JH: Hey Stache, such a pleasure for taking the time. We’re in like totally opposite timezones. You’re in Long Beach California, I am in Singapore. Thanks for being flexible with the time and getting this together. We’re gonna have an exciting talk about NFTs. But first, especially for the German audience, I am not sure, how many know you, have been following you. Who are you? How did you get into crypto? That’s kind of the first questions I guess to start off.
S: I love my German friends. I lived in Germany for quite a few years when I was younger and you know, it has a special place in my heart. When it comes to my journey here with crypto, you know, I really got into it in the end of 2013. That’s when I first read Satoshis Whitepaper.
JH: There was a hype back then, right?
S: Yeah. I had seen it before and I just kind of dismissed it, because I didn’t do any research, I didn’t look into it. I just randomly came across it and in a Sub-Reddit, and I was like, oh, okay, well that is cool. And then I clicked on a link and saw, that there was Litecoin. And I was like, nah, that’s scam. So I passed it up. And 2013 was, when I actually said, okay, I got to look at this and I did my own research and I read the white paper, and it was mind-blowing.
JH: What’s your background? Are you tech, or finance, or what’s your background?
S: I am not a finance guy, I am a tech guy. So I’ve been building computers since I was 14. I also taught myself how to code, when I was 16, doing graphics, doing websites, when the internet was still very early and so I’ve just been going down that road. I actually have a degree in architecture. But I made the switch in 2008 to working in web-development. Because I got laid off. That was the time bitcoin was born and it was also a time for a great transition for myself too. So at the exact same time that bitcoin was being conceptionalized because of that financial meltdown, I was also reconceptionalising myself. I’ve done the web-developing thing and run my company here for a decade now.
JH: Cool. 2013 you stumbled across this entire crazy world. When did NFTs cross your path for the first time? Was it the CryptoKitties 2017 back then, or did you kind of dismiss it still. Or when was the first time that you crossed path with them?
S: Yeah, first time I came across NFTs was in 2017. I actually started, it’s kind of the same thing, I started with CryptoPunks. First one on Ethereum, you know.
JH: Wasn’t it like, CryptoPunks didn’t even had a standard yet, right? It didn’t even had this 721 Standard yet, right?
S: No, they didn’t. And so I thought that’s interesting and I was like, whatever, they give them away for free. I didn’t really care that much, I wasn’t like, oh man, art is great. It wasn’t even good pixel art. I like pixel art, but it wasn’t even good pixel art, you know. So I was like, okay, whatever. But then later that year, as the bull run and the hype started taking of, you know, I think it was September, November, when the CryptoKitties hype really started to jump off. I wrote an article about it, I showed people how to buy their first CryptoKitties. So I went through and did it. You can go to my website and see that article from 2017. Those Kitties, I don’t think they’re underwater anymore. I bought them at like the top, when Ethereum was like 800 something dollars and so they were underwater for quite some time. But now I think if I’d sell them at the same price, they would be in the profits.
JH: Cool. Let’s get a bit of a timeline, just to pick up those people, that really don’t know that much about NFTs yet. And then get bit of a timeline there and then let’s walk all the way maybe until today. So let’s define NFT first.
S: Yeah, sure. NFT very simply defined, it’s a digital collectable, that is backed by the blockchain. And what that really just means is, everyone is familiar with what a digital collectible means, at this point. Especially people who are into gaming or Enjin. That’s just something digital that you can collect. And the Blockchain part really just comes down to verifiable information. You can verify who owns it, who owned it before, how many are out there for sure and if this is the true, original one and not a counterfeit. Those things are important, right? I don’t want to buy counterfeit art. I don’t want to buy counterfeit NFTs. I also want to make sure it’s from the original owner and that I can verify that it is rare, that there is only ten or 1,000 or whatever it may be.
JH: Before I ask a couple of critical questions, is there actually value in those. And I’ve seen a lot of posts from you, that are really solid and very fundamental. Let’s go first with the history. First there were CryptoPunks, right? In mid 2017, or when did this entire concept of fungible Tokens, fungible Coins, like the ERC-20 and Bitcoin and so on start? What was the very first time?
S: I think for most people, it was CryptoKitties. There were very few people that had heard about CryptoPunks before. It was not a big thing, like, oh my gosh, that’s so cool. CryptoKitties was really the first time everyone was like ‘wow, this is way beyond’. You know you could breed them and you had these little games and there was a lot to it in comparison to what was out there, which was nothing.
JH: So CryptoKitties was the first one, that had the standard ERC-721, as far as I remember.
S: Yeah, I am actually not really sure if they were on these standards or not. I don’t know if they were. They might have been, yes. But in general, that was the first legit one. And yeah, they might have been on ERC-721 at that time. Because that was a new improvement that they had made on Ethereum. Unofficially that year and then they made it official the next year.
JH: And then, what happened in 2018, 2019? I think for me at least in 2017 NFTs really popped up, because of CryptoKitties and then, honestly 2018, 2019 I didn’t pay any attention to that. And then again at the beginning of 2020. I actually looked at my Facebook history, the memories, and exactly a year ago I had like this pop-up of a research report that I kind of published about NFTs. And I was like, wow, that was like a year ago. So that’s how I know, that’s like a year ago, they popped up again on my Radar. But what happened 2018 and 2019?
S: Building. You know, everyone was out there, building. I think CryptoKitties kinda kicked of a really big development sprint. So, after that success, people were like, oh wow, people want this stuff, there is money here. You can do a lot of interesting things here. And so we started to see a lot of projects poping up. In particular some of my favorites, Enjin, they already had started to work on their platform. And 2018 was a big year for them. In fact this was the first year I minted my first NFT in conjunction with Enjin, and I was the first content creator ever to have his own NFT. Like that was it. There was nobody that had done this before. Before it was really just developers working on it and like a game, that they were developing but no individuals had really gone and done that. And definitely not in conjunction with one of these projects. So, with Enjin I airdropped like 5,000 of these to all the Enjin Armee, right? I am now the general of the Enjin Armee by the way. I have been with the Enjin community since the ICO days and same thing with WAX. I’ve been with WAX since the ICO. These are two projects that I believed in since the get go and they both were kind of working on those things during that time. WAX pivoted quite a bit since then but Enjin has maintained, pretty much the direction they were going and they have a huge stable of games now and they are almost done with the development. Game development takes quite some time, but they flashed out that ecosystem with a full marketplace and then they created the ERC-1155 standard which improved on ERC-721 in a bunch of different ways. It gave you a bunch of new options to do things with tokens and so at the same time, we saw other Blockchains kind of start thinking about NFTs in 2018, 2019. But nobody really made much progress. Really until 2020, on like alternative things outside of those couple of companies. And now we’ve seen in the beginning of 2020 WAX really to take off and they have brought in some big IPs.And the ecosystem has developed quite a bit. And so there are other things that popped up during those times but I feel like those have been the very solid leaders, during that time. And there have been a couple of NFT projects on Ethereum, that have been really good too and have expanded the ecosystem during that time as well.
