In 2019, Ivan Soto-Wright established MoonPay to alleviate some of the biggest pain points of the Web3 user experience. The founder and CEO has since broadened MoonPay’s scope from crypto payment service to its current status as a fully end-to-end Web3 infrastructure. At nft now’s The Gateway 2022, Soto-Wright spoke of MoonPay’s macro-level business model in Web3 and how legacy brands can utilize this emerging technology to deliver loyalty-based experiences that have never been possible in the c...
Jan 25, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 77
Porsche, one of the most iconic brands in the luxury auto space, is making its move into web3. In November 2022, the company unveiled its 7,500-piece NFT collection based on the classic Porsche 911. Starting in January, collectors will be able to help shape the design of their digital token by choosing a “route” for it — selecting from Performance, Lifestyle, or Heritage options. These routes reflect a particular characteristic of the company’s brand identity and will modify the overall design o...
Jan 18, 2023•38 min•Season 1Ep. 76
Best known as one of social media and Web3’s earliest advocates, internet mogul Gary Vaynerchuk’s track record of correctly identifying the next big thing and building a solid foundation in it goes all the way back to the dot-com bubble at the turn of the new millennium. After successfully bringing his family’s liquor store business online, he leveraged his insight to plant a stake in the emerging media format of social media, building his latest empire in the late 2000s to early 2010s. Now, he’...
Jan 11, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 75
As CEO & Co-Founder of Deadfellaz, Betty has established herself as a pillar of the NFT community whilst remaining an important figure within the ecosystem of her influential PFP project. While the road to NFT success has been elusive and ambiguous for some, she has remained a staunch supporter of independent artists at a time when creative opportunities have become conditional and creator royalties have come under attack. A proponent for diversity and inclusion in the NFT space, Betty has c...
Jan 04, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 74
That’s a wrap for Season 1 of the nft now podcast! And while of course we’ll be back, we’re taking a pause to reflect on the dozens of influential artists, builders, and stars who have graced the mic to discuss the ups and downs of the NFT ecosystem and blockchain creative industry. In our endeavors to empower the creators of culture, we’ve traveled the world to spotlight the hearts and minds on the cutting edge of Web3 innovation. It’s been a truly incredible ride thus far, and we can’t wait to...
Aug 24, 2022•30 sec•Season 1Ep. 73
Much has changed since the nft now founding team last held a fireside chat back in December 2021 on the state of NFTs. Eight months into 2022, we’ve seen seismic changes in the NFT ecosystem as initial growth, promise, and schisms in the space contend with the reality of the bear market. However, despite this new reality, there’s plenty to be hopeful about. The founders review some of their favorite artists rising in the space, review common and stubborn vulnerabilities for budding projects, and...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 72
Claire Silver is a crypto artist who gives expression to her creative vision using the power of AI. Instead of creating new art by hand, Silver’s crypto art is the output of generative adversarial networks (GANs), which explore themes of “vulnerability, trauma, disability, social hierarchy, innocence, and divinity”. In doing so, her work questions “the role they will play in our transhumanist future.” Silver’s work also reflects a shifting paradigm into the broader art world: taste is the new sk...
Aug 10, 2022•57 min•Season 1Ep. 71
At the State of NFTs IRL event, held in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we sat down with three of the most prominent U.S. figures in the greater NFT landscape to discuss the unstable present, with an eye toward the promising future of NFTs. Joining us is Nifty Gateway Co-Founder Duncan Cock Foster, “Mec;” a Web3 educator, MECXDAO founder and Aokiverse’s head of community, and the crypto and tattoo artist Gossamer Rozen, who’s also the founder of Tigerbob NFT. Together, the three brought vital questions ...
Aug 03, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 70
For longtime NBA fans, Baron Davis — affectionately known as B-Diddy during his playing career — needs no introduction. Despite retirement, Davis remained in the spotlight by launching ventures in the media and entertainment industries. Recently, Davis used his sizable platform to encourage professional athletes to invest in the NFT and Web3 ecosystems. Headlining this initiative is his “History of the Game” project aimed toward creating an enriched storytelling experience on the history of the ...
Jul 27, 2022•48 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Frederic Duquette, known throughout the NFT art world as FVCKRENDER is a digital artist who has continually blurred the lines between the physical and virtual worlds through his ambitious experiential art experiences. Initially making a foray into the metaverse with 2021’s FVCKRENDERVERSE, the Canadian artist has recently doubled down on building worlds with FVCK PARK — a virtual NFT skatepark — and LVCIDIA, a full-on metaversal experience. And what do these virtual worlds hold? The purest repre...
