The Wolf Of All Streets - What’s Next For NFTs | Micah Johnson, Founder of Akutar

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

How do you stand out in the metaverse? Micah Johnson (@Micah_Johnson3) - creator of Aku - is the perfect person to answer that question. His animated video NFT was released in 2021 and has done over 24MM in sales volume. Since then, Micah has seen worldwide recognition: being named one of the “Top 50 Most Influential People in NFTs” by Fortune and named one of the Most Innovative Companies of 2022 by Fast Company. He joins us today to talk about the increasing pressure of a growing community, the importance of having a grand vision, what’s next for Aku, and the non-stop grind of leaning in to really big dreams. JOIN THE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER 📩 https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS ►► Vauld is a Smart Investing Crypto Platform which allows the user to invest without any stress! With Vauld, you can earn free passive income in crypto. Vauld lets you earn the highest interest rates in the crypto industry - 12.68% on stablecoins and 6.7% on BTC and ETH.. Sign up below and get a 40% kickback on trading fees, 5% commission on interest payouts and 5% commission on loan interest. Vauld’s ‘Buy the Dip’ function automatically purchases specific cryptocurrencies for you when the price dips below a pre-set level. It’s awesome! Sign up here: http://thewolfofallstreets.info/vauld ►► Secure your assets, secure your future, with Arculus. Arculus is the crypto cold storage wallet that combines the world’s strongest security protocols with an easy-to-manage app. Store, swap, and send your crypto all with a simple tap of your Arculus Key™ card. Order the safer, simpler, smarter crypto cold storage solution today at https://amazon.com/arculus EPISODE LINKS Micah Johnson: https://twitter.com/Micah_Johnson3 Production & Marketing Team: https://penname.co/ FOLLOW SCOTT MELKER • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottmelker • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wolfofallstreets • Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io • Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe • Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3FASB2c

This episode is sponsored by Arculus and Vauld. Please stay tuned for more information on both of these incredible companies later in the episode. What's up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker. This is the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast. For twice a week, I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, trading, music, finance, art, sports, politics, anyone with a good story to tell. Some of our guests are more than one of those things. And that definitely qualifies for Micah Johnson, who I have with me here today. Obviously, everybody knows by now that Micah is a prolific NFT artist and was a major league baseball player. But what's interesting is that last time I had him on the show was August of 2020, and his involvement in the NFT space was actually barely, barely a thing.

We were largely talking about what NFTs could be and about his physical art and his paintings and the early ideas for Aku, which we will get into now. So I can't wait to have this conversation, realizing it's been this long, even though we talk pretty regularly in real life, as people say. Micah Johnson, man, thank you for coming on. No, thanks for having me, man. That's so wild. It's August 2020. You were my longest friend. It's great. You were up in New England, like, yeah, what is it? Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. I can't even remember New Hampshire, right? And you were like in your studio and you were painting all day, right? Most of our conversation, if I recall, was about your process, painting with your hands, the idea for this character from your nephew.

So like maybe we should just talk about where you've come since August 2020, the basic broad strokes. Broad strokes is really dug into the utility of the blockchain, not necessarily NFTs, but the utility of the blockchain to develop a character, develop story and tap into this ecosystem of NFTs to kind of get this character Aku, as you see behind me, out into the world. And so like, you know, I in August, you know, I was I was in NFTs at that point for about, you know, almost a year. But, you know, back then they were like, you were saying they were like, they were nothing like it was really, really small. So it's wild to see even the growth of the entire space in that time. Like mind blowing. Yeah. It's only been about 18 months or so since then. And if you and I had been predicting when we had that conversation that, I don't know, NFTs would have a sketch on Saturday Night Live, people would sell one for $69 million just this week.

I mean, Xcopy did like $24 million in 10 minutes. People would have thought we were nuts, right? I couldn't have predicted that. No chance. Like, no, I didn't see it coming from that level. And it seemed like it happened overnight. And, and I think that, you know, I remember back to like, what March or February of last year, about March and April, that's when like, pandemonium hit when like, everybody was like, I need to get in this, I need to do something. Every company and agency was scrambling to like, figure out they need to do something tomorrow, you know? And it's like, um, I think there's still a long ways to go. I know like there's like mass adoption, but I still feel like there's not that much innovation yet. And, and like, it's a lot of like rinse and repeat type things. Um, and so hopefully that we, hopefully we can get out of that, that stage at some point here soon.

