EBC22 | Misconceptions about NFTs & Digital Assets

three two one [Music] hi everyone and Welcome to our panel the misconceptions about nfts and digital assets so like the name says today we're gonna actually clear a little bit these misconceptions and also speak about how investors can take advantage of nfts and digital Assets in their investment strategies especially in the current market conditions but before we start the panel I want to take the chance to for us to introduce ourselves I can start with myself my name is Maria Innova arms and I'm based in Frankfurt Germany I'm the founder and CEO of echo lens and aqualance is a web 3 recruitment platform we train people in different blockchain professions such as solidity developers marketers Community managers content creators for blockchain and then we connect them to blockchain companies where they can find jobs I would like to ask my fellow panelists to also introduce themselves lovely thank you I'm firewood City and founder of rtq it's a investment capital for nfts and we also enable a lot of uh traditional art move into nfts with tokenization and different type of aspects I will explain a little bit afterwards and we are also trying to create security assets bankable nfts for the projects that which we are involved in hi everyone I'm Ricky Hira I'm the marketing director for bid.com uh bit.com is actually a crypto trading platform where we provide sport Futures Trading as well as crypto options trading we've been around since August 2020 and if you guys have visited our booth um you'll see that you'll get to learn what we do and something really cool about us and I hope you guys uh will enjoy the panel today thank you so let's start um after we had a fantastic 2021 with the Rays of nfts blockchain gaming D5 further expanding uh we had a little bit of a harsher reality this year with the so-called crypto winter so let me give you some statistics what that really means so the crypto Market lost over 55 of its market cap which is a loss of over 1.2 trillion US Dollars according to data from coin market cap this of course affected the nft prices as well and according to coin gecko the Blue Chip nft collections lost over 70 percent of their price so in such market conditions it's kind of hard for investors to react so my first question uh would be what options do investors have in crypto winter um when prices are dropping Ricky okay well um I guess in this uh Market it's not really the best time to go crazy and uh try to jump into getting whatever's the next hype coin or token that's that's coming out and I think people need to understand that it's more about analyzing their portfolios uh managing their expectations are looking at the limitations within the scope of what what they are working with and also to understand that if they want to really diversify at this time they should do it smartly take a step back always be calms relaxed uh don't panic and make sure that you're making informed decisions thank you Ricky and can we maybe somehow bring traditional investment formats into the digital world firebot okay that was actually our main issue when we started to launch our token around a year ago we talked with a lot of investors the first question always from traditional or conventional investors was what is the security how I buy it we faced a lot of issues also that they are not allowed to invest into cryptos like family offices and others what had happened that it changed a lot our strategies we tried to create a Fiat investment fund separate than what we were doing going through the legislation and the rules to create an investment fund and and as a non-tokenized was that we need again to go to a lot of countries that they offer those Services what we changed we created an Eisen a normal security investment code we did it in Switzerland with two companies actually now people can also invest with Fiat in their own portfolio like as they are trading stock or investing in in any other any other Financial product they just go to their bank and they say we want to have rtq and that's what we're launching now the underlying they pay with Fiat the underlying asset is The Tokens The Tokens goes to a custodial uh holder and the bank actually drags the prices from our own API or coin market cap or the other official apis this product as a financial traditional Financial product for investment solved a lot of our issues at this moment we are getting a lot of family offices institutionals that they are investing with our platform because they didn't want to go directly in a token economics and I think to create or connect the whole uh traditional way of doing investment with what is happening in the crypto world would help us all and that's what we are recommending to our partners we have created a few groups that we are supporting everyone how we do it if anybody has questions on that you can always drop us an email and we at least tell you with which companies because it took us seven months to get approvals from Swiss banking system to bring this product on the market now we did it and then if any questions please drop me an email my email would be FS rtq.io anytime I will be happy to be able to support great I think it's a very interesting product what you created there and I also know that you come from the traditional art world or this is your interest so let's combine again like the traditional world with digital world how can tokenization allow investment in the traditional art world we have a great kind of success story that we find it a lot as a success a lot of people still are saying we didn't sell the 10 000 tokens uh 10 000 pieces uh we started last year with the museum uh in Austria it's called Belvedere Museum we took one of their masterpieces it's the Gustav Klimt the kids and we tokenized to 10 000 pieces it means they are fractional ownership everybody were saying why you're doing that or or what is the what is the economics behind the problem is with NFD Market everybody thinks that I need to jump in in a project that is a lot of Engagement in it and I increase my price and then exit it or or make money with it but everybody forgets the concept of art because for me as an uh