Bankless - RELEASE: Gary Vee DEBUTS VeeFriends NFTs!

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Gary Vaynerchuk (aka GaryVee), serial entrepreneur and Chairman of VaynerX, today released his first NFT collection called VeeFriends. VeeFriends: https://www.veefriends.com/  ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/  🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/  🎖 CLAIM YOUR BADGE: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/-guide-2-using-the-bankless-badge  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 💰 GEMINI | FIAT & CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/go-gemini  🦊 METAMASK | DEFI PASSPORT https://bankless.cc/metamask  🦄 UNISWAP | DECENTRALIZED FUNDING http://bankless.cc/uniswap  🔀 KWENTA | EXCHANGE SYNTHETIC ASSETS https://bankless.cc/kwenta  ------ 📣 UPSHOT | Become an NFT Appraiser! https://bankless.cc/upshot  ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures 

Hey, Bankless Nation, we have a special episode with you today. We are talking to Gary Vaynerchuk, who is releasing his own brand new NFT platform called VFriends. And no, this is not your typical average celebrity NFT drop. This is a whole entire ecosystem backed by the credibility of Gary V himself. We'll let Gary go into more details about why these NFT. are so cool. But if you are specifically a Gary V fan, then these NFTs are specifically for you. If you are not a Gary V fan and you don't know who Gary V is, then these NFTs may not be for you. And that's really, I think, what is really cool about these specific NFTs. They are really for his fan base, his community. And just like our Justin Blow interview,

these NFTs are operating as a communication vehicle of value between the Gary V's fans. and Gary Vee himself. So really excited to get Gary V on the podcast. We live streamed this on YouTube and had a few technical difficulties. I've edited that away from the podcast, and so you won't have to deal with any of that. Just a preview of this conversation. We get into the topic of NFTs and culture themselves and why Gary is now getting into the world of NFTs, what he thinks they are for both him and the world at large, and also go into the specific details of this NFT platform that he's created. We've also talked about the sale mechanism and how he thinks about the crypto space at large. There was a pretty cool cameo in this episode of Beeple. Beeple was actually

in the same offices as Gary V was, and we got a little bit of a clip from him. You actually won't hear him in the audio, but if you watch the YouTube video, you'll be able to see him there. Gary Vee was a treat to have on, so I'm super excited to bring you this conversation with Gary Vee right after we take a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Metamask is your go-to wallet for the bankless journey. If you're going bankless, you need Metamask, period. Browser and mobile, get them both. This is your tool to unlock the world of Defi.

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To top things off, Balancer is reimbursing gas costs with BAL rewards, meaning that your gas fees are reimbursed up to the cost of the transaction with the Balancer governance token. Balancer's mission is to become the primary source of liquidity in DFI by providing the most flexible and powerful platform for asset management and decentralized exchange. dive into the balancer pools at pools.balancer. Dot exchange today. That's a great intro, David, because I feel like we've got somebody on our side, on the side of crypto, and that is Gary V. We're going to be talking about crypto, NFTs, a surprise launch.

That is VFriends. It's super cool. We want to tell you all about it. Before we begin, we want to just give a shout out to our fantastic sponsors. These are D5 protocols, crypto protocols themselves, Uniswob, Gemini, Quinta, and Metamask. find links to them in the show notes. Gary V, of course, is a serial entrepreneur. You know him.

You love him. He is a podcaster, NFT, aficionado, an educator, a community builder. And now he is debuting a brand new NFT platform that we're going to talk about. We're told he was just on Bloomberg, actually, doing an interview. So we're going from Bloomberg bankless, Gary. How do you feel about that transition, man? I think it's the story of my life. You know, I think, you know, the emerging

is going to be the theme of this conversation and let there be no confusion for anybody who's watching. Bankless Nation, these men are on their way to doing the Bloomberg things. I have been lucky enough to be aware of what you guys have been up to, so I was honored to be asked to be on. And I'm extremely excited to chat with you.

I'm very aware of the strength and education and Ogeness of your audience, the newsletter, I'm just honored to be here. Thank you for having me. Look, man, we're honored to have you because this is all about communities doing the old like emoji handshake with with each other. And you've been a big proponent of NFTs for a while. We want to talk about how you got into that at first. But before we do, guys, I just want you to know, Bankless Nation that Gary Vee is single-handedly responsible for onboarding thousands.

I'm not sure. Tens of thousands, maybe more, to technologies like metamatic. to Ethereum addresses to getting them onboarded in the NFT space. And this whole movement is about onboarding people into crypto. So Gary, dude, thanks for what you're doing. I appreciate that. And you know, it's funny, I have a very broad audience. And when I started telling some my inner circle of what I was building here with BFriends,

and especially with top shop, you know, success and with all the things that are going on, when they heard that I wasn't going to do Fiat, they were surprised because I'm a big fan. You know, this was a little bit of a contradiction. I'm a big fan of do not create friction for the consumer. Here you. On the flip side, you know, I've got more gray hairs than you youngsters. I remember really trying to teach people that putting a credit card into a website in 1997 for whinelibrary.com was not going to be the worst thing in the world

and their identity wouldn't be stolen forever. I remember telling parents and friends that it was okay to have a social media account that your daughter wasn't going to get kidnapped at the mall if she had my space. And so I have a lot of compassion for the psychology of human beings around new technologies.

