Delve into the captivating world of digital photography and digital collectibles with our special guest, Evgeny Tchebotarev.

In this episode we explore the realm of digital collectibles, examining how they have emerged as a new frontier for artists, photographers, and enthusiasts to showcase their work and engage with audiences like never before.

Discover the potential of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and their impact on the monetization of digital art and photography.

Whether you're a photography aficionado, an aspiring artist, or simply curious about the future of digital media, this episode promises to be an enlightening and insightful discussion on the convergence of technology, creativity, and the ever-evolving world of digital photography and collectibles. Tune in to gain a fresh perspective and be inspired by the possibilities that lie ahead!

Join us on our AdLunam socials;

Visit our website at Website .

Connect with your host Nadja's LinkedIn .

Follow AdLunam on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay updated, as you engage with us on a daily basis.

Sloika - Exploring digital photography and digital collectibles

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Evgeny Tchebotarev (Co-founder and CEO of Sloika)

00:22

Nadja

01:31

Nadja

02:40

Nadja

Now, about Sloika, and definitely if you're interested in photography, stay tuned for this episode. Sloika is a curated NFT photography marketplace and community. And yeah, definitely testament to EV's own belief that visual storytelling stands central to human culture. Sloika is exactly the same, very committed to bringing about a digital renaissance for photographers platform grants photographers over photo rights, royalty fees, and really aims to create a vibrant space for visual artistry in the digital age. So if you're tuning in today, join us for this chat with Ev as we dive into the intersection of digital photography and digital collectibles as seen through the lens of Sloika. Pun intended. So Ev very happy to have you. I think there's so much ground that we can cover today. But I really want to start off with a very basic question just to lay the foundation, because if we think about the word photographer, one of two things comes to mind.

03:51

Nadja

Either it's a professional photographer and you've perhaps studied photography, or you make a living as a photographer. But then because of digital technology and the way that it has just infused every aspect of our lives, I mean, today, everyone is a photographer. As soon as you pick up your phone and you take a photo of anything, that does make you a photographer. And that means we are photographers all throughout the day. So in positioning this discussion today, give us your definition of who is a photographer. And if we're talking about web three technologies, which kind of photographers are we talking about?

04:27

Ev

Yeah, that's a great point, and thanks for an intro that was kind of, like, both aged me a little and also helped me relive some of those moments because it's been a long journey. But, yeah, I think photography is definitely the most popular hobby in the world. We all have phones, actually cameras in our pockets that sometimes ring and sometimes send messages. And that is why it is so hard to define who the photographer is, because, again, we all take pictures multiple times a day. And I think it's generally very good because people who take pictures who just on their phones realize that there's a difference, probably, between pictures that a regular person takes just a snap and the pictures that they see in places like galleries or in advertisement and so on and so forth. And the difference is kind of like, arguably becomes greater.

05:33

Ev

I think for the photographers to pursue their art, they actually have to push it a little bit further to innovate their techniques. In these days, some photography is infused with AI, and so, basically, the progress never stops. And in this case, everybody who is on their phones, it helps them actually understand that there's a bit of a gap that taking pictures freely. I take a lot of pictures with my phone and it's very different from me picking up a big camera and actually working through either a particular like a hiking track, which I haven't done in a while, but it used to a long time ago. Or some other places where you actually need specialized equipment and some preparation and some planning to make sure that you get the shot. So, in that sense, if we look at how United States, for example, defines or like United States labor, I guess, defines photography, it's the people who make majority of their income more than 50% through photography.

06:43

Ev

And I would have to say that it's probably very tight definition because so many people are serious hobbyists. They take specific projects, but may not be enough to make majority of their income through photography. And I think that's fine. I think that having. I guess we're living in a world where you have to have multiple incomes or multiple things that you're passionate in doing. And so photography is definitely one of those where it's getting a little bit harder to just be a photographer. So it's usually combined with other things to make a living, but it does not diminish the talent or work of photographers for whom that's either a serious hobby or a part time job and so on. So the definition that I would use personally is a bit broader and I think it relies just kind of like, is that consistent and is that good?

07:51

Ev

So if I see work of an artist photographer and their art is good quality and I think more importantly consistent. So if they're a wedding photographer, that they shoot weddings, if they're a macro photographer, that they should macro consistently over and over again. And I think through consistency you can actually achieve greatness. And yeah, if they have a great portfolio, by all definitions, they are a great photographer and professional photographer, at least in my eyes.

