Citation Needed - NFTs

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. They typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies (which are fungible, hence the name non-fungible token), and as a result they cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided.[1] Their ownership can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded.

Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says good luck. O-Doo brings your business together on a single platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, visit O-D-com to book a demo. It's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. Hello and welcome. Citation Needed.

Podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts. Because this is the Internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Heath, and I'll be hosting this podcast. that's cornering you at a party to explain crypto, the podcast. And I'm joined by the other new kids on the blockchain. Cecil, Noah, Tom. Wall Street's back. All right.

It's a different band, I think. The secret is to huddle tough. Fantastic. I'm just not sure any of this is the right stuff. It's definitely not, Tom. I was born in 1987, so I kind of missed a bunch of those. I'm sure they're going to... Eli, you've got to get in sync with the jokes.

All right. Eli, tell us what person place things... He'll still die first, everyone. It's fine. Or event. Are we going to be talking about today? We'll be talking about NFTs. Cool.

And why are we doing that? Yeah. Great question. People sometimes ask me, Eli, do you ever think you and Heath Enright will come to blows? I was just asking that to Eli on text. And my answer is, I hope not. Surely, hurting Bifleton is the farthest flung thing from my imagination.

Shut up. He has, I'll let you know he has a black belt and karate. Second degree. I'm sorry, I'm going to need a minute. Okay. Oh, God. Hurting. A hundred percent.

Heading people. just got his hand on his forehead while Eli swings like a little brother, big brother situation. He's punching me in New Jersey from where he is right now. What's crazy is he has his hand on his own forehead and I'm just sort of panting next to him. Harding Beavilton is the farthest thing from my imagination. But should that day ever come, like the Dark Knight himself, I have in my utility belt, a collection of the stupidest things ever written down. These missives, one of which we shall read today, are so jam-packed with idiocy that they would be sure to leave Heath stunned at the sheer stupidity.

And at my mercy, I hope never to use these deadly devices, but this week's essay is a warning to all, and I am always ready. Okay, this is still a little bit more hinged than a palm intro. So let's do it. What's the missive of idiocy for today? If there exists a more app, photo. to the era of our ever flattening and soul crushes I'm gonna let you finish Eli I'm gonna let you finish

Not so humble NFT I've yet to find it Perhaps in fact the NFT is not a symptom of our time So much as it's a reflection A sort of blockchain mirror Created in the relentless caldera Of our myopic journey to defeat once and for all The very humanity in ourselves An act not only of self-destruction

But of the final and inevitable denial of the self a sort of monetized suicide by irony. Working in utterly bereft. Be ref, be ref, be ref, be refed. I feel like if he does it in other people's essay, he should have to finish it. I think he has to do the whole. The essay?

I like the idea of putting a pin in the rest of that really dark intro. A little sandwich. Yeah. So today, I'll be reading a medium. Post written on March 6th of 2025. Shut the fucking way.

About NFTs, huh? Mm-hmm. By American photographer, John LaValle, entitled, The Future of NFT. It's entitled, Why year is it?

That's the name. Entitled, The Future of NFTs is the future. Oh my God. That is the title. And the title. It was followed by. NFTs are the future.

In huge letters. And then he starts the post on media. That is. Yeah. Eli, take us away. Thank you. Okay, look. I'm a physical artist.

I argued back against the person I've been arguing with for a few minutes before my article started. We're doing a cold open. I live for my craft, which is street photography. Google Street View, specifically. and I don't think NFTs are taking away from the importance of the physical. They coexist two sides of the same creative coin. I've watched people dismiss personal computers as just for nerds. Call the internet a passing fad,

sneer at smartphones as elitist gadgets that wouldn't stick. Your friend sound like insufferable hipster douchebags. Every single world changing. tech gets hit with the same tired cycle. Eye rolls, dumb talk, skepticism dripping with arrogance, then that's slow.

Oh, damn. This is real moment when it sinks in. And before you know it, it's woven into the fabric of life. NFTs are teetering. I'm writing this in 2025. NFTs are teetering on that exact edge.

