June 12, 2025 • 55 mins
Ever wondered what happens when legal expertise meets digital art collecting? Artie Handz, head of marketing at Verse and founder of Artie Gallery, takes us on a journey through his fascinating transition from courtroom to crypto art.
The spark ignited during Christmas 2020 when an article about NBA Top Shot landed in Artie's inbox. Having previously written about asset digitization in his MBA program years earlier, he felt an immediate connection to the concept. "I was all in," Artie explains, describing his transition from childhood sports card collector to owning thousands of NFTs, including prestigious pieces like his CryptoPunk purchased just before the 2021 price surge.
What makes Web3 special for Artie is the elimination of traditional barriers between artists and collectors. Unlike the walled-off gallery system, digital art enables direct connections with creators worldwide. "You get to see it being built, made, painted, created, coded," he shares. "You're like a proud parent sometimes when it releases." This democratization represents a fundamental shift in how art is experienced and valued.
Looking toward the future, Artie predicts we'll eventually stop using qualifiers like "digital art" or "AI art" – everything will simply be "art" again. He anticipates innovation from unexpected sources, perhaps from "some 17-year-old kid" who will introduce something revolutionary that changes the entire landscape. However, challenges remain, including questions about mass adoption, market volatility, and the long-term accessibility of blockchain-based art.
Beyond his digital pursuits, Artie revealed surprising personal dimensions – he's both a private pilot and a fifth-generation cattle rancher with a 37,000-acre family ranch in Wyoming. Now focused on his role at Verse and his personal gallery, he's preparing to launch "The Book of Hope," a basketball-themed collection that bridges his love of sports with meaningful artistic expression.
Follow Artie's journey as he continues breaking new ground in the evolving world of digital art collecting and curation. Whether you're a seasoned collector or crypto-curious, his insights offer valuable perspective on navigating this rapidly changing creative frontier.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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NorCal Guy (00:00):
Who is this?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Norcal guy.
Artie Handz (00:08):
NorCal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy,
norcal guy, norcal guy, norcalguy.
NorCal Guy (00:16):
NorCal and chill podcast.
So it's chill time.
Norcal and chill podcast.
What the sh, what the sh?
Norcal and chillill Podcast.
What the shill, what the shill?
Norcal and Shill Podcast.
Artie Handz (00:26):
So it's shill time.
NorCal Guy (00:28):
NorCal and Shill Podcast.
What the shill, what the?
Artie Handz (00:31):
shill.
NorCal Guy (00:32):
Welcome to another episode of NorCal and Shill.
Today, we're thrilled to haveArtie Hands as our guest.
Currently the head of marketingat Verse, a dynamic art
platform, artie will share hisjourney transitioning from legal
career to delving into thevibrant world of art marketing,
(00:52):
including his challenging butrewarding role at Verse and his
own gallery.
We'll dive into Artie's latestprojects and explore how he
navigates the fast-paced artmarket influenced by
cryptocurrency fluctuations.
Listen as Artie and I discussthings like fantasy football,
(01:13):
our love for unique collectionsand experiences with NFTs,
revealing the unpredictable andthrilling aspects of digital art
.
Discover Artie's personal storyas a private pilot, a cattle
rancher and his childhoodpassion for collecting.
Join us for insights into theevolving landscape of digital
(01:34):
art, the significance of AI andthe future of blockchain art
platforms.
This lively conversation blendshumor, deep reflections and
expert advice, making it anepisode you won't want to miss.
So join us on this episode ofNorCal and Shill with Artie
Hands.
(01:54):
Hey, artie, welcome to thepodcast.
How are you doing today?
Artie Handz (01:59):
I'm doing great, doing great.
Thanks for having me Veryexcited.
NorCal Guy (02:02):
Yeah, I am excited to get some answers for these
questions, to get your thoughts,your insights, um, it'll be
interesting and, and I think, umpeople appreciate it because,
uh, they generally appreciateyour, your thoughts on the
timeline I am.
Artie Handz (02:23):
I am, uh, yeah, authentically, authentically
honest, if not wrong, but atleast I'm.
At least I have you know.
My takes are out there for allto see, I guess for sure, for
sure so jumping right in.
NorCal Guy (02:40):
What were your first thoughts when you heard about
nfts and crypto art?
Uh, I was I was.
Artie Handz (02:48):
you know, it took me a while to get in, to
actually like do it right, butthat was for technical challenge
.
I was, I was all in because I mymy how I got in was, uh,
christmas, about Christmas 2020,a friend of mine that I went to
undergrad with sent me likeWall Street Journal article or
(03:10):
something like that on Top Shot,and I was I'm a huge basketball
guy so I was like, oh yeah,what's this Like?
Of course I'm reading this andit's like, ok, digital you know,
digital cards, blah, blah, blah.
Digital, you know, digitalcards, blah blah.
And I, you know, I thinkthere's, you know, that initial
leap you have to take right.
(03:30):
But for me, I'd already takenit, because I had gotten an mba
a few years before, in like 2017, 2018, and we had to write a
paper in a class on banking andwe had this thought piece right
to think about the future ofbanking, yeah, yeah, and I said
all assets on earth are going tobe digitized to some degree
like like your, your mortgage oryour you know the deed offices,
(03:51):
right, like those types ofledgers and things like
everything.
every asset will be digitized atsome point.
So I was basically likethinking I had no idea this was
actually already happening atthat time.
Right, just kind of thinkinglike yeah like that makes sense
to me as like a next step inkind of the evolution of how we
deal with assets.
So when, when I was like, oh,this is actually happening right
(04:12):
now, I was like, oh, whoa, I'mbrilliant, I'm jumping right in.
I'm not not brilliant enough togo to like actually have gone
out and looked and seen if itwas actually happening then.
And then I feel like mycollection would be dope if I
started in 2017.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
But uh, I gave myself afour-year, uh, non-head start
(04:34):
and uh, but yeah, you know, onceI, once I actually found it, I
was just all in, I wrote up thatkind of top shot, melt up and
then and then said, where, where, where's, what's next?
You know like, where do we gonext and after about?
I'm not super technical, so ittook me like three or four weeks
to spin up an eth wallet andfigure out how to get actual
(04:55):
money there and all that.
Uh, but yeah, I was just, youknow, just dove straight in nice
, love it.
NorCal Guy (05:02):
Uh, did you also hold hold on the way down for
the top shots?
Artie Handz (05:07):
um, some of them, yes, for sure.
Um, I, I remember I, I got, Ibought, it was like it was so
dumb too, because I know, I knowhow like things melt up and
they're just like slow bleed.
But I it already bled for awhile, you know like a month or
so, and then I really wanted thelike, uh, lebron james, uh, um,
(05:30):
kobe bryant, like tribute dunkor whatever, and so I think I
paid like twenty thousanddollars for that.
That might be the answer to thewhat's the silliest thing you
bought even though you know itwasn't silly, there's sillier
things.
I bought that was just the like, biggest like, like.
Why did it like?
That was just so dumb, but yeah.
NorCal Guy (05:48):
Oh yeah, that's pain man yeah.
Artie Handz (05:52):
We're all, we've all been there.
We've all bought some stuffthat plenty of things.
NorCal Guy (05:57):
For sure, for sure.
So did you collect art oranything before you got into
this crypto art space?
Artie Handz (06:05):
Yeah, you know, as a kid I definitely collected a
lot.
I was a only child, so there'sa lot of you know filling time
type of things and I was very Ilove like organizing things.
I actually see this in mysix-year-old or three-year-old
right now is the one who's doingit.
He like organizes his cars in arainbow fashion, all of his like
(06:27):
matchbox cars and he loves likeputting them in certain fashion
, organizing them in ways, and Ialways loved the like process
of like, no like.
Only my Penny Hardaway cards goon this page and I have to like
organize it from there to there.
Like to like visually, you knowit's like, I guess it to like
visually, you know it's like, Iguess it's like.
You know.
Proto curation, right righthere.
I want this one here.
The one with the signature hasto go in the middle, um, so yeah
(06:51):
, definitely like baseballsports cards.
I grew up in texas, so justlike football sports fanatic, um
, and then coins and stamps tosome degree, because that was my
parents and my grandparentsgeneration things and they kind
of like gave me theircollections and so I I had some
interest for it but it wasn't.
It wasn't my thing, you knowright right, the cards were, um,
(07:14):
so, yeah, a lot of kids stuffand then, yeah, you know, you
discover girls and life and allthese other things that make
collecting things a littledifficult.
Uh, yeah, and I've moved 15, 20times too, right?
So you know, I got some thingsat my mom's house but I have
like a physical art collectionof like seven or eight pieces of
(07:37):
like some value.
You know, stuff that I wouldpay someone to ship for me.
You know what I mean, right?
I guess that's the delineationof what's valuable, stuff that I
would pay someone to ship forme.
You know what I mean, right?
I guess that's the delineationof what's valuable.
I have a lot of other stuff likearound around my house and
garage that you know, if it getsa dent, I don't care, that's
fine.
Like you know, I'm I'll, I'llpack it myself, I'll be careful,
but it is what it is.
(07:57):
Sure, yeah, yeah, definitelydefinitely collected before, but
nothing like you.
Yeah, definitely definitelycollected before, but nothing
like you know, 3000 NFTs orwhatever, how many ever pieces I
have now the elimination ofphysical space is really, really
allows you to get your freak on?
NorCal Guy (08:17):
I guess it does.
It definitely does To anotherlevel, for sure.
Artie Handz (08:27):
So what are the best things about Web3 today?
For me who's gone down the kindof art collecting and curating
route, it's global access.
Like I'm here in Marin Countyand you're in Chico, we're
actually really close.
I guess it's not a good example, but there's so many people all
over the world and obviouslythat's not web three specific,
(08:47):
but it's.
It's such a cool thing whenyou're able to connect, uh, you
know, through through theinternet or whatever web two, it
doesn't matter, but able toconnect through all these people
, um, doing these global thingsand making it all tokenized is
just like it's just super um.
For for me as an art collector,like you have that walled off
(09:11):
kind of gallery system and youdon't get to talk to the artists
like here I'm talking toartists every day right get.
You know, yeah, you know.
You get behind the sceneseverything.
You get to see it being built,made, painted, created, coded,
whatever you know.
You get to see it all grow up.
You're like a proud, proudparent.
Sometimes you know when itreleases, so it's, it's like a
(09:34):
much deeper relationship thanjust the, you know,
commodification of art thatexists everywhere.
And we actually helped do thattoo by you know the pure amount
of stuff and how easy it is tomake stuff on ai and all that,
but it's, uh, it's.
It's that connection and andthe ability to like, form deeper
(09:55):
connections around this artthat that you know doesn't exist
in your actual space.
It's, it's crazy that we'redoing all this for something
that's not really so tangibleright for sure.
NorCal Guy (10:08):
So where do you see the digital art and nfts in five
years?
Artie Handz (10:16):
definitely, you know, growing um, you know I
don't know how much damage thelike 21 wave and all that did in
terms of like perception, youknow.
So it's definitely like anuphill battle in terms of, you
know, gaining I don't want tosay institutional like
(10:38):
recognition, but just kind of abroader perception, recognition
of this is of legitimacy andlike that the art being made
here can compete with, withtraditional forms of art, you
know um, so I think that'salthough an uphill battle, I
think over time, over five years, ten years, I think they'll be
you know, breaking down that,that barrier of what is digital.
(10:59):
You know we won't be sayingdigital art as much.
You know right we'll just besaying art again, we won't be
saying ai art as much.
We'll just be saying art again.
We won't be saying AI art asmuch, we'll just be saying art.
And as more and more kids whoare 18 are interested in this
type of stuff, the artist agedefinitely skews younger here.
So you see more kids coming updigitally, native kids.
