April 10, 2025 • 46 mins
Ben Roy takes us deep into the evolving landscape of digital art collecting, offering refreshingly nuanced perspectives that challenge conventional Web3 wisdom. Beginning with his early fascination with Decentraland in 2019, Ben shares his journey from Pokemon card collector to thoughtful NFT observer, revealing how his collecting philosophy centers more on artistic innovation than blockchain specifications.
The conversation explores what makes Web3 special – its relative meritocracy compared to traditional industries, offering greater opportunities for those willing to put in the work. Ben likens it to "playing in the European basketball league versus the NBA," where the less professionalized environment creates higher upside for dedicated participants. This accessibility represents one of the space's most promising aspects, potentially democratizing opportunities for creators and collectors alike.
We dive into Ben's vision for digital art's future, where collecting becomes normalized at accessible price points, with intuitive display options both online and physically. However, he candidly acknowledges the challenges posed by lingering expectations from the 2021 hype cycle, when astronomical returns created unrealistic financial standards that the space is still reconciling.
Most compelling is Ben's perspective on the untapped potential of community building through networked collections. Unlike traditional art collecting's solitary experience, digital art enables community formation among collectors who appreciate the same creator – a fundamental differentiator that could reshape artist-collector relationships. His thoughtful examination of supply considerations, pricing mechanisms, and the overemphasis on blockchain provenance provides collectors with frameworks for evaluating digital art beyond technical specifications.
Join us for this thought-provoking conversation that balances practical collecting wisdom with forward-thinking optimism about digital art's potential to build meaningful connections between artists and their audiences. Follow Ben's work on his Liquid Culture podcast and monthly newsletter, where he continues exploring the fascinating intersection of technology, ownership, and creative expression.
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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.
Ben Roy (00:09):
NorCal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy.
NorCal Guy (00:12):
NorCal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy,
norcal and chill podcast.
So it's chill time, norcal andchill podcast.
What the sh-, what the shNorCal and chillill Podcast.
What the sh-, what the sh-?
Norcal and Shill Podcast.
So it's shill time, norcal andShill Podcast.
What the sh-, what the?
Ben Roy (00:31):
sh-.
NorCal Guy (00:32):
Welcome back to another episode of NorCal and
Shill.
Today, we dive deep into theworld of NFTs, crypto art
andcape of Digital Ownershipwith our guest, ben Roy.
In this episode, ben unpacksthe intricacies of valuing art
in the crypto space, emphasizingthe relevance of art supply
(00:55):
editions and the artist'scommunity.
He shares his fascination withthe idea of networked
collections and the overlookedpotential for community building
within digital art.
Ben opens up about his initialinterest in NFTs, sparked by
projects like Decentraland, andreflects on his journey from
(01:16):
collecting Pokemon cards tobecoming immersed in the world
of crypto art.
He highlights the positivenature of Web3 and its promise
for hardworking individuals.
Throughout the conversation,ben and I explore the
complexities of pricing art andcryptocurrency, the importance
of artist provenance and thechallenges of attracting new
(01:38):
collectors to the space.
Ben also shares his thoughts onAI art, non-visual NFTs like
music and writing, and thefuture of digital art collecting
.
Join us as we delve into thefascinating intersection of
technology, culture and art anddiscover why Ben believes that,
in this evolving digitallandscape, the real value lies
(02:02):
in the innovation and creativityof the artist.
Stay tuned for an episodebrimming with insights, hot
takes and a look into the futureof digital art.
Everybody.
Please welcome Ben Roy.
Hey, ben, welcome to thepodcast.
How are you doing today, dude?
I'm doing so well.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, I thank you for coming on.
(02:24):
Thank you for being a guest.
I feel very appreciative andhonored because you have good
takes that you post on X Twitterand I, you know I appreciate
them because they're not they'rekind of contrarian, they're
kind of opposite of the, thecurrent thinking, and I think
(02:44):
there are, they're actually goodtakes that, um, you have good
thoughts on the subjects thatyou talk about thanks so much.
Ben Roy (02:50):
You know it's funny like you tweet into the abyss
and never really assume anyone'sreading it for the most part,
so it's always fun to be like ah, I actually read your stuff.
Um, yeah, so thank you?
NorCal Guy (03:01):
yeah, of course, so I guess just jumping in.
So what were your firstthoughts when you heard about
these NFTs, crypto arts?
Ben Roy (03:11):
Yeah, good question.
So for me, I kind of came intocrypto around.
Then, super random moment intime, I missed that whole
previous bubble but came in andI was like pretty taken by nfts,
right away actually, and so Ibought decentraland this is like
summer of 2019 or somethingright.
(03:32):
It's like man, maybe this isgonna be like ready player, one
like I should probably own someland in this like magical
virtual world.
That seems like a smartdecision, right, and so I came
at it from that and I didn'treally think too much else of it
.
I was just like, okay, I guessyou can own stuff now, like game
items and whatever.
I didn't, unfortunately, buypunks at the time.
(03:54):
I missed some of the earlyserious money makers, but at
least in general it kind ofclicked for me.
I think it took a little bit ofthe euphoria for me to really
realize it.
Oh, you know there's a lot ofother things you can do here,
but yeah, out of the gate it wasmore of like a metaverse nerd
type of thing.
NorCal Guy (04:12):
Yeah, no, I get that , because I felt that way too,
but I was like maybe the I wasleaning more towards the Super
World app, which still hasn'tgone anywhere, either leaning
more towards the super world app, which still hasn't gone
anywhere either oh, so did youcollect art or anything else
(04:35):
before nfts?
Ben Roy (04:35):
yeah, so I collected pokemon cards pretty heavily,
okay, um, before nfts I wasn't aphysical art collector.
I mean so much of it's justthat it's quite expensive and so
, um, for my, where my likebudget was at through I guess,
like 20 says 2017, 18, 19 I wentback and it's funny in
reflection, because you're like,cool, I'm going to buy some
pokemon cards.
I'm going to like put them upfor sale on ebay.
The slippage of doing that isinsane.
(04:58):
If you compare that to likebuying an nft.
Right, you're like, wow, I haveto wait two weeks for this
thing to get mailed to me.
I'm paying this huge fee.
It's just this ridiculousexperience.
But, um, that was less the raw,like you know how do I make
money, that was a part of it butmore just like that was a big
part of my childhood and stuff.
So trying to figure out how doI collect some of these things
(05:19):
and have that for sentimentalvalue.
Um, so, yeah, definitely acollector streak in general
before NFT land.
NorCal Guy (05:26):
Right, right.
So what are the best thingsabout Web3 today?
Ben Roy (05:33):
That's a good question.
I think I would say it'smodestly more meritocratic than
most other industries you couldspend your time in, whether
that's like traditional art,traditional finance, like
traditional tech, even any ofthe industries that would
intersect with kind of whatthree.
You yeah, you just have tofight for fight harder, for
(05:54):
longer to kind of go up thosehierarchies where, while crypto
stuff is not perfect and there'sdefinitely kind of insiders and
cabals and whatnot, I thinkyeah, like it's, I think of it
like we're playing in theEuropean basketball league
versus the NBA, like there'ssome players right Like you can
still hoop, but it's not thatprofessional yet, and so you
just have way higher upside ifyou work hard.
(06:14):
Does that make sense?
NorCal Guy (06:16):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I get that, I get that.
So where do you?
I think you'll have someinteresting insight on this one
when do you see digital art andNFTs in five years?
Ben Roy (06:29):
And then do you have any concerns as it expands?
Yeah, this is a hard one.
Okay, I'll give you what I hopeto see, I think, in five years.
I hope that it's normalized forpeople to collect digital art
for $20 worth of that a week andthat there's some natural ways
to display that as part of youknow, your social presence or in
your house or whatever, right,I want to think that the, the,
(06:50):
what we spend our time doing isa little bit more, you know,
normalized, yeah, um, I do thinkthe thing that concerns me
probably is, uh, we just aredealing with a bit of an
overhang from the hype of 2021,so there's a lot of expectations
, right, where artists are like,cool, I'm going to make this
insane amount of money, orcollectors are going to flip
stuff for, you know, infiniteamount of money, and I think it
(07:13):
may be a little bit of a slowergrind than that.
So it's kind of like you'rebattling uphill against pretty
intense expectations for thefinancial, financialized side of
of digital art, right, um, I'mvery like bullish, like I really
think it's a special umcategory, like the way that you
can build relationships withartists and your community of
collectors.
Things like this there's.
(07:34):
It's a lot of cool things topull on, but yeah, hopefully
it's normalized, but also kindof caution on the whole.
You know, hype, euphoria,hangover, yeah, fair, that's
fair.
NorCal Guy (07:47):
Yeah, I mean yeah, there's no, I mean there's only
so many people and you know, Ifeel like some of it's slowed
down and a lot of it's hard todo because so many people have
become friends.
There's not like thatcompetition anymore.
So you need, like this newlayer of people or this new
cohort that comes in and is likewilling to, you know, overbid
(08:10):
your friend and stuff for theright piece, definitely, because
I mean nowadays you're like ohyeah, oh man, I don't want to
overbid this guy, I like himI've even done that with you
before.
Ben Roy (08:20):
I was like, oh you know , norcal bid on a photo, like I
guess I'm not even gonna play,makes sense, uh.
So yeah, no, I I think I thinkthis was mckenzie at ensemble.
He was saying most of theplatforms are kind of duking it
out over the same 35 collectors.
Right, and as much as it's abit of a joke like it, it does
(08:41):
speak to where we're at in someway, where you you just want to
see that number go up 100x assoon as you possibly can right
right just like get more peopleinterested in this stuff for
sure is there anything you'dlike to see more of in the
crypto art space I think I stillthink there is like unexplored
(09:04):
area around community buildingwith collections and additions.
I think I'm sure we'll get intosome of the different pieces to
this puzzle, but part of whatmakes digital art special, or
like this little particular partof crypto special, is you just
have this networked collectionidea of OK, I can create an art
blocks set of you know 500outputs, or it's a photography
(09:26):
collection or whatever, and Ithink previously it's not like
the people who own Monet is justhang out with each other.
You know they probably justhave their Monet on the wall in
their hedge fund or whatever andthey do their thing.
Um the.
The thing that really capturedme earlier in 2021 was was, yeah
, that like networked ability tooffer people maybe a lower
(09:48):
value, um way to collectsomeone's work, but also like
build community around them in avery coherent way.
Um and so yeah, there'sdefinitely a lot of good
examples of people who alreadydo this well, but I think
exploring that more would besomething I'd like to see more
of yeah, I can see that.
