If you stake the comic to get those fractionalized shares of the crypto punks, you will actually be able to claim a physical comic. So we're going to be sending out serialized physical Comics here in the next month or so.
That was G-funk, founder of Punk's coming. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you've likely heard DC investor and I chatting about punks comic Punk's comic is an NF.
See comic book, inspired by the crypto Punk's franchise, but it is so much more than that. You can take your Punk's comic and burn it allowing you to join their Founders dou. You can also stake, it allowing you to receive a Punk's token, which
is actually a fractional share of 16 crypto
punks. You can also claim a real world Punk's comic and a whole lot more including participation in The Meta hero Universe, talk about, just a crazy and fun Vision. Sit tight. We explain it all.
This is G-funk.
So G-funk. So great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me. Kevin longtime listener happy to be on. Awesome. I really want to start at the beginning with you. You've had such a crazy, fantastic explosion into the space. Why don't you just walk me through when you first started? Getting excited about NF. T's how you got into this whole world? Yeah, so I've been around crypto since
14. I'm sort of an entrepreneur by trade. So unfortunately, I kept rolling those profits from Bitcoin and aetherium back into my sort of real-world businesses. So didn't have much to show for it. But heading into the end of the year. Last year. I started to get into an FTS as you know, you know and be a Top Shot started on board a ton of people and as a lifelong sports fan, I really sort of got into that and very quickly.
I became more involved with the punks Community crypto punks and, you know, it's the rabbit hole gets deep pretty quick. Once you get into the crypto punks Discord, it's crazy. How much that Discord has changed, right? Like it was, it was such a smaller Community before everything exploded, and it was really kind of manageable. You would kind of go there to find out about new project stuff like that and then it just blew up was that your experience as well? Yeah. I mean a lot of the guys that now you would you would say are very well-known on
Twitter would be in there, just kind of helping people learn about the different attributes, the different Rarities, you know, trying to make sure you made a wise first purchase, didn't overpay. So, I remember talking to D's in the early days in there and just, you know, really digging deep into what made these unique, you know, very, very different than Top Shot. Obviously, once you get onto it Theory, mm, you know, decentralizing. I think that's really the way to go. We can sort of dig down that rabbit hole as well. But, you know,
I found the community to be extremely welcoming and yeah, I was hooked instantly and so you went off and did you like get the courage to go? Buy your first Punk? Was that your first taste in 2nf? He's outside of Top Shot. Or did you take some top shots and sell them? So you could buy a punk. Like how did that whole know? I've never sold my Top Shot. So, you know, maybe like, 10K all the way up to probably a hundred seventy two hundred K and then all the way back down.
Down, I've never sold, but I started just sort of dabbling in projects here. And there. I remember, I really got into the, the sort of hash mask craze. I remember talking with keyboard monkey. He got like super into it, and we were dming back and forth and, you know, at that time, nobody really knew who I was. So, it was pretty cool that he had very high profile on crypto Twitter. So we became friends and I think that was around the same time that that he was sort of on-boarded into n FTS and I made a lot.
Money flipping, the hash masks. I didn't I didn't stick with the community. I sort of leveraged those profits to get into crypto punks and then shortly thereafter got into Euler beats. And that's where I met DC. Got to know beanie, a lot better and the other founder of Punk's comic Sports cheetah. We that that's sort of where we went down the rabbit hole with beanie. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm curious when you think about ways to break into a new community. Obviously. There's a lot of people
We'll listen to this, that they'll reach out to me and they'll say like, hey, I listen to podcast but how do I get started? Would you say, you know, these discords are absolutely the way to go, just like making friendships, like demon people's that. How, what got you started? Yeah. I mean, I would actually reach out to people on Twitter. That was where I made a lot of my good connections early on just seeing people that I thought were making really intelligent comments. Not even necessarily based on the size of their bankroll. I mean, there are a lot of people that you know, are
All at one time that later grow, huge audiences. I remember meeting troppo farmer through Twitter and Discord and you know, now he's got like 50,000 followers. So, you know, I'd say if you, if you have an opinion and you have something intelligent or unique to bring to the table, to just try and get involved. And I found people even, you know, with very large followings are pretty open to interacting as long as you're, you know, not spamming saying.
Something intelligent. Yeah, and what was it? That initially kind of allowed you to form these friendships? What did you uniquely bring to the table that people were looking for? Well, like, with with beanie, I was actually trying to sell them in nft. And and he's sort of like punked me initially, but at the time he didn't really have much of a following and I just sort of kept asking him questions. I remember the first time I saw his account. He had just made a huge deal with
See Nate they did like Top Shot for crypto Punk's trade and he had like 200 followers at the time being he did and but it was this was like a multi hundred thousand dollar trade. So, you know caught my attention started asking questions and I had only been following and ft's for a couple months at that point. So just just really tried to learn and then I got really involved with Brian brinkman's project, the Nim buds. So that was sort of my onboarding to the world of art blocks and
a couple months are blocks is obviously really taken off. So, you know, there's all sorts of different ways to find your way in. I would just say, you know, don't be afraid to reach out and you never know the connections you might make what was the first time where you said? Okay, I'm going to go do something in this space. Was it punks comic? That really is the first project that you kicked off? Yeah. So after reaching out to be any we sort of had started conceptualizing, this idea.
