BBW22 - Day 2 - Wholesome Crypto

[Music] I know you guys flew in this afternoon literally like an hour ago they landed and it came over here straight away so that's dedication and I really appreciate that thank you and uh we do have Ty joining us remotely so we have some questions prepared for him but I know you're working on Nifty media art it's a great platform a blockchain platformer a lot of artists of any kind can actually join in and show their art and own their art but before we get into what you're building let's get into who you guys are and why you're building this so I want to know a little bit about what you're doing before blockchain before ever hearing about it and your story of getting into that so we can start with Ty first so I know he's online hey Boston blockchain how y'all doing my name is taekwon Wright I am a look development artist from Brooklyn New York originally and currently living in Vancouver British Columbia where I am right now um I am an artist um that is always working on projects and my latest project is called graffiti Heroes um I am going to release that soon and I hope everyone is here to enjoy it and please stay tuned to hear more about it later thank you thank you Ty now Dan I want to know a little bit about what you were doing before ever hearing about blockchain yeah before uh blockchain Bitcoin all came out we were uh I was working at CNBC as a cnbc's executive creative director and executive producer for development so uh I got I was there to launch new programming so as one of the uh uh people who were part of the initial team that launched mad money with Jim Cramer fast money off uh fast money options action and prior to you know current as we call that virtual currency back in the day yeah uh uh nobody was covering it uh however we took an interest in it in fast money and we were covering it pretty much weekly then it became uh daily and then as you notice like CNBC put uh Bitcoin in the lower bug bar uh on the current price so before you know before that we we just saw it as a great opportunity to do something that nobody else was doing so we were pretty excited about that I feel like I remember that day I was like watching fast money or like I saw on Reddit Bitcoin on the ticker of CNBC look at that bitcoin's becoming a known and popular so that's pretty exciting when that did happen and that's awesome you're a part of that Forefront yeah yeah a good friend of mine Max Myers he uh uh he is big into Bitcoin as well and uh you know um and then of course we have uh Anthony scaramucci uh with the with the network I'm no longer with him but uh you know he's a big part of uh crypto had crypto Bahamas not too long ago so yeah exciting Pat what about you what were you doing before ever hearing about I've been going uh spent the last couple decades in in sync which is kind of piggybacking on the last panelists but licensing music to TV film uh advertising and General Media and uh Dan and I had met I guess it was a little over a decade ago through a possible project at CNBC and I was a little later to the party but again I found the last panel fascinating because having been in sync and Publishing for the last two decades there's just it there's there's a lot of things that are broken and crypto seemed to be an opportunity to do things correctly and again same idea of giving the artist their share and trying to speed up the process so it is it's exciting on the music side to see opportunities to fix some you know some of the many many downfalls of the current system so that's that's what got me excited about it and you know kind of was able to to hook up with Dan and become involved in Nifty media as as you know in the Music Arena and the music licensing area nice and were you uh always on the looking out for the latest tech or was this someone else like here's look at Bitcoin shove it in your face and you got excited about it yeah I as far as Tech goes always fairly involved because we have a a cranky CTO at our company that's constantly signing up for new and expensive uh services so on that sense I've always been interested from from the financial perspective and as well as efficiency on on our various platforms but the uh when Bitcoin broke to me it was once I saw that it wasn't just Bitcoin right and that there was an entire other Universe out there that had all these possibilities that's what I think fascinated me to see that there this could be again whether it's web 3 or attaching new technology to existing whether it's publishing or sing that's that's the thing that I think gets me the most excited nice and what about you Dan how did you feel when you first heard about like Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies did it start like jogging your mind oh this is going to change money or is this because fast money was telling you to put it on and like all right I'm just doing my job I don't really know what this is about until well I thought I thought uh virtual currency because that's what it was called at the time I thought it was dead I didn't think it would make it I really didn't however is an interesting story to cover um you know in 2015 there's a a national security report that was National Security uh implications of virtual currencies and after reading that um I thought okay there's no way the United States government is going to let virtual currencies non-state actors um uh have access to controlling uh money supply or whatnot so I really didn't think it would have too much of a life and as as uh working for a news network uh that covers financials uh CNBC actually has a policy for employees that we're not allowed to invest in anything so so I had no real interest I'm like I can't make money I can't invest but I I didn't think it would survive yeah yeah uh but once it got past the 2016 election I was like okay it has life uh I still couldn't invest though so um it was uh uh phenomenal to see the meteoric rise from really 2017 a little bit of a pause in 1819 then uh 20 20 20 20 20 20 21 just stratospheric yep you know everyone's to