phantom

  Streamed live on Jan 25, 2024 Join Kory and Kris as they discuss Crazy news stories of the week! 

Hello dear listener and welcome to another episode of ‘The Unlock Moment’ podcast. And what a special episode. It’s our first returner, and a chance to welcome back my very first guest on the podcast, the hugely talented and all-round master of merriment Samuel Haughton. I can’t tell you how many people from all walks of life have reached out to tell me that they were touched by his story and inspired by the powerful choice he made. His was the Unlock Moment that defined the term for me, so I’m very much in his debt.

We’d been working together in coaching for a while and we’re going back to March 2022 when Sam recorded an episode I called “Choosing Happiness”. In the two years since we recorded that Episode 1 and heard about Sam’s fundamental Unlock Moment of remarkable clarity, he’s been on a quite extraordinary journey.

Let’s hear more about the Unlock Moment that sparked this all and catch up with the what happened next. Sam Haughton, it is my huge pleasure to welcome you back to The Unlock Moment.

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Samuel Haughton: https://www.samuelhaughton.com/

Samuel Haughton on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samuel.haughton.42/

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The Unlock Moment podcast is brought to you by Dr Gary Crotaz, PhD. Downloaded in over 100 countries. Find out more at https://garycrotaz.com and https://theunlockmoment.com

Mintify Bytes is the NFT, crypto, and fintech news aggregator of Mintify, the modular NFT-Fi Terminal powered by $ME.

Learn more: mintify.xyz

Check us out on X: x.com/mintify

Hang with us in Discord: https://discord.gg/mintify

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The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in Le Gaulois from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte.[1] The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century, and by an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber's 1841 production of Der Freischütz.[2] It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.

Can't sleep? Let the dulcet voice of Erik Braa reading the classics take over for jumping sheep. These tales, narrated in a soothing, calm voice are designed to turn sleeplessness into somnolence. Tune in, zonk out.

Alex and Pat are joined by Patrick McLellan and celebrate Halloween by doing the spookiest podcast of all time! They talk about ghouls, ghosts, phantoms, and witches. They also get into seances, genies, and Scandinavian dragons. 

Follow the show on twitter/X: @passthegravypod, @AlexJMiddleton, @NotPatDionne, @RobertBarbosa03, and @PatMcLellanEsq 

(Intro & piano music)

Approaching Halloween so, let the spooky words in! 
Φαίνειν is an ancient Greek infinitive and it means 'to appear/ to make something visible'. The thing that is been made visible is a Φάντασμα  and it used to mean 'an illusion' before it meant 'an apparition'. The root of this word can be found in old Armenian, old Irish and of course Sanskrit but the Greek one is the one that came through. Latin 'Fantasma', French 'Fantome' and eventually the English in the 1300's. ΦΑΝΤΑΣΜΑ/PHANTOM

Twitter @yourgreeksunday ,
Instagram @emmanuela_lia ,
email yourgreeksunday@gmail.com

A short devotional on Revelation 12:9,10.

Wherein we pick up the phone.  

Dial us in at: gwritersanon@gmail.com  

Hop on our Facebook party line (Ghost Writers, Anonymous).  

THE LION KING  Music & Lyrics by Elton John & Tim Rice | Additional Music & Lyrics by Lebo M., Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Julie Taymor, & Hans Zimmer | Book by Roger Allers & Irene Mecchi  |  Adapted from the Screenplay by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, & Linda Woolverton

Works Consulted & Reference :

• The Lion King (Original Production Directed by Julie Taymor)
• The Lion King (Original Film Directed by Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff)
• The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway by Julie Taymor
• The Lion King - The Full Film Script by Bill Scollon & Marbara Montini
• Disney Theatrical Productions: Producing Broadway Musicals the Disney Way by Amy S. Osatinski
• The Disney Musical on Stage and Screen: Critical Approaches from 'Snow White' to 'Frozen' Edited by George Rodosthenous
• The Lion King: A 'Blockbuster Feline' on Broadway and Beyond by Barbara Wallace Grossman

Music Credits:

• "Overture" from Dear World (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Jerry Herman | Performed by Dear World Orchestra & Donald Pippin
• "The Speed Test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie  (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan | Performed by Marc Kudisch, Sutton Foster, Anne L. Nathan & Ensemble
• "Why God Why" from Miss Saigon: The Definitive Live Recording  (Original Cast Recording  / Deluxe)  | Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyrics by Alain Boublil & Richard Maltby Jr.  | Performed by Alistair Brammer
• "Back to Before" from Ragtime: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens | Performed by Marin Mazzie
• "Chromolume #7 / Putting It Together" from Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim | Performed by Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Judith Moore, Cris Groenendaal, Charles Kimbrough, William Parry, Nancy Opel, Robert Westenberg, Dana Ivey, Kurt Knudson, Barbara Bryne
• "What's Inside" from Waitress (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles | Performed by Jessie Mueller & Ensemble
• "They Live in You" from The Lion King (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Lebo M., Mark Mancina, & Jay Rifkin | Performed by  Samuel E. Wright & Ensemble - The Lion King
• "Maria" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording)  | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Evadne Baker, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Marni Nixon
• "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording) | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Julie Andrews
• "Corner of the Sky" from Pippin (New Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz | Performed by Matthew James Thomas
• “What Comes Next?” from Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda | Performed by Jonathan Groff

This episode we are joined by actor Jay Armstrong Johnson!  Jay is currently starring in the Tony winning Broadway revival of Parade.  His past credits include, Hair, Catch Me if You Can, Hands on a Hardbody, On the Town and Phantom of the Opera.  We chat with Jay about his career, his passion for producing, working with Emma Thompson and his yearly Halloween fundraising event I Put A Spell On You: The Return of the Sanderson Sisters.

We welcome actor, writer, producer, free runner, wrestler, and a helluva model human, Brandon Marino to the jungle for our ceremony honoring  "The Phantom" (1996). Starring - cool dude Billy Zane, Treat Williams (RIP) , Kristy Swanson, and Catherine Zeta Jones. Skulls (typically hairless), lasers, purple suits, enormous handguns, quick changes, jewel valuations (Topaz and Opal are PRICELESS), 1930s physicality, and CANNONBALLS!
*this episode contains zero net carbs

Recorded 6/23
1hr 39mins

Plot: The Phantom, descendent of a line of African (?) superheroes, travels to New York City to thwart a wealthy criminal genius from obtaining three magic skulls which would give him the secret to ultimate power.

**All episodes contain explicit language**
Artwork - Ben McFadden
Review Review Intro/Outro Theme - Jamie Henwood
"What Are We Watching" Theme - Matthew Fosket
Lead-Ins Edited/Conceptualized by - Ben McFadden
Produced by - Ben McFadden & Paul Root
Concept - Paul Root

SCARED TO DEATH IS EXPLICIT IN EVERY WAY. PLEASE TAKE CARE WHILE LISTENING. 

Dan will finally have another one from Lynze's least favorite category of stories that we tell here… a claim of UFO sightings and alien abduction. The first story is full of claims of a young family from in the 90s, coming in from a small city in Eastern Australia.
Then we examine the story of the Black Flash. Did a shadowy, but seemingly physically very real creature terrorize the residents of a quaint little Cape Cod, Massachussetts summer town? Lynze dazzles us with three spoopy tales. An imaginary friend who might be a friend or might be something else. That is followed up with a strange situation with a woman calling for a man. But who is she and why is she calling out? The final story will probably give you a good chuckle and little chill.
 

New Merch:  Darren's Plumbing at 1800 - STD - GTFO. We'll make them Get The Fuck Out. Brand new Darren's Plumbing tee and long sleeve now available in the bad magic merch store. A cool illustration of Darren's Plumbing van parked outside a home clearly haunted by demons. Head on over to badmagicmerch.com and check it out!

Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation: Over the years, we have tried to donate back to our local community here in Coeur D Alene. This month, we have decided that in honor of Pride month, we are going to donate locally to the North Idaho Pride Alliance whose mission is to connect LGBTQIA+ people and allies to various community groups so they may create a more inclusive North Idaho through Networking, Educating and Advocating. We will be donating $13,540 to North Idaho Pride Alliance and putting $1,505 into our scholarship fund.  If you want to learn more about North Idaho Pride Alliance, you can visit nipridealliance.com

Standup:Standup: If you want to see a very different side of Dan than you see here and possibly see Lynze in the crowd... well you will have to wait until this fall! But get your tickets now and give yourself something to look forward to! He will be all over the US so be sure go to dancummins.tv for ticket links to shows.

Thank you for continuing to send in your stories, Creeps and Peepers!**

Please keep doing so. Send them to mystory@scaredtodeathpodcast.com
Send everything else to info@scaredtodeathpodcast.com

Want to be a Patron? Get episodes AD-FREE, listen and watch before they are released to anyone else, bonus episodes, a 20% merch discount, additional content, and more! Learn more by visiting: https://www.patreon.com/scaredtodeathpodcast

Please rate, review, and subscribe anywhere you listen. Thank you for listening!

Follow the show on social media: @scaredtodeathpodcast on Facebook and IG

Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/HOVzPMJ2_NU

Website: https://scaredtodeathpodcast.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scaredtodeathpodcast/](https://www.facebook.com/scaredtodeathpodcast/)

Instagram: https://bit.ly/2miPLf5

Mailing Address:

Scared to Death
c/o Timesuck Podcast
PO Box 3891
Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816

Video/Audio by Bad Magic Productions
Additional music production by Jeffrey Montoya
Additional music production by Zach Cohen
Various free audio provided byhttp://freesound.org

Opening Sumerian protection spell (adapted):
"Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no home… or one that lieth dead in the desert… or a ghost unburied… or a demon or a ghoul… Whatever thou be until thou art removed… thou shalt find here no water to drink… Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own… Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence, breakthrough thou not… we are protected though we may be frightened.  Our life you may not steal, though we may feel SCARED TO DEATH."

The team Jermayn Parker, Dan Fraser and Stephen East are all together as they go through the news from May (and June). We also go over the latest newspaper stories "Dungeons Undone" and "Return of the Temple of the Gods". It has been a busy but exciting last six weeks as we have new products to display in our Skull Caves, new clothing to wear at comic conventions and those boring Sunday lunches plus comics from Greece and France to discuss.

Stick around and let us have some phun as we discuss Phantom news from seven different countries.

Our review of 11+ comics from Australia, Sweden and India will come out in our next podcast in a weeks time.

If your one of the phans who can only listen to some parts of the podcast, below is a timeline of what we discussed.

Daily / Sunday Newspaper Stories Progress

• Daily 263: "Dungeons Undone": 4 Minutes
• Sunday 193: "Return of the Temple of the Gods": 15 Minutes

Phantom News From Around the World

• SydNova (link): 24 Minutes 30 Seconds
• Richard Fry Death (link):  36 Minutes
• Other Australian Conventions for 2023: 42 Minutes
• Sy Barry Art Auction July (link): 46 Minutes 30 Seconds
• New T Shirt Licence's: 50 Minutes
• Brisco USA (link)
• Souled Store India (Iink)
• Results of the Best Fantomen 2022 Story as voted by the Phans (link): 56 Minutes 30 Minutes
• Frew Release New Products: 1 Hour 1 Minute 30 Seconds
• Face masks (link)
• Prints signed by Sal Velluto, Luca Erbetta & Keith Williams (link)
• Ikon Collectables 10” Bust (link): 1 Hour 8 Minutes
• Greek comics (link): 1 Hour 13 Minutes
• New French TPB (link): 1 Hour 17 Minutes
• Perth Mint Coins: 1 Hour 19 Minutes
• 2oz released. New design (link)
• UK company Gold Gilded the 1oz design (link)
• Missing Videos: 1 Hour 24 Minutes 30 Seconds
• Patreon Winter Draw: 1 Hour 26 Minutes 30 Seconds

You can email us at chroniclechamber@gmail.com or chat with us via our social media profiles with your feedback at Facebook, Twitter and or Instagram. We would love some feedback on what we discussed on the podcast and on the following topics:

• Have you brought all the Perth Mint Coins? Did you like them?
• Which T Shirt design do you like best?
• Is the new Phantom style design growing on you? Do you like it? Do you like how companies are mixing the old with the new?
• Are you going to an Australian comic convention this year? If yes, please let us know.
• Did you vote in the Fantomen best of story poll? 

Make sure you stay with us and do not forget to subscribe and leave a review on our podcast and or our YouTube Channel. 

The Mothers have tasted the suffering of a new world . . .

Thanks for listening to PHANTOM LIMB! We're a sci-fi, horror, and weird fiction anthology podcast; we create strange new tales with original music and immersive sound design.

Support us on Patreon for tons of neat bonus stuff at https://www.patreon.com/phantomlimb!

For the ideal listening experience, we recommend using headphones! You can play PHANTOM LIMB on cellphone speakers if you want, but you'll miss out on some truly excellent sound design.

PHANTOM LIMB is produced by Free Jambalaya Productions.
Logo by Ben Brown and Krissy Mayberry.
Credits by Dale Leopold.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge - 1989

Director - Richard Friedman

Writers - Scott Schneid, Frederick R Ulrich, Tony Michelman, Robert King

Music - Stacy Widelitz

Stars:
Derek Rydall
Kari Whitman
Jonathan Goldsmith
Rob Estes
Pauly Shore
Kimner Sissons
Gregory Scott Cummins
Morgan Fairchild
Ken Foree

Shopping will never be the same again.

The team Jermayn Parker and Dan Fraser together get to know Frew cover artist Alex Trip.

In this podcast we can talk about many subjects including how geometry and Fibonacci spirals take place on many Phantom covers by Alex Trip. This part of the discussion will be best viewed on YouTube while listening - you can follow the conversation at the 19 minute mark of this podcast.

There are plenty of other interesting topics including potential Frew releases at the 2023 Sydney Supanova event and what Alex Trip is working on at the moment.

If you have not meet Alex before, you will be happy to know that he will be attending the following comic conventions in 2023:

• Adelaide Comic Con 3-4 June
• Melbourne Comic Son 10-11 June
• Sydney Supanova 17-18 June
• Perth Supanova 24-25 June

You can follow Alex Trip at his social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter & Instagram) and his website. If you would like to contact us, you can email us at chroniclechamber@gmail.com or chat with us via our social media profiles with your feedback at Facebook, Twitter and or Instagram. 

Make sure you stay with us and do not forget to subscribe and leave a review on our podcast and or our YouTube Channel. 

Web3 games are taking off and Planet Mojo is one of the premiere titles leading the way. On Ep 23 of The Zeitgeist, CEO Mike Levine shares the web3 opportunity for game publishers, how digital ownership empowers gamers, and the future of community gaming.

About Planet Mojo:

Planet Mojo is an ecosystem of interconnected games built by Mystic Moose and set inside a mysterious alien planet with an evolving narrative. Players compete with customized teams of fantastical creatures in a suite of eSports, PvP games. The long-term goal is to create a sustainable and growing catalog of games for the next generation of gamers, empowering players by allowing them to own their in-game assets and have a say in the project’s future direction.

Show Notes:

01:02 - Background and how he started in Web3?

04:34 - Unique challenges in Web3
07:25  - What is planet Mojo?         

11:17  - Owning your assets in planet mojo
12:50 - Is Mojo Planet a Play-to-own model?
13:5 - The future of in-game economy in Web3

19:31 - Why are traditional gamers skeptical of NFTs?

23:15 -  Would traditional games benefit from adding a Web3 component?
24:54 -  The future of Web3 gaming    

28:58 - A builder in the Web3 gaming ecosystem he admires?         

Full Transcript:

Brian Friel (00:00):

Hey everyone and welcome to the Zeitgeist, the show where we highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the web 3.0 Space forward. I'm Brian Friel, developer relations at Phantom, and I'm super excited to introduce our guest, Mike Levine. Mike is the CEO of Planet Mojo, one of the leading games on Polygon. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Levine (00:28):

Hello. Thanks for having me, Brian. Excited to be here.

