You know what you know is i've made tons of decisions along the way that hurt me financially but protected my community, the garyvee audio experience vaynernation. How are you i am fired up for a very special podcast, one of the great ogs of on-chain ethereum nft land has joined me. This gentleman is admired by the people i admire uh, which uh makes it super fun. We're gon na really jam here for a little bit.

This is going to be a very, very good podcast. I know it because i know i can feel my own energy and because what's been going on in the in the vayner communities, like obviously nfts has been encompassing our 2021. So many of you are learning, so many of you are prospering, you're, being educated you're watching out for scams. Your cynicism for a lot of you has thought out: you're learning.

We have a balanced conversation of this one of the great things that happened to me. Uh in the process of be friends was being introduced by jimmy uh to jimmy excuse me uh, and his company nft 42, which i've invested in they were the backbone in my partnership on getting uh v, friends to where it was and how well it went and Uh and what i want to talk about is just nfts og stories: the state of the union, i'm really going to interview jimmy here for my own enjoyment and you're going to be able to listen in but uh jim. Why don't you uh take the floor for two minutes? Give everybody your name, your your company and a little bit about yourself. Sure yeah, hey gary thanks! So much for having me on here.

Uh i've been really looking forward to this. You and i have had you know some conversations throughout the months about nfts, but i think you know being able to capture this knowledge and share it with your audience is incredibly important and a lot of has gone on in the last couple weeks, since we caught Up so we can talk about the current market and some some fun plans. Um, i'm jimmy with the one j1 mmy dot eth. You can find me on twitter and other places, as gary said, uh founded, nft42 and also nameless, avastars and tokensmart.

These are all companies in the metaverse and uh had the honor to work with gary on befriends and we've also as a result of that done, some really great other things such as uh sotheby's, uh, national digital auction. We got to work with sir tim berners-lee on his nft and a variety of other really cool projects. I myself started in the space as a collector. I bought my first crypto kitty december 5th, 2017 and a couple months later after i had done my 50 hours of research a little late.

I realized that these things weren't as good as i thought they were, and that's what really kicked off my passion towards building nfts and putting them on chain, and that's really how i ended up meeting gary and having the incredible opportunity to work with him. Is that you know something i just could not let go and a conviction. I could not let go of led me down this path that i'm on now. So thank you so much for having me gary jimmy.

I have a luxury of like becoming your friend and and knowing something so before you got before december. 5Th 17, you buy the cryptokitty, you were in tech right, yes, uh! Well, i was in tech. I was. I was actually in the woods when i found ethereum, which is why i found cryptokitties, but i was in uh.

I worked for google um and i had come to work for google by starting my own uh business that provided google's uh, gmail and other services to businesses and as a result of that, business had the opportunity to work alongside google and then google actually um. Had me working with them on strategic projects, where you know i was a good fit um, so yeah i had been in the technical. What about even before that, before you started that company, like like as a high school kid or a college kid right right? Were you a techie yeah? I was the computer guy at the settlement company that i worked at you know i was the guy who helped set up the very simple network and set up everybody's emails, but i was a settlement coordinator for real estate and before that it was a real estate Agent and before that i was a loan officer um, but i was always the the technology actually was introduced to me, computers. I was introduced to at a very young age uh.

We had an intellivision, which i'm sure you remember snafu, on in television still my favorite video game of all time. Oh my god! That's incredible! So i remember the football game and i remember pong and the paddles uh that was in her basement 1982. I think my grandmother, how old? How old are you jimmy i'm 43? I was born in 78. so and in 1982 or 83 my grandmother bought my father, his first computer.

It was a dos computer with you know, black screen and green green ink or green uh text, and that was uh. You know the very beginning, you know i always was there and interested in the computers. My father was always interested in computers. I used to go to video arcades, so for me it's always been like computers, video games technology.

In that sense it was always fun um and because it was fun uh, it was never daunting to learn and it was always exciting. I built my first uh computer when i was 18 years old. I think i built my first gaming pc um and then that's what led me to be able to build my ethereum mining rig. I had the confidence to go out and buy six video cards and i figured if i could make a computer with one video card.

I could probably figure out how to make one that connected six and sure enough. That's what allowed me to buy my first uh cryptokitty? What gave you the re you you know. I remember my eureka moment because it was five minutes ago. You know eric aaron battalion big shout out.

You know he made me buy ethereum years ago and i'd always kept an eye on it, but i really got crazy and you know i met rohan in the summer and be a top shot caught my attention. But then it got real serious in december january um. What what did you buy any top shots hold on? Did you buy it? You know what i didn't rohm and i had i'm a big fan of obviously he's tying this all together for him, but he's listening. Rohan was behind um crypto kitties as well, which led he had his own.

You know journey which led him to building his own blockchain, not on ethereum with flow and nba top shot. You know. I've never really talked to rohm about that. To me, that is a ambitious and smart business decision.

