#534: MetaKovan on the Metaverse

MetaKovan is a Singapore-based blockchain entrepreneur, coder and angel investor. He holds one of the largest digital art and NFT collections in the world, including the winner of $69 million purchase of Beeple’s Everyday from Christie’s Auction House. In this conversation, we discuss virtual worlds, digital goods, identity, pseudonymity, contrarian investing, asymmetric markets, digital museums, and being the Donald Trump of the metaverse. ======================= Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com ======================= OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. ======================= Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space, and we’ve teamed up to offer an exclusive discount for you, as listeners of the podcast. Sign up for Exodus today using my promo code Exodus.com/pomp. This is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights - go sign up today. =======================

• 0:00Speaker 00

  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. Medikovin is a Singapore-based blockchain entrepreneur, coder, and angel investor. He holds one of the largest digital art and NFT collections in the world, including being the winner of the $69 million purchase of Beeple's Every Day from Christie's Auction House. In this conversation, we discuss virtual worlds, digital goods, identity, pseudonymity, contrarian investing, asymmetric markets, digital museums, and being the Donald Trump of the metaverse. I really, really enjoyed this conversation with Medikovin, and I hope

• 0:42Speaker 00

  you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Circle. If you don't know about them, pay attention. Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USDC Coin, USDC, which is the fastest-growing, regulated, fully-reserved dollar stablecoin in the world, now standing at more than $11 billion market cap, and it's adding nearly $300 million net new digital dollars in circulation every week. Short answer is, it's growing incredibly fast. The free Circle account and suite of

• 1:25Speaker 00

  platform API services bridges the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. You can learn more at circle.com. Jeremy and the rest of the team over there have been doing a fantastic job. Not only have they built the fastest-growing stablecoin, but also they've built all sorts of great partnerships with places like Visa and many, many others. Go check them out at circle.com. I'm a fan, and I think you will be too. Circle.com. Next up is OKX. OKX is one of those companies that understands crypto moves fast, and many crypto-focused companies can't keep up. Crypto exchanges that cut through the noise are the ones that give you access, wherever you are in the world, to the cutting-edge projects emerging in this new asset class.

• 2:10Speaker 00

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• 2:52Speaker 00

  an account at OKX.com/pomp. Again, O-K-E-X.com/pomp. O-K-E-X.com/pomp. Next up is Exodus. Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system. Yep, you guessed it. They're building a beautiful and user-friendly blockchain product. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. They're supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your wallet. Interactive Charts lets you view an asset's price history and your portfolio's performance

• 3:35Speaker 00

  over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with a treasure hardware wallet, making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit Exodus.com for your free download, or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. Again, Exodus.com for your free download, or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. They have built simply the most beautiful crypto wallet. Go check them out, Exodus.com, or search Exodus on the App Store. All right, let's get in this episode with Mette Kovan. I hope you enjoy this one.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got a very, very special treat for you today. I've got Mette Kovan here. Thank you so much for doing this.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Thanks a lot, thanks a lot.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  All right, let's jump right into it. You purchased Beeple's piece from Christie's Auction for $69 million. What the hell are you doing? Why are you buying this piece for $69 million?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  I think I paid 250K more than the other guy, so I guess the market put a price on it, so it's not really in my hands. And you know, Christie's was a very historical, like, significant moment in NFT heart history. So I've been in a space where I've been focused on, you know, collecting NFTs that are changing the medium, changing the way NFTs look at, right? And with Christie's, what I thought was that it could really change the medium and open it up to the consciousness of the whole world, right? And that gives us a lot of, you know, like, room to play with NFTs.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  So I should say it's been a logical next step for me, that we bought this NFT, because we've done this for a while now. And we then just went to that flow, right? And we are here now.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Got it. And so when you think about NFTs or non-fungible tokens, what do you see? Like, why are you so intrigued by these? And why are you spending so much time understanding them, buying them, collecting them, and using them?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Very, very, very nice question. If I could, you know, give a very different answer, I would say NFT captures the aura of the moment. So it's very interesting. Historically, it's been that physical piece which we've just been capturing this aura, right? Like, it has such an aura, the physical piece of art. You'll book a flight ticket, you know, like, from another country to go visit Mona Lisa. And that physical, like, all this aura of someone, you know that someone touched it, like, you know that the painter was near it.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  You know, like, so many people have been close to it. And all those auras, what goes into, you know, why and painting is valuable, right? But... We talk about physical art being there, you can touch it, touch it, right? Like, but, but the first thing they say when you enter a museum is, don't touch anything, right? So, we've already been enjoying art where we only think about the aura on the, on it, right? Like, we don't actually touch and feel the texture or anything. That's all alive, right? Even the owner might not do it, right? So, in that way, I think digitally we've had this space for a while, that, that aura has never been captured because every copy was equal.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  So, if you take an M V three file, you copy it, and it's the same file. There's no way, you know, to prove that this was the first copy, right? And so, when blockchain comes in, it totally changes the game because now we have time, right? And, and human beings are very good at stories, so, but blockchain is now recording all these stories. And, and an N F T is just a beautiful way to capture anything that you feel is significant. Uh, and, and you just make it an N F T, and it stays there. And you know who made it for you, you know when you got it, right? And you know it's there, and that is able to capture the aura.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  And so, when you think about, uh, kind of the first N F T that you came across, the first one you purchased, tell us that story, right? Wha- what was the first one?

