Mass Market NFTs: The Future of NFTs is on L2 with Joanna, Jake Rockland, Lorenzo & Frank DeGods

joined by a very special list of guests today talking about the the topic of mass market and ft which is we think it's the future of the netis um I think start now with some introductions but I would say I'm joined by these goats who really need not do not need that much of the introduction so I would limit just your name your project and a few sentences about what you're working on and I start my name is Joanna Zen I am advisor to always geeky game which is a web 3 gaming studio previously worked at coinbase and optimism so yep thanks go ahead I'm Jake I'm the CTO at Art blocks I'm also an artist collector in the space I'm Lorenzo I work at pudgy and uh it's really awesome to be here thanks to all the Pudgies that are out love you guys hey my name is Frank uh D gods and I founded D gods and Utes [Applause] amazing okay so I love asking this question because always get very interesting answers right so how did you guys get into crypto slash nrt yeah go go ahead oh bit Bitcoin I was a Bitcoin Maxi for like a solid year so I hated everyone in ethereum and uh then I saw the light and I realized oh [ __ ] there's other stuff that's cool outside of Bitcoin and uh been down the rabbit hole ever since I got into crypto I think early 2014 with Dogecoin actually I was mining on my laptop and history class and the fans are like blasting and all that [ __ ] my teacher's like what are you doing I'm like I'm writing a paper I promise right but like Dogecoin was my intro yeah I uh found the Bitcoin subreddit at some point back maybe like 2015 2016 but uh it wasn't until like the ethereum pre-sale that I was like this space is super exciting and kind of fell down the rabbit hole from there awesome so what is the most interesting Trend that you guys are following right now um is it I'm gonna give you some multiple answer questions okay so is it um open Editions you know by manifold or is it ordinals on bitcoin or is it um blur I think all three of those okay and polygon of course falling on um no I'm excited about ordinals we were talking about it right before the event I think that uh there's something that's really exciting happening there in the pace of development over the last three and a half weeks it just got invented three and a half weeks ago there's like dozens of marketplaces lots of big sales happening on there hard to ignore ordinals right now just the speed of development is unbelievable I think the original stuff is pretty awesome but I'd have to probably say blur and open C is kind of the big thing for me you know pudgy we are really focused about creators and so you know blur is Shifting this Paradigm and it's like you know the rich are getting richer the poor getting poorer if you can't sustain that volume and like what does that look like for the ecosystem in the long run I think it's still a question to be answered yeah I think like in times like this where it's kind of a negative bearish macroeconomic environment like the places that there are still people excited about what's going on and there's vibrant communities that are excited to talk about collecting or talk about investing or what you know some combination of those things like that's a really exciting place to be uh so we have that I think in the art blocks community we have that in communities like Pudgies or in Utes and like being a part of those conversations is a good place to be in a market like this sounds good sounds good um let's talk about your personal Journey sorry I know Madness that we're dealing with here um let's let's move on to actually the project Journey right so let's start with you to Frank what's the what's the history of digas like how did you guys start and um what's your recipe for Success no because you've done you've done a great job cultivating community you know if you have to give some advice to collections and nft creators what would that be yeah um story Gods started in with my four best friends in our apartment in West Hollywood and definitely had no idea that we would ever get this big to be totally honest but we were just trying to solve every problem as it came so my biggest advice for creators is look a lot of things in the space are changing right now stop worrying about what happened like yesterday just be in the present and try to make something that's exciting today and gets people excited forget about the next million users there's a lot of users clearly that are here today let's get them excited and because a lot of them are feeling out of it and not satisfied with where the space is at so I just think taking things step by step because we had no idea things would ever get this big but we've just taken it step by step yeah I think Pudgie's story is really interesting you know myself Luca and the team right now are not the original founders of the project it was started by a 19 year old kid in his frat basement it blew up way bigger than he thought he didn't really know what to do but the community was so strong and so when we as a group that ended up taking over the project saw that we were like we have to do this community Justice the IP here is much bigger than web3 and it needs a community just needs an operator right like we see ourselves as the muscle to the community's brain and so if there's anybody out there that has been part of a project that has a really strong community and doesn't really know like what's going to happen or who's going to take it over you know try yourself right become that operator run that business have a vision get the committee on board and only good things can come of that yeah I think the Outlook that I would share with people is like spend time or spend your money and things that you actually like genuinely care about and I think the thing that we like repeatedly said through the bear Mark through the bull market and outside through the bear Market it's like buy what you love when it comes to Art blocks like we're a platform we sell art we're not selling you know a derivatives market experience