The NFT universe has its origins formed through the communities upon which it is established. In many aspects, without community, success in the NFT realm would be nearly impossible, since NFT projects rely on individuals discovering community through a shared experience. In the episode of Diving Into Crypto, Galen Hogg, co-founder of NFTO Toronto’s first community-driven NFT social club talks about community spotlight and why is community so crucial for the success of an NFT collection.
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Transcript
Community Spotlight: Canada-Galen Hogg
Participants:
• Nadja Bester (CEO & Co-founder of AdLunam)
• Galen Hogg (Co-founder of NFTO)
Nadja
s will take place until March:Nadja
This seems to be just the beginning, because according to the company's marketing director, Christian Mastro, NFTs are as important as any of Lamborghini's other licensing endeavors, so expect to see more from them. What made Japan lose face when the country's minister of cybersecurity announced that he had never used a computer before? They are making up for with NFTs. Tech savvy Japanese mayors have been awarded NFTs for their efforts to accelerate a digital economy as part of this general national push towards NFTs that they seem to have got going on. These digital certificates of achievement leveraged proof of attendance protocol tech, signaling a growing trend in NFT use cases for events. With that, I see the audience is filling out the space. So let's get going. Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja Bester from AdLunam, and you are listening to The Future of NFTs, the show that looks beyond current NFT use cases and dives into what Non-Fungible Token technology is evolving into.
Nadja
unity that set NFTs ablaze in:Nadja
Even as late into the game as this year, during Crypto winter, when much of Web3 has been tucked away behind closed doors, many NFT communities are still going strong. To help us better understand the whys and the hows of the role of community in NFTs, we are joined today by Galen Hogg. I'm hoping that I'm saying your name correct. Galen, dialing in.
Galen
Yeah, you got it.
Nadja
Awesome. Galen is the co-founder at NFTO, Toronto’s first community driven NFT social club. So, Galen, how is the weather up north this morning?
Galen
It's a little brisk this morning, and I was locked out of my coffee shop for about ten minutes while I think someone was using the washroom. I really got to sit out there and appreciate the cold. September is really striking hard up here.
Nadja
I'm starting to feel the same. Today I was seeking out the sun instead of hiding from it. I think the bigger travesty is not being able to get coffee for ten minutes no matter what the weather is like.
Galen
Especially that. Especially that.
Nadja
fe as a casual trader back in:Galen
My background is I'm a bit of a serial entrepreneur, but also very arts focused. I was a musician for twelve years, semi-professionally. I went to art school, so I've dabbled in the visual and audio arts, but always kind of looking for the next opportunity. I started a few really bad businesses. Not bad because they weren't profitable, but bad because I did them for the wrong reason, which is just sitting and waiting in the wings for some kind of opportunity that I could use tech for or some gap that I could fill in any kind of business. My first business was called Ecofile, and it was basically to digitize businesses, make them paperless, and I was pretty successful, and I mean marginally successful, not very successful, but I kept finding myself entering these really boring businesses. Now if you think about what you're doing when you're digitizing, you're sitting around scanning documents and then scanning through metadata to make sure that everything's okay.
Galen
I'm really happy I ended up in the NFT space. Finally found something that I really enjoy. Like most people, I just started my NFT journey just by Googling. What is an NFT? I actually resisted it for a very long time. I was no trading JPEGs, no, it doesn't make sense, and I’m not going to look this up. I looked it up and I fell in love with the technology almost instantly. I probably bought an NFT the same night I Googled it and I was in a discord chatting with people that same night. Kind of wish I got in earlier, probably would have had some better opportunities in the space. Yeah, I came for the technology and then almost instantly fell in love with the culture and the community aspect of NFT. Now we've got NFTO and obviously I've never looked back. So pretty happy about it.
Nadja
Awesome. I love your line about you came for the tech and you fell in love with the culture. I think for a lot of people, it's the other way around, whereas artists, they fall in love with the culture, or as people who generally love art or whatever the use case is for NFTs that bring people into it, which up until now, of course, has been art mostly. It's either that you come for the tech and you like the community, or you like the community and you end up falling in love with the tech. It's a very poetic vice versa relationship that we have with this space.
Galen
Yeah, as long as you get there. I think that's the important part.
