Speaker A: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode. Today we are joined by Trinity, of course. as always, but special guest Ed, founding member of the Carpe Diem DAO, whom if you are in the Discord and pay attention to the sales feed, you've almost certainly seen at least one of their wallets involved in many of the sweeps that they've performed in the last few months here. Ed, how's it going?

Speaker B: Really well. Thanks for having me on and having us on as a DAO. We're super excited to share a little bit about how we operate and what we look for. So yeah, no, I'm doing very well, thanks.

Speaker A: You know, normally I forget to do the disclaimers at the beginning of these interviews because we generally talk to artists, but I think in particular this one will merit the nothing that we say here is financial advice disclaimer. Trinity, do you agree?

Speaker C: I'm taking everything as personal financial advice, but that disclaimer does not head out for the broader podcast audience.

Speaker A: Or it does head out to the broader podcast audience.

Speaker C: Well, the disclaimer goes out. Me taking this as specific financial advice is a personal choice.

Speaker A: You're not going to talk, you're just going to sit and trade while Ed speaks. And Ed, you know, with that out of the way, the intro, can you please kind of warm everyone up to yourself, who you are, your involvement in the DAO? What is Carpe Diem? How did it come together? You know, the size, your capitalization, like mission statement, whatever you kind of feel comfortable sharing to kind of let everyone get more familiar with like what an art collecting DAO is?

Speaker B: Sure. So, uh, my name's Ed. Um, I'm currently working operations for Carpe Diem. We're a DAO that's looking to collect culturally significant works on Tezos. We came about, um, I think our first purchase was around August last year, and we actually came around as some of our members were, um, We were already collecting on Hic Et Nunc in the 3 digits, and sometimes we had low edition works that we were kind of fighting over. So we kind of just decided, listen, there's lots of great work here. There's a lot of interest in our circles. Let's just club money together and start collecting these pieces so we can all get exposure to these works as a group and as a collective. We're pretty well capitalized. I won't go into exact figures, but we've got, We got a good amount of runway taking us through to 2023, we hope. Depends how we spend it. But yeah, we're in a good position there.

Speaker A: I'm curious, I mean, about how many members are there, to the extent that you want to say. Is there a process for joining or is everything kind of closed?

Speaker B: It's not open. We are taking on new investment, but it's more for strategic investors at this point. It was open for a time. We have about 50 members and we're trying to— well, we are, we're keeping it to 99 so we can legally wrap the DAO and be a legally compliant investment DAO. So, yeah, we're not open at the moment, just closed to strategics, basically.

Speaker C: So how did that first 12 to 15 people get together? Were you friends from school like Will and I? Did you—

Speaker A: In a Discord together?

Speaker C: In a Discord early on?

Speaker B: Some of the founding members are brothers. So I've got 2 brothers that are in the DAO. I've actually got 3, but one's a lot quieter. But yeah, and then some of the founding members came from Flamingo DAO, which is on Ethereum, which is another DAO that collects art a lot of your listeners will know of. So yeah, we're mainly coming over from Ethereum. In fact, almost all of us are coming over from Ethereum and we saw what was going on on Tezos. So yeah, we just wanted to come on over Club Capital.

Speaker C: I know that you're not taking in new members. I guess I'm just curious about the growth trajectory of like, everybody has a buddy, bring in your buddy. Love the art, say something good about the art, and you're in?

Speaker B: So originally it was a bit like, yeah, listen, this chap really, really likes art, or this girl really likes their art, and I think they'd be a great value add. And we were getting people in on that basis, but we kind of want to ensure that people that are coming on now are bringing something else to the table other than just their capital. We've had some recent members join that some of them have particularly good eyes and they've got really good discerning eyes and can help us curate our collection. Others might have fantastic connections when we start to build out our collection in the metaverse or other platforms. So yeah, it's just about making sure that we got a really good strong team going forward.

Speaker A: I noticed something going back through your Twitter, the Carpe Diem Twitter, and it lines up to kind of what you said. I think your earliest tweets are back in August, so I would guess that's around the time the group came together. There's a few points in the Twitter history where The DAO is talking about collecting clean NFTs. So is that kind of a core mission part of Carpe Diem to collect on Tezos and other proof-of-stake chains versus everyone else? I know you said your members came from Ethereum, but is that part of the mission or is that just kind of like, or are there other reasons you're here on Tezos?

Speaker B: Obviously everyone here cares about the environment and we're very keen on that. So that's certainly a part of our thesis of coming this way. But also there's a great deal of us that have been involved in Tezos in some format or another, some straight from the ICO. So we've always been exceptionally fond of the technology on Tezos. We think it's got tremendous staying power as a blockchain itself. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't be collecting art as hard as we are. So yeah, although the clean NFT movement is important to us, it's more that we just see the technology in this proof-of-stake blockchain being really strong and, you know, on-chain governance and how it's always evolving and catering to the environment is, yes, it's really interesting. So we're very fond Tezos as a blockchain itself.

Speaker C: You know, when you're talking about the mission statement of Carpe Diem, it's about the collection of work and art that is culturally significant. It'd be interesting to hear what the definition of that is and how do you determine if something is or will be culturally significant? It's a big one. I'm sorry.

Speaker B: Yeah, so much to unpack that.

Speaker A: You might need to open a beer for that one.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's nuanced. Like everyone has their own understanding of what that might mean in the DAO to a certain extent as well. Sometimes it could be as simple as, hey, look, these are potentially the first major PFP on Tezos blockchain in Tezarts or something. Or it could be, look, this is the first time we've had plotter art working in a generative series in long-form generative. Sometimes it could be something completely different. So, you know, we say that as kind of a tagline and I've used it like There's times that it might not be culturally significant or carry the weight of that label, but it's certainly beautiful art. And, you know, in the grand scheme of things, 10, 15, 20 years from now, maybe they will get that label of culturally significant. But, you know, it might be a bit of a shot to say they are at this point. I suppose if we were to refine that, it would just be like we're collecting art that we like a lot.

Speaker C: And that's what we always say is the most important part of this. And maybe this is the pseudo-financial advice, is if you collect art that you like, you will never be disappointed because you're definancializing it to a certain extent, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. We are an investment DAO, or we're moving in that direction. We've always kind of been in that direction, but we came to Tezos to collect art not because we go, well, guys, here's where money is made. It's like, It was more, look, we've been collecting, whether it be on Art Blocks or other areas of Ethereum, these NFTs and great artworks. And that's where our passion is. And that's where our passion led us to Tezos. So of course, we're looking for a return investment in investment in some format. But the collecting of art and having exposure to all of this and this movement is what's more important to us.