NorCal Guy (10:04):
Um, yeah, I don't feel like it's it's been really
done yet, or I mean, punks arekind of doing, in a way, are the
closest thing to that, I think,but it hasn't really been
really done.
I don't know if it's done well,but like I don't know.
Ben Roy (10:25):
There's just unexplored potential.
Put it that way right like Ithink there's a lot of things
people can do um, so hopefullywe see more experiments along
those lines for sure.
NorCal Guy (10:34):
So does one eth equal one eth man I.
Ben Roy (10:41):
I feel like we both know lots of people on either
side of this debate, and so it'san interesting question to
wrestle with.
I lean towards not.
I think it's not really a unitof account for artists and how
they live their lives, forpeople how they live their lives
or how they're reallyconceptualizing Like, do I have
enough money to buy this?
What I'll say on the positiveside, or on the like what you
(11:05):
know, what, what might makeequal one ETH is there are some
assets that are like uniquelyEthereum related or like
cultural, culturally relevant,and there's a lot of Ethereum
native wealth that might maybekeep some of those assets afloat
as it goes up, but it's justlike.
Personally, I think it's hardto hold in your head the tension
(11:27):
of like I'm very bullish onEthereum, I think it's going to
be, you know, whatever $20,000one day, and then think that all
the art that you buy has likean embedded 10x inside it.
You know what I mean.
Like it.
Just, it feels like I like thatwe use Ethereum.
It's interesting to me thatthis stuff is denominated in ETH
, but I don't think it's really,when push comes to shove,
(11:48):
priced that way.
Yeah, and yeah, I don't know.
I think it's also difficultsometimes for artists that maybe
feel like they need to do that,because you know you sell
something for two ETH one timeand it's that's like, say, it's
eight grand near the top, andthen you can't really go back
and sell because you feel likeyou need to.
You know, sell your next pieceat a higher value and all of a
sudden he is now in the tank,whatever, and it's like, okay,
(12:09):
how do you judge and jugglethese dynamics?
NorCal Guy (12:12):
it can be tricky, for sure, for sure for sure um
yeah, I feel like well, you uhsuper rare is starting to do.
Did they announce that they'redoing usdC pricing or something
like that, or payments in?
I?
Ben Roy (12:27):
think they had Rare pricing first and then USDC
pricing as well, and I think,yeah, I mean, I hope we still
use Ether to purchase thingsLike I think that's a big part
of the kind of moneyness of thiswhole scene.
But in your head, are yousitting there thinking there,
thinking like, oh, punks are 26ETH, or are you thinking like
other 50 grand or 75 grand mostpeople, if you're to like
(12:50):
actually answer honestly, you'restill thinking in USD terms and
so, yeah, I don't know, I kindof wish in some magical sci-fi
world that we were pricingthings in this different way,
but I just don't think for themajority of cases, that's how it
really works.
NorCal Guy (13:07):
Yeah yeah, so does supply matter?
Ben Roy (13:13):
I think I think it depends.
You know, I was thinking aboutum andy warhol recently, uh, and
he's just like an insane amountof supply, yeah, and and he's
an exception, obviously, like herepresents a moment in time in
art that is unusual.
Most people are not going tohave that much demand and stuff.
It really is that equation,right, of trying to balance
supply and demand.
But yeah, I think my answer tothis just boils down to it
(13:37):
depends.
I think, overwhelmingly, supplydoes matter.
But I do think there are goingto be moments or specific
artists or different scenarioswhere you could justify having a
really big supply as a way to,yeah, like kind of what we
talked about before, maybe buildcommunity at first, in the
early stage of your career, orexplore some other different
concept or theme that actuallythen does have merit down the
(13:59):
line, and so, yeah, it sort ofdepends on who you're talking to
a little bit and at what stageof their career they're.
Like an artist might be in um,do I look personally at supply
when I buy things for sure,right, like it's a data point,
um, but I'm not, I'm not soobsessed with that.
I'm kind of more interested inwho the who the artist is
(14:20):
themselves.
Um, because I think that'sprobably more relevant than the
supply part of the equation.
You know Picasso also put outjust like an insane amount of
work.
There's a lot of people thatyou know it was more their
relevance culturally that pushedthem forward than whether they
had a lot of supplier or not.
You know Right.
NorCal Guy (14:41):
So do you have any thoughts on additions versus one
of ones, how they should worktogether?
Ben Roy (14:47):
I mean, you keep on coming back to this community
aspect, which maybe that's whereit should play out, but uh,
yeah, curious your thoughts yeah, um, I think I like editions
personally, like definitely onthat community piece, because it
lets you, you know, access anartist or own their work in a
more affordable way.
(15:08):
Um, I think it it's just likemore a tool in the toolkit than
a binary right to say you know,if you're an artist, like one of
ones are going to be your, yourcrown jewel, right, you
probably don't want too many ofthose, you want it to matter,
you want to be able to tellstories of who you are with them
.
But that's kind of like a pullup, pulling on that thread of
(15:29):
does supply matter, right,scarcity matters in those
instances.
But I think, like tastefullyusing additions alongside that
is a cool tool in the toolkit.
Like I think there are going tobe strong cases for that sort
of thing.
Now, that might be like anaddition of 25.
That might be something smaller, right, it doesn't have to be
these in our heads.
I think we think of openadditions where it's like 10,000
(15:49):
minutes or like infinite numberof minutes.
That is different and I dothink you kind of lose the magic
of ownership sometimes when youdo have that kind of infinite
mint.
That said, there might bepeople who are earlier in their
career, who like focus more onthe content side, like I'm a
(16:10):
blogger or something, like Iwant to go viral with comics.
I want to do that in a way togrow my reach.
Um, that's not necessarilyfocused on one of ones.
Um.
So, yeah, different tools, uh,for different people, for sure
for sure.
NorCal Guy (16:23):
So I'm curious do you have a best piece of advice
you've been given, or do youhave like a mantra that you kind
of live by?
That kind of runs through yourhead.
Ben Roy (16:30):
Yeah, I think my favorite, one of my favorite
quotes is all models are wrong.
Some are useful.
It's by this guy named GeorgeBox who was a British
statistician, and it's just aninteresting thing because I
(16:53):
think it kind of returns agencyback to all of us to do our own
original thinking about stuff,to be like you know what some
expert or some other personmight have interesting thoughts
and important contributions to aconversation, but nothing is
ever totally correct, like thereare ways of looking at the
world through models that arehelpful, um, but yeah, there's
always some sort of differentapproach or different way of
understanding things.
(17:14):
And I think, yeah, I think aboutit a lot, especially now in
kind of an internet era, wheremost people just don't really do
much original thinking.
You know, it's kind of borrowedopinions and there's a lot of
you know and I'm guilty of itmyself too it's not I think it's
common across most of us whereyou're just like I'm consuming
so much information that it'shard to actually do the, the
(17:35):
creator part or like the actualstep aside and do some thinking,
um, so yeah, I don't know ifit's a mantra, but as a quote, I
think you know all models arewrong, some are useful.
Uh, it can be helpful.
No, I like that.
NorCal Guy (17:46):
I appreciate that.
Um yeah, especially in this dayand age, because people don't
think a lot.
So if you could live or moveanywhere, where would you live
and why?
Ben Roy (18:05):
you know this is a hard one for me because I feel like
I have so many answers.
I don't have a very clear likethis is the city that I want to
live in, but I think I would besuper keen to do a season in New
York and I would be interestedin doing a season in Tokyo.
And I think I guess, maybe forcontext, I'm based in Vancouver
in Canada.
(18:25):
I think when you look at NorthAmerica, new York is hard to
beat for a lot of differentcultural reasons.
There's just like a convergenceof people and money and
different activity there that isintense when you visit, like
the pace is crazy and so I'm notsure I could like live there,
live there properly, but to do aseason there would be fun.
And then, yeah, tokyo like Iguess it's become a bit of a
(18:48):
cliche to go to Japanapan, um,but my, my dad actually lived
there when I was growing up andmy grandpa also, um, spent a
bunch of time there after worldwar ii and so it's just like
there's some familial connectionto that.
Yeah, and thinking through,like just a different
understanding of culture and artand the same things that I
would care about in new york, uh, but from more of an asian
(19:08):
perspective.
Yeah, um, having never been,it's kind of high on the list.
NorCal Guy (19:13):
Nice, I like that.
So if you were an animal, whatwould you be and why?
Ben Roy (19:19):
I love this.
I would be a killer whale.
This is a shout out to theNorthwest.
I think it's just crazy whenyou see huge animals in real
life like the majesty of them isinsane to me and you know,
growing up in vancouver you wereright by the ocean.
A big part of kind of like whoI am in my childhood is all this
(19:43):
ocean stuff and I think, yeah,just gun to my head if I had to
make make one choice, we'regoing with killer whale, all
right solid, it's solid.
NorCal Guy (19:51):
Do you have a favorite movie quote or song
lyric?
Ben Roy (19:57):
yeah, this, this is harder, I think.
Um, there's a quote.
You know there's like athousand answers, right?
I'm a big movie guy and I'm abig music guy, so it's hard to
to hone in on one.
But one that I have had stuckin my head is actually from the
martian uh, with mad damon, likea movie, where he gets stuck on
mars, uh, and he just has amoment where he says I'm not
(20:18):
gonna die here and that's kindof the inflection point of the
movie, where he tries to make itback from mars to earth and
goes through all this otherstuff, and I think it just says
a lot about willpower and aboutdetermination and about, like
your agency to choose in life.
And for some reason I forgetwhy I think I watched it a
second time, you know, a yearago, and ever since then I've
(20:41):
just had that in the back of myhead, thinking yeah.
OK, I can.
I can make those choices thatmatter.
Yeah, that would be my answer.
I like that.
NorCal Guy (20:51):
This one's a good one.
So what is the best thing andthe silliest thing you've spent
money on?
Ben Roy (20:59):
Wow, best thing, maybe a cop-out answer.
I don't have like a big ticketitem, but I did a lot of travel
the last two years.
Yeah, a lot of the sort ofcrypto conference circuit, a
bunch of just relationships,right.
Like hanging out with people inreal life is hard to hard to
beat, and so I think you spendsome, some money up front and
(21:20):
wander all over the place to gohang out with a bunch of these
different people, and so that'sdefinitely a good thing.
I think it was worthwhile.
A silly example, man, I thinkI'm like keeping my local
smoothie shop in business, um,but by like, I have a smoothie
(21:41):
every day, like five times aweek, at the smoothie shop and
it's not that expensive.