we're not selling some sort of utility token like we sell art the utility is that you get to own a piece of art uh other projects sell other things they sell membership in a community and and you know that's a really compelling thing like do the thing that you love uh because it's it's really hard to be upset if you spend your time or you spend your money doing something that you care about or spending money in something you care about you're not going to feel like you uh it's harder to end up in a place where you feel sour yeah that's those are really stage of eyes um so I'm gonna direct the next question to you Lorenzo as a pengu holder it's being exciting to see what you Luca and the team have been doing I think we were just talking about this in the in the speaker Lounge earlier right like how many projects can actually have a successful comeback I can I can't think of that many names except you know maybe the two of you here yeah it's tough I mean yeah how did they do that you know our thesis for pudgy when the opportunity was available was like this is an amazing IP but it was really more about the community right like in the darkest times this community stood together they were holding almost a one-eighth floor you know this is an OG project that people thought had should have been with the punks and with the apes and it kind of fell on deaf ears at some point because of the original founder but that strength is not something that can be easily replicated and so the strength of the community in combination with the cuteness of the IP is like this is a magical recipe that like we just have to participate in and Pudgies was my first nft I know it was vedant he's here as well as Lucas because it just resonates with a really large audience and so we feel like we can create a real business based on real revenue from that and build that with the community we don't like to think of ourselves as an nft project we're an IP company the next generation of Ip company building with the community through web3 right and that's really the value prop and uh I think the best thing that we did was just treat and stop treating the community like a singular thing and just when you're like we were so we after we launched had like nine nine weeks I think in a row just down only the community was dying like it was not an instant success in any way and uh the community gets smaller and smaller the worse things get but then when you start treating them like individuals so for example there was like six seven people in the community that would just be on Discord just roasting me like every day just being complete just like [ __ ] and uh we ended up just we were like [ __ ] it guys we're just gonna hire you all six of you and let's just see what happens okay because clearly nobody else cares as much as you guys that are just talking mad [ __ ] every single day so we did that and we just started talking to the community about our goals how we want to be the biggest nft project on Solana and even today it's like our ambition everyone knows in our community D God's goal is to be the biggest nft project in the world and like that aligns it's just an exciting Mission and I think when you get the community aligned around what the clear goals are and we're all like yeah we all want to be the number one project so um that's what we're going for and for people that are excited about that journey I think that helps bring bring people together around a simple thing I love that you mentioned you know getting involved with individual members right like we host an inner Igloo all the time we came to pudgy with this list of literally 500 ideas in this Google doc that Luca put together and was like this is the roadmap for pudgy this is what we're doing and if you go back and you like cross-reference the stuff we're doing now a lot of it has kind of fallen out because of those individual conversations we have with holders and understanding like hey we have this overarching Vision but like what are the granular details on how we actually execute and get there and provide value for people so I'll always listen to your your critics too I think that's like a really good piece of advice just engaging with people that you know aren't already drinking the Kool-Aid is a good way to learn and maybe hire them right always here to listen to your critics and maybe get them on your team okay so um next question I think it's uh something that you already mentioned Frank so you successfully viewed the community on Solano now you're taking that all to two new chains right to ethereum and to the polygon what does it take to you know rebuild the communities and still be successful so I think one it's the year of fafo it's the year of [ __ ] around and finding out and so let's let's see what happens but I think that it's just like a numbers thing right there's more there's more there's more economic activity and just more things happening on ethereum by orders of magnitude on soul and I think that for D Gods it's just like hey let's just see what happens if we go into a bigger ecosystem and like it's been really fun and I think yeah that that's the simple idea but throughout this year we're just gonna try to learn and be a part like I love being here in East Denver it's been incredible and I just want to learn I'm like a curious kid so I want to learn more about what ethereum is about see how we can do something that's cool and different and uh yeah I think it's gonna be a real test of our communities right at the end of the day if we can successfully carry through and create like a real Melting Pot of a community from all these different blockchains I think it'll be a really big sign of strength you know if we can if we can make it through and I think it's a risk but let's see what happens yeah exciting about that um I think speaking of cross chains so Lorenzo you're up you know the little Pudgies right make headlines with the layer zero integration and now you had I don't even know how many chains you're around yeah specifically but how did you make that decision yeah what walk