(11:22):
I think we're just going to seean explosion of things Like the
next thing that brings in awave like that, or the next two
things, three things, whatever,like we don't even know what
they are.
Yet there's, there's a lot oflike rinsed repeat stuff right
now, you know like this isanother version of polymarket,
this is another version ofwhatever, right, you know,
(11:42):
there's sort of a lot of that.
Um, there's, there's going tobe some 17 year old kid who,
like, brings out something andwe're all going to be like holy,
holy hell, like one, why didn'twe think of this?
And two, oh my god.
You know like, yes, there'sgonna be.
Yeah, we just haven't broadenedour imaginations enough.
I think, you know, every time Ilisten to someone like um, it's
(12:05):
, uh, ox113.
You know math castles.
Oh, my sonos is turning on.
Um, I'm not quite sure how tohelp you with that um, I you
know there's people who are justso incredibly smart who have
like crazy ideas, like like mathcastles, and think about things
(12:27):
and completely different andforeign concepts than than I can
even really you know,understand, and those types of
people are gonna come up withthings that are just gonna blow
minds for sure, for sure.
NorCal Guy (12:39):
Yeah, there's a couple of those guys that uh
definitely will be doing stuff.
Do you have any concerns as,like, the space expands, gets
bigger?
Artie Handz (12:52):
yeah, um, I think one of the things I I'm I don't
know if concerned or worried orjust kind of interested
somewhere in that, in that place, the when, say the next, like
(13:13):
10 million people come in all ofa sudden for some killer thing,
or if they come in and theydon't even know they're using
the tech, right, if it's, youknow, like Popset or Rodeo or
one of of these things like that, all of a sudden there's, you
know, million people using thistokenized social media, but they
don't even know it.
What's like the culture thatexists here for for good and bad
(13:34):
?
What does a wave of 10 millionpeople like on top of what
exists here look like?
Is it, you know, because wavesbefore then up, you come in and
you kind of assimilate to somedegree.
Right, right, right, there's a,there's a new, new people woke
up, came to our island and now,okay, now we'll help them.
Here's where the fire starts,here's where this happens, join
in.
But if, if there's a wave,that's 10 million people on our
(13:55):
little island of 10 000, whatdoes that do to our little
island?
NorCal Guy (14:03):
yeah, that, uh, it's a good question.
Uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, I don'tknow.
I don't know a good answer forthat one.
Artie Handz (14:16):
Um, that is, I don't either, I just like I like
to like to think about thosetypes of things and right then
have no answers for them becausebecause you know, if I had the
answer for them I'd be onpolymarket betting it right fair
, fair, fair.
NorCal Guy (14:32):
Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the
crypto art space?
Artie Handz (14:41):
Yeah, when I was thinking about this question
earlier, the immediate thing Ithought of was actually more we
talked about a little bitalready was actually like
respect from outside.
There's a million things withinthe actual NFT space.
I wish there was more, or notmore, which there is less.
(15:02):
You know rampant theft andstealing and rugging and you
know just like, yeah, people,most people losing money all the
time.
You know like there's just alot of like stuff that isn't
isn't great.
So you know, as as a lawyer,I'm not like anti-regulation on
everything you know.
I just there is, there is someaspect of yeah, this is the wild
(15:24):
west you kind of get.
You kind of know what you'regetting yourself into, obviously
.
So I would like to see somelevel of regulation or at least
some teeth to some existingthings, saying, hey, like you
can use this in a crypto sense,you know yeah, there's just,
there's just a lot of fraud,obviously.
But yeah, um, but yeah, I justthink you know time, time and
(15:45):
like growing especially forartists, and just uh, trying to
compete with the traditional art.
You know, I'm trying to say Ican, I can be in this museum, I
can have, I can hold twoweek-long exhibitions at big uh
galleries, like you know thegagosian, or like you know huge
(16:05):
things, like, yeah, like weshould, that's what we're
striving to do.
So I think respect is somethingthat we should all be, maybe
some of those two things are alittle bit intertwined too.
We'll get more respect as asless of the narrative, as as uh,
you know, fraud and all this,all the bad things that are
constantly pitched, is the don'ttouch.
(16:26):
I mean I thought crypto wasjust total Web3, was just total
BS and total Silk Road doingdrugs, like the whole thing.
Right right.
I was like, oh no, it'sgambling on cat cartoons.
Now I understand what it is.
It's not.
There is a dark side, butthere's mostly just a messing
(16:48):
around trying to get rich sideright, so does one e equal one e
I mean, sure, from amathematical perspective, one,
one ETH equals one ETH.
(17:10):
Whenever you test a law, youalways try and push it to some
extreme.
So I always think of this interms of, like, if this piece is
one ETH right now, and that's$3,000, and say ETH goes to
$100,000, and say ETH goes to$100,000, am I still going to
pay $100,000 for this artworkthat is more expensive, not
because of the art doinganything at all, but because of
(17:30):
the token underneath it.
And my answer is no.
So to me it is not one ETH.
One equals one ETH.
Right, right, there's, you know, one having art on a token and
being priced, you know, with atoken.
Not usdc just kind of adds thislike extra layer of crazy.
(17:52):
You know, um, definitely, whereit kind of it's sort of yeah,
you know, like leverage bets onon that chain.
At the same time, andunderstanding the macro
conditions of of, yeah, do Ireally want to spend this ETH
right now Because I think ETH isgoing to triple in the next
month?
Do I want to spend it on artthat's not going to triple?
You know that's always an issue.
(18:13):
But then you know also theother way around once you hit
that peak, you know it kind oflike.
I guess the idea is sell off andthen stables and just convert
when you want to.
But it's pretty crazy whenyou're just trying to just buy
art If you look back at it andthink, hey, I've been doing this
for three years so it feelspretty normal to me.
(18:34):
But just get someone go talk toyour friend Bob and Sue and be
like hey, I'm buying art but I'mgoing to wait for a week
because there's this like macrothing coming.
I heard there's like this stufffrom out of china you know like
there's.
There's actually like 14decisions to make, for like
every single decision you'remaking.
We're just so like used to itand ingrained that we don't
(18:57):
think about it.
NorCal Guy (18:58):
Register that shit.
Yeah, the classic.
Oh, china banned this again.
Oh, now it's legal again.
Yeah, for sure, so does supplymatter for an artist yes, but
(19:19):
less so in the digital space.
Artie Handz (19:32):
You know, I don't think the like laws of supply
and demand have necessarilychanged due to tokenization and
digitization.
Digitalization, you know,obviously, like we have mints
that have had hundreds ofthousands of tokens minted, you
know.
So it doesn't necessarily ruinthe artist's perception or doing
anything like that.
If an artist had a hundredthousand physical pieces, that
that's like insanity.
Um, but to the same degree, Istill caution artists to be like
(19:57):
on the more you know scrupulousside of minting, because supply
and demand still does exist anda lot of the times the
arguments I see of like x copyminted this many, or like blah,
blah minted this many, I'm like,yeah, this is the top person,
this is the.
You know lebron james, this isthe michael jordan of crypto art
(20:18):
.
Right, we're talking aboutlevels of demand that are 10 000
.
It's it's the demand that'sdifferent, right, the demand is
10 000 x of average strugglingartist, x, you know um, so that
you're you know if you have ahigh demand, I think the digital
space allows you to do a lotmore um, create a lot more
(20:40):
without, without a negativeperception, and just kind of
creating a lot more, right,because of generative pieces and
then ai stuff.
NorCal Guy (20:48):
You can, you can just make more outputs faster,
right, right for sure do youhave any thoughts on additions
versus one-on-ones and workingthem together in the process?
Artie Handz (21:03):
yeah, I'm, I'm a I mean big fan of both, um,
because, yeah, I guess, you know, from a marketing or sales
standpoint, I think it's uh,it's really great to have things
available at different pricepoints for different levels of
collectors.
Um, you know, I like to, youknow, get one of ones of, like,
(21:27):
my very favorite artists, youknow.
But there's a lot of artiststhat I I like a lot and I'm very
, you know, interested in themand and their journey and stuff.
But I'm maybe not necessarilymy exact vibe or I don't know,
I'm just, you know, just notquite my favorite.
I don't want to.
I don't have infinite amount ofmoney, I can't allocate it all
to everybody, so you have tokind of do what you can.
But, uh, having a market, play amarket in different, different,
(21:51):
uh, different price levels, Ithink is really great and
important.
Um, cause you want, you wantthe biggest, you know, the KOLs,
the biggest people singing yourpraises, but you also want you
don't want the, the little folk,you know, the masses, um to to
have a negative, you know, supernegative perception of you
(22:12):
because there's no, noavailability, or you know,
you're just, I guess there's.
Also you can go the fomo route.
Oh yeah, if you're going theother way as well, right, but in
in general, like, um, I thinkit's good to have have things
available, so, but yeah then, asas I think I was like, oh no,
the film route's super cool too.
Like you know, joe p's has, youknow, 20 pieces out there and
(22:35):
everybody wants that.
So, um, yeah, there's just,there's just different,
different ways for for differentpeople.
I think everyone, I would nevergive, like everybody, the same
advice.
You know, I would give everyartist you know unique advice to
to to to them so yeah, thatmakes sense.
NorCal Guy (22:54):
Do you have a piece of advice that you've been given
, or like a mantra, that kind ofgoes through your head?
Artie Handz (23:01):
Yeah, a lot of mine are.
I tend to be um a little likehotheaded and like um a bit like
Marty McFly.
And back to the future.
If anybody calls him chicken,he's like he's a hundred percent
in it like ready to go knucklesup.
NorCal Guy (23:18):
You know, I have the same type of like.
Artie Handz (23:21):
All right, if you're coming after me like I'm
coming after you.
So the best advice I've gottenis usually stuff to help help me
with that and it's you know.
Sleep on it.
Wait 24 hours before hittingsend an email.
NorCal Guy (23:37):
Right, right, that was, that was one that I yeah, I
definitely yeah.
Artie Handz (23:43):
Like you know anything where you're like an
emotional, send you, anythingwhere you're an emotional send,
you're like, yeah, let's sit onthat one and see if you really
want to send that tomorrow.
And if it does, if you do wantto do it, then yeah, hit it.
But a lot of times you're goingto say something you can regret
, so that's one.
And then along the same lines,if it's typed, it's forever.
(24:06):
So some things are better left,better left spoken and not
typed.
NorCal Guy (24:14):
I like that one, that one's good, that one's good
.
Artie Handz (24:23):
So if you could live or move anywhere, where
would you live and why?
Yeah, man, that's quite thequestion in this modern era of
if my candidate doesn't win, I'mmoving to blah, blah, blah.
I've heard it from both sidesof you know, if either one wins,
I'm out of here.
Right, right, totally.
So yeah, everyone's talkedabout it, had conversations.
(24:47):
For us there's a practicalitything of a wife and three boys
six, three and two, so thatactually makes some sense and
not be a dream scenario.
And then Fiji or Tonga, justtotally unplugged and living the
dream, but, um, I think my wifeis half austrian, so I think
(25:10):
that would be a pretty goodoption.
Vienna's really, really cool,um, and then I'm largely nordic
heritage and worked a lot instockholm, so like, maybe
stockholm, one of the nordicnordic cities, we're definitely
like a big city folk.
We need to be city adjacent.
I'm I'm only like 15 minutesinto san francisco, which is
(25:30):
good enough, but I'm I'm eventhat I'm struggling a little bit
when the bars close at 8 30 I'mlike, okay, what's going on
here, uh, but nice, nice, um,yeah, I love, uh, I love sweden.
NorCal Guy (25:45):
I've been there once and I love stockholm a lot.
A ton like I would love to goback.
Artie Handz (25:50):
It was nice yeah, it's an awesome, awesome city,
um and very it's fun to go atlike different seasons too, to
like experience the like dead-onwinter oh yeah and and just
like the in in the summer, likethe people are just like so nice
and like talk to you and arelike very cordial in the winter.