• 8:11Speaker 02

  The first ones were land on decent land, right? Um, I'm, I did not get into the thought of, you know, art and aura until, until I start, first started collecting, collectibles, game collectibles. So, that's a, a great story we can go into. But the first ones were just land on decent land, right? And, and like, back then, my, my thesis was very simple. I was thinking, oh yeah, like, I, I used to watch this, uh, documentary about capitalism, which, which talks about Amsterdam, London and New York, and how they became cities, right? All these three cities, I love them, right?

• 8:52Speaker 02

  I love them, I, like, if you, if you visit the three, three cities, you'll, you'll enjoy the same historic way, how this capitalism has made this, uh, whole society different, right? These three cities captured them. And that documentary is on time, I think, it's called, uh, Three Cities That Shaped the History of the World. Now, after watching that, I was always been thinking, what is the next city? Because we are new money. And I have to find a place to invest in real estate, man. Right? So I've always thought about, you know, physical space and what are the problems there? Including cronyism, unfair, not open borders, etc.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  And I thought, maybe, just maybe, one of these virtual worlds actually becomes a city. And at least thereby, you know, historically, I have not had the opportunity to buy real estate in all of these cities. But maybe I would become important, right? And be able to drive the city. So that's how I thought about Decentraland.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  Got it. And so when you think about that digital land, is the idea that there's basically going to be virtual worlds or this metaverse? And therefore, you've got a lot of the same dynamics that you have in the analog world, right? Whoever owns the land ends up being able to monetize it well? Or is there some other thesis, right? Like, how much of this is dependent on the proliferation and adoption of virtual worlds?

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Definitely, to a large extent, there is this need in this world also. We are not talking about a product that has no, it's not solving any problem. We are solving a very interesting problem with the metaverse that you can remove identities, you can remove the total judgment that will come with someone. And instead of being on, say, a social media platform, being in the metaverse just means that you are able to display your character through various ways. It could be art. And that's all we vibe with. Like, when you meet people in person, all you're looking for is, who's this guy? Right? And that's very hard on the internet. So the metaverse is a very interesting place. Because, you know, it's like a game, right?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  To an extent where you can make a friend in a game, but not on Twitter. It's very hard. Right? So that's what we are talking about in Metaverse, where I think the next social media might not look like Facebook, might not look like Twitter. I feel like it'll look more like Decentraland. And the other way of thinking about it is... Where I think about it as a distribution medium, a new way to distribute multimedia content. So right now Netflix, I would, I would pay so much to, you know, own the banner in the Netflix app. Think about it, right? I don't know how much value, probably that's the value of the company.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Cause they took all the attention of the world and, and they could bring it inside and they choose what you're going to watch, right? Right? So that's even though there are millions of websites, people talk about it all the time. Oh yeah, Metaverse is, you can have million land pieces. Yes, yes, it's all, yeah, exactly. It's all in our head, but we do not go to millions of websites. We go to Netflix and we click on a banner and that's how we chill, right? So what I really like about the Metaverse is that you as a developer, I mean, like, like the real estate developer, you are able to pick up these lands which are not very valuable, but by, by building a Burj Khalifa, a building a Marina Bay Sands, you're able to, you know, totally bring people's attention.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  And if you own land around it, it's a nice way to make money.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. What's so fascinating to me is you're kind of mixing two things, right? You're mixing the values of scarcity, of ownership, of kind of attention with things that are completely digital, right? So that I love the example of kind of the banner ad in Netflix. Another one that I've heard from a friend is kind of the top search result in Amazon. It's really hard to unseat whoever that top search result is. And so obviously they get most of the traffic for purchases of a specific item or search term. Talk to me a little bit about when you think about this whole new world. Is it something that you're a hundred percent focused on or do you hedge?