JH: Give me the elevator pitch for Enjin and for WAX. We’ll link up everything down below, all the references, so people can just click on those, but what’s like the elevator pitch for WAX and for Enjin?
S: Enjin is all about helping game developers, to incorporate Blockchain elements into theirs games quickly. So, they have like a whole software set, right. A toolset, they call it SDK, for developers that make games on Unity or wherever they may be. Unity was it first when it came out. And then they did like a Minecraft enabled Plug-in too, so that you can literally just toss Blockchain Elements into any Minecraft custom server. Essentially, they building these set of tools, they have a really amazing wallet, that’s part of the whole ecosystem and the marketplace. So, it’s a whole complete thing, with Enjin there. But it’s really focused on Blockchain, gaming and helping developers to incorporate that into their workflow.
JH: Cool, WAX?
S: WAX started out doing something a little bit similar. But they pivoted in 2019-ish, and they really started focusing on the NFT scene, the NFT markets and the creation of NFTs. Their first big hit was Garbage Pail Kids. They work with Topps, which is a large global collectable card company and they released a digital version of Garbage Pail Kids and that was kind of very explosive, that really solidified their direction in early 2020. And then they just keep coming. Now they have this really great ecosystem, brought on a bunch of different IPs. And you can create your own NFTs, cheap, no transaction fees, no sending fees back and forth, so you can trade a bunch of them and you don’t have to worry about paying a 15 dollar fee for a ten cent card. You know, trading with your buddy for your favorite, that he has.
JH: Can I throw a couple of other names at you and you can give a bit of a background?
S: Yep.
JH: Rarible.
S: Raribel is, I would say, the second most popular open marketplace on Ethereum. When I say open, I mean it’s not a curated marketplace like some of the other ones, like SuperRare, Niftygateway, KnownOrigin. There is a bunch of curated ones. Opensea is the biggest open marketplace. So, there are actually two of them and Rarible is definitely the number two there. Do you know one of the cool things they did, which I love? They incorporated the Token into their platform – the RARI Token. Every time you buy or sell, then you get a little bit of that RARI and it’s kind of build into the platform. And I think it’s every month or every couple of weeks, I don’t know what their drop schedule is, but they cash out every week and you get tokens based upon your transaction history.
JH: And what’s the difference between the curated and the totally open ones? Like SuperRare for example, I think, is one of the more popular curated ones.
S: On the open ones, you can just go there and register and sign up. It’s open and nobody gonna stop you. And then you have SuperRare, where you actually have to apply. You have to show them your work, you can’t just automatically get an account there. So, they have to approve you. And they don’t approve everybody and sometimes they don’t even reply to everybody. But with Rarible, Opensea, anybody can just go on there with their wallet and start selling.
JH: What’s your take on that? Curated versus non-curated? I feel like that’s an ongoing discussion in the NFT community. You want to have an ongoing discussion, throw in this question.
S: I mean, I think that there is a place for both. You know, I wouldn’t want it to be just one way or the other. Look at what’s happening on Rarible and Opensea, with the ability for everyone to mint for free and things like that. It’s just a plethora of stuff. And most of that is not that good and a lot could be scams, or it could be plagurized or forged art. Something people stole from somebody else. On these curated platforms, you know, they do their due diligence there and you’re not getting that on open platforms. So that’s a big difference.
JH: Decentraland.
S: Decentraland. Man, you bring me to the ring, I love it. It was the first virtual NFT based land game. Basically, what it really means is that there is this a whole virtual world and you can go there and purchase the actual land inside of this world and build whatever you want on it. You can do an experience, you can do a game, you could do a casino, of which there are quite a few of these in there. So, it gives you a lot of flexibility to do some really cool things, in these, what they are called, virtual land worlds. But you don’t even have to build, you can just speculate and buy or sell land, you can rent it to somebody else as well. And there is great connectivity there, because you can display things.
JH: Yeah, they’re connecting that stuff now.
S: Yeah, you can sell things directly in there. So, it’s pretty cool. And they‘ve really expanded on that quite a bit.
JH: Let me move into 2021. Unless you feel I left out a project that gets discussed a lot.
S: Oh, you left one out. You left one out for sure.
JH: Maybe. Which one?
S: So, the biggest one, that’s really exploded here, and really got started last year. I was in a closed beta-testing for this, is NBA Top Shots.
JH: Okay, I was about to mention that right now. That was my gateway.
S: But you’re kind of right, because that transitioned into 2021.
JH: That would have been my question, if we had transitioned. Then my question would be, why do you think we’ve seen a meteoric rise in NFTs in 2021? And especially in daily active users, in trading volume, in popularity? And not only in crypto. I mean Mark Cuban, Vaynerchuck, Jamal Perpetua. So many people came out there and be like, oh yeah, NFTs, that’s the shit. What do you think was the catalyst? Was it NBA Top shots? Aas it Beeple being that successful with his NFT? Or was it all together?
S: I personally attribute it to DeFi. I know that sounds crazy, but I am going to tell you why. Last year, in 2020, we had, what we called, the DeFi summer. That’s when this whole idea of DeFi really exploded, with the creation of Uniswap. And at the beginning of the year, people really got what they were looking for. They needed that product, they wanted it and someone created it and it worked really great. And then this whole notion of decentralized finance really exploded. So, we saw tons of projects, just coming out of the woodworks, looking for people to get money. Doing all these things like liquidity pools and then they have things like compound finance or helping you manage all together. So, we saw a pretty big explosion there and as the summer was kind of waning and the hype of DeFi also wane, then we started to see quite a few products to incorporate NFTs with DeFi for more fun. Because everybody has irritated through all these things, the copy of the copy of the copy. Someone was like, what can we still do, from which there is not yet a set of copy of everything and most just throw an NFT on top of it. And so a lot of projects did that, and one of my Buddies in the Meme Project, if you’re familiar with Meme, as a Token, basically it’s a DeFi base platform. They were one of the big pioneers of adding NFT to their platform to incentivize people. And essentially mining these NFTs with their DeFi platform. So, I really think, that was kind of the catalyst. Because people started looking for new ways to rehash that same DeFi money train. And they did. And then alle the projects that were already working on NFT stuff outside of DeFi also started to pick up steam. Some of my favorite projects, like Gods Unchained and projects on Ethereum and a couple others out there too. This is where it started to get going. Top Shot definitely did lead the way on that, coming out of the year. But even like October of last year, they have just come out of closed Beta. Still, people weren’t like hyped on it. I actually got salty at the team, because of something they did. And I sold most of my moments, because I was like, ‘I am over it, I can’t believe I did this’. I was so pissed at them. You know I get it, it’s closed, it’s Beta, you know. But I was just so mad. And I got really salty and I sold most of my collection for like pennies. Not actually pennies, but very small amounts. You know, then I started working on my own Blockchain projects for the rest of that year and wasn’t really doing too much for Top Shots. Then around December, it just exploded. People were just loving it. It was just this big snowball effect and by January the prices were going through the roof. Hundreds of thousands of people wanted to get on the pack drop. I mean I was involved at a time, where there were no drops. You just went to the store and bought as many as you wanted. It’s come quite a long way and they’ve overcome quite a few challenges to really position themselves as the mainstream avenue for a lot of people to get in. So, the flood gates have kinda opened since December. And we’ve seen a bunch of other projects and people trying to capitalize on this. You know the Lindsay Lohan’s, the Mark Cubans and the countless other D-List celebrities trying to stay relevant by making their own NFTs. Some people have done it right, some celebrities have done it right, and others are just looking for the cash grab. The Logan Paul’s of the world in my opinion, but you know, people like 3lau for instance, his release, I think, he did a really great job with it. And very thoughtful as well.
