There’s a whole world of NFTs out there you may not have explored yet. Literally. NFT real estate is an emerging market that foresees exponential growth in ROI in the upcoming years. In today’s episode, Eathan Janney, Jeff Kelley & Josh Kriger are joined by one of the pioneers of the NFT real estate game. Michael Gord is the Co-Founder of the Metaverse Group, the world’s first virtual real estate company. Michael is also co-founder and CEO of GDA Capital and MLG Blockchain and has advised on over 20.5 billion in digital asset offerings to help secure over five billion in asset placements into the blockchain. He’s here to share the Metaverse Group’s vision of real estate in the virtual world naming the benefits of scooping some sweet digital properties now rather than later. Keep your ears glued as they also discuss how teens are now dipping their toes in NFT to fund their teenage lifestyle, Louis Vuitton hitting 500,000 downloads on their mobile NFT game, and a follow-up on what’s next after Fortune Magazine’s successful NFT cover.
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Michael Gord Of Metaverse Group On The Digital Real Estate Boom, Plus: Teens Cashing In On NFTs, Louis Vuitton NFT Game, Fortune Mag NFT Sale Update, And More…
This episode features Michael Gord, co-founder of Metaverse Group, the first vertically integrated real estate company focused on the metaverse economy in the world. He is also the Cofounder and CEO of the GDA Group of Companies, which are focused across capital markets verticals in the blockchain industry. In addition, he is the Managing Director of the DigitalBits Foundation, the leading blockchain protocol focused on consumer digital assets.
Michael has advised on over $20.5 billion in digital asset offerings. He helped to secure over $5 billion in asset placements onto the blockchain and has worked with Fortune 500 companies and global governments. Michael was one of the first advocates for digital assets in Canada, built the first university communities for blockchains in Canada, and was the first enterprise blockchain developer that TD Bank hired. Through his initiatives, Michael has introduced digital assets to tens of thousands of people worldwide, and now he will introduce them to our audience. Welcome, Michael.
Thanks for the introduction. Thanks for having me.
It’s a pleasure. This is a show that we’ve been excited about because one of our co-hosts, Jeff, has been in real estate his whole career. I wanted to see what crazy conversation you guys had. We heard about this initiative when the press release first came out and it seems crazy at the time. Over the past few months, this is happening now. Why not? It’s super cool to learn more about what you have cooking on.
I have the same sentiment. When we introduced this to the market, it was purely because we were bullish. We believed that at some time in the future, it would become valuable and that it would become desirable to participate. The speed that it has is surprising to me as well.
You’ve been in and around finance, blockchain and investing for much of your career. How did you get interested in the metaverse? What led to the actual formation of the Metaverse Group?
I’ve been into blockchains and digital assets for my entire professional career. I diversified across the fungible side of the market but I was fortunate to be at the ETHWaterloo hackathon when CryptoKitties was announced in 2017. I became familiar with NFTs at the time that they came to market initially. When that first happened, I was convinced that, eventually, NFTs were going to become popular. I was certainly not convinced of the usefulness and the applications.
My business partner, the other cofounder of the Metaverse Group, his name is Jason Cassidy. He was also at that hackathon. We’ve been friends and colleagues on various projects for a while. He was investing quite heavily into NFTs and the metaverse. His description of Decentraland, Sandbox, and Somnium and his perspective on the future of the metaverse and virtual worlds was compelling and convinced me that it was worth getting some exposure in.
Who knows where things like that are going to lead? Let’s get a little bit more detail about that. I want to break it down a little bit for our readers. How is Metaverse Group structured? What services are you offering?
We are essentially a holding company of assets and that was throwing a dart on the wall. We believe that the future value of metaverse real estate will increase. The long-term goal is to build out a Brookfield-type business model for the metaverse. Initially, I thought that a good place to start would be to have a RE/MAX type model, helping people buy and sell virtual land. We didn’t have a clear model as far as the economics. We just wanted to help people.
Is it like a traditional real estate closing where the buyers and sellers sit down with a closing agent and a bottle of wine at the end of the transaction? What’s this look like?
