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NFTs & Memes: Cultural Impact and Regional Trends
Recorded: April 2, 2025 Duration: 0:47:27Space Recording
Short Summary
The discussion highlights the evolving role of NFTs and meme coins, with innovations such as AI funding mechanisms, fractionalized real estate, and brand loyalty programs. Trends in cultural impact and regional adoption are noted, alongside growth in meme coin utility and major brand involvement in NFTs.
Full Transcription
Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, can you hear me?
Yeah, I can hear you but the voice, the music is still going on.
Yeah, we are trying to figure it out.
The music should turn off once we start speaking, but it seems like we're gonna have a music
good choice today.
Well, we are waiting for others to join anyway, so let's wait. Субтитры подогнал «Симон» Thank you. So we are still waiting for the camera andt to set up the speaker slot so just a few more minutes. Thank you. All right, so hello everyone.
We got a little bit of music intro.
Hello, Luis.
Hello, Aditya.
Hello, Adam.
Let's check your mics.
How are you doing?
How's your day so far?
Hello, everybody.
Good morning here in Mexico.
Good.
I like that music.
I like that music.
It's like elevator music music you know relaxing when you when you go to your room you know
hello adija can you hear us as well we are perfectly fine clear louis adam hi and we have
some and other people here as well.
So I'm looking forward to it. And the music
was really great because
I saw a lot
of spaces
getting cancelled due to some
error on X right now.
So maybe that's the problem.
Oh yeah. Well, you never
know with X spaces. It's just
very tricky and it's not in our hands.
Luckily we were able to edit it and you know stop the music.
Let's add Adrian as well for speaker and I think we are still missing Karen.
are still missing Karen. Luis, do you know if she's joining us today? I guess so. We can just
Luis, do you know if she's joining us today?
start and she can join us after. All right. So I hope Adrian will join us well shortly. And let
me just give you guys a small intro about what the session today will be about. Today's session is going to be
about NFTs and memes and the culture impact and the regional trends. So I think we could see some
memes really as a high topic or maybe it changed now lately with the ai so i'm very curious then we also
everyone knows about nfts which are now in my opinion a little bit low-key but maybe we're
gonna hear from all the region leads is different in their countries so without any prolonging, let's start with the first question, which is how are
NFTs and MIM coins perceived in your region compared to traditional crypto projects? And I Yeah, well here in LATAM, Minkoins are not like with a lot of utility like in different
other places.
It's more like a niche movement that the people just want to get to gain money so far.
We can read like there are different projects trying to evolve into financial assets,
but we don't use it like this in LATAM in general.
It's more like, for example, you see as a crypto bro,
you see different advertisements about Pepe, for example,
and all different kind of Pepe's like mini Pepe, baby Pepe, big Pepe,
and some like, yes, you see like, okay, it's the same stuff that the others,
and with a discount price and all this. So many others are in the market, and if you like, of course, you can dig deeper and get more of this.
But we don't use it so far as in other countries.
It's pretty clear nowadays in 2025 that meme coins are not like a joke.
Like it was years ago in different countries and different other countries, they are using it was years ago.
And different countries and different other countries,
they are using it as financial assets and also great movements. Like, for example, Doge.
It's, you know, backed by one of the more polemic guys in our age,
Elon Musk, and it's given
trying to give a good utility, which is, I guess,
it's nice to the transition of a meme coin between
the joke and utility, I guess,
is something good, but so far here at LATAM, in general, meme coins are not like a big deal.
Even it's like one of the worst use cases for crypto in general.
Awesome. Thank you.
I love the part about all the types of Pepe. I think you explained it pretty well.
Alright, Adam, I think you have a lot of say about this, what's happening regarding memes in your region, so please go ahead.
Yeah, so on the meme front, it's very interesting, which we'll get into later around NFTs and the evolution of that going into memes.
Yeah, I think it's a real big cultural movement.
I think time will tell how deep the use case will be or how um how much utility it will bring but
just a couple key points on on the meme coins uh at least in the u.s um very popular uh obviously
it's been trending for a little bit uh but it's bypassed like u, U.S. securities laws so people can launch it.
Anybody can launch their coin.
This also helped, sorry.
This also helped, like, AI agents as a funding mechanism.
So I think these are some, like, critical, like, innovative ways
to raise money and also engage the community.
And it's a way for, like, tokens to fairly launch themselves
without, for retail, without, like, VCs getting heavily involved.
without like VCs getting heavily involved.