JH: I didn’t know about that. Can you share that one?
S: Yeah, he’s like an electronic artist and he released his NFT collection which gave a bunch of benefits and cool things.
JH: Do you know what are the details? What are the NFTs and what are the additional benefits?
S: I know for sure that one of them is, you get a life-time V.I.P access to any of his shows in Las Vegas. You can literally show your NFT, walk in and that’s it. It renews every time. You don’t have to pay anything. One of my friends, Kenn Bosak has actually one of those I believe. He did it really good, you know, really well thought out. And he makes millions and millions of dollars on this NFT sale, and we’ve seen a couple other ones as well. I picked up a Grimes Originalon Niftygateway. I wasn’t too long ago and by the way it’s the girlfriend of Elon Musk.
JH: She raised like 6 million or something, right?
S: Yeah, exactly. She is a great artist in her own right, outside of doing her own NFT. So, I felt like that had value. We see a lot of people going for a cash grab here with the hype, for sure.
JH: You mentioned Gods Unchained, obviously NBA Top Shots, also Jarek here on the chat asks about RedFOX Labs. Can you do elevator pitches for all three? So Gods Unchained.
S: Yeah, sure. Gods Unchained, I’ve been playing that also since the closed Beta. I get a lot on ground floor, so especially when it has gaming NFTs. Because I’ve just been covering it, that’s all I am focused on, for years now. When people are like, what’s an NFT, they didn’t know, I’ve tried to give that away at events. And they were maybe two people who were like, ‘okay, I’ll take one’. But Gods Unchained, I’ve been with them since the closed Beta in 2018. And it’s a collectible card game.
JH: Oh, wow.
S: Yeah, it’s a collectable card game, very much like Hearthstone or Magic The Gathering, but you actually own your cards. You can own them, trade them, earn them in the game, without having to buy them, which is very different to how Hearthstone and some of those other games work. So, it’s really fun. I love the team and I love the story there. And it’s a free play game, so you jump on and you start playing to earn. That’s one of the big models out there #playtoearn. So, one of my all-time favorites for sure is Gods Unchained.
JH: Cool. And NBA Top Shots?
S: So yeah. Looking at RedFOX Labs, their main Flagship is KOGsand it’s basically a very similar version of the Pogs-Game. Like Milk Caps was very popular back in like maybe 80s or the early 90s. It kind of swept the whole world at that time and I remember playing Pogs back then, when I was in middle school. It was a lot of fun. So, what they’ve done, is, they created a very collectable version of this, called KOGs, which actually stands for “Keys to other games”. Their idea is, that these KOGs will also allow you access to other RFOX offerings in the future and possible offerings on other chains as well. By having them in your wallet unlocks something. But right now they’re on their second edition and you can collect your KOGs, you can put them into sets and stick them into, what they call, tube. tubes are just like Tubes where you can put your KOGs in and you can stake them. So, you stake your KOGs in your tube and earn RFOX tokens on these different milestones. It’s very fun, I was actually just playing KOGs on my weekly Blockchain gaming stream last week – The Secret Agent Stache Show.
JH: Cool, okay. NBA Top Shots?
S: NBA Top Shots, very straight forward. It is collectable moments from the NBA. So, there are actual video clips of some of these massive plays. LeBron James’ monster dunk in your face, for instance, and you can own that clip and I mean it’s very straight forward but it’s super fun. They made it very collectable. They give you challenges, their marketplace is always poppin. Getting in the packs was a pretty big thing, like, ‘oh man, I got into the drop’. There is a lot of excitement there. Because it’s what a lot of people wanted, but they can’t give everybody a pack so at this point it’s definitely blowing up. So, a lot of fun. And even if you’re not a fan of the NBA. Personally, I like the NBA, I’ve been a fan my whole life, but I wasn’t currently actively following the NBA. But this really brought it back for me, I was like, ‘wow’ and now it interests me a little bit more, because of what is going on with NFTs.
JH: The last project I want to ask about now before talking about the valuation of NFTs. And I also want to talk about hype versus flop. Beeple. What happened there?
S: I don’t know man, that dude got lucky as hell. No, he works hard, I am not gonna say he got lucky. When it comes down to it…
JH: Got lucky overnight after 5,000 days of dropping art every day.
S: He works really hard and he has been working on that project every day and it really put him on the map. He was doing something every day for so long and compiled it into this really cool offering.
JH: Do you want to give some background? Maybe I feel this is a really big thing right now, also with Christies and so on. Do you want to give some background, like who are we actually talking about? What does this person do and why am I actually bringing up his name?
S: So Beeple in general. I am not super familiar with his history before what he was doing in Blockchain, but yeah, essentially, he had gotten into NFTs. He did his big sale with this collection of pieces that he had put together over a massive amount of time. Just generating art, consistently day after day after day. Creating this whole collection and then he did a big drop and it just kind of exploded. People were buying left and right. So, he did a really good job when it comes to connecting all these specific curated marketplaces like Niftygateway and a couple of others. That really just put him in that spotlight and then just recently he actually has the first NFT that is being auctioned by Christies Arthouse, which is, if you guys are familiar with art, the top. So, if it comes to top selling art in the world, they’re doing auctions for all the high dollar stuff, then you go to Christies. So he has made a lot of history in that aspect and really pushed the boundaries between digital Art and NFT based and physical stuff.
JH: 100 percent. Where is the biggest action happening right now? Like which platforms, which NFTs? Right now, beginning of march 2021. Where is the action happening right now? We’ve done the history, we’ve done a bit of an overview, so let’s take a snapshot right now.
S: So, when you say action, do you mean the amount of people that are trading or do you mean money going through the platform? Because those are two different things and depending on which one, it’s a different answer.
JH: Let’s do both.
S: When it comes to money going through a platform the Flow-Blockchain, which is the home to NBA Top Shots is by far the biggest. It has smashed everything. I mean, you could combine the sales of Opensea and Rarible and you still barely touch what they’re doing on a daily basis on Top Shots. So, they’re pushing millions of dollars in transactions through their Blockchain on the daily base.
JH: The Flow-Blockchain is that a fork of something or how was that developed? On what is it based on?
S: No, the Flow-Blockchain and NBA Top Shots were created by the same people who created CryptoKitties. And that makes sense, because when they launched their product, CryptoKitties crawled up the entire Ethereum network. I mean nothing could be transferred and so they saw this and they knew that there would be a problem in the future.
JH: Dapper Labs, isn’t that right?