Nadja
Exactly. I mean, as you say, it's very early on, so even though there are these so called missed opportunities, broadly speaking, it is still very early on. Whatever it is that you want to get, you're bound to get it right. It's just all about intention. What is it that you are trying to get out of being in this space?
Galen
Yes, absolutely.
Nadja
We are all about NFT communities, of course, being the topic, and you are officially our first local community showcase, so double awesome. All right, tell us how the NFT community in Canada is coming along.
Galen
I can only speak of the NFT community in Canada, but you do get of a window in Discords and on Twitter as to what the other communities are like. I do think we have something very unique. In the way that everything that everybody kind of brags about, like wag me culture of their community or how supportive everybody is, I find that there's always a bit of a weak link in there, and there is kind of competitiveness and some kind of every once in a while it breaks down, and maybe we'll bump into that at some point in Toronto. So far I've just been so surprised by everybody in our community being actually genuinely supportive. We have people in our chats and at our events who are literally doing the same thing. And there's no myth of scarcity. If two people are building an NFT marketplace, you'll see them helping each other out, talking about their wins and fails and borrowing code and going back and forth and borrowing ideas and just genuinely sharing and building and creating together.
Galen
Maybe that's because we're an IRL community for the most part. Yeah, I think that's just the most surprising part, that you can have all these people doing the same thing and nobody is getting competitive, everyone's kind of supporting each other. I've never really bumped into something that's genuinely like that and not just people saying it's like that. I think Toronto has a very unique kind of NFT community culture out here. As we build our community and do our events and get kind of bigger and bigger, I'm really hoping that the world will start coming here as an NFT hub, much like NFT NYC or Berlin or any of those festivals and really gets to see the homegrown NFT culture and community in Toronto because it's really something special.
Nadja
Yeah. I'm so glad you touched on this absence of a scarcity mentality. I spoke in I think it was an episode that I did with Diving into Crypto, where I spoke about an experience that I had in Istanbul, Turkey. We sponsored an event with Algorand, which was an NFT art launch event. I had a similar experience there in the sense that all of the artists that I spoke to, they were not telling me about their own work, but they were telling me about other people's work. I was just so incredibly impressed by this collaborative culture that goes beyond our startup idea of collaboration is oh, let's get together, let's see how we can build something that benefits us both. Really this culture of just celebrating people for what they are doing and if there are any synergies between us, let's really support each other, let's help each other go forward.
Nadja
I think this is something that when I came into web3, the crypto space years ago, there was this culture back then that I feel has been diluted. At the same time, in NFTs you really see this come to the fore and it's just so incredible. I would love to touch later on in the show on this idea of the difference between an NFT community in real life versus one that only exists on Discord or Twitter. Generally speaking, I think this collaborative culture versus competitive culture is something that we see very strongly come to the fore in NFTs. Although, as you say, you can also start seeing the competitive culture come out in NFTs as well. Because of course, we are all human. At some point it's easy for that scale of the mentality to show up, right?
Galen
Yeah. I just want to add on to that. I think one of the reasons in NFT culture, and that will vary from crypto culture in general, is that NFT culture really does seem to be a counterculture. If you've ever been skateboarding or been in a mosh pit or been in a rap battle or wrote graffiti, and if you fall down in that mosh pit, someone picks you up. If you can't do an Ollie, there will be a pro skater right next to you that will sit there and teach you. Countercultures generally are quite supportive, and I've said this a few times. I feel like NFTs are the rockstars of crypto. When we're having events, people will be coming at a conference, coming from a DeFi party to one of our parties, and they'll be like, wow, this party is so much more live.
Galen
This is such a good time, and we're not doing anything different than the DeFi party. We've got music, we've got alcohol, and we’ve got a place to chat. The people crypto is fun, but NFTs are really fun. The people are making the party. I think that countercultures in general tend to be supportive right from the get go. I think that's kind of probably why even in most, like, even in bigger NFT communities, you get that kind of support.
Nadja
Yeah, I think this idea of counterculture, which of course originally originated from a type of counterculture, but by now it's so institutionalized that the next iteration needs to come to the fore and the next generation of rock stars need to do something. It's great that we have NFTs as this really a drawing board where there's so many different avenues that you can go from here, whether it's art or music or business use cases. There's so much utility behind this technology. The idea being, really, that I think we had someone on last week, Mel Shapcott, an artist who spoke about this idea that it really is this canvas, not only for an artist, but as any person wanting to build something. Here is this blank canvas that you can just express whatever your vision is and make it into reality. Because the technology is so nascent that there's just so many possibilities for it to go in whichever direction you want it to go in.
