The Basics of Crypto and NFTs | Evan Carmichael

One of the really cool things about NFTs that don't exist other places is that as the creator, you can also create a kicker for yourself. So you get a percentage of any ongoing sale that happens.

I wanted to jump into something I've actually been trying to figure out, okay, trying to learn more about. And that's the world of NFTs. And I know that's an area that you've been excelling in. I don't even really know what an NFT is. Can you start to break some of this down for us?

So the NFT world started off as artwork, and it was a chance for artists to get known for their digital art and actually make some money doing it. And a lot of people think, well, just right click and save and you're buying a picture and a jpeg. And it's a little confusing, I guess, to get into. It feels like there's no value there. But it's basically the idea of you own an original, you own the original version of it. So there could be a, you know, like this picture of Steve Jobs behind me on the wall. I don't own that picture. I have a canvas here. Anybody could take that picture and put it up on their wall, but somebody owns the original picture. So if you have art, there's the original art and then there's copies of the art. And the original art means something, I think, where it makes a lot more sense to someone like you, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, creators, is not just the actual artwork. Unless, you know, you're a talented artist and you're, you know, creating all this amazing stuff.

Used to could.

But. But it's the value on tops of utility on. On top of it. So where someone like you could excel is utility plus community. Okay, so what would people want access to from you that would be valuable? And how can you make it so that they're connected to each other? One of the things I know you love doing is actually bringing people together. It's like it's not just the Steven Scoggins show, but hey, we can do a lot more together by you connecting to you and building a community around it. And so that's where NFTs have done a great job. Mostly Twitter and Discord is where people are living. So the idea would be you are going to sell something and the artwork has to be decent, but it doesn't have to be. It's not the reason why, like, they're not. They're not buying your thing. Because I own a Steven Scoggins original, you know, from 2022.

I have a picture when he had.

Hair.

But, like, what is. What would you sell on top of it? So, you know some examples. Gary Vaynerchuk has his Vcon where it's a conference that in order to get into the conference, you have to have one of his NFTs and he drew them himself. There are all these doodles that he drew. He just launched a restaurant where in order to get into the restaurant, you have to have the nft. Wow. Yeah. You can lend it to somebody. So if you bought it, you could lend me the NFT for the day so I can go to the restaurant. But you can't get into the restaurant without having the nft. So it's less about the art, more about what I get on top of it.

Yeah. So it's becoming more of a. Almost like a digital currency in general.

Yeah. It's like your own version of it, but there's a marketplace and it's actually attached to a digital currency. So, you know, Ethereum is the currency that most people are launching their NFT projects on. So that's also complicated of how do you buy Ethereum? What is Ethereum?

Well, that's what I was going to ask you is like, how's the NFT different from a bitcoin and stuff like that? Because I heard Warren Buffett say one time, he was like, I don't believe in crypto just because it's not a hard asset that he can put his hands on. It sounds like NFT gives you a hard asset along with the currency.

Yeah. So here's how I would break it down. There's bitcoin, there's other coins like Ethereum and then there's NFTs and Bitcoin. Bitcoin, treat it like gold. Bitcoin, most people are, why do you buy gold? It's less for transaction. And buying things like gold isn't a currency. You're not going to go to your Walmart and give them gold and they're going to give you diapers or whatever. Yeah, expensive diapers.

Very expensive diapers.

It's hard to go off and buy stuff with gold. So it's a store of value, it's a hedge against inflation. It's like you're owning it because there's theoretically only so much gold and so that makes it scarce and so it's worth something. So bitcoin is similar. There's only so much. There's no more being created. And so in the digital world, bitcoin equals gold. So it's the hedge and you just store in value. It's a lot easier to buy and to sell Bitcoin, carry it around in gold. But that's basically what bitcoin is. And it's the only one that's really like that. There's a whole bunch of other ones like Ethereum, which has utility attached to it. So you can do stuff with Ethereum, you can buy stuff with Ethereum. So Ethereum is more like cash. So if bitcoin is gold, Ethereum is money. So you can go to the Walmart and buy stuff with Ethereum. In the online world, right? NFTs are the things that you end up buying, right? Like you could buy Ethereum and just hold it. That would be basically like buying the US dollar and holding it and betting on the US dollar going up. NFTs are the things you can then buy with the money. So bitcoin is gold, ethereum is cash. NFTs are the things that you buy with the cash. In terms of risk and speculation, there's a lot of risk in it, but I think bitcoin is the best performing asset over the past 10 years. Then it's not even close. But Bitcoin and Ethereum are going to be a lot safer. Safer. Crypto world is still super speculative, but a lot safer than an NFT because the NFT is dependent on who's making it. So if I bought the Steven Scoggins NFT as an example and as part of that is.

I get to come to transform you. Maybe I get a one on one call with Steven or group coaching call. Maybe I get access to all his digital trainings. You can have different tiers and levels and I get access to that for the rest of my life.

I also get to be part of Steven's community and he's going to host a discord community and we're going to have challenges there, whatever's going to happen, I'm basically betting on the Steven Scoggins brand. You could just decide to say, all right, I'm done with this, sorry guys, no more transform you, no more courses.

Please don't say that.

But it's a lot riskier because I'm betting on the person who's creating it. When it's just the artwork, then the speculation is out of control because there's no utility attached to it. It's just what will people pay for this art? But I think for, for you and for your community thinking about how can we bring more utility to it so that you treat it not just as a piece of art, but as a ticket that gets me into something. That's where the world is heading now. We're still super new, it's still insanely early, but that's where the world is headed. And it's good to at least know and be dangerous and be thinking about it.