(26:10):
It's such a like entirepopulace, like change of, just
kind of like cold walking by andcold personalities.
It's like the like, not likeseasonal effect, it's like
seasonal personality disorder.
NorCal Guy (26:23):
Yeah, it's it's a really really.
Artie Handz (26:25):
Yeah, it's a great, great place.
I love it there that's funny.
NorCal Guy (26:29):
So if you were an animal, what would you be and
why?
Artie Handz (26:37):
I historically I've said cheetah because I always
wanted to be like fast.
You know, yeah, playing sportsgrowing up.
I just like want, want to befast.
And my six year old isdefinitely in that cheetah mode
right now.
He's like be a cheetah like runfast, like blah, blah, blah,
but I'm 42 and my knees areseeing better days, and that was
(26:58):
never that fast anyway, so I'mgonna go with an otter.
One I think, think it's beenimplanted.
I've been using otter ai forlike zoom, calls for like notes
or whatever, so I think that'sjust kind of stuck in my brain a
little bit.
Okay, but also I love those uhphotos of like otters on their
backs, like holding the hand ofanother otter.
Oh yeah, it's like sleep onyour back in the water and it
(27:20):
just seems like they're.
They're cute and happy Likethey seem like they have a cool
life.
NorCal Guy (27:24):
For sure, they definitely do seem like they're
like chill, they're playful.
Yeah, it's a good time yeah.
Artie Handz (27:31):
Like literally the definition of like no worries,
yeah, like yeah, I see that.
NorCal Guy (27:39):
So do you have a favorite movie quote or song
lyric?
Artie Handz (27:45):
I mean there's like a million.
I will.
Okay, we'll go with.
Uh, this is to honor RIP JamesEarl Jones, just just passing
yesterday.
I'm gonna go with uh, if youbuild it, he will come, because
I just like love, I love thatmovie, I love Field of Dreams.
Um, I'm, I'm like, yeah, justlike cry every time.
(28:08):
I can't help it, like, uh, justthe Americana and the
father-son experience and allthat, um, so there's that one.
I wrote down another one, butit's like wildly inappropriate,
it's just, it's just like what.
What came to mind right when Iwas looking at the questions?
and it's yeah, it's like it's anold bloodhound gang song, but
it's, yeah, it's like totallymessed up.
(28:30):
Maybe I'll tell it to you offair there, yeah, there, yeah it
was one of those ones where Iwas like I don't think I should
say this, but this is what'swhat's coming to my head.
NorCal Guy (28:39):
So oh, all right, all right, afterwards,
afterwards.
So what is the best thing andthe silliest thing you've spent
money on?
Artie Handz (28:51):
oh man, um, I tried to keep it in in the nft world,
um I you know, best thing Istill would have to say is
probably my punk.
Um, I got it and I got it aslike a birthday present
investment, whatever for my, formyself, in 2021, may of 21, um,
(29:16):
like right before they went,you know ballistic.
Yeah, so that was, that was goodum because I, yeah, I would not
have been able to afford it forquite a while after that.
Um, but the that I think youknow brings you some form,
whether it's deserved or notsome form of legitimacy.
Right Like right.
You have a punk like there'syou're, you're, you're a BFD,
(29:38):
like all of a sudden, right.
So definitely that.
A couple other pieces, like Imean, I love so much of my art
but the sort of bigger namethings that have value or
potentially will be importantsomeday.
I have a Joe P's, so that was asix ETH.
(29:59):
Joe P's was quite beautiful.
And then, yeah, gazer, numberone by Matt Cain, which I bought
off the Dutch auction.
NorCal Guy (30:10):
Wow, Nice man.
Artie Handz (30:13):
Those are probably my best buys in terms of uh,
nfts and art, um silly do every.
Everything I bought in february, march and april, uh was just
total, total hot garbage.
I'm like, yeah, I'm like, oh,yeah.
(30:33):
I'm like, oh, what's this Afidget spinner?
Yeah, let's buy it Like yats Imean that's where my name
already hands came from, becauseI bought a yat that was the art
diamond hands and I was like,oh, those are going to be
initials.
It'll be like art diamond hands, arthur de-moaned hands, or
(30:54):
like I was just coming up withlike the dumbest thing I could
think of and thenI was like, oh, it'll just
shorten itself to art d hands,it'll just be art already hands.
Okay, you know like it was.
Uh, yeah, that's that's how thename came out.
But yeah, just so much, so muchdumb crap.
I mean like pickles and oh,yeah, you name it Like I, we
definitely definitely bought it.
I think, yeah, the first ninemonths doing eight or nine
(31:20):
months doing this, probably intolike October of 21, november, I
was definitely just buy likeanything and everything, cause
you, you didn't know it might,it was going to make money,
right.
NorCal Guy (31:31):
Like it's, true.
Artie Handz (31:32):
Like the dumb thing is definitely did.
It's the left side and rightside of the curve, right yeah,
standard deviation thing, thatmeme.
The left side stuff performsjust as well as the right side
stuff In the last year, plus I'dsay, even better right.
NorCal Guy (31:52):
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's been crazy, yeah, butdefinitely a list of silly
things for sure what's?
Artie Handz (32:01):
what's one of your silliest things?
NorCal Guy (32:03):
oh man, you know it's got to.
Oh you know, uh, it was likethe Ape Sins and it was like
apes but Simpsons and they'relike rug pretty quick or it got
(32:26):
taken down by like open seapretty quick.
But I was like, oh, they'rekind of funny.
I mean that's one of those leftcurve things.
But yeah, it was great, it was.
Artie Handz (32:33):
I remember there was one product that was like um
, ape and punk, like baby combothings.
You could have a combination ofthe two.
Okay, if you had if you had, youknow both of them you could
mint one or whatever.
And I, I was able to mint twoof them for pretty cheap, you
know like 0.1 or something.
And then some, yeah, andsomebody bought both of them for
(32:55):
like one and a half eath andthat was eath at like 4k too.
Oh, wow, and it was.
Yeah, you know, when you'resome of the stuff you're selling
, you're just like this is justpanda mominium right now, like
you're just trying to figure outwhat you know, just hot potato
this thing to the next nextperson right, it is definitely
that, oh man.
NorCal Guy (33:21):
So this one's a hard one.
If you could commission a pieceand have two artists collab on
it, which two artists would itbe?
Artie Handz (33:32):
yeah.
So I I tried to uh, this is areally tough one, um, I tried to
do one, one foot in the digitalart world, one foot in the
traditional world and do do kindof a combo thing here.
Um, so, in in our world, Ipicked, uh, william mapan.
I think his he's a generativeartist, french and he's just
(33:57):
fantastic.
He finds a way to make codedstuff look like not alive, but
like real, like the paintingthat looks real, like there's
actually paint there, that lookslike it has structure, and I
don't know, I'm just fascinatedby the way he makes inanimate
things feel actually there, likedigital things feel present,
(34:20):
you know, um, and then thetraditional artist is very, very
big julian morettu.
Um, there's this piece calledstadia 2.
That is like my favorite,favorite, favorite, favorite,
favorite, favorite, favoritething, um, and it's, it's like
all these colorful shapes andit's an abstract piece that
makes it look like a giant arena, like the Coliseum or something
(34:43):
, and it just feels so fuckingalive, like I don't know.
I don't know how best toexplain it, um, but it the way
that she makes something staticfeel alive and moving, I think
would be a really interestingcombination with, uh, william's
way that he makes things thatare, that are non-existent feel,
feel there like I think that'dbe a really interesting space
(35:05):
for them to explore togetheryeah, I can see that, if you
want to get their agentstogether and set it up nice,
solid.
NorCal Guy (35:15):
Is there an interesting fact about you that
people may not be aware of?
Artie Handz (35:22):
you know, I'm sure, but I uh yeah I've been trying.
I tried to be like pretty open.
I think that was until therecent doxing situation.
I was you, you know, allowedmyself to to like talk about
myself more than I would havenormally.
Um, so I've been pretty openwith stuff.
But yeah, I'm a, I'm a privatepilot, so I fly small planes.
(35:44):
Um, and then I'm a fifthgeneration cattle rancher.
My my entire family is fromnortheastern Wyoming, we have a
37,000-acre cattle ranch outthere that I help work on the
back end.
I do some legal and accountingand stuff for, but some other
family members do some of themore rough and tumble stuff.
(36:08):
I'm a city slicker so I comedrop in with the kids for a
couple weeks in the summer.
These days, but I have I havecastrated quite a few calves in
my day.
I've dehorned things, I'vebranded thousands of cows.
I've done the.
I've done the, I've done thedeed.
NorCal Guy (36:27):
Yeah so I.
Artie Handz (36:28):
I feel like I'm real, but, um you know, the
people there think not quite asmuch, but that's all right, fair
, fair, fair, understandable.
Oh, that's awesome so do youhave any questions for me?
What's your plan with CMC down?
What are you going to do Foreveryone listening?
(36:50):
We're in a fantasy footballleague together and I don't
think that's necessarily your uhtopic du jour no, yeah, yeah,
it's gonna yeah, like I'm gonnahave to do some research, man, I
have no idea oh man, it was not.
NorCal Guy (37:10):
It was not ready.
Artie Handz (37:11):
I you can usually, off the cuff, answer something,
but that one I'm going to haveto the answer is there is no
answer, because when you use thefirst pick on Christian
McCaffrey and he doesn't, theysay he's not playing 30 minutes
before a Monday night game.
You just got to bend over andtake it, man, that's just what
it is yeah, I know.
NorCal Guy (37:34):
So, yeah, hopefully changes next week.
Artie Handz (37:40):
That's, that's.
That's the good thing aboutfantasy.
It's, you know, 17, 17 battles.
So you don't gotta there's noemotional baggage into the next,
next week, you know.
NorCal Guy (37:49):
For sure, for sure, oh man.
Artie Handz (37:57):
So any other questions?
Yeah, um, I wanted to ask youabout about your collection, um,
a little bit, because I think Idon't know, I think that we
have different tastes, a littlebit, like I'm like the weirder
the better, you know, like very,very out there.
(38:19):
So I kind of wanted to hearyour thoughts on on the kind of
like where you think the artscene is going to be in five
years and the kind of growth ofthe digital artists here and and
also like who's who, who areyou?
Who you've been buzzing on,like what's, what's been
(38:40):
something that you've been likeOoh, that's cool recently.
NorCal Guy (38:43):
Oh, I mean, I mean, man, it's hard to say.
I mean, as the space grows, Imean AI is definitely going to
be have a bigger part of it.
What that means, I don't know.
I mean it's weird kind of thingbecause, yeah, I mean it's just
(39:06):
a new category that we're notused to yet and I guess we'll
have categories or definitions.
If there is, like AI typephotography or ai generative or
ai assisted coding, I have noidea how it's gonna, or if it's
gonna even devolve into that andbe just ai art, all of it, or
(39:27):
yeah, who knows um.
But as far as artists, um, Ideaf beef, um, I just got a uh
hash mark from him, so it was onsecondary, so yeah, was that?
Artie Handz (39:45):
was that the famous lost hash mark?
It was the famous lost one,yeah yeah, that's a cool story
um death, death, beast, awesome,awesome, awesome, awesome yeah
like so cool, the like physicalintegration and kind of like the
whole spiritual journey andstuff of that one.
(40:07):
And was it chile?
I forget all that.
NorCal Guy (40:09):
Yeah, it was down the Patagonia, you had to go to
get that and I was definitelynot able to do that, but
thankfully one came up onsecondary and yeah, so
definitely been looking at hisstuff a lot lately and looking
at his other stuff topotentially pick up something
(40:31):
else.
Who knows, there's a lot ofgood stuff there is potentially
pick up something else.
