Ep 138-139, May 2022:

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Today on Wisconsin veterans forward. What the heck are NFTs? Everybody's talking about NFTs. There are no lukewarm opinions about NFTs. Either. You think that they are the future of everything, or you think that they are a pyramid scheme, Ponzi scheme? I don't know. I've heard it all. Some sort of scam. The, the, the, the, the web three version of beanie babies that is having its moment in the sun and then will disappear. But there's not a lot of in between. There's not, you know, if you know something about NFTs, you have a strong opinion one way or the other. So today we're going to investigate. First of all, you don't know what it is. We're gonna talk about what is an NFT, a non fundable token, what are they, what do they represent? What can they do? What can't they do and what role they have or could have, or are they a scam?

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Are there drawbacks? Are there limitations? This is something we could talk about for a long, long time. And I know a lot of you are super interested in this topic, cuz it's very timely. It's very, apropo everybody. If you have NFTs, if you have a bag of NFTs, I want you to tell me in your comments, tell me what you're holding. I may have a couple myself. All right, we're gonna dive right in. We're gonna dive right in. Right after this, you are listening to Wisconsin veterans forward. Wisconsin's premier audio resource for veterans, military families, veteran owned and veteran friendly businesses. Wisconsin veterans forward is brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce at wiveteranschamber.org. Really excited to introduce Manny Lara, who is a local entrepreneur and NFT and cryptocurrency aficionado and enthusiast. Just so you know, there really is no such thing as an NFT expert, cause it's like brand new, like the seasoned veterans in this space have been doing it for one year. Those are your grizzled longstanding. Like most of the anybody who's done it longer than that is like ancient and this space moves so, so fast. You know, one day in the NFT world is like a year. So the folks who have a few months of experience, I mean, they're in, in high demand for their knowledge who man, he's been doing this for, for, we can call, 'em a veteran who call a veteran of the NFTs and he's an entre entrepreneur. Anyways, I'm gonna stop talking. Manny, how are you my friend.

Manny Lara:

Hey, thanks Adam. I'm great. Thanks to, for having me on and I think you captured it correctly that, you know, we're, we're still learning who the experts are in this space. I think, you know, some of us who quickly read up and research become, you know learn something new every, every time you read something. So I think it's still really early and anyone can get into it right now. And yeah, it's exciting. So

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Now, now you can't really understand what NFTs are without at least a cursory understanding of what blockchain technology is and what cryptocurrencies are. And I know that's something that you're, you're very familiar with. Can you give us a crash course? What is a blockchain? Yeah. How does that lead to cryptocurrency and how does that lead to non fungible tokens?

Manny Lara:

Yeah, I, I would I'll give you like my understanding of it. I know there are a lot of techies that are much more, they get really into the weeds of it, but essentially you know, the blockchain is a technology that was developed, you know, in concert with like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency you know, gen you know, an anonymous source name, Sato Naura like published a white paper. And this is following the, you know, the the financial crisis of the housing bubble that crashed mm-hmm <affirmative> there was this, you know a commentary on like is Fiat currency, something that's stable. And so this grouping of, of anonymous, and this could be more than one person, but they established this this digital currency called Bitcoin that was working on this new tech off of this work new technology that essentially is hackable is super secure complex and minors, where they call miners, who basically solve these computational problems earn Bitcoin for their work. And that was how it, it became, it came into place, I believe around 2000, 2008, 2009, somewhere around then. And it, it took a while to kind of, you know, evolve, but you know, now crypto's up to 40,000 give or take a thousand or coin

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Is yeah.

Manny Lara:

Per, per coin. And, you know, Ethereum is the, the carve off of that. It's a, it's also blockchain base, but it's more around proof of work, proof of steak, they call it too. So yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Moving towards proof of steak. Yeah,

Manny Lara:

Yeah. Right, exactly. So they're moving towards the proof of stake. They're still proof of work, but they're also what our NF, the NFTs are backed off of mostly Ethereum

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Blockchain. Yeah. A lot of them are. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think a fundamental place of understanding for blockchain for those of you that are familiar with a ledger, this is a distributed digital ledger. So once something happens once a transaction takes place on the blockchain, then it is verified on the chain by other nodes. And it's creating this huge document of all of the transactions that happen in, in, in a timeline, right. And each one of those transactions are verified by the other nodes to include all the ones before it. So if you wanted to, to falsify something on the blockchain, it would be really, really hard to do. You mentioned it was secure because you'd have to change it and then you'd have to change it for all the nodes. And then all the things that happened before it, it is almost, it's not impossible, but it is almost impossible to, to fake or to hack.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