And we start seeing some really cool stuff. Yeah, I agree. I think that we've seen sort of this huge building in it on the collectible side that's posing as art, but really haven't seen the true art adoption of it that might come. I mean, my recollection of how it all happened was really kind of NBA Top shot, really set it off. Right. And so then you had all the athletes coming in and sort of not understanding it, what appeared to be just this massive money grab, right? People come in, like, I have a baseball card. I might as well have a NFT and do that. And largely most of those failed. And I know for a fact, you had everyone calling you trying to basically facilitate it well but what people didn't understand uh at that time was that like this was like we were building for a long time

before that mass adoption hit it wasn't like we just boom we had an idea we made a project and launched the next day like top shot has a long track record of successful things and roham has a long track record of being incredibly successful in the nft space right and so like nba top shot didn't just like appear overnight and like you right and so like NBA Top Shot didn't just like appear overnight and like you know it was a thing or Aku didn't appear overnight and a lot of these projects or you know agencies and companies and celebrities were coming in thinking that like oh like Aku or whoever just to take Aku for example was just like a Mike is a nobody he got no followers like how can if he can do that I can do that and it wasn't case. You know, the case was like, I've been doing this or like learning

and studying for over almost two years, you know? And that's what, that's what it took. You just saw like the result. You didn't see the process, but that's, that's life. That's everything. It takes 30 years to become an overnight success, right? Or whatever they say, everybody sees it the minute that it happens, but they don't see any of the process. But I want to talk about the process for Aku because the last time you were on the show, as I said, it was sort of an inkling of an idea. And now Aku has grown into like a legitimate celebrity and media brand, right? So talk about that path. Yeah, that was, I didn't anticipate the rise, you know, everything hit. Aku for me is this thing that's almost like a destiny where it's like, I was releasing Aku February 21st, 2021, regardless of mass adoption or not.

That was a character that was really personal to me. That was a character I really believed in. And I just wanted to get it out into the world. Like the fact that mass adoption hit at that exact same time kind of like fueled Aku's kind of growth. I was confident in that like Aku, there was nothing like it in the world. Like my daughter's watching all these cartoons and all like, you don't see anything like Aku. That's just like, okay, that you can recognize it. That's a black character.

That's a very confident black character. Like that's an original character. It's not like a Into the Spider-Verse kind of like remake of a character that we always had and so i was confident in that but i thought the horizon was going to be about you know a couple years where i have to prove this out over time and obviously everything got sped up and with that being sped up like we just continued to or i continue to try myself with like really expert people, um, from all different kinds of industries. Um, and what's super cool about that is like a lot of people have no idea who's working on Aku, who's a part of Aku behind the scenes,

but it's really all friends. It's almost like a family where it's like, you're going to see this brand in this person and like in their friends with this person in that brand. And it's all organic. It's never been like, you got to pitch them on this idea of like their friends with this person in that brand and it's all organic it's never been like you got to pitch them on this idea of like making money through this nft it's just like yo this is dope let's ride you know and that's been every single person we work with and so that's what's really special about aku is just that kind of uh people just ready to like people see it as theirs you know and they want to like you, unleash everything that they're good at and help it help it grow. Yeah, it's really, it's really incredible to watch. And I mean,

I think a lot of people obviously know about Bored Apes, right? And then they've seen sort of all the failed knockoffs, which are just, again, sort of cash grabbed. But what I find so interesting about Bored Apes that I didn't really understand initially initially is the IP surrounding it, right? Is that you're not just buying this sort of JPEG, you're buying sort of a membership to the club, you feel like a part of this community. But if you're a celebrity, an artist, and you want to create a DJ duo, which is happening right now from your board apes, or get a record deal or whatever, you can do that with the likenesses of these apes. But so Aku for you, it sort of started, I know you had bigger ideas but

just as a series of nfts this character but now like I said it's sort of a full-blown media brand can you talk about at least what's public what's coming what you're building around it and what that looks like I just think people still view most nfts are like it's just this piece of art that I own and I can put it on my wall and it's so much bigger than that yeah i think for like first and foremost i think there's there's gonna be a consolidation of top projects in a space as they as they begin to go like you see what yugo labs is doing yugo labs is now off and and doing their thing and you know i'm really i'm really excited for that that team like i think that's good because like there was a window where teams had a year to show like legitimacy and like build things and do things other than merch drops, right?

Like there was this window and a lot of people didn't capitalize on that. They took the money and were chilling. And so what happens when I think in that case is a consolidation happens. People don't want to keep putting money into these startups that don't end up doing anything. Like that's just life. You're not going to go invest in somebody who just has this idea. You need to show us what you're doing and prove it. And that's why I think consolidation will happen. And for us, a lot of people, it always bothered me that people associate it as an NFT,

because I don't get the NFT. I don't have the attention to the NFT space like some other projects do. And everyone's like, somebody the other other day was like you started as an NFT project how do you go mainstream I said bro we we are mainstream like we are mainstream we're just not nft stream and I think it's because like what we have coming forward hopefully we can start showing that more with like the akutars and you'll start seeing the different brands and different people that are designing traits for the akutars, who we collaborated with, who are thinking of ways to reward the community and engage the community with their existing businesses that integrate into Web3 using our ecosystem. And so I think that's what's really cool

