Unchained - Unconfirmed: MetaKovan on Why He Spent $69 Million on a Jpeg - Ep.221

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

MetaKovan, the pseudonymous buyer of Beeple’s Everydays NFT and founder of MetaPurse, talks about his recent $69 million purchase. In this episode, he discusses: why he bought Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69 million (1:57) Beeple’s 13-year “proof of effort” process of creating art and why Beeple has the potential to become a generational artist (4:38) why he believes NFTs are “10x” better than physical art (9:40) his vision of the metaverse (13:57) the reasons for hiding his identity behind the Metakovan avatar (17:09) how he made his fortune in crypto and why he felt comfortable spending $69 million on something that might be a fad (19:12) why he started Metapurse and how its native B20 token works (24:31) crypto news recap (28:57)   Thank you to our sponsor! Download the Crypto.com app and get $25 with the code “Laura”: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unchainedcardearnfeb2    Episode Links   MetaKovan: https://twitter.com/metakovan?lang=en   Metapurse:  https://metapurse.fund/   Everydays: The First 5000 Days Purchase: https://www.coindesk.com/metakovan-buyer-of-record-setting-beeple-nft-explains-why-he-spent-69-3m https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/arts/beeple-nft-buyer-ether.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/buyer-of-69-million-beeple-nft-is-a-crypto-investo-metakovan.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/17/nft-beeple-metakovan-christies/ https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/metakovan-beeple-christies-auction-nfts.html    B20 Tokens: https://www.playtoearn.online/2021/01/13/metapurse-to-share-ownership-beeple-collection/ https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/21/03/20195109/69m-beeple-nft-artwork-may-have-been-used-to-pump-b-20-token-price-by-6200-reports-suggest   Link to the Crypto News Recap: https://unchainedpodcast.com/3-publicly-traded-crypto-exchanges/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heads up, everyone. Just a quick note before we begin. I'm doing a giveaway of three tickets to the Real Vision Crypto Gathering March 24th to 26th, in which I'll be interviewing Bitcoin OnChane analyst Willie Wu and Factor Report author and publisher Peter Brandt. If you're interested in what is happening with Bitcoin and where the price of the OG cryptocurrency will be going later this year, you definitely won't want to miss this discussion. To enter to win by 3 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, March 23rd, first, follow the Unchained podcast Twitter. account at Unchained underscore Pod, and second, tweet about your favorite unchained or unconfirmed episode with a link and the hashtag Unchained giveaway. Again, the deadline is 3 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, March 23rd, and to enter to win, you need to follow the Unchained Pod Twitter account, tweet about your favorite unchained or unconfirmed episode with a link and the hashtag Unchained Giveaway. We will contact the winners on Twitter shortly after 3 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. Now on to the show. Hi everyone. Welcome to Unconfirmed, the show that reveals how the marquee names in crypto are reacting to the week's top headlines and gets the insight scoop on what they say on the horizon. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started covering crypto five years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time.

Unchained and Unconfirmed are now published as videos. If you're not yet subscribed to the Unchained YouTube channel, head to YouTube.com slash C-unshare change podcast and subscribe today. The crypto.com app pays you up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin. Get $25 when you download the crypto.com app with code Laura. The link is in the description. Today's guest is Medicoven, founder and financier of MetaPers. Welcome, Medicovin. Thank you, Laura.

Thank you for having me. So you purchased a collection of 5,000 pieces of digital art that anyone can easily see online for $69 million. Why did you do that? I get this a lot these days. Definitely. So actually this has been, this trend of NFTs is something that's very new, but you know, NFTs itself is not. And I've been like in NFT since 2017. We've been focused on, you know, understanding and seeing what these NFTs mean in the larger context. And so we developed various thesis around, you know, like how we look at this and what is this going to do to the world.

And so we've been doing several purchases over now two, three years, right? And we've been into our collectibles, virtual land, art from various artists. And so by December last year, what really caught my attention was the fact that, you know, like art coming into crypto and creating this cultural moment is causing a new set of people to come into the space. Right. Like artists need not be technical. It's almost like you take your skill in 2014, 15, maybe. you should have your tech skill or your computer skill and then that's how you mine for Ethereum, right, like our Bitcoin.