Um, it's probably a little bit,you know.
It's like 10 bucks or somethingfor a smoothie.
So, whatever that is in andthat's Canadian.
So we'll we'll, we'll go with anice like 750 for the americans
in the audience and you're like,could I make a smoothie for
less than that?
Yes, and I typically havethrough my life, but I've just
(22:01):
gotten into this routine,especially through the summer,
of like getting up and going outto the smoothie shop and it's
just funny like every singleperson on the staff knows who I
am now it.
It's just like you're like theregular guy hey, Ben, nice to
see you.
And so, yeah, not like a hugeticket item, but just a funny
like it's weird to be a regularsomewhere, especially in a
(22:23):
post-COVID era where I thinkstill a lot of retail stuff is
pretty cooked right.
So yeah, that's a funny one.
NorCal Guy (22:31):
That's solid.
I I mean you're supportinglocal business you know it's
good exactly if you could.
This was gonna be hard.
If you could commission a pieceand have two artists
collaborate on it, which twoartists would it be?
Ben Roy (22:47):
yeah, this is hard.
I think there's a lot ofdifferent combos that I would
love really resonated with, oflike just being a tech person
(23:13):
thinking about the future orthese sorts of things and I
think Claire also has quite afuture orientation to her work
but it's a little bit morebubbly, there's a little more
hope, there's a little bit moreof like magic and color, yeah,
and so I think I just think itcould be cool to pair their
brains together to be like well,what does the future look like?
You know where, where?
NorCal Guy (23:33):
do you?
Ben Roy (23:33):
meet in the middle with your styles, um, because I
think there's definitely somesimilarities, but also some
meaningful distinctions, uh.
So yeah, if I could, you know,magically choose a collab to
happen, those would be my.
That'd be my pick.
I like it.
NorCal Guy (23:46):
I like it is there an interesting fact about you
that people might not be awareof?
Ben Roy (23:56):
yeah, um, I think so random fact about me that I
think you would not findotherwise shared first on this
podcast alone um, is I actuallyam a national champion in
ultimate frisbee in canada.
Oh, all right, so I played alot of frisbee growing up and
it's so funny because it's kindof this sport that makes fun of
(24:19):
itself.
It's like, obviously at somelevel, a very competitive sport
and, yeah, you know you get alot of people who come over from
soccer, from football, to toplay, and yet there's kind of
this running joke of like is itreally a sport?
Like you're throwing this weirdlittle plastic disc around the
field?
Um, so, yeah, from like a youknow off crypto life, like
previous to this whole scene, um, that was a big part of how I
(24:42):
spent a lot of my time, um,throwing a plastic disc around a
field I like it.
NorCal Guy (24:47):
You have a good advantage with it.
Ben Roy (24:50):
Yeah, no, I mean, it's a fun, it's just fun, right.
And I think there's alsosomething very West Coast about
it.
People, I think, resonate withit a little bit more out this
way versus elsewhere.
Maybe it's just the hippie sortof sensibility, I don't know.
But yeah, that's kind of arandom.
Yeah, out of my back pocket Infact, yeah, do that's kind of a
(25:11):
random yeah out of my backpocket fact.
NorCal Guy (25:11):
Yeah, do you have a favorite way to connect with
people in the space?
Ben Roy (25:20):
I think my answer is going to be memes.
Oh, yeah, okay, and why I saythat is like it's.
It's kind of the lowest barrierto entry form of communication,
like whether you're justmemeing on the timeline or in
DMs with people throwingdifferent things around.
It's so accessible.
There's always some way ofpeople being like.
Either I don't have to respond,I can respond with an emoji.
(25:41):
I can like laugh, I can riff ona different other meme that's
related.
Yeah, you come to this person orto this new group with no extra
assumptions other than likehumor and you know, maybe
another quote I could havepulled on earlier that I really
like is laughter is the closestdistance between two people.
Um, by this danish, uh, Ibelieve danish comedian, um, and
(26:05):
it's just fun, right?
I think there's some way ofconnecting over memes that feels
like you're getting closer tosomeone in an authentic way,
where you don't have to gothrough the list of like who are
you, what's your job?
Like, where are you from?
The the kind of basic socialquestions, and you skip right to
the heart of hey, like, weshare something in common.
We find these things funnytogether, right?
Um, so, yeah, if if I had togive one answer, that would be.
NorCal Guy (26:28):
It means all right, I like that.
That's a solid one.
So do you have any questionsfor me?
Ben Roy (26:34):
I do, actually I I'm curious how you think about nfts
other than art, um so basicallythere's two buckets.
One is, yeah, the whole musicnft conversation and whether you
think that's viable orinteresting or or not, but also
like there's a lot of thingsthat you could collect on the
internet, right like you couldwrite an essay.
Paragraph is a mirror.
(26:55):
I've been doing this for awhile and those things never
really picked up and I thinklargely it's because there's no
speculative loop around them.
Um, but I'm curious how you,yeah, what your experience has
been with non art quote unquote,like not digital art, uh, nfts
and if you're used to also findthose things cool unquote.
NorCal Guy (27:14):
Like not digital art , uh, nfts, and if you're, you
also find those things cool.
Yeah, no, I've I.
I am actually surprised thatmusic hasn't done better,
because I feel like people canreally connect with music just
as much as with art.
But I guess I don't know ifthere's mainly because maybe
it's because, you know, musicisn't like a one-of-one or a an
addition type of thing and soit's like more of a given out
(27:40):
there.
I'd like, and maybe it's justthe it needs to be reframed.
I don't know.
It's more given out there andpeople are like hey, go support
me if you enjoy the music, typething.
I feel that's how it'sapproached, instead of like, hey
, I made this audio art piece,do you want to buy an edition of
it?
The tricky part is like thestreaming type of service.
(28:03):
Like I want to go stream this,like how do I do that?
Like I guess most of them haveit on Spotify somewhere.
You just got to find it andstream it.
But I am surprised that the art, the, the music, hasn't done
more and but I do find itfascinating.
Um, I mean, we've seen kind ofsome people try and do like the
(28:27):
poetry thing and I think that isinteresting, um, I guess, I
don't know, maybe just becauseit's words on a page and people
it's not like, because this issuch a visual space.
Um, and maybe that's the issuewith music too is because it is
such a visual space.
That's why it has done better.
(28:50):
I don't know Cause we're all.
I mean, we're on our phone.
Most of us are on their phonesor computers and if you're on
your phone you're not probablynot always going to have your
earbuds in, so you're not alwaysgoing to like have the music
turned up loud.
You're just going to like havemost stuff on mute and like,
hopefully have subtitles so youcan read along.
So I don't know that and like,hopefully have subtitles so you
(29:14):
can read along.
So I don't know.
That's an interesting point.
Um, as far as those aspects, Imean, I think it'd be
interesting.
Um, and I I feel like this iskind of where the I'm not a huge
fan of the freeman meta, but itcould be interesting for like a
newsletter type thing andpotentially in I don't know how
(29:36):
it would work exactly, butyou're posting this newsletter,
people can mint it for free forlike a week or whenever you know
, until the next one comes out,who knows?
And then potentially you couldhave like rewards for or do, do
something, not necessarily areward, but do something special
for those.
I collected X amount of them, acertain percentage of them.
(29:57):
That could be interesting andthat could be another way aspect
of community building.
I just don't know the best wayto approach that.
I'm just not a fan of the freemints for the artwork.
I feel like that's just givingaway stuff that potentially has
value in the future.
It's interesting, but I mean,usually most people don't value
(30:18):
free stuff.
Well said, but yeah, anythingelse?
Did I answer that enough?
Yeah?
Ben Roy (30:29):
I think that covers it.
It's just interesting to riff alittle bit and realize in some
way we're kind of mirroring thesame collector behavior that
exists in normal art.
Quote-unquote like there's nota lot of people out there
bidding on old books.
You know, maybe jk rowling'slike original harry potter
edition or something you know,what I mean, like it's so much
more consequential or culturallyrelevant to be like I want,
(30:52):
want a Basquiat or I want like aWarhol, like it's just that
visual feedback loop of, yes,this is where we've stuck some
value, and obviously music has alot of value too, but it's a
bit of a different.
It's less ownership oriented,right, and it always has been
that way, right, I think you'renot really even in iTunes days
(31:12):
when you have a 99 cent song.
You're not thinking so muchabout owning the actual music
itself, you just know you'reowning the right to listen to it
.
Yeah, and so you're one degreeoff that sense of okay, I own
this piece of art.
Yeah, anyway, I don't know.
I want to believe there's goingto be use cases for this stuff,
like I don't know.
I just I want to believethere's going to be use cases
for this stuff, like NFTs forother assets and items, right,
(31:33):
but I don't know how to thinkabout it yet as to what, how
much value those things aregoing to have.
You know, like you said withthe newsletter, maybe that works
, right, yeah, the strategy forengagement and community
building and whatnot.
NorCal Guy (31:51):
But do those things hold serious value one day?
You know, probably not superlikely, right?
Yeah, I don't know, it's hard.
I mean potentially like theonly music that has done that,
potentially in that, and that'sbecause the group kind of is the
wu-tang, that wu-tang album,you know, there's like so much
lore and like mystery aroundthat initially, and then now
it's like this thing, you know,and like mystery around that
initially, and then now it'slike this thing, you know, and
(32:11):
like, oh, who's going to do thiswith it or whatever.
And but still, even thenthey're like hoping to, you know
, maybe potentially release itsomehow and then make some money
off of it or whatever.
Whoever actually ends up owningthe actual album, which I
haven't really followed alongwith, I just see snippets here
and there.
But yeah, I, I, uh, I don'tknow followed along with, I just
see snippets here and there.
Likewise, yeah, but yeah, Idon't know man, Maybe it just
(32:38):
has to be reframed.
They just haven't done itproperly yet.
I don't know.
It hasn't taken off that's forsure, for sure, for sure.
Any other questions?
Ben Roy (32:50):
I think I mean, I can keep asking you questions all
day.
NorCal Guy (32:53):
How long do?
Ben Roy (32:53):
you want to go for.
We'll go we'll go, I'm ready.
I'm curious how you think aboutwhen to collect someone's work.
You know you became pretty wellknown for collecting a genesis
of an artist's work and it'sinteresting.
No, like super, superinteresting kind of way to say
okay, like hey, I'm drawn tothis person want to own their
(33:15):
first thing.
Other people might say I wantto wait until they're proven out
a little bit more and then buyone of their works there.
