Brian Fanzo, P1: Early Adoption the 101 on NFTs, Web3, Blockchain and Creator Coins
Brian Fanzo is a digital futurist keynote speaker who translates the trends of tomorrow to inspire change today. His customized and personalized programs showcase real-world stories and examples of forward-thinking people and businesses. He teaches companies of all sizes how to leverage technology in real-time in order to engage their customers at the right time. Brian has a gift for bringing people together online and offline.
He has worked in 76 countries, highlighting his passion for change, collaboration, and technology.
Transcript
Brian Fanzo, P1: Early Adoption the 101 on NFTs, Web3, Blockchain and Creator Coins
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
blockchain, people, unlock, discord, sell, buy, podcast, holding, community, creator, part, smart contract, channels, space, louis vuitton bag, brand, cryptocurrency, bag, rake, create
SPEAKERS
Holly Shannon, Brian Fanzo
Holly Shannon 00:06
Welcome to culture factor. I'm your producer and host Holly Shannon. Our new season looks at creators, innovators and entrepreneurs. Why? Because the creator and gig economy as emerging talent has gone to work for themselves. The new year starts with the 101, or the beginner guide for NFTs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and all those Metaverse and Web3 topics we keep hearing about. We're all going back to school on Culture Factor to understand this decentralized economy. From creator coins to the tax implications of selling crypto, let's unpack these emerging technologies in really simple terms. Join me and feel free to send in your questions. Would your brand like to sponsor culture factor? It is your opportunity to be a part of a podcast that is ranked in the top 2% globally and heard in over 89 countries. Email holly@hollyshannon.com. Subscribe to Culture Factor and share with a friend now. Okay, let's start with our class. Let's get our next guest on. So hello, Culture Factor family. Today I have Brian Fanzo on with me. He is a digital futurist keynote speaker who translates the trends of tomorrow to inspire change today. His customized and personalized programs showcase real world stories and examples of forward thinking people and businesses. He teaches companies of all sizes how to leverage technology in real time in order to engage their customers at the right time. Brian also has the gift of bringing people together online and offline. He has worked in 76 countries, highlighting his passion for change, collaboration, and technology. And today he joins us on Culture Factor. Hi, Brian.
Brian Fanzo 01:59
Hi, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Holly Shannon 02:00
It's really nice to have you and I kind of, I feel like I stalked you a little bit through LinkedIn and then maybe Clubhouse and I don't know where else maybe Twitter, because you're so knowledgeable on the, some of the new things that are breaking ground like NFTs. And I wanted to dive into that a little bit because my community's really new to it. As am I. So let me start by saying I'm completely comfortable with you talking to me like I'm 10 years old, because I really want to get basic concepts out to people so that they can start to explore maybe the deeper concepts. So it brings me to my very first question, what is an NFT?
Brian Fanzo 02:50
Sure. And I'll just say it, you know, we're all new to this space and the concept right? For, I would say the most experienced people in the NFT space have just had a year worth of knowledge and experience in it. So it's that new. And my background is really the early adoption of bleeding edge technology. I did a lot early with Google Plus, was one of the largest Twitter chats when Twitter chats kind of launched as a concept, then did a lot in the live video space. And so I always happy to kind of translate the geekspeak, but also just kind of set that bar as that, you know, a lot of what I'm learning in the NFT space is that, you know, the NFT space as a whole is still figuring out what this all means. And so really what an NFT is it stands for non fungible token and the word fungible, I just think's a funny word to begin with, and then the labeling there. But really what the non fungible concept, and really what that kind of represents is that the thing that an NFT is, is that it cannot be duplicated or replicated. And the best way to explain that is that if I loaned you $10 today and said next week, you know, give me that $10 back, you could take that $10 bill and spend it and then go to the bank on the day, you need to get me back and you get $5 in 5 ones and you can send it to me in any fashion or form. If I sent you an NFT today, and I said give me, send me the NFT back in a week, you would actually have to send that exact copy, that exact edition. And the reason that is where that's like the non fungible aspect is that this is all built on a new technology, which is called blockchain. And I won't go like into the weeds on that side. But you know, Blockchain, I actually started talking blockchain in my keynotes in 2013. And really what blockchain means is if you've heard of the cryptocurrencies