Building trust with surprises appears an equation set for failure. Or is it? Answering the questions about Trust, NFT value creation, sustainability and operating with integrity is Anita Agelica Moore, CEO and Founder of Blind Boxes. Being the first gamified curation platform for NFTs, she puts the spotlight on the journey and unique perspective Blind Boxes offers its community. Some real gems here, you don't want to miss it.

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Bundled Value - Anita Angelica Moore

Participants:

• JP (CMO of AdLunam)

• Anita Angelica Moore (Founder & CEO of Blind Boxes)

00:25

JP

Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. This is the Future of NFTs, usually hosted by the co-founder of AdLunam Nadja Bester. But today you're stuck with me. I'm JP from AdLunam Inc., today talking to you about everything to do with NFTs. The program is designed to take a deep dive into the fascinating world of NFTs. That's what we want to bring out and educate, share awareness about. Join us as we speak to founders, leaders, visionaries in the NFT space, especially our speaker today. I've had the privilege of speaking to her once before we had this program, and I know that there's a lot that she would like to share with us today. Plus a lot of experience offers that have put a spotlight on what NFTs are about. Few announcements before we begin. The views expressed on this program belong to that of the speaker and is not to be considered as financial advice in case we drop off the air.

01:27

JP

Please watch our link at AdLunam Inc. For the next one because we know that twitter spaces sometimes will decides to act on its own accord. In addition to that, the final thing I'd like to share with you is that please use your emojis if you come across something that the speaker has said that you like. We have a Q and A round right at the end of our program. We will open it up to the audience, but if you would like to ask a question, feel free to send that in directly to the speaker or to the AdLunam Inc. handle.

02:05

JP

03:00

JP

Hey, Anita.

03:01

Anita

Hey, everybody. Yeah, thanks for the introduction. It's really great to be here and excited to kick off this conversation.

03:07

JP

Excellent, excellent. Anita, I'm glad that you agreed to be on the show today. It's always been a pleasure speaking with you and interacting with you through the connections that we have. Very pumped up to find out and be able to share the message of what Blind Boxes is about as well as your perspective on what is happening in the NFT space. Alright, so I know that I gave the audience a bit of your background from your experience, right? But I'm also curious to understand what makes you tick.

03:42

Anita

Absolutely. So Yeah, I think so. The background of my education and where I'm from is interesting, but it all ties into who I am. So I would say before crypto I had a pretty diverse career as well. So I've worked both in the medical and finance field, so working within business development and sales and M & A and investment banking within the pharmaceutical industry, as well as working within the entertainment field as a professional musician and as an actor. Right. So these two different worlds, which I could probably spend a long time talking about, don't seem like they would connect, but in being a human being in those worlds, you get exposed to very different ways of thinking and different types of people. So my career from, we would say since university until now has been a lot of it has been connecting the dots between the different types of people that I encounter in the different worlds that I worked in before crypto.

04:37

Anita

05:36

Anita

You can see that with regular tokens and it's with NFTs as well. So that's something that I carried through from, we'll say, the early stages of crypto to now, with the NFT web3 space, how can we extend the values of centralization and access to capital to not just the small? Group of people who typically have access to these things in traditional finance. But to the larger person, we'll say the regular person or person from an artist background or the type of person who's typically not included in these sort of financial instruments and ideas.

06:12

JP

Interesting. I especially like how you are able to connect the dots, especially speaking a human being in various spaces and that leading you to this particular stage. That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing that journey with us. I'm also certain that it resonates with a lot of people in the space.

06:31

Anita

Yeah, because depending on what your background is, you might have been taught growing up that, say, investing wasn't for you. Depending on where you're from, it's only for this group of people or that group of people. And I think one benefit of the NFT space, crypto overall, is it started to show people, for better or for worse, that this could be something that they can get involved in, either as a creator or as an investor at any level. But with that access, there comes responsibility. And it's not that risk, of course. Cool.

07:05

JP

So let's take a deeper dive into this. I mean, you've spoken about it. You get into the Web3 space, and of course, having an engineering background, the exposure to the arts. As an actor, I'm still curious to understand what was that moment when you thought, NFT, right. NFT is the space to be?

07:25

Anita

08:16

Anita

But they were really experimenting with this new technology and this new concept of digital ownership. So that was really exciting to me. So I would say CryptoKitties was my first introduction to NFTs.

08:27

JP

Okay, awesome. I like how that transitions from this point to another. And I'm certain that I also want to understand because I feel that I'm certain I should be honest, I feel that I'm certain that kind of led you to do your project, Blind Boxes, Right?

08:48

JP

But tell us a little more about that, about the origins of Blind Boxes.