We quickly realized that the real estate business model of making 2.5% on transactions was not interesting for either of us. When we first started, that was $500, $1,000, $2,000. We both are gainfully employed with our core businesses and that is quite distracting. If people were in our network and looking for support, then we would provide them with that advice. We’re considering that eventually. The metaverse real estate has been a boom and we’ll have a brand positioned in the middle of it. The value of metaverse real estate went up exponentially so our relatively small portfolio of metaverse assets turned into quite a large portfolio of metaverse assets. The types of conversations that we started to have were with larger investors, real estate companies and high net worth individuals looking to participate.
It’s a case of a very well intentional right place at the right time. You got in when you needed to get in to stake your claim in the space.
We wanted to be first and we didn’t know where we were going to take the business. The brand, Metaverse, we can take into every metaverse vertical. We want to be the first one to introduce that brand, Metaverse, and then we can take in different directions. As we started to have these conversations, we identified that there are all these larger investors that are looking to participate. The value of buying estates is quite high. It’s no longer a couple of hundred bucks or a couple of thousand bucks. It’s now tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars and it’ll soon be millions of dollars per estate.
NFT Real Estate: In the metaverse, land has historically gone up exponentially and it’s likely to continue appreciating faster than traditional real estate.
The potential risk that people are putting on the table is higher. People that are putting that amount of capital on the table want to get exposure to the metaverse but not manage their lands, maintain their land, build on their land, and generate revenue from their land. We’ve been in this space for quite a while now and we have a bunch of lands that we can securitize into an investment product. Instead of these high-net-worth individuals or real estate funds or venture capitalists wanting to buy and hold land but not build on it, they could invest in us to acquire land, build on our land. Also, to generate revenue through the buildings or experiences that we create, and then return a portion of that revenue to the investors in our model. What we are excited about doing is introducing the first fully metaverse-backed real estate investment trust.
What does that look like in reality? How is it similar or different from a standard real estate investment trust? Give us a sense of the number of parcels of land you’re purchasing, the relationship with the investors, and the things that you think about on a day-to-day basis with this project.
The intention is for it to look as similar as possible. With a traditional REIT, you’re investing in real estate developers who have a track record of generating consistent annual yields to generate income through the buildings. Oftentimes, there are already buildings that are generating a consistent yield for a decade. The difference is that this is way more of a venture capital type REIT model where in theory the metaverse assets or the worlds could go to zero. Whereas in the real world if you’re buying a New York City REIT, a Canada REIT or REIT in the real world, it’s reasonably likely that you’ll earn your 3%, 4% or 5% for developing economies yields.
For us, it’s more of a venture investment where we anticipate that not only it could go to zero, which I don’t think is possible but it is possible. Whereas traditional REITs, you’re looking at 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%, 7%, depending on your risk tolerance. With the metaverse, historically, the lands have gone up exponentially. It’s likely that it continues to appreciate faster than traditional real estate. As the number of users in the metaverse increases from 10,000 per month. It’s the next frontier of the internet. The internet has about a billion users per day. The metaverse will also have about a billion users per day.
On the land appreciation side, I’m curious how the appreciation of land has occurred relative to the appreciation of the tokens around that land. For example, Decentraland is around $0.80 to $0.90. It’s done quite a lot in 2021. Is the land within these metaverses appreciating faster? How do you get that return? Do you sell the land? Do you rent out the land? Are you building theme parks on the land? Should we host the Edge of NFT show there? Tell us a little bit more about the economics and the appreciation.
That’s something that we think about and talk about a lot. To the last question, should you host your show there? For sure. There’s a bunch of buildings in Decentraland, specifically the Crypto Convention Center in Crypto Valley. Decentraland has screens that are available. In theory, we could share this Zoom link to the Crypto Convention Center. We can share on Twitter any domain name. It could be EdgeOfNFT.xyz. The .xyz domain name is going to be popular for the metaverse. It could be EdgeOfNFT.com/metaverse or /decentraland or anything. That link can bring you directly into the Crypto Convention Center.
In the Crypto Convention Center, we could have the same Zoom call and people can be listening live, which is a good idea. The value of MANA for Decentraland, Sandbox and CUBEs for Somnium Space, the appreciation opportunity as opposed to the land asset is a great question. Simply put, they mirror each other. Let’s use the real world as a case study. If you’re investing in foreign exchange like if you’re holding the US Dollar versus the Vietnam Dong versus the dirham in the UAE versus the Pound, you’ll generate revenue based on the foreign exchange transactions.