Other people might really wantto wait until it's like hey,
this is X copy, investment gradetype of.
NorCal Guy (33:28):
Thing.
Ben Roy (33:28):
Yeah.
So I don't know.
I would love to hear you justriff on that Like is is this
just?
Hey, I really like artists andwant to buy their first thing,
is it?
You know, tell me more abouthow you collect along those
lines.
NorCal Guy (33:38):
Yeah, well, I feel like I have a pretty good eye
for good art, so I haveconfidence in what I buy.
So for me, I'm like it's not abig deal for me to like wait
until someone is you know, quote, unquote successful.
Um, I'm down and just buy thatfirst piece if I think the
(33:58):
artist is solid.
You know, I definitely want to,depending on you know, price
wise, and that's also partly whyI don't like to invest like in
a in a piece more than likethree ETH these days, just
because you know if it is, youknow, an early work.
I want to make sure and that'swhy I like check out their
(34:20):
socials and in their website orwhatever and hopefully they have
some history there before youdo put some money out for that
piece of art.
But I think you can get a lotmore bang for your buck by
finding a good artist early thanbuying an X copy once he's
(34:42):
successful.
So, yeah, I guess that myapproach is just like and I used
to have more time to do this Iused to like actually scroll
comments and notifications fromdifferent artists that I have
turned on to see what they'reliking, what they're talking
about, and then like, oh, shootthis person, you know, just
(35:05):
minted, or they have a genesisand I think it's their work is
good, then I'm just gonna go buyit because it seems like a
win-win for myself.
If I like it and I think itmeets all the the check marks or
checks all the boxes, I shouldsay yeah love that very cool any
(35:27):
other questions?
Ben Roy (35:29):
maybe a final one on ai art.
I'm curious, um, I mean, thisis like comes and goes as a hot
topic right for the last twoyears.
It's been like, ah, thisstuff's not art to okay, like
it's part of the process forlots of artists to like.
Ah, like, like AI art's its owncategory, all of this stuff, um
(35:51):
, maybe just very simply like,do you do you see it as a
different category or do you seeit as a process and tool in
someone's artistic flow?
Like, is someone an artist?
Um, or is this like, hey, Iwant to collect AI art
specifically.
Um, how does it?
Where does it fit in your kindof lay of the landscape?
NorCal Guy (36:09):
Uh, I, I mean, it's definitely.
Some artists definitely use itas tools to like help, like
process through an idea, which Ithink that's really cool.
Uh, I feel like it's its owncategory, though I wouldn't
classify this post photographyor whatever, because it seems
like a lot of it.
Is this photo realistic stuffor these crazy dreamlike videos
(36:35):
that are like semi-realisticlooking.
Um, I don't, because I mean Ifeel like it's just, I don't
know, I would always, I justwould classify all of it as ai
art and then, however you wantto, whatever you want to do
within that category, is fine,but I would just classify most
of it as ai art.
I don't know how, because Imean all paintings are
classified usually as likepaintings and they see like oil
(36:59):
or watercolor, but they're allstill paintings.
Because I would just classifyeverything as ai art.
Like all photograph photographyis, even if it's composite
photography, it's stillphotography.
So I would just classify all aiart as ai art, not like oh,
this is ai photography.
Like I think that's dumb.
Like no, you're, it's nottechnically a photograph, it's a
(37:23):
wannabe photograph.
I'd call it ai art.
This is how I would approach it, totally.
Ben Roy (37:33):
No, it's a fun, it's a good way to, I think, to think
about it.
It's an interesting thing toowhere, like it kind of spawned
out of crypto in a way.
Of course, people have beendoing AI art for longer than
crypto has been around, in thesame way that generative artists
have been, you know, doinggenerative art for longer than
crypto has been around, in thesame way that generative artists
have been doing generative artfor longer than crypto has been
around.
But it's kind of an interestingoutflow of like cool.
(37:55):
We get this crypto art scene.
You can mint stuff onblockchains.
There's some sort of providenceownership angle, and then AI
people just kind of came throughand also started to be part of
that, ready to build a scene andto have their own little
spheres alongside normal, normalart, generative art, you know
one of one stuff, all the things, and so in a way, it kind of
(38:18):
pulled us into the AIconversation, I think earlier
than maybe the wider culturestuff did.
Like I was looking at AI artbefore ChatGPT came out, and
that's not because I'm somehowparticularly innovative.
I think it's just kind of funbecause we got um confronted by
the stuff in a cool way rightearlier, if that makes sense no,
that makes sense.
NorCal Guy (38:36):
I like that um and I agree.
Um, we definitely had.
It definitely was put out infront of us a lot earlier,
especially like we had toquestion things earlier like
wait a second, is thatsomething's not right on that
thing?
Like, is that ai?
Like that was part of you know?
We've had that discussion.
Like you know, just tell meyour process, like don't don't
(38:58):
try and hide that it's ai.
Just tell me that you used aiin part of it or something I
don't know.
It looks weird to me.
Ben Roy (39:03):
Something's off, I don't know why does he have
seven fingers?
NorCal Guy (39:07):
right right yeah, so yeah, it's been fun.
Do you have any hot takes?
Ben Roy (39:16):
um, I think it probably depends on the category.
Off the cuff, what do I have tosay here?
Um, maybe my hottest take isthat I don't think chains matter
very much when it comes to art.
Okay, which is, you know, likecounter the whole provenance
(39:37):
conversation, like this is likeme pulling for you know, trying
to come up with a hot take onthe fly here.
I think we overweight provenancein terms of the value of art.
Like it's interesting and I'mvery sympathetic to this idea
that there's a history of peoplewho meant things on chain and
that early, super rare pieces orother other work shows that you
(39:59):
were here early and kind ofyou're a pioneer and an
innovator.
Value flows to people like that.
Um, but I just think we underemphasize, like, the actual
value of the artists themselvesby over focusing on the
provenance of the timing ofthese works, where it's like I'm
much, much more interested inwho the person is and whether
they're innovative yeah, reallyreally going to bat to keep
pushing art forward than thefact that they happen to mint
(40:20):
something in 2018 or 2019.
Um, and I also don'tnecessarily think it matters as
much that something is on eitherbitcoin or solana or Tezos or
something, so long as theartists themselves has that like
really singular, like forwardorientation to.
I want to be cutting edge andinnovative and creative and kind
(40:41):
of like not cult of personality, but yeah, just like there's a
force of nature with theseartists.
And so maybe to wrap this intosomething neater, I would take
the equation of value that wekind of say, okay, a piece of
art has value because of a, band c, and slightly underweight
the way that we talk aboutprovenance, to add more weight
(41:01):
to the value of the artiststhemselves, um, and I think that
means that you're able to pullacross time or chains or
whatever, and with a little bitmore, um, yeah, like diversity,
if that makes sense yeah, no, II have um thought about this and
my thoughts well, I think itwould be interesting.
NorCal Guy (41:23):
So I like the whole provenance, like hey, I created,
I minted this and I think moreartists should mint closer to
like that creation date.
I think there's somethingvaluable in that, but I think it
would be interesting.
So I don't know any answer tothis.
I'm just throwing things outthere that it would be
(41:47):
interesting for an artist tohave some way to have it minted
but then a collector to be ableto like pay for it with whatever
currency they want and thenpotentially have it wrapped in
whatever contract and put on andthen sent to the whatever
wallet that that collector wants, like whether that's on bitcoin
(42:12):
, like you know, if that's thehardest chain and people want to
hold it on that chain, like,all right, this guy minted or
minted it on eth.
I want it wrapped and I want tobuy it with usdc because I
don't want to spend my bitcoinand have it sent to my Bitcoin
wallet or something like that.
I don't know, it'd beinteresting, something like that
(42:32):
.
I don't know how it would work.
I'm not a coder, I'm just atalker.
Ben Roy (42:38):
And, to be fair, I'm exaggerating a bit.
To make the point right, Ithink Providence matters for
sure.
It's not a zero by any means.
I just think there's a lot ofconversations that you see that
I think over optimized for thatas the only like input to value
and it misses that most of to meor like a driving force of that
value is not just like therandom time it happened to be
(42:59):
minted on chain, it's also whothe artist is and what they're
doing and what they have to sayabout the world and like where
they're going and, um, it's adata point, but it's not the
data point.
NorCal Guy (43:09):
Right, right, all right, I like it, I like it.
So do you have any projects youare working on?
Ben Roy (43:19):
Anything you'd like to talk about?
Yeah, okay, we can shill thepodcast.
How about that?
So my friend, natalie and Istarted a podcast earlier this
year called Liquid Culture.
The thinking there is basicallylike there's a moment in time
that we find ourselves in whereyou can now own stuff on the
internet, basically through theblockchain, right, and obviously
(43:40):
you cover the art side of thespace pretty closely and you're
a fan of that same sentiment,right, being able to own stuff
on the internet is cool, and Ithink it's basically making the
observation that that's going tochange a lot about how we
create and consume culture, butnot just from an art perspective
, also from fashion and gamingand social and consumer
perspectives.
(44:00):
And wanting to create a podcastthat just kind of follows that
evolution to say, okay, here'sthis moment, here's how culture
is changing.
What would it look like to talkto founders and creatives and
just people who are observers ofthat shift?
Yeah, and that's kind of thisidea of liquid culture, liquid
being the tradable, you knowfinancialized nature of these
things, um, and you know theculture part being the culture
(44:21):
part, and yeah, it's been fun.
I would say we're early days,you know you have a lot more
reps than we do.
Um, it's an interestingexperience just to try and
figure out how to interview welland, you know, have
conversations with people andmake them meaningful.
You know that people hopefullywant to listen to Right, um, so
it's been a ride, but I think,yeah, if I had to pick one thing
that I'm working on right now,uh, I I've loved just having
(44:44):
some time to hang out with, withartists and founders and stuff
and pick their brains, basicallyalong those lines.
NorCal Guy (44:50):
Nice and you have a.
Do you have a newsletter aswell?
Ben Roy (44:52):
Right, I do I write a monthly kind of blog post on
something related to prettysimilar categories.
Usually it's like thisintersection of of kind of
crypto and culture, tech andculture.
Um, and yeah, I've just I'vealways been a writer.
Uh, it's probably the mostconsistent through line across
my life, feeling like there'sstill a lane for that To be like
(45:19):
cool if I can write 600-800words on a topic and really
hopefully care about the qualityand put enough time and effort
into that that even people whodon't read might actually stop
and read that for five minutes.
That's kind of the goal withthese things.
