Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello guys. Welcome to the Techpoint Africa podcast. My name is Bolu and I'm your host for today. Today we're talking about nfts and what really happened to them. But before we get into that conversation, quick update on some of the tech happenings across Africa. So MCN wants to increase data and voice prices. It wants to do this because it lost around $101 million to forex last year. So it's talking to regulators in countries where it operates to, to increase voice and data tariffs. If youve been following the podcast for some time, you will notice when we talked about MTNs forex loss in Nigeria, which caused it a huge, huge loss and wiped out dividends of shareholders. MTN is not the only one increasing prices. Netflix has announced a new pricing structure for nigerian customers by April 1. The standard plan, which is currently 3600 naira, that's around $2, will now become 4000 naira, which is almost $3. The mobile and premium plans will also see a slight increase, but the basic plan will stay the same. And that's not all Netflix is doing. It might also be testing ad supported plans in Nigeria. So it announced ad supported plants a couple of years ago, but that's only available to UK, US and users in Canada. But it might be testing that out in Nigeria really soon. And finally, some good news from the Commercial bank of Ethiopia. The bank has been able to recover $10 million out of the $40 million that it lost to a system glitch. But the bank is saying the amount lost was not actually $40 million, that it was way, way less than that. And some reports are also saying that the $10 million it has been able to recover is around 80% of the total amount it lost. So that's that. On some of the happenings across the african tech ecosystem. You can get more stories on the Techpoint Africa website. There are loads and loads of stories there. And now let's get into the conversation of the day.
Today we'll be discussing something very interesting. I'm sure you've all heard of nfTs. I think back in 2021 they were like really popular. We heard stories of artists making so much money from nfts. I actually talked to Anthony Azekwo about how he made so much money from NFTs investors making millions of dollars from NFTs. And I'm sure you're already thinking, oh, those things are dead, right? Well, maybe they are, maybe they are not. We'll find out from one of the foremost NFT investors in Nigeria, even Africa. Right. His name is Michael Ogu. And he'll be telling us if NFTs are truly dead or we have it twisted. Hello, Michael.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: How you doing, bro? It's been a minute, man.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been a very long minute.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: You guys don't care about us when the market's down.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: I know, right? And no worry. That has to change. That has to change.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: We'll make that change. All right, so let me just introduce yourself a bit more to our audience. Let them know you.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: So from the crypto perspective, I first got into crypto, probably at the heights of the 2017 market. I was in bitcoin. Of course. I had no clue what was going on in the market. I'd just been hearing about this thing called bitcoin, and I actually had a transaction that I had to do, and someone told me to send them bitcoin. And I was forced to figure out this thing and figured it out. And then I just bought some and just held it. And I was like, yeah, cool, whatever. And, yeah, I think that was it. That was my first introduction. I heard Chamath palahaptia talking about. He called it suckers insurance then. And I was like, yeah, this guy, he's been around the block. He must know. He's talking about. So let me just go and dig. And I dug and dug and dug and got into the space. As you go down the rabbit hole, get into bitcoin, you get into ethereum. So I got into ethereum, and I understood it as programmable smart contracts. And it was, bitcoin was cool, but ethereum was a bit more fun. And then, yeah, I got into NFTs from there, to be honest. And this is. It wasn't really my day job, day job at the time. It was like, definitely on the side, but, yeah, delve deep and delved hard. And it's been. It's been crazy. I would say that we agree with everybody that nfts are dead in a very sarcastic way.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: So, yeah, we don't think they are, but that's how I got into it.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Michael, you're also the CEO of Freemi Digital. I think you do a lot of stuff with music as well. Right?