Yeah, and that's why I wanted to pick your brain. I mean, obviously this is something you've been studying for a while. This is something that's new to me. But, you know, I understand the community aspect and I understand, I guess, the basics behind it. What prevents somebody from duplicating an nft? Like, you know, if it's a. If it's a digital image, I mean, in theory. And then I'm just asking because I'm asking a question that I'm curious about. What presents. Just take a screenshot and, you know, crop it and you have a. You have a digital copy of it.

So every time something is created and sold on the blockchain, there is. There's a record, so you can see which one is the original. There's an exact transaction record. So it'll say, this was created by Steven Scoggins. You launched it. OpenSea is the biggest marketplace where you can buy and sell NFTs. But if you were to launch a Steven Scoggins collection and you sold 100 NFTs of private club, where every quarter they fly out to your headquarters and you guys have a big dinner together, right?

Like. Like an elite retreat of some kind.

Elite retreat. There it is. You know, the Steven Scoggins elite retreat. You're selling 100 of these and the artwork is like a picture of you, whatever, and that's the utility that they get on top of it.

That's all traceable, that you created it. So if I just took the picture and copied it and put it as my profile picture or something, or I put it. If I tried to put it to my digital wallet.

It would say who made it. And it doesn't say made by Steven Scoggins. It would say made by Evan Carmichael or made by someone else. Right now there are a lot of scams where people are trying to do that and sell it. So you have to look at where this originated, who was the actual creator. But I want to know that this was created by Steven Scoggins. So if you made the ticket, I bought the ticket and then I sold the ticket to somebody else or I listed to say, you know what, I get to see Stephen whenever I want. I want to sell this and make a million Dollars from this quarterly meeting with Steven Scoggins. People could buy it, but they would see that I own it, but that you made it.

And so it's all traceable. This is a Steven Scoggins original, one of a hundred ticket to be able to come to these quarterly events.

So basically the value is set by the original creator of it, the documentation in the blockchain of the creation of it. And then it only changes hands to increase value if someone sells it, like resells it.

Yeah. And doesn't have to be increased value, but yes, hopefully it's increased value that it's going up in price. But they own it now. And then.

When they sell it, a transaction is made and now it's transferring hands to somebody else. But again, it's trackable that you created it, you owned it, you set it at whatever price. I bought it and now I'm selling it. And somebody knew who's buying it. One of the really cool things about NFTs that don't exist other places is that as the creator, you can also create a kicker for yourself. So you get a percentage of any ongoing sale that happens. So most people pick around the 10% mark. So if you sold your thing, your quarterly meeting with Scoggins at $100,000, I'm like, that's a steal. I'm buying it and then I'm going to flip it for a million.

Normally you would just get the $100,000 right from me. Yeah. But you get a 10% kicker on every other future sale. So if I sell it for a million, you get 10% of that. And if that next guy sells it for 10 million, you get 10% of that. It's like a music royalty, ongoing. Yeah, but most artists get ripped off in their deals. And now here's a chance to earn a piece forever of anything that ever gets sold. Gary does 9% of Vee friends goes to him and 1% goes to charities of his choice. So however you want to mix it up, you can. But around the 10% mark is. Is typical. So you make an ongoing percentage of any time somebody sells it afterwards. And that's maybe less important for someone like you, but for artists who are creating their work, if they end up blowing up. Normally artists only make, you know, they sold their first thing for 100 bucks, but then that thing blows up and is worth a million. They never see any more money from that. They only make money if they keep making new art.

Yeah.

Now they will make ongoing money anytime somebody, you know, sells their painting in the future?

Well, I think that's one of the things that I think in a roundabout way just answered. I think my next question, which is do you have to have a large established brand for NFTs to make sense? You know, because. Or you just need to be a creator of some kind that's, that's willing to create the art?

Yeah, I would split into two camps. I think if you're only going for art, then you have to be good at marketing. You have to have a story. There are people every day who are blowing up when you hear the stories about 13 year old who just took a selfie of himself from Thailand every day. And it's just this kid is every day he takes a picture and it just gets picked up somewhere and then it becomes a whole thing where people want to support him and buy. It's much more about the storytelling. But there is an opportunity to stand out and win. If you're going utility side, then if it's a quarterly meeting with Steven Scoggins, people have to know who you are to make that valuable. Right. So they have to have value. It's not just in the art, but value in the utility that's being attached to it for people to want to buy in. So I think for the art side, I mean, it's all wild, wild west, but on the art side it's really just about, yes, creating the art, but. But then creating great stories and getting picked up in the right circles so that people who are in the NFT art collection or even speculation space want to buy and support what you're doing and anybody could win. But most people suck at the marketing and the storytelling side. On the utility side, it's better to have some kind of brand because you're selling mostly to your audience at the beginning and getting people to come in and keep buying from you.

It also seems like the NFT world is also uniquely set up for early adopters.

One of our mutual friends is always talking about the tipping point, right? At some point in time you hit a tipping point, then everything starts to really take off. In building a personal brand or even building a business or any of that nature, it seems like your early adopters end up getting the immense value of when you're relatively undiscovered in that timeframe because they get, they get immediate access. They kind of, they almost become like family, like real family. Like you talk to them on a regular. Like there's more communication going back and forth. Is it, does it make sense to especially, you know, someone like myself, right we're, we've been at this now for a couple. Well, I've been at it for a long time. A couple years where we've had, you know, obviously been growing rapidly. And I think for me it seems like it makes the most sense to get the 5 or 10 people or the 10 or 12 people I think you and I talked about before that are almost like people I'm taking a chance on. I could like almost like an NFT program around being part of that program for utility side, add value to people's lives. And then as we hit the tipping point, they also get the increased value of those NFT assets if they decide to resell them.