It's just to create anentertainment experience out of
writing as a craft and hopefully, yeah, have some fun with a
small readership of people tofollow along with those.
(45:40):
But yeah, those are the mediastuff.
Essentially is, I think, thetwo main parts.
Some of these liquid cultureconversations and some of my
writing are what I have the mostfun doing month to month at the
moment Awesome.
NorCal Guy (45:54):
Well, Ben, I just want to thank you and I
appreciate you taking some timeout of your day and coming on
the show and sharing yourthoughts.
I had a great time, Thank youman Such a pleasure.
Ben Roy (46:06):
Thank you so much for having me.
Who is this guy?
Who is this?
NorCal Guy (46:09):
guy.
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal and chill podcast Show.
It's chill time NorCal andchill podcast.
(46:32):
What the show?
It's showtime?
Norcal and chill podcast.
Ben Roy (46:35):
What the show?
It's showtime.
Who is this?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Norcal guy.
Ben Roy (00:09):
NorCal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy.
NorCal Guy (00:12):
NorCal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy,
norcal and chill podcast.
So it's chill time, norcal andchill podcast.
What the sh-, what the shNorCal and chillill Podcast.
What the sh-, what the sh-?
Norcal and Shill Podcast.
So it's shill time, norcal andShill Podcast.
What the sh-, what the?
Ben Roy (00:31):
sh-.
NorCal Guy (00:32):
Welcome back to another episode of NorCal and
Shill.
Today, we dive deep into theworld of NFTs, crypto art
andcape of Digital Ownershipwith our guest, ben Roy.
In this episode, ben unpacksthe intricacies of valuing art
in the crypto space, emphasizingthe relevance of art supply
(00:55):
editions and the artist'scommunity.
He shares his fascination withthe idea of networked
collections and the overlookedpotential for community building
within digital art.
Ben opens up about his initialinterest in NFTs, sparked by
projects like Decentraland, andreflects on his journey from
(01:16):
collecting Pokemon cards tobecoming immersed in the world
of crypto art.
He highlights the positivenature of Web3 and its promise
for hardworking individuals.
Throughout the conversation,ben and I explore the
complexities of pricing art andcryptocurrency, the importance
of artist provenance and thechallenges of attracting new
(01:38):
collectors to the space.
Ben also shares his thoughts onAI art, non-visual NFTs like
music and writing, and thefuture of digital art collecting
.
Join us as we delve into thefascinating intersection of
technology, culture and art anddiscover why Ben believes that,
in this evolving digitallandscape, the real value lies
(02:02):
in the innovation and creativityof the artist.
Stay tuned for an episodebrimming with insights, hot
takes and a look into the futureof digital art.
Everybody.
Please welcome Ben Roy.
Hey, ben, welcome to thepodcast.
How are you doing today, dude?
I'm doing so well.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, I thank you for coming on.
(02:24):
Thank you for being a guest.
I feel very appreciative andhonored because you have good
takes that you post on X Twitterand I, you know I appreciate
them because they're not they'rekind of contrarian, they're
kind of opposite of the, thecurrent thinking, and I think
(02:44):
there are, they're actually goodtakes that, um, you have good
thoughts on the subjects thatyou talk about thanks so much.
Ben Roy (02:50):
You know it's funny like you tweet into the abyss
and never really assume anyone'sreading it for the most part,
so it's always fun to be like ah, I actually read your stuff.
Um, yeah, so thank you?
NorCal Guy (03:01):
yeah, of course, so I guess just jumping in.
So what were your firstthoughts when you heard about
these NFTs, crypto arts?
Ben Roy (03:11):
Yeah, good question.
So for me, I kind of came intocrypto around.
Then, super random moment intime, I missed that whole
previous bubble but came in andI was like pretty taken by nfts,
right away actually, and so Ibought decentraland this is like
summer of 2019 or somethingright.
(03:32):
It's like man, maybe this isgonna be like ready player, one
like I should probably own someland in this like magical
virtual world.
That seems like a smartdecision, right, and so I came
at it from that and I didn'treally think too much else of it
.
I was just like, okay, I guessyou can own stuff now, like game
items and whatever.
I didn't, unfortunately, buypunks at the time.
(03:54):
I missed some of the earlyserious money makers, but at
least in general it kind ofclicked for me.
I think it took a little bit ofthe euphoria for me to really
realize it.
Oh, you know there's a lot ofother things you can do here,
but yeah, out of the gate it wasmore of like a metaverse nerd
type of thing.
NorCal Guy (04:12):
Yeah, no, I get that , because I felt that way too,
but I was like maybe the I wasleaning more towards the Super
World app, which still hasn'tgone anywhere, either leaning
more towards the super world app, which still hasn't gone
anywhere either oh, so did youcollect art or anything else
(04:35):
before nfts?
Ben Roy (04:35):
yeah, so I collected pokemon cards pretty heavily,
okay, um, before nfts I wasn't aphysical art collector.
I mean so much of it's justthat it's quite expensive and so
, um, for my, where my likebudget was at through I guess,
like 20 says 2017, 18, 19 I wentback and it's funny in
reflection, because you're like,cool, I'm going to buy some
pokemon cards.
I'm going to like put them upfor sale on ebay.
The slippage of doing that isinsane.
(04:58):
If you compare that to likebuying an nft.
Right, you're like, wow, I haveto wait two weeks for this
thing to get mailed to me.
I'm paying this huge fee.
It's just this ridiculousexperience.
But, um, that was less the raw,like you know how do I make
money, that was a part of it butmore just like that was a big
part of my childhood and stuff.
So trying to figure out how doI collect some of these things
(05:19):
and have that for sentimentalvalue.
Um, so, yeah, definitely acollector streak in general
before NFT land.
NorCal Guy (05:26):
Right, right.
So what are the best thingsabout Web3 today?
Ben Roy (05:33):
That's a good question.
I think I would say it'smodestly more meritocratic than
most other industries you couldspend your time in, whether
that's like traditional art,traditional finance, like
traditional tech, even any ofthe industries that would
intersect with kind of whatthree.
You yeah, you just have tofight for fight harder, for
(05:54):
longer to kind of go up thosehierarchies where, while crypto
stuff is not perfect and there'sdefinitely kind of insiders and
cabals and whatnot, I thinkyeah, like it's, I think of it
like we're playing in theEuropean basketball league
versus the NBA, like there'ssome players right Like you can
still hoop, but it's not thatprofessional yet, and so you
just have way higher upside ifyou work hard.
(06:14):
Does that make sense?
NorCal Guy (06:16):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I get that, I get that.
So where do you?
I think you'll have someinteresting insight on this one
when do you see digital art andNFTs in five years?
Ben Roy (06:29):
And then do you have any concerns as it expands?
Yeah, this is a hard one.
Okay, I'll give you what I hopeto see, I think, in five years.
I hope that it's normalized forpeople to collect digital art
for $20 worth of that a week andthat there's some natural ways
to display that as part of youknow, your social presence or in
your house or whatever, right,I want to think that the, the,
(06:50):
what we spend our time doing isa little bit more, you know,
normalized, yeah, um, I do thinkthe thing that concerns me
probably is, uh, we just aredealing with a bit of an
overhang from the hype of 2021,so there's a lot of expectations
, right, where artists are like,cool, I'm going to make this
insane amount of money, orcollectors are going to flip
stuff for, you know, infiniteamount of money, and I think it
(07:13):
may be a little bit of a slowergrind than that.
So it's kind of like you'rebattling uphill against pretty
intense expectations for thefinancial, financialized side of
of digital art, right, um, I'mvery like bullish, like I really
think it's a special umcategory, like the way that you
can build relationships withartists and your community of
collectors.
Things like this there's.
(07:34):
It's a lot of cool things topull on, but yeah, hopefully
it's normalized, but also kindof caution on the whole.
You know, hype, euphoria,hangover, yeah, fair, that's
fair.
NorCal Guy (07:47):
Yeah, I mean yeah, there's no, I mean there's only
so many people and you know, Ifeel like some of it's slowed
down and a lot of it's hard todo because so many people have
become friends.
There's not like thatcompetition anymore.
So you need, like this newlayer of people or this new
cohort that comes in and is likewilling to, you know, overbid
(08:10):
your friend and stuff for theright piece, definitely, because
I mean nowadays you're like ohyeah, oh man, I don't want to
overbid this guy, I like himI've even done that with you
before.
Ben Roy (08:20):
I was like, oh you know , norcal bid on a photo, like I
guess I'm not even gonna play,makes sense, uh.
So yeah, no, I I think I thinkthis was mckenzie at ensemble.
He was saying most of theplatforms are kind of duking it
out over the same 35 collectors.
Right, and as much as it's abit of a joke like it, it does
(08:41):
speak to where we're at in someway, where you you just want to
see that number go up 100x assoon as you possibly can right
right just like get more peopleinterested in this stuff for
sure is there anything you'dlike to see more of in the
crypto art space I think I stillthink there is like unexplored
(09:04):
area around community buildingwith collections and additions.
I think I'm sure we'll get intosome of the different pieces to
this puzzle, but part of whatmakes digital art special, or
like this little particular partof crypto special, is you just
have this networked collectionidea of OK, I can create an art
blocks set of you know 500outputs, or it's a photography
(09:26):
collection or whatever, and Ithink previously it's not like
the people who own Monet is justhang out with each other.
You know they probably justhave their Monet on the wall in
their hedge fund or whatever andthey do their thing.
Um the.
The thing that really capturedme earlier in 2021 was was, yeah
, that like networked ability tooffer people maybe a lower
(09:48):
value, um way to collectsomeone's work, but also like
build community around them in avery coherent way.
Um and so yeah, there'sdefinitely a lot of good
examples of people who alreadydo this well, but I think
exploring that more would besomething I'd like to see more
of yeah, I can see that.
NorCal Guy (10:04):
Um, yeah, I don't feel like it's it's been really
done yet, or I mean, punks arekind of doing, in a way, are the
closest thing to that, I think,but it hasn't really been
really done.
I don't know if it's done well,but like I don't know.
Ben Roy (10:25):
There's just unexplored potential.
Put it that way right like Ithink there's a lot of things
people can do um, so hopefullywe see more experiments along
those lines for sure.
NorCal Guy (10:34):
So does one eth equal one eth man I.
Ben Roy (10:41):
I feel like we both know lots of people on either
side of this debate, and so it'san interesting question to
wrestle with.
I lean towards not.
I think it's not really a unitof account for artists and how
they live their lives, forpeople how they live their lives
or how they're reallyconceptualizing Like, do I have
enough money to buy this?
