FCF Ballerz Collective is a fan-controlled football league that allows the audience all-access, from selecting plays and players to bragging rights for having tangible contributions to wins. Today’s guests are CEO and co-founder Sohrob Farudi and world-renowned award-winning DJ building a resume of collaborations on some of the most impactful NFT projects in the space, Steve Aoki. Listen in as they chat with Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, & Josh Kriger about all things NFT and the exponential growing value of NFT in gaming and collecting. Sohrob and Steve underscore how the space is evolving with user-generated content and decentralized creations. Tune in as they also hint at exciting projects, collaborations, and possibilities to look forward to in the space.

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Steve Aoki & Sohrob Farudi Talk FCF Ballerz Collective, All Things NFT, And More…

This episode features guests Steve Aoki and Sohrob Farudi who are collaborating on FCF Ballerz Collective, the first and only NFT project that puts holders in control of IRL professional sports teams. A little bit about each of them. Sohrob is the Founder and CEO of Fan Controlled Football, a real-world professional sports league where the fans call the shots, creating a hybrid of eSports and traditional sports for the digital age. FCF launched their hugely successful inaugural season in 2021 and are ready to take their league size to double for spring of ’22.

Prior to the FCF, Sohrob founded FANchise in 2015, which built a real-time play-calling and fan engagement application for the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles. It led to the creation of FCF. Sohrob is an accomplished international C-level executive and venture-backed entrepreneur. He’s been CEO for multiple startups and raised over $20 million in Angel and venture financing. He’s been an investor and advisor to numerous companies for over a decade.

Here’s a little bit about Steve. He’s a two-time Grammy-nominated producer and DJ, and is one of the most successful American cross-genre artists with 2.8 billion collective music streams on Spotify. In 1996, as the Founder of the trendsetting record label events, lifestyle company, and apparel line Dim Mak Records, Steve has helped launch the careers of numerous global acts. They include The Chainsmokers, Bloc Party, The Bloody Beetroots, Gossip, and Kills, among many others.

Forbes recognizes him as in the top five world’s highest-paid DJs and the world’s hardest working DJ counting more than 250 tour dates per year. In 2012, Steve founded the Aoki Foundation, which primarily supports research in brain science, regenerative medicine, and brain preservation. Steve released his critically acclaimed memoir entitled Blue: The Color of Noise, published by St. Martin’s Press. Guys, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having both of us.

It is awesome to have you guys here. I want to jump right in here and start at the beginning of your respective NFT journeys. I want to know from each of you, what was your intro to the NFT space? When and why did it stick for you? How about we start with Steve?

I heard about NFTs previous to the summer of 2020. That is when I was like, “I can become a creator in the space.” I’m lucky because, for some reason, DJs and NFT culture have a strong magnetism. If you look at the landscape of DJs now that are active, a lot of them are already into NFT space. Back then, there were two DJs underneath the management that managed me. One is 3LAU. If you are in NFTs, you already know who he is, and the other is RAC. He has been doing a lot. They were already doing small stuff.

I remember when Justin was telling me before I got involved, “We made $75,000 or $50,000 on a collection.” I remember I made a tape. It is basically my album, but we sell it as an NFT before the album comes out in six months. It ended up becoming the most expensive cassette tape because that cassette tape sold for $4,500. The most expensive cassette tape ever sold was Prince or something like that and that was $4,000. RAC was the most expensive cassette tape ever sold because it was attached to an NFT. That is so cool. This is all happening at that time. We were all in a little tight-knit community because we were under the same management. They are like, “If we could do this, Steve, you could do this. With your reach, you could probably do it bigger.” I’m like, “This is interesting.”

Just being A&R in general, this is what I do. As a DJ, I’m trying to find records people have not heard yet so I could play them and wow my peers. Before you play vinyl, you would hide the label on the vinyl so no one would see what you are playing because you have a special record. You’ve got to dig and find these records. On the label side, I have to go out and find artists before another major label or big label finds them. I develop them and build them up. I’m always trying to discover and find new things early. I have a joy of that discovery.

If this were years ago, I would be on the ships sailing the seas trying to find undiscovered land. That was where I would probably be. I would be risking my life because I love that art of discovery. It is part of the nature of my DNA or my brain chemistry. Anytime I’m in a position to be early in something exciting and new, I am a big techy, futurist, optimist as far as technology and the future go. That is why we were raising all this money for the brain.

This right here, if we could advance it further, as long as it is in our lifetime, we could become Androids in our lifetime. We were definitely going to be there and go there, but imagine if we could do it in our lifetime. We had to put money here on how we could do that and also, what are we talking about with NFTs?

I’m totally not wed to my iPhone. I would love to be an Android in my lifetime. That sounds pretty awesome.

FCF Ballerz Collective: NFT is the tool of the future.

We were already augmented. By having a phone, you are in level A of Android because you have to use this to get around like GPS or whatever you use it for. When we think about NFTs, this is a tool of the future. It is technology and art is front-facing. That is what people are saying, “This art is beautiful.” There is the technology behind it.

When you go behind the cover of it or behind the curtain, it is like the new exchange of how it works in the future. It will be the same way that the internet was before the internet was a boom. It was like, “What is going on? No IRL time?” It is the way it is going to be. It is a mixture of both, and whoever does it best is going to win.

To make it quick, in the summer of 2020, I got in. It is the same time that I got into physical trading cards. COVID was the breeding ground. You have to spend time on it. I got into day trading and all kinds of fun stuff because I was just home. I would never have had time for this if I was touring. I would have been like, “This is cool,” but I got LinkedIn with certain groups. One of which is with Gary Vee and some other friends.

Once you get into some of these group chats and influential people who are making moves like me, it is the idea of you have an interest in what is happening. There are people who are like, “That is cool. I’m curious. It is interesting,” and there is another group of people who are like, “This is cool, curious, and interesting. Now, I’m going to execute on them and take risks.” Those are the two different groups of people.

I feel like a lot more people are here in the curious, cool, interesting but are too scared to take the risk. The risk is quite scary. The next day, everything drops off a cliff, and you are like, “Why did I do that? I should not have done my FOMO.” NFT is such a FOMO culture. It is so FOMO that I have never felt so much FOMO in my life. It is scary and you are like, “You need to do it. You need to act on impulse but you will lose, but at the same time, you can win.” It is crazy.

You win and then you go to sleep, and you lose.

My biggest problem is I like to jump in but because I’m so busy, I don’t jump out too much. I’m the perfect collector.

We need to create a jump-out DAO. That is the solution. I’m totally fine with jumping in. There is plenty of alpha floating around, but we need a DAO that helps us jump out of the water.