Speaker A: I really like that answer. And I'm curious, you know, I think now to start transitioning into the way you all collect and what you collect. Obviously, you started on HEN, you know, Hic Et Nunc, before it kind of dissolved, right, in October, November of last year. Shortly after that, we had the launch of fxhash. So I'm curious, you know, how does the DAO currently kind of divide its collecting? And still in like the HEN, TEA, Versum style of not necessarily generative work, but maybe one-of-ones released over there or editioned work versus purely generative work, like what fxhash has. And then like, as a sub-question to that, how do you view like fxhash? Like how big of a deal is it for Tezos? How big of a deal is it for NFTs and for generative art as a whole? To me, it seems like it's really important. And you guys have collected a lot there. So I'm just curious to know what your view has been on just like watching the rise of this platform for the past 8 months now.

Speaker B: Yeah, quite a few questions there. So just cut in if I don't answer any of them. Some of us have been collecting fxhash stuff before the DAO was properly collecting in earnest. Like, we were almost— well, we were between funding rounds really as a DAO when fxhash exploded onto the scene, and we didn't really have full operational you know, a full operational hire. So we kind of, there's been a bit of boat missing, if you will, on that side of things. But we've always kind of had a lean towards generative art as a DAO. That was kind of one of the early directives was collect low edition generative artwork. There's fantastic art out there that we've kind of come to see in the Tezos space that we absolutely want to collect and have as part of our collection. And we see a fantastic future for that artwork as well. So we've kind of pivoted and our opinion's kind of been reactive to the market and our understanding of the market. But going back to your question on FXHash, I think, as I say, we were a little bit late to FXHash, so we had a bit of backfilling to do, which we did about a month and a half ago. I think we came in quite aggressively. It was glorious. Onto the secondary. Yeah, it was really good fun to do. We all hopped on a call. Or a good portion of us hopped on a call and we just went through a selection of about 20, 30 collections and just like, love this, not fun. Yeah, okay, let's get more of that, less of this. And so much fun to do as a group of collectors.

Speaker A: And that would be, by the way, for everyone listening, I think you're referring to like you all came in and swept up some Dragons, some Contrapuntos, some RGBs, some Fragments of a Wave.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uninhabitable Sequences. I mean, just kind of in the pantheon of grail projects that you all kind of finally— was it the cheap Tez at the moment?

Speaker B: Yeah, although it wasn't massively cheap when we did that, was it? It was, well, it was cheap. It was still cheap, but not as cheap as it is now.

Speaker A: It had finally gone under $2 USD for like the first time. Now I know everything is in that range and super cheap. But back then, like Tezos had its own little wick down that kind of seemed to precipitate a huge run. across all those projects?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're, as a DAO, we're kind of denominated in Tez. Like, we do our funding in Tez and we operate in Tez. So although the dollar value is, we do think about it, like, at the end of the day, it's how cheap is this relative to Tez or how expensive is this relative to Tez? We try not to think too much about, well, look, this is only $100 where it used to be $500. It does obviously roll into our thesis and how we think about collecting, but at the end of the day, our funding was done in Tez. So that's where our thought process stays. So with that big collection, that secondary sweep we did, that was mainly a play on fx hash. There's no token for fx hash yet. I don't think Ciphrd's taking on investment. And so when you can't get these sorts of things, these assets, and make a play, I suppose it's kind of like a deferred play on fx hash as an ecosystem for us to be able to pick up these, not only grails and, oh, they're grails because everyone says they are, these are beautiful works. Each in their own right. Like, that, that's, that's one of the guiding things for all of these. It's not so much, oh, we just have to have this as part of our collection. Of course there's a bit of that, but these are beautiful works and they stand up on their own two feet and they're well deserving of a sweep, especially when you're comparing them to, to art on Ethereum and Art Blocks and other platforms there where you see there's this arbitrage opportunity, if you will, to get on these at a lower price.

Speaker A: That's something that we've talked about a couple times on the show for sure. I mean, there are plenty of artists who have released on Art Blocks, curated and not, who also release over here, right? And you do see a big price disparity between them.

Speaker B: Over time, I think that will start to iron out. So it's part of our thesis is let's get this while people are, as people say, sleeping on it. I think Tezos as a platform, sorry, as a blockchain has a great deal of upside. But then the artwork, it's like a compounded upside. Like there's, yeah, as people flow into this ecosystem more over the next 5 to 10 years, they're going to be looking at some of this stuff. It's even happening now. You can feel it with, with you seeing new addresses pop up and players like I Don't Like Tezos and other people that are very clearly from Ethereum that are coming over to plant their flag in the ecosystem.

Speaker A: Did you notice the trade this week that I Don't Like Tezos made? I'm wondering if you had an opinion on that.

Speaker B: Was this this week? Was it the— was it a Ringers for a Zancan?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Did that feel significant to you?

Speaker B: Yeah, massively significant. It's, um, yeah, it's just one of those moments that's, you know, Tezos has just had— having lots of these moments recently that kind of solidify it as, as a really important chain for artwork, you know, Tezos is capable of doing a lot of fantastic things. It's a great blockchain outside of art. But these sorts of things that we're starting to see happen now, it really shows that Tezos is here to stay and it's a serious player and contender in the whole NFT ecosystem.

Speaker C: I think that's something that we've talked about briefly on the show before. I think we all are in agreement that on a per capita basis, Tezos has so much more great art than ETH. Not that Ethereum doesn't have it, but I think that the per capita is the key point there.

Speaker B: Yeah, I also think there's a lot— sorry to interrupt you, Trinity. I think there's a lot of noise on Ethereum as well. And I'm just speaking as myself, as someone who's collected on Ethereum. Like, it's so hard to try and find like really great art and projects. There's so much because there's huge upside and a lot of money to be had that where there's opportunity, you get opportunists that are coming in and they're going, yeah, here's Here's my art, and it's maybe it's a copy mint or something else. It's just, it's a lot noisier. It's a lot harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. Whereas if you go onto Versum, fx hash, or even HEN, now TIA, and OBJKT, if you go onto their front pages and just scroll through like a feed, so much of it is super compelling. And I don't think the same could be said for Ethereum in a lot of places. If you looked at like, if there was, I don't think OpenSea does a feed that distills everything that's going on in trading, but so much of it is just really like naff clip art that just doesn't really speak to me and certainly doesn't speak to a lot of collectors in the DAO. So yeah, huge discrepancy.

Speaker C: Did you happen to watch any of the Maria or hear secondhand any of the Marina Abramović stuff?