And I'm one of the most important parts of this project by a country mile for me was to give back to the OGs that have been playing in the NFT space from 17 to now. And I thought one of the more significant ways I could do is through my strength around education. I've spent months now educating people

on what a non-custodial wallet is, teaching them to never give up those 12 words to anybody. I will never ask you for them. I will never ask you from Ethereum. You know, like I will never ask you for your metamask password. Teaching them what a rainbow wallet is

if they wanted to see cool versus, you know, like, and it's been a great thing. joy. By the way, it's been a fun one for me because I myself am going through an education journey, right? Learning different chains, learning, you know, proof of work, proof of stake, you know, custodial, not custodial. It's been an incredible journey because over the next several months, I'm sure DRock and I will start showing tons of content of me in 2017 and 18 talking about Ethereum. I've been watching. I just don't like to talk about things I don't know. I've been doing

a lot of press, like you said, everyone's asking me about Doge. I'm like, me and AJ got a lot of it the first day came out years ago we lost it because it was that way back then and that's all I really know other than I know why it's happening human beings getting behind a mission but you know for me the Ethereum thing on chain I mean I built this with the NFT 42 guys like OG on chain gym you know like it's very important to me to be authentic and and I I'm excited to see some of the tweets from people this morning or getting some Discord DMs that look like the following. Hey, I thought you were a charlatan. I thought this was going to be a piece of shit. I can't believe how many people are learning what a metamask is. This is good for all of us.

Thanks for showing celebrities and I always reply, I'm not a celebrity, but thanks for showing celebrities that there's a meaningful way to do this, not hire a digital artist and put your face on it and just sell a bunch of shit. And, you know, this was a very ambitious project for me. A, I want this to be my Harry Potter, my Pokemon, my Smurfs. Like, this is a very big ambition for me. I will spend the rest of my life building this intellectual property. B, I wanted people to get educated on what the smart contract can do. I have 555 gift votes. You buy this token. It's a rare token in my world, but it's also a token that allows you to put your address in it and literally get a gift from me randomly six times minimumly a year

over three years. When that first gift blows people's brains out of their head, I have a funny feeling the markets adjust. And obviously the underlining conference, the super conference VCon that I'm going to put on once a year over the next three years. When I throw that first conference and the keynote speakers and performances are some of the biggest things in the world, I have a funny feeling the token owner has the ability to decide what they want to do in 2023, right? So, you know, I've given this a lot of thought and I'm very excited to be in the space at this level. Look, and for the crypto natives watching this who are familiar with bankless, like two things to me that scream legitimacy about what Gary's,

what Gary's doing is one, the Ethereum address. You're holding these on chain in an Ethereum address. So use Metamask, use, you know, whatever crypto wallet you have. By the way, on the record, I'll predict it right now because I know what I'm going to do. So I want to give some bankless exclusive. He actually just walked in. Watch this. You want a real bankless moment? I want a real bankless moment. Watch this. I'm doing an interview people. I'm doing an interview. People. I'm doing an interview people, but. Oh, what's up? Hey, people. Sixty-nine million, brother. Can you, can you please tell these people that I beg you to keep all the Ethereum? Can you just tell that? Can you tell them this is true? I'm like, can you, I'll come with you in a minute, but can you please tell them

the truth that I did say to you how much I wanted you to keep the Ethereum? Is that true? People, did you keep a little? You got to keep some to stay. Oh, yeah. This is the most important artist of our generation. Look how handsome he is. All right. Let me get that to my interview. I'll be right there. It's great to see the best. I'll be right there. Love you, pal. Yeah, I mean, I believe in it. I don't know what else to tell you. What do you want for me? Gary, there's a... The other thing is, like, you actually purchased the NFTs with ETH as a reserve asset, right? So one thing we talk about, yeah, it's Eith. It's all Eith. Go ahead, David. Yeah, so there's going to be two audiences, I think, watching this live stream. There's going to be the Gary Fee friends and family, right? Like your community, your clan.

And then there's going to be like the crypto natives who I think have kind of been, have gotten some NFT exhaustion. And they are, they're there. And I think they might come into this being a little bit skeptical. It's like, oh, just like another celebrity to another NFT. And I want the crypto natives to suspend their disbelief. because Ryan and I got a little bit of a sneak peek of what's going on with VFriends. And it's not just another, you know, here's my NFTs, like, and here they are.

This is a brand commitment, it sounds like. And Gary, it sounds like you have very strong, both opinions and convictions about the future of NFTs. And it seems to be that you're putting a ton of your weight behind this particular, this new NFT ecosystem behind that. And so before we go into specifically the VFriends ecosystem, I want to ask you a question as to why you think the NFTs are this brand new revolution that they are. Why are they so powerful and why are you leading this charge into NFTs? I may be leading new eyeballs into it, but the larvae is Roham with kitties before Top Shot. There's so many real OGs that have led us here.