08:32

Nadja

09:30

Nadja

How important do you think it is for this to be a main part of the conversation? Or what are the, let's say the key areas of the conversation in relation to NFTs that we should be focusing on, if not the income stream?

09:44

Ev

10:58

Ev

Is it going to rebound? Is it going to take long time or shorter time? And so the way that photographers are making their income is partially through NFTs. But I would actually strongly suggest against betting everything on NFTs. So I'm building NFT marketplace for photographers, and then at the same time, I'm advising against putting all your eggs in one big NFT basket. And the reason for that is that go ahead.

11:34

Nadja

Yeah, no, go ahead. I just want to add, I mean, that is probably the healthiest approach for anyone. Not only building in this space, but also advocating or using the space is to not see it as the savior of humanity. As you said, whatever the technology is, and especially when it comes to the liquidity, do not think that, okay, this is going to be the dream boat that you've been waiting for your whole life. Because as much as that creates hype, it's not really a sustainable way of building anything.

12:04

Ev

13:18

Ev

They might have their workshops that might be their either part time earnings or full time. They might have their sponsorships and partnerships that they do with different companies like Backpack or photo editors and so on and so forth. So the previous company that I worked with, Skylum, they were very actively having partnerships with probably like 50 or 60 different photographers and would pay them either like a monthly retainer or some sort of other fees. And so basically, for many of those photographers, it's kind of like combining together seven or eight income streams. So selling, presets selling, maybe some sponsored posts on Instagram and I think for the best photographers, NFTs are becoming just like, hey, this is part of my income stream. So I offer my prints, they're assigned prints through my print shop or something. I offer workshops and I offer NFTs. And why would I offer NFTs well, they are a digital medium.

14:25

Ev

I pay attention to this. I'm in this space. I'm on X and on Instagram. And so there is some reputational aspect to this. Like one example I bought a while back some images very expensive from an artist. And I'm like, you know what, I just want to bet on this artist. I know this photographer, he's young, he's traveling the world, he's going to be so great. He's already great, but he's going to become the greatest, basically. And I'm like, you know what? Even NFTs are like up or down or sideways if I'm patient enough. I think it's a good long term bet. And so I think that's what's important for collectors in the space, if you have a little bit of money or a lot of money, is to make those long term personal bets on people that you see are pushing. Kind of like the envelope of technology, the envelope of what's possible with traveling to remote places and so on and so forth.

15:32

Ev

So whatever the angle the artists might have, if they are the best in their field, I think it's a good bet that they will be even better and greater in the future, hopefully.

15:46

Nadja

I want to jump on that question because I think for the average person that perhaps doesn't have a background in photography and wants to be a collector, what are the kind of things that they would look out for? I mean, it's difficult to gauge, as you say, to bet on the reputation of an artist if you don't necessarily have the technical know how to understand that they're pushing boundaries, for example. So for the average person who wants to collect photography NFTs, or alternatively, who are the kind of people that do collect these NFTs, is it usually people that are already well versed in the photography space? What are you seeing with Sloika?

16:23

Ev

Yeah, well, I think the best example that I can give is photographer that is with Sloika. His name is Eric Pereir. I see a few listeners that definitely know him. And he's doing light painting basically, so in the middle of the night with a model of his like in a desert. And basically he teaches that as a course. There's a lot of YouTube videos that he releases, there's free courses that you can take. There is tools that you can buy that he would sell those tubes for making light painting. And in the course of eight years that he has been doing that, he discovered that by accident, started doing that, became good at that. And by now he is simply the best light painting photographer out there. Like literally the best and so he teaches that course to like 25,000 people in his group, in his community.

17:22

Ev

And he gives that knowledge for free. Everybody can go and repeat what he does or best him in some way, but it's impossible. Nobody can. He is the best. And so because of that, the NFTs that he's producing, the art that he's producing is more valuable, for example, than other artists in doing similar techniques, for example. So that's one of those. The other part is that he is actually generous with his time. So by making those free videos, by making those free courses, by selling like he's making those tubes to sell and selling those tubes to anybody who wants to try, he is trying to improve, I guess trying to improve. The world, making it a better place so that artists can create art and that they can follow some techniques and be amazed how beautiful the photos turn out to be. And so by having this community, it also gives them a bit of that kind of like a customer base.

