2. WTF are NFTs aka Non Fungible Tokens

Another title of this episode could have been: “How to explain to your friends what NFTs are and why they have value..”

On this episode I not only breakdown what fungible and non-fungible are and why the words are so awkward to say but I also share examples, ideas and tangible stories that hopefully help you see exactly what an NFT is.

I also breakdown the importance of understanding that NFTs are one of four entry points into the Web 3.0 / Creator Economy, the others being: Cryptocurrency, Creator Coins and Metaverse/Gaming.

After we define NFTs I share 9 real-world examples, some from many moons ago, that had NFT aspects or could have really used the blockchain to prevent big macs from being scammed.

The 9 examples I breakdown are:

1. Card collecting with my Dad “certificate of authority” + rarirty + verification of quality
2. Myspace: Top 9
3. Monopoly Game McDonalds
4. Foursquare
5. UnTapped
6. Pokemon Go
7. Facebook badges (Rings around profile photo)
8. Jeep Life “Jeep wave” “jeep slogan” but no Jeep digital signal or connection to the Jeep I own.
9. Steelers season ticket holder

Finally, I wrap by answering what I believe are two of the most common questions you will get after you start talking about NFTs with your friends or family.

2 Most common questions answered:

1. What makes these JPEGs worth money?
2. Is this legit and for how long and if so am I too late?

More details coming soon on the Mint 365 experience where we are minting an NFT every day till 11.11.22 and how I’m going to open-up percentage of ownership on the project as well.

Lastly here are some valuable resources to bookmark that have helped me on this NFT deep-dive.

NFT Resources:

Flipboard Magazine (Fanzo curates content daily):

One37pm “ A Guide to NFTs, and How They Are About to Revolutionize Pretty Much Everything: https://www.one37pm.com/nft/art/guide-to-nfts-beginner

Verge: NFTs explained:

GaryVee: WHAT IS NFT? NON-FUNGIBLE TOKEN GUIDE: https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/what-is-nft-non-fungible-token-guide/

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Kevin Sturmer 0:00
You’re listening to NFT 365. The first daily podcast on NFT is with your host Fanzo, talking crypto, blockchain, web 3, non-fungible tokens, metaverse, and

What the f*ck is a non-fungible token?

We’ll get to that. It’s time for today’s episode of NFT 365. The only daily NFT podcast minting an NF T every day for 365 days. Powered by the ADHD coin at rally.io. Here’s your host and digital futurist, the ADHD superpowered to Brian Fanzo.

This show is not financial advice. So, do your own damn research.

Brian Fanzo 0:43

Welcome back to another episode of NFT365. Your host Brian Fanzo and on today’s episode, we are talking WTF our NFTS aka non fungible tokens. I don’t know about you guys, I just like saying the word fungible. But it also kind of gives me a little bit of the creeps because I’m not really sure why we pick that as a word and I, I know for some people we are we’re kind of wishing that NF the like the the concept of even the acronym NFT’s goes away. Just so we don’t have to say fungible cuz just like you know, the Internet was originally named Web 2. And then eventually we was renamed to the internet so on that’s we’re going to talk about on this episode. I know for a lot of people they kind of expected this to be episode one but I wanted to really manage expectations on the last episode and kind of share where I was coming at things from.

Brian Fanzo 1:30
And so what you’re gonna is going to get on this episode, I think there are some really great articles on breaking down what NF T’s are and I will tell you there was two things one that I read and one that I watched that really was like my aha like the light bulb went off back in January of this year. And so I’m gonna I’m gonna tell you what those two articles are. Why they you know, resonated with me and I’ll share them here at the end of this of this episode. And you know, as always, this episode is powered by ADHD coin it is a crater coin over on the rally.io sidechain. If you are in the discord you’re very familiar with this as I am very lucky and blessed to be able to give it away to those in the discord doing some airdrops, rewarding you for engagement, sharing things out on social reviews, a podcast on iTunes. And so definitely check out it’s at ADHDcoin.com, ADHDcoin.com. But you know, that’s also one of these, you know, these layers within this whole web three, Blockchain world. And I will tell you, this is a daily podcast, and I’ve been promoting it out on on social the last couple days. And I had a lot of people come to me and say, Brian, that’s, that’s a heavy feat for you to take on this daily concept. And I do agree it’s kind of a little bit outside of my normal comfort zone. because consistency is something that I have struggled with in the past. And but I will say that the thing that’s very interesting is that, you know, with the team, we’ve been going through different titles of different episodes that we want to record and ones that we want to create. And I will tell you, I had a list of about 400 episodes, and some of them were a little bit like there was blurred lines between them. But we have right now I’m looking at the Excel spreadsheet, there’s 196 topics that I already have outlined, with, you know the name of the title, what some of the examples are, and why I’m going to create that episode. So I’m in I’m in this I’m in for the long haul. So hopefully you guys are as well. And so, you know, this idea of non fungible I think this is something one of those weird areas of this conversation where most people go into this idea of fungible versus non fungible, and that’s where they try to like break it down from there. And I will say that, one of the things I pride myself on is I am a translator of geekspeak. But I’m also one that thinks it’s kind of really ridiculous for us to have to always like use the terms that things are around, rather than us kind of translating it in the terms that we can Can I actually understand, and really what non fungible versus fungible comes down to is one is replaceable, and one is not. And that is really what comes down.

Brian Fanzo 4:11
So like fungible actually means that an item can be replaced. So let’s say for example, and I know this examples been used a lot but I think it’s a great one. If I loan you $20 And I say that I want the I want the $20 back to me tomorrow, you don’t have to give me that exact $20 I don’t even have to give me the exact makeup of the $20 bill you could give me a ton of five and five ones. Therefore money or cash in that in that example, is a fungible item because it is replaceable and it can be exchanged versus what an NF T is an NF T is a limited edition item that is actually logged on the blockchain and that that is not exchangeable, you cannot exchange it. There is not other makeups of that one individual item. And so that still to me is a little bit weird, a little bit gray, and I know I’m breaking Casting this live into our Discord so for those that are you know want to jump into the discord as well this is just another example of you know shout out to those that are listening here in discord we’re gonna be recording different episodes here on the podcast someone in the discord. So I’m in Twitter spaces so on clubhouse and of course summon live video and I love I love getting the live feedback and people talking about you know, they April said you know she does, you know not not exactly how I feel about the word fungible, right, I like that. But so this is where I kind of look at NFT’s. And I’m gonna set up the because I think of NFT’s as being one of four ways one of four different ways that people are that are entry points into the Web 3 creator economy. So if you think of the Web 3 creator economy, as the future of pretty much the the digital internet, the way that we communicate, not even digital, the way that we communicate as a whole, right, this is where we’re moving, which is web three, there are four paths or entry points that I believe that will get people into this space, that then we will start kind of emerging. And eventually it won’t even be something that we enter in, it’ll just be something that we exist in, and NFT’s are one of them. Now, NFT’s can come in many different formats.

Brian Fanzo 6:12
And really what when I look at this, and I’m explaining it to others, what I like to think of it is it is a digital signal of something that you own, that allows you that is very easy to exchange in value. And it’s also easy to verify its authenticity.