And now if you are skilled in some other way, you're good in, say, Adobe Illustrator or something, you get your chance to mine your Ethereum, right? Like, that's something of how I see it. So, and it's very nice because we are, we are allowing so many new people to enter. And what happened was we had a greater thesis and understanding. what these NFTs mean and how these artists will become more valuable in the future. So Beeple was one of them who we thought is going to be the artist of our generation. He has all the parameters which make him one of the most precious artists.

And it's a bet, right? Like I'm not saying we paid the right amount or we know exactly what we were doing, right? But what I'm trying to say is it's a bet. on the fact that Beeple is going to be the artist of a generation. And so can you fill out that thesis around NFTs and this virtual world a little bit more and also explain why it is that Beeple you felt really fit all these parameters that you're looking for? Sure. So NFTs are, if you take art, digital art, and that's backed by an NFT, I would say it's 10x better than the physical

counterpart. Again, physical counterpart have history, right? Like, I'm not taking that away from them. But think about something that's done today, right? Like, what I'm saying is, if you take it for cost, a lot of people compare, like, oh, yeah, like, Monalisa is worth so much. Yeah, it is worth so much. But it's not the paint that's worth so much, right?

like it's a skill, it's the story, it's the painter itself. There are a lot of other parameters that is not just what tools or, you know, the cost of the paint that went into something. So there is a lot of, you know, subjective value here. So that same subjective value can carry to the digital realm. I don't think that's going to, you know, that's going to be the question. The harder question is, is this not replicable, right? like it can we not copy paste etc but in the case of people the beauty is that there is a story right

like he's he's a he's an artist a digital artist who has been very um i would say i want to use the word honorable because that's where we're going in terms of artists and nftes because that's how you if you are an artist and you want to make sure you you are relevant in into the future I think you need to be a honorable person, right? Like you need to understand scarcity. You need to understand your collectors. You need to make sure that you're not here to like grab some people like cash from people. So what people did was he has worked over 5,000 years every day, right?

Like he worked on the day he was getting married. He worked on a day he had a child. Five thousand days. Yeah. 5,000 days. Yeah. Sorry, if I said something else. 5,000 days, every day.

And that's very inspiring to me. And if you look at the whole this Christie's piece, the first picture is so amateurish. It's something I can draw, right? Like a 10-year-old can draw. And the latest one is something that's so complex. And if you take the whole thing together, it's an inspiration to tell people, to tell the world that the only thing that's unhackable is time.

And if you put an effort every day, you would be successful. And just out of curiosity, how would this be different if there was an artist who worked on one piece of art for 13 years and then presented it? And even by that, I mean it doesn't have to be a visual artist. it could be like a book or a movie or you know whatever and um do you do you understand what i'm saying like like in a way it's almost like um similar to when you go to a museum and you see that the artist has done a bunch of sketches before they did the final painting like in a way it's almost like these are i don't i don't even know how to describe them but um i don't want to call them exercises but what you can do in a day versus what you can do in a year that's quite a different thing right so i just wonder

How would you value a piece of art like that? I would, if you're speaking to people and understanding his ideology and his kind of work, what inspired me really is like he sets a bar, a very low bar for every day, right? Like each day, what he wants to put out there is not his masterwork. You have to put out something. And that's very inspiring to me. It's like going to the gym every day, right? Like we all say we want to, but we never do, right?

Like we have to show up and that's all it matters if you think about it. So yeah, like someone working over 13 years is still very awesome to create one piece of art. But what is the proof of work that they worked every day on it, right? Maybe they skipped a weekend. We don't know, right? And what's beautiful about people is he. put out all of these pieces over time, right? Like, and we are from the, we are from the crypto industry,

and we understand proof of work that way. And so there is some evidence, right, on the internet, which says this people actually did what he's saying he did. So that's very important, too. And well, so then I also do want to ask, though, you know, and I mean, I know that I kind of asked this before, but since people can still see these online and they don't need to have spent $69 million to do so,

So what do you think that you actually bought with that money? Yeah. So that's the thesis of NFTs itself. So when I was saying NFTs are 10x better than the physical counterpart, one of the things which I really like about NFTs is the fact that, you know, it's composable. We should understand that it's very similar to another, like, defy protocols are awesome because they're composable, right? And in the same way, NFT is just on the Ethereum blockchain,

if you think about it. Now, we can do hundreds of things about them. Like, for example, a physical art is maybe owned by one person or say three, four people. Like, I don't know if three, four people will want to own physical art.

