We're really running the gamut of like the types of people that are involved in Web3,
like pretty much every vertical from Web3 we've got here today.
We've got folks from the Ferrum teams like myself, Taha Abasi, and David Scandrolli.
We've got folks from a really,
we've got Google network, we've got Google network.
These, we've got these, we've got them,
Yeah, I guess last but definitely not least, we've got some folks that are really pushing forward the messaging behind Bitcoin and what it means for the future of money.
We've got Seize Control here, and we even have artists helping to move the artistic landscape forward within the BTCFi ecosystem, like Violetta Zeroni, who's an incredible singer-songwriter, and we've got Tan Tan, who's a mega-talented digital artist doing the same thing.
So, yeah, like I said, we're really running the gamut here with just, like, all different verticals from Web3, and we're super stoked to be doing this.
Taha, you mentioned a bit earlier about, you know, this mission.
Yeah, it is a pretty lofty undertaking, right?
I mean, we're only trying to, like, redefine the future of the Internet.
So, you know, why don't you talk a little bit more about that ambitious undertaking and what we're all up to on this space and just in general in Web3 right now.
Thank you for all those intros.
I can hear you all right.
Okay, wonderful, wonderful.
All right, yeah, thank you so much for that.
So, before I get into the mission, which we want to highlight, I do want to share a bit about the intention for this space here as well, which is this space is designed and organized in the spirit of Web3 to celebrate artists, creators, builders of Web3 who are pushing the envelope towards the mass adoption of crypto and decentralized technologies.
So, if you want to support this cause and get our mission, get our cause, get this movement out there, make sure you hit the purple icon on the bottom right, you repost this message, share it with your communities, your friends, your audiences so they can tune in and join our journey and get all of this exciting content and information directly from the source.
And I think in sharing that topic, I already hinted on some of what the mission is, right?
So, the mission that we all stand for is the mission of decentralization, the mission of taking one step away from centralized fiat control.
It's a mission that sort of questions the status quo and is a hope to even encourage centralized systems and entities, whether those be government entities and infrastructures or private entities or public entities to do better.
And with blockchain and with crypto, we all have that voice.
This is what's bringing all of us together, same as the mission was for us to land on the literal moon back in the 60s, where Kennedy talked about that that was such a grand mission.
It was such an impossibility.
The technology did not exist.
The adoption did not exist.
That it brought people together from all walks of life.
And it brought specialists together from all parts of the world to do something that is for the greater good.
And that is exactly what's happening here with organizations like Axelar and Ferrum, which should be competing with each other in the Web2 world.
But in this case, we are doing the exact opposite because it is a much greater cause.
We, in fact, most recently have integrated our solutions with Axelar's solutions, specifically that Axelar ITS service is now integrated with the OmniChain Liquidity and OmniSwap service that Ferrum is building.
And why are we doing that?
Because collaboration over competition is a theme, as Studio Paimon, one of our closest advisors, likes to say as well.
This is the essence of Web3, and it is all designed to highlight and really put all of our resources to highlight the content of the amazing artists and the creators and the builders in the space so that we can onboard as many folks as possible into the new decentralized world that we are looking to create.
But let's talk about why that's important for a second, and then we'll kind of get into the discussion topic.
So why does decentralization matter?
Or you might be wondering, hey, I just got into this space because Bitcoin was numbers go up kind of a game, and I wanted to be part of that, right?
So what the hell is this decentralization?
Well, when those of us live in some of these privileged countries around the world, I happen to have the honor and the blessing of being a citizen of the United States, where I have a lot of privileges.
For those of you that are living in countries around the world where you have the privilege of free speech or freedom of expression, you have your rights protected, we don't realize how difficult it can be in other countries.
I was born in Pakistan, and a lot of my team, a lot of my friends and family are in Pakistan.
And while I love my home country, I do realize that it has its challenges, and an exact challenge that it is facing right now, and as was faced by the Middle Eastern countries during the Arab Springs around the 2010, 2011 Arab Springs era, was a very evident abuse of power use case that was displayed in the form of centralized governments essentially shutting down internet, shutting down communication channels.
In other words, shutting down people's voices to communicate about any kind of injustice that would happen or to question the authority of the governments or entities that would be in power.
So in Pakistan, as an example, this space would not be possible without a VPN or without going through significant hoops to jump through.
Because X is banned in Pakistan.
Similarly, YouTube is banned in Pakistan in many cases.
And depending on the tune of the week, Telegram gets banned or not.
So main communication channels can be banned.
And why is this possible?
Because in the world that we predominantly live in today, the Web2 world, all of these services and applications work on centralized servers.
So if you want to shut them down, you can go after one company, one authority, and you can say, hey, shut this down or else.
Whatever that or else threat happens to be based on the jurisdiction.
Well, when you look at the scenario of a decentralized world, if those of you who have seen the show Silicon Valley might recall that they were trying to create a decentralized peer-to-peer internet, I'm not here suggesting that we are creating a decentralized peer-to-peer internet today.
Well, what I am suggesting is this whole movement is much bigger than number go up.
I am suggesting that what we're going to be discussing today, when we highlight Violetta's music that is being inscribed on chain, when we highlight Tan Tan's reality is broken art that she has inscribed on chain,
when we highlight the creations of different artists, including the whistle melodies of Studio Paimon and all of the other creators who have done incredible work and are inscribing that on chain,
when we highlight how even transacting Bitcoin itself, how even purchasing Bitcoin or getting involved in this ecosystem by running a node,
we are going to be describing how that moves you one step closer to a decentralized world, to a possibility of a world where this infrastructure is so robust and has so much demand
that the internet is powered by your own devices in this future, where to shut this internet down in Pakistan,
then you would have to physically take away devices from 200 million people, which is a lot more difficult to do than just go to X headquarters and say,
if you don't shut this down, there's a lawsuit coming your way.
So this is the vision. Of course, there are many other implementations of this vision, but why should we care?
I don't live in Pakistan. I live in the United States of America. It doesn't affect me. That's a valid question because obviously we need to look at our self-interest.
Why should I champion a cause for others other than because it's something that I should care about as being a person who generally has good intentions and attempts to have a good conscience?
Why should I care about this? Well, USA and Western countries and the global economic forums are not immune to this.
If you do me a favor right now and you go ahead and go to Google and search the following keywords, type in F-R-E-D for Fred like Flintstones and space M1.
When you search that, the first thing that comes up is the M1 or M1 SL chart, which talks about the money supply.
It's a data that is shown by the Fed, Federal Reserve Bank, which shows the money circulation in the market.
And it shows the money circulation that has been in the market currently set up to be showing from about 1959 to the current date.
What you will notice is a peculiar interest. That chart looks like an interesting crypto chart.
What we all kind of hope for the projects that we're fans of does.
But unfortunately, instead of the price action, this is a chart not indicating a market cap, but it's indicating an increase in supply.
So what's happened here is this money supply that is in the market has gone up roughly 5x in four years.
This means that imagine that you were part of a project that you invested in.
Again, I want to preface none of this is financial advice.
We're just sharing some information to set the stage for why you should care about Web3 in general and why you should understand that even organizations like Forbes are championing the cause for a decentralized future.
Of course, all of it with the focus of compliance and regulatory compliance in mind, but also understanding these mechanics and why this is much bigger than a numbers go up game.
So coming back to the spread M1 chart, you have a situation where the money supply has gone up 5x.
This would be pretty similar to if a project's token supply was, let's say, a billion tokens.
And without your say, all of a sudden they had increased it to 5 billion tokens, right?
That project probably wouldn't do so well.
So this is a concern that we have because these things are happening.
And, you know, there's discussion around inflation.
Well, that inflation comes from increase in money supply.
And that increase in money supply makes things more expensive.
So when we see houses are more expensive to buy, it's harder for younger people to actually afford a home.
You have to work more jobs.
This is not an act of magic or an act of mystery.
These things are directly as a result of some of the policies that come into place that we sometimes don't have a say in.
And crypto allows you to have a voice in that or blockchain and Web3 allows you to have a voice in that.
So with that, I kind of want to hand it off to Sovereign, who is leading Seize Control.
And he has a very good perspective on some of these topics.
So, Sovereign, why don't you kind of share with us your perspective on some of these problems and what Seize Control is doing a little bit about it.
And, yeah, would you love to hear your take, man?
Thanks for having me on here.
A super dope collection of projects and also great to see Forbes Web3 stepping into the space in the way that they're doing that with Legacy Pass and also all of the bridges that you guys are building, not just between artists and communities, but also technology hubs.
And thanks for teeing that up.
You brought up the M1 supply.
I think it's important to mention there of what you said that the M1 money supply increased by 4x.
So that 4x increase happened over a space of four months in 2020.
In the previous years, it took 20 years to achieve that same amount of money supply increase.
So 20 years of increase happened in four months.
When I saw that happening, it was very, very clear to me that we had set in motion a set of events that had basically become irreversible.
And the governments have been basically trying to dampen the effects of that increase in money supply for years, but the data is not helping them.
They've tried to initially frame inflation as being transitory.
You know what happened there.
Then the victory for victory over inflation was won in January of this year, and we were going to get seven rate cuts.
And you know what's happened there.
We've gone from expectation of seven rate cuts down to two.
So essentially, what that is telling you is that the people that are making the decisions do not have a hold over this data, do not have control over this data.
They're playing a losing game with lagged data.
What we need is a system where you have real-time finance, where you can exactly predict the money supply, all the transactions that are happening in the entire economy.
And it's super clear for everybody.
Now, of course, it's going to take who knows when we will see a reality where that financial system will exist.
You know, it could take a long time, but information is like water.
It always finds the most efficient path.
And currency is one of the fastest pieces of information we have.
It is inevitable that we will end up in that reality.
From a seize control perspective, we are a very early ordinals-based art project.
And when we saw the cultural white space open up on Bitcoin, the largest, most widely adopted blockchain on the planet, we saw an incredible opportunity to express this thesis that I've just described right on chain.
And that brought us in touch with our amazing artist, OnePennyPeace.
He's a very well-established London-based street artist.
And he has historically made art on banknotes.
He takes banknotes from countries that have experienced hyperinflation, could be Venezuela, Argentina, maybe Turkey, some old banknotes, vintage banknotes.
And he uses surgical instruments like scalpels or spray paint to evoke really powerful imagery onto banknotes themselves.
When I met him, I said, you know, Penny, you've been inscribing your art on banknotes all this time.
Why don't we take your art and inscribe it on the technology that's going to end up replacing banknotes?
And so the idea of control was born and there's a lot of depth to the ordinal space, which we can get into later.
There's a lot of beautiful complexity that exists in the ordinal space and art on ordinals that doesn't exist on other chains.
But essentially, we set about creating a project which doesn't delve too much in the doom and gloom.
And it kind of reaches in and appeals to your passion and makes people feel something and get up out of their chairs.
Like, you know, we can talk about Bitcoin and all of its technical advances and the reason for it to exist and why it's going to be the most widely adopted thing on the planet.
But essentially, what you really want to do is make people feel something.
And you want to make them understand through art, which I believe is the highest form of expression,
that there are things happening around them that they should be concerned about.