Brian Fanzo 6:30
And what I mean by that, and when I why I kind of think of it this way, and it comes down to ownership. And the transfer of value is that the art itself can be what is the value of the of the NFT. But it doesn’t have to be there are other components, which we refer to as the smart contract and utility that can be built on this NFT. So if we think about it this way, and this is just kind of, like me, outlining it, how I’m thinking of it, the art piece is really just much it’s very much like the front the the logo on the front of a car, right where it says BMW, Mercedes or jeep, I’m a Jeep guy, right. So that like that is like the stamp on the front of the car. Now with what is below the hood, in the rest of the car will determine all the different things that are that are of value, right and, and some of the the art will look the same much like I believe, like a Lexus and a Honda Accord, right? If you look at Lexus and Honda, I believe it’s Lexus, Lexus and, and Toyota, you know, oftentimes, they look like the same car with a different logo on the front of it. Right. And and the reason that they’re there one is worth more and one is not is it a variety of reasons, maybe a lot of some of it has to do with the parts that are underneath the hood, but also has to do with the signaling of it right? There are people that buy a BMW, not because they want a BMW for themselves, but they want to ultimately signal to those around them, that they are a BMW owner, and there is others an element of our ability to signal to the world like, Hey, this is what I have. And I and this might sound like vanity for many people. But let’s let’s think about this in the state we are in right now in 2021, we have just come out of a global pandemic, that has forced us for the first time in history to hit the pause button, a pause button that we did not even know existed, if I would have told anyone two years ago that the world would actually physically stop evolving for a period of time because of a of a global pandemic, we would have all laughed about it right. And so we’re coming out of this, and what we are learning through this whole pandemic. And there’s lots of lessons we can learn through this. But there is the lessons of your identity. And that you know, the the the pandemic itself, this isn’t a political argument. It was not it was not bias, right, that the pandemic impacted everyone, there was no one that was able to kind of short the system and get away from the pandemic itself. And so there is this, this emerging element of how do we, you know, think of ourselves and then how do we signal that to the world, so that the world so we can surround ourselves with people that also have those similar interest in the similar things than us.

Brian Fanzo 7:32
And so when you think about NF TS as a whole and this idea of signaling, ultimately, what we’ve always signaled on social media was just our own profile photo, right? Just our own bio. And yes, we could use hashtags. Yes, we could use like, you know, Facebook groups. But if you think about it from this standpoint, and I always like to use, you know, this is where I’m using some of these real world examples. You know, like, I am a Dave Matthews Band fan. I’ve been, you know, part of the Dave Matthews Band warehouse club since the early 2000s. I’ve been to over 70 Dave Matthews shows, but there is nowhere that I can like signal across my social channels or you know that I am a DMV fan, right? Yes, I could put it in my in my profile, but there’s not like an identity identity kind of associated to it. Now when we think about when that for example, versus you know, I’m also a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. Right, and I literally my jeep is black and yellow. I’m currently wearing black and yellow shoes. I have a Steelers tattoo on me, which is, you know, a tattoo is also a very interesting signal of, you know, of our of our identity. But when we think about these things, these aren’t, you know, even when we, you know, I’m part of the warehouse member, I put a hashtag on social media. Yes, these are signals, but we don’t own our own individual signal. I mean, I’ve been to so many do Matthews Band concerts, and I’ve bought well over 40 of the exclusive posters that are available only at the Dave Matthews Band concert. And I have like over 40 of them, I have exactly one currently hanging up the other 39 are in my closet collecting dust, right? And, and the reason I use these, you know, this kind of examples is when we think about this digital age, we often try to go How do I take what works offline, and move it online. And I think that’s actually a mistake.

Brian Fanzo 10:54
What I think we need to do is we need to think about use cases offline, and then reimagine what they will look like online without the limitations that offline puts on us and ultimately leaning in to the possibilities that exist in this new world. Now, when we think about this idea of NF T’s and this whole digital signals signals, I’m going to break down to you a couple of different types of NF T’s that exist right now of course, the profile photo ones are the ones that are currently the most popular. Of course, we have like crypto Kitties and board AP art club and crypto punks and fame ladies and women of NF T’s there’s lots of ones where the the the main, like the main value, the main piece that was kind of delivered was this actually profile photo that we are all we’re all very familiar with at the moment, but you know, Gary Vaynerchuk, he used Farmville as an example. I’m gonna read it directly. This is a Gary Vaynerchuk quote, which I thought was really relevant to how where I get kind of go from here. He said on a micro level Farmville with everyone remembers Farmville. You know, it’s an app within Facebook, where you got to build a farm and you got to have animals and you got to get all these different points, and you got to buy things and make things grow faster. And he said Farmville was just a silly game where people planted virtual crops. On a much larger level. However, I watched people spend real dollars to buy virtual sheep, and it flipped a switch in my mind. And so that’s where Gary went with this idea of like flipping his switch in his mind with Farmville.

Brian Fanzo 12:25
For me, the the flip in my mind actually happened with my daughters and actually through my dad. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we moved to Virginia Beach, and my dad was a candy salesman and he traveled every single week when we grew up. And when he came home on Thursday nights every Thursday night, he always came home with a pack of baseball cards or hockey cards or football cards for my brothers and I that was like the thing that he always you know, and I always thought I was like man, he always finds these cards in different airports and cities that he travels and then of course I got a little bit older and realized, you know, my dad bought a giant case of them and stuck them up in his bedroom and he just opened them up to give them to us as kids. But for me like the idea of collecting these cards, it was ritualistic for me, like I remember you know being trading them with friends. I will tell you I have a almost a half of a storage unit full of baseball cards still today, baseball, football hockey cards, because I was very into sports. I wasn’t into the comic book side of the world I was more into the sports side of the world. But the thing about that that I think about this in this whole NFT space is that you know the thing about a an exclusive baseball card right so one of the ones that I have that is the more rare ones that I have is I have a Ken Griffey Jr. Not the upper deck one that that kind of was kind of milked for the wrong ones, but I have a rookie card of a Ken Griffey Jr. That was actually never the day that I opened it up and I had it in a packet. I put it into a sealed case and it’s been in the sealed case ever since. I believe. That is almost 26 years that it has been in this sealed, sealed case. Now the interesting thing about this is yes, that’s pretty cool, right? Yes, there’s some value there.

Brian Fanzo 14:03
The funny part about it is nobody that is following me on social media, hundreds of 1000s of followers. And really none of my friends since I’ve graduated college I have ever even looked or seen that Ken Griffey Jr card that I have because it’s been in a box with a bunch of other things that are collect that I collect that in that have value. And the interesting thing about baseball cards and that when you think about you know collecting them and sharing them is that when we think about the you know, this whole idea of collector cards, we have to have a certification of authority, right? We need to make sure that the card is real. But then we also have to understand its rarity, right? The the cards that are worth the most money are the cards that there are a limited amount of them out right there is the the hung the Honus Wagner cards where I believe there’s only nine of the original cards that are available now they’ve sold for millions of dollars. So you have the certification authority, then you have the rarity elements, but then you also have the verification of quality, right? It has to be a certain quality and, and over the last couple years now they have these, this entire system where you fly out to different places in the country with your card. I’ve seen people have them in like these massive, you know cases because they’re worth value. And they go there and someone evaluates the the card, they understand they look at the corners, they look at the quality, and then they give it a grading system, right. And all of that is because there is no way for us to track a freaking piece of cardboard that has a printed picture on it. That was that was a piece of bubblegum was slapped on top of it when it was delivered. Like let’s be real here, right? Let’s think about this, right?