Yeah, I mean, Gary did a project with Budweiser where they picked, I forget how many, let me call it 30 emerging artists, recording artists, and basically said, okay, we, we believe in these 30 people and, and we're gonna make an NFT for each one. And it's basically their rookie card, you know, so a lot of rookies go nowhere. You know, if you ever collected sports cards, I was huge into baseball cards. But some rookie cards become worth a lot and some are worth zero because the rookie, you know, didn't. Didn't pan out. So that's a fun project where they're betting on these 30 people. Right. You could have a list of your own Skoggins mentees or whatever. And that's their very first NFT that again, could still have some kind of utility attached to it. And now you're building up their brands and their personalities alongside.

I think it's definitely an opportunity. The way that I see it is there's for every industry at the beginning, it's all the artists who are doing it just for the thing, you know, like, just because I think if Steve Jobs, you know, is on my wall here. When the personal computer industry was super new, they had the Homebrew Computer Club, where all of the people making their computers would come and share and collect and like, and explain what was going on. And it was very giving and very no commerce. It's just like we're all in this together trying to do the right thing for the world. Right.

And then the marketers come in, like the business. Like Jobs, yes, cared about that, but was an entrepreneur. The entrepreneurs come in. Wozniak was never the entrepreneur. He just loved the thing. And most of the people who are at the Homebrew Club.

Made zero.

Yeah.

Like, they went on to do nothing because they were just the artists in it for the pure joy of making it. And Never figured out how to turn into a business. And Jobs and Apple just crushed everybody. We're starting to get there where a lot of the people coming in now are the entrepreneurs, are the marketers and what comes alongside that, a lot of charlatans and scam artists and like quick buck and ripping people off and you know, all of that. So there's a lot of pump and dump, there's a lot of a rug pull is basically you promote something and then you just walk away. You get all this utility with Steven Scoggins and like, sorry guys, I'm out. Peace. I made my million and I'm going somewhere else. Right. It's a lot of that stuff happening because there's money to be made. And so the entrepreneurs are coming in, but also the scam artists and the quick buck people. And because it still is confusing, it's easy to get ripped off. You don't know what the trust and what not to trust. So it's easy to make mistakes. And so that's a gold mine for scammers as well. Eventually that will work itself out. People will prove who the legit people are and who not.

It's also especially tough because it's all decentralized, which is great. You're in complete control. But if something goes wrong, there's no company to call for support. Right. People who get their wallets.

Access to their wallet compromised and now they lose all of their Ethereum and all of their Bitcoin and all of their NFTs and you can't call the government. Or if somebody steals from your bank account, it's insured. Like bank of America is going to put that money back. That doesn't happen. You are completely in control, which is great. Power, freedom. And there's no customer support. You lose your wallet, you're screwed. So things like that are where some people have a little bit of horror stories and losing a lot of money because they made a little mistake. But yeah, coming back to the point, I think for you it's worth knowing because this is where it's going. And anytime there's a new opportunity, it's easier to win because there's less people doing it.

Whether this is the final form or not. I mean it won't be. But does Ethereum win? Who knows? But crypto is here and will continue to be here. We're not going backwards in that sense. NFTs are here and will continue to be here, only evolve and get more powerful. We're not going backwards. And so if you were one of the guys who were on VHS selling your tapes and then you move the CDs or you move to the Internet or you move, right. You were going to win compared to the people who are stuck on the old technology. So it's a chance for someone like you with a great message and a great vision, but doesn't have as long a track record or history in the space. It's a chance to now go in and dominate and get a lot of success compared to the people who are more dinosaurs kind of tied to. Because Rome, you know, I like the expression Rome wasn't built in a day, but it also didn't crumble in a day either. Right? This is like this slow degradation. And so for the people who have one.

Their brand is slowly degrading but, but not super noticeable enough that they have to go off and go and create. Like guys like Gary Vee and Tom Bilyeu and the entrepreneurs are doing, they're just very forward thinking and they see where it's going where most people are going to be really slow in our space to get there. And so it becomes an opportunity, a chance for you to win.

Well, that's, that's really interesting to me because you know, as I'm thinking through it, you know, I've, it's funny that I'm hearing it, I'm hearing you talk about, okay, these are the things, this is the risk that's involved, which you need to understand risk as you're, as you're jumping into any pond. But then you're also like, yeah, but this is 100% where it's going. This is 100% where the market's heading. This is 100% going to be a thing. The one attribute that I've been paying attention to is how serious the local governments, whether it be Canada or USA is taking it. And I know the USA is trying to figure out some way to regulate it so they can get their little piece which tells me that they understand it's not going anywhere. But specifically with NFTs, why is it the future? Why are you so certain that this is not a flash in the pan kind of thing? It's a long standing thing that will continue to evolve.

A couple things. One, the fact that all the contracts can be clearly seen is valuable not just on the first sale, but in the ongoing sale. Right. So that I can verify that, yes, I own this thing and it lets me in again to the restaurant, to the coaching program, to the consulting, whatever, to the fact that it creates the ongoing royalty for the Creator is bringing a lot of creators in. Again, maybe less important for someone like you, but for artists to come in and have a percentage ongoing of everything they're creating is really valuable. For the project I'm creating now.

We'Re.

Giving it away for free to people who are being recommended into us. So the people who currently own it every day gets to pick a new person and we vote on who gets to get added to our club for free.

Oh, that's cool.

But then I'll make money off of any resale that happens. So it's only playing and a lot of projects would do that. They'll launch with 10, 10,000 NFTs trying to get into people's hands, making nothing off of the initial. But then as resales start happening now, they have an ongoing cash flow coming in and some people will just hold it forever. But if you have 10,000 of them out there, which is a typical project, somebody's always buying and selling, which is always money now just coming back to you, guaranteed. So it's unstoppable. Will it be regulated? Maybe. I'm sure governments will try. There's still a lot of taxation issues as well.

