Episode 66: Jacob Martin: NFT Investing w/ 2punks capital

[00:00:00] Ben: Welcome to the alt asset allocationpodcast, exploring alternative investment opportunities available to theeveryday investor. Here's your host Ben Lakoff.

Hello and welcome to the all to asset allocation podcast.Today's interview is with Jacob Martin. The NFT attorney and 2019 or 2020buying NFTs.

Easy. If you bought a board API club, B a Y C, that was a,maybe $200 and you ended up with around $500,000. That's insane investing inthe NFT space these days, or flipping NFTs is no longer as easy in a bullmarket. Everybody looks like a genius. In this episode, we talk about the NFTmarket overall what's over-hyped and where there still might be an opportunity.

We talk about the open metaverse and even regulation that mightbe needed in this. To help propel it for reminder that I'm doing these podcastsalive on Twitter spaces. I do them from my personal account, as well as thepodcast account. I hope you can join and ask questions directly from the guest.It's actually really fun.

I'm cutting out the Q and a section, but there's a lot of alphato be had in these Q and A's that's for sure. Before you listened, please don'tforget to like, or subscribe to the podcast or even. Leave a review. If you'rewatching this on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel and, or give thevideo a thumbs up.

This really, really helps people find the podcast and keeps usin going. And I really appreciate it. Enjoy the episode with Jacob Martin,Jacob, welcome to the show. Excited to have you on this. Yeah, do it.

[00:01:49] Jacob: This will be fun. I don't think I'veseen you since Puerto Rico, right? I didn't see you in Denver. I think we bothran in different directions all week.

[00:02:00] Ben: I mean, Denver 12,000 people runningaround absolute madness. Pretty much everybody gets coded somehow the true eatsDenver pill app a year.

But I I'm sure I'll see you in FTLA next week. Right.

[00:02:17] Jacob: You know, it's going to be, instead of12,000 people running around, it's going to be like 60,000 people runningaround. So I'm sure our chances are still slept, but it'll probably work.

[00:02:27] Ben: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Wagon. Well for theaudience that's listening to this later, let's start off a little background ofyou and how you came to where you are in the space.

[00:02:42] Jacob: Totally, man. Yeah. So I I was in lawschool a few years ago, five years ago, six years ago. When I really learnedabout smart contracts and that's me kind of skipping a couple of things, butyou know, I went from. First kid in my family to go to undergrad first kid togo to grad school. And then while I was in school, I was like, yeah, I'm goingto be an entrepreneur instead.

So I kind of built a blockchain company focused on smartcontracts doing wills and trusts, like very useful kind of automated assetdistribution. That's up crypto kitties and punks were stupid because they werejust JPEGs on smart contract. Fast-forward and apparently everybody loves theJPEGs.

And I love the JPEGs. Why not? But you know, now everything isheaded back towards, or have it extended towards proposed utility. So I've beenvery interested in useful smart contracts for years. And then 2021, I kind ofpositioned myself as one of the few lawyers that. Believed in the NFTE spacewas in the NFT space and kinda came at it from instead of the big firm angle.

I came at it from the opposite side. So I'm a man of the, ofthe people who happens to be a lawyer. So I've helped out with a bunch ofinteresting projects, companies and artists and tax guide, few other thingsI've done along the way, but I made way more money investing than I did lawyer.And so. Had a great year last year, and now in the process of raising a venturefund with my, my partner, Steven, and, and so we've got two punks capital, andI, at this point I do a lot of investing and advising more so than lawyering.

I do a little bit of lawyering, but I usually pass the lawyerand work off to to lawyers.

[00:04:24] Ben: Definitely. Laurie Loring is tough toscale in a way that's not linear. So definitely, definitely understand thatyour, your hours are limited. Totally. Well, so let's start off with the legallandscape. I mean, within crypto, everybody talks about the, you know, the airquote space needs regulation or that wouldn't really help.