of course that are out there now with Bitcoin and Etherium, and Doge, all of those are really the first use cases for blockchain technology and, and the simplest way I can explain a blockchain is it's really just a giant ledger or database that is transparent, that anyone can see what is what is existing on the blockchain. And what is nice about it is that once something is written to the blockchain, it cannot be edited, it cannot be modified, because it's decentralized, which just really means there's no one entity that has control. And so that's why NFTs come into play. And I like to think of NFTs in the in the fashion of it being, we see a lot of the art, if anyone's seen, like, there's bored ape, is probably the most popular one at the moment where we've seen lots of celebrities, and you know, late night hosts, and even Adidas spot, board ape, and the like that that one actually just started as the art people were selling only just the art. But what had emerged was okay, if you have this, this art, if you have this bored, ape, we're gonna give you access to a private community of all everyone that only holds this NFT. And then all of a sudden, it became a group of people that were, you know, maybe, you know, technology enabled and, and started, people from the outside started being like, well, I want access to that community. And the only way you could do so was you had to buy one of the one of those apes that were for sale. And, and so really, NFTs you know, the way that I like to look at it from like, its overall meaning is it gives us a way to transfer ownership without borders or limitations. So like value and ownership is the kind of the big pieces here. So you can think of it in even like in, you know, when you buy a car, right? The the part of that, you know, if you're buying like, let's say a Lexus or a Toyota, you know, the logo on the front hood of that car will oftentimes tell, you know, people or the world or your friends or those around you, like it kind of like represents the people or the financial situation you're in. And so if you pull up with, let's just say, that Lexus symbol, you're kind of like broadcasting that to the world, like, Hey, this is a Lexus car, and I'm, you know, I invested in that. In a way, that's the art version of the NFTs. And the real value of NFTs is actually what it unlocks when you're holding it. And that's what we refer to as utility. But that's the premise of it is really this idea of, we are able to give ownership to people. And it's all logged on this blockchain so everything is transparent. So unlike, you know, if you're selling a membership, and you're unsure what people are, who, who actually owns the membership, or what people are doing with the money, or maybe you're donating to a foundation, and we've all heard stories where you donate money to a foundation, and only 3% of that money actually goes to the organization, the rest goes to overhead or whatever it may be, if you were actually doing that through the blockchain, using NFTs all of it is very transparent on the blockchain. Every transaction you make is automatically- there's nothing you can do about it. It is actually, each time I sell an NFT, there is a it's logged and you kind of have a chain of custody. So there's a layer of transparency, there's a layer of really validation of things that are happening and, and right now the art kind of gets all the attention. But I will say you're just to kind of give like that forward thinking view is that every asset that you purchase five years from now, will have a NFT component, because it gives us really this ability to really have a chain of custody and ownership. So like, let's just say a designer bag, if you buy a Louis Vuitton bag, you know, part of the problem when you try to resell that Louis Vuitton bag when you say that you like a different color, or maybe you don't like the bag anymore, you're, you're competing against knockoffs, and you're competing against people that are like, are you sure that that's the bag that you that you actually bought? And what will happen in the future is that we'll have an NFT component, where you actually say like, look, you can see that this is the bag that I purchased from Louis Vuitton. It's logged on the blockchain. And when I sell sell it to you, you're gonna I'm gonna sell the actual NFT component to you. And now when you resell it, it'll actually show that hey, it was owned by this person that originally bought it from, you know, Louis Vuitton. And so it really will start to prevent things like the people that are, you know, selling the scams and the kind of the off market aspects of things that we own. So there's lots of places that it can go, but really the art really right now, has got kind of most of the attention, but it definitely an exciting space.
Holly Shannon 09:16
So let me, let me go back just a sec here. So like looking at that Louis Vuitton bag, so you could essentially or Louis Vuitton, for example, could essentially sell you an NFT. But what you unlock as utility would be the bag, and then it would be listed on the blockchain in perpetuity so everybody can see its authenticity. Is that Is that what you just said?
