Exploring the endless possibilities that arise from the convergence of physical and digital art with special guest Jamie Parmenter, CEO of RealNifty

In this episode, Jamie focuses on the seamless integration of physical and digital art within the NFT landscape. Learn how RealNifty enables artists to effectively communicate with collectors through their marketplace, offering various levels of intellectual property (IP) rights for creations and providing an easy-to-use platform.

Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation with Jamie Parmenter, CEO of RealNifty! Tune in to the exciting realm of bridging the gap between physical and digital art. For Creators, Artists & Noobies alike!

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RealNifty - Bridging the gap between physical and digital art

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Jamie Parmenter (CEO of RealNifty)

00:00

Nadja

Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja from AdLunam and you are listening to The Future of NFTs, the show that looks beyond current NFT use cases to non fungible token technology is evolving into all as seen through the eyes and built by the minds of the absolutely fascinating guest speakers that we are lucky enough to speak to each week. As for AdLunam is a dynamic Web3 investment ecosystem, nurturing early stage projects. We cover everything from tokenomics marketing, community growth, public relations, and institutional fundraising to retail market IDO launches. And our Engage to Earn platform is redefining how investors interact with IDOs.

01:07

Nadja

And with dynamic NFTs, we have a monthly Web3 pitch arena that connects innovative startups with VC funding. And you can catch our podcast, The Future of NFTs and Diving into Crypto live or recorded each week. Because with AdLunam, we are not just predicting the future of Web3, we are building it. Which is exactly the case for my guest today. So I have with me Jamie Parmenter, who is the CEO of RealNifty. Jamie has a successful background in having grown and run a community oriented online music platform called Vinyl Chapters. Jamie has since moved into the creative side of Web3 and blockchain by helping to reduce the friction between the physical and the digital when it comes to NFTs. As CEO of RealNifty, Jamie is also a LinkedIn creator, accelerator, alumni, and a Web3 thought leader. As for RealNifty. It’s a curated physical and digital NFT marketplace and agency focused on helping accomplished artists and creatives showcase and sell their work.

02:17

Nadja

So looking forward to hearing more from Jamie today exactly what RealNifty does and what it offers the marketplace and really have a chat about, as always, the Future of NFTs, the Web3 industry and where things are going and where it might be going. So Jamie, once again, welcome so much on the show. Maybe you can start just by talking how the idea for RealNifty came about as you moved out of the career that you were in. Of course, there's also a lot of opportunities for music in Web3. So very curious what led to starting RealNifty?

02:55

Jamie

Hey, Nadja, thanks for inviting me along to this. It's a pleasure to be here. Can you hear me okay now?

03:01

Nadja

Yes, the sound is much clearer. Thanks, Jamie.

03:04

Jamie

No worries, no worries. So, yeah, I guess this kind of goes back to my youth. I mean, I've always been a fan of know technology and creative projects, and I've just concentrated on that most of my life. Growing up, I was in a lot of bands, unfortunately none of them got to the stage where they got signed. I'm more of, I guess you could say on the business side of things. Now, I wasn't a great musician, but I do enjoy the industry so I wanted to stick around in it. And that's why early on in my life I studied sociology at university which really helped with community building and having a focus on how to build those communities, what communities are like and how they can operate in the real world. And I still wanted to keep the music and creativity there as well. So I even did my dissertation on it was on the punk subculture actually and it was quite interesting because it was within the online communities as well.

04:00

Jamie

So again, back in the day, it was a long time ago, I went to university but I was still even then looking at communities online and how you can build them and how you can actually grow these communities in a more technological way. And this basically led to me joining a lot of radio stations. So I joined them to work there to join in the communities to figure out the music industry and see what I could do, work my way along there. And I got to a stage where after a few media outlets and radio stations, I wanted to have that. I had that entrepreneurial bug that really sort of grabbed me. And that's when I went out there and formed Vinyl Chapters, which was a community based project, where to begin with, it was based around I would go outside and hang outside of record stores and wait for people to come out with a new record and ask them a few questions about what they bought, why they bought that record, why they wanted that in their collection.

04:54

Jamie

And then I'd take a photo of them and put these stories up on the Internet. So it was kind of a platform where you would get to know the stories behind the music and again, it just really created that energy that I like about community and stories which has always been with me. And this kind of grew onto an online platform where I'd actually hired a few writers. It turned into an online magazine style thing where as long as with those stories from people I used to get reviews, interviews of artists and musicians and that was going really well. And I got to a stage again where I really wanted to concentrate more on technology and music was my passion as it has always been, so it was kind of based around that. And then this is where I came round the idea a few years ago of NFTs and web3 technology.

05:41

Jamie

And I started reading a lot more about this, and I realized at that time there was an actual music drop, one of the first of its kind, and this was actually a physical and digital drop back in the day. So this was one of the first physical and digital NFT drops that happened. And this involved the rock band kings of Leon. So what they were doing, they were giving away an NFT with their new record. And with that NFT you would actually get a copy of their new record on vinyl so that'd be delivered to you in the real world. And so I threw myself completely into this. I learned how to use wallets, how to buy cryptocurrency, and I decided to write an article about the whole thing for vinyl chapters. And so I built this whole how to piece what it is, what NFTs are, how the music industry is using them.

