» HADOUKEN « nft.nyc: 10 observations

And some Burrata news!

Last week, after a 12 month hiatus, the world’s premier celebration of digital art and culture festival, NFT.nyc, triumphantly returned. In a year where Opensea’s trading volume exploded 76,000% (roughly!), Axie infinity lifted millions from poverty and averaged $20 million a day in secondary market transactions, the floor on a Bored Ape hit $120,000 and countless challenger L1 protocols and EVM-compatible L2s (rollups and sidechains) launched in an effort to scale the NFT economy (among other things), the atmosphere was electric. I mean, what else would you expect when business is a-boomin’?

The pace of growth is absolutely torrid — just sensational — and at times it feels as though if you blink you’ll miss it. That’s why I recommend you don’t blink — straight Clockwork Orange with it.

While it may take some more time to totally download and decompress that which I saw and experienced last week, I thought it prudent to at least jot down some preliminary thoughts. Heck, it’s about time for my next dispatch, so in the spirit of being relevant and timely, below are 10 observations from NFT.nyc.

1. Three out of every five people I met were VCs or hedge fund managers. More specifically, fund managers who are “late” to the game and desperately looking to write checks because someone told them there’s money to be made.

2. Conference attendees were young. Like, really young. There is no report that can overstate just how dominant Gen Z is when it comes to this burgeoning asset class and the technologies that encompass it.

3. Bored Apes is, bar none, the best community in NFTs. They show up and show out. THE James Murphy spun a set at their Yacht Party. Come on — what a flex!

4. Bitski has one of the best teams in the space. Not only did they throw one of the best parties at one of the most interesting venues in the city, they are a pleasure to work with.

5. The organizers are complete amateurs. Sorry, but as someone who works in live events, I had to comment on this: from the registration/badge pick up (Margaritaville!) to the terrible on-site accommodations, y’all have a long way to go. You’re printing money, you can afford to invest in some infrastructure and staff (or hit me up and we can work on getting you acquired or something like that ;)).

6. DAOs are not nearly as ubiquitous as insiders would have outsiders think. Social coordination is still very much so happening in the “meat space.” There are key players who make the wheels spin. This is not per se a bad thing, but we need more on-chain governance.

7. There is a gigantic chasm that separates truly knowledgeable crypto heads and NFT collectors and “experts” — particularly those who attend events like NFT.nyc. From my qualitative observations, I’d say the level of discourse and general blockchain expertise among NFT collectors is not that much greater than that of your standard Robinhood investor who does not hold his own private keys. This is a scary thought yet overall bullish signal.

8. Conversations around “play to earn” were fewer and farther between than I’d have imagined. This is kind of sad and awkward, but incredibly exciting. With the launch of Illuvium, Star Atlas, Guild of Guardians, Embersword and other notable titles coming down the pike (not to mention Axie’s dominance and Gods Unchained’s impending revival on Immutable X), 2022 is gearing up to be all about play to earn (and the guilds, DAOs and other and concepts arising therearound, like YGG and Merit Circle).

9. Speaking of IMX, the zk rollup that is off to an incredible start on its mission to bring gasless transactions to Ethereum: even with the launch of its token and its partnerships with TikTok and Disney, it’s still very much under the average crypto head’s radar — didn’t hear or see much about it during the week.

10. We need to push past PFPs as a way to flex on web2. It’s tired and lame. Round of applause to those who are making progress against that concept — again BAYC comes to mind. PFP NFTs are the web3 equivalent of having a CoOoOoL aWaY MeSsAgE on AIM or an aesthetically pleasing signature on a message board in the late 90s to early 00s. Everyone needs to push harder.

And with that last point, I have some news about Burrata, the web3 and metaverse advisory studio that I run with my partner Jeff Carvalho of Highsnobiety and Culture Club fame: throughout the remainder of Q4, we will begin executing against our roadmap for web3 products and services under our own label. In the coming weeks, we will be launching our inaugural project — while it’s premature to announce its finer details, I will say this: you’re going to want to have some Ether laying around, a MetaMask wallet and Discord fired up because we are about to change the game :)

As always, my DMs and emails are open. Thanks for reading.