I think a guy like me represents a different thing, which is the next moment, right? Because it's happening with me currently in VR. It's letting a lot of time looking at what's going on in the Oclusi system and the metaverse and things that nature. But I, at least the way I move, need it to be like on the precipitous of mainstream. The reason is because it's time.

It's just time. You know, like it's time. Like, there's enough smoke. People are getting enough comfort with it. Right. Top shot deserves a ton of credit. Sports cards deserve a lot of credit. You know, just people getting caught up

into alternative investment. Reddit, Doge, Bitcoin. I mean, and let me go another place. How about Fortnite? You know, I'm in the business of helping people understand things, telling parents, I win all. of my NFT debates with 55 year old parents that are friends and acquaintances in four minutes.

Here's what it looks like. Do you want a blue checkmark on Instagram? Yeah, I'm like, does that actually exist? That's just a little blue check mark. Why do you want that? Because it's social currency. Wow. And then I go, oh, by the way, so that's one,

but let me put the finishing touch on you. Did you give your kid 50 bucks on your credit card this week to buy a Fortnite skin? Yes. Why? He doesn't own that outfit. Digital assets. So my big play,

let me tell you when I went bananas and why. My brain decided to tell me, oh my God, everyone's going to have a public digital wallet. Social's going private, crypto's going public. And this is insane. Oh my God, unlike the internet and Web 2.0, there's an internet at scale now

supporting communication around the blockchain. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And then it was 500 hours of larva labs, Cryptopunks, you know, Pepe on Bitcoin, discords, reading, listening, OGs, on chain, gas, non-custodial, education, education, education. You know, I'm a hyper dude. So what ends up happening,

one of the reasons your audience here is like, I actually understand, I'm also empathetic. I understand that they might think I'm full of shit because my energy can come off that way. I'm a Jersey East Coast. I'm like, you know, some people aren't able to see my, they don't know me, they don't know my humanity.

They don't, they see my energy, they don't see the words out of my mouth. They don't hear me say 98% of NFT projects are going to be a bad investment during this era. They don't hear that. They feel this. So they think I'm saying, it's insane to me.

I'm saying way more conservative, things that people that people think are conservative, but it's the way I say it that will throw them. And by the way, I'm going to stay me. I'm comfortable being me. You know, I have the receipts. And so I'm excited about this. And I think the reason is just timing, man. You knew, others knew they were right. Like, and by the way, VR is going to happen. Like, let's take it to the bank. There's no reason. This is all, you know this is all a precursor to that. totally is. I mean, let me come on. It's on its way.

I hope that I can stay healthy enough to see some of that crazy shit. I hope I see something in 40 years that does confuse me. Because right now, this has not confused me. All right, Gary, we're going to get into Vee friends. Like last thing before we do this, so we had a blow on the podcast, you know, Grammy Award artists. And he talked about NFTs giving him the ability to connect directly to his community in a way that he's never had.

So previously it was you have to go through middlemen. You have to go through record labels. But this is a direct connection to the community. Can you talk about that? Is that some of the power that's being harnessed in what you're doing? And is that powerful for other creators, other communities out there? Yeah. And by the way, let there be no confusion.

You can be connected to your audience without NFTs. You can just call them and they can come over. Like, you know, wow, is the best. But like, you know, I'm like incredibly. selfless. I have an incredible mother and luck of the DNA of who I am as a dude. But this is an economic

aspect to those artists as well. Blau is talking about two things. One, not having a dopey record label telling him you can't put that song out or this is when we have to release because we have this other artist. So that's huge control. But it's also economic value. I mean, this is an incredibly

one of the biggest reasons with my project I made a conference was I didn't want it to be a just about me. But there was, there's obviously many tokens in there that are just about me. And so, yeah, it's a structured economy around the most valuable asset in the world, which is time and access. Do you know how much money I'm going to pay for the Novak Djokovic golden racket NFT? How much you're going to pay? Tell us. At least 100K because I've done well in my life and I want to play tennis with Novak, you know, the week before the U.S. Open in New York and have dinner with him. And if that's what comes along

in the smart contract, but then, stick with me, men. But then is Novak going to do what I did, which creates a multi, this is where I really think I innovated, a multi-year level, and then I can do something with that token, I can go back.

Seasons. Seasons, which gives you assets. Or even if it doesn't, if it's a one time, which I think will be the far majority, well, guess what? Noback's Novak. And if that's his first ever golden racket,

well, why can't that be like this $150, Thundercat? behind me. Why can't? I pay 100,000 for that experience and in the 19 years, I sell that golden racket as a collectible derivative for, you know, 300,000. Or by the way, 18,000. Let me tell you something about me that always, always confused people

and I think it's now gonna end up being my biggest strength. I have been garage sailing for years. Like you're talking literal garage sailing? Ryan, have you seen trash talk my five episode YouTube thing. It is bananas. Yeah. So I learned a lot about pop culture. I bought this at a garage sale for a dollar. I learned a lot, much more. My fancy friends make fun of me. They think I'm too dirty. I like the dirt. To me, this is the dirt. This is the emerging with Bloomberg, right? So it's definitely, I mean, we're not mainstream at all yet. And so,

and so for me, what's really exciting is, you know what I learned about garage sailing? is that I would argue that garage sale memorabilia purchasing is a hidden trillion dollar industry. What? I'll explain. I go to garage sales. I look for nostalgia 80s toys and I pay $31 for this action figure.