Keep teetering. Now. Well, they're falling. Back on us. The phone back. The phone back. Push up. Teeter.

Damn it. Teeter. Hey man. They're not teetering. Just sliding down a real steeple. For a while. They could teeter. They could still teeter, though.

Pure technology. Code doing the heavy lifting. Not some overhyped space or trendy buzzword. People dream up to sound cool. Instead, it's a trendy acronym. The doubters are loud. Screaming. bubble, joke.

But I'm telling you as someone who's been in the art game my whole life, this isn't here to kill what I do. Scam, bubble, joke! It's running right alongside it. Flipping ownership and culture upside down in ways we're only starting to grasp. If you're still sitting on the fence, that's your call. But the grounds shifting fast. Yeah, you're fucking teeter.

Sink holes also shift fast too. I just want to point that out. Okay. Sorry. He's in the art game. That's like a useful information. By the way, I checked at the bottom of this medium post. His byline, I guess if you can call it that at medium.

His byline says, John Lavelli is an Italian-American street photographer, best known for his black and white images, depicting idiosyncrasies of people in rural areas. sure sure that's his job besides you know tech right

strong start to the essay though obviously every new technology will succeed I mean it's not at all the case that almost all of them end up in land fills I mean why be dubious

when you can be credulous obviously you gotta love an argument that's equally applicable to all claims right so you only need the one also is anybody's problem with NFTs

that they're going to subsume street photography What the fuck are you talking about? Seems to be his problem. But yeah, not anybody else. I'm not worried. I'll still be able to be a waiter at Applebee's when this is over. It was my only hesitation.

All right. Section 1. The whole NFTs peaked in 2021 is BS. Everyone parroting that NFTs topped out in 2021 needs to shut it. It's a lazy-ass take. Shut your whore mouths, I wrote. my post. It's a lazy-ass take.

Parroted so much, it's a meme for the brain dead. I'm not here for it. What happened in 2021 wasn't a peak. It was a spark. A wild burst of chaos. We were all trapped inside, going crazy, and NFTs blew up.

Trading volume hit 12.6 billion in Q1, 2022. How's it doing now? Harkin's numbers. Hodge, why don't you shut up, man? Why don't you shut? Insane. Sorry, shutting my horn mouth.

Insane, but not the end. It was a teaser or something bigger. They only got the shell at my nest egg that time, but I got more!

Still got some yolk in there. Anyway, you should buy this cryogenic chamber for tulip bulbs today. Well, okay, it's a photo of the thing I just...

Well, okay, it's a string of numbers that represent a photo of the game like. It's cold storage for like crypto. It's cool. Zoom out.

It's obvious. Chainalysis had global crypto. Hey, Heath. Hey, Heath. Yeah. Hey, Heath. What's up? Chainalysis.

I didn't hear the word chain analysis hurt you in the way I needed it to. And since I can't hit you with my car. It's a tricky one. It hurts a lot. But I also just know for sure. Right now. this man has lost so much money since he wrote this.

That is true. Chainalysis has global crypto ownership. That was the one. There we go. If you look up chain aliasis in the dictionary, it just says the Fed is a Ponzi scheme right after it. Chainalysis has global crypto ownership at 420 million in 2023. And by 2025, it's around 560 million.

6.8% of the world, backed by security org's U.S. count of 65 million. 28% of adults. Yeah, what? I don't understand how any of these numbers. I don't know what direction those numbers are meant to push anybody.

It's just nothing. NFTs are hitching that ride. They're not there yet. What's right? He's not even talking about NFTs. He's talking about crypto to start. Jesus Christ. Okay.

Finders 2022 numbers show 20% globally owned them. And in 2025, maybe 5% of U.S. adults, 18 to 34, have one. If you squint at Pew's old surveys. Why would you squint? Barely 1% own them per finder.

And most don't even get it. That's still small time. My fucking God, man, could you please stop writing like ad copy for skateboard trucks? Jesus. A spoiler alert, no, I know. No, he can.

No, he can't. I've read the whole fucking thing. He will not. History's got my back here. Big shifts don't hit until 10% adoption. The internet was at 9% in 1995, and it blasted to 50 by 2000. Smart phones crossed 10% in 2008, and were everywhere by 2013.