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Do you say, hey, I've spent a lot of time in virtual worlds with digital goods and NFTs and decentralized. But I also spend a lot of time investing outside of this world. Just, just walk me through kind of how you think about investing today in the virtual world compared to the analog world.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  So I, um, right now, I'm very focused on the virtual world, right? I, I feel like we have, uh, it's like, yes, it's also investments in a lot of ways. But I also have this feeling that, you know, I want to be part of the building of this. Right? You know, like making of this whole, like some people say, I, I, I remember when, like, I had, I had the chance of meeting Ben Horowitz one. And he told me, like, I was building some other company, uh, Bitcoin too, but, uh, he, he, he told me, you know, like, there are two kinds of people in the world. One who ride the wave and who, one who make the wave, right? So from then on, I've always been thinking, you know, I should be part of something where I can make the wave.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Right? And possibly impact a lot of people in the world. So I have this skin in the game to make sure the metaverse is, is really an interesting place, a visually interesting place. And something that speaks to the next generation. And I think that's a way for us to not just think about, you know, like something, some economic game here. But it's a very cultural game. It's a very social, socio-economic game. So I think it's important for the metaverse to exist because it opens up all the borders, right? Um, and it, it totally allows you to be free of judgment, at least, you know, where you have to grow. And, and that's really awesome over the meta world. So I think more than the analog world, right now, my focus is on the virtual world.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  But I feel like there'll be connection to the physical world and all mine have been happening through the virtual world.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  So when you speaking earlier, you started to talk about identity and this whole idea of basically taking, uh, yourself and immersing yourself in the virtual world, right? I think a lot of people think of, oh, it's an NFT, but I'm sitting in the analog world and I'm viewing it through, uh, my computer screen or my phone. Uh, and so there's a disconnect between that analog and, and virtual world. What you're really talking about though, is this fully immersive experience where, uh, you essentially put a character into the virtual world. You're able to go and experience things. You're able to go visit certain buildings or pieces of land. You're able to go to, uh, things like digital museums. Walk us through, you know, in your vision, what does that look like 10 years from now? Right? It, it's hard to see today because there's so many, uh, pieces being built and it's not quite put together yet.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  But like, what's the ultimate vision when it comes to that immersive virtual world?

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Like the simple answer is, you know, uh, we want artists to build that, right? The simple answer. Why am I, why am I saying that? It's because, yes, I, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a capitalist and I'm, I'm probably I'm a, I'm a 10% economist, right? Like I've not formally uh been educated, but I'm, I have no idea about the human condition. Now, Metaverse is a huge risk. If you think about it, how, how it's going to evolve and, and really capture a lot of people's attention. And there could be other, you know, like issues which we just, you know, create because we have no idea, right? So I think artists really are going to be part of the building of, of, of what's going to happen.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  So I think it will be focused on the human condition, right? So that's, that's one thing I immediately feel about. The second thing is the power, the, the Metaverse becomes powerful with a game layer in it, right? So something, I'm thinking, you know, you start with nothing and you are like Metaverse gives you something first initially. And with that, you, you are able to build some wealth, but also connections, friendships. You know, you're able to build a human moment inside the Metaverse. And I think that's, that, that will totally change the world because a 14-year-old then, their favorite place to go. Then like it, it will almost be a defiant move, right?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  For the next generation to just, you know, want to visit this Metaverse. Because it'll be, it is, it is just a graffiti wall, right? And it'll speak to them more than it speaks to us. And, and that's why I think it'll be able to attack and, and engage all this new, new audience. Which is very important for the crypto movement also. But this whole thing will not be only for the, um, you know, people who already bought land or, you know, already. It'll be, there'll be a beautiful game layer is what I feel. I, I think even decentralized land would, there'll be people, it's an open world, right? So you are able to build these games, which we are not seeing yet, but it'll be cool to, you know, collect stuff, you know? Make your own swatch kind of a thing or, you know, there, there could be many layers to that.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  So I think that's why we're going.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  For sure. And you mentioned the graffiti wall. To, talk a little bit like, uh, more about that.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Okay, so it's uh gra- graffitis are are very important to a society, right? So I almost say, who owned the wall decides what kind of society you live in? So eh I don't know about America. I think the walls are owned, you know, like by like by no one, right? Like and when I say owned, I mean who has control over them, right? So maybe you can do some graffiti, maybe it's frowned upon, not illegal or or you know, like they're okay. But if you go to Berlin, the walls belong to the artist, right? And when you are, when you are going on the train and just look outside, you you get a sociological lesson, right?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Every trip you go, you you you are being made aware through those graffiti. It's very important. But if you take India, the gra- walls are owned by the politicians. So you travel anywhere in India, you will see graffiti, but it's all the names of the politicians. That's what goes into people's mind, right? So it's very important to understand politically and so show socially who owns the wall. And Metaverse is just a new area and those walls are open up for graffs right now. But it's going to be so populated by a diverse crowd of artists, I hope.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love that metaphor. Like, I really do think that there's a lot of truth to whoever owns the walls owns the society. Um so that's a very uh prescient way to look at it. Uh when when you start to think about uh this digital world, what are your interests? Or do you want to build um really large buildings? Uh do you want to build digital museums? Uh do you want to become the largest art collector in the virtual world? Just talk to me a little bit about your personal aspirations and and kind of what you're focused on.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Sure, I've been, you know, like, because it's an experiment and and I've been mostly like it's it's all. My own experience, I've been funding them, so it's been a fun ride so far. Because I get to experiment, right? Sometimes I think, maybe, should I, should I become Donald Trump? Right? The equivalent of Donald Trump being a virtual estate developer. I'm like, okay, that's, that's a nice job description, right? Uh, and things like that, where, you know, there are so many new job descriptions, right? It's, it, you can be a builder, you can be an architect, uh, you could, you could be a producer, which I tried out. So, in, in case of B20, which we did, it was a production in its own.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Uh, we had twenty seven people working on it, bringing together artists, et cetera, right? So it's a very different experience I had with B20. And going forward, I don't want to repeat them, right? But maybe three, four different experiments, completely different. And then, you know, maybe a model will, you know, kind of evolve and, and, and, and, and surface. So maybe I can take that and run with it. So right now, I'm just open. The next will, will be a different experiment I wanted to.