If the US does well and you’re holding US Dollars, then you’ll earn a return on your income by holding US Dollars if you’re invested into a REIT as well. That’s maybe a closer example. You’ll earn a good ROI as a result of your REIT doing well. Fiat currency or REITs, especially public REITs or MANA or SAND or CUBEs are liquid. You can hold $10 of MANA. You can hold $1,000 of MANA. You can hold $1,000 of REIT. You can hold $1,000 or $10 of US Dollars or Vietnamese Dong or whatever asset class.
You talked about renting a little bit. What the heck does it mean to rent in the metaverse? What does that look like?
The land is very scarce. If you want to buy land, using Decentraland as an example, the map of Decentraland is about the size of Washington, DC in terms of square feet and meters. If you bought land before Washington, DC became a city, then you’d be able to get blocks of land downtown or you’d be able to get blocks of land where the universities, schools or shopping malls are. After Washington, DC is built, then there are landowners and they will do joint ventures oftentimes with the builders.
If you’re an investor looking to buy a block of real estate in Downtown Washington, it’s not available. If you’re looking to buy a shopping mall, it’s not available because it’s generating income. Back to the value of MANA, the value will approximately mirror each other, the value of land versus the value of the currency. By the way, if you’re trying to sell a block of land in Downtown Washington, there are also few buyers, so it takes you some time. The land is more scarce than MANA.
Using Decentraland as an example, you have to participate early. To buy a block of land in Downtown Washington, you need to have started before Washington was built. Otherwise, if you want to build in Washington, then there are the landowners and real estate developers. The landowners won’t sell their land because it’s generating income for them and you can’t participate. You can buy a REIT for Washington. That explains it.
I did buy a lot of commercial real estate properties in Washington, DC. It is complex. There’s no question about that.
As far as renting, now that land is quite expensive. Especially for most businesses, I don’t think they’re going to want to buy enough land to build an office building or to build the financial district because they’re not going to be betting fully on the metaverse. To put $100 or $200 into getting exposure, it’s more reasonable for a lot of businesses to start participating.
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Why do a REIT and not just buy the token? Is it because there’s going to be a point where the scarcity of land kicks into overdrive and the land is going to disengage from the token value at that point?
I think so. It’s less liquid but you’re able to earn a significant ROI from it. Our intention is to build financial districts, shopping malls, arts and entertainment districts, and bring enterprises into the metaverse through our land where they will not be able to purchase land because the land will not be available. In Washington, very often, there are single parcels of land that get sold. If you’re trying to buy enough land for a shopping mall, you’re going to be in the boonies unless maybe once a decade, there’s a big transaction like that. We want to be the landowners that have those experiences like financial districts and shopping malls. You have to hold land to do that stuff.
What’s super cool with Decentraland is when land first came out, there was only an X and Y coordinate. You can get a parcel that was 100 X coordinate, 76 Y coordinate or whatever numbers. Now there’s a Z coordinate as well, which is if you build the building, you can still be 176 coordinates or whatever. There’s a Z coordinate for different floors, so you can have someone rent out a floor where they have ownership of the experience on that floor in the building or on that piece of the parcel, piece of the estate for whatever amount of time. They can do whatever they want with that piece of real estate for whatever amount of time, which is a big innovation.
Are we talking about air rights there where someone could get multiple owners vertically, or is it still a single owner up into the vertical space?
Multiple owners vertically. You could have an entire commercial building or a residential apartment building or a shopping mall. Ten floors of your building, you have either ten owners, one owner of each floor, or you could break up the floor into different sections. The ownership metrics of real estate are becoming a lot more granular which creates the renting market a lot easier.
I have to interject with this question. We’re bullish on this stuff and we love this conversation. Josh and I went on an outdoor hike with some good friends and I heard a guy talking about how he thinks it’s productive to be on the computer for a while. He then realizes he got to get out and go for a run or a walk or something. There are revenue streams coming in here. I’m curious about your perspective on people having to tend to use screens. It’s a digital world and they are maybe getting tired of that, and getting in and out of the “real world.” How does this play into this? Why is this stuff maybe still valuable even if people don’t want to spend all of their time in that metaverse world? Any thoughts on that?