Per ITU and Stasia. Yeah, no, he's got us there, guys. Other things have grown. What? Jokes on you fuckers. Cryptos at 6.8% now. NFTs, maybe half that. They're not at 10% yet.

Anyone's saying so is full of shit. I don't know. Is he arguing for or against his position right now? I don't even know. Still not clear. But they're close enough to feel the ground shake. When they get there, it's not some bubble popping. It's a damn wave smashing everything.

It's like a wave being done by three small children at a minor league baseball game in Lincoln, Nebraska. That's what it is, guys. Okay, guys, I have so many investment ideas. Just think of all the stuff that less than 10% of the world has right now. It's like almost all the stuff. And that's all going to get to hundreds, yeah. We should buy most things. That's fair.

And we just go push it. The key is to find the stuff that's at 9.9, 9, 9, 9%. Right. That's exactly right. Goli locks zone. Yeah, 2021's hype crashed. weekly traded value dropped to 80 million by

2023 per bankless times but it's not over gaming's keeping it alive with platforms like tensor moving 223 million NFTs by 2024 bankless times is just the name of his memoirs people screaming

dead are stuck in a time warp this isn't a corpse it's a slow burn ready to blow my investment idea is not a corpse. It's the charred embers of a corpse that I took a picture of

and you can buy the rights to the metadata the Jap segment. How does nobody get this? Yeah, it's not a dumb, busted idea. It's just that it busted because it's dumb.

But just as imagine if it didn't bust, then there'd be more of it. What? Yep. Section 2. Did the kids get it? They don't.

Vision's what counts. This isn't about convincing people who can't see it that digital matters. It's already second nature to the kids growing up today. They're just, they're not just sold on it. They're living it. We're not casually messing around at Fortnite or Roblox. They surely are. These platforms are their world, their reality, they're everything.

Are they? No. they're just fucking around Tom's like don't say my deepest fear Mr. N-Hatimmy They're pouring I gotta go back to the sadness stock and start my intro again

They're pouring Billions into skins virtual weapons plots of digital land stuff they can't touch can't sell outside the game and they don't give a damn about that limitation To them, value isn't tied to physicality like it was for older generation. It's about flexing it, living it, being part of something bigger than themselves.

By which he means infinitely smaller than themselves. They get it in their bones. This isn't a trend or a phase. It's their life, a fundamental shift in how worth is measured. In fact, the kids today are NFT. I'm selling mine. Not infanticule a tikes. I'll still sell them.

Act fast. I'm still painting, sculpting, pouring my soul into physical art at its core, my root. But these kids are showing me. Just have a period. You can't just put commas for everything. That's not the only one.

You could try a semicolon, even. Like, you've got options. So many times that. actually would have made sense. I don't think we need to trust this man with semi-coly. Fair enough. But these kids are showing me something powerful. Digital isn't here to replace what I do.

It's another way to make something real. To stake a claim on creation. It doesn't matter how old you are. What matters is having the eye to see it. The vision to grasp what's unfolding. Fast forward a decade. These kids are grown. They've got jobs, disposable income.

And they're not going to need a sales pitch to jump onto NFTs, they'll demand them, expect them as a given. Disposable income, okay. Good luck. Why settle for one canvas on a wall when you go to own a digital piece too? Project it in an augmented reality, trade it across platforms all locked tight on the blockchain. The old ways are going to feel archaic like clinging to dial up in the digital age.

This isn't some wild guess. It's happening right now. Section 3. NFTs aren't just fancy pictures. No, they're not even that. No, they're less than that. Who were you arguing with? Who said they were just fancy pictures?

You did. You said it. I was a little late. I heard him. He got me, though. If you still think NFTs are just overpriced JPEGs? You're missing the whole damn point. Maybe it's because of all the fucking priced JPEX.