lover of what Gustav klimted and is is a one-time chance that this piece is getting digitalized and tokenized for me I would love to own a piece and to hold it as a long term because never in traditional art art would increase prices by few hundred percent our aspect of looking at nfds and digital art or traditional art in nfts I think we need to also change our point of view what we also seen with the kids uh it was really cool that kids would buy dnfd and they would go to the museum in front of the original piece that is normally not easy to get the kids to go to the museum and they were making selfies with their piece in the hand that I own a piece of this beautiful Masterpiece and we see that we need to do much more to traditional art to through our digital nfts because that's the way to enable people to own a piece a lot of the young investors in nft field they were asking us in our Discord that was new to us too that what is who is Gustav Klimt and then for me like okay guys where we start with now the the game is getting much more tough we handed over the Discord first to some of our uh senior staff and they were like how should I answer that and now we are very happy that we have a young team taking care of it I I cannot follow with the Discord messages I would get really mad after half an hour but a lot of questions came in we see that there is a missing connection between the nfts that they are enabling art to live more or enabling artists to live we had the corona time none of the artists was able to sell we owned few galleries in Europe and we didn't have any events it was two years off nobody's old art it was really tough to sell art and most of them they created their nfds and they were surviving on it it means connecting the traditional artists and even museums what we did now we are extremely happy that people are still talking about the project buying uh unique additions uh we were last week also in New York NYC nft it was shocking that we didn't see anything traditional there everything was the very nice projects we loved the new projects but where are the galleries where the museums and I think if we as the community of people that have stepped in already into crypto and more talking about myself then we need to enable that that everybody understands how to use digital art to support artists support museums we sold nearly 5 million euro for uh till now for the Belvedere Museum it's a great money for them because they were also not selling any tickets and now they have another extra 5 million in the in the budget they are most probably getting new art or whatever they're doing with it and those are the things that I think the connection would be great and we in rtq we try to beat a bridge and try to find solutions to do this better I love this that you're actually discussing on this chord about the artists and the real art and not about what our nfts and yeah how do I get a wallet how do I sell an nft I love that you turn the conversation around into the traditional world and the history of Art and what is real art about I love that thank you but it's not far away because our digital artists are also artists they have their their playground into now the the medovers a lot a lot of digital tools they are always in our cell phone but why not the other artists also using it I hate it when we go to Galleries and they're like oh these nft people what NFD people there is the it's just a new way of looking at the art and we we have a lot of tool yeah it's a tool for everyone it's not only for artists for Collectibles tools for everything when I was a kid we were collecting books collectible all car pictures or football whatever FIFA stuff now we are doing it differently and and I really want to try to get this uh this barrier between the digital and the somehow offline art to be to go away because it's it's just a good tool for everyone and and it's a long-term good investment yeah yeah because when it comes to nfts um well uh the main misconception about nfts uh it always makes me laugh it's like people think it's like glorified jpegs of like cartoon monkeys or cats or whatnot but they fail to realize that the technology behind it is actually there's actually a lot of real world use case scenarios uh I'll give you an example like uh if you heard uh Alpha Romeo the car manufacturer actually produce an SUV that um it's it's electronic system is actually tied to the blockchain so um people can it and it will generate an nft certificate to to let people know um when the car has been serviced whether it's been serviced properly and on time and that in itself shows that um you see when you sell the car it it actually uh preserves the value that um that of the of that vehicle whereas uh I think that's why I feel that the real world use of this uh nfts has been Lost in Translation because if you come back to my initial point it's beyond it goes beyond um just uh cartoon pictures or art in any form even like but for both mentioned real world art that's also something that people see nfts as maybe they don't see the value of picking traditional art into an nft but I think as for both mentioned it brings a lot of Education to people in on different platforms and channels just adding one thing and that because I get a lot of questions that is really because you're in the art scene and they say okay what is with this punks or what is with this apes and why they are so valuable and and what is going on sometimes also now I took before the side of the traditional art now I want to take also a little bit side of the nft and digital art when you have a few hundred million reach with with a message of the Apes that comes out the world is following actually it's the same with the with the artists that we have and when we when we talk about the great Gustav Klimt is the reach that makes it so valuable because people know about it and that's why we say the value is on both sides whether it's a digital art or is it traditional art but connecting it would be where it's useful yeah definitely and let's say I own a digital asset like an nft can I collateralize it or how do I collateralize it and use it as security Fireball um okay that's something that in any