That doesn't mean that there aren't scams out there, cuz there are a billion of them. But when, when it comes to the really complex stuff you can't change something on the, on the blockchain. You can trick somebody into giving you something that they don't, that they don't wanna give you, but you can't, you, you can't really alter it. Yeah. And, and, and you also hit the nail on the head with, with cryptocurrencies is that these transactions that are, that are happening on the ledger are being computed and calculated by these minors and they're being compensated for their work. Right. So, so Bitcoin originally was like a self licking ice cream cone. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> these Bitcoin transactions were happening. People were calculating the, those transactions and getting compensated in Bitcoin for the, for the Bitcoin, for the blockchain transactions. But then it just grew from there and now it's this huge Altra so, so what does that have to do with the non fungible token then? So, so bring us from, from cryptocurrencies. And that is like the most blasting through the thing rundown of blockchain and crypto, but how does that lead to non fungible tokens?

Manny Lara:

Yeah. So the non fungible tokens they're, they're based on a blockchain based technology. So think of it, it's just another way of, of publishing or authenticating something of value. So right now the big thing in NFTs are artwork digital artwork primarily. And you'll see, you know, some of those, like the board API club NFTs that some of the celebrities are owning, you know, for, for thousands and even millions of dollars. What that means is that they purchase that using blockchain technology so that they can be identified as the owner of that that digital art and nobody can, I

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Mean, I wanna do that. Why, why don't I just right. Click and say that, and then it's mine and

Manny Lara:

Sure. And, and I think, you know, that's a lot of people's questions, but what it does, I mean, and what they're learning quickly is it there's some degree of uniqueness value privilege, even. So you can write those into those the NFT contracts that if I own this, you know, this this digital arts, I have maybe access to special parties or V I P events. And also if it, if it generates value, you can sell that back to on the market and, you know, they would have to verify that, that you own that, that digital art and some of that has, you know, exponentially increase in value over the last few, couple years, even

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

So. Oh, absolutely. And so it's not just the right click save as action. It's, you know, it's not just having a picture of it on your computer or your phone or whatever it is. The there is metadata that is attached to that. I mean, that JPEG is just a representation, right. Of a smart contract of, of this, this sometimes very deep and complex metadata that represents something further. So what you're doing is you're proving ownership of this art, but really what you're getting is a membership card. Right. You know, if I have a membership card to an exclusive country club that I pay a thousand dollars for, that lets me into that place and gives me perks and discounts and freebies and gift baskets, and you name it. If I were to take, if somebody were to take a picture of that card and bring it in that wouldn't give them access to the country club, they would need their ownership verified.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

So that's the difference. This is an actual membership card, right? And, and, and those, those kind of perks that you get, you know, either whether it's the community and the belonging or actual, tangible, like they ship you things, or you get, I, I own an NFT that pays me real estate dividends every month from their real, from that project's real estate endeavors. I mean, there's a million ways that that utility can exist. Yeah. and there's varying degrees. Some utility is ridiculous. Some there's no utility whatsoever. Yeah. What do you see as, as the future here? Because right now people, people are seeing, all right, I buy an NFT and it, I verify my ownership. It gives me exclusive access to a discord channel that I don't care about. I don't care about the art. I don't care about any of this. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> why, why should I understand this? There are, there are some future applications for this though. Yeah,

Manny Lara:

Absolutely. And I, and I think, you know, we're just really scratching the surface on this and there's, and you know, the novelty is some of these, these fam these kind of more known digital arts, but I would start with the artist community and, you know, even going, venturing into things like music where you are creating intellectual property and you wanna protect that. And so you can do that through an NFT creation or collection of NFTs that you, as the author have ownership of. And you can sell those on like an op marketplace, like an open sea where not only can you as an artist earn, earn revenue from, but if somebody turns around and sells that you can earn secondary and tertiary revenue mm-hmm <affirmative>. So you can even continue to earn on the sale of that from, from another buyer. And so that, that helps artists create more sustainable careers in their particular field feel comfortable about their, their work product and that nobody's like stamping or stealing it because it has to be authenticated. And so that's the, one of the advantages from that creative side. I would say, you know, it's starting to get into the real estate side as well, because

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Yeah. Tell me about that.