Jul 20, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 68
Itzel Yard, known throughout the NFT space as IX Shells, is a generative artist and creative coder based in Panama working at the intersection between computer science and art. Dreaming at Dusk — her generative art piece derived from the cryptographic key of the very first Tor onion website — sold for $2 million to PleasrDAO in May 2021, making her the highest-selling female NFT artist ever. Since the record-breaking sale, she has continued to make waves in the NFT art sphere, with her most rece...
Jul 13, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 67
Justin Blau — better known by his artist moniker, 3LAU — is a pioneer at the intersection of music and blockchain technology and perhaps one of the biggest proponents of music NFTs. With his Ultraviolet collection of 33 different NFTs netting him a reported $11.7 million in early 2021, 3LAU offered up a shining example of how NFTs have the power to disrupt the music industry, and has continued to help define the music NFT ecosystem through a multitude of endeavors, most notably his curated platf...
Jul 06, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Micah Dowbak, known professionally as Mad Dog Jones, is a Canadian digital artist who broke into the crypto art scene with the sale of his REPLICATOR NFT. That sale netted him a cool $4.1 million, making him the highest-grossing living Canadian artist in a single auction. The artist is also a massive F1 fan, working with motorsports legend Lewis Hamilton on a helmet, and collaborating with Formula One Racing on a collection timed with the Miami Grand Prix. Recently, Joles was able to raise over ...
Jun 29, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Without a doubt, Cooper Turley has been one of Web3’s biggest champions, and is a firm believer in how NFTs can revolutionize the music industry. He got his start in Web3 as blockchain-powered music streaming site Audius’ official crypto advisor. Since then, he’s assumed an advisory role at Web3 culture think tank Friends With Benefits, and has continued to invest heavily in this burgeoning creative ecosystem. In this episode we cover: How NFTs can bring about the future of music fandom Turley’s...
Jun 22, 2022•53 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Avenged Sevenfold is a multiplatinum, chart topping heavy metal band fronted by Matt Sanders — AKA M. Shadows. Sanders and his band mates were early advocates for NFTs, and like most other people in the space, started out by collecting CryptoPunks and Bored Apes. In fall 2021 they launched their own NFT project, the Deathbats Club, which aims to bring more utility to their community. Holders get metaverse access, Web3 sneak peaks, first dibs on concert tickets, and much more. In this episode we ...
Jun 15, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Multimedia artist and designer Josie Bellini is one of the NFT community’s earliest champions. She’s made a lasting mark in the space with her viral pieces, starting with Genesis in 2017. Most recently, in 2021, the crypto art pioneer launched her flagship project CyberBrokers. The collectible ecosystem of metaverse experiences is set to be the first of its kind as a fully on-chain collection. With a background in both painting and finance, Bellini uses her unique perspective to explore Web3 thr...
Jun 08, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Eighteen-year old multimedia artist Diana Sinclair is by far one of the fastest-rising stars in the NFT art scene. To date, her work exploring self-identity, social justice, and our society’s relationship with the internet has been featured in publications including Teen Vogue and The Guardian . She’s even partnered up with OneOf to help raise funds for the Whitney Houston foundation, with one of her pieces selling for more than $1 million at auction. As one of the youngest curators active in th...
Jun 01, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Following stints working for Atlantic Records and Warner Music Group as a teenager and working for various tech firms in the Bay Area, David Greenstein went on to help found NFT music marketplace Sound.xyz in early 2021. Since then, David and the rest of the team have generated a combined $3 million in revenue for the over 100 artists on the platform, such as Snoop Dogg, RAC, Giraffage, MELVV, and TOKiMONSTA. In this episode we cover: the origins and fast rise of Sound.xyz the broken models prev...
May 25, 2022•52 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Alpha Centauri Kid — also known as ACK — is a visual artist and musician who has emerged as one of the leaders of a new generation of crypto artists. He’s been embraced by OG blue chips including XCOPY and coveted by top collectors like GMoney and Punk #4156. His SuperRare debut “ctrl + alt + generate” captivated the NFT space and set a new genesis record for the platform at 165.29 ETH, or more than $600,000. He continues to push the envelope and innovate in the space, despite the fact he only g...
May 18, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Evan Keast (AKA Tulip) and Jordan Castro (AKA Poopie) are two of the co-founders of Doodles, one of the leading profile picture projects (PFP) in the NFT space. The collection of 10,000 generative NFTs has amassed more than 102,700 ETH in sales volume ($305,016,749) since its launch in October 2021. Doodles features original art created by third co-founder, Scott Martin (AKA Burnt Toast), who produced hundreds of unique visual traits for the collection. While many avatar projects market themselv...