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Been in the music space for a long period of time. Yes.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Makes sense. All right, let's now let's move back to nfts. Now, I know you were, like, one of the, like, foremost people that bought into some of the most, I think, some of the most profitable nfts at the time, the crypto punks and the body yard club. How transformational was that for you? If you could also maybe give us an idea of how big the investment was in terms of.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: It wasn't big. I mean, look, at the end of the day, yeah, they're valuable now. And I wouldn't say profitable collections, I'd say iconic collections. So the cryptopunks collection is probably the most iconic identity profile project on the Ethereum blockchain. It will go down in history as that iconic project that kind of started off everything. There were a few projects before it, but it's been the most iconic one till today. And I think that thesis runs for the foreseeable future. When I bought my first crypto punk, I'd already been doing well enough in bitcoin, Ethereum, buying and stacking, and they were still quite cheap at that stage. I think I paid about, it was less than ten at the time for my punk. And I believe at that time Ethereum was probably trading at about, I don't know, dollar, $800, 1000. Nothing too crazy. Today, Ethereum is like $4,000 in bitcoin. I paid by standards of buying an Internet picture. It was expensive, yes, but standards of what was going on in the space, it wasn't. So I was probably spending about $10,000 buying it.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Buying one.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Buying one, yeah, yeah. The cheapest one today now is still about $200,000. Wow, and that's in the bear market.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: That's it calming down.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Which meant at the height it was 150 ETH. At the height of the 2021 market, each crypto punk was about $500,000.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Wow, that's.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: I mean, that's floor ones. Floor crypto punks. The rare ones were like the alien ones. I think the biggest sell at that point was maybe like four or $5 million for an alien punk or an ape punk. They got into multiple millions of dollars. We recently had a really big alien punk sale. It was about $15 million. This was last month.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: So yeah, that's the range. Cheapest, 200,000. Most expensive, 15 million. There's only 10,000 of these pumps.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Damn.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: So yeah, there's a range based on rarity.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: That's really interesting. I always wish I got into crypto enough to like to have experimented with some of those things or maybe just. I remember back when I was, I think I just finished school then. And then I learned about ethereum and I think what year was? I think maybe 2019 or 2020. I think Ethereum was one for. I remember it in naira, I think was 50,000 error or 60.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: And probably, yeah, I just remember, I think I was still collecting my Nyse Alawi. Then I was like, what if I just taken. Because it was the COVID year, right? So I didn't really need to spend that money. So I was like, what if I just take in four months worth of my allowee and I just bought ethereum?
I bought like three, four, five or even ten. Right. But yeah, let's.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Oh, you didn't.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Let's not do it. I bought, I think I bought 10,000 naira watts.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Okay. Better than nothing, man. Oh, dope. Good. That's, that's good. That's what it's all about.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yes. I still have you too holding it. Yeah, I'm glad I still, I did that. I wish I did more, but, yeah.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: We all have wishes, man.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: We all have wishes. All right. NFTs, the body APR clubs and crypto punks you spoke about, they did really well.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: But I think around 2021, it blew up more. And then we had more artists that were doing their own thing.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Doing their works and selling it as NFTs. How transformational would you think NFTs were to like the art space, the creative space in general, majorly for people in.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Africa, it was massive. On a global level, it was massive. On a local level, it was massive. I'm pretty sure I'm the biggest collector of nigerian NFT artwork as it stands. And for me, the two biggest artists to come out of this space are Osinachi and Anton Ezekiel. There are other artists that I do have collected as well, and I still do collect, but, you know, it was transformational. I mean, you're talking about going from a spot where your art is limited to physical boundaries. If you find an international buyer, you need to first. It's gonna be hard to find an international buyer on the traditional art market. And then if you do, it's okay. How do you arrange payment? How do you arrange shipping? There's just so much friction. Right. And I think when NFTs were unlocked, especially from an art perspective, artists who got in early did well. You know, Osinachi did well. He was the, he's the first african artist, probably the first black artist to actually have an auction with Christie's. Christie's is a very famous auction house in the UK. And I was lucky enough to bid and get a piece. There was only five pieces available. I had to go through a broker in the UK and I got one of the Osinachi Christie's pieces. This was 2021 or so. Yeah. And I've supported Anthony Azekiwo. I've got a pretty big studio space in Lekki, and he's done a few exhibitions at my spot. I've been around the country with him as well because I've obviously seen how much opportunity has been unlocked for these younger talents. I've always just tried to do my part to help, to not just all degenerate gambling. It's just about how we also uplifting the space.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: True.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's been transformational.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: All right, now let's now go to the big question, right?
