#507 Beeple on Becoming The World’s Greatest Digital Artist

Beeple is one of the world’s greatest digital artists. He started as a graphic designer and animator, but has seen his digital art NFT grow to become worth millions of dollars per piece. In this conversation, we discuss digital art, creator tools, NFTs, alternative asset classes, the concept of everydays, physical tokens, his ideation process, and the recent Christie’s auction. ======================= BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp ======================= Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global full-time employees and contractors. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at http://www.remote.com. ======================= Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you are listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not bitcoin. I was in that situation too. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. https://www.retirewithchoice.com/pomp =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Beeple is one of the world's greatest digital artists. He started as a graphic designer and animator, but has seen his digital art NFTs grow to become worth millions of dollars per piece. In this conversation, we discuss digital art, creator tools, NFTs, alternative asset classes, the concept of everydays, physical tokens, his ideation process, and the recent Christie's auction. I really enjoyed this conversation with Beeple, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is BlockFi. BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, US dollar loans against your crypto collateral,

• 0:54Anthony Pompliano?

  and a crypto exchange that has a no-fee trading schedule. BlockFi is also coming out with a new credit card. It's a regular credit card that pays you back in Bitcoin rather than cash back or airline miles. I'm an investor, I sit on the board, and I'm a huge, huge fan of BlockFi. I suggest you go to blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp and sign up today. High-yield interest accounts, US dollar loans, no-fee trading, and a Bitcoin Rewards credit card. All the financial products you need if you're a crypto investor. BlockFi.com/pomp. Next up is Remote. In 2021, every business is a global business. But how do you pay your global team and comply with international labor laws?

• 1:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Remote handles payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance to help companies of all sizes pay and manage full-time and contract workers all over the world. No matter where your team lives and works, Remote's global employment solutions keep your team, your finances, and your intellectual property secure. Remote never charges percentages or fees, just best-in-class global employment solutions for a low, flat rate. The world's top global companies love Remote. GitLab, the world's largest all-remote organization, trusts Remote to manage their global team. And so should you. Remote is funded by Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and a host of other top-tier investors. You can learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com.

• 2:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, if you run a Remote team, you should be using remote.com. Next up is Choice. Choice is rebuilding the way you approach retirement, which starts with making it simple to include Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in your savings. More than 20,000 Bitcoiners, myself included, have already signed up to start investing. Whether we're talking about crypto or stocks, Choice lets you trade real Bitcoin and Tesla in the same place, all without paying a dime in capital gains taxes. And if you want to hold your own keys all the way to the moon, you can do that, too. Either way, Choice is on a mission to give you full control over your retirement savings. So head on over to retirewithchoice.com/pomp.

• 3:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, that's retirewithchoice.com/pomp and sign up for an account today. And one more thing, you know how I feel about this, but if you have a pro that manages your money, don't take any of their nonsense. Choice has tools for them, too. Take back control today and visit retirewithchoice.com/pomp. Again, retirewithchoice.com/pomp. All right, let's get in this episode with people. I hope you enjoy this one.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 4:02Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I am super excited. I've got people here with me. Thank you so much for doing this, sir.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Hey, thanks for having me. Super appreciate it.

• 4:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. All right. We've been trying to do this for a while. We finally got it scheduled. We're finally both here. I finally didn't cancel.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. It's like, Lou, you keep kind of playing funny. It's like bullshit, dude. You keep canceling, you motherfucker.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  Listen, we've been talking for a long, long time. And I really, really wanted to do it, but we had one incident come up where I had to reschedule.

• 4:38Speaker 04

  But we're here now. All right, let's start with your background. Everyone knows you as this amazing digital artist, probably the number one digital artist in the world today. And they're like, who the hell is people? Where did you grow up? What is your background and how did you get into digital art?

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Sure, so just long story short, I'm from Wisconsin. And I, you know, a small town in Wisconsin. Went to school for computer science about halfway through the degree, realized I don't want to be a programmer. Kind of was like, okay, let me just get through this stuff. And like during that time in college, I was spending all my time making weird little like short films and art stuff. And this is back in, you know, 1999 to 2003. So I'm 39. This was a while ago.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  And so after I got done with college, I got a job doing like web design. Again, this is back in Wisconsin for like a smaller company in Wisconsin there. And really sort of putting all my sort of real kind of like energy and passion into like, you know, the personal work outside of that job. And so three or four years after I started that job, I started the Everydays. And from there I saw a big sort of, you know, kind of boost in, in sort of just output of work that I was doing. And just the amount that I was learning, you know, very, very rapidly. And so after starting the Everydays, I started also releasing these creative commons sort of like VJ clips,

• 6:06Speaker 03

  which were basically custom little VJ clips that abstract sort of like loops that anybody could use for anything. And so from there, I started getting a bunch of. Uh, like concert visual, like the uh, music artists sort of looking for custom concert visuals. And so that was like a huge part of the sort of like freelance work that I did over the last, you know, ten years or so. Um, and you know, since then, it's kind of really just been sort of a slow, steady progression and people sort of like noticing my work and sort of, um, you know, uh, bigger and better sort of clients coming to me and looking for work. Um, and then obviously fast forward to, you know, four months ago with the NF, came to the, the sort of NFT and crypto arts space and that's when it really just,

• 6:51Speaker 03

  what the fuck is going on? So, yeah, uh, it's been really pretty slow and steady up until the past, uh, uh, three, four months here, then it's been a motherfucking rocket ride. It's been a rocket ride.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  All right, so let's talk about, uh, the everydays. Um, when did you start this? We've done five thousand or more of them. What was the idea behind doing the everydays and how did you get started?