S: They hadn’t created the Dapper Labs at that point, but after all what happened, that’s when they started working on this NFT specific Blockchain. They created Dapper Labsand then they worked on the Dapper Wallet first, before they came up with Flow as the Blockchain. And so their first product offering on Flow is NBA Top Shots. So that’s how we kinda got there. Definitely the Blockchain is very much build for high volume, they already had gone through the ringer. They knew what they wanted, they knew what was gonna work. And you can see now it is, it’s working well.
JH: Very special purpose, right? For that specific…
S: Yeah.
JH: I think that makes a lot of sense and obviously it’s a super efficient way.
S: But then when it comes down to like actual number of users, like volume of users, there are a lot of people that are in NBA Top Shot that are trying to get these drops or trade back and forth. WAX actually has a massive user base. Thousands and thousands of people trading on that platform every day. But the NFTs have lower value, so you’ll look at it, and it doesn’t seem like it, they’re not pushing 100.000 Dollar LeBron Moment, back and forth 20 times a day. It’s much more orientated towards creators. To an open platform, and to like gaming and collectable cards stuff versus something that is more of a high dollar value fix. But there’s tons of people trading on WAX right now. There is a huge active user base there.
JH: And on Ethereum?
S: I don’t know, screw Ethereum, I am over it.
JH: You know, that love-hate relationship with Ethereum, I know so many people, including myself, who have that. I make shitloads of money over the past years and I sit there and be like, man, this drama. It’s just like, argh.
S: I mean I am right there with you. I love and hate Ethereum. I’ve built a platform on Ethereum that I ultimately had to scrap completely because I could not scale with those fees. I just wasn’t able to do it in 2020 and I wasn’t really looking to do secondary solutions at that time. With Ethereum, there’s still a lot going on, and there’s still a lot of high Dollar stuff transacting on Ethereum, don’t get me wrong. There are tons of people there, on Rarible, on Opensea, there is a lot going on there. But it has to be high Dollar values because if it’s not, you’re going to pay a 80 Dollar fee for an item that would cost you 100 bucks. So, if you can’t sell your art or your piece for 500-1,000 Dollars, then it’s probably not worth it to pay an 80 Dollar fee, just to get that item. Just to buy it, or resell it. I think that is one of the biggest detractors for me. As much as I love it, as much as I have done everything on it, I have all these communities that I am part of and involved in. I’ve really stopped creating there. I don’t do any more NFTs on Ethereum. Not until scaling solutions pop up and Enjin puts there JumpNet and Infinity out. Which JumpNet is coming soon for them. Same with Immutable which is Gods Unchained, they’re also launching their first scaling solution for Ethereum. So once those are in place, I can come back and do a little bit more there.
JH: Yeah, cause they have to. Or they’re screwed.
S: Yeah, exactly. So once these are in place, I can come back, and I be like, okay, I am happy. But I am not creating there right now, I am not buying and selling anything there right now either. I am doing all that on WAX.
JH: Okay, any other thing that you feel is worth mentioning here? I would love to set way over to discussing ‘is this actually an ICO bubble like 2017’ or ‘are we investing in value if we put our money in there’? So I would love to set way over there, but do you feel that I, as an amateur NFT guy, are missing out, or do you feel we have a really good overview over the ecosystem right now?
S: I mean that’s a decent overview, there’s a couple of Blockchains that have really started to do some really cool NFT things. In particular, we’ve seen Cardano just launching NFTs and they’re just getting started. Binance Smart Chain is also seeing some couple NFT projects and I think there is going to be more out there. One of my favorites is Theta Network. They’re just barely getting started as well with NFTs and they are working on some NFT projects on Theta. So, I am very excited about what they’re doing. I am actually really excited about what’s going on with Theta. In particular because I stream there too.
JH: Really? I hadn’t paid attention to that at all.
S: I stream exclusively on Theta, so anytime I am streaming and it’s going to be live, it’s gonna be on cryptostache.theta.tv, that’s my home for live-streaming. I don’t live stream anymore on YouTube, I always upload all my videos on YouTube, but I love the community around Theta. I love that it’s a blockchain based solution. I love that you can earn TFuel crypto currency just by watching my channel. I love that you can do these giveaways. They make it super easy, and they are NFTs. You know these giveaways of badges and emotes on the platform are NFT based items. And I give them away every day. Or every Tuesday and Thursday, when I do my streams there every week.
JH: Cool, cryptostache.theta.tv , Tuesdays and Thursdays?
S: Yes.
JH: What time is that?
S: So, on Tuesdays I do a show called “The NFT beat”, and that’s at 1 PM Pacific Time and that’s all about investing in NFTs. We’re looking at projects, we’re looking at drops, we look at tips and tricks, all those things. And that’s with my buddy Kenn Bosak, he’s my Co-host. And then on Thursday, that’s when I do “The Secret Agent Stache”- Show and this is an interactive game show, where I dress up as secret agent, we play my favorite Blockchain games. And then I get into different disguises, because I can’t go play the games, looking like a secret agent, with my hair and my coat and stuff, you know. So, I get a different disguise every show and we talk about why Blockchain gaming, play to earn, what that means and so on. How for developers this is gonna be the next evolution. Let me play the games, give away a bunch of prizes and have a lot of fun with all the people in the chat.
JH: That’s awesome. We definitely gonna link that down below, like everything else. Let’s set our way over. Did you do any collecting in the physical world prior to NFTs or is this a new for you?
S. Oh yeah, definitely. I have always been a collector. Especially when I was a kid, I collected a lot of stuff. I still have a good collection of comic books, I have a pretty sizeable collection of baseball-, football- and basketball cards and comic cards. So, I collected a lot of cards as well and you know I used to play Magic The Gathering when it really was first kind of going back in the day. And so I no longer have a sizeable Magic The Gathering card collection, although I do still have some. But I sold most of them, when I was in college for beer money, sorry guys. So yeah, I always collected.
JH: To someone like me, I am very left-brained. I’ve never collected anything that I would remember. Explain to me the fascination of someone. It’s obviously undeniable, the market says what’s right and wrong, it’s not me, it’s not you, it’s the market. The market has decided that, and let’s stay on the physical side so far, that there are physical things that the market decides that they are valuable and they are worthy to collect. Can you describe the philosophy behind it, the mindset behind it, and then obviously why is one baseball card worth something and another one isn’t. I want to understand that mindset from a very fundamental basis.
S: Don’t try to understand it. It’s crazy. Sometimes I think, is there a good reason? I don’t know. I think that there is, like with anything that people enjoy, there is a little bit excitement in all of these things. In particular when it comes to cards, which, you know, I really love. Getting a pack, you don’t know what’s in it. It could be anything. Who knows? It could be the best thing you want, or your favorite player. So, knowing that, ripping them open, that’s one of the really cool elements. And obviously I think it also triggers a little bit of dopamine response, because it’s a little bit like gambling. You know, you pay five bucks, what am I gonna get? Will I get a 50 Dollar card or all the common crap cards that have no value. That’s a pretty big part of it. I also think people like to have all these things, and say, look what I did and it’s very hobby-like obviously. Being able to show off your collection and say, ‘oh look at all these cool things’. And so you understand that just like talking with your peers about things that happen, through your life, because you’re the same age. Collectables also have that same thing. So, if I collected comics, the same time you collected comics, we have a thing in common that we can talk about. And a lot of things we experienced would be very similar. Just like anything else, right? If you’re working with people in those kind of peer groups. So, I think there is also that draw as well. And you know, money.