the moon and then you're seeing this this harsh draw a drop so yeah so my first instinct was uh it was a great story with great technology to cover however um I thought the technology was something that could go somewhere not the virtual currency or the cryptocurrency yeah exactly that's like the most exciting part about blockchain tech for me is the technology itself self-sovereignty data ownership and people get kind of stuck on the money part of that and watch the price go up and down but it's the builders like us who are here building now that actually drive that adoption and use case of blockchain technology and I'd also love to hear from TY too what his hey Zach um first experience with blockchain was great so when I first heard about cryptocurrency I felt unsure about it um I have a co-worker uh that in co-workers in general that always are on top of the latest in technology and Trends and one of the trends back in 2010 was buying digital currency of Bitcoin yeah and just Bitcoin back then and I had no foresight um the person that um was telling me about it had all the foresight he's an amazing investor he's always on top of things or at least putting his his um foot in the water when it comes to new technology and new ideas um but yeah I was I was willing to wait until other people were on board or if the process of acquiring it was was easier maybe I would have been on board but I felt like it was so complicated and that's my story about how it felt um about digital currencies or cryptocurrencies when I first heard about Bitcoin yeah and it's definitely a scary thing to like invest in because if you don't research a tech behind it you have kind of no idea what you're putting your money into um but now that you guys are evolving in this industry watching it grow being part of it I want to know a little bit about how you what you've learned in your experience and also what crypto pet peeves you have that you've developed over the years uh Dan you can start okay sure uh well we it's exciting technology um uh so much use cases for all different aspects of it um and that's where you know picking up on what Greg said in the last panel uh about really getting artists involved uh we believe that you know what we're doing at Nifty media art is uh designed by artists or artists we have Kai Wright who won an Academy Award for Spider-Man into the spider-verse and the Golden Globe hopefully you'll win another with uh Spider-Man into the uh Multiverse it's a great movie I love that movie um but you know with my time with Ty uh working with them at CNBC and then developing that relationship and then with all the other relationships we have with uh Josh Stevens who is part of LMFAO uh and uh uh Shafiq Hussein and Akuma matsuda uh bringing all the artists together to create something uh special to be able to give them involved into taking back uh some of the control from the artist standpoint but my my pet peeves um I mean the constant uh my crypto blockchain is better than your blockchain is annoying you know I think what I like about algrand is that they're uh they believe that you know the uh blocked block blockchains can exist for other reasons and then there's can be a crossover and work together opposed to against each other I think is uh really smart and I like that Al Grant's a green blockchain um so I guess the pet peeve is the you know the back and forth yeah whose Tech is going to win um I think we all can win and then um of course the short Sellers and crypto thinking uh uh a nice Bull Run and back and forth uh but I think that that happens with any Emerging Market uh we know this right now we're in a in a pretty uh solid correction yeah hopefully we're at the end of that and uh we can uh move forward so really it's your it's your short sellers your Market you know people messing with the market and then your uh people not working together it's the biggest uh exactly and and Pat for you I know being a music kind of working with different Industries and different album covers and record Studios that's blockchain must have been like a breath of fresh air for you but being here there's got to be something that maybe you can relate back to web 2 would be nice but yeah I would say I would say I guess the the the one deficiency or the one uh negative that I see is is kind of the fact that when you're dealing with artists right now that are used to web through they're used to a traditional model it's the explanation right to get their heads around this new idea and a lot of them see some of the negative press they see when you have to explain it to them what you want to do you want to make sure you explain the value and the necessity for these new opportunities but there's also skepticism and and there's some blowback or pushback I should say so I would say like anything else there's going to be growing pains with new technology so I think uh the negative is also the positive in that there's so many opportunities so when something isn't set in stone and especially on the music side when we're still establishing again as what they spoke about on the last panel traditional models that are now adapted to block chain again I think that I think that's the an enormous plus but it's also the difficulty of it's not established yet so and and all of that you know does go back to Smart contracts and the legal and copyright and making sure that everything that as this progresses it's done correctly and the artist has again I don't need to keep piggyback but I found the last panel fascinating for that reason because if you want to give artists you know if you want them to have more value than they have previously or they had before you want to make sure it's done correctly so I think that's the what's exciting but also if there's a difficulty is just making sure that's the that's established correctly exactly that's that's a great thing that you guys did all meet each other and building this building Nifty media art to help artists and I want to know more about the story of how you all met and I want to hear also