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Sure, so those started in, um, May first, two thousand and seven was the, the first everyday. And I saw an illustrator out of the UK named Tom Judd who did, uh, Sketch a Day. And I thought that was a really cool idea and, and, and I wanted to get better at drawing. And so the first everydays are actually drawing. I, I wanted to get better at drawing, so it's like, okay, I'm gonna do a drawing every day. And after a year of that, I realized I learned a lot about drawing. Um, I was still very, very bad, as I still am today, very bad. That's not like, I'm actually really bad. Um, and so, but, uh, and so I thought maybe I could take that and use it to teach myself a 3D program, which I didn't know any 3D program. Um, and so I started doing a render every day.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  That's what it's called when you sort of make a program in a 3D program or make a, a picture in a 3D program. Uh, so I started doing a render a day using Cinema 4D. Um, and then I kind of just, you know, again, kept doing that for the next, the next twelve years. And so the everydays are again, a picture, start to finish, every single day. I'm not like banking these up. Um, it, it's about two hours per, per day roughly. You know, it sort of varies wildly depending on what's going on that day. Um, Yeah, that's kind of, you know, sort of always been the case and it's got to be posted somewhere online before midnight. And that's sort of the, the kind of boundaries of the

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Where do you come up with the ideas? You've got some absolutely epic things you've created. You've got some gruesome things, some inappropriate things.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  There's some nasty things.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Some beautiful things. Where do you come up with the ideas?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  So i- it's one of these things where um, I, I come up with ideas, a lot of looking at other people's stuff. Like I'm very much inspired by other people's work and sort of looking around and, and um, seeing different things and it might be, you know, a different shape. It might be like, oh, I never thought of making, you know, a creature like that or, or, you know, having this sort of scale or this sort of perspective. So it's really pulling from a bunch of different people, sort of um, a bunch of different digital artists work, that, that's a big piece of it. That is definitely a huge inspiration. And then I would say the other thing is just like current events. Like I, I'm very much into um, you know, current events and sort of what's going on and inspired by

• 9:37Speaker 03

  politics and sort of internet culture and sort of what's going on in the internet and um, you know, financial happenings and, and you know, the tech companies and their sort of relationship with people. So there, there's a bunch of different sort of things, you know, themes that, that kind of come into play each day. But I, I sort of look at it as being almost like a digital cartoon or, or a political cartoonist sometimes. But instead of, you know, just doing a sketch, I, I'm using like the most advanced 3D tools to, to make something that um, you know, would in the past take, you know, a bunch of time. Now because the tools are so powerful, I'm able to do it, you know, just in a few hours.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, and so when you think about this, um, why go from doing like this amazing uh, digital art that obviously you're very, very skilled at to then the NFTs? Was it something that you saw with the technology, uh, with the market? Like, like what caused you to uh, want to try the NFTs rather than just continue to post the, the digital art on Instagram and other places?

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Well, I think with the NFTs, I mean, one, it was sort of like, okay, well, people are making a lot of money on this, if I'm being totally honest, like that is definitely, uh, it was, a- and they're selling something that I never even thought you could sell. And so it's kind of like, oh, this actually makes total sense to be able to collect my very digital artwork in a digital way. Because before I, I would sell prints and stuff like that, and it's sort of like, that's one thing, you can kind of, you know, take my work and print it out, but like, my work is digital. And so it's meant to sort of be viewed on a screen. Um, and so being able to sell it and collect it in a digital way, you know, is something that to me is very exciting and something I, I didn't really see sort of coming.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  That wasn't really like, oh, in the future, there'll be a way to sort of like, you know, collect this and have it, it be feel very natively digital. That, that definitely was not on my radar, as I don't think it was pretty much anybody's. Um, so that to me is, is very exciting. And then just like NFTs in general, really sort of, um, like touch on all of the things that I'm interested in. It's got the art aspect, obviously, and a bunch of like crazy possibilities with that. Um, it's got the technology aspect. I feel like I'm finally sort of using my computer science degree here. Uh, and it's got the investing sort of aspect of it, which is something I'm also, also have been very sort of interested in.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Um, just in terms of, of different market dynamics and this and that. So, uh, to me, it feels like, you know, the, the most interesting combination of all the things that I'm like super, super interested in.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so when you first started, uh, looking at the NFTs, what's the first thing that you did?

