Hi everyone, I'm coming in live from sunny Singapore with one of the pioneers in the NFT space. I have with me the co-founder and CEO of Dapper Labs, Roham. How are you doing this fine sunny morning?
I'm doing amazing. How are you?
I'm all well myself. Can you talk a little bit about the NFT space? Dapper Labs have obviously been revolutionaries, been pioneers in this space of NFTs back when you guys started off. To now, how has this space evolved? Have you seen the space change itself?
Well, the space didn't exist before we got started, so we created the first NFT standard, the first NFT game, CryptoKitties, and more recently we've been working with brands like the NBA, the NFL, and even Disney to bring their digital asset products to market. I think the big thing that's happened is when we talk about these products, we're not talking about the technology, but we're talking about the product that people can use. Even the word NFT doesn't appear in any of our products, but it's the underlying technology that gives users abilities they've never had before: the ability to own an object digitally, be able to trade it with anyone around the world, and for developers to build new products, games, experiences, wallets, marketplaces on top of these NFTs without asking anybody for permission. That's what's special here, and it's been an incredible thing to be a part of.
Absolutely. When it comes to usability, NFTs have always been put in front of a court, they have always been criticized about not having enough use cases. Has the narrative changed now, if so how, and how is Dapper Labs sort of making the difference here?
Well, I think there are all different kinds of NFTs. Some of them don't need to have a utility; they can just be digital art or something like that. For example, Ticketmaster, a Fortune 500 company, has launched their NFTs on top of Flow, and all they are are ticket stubs. The same way you used to go to a concert, you have your physical ticket, you can keep it as a souvenir. Now with digital ticket stubs, you can keep your digital ticket as a souvenir. There's no game to play, but there are 71 million of these NFTs that now exist, and 14 million people have gone in to claim them and keep them as part of their digital collection. It's like their digital drawer, and some years down the line, those NFTs will bring value and memories to that person. But for example, the rest of our products, you have NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, which are digital trading cards, but unlike that, you can actually play a game with both those products. So people can bring their collection every day, make predictions, play with their friends, play against their friends, win money or win other prizes. It's actually become a more engaging, more exciting experience than really any physical collectible can be.
Absolutely. When we talk about NFTs, there's of course a lot of FUD, there's a lot of creativity, a lot of artists moving on to that side. What stops NFTs from the kind of mass adoption that we talk about for NFTs? What do you think are the roadblocks? How are you guys trying to address those?
Well, the roadblocks, the biggest one was the user experience and scale, cost, and I think we've solved a lot of those issues. Flow, the blockchain that our products run on, is fast, low cost, environmentally friendly, and now as of last month with EVM equivalence, it's super easy for developers to build on. We think that's going to be the big unlock, where until now creators and developers have kind of had to choose between 'Do I get a good user experience or do I want full decentralization?' And now with Flow, they can actually have both. So we think that's going to enable a new wave of creators, of IP owners, and also of developers that can come and build products on top of these assets. Really, the thing that's needed for all of blockchain to go mainstream, all of crypto, is products that real people can use and get value out of every single day. Part of it might be making money, but part of it is also just getting more value out of the fandom that they have, out of the games that they play, out of the time that they're spending on the internet.
If we talk numbers, what sort of adoption are we seeing for NFTs, especially NFT use cases at the moment? Are there any big players that are adopting NFTs? If so, what are they? And we know that Dapper Labs has been a lot about collaboration, partnerships. Any interesting partnerships that come to mind?
100%. Absolutely. I mentioned Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Ticketmaster, one of the world's largest companies, they've engaged about 14 million people on Flow that have each claimed these sort of ticket NFTs, about 71 million in total. Our products, we partner with the NBA, the NFL, Disney. Each of those communities is hundreds of millions of fans, potentially billions of fans worldwide. We're just excited about the opportunity to take our product to those people. There are about 45 million user accounts registered on Flow. Not all of them are doing NFTs because Flow is a blockchain that you can build any kind of product on top of; there's DeFi, there are other aspects. But we think the technology behind crypto is going to power basically every consumer product and a lot of business products that we use every day. The potential is unlimited. I think every internet user will have some form of crypto in their phones and their wallets. If you think about it, most of our lives is non-fungible. Money is fungible, but everything else can be represented through an NFT, whether you're talking a digital asset, a collectible, an in-game asset, or one day real world assets that are tokenized. The token is that certificate of authenticity, whether it might be for a piece of property, a car, a Rolex, or a high-end trading card. It doesn't matter. It's just a technology that facilitates transactions, facilitates the tracking of ownership, and creates a transparent ledger that anybody can audit at any time. It just opens up a lot of that data for everybody to get benefit out of.
Absolutely. For creators, especially in the NFT space, ownership, identity, and privacy have been a big concern. Has Dapper Labs sort of managed to address it? If so, how? And how are you guys viewing ownership and identity in the Web3 world?