Speaker B: Yes. On the, the, on Tezos is, yeah, I did. I think I got the tail end of that. It kind of speaks to what Will was saying about like the trade for the ringers for a Zancan. Like these sorts of things are just like deeply validating for us as a DAO. Like, yes, we made the right call. And then just Tezos and NFTs on Tezos. Like, artists are just choosing this platform because they do see it as, you know, inherently greener, which, you know, I'm honestly, I don't know where I land on the argument of it being, oh, it's a green chain, therefore it's the best. I think there's a lot to that. There's a lot to unpack there. I don't really want to get into because I know that there's diverse opinions within our DAO. But I do think, like, as a proof-of-stake model, you're seeing Ethereum trying to do its merge and transition away from proof-of-work. Like, this has— like, it's a battle-tested blockchain that's now starting to get artists going, well, hang on, this chain's been around, it hasn't had any major hacks, it hasn't had any huge liquidity events or crashes, or, you know, it's just been a steady platform whereby I believe that The provenance of the work that I put on it is in safe hands. So it's, you know, that battle-hardened blockchain. Yeah, starting to look really, really handsome to people that are looking to put their art on here long term.

Speaker C: You know, thinking about the differences between Tezos and some of the other blockchains that are out there, pretty much every other one that I've interacted with at the very least, is that it's so unfinancialized. Almost everything that people are doing on it is for collecting or for utility rather than more of the DeFi opportunity. So it seems more genuine. Not that DeFi isn't genuine, but it's serving legitimate purposes beyond—

Speaker A: Well, I think we're starting to find out how genuine DeFi is right now.

Speaker B: Oh God, hasn't it been hard? It's been not nice to watch, and a lot of people have lost a lot. But yeah, I think there's— no, I think there's a lot of merit in DeFi going forward. It's just It's just been the Wild West out there with regulation and stuff. And you have massive funds and protocols that are effectively robbing Peter to pay Paul and they're leveraging up and stuff, thinking up only. And yeah, it's kind of a house of cards when you're not careful.

Speaker C: I mean, and I think that's where, when we're talking about financialized systems and objects, you know, we see so much of that in the real world or so much of that in the real world is hidden, you know, where there are larger institutions that we don't have nearly the amount of Like capital to get involved with are doing these types of things. And it's just, it's the accessibility within cryptocurrencies that makes it, makes it more accessible. I think that the refreshing thing is that there isn't this hyper-capitalistic drive on Tezos to make money. Obviously people do that through like the, through flipping and trying to leverage their way up through like NFT trading.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker C: But. It's not at the DeFi level, I guess. People are engaging with something actively and collecting.

Speaker B: Yeah. And actually, I think that one major indicator of that is the community and the community, whether it be on price discussion of fx hash or on Twitter and just Tezos collectors and artists in general, there's such a strong community. Like, to a certain extent, everyone knows each other and they can reach out to one another and have a really good, deep, meaningful conversation without having to be introduced. You could just go, hey. So there's Art Monochrome, who's amazing and reaches out to us regularly with fantastic stuff she's been collecting. And it's just so open. You got LonliBoy and some others that are just immediately open to talk and share their thoughts on a project, an artist, or—

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or anything. And I think that's, that's really nice. And I think it's indicative of a really healthy community that's not, not always thinking about the money. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it may, maybe it's a symptom of this kind of its growth and where it is in its growth cycle, but it's just all really nice and fun and playful at the moment. And it's not so heavily financialized. Uh, I think maybe not to be a downer on it, but I think to a certain extent that stuff will come as, as the platform gets more popular. We can, as a community, try and curate it out as much as possible, but as soon as the opportunities come flying and there is massive upside, then yeah, I think it's something that's incumbent on all of us as members of the community to try and steer away from and, yeah, push back on.

Speaker A: Is this all in the episode, by the way, or are we— I wasn't sure because I came back and you guys were talking.

Speaker B: Pick and choose. You're the editor.

Speaker A: It can be like a nice post-credits sequence. Maybe.

Speaker C: Yeah, sure.

Speaker B: And get the baby crying in.

Speaker A: Yeah, but no, she's settled now. That was really fun to listen to while I've got her.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I was just chatting randomly, random thoughts about Tezos and financialization. I think it's a really important point though that Trinity raised, and I certainly echo those sentiments. I just hope it's here to stay. I'm kind of a Probably a bit of a pessimist at heart. Like, I just think, yes, but when X happens, Y will happen. I really hope that's not the case. And certainly, certainly I'll be taking arms against that. But yeah, fingers crossed.

Speaker C: That was actually part of the segue. I was discussing the Marina Abramović panel at Art Basel this week where she essentially made direct comparisons to NFT art today. Specifically generative art, and I guess non-generative art being in the same camp as her performance art was back in the '70s, where it's something that people love to hate on, that people don't understand, that people say isn't art. And how, you know, the NFT artists who are releasing things today, they are her. They are leading at the forefront. They're leading the charge.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: They're doing things that people will come to really respect and value more in the years to come.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think that'd be so great to hear as an artist in the space, that sort of validation coming from someone who's so huge in the traditional world of art. And it's so true. There's so much going on in this space and there's so much for it to evolve. It definitely feels like the beginning or the genesis of of a massive movement. This whole genre of art is exploding. That resonates with me as a collector, but I expect it will resonate hugely with artists that are, you know, a bit down in the doldrums and they're kind of thinking, oh, you know, I'm making art here, the Tezos price is going down, and do I raise my prices? And I know this is something you've spoken of in a previous episode, but it's— I think it's really nice for artists to hear that from someone as revered as Marina, that, yeah, this is something special going on. If you can just hold on tight and just keep doing what you love and stay true to your passion, then who knows what the future holds?

Speaker A: Yeah. This is definitely a great segue into, I think, talking about artists then in general on FXHash, because I kind of feel like Carpe Diem does something different from what— there's a common narrative in, I would say, maybe the price discussion community or amongst some prominent collectors that 99% of all of this stuff is going to go to zero and there should be consolidation into grails only. And if you're buying anything else, then you should really just know that you're buying it for fun and you shouldn't view it as an investment because really the only investable class pieces are like the RGBs and their contras and And the consensus grails. And you all do hold a bunch of that stuff, you know, like we've talked about, you swept them up in the last couple months, but you also hold a really wide basket of artists across huge price ranges. I mean, you've even collected some of the stuff that we've made as a podcast and that I released myself. So thank you for that. But yeah, I'm very curious to know, like, how do you identify, like, first of all, like, Do you explicitly think differently from that philosophy? Do you have a lot of highly held belief in multiple artists beyond just the consensus blue chips now being able to succeed in the long run? How does that work? How do you pick who you're going to?

