Unchained - How Pplpleasr Helped Fortune Magazine Sell More Than $1 Million in NFTs - Ep.268

Starting point is 00:00:00 Heads up, everyone. This recording is a bit shorter than usual because it originally featured two guests. Ultimately, one guest's audio and video did not survive. However, I do promise to have them back on another time soon. If you're watching on video, you may notice some discrepancies since we had to re-record a few questions. However, hopefully tweaks to the audio make for seamless listening. Despite the snafu, this turned out to be a great episode. Enjoy the show. everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no hype resource for all things Crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started covering crypto six years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the August 31st, 2021 episode of Unchained. My book, The Cryptopians, Idealism, Greed, lies, and the making of the first big cryptocurrency craze, is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes Noble, Bookshop.org, or any of your favorite bookstore. Go to Bitley slash Cryptopians. That's vit.l-L-Y-S-C-R-Y-P-T-O-P-I-N-S.

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Starting point is 00:01:47 Download the Crypta.com app and get $25 with the code Laura. The link is in the description. Today's guest is People Pleaser, a digital artist who has dropped quite a few popular NFTs over the past six months. Welcome, people, Pleaser. Hi, thanks for having us. Let's start with you telling us what it is that you used to do before crypto, how you got into crypto, and what it is you do now. Hi, so I basically, I'm a digital artist. I specialize in sort of like 3D animation. I've been doing it for the past six years plus.

Starting point is 00:02:24 And previously I was working in sort of film and television and commercials also was on the Cinematics team at Blizzard. And then starting last summer, I got into working with, like, collaborating with DeFi protocols and just working crypto and also making NFTs. And so that's what I'm doing full time today. Yeah. And one thing I love about your story is that kind of what maybe, I don't know if it was the precipitating event, but you had accepted a job at Apple. And then that got rescinded because of the pandemic and basically after that you stumbled in a crypto. And so your life, I think, would be quite different if you ended up with that job at Apple. We would not be having this conversation right now. And I would probably just be rendering iPhones somewhere in Northern California. And you would

Starting point is 00:03:20 definitely not be allowed to talk about your work. I'm pretty sure. Probably not. We can maybe talk about your Uniswap V3 video first. I mean, I know you had done Defy videos before then, but I think that was the one, maybe that was kind of the first big one that you did. So why don't you tell us that story about how that came about and then what happened with it? Totally. So basically what happened was, yeah, like starting from last summer, I was just collaborating with different Defi protocols.

Starting point is 00:03:52 Same thing I would just make animated short form videos or hype videos that just, you know, sort of is my visual representation of what I think the DFI protocol represents and everything. And then in January, Uniswap had reached out to me asking, actually they reached out to Turun Chitra, who asked if he knew me and they could like put him, you could put them in contact with me because they wanted to talk about something. And so when they did, they asked if I would be interested in making an animation for them for the V3 launch, which obviously anybody who was in DFI at the time, would have been like, this is the biggest announcement of the year, basically.

Starting point is 00:04:33 So I was like, of course, I can't believe you guys would put so much trust in me to, you know, basically help set off such a big announcement. And so, you know, conversations started kicking off like around end of January. And then I really started production on it probably sometime in February. And, you know, my process usually with, especially with bigger projects like this, because they did give me a little bit more time. So I wanted to be a little bit more ambitious with it. You know, I make a storyboard and we go over the idea.

Starting point is 00:05:06 You know, I sketch it out. You can see this in my sort of behind the scenes video that you can find on Twitter. And then, you know, we move on from the storyboard to like making what we call an animatic, which is just a very, very rough animated representation of what the animation might look like. And that was also when, you know, we kicked off scoring the video as well. So, you know, like I originally put in a piece of music from this underground musician that I really like as sort of like a reference. And then we found an actual composer. His name is Isaac, as Isaac Kors on Instagram.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Like he's so, Isaac's leader, but it's Isaac Kors on Instagram. He's so talented. Anyway. And then so, you know, he basically like drew my, the one that I put it. as a reference and then it was inspired by that. But it was kind of like a, I was doing the animation with the help of like two of my friends because it was a lot of work. It was a 45 second along animation that overall basically from start to finish took