It's like, it has that feeling of being owned by one person and kept in one location, right? So what happens is, We recognize a few historical physical art which through how relevant they are. Like Monalisa, most of the world's population has not seen Mona Lisa in person,

but they recognize it, right? Like how did that happen? That's because of a picture. And most people, most people don't believe that they own it, right? It does not destroy the value of the physical piece itself just because I have a copy of Monoliths on my, in my computer or it's pasted all over the internet, right?

In the same way, what the NFT does is that it gives that, it packs the whole story into it. If it's, if it's this piece, it packs the fact that people worked on is for 13 years. It packs the fact that people actually minted this on this time. And it packs the fact that we actually bought it at this time. And all of this goes into the NFT and the blockchain, right? and all this prominence and everything which was historically the auction house's major job and what they used to take the maximum cost for is all gone because they are all very simply recorded

and now using that because we can pull them into various composable stuff maybe there could be fractionalization that can just be done right like you can take a PIFT and then divide them into say 100 million tokens and then sell them, right? Like I'm not planning to do that with this particular piece, at least yet. But that's an option I have, right? And that's not a easy option if it's a physical art. We have to make sure in the physical world, that becomes a security if you think about it. Because you have to trust the person to store it properly.

right? And in the case of NFTs, it's on chain. It'd be on the smart contract. The only risk is the smart contract getting hacked, but that's always going to be there. But you know, like, you don't have to trust the issuer of the token that the NFT is actually backing the token. Right, right. So we're going to dive a little bit more into what gives these NFTs value and how people are creating value from them. But first, a quick word for 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. Grow your crypto with Crypto.com earn, which pays up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin and 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% rebates for your Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime subscriptions. Download the Cryptra.com app now and get $25 by using the code Laura. The link is in the description. Back to my conversation with Meta-Covin. So I also just wanted to flesh out a little bit more of what your vision of the metaverse will look like in the future. And even just describe Metaverse and then, you know, describe what you expect that will look like.

So Metaverse is not very different from what, uh, crypto, like people in crypto, we've been experiencing something of this global community for a while now, right? Like we, like I feel like the Ethereum conferences itself is a very inspiring one where it never happens in one place. It never happens in one country. And that's very inspiring because if you are part of the Ethereum community, what he knows that if you attend all devcons, probably you also, get to go around the world, right? And probably with the money you made with Ethereum. So that's very interesting, right?

Like as an experience and being part of the community. Now, what I feel about metaverse is that we are just, like, that word might feel like very futuristic and a little bit more very confusing. But think about like there is, there is this 3D metaverse also, which is being created like in the virtual worlds and that's where we are building museums, etc. but there is this 2D world also like discord for example is where you know there are new communities that that's not purely technical so with the crypto and the defy up to the defy you know like the the growth i think we had a lot of technical people move into crypto but right now we have other kinds

of people artists singers uh you know performance artists like different kinds of people people with different talent. They're all moving in and forming their own communities, right? And that's very interesting if you think about what it implies. And that means that we are creating this online community, allowing the creation of online communities of like-minded people. And then this will translate into physical things. So instead of going to the boring, I don't know, like I'm just kidding, but, you know,

going to the boring technical dev cons maybe at some point there'll be more entertaining ones right like that all was created online right so I feel like the metaverse is just going to complement what's happening in the physical world and I don't imagine too much of a dystopian world

where we just start living in metaverse like a ready player one at least yet and I don't want to live in that world either yeah exactly I don't in a sense that I like the metaverse, but you know, you get to use only two of, two or three of your senses. And that's not very cool, right? Like, so the physical world still triumphs the metaverse definitely.

