Bring Web3 Technology To Your Living Room

Boom, boom, Boom. Boom. Boom, boom.

What's up everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Today, our guest on our blockchain conversation is somebody who's been embedded into the NFT and crypto world for several years. She's the community lead for a ton of projects, probably a lot of projects you've heard of, and she's going to take us behind the scenes on some of these projects that she's worked. She's going to talk about more women getting into the NFT space. We're going to talk about exciting projects to pay attention to. The Huxley mint, this cool project called Feature 3, which is kind of like a blockchain enabled Roku or Apple tv. So lots and lots of really, really cool things in this discussion between Buffalo and Kokomo. And our guest today, Cas Vegas. Now, if you're not already, make sure you go to Hardfork GG Alpha and join our whitelist. We're sending out a weekly newsletter and we're putting out videos every sing day on YouTube. So if you check out our YouTube channel over at Hustle and Flowchart TV and subscribe to that channel, you could check out our daily Web three NFT and gaming videos that come out five days a week. Right now we're eventually going to get it up to seven days a week, but right now we're at five. So make sure you're following us over on YouTube, hustle and flowchart TV and make sure you're following us on Twitter. We just passed 4200 followers on Twitter as I record this over at twitter.com hardfork gaming. So follow us there. And, and you know what, I'm just going to hand this one over to Kokomo and Buffalo as they have an interesting conversation with Cass Vegas.

Yeah, Cas breakdown. Some of the projects that you're personally involved in because we see you as this badass community manager, but you're, I know you're way more than just community management.

You're.

You're doing a ton, so break that down for us.

Yeah, I'll start with the more kind of general title, which is NFT Community Builder and Educator. And so I started kind of more so learning as well as simultaneously teaching on Clubhouse. As I saw that there was one or two tracks of voices kind of introducing people and this tech and art in that intersection, I decided to open up my own room with a few other people to just get different perspectives and not just the same lane. And throughout that journey it built this massive club and audience of 57,000 plus people that came to learn and get tips on NFTs. And so I co founded that with a few others as I mentioned, and started kind of consulting a bit from there. Stephen and I had a conversation about his idea for scripts on the Blockchain in which he comes from the film industry, 20 years plus experience in there, and he wanted to flip Hollywood upside down. And so he kind of pitched this platform idea to me when we did a consultation and I said, it's a really good idea, you should do it. And we ended up kind of working together after that. He said, I'm looking for a head of community, I would like for you to lead that with us. And we started to kind of also shift towards IP that already exists on the Blockchain. So for example, World of Women, Bored Ape, Yacht Club and kind of that gray area that no one really likes to talk about in law where the smart contracts are not legally binding, but how are we solving for that? And so the tech that was developed was really, really helpful in the space and we're starting to show that a bit more with Feature three that is coming out in the future.

So I have so many questions to go with on that because I started thinking, first of all, are you full time in the space right now or you still have another job?

I am full time in the space. I've been full time in the space, I guess for the last, like I mentioned, almost two years.

So compared to your, what were you doing in your previous life before you've gone all in now in the crypto life.

So one of my initial, I'm stepping foot into the NFT space was from a perspective of music. And you know, I produce music, I play guitar, I sing, I songwrite. And when I was discovering NFTs, I saw that there was again a gap for music. I saw art exploding, I saw different artists kind of building projects together. But I always felt like from my creative perspective, music always had to hop on the visual. And I found myself saying, oh, you want to collab with your art and my music? And there was just no like clear pathway for musicians or artists to excel in this space. I think a key aspect between music and art is that people try to tackle them the same way, but the market is actually very different. So for example, for art you do have this sense of sense scarcity sometimes that you want to create, but Music. You want everyone to hear your music, right? Like, you want it on Spotify, you want it on all platforms, you want everyone to have a piece of that. And so without people understanding this, they tried to market music the way they did art and it didn't really prevail in that sense. And yeah, that was part of my interest is music production. And I realized that, you know, music is also health. You know, it has to do with your well being, your creative side. The same with art. And so it just always came from a background of passionately helping people. And that translated into my music, that translated into NFTs, that translated into like, where are the women in the space? And try to figure that out.

