in the 1990s when there was the internet, and it was uncontrolled and

618
01:22:27,520 --> 01:22:32,240
uncontrollable and scary. Was it okay? We like these ideas about the internet. We like them. They're

619
01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:39,840
nice. But we're going to make us the big telcos, the information superhighway, which will be this

620
01:22:39,840 --> 01:22:47,200
controlled network, and that's going to be better. And this can go on for several years, and I think

621
01:22:47,200 --> 01:22:59,440
it will go for several years, where people will want to use more comforting terms, less perceived

622
01:22:59,440 --> 01:23:13,040
scary terms, so that people can feel more comfortable with them. I think in the end,

623
01:23:14,080 --> 01:23:21,760
none of the terms that I have seen actually accurately describe NFTs. What they describe is

624
01:23:22,400 --> 01:23:29,200
a specific application of NFTs that could also be implemented in many cases, not as an NFT.

625
01:23:29,200 --> 01:23:38,320
And so it's fine. I don't mind people using them. I think it might be a necessary phase

626
01:23:38,320 --> 01:23:47,440
in the development and adoption cycle. But I don't think that's where we end up in the long run,

627
01:23:47,440 --> 01:23:54,400
because every one of them is incorrect. And the correct term for the technology,

628
01:23:54,400 --> 01:23:59,680
that is a non-fungible token traded on a decentralized blockchain, is NFT. It's not

629
01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:05,760
digital collectibles, it's not digital assets. It's not digital art, it's not any of these things.

630
01:24:05,760 --> 01:24:11,920
It's NFT. So we'll see. I mean, I don't mind either way, however, it ends up in the long run,

631
01:24:11,920 --> 01:24:18,320
is okay. But it's my prediction. But this prediction will be true in, I don't know,

632
01:24:18,320 --> 01:24:22,880
three to five years, not in three to five months. We're going to go through a long phase for a

633
01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:28,400
bunch of big companies and governments are going to want to take some of the ideas and theories about

634
01:24:28,400 --> 01:24:34,560
NFTs, sometimes implement them in something with not an NFT at all, sometimes actually do an NFT,

635
01:24:34,560 --> 01:24:43,840
but hide the NFT part, because they're going to feel it's less scary. And that's fine. But I do

636
01:24:43,840 --> 01:24:49,120
think it then will end up with NFTs. It is certainly the case that I'm going to keep talking about

637
01:24:49,120 --> 01:24:54,960
NFTs. You will not see me switch to digital collectibles. I don't think it's scary. I think

638
01:24:54,960 --> 01:25:01,920
people are grown adults. I think people can learn new things. And I do think the press does have kind

639
01:25:01,920 --> 01:25:11,280
of a reflexive negative reaction to technology. And they tend to delay a little bit the developer

640
01:25:11,280 --> 01:25:18,160
to go into this way, but eventually inevitable things are inevitable. So I think that's what's

641
01:25:18,160 --> 01:25:24,240
going to happen here as well. Okay, I need to wrap up here. I think we got to the questions.

642
01:25:25,600 --> 01:25:34,640
Thank you everyone again for joining. Keep an eye on the UNIC metaverse Twitter account

643
01:25:35,440 --> 01:25:42,800
for when the new sessions are when they're able to release course materials. And they are working

644
01:25:42,800 --> 01:25:47,760
on ultimately a website where all this stuff will be found in one place. And so hopefully

645
01:25:47,760 --> 01:25:51,760
two or three weeks from now, this is going to get even easier. And you can just go to a web page

646
01:25:51,760 --> 01:25:57,600
and see all these things. But for the time being, I think Twitter and Discord are the places to go.

647
01:25:57,600 --> 01:26:27,440
So as always, thank you and I'll see you back in the metaverse.