Brian Friel (00:32):

I'm excited for you to be here as well. We got a lot of really awesome stuff to talk about. Just the time of recording this, I saw you guys sold out your first mint on Magic Eden. You've got this great ecosystem you guys are building out related the web 3.0 gaming. But before we dive into all that, I want to learn a little bit more about you. You have a very interesting background. You're a veteran of the gaming industry and you spent a lot of time at Lucas Arts Entertainment. Can you walk us through what your background is and why you started working in web 3.0?

Mike Levine (01:02):

Yeah, I started working at Lucas Arts in the early 90s, I'm going to make myself sound as old as I am. But I'm from the east coast in Massachusetts where I am now. But went out to California with dreams of, well, really going to grad school. But I needed a job and amazingly Lucas had one in the paper. Lucasfilm games at the time, and I went in and somehow convinced them to hire me, and just really clicked. I never considered it for a career at all. I'd played video games my whole life growing up and Nintendo and all kinds of other games, but I hadn't really played PC games, so I kind of had to lie a little. I remember when I called a friend back east who was like, tell me some PC games that I could tell them about. Little did I know they were about to release their first console game, so it was like, oh, you played console games?

(01:52):

And they're like, so yeah. And I started at the bottom floor I guess doing QA, which is a great place to start in the industry. But I didn't sort of let my dreams of why I moved to California die, and I took an internship, and I was working 90 hours a week at Lucas and this other place and I was learning all about basically the beginning of digital media and video, and started using the computers at Lucas. And next thing I knew I was working in the art department, I was really just using their Macs to practice Photoshop and the art director noticed it and was like, wait, you know Photoshop? But then I started to get more brave and propose ideas because I was just using these cutting edge tools. And I guess anyways, to fast forward, that theme has gone throughout my whole career because I'm always sort of tinkering with what's new and what's next.

(02:40):

And yeah to give you the quick version, worked on some amazing games at Lucas. Went on to sort of create the visual effects department there, and did some great games. And eventually it was a pretty big mass exodus of people that I was at the beginning of. But went on to do a startup with people from ILM because the visual effects department or company that Lucas owns or did. But I had worked with them a lot just because all these techniques we were doing and Skywalker ran, so did a startup with those guys for a couple years, it was more about tools and effects, and wanted to get back to games. I missed games after not being in it. So I moved back to the east coast, started my own companies, and over the years I've just done a mix of our own games but also done service work to survive with Hasbro and Spin Master and other things.

(03:33):

And we had a great run doing augmented reality, and we had Apples game of the day, and worked with Phil Tippett, but also worked with big companies like Niantic and others. And ultimately that disillusioned with mobile AR, at least the short term future of it. And we made a VR game a couple years ago for Sam and Max, which was a game I worked on the original way back at Lucas. So that was a lot of fun. But during that game, that's when I started getting obsessed with first NFTs, and then blockchain and blockchain games, and that's how we got here.

Brian Friel (04:09):

That's awesome. So you painted an awesome story there. I guess starting from the bottom at QA intern, rising up. And you've worked on titles that you didn't mention, but like Jedi Knight, the Force Within, Rebel Assault One and Two, so you've seen what it takes to make really successful video games. Coming into the Web 3.0 space, what have you noticed that's different? What is uniquely challenging about web 3.0?

Mike Levine (04:34):

We could talk for the next half hour just about this, but it's completely different, and it's completely the same. And I think that's what we're seeing now, is each company finding that balance of what is a web 3.0 game right now? You have some that are completely on chain and others that are completely off chain. And then there's things like us, which are in between which some people call Web 2.5 or whatever. But I think we're closer to 3.0 than 2.5. But I say as someone new coming into the space, which I was a year and a half ago at least, it's an overwhelming amount of stuff to learn. People say the rabbit hole for crypto and web 3.0 and blockchain. And as I've talked about here, we've gone down other tech rabbit holes in my career learning all about AR and everything related to it.

(05:23):

That was a pretty deep rabbit hole, but nothing compared to this, right? There's just so much more. And it took at least six months to just sort of get our bearings, get our sea legs basically, where it's like you start to figure out what's important, what's not important. And a big part of that at the beginning, because there was still so much lack of clarity, was making a good game. Making a fun game. We were in the minority I think on that in the beginning when everyone was kind of obsessed with play to earn and we're like, well let's make sure the game's fun. Because everything else kind of stems from that. Or you're really just going to have people there only to earn. And I'm not an Axie slammer, but that's kind of what we saw happen there, right?

Brian Friel (06:10):

Right, that makes sense.

Mike Levine (06:11):

So yeah, I mean there's massive differences, and I think it's really about finding your rudder and then once you do, just going for it basically. And there's just a lot of noise in this space. So it's constantly, is this call important? Should we partner with this company? How many partnerships can we do? Because we're still a relatively small company, you can spread yourself thin in this space. And then you have the whole Web 2.0 side of it, which maybe want to save that for another question if it comes up.

(06:41):

But yeah, just taking that on and trying to bring people over to web 3.0, it's easier when you're just in web 3.0 and these are already the converts, so we don't have to convince them. And I think there are other companies that are content to just sort of stay in this web 3.0 echo chamber right now. But I feel like the reason us and all these companies were able to get funding, the whole idea was games can bring more people into web 3.0. So if we only stay in with the converted, we're not really doing that justice. So that's kind of been our philosophy.

Brian Friel (07:15):

Trying to grow the pie. I totally resonate with that. So I think this might be a good time to talk a little bit about your project Planet Mojo. What is Planet Mojo in your own words?

Mike Levine (07:26):

Yeah, planet Mojo is an ecosystem of interconnected games built by us, Mystic Moose. That's the company. It is set in a mysterious alien planet, which we're going to keep revealing more about over time. We're really just the first chapter now, and we like to say it has an evolving narrative, just like the game has evolving seasons, eventually. Players compete with customized teams in our first game, Mojo Melee of fantastical creatures in a suite of eSport PVP games over time, because we plan to make more games soon.

(07:58):

The long-term goal is to create a sustainable growing catalog of games for the next generation of gamers. Empowering players by allowing them to own their in-game assets and have a say in the project's future direction/ which is a really simple way of saying we believe in decentralization and player ownership, digital property rights and all those fun things.

Brian Friel (08:20):

And so when you first had the idea to go into web 3.0, did you have this vision of what Planet Mojo would be, and was Planet Mojo the catalyst for this? Or was it more that you were interested in web 3.0, you wanted to tinker with new technologies, and Planet Mojo kind of arose out of that curiosity? Which way would you say that evolved?

Mike Levine (08:39):

It was a lot of things coming together. I mean first off, we love creating original IP. We've done that over the years. We created an indie game before the term existed, Colin Insecticide, I think part one is still on Steam and it was on the DS as well. And that was a complete fantasy, amazing fictional world that a lot of us worked on, a lot of friends from Lucas Arts. So creating original worlds and IP is not easy, but it's something we enjoy a lot. And we also just know from history sort of that whenever new platforms are born, new paradigms begin. That's usually when new IP is born, or has a chance to be born before the big licenses and IP. We've seen this over and over Whenever a new console launches. You see it with AxiE and things like this, that just IPS kind of rise. So it seemed like a great opportunity.

(09:40):

But yeah, I mean I guess before that we really had the specific idea, it was just the understanding what web 3.0 was, and we didn't even call it that then, right? Crypto games or game-fi or whatever we were calling it. But just understanding what that was going to mean to the players, to the developers, what it could do to gaming in general. People talk a lot about indie games and that's a big thing in games, but I'm here to break it to you, it's a bit of a fallacy. It's like there's thousands of indie games that don't really succeed, and then we have one or two that sort of propel, it's kind of being a rockstar when I grew up. It was like, good luck, right.

(10:20):

And that doesn't mean you can't do it, but the game is kind of rigged. There's usually outside funding involved, and publishers, and the platform fees. And so web 3.0 was a way to me also it's like wow, we can flip the script here and have more control as indies, and control of our own destiny, and it was like the evolution of community. We've seen community and gaming become a huge thing over the last decade. This is the natural evolution of community to me.

Brian Friel (10:52):

Yeah, that's very well put. So let's dive in a little more then. You've mentioned you paint this great picture here of players owning their assets, the decentralization aspect of it. How exactly does this work in Planet Mojo? So for reference, you guys just had this mint madness NFT moment on Magic Eden, you guys sold out in four seconds. I imagine these NFTs are used in game, is that correct?

