The FinTech Report Podcast - Episode 12: Tim Lea, Founder, Walking Between Worlds

NFTs: From Crypto Punks to Taco Bell – How NFTs and Programmable Money (Smart Contracts) are revolutionising art markets

Interview with: Tim Lea, Founder, Walking Between Worlds

Tim Lea has been in the Blockchain space since 2015, he is the author of “Down the Rabbit Hole”, a book about Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies,  and is about to launch his “Walking Between Worlds” project to enable Indigenous communities to capitalise on the NFT revolution.

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According to a recent article in The Economist, crypto currencies and other digital assets are worth over $2 trillion dollars. To put that into perspective, the global gold market is estimated to be worth $10tr. The value of transactions that one of the most popular crypto platforms, Ethereum, reached $2.5trn in Q2 this year, around the same sum as Visa Card processes.

And there is a new explosive trend that is adding even more to the value of the market – Non Fungible Tokens – or NFT’s –

An NFT is a digital asset that represents a real-world object like a piece of art or music. They are bought and sold online and stored on blockchain platforms. NFTs are like physical collector’s items, only digital. So instead of getting an actual oil painting to hang on the wall, the buyer gets a digital file instead. NFTs are gaining traction because they are a great way to buy and sell digital artwork.

For example, in March this year auction house Christie’s sold a jpg from digital artist Beeple for $69m – the third largest sum paid for a piece of art produced by a living artist. In June this year, another auction house, Sotherby’s sold a crypto punk for $11.7m. This is a pixelated image of a punk that was given away free of charge as part of an experiment on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017. This is an image you can locate on google images and right click on your mouse and save the same image to your computer 

The largest NFT marketplace, Open Sea, has seen an explosion is sales with over $3.4bn in August 2021 (compared to $6.2m the previous August).     

 There are some amazing numbers on the value of digital assets, and the growth is exceptional. So what’s going on why are we seeing this massive growth and adoption?

Why NFTs matter (ownership can be easily identified; rights established, assets traded etc)

Why does the art world (& media) love NFTs? Recurring royalty structures for NFTs

Why will brands like Taco Bell use NFTs? (Loyalty schemes)

How will sectors like gaming be transformed by NFTs?

How do I buy and sell NFTs? (Tim’s suggestions; Opensea, Metamask)

Is DeFi a replacement of traditional banking?

So what are NFT’s – in plain English? and why are they so important?

in practical terms who will use NFT’s ? (publishers, influencers, sports clubs and brands already exploring them now )

Tim’s indigenous art project; Walking Between Worlds