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Uh, so the first thing is a, a bunch of people sort of kept sort of, uh, hitting me up and being like, oh, you gotta look at the NFT thing. You gotta look at the NFT thing. So the first thing I did that I remember, and this was in about mid-October, um, is I, I sort of looked at SuperRare and it was like, what the hell? Like, uh, people are paying like huge sums of money for stuff, again, that I did not think you could sell at all. And so the first thing I did was, I talked to Tach, who is, you know, sort of like, you know, a friend and I saw he was the top-selling artist on SuperRare and I was sort of like, "What is going on here?" And so he was nice enough to sort of give me kind of a refresher course of, or sort of beginner's core, you know,

• 13:05Speaker 03

  sort of introduction to the different platforms, how the technology works for minting, you know, why people are paying this much for it, and sort of trying to understand like, you know, just a base level of what's going on here. And from there, I just dove like head, head down, just, you know, down the rabbit hole, as they say, and really just started reaching out to anybody I could who would, you know, jump on a Zoom call with me and sort of like explain, you know, where they saw this going, what the limitations were, what people have done, what people haven't done, from the CEOs of all these platforms, to collectors, to artists in the space, to anybody sort of pushing in some direction.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  I jumped on a call with and like, you know, sort of picked their brain.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Got it. And so when you think about the technology stack right now, maybe walk through people, how you create the digital art, right? You talked a little bit about kind of the Cinema 4D and the rendering, but then also what the different platforms that you're using to actually mint this stuff? And kind of your experience with the various platforms in terms of either auctions, open sales, or limited editions?

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Sure. So in terms of making the art, yeah, like you said, it's done in Cinema 4D primarily. The renderer that I use is Octane. Otoy makes that. And they also have a render thing where you can sort of render it in the cloud, and they have a token for that as well. So that's the tools that is used to sort of make the artwork, along with Photoshop. I usually do some sort of paint over at the end to kind of, you know, some compositing. So from there, I have the everydays are done and, you know, kind of ready to be minted. In my case, I sort of take those everydays then and then have, sort of make them into videos to kind of sort of loop through and show the...

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Picture in a bit more detail and add a bit more information. Um, and then from there, you know, I, I honestly have only sort of done two drops through, and they've both been through Nifty Gateway. So I, I've done actually three now, counting the makers one. Um, but so in those cases, in all those cases, it's sort of, you know, it's one of these things where you kind of, okay, here's the artwork. You give it to them and they, you know, have sort of handled that. Um, you know, with places like Rarible, obviously you can sort of do it yourself, but it, it's really one of these things where you upload the artwork, you say the description, you pay the gas fee and she's on the blockchain. So it's not a, a super huge lift to, to kind of get it up there.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  But, uh, you know, each of the platforms obviously has their own,

• 15:49Speaker 03

  uh, you know, sort of drawbacks and, and strengths and weaknesses. The one thing I will say is I'm pushing all of these motherfuckers to get fucking accept credit cards because I really strongly feel that, you know, making this as easy as possible to bring in new users is, is going to be key. And the people who do that the best are the people who are going to have, you know, the most success moving forward.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And so when you think about the different ways you could sell your art, right? There are the limited editions, the open editions, and then also these kind of auction-based drops. Are there pros and cons in your mind to each one of those? Or do you prefer one over the other?

• 16:27Speaker 03

  There's absolutely pros and cons. And I think it, it sort of, it, it, it changes too over time. Um, so there's, there's, and that's another sort of piece of this that to me is very exciting is because you, I have all this work. I have a bunch of different work. Um, and I'm making it, you know, literally daily, making more and more of it. But the way you sort of split it up can make a big difference for how much it sort of sells for. And it will make a big difference, um, you know, long-term in terms of your career, in terms of scarcity and, and a bunch of different things. So that to me is something that I really think a lot about and, and things like the dollar edition of 100s, you know, trying to do things that people have never

• 17:09Speaker 03

  ever done before. That's another piece of this that, you know, is very exciting to me of looking at sort of, okay, what have people done in the past? Okay, I'm gonna try and do something different that nobody's ever seen. That's, you know, sort of structured like that. And so, uh, that is something that, you know, really, there, there's no right answer. It sort of depends on how much artwork you have, how much you want to put out at that time. But I, I will say that the things that I'm very much thinking about with that is, one, how can I keep some level of scarcity? And two, how can I return as much value um back to collectors immediately as possible?

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Um, and so that's one thing I, I, you know, I, I see people doing massive open editions and I think that's great. You're smashing on a lot of numbers, but when you have a massive open edition and, and, you know, seven, eight minutes, whatever, at the end of that, everybody who wanted one got one. And so there's not really that much scarcity left over. So that, that's one thing I would definitely sort of take into account is if everybody who got wanted one got one. Uh, you know, secondary sales and stuff like that, you, you've sort of removed some of that piece of the pie from, from sort of collectors being able to immediately sort of see

• 18:36Speaker 03

  some level of return on what they just bought. So I'm very much trying to make it so that my work is like, like a no brainer. Like it's like, okay, if I buy this thing, I, I know it's instantly like worth more than he's selling it for. So that's what I'm always sort of trying to do when I, when I price things and when I think about how many additions to put out.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Got it. And so when you think through this, why is the NFT market taking off so much? Is this just a bubble? Is it unsustainable? But like, what's your analysis as to why there's so much interest and so much demand right now in this market specifically?