Mike Levine (11:17):

Yeah, I mean first and foremost and we really have taken a, we're the tortoise not the hair approach to the blockchain, and we haven't launched our token, and we've always wanted to take a slow and steady approach to it.

(11:30):

So yeah, first and foremost, and we're literally still hooking this up right now. It's about to be done. But if you own the Champion NFTs, you will have them in the game. We're soon, we've kind of spoiled the players up to now by the way, because we've been in alpha, we haven't really worried about the game progression too much, and we've just kind of given everything to players to make tournaments more fun. But we're really only a few weeks away from being an open beta. And that's when we'll be taking everything away from everyone and resetting all stats, and then people will have to play to unlock champions and abilities, and spell stones, and different skins, and eventually arenas when we hook those up, because those could be NFTs as well, maybe. Intent.

(12:16):

So, yeah. When you own them you will automatically unlock them to use in teams and play within the game, and you won't have to worry about the progression, just like free to play. But the difference here of course is you truly own it. You can sell it if you want at any point on open markets or our marketplace when we launch it. And our whole thing is as we launch more games, you're going to get to use that character in our other games as well, only if you own it as a NFT.

Brian Friel (12:44):

And so this model it's kind of like a play to own model, which I've heard about. Is that a correct characterization?

Mike Levine (12:50):

Yes. I mean I love and hate acronyms I guess I'll just go on record of saying that. But we do kind of need them in a way. And I think I can certainly get behind that a lot more than anything with the term earn in it. Because that was just a bad idea. Free to own, I know Gabe really pushes that, but I always was just like, wait a minute. Let's not take play out of this. If we're really going to have an acronym debate now. The word play should be at the center of this. There's just not enough words. So that's why I like play to own.

Brian Friel (13:25):

I like that as well. So then talk to us a little bit about the economy of this game. You guys are building this world, you're going to be adding on a piece arenas over time, this thing's going to continually evolve. Players also own their own assets, but you made a point up front to be like, this isn't something where we're just advertising a quick way to make money in this game. How do you see the in-game economy here evolving over time?

Mike Levine (13:52):

Good question. And back to the last point related too, we do plan to add other features to owning the NFTs. And I didn't even mention by the way that we have what we call a, it's an in-game collection tier basically. And the very easy way to explain it is the more NFTs you own, the more chances for rewards and prizes you're going to get in the game. Because we sort of tally up, look at all of the NFTs you own, there's like a point system, and you'll sort of have a different tier, and then each month you'll get these collection tier points basically that you can put towards our premium quest, which if you didn't own them would take much, much longer to unlock, basically. So that's another thing. And we also want to eventually have some form of sort of holding slash staking with rewards as well.

(14:39):

And then moving to your question just about the economy. So right now we just have a soft currency in the game, it's called Ore, or you're going to earn it through the battles, it's going to help you rank up, level up. There's a whole free battle pass system that you get battle pass points for that unlock assets, champions, currency, all kinds of things. We're going to have a hard currency too. And by the way, just backing up, because I don't even think we really explained or, I jumped over this, my fault.

(15:09):

But so our game is Mojo Melee. It is a next generation strategy auto-chess battler. We've been nominated in a bunch of the web 3.0 award shows, which has been in great. The game's currently still in alpha, it's in the browser base game, so you can play it right in our web browser, and we are planning to take it to mobile very soon as well. So I just want to make sure we explain what the game was-

Brian Friel (15:34):

Cover those bases. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Levine (15:36):

And you can play, if anyone has played team fight tactics, that's kind of where these games really came from Dota 2, Underlords, but Teamfight Tactics has sort of become the most popular one. But making this for blockchain and why we say we feel it's like the next evolution of these games, even taking the web 3.0 part out of it, is all those games really came from PC downloadable. There are mobile versions, but TFT matches can take easily 30 minutes to play. And we wanted to make something that was faster paced. Even the browser version, when you play it, you'll notice it feels like a mobile game, that's because we designed it that way. So when you're playing it on mobile, the matches can take 5 to 10 minutes, you can play against one-on-one or eight other players at a time. It's like a round-robin tournament format, which is another one of the big reasons we chose the genre to start off with because we did take a lot of time debating what kind of game do we want to make first.

(16:33):

And we just thought this was a great way to introduce the world, the characters, and this is the other big thing we changed with these games is we're like, okay, players are going to own their characters. And normally these games up to now and it's very new genre, but you typically played with a shared deck. So players are playing against each other but they're pulling from the same deck. And what we did was kind of make it more like Hearthstone and other games and we kind of took that out of it, we made it more about collection and team building. Where you have just insane amount, every time we add a champion or a spell stone, which is another element we added, it just gives you insane combinations to try and strategy in terms of how you lay them out and use them.

Brian Friel (17:18):

The theory crafting because endless, yeah.

Mike Levine (17:20):

Yeah. So we sort of made a new paradigm sort of around that, and as we were making it, Supercell started testing their auto-chess game and they actually did something pretty similar so we were like okay, they're pretty smart, we must be onto something. So it just gave us confidence that we were on the right path.

Brian Friel (17:37):

That's good validation.

Mike Levine (17:39):

Yeah. Their game is way more casual. We kind of built something in between TFT and what they built. But yeah, web 3.0 with community we're always listening, and we've taken huge amounts of feedback. I mean we started privately play testing it last August, and so we've definitely listened to the community, we've added tons of features that people have asked for, and we may even add longer form matches eventually, enough people request them. But our sort of goal right now is to get into open beta and test like I was saying the progression and the retention, and all this awards and things like that in the game.

Brian Friel (18:20):

That's great. That's a big overview. Thank you for that. I guess I'm obligated to ask this question for all your fans who are listening, but when beta? Can you share anything about that?

Mike Levine (18:29):

I mean we're real close here. I would tell you within two weeks, but we have this little thing coming up called GDC and a bunch of our team is going there, so we may decide to wait till right after that, just till we're all back. So we're talking hopefully before March is over I'm fairly confident we'll get open beta, knock on wood.

Brian Friel (18:51):

Right on. So I guess switching gears a little bit, at the start of this conversation you talked about the idea of growing the pie and that right now web 3.0 is relatively to all the gaming industries that are out there, it's a small subset of user base. There's people who really resonate with it, but then the vast majority of gamers maybe don't care or don't see the value prop. But I'd say there's also, I've seen a little bit of blow back where anytime the term NFT is mentioned to traditional gamers, a lot of times it elicits this response where people immediately say, no, I don't want it, I don't like it.

Mike Levine (19:26):

It's a trigger word.

Brian Friel (19:27):

It has become a bit of a trigger word. Why do you think that's the case?

Mike Levine (19:31):

Oh, this is very simple actually. And first of all, we don't have NFTs in our game. We have digital collectibles.

Brian Friel (19:39):

Good marketing.

Mike Levine (19:40):

And I've seen a lot more people use this term, especially who are bringing it to the masses or trying to. But I was talking about this for many months ago, just that the web 3.0 gaming space needs to break free of the NFT space. And it hasn't yet. Because there are these rules, many of which are very silly in the NFT space. You've got to sell out, and in terms of pricing, and distribution, and quantity and just all the sort of FOMO around it, and not to mention all the scams and rug pulls and it's like, we've been on tons of calls in the beginning of this where meeting with very DeFi crypto groups on Telegram. And at the beginning we were just sort of surprised at all the questions, it was like, how do we know this isn't a scam and all this stuff?

(20:30):

And we're like, we've been doing this for over 20 years, this is what we do. We make games, we do what we say, but we get it. So I think that's, the mass public, first of all I think it's a myth actually that gamers hate this. I really do. They hate something else. It's all that stuff we were just talking about. And I think we hit the peak hate months ago. I think we've been getting much more people like yeah, I'm interested in this actually, and what's it all about? And I just know from firsthand experience, that's why every time now when I'm doing these spaces or whatever I'm trying to say, everyone on this call, we're in the bubble already. What you have to do is everyone go bring in one friend. Just go talk to your friends about this, because there's nothing more powerful to this day in any media than word of mouth.