But I watch another lady buy key chains that say Iowa on it and marbles and old Adlandia. The reason NFTs are so powerful is every business and every person is going to issue an NFT for everything because they should. It's going to be functional as the ticket or the thing. It's also then gonna be a derivative marketing material because it's gonna be in your public wallet

and it's gonna show people affinities and social expression. And then finally, it's an asset. So if I throw a music concert, or I play a little club as a comedian and my ticket and I go on to become Kevin Hart and now that ticket is selling for $97 because it was my first stand-up appearance in Philadelphia

that I'm making $9.70 on the 10% royalty every single time in perpetuity. Are you fucking kidding me? Dude, this is what's so exciting, man, because people don't understand, this isn't just digital collectibles. This is not just a JPEG that you're selling for like millions of dollars. We're talking about programmable digital collectibles.

You can program access, You can program experiences into these things. At some level with CryptoKitties and that sort of thing is cool, but that's only like Generation 1. This is where I want to get into like VFriends, Gary. So let's pull this up because I think you've embedded some of these ideas in like another iteration of what an NFT can be. And the first thing you've got here is sort of different types under VFriends of tokens.

Admission tokens, gift tokens, access tokens. Just tell us about VeeFriends and tell us about this organization, what you get beyond just buying the NFT on chain. First and foremost, I'm going to say it again because literally yesterday it was all about the art. And now today that I put out the information, everyone's like, but what happens after three years? Is it worthless? I'm like, yesterday you were talking about the art being worth. Like people are very, very, very funny. Okay. Admission tokens.

Remember, the other thing I launched, if you go to VFriends.com right now, hopefully we'll launch the auction very quickly here. I'm going to get plenty of hours. But if you go to it, and I appreciate you pulling up, this is fun. As you can see, when you go to it, and you don't need to play this. If you scroll down, you know, right there, VCon, let's click that first. So every token is a token to this super conference I'm going to put on every year. So the admission tokens are admission to this conference.

All of the tokens are. I'm even going to clean up. I was just looking at what you were sharing on the screen. the framework of the tokens. So Coachella meets South by Southwest meets Davos. I'm trying to throw the best conference in the world. And if I do that in year one, well, what do you think's going to happen, Ryan? And the only way you can get it is V tokens. Dude, it just gets better, right? It gets more valuable. It gets better. If you go back, my favorite one, just to, you know, I think we're all out of opinions is mine. That's why I did 555. My favorite number five is gift code,

because I'm going to have fun with it. This token gives you a ticket to the conference. conference, but DRock, let's make sure this shows and admission to the token, because I want to make sure everybody knows all 10, 2255. So this also gets you into the conference, but the 555 of these tokens also get you the ability, before July on the website, it's clear that we'll have this up before the first gift goes out. You put your address, you connect your meta mask or your custodial wallet, you confirm your address, and I send you surprise gifts six times a year, aka 18 times over the course of this project.

Real physical stuff you're talking about. That's going to make your head spin, right? Wait, you're putting in your physical address or into your or your Ethereum address? Your physical, David, or your P-O box because a lot of people. So you, David, buy a gift goat, right? So you buy it for 15 ETH. Real money. Cute guy, too.

Thank you. I drew everyone. Because I, you know, again, I'm Providence, right? Big part of this. So I wanted to draw it. I didn't rent out a digital artist like a bunch of influencers or celebrities would. This is all me.

Anyway, nonetheless, gift goat. And that comes with those gifts. But David, as you can imagine, what do you think is going to happen with the 555 people that get the first one, get it in the mail or in their driveway? Socials, baby, Instagram, Twitter. Socials are going to happen.

What do you think starts happening? And then finally, 300 access tokens, the big ones. 210 of them are virtual. 125 of them are hangout hawks. I think you can scroll down. Very cool. These are the access ones. This is cool.

Hangout Hawks. Well, those are Google Hangout group of 125 people right there on the right. That's virtual access. The other are literally a 10-person dinner I do once every three years. With all the 10 people that own dinner dear, physically my time. The biggest thing I've got. So all of these are experiences. But you can't get back.

I always like to remind people this is time is literally the world's most scarce resource that no one can ever get back. And so the value of Gary V's time is being instantiated in Dinner Deer or Hangout Rock. That's right. And I built this, but I used to think like, what if Randy the Machu Man Savage did this? What, you know, and was still alive. I would buy it immediately. Oh, for sure.