• 21:17Speaker 00

  I love it. So, talk to me about your art collection, right? How many pieces do you think you own? Uh, and what are some of the pieces that are in there that people will know?

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Sure. Um, it's very, it's a little hard to say how many pieces, because, you know, it's actively being collected by not just me, but, but a team now. And so we, we, we are, you know, like, we are, we are focusing on. Right now, we are focusing more towards causes, right? And like, for example, uh, there, there was a drop about Black Lives Matter movement, right? And we thought it would be interesting to collect that NFT. The proceeds went to, you know, supporting that movement, so we really like that. So there are so many NFTs like that, which are, you know, cost-based, uh, which are done by beautiful artists, so that's great, too. Other than that, just before Christie's, up till Christie's, Tubodur from, you know, Metapass, he's, he was the eye.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Right? Like, he used to pick the best artists. So we had this, uh, had this thing where he used to go out with other artists into the metaverse to buy art, right? So it was the best way to buy art, man. So you can, you can just, you know, take someone, it's your taste, their taste, you talk about it. It's such, such a beautiful experience. Everyone should try it. And so we've collected significant numbers, it it should be in the thousand, right? But I don't have an exact number, but it's all very, uh, one of our team really wanted it. And that's why we have it. It's it's it's like that. So some of the best pieces or or one of the best piece in my art collection, which I'm very proud of is is the first upper.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Uh, it's it it was the first ever programmable art by from Acingart. Acingart is is a is a co- company I just love. I've fallen in love with companies that are founded by artists, right? So it's it's my new thing now. So I will, it's like, you know, co- like we we always look for a founder traits. I now look for an artist, so it's it's it's cool that way. And Acingart is one of them. And then they pu- released the, launched the first supper. And that's when I understood, I really understood it was a significant moment. It had thirteen artists, it was a twenty-two-layer piece, right? And then it it it didn't have a lot of competition back then. I I I could I could buy it for twenty thousand dollars, I guess.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm talking about March last year, right? So I feel lucky over that. So that's tha- that's a piece I love.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  How much money are you spending every week on digital art, you think?

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Um, like Metapost as a whole, we are spending around two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  So about quarter of a million dollars per week. And the idea is that you'll buy this stuff and you'll hold it forever. You'll, you know, buy some, you'll sell some, uh, you you're trying to kind of figure out what has value, what doesn't have value, what's the strategy?

• 24:10Speaker 02

  So we've not sold any NFT until now, like whatever NFT I have collected, I've never sold an NFT. Except I dropped one, which like I dropped an NFT through Nifty Gateway. That's one, that was more of a meme, right? Uh, but we've never sold one from our collection, right? And why? Uh, because I feel like all these, I don't know if they're going to hold value or lose value. That's very different. At least that we have the satisfaction, it it it went into different classes, right? So that's there, you know, and maybe it's a good way of charity, I don't know, but. Uh going forward, maybe in a year or so, what's going to happen is we are going to look back and understand what is happening right now.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  I have no time to reflect. I'm sure the whole industry has the same problem right now, right? And that's why I kind of like winters because no, no one looks at what we are doing. And we could get the time, right, to think about what we are actually doing. So I feel like it'll be the next winter when, when I'll be able to, you know, make a story of all the, all of them together. And see, oh yeah, see this, this is what is emerging. So I want it to emerge. So I'm not really uh make, making a value for it or anything. But I would love it to be valued because I, I really don't want to sell them. But people should know it's a, it's a nice painting, right?

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Uh you mentioned Metaverse. Talk to us about what exactly is Metaverse and how is it structured and what are you guys doing there?

• 25:39Speaker 02

  So Metaverse right now, it's not uh, it's not a fund. Uh it's just been funded by uh me personally. So I took some of the money like I had from crypto, right? And I was collecting NFTs and then I, I wanted ToBudur also, you know, to collect them. So I thought, okay, I asked ToBudur, do you want to call this a name and do it, right? And he said Metaverse, the purse for the Metaverse, right? So I was like, okay, that's cool. Let's do it. So I started funding it and uh he started collecting stuff. So it's a, that's, that's the duo here. And then we've been doing the same thing. So now I'm going to, in, in this year, I'm going to structure it more uh not a fund.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  But I know I want to structure this at a startup, like a, like a company. Because it, this also could be an interesting idea where from the B20 experience, I feel like. Can I, like, like when we, when we take art and kind of tokenize it, it's, it's too much uh volatility, right? Because people. Don't know what they're holding. It's it's really hard and that's one of the lessons from the experiments I'm doing, right? But if it's an equity company, it might be a better way to hold these NFTs. Because I could, I could, you know, like, um, give exposure to other people. But it's not too much pressure on me, right? Like to to make sure the value is going up or something.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  So it's it's nice, I feel like, to structure this as a more of an equity company. So that's where we are going with Metaverse.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Got it. And and so when you think about funding it initially, um, you said that you funded it with money that you made from the crypto world. Describe kind of what you did before Metaverse. Uh, how did you get a bunch of crypto and and then why choose to to fund Metaverse?