We've talked a lot about how transformational they are. Talked a lot about how much money people made, things like that. So what happened? We just didn't hear of nfts again. Everywhere just went quiet. And I remember talking to some people that I even consider big on crypto, things like that. And we're having a conversation and we're like, wow, I'm so surprised that something that huge could just phase out of thinner. What really happened?
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Whoever you spoke to and didn't really, they don't understand our space. You need to look at the entire crypto industry from a macro perspective. Right. Everything is based on four year cycles primarily. We know this pretty well. Bitcoin has been around to 2009. It's better part of like maybe 15 years or so. Right. And it's guided by these cycles also. Also there's macros or like, what's happening with the business cycle is the federal government printing. Are they tightening? What's liquidity like? But largely speaking, bitcoin is itself as a network. It goes to what we call the halving every four years. Yeah, and the halving is actually coming up in April. And what had actually happened at the time. So we knew that at the point of the halving, we knew that the network was going to get tight. And once the network gets tight, it gets harder to, like, to mine bitcoin, and that just squeezes supply. And then when there's demand, prices are going to go up. Right. And because it's a scarce asset, that's what drives the bull market. Primarily. Bitcoin is always roughly about 45 50% of the entire crypto market capitalization. NFTs are just literally a beta play on, on something like bitcoin or Ethereum, let's just say ethereum, because then NFTs are just on Ethereum. So it wasn't surprising to me that the market came to that kind of like grinding hole. It was always going to happen. I think that because it was my, the first cycle I had, I was still learning the second cycle, I didn't time my exits well enough. This is my third cycle for all intents and purposes now. But yes, and like a lot of people managed to exit the markets on time because they understood this is the cyclical nature of these markets and they moved to other assets like stable coins, fiat stable coins, or just BTC, which weathers these bear markets the best. Right? So anyone who says that they didn't understand how it was going to, how it crashed, then you don't, you didn't really understand it was always going to happen. It's the same way that it's going to happen this cycle as well. We just entered a bull. We entered a bull stage maybe about 67767 months ago. Okay, we're going into the. We're not at the euphoria stage because bitcoin goes to its halving next month, in April, and then we probably have about, I don't know, 910. Twelve to 24 months of up only activity to that parabolic. I love that crazy level. And then, like every kind of, like every cycle, it will crash. Maybe the volatility in this cycle will be eased because we've had the bitcoin ETF's for the first time. Nfts are literally just following the bitcoin crypto, the wider cycle. Do you understand? And now we have NFTs on bitcoin, NFTs on Ethereum, NFTs on Solana, NFTs across multiple chains. We're going to see more of how that's going to play out by the end of this cycle.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: All right, so basically you're saying what happened was they just followed the same trajectory as the way the crypto market goes down. Exactly.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: And liquidity would actually be sucked out of nfts first because they're illiquid assets all the way. You can sell your. If you have ethereum, you can literally sell it all the way down. On big markets like binance by bit, Coinbase, you can keep selling because there's always a willing buyer at some point. But with nfTs, it's like trying to sell a car. If no one is coming to see the car, or if everyone's seen the car and said, I don't like the car, you can't sell it. There's no liquid markets for nfTs. So it was much harder for that market. Took a took. It's taken a beating. Let me not lie. It's taken a bad beating.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Okay. The funny thing is, while people say it's dead. And while the noise isn't as much, even after all that time, I remember I know a particular guy that was talking to me about getting into, I think they call them alphas or something.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Alpha charts.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Yes. And I could actually, that people are still making money from nfTs. How does that, how does that market really happen? I think it's on. It was on the Solana blockchain. It didn't really say much about ethereum. What's really going on within that market? Is it like a closed market where people just make money from? I don't really get it, to be honest.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: The fact of the matter is, NFTs are NFt specifically. It's culture.