JH: Sure. Staying on the physical one. Me as a novice, like lets say looking at Pokémon cards or Magic Cards, how would I be able to identify a card that’s super valuable versus one that’s not valuable. How do I do that?
S: It’s hard. I mean just plain and simple with physical items, it’s pretty hard. You know there is price guides that you can get, before the internet, we had like a physical prize guide you could look at. Now there’s lots of great online sites that you can go to and kind of search for your card and pictures, like, yeah, that’s the one I got, the average value, they say it’s around five Bucks, you know? But really, once again, it comes down to who is buying them. Is anybody buying them, maybe that’s why there is no value. I think that’s a big part in supply and demand. If there is not a lot of demand, and even if there is not a lot of supply, which, oh wow, it’s rare, but it’s just no demand for it, may not really be worth something that’s gonna be a lot. Determining that is not the easiest thing, when it comes to really high end stuff, you have to get those things rated, which is expensive to kind of do. So you are talking about Pokémon where you have maybe this like golden Charizard card or something that’s worth a lot of money. You need to get that verified by a professional that gives you a certificate, you got to put it in the mail. It’s a whole crazy process. That’s one of the things I don’t like about physical collectables, and one of the reasons I am really attracted to digital collectables, because you don’t have that problem.
JH: But so as an expert, let’s go to the expert side, so from an insider, what makes one Pokémon card more valuable than the other one? Because in the end, the material is the same. Where does the different value come from? Is it the scarcity? I mean these Pokémons don’t exist, they don’t exist right, so they’re just on the card.
S: Wait. What? They don’t? I thought the cards are the real Pokémon that are from Japan, right?
JH: For example, an NBA Player, so a Basketball Player, at least, for me, I can sit there and be like, that’s Michael Jordan, that’s LeBron, okay I get it. To me there is more sentimental value than a benchwarmer who never actually plays, right? I get there is some connection here. How does this come on Pokémons for example? Where does the different values come from? Is it just established by someone?
S: Definitely, there are things that give them out. A) rarity, the scarcity of that card. So the rarer the card, the one who created this card, this game, has determined, oh, there’s only 5.000 of this one but there’s 50.000 of every other card. Well right there that means it gotta have more value. But also when it comes to Pokémon, which is also a card game, some cards are more powerful. Some cards are like, they will decimate your opponents. And those also, carry a lot of value. And so you talk about variance on those things, shiny ones, or gold ones, or special borders. And those then increase the value, because they’re even more rare. So I think it’s those combination of those two things, the utility and the scarcity. Those are the two things, that for most will decide, the price and something like that.
JH: Okay, transitioning, for me, I would still be struggling. Like even stamps, I can’t understand how someone pays hundreds of thousands for stamps, but sure. Fair enough. I am wrong, I am definitely wrong. And there are others that right. Just because I disagree doesn’t mean I am right. I am actually wrong on this opinion. Lets set way into the virtual now and lets talk about NFTs and yes, some NFTs, Kings of Leon, I think sold like an entire NFT set. And again there was very similar, where you had access and whatever. So there is a physical element to that. But then you have this 100 percent, digital NFTs. There is no physical representation. The argument can be made, that if it’s a pixel art, I can just screenshot it and I copy it. Lets transition over with the value here. How does this translate?
S: That’s a great question and you know, funny enough, I just dropped a video on my YouTube today, with the exact title of “NFTs have no value, I can just screenshot them and I own it”.
JH: I saw that blogpost about three arguments.
S: I get that question all the time. Every time someone who is new or doesn’t understand NFTs, it’s the first thing they say, I can just screenshot? Then I can do it. You’ve seen it in articles, Bloomberg and New York Times, are saying, this LeBron James went for 100.000 dollars but you can view it for free online, why would you pay it? They just don’t get the concept of it. Because it’s a new concept. The number one, and I won’t give you all three of my reasons, but I give you the main one and you can watch the video for the other two. So the main thing that really gives NFT value, when you’re talking about them being a purely digital form of art or creation. It has nothing to do with the fact that you can view it. Viewing has nothing to do with what gives an NFT value. That’s it. But people think, that’s what it is. They think, oh, if you pay for it, that’s what you’re getting, you’re getting it to view. But everybody can view it. Well no, it’s not about viewing. Just with the Mona Lisa, the value you know, you can go view it. But if you take a screenshot of that Mona Lisa and you’re going to sell it to somebody, good luck, it’s not going to work. And why doesn’t it work? Well, because people know, that’s not the real Mona Lisa. The real Mona Lisa is in the Louvre, and we know it’s been there forever. And it has this history. This history that we can track, that has been tracked. Right, that’s called provenance. It’s a French word, that basically means the History of an item. In particular usually a historic item, art or something like that. And so that’s exactly what Blockchain does with digital items, but it does it better. Because it’s being pushed on a mutual Blockchain and the history of this item can always be determined by anybody. It’s public, it’s there, it can’t be changed. So you know for sure who created it, when it was created, how much it was sold for, and the history of the transactions after that, whatever wallets ended up taking possession. So that provenance is there. And on top of that you can’t forge it. You can go create a copy and go slap it on. You know, someone could go, screenshot my Stache NFTs, go make their own NFTs that look just like mine. But they wouldn’t have the history. That’s what you’re buying, that’s what you’re paying for. You’re paying for the fact that you can verify, that you know that this is the one created by Stache. That is what gives it value. There is history there. The other one, that some dude created with my other NFT, doesn’t have the history there. It doesn’t lead back to me. So there is no value there if you really wanted an original mine. You could have a knockoff I guess, but I am not in the habit of buying knockoff Gucci bags. Some people are though.
JH: I want to share an experience and then kind of get our feedback. I think Jack Dorsey startet this, owning your tweets. So one person send me an offer for 100 dollars. The funny thing is, the girl payed 50 dollar transaction fee to pay me 100 dollars. This person bought one of my tweets. So I was wondering, I get what you’re saying. It’s not about that the person has the right to own that tweet. But the person can say, I bought one of Julians tweets and I own this very specific tweet. But lets say there is a second, a third a forth service, who also lets me sell my tweet on that service. That’s where my struggle then starts a bit. Because then suddenly, I can resell the same tweet. Not on that first service, but then on the second, third, forth, fifth service. So that’s where a bit of my struggle then comes in from an investor standpoint.