18:27

Ev

19:40

Ev

I used to be a wedding photographer for like three times in my life. And one thing I noticed is that back in the day, there would be no pictures inside churches because it would be too dark for a camera. And then suddenly technology would advance enough that there would be actually pictures from inside the churches where flash photography would not be allowed most of the times. And so technology progresses where we actually get something qualitatively new. And the same goes for photographs of night sky. Before, it was possible only for, I don't know, like, governments to have pictures of night skies because the lenses were so expensive, so hard to make, and sensors or like film photography was inaccessible to pictures of night sky. And now it's possible even with freaking iPhone or Android. And so this advancement allow people to have new perspectives and those are kind of like qualitative jumps in technology.

20:46

Ev

And so photographers are keenly aware when those transitions happen. And usually the ones that are the most experimental, the most forward thinking, are the ones who are embracing those new techniques and actually just making something that was impossible just a couple of years ago.

21:08

Nadja

So I want to get back to the curation process on Sloika in a little while, but before we get there, just touch on the tech aspects. So NFTs in the context of photography, obviously, it promises revolution for ownership, for provenance of digital images. So if I'm a photographer, what are the selling points? I mean, as you said earlier, even though you have an NFT marketplace, you wouldn't necessarily advise that someone goes all in on NFTs as the thing that's going to generate them an income. But in terms of the tech itself, what are the most appealing aspects for photographers in terms of the problems that NFTs and all of these different web3 technologies solve?

21:50

Ev

Well, for photographers who, for example, are represented by galleries and sell their work in galleries as just one example. The other would be like Photostock imagery is that the artist rarely knows who bought the art, so the gallery would sell it. The gallery might maintain the relationship with the buyer, but the artist is unlikely to have that relationship, unlikely to know who bought it. Was it a man, a woman? Are they repeat customer? Are they not repeat customer? What is happening is unknowable. And so there is no connection between the photographer and actually the collector. On the other hand, and if we take the Photostock images, you also don't know who bought your image. So you might be selling your image for like $10 or $20 to Coca Cola for a giant billboard. Usually they'll pay a little more and a little extra. But big companies are very used to paying very small money for images and then blasting them all over the billboards, for example.

22:58

Ev

But most of the time, you may not even know who bought it unless you happen to come across the billboard or advertisement or whatever. And yeah, there's no relationship. And with NFTs, you actually have that chain to not only know who owns it through blockchain, obviously, but also you happen to have who was the first to collect. And if anyone know anywhere near Los Angeles or any other art museum, like, if you go to Getty museum, for example, in LA. There's a lot of art. And all these plaques would say that the first artists to collect from artists were actually other artists. So people would hang together like we do in web three space, especially in the bear market. And who would buy the art is other artists. And the artists to signify that they bought or collected from other artists, they would actually write their names and the date where they collected this on the back of the canvas.

24:08

Ev

So that was the original blockchain. And I found that to be very fascinating because it's not the rich collectors that came in later. It's actually the artists that supported artists. And from that point, it's kind of like those tastemakers that specific artists would collect specific art and basically dictate what trendy, what's cool, what's fashionable, and what others should collect. And over time, rich people would come in and be like, oh, yeah, I want that. I'll pay you more. I want that. So I think it's quite fascinating that's happening. And NFTs are uniquely positioned because it's not limited in time and space anymore. So you don't have to be in the same town or the same city, like in Venice, like in the Middle Ages, in the Medici time, for example, you actually can be anywhere. You can be in South Africa, you can be in India, you can be in Indonesia, you can be in Mexico and still have an amazing relationship and build, know, one text message at a time with collectors.

25:26

Ev

And maybe you meet them in person, maybe you don't. But for people who've been on the Internet for way too long, they know that it's possible to form real friendships, long lasting friendships on the Internet. So I think it's possible to do so with collectors. We just have to be, I guess, respectful if somebody decides to put their money towards a specific piece of art. And I think for artists, we had this time where artists would treat that as the ATM. So if you bought something from an artist, then it just becomes like, hey, you have to buy my next piece. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I think in most cases, you kind of have to be respectful and build that relationship over time. Speaking of traditional museums, if I may, most museums and most collectors tend to actually focus on small number of artists and collect big chunks of their art.