08:51

Anita

09:45

Anita

And right on top of all of this brainstorming is when I first personally encountered PopMart. So PopMart is a Chinese company that is massive and they've been around for many years. And their target audience is, so they make toys, collectible toys, physical toys, and their target audience is typically women in their late twenty’s to mid-30s who have income. So it's not for children, but it's for adults who want to collect things for collectors purposes and wildly successful. And their whole thing is they have these blind box type vending machines and model of selling things. And I remember just reading about this and thinking, could we do this on the blockchain? Could that be interesting and could that bring value to people? That's how the idea came together.

10:35

JP

Well, that's a very interesting connection, but I'm certain that you've got a team and how did you bring them on board to it?

10:43

Anita

Yeah, I remember at this point when you have an idea, it's always important to find team to help you execute that idea, which is, I'd say probably the most simple. If there's anybody who's a founder on this call, whether it's in the web3 space or web2 space, whatever you're trying to do, your team is so important. It's so important. Yeah, that's a topic for a whole other podcast because it's something that no matter what you thinking, what your ethos is, the timing, who your investors are, if your team is not there, then it doesn't work. But I remember in building the initial team, I worked with advisors who are well versed in this space and were able to connect you with the technical talent to make it work, as well as the marketing teams as well.

11:28

JP

Okay, so primarily you were able to launch this because you had of course good advisors, ecosystem around you that was able to make you flourish in this space.

11:37

Anita

Yeah, for any founder in the space, having advisors who've done this, done in the past is important, although I would say really important for anybody. Whether you're investing in NFTs or launching NFT project, you have to do your own research and you have to have a healthy level of skepticism about every message that comes to you, every person that comes. It's just like the world is full of landmines. Trust no one, but also be positive.

12:06

JP

So yeah, that's an interesting well, okay fine, let's pivot this conversation a little and if you're comfortable with that when it comes to energy, of course, beyond just art, there's multiple utilities of it, right.

12:22

JP

And from where you stand, I'd like to get a base understanding about what comes in the way of more adoption of NFTs and for all its purposes that if you'd like to share.

12:37

Anita

Okay, So I think when I think about utility and value in NFT, the thing I think about the most is long term versus short term horizons from perspectives. And so one thing I'll talk about, a trend that I've seen in the industry that many on the call will probably be familiar with, is that you have a project, it's launched and it's all about the Hype and the FOMO. It's all about those instantaneous forces that are pushing both the projects and the investors and the people that are interested. So for example, if a token is about to launch or just as launch, people want to know what's your roadmap? When they say roadmap, they mean like what's happening tomorrow and next week and the two weeks after that. That's the horizon which many people are really thinking about, I say. And so if you have investors, okay, that's the typical early stage investor profile will say, which I would agree, it's a case very short term focus.

13:36

Anita

The problem is if you have a project that's worth anything or is meant to be worth anything innovative, it's necessary to take time. Especially if for example, a project is a game or anything that has a network effect necessarily the project must take the time to find that product market fit, which is like the one thing people don't talk about as well as execute. That said, you need these early stage, we'll say DJ investors because who else will be crazy enough or have the risk capacity enough to invest in a project that's only a couple of weeks to a couple of months or less than a year old. So I think what there needs to be is if a project tries to sort of capitulate or acquiesce to the goals and the time horizons of the early stage investors and they try to rush, they're going to create something that is paper wareish or is very thin light in terms of utility and actual value.

14:36

Anita

So there has to be an interplay where you as a project can build and give yourself the time to build while also addressing your early stage investors in ways that make sense, I would say. And so yeah, I think that said the age of the five NFTs. So I'll just explain what that is. But essentially like a Bored Ape Yacht Club, right? So if you think of what Bored Ape Club first started, there was one of the first of their times to just they're just a PFP project but they build the vibe and that's about the way that they market it. Their go to market strategy at that point was very unique and then they subsequently value later. And then if you've been in the space long enough, you'll know, that plenty of projects of copies, the number of monkeys that you'll see, digital monkeys around the world.

15:22

Anita

And so that in a way, it seems like it would have sort of soured that model. But it's still the case that you can build, launch a project or whatever trying to launch. And if you're launching just on Vibe, I think my advice to you is very quickly figure out what you're going to do next because the Vibe idea is not going to last. It's not sustainable. There are only so many companies that can launch like that. I would say another Meta that I think is fading is the celebrity NFT Meta. So it's not to say that celebrities cannot, will not launch NFTs, and as Blind Boxes, we focus on this as well. But there has to be much more than just a celebrity tying your name to something. And that's something that probably might seem obvious to those on this call. But I'd say if you go one step removed, if you're a really novice person in this space, you might say, hey, Mariah Carey, for example, is launching an NFT.

16:19

Anita

And you have to know that if there's no team around this NFT project, then there's nothing there. So I think the old ways of doing things that are short term, it's just not going to work anymore because the average long investor is too savvy for that.