06:25

Jamie

And with it I was also looking at the pros and cons. So at this early stage, obviously with physical and digital, there were lots of caveats, there were lots of problems going on in the industry with this kings of Leon NFT drop. For example, I bought the NFT and I didn't get the vinyl record until about ten months after, which was crazy to me because I could have actually just gone out and bought that record at the time straight away. And at one point they were actually trying to charge the community over $100 for delivery outside of the US. Which was absolutely crazy to me. So this is where I kind of realized there were problems of the physical and digital in the community and I wanted to really go in there and help out and build out that presence. And what one thing did hit me was the community really fought back against the $100 delivery service and not receiving their records straight away and some damages that actually happened to the vinyl records.

07:23

Jamie

And it showed me the power of community in web3. And again, this has again sparked my excitement and really wanted me to get more involved in the industry. So I freed myself in and I put out this article up there and luckily actually got picked up by the BBC website and I started getting quoted asking to go on radio stations and TV to speak about NFTs and how it all works. And yeah, from this time I started really building up my presence. I started building more connections on LinkedIn and life and going to conferences, that kind of thing, really just throwing myself in the deep end, learning about everything I could and building up in the industry. And this is where I actually got to the start and we started finding RealNifty. So me and the founder of RealNifty, met her two and a half years ago and we just both realized we are on the same wavelength when it came to improving the frictions between the physical and digital for NFTs in the creative industries.

08:22

Jamie

And that's where it all began. And RealNifty was born, as you mentioned earlier, as a physical digital marketplace and agency where we really focus on helping artists and creatives showcase and sell their work and we've been working on that ever since.

08:39

Nadja

09:47

Nadja

And I mean, that of course is one of the issues is where such big promises made in terms of how much money people are going to be making with NFTs. But I think we are moving as industry, we're definitely moving away from this idea that NFTs are there to make money with the quick gains. So, really curious at this time in the market, how are you finding the process of onboarding new creatives that are new to the Web3 industry and what are some of the barriers that you might face in convincing these people that this is a good avenue to go with?

10:23

Jamie

Yeah, that's a great question and like you say, it's a difficult atmosphere out there at the moment in the bear market. And I think you go back a year ago and it was an absolute craze. And I think that's what some artists and creators still think is going to happen to them when they join web3. And we do try to make sure that artists and collectors don't think that's the way we see this as an added benefit to their art and creativity. It's not going to be a quick win for everyone. If you look back at it, I would say it's about 1% of the artists and creators out there that had this viral content that they made millions from. And of course the media and everyone involved picks up on that and starts promoting it and then people get excited and then the bull run kind of happened.

11:08

Jamie

But what we tried to do I mean, if we look back at when it was COVID and we have platforms coming up that really started to promote artists in more of a digital manner, I think they needed it back then because they couldn't go out to exhibitions in the real world. Musicians couldn't go and perform and they were losing money. And I think these platforms like Clubhouse really helped to actually start forming those communities in the aspect and really streamlined and fastened up the process of what Web3 could do. And that was a good start. And I think now what we need to do as creator platforms or marketplaces is really educate these artists and creators into how to grow in the space, how to build their own communities. And that's where we kind of look a bit differently with RealNifty. We're not one of these platforms or marketplaces that just says to artists and creators to come along and join our platform and then that's it.

12:09

Jamie

They're on the platform. We actually see it as a partnership. We want to help them build their community. We want to use their community to help build ours. But not only that, we want them to work with the other artists on our platform. And that's why we're very big on doing Twitter spaces like you're doing here, where you can get lots of people involved. We'll invite all of the artists from our platform along to come and speak about their artwork, to join in with partnerships, perhaps with other artists, with other galleries that are joining us. And I think we'd see it as a big family rather than you're just using our platform. And I think this is what artists need, and they need to understand when they join, it's not going to be a quick win. They're not coming to us to suddenly make lots of money.

12:54

Jamie

They're coming to us to get their artwork out there, and they're going to have to work hard as well. It's not just going to come and join and then sell your artwork out. We're going to be here to help you, but you've got to help yourself as well. And I think this is why there's a disconnect, especially in the fine art world at the moment in traditional art world with galleries. Galleries are kind of a little bit scared of NFTs in ways some of the ones that I spoke to anyway. And I think this is why there seems to be a missing link there. And again, this is something that we're trying to fix at RealNifty. We're reaching out to galleries as well as artists to try and educate them on the space and what they can do and why we're here and why we shouldn't be seen as fearful, why we should be seen as complementary to the artworks that they're trying to sell and trying to introduce them to the technology and see where it goes from there.

13:42

Jamie

So I think that's a long winded way of saying, yeah, most cases you're not going to make a big money, but this is a new transition to a new world, and it's another way to make money. You don't have to just rely on your traditional physical artwork. You can combine it with digital or even sell digital only.

14:01

Nadja

I think this is such a good point though, because I've noticed over the last few years, I mean, there were these singular NFT marketplaces and then very quickly a whole bunch of them popped up. And really the only function would be for you as an artist to go on their platform to list your work. And really, from the sounds of it, especially how you are building out RealNifty, it sounds more like a partnership that you are supporting these artists through various aspects of them entering this world of Web3 into starting to use NFTs, getting their art on there, building their communities. So would you say that in the future of NFT marketplace? Marketplaces that we are going to see an increased shift towards a more holistic sort of partnership model as opposed to just a marketplace where you just go to list your work, where there's not really this relationship, this deep relationship between the marketplace or the support resources for the artists available in the web three space?