I am terrified of the ramifications of this. With that said, I recognize that the world is going in this direction and I’d rather be invested in the future than wait for the future to exist, whether I’m participating or not. In fact, if I’m invested then I can perhaps alter it in whatever way it can provide value to the world. The reason why I’m bullish on this becoming mainstream is that billions of people in the world live on $1, $2 or $3 a day. They don’t know where their next dollar or meal is going to come from.
In Decentraland, Somnium Space, Sandbox or whatever metaverse, there’s going to be conferences, events, meetups and festivals going on 24/7. There are going to be entirely new business models that are created for participating in these business models. For example, if an event organizer is organizing 100 events a year and you go to each event, you can get proof of attendance NFT. If you go to all 100 of those events and you collect all 100 or all 10 or all 200, you guys can start to consider the flexibilities and the economics here. All 100 NFTs can be redeemed for a gram of gold or an ounce of gold or food. Each proof of attendance represents food for the day. That’s how valuable is an eyeball.
If a conference organizer or a meetup organizer or a festival organizer is getting eyeballs around the world and people are participating, it’s likely that people will be able to earn a much better income living in the metaverse than they will be able to be living in whatever country or whatever situation they happened to be in, which is valuable. Another fundamental reason is that I’m fortunate to be from Toronto and born in Canada, which has a developed capital market and a good standard of living.
The internet has democratized access to communications. In theory, anyone in the world can send an email to investors in Silicon Valley, New York, Toronto, London or anywhere. If you’re fortunate to live in Silicon Valley, New York, Toronto or to have a passport that can take you to these cities, you can show up and knock on an investor’s door, employer’s door or someone’s door. That adds tremendous value. If you’re from one of these cities and you send an email on LinkedIn, then it’s reasonably likely that if you’re in the same city as someone that they’re going to respond to you.
If you were born in a country that doesn’t have the same economic power and doesn’t have the same passport that can take you to these cities or don’t have the ability to go to these cities. Although they have the same democratized access to communication and they can send the same LinkedIn message to the same person in the same city as I can or as you guys can, it’s much less likely that that person will respond just given the world. They don’t have the luxury of being able to show up.
The metaverse democratizes access to showing up so you could live anywhere in the world. You might not be able to hop on a plane and knock on the door, but you can certainly get access to a computer. On that computer, you can show up to an investor’s office in the metaverse and you can knock on their door in Decentraland which that democratized access to showing up is valuable.
I see where you’re going with this. I enjoy working with young people. I’ve noticed I’ve got people I’m working with that are in India, Turkey, Africa and China through the internet. I can see that they’re getting access to a lot of great stuff through the internet. I see where you’re going with the Metaverse concept. We’re curious more about the acquisition criteria that you have about properties and things like this. I could see these young people as young people do in the “real world” become real estate agents. It could be a new job that we see a market for a young person. They could be in a developing country. Being able to show up and introduce people to new things could be an interesting way. If they’re showing people something, what are the acquisition criteria that you look for?
For us, we are keen to get exposure across the whole scope of the Metaverse, at least in this first product, and to provide investors with a full picture of the Metaverse so they don’t need to think about the world and land. It’s diversified. In the future, we intend to have more focused products on specific worlds. We are about 50% to 60% in Decentraland, 25% to 30% in Sandbox, 15% approximately in Somnium Space, and then we have a tail end of investments of a few percent.
NFT Real Estate: The ownership metrics of a virtual real estate is becoming a lot more granular which creates the renting market a lot easier.
We are focused on building and monetizing some of our estates in Decentraland. The reason it’s Decentraland is that it’s likely to be the fastest to be adopted. There start to be music festivals and conferences/meetups, which are already happening but they’re going to start to happen every day. We have some exciting news that’s coming out about some of our first builds. They are bringing some world’s first enterprises, capital groups, funds, blockchain companies, and also an ecosystem of enterprises that we’re bringing into the Metaverse.
We’re keen to build experiences for our financial center, arts and entertainment center. We have a lot of plans for builds. During that, we are also finalizing our REIT structure to begin to accept external capital. Our portfolio is with a heavier weight in Decentraland, moderate in Sandbox, Somnium Space, and then a tail end of up-and-coming metaverses that we are bullish on.
