Don Gossen on adding utility and data to NFTs

0:00I'm Ashton Addison from Block West capital for investment pitch media and today on the Crypto Coin Show we have Don gawson the CEO of nevermind Don welcome to the show and thank you for taking the time thanks for having me you're very welcome how do we create the perfect nft and what are all the different use cases we can use nfts for Beyond digital artwork

0:22and memberships I feel like the potential for where nfts will add value is untapped and there's so much different use cases that web3 can really improve our lives and make it easier to do business and every day as well and I know nevermind is working a little bit on that I would love to start off our conversation by just hearing a

0:46little bit about what you and your team are working on at never mind and then we'll sort of dive into all the details sounds great so what we're working on is web 3 asset interactivity and you know it may sound a bit obscure to most people that are listening or watching really the concept is leveraging or unlocking the latent value

1:17it's attached to these assets so when you think of existing nfts they're quite one-dimensional right Ashton you can buy a board ape and then you can sell it to me and the utility that's being provisioned there is in the liquidity right you and I can buy and trade on that asset but really that's all we can do with it what if I had a board ape you had a board ape and

1:45somehow we could merge those assets together to create a new boarding a new derivative piece of work and then if we could do that what do the rights look like what are the what's the royalty regime if we were to then sell that derivative of work who gets what from the inputs to that output that's what we're working on we're we're moving web 3 to the next level right

2:12We're adding this level of remixing of mix and matching of merging slicing and dicing these underlying assets and their Associated payloads so that you can create net new derivative works and that can go from the art that we talked about that most people associate with nfts but it can also be applicable to the data assets that represent those nfts or you know different payloads like

2:40IP nfts Etc so really what we're focused on is in enabling the usage or the unlocking of that latent utility baked into those core assets interesting I feel like that has benefits to multiple parties as well you know on one side just looking at derivatives Market in traditional Finance being able to just create different assets and bundles of assets

3:07The derivatives Market is like a quadrillion dollars in market cap compared to you know the spot market and you can create all these different new assets that people can trade with speculate on bring liquidity to I feel like I've seen that a little bit in nfts where you know for example if there's an ape or some nft that's worth like a million dollars it's hard to find

3:31somebody to buy that or you know say that the it represents a large building in the future that's worth a million or 10 million you know how do we divide that or find other ways to bring liquidity and value into that asset is that something that you see this technology being used for and what you're working with never mind yeah it could be you know the

3:53fractionalization of these assets for sure that's but that's just taking the one dimensionality aspect of it and sort of magnifying that right and bringing in a larger ecosystem what we are really focused on is making these assets interactive amongst themselves and the theory here is that by doing so you create a dialogue between actors in the

4:22ecosystem so you get a more tightly coupled ecosystem so what do I mean by that I mean you brought up derivatives in finance it's conceptually the same but that's dealing with Securities right just for sake of argument what if you instead of Securities you were dealing with data assets right and you then be able to you're able to

4:50manifest net new assets from those points of origination from those inputs right combine them together to create net new data sets that can benefit everybody that contributed towards the creation of that output and we're not just talking about the data owners themselves we're also talking about the infrastructure providers right the file coins and our weaves that may host these

5:16assets the ceramics that may provide the schemas that you know make them searchable or queryable right as well as the data scientists and AI modelers that build the models that then compute across these assets what we're doing effectively is orchestrating each of those services so that they can talk to one another find the relevant services and assets that you need to

5:46solve a specific problem statement bring it all together in one pipeline so that you can then execute the entire solution from end to end this is you know quite broadly the application that we're building and when we talk about this idea of interactivity it is that whole flow so there's a number of different steps that we need to accomplish in order to get to that end state of

6:11utilizing those assets and providing that new utility but yeah conceptually that's where we're coming from and that's where we're aiming to go incredible and how long has your team been building this and where exactly is it at right now so we've been building it in stealth for three years we came out of stealth earlier this

6:38year we closed the funding round in April and we've just been going through the paces of making it a bit more consumable as well as putting the marketing collateral and PR and Outreach to gain user base okay great and do you see regular you know people that have already been involved in nfts and people that are speculating on nfts do you see

7:08something that this like the technology your team is building sort of applies to those same people or who do you sort of see trading and using the nfts and derivatives sure I mean I think generally or you know really high extending this out looking at the broader picture we see everybody is it as a user of the platform

7:38But I'm packing that take creatives for instance right I brought up this board ape example before how familiar are you with stable diffusion have you have you seen the stuff that's coming out on the prompt AI generation only on many bits okay so for those of your viewers that aren't familiar with it's some relatively new AI technology that has come out that