I mean, not even overpriced. Yeah. this actually can't have value this stupid idea nothing in it that was value you're talking about no yeah

it's like calling the internet just email back in the 90s no one did that this is a system a technology a seismic in how we prove ownership authenticity and value in a world that's all pixels it feels like he's shaped

during each sentence that he's typing, right? By the end of it. Like he starts off normal, but he's shaking by the end. Vibrating. You want to bite on this orange? And it's already

taken root everywhere. Music's in deep. Platforms like Royal, co-founded by three Lao, let fans by fractional ownership of songs like NASA's Ultra Black or the James Smoker's latest.

Whiteness? And I just said that. Oh my God, masses. He pronounces it not. It's not network attack story. That's not what that gentleman has. I assumed it was a partnership, perhaps with you, Green. Or the chain smokers winning a race. In the fast and furious. In the vastness.

Or the chain smokers latest earning royalties with the artists. Over 100,000 paid out to 9,200,200,000. so far. Okay, yeah, not sure what that initial investment was for those guys, but that average is out to less than 11 bucks per collector in returns. Like, maybe it's better than investing in scratchers from the 7-11, but not like a lot better. Right. Yeah. No, not a lot of scratchers. Films next. Hollywood's experimenting with NFT-backed crowdfunding, exclusive releases, digital tickets that can't be scalped, gaming's jumping in, Ubisoft's champion tactics, is a start. Soon, every skin and sword could be yours, not a rental from some corporate server.

Then, there's fashion and luxury. Gucci's dropping digital bangs. Nike's RTFKT studios, crafting virtual sneakers for the metaverse. Porsche tokenizing classic cars as collectibles, virtual real estate and decentralized selling for millions. Yeah, read, when companies realize people would buy nothing for money, a lot of them found some nothing to sell to people. It's so crazy. When people shifted from Clubhouse to Twitter spaces,

they all flooded in. Switched. Sorry. Bringing flippers obsessed with what's the utility, not the art itself. I've never had a single buyer pick up my work. That should be the end of this. There's the period. We found it. Okay.

I've never had a single buyer pick up my work and ask what else they get out of it. What's the perk? It's always been about the piece, the raw creation, not some add-on. This isn't a niche gimmick or a side hustle. It's a new economy taking shape, and it's moving fast. Okay. You remember when Steve Carell's character meets one of the idiots, he's in the movie, The Big Short, he meets one of the idiots running the giant mortgage-back security desk in like 2007.

and he just gets somebody's like short everything that guy's ever touched use all my money short everything he's ever touched i would like to short all of john lavelli's fucking everything whatever he has john and i got to say you sound super confident in your post here on medium so i am offering bets that you are going to love check it out ethel write a Gmail if you want to just get in touch with me first you offering nmptes and those bets sure are out there Why not? Yeah. Got some monkeys.

Section 4. Big names are betting big. Still got doubts? Yep. Open your damn eyes. Oh, okay. These aren't fringe players. They're Titans, throwing real weight into NFTs,

building the future as we speak. Amazon's not just poking around. They're testing a marketplace pilot in 2025. Tokenized gaming assets and digital books ready to blow up next year. eBay's NFT marketplace is live, slinging collectibles like it's 1999. Starbucks is dropping NFT loyalty rewards, turning coffee into digital gold.

Adidas's into the Metaverse fuses, kicks with a virtual swagger. And they're not stopping. Sotheby's and Christie's are auctioning NFTs, cash in crypto like its pocket change. Vebe's locked in Marvel and Disney for digital gems and Nifty Gateway is a full-on production machine. cranking out curated drops.

All right. You heard him get some NFTs on eBay. That's exciting. Just like buying Beanie Babies for 50K in 1999, can't lose. Don't answer yet. We'll hear the rest of John's amazing pitch after a quick break. Makers of hunkabunks, stop right there. Oh, who are you?

It is I, Captain Internet, and I'm here to tell you. you tech guys that your new digital hunkapunks are bad. Oh, they are, huh? Yes. You sell these digital hunkabunks as something of value, but after my investigation, I've discovered they're actually worthless. The jig is up. Oh, yeah.

We know. You know they're worthless. You do? Oh, yeah, big time. We're actually very aware of that. Oh, well, I guess it's time for you to land behind bars. Yeah, and it's, it's not illegal to sell people's stupid shit, man. That's fine.