Brian Fanzo 15:38
A baseball card or any of those card collections really was just a packet of something that is a cardboard printout. And when you think about this, versus an NFT, the cardboard print on the thing that you hold in your hand can still exist. But what the blockchain and what NFT’s enable is it actually allows us to have that chain of custody, and allows us to actually define authority. Because once something is minted on to the blockchain, once an NFT is minted onto the blockchain, the history of that NFT is going to be there for the life of the NFT. Every time it is transferred, every time it is sold, every time someone switches it into a wallet, it will all be shared to the world. And therefore, when we’re thinking about the we’re evaluating the the three things that I talked about in card collecting, right, the certification of authority, the rarity of the card, and the verification of the quality, all of that is done automatically, through the systems that have the blockchain, the NFT’s that live on so this is like that’s where I had the kind of the aha moment because I was like, how many people have bought amazing expensive art pieces that sit in their house that no one has ever seen, unless the people have come to visit you. And they probably haven’t even seen it when they come to visit you because it’s in like that white carpet room that is off to the side in your house, that you’re not even sure why you have that that that room that is so perfect that you’re afraid to go in there. But that’s where all like the cool stuff is that you spent all the money on. I speaking from from experience. And so when we think about that, in a digital world where we are hyper connected, and we spend so much of our time in our phones, it’s kind of ridiculous that we spend this all of this money for this limited edition item that we love, that really we are never able to show off or people aren’t able to see. And that is where NFT’s come into play. And now, there are different types of NFT’s I mentioned, the profile photos are called PFPs is what most people refer to them. That’s kind of what the the trendy thing is at the moment. But I would argue a lot of the PFP projects have started to add utility. And really what utility means is that beyond the art, the art gets you access or gives you the ability to execute on other things.

Brian Fanzo 17:52
For example, I have a Playboy Rabbitar right the Playboy, the brand minted out Rabbitars, which of course they had to do rabbits because let’s face it, and I have a rabid star and my rabbit star, when I was in New York at the event, they messaged out and said everyone who has a Rabbitar NFT in their wallet, their digital wallet has access to this private Playboy party. If you do not have it, you do not get access into that party. So now it’s not only this beautiful art, which is this, you know, the rabid art my my favorite one of the ones that I meant it has a top hat on it, I’ll put a link to it here and in the bio, but that actual piece it can be used as my profile photo, it is a beautiful piece of art. But it also gives me access into I can actually say yes, now I live that I’ve been to a playboy party. And to me, that’s kind of cool. Like, I don’t think I ever thought I was going to be invited to a playboy party or have access to it. But it’s because they released the 11,000, Playboy Rabbitars. And they allowed those of us that have them to have access into this event. And the neat thing about this is the smart contract that is we’re talking about under here. And really, I mean even the concept of you know, calling it a smart contract to me is a little bit awkward and weird, because really what it is, is it’s just a contract that is mostly built up in like an If This Then That format, which those that are coders, we kind of think that way. And it allows you to be very elaborate on all of the different things that exist within a project and have tea, or can be very simple, right? If you have this NFT it gets you access into this. But it also could be if you have this NFT and this NFT. They also gives you additional access, right? You can you can do some compiling. And so the PFP is these profile photos that are out there right now are really the most popular ones, but there’s some really layers on there that we have to go beyond. Then the other types of different ones that exist. We have the one to one artists piece, where you know, the most famous one was, was sold for, you know, $69.3 million by people and I talked about that in the last episode. And it was, you know, it’s a one of one piece, that means there’s only one of them. And he sold it and that one person owns the one copy digital NFT of that the people piece for $69.3 million. And many people will credit that piece for that sale of that piece for being the thing that really transformed the NFT space. I know for me, it was like a light bulb. But I was like, Ooh, this space now just got like a stamp of approval that I can lean in on. And so that’s kind of one of the other pieces. One of the other variables or varieties of of NFT’s.

Brian Fanzo 18:16
You also then have generative generative art, which means it is art that is actually designed. But then you are using code to actually manipulate the different versions of the art once it’s on the blockchain once you made it out there. So it is actually leveraging software code to create the different varieties of the art pieces. This is where the rarity comes in. And don’t worry, I have an entire episode on how we look at something being rare versus something being, you know, a value based on who holds it or the style of the piece of content. So I’m gonna talk about that a little bit later. But then there’s also like music NFTS, there’s sports and fts. There’s digital fashion. And fts. Of course there is Metaverse and gaming. NFTS, I have some gaming NFT’s were the NFT that I purchased when I am in Decentraland. On the in the metaverse, I can actually add them to my character, right so I’m able to, to add, I can actually add bunny ears to my, my character because the the Playboy team gave us, you know, air dropped us, one of those NFT’s for Halloween. And so there’s all of these different types and the types are kind of growing. And I think one of the types that I believe we’re going to see emerge that right now isn’t really a category, I’m kind of making it up. One is the collaborative NFT Concept.

Brian Fanzo 21:48
I believe we are going to start to see a very collaborative NFTs, where you’re almost collecting NFT’s as if it’s a puzzle. And that puzzle ultimately, it’s not about having just one FTE but it’s the collection of NFT’s making into one bigger NFT, I believe is going to be see a spot that we are going to see emerge as well. So with that being said, I want to break down these nine real world examples. And and hopefully for everyone listening, Mike, my goal here is to hopefully help you see a light bulb.

Brian Fanzo 22:17
But also I know this just I’m gonna warn everybody listening, you’re gonna get a lot of people that are going to not believe in this concept. They’re gonna be like, Why is that photo worth any money? Like what the heck? Like, you gotta be kidding, this must be a passing fad. It’s some silly gamers that are online. It’s these hype people, Gary Vaynerchuk is out there just going out there. So after I give you these nine real world examples, I’m going to I’m going to answer the two most popular questions you’re going to get once you start talking about NFT’s a little bit more and hopefully give you some of those answers so that you can move forward with them. But the nine real world examples I started off with number one was the card collecting one right the idea of these card collections. And you know, the the thing that’s really cool for me, is I use one of the blockchain marketplaces called Veve, which is very popular for Disney and a lot of the, you know, these mainstream market brands, and I went in and purchased four of the super hero, you know, MFTs for Super Girl, Bat Girl, I can’t remem the other three, and I put them in a wallet and I and I have that wallet now as a hardware wallet. And for me that that is something I’m going to give to my daughter’s like my dad gave me baseball cards, right? And so that that to me was also one of those things where I’m thinking of it from the standpoint of like, how do I pass something down to my kids and I found these four Super Girls that I just thought was really such a cool concept. And so like To me that’s like the like that’s my generations version of passing something down to our kids. And let’s face it, we don’t need more crap, we collect plenty of crap, I am a very, you know, I’m not a hoarder, but I’m on that like on that sometimes on that fence where I do collect Wheaties boxes I collect Catholic like shoes. Wait, maybe I am a hoarder. That’s a whole nother whole nother episode. So that was number one card collecting.

Brian Fanzo 24:01
Number two, an example where we can think about this idea of NFT signaling is actually MySpace. And for those that are under the age of 30. You can Google what MySpace is. Or you can just tune out this one and you’ll jump on the next one or so. But the top nine if you guys remember, you always have this top nine on MySpace and really what the top nine meant was it was the nine friends that you wanted to make sure everybody knew that you were friends with them. Like it was like it was your way of signaling. These are my nine friends. And if you think about an NFT like I have a crypto dad NFT is what is used what is what you see on my social media accounts. That is me signaling like, Hey, I am a proud dad. I am playing in the crypto space. And this is like that’s how I’m broadcasting that. And in a way that’s because I want to surround my so I want to people that are dads or people that are friends with dads or maybe single females that like you know, single dads, whatever that may be. I’m signaling that out. And really, that’s what the MySpace top nine was. And I think when we start thinking about this idea of our social identity, here’s the thing that is such an interesting, you know, that lives online, we all are craving to find our people. Let me say that, again, every one of us, it doesn’t have to be online or offline, there is no greater feeling, in my opinion, than finding your people, people that understand you, people that support you, people that push you, people that get you people that allow you to be your true self unapologetically. And in this digital world, where algorithms have rolled our lives, where we have, we were catfishing. And we are faking it till we make it for so long, we have moved in this new space. Hence, Myspace were this idea of signaling to the world, who we are the things we care about. And the groups that were a part of, it just makes sense, because it allows us to have one step closer to finding those people and an element of serendipity.