What I'll say on the positiveside, or on the like what you
(11:05):
know, what, what might makeequal one ETH is there are some
assets that are like uniquelyEthereum related or like
cultural, culturally relevant,and there's a lot of Ethereum
native wealth that might maybekeep some of those assets afloat
as it goes up, but it's justlike.
Personally, I think it's hardto hold in your head the tension
(11:27):
of like I'm very bullish onEthereum, I think it's going to
be, you know, whatever $20,000one day, and then think that all
the art that you buy has likean embedded 10x inside it.
You know what I mean.
Like it.
Just, it feels like I like thatwe use Ethereum.
It's interesting to me thatthis stuff is denominated in ETH
, but I don't think it's really,when push comes to shove,
(11:48):
priced that way.
Yeah, and yeah, I don't know.
I think it's also difficultsometimes for artists that maybe
feel like they need to do that,because you know you sell
something for two ETH one timeand it's that's like, say, it's
eight grand near the top, andthen you can't really go back
and sell because you feel likeyou need to.
You know, sell your next pieceat a higher value and all of a
sudden he is now in the tank,whatever, and it's like, okay,
(12:09):
how do you judge and jugglethese dynamics?
NorCal Guy (12:12):
it can be tricky, for sure, for sure for sure um
yeah, I feel like well, you uhsuper rare is starting to do.
Did they announce that they'redoing usdC pricing or something
like that, or payments in?
I?
Ben Roy (12:27):
think they had Rare pricing first and then USDC
pricing as well, and I think,yeah, I mean, I hope we still
use Ether to purchase thingsLike I think that's a big part
of the kind of moneyness of thiswhole scene.
But in your head, are yousitting there thinking there,
thinking like, oh, punks are 26ETH, or are you thinking like
other 50 grand or 75 grand mostpeople, if you're to like
(12:50):
actually answer honestly, you'restill thinking in USD terms and
so, yeah, I don't know, I kindof wish in some magical sci-fi
world that we were pricingthings in this different way,
but I just don't think for themajority of cases, that's how it
really works.
NorCal Guy (13:07):
Yeah yeah, so does supply matter?
Ben Roy (13:13):
I think I think it depends.
You know, I was thinking aboutum andy warhol recently, uh, and
he's just like an insane amountof supply, yeah, and and he's
an exception, obviously, like herepresents a moment in time in
art that is unusual.
Most people are not going tohave that much demand and stuff.
It really is that equation,right, of trying to balance
supply and demand.
But yeah, I think my answer tothis just boils down to it
(13:37):
depends.
I think, overwhelmingly, supplydoes matter.
But I do think there are goingto be moments or specific
artists or different scenarioswhere you could justify having a
really big supply as a way to,yeah, like kind of what we
talked about before, maybe buildcommunity at first, in the
early stage of your career, orexplore some other different
concept or theme that actuallythen does have merit down the
(13:59):
line, and so, yeah, it sort ofdepends on who you're talking to
a little bit and at what stageof their career they're.
Like an artist might be in um,do I look personally at supply
when I buy things for sure,right, like it's a data point,
um, but I'm not, I'm not soobsessed with that.
I'm kind of more interested inwho the who the artist is
(14:20):
themselves.
Um, because I think that'sprobably more relevant than the
supply part of the equation.
You know Picasso also put outjust like an insane amount of
work.
There's a lot of people thatyou know it was more their
relevance culturally that pushedthem forward than whether they
had a lot of supplier or not.
You know Right.
NorCal Guy (14:41):
So do you have any thoughts on additions versus one
of ones, how they should worktogether?
Ben Roy (14:47):
I mean, you keep on coming back to this community
aspect, which maybe that's whereit should play out, but uh,
yeah, curious your thoughts yeah, um, I think I like editions
personally, like definitely onthat community piece, because it
lets you, you know, access anartist or own their work in a
more affordable way.
(15:08):
Um, I think it it's just likemore a tool in the toolkit than
a binary right to say you know,if you're an artist, like one of
ones are going to be your, yourcrown jewel, right, you
probably don't want too many ofthose, you want it to matter,
you want to be able to tellstories of who you are with them
.
But that's kind of like a pullup, pulling on that thread of
(15:29):
does supply matter, right,scarcity matters in those
instances.
But I think, like tastefullyusing additions alongside that
is a cool tool in the toolkit.
Like I think there are going tobe strong cases for that sort
of thing.
Now, that might be like anaddition of 25.
That might be something smaller, right, it doesn't have to be
these in our heads.
I think we think of openadditions where it's like 10,000
(15:49):
minutes or like infinite numberof minutes.
That is different and I dothink you kind of lose the magic
of ownership sometimes when youdo have that kind of infinite
mint.
That said, there might bepeople who are earlier in their
career, who like focus more onthe content side, like I'm a
(16:10):
blogger or something, like Iwant to go viral with comics.
I want to do that in a way togrow my reach.
Um, that's not necessarilyfocused on one of ones.
Um.
So, yeah, different tools, uh,for different people, for sure
for sure.
NorCal Guy (16:23):
So I'm curious do you have a best piece of advice
you've been given, or do youhave like a mantra that you kind
of live by?
That kind of runs through yourhead.
Ben Roy (16:30):
Yeah, I think my favorite, one of my favorite
quotes is all models are wrong.
Some are useful.
It's by this guy named GeorgeBox who was a British
statistician, and it's just aninteresting thing because I
(16:53):
think it kind of returns agencyback to all of us to do our own
original thinking about stuff,to be like you know what some
expert or some other personmight have interesting thoughts
and important contributions to aconversation, but nothing is
ever totally correct, like thereare ways of looking at the
world through models that arehelpful, um, but yeah, there's
always some sort of differentapproach or different way of
understanding things.
(17:14):
And I think, yeah, I think aboutit a lot, especially now in
kind of an internet era, wheremost people just don't really do
much original thinking.
You know, it's kind of borrowedopinions and there's a lot of
you know and I'm guilty of itmyself too it's not I think it's
common across most of us whereyou're just like I'm consuming
so much information that it'shard to actually do the, the
(17:35):
creator part or like the actualstep aside and do some thinking,
um, so yeah, I don't know ifit's a mantra, but as a quote, I
think you know all models arewrong, some are useful.
Uh, it can be helpful.
No, I like that.
NorCal Guy (17:46):
I appreciate that.
Um yeah, especially in this dayand age, because people don't
think a lot.
So if you could live or moveanywhere, where would you live
and why?
Ben Roy (18:05):
you know this is a hard one for me because I feel like
I have so many answers.
I don't have a very clear likethis is the city that I want to
live in, but I think I would besuper keen to do a season in New
York and I would be interestedin doing a season in Tokyo.
And I think I guess, maybe forcontext, I'm based in Vancouver
in Canada.
(18:25):
I think when you look at NorthAmerica, new York is hard to
beat for a lot of differentcultural reasons.
There's just like a convergenceof people and money and
different activity there that isintense when you visit, like
the pace is crazy and so I'm notsure I could like live there,
live there properly, but to do aseason there would be fun.
And then, yeah, tokyo like Iguess it's become a bit of a
(18:48):
cliche to go to Japanapan, um,but my, my dad actually lived
there when I was growing up andmy grandpa also, um, spent a
bunch of time there after worldwar ii and so it's just like
there's some familial connectionto that.
Yeah, and thinking through,like just a different
understanding of culture and artand the same things that I
would care about in new york, uh, but from more of an asian
(19:08):
perspective.
Yeah, um, having never been,it's kind of high on the list.
NorCal Guy (19:13):
Nice, I like that.
So if you were an animal, whatwould you be and why?
Ben Roy (19:19):
I love this.
I would be a killer whale.
This is a shout out to theNorthwest.
I think it's just crazy whenyou see huge animals in real
life like the majesty of them isinsane to me and you know,
growing up in vancouver you wereright by the ocean.
A big part of kind of like whoI am in my childhood is all this
(19:43):
ocean stuff and I think, yeah,just gun to my head if I had to
make make one choice, we'regoing with killer whale, all
right solid, it's solid.
NorCal Guy (19:51):
Do you have a favorite movie quote or song
lyric?
Ben Roy (19:57):
yeah, this, this is harder, I think.
Um, there's a quote.
You know there's like athousand answers, right?
I'm a big movie guy and I'm abig music guy, so it's hard to
to hone in on one.
But one that I have had stuckin my head is actually from the
martian uh, with mad damon, likea movie, where he gets stuck on
mars, uh, and he just has amoment where he says I'm not
(20:18):
gonna die here and that's kindof the inflection point of the
movie, where he tries to make itback from mars to earth and
goes through all this otherstuff, and I think it just says
a lot about willpower and aboutdetermination and about, like
your agency to choose in life.
And for some reason I forgetwhy I think I watched it a
second time, you know, a yearago, and ever since then I've
(20:41):
just had that in the back of myhead, thinking yeah.
OK, I can.
I can make those choices thatmatter.
Yeah, that would be my answer.
I like that.
NorCal Guy (20:51):
This one's a good one.
So what is the best thing andthe silliest thing you've spent
money on?
Ben Roy (20:59):
Wow, best thing, maybe a cop-out answer.
I don't have like a big ticketitem, but I did a lot of travel
the last two years.
Yeah, a lot of the sort ofcrypto conference circuit, a
bunch of just relationships,right.
Like hanging out with people inreal life is hard to hard to
beat, and so I think you spendsome, some money up front and
(21:20):
wander all over the place to gohang out with a bunch of these
different people, and so that'sdefinitely a good thing.
I think it was worthwhile.
A silly example, man, I thinkI'm like keeping my local
smoothie shop in business, um,but by like, I have a smoothie
(21:41):
every day, like five times aweek, at the smoothie shop and
it's not that expensive.
Um, it's probably a little bit,you know.
It's like 10 bucks or somethingfor a smoothie.
So, whatever that is in andthat's Canadian.
So we'll we'll, we'll go with anice like 750 for the americans
in the audience and you're like,could I make a smoothie for
less than that?
Yes, and I typically havethrough my life, but I've just
(22:01):
gotten into this routine,especially through the summer,
of like getting up and going outto the smoothie shop and it's
just funny like every singleperson on the staff knows who I
am now it.
It's just like you're like theregular guy hey, Ben, nice to
see you.
And so, yeah, not like a hugeticket item, but just a funny
like it's weird to be a regularsomewhere, especially in a
(22:23):
post-COVID era where I thinkstill a lot of retail stuff is
pretty cooked right.
So yeah, that's a funny one.
NorCal Guy (22:31):
That's solid.