And you can do that through art and find community and find connection with each other and kind of go on this journey together.
And through that process, they can find out all these cool new tools.
They can find out about Bitcoin.
They can find out about ordinals and kind of be gently onboarded into the process.
And so that was really our approach.
I've shared a little teaser of a piece of art that we just dropped today.
So you can have a look at what our vibe is.
We tend to be pretty controversial.
We're quite unapologetic in our anti-establishment stance.
We've done some insane activations like organizing a funeral for fiat currency in Miami,
along with a gospel choir, pallbearers, a coffin, a hearse, the whole shebang.
That thing went viral in May last year.
And then in December, we projected our art right on the bank of England,
along with some very choice words, which I won't repeat here.
But you can go on our Twitter and check it out.
You know, we're a pretty fun vibey community.
Come hang whenever you want.
Ever since I came across the fiat funeral,
ever since I came across Seize Control in general,
this is pinned in the messages above.
And Salvin, thanks for sharing those insights.
I think that experience that you have in terms of,
you know, the research to the financial markets
and how they have an impact on our daily lives
is extremely helpful and insightful.
But I totally agree with you.
You know, I started off by sharing all of the reasons why we should care about this.
I shared all of the issues that we have in the Web2 space.
But that doesn't really move people forward.
I think what moves people forward are the stories we tell,
are the things that we can be inspired by to move
because you don't want to keep hearing all the things that are wrong in the world every day.
It becomes very uninspirational,
which is something that I feel really inspired because we have Forbes on here.
And Forbes' mission, I had the opportunity to connect with Forbes through Studio Paiman,
who actually brought them over to Not Financial Advice,
the space that I was on, looking at some artwork where Tan Tan was featuring her art right before them.
I love how small of a community Web3 can be.
And I got to meet Mani, who's the VP of Forbes.
And then later I got to connect with the other Taha,
or as Nick likes to call us now, Tuha, as a joke.
And Taha happens to be the chief growth officer at Forbes Global.
I had a really good conversation with him in person,
and it turns out he's from the same hometown where my mother is from back in Pakistan.
And what I was able to dissect out from that conversation is the story of Forbes,
is a story worth telling.
And the story of Forbes is a story that we all are kind of familiar with,
but I think it's worth diving into as to how it aligns very well with the narrative of Web3
and exactly what we just talked about,
the story of inspiration, of using success to champion more success.
So, Mani, can you kind of speak to us about, you know,
a little bit of a Forbes perspective on some of the things we mentioned,
the problems of decentralized world, the problems with fiat currency, you know,
from the perspective of like just cost of things going up
and how they make it harder to do so many different things.
Meanwhile, the cost of things related to Bitcoin are going down.
So we already have a deflationary aspect from that standpoint,
Bitcoin mining rewards get cut in half every having.
We just had a having not too long ago.
And then maybe if we can share how the story of Forbes is embedded into the legacy pass itself
with 1917 being the number of passes that are coming out.
And I'll take that to come to Violetta's story after and how she's sharing stories through music.
So over to you, Mani, first, if you can comment on some of these items.
I think so many great points already brought up.
The world is moving very fast.
Like, I'm not just talking about Web3.
I'm talking about like just the traditional in real world is happening at a very passive rate.
And I remember I was reading this article.
It was either Argentina or Venezuela.
But there are countries where, you know, just within a matter of days,
you'll see that impact of inflation.
You'll see that huge spike and you'll see that volatility.
And I think that's the true, true power of crypto.
That's the true power of blockchain tech.
And we all know this because we are all part of the community.
We're all in this spaces.
But our job now at Forbes is how do we really make sure that the rest of the world understands this?
We believe in the blockchain.
We believe that through cryptocurrencies, we are able to harness just things that we never were able to.
The money system, the collecting system can now become truly global.
But how do we make sure that the rest of the world truly understands the power of this?
And at Forbes, we very much understand that as a legacy pass, not legacy pass, as a legacy brand, with a lot of power comes a lot of responsibility.
There are hundreds and millions of readers that come to our site on a regular basis.
And they come to Forbes to share with them the latest news, what is the most important topics.
And even in Web3, we have an entire editorial section on Forbes.com just to cover all news around Web3, blockchain, crypto, DeFi, you name it.
And that is really where we focus on for mass adoption and to really get the narrative and the story out of how we believe this technology can truly impact the world and change the world to be a better place.
Because within Web3 itself, our position is a little different because in Web3, we're in the grind, we're in the trenches, we're in the culture, we're with the people, we've done a lot of partnerships, we've done a lot of open calls to support artists, we've done a lot of our own events as well.
And our focus in the Web3 area is how do we empower the builders, the creators in this space, anyone that is working a nine-to-five and you have this passion project on the side, anyone that is building from the ground up, just you and a few of your close friends, those are the stories that we're so excited about.
And those are kind of the builders and the people that we really want to get in the trenches with.
And to your point, a lot of brands are working on a lot of great projects.
The Legacy Pass is our baby, it's what we've been building in silence for over a year, and now it's finally come to fruition.
And that's what we are using as this vessel to really become close, tight-knit with our holders and with our community.
I relate to what you just spoke so much about building something for a while.
And really, it does feel like you have your baby that's coming to life, and then you have to nurture that baby and grow it.
And I think you've done a tremendous job.
I think what I felt really good about, because we've seen organizations kind of come into the space and jump on the hype train, right?
Like, oh, NFTs are hot, or runes are hot, or ordinals are hot, and try to add value.
But it ends up turning into a very extractive transactional element.
And that is not at all what I have experienced personally here.
And I want to give an example.
As I was flying out to Hong Kong, I can't even remember how many days ago.
And I'll get to that in a second, because I'm still sitting in Singapore.
But I think it was about a week ago, I was flying out to Hong Kong.
And I live in Utah, so I landed, I had to go through San Francisco.
So I landed at San Francisco Airport.
And I'm like, okay, I need to, I need to connect with these few people in Hong Kong.
You know, how can we kind of make that work?
And I literally, at the airport, because you have to check in from your flight again for an international flight.
I'm sitting in front of the check-in counter, and I just dial up Studio Paimon.
And I talked to him for five minutes, like, hey, you coming to Hong Kong?
He's like, well, no, I just came back from Dubai, and I got to spend time with my family and stuff.
So I have a chat with him for a few minutes.
And next thing you know, I explained to him sort of what we're trying to do, our mission,
to really pioneer and support artists and creators and builders and, you know, sort of the things that I'm struggling with.
And as an advisor of Forbes, the dude literally 24 hours later was in Hong Kong.
And it's just such an incredible thing.
Literally, I can't, I don't know if he slept at all, right, first of all.
Because I would be tired and come home, and then I would do dev calls.
And then Paimon is like, okay, I'm tired, too, after a long day.
And then 15 minutes later, I would get a call.
He's like, hey, I just met this amazing artist and this amazing creator.
And we're going to go out to, like, dinner and sushi.
I'm like, oh, Paimon, I don't know how you're doing this, man.
So this effect of Forbes coming in is not just lip service.
And I truly felt that and experienced it.
It's already made this space possible of bringing together so many amazing creators.
And it's making it a lot more possible that we'll share.
For those of you that are tuning in, just a little motivation for you.
We're actually going to be sharing a lot of exciting utility, some airdrops,
including a trip to Tulum for some of those who are creating amazing content.
We call it the Tulum Paradise Pad.
So there's a lot of exciting, fun things that we are talking about and sharing
towards the end of the space and sharing how you can qualify for them and how you can earn them.
But the focus here is to educate and inspire through all of the amazing work that folks are doing.
So, Mani, thank you so much for sharing that perspective.
With that, I do want to highlight, you know, music is something that for me is very personal
because some of the folks that I love around me that I care for so much happen to be musicians.
I mentioned my best friend, Nick Odio, on this call.
He has his amazing song that is very close to my heart.
It's a song called Coco that I did not know was, well, I will not ruin the surprise.
The song was about something entirely different and I was moved by it as I heard it.
And music, I think what I find about that as I travel across the world is it transcends language.
Even if you don't understand what is being said, you can feel it.
And that says a lot about how you can really use the power of music to get messages across
that may be complex and boring and maybe sort of very serious in nature, but they can be used to move you.
So with that, Violetta, I mean, I didn't know you a few days ago.
Thanks to Payman, I've gotten a chance.
Well, thanks to Uncle Rockstar and Payman and Joey and so many amazing people.
I've gotten a chance to connect with you.
And I am now the first music NFT that I have bought was yours.
I just purchased the Moonshot full album and I'm just like a fan.
I got to learn about like these are things that I wasn't looking at before.
So that's another exciting thing.
If you haven't looked at it, follow Violetta.
Tom, if you can look at Violetta's profile and share her website here in her marketplace in the chat, that would be amazing.
So I went on the site and I was able to like purchase the NFT.
And then I was like, OK, you can play it online.
But what if I want to play it on the go?
So I was able to download Parrot Radio, which is a music player for music NFTs on chain.
And it gave me inspiration to create a lot of cool ways to further amplify that technical side of how music can be as seamless as it is right now with Apple Music and Spotify.
Right. Like the reason I believe music is having a little bit of a hard time taking off on the NFT side and on chain side is because everything else is at your fingertips.
But I've had some ideas and inspiration of how we can move that forward.
So enough of me talking, Violetta.
Can you share a little bit about your history, how you came about to make music on chain?
And, you know, I would love to also, after you speak a little, maybe play a little bit of your music that I have queued up here from your Moonshot album.
So over to you, Violetta.
Hey, Taha and Mani and Sovereign, Pemont.
Thank you so much for having me.
So good to hear from you guys.
We were just hanging out, sharing passion things like I don't even know how many hours ago, like it feels like three, but also 30, something like that.
But, yeah, really good to reconnect so soon.
And, yeah, I'm excited to be here, you know, and for the things that you guys are talking about, I completely align.
I love what Forbes are doing.
I'm part of the inner circle, thanks to Mani.
And so I really appreciate being able to participate that way as well.
So I'll just share a little bit about myself.
As you mentioned, I am a full-time musician, singer, songwriter.
Thanks for pinning my tweet to the top.
That's me performing in Paris.
But, yeah, a little bit about my background.
I've been a professional music artist, like traditional music artist for the last decade.
I started when I was really young.
When I was 18, I signed a major label deal with a major record label, which basically traumatized me and scarred me right from the get-go in a way that, you know, it really wasn't what I was expecting.
In terms of, of course, being creatively free, but also just having control over my art.
And I was thrown into this very corporate, centralized world around art and music specifically that, you know, already was pretty traumatizing.
And then there was the advent, of course, of streaming platforms around 2013, 2012.
That's really when they took over the music market.
And similarly to how a lot of people were affected, you know, by different financial crises, I was affected by that sort of crisis in the music industry, where the product of music was no longer in the hands of musicians.
And it was very centralized and simply devalued completely.
And, you know, I definitely suffered from the effects of the COVID pandemic, as many people did.
Until that point, I was able to make my living through live concerts primarily and diversifying a lot of different things.