Now the other thing I did hear, Ryan, though, was I created the economy because it's not a one-year. thing. So again, you buy a FaceTime Fox on the IPO on the launch tonight, tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get it. You get the ticket to the conference. You get a five-minute face-time with me. We execute the FaceTime on-chain, Ryan and David. It shows that it's been punched. We did a lot of innovation. So it shows that there's two more in the future. You come along and you go on OpenCe. Forget about beFriends.com and you see it and it says this comes with a five-minute face time of Gary's with Gary. on one. And it's, you know, like, so like there's this incredible layer. And then if you keep

scrolling down, it gets really crazy. These are crazy. If you go back up, I apologize. Like, Podcast Panther, you buy that token. I become a guest of your podcast. Ryan, we don't even, you're doing it. We don't even have one, Gary. And listen, I'll continue to be a kind, generous human being. But, but some people are going to be smart enough and be like, okay, wait, Gary B's trying for the rest of his life to build IP. So I'm starting a new podcast. I'm going to get him on my podcast, but I'm going to keep the token even after it's been punched, even after the second time, because I'll have him two

years in a row. And then if he pulls it off, well, my token becomes an art and collectible. This is a random, guys, a very random Thundercat. It is $150 on eBay all day. If I'm able, this is my rookie cards. This is my first. This is it. This is it. We might have to get a podcast card. Yeah, for sure.

Podcast Panther. Yeah. And like, what's lunch with you worth, David? I want to figure that out, man. Oh, no. I'm not sure I'm ready to understand that. You know how Warren Buffett every year, Gary. He does this, right? Something where he auctions off a lunch with him for charity. I think people in the crypto space have purchased that from one year or another. This is like that only. Yeah.

Like experiences with Warren are worth $5 million, $10 million, $15 million. This is like that except scaled. Correct. I mean, wait to athletes and musicians figure this out, and I can go in studio with Post Malone. I'm going to do that, become friends with Post, and then I'm going to have the collectible, and in 12 years, potentially sell for a profit.

Yeah, that's hot. I don't think people realize where this is going. Do you know what Keno Kowala does? If you scroll up, Kino, Koala, literally, literally is a ticket to travel to any public keynote I give and get a VIP seat and get green room access to me. You want to treat me like the Grateful Dead and fish? Let's go. You can. I mean, that's, it's different. It's very different. Poker pirate, you and three friends get a poker night with me being the fourth or the fifth. Like, it's just amazing. I'm really excited about it, mainly because I'm trying to inspire people that I want to buy these from

to not do bullshit NFTs and gouge people and stop already. Yeah, these have something backing them. Like, so let's talk about this. Not only is that have the experience backing it, it's I am trying to build GI Joe. What do you mean by that? I mean, I've spent the last 12 years building Gary Vee. I'm Gary Vaynerchuk. I'm not Gary B. I have been the strategist, the creative director, the chief executive officer of building. It's not that I'm a faking, Gary Vee, that's just how people know me. They don't know me. They know me through snippets of content. That's like nothing of actually me. I've been the chief architect of that. And I think I've done it as well as you can do it in the last 10 years. I've done it way up there, especially when you consider

I've also built a $300 million year agency as my actual job. I've done this as my side hustle. my building up patient panda, my building, these FaceTime characters, I'm just gonna biz them on the spot. I could go and make the deal with Samsung and have these characters represent the FaceTime button. I could.

I don't know if they'd have me, but I'm gonna try. Like, I'm gonna build this intellectual property. Right? Like, so yes, it has something underneath it. It has a human being who has an incredible track record having the ambition to build a literal,

intellectual property that why in the world wouldn't I aim for Marvel or Barney or G. I may fall short, but I promise you this, I'm going to fall a lot further along than any other person with the real audience. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the conversation with Gary thus far. Don't go anywhere. Next up, we talk about the sale mechanism in details as to how people can get their hands on Gary V NFTs, as well as opening up the conversation to a broader convo about Ethereum and D5. Before we get to the second half of this combo, we have to take a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Bankless is proud to be supported by Uniswap. Uniswap is a new paradigm in asset exchange infrastructure. Instead of a cumbersome order book system

where trades are matched with other humans, Uniswap is an autonomous piece of software on Ethereum, which is what Ryan and I call a money robot. No human counterparties or centralized intermediaries, just autonomous code on Ethereum. Input the token you want to sell and receive the token you want to buy. Something brand new in the Uniswop ecosystem is the Uniswap Grants Program is now accepting applications for grants. We have been saying this for a while and we'll say it again. Dow's have money and they are in need of labor.

If you think that you have something to contribute to the Uniswap Dow, apply for a grant to Uniswap. Just look at the size of the Uniswap treasury. It's almost $3 billion. This mountain of capital is looking for labor. Do you have something of value to contribute to the Uniswap Dow? No matter how big or small your idea is, you can apply for a Unigrant at Unigrants.org and help steer Uniswap in the direction that you think it should go.

That's exactly what we did to get Uniswap to be a sponsor for Bankless, and you can do the same for your project. Thank you, Uniswap, for sponsoring bankless. Synthetics is Ethereum's derivatives liquidity protocol. What does this mean? Synthetics is a platform for creating and trading synthetic assets. This includes real-world assets like commodities, equities, and currencies. You get access to a global range of assets on a single decentralized platform.