Galen
Yeah, it's a very exciting time.
Nadja
Yeah, how lucky we are to be here right now. So, audience, cut yourself on the back. I'm doing the same. So, speaking of community, we have Web3 as a whole, but especially NFTs that are so synonymous with community. But why is that? Why do we have this community concept as a vehicle that drives the technology forward? Why is it so crucial for the success or is it crucial for the success of a collection or the technology to have these very supportive, close knit communities?
Galen
Yeah, I think it is crucial for the success your community has to be strong if your project is going to go well. And that's for a few reasons. I don't know if everyone's heard this, but over and over again I've heard that traditional marketing doesn't work in web3 and you can think of a few obvious reasons for that. You can't really target a Google ad to someone who has a crypto wallet. Only advertise to people with crypto wallets is not an option on Google Ads, Facebook ads, Instagram ads. So that's like right off the hop. An obvious reason why you can't kind of do traditional marketing in web3 spaces. Another aspect of this is if you think about some of the most successful kind of NFT projects, like if you think of like Bored Ape Club or the Punks, their biggest still to this day, their biggest reason to have one of those is to get access to the community.
Galen
Roadmap all the way to the end, those projects are still strong because when you look over on Twitter and you see an ape and you have an ape, that conversation can start almost immediately and all of a sudden you're talking to some of the wealthier, more powerful people in the room. That can be kind of traced down to any successful, even on the lower end, like Degen Play projects. If you go into those discords, those people are in the discord every day. They're not running around in the metaverse yet, they're just sitting in the discord and they're talking and talking about other projects and really becoming friends. I think the NFT bubble was a great example of why community is so important when everybody was trapped inside their houses because of COVID I was living in discord. You can talk about the roadmap all you want, but the community has to be there because the roadmaps are often not as exciting as the people in the community.
Nadja
Yeah, I think exactly what you highlighted about this concept of traditional marketing not only not working in crypto or in Web3 for these logistical limitations, but also really because it's this top down approach that, of course, in NFT is flipped on its head completely. Because an NFT collection without an active community is something that no one ever hears about or sees. This idea that COVID for sure accelerated this connection in between the community members in the NFT space. It's so much more, I think, than just keeping that boredom at bay or keeping the loneliness at bay when we’re all stuck inside. Because as you say, it then forms this loyal community where people are actively engaged, where they are establishing friendships, where they create this new communal culture between themselves, whether this is a global community or whether this is more local, as is the case with NFTO.
Nadja
You have been associated with community groups like Bored Ape Yacht Club Canada crypto Chicks. Are there more associations planned? What does community level or community involvement at this level typically bring to the table for a local community?
Galen
For most of the connections we've had with bored Club Canada or Crypto Chicks, they've just kind of started because were the only ones doing IRL events at the time. Once we got of steam, Toronto is a crypto hub that's just slowly starting to be realized like that. These kind of connections just happen naturally. These synergies were never forced or anything. It was just with Border Club Canada. The president, who's a member of ours, came up, shout out to Prince NFT on Twitter. Yeah. He said, let's do a party on the island. We just got a bunch of people together, got of sponsorship money, got a bunch of food and some alcohol, and just went and had a bonfire on the beach. That's kind of the natural stuff that just happens. We get that a lot in our community as well. People will say, hey, I want to throw a beach party, or let's have a little party in the park.
Galen
Can I throw it and can I use the NFTO logo? I said, yeah, of course, go throw a party. So those things happen naturally. My business partner, Nissreen, the NFTO co-founder, actually made the connection to crypto chicks because Nissreen has kind of got her ear to the ground everywhere. Luckily, I think one of her mentors or someone that she strongly looks up to and works with happened to be in Crypto chicks. That kind of relationship, I was just blown away when I bumped into Crypto chicks. That organization is insane. They've got, I don't know, 50 plus chapters all over the world. Every time I bump into one of their, whether it's a founding member or just a very active member, my eyes roll back into my head just trying to think of how busy and how successful they all are. I'll stop gushing about crypto chicks.
Galen
Do we have anything planned? Back to the question to have more synergies? I mean, of course, but we are letting these things happen naturally. We're not really seeking out any communities. Luckily still kind of active enough that we're still being just found by them.