It's just culture on the blockchain. So when you look at things like cryptopunks, bored apes, autoglyphs, fidenzas, ringers, ex copy art, hackathao art, the whole kind of broad range of like crypto art, right. It's just culture on the blockchain. So when you start talking about alpha, alpha is more like probably the tradable projects, the kind of like the pump and dump projects, because any, if you buy traditional art, you're not buying traditional art to sell it the next day.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: True.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: There's no alpha chat to go and buy an expensive piece of artwork. What's happened is wealthy people used art as almost like an inflation hedge historically, because if you go and buy a Picasso, you're pretty sure that it's the only Picasso. So it should only literally accrue value. Right. Because we all agree that Picasso, Michelangelo, Banksky, all these artists have some kind of value. So over time, it's not going to really go down in value. Right. So when you start talking about art nfts here, you don't need to go into kind of like alpha chats. You just need to understand the space. When you start talking about alpha chats. Yeah. There are projects that if I bought it at one ETH, I need to sell it at five e. Yeah, but I take a different perspective on the space.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of people need to understand that too. And I think it will be hard for people to understand that because of the close ties NFts have with the crypto market. I mean, you can't really separate them.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: You can't.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: But then I think there needs to come a time where NFts become the next thing. From what you said, something about how rich people buy art, but then I think there needs to come that time where NFts just become that way to buy that kind of art, but do it in a more digital manner. Do you think that the NFTs will become like their own thing, separate from crypto? Crypto is just something that help people do it.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Do you know, I think the NFTs. So art NFTs are literally just been like a trojan horse to get this NFT technology into the space and potentially out to the masses. NFts are much bigger than just art. Right. An NFT is a non fungible token. So bitcoin is a fungible token. Right. A non fungible token is a unique kind of, like, item. So I believe that at some point, our driver's license will be nfTs. When we book a plane, the ticket will come as an NFT. When you book a hotel, your hotel reservation will be an NFT. When you go to watch a basketball game or a football game, when you get your university certificate, that will be an NFT, and it will be all registered on the blockchain. So art has just been the way that media and the masses who have been interested early on have got to understand it. So they think that NFts are just art. Okay, but it's bigger than just art. There's art within it. It's just taking any kind of, like, tangible asset and saying, okay, let's register on the blockchain. And like I say, you get mass adoption. It's a wide space. Nfts aren't going anywhere. If there's anything that I know that nfts are not going anywhere at all.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think what really happened, from what you said, I think what happened with nfts is there's this thing in technology where once there's a new type of tech, there's a lot of noise at first, and then there's this arc. They describe it with an arc, and then there's a lot of noise. People talk about it a lot, and then it comes down. And then at that point, where it comes down is where real people now start working on it.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Innovation happens.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: That is where the real innovation happens. Not during, when the real innovation happens, and then it now starts developing properly.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Like real use cases?
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Yes, like real use cases.
Hopefully that happens to nfts too.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: It will. Look, it depends what your use case for your nfts are. The problem with the last cycle is so many people's use case for nfts was, I want to buy low and sell high. That was the use case. The piece that I bought from the Osinachi Christie's auction, it's sitting comfortably in my wallet and it's not going anywhere. I didn't buy it based on, oh, I need to buy low and sell high. I bought it based on. This is the first african artist to auction an NFT with Christie's in 50 years time. No one's going to tell me there's no value to that. It's going to have value. And do I hold the cash that I'm holding? So I exchanged it for cash, right? The cash that I'm holding in 50 years, will it be worth less or worth more? It will be worth less. Inflation will erode that fiat cash I'm holding. But then that unique NfT that I've bought and it's been raised on the blockchain, it's going to have a value, right? And I believe that there'll be a version of me in 40 years time who would say, yes, actually, I agree. This thing did have value and some kind of provenance, and this is what I'm gonna be willing to pay for it. So there will be a perspective of value appreciation over time.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: So, yeah, all right, my next question will now be, now we've established that, okay, maybe the noise and the hype might be dead, but NFT itself, as a technology, is very much alive.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Alive.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: So should artists, not just the people who create arts, music, everyone that creates some type of creative content, should they still bet big nfts, should they still consider turning some of their works into nfts and selling them as nfts?