What happens when you buy and sell Ethereum? What happens when you buy and sell an nft?

You can stake your Bitcoin, which is basically, you get an interest payment every month from it. How is that treated? Is that treated like a dividend payment? Is that treated like interest? So this is still. Even the lawyers and accountants who are the experts in this still don't have the answers or know where it's going to go because the government hasn't decided what they're going to do yet. They're still trying to figure all of this out. Yeah, but it's just like websites, like everybody, everybody had, everybody needed to have a website and you didn't need to at the beginning, you know, but now everybody has a website. Yeah, everybody will have a digital wallet. Everybody will be making transactions. It'll be the only way to be able to buy some things. Right now it is, but only for a small section. So it's. At what point do you want to be educated and learn? And for some people it's actually not important, you know, like, hey, if you're. If your career is going to be done in the next five years, it's fine, don't worry about it. Like it's. Life goes on, you don't have to worry about it. But if you want to have longevity or if you just want to get some rapid traction and growth yeah, There's a lot of skill sets that people have that are instantly transferable. So here's an example. Twitter and Discord are the two places where you hang out in NFT World. Okay? I haven't been on Twitter in years. Like, Twitter. Twitter was declining. Who's not sure?

You're playing your Twitch, like, come on now.

But Twitter was. Twitter was my. Twitter was my number two. Like, LinkedIn was my number one for a long time. And then I got. LinkedIn went down, and Twitter became my number one. And I was on Twitter like crazy. And then people were leaving Twitter. Like, Twitter had declining users.

And.

Yeah, and then Trump came and Twitter started going nuts because of politics. And that wasn't interesting for me, especially US politics. You know, I don't care about it. But then in NFT World, Twitter became the thing. So Twitter and Discord, Twitter growth is spiking now like crazy. And I'm spending less time on other platforms, and I'm on Twitter now doing a lot more. One of the things that are big on Twitter is doing Twitter spaces, which are like clubhouse rooms.

Okay.

And they'll be interviewing artists, interviewing NFT projects coming up. And I would join a bunch of these Twitter spaces where a lot of sales end up happening, a lot of promotion ends up happening, and the artist is on there talking about their project, and there's a lot of attention and eyeballs, but the artist has no idea how to tell their story. They've never. It's their first business. Like, think about all of the rookie mistakes that you make as an entrepreneur. It's their very first business, and they're an artist, so they're more naturally. Usually introverted and, like, don't. They're not the marketers yet. So I would go into these spaces and just ask them questions like, it's not even my space. Like, hey, dude, why did you start this project? What's the vision behind it? It's like, oh, well, thank you for asking. And it's like, these are basic, basic, basic things in business and in storytelling that they're just not. They've never had exposure to. And so it's a chance for someone like me or someone like you to come in and start offering a ton of value and be an expert at something. Even though you're not the expert at the art or at the crypto or the understanding there, but all of your business knowledge you can use to really help people blow up their brains and establish you as a brand in the space as well. Like, if you used this show or, or a second version of this show. Or you launch a Twitter spaces yourself where you are interviewing up and coming artists about their projects. You would do, you might have the best, the best Twitter space on the platform. Talking about NFTs. Yeah. Because you're, you're curious, because you ask your questions, because you're used to hosting now and because you have a depth of business knowledge to, to guide people and help people and pull out fantastic questions. Where most people who are launching these shows have no idea it's their first time doing any of this stuff. So you can go in and quickly have one of the top Twitter spaces in the NFT world with you knowing zero but NFT now and a little bit more. So that's opportunity for you to come out and have the number one YouTube show is really difficult to have the number one Twitter spaces show talking NFTs is actually possible. Oh wow.

Okay.

So it's like how forward thinking do you want to be? And I think you need to be obviously investing and learning and if I was, if I like being a host as my main thing, that's, that's where I would spend all my time. Even if I cared. I care about artists and I care about creators. This is where all the energy is right now. It was on Clubhouse, you know, a year and a half ago and that's where I was. Now it's Twitter spaces and it's still helping entrepreneurs. Just, it's, this is the evolution of entrepreneurship.

So that creates a massive opportunity because Tony Robbins isn't going to go and do that anytime soon or Les Brown or whoever. Like the titans are in your space. They're not going to go off and do those things. Not anytime soon. They don't need to.

They're not launching their own NFTs anytime soon. They don't need to. Their business is already giant. But that's a chance for someone like you, someone like me, maybe someone in your audience could win.

Yeah, that's good. That's really good stuff. And I hadn't thought about that. I thought about. I am naturally curious. I want to know how the brain works. I want to know how life works. I want to know how relationships work, entrepreneurship works. And that's why when given the opportunity, I wanted to ask you about the NFT and the NFT world because I don't even think fully, you know, I actually have a much better understanding just in the short conversation we've already had than I did going into it for sure. Now you keep making a reference to projects. What exactly is a project in the NFT world, Is it just a suite of. A suite of graphics and art or.

So collection is probably a better word for it. So you create a collection that has a theme or a purpose. So.

If you were going to have your collection around your one on one with Steven once a quarter or elite retreats, look at how many people do you want to be meeting once a quarter, you say a hundred people. So that you make your collection of 100 pieces. And again, less about the art, more about the utility that you're getting attached to it. So is it your face? Is it a ticket, is it the logo, is it, I mean, almost anything. Why are they buying it? Because they want the access to come to the retreat. And that's your, that's your collection. And so here's what you get for that collection and you create a. There's a contract attached, attached to every NFT that's bought and sold. It's like, here's what you get with the contract. And normally if it's just art, the contract is you own this digital piece of art. That's the contract. If the contract is now attached to the utility. Right. It's like, okay, well part of the contract is for the next five years you get to come once a quarter to North Carolina and hang out with Steven Scoggins. Yeah, that's written into the contract.