16:40

JP

Yeah, it's interesting that it's interesting when you put it that way, that the whole point is about value, right? Because that's, I suppose, where everybody's trying to wrap their heads around and the naysayers when it came to NFTs had exactly the same problem, right?

16:54

JP

I mean, what is it? Oh, it's just the PFP. It's not sustainable, it's not going to work. And then you can still see the success. Right. You can track the arc of how some of those NFTs went, yet at the same time you can see okay, yes, and the price fluctuations that did validate that statement. But there still is something there, isn't it?

17:13

Anita

Yeah, absolutely. And if you look at the top forming projects, if you took a snapshot in the past week of the top performing projects of all time, the one thing that we see in common is, I'd say, I think 90% of them or 99% of them have fully docs’ teams that have really deep experience. And this is, I guess, maybe where I should have started. It's the people behind the project. So if you bring it back to first principles, what you're investing in when you're buying an NFT, yes, you're buying a JPEG. But again, a JPEG in itself has no value. You're really buying into the economy that creators are making, whether they're anonymous or not. So they're creating a fixed supply, for example. They're creating mechanisms that govern the uses of the token. But in the end, there's still people behind until a project spins out into a Dow, for example.

18:03

Anita

In the beginning, you're investing in just like any early stage startup, right? If you're buying into an NFT, of course they're not securities, you're not actually buying a stock in a company, just to clarify. But the proxy for that, you're buying your project with the idea that the people behind the project are going to deliver on the promises and ideas they make, and also that those ideas make sense. Right? When I say makes sense, you got to think about the economics of anything. It's supply and demand. And many projects, I'd say focus on the supply. They're very transparent about the supply of NFTs and where they're going to come from, but the demand side tapers off. The big question you should ask yourself when investing in an NFT project is what's going to give this project value beyond the first three or four weeks of hype?

18:55

Anita

And that has to come from what the team has said and what you believe with the team. So I would say the biggest utility of any future NFT project actually comes into the founders and the team and then subsequently the community around it.

19:09

JP

Yeah, I think when the bored Apes started, I think that they latched onto that pretty quick, right. Especially when it came to having a yacht club. That was what brought the exclusivity, the economy to it, that I belong to a very select group, a very niche group, maybe even an elite group, and that was the value they were selling.

19:41

Anita

I think that's one way to do it, right? So you can essentially have your NFT be a membership ticket to a very exclusive club that only has xyz people in it and gives you certain value. But think about it, in the world as well, there are many different types of clubs. For example, there are gyms which you can join, and anybody can join a gym. You pay $50 a month and now you have access to this gym and you have access to the bathrooms, the showers, the Sauna, for example. And those exist and those are very accessible. And so I think one thing I talk to people a lot is just stretch the idea of what these entities can do. It doesn't have to just be this luxury Ferrari sort of thing that sits in your garage that you show off to your friends. That could be one thing that you do, but you also have plenty of other things in your life that you have membership to and they have access to that are more affordable and more interesting and more accessible.

20:34

JP

Spot on. I'm glad that you put the spotlight on that because this is one of the key reasons that people need to understand when it comes to NFT projects like these, right? The ones that will focus on digital art, but also have the thought process of doing the ecosystem around it. Which is why most of the other copycats will fail.

21:02

JP

Okay. Super so that being said, let's pivot back to Blind Boxes. I know that you've got a great team that's backing you up. Tell us a little about your community.

21:16

Anita

Yeah, so we have a community that was spawned back when we launched the Token. We are very active on, say, all the social media channels. And I would say our community is primarily full of early stage investor types. When we launched one of the, I could say challenges or something, maybe this is helpful, but one of the challenges and ideas we work with is the idea that we're building communities for both investors and creators. When we're first launching. So what I said when Blind Boxes first launched, were focused on bringing in, we'll say, celebrity projects by amazing cutting edge artists. So focusing primarily on the art space. And it was interesting because were building these Telegram and Discord and Twitter and building these tools, trying to accommodate both groups. And the types of people who were interested in the investment side were a lot less interested in the art side, and then vice versa since the business model evolved.

22:16

Anita

And we're not only just doing art anymore, and we're focusing primarily on utility of all types, our messaging has had to change. But I would say building your community, you have to think about the actual human beings are going to be a part of your community. And then, like I mentioned, also looking into long term versus short term things. So if you're always focusing on providing short term value, which affects your Token price, for example, you're going to oxidize certain users. And if you're constantly focusing on artistic development, for example, or other niche things, it doesn't work. So I'd say when you're building a community, you have to think about building the appropriate channels for everyone you're trying to bring in. Person that is within the Blind Box community is a savvy sort of investor. I would say we don't necessarily cater to early stage or sorry, newbie investors so much yet, although that's something we're trying to do.

23:12

Anita

But I would say in this space, the category of people who are newbie investors is very small. The average person who is really participating in the Launchpad space is seasoned or is going to do it more than once. So that's who we're actually focused on.