Brian Fanzo 25:58
Number three, the number three example that I use here is the Monopoly game at McDonald’s. And if everybody remembers the Monopoly game at McDonald’s, it was, I believe, it happened in the fall almost every year for many, many years until there was this big investigation and there’s a documentary on it, that’s really exciting. You guys can check out the documentary. But what it what it was, was they had a Monopoly board and you got your soda or your, your Big Mac or your french fries. And on them had the little peel off stickers, and they would have the different, you know, pieces for your Monopoly board. And the whole goal was, if you completed one of the colors, then you won the award that was with it. And of course, you had Broadway and Park Place, which was the two that had the biggest prizes. And the thing that was interesting about that is that, you know, ultimately what you were trying to you were going to these different McDonald’s I remember, I had friends that were like when I was traveling, they would be like, Hey, can you go to McDonald’s there, because they might have different pieces in that region, or whatever that may be. But the thing that was interesting was there became this whole secondary market, where people would have one rare piece that most people were missing, and they would put it up on eBay, and they would sell it to you. Because if you had all of the other spots, and you were only missing that one piece, and let’s say the award was $100,000, if you had those three pieces, someone was selling that one piece for $60,000. All of a sudden, you’re like, hey, if I pay $60,000, for that, I am going to my net $40,000 I’m gonna be able to cash in on my on my prizes. Now. The scamming that existed, there was unheard of, if you watch the documentary, people that were inside, like people that were part of understanding where the things were printed, and understanding how they were distributed, started manipulating the system and pocketing a lot of the main prizes, right. And so here’s the interesting part about using the McDonald’s Monopoly piece as an example, guess what the blockchain would have done if the Monopoly game existed in NFT form, it would have prevented the scam artists, it would have prevented those people from taking them and us not knowing who held it or where because here’s the thing, and this is some some ft projects have made this mistake when you are minting out your NFT. And you let’s say you’re putting a collection of 10,000 out there, anyone can look at the the public address of those that are out there and see where they where the origin was, and who who was the first one to get it and then where they go from there. And so a couple projects have held some of their NF T’s back for their team or for giveaways. But then the problem became, all of a sudden people realize that they were holding back only the rare versions. And this is where this transparency of blockchain happen because guess what, faking it till you make it and being like the fraudulent person that’s trying to hide things, you get exposed in this blockchain environment because the blockchain empowers this entire concept where the the bad actors now have to play in a transparent world. Now, I’m not telling you, that doesn’t mean that people can’t try to you know, rob your wallet or make you click on a wrong link. Like let’s let’s not give a false sense of security. But in this game of like this game of Monopoly, where you are collecting pieces, and those pieces need to be verified and authentic, and they you want when you have the collection, you want to be able to send that to McDonald’s and have them give you your reward that entire process. I know of some that documentary said some people waited three years for them to get their actual award because they had to do all this verification in the digital, you know, blockchain and NFT world. That’s no longer the case. No longer the case you no longer have to worry is that someone’s selling me the real one and the fake one. And so McDonald’s game. Monopoly McDonald’s game was one that I thought was a really good example.

Brian Fanzo 29:40
The next one is actually a funny one I still use today. I don’t know for you guys that are listening, was anyone a proud mayor of like their local McDonald’s or dunkin donuts or Tropical Smoothie or your local jam or maybe the grocery store with anyone mayor’s? And the app I’m referring to is called Foursquare. If we remember Foursquare, It was it was purchased and then was morphed into an another app, which is called Swarm today, and I actually, I pulled up swarm because I still technically use swarm today, which is kind of funny. And I’ll just like, share, like, every time I went somewhere, and this is how this app worked. For those that weren’t familiar with it, you checked in that you were there at this location. And so over the years since I’ve actually had, you know, been using the app, and of course, I’ve been to 76 countries. And the cool thing is because I’ve checked into a lot of those countries on this app, they’re actually there. But like, I’m opened up this Swarm app, and it shows that I’ve been to 5428 check ins, I’ve been to wow. So on here, it says I’ve been I’ve checked in at 61 different countries, I’ve visited over 2022 places on this app where I checked in and back when this first started, what you would do is if you were the person that had checked in the most frequently, at that location, they gave you this mayor badge and all these coins dropped to you. And then every time someone checked in at that location, it would say thank you for checking in. Did you know that I social fans is the mayor of you know, Dunkin Donuts. That’s the one I know I wasn’t there for a while. And no shame. I’m a big Dunkin Donuts fan. But the idea there was there was gamification. But there was also this tracking mechanism. Because for me, what I started to use Foursquare for was my ability to know where I had been what restaurants I had been, and I started putting in, like in the in the space of your of your Foursquare post, I would actually put what by review of the restaurant, this is before Yelp. And I would say I ordered the the salmon and the salmon was great. But next time I should actually cook it medium. And so when I went back there, the next time to check in, the app would pop up and say Brian, you were here three weeks ago, and this was what you posted and I would actually be able to see what I ordered. And the funny thing about this as I remember us talking about these mayorships and this idea of like, Hey, this is my i i totally own the most frequent person at Dunkin Donuts, right? That’s probably not the one you want to brag about. The one you might wanna brag about is your gym, right? Like I am the one that’s been to the gold’s gym, the most our Planet Fitness more than everyone else. And that was that was a mayorship. If we think about this in the NFT space today, and we have there’s a concept called po-aps POAP, which is it’s the it’s actually the proof of us going or, or experiencing something. What what we’re able to do in this NFT space, is we are able to move into a world where not only are we meal track where we’ve been, but we’re now able to use these digital records because everything every action you take with an NFT is Trent it’s all is It is literally put into the ledger. It cannot be erased and not cannot be removed when you make actions online. And so ultimately, this idea of, you know, how could I right now, no one could say, Brian, I don’t believe you’ve been to over 70 de Matthews band’s concerts. Now I will tell you because I mentioned before, I’m slightly a hoarder, I do believe I have almost every ticket physical paper ticket that I’ve ever been to a Matthews man’s concert. I know I have every Steelers ticket that ever I’ve ever had, I’ve collected those. But like, how would you prove that you’ve done these things or been to these places? Or experiences things? And then also how can people reward with them? Right? Because if you think about it from a brand perspective, I have a whole episode coming up over the next couple days on how brands can think about NFTS because I’ve been doing a lot of consulting on that space. I’ve worked a couple calls just this week with some really big brands and they’re asking me to help them build out what an NF T would look like in their environment. And for me, this idea of rewarding people based on where they’ve been the purchases they’ve made is really an exciting concept. So that’s one of the ones Foursquare I think is a great one.

