Reeve Collins on smart NFTs and the next generation of digital assets

0:01i'm ashton addison from block west capital for investmentpitch media and the Crypto Coin Show and today once again on blockchain interviews we have reeve collins co-founder of block v reeve welcome back to the show and thanks for taking the time today absolutely happy to be here you're very welcome let's dive into all things nfts smart nfts and everything else that

0:22block v is doing for the people who didn't see our first interview i'd love to just recap and get a high level overview of all of the different solutions that your team is driving into the industry and then we'll dive into the details from there yeah we were really the first people in the space to even conceptualize what nfts were so back in 2015 we started the company which

0:43eventually came became block fee and we did the ico in 2017 and we were the first ever platform to build nfts so we make them highly programmable digital objects so the ability to make them like micro apps however their token and when we started this back in 2015 and really started promoting in 2017 there wasn't even a word nft and then nft kind of exploded

1:07on the scene over time but what we realized was there's massive utility in digital tokens if they're programmable and now you're seeing all those use cases come to life many years later such as tickets and coupons and new ways for brands to engage in a one-to-one manner with their consumers but more importantly not just engage and communicate but to provide

1:31those consumers value in the past it's very difficult for a brand to provide an individual consumer value for interacting with that brand and so now this is going to reinvent what loyalty even means when it comes to like the brand loyalty space and influencer marketing and things like that definitely and great to hear that you started on it very early and i'm curious

1:55on you know your initial vision on what nfts look like when you started it and then you know really through the last two years the popularity of it coming more so through digital artwork and now expanding into the utility of other industries absolutely so when we started there weren't any nfts it really was a novel concept we felt that because coming out of

2:20tether so my previous venture as you know i was the co-founder and ceo of tether and putting the dollar on the blockchain was a highly regulated space dealing with tons of lawyers and regulators trying to figure out the best way to do that to navigate that landscape not to mention dealing with all of the bankers and where we're going to put the money

2:39et cetera and yes the money is still all there and but anyways that was such an arduous process and so the concept was let's focus on something that isn't going to be so heavily scrutinized and regulated such as digital objects digital collectibles how do we create tokens that have value outside of just financial value as a means of an exchange or for

3:05transactions and so that's how the concept came about and we really dove in and built a super robust platform we did the ico in 2017 and to this day we're still one of the only icos from that era that's still actively building and has a massive technology platform and lots of clients it's very sad that it's not reflected in the token because no matter how big of clients we

3:29get pepsi playstation doritos we used to do something fun with ben and jerry's professional bull riding like on and on the clients in our network are our massive client global clients it isn't impacting the token we didn't really promote or market the token as aggressively or the ways that other companies did what we promoted was our technology an outbuilding

3:52business and i'll also say that the reason why we're not the largest company in this space we also shifted our focus because when we started there was no craze of nft so there was no revenue or profitability in it so we didn't focus as much on building the developer tools what we built was an enterprise-grade platform that enabled global brands to enter this

4:15business because these large brands and companies have the budgets and the ability that we can make a real business out of it and so what that has done is we missed that first wave of speculators of just putting artwork on the blockchain and lots of people speculating on it because we really built utility and we were going after large brands that wanted to use these

4:39tokens as a new way to communicate versus putting their brand ip out there and hoping it would get bit up and people would make a lot of money on that secondary market and now that frothiness that window is kind of closed nft 2.0 is going to be all about utility and that's when block v and our token v will shine because we're talking to the largest brands and companies in the

5:02world because now they need an enterprise-grade platform that has a super robust wallet and a super robust ability to create these highly programmable excuse me these highly programmable smart nfts and we have the ability to deliver that on a global level and pass all of their due diligence on the legal side and the technical side which people who haven't

5:25dealt with these large global companies can't even begin to understand how complex the process that is but that's what we've been focused on excuse me for all these years and now when nft 2.0 the utility side of nfts is going to hit the hit the market will definitely be the leaders definitely great insights reeve and yeah with you know utility i feel like a lot

5:48of the nft craze has been picked up by artists which is good for them but looking at the actual functionality of the nfts whether it's just a picture or whether it actually has access or some utility of some sort i feel like that's there's going to be a time as you've mentioned with nfts 2.0 when the things that really don't have long-term value or you know deeper value than than what

6:13you see on the face will sort of fade away and come to fruition with that more functionality and you know it sounds like your team is already working with a lot of these big brands i'm curious you know we've seen a lot of brands move into artwork as well just what seems like based off the hype of nft clubs and nikes joining in adidas and pepsi as you mentioned

6:40and obviously they want to work with somebody reputable so block fee sounds like a good solution for that but is the utility in the way that they want to use it is that available right now with block v or you know how exactly are you providing the utility through the technology to these large companies absolutely so we have the block v network block v is the foundation below