23:30

JP

Super. Okay, so I like that you bought from the human element to this because the human story is what connects everyone else in the community to it's Something that they can relate to, somebody that they can look at as this person's like me, Right.

23:47

JP

I'm curious to know, are there any cases that you can share when it came to Blind Boxes that you'd like to talk about in your development or your community development?

23:59

JP

Are there any cases of what any specific stories you'd like to tell us about when it came to building your community and you found something new, something different in that.

24:12

Anita

Okay, so let's see. I wouldn't say specifically, but I would say one thing I've learned personally is that if you are with any launch of any product or any service that you have or ideal launch, there is a potential for issues, hiccups, delays, technical stuff, hats, all sorts of things that can go wrong. Anybody who's launching anything should know that and should focus on that. Actually. I think oftentimes when you're building something, you focus on what success is going to look like and what you need to do to get to success and xyz. But you have to spend time, no matter what it is, even something like Twitter space, for example, just spend that time to think about what failures will look like and then be able to failure or hindrance or backups. But one thing I'll say is the crypto community is tough and aggressive and brutal, but they value communication.

25:11

Anita

So I would say in the past, we've been around for almost two years now with anything, whether it's delay or anything that's different, if you can communicate directly with community really strongly, clearly, then it can go a long way. I think that's what makes the Web3 space very special.

25:34

JP

Thank you for that. I agree. If you have a direct communication with your community, if you have the ability to be, of course, more and more transparent, keep them updated, let them know what they're thinking, but know what you're doing, they're going to trust you more, right?

25:53

Anita

Yeah. There's a tendency for them to trust you more. But in the end, and I think it's crypto, I think you can work on building this trust, but in the end, it's watching. As a community, we have to look at the numbers, and I think there's only so much trust that even your own community will give you over time. You have to keep on showing results.

26:11

JP

Keep showing results, keep showing results, exactly.

26:15

JP

I want to dwell a little bit about this part of the communication cycle, and I think that this is something in a conversation you said before, when it comes to feedback from the community, where does your antenna go up? Where's the one spot that you'd look at? Or where are some of the spots you'd look at to say that, hey, you know what? Somebody's not too happy with this, or this is a good idea, we can pivot.

26:43

Anita

I think the first thing is when you start to find that your community and this is what I look at whenever I'm evaluating projects myself as an investor or looking at other projects of people, if it feels like the level of trust is very low, it's a red flag. It just means something is done. It doesn't mean everything is always lost, because I think the average crypto investor, especially if they're speculating, has trust issues I would say rightfully so, all the d***. But if the community is not addressing that right? So if you go into a discord and it's just constantly people, for example, calling a project a Scan xyz, the community has to address it. They can't look away from that. So that's very important.

27:26

JP

Makes sense.

27:27

JP

Yeah, you're right about that. Absolutely.

27:35

Anita

Oh, sorry. What feedback do I push back on? Another thing, a question you might hear people say very blankly is what can I do with this token?

27:45

JP

Right? Yeah.

27:46

Anita

And that's a clear question that the utility is missing. And your answer as a project manager can't be should never be something like sell it, for example. The value of your token is just speculative. Then you're running into securities law and it's fine, but it's not sustainable in any means because people are going to sell. So if people have to ask what your utility is and you don't have that answer, and if that question keeps coming up, then you have to do more to build it. The cool thing is that it is possible to add utility after the fact. This is one cool thing about NFTs, is the technology self. We'll say it's immutable because it's on the blockchain, et cetera, but it's very flexible because you can pile utility and ideas and concepts onto it. So if you're running a project, if you are an NFT creator and you're starting to have your community say, what do I do with this?

28:43

Anita

I don't know. You can stop and reevaluate and actually add utility to your entities after the fact, which is the case with Bored Ape Yacht. When they launched, they just for a JPEG PFP scenario, and then for whatever reason, the team got together and started to understand that they need to build and add to it.

29:03

Anita

They did and subsequently they off to the races, obviously.

29:07

JP

Yeah, obviously. Okay, Yes. It is interesting that you say that. In between this, I'm sorry, I did have another question that I wanted to ask to get deeper into it. But I'll take your answer and I will ask you another one. All right. Yes. This is what it was. Right now, you've obviously lived in multiple places and being in the industry that you are, even if you were there before, but where you are now through your travels and the places you stayed in, what do you think is some of the how do I phrase this? Let me see. What do you feel is the vibe when it comes to the NFT community today in these places?

30:01

Anita

Yeah, so I do travel quite often, and even for the NFT, my experience in the NFT space, one thing I always do when I travel is talk to people about crypto. Right. It's just something I'm always talking about. It happens. It doesn't make me very popular sometimes in certain social events, but we work through it. But oftentimes what I'm specifically trying to understand is what's the more general outlook where I am. So whether I'm in a different country, different city, or I'm talking to a person, maybe a younger person, or whatever the demographic is, I'm just trying to understand what they hear. And the one thing I'll say is that we're still so early. I have friends from my universities and different parts of my life and people I've encountered who still have no, even they wouldn't even be able to understand the acronym NFT.