Let's talk a little bit about the current. In Ft, legallandscape. And what pieces would be super helpful and kind of propelling itforward?

[00:05:00] Jacob: Yeah. I mean, I think that it's less,it's less about regulation clamping down on things and that being helpful andmore, more like, I think of, I think of the lack of regulation, like maybe likeyou're on a highway, that's got a ton of.

But like so much traffic that you can't go forward. But if, youknow, if there was some regulation and there was, there would be at least someclarity, then maybe there's like a fast lane, you know, like there's a way youcan still go. And so a lot of innovators that are like either public, publichousehold names or, you know, have like, you know, careers that they don't wantto put in jeopardy.

Like they can't do things without a little more clarity aroundwhat they're allowed to. And so I'm not personally like huge and like pushingfor regulation in the sense that like, I want things to be shut down, but I dototally understand how it frees certain people up. If there's just more clarityaround really what they can't do.

And it allows you to get really creative in the sections ofwhat can you.

[00:06:11] Ben: Yeah, I think that's, that's helpful,whatever, there's some somebody that always just says, you know, always invert.So instead of saying like, what can you do? Yeah. Inverting it and saying, whatcan't you do? Right. Is there an area like a low hanging fruit for cryptoentrepreneurs and kind of like navigating these landmines, that would behelpful for them, like a helpful mental model here?

[00:06:36] Jacob: You know, I think. If you're going, ifyou're going to a law firm at this point, or you're going to multiple andyou're trying to do something, I would say, if you think you're doing somethingthat is sort of like company XYZ, like you swap or cyber Kongs or whatever itis, you're trying to say, well, it's sorta like so-and-so, if you're pointingtowards a team that's fully anonymous, fully decentralized, fully off shore.

And you're a white dude in Brooklyn. Like it's not the same.You know, like there's, there's limits to what you can do as like a knownperson

[00:07:12] Ben: with like a docs team

[00:07:13] Jacob: on shore in the United States. So, youknow, I would say don't, don't think that just because it seems to exist thatit's like a legal or be a good idea, like the mirror, the mere fact ofexistence is not good enough for you to like, build your own business aroundsimply because someone else has a thing.

[00:07:36] Ben: Yeah, I think, I think that's superhelpful. The, the, the classic, well, this person's doing it, so it must beokay.

Cool. Well, I mean, I know we talked a bit before and youspending a lot more time investing, advising kind of away from lawyers. So Idon't want to go too deep into the legal landscape. So let's, this is beingrecorded. End of March. Let's just set the stage for the NFT landscape overall.Like where are we in this hype cycle, overall investment pieces, whatever,whatever sort of information would be helpful and kind of setting the stage onwhere we

[00:08:16] Jacob: are right now.

Yeah. So I would say that we're in an interesting spot where afact that I, a stat that I heard last week really kind of blew my mind. Youknow, we've reached the era where a rare NFT likely shouldn't be placed abovethe price of a board eight, because a board eight has proven utility. The,basically the floor of apes is more valuable than the rarest, like kind ofprofile picture and empty from any other project, because like a fascinatingthought process.

And then I'm not sure if it's. How much I get behind that, butI think we're kind of in the state of the market where like you go owns theworld and board apes are the, are the crown jewel of the average consumer'sunderstanding of an FTS. And that is a really, really interesting thing. Causeit didn't even take them a year to build a company that's now raised at a, youknow, seemingly at like a $4 billion valuation and You know, it has a marketcap.

That's absolutely insane. And there's no way this was thoughtto be possible a year ago. And you know, then they went and bought punks andmeat and they're likely buying cool cats and world of women and, you know,whatever else it looks like. But conceptually I think, and hope that this iskind of the kickstart to, although you go, we'll kind of own the underpinningof it.

I seen, you know, hopefully they're the ones that are gonna be.In charge of basically building out whatever the open metaverse is, you know,or helping really put frameworks around what it can mean to have a a looserloose looser censored metaverse experience than whatever it is. And theFacebook would likely look up.