us through your thought process yeah so I think the idea sparked when Instagram announced that it was going to do a marketplace with polygon and so the vision for Pudgies how do we get a hundred million 200 300 million people into the ecosystem and that starts with meeting them where we think they're going to be and leveraging the tools and the brands that are already out there that have those users right so polygon has a really amazing BD team right they're racking up Starbucks the NFL all these huge Brands meta right so it's like these are really where users are going to be onboarded and is this something that's going to have a huge effect right now in the next six months no but it was never meant to be right it's setting up the ecosystem so that in 12 18 months from now when you get people onboarded from polygon from meta they can participate in the pudgy ecosystem and they can be a part of our community awesome and can you tell us more about the um I know you guys are also working on your IP you know play specifically when it comes to um making perhaps content out of your yeah out of your Pudgies and right so like we are an IP company not an nft project is kind of how we like to classify ourselves and so like what does that actually mean the thesis at like its highest level is like if you could own the Mickey Mouse IP would you and that's a really loaded statement we have a long way to go before we create that brand awareness but web3 allows you to own the underlying asset and so when pudgy Penguins is touching hundreds of millions of people both through our social media and our products the holders themselves are only underlying asset that powers that brand right and the monetization for that is not through airdrops it's not through you know what we like to sometimes call Ponzi nomics it's really through the ability to license your nft for those products and things and so it's you know the nft holders are a core group they help Drive the value but the way you monetize that and bring value back to them is through this audience that is much bigger than web3 itself sounds good okay so um this is a I guess a personal curiosity question so I see you know paji and and Digos these days are just BFFs and every event and if two parents you guys put together an awesome awesome party so tell me more you know how did you guys make the decision to become Partners what are you looking for in in clubs pudgy D Gods collab announcing airdrop he okay hey hey good people love it the people love it yeah clip that to Luca and say people were cheering for D God's Punchy airdrop maybe we should do it um no I think Mila Luca just I think a bunch of people that were mutual friends with were like yo Frank you got to meet Luca and then same thing to him so we finally got in a video call and like within the first five minutes I was like let's [ __ ] go I finally like found somebody I thought was on the same wavelength where we're just both in unique positions right we're running projects where we're both pretty young and uh we want to take it to like really high levels and make it a lot bigger and so it just felt cool to meet someone for the first time that was on that wavelength and through them met Lorenzo and we've got as a team have gotten really close because uh yeah it's like age ageism is the word right that's not a good thing but oh yeah um no I mean we feel like we're trying to build the next thing you know what got me really interested in web 3 and crypto is like I always idolize Silicon Valley right like being right in it when it was really starting and now I feel like that's what's happening with web 3 and crypto and having you know another founder alongside us who feels the same way and is really grinding as hard as we are is a real blessing and so we'd love to do more with them come on down now [Music] bro love not a bro love here um okay so I wanted to go back to the topic of our discussion today which wow disappeared um Mass market and ft right so let's put the spotlight back on this for a little bit like what I mean by mass Market enough cheese so it's a term that we coined in contrast of today's use case right in nft which is scarcity based uh digital collectible right so a lot of speculation goes into the value but um can we imagine a future where the I guess three characteristics that goes into it right so high Supply right could be unlimited or very high Supply and two is the the low barrier of the country so anyone can mint it for free or for low price and then lastly is the entire value is based on your utility the utility that you receive right from this uh nft so when we talk about nrt is no longer just scarcity-based digital collectible but just the digital collectible right that's almost fungible within the collection itself so Jake I wanted to you know get your thoughts on this because I think last time we talked about it you had a lot of really great thoughts about it like you might call it different names right you call like consumables or someone something else yeah yeah what do you think when you look at like a lot of uh you know discretionary consumer spending there's a lot of money that's spent on uh things that are ways that we express who we are and you see that kind of carry over right now in the nft world but a lot of it is stuff that is focused on scarcity or I would even say like exclusivity um and that's not necessarily the case in like the rest of the world right like you uh buy shoes or shirts or watches that sometimes they're exclusive but sometimes they're just a way that you express who you are to the world and it's a color that you like or a brand that you like uh I think there's a lot of opportunity for that to carry over into nfts and digital spaces right where you know you're at a concert and rather than buying another t-shirt that you don't really want you buy a digital collectible that is you know it's not exclusive in the sense that only five people in the world can own the thing but uh it's maybe time exclusive in that you know it's it's something that you can buy at the specific show at the specific