When asked the question, what real world problem do NFTs solve?

Proof of Digital Identity. 

Yes the NFT space is weird and there are a lot of people trying to take advantage, just as there are now in an online space. And many in the NFT space are so far gone they have escaped reality entirely, they live fulltime on line, get their groceries delivered and don’t talk to anyone face to face and have a fantastical view without even realizing it because this has become normalized way of living the past 3 years and most likely going to be like that for the foreseeable future.

With that said, I do think the underlying technology of proving ownership over a digital item, whether it be a profile picture, or an art piece that you post, is going to be of value going forward in a more digital world and with the rise of more software that can auto generate posts, steal images and misuse them.

Think of how much information we put online, into these websites.

We are going to require more intricate means of proving our identities. To prove that we are a human user and not a computer. One way I believe that is going to be done is through Blockchain technology, and I think you are seeing this with the moves centralized banks are creating their own blockchains or using their own tokens like the stablecoin PayPal released this week.

As read on their website, PayPal USD (PYUSD).

Introducing the new cryptocurrency, PayPal USD (PYUSD).1 It’s a stablecoin backed by secure and highly liquid assets. As PYUSD rolls out, you’ll be able to buy, sell, hold, and transfer it in our app or on our site.

As banking becomes more and more digital, it’s also going to be more important to verify payments and have a public history that lives forever on the blockchain for people to be able to go back and see the payment.

This will be especially important with charities, to make sure they are spending the money the way they say they’re spending it. The public will be able to see all of the transactions they make as it will be public information on the blockchain, you can see the funds in their wallet and see what wallets they send money to. 

And as always, with new technology, comes new ways to prey on people, and people will always people. But to say all of cryptocurrency is a scam is ignorantly dismissive. How many scams exist now? I was scammed a couple of years ago, and it took me a while to not only get over it financially but mentally. I felt like an idiot, and hindsight is always 20/20, but I definitely should have seen the red flags. I let my guard down just for a minute, trusting someone through a freelance work site.

Wherever there is a chance to make a quick buck, scammers will be there. But it was a lesson learned for a lot of reasons. A bank that I had been banking with for over a decade, didn’t have my back whatsoever. They couldn’t give a fuck less that I was scammed, they did nothing for me, absolutely nothing. That is what hurt the most about it, as I had called them ahead of time about this check, saying I was suspicious of it.

I asked them to please check it out. They did and then they deposited the money into my account a day later. When the deposit hit, I thought I was good, because why would a fraudulent check be deposited, especially after I called and talked to someone about said check. Oh, how I was wrong, oh so wrong. The day after that, they took the money back, said it was a bad check. No remorse, nothing. They are obligated to deposit the money within 48 hours they said.

I was devastated. I was unbelievably upset and hurt and so hard on myself about it. I was sick to my stomach. It pains to even talk about now, but fuck Wells Fargo, entirely, and I see how scammy they are, and how many lawsuits they have faced in scamming customers and how they continue to scam their customers in premeditated ways.

It was part of the reason why I started looking at alternate ways of banking. Who says these centralized banks have to be the way we live our life?

I was already out on the banks after 2008. When they purposefully manipulated the system, broke it and asked for a bail out. When the CEOs of the banks went to testify, they were asked if they were willing to give up their private jet to save their company, none of them said yes. They were bailed out anyway. Why? Because that is what they bribe politicians for, I mean, lobby, in America bribing is called lobbying and it’s perfectly legal, because of course it is.

Worship money and nothing else. That is the way. They spit on starving children to sell oil and coal and a rope to hang you with, you can have whatever you want and do whatever you please, and if you are so blatant and commit so many crimes no other American would think of committing, when would best suit you to be arraigned sir, when does it best fit your schedule, we will treat you the best we can, of course there won’t be handcuffs or a finger print or mugshot, nothing to make you look bad, we have to worship you because you are perceived as rich and we must worship that.

In between the coverage, we are going to play paid advertisement after paid advertisement, commercialized programming, have to keep them buying more, more, more. They are only good to the system as long as they are consuming, they can be mindless in their consumption, that part we really don’t give a shit about, we can’t openly kill them, not yet at least, but we are ramping up the violence and turning up the violence on them one degree about every year, it may turn up to about every 6 months.

We are already militarizing the police, we can’t use Tear Gas in war as it’s against the Geneva convention and is therefore a war crime to use tear gas, but on our own citizens, yes, we can certainly use it. Tear gas the ever-living fuck out of them, how dare they question or monopoly on violence. We can kill for profit and for a disguised motive, they cannot. We know they don’t have weapons of mass destruction, we are going to invade anyway, what is anyone else going to do about it? The UN says no? We are the only country sadistic enough to use a Nuclear Bomb on another country and willing to do it again at a moment’s notice, hell the president has the button all he has to do is call the order and for 48 hours, no one by law can stop him.