Speaker B: Okay, so I think there's a lot of nuance here, and I think it's a really fun thing to discuss, even if we weren't a DAO and if it was just me and you talking. But As a DAO, obviously straight away we have kind of a hive mind going on about how we allocate and what we collect. And some members of the DAO might really like their PFPs, others might love generative stuff, some might be fond of image compositions and when they shine in a way that they want to get some of that for the DAO. So we kind of want to make sure that everyone in the DAO as well catered to, and we're kind of collecting on all fronts, whether it be on FXHash or other platforms. But with regards to stuff like, I mean, you said your collection, um, and waiting to be signed, like, I don't necessarily think that as a DAO we're always looking for— we're not always looking for a return in value. Um, value for us is, is it can be many different things. It can be, hey, this would just look great In on Cyber or on our Deca Gallery next to this, or this is thematically awesome, we really like it. Or it's the case that, you know, the waiting to be signed thing, for example, like, I'm going to be super honest, like, I'm not like, right, yeah, this is blowaway art, this is grail material. But I personally love this podcast. I know a lot of the other members do, and they've learned a great deal from it. So they're like, well, we— how can we support the podcast? And And it's the same goes for artists. There's some artists that we got a great deal of their work on Versum or TIA or Object, and they might not hit it out the park with their FX hash offering, but we're there for them, and we would like to we would like to support them and support their experimentation and what they're trying there. And lest we forget, like the these are often like really low cost plays, and they sit in a really nice Goldilocks kind of risk reward. Even if we are looking for that upside, like we in token numeracy, like the amount of tokens we hold across FX hash, like you'd say, you know, huge percentage of them aren't grails, but they they also represent a very small percentage of our cost. There's obviously going to be a couple of hit and miss ones that we go for, but to try and distill this answer into one point, it's that we don't always see value. purely on how much Tezos we're getting back from it. It might be building out a collection in a way, or just being part of a community.

Speaker C: I think that's amazing. And, you know, definitely a different philosophy than I think what we see some other big collectors taking, where, you know, obviously you have some people who are going broad and wide, but you have some people who are looking to specifically consolidate into grails and only grails. You know, I think one of the first few big sweeps that you had, Organicon Variation 1, 4W BLOOT, and then Astraea's Loom by Rose Jackson were ones that, you know, you have.

Speaker B: These are 2 great examples because personally I had been collecting some of his works when HEN was triple digits. He was, he is one of the OGs of Tezos NFTs. And we in the DAO love Organicons. Like we think they're just, they might just be a little bit out of meta at the moment and just not quite in favor, but I think a lot of the time people just want their piece and they want to see it and go, all right, yes, that's my piece and I can identify it. But there's going to be a time where people in galleries are seeing how does this piece render? How does it present? It's not just going to be a still. There's artists that are putting a huge amount of deal onto the presentation. And I think he's a shining example of that. And then with Rose, again, really like the fx hash collection. It was because it was a collab, I think, with Liam Egan, wasn't it? We really enjoyed that, and we've long been collectors of hers as well. So even if we didn't particularly, or we weren't particularly wild on these, I think we still would've picked up 5 to 10 just because it's, you know, these are artists that we believe in massively and we think that they're gonna go on to do great things. They're honing their craft and how they converse with other people, be it on Twitter or how they talk on Spaces, kind of like an investment in them as an artist more more so than the project. And that isn't the case for these 2. As a DAO, we love both of those projects.

Speaker C: And I think that's also kind of validating as a personal collector as well. Obviously, I'm sitting on different amounts of liquidity from Carpe Diem, but both of those collections are ones that I've been looking at and looking at and looking at and then not really buying because it's a Lots of air quotes happening here. The risky thing when you have 20, 30 tez. But I think it's a really good signal and just a reminder that if there's something that you do believe in and that you do think is objectively fantastic, that you can't be wrong in that sort of sense. Because Astraea's Loom specifically was sitting under mint for a little bit, and it was just some really beautiful pieces that were just.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Amazing for the price. Amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's exactly that. And also, for Rose, it was a huge experiment for her. I don't want to speak for Rose. I mean, she might say otherwise, but it kind of felt like it was a really cool experiment standing outside of her standard gown style and working with wool and stuff like that. It was just this really fun experiment. As a DAO, we want to help facilitate that in a way, and we want to be a part of that experimental side of things where the space in general, FXHash almost could be thought of as an experiment by Cypher. And blockchains are an experiment in and of themselves, and we're all just experimenting here and trying to work things out. And I think if we had blinkers on and just went for the Zancans and Contrapuntos and stuff like that. I mean, we, we'd be sitting very handsomely, sure, but I think it'll be such a shame not to support and be part of that experimentation, which is why we have such amazing grails in other collections, is because there were collectors that were willing to go on that journey with artists. So we always, always want to do that, and we always will.

Speaker C: And speaking of market moving, it's also been hugely incentivizing for me to buy things that I like before you buy things that I like. So thank you for some really tough lessons there.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's also like, sometimes I see, well, as you guys know, and a lot of your listeners, you know, you're just sitting on the feed and you just see like, you see an amazing work. You're like, Jesus, what's that? Was that minted today that I missed something? Oh my God. And you get it up, it's like December 23rd and you're like, oh, right. Okay. I just love doing that. You go through the collection, you go, wow, this is amazing. And then you go through their other works on FXHash and then you're on their Versum and Object Works. It's just, yeah, so much fun to do. But yeah, there've been a couple times when I've seen your name pop up and feeling, I know Trinity's got good eyes. Let's, let's give this one a good look at. And then of course we got Mark Knol's Sweet Tools where it's just what a boon those have been to us and collectors in general. Just like you just type in how many you want and just have at it. That's been massive.

Speaker C: It's a huge game changer. It, it leads to fewer of those exciting runs where everybody's getting in. But it's definitely a lot easier. And then it's just when you see 10 go by in one block, it's crazy.

Speaker B: As a person not speaking for the DAO, I actually— there's part of me is like, that's kind of a shame that you don't have this kind of loads of different names coming in and people getting it at different prices and, you know, it's slowly building up. And because you get so much hype in price discussion when that was happening. But then obviously, as carpe diem, I need to be humble here, like say, oh, any time we bought a work as other people But it's obviously not the case. But there was a few times when we felt like we're going after a really old collection and it will pop up on sales feed, and then we would go for the next one on that collection and it had already been bought. And so the Sweep Tools for us is just really great. We can just go, look, we want this from an old collection, and bam, we can have it. But yeah, I definitely get that side of things. That was a really fun price discussion chat. And another one's gone. Another one. And oh, look at that one. Yeah, I have missed that a little bit.

Speaker A: This has been a lot of positivity and I love it. And maybe this question's unfair and I'm even wrong for asking it, but I'm curious what your view is since you do collect pretty deeply into collections too when you move in. So to use Organicon as an example, after Organicon was released, there was like a V2 and V3 that came out. I think looking at Even Zancan, sometimes you could say, like, has released subsequent works that continue to leverage, at least in part, some of the code that he used on his original Grail Drop, Garden, Monoliths, or even more recently, right? Like with Hevey's Density Drop, followed up by this Canyons piece that clearly has a lot of overlapping similarity. Does the DAO, do you personally, like, what is the view on similar or derivative works like that get released kind of? close together in a series. And then, I mean, obviously I think when, when we observe it, we see that the market, the base collectors react really poorly to that. But you have the ability to operate on a really, really long view, right? Like you're talking, you've brought up the term 5 to 10 years often now. So I'm just wondering, like, does, does that timeline dissolve those concerns that there might be too much similar work released in a row?