If you can pull it off, you keep many more of the economics, but he learned a lot things. You know man it really. It was funny we met in june or july. I fell in love with it and him we talked a ton through the summer and the fall.

I was just trying to navigate vaynermedia through covet, so i you know i had some crazy combos with rohan, where i was gon na get like the one of one lebron like i was like really in it right, but i never, but then it exploded, and i Was so passive that i didn't think i could come and do monday morning quarterback, i felt it was inappropriate for me to reach out to rohan and say hey. You know those deals that we were kind of trying to verbalize i'd like to like strike on them. I kind of never went there because i thought it wasn't fair because i dragged my feet. You know, because i was busy i just couldn't get, and so that kind of sucked - and i was sad i was like i was so on it, but i missed the boat.

I literally owned zero top shot. What was interesting was it's not because i don't believe in it. It got so hot and expensive, but i also thought that there was a supply and demand vulnerability, which i think has played out yeah, i'm i'm probably gon na buy the majority of my top shot in the next two years, not first of all, they were too Much like sports cards, unlike punks, meaning if terry rozier wasn't going to be good. There was like, with with a crypto kitty at avastar, a v friend you're playing in the disney wwf game with topshop you're playing in sports.

So, even if it's the first nft basketball thing, if the player is not good, that's just like sports cards first card rookie card, not good, so i wanted to wait like i'm very hot on the melo and lebron top shot. I just um. I want to wait. Nonetheless, um i remember oh yeah you're eureka.

Why, in the woods, what happened had you heard about bitcoin? Had you heard about blockchain, or was this all fresh yeah? No, this i actually did. I knew i knew quite a bit about blockchain and ethereum, so i lived in san francisco. You know when i was doing all that stuff with google. I was very aware of the technology, i remember mount gox getting hacked and it was like 600 bitcoin that dropped down to like 400 or 450.

I even mined some bitcoin in a browser in like 2011 or something i never like did anything with it. It just stayed in there and then, when i went back to i thought it was coinbase actually.com. That was the site. I don't think it was, but i could never find the site where i did it and i never counted on it.

So i was aware of it. I just thought it wasn't. I wasn't a believer in the technology and what really really really caught my attention was when i was walking in the woods and a guy is telling me i'm walking on the appalachian trail. I've been on the trail for like two months um and this guy's, like yeah, i'm making money.

While i'm walking down the trail - and i said how are you doing that he said? Oh i'm mining bitcoin and i i said wow, that's crazy and i remember asking him like how much is a bitcoin worth these days and i don't remember the price in you know may 2017, but my sense is: it was like something like 4, 000 or 6 000, whatever it was, it was like 10 times more yeah blew your face off you're like wait a minute. How long have i been in the woods? Yes like and like really like, i had been looking. I left my business in the in the middle of 2013 and decided. I didn't want to work at google anymore in the beginning of 2014 and for three years i didn't know what i was going to do.

Next i was lost. I couldn't figure it out because i wanted it is that why is that? Why you went into the trail like? Yes, i just like lost myself and i needed to find myself and needed to figure out what was next. I needed so you, like literally, actually pulled off the thing that people want to do in the most literal form, like people go off the grid to find themselves, but usually it's within their own thoughts. You went off the grid and actually stumbled on some dude.

That became the scene of you being where you are today. It's incredible right, like yeah, you go into the woods, you go find the answers, and you know it's like some metaphorical thing like like very hard to be make a tangible thing, but i actually did find the answers in the woods and really my goal was to Walk all the way up to maine right. I wanted to go the two thousand two hundred plus miles um. I made it 750 miles and i feel like i failed, but really you know that journey that walk.

That 750 mile walk was the beginning of my journey into nfts, so i didn't fail turns out, so that was then you just like flat out were like yes yeah, so it was a couple weeks later i mean i was already. I was ready. I was done by then like i made it to virginia symbolically. I was home because that's where i was born or where i grew up rather, and so i was just done - i got off the trail.

I did get distracted by a beautiful woman for a couple months, but not too long after that. I remembered that i was here to do a thing and i set up my mining rigs before uh in november of 2017 and that's when i got started and then you know the month later, that's the cryptokitties were right there and ready for me, and i didn't Know at the time, obviously, that i was going to get into nfts, i was into the altcoins i was doing all the trading, but similarly to that epiphany that, like machines, can work for me and wow. This is a real thing like when i saw kid. The cryptokitties and nfts - and i understood you - could take two crypto kitties and make a new one to me.

That was like you can create new value out of these digital assets and there was something extremely powerful yet again about that. It was like blockchain's, powerful nfts. Are really powerful and that's like just it was this force multiplier for me and it it's one of those things where you know i have um. I have attention deficit disorder and one of the benefits of that is that i can really focus in on something and and well i don't have a choice.

Sometimes i just have to think about something over and over and over again and nfts happens to be the thing that i think about every day when i wake up. So you know, in the absence of of direct thought, i think about nfts my mind wanders towards nfts, so i get to benefit from that um in in that you know. I'm always thinking about them and that's been the case for the last three and a half years so uh. That's my superpower, joey for everybody who's listening! So you get crazy about nfts, the 2017 2018 29.