7:04it and the real engine behind it and that's where our token resides and then we built companies on top of it so i have a company called smart media technologies and smart media labs and this company goes out to the brands and we have a large sales force that goes out there's 150 people in the company and we do we span the gamut of services for media buying

7:27which is television plus digital plus nfts and that's how we talk to all the brands because we showcase to them that nfts are a new way to engage with your consumer it's not just ads that you're running anymore and so now let's create an nft campaign and we can distribute those through the traditional media channels but what you're going to capture is a new wallet address an

7:49ability to market to that wallet in the past it was always a race to win the inbox how can i get your email how can i market you via email that was really the only channel we've had and the most effective channel that brands have had for the last 20 plus years that's evolving to a race to get to the wallet how do i get your wallet address how do i get

8:10permission to market to you within that wallet and we're really leading the charge on that front because we have a robust wallet and we offer up all these services for the brands to create compelling campaigns to give people digital objects collectibles and then further market them in that wallet because once you get a brand's nft if you share it with friends you might

8:32get more you might get discounts we create lots of different programs and so now you have a wallet that the brand has the ability to send more nfts and interact with you it's really kind of the leading the charge and on the cutting edge of what web 3.0 means because our transition to web 3.0 from web 2.0 i'd say that the key feature of that transition is the ability to log into a

8:56website with a wallet instead of logging in with your email because then that gives the website and yourself it gives the website the ability to reward you through cryptocurrencies and nfts if you just do it in email all you're going to get is more spam and so it really is the foundation for what i believe web 3.0 is going to be yeah i really like that analogy reeve

9:18and you're right about you know getting access to your wallet instead of the email and i feel like by now people are trying to get as little emails as possible because they know most of them are spam so getting good insight now you mentioned earlier about smart nfts and sort of coining that through block v i'm curious if that just means utility of an nft or is there

9:43something more yeah it's the programmability so we have a platform that really makes it easy for creators to program their nfts where they can do lots of things ar vr their event aware they'll change state based on different events that take place because they have a listener to the internet if you share them they'll change state or if you share one and someone that in

10:09your downline activates it yours changes state so it's really just this ability to program each one of those objects like an app so it's a little container that you can program and whatever type of marketing activation or gaming type activation you want to do can be programmed into that nft so it really enables all the utility that's coming it is we have the platform built already

10:36to provide that definitely very cool and with this transition of nfts 2.0 and you know ridding the non-valued nfts out of the space how quickly do you see people realizing that you know valueless nfts will no longer you know happy in the limelight and will move to something that where we see it as the norm for big brands all using nfts that actually provide utility to

11:04their customers well look it's a great question and look at the example of all the popular entities that started out as just artwork even board apes and all the nike stuff that they're doing with artifact studios a lot of those things were just jpegs to start with but once they built a community around it and got a following and some popularity then

11:26they're trying to develop usefulness and utility so if you own a board ape you might have access to a party or an event you know same with the artifact nfts you get the first drops of different physical products so everyone's adding utility to the simple jpeg so the days of people buying and selling jpegs are over unless it's fine art or valuable art or valuable ip unless it's

11:52a true collectible unless its value is in its collectibility which is absolutely valid it makes a lot of sense but the validity of its collectibility was overblown in the beginning right everyone really wanted to collect these jpegs that they're going to go up and down in value that bubble is definitely burst so now the underlying art if it's just art it needs to have some

12:13collectibility and some reason for it to be special if not there'll be additional utility pretty much to all nfts great insight and you know you mentioned how you know the v token really isn't keeping up and i feel like you know it's the world is always backwards where projects that really don't have a lot of fundamental value but are doing

12:35something amazing and you know they're not focused on hype marketing the token doesn't overvalue itself and be volatile in the market and projects that just focus on marketing but really don't have anything in the back end their tokens always pumping and people are moving it around what do you see you know that shift happening where in the end the

12:57companies like block v that are actually providing the most value that will in turn move into value for the token holders yeah it's longevity so the company's been around seven years our token's been live over four years and it's not going like we're not going anywhere the company is well is profitable it's doing well there's lots of people working towards

13:24improving all of these things improving the token economics and integrating it more and over time promoting and marketing it more appropriately and so the token will showcase its value because as our we are a true utility token in order to issue our nfts you have to utilize our token and we have to buy it on the open market we're not even just taking it off of our balance sheet

13:46or giving it to people from our balance sheet it creates demand on the open market and so as that fine tunes and scales there'll be more value driven towards that token and as we build more awareness and branding and a larger network because these two companies smart media technologies in vata inc are both very successful and going to be very large companies all powered by that platform