Nadja
Yeah. I think this idea of just going with the flow and letting things happen naturally and aligning yourself just as a community support organization of sorts in this space that is flourishing as Toronto, as a crypto hub, it really speaks to this collaborative culture and the possibilities of web three and the NFT community, where opportunities really come your way quite easily. As soon as you get plugged in, and the more that you plug in and the longer that you stay plugged in, things that before would have blown your mind in terms of connections that you make, in terms of opportunities that you get and the kind of stuff that you get to work on and to help build and to help support These things become second nature in this community. That it's not as possible because of all the gatekeepers in other industries and in other more mature markets, but here it really is.
Nadja
The six degrees of separation, I think are not even six, maybe two, three at most. It's a really fantastic space to be in that sense.
Galen
Yeah, being a first mover in any space is fun, but in a tech space, that's also an art space that's also as creative as the NFT space. Getting access to all the brilliant minds in this space is just sometimes I'm beside myself after a full day of meetings. Whereas meetings in my day job can be quite draining. I'm someone who personally just benefits from sitting down and I get really energized by being productive and doing a lot of work. And meetings can be quite draining. On the flip side, when we're meeting people in our community or learning about a new product in the NFT space, I find myself not doing the 15 minutes time limit or I will do the 15 minutes time limit with a new meeting and then end up talking for 2 hours. It's just such a fascinating space to be involved in.
Galen
You're right, it's an absolute privilege to kind of just have these things fall in your lap. I know that we provide that service for other people when they all meet each other. There's so many brilliant people in the room that you're always going to learn something.
Nadja
Yeah, so I want to jump on that. This idea of in real life communities versus the online version that we have become so accustomed to because I think this Web3 industry that we are in, it's deliciously borderless. As humans, of course, nothing can replace real life connections yet. Anyway, let's see what the metaverse comes up with. What is the importance of local community building in NFTs? Can you give us some best practices for folks wanting to organize an NFT meetup or a club but not knowing quite where to start?
Galen
Yeah, I like to just point out our story. Nissreen and I, met at an art show kind of vibe NFT party COVID was just starting to clear up and or at least the restrictions were starting to clear up and we met at this party and it just felt so cool to be talking to people in real life about our passions. For a lot of us, it's hard to talk about NFTs or crypto without your girlfriend or boyfriend or partner punching you in the forehead or rolling their eyes. It's really great to get out there. We decided, hey, we should do this. Why isn't there more stuff like this going on? We did our first meetup on Meetup.com, and to anybody starting, I think Meetup.com is a really good place to start because they have a huge user base and people will find your event.
Galen
I think our first event, eight people showed up and were like, okay, all right, not bad. Met some cool people, but let's go a little bigger. We tried to spread the word and we rented at a room at a bar for 30 people, and near 100 people probably showed up and it was kind of spilling it onto the streets and the bar was overwhelmed and it was awesome. That's my advice right there, just do it. If you want to start a meetup, especially in the NFT space, you can just start one on Meetup.com or whatever. Just spread the word on Twitter, do whatever you got to do. Even if there's already established groups in your area, I think you'll find this space quite supportive. So, again, just like one of my favorite parts about the NFT space and communities in general, everyone being supportive. We have groups that are doing the exact same thing as we are in Toronto, and our communities spill over and we meet with the founders of all the groups probably once a month, maybe a couple of times more a month, and we all go to each other's events, and we all support each other.
Galen
In this space, if you wanted to do something like this, just start a meetup.com group or something and just kind of go for it. Because you never know who you're going to meet, and you never know what kind of project you'll get into, or what kind of attention you get on your project, or a new collection, a new application of NFT technologies that you kind of might bump into. There's all sorts of just amazing things that happens every time you kind of meet up in real life. Just start it would be my advice.
Nadja
Yeah, that's awesome advice, because I think, as with anything, but especially in this space, if you just take a leap forward, not knowing where you're going to land, I think we are so early in the space and things are so supportive and collaborative that there's almost no chance of failure, whatever your definition of failure would be. Because as you say, crypto talk doesn't make for very interesting pillow talk. Rest assured, there will always be people out there wanting to speak to you. If it's not your partner or your family, it will be someone else.
Galen
Absolutely.