I was doing movies as well, acting and doing commercials and kind of soundtracks for different TV shows as well.
But then when the COVID pandemic hit, I realized that I couldn't do none of those things anymore.
And the only thing that was actually my product that was able to travel remotely and be distributed digitally, that was my music, wasn't actually generating any revenue.
Because Spotify and many different streaming services, many people don't realize that basically, unless you are the Taylor Swift of this world, you're not going to make a living off of putting out your music on streaming services.
And that got me thinking, how can I change this for myself, for so many other artists in the world and my position, and also for audiences that don't really get to discover music that they like, but they are just fed music off of an algorithm, basically a computer, when music, like Taha said, is something that connects people universally and shouldn't be necessarily fed through a computer and a bunch of code.
I don't think it should be much more empowering of individuals, both artists and people that appreciate art.
So that's how I discovered Web3, thanks to my mom.
Actually, before I quit music entirely, I was going to quit music as a career, not as a passion, obviously.
But my mom actually told me to suggest that I would explore Web3 and NFTs to distribute my music, and so I did.
And since two years ago, in January 22, I've pivoted entirely to Web3 as my tool to build my business as an independent artist, and I've released multiple pretty large collections on Ethereum, Moonshot.
Thank you, Taha, for picking one up as well.
Moonshot, Another Life, a few one-of-ones and different things, and I've built a community of almost 1,400 people.
And, you know, I've really seen how that has changed the way my community approaches music and the way they're familiar with it now.
Like, they get to experience what it means to be an artist and what it means to participate in music beyond just passive consuming, like it happens with streaming platforms.
And so, yeah, and lately I've been diving into ordinals.
I mean, in the past year, I've started inscribing music.
I've inscribed four different songs, four different one-of-ones, which is kind of a hard task given the file size limitations and different aspects of the chain and the protocol.
But, yeah, I was able to do it, and I feel like that's the next step towards an even more decentralized world because, obviously, you know, we all know and love Ethereum,
and it's really good to scale and build a big community, but when it comes to real, true decentralization and immutability, Bitcoin is, of course, number one.
So, whenever that came along, it was like, I cannot miss out.
I have to secure my most valuable currency, which is my music, on the most valuable ledger and network in the world.
So, that's kind of how I see it.
So, yeah, that's basically what I do right now, and travel the world and spread the word.
And I'm so glad, you know, Taha, that you didn't know much about music NFTs and music on the blockchain, and now you do it,
which was my purpose for this trip, really, to go and keep evangelizing people on this part of, you know, decentralization.
Music is something we live and kind of take for granted every day, but it's so important to us.
If they took it away from us, we would be destroyed.
And so, I think that needs, you know, it needs attention to us.
So, I'm so glad, you know, to be here right now to talk about it.
And you've not only opened my eyes to music NFTs, but you've turned me into a fan and also inspired me to, like, look at creative solutions to build, right?
Like, which is the coolest thing about IRL events that, you know, not only do you get to make amazing friendships,
but you get to learn and share knowledge, and then you get to inspire how you can push the space forward.
I want to, I have so much more to say about your music, and I know Nick wants to add as well,
but I do want to, and I want to take Mani's take on how Legacy Pass can support with that.
But we have someone on stage right now that I really want to highlight for a moment because it's going to bring all of this together.
So, we actually have John Karp right here on the space.
He's actually organizer of NFC Lisbon, which is happening at the end of this month.
We're actually going to be giving away five free tickets to NFC Lisbon.
These tickets are of $600 in value is how much you can get them for.
I think it might be a little bit more right now.
I haven't checked the prices.
But what you're getting out of it is priceless.
We are actually collaborating with so many amazing creators and artists to create immersive experiences.
But I am not the right person to talk about this.
There's no one better than John Karp himself.
So, John, can you kind of talk to us about what inspired you to get into Web3?
Why specifically your passion about NFTs?
And what made you start NFC and organizing it in this way?
I mean, it's just been amazing knowing you over the last couple of weeks and working together very recently.
The energy I get from you is electric.
And I think it's something I want to share with our community here.
And this is so exciting to be with you in this space right now.
I believe, to be honest, when I listen to all these stories, this is all the point.
And this is exactly why I came into this space.
I cannot hide it with my accent.
And so, I know, you know, in France, we study a lot of revolutions.
And so, you know, it starts with technology.
You know, and French revolutions start with invention of the ability of massively print and so deploy different ideas.
And these ideas, you know, came and you started to have culture.
You know, see Hatter criticizing old school royalties.
And it started also with music.
And then, you know, ideas, books, a lot of things.
And what I mean is, yes, we are living right now a kind of political revolution about decentralization.
And I believe, you know, what you talk about, Taha is really inspiring.
And also, you know, the sovereign team, what you are doing right now is, you know, all of this is about, you know, a new political paradigm.
A new way of thinking, the way people are interacting each other.
And, of course, you know, it's based on technology.
But all of this comes with a social and cultural revolution.
And this is why, you know, I embraced this NFT revolution, basically.
Because when you see all these artists, digital artists, musicians, and even, like, live performers, like, developers, any kind of art, actually, right now, all of them, you know, you're talking about this movement of, yeah, crypto art at the end of the day.
It's exactly, you know, artists expressing what is the new world at the digital age.
What is a centralized system?
All of these questions, actually, are into this art.
And for me, you know, the revolution will come with culture.
Because this is the best way to touch people.
When you see, you know, when you start to talk about decentralization to people who are not really into that, and all these principles, and all the technical, you know, some of them will say, oh, it's not for me, it's too complicated.
When you just show a picture, anyone can understand.
And this is what, you know, is important for me.
Or when you are touched by your music, you know, it's just the same ideas, but where you can provide emotion to people.
And so this is how, you know, I ended up into this NFT world.
You know, I have an event organizer background.
I co-founded a company called Hackathon.com, basically.
So I was organizing tech events, like for 10 years I've been doing for all the big Web2 leaders in the world.
And already organizing events about AI, about immersive technologies, about blockchain, all of this.
But, you know, at the moment I discovered, I start to realize, you know, the power of NFTs and the power of, you know, propagating ideas thanks to art.
So, yeah, we have to do something into this space.
You know, this is, it will come from this world.
And I'm not talking just about the speculative effect.
I'm just talking about the fact.
In few years, and it will come very, very, very fast.
You know, when you just think about fine art, it's already happening.
You know, when you think that, for example, you, you know, a lot of big museums, like the MoMA, like the St. George Pompidou, all the big, basically, modern art museums, they have NFTs collections.
It's already the present.
It's happened super fast, actually.
You know, we don't realize that.
But it's already the present, what is happening in the art world.
And so, yeah, for me, it's a fact.
In four, five years from now, okay, if we are pessimistic, in 10 years from now, everybody will collect digital art, will live with digital art.
And, you know, this revolution, and so it will embrace and help this revolution.
And so, this is why, you know, with my event background, this passion with NFTs as a collector, I wanted to create also an event that's showing this kind of, that is reflecting this revolution.
You know, because everybody is talking about changing the business model of the world.
Everybody in this space is trying to change the way we are doing things.
And so, I told myself, okay, we should be able to do exactly the same for events.
And so, this is why, you know, yeah, I've been doing a lot, organizing thousands of events.
And for me, it was a way just to do, you know, to refresh the way we should do events.
And this is why, you know, when you come to NFC, you know, we started this event.
This is the third edition right now.
We started with the idea of we just don't want to have just panels happening and just exhibitors.
We want people to live experience.
So, we started really with art, fashion, and gaming.
And, you know, for people who came last year, they lived in experience.
If you go on the main stage, for example, it's not just a stage.
It's an immersive room where you have seven-meter-high screens all around for 500 people in the room.
And every 10 minutes, a new experience is happening.
It's like a music festival, but it's for digital art, music, shows, video game.
Anything can happen, you know.
And every time, you know, we have like 70 crazy shows that have been prepared for the last six months that will happen this year on the next stage.
And that's totally different.
And people are living an experience.
You know, when we have, you know, we have another side stage, it's not only panels.
It's what we call debate.
And debate is, you know, people in the crowd, they have, you know, small signage in their hand.
They can vote yes or no if they agree or disagree with what people are saying on the stage.
If they disagree, they can jump on stage and share their opinion, like we are doing a bit on Twitter right now.
You know, have something more interactive.
Have something where, at the end of the day, you're just not checking the list of side events,
but you really want to be also inside the event.
And this year, you know, as, you know, basically our space is totally in movement,
I really tried also to play this decentralized game experience by not just being me and myself,
the organizer of the event, but by opening doors to four other co-organizers.
And so, basically, when you buy a ticket for NFC, yes, you can attend the non-fungible conference for the NFT world,
all-fashion gaming, but you have also access to another event called the MemeCon,
that is one of the first meme token conference, basically, with all this crowd and all these communities.
You have access to the red carpet that is like fashion and AI movie festival.
You have access to this big music festival on the beach called MOGA Festival,
the half of the MOGA Festival, where one day and one full day of beach parties, basically,
and you have access, and also this is, you know, how we met with Taha to Ordinal Lisbon.
And I had the chance, you know, to chat a few months ago with Trevor Owens, T.O.,
and I proposed to him, I said, yeah, let's organize an event together.
And Trevor, yeah, I just told him, I have the infrastructure, I have everything to organize an event.
You come with your community, with your speakers, with your partners, and we can make it happen.
And, yeah, Trevor jumped on this opportunity, and I'm so happy, you know, to organize that together,
because, you know, this is all the idea, breaking the bridges.
You know, there are a lot of communities.
We can say, okay, whatever, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, my one is better than yours, whatever.
But at the end of the day, the space is small, and all of us are passionate about the blockchain.
And so I'm super happy, you know, to have all these communities all together doing an event,
and have the chance, you know, to go from, yeah, from Ordinal's,
and when I want, jumping on the MemeCon, and when I want, jumping on the art stage for NFTs on Ethereum.
And for me, yeah, I'm super excited about it.
And so, yeah, I hope to see some of you in Lisbon.
I love that. I love that.
And, you know, John organizes some of the most visually immersive, inspiring events with NFC.
Like, these are events, in Trevor's word, when he first introduced me to NFC,
he said that when he visited events organized by John,
there is not another event in his entire life that he has been to where he's like,
I can't even call it an event, it's an experience.
It's an experience throughout, that you're going from one experience to another,
and you're just picking up so much of the creativity of the art that's there,
so much of the information, so much of learning so many new things through the experience.
And we really got inspired by that.
And in fact, myself, Sovereign, Studio Payman, and Trevor,
we were in a brainstorming session after Ordinal's Asia here.
And, you know, we came up with the idea of really what we want to pioneer.
And Ferrum is, you know, really sort of putting all of his resources behind this concept
of using the approach of educating through immersive experiences.
So instead of making, like, a pitch deck and a low presentation and be like,
okay, like, let me explain to you, like, kind of what I did earlier in this space
where I explained the importance of why you should care about decentralization.
Sure, those things are important.
But what's cooler is to experience them through art, which is incredibly impactful.
And we're going to be creating some really, really cool activations with Seize Control,
with various partners of ours.