location on the road tour and if you're buying it in Atlanta it's different than if you're buying it in San Francisco and you can have that be a more immersive and interesting uh experience because you can have things that are unique and part of a collective in the digital space when it's harder to achieve I think in like purely physical Goods um so I think that's a really exciting space that hasn't really been untapped right like you see poapps all over this conference those are cool but they're not a very immersive experience compared to I think where you can go with really digitally immersive uh souvenirs um and so I think that's you know that's one area there's I think art is actually a giant market right uh Home Goods like design things that we live with nice chairs right those are things that have pretty big markets associated with them and I think in those things you know maybe you don't want a digital version of your chair for your digital house like that seems maybe true maybe not but uh nfts have also like the nice benefit of proving authenticity proving Providence and even something as simple as like a digital receipt for you know an object that you you live with in your home could be a very meaningful thing that elevates the experience of owning that thing uh and so I think there's a really broad spectrum of things that we just haven't haven't seen yet uh and it's it's really I think a large part of the problem of solving for you know Mass Market nfts is like building [ __ ] that people want like there hasn't been that much [ __ ] that people want uh and so you know we've solved membership for collectives like that's that's awesome that's definitely a use case that's real uh I think we've seen we've solved art like and and that's real and I think those are both like we've just touched the tip of the iceberg they're Giant Markets that are going to explode um but you know that's like a piece of the puzzle um and we just you know like as a space need to be building more [ __ ] that people want yeah absolutely and I think it's also about like what are the expectations you're setting for the new users are you creating a product with the expectation that it's a financialized asset or is it a one-time product and experience that somebody gets to participate in right so like we're launching toys and there's a whole digital experience around that and we're onboarding people to web3 through that but the expectation is not that this is like the main pudgy penguin collection where you know people are trading on it every day right this is an experience that you get to take into your home with your family participate with your kids and something that you can keep forever and so I think it's just setting expectations between the two user groups and understanding your audience I mean if you if you look at like what Reddit did with their digital Collectibles right like that that is a mass-market nft in terms of you know how many people are interacting with that and that was not something that was given to people in a way that was like hey you're getting this you know like scarce thing that you're going to be able to flip and make a bunch of money like it was hey this is a way that you can express yourself on this platform to make your experience more unique in how you you know interact with other people uh and and show the world who you are which is like a fundamentally very human thing you know that expectation setting I think is like what allowed that to be I don't know what it is and yeah more of that I think is kind of the key to where Mass Market experiences yeah and users will segment right like there's Robin Hood which offers a trading platform for the masses right and there will always be people that want to participate in that right but there's also people like my girlfriend and my friends who are like don't really know how to set up a wallet don't want to understand that stuff and they don't want to be trading or worrying about their money going up and down right they just want a cute penguin in their home right or like you know even the Utes are pretty cute right like you know they want to just feel a connection with something thank you no honestly I I think that I was like listening and these guys blew my blew my head open a little bit I don't have much to add there this is that's the keys to mass Market the home good thing blew my mind that's crazy yeah it makes a lot of sense really that's cool yeah I actually really want to dig into that and just talk about some of the use case sister potentially right we're thinking about what gaming ticketing luxury watches that actually watch us tell me more no I just like I think it's a no-brainer the nxts will be involved there because it's such a vibrant Market that's pretty focused on this [ __ ] watch thing but there's so much variance in there so if you can decrease friction to trading uh for the luxury watches I think it'll actually go [ __ ] parabolic but uh yeah um there's a guy I talked to this building this yesterday he was blowing my mind like every two minutes the other crazy stat 72 of you know the luxury Market I'm talking like Gucci all this like Prada is Gen Z and Millennials today like you think it'd be Boomers or like you know people older but it's actually like the younger audience that buys luxury goods so I think that that's going to be a huge use case for nfts across the board one of the things that I think is like really fascinating about that Trend as well is like the the Gen Z audience in particular is one that's much more sensitive to waste and like much more sensitive to the idea of like just buying [ __ ] that you're gonna throw away and if you're able to provide that same experience of uh you know luxury and individual expression and something that like doesn't have waste associated with it because it doesn't necessitate the creation of a physical object necessarily but still immerses you in that like brand experience like that's a very interesting thing just in terms of like the demographic shift we're seeing that's that's the game changer bro I'm on