I I mean you're supportinglocal business you know it's
good exactly if you could.
This was gonna be hard.
If you could commission a pieceand have two artists
collaborate on it, which twoartists would it be?
Ben Roy (22:47):
yeah, this is hard.
I think there's a lot ofdifferent combos that I would
love really resonated with, oflike just being a tech person
(23:13):
thinking about the future orthese sorts of things and I
think Claire also has quite afuture orientation to her work
but it's a little bit morebubbly, there's a little more
hope, there's a little bit moreof like magic and color, yeah,
and so I think I just think itcould be cool to pair their
brains together to be like well,what does the future look like?
You know where, where?
NorCal Guy (23:33):
do you?
Ben Roy (23:33):
meet in the middle with your styles, um, because I
think there's definitely somesimilarities, but also some
meaningful distinctions, uh.
So yeah, if I could, you know,magically choose a collab to
happen, those would be my.
That'd be my pick.
I like it.
NorCal Guy (23:46):
I like it is there an interesting fact about you
that people might not be awareof?
Ben Roy (23:56):
yeah, um, I think so random fact about me that I
think you would not findotherwise shared first on this
podcast alone um, is I actuallyam a national champion in
ultimate frisbee in canada.
Oh, all right, so I played alot of frisbee growing up and
it's so funny because it's kindof this sport that makes fun of
(24:19):
itself.
It's like, obviously at somelevel, a very competitive sport
and, yeah, you know you get alot of people who come over from
soccer, from football, to toplay, and yet there's kind of
this running joke of like is itreally a sport?
Like you're throwing this weirdlittle plastic disc around the
field?
Um, so, yeah, from like a youknow off crypto life, like
previous to this whole scene, um, that was a big part of how I
(24:42):
spent a lot of my time, um,throwing a plastic disc around a
field I like it.
NorCal Guy (24:47):
You have a good advantage with it.
Ben Roy (24:50):
Yeah, no, I mean, it's a fun, it's just fun, right.
And I think there's alsosomething very West Coast about
it.
People, I think, resonate withit a little bit more out this
way versus elsewhere.
Maybe it's just the hippie sortof sensibility, I don't know.
But yeah, that's kind of arandom.
Yeah, out of my back pocket Infact, yeah, do that's kind of a
(25:11):
random yeah out of my backpocket fact.
NorCal Guy (25:11):
Yeah, do you have a favorite way to connect with
people in the space?
Ben Roy (25:20):
I think my answer is going to be memes.
Oh, yeah, okay, and why I saythat is like it's.
It's kind of the lowest barrierto entry form of communication,
like whether you're justmemeing on the timeline or in
DMs with people throwingdifferent things around.
It's so accessible.
There's always some way ofpeople being like.
Either I don't have to respond,I can respond with an emoji.
(25:41):
I can like laugh, I can riff ona different other meme that's
related.
Yeah, you come to this person orto this new group with no extra
assumptions other than likehumor and you know, maybe
another quote I could havepulled on earlier that I really
like is laughter is the closestdistance between two people.
Um, by this danish, uh, Ibelieve danish comedian, um, and
(26:05):
it's just fun, right?
I think there's some way ofconnecting over memes that feels
like you're getting closer tosomeone in an authentic way,
where you don't have to gothrough the list of like who are
you, what's your job?
Like, where are you from?
The the kind of basic socialquestions, and you skip right to
the heart of hey, like, weshare something in common.
We find these things funnytogether, right?
Um, so, yeah, if if I had togive one answer, that would be.
NorCal Guy (26:28):
It means all right, I like that.
That's a solid one.
So do you have any questionsfor me?
Ben Roy (26:34):
I do, actually I I'm curious how you think about nfts
other than art, um so basicallythere's two buckets.
One is, yeah, the whole musicnft conversation and whether you
think that's viable orinteresting or or not, but also
like there's a lot of thingsthat you could collect on the
internet, right like you couldwrite an essay.
Paragraph is a mirror.
(26:55):
I've been doing this for awhile and those things never
really picked up and I thinklargely it's because there's no
speculative loop around them.
Um, but I'm curious how you,yeah, what your experience has
been with non art quote unquote,like not digital art, uh, nfts
and if you're used to also findthose things cool unquote.
NorCal Guy (27:14):
Like not digital art , uh, nfts, and if you're, you
also find those things cool.
Yeah, no, I've I.
I am actually surprised thatmusic hasn't done better,
because I feel like people canreally connect with music just
as much as with art.
But I guess I don't know ifthere's mainly because maybe
it's because, you know, musicisn't like a one-of-one or a an
addition type of thing and soit's like more of a given out
(27:40):
there.
I'd like, and maybe it's justthe it needs to be reframed.
I don't know.
It's more given out there andpeople are like hey, go support
me if you enjoy the music, typething.
I feel that's how it'sapproached, instead of like, hey
, I made this audio art piece,do you want to buy an edition of
it?
The tricky part is like thestreaming type of service.
(28:03):
Like I want to go stream this,like how do I do that?
Like I guess most of them haveit on Spotify somewhere.
You just got to find it andstream it.
But I am surprised that the art, the, the music, hasn't done
more and but I do find itfascinating.
Um, I mean, we've seen kind ofsome people try and do like the
(28:27):
poetry thing and I think that isinteresting, um, I guess, I
don't know, maybe just becauseit's words on a page and people
it's not like, because this issuch a visual space.
Um, and maybe that's the issuewith music too is because it is
such a visual space.
That's why it has done better.
(28:50):
I don't know Cause we're all.
I mean, we're on our phone.
Most of us are on their phonesor computers and if you're on
your phone you're not probablynot always going to have your
earbuds in, so you're not alwaysgoing to like have the music
turned up loud.
You're just going to like havemost stuff on mute and like,
hopefully have subtitles so youcan read along.
So I don't know that and like,hopefully have subtitles so you
(29:14):
can read along.
So I don't know.
That's an interesting point.
Um, as far as those aspects, Imean, I think it'd be
interesting.
Um, and I I feel like this iskind of where the I'm not a huge
fan of the freeman meta, but itcould be interesting for like a
newsletter type thing andpotentially in I don't know how
(29:36):
it would work exactly, butyou're posting this newsletter,
people can mint it for free forlike a week or whenever you know
, until the next one comes out,who knows?
And then potentially you couldhave like rewards for or do, do
something, not necessarily areward, but do something special
for those.
I collected X amount of them, acertain percentage of them.
(29:57):
That could be interesting andthat could be another way aspect
of community building.
I just don't know the best wayto approach that.
I'm just not a fan of the freemints for the artwork.
I feel like that's just givingaway stuff that potentially has
value in the future.
It's interesting, but I mean,usually most people don't value
(30:18):
free stuff.
Well said, but yeah, anythingelse?
Did I answer that enough?
Yeah?
Ben Roy (30:29):
I think that covers it.
It's just interesting to riff alittle bit and realize in some
way we're kind of mirroring thesame collector behavior that
exists in normal art.
Quote-unquote like there's nota lot of people out there
bidding on old books.
You know, maybe jk rowling'slike original harry potter
edition or something you know,what I mean, like it's so much
more consequential or culturallyrelevant to be like I want,
(30:52):
want a Basquiat or I want like aWarhol, like it's just that
visual feedback loop of, yes,this is where we've stuck some
value, and obviously music has alot of value too, but it's a
bit of a different.
It's less ownership oriented,right, and it always has been
that way, right, I think you'renot really even in iTunes days
(31:12):
when you have a 99 cent song.
You're not thinking so muchabout owning the actual music
itself, you just know you'reowning the right to listen to it
.
Yeah, and so you're one degreeoff that sense of okay, I own
this piece of art.
Yeah, anyway, I don't know.
I want to believe there's goingto be use cases for this stuff,
like I don't know.
I just I want to believethere's going to be use cases
for this stuff, like NFTs forother assets and items, right,
(31:33):
but I don't know how to thinkabout it yet as to what, how
much value those things aregoing to have.
You know, like you said withthe newsletter, maybe that works
, right, yeah, the strategy forengagement and community
building and whatnot.
NorCal Guy (31:51):
But do those things hold serious value one day?
You know, probably not superlikely, right?
Yeah, I don't know, it's hard.
I mean potentially like theonly music that has done that,
potentially in that, and that'sbecause the group kind of is the
wu-tang, that wu-tang album,you know, there's like so much
lore and like mystery aroundthat initially, and then now
it's like this thing, you know,and like mystery around that
initially, and then now it'slike this thing, you know, and
(32:11):
like, oh, who's going to do thiswith it or whatever.
And but still, even thenthey're like hoping to, you know
, maybe potentially release itsomehow and then make some money
off of it or whatever.
Whoever actually ends up owningthe actual album, which I
haven't really followed alongwith, I just see snippets here
and there.
But yeah, I, I, uh, I don'tknow followed along with, I just
see snippets here and there.
Likewise, yeah, but yeah, Idon't know man, Maybe it just
(32:38):
has to be reframed.
They just haven't done itproperly yet.
I don't know.
It hasn't taken off that's forsure, for sure, for sure.
Any other questions?
Ben Roy (32:50):
I think I mean, I can keep asking you questions all
day.
NorCal Guy (32:53):
How long do?
Ben Roy (32:53):
you want to go for.
We'll go we'll go, I'm ready.
I'm curious how you think aboutwhen to collect someone's work.
You know you became pretty wellknown for collecting a genesis
of an artist's work and it'sinteresting.
No, like super, superinteresting kind of way to say
okay, like hey, I'm drawn tothis person want to own their
(33:15):
first thing.
Other people might say I wantto wait until they're proven out
a little bit more and then buyone of their works there.
Other people might really wantto wait until it's like hey,
this is X copy, investment gradetype of.
NorCal Guy (33:28):
Thing.
Ben Roy (33:28):
Yeah.
So I don't know.
I would love to hear you justriff on that Like is is this
just?
Hey, I really like artists andwant to buy their first thing,
is it?
You know, tell me more abouthow you collect along those
lines.
NorCal Guy (33:38):
Yeah, well, I feel like I have a pretty good eye
for good art, so I haveconfidence in what I buy.
So for me, I'm like it's not abig deal for me to like wait
until someone is you know, quote, unquote successful.
Um, I'm down and just buy thatfirst piece if I think the
(33:58):
artist is solid.
You know, I definitely want to,depending on you know, price
wise, and that's also partly whyI don't like to invest like in
a in a piece more than likethree ETH these days, just
because you know if it is, youknow, an early work.