So you know, I think, I think that's, I don't know. I don'tknow what you're saying, but I think that's a really interesting kind of spotwhere like play to earn gaming It's kind of in its infancy still after the boomlast year has kind of fallen off really hard. Bryce was one of the bigger kindof streamers and voices and played our in gaming posted last week, a videocalled, played around gaming, his dad which very click baity it'd be Bryce, butit doesn't make him wrong.

And yeah, those are like two of the kind of sectors where I seepretty, I guess, pretty interesting market sentiment. And then a lot of thepitch decks I'm seeing every day right now. I like people still trying to likeiterate on and understand like, you know, are they going to go towards likesocial tokens?

They want to, you know, Dows, everything is a down now, eventhough most of the people I talked to don't have a lawyer that knows what a Dowis. And also they don't really know what a Dow is themselves. They just want tocall it. So I think the market's in kind of an interesting, like, notnecessarily.

Overall bearish position, but in a position where like, I thinka lot of people are messing with stuff they don't understand right now. In away that I think a year ago, most people who were out front innovating werelike innovating from a place of like depth of knowledge. Right now I thinkwe're seeing a lot of people just kinda migrating either kind of from web tothe web three or.

From doing something within web three to doing something elsethat they think is more lucrative and not necessarily having any of the like,grounding or backing necessary to do that. Well, I feel like that may have beena couple of controversial takes, so you should respond to that. Yeah, no, no. Ithink, well, the first one is.

[00:11:40] Ben: It's absolutely bonkers. You get labsbeing considered like the crown jewel and building up all of this in the pastyear. So I mean, kudos to them, but then having them as the poster child forthis open metaverse and kind of, you know, setting up Mehta at Metta X,Facebook will continue to say that until people like accepted, I guess, but.

As, as like the bad guy and the more walled garden version ofthe makeovers, but, and by the way, I completely agree on the, to earn thing islike that, that is also a whole nother topic, but let's, let's double click onthe open. Metaverse just for people later listening. I mean, what does an openmetaverse look like?

[00:12:27] Jacob: Yeah. I mean, I think it starts with myability to log in to some kind of like digital landscape, whether that's theinternet or that's VR, AR whatever it is, playing video game, whatever I'mdoing. Like in theory, we should be able to log in without having to have likelog-in credentials to a centralized system.

So to use an Oculus, having to give Facebook your, your detailsand have a Facebook account. I know plenty of people who just won't use itbecause that's such a like personal data information, like gathered wherethey're just gathering everything you're doing and looking at, and you knowthat they're going to adjust your your ads and like all the things in your lifeare going to be adjusted based on the fact that they already know what youlike.

And they're kind of in your head, you know? So I think if wehave. And he pushed towards decentralized anything, decentralized information,decentralized technology, decentralized ownership. Then we should alsodefinitely be moving towards like, as decentralized as possible, like datagathering and experiential stuff.

So to me, you know, having, having your data fully trackedwhile you're experiencing all the things you're experiencing, it's like areally a big, no, no. And, you know, if you're, if they're going to clue, I seewith Christina and the whole, you buy art. There's no reason that they shouldbe keeping your personal information on a server somewhere in the back.

Like, I should be able to log in and show you my data andleave. Right? Like you agreed that I was KYC and, or you agreed that I exist asa human and I make my purchase. And then you don't keep my data on your server.I just don't see any reason for centralized ownership of, of consumer's dataand any there's no, no argument for that to me So I think, I think that they'realso taking it, you know, potentially the step further, that will be what willbe more interesting to see with UGA is this like, you know, board, ape ownersown their own board eight, like they can kind of do what they want with theirown asset.

And so seeing like, to what extent we can take that, where yousee the toads were in the trailer, you see, you know, this kind of CCL concept.Like, it'll be really interesting to see. If the idea of an open metaverse,whatever that means, it's basically the future of decentralized internet usedecentralized video gaming, decentralized VR is a place where like, all contentcan be like user generated content based on IP you own, or IP Dell.

