CEO, Nifty Gateway
Search every verified Duncan Foster interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Duncan Cock Foster, co-founder of Nifty Gateway, has discussed the platform's evolution from a simple credit-card purchasing tool to a major NFT marketplace that was acquired by Gemini in 2019. He has stated that the company's core mission is to make NFTs accessible to a billion people, emphasizing a custodial model that allows users to sign up with an email and password. Foster has described the platform's growth, noting that monthly transaction volume rose from about $1 million in November 2020 to $100 million within six months. He has also reflected on lessons from the NFT boom, saying that the company should have focused earlier on long-term value rather than appealing to speculators, as "speculation always has an expiration date." Foster has discussed Nifty Gateway's technical innovations, including a new marketplace architecture that moves order validation off-chain to reduce gas fees, and a mix of custodial and non-custodial options. He has stated that the platform has over a million registered user accounts and roughly $700 million in lifetime sales. Foster has also commented on the broader crypto regulatory environment, describing President Biden's executive order on crypto as "mostly a positive for crypto regulation." He has expressed interest in using NFTs for loyalty and community programs, citing a partnership with Starbucks as an example.
“I currently work for a studio called Laguna Games; they were founded in San Francisco but our art team is based here in South Africa in Joburg — we work on a wide range of projects.”
“The project I'm most proud of is still technically under NDA, but I can say it was associated with the Game of Thrones IP — it was for Warner Brothers as a publisher and it was one of the most challenging but definitely one of the most rewarding projects we've worked on.”
“On every single project collaboration is a necessity — you don't really have the luxury of not having a cohesive team; if a team works really well on a project nine times out of ten it's going to show in the work and the product is going to be that much better.”
“Set decoration and environment design is critical because as a player walks around a room you can inform players with narrative cues and set decorations that help fill in the blanks left by cutscene constraints.”
“I definitely lean more towards having more of a framework in the studio — having a bit more hierarchy helps clear up tough decisions; leadership that can make a direct call, even if it's the wrong call, is better than decisions sitting in limbo.”
“I'm very interested in the esports space because a lot of mechanic-based games can have quite a high skill gap — esports players are like the Michael Jordans of that realm and they're incredible to watch.”
“Don't underestimate how much work it's going to be — this is a craft, a trade and almost like a sport: if you stop practicing you atrophy. Even after your qualification you're still going to be learning and practicing your skill set for the rest of your life.”
“We started Nifty Gateway as a very simple idea — we wanted to let people buy NFTs with a credit card — but that turned out to be way more complicated because the credit card companies had explicit rules against letting people buy crypto, and in 2018 trying to explain that an NFT was different from a cryptocurrency was...”
“We caught the attention of the Winklevoss twins, they proposed we come build the product inside their company, and they acquired Nifty Gateway — we decided to give it our best and build the company to success inside Gemini.”
“We intentionally modeled our marketplace after the physical art world and built a heavily curated NFT art marketplace — that curation was the value creator that gave us traction, but the trade-off was that it made it very hard to open the platform later because early users expected selectivity.”
“Royalties were already a feature in the NFT ecosystem (credit to CryptoKitties’ marketplace model) and on Nifty Gateway every creator was paid 10%; marketplaces moving away from royalties now is, in my view, a long-term strategic mistake because it reduces creator interest in the medium.”
“In a six-month period from November 2021 we went from about $1 million of monthly transaction volume to $100 million — 100x growth — and you simply can't have a team or codebase scaled and ready for that overnight.”
“The most important lesson from boom-and-bust cycles is to know why your customers are doing what they're doing — many were speculating on NFTs rather than participating for long-term reasons, and speculation always has an expiration date.”
“There are three major factors that make building a moat in crypto difficult: massive overfunding that destroys unit economics, very low switching costs because users take wallets between sites, and the sheer 'sexiness' of the space that spawns thousands of competitors; some projects try to solve this with their own blo...”
“NFTs work well as loyalty and community primitives — for example we did a deal with Starbucks where users completed quests and earned NFTs that unlocked rewards, and that program reached hundreds of thousands of users.”
We had the opportunity to get the scoop on Alumnus Duncan Foster. Duncan Foster has become a seasoned professional in 3D ...
Recording of the Everything Marketplaces Group Chat #141 (9/19) with Duncan Cock Foster, who was previously the Co-founder ...
My guest on today’s podcast is Duncan Cock Foster, Co-Founder of Nifty Gateway, one of the leading marketplaces for digital art and collectables. Nifty Gateway was founded in 2018 and within less than a year it was acquired by Gemini. In this interview, Duncan explains some of the fantastic initiatives they are developing at Nifty Gateway, in particular their publisher collaboration program which can also be a great career opportunity in Web3. Podcast Info ⤵️ Website: https://www.inpeak.xyz/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... Google Podcasts: https://www.goog…
At the State of NFTs IRL event, held in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we sat down with three of the most prominent U.S. figures in the greater NFT landscape to discuss the unstable present, with an eye toward the promising future of NFTs. Joining us is Nifty Gateway Co-Founder Duncan Cock Foster, “Mec;” a Web3 educator, MECXDAO founder and Aokiverse’s head of community, and the crypto and tattoo artist Gossamer Rozen, who’s also the founder of Tigerbob NFT. Together, the three brought vital questions to the current bear market, and what it holds for the future of NFTs — giving attendees a sneak pee…
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On this episode of ZenChats I was joined by brothers Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster, the founders of Nifty Gateway.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE OVERPRICED JPEGS CHANNEL ✨ https://bankless.cc/jpegs It's the 420 episode y'all! This week, Carly ...
Nifty Gateway founders Duncan & Griffin Cock-Foster have become two of the most important figures in the world of NFTs. As the ...
Check out My Latest Video with Duncan Cock Foster, Director & Co-Founder Of Nifty Gateway. New Interview - Nifty Gateway On ...
On day four of After the Hype: Reality Sets in for NFTs, Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster, co-founders of Nifty Gateway, join Real Vision CEO and co-founder Raoul Pal to discuss bringing digital assets to Web 2.0 users. After seeing complicated on-ramps such as MetaMask inhibit the adoption of NFTs, the Cock Fosters set out to design a system that would feel more intuitive to casual web-goers, and as a result, Nifty Gateway was born. With an early acquisition from the Winklevoss twins, the adoption has been tremendous. Tune in for an in-depth discussion on the evolution of the NFT space and a lo…
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