(21:23):

I just saw a chart on this, and it's like over 50% the most powerful form of user acquisition. And I just know from firsthand experience, when I talk to gamers young and old, what are you doing now? I'm making a web 3.0 game. What's that? Crypto. And then I say, well, have you ever thought about owning your assets and what that means? And then literally their eyes open up. What are you talking about? Because they're like gamers, they stream, they're watching Fortnite and playing Call of Duty, like wait a minute, that skin that I paid so much for, I could sell it? Yeah. Ooh, tell me more. So this has to be a grassroots campaign really to win over people. See, this is the big difference here is that people like to compare this to free to play, and it's not the greatest analogy. Because free to play had one thing, I don't know if I should say over us, but it was the main point of it.

(22:25):

It was free. Right in the title. And to the average consumer, to Joe 6-pack, whatever, they don't care about decentralization and blockchain and immutable and any of that stuff. They want to know is this a good deal for me? What's in it for me? And if we just explain to them, yes, you can own it, there's value in it, you can make it better by playing, and when our new games come out, you're going to be able to use it. Maybe you can use it in other games. It's really a lot of value. It just has to be explained to players.

Brian Friel (23:03):

Well put. I guess on that thread then, are there any traditional games that you think should be adding like a web 3.0 component in the short term that you think would be in that benefit?

Mike Levine (23:16):

No, none.

Brian Friel (23:18):

Interesting. You want to expand on that?

Mike Levine (23:19):

I want them to pay out and be ignorant and let us dominate. Usually happens in others game cycles and then they come in and want to acquire companies like us or have to play catch up. I mean Disney, other companies, they're still playing catch up on mobile and things like that.

(23:39):

So look, I can't control what they're going to do. And we're already seeing from Asia, being in North America and Europe, I think we're heavily biased by the sentiment in Asia. From every people I talk to over there, which is a lot and Reid, the sentiment's almost the opposite. They're bullish. So you're seeing, look at Oasis and all the companies that they've brought in from that side of the world. I don't have to even sit here and say what companies should add it because it's happening. Those companies are doing it. Will the big companies from North America and Europe? We'll see. Let's put it this way. If they see those companies making money, you can bet. But there's the legality and all that involved too. And that's where startups can afford to be nimble and take risks. So I don't have a crystal ball, but I know it's going to be an interesting year.

Brian Friel (24:33):

Yeah. Well I know you said you don't have a crystal ball. But I want to know, blockchain is young, especially in the gaming space in particular, everyone's I think still figuring out what the right kind of primordial soup of ideas and gaming talent, trying new things. Where do you think the space goes from here? In the next year or two, how do you think the space unfolds?

Mike Levine (24:55):

I mean, there are a lot of roadblocks for games right now in this space. On the mobile side we have Apple with their guidelines, which is depending on who you talk to a step forward or also very restrictive, or sometimes a deal breaker as we've seen with other companies. And on the PC side, again, we're sort of limited. Epic will allow games. So in some ways this space is back to the 1990s and 2000s where everyone has their own website and come here and make your own account and connect your wallet. But yesterday, the Amazon rumor was in the press again, right, about their marketplace. And you're seeing big Web 2.0 players get into the space. So if I'm going to make wild predictions or my hopes even, is that those are the companies that kind of need to help bring in the masses, and hopefully some of those barriers will come down, or the smart ones will realize the opportunity, the GameStops, who already jumped into it.

(26:05):

And I think those people who have those relationships already, and a lot of those companies like overseas and Japan, China, et cetera where they're so bullish on it, it seems like it's an even easier path. But I think those gateways will sort of lead the way. And of course just more and better games finally coming out. So the public can see, oh wait, there are some cool, actual games here in the web 3.0 space. And I always make the analogy about this space, and I think I've even realized it's bigger than I was making it, because I think it pertains to anything like pro sports, whatever, but I usually make it with gaming. Is that there are ways to earn in Web 2.0 games today. You can go to tournaments, Magic the Gathering, card game, and you can make millions of dollars and travel around there.

(26:56):

But that only applies to a certain percentage of people in gaming. You think about eSports and all this, right? There's like three spheres to this really that intersect, that help all drive each other. There's the professional level, then there's the spectators, the fans, the people who really pay attention, who are watching. And then there's the mass audience who just plays the game. And that's why I'm saying that it's no different than golf. The people who watch golf or NBA like, oh, I want to wear the shoes he's wearing, and I want to get the shirt he wears. Or like my son, I want to get Jason Tatum's high school jersey. I'm like, are you kidding me? And you're going to see that same parallels here. And it's just like in web 3.0, the earning part is going to appeal to some people. And it should be there and all the web 3.0 aspects, but you have to have those three layers.

(27:55):

That's why we think we made a PVP game and eSports are important to this. That's why we did a tournament, and worked with a lot of creators. And that's really important here kind of to take it to the masses, and let everyone kind of choose at what level they want to go down their own rabbit hole. Do I want a wallet? Do I want to own these NFTs? And the idea is going to start to snowball. And the early adopters are going to be like yeah, I want to own these things. And then other people are like, why are they owning them? I should probably own them too. I'm putting all this time in here, maybe I should actually own my assets. And yeah, that's where I think it's going to go. That's my optimistic feel. I ended more optimistic than I started.

Brian Friel (28:36):

That's great. That's a good way to do it. And also on the word of mouth part as well, which you said, the most powerful force of growing, word of mouth.

Mike Levine (28:44):

Totally.

Brian Friel (28:45):

Mike, this has been awesome. I guess on this last topic of getting more games into the space, we always end our podcast with a similar question. I want to ask this for you. Who is a builder in the web 3.0 gaming ecosystem that you admire?

Mike Levine (28:59):

Oh boy. It's easier for me to name projects because we're big fans of multiple people at these projects. So like Trap Knoll, we're very good friends with, and Undead Blocks and Phantom Galaxies, and I mean, I know I'm going to forget people I feel like. I mean, BoomLand were really supportive to us because they did their mint before us. And just Magic Eden, the people there, Matt, Knock, Liz, and Polygon. The people at Polygon are building too, I think. So probably named more than you wanted. But yeah, there's so many projects.

Brian Friel (29:40):

The more the merrier.

Mike Levine (29:41):

Yeah, I mean we're always looking at other projects. At the beginning we were always just, whoa, what are those guys doing? And then you get to the point where it's like, well, maybe they don't know any more than we do. So that's where everyone starts, the creativity comes from. You start seeing cool ideas.

Brian Friel (29:58):

That's awesome. Well, you named a lot of folks there. I guess all potential upcoming podcast guests, we'll have to reach out to them as well. Well Mike, this is a really fantastic discussion. Thanks for sharing a bit about your history and your journey from Lucas all the way to now pioneering web 3.0 gaming. Where can people go more to learn about Planet Mojo and Mojo Melee?

Mike Levine (30:18):

Easiest is this go to planetmojo.io, and then there are links right on the top right to our Discord, that's really where all the action is. Please join our Discord, Twitter, and there's a link to the game. You can play the game right now in alpha. We're actually hoping to push an update up today. Well, I guess my, it'll be last week when this comes out. But that's a play.planetmojo.io.

Brian Friel (30:41):

Awesome. Mike Levine, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Mike Levine (30:44):

Thanks for having me.

SCARED TO DEATH IS EXPLICIT IN EVERY WAY. PLEASE TAKE CARE WHILE LISTENING. 

Dan's first story is set in the little ski town of Crested Butte, Colorado. It's a modern encounter story of a man who claims to have picked up and given a ride to one of the area’s most infamous spirits. And then  to the UK - to the rolling green hills of Gloucestershire , England, to visit the strange and haunted unfinished Woodchester Mansion. Lynze's first story brings to life everyone's fear of something chasing you up the stairs from the basement. To finish the episode, she tells us a spooky tale about something or someone trying to make life uncomfortable at a mental health facility. 
 

