Episode 5- Key Takeaways from nFT NYC

Transcript

Find below the transcription of the video from Amit Vyas and Andrew Thomas.

Andrew

Good to be back. We've been away, right. 

Amit

Yeah we should start with an apology. 

Andrew

Yeah, I guess we should start with an apology. We disappeared. We said “Hey listen, all singing, all dancing, new Web3 Digest show” and then we disappeared. But for good reason. 

Amit

Yeah absolutely. I think we've been sort of caught up in a lot of travel obviously at that time of year as well where we do want to try and get away. But yeah so yeah I guess it all kind of started with a trip to New York.

Andrew

Yeah, NFT New York. Yeah I mean that's when all the travel started. 

Amit

That's right, yes. So we ventured off to the States, went to the NFT NYC which is probably a couple of months ago now. But um but it was cool and I think we should probably focus on that for this show. Right?

Andrew

Yeah. Just a reminder guys, we kind of do these a little 15 minute burns. So I think we can definitely talk about NFT New York for about an hour and 15 minutes. So I think in about 15 minutes we'll be able to give you juicy highlights, right?

Amit

Yeah absolutely. And it was a few weeks back now but the reality is, I think there were so many kinds of learning so many things that sort of happened there but it's still very very valid in terms of you know what's going on in the space as well. 

Andrew

100%, yeah. 

Amit

But it's quite funny I guess, Andrew, because like I guess when we rocked up, we weren't quite sure what to expect, right, first time and I think also the week before it crashed.

Andrew

Yeah, exactly, in a big way. 

Amit

In a big way, so all of a sudden it was like, you know, from sort of highs of Bitcoin being what it was… And all of a sudden it was like a 70% sort of drop and valuations and and for a lot of these people I think we've mentioned previously on this show, but there's a lot of people who are just 100% or very close to 100% invested in crypto.

Andrew

Yeah and also payments in crypto. I mean you famously told the story of paying bets on a kind of wallet when you're having a round of golf instead of cash. 

Amit

So it's really upset a lot of people 

Andrew

Yeah, a lot of people are not even involved in the green as it were, right. 

Amit

Yeah. And I remember even that conversation, people like we don’t even have a bank account. So, interesting. I mean so crypto obviously crashed. Um, I think in some of the community groups we’re in, we were just seeing some sort of panic that was going on. A few people were like, you know, I've already put my flight, but I don't know how I'm gonna pay for my hotel. It was that kind of stuff that was going on. I think a lot of that was in jest, but I think what we saw was, I think it surprised me, but I don't know about you, but it was certainly kind of eye opening from my perspective.

Andrew

Yeah, yeah, no, I think it was, you know that first kind of day fever, I remember you, you kind of got down there I think about earlier and said: Look, I managed to get in the hotel and stuff and then I think I'd literally, it was a five minute gap and I was in a insane queue to get into, it was in the Marriott right, the actual kind of registration and stuff, just off Times Square, so 

Amit

Yeah, and I think that was the first indication because I think I got in, I think it was a little more than five minutes, I had a call, it was my five minutes and that's probably about 15 minutes, but it was, I walked straight in, but I saw how busy it was, it was just getting, it was getting crazy, so I was kind of in and out, got a registration badges.

Andrew

Yeah, and I think it's difficult to get a vibe like the night before, the day before, because essentially New York is always busy, so you don't know obviously at that point who's there for what, right? obviously we're in a very busy part of town just being off Times Square as well, so yeah, I mean, I think, I think what was interesting, so first and foremost how busy it was, you know that first session that we had they were talking about 3-400 people there four years ago spread across eight different locations. There was the main bit obviously there at the Marriott but I think it's pretty cool is the diversity of the community, right? Mad mix.

Amit

Yeah. And I think just the context, they're talking about 20,000 people this time. So a real kind of jump from 3-400 people. 

Andrew

Yeah, massively.

Amit

Like Andrew said, spread across multiple venues across that kind of Time Square. But yeah real kind of eclectic mix and I think you know we kind of joke and say that we're the oldest people in this industry… so I joke, but basically, it was really interesting to see that actually you have got a bunch of really kind of young people that are involved in this but actually you've got people that are significantly older than ius that are you know very deeply sort of invested in in FTS and Web3 as an overall space. And I think actually that whole event I think it was interesting because it was obviously focused on NFTs to an extent because obviously two or three years ago that's what people were talking about. Whereas I think the event in terms of actual content and topics, was just so much more diverse.

Andrew

Oh yeah completely. And that was I think that was shown by the tracks, the different tracks that people kind of got into and then also I mean when we kind of registered you know they had different lanyards, basically, so you like an entity collector lanyard right? So they had a whole track on NFT collections and they had like the DeFi and they had music, sports, you know I mean tech and it was a real a real a real mix of tracks that you could essentially kind of go and jump into it. And I actually quite like the format. So when we first looked at the kind of speaker roster at 1,600 speakers and some of the sessions of five minute you're trying to work out but it was quite smart. They managed to give massive opportunities for people to share in this space and obviously the big headliners like Polygon and some of the other guys and Moon Pay and some of these headline sponsors but even that wasn't a sales pitch. They were kind of talking about new technology that they're working on. So I thought it was interesting that those, you know, the vast number of speakers, the whole host of two different tracks. So you could find yourself in a track where one minute they're talking about a kind of fashion and then they're talking about NFTs for medical equipment. It was kind of a real, real eye opener.