Everything is everything.

6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Connect one thing, to the next to the next to the next.

With this podcast, in however many different areas I go down, I try to always connect it from a place of creative emotional intelligence.

And I try to come at that in so many different angles and it’s all from personal experience, and an experience that I am still working on. It’s not to come at this like I have climbed over these mountains in the past and have nothing left to climb. We all will die with flaws.

Where have all your childhood friends gone?

 

Back to the first question about digital ownership and identity, through non-fungible tokens. We already have a digital trail, if you have a bank account, if you have ever flown on a plane or rented a car. It’s quickly become a staple of our society. NFTs and cryptocurrencies are taking a similar approach in this. It’s the next step in technology, I implore others to learn about it now so that they can familiarize themselves with it and at least know how it works and why it’s important, evermore so with the rise of artificially intelligent software programs.

As a creative, we are in such a renaissance right now with all of these new tools being developed, it’s hard not to bring it up almost every episode. Like anything new, it’s been divisive and I am sure there may be listeners who hate it and don’t want to hear anymore about it. But I adhere to the growth mindset and think we need to adapt to an ever-changing environment.

Which leads to my second question, stemming from the first one I asked at the beginning of the episode, what real world problem does Virtual Reality solve?

It brings people together when they physically can’t be near one another.

Especially during a major event. Like a concert, an art gallery event, or a museum. How many can actually go to the Louvre? What if you could virtually go there, would that make it more accessible? They could still charge a fee to visit sure, same thing for amusement parks, will most certainly see more virtual amusement parks and experiences. The tech is still relatively new, but the pace at which it is getting better is faster than any technology that has preceded it, just look at iPhones and fast they have gotten better that past decade. 

It feels like those inside the Web 3 space already, think that it’s not going fast enough, and those outside of the Web 3 space think that it’s happening too fast. It’s interesting to see the narratives. And having been apart of the Web 3 space that past few years, and how it’s 247, not recognizing any time off, people are trading and making trades every second of everday, this isn’t the stock market Monday to Friday, at a set time, no, this is right now, and right now is incessant. What the fuck is a Friday? What does that mean?

When did we go from day, day, day, day, day, day to saying, ok there are 7 different days and they all have names and meanings for which we are going to tell you what you should do on those days, those will be defined by your local society, so follow what they do and do this for generations to the point that it becomes normal. Then people start planning these days out, they start deploying destination happiness outside of right now, right now becomes ughh, let me just get through this and I will be happy, let me just get to Saturday and I will have a good time then, so you’re not enjoying right now? You hate your job? “oh everybody does” --- no they don’t. who is everybody? Have you been to every single country and talked to the over 8 billion people living on this planet? How many languages do you speak? How many countries have you visited? What’s stopping you? 

These walls, these barriers. Trying to live and do as you wish is not easy. I keep trying and I keep trying, nothing ever feels like it’s enough. Grinding every day, waking up every single day with Bleace on my mind. For over a decade now, and I still feel like it’s not at the level I expected it to be.

Turning 30 was hard for me as I had so many expectations of myself, on what I wanted to have accomplished. I wanted to be on the Time 30 under 30 Cover. I even photoshopped myself in one of the issues of the 100 Most Influential people. I have seen the video of Jim Carrey a million times, saying how he wrote himself a check for ten million dollars and put a date on it. I watched as my check expired. I gave myself a set time and it passed.

Turning 33 has been even weirder. Where have the past 3 years gone? 

They say you don’t fail until you quit. I keep showing up and showing up, if for no one else but my legacy, something to leave behind. Why I have it tattooed on my chest, before I can truly rest in peace, I must express every piece of my soul. With Bleace on the other side of my chest because that is what I want to leave behind. 

Friday, Saturday, Monday… there is only right now. I try my best to focus on that. This step that I am on, am I happy right now? Am I feeling fulfilled? Am I able to pay for a roof over my head? What’s the worst that can happen, no what’s the best that can happen? If I sacrifice this for that, what will happen? If I say yes to that, then I have to say no to that, then what? If the worst thing I can think of happens to me, the biggest fear I have, if that happens, then what? If I don’t die then I have to figure it out, I have figured out shit in the past and am still here, and as long as I am still here I will not quit until my fragile heart dies.

And if this my last episode ever, and one of these times that will be true, so I want to say it now, because if not now, when? But I just want to say before I go, one last thing and if it’s the last thing I ever say I want it to be this -