Brian Fanzo 33:41
A newer version of the same thing. I love that everyone watching live right now is saying that they are mayor, very similar to Foursquare, but it has a more niched focus is an app called untapped. Is anyone familiar with untapped? Maybe my fellow beer drinkers and brewery fans? If you’re a beer drinker, you should you check out this app. I’ve been using it now for a good while I joined it in 2012. And I’ve actually checked in 100 or 1314 times. And I’ve checked in 680 unique beers. So pretty much every beer that I’ve drank at every brewery in every city that I’ve traveled to, if it’s a unique beer, like I don’t check in every single time I drink Bud Light or every Guinness that I have. But if I go to a place and I’m drinking a new beer or a beer that I think is rather rare. I open up the app, I can click on the location, I can click, I can add a photo, I can add my review and I can check in there. The next time I go to order that beer, I can actually pull it up and see what I said about it. And this app, what is really cool about it is they started to reward people and say you could get into the untapped beer festival which was a beer and music festival if you had a certain amount of check ins over a certain amount of time. And then they started to do things where if you went to two or three different beer events where you were supporting local brewers and you checked in there then your would enable you to have these free discounts and I’m I remember I got an entire gift box from I can’t remember what it was kind of sad. I wish I knew that remember the company was I think it’s called it was called it’s a Bev’s. It’s an Arizona brewing beverage company. But they because I had checked in on this variety of beers in this certain amount of time in Arizona, they awarded me this amazing gift box. I still actually use the bottle opener to this day. And that was I mean, easily eight years ago. And so when we think about it, yes, and I mean IPA, actually, I’ve never met a beer I didn’t like so I’m not always the greatest reviewer of beer because I like all versions of beer. But yeah, IPAs are my favorite but the cool thing about that untapped was if you think about it, I was checking in what beers I like onto their onto their system and then it was providing me a log but there really was no way of exchange or management of information or currency within there so untapped had the gamification it also has the building of reward based on the thing the actions you were taking the app but it was missing it’s missing a lot of the things because most people a lot of people that are following me right now that I see are watching this live they did probably didn’t know that I’m a massive beer fan and I’ve checked in over 680 beers I’ve given my own review on them and it’s because there was no way for me like to signal or put that out there and so that untapped one is a good one. And this is right so that was number five.

Brian Fanzo 36:20
And real quick for those that are watching live i know we have some live viewers in the audience here on Discord. I’m taking a snapshot right now. And I’m going to give all of you that are in there. Now I just took a screenshot of all everyone that’s in here now, I’m going to I’m going to gift you I’m going to airdrop you guys each $5 in ADHD coin for being here live and hanging out with me on this Saturday afternoon. I had some technical issues to start this off. So I just want to say thank you guys for hanging out with me and thank you for being a part of the fans own Discord and just another benefit for you guys that are listening to jump into discord if you don’t like discord, neither did I I had to come in there kicking and screaming about 11 months ago and I’m learning not to hate it would be my best example. But we try to manage the our Discord and kind of stay in the loop there. But one of the cool things are Is this where I’m dropping, you know, free giveaways, I’m giving you information before it’s public. And also doing cool things like this. Because, you know, the beauty of having this creator coin is I can lift up everyone and I can kind of just say, hey, here’s a little thank you. I know for those that are listening live. And if you’re listening, you can’t listen to this live. If you you know if you jump into the discord and you leave a review on one of the platforms, drop one of those photos of your review inside of our Discord. And I’ll make sure to take care of you as well. So thanks, everybody for watching, that’s listening in live.

Brian Fanzo 37:40
So number six, number six of the nine real world examples is Pokemon Go. And I think we can all even if you didn’t play Pokemon Go, Pokemon Go like just came out of nowhere. And all of a sudden was everyone was talking about it. And what it was, it was it was an AR enabled game with your mobile device that allowed you to use the area around you to actually find and search for these different digital overlays that you can only see when you’re holding your phone up. And then of course, they became collections, there was games within the games. And the other elements of that was certain Pokemon Go collections were very rare compared to others. Therefore, if you had one of the ones that like was super rare, and I don’t know the terminology, because like my daughter has been, has been Pikachu the last couple of years and my daughter knows way more about Pokemon than ideal. But the concept of Pokemon GO and I wrote a really detailed blog post on this When Pokemon GO came out. And I’ll share it in the show notes because I broke down this idea of overlaying our digital world in the current world and that I knew it was a little too early Google Glass was way too early, Pokemon Go was still a little early. Right now we’re probably still a little early. And this idea of overlaying digital assets truly on our everyday environment. But mark my words, we are not far away from that in two or three years, when you go to an event or a concert, you go into a restaurant, something that you have on you will be able to cast a visual representation where you will see the people that are in the restaurant, if you follow any of them on Facebook, or if you if any of them also are part of the same charities that you are a part of whatever that may be. And so that’s what Pokemon Go kind of added into this NFT world. And one of the parts that was really interesting about it was you knew the people that were into Pokemon Go because they wouldn’t stop talking about it. But they really didn’t have a way to kind of like, advertise what they are doing. But they also didn’t have a way. If you spent like six months on Pokemon Go then you got burnt out. There is no way for you to transfer all of the things that you had done to someone else that wanted to build on that. And so like that’s the other thing that NFT’s that enable is that an NFT can have utility right what Gary Vaynerchuk VeeFriends, he’s given people to have certain VeeFriends you get access to in any a exclusive conference every year for the next three years. So the next three years that NFT gets into the next three concerts, the next three conferences. But let’s say you go to that conference next year, Gary blows your mind. But then all of a sudden life happens. And you decide to pivot your business and you’re no longer in that space, and you have no need to go to those next two events. In the the past world, you’d have to sort of somehow scalp that ticket or hope that you could sell or get someone in. And in many cases, those events won’t even allow that, well, now I can simply post that NFT for sale, and whoever has it next knows that it has two more accesses to those events, and how they know that is because it’s built into the contract. And so there is nothing manual that some human has to do, all of those things are built directly in to the software and the code that is underneath of this. And I think that to me, is one of those things that really like in the Pokemon Go example, really would shift the narrative.