• 27:29Speaker 02

  So e- even to answer that question, I have I had two lives. So before even Metaverse, uh, you all get that now. So I I'm a founder. I I'm I've founded multiple companies. So I've founded, uh, the first one was CoinC, which was, you know, a very average exchange, which I then sold. Uh, this was in two thousand, end of two thousand thirteen. So that's how I got started. It was an all coin exchange, you know, like back in the day. So it was really hard to run it and scale it. I had, like, I was so bad at it. And then I sold it and then.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Who who bought who bought it?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  It's it's a person called Saif and and I got a couple of people, Diago, and it's a company called Casa Crypto. It was it was not like, you know, like a huge acquisition. I didn't make a lot of money from it, you know, but I could not run it properly. So I thought it's better, you know, a team runs it. I was just one person and I grew from one user to fourteen thousand users within two months. And I had like this, like I was the same guys doing support and and, you know, like a bunch of stuff. So I I I actually pitched it to a number of people where like, do you wanna be like part of this and do the people are very worried. But I just moved to Canada, right? And people are like, no, no, no, let's not do this. There's a lot of, you know, like regulation, you should understand and stuff.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  I had no idea back then, right? And then the good part was I I I met a lot of interesting people. Bitcoin and started BitAxess, which, which you know was a very nice company, it's still a nice company. We, we made Bitcoin ATM, I wrote software for it. Um, we actually came up with the name BTM, so uh if through the, through the screen of our machine. Because we didn't have space to write Bitcoin ATM, right? So it was just BTO, that's how it came. And yeah, like over time, uh that, that was a white company also, so I had that experience too. And uh over time, I've been very uh uh cognizant of, you know, the industry in the sense that

• 29:30Speaker 02

  what, what, what really drove me to crypto was freedom. When I say freedom, freedom of access. When I, what I mean by freedom of access is, I, a person who came from India, got to invest in Ethereum. Ethereum is a high-growth startup, right? And I don't get that out, like I don't get that access, even if I'm one man, it's very hard. It's really hard to be in the cap table, especially because there's so much money in the world. And, and the companies are the ones who are choosing it, right? Like on who gets to be in the cap table. So equity investing was not, not going to be a thing for me, right? So I thought, okay, crypto is very interesting. So with Ethereum, the, the lessons learned were awesome because, you know, I could, I started understanding.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Initially, I was like, why is, why is, uh, why am I making so much money? And then I looked at Uber, I looked at Rockefeller. Everyone who was an entrepreneur, you know, made money like this, you know, being part of a high-growth startup. And I'm just doing that, right? So I went from there and I, I, I under, like I always try to understand this industry politically. And, and from a religious angle, so that's, that's my mental model. I don't talk, think about tech, I only look at it from how politically it's, it's behaving. And how as a religion it's behaving, right? So these two models gave rise to other investment ideas. So Paul Kottat was one of my favorite projects because.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  It's like the Switzerland of crypto, right? Like the way it's arranged, that's the easy say I can say. So I thought Polkadot was very interesting. So I participated with my Ethereum in that ICO, right? You know, it's like, it's like a poker table, you know? Like bigger bet, next round, we get bigger checks. So, so that's my life. And I, I have very little physical footprint, right? I don't own my home, I don't own a car. So what happens is my burn rate personally is very low. So yeah, like most of my investments, I feel like water, even if this like, you know, industry totally crashes, I'll be better, better than where I started.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  So thi- thi- this is fascinating. Um, mainly because uh, it's almost like you're incredibly wealthy in the virtual world, but you don't necessarily have the material possessions that someone would assign uh, value to in the analog world, right? And not because you can't afford them, it's just that you've chosen to uh, store and hold uh, and acquire most of your wealth in that virtual world. To talk a little bit about uh, kind of the difference between the lack of physical uh, possessions, but also this enormous wealth in the virtual or digital world.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Hmm, for, for me, it's quite obvious that I'm doing this, right? And why I'm saying it's obvious is, is not because I, I, it's, it's definitely one of, one of the part is I think this is one of the best ways to accumulate money, you know, like compound interest, right? Like the same formula. So if you're able to compound money here, so tokens, the best part of tokens is liquidity, right? Compared to equity, I've run multiple startups, I've made no money from my startups, ever. It's very hard. And the only way to go about it may be exit, right? Like exit is just entering the market. So you don't know what's going to happen. So it's like.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Tokens have this optionality of liquidity and that gives me a huge power. Because you know, like I can, I, what, what you would do in ten years, you could do in three years, probably. Right? And, and choosing a physical location to live where that's okay was very important to me. But coming to a question of, you know, the, the difference or how I look about, like how I look at digital and, and the physical world. Is that this is where the perspectives of, of how we look at the world is very different, I feel like. Because I've, I've stayed in America for a while, like, you know, month. And you know, I, I, I've met Americans who are so passionate, right?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  And they, they can be, you can be politically, you know, people are politically aware. And they understand property rights and they will fight for it. Right? But the rest of the world is not like that. Like America has property rights. I don't know about all the states, but I think Texas, right? Like especially, right? So I, I hear about it as, as, as a, you know, almost a, ah, it's, it's very inspiring. To, to learn that human beings can defend against the government, which is very hard in the rest of the world. So then you go to, say, India or when you go to Singapore, the physical is not the same. You own something because it's permissioned, right?