So whatever utility you want to add, that's the collection. 100 units is a, it's a small collection, but because that's a primo experience. Right. If you want to do transform you ticket sales and like you get a, you get, you could have as many people as you want at a transform you event. Maybe not live in person, but virtual.

Yeah.

And so your ticket could be an NFT admission. It's admission and you get whatever bonuses you know, just like you would have you had your bonus stack. Like, you also get this and this and this and this.

So the reason why not to do it only that way is because most people still have not gotten set up on NFTs. They just don't know. They don't have a wallet. They can't buy it. When I first got in is because Lisa Bilyeu, who's one of your keynote speakers, texted me the night before her drop with Tom and said, we're dropping. Do you want to be on our white list to get in early? Like, yes. I don't even know how much is it? What am I doing? I mean, I knew I was on the surface, but nobody brought me in. Right. So I didn't know exactly the mechanics. Just something people chatted about. And it was 3 ETH. I was like, okay, what's. What is. Ethan?

Yeah. Like, what is that?

So that's Ethereum, right? Okay, so how much is 3 Ethereum? Is that. Is that. Is that a lot? Is that not a lot? At the time, it was like $13,000, something like that. Okay, great, perfect. I'll spend 13,000, get in, help, support. You know, they have this whole roadmap of what you get. I don't really even care. I just. I'm betting on Tom and Lisa, period.

Great people.

Yeah. It's like, will they still be around doing this project? Yes. You know, in five years? Yes. Perfect. And if not, they'd find a way to make it up.

Yeah.

So I don't have the money. Like, I have $13,000, but I don't have 3 ETH. How do I get 3 ETH? So my first call is to Drew, mutual friend who I'm entrepreneurially invested into. And he didn't have 3 ETH liquid. I was like, I need 3 ETH.

Like tonight, from not knowing what it is. All of a sudden, where's the eth? Where's the eth?

I got to find. Exactly. I need three Ethereum right now, tonight, to buy this thing tomorrow. And from a bank account, especially in Canada. Canada's a lot harder to get money into crypto than the US but from a bank account into actually owning the Ethereum is at least a week from Canada, which is friction. It's friction. Like, you have to do over a certain size to do that amount, like five figures. You need to do a wire transfer into a different company, into an exchange to then buy, convert the dollars into Ethereum. So it's a headache.

It's a mess, dude.

It's a mess to set up. And fortunately, I already had people. Like, I had somebody else who just set me up with a wallet. So you need somebody to kind of handhold you through some of the early steps. It's going to get easier, just like everything else is a mess and technical and crazy at the beginning. And then companies come along and make it a lot easier. Friction will be reduced, but in that friction creates a lot of opportunity for the people who are willing to go and put in the work. And once you're in, it's actually not bad. It's just getting in feels like this giant mountain you have to climb of knowledge and information and just inertia because you're so used to doing the things. Anyway, so I knew about it for, I don't know, six months, but I didn't do anything about it. And I've heard, of course, we've heard of bitcoin for years.

So it was Tom and Lisa's drop. It wasn't Gary's drop, it was Tom and Lisa because Lisa texted me the night before. It's like, okay, it takes going to take me a week to get the money in. That's not enough. I need it tonight so I can do this. So I'm literally texting everybody that I know and asking for $13,000. He's like, hey, do you have three eth? Hey, do you have three? I'm posting to like my WhatsApp group with high level people. Right. Like posting to my WhatsApp group. Can anybody borrow or lend me 3 ETH? I will have the money in a week. I'm bumming 3 ETH off of my friends and somebody said, yes, I'll give it to you. And so then I bought in on Tom and Lisa's project.

So I think like most things, we need somebody to help us along that journey and along that process. And I think that's where, I mean, I'm happy to help you kind of get started in the space a little bit there, but I think how for.

A search of three eth, like for the next three days?

Yeah, yeah. Then that'll be after. Hey, Steven, you got three eth I can bump now. I actually have money in my account.

If I'd have had eth, you could have text me now. I would have taken care of it.

I know, I know, I know. It's also like, do you have anything liquid at the time? Because people have it invested in the thing. So you would have had to sold one of his and like, okay, don't sell your stuff.

Which that takes time and yeah, yeah, it just, it's.

And. But that pressure, you know, I'd known about it for six months, hadn't done anything with it, but the pressure of Lisa texting me got me to actually do something, start taking some kind of action. I think we all need somebody to pull us in the right direction. And I think what Gary and Tom did a lot of is educated, educate and educate. Like how do you set up a wallet? How do you get in the community? And that's a lot of work versus going to the people who already know what they're doing, already having a wallet, who already have some ethereum, who've already bought some NFTs, who don't have to be educated as much and just giving them something of value. That's why I think Twitter space is a fantastic. Even a YouTube show interviewing people. There are people who. You heard of the Bored Ape Yacht Club?

No.

So the Bored Ape Yacht Club, I think right now is actually the biggest NFT project. This CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. And they now vary of like, who has more value. But these things are selling for millions of dollars. Justin Bieber just bought one another and then another one, and Jay Z bought crypto. So there's these two projects that are just blowing up. There's a lot of junk, by the way too, right? Like my nephew just put up his first and everybody wants to set up. Not that his is junk, but like, yeah, all right, I drew something. Perfect post. Yeah. Doesn't mean it's going to, but it's good to get them into. You know, it's like he's doing that instead of something stupid. Right. So there's a lot of junk. But some of the big projects, Crypto Punks, Bored Ape Clubs are the two biggest right now by market cap and so minimum six figures just to get in to any of those projects.