Brian Fanzo 40:50
Number seven, in real world examples, the Facebook badges, or like the Facebook rings is anyone I know, many of many of my friends aren’t on Facebook a lot, I’m still a Facebook user, I still enjoy Facebook, not as much for, like trying to beat the algorithm, but I do enjoy, you know, catching, staying in touch with friends and family, and I don’t like talking on the phone. So if I can see what my family is doing via Facebook, I feel like it saves me a phone call, it’s still worth it for me. But when you go like I’m uh, I was been on the board for No Kid Hungry for many years, and I was very proud about being on the board for No Kid Hungry. But really the only time you knew that was if you went to my LinkedIn profile, and it had it on there. But then I think it was probably two years ago, during the holidays actually right now like right around Thanksgiving, they would enable this, this badge that would be on your profile photo that said, I support No Kid Hungry. And everybody that was that was a part of that movement or believed in that charity or that that movement. And they are a great movement. For those that want to check them out. I’m a huge fan unbeliever, they’re on a mission to end childhood hunger here in United States. And it’s a massive problem that only grew during the pandemic. But that was a way for me to signal to others, not only something I believed in, but I remember when I first changed my profile photo, all of a sudden, I got these friend requests from people that were also part of the No Kid Hungry family that were also on the same team that I was on. But I wasn’t connected with them on social because there was no really way for me to put that out to say, Hey, this is what I’m doing. And this is what I’m working on. And so for me when we think about that, and we think about this, this concept that was that’s also a signaling concept now because I’ve heard this from people they say, Brian, like, why do you have like a cartoon photo of you not just a picture of you, like, Brian, you preach transparency and being your authentic self, right? Like, that’s what I always hear? Well, here’s the breaking news, just posting a picture of you photo of you does not make you authentic, it does not make you like all of a sudden, you know, the exact personal like it is it’s a lot more it’s all encompassing how we show up but the thing that it does is it does allow us to create kind of like form an identity and in a way allow us to step into things that we represent that our physical attributes do not right like and I mean like explain that for a second right like the idea that we can incorporate different components in a art piece that represents who we are right? I am ADHD superpowered. I am a girl dad of three little girls I am a digital futurist, diehard Pittsburgh sports fan. I am a big fan of Jeeps I am a sneakerhead love getting tattoos. And I’m a big believer and helping the world understand the harmony between technology and mental health and humanity. Now, how the hell would I represent all of that? Anywhere? Right? Again, you probably couldn’t, right I have. That’s a kind of an extreme example. But what I was able to do with my profile photo that you guys will see right now and you’ll see a link in the comments, or in the show notes is it’s actually three of my NF T’s combined. So it’s the crypto dad NFT that I have because I own the rights to it, then is the secret society art piece that I turned. The shirt that I was the crypto dad had on is now has that art piece over top of it. And then I took the bubblegum kids and f t and I took the hat off of that NFT and put it on top of that one. And now I felt like because the hat was pink. And when I look at that piece of art, to me, it’s starting to resemble very much all of those things. I just rambled off. So most of you guys were like holy crap, he was talking fast and naming all these things that he that make him up. And so the idea that we can step into these digital representations, these avatars for many people that’s like we it’s catfishing, right? Like, oh my goodness, we can hide behind an avatar. But here’s the thing. We’ve been catfishing forever, right? People have been faking who they were online, they’ve been using filters in Photoshop. And I mean, a lot of the people if you’ve used a dating app recently, people still post photos of 10 years ago on their dating profile. And then when you show up and meet them you like did you think I wasn’t going to realize that you’ve changed in 10 years. So the concept of like, just because it’s an avatar or a digital art piece, and the fact that they people believe that all of a sudden makes it less personal or less authentic or less, you know representation of who we are is because we are trying to take offline methodology and thought process and take it online and that is not what works right we have to re reimagine what is possible, we are reimagining a way for us to represent our whole amazing selves. And every one of you that’s listening to this episode, every one of you, you what, who you are at your core, every aspect of who you are your strengths, your vulnerabilities, your weaknesses, the things that you love about yourself, the things that you hate about yourself, all of them make up who you are. And the beautiful human that you are, is it’s because of all of those things. It’s not just because of the the things we want to shine the light on or the things that we want that we’re proud of all of it makes us up. And so I think about this in like this idea of like Facebook badges and moving forward, it’s a really cool way to make that all kind of show up. Number 8am. i In the list of nine I promise I’m getting to the final ones.

Brian Fanzo 45:49
Number eight was the Jeep I mentioned, I’m a jeep driver. And if anyone has drives a Jeep Jeep Wrangler, specifically, we have a Jeep wave that you eventually are either told when you buy the Jeep, I wasn’t until I got my first Jeep in 1998 it was it was a gift from my parents that I got a a 1998 Jeep Wrangler that I absolutely love and I ran into the ground and rolled it over and got different roll cages on it a couple times and, and dad if you’re listening sorry, I didn’t tell you that when I was in college, but I just got it fixed I solved the problem dad, so be proud of that side. But the thing about being in the jeep life, the Jeep life to me, embodies who I am, it is rough, it is not perfect. It is oftentimes bright and sometimes falling apart, but is always working and they hold their value and they are determined to go wherever they need to go and there is nothing that is going to stop them. And there is like a characteristic when I meet a fellow jeep driver there. It’s like hey, that person’s a Jeep. Like we get each other. And there’s this wave. So when we when we drive by each other, we wave with its two fingers, a two finger wave on our steering wheel. It sounds corny, it sounds ridiculous. There’s no other car club or group that actually has this it wasn’t actually started by Jeep the brand it was actually started by some enthusiasts that were going to these Jeep meetups and just started waving to everybody and then he decided to kind of create this wave and now Jeep has kind of embraced it. But the reason I say that is because my Jeep affinity and love and representation of that has never existed in a digital world. There is no way for me to like have that same version online just hasn’t been there. And you know a Jeep if you’re listening you know I will gladly waive my fee and work with you guys on rolling out and NFT projects so anyone that has connections there in that world, hook it up fanzo@isocialfanz.com. I would love to work with Jeep as one of my my favorite brands and I’ve actually owned a Jeep my entire driving life from 16 to 40 years old. I’ve owned a couple different Jeep Wranglers. I had a Jeep Cherokee as well. And I plan on owning multiple Jeep Wranglers moving forward. So for me, that’s part of it, right, it’s community. It’s also identity, but it’s also attached to a physical object, which is the Jeep that we currently own right. So just like an NFT you own that piece of art just like that Jeep that yellow black and yellow jeep 2011 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that is sitting in my driveway right now. I own that that is mine, it is black and yellow, and it has lifted up on you know, 35 inch tires. And so like that, that is just one of those ways that was the think about

Brian Fanzo 48:23
The last one, and I think it’s one that I just want to throw in there because I think it’s important it’s also connects to the fan zone is being a season ticket holder. My dad has had season tickets for the Steelers since 1969. When I was born in 1981, he put me on the waitlist to get a season ticket for the Steelers at the time, it was a 11 year waitlist, it ended up being 13 years before my name was called to actually be big, you know, I was put on there when I was born. And then I wasn’t until I was a little over 13 years old before my name came up to get one of those season tickets. So in Pittsburgh, these are the prize of prized possessions. But up until recently, they were actually not something that the actual season ticket holder owned it. So even though my dad for 30 years, every year paid for those tickets paid for the preseason games, played for the regular season games, and was loyal fan every year, he had to renew and he didn’t have any physical ownership of that actual ticket. And so technically, when we were not going to a game and we were selling them, or sending them to a friend or selling them on the side of the street, if we sold them for for a profit more than the face value, we were totally violating the contract because we didn’t actually own that. Therefore, we did not get to determine the value of that ticket. Now over the last 10 years or so a lot of the big sports have shifted that and now they have something they call and it’s really because they got to add some fees to it. But then they have something that’s called a seat license. And what the seat license allows you to do is you pay a little bit more of a lot more upfront, but then you actually own those seats and those tickets and therefore, when you no longer want them, you can give them back To the pole and the Steelers will buy them for you. Or you could pass them down in your will. Or you could send them to someone else that wants to maybe go for the year because you’re traveling, and then they can send them back to you. And so when we think about NFT’s, ultimately, that’s what NFT’s allow us to enable and be a part of as well is all of a sudden now. And I love that JJ put in the live discord chat, he put the Jeep wave in there. So thanks, JJ, for that. And I love Nancy said she drove a Jeep for 16 years as well. So super cool to see both of that. And so the season ticket one, the Jeep one to me, it’s the idea of identity and community. Now, the funny thing about this is I’m done with a nine, I’m about to kind of pull all this together and hopefully answer the questions you guys want to hear. As we move forward. And we’ll get down this episode. I know, it’s a longer episode, but I promise you, you know the hook, if you’ve stuck with me this long, I’m gonna leave you with a couple of really good things here. You know, as we pull things together. Now, all of these things coming in there.