26:24

Ev

So, like, a lot of pieces from small number of artists. So collectors also kind of like, make bets based on personality, based on the artist, and tend to, if they have conviction that this is what they want, that they just collect a lot from that particular artist. So oftentimes, big chunks of money are going to very small number of people. And I think we have to also understand and see that it's been traditionally the way for hundreds of years and likely to continue, whether it's with NFTs or not.

27:02

Nadja

Yeah, so on that note, because I think this is such an important point touch on, we talk so much in the Web3 space about democratization of basically anything, but especially access. So if you're a photographer and you're leveraging Web3 technologies, how does that position you in relation to, for example, the traditional photography market, where it sounds like there's a lot of gatekeepers now? Exactly right. As you say, these institutions and these processes have been in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years. In terms of people do tend to kind of huddle around something that they already know that they're invested in and that there's a lot of promise. But do you see that the Web three space is opening up access for photographers to markets, to collectors, and really to people that otherwise they might have been gatekeeped from. But because of the introduction of this technology, they are able to have access to or be reached by people wherever across the world.

28:04

Nadja

That is not necessarily applicable or even possible in the traditional photography market and space.

28:11

Ev

29:27

Ev

This is the same thing of trying to achieve approval from traditional players and that basically goes down the same path. One example is like FTX with their ads of all the Hollywood actors and stuff like that, trying to push us the narrative that crypto is the new thing. I think when it happens this way, it's not going to be like it's going down the same path exactly. And so for us to take a new path, we kind of have to say like, well, what if there's no luxury brands that are endorsing our stuff? And that is probably like 100 times harder. Question how do we build that is new and unseen before? And I think there's like countless examples that it did happen in the past. We switched from horses to cars and from cars to electric bikes. It's a whole different thing that happens and it just displaces the old industry completely.

30:35

Ev

And I think eventually that's going to happen with Web3. But frankly, there is a lot of people experimenting, a lot of people like your team, like our team and countless other teams in the space trying to find that particular kind of like point of application where if you push hard enough, then it's going to move the earth basically. But I think we're still looking for that. I don't think there is a specific case where it's like, yes, this is it. And that's working perfectly, and it's just growing momentum moment after moment. So I think it will take a bit of time. And I think that's what Bear Market is for, is that when we actually have to rethink what is important and what are we doing here in a space. So if there are no sales, what are we doing here? Or if there are no collectors anymore, what are we doing here?

31:34

Ev

And those difficult questions are the ones that actually make us move forward and make us do things that are critically important to the community that we're building. So for us, Bear Market is surprisingly a good thing.

31:56

Nadja

I 100% agree with you on the bear market really being a system of checks and balances that the industry needs, because I always remind myself and pretty much everyone I speak to, if you look at the adoption curve and the adoption cycle, I mean, we're still so early. And all of these growing pains are people trying to find their way to navigate their way through this new possibility that we have. But it definitely is not the time where we can say, okay, this is the solution. This is the promised land that we've been waiting for, because we are still figuring this out. But that brings a question to mind for me in terms of NFTs. Do you think well, I mean, whether we call them NFTs, whether we call them digital collectibles, whatever the case may be, but do you think that they have the potential to really alter the value perception of digital art of photography in the broader society?

32:48

Nadja

Because as you said now, for photographers or for artists, the NFT market at the moment is really not a great place to be in because there's not a lot of movement happening. But do you think that over time, as adoption and I'm talking about adoption not necessarily how many people are buying NFTs, but as it really just continues to infiltrate the average everyday consciousness of people out on the street? Do you think that it has a positive or is going to have a positive influence on how people value digital art? As opposed to thinking that art is perhaps something that's out of their reach because you have to go to a gallery. What impact do you think this is having on the average person over time?

33:33

Ev

Yeah, I think the short answer is yes, that it will have a positive impact. And I think what's happening is that currently there are millions of people so far that experienced digital ownership with NFTs. And I think that's amazing. So I think that it's actually coming through as a message kind of like loud and clear, that, hey, I can own this particular piece because blockchain enables this. Blockchain is great. It has a lot of flaws, but for one chain of blocks and a bit of immutability on most chains is a great. Way to build that trust. And I think over the last six-ish, seven years, that trust has been established that most chains are immutable, that they're fairly secure, and that you can have verifiably clear ownership of something that's been created by someone from artist to a collector. And I think that perception is changing so that it's okay to own digital piece of art.