One of the guys there, so he bought. He bought a board of yacht club, he started his own YouTube show. And he asked me for some feedback on Twitter because now I'm in some of the communities on Twitter and I'm responding people. And his channel was. It was brutal. Like, the show was brutal, Right. But it's his first show. Like, everybody's first show sucks. And gave him so many tips on how he can do better on his YouTube channel. But a lot of videos with very poor.

Storytelling and production are doing super well because there's a lot of demand and not that much supply. And the people who are supplying it are still trying to figure. They haven't learned communications, they haven't learned storytelling, they haven't learned marketing. And so that's where, depending on what you know, I want to spread belief. So I want to spread belief everywhere. I need to be in the most relevant circle spreading belief. So I love helping creators of all kind, entrepreneurs of all kinds. So I need to be spending more time here believing in those entrepreneurs and spreading what I'm great at.

One of the guys who's bought some huge projects.

Posted something on Twitter and I made a video message to him, just encouraging him. I think he was having a rough day or something. So I'm walking on the street, video message like, nobody has ever left me a video message. Before that was the most, like, heartfelt thing that's ever happened. Like, great. I've been doing that for years. Guys, like, messages came out. I was doing it on Instagram. It used to be on Twitter, you know. So I was doing. It's just taking the skill sets that you already have and moving to the blue ocean where now you're the only one doing it, as opposed to competing with a whole ton of people.

Yeah. And. Well, I think that's one of the reasons I haven't jumped in NFTs yet. Cause I just didn't understand enough about it. And I historically try not to invest in things I don't understand. Right. At the same time, I'm watching, you know, my. My friends, like yourself and other people who are getting heavily involved in NFTs and becoming truly successful at it. But even now, we've had this amazing conversation. I'm definitely a lot more enlightened and see a greater need to be involved. But you just mentioned it a second ago. It's like, okay, what are the top five steps? What do I need to do?

Evan? Say, evan, can I borrow your wallet? I mean, how does it work?

If you've never done NFTs whatsoever and this topic is front of mind, how does someone actually get started?

Like, what are the steps? I'll give a couple steps and then I think. And I'll also give you some, some Steven Scoggins specific stuff. For anybody who's just going to get started, what you need to do is get a wallet. Which is, which is like a wallet, you know, like, I don't have a wallet on me, but it's like a bank account. Right? You have to have a bank account and then, and then you have to have an exchange where you're buying it. So you're going to go buy this thing. Because you can't just go to a bank and say, hey, at least not yet. I want to trade my US Dollars for Bitcoin or Ethereum. Right. So you need a wallet and you need an exchange. There's lots of options. Wallet MetaMask is the most popular one. Meta. Meta Mask.

Is it owned by Facebook?

What's that?

Is it owned by Facebook?

It is not owned by Facebook. Meta, I hear. I see where you're going with that. So that's your wallet, that's your bank account. And you can take that to OpenSea. You can take that to any place and you can show that, hey, this is my wallet. I can make transactions. But you have to have digital currency. So you need to go to a marketplace. Coinbase is probably the biggest one in.

The US now, is Coinbase the exchange?

Coinbase is the exchange.

Okay, yeah.

Coinbase is trying to do a lot of things, but they're best known for being exchange. So you put your US dollars into Coinbase and then you trade it to get your Ethereum or Bitcoin.

Okay, but right now NFT is only tied to Ethereum, not Bitcoin.

Right. There are no NFTs tied to Bitcoin. There are NFTs tied to Ethereum and other currencies.

Okay.

Ethereum's the biggest.

Okay.

There's a lot of other stuff out there as well. I wouldn't.

My understanding was Ethereum was right behind Bitcoin as far as being from a digital currency. But specifically for NFTs, it seems like it'll outgrow Bitcoin just because of the ability to tie it to utility.

So again, think about the initial analogy. Bitcoin is gold, Ethereum is the US dollar, Ethereum is the US dollar, you know, like, hey, biggest currency in the world, Ethereum. And then you can use the US dollar to buy stuff.

Okay.

And the stuff you're buying is the NFTs. Okay, so there's only one gold. I mean, I guess there's silver, but like it's gold. It's US dollar, but then it's Canadian dollar and the peso and euro and other. Other. Other ones, right? Yeah, but gold kind of stands apart from all those other things.

Now the gap between the US dollar and the Euro is significant, but not super significant. Like a lot of people, like the.

Euro is very well known are in the uk that I'm a charitable contributor and for every hundred dollars that I send their way, I think it translates to 125 or something like that, like a loss in value about $25.

So the jump between US dollar and euro is significant, but it's not.

It's not a giant cavern in crypto world. Eth or Ethereum to the next one is a big jump. So all the big projects are on Ethereum. So you have to have Ethereum to buy into somebody's nft. Now, you could just hold Ethereum thinking that it's going to go up. And it has historically gone up. You can just hold Bitcoin, which is like gold, and expect it to go up. And it has gone up. You can lend against it. So you could lend out your Bitcoin and earn interest while still owning your Bitcoin. But then to buy the NFTs you need to have Ethereum for the most part. There could be other currencies that are launching, but for the most part. So you're at bank of America, you have to put your money into an exchange like Coinbase.

Then you have to buy whatever currency you want. So you're going to trade your US dollars to Ethereum, you're going to put that into your wallet, which is Metamask. Yeah. And then you're going to go out and buy whatever you want to buy.

How does your own created NFT though? If I want to do a project, I want to create 100 different assets or more for something I'm passionate about that I can tell a story about to then help the community take advantage of. What stage does that play into the process? Obviously you got to get the wallet set up and stuff like that. So that's, believe it or not, that's actually really helpful, especially since you can actually name some resources because that will actually help me get started.

