Mint Ventures - George Groshkov

Mint Ventures - George Groshkov

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (CEO & Co-founder of AdLunam)

• George Groshkov (Founder and head of strategy at Mint Ventures XYZ)

00:22

Nadja

Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja Bester from AdLunam and you are once again listening to the Future of NFTs. Back on Twitter Spaces after a bit of a hiatus. Future of NFTs is the show that looks beyond current NFT use cases and dives into what non fungible token technology is evolving into. And we are very privileged to be able to speak to fascinating guest speakers each week that are actually building the future of this technology at AdLunam, of course, building the industry's first Engage to Earn investment platform with a Proof of Attention allocation mechanism. Our investor profiles use dynamic NFTs that allows allocation fractionalization. So we are especially passionate about the future possibilities that NFTs have to offer. So my guest in studio today is very well, I am very happy to have him on board. George Groshkov, the founder and the head of strategy at Mint Ventures XYZ.

01:26

Nadja

So, George is a Web3 venture builder with a background in product and business development. He has built platforms that has generated more than $1 billion in revenue with 12 million customers. He's worked with top Nordic brands such as Swedbank, Telia and Tallink. I'm sorry, I always mispronounce everyone's names. It's a trademark that I never pronounce anyone's name or any company name in the correct way on their communication strategies. So George is beyond Mint Ventures Academy, also building the next generation of blockchain infrastructure for digital collectibles, metaverses, and on and off ramp payments. He's also I mean, as if all of this was not already amazing enough, he's also raised over $10 million with NFT campaigns and other various blockchain initiatives. As for Mint Ventures, it is a venture studio blurring the lines between fashion, ecommerce and blockchain, which is especially why I'm so excited to be having this conversation today.

02:27

Nadja

And what Mint Ventures does, they build technology and they gather artists and creatives to co-create high quality NFT experiences with brands that are ready to step into the metaverse. So super excited to be talking to you today, George. I think let's kick it off, maybe just with a general question to get us going and to really also set the tone for the day. So I just gave a brief introduction about what Mint Ventures is all about, but I would love to hear more about the vision behind the company and really what your mission is and what you are hoping to achieve with this already very successful venture that you have going on.

03:07

George

Awesome. Nadja, thank you again for inviting me. I'm sure it will be a fruitful discussion and I also welcome everyone, if he has any question in between the conversation, to jump in and straight and ask. I think that's why we are doing Twitter spaces, right? The interactivity to be on top. Yeah. Just to brief words, a few about me and Clarifications. I've been working before starting in the IT. I've been to advertising and media so I pretty much know also the mindset of an artist when they create actually some kind of an artwork. And afterwards when I moved to Product and UX/UI, I actually started working with bigger brands that you mentioned and I understood what exactly means to build an exceptional user experience and what exactly people understand about the technology and whatnot. And frankly, I've been also doing a lot of user testing and understanding, like what products work and how they work.

04:09

George

And I can tell you there's a lot of remarkable stories of actually what we think that we know about the user experience and what we don't. And the same applies also when we build Web3 experiences. So essentially with Mint Ventures, our mission is basically to address the problems of the new 9 billion people that are going to actually use Web3. We want to basically open the gates and accommodate the new generation of consumers that think about the web as something fluid, something more that they can have an ownership and that they can really own their data. And we believe that building the infrastructure starting from on and off farms to actually layer tools is something we really passionate about. Aside from Mid Ventures, we also sort of venture studio that helps and incubate startups in a very early stage when they match our vision and we believe that they could build really those exact infrastructures for the masses.

05:17

George

Then we also co invest and we also help them basically grow together. So in that sense, that's kind of in a nutshell for Mint Ventures. And we are based in Estonia, five founders, really passionate entrepreneurs and I'm really happy with my team. They're really nice guys and girls that really have passion to build Web3 projects and they have also really entrepreneurial spirits in them.

05:50

Nadja

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I just want to write off the very last sentence that you said. It's so underrated and understated how incredibly important a team is when building anything, any startup, in any industry, but especially in Web3. Just a shout out to my team as well while we are on it. You touched on so many different things just in this introduction that I think could really be a very fruitful, hour long discussion. I have a question. You talk about exceptional user experience and then also about a new generation of consumers who definitely, by default, in terms of a generational thing and also the fact that technology is very rapidly moving, evolving at the moment, that this new generation of consumers expect by default a different web experience than the one that is currently in existence. Now I want to know how do you see where we are right now because we always talk about Web3 as the next sort of frontier.

06:51

Nadja

But in my experience, so much of what is happening is actually Web 2.5 brands slowly moving over. You touched on something earlier also in terms of the artist mindset, but there's also this prevailing sort of commercial mindset where we have to step out of the old way of thinking about the web2 approach to business and to the online space. And we are moving into this new paradigm of, as you said, a fluid web data ownership. Where do you think are we at the moment? How far are we from really being able to give life to this vision? Because I think both our companies work with incredible startups that we know they are building the products of the future, they are building the products of tomorrow. But in terms of the average user experience with Web3 at the moment, do you think that we are moving in the right direction?