Traders could use the Quenta Exchange, which hosts and trades all of the synthetic assets created by synthetics. Traders on Quinta can trade tokens such as synthetic Bitcoin, synthetic oil, synthetic Tesla, or even synthetic D5. Because Quenta is powered by synthetics, traders, experience zero slippage in their trades. No, I don't mean low slippage. I mean no slippage, because that's the power of the synthics platform. No slippage on your trades. You can also easily short assets with iSynths. These are synthetic tokens that move inversely to their target asset, or you can simply short by borrowing against SUSD while getting paid a yield to do it. Synthetics isn't just for traders. Developers can build on synthetics to access the infinite

liquidity offered by synthetic assets, where investors can stake collateral to the protocol and earn fees that the protocol collects. If you're a trader and you're looking for a trading platform not found in the legacy world, check out quenta.io. And if you just want to earn yield on your collateral, go to staking.synthetics.io, where you can stake your S&X or ETH and earn fees from synthetics. If you want to learn more, head to Synthetics.io and join their Discord community. I want to talk all about how you've built this community up because I think that's so important. But before we do, we're getting a ton of people on YouTube just asking about the mechanics of this.

They're like, I want a keynote koala. How do I buy one? So tell us about that. There's some sort of a batch auction process going on right now or coming soon. Yep. Hopefully tonight, maybe early tomorrow. My intuition says probably early tomorrow, but we'll see. I'm literally going to hang up from here and get to QA and working the site.

I'm going to do probably a 10-day event in launching these. Probably going to put out 25% on the day one and day two. And I'm going to do a Dutch auction. I know that there's a lot of people I have a lot of goodwill with that have a lot of money. And I was scared they were going to buy everybody out and create derivative second. You see what's going on with the good projects in NFT land. So I did a Dutch auction, first and foremost. I capped it.

I also only released 25% on day one. And so I'm going to batch them out. That's awesome. And when's that coming? ASAP. Yeah, ASAP. I'd love, I'd love for it to be tonight or tomorrow morning. Gary, I got to ask you.

What's the sale platform? I built my own custom platform with the team at NFT-42. That's why, by the way, if I was doing this unrarable or OpenCkey or Bitski or some great places. This would have been launched already. We're doing a lot of innovation here with the multi-year, with the website, you know, the gift goat is not so easy to execute on rareable. I've got to, you know, like I've had to build my own platform. Right. Can you comment on how you've tried to work around any like gas issues? Is this going to be done in like a kind of an off-chain, just kind of centralized website and then it delivers on-chain? How's that work?

It's on-chain. Okay. You know, I wanted to go. O-G, I love the immutable guys. I love what's going on with a lot of the level two stuff. I love what's going on with a lot of other chains. You know, I like learning. I, again, I think people get a little more aha as they start seeing my content drip over the next couple of months

where I'm like, Ethereum, Ethereum, Ethereum. This has been something I've been watching. And I'm very ambitious about future forks and other aspects. But, yeah, I mean, it's going to cost me a little bit here on the minting this from the gas. standpoint and there's going to be a little bit that big when people purchase so this is cool it's going to cost you and yet you are pricing these things out in eith so eith is the reserve currency for this

we just saw beeple here earlier and of course he he got some eith and he he sold a lot of that i'm hopeful that he kept some of it gary what are your plans man are you going to are you going to hold some eith or are you going to sell some fiat to fund all of this or what are you doing there so obviously there's a tax event. So you have to sell some ETH because you can get murdered. I mean, I'm not in control of ETHs pricing. I'm really not interested in the tax bill if he collapses. You know, I don't want to go out of business on just what I'm getting going.

So yes, I'll be thoughtful on the tax part of that. Then I have some real expenses because I'm looking to throw ridiculous conferences and I've got gift goats and, you know, I've got things to do. That, to be frank with you, I'm going to try to find vendors that are interested in take an Heath because I think they'd be smart to. And then for me personally, I'm going to keep Heath. You know, maybe I'll, you know, who knows, you know, I may need to do something in my life. I might have to do an investment.

But like, I'm, I'm enthusiastic about Ethan. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not worried about how hot it's been the last two weeks. You know, whether it's 3,000, 3,500, 2,200, 2,200, I need to see something to stop me from being optimistic about it. That's how I work. So are all of these? I still have, by the way, I still haven't sold a share of Facebook

that I bought in 2007. Wow. Wow. Share. Yep. Because I need to see something. Mark resigning. Right?

But all the hoopla around politics hasn't stopped me. Oculus. Oculus. If Facebook Inc. wins Oculus, what? Instagram's the most powerful

social network in the world. I work with the biggest brands in the world. I see how much money they spend on, you know, advertising and now it's shifting. Like, I use my brain, not my ideological overreaction to a headline. Right on. And you had to not have that ideological reaction in order to see crypto in the first place

because there's a lot of like, you know, crypto is a scam. This will never work. Digital scarcity. These are just JPEGs on chain. They're not worth what they're worth. You had to see past that in order to see this opportunity. And David, I think Gary is talking a little never sell gang here, a little bit like you.

I'm a hoddle. Yeah, hoddle, man. And hoddle and then steak. And so, Gary, I'm curious, though. So zooming out for a second, obviously you're bullish on digital scarcity, everything with NFTs. What's your take on defy in general or like cryptocurrencies in general? I don't love talking about stuff I don't know. I bought Bitcoin in 14.