• 19:12Speaker 03

  I think there's a couple of things. I think there is definitely a lot of hype. I think there's no way to not be like, okay, there's, there's people are, people are going ape shit. Um, so I, I, I'm not, you know, so naive eh, eh, to think that that's not a piece of it. Um, yet at the same time, and, and so I think there's this thing where it's kind of, it may be a bubble, but it's sort of one of these things where I also see a, a huge amount of legitimate, long-term value for this, this as an asset class. And I think we've only scratched the surface of, um, eh, different mechanics for how these can work.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Um, different utility use cases, because a lot of the utility use cases, you know, could be dependent on things that happen in the real world. And right now, the real world's kind of, you know, everything's got a big asterisk around it because of COVID. So we really haven't even, been able to see a lot of these utility use cases really sort of, um, you know, played out. Um, I look at people who are sort of like, oh, you know, this, you know, if you buy this NFT, it gets you some backstage, you know, concert. Well, those concerts aren't able to like happen yet. So we haven't really even seen that kind of play out. Um, but I think there are just so many uses for this stuff. And I think it's such an interesting new,

• 20:34Speaker 03

  um, you know, way to, to sort of store value that I think, you know, people are seeing that. And I think, sort of long-term, like macro, high level, looking at this as an asset class, I think, this could be something that really sort of appeals to, um, you know, younger sort of, uh, investors. And I think there's nothing really written in stone that, investors, you know, right now, the, the, for the last 50 so years or whatever, the, the predominant way that people sort of invested was like equities. And there's nothing that says that has to just keep going forever. And I think a lot of younger investors, they kind of hate corporations.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  They really don't like companies. And so to think that they're automatically just going to, Invest their money in companies moving forward like I don't know that I would that's not set in stone like they could look at other things that speak more to them in terms of asset classes and I think NFTs could be a huge huge you know, piece of that moving forward that they would rather invest in in something that you know, they have a bit more ownership over and they can sort of do what they want with a little more and they identify with more than sort of okay I grew up, let me put my money in GE and IBM and all this fucking shit that I don't give a fuck about or like this doesn't speak to me and I you know, it isn't really

• 22:03Speaker 03

  something I want to support in some ways. So I think that while there is a lot of hype right now, I think it also feels like we're still very much at the beginning of this.

• 22:15Speaker 04

  So when you think through kind of what's working, what's not working, are there specific things, whether it's in kind of your formula for success or other things you see in the market where you're like, this is definitely kind of a winning strategy from the artist perspective?

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Um, that's a good question. Um, I really think there's a lot of different like things and obviously like, you know, it's not just me who's seeing a tremendous amount of sort of, you know, growth and success in this space. So I think there's a lot of things that that people are trying that are, you know, working quite well.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  And I don't think there's one sort of like, this is the path. And I think,

• 23:00Speaker 03

  you know, it's evolving very quickly too. I look at like the hash mass thing and like that, you know, had like a massive, you know, sort of moment and then I think you're going to see a bunch of generative

• 23:13Speaker 03

  sort of projects happen from that. I think there's just a bunch of different mechanics that people have not tried yet to with the smart contracts and making these sort of gamifying the ownership experience, a bit more of the collecting experience. So I think that's something that, you know, there's still a huge amount of potential there.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  But yeah, I think that that to me is is sort of the fun part of this is it feels like we're at the beginning and we're writing the rules. And so I I don't think there's necessarily one like this is what you should do, at least this kind of this. And and also because each artist is different, like I have five thousand, you know, pieces that I spent two or three hours on. And some people have like, oh, here's, you know, I've got five pieces of work that I've done, but I spent two years on each one of them, you know? How do I sort of split that up? So I think there's there's really a bunch of different, you know, paths to success with this stuff.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  What did you sell your first piece for as an NFT? Do you remember?

• 24:12Speaker 03

  So the the first drop that I had was in October, um, and I had sort of three pieces, two videos. Um, and um, then the addition of one hundred for a dollar. And so the two videos, one of them sort of changed based on the election. It had sort of an initial state and then it it was going to change. And this was again, uh, about five days before the election. Um, so if Biden won, it was gonna change the one video. And if Trump won, it was gonna change to a different video. So it obviously ended up changing to the the Biden video, and that's kind of how it will stay from now on. Um, so that piece, those, both of those pieces, then I did another piece, um, you know, with that for auction.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  And both of those pieces went for sixty six thousand dollars to to Pablo.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  You sold them for sixty six thousand, but you also did a drop of one dollar for the other pieces.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Yep. So those were one dollar and it was an addition of one hundred. And so obviously those sold instantly and then people can sort of flip those immediately right through sort of Nifty. This was done on Nifty Gateway. And so people can immediately flip those. And so I my thinking with that was, okay, I know they're worth more than a dollar. But I I figured maybe they'd be worth like a hundred dollars. And so immediately, within forty five minutes, somebody had flipped the flip one for about a thousand dollars. And it was like, oh, my God, like, somebody sold that for a thousand dollars. That's crazy. And then by the end of the night, somebody had sold one for six thousand dollars. And it was like, what the hell like that is, you know, was just absolutely insane to me. Fast forward now, you can't get one of those for less than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  One went for three hundred thousand dollars. Like, it is like insane. Again, those were a dollar in October.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  So when you think through going from selling $1 pieces to one of your pieces just sold for $6.6 million.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  Yes, one of those 66,000.