S: Sure, I mean, you totally could do that. As the artist and the creator your intent, with your art, is also one of the biggest factors. And there, I gave you my second one. Its artist intent. So if I mint here, what’s to stop me from going and doing it on another one? Well, nothing. You can totally do it there. And it still has value, because it’s going to link back to you. Right, because you’ve been the one who signed it. It’s a digital signature, where as an artist, you’re like, I had an original and I just made prints from it and I sell the prints but I sign each one by hand. And that’s essentially what you’re doing here with the Blockchain. You’re signing it digitally. And wether you release it on Opensea or Rarible on a different Wallet or a different name or you just go to a whole different Blockchain. The fact is, that there are definitely creators that are on multiple Blockchains and that don’t feel like that it devalues in any kind of way. If you’re doing the exact same art on different Chains, sure, do it, but then you’re just hurting yourself. That what it comes down to. That’s one of the things, especially in this NFT hype phase right now, that you have to look out for people who don’t have good intentions. People who are trying to suck at you, people who are trying to fraugently sell forged or stolen NFTs that aren’t actually their electronical property. Or saturating their fanbase, whatever it may be. I mean those people out there, they gonna do it. Because they going for the cash grab. But true artists, that really support the community and are part of the community, I think they realise that this is going to hurt them more than the few dollars that they’re going to make if they’re going around saying that there are ten of these, but then go on five different Blockchains and mint 2.000 more of them. It’s not in their best interest, but they can do it. But it would still lead back to them as an artist, being an original piece, and so then people have to take things in consideration.
JH: One interesting argument I heard from quite a famous German musician, I had him on my show as well, he actually sold NFT jingles. He produced 100 jingles and sold those and the persons buying them obviously had the rights. I asked him the same question and he said, the cool things about NFTs is the time stamp on the Blockchain and then with that timestamp there is unforgeably an original. Because I was asking him the same questions. But then there is this version one, if I sold it ten times, yes it could be, but then version one will always be the original, the provenance, the story. How do you see this? Do you see this differently? Anything that you would disagree with here? I really felt that argument that he gave me there, that made sense to my left-brain.
S: Well that’s what I am saying. People ask me, well you say the one that the artist put on the Blockchain is the original, but it’s not, what about the one on his computer? That was the original. Well, no it’s not. Because the artist says, the one he signed in the blockchain, he said that’s original. His intend in what he says is one of the biggest factors of what gives something that kind of value. Mint number one of something always has more value than the second mint. And you’ll see that in marketplaces. Mint number ones of anything are always gonna be higher price, because they’re more desirable. It was the first one created. You have that first one. But the second copy doesn’t hold any less weight. It’s still signed by the artist, it still leads back to them, so you gotta look at, what’s gonna be the maximum supply? Is there only going to be two? Or is there going to be 10.000? If it’s 10.000 and you got mint number two, but obviously there are way more copies out there. You gotta take that in consideration.
JH: I love that quote, that NFTs are not about the right to view but about the provenance of that. I think that’s such strong value proposition. I want to push out another criticism. And that’s a criticism that actually I experienced myself. So I have a really large audience, I am contacted at the moment, probably one or two times a day, by NFT creators, NFT idea people, and they’re like, Julian, you can actually create the future yourself. We start working together, you show those NFTs and just by you showing them you make them valuable. Just that fact. So on the one hand I get what they’re saying and it sounds appealing. But on the other hand, this is not me. I don’t want to do that. You mentioned a couple of times, cash grabs and so on. Do you see a bit of a challenge in that? Adress that a bit.
S: You’re right and it really depends on how you go about it. So if you created a NFT that has no utility behind it and you’re literally just trying, because you have a big audience, to pump it and there’s nothing else to it, then you create some shitty art and put some high dollar value on it, because you have a lot of followers. And they say, yeah sure, we’ll grab that. But you have no intention in supporting in the future, creating more or doing something with it, then that’s a project I don’t want to be a part of. But if you can give it some sort of utility, then it makes sense. I think there is nothing wrong with that. I’ve actually done that multiple times. In 2019 I created a CryptoStache Founders Token. So this was for my community and I mostly gave it away for free, I did sell a couple, but mostly I gave them to community supporters who have been around at that for the time and were already supporting me. But it gives you benefits. You hold this NFT Token in your wallet and every month you got certain benefits. One of them, which was really fun and cool, we’ve been doing for years, until just recently because of fees, was called the wheel of crypto. And it’s an actual wheel, with a bunch of prices on that I physically spin and I picked three wallets every month to get a spin. And so they get prices on that. So there is value there. I am not just slapping my damn face on something, saying, buy me, and then I don’t give a shit after that. It’s a way to be able to engage your community. To be able to give them special rewards, or access to in some sort of way. You can do something as simple as saying, I want to give my community 100 hours this year. So I am gonna create a unique NFT Token and I am gonna fractionalise my time, the 100 hours into ten hour or ten minutes or thirty minutes increments. And then you sell those and say, okay, what’s an hour’s worth of my time? What is that worth? Is it 200 bucks, is it 100 bucks? I don’t know, maybe it’s 1.000 Euros. But now you put that prize tag on there and you’ve given the NFT utility. It has worth to you, it has worth to your community and actually redeeming something like that would actually be helpful to people. So there are so many things you can do.
JH: And it might go up over time. Because lets say today the hour is worth 1.000 and maybe in ten years it’s 100.000 dollars because you’re like so successful and famous. It’s like holy crap.
S: Yeah, sure. It surely could. And you could even put mechanics on, like, oh you can only use it in this year, because it says that’s the expiration date and if you’re not using it by then, you forfeit your hour. You can do all kinds of things with that. And I think there’s a lot. And that’s just barely scratching the surface. That was a very basic example but there are lots of lots of different ways you can do that, and do it well.
JH: Cool, that just gives me an idea. I think for a charitable cause, this would be super amazing. What other ideas have you seen out there from creators where you thought, that’s well done, there’s value to the community in doing that. Any other ideas that I could think about for a charitable cause. I think this is very nice actually.
S: Yeah, charity is a great way to do it as well. One of the cool things I’ve seen is like staking of NFTs. So that’s something we’ve starting to see on the WAX Blockchain right now. This product is actually called R-Planet, you can stake WAX NFTs there and you get their native cryptocurrency that’s part of their little game. So that’s another thing that gives those projects value. Is it just something cool and collectable from someone I really like or admire or whatever it may be. But now I can actually stake it on those other platforms and I get extra utility. So that’s one of the cool things you’re now not limited by, if you created an NFT everyone can go and say, hey, if you own Julians Time NFT, I am going to give anyone who owns that NFT five minutes of my time too. That’s a very simple example, but there’s a lot of ways to piggyback too. And that’s a cool thing I started to see within the community is, community projects working with each other and saying, hey lets collaborate. If this person has this thing, or this person has this thing, it may unlock his other game, we talked about this a little bit earlier with KOGs being able to do something like that as well. So definitely we’ll start to see a lot more of too.
JH: How do you see the royalty system happening? You know, the reselling and so on?
S: Well royalties are great.
JH: Can you explain it briefly?