Starting point is 00:06:12 about at least a month and a half to finish. And so yeah, I mean, that was a whole process. You know, I was also obviously directing it, like giving notes on, you know, everything like like let's say from the music to just creating the whole vision, really. And then when it came out in, yeah, end of March, which is when they announced 3, I mean, when they first tweeted out the video, it got like more than half a million views within 24 hours. I think everybody on crypto Twitter had probably seen that video at that point. And it was a really special moment. You know, I think this is sort of like my magnum opus, I guess.

Starting point is 00:06:50 And, you know, everybody, it kind of, you know, following that, obviously we sold it or I sold it as an NFT, which all went through charity, but then that's sort of what put me on the map for, you know, like the NFT community. But, you know, a lot of people think that, oh, that was like the headline of it saying, oh, people please are, you know, raise this much money after selling an NFT because NFTs were all the talk at the time, right? But to me, at least the most special part was just when Unisop tweeted out the video before it was even an NFT. And just to see everybody sort of react to that and just that my animation has an impact on people. was so cool. And so, yeah, that was obviously like a project that has a very special place in my heart.

Starting point is 00:07:33 Yeah. And that NFT, if I recall, it raised, it went for like 300 and something ETH. Yeah, 3010 Ethereum. Yeah. So were you expecting that or was that a surprise? That was definitely a surprise. I was speaking with a dear friend at the time about what we think would. the piece would go for and I set like a range. I said, okay, I think, you know, maybe low, on the low end of expectations, maybe we would go for a single digit ETH and then high end of expectations would be probably a hundred K and US dollar,

Starting point is 00:08:12 you know, which at the time, because specifically when I sold the piece, the dollar value of Ethereum was kind of low. It was like, you know, I actually almost didn't drop it that week because I was just like, the prices are so bad right now. I'm not sure if this is a good time in the market to drop an NFT. But at the end, I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to go with whatever I originally planned. So let's just do it anyway.

Starting point is 00:08:35 So yeah, that was the expectation. But obviously it ended up like way exceeding my expectation. So that was cool. Yeah, yeah. I think it's an amazing story. And I just love, again, like I said, you know, a year ago, you thought you were going to be working at Apple and said that, you know, you're kind of, you're your own brand and you're connecting directly to your fans.

Starting point is 00:09:00 So I think it like is a really good example of how NFTs are changing things for creators. Before we get into a broader NFT discussion, would you like to tell us about one specific project that you're especially proud of? You have a few to choose from, either your old Defy videos or your fortune cover. You can pick whatever you like. I mean, I think I can probably talk about the fortune one because it's just like more recent and, you know, fresher in people's minds. Basically, I think like a few months back, Alex, I'm going to butcher his last name.

Starting point is 00:09:36 It's like mesmage. He's like the founder of Showtime. Mazmage, yeah. I don't know how to pronounce it, but that's what it looks like. Sorry if I pictured it. Yeah. Yeah. So he originally made the connection.

Starting point is 00:09:50 Basically, he reached out and said that somebody from Fortune want to talk to me if I'd be interested. And then I said, yeah, sure. And then so I think originally, you know, that was a few months ago. I, I just thought that, you know, maybe they were just trying to do another NFTE collaboration or something. You know, I wasn't really sure. But then, you know, and then nothing, yeah, kind of nothing, nothing happened until like a few months later when their creative director, Peter Herbert just called email me and said, hey, do you want to do the cover for Fortune magazine. The next issue that we have coming out is a special one that's covering cryptocurrency and DFi. Yeah, like they were just like, and we watched your Uniswap, like, behind the scenes