15:02

Jamie

I hope so. I think there's going to be a lot of more niche marketplaces out there. I think rather than just say, people minting on places that OpenSea. And I think there's going to be a lot more attitude for artists to actually choose which platform they go on and which they promote. I think there's going to be some artists that do want that hands on approach and there's going to be some other people that want that hands off. Some creators just want to create. Some of us want to have that control over their marketing. So it really depends on the type of creator. And I think at RealNifty we want to be able to invite people that know what they want, that know how to market themselves, but also want that extra help in the education. We have a lot of different things on the marketplace that other marketplaces don't.

15:54

Jamie

We like to do things a bit differently, and I think this really helps out the artists. I mean, for example, we're primarily a physical and digital platform, which means we decided to embed these very easy delivery services that artists can actually choose from. We wanted to take away the difficulties that some people would have with that if they wanted to. For example, if you go to somewhere like OpenSea and a piece of artwork or NFT has a physical item attached, you'd have to go to the description usually and find an email address where it would say, email me for when you want to receive the physical. And obviously, a lot of people would find this a bit weird and not safe to actually just email someone and hope that the physical item comes along. Whereas on RealNifty we work with a third party delivery service for fine art, which means it's all protected it's all insured.

16:49

Jamie

You can do it straight through the marketplace by just pressing redeem, and then you get to choose from different levels of delivery. You can go all up from white glove service where if it's a really expensive piece of fine art, you can have it packaged and collected and hanged on delivery to economy options as well. If the artist still does want to get involved, we still offer self-delivery as well. So I think it's giving those artists the options and also letting them develop their own community as well if they want giving them that optionality. This is why we thought it was so important to make sure we had a messaging system on the marketplace as well, so creators and collectors could actually communicate through the marketplace. And the reason we wanted this is it comes back, as you know, with sociology and community.

17:39

Jamie

It's very important to me and very important to artists to be able to tell their story behind the you know, you don't necessarily get that story completely through on the description on the marketplace. So we wanted to give people a chance to reach out to these artists and ask more about the artwork that they could be collecting. And also, obviously, we have these spaces and interviews with all the artists and it gives them a chance to actually tell us a bit more about the artwork and why they did it in the first place. So I really do think there's going to be a lot more options out there in the future. And I do believe that platforms like OpenSea will probably be secondary. Obviously, a lot of NFTs do go on OpenSea automatically, but I think people will start using more of these niche platforms where they're more present and more fits their kind of creativity and artwork.

18:29

Nadja

So I'm curious then, if you think about an art in the traditional world, let's say non web3 world, building a community versus building a community in web3, what are some of the differences that an artist can expect building a community in this space? What opportunities does it open up? And also, what do these communities want from the artists in terms of this community that they're in? What is it that they are actually after that artists can look out for when they are building these communities?

18:59

Jamie

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think it's quite good to cite some of the artists on the RealNifty platform to actually answer that, because we've got a real range. We've got artists like Lila Pinto, for example, who is an abstract artist, and she actually came to us with both a traditional art background and a digital art background, which was fantastic because we kind of used her as a use case because she started off as a traditional artist but also formed her own community as a digital artist as well. Before we reached out to, you know, you have artists like Lila who have come to us and have these two audiences know, reacts to them differently, but is also trying to combine them together. And it was really good to see how she did that and grow into the space. And then we have other artists like Olasishi, who's, again, a fantastic physical artist, but this was her first steps into the traditional space.

19:55

Jamie

She needed a lot of educating on how it all works and how the marketplace works, and even down to buying crypto and opening a MetaMask wallet. These are the things that me and the team actually sat down with Ola to explain to her. And we feel like that kind of education is very important to really combine the traditional and digital art worlds as we go on. And again, this is why we're actually contacting galleries and using focus groups to figure out what it is that artists want and need and how their different audiences are reacting to their artwork within the space. And a lot of people might say that focus groups is quite Web2 and isn't very Web3, but I think we need to really connect dots here and use facilities from both. It's something that I've always found in my career to be very important focus groups to keep you on the right level and to actually find the right processes to move the industry forward.

20:53

Jamie

And so, yeah, when it comes to actually the audiences, obviously, I guess one of our struggles has been to really unite communities within the Web2 and Web3 space because they operate very differently at the moment in time anyway. For example, if you go back a year ago, every platform or project in Web3 had a Discord and people would be on there constantly trying to grow their communities, trying to show them the ropes, build that hype. But again, this is something that I could see that this wasn't going to last. People were going to get really annoyed of this in the long run. And a lot of it that I saw in Discord was fake conversation. So I think what we've been trying to do is actually grow a real community and have that educational aspect between the traditional and digital, which I'm not going to lie, Nadja, it has been hard.

21:44

Jamie

And we knew it would be hard from the very start. We knew anything that's worth doing isn't easy. And combining the traditional art world with the digital art world has been difficult. But we are getting there and we're starting to see more communication from galleries and more artists coming to us and saying, I'd love to get more involved with this. How can I transition my audience? And I think there's lots of different answers, and I think it depends on what kind of artist you are as well. If you're traditional, a very traditional artist, then I think it's going to be a lot more difficult for you to transition your audience, but you have the opportunity to grow a new audience within the space at the same time. And I think there's a lot of people out there that are planning to do that. And then if you're more, say, like a modern artist, I think it's a lot easier.