Yeah. And there's pros and cons and some people don't like going with the number one player. They want to use their local community bank instead of bank. Like then you go down this rabbit hole and you never do anything.

So I just want, if I'm investing, I want to make sure that. What is, what does Tom say? He's like, he wants to be as close to under his mattress as possible. Yeah.

Like dominant leaders by far. Like, the only reason I'm not Coinbase is because Canadian, it's, it's a, it's a disaster. So I have to use, I use the serve. Canadians watching. I use Kraken as my exchange and then to MetaMask. So TD bank of Canada to Kraken, to Metamask. But Americans, your bank, we get Coinbase to Metamask. Right. Okay. When you are launching a, launching your, your project, you have to pick a place to launch it. OpenSea is the number one marketplace for NFTs right now. And again, it's a big chasm to get to the, between OpenSea and number two. So open the word open and CSEA and you can go there and you can see other people's projects. The two I talked about, Cryptopunks. And you can go to Bored Ape Yacht Club. They're there, people are buying them, you can see how much they sell for, et cetera. You can go there, you can create your collection.

Whenever you create a piece of art there, you tie it to your wallet so it's held in your wallet.

So the NFT itself is Technically held in your wallet.

Yeah. It'll be held in your MetaMask account. Then you can take wherever you want.

And then you. There's a whole bunch of like, you need to figure what your smart contract is. And that's where it starts to get a little, little hairy. But to create an account on OpenSea, you can go and do it. There's some verifications for all of these things too, like Coinbase and MetaMask. You have to submit your driver's license or passport and verify that it's you. And it's super annoying to get verified and all that. So it's like this real.

I still struggle with the whole verification.

Thing, just in general, but there's real steps. Like it's super annoying. You can't just walk into a branch. Right. Like you could walk into a bank branch and just get stuff done here. You can't yet. But in that friction creates opportunity for the people willing to do the work.

Yeah. So you create a collection. You have to tie your. Connect your MetaMask account to OpenSea and then once you sell it, it transfers from your wallet to whoever else's wallet and OpenSea facilitates that transaction.

Then whatever royalty you have, if it's 10% kicker once a month, OpenSea will look at royalty payments and then put that money into your wallet. And so now you have more Ethereum in your wallet from any royalties that have been sold.

Are there services to help you kind of like lay out your contract, like almost like templates?

So yes.

One of the biggest frustrations for people is what's called gas fees. And there's basically transaction fees, I don't know what they call it, gas fees. But there's a transaction fee. So in order to verify that you own this NFT and that you want to make this transaction to sell it to somebody else, that process has to be run through.

Uh, what's the easiest way to explain it? This makes a transaction fee.

Yeah.

In order. It's like everything else. This is transaction fee and those can be quite expensive. Uh, if you use OpenSea standard contract, it might cost 2 to $300 just to make that transaction happen.

Okay.

Which if it's a million dollar ticket, that doesn't mean zero.

Not a big deal. If it's a hundred dollar ticket.

Yeah. If it's a $30 thing. Right. Like if my nephew is trying to sell his thing for five bucks and it's going to cost $200 just to transfer it, the buyer pays. But it's still. Why is the buyer going to pay. Right. So this really has a threshold. So you can. So in my, my project, I'm working with a local company that specializes in reducing gas fees.

So the more transactions happen.

The more, especially at the same time, the more that's going through the pipes, the more expensive it is to have a transaction. So now as it gets more and more and more and more popular, there's more congestion on the roads, so the gas fees go up. But you can design your smart contract in a way that minimizes gas fees with the right partner. And I can introduce you to them if you want. If you're diving like now, we're diving super deep. Right. But just so you kind of understand the pathway.

So, yes, OpenSea designed it so that anybody can just get started without a programming background, but you're going to get destroyed on a transaction fees.

Ah, okay.

If you use a programmer to help you launch it, then you can minimize the gas fees and make it more customizable.

I think, you know, next steps for you. That's probably too much to drink in all at once.

Hey, I got the recording. I can watch it.

Oh, I like that.

I think, I think if I'm giving, you know, Evan Carmichael, Steven Scoggins, like, takeaways, I would say one, set up a MetaMask account and two, set up a Coinbase account and go through all the verifications and all that, because that's going to take a week and you're going to want to punch yourself in the face 14 times throughout it and just go through it. Just do it every time. But we didn't receive the back of your driver's license clearly enough. It's like, why is this not focusing? Just why am I doing this again? Just do it.

Just because I have forehead shiny because of the.

Exactly. It's just the most ridiculous thing. Although it is a little easier for Americans, so you have an advantage there. But just do it. Set up your Coinbase account. Set up your MetaMask account. One super important thing, actually, on the MetaMask account you will get. This is maybe the last little bit of lingo, what's called a seed phrase.

Your seed phrase unlocks your account from wherever you are. So if you, if you're on your phone, if you go to a new computer, if you're on your laptop or whatever and you want to get access to your account, you need to have this seed phrase.

If you lose it, you are screwed. Yeah, it's not. So you'll have a. You'll have a password for your account, which Is fine. And you could change. You can't change your seed phrase.

So once you have it, this is for metamask. You have. This is your wallet. Your wallet has, like, a secret code to open the wallet. If you lose it, you've lost your wallet. And lots of people have done. It's like, I forgot myself.

I heard a guy lost $2 million more.