I want to make sure and that'swhy I like check out their
(34:20):
socials and in their website orwhatever and hopefully they have
some history there before youdo put some money out for that
piece of art.
But I think you can get a lotmore bang for your buck by
finding a good artist early thanbuying an X copy once he's
(34:42):
successful.
So, yeah, I guess that myapproach is just like and I used
to have more time to do this Iused to like actually scroll
comments and notifications fromdifferent artists that I have
turned on to see what they'reliking, what they're talking
about, and then like, oh, shootthis person, you know, just
(35:05):
minted, or they have a genesisand I think it's their work is
good, then I'm just gonna go buyit because it seems like a
win-win for myself.
If I like it and I think itmeets all the the check marks or
checks all the boxes, I shouldsay yeah love that very cool any
(35:27):
other questions?
Ben Roy (35:29):
maybe a final one on ai art.
I'm curious, um, I mean, thisis like comes and goes as a hot
topic right for the last twoyears.
It's been like, ah, thisstuff's not art to okay, like
it's part of the process forlots of artists to like.
Ah, like, like AI art's its owncategory, all of this stuff, um
(35:51):
, maybe just very simply like,do you do you see it as a
different category or do you seeit as a process and tool in
someone's artistic flow?
Like, is someone an artist?
Um, or is this like, hey, Iwant to collect AI art
specifically.
Um, how does it?
Where does it fit in your kindof lay of the landscape?
NorCal Guy (36:09):
Uh, I, I mean, it's definitely.
Some artists definitely use itas tools to like help, like
process through an idea, which Ithink that's really cool.
Uh, I feel like it's its owncategory, though I wouldn't
classify this post photographyor whatever, because it seems
like a lot of it.
Is this photo realistic stuffor these crazy dreamlike videos
(36:35):
that are like semi-realisticlooking.
Um, I don't, because I mean Ifeel like it's just, I don't
know, I would always, I justwould classify all of it as ai
art and then, however you wantto, whatever you want to do
within that category, is fine,but I would just classify most
of it as ai art.
I don't know how, because Imean all paintings are
classified usually as likepaintings and they see like oil
(36:59):
or watercolor, but they're allstill paintings.
Because I would just classifyeverything as ai art.
Like all photograph photographyis, even if it's composite
photography, it's stillphotography.
So I would just classify all aiart as ai art, not like oh,
this is ai photography.
Like I think that's dumb.
Like no, you're, it's nottechnically a photograph, it's a
(37:23):
wannabe photograph.
I'd call it ai art.
This is how I would approach it, totally.
Ben Roy (37:33):
No, it's a fun, it's a good way to, I think, to think
about it.
It's an interesting thing toowhere, like it kind of spawned
out of crypto in a way.
Of course, people have beendoing AI art for longer than
crypto has been around, in thesame way that generative artists
have been, you know, doinggenerative art for longer than
crypto has been around, in thesame way that generative artists
have been doing generative artfor longer than crypto has been
around.
But it's kind of an interestingoutflow of like cool.
(37:55):
We get this crypto art scene.
You can mint stuff onblockchains.
There's some sort of providenceownership angle, and then AI
people just kind of came throughand also started to be part of
that, ready to build a scene andto have their own little
spheres alongside normal, normalart, generative art, you know
one of one stuff, all the things, and so in a way, it kind of
(38:18):
pulled us into the AIconversation, I think earlier
than maybe the wider culturestuff did.
Like I was looking at AI artbefore ChatGPT came out, and
that's not because I'm somehowparticularly innovative.
I think it's just kind of funbecause we got um confronted by
the stuff in a cool way rightearlier, if that makes sense no,
that makes sense.
NorCal Guy (38:36):
I like that um and I agree.
Um, we definitely had.
It definitely was put out infront of us a lot earlier,
especially like we had toquestion things earlier like
wait a second, is thatsomething's not right on that
thing?
Like, is that ai?
Like that was part of you know?
We've had that discussion.
Like you know, just tell meyour process, like don't don't
(38:58):
try and hide that it's ai.
Just tell me that you used aiin part of it or something I
don't know.
It looks weird to me.
Ben Roy (39:03):
Something's off, I don't know why does he have
seven fingers?
NorCal Guy (39:07):
right right yeah, so yeah, it's been fun.
Do you have any hot takes?
Ben Roy (39:16):
um, I think it probably depends on the category.
Off the cuff, what do I have tosay here?
Um, maybe my hottest take isthat I don't think chains matter
very much when it comes to art.
Okay, which is, you know, likecounter the whole provenance
(39:37):
conversation, like this is likeme pulling for you know, trying
to come up with a hot take onthe fly here.
I think we overweight provenancein terms of the value of art.
Like it's interesting and I'mvery sympathetic to this idea
that there's a history of peoplewho meant things on chain and
that early, super rare pieces orother other work shows that you
(39:59):
were here early and kind ofyou're a pioneer and an
innovator.
Value flows to people like that.
Um, but I just think we underemphasize, like, the actual
value of the artists themselvesby over focusing on the
provenance of the timing ofthese works, where it's like I'm
much, much more interested inwho the person is and whether
they're innovative yeah, reallyreally going to bat to keep
pushing art forward than thefact that they happen to mint
(40:20):
something in 2018 or 2019.
Um, and I also don'tnecessarily think it matters as
much that something is on eitherbitcoin or solana or Tezos or
something, so long as theartists themselves has that like
really singular, like forwardorientation to.
I want to be cutting edge andinnovative and creative and kind
(40:41):
of like not cult of personality, but yeah, just like there's a
force of nature with theseartists.
And so maybe to wrap this intosomething neater, I would take
the equation of value that wekind of say, okay, a piece of
art has value because of a, band c, and slightly underweight
the way that we talk aboutprovenance, to add more weight
(41:01):
to the value of the artiststhemselves, um, and I think that
means that you're able to pullacross time or chains or
whatever, and with a little bitmore, um, yeah, like diversity,
if that makes sense yeah, no, II have um thought about this and
my thoughts well, I think itwould be interesting.
NorCal Guy (41:23):
So I like the whole provenance, like hey, I created,
I minted this and I think moreartists should mint closer to
like that creation date.
I think there's somethingvaluable in that, but I think it
would be interesting.
So I don't know any answer tothis.
I'm just throwing things outthere that it would be
(41:47):
interesting for an artist tohave some way to have it minted
but then a collector to be ableto like pay for it with whatever
currency they want and thenpotentially have it wrapped in
whatever contract and put on andthen sent to the whatever
wallet that that collector wants, like whether that's on bitcoin
(42:12):
, like you know, if that's thehardest chain and people want to
hold it on that chain, like,all right, this guy minted or
minted it on eth.
I want it wrapped and I want tobuy it with usdc because I
don't want to spend my bitcoinand have it sent to my Bitcoin
wallet or something like that.
I don't know, it'd beinteresting, something like that
(42:32):
.
I don't know how it would work.
I'm not a coder, I'm just atalker.
Ben Roy (42:38):
And, to be fair, I'm exaggerating a bit.
To make the point right, Ithink Providence matters for
sure.
It's not a zero by any means.
I just think there's a lot ofconversations that you see that
I think over optimized for thatas the only like input to value
and it misses that most of to meor like a driving force of that
value is not just like therandom time it happened to be
(42:59):
minted on chain, it's also whothe artist is and what they're
doing and what they have to sayabout the world and like where
they're going and, um, it's adata point, but it's not the
data point.
NorCal Guy (43:09):
Right, right, all right, I like it, I like it.
So do you have any projects youare working on?
Ben Roy (43:19):
Anything you'd like to talk about?
Yeah, okay, we can shill thepodcast.
How about that?
So my friend, natalie and Istarted a podcast earlier this
year called Liquid Culture.
The thinking there is basicallylike there's a moment in time
that we find ourselves in whereyou can now own stuff on the
internet, basically through theblockchain, right, and obviously
(43:40):
you cover the art side of thespace pretty closely and you're
a fan of that same sentiment,right, being able to own stuff
on the internet is cool, and Ithink it's basically making the
observation that that's going tochange a lot about how we
create and consume culture, butnot just from an art perspective
, also from fashion and gamingand social and consumer
perspectives.
(44:00):
And wanting to create a podcastthat just kind of follows that
evolution to say, okay, here'sthis moment, here's how culture
is changing.
What would it look like to talkto founders and creatives and
just people who are observers ofthat shift?
Yeah, and that's kind of thisidea of liquid culture, liquid
being the tradable, you knowfinancialized nature of these
things, um, and you know theculture part being the culture
(44:21):
part, and yeah, it's been fun.
I would say we're early days,you know you have a lot more
reps than we do.
Um, it's an interestingexperience just to try and
figure out how to interview welland, you know, have
conversations with people andmake them meaningful.
You know that people hopefullywant to listen to Right, um, so
it's been a ride, but I think,yeah, if I had to pick one thing
that I'm working on right now,uh, I I've loved just having
(44:44):
some time to hang out with, withartists and founders and stuff
and pick their brains, basicallyalong those lines.
NorCal Guy (44:50):
Nice and you have a.
Do you have a newsletter aswell?
Ben Roy (44:52):
Right, I do I write a monthly kind of blog post on
something related to prettysimilar categories.
Usually it's like thisintersection of of kind of
crypto and culture, tech andculture.
Um, and yeah, I've just I'vealways been a writer.
Uh, it's probably the mostconsistent through line across
my life, feeling like there'sstill a lane for that To be like
(45:19):
cool if I can write 600-800words on a topic and really
hopefully care about the qualityand put enough time and effort
into that that even people whodon't read might actually stop
and read that for five minutes.
That's kind of the goal withthese things.
It's just to create anentertainment experience out of
writing as a craft and hopefully, yeah, have some fun with a
small readership of people tofollow along with those.
(45:40):
But yeah, those are the mediastuff.
Essentially is, I think, thetwo main parts.
Some of these liquid cultureconversations and some of my
writing are what I have the mostfun doing month to month at the
moment Awesome.
NorCal Guy (45:54):
Well, Ben, I just want to thank you and I
appreciate you taking some timeout of your day and coming on
the show and sharing yourthoughts.
I had a great time, Thank youman Such a pleasure.
Ben Roy (46:06):
Thank you so much for having me.
Who is this guy?
Who is this?
NorCal Guy (46:09):
guy.
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy?
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal guy.
Norcal and chill podcast Show.
It's chill time NorCal andchill podcast.
(46:32):
What the show?
It's showtime?
Norcal and chill podcast.
Ben Roy (46:35):
What the show?
It's showtime.
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