Speaker B: I think in general the market will decide, and by that I mean that there's sometimes a collection that might have been 128 editions and it's, it's just knocked it out of the park. It's been beautiful. And then the artist goes and says, well, I think I can take this and change a few things and bring it back to a larger edition and bring the price down. I actually think that's fine, and that's at the discretion of the artists, and I think they would be the first to say It's fine if the market doesn't love these, and if they feel that they've had enough of this, this algorithm or whatever. There's artists that they just feel that there's just more in it, and often there is. Like sometimes there's just very subtle nuance in the change in which that code's executed, or maybe the color palette or something where it does, it really does warrant another go at, and it does warrant another project. I think it's completely up to the artist to decide. I certainly wouldn't discourage them from continuing to explore a theme or an algorithm that's done well. You know, actually on the Marina talk, the Tezos talk that was yesterday, she said, oh, you must move forward and never look back, always creating something new and always— I totally get the point of view in that. And she is, of course, the opinion that you want to take home with you on that. But there's sometimes in generative, it's just like this, It'll be great to take this and maybe just make a 5-edition curated version of this collection. Say, listen, this is a great algorithm. I'm going to pump out as an artist 1,000 and I'm going to pick my 5 favorite and create different edition works, maybe a 1 of 1, maybe a 5 of 5. It doesn't have to be FX hash. So yeah, I think there's a lot of nuance there and it's up to the artist to decide whether they can or should or shouldn't. Experimentation is always going to be a bit more fun and interesting as collectors. But again, it's, it's on the market, as the artists would probably agree with. It's on the market to decide whether they've, they've had enough or they want a bit more exposure and they think this is different enough.

Speaker A: I love that answer.

Speaker B: Yeah, sorry again. I did— I warned you before the show, I will waffle. I will waffle.

Speaker A: I love that answer because I'm of two minds on it personally, which is like, One, yes, like artists should do what they want and they shouldn't really get concerned about the market. But on the other hand, like, I think artists have to be concerned about the market because for a good number of them, probably they are relying on some amount of this income to subsist or to at least like maintain their life as an artist only as a profession.

Speaker C: Mm-hmm.

Speaker A: And we, we have seen, I mean, I won't name anyone in particular, but like we've definitely seen some artists, big, medium, and small who have been vocal when they have not gotten the reception they want, like a piece didn't mint out or it goes under mint on the secondary. So I think there is a lot of internal conflict and pressure on the artist's side when they don't get the reception that they thought.

Speaker B: Yeah, and of course that would be heartbreaking for an artist. Like, you know, as collectors, we sit here and we wait for the art. We wait, we wait, we wait, and go, oh great, minting time, let's check variations, how good is this on color palettes, composition. All of these questions, but at the end of the day, these artists like sometimes it's really hard to infer how much effort they put in. Some artists I'm sure have got away with; they've just put like three days hard graft in, they've produced what's potentially a grail series. There's other artists that might this might be the culmination of their five years of work, whether they return to it on and off or whatever. It's you know their darling, and they want to see it proliferate. They want to see more variations of it, and. And so it can be heartbreaking for them. I mean, all I would say to them from us as a DAO, like, this is just the ebb and flow of the market. You know, we've all seen collections that have not done amazingly straight out of the blocks, and all they've dipped below mint, and that happens. I think that's, you know, that's the nature of the beast when you're dealing with a market that has uncapped supply. It's just stuff coming in and people are reaching for liquidity to get their latest Zancan away. It's just going to happen. But then again, you have artists that will create something new one day and collectors will go, well, hang on, we can go back and look at this previous set they did. And you can kind of see this is the genesis of this thought process or algorithm. So they see something new in it and the artist starts. So how we look back on projects retrospectively is important as well. We're all so living in the moment and kind of, oh, it's not done well. And a week ago it was up at this and 2 weeks. The timeframes that we're all thinking on as humans, as we've evolved to do, is just so vastly different from what's actually gonna be important when we look back 5, 10 years from now. I'm not gonna be going, oh God, my project 10 years ago dipped below floor.

Speaker C: And I think also from a cognitive load perspective, it's also, there's not just so much and so much to look back at no matter when. You're coming into FXHash. There's also so much volume, as you said. Right now we're just over 15,000 different generators on FXHash alone, like not including derivatives on Versum or Theia or, you know, just any of the one-on-ones or additions, things that you can collect on OBJKT. And so how are you supposed to be able to bring all of that into this headspace here? and remember what there is and what may have been missed or what wasn't minted because it was released during a time of slow market activity. It's just crazy. And thinking about 5 to 10 years from now, we're thinking over 300,000 pieces just on fxhash alone.

Speaker B: And it's exactly that. I think we're also, because this space is so new, the tooling is still, it's yet to catch up. We talked earlier about Mark Knol delivering his tools for floor sweeps. And, but you imagine the plethora of other tools that are waiting for us to look back at old collections. As a DAO, we have systems in place and we take Google Sheets to the, to its, we really need a web app to do this sort of stuff because it's really, we're getting our sheets often crash, but we've built out formulas and tools to be able to look at collections in the past that we maybe bought a bit high and where we can get our cost basis down. Yeah. And then other collections that have done fantastic that we might think, oh, it's had a bit of a pullback and we're still, still in the green. So let's, let's go in and get some more exposure here. So we're fortunate in that we've had someone running operations and other people helping out as they do in a DAO. It's kind of crowdsourced to build out some kind of internal tools for us to all be able to look back at projects retrospectively, but it's not the same for everyone. But I think this is just a symptom of the market being young. These tools will exist in some format or another. You got NFT Biker, you got Mark Knol, Zancan with FX Fam. Yeah, they're so new at the moment, the platform FX Hash is. So it's got so much room to grow on that side of things.