07:48

Nadja

Do you think that we are getting close to being at that point where a user will be able to get onto Web3 and really have a good experience or do you think there's still a long way to go and why perhaps is that okay?

07:58

George

So maybe I'll try to answer in a short disc because it's a big question and I thank you for asking this. First, we need to think about where the do we have actually in the web3 space, enough avenues and enough backbone, technological backbone to actually facilitate a new kind of user experience. And for the time being, with the current throughput of Ethereum and the current high gas prices and things like that, we're still not there yet in terms of infrastructure. So yes, we have layer tools. Yes, we have upcoming big interesting projects in terms of Sharding and we have also danksharding, which is kind of the end game for Ethereum. But in the end we need to have the avenues actually to accommodate these users. Because when you actually enable, let's say, a game developer, to build something already on Ethereum, or not even on layer two, and he understands that actually it is cheaper to build that infrastructure there.

09:14

George

And it will be also more engaging for his customers and he will pay less to maintain servers and rest of his kind of whatever UIs and stuff like that. Then it will start to make much more sense as well for the players too, and for the game developers. I'm just giving an example here and on the other side of things, there are this kind of microcosmosis, I call them, where you have, let's say, a community of really passionate, let's say NFT artists and NFT holders, that they create kind of their own solutions like it's going to be. You can consider them as a microcosmosis like OpenSea where you have that kind of NFT marketplace which works tremendously. But you need to have a wallet, essentially. Yes. And you need to know the NFT collections, right? So these kind of microcosmosis exist and they already provide pretty much good experiences for the right users, right.

10:18

George

The people that actually understand what a wallet is, vice versa, where these microcosmosis don't exist is like, let's say in the ecommerce side of things, like can you actually now take these NFTs to the ecommerce side? Well, that's arguable. And this is what we are trying to achieve basically in the Web3 space. So I don't think we're there yet and for some time, maybe five or six years, we've been trying to figure out the right way to do it. But I think there's still things that we need to just first fix on the infrastructure level. And then second, I think we need to basically provide not even like education, but exactly a product that will be able to be used by mass and it will have this kind of real impact as Chat GPT did. So that's kind of where we need to, I think, maybe even start the conversation from.

11:27

Nadja

Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree with you on the fact that I love your term microcosmosis because I think for sure there are pockets in the industry where things are moving and going really well, and then there are other areas where we are really at the beginning and there's so much still needed to be done in order to gain, let's say, even any kind of traction outside of this inner circle of web3 that we are in at the moment. So obviously with Mint Ventures, this is something that you place a lot of emphasis on, mostly because of the very rich background that you have in product UX/UI, in user experience, and in all of these different areas advertising, marketing. So you obviously intimately understand the consumer in general, the broad aspects that are related to the consumer experience. But what do you think, if I can ask Mint Ventures, as a venture studio and as a company, how do you distinguish yourself from other companies in the NFT and the blockchain space?

12:29

Nadja

I know that there are a lot of companies out there doing good work, but they don't necessarily have the same commercial background prior to Web3 that you have. So how as Avenger Studio and as a company in general, how do you distinguish yourself from others doing similar work in the same space?

12:48

George

Yeah, great question. We've been looking at that for kind of quite some time and I think the most important aspect of it is the uniqueness of each of the team member in Mint Ventures. So every each of us has its kind of unique, let's say, secret skill in terms of product development, strategy, marketing, content or building, just basically great architectures and eventually essentially UXs. But our biggest kind of input here is that we are very tech driven very deep on understanding like what exactly is happening on the web3 side, but also on the traditional side. I don't think that there are many actually studios or venture studios out there that actually understand in depth the actual needs of a business as a brand and the actual challenges as a Web3 company trying to work with a brand. And when it comes down to actually bringing down those two words together, we are pretty much confident that we know what we're doing.

13:57

George

There is a special even language that we use and keywords we use to talk to particular fashion brands and how we actually then articulate that kind of communication back to, let's say, a Web3 startup that could support us on creation of a seamless wallet with an email, right? These are the kind of uniqueness of them. And the other part is that we really look into kind of more like a regional player in the Baltics and the Nordics, which we like as an area because first of all is rich on very on talent. It has a very robust and very nice startup scene and also has access to very interesting capital. And I think still it's out of sort of in between as well the old Europe and Asia where we can also inherit information right off the top of, let's say, high end technologies that comes in the Nordics and Baltics and then also have a one year as well on the east, like what's happening, let's say, in Southeast Asia, India and so forth.

15:06

George

So that's kind of where we want to position ourselves and of course, our extensive network of partners is also something irreplaceable and I think this is how we stand out from the others.