At least we're not there yet. So I guess metaverse is just a way for you to meet like-minded people and get them onto the physical world. And so for you, you go by a pseudonymous name. And for the people who are watching the video, they'll see that you're using. an avatar and not showing your face, why not just be open about your identity? Actually, this is a very deep question also. It's not like people who work with me or people in the community. A lot of them actually know me, right?

Because end of the day, if I go to a conference, we're going to meet each other in person, right? So a lot of us who meet each other are like, okay, yeah, like this is this is who we are in real life and this is what I did before I became Metacomone. And I'm also quite comfortable and probably with all this media attention, it's harder to keep this, you know, under wraps because there is always some kind of leakage, right? Like so it gets out. But the fact is that this specific character over time, creates this very interesting connection for me with the community. You know, the real person in me feels very differently than this character now, where Metacowen, how he's received, and the other guy who, how he's received, right?

Like, I could be the same guy inside, but I'm very different to people. And if I come on another podcast and be the other guy, I don't know, I don't know if you would ask the same question. also, right? Like, it'll be a very different podcast. And I told this to someone, maybe the real guy would not have bought the $69 million pick, but Meta Covented. And that's very important because, you know, he's already living in the metaverse. And I feel like right now I'm operating that character, right? In the future, it could be someone else or a team who could operate it, too. this is becoming such an interesting conversation one thing i've heard is in another interview you said that you came to crypto with nothing and so i was curious to hear how did you make so much money in crypto

like what was it that you did in such a short period of time and then what made you feel comfortable spending so much of it on something that other people many other people don't even think has value Yeah. This is the question for the real guy, right? Because Metacode came in rich. And he's just spending the other guy's money. Now, the thing is that when I started in crypto, 2013, I had no money. And this community was so open. Right now, maybe we feel after this. especially after the ICU thing, there is a lot of, you know, like, like suspect, right? Like, we are,

we are thinking about other people and thinking, what's their intention, right? But back in 2013, people were like, yeah, come on, come on. Because there was no one building anything on Bitcoin, right? So I started back then when it was,

people were, you know, like wanting to create that community, very welcoming. And that's what got me. started, I started on forums, you know, like, like I used to, you know, create some kind of service so that, you know, I can make a little bit of money. And that grew with the industry. And my life also slowly grew and I became part of the larger Bitcoin community. And when Ethereum came up, I was lucky enough to have the knowledge that there's going to be a crowd sale.

and why that crowd sale was important and I got to invest in that, right? So a little bit of the money, it's not a lot, meaning in the larger context, but that was my starting point where I invested a little bit of money into Ethereum. That thought me that, you know, this was a huge opportunity

where it's like investing in a startup, right? A lot of people who think about Ethereum, theorem's growth as something that's very unnatural, but Uber's, Hoover was $100 billion. Squire is $100 billion, right? Like, it's just that it allowed a lot of people to make money and not like five, 10 people. That's good, right? And I think I carried the same attitude in terms of investments into the other trends.

So I always understood trends. I worked on crypto every day and I understood trends and I saw. new projects for what they are researched. And I did take my Ethereum and start, you know, snowballing them into, into the other important protocols, PolkaDard, up to flow till now. So it's been, it's been a continuous process for me. So that's my, like, that takes 33% of my time, right? like I read and I talk to people and make sure I'm up to date because it's very hard to do that too.

So that's one of the guys behind it, right? But you know, what I like and the other question you asked of how, what gave me, you know, the strength to spend this money, right? That's a very different question because for a guy who had no money in 2013, you know, like what gives him the strength because I could have. I could be doing 100 other things. I don't know. I don't know if I'd be doing 100 other things actually. The money that came to me came from crypto. And I feel like it's great that I'm able to do the same thing, you know, change someone's life in a very inspiring way.

And that inspiration could, you know, touch millions of people now, right? like it's in the mainstream, it's going to bring a lot of artists into NFTs, and they're going to make their first thousand dollars, first $5,000, just like I did in 2013. And we'd be there too. Like we are not just buying peoples. We're buying every artist. And we're spending, we've spent around, you know, like we spent a lot of money, not just on the big names, the stars, but we are using stars for the headlines.