from Tai how he met you guys too I got started in empty media art in 2021 uh Dan Hoffman and fobs um approached me uh Dan Hoffman first just asked me if I was interested in nfts and that he he was building a team of people and experts that would help create a Marketplace for artists and by artists um I am not a business person so so I you know I when I was um approached um by them to engage in business and think about this kind of marketplace um I I thought it was honor honestly in that really just drove me to um just start designing so um when I got started I was just on calls um uses my imagination and thinking about um apps like Spotify and Robin Hood just apps that were well designed and maybe how a Marketplace app might look if it was designed so that's my that's my connection to um Nifty media uh right now with the future of nifty media um is really about um just getting more artists um on board and um seeing more art from those Arts so if there are just any if there are any artists like me I'd imagine that um maybe you don't know a music producer but in the future on a platform like Nifty media you might be directly engaged with a producer um that wants to now um come out with an album that doesn't normally rap or sing and you may talk directly to that producer that you will make an album cover for because you're part of that Community um everybody is accessible and I think that art should be accessible and that's the future of nifty media I think that there's nothing stopping Nifty from reaching a larger audience and we have to think about that we have to think about what is going to engage people as the market trends up I'm excited about the future it's uh when I was asked about what is the future of nifty media it's it's just an infinite amount of possibilities and um that Infinity threat is what uh makes me excited awesome I know yeah Ty's an award-winning artist and having him on your team is probably very helpful and I want to know more about how you uh met with him and how you got him on on the team yeah so uh I can't say enough about Ty he's phenomenal uh the one of the kindest souls and hardest working people I met is definitely why I wanted them on the team um uh I was approached by a friend from high school uh who worked with uh Babs uh our uh our leader and CEO uh to talk about uh blockchain and about nfps and I first of all his his name Fabio Italiano I gotta meet this guy and so when I first met him I was like I I I don't know you but because her name's Fabio Italiano um uh we're gonna be best friends um and uh but he turned out to be a really soft solid guy so organized comes from the Consulting world so he knows how to put the decks together and really organize a team and so as we got to the talk and um he said uh do you know any artists I'm like of course you know lots of them uh and uh I reached out to Ty and Ty had you know we're very lucky Ty had like four or five projects on his plate that he was entertaining and uh I spoke to him for a couple hours one night and I thought I had a pretty good pitch and then talked to him about a week later and he's like you know what Dan I'm I'm gonna invest my energy and time with uh you and Nifty uh and then I introduced him to Fabs and uh and a few other people were talking with and uh from that point I think that was the kind of spurt growth uh and then at the same time Josh Stevens who's a member of Ls plus b uh a band but uh you know he's won Grammys uh he just he recently won uh enemy uh with uh lizzo's show um uh I forgot the name the big girl uh show uh which is amazing because winning uh Emmy uh uh in music is kind of harder than a Grammy because there's only a few music right sure yeah and speaking with a guy by the name of Bob cudarella who's a legend in the music industry he's like when he's won many Grammys and has over 150 Platinum Records or platinum songs he's like I cried when I got my Emmy yeah so uh yeah so then Fabs um worked with uh Imran Imran Khan who's our third co-founder Imran Khan worked in big media uh from Disney WB uh and fox uh Studios so his background in the dev side uh was Paramount so as soon as we got Kai uh Imran came aboard as our co-founder and uh which is what's making this all possible because imran's company fujitron has over 200 employees worldwide World worldwide on uh on the dev side well and so he's made it available for us to bootstrap what we're doing and uh continue to do so so it's not every day you get that kind of power where you know uh to even get off the ground you have to raise millions of dollars just to get to that point and we're uh I'll speak about it in a little bit but getting too uh close to launching our app that we've been working on for a little a little over a year now wow and then with Pat um so on the music side with uh Josh Stevens and uh LS plus b is really understanding the licensing and Publishing side and all the rights that go into music now working in television music rights is the last thing I ever want to be involved with because when I was at ESPN we were doing a show called the ESPN Action Sports Music Awards and having the hunt down uh you know getting approvals for a song uh that had uh multiple writers on it I think if there's a sample of Red Hot Chili Peppers pretty little ditty um for that uh I forgot the name of the song but either way I had too many people and chasing everything it's uh it's a it's it's it's a legal Nightmare and so Pat um approached me oh probably about 12 years ago yeah and we met at CNBC had a great conversation about his uh Boutique music uh business that he was building and has done a phenomenal job over the last 10 years it's a it's it's it's grown so much we didn't do a deal together at the time but he's he was memorable at what he was doing and so I reached out to him a cold call really yeah yeah yeah and said if you want to get involved in blockchain and nfps we need somebody with your expertise and contracts and you know he's probably 10 000 contracts or more of uh licensing publishing sync yeah and so having that aspect to have