Brian Fanzo 50:55
The thing that I’ve heard a ton, and I purposely left it out of the conversation was people say when they’re explaining it, I heard this in New York when I was at the event last week, everyone said, well, really NFT’s represent community. And here’s the thing, I am the biggest believer of community. I mean, the first chapter of the book that I’ve been writing is called press the down button. The first chapter, the literally the title, the first chapter is the future of business is community. That’s how much I believe in community. But I also have a problem, when we all of a sudden assume or associate groups of people that are hanging out in one location, and calling that a community, or by the fact that we were able to do a giveaway and said, everyone that jumps into discord over a certain amount of period of time, if you’re in there before October 1, we’re going to raffle off a Lamborghini and one person is going to Lamborghini. And then we tell people that our community has 200,000 people, no, you have 2000 200,000 individuals that joined a platform to try to win something. And as soon as they don’t win, you now have 199,999 people that are pissed off, they didn’t win, that are probably going to berate in that in that same communities in that same platform, and then they’re just gonna disappear and they’re gonna go somewhere else. And so I do believe community, signaling the community that you’re a part of, and the importance of community is the is the backbone of these NFT’s. But I do not believe at the moment, we’ve figured out what that community looks like over a longer period of time, how it evolves, right? I don’t care. If you look at the press that Bored Ape Yacht clubs are getting, or Crypto Punks, or Crypto Kitties or any of these ones, like the ability to build a community, I look at community building as it’s very easy at the start, right? There’s energy and there’s people coming together and and we’re all the shared purpose and passion. But as you add more people and some people, life happens, they start to go away, and maybe the value of the community starts going down. That’s where the real work happens. That’s where the real magic happens. And so for me, when I’m assessing a community, I am looking at those core beliefs, but I am not one that will look at something and say oh, because they have this many people or they’re doing this much that they that they’re going to be a community. So community is like an underlying element of these NF T’s.

Brian Fanzo 53:10
Now, I told you at the very beginning that I believed NFT’s were one of four ways entry points for people to get into this Web 3 creator economy. The other three are cryptocurrency, right? And funnily enough, I ran some trends on Google Trends and some data on BuzzSumo today, and you know, the amount of people that misplace that interchange bitcoin and cryptocurrency is hilarious, right? Crypto is the all encompassing vehicle that all of these play under bitcoin is just happens to be one type of actual cryptocurrency and interestingly enough, in this world we’re in today we kind of interchange all that together. But the four ways that we can enter people into this creator economy / Web 3, one of them is NFT’s.

Brian Fanzo 53:55
The second one is cryptocurrency, right, which and cryptocurrency just for those that are trying to wrap their head around fungible, non fungible, crypto is actually a fungible item, right because I can I can send you one eath and a week from now you can send me a one eath back and it does not have to be made up of the exact same eath that I sent you. You can you could have sold all that one ether you could have bought a couple things and brought it back and so that eath in cryptocurrency is actually a fungible item. So the first one is NFT segment is cryptocurrency.

Brian Fanzo 54:27
The third one are creator coins or social tokens. And I’m very biased on that one a little bit because I have my own, which is the ADHD crater coin it launched in March of last year. March of this year, I’m sorry. And it is how I’m rewarding my community. It’s how I’m incentivizing. It’s how we’re growing together. We now have over 600 supporters that are holding the ADHD coin. I’m giving out NF T’s I have some merchandise that’s gonna be dropped. So people that are holding a certain amount of ADHD coin 193 will actually get A free you know merchandise sent to them at their their house just from my way of saying thank you for holding that. But what’s neat about the crater coins is that you don’t need a digital wallet you don’t need to understand all of the different variables that go into crypto but the Creator coins actually much like a NFT have utility underneath them as well. So like in my Discord if you are holding a certain amount of ADHD coin, you get higher access into these different levels within the discord right so if you right now if you own if you are holding 1000 ADHD coins, which you know, I’m very proud that we are there’s four people in the discord that are holding 1000 ADHD coins, they have access to the 1000 level the 1000 channel on that discord, and I will tell you I have push notifications on for that channel. And if someone is in there is commenting or asking a question, I will return that reply to it within seconds. It’s my way of like, Hey, this is the access that you get. So crypto, these creator coins is kind of like the hybrid between an NFT and cryptocurrency and then the fourth pathway.

Brian Fanzo 56:03
The fourth entry point into web three and the crater economy is the metaverse gaming concept. Right? The idea that the metaverse which we heard Facebook just renamed as Meta, which I know for many people is the first time you had ever heard of that. But really what the metaverse is the metaverse is actually something that’s actually built on the blockchain. These are all four of these are built on the blockchain that allows us to add virtual and digital representation. Sometimes in 3d Sometimes in virtual reality, but not having to be right. That’s a misconception that people believe that you had to have one of these different things to actually exist in that environment. But then you can buy land, you can add different characteristics, you can add, you know, concerts and shows and things that exist.

Brian Fanzo 56:43
And so the four, those are the four types that are kind of the entry point into the crater economy. So as I wrap this, to kind of pull this together, I’m going to tell you now, those two questions, you’re probably going to get asked now that you’re kind of like leaning into NFTs. And I promise, if this was still overwhelming for you, I’m gonna have other episodes, where I break down each one of these components a little bit further. I’m I’m doing this for the next 365 days. So I promise you, I’m going to answer all of your questions. And if I haven’t jumped over into that discord, or jump over on their Twitter and send me a question that you have that you would love me to cover on a future episode, I got plenty of episodes coming up. So I will hit those out. But for me, the two most common questions that are getting asked when someone starts talking about NFT’s, is they will say what makes these JPEGs worth any money? What can I just screenshot that that picture and put it on my profile? And like, Why? Why is that worth anything? Well, first of all, just like everything that exists out there, right, I could take a picture of a Jeep Wrangler and post it on Facebook. But it does not mean I own a Jeep Wrangler does not mean I drive one, it does not mean I can sell one, just like you could take a photo of the Mona Lisa. But just because you have a photo of it does not actually contain any ownership to that piece. And so when we look at the JPEG, and we look at the art, the art is a massive piece of this NFT movement. And I love that we are going to start to move away from this idea of the starving artist. Because NF T’s are going to allow artists to not only get rewarded and monetize their first launch of their that that initial piece of art, but the way the contract works is they will actually continue get residual or they’ll get a greater percentage every time their artists is sold, which I think is such a beautiful aspect of this. But for many pieces of it, the art doesn’t have to be beautiful to everyone. But it can represent the utility that’s underneath. And I think the art being the face of NF T’s is also kind of cool, because guess what it also is its beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And just because you don’t like you can’t figure out why people like these crypto punks that are that are, you know, in a certain design of art doesn’t mean that there isn’t hundreds of 1000s of people that do and that’s kind of how the art comes in there. So when people are asking you like what makes these JPEGs worth money, the thing that you always have to come back to is ownership and the exchange of value. If I take a picture of a Joe Montana rookie card, I cannot I do not own it, and I cannot sell it, I cannot have someone come over. And and we can’t exchange it for goods because it’s not actually mine. But if I actually have a NFT and is logged in the blockchain and it is connected to my wallet, I am able to share it. And so that’s the answer to that question was one because that the second one that we that I feel like I’ve been getting a lot more recently here is are these NFT things legit? And how long will they be around? And if so, is it too late for me to jump in? And we hear that a lot and so I’ll answer the first the last part there. It’s not too late to jump in. We are still dealing with a very small micro amount of people that even understand what an NFT is. Let alone even smaller group of people that are actually holding an NFT or of purchase an NFT or even created an NFT themselves.