New Merch:  New 'Witching Hour' collection in store now. Fun retro linocut style design featuring 3 witches in pointy red hats dancing around a campfire. Super cool style and layout on this one. The collection features a tee, canvas, and a new blanket! Head on over to badmagicmerch.com and check out the new 'Witching Hour' collection

Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation: A good nights sleep is one of the most basic needs we all have but not everyone has access to a bed and pillow and a good nights rest. So this month, we are donating to Sleep In Heavenly Peace. Sleep in Heavenly Peace is a group of volunteers who build, assemble and deliver beds to families in need. They have chapters all across the US so if you want to get involved or can offer up your skills, please visit shpbeds.org to learn more. 

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Standup:If you want to see a very different side of Dan than you see here and possibly see Lynze in the crowd, his Burn It All Down standup tour is in full swing! Go to dancummins.tv for ticket links to shows in Pontiac, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Philly Cleveland and Columbus!

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Opening Sumerian protection spell (adapted):
"Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no home… or one that lieth dead in the desert… or a ghost unburied… or a demon or a ghoul… Whatever thou be until thou art removed… thou shalt find here no water to drink… Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own… Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence, breakthrough thou not… we are protected though we may be frightened.  Our life you may not steal, though we may feel SCARED TO DEATH."

Launched in 2019, Rarible is one of the leading community-centric multichain NFT marketplaces. As an aggregated multichain marketplace, Rarible is unique in that it supports NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tezos, and Immutable X. Rarible also offers users the ability to create their own marketplaces in just a couple of clicks.

Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Alex Salnikov sits down with Brian Friel to talk about Rarible's rich suite of products and services, his current views on NFTs, and where NFTs are headed next.

About Alex:

Alex Salnikov is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Rarible, a top-ranked community-centric NFT marketplace. A blockchain trailblazer and an active developer in the crypto space since 2012, Alex previously served as the Chief Technology Officer of CoinOffering, the first company to offer its shares in the form of blockchain assets. With a BA in Computer Science and an MA in Data Science, Alex’s specialties span a variety of sectors including market analysis, decentralized finance, NFTs, and tokenomics. 

Show Notes:

01:06 -  Who he is and how Rarible started

04:38 - How Rarible differentiated itself from othe marketplaces
06:30 - Community marketplace products

10:20 - RARI foundation. What is that? Can you dive a little into what that's all about?

13:39- Rarible DAO and the RARI token 
16:10 - Multichain NFT marketplace vs single chain
22:17 - His current view on NFTs. What is exciting?
25:39 -  What is limiting NFTs?  

27:42 -  A builder he admires in the ecosystem

Full Transcript:

Brian Friel (00:05):

Hey everyone and welcome to The Zeitgeist, the show where we highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the Web 3.0 space forward. I'm Brian Friel, Developer Relations at Phantom, and I'm super excited to introduce our guest, Alex Salnikov, the Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Rarible, one of the leading top ranked community centric NFT marketplaces. Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Salnikov (00:28):

Hello. Hey Brian. Thank you so much for having me today. It's going to be an exciting talk. Thank you to our listeners for connecting and to hearing our chat. I'm excited.

Brian Friel (00:41):

I'm excited as well. This is a great time to be having this conversation. Right about this time, Phantom is gearing up to launch its multi-chain beta out to the public and you guys are super well positioned for this being one of the first NFT marketplaces to take a very multi-chain approach. I want to get into all that today with you, but maybe before we go into all that, let's start with a little bit about you. Who are you and how did you start building Rarible?

Alex Salnikov (01:06):

I have a computer science background. I've been getting my degree in one of the best economic universities in my country before moving to the United States, and that was the most pro-Western liberal part of university. And I guess that laid a big foundation for me to be predisposed to crypto because the crypto is very openness, pro-liberal environment. And even before that, during high school I was trying to earn money online and I had a lot of troubles with just accepting payments. Everybody was like, Hey, give us your passport and KYC," and, "Oh, you're not 18 yet. We can't really work with you." That doesn't make sense at all to me.

(01:49):

So in the first or second year in my university, I discovered crypto, never left the space. It was 2012. I can say that I'm born crypto, never done anything else. Fell down the rabbit hole as soon as I read Bitcoin white paper because of the very fruitful background that I've been growing in. And yeah, started doing startups with my college partner. We did a lot of cool stuff that eventually grow into Rarible. I mean not exactly grown into Rarible, but our experience of doing projects led us to do Rarible because of the following of the natural progression. There was exchanges like DeFi stuff and NFTs. So we tried all of that and NFTs were the most consumer native out of all that. DeFi is for nerds.

(02:42):

And NFTs are for people. We always had been doing something for nerds and we wanted to do something for people. And I'm joking. It's not that I'm disrespectful. We wanted to do something for people and it was just so much fun. We traded a little NFTs and my experience of facing obstacles with online ownership, it made so much sense when you have an item and you can change the wallet. You enter the same 12 words into another wallet and you have all the same NFTs with you, you don't like the marketplace, you connect your wallet to another marketplace. So it feels maybe not that important. Many projects saying, "Okay, we'll do email and password." But this idea when you can change your tools and have all the same environment, this is what sells you that vision because you feel like you are the owner, not someone else is the owner. You feel control and ownership and that is the key part of all the NFT market.

Brian Friel (03:45):

Yeah. No, I totally agree. It's that ability to exit anytime and not requiring the permission of somebody else. That's really cool too your experience early on with online businesses, especially in a foreign country. Where did you grow up, by the way? What country did you grow up in?

Alex Salnikov (03:59):

Russia. One of the most restricted.

Brian Friel (04:02):

Yeah, trying to operate an online business as a teenager in Russia, it's probably one of the best educations for the value of this kind of stuff. That's awesome to hear. So you mentioned you're in university, you start 2012 in crypto, you're going through iterations with your co-founders on DeFi, then you get to NFTs. And I agree, NFTs was really one of the first mainstream consumer applications of crypto that it kind of clicked for everybody. Let's talk a little bit about Rarible. So when you guys started Rarible, what was different about Rarible that you guys decided to do at the time from some of the other marketplaces that were out there?

Alex Salnikov (04:38):

Rarible was probably one of the first five NFT companies that went out there and back then, OpenSea was around, SuperRare was around, a couple other platforms were around and there weren't almost any NFTs. So you had all the wallets, you had all the collectibles, tabs on your wallets, all the infrastructure, on ramp marketplace, but it was almost none NFT. There was a couple copies of CryptoKitties basically. And even if you wanted to create an NFT, you needed to either deploy a smart contract yourself or you needed to go to SuperRare, submit an application to get accepted, wait several weeks and then to create something.

(05:26):

And for us, after spending that much time in the crypto, it was a little contrarian to the openness and all the values that you bring. You're the owner. You don't want to ask anyone before creating an NFT. So we just did a simple experiment. We created a page that allowed you to create an NFT, no verification, no questions, upload your picture, upload your name, description, royalties, and connect the wallet, deploy your own smart contract and deploy your own token and all that just direct access to the chain without any intermediary. This just blew up. Apparently the crypto people resonated with that vision.

Brian Friel (06:10):

That's awesome. I love that. I think that's a good segue into some of the features that you guys have going now as well. So you started that kind of self-serve, create your own NFT marketplace. You guys have continued that same sort of spirit with your community marketplace products. What are some of those? Can you give us an overview of those products that you guys are building for the community?

Alex Salnikov (06:30):

The whole story goes more or less like this. Just a year after Rarible is life, we are taking a look at the market and we understand that the potential of NFTs is just so much more and so much wider than art market, than PFP market. We are very early at this point of even discover of the market what's possible with NFTs. And we understand that the more the market develops, we will need different verticals, like best for gaming, best for tickets, best for art, best for music, best for everything. And just naturally I feel like a big part of our team, the big part of the company DNA is technical. Both our co-founders are technical by background, our CTO, head of product, a lot of technical experience, a lot of just even math and physics background. So when we were deciding, "Oh, let's build a marketplace," without even realizing that we created an indexer that reads all data on chain, stores all NFTs in our database. Because it felt like, "Okay, let's do it."