May 11, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Refik Anadol is a pioneering artist who creates immersive installations, sculptures, paintings, and live audio/visual performances using AI, machine learning, and data science. He’s partnered with teams at Microsoft, Google, IBM, NASA, and more to apply the latest cutting-edge science, research, and tech to his mesmerizing creations. All of this considered, it should come as no surprise that Anadol has also fully embraced the NFT space. His ‘Machine Allucinations’ NFT series sold for more than $...
May 04, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Keith Grossman, president of TIME magazine, has a long track record of revising and modernizing digital media brands. With leadership roles at Bloomberg and WIRED under his belt, Grossman has been responsible for leading the nearly century-old brand into web3 over the past year. During this time, they’ve experimented with tokenizing covers, collaborated with with Beeple, and partnered with the Cool Cats Community. But that’s not all. Now, Grossman has launched TIMEPieces, the brand’s web3 commun...
Apr 27, 2022•53 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Daniel Arsham is a contemporary visual artist whose creativity knows no limits. A master of mediums, he’s helped design installations at Kith stores around the world, created iconic sculptures, acts as creative director of the Cleaveland Cavaliers, and even helped design chat-topping rapper Gunna’s most recent album cover. Arsham has always operated at the intersection of culture and art. So it’s no surprise that he’s also immersed himself in the world of NFTs, and embraced the medium with inten...
Apr 20, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Kevin Rose is an experienced investor and builder with a proven track record of being early to internet trends. He co-founded the social news site Digg in 2004, and currently works as a partner at True Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage tech startups. Passionate about the community surrounding NFTs, Rose co-founded the PROOF Collective, a members only collective of 1,000 dedicated NFT collectors and artists. On April 16, the PROOF Collective team is launching a new larg...
Apr 13, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 54
As one of the highest-grossing DJ/producers in the world, Steve Aoki has never shied away from pursuing all of his various interests concurrently. In addition to collaborating across genre lines, Aoki co-owns an eSports company, he’s been featured in video games as a playable character, he’s voiced cartoon characters, and he even runs a foundation that raises money for neurological research and other humanitarian relief organizations. In an effort to tie all of his passions together with his bur...
Apr 06, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III are the imaginative co-founders of FriendsWithYou – a fine art collaborative with the sole purpose of spreading the positive message of “Magic, Luck, and Friendship.” Through a variety of mediums and large-scale immersive installations, these artists hope to create special moments of spiritual awareness and meaningful social interaction. In their 20-year career they’ve collaborated with Pharrell, J Balvin, Diplo, Hello Kitty, Lacoste, Guess, and other indus...
Mar 30, 2022•54 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Isaac “Drift” Wright (AKA Drifter Shoots) is an urban photographer whose project “Where My Vans Go” is currently the second-best selling NFT photography collection ever. The U.S. Army special operations veteran first got into photography as a way to cope with his PTSD and depression. He would scale skyscrapers and climb bridges to photograph the world from a unique perspective – challenging legal lines along the way. This hobby unfortunately led to his arrest in 2020, and subsequent four-month i...
Mar 23, 2022•59 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Jen Stark is a mixed media and NFT artist who broke records in March 2021 for being the first female artist to enter Foundation’s top 10 selling creators. For the past fifteen years, she’s worked with a variety of mediums to bring her mesmerizing paintings, sculptures, and animations to life. She’s collaborated with brands like Apple, Google, Vans, MTV, and Smashbox, and even launched a 6,000 sq. ft. immersive installation, “Cascade” in 2021. Her first generative NFT collection, “Vortex,” made i...
Mar 16, 2022•21 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary Vee) is the chairman of VaynerX, CEO and founder of VaynerMedia and VaynerSports, and most recently, the creator of VeeFriends, a collection of 10,255 NFTs hand-drawn by Gary himself. After months of collecting CryptoPunks on the sidelines, Gary Vee launched VeeFriends to build a community around his creative and business passions using NFT technology and smart contract capabilities. VeeFriends’ version 2 is coming this April, with the inaugural VeeCon convention the fo...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 49
This week we’ve enlisted NFT superstar artist Chad Knight and Wilder World co-founder Phoenix Wilder to speak on the metaverse. Through 3D art and building in virtual reality, Knight and Wilder have made huge strides towards defining what the metaverse might look like in the very near future. Said to be the fabled next iteration of the internet, the metaverse seems to mean many different things depending on who you ask. From Facebook’s interest in becoming a metaverse company to the potential fo...
Mar 02, 2022•54 min•Season 1Ep. 48