30:54

Anita

They have no idea. They might have just heard about it on CNBC and they think it's all scammy, which I say is interesting because what is the next wave of adoption going to look like when these people finally start to understand what the potential is when projects come in that really do have major appeal? I think the limits are really glued for that, but we're still super early age. I would say that the recent events in the crypto space haven't helped because most people, they don't know the difference between an NFT fungible and non-fungible token. It's all just crypto, it's all just scammy, and it’s all SBF, so everyone tends to loop it together. So unfortunately, we have a reputation issue in the overall blockchain. But the flip side is that companies are still really interesting, products are still building, it's still growing, and it's going to be like the.com bubble, like I would say, which I'd say after the.com era, 90% of the business went away, but the 10% that stayed became the Amazon and xyz of today.

32:01

JP

Okay. When it comes to the vibe, this is some of the feedback, of course, that you get. It still seems that people need to be educated more. Certainly that's one of the reasons why we have a show like this. And of course we have speakers like you who are able to put a spotlight on what the true value of the NFT is, as well as the trend is going to take going forward. Right?

32:33

JP

Okay. Thinking about it from that same point of view, what do you see is the future for NFTs? I know that you feel very strongly and that's what you built Blind Boxes around is the generational value. Right. But what do you see as the future trends when it comes to NFTs? How do you think it's going to evolve from its current manifestation?

33:01

Anita

Absolutely. So I am very bullish on the future of NFT. I think the first way I like to think about them is NFTs are tools that democratize fundraising and value creation and value sharing between people. They have the potential to do that. So the democratizing part comes back down to this decentralization and all the benefits that you get from the blockchain that we can talk about again in another podcast. That said, a tool is not the end of is not the end all. Just like we have. And so the next iteration, the companies and the projects and the investors that are going to come out on top in the next more mature iteration of NFTs and Blockchain and DeFi, for example, are going to be the projects that understand the potential for the tools and take risks and take experimentation and continue to build.

33:53

Anita

And these projects are not going to be the ones that come in and out in the middle of the night. So they sort of get ready for the pump and dump. Those are always going to exist and they're fun. Those are for certain types of investors and you need that to keep the market excited. And there's a space for those. But long term, the Amazon of NFTs, for example. I'm not a huge fan of the Amazon, but in terms of the big names of the next five to ten years within the web3 space are going to be the ones that take this tool and extrapolate in big ways. And I would love to say that I know exactly which ways those are going to be, but I think we are still quite early stage in terms of the business models that can potentially be there.

34:32

Anita

But what I would say is just simple. If you just want to have a takeaway, what can be looking out for, what can be interesting, look for NFTs that are approachable, okay? And have real utility. So utility should be something you can explain to your parents who are not technical. What is this NFT worth? What does it do? And you should even be able to make an Excel sheet, right, thinking about how much it costs and then project the actual value you'll get from it. So if it's an NFT membership, that's a membership pass to a club. That's exciting. Or if it's land. I really like the idea of digital land, digital real estate and identity verification. Finally, there's going to be a space for these five NFTs. So these are NFTs, where their primary utility comes from being a status symbol. I mean, human beings are status animals.

35:28

Anita

35:53

JP

Fair enough. That being said, I just want to let you know I still have my Air Jordans from back in the day. That is something I would rather not speak about, but it's certainly there. As a memento.

36:12

Anita

I have a gold plated Pokémon card. It's okay, but I could have put it in better condition at that point. I could have felt a little bit better.

36:26

JP

A friend of mine, it's interesting and I want to deviate from this, but the first time I found out about comics, because I wasn't in the US. But the first time I found about the value of comics was when a friend of mine who was living in New York came down. He showed me his I think he was one of the first Spiderman comics that ever came out, Right. The Amazing Spiderman. And he had it in near mint Condition.

36:56

JP

Right at that time. To me, it was just a comic book, right. And I was wondering, why is there no crease on this? Why isn't it rolled up? Why isn't it folded? And he wouldn't even let me touch it. I think he even turned the pages with the teaser.

37:15

Anita

Imagine if you had a digital version that show off. That's another value of NFTs that you can have collectible, but you can get value from it without just sitting in your safe at home. You can show off your comic book on your profile. Another thing like we didn't mention, I'm really excited about this idea that many of these web2 social platforms are starting to integrate NFTs into them, because the one big hindrance of this NFT space is, okay, I bought this NFT. How can I show it off? That's one big part of the value of having anything, right? People get fancy cars, for example, because of their ability to drive and et cetera, but it's also the status aspect to it. So having this display layer integrated into, for example, Reddit, Now, Instagram, Facebook, that's a good first step. And then I'm also very personally excited about some decentralized social networks that will also use these.

