Rachel Wolfson tours NFT NYC 2022 in Times Square, showing crowded booths and Web3 projects like a pet-insurance DAO. Cami Russo says NFTs need real utility: art, community, or funding. David Schwartz notes the downturn killed bad projects but hurt VC funding and talent.
Hey everyone, it's Rachel Wolfson here at NFT NYC 2022. We are here in Times Square and we're going to go inside and explore even more. We're going up the escalator to check out NFTVYC, see what's going on upstairs, chat with a few people up there and yeah, there's a lot going on. This is a massive conference. Okay, cool. So we've got, we've got an enthusiastic crowd here at NFTNYC 2022. The crowds don't stop. This looks really cool. What is this Munchies NFT project?
I used to be, as a young kid, I'd be like, oh, why is that P remaining worth a hundred thousand? You never know, right? But then once people understand the story, people understand the history behind it. That's what gets them involved. It's about merging the traditional art world with the digital art world. So a lot of people ended up buying digital art, but they didn't really know who the Van Goghs are. The Picassos are of the world. So what we're trying to do is help educate people around all these great, amazing artists and at the same time they will end up supporting grassroots artists.
There's so many diverse projects here.
Oh, this looks cool.
The world's first pet insurance dao. I'm a pet lover. So, hey, are you guys behind this project?
Where the DAO comes in is the proceeds of that business and the profits, rather than going to our corporate bank account, they're going to a community treasury so that the people, the policy owners that are taking care of their pets can vote on how that is allocated, whether they want bigger dividends at the end of the year, streaming dividends, and really to show and demonstrate to the web 2 general user what the difference is with a web 3 company, apart from speculative upside and often downside.
Awesome. I love that walking around. NFT NYC 2022 on the fifth floor, I'm joined by Cami Russo. She is the founder of the Defiant and author of the Infinite Machine. Hi, Kami.
Hey, Rachel. Great to be here with you.
How important in your opinion is it that NFTs are tied to real world utility?
I think it depends on the project. I think, you know, some NFTs can be just about the art. I think that's, that's been a legitimate use case that many artists and creators are exploring. So I don't think NFT should have like one one model. I think there are different sorts of structures and use cases that they can have and that we're just exploring them. But I think in the end, the product itself should be bringing value to the holder because I think what we saw, kind of the height of this bubble really was there wasn't really kind of a valuable product. It was just like the expectation of profit. So I think that's kind of what you don't want. What you want is like, okay, if it's about the art, it should be good art. If it's about a community, it should be, you know, a community that you actually want to be a part of. If it's about kind of, okay, funding a film, like, it should be a real movie that's being made and that kind of you can be a part of and so on. Like, there should be actual something of value behind the collection.
Awesome. Well, Kami, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you again for joining us. Here we are on the sixth floor. Coinbase Theater is this way. Let's check out the sixth floor. Now, this is definitely an interesting thing we've got here. Some cool displays here at NFT NYC 2022. I just ran into at NFTNYC TechCon, Catalina. Hi, everyone. And girl gone crypto.
Hello.
And we are at NFTNYC 2022. Having a blast, right, ladies? Oh, yeah.
This is cool.
Crazy.
It's way too big. I was not expecting this. This really is the city that never sleeps. That's what I think.
I'm exhausted. Yeah. After exploring the main venue, we took off to check out some satellite events. First stop, Ripple House. I'm here with David Schwartz, the CTO of Ripple. Hi, David.
Hi, Rachel. Always a pleasure to talk to you.
Always a pleasure. And today we're at the Ripple House in New York. Any thoughts on the current market and how that may be impacting Web3 and NFT?
It's a mixed bag. So the disadvantages are very obvious. Like it's choking out venture capital and justifiably so bad projects shouldn't get easy access to venture capital. That's not necessarily a good thing. But it's also discouraging people from being interested in the space. And you get a little bit of a brain drain as you're like, I'm not going to go into anything connected to crypto because that might be a dying industry. Like, nobody wants three years of experience in a. You know, no one new to a job wants three years of experience in a field that might, that they fear might go away or that they're hearing negative things about. So that's kind of the Obvious disadvantages. On the plus side, there's a lot of bad projects out there and shaking them out of the space is not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of those projects are awash with money and so they're taking away talent. And those people now are going to look around for, we would hope for what We've been doing fantastic with recruiting lately because these projects are shedding. Some of their most talented developers are some of the first ones who are like, why would I be working on this thing that's just not realistic? In a market that's shooting up, everything seems like a good idea. So I think it has not been as bad for us as it's been for some others in space. And it hasn't been all negative, I think, for the space as a whole.
Right, for sure. Wonderful. Well, thank you, David.
My pleasure. Oh, it's always great talking to you.
Next stop, a real life NFT minting house made by Doodles.
The whole idea here is that it's a product built for character identity and digital representation. So you look at kind of everything, right? The mixed reality, the traits and all these things. Like the whole point is to really channel joy.
Oh my God, this is so cool. Like the little beads go down. So given the current state of the market right now, has that impacted Doodles in any way whatsoever that's been noticeable or.
Yeah, for sure.
Because I mean, the only product we have right now lives on Ethereum, right? And that product is tied to the price of Crypto in a pretty material way. We're very big believers in, you know, cryptocurrency and Etherium. And it's, it's obviously going to come back. But you know, as that happens, we're going to be developing new lines of business just as any successful business would. You know, it's. We're affected by it, but we're also planning on ways to make sure we're transcending that, that.
NFT NYC 2022 is winding down. So we are actually going to head out soon. But just some final thoughts before we do leave for the day. Basically, I've been seeing a lot of physical digital NFT items here. So digital NFTs have really become big in terms of the physical items attached to it. There are a ton of new projects that I've seen at NFT NYC 2022. Definitely curious to see how those pro projects will progress in this bear market that we're in. Which projects will succeed, which ones may not succeed. That's definitely an interesting observation that I've had at this conference. Just so many industry leaders here as well. We've spoken to so many people, got in really great interviews. So I'm just curious to see, you know, just how the space will continue to advance moving forward and, yeah, overall, NFT NYC 2022. Great. Packed with sessions, really informative. Overall, a great conference. I'm Rachel wolfson reporting for Cointelegraph. This has been NFT NYC 2022. See you guys next.