22:30

Jamie

You might have a younger audience that follows you, which is more susceptible to coming over to web3 or may have used it already. And I think the main caveat now is that in the next year or two, definitely the web3 technology is going to be pushed into the background and people will be receiving and using these digital assets without even knowing that they're NFTs. It's just going to become a lot more natural and I think this is going to benefit a lot more of galleries and artists and creators out there as we grow into the space. It's going to be a lot easier. But I think the benefits to those that join the industry now and try to learn it themselves, they're going to be ahead of the game and I think it's going to know, help them sell their artwork and get known in both the digital and physical worlds.

23:15

Nadja

Yeah, it's a brave new world ahead. So, Jamie, the million dollar question. We and web3 love our acronyms and our terminologies. I mean, the name of the show is called The Future of NFTs. And if you don't know what NFTs mean, then the name of the show even would be lost. So I'm curious as we continue to move into this globally, not only in the NFT art, but really across web3 and even the digital space as a whole, we are already seeing brands adopting NFT technology, but not calling it NFTs. What thoughts on how important it is for people to genuinely understand what an NFT is? Or is it really just going to be a case? As you say, it will be a digital asset. Everyone will be using it, will be buying it, will be trading without really thinking about the underlying mechanisms of how it works.

24:06

Nadja

Because at the moment, that seems to really be something that is a hindrance to a lot of people. They hear the terms, they hear complexity behind it, and then immediately there's this sort of cognitive dissonance that takes place where it's just immediately, no, I don't know what that is all about. Understand it. So I'm just going to look the other way. So do you think that this is the future away with all of these terms and all of the very complex explanations and just integrate it into people's lives? As you have the physical object, you have the digital object, both of them kind of coexist equally?

24:43

Jamie

Yeah, again, that's a fantastic question and yeah, I do agree with that completely. I mean, technology is going to be pushed into the background and to me this is a great thing. The industry is currently difficult to understand for many. Like you mentioned, Nadja, there's lots of abbreviations out there, people not understanding what Web3 is and how it works, what NFTs actually are. But the crux of the matter is that they don't need to know. All they need to know is like digital assets are going to be a big thing of the future. They're going to be safe, they're going to be immutable, and they’re going to be collectible. And there's so many out keeper out there in the minute that don't know what or what it is that haven't bought any crypto. But there's lots of steps being made out there. But there is still lots to do.

25:27

Jamie

As well, as you mentioned, there's a lot of platforms that are currently trialing using web3 technology without actually mentioning that it is web3. And I mean a couple of examples that I have there's the Starbucks Royalty program that have done brilliant steps going forward into building their brand. I mean, obviously, being one of the world's biggest coffee franchises, it's pretty easy for them to go out there and spend millions to make these platforms or get their audience involved. But still they've done it without mentioning what web3 is or what NFTs are. Again, Reddit did it with their digital avatars. They got people involved. They sold millions of these digital Reddit avatars without really mentioning much about Blockchain or web3. And there's other platforms out there that have started using and selling NFTs without having people to buy cryptocurrency, which has been a great way to onboard people.

26:21

Jamie

They can just use their credit and debit cards. I really like what Tezos has been doing recently in the sports world. I don't know whether you've heard, but I mean, the Formula One is on at the moment with every race that happens, Tezos are actually giving away with McLaren an NFT for four days during the actual race time, which has been fantastic. People are actually collecting these NFTs and then if you collect a certain number, you get put into a draw to win the competition, to go and see one of the F1 races, which I think is fantastic. Manchester United, again, they've done a fantastic project where they had a very low priced initial NFT, which they were selling for I think it was something for like 20 pounds, $20. And then once you have that, every time Manchester United played, if they won, you would get a free NFT sent to your wallet.

27:11

Jamie

So again, it's kind of showing people what these digital collectors are about and getting them used to it without having that technology on the outside. And again, it's something that we're trying to move towards at RealNifty as well, to actually try and combine and get people used to web3 tech. We've actually just started releasing giving people the opportunity to buy the physical only from RealNifty. The platform. With credit card and debit card. And the reason we've done that, this is completely basically separate from NFTs. People will come to the platform if they don't know what NFTs are, they can actually just buy a physical art, the physical art piece only. And some people might think this is a bit weird, but our thought behind this is we want people to come to the platform from traditional art worlds as well as digital.

28:01

Jamie

And once they buy that NFT sorry, once they buy that physical piece, we want to basically educate them on the NFT. We want the artist to hold onto it for them and say, hey, did you know you can open a wallet and have all these extra benefits or support the artist by having the NFT, we want to teach them that education and really bring them into the industry. And I think as well as pushing the technology into the background, we still got to educate people on what NFTs can do or what digital collectibles can bring and can help to artists. So I think there's lots of different ways we can do this. And obviously, as you know, at the moment, AI is the poster child of tech over the last few months or so. But I do think there's also a big industry for how AI and Web3 can work together to continue this.

28:48

Jamie

I know there was recently an initiative that I recently wrote about that was both AI and web3 combined together by it was called MasterCard Music Accelerator. And what they actually did, they use AI to create music tracks. So you could go on and use this online board basically to create your own music. Then that music was then minted as an NFT. So combining these new innovations together in the creative and AI industries I think is a great way to showcase exactly what people can do in the creative space. And of course, this could lead on to say someone makes their own track. It could be the first time they've made their own music track. Then that might push them towards actually picking up an instrument in the real world and then realizing, oh, I actually love creating music, or picking up a paintbrush and then creating their first painting.