Nadja
I want to get a little more Meta. In your opinion, what are the future of NFTs and how is it going to evolve from this current market pulse that we have been seeing?
Galen
I think the future of NFTs is just JPEGs. No, I think it's going to die. The culture is going to die. Now I'm just playing. The future of NFTs is the sky is the limit scenario for me. Like I said, when I kind of discovered what an NFT was, I didn't immediately fall in love with the culture until I kind of joined a few communities, which to be fair, wasn't that far after I learned what an NFT was, but immediately fell in love with the tech. I personally like anything in tech that's going to make things more efficient and cut out. Middlemen and NFTs are absolutely going to do that. Probably I honestly can't think of an industry that won't be touched by this. If it's your car deed or it's a legal agreement, you can kind of cut out a lot of people and definitely a financial agreement.
Galen
If a contract is an NFT, we all can see the applications of just everybody getting paid via the contract and then it not being compromised because it's immutable. No need for legal. If that was the contract, that will always be the contract until maybe you get some lawyers to renegotiate a contract. We see it happening with Starbucks, it's going to happen with Nike. If it already has, and it probably has the future of how people interact with their consumer base and how consumers interact with the major brands, I think we're going to see that probably almost immediately. If you think about major record labels, I do come from the music industry. If you think about major record labels wanting to engage with their fans. Well, if somebody buys a ticket off of Ticketmaster and then the next time they buy it off of a scalper, or the next time they buy it off of a different company or buy it directly from a band's website, there's really no way to track what's going on there.
Galen
How do you first of all find out who your loyal people are so you can market toward them and how do you reward them to keep them engaged? If the ticket is an NFT or if every pair of Nike shoes comes with an NFT, you can basically find out who has bought the most Nikes or who bought the most tickets and you can go out there and reward them and you can market to them. On the flip side, if 50 Nike NFT receipts starts to get you free discounts on shoes and then you're like, well I'm a 40 year old businessman or woman. I'm not wearing Nikes anymore. What am I going to do? I'm going to turn around and I'm going to sell all those NFTs on the secondary market to give somebody else that privilege. Nike won't care because anybody who went out and bought 50 NFTs because they like Nikes that much is somebody that we should market to anyway.
Galen
Definitely going to see all sorts of kind of clever interactions happening from major brands. I think that. Will be the next step, but just anything that's a contract will be an NFT in the future. I truly believe that.
Nadja
That's a nice summary. I think this idea that NFTs, as you said in the beginning, it's only JPEGs. This is a very limiting way of looking at things, because if you don't see the future of NFTs beyond just the art or just the JPEGs, it really just means you don't understand the possibilities of the technology, because it's really going to affect, as you say, every single industry based on the utility and the possibilities that it brings. As you highlighted it's more about making things efficient, about cutting out middlemen and this is the lingo that businesses understand. We are already seeing all of these major brands coming into the NFT space and a lot of it is these consumer focused marketing efforts. At the same time where big brands trade, that's where the little guys are going to follow as well. This is only coming from a traditional business background of course.
Nadja
We have so many Web3 startups already focusing on many different integrations of NFTs into their companies. What do you reckon is hindering progress or mass adoption of NFTs at this point?
Galen
I hate to say FUD, but it's FUD. If you just look at the way kind of the media just picks anything crypto. You read these Bloomberg articles and these Forbes articles in one breath kind of just trashing everything and highlighting how this huge rich, famous business person said it's all going to go away and then unfortunately 2 seconds later, unfortunately for them, you read a paid kind of ad placement by a Web3 company on the same publication. I really just think it's at this point blockchain technology obviously is going nowhere. NFTs are going nowhere. Walmart uses blockchain for their supply chain, kind of solved a lot of issues with that and the financial institution is starting to come around and NFTs are kind of trailing behind as they should be I think, because it's just a natural order of things. But what's hurting mass adoption?
Galen
It's mass adoption of what it's of trading JPEGs. I think that's probably scams and the FUD that comes from scams. Generally I think it's just doing the crypto thing. People are afraid of it and it's just going to take a while. The articles don't seem to be scaring anybody off that I know, but when they talk to a friend they're oh, aren't NSTs all a scam? Well, when that starts to dissipate, when it becomes a little more commonplace, I think it'll just naturally grow. That's probably what's holding it back the most.