15:23

Nadja

Thank you so much for that. I think what you touched on in terms of being both aware of the business needs of brand as well as the challenges of operating within the Web3 space is such a pertinent key focus area that I 100% agree with you. There are especially businesses with like operating in the Web3 space that don't have the traditional background and it's a learning curve for them that definitely is an advantage if you've already come from a background where you understand a lot of this. So AdLunam’s, other co-founder, Lawrence Hutson, he's also our CTO, he used to live in Estonia and he has been telling me for ages that it is such an amazing place to be for Web3. So I definitely will stop by at some point and get some travel recommendations from you. So you had touched on working in the fashion space and I know you've been doing some fascinating work merging Fashion and NFTs.

16:16

Nadja

Can you tell us a little bit more about how that works and also what you think the future of fashion might look like in the metaverse using NFTs? Because there's a lot of exciting things happening there, but I'm not sure if it really kind of transcends beyond the people that are actively involved in the space.

16:34

George

Yeah, it's actually when you talk about the future of fashion, I very much remember when my friends used to trade skins and that was actually quite a normal thing back in the days when you played the Apple right. But I see two things that are probably going to happen to fashion sets. First of all is the emergence of the digital brands themselves and digital fashions completely built from web3 grounds and creating 3D objects, providing those two 3D objects to the 3D worlds and metaverses, including games like Roblox and so forth. So the emergence of these brands will actually shift away the consumer spending towards more and more digital goods versus the actual physical goods. That means that also conglomerates like H and M, maybe diesel will have as they also build their own digital houses and digital goods.

17:48

George

They might be not able to catch up with the trends and maybe the new products that those digital brands have created because it's somewhat trying to catch up with somebody that already has knows, let's say, what a wallet is, what is, how to create a garment and so forth. There is a very interesting race that from one side you have these web3 people that actually know how to build things fast, furious, relentlessly uploading, co creation of designs. On the other hand, you have Diesel, who, or H and M trying to actually catch up with those trends. And that's the kind of interesting convergence of things. But I still think that actually the digital house, the digital fashion brand will win essentially in those races. And the other part is probably those physical experiences that people will have more and creating more and more communication between the digital items that you have, let's say on the phone, and the things that you actually wear, probably even more.

19:01

George

And smart clothes versus physical items will emerge. And also another trend that I see there is that you will be able to create, even to co-create those items on the fly with the AI tools available. Meaning that there will be a way that people will be able to dress in the digital world every day differently. Maybe with the help of the AI, they could basically have unexpected appearances every time when they walk onto their 3D avenues or whatever. So that's kind of what actually excites me, I think maybe the most at the moment on the fashion space.

19:47

Nadja

That is fascinating because I'm not much of a fashion person, but if you talk about co creating your clothes on the fly with AI, I think I will very quickly also become a fashionista. So there's a lot to look forward to. I'm curious.

20:04

George

I think the creativity actually will win here. That's just a trend that whether we see like that community at the end of the day will be stronger than the individual intellect and the co-creation will actually win instead of the siloed creation of items.

20:27

Nadja

Yeah, I mean, that's a really beautiful point. That community will actually be strengthened on this basis of creativity. Because I think this is something that I'm seeing quite a lot in the AI space at the moment where people are really coming together and a exploring their creativity very often for the first time, but also celebrating their creativity with others who are also going through this discovery and growth process and especially in the fashion space. I mean this is always something that if you see someone, the first thing you notice about them is what they are wearing. So it is in any case something that unites us all and it's a very exciting time to be able to think that all of these different technological tools are all going to start converging. And I think there's such a huge dialogue happening at the moment, especially in terms of AI, but then also in the web3 space about the darker aspects of the industry and of the technology.

21:20

Nadja

But I always love bringing it back to but what is it going to gift us? And I think this is exactly what you touched on is it really is helping us to become friends with our own creativity and also with that of others. They are definitely very exciting times. So I'm curious, you work with brands through Mint Ventures, so what types of brands have you found are the most ready to cross into web3, into NFTs, into the Metaverse, et cetera. And why do you think that is?

21:53

George

Well, essentially with Mint Ventures we wanted to position ourselves firstly to work more with the creative industries which first we understand better and I think they are prone to the mindset of creating collections. Of course the trivial answer to this should be fashion. But not only have we seen that actually contemporary artists are coming to us for consultancy. On the other side we see also more like event organizers as well and people that build communities, different kind of communities including development communities or communities for creating dows are actually companies in Brazil that want to participate and work with us. So it's quite a variety at the moment. I see also I think a big trend as well on the publisher side like PR journalism and media also coming into play because they see also that to some extent the media as well, the media will be also become decentralized.

23:04

George

So they see as well that a way to also to create better journalism or just more accurate journalism. They're just kind of lacking and unfortunately it will be great to actually decentralize and sometimes web trees could help you do that.