What you said is what will help me create the most gains because if I go in, I’m very immersive. In whatever I do, I’m 100% in. When I do shows, I’m doing 200-plus shows a year. When I’m in the studio, I work 12 to 16 hours in the studio. When I’m working on a project, I’m fully in. Now, this is my favorite passion. I’m not saying now. I’m just saying that the way I see NFTs, I saw the rest of my life. In a few years, there’ll be something else that will be an evolved adaptation of what NFTs are. I will be part of that and the next thing. This step, as immersive as it is, is full-on.

We know that we have got one of the leaders and doers, which is an important step that you mentioned, Steve. It is executing. I know that Sohrob has been getting after it for several years now. We met him a few years ago and he was out there making it happen with FCF. We would love to hear your story as well, Sohrob.

It is similar to Steve. It is interesting because we both share some passion for sports cards. I have been collecting sports cards since 2009 and 2010. I got in before the pandemic. I was collecting when it was nerdy to collect cards and now it is cool to collect cards. I evolved from a nerd to being super cool collecting cards, which felt pretty good. For me, with NFTs, I went down the blockchain rabbit hole back in 2017. I always looked at applications, specifically around digital collectibles on a nerd passion.

I have got my Dak Prescott cards on my desk here with me. I’m a big collector, so I always looked at how blockchain can be integrated into what we were doing at Fan Controlled Football. It is more on the collectible side of things. That is where I looked at that first integration. If you think about what we were building as a real-life video game integrating some digital currency or digital item economy, that will bring this into a video game-like experience for fans. It was my first thought.

You need to act on impulse. You will lose but at the same time you can win. Click To Tweet

Fast forward a few months ago, I went down the NFT rabbit hole. I was interested in Top Shot. I don’t own a single Top Shot, which is crazy because I’m a huge sports card collector, but I never liked how they were doing it. I guess there is too much supply, and I don’t want to own a layup from a game in the middle of the season that is meaningless. It is not what I like to collect or how I like to collect.

Bored Ape Yacht Club brought me in. I got interested in the community that was forming around BAYC. It was the first that got me in. As I started diving in and getting close to projects, what struck me was a couple of words, passion, family, and belonging. When I started getting involved in a project, it didn’t matter if there were 100 people on a project that wasn’t doing well or 10,000-plus people like Bored Apes. Everybody uses those words again and again. I feel like I’m a part of a family, I belong, and I have made more friends in the last twelve months in this space than I have in the last twelve years in my real life.

As I was looking at how Fan Controlled Football continues to innovate and continue to build a digital community, which is what we were all about. It is this real-world experience, but the entire experience for fans is digital. This opportunity to bring NFTs and digital collectibles and bring the community into the fold was something that I thought was powerful. That is why we were here.

When people ask me about what are some of the most innovative projects in the space, Sohrob, you don’t know this, but I talked about you a lot. It’s not only because Jeff and I were early investors. I’m excited to say that we got in before Animoca Brands, so it is fun. It’s mainly because the concept is so innovative, so if you could, please break it down for our readers.

Fan Controlled Football, at a high level, we could call it a real-life version of Madden. This is real professional football on the field. We had Johnny Manziel and Josh Gordon play in our first season with two guys. Their first professional experience was in Fan Controlled Football who is now playing in the NFL. It is that high-quality football on the field, but the fan engagement model is all about fans making the decision, everything from designing the team memes and logos to drafting the players out of the player pool that we bring. Fans draft all the players onto the team. In real-time, as you watch the games, fans are selecting the play and the players on the field are executing every play that the fans want to see.

It is the ultimate fantasy gaming experience for fans in sports. We can dive into everything we were doing on the NFT, blockchain, or Web3 side. As we look at expanding this world that we were building into multiple sports, we want to do fan-controlled baseball, basketball, and cricket. It is the power of Web3 and the power of community building. Honestly, the beauty of Web3 being international, our goal out of the gate with Fan Controlled Football, even though it is American Football, was to be international out of the gate.

One of the reasons I was attracted to Steve and having him be part of this was he has got this massive international audience because what we created was a league with no geographic barrier. There are no city-based teams. These are influencer-led teams, and the idea is the influencers are part of the experience. They were creating content. They were at the games, participating in the broadcast, and the fans got to experience winning a championship with the people they love to follow, and that they love to see create and see innovation. It is a community-led league open source as it gets in terms of sports. I’m excited about what we can leverage with Web3 to build into the experience.

It is amazing to think about how symbolic what you are building is with our times, where we are able to converge across the globe in a much more efficient way and build community. Are you still playing the games in Vegas? Is that how it is working?

We were in Atlanta now. We’re building out a purpose-built venue for season two, which is coming up in April 2022. We are going to unveil what that venue looks like soon, but it is going to be a magical and personal experience. As much as this is for the digital fan, there are going to be 2,500 or 3,000 people every game who are going to have an unbelievable in-person experience to come watch and participate in Atlanta. We were excited to make that announcement.

That is not too far from Jeff in Sarasota and I’m sure my girlfriend’s mother would be excited that we have another reason to get to Atlanta. I’m down.

It will be on April 16th, 2022.

We have all been traveling in Miami and New York. Josh is in Puerto Rico. There are so many cool things that are happening. The space has been evolving so quickly. I wanted to take a moment, Steve, and talk a little bit about the things you have been doing in the NFT space. You have been lowkey building a resume of collaborations on some of the most impactful NFT projects in the space. One day, it may even rival your music accomplishments, but I know that is a tall order. We were that long NFTs and we think that is possible. Talk us through the journey of NFT projects that you have helped bring to life so far and how that led you to the Ballerz Collective.

FCF Ballerz Collective: This opportunity to bring NFTs and digital collectibles and really bring community into the fold was something really powerful.

One of the most exciting things about this whole landscape is that if you have an idea, you can build on it. Whereas in other industries, especially in the IRL, you can’t just go, “I have a great idea. It is going to happen.” It doesn’t happen like that. Everyone has got brilliant ideas. There is a brilliant idea popping up every second on the planet and people have a hard time executing on them because it costs a lot of money. It requires a team and a lot of time commitment. All that makes it difficult.

In this digital landscape, the metaverse, NFTs, and all of the above, if you have a brilliant idea, you don’t have to have a large team to execute it. There are a lot of stories of people who are anonymous who have this idea. They don’t have to have any clout, influence, or fame in the game. If you are about exactly what Sohrob is saying, which is community and building with the people that believe in your vision, and having this real-time conversation to do something great of service to what that vision is all about, you will be able to create something that is impactful.