S: So it’s one of the biggest cornerstones of doing art on these platforms. Essentially you create an NFT, you sell it for 100 bucks, to somebody. He is super happy, you got your 100 bucks, whatever the fees or what you have to pay for the marketplace. And he goes and he takes it and he resells it for 1.000. So you’ve put a royalty fee on that, when you created it, of 10 percent. So you’ve made 100 bucks off his sale. And the next guy, he bought it for 1.000, he’s like, I am gonna flip this for 10.000. So then he sells it for 10.000 and you get 10 percent of that sale too. And so on, and so on, forever.
JH: What are reasonable royalties, where do you feel these are totally unreasonable. Or is there a standard already?
S: I would say a 10 percent royalty is fairly standard from what you can see across through the industry. A lot of platforms allow you to set your own royalty, so could do zero, you can take nothing. Or 15, or 20 percent or 25. It really depends. And that’s something you do have to obviously look out for too. Like, hey, maybe this guy is taking way too much of this sale. I am gonna have to pay him a lot of royalties just to buy this. And so that’s something that you have to take in consideration as well. Do you want to price out your buyers? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, maybe you think they don’t care that it’s gonna be 30 percent. But in particular I think keeping it at a decent, acceptable level makes sense. You still get to get some of these residuals and they’re not paying too much to be able to collect your art.
JH: I would love to talk about the specifics from an investors standpoint, how to get exposure to that. Before I do that, is there anything that you feel I left out on valuations or that there is value in those things. Anything you feel you want to add there?
S: One more thing on valuation, one thing I think that is also really cool that they’re doing is fractionalising NFTs as well. So that’s something we’re certain to see with a couple of projects, where they take a basket of NFTs, maybe the high dollar ones from big artists or something, and then they fractionalise them and say, okay, well we have this big basket of these NFTs, and we are gonna do 10.000 pieces that represent all these NFTs. And so you hold a piece of that. It’s like holding a piece of that collection or a piece of that NFT, instead of having to buy the whole thing. So that was actually a pretty cool concept. People are gonna see a lot more of that as well as NFTs, in particular high dollar ones increasing value.
JH: Cool. I want to throw a quote at you, when we’re talking about investing and I want to hear your feedback. “NFTs longterm, completely undervalued. NFT short-term, overvalued.” What’s your statement on that?
S: I would kind of agree. I think that there are a lot of NFT projects that are very hyped right now. We are really just kind of starting to see that. In the next six month we will really see a lot of things come on board that are very hyped and probably overvalued. But I do feel in the longterm that NFTs do a really great job of maintaining value in the longterm. And I’ve seen that, personally. I’ve had NFTs that I held since 2018. In particular a lot of Enjin NFTs and projects that I bagged. And they’ve just increased in value and they’ve increased in value. We’ve gone through bear markets and they stuck around but it’s been increasing gradually up and up. And so I definitely feel like that if you have a great project or piece of art that is in demand, then that’s gonna continue to happen. But I think we’ve seen a lot of saturation too right now and a lot of people just doing it, because they can. And it’s the cool thing to do. Yesterday Taco Bell announced that they’re going to do some NFTs, and I am like, now we know we’re in a damn bubble. You know, when fast-food companies get onboard it’s a bubble and it’s gonna pop any time soon. But you know that doesn’t mean that there still isn’t quality stuff out there. Just like in the ICO run up, there was a lot of crap, you know, just shit coin, shit coin, shit coin. But that doesn’t mean that every ICO was bad, because they weren’t. I participated in quite a few and they are still around and they are still doing pretty well. That wasn’t the majority of them and I think that’s what we’ve kind of seen with NFTs. And we’ve seen projects come and go before now, I think we’re going to see more of pop in, make some money, then leave, these Celebrities, because it’s trendy and they’re not gonna do it again after a year.
JH: Cool. Lets start at the base. Bitcoin. How do you feel NFTs will affect Bitcoin? Bullish, doesn’t matter at all, bearish. So if I am an investor and I am like, that’s all too complicated but I have Bitcoin exposure. Is that gonna be enough to participate on NFTs or is this gonna be totally irrelevant?
S: I don’t think Bitcoin is really relevant when it comes to the NFT conversation, unfortunately. Some people have tried to do some NFT stuff on Bitcoin, but you just can’t really do much with the current set of tools that Bitcoin provides for that. So I see them as kind of two different vehicles, investment vehicles really. NFTs are obviously more on the creative side, they’re unique items. That’s why they’re called NFTs, non-fungible Token. That’s for the people that maybe don’t know. But that’s what it means, it’s a unique item, you can’t put them together. Like a house and a house, they are houses but they don’t go together. A Bitcoin is like a Bitcoin, they are all the same. All Pennys are the same. I think that those are two sides of really amazing investing coin, in my opinion. I am always stashing my bitcoin, just like I tell my community of stashers, we’re all about longterm investors. And stashing our crypto. That kind of goes with the NFTs too. Look at some NFT projects, they’re gonna be longterm and you know stash them away, you can’t go wrong. But definitely two different sides of the coining net for sure.
JH: Do you think the NFT hype is gonna help rise Bitcoin prizes or do you rather think it’s a danger, because maybe NFTs are gonna compress again and they are gonna suck out some air of Bitcoin. Or do you think that’s relatively independent?
S: I feel like they’re pretty independent. I don’t think what’s going on with NFTs is going to do anything but just put more exposure onto the cryptocurrency world. If anything, maybe yeah, it encourages more people to get their feet wet. Maybe their first time they’re even experiencing anything crypto is coming in, because they’ve heard about NFTs and they didn’t give a crap about Bitcoin before. But NFTs are interesting, so they want to like check it out. And then eventually they buy some Bitcoin.
JH: Lets take it up a layer and say, you know, Bitcoin, the mother of all cryptocurrencies, no not that relevant as an investment. Lets talk about the Blockchains that I could invest in, really invest into the Blockchain, where NFTs are happening. You mentioned a couple before, do you want to kind of run down of investible Blockchains, where people could buy the coins of those Blockchains and would have in theory exposure to the NFT. Probably on some Blockchains, like Etherum, not as much, because there is so much other stuff happening. But then maybe another Blockchain that is very specific, because of their special purpose of NFTs.
S: There are quite a few that I did mention a couple earlier, Enjin is one of may favourite ones. Very focused on Blockchain and NFT development. Flow, that is the Token behind the Flow Network. Right now, the Token is not really incorporated so much into their platform, but it will be. Other ones, are like Sand. Sand is very popular too. That is the native Token of the Sandbox, which is also a virtual land world. And one, I’ve actually invested the most in is Sandbox. I am building a game there as well on my land. You can invest using that. Same with decentraland, they have Mana. That’s their Base Token. Those are both virtual land Token, you can invest in that. Obviously WAX. WAX is a great ecosystem, tons of NFT stuff going on there. Couple other ones like Ultra, is a pretty cool one for game distribution and selling. We talked about RFox a little bit earlier, that’s another one. Axie Infinity that’s a very popular game that has their own currency, AXS. Which is doing very well. Axie is a really fun game, really good way to play to earn, you can earn a really decent amount there. There is a couple other ones. Like Rari is another one we talked about. Phantasma is definitely one of my favourite up and coming ones. I love what’s going on in Phantasma.