Brian Fanzo 09:45
That's correct. And it could be something as simple as a QR code that is on the inside of the bag underneath one of the underneath the fabric, right? And that QR code connects it to the NFT that is logged on the blockchain. And so that connection is there. And what it could give for Louie Vuitton is they could actually, you know, include like, every time that you when you sell the bag, we're going to donate 10% of the sale to an organization that they care about, right. So you could actually include those kind of things into the contract. And if you think about it from like a brand perspective, or like you as the owner of that bag, it would actually give the, like Louis Vuitton more of a reason to to make sure that you are satisfied and happy, because they would want you to sell it at a higher price. So you hit it right on the head on that idea. And this is like, we're not there yet, right? This is like five years from now, because there's a lot of limitations not only on education, but on how like we kind of connect the dots and making sure that these things can't be, the offline asset can't be replicated. But that is where we're going. And that's why I like to just put that out there because the idea of NFTs right now might sound like you're playing with like funny money like cryptocurrency. But in many ways it's unlocking this idea of ownership and that association of ownership in ways that we could have never done before.
Holly Shannon 11:04
And I think you also can, it can get bigger than that. So you can unlock not just items, but you can unlock an NFT experience, which by the way, I have the domain name for, that you can, you know, maybe you could be invited to a runway show for Louis Vuitton, because you bought the NFT and you unlocked it and you got your bag and you show up at the event and you're part of even a bigger chain of events. Is that right?
Brian Fanzo 11:38
It is I actually own an NFT it is from Fierce Studios. And by owning the this NFT that I own, I actually get a pass into New York Fashion Week. So for everyone that holds that NFT that I purchased earlier this year, when you when you when they actually released the tickets for New York Fashion Week, you the you'll actually just connect your wallet, which is where the NFTs are stored, and it will unlock your ticket and it's for only those that have that NFT. So that that use case is actually fully implemented right now as we speak. And that's just a part of like, the the opportunity to build in and the beauty of this like for, for those that are listening, it might sound like wait, we can already do that with like, rewards programs and affiliate marketing. The the uniqueness of this is that it not only provides transparency and automation, right, like whenever you sell that there's nothing that the original person needs to do, or there's nothing they can actually change, right? When you create an NFT, you decide from the beginning, what the percentages are, how things are actually logged, and then that can never be changed. And so that adds a little bit of the layer of like, Hey, this is actually what it says it is. But then the other flip side of that is that what this also enables, is it actually enables things to be added on as you go. So maybe it's like, Hey, if you hold this NFT that got you access to Fashion Week, Louis Vuitton now also wants to say for everyone that bought the NFT and attended New York Fashion Week, we're going to give you something else. And so now you can actually like build upon either multiple NFTs or even kind of like that collaboration beyond kind of that initial use case.
Holly Shannon 13:19
This is so cool. Because that just made me think of something. So could you hide something in the original NFT that releases like almost like automated, or at will of the the company that issued it, like say, a Louis Vuitton, I know we keep using that, but I want to just stay in the same analogy that would release something like you know, a surprise gift kind of arrives because you didn't know it, but whoever owns the NFT at that point in time, they released, you know, some sort of hidden picture on that NFT and, and they delivered, I don't know a keychain or something, I just tried to think of something random on your wallet or something
Brian Fanzo 14:10
I can give you and that is 100% the case I launched some NFTs earlier this year. And I I hid some Easter eggs in there, right some things that are like some hidden meaning where like from the outside, you're just looking at the art, this 3d art, but that there are certain ones that have a certain number on the NFT. And little do people know that some of those numbers will represent unlocking of merchandise that will automatically be sent to your location on a certain date with things that we have coming up. The other part of this is, you know, I one of my favorite brands that has launched NFTs is actually the Playboy Rabbitars has actually launched, in my opinion, one of the best brand use cases. And Playboy had no brand affiliation with me since I was like 18 years old. So when I heard they were kind of releasing this I was a little bit I was like oh I'm not sure what's going on. But what they've done that's really great is they of course have have the rabbits and they used an artist that is in their ecosystem. But they've also unlocked, you know, I was at an event in New York, and they dropped one evening and said, We're doing a pop up Playboy party at this location in New York, every one that has a NFT can attend. And we went to the front door, they scanned it, and we had to show our NFT. And then we got access to this Playboy party. And on top of that, what they decided was, you know, what there, you know, there's 10,000 of these Rabbittars, is what they're called. And of the 10,000, there's 300 of them, that where the rabbit is holding a rake, like an actual like rake for your garden. And so what they decided they were going to say, and none of us knew this ahead of time, anyone who had the rake on January 1 of this year, if you had a rake NFT, they actually sent you another NFT that actually unlocked an all expense paid trip to one of their events that are coming up where you're going to get the airfare and the hotel paid for. And you had no idea that the rake was what they were actually recording on. So like,
Holly Shannon 16:07
That's crazy.