34:46

Ev

Here's a trivia question. When I watch Netflix or listen to Spotify, I do not own this content. I'm like renting, it's like for access thing. And when you realize that actually you don't own the music, actually you don't own those movies, and they can get into the streaming or get out of the streaming, they can kick somebody out, you start realizing, like, hey, actually having some ownership of music through, again, blockchain and decentralized storage of movies, video clips and art is actually the first time in two or three decades when we start having this in the digital sense. Because before, yes, you can have painting that's great, you're going to store it. And the storage costs and insurance costs can actually add up. So for serious collectors, I think it's a very easy and natural step. And this is kind of like what we’re banking for.

35:51

Ev

Like, we have 600 artists on Sloika. Everybody is verified, so everybody has been vetted by us. And what we are banking on is that for collectors who've been collecting, let's say photography, not digital, but in film, printed or whatever for them, once you amass specific number of those artworks, you have to insure them, you have to store them, you have to maintain them. So whether it's like humidity specific rooms and stuff like this, and that really adds up. So buying yourself a ledger and paying gas fees and buying photography in a digital form is actually a very cost efficient way. So maybe saving people between like five and ten times what it cost in physically storing those assets and I think the transition will become very natural. It just doesn't happen all at once. I think it's going to happen like one person realizes this, another person realizes this, and then just from a small snowball to an avalanche, it's going to be happening faster and faster.

37:08

Ev

It's just that the timeline for that is not known. So maybe it's going to take three years, but I think it's inevitable because in essence, it will probably provide that ten x improvement that technology needs to actually push that forward. It's just that for many people, they don't collect that as much photography, for example, or as much of anything. But yet I do expect that to change over time as well, because we've seen people collecting like art figurines, for example, and art figurines is the other name for that is PFP. It's basically like, hey, if you like some avatars and you want avatars that you can trade easily because people trade them anyway, they just have to meet up or they have to send them through a centralized marketplace that will authenticate and then send them over to the buyer. So basically, it provides a very significant improvement in costs and speed associated with that.

38:16

Ev

So again, early innings of NFTs technology is getting better, transactions are getting faster, the costs are getting lower. So maybe in two, three years, we'll just stop talking about the technical side and we'll just keep trading left and right because it's just invisible and seamless and almost free and yet secure and effortless, basically. And so that's going to happen, and we probably wouldn't even notice when that happens.

38:51

Nadja

Well, and that's when we know that things are going well, is when we stop noticing the underlying technology because it's just the best possible solution out there. And it happens to be Web3. So I want to get more into Sloika. Obviously, you come from, as you say, I aged you earlier when I did your bio, but I mean, you come from a long history of being involved in the photography space. So what is Sloika's mission to empower photographers?

39:17

Ev

40:17

Ev

They really care about the sovereignty of smart contracts. So for us, when we pushed for that, well, we spent a few hundred hours on Twitter spaces, back when it was Twitter, and back when spaces were quite popular as well, to try to explain why should people care? And one of the underlying message was like, hey, we've done this for 20 years, not necessarily in NFT space, but like in the photography space, we want to do what's best for the photographer. We want to do what's best for them. And so everything we design from the very first day was to make sure that it can outlive any particular company or any particular technology. What I mean by that is that people are finding out that when marketplaces shut down or FTX shut down and other things shut down, recur recently shut down, that they host NFTs on their servers.

41:18

Ev

So when they shut down and stop paying their bills, guess what? Their NFTs are going into the drain. And it's like, for recur, for example, that's worth 20, $30 million of NFTs, like, completely gone, basically, unless somebody takes it over for other marketplaces, that's probably around the same or even more. And so the way we try to explain and try to build is that, hey, we don't know, we're a startup. Startups are risky. We don't know if it's going to be successful or not. But we want to make sure that the technology and solutions that we build will survive us, will survive our company. And because myself and my co-founder, we've been in a startup world for a while. So for my co-founder, it's been probably a decade and a half. For myself, it's been two decades. We've seen companies go out of business left and right and just wreck chaos for people that rely on that.