We didn’t even say it from the top. It goes without saying. Every piece of property within these metaverses is an NFT. For our readers’ benefit here, it’s across the board. To be clear, we jumped right in on it. For people that are just getting into the various metaverses out there and trying to figure out how to purchase property, we talked about criteria a little bit, but what advice do you have for folks just getting into it? What should they be thinking about? What should they be doing? How do you get started? It’s overwhelming.
It depends on the world. I am most focused on Decentraland. I’ve been generally using Decentraland as an example. In Sandbox, Jason has a lot more exposure. In Somnium, I also have some exposure. There are a couple of things to consider about Decentraland. You can also replace it with Sandbox and Somnium. Decentraland has a bunch of districts that already exists. Depending on what experience you’re looking to create, it’s reasonably likely that there’s a district that has something similar.
For example, if you’re trying to build an experience for gambling, there’s Vegas City. There’s a district called Vegas City that is going to have a lot of foot traffic to people that want to gamble. If you are an enterprise and perhaps getting exposure inside the district, the closer you are to Vegas City for a gambling experience, the more likely you’re going to get organic traffic. It’s similar to music, fashion and business. If you’re looking for a new business district, then Crypto Valley is the Silicon Valley of Decentraland.
Considering what builds already exists, and then looking to get land depending on the experience you’re looking to create, and the close proximity to a district that already is more experienced. It doesn’t even need to be a district. If you know that an individual is already building something that is going to have value in whatever estate, then getting land close to them or beside them is going to mean that your land is close to or beside something that has a value that is going to make your land more valuable.
For Decentraland, you can teleport anywhere. You can mirror that with Sandbox and Somnium. You can see on the Somnium and the Decentraland map who has estates. If you see that a company that you’re working with or you would like to work with has an estate somewhere in Sandbox, you can get land beside them or close by. It’s reasonably likely that that will be positively reflected in the value of your land as well. This is less than a problem in Sandbox than it is Somnium. In Sandbox, you can only teleport. You can’t walk around.
In Decentraland, there’s a road system. If you have estates, parcels of land that is connected to the road, that’s much more valuable because you’ll have foot traffic walking around that can see your experience. If you purchase a piece of land or an estate that is “landlocked” that is not connected to a district or connected to a road, then you could have the person that owns the land around you build a wall, so that there’s no way for anyone to get into your piece of land. It’s fully closed, which means the only way that people could see your experience is if they teleport in or if they click in through a link, which might not be desirable. It will probably decrease the value of your property if there’s a brick wall that’s around it or something similar to that.
There are many lessons from the real world of real estate but layered on top of this virtual layer. Everything you’re talking about is great for our readers to understand. This is a lot of gamification. The rules of the world that you’re operating within and this intersection of gaming and real estate are interesting to me to hear you articulate these different points. It’s probably still a bit of a blank canvas. Much of the rules are being written and the value is being created. We’re just starting to do this.
A lot of it is being written. As you correctly identified, a lot of the initial rules are being taken and perhaps altered or perhaps built upon from traditional real estate with new and interesting economic models. With Decentraland, because it’s a code, it’s not actual bricks. To put up a brick wall is a code. You don’t need to put up a brick wall. If you want to take down your brick wall, it’s also a code so you can put up another experience the next day. There are going to be thousands of new business models that get created through the metaverse. We’re just scratching the surface.
Along those lines, what additional metaverses besides the ones that you mentioned that you’re already invested in are you keeping your eye on? Are there metaverse games and other metaverse-related applications or projects that you’re also excited about?
I’m excited about Axie Infinity. Although we’re not invested in that, it has proven out the model of metaverse games and generating income through those metaverse games. Chain Games in Decentraland have also proved out the model of providing infrastructure to gaming websites.
Is there a metaverse concept that’s in its infancy that you have your eye on that you’d like to see add a new layer of sophistication to the metaverse landscape?
Something I saw that was introduced is CyberKongz that had their NFT drop. It had gas transactions up to $90,000 to participate, which is a little bit insane. It was creating an NFT representing a unique avatar. There are billions of people in the metaverse every day. People will pay extremely large sums of money to get the newest car, to get the newest clothes, to get a unique one of one signed clothes, signed memorabilia or whatever. CyberKongz was the first example of an NFT that could become your metaverse avatar. You could walk around the metaverse with a custom unique avatar. That is a good example.