Starting point is 00:10:31 video and we thought that you would be, you know, really perfect for this. And then, you know, for me, I think right now, hopefully I'm trying to make all of my collaborations or NFT projects something meaningful or something that like elevates the crypto community. And so this seemed like a perfect platform for it. I was obviously down, but, you know, it was a blank slate in the beginning. I didn't have actually any ideas for what I would actually do for the cover. And it's one of those things kind of similar to the Unisop V3 thing where I'm just like,

Starting point is 00:11:03 I think this is going to have a lot of eyes on it. So I better take it seriously or I need to, you know, really make the most of it. And then I was chatting with Leighton Kusack, founder of Pool Together, a little bit later. And then I was just sort of lamenting my woes about, oh, I don't have any ideas for the cover. And it's a lot of pressure. I don't know what to do. And then he, being a genius, obviously went home that night. And then texted me the next day.

Starting point is 00:11:29 He goes, oh, I was thinking about your fortune cover. And I thought it would be kind of cool if he did something like a portal or something that represents like going down the rabbit hole of crypto. And then, you know, inside there's all these like crypto anonymous Twitter avatars or something. Because we had previously floated around, you know, some, I, because around the time there were some NFT projects that were, you know, either including like famous VCs or, you know, famous influencers, crypto puns or something to sort of gouge engagement. And then so, but then, you know, Fortune were like, oh, we had Elon Musk on one of our previous like covers. And I think there were some legal issues with including like actually famous real people or something. And then so Layden was like, look, if you did it with anonymous Twitter people,

Starting point is 00:12:16 I wouldn't have that problem. And then I was like, this is genius. And so, you know, I am like full credit to him for the idea. But, you know, I still had to obviously like think about how I was actually going to visually present this and put it together. And so that's pretty much why I spent all my time doing, you know. And I made a tweet that was sort of, I guess you could say, crowdsource where I was just like, without any context, who are the most famous crypto, Twitter, anonymous profiles?

Starting point is 00:12:43 And then, you know, obviously a lot of people. you commented and contributed. So in the future, if people want to know, like, you know, about things like this, they should look out in my tweets. Sometimes there's alpha leak. And then so, yeah, I kind of sourced that together and put it together. And, you know, and then I obviously spent the rest of the time making sure that the artwork looks polished and professional and, you know, presented in a visually pleasing way.

Starting point is 00:13:12 Because that's my job after all. And then I think, yeah, Fortune have been a really good sort of like collaborative partner on it. They were so willing and open-minded to learn anything more about crypto and defy. You know, you're like, I was saying, I'll probably name these pieces like something like to do with a chat. And they're like, what does Chad mean? And then, you know, it's like, and then they started using the term now themselves. Like, it's great. And then so, yeah, you know, when I posted on Twitter initially for the first time, I think it shocked.

Starting point is 00:13:41 A lot of people thought it was a joke at first. They were like, there's no way, like, this is real. I mean, I also feel like, it's almost, I was like, I can't believe they let me do this. Like, it's like I got away with murder or something, you know. It's just like, this is not allowed. And it was a pretty provocative title as well, or tagline that they had on the cover, like crypto versus Wall Street because then being Fortune and the Fortune 500 companies mostly are, you know, sort of not that.

Starting point is 00:14:10 And so the whole issue, but I think, you know, meant a lot to me myself, you know, because obviously crypto awareness is something that I care about. And I think the community as well. And so that's kind of why this cover is currently still like sold out at all new stands. Because everybody just felt very like represented by this issue. And, you know, even just the articles inside or sort of educating people at Defi, you know, the cover art is merely just an initial means of attraction, but the whole entire issue itself is, I think, a meaningful one. So, yeah, I'm just glad that it turned out really cool.