Artie Handz (40:34):
Who knows, there's a lot of good stuff.
NorCal Guy (40:36):
There is.
Artie Handz (40:42):
I can never think of the names of collections off
the top of my head.
I have one.
It has pieces.
What's it called?
It was the one where they, likepeople, could take like
photographs or whatever.
NorCal Guy (40:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Artie Handz (40:59):
And it'd be like they get sharper as it went on.
You know, right, yeah, thoseare really cool.
I was allowed to, like take oneof the photographs.
NorCal Guy (41:06):
Oh sweet.
Artie Handz (41:07):
Which was cool, yeah, and then, yeah, have one
of those.
And yeah, if I had more money Iwould definitely buy more
deathbeats, that's for sure yeah, no, I've been looking at those
ones a little bit um.
NorCal Guy (41:22):
Those are chrono photograph chrono photograph,
photographs, yeah yeah, yeahthose are really cool.
So those are cool.
And then I I have a Series Zerosynth palm as well that I got
early on and I don't know.
Oh, and I have one of hisvinyls too.
Artie Handz (41:45):
I have a signed vinyl, nice yeah.
NorCal Guy (41:49):
Yeah.
But, yeah, just been followinghim.
Yeah, I don't know who, uh,right now is really standing out
um where?
Artie Handz (42:01):
where are you looking right now?
What?
What's like your?
Are you on super rare?
Are you on just twitter?
Are you on rodeo, like?
Where are you?
Where are you vibing?
NorCal Guy (42:08):
oh, I mean rodeo.
I have been actually like doinglike daily mints on there from
artists.
I mean I feel it's aninteresting thing.
I don't like.
I feel like artists shouldprobably get paid for that a
little more than nothing.
But if they're going to put outsome work that I think is
(42:30):
interesting, I want to gocollect it, because it's little
for me to do and potential forgames is there.
Artie Handz (42:38):
Yeah, totally.
I haven't done much on Rodeo.
I've done a little bit on Zoraand a couple things on Zero One,
which is the same thing, Iguess.
More or less the same model, Idon't have any overwhelming
(43:00):
problem with it.
My biggest concern is, for mostartists is anchoring themselves
to Zero Because it's like thelike, okay, like I.
NorCal Guy (43:10):
I obviously no names no, no, nothing, nobody did
anything wrong or anything likethat.
Artie Handz (43:15):
It just is what it is of.
Like I see an artist that I'mlike oh, that's super cool and
I've seen it on rodeo.
And then I see it for 0.4 ethsuper rare and it's the one of
one.
I'm like yeah, I could get fourof those ones that you just
dropped on rodeo.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
And it's it's like am I, am Iproud that?
That's how I think of it.
NorCal Guy (43:36):
Like no, not exactly .
Artie Handz (43:37):
I'd rather be like yeah, I want to give this artist
some money, you know.
But like I, you know, I don'tdon't have the infinite coffers
either again.
So hopefully one day we'll havemania again and I'll get some
infinite coffers, but in thesedays it's not possible.
NorCal Guy (43:52):
So yeah, no, fair.
Yeah, no, it's.
I don't know it's interesting.
I'm not sure you know theplatform is interesting it's.
I mean, I do have like somedislikes about the platform
itself, but that's just UI stuff, so it's not like anything
special.
(44:12):
I mean I don't know, I don'tknow.
Sometimes I mean because also,my other thing is, like ETH is
so cheap to transact on rightnow, like why don't I just
collect on ETH instead of Layer2?
But you know, hearing some ofthe arguments, you know, 10
years from now, whatever, onlyinstitutional-sized people are
(44:37):
going to make transactions onlayer one because it's going to
be so expensive, which, yeah, Iguess.
So Maybe We'll see.
Artie Handz (44:45):
Yeah, we'll see.
We'll see yeah we'll see, we'llsee.
I don't know.
Is it going to cost $1,000 totrans-ex something on Layer 1?
Is it going to be so expensivethat this theoretically
generational art can barely bemoved because it's so fucking
(45:07):
expensive to move it?
I don't know.
We, you know, like the, I don't, I don't like know enough about
, like, what is technicallypossible, or or you know, like
how to, how any of it actuallyworks right.
I just don't, don't, not nottechnical, but I think that like
(45:28):
um sorry, I just lost my trainof thought.
NorCal Guy (45:32):
This is excellent podcasting, um yeah, no, because
we were just talking about theinstitutional costing a thousand
dollars, or many times that, tomove something.
What are we going to do withthe art that's on ethel l1?
Artie Handz (45:46):
yeah, yeah, I mean, can we, or can we bridge the
stuff to l2?
I mean I don't like, I don'tknow what.
What even happens is like, uh,if tezos dies, you know, I know
a lot of people who just won'tcollect on tezos like what
happens?
What happens then?
um, for sure, you know there'sall kinds of stuff that I it's
so makes this space like nuts.
(46:06):
I'm like super risky and all ofthat, but at the same time, if
you're the right type of person,it's just like too much, it's
just yeah, there's nothing elsequite like it, it's just so, so
exciting.
NorCal Guy (46:18):
Yeah, yeah, for sure , for sure.
Do you have any other questions?
Artie Handz (46:24):
I think.
I think that's it.
Do you have any hot takes?
Yeah, I want Tezos to die.
I think that would be a goodthing.
Fair, I mean, I love Tezos.
Don't get me wrong.
I have like 22-2300 pieces ofwork on Tezos.
(46:45):
I'm the Tezos collector of theweek.
I've got given 500 tezos.
So I'm not speaking ill oftezos when I.
When I say I want tezos to die,it's more of a thought, thought
, think take product thoughtprocess of the value that I have
on tezos is it's a lot of, it'sa lot of artwork, mostly like
(47:08):
low value stuff over over youknow 500 different artists or so
and the value of of it allbeing like a snapshot in time.
Tezos 2018 to 2027, rip Likethat's the kind of meme joke I
think would actually be of morevalue to me than whatever the
(47:31):
potential long-term financialvalue of.
It would be like the it being acomplete thing and it existed,
and like Jimi Hendrix had here'shis cat, here's his library and
then he tragically died, but wenever saw old Jimmyimmy, we
didn't see old kurt like wedon't.
You don't know how people ageright, like there's that forever
(47:52):
young thing to it, I guess,where I think it would have more
value and more, maybe even more, cultural relevance.
If it was the thing that cameand went and there it was then,
then if it uh died a slow deathlike there's enough valuable art
on there that I think there'senough people would run nodes to
like make it functional forever, I don't know how you'd have to
(48:13):
trade on it, you're just havingto use like billions of Tezos
to do it or something.
I don't know if that had novalue, but I think it will
always be there, but I wonder ifit'll be like a sad place to be
eventually.
So I kind of want it to die andhave like a blaze of glory and
(48:33):
uh but I mean this in the nicestway possible like I love it.
You know what I mean, like I'mtrying to.
I yeah, I don't want to seemharsh or like mean or say
anything bad about tesla.
That's just kind of a a thinkpiece of it yeah, yeah, no,
that's interesting.
NorCal Guy (48:48):
I mean, the thing about like these alternate
chains is you know the securityof them ultimately, um, you know
, if they grind down, slow downenough, you know, someone
potentially can hack it withsome a 51 attack type of thing
and just screw everything up, um, so, yeah, that's always a
(49:12):
concern yeah, you know I don'tsee if who knows, I all this
stuff.
Artie Handz (49:19):
So you know it's like thinking about the 12
different routes everythingcould take at the same time.
And it's, you know, in my, inmy new new job, at verse, where
we're, you know, releasing artall the time and it's like how
much you can't plan.
You just can't plan that muchstuff.
You know it's like let's plan12 months.
You know, normal businessyou're running.
(49:41):
Here's our 12 month plan, 20more formulas plan here.
It's like, yo man, you've got athree month plan.
That's a long-term plan.
Like everything changed andsifts so fast.
You know I've had releaseswhere it's like e dropped
fucking 20 the day before.
I'm like who's gonna buy artright now when they're 20?
You know, when people areholding a lot, of, a lot of
(50:02):
their own money in this asset,like what?
How are we going to sell thistomorrow?
You know like there's just it'sso insane here it's impossible
to plan too far ahead right forsure.
NorCal Guy (50:14):
So do you have any projects you're working on?
Anything you'd like to discussabout your sphere?
Artie Handz (50:21):
yeah, yeah, no, I'm so, yeah, new new job at verse,
the art platform.
I'm the head of marketing therenow and in that role I oversee
all the marketing for Verse.
And then also we have anin-house gallery that we kind of
(50:42):
separated for branding purposes, called Solos.
We did like a big release forYoshi Sorioka this past week.
We have some super cool stuff Ican't quite talk about yet
coming out in the fall and inthe new year.
And then I'm also like I'vebeen running my own little
(51:02):
gallery, arty gallery on Versefor like nine months or so now
and I have done three releases.
Artie Gallery on Verse, forlike nine months or so now and I
have done three releases, kindof taking it slow and easy and
just doing my thing.
But I've got a couple ofreleases over the next two
months and the next one is justin 10 days and it's called the
(51:22):
Book of Hope by the artist Hishandle is at pale Kirill, his
name is carril simenovich andit's a.
It's a series of 50 pieces, uh,ai assisted, um, these kind of
dream collages of of basketballand castles and and like
(51:42):
basketball courts that arestretched and shaped over over,
just like non-existent planes,like it's just this like dream
place to be um, and it's theit's it's a really it's a really
interesting visual series and,um, there's a lot of like
personal story in it and Ireally connected it due to like
(52:03):
what basketball means to me andum to the artist, as he had like
a I'll let him tell a story inour spaces but he, you know, had
like a back brace or like aneck issue where he had to wear
that for a while and basketballwas like one thing.
He could shoot hoops orwhatever and he played with his
friends and it was like a kindof you know, an allegory for for
(52:24):
breaking free from, from theshackles of that, and basketball
was like his, his hope, andlike he dreamed to like be out
of that.
And it's, like you know, very,very like personal thing.
So, being able to bring.
I'm just, you know, as I said,I'm a big sports guy.
So being able to bring, like asports story that has a lot, of,
(52:44):
a lot of meat to the bone, Ithink is very interesting for me
.
That has a lot of meat to thebone, I think is very
interesting for me.
I think a lot of time in theart world you get a lot of the
like oh, you know, oh, sportsgames, you know, like that type
of attitude to sports, Right?
So yeah, to try and give aseries about basketball some
(53:04):
like actual love from the artspace, I think will be fun.
NorCal Guy (53:08):
Awesome, Well, nice man, Um, great.
I look forward to seeing moreabout that and, uh, congrats on
your uh position with verse.
Appreciate it, Thank you.
Artie Handz (53:21):
It's uh, yeah, no, I, I used to be a lawyer, so I
you know, taking, taking paycuts and all kinds of stuff in
the best way possible.
Right, I felt like I was herewith like one one foot in, one
foot out, like for too long, andit was.
You know, some people would sayis this the best time to do
(53:43):
that?
And I'm like, yeah, it's, Ican't like wait any longer.
If I don't, if I don't do itnow, it's like I won't do it.
And I'm like, yeah, it's, Ican't like wait any longer.
If I don't, if I don't do itnow, it's like I won't do it.
You know what I mean, right?
So I wanted to no regerts, asthey say, no regerts sweet, well
, arty.
NorCal Guy (53:58):
Um, I just want to say thank you for your time
today.
I really appreciate you comingon being a guest and getting
your insights and thoughts onstuff, so thank you again thank
you, I really enjoyed being hereand it was, uh, it was fun to
chat longer.
Artie Handz (54:13):
Uh, you know, chat for a while.
We've been tangentially seeingeach other here and there, I
think, in different groups andstuff, and always been been long
been a fan of your epiccollecting and just shouting out
the space and being such a likepositive role model.