So, you know, we'll see what happens in the coming years,
but I think it's a tool for a lot of people to use.
And we've seen kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly with meme coins.
But I think in the end, I think a lot of companies like on the Web2 side
will probably like, you know will probably experiment with it.
They already are.
So we'll see, again, what the future holds for meme coins,
but there'll be a place for it.
And I don't know what the final result will be, but it's going to be exciting.
Amazing.
All right, Aditya, how is it going in India?
Yeah, for example, yeah, thanks, Claire.
And for example, as Luis mentioned about baby Pepe, like short Pepe or something,
like people just change some names and launch it.
And it's that trending, that community-driven nature that people tend to believe that yes it's the part of
something big like the revolution that they are doing or something like that
like meme coins inspired by internet jokes or memes but that's what trending
going on for example a big personality like like that we talked about a lot
must the change its profile picture so now that profile picture becomes a meme coin but if you see the utility is very less in any format this appeals in
accessibility and how vibrant communities that supports them in very
different forms in India we see that the major meme coins that generate, that generated from regions are highly internet jokes or maybe the people that find interesting or they share with each other.
That's very visible, right?
That has a lot of visibility, not utility because utility is still not there.
The Shiba Inu, we talk all of these. has a lot of visibility, not utility, because utility is still not there.
The Shiba Inu, we talk all of these, like people believe,
a group of people that believes in that thing,
and then how it becomes a meme coin and grows in that thing.
So yeah, it's growing here as well. So looking forward to it, what's the regulations, technical utilities and actual cultural engagement because people try to represent their culture with some meme coins and with combination of NFTs.
And we will see that it creates more ways for people to engage with crypto and other
Use cases that we can see in future as well
All right, thank you Adrian
I see you finally join I'm glad you're here today as well with us
So I don't know if you heard a question, but the question was
How are NFTs and memes proceed in your region compared to traditional crypto projects?
So if you could join us for this as well.
Hello, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfect. Nice. Some problems with X, but all fine.
But in South America, NFTs and meme companies are often seen as a speculative way I think and
maybe just for entertaining entertaining but while traditional crypto projects are taken more seriously now. I think that we are in a great moment
for these kind of projects on South America
and Latin America in general.
And many people, for example, in Salvador use Bitcoin
and stable coin for transactions.
And this is very important,
but NFTs and Mink coins just attract uh younger users who enjoy say internet uh
culture for example for example uh these uh younger people enjoy a lot uh to have quick
uh profits with this kind of assets and some inversors or on old inversors, I think, see them as risky.
But it is very interesting to see how is the evolution of these kind of assets.
Awesome. thank you. I think we can all agree that what definitely NFTs and memes did
is they gathered huge communities,
people who were so crazy about this stuff or are still crazy.
I don't know if you've been to some NFTs or memes events,
but it's just crazy and amazing vibe, like people talking about this.
So it's just like very interesting that these such things can attract so many people.
And, you know, it doesn't really matter from which blockchain or where they are launched,
but they just like gather together no matter from which project or blockchain,
which I think is really cool.
So let's go to the second question uh what regional differences do you observe in how communities engage or create nft memes projects in your countries like do you feel like there is some difference or special kind what they are
really interested in or something like that so yeah Luis let's go with you first again
yeah well I like to share for example that we are working in a strategy called VaraArt that is related to NFTs and technology in art.
And as we were close with artists,
like, for example, they shared their experience with NFTs and marketplaces.
Actually, you know, the market is not is not like in the best position and it's not something
good for many technologies like nfts but still there are different ways to use these assets
for example the fractional ownership i like this. I guess this is one of the more interesting related evolution of the technology in the token is basically that you have related a digital certificate that can help you to prove the ownership. of fractional ownership, you can be just one of many owners of one NFT and this can create
many use cases because if you cannot get one NFT because it's not affordable for you with
this technology, it's possible that you can be one of the owners. And yeah, this is nice.
I feel like even though that the market is not in the best position,
some technologies are still there trying to inject use case
or a different way to interact with the technology.
And in terms of NFTs and meme,
I guess that at least here in LATAM,
different people is trying to still use it
and give some kind of utility,
waiting for a better market
so they can have different kind of gains or different kind of interaction.
But yeah, to me, it's interesting, this.
All right. Thank you, Luis. Adam, can you continue?