Can you imagine if it was? God, that would be the worst, goodness. Yeah, weirdly, most of the people who buy hunk of punks think they're us. They're like, you know, getting in early so they can scam other people. But they didn't. No, no, they didn't. We did that. Oh, all right.

Well, then I'm going to tell Congress to make this illegal. Sorry, you're going to explain hunk of punks to this. the octogenarians in Congress. We all donated hundreds of millions of dollars to, by the way. Yeah. Oh. Solid point. Okay.

Well, I mean, don't you feel bad? No. No. Most of us are like psychologically incapable of empathy. A lot of us are ketamine addicts. Oh, yeah. That too. That too.

Oh. All right. Well, then I guess I'm just going to tell everyone that the thing is stupid. Cool. We'll let us know how that goes. They're going to listen to me. Cool. And we're back.

When we left off, I shorted all of John Lavelli's NFTs, and I actually already made some pretty good money. And I bought some life insurance on John Lavelli. But wait, does the market get crazier? By any chance? Eli, take us away again. But wait, it gets crazier in 2025. Okay.

Walmart's Live with NN. Warranties. Buy a TV. Own the proof. Killing fakes with plans to scale next year. Disney's pumping out Star Wars NFTs on Disney Plus lightsabers you can trade, building a rewards empire for 2026. Visa's testing NFT payments, tokenized invoices now. Check out tools by 2028. Coca-Cola's slinging Coke Studio NFTs, unlocking music and vending machine perks, eyeing a 2026 takeover. Take over of what? Targets. You guys hear about that?

Targets. They're taking over vending machines. It's later in 2020s, later. Tuggets got holiday NFTs for Good and Gather. Setting up in store displays next year. Microsoft's beta testing Xbox NFT skins. Well, if Xbox is in on it, I mean, it must be doing well. Sure.

Own your call of duty gear with a gaming ecosystem push by 2027. Pepsi co's back, dropping mic drop NFTs for concerts, teasing Metaverse moves in 26. Yeah, I mean, it's really cheap real estate and Metaverse since it closed down last month. Super cheap. Now it's infinitely rare. So you can't lose if you buy it. Thank you. You know, these overhead costs for existing trademarks being digitally leveraged at essentially zero, I'm not sure that, hey, look, Disney's trying to make more money. This must be real. is quite the flex you think it is, bro.

I'm kidding. This whole essay, as someone reading it, I have to say, do you know these ethos sentences they give you, like for psych exams, where they give you nonsense words in a nonsense order? And they sort of see how hard it is for you to say it, to see how attached you are to language. That's what reading this feels like.

It feels like, it feels like I'm wearing grippy socks and being screened for whether or not I think I'm dead. These aren't scrappy startups rolling dice. They're corporate giants, household names with billions behind them, betting big on NFTs. Okay, betting big, they're betting the cost of the nothing. Yeah. The other kids they're making. This is muscle, momentum, and a middle finger to anyone calling you the fad.

The future's here, and they're building it now. If I was falling for a scam, why would so many people be willing to take my money? She's checkmate. Amazing. Section 5. Marketplaces need artists, or they're nothing. Here's where it gets messy, though. NFTs kicked off as this badass win for artists.

Screw the middlemen, sell straight to the fans. Get royalties every time it flips. That was the dream. The whole creators finally win vibe that got us fired up. Then some platforms messed it up bad. The realties optional. A total gut punch. Artist bailed.

Trading volumes tanked and everyone's pissed off. There's nothing without us artists. WTF. No creator means no market. Just dead code sitting there useless. Strip out the art and it's just bare bones rotten on a chain. What is happening in these sentences? Do you think he meant like,

They're nothing without us artists? What the fuck? Or they're nothing without us artists. What the fuck? No creators means no, like it's so unclear. That's all one set. You should skeleton key this.

Dead, we could get a leather bound. Rodding on a chain? What? Give me the motherfucking NFT, Cocksucker. WTF. Fucking shit.

For centuries, creators got screwed by gatekeepers, galleries, labels, studios taking the lion share. centuries? centuries,

Roman times absolutely fucking record labels of the Romans notoriously bad contracts. Terrible. Truskins actually invented the record. You can't make them the same way these days.

