So, you need to take money from your bank account, put it into an exchange like Coinbase, convert it to Ethereum. It's like, "You could do that. I'm going to do my own shit. Yeah. So NFT is non-fundable token. And it's been growing for the last roughly two years. You can't just say, oh, I've got a Bitcoin now copy paste. He's got the token. I didn't know shit about crypto. Is that a Beeple?" That's cool that he's going to do that. Watch videos ... ‘Everydays -The First 5000 Days’, is a digital artwork by Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known as Beeble. So to me, it has combined all of the things that I'm interested. It allows for... Yeah. Mike, I want to ask you about what all of this crypto-success has done to the way you look at the art you're making. And every investment is part speculation, part like, okay, fundamentals of investing market dynamics, blah, blah, blah. I'm assuming used to because I'm assuming you're not going to do client work ever again. If you were a young artist, I would dip your toes into the water here, but you need to grow an audience first. And in the early days of crypto, there was quite a lot of risk because this was not proven who the fuck knows where this is going to go. EJ: Just stop looking at it. They kind of hide all that functionality. EJ: We are literally made of questions, so let's sit down with the man himself. So, that person just made, some random person, just made $900, and I made $100. So that was honestly in my view just by chance, because again, these NFTs can be attached to anything. Crypto Art: Fame and Fortune - Mike "Beeple" Winkelmann. Beeple: Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, is a graphic designer from Appleton, Wisconsin, USA. Does that make sense? He's not going to start selling stuff to his fans because his fans, it's so abstracted to them, like this stuff is very hard for tech people to understand. So there's tons of different cryptocurrencies. I don't know, you don't know what that thing is. If you're an artist, you're not very visible on social media. I was just like, "I'm not even going to pay attention to this, because it just seems weird." Like they could have speculated on anything. What makes something valuable? But nothing's a guarantee or it wouldn't be [inaudible 00:15:13]. They have a couple of drops a week. is a phrase which is often asked by those who believe in astrology in order to build a person's natal chart and check for compatibility. And there's a bunch more that are like legit companies that have made their own sort of like blockchains. Beeple: Never thought about it again. Beeple: In terms of the taxes, who the fuck knows? "No." BEEPLE is Mike Winkelmann. Like, it seems crazy that, you know, I think it was like an Australian VC fund bought one of your pieces for $66,000 or something like that. It's Tickle Me Elmo, or it's Jiminy Cricket, or it's a Mickey Mouse, or it's blah, blah, blah, except the eyes are x's. EJ: Does it feel different to be paid as Beeple the artist versus Beeple the freelancer who makes art shit. Beeple: In December, he auctioned off multiple editions of three digital artworks, each priced at $969, and 21 unique works, most … There are some really weird things, or it's like it's a shiny spheres. I can assure it is all-. No one's going to find any value in anything I'm doing that they're going to pay Ethereum or money, or even Monopoly money. Hopefully it's not all like a money laundering scheme like a lot of people think it is. So, it was just like, "Holy shit. They're 10-to-15-second videos that loop. How do you look at it? Okay, sweet. It could be. He works with a wide range of visual materials, from illustrations to films, but what we would like to show you is impressive and pretty unique. You don't own it. But does it feel different? Content warning: Mike is as unfiltered as his art suggests, so strap your brain cases on extra tight. Beeple: So the NFT is sort of the thing that proves ownership of a digital asset. I think this will be seen as the birth of digital art as an actual appreciated movement in art, similar to graffiti, or similar to some of these other vinyl collectibles that we take for granted. That it's like, "Okay, this makes it very different, and it also instantly makes it easy to understand." If somebody says, "Oh, this is a fucking original Banksy, it's a one of one." So I've always been sort of slow rolling this thing. That's how I approached this, too. I don't think [inaudible 01:36:06] necessarily go up in flames, but I think it will push the prices down quite a bit. It's not like, "Oh man, he was super into crypto before this." But the technology behind it enables basically many, many copies of that spreadsheet to exist and they all kind of talk to each other and compare to each other. Better known as Beeple, Winkelmann made a name for himself with evocative—often provocative—digital art. Almost nobody can put something on Sotheby's. That's pretty amazing. Obviously, one of 100 is worth more than 87 of 100. Yeah. The other part of it is, I made a bunch of teasers and I really tried to make it feel like, "Okay, this is an event. With the success of his crypto art sale, Mike is now leading a revolution in the art community. Sold one right away, and I still have one that hasn't sold and it's been months. And so that's sort of like a unique concept with computers because we're used to just like, you have a file, you can copy it, you can send it to people and dadadadada. If I would've said something to somebody before, like, "Do you think people really want to see Buzz Lightyear with milking titties or whatever?" Disney's suing me over this fucking milking titty bullshit. They're token on the blockchain, which is a very small file size, that points to a server that says, okay, you own this thing here. I could have sold that, but now that I've sold the 4,798th Everyday for a hundred thousand dollars, now how much do you think the first Everyday is worth? And you were like, oh, I actually have a computer science degree, so I could actually speak to that. And one of those use cases that in late 2017, somebody built is these NFTs. But I personally think it will still probably be a fairly challenging way to make a living just because it will