Minted: The Documentary - Maggie Love

Thank you so much, Kelly. That was a very beautiful rendition of that song. My last name is actually love. It's not my blockchain stage name, Maggie Love. I'm here with Nicholas Buckman.

We are so stoked to present this uh trailer to you for an NFT documentary called Minted that Nicholas and his team have been working on. Um Nicholas has won awards before for his documentaries and he's bringing that expertise to capture some of the most formative stories of the NFT space. Right? NFTs are more than just JPEGs or PFPs. Um, they are stories.

They are what is culture. They are bringing people into this space. And so, we're going to play a quick trailer for you. I literally got chills the first time I saw this and everybody who sees it also got chills. So, you're in for a very special experience to see it here live and those on the live stream, too.

So, I'll let Nicholas kick it off. Thank you so much, Maggie. Uh, Maggie is an executive producer on Minted and we have an amazing team. This is my first time at an Ethereum conference and I am learning a lot every day. I am a blockchain enthusiast but not a technical person.

So this has been a real deep dive for me and um it's been really great to do this work of translating this revolution that's happening that's really from my perspective being led by artists uh some of whom you'll get to meet in the film and some who I think are here today. So we'll um play a short clip and then talk about it for a few more minutes. Um, here is minted and I hope the sound works. Thank you guys. Um, this is our first time uh showing any of this publicly.

So, it's exciting to share it with the world and with the community that made all this possible and all the builders and and developers and artists here who are building the foundation for this new world. Um, I just want to uh first and foremost shout out all of our funders for this film. Uh, namely Protocol Labs, all of our executive producers, Maggie included, our producer Rahila Zafar, who couldn't be here today. Um, the community has been really generous in helping us make this film possible. And so I want to acknowledge that for everybody.

And um, also of course the artists, some of whom are here. Is Nick here? Young and sick. Are you here? Maybe.

He said he was coming. Uh, several of the artists from our film are here at ETH Denver. And just a little bit in terms of our timeline and process. Um we're going to be shooting this film over the next several months. So we are still in the casting and uh uh creation phase.

And so here also to meet new artists and new stories that are happening within the NFT world. So come chat with me and Maggie after and tell us what story we need to follow. This is a world that's un unraveling and un and unwrapping very quickly. Not unraveling but uh developing in at a breakneck speed which is hard to follow in a long form documentary. And so that's why we've taken this approach of really following the people at the heart of this movement.

Um so I think uh with that uh I can turn it over to you Maggie. Is there anything else you want to um say about the movie and our journey? I just Why did you want to be involved in that? Yes. Did anybody else like me was entranced by that and like oh my gosh we're actually a part of a revolution?

Did you have that feeling? Raise your hand. Yeah. Um, I think, you know, I joined the space in 2017, and it's really amazing to hear these artists talk about many of the same concepts that you heard if you came from like sort of like Bitcoin, early Ethereum, which is like freedom, autonomy, permissionlessness, like being able to own your identity, being able to own who you are as a creative, right? So um we have to remember that it's not just art, it's like financial freedom, it's autonomy, it's having that access to distribution anywhere in the world and really, you know, taking ownership of who you are.

And I think that sometimes in the global culture it can just feel like famous people are buying NFTTS and like that's great but this story is also really driving home like why we're all here sitting in the audience like what we believe in when we're thinking about changing finance culture community creating how we work and I think that's what this film captures really beautifully. So it's just more than NFTTS. It's like this whole revolution and I just think that storytelling is going to really put this on the map that even if you just got an NFT and you didn't really know after you see this documentary you definitely understand the importance of NFTs. So that's what I'm really excited about and just um I've been thinking about a lot as we think about how many people are entering the space like do they remember that it's more than just digital art right it's a whole revolution so I think you did a really good job of capturing that. Yeah, and I just want to add, we're really inspired by the work that Maggie does with SheFi Crypto, which is bringing uh new and different audiences into the crypto and blockchain space.

That's something really important to us with the film. There is still, as we've learned in the process of making this film, a big barrier to access for NFT artists. As you saw in the film, we shot in Africa. We're traveling to Cuba soon to film with artists there. And there's a lot that needs to be done to make the playing field equitable.

So we hope that this both inspires artists to come and explore this space but also developers to create the tools that will bring new marginalized diverse voices into this into this world and help them to make their art and of course lead the way for more decentralization. So um if you want to learn more about the film we haven't launched anything publicly yet but it's called Minted. You can follow me or Maggie on Twitter. I'm Nick_brookman and please stay in touch with us about the journey. We are um of course going to launch some NFTts with the artists that we are working with and there will be more to share about that soon.

So thank you ETH Denver for having us. [Applause]