And it doesn't really matter. Cause if it exists, it's in thesandbox and that means you can with it. I'm not saying that's necessarily likethe best outcome, but I do think that that. The concept of kind of an openversus that you figured out what digital scarcity is and kind of who owns thatscarcity.

And that's usually provenance based on, you know, the boardaids are the ones that created the first 10,000 and you can see the contract.So anything else that's fool's gold, but that doesn't mean that there's anyreason for them to stop you from using vapes. However you want in that fool'sgold scenario.

I don't know. That's kinda my, my high level musing on that.

[00:15:34] Ben: I think a lot of this ends up movingquite close into like the web three identity stack and permission to access aswe continue down more and more open metamours that that will become more andmore of a focus within the space. But

[00:15:52] Jacob: I'm curious,

[00:15:53] Ben: like looking at the space, a lot of ushere are in our own echo chamber.

We're kind of crypto permeables. Where could things go wrong?What valid arguments do non crypto people have because they have plenty, butyou know, there's bound to be a few valid Arctic arguments.

[00:16:16] Jacob: Yeah. You know, I think, I think we'regoing to see, I think we're going to see the kind of like Facebook and Fortnitecompetition to these centralized concept.

Where they're just going to come in and give you something thatis centralized in nature, but they're going to make it really, really cool.Like amazingly cool. And like here's a thousand dollars to sign up, right? Likebig, bad boogeyman dystopian future. Like here's your free Oculus headset comeplay, right?

Like here's your free headset. Make sure to log in with yourFacebook account and go enjoy yourself. And I think we're going to see the kindof. Casual consumer very easily kind of swayed and introduced into a world ofcentralization where they don't agree with you, that they feel any need toprotect their own personal identifying information.

Like they don't care if they give up their PII or if you knowthe play, if anything, they might be sheepish enough to agree that they wantyou to know what they like. That way you can bring them a better experiencethis time. You know, would it be. Fascinatingly terrible situation, situationto be in for the market.

So again, like I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent sure on that.I'm kind of still trying to figure it out myself, but I think, I think a, acentralized promise of like, benefit, like, like the benefits that acentralized entity with open-ended capital can offer. As a problem. And then,you know, secondarily, I think, you know, the U S government and others aregonna move into like a digital kind of us dollar, probably of some sort and tryto regulate USD and USDC tether out of existence, or, you know, de-incentivizeto use in some way.

So it'll just be like, you know, easily inflatable deflectableand, and all the other words you can come up with. So I think that would beagain, one of those where like the average consumer could be convinced thatlike, they like the idea. They like, they like the centralized version morethan the decentralized version, because there's some benefit that they get fromit in a way that they don't, you know, fully understand what they're giving upper se.

And so I think there's a lot of room for, for kind of.Convincing the average consumer of things that they like. And don't like, whenthey don't really know what they like, and don't like,

[00:18:47] Ben: oh yeah, well, and these big institutionshave the power to almost influence and tell us what we like and don't right,because of the sheer power of these network effects.

So it, it definitely, and, and the other thing is like, dopeople. So it's like for most of us in the west, like decentralization is just,it means crappy. Experience versus like the ability to truly own anduncensorable content and all of these things that it actually adds value. Itjust means that it's harder and more expensive for the average shoes or in manycases, which is totally, totally the case.

I'm curious, something that kind of shook me a bit. I mean,have you seen the line go up or number grow up video on NFTs. 6 million views

[00:19:43] Jacob: or something, I don't know at thistime, but you know, it was a

[00:19:46] Ben: skeptics take on crypto on NFTs, and Ithink he has some valid concerns there, overly focused on price, hyperfinancialization that in versus out crowd, like, but all kind of coming back tothis focus on the line, going up as like the core rallying cry for these NFTcommunities.

Do you have any. Any thoughts or responses on that video ingeneral?