42:25

Ev

43:24

Ev

44:36

Ev

And what shocked us is that most actually all of those marketplaces and some of them do this today. They say when you buy NFT, you're actually buying nothing. Like you're actually not buying anything because their lawyers were so afraid of actually putting some proper wording that you want. And those are in the days where people would spend like thousands of dollars for NFTs. Their terms would say you're actually buying nothing. So we made a very significant change. We wanted to make sure that the collectors are buying something and we want to make sure that we also protect the artists. And so we introduced licenses with NFTs that became standard. So they are now thing that you can see basically across our artist ecosystem. So things like this where we try to basically dig deep and figure out what are the technologies and what are the ways that will become more prevalent in the future and try to basically build for that.

45:47

Ev

Some of them worked, some of them didn't. But we keep talking to artists and we keep pushing forward.

45:54

Nadja

I mean, that is really the hero's work in this journey of really just pioneering and shaping a new industry, is to be in the trenches to do the work that's required to get us from where we are to where we want to go. But I think you touched on a really important point in terms of education, because no matter who you are, whether you are a retail user, retail investor, whether you work in the space, whether you're an artist, there's so many different aspects of education that needs to come into play, and there's so much that you need to wrap your head around. So what are you finding at Sloika? What are the most important points in terms of education, specifically that is necessary for photographers and also for collectors to really wrap their head around before they're able to be part of this new evolution of the technology and of the industry?

46:45

Ev

Yeah, well, that's a great question because early on we had to do a lot of technology part education, and we realized that, well, that part is still not done, but it's becoming less relevant. So we actually switched to teaching a bit more on why. Well, kind of like so we talked about not having gatekeepers, and the marketplace is by definition is a bit of a gatekeeper. And the way we try to solve this is by sharing that not all marketplaces created equal. So if somebody transacts on an open marketplace like OpenSea, for example, then they are not protected by the marketplace because people can go and impersonate famous artists and basically try to scam. And that's been done million times. Or marketplaces can actually for artists coming from countries like Iran, for example, that was a very unfortunate case where hundreds of artists got just basically removed from OpenSea and their livelihood was threatened because of that.

48:02

Ev

It kind of goes against decentralization thesis in a way. And the way we think of this is that well we possibly as a company might have to comply with some US or other regulations, but we want to make sure that the technology we provide is actually impossible for us to stop those artists from doing what they need to do. And I think that's important to build that in the right manner. And if there know, let's say a takedown from the US government and say like you have to remove this artist or something like that, we actually cannot do that because it's properly built and fully decentralized and we just can't. It's in the artist domain, it's in their wallet, they control it and they can decide what to do with that. And I think this is the beauty of that is that we actually actively try to get to that stage and many centralized marketplaces are actually actively trying to stop artists from having that sovereignty.

49:20

Ev

So I think that's important part of education, not related to technology, but more related on how I guess like I don't know how to say semi technology or something like that. And on the other hand, it's about the authenticity. So something I mentioned earlier, that people can go and impersonate somebody else on an open marketplace and make some money. In our case, we try to verify every artist. We try to talk to them, get to hear their voice, get to see their face, if they're willing, and basically try to do some background work to make sure that the artists that we have on our platform are all verifiably real human beings and real artists and not scam artists. So different kind of artists. And by doing so, we basically build that trust brick by little brick, to make sure that when the bear market is over and the bull market is back, then collectors can feel confident that there is a huge chunk of beautiful art available for sale by real artists that put real work and basically been there from early days.

50:36

Ev

And it's also like on chain. And that's why even through a bear market we would advise artists to basically keep building, keep minting, keep participating in variety of on chain activities because it's sort of like building your resume. So if you have a weird gap of three years between jobs, some questions might come up if you're in the corporate world. And the same is I guess, true to NFT market is that if you are not present during bear market, it might actually just be a little strange to some people. It may not be a failure of the artist, there might be other things happening in real life, but it's still a bit of an indicator of how an artist decide to build for long term, basically. And I think going back to my wedding industry experience is that people don't become wedding photographers overnight. It takes years to build that portfolio of couples that are becoming engaged, get married and then getting referrals.