At the end of the day, you have to think about it like this. Before I go into the resumé, I feel like this is the ethos you have to have. It is not about money. You can’t put money in the front view. Money will come. If you create a great service in whatever you do in the world like IRL, digital or whatever it is, money will happen. I remember the first few years of me DJing. I was DJing hundreds of shows for free just to get my face out there. To get to where we are, all of us did so much work to show that we have value in what we were doing. You have to show that value. That is what’s important and eventually, you will make money.

During that journey, if you are having a great time, you shouldn’t even worry about money. I go back to when I was a DJ. Before I was a DJ, I was in bands. I would tour across the US fourteen times. We would play in front of 8 to 30 people, maybe 35 people a show. We’re getting paid anywhere between $18 to $40 to $50 a show, driving ten hours between gigs and sleeping in the van.

After 30 days of touring, we go back and we were like, “I can’t wait to do it again.” If you love the journey, it doesn’t matter about money. You will go back and you work your jobs. All my bandmates had 2 or 3 jobs but we were excited to get back on the road. Passion is incredibly important in developing a community. You want a community to be about the culture of it.

Of course, you have to make money in what you are doing, but you want to find passionate people in your community. When you find real people that want to build instead of bots, you are going to have something that is going to be sustainable, have longevity, and have that same impact. You don’t want a bunch of flippers in there. We want people to win. That’s another thing that is important about NFTs that I have learned through this journey. It is how important taking care of the secondary market is, the collectors, and investors that believe in the vision and the idea that you put out there.

Going to all the different projects I have done, my brain is always moving. I’m always trying to think of something that can evolve what I’m working on. At this point in time, with the number of people that I have met and the great relationships that I have built on, this is where I’m acting on it. Todd McFarlane, we have a great relationship. Whenever I go to Arizona, we get dinner. We talk about what we do and what is going on in the world. We always think about collaborating. This is a perfect way to collaborate much more than doing a SPAWN t-shirt with Dim Mak.

This is something that we can have a real major impact on not just what we were doing personally but on both of our industries. It is combining the force and building a marketplace. That is why we created OddKey. It is a similar thing with my passion for TCG, sports cards, and cards in general, card collectors. I love the actual trading card game aspect as well, although I’m not a gamer in that way. I don’t play cards but I do respect that whole world. I became a partner in an incredible IP, a trading card game called MetaZoo. This is a great foray to develop the digital trading card aspect that is still on the front lines. It is still very early in the space and builds that out because that will become normal for people to do that.

If anyone is confused about what I’m talking about, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokémon are trading card games. They are cards developed for actual playability. Pokémon, for example, over 94% of people that buy these cards don’t play. They collect. They open the packs for the joy of getting these cards. That is more of me. Whereas my partner, MetaZoo, is more on the trading card aspect. I love merging, converging and disrupting. This show is all about disruptors.

That is why I reached out to Sotheby’s about working together. I was like, “Whatever we do, I want it to be fresh and new. I don’t want it to be just another collection. I don’t want you guys to use my name and do something. I want it to be the first.” The first one was putting NFTs next to fine art. That was the first time there was a collection with NFTs and fine art on the same wall in the same collection. That might not sound like a big deal but years later, it will be a very important moment in time. The fact that Sotheby’s is an institution in fine art put digital artists right next to Basquiat, Warhol, Murakami, and the most important, eclectic art that I got to curate, pick and choose. That was cool. That is an important thing that happened.

The next thing I did was to bring in TCG, which has never been part of Sotheby’s ever, into the fine art world as NFT. That is the thing. We have the opportunity to have all these firsts to develop more firsts. It is exciting. Every day, I open up my phone and I’m saying, “That is an inventive way to do this.” When I heard what Sohrob was doing with FCF, I’m like, “This is what people want. They want to own a team.”

There are millions of people that create fantasy football teams that aren’t necessarily going to games. This is how they track. This is their way of owning their players. They are like, “I own a piece of this.” You could technically own a team. When I heard about this concept alone, I was like, “This is a game-changer.” That is what’s happening now. You can do this. You could develop a whole league and Sohrob did it. When I heard about that, I’m jumping fully in because it is brilliant.

One of the most exciting things about this whole landscape is that if you have an idea, you can actually build on it. Click To Tweet

There is so much that we can relate to, Steve, that you shared. Eathan, Jeff and I, a couple of episodes back in March of 2021, had this pause after our guests left the green room, where we were like, “We can do this for the rest of our lives.” It is an honor and a privilege to interview disruptors, making converging technology and Web3 come together in incredible ways.

I have the unfortunate job of receiving their requests to be on the show. We get dozens, hundreds sometimes, that want to come on and talk about these things. The stuff that comes into the inbox blows my mind. If we could have a 24/7 podcast and there is a way to do that, we would because there are so many incredible disruptions happening in real-time as we speak all over the globe.

It is great to hear your passion, Steve, for FCF. The thing I always think of when I think of FCF is this moment where the NHL let the fans vote for the All-Star team if you guys are familiar with this. They ended up voting on this guy that was a super unlikely candidate to watch him play and be in that environment. He ended up scoring a goal. I’m a musician too and I love it when I hear people say, “I don’t play music at all. I’m terrible but I’m a fan.” Music and sports, all this stuff is worthless without the fans. The fans are 50%, 75% or 99% of what’s going on there. I want to ask Sohrob here about the genesis of Ballerz Collective. Can you speak to how it all works and how you bring the team together?

I met Steve through 888, who is a big influencer and collector in NFT and the crypto space. I have been connected with him for a couple of years now. I respected him and the community he built, and the passion that he brings. When I was chatting with him about Ballerz Collective and the concept, he was like, “I have got to put you in touch with Steve. Steve would love this.” He was the one that brought us together here. The genesis of Ballerz Collective and this concept, our first four teams in the league, I called them free to play. You could come and be a fan from anywhere in the world, sign up, call plays, interact, be on the leaderboard, and have your vote counted.

When I started looking at what we were building, truly Fan Controlled Football is about the digital community. Real players are on the field and all the fans are engaging digitally. In season one, which was February and March of 2021, we saw our fans on Twitter changing their PFP to the Beast logo or the Glacier Boyz logo. We saw our fans come together on Discord and talk about the players that were going to draft on their team, and a play call strategy. These things were starting to happen organically already in Fan Controlled Football.

As I dove further and further into NFTs and started seeing the passion, the belonging, and the sense of meaning around more than just a right click and save JPEG, I feel like I was part of something. I feel I’m part of a community. I started formulating this concept of, “As we expand the league, from 4 teams to 8 teams, why don’t we build these next sports teams around NFTs, a collectible, and gated access where in order to be part of it, you have to express yourself?” Spending some money is the biggest form of engagement because now you know you are a part of that thing.