Starting point is 00:14:51 You know, based on your experience, how would you say the way artists make, or creators make, or can make money with NFTs differs from how they made money previously and, you know, how has that affected your life? Previously, you know, being a digital artist, I feel like sort of the, direct path of monetizing your work is literally just posting. If you're doing your work for yourself, then you post art on Instagram, hopefully get engagement in likes, and then through traction, attract clients who then you do work for, if that makes sense. And otherwise, you know, if you were sort of like going my route, which was I was just trading my skill set to create other

Starting point is 00:15:35 people's visions. So for example, movies, TV shows, commercials, you know, that kind of stuff. And so NFTs obviously really changed the game for a lot of digital creators because other than maybe physically selling like prints of your work, that was kind of like the only direct way to monetize your digital work. And so that's where NFT came in. Previously we were based, I think I tweeted this once where it's like in the old world, I guess, we, digital artists were helping Instagram make money while they were paying us and like. And but now, um, with sort of NFTs, you can actually have utility and value to the work that you're creating, you know, not to mention, uh, that royalties are a thing now, um, with blockchain and everything. So yeah, I mean, it's been wildly different for me, especially, you know, like we said, I would just be still rendering iPhones, uh, like, you know, 3D iPhones right now if, like, I didn't get into NFTs or I didn't, like, stumble into crypto. Um, So, yeah, that's my take on it. Great. Yeah, this is, it's just been so fun researching this episode. All right. So in a moment, we're going to talk a lot more about kind of the financial aspects of NFTs.

Starting point is 00:16:53 But first a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. With over 10 million users, crypto.com is the easiest place to buy and sell over 90 cryptocurrencies. Download the crypto.com app now and get $25 with the code Laura. If you're a hodler, crypto.com earn pays industry leading interest rates on over 30 coins, including Bitcoin, at up to 8.5% interest and up to 14% interest on your stable coins. When it's time to spend your crypto, nothing beats the crypto.com visa card, which pays you up to 8% back instantly and gives you 100% rebate for your Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime subscriptions. There is no annual or monthly fees to worry about. Download the critma.com app and get $25 when using the code Laura, L-A-U-R-A. The link is in the description.

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Starting point is 00:18:40 Polymarket.com slash unchained. The scorebed app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees?

Starting point is 00:19:00 Or? The scoreback. Trusted sports content, seamless sports betting. download today. 19 plus Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to conicsonterio.ca. With Amex platinum, almost every purchase made with your card can be covered with points, including new tastes, new fits, and virtually everything in between. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Back to my conversation with People Pleaser. So I'm just so curious to hear how you feel the art world for NFTs is different than the art world for traditional artists. And by that, it can be anything from, for instance, who the collectors are or how the artwork itself is different. Or you could tell me a little bit about what you think that technology is doing to your field. So far, it seems a lot of NFTs still very much

Starting point is 00:19:53 rely on visual imagery to sell the work. You know, and I think that the general public, when they think about NFTs. It's almost synonymous to them to NFT art or like visual art. And, you know, it's gone to a point where even like musicians or, you know, people who have previously been making creations or art and other mediums that are not visual are having to sort of like reach out to visual artists. And it's almost like having a visual representation is a vital part to anything being an NFT.

Starting point is 00:20:30 and I hope that that changes in the future just because, you know, NFT is just the technology itself, right? Like if you're trying to NFT a book, shouldn't have to also have a visual counterpart or something, you know, the content is the content. But that being said, you know,

Starting point is 00:20:47 I think obviously it's a, especially with smart contracts, I think it's created or opened, you know, so many doors as to what's possible. And we are currently in the process of discovering that everybody together I think.

Starting point is 00:21:01 So, you know, just like an example of something like cool that I experimented with, you know, especially with the recent Fortune cover NFTE drop that I did was, I was like, look, if I'm going to do an NFT drop, like I don't want it to just be a drop of the cover. I think we have an opportunity to do something a little bit cooler here. And so, you know, one of the people who are the guys that are best at doing the same. smart contracts for a lot of the stuff right now are Manifold, which are, they're like a smart contract, like NFT and company. And I'm sorry, what name did you just say?