29:39

Jamie

It's something that really excites me and anything that gets people more involved in the creative industries, especially when the technology like this is pushed more into the background and it's very easy to use, I really feel it's pushing the way forward for innovation and keeping creativity part of the human race.

29:57

Nadja

I want to add on to that by asking you a follow up question. We talk so much about mass adoption and I mean, it almost becomes like the unicorn that we are looking for. But what are your thoughts on how adoption is actually to happen? Because from the sounds of it, especially what you're doing about offering buyers a physical object only and then with the option to buy an NFT. That's a much more the cat and the stick. That's not necessarily the way that we are going to bring people into the industry is by knocking their doors down and about the wonders of Web3. It sounds like a much more logical and really just understanding where people are from approach to getting people to onboard into this industry. So what are your thoughts in terms of how Web3 is going to gain, let's not say mass adoption, but at least much greater adoption that we have at the moment.

30:55

Jamie

Yeah, I do think it's going to take time. It's not going to be an overnight effort. And I think how I like to usually cite this question is looking back at the internet in the 90s when that first came around, I mean, nobody knew what it was. It took a long time. If you watch some talk shows back then, everyone's kind of taking the mickey out of what this internet thing is, what computers are and how they're going to be involved in our everyday lives. I don't think most of the people back then when it first came out would never have predicted what the world was going to look like today. And I think that's going to be the same situation with web3 and blockchain technology. I think there's a few of us that realize it's going to take over the world, but I think it's going to take like 5,10 years to really be embedded in our culture, in our community, just like the internet did.

31:48

Jamie

And I think again, going back to the technology being pushed at the background, not everyone knows how to use the internet, but everyone uses it every day. And I think that's an important differentiation to have. People are going to be using this technology without actually knowing it. But it is going to take the internet took a long time to catch on. I guess it was probably about two thousand’s or something, which again is another ten year period before everything started getting easier. I mean, when the internet first came out, I remember the screeching phone lines trying to download a trailer. I can't remember what film it was for, but I think it took like 4 hours to download the trailer. And I'm so glad the younger generation today doesn't have to deal with that. They can just hop online and watch any trailer they want within seconds.

32:39

Jamie

And again it just goes back to the technology of web3. It takes a long time to set up a wallet to make sure that you've got the right amount of cryptocurrency. There's lots of different ways of doing that at the moment. All these processes are going to be very streamlined. They're going to be done in seconds in the future and I think we just need to keep promoting the fact that's going to come. But with people and mass adoption action speaks louder than words. If we make it easier, people are going to use it more. It's as simple as that. And I think as soon as we can actually solve that problem and move forward, there's lots of people a lot more intelligent than myself working on a lot of these issues out there. It's going to open a whole new world for us.

33:21

Jamie

And my passion is physical and digital, and I'm continuously working and reading and learning on ways in which we combine these more and make these frictions disappear of what we have at the moment overall in the industry. We're not quite there yet. It's very hard to say. Even if you can have a QR code on a physical piece or NFC chip or whatever else, it still can be damaged. You still can't completely physically combine the physical and digital. And there's lots of ideas. We're working on ourselves and there's lots of ideas out there. There's kind of holding NFTs and money in escrow as the physical is delivered. That's some of the options that people were looking at. I was even reading the other day about a spray you can spray on physical items, which means it's completely embedded and you can scan this spray so it never goes away over years.

34:13

Jamie

There's lots of really interesting things out there, but I think this is what I'm excited about at the moment, is the opportunities that we have and give it five or ten years and everyone's going to be using this without even the second thought, just like we're using the Internet now.

34:29

Nadja

Yeah, I mean, you're so right because I still get nightmares thinking about that dial up modem sounds that we need to go through in order to just to be able to connect to any Internet whatsoever. And back then, there was no easy ways to find any information you were looking for and it was quite a mess. So we've come a long way, even just as consumers, never mind as businesses and as the tech industry as a whole. So I want to talk more about the idea of digital because this is something that more and more people are turning their focus towards. But I really want to understand from the way that you look at it, why do we need digital? Why do we need this crossover between the physical world out there? I mean, we are talking about the metaverse as if in the future we're all going to only be in the metaverse and there's going to be no real world.

35:19

Nadja

Of course, that's the one narrative going on. The other narrative as well will never really be fully digital because we need this physical presence, this physical aspect to us. So what are your thoughts on where the concept of digital, whether it's art, whether it's other products that we consume, where does it fit into our lives, especially as we continue to evolve as a technological society?

35:46

Jamie

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of examples that we can have here. And as RealNifty is focused on fine art at the moment, even though we're expanding out to fashion and photography and film, for me, with fine art, one of the reasons is provenance, and I think there's lots of different ways that you can actually follow artwork in the real world, but it's not secure with provenance and with the blockchain, you can actually prove exactly where a fine piece of art has been if you can actually link it to it. And I think this is going to be very important in actually opening out the art world to everyone. The art world itself, it's always felt very closed. And I know people are actually scared to go into art galleries because they feel they don't know enough about the artwork or they're scared to speak to people in there or the artists themselves.