Is that a weird word?
Yeah, role model for, for, foryoung collectors everywhere.
Wow, as us us gray hairs kindof can say right uh-huh some
(54:39):
little gray beard action forsure.
NorCal Guy (54:43):
Oh man, thanks, uh.
Wow, appreciate that awesome.
Well, you have a good day, man,you too.
Artie Handz (54:51):
Who is?
NorCal Guy (54:51):
this.
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Artie Handz (54:58):
NorCal, guy, norcal guy NorCal guy, norcal guy,
norcal guy, norcal guy, norcalguy Nor NorCalGuy NorCalGuy
NorCalGuy NorCalGuy NorCal andChill Podcast.
NorCal Guy (55:08):
So it's chill time, norcal and Chill Podcast.
What the f*** what the chill.
Norcal and Chill Podcast.
So it's chill time, norcal andChill Podcast what the f*** what
the chill.
Who is this?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Norcal guy.
Artie Handz (00:08):
NorCal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy,
norcal guy, norcal guy, norcalguy.
NorCal Guy (00:16):
NorCal and chill podcast.
So it's chill time.
Norcal and chill podcast.
What the sh, what the sh?
Norcal and chillill Podcast.
What the shill, what the shill?
Norcal and Shill Podcast.
Artie Handz (00:26):
So it's shill time.
NorCal Guy (00:28):
NorCal and Shill Podcast.
What the shill, what the?
Artie Handz (00:31):
shill.
NorCal Guy (00:32):
Welcome to another episode of NorCal and Shill.
Today, we're thrilled to haveArtie Hands as our guest.
Currently the head of marketingat Verse, a dynamic art
platform, artie will share hisjourney transitioning from legal
career to delving into thevibrant world of art marketing,
(00:52):
including his challenging butrewarding role at Verse and his
own gallery.
We'll dive into Artie's latestprojects and explore how he
navigates the fast-paced artmarket influenced by
cryptocurrency fluctuations.
Listen as Artie and I discussthings like fantasy football,
(01:13):
our love for unique collectionsand experiences with NFTs,
revealing the unpredictable andthrilling aspects of digital art
.
Discover Artie's personal storyas a private pilot, a cattle
rancher and his childhoodpassion for collecting.
Join us for insights into theevolving landscape of digital
(01:34):
art, the significance of AI andthe future of blockchain art
platforms.
This lively conversation blendshumor, deep reflections and
expert advice, making it anepisode you won't want to miss.
So join us on this episode ofNorCal and Shill with Artie
Hands.
(01:54):
Hey, artie, welcome to thepodcast.
How are you doing today?
Artie Handz (01:59):
I'm doing great, doing great.
Thanks for having me Veryexcited.
NorCal Guy (02:02):
Yeah, I am excited to get some answers for these
questions, to get your thoughts,your insights, um, it'll be
interesting and, and I think, umpeople appreciate it because,
uh, they generally appreciateyour, your thoughts on the
timeline I am.
Artie Handz (02:23):
I am, uh, yeah, authentically, authentically
honest, if not wrong, but atleast I'm.
At least I have you know.
My takes are out there for allto see, I guess for sure, for
sure so jumping right in.
NorCal Guy (02:40):
What were your first thoughts when you heard about
nfts and crypto art?
Uh, I was I was.
Artie Handz (02:48):
you know, it took me a while to get in, to
actually like do it right, butthat was for technical challenge
.
I was, I was all in because I mymy how I got in was, uh,
christmas, about Christmas 2020,a friend of mine that I went to
undergrad with sent me likeWall Street Journal article or
(03:10):
something like that on Top Shot,and I was I'm a huge basketball
guy so I was like, oh yeah,what's this Like?
Of course I'm reading this andit's like, ok, digital you know,
digital cards, blah, blah, blah.
Digital, you know, digitalcards, blah blah.
And I, you know, I thinkthere's, you know, that initial
leap you have to take right.
(03:30):
But for me, I'd already takenit, because I had gotten an mba
a few years before, in like 2017, 2018, and we had to write a
paper in a class on banking andwe had this thought piece right
to think about the future ofbanking, yeah, yeah, and I said
all assets on earth are going tobe digitized to some degree
like like your, your mortgage oryour you know the deed offices,
(03:51):
right, like those types ofledgers and things like
everything.
every asset will be digitized atsome point.
So I was basically likethinking I had no idea this was
actually already happening atthat time.
Right, just kind of thinkinglike yeah like that makes sense
to me as like a next step inkind of the evolution of how we
deal with assets.
So when, when I was like, oh,this is actually happening right
(04:12):
now, I was like, oh, whoa, I'mbrilliant, I'm jumping right in.
I'm not not brilliant enough togo to like actually have gone
out and looked and seen if itwas actually happening then.
And then I feel like mycollection would be dope if I
started in 2017.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
But uh, I gave myself afour-year, uh, non-head start
(04:34):
and uh, but yeah, you know, onceI, once I actually found it, I
was just all in, I wrote up thatkind of top shot, melt up and
then and then said, where, where, where's, what's next?
You know like, where do we gonext and after about?
I'm not super technical, so ittook me like three or four weeks
to spin up an eth wallet andfigure out how to get actual
(04:55):
money there and all that.
Uh, but yeah, I was just, youknow, just dove straight in nice
, love it.
NorCal Guy (05:02):
Uh, did you also hold hold on the way down for
the top shots?
Artie Handz (05:07):
um, some of them, yes, for sure.
Um, I, I remember I, I got, Ibought, it was like it was so
dumb too, because I know, I knowhow like things melt up and
they're just like slow bleed.
But I it already bled for awhile, you know like a month or
so, and then I really wanted thelike, uh, lebron james, uh, um,
(05:30):
kobe bryant, like tribute dunkor whatever, and so I think I
paid like twenty thousanddollars for that.
That might be the answer to thewhat's the silliest thing you
bought even though you know itwasn't silly, there's sillier
things.
I bought that was just the like, biggest like, like.
Why did it like?
That was just so dumb, but yeah.
NorCal Guy (05:48):
Oh yeah, that's pain man yeah.
Artie Handz (05:52):
We're all, we've all been there.
We've all bought some stuffthat plenty of things.
NorCal Guy (05:57):
For sure, for sure.
So did you collect art oranything before you got into
this crypto art space?
Artie Handz (06:05):
Yeah, you know, as a kid I definitely collected a
lot.
I was a only child, so there'sa lot of you know filling time
type of things and I was very Ilove like organizing things.
I actually see this in mysix-year-old or three-year-old
right now is the one who's doingit.
He like organizes his cars in arainbow fashion, all of his like
(06:27):
matchbox cars and he loves likeputting them in certain fashion
, organizing them in ways, and Ialways loved the like process
of like, no like.
Only my Penny Hardaway cards goon this page and I have to like
organize it from there to there.
Like to like visually, you knowit's like, I guess it to like
visually, you know it's like, Iguess it's like.
You know.
Proto curation, right righthere.
I want this one here.
The one with the signature hasto go in the middle, um, so yeah
(06:51):
, definitely like baseballsports cards.
I grew up in texas, so justlike football sports fanatic, um
, and then coins and stamps tosome degree, because that was my
parents and my grandparentsgeneration things and they kind
of like gave me theircollections and so I I had some
interest for it but it wasn't.
It wasn't my thing, you knowright right, the cards were, um,
(07:14):
so, yeah, a lot of kids stuffand then, yeah, you know, you
discover girls and life and allthese other things that make
collecting things a littledifficult.
Uh, yeah, and I've moved 15, 20times too, right?
So you know, I got some thingsat my mom's house but I have
like a physical art collectionof like seven or eight pieces of
(07:37):
like some value.
You know, stuff that I wouldpay someone to ship for me.
You know what I mean, right?
I guess that's the delineationof what's valuable, stuff that I
would pay someone to ship forme.
You know what I mean, right?
I guess that's the delineationof what's valuable.
I have a lot of other stuff likearound around my house and
garage that you know, if it getsa dent, I don't care, that's
fine.
Like you know, I'm I'll, I'llpack it myself, I'll be careful,
but it is what it is.
(07:57):
Sure, yeah, yeah, definitelydefinitely collected before, but
nothing like you.
Yeah, definitely definitelycollected before, but nothing
like you know, 3000 NFTs orwhatever, how many ever pieces I
have now the elimination ofphysical space is really, really
allows you to get your freak on?
NorCal Guy (08:17):
I guess it does.
It definitely does To anotherlevel, for sure.
Artie Handz (08:27):
So what are the best things about Web3 today?
For me who's gone down the kindof art collecting and curating
route, it's global access.
Like I'm here in Marin Countyand you're in Chico, we're
actually really close.
I guess it's not a good example, but there's so many people all
over the world and obviouslythat's not web three specific,
(08:47):
but it's.
It's such a cool thing whenyou're able to connect, uh, you
know, through through theinternet or whatever web two, it
doesn't matter, but able toconnect through all these people
, um, doing these global thingsand making it all tokenized is
just like it's just super um.
For for me as an art collector,like you have that walled off
(09:11):
kind of gallery system and youdon't get to talk to the artists
like here I'm talking toartists every day right get.
You know, yeah, you know.
You get behind the sceneseverything.
You get to see it being built,made, painted, created, coded,
whatever you know.
You get to see it all grow up.
You're like a proud, proudparent.
Sometimes you know when itreleases, so it's, it's like a
(09:34):
much deeper relationship thanjust the, you know,
commodification of art thatexists everywhere.
And we actually helped do thattoo by you know the pure amount
of stuff and how easy it is tomake stuff on ai and all that,
but it's, uh, it's.
It's that connection and andthe ability to like, form deeper
(09:55):
connections around this artthat that you know doesn't exist
in your actual space.
It's, it's crazy that we'redoing all this for something
that's not really so tangibleright for sure.
NorCal Guy (10:08):
So where do you see the digital art and nfts in five
years?
Artie Handz (10:16):
definitely, you know, growing um, you know I
don't know how much damage thelike 21 wave and all that did in
terms of like perception, youknow.
So it's definitely like anuphill battle in terms of, you
know, gaining I don't want tosay institutional like
(10:38):
recognition, but just kind of abroader perception, recognition
of this is of legitimacy andlike that the art being made
here can compete with, withtraditional forms of art, you
know um, so I think that'salthough an uphill battle, I
think over time, over five years, ten years, I think they'll be
you know, breaking down that,that barrier of what is digital.
(10:59):
You know we won't be sayingdigital art as much.
You know right we'll just besaying art again, we won't be
saying ai art as much.
We'll just be saying art again.
We won't be saying AI art asmuch, we'll just be saying art.
And as more and more kids whoare 18 are interested in this
type of stuff, the artist agedefinitely skews younger here.
So you see more kids coming updigitally, native kids.
(11:22):
I think we're just going to seean explosion of things Like the
next thing that brings in awave like that, or the next two
things, three things, whatever,like we don't even know what
they are.
Yet there's, there's a lot oflike rinsed repeat stuff right
now, you know like this isanother version of polymarket,
this is another version ofwhatever, right, you know,
(11:42):
there's sort of a lot of that.
Um, there's, there's going tobe some 17 year old kid who,
like, brings out something andwe're all going to be like holy,
holy hell, like one, why didn'twe think of this?
And two, oh my god.
You know like, yes, there'sgonna be.
Yeah, we just haven't broadenedour imaginations enough.
I think, you know, every time Ilisten to someone like um, it's
(12:05):
, uh, ox113.
You know math castles.
Oh, my sonos is turning on.
Um, I'm not quite sure how tohelp you with that um, I you
know there's people who are justso incredibly smart who have
like crazy ideas, like like mathcastles, and think about things
(12:27):
and completely different andforeign concepts than than I can
even really you know,understand, and those types of
people are gonna come up withthings that are just gonna blow
minds for sure, for sure.