somebody with that kind of experience knowledge and a a whole group uh hundreds of artists underneath him on exclusive music uh was kind of that key in the music range because to be honest I want to be more images and video because that's easier and less legal hassle but until we really uh when we got uh Pat on board uh I knew it was possible and uh yeah that's no that's that's I mean you summed it up and I think just just from from my end it was nice that that you know Decades of of dealing with publishing and the headaches and legalities of music licensing and Publishing uh to be able to put that to good use and new use with with new technology and also I mean from you had touched it before with with album covers the fact that the marriage of Art and music and the utility that could be gained from that right and the revenue that can be gained from that new Revenue in terms of you know whether it's it's fans being investors or uh you know owners of NF music nfts there's all those components and it's exciting and I think that's where it's kind of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup moment of you know you have this I have this if we put it together put our heads together it's so we can create something new and something of value so that's why it was it was a pleasure um it's exciting because of the technology it's also I mean still running the company but it's also it's something that that I see is the future and it was a great um I just think it was a fortuitous DM you know in the link LinkedIn DM because it was like because we had I think you know liked different posts back and forth but as soon as I learned more about the company it was also the impetus to just become much more skilled in blockchain and and I think that was the thing that had done it and then I got my team excited about it and and kind of our some of our Marquee artists that are excited about creating for this so yeah it was it was it was a a wonderful call and and I'm and I'm glad to be on board and in the in the music capacities and and watching things grow that's amazing and you both are working in very intense Industries and now you're adding another intense industry of blockchain and I'm wondering how do you keep your like sanity sometimes or just get out of the blockchain world and kind of take your mental space self-care time what do you do for like hobbies and helping helping out with with that well I think in just overall management I think we're all doers and entrepreneurs so we have that you know uh uh um uh spark that we're all trying to ignite something beyond our our day jobs in corporate and we also have uh our other advisor Jim uh Colonel Jim uh rignor of uh uh the U.S Air Force retired um he's a great leader uh he's a blockchain instructor at MIT uh that's where we got to know him through Fabs and uh uh Jim has he's just a great Center Point for focus and Leadership he just wrote a book on leadership uh and continues to advise us on how we can be better making great introductions uh across the board he's got a blockchain he's got a supply chain company that he's running uh uh vertek it's called vertex and it's uh for airplane Parts because he's he's a pilot makes sense and and with that said um he is authenticating that these parts are real and he's got a whole backstory that we'll hear about uh as as we grow but having his leadership is great um and I think uh Hobbies it's really entrepreneurship yeah um once you're in it you just love to just get yeah forced into it yeah I mean of course uh then traditional like Hobbies snowboarding you know that's what kind of brought me to the east coast from snowboarding out at uh Cresta Butte going to college and and uh that's when X Games kind of came into the pitcher and then I went full time to Connecticut and one thing led to another but yeah so um and then I think uh just uh I'm we're all trying to manage our spouses uh because we're on yeah late night calls all night long and I just have a I I have a nine month old so it makes it even more challenging it makes it worth it what about you Pat I mean it's again a similar scenario I mean I think the one um when you work in media there there's particularly a music there's so many different aspects right now Revenue wise and music at least for for on the sync side so you're constantly shifting right between whether it's for us it's TV if it's advertising or it's streaming now so it's it's actually almost healthy for the brain to have to kind of continue to shift so you're not stuck in the mire of just publishing all day long when you're able to kind of apply that or leave that and then go into a new opportunity it keeps your brain working and and I think it's just something that like like Dan had mentioned when you're in media it just it almost expects that from anyone involved in it you know you almost have to be prepared for that and ready to do the work and ready to shift and and even as Dan has mentioned with you know I know with my wife she's used to the like whether we're on vacation or because I mean I think anyone that I mean I think any anyone that's even the slightest bit entrepreneurial when when people that aren't and you're on vacation or if you're with friends they'll look at you and say can't you just put it down and it's like you know I mean again I understand that if you if you have a traditional job but it's like no there's no I mean it's you're constantly that's what's wonderful about it but you know I guess it could be a difficulty but that's the thing I think it's just you're you're you have the your brain is programmed that way and I think this is it's it's really fueled by excitement yeah but you know trying to then kind of connect all the dots and and figure out a path forward a constant engagement of seeing what's going on um yeah and as you're into this industry more and more and seeing what's happening in a broader Spectrum I want to know quickly uh what is a wholesome crypto moment that you've recognized or been through in in this industry something that's like heartwarming to