[00:20:16] Jacob: You know, I think, I think one of the,one of the most interesting kind of concepts is like, if you were there or ifyou kind of knew the right people, then you made a ton of money or you made themost money and you know, like the number go up, like there's kind ofinfluencers and influential, like things and whatnot.

That's like, none of that is technically wrong. Right? Like alot of that is like that it's a very small market that people kind of tradingback and forth to one another, a lot of these assets. And I mean, if I had hadmore money to work with, I feel like I would have made more money along theway. So I think some of the, some of the concerns from that were like fair.

That's why, you know, I actually just posted on LinkedIn thismorning kind of. Which I post every now and then, cause people are funny onLinkedIn and they don't really know much, but it's really funny when theyrespond. And you know, I think the average kind of LinkedIn consumer, theaverage corporate American consumer is really just like, oh, and if these arejust pictures, like they really are just pictures.

And some of the pictures make me money and some of them don't.And for me, like, that's why I kind of say, you know, my background. From aplace where like I was working on smart contracts for what I thought was likeuseful stuff, like wills and trusts, like, like, like real useful use casesthat had this perceived utility and like, like practical, practical utility,not just perceived utility.

Whereas, you know, the current market is just very likedominated by JPEGs. And I think if you're following the kind of right crowdaround here, like. People are building really interesting things and people arereally digging in on, on what I think is going to be, you know, I don't know,NFC 2.0 NFT, web three, whatever you want to call it.

I just think, I think the JPEGs and the kind of digitalidentity and digital branding associated are super cool. And I have large JPEGbags, but at the same time, like that's not half as cool as. Like what a trulydecentralized internet would look like, right? Like a frictionless censorship freedecentralized use case or the future of the internet.

And so that's, that's the kind of stuff that I'm like lookingto invest in and looking to spend my time on. But I do think that like for theaverage casual consumer, that's like poking around with NFTs or poking aroundwith like, what's going on. They probably could watch that video and just walkaway from an FTS altogether and just be like, yeah, Nevermind.

That seems like more trouble than it's worth. And you know, Ithink for some people they wouldn't, they wouldn't be wrong that they weren't,they didn't want to Wade through all of the stuff to figure out what wasactually here that was worth their time.

[00:23:01] Ben: Yeah. A hundred percent. And that thereis an onslaught of nonsense that happens in the space.

That's for sure. I'm, I'm curious, like, I'm not sure how muchof this is public, but you've been very successful from a like flipping JPEGstrading, crypto and JPEGs and FTS sort of standpoint, which now you have yourfund. I'm curious, what sort of strategies used to work, which don't work anymore or just kind of the overall new approach for.

Air quote, investing in JPEGs at this point in the market.

[00:23:44] Jacob: Yeah, I think, I think every, Irealized this probably in August last year. I think, I think the NFT space goesthrough a relatively well-defined like 60 days super cycle. I think every 60days there are just enough new people that onboard just enough new projects,that launch and just enough.

New people that kind of cycle out of trading that to me, Ithink, I think it's roughly a 60 day Supercycle and I kind of operate on that.So like every, every 60 days I'm kind of like, okay, where are we at now?What's going on? I think, you know, early last year there was really like mostof the market was driven by clubhouse.

Early last year, most, most of the market was like very. Like Ihad this conversation or I had this kind of small, I don't argumentconversation with POC one time where I was just like, why are you working with aninstitution? And he said, without institutions, there would be no curious. Andwithout curation, there would just be like a sea of nothingness.

And you wouldn't know where the good art is, which I thoughtwas really fascinating for someone who seems to be like a de-centralization artmaxi, you know, but for him to do a clubhouse space and kind of work with anInstitute. It helped kind of put him at this peak of like, okay, like he's,he's great.

He's the best. So to me, I think early last Q1 last year wasbasically clubhouse influenced only a few big buyers were in play. You know, afew kind of influencers were in play Q2 last year was still clubhouse, but likeboard apes came out Q2 last year. A lot of people started kind of migratingover to Twitter.