23:25

Nadja

I just want to echo what you said. It really sounds like there's a very diverse ecosystem of people that are looking into this, maybe not all for exactly the same reason, but for sure the fact that all of them are finding something that speaks to them, that tells them that this is the avenue of the future. That's really commendable and very exciting as well. I keep interrupting you when you start speaking.

23:53

George

Yeah, sorry. I just remembered also that we consulted as well a few sports brands as well. Again, because of the community aspect of it, they just have found they need to be engaged and sometimes they just look for better marketing campaign at the end of the day. But what comes out to be this, that they just want to create more connection and loyalty to their fans? That's kind of sorry to interrupt.

24:21

Nadja

No, not at all. But I think these words you use about connection and loyalty, this is actually something that I want to add to the next question. So you spoke about working with creative industries artists. So how do you choose the artists and the creatives that you collaborate with? Are there any specific qualities or characteristics that you look for? And on the flip side of that, what do you think these artists are looking for in terms of quality? Is it of different sort of qualities and characteristics? Is it the fact that they are looking for a loyal, engaged audience or why are you seeking them out and why are they seeking you out?

25:02

George

Yeah, that's a good story actually because I think from the artist perspective, mostly in most cases they find us because we did like a lot of Twitter spaces and LinkedIn lives as well. And somehow as well, artists get to know it. But yeah, I think the most important criteria is to be artists that actually are very fair with their art and understand what they're doing. This art. We like to work with artists that are you can say established names, but in the Nordics, but I prefer them more to say like people that have some already good craftsmen in their arts, meaning that they haven't just started, let's say yesterday and they decided to launch NFT collection. We prefer to have some kind of a history of that artist that even that he has any kind of different backgrounds will be even interesting. Like for instance, some artists are painters, but they actually have also background in as well in film, music and music business.

26:15

George

So that's actually helped us validate that there's richer experience and maybe deeper understanding as well when you make these decisions. And mostly artists look for I think what they look for is, aside from the Hype and all those stuff about like selling a bunch of paintings with NFTs, they look for ways to first of all, be more let's. Say, decentralized from, let's say, galleries and centralized places and marketplaces. Be able to be more autonomous, be able to connect with their audience better. So either if it's going to because let's say they have just only an email list or just to start a new chapter. And that's interesting story because some of them, they say, okay, we just want to create our new digital experience because we understand that if we keep our name like that only connected to physical items and stuff like that, it's going to just fade.

27:27

George

And I feel that this is the right time to come. And that's kind of what happened, is that actually artists find web3 as a reinvention vehicle.

27:43

Nadja

Love that. Absolutely love that. And it's especially beautiful to me how what you said about artists recognizing that if they want their legacy to live on, that it doesn't scale to be only physical. I think this has been an age old. I mean, if you look at the Sistine Chapel, the odd can't be moved. It's on the chapel and that's what it is. And today we live in such a completely different world. A couple of days ago, I was visiting an NFT gallery, like an in person NFT gallery here in Dubai. And very interesting to see this blend of the NFTs are up there for sale. In fact, they are on display. But you can't buy them. You have to go to the website. You have to go buy them on the marketplace. They have art classes where they help people with learning how to create their own NFTs, how to create NFT art.

28:35

Nadja

But you can't pay for the art class on the spot. You have to go on the marketplace. So I really found that so interesting, this blend of the web2 experience or even the completely offline experience that we are used to. Whereas now the worlds are starting to merge and to blend together. But on that note, how does Mint Ventures support brands, support artists in building these unique brand ecosystems using web3 technologies? Can you run me through whether it's a brand and I, of course, understand that it's vastly different depending on the type of industry they are in, the size of the company, whether it's a solo artist, whether it's a company with 20 employees or 100 employees. But what is the typical roadmap that you follow from the time that someone comes to you to a successful execution of whatever it is that you are working together on?

29:32

George

Yeah, good one. Actually, it starts very simple. We start with goals. And we need to be very fair on that. Either if it's going to be big or small brand or small artists, we first strategize what exactly it's needed, as expected, results from a particular strategy. Either if it's going to be just building up a community in Discord and trying to, let's say, get 10,000 followers on Twitter or if actually there's some kind of a deeper need for that brand to execute like, let's say a penetration for a particular market or user segment that is not there. Collaboration, a partnership with an NFT collection that is important for the brand, recognition in some areas of expertise. That's what these goals needs to be defined. So we actually channelize our communication first as strategy, basic strategy of a Web3 strategy. We understand what resources are needed both on human resources and also technological resources.

30:36

George

And we actually provide as well the tech resources too, including the on and off ramps, the smart contract creation, the 3D elements. We also have NFT utility builders so that you can actually create additional utilities for particular NFTs on demand and you can actually build up also so called immersive commerce with a Web3 integration to your Estores. So these kind of two tech tools are also we're putting it on the map and then we start basically addressing what needs to be built as MVP and proof of concepts. And we helped as well on the marketing and communication side respectively of how we talk to the community about what we need to say, when we need to say it. Obviously these days NFT market is a bit cool down, but nevertheless people are still building and right communities are not gone, they are a bit frustrated, but they're not gone at all.