is like coming soon, you're gonna be able to see like everybody who's been behind Aku this whole time, start activate their network and their business lines and adding value to the Aku community. And that's what's super dope that I haven't seen from like a cultural level yet, you know, from like the tastemaker level yet. Right. But even on top of that, like Aku could be, sort of is, but could become a legitimate celebrity on the level of

anyone else in Hollywood without being an actual living person, right? Dude, that's the dream. Like, we were just with a lot of people, and we were talking about this, and I was telling them, like, look, like, I don't care if my name is associated with Aku or not. Like, I don't, you know, I live in the moment. You never have. I really don't care at all. What would be super dope to me is like

akutars are out film out now the film has all this momentum behind it like everybody's riding with aku at this point right and everyone's like who is this thing like who's behind this and it's like i don't know like i saw you know paper planes was in chapter seven right i saw paper planes doing this i saw x and y and z doing this you know and it's like i don't know who behind this anymore but this is super dope you know and that's like that's the goal like that's that's 100 the goal and that's why i think uh uh commercial rights are something that's interesting you know and that's what made board apes really successful because it allowed people to kind of like you don't know who you know now but you don't know who was behind it you know like i think that's

the goal well you know now uh accidentally right because they got doxxed in the media, which is a whole other conversation. But I don't think they ever intended for people to know. But they've made billions of dollars, literally billions of dollars, those guys. Yeah, yeah. In a year. Yeah, that's wild. They were the first ones to really introduce and like this commercial rights thing. And, you know, truth be told like not

everybody's going to commercialize the ip if it was that easy then like there'd be a thousand board apes there'd be a thousand akus like there wouldn't be disney wouldn't have this premium on it or pixar or you know these basically ip houses wouldn't exist right everybody was making great things so like commercial rights though do give you that optionality and it gives you optionality for like a couple of people to do something really dope, you know, that adds value to the thing someone owns. Yeah. I mean, people sold it sort of back to the point. Yeah. He sold a piece of an NFT for $69 million, but it was thousands of days of work. Yeah. Wild, wild. $69 million. Right. I mean, what's it yeah you've obviously i've seen

the drop so i mean you make quite a bit of money when you do a drop i mean what does that feel like to like be sitting there you got five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever it is to sell i've been there when there's been problems as well what's that like it's like it's like you you know it could completely fail and you could mint five of these things. Early on, it wasn't that much pressure because it was like we had a successful first drop. It was just really just me making art, right? But then we've switched the gear

and formed a real company right around this. And that's when the pressure turns on because it's like- Got investors. Got people's money. You are building something investors, you're, you're, you're, you're, you are building something right now that like you have a responsibility to investors. And I look at, and I think investors in the same boat, you put in the collectors as well. So you have responsibility to not just like a few, you know, investors, you have a responsibility for thousands of people

that like, you got to keep delivering on like production quality momentum um innovation and then like you had to keep executing on all these different other business verticals and so once the company was formed the pressure got turned up a little bit for sure um versus when it was just me just you you know, bullshitting around, making really cool art and telling the story, right? Yeah, what's really interesting is I've obviously, I can say Aku is the only NFT collection I own, right? And so I, to the same sort of point you're making, I don't really view it as an NFT thing, right?

I feel like it's my duty as a part of the community to just own it all, right? And I don't buy it generally other nfts but so i've been through every drop right and i remember there was one of them with nifty gateway where there was an issue with the captcha and then you were locked out from buying more than one so it only minted like a couple hundred right and i know that that was extremely stressful and annoying for you because it was literally like you lost all this money but now looking back those are the ones that are selling for the most and have the highest floor because they're more scarce right yeah that was that was bananas man that was um it was a whole thing like it's 570 ended up

getting minty getting minted the previous before that was like 1400 or something or 700 or something like that and um and when that happened man it was pandemonium i was like and which is i look back on it that that was a turning point it could have gone one way or the other after that like i feel bad because i think i was texting you like how do i do the capture like you didn't have bigger problems in the world than me getting my one yeah like i think we were still like small then but it was um looking back on it that we could have gone one or two ways there we could have like crumbled and like been upset and made made a bad decision but that was the moment i realized that this when you have this kind of people behind you and people that like direct

access to people who are buying and not not just liking something they're buying it with their own money you can go in there and ask their opinion like what should we do here like this is what i'm thinking and get real-time feedback and make it make an informed decision. That's what's best for the community. So we made that decision. Like, you know, we'll open it back up. We did five 70 and that became the bottleneck. Like you look now, I think the floor of those are, are, you know, around $30,000, $35,000. And then a lot of people have been able to sell those, the early believers, and that's the bottleneck for the moon God. So I think, you know,