Amit

Yeah, yeah that's the first time I'm seeing that session structure as well, 

Andrew

Yeah, completely fantastic. 

Amit

You had some sessions that were literally five minutes.

Andrew

And you're talking about big people. So there was a head of business for rarible, which is obviously like OpenSea, you know, it's a marketplace for NFTs, right, big. They're big guys and head of business development, British guy stood up on stage and he's like, I'm going to talk about, you know, kind of kind of successful utility on NFTs and I've got five minutes, I can talk about it for like six hours, but he goes: That's cool. I’ve got five minutes, these are like top five things, which was great. It was kind of, there was no fluff. It literally was like no padding, there was no, there wasn't one session - I mean you and I go to a lot of these events and we're quite lucky that we obviously cherry picked decent events, right? We're not there to waste time, but you and I have walked out sessions before or we've met up for a coffee and beer and gone, Not sure. But this one, it was gold. 

Amit

No, no, I agree. And you’re right, I think the fact that these sessions were so short, straight to the point and I think there's just so many takeaways from it. And I think the, and again it covered covered every aspect of, free from development through two dows, through to crypto to obviously the different types of NFTs that are out there and I think the practical implementation piece was really interesting because I think the, I think a couple of the takeaways from my side, um, we're just how real businesses and brands are really utilizing this technology already. And I think we, you know, we kind of live in a place which is very kind of, you know, wants to be the center of the space almost right. But actually the practical implementation and rollout perhaps hasn't happened on a brand level. We're seeing signs of it and we'll talk about that in future episodes, but over in the States it just feels like brands are being a little bit braver.

Andrew

Yeah, and they've been doing it for a while.

Amit

And then they're saying, you know, and actually that's quite cool. I mean Estee Lauder got up on stage and funny enough they’d also, it was a different person but someone who is at South by southwest, different person at this event and ultimately saying the same thing, but we just didn't know what we were doing. So we just tried it, we wanted to kind of understand it a little bit, but the only way to understand things sometimes doing it and you're talking about a huge sort of global brand and still, and you know, and they're still kind of getting their feet wet with this stuff that I think is really interesting.

Andrew

Yeah a couple of takeaways for me. First and foremost, everyone, everyone who was kind of up on stage and sharing stories, was dropping the phrase, you know, way back in 2019 or like way back in 2020 and you're like, right, actually, yeah, this is new. So as much as the technology and Blockchain, 11, 12 years, the actual implementation, real projects, real brands, you know, that, that they're getting it, we're talking, you know, 3 years, 4 years, you know, Polygon, Moon Pay, these companies have only been around for a couple of years and then now, I mean hundreds of millions, billion dollar companies that are operating in this space. Um so I think that's, that's first and foremost - that it is brand new and that it's difficult for sometimes for people to follow those brands for those businesses to go, well, have you got any examples? No, Right, it's new, it's brand new. Yeah? So even the people who have been at it a long time have been at it for years. Right, So this is, I think first and foremost that was like a big takeaway for me. I think the incredible thing is the amount of love in the community as well and the educational piece is phenomenal. So we've spoken about this quite a lot that, you know, just being in Discords and Tweets and you people just want to share, this isn't a place where someone is trying lorded over anyone, right. It really is just such an open community and that was exactly the same in New York. It was massively open. Some people knew a lot and then other people knew nothing. It was just kind of wandering around and exploring the space and I thought that was great as well. 

Amit

Look, I think that's such an important point. We've been we've been in the sort of digital space for a while, so we've seen that these evolutions 

Andrew

With the web, with social…

Amit

And with social, there was a bit of a land grab. Yeah, I mean with these there has always been about land grabbing: I want to be that person who knows everything about this, you know, I share if it suits me and this community is completely different.

Andrew

Totally. 

Amit

Unlike, unlike anything I've ever done, like a willingness to have open communication to answer questions and collaborate.

Andrew

Collaborate, collaborate. Just collaboration. Not: let's talk out financials, let's work out what this deal looks like. Let's you're gonna have to pay me for your time - zero. It’s collaboration in a very true sense.

Amit

Yeah. Which and I think that's a very kind of nature of this whole environment and I think and I think you know, it almost doesn't work without this mindset. And again, it would be interesting to see if that continues over time, you know, as this becomes a little bit more commercialized. But yeah, look, I think just I think I want to talk about social aspects before we wrap up the show, social aspects because I think there's some interesting stuff going 

Andrew

With the Bored Ape Fest and 

Amit

Yeah but in terms of the, just the summary of the show, in terms of the work outside of it… processions and stuff? 