31:35

George

And I think this is what we are channelizing and afterwards where we hop on the execution, we see how the result we measure results. We try to as well compare again the KPIs which the brand is setting, let's say in their marketing department versus like did the engagements increased for how many percentage, what happened exactly for this collection campaign that it worked, did actually let's say the order value on a checkout decreased, how much decreased and so forth. These are the stuff that we are kind of consulting and working on.

32:16

Nadja

y published, I think it was a: 2023

32:54

George

Sorry, I clicked a wrong button. But I hope you hear me, right.

33:02

Nadja

Yes, absolutely.

33:06

George

Can you hear me? Sorry.

33:09

Nadja

Yeah, absolutely.

33:14

George

Actually, when we wrote this report, we have a very clear understanding that everything that we write is going to probably change in the next six months. I can tell you for sure that there's a lot of things that actually happened and other things that didn't happen. But essentially we analyze the data of actually the collections and we see that there's like from one side you have a big spike, it was a big spike in revenues for the big brands of actually launching NFT collections and the other side somewhat the market. Of course. Cooled down and then of course collections that are just launching for the sake of making money didn't went well because of course the roadmaps basically for the communities were not set enough fully and there was no work actually done on kind of real engagement and understanding like what the users really want.

34:13

George

Another part of the report also tackles the creator economy, meaning that we are living now in kind of a much more decentralized world where artists can really, again, as I said in the four, work autonomously and create out of very quickly new interactions with their fans and in the same time own the artwork and earn very respectable money on royalties. And that includes not only artists just let's say for paintings or music, whatever, but also developers that actually write code for instance. And we tackled a few things about regulations in sense of the European context that still NFTs are considered digital goods and there's not yet big clarity on that part. Mika doesn't actually address much things in the NFT space yet, but there's also rumors that still NFTs will be then again considered be taxed soon. And Europe likes to overregulate things which for one part is good for mother, not that good.

35:33

George

And then also in the report we touched a few more things about that. Loyalty is becoming more and more important thing as discussion in between brands and web3. And we gave also a few examples with Starbucks, with their odysseys and also with our friends as well from Herbal tic when they did the planning. I guess that's in a nutshell on the report.

35:59

Nadja

That is a very good nutshell because you touched on so many different points that are really so key to the conversation. I'm definitely not going to be able to get through all of them. But I just want touch on a few of the things you said. First of all, the creator economy. So how do you see the web3 space, which obviously those of us who know what's happening in the industry, those of us who are on the ground, we see the progress, we see the evolution of it. But if I'm the stock standard creator in the web2 space, how long do you think it's going to take for the onboarding and the adoption to take place for creators that are already on the internet, they already understand the opportunities, they already understand the challenges of being online. How long is it going to take for those people who are not familiar with web3 to see, you know what, this is actually probably the next big avenue in the online space.

36:56

Nadja

Do you think that's going to be something that's going to take a lot of time speaking specifically about the creator economy itself? Because obviously the adoption cycle is going to take much longer for people who are not already in the space where they are communicating with communities on a daily basis, where they are creating digital products. Do you think that there's an opportunity for the creator economy to pivot quicker into Web3? And how long would you estimate that would take before we start seeing real traction?

37:26

George

I think, in a way, it already did. And looking at some of the people that actually we've been working as, they've been, like, graphic and motion designers, and looking how they started using AI tools or actually AI tools forced them to use AI tools, is quite remarkable. And I think in the next six to maybe 18 months, we will see a big way of also people who couldn't afford or who couldn't express those creativities and artwork, and actually that content will merge and their kind of fantasy will unleash, like creating. Recently, I went to a demo of a startup that actually could create a game, just writing a text and just basically you put the blocks there, you write, I put seven blocks there, and then you write, generate me seven characters of a grade. And then you can say, okay, but these seven characters could have seven different traits, and it generates, okay.

38:48

George

And now you think, okay, these seven traits actually could be used for my NFT collection. And then it offers you basically to kind of create an NFT collection for different websites. So in basically 2 hours, you created your kind of old mini world in a game that you can then publish directly to the consumer. And you don't need to wait even, because you can publish the NFT collection right away, right off the bat, to OpenSea and then maybe launch a small Twitter space and then invite people to play it out to test it. So you can literally create, launch, and test a game in one day, and you probably can get some revenue by selling the NFTs. That's wild. That's wild. And it's not like even a simple game like floppy birds or something, right? But it's actually which is, by the way, already AI generated for multiple versions of it.

39:45

George

You can literally do it. And that's kind of, I think, the scale, the end mass, the speed will actually increase tremendously. And it's happening not by quarter. It's happening now, month by month, and then it's going to be maybe week by week. In a nutshell, I think it's a bit also scary. Right, well, that's kind of my take on that.