8:05allows you to use basically just everyday run-of-the-mill language to type in some words into an interface let's say you know a man looks at the Moon on a starry night right the AI will take that synthesize it and give you a result set of images usually about 10 images that are entirely synthesized by AI

8:32You can do that in the style of different artists right and what's interesting is it's now led to a conversation amongst the art community of who actually owns that art right because you could do it in the style of say Van Gogh and get your own rendition of starry night but you could also do it in the in the version of a contemporary artist if that model was

8:57trained using images from that contemporary artist it's going to have the look and feel of that contemporary artist and they may take an issue with that because they'll feel like you're infringing on their IP the question becomes can we solve that issue can we address that lack of attribution and the answer is yes by providing fine-grained Fidelity on the

9:23Providence of where that Source material came from right so if you had the reference images that the model was trained on from that artist that send used by an individual in an application to create their own derivative work and then they go on to buy it or sell it or whatever you can have that whole the flow of value in the form of royalties or some other form of

9:50attribution flow back to the point of origination which in part is that artist right so now we start to address this these questions around IP ownership Etc which I think is wholly applicable to anyone in our industry right whether it's Basie or it's open C or you know super rare these are all questions that they're trying to manage on an ongoing basis

10:17The other side of things would be like in the D size space right where for instance you have Dows being set up to support research initiatives right and what they'll do say in the case of the Vita Dow they'll fund early stage search into longevity science and the Dow itself will purchase the IP rights to that longevity research and they'll provide additional funding for

10:45the researcher so that they can go on and continue their research and then maybe sell the new research back to the Dow Etc but the Dow then can subsequently do is open those assets those payloads so CSV files Excel files whatever they are up to other researchers in that space and provide them with net new data sets that they may not otherwise have access to

11:10either because they don't know it exists or because they can't get access to it because they don't know the researcher that produced it or a number of different you know issues but yeah so for them this adds to you know the ability to aggregate information that can help from a scientific hypothesis and scientific method point of view to really you know prove

11:36out hypotheses and validate assumptions Etc so broadly speaking I think it's you know it's quite applicable technology at the end of the day it's it's data engineering infrastructure yeah no great examples and I have seen the updates with some of the AI imagery and it's getting pretty pretty good you know much better than that it's create it's amazing just honestly in

12:02the matter of six months and some of this stuff has come out the exponential growth there's some charts online that you can see this stuff the level of adoption you know I think it took three years the level of adoption that's for instance stable diffusion has acquired in the last three to six months took ethereum three years did you right wow like it's just this

12:28massive amount of adoption yeah and like I feel like you know the AI is it's it's hard to tell you know with creators creating content they're almost competing with you know Ai and it's like and it's getting to the point where the AI improves so quickly it's like the singularity you know how do you how do you compete or how do we find positions for people to do that

12:53AI couldn't do better oh well and I think that's kind of the point we want to address do you need to compete right like in a perfect world it would be a collaborative one where as an influencer you're selecting the AIS that you want to leverage in order to enhance your community and your ecosystem right it's that enablement right that

13:22identification of the service whether it's an AI service or a computation service or a storage service that's what we want to enable so that for instance an influencer maybe in the web 2 space right just on Instagram or something can discover these net new services that otherwise may not be available to them and make their end product whatever that may be even better

13:47yeah that's a good perspective on it and you mentioned there a couple times about you know the royalties and sort of keeping track through the technology I feel like that's one of the main benefits when you know the original Creator and when you introduce AI into it takes it to a whole other level but you know from what we've seen in the

14:08first round of you know nft 1.0 if you create an nft and you sell it and then they resell it you know the smart contract can program whatever you'd like to have a 10 royalty or one percent or zero if you're that altruistic but I feel like that's something simple that's just like a major Game Changer from you know web 2 technology yeah I mean I think

14:34royalties at the end of the day come back to you know the digital manifestation of some governance structure that's the real USP of blockchain right it's the ability to digitize that governance and make it a more fluid or liquid experience right this whole concept of like Lego democracy and being able to sort of like

15:02slot in slot out quadratic voting all of these topics that's the you know I think the definitive piece that changes the tech that really drives the technology that we're building on right yes the provisioning of that liquidity is interesting that you know one-dimensional Utility side of things but it only goes so far right the question then becomes what's the what's