36:42

Jamie

And I think this digital and physical combination is actually going to help open up the art world to a lot more people than it currently did. So, along with provenance, which we're working on at RealNifty as well, we're making sure that we have IP rights, for example, digitally binded to the NFTs and the physical aspects that we sell, which means both the creator and the character know exactly what rights they have to the NFT and to the physical item that they've purchased, which, again, I think is very important to do. And again, it leads back to the heyday of the Bull Run over a year ago when you would actually go onto these project websites and half of them wouldn't well, I'd say more than half wouldn't actually have even any terms and conditions, which is terrifying. You're actually buying something without any protection at all.

37:38

Jamie

So we made this an opportunity to actually embed IP rights directly onto the NFT page. So both the collector, creator, and anyone that wants to see can actually see the IP rights right there. I mean, there was horror stories back in the day last year of BAYC, Bored Ape Yacht Club and how they didn't really tie down their IP rights properly. There was people, I think it was Seth Green that had his project, his board ape, hacked. And because of that, he was in the middle of making a television series about it, about his bored ape. And then he wasn't able to actually make this series because he no longer owned the IP rights to this bored ape, until he bought it back for another few hundred thousand. Which just shows you the complications that a new industry can actually bring for IP rights. So we're really trying to make sure we have that provenance tied down, that we have the IP rights sorted.

38:34

Jamie

And I think being able to have physical and digital, like I said, opens that artwork to a lot more people. We have, for example, two online metaverse galleries that we invite our artists to come along to when they join the platform, we'll decorate the gallery with their artwork. We'll invite our audience along. They can invite their audience, and then we get random people in there as well. People that, for example, aren't able to go and see this artist's artwork in the real world because of distance, because of money. They can actually come to our online gallery, have a conversation in the Metaverse with the artist, have a proper look at the artwork, have a look around, and enjoy that community of people that's there. And I think when you combine these physical and digital aspects, it just grows that community, grows that essence and opens the art world to a lot more people.

39:32

Jamie

And again, if we're looking at another example, let's look at music and ticketing. This is going to be absolutely huge for me in the future. I've already seen a few music ticketing platforms start to use NFTs. You can use this as a physical reminder of that gig. Instead of holding onto a ticket stub, you can actually hold onto a digital collectible that we can keep for life. You can have aspects of that could mean you have entry into communities online which you could associate with the band themselves, say, or other fans of the group, and give you access to, say, 10% off tickets in the future. And also it works on the level of being able to be a more secure way of selling your ticket. For example, instead of having to really go to the gig sometimes and buy a physical ticket off a scalper, which then you realize is a fake ticket and you've spent 100 pounds or $100 and can't actually get into the event anymore.

40:32

Jamie

41:34

Jamie

And NFTs and digital collectibles are actually going to really help out those independent musicians. They don't make much money from streaming because of how Spotify operates. And I think it's going to be a big call for the music industry and it's going to not only help the creatives, but actually their fans as well, really combine with each other to grow the industry in a better way than it is at the moment.

42:00

Nadja

Those are really some fascinating use cases. I know Africa Burn, which is a concert or a festival rather In South Africa. They have this policy where if you resell the ticket, it can't go higher than a certain amount, but there's no technology backing it. So even just a use case like this It's thing that people are genuinely already struggling with, so fascinating to think about the applications in future of all these kinds of technologies. Speaking of which, so NFTs came to the scene and it blew up and it's been the talk of the town. And as I said earlier, I mean, of course the market dropping, NFTs have seen this thing, but there's also been a lot of movement within the NFT industry. A lot of people still associate it only with digital art or PFPs, or these very specific use cases for NFTs that most people, when they think of NFTs, when they do know something about it, that's what they kind of default to.

42:54

Nadja

But I'm curious, what significant shifts have you noticed in the NFT landscape? Maybe even possibly before you started RealNifty, but especially since starting RealNifty, what shifts are currently taking place that perhaps if you're not keeping too close an ear to the ground, you might not be picking up. But of course, if this is your bread and butter and it's something that you work with every day, you definitely do see these subtle changes. So do you have any that you can share that you are currently seeing in terms of where things might be?

43:26

Jamie

I mean, like you mentioned, Nadja, I think there's definitely a shift away from these PFP projects. I think they're know going into the background now, it was great to kind of show what NFTs are capable of in the beginning, but I think it got overshadowed in the media. There was a lot of people it grew to a stage when there was a lot of rug pulls out there and we've all seen them in the media. Some of us, I'm sure, have been involved in being rug pulled themselves, which has been horrific. I mean, I know so many people out there that have had their wallets hacked as well, which is another concern. And I think we're starting to move away from this kind of thing and actually be able to really discover actual use cases and grow the industry as a whole in the direction where more of the mass population are going to be able to get involved.

44:23

Jamie

Especially for me, at RealNifty, we've always focused on the physical and digital. We never really went in for these quick buck making, I guess, PFP projects. I'm not slamming PFP projects. There's some great ones out there with some great communities, but I think that's at the moment, still the tip of the iceberg when it comes to NFTs. Now, like I said, Ticketing is going to be a massive thing for me in the future, opening the doors to the art world again. It's going to be absolutely huge. And I think the fashion industry has made great leaps forward in this. I think it was recently Louis Vuitton mentioned they've released their own NFT collection for obviously this is more high priced people out there, where I think you get a box for like five grand or something and then you keep getting deals and updates and you get physical and digital stuff involved there.