Nadja
I think it reminds me of the time when Bitcoin was just a huge scam and everyone who heard about had heard about Bitcoin knew it for only one thing. It's used for criminal intent by the worst of people in society. Definitely this concept of the media being very schizophrenic when it comes to web3 and NFTs. Because exactly, as you say, you can read one publication and one article talks about how really bad this is. And doom. Gloom for society and the world as a whole. Even on the same publication, you'll have a different article, sometimes quoting the same person a few months apart, talking about how lovely this technology is. And the possibilities are endless. So, yeah, definitely when it comes to the media, as with any industry and any topic, it's probably not your friend. At the same time, I believe we will see a time when NFTs won't have this cloak of shame and blame around it like we had with Bitcoin.
Nadja
Now I have a final question before I'm going to open it up for questions. I see we have a whole list of questions waiting for you already. If you are in the community and you would like to go ahead and ask Galen a question, please put in a speaker request. Or you can also DM your question to the AdLunam Twitter handle. So Galen, final question. What is your philosophy about web3 technologies like crypto and NFT changing lives?
Galen
I think, I mean, you can obviously buy some kind of altcoin or ape into some NFT project and change your life financially, but that's definitely an American Dream kind of version of what people think of with web3 and crypto changing lives. I definitely think it's a different kind of life changing opportunity. We are all early, whether you like it or not, whether you're tired of hearing that or not. If you think about the businesses and the opportunities that are kind of just waiting for us right now, if you're in this space and you have the ambitions to kind of either change your career in this space, maybe get some equity in a new startup or have a startup yourself in the web3 space. I think that we're kind of at almost like the.com bubble, not the.com necessarily, but like the beginning of the Internet or we're at the, I heard somebody talking about it the other day.
Galen
He was comparing it to the kind of oil revolution. We are definitely at the precipice of a revolution right now. It's the best place to be, and I think that will change lives. If you're just here and you're working, I think a lot of lives and a lot of fortunes are going to be made and a lot of independence. Starting your own company can be life changing. There's just so much opportunity here to grow and yeah, so my philosophy is, yeah, it's absolutely going to change lives financially, for sure, but being part of a new tech is going to be life changing.
Nadja
Absolutely agree with you. I think it doesn't matter what your definition of changing your life is like. If you are in this space, the opportunities are just so much bigger for you to take those next steps in a way that's not nearly as difficult as it would be in other industries because especially in this early stage that we are in people who are hungry for what's next. I think just linking it back to what you said at the beginning of being a serial entrepreneur and looking for gaps in the market, if this is the kind of mindset you have, whether it's business related, whether it's furthering your career, whether it's really just being part of something bigger than yourself, this really is not here. I'm trying to see if I can I get a reaction from someone, if you guys can hear me.
Galen
Okay. Sorry I missed you, but I'm sure everybody else heard you. I can probably fill in the blanks. I can hear you again. Great.
Nadja
Good to know. So, Galen, it has been awesome getting your insights on NFT community building right from the trenches. I see there is a whole list of questions waiting for us. I am going to give the audience what they want. Let me get to the first one. How do you explain blockchain technology or NFTs, to someone who doesn't understand it? I imagine this is probably something that in your community you might be faced with as well as exactly like you say, people say, oh, but isn't this just a scam? How do you easily explain to people exactly what this is?
Galen
I mean, if I have to explain blockchain right off the bat, I will try to look around the room and have somebody else do it for me, because then we're really behind. If it's just explaining what an NFT is, I think it's important to definitely touch down on the tech. You're not just saying it's a digital art piece of art and you're trading it. It's a bit of a cop out to say. I think practice kind of explaining in a very point form. I would just say I don't have an elevator speech when it comes to that. I would say it's a tokenized contract that was popularized by attaching a digital piece of art. That gives a lot more control to that digital asset because of the contract. I'll say, in the way of a piece of art, think of Picasso, what Picasso sold his first painting for.
Galen
Maybe it was nothing. As Picasso, I shouldn't use Picasso. I have no idea about if he was popular before he died. As Picasso grew and got more famous, that piece of art was sold for millions of dollars later, and Picasso never saw that. With the benefit of an NFT, in the case of an artist, the artist could put in the contract that they get a commission on every sale. As their popularity grows, they can still benefit from their popularity growing from that original piece of art. A little story, that was just ad living, and that story wasn't great, so you'll have to forgive me on that one. A little story usually helps people understand, and even if they still don't understand that it's a tokenized contract. If I told that story better and I was a little more concise, you could at least show somebody the benefit of an NFT rather than just saying, like, watching their eyes glaze over as you really get into the Tech, or watching their eyes glaze over if you leap into Discord and other parts of an NFT community.