That's incredible. I want to go down the vein further on your thoughts on this space because, like, yeah, being in the middle of so many projects and communities, you're like this hub, it seems like. And like you said, where are the women at? That's literally on our notes. Where are the women? So maybe address that. I don't know. We'd love your thoughts and anything there that you just want to riff on.

I've had some people approach this problem of where are the women at? From different angles. And I think it's not that we don't exist. I think it's the visibility level of the women that are currently in the space and the potential of having a much more balanced space and more women coming in. And I kind of want to lead the door open, like leave it open for women to come in instead of try to force people in and say, here's some opportunities, here's how maybe I did it. Here's how this other successful woman did it. And not kind of putting this pressure on, why do we not have women in the space?

Nice. And that's. It's incredible. I'm just kind of curious, like, who are some projects that you follow? You mentioned World of Women and that's, you know, a huge one, pretty well known now, has a lot of publicity. Who are some other projects that we could chat about that you think are doing it right?

Yeah, I mentioned World of Women because they have the most visibility. I would say, you know, they had a good break at a good time with some good marketing towards it, and they're building and Features is working to work with them as well. And so that's how I can kind of vouch for World of Women of pioneering that with some great timing. But I would say a project that I think is doing it right would be dead, fellas. The level that they give back to their community has been unparalleled from my observations. Deadfellas is one that consistently shows up with quality for their community and it. And having fun doing that. Like I said earlier, if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.

So Speaking of enjoying web3 right now, they say it's the bear market. I'm curious, with this market being in the bear mode, how has that affected your situation day in, day out, being in the space, your beliefs and the projects that you're working with?

If I could go back to Huxley, because it's been over a year working with that project and we've been through almost like the roller coaster of Baron Bullish. And at the time, our project was a little bit more expensive than most 10k drops at point 1. But the value that came with Ben's work is something that's unparalleled in the space even to this day. I can say that with the amount of value that Ben and the team has brought. But you know, the point of that is also continuously building, no matter what shape the volatility of, of the space is in. And so from artists, you know, if you don't have kind of that financial thought process, it's really scary being in a bear market. But if you know the nature of the space and, and to have the patience and to actually take that opportunity to build further, it's almost as if the bear and the bull don't exist. That's how your, your work ethic should sit. Should stay right? A flat line of a work ethic, no matter what the market is doing.

Love to hear that.

Yeah, it's almost. Yeah. And I guess it comes with education in like that moment where there's like a click right when you kind of Get Web 3. And like you mentioned about the IP and licensing, what are your thoughts on that? Maybe it's the onboarding of more folks, I know feature 3 is right in the middle of it, so I'd love for you to break down feature three itself for folks who have no clue what Feature three is.

Yeah. So Feature three pretty much is the world's first blockchain enabled streaming device. And what that means is we are bringing this physical hardware device among software as well to your living room. So beyond the smaller Web3 space in which we interact on Discord or on our phones or on our laptops, there's nothing really tackling the consumption of media for the rest of Web2. If you think about what screen companies have done, there are A few that tried to create a screen that will house NFTs or showcase your art. But what we have been seeing is that mostly galleries pick these up. It's very pricey and not everyone is going to go now and buy a new TV to showcase their NFTs at home. But if we can leverage the existing tech, which is your TV that you already have in your living room and you plug in via HDMI cord, now you can have this whole other world of, you know, watching, you know, Web3 content or maybe playing a play to earn game or playing a video game, or commenting the way you would on Discord. But now instead of being nervous about bots and scams, you're just doing it at home on this device in a. In a safer, also more digestible way.

Nice if you had to point out like one aspect of the feature 3 that you would tell to somebody who's trying to understand the value of what it's trying to do. What is your favorite aspect right now that gets you so excited about feature 3?

What gets me excited about feature 3 is the aggregation of the different communities that are split up across the web3world. For example, you have a Discord and then maybe someone discovered your project via Twitter and that's like web two almost 2.5. Or maybe it's really web 2.0, it's an email list and you have some audience there. But I see these as different tiers in which your community is built upon. And not everyone is going to go all the way into degen level in your discord. Super bullish. There might be people that want to understand, but they don't have Discord as an app. And maybe they meet you at the Twitter spaces, maybe they meet you via email. What feature 3 does that excites me is imagine having it having your community all in one area on your tv.