Andrew

Oh, yeah, for me, I think it was some of the key takeaways first and foremost now there were a few agencies there that were sharing case studies of brands, talking about huge brands. So a lot of a lot of activity in the sports space at the moment, NBA, NFL… And the big kind of embraced areas with fan engagement so NFTs ultimately that you can explore actually when you go to the game as part of game experience and then online, if you're watching it through scanning and collecting the, the Mavericks did something pretty good. Sorry, what they called…Anyway, so few NBA teams had a locker, so it's an NFT locker and you collect stuff for your locker over the course of the season. So, mass engagement, I thought was pretty cool. There was a really cool mention of Macy's for the Macy's Day parade. They were launched by NFT, McLaren in Formula One... So it was good to see some kind of huge brands that are operating in that space and there's some different things that are making it easier for people to kind of jump in, some of the terminology was cool. So finding out that people that aren't in this space are called normies, as in normal people, I thought was quite funny. So like, you know, norman's that don't have any understanding of that space, which is, which is pretty good. And then I also just think, you know, the exposure to some of the companies operating in this space as well, so you know, the connectivity through to security and I think that's, that's kind of it and we can probably do a proper run down possibly in the Growth Show, our other show, which gives us a bit more longer time, but I think, yeah, those are kind of, some of the big things.  But aside from that obviously, I think, you know, just, just the some of the other opportunities that we had to meet with people as well, I think those connections, you know, we know now we've made connections, that business connections, you know, personal friends connections. Now, we're going to be collaborating on a few projects with people that we met as well. 

Amit

Yeah, I think there was a huge event in that respect. Cool. So look, I think there's a couple of things that also, I think people may have caught on social that was going on as well. Yeah, things like Ape Fest, should we talk about that?

Andrew

Yeah Ape Fest was, well, you know, a conference as it were in a conference almost in that sense, but nothing really, they spent $20 million. Right? Um 20 million I think it was. Um So basically the holders of you know, Bored Ape, The Yacht Club in the City Apes that we're all familiar with, had a - I think now had a I don't I think it does a disservice to call it a pop up. Look, we didn't go in it. So I think we should be clear, we're not Ape holders, but basically they had a pop up if you can call it that. So if you had kind of Bored Ape you were able to access that environment. 

Amit

So you're saying it was like a festival in itself. Right? 

Andrew

Yes, it was a festival. Yeah, it's called a fest and it was you know kind of artist music's, kind of a whole different bunch of installs which basically accommodated with Snoop Dogg and Eminem performed on king of the last night, parties every night. Steve Aoki who's also held aboard a whole bunch of celebrities because obviously a lot of celebrities hold that now. But just - just some incredible things happening in that space, some of it was kind of tweeted out, leaked out, which was pretty cool. But yeah it was so that was one I think one of the things that was pretty mad. We know that Doodles and Gutter Cats also had pop ups as well. So again, this is you know some of that utility piece that we spoke about in the past, you know when you look at some of these, the profile pic kind of NFTs that don't really have any real utility with them. Um you know, as far as access to things, what it is, the utility is access to community access to these events, right? And the ability to kind of jump in on that.

Amit

Yeah, there were some really good events. I mean there was so much going on, I think this is like morning, day, and night. 

Andrew

But it was quite funny because I went to a couple of early sessions and they were empty and the guys on the stage were like: look, we know this, crowd is like a party crowd, the girls, one guy who was up and he was like, I think I had 20 minutes sleep, but you know, it's kind of that. Yeah, so I think that was great. I think it was great.  We got a chance to obviously meet up with the guys for LinksDAO was phenomenal. 

Amit

Yeah, I think I got a couple minutes left. But yeah… when we’re talking about basically communities on the back of an NFT purchase; Again, we've spoken about LinkDAO before, which is their objective is to buy or create the world's best sort of golf experience for everyone, you know, fully sort of, you know, conclusive experience for everyone. So, actually a couple of couple of great days with, so the first night we went and we went to a place which  is a golf simulation place, hit some balls into a screen, had a few drinks and then went to dinner with the founding team  after that, which was awesome. Great. Again, I got to meet some really good guys, really smart guys. And then the next day I went and played around with him as well on this phenomenal course called Bayon, which is literally you get picked up by their own ferry, one of the kinds of terminals just in Manhattan and get taken to this ridiculous golf course. 

Andrew

And you just managed a round before the heavens opened. 

Amit

Yeah, yeah, I was super lucky in terms of weather. But yeah, just, I mean again, you know, none of that would have been possible had we not purchased an NFT for 1 Eth, $2000, maybe 6-7 months ago. And you know that community now is a big part of you know what we've kind of seen learned. And the doors for that's open have been phenomenal. So um yeah, I think you know when, when, you know it's all good when we're Discord and Telegram, but when you go to these events and all of these communities are there in person and you're seeing these people in real life, it makes you know, everything comes again and clicks totally. 

Andrew

Definitely. Good stuff. Alright guys, so well thanks for taking the time to listen and watch us again. So Web3 Digest. Um we're trying to get back into the swing of things. Now, it's going to be a bit of a hit and miss, I'd say just because obviously with some of the travel and we've got some more travel coming up for another event that we're talking about, but anyway, we'll catch you in a few. Cheers, Thanks, thanks so much.