(07:41):

And turns out that's a big strength that we have as a marketplace and that's one of the hardest part for other marketplaces to go and actually to use. That's why we created product, which is called Rarible Protocol. We wanted to go down the layer of infrastructure and power the next generation of NFT products, be it this platform that you want to build a wallet, like Phantom for example, and you need to have API to access, "Oh, what are even the current users NFTs that he owns? Or what's the market data for these current NFTs? What is the floor prices for the current NFTs that they own? What is the metadata for them?" So this product is called Rarible Protocol and it exists for two years now.

(08:26):

The next thing that we learned is that there's still pretty heavy stack to build on top of that protocol. If you want to create a marketplace, you need that API and moreover, you need to have a great UI on top of this. And a great UI still takes a lot of time to build. That's why we went ahead and created the UI offering too. Here is your protocol, here is your API, and here is your UI to create your own marketplace.

Brian Friel (08:53):

These are all tools that are being used by creators essentially to have their own community centric marketplace that's powered by Rarible in the background.

Alex Salnikov (09:01):

Yes. At this point, we have almost 2,000 marketplaces created with this infrastructure, both UI and protocol. There is not much, maybe 10 projects that is using Protocol directly without the UI, but quite extensively. I think like Coinbase Wallet hits us pretty hard with some API calls and several others. So all this is just all this shared vision that we want to power the next generation of apps, of marketplaces, of protocols. The community marketplace today is a no code tool. A creator can come if they have their own collection and create a marketplace using our UI and UX without actually even writing any code. You can deploy your own marketplace in minutes tomorrow.

Brian Friel (09:48):

That's awesome. I love that. So you have all these tools which for most people who are interested in maybe creating their own NFTs, the infrastructure set up and the software side of things is usually the biggest hurdle. So you guys are eliminating that from people's stack. You guys also have this white glove service. I know that's being used by a number of NFT projects, some even on Solana that shout out to Degenerate Ape Academy who has built their own marketplace with you guys there. And then you guys have this thing called RARI Foundation. What is that? Can you dive into a little bit about what that's all about?

Alex Salnikov (10:20):

Yes. Yes, of course. Wow, we have a lot of things. Shout out to Degenerate Ape Academy, a great partner. They've been actually maybe the second or third project to use our white glove solution, the first on Solana and the biggest on Solana. So we love the partner. The very foundation, so as many of you know the Rarible issued this thing called RARI governance token quite early in the days. And the idea is that this is the governance token for the Protocol. It is fairly standard, as we know, route for the projects to gain security and credibility and neutrality. So why Curve is great, because it is fully on chain, you don't need to trust anyone and it is community owned. You have an exposure to the activity that happens on Curve with Siri.

(11:25):

Usually the companies that do that in order to prevent the conflict of interest, you want these companies to be separate. You want to have a lapse company that is doing software and you want to have a foundation that is overseeing the actual governance and the token, and this is what RARI Foundation is. If you would go to RARI.foundation, you would see everything regarding the token incentives, the fully on chain governance. It's a cutting edge governance that we created. I don't know if our listeners are familiar with the VeToken model. It's vote escrow token. In order to vote in the foundation, you need to log your area for the certain amount of time, and the longer you log them, the more Ve RARI you get because you are committed to be with the project long term you're looking for two years. The votes of people who are known to be committed for two years are much more valuable than votes from people who will not be here tomorrow. I think Curve pioneered with this model and we at RARI Foundation actually created the first solid implementation of the VeToken model.

Brian Friel (12:36):

Oh, no way. I didn't know that. That's awesome.

Alex Salnikov (12:37):

So if you want to launch the VeToken model, you can come to us and we would help you to set up DAO. And it's not easy today. A bunch of projects sit on the tokens that cannot be even used in voting because they don't have the snapshotting mechanism. I know we're getting into the weeds, but if you created your project several years ago and didn't think that you will use it in Adel, it might not be possible. And by adding VeToken, using OpenZeppelin Governor and using Tally as the interface, you can have a full featured, very robust DAO that is fully on chain that can operate budget, that can operate treasury, and that will weigh much more committed votes in favor of those that are not committed. It's great.

Brian Friel (13:24):

That's awesome. So the purpose of the Rarible DAO and the RARI token, as I understand, is that you guys have plans for this over time to take ownership of this Rarible Protocol that we talked about earlier. Can you talk a little bit about the current state of that?

Alex Salnikov (13:39):

It's all started kind of blended together. There is Rarible, there is Rarible Marketplace, there is Rarible Protocol and the governance and ownership of that is blended. So the end state is there is RARI Foundation that has fully robust on chain governance that overtook the Rarible Protocol and governance of the Rarible Protocol. The Rarible is doing laps, it develops the protocol, it develops the code. It submits the proposals to the foundation sometimes like, "Oh there is a new version. Can you please approve that?" And today the RARI Foundation has full control over the undistributed supply of RARI, something like around 40% of the network, and the full control over the governance processes and the branding and IP of the token. That's the step one.

(14:31):

The step two would be establishing participation requirements. There are certain activity requirements at which we can say, "Oh, now the foundation is ready to overtake the Rarible Protocol." And then RARI Foundation will overtake it and Rarible will just operate the front end on top of that. So that's the end state and end goal where we're going. Yeah.

Brian Friel (14:52):

That's super cool. Well, it seems like you guys have been on this track from day one with your community minded perspective here, so it's really cool to see that being laid out in front of everything.

Alex Salnikov (15:03):

Yeah, it is not easy. We had all this community spirits, but this is more or less the duration of the DAO. Even the first was signaling DAO and it was signaling, but there was not much execution done. The second was an onboarding DAO. We've been doing grants to work on protocol and there was a lot of participation, there was a lot of people working at the DAO, but the effectiveness was quite low, just too much coordination. This is the third version. Yeah.

Brian Friel (15:32):

So I want to take a little step back here and talk about how you guys have been multi-chained basically from day one. This has been something that wasn't always the norm, especially coming from Ethereum very much focusing on Ethereum and maybe other EVM chains. You guys were one of the first to recognize Solana, integrating there, then taking a step further, adding Tezos, Immutable X, and this comes at a really interesting time because as we're recording this show, Phantom is gearing up for its multi-chain launch. I want to hear from you, how has it been building a multi-chain NFT marketplace, and what insights have you found in building that that might inform you what you think the future of this multi-chain versus single-chain narrative will play out?

Alex Salnikov (16:11):

Yeah, this is a great question. We started with adding the second chain that was flow as early as Autumn 2021, so quite early. And of course, the narrative behind multi-chain is always easier. There is Ethereum. There is a lot of artists that are unhappy with paying a hundred dollars of gas prices to create their NFT. So what do we do? We adopt a faster chain and the future is going to be bright. Not that fast.

(16:45):

I guess the biggest learning of multi-chain development is that it's quite easy to buy that narrative that we will abstract away the blockchain from the user and the user doesn't even need to know, the same way the user doesn't know that we use HTTP when we run a website or HTTPS, but we're not there yet in terms of the community. A lot of these chains, they are networks. They're networks of communities and these communities have values and these values are sometimes even opposed to each other. Somebody compromised decentralization in favor of speed. Somebody compromised speed in favor of decentralization and it gets even political. There is not much intersection between these blockchains, at least yet.

(17:31):

We're seeing more and more of conformity. Say at some point Ethereum and maybe Cosmos and maybe Arbitrum and maybe Polygon and Solana at this point are almost equal chains in the sense they're commonly accepted as being cool. The more the subset of okay chains are growing, the more we can grow towards the multi-chain vision. But before that, it was like you support the chains, but users of one chain, thinks that the users of other chain is almost like political enemies to you. So this is the biggest learning, bootstrapping the network on the new chain is much more hard than we could have expected. We tried going that route and multiple projects followed that route. I think OpenSea followed that route and struggled to get a meaningful market share from Magic Eden on Solana. Magic Eden added Ethereum and struggled to get meaningful market share from OpenSea on Ethereum. Now everybody's going to Polygon. We'll see how it gets there. It's much more interesting.

(18:43):

But yeah, we're seeing convergence obviously, but it happened two years after we added the first chain. Doodles migrated to Flow. We're seeing some convergence between ease in Flow. But again, this happened two years after we added that. We were a little ahead of time to get there.