be hypercompetitive, just like it's very challenging to make a living as a traditional painter or a traditional sculptor [inaudible 00:07:24]. I'm assuming that, like, I don't know if you're being paid in like dollars or Ethereum. It's a bunch of fucking dorks working on solving problems and trying to make their thing more valuable. Joey: Yeah. That fell off a truck or some shit, guy. Beeple: To the obscenity part, or the offensive work, I never trying to just make something to offend people. That's where I came up with the physical pieces. I mean, you have it in the name of your website, just Beeple Crap, and I think everyone has that mindset, the imposter syndrome, like, "Who am I? So, you're kind of against each other in a way, and that sounds bad, and I don't want the clients that I worked for in the past to think that I was against them, but you know what I mean? Thank you. I can tell you I'm going to be the last fucking mother fucker standing at this thing, trying to fucking keep the party going, because I think it's super fun and super exciting. So I understand this whole Cryptoart thing a lot better than I did at the beginning of this. Beeple: It's sort of like, "Okay, well, this is a way to use, to collect, digital artwork. EJ: Because I looked back at the chat history and I went on Super Rare and it was like, holy shit. Yeah. I'll just give you my strategy, where it was I minted my work, which is basically like printing your token, printing your money or whatever, and I was like, "Hey, I'm doing the cryptoart thing. So I realize it could be offensive, but that's never my intention. When I think of Cryptoart, I kind of know what you mean. It definitely is something that takes a bit to sort of wrap your head around, especially because like, you can look at the NFTs out there and you can still copy it. Beeple: In Superrare, it's all in Ethereum, but I think people get a little too sort of scared of that because you can immediately convert Ethereum at cash. He just put NFT [crosstalk 01:40:26] for sale. Right. It's not like, oh, it's in Ethereum, so it's locked in this crazy thing that you can't get it out of. There's no explaining that. The other thing I look at it as, like, "I'm going to be around for a long time doing this. It's funny because I went through all the emotions that I feel like a lot of motion designers are going through. Depending on how much you're selling the piece for, that could be something that's sort of like, "Okay. I got two Bitcoins. The biggest thing is if a Ethereum goes down ad Bitcoin and that crash, which they tend to sort of like peaks and valleys. MakersPlace is very similar to Nifty. I think it will be just like prints moving forward. But that was sort of the very first like NFT. They're registered on the site, ready to sort of buy this thing as soon as it goes on sale. Now it's over 1,000. So my whole thing was this, this is an alternative income earning... Beeple: I just made $1,000," but since then, I think one Ethereum equaled $570. Beeple: So I want to know how you came up with that initial strategy, and then what you learned from that to then go to the second drop, which was insanely massive. EJ: The other thing is, it's much more traceable, which I believe there's much more transparency around it, which gives it a lot more value. Assuming down the line, you could potentially sell your other artwork for a lot more. That this is something that I spent 13 years doing this cryptoart, or this phase. Well, yeah. Now we're seeing those skills kind of tip. Since May 2007, US-based digital artist Mike Winkelmann (who goes by the name Beeple) has posted a... Horoscope for March 1, 2021: Happy birthday Tim Daly; Aquarius, now’s … Because everyone's like, wait, you can make a million dollars on this. Because there was definitely a lot of hype. It didn't seem like that like crazy novel of an idea or something like, "Whoa, nobody's ever thought of this." And you're signing them, and I hope I get a really good, nice message on mine when you send me mine. So, let's back up one step from that. So, that produces interesting... That's, again, something you're not used to. Instead of having a bunch of toys or a bunch of vinyl collectibles on your desk, you'll have a bunch of these video screens, and this is your video collection. I think it will survive that, but it's going to be some leaner times I would assume. What happens when he croaks? Beeple: With Nifty, you can sign up with a credit card. Joey: There's definitely people on there, Brett Favre or somebody like that. Yes. And they're like, okay, we'll compute that onto the blockchain. I almost think that phase of cryptoartists, I never really liked, because it's almost like you're drawing a line in the sand and you're being exclusionary. It feels like there's a lot of low hanging fruit. No one goes to SCAD or design school with this mindset of, "I'm going to make money from my quote-unquote art, or capital A art." You know? It's like, who's laughing now kind of thing where you see how that's paying off and it just happens to be the right timing. Beeple: But the gas fees are basically the fees to sort of add things to the giant blockchain spreadsheet, so if you want to tokenize a piece of artwork, there's gas fees associated with that, and depending on... Those gas fees can vary wildly, depending on what's going on at that time on the Ethereum network. EJ: and then reached out to different artists in this space, reached out to collectors in this space, just trying to understand anybody who would hop on a Zoom call with me and chat for 30 minutes, "What the hell is going on here? So, that's the other thing because, again, this is built on Ethereum, which has its own rules that you can program into these things. I mean, I got paid in Ethereum for my first piece that I sold, and-. It's not a bit speculative. And that's very, probably, telling, but that was the analogy I came up with off of the top of my head, that it would fall into a pile of piss. This is not worth his time." I want that hanging on my wall. I stupidly, in the time since my fucking thing, Ethereum has nearly doubled, or doubled or whatever, and Bitcoin as well, so literally, if I would've put that into Bitcoin in that time, I would've doubled my money.