Yeah, so NFTs, what was the exact question?
Yeah, so NFTs, what was the exact question?
Basically, what kind of type or if there are some differences between the memes and NFTs being developed in your region?
Like if you feel like there are some really popular or, you know.
Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, definitely in the States, there was definitely a rise in NFT culture a few years ago.
I don't think it's gone away, but it's not as hyped Penguins, a lot of these collections rose rather quickly.
And I think the NFT utility has a lot more than meme coins.
It's really penetrated the Web2 space in terms of uh getting closer to their customers
and then in the web 3 side a lot of a lot of um celebrity celebrities and athletes uh you know
famous people it was a way to connect also with their community and followers much more closely.
And it's interesting, with the meme coin, it's one coin.
With NFTs, it was like 10,000 one-of-ones.
So there's a different kind of mindset where you were part of a community, but you had your own representation with your own NFT asset.
As with meme coins, it's kind of, I'm part of,
I'm part of something and we're kind of all the same.
And we all, you know, are like-minded in terms of, you know,
joining this, this meme coin frenzy.
But yeah, I mean,
those have been some of the collectibles that rose and, you know,
really drove the market in the early days.
And just the other day, I really just saw somebody handing out Bored Ape stickers still.
So I think, you know, they're still owners, they're still holding on.
We'll see what happens on the NFT side, but as Luis just mentioned, NFTs, I think, also have a place in not only art,
but as Luis said, fractionalized in real estate.
There's definitely a lot of use cases in the United States
that people are attempting to push forward.
Real estate's a big one.
Obviously, video games and NFTs, high fashion, Louis Vuitton, digital art, academia.
So, like, credentials on chain with, you know, the NFT beingof-one, which is pretty important.
And so, yeah, again, we'll see what happens in the long run.
It's kind of mellowed out in terms of the hype,
but I don't think it's going anywhere.
Supply chain is also using NFTs for transparency, inventory, logistics.
So, yeah, I'm excited it seems like everything
with the future being
tokenized NFTs will
definitely have a place
to flourish
yeah
I agree 100% I think
what we saw from the NFTs
is still not what we could see
so I'm very curious about
the future um okay uh Adrian is again on listener so let's go Aditya with you yeah so as everyone
mentioned about custom ownership and the indivisibility and other things that nfts like they went down
but now still they are in a very good place because projects launch the custom nfts to
reward their early contributors to basically became their part of the closed ecosystem is
basically where they have whitelisted another project it's a really great way to
involve your community
as well and also
if you see the utilities to ZoHouse
and other things
it's like the utility that we are seeing
currently that really does NFT
have right now. NFTs have
opened new avenues for in India
like there are projects that Indian
artists monetize their digital
creations and for Wara we have Wara art now artists can do that as well by providing digital
access to like global markets whatever like your creativity 100% then this eliminates basically the
traditional intermediate intermediaries that we had.
And the basic part is like programmability.
It also has that.
NFTs can incorporate smart contracts and with other things that we are coming up, enabling automated action, distributing royalty distributions to creator upon like resale or something and drop ability unique ownership
and as adam mentioned about we are using it in the supply chain yeah we're seeing a lot of
use cases coming up and driving that option All right. Thank you. I see Lishu has requested a speaker, so let's add him to the stage.
And Adrian, maybe he will join again.
Hello Lishu, how are you doing?
Hello, Lishu. How are you doing?
It's okay, you just came on time.
So since you haven't been here, could you maybe, we're gonna go a little bit back.
I'm gonna skip one question, but could you share with us how are perceived NFTs and meme
coins in your region compared to traditional crypto?
Just to get a background about how it is in Asia.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Yeah, I, sorry, I, I'm based in China.
So China is kind of different from Asia.
different from asia so uh the rest of asia i think people can access uh the market and can freely
um trade and meet nfts me coins i mean coins but it's it's very different in china so speaking of china uh the um the nfts meme coins as significantly different
from the traditional crypto projects because of these regulatory uh
regulations and the cultural and the market dynamics and stuff like that.
For regulations, so the crypto, the traditional crypto projects,
for example, like Bitcoin or Ethereum
has banned, like has imposed a very strict ban
on all cryptocurrency trading and the mining and the ICO stuff like since 2021.
So it's bad.
So basically, it's not legal.
So therefore, NFTs, it's kind of a different story.
In the beginning, you could trade, you could mint.