You can't even write a contract that bad these days. Some Renaissance painter painting his patron's wife just being like, I wish I could sell the numbers of this. But NFTs flipped that script

Until these platforms forgot the truth Without art, they're empty shells But it's not all doom Nifty Gateway sticks to a solid 10% royalty On every resale Foundation blends a 5% platform fee With a 10% creator cut Super Rare

Carence a minimum 10% royalty Rarable lets artists set their own rates Locked into smart contracts Art blocks builds royalties into its generative art ecosystem. These spots aren't crumbling. They're making bank

by keeping creators first. The ones dropping royalties better fix it quick or fade into nothing. The artist's community won't forgive and the market won't forget. Hey, just a quick side note, just completely unrelated.

If you're listening to this right now, you owe us 10% of some fucking number. I don't know. And if you talk about the show to like a friend, make sure anyone you're talking to also sends us 10% of whatever. So it's this actually a pretty sweet deal. You'll be getting in on the ground floor and you'll be setting up a downline for this amazing tetrahedral investment opportunity that I just described.

Section 6. Just screenshot it? Shut up already. It isn't a fight with these subheadings, isn't it. Just talking about NFTs. Oh, and that tired You can just screenshot an NFT line Kill it dead

Art's never been about the thing itself It's been about knowing it's the thing What? This is news to Sotheby's Whether it's a piece I've Bled into or a digital token The street art that I bled into The street photography

I'm out of my photos Can't actually develop the photos Unless I bleed into them Pretty ruined, actually. It's crazy. I actually bleed in black and white. I don't know how I do it. A photocopy of the Mona Lisa isn't the Mona Lisa.

A faked Rolex isn't a Rolex. NFTs deliver what the digital age has lacked. Verifiable ownership. This is mine stamped. Backed by the blockchain truth. We've already lived this. Nobody owns their Spotify playlist, yet they pay for it. Nobody clutches.

is a DVD of their Netflix show yet they subscribe. Nobody hauls a stack of CDs yet music's worth billions. Digital ownership's here. NFTs make it permanent, tradable, authentic. I can have a digital

version of a fake Rolex. Sign me up right now. Amazing. I would like to buy a credit default swatch to beat this guy on everything he thinks he's bullish on. Oh my God, it's about Timex someone. thought of this.

Part, I forgot the number. Tex making it bigger. This isn't a solo act either. Converging tech's turbocharging it. Augmented reality like Apple's Vision Pro will let you display your NFT art anywhere. Really? From the wall to a virtual gallery.

Yeah, there's actually a big housing crisis for NFTs. That fucking God, Apple is finally doing something about it. And Apple has killed the vision pro because nobody wanted it. Tetering. Now I can afford one.

So I can have one now. That's nice. Artificial intelligence is churning out generative art and music ripe for tokenization. Yeah, so good. The metaverse, still rough around the edges, but coming fast, will be a playground where NFT ownership defines status, identity, property. kids today don't need convincing. Their Fortnite skins and Roblox

avatars already hold more weight than a poster in their room. When they're adults, they'll expect art, music, collectibles to work the same way. Owned, traded, flaunted, all on the blockchain. I love this argument because it confuses ownership with

access to stuff. No one gives a shit about owning digital stuff. That's nothing. We all know that. We just want to use stuff and also just to be clear for our audiences NFTs don't mean that you own anything. You don't own the song or you don't even get a copyright or have exclusive and enforceable access to anything. You just get like concepts of a plan of ownership.

You get a memorandum of understanding or an eventual deal with the owner, but no, you don't. Nothing. It's literally nothing. Chapter 8. It's safe enough. Relax. No one you should trust ever about anything. thing ever, yeah.

As he takes off the condom. Yeah. Digital's got risks, scams, creeps, addiction. But the infrastructure's catching up. The Kids Online Safety Act is pushing default privacy and anti-exploitation

tools. Platforms like Roblox are rolling out parental dashboards and age-based restrictions. Blockchain's transparency and post-quantum cryptography will make transactions safer than ever. By the time today's gamers

are buying NFTs with their own cash, the digital world will be more secure than the physical one ever was. Okay, well, that's a fucking relief. I was assuming John's picture derivatives were being targeted by quantum hackers like all the time.