Starting point is 00:21:40 Manifold. Oh. And so I collaborate. I mean, they've collaborated previously, you know, with all the biggest artists like PAC and, you know, like fuck render and Sime Sunday. And so what we did with them was that with, you know, because of the cover Fortune magazine that I did feature so many different like crypto influencers as avatars and a lot of them, you know, with their wallet addresses being public, we fed into the smart contract to target their

Starting point is 00:22:12 wallet addresses so that the artwork will actually, so I made special versions that basically feature them, let's say really largely on the cover. And so, you know, for example, let's say Laura shin placed a bid, then it would just be Laura's face like plastered all over the cover or something. And it's just meant to be a fun, like, interactive experiment, you know, especially just trying to do something a little bit new with NFTs. And, you know, even now it's like, I think the like the APIs for a lot of the platforms are still a little bit limiting. Like, for example, OpenC was a little bit slow to, like, update their metadata. So, you know, in an ideal world, when somebody places a bid, it would immediately update. But in this case, just because the. that was just not ready on OpenC's end, so it was taking a few minutes to update. So, you know, in a really intense auction, actually. That wouldn't have really flown by well

Starting point is 00:23:07 because then it would be like Laura would place an auction and I'll place one right after. It doesn't even have time to update for the Laura version. You know, so that's how we know we're still early, I think, is just because so many of these things are so lacking when we have the ideas and we can taste the possibility of it happening, but a lot of the platforms and everything are just slow to catch up. I mean, you know, OpenC actually couldn't end up, you know,

Starting point is 00:23:33 having a lot of issues on their end, even just supporting the auction itself because there was like too much traffic and then I got DOS attacked. And so two of the pieces closed prematurely, you know, there were all these issues with the auction itself, which is unfortunate. But, yeah, like I said, it's just an indicator of how early we are. And so hopefully in the future, you know, when all of this is kind of like, but these are things that affect it financially, right?

Starting point is 00:24:01 Because of these two options being closed prematurely due to the platform, they sold for, one of them sold for, I think, less than half of a value that it was supposed to sell for. You know, this is a real financial impact. And so, you know, just talking about like finance and NFTs, like obviously it's great that there's this new way for us to monetize our work. but there is, you know, sort of a lot of other dependencies that factor into, like, the finance of things with NFTs for sure. So hopefully, you know, we're working towards a future where a lot of these things go a lot worse than we. One quick question before we move on. I really want to discuss Dow's soon. However, during the week this episode was recorded, we saw two institutions by NFTs. Visa bought a Cryptopunk and Budweiser bought Beer.eathe.

Starting point is 00:24:53 which is a domain name NFT. Obviously, you have now worked within an institution, Fortune Magazine, and I was curious to know where you thought this institutional interest in NFTs would go. I feel like there's almost like two tracks of this interest in NFTs. There's kind of the Discord chat rooms

Starting point is 00:25:10 where people are waiting for the NFT drops, but then you've got this other end. So I was curious to hear how you're perceiving these two constituencies that are interested in NFTs. Well, I mean, I think Clearly, you know, a lot of I'm sure without a doubt a lot of it is financially motivated.

Starting point is 00:25:32 Let's be real, you know, I mean, us being in crypto, we find the technology really cool and everything in it for the tech. But what generates headlines is at the end of the day, you know, all the headlines that you ever see are just this NFT sold for this much money or this company make this much money selling NFTs, you know, NFTs money, number. And so, um, I feel like maybe that's what initially attracts, you know, a lot of these major corporations to, you know, sort of like dabble. But I do think that, you know, there is a difference between the ones that actually are, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:09 open-minded and willing to learn about what the space is really about. And, um, you know, honestly, I really felt that with fortune is just, you know, after this whole experience, they were like, we're going to open like a fortune ball. and start just like holding NFTs now. So, you know, I think, I thought that was really cool, right? You know, we helped them set up their first, like, on-chain identity. They bought Fortune Media or Fortunemagine.e. You know, they have a hardware wallet now.