Brian Fanzo 16:08
This happened.
Holly Shannon 16:09
That's crazy. I love that I love that the creativity that is coming out of all this, it's such a merger of, you know, whatever terms you want to use artists, creatives, you know, experiences brands, it's pretty cool stuff. We have talked about buying NFTs and what they are and people, you know, we're talking about big brands building things and what they can do. I, looking at, like, you know, anyone now and not like brands. So say I wanted to create one, you know, and I wanted to use the basis of a JPG file, which is a photograph and I wanted to use that. How do you go about mintings it? And selling it? What platforms would you put things on? And what is the word shill?
Brian Fanzo 17:05
So shill, shill is just really promoting right? So you're shilling you're, you're either giving the link to your NFT, or the discord server, which is where NFTs kind of are out there. And I actually just did a podcast episode yesterday on 41 slang terms that exist in the NFT space. And I kind of defined them because I started creating the list and the list started to get out of control. So there's a lot of unique slang there. And I also say, you know, we did talk a little bit about brands like the bigger use cases. But to date right now as we're speaking, the the most successful NFT projects have not been brands or celebrities or athletes, I would actually argue most of the brand and celebrity ones that have been dropped or that have been released their own NFT have actually not done very well. Because there is kind of this shift. And I think the beauty of NFTs is it gives us the ability to remove the starving from the starving artist, right? If you are an, from a starving artist, it can be everything from a photographer to a cook, or it could be someone that has an online, maybe a Facebook group, whatever that may be. And so the idea of creating your own NFT, there are lots of things that can go into it, but the the premise of it is that the art is part of it, right so the art is the is kind of like hey, this is the calling card or the front door which which people would be able to share with the world that they're actually a part of the NFT. But then the next two pieces are the smart contract which the smart contract just to make it kind of simple is it's really just a computer code underneath it that tells the NFT what to do. So it says like hey, if if this if this happens, unlock this right so like what the smart contract with some of the examples can be like if someone you know is active in our Facebook group for 30 days, and we send them this email, this email will then trigger something to happen so it's kind of a very much like if this than that contract. And then where you, where you actually host the NFTs is kind of like the last part there. And I will say that part can get a little bit overwhelming because right now the mass majority of people and attention is on Etherium. Ether is the is the cryptocurrency and there's so there's a lot of different blockchains of types of blockchain. So there's ether is a blockchain, you know, there are Solana and Cardano and lots of different blockchains and they all have like their own pluses and minuses for like hosting NFTs and not all that right and right now, like you can't do a or you could do but it doesn't it doesn't really work very well. You couldn't do like a an NFT on Bitcoin on the Bitcoin Blockchain. So that's like one that you wouldn't do. But right now Eth, Ethereum, is the most popular but you know ask me a year from now and I'm not sure which will be the most popular but when you're doing it like on Etherium, what they've been able to do now is you can actually create, for free, one of one collections. And what that really means is, like if you take a photo and you just want to use that one photo as an NFT, you can create that actually for free, add it to your blockchain, you can put it on the secondary market and someone can buy it. But allow me-
Holly Shannon 20:14
Wait a minute. What's secondary market? Like open sea?