Of you know, building intellectual property in a true sense behind and FTS. So at this time, let's say maybe February of this year, you had started to see people really sort of developing Brands behind their crypto Punk, right, you know, DC with his hoodie D's had his hoodie beanie with with his beanie, obviously, gee money and his eight, but nobody had really started to develop.
Phillip fiction Behind these characters. And so, my personal background is in film and television sort of Support Services, not in front of the camera, but you know, supporting what goes on to the screen. So I looked at it from that more traditional media lens and thought, wow, you know, what if we could create a narrative Behind These sort of stagnant on chain assets that drove value Beyond just kind of like a collectability standpoint and
This idea was sort of, you know, mulling around in my head as we were really involved with this Euler beats Community. Like I had said, I was talking to DC sort of in these early days about the idea beanie, obviously. And, you know, he had a ton of punks at the time. I only had one. So ultimately he he ended up investing 13 of his crypto Punk's into this project and then myself and sports cheetah contributed.
A combined three. So, you know I couldn't have made the project happen without his capital. I was a very short stack to start the year and have been fortunate to, to make something huge out of it. But yeah, I mean when when Christie's officially announced that first crypto Punk's auction. That's when it triggered kind of like an urgency in my head. Wow, you know, the mainstream is coming. I need to put this plan.
To action. And so we sort of set this Target in mind to launch the comic book the day before that first Christie's Auction. That's awesome. Yeah, you were the first person that I think that really thought to go deep here and develop some lore and kind of like a backstory or kind of Flesh that out a little bit more. And it seems like now that is kind of table Stakes for new new projects that are launching that they all want to embrace IP and
Ended story and add-ons and in additional lore, would you say that's accurate? Yeah. I mean at the time when we had launched it was sort of that kind of a mini bear Market that hit, it was us V friends and the board apes. And there was not really much else that had launched during this sort of window of time. And, you know, now you see 10 different Comics, everybody's sort of rolling out these these roadmaps for future action, and I think that that's
That's proof that we really sort of struck this nerve that people understand that the value creation that can be had by creating a backstory to these images. You know, they're awesome as art Collectibles, but really in creating that story, you develop a much more personal connection and then we've also taken it a step further with all this gamification. So that it's not just a passive collecting experience. It keeps it, you know, much more fun and much more engaged.
Gently and, you know, we'll have our detractors that say it's too complicated and you know, it's fine. Whichever whichever side of the street you lie on there, but we really wanted this sort of collecting experience to be reflective of of each individual, right? Your decisions lead your collection to look, the way it does. And so, you know, very much gamifying collecting and, and creating IP Behind These assets. So cool. How did you think about this? When you
He saw, you know, the inspiration behind it. Obviously being crypto punks. That's larva Labs. That's their IP. They hadn't. Really still don't think they fully kind of put given a ton of clarity around how they want to deal with IP related issues. How did you did you tread lightly there? When thinking about how to create a Punk's comic? Yeah. So, you know, I wish they would be a little bit more involved with sort of the communal discourse, but the way I looked at things,
Things and I have gone to law school. And so I have a pretty pretty good understanding of intellectual property. You know, I'm not a lawyer by trade, but I wanted to be very respectful of their art and their IP. And so while the crypto punks sort of served as the stimulus for the idea. We don't use their art anywhere. We don't use their marks. We make very clear that we're a different project. So all along it was a very high priority.
For me, not to trade off of what it is that they've built. But sort of build like an offshoot Community, which I think in many ways has made that Community stronger. What what everyone else has done with their Punk's has really built that brand to be the sort of blue chip end-all-be-all in the world of collecting, right? Obviously, you have the one of one art that, that sort of falls into a different category. But, you know, I think it would be a hard argument to argue that the crypto
These aren't sort of where it starts and stops in terms of Blue Chip and ft Collectibles. Yeah, and how did you when you have this idea for a comic? I mean, when I think about creating my own comic, I mean that's that's it. That as a lot of work. Like, how do you recruit talent for something like this? Like, where did you find all of the design Talent? Yeah, we made it all happen, incredibly quickly. I mean, from from the moment that we decided to move on the idea.
To actually coming out with the comic, couldn't have been much more than a month month and a half and I mean, basically no one slept Chris Wall. Our artist comes from a background at DC. You know, you name the, the major Comic brand and he's worked there. Yeah, as look at it as. Yeah, overall is bio. It's like Marvel tank roll cover artist DC Comics Lucas film. Mad Magazine. I mean just I don't know how you landed Chris.