Starting point is 00:26:35 And then, you know, I didn't even think that they would want to start collecting NFTs, but they do. You know, it wasn't just a, and, you know, they're holding their crypto. So this is just an example, right? I'm just using this because I directly work with them. so I can actually say this, or at least I know my information is accurate. And I'm sure there's other corporations who, you know, obviously after having these experiences also sort of like opened up their eyes to what is

Starting point is 00:27:02 possible, like within the space. And it's not just to come and do NFTs, cash out and, you know, go back to their old corporate lives kind of situation, which I hope, yeah, happens more and more because it's, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there's so much. At this point, I feel like it's almost hopefully like undeniable that this is just a technology that will be so existing in our lives constantly in the near future. And so the earlier a company can be onboarded, probably the better for them. So a new trend in crypto is this trend of DAWs and NFTs, specifically curation DAOs.

Starting point is 00:27:43 Though I don't know all the different terminology for these different types of DAWs. How do you see Dow's changing NFTs, art curation, collecting, etc? I guess the sort of elephant in the room that I should bring up at this point in the episode is that when I sold my Uniswap NFT in March, it like incepted the creation of Pleaser Dow, which are now sort of like one of the big players and sort of like collector dows. And honestly, like I think that at the time it blew the very. people's minds because, you know, around that time, even though NFTs were, you know, such a big thing. And then, you know, everybody was like buying and selling NFTs, but it was very much a collector's dominant, like whale collectors dominant game, right? Like as an individual whale collectors.

Starting point is 00:28:32 And, you know, sort of like at least anybody who's dabbled in the NFT space knew that there were a few notable collectors, you know, who were famous within the space. And then so when when Pleaser Dow was formed, you know, not just with my piece, but but immediately after when they bought the Edward Snowden NFT, it kind of like woke people up to being like, okay, there's a new sort of player in the game now, which is a Dow,

Starting point is 00:28:57 which at the time, you know, like even with my option, it's like, how do you beat a Dow when, you know, a bunch of people have sort of like a collected common goal? And they're just like,

Starting point is 00:29:08 we're going to stop at nothing to get this piece, you know? And so it's a very similar kind of like movement that you're seeing, you know, with the whole Wall Street bets, um, subreddit thing that happened is just collective coordination and the power of that, right?

Starting point is 00:29:24 And when I was like selling my piece, um, I honestly, for me personally, I envisioned, um, hopefully some whale collector was going to bid on it and win the piece. So when people were telling me,

Starting point is 00:29:37 oh, there's this like Dow that's being created right now where people are pulling funds together to, you know, win the auction, um, it blew my mind in the sense that people were down to collective, own something. And I think that's what makes Dow's so powerful. And, you know, sort of like, I didn't catch onto this until way later, but basically somebody explained it really well.

Starting point is 00:29:56 And please or Dow, they were like, look, just to imagine there's like a future internet moma or something. But when you're going to, like all the people who visit the museum, they also own a bit of every piece of art that's in that museum. And I, I just think that's so special and cool at the same time, you know, and so that's kind of like, you know, what they're doing right now is, and I mean, obviously compared to old traditional corporations, DOWs are so scary because you can do everything over the internet, you're pulling funds on the blockchain, like, you know, with the Edwards Donop piece, they got together that $5.5 million within 12 hours, which is insane and just doesn't happen to a regular company.

Starting point is 00:30:36 And you're like recruiting members, it's just like, you know, it's like a monster or like a machine of a startup that just expands and like recruits extremely fast. and like no one can stop. This is literally an unstoppable force. So, you know, I think that obviously, like, you know, we've already seen this happen with, like, even subreddit. Subredits honestly are like kind of a doubt. They're just like not monetized or they don't have like tokens or governments.

Starting point is 00:31:00 But, you know, it's the same concept, right? And it's like you can't, you know, stop like the army of the many is how they put it. And so, yeah, like, dows are a huge game changer. It's exciting to see what this is going to go. So I'm so curious, based on this discussion, I did see someone tweet something earlier today, and I don't have the exact tweet, but it was something like, you know, you could own one of a limited edition run of 500 of the same NFT, or you could own one 500th of a single unique NFT and kind of posing the question like, which do you think is more valuable?