You know that whole thing like there was a real lull there. It was real quiet in 18 and 19.. Tell us all us youngsters, including me, people that are trying to put history together. 17, there's a moment right, kitties, there's a little bit of a moment here.

You know punks like it was out there. Do you remember, do you remember you remember punks, oh yeah, i mean i couldn't justify paying like zero five, each for a punk like when i could breed a kitty for point zero, zero, eight eight, because i could breed like five or six kitties, but i i There was like, why was i gon na buy a punk? I can't breed it like, oh yeah, i mean i totally remember. All of us do that were around and didn't, buy punks and then started to slowly, all of us slowly but surely capitulated and ended up buying some punks um. You have to understand, first of all, before we get to the the crypto winner and the nft winner, like crypto kitties, like i dogged it a little bit the beginning, saying it wasn't what i thought it was the art's not on the blockchain i mean cryptokitties is Still a better nft than most nfts, it just was an experiment that apparently the mass market has not responded to in the in a positive way in the long run.

No one like you know all of me and our og friends. We all have a lot of crypto kitties like a lot and you know a lot of our ideals and everything else were born out of the complexity of uh breeding cats and the um, the um, the random, not the randomness, but the statistical outcomes that you could Achieve and like all of the deep genetics and everything else, there was a like it's a complicated, complicated but fun game and a lot of really smart people gravitated towards that um, and then things like punks and uh were out there and already there. But it wasn't super exciting to anybody at the time uh in particular, because it wasn't you weren't couldn't do anything with them and it wasn't really. There wasn't really open sea didn't exist and you know you.

We did all of our market stuff on the crypto kitty site directly um like v friends, where you bought everything there, but now like they had the second market there and they had all of the things directly on the site and only over time. In you know the middle of near the end of 2017, beginning of 2018, maybe people started to use opencause. There are some other nfts out there um and then super rare came on the scene and all this, but cryptokitties came out. It was really hot until about maybe march or april, and then we were really in a crypto winner by then april 2018 and then from there on it was the die hards that were sticking in there and just breeding cats and hanging out every day.

Talking about the future of nfts um that led into 2019 still in crypto winner, but larva labs did auto glyphs and released that, and that was a big pinnacle moment for me and giving me the confidence to go out and build an on-chain project in avistars. But we're still in crypto winner, i mean uh axes exist. They you know, i remember when they had worked their way up to 500 users. That was like a milestone that they had 500 daily active users and - and you like know everybody in the space.

At this point right, because it's so small that everyone's and was discord, the choice or did people hang out, it was actually it was cryptokitties discord in particular like it was like cryptokitty's discord was the place and then accidents where everyone where everyone hung out. Yes, it was like what you did yeah. There was punk's discord right that existed, but it was a small community, yeah, smaller just even more og than it was right. Yeah um, but yes, it existed.

It was there, but it was curious here. Cards were not discovered, yet. No, i don't even know what curio cards are to be honest with you yeah. Maybe that's something.

That's happened the last couple weeks that was rediscovered. You know what i'm talking about curio, though the first jimmy you know what i'm talking about. The curio cards, the ones that the apple, the one, the the 1175 tokens, the the one that um are you serious that this is now officially the first project before punks? Are you so head down the last four months on your i'm i'm pumped with you right now? I love the focus yeah yeah, i saw it mentioned earlier today and i was like man what's that, should i know dude i i i bought them like a month ago. I knew about it even earlier.

It's the first project. It was before punks. Oh sick, dude yeah they like it's, that's what's so beautiful about the chain. It's like you can look back.

It's all on the record right. Absolutely a hundred percent, i'm with you on that. That's incredible i'll have to check it out, man so joey, so you're. So so 18 and 19 are real dog days, but you are you just did like: let's just shoot this shot, 2018-19 or dog days.

Do you believe in those days you're in that place, where you knew that it would look like this at some point? Maybe you didn't know it was gon na be summer 2021, but whether it was 2021 whether it was 2023, whether it was 2027 in the dog days of 18 and 19. You just have that kind of blind conviction about nfts uh. I wouldn't call it blind conviction. I would call it some like really uh um, some deep gut, trusting my guts instinct uh.

I would say that the conviction came in and my decision to go all in came in when i in uh may of 2019. When i decided to build avistars, i sold my house um. I borrowed money from my mom and i put everything i had the rest of what i had into making that a reality. So that was the.

That was the moment where i i went all in and i didn't know i did not think, and none of us thought that we would be having this conversation in 2021. None of us right. It happened way too fast, right, yeah. We thought, like 2023 2024, that we would be at the point we're at now and that in the long run i mean in the long run.

Yes, i think this technology is like so disruptive and so groundbreaking um. I believed that for since really you know cryptokitties, you know february 2017.. I think we all had that feeling that this could be really really really important and significant, and that's why we thought cryptokitties would be the the main thing like we all like. We all thought.