I guess during Q1 last year, the crypto punk chat, like thepunk discord was the other kind of alpha spot. And then once it became like,once everybody kind of migrated to Twitter, like mid to late Q2 last year, Ithink there was just this season of watching everyone kind of be like, try tobe like prank proxy and just like buy as much as possible, flip as much aspossible, like mint, every project.

So then we got gas wars and mint passes and Dutch auction. Youknow, basically the market matured a little bit. So buying 10 of something andflipping them became much less successful and common. You know, for me, I gotinto kind of photography really early. I ended up with a couple of JustinSonos, twin flames.

I ended up kind of flipping those really hard. Although I wishI would have been able to keep them. For me to play the game last year, youknow, I started with about four grand and I've turned to four grand and to, youknow, quite a lot at this point. So it required a lot of kind of sacrificealong the way of taking profits on things and reinvesting and looking formultiples.

I think at this point in the market, there's like, like a lotless projects that catch the full attention of the market. And so you have. Youhave to be right more often now, whereas early last year, like I mentored slumdoge and craniums and like two other things all within like the same week andprofited like three or four EAs off of just minting five or six each andselling all of them, you know, like I wouldn't do that today at all.

And I definitely wouldn't expect it to work if I did do it. SoI think the market's really kinda matured. I think pricing has gotten a littleclearer. You know, there's less like rugs on a daily basis than there were atone point. And yeah, I don't do much flipping anymore. Like I buy things. Ilike them that are like lowish priced and I hope they go up 10 X, but I'm not,I don't really like jump into like, volume-based, volume-based like pumps toflip assets.

That's just not how I spend my time. So I don't know. It's kindof like, Not incredibly clear answer, but that's my thought

[00:27:38] Ben: that actually was super helpful and it'sabsolutely crazy. But the Columbia house influenced for sure. And I mean, myinitial thought is like number go up. Everybody's a bull market genius.

It's super easy. It's a, the, the market is. Putting air quotesagain, like with maturing you know, cause it's so big, it's a long way offbefore it's an efficient market for sure. But I'd be curious, like, you know, Iget asked this all the time for not like a crypto curious type person. Who's wantingto get some NFT exposure or get into NFT trading.

Where do you point people like this? Or you just say. Or investin your fund, I guess at this point, it depends on there, your bankrupt,

[00:28:27] Jacob: you know, the fund, like we're onlybuying some enough FTE is when not, it's not like a major portion of what we'redoing over there. So it's not a, that's not my number one recommendation, butyeah, I think people who want to get in, like, I really probably spend a goodchunk of time with them asking why, you know, like, Why do you want to get inwhat kind of exposure and like upside are you really like wanting and hopingfor?

And if someone is like serious about, about getting into NFTs,then, you know, I think, I think we're at the point where if you can afford it,frankly, if you can afford it and you just want to exposure, I think you shouldstart with like, whatever the kind of most expensive stuff is and work your wayup.

You know, like if someone could afford a punk or an ape, andthey're just wanting like NFT exposure and kind of get in here and learn it. Ithink that means we'll just buy one of those. Cause I believe in them tooutperform the market over the next five years and you know, that's not like a10 X their money recommendation, but it's sure going to outperform the standardlike S and P.

So, you know, if somebody can afford a punk or an ape, I'd saystart there. If not, you know, or if they're not ready to take the plunge, thenyou start looking for stuff. That's kind of in that, like one to three eastrain. And see if something stands out to them and they really like it. And ifthey just want to become kind of a degenerate trader, then you know, it's moreimportant to follow, you know, a hundred of the right people on Twitter andjoin a few discords.

And if anything, you know, one of my friends let's see, hemight still, he might be in this room right now. He was earlier. Now he's nothere. Now. One of my buddies, when he first got into NFTs, He's the one thattold me about a suitcase. Right. And he minted one for one, Ethan. It was hisfirst ever NFT purchase.

