12 Web3 creators discuss royalties, community and the future of Web3
This year’s Art Basel was a blast. Miami showed up in style for nft now and Mana Commons’ The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis, a five-day activation of art, performances and panel talks by some of Web3’s biggest names. On Wednesday, we brought you an overview of some of the highlights from dozens of event keynotes, showcasing what the ecosystem’s most prominent developers and thought leaders had to say about the future of crypto and NFT. But to really do justice to the sheer number of amazing panels from the week, we’re playing the rest of the hits – part two, for you.
FaZe Banks, co-founder of Faze Clan
The co-founder of the Los Angeles-based esports and entertainment organization spoke about the future of Web3 gaming on Wednesday:
“I see a world where, if you spend eight hours a day playing a game, there’s a place for you in the Web3 economy to build a place for yourself and a career for yourself.”
Lee Trink, CEO and co-founder of Faze Clan
During the same panel, Faze Clan CEO Lee Trink also gave his thoughts on how blockchain-based gaming could impact the wider NFT ecosystem:
“My hope through Web3 games is that we have a new renaissance period, one where you have more artists that can support themselves [by] make their own art.”
Ana María Caballero, co-founder of theVERSEverse
In a talk about the often overlooked category of literary NFTs in the Web3 space, poet Ana María Caballero took to the stage with fellow literary artist Sasha Stiles to address how Web3 technology can help change the way the world sees writers and poets, so that they can financially support themselves through their work in ways previously thought to be impossible:
“Even Nobel Prize-winning poets cannot hope to maintain [themselves] as poets. It’s always a secondary career…what we do here [with NFTs] says that poetry has value.”
Frank DeGods, founder of DeGods
During a panel discussion titled “Why Community Is More Than a Buzzword in Web3,” Frank DeGods, Alex Zhang, BLOND:ISH, and Lin Dai discussed how NFT project teams create (or fail to create) meaningful values and missions for their communities. gather around.
“Does a project do something worth relevance on a random day? Worth talking about? If not, then naturally people are in 10, 15, 20, 30 different projects. What happens quickly are the ones who don’t do anything that worth talking about, people become less interested. It’s just the nature of the game. There’s so much oversupply of NFTs.”
Alex Zhang, Mayor of Friends With Benefits
“I believe that great societies in the beginning have to start with leaders. Every good society leads by example. It has leaders who step up to the plate whether they are explicitly chosen or organically raised.”
Lin Dai, CEO of OneOf
“Many projects quietly disappeared because they couldn’t deliver on theirs [community] promises.”
BLOND:ISH, DJ and Web3 spokesperson
“The way I’ve found a way to bring people into this space is to give them something they want. They want concert tickets. They want to be backstage. So that’s how I get people in the community. Keeps it very simple. You just have to define what is value in your ecosystem, and then you can adjust incentives around it.”
Micah Johnson, creator of Aku Dream
The famous former professional athlete turned NFT enthusiast and founder of Aku Dreams stopped by The Dupont Building last Friday to discuss how brands are building their image in the digital age. Here is what he had to say:
“I fell in love with blockchain technology and how it can innovate across creative media. A photograph now has a completely different meaning than just a picture on the wall. It’s programmable.”
“The copy/paste stuff, we saw a lot of that in 2021. If you did that, you could make money, so innovation stagnated. For the NFT industry to grow, we need to get back to innovation.”
Julie Pacino, filmmaker
Filmmaker Julie Pacino joined JN Silva, Nelson G. Navarrete and Isabella Montoya for a discussion on the state of NFT films. A significant part of the conversation was also devoted to the importance of royalties and how they provide valuable opportunities for artists:
“That’s the thing about this place that I think some people have confusion about — that it’s just this simple thing and we show up and we’re just millionaires all of a sudden. And it’s not. You still have to show up every day. You have to paint. You have to represent your own work of art and talk about it. These are all things that we are [artists and filmmakers] we’ve been doing this all our lives. But the difference lies in [the NFT] Roma people are listening.”
“I think [the NFT space] clicked for me when I understood the power of being able to track who owned your digital asset, and that meant being able to connect directly to your collectors, and of course royalties which are extremely important – and should never go away.”
“[Royalties] are important because they give us the means to keep this thing afloat and to give back to each other and support each other and lift each other up.”
“[Royalties are] exciting from a collector’s point of view because if I (the artist) sell you some work and then I go and hustle and raise my value, then you [also] going to benefit from it.”
Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay
Ivan Soto-Wright and MoonPay are on a mission to become a dominant force in the world of Web3 payments. Recently announced that they are taking on Timeits current president, Keith Grossman, to assist the company in the role of president of Enterprise, Soto-Wright took the stage Thursday to discuss the company’s growth strategy and its role in supporting Web3 artists:
“We see ourselves as building the next American Express.”
“We have to tell the story of the creator. NFTs would not be where they are today without them. […] We want to raise these names”
“I think it’s important that creators are able to enforce royalties. That’s the point.”
“Right now, we’re trying to build a private company that’s iconic. […] Obviously, there is a lot of maturing that we need to do inside MoonPay […] We must do what is right for the company. We will focus on growth […] maybe when the time is right [we’ll IPO].”
RTFKT co-founder Steven Vasilev
RTFKT co-founders Chris Le and Steven Vasilev gave the crowd a sneak peek at their upcoming Cryptokicks smart footwear line with Farokh on Thursday. Here’s what the two had to say about the release:
“It’s basically RTFKT’s smartwatch in a sneaker,” Vasilev explained to the room. “In terms of functionality, they have accelerometers, automatic lacing and lighting. They have everything you can imagine a shoe could have in terms of haptics and vibrations.”
“These are the first Web3 sneakers that combine digital and physical worlds.”
RTFKT co-founder Chris Le
“This is the storytelling phase of RTFKT. This is probably a stretch, but I really think we’re going to crush the Marvel Cinematic Universe down the road. We’re going deep and we have really good story writers. We’re making sure every plot hole is filled because we’re trying to set the tone and the environment for our community to come in and add to the story.”