Speaker A: We had NFT Biker at least up until recently. But yeah, it's really interesting hearing about your sheet And we don't have to get into specifics, but, you know, I'm sure, you know, there's other people out there like Kaloh and Matt W who do their best to like track prices of collections and even come up with new metrics from time to time. What is the process like behind the scenes? Again, to the extent that you feel comfortable saying, when there is a project that's being targeted, new or old, for a sweep or, you know, even for additional exposure, like you said. That's a lot of people to canvas and get input from and develop consensus from. So what is it kind of like, you know, like how do you decide and act in the moment and how sensitive are you to timeliness, right? Like we need to go now because in a week the floor could change or something like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it obviously changes and varies from project to project. Operations, when I say operations, we have a couple of people that run hot wallets in the DAO. We've probably got about 4 or 5 people. I do do the lion's share of it, but we have other operators that basically would have a remit that we trust that their eyes are discerning enough, they have good enough taste, and they're kind of working from criteria of, well, this is an artist that's done this volume, or he's this well-known or whatever. Go ahead, you can spend up to a certain amount and don't worry if it's pertinent that you can't canvass votes from the DAO. But then obviously, if it's a more expensive acquisition and it's a bigger play, then invariably it will go to a vote in the DAO. And we, you know, we have parameters whereby we, if X amount of people or a percentage vote no, then we'll just, or that want to pass on it, then we'll just veto that and move on. We've got systems that that allow us to move in an agile way. But also we have to balance that with making sure that everyone's capital is well looked after and their voice is heard, if you will, or their taste is reflected in our collection. So there's a bit of a balancing act. And as I said earlier, everyone's trying to work this out. Everyone's experimenting. DAOs still are. We refine as we go along. We have regular—

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: calls where we talk about what's going right, what's going wrong, and where can we refine. So, yeah, it's a refining process and one that we're getting closer to executing well on, I think.

Speaker C: Definitely. When you were thinking about the idea of being invested in art, especially on a long-term or short-term, whether that short-term can be— for some people it's 10 minutes and then going into that 10-year-long holding mentality. What is the general strategy that you have? You've already said multiple times that 5 to 10 years is really the time horizon in which you're thinking about some of the strategy for selling. Partially in line with talking about how you have a current runway through 2023, what is the overall view into managing a collection of this size and this breadth and this depth?

Speaker B: If I'm being really honest, I think We as a DAO, we haven't actually given it a huge amount of thought. I know everyone's got their own versions of what Carpe Diem will look like in 5 to 10 years or even more in the future than that. But yeah, it's not really raised all that much. I think at the moment we're just, look, let's just grab, let's grab the good stuff and worry about that. You know, once we've got something to worry about, let's do that. We're just trying to get good coverage at the moment. Across different platforms, through different artists, through different genres. You know, for example, there's a whole genre of photography on the Tezos ecosystem that's absolutely beautiful, and we, we simply don't have enough. So that's another thing. So we're just trying to collect at the moment, and that's where our attention's been. I think most of our discussions about strategy are directed at where are we collecting, where are we allocating. Rather than where's our exit. Um, it's just not been pertinent to us to be discussing that at the moment. And as a, as a, as an investment vehicle or a DAO, we can continue to raise. Like, if we got a good collection and the collection's performing well on valuation models that we build out that we, we deem to be fair and we can illustrate that they're fair, then there's usually investment out there, be it from the traditional world or people on Ethereum or DAOs on Ethereum. So we can usually keep on running. And as we— yeah, I think there will come a time when we want to look back, reflect, and kind of think, well, where do we see us leveraging this collection? But in general, we're just— it's just not really selling. Selling assets, selling art, it's just been so far from our group thought process. Honestly, we just haven't really talked about it much. It's just not on our agenda at the moment.

Speaker C: When we talk on this podcast, we're always espousing the always be listed, always be listed, always be listed. You don't need to be listed at the floor. Will loves to be listed at various price points above the floor. Is there a world in which you might think about selling things that you've gotten a really solid return on?

Speaker A: Yeah. If I can follow onto that, I think it's like the question of, and maybe this is again, not as relevant on the 5 to 10 year timeline, but NFTs are illiquid, right? You can't just market sell them. So at a certain point, even as a large organization, if you decide now is the time to sell, it doesn't mean that you can, right? You still have to post and wait for someone to come to you or You know, maybe you'll have the privilege of being able to broker things privately on the side because you're kind of clouded and big. But yeah, I'm just curious, like, also the optics, right, of a large fund starting to put things on the market. And is that going to signal like a lack of confidence in a piece or a lack of confidence in the genre of art itself? I mean, I think there's so much for a large organization to think about if and when the time comes to start taking profits, which would be hard to ignore, right? Like, for some projects now, you could easily— I don't know if you as a DAO are, but like, many original Grail projects are well into like the 100+X range of returns.

Speaker C: Depending on when you bought.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: I think it's important that we're very honest with the community when and if we did decide, look, we're going to start trying to realize some gains here. I think it's important that we're honest and it's not just kind of We will be discussing that at some point in the future. You said like that there's some that have got such magnificent upside. At the moment, we just don't think about that because we think it's still so early, A, in the Tezos space, B, in the NFT space. So it's not really come to our thoughts, but I think it's important that when we do come to that, we're super honest with the community and it's unlikely that we're just going to go, right, Dump, dump, dump. You know, we might— it might be the case where there's a platform in the future where you can combine a bunch of assets where there might not be a whole lot of liquidity, but some collectors might need to or want to go, um, oh look, I want exposure to this sort of genre of generative art, and they might just buy a batch of them. You know, there could be a platform for that. It could just be done OTC. So yeah, the, the liquidity question Yeah, I agree. Like, liquidity in some older collections is like, it kind of, it can be a bit daunting going, God, will we ever be able to, to offload those if we wanted to? And to that, I would just say it's still so early. I know I sound like a broken record, like it's still so early. And there's, I think there'll always be opportunities to realize profits or realize value, whether you're up or down on those assets. And it's just really hard to say what they will be at the moment because there's, there's so much maturing to do for the ecosystem, the tooling. A really tricky one to answer actually, but I think we're just not focused on it. And I know a lot of, a lot of people in the DAO, members in the DAO might have their own opinions on that. And they're probably better suited, to be honest. They've worked in higher operating DAOs and DAOs that command much more capital. And they probably have really good opinions on that. So, I mean, I'll defer that to other members. I know they're not here, but it's not something I'm going to be able to give a super detailed answer on.

Speaker A: I mean, I think it gives a good impression of the sentiment of the organization as an entity, right? Which is that we're just not really even talking about it.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah. So that's the take-home point for all your listeners. It is just not on an agenda. It's not spoken about. We believe that this is a moment just to be collecting, collecting, collecting. And the way that we extract value, it might not even be in Tezos terms or dollar terms. It'll be very different. And it's just so opaque at the moment that we just don't know.

Speaker A: I mean, does that reflect your kind of bear market strategy then, as we, I think, are all collectively realizing, some earlier than others, that this could be a crypto winter of 6 to 18 months, like, Tez prices could just get cheaper. Yeah, sometimes the secondary market is slow to redenominate, right, or reprice based on the conversion of Tez to fiat. So from your view, is this just the time to continue to, like, put our heads down, find value, take advantage of these prices?