And there was after just like, you know, two weeks of pokingaround and learning as much as he could. And then he's like, Hey, I'm mentoringthis thing for one eighth. And I'm like, oh my God, it's for a mint price.That's insane. And he's like, yeah, but it's worth it. Their team's amazing.I'm like, all right, whatever man, like good luck.

And what do you know? Like he made, you know, 40, 50 grand onthat. And that's like, you know, huge for any consumer, not just your averageconsumer or your new consumer, that's a huge amount of money. So seeing stufflike that has been really, you know, it's, it's hard to give someone theperfect advice coming into the market, because I also like taking that Zuki guyin mind.

Like I told him to sell these Zuki at three E's pre reveal.Cause I'm like, dude, it's your first Ft. You're up eight grand. That's plentyof money to turn around. Go try something else or check out something else, youknow, and go again. And he was like, well, I think I'm actually going to stickwith it. And he was right.

So, you know, definitely can't say that I'm always right onthis stuff.

[00:31:14] Ben: Yeah, definitely. I I just think of thatNew York times article. It was titled everyone is getting hilariously rich andyou're not. And it was like right at the top,

like, cause it's, it's, it's just that, and there's a meme onTwitter. That's like, you know, the NFT that you didn't buy going up until theright and everything you bought when it going down. And it's like, you hear somany of these stories.

[00:31:39] Jacob: That

[00:31:39] Ben: it's, it's very important to ask why Iappreciate that because, you know, if they want to a hundred thousand X their,their money, then like it's a very different strategy from, Hey, I just wantgood exposure to NFTs as an asset class, as a diversifying asset in myportfolio, you know, there's, there's people that think that way.

I'm curious. So you talking about that 60 days cycle primarilyfunding funneled by two are fueled by new people entering, entering the space.What catalysts do you see to kind of onboard the next big group of people intothe space?

[00:32:20] Jacob: You know I've been waiting for a whilenow for Like a musician or an entertainer of influence to really articulatelyexplain that they're getting into NFTs and why I've chatted to several kind ofseveral top musicians and a couple of athletes. And they're all like, there's abunch of people that are super curious, but a lot of them are, are holding offon making their decision, which I think is smart.

But I think, I don't know if that would be the next run, butthere's going to be a run at some point. You know, Mr. Beast or the dummy Leo'sor Harry styles or Tyler, the creator, or somebody Kanye, like meaningfullygets involved. And I think that's going to be probably one of those momentswhere it's like the largest spike of all time is going to be someone with ahundred million plus reach coming in meaningfully.

I think maybe this next way of where we're at right now, I'mseeing a lot of people reach out to me about And FTE's around. Like, I think, Ithink viral content and like social clubs is going to be the next, like, likenot social clubs as in friends with benefits, but not far off, but social clubsas in fan clubs for, for entertainers is going to be probably cute to Q3 thisyear.

I think we're going to see some interesting things launch notto say that. That's the best use case for NFTs, but I think it's an interestinguse case for onboarding mass amounts of consumers to crypto at the same time.And I think, I just think kind of the defy dream of onboarding people is like,I just don't think DPI is going to be the thing.

So I'm really curious to hear from you. Like what, what do youthink is going to be the next wave, like from, from your conversations?

[00:34:06] Ben: In terms of like catalysts to bring inmore people in the space. I think there's, metaverse like the metaverse push isa big one. It's funny. I have this same presentation that I've been giving.

Like it's titled in NFTs more than just art. And I've beengiving us since like June 20, 20 and updating the same presentation, but I'vesaved the old one. So like, You know, it it started off like Facebook hasdetermined that they will be a metaverse company and then the latest one, orjust the headlines are bonkers.

Right. So I think this just like continues us down this path. Ithink there's, there's a very strong like us versus them narrative within thespace, which you touched on of like Facebook as the wall garden. You know, ifthey make this more of an open metaverse, then things will get funky. Which,you know, I look forward to, but it's, it's this continuous like movement oflike NFTs are not just art.