That's kind of stuff. Yeah. So the way we landed Chris actually beanie just put a tweet out there. There's a project I'm involved with looking for the top artists in the world, money is No Object and he got like, hundreds and hundreds of responses and just sent them over to me. And from the time that I was introduced to Chris to hiring him was probably six hours like when he reached out. I saw his his art. I just knew that he was the right person for the job.
I mean, I couldn't imagine the project without him, sort of at the helm artistically. So, you know, call it luck. But we found the exact right guy for the job inside, 24 hours of, putting out the call. It just worked out amazingly. Yeah, I mean, whether it be the comic or meta hero, he has this very unique style that I think everyone's sort of now connects to our brand. Yeah. Absolutely. And how did pixel Vault coming?
Into this like was that there's the overarching entity that that owns all of these things. Like what is that? Exactly? Yeah. So pics of all, you can just kind of think, as sort of the umbrella for for everything that that comes underneath whether that be punks comic or meta, hero, or future IPS that are created with sort of this core concept of developing intellectual property with NF T, s-- backing them. So the first project being based off of crypto Punk
Right, fractional izing those assets allowing users to stake for fractionalized ownership in those crypto Punk's. That was sort of the core idea there. And then meta hero was creating just completely brand. New IP starting with sort of these basic ideas for what we would like superheroes traits to be Etc. You know, it's sort of a tried-and-true model for Comics, right? If you look back at sort of DC and Marvel in the very early days.
They didn't have superheroes. It wasn't until Superman was introduced that that really comics and superheroes became synonymous. So the way we looked at it at the beginning was okay, you know, we're introducing these these characters human characters and then gradually will introduce superheroes into the mix in sort of the same fashion as the early days of Comics. That's so cool. We've talked about your project so many times on the podcast. I'm sure. I don't know if you've heard it.
The odds of it. Listen to him. Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that I'm so fascinated with is just like how you figured out that the token, a mix of all this like, what is it mean to buy and hold and and ft Punk's comic and then what you can do with it? It can you as the founder. I think you'd be the perfect person to kind of walk us through exactly how this all plays out from from day. One from buying that first Punk's comic. Can you can you walk me through that?
At. Yeah. On the last pod you and DC did a really good job. Actually, it was it was a lot of fun to listen to so awesome. It's so. So there was originally this collection of 10,000 comics. And from those Comics. They were backed by the 16 crypto Punk's that are sort of at the core of this story and lore, which will eventually become superheroes. Can I ask you a question there? While I want to walk through the step-by-step when you say a couple things that impact their you said there were 10,000 comments. Do you mean in ftes or do you mean physical comics?
Both actually, so we'll sort of get into the, the staking versus Burning routes. But if you stake the comic to get those fractionalized shares of the crypto punks, you will actually be able to claim a physical comic. So we're going to be sending out serialized physical Comics here in the next month or so, we've actually had them printed since August, but we can't send them until all of the different burning mechanisms, have come to play, because we want,
The the number of comics and physicals to match exactly each one will be serialized. So yeah, got your. So when you say there were these Punk's that were put in in fractionalized, walk us through the thinking what did you do? These are those Punk's? You mentioned earlier that came into the mix, you have this as assets. They're obviously the floor prices for these are, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars a piece. Three, you think somewhere around there you have these, I think we're at like 5:00.
Mm or refurbish you. Can you pitch this insane? So there are 500,000 piece. You put them into a fractionalization. Smart contract, like fractionalized heart, correct? Yeah, we were one of the launch partners with fractional. Okay, so you put them in, you lock them up in there. Now. Why did you do that? Like walk us through? What is the what it? Why have that mechanic at all? So it's kind of funny now looking back and seeing where the prices have gone, but I remember in putting the
Comic together, the cheapest one we bought I think was something like 16 East. And at that time, the idea was well, people can't afford a crypto Punk who has 16 teeth, right? And now, they're like a hundred twenty, 'if each it's just insane. But so the idea was to give exposure to the broader community in what I really consider just sort of be, I mean in a very real way historically it was the birth of entities on the ethereum blockchain, but I
Think culturally that collection just means a lot and I think a lot of collectors would like to have some exposure to the crypto Punk's collection. And so, this was a really fun way in developing sort of a bond with these characters behind sort of the the 8-Bit Avatar, right? But at a much lower price point. And so that's the punks token, which will eventually you'll be able to stake your comic for the punks token. Okay. So what you're saying is when someone went into
to buy or still they buy one today of Punk's comic in Ft. They can then take that and I know that we both know this but I'm just trying to get drinks play for everyone else out there. We can take that and we can actually lock it up. So you really don't have it. Any longer you're staking it and then over time you will get little fractions of this, these fractionalized Punk's. You will have a little slice of the actual original crypto punks.