it all worked out. But like most of us, I think I will just never sell them. Right. I only noticed because I happened to be doing the last drop. And then obviously you see sort of like what the floor price is, but I wouldn't even, that's a 35 X investment for me in a few months. I wouldn't even think about selling it. Isn't that, I mean, there are very few of them are actually changing hands. Right. I think the most, I think that any time it's between like three to 4% available in the market, any, any chap, all of all chapters. And some of those include, you know, ridiculous prices. So like really realistically between two to 3% of all chapters are for sale. And that's, a year-long project and you know that's

that's i'm really proud of that man like you in this space where attention span is so so small uh to be able to be able to continue to deliver value where people are like yeah i see this and what's really exciting is like i think people only see we've only shown really like the tip of the iceberg of what's really happening you know like people don't know like how often we're in la you know working and developing and building or the partners that we're working with, uh, not just on Akutars, but product, you know, linear content, uh, gaming, all that kind of stuff. Like people just don't, we haven't been able to show that yet. And that's really exciting for, for me in the community is that as we start to show people more, like, it's going to be like, oh, like, damn, you know, like, they really are doing everything, you know, and it's like, we're not just doing it and rushing around.

It's like, no, it's all methodical. And it's all experts who have done this at a high level before leading the charge in different sectors, you know, that's what's really exciting. It's like, we got diamond hands now. But like, what happens when like, it's like, oh, by the way, check all this out? Yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of the differentiator you're talking to about talking about with consolidating, right? I think that you have thousands of NFT projects, and people try to do art. And I understand that that's all got its value in its community. But only a few people are treating this

like a billion dollar business, right? And I was at obviously Art Basel in Miami. I mean, you had a multimillion dollar installations for this one character, right? With like Grammy winning performances and Pusha T's over here and Kelabi's over here. But like, how do you have that level of vision for something that's, you know, kind of a piece of art?

You gotta come from a different background, man. You gotta come from a cloth where, you know, there's no like limits to how your brain thinks what you can do. And so like, that's where I come from, where like, I really think I can do anything because I know that I'm gonna work at it. And so we just try to think about and luckily, I have someone beside me like summer, you know, Watson, who also has come from the same cloth where it's like, anything's possible. And she has accomplished things in her

life that like are mind blowing. And then you surround yourself with other people that have done the same thing, and built things from nothing and so we're just a bunch of people who just really think and like these like audacious like beliefs but then like we execute on them and and in a way that like i don't know it's just fun man like it's this is so much fun and like money is so irrelevant because it's like this is such a long-term thing and in the long term it doesn't have to be like you're not thinking like you know 50 year thing it's more like let's just get to the film like once the film's out and the whole world gets to watch this film and they got push a t on the track you know the soundtrack is so dope the movie's dope and it's like once you get to that point then it's then it's a really

big thing you know and so like let's just do really fun things until we get to that point but that's not just an idea that's happening yeah it's like it's yeah exactly exactly like it's like how much of that can you talk about like how much of the movie can you talk about oh well you know we we literally flew in last night to to la to to to build start building the belt to start developing it then we're developing it you know internally uh again brought in experts uh brought in kiri hart steven fetter um from you know kiri was the you know vp over at lucasfilm now we're just building the story in the world out um and think again like things don't

it's go time man like and so like again so, like, again, going back to, like, thinking that we could do anything, you know, we're gonna, we're building the story arc here, and it really is a six-week sprint with the objective of creating film and TV congruently, because of the way we're building an Unreal Engine alongside with Epic, we can do something like that, you know, and so we want to mimic the momentum that is built in the web 3 world and bring that and carry that over to like the web to content creation world and typically a film takes years and years and years and you got to get go through approvals and greenlit it's like well if we have the funding to make this you know culturally relevant like

stop the world film, like with our vision and the people that we have, let's just go do it on our timeline. And then we'll see what happens. But we know that the story already is really, really good. And it's been like nothing like it. And we also know the music is gonna be really, really dope. And there's been nothing like it.

And so let's just do it on our timeline. So that's what we're doing now like the next six weeks is just a sprint and then putting together a visual language like this is like a pilot episode or a scene from the film this is a track got to get push on it no doubt and uh and like this is like kind of like a early version of what what the film will look like will Well, the aesthetic largely matched the, obviously the drops. Um, I know, I think the drops was, was really miraculous how we were able to pull that off with such a small team. It was like, at some point it was two people, uh, one person at some point it was three people. Like it was miraculous, man.