Studio Payman is curating amazing artists.
For those of you that follow the Runestone community,
John has been able to help us bring Leo Kayard,
who is actually the creator of the Runestone art.
He'll be bringing a lot of these sculptures.
We're hoping he's also actually able to bring out the Runestone itself.
There will be sculpture activations that will happen right there,
where he's also open to actually getting the attendees and the community to sculpt with him.
These are things you cannot access unless folks like John put their time and effort,
blood, sweat, and tears, so to say, out there to give an opportunity for our communities
to come together and make this happen.
And I know for a fact how hard he's working right now.
We relate to that work ethic.
Like right now, I've been up for so many hours that my Twitter space screen is like a big blur
with the strongest glasses because my eyes are just giving out.
And that kind of camaraderie is kind of like being in the trenches, right?
Like you all know you're working so hard.
You don't have to, but you're doing it because you're passionate,
because you care about this, because it matters to you.
So, John, thank you so much for sharing that.
I know that you had a tight timeline with everything you're organizing.
I don't want to keep you.
Well, we want to make sure that you have the time to make it the best event possible.
And I can't wait to meet you in person in a few days here, man.
I think I'm going to fly out there on the 20th.
And it's going to be amazing.
And we're going to build something remarkable together.
We will be giving some tickets away as well, even though these tickets are well above the value.
But just to get some more people to experience these amazing things,
there's some exciting giveaways that we're doing.
And it's going to be a party.
So, with that, I do want to kind of go back to a minute to Violetta's music.
I want to share with you guys a brief sort of presentation of what inspired me as my first music NFT that I acquired.
So, take a listen to this.
I dance between the raindrops
They're singing a cappella
I tried to kick the habit
At least a thousand times
Wow, guys, and can you believe that we had the honor of, like, totally impromptu, when the first day that I met Violeta through Paimon, we got to go into this amazing venue with a new friend that we met, Joey, and just impromptu, there was a piano there,
and, you know, when there's musicians around, there's piano, there's good wives, we had the honor of hearing exactly amazing music just like this, and I was just jaw-dropped, and to make it even better, Studio Paimon, who had told me that he makes whistling melodies, and I was trying to, like, understand what that sounds like, because I hadn't heard him before, and, you know, I'm thinking of, like, how my uncle used to whistle and how I would whistle, and they start to jam out, and then Studio Paimon starts to make these amazing,
whistling melodies, and it is, I was just blown away, so the reason I share this is, first, what an incredible work of art, make sure you go check out their collections, and get yourself some of these on-chain NFTs,
be part of the movement, but more so, we're hoping to actually have these amazing artists, have Violeta at, in person, in Ordinal's Lisbon, and playing some of this music live, for those that are in attendance,
so that would be such an amazing honor to have that, and to experience all this in person, so I think with that, Nick, I want to kind of give it over to you, and then we go over to Forbes to talk about how Legacy Pass is really geared up to design and support the artists, and support and amplify the artists' reach, to amplify the reach of the creators, but Nick, can you speak to, like, how all of these specific areas speak to you as an artist, and as a musician as well?
Yeah, for sure. First of all, that song is so sick. I feel like the biggest compliment to get as a musician is, like, oh, like, I feel like I've heard that before. You didn't write that, right?
And that's how I felt the first time I heard that song, Violeta. Like, it feels like something I should have already heard, right? And to me, that was always, like, the best compliment to get.
But, anyways, like, hearing the story of Violeta here, like, it hit home with me, because, you know, Taha mentioned I'm a musician myself, and I used to do it professionally as well, but the music industry, as Violeta so poignantly pointed out, is severely tainted, right?
And I was a bit turned off to it, and, like, in a way, that, like, the way that I was turned off to the music industry bled into my desire to perform and write even, which I can't imagine how many other countless musicians that's happened to.
And, you know, fast forward half a decade, and now I'm working full-time in Web3, and admittedly, I wasn't too keen on how, you know, what we're building right here at Ferrum could help move forward an agenda that, to me, from 10 years ago, would have given anything to advance, right?
And, you know, leave it to my best friend, Taha, to re-inspire me with all these connections he's been making in the digital art space.
And, you know, this is probably the biggest reason now, with this kind of newfound, like, inspiration, the biggest reason as to why I'm so excited for, you know, the brilliant creation from John Karp that is NFC Lisbon, you know, I'm so excited to meet these artists, such as Violeta and Tenten, who, you know, I'm about to pass it over to you, and I'm so excited to take part in these immersive and engaging, interactive experiences, you know.
Talking with guys like SeizeControl and Payment and, you know, putting together some of these next-level ideas has just been so much fun, and, like, you know, I don't know what I've been waiting for so long to, like, you know, put some of my energy into things like this.
And I'm so excited to see it, like, in real life, right, at this conference, like, come to fruition.
And, yeah, I think it's, like, the bridge between onboarding these users in Web 2 to Web 3, and I can't believe I didn't see it until recently.
So, you know, thank you, Taha, for, you know, making these connections.
Thank you to all the artists doing all this incredible evangelism to, you know, make this, like, to create this bridge between Web 2 and Web 3.
I think it's going to be the key to bringing in people to Web 3.
And I think it's a cause that's totally worth fighting for, right?
Right. So, yeah, with that, I want to kick it over to Tantan because while we're on the subject of art, like, we've got an incredible digital artist here with us.
And I want to just, like, understand a little bit about what this whole mission means to you, Tantan, and, you know, what you're doing from a digital art perspective that may be, like, in line or run parallel with what Violetta is doing on the side of music.
And just hear your thoughts on this conversation that we've been having so far.
I've, hopefully you guys can hear me.
But in terms of what I'm trying to, like, do with my work, at least, which consists of looking at video games in the realm of fine art, I feel there's something interesting going on with today's gaming culture that mirrors the profound impact once that was reserved for sacred sites.
You know, in parallels to past generations, people would have, like, spiritual pilgrimages to cathedrals and temples, and I feel with our generation, the digital realms and, like, video game environment are contemporary sanctuaries inviting the participation of the viewer as, like, a consolidated hope.
So there is, like, a blend of historic architecture and artwork and how that antiquity and tradition has been passed on to our generation, but not through the usual means, which is, you know, through interaction and interactive or installations,
but even, like, transcending the realities that we have been living in because video game environments, especially, like, game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity transcend, like, realities because of the control that the creator has in that realm.
So, you know, so, you know, the creator can focus on bending the laws of physics.
There's just so much, like, creating reality adjacent realities in some sense, and I feel that's, like, one of the things that I wanted to focus on with my piece, with my two pieces on Bitcoin, on Ardenalds.
So, yeah, I mean, I've been, like, developing games, I think two years ago, I'm, like, more of, like, a Flemish painter.
I started out as, like, a Flemish painter, which just means, you know, there's, like, a particular academic painting technique in the traditional art world that just focusing on, that just, that focuses on, like, completing the painting in three layers.
It's, like, so, if you have seen some of the neoclassicist masters, I used to be heavily involved in that, but, you know, the issue with, like, traditional mediums for me was that I felt like I wasn't talking to my generation as an artist.
So, I kind of pivoted to game development two years ago, started learning Unreal Engine, Unity, C++, and C Sharp, and that's my main focus.
That kind of, like, pivoted to learning more about Ardenalds in December.
That's when I started working on my two pieces with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
But, yeah, hopefully that makes sense.
Talk to us a little bit about, like, how you actually built in the interactivity, like, you know, and how you came across the specific engines that you needed to use for that, maybe some challenges that you faced.
I would love to hear it out a little bit, Tantan, if you can share that, too.
I think with my pieces, these two pieces are, you know, inscribed on Ardenalds, Reality is Broken, and Reality.exe.
They're kind of like an extension of a larger artistic endeavor, Title 404, Reality Not Found, which is more unity-based.
But with Ardenalds, there was a specific limitation possessed by the medium, particularly the constraints on size and scope.
And that was unique in itself because I'm used to working with huge file sizes for Unreal Engine, which can go, like, beyond 100 GB gigabytes of data.
With Unity, it can go above, like, one, gigabytes of data to, for me to, like, compress and, like, you know, work within the limitations of the medium was really unique.
For me, I, like, focused on optimizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and, like, leveraging public libraries already established in the Bitcoin blockchain.
Compressing of, like, visual assets, that's what most creators would go for.
I tried to restrict myself beyond a certain threshold because that wasn't a viable option.
Just because I'm, like, a really visual and in terms of art, I'm kind of like a maximalist in terms of, like, I don't want to leave any stones and unturned when it comes to the visual aspects of my pieces.
So, instead, I prioritized code optimization and minifying as more effective alternatives.
I think it was an interesting challenge.
I used, there's a lot of interesting things that have been already inscribed as libraries in, like, Ordinal's public goods.
I think that's the GitHub repo name.
So, if you guys want, you can check that out.
But it was really interesting.
I'm thinking also for my more upcoming work, I'm thinking of inscribing a physics engine so I can, like, refactor some of the things that I've been doing with Unity and kind of, like, bridge that over to Arnons and Bitcoin.
Because I think there's something interesting happening with the developer community and the intersection of art and technology in a more primal sense that we might have seen on other chains beforehand.
I totally agree with that.
I mean, this is my journey, right?
Like, I had my head down, developing for six years, building infrastructure.
And then I lift it up and there's this incredible art happening all around.
And I feel the inspiration.
I go meet people in real life.
I connect with amazing individuals like Studio Paima.
I get a connection with you.
That story leads to making more friends with Violetta.
Like, it's just, like, it's funny that intersection is so real.
And the reason I highlighted and asked you about the challenges is because in the space where I first got introduced to you, I think it was a non-financial white space.
And you were talking so nonchalant as you did today.
You're so humble about what you've accomplished, going from working with Unreal Engine with file sizes over 100 gigabytes and coming from essentially a pure art focus to having to inscribe on a rather complex protocol,
even though there are public goods resources available, as you mentioned, with 3.js and WebGL and all those resources.
But this is not an easy task.
I've been working in the space for six-plus years at this point and in the software space for nearly 14-plus years now.
And most developers cannot accomplish what you've done.
And I wanted to highlight that.
Like, this is a tall feat.
And it is something, you know, that I hope you're incredibly proud of.
I am incredibly proud of you.
And I'm inspired that, you know, I get to know you.
And for Forbes and Mani, I guess I'm kind of teeing this up because I wanted to highlight all these amazing people.
You know, like, we see the role of Ferrum not just as a technology and infrastructure provider, but we really want to highlight and support these creators.
You know, you look at Violetta and what she's done in pushing forward.
Like, she's actually doing IRL activation.
She's converting people like me who are very deep into the development side to music and on-chain NFTs.
And then through that, of course, then I can become an evangelist and further go out.
Like, I see someone like her is what you want to see on a Forbes 30 under 30 list.
I believe she doesn't have a lot of time for that.
So, hopefully, that team is considering that.
And I think 10-10 falls into that category, not only just in the legacy past, but these people, you know, Ornals is a very small space.