By locking up that n of T. The exactly. Yes, so, you know think of it as depositing, your comic with us. And in return, you get these Punk's tokens, which are fractional pieces of those 16 core crypto Punk's, right? And this is why I still own a couple of punks Comics that I have yet to burn. But then, there is another Avenue, where you can say, actually, I don't want to go that route. I don't want fractionalize, don't want to take it. I want fractionalize. Oh wait, but how do you get the physical comic? You have to still hold?
The punks comic, right? Yeah. So if T, yeah, while you're staking you that route use, you're still able to get the physical comic books, claiming window on the website, and everyone will be able to claim shipping worldwide free. So that's really exciting and a bunch of people. Also, one signed Comics. We did these little giveaways. I think one in a hundred people were winning assigned, comic there for a while. So yeah, that's really, really exciting season. Get him cgc. Graded. As you know, exactly. And then you'll see them popping up. Probably.
These another places like secondary sales is physical comments. So cool. It's us. Yeah, so, okay, so you got that side of it. Now, what's the other route where I say screw it. I'm going to destroy this Punk's comic burn it. It's gone forever, right? So on on that on that first side thus taking their 50 million Punk's tokens in that pool to be distributed among the comic holders. Today. There are about 40 100 Comic holders left on the other side. You have the founders doubt, which is basically an art deco.
Ow, and in there, that group of people 5900 roughly collectively, hold 25 million Punk's tokens. So you still do get exposure on the founders, Dow side, but you don't hold them yourself there. They're collectively held in the doubt. You also get amazing art. I mean you get a lost Robbie, which, you know, I think the floor on those now is, well, over a million only about 30 of those and that's, you know, much like the crypto punks themselves. That's
A historical. If we could have the whole podcast on that one. We have talked about it with the super rare founder. By the way, we mentioned a previous episode that I did, we talked about that whole crazy Fiasco of those lost Robbie's family. And that was the topic of the first issue. It's called The Hunt For The Lost Robbie's, so that's awesome. Yeah, so we wanted to tie in a lot of historical, sort of Easter eggs. They're in this this first comic but we included a bunch of one of one.
Art, plus this loss Robbie. So there's a hack attack. How that is based off of one of our crypto Punk's, Courtney bald, Femme green clown. I she's amazing. And then we had killer acid. He did a one of one and we have Robbie Trevino. He did a one of one. So really just adding amazing one of one art from some of the top artists in the world, but having them put kind of their own spin on the characters. It's sort of like a forced savings account, right beneath.
Talked about this a lot on Twitter, but every flip he's made and he's sort of like a notorious flipper, has been a bad one. Right? If he had just held, he'd be a lot better off. And I think many of us sort of fall into that trap seeing, you know, prices, go up, and they've gone up a lot this year, you know, you sort of feel like, okay, you know, maybe I should take my gains but having all of the one of one art in this Collective, Dow where, you know, you're able to interact with the community and other people that own this alongside you.
It's sort of force you to hold. So yeah, and we got fuck render to design the token for that. It's we call it Diamond hands and you would have to see the art to get it but it's a very apt name when I go that route. Now. I have exposure to the Dow. Right? So I burned and that gives me exposure. How does that? Appreciate? Because the Dow is going to hold these assets. Presumably for quite some time. Is there any liquidity here? If I later a lot of these appreciated go up in value and I want to back out.
Okay, I'm done. What would I be selling? So the Dow token, you can trade actively on Open, Sea. So obviously their price fluctuations there. We've seen that, the Dow token of everything in the collection has sort of maintained the most steady price. Although I would argue. It's probably the most underappreciated asset in the collection. But ultimately, the people that hold these Dow tokens will be able to vote. So, you know, you can sell off some of the punks tokens you.
In sell-off. The one of one art, obviously, as the founder, I'd like that stuff to stay in there as it's all tied to that first comic and will continue to have art added over time as we release further projects. So, you know, I'd like them to, to be held in there, you know, you'll see the price appreciation on Open Sea hopefully, and people can just trade them there and, and have quite a bit awesome. Let's walk through metal hero. How does that all connect to this?
Yeah, so many hero as I was saying, was sort of the introduction of superheroes into the comic book universe. So issue to we're doing sort of in partnership with the board ape Community. We selected eight board Apes. We did like a huge thing called Eight Madness where the community selected their final, a tapes based on like campaigns and stuff. They were doing. It was pretty awesome. I don't know if you saw any of that but then issue 3 is the introduction of the superheroes. And
So Meta hero is a collection of roughly 10,000 generative avatars, and we also have 146 cores, and the cores are sort of the basis of our IP. But the, the generative Czar are based off of those hundred forty six cores. So, you know, you'll get the head, the face a weapon from a different core. The algorithm just basically selected different pieces of each and so will be building the IP.