Um, the, but the Akutars we brought in, I think our Akutar team who's making the Akutars, about 30, 35 people. Can you tell us what the Akutars is? You keep referencing, obviously. Oh, yeah, yeah. I want people to know exactly what it is, yeah. Akutars are basically our version of a PFP, but what's different is, you know,

they're 15,000 3D-generated Akus with all different, they're very story-driven, though. It's not like let's just put a bunch of random traits and press a button and get this. Aku with cigar, Aku with bunny ears. Yeah, like Aku. We got some Aku with the thriller jackets type stuff. You know, like we got some stuff with Aku that they're very story driven 3D NFTs.

And why it's really important that people understand why do you need 30 people building these, right? It's because we're building these not just to be a cool profile pictures. Like every one of them has to be built to be living in an ecosystem right like so one thing people think they always talk about the metaverse i'm about to like debunk this whole myth like we're building this our characters will be metaverse ready but what the hell does that really mean because if you build sandbox has a different sandbox has a different aesthetic roblox has a different aesthetic fortnite has a different aesthetic nba 2k fifa all these games have different aesthetics so when you want to bring your metaverse ready character in it you're gonna have to redesign it every single time right and so for us building in unreal engine and building these characters in unreal engine which is epics

engine game engine um allows and we allows us to build these things without with very little technical debt meaning when it's time to integrate these aquatars in a metaverse or a world or a virtual environment it's not going to take us much time because we're building those like with experts from all these massive studios who have built these amazing films like we have one dude who lit like the most seen in Jurassic Park with the t-rex lighting aku aku akutars you know it's like that's why we did it because again we got we got to move quick we got to move quicker than everybody else and execute on the high level it's an interesting point point about the different metaverses in games and having to effectively reskin it for each one

because I think people have this, I talk about it all the time, so I apologize for everyone who's heard it, but people have this sort of ready player one vision of the metaverse, like that we're just going to plug into this second life and live there. That's not going to happen, right?

The metaverse is just going to be like whatever game you love or whatever experience you love or whatever experience you plug into there'll be a whole bunch of metaverses that you'll just it's a more interactive game or or sort of life choice or it'll just be stuff that you know you're wearing your goggles and you look at an ad and it tells you a hamburger by blinking your eyes or something i don't know right it's silly man like people are spending a shit ton of money like around this hope and promise of the metaverse and if you just look at the different styles of these different games and

realize i don't know if that really that's not going to work because this style is so much different than that style like like like aku aku as it stands the aquitars as they stand can't go into fortnite like it won't match our visual language well sure we could do something with aku have a skin and that's really great there There's Aku skin in Sandbox. But thinking of this massive Akutar or any PFP ecosystem going into a world, yo, that's so silly. Guys, I have a serious question for you. How much interest are you earning in your bank account? Is it 0.00001% or something similar? We all know by now that there's a better way in crypto, but you want to be using the best platform possible. And that is Vauld. I have been using it myself now for quite a while, earning the highest interest rates in the industry, 12.68%

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You guys have got to try it. And guess what? You can buy it right on Amazon. Go buy your Arculus on Amazon now. Yeah. So another point, right? So you've got Decentraland and we've got the sandbox. So we've got all these sort of blockchain native metaverse ideas and whatever else is being built. There's plenty of them. How do you, from, I guess, as a user, first of all, like people are buying

real estate in these things, right? But as a builder, how do you choose the winner? How do you choose where to focus your resources? I mean, Snoop's in the sandbox. Does that mean Aku needs to go into the sandbox because Snoop is there? You know what I mean? Or is it, do you go where the luxury brands are that are in Decentraland or both? That's a really good question. I think for us in particular, we look at ourselves as a very story-driven brand like media company like it's not about like let's integrate just because we want to like we believe in the virtual world i think so i still think people enjoy passively enjoying content you know or going to an event

or hanging out with friends like they just want to consume something like there's a reason why tiktok is so successful people just want to enjoy. They don't need to like go through this whole thing, right? And so for us, we don't really like, one thing I'm really fascinated in is the ability to watch linear content with friends, right? Linear content in a way where it's like, okay, we enjoy this. We watch this together.

But now we can go into the same scene of the same show we're watching like and then like go hang out if we wanted to like it has that you have an option you know and that's what's really interesting and how we're building um because a lot of things we're building are interoperable so like we can use assets we're building in a series and then like don't have to rebuild it for the for a virtual world so i think having people give people the option where you watch episode one and you go into this virtual world and now you're in the same world and we're having a concert with you know xyz in there or people are hanging out in there you have games in there i think that's really cool is when you can't tell what world you're in

if you're watching the show or virtual but it has to be optionality man it shouldn't be like this is a virtual world you gotta go into it you know i don't think i don't like you but you're watching the show or virtual, but it has to be optionality, man. It shouldn't be like this is a virtual world. You got to go into it. You know, I don't think you're in L.A. with your Oculus on and I'm in Florida with my Oculus on and we roll into this like concert together and we hang out. Yeah. Like I think I think that's going to be