Brian Friel (19:03):

Yeah. You guys were early to all that. I am curious though, you mentioned there's this narrative that some people have, definitely not everyone in crypto, but it's like, "Oh, in the future we're going to abstract away what chain you're using." And it's just like you're using a normal website and it doesn't notice anything. Do you buy that narrative? Do you think that is still coming despite all the differences between chains that we have today?

Alex Salnikov (19:27):

I don't know. Honestly and truly, I don't know. It feels like at this point at least EVM chains are all getting abstracted away. If you connect Ethereum Wallet or Rainbow Wallet, they would display the balance across all the chains just like a single shared (wallet). And you'll see, "Oh, here's my Optimism balance, here's my Polygon balance, here is my Ethereum balance." And then the next point would be bridges. MetaMask just added bridges so you can move things across these chains. This is definitely happening among the EVM chains. We haven't seen this happen among... I guess you are very well positioned to make that true for Solana and Polygon and ETH. So that is great. We're seeing this happening for sure. And even OKX Wallet. If you connect OKX Wallet, I loved that innovation and I'm dying to see that innovation among every other wallet. They don't ask you to change the network. I don't know why we need to ask people to change the network. Please don't ask people to change the network. It's impossible for a newcomer to understand.

Brian Friel (20:32):

Well, Alex, you'll be very happy to know that you'll never be asked to change your network in Phantom's multi-chain version. It all happens behind the scene. You just connect once it's considered connected on all chains. So we'll make it happen for Rarible. It will be a great showcase for all of that as well.

Alex Salnikov (20:48):

Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's collectively push MetaMask or the whole market.

Brian Friel (20:54):

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of this stuff is not intuitive. You're already getting people who are maybe coming to crypto because they like an NFT, they have a lot of questions about crypto, they're not sure. And then showing them these network change popups in their face, it's probably the last thing they need. And it's all about making this a safe and intuitive and familiar experience so that we can grow this thing.

Alex Salnikov (21:17):

There are two things that are almost impossible for the newcomer to overcome. It is the stuck or failing transaction. A failing transaction is okay, you can just resubmit it. But a stuck transaction, you need to wait until it goes so you can submit the next one. I've seen countless people just drop on that and this change of the next one.

Brian Friel (21:40):

I couldn't agree more.

Alex Salnikov (21:41):

It's so bad.

Brian Friel (21:41):

Yeah. That's something that we all have to fix, I think, as an industry. And we definitely have our take on those two problems. So we'll share you a beta code after this is done so you can play around and get your feedback on it. But yeah, I'm excited.

(21:54):

I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about how you see the NFT market evolving. You sit in a really interesting spot because as we said, you were very early, not only to NFTs, but to crypto. You're starting this in playing around in crypto in 2012. You've been early to the NFT marketplace scene. What is your current view on the NFT meta per se? What excites you about NFTs today?

Alex Salnikov (22:17):

It's a great question. More or less the whole story of NFT, we had CryptoKitties, which I actually believe is a way more advanced NFT than all that we currently have. It's living things that have DNA that can breed on chain and you can own them. Wow. After that, we take the giant step back. Okay, it's too hard for people to understand. Let it be just pictures. Let it be just art, and that went out. Art has a product market fit, very clear generative art, plain art, one-on-one, open additions. The current meta of open additions is through the roof, but it is all the same category of art. Quite clear. The simplest use case to make you get the idea of NFT.

(23:10):

The second biggest use case is PFP profile picture. Again, great one. It's virtual clothes for your digital identity. I find that the biggest cool thing about NFTs is that your digital you can own digital things that are directly owned by your digital you. And Twitter integrated that. Amazing. Instagram integrated art. I think Reddit integrated but not fully yet. So a PFP digital avatar. Great. And sadly, this is the only two use cases that work for NFT today. Maybe the third small one is memberships. You can have NFT membership. And that's it. Nothing else has yet worked. There are a lot of discussion. People usually think, "Okay, what's next? Or let's connect phygital. Let's do physical and digital at the same time."

Brian Friel (24:05):

I haven't heard that, phygital. That's funny.

Alex Salnikov (24:07):

For me, this is not as exciting. It is definitely what's needed. But the digital world evolves much faster than the physical. And by the time we have this, "Oh, digital, let's do an NFT for the house." So you need to have laws and it would take 10 years to get laws in place and during that 10 years, we'll have metaverses that are far more advanced than it is now. So it's just this part of the market, it's growing. It's faster. So to me, something that excites me a lot is something like CloneX is doing. You have a 3D avatar that you can import into the different metaverses and that would be you. So digital and native virtual use cases that have not been possible before. PFP have not been possible before, the interoperable between platforms PFP. The digital art have not been possible before. So some new use cases that have not been possible before that will utilize NFTs is what excites me. Games makes a lot of sense. But I don't know, CryptoKitties was such a cool project. There have got to be more to NFTs.

Brian Friel (25:21):

We got to get back to that same spirit for sure. I'm curious, do you think there's any one thing, like one bottleneck that's holding the NFT sector back? Is it something on the wallet side? Is it something just on the user education front, technology, or do you think this just takes time to iterate on?

Alex Salnikov (25:40):

I think the main value prop of NFTs is the standard. It is looked at everywhere as the same item. And this is the biggest bottleneck as well. We're coming up with the smart NFTs, so the smart NFT, every wallet should adopt it, every marketplace should adopt it, and some projects ideally should adopt it. So just the cooperation, the intersection of projects to adopt the same idea. I've subscribed to the newsletter that's called This Week in Ethereum, and I think that's one of the best newsletters out there. I read about new developments of NFT standards. Almost every week, there is something. Composable NFT, rentable NFT, this NFT, that NFT. And when I look at this proposal, I understand that several years need to pass before we will actually see any of these new NFT standards adopted.

(26:39):

So we will all need to come up with some addition to NFT standard that we all love and that we will all adopt and that will not be as hard as composable NFT of like ERC 998, or 988. That is very complicated, and very complicated standards do not get adoption. So some small increment, some better standard and a wider adoption of that standard. So complexity. Getting back to your question. Complexity. Yeah, complexity and coordination. Yeah.

Brian Friel (27:10):

Yeah. Complexity and coordination. Coordination across a lot of different people. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, that's a great insight, especially for us as we're gearing up to go multi-chain and supporting NFTs. So we're going to have to take a deep look at a lot of those different standards that are coming online and continue to iterate. So Alex, I just want to thank you. This has been a really great conversation. Thanks so much for coming on the show. One last question that we ask all our guests, and I want to hear this from you as well is who is a builder that you admire in the Web 3.0 Ecosystem?

Alex Salnikov (27:42):

Vitalik. I might come to some better answer, but-

Brian Friel (27:48):

You are the first person to say Vitalik on this show. So the spotlight's yours, you can take it.

Alex Salnikov (27:52):

I'll take Vitalik. He's built so much and his article... I've been recently diving into the article that explains how ZK works. I recommend it to everyone. They say that, "Oh, the next decade is going to be ZK decade." So just try to digest it, understand how it works. It's going to change a lot of lives.

Brian Friel (28:11):

That's a great answer. Well, we all have our homework assignment after this. Alex, thanks so much for coming on. Where can people go to learn more about Rarible?

Alex Salnikov (28:19):

It's always on twitter.com/rarible or twitter.com/insider0x. That's my personal Twitter, if you want to follow me. Rari.foundation is the biggest and exciting part that just started. So there's going to be a lot of development on that end. We're going to be East Denver. Let's meet. It's a great place to catch up.

Brian Friel (28:41):

I love it.

Alex Salnikov (28:44):

Yeah. And I feel like the second part of our talk is better than the first. Let's skip to the second part, guys. Maybe we can put that into-

Brian Friel (28:52):

Yeah, we'll get that in the show notes for sure. Awesome. Alex Salnikov, the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Rarible. Thanks so much for coming on.

Alex Salnikov (29:00):

Thank you for having me, Brian. You are a part of an amazing team that built an amazing product that actually have chances to compete with the giants that we all know are really hard to move. Good luck with that. Let's not change networks, please.

Brian Friel (29:15):

Yeah, let's not change networks. I love it. That's all. Awesome. Thanks so much.

Alex Salnikov (29:20):

You're welcome.