Steve mentioned fantasy football. About 40 million to 50 million people play fantasy football. People who are into it are the ones that have a prize at the end of the season. You are paying up front to talk shit with your friends and engage. Those are the ones that are engaged all the way through to the end. That is the passion that I saw, and that is what I wanted to recreate with the Ballerz Collective.

At the heart of Ballerz Collective are four expansion teams. Each is going to have an NFT avatar, which we call a Baller. As a fan, you will be able to buy one of those NFTs, and that will be your access to the community. There will only be 10,000 for each team. We were capping the number of fans. To put it in perspective, we had tens of thousands of people calling plays and interacting with every one of our teams in the first season. We are somewhat limiting the audience in terms of who is going to participate, but what we were going to get is the incredibly passionate people that want to be part of building these teams.

The beauty of it is I wanted to start with communities that were already passionate. Steve and 888’s community are coming together to start their team. What’s interesting about it and the way that we let fans get involved, these teams aren’t even brands. They don’t have a name, a logo or anything. When we launched the Ballerz Collective, Steve’s and 888’s communities were the first ones that are going to have access to purchase the Baller and be part of the team, and then they get to brand the team. Ballerz Collective will be dropping in January 2022.

It is all user-generated content. If their fans submit names, they will vote on the name they want. If their fans submit logo designs, they will vote on the logo they want. Everything is evolving from the community. If you think about that sense of belonging and passion for sports and anything, if you had a say in how it ended up or you get to draft the players on your team and you get to call the plays, this sense of community and belonging is incredibly powerful. We didn’t script anything. This is all unscripted football, but if we were scripting our first season, we could not have scripted it better.

Our championship game was 40 to 40 with three seconds left. The ball was on the two-yard line and we have thousands of fans of the Wild Aces that called the game-winning touchdown in a championship game. They can say, “I won the game.” They can mean that. I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan. We won three Super Bowls in the ‘90s, I can say, “We won three Super Bowls.” What did I do? I didn’t do shit. I sat on my couch, I watched, cheered and I was excited about it. I didn’t do anything.

The ability to give fans this connection to a team in a much deeper way and let them feel like they are involved, not even make them feel but they are. The impact that they have on the outcome of the game is tangible and real. It creates this real belonging, which is what I saw in NFTs in the first place, which is why I’m so excited about merging those two worlds together.

FCF Ballerz Collective: As you watch the games, fans are selecting the play and the players on the field are executing every play the fans want to see. It is the ultimate fantasy gaming experience.

If you made that call in 2020, you have your account, you can say what team you were part of, you can prove it now with the NFT.

Steve, I’ve got to ask. You are doing this brain research and you are a DJ. Have you given some thought to the music that is going to be accompanying your team, that is going to motivate your team, the fans and create the optimal conditions for success?

I’m working on a project where it is going to be all AI-generated because that is also the future. You can create the backend of an AI and create a character that will make their own music. I might create the sounds and this little guy just pump out the beats. It is going to be interesting when that starts becoming more normalized. That is also at the forefront and I’m working on that as we speak.

Inputs from fans help generate that music. It becomes an interactive music experience too.

It could have something to the effect of I’ll have my musical bed like, “Here are all the paints. This is my curation of paints. These are colors that I designed.” The fans are like, “I want this color and this stem.” I came home and I got the Donda Stem of Kanye West’s album on this little sound machine that was sent to me. It is becoming more normal to be able to allow people to make their own of what they hear and see. People want to play and interact as well, not just be a voyeur or a spectator.

That is a huge point too. That is where Web3 is unique versus Web2 and everything before it. Everything was a closed ecosystem before. If you think about big brands early on, it is walled gardens, “You can’t use my brand, my logo, and my content.” Where we are going and where the whole world is headed is you shouldn’t be lucky enough to have people use your brand. They are then going to reinforce your brand and bring new people into the mix. That is what we want to do. We want to be the first open-source sports league.

We want to open up our player tracking data, telemetry, ball data, and player biometrics. Open it up so fans and third parties can build on top of the league, and create visuals, and create draft strategies of players, and who to sub in and out, and optimal play calling strategies. Could we build that ourselves and sell it and let people subscribe to it? Sure. What if we opened it up and had the world building on top of this thing? How much better, how much faster, and how many more people would come in and get excited about those opportunities?

That is another reason why I’m so passionate about what’s happening in this space. Everybody is thinking about it in an open world, not a closed world. Blockchain and the entire smart contract concept is it is public. It is not private. This is publicly available. You can go take somebody’s smart contract, build on top of it, improve on it, create new things, and have your systems interact and interoperate. The possibilities are endless. We’re waking up every single day and seeing the innovation. To Steve’s point, it is not teams of 1,000 people that are innovating. It is teams of 1 and 2 who are coming up with this amazing shit that we were all like, “This is where the world is headed in.” It is exciting.

There is so much happening and so much possibility of bringing teams together and executing. We’re talking to two guys that are doing this who are executing, which is amazing. When we think about what’s next, what’s on the roadmap? What are the next big announcements or partnerships? What’s popping, Sohrob, on the FCF?

We’ve got our Series A, which we were closing up here. I’m excited about who’s coming in on the round. Animoca is leading the round. Delphi Digital and Gemini are participating in the round. The who’s who of Web3 are seeing the opportunity. There is a ton of innovation happening in sports and entertainment in the Web3 space. What’s unique about where we sit is, we don’t have a player’s union. We don’t have 32 owners who need to approve something. We don’t have red tape or these long-term partnerships and deals with distribution companies. We are nimble and innovative. We want to be this testing ground for everything in sports and entertainment in Web3, and people are starting to see that.

What’s next for us is we were going to announce our Series A and all of our investors. We’re going to announce two more teams. Very well-known huge communities in the NFT space are going to be also bringing teams into Fan Controlled Football. We can’t announce them yet but you guys will know who they are. We’re excited about those partnerships. The first game in season two is on April 16th, 2022. We announced a deal with NBC so it is not only Twitch. Now you can watch on cable, NBC and Peacock. We’re working with Animoca and Delphi on our tokenomics. The idea is to create play-to-earn mechanics. We want to reward our fans for participating.

Jeff, you mentioned you can keep track of calling those amazing plays with blockchain. We were going to reward fans with the moment. Instead of having the NBA Top Shots model where you are buying packs and searching for the best moments, it is like, “If you are a fan that called the game-winning play in the championship game, you are going to get the moment because you are the one that made it happen.” I’m working on a lot of those ideas of how you create these play-to-earn mechanics and engage fans at a deeper level to feel the value that they are creating.