And these people, these amazing individuals are literally laying the foundation that all of the rest of the artists that come after them will have the privilege of standing on.
And I think that is an important emphasis to have here, that it is not easy right now.
And these are the individuals, these are the creatives that are doing the incredibly hard things when infrastructure just doesn't exist.
So, I'll come to Studio Payman as well, because he's got a really good perspective on all this.
But, Mani, can you share a little bit about how Legacy Pass is very well positioned and how Forbes is positioning itself to support artists like Violetta, artists like 10-10 in this capacity to highlight their efforts?
And if other artists are listening, how they could benefit from that and why they should consider joining the waitlist and applying for the allow list?
And, you know, I think that's something really impactful.
So, over to you to kind of share your perspective on all these items.
I don't know if anyone else in the audience feels the exact same way, but listening to ladies like Tantan and Violetta gets me so, so excited and bullish.
And this is what Forbes, like, feeds on.
And we've spent 100 years just focusing on this.
And we cannot wait for the rest of the world to see all the incredible talent that Web3 has to offer.
I don't think they're ready.
Like, I honestly don't think they are ready for this level of talent when we get to that mass adoption space.
And I cannot, cannot wait.
And Violetta, I think she is, like, so perfectly positioned to be, like, a thought leader when it comes to music NFTs.
And that's exactly why we were so excited to have her in the inner circle.
Like, music NFTs, people need to talk about it more.
And Taha, when you shared that song, it reminded me over and over again why, you know, music on the blockchain is such an important initiative.
So thanks for sharing that, guys.
I think what is really important really quickly is before we even dive into what is Forbes doing next, I think it's important to talk about what has Forbes done so far in the Web3 ecosystem.
And this is outside of editorial, right, because we've been writing about blockchain.
We've been writing about Web3 and crypto for almost a decade now.
So we're very familiar with this space when it comes to journalism.
But now it's time to talk about the community efforts.
And Taha, I appreciate that you and our fellow guest speakers are talking about creators and artists, because on a personal level, that is one of my favorite topics.
And I think just supporting artists, empowering artists will always be a really key part of what we've done.
And I'll share with you a couple of examples.
So and all this I want to highlight, we did this all just in the last four months.
So when we move, we move really fast.
We've done a lot of open calls and art contests.
And I'll pin up some stuff here while I'm just spitballing.
But we've done about four to five open calls in the last four months.
They've all been around financial grants, travel grants.
We partnered with a nonprofit called UnHerd to send seven artists to NFT NYC just so they could get that experience.
We did an art contest with Rarible where we gave out a lot of financial grants.
But one of the top prizes for this art contest was the winner had their artwork displayed in the Times Square digital billboard thanks to NFT NYC during the NFT NYC conference.
And we're doing a lot of open calls just in the background.
I think that's something that's really important for us.
We recently finished an Ordinals open call to support emerging artists when it comes to inscription, because that is one thing that we do need to go across.
Inscription on Bitcoin is quite expensive.
So no matter what we do, I think supporting artists in terms of like grants and empowering them is going to be a very key focus of ours.
Another campaign that we've really done, I think, quite well, which really hits home for me is we've started opening up the Forbes vault.
So we ourselves are collecting NFTs and Ordinals and really supporting artists and just collecting from our favorite brands.
So we have everything from Jack Butcher to Mochaverse to Pixelmon to emerging artists such as such as Nathan Head.
And we just picked up a base NFT by this incredible, incredible artist called Crypto Jeweler, where he creates like these amazing jewelry pieces.
And one of my favorite ones, which I'm going to pin up, is by Dr. Crypto.
This is Forbes' first official Ordinals that I'm so, so excited about.
And anyone that knows, collecting Ordinals is so addicting.
It is such an incredible community.
And once you're in, you don't even realize it, but like Ordinals kind of becomes like your entire life.
So we're really excited to now be tapping into different types of industries.
And today actually marks a really special day for us.
I'm going to pin this up also, but we just finished a three-month program that we did in partnership with Animoca Brands, as well as a nonprofit called Open Campus to celebrate Web3 educators.
So anyone that is using their YouTube channel, their Twitter, their Discord, basically their voice, their brand, to show the world what is Web3 education and just educating them on blockchain and crypto, that is who we celebrated with this initiative.
They were spotlighted on Forbes' article, they were spotlighted by Animoca Brands, and they all received a pool prize of $250,000 in EDU tokens.
And we're not stopping just yet.
If anything, we're getting just started.
One question that is very real is, how do we make this sustainable?
Forbes has done a lot in the past five, six months.
But how do we double down, double-click on this to make sure that we can do this for the long run and do this even harder?
And that's really where the legacy pass comes in.
This is a soulbound token.
This is a membership club with exclusive benefits, everything from printing your name in the Forbes magazine to your project, whatever you're building, getting backed by Forbes.
And that is our biggest initiative to date, not just for the Web3 department, but for Forbes as a company in general.
And we're so, so excited to see it all roll out.
The storytelling is very simple.
If you are able to get this pass, if your allow list application is approved and you are able to be part of the private sale, this pass unlocks a variety of benefits, as well as a curated membership, where every single person, their application was read through, determined to be a part of.
And we're there for a reason, for a purpose.
And I think last I checked, it was a couple of days ago, the wait list is like over 120K.
And I believe I heard you guys on Spaces that you're going through batches or the legacy pass, like 5K at a time or something like that.
So there's an incredible demand for it.
But one thing I do want to highlight that for key creators, for key contributors, Ferrum is also spending some time curating some of these artists, some of these contributors, and looking into how we can amplify that and suggest some of those to Forbes.
Of course, the ultimate decision process goes through a lot of strenuous curation.
And I'm excited to see who ends up getting selected for the allow list.
So with that, I do want to highlight the fact that we also have another amazing friend here, Emmanuel.
And Emmanuel is another artist that we met again through Studio Paimon.
So Emmanuel, how's it going, man?
I think you found out about that you're speaking on here through our tweet, probably, because I met you.
And they were like, we got to have you on the space.
Have you made it back to the bike?
Nice to meet you here again.
We can't get away from each other.
Have you got a chance to listen to the conversation?
Have you landed in Dubai?
I come back in Serbia, yeah, because I leave it here for a while, for love.
But now, in a few days, I will come back to Dubai.
We're going to come back over to you in a second.
I want to talk about your art.
But before we do that, I just wanted to say hi.
So in the meantime, those of you listening, check out Emmanuel's profile.
Follow some of his amazing art collections.
BFP is actually one of his art pieces, and it's part of a collection.
On his Instagram, he actually shows the creation process as well.
But with that, Nick, I wanted to give it to you for a second to highlight one more item,
and then we can give it to Paimani.
I want to get his take on everything that we've shared, because he's a connector that has connected to so many of these amazing creators.
So I want to care to take from people.
So, you know, when I was listening to Monty talk, I had this incredible segue lined up, and I was so excited.
And then the person I was going to send it over to left the spaces because she had a dinner.
And so I was like, hey, can you jump back on?
I really wanted to pass it over to you.
And she's like, oh, okay, cool.
I'll jump back in real quick.
So, Monty was talking about powerhouse women in the art scene.
We've got another powerhouse woman here in Nikita Sashtev from the public relations side of things.
And actually, as I mentioned briefly earlier, I learned today that she is part of the Forbes Business Council, which I thought was so rad.
And, you know, we've been talking so much about art, and, you know, we all know that art excites people.
But I want to understand a little bit from Nikita's perspective on, like, what she thinks excites people because, like, as someone who works in public relations, she knows what makes headlines, right?
She knows what makes people tick, right?
And what in Web3 right now, from your perspective, Nikita, is really pushing forward a lot of this mission that we've been talking about?
Like, what is it other use cases for NFTs?
What's going on from the PR side of things?
And what's your take on this conversation that we've been having so far?
It's been incredible listening to everyone.
And so I really had to hop off, and I was like, oh, no.
But, you know, what's interesting is actually, you know, in the beginning, Taha said that this is about, like, the bigger picture, right?
It's not about everyone trying to build their own thing.
It's about, like, us kind of building the space together and getting it to the next level.
And I think, you know, what's interesting is the most important thing, I think, comes in education.
So, first of all, I commend everyone for being here today because that is the first step is, like, you're learning, you're listening.
I think that, you know, that's incredible, like, listening to and educating yourself, self-education.
The second step, once you educate yourself, you start realizing how amazing this technology is.
Whether you're a creator, whether you're in healthcare, whether you're in supply chain, whatever you are in, you will find somewhere or the other where blockchain can empower you.
And that's the underlying basis of all of this, right?
So, my whole situation was back in 2017.
I got into the space because, sure, you know, I wanted to invest in Bitcoin.
I started my crypto career with Huobi Exchange back in Singapore.
I was the host of Huobi, now HTX.
And, yeah, I invested in Bitcoin and I got into it because of the monetary incentive.
But once I started understanding the, you know, the technology behind it, which was a blockchain technology, I started putting two and two together.
And during that same time, my dad, who was born in the slums of India and kind of lived in a hospital, like, was born in a hospital that doesn't exist today because it was in the slums, didn't have a birth certificate.
And, hence, couldn't get a residency in Singapore.
And my dad had established, my dad's, like, a rags to riches story.
Like, he worked his, he worked so hard, right, to get where he was.
He was president of the shipping company.
He had established himself.
He, like, educated our whole, my sisters, my two sisters are doctors today.
I, you know, like, I, you know, he went all out and he couldn't get the simple residency after working so hard and contributing to the shipping industry in Singapore.
And, you know, I was so disappointed.
We were so disappointed at the time because, like, the hospital he was born in did not exist.
And it was like he just, he wasn't a person.
And that's when I was like, you know what, blockchain technology, if blockchain, if all these documents were on the blockchain, this would have never happened.
And that's kind of what brought me into the industry.
And I think that's the, that should be the story for everyone.
Everyone needs to find a way that they can get into the industry.
And that will happen through education.
Through education, no matter what industry you're in, whether you're fighting for the monetary system today, that doesn't make sense.
Whether you're in Venezuela and your currency is highly inflated or you're in Lebanon and you can't withdraw money from the bank anymore.
Or you're, you know, you're in some Middle Eastern countries.
Like, I live in Dubai and I still hear today some girls saying that they need permission from their father to travel.
No matter what your reason is, that is going to get you motivated to get into kind of just join, join the kind of the, I don't want to sound culty,
but join the revolution, right?
Because ultimately, I think this is the fourth industrial revolution.
And with, with any revolution comes anarchy, right?
Comes like this kind of, you need to have some kind of anger in you, some kind of passion in you.
And I think that's what kind of blockchain has brought out.
Um, when I went to read about crypto back in 2017, the press was highlighting everything that was like scammy or hacks.
And it wasn't highlighting what the true essence of crypto was all about, which was decentralization, which is what made me want to get into the media.
I studied chemistry at the University of Texas.
I don't come from a PR background, but I was so passionate about that, that today I run a PR agency, a leading Web3 award-winning PR agency with a hundred employees.
And we work with some of the largest companies, top 100 companies in the Web3 space today, because I found that passion.