Galen
If you have a little story, keep it nice and concise, and you can get people going, oh, that's a really cool benefit of NFT. You can probably get away with not getting really far into it, and they still probably do some research on their own after that's just what I find. It's worked so far, but in any business, you can learn the importance of storytelling. So I think that's the best approach. Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments.
Nadja
Well, Galen, I have to say, I don't know about explaining blockchain technology, but you sound like the kind of guy that I would look to if someone asked me what an NFT is, because that was a really great explanation, I think especially, as you say, using the storytelling approach and really just making it relatable for people because there's such a nebulous approach that people have to this technology in the sense, oh, I'm just way over my head and I don't understand the thing. When people really try to understand it based on an explanation that is more linked to the real world, I think it's not as difficult as they imagine it to be. Onto the next question, let me see where to look for NFT communities. I don't know if this is in real life or online, but what's your advice on where to find good NFT communities?
Galen
I think if you want to go, if we're talking about online, I think Twitter is a great place to start. Going into Twitter spaces and you'll hear people from different communities talking to each other, and you kind of get a vibe right off the bat which community is cool, or especially when there's a bit of a heated debate or something you can really kind of grasp. Oh, yeah, this guy sounds cool. He's from this community. You scroll down and maybe it's a Bear PFP, and you see all these Bear PFPS and they're all kind of being supportive. That might be a good indication that you might want to go and check out this Bear PFP community in real life, I'd say just check the meetups and the Eventbrite. As you start to do both of these things more and more you'll find kind of pretty quickly that your ears to the ground.
Galen
So a little bit of consistency. If you haven't found a community that you fit into, of consistency on the Twitter spaces, definitely sign up for any kind of crypto or NFT newsletters that you like the writing on, and you'll find, like, within a couple of days, you'll already feel like you have your ear to the ground. It's kind of crazy how quickly your ideas expand on which communities are great and how to find them. Like starting a group, you just got to get out there and try.
Nadja
I have another add on question from another person how to evaluate an NFT community before you join, do you need to buy an NFT to participate?
Galen
Typically, no, you don't need to buy an NFT before you participate. If we're talking about a PFP project, you can definitely go into their discord, you can go to their Twitter spaces, raise your hand, say something. Owning an NFT, even in a well-established community, usually only gates a certain room in a discord. You don't have to own the NFT to jump into the general chat and kind of get a vibe from everybody. As far as evaluating a community, it's all personal preference. If the roadmap is very technical and you want to learn about that and you go in and everybody's kind of helping each other or teaching each other, then yeah, that might be something that you're into. If you just want to trade cat gifts back and forth, well, find a community like that. So that'll all be personal preference.
Nadja
Yeah, there can never be too many communities exchanging cat gifts exactly related to communities. Let me quickly see here. What are the best NFT communities today? Or where are the best NFT communities?
Galen
Toronto. Yeah, I don't know. Again, going back to that best will mean something different to everybody. It's not an objective kind of pursuit is finding a good community because good is not objective. I think Toronto has got the best, but it's a pretty big world out there. As we expand at NFTO, I'm really looking forward to jumping into other cities and having those IRL meetups with other communities, so I can kind of get a vibe of what they're all about. But yeah, it's just not objective. I think right now we're in a great place where you can get access to thousands of communities and kind of decide for yourself.
Nadja
Galen so on that note about expanding your communication with other people, I have a very funny question here that I think a lot of us can relate to. I live in a small town and no one has ever heard of NFTs, how to start without looking stupid. Maybe that's one of your first external Toronto Communications that you can have with someone really looking to start, but at the same time feeling like there's just no one around. I presume how to start in a real life community?