You can’t put money into the front view. If you create a great service of whatever you do in the world, money will happen. Click To Tweet

You said it best. Fans are everything in music and in sports. If they didn’t exist, none of us would have a job. That is why we were doing this and building it. Figuring out the ways to reward the people that are putting in the time, effort, and quite frankly, that is building the value, the fans build the value. Giving that value back in a meaningful way is a big part of what we’re trying to do in fan-controlled sports. Web3 allows opportunities to do that, that no other technology had previously.

We were at DCentral Miami and there was a gentleman walking around who works with Poeapp. They sent him to these conventions. They give him these proofs of attendance and things to scan so people can prove they were there. This is a huge thing and you are saying that people can prove that they called the game-winning play and things like that. What’s interesting about this is the tangential outcomes you might not have expected from people proving that they were part of a moment or that they helped make a decision.

This guy said he had already been collecting Poeapps. This was something he was excited about. By showing someone his collection, he could get a job. It is like, “You were here. That tells me with a great degree of certainty that you fit this profile, and we want you to work in this particular position.” It is almost better than filling out your resumé on LinkedIn where it could be fudged or you attended this school, which looks good, but you were a D student or something like that. You were there. You participated. It is interesting to think of the repercussions of this stuff.

Maybe the NFL will be grabbing some of our play-calling fans for coordinator positions in the future. We have the proof.

You never know.

Gary Vee should start his ownership journey in FCF. We know he wants the Jets, but that is where he should start.  Josh had one additional question before we move on to Edge Quick Hitters:

Normally, we pontificate on the future. We have done a lot of that. For each of you guys, I’m curious what is the most random NFT project that you ate into, perhaps with little due diligence? I’m curious if that occurs. I occasionally go for these bananas that are ripe and tasty, and I don’t know what I bought. Any aping behavior that you guys can share?

I bought 33 Women and Weapons NFTs. I aped in pretty hard on that one. With the World of Women, I aped in months back but this is the similar feeling that I get with the World of Women on this one. I love art. I didn’t do much research. I’m like, “This is a female artist.” I do want to support more female NFT artists in general. I have a gnosis wall with pplpleasr where we do that where we only buy female NFT artists.

We had her on the show. She talked about that.

FCF Ballerz Collective: What we created was a league with no geographic barrier. There are no city-based teams. These are influencer led teams and the idea is the influencers are really part of the experience.

I’m honored to work with Emily on the one-on-one that we do with Sotheby’s. It was great to work with her. She’s an incredible human being. I love art. I love that this is new. Also, I love the fact that I could help support a burgeoning young artist that is new and fresh. That will hopefully help her project grow if I’m buying that many pieces and people see that.

Sohrob, is there anything that you aped into?

Yeah, without doing a whole lot of research, Mad Rabbits Riot Club is something that I jumped into. The art is phenomenal. It is incredible. I own 70 Rabbits. What I like is their storytelling and they have been doing these airdrops with these different pills that you are apparently going to be able to give to your rabbit, it is going to do something and nobody knows what. Part of the fun is you keep getting these airdrops and there is this cool storytelling aspect in the Discord. To me, that is where creativity comes in.

We keep talking about all this stuff that is happening. There are so many things we are not even touching on, which is the ability to create these stories and take people down these journeys and have NFTs that interact. Steve’s project was pretty cool in that you could combine NFTs to make other NFTs. It is all of this stuff that is starting to pop. That one was a fun late night. It got so into the art and I was like, “Let’s jump into this thing and see what happens.” I’ve been enjoying the ride, so it is fun.

It is so much fun. Fun is part of the space. It is such a key element of what’s happening here, bringing people into the space, sustaining the energy, drawing on that passion. We have got to have a good time. We appreciate all the back on everything you have been working on. We were so excited about the Ballerz Collective and your guys’ collaboration around that. It is going to draw so many more people to FCF. We can’t wait to get in the mix ourselves. We wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk from a personal perspective about a few questions that we have. It is called Edge Quick Hitters. It is a fun and quick way to get to know you a little better. It is ten questions. We were looking for short, single word or fewer answers, but you can expand if you get the urge. Are you guys ready to dive in?

Let’s do it.

Sohrob, we will start with you. What is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?

Ice cream from the ice cream truck.

That is a solid go-to. Steve, how about you?

I’m pretty sure I bought this. I remember the first vinyl I ever bought was a DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, A Nightmare On My Street 45 single. I don’t know how much it was. It was probably $2. I remember but this is the first vinyl I ever bought myself. I was A Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddy Krueger fan, and I love Fresh Prince.

I know every word of that song.

We do have a fourth secret segment called the Karaoke Section.

Passion is incredibly important in developing community. Click To Tweet

Let’s roll.

We will help you prove it. Let’s go to question two. Sohrob, what is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?

Probably my Halloween candy out of my backpack at school. I’m a little entrepreneur. I’ll get a little side money and profit in.

We had a guest that bought from the wholesale store with his uncle and sold it retail to his sister.

It is a little arbitrage opportunity. Steve, how about you? What was the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?

This isn’t my item so this might not be the correct answer. I worked on a flea market when I was 9 or 10 so this is child labor law. I don’t know what. I probably was 4-foot tall. My mom dropped me off and was like, “You have to work for this guy selling hats.” I sold some hats but I don’t know how many I sold. I was a salesman. I was a nine-year-old salesman and the guy, at the end of the day, gave me $20 or whatever it was he gave me. I was like, “I got $20. This is pretty cool.” He was like, “That was your last day. Sorry.” I’m like, “Why?” He was like, “You can’t even reach the hats. I have to help you get the hats to sell it.” I remember that I was so disappointed.

I’m sorry to hear that but you have come a long way since then. That is for sure.

You can reach the hats now.

Actually, he didn’t pay me. He gave me a hat. He’s like, “Take this hat.”

We were going to march you right over there and get you that job back.

You know the deal. That hat costs $20 but it cost him $2. That wasn’t nice.

This guy totally did a one-over on me.

FCF Ballerz Collective: Community and building with the people that believe in your vision and having this real-time conversation to do something great and of service to what that vision is all about, you will be able to create something that’s impactful.

Question number three. What is the most recent thing you purchased, Sohrob?

A Dak Prescott rookie card.

It’s a solid pick-up. Steve has left the building. He’s like, “I’m out.”

Are you ready for this?

What did you pick up?

I bought this before I did this interview. I’ll start with this one. It’s Sean O’Malley. He’s my favorite. He’s also a friend of mine, so it makes it even better. I like to collect people that you know. This is a 1 of 1, 2019 auto. I have a lot of this particular card but not the 1 of 1. I finally got the 1 of 1. It is pretty cool. Here is another 1 of 1. It is Sean O’Malley. They are all 1 of 1s.