Okay, we're all good. We're all good. Section 9. It's happening fast. Look at the timeline. Personal computers went from 10% adoption in the 80s, to 90% today. Internet jumped from 10% in 95

to 74% in the U.S. By 2010, smartphones hit 10% in 2008, everywhere by 2023. I couldn't be bothered to look up that number. They're like, look them two of the three, okay? Gestures vaguely. NFTs are at 3 to 5%

now. It's a 5 to 10 year sprint. The infrastructure is here. Culture's shifting. The generation. Ready. There's a little setback. The Metaverse went down, so we're back down to 1.5%. That's no growing, right?

10 to 20 years teetering down the slide. You all remember when 10% of us had computers in the 80s and then almost everybody got rid of them. Almost everybody bought them again. NFTs are like that. Yeah, also in the late 80s,

5% of Americans had Betamax players. Yeah, right. I was backed by Sony, so anyone's saying that beta's dead doesn't know how history works. Right. Buy it. Well, you still get it. Yeah. Now, the bad news is that about 7% of Americans have coronary heart disease.

So enjoy your NFTs. Well, you can. That number's going to be 100%. You're going to go long on heart attack. There you go. Hodel. Final section. Code runs it.

People live it. At its core, this is about code. the tech that makes it real, and the people who make it matter. Artists finally getting a fair shot. Fans turning into owners. Kids proving their digital dreams have weight. NFTs are our chance to rewrite the rules.

To build a world where creation wins, digital or physical. It's all art. The skeptics can cling to their old ways, but the rest of us, we're stepping into something bigger, a future where values, defined by vision, not by just what you can hold. This is just the beginning, and it's going to be incredible.

Well, values defined by what somebody will pay, and it's gone way fucking down. So that's the story of NFEs. Even since you wrote this shit, yeah. All right, Eli, if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? I don't like how much this guy and myself think about lots of topics the same. Yeah, you're on the same page with Piracy. It sounds like, are you ready for the quiz? Yeah. All right, there is a Venn diagram here that is a single circle with what pieces? A, NFT Bros, B, Peptide Bros, C, Crypto Bros. D.

People who call each other bros. I'm going to go with D, Crypto. People who call each other. Freedom. Which one is D? D? People who call each other bros. There we had it.

First try. Crypto Bros. All right, Eli. What do you call an investment that keeps enticing and to put more money in but never delivers? A, NFTs. T-A-S-E-A-S-E-T-E-S-E-T-S.

is that one. That's that one for sure. Yeah. All right, Delai, what do you call it when you have a JPEG of the one ring

on the blockchain? A. A non-fungible Hulkkean. Fantastic. You can't sell that one. It's too precious. All right.

I got one for you, Ely, and I have multiple answers here. So considering the argument, just look at how useful little B, when you access the Metaverse with your Apple Vision Pro made it into his fucking piece.

What argument did John decide to leave out? A, you can fit as many as five on each of your floppy disks. B, NFTs are easy to facts. C, they won't weigh down your horse when you travel. Or D, they look lovely under the glow of a whale

oil lamp. Ooh, I'm going to go with D. Whale oil lamp? It is the whale oil lamp one, yeah. Eli, nicely done. You aced it. You are the winner. All right. Well, I've heard him today. I need to make amends. I would like an essay from Heath next week. I appreciate that. All right. For Cecil Noah, Tom and Eli, I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us.

We'll be back next week, and I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to Cognitive Distance, No Rogan Experience, Dear Old Dads, God Off Movies, The Scaving Atheist, Skeptocrat, and D&D Minus. and if you'd like to join the ranks of our beloved patrons, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with us on social media or take a look at show notes, check out citationpod.com.

Makers of AI, stop. No, it's us again. Oh, fuck. It's you, same guys? Again? Yeah, man, the whole thing is like eight guys. God damn it. Want some academy? I'm an academy too.