Foreign I Have the pleasure to be able to speak with Brandon the founder of Barbie Nft. We're here at the Future of Crypto event and I think we're about to have a pretty interesting conversation about Nfts? You good with that? I'm good with that. I'm ready. Yeah.

so I think right now with Nfts, it's kind of been a crazy two years and I'm sure you've seen that. Yeah, obviously 2021. A massive explosion. People were making crazy money to the point that Mega businesses were getting into it like household Blue Chip stocks.

And now not just because of Nfts like I would never, um, hate on the technology by any means. but I think just the econ, the stock market, the Crypto Market A lot of it is kind of underwater right now. And my question for you, running a marketing agency that really is in the world of Nfts? What have you been seeing from the clients? Like is there a big shift? Is the shift in like not as much popularity. Are they looking at different types of Nfts? Are they trying to apply the technology to different aspects of life? Like what is the major Trend you're seeing now? Yeah, great question.

I think in 2021 and you know, the first quarter of 2022, we saw a lot of a lot of cash grabs. Yeah right. Celebrities, sports players, some companies there were there were a lot of cash grabs unfortunately. I Think that's just going to happen anytime something like what happened presents itself.

and sure you could say from a sort of macro zoomed out point of view that we're in a bit of a bear market right now for Nfts, among other things. But you know they say bear Market is for the builders and what we're seeing. you know at at my agency Barbie Nft we're seeing. We work with a lot of Web 2 brands that are now trying to onboard to Web3 but do it the right way.

Which is great because what we used to see is Web 2 brands that just wanted to release a 10K Pfp project. Get a bunch of money and peace out, right? We're not seeing that anymore, which is awesome, but what we are seeing is Big Time E-commerce brands that want to build their loyalty programs on top of Web 3 and have the digital collectible component be a smaller component of a bigger picture and utilize the Nft tech that it brings to help you know streamline their loyalty program. We're seeing that we're seeing a variety of real estate companies uh, tokenize their assets and allow that cash flow to pass through to its Nft holders AKA their investors just in an on-chain way because it does it faster. It's it's more scalable, it's cheaper, it's more secure, right? That's that's sort of.

The whole point of Nfts is to accomplish all those things. Um, we're seeing. One particular particular client of ours is Uh, DeLorean The Car Company. So what they're doing.

They have a new car that just came out. Well, it's coming out. it's called the Alpha Five. It's 175 000 Car looks amazing.

It is super fast, super cool. It's got those awesome you know doors and stuff right to reserve their car. Just like Tesla does you have to pay a fee up front. So there's this Five Five Grand.

But what they decided to do is that five grand vets in Nft. so that Nft comes with a spot in the production line. But so of course there are some people that are going to buy that Nft because they want the car. but there are other people that might buy it just from an investment perspective Because you know if they get a high spot on the production line when it comes time, when they're gonna actually start delivering those cars that 5K production slot.

that's you know. slot number 120 out of you know, 20 000 cars. That might be pretty valuable, right? if somebody just really wants the actual car. So they wanted to do it this way for that reason.

And because now DeLorean can use all their Nft holders as a marketing channel that can airdrop them free Nfts of other things with you know, with messaging and perks and all that to keep all their their entire reservation list for their car. you know, uh, hot and and excited for their vehicle. So that's what we're seeing. We're seeing actual utility now starting to come to the forest.

I Was just going to say that that makes complete sense to me of I'm a little bit more in the background of socks I'm like okay, what is the value here? So to me that's the value of like someone in the world might find it valuable to be a little closer to the front of the line I Get that, but in the insanity of 2021 where as you alluded to, there were clearly some cash grabs, did it ever make sense to you personally, that pictures with no utility digital art that yes, like you can from in terms of the internet and signature like prove uniqueness? But behind that there was the utility in my mind. and I'm not going to completely bash on it because I see somewhat of the value. It was more of a social standing of people wanting other people to know that they spend x amount of money. It wasn't like that, there were very massively popular ones that didn't get you anything besides the world knowing you were rich or wealthy or lucky or whatever.

Have you did that ever make sense to you? Do you think that type of NFC is now gone? What's the story on? Just like the social status Nfds? Yeah, that's a good question. Um, okay, so A The world is a lot more remote than it used to be, and a lot more online than it used to be. Even just a few years ago, with the proliferation of covet and remote work and then also social media. Okay, so it's a lot easier for everyone to see your just your profile picture.

Let's say right. Number one: Number two: This flexing that you speak of with buying expensive Nfts for the sole purpose of just showing them off which I guarantee you some people. That is why they bought them I Mean, isn't that what art? Isn't that what a lot of people do with art? Like if you buy a van Gogh and put it in your house, it might be because you love Van Gogh Yeah, it also might be because you have a lot of money and you just want to flex when you have your friends over for a party and show them what you just bought. Same thing with the Michael Jordan rookie card.

Yeah, what is the utility of that? What is the utility of a van? Gogh Other than looking at it and looking at how much you like it, right? No. I would assume my thought process is wrong somewhere in this, but when I hear something like art I understand. Maybe I don't see the value in it, but there is some sort of level of supply and demand. The supply is probably one and there's x amount of demand and that's how we get the price.