That is amazing. Have you ever had the actual presentation of the most recent thing you purchased here?

Jeff and I are diehard UFC fans, Steve.

I have to flex on this. I have the most insane and definitely by far the best Panini UFC card collection, not Topps. There are people who have been collecting Topps for a long time but since Panini came in and, I went in. I’ve canvassed pretty hard but now I’m pretty much done with that. People are like, “Aoki, do you want this?” I’m like, “No. I’m done. I have got too much.”

Question number four, Sohrob, what is the most recent thing you sold?

It was a Lamar Jackson rookie card.

How much?

Spending money is the biggest form of engagement because now you’re part of that thing. Click To Tweet

It was $2,000.

The last thing I sold was from Aoki’s Cardhouse. I have an account on eBay and also my Instagram. It’s everything cards that I have got. I sold a Lewis Hamilton Topps now PSA 10. I put it for Buy It Now for $1,200, and it is sold.

Did you guys know you had a couple of cardboard nerds on your show?

We had some indications from our initial research. We didn’t want to go too crazy with it.

You could turn this into a card show. Steve could take over and talk about his cards all day.

We’ll save that after Matt Kailash and Gary Vee.

We will spin that off and get you set up.

Question five. I know where this is going. What is your most prized possession?

Outside of my beautiful wife and my children, which of course, is number one, I have a 2003 exquisite LeBron James gold RPA. There are only 23 of them in the world. That is my pride and joy, not only as a card collector but as a human being. That is my go-to.

What grade is it?

It is only 8. I used to own the 9.5 which is a sad story because I bought it for $40,000 when people thought I was insane. I ended up selling it in 2015 to fund my dream of building a football league. I sold it for $100,000 in 2015, so it is seed money for what I’m doing now. The card is probably worth $10 million now.

I see FCF will be worth way more than $10 million.

FCF Ballerz Collective: You want to find the passionate people in your community. When you find real people that want to build, you’re going to have something that’s going to be sustainable, have longevity, and have that same impact.

I’ve got my marks. I know what I got to build to get back my LeBron. That is my pride and joy.

What’s an 8 worth, do you think?

I turned down $4 million for it.

He’s got a $4.5 million card.

To be clear, I got that card for $150,000 before the pandemic.

That is NFT to the moon value.

That is a good investment. It definitely mooned.

I got to get into card collecting.

There’s 0.1% of cards that have this trajectory. The rest are like, “You 2x.”

It’s like NFT projects. It is the 0.1%

It is the same thing. It goes across the board.

Steve, what is your most prized possession?

My card is worth $40 million. I’m kidding. I have to one-of Sohrob. I’ve got to do something with the card that is better than that.

He’s got a $1 billion card.

It’s all user-generated content. Everything is evolving from the community. Click To Tweet

I have a $2 billion card. It is a fiction of mine. My prized possession is I got the Pokémon Illustrator card. I bought it raw for $420,000 off a Japanese auction. That is already sketchy, to begin with, to buy a raw card because you don’t know if it is a counterfeit, dinged up, and beaten up. You don’t know anything. These cards, like that particular Illustrator Pokémon card, are the holiest of holy grail cards of the biggest IP franchise there is.

Pokémon is bigger than Hello Kitty, Marvel, Star Wars, and all of these if you look at the graph. This is the holiest grail card. There are only 20 or 40 that has ever been made. It is the most visible, most well-known of the Pokémon cards. I was like, “I have to get it. I’m going to go in and spend close to $500,000 on this potentially potential card that could be fake or whatever.”

The seller was verified. People were like, “He is the right guy.” I was like, “I’m going to go for it.” I bought the card and I had someone deliver it to me from Japan. They are good friends of mine. I graded the card the next day. I was like, “Please, card Gods, take care of me.” It graded PSA 9, which is absolutely phenomenal. I did not expect a 10 because you can’t expect those things. PSA 10 would be an astronomical value. PSA 9 plus that is the Aoki collection pedigree on the PSA tag, which adds a premium tag to it.

Can I get that on my LeBron? Can you throw that on my LeBron card?

The Aoki Collection? I might give you a little piece of that one. Without the Aoki Collection tags, it is probably $1.5 million. It is hard for me to sell things. $2.5 million would be my selling point.

I never want to sell my card. My wife is always looking at me, “Are you nuts? You turned down that much money?” I’m like, “I’ll never get one again. I don’t want to get rid of it.”

It is because you have already sold. When I sold my CyrptoPunk, I bought it for $150,000 and listed it for 300 ETH. It sold 21 days later and I was upset. Even though I made $850,000 profit, I was like, “No. I didn’t want it to sell.” No one was supposed to buy it for and then it sold.

That is why they are your most prized possessions. It is hard to let go. Let’s stay on that same thread. Question six. If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical service and experience that is currently for sale, what would that be? Sohrob, we will start with you.

For sure, it would be a professional sports team. I don’t know if it would be an NFL. It can’t be the Cowboys because it is not for sale and Jerry Jones is an Android. He’s never dying and never selling the Cowboys so I’ll never have a chance. Maybe an NBA team, quite honestly because I’ve got the FCF for my football fix. Let’s say an NBA team.

That would be amazing. Do you have a particular team that you’ve got in mind?

I’m trying to think of one off the top of my head that is for sale which I don’t remember which one is for sale. I wouldn’t care. I’d buy any team. I’d rebrand it. We would let fans vote on it. It would be great. That is the answer.

Steve, how about you?

FCF Ballerz Collective: Another thing that’s important about NFT’s is taking care of the secondary market and taking care of the collectors and investors that believe in the vision that you put out there.

I would like to buy with the unlimited cash that I would have on this one, I was thinking of SpaceX because I do agree with Elon that the interplanetary conquest is important. We were eventually going to get there. In order to get there, I want to be alive for that. That is the tool. You first need to be alive for all this stuff. Eventually, human civilization will be leaving the planet and will be conquesting space. That is certainly going to happen. I want to be alive for all that stuff. I wanted to own the most important longevity company so we can develop ways where we can eventually live forever.

We’re kindred spirits here. If it will give me 200 years on this planet, I want to see where we are. It is going to be awesome.

That only allows for us, if we were to live on the average life expectancy of what people live for now, more than 30 to 40 years left. That is not that much time. I have learned 0.1% of what I want to go for. I have so much more to go. You are always telling me I only have 40 more years left. That is it? I’m so excited to learn, live, explore and experience, and you are telling me I only have more than 40 years left? That is it. This is not enough time.