the same page yeah I totally that's amazing yeah I mean like Shopify did this um um web free experiment where they they basically allow like the merchants to create um the physical Goods right they sell the physical Goods on Shopify and then Shopify will just air drop them digital Goods they call digital twin so you know they can manage like their fan base and user behavior that way and incentivize it however they want so I do think like the luxury goods and you know you just have to kind of work directly with the with the retailers and the web two names um yeah to to start that in that entire movement So speaking of that right like what are the main blockers do you see as um a reason why we don't see this today right like it's a technology I think you mentioned that Lorenzo um a lot of the you know normies newcomers like just even just afraid of setup at web3 wallets right yeah or is it public perception perhaps yeah I think it's a lack of talent and what I mean is I think that there's right now a lot of early adopters in web3 that's like everyone here in this room which is it takes a certain character trait to be an early adopter but I think today web 2 still has such an overwhelming like it is just incredible people that work and very smart people that are not working in web 3 today that are working on a lot of the big institutions that exist today so I think over time it's a talent and it always does come down to that right it's like a talent Gap and I just think web3 right now is every the blur founder right I came from web 2 then did like his first thing with handshake and now he's doing a lot we we chatted about this there's a lack of great uh talent in the space right now and the ones that are are like really crushing it right now but there's not enough competition so even now with the marketplace thing for us jpeg guys right it's like we're seeing real competition come out for openc now I think it's gonna happen across the space for all the things that are big today so that's exciting yeah for me I think it's a technology barrier right and it's about creating a platform and experience that people are used to and right now that's really not the case you know like I said my girlfriend my friends are not going to set this up stuff up they don't want to set this stuff up because they just want to do face ID and log into their Instagram account and until they can do that to participate they honestly do not care what the underlying infrastructure layer is they just care that they can resonate with that experience that they can resonate with their friends digitally and so until that stuff starts to make you know waves I think it's going to be difficult to onboard a large number of people one example though is like imagine if Mr Beast dropped an nft today like bro who's you good like you know what I mean like the scale of that would just be so nuts if the right people came into the space and that just shows yeah that's it yeah yeah I think like to be a little contrarian and turn pushing off on what you're saying like I do think that from a fundamental technology perspective a lot of the building blocks are actually there and it's there's not the talent at the application layer of putting those things together like I think if you look at you know the uh ethereum development ecosystem over the last five years there's been like a lot of really brilliant people working on things at the more fundamental layers of like the protocol layers uh and the infrastructure layers that have really set up like a beautiful foundation for now you know the nft success that we've seen in the last few years to really be able to like you know Builders can hit the ground running building applications which not was not the case like if you go back a few more years uh and so I do think there's like a lack of kind of talent in terms of people putting those pieces together in a package that is like selling something that people want and not you know either being big brands that do come into the space and do something that feels inauthentic and janky and cash grabby like that's not it um and you know not people who are coming from within the space but are not here for the long run because that's that's also not it and some of that just takes like time for uh you know people to build that stuff totally agree so we only have like two minutes left um wanted to give each of you some time to give us clothing thoughts what can you tell us that makes us feel optimistic and bullish about the industry today no in the spare Market I think everybody's showing up here today like there's a ton of Pudgies here right like this was an impromptu event for our community and the community support for us is like it's what drives us right the community is really the brain to our muscle and like it's great to see all you guys and people that will be around and continue to build are are here right everyone else has been washed out I think at this point and you know only excited from here uh pudgy penguins and art blocks all right these are the two things that give me hope of the for the space right now honestly to let you finish actually and you're a little bit more Punchy uh but yeah I mean echoing that like I think you know I'm talking about how we just need to build more stuff that people want which is like kind of an obvious thing but uh the Counterpoint the optimistic point is like I think the space has actually built many things that people want and care deeply about and like you see that in you know the communities that are showing up here today like I [ __ ] love hearing people in the audience uh cheering for you know the the communities that y'all have built that's that's awesome uh and I think it's a reflection of something to be optimistic about right there are people hanging around throughout this bear Market who are not just here for short-term speculation that are here because you know they found something meaningful uh and that's that's pretty cool all right that was fun you're all keep it up to Frank Lorenzo and Jake thank you guys thank you it's time [Applause]