• 26:12Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Basically. One of those pieces that went for 66,000.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Yep. Trump in all his glory with no clothes on laying in the, uh.

• 26:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm gonna get straight up fucking murdered by one of these QAnon morons.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  What happened? Why didn't it go for so much? Who bought it? Why? Like, what is going on with a $6.6 million?

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Well, I think like it's one of these things where the whole space is like, you know, going crazy. Like this is not sort of happening in a vacuum. And I think people are are sort of seeing again, obviously the Christie's sale was a huge impact of that. And people are sort of, um, you know, seeing that that this could be a massive, massive, um, you know, kind of thing. And me being one of the like, you know, most popular artists in the space, I think they're sort of attaching premiums to that. But there's also been different things that have kind of shown the price. Sort of there, there's been different sort of metrics. I think the 6.6, if you're looking at an addition of 100,

• 27:16Speaker 03

  and those are going for $150,000 each, then you can take the fully diluted value of those 100. And it's like, okay, well, that's like, you know, $10 million for that piece of artwork or whatever, $15 million. And so looking at the, in the context of that, you're like, oh, okay, I guess 6.6 is not just out of nowhere. Um, and then if you factor in like the B20 token, which is this whole other like, you know, I don't know if you want to get into that, but that's a whole other sort of thing that also right now is about $100 million divided by 20 pieces. There you kind of, you know, are coming to a similar number.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Explain what that is for everyone.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  So the B20 is a kind of a, a, a long story. You kind of need to know about, about DeFi to some degree, but I'll try and sum it up, you know, kind of quickly here. But so basically what it is, is um, in my second drop, the, I did like a 2020 collection and part of that drop, I did 20 individual one of one um, pieces. And so what happened is um, somebody bought all 20 of those pieces, kind of sort of secretly throughout the weekend and kind of, you know, sort of tricked everybody a, and ended up getting all of those pieces. And uh, he did that for a very specific reason because he then took those 20 pieces

• 28:36Speaker 03

  and built virtual museums for them in Somnium Space and Decentraland and a, a few other places. Built virtual museums, bought land, had museums built specifically for those 20 pieces. Then he took and bundled that all together into a smart contract, locked it into a smart contract and fractionalized that into 10 million shares. So the amount with the, the pieces that he bought, which was about 2.2 million dollars and the land, all said and done, he spent about 3.5 million dollars. And as of right now, that B20, and then he split it into 10 million um, 10 million uh, uh,

• 29:20Speaker 03

  you know, sort of fractions and, and made a token out of it. And so right now that token is valued at 91 million dollars. If you take the like thing, and this was one month that he did this ago. He did this June, January 23rd. And so it's been on sale a little over a month, five weeks or so, and it's now worth 91 million dollars from that initial 3.5 million dollars. Wow. So um, yeah, it's very like.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  It's great. It's securitization. It's virtual worlds. It's digital art. It's all this wrapped up is what is why some people are so excited about this. Uh, but then you, you weren't satisfied, right? You're literally the best digital artist in the world. And then you said, I'm going to go take on the man. I'm going to go, uh, get in bed with the incumbent and you went and did this Christie's auction. What did you do? Why did you do it? And how did it work?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Sure. So the, the Christie's auction came through Maker's Place. Actually, they were the ones who sort of like brokered that deal and, and sort of like organized that. Then they reached out to me and were sort of like, you know, we, we want kind of, uh, sort of the leading person in, in the space to kind of, you know, represent this and, and be the first. And so I was super honored. Um, and I look at it as, as sort of, uh, recognition and, and the reason I wanted to do it, um, is because I, I think obviously this, this, there's some validation from, you know, selling something on Nifty Gateway. But I think there's a different level of validation from selling something, you know, a digital piece of artwork, um, that has no physical component,

• 30:57Speaker 03

  um, through a 255 year old auction house, um, that is selling, you know, Rembrandts and, you know, Warhalls and, you know, two years ago, they sold a, you know, Leonardo da Vinci painting and just crazy shit. Like very much obviously a historical, uh, you know, something that is, is very much part of, of art history over, you know, centuries. Um, and so I, I think that brings a different level of validation and, and something that, um, I think will, will really help boost the entire space. And to be quite honest, I think it already has helped, helped boost the entire space. Just that since that's been announced,

• 31:37Speaker 03

  you've seen a fairly market uptick in, in like, you know, other Nifty Gateway sales and, and, you know, across the board, sort of interest in this stuff.

• 31:46Speaker 04

  What, what is the auction? Like, how does it exactly work?

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the auction is it started on Thursday of last week and it goes until March 11th. 11th or 12th, I think 11th. And so it's like a 17 day auction or whatever. It's on Christie's, you know, website. You need to be sort of vetted by them. And so the the piece that I'm sort of auctioning is kind of all 5,000 of the first every days, the first 5,000 days of every days in sort of one giant mosaic image. If you look at the very upper left hand corner, you see the very first every day. And the bottom right hand corner, you see the 5,000th every day, which was just last month.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  And so it's one JPEG, one massive, massive JPEG that encompasses all of those images. So I mean, it's something you could literally look at for hours upon hours upon hours and never like really sort of be able to kind of see everything.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Guess what it goes for? What do you think the winning bid is?