Galen
Yeah, so that would be harder in a small town. I can feel your pain on that one. We actually had one of our members, I hope she doesn't mind me saying, she's a really fantastic artist that goes by the name of Marvelous Darling. Lives about 3 hours, I think, outside of Toronto, and she came to one of our events and drove the 3 hours, maybe it's even more than that, to set up a little booth with us and kind of show her art. We were at a major crypto conference, futurist conference in Toronto, and she approached me and said, just taking that one leap and coming here to our event was life changing. It's like little moments like that where I kind of almost I mean, I did tear up. I thought it was such a special moment. She said, if I didn't come to this, I never would have went to that, and I wouldn't be here at a major blockchain conference meeting all these people and kind of expanding my network and taking advantage of all these opportunities.
Galen
I don't want to say relocate, but if you're in a small town and you want to kind of start a community, you might find a way online to start NFT community for people in small towns who don't have access to a major city or kind of whatever, I would start online, get creative, have fun with it. Yeah, take a pilgrimage every once in a while. If there's a blockchain conference or an NFT party or something, take that drive or take that bus and go have an adventure and stay somewhere fun in a major city and meet a whole bunch of new people. Who knows? Maybe that will make you take that permanent plunge. But yeah, I feel the pain. If I didn't have access to this, I would definitely be kind of scratching out my blood and my bones trying to figure out how to satisfy that itch.
Galen
So good luck. Good luck.
Nadja
Awesome. So there you go. Even if you can't find anyone else in your town, just get a bunch of people together who, like you are in small towns, because solidarity is where power is, right? This leads me perfectly into the next question. How can being active in an NFT community help my career?
Galen
I think just being active in a community has gotten a lot of opportunities for a lot of people around. At our events, we've seen businesses started. We've seen people hire each other, people invest in each other's projects. I think that one's pretty obvious, just being in the right room at the right time, and that's like the IRL kind of thing. Even talking to the right people in discord, you might meet somebody who you start a business with, or you might find a really unique investment opportunity or find the person to buy your first piece of art, your one of one NFT. Anything, it's just obvious if you're in a room with a bunch of people, especially a bunch of people smarter than you are. That's kind of my favorite part about being in our community, is all the brilliant minds that I get to pick at and talk to all the time.
Galen
Yeah, the opportunities will come for business, for art, for maybe even love. Being in a good room is a great place to start any venture.
Nadja
You mentioned love, but I'm going to refrain from asking if this has been the case for you as well. There are any kind of NFT aroma coming up? For sure, this is not the scope of this interview.
Galen
I'll tell you anyway. I am definitely in the group of when I bring up NFTs, my girlfriend wants to punch me in the neck. So definitely not.
Nadja
Well, we can't win them all, right? They will come in time when mass adoption means they can no longer ignore it. For now, let's just stay in our own lane and when they're ready to come around, they will. This brings us to the end of our time together today. Galen, thank you so much for lifting the hood on NFTO and the valuable work that you are doing for NFTs in the local Canadian ecosystem in Toronto. I think it's really cool to hear just how these IRL communities are flourishing, going from strength to strength, supporting each other, but at the same time contributing, of course, to this larger global ecosystem. Please do keep us posted on what is next. On that note, how can listeners stay up to date with what you guys are up to?
Galen
Yeah, I would say follow our Twitter when it gets unsuspended. Oddly enough, if anybody wonders why I'm tuning into my personal account last night when I was getting just set up trying to find the Twitter spaces for today, I realized our business account was suspended. For no good reason, I'm sure. Yeah, follow us on Instagram if you want to join some more of our private groups, just shoot me a DM on Twitter or Instagram. Instagram right now is nftotoronto6 or just search NFTO Instagram and on our Twitter, just wait in the wings and we'll open it up again. You can also find our link tree linktr.ee/nfto and there's lots of options to stay in touch and we like to keep everybody updated no matter what their medium is for social media. So, yeah, linktr.ee/nfto.
Nadja
We will also make that available in the show notes. This idea of Twitter and Gatekeeping, even your own account from you always just brings to mind how important it is for us to decentralize these web3 platforms. The web3 platforms that are decentralized is where we should be spending our time. Instead, of course, we are still on these legacy web2 systems where our data is not our own and even our accounts are not our own.
Galen
I know it always comes back to decentralization. Let's do it right.
Nadja
So, to our amazing audience, thank you so much for investing an hour of your day to explore the Future of NFTs with us. If you would like to see more local community showcases, let us know and we will try our best to make it happen. On that note, guys, catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers.
Galen
Thanks for having me. Yes, it was a pleasure. Thank you.
Nadja
Likewise. Cheers. Bye.