Brian Fanzo 20:17
Open Sea is a secondary market. There's two terms there. The idea with the term minting and NFT is like the language. What minting means is it's the first time that the NFT is logged on the blockchain. And so you know, when you're buying like a collection, so if someone's dropping, like the trend right now is 10,000, of whatever it may be the the first person that purchases that original NFT, they're minting the NFT. But then if they want to sell it, it goes on a secondary market right now open sea is the most popular one, they just got to a $14 billion valuation, and they raised a Series C, round of I think 300 million. But there's other ones as well Rarible and Mintable and some other secondary markets. But what is neat about that is, you know, it used to be, it would cost you, you know, a couple $1,000 To create your to take your art and put it on to the blockchain. But what they've been able to do now is they actually kind of, they kind of transfer the fees from you as the artist or creator. And they include that in this, this concept of gas, you might have heard you have a gas fee. And what are they what a gas fee is, is a transaction cost. So every time something has to be written onto the blockchain. So every time if I sent you an NFT, right now, even though I wasn't going to charge you for it, for me to actually transfer it from my wallet, to your wallet, it requires, it requires what what is considered minors, but there's a fee that's associated with it. And right now that fee is is fairly is is causes a lot of issue issues. But it's can get expensive, for like the transferring it on Eth. But it's really right now like the primary place of doing it. But what is nice about it is like for my collection, what I was able to do is I have people that I have a creator coin, which is called the ADHD coin, which is kind of a subset of NFTs but a little bit a little bit different. But what I was able to do is I was able to say, if you hold a certain amount of my coin, I'm going to send you an NFT on Open Sea. So what I did was I uploaded these 3d graphics that I had someone on my team create, and I created a smart contract underneath it. And I said, anyone that holds this NFT, will get a percentage of the sale of this big project that we're selling in November, just for simply holding the NFT. And what is cool is that I was able to upload that onto Open Sea for no cost to myself I upload, put the contract there, but then when I needed to send that to those in my community, it then cost me about like 25 to $30 per one to kind of send it cuz that's like the transaction fee. But what is beautiful about that is I send it to everyone, and then everyone I send it to has the option to hold on to it until November, or they could resell it if they would like to for whatever price that someone's willing to pay for it. And so the barrier to entry is definitely changing. Now the idea of like, how do I build a smart contract, you know, where you have it like that process, like, those things are kind of being ironed out. Like I would argue by the summertime of 2022, it's going to be very much like creating a website or a template on Canva, where you're going to have a lot more templated solutions. Right now it's kind of like you, you feel like you're going through like three different websites, three different wizards, and then you have to kind of bring everything together. But yeah, for you know, let's just say if you had the photo, and not everything has to have the utility or smart contract on it, right? You you, you could have the option where like, I'm gonna send this photo to, I'm gonna send 10 of them to 10 of my, my biggest supporters. And then I'm just gonna tell them by having that, that and that NFT I'm gonna give you unlimited access to our Facebook group. Now you don't have to write a smart contract on that you can just, you know, hey, I can see who's holding my NFT and, and I give them manual access. But if you really want to embrace the technology, the automation side of it, that's where like the smart contracts, things come into play underneath of those NFTs.
Holly Shannon 24:14
That's all a little confusing for me, I'm not gonna lie. Um, I think the, hm. Which part do I want to dissect?
Brian Fanzo 24:24
So I will say that part of my advice is, you know, I, I'm a my like, my mantra, the book that I wrote is, you know, Press the Damn Button is like my philosophy, I'm a big action person. But I will say in this space, I recommend, you know, being a collector prior to being a creator. And part of that is because some of these nuances where it sounds like, wait a second, like how do I upload it and then like, how do people pay for it and what what does all that look like? A lot of that you kind of figure out going through purchasing your first NFT and then trying to sell your first NFT and so in a weird way, more so than pretty much any other time where, you know, I would tell people, you know, you don't have to listen to a podcast for a year to actually host your own podcast, right, you could listen to a couple of podcasts, you could work with a team. But I really think in the NFT space, if you become a collector, and it doesn't have to be expensive, right? You could, it could be a couple $100, maybe even less, and you understand kind of like the that like the workflow from a from a collector perspective, it will simplify some of the process as a creator.
Holly Shannon 25:25
That is a great suggestion. I'm gonna totally do that. You mentioned a couple things in here. I just want everybody to know, I will have in the show notes Brian's podcasts, NFT 365 if you want to take deeper dives, if you want to take the red pill. Alice in Wonderland. And another thing that you mentioned, we talked about, you mentioned discord. So just for my Culture Factor community and you know, I've dabbled a bit, so I have personally seen the most sharing, generous sharing of information about all of the things we're talking about: NFTs cryptocurrency blockchain so forth, in Clubhouse and I've seen it on Twitter both in their audio space as audio spaces not a you know not in comments as much a mostly people having really good conversation. But a lot of these groups, if you will, that have come together these communities that have come off of that like yours have discord channels, which I kind of liken to being like a Slack channel where a lot of business takes place ideas and collaborations. Am I wrong in explaining it that way?