And we've been supporting, you know, all new artists that are. are interesting and they understand what this system is and they are from different parts of the world. You know, this is their first leg up. And that's what I enjoy. And when you say we, are you talking about metapurse? Yeah, metapurse. And just quickly, like a yes or no, did you have any background in art before you started

doing this? I didn't have any background in finance, economics, art before I started crypto. Everything. Crypto teaches us everything. Wow. Okay. So can you briefly describe your vision for MetaPers and also tell us about the B20 token? We're running under time, but I obviously want to be sure to touch on these things. Sure, sure. So like Metapurz itself, I start again, I just started it on my own, right? Like it, it, okay, so I started collecting NFTs on my own and it was just a hobby. I didn't think too much about it. But then when I, when when Toobadoor, who's the steward of Metabus, who actually is the art collector in our team, he, he, I saw him very interested in all these things.

And he built his own name. He's a good writer. And he had his own social network with artists. I was like, yeah, this is very interesting. Like I'm deploying capital. Why don't you do that? right like and and we we thought okay let's let's have a let's have a name for this and that became metapus right so i consolidated all my nfts into it and we we we instead of slowing down we really

push the gas and and we've been doing this uh like since i think july last year and it's been going very well right so what what now happens with metapus is that we we collect various artists that's on one side. But once in a while, I also try to think about the thesis of Metaverse and see how I can push it forward. So one of them, when Beeple's second drop came out,

when he had 20 pieces, right? And we were thinking the first drop went for $66,000. And I was thinking, okay, it'll be very interesting if you could buy all the pieces, right? And we could create a museum out of it. And so that it'll be interesting because it will attract that kind of attention and curiosity from a lot of people.

So we tried doing that. It was hard. The stories in multiple other podcasts, but it created this like news cycle where, you know, it was too bados conviction in me, which also made it happen. But we bought the 20 pieces, built the museum. And what we did was we took the land, the museum designs, the art, the soundscape in the museum, all together and put it. in a smart contract, bundle them together, and then created tokens, 10 million tokens, and then

sold around 40% of it, right? So the whole experience was very interesting because it didn't involve any accountants, right? Like if I did it in the real world, I imagine, it's very similar to creating a mall, right? Like, I would have spent 30% of the funds on just that, but this was very interesting. And we didn't, like, because it didn't. Because it was a experiment. We didn't even price it like, you know, 10x or something, which, like, we, we price it at 30% premium so that, you know, we can cover our cost, but that's it. And, like, to make, like, to be transparent, I've not sold any of my B20 tokens that I kept. And that's been a question that's going around also. So it's, it's not like I sold my B20 in order to

purchase this, we feel. It's, it's all new money, right? Right. We are going to hold on to the B20. for the while. Okay. Yeah, because obviously I'm sure you saw the criticism that the Christie sale brought positive press to people and NFTs, and then that boosted your stake in the B20 tokens. So, okay, well, this obviously, I mean, this is just such a fascinating conversation because I really feel like in a way what you're talking about is so new that a lot of people can't grasp it. And yet at the same time, I'm not quite sure if the reason is because it's not going to go anywhere. So I think we're going to have to have you on in the future and we will see what happens between now and then.

I really like, I'm a fan of your podcast and I really like how you're very frank, right? Like you're to the point. So, yeah, I would ever enjoy being in the podcast again. Great. Yeah, well, this was super fun. Thank you so much for coming on Unconfirmed. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Don't forget. Next up is the weekly news recap.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's news recap. First headline. Crypto Exchange has raised to go public. Coinbase filed and amended S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. Disclosing the exchange has registered roughly 115 billion shares of Class A common stock. In preparation for the public listing, which has not yet have a date, point-based CEO Brian Armstrong hosted a virtual AMA or Ask Me Anything on Reddit over the last three days with a hope that, quote, investors, regardless of affiliation or size, have access to information and have the opportunity to engage with us. E Toro is set to go public via a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC with a valuation of approximately $10.4 billion. $1. Betsy Cohen, chair of FinTech Acquisition Corp 5, the company behind the SPAC deal,

praised ETORO as, quote, a social network platform that will be very helpful for younger investors. E. Toro has more than 20 million users, projects $1 billion in revenue for 2021, and currently offers 93 cryptocurrencies to its customers. Cracken, which disclosure is a previous sponsor of my shows, is also considering going public, though there are conflicting reports on how exactly it would do so. The block reported that Cracken could go public in the next year via a direct listing. Fox Business News reporter Charles Gasparino tweeted that Cracken execs are considering going public through a SPAC or IPO sometime in 2022.