40:16

Nadja

Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned AI, because I follow it extremely closely. So to me, it almost feels like and this is exactly what the Web3 space has been like at times. Not necessarily at the moment as much, but it feels to me as though I go to bed and I know exactly what's happening in the world of AI. And when I wake up in the morning, there's some new release of some new product that just blows my mind all over again. So do you think that this is going to spill over into the Web3 space? I think you've already touched on it in terms of the line you use about AI tools. Forcing people to use AI tools is absolutely spot on. But do you think that this is going to open up the possibilities for people to adopt Web3 at a pace and at a rate that they wouldn't otherwise have?

41:07

Nadja

Because we see a lot of people, as you say, who start expressing themselves by playing around with these tools that previously, if you talk about releasing while developing a game, up until now, it's taken an entire studio, it's taken years of development. And now, as you say, you can do it from ideation to creation to launch to revenue, all within a single day. So how much of that is going to spill over into the Web3 space?

41:38

George

Honestly, I think those two things will actually kind of merge into one kind of big kind of technological entity. I strongly believe that actually the technological merging is happening in front of our eyes. It's not going to be separated like, let's say this is an AI product or this is a Web3 product, or this is a blockchain product. It's actually just going to be one entity of existence of that kind of technology. And it's just going to be you can call it the metaverse, the internet, or just the virtual space that we're going to inherit. But when I look at startups for instance, that build we looked at a startup now recently that actually offers you ability to shoot like you shoot a movie or you shoot like a basic character, real human being in front of the camera and then you run it over to that software.

42:46

George

And then basically completely, the software removes the human being and adds animation. Like it adds animated character with its own kind of skeleton mechanics and movements. And it's so good that you actually probably would spend thousands of dollars in man work to actually do it. So that means that at some sense we started coming into that moment where you don't need first of all, you don't need that much of manpower now. And both from the Web3 projects also understand that like deploying contracts, checking contracts, also identifying issues, making sure that NFTs are correctly done and so forth. That's kind of interesting. And then adding AI layers to your, let's say existing NFT collection will happen more and more often. We see also popping up things like AI NFT marketplaces, which exactly merges those two technologies together. And you have it like a one entity.

43:53

George

And at the end of the day, so I'm a strong believer that things are going to just merge into one. And it's not that they're just going to blend somehow, right? If you understand what I mean.

44:09

Nadja

And I so agree with you. We are working on a Netflix documentary and so focused on the future of the internet and having these two sort of low legs of the table, AI one hand, and then the whole Blockchain technology stack on the other. And what I have found is when I speak to the average person about this, everyone gets AI because it's, I mean, Chat GPT, as you know, the new TV in everyone's houses. Whereas previously people didn't quite get what Blockchain is about, they didn't quite get NFTs or get Blockchain web3. But now, because of the emergence of AI and because people understand that is the future of the Internet, the whole web3 conversation. As part of that, people have a completely different way of looking at it. Because no longer is it just about the hype, because these two, for sure and for certain, are busy merging into one single entity.

45:05

Nadja

But that brings me to a difficult question and not one that I ever love talking about, but it's always something that's necessary to talk about. You mentioned earlier the EU regulations, the MiCA that recently came out and just shocked everyone. But we look at the Web3 regulations that have had a really tough time of it, I mean, all across the world in different entities. And then also most recently Italy, for example, banning Chat GPT. So from a regulatory perspective, if we look at AI and Blockchain as this singular technological entity in future, which probably will just be what the internet will be about, how do you think that regulations, which we all know it's necessary, but it's also hindering innovation and progress, how do you think this is going to complicate things for regulators? Is it going to mean that a continent such as Europe, for example, is going to ultimately be left behind because the innovation is stifled as regulators very actively prevent innovation until they figure out how to regulate this?

46:15

George

Well, actually I have a big suggestion for all the regulators out there. They can just read the books of Isaac Asimov when he talks about the rule of robotics and AI. This is actually not a joke because actually Isaac Asimov back in the days predicted that there should be a couple of most fundamental laws inside and every AI that is going to be built by a human being and then should be the first one is of course, do not harm the human. And second, I think it was do not harm the human in any circumstances, even if it's going to be sacrificing your own existence. And the third one is don't lie from the philosophical way. I think that's kind of way to look at how we need to in a way maybe regulate AI, although I think it's very hard to regulate something that is so new and unpredictable.

47:19

George

And then on the other side, maybe, I think on the side of kind of what we need to do for us as technological entrepreneurs and leaders is just actually to try to present maybe regulators better understanding like that essentially technological things could maybe help their job too better. I mean they could be probably more better effective. They could be actually much more prone of what their goals are if they understand better and they use technology of course despite if they have some evil or non-evil desires to use AI, fine. But in the end of the day I think it's all about we the users, we the leaders. We need to just step up a bit more active role of actually creating those regulations in the web three space. At some point after give you an example after FTX everybody was screaming like let the Gala regulators come and fix our garden.