38:11

Anita

So, yeah, that's something to look out for, ways for you to show off your NFT and then get access using them.

38:18

JP

Certainly. I mean, it would be a whole different ballgame if more people had at least access to the entity without having to destroy it, right, like that one, because that has a shelf life.

38:32

Anita

Absolutely.

38:34

JP

Alright. Okay. That being said, I think I got a question that's already coming in from the audience. I'd like to take this moment. For those of you in the audience who want to send in a question, please go ahead and send it to AdLunam, Inc. Or if you'd like to ask that question, raise your hand and we can try and make you a speaker so that you can ask our speaker Anita, the CEO of Blind Boxes, to be able to take that question. Alright.

39:02

JP

Right. So I'll go to the last question before we move forward and then take those questions in from the audience. So, Anita, you've told us about your journey. You've told us about what led you to choose NFTs and then build Blind Boxes. Spoke about the community. You spoke about the advisors that helped you, the value of NFTs today. And of course, the Gold Pokémon card.

39:27

Anita

Right.

39:29

JP

I'm really keen to understand what's your philosophy about web3 changing lives?

39:38

Anita

So like I said, the biggest compelling aspect of this whole space is the fact that the decentralization allows for more transparency and access for more people. And the regulation as it is now, it might change, but way more regulation is now the average retail investor, the average person can get access to these early stage ideas and opportunities and can support them in a really cool way. So I think that you have this opportunity that might not be here in the future. There are ways that this can get regulated away, although I'm tagged out completely, but there's ways that it can change. But this is an opportunity for you to become a savvy investor and participate in this process of facilitating the building of companies from scratch. That said, with this freedom comes responsibility and risks. Unlike the typical role that many of us come with, there's no centralized authority that really help you if you are scammed or invest in something.

40:42

Anita

It's all for you to have custody of your things. But the best thing that you can do if you're in a space is educated and understand the risks that you're going into it and going to it with a longer term mindset. I would say the average person is not the best at buying and flipping and speculating and if they are, that's fine. But that's not going to be for everyone. It doesn't have to be. If you believe someone who finds projects that really believe in and invest in them in somewhat long term, I think that you'll have a less stressful life and it can beneficial for you. If you are a creator. You also have this tool that allows you to reach potentially thousands of investors and community people to get them excited about you. Your responsibility is to have taken the time to build a business model that is really sound, very sound, the most sound.

41:28

Anita

Because even if you start from a sound business model, even then still fail. So start there. If you don't know how to do this, bring in experts, bringing advisors. Not just advisors who can tell you how to hype your project, but people who could help you develop an economic model. Right. So the tokenomics, which we haven't talked about enough, but this utility thing, this whole concept of utility comes back tokenomics. So what is the economics of your token, your NFT collection? Truly not just the supply, but what's going to fuel the demand? Do you have any controls to bring down inflation? For example? Do you have any plans to actually make these NFTs useful for things? And that's something you can't just learn from a Twitter space or one call. You really have to investigate the space, go into traditional models looking to the web two space and the history of time.

42:22

Anita

You don't have to reinvent the wheel here just because you're using a tool. So, yeah, take the time to develop a sound business model and then be trustworthy. So I would say don't necessarily be anonymous or you can potentially anonymous, but you have to have accountability because the next iteration of crypto NFT investors, they're not going to be the same as before. And I think that they're going to want accountability, especially if they're investing their hard earned money in your project.

42:53

JP

Of course. Well, that's certainly a philosophy. I mean, more importantly, it's a series of values that every founder should abide by and have stake in their sites. Right. No deviation. So thank you for sharing that with us, Anita. I think that being said, yeah, let me see. Okay, I can already see that there's messages in from the audience and we have somebody that has requested to speak. I'm going to see if I can bring that up. But I think the first question I'm going to take is from, am asked the question. All right, so Blind Boxes target customer base. Can a novice or a newbie be part of the Blind Boxes community and use Blind Boxes?

43:44

Anita

Yeah, absolutely. I guess we haven't fully talked about Blind Boxes, the concept of Blind Boxes. So we're a gamified Launchpad and marketplace for NFTs. And when we are running these, for example, these Launchpad events, if you're not familiar with Launchpad, the idea is that you can go to a centralized space like web page and you can invest early stage in vetted projects. And typically Launchpads will have incentives that incentivize people within their community and allow them to get access to really cool early stage projects. So with Blind Boxes, we're looking at projects, everything from art to metaverse to gaming to just straight up utilities like domain name services, things like that. And what we do is to make it beginner friendly or friendly to any human being. We do a lot of storytelling around a project, try to so again, who are the founders?