[00:18:46] Speaker B: 100% because of my work in the music industry, you get music like, artists have always been really good to adopt technology early, whether it's streaming or this or that or the third we adopt, the music industry has always adopted technology quite, quite early. Right. So I just see nfts as a tool in a toolbox. It's not going to destroy streaming services. It's not going to be like, oh, we're going to, I'm going to consume all my music as nfts. No, that was where some people got it wrong. Spotify and Apple music, even though they don't pay, amazing. It's still amazing technology.
You can't take that away. The subscription market is still a market that's been able to onboard a lot of people locally. The price point, Spotify, as long as it's fair, people will come on. So nfts for me is just a tool in the toolbox. When you're now talking about, when you're talking about artists. Yes, I do advise artists creatives to go out and learn the technology understand how they can use it, understand how they can get into the space. The artists that I work with, I'm always trying to advise and guide them. This is where we are in this space. This is what you need to consider, because I believe at some point it will just become almost like it will just become natural. So I think there's definitely opportunities, even the artists as well. You've got to remember that the few art galleries we have in Lagos, Nikkei Art Gallery, rele Art Gallery, and all the other ones, they're few in far between.
They're not a massive amount of art galleries in Lagos. But if you actually inscribe your work on the blockchain, put it up available for sale on like, super rare or foundation or Zora or any of these kind of like, NFT marketplaces, you then have a global audience. Right? So it's the same way that you've had music artists who have been opened up to a global market thanks to streaming based on CDs. The market was local.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: If a guy in Atlanta wants to hear David O's album as a CD, he's going to be impossible. But he can jump onto Spotify and listen to it. So when it comes to visual artists, it's an opportunity for them as well to get access to a global market. But I have a question for you, even before we go on, look, do you think that we are becoming more or less digital people?
[00:20:41] Speaker A: More. We're becoming more digital.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: More digital. We're spending more time online. We're actually assigning more value to digital objects. I'm sure you guys, Facebook page and IG Page and TikTok Page is valuable to you as an individual and valuable to the company. If you lose it today, you can be like, you know what's up? But it's digital. You can't see or touch or feel the page, can you?
[00:21:04] Speaker A: True.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Now, I think one of the things people don't understand, like why my big belief in this space is that the core of this space is decentralization. I mean, all the gambling and all the money making has become part of it because it's early, right? But decentralization is the core thesis behind it. And you don't own your Facebook page. You don't own your Instagram page. If Mark Zuckerberg says he doesn't like your denim, your page is done, bro. It's done. Right. But is that fair? No, it's not fair. So you need to be able to say, and it's the same with money. If when we had those that when we've had issues in Nigeria, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about nsRs. The banks didn't give access to people's bank accounts, right? They tried to now say, oh, how can we raise crypto in order to fulfill our campaign? Right? Now, I get some governments, why they'd want to obviously protect the fiat, their fiat currencies and protect government policy, humanity. You should be allowed a level of decentralization where you're allowed to make your own choices as a human being. Nfts, crypto, it's part of that decentralization goal, that decentralization opportunity. As we're getting more digital, just consider that.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: All right? Decentralization sounds. I don't know. Should I say I disagree? Because I think maybe in some facets of business, decentralization can work. But I think what has kept the world running for a long time is capitalism. The zeal that people have to want to be the best they can be to make as much money as they want to has led to the rise of a lot of great technologies that we have today. So I think decentralization could actually kill that, could kill that space.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: No way. No way. Decentralization unlocks it. Because then when you're talking about decentralized, okay, fine, you're saying, you're talking about killing technology. There could be projects that you're working on that the government of a country you're in doesn't like. We don't want this technology because it's going to affect this plan that we have. And they're going to now tell the bank, stop doing business with this person, stop working with this person. You get shut down and shut out of the system. Right. With the press of a button. Decentralization means that that doesn't happen. Look, Elon Musk took over twitter because he felt that it was being too controlled, it was being censored. And he feels like this twitter buyout for him is almost like this battle for freedom, like for free speech. So I think decentralization does the opposite.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Centralization, to me is where you now have the command and control. You can say this, you can do this. You're allowed to spend your money here, you're allowed to buy this there. That's what centralization does. Decentralization is on the complete flip. It flips the script completely and allows for humans to flourish. I think that based on these technology, the technology of the blockchain, because let's be honest, whether we're talking bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, NFts. It's all based on blockchain technology. Blockchain technology will unlock a renaissance. And I think in this age, we're moving into where we have AI doing all sorts of crazy things. Blockchain technology also allows us to identify what's real and what's fake.