I did a little chatting in the Bitcoin, Peter, some great podcast. podcast, pop, like I, my big thing is Bitcoin's so big. If you're like, this is the currency, that gets in the sovereign nation talk, which has always been the big heady thing. But I'm not, you know, paying attention to like coin. You know, I'm, I'm very good at having a pulse. I can speak to light coin having a moment last night, but I don't know what's going on there.

I know what's going on with Doge, but I don't really know what's going on, meaning I know why the human psychology is happening, but I don't know the details. I've spent my time on ETH because I understood the people were going to build on top of it. And for me, the second ETH really crossed the chasm into social currency, aka social media itself. I knew that people, I know people, brother.

That's what I know. I know people. I'm a human anthropologist. I understand them cold. I am not a financier. I'm not going to run hardcore numbers. I don't get enjoyment. Do you know that the far majority of,

the stock I own, like 90% of the publicly traded company stock I own at Wall Street is because I invested in the company years before it went public. Wow. It's not where my passion lies. I'm not doing things to make money. I'm doing things that make me super happy that happen to have the potential to make me money. And so, defy currency is not in my blood. Social communication, collectible.

ability trading. I mean, meibits has my brain going nuts. I'm so pissed that I can't trade some of my me bits right now because I have to focus on VFriends launch. All I want to do is go to me bits and make some trades. I'm like, hey, I got the pig. Give me the elephant. Like, I this I understand. Well, it's always been our bull case for Ethereum is that at some point there will be something for everyone. And the NFT, like part of Ethereum that has really surged in the last like six months has brought in a ton of attention. There is an unceasing amount of levels or request for more details in the YouTube chat. And one of the questions that I briefly saw was if a, if somebody wants a specific V-friend, are they able to bid on a specific V-friend or is it more of a random, randomized pool?

It's not like me bits. It's not randomized. You can. My concern is this project has absolutely gained more momentum than I anticipated. Tocons tend to do that. Now I'm communicating and giving more. I wanted to drop it. Obviously, I had all this press. I didn't want to cancel on everybody. So I decided late last night when I was like,

oh, we're not going to launch at 8 a.m. I just wanted to launch so that there could be a little bit more fairness. The more, don't forget, Dutch's upside is I'm not going to let people get priced the hell out. Dutch's downside is, in essence, it's by it now. Right? Grab, grab, grab. You know, there's not that many characters.

You know, there's all, even the most max thing. There's 40 of each of the core access to, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the problem with, not the access, excuse me, the, the, the, uh, conference tokens. The issue there is there's only 40 of them, 20 of which are core, right, the white, but there's five spectaculars, gold, lava, bubble gum, diamond, right, and hollow. And there's only one of ones of those things. So like if you're like really set on getting patient panda against a diamond background, that becomes a luck of like, did you grab it? And then you know what's going to happen because this is what happens. I was watching me, but it's very carefully. I didn't realize it was so cool that they launched that way. So it gave me a preview. It's going to, you know, it's going to happen.

And people are going to try to wait because there's a lot of supply at first. And then there's that tipping point moment. You know, mine starts at three, mine starts at three goes down to point five. Does it stop at 2.6? And then somebody already resold one, open to fee for five. And then everybody freaks out. It's going to be fascinating to watch how it happens. I have no idea. Gary, let's talk about this. I think one of the most, the coolest things about your story and about your entire journey. And this is just the next step of it is about like this one word. And to me, that word is community, right? So many people when, they start going into the NFT space.

They do the NFT first before they have the community, right? Huge mistake. Other people, you might see sort of the celebrities jumping on the bandwagon. They try to create an NFT and appeal to a community that they're not really a part of. So they end up with sort of a just a crappy, illegitimate, unauthentic NFT. And they make that mistake. But like you've built this thing with the tech that's available to you for your community. And I want to ask the broad question here, which is like, tell us first, because the common denominator across everything that we've been talking about is community. That is the heart of it. How do you build a community?

By giving your community more than you ask for in return. Wow. You're on mute, David, which is devastating. Wow. That is simple. Yeah, can you also elaborate on that? It's a simple rule of thumb. And it makes a ton of sense to give more value than you ask. for how you have done that? By thinking about every single thing I do. By never looking for a quick buck, by the people that have gone into Discord that don't know me and saying, are you serious? What the fuck?

And then 600, you guys are going to buy this shit and 600 people replying, I can count the times that Gary in the last 12 years has asked anything of me. And usually it's to buy a bottle of wine or a sneaker. And this is a way for me to invest in Gary. Are you fucking kidding me? know, by being thoughtful, by trying to provide value, by putting out content that actually,

guys, I, do you know why I haven't talked about, let me give you an insight to how my brain works. Do you know why I haven't talked about that much about Ethereum and things of that nature or other things? And by the way, actually, while I'm on the show, probably the most exciting thing for me is to look at all the other blockchains. You know, one of the things I'm excited about in helping people learn how to get a metamask or, you know, or portis or whatever they're going to play with here is, to me, this is not even just about Ethereum. It's the one that I'm comfortable with and I've been watching, but I'm very aware of what people think about Gaspies and things that nature, scalability, all that. You know, I just wanted people to get comfortable with the game. And so if they want to go, you know, you know, Pocodot, flow, well, flow is got, obviously. obviously fiat, but you know, like Cardano and Solano, like you pick you do you. You know, you do you.