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Not guessing, bro. Not guessing. A lot of people are trying to get me to guess. I'm not guessing. What do you think?

• 32:57Speaker 04

  What is it at right now?

• 32:58Speaker 03

  At 3 right now.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  3 million?

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  50.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Okay, so here's a little context. If it goes for more than 20, it will be in the top 10

• 33:15Speaker 03

  highest, uh, um, sort of highest, uh, grossing or whatever, highest sold artworks by a living artist ever. If it goes for 20, it will be in the top 10 ever, like, most expensive artworks by a living artist. So we're getting into some wack, 50, motherfucker. We're getting into some wacky numbers here. Um, so it is very, yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 04

  Listen, why can't it go for 50?

• 33:50Speaker 03

  I'm not stopping it. I'm not gonna stop it from going for 50. It's just like hearing that and to be quite honest, you're not the first British says that. I was doing it like right before it opened. I was doing a clubhouse with CZ from Binance. And he kept me like 100 million, 100 million, like right at the end of their like clubhouse. He's like, okay, great. It's gonna go for 100 million. Bye. It's just like, Jesus Christ.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  No CZ, he's rich. He can buy it for 100 million.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  What the fuck is going on? But at the same time, like I look at it and it's like, that sounds crazy. But it's like, I don't know. I also see like just so much potential and I just feel like this could be a really like just not, not just art, like this really truly could be, even if, if NFTs captured a tiny fraction. It's just like with Bitcoin, even if they captured a tiny fraction of the traditional sort of like equity market, you're talking about literally a hundred, if not a thousand times from where we are now in terms of total market cap. I mean, the total market cap of, of NFTs is maybe 250 million or something like that.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  Like it is, that is a drop in the bucket of what it could be.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Talk to me about the physical tokens. Before we talk about kind of the investment case, the physical tokens that you created, this is, I think you're the first and only person to have done this so far. For those that are just listening and not watching, Mike just got up and walked away. Now, oh, he's back now. Okay.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  I'm back now.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  All right. So this physical token is.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, so these are the, the, you know, sort of physical tokens that were sold with the last drop. And this is something that I think is, is to me really interesting and something that I'm excited to sort of explore more because I think this is something that for a lot of people can be a great sort of entryway into this stuff because it's one of these things where it's like, what the fuck, why the fuck would I buy a JPEG? What the fuck is this stuff? It's like, okay, you don't really need a, you don't even, let's just take all those arguments off the table. What am I buying? You're buying this thing. Okay, that's it. I get it. Like it's one of these.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  For those people who are just listening, basically it is maybe a one foot by one foot, give or take, almost looks like plexiglass, but inside of the plexiglass.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's sort of like, it's like, it's kind of like, uh, looks like sort of a. Like a Kindle Fire type thing, you know, encased in acrylic. Um, and so it's, it really just keeps looping through the, the video. It's a video screen and it sort of keeps looping through it. And it's something that you can just put on your, put on your bookshelf and, and you know, plug it in and it just keeps playing. There's no interface, there's no buttons, there's no turning it off, changing the video. Um, it's got a signed, uh, this one's not signed or whatever, but it's got a signed number, titanium backplate so that it shows, you know, your edition number. Um, and then it's also, the video itself has a QR code. And what that QR code does is if you scan that, it goes to bebelcollect.com

• 36:56Speaker 03

  that has, you know, additional information about this artwork. Um, and immediately shows who owns the artwork. Um, and immediately shows how the, the artwork was made. And it's just something to sort of like, uh, a community to kind of tie the, the sort of, you know, collectors together, people who like own this stuff. And so, you know, I, I wanted to do something because the people have done sort of physical, um, you know, sort of things in the past, tying NFTs with these. But it always seemed very, you know, sort of separate, like, okay, you get a print with it. And well, which is worth more, the print or, you know, the NFT? And I wanted it to be something where they were very sort of tied together

• 37:38Speaker 03

  and they felt like one cohesive, um, very digital product, um, that, that you wouldn't really sort of think of separating. So along with that, we, we did, wanted to do some really like cool packaging and something that would really sort of, you know, get people excited about, you know, getting this stuff. And so we did these, um, you know, boxes that, that really tried to put like a bunch of sort of like time and energy into making something that would be really fun and like exciting for people to, to unbox. So.

• 38:11Speaker 04

  What's in the boxes?

• 38:12Speaker 03

  What's up?

• 38:13Speaker 04

  What are the things in, uh, in the box?

• 38:15Speaker 03

  So the box has, you know, obviously it has the frame. Then it has a, another certificate that sort of, you know, has the token ID and, and has some, some extra sort of like details there. It's got a cleaning cloth and then it also has a hair sample.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  What is the hair sample?

• 38:30Speaker 03

  It's not pubes. A lot of people are saying it's pubes. It specifically says there, it's not pubes. So I'm just gonna.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  Why is there, what, why did you put a hair sample in the everyday box?