But then there comes like cryptocurrencies, it's rebranded,
it's called digital collectibles. So it's also regulated, but there are platforms like
legally licensed platforms that you can issue those NFTs. I mean, but instead of trading, you can own NFTs, but the speculative part of the NFT is stripped.
So you can own it as a digital collectible. And for meme coins, it's largely treated as
speculation. So it's explicitly banned. So some people are trading like uh you know secretly using vpns stuff like that but uh it's
not allowed um it's it's very volatile you know uh compared to traditional uh crypto so it's the same
as the rest of the world uh i guess it's more uh yeah it's uh it's more, there's not a lot of cultural bearings in the meme coin in China.
It's more like speculation.
Yeah, it's purely people want to profit off of the meme coin trading.
That's basically the background information
from my region.
All right.
Thank you so much.
So I'm curious,
are there any brands or creators in your region
utilizing NFTs for community building
or even some big brands who would use NFTs,
for example, for concerts or events, something like this,
if this ever happened in your region.
So, Luis, can you go first again?
Yeah, sorry.
I had a problem with the connection.
Can you repeat the question, Claire?
Yes, of course.
I was curious if there
are any brands or creators in your region who are utilizing NFTs for community building,
but also maybe some big brands like which would use NFTs for concerts or something like this,
if this ever happened in your region. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is an interesting question because
we have been part of different hackathons also here in LARAM and many people, they are willing
to build good projects using NFTs, like for example, the decentralized Ticketmaster.
Unfortunately, also some implementations in the technical way,
it depends about the adoption and the market.
And we share also to this kind of projects, like in the past, almost everybody that understands how it works, the NFTs and blockchain, they say like, okay, are trying to solve social problems like a ticket master is a huge
company that controls the market. So let's create a project that will give a new opportunity to the
people to get tickets. And of course, the idea is pretty nice. And the technical side, it's
very well. I know some projects here in LATAM that have developed a good technology-related Ticketmaster decentralized.
Unfortunately, in order penetrate this technology in the
business that we are trying to to get in and this use case so far at least for
LATAM it's a little bit tricky because Ticketmaster is a monopoly. It's a monster controlled by people with a lot of power and they have great deals with
artists and so on.
So yeah, implementations have been tried, but unfortunately not like a good solution
to the problem.
Even it's exactly the same with, for example, with voting systems.
I guess that this is one of the best in Brazil, for example.
They started one implementation to be official in the voting system,
But not using it so far as the official one.
but not used it so far as the official one.
We know that in LARAM we have different kind of problems in the politics, mostly corruption.
And these problems in the society is one of the stoppers to use in a really good way the NFTs implementations to solve really
good use cases with NFTs. But yes, different options. We have it in the market. I hope in
the upcoming years it will be easier and more governments could be open to implement this or also we as a society
can evolve to use blockchain implementations to provide the transparency that we need.
Interesting. Thank you, Luis. Aditya, let's go with you.
based on train tickets for significant events for example the whole cultural gathering which is
kump mela they distributed the digital souvenirs the nfts as train tickets on polygon obviously
so enhanced this helps in enhanced engagement and they received the feedback as well after the
whole this cultural gathering it was spot on like
more better than the normal tickets that they used it promotes cultural promotion as well and also
we have zoo house zoo house in india and different places pune bangalore and it's like outside india
as well like san francisco dubai so it's zoo it's a notable NFT-based initiative within the Web3 ecosystem.
NFT-gated access, global presence and comprehensive amenities
that literally connects you with the top tier people
who are like very active in the ecosystem.
So first, Indian railways use NFTs and Zo and zoo house which like group of people that like they
have a place to build zoe wild founder nfts you get you get to meet a lot of founders and other
people who are like crushing it in this industry also not just that but like we have tanish a jewelry brand with its ventured into metaverse by launching
a 3d display his own uh featuring a romance of polki their premium collection that's blend the
traditional craftsmanship that they used to build with digital innovation like digital nfts so like
people are trying to come up with new innovative ideas and
how they can keep the community more engaged and the kind of benefits that it provides so yeah from
motor motor automobiles to make my trip travel destinations you'll get your tickets in the nfts
from travel company are also adopting it. So yeah, in an NFT case
it's completely different and more like
Really well. It's really proud to see that. Yeah
Wow, all right, thanks. That's very interesting
So Lishu, can you share some sneak peeks from your region?