51:53

Ev

So that usually takes four, three to five years to get up to speed. And then when weddings happen, they usually book them a year or two in advance. So you kind of need to keep on going, even though the market might be going, doing their weird things. Same with NFTs. It's that consistency and showing up that I think matters the most, at least so far, at least to people like me.

52:21

Nadja

Yeah, but I think that's a really good point, and I love the way that you phrase it as it's almost like building your resume because exactly what you said to your point, if you're in there in the bull market, I mean, everyone is there in the bull market. But what really differentiates people is are you there when the times are tough? Are you there because you believe in what you're doing? You're not just there because the hype is there, but because I see we're almost out of time and I want to get to at least one audience question. Final question, then, from me. In terms of the curation on Sloika, what is your process? Like, what criteria do you use to select and to showcase photographers and NFTs on the platform?

53:02

Ev

Yeah, we try to look for a couple of things. One is consistency so that the portfolio shows kind of like some progression of specific kind. So when I started photography 20 something years ago, I took pictures of everything, flowers, cats, dogs, whatever. And so, yeah, that's not consistency. That's how people get started. And so we look for that consistency. We look for progression. We look for kind of like for some either technological or artistic uniqueness. So one example that I shared earlier is that there are people that are doing light painting and they're doing it better than everybody else. So that is a great example. There are people who are hiking mountains that other people just are unwilling to hike because it takes a long while. Or people who are shooting in the middle of the night for star trails. And that takes like 12 hours to take one picture and weeks to process.

54:04

Ev

So there's just some things that are just too hard for others to go through or some underwater photography and things like that we value a lot, to be honest. We sometimes look at the follower count as well. Because, again, in the bear market, I think it's important to be more prepared for success than for failure. And so we might talk some people out of either minting everything that they have or just basically be slightly more specific in how they approach the market and minting. But in the end, as I mentioned, I think it's better to kind of mint and to have some work than to not have it. But having said that, again, bear market is real. So when that happens these days, we're like, look, we love to be on our platform, for example, but here's the thing. You have to be prepared that sales may not be kind of, like, immediate.

55:08

Ev

And I think some people get it, some people don't. And I think our goal is to basically try to explain that alongside other technological parts. To be honest, one thought that I had, like, I've been chatting with a lot of artists recently. I think 90% plus still don't understand blockchain and blockchain transactions. So I think we still have a long way to go. We're getting there one bit at a time, but it's still very hard to explain and kind of like, for me, I'm a bit of a technique nerd, so I like the technical aspects and creative aspects and so tend to be like, in those both worlds at the same time. And when I get technical, I'm like, how can you not understand that transaction is pending, or that the gas is like this or that? So that requires me to be also a bit more patient and understand that not everybody's been in this space for that long.

56:09

Ev

56:43

Nadja

So I'm looking at the questions here. I want to kind of combine a couple of them. So specific thanks to Nunu and to Sephoria for the inspiration. There's some questions here about marketing, about user acquisition, retention, engagement in the NFT community. And I think we've touched on this bear market enough to really focus this question specifically on this market. I mean, it's a difficult time to be marketing. It's a difficult time to be acquiring users, to engage them, to retain them. So what are your thoughts on both for Sloika and for photographers in this space? What is the best practice at the moment when people really don't have the appetite that they do during a bull market? What are some of the strategies that you can recommend that people look at?

57:31

Ev

Excellent question, to be honest. It's something we've been thinking a lot in the last six months or so since we started seeing the slump in the market. And I think the way it works is that at the top of the market, we saw that people would sell their collection or their one ones for ridiculous amounts of money very fast. You'd put a collection out and it would be gone within like minutes or seconds. People would engage in gas wars. People pay ridiculous gas fees for that. And then when the market started showing some softness. We saw the emergence of limited editions. So people would come out with an addition and it would be like a 50 edition, 20 edition. And obviously the price point would be much lower, usually corresponding to the number of editions. And so we saw that it creates a bigger market but the collectors that would be buying big pieces would stop buying those and so it would go to middle class collectors.