48:36

George

It's not going to happen. We need to fix our own garden. We need to basically own the process. We need to make the rules and only then when we structure that through associations, dows and other entities then we can only then go back and make it on a state level because otherwise bureaucrats will decide our own kind of destiny for the industry and that's something we don't want to do. That's kind of my take on that.

49:06

Nadja

Absolutely agree with you and it's a very loaded conversation so let's leave it for another day. So, speaking of which, we've talked about some of the opportunities and we've talked about some of the challenges. But if you think of the Future of the NFT space, I mean, we've come from an era where profile pictures and bored apes, that was what people thought of when they thought about NFTs. And we've had this phase where NFT was similar. I mean, equated with art, but where do you see the space going? Because we've talked today about fashion, we've talked about ecommerce. Do you think that NFTs are going to and is steadily moving away from the stereotype of what the mass media has been written about it or has been writing about it? Do you think that we are going to get to a point where as you mentioned Starbucks earlier that people will be using NFTs without necessarily thinking about the fact that it's an NFT?

50:08

Nadja

Will it become as commonplace as a store board loyalty card or a store received loyalty card which obviously in the context of Starbucks they are utilizing the technology without calling it that. Reddit is another good example. So can you envision a future where that's going to just become commonplace or what do you see the Future of NFTs as being?

50:30

George

Yeah, absolutely. Actually that actually resembles exactly what our vision is for one of our products called Kalis and we build basically utility builders for brands and NFT creators to create these memorable experiences for their users via through the checkouts or via through the basic interaction or different kind of touch points during the whole user experience. So we basically create a platform where you can also upload the collection, create utility and then even match with another collection or another brand that is looking for something similar. So kind of merging those communities together in the same time creating that unique user experience. I think it's all about this immersive commerce that I believe it's coming and from emails return to wallets and now actually you can have a wallet through email, so good, 2.5 right. And then in the same time I see a big trend. I think of all the kind of interactions that are happening on the web, including this conversation will be tokenized and in a good way.

51:48

George

It could be just basically. We will now offer, let's say, Bobs, to those who came to the NFT space or even the things that we discussed as ideas could be also NFT-ized and then be used. Maybe at some point you use my, let's say, ideas into your new podcasts and maybe create an even kind of a product out of it and I'll get some royalty out of it. So that's kind of weird, right, when you think about it. But maybe it's closer than we think. So in terms of the future, yeah, I'm actually an optimist about how we can use that technology. And again, it's about putting the user in the center and creating these really unique immersive commerce experiences. That's where also not only actually Starbucks are going, Shopify is going there and many other players, amazon recently, right, with their NFT marketplace where they're going.

52:54

Nadja

Yeah, that is such a good way of describing what is actually happening because I think what so many people do is they are sort of getting stuck in the terminology. So you think about NFTs, either you understand what it is or you kind of understand or you have absolutely no idea. But the conversation very rarely goes beyond these terminologies and these acronyms. And I mean that's where a lot of people get stuck because as soon as you mention this, the first thing that comes into their heads is, well, I have no idea what you're talking about. And then that's kind of where the conversation stops. But if you reengineer how you look at it in terms of, well, the purpose is that brands are creating memorable experiences, which is always something that brands have done to increase the user experience to the point where, as you say, it becomes these unique immersive commercial experiences.

53:50

Nadja

We all know exactly what it feels to engage with different brands, whether it's something that I'm buying in store, whether it's something that I'm buying online, but it's something that is part and parcel of every culture, every country, all around the world. So to think about this in the context, well, it's the same story. It's just that because of the advancement of technology, now you have these new tools that allow you to give new experiences that up until now has not been possible. I think that's a very understandable way for people to think about technologies like this because everyone doesn't necessarily have to understand exactly what the technology is, exactly what it does. Most people, if you ask the average person how the internet works, probably they wouldn't be able to tell you the same. Even with electricity, right? We all use electricity. But can you really give a step by step sort of narrative of how exactly it works?

54:45

Nadja

So I really love looking at it through this lens of what is the,

54:49

George

Actual they need the use cases, they need the tangible use cases in front of them.

54:55

Nadja

That's really 100% gaming for because I think we're running out of time. So maybe I will ask you. In fact, I'm going to skip a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you. I don't know how time always flies by so quickly when you're having fun. That's probably why the saying exists in the first place. So one piece of advice that you would give to brands, to artists, to anyone who is in any sense involved with something, whether it's art, whether it's fashion, whether it's any other industry, and is considering well, first of all who is just interested in exploring what web3 is all about and then further to that, interested integrating web3 into the experiences that they are building for others. What piece of advice would that be?