Not core collection, but you as a generative Holder, have full commercial rights to your generative Avatar. So you have a DC, Marvel designed amazing superhero that you can go out and make your own TV show or a comic book, or, you know, sell t-shirts. Whatever it is. You want to do with your avatar. You have full commercial rights to those generative ones. And we think that decentralizing this IP is really, you know, sort of the way of the future. The buzzword, you know, decentralized Disney.
Right. Having a community of people, you know, all putting their minds toward this Collective, good building value for all has been the focus of the project since day one and the the step further that we took here was with this launch of our planets, The Meta hero Universe were aiming to build this decentralized gaming platform, a game verse as it were. So imagine you have
Fortnight but owned by the come instead of epic games, right? So as part of this, we've created a bow and ultimately that Dow we expect to have somewhere between 80 to a hundred million, we just recently signed with William Morris Endeavor and one of the major reasons we did that was for their Partnerships in the world of gaming, you know, they are part owners of Epic Games. Couple of their agents just came over from FaZe Clan. So, you know, we're going to Leverage The
ships. We have through that partnership. We have a couple game devs on our team already and you know, we're gonna attempt to take on one of the biggest sort of decentralized experiments that has ever existed through these 10 Dows all working together Planet by Planet. It's it's it's going to be amazing. It's sort of a technical and sociological experiment excited for it. That's so cool. So, what's the current status of all the planets that you have or how many are still available?
For sale. How could people collect them? Yeah, so so far, two planets have sold out. We've sold out Pluto and Mars, which were sort of the two most scarce tokens Mercury, which is sort of the most valuable token as it's the first planet. And in-game experience that's going to come online. It has about half of them left. Their is intentionally a large supply of these Planet tokens because you know, as you're trying to build out a AAA level game, as I mentioned.
Earlier, you know, eighty to a hundred million dollars is going to be going into the production of this really, we need to build out the ecosystem. Right? And if T is while, you know, to us might seem big, it's still probably just a couple hundred thousand people. And so, ultimately a game like Fortnight with millions and millions of users in it. We want to have this be extremely decentralized. We wanted to avoid gas Wars and really allow people who haven't had a chance to participate in the
Folks comic or medical community. Have a much lower price of Entry. That's like the most common question. I get, you know, people see the comic and the Medicare all identities doing fifty a hundred X right off initial mint price, but now, you know, not everybody has 510 eith to enter into, you know, a collection like that and we've done a lot of drops that were exclusive to our community. So people have wanted the opportunity to
to get in but really didn't have the opportunity. And so the planets provides that and we have, we have some tricks up, Our Sleeve as it relates to the supply here, but I think
Too many people in the community right now are forced to focus on scarcity, right? There's this fear to have a project that doesn't sell out instantly and I really think that that's sort of famine thinking, right? If we're forcing people to fomo into something without really understanding, what you're becoming a part of, I really don't think that that's what is best for the space long-term. And, you know, then you end up
with otters and Wales making up just such a huge majority of the collector base, right? So instead, Why not start with a really high Supply and introduce, you know, deflationary mechanics later on, right? So that's sort of the what we're playing with right now. A lot has yet to be unveiled and we have a lot of tie ins as it relates to the creation of this universe, from a story and lore perspective.
But yeah, that's the approach we've taken here. How do you think about how a planet will eventually play in this universe? What, what role will that have? Because with there being so many planets, will each be used as a utility into the universe? Meaning like, it will eventually translate to something else in the world, or would actually be a one-for-one mapping of having your own planet in a new metaverse. So, let's say you own Mercury, right? You
854 others along with pixel Vault and the founders. Dow will have full ownership and governance over what happens on that planet. So that's going to be a fully immersive game experience. Imagine Fortnight or Halo but not right. So they'll be these ten distinct environments while you'll be able to to play in game. Here's a perfect example. So on the way to having gameplay Mercury will ultimately need to
Decide, you know, what do we want to do with the land on Mercury? So the Dow each of these tokens will vote? Okay, you know, we want to hold back, the land and distribute it among the Thousand or so, token holders or hey, you know, we want to sell off the plots of land, you know, sandbox or decentraland style, right? And then that money would flow back to the Mercury Dow and ultimately, the token holders could distribute those funds to themselves. So,
Each of these dials is very much, a unique, Dow type environment. There will be revenues specific to each planet, but then they each participate in sort of this Central Congress typed out the up-down, you could think of as the platform itself. So platform fees revenues Etc from this. This immersive gaming platform would go to that and then that would trickle back to the planets as well. Okay, so you can think of it as State versus federal government is, is it?
Easy way to look at it. Yeah. And so when you buy one of these tokens in a very real way, you are participating in the development of this massive platform that is going to benefit all of the token holders. Long-term. What's your timeline like for this stuff. A lot of the meta versus that I see or a lot of them that are you know, Community developed and in are being worked on it seems like we're years away from seeing launches of
Meta verses that are in the very early stages. What, how do you approach software development when it comes to? This is, is it going to be a very kind of bare bones, raw initial launch or do you the time to really fully develop a, pretty finished product before you go out? Yeah. So we're sort of, in a unique position, trying to build a gaming platform, while also being an mft project. So we're looking at it from both lenses, wanting it to be very Interactive.