Cryptokitties being the first erc 721, they literally created the standard, would be it but there's way too many of them like in recollect, there's way too many cryptokitties right now, um they're they're, not good personal profile. Pictures. No one wants to put a cat as their profile picture. For you know, cats on the internet was cool when they released it in 2017, but you know they're not like no one's going to do it.

These days just doesn't work. Um i'd rather have an eighth cats versus apes. Who knows why but um and then you know really as beautiful as the collection is as much as i love the kitties um. You know they made a lot of promises about what they were.

Gon na do and then didn't do, and i still haven't for three years afterwards. So um, you know it's proof that you know the community matters and the engagement matters and those road maps do matter. Like people do price in the road map, but when you don't like actually deliver on what you say, you're supposed to do, or anything like that or when your lead developer, lead person says the game starts. When the kitty clock ends, which is like the gen zeroes, and then nothing happens after that, like you lose the loyalty of your community, so you have to do it if you're an entity project, you have to do what you're gon na you have to like.

If you're gon na hype, the project you have to like deliver on the hype, otherwise, like your shit's gon na die, let's, let's jump to the hype, so when did you know was changing so 1819 is the winter 20 is when you start seeing the thawing out Right yeah, but you know well listen top shot coming from december to january, like that's why? But but jimmy when i look at punks, you know because it's what's beautiful about the blockchain and what people are starting to realize about me. I think i think v friends at nft kind of was a coming out party for me, because it's been a long time since i did the social thing, and so people have only known me in one way when i was doing real homework. What was clear to me was there was a group of people that started to really bubble up in march of 2020. Clearly, something happened in march april of 2020, with punks.

It started to bubble back up yeah. Well, i think what happened in part is just that. A year had gone by since autoglyphs were out um. Do you think colby had something to do with it? People had time, because if you look at it, so what's beautiful about what i did, why i'm bringing this up is i just look at the sales.

I see that in march, something started brewing again. Remember if i need to get your radar, i'm trying to remember i mean some. Usually it was, it's usually some other event where some external money somehow finds its way into nfts, and then, when that happens, the people in the community notice the new money in the space, and then everybody starts to consolidate around that. Of course.

Of course, of course, right, i'm trying to remember what happened in that time frame. You're. Absolutely right like it wasn't. You know right up until top shot it was.

It was 2020 that things started to pick up again uh. I remember autoglyphs were uh doing really well, because i had 30. I now only have nine but i sold on the way up. I sell on the way up i hold on the way down, so i only sell when the markets are in gold.

Now it's completely out of control yeah, absolutely it's just nuts, but but really i mean, i think so what you, what i think you saw there and then, like i'm sure there was some compelling event that caused that to start to run up, but we had been In the space for a couple years and well, one, i think pranksy maybe did a big deal where he bought like 400 of them, or something like that and then started to sell them. Because pranksy provides liquidity to markets at the bottom of the market, which really needed to pick things up, but people started to consolidate around punks and things because the value it was it was starting the conversation around store of value in nfts and how punks were a Store of value because, like cryptokitties are so many of them, um axes had gotten the narrative out there that there was also too many cryptokitties and was controlling their supply. So you start to get these narratives around that you have a fixed number of nfts and punks. Like that wasn't the way to do it initially, like you, didn't, have this cap 10 000 supply, but that because that was really like a crypto punk's thing that they did and now that's been what's caught on um.

So having that, that's that store of value there - and i think it was just the network effect of uh more and more people discovering then that crypto punx was actually like the real deal and that that was going to be potentially the nft store of value. That narrative, i think, really caught on in a big way, um and then as soon as uh top shot like popped up like so a lot of us bought into top shot in that june 2020. Time frame, that's one of the reasons i was asking you if you did get in because man i mean i remember, i spent like 35 or 40 thousand dollars on uh top shot series. One packs like i was buying.

You know a ton of packs, and you know a lot of us nate alex myself. Um were like kind of regretting how much we had spent. We thought we had spent too much and it was kind of silly um other than it was crazy. Other nfts were doing fine, but then yeah, it was, you know, december into january of 2018..

Why? Why? And so you guys were comfy. What did you guys think about it being on flow? Did you guys think that that was you know and again they're? You know these are people behind crypto, kitties and there's a little bit of like you know, i guess with some of the disappointment of some of the stuff that you talked about just earlier. There was still a lot of love for the ogenesis still is like like yeah, we love dapper, we love rowan yeah, you know still love cryptocurrencies, but it makes sense, yeah and and like we believe in what they do right like they do know how to market. The out of their products and get the the network effect.

So did you sell a lot of your top shot at the height? I i still have like 1700 series, one. I think i'm still like the 41st best account like on ranks ranked account, but yeah i mean this car i'm sitting in right. Now i purchased entirely with cash paid for it completely from top shots, so um yeah, i mean i probably sold over a million dollars worth of top shots in january february. So then, what happened like when, when um you know top shot, starts popping off in the fall and winter yeah? What's the next big moment in like okay, this is taking another step.