Brian Fanzo 26:52
No. And I will say I went kicking and screaming to discord it was the last thing in the world I did not want another communication channel. The beauty of discord for the NFT space is that a lot of the automation like if we want to verify like in my Discord. If you're holding one of my NFTs it unlocks a series of channels and rooms that only those that hold my NFT can see. And discord allows that to happen automatically. So like as soon as you sell your NFT it actually the bot that is within discord comes back to discord and says remove that person from that channel. That that kind of like automation doesn't exist in like a Slack or in mighty networks or a circle or Facebook group. But I can tell you discord can be a little bit of like another overwhelming aspect. It's actually why I launched a pop up Facebook group for my community because so many people in my community said I want to learn NFTs Brian, but please don't make me learn two things don't make me learn discord and NFTs like that's just too much. And so I do have like a Facebook group that you will organically now has little over 300 members in it, that I'm kind of using as kind of like the stepping point. But yeah, right now, without question Twitter and social audio are the other places where the NFT community is kind of embraced and part of the reason of that is it is the most diverse and eclectic group of humans that I have ever been a part of I went to an NFT event in New York City. And the reason is, is because for the first time, it really allows like artists and creators to be aligned with developers and business startup leaders. And it allows, you know, collectors of, of different, like The Matrix, like I held a couple of The Matrix NFTs and, and so it really opens up this like, unlocks this idea. And I will say, for me, the beauty of NFTs really haven't hit yet is it unlocks a serendipity into a community that you can't find anywhere else on social media.
Holly Shannon 28:51
I agree.
Brian Fanzo 28:53
And it's amazing, right? And, and I love it you mentioned like this, this collaboration like nature, and people wanting to lift each other up. Part of that is is because when you own an NFT ultimately, you own part of the success of that project. And so like, unlike when you buy like a membership, and then you're like, well, three months after I bought this online boot camp or this membership, I no longer, I no longer want to do it, I'm out of touch, you kind of feel like you're out of the money, right? But in the NFT space, like if you have something for three months, and you're using it and you decide it's no longer of value to you, well you're hoping that that a lot of people are still interested in getting in because you can actually sell the ownership aspect that you have and you can recoup your money or or even make money in some scenarios. And so that is the beautiful part but yeah, Discord you know, I'm, I'm a member of ridiculous amount of Discord is because of our project that we're working on. But that's also why I did a daily podcast I don't think I would have ever imagined in my entire life that I would do a daily podcast as someone that diagnosed ADHD and dyslexia and but for me this space changes so often and there's so many unique variables. So we did the daily podcast we have a discord channel. And I will say like Discord is one of the channels where if you're willing to put in the time and manage the, the notifications, I can't I can't stress that enough like my my advice on Discord is when you get into discord, you're gonna want to turn off all notifications. And then you're gonna want to go through the discord and look at the channels because there'll be labeled, and decide which ones you want notifications for and turn them on. Because if you don't, you're gonna get blasted with all of these notifications can be very overwhelming. And then you're going to turn everything off you're going to forget the app is on your phone and then you're gonna be like, Why did I spend this money on this NFT I don't even use that community. And so that's kind of like my like little tip on like, let's turn everything off and then slowly go through the channels and turn things back on.
Holly Shannon 30:52
You know, it to me it's like a bowl of spaghetti, like I can't even, it's so overwhelming going into discord and it is like learning something else. So it's so cool that you're providing another channel for your community over on Facebook because you know, not all communication places are going to work for everybody. But yeah, I believe I'm on your discord channel. I'm on a couple and I'm trying to figure it all out.
Holly Shannon 31:26
I'm often asked, Does my business need a podcast? My answer is yes. That nothing else is the fast track into thought leadership and being established and seen as the expert in your industry, as podcasting. What's increasingly evident is that it's a branding machine. It kicks doors open for you to have conversations with leaders. It creates a pathway to partnerships and connections on a deeper level. You will not be your industry's best kept secret. Your ideas and business will have global reach. So step into your power. Go to hollyshannon.com to launch your podcast now. This conversation is jam packed and will continue as part two, so please subscribe and share this now, so we continue this class together.