And my passion was to spread the word on what blockchain and crypto and Web3 was really about.
And I did that through getting it out on tier one mainstream media.
That's why it's also an honor to have Forbes here on this, on, on, on this spaces, because, you know, it's like Web3 media is great.
But, but it's companies like the, the mainstream media that's like targeting this entire new audience.
Because, you know, when going back to how, what you were saying is like kind of the bigger picture, the bigger picture is getting mainstream adoption.
I think that's one, one aspect of the bigger picture is getting everybody involved in it.
And, um, and that's really, um, only possible with, um, mainstream media coming in.
So, uh, yeah, two years ago we acquired the franchise for Cointelegraph Middle East.
Um, but what was more important was that we hosted and produced the first ever Web3 show on CNBC Arabia.
And, uh, I was very happy about that.
We did several covers on Entrepreneur.
Um, we got, uh, CZ before he was in jail on the cover of Entrepreneur.
We got, um, you know, we worked very closely with Charles Hoskinson, with some leaders in the space, with Pascal Gutierrez, uh, you know, chairman of Ledger.
So, um, it's been incredible to kind of, uh, get, you know, to kind of be involved with some of the people in the space that have really kind of, you know, that have created unicorns today.
That have, like, you know, brought in mainstream, um, brought in the masses, basically.
Um, and, and so, yeah, I mean, that, that's kind of been my journey and that's kind of been my whole ethos behind what I do.
And, um, I think that, um, I just want to say, first of all, um, the, the, um, it's, it's incredible to be on this panel, but also, uh, Violetta, Violetta, sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name.
But, um, the song that just came up, uh, that, uh, Taha played was a beautiful.
And I think that, you know, this, I can see your passion and, and your, you know, the reason why you want to enter the space.
And I think we just need more, we need more people that feel so passionate about it because that's, what's going to drive, um, you know, that's, what's going to bring in this fourth industrial revolution.
Thank you so much for, for sharing that, Nikita.
And thank you for stepping away from dinner.
I know all about trying to do five things at one time, being in two spaces and three meetings and whatnot.
So we totally appreciate you taking the time out to, to come back and sharing that insight and wisdom.
And I've had these conversations with Violetta as well, and other artists that, you know, you want to be an artist, but you also have to deal with the business side of things.
Like you can't get away from that.
Um, and I think that's where, uh, organizations like Forbes and where we hope from a technical perspective, organizations like ours can help a lot with our resources and connections.
Um, so yeah, I think it's time for Payman, the, the ultimate connector, Payman June to talk a little bit about everything you've heard.
Uh, if you can share your thoughts for a moment with us, if we can share, uh, maybe your perspective about like this collaboration with Forbes and artists and creators and builders, where that's going, what you're excited about.
Some of the activations that you're curating at Ordinal's Lisbon coming up at NFC Lisbon.
I think that's going to be exciting that, that folks should look out for.
Um, yeah, man, looking forward to hear your thoughts.
And again, before you speak, how incredibly grateful I feel that, that, that you took your time away from your family.
Not that I wanted, uh, anyone wants to pull anyone away from family, but that sacrifice is recognized to come all the way across the world and, and make some incredible, uh, relationships.
Happened that I think are going to last a lifetime now.
I mean, we've built some real friendships and, uh, yeah, thank you for that.
Thank you to June and everybody.
I'm just, just that of everybody's stories.
Um, well, my name is Payman.
I'm an artist, musician, creative director, and an early adopter of technology and, uh, investor in technology.
I've, I touched the first computer keyboards back in 1984 and have had the pleasure of meeting, uh, the likes of Steve jobs and check Hawkins and some other really revolutionized, uh, you know, founders of companies here in Silicon Valley.
Um, when I discovered, um, well, I, I, I got into crypto in late 2015 and, um, early 2016, my friend and neighbor, uh, a friend of mine who, uh, was the other, um, Girl Scout dad, if you will.
Um, you know, um, you know, my wife wasn't really into, you know, being in the social scene of the, um, Girl Scout.
And so I had to take my little girl to Girl Scout meetings and events.
And I met this other gentleman who's, who's a neighbor, a friend of mine, and he kept pulling, pushing me to get into crypto.
And, um, um, um, I'm really grateful to him that I did.
I took a deep dive and, um, haven't looked back, but I discovered, uh, crypto arts.
I like to call them digital collectibles rather than NFCs, NFTs.
And, um, late 2020, early 2021, uh, when I got into clubhouse, um, I was super excited, uh, to share my arts and my music.
Um, and, um, um, you know, um, sort of, I call it permissionless, uh, without gatekeepers and just being able to, um, spread my love for music and arts, um, with the global community.
And I soon discovered that this movement was much bigger than just one person and myself.
Um, and I discovered amazing artists that some of them are in the audience.
I think, um, Mani mentioned crypto jeweler.
Michael is one of my friends that I've, you know, discovered early on, on clubhouse.
There's so many others that I, you know, can take time to mention.
And of course, Violetta has become a great friend and a collaborator, um, Tantan, um, just recently discovered her amazing talent and her story.
And so I quickly, uh, realized that, um, this movement is bigger than me.
And, um, you know, they say, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.
And, um, I really believe in that I started to discover all these amazing, um, artists all over the world and quickly realized that I wanted to empower them and, you know, give them the spotlight and hear their stories.
Um, and so started curating, um, with, uh, an amazing team of, uh, other volunteer curators, uh, that we met on clubhouse and we formed searchlights.
We started curating for, um, Bitcoin Miami in June of 2021.
And then just went on to NFT NYC and, uh, John was here earlier, but NFT Paris, um, you know, Rome, Sharjah.
And so just, uh, yeah, so I just have been really around and have discovered so many amazing creators and artists and musicians.
And it's just been such a pleasure to, to form these, um, lifelong friendships as our friend, um, sovereign spoke about when we met, um, which was amazing.
We met literally during the meeting, brainstorming meeting with Trevor, yourself, Nichelle, and, um, subsequently we went for a nice walk.
We had a little meal together and he started sharing with me that he's a poet and a spoken word artist.
And that blew me away because he's a genius in finance.
And then I, I just like, that's why I'm here.
So, um, discovering amazing artists just fuels me being able to empower.
I call myself, I'm in the empowerment business.
Uh, I'm also a former educator for over 11 years.
I taught at a college preparatory here in Silicon Valley, and I truly feel like this whole web three movement has come full circle with arts, with technology.
And, uh, you know, uh, you know, with empowerment, um, I feel like, uh, earlier you mentioned that the web three, uh, movement is not about, you know, uh, it's about collaboration, not competition.
And I truly believe that.
And I have witnessed, witnessed it, um, met some artists like Thank You X, Coldy, Empress Trash.
I mean, all these OG crypto artists, um, that are super humble, just like Tan Tan and, um, Violetta and Emanuela, um, so many amazing talents that just lift me up daily.
Uh, you talked about being up, uh, till five, be, I got in San Fran, uh, from San Francisco to, to Hong Kong around 5 a.m.
I took the red eye, thanks to you and Nichelle's, um, encouragement.
And I was super excited and happy that I met you both.
And then you're all, um, I think you might be tired, but so why don't you just skip Bitcoin Asia and just join us tomorrow for, for, um, Ordinal's Asia.
And I'm like, I didn't come all the way here to rest, brother.
I came here to hit the ground running.
And within the first 10, 15 minutes, we met Uncle Rockstar, which is now, you know, another life, you know, long friend and, uh, you know, some others like the, uh, the people at, um, Amby.
And, um, so I felt like immediately, I always say, when you take yourself out of your comfort zone and as Brene Brown says, uh, jump in the arena, um, the world really, the universe, uh, God really rewards you.
And, um, and, uh, I felt rewarded ASAP as soon as we walked into the, uh, into the conference and we met these amazing people.
And, um, I guess the thing that I really, um, always say is that, uh, it's a, it's a quote by Maya Angelou, who's one of my favorite poets.
And, uh, she states that, um, wherever she goes, um, she says, I go, I come as one, but stand as 10,000.
And I truly believe in that, um, statement.
And as I've tried to incorporate that in my life, um, whether I, you know, I'm, I was a teacher or whether I was, uh, managing an amazing artist for a brand campaign, uh, or worked at startups long hours late, just like now.
With you guys, Taha, I know that when we even got home from these events, uh, we'd like get on zoom calls with your team and with John Karp's team.
And, uh, just, uh, you know, we were up to like three or four in the morning.
So, yeah, it was definitely a grind, but, um, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
It was definitely one of the most fruitful, uh, trips.
I just came back from Dubai, as you mentioned, a couple of weeks ago, and I was super jet lagged and I had planned on going to the Hong Kong event, but, um, the Epic Sat, um, inscription happened.
And, uh, I think it was like two o'clock AM and I was there till six AM and, you know, I'm no spring chicken.
And I'm actually part of the 50 over 50, um, club at that Forbes is going to be implementing just because I'm over 50.
That's a joke, everybody.
But, um, um, but yeah, so I truly feel honored to be a part of this community.
And I daily, I just aspire to contribute and I have a prayer that, um, you know, I want everyone that crosses my path to get the best of me and for me to be able to, um, elevate them to be their, their own best selves.
So, um, I think in a world that, um, you know, if you're, you know, pushed to be somebody else, like a copy of someone, I've always said from the clubhouse days, I encourage people to not to be a copy of someone else and be their own one of one.
And, um, honestly, I feel like we are discovering people here that are one of one originals and, um, you for sure, you and, uh, I want to give you a big shout out to you and Michelle, you are a power couple.
I saw firsthand how hard you both work together and your entire team.
And it's a pleasure for me to join your team.
And, um, that's another reason that I actually also connected with Mani because the first time I met Mani was at the art style spaces.
Um, and then subsequently we met in Dubai and the first call we had with Mani, Mani asked me, um, first thing, which I usually ask other people, how can I add value to you?
And that's what Mani started with.
And she asked me, how can I add value to you?
You, you, you do your, you know, uh, big player, uh, thought leader in this space and you do so much.
How can I help and how can I support you?
And that's really resonated with me.
And, uh, subsequently we, you know, we had several calls and, uh, been in many spaces together.
We met in Dubai at the art style event.
And that's where I met the other Taha, uh, the chief growth officer of time and just really connected with their ethos.
And, you know, since then, everywhere I go, people, I, I'm spreading the news as one of their, uh, partners and advisors and ambassadors.
Um, and, uh, it's, uh, it's, it's so amazing to hear, uh, the, the community, um, recognizing their work and I'm super proud to be a part of their, their team.
Um, and, um, I call money like, uh, my little sister because she's just become like family.
Um, I think the, the, the story and that I, I told in that NFT now space was, I think it was our third call or something.
It was a Sunday and usually I take weekends off to be with family.
Um, and, um, for money, I made that exception and we were talking and I told her that my daughter is a junior in high school and she's getting ready to apply to college.
And, um, money, just like, uh, um, you know, what's, I think it was Nikita who said that, you know, her family's big in education.
And, you know, she's like, Hey, if you like, I can get on a call with my sister, um, and, uh, talk to your daughter about what's the best way to apply for colleges and everything.