Right. We're going to have a massive problem with what's real and what's fake. It's exploding now. We just don't know anymore. Right. So at the end of the day, we had. There was a photo the other day of the princess. A princess is Kate Middleton. Right?
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: And the photo had been. They say it had been photoshopped and there was all this backers and fords, whether it was real. And the first thing that came to my mind was if that photo had obviously been inscribed, put on the blockchain, minted as an NFT or whatever from an original source. If there's any question, you go to that one source, check. Kevin came out eventually and said that, yes, she edited it. I believe that's what she said. She admitted she edited it. But if she hadn't, everyone would be like, how did we all get hold of this edited picture? Where did it come from? What was the source? But if you allow. If the blockchain allows us to keep that record and the decentralized blockchain, not all these centralized controlled chains tell us what they want to tell us. So, yes, I guess you have your view. I have my view.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: I think time will tell.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Time will tell facts. I agree with that one time. I could be completely wrong.
So time will tell. I'm a big believer in learning and catching on to what you think could be the trend and just researching it for yourself.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: All right. Yeah. Speaking about music, right? Yeah. You said a lot about music. I just remember that you were actually at the. You had the Grammys.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yes, I was.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Good year. Good year.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Bad result, but a good year.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. What did you see? Did you notice anything about where music will be going to in a few years as concerning what you said, decentralization and nfTs? And did you see, is there any signal or any sign to what the evolution of music would be like in a few years?
[00:25:49] Speaker B: I mean, from the Grammys perspective? No, because the Grammys is this big industry, traditional industry award ceremony a couple of days in LA with a lot of the Afrobeats artists out there. There wasn't really talk about crypto and stuff, but my perspective generally from that trend is that the move to independence by a lot of artists, because 50 years ago, you couldn't release music without a record label. It was impossible just to record. Music was super expensive. Now people are recording music in their bedrooms and everywhere, releasing it via distributors like my distribution company and getting it live for the world. I definitely think that as we move towards independence, artists are going to need more tools in order to figure out who their superfans are. And I think the NFTs do a perfect job there. Even if you go on TikTok or Spotify, there's no way to really identify your core true fans. If your song is trending right now, it's trending right now. But there's some people who, whether you release a good song, a bad song, a mid song, they are fans. They are fans. And I think there's that concept called 1000 true fans. We saw artists like Nipsey Hussle. If Nipsey Hussle was still alive, rest in peace, he would be championing stuff like NFTs. I guarantee it. Because with your thousand true fans, and this is what I've told artists before, let's just imagine you're waste, kid, and you're starting out right, and then you drop an NFT and then your community buys into the NFT. Or you just airdrop it to your community, and it doesn't do much like other than register you as your community member. Maybe it gives you access to a WhatsApp group or a discord group or a telegram group, or gives you access to some kind of behind the scenes stuff. All that stuff is neither here or there. As a superfan, you're going to be happy just to be that core. But five years down the line, you can actually go back and check, who are my superfans? Who still had the NFTs? Which wallet did I drop my NFT in ten years ago? Then you say, okay, who owns this wallet? Do you understand? You could be like, okay, fine, you've been my fan for ten years. This NfT that I dropped ten years ago, before I was blown or whatever, I'm going to airdrop. Whether it's cash, whether it's tickets to a show, whether it's some kind of private event, to a dinner with me, you can then say, okay, you are my day one David O. Whiz kid Burnaboy. There's no way for them to tell who are their day ones right now. In 20 years time, as this technology improves and we see artists utilizing as a tool, almost like a membership club tool in some aspects, you will know who your day ones are. And then you can go back and reward your day ones. You followed me when I was nothing. You bought my album when I was zero, and you still believed. Because I know this game. You get to that superstar level. There's so many people around you who claim they were there when they weren't there. They just saw your heat, saw how hot you were, and they tried to get as close as possible. But there's those who, there's whiz kid. They're real whiz kid. Fc. Real David O. They're real 30 BG guys who are there from the beginning. Real outsiders. Do you understand? And I think for me, that's one of the best use cases for NFT technology when it comes to the music space. But I think NFTs have multiple applications.