government legislation you ask that they would say no it's not possible leave it or whatever I'm asking how thousands of documents look it's it's actually the the aspect that is changing if we create security tokens that there is already enough of companies who have the license we applied for on for one and we have received it after one and a half year if we try to see nfts as as the art which before we would take it to Switzerland or Lichtenstein and lock it up there and use the documentation to get a loan for a house or a car we are trying and it's not only us a lot of other companies have done extremely great effort for it that we are doing bankable nfts it means when you buy something you need to get evaluator the evaluator there's a lot of tools out there but the reason we are also trying to bring a lot of uh traditional art tokenizing it or fracture with the ownership of the original art even is to bring the banks and institutions to accept this as a traditional artwork because when first we talked about digital only they were like who gonna evaluate it now is much easier there's thousand tools out there everything but still they are not comfortable with we have we are working with three banks that they have been so far very responsive and we are there accepting our projects but we are trying to somehow convince them with owning a digital piece that behind it there is a part of the original piece and why this is different than putting my my painting in their secure room it would be the same thing then they came up with an idea that they need cold wallets it means I need to deposit it on a cold wallet bring it to the bank then we agreed upon that too it went one step further now they have a custody ballot because most of the banks has understood the importance of it now they are accepting that we just transferred to their custody ballot and they use it and I think for all the nft projects globally if everybody tries to convince their house Banks or people that they're working with them to to initiate this that would be the future and that's where we are also as rtq looking into to become someday uh in in future an nft bank that people can even borrow or collaterize it with us that's why we are creating one-to-one security tokens out of their nfts okay understood but nfts are not as liquid as let's say fiat currency or even cryptocurrency so is the liquidity an issue um yeah well I would say it's definitely an issue that needs to be addressed um however companies need to have a proper infrastructure in place and be adaptable for nfts because I mean for example you could own a portion of my glasses one day maybe because it's the technology is crazy and the possibilities are endless but it comes back to the point that I feel that companies must make sure that they remain adaptable and have the infrastructure in place so that liquidity becomes less of an issue okay starboard what do you think about the liquidity question do you think there's an issue with the liquidity of nfts especially from an Investor's point of view because I think I own a couple of nfts um right now of course they're not worth anything I would like to collateralize that probably I cannot take a big loan on that um but yeah what what other things can I do with my nfts because they also they call it uh crypto winter is also nft winter spring coming soon but should I wait definitely I wouldn't sell anything I mean this is like first of all look at it as art you collected it and one thing when you have a lot of art piece at home when you want to sell it even when you don't have money I had these issues sometimes which one you want to sell you look at each one of them and say no this one not then tomorrow I would say maybe that one and now even if you decide it was it it was a time that pop art was was great and everybody were investing in pop art I'm sure a lot of people in the crowd they also invested in it they bought 5 000 Euro pop art was was really cool but can I sell it no and I have a lot of those it's like you you love it you love an art piece you buy it it's always we need to see it two different things one is asset investment that and the other one but the the the boom we had in the last two years unfortunately everybody sees as NFD as an asset but it's not actually pure asset is also how you love the peace how you love that piece of art or do you want to have it do you want to showcase it do you want to give it as a gift to your niece or whoever we cannot always materialize that one because I'm sure everybody has art at home that they cannot sell it anymore or the artist didn't make it you go to an art gallery you see a great artist great work and the artist decides after two years to give up you bought it for 5 000 Euro and you will never be able to sell it to that price maybe a few hundred bucks as a garage sale or something somebody would pick it up but if you put it in any online trade market for art it wouldn't jump out like immediately that's why art isn't long-term investment and if these showed us how great they can be but still I would say it's a long-term investment and people who buy nfts I would always recommend also love it all also like it be touched with it because it may be like now that a lot of things are not sellable but it's it's the same as the financial markets I don't want to put it different I have stock that now I see all zeros and I didn't know when these companies went off the New York Stock Exchange I just see my e-trade account at this bunch of zeros and they're gone no value it could be the same if you look at it as as a kind of financial investments I would prefer to put it as a art okay so our panel is about the misconceptions of nfts and I think education and communication is a very large part of removing this misconceptions and Ricky you're a marketer you're a marketing expert can you tell us how from your point of view and from your company's point of view can we maybe have a better Communications about what an nfts are and what one can do with nfts uh that's a good question actually so um you see it's the information is always out there you just type a few words in Google and you can get a lot of information but what we've at bit.