Honestly, i think it was the friends gary. I think it was v. Friends, like you know, top shot was like in full swing and then it started to lull um and then you actually went into full because we talked and you were going to do this project and you know you made the very wise and tough decision that you Were going to introduce your community to nft's the og way you were going to bring them in and teach them how to use ethereum and metamask, and you know, while everybody, including nameless, my my company is aiming towards making this as easy and frequent frictionless as possible, Letting people pay with credit cards in the long run and everything else. You said that you know you wanted to do this sooner than later, and you understood that the technology was actually more robust at the web 3 layer than at the credit card payment layer and everything else.

And so you started educating your users, you decided to go out there and teach people who never learned about nfts or ethereum or a metamask wallet. These are daunting things to explain to people and uh. You went out and taught them, and you have 140 000 people, plus your you had 140 000 people in you know april may time frame in your discord, like you have more now, i'm sure uh and you had over 4 000 new wallets purchase your nfts on That launch bringing 4 000 new nft owners for a premium nfts into the space. Um was a big watershed moment that, like really taught a lot of people about nfts, it proved to the community that we weren't just the same small group of people like seeing those numbers i think kygani actually purchased, did some analysis on twitter and said you know.

Here's the crossover between different nft projects and owners - and you know vfr stands alone, and this is like a powerful thing, like you have over 4 000 users, um and typically a project's gon na have anywhere from you know, a thousand to four thousand people you're at That top end right, you topped out on that, and they were all new people. I remember on launch day, you know one of the things i was doing on the first week during the sale was, i was providing support for the users whose yeah transactions got stuck, and this is not an easy thing when your transaction gets stuck. You know enough. Ass and all i was impressed that, like i probably helped probably two dozen people get their transactions unstuck and make that first initial purchase um and uh.

They all got it done like they all were able to get. I had to explain to them. We had to go through it, but they all got it done, and i was really impressed how intelligent these users were because i've helped. I was a moderator in cryptokitties discord as a moderator and top shot discord.

Um i've got my own discords with like avistars and everything else like we've helped. I've helped a lot of users and uh. It was always hard to get through to people and help, but your your community listened and was excited. I couldn't believe it like how excited they were too, like purchasing these nfts like they were just so excited every may, so i mean your community is amazing, so i think that was a really big moment for nfts as v friends um, it showed everybody the power Of these things, when you combine it with a brand and somebody such as yourself to bring it to bear what's amazing about that week in that general area is we were supposed to launch on the fifth, we launched the 12th as you know, intimately you were there In those meetings you had me and cubans and me, and cuban and um chamath, showing up on cnbc, starting to say the words nft yep.

I remember uh. Actually, i actually think - and we i know that you just forgot - i forgot now i can remember what actually was the next moment in our timeline. Was the people situation? Oh yeah, absolutely yeah, so yeah people going, you have punks getting really crazy in january, because that's what i was buying, you had people, you have me chamath and cuban on cnbc uttering the words nft. I remember i said flamingo and maybe bitsky and something else and like people are like twitter was like.

I cannot believe those words were set on cnbc, yep, um and you're in flamingo. Now right, i am in flamingo flamingo, explain to everybody what a dao is distributed. Autonomous organization d-a-o is a dao uh, and what that is is it is a it's a club that um there's different forms of it: the one flamingo, a for-profit, uh, basically, organization uh, where you're less than a hundred members, it's a delaware, llc and the way it Works is uh collectively uh up to a hundred of us uh, decide and vote and invest a community fund into both infrastructure, in this case nft and metaverse infrastructure and directly into nft assets themselves. So it's basically um a metaverse version of a club that is very real and can have very real assets and you can have an impact on.

I don't i don't know how to explain any clear. You know i think it's great yeah, it's a it's. A decentralized investment vehicle yeah at a vc firm, like my fund, like i make the decision in in a dow the things that they're gon na buy is done by the group. Yep and not everybody votes all the time, but enough people vote, you reach a threshold and then things happen, and it's really great because it gives me exposure to things.

I wouldn't normally pay attention to or invest in either so jim jimmy. What um, okay, so and then you're about to mention people did people. I actually think i actually would argue people nifty gateway was a big part of all this as well very much, i would say people hit the globe because 69 million broke everyone's face. Yes, yes, and made from page news yeah everywhere in the world, so i would say nba top shot people.

The cuban me chamat cnbc thing was a little blip computer. I would assume so, but you know he's got so many big things going on. He might have got sidetracked yep. You know i was incredibly close to buying kitties in 2017 and if i did my whole entire trajectory would have been different because then i would have gotten.

I don't know what i would have done wow by the way. What, if you actually were in the space, though, with us for like the last three years and like i'm kind of quiet about it because it was like i don't? I don't think i would have. I don't know how to be quiet. I would have been loud and it might have changed it's true.