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Okay. All right. So if you watch, if you've been watching this podcast for this long, I think by now you now know NFTs are not dead. It's just the way we think about them. It's your perspective towards it. There was a rave. There was a lot of noise about it. Now there isn't so much noise, but doesn't mean the tech itself has died. And by now, I'm sure you've seen a different way to look at the technology.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Those will come back. The boys will come back. Look, I'll tell you one other thing.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Which is my naked.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: I'll tell you one other thing, like nfts do well when people get crypto rich.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Exactly what I was about to ask.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Now that the market is doing well, are we going to see some more NFT noise?
[00:29:23] Speaker B: 100%. Because people are just getting crypto rich again. You know, like, I'm saying, like, I know people who are making like six figures. There are people in groups that I've been in who are killing it on right now. There's a whole meme coin, kind of like craze. Yeah, I will. I saw. The truth is, I saw the meta of memes, like, back in maybe November, December, last cycle. I just faded memes. I wasn't interested in Doge and Shiba and all of those ones, but I got it. It's culture. It's still culture. On the blockchain. I was lucky enough to get into some really amazing projects. Like with. With now just has about a $3 billion market cap. I think I bought it early and I got my. I bought for my mom, I bought for my wife. They're like, they're happy with their games. They're like, yo, is this what you've been doing on this in this whole crypto thing. That means the whiff has done really well for me personally. I've already made some sick gains this cycle, and we've just started the cycle. There will be more gains, and then what happens is towards the end of the cycle, you're like, okay, I've got all this crypto wealth now. What can I do with it? And you can't go to farm city or chicken republic and use your ethereum or your solana to send. It's not easy. And there's a whole process to turn it into fiat. So you will try to turn some into cash, but you will spend some on the blockchain. And then that's where these identity projects come in. Like, in real life, like when you flex, like when you see an artist buy a watch with ice, maybe a Rolex or Audemars PJ or a patek, it's a flex. There's no difference between a Casio watch, an apple Watch, and a watch that costs $500,000. What's the one they're all wearing now? Richard Mill. Yeah, David has a Richard Mill. Our governor Sauolu has Richard Mills. Remember, has a Richard mill. And these Richard Mills are like 200, 5500, $10 million or whatever, right? It's a flexed apple watch, tells the same time, but it's a status flex. Right? Pfps on NFTs as identities, like cryptopunks is the same thing. All my id online has my cryptopunk. And it's almost like I'm signaling to people that, yeah, I was early in this space that this is who I am. Show me some respect. You can have a PFP of something that make. That means nothing. Not everybody's into the watch game. Everyone picks their up games.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: True.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Is the car game. Some people is the Banana island house I won game. Some people is the private jet game. Some people is the watches game. Some people it's the digital identity game.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: I'm not rich enough to figure out my own game, bro.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: It's not, it's not. It's not about. It's about. See, this cycle, there will be projects. Yeah, NFT projects that mint millionaires, therefore, right? And they haven't even started yet. They're still on zero or they haven't started. I'm telling you that.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: All right, guys, I'm going to create a small. I don't know if it's discord or WhatsApp group. Very close group with Michael, but it cost you money. It costs you money to get in.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Business, yeah, they find their own alpha and everybody just add a disco group. But it's stress to run. But I may open it up again, but I share information. When people hit me up on my IGDM or people who know me on WhatsApp. Yeah, I don't. End of the day, these are all like, bets. Everyone has to be ready to take the risk.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Something I keep telling people. You just have to read it.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Take the risk.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: I just got an idea. Do you know what coin.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Yes. And I have a thesis on that as well.