Or they give their seed phrase to somebody else, and then that person drains their account. Or like Drew, our mutual friend, had it written down on a notepad file on his computer that then got hacked and they drained all his Ethereum. Now, it was only like 400 bucks or something. It's not the end of the world, but. Yeah, but you write it down, you put it in a book, you store it nowhere digitally. Don't put it in a file anywhere, because that could be hacked and, like, maybe make a backup copy in your book somewhere. Because if you lose that, that's your wallet. That's all of your money, that's all of your NFTs. Everything is in that thing. Now, you can have multiple metamask if you want.

And there's no way to go back and get it. No customer service.

No customer service. No. It's gone. So complete power, no banking, no regulation, no middleman. But, like, you know, you're. Yeah, some people take it off and, like, have it on the. On a. Like a usb. Like, you have a. It's a hard wallet.

Yeah. I'm gonna tattoo it on the inside of my thigh so only I can see it.

But then anybody. Well, okay, then, you know, if you get beat up, like, maybe don't make that public. Go drug scoggins and take his pants off and you can get the seed phrase.

See, now you're giving ideas to the community.

Yeah. And don't ever share it. You will not need to share it with anybody for. And to buy any project to buy into anything. Nobody. If they're asking you for it, it's a scam.

Yeah.

Never give up your seed phrase, but have it written down hard somewhere in a book.

Now, would you put it in your will so your family has access to it?

Sure, Yeah. I mean, yeah, it becomes an asset. Like, and that's a whole thing of, like, how is that taxed? Next generation? Who knows? But. But yes. Like, think about who you want to actually have access to it.

Yeah.

This is where a lot of people are getting scammed. It's like, okay, in order to buy my nft, give me your seed phrase so we can put it in your Wallet. Like it sounds like it makes sense, right? Don't do that. They're scammers. Right. You never have to give your seed phrase to anybody except metamask to open up. So. And you can't change it. So if you forgot it, my nephew set his up. Forgot it. He could still get into his account because he had the login password, but if he ever moved from that computer, he's screwed. It's like, okay, that account's gone now. Create a new account and write it.

Down and protect that computer like it's nobody's business.

Yeah. So your homework, get the MetaMask account, get the Coinbase account set up, go through the verifications, write down your seed phrase, punch yourself as many times as you need to, just get it done. And then the second thing where I think that's going to be, that's going to feel like work and administration and a waste of time and like frustrating as anything. But it's, it's good, like it's good to know and you have to do it and you'll. And then you'll be able to help other people through it too because you've experienced it. So it's going to feel like a lot of work and not fun, but it's worth going. Where I think for you would be fun is to start to connect with people in the NFT space. Because they're all just entrepreneurs. Yeah. Whether it's joining in on Twitter space conversations and if you just go to Twitter and go hashtag NFT every night. There's always night is evening is more popular. But during the day is probably stuff too.

Just like Clubhouse. It's an audio only room. People come up on stage, you can raise your hand and just start to be a part of the community. Just start to ask questions, just start to care about the people. You'll start to make good connections that will lead somewhere. Yeah. Maybe it leads to you hosting your own show on Twitter Spaces where you're now bringing people on and you're building your reputation inside, even though you haven't bought any NFTs yet. And you can even say like, I don't own an NFT yet. I'm still learning. I'm trying to figure this out. But I love helping entrepreneurs and creators and this is where the energy is. So I'm trying to learn. And so they're teaching you about NFTs and crypto and you're helping them with storytelling and entrepreneurship and mindset, like all the stuff you love helping people with. Here's a Bunch of mostly kids who are trying to get their first business off the ground. And I think once you find similar to me, it's like it was Lisa texting me get here. That got me in with excitement as opposed to work, because I just saw it as work. When you're talking to some of these people and then you find someone who's like, I really want to support this person. And it'll give you the actual motivation to like go and do the next part of the step. So step one is just MetaMask and Coinbase. But then how do you actually use them? That will be basically project driven because you want to support somebody and what they're up to. And then that could lead to you like creating your own NFTs. And we could brainstorm that more. But that's much more down the line.

That's private coaching right there.

That's much more. Well, we can make it public too, but it's just to, to actually conceptualize it and figure out what the best plan is. You have to have a little like, we're talking about deep ocean diving and we haven't even put in our first foot in the pool yet.

That's how I roll. You know me, I like to jump in the deep end.

Well, listen, you could go do it then. Coinbase, Metamask, host your first Twitter space. Start, start joining conversations.

I'll just message you when it's all set up. Done.

Boom. Look at that. Carmichael. You said it would take me too long. Here I am.

No, man, you've been an awesome resource and I know we're out of time, but man, I've, as always, always enjoy hanging out with you and talking to you. I am curious, at one time you were doing a little bit of training on this, on this subject matter. Are you still doing training on it?

I've. I've done some training inside my movement makers program.

Okay.

Because again, it's thought leaders, like, how can they leverage NFTs? Either, either. Same thing here. Either create their own projects or be a part of the community that then they can leverage for their own business. Like a lot of the people who are launching their NFT project should be coming to transform. You should be learning about your YouTube channel. Like they can all learn as entrepreneurs and humans. It's just that's where the energy is right now. Tons of demand and almost zero supply. And so you can fight over here with everybody else.

No, thank you.

No, thank you.

This has been hard enough getting to the stage as it is, let alone creating more steps so, yeah. Awesome, dude. Well, man, I appreciate you as always. Thank you so much for coming on and enlightening me. And I'm sure the audience got a ton out of it. And I guess if they do want to maybe, maybe check out some of the replays of some of your movement makers, maybe. Is there room for movement makers? Can they join movement makers?

You could join movement makers, yeah. If you're joining specifically for that, then when you join, I would just message. Just reply back and say, I want the NFT training because we have it recorded. You can go back and watch it.

Awesome. All right, dude, man, I appreciate you. In love, man.

Cool. Thank you, Stephen.

All right, see you, buddy.

Cheers.

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