We’re also quite invested in a protocol called DigitalBits that is bringing big organizations like AS Roma as a public soccer team into the metaverse. I’m also excited about next-generation Ethereum protocols like TRON that are building their own metaverses. With Metaverse Group, we are primarily focused on land. I would like to get more exposure across the full scope of the metaverse with things like avatar, games and the other topics that I mentioned.
That sounds great. We’re excited to see what you’re up to next. We’re going to keep tracking this aspect of the NFT space carefully. We got several guests coming up that are doing different adjacent things related to the metaverse. This conversation was a great precursor for our readers who wants to come in.
We appreciate it. It’s great to hear about the Metaverse Group and everything you got going on. Real estate is near and dear to my heart, for sure. It’s a big opportunity for the future of crypto NFTs and the entire space. Now’s the time we like to transition a little bit and get your personal perspective on a couple of things, it’s Edge Quick Hitters. They’re a fun quick way to get to know you a little better. Ten questions and we’re looking for a short, single word or a few word responses but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Are you ready to dive in?
It sounds good. Let’s do it. Also, thank you. I appreciate you both. More people need to know about this stuff. It’s disruptive. Hats off to you, guys.
I appreciate it. Thanks. Question number one, what’s the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
A gum, a candy.
Any particular brand or type you had a liking for?
The Hubba Bubba gum and the $0.05 sour candies.
Question number two, what’s the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
Candy.
We’re detecting a theme.
A candy dealer.
I would have probably bought some Swedish Fish off of you. That was my addiction.
It’s funny, I didn’t consider it as a business. I remember as a child, I would get a bunch of candy and people would want some candy. Embarrassingly, I would buy candy for $0.05 and sell it for $0.10.
NFT Real Estate: It’s reasonably likely that people will be able to earn a much better income living in the metaverse than they will be living in whatever country or situation they happen to be in.
That’s where it starts. Question number three, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
A bus ticket but more exciting, Bored Mummy Waking Up.
What’s that?
We got to know. We got to dig deeper on that. Tell us about this one.
It’s an avatar NFT company. It’s like CryptoPunks or Bored Ape.
It sounds like a fun one. We have to research that one. Number four, what is the most recent thing you sold?
Crypto.
Number five, what’s your most prized possession?
My life.
Number six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, a service, an experience that’s currently for sale, what would that be?
Infinite intelligence or a rocket ship and understanding of rocket science.
We haven’t had that one before. That’s a good one. I don’t know if that’s purchasable.
Neuralink is almost here. It’s coming. That’s cool stuff. Number seven, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be?
Thinking.
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You don’t see that all too often with some age groups. Number eight, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
I’m going to go with distracted.
Question number nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I drove from Como to Milan.
It sounds fun. Question number ten, what are you going to do next after the show?
I’m a triplet. I’m going to go meet my brother and sister.
Thanks for indulging us. That was the Quick Hitters. That’s a wrap on that section. Do you want to dive in and hit some Hot Topics?
Sure.
The first hot topic here is no more adventures in babysitting. The headline is, “Teens Cash In on the NFT Art Boom. “Forget mowing lawns and bagging groceries. Some Gen Z kids are finding their ways to make money this summer. Last fall, Randi Hipper decided to, as she put it, ‘go in-depth with the crypto space.’ After hearing about NFTs on Twitter and other social media platforms, Miss Hipper, a then seventeen-year-old senior at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, began releasing her own digital artworks, cartoonish and self-referential pieces showing her cruising in a car with a Bitcoin license plate or riding the Coney Island Wonder Wheel.” Like anything, kids get the new things a lot quicker. They don’t have a lot of biases in place. I’m sure there are some kids that are behind on this just as well. The ones that are ahead are mining it for all it’s worth.
We alluded to it earlier. There’s no reason why a fifteen-year-old couldn’t be a real estate agent selling in real estate up in one of those metaverses. Why not? There are many opportunities. A lot of these kids that have been messing around in this space for a while probably know more than the other maybe 95% of the people in crypto even. You got to spend some time in there to get to know it.