Manny Lara:

Yeah. So I own a couple of digital real estate plots. And what that is is essentially, you know, a, you know, there are a few companies that are mapping out real estate around the world. You know, it's a 100 meter by 100 meter grid, but you purchase that through an NFT and you basically can authenticate that you own that digital property. Meaning like if I wanted to put a, an AR image, an augmented reality image in that property, I can do. So, you know, you think about like billboards in a digital space, you know, out in the, in the public. So you can essentially advertise, you can market, you can recruit using this digital this new digital landscape. And

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Now you're talking about digital real estate. Like, metaverse you, like, not in actual, it doesn't represent a physical plot of land on the earth.

Manny Lara:

Actually it's both, or it can, it, it can. And actually, yeah, there's a couple companies that are, that are plotting on the actual, the, the, the world itself. And, and they're, they're mapping those out and you essentially own, you know, one plot per 0.1 NFT or E you know, they, they they're, they're using E Ethereum or Solan, some of those other maybe different types of, of technology to validate that purchase. And so now, I mean, I own a couple of plots in this area and they're, you know, they're selling quickly they're and they are affordable, and that's the thing it gives accessibility. I don't have to spend, you know, on, you know, for thousands of dollars on this maybe a couple hundred, and now I have digital rights over that. And it it's, it's, we're coming into a little bit of a quandary with that because you can't see it, right.

Manny Lara:

Unless you have augmented reality or you go into the virtual world. So like, who truly has the ownership rights of that. Right. So, right right. Now these companies are, are scaling fast and they're starting to take hold of that. And they themselves are generating revenue from, from mapping those that, those, those plots out. But I do see down the road, you know, as things like, you know, you think about, you know, Pokemon go, people are still doing that, you know, around some of these areas and think of doing that. But with something that's more ubiquitous like sunglasses, or even regular glasses, like there are there's technology, you know, Google has already proven that with their Google glass their Google eyewear, but Ray bands getting into that business apples getting into that business, Facebook, it's going to be something much more accessible for communities. And mm-hmm, <affirmative> the businesses that will realize that will say, Hey, I should buy my property, my physical property in that digital space so that I can own that. Not only from a physical ownership, but from a digital ownership perspective as

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And there's a land grab too. There's there's a huge land grab, not just metaverse land, but also what you would colloquially refer to as a web address, as opposed to a.com or a.org or a.edu there's dot E the S addresses there's dot crypto dot NFT. All of those the cool thing is, is once you buy, like I own Adam bros dot E and I own Adam bros dot NFT or some real Adam, something like that. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, mm-hmm, <affirmative> once I own that, I own that domain. You can call it a domain across the board. I own it for life. I don't have to renew it. Yeah. And I own it literally everywhere.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

That can be my, my name across all platforms. And that ownership is verified and can't be, can't be faked and, and taken from me. So the thing about the blockchain is everything that can be verified on the, the blockchain. It can also be viewed by anyone on the blockchain. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> obviously it is coded and privacy protected, so it doesn't have my name necessarily attached to it. But you really avoid. Once we get past the kind of wild, wild west mm-hmm <affirmative> vibe of the NFTs and everybody getting scammed and stuff you know, being tricked into doing this, that, or the other, it really is safer and more secure. And you don't have to worry as, as much about your identity. Yes. Getting stolen, unless you give somebody access to it. So right now, everybody is just trying to get these, these dot E addresses and these dot crypto dot NFT addresses and claiming ownership for life on the blockchain.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Yeah. It is similar to the.com grab of the, the mid to late nineties of everybody just trying to, I mean, and, and for those of us that were around and saw the transition from web one to web web two. Yeah. From the information economy to the platform creator economy, like we've seen this happen before. Yeah. And we saw resistance to it. We saw the writing on the wall and the folks who are able to capitalize on it and say, look, we don't know what the future holds for this technology, but it's clear that this is huge. Yeah. Those folks are the mark Zuckerbergs and Jeff Bezos or whatever. Do you see parallels?