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Um, so the reason is my

• 38:47Speaker 04

  He's gotten up and left again, hold on.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  My name, my name, um, Beeple, actually comes from this toy from the eighties that you sort of cover its eyes. Is it not doing it now? You cover its eyes and it beeps. Okay, now it doesn't want to beep, but it's it, um, this is actually a Beeple. Like this is what I named after, this is what I named myself as a designer after, you know, 20 years ago or whatever. And so that's, this is what the hair is from. It's not goddamn pubes, you friggin perverts. So this is its hair shaved off of this, like, you know, for people listening to this, like, it's like an Ewok looking uh, little sort of toy, um, that you can get off of eBay for like 20 bucks. They're not really that like, you know.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  But that's, that's a Beeple. And so that's what the hair is.

• 39:40Speaker 04

  All right. So when you think about all of this, uh, you started out, you know, whatever, 20 years ago, uh, trying to figure out how to be an artist, how to use a lot of these technologies. Uh, and you've now kind of grinded your way to the number one digital artist in the world. Uh, what's changed? Like, did you go and buy a private jet? Did you, uh, order a bunch of Domino's? Uh, you know, what, what's changed about your life?

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Um, honestly, nothing because it's sort of like, I really still like see a huge amount of, of room for improvement. You know, each day, um, I, I think the pictures could be much better. And, um, you know, I, I think there's a, a bunch of different areas in that that I think look to be better. From color, composition, form. I mean, the, the really, I, I think there's quite a lot of room for improvement. So that, that's something that really sort of keeps me going. And now I, I think bringing in the, the physical aspect, that is something that I'm super, super excited about to start exploring. And something that, you know, as a digital artist, I never really thought of it.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  And I think it's ironic that as a digital artist, This NFT technology pushed me into making physical art and I think it's really gonna do the opposite for the other side. I think it's gonna take physical artists and they're gonna look at this and be like, okay, how can I make my work more digital? And so I think you're really gonna see this massive explosion of creativity from both sides, sort of pushing, you know, the, the, the technology in different ways that I'm, you know, super, super excited to, to sort of be a part of that. And I think it's also going to be, um, you know, oh, oh, I think this technology is gonna open up a new chapter in art history and sort of,

• 41:28Speaker 03

  uh, I think there, there's gonna be people sort of going back and looking at this digital art that's been made over the last 20 years and sort of really recognizing that as a true art form and something that you can now collect.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Uh, when you think of this as an investment class, kind of like an alternative asset, and you got a bunch of thoughts there. Is this something that's sustainable? Well, you know, institutional investors eventually have a digital art allocation. How does that work?

• 41:54Speaker 03

  I think it will. I absolutely think it will be. I think, um, again, I think it's, it's one of these things where I think collectibles in, in general, um, and art in general, art does pretty well, like blue chip, if you look at the like higher end, you know, art, year over year returns on stuff. It, it does quite well versus, versus other asset classes. So I think it's something where, um, right now, there's a lot of speculation. It, it is very speculative and I think one thing that, that people do need to be careful of on this is, to be quite honest, a, a lot of these NFTs will go to zero. Like, that's just if you look at like, uh, traditionally art,

• 42:36Speaker 03

  the very top appreciates quite well and the, the bottom 90%, like they do not do well and they will, will probably lose money. So it is something that, you know, just because somebody made an NFT out of something doesn't mean it automatically has value. Like that's, that's definitely not the case. Anybody can sort of make an NFT out of anything, that there's no promise just because, oh, it's an NFT, like, that it just magically has any value. Um, so. It's definitely something where I would look at people who have, you know, sort of been around a while and sort of, you know, that it's not just getting caught in the hype of, you know, the shiny new thing.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  Um, so I think it's, it's something that, you know, looking at like the, the B20 thing. It's sort of like this guy bought these NFTs and then he was able to sort of use them to do this other thing to actually make more money. So you really have a high degree of ownership over these things versus if you have a stock, it's sort of like, well, you know, you, that's it. Like you kind of, you don't have a bunch of like, you know, things you can kind of do on top of that to, to do, do what you want with it. And, and as we're seeing with like the GameStop thing is even the rules that you thought you had about owning that stock can change on a dime. And so that's another thing that I think people are going to look at with this as an asset class and be like,

• 44:03Speaker 03

  maybe that, you know, could be something that could be a, you know, an actual store of value in some respects.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  What do you think about your portfolio? Is it all crypto? Is it all digital art? Is it in traditional, like a bunch of people were asking online just in terms of how you think about investing and allocating your own portfolio?

• 44:22Speaker 03

  So I'm honestly quite new to crypto and like, again, like I, before this, I had bought a little bit of Ethereum in 2017, just like everybody in their freaking grandmother did. And saw it go up, saw it go down, never really thought about it, just, you know, of just a small amount to kind of, you know, jump in the game a little bit here. Um, since I've come to this space, I definitely started allocating much more of my, and I understand crypto now and I understand the value proposition of both Bitcoin and Ethereum much better now. Uh, now I've allocated a much bigger proportion. So now it's, it's about 33% of my, my portfolio is, you know,

• 45:04Speaker 03

  currently portfolio is sort of allocated to like crypto. The rest is mostly in, um, traditional sort of like stocks and like, to be quite honest, I'm not that. Uh, you know, sort of aggressive as a ambassador and very much sort of like set it and forget it and sort of, you know, something that will just grow incrementally over time. Um, and so most of that stuff is, is regular equities and mostly like tech stocks and some ETFs and stuff.