Yeah, with all said heavy regulations and everything, but it's surprisingly like there are actually many use cases in China with brands and creators leveraging nfts for example they
are corporate driven nft platforms for brand loyalty so there are tech giants like tencent
and alibaba they issue nfts tied to licensed IPs like traditional art or museum collaborations.
And these are marketed as membership tokens or fan rewards. So it's for enhancing the brand loyalty without financial utility.
And there's some other examples like Starbucks China
as NFT stamps, like grant access to their exclusive events.
So it's like, yeah, it's like blending
this digital collectible with real world perks so it's like i
think they do it worldwide it's not only china but they also do in china and the second second
uh kind of category is that there is a cultural and uh narratives so it it's surprisingly state aligned themes. So sometimes the AFTs can feature traditional Chinese culture, like calligraphy, like historical figures to align with the national identity. So even the government backed platforms, there are platforms like to trade
digital assets, promote these as like safe digital assets. And there are some also localized
pop culture like southern cities like Guang Guangzhou they experiment with Cantonese meme
inspired NFTs but yeah they avoid politically sensitive content so that's always you have to
pay attention you know you should be careful with that and they are also community-centric utility of NFTs, like fan engagement, for example.
There's this popular platform, video sharing.
It's like YouTube in China called Bilibili, but it's for younger generations.
generations demo for anime and the games but but then extended to a lot of other you know videos
They're more for anime and the games.
as well they mean the nfts as like badge interactive badges for for super fans that can unlock the
behind the scenes content or or voting rights like in community decisions. And also they integrate NFTs to like WeChat,
mini game, WeChat games.
So where users can collect digital items
to redeem actually physical rewards.
Yeah, there's, yeah, these are the kind of use cases
in China and it's very, actually, yeah, these are the kind of use cases in China.
And it's very, actually, it's surprisingly many.
Okay, that's all I have to say about this.
Thanks.
Thank you, too.
And I think the last but not the least, Adam?
Yeah, so there's a long list of, and I'll just give you some examples, but companies, as Lishu just mentioned, is very corporate-driven,
providing more exclusivity for their customer base.
But I'll give you some names here.
BMW, Disney, Adidas, Nike, the NBA, Lamborghini.
These are just some of the names that we're all familiar with.
Ray-Ban, Hello Kitty, right? the names uh that we're all familiar with uh ray-ban hello kitty right um and it's interesting
so nike actually made i don't know a couple hundred million off of their nft like virtual
sneaker collection which is which is pretty good but they actually just shut it down, I think, towards the end of 2024 or even in January, which kind of signals a sign that it's still super early and people are still trying to understand how to leverage the technology. own like a Lamborghini NFT in the metaverse when metaverse was trending.
NBA allowed people to own moments in time during games, almost like trading cards, but
they would be like short little clips and videos.
That was popular for a little bit of how they wanted to engage their audience using NFTs.
Adidas collaborated with Bored Apes, the Bored Ape Collection, and I believe the Crypto Punk Collection.
That was popular probably like in 2022.
Disney also removed the NFT word and replaced it with digital pins.
And they allowed their customer base to own different assets of their collections, whether that was Marvel, DC or Disney characters.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think as we mentioned in a couple of the other questions like nfts are
here um are they a big money maker i'm not we're not sure like i guess time will tell like how
uh people perceive them do people you know is there still demand it seems like there was a
little bit of demand not anymore but i i believe that the future generations are going to be all digital.
And as everybody always talks about, there are a lot of iPhones and devices in the world and people transacting with their phone.
generations this might they might benefit and companies might have more advantageous like
approaches and strategies with with future generations so yeah but I think NFTs are
really just economic rails for the metaverse and the digital in the digital world uh and yeah i guess we'll see what happens as well
all right thank you guys i think we covered quite a lot of topics and stuff about this uh i think it's been already almost 50 minutes so i don't want to take much more time of your day and also others listeners
uh I think you share a lot of insights how it's in your regions we can just you know
think how it will look in one year and then come back and kind of do the space again with the changes which happened.
Does any of you have some additional comments which you would like to add or something else?
I see.
All right.
So I would like to thank you all, all of you who came.
Thank you guys for joining me today. And also thanks
to all the listeners.
The space is recorded so anyone
who couldn't come can still listen.
And have a great day,
evening, whatever the time
is in your region.
And thank you so much.
And see you at the next one.
Adios.
Host
Vara Network
from
Vara Network