44:39

Anita

What are they doing? What is their vision, what is their tokenomics? And moving forward, what we're going to be doing is applying our own analysis to it. So really doing the deep dives that we do personally, but making it public. So looking into the community. Okay, this project has 10,000 followers on xyz, on Twitter. What percentage of those followers are potentially bots? Okay? And it's not about us. It's about vetting the project, but teaching our community how to vet as well. So I believe that blind boxes actually moving forward will be a lot more beginner friendly because we're focusing on this storytelling aspect and the vetting aspect and making it as easy as possible for people to join this space. Also, finally, another thing we're focusing on is security.

45:22

Anita

So as I mentioned before, trust is an issue. Anybody who's been in the crypto space for long enough has been scammed or has heard of someone being scammed. So we're constantly doing alongside everything else. We're doing education and helping our users learn how to be savvy. Because what happens is if someone gets scammed, whether it's with Blind Boxes or somewhere else, then you might lose a really potentially valuable investor in the space forever because it is so new. So we want to protect anybody that interacts with us we want to protect.

45:53

JP

Fair enough. Okay. Yeah, I think that those certainly areas to focus on. I've got another question that's coming from Keto. Keto asked a question. How do artists or digital artists interact your platform?

46:09

Anita

So typically what artists will do is they will apply to join the platform using our application. And in this vetting process, we're looking to see where we can categorize a project, whether they are mature and go to market or whether they need more support. And typically, if a project is legitimate, even if they're not ready, we will have a call with them to see if they can potentially, what we could potentially do to get them up to speed and go to market in time. But, yeah, you have to come to the project with your own portfolio and preferably your own community. The hardest thing actually, is to build a community. And as much as community, we actually cannot fully build a community around a project anyway, so we need enough project to have their own community at least started or has ideas about how they're going to build a community.

47:03

JP

Okay. Alright. Thank you, Keto. I hope that does answer your question. Have another one come in from Sarah. Sarah asks, what are the future plans for Blind Boxes? I think she means over the next five years.

47:20

Anita

So longer term, so the marketplace will stay intact and the IDO function will still be intact, but we're actually working on building more DeFi tools that can service our user base. So the idea being that you come to the blind box platforms. I'm actually hesitating a bit because we haven't fully announced what these tools would be. But the idea is that you'll be able to both buy and sell NFTs. You'd be able to stake your token on our platform, you'll be able to invest in IDOs early stage, which is something to already do, and you'll be able to do some basic DeFi functionality. This is something we plan to have within the next two, next year, actually.

48:03

JP

Okay, fine. I think that does ask oh, I'm sorry. That was actually from Am. Sarah is the person who requested to speak. I think she's connected back with us. Sarah, if you can hear us, send in your question to AdLunam Inc. or through the speaker directly, and we'll have that answer for you. Okay?

48:25

JP

Yeah, she's bounced out again. Alright. Okay, next actually, this is one from me. Anita, I understand that you work with a lot of these empty projects. What would you want to say to them when they come on board?

48:42

JP

Because it’s not like there's a shortage of people who want to get new NFT projects, right? And they really need to have a deeper understanding about something. I know you've touched upon this before, but what would you say to them or what would you say to me if I came to you and said, hey, I want to work with Blind Boxes. I have this series of fantastic NFT digital art kangaroos that I want to turn into the next BAYC.

49:12

Anita

So this is where we would have a very long conversation about both utility and go to market strategy. So first idea is just the first thing I would say is what is the utility of these tokens? What do they do? What do they do today? What will they do in two weeks? All they do in remains only do in two years. Right? So thinking about the roadmap, but not based upon what the company you think you can build, but what will the value of this NFT, what will it do, what are your ideas? And we get all these ideas onto paper. And I would even encourage you to push even further than to make this brainstorming very robust because there's flexibility there and the space is evolving and you don't know what will be available in three months, for example. And that would be the first space.

50:01

Anita

The second thing I would ask you about would be your team and your commitment to the idea. So one issue that Blind Boxes has had is that we brought on really cool projects with valid economics, but the founders themselves, for whatever reason, were the teams. They weren't really in it. So they would launch them Blind Boxes, but they were, let's say, only in it for the top. They were in it for the idea of want to be able to sell xyz NFTs in one day and make xyz money. And then that's the extent of what they wanted to do. And the problem with that is that it's very thin. Their business model becomes very thin. And as soon as the market turns, which the market turns quite often, if you're in a space office, these projects completely disappear. So that would before Blind Boxes were to invest in.

50:46

Anita

Do you understand the long term implications? Do you have long term ideas for your project or the short term funding? And I see the final thing is community. What is your plan for building community? And it can't be that you're going to just be that you're going to pay a bunch of influencers to promote your project because that doesn't work anymore and it's not sustainable. So what is your plan? Are you going to be focusing on content marketing? Are you going to be focusing on traditional marketing, gorilla marketing? How are you going to make it so that people are interested in your project day after day, beyond just the day when you sell your tokens for the first time?