Every person on this show was an entrepreneur from birth and started buying and selling something when they were a teenager or even younger. It’s natural that this virtual candy store opportunity when it comes to NFTs and the metaverse is going to be something they focus on. This is a radical shift in the global economy though because of the potential upside that’s available. Instead of our guests here making $0.05 of profit on some candy, you can make $5,000, $50,000 or more on what you sell on the metaverse based on playing games and earning NFTs. This is the beginning of some radical shifting in our society based on what’s possible and available to teenagers.
We can’t knock the $0.05 profit. That’s 100% improvement there on price and it’s a volume game. We all know that.
There are some scalability issues there. Michael, no pressure to come up with some, this is on the spot but have you seen anything interesting particularly from young folks in the digital real estate space?
Not in the digital real estate space but across the board. I’ve hosted a lot of hackathons and high school kids participate with some super innovative stuff and end up raising capital. I met a 23-year-old that is doing AI for governments around the world, the US and Europe. The barrier to access information is now non-existent. Schools aren’t teaching you disruptive technology or innovation.
NFT Real Estate: What a creator needs to consider is to provide long-term value to your collectors.
Michael doesn’t know it but he bought his last casino from a sixteen-year-old in Kenya.
It’s quite possible.
That’s fascinating. You got to introduce us to this kid. The next one on the chopping block here is Louis Vuitton’s mobile NFT game hits 500,000 downloads in the first week. Take it or leave it on a mobile game for Louis Vuitton. Are you in?
It’s not good. It’s a terrible game.
You’ve played it?
Yes, I tried it.
I’m going to piggyback off of Michael. We got to leave it. I do know that Louis Vuitton’s story is cool though. Originally, way back in the day in France, this guy worked his way up. He lost his parents super early in life and somehow hooked up with the ruling party. He was making suitcases. He may even be credited with making the modern rectangular suitcase because prior to that, they were these dome-shaped things. The Louis Vuitton story is interesting. It didn’t become the luxury brand we know now until maybe his son and the following generation grew it. It’s a cool and interesting story. Should it be an NFT game? I don’t know, but 500,000 is a big number.
It looks like a lot of the traffic for this game has come from China. They’re doing some pretty advanced stuff in shopping.
I have to make the joke. They’re doing research for their Louis Vuitton mobile game knockoff.
It’s possible. The thing that’s happening though in China, which I learned about from someone I met in an NFT gallery, is that the QVC streaming experience of buying in real-time is popular in China. My only insight here is that they love to shop and they like concepts around shopping. For them, this was an exciting game. As for me, I’m happy to leave it at the shopping center.
We’re all going to leave this one. Let’s leave it and let’s move on to the next one. A hot topic follow-up is something we talked about. Fortune magazine did some NFT action here. Fortune raised 429 Ether, about $1.3 million in their first-ever NFT sale. “The experiment consisted of two parts. First, Fortune sold a set of 256 limited-edition NFTs of its cover art designed by the digital artist, pplpleasr. Each tokenized piece was priced at 1 Ether, the basic unit of the cryptocurrency Ethereum or around $3,000 a pop. The lot sold out in a few minutes, as noted in Fortune’s Data Sheet newsletter. The lowest price at which anyone is reselling a copy is now seven times the original listing. It’s quite a bump. Half of the proceeds will go to nonprofits.”
This is a good follow-up.
pplpleasr is crushing it again. She’s killing it across the board. It’s awesome. She’s setting an example for other folks bringing digital art into the mainstream. It’s good for her.
She’s savvy.
Schools don’t teach you disruptive technology or innovation. Click To Tweet
It’s good, for sure. In general, every brand or every person is going to be in NFTs. It’s a matter of time. For the big brands that are able to capitalize a big chunk of revenue as a result of these goofy blockchain integrations like putting your cover on the blockchain and earning $1 million, it’s a great business. They’re continuing to do it. If they get NFTs, they can provide unique experiences that are valuable to their collectors. All big brands that are doing so much of this should give back to charity as a result. It’s simple for them. They should get back. I like that.