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Ownership is very temporary. It's also philosophical to say that, but you know, they make it period, right? Because the governments are permitting you to own something, right? And, and there are different ways to get back that property from you. Um, you know, maybe they want to build a highway and, and they don't like you. They'll be built in your home. So these, so these things are not common in the other parts of the world. Because in the other parts of the world, um, I, like, especially the worlds which, which are, you know, developed. I feel like the good part is the law, but the other parts of the world, it's very important to understand that a mind, a, a, a individual is always a minority.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Right, so it's it's very hard to become, you know, like straight rich into the into the world without, you know, being able to have the layers of connection. Why? Because I need to defend, you know, think about it, it's like making money itself a war and we have to defend, from whom? Government? So that's that's the context here.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it it's very fascinating too, when you think about um kind of the lack of government uh participation, uh not necessarily regulation, but just their participation in a lot of these kind of nuanced ways in the digital world today, right? Um a lot of what they still do and where they still focus is uh maybe there's electronic, right? I use use the definition uh or or the nomenclature of electronic and digital as two different things, electronic more is the centralized world that's tied to the analog world, but a truly digital world is exactly what we've been talking about, kind of this metaverse, uh digital museums, digital art, etc. Um and what I think is very fascinating is uh the governments around the world have yet

• 36:15Speaker 00

  to understand uh kind of the rise of the digital worlds and understand kind of just how popular they are, how much value and economic activity is occurring inside of these worlds. Uh but I do think that's gonna change, and so when it does change, or i- if it does change, what do you think happens? Do you think governments try to go and implement some of the same rules in in this digital world? Uh or do you think that that they just will be, you know, kind of incapacitated from uh kind of implementing their will in those worlds?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Up to two two defenses there, one of them is uh we are looking at these virtual worlds pretty much similar to uh like we we hope that they are decentralized, so it's censorship resistant, right? So yeah, like decent land could be run on a few servers now, but they are they are finding ways to, you know, scale that a a node infrastructure where, you know, it no one is responsible for a central server, so that it cannot just be shut down. So I think that's very important, you know, as a as a as a position we should get to, so that we can we can defend free speech. Um but I think that's very possible, right? That's very possible.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  And the other answer, which is more interesting, is

• 37:31Speaker 02

  What we have done here at the crypto industry, as the world approaches singularity, what we are doing here is, as an industry, we are changing the playing field all the time. So what's happening is regulations come, but we are playing a different game. And you know, they have to figure that out now, but maybe we'll be playing a different game then. Right? So this technology and this free market of ideas have continuously been thinking about regulations for a while now. So I have a feeling that we would be able to fight that battle if it's a global, you know, a global network. If it's caught within a country, man, like it's,

• 38:14Speaker 02

  that's done. But if it's a global network, right, and some countries really try to censor it, you know, on a TCP level or something, it's still fine, because there'll be ways for it. It will be the ultimate, that's what I feel like it will be the ultimate defiant move for an youngster, you know, to come to the metaverse, right? It's cool. If it's hard to get there, maybe that's the experience. So I'm perfectly alright with that.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  I tend to think that you are more right than wrong, my friend. Earlier in the conversation, we talked about identity. And for a long time, you had a pseudonym, and you still use that pseudonym today, which is Medicovin. Talk to me about where that name came from and why you use a pseudonym rather than your real name in the beginning?

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Pseudonyms were obvious in the, it's an obvious thing in gaming, right? And in the metaverse, it was quite obvious. Everyone I knew were just pseudonyms. And it was too weird to, you know, have a real world name. It's almost frowned upon, right? So it would be so uncool to be named Vignesh and, you know, like some avatar walking around like you. So. Like pseudonyms were obvious, but I had to take some time to figure that out. So actually, I, um, I asked my mom to, to help me out. So I explained to her about the metaverse and everything. And she came up with the name.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  She, she, she said, okay, like, uh, Ko in Tamil, which is my mother tongue is, it means a king. So she came up with the name. It, it means the king of meta, right? Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  That's amazing. And, and so when you, uh, start using that name, uh, obviously, uh, now that I have the context of what it means, uh, that's pretty cool. Right? And you continue to build all this wealth up in the, uh, uh, metaverse. Why eventually reveal your real identity?