It could have come a lot sooner right, i mean then what's even more fun, for me is the week that we were going to launch this tiny project that nobody knew was brewing board. Api club comes out, and i mean i literally have one of the most successful projects. That's ever been launched, board ape comes out and launches up. In my opinion, i mean look at the floor right now.

It's a more successful project. You know you know like in economics right now at the cost that people got in. You are one of those people you know like. I commend them so much now.

Secretly, of course, i think be friends is going to be bigger than punks to nba, topshop and board api, because that's who i am and i'm playing for 40 years - and i know what i'm going to do. But that also i mean talk about an amazing time. In the history of nfts that comes out as well, and then you get the pranksies and the beanies and the g money. Some of these call it influencers in the space you like, there's a lot going on.

So what are you feeling like in march april may, like it's you're like what the just happened? Uh, i mean, i think that describes it pretty accurately. For me, you know it was like apes was like the big moment like i had a big pop off with nba. You know i still have a good collection uh. I made a good amount of money in the beginning of the year wow.

How great are nfts, but then board apes like seeing that pop off and then how many board apes did you make? How many did you mint yeah yeah, so i made i minted 420 nice and memetastic? How many, how many, how many, how much were they point zero eighty, so i spent about twenty six to thirty, eight or so, like, i think, roughly um. I did it all within the course of a couple hours. I went from someone tweeted about it and i was like yeah these look: okay, but they're, not on chain, because i'm all about like. I want the art no they're on ipfs they're they're, like you know they might be putting some stuff there, but yeah.

No, i mean it's basically on ipfs, there's no like metadata on chain. It was a good project, but, like most projects have not innovated too far board apes included board apes had really fresh art. Though i looked at it, i was like wow. These actually just look really great and there's it is 10 000.

It was their own custom contract, they didn't do it on like an open, c storefront or something so they put an effort and uh yeah. There's i bought four like i bought about a hundred and then i looked and i was like. Oh, i thought i got the ones i wanted and then i saw someone had a gold ape and i was like. Oh, no, i need gold fur so like i went back and started buying more and then i told pranksy he was awake by then and i was like hey man like i posted it in one of my groups that we're in together - and i was like hey Anybody want to like check these out and frankie was like oh wow.

These actually look pretty cool, i'm going to go in and then he tweeted about it. He was buying him at the same time and everybody started buying them. Just everybody like this as we're filming this, it is on the verge of hitting 10 8th floor. It's nine nine right now kenny's.

What for what uh yeah holy cow, yeah, just exploded, that's crazy! So yeah i mean that was and then so. Gary though i want to i want to say, like i gave out probably about 100 of these things, i know you did, i did you gave way to people you gave you gave me five, that's how i have that yep. I gave them away to people because i was like this is a cool project. This is going to do well, the reason i do that and i do that a lot.

I give away a lot because people say, like i'm, basically hacking people's minds. I am planting the virus directly, the nft as deeply as it can be placed when i give someone something that i know is going to go up in value and that they will see the value of it like i give it to them, and then they get Start getting offers on it from open c and they start getting offers and they're like of course holy like race is incredible, and i can't say that, and i also think i also think you care about the macro space. It's the reason i got so excited about world of women right. The reason i like world of women currently and it's doing really well and i gave it a real push and you know i think i only i think i have 60 or 80.

right. I don't remember how many times i hit the 20 max mint right. I haven't you know i did go buy goddesses, which is kind of the top one in that game outside of the one you know they did something interesting. They they did certain tokens to get a percentage of the rake.

Oh that's very cool. So but the reason i like that one is, i just thought it would bring more new people into it. Yep, it's a you know, it's a very early tech. There's a lot of bro energy in you know, nfts, just a lot of males right, a lot of white male like and i was like you know what this is good for the space i want to.

I love the art i like fame. Lady. For the same reason like i like, i want different type. It's why i bought justin's photography.

This is photography yeah, you know so for me, it's like. I want to help. I mean this. This thing i'm doing on saturdays now, where i'm like.

If your project failed, please share a link and then i pick one i buy one and i share it and then the artist's life is different. It's fun amazing! Yes, this is exactly so you're. You know you, and i uh you know - are taking a similar path here, right, we're trying to evangelize the overall tech, the macro of it all. We want to spread the love you have.

You have the great advantage of being a true og. Everyone respects you. When i came in, i mean look: let's go spay the spade the friends not supported by the og community, even though i was part of the community for four or five months. I was like, like some of the and people that i've had nice relationships with, you know like.

Ultimately, people thought it was a conference token. The art wasn't good, they really up and the fomo is real now and i'm enjoying it yeah. No, absolutely you came in and you made like, you made the friends collection, the way you wanted to make it and what you saw was the og community saying we don't really think you should have made it this way and they were wrong right. They and i have a lot of empathy for the og community, like they still think.

Like a lot of. I first of all, my sitting now is in a very different place. I'm so grateful and i wanted to earn the og community's respect because i respect the og community. It didn't hurt my feelings that people didn't support it.