We know that they’re not going to go to zero on the show but some of these projects get a lot of hype or a lot of money could possibly go to zero. Let’s put it that way. A positive here is any money that’s been raised for charity in any of these processes can never be seen as going to waste. That’s excellent to know about what’s going on. We’ve talked on the show a lot about community, branding, and other aspects of these NFT collectibles and what makes them strong. From a little bit I know of pplpleasr, that’s one thing I’ve noticed about her. She’s got a nice community following. She comes across as a genuine and humble person. People respect the way that she’s handling and dealing with the community that’s building around her artwork. It’s pretty cool stuff. Any comments on that one, Josh. Should we wrap it up?
I have nothing to add. It sounds good.
The two things that a creator needs to consider for their collectors, for the most part, is to want to provide long-term value to your collectors. For a business like Fortune or Louis Vuitton, it’s easy for them to provide potential long-term value if they understand NFTs. Let’s say you saw 1,000 NFTs and you have 1,000 blockchain entries that you can forever communicate with those individuals over the blockchain, and send them potentially priceless fungible or non-fungible assets. Also, potentially priceless experiences or access in the real world for them providing you with early support. It’s about treating the community well.
At any given time, you can always give something of value. That was the gift goat. That was the chosen NFT that Joel Comm chose to get from Gary Vee’s collection. It’s a promise of future gifts. Who knows what they’re going to be? He knew they were going to be valuable. Should we wrap it up, Jeff?
Yes. Thanks for all the insights, Michael. It’s super valuable information. We know our readers have been pumped. We get tons of feedback about metaverse, virtual real estate, and digital assets within that space. It’s great to learn more about it and how you’re thinking about it. Where can people go to follow you and your projects to learn more?
Twitter is probably the best, I’m @BitGord.
We have a little giveaway we want to put together for our readers. Do you want to share a little bit, Michael, about what we got in store for them?
We can do $100 in XTB, which is a digital asset that we’re quite invested in and working closely quite closely with. That is also bringing a lot of multinational organizations like AS Roma public into the metaverse. It’s pretty exciting. It also has NFT capabilities. I would suggest for the audience to look out for that.
We’ll put some details out on our socials with how to participate in a little contest for that giveaway. We appreciate it. Thanks so much.
It sounds like an interesting project. It’s not financial advice but something for everyone to look into and consider.
We’ve reached the outer limit at the Edge Of NFT. Thanks for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on this starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. Go to iTunes, rate us and say something cool. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Do you want to help co-create Edge Of NFT? You’ve got a guest you want to see on the episode or questions for hosts or guests or an NFT you’d like us to review? Drop us a line at Contact@EdgeOfNFT.com or tweet at us, @EdgeOfNFT to get into the mix. Lastly, be sure to tune in next episode for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links:
- Metaverse Group
- GDA Group of Companies
- DigitalBits Foundation
- ETHWaterloo
- CryptoKitties
- Decentraland
- Sandbox
- Somnium
- EdgeOfNFT.xyz
- EdgeOfNFT.com/metaverse
- EdgeOfNFT.com/decentraland
- Axie Infinity
- CyberKongz
- TRON
- Bored Mummy Waking Up
- CryptoPunks
- Bored Ape
- Neuralink
- Teens Cash In on the NFT Art Boom – article by The New York Times
- Louis Vuitton’s mobile NFT game hits 500,000 downloads in the first week – article by Pocket Gamer
- Fortune raised 429 Ether, about $1.3 million in their first-ever NFT sale – article by Fortune
- pplpleasr
- @BitGord – Twitter
- XTB
- iTunes – Edge Of NFT
- Contact@EdgeOfNFT.com
- @EdgeOfNFT – Twitter
About Michael Gord
Michael Gord is the co-founder & CEO of Global Digital Assets (GDA) Group of Companies, which are, focused across capital markets verticals in the blockchain industry. Michael is the Managing Director of the XDB Foundation, the leading protocol focused on branded stablecoins, and the CEO of MLG Blockchain, focused on enterprise and government consulting and development.
Michael has advised on over $20.5 Billion in digital asset offerings, helped to secure over $5 Billion in asset placements and has worked with Fortune 500 companies and global governments. Michael was one of the first advocates for digital assets in Canada, built the first university communities for blockchains in Canada and was the first enterprise blockchain developer that TD Bank hired. Michael has introduced digital assets to tens of thousands of people through his initiatives.
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