Starting point is 00:31:37 And I was curious to hear your answers to this question. I think that depends on the projects. self, right? You know, with every, like, well, I feel like that's just such an obvious answer, but, you know, like, I can own, like, one crypto pump. There's 10,000 of them, but that, owning that is going to be at least monetarily, um, more valuable than owning, like, a one-of-one of an art piece that maybe doesn't have that kind of, like, value discovered or determined yet, you know, and is selling for, like, one Ethereum, for example. And so there's no right or wrong answer to this question.

Starting point is 00:32:17 I think it just depends on the piece itself. You know, at the end of the day, value is speculative or subjective and it changes all the time. And, you know, to own, like, obviously, for example, like the pieces that Pleaser or doubt go after they hope are going to be pieces that everybody wants to own, like, one one thousandth of or something, for example, like the Doge, NFT or, you know, it's like any piece that they, like, acquires, hopefully, like, a person. very, very unique and significant of can one of one that is going to uphold its value down the line and that everybody wants to own part of. But at the same time, you know, you can own like a board

Starting point is 00:32:54 ape, which is, you know, one of like, I think it's a 10,000, right? But that in itself has, like a different set of values than owning like a portion of something. And out of curiosity, for Damien Hearst's latest project, the currency in which he sold 10,000 NFTs of hand-painted, dot-covered works on paper, and then each buyer can decide if they want to redeem the NFT for the corresponding physical artwork, but they only have one year to, you know, to do that. And if they don't request the physical artwork, then it'll be destroyed. I was curious how, what percentage of people you thought would choose to redeem the NFT for physical artwork. Yeah, I mean, like, being a digital native myself, obviously, I'm biased towards anything digital. I also,

Starting point is 00:33:41 just don't like a lot of stuff, right? So it's like, to me, it's perfect that I can move artwork like without any effort on the blockchain as opposed to having to carry something physically. It's me, like, more expensive probably to do that. And so just from like a practical standpoint, I would. But at the same time, you know, I don't know. Like, there's still a lot of real people out there who aren't like nerds who live in a cave like me. So. All right. Yeah, we'll have to see what happens then. Okay, so last question. Where do you think the NFT space will go in the next year or so? I have been saying those so many times that I am looking forward for it to be way bigger in the gaming space. I don't know why it isn't already. I think that it has something to do with the fact that

Starting point is 00:34:32 our hardware technology is not caught up with what we imagined to be possible with metaverses and immersive experiences. But yeah, you know, at least for me, like I said previously as well, with NFT being just like the technology and it's not just art, right? Like, NFT is not, you know, art is one subset of like what an NFT is possible for. I mean, we've seen like some sort of real world implementations of NFTs already like that are beyond just art. But I hope to see, you know, way more of this, you know, training of assets.

Starting point is 00:35:06 in-game economies, which already happens in as a huge thing. For example, I don't know. I think obviously, you know, Blizzard are, you know, they have like their own ecosystem. Workcraft with even like individual games that they have. It's just like there's a crazy economy that already exists for that. And, you know, like hopefully in the future with the Metaverse, it's like not only cross game, but cross like platform. You know, it doesn't have to be like Blizzard currency is only used in Blizzard games or like

Starting point is 00:35:36 riot, you know, it's like maybe in the Vettiverse, it's like all of those assets are transferable, you know, because, for example, like 3D assets are at the end of the day, kind of all made the same way, you know, more or less. And so there's a reason why, yeah, it could be like cross transferable, like in platforms and games. And I hope to see way more of that in NFTs. Yep. Where can people learn more about you and your work? I'm mostly spending my time on Twitter. I'm just people. People Pleaser one on Twitter because when I created my account, there was already People Pleaser. But I'm just People Pleaser on Instagram.

Starting point is 00:36:14 That's where I post more of my sort of personal artwork. And, yeah. To learn more about People Pleaser, check out the show notes for this episode. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with all from Anthony Youne, Daniel Ness, and Mark Murdoch. Thanks for listening. Thank you.

Unchained - How Pplpleasr Helped Fortune Magazine Sell More Than $1 Million in NFTs - Ep.268

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