45:20

Jamie

I really like what some of the platforms have been doing there's big web2 companies, for example, have been dipping their toes in, especially platforms like Nike with the Nike swish, where people have been using buying digital collectibles of trainers. So these trainers are supposed to be able to be used on digital platforms. I think they did an initiation with Fortnite so you could actually wear your bought trainers in there. And I think this is going to get more apparent. There's going to be an online personality where you're actually going to be buying clothes for your online avatar and then you're going to have a real life personality. Sometimes they will be linked, sometimes they won't. And again, I think this is going to be the good thing. You can actually separate your physical and digital lives or you can combine them together. And I think this is the exciting time we're going to have this whole new life online compared to what it was, and it's going to be an interesting future.

46:19

Jamie

Some people are going to get really involved in this and I think as we grow into it, younger generations are already getting used to digital a lot more than our generation. I mean, I've been very lucky to be involved in a time when I grew up, primarily until my teenage years without the internet. And I had that atmosphere of just purely physical, and then I went through physical and digital. Now it's moving towards more digital. I mean, I've got a couple of nephews and one of them, when he was three years old was it two or three, but anyway, I caught him swiping on a magazine as if it was an iPad, as if the image was going to change. And it just shows you how ingrained digital is becoming in our lives now. So I think there's going to be a lot of different ways in which we use this technology.

47:13

Jamie

PFPs were just the tip of the iceberg and I'm excited. I think there's going to be things that me and you can't even think of that are going to be used in the future. And it's just one of those things. I mean, you look back at was it the Victorians and their ideas of the future. I mean, they didn't even have electricity on the mind when it came to the future. So who knows what's going to be invented for us going forward? But wherever it is, I'm looking forward to it. And this is the next stage. We've had the internet going for what, 30, 40 years now? NFTs and web3 and Blockchain is going to be the next iteration and I'm excited to find out what happens next.

47:51

Nadja

Absolutely. And I mean, I think we sometimes forget that technology, the very essence of technology, is something that is constantly evolving into something new. So as soon as something is ten years plus, then it means it's going to be disrupted at some point. And so this idea that change is the only constant, that's especially true in technology, because that's really where so much of the innovation and the disruption lies. So I just want to quickly want to remind the audience that if you do want to ask Jamie a question, please DM the question, the AdLunam Twitter handle, and the team will send it over to me. So, Jamie and maybe one final question just on NFTs. So we've spoken a lot about whether even NFTs should be called NFTs or it's going to be these digital assets that people will be using without really understanding what kind of powers and what drives them.

48:41

Nadja

And so it should because, as you rightly pointed out, people use the internet not really understanding even how the internet works, or electricity, for that matter. And speaking of it just reminds me, I also find myself swiping on magazines. So speaking of fully digitally integrated. So I want to get your thoughts on the broader digital economy. Up until now, we've become accustomed to an internet as we know it, the web2 Internet. But how do you think we spoke earlier about taking about ten years or so until the technology becomes, let's say, commonplace, as opposed to right now, where it's very niche. But what kind of future do you envision? Where this digital economy that we have? What is it going to look like in future, as opposed to right now, where we are starting to kind of cross the barriers in the device between the physical and the digital?

49:40

Jamie

Yeah, that's going to be a really interesting question and I think it really depends on how a lot of the world reacts to it in regards to rules and regulations. I mean, as you can see recently, the US is really pushing against certain crypto aspects. There's places like the UK where I am, which are starting to really welcome them and regulate them in a really interesting way. I know that a16z is going to open their next office in London, which is fantastic. We're going to be able to welcome a lot more startups and interesting teams and people into the UK. But I think what's at the moment, the whole world is kind of separated when it comes to these rules and regulations at the moment. And until we have a bit more of combinations of countries and areas that are going to work together to build these regulations and make similarities between them, it's going to be difficult to actually grow it at a speed and a power that's necessary.

50:48

Jamie

I think, number one, the rules and regulations of different countries are going to be very important and a lot of that is going to be out of most of our control. But what we can do is speak up, keep going to conferences, keep speaking to our governments and making sure that they understand and are educated on crypto and web3 and NFTs. And that's important for people that are in the industry to remember that we're at the beginning here and we're creating what the future is. So again, that's kind of my first point. People who are in the industry now need to make sure we have the power and that we educate people going forward and those rule makers know exactly what it is and what it can lead to. I guess the second point is obviously, as we've already discussed, is pushing that technology into the background and making it easy to use for many people.

51:43

Jamie

And one of the other points, I guess, is the creators and the developers. We've got a brilliant development team at RealNifty and I've worked with a lot of developers, but the team I have at the moment are so easy to talk to. And I think that's important as a developer is to be able to speak to your clients or your staff in a way that helps them understand. So, I mean, I have asked them so many questions and they're very patient with me with what can be done or what can't be done. And I think a lot of these places, when it comes to projects and ideas, we need to make sure that we're all on the same wavelength and moving in the right direction in what can be done and what should be done. More importantly, when it comes to projects out there at the moment, there's lots going on.