Speaker B: 100%. This is— we have people, when individuals are avid collectors of, you know, it's their first foray into the crypto ecosystem and They've maybe leveraged up too much. They've maybe used collateralization ratios that are not so smart, and they're kind of learning a few lessons on that front. And where that happens, you see them reaching for liquidity. And this has happened a lot, actually. In fact, last night I did a bit of a sweep because— well, we did a bit of a sweep, sorry, because there was a lot of stuff that was just huge discounts, massive discounts. And we don't see this as Well, this is the floors coming down as to what they should be like. These are compounded discounts because Tezos has come down in price, and then they're pricing in Tezos, but then they're giving 30% discount. So it's like almost sometimes like 50, 60, 70% discount on these assets. And some of them, you know, offers being accepted on Contrapuntos for 400, 500 Tezos is just, it's just madness. So this is absolutely the time for the DAO and other collectors well capitalized to be able to come into the space or to collect stuff that they just— that was out of reach before. You know, there's been Art Basel in Hong Kong recently where a lot of new eyes would have come into the ecosystem. They go, how do I get my hands on this collection? It's so expensive. And here's their opportunity. Like, you come into the Tezos ecosystem, chuck $200 into an exchange, get it on your Temple or Kukai, And have at it. You can grab some proper steals right now. So yeah, our convictions have completely unwavered. We always expect volatility. I'll be honest, I didn't expect the Tezos and general macro markets to come down as fast as they did. That's discussion for another day. But in that, there's fantastic opportunity. We see it as a DAO, but more importantly for those collectors and listeners out there, like This is a great time to be collecting, only with what you can afford to lose, as with any crypto stuff. Like, just don't go nuts. But yeah, I think it's a fantastic opportunity.

Speaker A: I mean, that sounds like a really great way, like, great moment to transition into art and specific collections then and what you like.

Speaker C: I'm looking through your collection right now, and I don't know if you have anything by Casey Reas.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker C: The 5 Drops.

Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I don't know if I saw those in there.

Speaker C: That he's had.

Speaker B: Let me just pull those up for a reminder because he dropped something really nice recently. Sorry.

Speaker A: Well, we're referring to the 5 things he did on fxhash, like his Century series.

Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about Century and actually we had it up in front of us that day that we were doing a big secondary sweep. We had basically allocated around 50, 60K Tezos to just go ham. And really get some nice stuff. And we did, we discussed that. Like, I think we, the people that are on the call, despite thinking it's very impressive work, it just wasn't for us. Like, it didn't resonate with us all at the same time. And, you know, when you get that in a group or a DAO, you kind of just have to listen to the hive mind. I expect it would do fantastic. It just wasn't for us. And that's kind of one of the beauties of a DAO. canvassing everyone's opinions and just feeling a vibe. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. This might be one of those times that we're wrong. And there's this kind of method that I like to apply. This is just me, not Carpe Diem, but like, I kind of go, well, if my work that I collected was in a lineup against all of the other in that collection, like, would I be able to pick it out? Like, it was like a police lineup of my works. Would I be able to go like, oh, that— yeah, that's mine. I can tell because it's got the thing at the bottom and it's got the overarch does this and the color that does that. That kind of feels like a bit of an acid test I like to use when I look at collections. So when I was looking at this by Reas, I just kind of felt like I just wouldn't be able to get attached to a specific work. I think it's a really cool collection, but I just— yeah. And that kind of was echoed, that sentiment was echoed with other members of the DAO who were just like, yeah, just I just don't really feel like we would know which are ours. Like, it just kind of felt a little too diffuse, if you will.

Speaker C: I think that kind of speaks to one of the tensions that's been in my mind as we've been having this interview, partially in context to the idea that you feel that the DAO was late, you know, obviously not being able to get in on some of the earlier projects when they were either minting for between free and 5 tez. The question that comes to mind is if, you know, you had the ability to sit there and mint the Century Collection, would your perspective be different? And what is the overall take on minting versus buying from the Carpe Diem status? I know that you do mint, you know, I think we saw some number of Bug Forests coming through multiple wallets. Does that change the math or the thinking? On what you meant, or about first buying?

Speaker B: Yeah, naturally it changes the maths. I mean, data-wise, I don't have it in front of me, but a great deal more upside if you're able to attend these markets on primary. And also the exposure to risk is usually minimized a little bit. I think when you're coming in at secondary, as a DAO in particular, you need to have more conviction. And that often requires reaching out to DAO members and pulling together a vote and coming in for a sweep of 10 or more artworks rather than just having a little punt at 1 or 2. So if you're coming in at secondary, I feel that you need to come in with more conviction. You need to have better, stronger sign-off from the DAO and the members' capital that you're putting to work here. Whereas I think primary, I think you're usually free to have a bit of a punt, especially like, for example, the Zancan drop.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's just like an hour. He was like, yeah, by the way, this is dropping in an hour. And I'm sure there were tips and bits and bobs everywhere where some people may have known. But yeah, that was like, if you're there at the right place at the right time, then you're going to see greater upside. So inherent risk is kind of mitigated somewhat as people get to their computers after a long day at work, or they wake up from another side of the world and want to buy in at these artworks.

Speaker A: I feel we're getting to the end of the interview here, Ed. It's been amazing talking to you and learning more about Carpe Diem, but I'm curious, you know, we've talked about a lot of art, a lot of artists, we've talked about the philosophy of the DAO in general and how you collect artists big and small and in between. I'm wondering if there's any artists that you might want to talk about that are a little under the radar, maybe very on the more affordable side, like entry level for someone who who maybe is coming in now and is feeling like they are late, even though they're not? Who do you think is really interesting producing right now that is accessible for new collectors?

Speaker B: Yeah, so one of the projects we picked up recently, and he's been a big name on, or at least for us, he's been someone we collected well on OBJKT and Hic Et Nunc and Nowtare. But The Paper Crane recently did a collection that absolutely Yeah, blew it out of the water. Like, it was just so different. And this was a collaboration with, uh, Richard— Rich Poole, which many of you will know. And it just works so well. It kind of hit like a really nice note for us where, you know, we're seeing projects on FXHash. It's like, ah, the vegetation and different bits of here and trying to do this like ultra realism thing, which some of them are outstanding and so beautiful. But it was so nice to have this contrasting, like, really nice line art, cel-shaded pieces. We had a bit of animation in some of them. And for me, Paper Crane, he has such an amazing command of colors. Like, whenever I look at his works, he just hits this kind of nostalgic notes of colors that is really hard to capture. And, you know, when you give up so much in generative work and you defer so much to the code, and you're like, code, do your thing and make something beautiful, one of the things that you can prescribe as an artist is color. And so it really immediately resonated with me and the DAO and a lot of other collectors, you see by how the markets reacted. Putting that time and effort into the colors and then just creating something that him and Rich did, that's just such a fun contrast to what was going on in FX Hash. So yeah, I'm glad that did really well and, um, very fond of that as a piece.