NorCal Guy (12:39):
Yeah, there's a couple of those guys that uh
definitely will be doing stuff.
Do you have any concerns as,like, the space expands, gets
bigger?
Artie Handz (12:52):
yeah, um, I think one of the things I I'm I don't
know if concerned or worried orjust kind of interested
somewhere in that, in that place, the when, say the next, like
(13:13):
10 million people come in all ofa sudden for some killer thing,
or if they come in and theydon't even know they're using
the tech, right, if it's, youknow, like Popset or Rodeo or
one of of these things like that, all of a sudden there's, you
know, million people using thistokenized social media, but they
don't even know it.
What's like the culture thatexists here for for good and bad
(13:34):
?
What does a wave of 10 millionpeople like on top of what
exists here look like?
Is it, you know, because wavesbefore then up, you come in and
you kind of assimilate to somedegree.
Right, right, right, there's a,there's a new, new people woke
up, came to our island and now,okay, now we'll help them.
Here's where the fire starts,here's where this happens, join
in.
But if, if there's a wave,that's 10 million people on our
(13:55):
little island of 10 000, whatdoes that do to our little
island?
NorCal Guy (14:03):
yeah, that, uh, it's a good question.
Uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, I don'tknow.
I don't know a good answer forthat one.
Artie Handz (14:16):
Um, that is, I don't either, I just like I like
to like to think about thosetypes of things and right then
have no answers for them becausebecause you know, if I had the
answer for them I'd be onpolymarket betting it right fair
, fair, fair.
NorCal Guy (14:32):
Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the
crypto art space?
Artie Handz (14:41):
Yeah, when I was thinking about this question
earlier, the immediate thing Ithought of was actually more we
talked about a little bitalready was actually like
respect from outside.
There's a million things withinthe actual NFT space.
I wish there was more, or notmore, which there is less.
(15:02):
You know rampant theft andstealing and rugging and you
know just like, yeah, people,most people losing money all the
time.
You know like there's just alot of like stuff that isn't
isn't great.
So you know, as as a lawyer,I'm not like anti-regulation on
everything you know.
I just there is, there is someaspect of yeah, this is the wild
(15:24):
west you kind of get.
You kind of know what you'regetting yourself into, obviously
.
So I would like to see somelevel of regulation or at least
some teeth to some existingthings, saying, hey, like you
can use this in a crypto sense,you know yeah, there's just,
there's just a lot of fraud,obviously.
But yeah, um, but yeah, I justthink you know time, time and
(15:45):
like growing especially forartists, and just uh, trying to
compete with the traditional art.
You know, I'm trying to say Ican, I can be in this museum, I
can have, I can hold twoweek-long exhibitions at big uh
galleries, like you know thegagosian, or like you know huge
(16:05):
things, like, yeah, like weshould, that's what we're
striving to do.
So I think respect is somethingthat we should all be, maybe
some of those two things are alittle bit intertwined too.
We'll get more respect as asless of the narrative, as as uh,
you know, fraud and all this,all the bad things that are
constantly pitched, is the don'ttouch.
(16:26):
I mean I thought crypto wasjust total Web3, was just total
BS and total Silk Road doingdrugs, like the whole thing.
Right right.
I was like, oh no, it'sgambling on cat cartoons.
Now I understand what it is.
It's not.
There is a dark side, butthere's mostly just a messing
(16:48):
around trying to get rich sideright, so does one e equal one e
I mean, sure, from amathematical perspective, one,
one ETH equals one ETH.
(17:10):
Whenever you test a law, youalways try and push it to some
extreme.
So I always think of this interms of, like, if this piece is
one ETH right now, and that's$3,000, and say ETH goes to
$100,000, and say ETH goes to$100,000, am I still going to
pay $100,000 for this artworkthat is more expensive, not
because of the art doinganything at all, but because of
(17:30):
the token underneath it.
And my answer is no.
So to me it is not one ETH.
One equals one ETH.
Right, right, there's, you know, one having art on a token and
being priced, you know, with atoken.
Not usdc just kind of adds thislike extra layer of crazy.
(17:52):
You know, um, definitely, whereit kind of it's sort of yeah,
you know, like leverage bets onon that chain.
At the same time, andunderstanding the macro
conditions of of, yeah, do Ireally want to spend this ETH
right now Because I think ETH isgoing to triple in the next
month?
Do I want to spend it on artthat's not going to triple?
You know that's always an issue.
(18:13):
But then you know also theother way around once you hit
that peak, you know it kind oflike.
I guess the idea is sell off andthen stables and just convert
when you want to.
But it's pretty crazy whenyou're just trying to just buy
art If you look back at it andthink, hey, I've been doing this
for three years so it feelspretty normal to me.
(18:34):
But just get someone go talk toyour friend Bob and Sue and be
like hey, I'm buying art but I'mgoing to wait for a week
because there's this like macrothing coming.
I heard there's like this stufffrom out of china you know like
there's.
There's actually like 14decisions to make, for like
every single decision you'remaking.
We're just so like used to itand ingrained that we don't
(18:57):
think about it.
NorCal Guy (18:58):
Register that shit.
Yeah, the classic.
Oh, china banned this again.
Oh, now it's legal again.
Yeah, for sure, so does supplymatter for an artist yes, but
(19:19):
less so in the digital space.
Artie Handz (19:32):
You know, I don't think the like laws of supply
and demand have necessarilychanged due to tokenization and
digitization.
Digitalization, you know,obviously, like we have mints
that have had hundreds ofthousands of tokens minted, you
know.
So it doesn't necessarily ruinthe artist's perception or doing
anything like that.
If an artist had a hundredthousand physical pieces, that
that's like insanity.
Um, but to the same degree, Istill caution artists to be like
(19:57):
on the more you know scrupulousside of minting, because supply
and demand still does exist anda lot of the times the
arguments I see of like x copyminted this many, or like blah,
blah minted this many, I'm like,yeah, this is the top person,
this is the.
You know lebron james, this isthe michael jordan of crypto art
(20:18):
.
Right, we're talking aboutlevels of demand that are 10 000
.
It's it's the demand that'sdifferent, right, the demand is
10 000 x of average strugglingartist, x, you know um, so that
you're you know if you have ahigh demand, I think the digital
space allows you to do a lotmore um, create a lot more
(20:40):
without, without a negativeperception, and just kind of
creating a lot more, right,because of generative pieces and
then ai stuff.
NorCal Guy (20:48):
You can, you can just make more outputs faster,
right, right for sure do youhave any thoughts on additions
versus one-on-ones and workingthem together in the process?
Artie Handz (21:03):
yeah, I'm, I'm a I mean big fan of both, um,
because, yeah, I guess, you know, from a marketing or sales
standpoint, I think it's uh,it's really great to have things
available at different pricepoints for different levels of
collectors.
Um, you know, I like to, youknow, get one of ones of, like,
(21:27):
my very favorite artists, youknow.
But there's a lot of artiststhat I I like a lot and I'm very
, you know, interested in themand and their journey and stuff.
But I'm maybe not necessarilymy exact vibe or I don't know,
I'm just, you know, just notquite my favorite.
I don't want to.
I don't have infinite amount ofmoney, I can't allocate it all
to everybody, so you have tokind of do what you can.
But, uh, having a market, play amarket in different, different,
(21:51):
uh, different price levels, Ithink is really great and
important.
Um, cause you want, you wantthe biggest, you know, the KOLs,
the biggest people singing yourpraises, but you also want you
don't want the, the little folk,you know, the masses, um to to
have a negative, you know, supernegative perception of you
(22:12):
because there's no, noavailability, or you know,
you're just, I guess there's.
Also you can go the fomo route.
Oh yeah, if you're going theother way as well, right, but in
in general, like, um, I thinkit's good to have have things
available, so, but yeah then, asas I think I was like, oh no,
the film route's super cool too.
Like you know, joe p's has, youknow, 20 pieces out there and
(22:35):
everybody wants that.
So, um, yeah, there's just,there's just different,
different ways for for differentpeople.
I think everyone, I would nevergive, like everybody, the same
advice.
You know, I would give everyartist you know unique advice to
to to to them so yeah, thatmakes sense.
NorCal Guy (22:54):
Do you have a piece of advice that you've been given
, or like a mantra, that kind ofgoes through your head?
Artie Handz (23:01):
Yeah, a lot of mine are.
I tend to be um a little likehotheaded and like um a bit like
Marty McFly.
And back to the future.
If anybody calls him chicken,he's like he's a hundred percent
in it like ready to go knucklesup.
NorCal Guy (23:18):
You know, I have the same type of like.
Artie Handz (23:21):
All right, if you're coming after me like I'm
coming after you.
So the best advice I've gottenis usually stuff to help help me
with that and it's you know.
Sleep on it.
Wait 24 hours before hittingsend an email.
NorCal Guy (23:37):
Right, right, that was, that was one that I yeah, I
definitely yeah.
Artie Handz (23:43):
Like you know anything where you're like an
emotional, send you, anythingwhere you're an emotional send,
you're like, yeah, let's sit onthat one and see if you really
want to send that tomorrow.
And if it does, if you do wantto do it, then yeah, hit it.
But a lot of times you're goingto say something you can regret
, so that's one.
And then along the same lines,if it's typed, it's forever.
(24:06):
So some things are better left,better left spoken and not
typed.
NorCal Guy (24:14):
I like that one, that one's good, that one's good
.
Artie Handz (24:23):
So if you could live or move anywhere, where
would you live and why?
Yeah, man, that's quite thequestion in this modern era of
if my candidate doesn't win, I'mmoving to blah, blah, blah.
I've heard it from both sidesof you know, if either one wins,
I'm out of here.
Right, right, totally.
So yeah, everyone's talkedabout it, had conversations.
(24:47):
For us there's a practicalitything of a wife and three boys
six, three and two, so thatactually makes some sense and
not be a dream scenario.
And then Fiji or Tonga, justtotally unplugged and living the
dream, but, um, I think my wifeis half austrian, so I think
(25:10):
that would be a pretty goodoption.
Vienna's really, really cool,um, and then I'm largely nordic
heritage and worked a lot instockholm, so like, maybe
stockholm, one of the nordicnordic cities, we're definitely
like a big city folk.
We need to be city adjacent.
I'm I'm only like 15 minutesinto san francisco, which is
(25:30):
good enough, but I'm I'm eventhat I'm struggling a little bit
when the bars close at 8 30 I'mlike, okay, what's going on
here, uh, but nice, nice, um,yeah, I love, uh, I love sweden.
NorCal Guy (25:45):
I've been there once and I love stockholm a lot.
A ton like I would love to goback.
Artie Handz (25:50):
It was nice yeah, it's an awesome, awesome city,
um and very it's fun to go atlike different seasons too, to
like experience the like dead-onwinter oh yeah and and just
like the in in the summer, likethe people are just like so nice
and like talk to you and arelike very cordial in the winter.
(26:10):
It's such a like entirepopulace, like change of, just
kind of like cold walking by andcold personalities.
It's like the like, not likeseasonal effect, it's like
seasonal personality disorder.
NorCal Guy (26:23):
Yeah, it's it's a really really.
Artie Handz (26:25):
Yeah, it's a great, great place.
I love it there that's funny.
NorCal Guy (26:29):
So if you were an animal, what would you be and
why?
Artie Handz (26:37):
I historically I've said cheetah because I always
wanted to be like fast.
You know, yeah, playing sportsgrowing up.
I just like want, want to befast.
And my six year old isdefinitely in that cheetah mode
right now.
He's like be a cheetah like runfast, like blah, blah, blah,
but I'm 42 and my knees areseeing better days, and that was
(26:58):
never that fast anyway, so I'mgonna go with an otter.