Cracken CEO Jesse Powell recently showed interest in going public saying in a February Bloomberg interview, quote, we are certainly on track, though $10 billion is a low evaluation. I wouldn't be interested in issuing shares at that price. Meanwhile, if you're wondering how well the crypto exchange business is doing, on-chain market analyst Willie Wu published a chart estimating that 35,000 new Bitcoin users a day are arriving on-chain. He says that means that crypto exchanges are, quote, likely adopting an additional 100,000 users per day right now. In related centralized finance news, CFi news, finance is being investigated by the CFTC to determine whether the exchange permitted U.S. residents

to buy and sell derivatives without registering with the agency first. While the report noted that Binance quote hasn't been accused of wrongdoing, B&B, the exchange's token, dropped 6% immediately, though it has since recovered some ground. Binance CEO, Cheng Peng Zhao, or CZ, tweeted a response calling the report FUD and encouraging customers to keep biddling. Next headline. Morgan Stanley to offer clients access to Bitcoin funds. Morgan Stanley is partnering with NYDI IG and

Galaxy Digital to become the first large U.S. Bank to offer clients' access to Bitcoin funds. CNBC reports that the move was announced through an internal memo to its financial advisors directly responding to client demand for Bitcoin exposure. The offering comes with a few caveats, however. Customers must have at least $2 million in assets held by the investment bank. Morgan Stanley is also limiting Bitcoin investments to a maximum of 2.5% of their total net worth. Two of the funds will be offered through Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital. The third is a joint offering from asset manager, FS Investments, and NYDIG, the Bitcoin subsidiary to Stone Ridge. Morgan Stanley was not the only bank to make a crypto move this week. Bank of New York Mellon,

amongst others, is investing in fireblocks, a crypto-custodian startup. The CERCC round raised $133 million. Additionally, the SEC acknowledged Van X Bitcoin ETF application on Monday. The SEC now has a 45-day window to make a decision on the proposal, although they can extend the review period up to 240 days to make a final decision. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first product of its kind in the U.S. Next headline, Bitmex founders begin the process of surrender. According to the block, Arthur Hayes, former CEO of Bitmex, plans to surrender to authorities as early as next month, with a proposed $10 million bail. He will fly to Hawaii on April 6,000. 6th from his current residence in Singapore and has proposed to continue residing in Singapore

with pre-approved travel to New York as part of his bail conditions. Co-founder Bendello surrendered to U.S. authorities on Monday, where he was subsequently released on a $20 million bail. Next headline. Concerns about Bitcoin's climate impact grows. Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times wrote an article on Bitcoin's carbon footprint, beginning with a Bill Gates quote from a February interview. Quote, quote,

Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind, and so it's not a great climate thing. The piece also mentions a Cabron-S university study that calculates that the annual carbon emissions of Bitcoin is equal to New Zealand or Argentina. However, he notes that Norwegian energy company Acres Bitcoin Spinoff CT is working on using renewables to power Bitcoin mining. A tweet thread from Mustafa Yilham, Vice President of Global Business Development at Bitcoin Miner Bixen, Explain that a Bitcoin miner's primary goal is to, quote, use the cheapest electricity rate available, but it just happens to be that renewable energy, hydropower, and other excessive waste energy, similar to flare gas, are cheapest. In China, he explains, miners migrate to different regions based on the season to be able to use 100% renewable energy during rainy summers when areas like

Sichuan produce excess hydropower. Mustafa estimates that miners in Siberia, Iceland, and Sweden are probably close to 100% renewable energy. In case you missed it, we covered this topic on last Friday's podcast with Brendan McGill, co-founder of Offsetra and Carbon.FYi, who said that Offsetra estimates that 70% of proof-of-work mining is performed using fossil fuels. Next headline. Some Nifty Gateway users hacked while NFTs generate debate. A small group of Nifty Gateway users were hacked.