Let’s up that number.

This thing is, how do we expand that? Whenever I meet rich people, I’m like, “If you care about life, because time is the most valuable asset that we have, shouldn’t your goal be to fund and research people that are figuring out how to extend our lives in a healthier, longer, happier way?” More on the lines of not myself, but more on the lines of people that are already in their 70s and 80s that I love dearly like my mother who’s over 78. I want her to live.

I always say, “Mom, you are living to 120 minimum, so don’t ever stop learning.” She comes to my house and does the piano and chess. I’m always putting her on programs. I’m like, “You have to constantly train your brain. You use it or you lose it.” I’m pushing her to do so much. She’s like, “Please stop.” I’m like, “Mom, you have got to golf every week. You’ve got to do this. You got to learn. Use your brain. You’ve got to do yoga. You’ve got to work out.” You use it or you lose it. I’m like, “Mom, you need to live until your 120.”

All of us have people that we love who are older that would destroy our lives if something was to happen. All I’m thinking about is we need to fund people that are passionate in these fields to help us find solutions where we can eventually cure death. Death is an illness that we can cure. I believe we could cure death as an illness like cancer. We could cure that but we need to fund that. That is why I have Aoki Foundation.

I want to fund research on longevity, the brain, how to expand, be creative, find out how to cognitively do more, and how to squeeze the pulp of our brains to the ultimate extent that we can with the research and science that we have with people that are in the labs tinkering away and making things happen. We need billions of dollars going into that. I’m raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for that, but I want to get billionaires in there going like, “You are 60 now. Don’t you care to live longer? You need to put more money into research here. Here is a great organization that is doing that.”

It all matters. We appreciate that. We have got a doctor of neuroscience here, Eathan Janney, who can help in that pursuit as well. We talked about this stuff.

Steve, I dropped some alpha in our chat. Check out this article about dual-species, measurement of epidemic genetic age with a single clock reversing age. It is a blood plasma treatment that my friend turned me on to.

Let’s shift gears a little bit and hit question seven. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be, Sohrob?

I have always said that the secret to success is never being afraid to fail. Steve touched on that a little bit. I’ve got two younger brothers and my dad always pushed us. He’s like, “If you get knocked on your ass, pick yourself up and go try something else.” As I look around at my friends, people I grew up with, and people that have gone on to do great things, the people that have done the traditional 9:00 to 5:00 job, the difference between them and the people that are the creators and the innovators is not being afraid to fail. It is that willingness to, as Steve said, “Drive around the country in a van and sleep on a couch. Who gives a shit about the money? I’m going to go do it and I’m going to give it a try.” If everybody in the world had that and we were all trying to innovate, we might not get anywhere in the world, it is good that not everybody has that but a little bit of that in everybody to take those risks, not be afraid to put yourself out there and get smacked down from time to time. That is what I’d pass on.

Fans are everything right in music and sports. If they didn’t exist, none of us would have a job. Click To Tweet

Steve, how about you?

Definitely gratitude. As long as you are grounded in the feeling of being grateful to exist or to do what you do, then all things coming from that place, you will realize it is coming from the right place. You have to be grateful for things that you have and focus on those things. Those things will grow and bloom so much fortune around you. Even though a perspective from someone else is like, “That is nothing,” it doesn’t matter for you. As long as you are grateful for what you have, everything is so special.

At the end of the day, who cares about the perspective of other people? Your life is the one that matters. If you don’t care about what anyone else thinks and you are grateful for what you have, and you do the best for the things that you have in front of you, for the people you have in front of you, they will be grateful for what you are offering for them.

Going back to playing in front of a room of eight people, I stand there with a sense of gratitude that those eight people even came to see me play. It is meaningful to me. I’m like, “This is the only thing that matters. I don’t care about anything else. You are here for me and I am grateful for you. Let’s make this a special moment.” Those people will remember that and I will remember that because you can’t go on and go, “Fuck this, man. Fuck this year. No one cares. I’m going to give some bullshit.” You give your all when you are there because you are lucky to even be doing what you are doing.

Whatever we do, as long as we genuinely are grateful for the things that we have in front of us, that is what the point of life is. Be grateful for everything you have in front of you and for the people that you have in front of you. You start realizing that when some people disappear and leave the Earth. You are like, “I’m so happy that I had this moment with these people. I gave them 100% of my gratitude that they are with me.”

Both traits are important. I appreciate that. Let’s flip it on its head. If you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be, Sohrob?

I don’t know if this is a personality trait, but I’m not good at staying in touch even with the people that are close and important in my life. It is generally them reaching out to me. Not to say that I don’t care, but it is not a piece of me to be outgoing, reach out, and stay in touch with people in my network. I wish I was better at it. As much as I am grateful for all these people, I don’t know that everybody knows that because it is not part of my DNA to be outgoing in that way. I wish I was more. That is a hugely important thing that I lacked that I hope everybody else has.

You are self-aware. We appreciate that. Steve, how about you?

When I hear that, I feel like that goes with me as well. In order for me to combat that, because I have that issue too, I had this neuroscientist. We put on this brain helmet, and it has all these nodes everywhere. It gave me a lot of information about my brain, where the spikes are in my head. It gave me some information that I didn’t know. I was certain that I had some level of ADD. I’m not ADHD but I think about more things than the average person. When the average person thinks of seven things, I think about twelve or whatever the number was, but it is a little bit more.

I’m always thinking about more things, which does distract you. It doesn’t allow you to be present, which is my whole point. Gratitude ends with the presence of mind because when you have more presence of mind, then greatness happens. Greatness happens when you have the presence of mind. Clearly, successful people are the most present people. They are the people that are drifting off into space because they think about too many things. They are missing some of the most important things happening in their lives right there and then.

I’ve learned that so many times. I’ve missed out on certain things because I was drifting off. In order to combat that, mindfulness is the best way and meditation daily. I was doing ice baths almost daily at one point. Now I do it once a week to twice a week. Heat therapy, get into saunas and sit in there at 200 degrees for at least 25 minutes to get the heat shock proteins to develop in your body. They reduce all the plaque buildup in your brain, which causes Alzheimer’s and memory loss, and plaque buildup in your heart. There are different ways like Wim Hof breathing. I do that. It is great.

I was going to ask about Wim Hof. Have you ever done like the ice bath or anything with Wim Hof?

FCF Ballerz Collective: The ability to give fans this connection to a team in a much deeper way and let them feel like they are involved and that the impact they have on the outcome of the game is tangible, it creates this real belonging.

I’ve done the ice bath with Wim Hof over Zoom because he’s a homie. We did a video on that one.