Of course, I didn't take her up on that, but just the fact that she offered that made, uh, made, made me even feel closer and like a family member with her.
And so, um, you know, I've been, uh, you know, we were up again with Taha and the team till like, I think it was 4am when finally I stopped looking at the telegram chats and, uh, we had several different zoom calls, but I got up and I saw money in a, in a spaces and she's always so gracious enough to pass, you know, like to, uh, pull me up on stage wherever she is.
And I just go to support, um, just so that my friends that's, you know, in my community can come and join the, the spaces that she's, you know, to learn more about Forbes and what they're doing.
So, yeah, that's, that's sort of, uh, the story behind me, myself as an artist and, um, as a musician and also as a lover of technology and more importantly, as a lover of good people.
You know, I always say, um, I love empowering good people because there's so many bad players in the world.
And I think through art and, uh, these connections that you're making in web three, we can actually make a positive impact on this, this world.
And, um, I like that to be my legacy besides the fact that I hope to reach people in a positive way with my music and my arts.
And, um, yeah, and the last thing I want to say is that, you know, that day, um, that we got to the rooftop party because of Uncle Rockstar.
And then we met Joey subsequently because Uncle Rockstar was at dinner late and he's like, Hey, I'm not going to be there for a while, but go ahead and meet my friend Joey, who's the owner of the club and, uh, the space.
And so we met Joey and he was so gracious to take care of us and take us into the private rooms where that piano was.
And, um, Violetta just did an amazing job of getting behind the piano and singing her beautiful songs.
And she's always been so gracious since I shared with her that, you know, I'm also a piano player, but, you know, since there's the, the piano is not always near me when I get inspiration and the melodies would get lost before I get to the keys of the piano.
So I started, uh, recording the melodies onto a little cassettes recorder back then in, in university for the lecture recording.
And then subsequently now we are so lucky.
God rest his soul that we have these little devices in our pockets and we could do so many things with them.
One is to record your whistles on them so that the music doesn't escape you.
And so I shared that with Violetta right before Art Basel, I believe, where I was curating for the art house, uh, bass house, sorry.
And, um, and she's like, Oh my God, these, these melodies are so amazing.
I can't get them out of my head.
They sound like, uh, old, uh, movie scores, Italian movie scores.
And I'm like, okay, that's the best compliment I could get.
And I'm going to shoot my shots.
Would you like to collaborate together?
And she was so gracious enough.
And I, to this day, I still give it, give her tons of compliments because she didn't have to do that.
You know, I mean, I'm more known for my visual art.
I hadn't really shared too much of that even because as I said, I concentrated on highlighting and spotlighting other artists through my journey this last few years for those that know me.
And, uh, she was so kind enough to say yes.
And then I'm a super chief, uh, investor and advisor.
So we opened the first Ordnose Gallery in San Francisco in, uh, February of 24.
And, uh, Violetta was kind enough to fly all the way to San Francisco and perform the first night at the opening.
And, um, the next day I was walking my dog in the rain and just this melody came to me.
Um, and, uh, I recorded it on my phone and I shared it with, you know, Violetta.
I called her and said, Hey, are you open to doing a collab tonight?
I'm thinking about jumping in the arena tonight.
And, uh, her and I got behind, like, we went to the back of the alley, uh, of the gallery.
And after five minutes of listening to the melody, she's like, I think I got it.
And so after she did her set, she kindly introduced me and, uh, we, we did a, you know, a duet together.
And then in Hong Kong, we sat next to each other and, you know, sang a little bit, whistled a little bit.
I played a little bit of piano.
So she's really inspiring and she's become such an amazing friend.
And so I told her that, uh, we will always have Hong Kong.
And, and, and I feel that way towards a lot of the people that I met, like Utah, um, like, uh, Nichelle, like, uh, Sovereign, uh, so many amazing people.
And Emanuele has become a really good friend.
I've met him in San Francisco and subsequently other, uh, countries.
And, um, yeah, I think it, this movement is beyond one or just one person.
And I think we can accomplish so much when we work together.
And, uh, yeah, that's it.
Thanks for letting me have, and if you like, you can play that, um, pixelated melody down the line in the space.
So people can get a little sample of what that whistling sounds like.
It's funny because at that, uh, gallery, Ralph, who is an amazing Bitcoin engineer, he's behind the Ordnance Foundation, Aaron, um, Casey, they're all there.
And people just like came to me and said, we need to practice our whistling game, you know?
So I, uh, it was very humbling to get that kind of support.
And, um, yeah, I'm just really honored to be a part of this movement.
And I hope that I will continue to contribute in a positive way.
Thanks for, uh, letting me share my story.
And I, I was there, you know, when you, when you started whistling, as I mentioned earlier.
And, uh, I, like, it's, I don't think it's comprehensible how amazing those melodies can sound when you hear them, whether it's in person or in the, uh, collection.
If, uh, actually, Tom, if you can pin that here too, because I know we, we want to highlight a few other items and then also discuss the Legacy Pass.
But I don't want people to miss out on these amazing, uh, melodies that, that, uh, Surya Payman has, uh, created.
So I think with that, let's, let's kind of, Payman, thank you so much for, for sharing all that.
I mean, that's, uh, a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of inspiration.
And, and, and, and, you know, you're, you're the reason that we're all connected, a lot of us, right?
So with that, I think, uh, we do want to highlight.
So, uh, Mani, we'll come back over to you in a second here to talk about some of the benefits of Legacy Pass, how people can get access to those things.
But we want to highlight also some of the folks that are actually building the infrastructure that helps artists launch their projects.
Because we think that that's also important.
It's, it's sort of like a hand in hand symbiosis, right?
Like you can't have one without the other.
Whereas, you know, art, uh, the art is extremely important, but the canvas, um, and it's, it's feasibility to get broadcasted and to forever be inscribed on chain and its development and its adoption is also important.
So I think that convergence of developers and artists working together is, is incredibly powerful.
And, uh, we actually have, uh, uh, Solana Foundation, uh, representative here as well.
So Nick, I'm going to hand it over to you to, uh, let's get, let's highlight some of the infrastructure players as well.
We'll really move the needle forward.
And Pam and thanks so much, man.
That was, uh, that was awesome hearing your story and, and really, really appreciate you, uh, connecting us all.
Um, I feel like this is largely happening because of you.
I'm super, super stoked to meet you in Lisbon.
Uh, it's gonna, it's gonna be an epic time.
So like Taha mentioned, there's like two parts of the story, right?
A lot of times we go to conferences and I don't know if people have been to conferences like this in the past where you've got your like NFT, uh, booths on one side.
And then there's literally a dividing line and then it's like DeFi and infrastructure projects on the other side.
I can't remember what conference it was.
I think it was like, yeah, I can't remember what it was called.
But anyways, that's how it was literally divided.
The room was like NFTs and infrastructure, but it's, it's not divided, right?
Like one can't exist without the other, uh, right.
You know, like there would not be nearly like, well, NFTs and stuff wouldn't exist if there wasn't somewhere to launch it.
So, and those, those rails that we launched these applications and these NFTs on wouldn't exist unless there was people building stuff like that.
So there is that symbiosis that Taha mentioned.
And one of the networks that I think does a really, really incredible job of encapsulating, um, both the, the NFT and art mission and also the DeFi mission.
And, and, and so many other missions too, we got, you know, gaming and, um, there's a lot of different things that the Solana network actually enables, um, for builders.
And we've got Kuga here from Solana and I want to get his take on like the entire conversation that we've been having around art.
And, and, and, you know, what, you know, what Solana has been doing to progress, to, to move that forward.
But also, you know, what other things is, are you psyched about Kuga that Solana has been championing, um, you know, and, and, and enabling for builders.
And, uh, like there's this one kind of core mission that we've been talking, right.
Like removing barriers to mass adoption, creating a more decentralized internet and what other things are there aside from art that you think are contributing to that same mission and that Solana is, is helping to pioneer and champion.
Well, uh, I don't know if you hear me.
So before I dive into the topic, I want to thank, uh, firm network and Forbes for hosting such an amazing space.
Uh, I don't often like come into like, uh, cross chains or multi-chain spaces, but I should definitely should, uh, we have like some amazing artists that I'm discovering amazing people like you hosting and talking about like this topic for a lot of people in the crowd.
Uh, I just wanted to say thank you.
Shout out to John as well, who is making NFTs going forward in France.
And, uh, I'm going to go, I'm going to be at, uh, NFC Lisbon as well.
And, uh, on, on stage talking about Solana, uh, but let's dive, uh, into the topic of artists on Solana.
Um, for the history, we had like a very difficult moment about art on Solana because, uh, as everyone knows, uh, Ethereum and a bit of Tezos had a lot of, uh, market share about it.
But what we understood at Solana is not about market share.
It's about like having a whole community and having to follow and take advantage of that web three.
So being, being close to the, to the artists themselves.
So some few infrastructure, uh, got created first.
We have, we had like odious, which enabled to use web three into music streaming and then vote, which is an amazing app where you can use web three seamlessly and discover, uh, art, uh, music artists and get really close to them.
That's how I discovered a lot of people.
And they use like the advantage of compressed NFTs, which is in a few words, uh, minting NFTs for a very, very small price.
And that's literally the app that I use to onboard people in, on, onto web three, creating their first, minting their first NFT, because you can use the app, uh, directly by just logging with your Apple account or Google account and mint your first NFT for free there.
And I discovered like really talented, um, musician there.
And then someone called Vibu, really, uh, one of the key guy, uh, on Solana, uh, created Drip, Drip.
And at first people were like, Oh, okay.
So the concept of Drip is like you subscribe to someone on the website and you get, you get a free compressed NFT each week.
And it all started with like digital art.
And people were like, Oh, why would you want like to get something for free on this page?
And slowly, but surely he knew how to get users.
And now this is a whole new experience because it's like literally gamified art and community where you can just like register to interesting artists and get their art for free.
And now people will be like, why would I go there?
Uh, because like the, the, the infrastructure and the whole, uh, application got so many, uh, users that you can now start your career there and get like 10,000, 20,000, 40 to 50,000 users subscribing to your art day one.
And it's also super interesting for companies or project that wants to have, uh, begin, uh, to begin, um, their user acquisition where you can showcase what you're doing through arts.
And I want to give like a shout out to bloody bulldog, uh, who is in the crowd.
I see who is also a drip artist.
And today we've got more and more people interested into coming on Solana because you can just come and showcase your, uh, your art to thousands of users for free.
Like, um, if like users are using you for free, but as a, as an artist you're selected and the only people that are paying are like companies that want to like showcase their product.
But I, I, I'm going to leave this one to, to drip themselves to, to talk about it one day, maybe.
And, um, this enabled, uh, like being very close to artists since, you know, that on Solana, our power is to be like, to have a strong community.
We came from a very down, uh, moments since FTX, but we showcase that we have like a very strong infrastructure, um, and very strong, like innovation on Solana.
And now we're taking, it's not taking on art topic, but more empowering users all around Solana.
And now we have artists coming from like drawings, um, painting, music videos, and even, uh, small influencers on Solana using this app, uh, this, um, this drip to, to like share things with people.