15:33the real game change besides just native digital payment and it's the ability to then govern on top of that and have the transparency of that governance across you know if you so choose all of the actors in that ecosystem yeah and I feel like this is a major topic that we're seeing major breakthroughs in right now with the growing out of dows and the

15:58functionality of them and you mentioned about you know the scientific research and I feel like a lot of different organizations are even just traditional companies are starting to consider integrating more you know Democratic processes through a Dao or more distributed governance to the users and the customers to get them involved and there's I feel like there's a lot to be

16:23built out still because it's like Reinventing companies on the internet and automating all that functionality which is a lot but I feel like this is a major turning point in the last year or two where Dows are sort of becoming something that is very important to have in your business I think you're right I think especially you know web 3 context barely

16:47web3 I think that's true I think at least understanding the decentralized organizations that are being established within your sphere of influence like that's a prerogative you need to have that type of understanding but I think you know there are we've been a part of a number of different Dows some good some not so good and it's a learning curve right

17:14there's still inefficiencies you know a the world is set up for centralized organizations and it's just it right now it's easier to operate within that context but if you're willing to make the sacrifice and deal with some of the remaining shortcomings that exist with these organizations I think the benefits especially over time the long tail

17:41effect of these organizations is going to be massive right I think you know my opinion is that in the future they'll be ubiquitous they'll you know they'll represent some of the largest organizations on the planet you know we'll we'll associate more with ecosystems as opposed to strictly with the brands and the centralized companies that are

18:09associated with them I mean think about it this way yeah there's a lot of conversation around how Twitter operates right now imagine if Elon had just come in scrapped the executive team and said we're gonna slap a dow in here and everybody that's a member of Twitter you guys get a vote right pay eight bucks and you get more voting right you know that kind of thing like

18:36we're kind of like that would be an amazing experience I don't know if it would fall over entirely but you know and then you have to start they're still going to probably be delegation and things like quadratic voting and that sort of thing but these are all problems to solve and we'll work through the Nuance of these issues over time we're really just getting started you know I

19:00think the next five years will be sort of you know early stage organizational development from a decentralized context and then after that we'll we'll probably start to see real inroads as we attack more structured yeah commercial opportunities right now where you see the successes with doubts I think there's predominantly an underserviced Arenas of economies

19:30You know early stage research that is notoriously underfunded things like that this is where having that like Collective Kickstarter style engagement makes a lot of sense as we work through the you know like I said the Nuance of those government governance parameters within that context then we'll be able to go out and Target larger opportunities

19:58I think it would be great to have a company's largest Twitter introduce some Dow functionality and you know that's almost as exciting as some of the you know fan companies putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet it's like the showing that web3 is here to stay so I'm really looking forward to that and that's a good prediction I didn't think about that but I feel like that's

20:18a very good possibility that Elon would do that and maybe they'll even be voting with Dogecoin or some other crazy integration exactly I mean it'd be just as contentious as some of the other decisions he's made yeah for sure so speaking of looking towards the future moving into 2023 what are some of the main milestones and things that your

20:40team at nevermind is looking at accomplishing over the next year so I think the next piece that we have is taking the simplification model and extending that even further we're working on a set of interfaces that make it really easy to embed the technology in your existing website whether that's just you know your own existing art gallery or a fully fledged

21:10Marketplace what we want to enable is the ability to if you don't have that ability currently to Mint and deploy nfts you know publish them make their existence known if you have a Marketplace that already has an nft engine to integrate with the next step which is the more advanced features on the computation side provide provisioning the

21:35capabilities to do this you know type of interactivity that I discussed earlier on so that's that's the next major thing also working with a number of these Dows in particular in the D size space to enable them to move to the next level as opposed to just funding projects in their area of expertise or Focus being able to enable the analytics

22:03functions for each of these Dows in a more decentralized fashion and then also on the creative side continuing to explore the art of the possible with things like stable diffusion and you know this proliferation of AI technology and how that relates both to the artists and the consumer but also to the web 3 space and the governance of

22:32those assets so those are you know three areas that we are looking forward to focusing on in the next year looking forward to it Don and what's the best way for the viewers to follow along with your updates and learn more about the new initiatives I think if they come to our website and nevermind.io and then use the link to join our Discord then they'll they'll

22:59have direct access to the entire team they can keep abreast of everything that's going on yeah and we'll be happy to have them sounds great and I will leave the link in the description box below as well to make it easy thank you so much for your insights into you know the nft space Dows and where it's all going I am looking forward to 2023 and I think it's

23:21going to be a great year for web3 and I appreciate you taking the time let's definitely follow up in the near future John definitely thanks for having me