They could be these assets within this metaverse that youbundle up and take a loan against. And it's a uncorrelated asset. I mean,there's a lot of like similar narratives leading to the same thing. So stillcautiously. But I do worry about the 2018 article. Everything everybody'sgetting hilariously rich.

You're not sort of mentality with a lot of this that's forsure. I did

[00:35:35] Jacob: have a thought this morning as I wasstuck behind a rolls Royce and a red light, and I had this like moment whereI'm like, huh, that's the same as me seeing literally any of my friends with apunk or an ape as their. And I'm just like, I can't, I can't name how manypeople I know that have rolls Royces because it's like four people, but I canliterally literally a few thousand people that I know that are for sure.

Wealthy enough to have. At least a digital rolls Royce. Andthat is somewhere between a head scratcher. Cause like, wow, we're so early.And also like, oh God, maybe we're maybe we're too early. If literally all ofmy friends own rolls, Royce JPEGs, maybe we should consider dive divesting alittle bit, you know?

Oh yeah, no.

[00:36:23] Ben: And I mean, this was part of my originalthesis of just the virtual flex being so hard, so, so strong. It's true. Right.And these people with verified punks on their Twitter. And you're like, that'sthat thing is in a hot wallet. Come on guys a little bit better, you know,

[00:36:42] Jacob: I'd be curious right

[00:36:43] Ben: now.

Your we've talked a lot about like investment thesis within thespace and kind of where it's going, but like next six months, What segment orvertical within the NFT space are you most hyped on? And then the follow onwould be which one is so very much over hyped at the moment.

[00:37:08] Jacob: It's a good question.

I think, I think Dows are too over-hyped right now. I stilldon't think I've seen. And I don't see any, but I see out of, out of every $10that people bring up to me after a half hour conversation, they're usually justlike, huh, maybe we don't need to make it a Dow. I'm just like, I'm waiting foryou to prove to me that it needs to be a dial or that you can promise me it'sgoing to be a better, more efficient company because it's a bow and it's almostan heifer never better off as a Dow.

So I think I'm cautiously like. Optimistic that someone isgoing to figure it out and let a few people are going to figure it out. But atthe end of the day, like I stay more kind of bearish on the idea thateverything should be a dowel and that that would make life better. And then thethings that I am excited about though, is I think we're getting, I think I'mseeing more and more like NFT based use cases that aren't profile pictures.

Miguel Fouse is fully funding his film. I think it's Kaia Dita.It's C a L L a D I T a he's he's funding, his whole film within FTEs right now.And he went about it in a way where, like, he's not promising you equity orupside in the film. He just made a really cool process where like you get a,one of one in Ft.

That's like a photographs. From a split second in time duringthe movie. And I think that's a really cool way to chop up a big piece of artinto a whole bunch of one-on-ones. And then kind of the top contributors get,you know, opportunities to come help work on the film, or like be involved incast parties or whatever.

Like, to me, that kind of use case is really interesting for,for NFTs where it's just like more involvement between creators and collectors.And so I I'm, I'm bullish on, on. Innovation right now. I think, I don't thinkmaking something a Dao is per se, an innovative thing to do. But I think we'regoing to see some really, really innovative things in the next, next

[00:39:12] Ben: few months.

Cool. Jacob really appreciate you coming on today. I thinkthere was a great conversation. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to publishingthis thing with all the links and everything. So, thanks so much. There you go.First off. Thank you very much for listening all the way through. I hope yougot a lot of value out of that conversation.

As always, you can find show notes, links, [email protected]. Please share this with anyone you think might beinterested in derive any value from this conversation. And as always, you canreach out to me for any feedback or questions. Please give the video a like, oreven better subscribe on YouTube or your podcast player of choice.

This really helps others find the podcast or the video as well.Thanks a lot. Hope everybody has

[00:40:00] Jacob: a fantastic day

[00:40:01] Ben: and stay safe out there and investwisely.

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