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Hmm. Two, two reasons. One is, um, one is I felt like we were not apt at it. Like this was such a small experiment for me and it was not Satoshi level, uh, uh, identity, you know, like privacy moves. Right? So I used to speak to people when I used to work with them as, as, as myself and through video and stuff. So I felt like, you know, the avatars that nice just for an introduction to people, you know, before, before they know me, they know me as an avatar. It's nice because they, they totally, it rejects all the judgment that might go with it. Right? And it only shows my work in front of, front of people. And I, I really like that.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  But after I made these connections, I was perfectly okay for people to know me. So then, then this happened, I didn't want the, the naming and, you know, like being named someone. And the transaction being on Ethereum and stuff, you know, there was a lot of confusion with whether this was even a real transaction. Right? So I, I felt like there was some, uh, the, the conversation was moving away from, um, from talking about the piece. And once that started happening, I thought, okay, maybe, uh, I didn't, I didn't have the confidence, uh, to just, you know, think my story is interesting. Right?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  But then I had a lot of people in the industry who helped me out and said, maybe this is a very good time to connect the dots. Right, so I went back and thought like I've never reflected on how I came here and this happened and I feel like okay I have now I have all this money thanks to crypto, right? I don't want to take too much credit here, right? Because crypto allowed me to do it and I'm happy to like kind of give back, right? But my story, I'm just a person from India, right? Just getting started and started in crypto with zero and and being able to do this. I I felt like my talk to a lot of people and resonate with them, inspire them to be

• 42:14Speaker 02

  part of the crypto movement and also India which is at a point thinking about, you know, only Bitcoin as a bad thing and trying to, you know, maybe want want nothing to do with it. I felt like stories that like this will inspire a lot of people, you know, to also take this path and maybe that will become a good point of conversation with the government, right?

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Before we end with the rapid fire questions, I want to go back to the Beeple auction. Obviously, everyone knew that the Christie's auction was going to happen and it was open for a number of days. Did you know that you wanted the piece and you were willing to kind of spend whatever on it? Did you have a price in mind that that was kind of your highest number? Walk me through just your strategy going into the auction.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  So the strategy was to buy it, right? So I was, I spoke to Noah from Christie's before, like maybe 10 days before the auction even started and I told them, what what are you thinking? What what do you think it's going to go for? And he said my maybe eight million and I told you should know that people in crypto are crazy, right? So don't don't make a because they have this system where they have to set a limit for you, right? On the maximum you can go. So I told them, man, you should you should not set my top bid. You should you should not do that.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  So I'm ready to show like what what's required to have a competitive topic. So give me the same top bid with what what you're giving anyone.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  And that was, that was like what I spoke to them. So, so that it's, it's, it's about my decision, right? And not the system that's limiting me. So I was very clear about that. And I did, you know, have a decent limit, uh, like even about this, but I'm not ready to disclose uh, that number now because it's a story that's done.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  Why won't you tell us what the, uh, what the limit was?

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Okay, there's a price now. So I don't, I don't, I, yeah, I don't, I don't want to discuss that at all.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  All right. Uh, so as we get to the closing minutes and seconds of the auction, my understanding is basically everyone's just throwing bids in rapidly. Um, and you picked sixty nine million dollars. Uh, did you feel like that was gonna win it? Did you just randomly pick it? Kind of walk me through what happens in like the last sixty seconds of the auction?

• 44:54Speaker 02

  So I think, uh, being in the crypto world, uh, participating in the, uh, high traffic ICOs and then the high traffic, uh, NFT trough really tipped me up for this, right? So I don't know whether there are other people who are, who are doing this, like maybe they were not well prepped. So I was very technically good in this one. So when I, when I saw the bidding going on, I didn't touch the bidding until the last eighty seconds. Because every last sixty seconds, it will always increase the, or it will reset the timer to close, right? So when it was just eighty seconds, the bid was still very low. It was around, uh, twenty five million or something, right? And then I put my bid and it comes back and says, no, you've been on bit.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  So there's some other person who has, you know, informed of Christie's of that they have a higher bid, but it'll only come out when there's another bid that's, you know, a little higher than them. Right, it was a hidden high bid from the other person. So I I I'm trying one and then it came your out bid. I tried a couple, I tried three and I was like, oh, we had around fifty million. And I had exactly eighteen seconds to guess some number where I could win. And I thought maybe, maybe, you know, like putting something like seventy, you know, would get me through it. And when I did, it it said, yeah, you are the you are the winning bid.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  And I'm so, you know, like nervous that the other person was going to outbid me, right? But, you know, he was, like I would say, maybe he was not prepared for this last minute combat. So that's that's what, you know, made me win the auction. I don't know, I don't know, I might have lost this auction, so.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  So you put in seventy and basically sixty nine was the winning bid?

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Actually, it was not sixty nine, it was sixty point two five zero. And it with Christie's fees, it comes to sixty nine.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Got it. Christie Christie's made a lot of money?

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Definitely, man, definitely. We have to talk about that.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  All right, what do you want to talk about?