com find is that the messaging out there is too technical it's too much and it's it's too saturated if you will so what we will try to do is to make crypto not just accessible but simple you know crypto trading Made Simple it's like if I'm not a Trader I want to learn about trading if I go to a platform uh like say for example you use you come to a Blog and it's like how to trade crypto and you're going to read like a couple of paragraphs I don't know about most people here but for me myself if I read too much uh and something's too technical too dry I just lose interest and then what I prefer and I guess especially the younger generation what we call the tick tock generation Asian they prefer information in small doses in videos and that's what we try to do we try to bring crypto education to a different level by just producing short videos let them understand and then after they read those videos if they want to learn more then they go and read I think that's a better Direction and approach as compared to what is currently out there in the industry yeah and I think it also a lot depends on your target group so as a company everyone should think okay who is actually my target group if you say it's the tick tock generation then of course you cannot print out like PDF reports with charts and stuff like this that's exactly true so I mean with this we do still put out those content because we have um users of all different levels of trading uh maybe like novices to experts so of course we still put out that content but like I said earlier it is about letting people have access to simple information and if they want to get into in diving deep into it then they can go and read stuff and learn a bit more about it as well great so guys we concluded our questions but now maybe we can take some questions from the audience are there any questions I cannot see so much from here yeah we have a question here yeah coming hi thank you from the perspective of marketplaces what would you tell us open question okay that's a quite a tough question this is uh we have experience with all of them and none of them is actually supporting properly the traditional art movement to digital they're not supporting easily the artists there is a few platforms artists only they don't accept in projects I think the marketplaces in nft and we have been talking also to pitt.com team since where we are new to that and they're opening it new we are trying to talk to most of them I think there is a huge gap for marketplaces to take Serious that until now it was just a nft drop people would buy it they would charge a lot of commissions they would charge a lot of transfer fees and everything and now at the time somehow is stopped and I'm very happy because of that that hopefully they look into what artists need and we are talking about digital artists offline artists both of them because there are no tools easily for them because when you when you put something in in any of the big ones I don't want to name them you are totally lost I mean for for an artist until now it was in a Atelier doing their great work and there was only one Gallery in his city that was buying the art and now you bring him to a worldwide uh Global opportunities and you don't support them at all it's really tough and and that's why and and if you look at all all of them there is no categories of art at this moment that they can even make different social media platform for it to support it we hope they will change our initial idea was also under rtq to launch a Marketplace after we have seen how much work it is and we have already enough on the plate we decided not to good that's why we are trying to negotiate with most of them today I was very happy to see a lot of exchanges here that they have also their their their marketplaces that to try to convince them to work with people like us that we are doing onboarding every day in the in the last one year we onboarded 370 artists that they came we did classes we teach them how to do it we have also local galleries that we are turning it happen if they have traditional and that would be uh the best thing but very very good question and I hope they are listening most of them and then we we do a little bit of change into bringing artists into the market thank you very much and yeah this is the end of our panel thank you very much for being here and listening to the panel and thank you to my fellow thank you so much thank you to everyone thank you