52:38

Jamie

For me, the creative space is where it's going to be most apparent, but also you see the good and bad side of what the technology can do. So we've got certain, for example, authorities creating CBDC, so these coins that are on private blockchain that could potentially be used to track, for example, countries where the money is used by every single person in the country. So if they have these digital currencies, instead of being used on an open, decentralized platform, people might have to use them on centralized, which is, of course, worse than actual physical cash at the moment. Governments may be able to track exactly where you are, what you're going, what you're spending your money on, which is frightening, to be honest. So it comes back to those rules and regulations again. But I think most importantly is the pros of what this technology can do.

53:35

Jamie

Where this can take us, it's going to open literal new worlds for us. There's going to be online worlds which can be run by the blockchain, which can be gaining popularity and host events and have these amazing people and bring you closer to communities, going back to community. It's going to grow them into aspects where you can have access to people all over the world that speak your own language, that agree with the same things that you do, that follow the same music you do. It's a really exciting time to be here. And again, I think we just need to be careful of where the technology goes at the same time as promoting it and making sure that people understand what it does. Yeah, I think that's probably my take on it at the moment. I want to always be positive, but also you've got to be careful of what the technology can do in the background as well, where it's going to go and if any unsavory characters can get hold of the technology.

54:42

Jamie

Just like in any cases, obviously, primarily people thought blockchain would be used for criminal activity, and obviously in some cases it is. But I think from the majority now, most transactions are actually safe and secure and are actually for the benefit of, say, people without banking capabilities or people that are using it to open their educational aspects and grow those all over the world. So there's lots of different ways they can be used. And I'm very happy to see what the future holds for us and what it can bring.

55:18

Nadja

Absolutely. Jamie, thank you so much for spending all of this time with us today. I think we've gotten so many absolutely great insights. I have one question. I see we've run out of time, so I'm only going to select one. This is from Nay, how to preserve in brackets, artists. So how should artists preserve through a bear market?

55:40

Jamie

That's a great question. So, yeah, obviously I think artists shouldn't just if they have the opportunity to don't just focus on the digital aspects as well. Make sure that if you came from a physical artist background, make sure that you're keeping on with your physical artwork. Make sure I think you need to concentrate on both web two marketing as well as web free. It's not just about joining on these digital communities or say, being on Twitter amongst other people that are into web3. I mean, that's great to have that community aspect and to be able to have that support there. But you also have to go out there, like with any industry and find your audience. It's really important to actually be able to grow. You have to throw yourself into it and yeah, find those collectors, because not all the time those collectors aren't going to.

56:30

Jamie

Find you, especially in the fine art industry. I know artists that have worked for years to be able to find their audience and find collectors that want to buy their work, and it's through blood, sweat and tears. If you want to be an artist, then it's going to be a hard life for the majority of it. But what I love about art and what I always have, is you're doing something you love. You can survive off doing something you love. You only get one life. And this is what I say to us, is go out there and create and be who you want to be. And if people can understand your story, which is the most important thing for me, you got to have a great story. You've got to be able to seduce those collectors to come along and get to know you. And, yeah, I mean, this is what we look for mostly for people that we want on the RealNifty platform.

57:19

Jamie

We want them to have a great story, to have a great audience and really partner with us. That's our big main thing. We see it as a partnership. We want you to come to us. We want you to mix of our audience. We want to mix of your audience. And that's what I mean. You got to go out there and one of the main things is to collaborate. Collaborate with others, share audiences, and build audiences together. And then in the end, we'll get to that bull market again. But it's not about the bearing bull. It's about building your own audience and being able to support yourself in that.

57:53

Nadja

I couldn't have said it better myself. Jamie, this was an absolutely fascinating hour. We're so delighted to hear the approach that you are taking at RealNifty. I think, as were discussing, that's, certainly something that is going to become more and more prevalent in the industry is really these holistic networks and communities and conversations and support, as opposed to everyone running for the bull market and hiding when it's the bear market. So, on that note, where can the audience follow you? Where can they follow RealNifty? Where are you most often to be found on? And if they have any more questions, where can they reach to you?

58:28

Jamie

Of course. And again, thank you so much for inviting me to come along to this. Nadja, I love what you and the team at AdLunam are doing. It's fantastic, and I see great things in your horizon. So, yeah, for me, realnifty.xyz, that's our website. Please come and have a look at the fantastic artists we have there. If you're a creator, feel free to submit an application and then me and the team will look over it. And obviously, if you do have any projects in mind, please get in contact with us. You can either contact us directly through the marketplace itself, info at realnifty.xyz and for me, personally, I'm on Twitter now and again quite often. JamieP@web3. And also I hang around a lot on LinkedIn, so I'm there to answer a lot of questions. That's probably the platform I use the most.

59:19

Jamie

So please come and follow me, say hello and I'd love to have a conversation with you, Jamie.

59:26

Nadja

It's been an absolute privilege. Thank you so much. We will definitely be following along with you and all of the amazing artists that you have on RealNifty. As for our audience, thank you once again for tuning in today. It's such a privilege to see how many people there are on the room. I know it's not the best time in the market and we do get fatigue from constantly listening to and talking about the technology and then nothing is happening. But this is really the time when you educate yourself and you kind of build those foundations up, so that when the bull market does come back and there's no time for sleeping or for relaxing, then you have those foundations in. So thanks to everyone for tuning in today and I will catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam.

Nadja

Cheers, guys. Jamie, have a lovely day there in the UK. Speak to you soon. Cheers. Bye.