Snoop Dogg on crypto winter and the future of NFTs

Perhaps the most prominent celebrity figure in the Web3 zeitgeist is Snoop Dogg, but for Snoop, being an early adopter is nothing new.

In 2014, the rap icon was part of a $50 million investment in Reddit, which valued the company at around $500 million at the time. Today, the platform is worth $15 billion, according to PitchBook data. He is also known for private investments in fintech companies such as Robin Hood, Klarna and MoonPay, and for investments in the cannabis area. In 2015, just a year before weed was approved to be legalized for recreational use in California, Snoop co-founded Los Angeles-based Casa Verde Capital—a VC fund that has more than doubled in size.

These days, of course, anyone who follows him on Twitter knows that his attention has been consumed by anything and everything to do with Web3 – especially NFTs.

NFTs are unique digital assets, such as artwork and sports trading cards, that are verified and stored using blockchain technology, but critics see them as overhyped and potentially harmful to the environment given the energy-intensive nature of cryptocurrencies. Many NFTs are built on the network behind ethereumthe second largest token.

Earlier this year, Snoop announced his plans to revamp Death Row Records, a record label he bought from Black stone-controlled MNRK Music Group, to an “NFT label.” Shortly after, one of his first NFT collections called “Journey of the Dogg” saw a token sold at auction for over $100,000. In September, Snoop revealed that he had an alias known as the anonymous NFT art collector Cozomo de’ Medici, who had a digital collection worth over $17 million.

“I know [NFTs] have a great opportunity to make it big in music because sooner or later the record companies have to come in,” Snoop told CNBC in an exclusive interview at last week’s NFT.NYC conference in New York City. “They’re going to leave. to have to come home and sit at the table and understand that catalogs and things they hold are better served on the blockchain than sitting in the catalog and collecting cobwebs.”

“And it’s not just labels,” added his son, Cordell Broadus, aka Champ Medici. “It’s movie studios, it’s tech companies, it’s beverage companies … everybody’s rushing to Web3 and they’re seeing how big Dogg is in space.”

Snoop has also spent the last year digging into the metaverse.

He recently partnered with gaming platform The Sandbox to sell “The Snoopverse Early Access Pass” which gives buyers access to experiences in The Snoopverse, his own brand world within The Sandbox platform. There were 5,000 early access passes minted using blockchain technology at the time of launch. Each currently costs a little more than $600, and according to The Sandbox, there are currently 1,114 owners, meaning the sale has generated nearly $700,000 — a significant haircut from the $1.7 million it had generated earlier in the year. The recent downturn has been dubbed by many as the latest “crypto winter”, referring to a period where crypto prices fall and stay low for an extended period of time.

“I feel like every big industry has a downfall,” Snoop said. “There’s been a depression in every industry you can look at…alcohol, tobacco, clothing, food; every industry you can imagine.”

Some crypto industry leaders anticipate a period of “creative destruction” that will wipe out many players. Mark Cuban, who has become a major investor in blockchain-based technologies, recently compared the crypto crash to “the hiatus that the internet went through” during the dotcom bubble and tweeted that there are too many imitators out there. Snoop Dogg has a similar view.

“This [crypto winter] weeded out all the people who weren’t meant to be in the room and were abusing the opportunities that were there, he said. Now it’s going to bring big business and going forward, when the market comes back, there will be only good things to choose from,” he added.

Snoop’s latest project is a collaboration with Food Fighters Universe (FFU), which claims to be the world’s first NFT restaurant group. His ice cream brand, Dr. Bombay’s Sweet Exploration, is set to open in Los Angeles under the FFU umbrella. The brand was inspired by an NFT Snoop owns from the prominent Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, many of which skyrocketed in price to become the most recognizable NFTs online, but have seen sharp price drops during the recent digital sales currencies.

ApeCoin, a token launched by Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs, has seen a sharp rise since Snoop appeared on stage at NFT.NYC on Thursday night to debut a new single with Eminem, featuring the Bored Ape brand in the rap duo’s corresponding music video.

As is the case with many NFT collections, FFU token holders have exclusive access to various festivals, benefits and perks via their ownership of one of the 10,000 NFTs in the collection. In addition, all physical restaurant locations that fall under the FFU umbrella will accept cryptocurrency as a method of payment.

FFU co-founder Kevin Seo told CNBC that it will launch “within this year” and will be a dessert shop experience built around the Snoop Dogg community. Separately, Champ Medici’s Bored Taco will continue to be a food truck and ghost kitchen brand.

“We are excited to continue creating ways to use crypto as payment and showcase utility through our Food Fighters Universe NFTs, with access to events and free food with our NFT holders,” said Seo.

“Web3 and NFTs? This is just the beginning,” Champ told CNBC. “People are going to look back on this five years from now and see how innovative the Food Fighters Universe was and how we pushed the boundaries very early on when other people didn’t see the vision.”

While prominent investors continue to believe in the long-term potential of digital assets, including Cathie Wood of Ark Invest, there are many skeptics.

Speaking at a TechCrunch talk on climate change last week, Bill Gates described the crypto and NFT phenomenon as something “100% based on greater fool theory”, referring to the idea that overvalued assets will go up in price when there are enough willing investors. to pay more for them.

The billionaire Microsoft co-founder joked that “expensive digital images of monkeys” would “improve the world enormously”, referring to the much-hyped Bored Apes.

Meanwhile, crypto investors continue to contend with aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and a worsening liquidity crisis that has pushed major players into financial trouble and given a megaphone to some of the biggest NFT skeptics. The broader space is also still noisy after the fallout from the $60 billion collapse of two major tokens last month.