Brian Fanzo 56:49
So we are still way in the early adoption phase of this whole game so you’re not too late. The the reason that many people look at themselves being too late is that A lot of what they’re calling blue chip projects, some of these projects that are worth, you know, the cheapest you can get is hundreds of 1000s of dollars. People feel like, Oh, well, if I was in here in March, and I was able to get a board eight for 300 bucks, like I missed that boat. Well, here’s what here’s what I have to say to that is there are plenty of projects that are launching today, tomorrow, the next couple of days, that have the same ability to create that same kind of growth, that same kind of utility, the same kind of community under there. So it’s not too late in that realm, either. The other part of this is how long will they exist? And are they legit, I believe the blockchain, that all of this is built on will be the single greatest disruption to how we look at our lives since the internet was created. And it’s not going to original thought. And lots of people have said that. But I’ve been I might, the first keynote I ever gave on blockchain was in 2013. And I was extremely excited by this idea that we had a decentralized ability to have no one company or entity own anything. And we were able to use this to exchange goods and services. And we were able to track our data, because let’s face it, if everyone doesn’t realize this, if you are using a platform like Facebook, or Instagram or Twitter for free, you are paying with it with your data. Right, we I think we’ve all learned that the hard way with all of the different things that have happened. And the funny thing about it is, we now get to own our data, we get to control where our data goes, and who gets it because eventually, everything like our credit score, all of those things would actually are going to be tracked and managed within this blockchain environment. And we, as the the sole proprietor owner of that will be able to determine who gets what, where, when, and how we kind of bring all of that together. And so that, to me, is the answer to that second one is, you know, on, is it legit? And then how long will it last? I don’t mean, nobody is an NFT. Expert right now, because NFT has not been around long enough for anyone to be an expert. But I also think no one really knows, as far as like the longevity, I do believe our ability to signal and our ability to share a you know, exchange value online, and do it in a way that has exclusivity to it will never go away. Now, will it morph into some kind of other version of something that’s maybe not the square image that we’re seeing today? Or, or not the static like, you know, one of 10,000 collections? Yes, probably, we’re gonna see a shift in some of those other, you know, aspects of this entire world. But I do believe that if you are, I believe, here’s, here’s, here’s how I’ll frame this. And none of this is financial advice. As you heard in the intro, this is not financial advice. But the way I look at this is your investment. Understanding this world of decentralization represent ownership of a digital asset, and your ability to exchange it for value will be something that will be you, it’ll continue to be valuable for your life until you die.

Brian Fanzo 1:02:52
Therefore, even if the NFT concept goes away, the methodology, the concepts, the mechanics, the nuances that exists in NF T’s will be essential as we move forward. And that’s why I dedicated a whole show to it, I am not a niche guy, I am one that preaches that you don’t not need a niche, I am like, Team No niche. And I launched a podcast called NFT 365. That’s pretty damn niche for me. Like I if I would have my way I would have named it like, creator economy. 365, right, like, or I would have named a blockchain 365 Cuz I like Oh, give me a little bit of everything. But I look at NFT’s specifically, as this idea as this really transformation on generations where I believe my dad understands a Joe Montana rookie card. And if I can get him to understand what the ownership and the exchange of value exists on blockchain, I can get my dad’s generation to see that. And then we have a younger generation that looks at gaming and, and everything that exists in their world where my daughters are playing games and asked me to buy coins, and I’m leveling them up there, that world understands a lot of this NFT space as well. But the exchanging of value and reading contracts is new to them. And so I look at this as NFT’s as being that great generational bridge of how we move into the web three dot o environment. So last but not least, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, there are two resources that really allowed me to have my aha moment. When it came to NFT’s I’m gonna put both of the links in the show notes and put them here in the discord as well. The first one was from 1:39pm, which is a great digital magazine, I was actually able to be at their event and party last week in New York City. The actual the, the name of the post was a guide to NFT’s and how they are about to revolutionize pretty much everything. But I will tell you the thing that caught my attention was not the title. But it was the graphic at the top of this post that just had giant letters WTF question mark NFTs question mark, which is hence why you see the name of this episode. Because when I was scrolling, I saw that I was like, oh, and I started reading this detailed article and I was like, oh my goodness, this is Coming together. So that’s one of the ones I definitely recommend you to actually check out.

Brian Fanzo 1:05:03
And the next one, the other one is from the Verge. And the title of this blog post is called NF T’s explained. And it’s actually kind of like a, it’s a, it’s a blog post, I think it came out in August. But it’s like the combination of like six other blog posts that I read in January and February they brought together and what’s really neat about that one, is it breaks down things a little bit less from like a web three world, but it really highlights the different components that exist within an NFT much more than just kind of the list that I got that I went on here. So with that being said, you know, hopefully you guys got something out of this, you know, understand where we’re going, maybe just even a little bit more light ball. I will say, you know, the my joke has been, we all have to do our own damn research, right? Because I don’t know what your risk tolerance is. I don’t know what your definition of success is. I don’t know what you believe is a beautiful piece of art. I don’t know how you look at community, I don’t know how much time you have for community. I don’t know how you look at his, his, you know, his getting $300 in a day, worth the time of buying and flipping something? Or are you someone that wants to sit on something for a long period of time hoping to hit it for $300,000, whatever all those things are, what are all those things are, they all make up artists visions to be different, and I will say this, the NFT space is beautiful, it’s so beautiful, because there’s no one right way to do it. Everyone can go about this collecting and exchanging different ways you can really carve out your own strategy and methodology. And when you hold when you sell what projects you get into which ones you buy five of versus buying one of, it’s really an open.

Brian Fanzo 1:06:36
It’s an open marketplace for us to decide. The reason that many of us are overwhelmed by NF T’s is because there’s no there’s no like set program, there’s not like, Do this, do this, do this, do this, it’s gonna make you money. But let’s face it, that’s part of the beautiful thing is that if you were a good person doing good things, and you’re willing to put in the time and research, I believe, you’re going to carve out your own way of making all of this work. So from Brian fans Oh, and for the ADHD superpower coin, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of NFT 365. Also make sure to check out we’re gonna be it’s gonna be a being announced the page everything this week, we are minting an NFT every single day, for the next 365 days, I’m actually going to bring in some investors and give some of you that are listening and opportunity to come in on this project because on 11.11.22. So November 11, 2022, we are going to have all 365 NFT’s put into one NFT and we are going to sell that on that day. And I’m going to give some of you an option to come in there and you’ll get a percentage of that sale so you’ll be able to kind of come along on the journey. We’re going to mint a different NFT every day I have I will tell you guys that on this episode. Now we mented on day one, the ens domain for this podcast. So it is the you know is that the funky looking hashtag you guys see in the title here. It’s my way of kind of have a little creativity. So it’s n three, F six T five, which is just NFT 365 jumbled up. That is the ens domains. That was the first one we minted on day one. And on day two, we minted a Chibi ape, which is a project that I’ve been involved with for a good while I have generation one and generation two of theirs. And then today we are going minting one pretty much in about an hour after I’m recording this for number three and the cool part is once we get through the first week, I’m gonna make this very transparent. You’re gonna have a landing page, you’re gonna see what we’re minting, you’re going to see the upcoming projects that we’re evaluating. We’re gonna make this a lot of fun. But I need to get through this first week of launching the podcast and doing the men’s and figuring out the best way. I mean right now I have five wallets, hot wallets, I have to exchange things between and I’m paying like $4,000 in gas fees, which we didn’t get into that today. But I digress. So with that being said, Make it a great day my friends. Remember, you know, let people know that you care about them. No one will ever say that you care too much.

Kevin Sturmer 1:09:17
This show is not financial advice, so do your own damn research.