But when we're talking about digital art that doesn't have any excess utility besides showing it off I think the argument and maybe I'm getting this wrong, but the supply side becomes a very tough Financial discussion because like I could screenshot it, you can screenshot and I am well aware that I'm not the owner, you're not the owner like I Totally get that. but if it's just for the show off purpose like let's say we're not talking about the real Van Gogh But let's say you and I each have just like a picture of the van Gogh like it feels like on that almost not using it appropriately, but almost like a layer two aspect to this opposed to like The Real McCoy like yeah I I see what you're saying I guess yes that I would stick with the analogy of if I print it if I printed out a copy of the Mona Lisa and put it on the wall in my house yeah and invited my friends over to show them my Mona Lisa picture and they're like oh, did you buy that? Is that the real one? Well it's not the real one I just copied it and they're like okay, well what what is Brandon doing here That's kind of weird, right? So that'd be akin to the same thing, right? If you screenshot and they're like oh, do you own that ape that's crazy, those are whatever, a hundred thousand dollars and then if you're like, well, no actually just screenshot I just wanted to show you well that's kind of I mean that's just kind of weird, right? So and I'm not trying to say I think it's important to distinguish with any Nft project all that really matters from in this sort of art related. Flex discussion is: do 10 000 people in the world care about it enough to buy it? Yeah, right. over seven thousand And that's a fair question.

And I think that unfortunately, people think that is all of Nfts. To me, that's an aspect of Nfts that I don't necessarily agree with, but to me, just the pure technology of a non-fungible token. It seems like it could truly upend the world of government documents, medical documents, real estate, copyright related to whatever, whether it's it's a movie, music, all that stuff like to me, that's massively important. Oh yeah, and like what? I don't get in the media and well, no, I get it, it's because it is.

It's salacious of Justin Bieber buying something that's worth a million and now it's worth 60k. Like that's a headline and then that's click. To be clear, he did overpay when he paid for a million. Yeah, I want that on record? Yeah, well, it wasn't at the time, even one that sure.

that's not what the floor should have been anyway. yeah anyway, but I'm sure it's probably in that and like that's news because of who they are in its headlines. but honestly, it gets clicks and that's why. yeah and I think Unfortunately, it detracts from like in my opinion, the optimal use case of Nfts like of people losing their social security their passport to Medical I'm like this is where Nft should shine.

Yes, but it's not as exciting. it's not it. So what doesn't get clicks is so my agency our office is in. Provo Utah Okay, what doesn't get clicks is the fact that Provo Utah the city of Provo their marriage licenses are now Nfts.

Oh, which is cool right there. Another great use case. Awesome use case. It's not going to get very many clicks on any website of any kind, especially not CNBC right? Um, what also doesn't get clicks is oh, here's a new commercial building that has, you know, 76 tenants and now each tenant, their monthly rent has been tokenized and you can now have that cash flow.

if you own that Nft that that's awesome and that's happening. We have a client that's doing that that doesn't get clicks either. Yeah, but that I mean that's what Nfts are I think originally built for and then you know art and and profile picture Apes like I love board apes and I love the yoga Lads Labs team and everything that's sort of who initially latched on to Nfts and got it popular and now it's starting. You know, uh, gaming and music is sort of the next.

like Meta the next you know. Hype Train I Guess you could say but I think that that is just going to continue to expand Gotcha. Now it when people come up to you and talk about Nfcs, Is there a particular I guess sub field of Nfts that you're particularly excited about? but people aren't talking about it and it like blows your mind. You're like how are people not noticing XYZ I Think this is the next big thing in the world of non-fungible tokens I Do think real estate and high-end assets like vehicles, homes, warranties, that kind of thing? I Think those are going to be massive loyalty programs for sure are going to be massive.

Starbucks is doing their entire loyalty program and they're known for having the largest loyalty program in the world. They're completely revamping it to be on polygon on as an Nft. so I think those are going to continue to be to be huge. There's a company based in New York actually called Rally Rally Road They're a cool investing app that lets you buy shares of you know, sports cards or like the Declaration of Independence Like cool stuff like that uh a uh, Stegosaurus's skull like they've got crazy stuff right? Real assets.

So they're They have this new project where you buy the Nft and now you own portions of those real world assets and you can come to their like Museum here in New York and see and and you know show off like hey, I own part of this Stegosaurus. So I think that that's going to continue to become more of a thing. and I I mean there's a ton. I'm I'm pumped about everything to be honest.

just to wrap this all up, obviously this has been dominated by Nfts. What are your personal thoughts on what's going on with the Metaverse? Not necessarily like Zuckerberg and Facebook and men, but I'm saying in general conceptually this: like virtual reality. Do you think our world's going the way of Ready Player one Do you like that? Do you think it's gonna happen? Do you think it'll be used differently? Do Nfts have a place in there? just in general: Optimistic pessimistic. where are you at? I would say I'm somewhere in the middle of those two.

I would say you I would say that one could say we've been in a Metaverse for the last few years. Like look at how much time the average person spends on social between Tick Tock Instagram Twitter You know, snap Facebook like it's a handful of hours a day. Oh yeah. so yeah, it's not the Metaverse because you don't put on goggles I guess.

But you're online and all you're doing is talking to people digitally right for four hours a day. So I think we're in like Metaverse 1.0 right now I think 2.0 You know the version with the goggles. The Ready Player One version I Think that's gonna happen? Yes. I Don't think my mom and dad are going to do it I don't Personally, you know think I'm gonna do it for more than you know, a little bit.

maybe each day just because yeah, it sounds cool but I'm not I I don't know I just don't maybe have the personality where that would want to appeal to me for multiple hours a day. but I think it will to a lot of people, especially the younger people that grow up. iPhone at age 10 Instagram at age 12, you know, tick tock 13. all they know is the digital world so why wouldn't they love it? So I think it's going to be a I think it's going to be a big thing and it's going to be weird.

but I mean the internet was weird when the internet started? That's just how these things go. Yeah, well I appreciate your thoughts. Thank you so much. Yes, thanks for having me.