• 47:01Speaker 02

  No, it's just, I think it's just platforms and I think they're going to evolve their model too. But I think it's a lot of money, definitely, because provenance is gone. What what is their job here? It's just clout. So it's okay, because I I was like, okay, the first time they're doing it. So it's nice and and it's nice that, you know, they make money because they gave this. They've given this attention to the N F T world, right? But I felt like it was quite steep because usually it's provenance. They have to verify a traditional piece of them. Here it's an N F T. Their job is gone.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  The the the world is changing and I I actually think I I agree with you that many of them will change. They will evolve, but yeah, it it's a very, very different world than than when the one that they started out in, right?

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  All right, before we get rapid fire, what uh what's your favorite memory over the last couple of years in in Bitcoin, crypto, N F Ts, etc? If you had to pick out one memory, what would it be?

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Can I go further than two years?

• 48:04Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Back, oh yeah, Shanghai, 2016, for the, at the, the E3 conference, Ethereum had just hit fourteen dollars and we were, you know, like, people are celebrating, yeah. So that was the moment.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  I love it. Fourteen dollars looks, uh, looks very, very cheap right now.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  We're all celebrating so much, so much.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  Amazing. Uh, all right, I got three questions that you'll ask me. One, first question, what's the most important book that you've ever read?

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Hmm, I think Wings of Fire for me personally. Uh, it's by Abdul Kalam and it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a person who was a fisherman and became the president of the nation in India. So he's an inspiration. Wings of Fire is a biography, autobiography.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  That, that's amazing. What did you learn from the book? What, like, what did you take away?

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Hmm, like, you have to work really hard and be righteous and then, you know, there's a way for the world to figure you out.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  I love that lesson. Second question, it comes from our friends over at Eight Sleep. They've got this thermo-regulated bed that I sleep on. Uh, I turn it super cold and it helps me sleep. Uh, I used to only sleep like five, six hours. Now I'm more like seven, eight hours. Uh, what's your sleep schedule and how has that changed over the years?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  I'm very, uh, I'm, I have, yeah, I try to follow schedules very tightly. I can never miss breakfast. So I always sleep quite early so that I don't feel so bad if I skip breakfast. That's, that's my one thing about life. So it, it kind of centers, centers me around it. So I, I sleep around like 11:00 PM and, and wake up around maybe six.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  That's not bad. You, uh, you know, maybe a couple of extra hours might help, but that's not too, too bad.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Last question is aliens. Are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Hmm, probabilistically, yes, but not the way we, we have visualized them.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Explain.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Probabilistically, right, like it's very, like there are, like, this is the galaxy, right? Like the universe, there is so much randomness. So I think the world is all about serendipity, right? Sweet accidents, and that's how the world came. So there is definitely a possibility of another sweet accident somewhere, which, which led to life. And maybe it does not look or feel or, or anything like we have visualized or, or created stuff in our head. But, you know, it's, it's just too, the universe is too large to think that we will be the only life, right? So I think it's, it's definitely a probabilistic bet to say yes to that.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  I, I tend to, tend to agree with you. I don't know if there's little green men running around, but, but there's something out there. You could ask me one question to wrap this up. What you got for me?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Um, who's your favorite NFT artist right now?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  My favorite NFT artist? I'm gonna cheat because I've been helping them. Uh, but it's Rakoti. Uh, Rakoti's been, um, I, I think just really understands, uh, one, obviously the artistic kind of quality that goes into, uh, a bunch of, uh, the work. But, uh, more importantly, just understands the importance of, uh, access and kind of democratizing some of that access. And so, uh, they do some pretty interesting things, like they'll do these drops for, uh, you know, point oh one ETH, uh, and nothing gets sold for more than point oh one ETH. Uh, they'll do these things where with drops, they'll give away pieces to people, uh, just because, um, due to the scarcity, there's so many people miss out. And so I think that it's like really interesting to start playing with, um, almost this, uh, this

• 51:53Speaker 00

  element of, uh, you create amazing art that everyone wants, but you still kind of take care of that fan base. You take care of the people who, uh, who helped make you, right? Um, and so I think that's like a really fascinating way to, to kind of view the world. So Rakoti would definitely be, uh, the answer.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Really nice, wow. I'm going to take him out.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Where can we send people to find you, to find Metaverse, or any of the stuff that you guys are working on?

• 52:22Speaker 02

  So, Tubadur, who's the steward of Metaverse, he's the best person to talk to, right? So, you can connect through either going on Twitter, Metaverse, this thing. And we also run this newsletter called metaperser.substack.com. We just push updates on what we are collecting, etc. So, we tend to, you know, like, look at trends and talk about that also. So, it might be a good resource.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  Awesome. Tubadur is doing a great job. I think you guys are in good shape. So, this is fun for me. Congratulations on all the success. I think that you really woke people up to a whole new world. And I tend to think that history will be very kind to those who are excited about helping to push kind of the adoption of these virtual worlds. So, keep at it, and we'll have to do it again in the future.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you. That's a very kind word. Thank you.