And it's like a space where you can express yourself to a community around you and they created like a, a way to rewards artists.
If you like what they are doing, you can like give them droplets and droplets are super easy to get because you can claim a few droplets every six hours.
And that's how you reward your user, your artists, sorry.
And they get like a small, like they get paid.
It's not like a regular one, but they get like paid, uh, based on the amount of droplets that you, that you, that you get.
So that's super cool because the user can use the app for free, rewards the artists that they like for free.
And on the other side, artists will make their best to make people come onto the app, use the app and showcase their art.
And we see like a very big mix of, um, of people coming onto this app, uh, such as like newcomers on like newcomers, uh, artists from music using the app for the first time.
And one of the highlights was Brian Johnson, uh, coming into the app, showcasing his like experience and his person onto drip.
And I think that Solana is perfect, uh, for this, but also a lot of different chains.
Uh, it's not like very, I like seeing what all the chains are doing because that's, I think how we improve.
Like when someone is copying or stealing your ideas, that means you're getting, you're going the right way.
And if you see something that is interesting on those, a chain or other artists, you're like, oh, okay.
So what do you like, or what do you, what you don't like on our chain and maybe like try to improve on that note.
And that's why we're very close to every single user to grab their feedback and try to go forward.
I want to say that, um, that the, the guy that who's behind creators and NFTs on Solana and trying to push this, uh, forwards is Pedro.
And Pedro, Pedro Miranda, who's going to talk about, um, uh, NFTs and, um, digit, uh, fashion in NFC as well.
So I guess we're all going to see each other there and yeah, artists are, they were the first topic that we had when NFTs came as well as gaming and some other free topics.
So I guess giving them a room to grow and use Web3 at, at their best is the thing that we must and should do every single day with the different innovation and advantages that our different blockchains, uh, offer to us.
Thank you so much, Hugo, for sharing that.
Yeah, I think Solana has made waves in, in really pushing forward the art narrative and, uh, assisting artists to like not only launching collections, but doing that in, in, uh, in an efficient manner, which makes a big difference when you're trying to, uh, really experiment with different kinds of collections and, and, and gamifying different aspects of it and experimenting with the behavior of the communities and, and how they can be onboarded.
So, um, um, I do want to, um, we, we have a few more folks to, to, uh, highlight here and spotlight here as well, but I do want to take a minute to highlight some of the benefits of how Forbes legacy pass can, um, really impact all of these, um, uh, sort of initiatives.
It can impact, uh, the artists that are building, it can impact, uh, and amplify, uh, the folks that are, uh, building infrastructure.
So one of the things I was looking at, if you, if you actually go to the legacy pass, uh, information itself, uh, you know, you have, of course the, the built-in amazing benefits, like being able to go and network with the folks that are at the 30 and the 30 summit, uh, which has global, uh, meetups.
So you get tickets for that.
Uh, do you get your name in the Forbes magazine, which is incredibly exciting, uh, as an artist to be featured in a publication, uh, that's going to be distributed out.
And people have access to see your art as a creator is very exciting as well to, to ensure that, you know, your work is being recognized and the word is getting out about that.
Uh, but I think one of the ones that excites me most is getting backed by Forbes and what that, uh, you know, means to me is sort of showcasing the space like this where Forbes is coming in.
And the VP of Forbes web three is putting in two hours of her time to come in and listen to the different creators and artists and understand what they're building.
And then I'm sure there's going to be a lot of collaboration and connections that are going to be made from here.
And from here, you know, we are looking at seeing how Forbes can, excuse me, for to collaborate with us on our organizations and conferences like, uh, NFC and Ordnose Lisbon and other areas where we can coordinate and see if there's synergies to add value to feature artists there, to feature different creators, to amplify their work.
Um, so I think this is something that's a lot more than just a soul bound, uh, NFT pass.
Again, it's the story that this past tells, which is a story of access.
It's a story of, um, connecting with the right people to amplify, but to further add more benefits to it, as is the style of firm to go above and beyond, uh, through our integrated communities, we've already looked into adding.
So for all legacy pass holders, if you hold a legacy pass, as you know, we have a protocol called multi-swap that we'll be launching here, which is a multi-chain protocol that's connecting all EVM chains and dot summit chains to the BTC5 ecosystem through its integration with the BTFT layer two, the Bitcoin layer two.
It is also going to allow you to see Bitcoin balance and runes balance in MetaMask from Bitcoin.
And it's going to allow you to buy runes by initiating transactions on, uh, EVM chains such as Arbitrum and including chains like Solana as we integrate with them in our roadmap.
So you can initiate a transaction on other chains that gets executed through layer two, and then you can buy a rune on your chain.
These are extremely powerful technologies, and we are going to make a multiplier available.
If you hold a legacy pass and you use the multi-swap product, uh, there's an airdrop, uh, campaign that, uh, might be, uh, designed around just the transaction, uh, reward mechanism for those who are using the product.
But the multiplier will be awarded to those that are legacy pass holders.
We're also giving away five ordinal tickets that are valued at $300 to qualify for those tickets.
Um, uh, there's instructions that will be shared through our channels in the upcoming days.
So you want to look at that.
So we're actually flying people out to, um, to experience an in-person exhibition of all these amazing, uh, art exhibitions and technology exhibitions, uh, spoken word and music exhibitions, runestone artist himself, uh, Leo Coyard is coming down.
Um, and in addition to that, of course, we're, we're doing a lot more, including a chance to win, uh, five free nights in the paradise pad.
Now, these things are not needed.
The Forbes legacy pass is good on its own, but hopefully the inspiration here is that spirit of collaboration, right?
Like we're adding these elements without like Forbes doesn't need to collaborate with us on this.
This is the nature of web three.
We're adding these benefits to showcase that we believe in this and that these benefits will further amplify, uh, and highlight, um, what other projects will likely do as well.
So if you're a project builder on here, you know, I know you guys have done a lot of collaborations and this is how we kind of all grow together.
Um, in, in, in the sense of adding utility to folks that are, uh, really creating and building.
Cause I look at legacy pass holders are going to be the key creators, the key artists, the key builders, and really want to amplify their region, give them the benefit and give them our resources to really take web three to the next level.
So with that, um, Mani, can you provide us some thoughts about how, what you felt about this space and, uh, all of the information that's been shared.
I know you've been here for a while and then if you need to drop off that, uh, that, that will be fine on our part.
But I do want to highlight, we have about three other project founders here that we want to highlight as well.
So I'll be speaking to that, but, um, I want to give you a chance to speak on what you heard, how you feel about it and what your thoughts are on future collaboration to highlight and spotlight artists and creators.
Um, we're just getting started, uh, to those that were here a little sooner, you've seen what we've been able to accomplish in the last four or five months.
Right. And I think the biggest takeaway is this is all collaborative.
Like Forbes did not accomplish any of this alone.
We did this with, uh, creating friendships and partners in the space.
And that's exactly what we want to do.
I want to just showcase two quick thoughts here.
I mentioned earlier in our, um, in our spaces, this stunning piece that Forbes just collected.
I'm pinning it to the top.
And I was looking for this piece and I finally found it while we were chatting.
But this, this piece really spoke to like Forbes when, whenever we think about like, what are we collecting for our vaults?
Because it's going to live in our vault forever.
It's just like beautiful pieces like this, especially when you have like, come on, crypto jeweler.
When you think about jewelry on the blockchain, you know, that's going to turn heads.
So I really just want to talk about this piece really quickly as we are talking about supporting artists and creators that definitely deserve that spotlight.
And then one more shout out to, of course, the incredible Paimon, Studio Paimon.
Thank you so much for all the experiences here.
Good things from the Ordinals community quoted this, but I 100% agree with him.
The people in Web3 are the alpha.
I think it's the friendships that we make along the way that keep us to stay in this space.
Because this space is a lot, guys.
But it's like the friendships that we make that truly make the space like so worth it and so special.
Um, the team is building the Forbes Web3 group.
We are, we're just so in the trenches right now with the legacy pass, the benefits, us supporting creators and artists and builders is always going to be the number one priority, no matter what we do.
I will say after the legacy pass release, our time will be a little bit more limited in terms of what we can do.
Because now what I am really, really committed to is kind of having this tunnel vision of focusing primarily on our holders and what are they building?
What are they, what communities are they being represented in?
And I think that's exactly how a brand that has launched an NFT should really go about it, right?
And so as we're reading these allow list applications, as we are getting to like just see all the inspiring stories that people are sharing with us, it's, it's letting us know that there's so much incredible talent in Web3 and we cannot wait to share it with the world.
That being said, to Taha's point earlier, the allow list applications are only open for two more weeks.
The team is working overtime to review all of them.
The way to access it is through our link in bio and thank you to Studio Paimon.
He did, he did share as well.
He does have a VIP partnership code that basically boosts the application when that code is used.
Thanks so much for having us on.
Thank you to Ferrum Network.
Thank you to Paimon for a great conversation.
We're so excited for what's ahead.
Thank you for sharing that.
And there's, there's some key contributors that couldn't speak on this space.
So Mani, I'll, I'll, I'll refer them to upcoming spaces that you're doing.
We have Brent from Yak Tao, who's really combining the RWA space and, and assets in terms of giving access to assets that are not accessible to the average person through tokenization.
So I think that's an important element to highlight as well.
They have an amazing collection that sort of uses NFTs as a way to give access.
So I feel like that those things are also incredibly important.
We have Carbon from ARCX, who's got AI jewelry.
You can create your own AI art with jewelry.
We've got Nick from Dead Press.
We've got Lady Trader and so many more, but I want to end.
So I'll be referring them to you guys.
I know you have upcoming spaces.
I do want to highlight these amazing creators as well so that we can highlight their communities.
But I do want to end on this note as to why we're all here.
Steve Jobs made a famous quote that, you know, he talked about the fact that the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are usually the ones that do.
And I honestly believe that everything on the, everyone on this space is off that mindset.
We do believe that we can make an impact.
And in fact, I have a specific example of David Iscondroli, who's the designer on our team.
When I first met him a few years ago, he did not speak any English.
And to the point where you couldn't get on a Zoom call with him, not that that is a prerequisite to succeed in anything, but all of our team was English speaking.
And, you know, he was our, he was, we only communicated with him over messages and he would use Translate.
And he was so passionate about our mission and so passionate about our cause that he literally took English speaking classes.
And a short while later, he got on a Zoom call and started speaking fluent English.
I'm like, what the heck happened?
So the passion to be involved in the space, to contribute was so strong that there's people going out and learning new languages to contribute.
And since then, his journey has continued to take off, you know, moving design aesthetics to a premium UX experience, designing some of the most beautiful UX and videos in promotion that you've already seen, Mani.
That was all created by the Ferrum team in the last 48 hours.
So imagine what the team can do and what we all can do as we have a lot more time to contribute.
So with that, I do want to thank everybody for joining and I'll end on this note.
Quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
But the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
And while some may see them as they learn how to think they change the world, they change the world, they change the world to do.
So when they change the world, they're trying to change the world and they change the world.