Manny Lara:

Oh, absolutely.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

That time. And right now, switching to web three and blockchain

Manny Lara:

It's yeah. It's almost like a second chance at technology. Right. So if you missed it on the first go around with, with early internet, you know, I, I, I grew up around that too. It was in, it was in college at the time, and I remember it being so novel and foreign, you know, and you felt like you had to be this tech wizard to get involved with that. Right. You know, and I think

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

There's a barrier to entry.

Manny Lara:

Yeah. You know, you had to learn coding and all these other things, but with web three, now they're referring to, as web three, third version of web is it's much more accessible. I don't have to be a tech expert. I don't have to be, you know, no special coding. There are platforms that you can quickly learn and be able to purchase an NFT or so the barriers of entry are much easier to get into. I just think that people are still real trying to learn what the value of that NFT that, you know, space is right now. So yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Well, and 99% of NFTs just for the right. I mean, you can buy an NFT for a million reasons. You can buy an Ft because you wanna support the artist. Cause as you said, that artist is going to receive a lifetime royalty every time that that piece is sold to another party the original artist will get anywhere from a one to 10% royalty, depending on how they set the thing. You could buy an NFT because you wanna be part of a community. There are some, your, your gym could have a gym membership, NFT that you buy, and that gives you access to the gym and its services and its trainers. And then you can sell it to somebody else when you're done with it. And they don't have to worry about sales anymore. And you, you can get your money back. There's, there's a million reasons why you could do it. You just like the art, you wanna be part of the community. You think that it will increase in value and you can sell it and make a profit that there there's you, you like the, the, the vibe that it gives off of exclusivity and coolness, there's a million reasons why, and then there's gonna be a million reasons why one will want to own an NFT that we haven't even thought of yet.

Manny Lara:

Correct. Yeah. And there's still, you know, people are still IDing on that. I would say the other aspect is, you know, being able to protect information, if it's your information, if it's a valuable or collectible you wanna be able to say that, you know, if it's, you know, somehow in the market or somebody, somebody grabs that or tries to, you can protect that through your, you know, the NFT, the, the blockchain technology associated with that. I would say the, you know, certainly membership is a big advantage. Some very exclusive restaurants in New York are now selling NFTs. They get VIP access. Nice. You know, and you don't even, it doesn't even pay for the food. It just pays for access <laugh> and you'll, you'll have people that say, Hey, how do I get in on that? How do I be part of that? So you'll also have some of that as well, but but you know, beyond that, you know, if you're an owner, you, you, you know, you want to be maybe granted privileges or access or something to that effect, if it's first rights to art collections or our gallery openings or whatever it might be, you have that you know, through the NFT. So

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Right on what would you say to somebody who says that, and that NFTs are a Ponzi scheme or a scam

Manny Lara:

<Laugh> you know, I would say do some research on your own, you know, look at the technology, look at who's who's, who's kinda leading discussions on it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, you know some of it, yes. I mean, just like any industry, there are bad players out there mm-hmm <affirmative> but look at the, the broader landscape of it and maybe the possibilities of what it could bring. Cause I don't see it just as the board yacht, a, you know, ape club or any of those, you know, it has so much more utility and that's the thing, you know, you use a CRE word of utility. What, what value does it bring? Not from a maybe financial, but a value proposition

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

To that. Right.

Manny Lara:

So, yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Well, I mean, and also it wouldn't hurt to have a board a that is worth <laugh> one and a half million dollars right now.

Manny Lara:

Right, right. Absolutely.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

What would you, what would you say to somebody who is interested, but has no idea where to start?

Manny Lara:

Yeah, so I would say, you know, there's a lot of the social media channels have, have experts that are really trying to educate you know beginners. And I would, you know, I learned a lot on like LinkedIn, there are a few oh yeah. Experts out there. They're, they're just publishing educational material. They're, they're providing videos and white papers. And just trying to push that content out for, for knowledge. You know, Twitter is another space that, you know, crypto web three have taken over <laugh> they really have that chatter. There just be careful. Cause you can go down rabbit holes pretty quick there. But I would say you, LinkedIn to me seems much more academic, more of an academic approach about NFTs and web three. Right. but you know, and I think people are still writing books about it. They're still doing their research to publish, but you know, and, and maybe dip the toe in the water around how do I create a wallet so that I can purchase NFPS and create those collections. Maybe make sure that you're not, you know, putting all your eggs in one basket either, you know, you're dabbling. It's not something that you're gonna retire on, you know, or bank on. So I think those are, those are some of the, the kind of beginner steps I would, I would recommend. So