Active during the development process, but also understanding that the long-term goal is is huge and will take a considerable amount of time. So, initially will probably release sort of like, a PVP initial kind of beta level gaming experience, will you'll get the look and feel of the characters and then we're going to launch Planet by planet. And so that was what I touched on earlier where Mercury will be the first environment to come online and so all of the medic hero
Identities, Sidekicks Etc. That are part of this will be interacting on Mercury for some time. So we're not looking to bite off more than we can chew at once. It's definitely going to be a phased release, but we think that if done right and leveraging, all of the amazing components of n FTS, we can make it a really compelling Collectibles experience, while also undertaking a massive.
Game development project. That's cool. Yeah, that sounds like the right approach because it a lot of these projects. Well, students. A lot of few of them that have looked at. It's a invest now, trust us give us five years, you know, that's like, I worried that leads to somewhat of a stagnant kind of community, you know, your exact kind of keep people engaged and excited along the way. Yeah. I don't think people have the time frame for that. Right? Yeah. We've introduced the, the 2D art avatars, right? And then there is going to be the 3D.
Model avatars and you get that for free for owning one. And then there will be the actual in-game experience character that you'll get down the road and obviously that will be tied to the nft. Piece-by-piece gamifying both the collectability standpoint and also allowing the Dow's to participate in sort of major decision making. I think we'll keep the community engage through, what will obviously be a very long-term project. How do you think about web 3 in general, when you
You think about, you know, in a few he's obviously it's a beautiful thing is that they can be moved around and, you know, hopefully moved into different meta versus over time. And in that out and owned by the end consumer at the same time, building a kind of crazy MMORPG or whatever the final product ends up, being needs to be performant, needs to have, you know, the ability to scale with hundreds of thousands or millions of users. How do you think about centralized versus decentralized? You think about other blockchain?
What are your thoughts there? Yeah, I mean, obviously we're still in the very early stages of, you know, sort of unleashing, the potentials of these Technologies. I think what acts he has done, has obviously been an amazing use case for how you might be able to incorporate and FTS at the very basic core gaming experience. And obviously, it's also unlocked a lot with ptooey, which we want to sort of build on here.
While creating a more fun experience but web 3 in general. And I just think it's it's really going to swallow traditional media by having the power in the users hands. I think you'll see people much more engaged in the end result, you know, there's only so much power that the devs that, you know, pick a game shop, have their internally. But if you're building something for the common good, you know,
Very quickly, you'll have ideas that are totally unsolicited people reaching out that are not on the payroll for example, wanting to help. And I think at the most basic level, you're going to see web three be extremely disruptive in that way, as it pertains to scaling the game. And, you know, Finding ways to have an FTS across potentially millions of users on an in-game experience, you know, unfortunately,
Ali. Today that answer is not clear, you know, we're speaking to experts in both gaming and scaling these blockchain Technologies. I'm not sure if we would ever go away from eith. I think from a collectible standpoint.
We'd like to be in a theory in base 10 ft business, but that's extremely tricky as it pertains to use in-game. You know, what we've seen with like crypto kitties back in the day, the Havoc that massive nft Deluge can have on the performance of The Block Chain itself. So, you know today, unfortunately, I don't have the answers to that. But certainly, we will have the resources and the manpower to
To, to dive into those answers, which, you know, without taking risks and having teams that are willing to to take on these hard, these hard questions and scaling, you know, the space as a whole will come to a standstill. So we realize sort of the difficulties that lie ahead but just sort of the very basic ethos of crypto and web three, I think will be extremely valuable as we, as we tackle.
These tough questions. Yeah, it is is certainly challenging for a whole slew of different companies to figure out how much of that decentralized nature to approach when you're thinking about scale. There's no perfect solution yet, but it might be some type of hybrid approach. You might actually end up at. Well, you got some time to figure it out. Yeah. Exactly. We'll keep it fun. We'll keep it fun. In the meantime. I mean, if pics of all is known for anything, it's all of these decision points and, and gamifying.
The process so it certainly won't be boring. Yeah, I have no doubt about that. Given what you've already rolled out Going Back Road briefly to the punks Comics. Like how many do you envision their being? Yeah. So we're going to be releasing quarterly Comics were a bit behind schedule as issue to has a major corporate partner that hasn't been unveiled yet, but a very exciting, a couple different communities are going to be participating in this. And you know again, that's sort of the power of web 3 and
Realization, you know, you'd never see, major brand interacting with one another in this way, but it's very much a nonzero-sum game right now, in my opinion, you know, what's good for? Other creators is good for me, trying to onboard more people, to the space. So, just trying to work together with other creators and and, and find ways to interact with corporate America. Who obviously this is all still very, very new to. But you know, luckily we have found a partner.