I understood why they weren't sure if the second it was over, you know what really caught me off guard jimmy. Is that, and you know this the go tokens that gary originally owned. I was surprised in that first, three, you know three days where i was like. Oh they're not gon na support it.

I was surprised that nobody said if gary's doing a rug, pull and a pump and dump and a quick cash grab the is he keeping eleven percent of all the inventory for yeah. Well, i'm so fascinated by that. It's funny because you must have been an interesting spot, danny danny, an og punk guy, really supported, but like you must have had some funny one-on-one discord text conversations because you obviously knew me at this point: we've been so nice, so i'm biased one right, because i Support, i helped you build this project, so, like people knew that, like i was for the project i personally purchased uh, i think i purchased 12 to 14 v. Friends, um and i bought a lot of those at the top of the duck, show auction because i actually thought it was going to sell out, because i i mean i'm about it.

Gary i'll tell you right now, and you know - and you know this - i am firm on this to everybody. If the metamask bug wasn't there and because people saw eighty thousand dollars in gas fees, if we didn't have that bug, the whole thing would have been different. I mean it was a. It was a couple tough hours there, because because for four hours, because it was an hour and a half, we were down and then two and a half more hours with the bug and by then everybody said, wait a minute.

Why am i gon na pay top because nobody was like everybody was up yep yep had i had. I got an auction, not dutch auction. It would have went the other way, but i wanted to protect p. You know what you know is i've made tons of decisions along the way that hurt me financially but protected my community, yes, and the fact that that you decided then after that issue happened that, and you realized that you weren't, going to get the immediate sell out At the top of the dutch that you wanted, you actually shifted 180 and you're, like okay, we're going to deliver as much value to the community as possible and we're going to highlight when we hit the floor.

I also did something else i made. I knew we're gon na hit the floor and i decided i would never publicly talk about it. I was only gon na talk about it in the discord so that my most hardcore fan do you know how i feel right now. I have a bunch of people who barely could have, who didn't have deep pockets, who were able to buy a 45 at 0.5 right now, they're at six they've 12x, their money yep.

Now that's not fully true, because ether was a little high during that time. So still, next or eth, which you could play out, like i'm getting a text every day, a dm and a discord message every day that i completely changed people's lives and not only that this is why they know about nfts. They bought cool cats they bought. You know some uh board ape they.

They, my community, has crushed at least of this second world of women like this is like really hard. Oh yeah, absolutely like be friends. That's what you did. You created wealth for your entire community and that wealth has.

I haven't even started dude. Not only have i not only started, i want to say, though, by the way there were some ogs that, like haven't, like probably been able to like, tell you, but that have supported you and what you're doing from the very start. And you said you brought up gift goat, and that was the one where they're like gift goat should be one of the best, because he is going to be continuously delivering that there was a ton of og's that supported me. Like many, i've talked to many, i'm pumped a lot more didn't, and this is why i love the ogs and a big percentage of them either privately, which i incredibly appreciate, but the super ones, the 5 to 15 that have publicly come out and said i missed It i was wrong yeah, that's just that's very nice of them yep! Absolutely! I love the og.

I lived this with web 2.0 anil dash jason kotke, andy bio, like like, when i came into that those og bloggers i like re. I still hold them up on a pedestal, even though the garyvee thing really took off, and that's what's gon na happen here too, no matter how. I think i will be the guy when it's all said and done, i'm with you on this game, but you and danny and and and and pranks, and many many many justin like so many people and g money like they'll, always be in a different pedestal. For me, because they were there yep yep, i know i know it so uh we're gon na go a little bit more, but we also have a massive.

If you've been listening, this long and i didn't want - i was gon na - do it up front, but i'm like it. I want easter eggs to go to the people that really with us. We have a major surprise at the end of this podcast uh, we'll get to that in a minute. As a matter of fact, we have not talked because we're so busy.

I don't even know where we're sending them for this major surprise, so i'll probably have to record that later i'll do that at the ps at the end of this podcast you'll see what we mean in a minute we'll announce. It then we'll work on putting this together this week and then dustin. I know you're behind right now. Listening i'll add that post production, which we never do, but i have to add it to send people somewhere for this massive surprise, but i'm not done yet we'll get to that in a minute to me now what you know, what are the? What are the exciting things and what are the watch outs, because what i will tell you is, the demand is growing.

New wallets are joining every day, but the supply is going to outpace it the amount of ten thousand pfp avas. You know avatar like prop projects that are coming out are coming out 10, a day 15 a day, yeah yeah, i think you've been preaching the right, uh gospel here for the last four months. Um in in saying that you know, most of this stuff is not going to be worth anything in a few years um. You know there are going to be high value projects and high blue chip assets.

Let me go to the crypto slam, we're not going to pick on anyone because that's not appropriate, but i'm going to go to crypto slam. Let me give an example: i'm very i want. Actually i want to go the other way. I want to give gaps to stoner cats meal and ash to put themselves out there.