55:49

George

My user experience perhaps will yearn bit here and I recommend for them to become the user, become the most dignity user out there. Buy yourself NFT hoodie, go in a discord server, and get scammed. I'm just kidding. Be brave to talk to developers and ask them what the wallet is and then come back with an action plan of actually what exactly is happening. That's my number one advice. And even for big brands and managers that we know, in order for you really to understand what an NFT is or digital collectibles or now in the sense of ordinals on the bitcoin network and bitcoin stamps would be actually good and beneficial to try them out. Try to mint an ordinal or go to a discussion on Twitter about the existence of the historical NFTs like Curio cards and buy yourself a Curio card. That's exactly what you need to do.

57:03

George

And only through that experience you will be actually understand the nature of things.

57:13

Nadja

Well, I think that really brings together what we’re talking about at the beginning in terms of creating user experiences that speak to the needs of others. So if you are looking at getting into this technology or leveraging this technology, it doesn't make any sense if you don't also understand the technology or the possibilities of the technology from a user perspective. So, brilliant way to end off our very amazing talk. I'm just quickly checking because, see, we have some questions. I'm just waiting for my team to send them through to me. So in the meantime, George, how can interested brands or individuals, even get in touch with you to start their journey into this brave new world? Whereabouts are you most active? LinkedIn, Twitter, et cetera?

58:02

George

Yeah. I suggest you to follow us on LinkedIn, Mint Ventures XYZ and also on our Twitter space and Twitter. Also follow me here on my Twitter account, DeFinanceGeorge and look up for also our live events that are happening simultaneously, also Twitter and LinkedIn. So visit our page Mint Ventures XYZ, you'll get all the links there and you can also find the contact form as well to connect us. We'll be happy to consult you absolutely for free. The first one to get your strategy up and running to understand your goals, your passion about web3 and how can we help you, and also to join our other events. We'll be happy to invite you, Nadja and the rest of the AdLunam crew as well, so that we can maybe share something again and do another podcast together.

59:04

Nadja

Sounds wonderful. We are definitely there, and especially if you invite us to Estonia, then we are double there.

59:12

George

This is official, we have it on record.

59:14

Nadja

So I officially invite you to all right, yes. I will not be in Dubai for super long, but while I'm here, you are more than welcome to come over. So I have a question here from Tony. Can you share any projects that you are excited about that we might not know about yet?

59:39

George

You mean like NFT or anything that Really sparks my interest?

59:42

Nadja

Not really specific but I mean, I think maybe projects that you guys are working with or something that, you know, that is happening in the space, I assume.

59:56

George

Yeah, I think definitely in terms of the fashion, you should definitely go and check what the fabricants are doing. They recently had also an interesting new collection coming up and we know that they're actually relaunching as well a new co creation. And things are starting to be very interesting there. Then you should check Kalis, our tool for utility builder. Definitely that's one thing that really we are really excited. We also build an infrastructure for wallets called Wells Heaven, and we also have a decks that also supports NFTs too. That's something we're really excited too. And maybe on the collection side, I think we are now definitely looking at bitcoin stamps and ordinals and I think that's something really to be explored because also opens up a bit more like kind of the defeat aspect of the bitcoin network. And that's something we are really also very excited about.

:: 01:01

Nadja

George, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our time together today. I think there's so much left to talk about that we have to definitely repeat this in terms of sort of last parting thoughts before we leave the space. And in the meantime, while I give you a second to think about this, because final parting thoughts is quite a thought, I will just say thank you to the audience, this is the first time that we are live again in, I think, a couple of months. And I have to say, I really enjoyed as much as I enjoyed not having the Twitter spaces issues that we had while we were still on here. It's also incredible to be back there's. Nothing that beats being live. So thank you to all of you for tuning in today. So, George, before we leave, what are your final parting thoughts so that if someone leaves the space today, that is the one thing that you would like them to remember?

:: 01:58

George

I would like to tell maybe quote Michael Sailor that he said at one point, that bitcoin is hope. I like to say also that Web3 is hope, NFT is hope and let's build a better future together.

:: 02:16

Nadja

I don't even want to say another thing because I think this really was the perfect final sentence to this show. So, to those of you in the audience, thank you so much for joining us today. Please follow George. As you have been listening, they are building something incredible and, yeah, it's just beautiful to hear how people all around the world are coming together and are building very sound products that are not simply based on how quickly can we hype this up and make the biggest buck out there and then abandon it. There are so many incredible companies building very sustainable products and really fleshing out this industry as a whole. And in the meantime, I will catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers, guys. George, have a lovely day and please.

:: 03:06

George

Thank you so much.

:: 03:07

Nadja

Please enjoy the colder weather for me. I will fry to death on this side and I will think about the fact that there are other people in the world who are not as hot as I am right now.

:: 03:19

George

Yeah, amazing podcast. Thank you so much for inviting all the community members. Well done, everyone. Thank you so much. Bye bye.