happen are you witnessed that you really appreciate yeah um well bring the team together uh you know uh people like Pat that uh I met a long time ago and then uh you know I have a a couple other people that are artists that I have now a reason to like have more conversations like uh Tony Tony steals who's out of New York City she's a A hip-hop artist uh we did something back in maybe 2011 and you know if you're not doing something current with someone uh it kind of kind of Peters out and then Rob Hoffman he's gonna release his first single uh most likely early next year wow and uh through Josh Stevens and Akuma and shapik they've been able to take uh somebody who has the talent uh record a session and then help build them along and then we had I think the wholesome moment was uh we brought everybody together at the Soho Home Store like Soho House in New York uh for uh kind of a kickoff event and we had uh Lauren Wixom uh perform uh as well as uh Tony Steals and um then we also had on our second event um Anna storm who won three Emmys for the lizzo show and and they did it as favors and because they do believe that we're four artists by artists uh platform that you know our our kind of motto is Don't be greedy to be bold and uh we're trying to build something special so that's I think the the wholesome moment is building a community of people who want to further their art amazing to be fortunate enough to be involved and then to see that you know that that this team has so many different directions and incorporates so many different areas of Art and I I think I have to say the same thing that it was like oh it was it was just a a wonderful I guess affirmation to say all this stuff that was done before can be informing what's what's to come so I think that the you know being learning more about Nifty getting hooked up with Dan and the team and it was I'd say that was it I mean I I could also say for me personally it was when I just thought it was Bitcoin like three years ago and then when I actually took the time to like you know start listening to or watching YouTube videos and I was like oh so I think for me that would be the first thing and then you know let that kind of be went hibernated and then when when there was a reason to learn more about it I think I would have to say you know the same thing as Dan just just to be involved and uh and to see it path forward with it awesome yeah and we're uh we're exploring like uh one of the cool things that we're doing is we've created and uh patent uh provisional patent moving to patent pending on uh physical nfps uh we basically created uh uh 3D printed gold uh uh pendant wow with uh Ty's art on it and uh through that you hold up you take your phone to the pendant and it will unlock our app which uh we're the first to do it yeah uh we believe our patent will hold strong and uh get uh approved in the near future but um that's because we see it as like Pat said the album album artwork you know but to show that art people want to show off the album cover or show they own music or art or painting or digital art and you have to show it on your phone so by having physical art that is an NFP that that reads uh that you can authenticate through your phone goes back to the blockchain and now you have uh the digital twin online and then you also have the physical piece that you can either wear around your neck or any other version of jewelry or physical items that allows us to authenticate uh through our through our technology amazing you're just bringing a bunch of different Technologies and just bringing you together for the new new age it's amazing yeah and audio and Imran and I know you have uh I think another announcement about what's going on with Nifty I'd love to hear more about what you're bringing sure so we're excited to announce that uh uh with tyrite that we're going to be releasing our uh generative art series uh uh we're announcing our mint date as uh 10 10 uh October 10th this year uh we're gonna release graffiti Heroes it's a phenomenal 10 000 piece collection that uh Tai is spent probably the eight the nine months night night and day working on around his work schedule and what we love about is Kai goes back uh going back to his Brooklyn days we said we want a story we just don't want art that you know has no meaning so he came back to us with uh these characters that people in his neighborhood would be uh spray painted up on a wall of people who were uh like leaders in the community so business owners people who like supported uh uh people at the laundromat whatnot and so multiple names came about and we're like these guys are heroes these girls are heroes we have Aunt give we have Geno we have lotto so uh four different characters that are generative art and through imran's technology to be able to uh really make all those layers and uh come together it's it's it's I think it's sick so we're excited to uh support Tai and launch graffiti Heroes we think it's going to be very competitive uh from some of my friends in the art World who've seen previews of it they get it they see like certain Inspirations like the the uh the curl which you'll you'll know who who who he's resembling as we reveal stuff but a lot of a lot of great stuff a lot of little things in there and then following that on our road map uh we're gonna tease um uh Dave Warren tune the maker he's a Simpsons uh animator Pinky and the Brain I think you want Emmy for Pinky in the brain and and uh uh the minions uh releasing lonely socks Social Club but yeah so the mint fake graffiti Heroes uh October 10th 2022 we're excited I'm excited too thank you so much and thank you again for joining me on this panel again on thank you Ian for having us on here so appreciate you guys and I appreciate what Nifty is doing and I hope this yeah magic success thank you to Wholesome crypto thank you to Boston blockchain week and and cubic Labs we're uh we're more than thrilled to be a part of this community and to uh uh keep growing the uh the uh the blockchain community thank you thank you foreign [Music]