58:40

Ev

I'm one of those I buy my ETH at market prices. So I'm one of those that looks at additions as the way to build my portfolio because I have to put my real money into the art that I'm buying. So that means that I'm not buying something else when I do that. And when we saw even more market softness, we saw the emergence of open editions. So people started making open editions with no end inside just to keep the momentum going. And I think what all of this comes down to is that over time the prices will keep dropping close to zero and they will probably stop at zero. I think it's going to be incredibly foolish if artists will have to pay for people to accept NFTs. So I think zero is the lower mark. And I think what's happening is that NFTs are becoming that attention basically mechanism.

59:38

Ev

And what I mean by that is that you still have a bit of a gas fee depending on blockchain. But basically it means who is there not necessarily to support me, but who is there to notice that I'm in space? Who is there to see my journey through the space and through life? And I think we'll see the emergence of this is something that we're working on in full transparency to actually help artists to build their base, build the people that are around them, to support them, even if the cost of supporting is actually big fat zero. Because in the attention economy you can look left or you can look right. And we have like attention span of a hamster these days. It's like 3 seconds or 5 seconds. And so actually an effort of clicking a button to collect is still already a significant effort.

Ev

Ev

And through that, I think we'll see that there will be artists that are emerging through the month or years to come that would actually be able to support and reflect the attention that was given by their supporters and give back when they become big and famous and in all these museums and stuff like that. So supporting artists before they are cool is actually the hardest thing because you really have to genuinely do that. You cannot be like, oh, I love Taylor Swift. Well, everybody loves Taylor Swift most. Everybody loves Taylor Swift. But loving Taylor Swift back when she was getting started is a whole different story. And so if you have something to prove that, I think that's a very significant differentiator, basically in how your story and fandom is kind of like getting built and so the same for artists. Not everybody will become big.

Ev

Not everybody needs to become big. But I think putting limited attention span towards specific artists is what will make a difference. And so that's kind of like what we're working towards.

Nadja

Thank you so much for a very level headed discussion because I think this is one of the benefits of the bear market, is no one is out there proclaiming how amazing everything is. We are very well aware of the issues and we are actually actively working on solving the issues as opposed to just running to the next big thing. I think anyone tuning into this episode, whether Live Now on Twitter Spaces or on the podcast episode afterwards, definitely have gotten a lot of insights from our conversation today. So where is the best place for people, whether it's photographers or collectors or just people generally interested in what we’re talking about, where's the best place to follow you and to follow Sloika?

Ev

Yeah, we're very active on X, so I hope that DMs are still not broken by Mr. Musk. And if so, yeah, we're active on X and we put a lot of stuff for artists like open calls and information and other stuff. It's very easy to get lost. So I would advise people who want to follow Sloika journey is to enable notifications on Sloika account that would probably best to receive up to date messages and open call opportunities and other stuff. It's just enormous amount of stuff that we're trying to do in this bear market, from grants to photographers. We just recently announced that we're going to give grants to Indonesian photographers because we think they deserve it. We just gave prizes for an open call for photographers as well on Sloika. So there's been five winners of that with cash prizes or like crypto prizes that we actually sent.

Ev

So a lot of stuff that's basically happening every, I don't know, every few days and we basically try to make it fun and easy to participate into just kind of like as a temperature check, like who is there, who is active. I know it's not easy. So we're like, hey, it's not easy for us, it's not easy for you. Let's hang together, let's see what we can do and let's try to have fun and let's build something meaningful and let's see what happens. And that's basically our message. We try to be consistent about this and we basically try to be also, as I mentioned earlier, as transparent as possible. So everything that we do is either on chain or we try to explain ourselves. I think that's also important because it's the reputation that we're building and it takes a while to build it. And so we want to be seen as the marketplace that was there for photographers in the good days and was there for photographers in a drought of sorts that we right now and also giving the tools to basically overcome that in some ways.

Ev

So yeah, Sloika and my account would be the best to keep in touch.

Nadja

Well, I think that's the perfect way to end off today's discussion. Just a reminder that in a drought like we are experiencing at the moment, this is really the time when that human to human connection is what's important. Because as soon as the bull market starts, then everyone's running after the hype again. But really that's the time to look at who was active in the bear market, who was there building when there was no incentive and just a lot of difficulty. So Ev, thank you so much for your time today. We're really excited about what Sloika is building and looking forward to following along on the journey with you guys and to the audience. Thank you so much for tuning in with us today. I think it's been an amazing discussion whether or not you're a photographer and I will catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam.

Nadja

Cheers guys.