14:12and so logically in my mind i can't think and help but there's real value there but then when you see how the markets reacted to it the two are just to date haven't been all that connected but you're right you look at the meme tokens which all you're investing in is a logo and they're worth billions of dollars so it just showcases that most things are driven on hype

14:34yeah interesting and when you marry the two sorry to interrupt but just to add that when you marry the two which is massive hype and massive utility and value and amazing technology you get bitcoin and ethereum so right you do get some really extraordinary projects definitely no i love it and you know you mentioned that the platform is live

14:57you're already working with great partners what do you have up your sleeve for you know the rest of 2022 for block v is it just more partners you mentioned tokenomics what else is in the works for your team currently yeah for block b it's really promoting the companies in our networks much as smart media and bottom inc and showcasing the abilities and the

15:19clients that they're going to do and the focus for those companies is really to usher brands in to web 3.0 how do we become the go-to advisors and technology for these large corporations that want to participate in web 3.0 we provide them a wallet an nft and the metaverse we'll create we'll build out that world for them and ensure that our wallets and

15:42nfts are fully integrated and then interoperable with other metaverses because the big shift that i see in metaverse we're also at this metaverse 1.0 which is sandbox and decentraland and even the concept of what meta is touting to be which is this universe to itself where you go into this world run around and see all these different brands the way i envision

16:06the metaverse being activated and taking off is on an individual site-by-site basis every website's going to have its metaverse and the word metaverse means a lot of different things to other people but imagine instead of the word metaverse it's just an enhanced website so your website went from 2d to 3d you click come inside the website expands and it

16:26gets all of those features and characteristics of a metaverse which is like a large game where you have an avatar or just a chat bubble with your a video bubble with your face and you can interact with your friends interact with salespeople and interact with the merchandise in a much more powerful engaging and emotional way that's what's going to take place before

16:45you have these destination worlds that have thousands of things in them like the oasis from ready player one yeah great insight raven i agree with you know that analogy i feel like people that are trying to build meta verses right now everyone's trying to build their own social media platform almost where it's not just your website it's we're building

17:05the whole world you know when in turn you know if you compare it to web 1.0 everyone's trying to build amazon rather than just building their website store on it that's just focused on yourself so i'm looking forward to seeing how that evolves and you know seeing people focus on what they do best and not trying to rebuild the whole world into the

17:26metaverse now with the big brands that you're already working with getting more adoption and having them bring in millions of people into nfts and web3 for the first time how do you see that playing out very easily you know i feel like user experience user interface and having wallets that you know my grandma can understand is obviously super important

17:51to onboarding people into web3 yeah absolutely and it's going to start out with wallets so people cryptocurrency and the blockchain did is all this great service which is educate the world around wallets and how to use them and then this explosion populated nfts showcased that people should and do put value on the digital objects so when it reaches the masses a lot of

18:18people especially the early adopters already know how to use a wallet but then the utilization of wallets will blur proliferate excuse me will become more popular and but the way you use wallets will become much easier and then the objects in those wallets will be valued so when you say how do these big brands do it well the concept of a wallet has already been everyone's

18:41familiar with it or at least knows about it so they'll have an easy to use wallet and especially when the brands start out and get people to enter in the wall there'll be a lot of value for that individual it'll either be a big sweepstakes enter to win something amazing or here's a big discounter come here to get the exclusive drop or the first so there'll be a big enticement

18:59for the consumers to go through the hurdle setting up a wallet and interacting with that object even though we're trying to make that hurdle very small and so that's how it's really going to start getting adoption and you'll see it in a lot of loyalty programs and loyalty points it'll be the next way that companies it'll be the evolution of their loyalty

19:19program because now you're going to get these nfts for loyalty and the beauty is that if you break up rack up all these loyalty points at these websites you can then take those nfts and exchange them and trade them and sell them elsewhere and the interoperability is going to change the game to make getting loyalty points even more valuable for those users

19:43definitely i think interoperability will be key especially for those people who have racked up loyalty points at one company and they expire and they can't be traded for anything you know and they really became useless in the long term so i'm really looking forward to extracting value and being able to interchange it around all of web3 so very great insights reeve for the

20:03people who are interested in learning more about block v and the partners you're working with and the enterprise platform what is the best way for them to follow along and learn more yeah absolutely you can go to blockbee.io and smartmediatech.com and vadom.com so those are the three block vs the engine those two other companies are the main companies in the block v network

20:28and you'll get tons of information kind of get a feeling for what the future holds for us very exciting thank you so much for the time reeve i will leave all those three website links as well for the platforms in the description box below all the best with everything block v and the v token and let's follow up again in the near future i appreciate it yeah have a wonderful

20:49day thank you for the time