Eathan, don’t you know about a Wim Hof breathing NFT project coming up?

That is coming down the pipeline.

You’ve got that week-long up in the mountains where you go crazy in the cold. I want to go do that with you at some point.

We do ice baths on a regular.

A friend of ours went and did some filming with him for a documentary or something. What about holotropic breathwork? Are you familiar with that, Steve?

No. Tell me about that. I’ve heard that name.

You got to give it a shot. You are going to connect with transparent on a project. We met him and I told him about this as well. We have a few friends, Josh and me, that are experts in this. One of them is named Sam Morris, Zen Warrior Training. Look him up and he’ll guide you through this breathwork holotropic. It is different from Wim Hof. It is a different pace. You do it maybe for a half-hour straight or longer. You have psychedelic experiences because DMT is released from your lungs when you breathe that way.

I didn’t know the term when you said it. My ex and I do breathwork every day. She became a breathwork coach. I was doing Wim Hof and then she went down every rabbit hole, every kind of breathwork that you can do, including that one. We did that holotropic. That is cool.

We’ve got a couple of more Quick Hitters. These are easy ones. Question number nine, Sohrob, what did you do before joining us on the show?

I had a call with an investor for our Series A raise.

Steve, how about you?

The most successful people are the most present people. Click To Tweet

We flew back from Florida and I bought those O’Malley cards right before. I was waking up a little bit later than usual, but that is how it is when you are a night guy. I played some Call of Duty when I got in, the last two hours of breakdance. I’d get my gaming in as well, a little bit that.

Last question, question ten. Sohrob, what are you going to do next after the show?

It is the most boring answer ever, but I’m going into another investor call. I’m going to go get myself a coffee before I do that because they keep stacking up.

Take note, always be closing. Steve, how about you?

I got what I call the Aoki Bootcamp where we go in and we go hard. I got my gym here. We do a series of different workouts here to stay fresh and stay fit.

You have to come out to Vegas for a week and do some ice baths, Aoki workouts, and breathing sessions and get my shit together. Let’s do it.

That is Edge Quick Hitters. We appreciate it. We covered a large swath of information, tons of projects, and tons of hot topics already. We spent a good amount of time there. I don’t think we need to touch on any other hot topics in the space at this point. Elevating everything that you guys are working on together and independently is amazing. It has been great to go deep on these subjects with you, guys. It is so much fun.

Here’s a hot topic. I saw this article come out. It is a little ad that was in the paper. It says, “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return, doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success.” Steve, is that a call out for you? You made me think of this when you are talking about wanting to take the risk and being at the edge of things. It is a famous ad by this guy named Shackleton. He figured he wanted to bring these guys on the ship and it was going to be a tough journey and it works.

It’s like, “You will die or be floating in the sea and then some shark will eat you.”

It’s the things people will do for fame and fortune. It didn’t sound like a fortune but fame at least.

Apropos for the end of the show. Before we wrap, though, where can folks go to learn more about you and the projects you are working on, socials, websites and other locations? Sohrob, where should folks go?

FCF.io is our website. It is @SohrobF on Twitter. You can find us on Twitter as well @FCFLio. You can get all the information there. Sign up for a team, register, get ready for the Ballerz and a bunch of announcements as we head into Season 2 in April 2022.

FCF Ballerz Collective: It’s just becoming more normal to be able to allow people to make their own of what they hear, make their own of what they see.

Steve, how about you?

The best thing is to follow me on Twitter, @SteveAoki. Every other social media I have. If you want music, Spotify. I’m in websites, SteveAoki.com. All NFT and anything like that, Twitter is where we make our announcements and all that information. If you want to get into Discord or get into all the stuff we’re talking about, Twitter is the main source.

Check it out. Amazing information coming from Sohrob and Steve. Word on the street is we also have an amazing giveaway coming your way from our gracious guests. FCF is giving away five FCF Ballerz for Team Aoki and five FCF Ballers for Team KoD. Keep an eye on our socials for the specifics of how to throw your hat in the ring for this killer opportunity. It is going to be a blast.

We have reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFTs. Thanks for exploring with us. We have got space for more adventures on the starship, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to iTunes, rate us and say something awesome, then go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole.

Remember, we always invite you to co-create and build with us at Edge of NFT. We’re unlocking a whole new way to connect and collaborate with us through our own NFT drops, Spirit Seeds NFTs, in collaboration with one of our favorite humans on the planet, Nicole Buffett, an amazing artist and philanthropist whose project, Spirit Coins, serves as the inspiration for the drop. There are only 100 Spirit Seeds that will ever be minted and you can grab one for 0.55 ETH at SpiritSeeds.xyz.

We share this project within our community first as a thank you for your support. Each Seed holder will receive 1 of 10 eight-bit generative Spirit Seed designs for our own Eathan Janney. There are only 100 ever. It will offset your carbon for one year. You’ll receive one transferable VIP ticket to NFTLA from February 22nd to 24th, 2022. You will get one Living Tree with all the co-creation, access, contests, and admission perks that you will love.

You will get a 10% chance of winning a Spirit Coin with a floor of 2 ETH to 4 ETH and many drops, merch and other surprises in the near future. Head over to SpiritSeeds.xyz to land one while they are available. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Go Army, beat Navy. Thanks for sharing this time with us.

Important Links:

• FCF Ballerz Collective
• Fan Controlled Football
• Spotify – Steve Aoki
• Dim Mak Records
• Aoki Foundation
• Blue: The Color of Noise
• Bored Ape Yacht Club
• Animoca Brands
• OddKey
• MetaZoo
• Magic: The Gathering
• Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Sotheby’s
• 888
• Donda Stem
• Delphi Digital
• Gemini
• DCentral Miami
• Poeapp
• Women and Weapons
• World of Women
• Mad Rabbits Riot Club
• Aoki’s Cardhouse
• CrytoPunk
• Dual-Species, Measurement Of Epidemic Genetic Age With A Single Clock Reversing Age
• Wim Hof
• Zen Warrior Training
• Article – $100 CONTEST!
• @SohrobF – Twitter
• @FCFLio – Twitter
• @SteveAoki – Twitter
• SteveAoki.com
• Discord – Steve Aoki
• iTunes – Edge of NFT Podcast
• SpiritSeeds.xyz

About Steve Aoki

Steve Aoki was born on November 30, 1977 in Miami, Florida. He’s an American electro house musician, record producer, D.J. & music executive. He’s the 3rd child of Chizuru Kobayashi & Rocky Aoki. His father was a former wrestler who also founded the restaurant chain Benihana.

About Sohrob Farudi

Co-founder & CEO at Fan Controlled Football (FCF)