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

I would be really scared to write a book on NFTs of the space right now. Cause it's just, it's changing. It is changing so fast. Yep. And if anyone dives in to the space just be skeptical of everything. Yeah. It doesn't mean that the whole thing is a scam. Just because, I mean, if you look at the beginning of web two, the, the Nigerian prince who wants to give you his fortune, that email scam right. Is only famous and, and you know, is a trope and everybody knows about it cuz it worked on thousands of people. Yes. But now, right now we just know better. We know we get that email mm-hmm <affirmative> and we delete it. Or we get the email that says this prescription for only 3 99, or this person wants to talk to you. You just delete it. It's junk mail right now.

Manny Lara:

It's going to be true. It might be right. A lot of times it is. Right. So yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And now there's so many people who see that right now there's a sensitive period before mass adoption of this technology and, and this, this, this movement that there are bad actors trying to take advantage of they're out there, there are scammers an abundant amount of them. That doesn't mean the whole thing is a scam. And it doesn't mean that you should avoid trying to learn about it cuz it's important.

Manny Lara:

Yep. No great points. Yeah. Do your homework, if you know people in that, in that particular field reach out you know, test, test the waters with, with other, you know, other friends or colleagues about that too, so. Yep. Yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And I'm a big fan of the NFTs for newbies podcast. Rich Cardona and Heather parody, rich Cardona is a veteran helicopter, pilot Marines and Heather parity's military spouse. It is the, be the most listened to NFT podcast in the world. They just passed a million streams after only like seven months or something crazy. Yeah. They're the good people. That's a great place to start cuz neither of them knew anything about NFTs at the beginning and they're like, you know what, we're gonna learn how to do it and we're gonna learn how to do it in public <laugh> and we're, you know,

Manny Lara:

So that's great.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Yeah. That's pretty funny. Well, any parting thoughts? I mean it's impossible to cover all of this mm-hmm <affirmative> in 25 minutes time. Sure. But, but really I think what we wanted to do was, was just say like, look, it's not a scam, there are dangers, but you should probably at least gain a cursory awareness because it's not going anywhere. Do you, did we leave anything out? No,

Manny Lara:

No. I think that's really important to point out is that I always say the Gene's out of the bottle, like there's no putting this back in. It is con continue to scale and you know, and people are gonna be, be more interested involved with this space. I do see it becoming more broad based in Def different industries. You know, the restaurant industry, there's already a pathway there through, you know, Gary V's club out in New York and you know, there's other organizations that are standing up NFTs as fundraisers as well, potentially. So for

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Absolutely.

Manny Lara:

And so it, but it's, it does start with community. What kind of community are, are you trying to build? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> around trying to build around this and that's where you can have some, maybe sense of security. Like people are in it for the right reasons. They're not trying to scam people. They're not trying to, trying to quick buck, so yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Good stuff. Hey, appreciate your time, sir.

Manny Lara:

Thank you

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Manny. Laura, everybody ask you to hang on the line for just a minute. I'll talk to you afterwards. Well, there's there's your crash course. Blockchain is a distributed digital Le ledger. Cryptocurrency is compensation that is given to minors to process those distributed ledger transactions at a, at a base level. And it is expanded from there. It is digital currency. That is that ownership is solidified on the blockchain and NFTs are non fungible. That means they are not transferable immediately for a Fiat currency. They can obviously have a monetary value. But you couldn't use an NFT at a bank right now. You can use some cryptocurrencies at some banks. You can't use an NFT. That's why it's non fungible. And that is basically an ownership of a digital asset that is proven on the blockchain. And it is more than just a JPEG.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

It is the, the tech behind it, the metadata attached to it that gives you perks or no perks or whatever. So there it is. There's your crash course. Just know it's something you gotta know about cuz someday you're you, you know, if blockbuster was still around your video, rental membership would be on the blockchain. Your Netflix would is gonna be on the blockchain someday. You're gonna have to verify through meta mask. Mark my words, if in 10 years, that's not the case. Come hunt me down. We'll have a conversation. Hey, hold me. Hold me to that 10 years, man. Hunt me down, mark. My words, appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to Wisconsin veterans forward brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce. Please visit us at wiveteranschamber.org. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, leave a rating and review in whatever platform you're listening through.