CryptoSlam sorts out rogue NFTs to reveal the true value of cryptocurrencies

Editor’s Note: Startland News selected 10 Kansas City scaling companies to spotlight on its annual Startups to Watch list. Now in its eighth year, this feature recognizes entrepreneurs and startups that editors believe will make some of the biggest news in the coming 12 months. The following is one of 2023’s companies.

Click here to see the full list of Startups to Watch – presented in partnership with Social Apex, supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and independently produced by Startland News.

RAndy Wasinger’s entry into the world of non-fungible tokens was initially just a hobby, said the founder of CryptoSlam.

As a lifelong collector of baseball cards, he became interested in the Ethereum NFT collectible game MLB Champions.

“I was quite early on where the industry could go,” he explained. “I realized pretty quickly that, ‘Wow, I’m early.’ No one tracks this. It’s kind of a mess.’

For example, Wasinger continued, if he bought a Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez collectible, he had no idea how many others existed.

“It’s a very big thing collecting – how rare they are,” he noted. “So that’s what started it CryptoSlam was to go out on the blockchain and collect all of this. And I’ve really just been riding the wave since then. Because before you know it, it spreads to other projects, other blockchains, and crazy things happened to the industry.”

Wasinger launched Overland Park-based CryptoSlam in 2018 and — what started as a side project — has quickly become a startup that is a leading provider of data and transparency for the NFT industry and has received $12.5 million in funding, including from celebrity investors like billionaire Mark Cuban and actor Ashton Kutcher. Other notable investors include LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Fitbit founder James Park, the co-founders of Rotten Tomatoes and regional venture capital firm KCRise Fund.

While watching a Kansas City Chiefs game with his wife, he received a Twitter message from the famous celebrity entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” star.

“We actually got Mark Cuban early,” he explained. “He was an angel investor, so the very first investor in CryptoSlam besides myself, because I bootstrapped for a couple of years. And it was really good because I didn’t have to pitch him. He literally offered because he was a CryptoSlam -User.”

When the NFT industry really started to take off in January 2021, Wasinger continued, Cuban used CryptoSlam to keep track of the Dallas Mavericks on the NBA Top Shot blockchain.

“At the time, there was one place to go to get it, and that was CryptoSlam,” he added. “So that was really cool.”

At the beginning of 2022, the company announced the closing of its $9 million oversubscribed capital raising — led by Animoca Brands. Wasinger said the funding has allowed the team to grow from a dozen people to 32.

“We put it directly into infrastructure from a human resources perspective, as well as from an IT perspective,” he explained. “As you might imagine, when you’re tracking pretty much every data point on every blockchain as it grows, it’s become much more expensive to store, track and organize it. So the strategic seed round certainly helped that.”

CryptoSlam is poised to have a strong year ahead despite the “continued carnage” expected from the bursting of the NFT industry bubble, Wasinger said, which he compared to the dotcom bubble that burst in the late 1990s and early 2000.century.

“While (the dotcom bubble) was flying high for the longest time and we were drinking through a fire hose just trying to keep up, it’s a lot different now,” he explained. “And frankly, it’s a lot different in a good way. Because as an infrastructure provider, we can really focus on laying the foundation for what’s coming without having to keep up with today’s hot flavor, which might only be hot for two weeks or so and with two days.”

CryptoSlam plans to be strategic and opportunistic, he continued, at a time when the market has taken a downturn.

“A lot of – what I call – junk has been washed out, and I think we’ll be left with the more valuable innovations in the industry,” he added. “And I can’t wait to see what people come up with next. I know we’ll be there to track the data and tell the story of all the fun stuff that comes out.”

Startups to watch presented in partnership with Social Apex, supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and independently produced by Startland News.

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Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2023

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