• 45:32Speaker 04

  Do you buy um art from other artists or do you basically say, look, my exposure to art is through my own work and um, and then you just kind of cheer them on from the sideline?

• 45:42Speaker 03

  I have not bought any other art, to be honest. I actually don't think I've bought a single NFT. And I think it's one of these things where I just don't have this like, I've been so busy, like sort of, uh, you know, building my own stuff that it is, I haven't had like a chance to sort of like dive in from like a collecting aspect to, to sort of, you know, start, start investing in this stuff. Um, so it's one of those things where I also kind of feel like, I don't know, like I feel like there's so many, I have so many friends creating stuff, like I, I feel like once I open that, I'm a little hesitant to open that can of worms. It's like, well, why didn't you buy my thing? Why didn't you buy my thing? Cause I have a million friends creating digital art.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  And it's sort of like, I, I can't, I can literally, you know, wouldn't be able to sort of buy all the amazing stuff out there. So it's definitely, you know, I, I think it's, it's, it's super cool, but it's something I, I still need to process how I'm going to sort of like me personally, you know, I'm going to approach that.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  All right. I've got five questions for you. We're going to run through these before.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  Lightning round.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  What is, what do you consider your biggest personal achievement?

• 46:58Speaker 03

  Uh, the Christie's thing.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Oh, all right. That's great. It's ongoing. It's live. Let's roll.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Okay. I don't know. Well, you were quick.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  Second question is, what is the one artist that you would most like to collaborate?

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Aphex Twin.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  Woo, that's a great suggestion. Third question, what is the most important book that you've ever written?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. That is a book that I would say probably, I never read books. I almost never, in the last 20 years, I've maybe read two to three books. So I just don't read books. I like reading the news. I like reading, I just do not like reading books.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  That book was very sort of like inspirational and something that I think was, I read it right when I started the everydays around there. So I think that was a big, big sort of part of that.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  All right, next question comes from our friends over at Eight Sleep. I gotta imagine you're like me, last year, I slept very, very little before the pandemic hit, like five, six hours was horrible. I got myself an eight sleep, which is this like thermo-regulated bed. I turned it real cold, sleep on it like a baby. Now I get eight, nine hours. I feel like a new man. What's your sleep schedule and how has it changed?

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, honestly, it's not, it's very a bit all over the place because I'll wake up after like three hours and it's like, I've got a million ideas, NFTs, what the fuck, like, what's going on? Like, it's such a frickin' crazy rabbit hole that I, maybe I need to get one of those, whatever that hell they're called.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Eight Sleep, Eight Sleep mattress. Better art with eight sleep. That's what, that's what I'm gonna start telling people. I'm gonna say, people makes better art when he sleeps on an eight sleep.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  All right, last question, very important question, then you get to ask me one to finish this up. Alien, are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 49:03Speaker 03

  In aliens?

• 49:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Um, probably, there's probably some sort. I mean, I don't think there's aliens that we've seen, but I think there's probably aliens out. I don't know. I would say yes-ish.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  Yes-ish.

• 49:21Speaker 03

  What is your que- what do you think?

• 49:23Speaker 04

  I think there's aliens, but they're too far away, so we're never gonna actually come in contact with them during your my life, so it doesn't really matter.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  That's probably what I would say as well. That is probably what I would say.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  Like, existence and communication are two really big different things.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, you could be on the other side of the universe, and it's kinda like, cool.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, don't come over here, we won't come over there, and we'll all be good.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  We're pretty far away. We could be pretty far away from the next verse.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Alright, you could ask me one question. What do you got for me?

• 49:51Speaker 03

  Um, what technology in the crypto space are you most excited about?

• 49:58Speaker 04

  I'm going to bid fifty million dollars on this Beeple piece at Christie's.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  Okay, good answer. Good motherfucking answer. Okay, I like it. That's a wrap, bro. No, you heard him. You heard him. He fucking committed fifty million dollars. You owe me fifty million dollars now.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  No, someone's gonna- CZ's gonna bid fifty-one million, so the bag's his. Uh, what, uh, where can we send people to find you on social media, find the Everydays online, and find more of the work you're doing, uh, with the NFTs?

• 50:33Speaker 03

  Um, I think if you just Google Beeple, you'll find, you know, Instagram and then all the other goodness there, so there's no shortage of places to find them.

• 50:44Speaker 04

  You know you've arrived when you just tell people, "Google me."

• 50:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, except I still don't have a goddamn Wikipedia fucking page. If anybody can, uh, give me a Wikipedia page watching this, there, there's your homework assignment. Get Wit- Beeple a Wikipedia page.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Alright. Beeple wants a Wikipedia page. That means if you downloaded the podcast or the video, you listened all the way to the end, and you have the ability to create a Wikipedia page, if you hook Beeple up with it and tweet at us, he'll probably do nothing other than say thank you.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Uh, he'll do a lot more and say thank you, but yes.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  Awesome, man. Listen, thank you so much for doing this. You're absolutely killing it. It's so fun to watch.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  Dude, I appreciate that.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  And, uh, and we'll talk soon.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Awesome.