something is ways away, man. When people are putting like the Oculus is on and like enjoying things, you know, I think I still think we're like five five plus years out so do you think that i mean so that said most of what you've seen in the nft space is a bubble right i mean it's just a bunch of i'm not saying that like necessarily the creator is intended for to be a cash grab i think that anytime you have new innovation a bunch of people rush in and try things and that's fine but like i've got to imagine that you know we got bored apes but when you get like i don't know pudgy penguins and

turnt up turtles or freak out foxes or i don't know what the hell i'll call them big but like those are going to be worthless probably right i mean yeah it's it's you know what is this because it's not easy to build um ip man like i don't care how much money you have you could have a billion dollars if your ip sucks like nobody's gonna enjoy it like you look at like some of the most successful video games right those characters didn't like turn into like these mega superstar characters in film or, you know, you know what I mean? So like, you can't make, you can't, first of all, you can't make people like, you can't feed people bullshit. Like it has to be authentic. Right.

And then it's not easy to build something like that, man. Like it's not easy to build. Like we have Aku, right. And I really think like my daughter's two you show her aku one time and now she like recognizes aku from just the helmet every hundred percent every space helmet she sees now like an ashton helmet doesn't have to be aku's helmet like you see aku back there like it could be a nasa helmet she's like aku dada aku aku aku goes nuts nephews the same thing right we have an incredibly iconic character but yet it is still incredibly hard and requires work like non-stop work with experts to even like build something like semi-cool right or semi like uh

build semi-infrastructure right so like if imagine just having some random shit that you have you pay somebody a couple a couple bucks an hour to make or how are you going to turn that into a massive thing it's not possible man like it's silly so yeah it feels like you're always one like whack or corny asset from blowing the whole thing not you specifically but if you're building one of these things like if you put something out that's not of the quality that people expect and it's kind of off brand you could just lose people's interest because people's attention spans are so small yeah man i think it was sad you know it was frustrating to see like when we were doing these chapters and seeing the quality level and just continue to get better and better but still seeing all these other projects like we're putting out

stuff that was like made in like a week or whatever it was like an hour and giving them attention giving that attention and and funding essentially to do nothing like what have they done like we're here we are like you said putting on all these exhibits executing on like linear content executing on product executing on like scaling which is like the hardest thing for any company to do is scale so like i don't care if you have a billion dollars, if you can't scale, you don't know how to scale or delegate it's worthless. So here we're doing all these things, but like turned up turtles was getting funding and attention. Right. And that shit was annoying to me.

Cause it was like, you're, that's going to create the bubble. When you start, when all these start to burst and you realize turned up turtles couldn't execute on a linear content or a cool event event or couldn't make anybody care about it. Right. Like, and everything starts to bust. And then it's like, we're all, we're good. Like, Aku is going to be incredibly cool and successful and do his thing.

Yugo Labs is good. But then it's like the whole point of Web3 was to create this, this, this space for independent creators. Right. But like you're, you're funding the wrong independent creators right yeah so now is it all aku all the time for you because i mean you were painting a lot obviously i don't doesn't seem like you're painting that much you were also doing you know the photo nfts and all this other stuff is is that all like on this on the side burner right now all aku yeah i pay i started paying a little bit again but um it's more spare time stuff i think i think we have

a massive opportunity and a responsibility um more importantly like a responsibility that you know people want to see this vision go through um and deserve to see it go through so it's more responsibility just like that's if i'm awake i should be working on aku that's how that's how i think about it all right so let's say that you take this idea 10 drops feature film billboards whatever what's the even grander vision beyond that i know most people would stop there but i know you so i know that you've already you're playing 40 chess and you're 10 years ahead i think that it's um i want i want aku to be a thing where it's a platform that everybody's utilizing where you know it's a character that's

being used in educational programs because kids resonate it and you can get a kid to learn about financial literacy in a way that they wouldn't if you're just sitting there telling them like you know this is how you do taxes but it's like aku and doing that it's a program where uh another program where aku is teaching kids how to do 3d things and how you make an animated content if the metaverse is the future there's not enough people to build the metaverse so like how do we utilize aku to teach kids how to build 3d assets like they like in you know minecraft type stuff but how do you make animated content that's super that should be super simple so i think like having aku be uh a voice across different platforms in a way that we haven't really seen a character be

you know a character in linear content has been product it has been you know uh something you consume but you buy your kids mickey mouse stuff and all that we haven't really seen a character that takes on a life form um that other people are utilizing to uh do good with educate with and like that's kind of like the grander vision you have the theme parks you have you know all this stuff but it's just um i really think aku is the biggest going to be the next biggest like the biggest character like you're gonna like it's like you know the next spider-man when was the last time we had a character on that level you know it's been it's been too long yeah yeah it's it's been forever so does that mean that you're somewhat leaving the nft part of it behind like that was sort of the launching pad and all this is happening because i mean it doesn't if that if all that happens none of this needs to