One I think, think it's beenimplanted.
I've been using otter ai forlike zoom, calls for like notes
or whatever, so I think that'sjust kind of stuck in my brain a
little bit.
Okay, but also I love those uhphotos of like otters on their
backs, like holding the hand ofanother otter.
Oh yeah, it's like sleep onyour back in the water and it
(27:20):
just seems like they're.
They're cute and happy Likethey seem like they have a cool
life.
NorCal Guy (27:24):
For sure, they definitely do seem like they're
like chill, they're playful.
Yeah, it's a good time yeah.
Artie Handz (27:31):
Like literally the definition of like no worries,
yeah, like yeah, I see that.
NorCal Guy (27:39):
So do you have a favorite movie quote or song
lyric?
Artie Handz (27:45):
I mean there's like a million.
I will.
Okay, we'll go with.
Uh, this is to honor RIP JamesEarl Jones, just just passing
yesterday.
I'm gonna go with uh, if youbuild it, he will come, because
I just like love, I love thatmovie, I love Field of Dreams.
Um, I'm, I'm like, yeah, justlike cry every time.
(28:08):
I can't help it, like, uh, justthe Americana and the
father-son experience and allthat, um, so there's that one.
I wrote down another one, butit's like wildly inappropriate,
it's just, it's just like what.
What came to mind right when Iwas looking at the questions?
and it's yeah, it's like it's anold bloodhound gang song, but
it's, yeah, it's like totallymessed up.
(28:30):
Maybe I'll tell it to you offair there, yeah, there, yeah it
was one of those ones where Iwas like I don't think I should
say this, but this is what'swhat's coming to my head.
NorCal Guy (28:39):
So oh, all right, all right, afterwards,
afterwards.
So what is the best thing andthe silliest thing you've spent
money on?
Artie Handz (28:51):
oh man, um, I tried to keep it in in the nft world,
um I you know, best thing Istill would have to say is
probably my punk.
Um, I got it and I got it aslike a birthday present
investment, whatever for my, formyself, in 2021, may of 21, um,
(29:16):
like right before they went,you know ballistic.
Yeah, so that was, that was goodum because I, yeah, I would not
have been able to afford it forquite a while after that.
Um, but the that I think youknow brings you some form,
whether it's deserved or notsome form of legitimacy.
Right Like right.
You have a punk like there'syou're, you're, you're a BFD,
(29:38):
like all of a sudden, right.
So definitely that.
A couple other pieces, like Imean, I love so much of my art
but the sort of bigger namethings that have value or
potentially will be importantsomeday.
I have a Joe P's, so that was asix ETH.
(29:59):
Joe P's was quite beautiful.
And then, yeah, gazer, numberone by Matt Cain, which I bought
off the Dutch auction.
NorCal Guy (30:10):
Wow, Nice man.
Artie Handz (30:13):
Those are probably my best buys in terms of uh,
nfts and art, um silly do every.
Everything I bought in february, march and april, uh was just
total, total hot garbage.
I'm like, yeah, I'm like, oh,yeah.
(30:33):
I'm like, oh, what's this Afidget spinner?
Yeah, let's buy it Like yats Imean that's where my name
already hands came from, becauseI bought a yat that was the art
diamond hands and I was like,oh, those are going to be
initials.
It'll be like art diamond hands, arthur de-moaned hands, or
(30:54):
like I was just coming up withlike the dumbest thing I could
think of and thenI was like, oh, it'll just
shorten itself to art d hands,it'll just be art already hands.
Okay, you know like it was.
Uh, yeah, that's that's how thename came out.
But yeah, just so much, so muchdumb crap.
I mean like pickles and oh,yeah, you name it Like I, we
definitely definitely bought it.
I think, yeah, the first ninemonths doing eight or nine
(31:20):
months doing this, probably intolike October of 21, november, I
was definitely just buy likeanything and everything, cause
you, you didn't know it might,it was going to make money,
right.
NorCal Guy (31:31):
Like it's, true.
Artie Handz (31:32):
Like the dumb thing is definitely did.
It's the left side and rightside of the curve, right yeah,
standard deviation thing, thatmeme.
The left side stuff performsjust as well as the right side
stuff In the last year, plus I'dsay, even better right.
NorCal Guy (31:52):
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's been crazy, yeah, butdefinitely a list of silly
things for sure what's?
Artie Handz (32:01):
what's one of your silliest things?
NorCal Guy (32:03):
oh man, you know it's got to.
Oh you know, uh, it was likethe Ape Sins and it was like
apes but Simpsons and they'relike rug pretty quick or it got
(32:26):
taken down by like open seapretty quick.
But I was like, oh, they'rekind of funny.
I mean that's one of those leftcurve things.
But yeah, it was great, it was.
Artie Handz (32:33):
I remember there was one product that was like um
, ape and punk, like baby combothings.
You could have a combination ofthe two.
Okay, if you had if you had, youknow both of them you could
mint one or whatever.
And I, I was able to mint twoof them for pretty cheap, you
know like 0.1 or something.
And then some, yeah, andsomebody bought both of them for
(32:55):
like one and a half eath andthat was eath at like 4k too.
Oh, wow, and it was.
Yeah, you know, when you'resome of the stuff you're selling
, you're just like this is justpanda mominium right now, like
you're just trying to figure outwhat you know, just hot potato
this thing to the next nextperson right, it is definitely
that, oh man.
NorCal Guy (33:21):
So this one's a hard one.
If you could commission a pieceand have two artists collab on
it, which two artists would itbe?
Artie Handz (33:32):
yeah.
So I I tried to uh, this is areally tough one, um, I tried to
do one, one foot in the digitalart world, one foot in the
traditional world and do do kindof a combo thing here.
Um, so, in in our world, Ipicked, uh, william mapan.
I think his he's a generativeartist, french and he's just
(33:57):
fantastic.
He finds a way to make codedstuff look like not alive, but
like real, like the paintingthat looks real, like there's
actually paint there, that lookslike it has structure, and I
don't know, I'm just fascinatedby the way he makes inanimate
things feel actually there, likedigital things feel present,
(34:20):
you know, um, and then thetraditional artist is very, very
big julian morettu.
Um, there's this piece calledstadia 2.
That is like my favorite,favorite, favorite, favorite,
favorite, favorite, favoritething, um, and it's, it's like
all these colorful shapes andit's an abstract piece that
makes it look like a giant arena, like the Coliseum or something
(34:43):
, and it just feels so fuckingalive, like I don't know.
I don't know how best toexplain it, um, but it the way
that she makes something staticfeel alive and moving, I think
would be a really interestingcombination with, uh, william's
way that he makes things thatare, that are non-existent feel,
feel there like I think that'dbe a really interesting space
(35:05):
for them to explore togetheryeah, I can see that, if you
want to get their agentstogether and set it up nice,
solid.
NorCal Guy (35:15):
Is there an interesting fact about you that
people may not be aware of?
Artie Handz (35:22):
you know, I'm sure, but I uh yeah I've been trying.
I tried to be like pretty open.
I think that was until therecent doxing situation.
I was you, you know, allowedmyself to to like talk about
myself more than I would havenormally.
Um, so I've been pretty openwith stuff.
But yeah, I'm a, I'm a privatepilot, so I fly small planes.
(35:44):
Um, and then I'm a fifthgeneration cattle rancher.
My my entire family is fromnortheastern Wyoming, we have a
37,000-acre cattle ranch outthere that I help work on the
back end.
I do some legal and accountingand stuff for, but some other
family members do some of themore rough and tumble stuff.
(36:08):
I'm a city slicker so I comedrop in with the kids for a
couple weeks in the summer.
These days, but I have I havecastrated quite a few calves in
my day.
I've dehorned things, I'vebranded thousands of cows.
I've done the.
I've done the, I've done thedeed.
NorCal Guy (36:27):
Yeah so I.
Artie Handz (36:28):
I feel like I'm real, but, um you know, the
people there think not quite asmuch, but that's all right, fair
, fair, fair, understandable.
Oh, that's awesome so do youhave any questions for me?
What's your plan with CMC down?
What are you going to do Foreveryone listening?
(36:50):
We're in a fantasy footballleague together and I don't
think that's necessarily your uhtopic du jour no, yeah, yeah,
it's gonna yeah, like I'm gonnahave to do some research, man, I
have no idea oh man, it was not.
NorCal Guy (37:10):
It was not ready.
Artie Handz (37:11):
I you can usually, off the cuff, answer something,
but that one I'm going to haveto the answer is there is no
answer, because when you use thefirst pick on Christian
McCaffrey and he doesn't, theysay he's not playing 30 minutes
before a Monday night game.
You just got to bend over andtake it, man, that's just what
it is yeah, I know.
NorCal Guy (37:34):
So, yeah, hopefully changes next week.
Artie Handz (37:40):
That's, that's.
That's the good thing aboutfantasy.
It's, you know, 17, 17 battles.
So you don't gotta there's noemotional baggage into the next,
next week, you know.
NorCal Guy (37:49):
For sure, for sure, oh man.
Artie Handz (37:57):
So any other questions?
Yeah, um, I wanted to ask youabout about your collection, um,
a little bit, because I think Idon't know, I think that we
have different tastes, a littlebit, like I'm like the weirder
the better, you know, like very,very out there.
(38:19):
So I kind of wanted to hearyour thoughts on on the kind of
like where you think the artscene is going to be in five
years and the kind of growth ofthe digital artists here and and
also like who's who, who areyou?
Who you've been buzzing on,like what's, what's been
(38:40):
something that you've been likeOoh, that's cool recently.
NorCal Guy (38:43):
Oh, I mean, I mean, man, it's hard to say.
I mean, as the space grows, Imean AI is definitely going to
be have a bigger part of it.
What that means, I don't know.
I mean it's weird kind of thingbecause, yeah, I mean it's just
(39:06):
a new category that we're notused to yet and I guess we'll
have categories or definitions.
If there is, like AI typephotography or ai generative or
ai assisted coding, I have noidea how it's gonna, or if it's
gonna even devolve into that andbe just ai art, all of it, or
(39:27):
yeah, who knows um.
But as far as artists, um, Ideaf beef, um, I just got a uh
hash mark from him, so it was onsecondary, so yeah, was that?
Artie Handz (39:45):
was that the famous lost hash mark?
It was the famous lost one,yeah yeah, that's a cool story
um death, death, beast, awesome,awesome, awesome, awesome yeah
like so cool, the like physicalintegration and kind of like the
whole spiritual journey andstuff of that one.
(40:07):
And was it chile?
I forget all that.
NorCal Guy (40:09):
Yeah, it was down the Patagonia, you had to go to
get that and I was definitelynot able to do that, but
thankfully one came up onsecondary and yeah, so
definitely been looking at hisstuff a lot lately and looking
at his other stuff topotentially pick up something
(40:31):
else.
Who knows, there's a lot ofgood stuff there is potentially
pick up something else.
Artie Handz (40:34):
Who knows, there's a lot of good stuff.
NorCal Guy (40:36):
There is.
Artie Handz (40:42):
I can never think of the names of collections off
the top of my head.
I have one.
It has pieces.
What's it called?
It was the one where they, likepeople, could take like
photographs or whatever.
NorCal Guy (40:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Artie Handz (40:59):
And it'd be like they get sharper as it went on.
You know, right, yeah, thoseare really cool.
I was allowed to, like take oneof the photographs.
NorCal Guy (41:06):
Oh sweet.
Artie Handz (41:07):
Which was cool, yeah, and then, yeah, have one
of those.
And yeah, if I had more money Iwould definitely buy more
deathbeats, that's for sure yeah, no, I've been looking at those
ones a little bit um.
NorCal Guy (41:22):
Those are chrono photograph chrono photograph,
photographs, yeah yeah, yeahthose are really cool.
So those are cool.