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I just, you know, you said identity projects.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Could become big and still open it. Once I leave here. Once I leave here, I'm going to go and spend some money on the wall. Coin token.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually, I won't lie, I was put off by the project when they had these, like, orbs. Yeah, let me scan your eyeball and I'm going to give you some tokens. And I was like, nah, get out of here. I think that's dumbed down a little bit. And I think it's an interesting project and because of the fact that we've seen what chat GPT has done, it's the same guy, Sam Altman. True, it's the same guy. So if we. I'm sure a lot of people use chat GPT today, right? So if we've seen where AI is going, what these LLM models are doing, I think that Sam knows what he's doing with world coin in terms of, like, identity.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah. We also probably going to be my own project that catapults me into that.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Amen, bro. Amen, bro. Check the market. Buy some meme coins as well, man.
There's a new slogan that we have in this space. Last cycle, the slogan was we had a few slogans, we are gonna make it, which is wag me.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Wag me, right.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: And then have fun staying poor. Right? Because as everyone was getting rich, we'd be like, have fun staying poor. We all got poor the last two years, don't get it wrong. But this cycle, the way I see it, the slogan that we like so far is called choose rich every time.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: Choose rich.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Choose rich every time.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: I'm choosing rich.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Choose rich every time, bro.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Like something you say in church, I swear I choose rich.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yes, dad, you don't choose poor.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Now.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Choose rich every time.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
It's been a really fun conversation with you.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Yeah, man. It's all love, it's all good.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Guys. Now you know more about what's really going on in the NFT market, what's also going on in the crypto market. It's. These are exciting times. I'm sure soon very something to evolve beyond us just making money from these markets. I'm sure very soon they will have more reward use cases on how we live our lives and things like that.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah. That's looking.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Please, people don't fake crypto. It's a crazy space. What I always tell people that. Yes. People tell me, there's so much scams. 99% of NFTs last cycle, I won't lie, they were like grimy, a large chunk of them. But you got to find that 1%, that 1%, it could change your life. It can change your perspective. And you can hold these things for a long term, like you hold property and what have you. So don't fade this space. I'm not a crazy guy, right? Try to listen to me.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. I mean, listen to Michael. Michael has been in space for just Google crypto punks, Google board, Apias Club, and you know that he knows what he's talking about. All right. Yeah. Very interesting conversation with me, Michael. I hope by the next time we do this, I would have made my own millions.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Yes, for sure.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Make sure you follow our social media pages to get more updates on what's going on in the world of tech in Africa. Make sure you follow our newsletters. The tech Point Digest gives you a daily roundup of every, everything going on in tech in Africa. If you're into investments, you want to know how VC's invest, how NGO's also invest, you want to subscribe to the equity Merchant newsletter, trust me, it's. It will be worth your while. Um, that's anchored by Team Crozerim, and I think he has spoken to at least probably almost a hundred investors, so he knows what he's talking about.
Also in the workspace, right? You want to know what's going on with work? What's. How do you hire the best employees? How do you make sure employees stay? Or as an employee, you want to know, how do you guys, how do you get the best deals right from your employer? You want to subscribe to the Workplace Africa newsletter. That will be all from me and Mike today. Make sure you share this with your friends, family, everyone. And have a. What's the new slogan for this?
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Okay, can I swear? Can I swear?
No. Okay, because there's two. But look, trust me. Choose rich.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: Choose rich.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Every time.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Every time. That'll be all from us. Bye.