be blockchain native in any way shape or form or form, right? That would be a really good question. It would be fully mainstream. Yeah, it's a really good question, dude. I think I look at the NFT community we have now and that we'll have with the Akutars as really a core assemblance of people that can, as we grow and expand, can participate in the growth and expansion of the things that we are doing. I completely agree. Not everything needs the blockchain, right? Blockchain could be a springboard to do other things. But I really believe in having that core audience help make decisions that can add value to

them is super helpful to make right, and to not have to like, you know, experiment. And so to be honest with you, I think I'm, I'm very interested in keeping this core community tight. Like, sure, we can make, keep on doing drops and make money, but then it becomes a thing where the ecosystem becomes too large and it becomes all noise versus people who you really can like rely on to offer sound, sound opinions and advice and so i think for me um post chapters going into akutars explaining the community a little bit but um

just having that core people that we just win with that you enjoy winning with it's like akudow how do we how do we get our hands on the Akutars when they launch? Are they going to be minted on Nifty? Is it going to be something else? How are you guys going to drop those? Yeah, it's going to be on our own site. So you'll be able to mint it on our own site. We'll announce the launch date as we get closer. But I would say

that anybody that owns a chapter will get a free Akutar. And there's other mechanics that you get more Akutars if you own more or more unique ones if you own more uh rolling in akutars man yeah yeah yeah yeah so here i think you're good man there's a couple people that are really good uh and so we're gonna do that airdrop on um on april 7th um and then um give everybody a basically a pass and we're airdropping things because a lot of times you see people, they give you access to a presale,

and you gotta go in there. A right to buy. A right to buy, go click the button, pay gas. And basically I'm like, yo, that's whack. Like we have people who have been here for all year long who are spending money. Like we can afford to pay the gas for people to make it a very seamless process.

And partially to my dad and my uncles, like own a bunch of like, you know, my family, man, like they're not going to like, I can't imagine them going to click it. I would love to see your dad up at MetaMask, like trying to negotiate the gas fees, sliding them slow to fast. No. So, so I'm like, yo, I got to solve for this dude because he wears me out like every day. Like, Hey man, what do I got to do with these chapters?

Why don't you give me this extra one? And I'm like, dude, I'm just gonna airdrop them. Like, I'm not I'm not messing with this. Right. But most people don't. Well, I guess it's a matter of having the mentality that you would reinvest, but you also have funding, right? So I mean, it's it's a budgetary issue, I'd imagine for you, how much will it cost us? And should we siphon off some of our investment to do that? Or the money that you've personally made? Probably not that easy for a lot of projects to just airdrop things if they don't have the resources. Well, that's a great point.

That's a really good point. One thing I will say is because of what we've had, we have a collection of over 15,000, close to 15,500 chapters. That's a large collection. That's like 5,500 more than Bored Apes, right? Or CryptoPunks. And so we're like, okay, we've done this. Like we've, we're successful enough to be able to front gas for people where they just like, don't do anything, man. You guys done, you have done enough. Like just chill, chill out, collect your chapters, collect your, you know, your, what you need, and we'll just airdrop it to you. So once we have all the airdrops and stuff how do you keep uh filling that addiction that people have for getting more stuff oh man we got you know they're gonna never stop this

community is never stopping like these communities don't stop right they're gonna whether you want to make an nft or do something they're gonna always want want more dude that's such a good point man you got you got so much smarter about nfts man since august 2020 man i didn't even i was like you've got a project letters no i told you i should i should but i you know no i think i think for us man like definitely the exciting part we haven't even talked about what we're doing with the aquitars right like you know they're super dope we got five brand collaborators um but like we're going to announce more mechanisms around how we're looking at like segmenting the Akutars out, kind of like a team dynamics. And so too, like the way we built the ecosystem by incorporating brands in our relationships, like we treat it as a way for these brands to integrate into our community and add value to the community with their existing business lines. So like it doesn't fall on us to continually add value.

Like you're going to have, you know, these brands adding value on their own, doing dope things on their own. They have nothing to do with us. You know, have brands integrating saying like, you know, if you own this trait, we're going to do this with your community. We're going to, you know, we're going to do this for you guys. Right. Or, you know, I think that's what's super cool. So you'll let people run with the ip kind of like the ape thing where like you own an ape you not as much i know but i but if you own an ape like i

mean you can literally do anything with the likeness of that you can even which is weird to me honestly you can create an entire new nft collection that's just like flipping one characteristic or something i think i think we're gonna um definitely because i'm definitely exploring this man i think it's an interesting model i think um i think i think i'm looking at ways to make sure the occurs you know the major ip that you see like the white shirt the iconic one is like that's the iconic one but the other ones are so funky and fun that people can do some fun stuff with you know so we're definitely looking at it we need you to start painting again dude right do you miss it because i remember this is like what i reference this all the time because it's so similar to me that the first time we had

that conversation you said i was a major league baseball player my whole life all i did was play baseball and the day i quit i never picked up baseball again. I haven't touched my turntables besides like one thing in like five years. And it was my whole life. Have you picked up a baseball since? Like is painting going to go the way of baseball? Definitely I'm not picked up a baseball since. My elbow would pop out of socket at this point. Like there's not a chance I'm doing that again.