That sort of sees the future here. Unfortunately that has led to some delays with issue too. So we're thinking probably in November mid-november release for issue two and then q1 some time for issue 3, but shortly after the release of issue to, we're going to start either bi-weekly or monthly shorts where we're able to sort of build the backstory to maybe some of the secondary characters in the comic. And this will also
Item opportunity for different artists, to put their own spin on how they look at the Punk's comic world, right? Not everything will be drawn by Chris Wall. So the core comic obviously is still very much Chris's baby, but I think it will be cool to be able to interact with all the different artists in the community, who have expressed interest in doing these shorts and building building out the IP in a much more significant way as
As I touched on earlier, our newly minted relationship with WME. We're going to actively be pushing the IP across a variety of verticals, you know, whether that be comic books animated series films. No YouTube. There are so many different ways that modern media. It can expand the pie for all of us. And so,
You're seeing a handful of communities and creators start to go down this path of leaving the nft crypto community and start trying to onboard people to the space and it's super important in that process to have the right partners. And, you know, I couldn't be more thrilled to be partnered with WME. They really have a great understanding of the technology itself. Chris giacomin. He's sort of like Chiefs.
Rata G there, and he comes from a background in Tech, right? He used to work in early social media. And so he's, he's sort of been at the Leading Edge of many different Technologies and he sees web 3 and in very much the same vein as we do really being a disruptive Force to traditional media. And so because of that strategic Vision, we know that they'll be respectful of of our wishes to sort of imbue value back to the community rather than
Just enriching ourselves. And I think that that's really what's going to grow this space more than anything is, you know, giving value to the creators and the community rather than just corporations. It seems like you are so open to partnering and taking this in different directions. And and just having fun with the brand, like, when you mention bringing on other artists to experiment with growing up with Comics, like it was so cool. When you would see another artist, embrace the series, right? Like Todd McFarlane, would jump on something or, you know, and
In illustrate something and you just get a whole different take or view on Old material kind of like refreshed, you know, so that'll be a lot of fun. At the end of the day, you know, nft is should be fun. Right? This is, this is a collecting experience, you know, if it's not bringing a smile to your face, you're doing something wrong. I mean, you know, I think about it even while I sleep. It might be becoming a problem but you know, the community has supported us so strongly since day one. I mean not.
Nobody really understood our vision for the IP and, you know, backing the comic with the crypto punks. I mean, it took us five weeks to sell out initially. And, you know, those people that saw the vision early on, have obviously been handsomely rewarded and so, you know, it's just such a rewarding experience to be able to interact with those people. And you know, see all of us succeed together. It's really unlike any other, I don't know, corporate space in the world.
And so, you know, while covid probably brought obviously brought a lot of bad things. I think it's sort of unlocked, this sort of untapped potential of all of these people who are unhappy with their corporate jobs and sitting at home and on the internet and it's sort of led to this Renaissance of of Art and creativity through n FTS. And I really think we're barely scratching the surface of what this is going to do. And yeah, I just love working with all the other creators in the space.
Like I said issue, too. Is, you know, highlighting the Apes, the board Apes. So, you know, happy to work with other creators that are looking to push the boundaries. I think, right now given the, the massive amount of gains that we've seen across different collections. Unfortunately, people are buying into a lot of CopyCat projects. So, you know, I'm trying to work with creators that are doing things that are new, right? We should be rewarding.
Being creativity and Ingenuity and avoiding cash, grabs and where there's money. Unfortunately, Bad actors will come. But, you know, I'm, I'm so excited to see where all of this is going to go. And there's just so many Brilliant Minds in the space that have helped. Give me ideas, inspire me forward. So I think that's what it's all about with. You. Just seeing so much and being so deep into this space, one of the questions that I always like to ask my guest on this show are
You mentioned that your Punk's comic took weeks to sell out, right? Some people saw it early and they just immediately clicked. What have you seen? That's out there that you believe you have seen early that you're excited about. Whether it be new, and up-and-coming artists or new interesting. Projects are the things that that you could identify right now. There that you're just personally drawn to regardless of whether they eventually blow up our appreciate, but things that you think that people are doing that are novel and exciting. Yeah, I mean,
In some of my friends over at the Rune Wizards. I really loved what they were doing with their launch and obviously that that has been a while since their launch. But, you know, I think that was a totally new experience at the time. And then Heaven computer. We had, we had her on on one of the pods actually, a Twitter spaces. Her story is just so interesting, and I don't know if you participated in that drop, but it was like this old, like, Windows 98 type experience. So, cool. I got to have her on.
Was that that was just some amazing stuff to witness? Yes. Yeah. I actually don't mint very often just because I mean, you know, I have my head down building our project. So I very rarely get an opportunity to Mint but when people point out something that is just totally new and creative. You know, I definitely want to be there and support. I saw Dave. I'm not sure his last name jungmann or something like that klingman, but his new photography project.