JH: What about in only saying, you know what, I don’t care about all the details, I just want to hold some ETH, I just want to hold some BNB, I’m just gonna hold some ADA. I don’t know how much NFTs are happening on Polkadot. I don’t know. But what about this strategy? Do you think that’s to diversified in a sense that ETH might go up or might go down because of NFTs, or BNB might go up or might go down, but the exposure is not strong enough. How do you see that?
S: I feel like, if it’s a solid Blockchain like that, the prize action is probably not gonna be determined by what is going on in the NFT world. Now Etherum has a lot more going on than just NFTs, it always has. Same thing with like the other ones. ADA and BNB and stuff like that. I don’t think that that’s going to really effect those. I think those are all great coins, good longterm holds. But at this point I don’t think that their ecosystem are enough to make a big impact like that.
JH: Lets take it up another notch, are there …
S: You got a lot of notches, man.
JH: There is two more notches.
S: Two more? Damn. Another notch. You’re like the German admiral.
JH: So what about trading platforms? Is it possible to invest in those, like not directly the NFT, but maybe a step below, maybe where they get aggravated collected or you know like a Whale Token for example. Is it possible things like these?
S: I talked about a couple, like Niftex does the fractionalized NFTs. Whale as a Token, has just a big staple of NFTs and then the Token is kind of pegged to that, but it’s in the ERC-20. As much as I like that, I am not really focused so much on Etherum these days. But there are a couple other ones. WAX also actually came out with an interesting bridge to Etherum, where you can get parts of the overall NFTs sales through their platform by staking, by burning your WAXP, or WAXE tokens and then you can get WAXG Tokens. It’s a little bit complicated but in general it’s kinda like investing. And a lot of these have staking too, so that WAX has staking a couple of them have staking mechanisms where you can hold those and stake them there too and you get residual passive income, which I love. Some passive income in crypto. It’s one of my biggest things. And staking is definitely one of the things I am focusing on too.
JH: Is it possible to invest in Opensea or Rarible, SuperRare or what’s possible there?
S: Rarible yes, because they have their own Tokens, so you can buy the Token and invest. But you can’t directly invest in those, like in the companies. There is no stock, they not traded like that. So, no.
JH: If I want to invest directly into the NFTs. What are the research tools that an average person can use or utilise to get info on that?
S: These tools and things like that, that’s stuff I talk about every Tuesday on the NFT Beat. There are some pretty cool ones. You can go to cryptoSlam, which is actually a pretty cool one and that tracks a lot of what’s going on in the NFT world, like sales, volume and things like that. And there are other platforms like, dappradar or dappreview.Where you can go and see some of the volumes and things that are going on. Taps across multiple categories, not just games or NFTs, but pretty much everything build on those platforms. And I think those are some of the better tools to be able to watch and see what’s going on. I for myself am using cryptoSlam quite often.
JH: Where is it best to follow you? On YouTube and on Theta?
S: Yeah, it depends what kind of content you want. So I am very active on twitter. I am always there posting. That’s what usually people can see me doing a lot. But my telegram group, I am there almost 24/7. We have a great community there. So a lot of people come in there and ask questions and I help them out. I spend a lot of my time just kind of helping people. But this is not my full-time job. But I like doing it, I love it. The feeling of someone coming in, and they don’t know a lot about NFTs or some aspects of crypto, and I give them a little bit of guidance and they come back, hey Stache, look at this, I made my first NFT. You helped me, I wouldn’t be able to do it without you. That feels really good to me. So there’s a lot of going on there. Twitter, Telegram, Youtube it’s were I upload all my videos, and also livestream on Theta, but I also have a website, cryptostache.com. You can find all my links there. I have everything there, all my articles. I do a lot of writing too so that’s the place to find all my articles. But I am on a bunch of sites. Pretty much I am cryptostache everywhere.
JH: cool, I link this up down below. My final question, and then I don’t know if I left anything out.
S: You left nothing out man. I love it though.
JH: Where do you see the future of NFTs? On the one hand maybe for 2021 and then maybe for 2030, like ten years. Where do you see a bit of a short-term future, longterm future?
S: So short-term I think here in 2021 we’re gonna see a lot of explosion with creation, with development. I think by the end of the year we’ll start to see that probably die off a little bit. And some of the hype cash grab people starting to fade away a little bit and more of the quality projects rising to the top. When it comes to a longterm plan for NFTs, I fully believe that everything that is unique in our physical world is going to have a digitally based NFT backed item for it. We’re talking about marriage certificates, real estate documents, any kind of legal anything. Your car note. Pretty much anything that is unique. That would be tracked easier on a Blockchain. Because when it comes down to it, if using a NFT based car registration system, where you have your NFT in your wallet. It can always be checked, it’s verifiable, it can’t be forged. That maybe saves them 20 percent efficiency. And what does that mean in dollars. Thats maybe 20.000 or 20 million. So I think that there is a huge efficiency boost that can be gained and I think we’ll see a lot more of that happening in the real world. And using NFTs to back these unique items that we have in the physical world.
JH: That’s gonna be an exciting one. I totally agree, that’s gonna be a big one as well. Also those clear identifications. Stache, I highly appreciate it. Is there nothing else that I haven’t asked, that I should have asked?
S: I think we covered everything, you had some great questions. I hope that this was helpful to people. I hope that they can watch it and learn from this. And like I said, if you guys have questions, I try to make myself as available as possible so yeah.
JH: Very much appreciated. Very cool. So everyone on my channel, switch over, check Stache out on YouTube and Twitter. We’ll link everything down below. Obviously if you like this stuff, leave me an upvote. I would very much appreciate that. If you have any questions. Post it in the comments. Thanks everyone, take care. Thank you.
Links & Resources
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptostache
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL4k…
Resources NFTs
Cryptokitties: https://www.cryptokitties.co
WAX: https://on.wax.io/wax-io/
Enjin: https://enjin.io/
Rarible: https://rarible.com/
Super Rare: https://superrare.co/
Nifty Gateway: https://niftygateway.com/
Known Origin: https://knownorigin.io/
Opensea: https://opensea.io/
Decentraland: https://decentraland.org/
NBA Top Shots: https://www.nbatopshot.com/
Uniswap: https://app.uniswap.org/
Compound Finance: https://compound.finance/
MEME Project https://dontbuymeme.com/
Blau: https://nft.3lau.com/#/auction
Gods Unchained: https://godsunchained.com/
CryptoStache Stream: https://CryptoStache.Theta.tv
RedFox Labs: https://www.redfoxlabs.io/
Flow Blockchain: https://de.onflow.org/
Chain Games: https://chaingames.io/
The Sandbox: https://www.sandbox.game/en/
Ultra: https://ultra.io/
Axie Infinity: https://axieinfinity.com/
Phantasma: https://www.phantasma.io/nonfungible
NIFTEX: https://landing.niftex.com/
Crypto Slam: https://www.cryptoslam.io/
DappRadar: https://dappradar.com/
DappReview: https://dapp.review/