But painting, you know, I've been painting a little bit. But painting requires such an intense focus and nobody else can do it for me right so it's like i gotta be 100% locked in it's not like i have like an assistance or other people working on it so like i just haven't had the time like um my wife came to my office the other day for the first time in like ever and she was in for like like 30 minutes to an hour she's like this is like a day like this is like every day and i'm like what do you mean like this is every day it's like it calls here emails here you know it's like that's every day man and that's what it takes and the people don't see that side like i think it's just like gonna do some shit and something it falls in your lap and no man it's all day every

day and so there's like a there's like a team of people trying to take your phone away from you at your wedding. Oh, yeah. Right. He doesn't stop. I guess over there, like doing deals and the family is rolling down the aisle. I told Katie, man, we've been together forever, man. Like, this is another day. It's a weekday, I think, you know, like we got to. It was really fun, though.

I mean, that was a great time. Yeah, man. I just, I don't think there's many people out there that have that sort of level of, of vision and thinking around it. Like, I can't imagine how you wouldn't hear this and rush off to go buy one. Right. Not that I'm telling people that they should, but you could have charged like 10 grand instead of a thousand bucks for each one. Right. I mean, your community would have paid anything you asked to buy these. could have charged like 10 grand instead of a thousand bucks for each one right i mean your

community would have paid anything you asked to buy these that that's that trust is earned trust and respect is earned man and that's something that you know you i've been fighting for for this entire year it's like their trust and like continue to execute and so um i have a hard time thinking like you know somebody can spend you know a thousand bucks and i'm going to just kind of sit back and enjoy it or not reinvesting into the things, you know, somebody can spend a thousand bucks and I'm going to just kind of sit back and enjoy it or not reinvesting into the things that, you know, we need to do or not sacrifice everything. Cause this window is like, it's a massive opportunity.

Like I'll be damn if I'm going to sit back and just kind of like rely on NFTs and like, that's it. No, man. Like this is a massive opportunity that you're in rooms now that you, I would never be in rooms and before because of NFTss so like let's just go like blow this out maybe in a few years we'll when we're retired from all this we'll get together i'll like dj your painting sessions or something so if i golf i saw that i saw that almost hole in one the other day about an inch about an inch and it was it never happens like i'm not particularly good at golf it was just a moment but what was crazy is there was like this three super old

people playing ahead of me and i was just like i was alone i was behind them the whole time it was taking forever and finally the second to last hole they decide to like wave me through you know let you go no so usually i crumble under pressure i'll like shank it in the woods. They were standing like on the edge of the green in front of me when I hit that. And I thought it went in by their reaction because I couldn't see over the hill. And then I got there, they were like dying. It was this far.

Crazy. That's the worst. That's the worst, dude. When people wait for you and it's like, hey man, just turn around. Everybody turn around. Yeah, like just look the other way while I hit. But that one was magical for whatever reason i got a nice bounce or whatever so listen man where can everybody uh follow you after this more importantly join

of course i know you prioritize aku over yourself where can they join the community and keep up with what's happening yeah aku dreams on on twitter and instagram and discord you know there's links on there i think uh uh it's a great community like i don't care if you come in there and you need to buy a chapter or not like just come see the people in there and they're they'll i'll see if it gives you the thing and it's super cool how big is your discord now i'll cruise discord great question i have no clue i'm not it's really cool though man like these people are really everybody comes in there it's like yo this is dope.

I was like, yeah, we just chilling. Like we talking about, you know, everything. Or it's like, we just chill. That to me is, I know we're supposed to be done, but that's like such the community aspect of these really quality projects, even outside FT, in crypto in general and stuff. And the ability to interact with those people all over the world sort of seamlessly that to me is what's driving this entire thing

hell yeah man everybody got lonely we were all lonely for a long time man now we got we got friends man yeah especially you in these random ass places yeah then you get going you get catfished but whatever i thought you were a dude man we're cool 14 14 year old like playing video games you thought was your best but i guess that's a whole different world man so everybody follow micah go check out aku like i said i mean personally this is the only project that i feel like i'm fully invested in of all the shit that's crossed my desk i really very passionate about it and so i hope you all check it out, man. Thank you so much for doing this and good luck out there in LA. Thanks, homie.