The account takeovers targeted accounts without two-factor authentication, which is not currently mandatory on the site. The popular non-fungible token platform returned the stolen art to its customers as the hacker failed to move the NFTs off of Nifty Gateway's platform, where the company controls the private keys. The lessons here are, number one, securing cryptographic wallets and keys should be a priority, and two-factor authentication is always a good idea. Number two, if you don't own the keys to your wallet, you don't own the NFT or any tokens associated with that address. Meanwhile, the debate over what exactly gives NFT's value continued.

Nick Carter, partner at Castle Island Ventures, wrote in a post that the NFT process is neither God's gift nor doomed or bound to crash. He describes NFTs as a wrapper for content that is misconstrued as a product rather than a process. Carter is most intrigued by an NFT's ability to tightly link IP and digital content from creator to consumer, as well as the assurances of exclusivity that come with the minting process. Jimmy Song and Buccoin educator and developer wrote that NFTs are a bubble, quote, right for popping, much in the same way ICOs came and went. He points to low liquidity, fraudulent slash stolen artwork, and demand limited to ETH holders as reasons, quote, NFTs are doomed to crash. A recent coin desk column by Adjah Tripathi, the head of

institutional business at Avey, argued that NFTs aren't just one thing. but will have multiple impacts. One, they will create digitally native token markets for off-chain assets. Two, they'll bring non-technical people into crypto through art and digital collectibles. And three, they'll force legal frameworks to align on-chain and off-chain rights. Next headline. Vlad Zamfair believes Casper Labs is misappropriating his name. Vlad Zamfair, a blockchain researcher formerly of the Ethereum Foundation,

filed a complaint with the U.S. Southern District of California court against Cassidy, Casper Labs on Wednesday, claiming that Casper Labs is using the name Casper without his express consent. CBC Casper is the name of his branch of proof-of-stake research, he says, which he began in conjunction with the Ethereum Foundation, with the Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buderin, in 2014. Vatelik's research on the topic is now called Ethereum 2.0. Along with branding many products under the name Casper,

Zamfer alleges that Casper Labs has attempted to obtain ownership of the Casper Trademark, which he says is almost exclusively used in reference to Mr. Zamfair's proof-of-stake research. Next headline, BitClout Garner Suspicion. A new decentralized protocol named BitClout garnered derision and outrage on crypto-twitter this week. The platform allows users to speculate on people and posts with real money. Every profile on the platform receives its own creator coin that can be bought and sold. The idea is to allow people to invest in profiles they assume will become popular to basically invest in cloud. Larry Sermak, director of research at the blog, tweeted on Wednesday that, quote, the BitClout scheme has so far

been able to raise 2,705 Bitcoins, which is approximately $155 million, before warning users to, quote, stay away from this garbage. Time for Fun Bits. Elon Musk teases with a song about NFTs. In a fourth wall breaking tweet, Elon Musk announced that. he would be, quote, selling a song about NFTs as an NFT. While he later decided to pass on the actual sale, where he had an offer of $1 million, I still think the entire tweet is worth a listen. I could write more or talk more about Elon and his Tesla purchase and his weird affinity for Doge, but I think people might have had the best response, which was to produce an artwork of non-fungible Elon's in which the Tesla CEO rides naked on a sheep at you know while holding a

gold trophy with the phrase NFE engraved on it. Finally, last fun bits. The Onion publishes an informative guide to NFTs. I highly recommend reading The Onion's Guide to NFTs. Here is one highlight. Question, isn't their value completely made up? Answer, there's something you should know about money in general. All right, thanks for tuning in to learn more about Medicoven, Benipers, and the Everyday's

Christie auction. be sure to take the links in the show notes for this episode. Don't forget, we are now on YouTube. Subscribe to the Unchanged YouTube podcast channel today. Unconfirmed is produced by me, Laura Shin, with all from Anthony Yun, Mark Murdoch, and Daniel Ness. Thanks for listening.