It's like we can all get along or something, right? But you've really cool partnerships and I want to ask you about that because you're like in the middle of the coolest partnerships. I feel like in this space between different games, NFT communities, big brands, creators, Hollywood, how do you approach partnerships? And maybe if there's some education you can give folks that are looking to get into this kind of role because this is such a needed thing right now with collaborations.

So I actually did a panel on this in New York at the Batty Summit on the first day during NFT NYC this past year. And the topic of this panel was how to create or suss out Web Three partnerships. And my two points of advice to the crowd listening was one is know yourself, right? So your personal values. For example, sometimes people get really excited. They're like, let's get a partnership with Nike. But then you realize, wait a minute, I'm like a puma person, you know, and I love everything about this brand. And so if you actually know what you're trying to build and who you are, it's a lot easier to do those partnerships instead of maybe what sounds like the most exciting partnership out there. So the first piece of advice is know yourself. The second is to vet. Is to vet everyone down from, you know, those highest companies to your best friend that you may want to start a Pfizer project with tomorrow and vetting through those processes.

I want to ask you a question here, and feel free not to answer if you don't want to take the political way about it. There's a debate going on in the space right now about royalties for creators and NFTs, along with the exchange fees. And a lot of people are trying to embrace, let's keep it truly decentralized, where nobody's really holding it. And others say the royalties is how this is going to work for creators. What's your thought on this whole kind of debate going on right now with royalty fees?

One is the concept itself of royalties as a magnet to creators coming into the space. Whether it can be accomplished or not, the optics of that is what's really attracting people into the space. And so you'll get different opinions on what is actually possible and what is not possible with royalties. Right? If we have things that we're advertising that's not quite built yet, people come in and then they see it's not really there, and then they'll leave and. And then judge the space as a whole and say, that's a scammy space. Instead of, we're working on this tract that we would like to have as creators. And so that's the first part about it is understanding what tech can and cannot do and being mindful of marketing or onboarding as this is happening, whether there's a war on it or not. You know, I'm both an optimistic, realism type of person where I like to solve problems realistically or help help the people to solve problems realistically. But I am optimistic that certain things can have solutions. But being careful about how you word that outwardly could be beneficial or detrimental to the space. So we all have to kind of understand. I feel like Web3 is in a big draft. You know, we're EIP. We're all learning and creating and trying to improve functionality on all aspects of the space in general.

Well said. And I think it is a. We're in a giant experiment. Nobody knows exactly how this is going to unfold. We have to kind of hear both sides of the argument. And when you feel the space bubbling up about it too, you know it's something that it's going to get addressed. If enough people are talking about it, somebody's going to come up with a solution and hopefully it's the right one for creators to keep creating. Right. That's the biggest thing. We don't want drawbacks where they're doing something great, but it's going to be copied and decentralized to a degree where they'll never benefit if it blows up. And I know you talk to a lot of people in this space and I would love to talk to you about any trends you might be seeing. I know that VTubers is a big thing. We're starting to see people acting as their NFT as an avatar. Whether they're creating content as their avatar, they're in the space as their avatar. Do you see any other trends that are taking off right now that you like to talk about?

I do. I see a massive trend in two things. One is metaverses overall and the other is AI. And there's been some great documents circulated with all the different types of AI tools. I'm seeing more and more of friends and traditional artists incorporating AI from small aspects to. I just want my background to be AI generated. I'm really loving how dynamic it looks to. My full on art piece is all made with AI with, you know, different tools. And so that's been a very interesting trend to watch that I'm appreciating more and more. And metaverses is the other. And you see that globally you see, you see people diving in from whether it's a hardware perspective and VR goggles or more on the AR side or straight from your desktop or off of your phone. It's been a curious trend that's been kind of spreading slowly to everyone.

I like that. A curious trend indeed. I think that's what really taps a lot of us in is that curiosity of what's next. So I just want to thank you, Cas. This has been an amazing interview. Where can people go to follow you, collab with you and see what you're all about?

Sure.

If you go to Twitter, Cass K A s underscore, underscore Vegas on Instagram it's Cascasvegas. You can maybe find a little bit more of my music and personal side there. And my Twitter are all things web three.