Of course, no punks comics. You know by the way donor cats has caught a lot of flack from emojis right. I know, but i want to say, like i have been. I know maria very well as one of the people involved with the project and i respect her a lot and she's consulted with me for months and months and months on this yeah in a very unofficial capacity and i believe in that project in the long term.

Just like, i believe in v friends, they are doing this for the right reasons: they're messaging for some reason to not break through um, but they are doing a disruptive model with nfts, yeah and uh. I think what they're doing nxps will fully take over all crowdfunding. Yes and they're doing this with studio model people, i love it. People are like oh somebody's gon na do a stoner cat thing if they wanted.

Why are they saying that the studios won't make this? The studios wouldn't make this and they wanted to the studio 99 of things you talked about. Filmmakers are about to love nfts. Once again i mean why the hell wouldn't uh a distributed community want to embrace something where they get to decide. Content that's made instead of because ash and emil are famous, i mean just who cares if they're famous they're cool as they're in nfts? Listen, i'm with you anyway.

Nonetheless, i'm just gon na bounce around a little bit? No! No! It's okay! Gutter cat gang great project! Wicked cranium's got big love for that bulls. On the block. I got love for them. Um this this, the the bogu.

I don't know how they pronounced that that's gotten really hot this week, royal society of players really interesting game. These are some of the people in the top things. Uh go gutter. Rats, uh top dog beach clubs got a little something going on voxey's uh.

You know cyber kongs has got a little something going on like so there's all these projects right. Man, like i know, for fact, not because i know anything about these projects by the way it's just supply and demand consumer behavior. A lot of these won't be at any price. In you know, 23 months uh going back to crypto slam, we're gon na go way down to the hundreds.

Let's just look at a couple that maybe had some noise in the past. You know a couple months like um, you know my pickle right. Remember that little they've been oh yeah, oh yeah, right that they've done a hundred dollars in 184 dollars in secondary last 24 hours right who's, gon na buy the pickles guys look at look at look at look at chubbies right. I was super hot about.

It was the first thing i got excited about. I love the art. Little did, i know the art was stolen. That got hurt right.

Deadheads was a project. I, like the art, hasn't really taken off. I mean you know like it's. You know, like a lot of these things, can't potentially sustain right right and there has to be like people interested in even buying them at all, otherwise they're literally worthless.

If there's no market, if there's no buyers for these things, then they're not actually there, because there's gon na be consolidation. They'll, inevitably be a little bit of a winter. Around, don't forget in two days. You probably i know you saw this stat open c in two days to 91 million yep and open uh.

Correct me. I know it's in the 90s, 95 million 95 million and in the year 2020, which, oh by the way was eight months ago for the entire year of 2020, they did 21 or 25 million yep yeah. So that means - and that means over the weekend in two days - open c - did 4x 5, almost 4.5 x 4x - what they did the year before the year before over two days. So let there be no confusion.

We are in a tsunami right now. Obviously, bull run bubble right now like this is as bullish as it gets. You should not be buying nfts right now. You should be selling nfts right now, while you should be buying because here's what's interesting, it's like a funny thing, i'm with you.

The problem is: there's a project right now that is actually the one in five years and is and and that becomes the game, do you know, do you understand? What's your intuition, it's like anything, it's investing! It's real estate, it's stock, it's it's just real, but it's, but when i made a video earlier today, but it's fun in a different way. Yes, like so so look so i don't know if this is gon na be perfect, and this was a thought i had at like two in the morning when i'm half asleep but like what i think we are doing right now. Is we collectively the nft space? We're that group of kids in the movie, the goonies and we actually like found the treasure like we actually found the treasure breaking news, a very wealthy, very prominent person just texted me, 7. 23, it's now 7.

25.. Two minutes ago. I just saw it pop up. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we're really trying to educate people.

What's brewing literally i'm gon na just read it uh, i'm not gon na say who it is know anyone trying to move a zombie, alien or ape. Oh, this is just what's going. I'm finished your thought. I'm sorry go ahead.

No, i think we're the goonies, like, i think, we've actually like found. The treasure we saved the town but like the town is actually like our imagination growing up and like the promise that there was going to be cooler. That came after, like the 80s and the 90s and the early 2000s and, like you know, just the ideas that were born in those times around technology and where the space was going, and i think, like nfts are actually like the solution to a lot of those Things that connect the fun that we've been having in video games and in sci-fi and all that to actual like a form of reality, and so like. I just like think that, like it's the funnest time to be alive in technology because we get to like, we just get to make it all up in a good way.

Now, like all of us, have grown up around like these video games and like these gamification mechanics and all these things, and now, like there's serious money coming in behind all this fun, so like we're, actually gon na continue to be able to get a lot of You know you know, let me give you a comp, you know it was a lot of fun and then serious money came along just not in the last hundred years. What is it? It's called sports? Yes, perfect! Yes, like.