Drive. I bought, I bought two of these. These Grail cars there were like eight or ten auctions and he's really gamifying the photography experience. He's going to do some things that are that are somewhat similar. He said actually punks comic inspired him with some of the ideas he had for this photography project and I had no idea. I had never even talked to him at the time. And so I guess I'm just drawn to the game theory and the gamification of collecting.
I'm trying to think what else? I mean, you know, one of one art I think is, is really underappreciated. Obviously, I see the value in our blocks, but I think we're going to start seeing people eventually turning back to this the super rare pieces. Someday, the one of one art, you know, if you're new to the space, it's a lot harder to go out on a limb and and buy something that doesn't have a community behind it. So, I think we've seen that art sort of lag behind other than, you know, a few artists.
Obviously, you've been participating in some of these xcopy sales. So, you know, some artists have been able to gain some momentum Dimitri teacher. Niak friend of mine, you know, he's, he's done some amazing things, and I'm a big ringers collector. So, yeah, I'd say I'm mostly participating in our blocks. And then when our Founders doubt Channel pings me. Hey, Shawn, you need to check out this this the really creative drop. I always try and participate. Oh, the Rockets.
What's his name Tom? Yeah, Tom Sachs the rockets. That was really cool and unique launching off those Rockets. So I collected a bunch of those. Yeah. Grade. Did you make any complete ones? Yeah. I have five of them. They're awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean if you're doing something that's totally different. I'm down the support you and I think that's what it's all about. So, yeah, I recording Ingenuity. Yeah. How to present is very early days. There's so much that can be done on the smart contract side and I think we're going to see some really cool stuff on.
The next few years. So yeah, I mean it's a bit scary. You know, I have like Normie friends asking me. Okay, you know, like what should I buy and a lot of my favorite things have run so far since I got in this, you know, earlier this year, but you know, when you look at the numbers, you know, a couple hundred thousand people participating in open sea, and I think a lot of people have multiple accounts. So, you know, if this does even one 100th of I think both you and I
I think it will do. I mean, this is so incredibly early. It's sort of mind-boggling when you stop to think where some of these prices could go. Yeah. Agreed. And especially with the fractionalization. That will eventually open up, you know, the higher it more expensive pieces to the average consumer. It's going to be crazy. I mean, there will be if everything plays out there will be, you know, like funds that will be tradable as tokens that will hold.
Old different digital assets and, and of teas as like a basket, you know, you'll buy like an index fund of X copies or something, you know, is that? I don't even think we're that far off from snow like that. That's the crazy thing. I know that could actually this part, there's probably three startups already working on. It, one's probably already launched. I just don't know. How do, you know the institutions are coming to steal your jpegs? Yeah. Seriously, I'm up. Well G-funk. Thank you so much. This has been awesome anything to announce in the immediate future that people should be keeping their eye on.
Or any places, they should go. Hang out. Obviously, your discords. Huge. What else? Yeah, so Punk's, comic.com meta hero Universe. We have the planet still on sale and keep your eyes peeled on Twitter. We're going to be sort of unveiling some more of the story. And some of the game theory mechanics here this week and then, you know, just just really getting back to work and building mode and very excited for issue to and and announcing that sort of major partnership here in the next couple weeks. I think that's, that's going to really shake up.
The space. So very excited for what's in store. I think we're all going to make it. You know, I'm excited for issue one. I want that physical in my hands. I want to ask, I got to like figure out how to get that. Can I pay extra for like special shipping? Someone doesn't get bent or anything there? Yeah. They're all going to come in a very high level case. Okay, Laura. Yeah, each case is like $20 that they're going to be shipped in. So it's Resort taking great care to make sure that people are able to get them graded. Okay, cool, because the first thing, I'm
Is go and someone off and get it graded. You know, that's just gonna be fun. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. You're not penny-pinching. Hear that. That's amazing. I love to say that you're doing it. Right? And, and thank you for creating something that is exciting and interesting, and fun. And and exploring new Dynamics in this world. Because you were the first to understand and embrace the deeper cultural kind of backstory. And Lord that is required for these projects to have more longevity. And honestly, it's just frankly more interesting, you know, and a more fun. Yeah, I mean
No, I honestly can't believe it. Sometimes that how much my life has changed just off the back of this idea. But I think what we have here is very powerful and you're going to see a lot of creators leveraging ideas like this for a long time to come driving value back to not only themselves in a way that can last their entire careers, but the community and their supporters, you know, people will reach out to me thinking they're bothering me and tell me, you know, how much the comic has changed.
Our life and it really just doesn't get old. So very grateful to be in this space and super excited for what's to come. I completely agree. Yeah. In and say, my will hope to have you on many future episodes to talk about this whole multi-year. Hopefully. Multi-decade evolution of what you're building. That's the plan. I'll hold you to it. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it. All right. That is it for this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you would like to help us out.
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