And then I I have a Series Zerosynth palm as well that I got
early on and I don't know.
Oh, and I have one of hisvinyls too.
Artie Handz (41:45):
I have a signed vinyl, nice yeah.
NorCal Guy (41:49):
Yeah.
But, yeah, just been followinghim.
Yeah, I don't know who, uh,right now is really standing out
um where?
Artie Handz (42:01):
where are you looking right now?
What?
What's like your?
Are you on super rare?
Are you on just twitter?
Are you on rodeo, like?
Where are you?
Where are you vibing?
NorCal Guy (42:08):
oh, I mean rodeo.
I have been actually like doinglike daily mints on there from
artists.
I mean I feel it's aninteresting thing.
I don't like.
I feel like artists shouldprobably get paid for that a
little more than nothing.
But if they're going to put outsome work that I think is
(42:30):
interesting, I want to gocollect it, because it's little
for me to do and potential forgames is there.
Artie Handz (42:38):
Yeah, totally.
I haven't done much on Rodeo.
I've done a little bit on Zoraand a couple things on Zero One,
which is the same thing, Iguess.
More or less the same model, Idon't have any overwhelming
(43:00):
problem with it.
My biggest concern is, for mostartists is anchoring themselves
to Zero Because it's like thelike, okay, like I.
NorCal Guy (43:10):
I obviously no names no, no, nothing, nobody did
anything wrong or anything likethat.
Artie Handz (43:15):
It just is what it is of.
Like I see an artist that I'mlike oh, that's super cool and
I've seen it on rodeo.
And then I see it for 0.4 ethsuper rare and it's the one of
one.
I'm like yeah, I could get fourof those ones that you just
dropped on rodeo.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
And it's it's like am I, am Iproud that?
That's how I think of it.
NorCal Guy (43:36):
Like no, not exactly .
Artie Handz (43:37):
I'd rather be like yeah, I want to give this artist
some money, you know.
But like I, you know, I don'tdon't have the infinite coffers
either again.
So hopefully one day we'll havemania again and I'll get some
infinite coffers, but in thesedays it's not possible.
NorCal Guy (43:52):
So yeah, no, fair.
Yeah, no, it's.
I don't know it's interesting.
I'm not sure you know theplatform is interesting it's.
I mean, I do have like somedislikes about the platform
itself, but that's just UI stuff, so it's not like anything
special.
(44:12):
I mean I don't know, I don'tknow.
Sometimes I mean because also,my other thing is, like ETH is
so cheap to transact on rightnow, like why don't I just
collect on ETH instead of Layer2?
But you know, hearing some ofthe arguments, you know, 10
years from now, whatever, onlyinstitutional-sized people are
(44:37):
going to make transactions onlayer one because it's going to
be so expensive, which, yeah, Iguess.
So Maybe We'll see.
Artie Handz (44:45):
Yeah, we'll see.
We'll see yeah we'll see, we'llsee.
I don't know.
Is it going to cost $1,000 totrans-ex something on Layer 1?
Is it going to be so expensivethat this theoretically
generational art can barely bemoved because it's so fucking
(45:07):
expensive to move it?
I don't know.
We, you know, like the, I don't, I don't like know enough about
, like, what is technicallypossible, or or you know, like
how to, how any of it actuallyworks right.
I just don't, don't, not nottechnical, but I think that like
(45:28):
um sorry, I just lost my trainof thought.
NorCal Guy (45:32):
This is excellent podcasting, um yeah, no, because
we were just talking about theinstitutional costing a thousand
dollars, or many times that, tomove something.
What are we going to do withthe art that's on ethel l1?
Artie Handz (45:46):
yeah, yeah, I mean, can we, or can we bridge the
stuff to l2?
I mean I don't like, I don'tknow what.
What even happens is like, uh,if tezos dies, you know, I know
a lot of people who just won'tcollect on tezos like what
happens?
What happens then?
um, for sure, you know there'sall kinds of stuff that I it's
so makes this space like nuts.
(46:06):
I'm like super risky and all ofthat, but at the same time, if
you're the right type of person,it's just like too much, it's
just yeah, there's nothing elsequite like it, it's just so, so
exciting.
NorCal Guy (46:18):
Yeah, yeah, for sure , for sure.
Do you have any other questions?
Artie Handz (46:24):
I think.
I think that's it.
Do you have any hot takes?
Yeah, I want Tezos to die.
I think that would be a goodthing.
Fair, I mean, I love Tezos.
Don't get me wrong.
I have like 22-2300 pieces ofwork on Tezos.
(46:45):
I'm the Tezos collector of theweek.
I've got given 500 tezos.
So I'm not speaking ill oftezos when I.
When I say I want tezos to die,it's more of a thought, thought
, think take product thoughtprocess of the value that I have
on tezos is it's a lot of, it'sa lot of artwork, mostly like
(47:08):
low value stuff over over youknow 500 different artists or so
and the value of of it allbeing like a snapshot in time.
Tezos 2018 to 2027, rip Likethat's the kind of meme joke I
think would actually be of morevalue to me than whatever the
(47:31):
potential long-term financialvalue of.
It would be like the it being acomplete thing and it existed,
and like Jimi Hendrix had here'shis cat, here's his library and
then he tragically died, but wenever saw old Jimmyimmy, we
didn't see old kurt like wedon't.
You don't know how people ageright, like there's that forever
(47:52):
young thing to it, I guess,where I think it would have more
value and more, maybe even more, cultural relevance.
If it was the thing that cameand went and there it was then,
then if it uh died a slow deathlike there's enough valuable art
on there that I think there'senough people would run nodes to
like make it functional forever, I don't know how you'd have to
(48:13):
trade on it, you're just havingto use like billions of Tezos
to do it or something.
I don't know if that had novalue, but I think it will
always be there, but I wonder ifit'll be like a sad place to be
eventually.
So I kind of want it to die andhave like a blaze of glory and
(48:33):
uh but I mean this in the nicestway possible like I love it.
You know what I mean, like I'mtrying to.
I yeah, I don't want to seemharsh or like mean or say
anything bad about tesla.
That's just kind of a a thinkpiece of it yeah, yeah, no,
that's interesting.
NorCal Guy (48:48):
I mean, the thing about like these alternate
chains is you know the securityof them ultimately, um, you know
, if they grind down, slow downenough, you know, someone
potentially can hack it withsome a 51 attack type of thing
and just screw everything up, um, so, yeah, that's always a
(49:12):
concern yeah, you know I don'tsee if who knows, I all this
stuff.
Artie Handz (49:19):
So you know it's like thinking about the 12
different routes everythingcould take at the same time.
And it's, you know, in my, inmy new new job, at verse, where
we're, you know, releasing artall the time and it's like how
much you can't plan.
You just can't plan that muchstuff.
You know it's like let's plan12 months.
You know, normal businessyou're running.
(49:41):
Here's our 12 month plan, 20more formulas plan here.
It's like, yo man, you've got athree month plan.
That's a long-term plan.
Like everything changed andsifts so fast.
You know I've had releaseswhere it's like e dropped
fucking 20 the day before.
I'm like who's gonna buy artright now when they're 20?
You know, when people areholding a lot, of, a lot of
(50:02):
their own money in this asset,like what?
How are we going to sell thistomorrow?
You know like there's just it'sso insane here it's impossible
to plan too far ahead right forsure.
NorCal Guy (50:14):
So do you have any projects you're working on?
Anything you'd like to discussabout your sphere?
Artie Handz (50:21):
yeah, yeah, no, I'm so, yeah, new new job at verse,
the art platform.
I'm the head of marketing therenow and in that role I oversee
all the marketing for Verse.
And then also we have anin-house gallery that we kind of
(50:42):
separated for branding purposes, called Solos.
We did like a big release forYoshi Sorioka this past week.
We have some super cool stuff Ican't quite talk about yet
coming out in the fall and inthe new year.
And then I'm also like I'vebeen running my own little
(51:02):
gallery, arty gallery on Versefor like nine months or so now
and I have done three releases.
Artie Gallery on Verse, forlike nine months or so now and I
have done three releases, kindof taking it slow and easy and
just doing my thing.
But I've got a couple ofreleases over the next two
months and the next one is justin 10 days and it's called the
(51:22):
Book of Hope by the artist Hishandle is at pale Kirill, his
name is carril simenovich andit's a.
It's a series of 50 pieces, uh,ai assisted, um, these kind of
dream collages of of basketballand castles and and like
(51:42):
basketball courts that arestretched and shaped over over,
just like non-existent planes,like it's just this like dream
place to be um, and it's theit's it's a really it's a really
interesting visual series and,um, there's a lot of like
personal story in it and Ireally connected it due to like
(52:03):
what basketball means to me andum to the artist, as he had like
a I'll let him tell a story inour spaces but he, you know, had
like a back brace or like aneck issue where he had to wear
that for a while and basketballwas like one thing.
He could shoot hoops orwhatever and he played with his
friends and it was like a kindof you know, an allegory for for
(52:24):
breaking free from, from theshackles of that, and basketball
was like his, his hope, andlike he dreamed to like be out
of that.
And it's, like you know, very,very like personal thing.
So, being able to bring.
I'm just, you know, as I said,I'm a big sports guy.
So being able to bring, like asports story that has a lot, of,
(52:44):
a lot of meat to the bone, Ithink is very interesting for me
.
That has a lot of meat to thebone, I think is very
interesting for me.
I think a lot of time in theart world you get a lot of the
like oh, you know, oh, sportsgames, you know, like that type
of attitude to sports, Right?
So yeah, to try and give aseries about basketball some
(53:04):
like actual love from the artspace, I think will be fun.
NorCal Guy (53:08):
Awesome, Well, nice man, Um, great.
I look forward to seeing moreabout that and, uh, congrats on
your uh position with verse.
Appreciate it, Thank you.
Artie Handz (53:21):
It's uh, yeah, no, I, I used to be a lawyer, so I
you know, taking, taking paycuts and all kinds of stuff in
the best way possible.
Right, I felt like I was herewith like one one foot in, one
foot out, like for too long, andit was.
You know, some people would sayis this the best time to do
(53:43):
that?
And I'm like, yeah, it's, Ican't like wait any longer.
If I don't, if I don't do itnow, it's like I won't do it.
And I'm like, yeah, it's, Ican't like wait any longer.
If I don't, if I don't do itnow, it's like I won't do it.
You know what I mean, right?
So I wanted to no regerts, asthey say, no regerts sweet, well
, arty.
NorCal Guy (53:58):
Um, I just want to say thank you for your time
today.
I really appreciate you comingon being a guest and getting
your insights and thoughts onstuff, so thank you again thank
you, I really enjoyed being hereand it was, uh, it was fun to
chat longer.
Artie Handz (54:13):
Uh, you know, chat for a while.
We've been tangentially seeingeach other here and there, I
think, in different groups andstuff, and always been been long
been a fan of your epiccollecting and just shouting out
the space and being such a likepositive role model.
Is that a weird word?
Yeah, role model for, for, foryoung collectors everywhere.
Wow, as us us gray hairs kindof can say right uh-huh some
(54:39):
little gray beard action forsure.
NorCal Guy (54:43):
Oh man, thanks, uh.
Wow, appreciate that awesome.
Well, you have a good day, man,you too.
Artie Handz (54:51):
Who is?
NorCal Guy (54:51):
this.
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Artie Handz (54:58):
NorCal, guy, norcal guy NorCal guy, norcal guy,
norcal guy, norcal guy, norcalguy Nor NorCalGuy NorCalGuy
NorCalGuy NorCalGuy NorCal andChill Podcast.
NorCal Guy (55:08):
So it's chill time, norcal and Chill Podcast.
What the f*** what the chill.
Norcal and Chill Podcast.
So it's chill time, norcal andChill Podcast what the f*** what
the chill.
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