But I wanted this to be authentic and really honest to the whole ecosystem. But as far as my community, it's consistency. I give one of the reasons I don't, I never talk about being smart. I watch all these people put out content basically talking about I'm smart. My crew, D-Roc shaking his head right now, pisses them off that people think I'm a motivational speaker because they're seeing the smarts in real time always constantly. I don't think me saying I'm smart brings any value for my audience. I'm teaching my audience perspective. Insights, hey, this is what's going on in audio.

This is what's going on on TikTok. Do you know many people are tweeting right now this second? Gary Vee is the one that got me into NBA Top Shot, even though I never talked about it. I got them into cards. We talked about Top Shot. I'm trying to bring value. And by the way, that is why this is gonna be

such a significant launch. There is an ungodly amount of people that have reached out to me and my brother in the last 48 hours with stories that are mind-boggling. Hey Gary, you and your brother, AJ just gave me one. You and your brother gave me all this time when I was an idiot kid, had no value to bring.

You guys were always gracious, you always helped. By the way, I got into crypto real early in 17. I'm living in Puerto Rico now. Rest assured, I'm coming in heavy tomorrow. You know, like, that comes out of being a kind person. That came out of me giving more to that kid than asking. I think people are confused by my energy and my alpha and my jerseyness and my aggressive communication style.

I think people would be stunned if they saw my word cloud. They would think it's hustle and money and business. It is not. It is empathy and kindness and patience and perspective. And not, you know, I'm happy about that. And now I'm building a whole universe of characters because I know that I can't be the deliverable. Do you know many people are watching right now

who wish their plus one, their husband or wife liked me, but they hate me because they hear the cursing or the aggressiveness? And the reason they want their plus one to like me is because they know the things I say can really be beneficial to their kid, but they don't have the agreement

that I'm a good guy. Well, I'm going to fix that because I'm going to make Patient Panda a superstar on TikTok because I'm going to turn you know, some sort of character that talks about candor, candor cat into a winning streetwear brand. Like, or I'm going to turn, you know, like optimistic this, you know, or, you know, I'm just going to do it. I know exactly what I'm going to do. I know exactly what I'm going to do.

Gary, this is something we repeat so often about everyone in their life journey, but in their crypto journeys, long-term games with long-term people. That's what you have to do in order to build a community. And what's crazy here is crypto and NFTs give you a whole new palette as a community creator to deliver value to your community. And I see that's what you're doing here. Hey, last thing, we know we got it. You got to wrap it up.

You got things to do. You got a whole product to ship, my friend. We're super excited about it. Do you want to say anything to either the bankless community or to others that are in the position that you are in that have sort of a community? and they're trying to figure out what their strategy should be. Just say something to the people now that's on your mind. 50 hours of homework.

That's what you have to do. 50 hours of homework. You know, like, I just, I just am stunned by people's FOMO buying things just because 10 people on Twitter said so. Like, do not buy a single thing I talk about ever for the rest of your life until you do your 50 hours of homework. there you go. There's an infinite statement of mine.

Not a damn thing. I think I'm an extremely smart, good businessman with an uncomfortable track record. You know what those things are right there about the wrestling belt? That's Twitter and Tumblr stock from 2006. I have receipts. I know what I'm doing.

And even with me and everybody else that looks like me, and there are many, and smarter and better, until you do your 50 hours of homework, don't do a fucking thing. There you go, guys. leave it in a better place than that. 50 hours of homework. That's what you should be doing on the

crypto journey and the defy journey before you do anything else. Gary, where can people find out what's going on with VFriends? VFriends.com. And the discord is unbelievable. The level of, you know, again, back to the community I built, it's just kind. It's, you know, it's nice. It's thoughtful. Tons of noobs learning. Unbelievable OGs coming in and helping. By the way, public service announcement. I will not ask you for your metamask 12 words. I will not ask you for ETH. Unfortunately, 0.0001% of people coming in and spamming and try to do bad things. But anyway, I'm happy to be here, an honor to be on the show. Thank you so much, Gary, for coming and joining us. If you are interested in NFTs, you can definitely get at least 50 hours of your homework in

on the bankless YouTube. So I got a lot of guys. Thank you so much, Gary. And if you want to learn more about what NFTs are and Ethereum at large. The bankless YouTube is where you want to be. Ryan, do you have anything else you want to add to the Gary V fans that are joining us here on the bankless YouTube? Guys, that was hot. Like, subscribe. Do your 50 hours of homework not only on the NFTs, but on defy centralized finance. That is another revolution kicking off right now. And you are early if you are listening to this right now. Of course, risk and disclaimers, guys, we always do this on the show. Crypto is risky.

assets like NFTs are risky. You could lose what you put in. But we are headed west. It's not for everyone, but we are on the bankless journey. And thanks so much for joining us today.