51:28

Anita

Team and long term perspective. Community team, long term perspective.

51:34

JP

Yeah, CT, LTP okay. Got it. Fair enough. I like that. Each of these questions are, of course, designed to get people thinking because it breaks them away from that. I'll just put something up there and hope that somebody buys it, and then I can call myself a digital artist or an NFT creator.

52:02

Anita

It's not going to work anymore. Just not going to work anymore.

52:07

JP

Those days are gone, Right. So, people, please think about what you want to do with your NFTs before you even decide to put it out there and have a word. Of course, yeah.

52:18

Anita

Have ideas about utility. Just think of NFTs as one way you can think of them as a membership pass, a membership club ticket.

52:27

Anita

It doesn't mean anything. It's just a piece of paper. Or if you don't add anything to it, but what can you add? Whenever I talk to new projects, I think about what assets they have. It can be kind of daunting. They're thinking, I don't know what utility means. I don't know what we can offer. Think about what your brand or your project has already. Do you have free things that you can give? Whether it's free knowledge, free products, discounts. One project that I'm advising, I'm really excited about is they make a settlement, a female. And it's a product that is normally it's already been on the market for multiple years, but now they've added this NFT to it, which is attached to very cool artists. But the whole point is, one of the core values when I'm telling people about it very quickly is if you have this NFT, you get a significant discount on the product for life.

53:16

Anita

And if you like this product and you appreciate saving money, that's the single most compelling use case. There's force more, there's more potential. But if you can start with that, this NFT gives you a discount. It sounds super simple, but we all know coupons, and we've used them, and we like it. We love promo code. You can think of your NFT very simply as a permanent promo code. That's one way to think of it. That's something you can do without using developers or anything like that. But the challenge is, can you do more than that? What can you do in the future? Do you have access to physical space anywhere in the world? An art gallery and crawl? Okay, maybe your NFT allows people to go to that art gallery once a month, do things, but you have to be creative about it.

54:00

JP

Right? Fair enough. Spot on about that. I think last, I want to dwell into this, but I know it's going to be a long conversation, so I'm going to hold back, but I will message you in detail about this as well. Okay. So the next question is from Alina and she asks, where do you see NFT marketplaces going? What is the trend that exists for them in this coming year?

54:32

Anita

I think many there were a lot of marketplaces that launched in the past within two years, I think many of them will go away because the network effects are quite strong. Right. You need to have a critical mass of buyers, sellers in the platform for sustainable. So I think that a lot of we'll say copycat markets are going to disappear just because the volume is not there. And that's fine. I think some of the larger ones will stay in place just because they have the money and financial aspects to stay there. But I think that in the future, the smart marketplaces will evolve to providing a very specific value. So essentially, you'll see marketplace that are very niche, for example, focusing primarily on gaming, for example, or focusing on creators and products from a certain region, certain types of NFTs. I also think you're going to see marketplaces if they want to survive innovate in the way that they're selling NFTs.

55:33

Anita

So there's this whole massive, untapped market of people who don't even understand NFTs, don't understand crypto. If you can penetrate that market, if you can target that market in any way, then you can survive. But that's not an easy task. That's not an easy thing. There's a lot of information. So marketplaces that spend the time to educate people will have a better time to use your acquisition.

55:58

JP

Exactly.

56:00

JP

I think you're spot on, Anita, it doesn't go amiss that I understand that you've worked with business development and you also have a background in engineering, but what are you saying to us through what I put? Or maybe that's just because I have my marketing head on. You've given us a lot of insight about how to really create value for a customer. And any good marketing knows that is the number one thing you look at when you start any venture whatsoever. So I got to thank you.

56:32

Anita

Yeah, it's a process we're all learning, but it's important to continuously reevaluate what you're doing in the space, whether you're an investor or creator or in the space, really, what are you doing and how can you do better?

56:48

JP

Yes, exactly. So, Anita, thank you so much. We stopped at the end of our show. I know we're going to need another one or certainly a longer conversation to have. But thank you once again for agreeing to be on the Future of NFTs.

57:04

Anita

Thank you so much for having me. If anyone is on this call is interested, definitely come to Blind Boxes, visit us in any of our social channels and we can help you get your product off the ground.

57:14

Anita

Thanks so much, everybody.

57:16

JP

All right, thank you. Thank you once again Anita and ladies and gentlemen, those of you that are in the house and those especially who are in New York tomorrow, we have our CEO and co-founder Lawrence Hutson speaking at the Future of Crypto event hosted by powered by Benzinga. Drop in. If you haven't bought your ticket yet, you can use the code AdLunam20 to get yourself a 20% discount on the ticket that's happening tomorrow, 7 December at Pier 60 in New York City.

57:48

JP

Alright, Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of The Future of NFTs. We will be back next week at the same time in the same place. See you then. Cheers.