Speaker A: And that, that piece is Miniscapes, by the way.

Speaker B: Yes, sorry. Yeah, Miniscapes.

Speaker A: For anyone listening, the floor is— there's a pretty wide range that can be collected from 90 to 120 Tez right now. So at the current price, that's like not very much, right?

Speaker B: We're not waiting for that to go too far south. So these are good prices. But yeah, no, we've also— I mean, there's other artists that, for example, Play, who some of you may have heard of, who's done some really cool stuff. On objects and, and Hic Et Nunc from the early days. I mean, I personally collect quite a lot of his work. The DAO probably needs to do a bit of a backfill here, but Play's got some awesome, awesome works undervalued, I think, on fx hash. And I think one of the things he does, which I hugely appreciate, is he puts a lot of time and effort into how stuff renders and presents. Same with Christopher Ulu, who did those bugs. I think it's Entomology something, so I forget the name. You might have it to hand, but basically these guys, along with others, they're putting so much effort into not just how the work will finish and how it will look and stand up on a placard or in a digital space, but there's so much beauty in the rendering and the effort and time they're putting into how these display and present to each person. And it might not be immediately accessible, you know, when you go to a gallery and they just have it presented ready. But in the future, you're probably going to have galleries where you, you can walk into a room and you just maybe tap a button or you press on a part of the wall where it presents and loads up these, these assets for you to see what work went into the presentation. And it goes back to what we're talking about with Organicon, with W. Black, the time and effort he's put into how these present and evolve. and grow into their pieces and final form is, yes, it's certainly felt and it's not lost on us as collectors. And I think once the market realizes this and the tooling and infrastructure for presenting these works starts to mature, then we'll start to see these collections really shine and take off.

Speaker A: And Play has, looks like they have about 9 collections on FXHash.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I mean, Type 2 Civilizations for me, like just Absolutely loved. Like, I think it's just a really fun collection. Still available to mint. Yeah, so we've— there's still some to mint. So if you're listening to this and there's still some not minted out, I'd hit that up personally. I think, what is that, like about probably like $6, $7 per work? And it's got great diversity, really fun color palette, and the attention to detail on the render is awesome. So yeah, but then Ulu, who I also Excuse me if I'm pronouncing that wrong, but he did Entomology. Let's see if I can find it.

Speaker A: Proc Gen Entomology.

Speaker B: That's it. Well done. Thank you. Yeah, right. So this one, Proc Gen Entomology, straight away this resonated massively in the DAO because everyone just loved the diversity of these bugs all being procedurally generated. But then if you actually look and you run one of these, I think you will need a bit of a beastly graphics card. for some of these to render, but the effort and time that's obviously been poured into how these present, how they render, and it's this slow fade out with the writing below. I just, yeah, I absolutely love that, that there's more to the artwork than just, here it is static, what do you think? It's the reveal, if you will.

Speaker C: Yeah, and I think that we'll definitely see what that play on more of the animated or GPU-intensive pieces, how that changes. into the future. You know, I know that depending on which laptop I'm on, you know, either a piece works really well or it just doesn't. And so I guess as better hardware is normalized, it's just going to be a non-issue into the future.

Speaker B: I totally agree with you. I think there might be a time where— I don't want to speak for Ciphrd and the fxhash team, but there might be a time whereby they allow some tool and just like they say, listen, your computer's not powerful enough to render this, but We can show you a render of what it would look like in GIF format, and you can put this kind of lens on it in a way that you can now have image previews. There might be a sort of lens whereby it's kind of been pre-rendered and can be presented, and people could choose whether they want to see that. I mean, there have definitely been some collections I've missed out on because I'm sitting on a, you know, a really crappy old MacBook. I'm like, well, it doesn't even render for me. Of course it doesn't. This is a decade-old computer. So yeah, I think it'll be a shame for people to miss out on these collections that might feel like they're computationally intensive. But as Moore's Law goes, it's only a matter of time before things catch up and these are just grails waiting to be snapped up.

Speaker C: I think that kind of segues into just one last question for me, unless, Will, you want to talk more about some of the art.

Speaker A: Please. You know me, I'm the time cop.

Speaker C: Okay. And this question is more around And the collection that you've made, or the DAO has made over the last few months, and will continue to make months into the future and years into the future. And it's such a wide variety of known grails, smaller projects by slightly lesser known artists, things that you truly believe in. Is there any way that you think that you'll be sharing that with the population at large, either like on Tezos through online galleries or in the real world? Because this seems like a huge area where you're able to specifically curate pieces that you own and bring broader awareness to both fxhash and Tezos as an ecosystem, and even just NFTs as a concept, as a way to change hearts and minds, as we like to say.

Speaker A: Get people beyond the apes.

Speaker C: Yeah. Are there any plans there or anything that you've been discussing?

Speaker B: Huge plans. I think in actual fact, I was kind of hopeful I could get something going with DECA a bit sooner than I had. And I've been playing around with it a little bit and we have been trying to sort a few things as a DAO. We've also got a couple really talented curators in the DAO advising us on how to arrange these. So 100%. We want to be showcasing our work. It's, it's one of the great things about collecting such broad diversity. Being able to showcase it is, is, it's almost as important as the value it actually brings us. We want to be able to champion this work, show it off, whether it be in On Cyber, whether it be in some gallery in London or New York where they've got digital displays, or a metaverse elsewhere. 100%, we want to start sorting through our collection. There's a huge amount of sorting to be done. But yeah, I definitely foresee a time where we'll have, you know, our fx hash gallery, which will be segmented into, you have, you know, your PFP with unicorns, and then you have your really like strong generative series. It's like ultra realism. So you have your Mediterraneans and, and other stuff like that in, and then maybe just the abstract section. So I mean, that would just be one, one fx hash gallery alone. You have so many different themes and genres to explore and to showcase. So 100% would like to do that. And I can't wait. We kind of did a little bit on, on Cyber recently just to showcase to the members what's been going on in the DAO and what they might have missed. And it was so cool. Like, we only got like the little free room where you just walk around and like check out a few pieces. I think that we'll likely be making a play to get one of the bigger rooms in that or on another platform so we can really showcase and present all that we have across Tezos for sure.

Speaker A: I mean, that sounds amazing. It's a great way to evangelize for the medium of generative art itself.

Speaker B: Yeah. If anything, we owe our artists an apology for dragging our feet on that. We really should be moving on this faster, and that definitely serves as a good reminder. We need to start showcasing our art. We got so much that we need to show off.

Speaker C: And that's always a challenge because you have infinite space and infinite art.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great about NFTs. You just make one big room that's like 2 miles long and just line up all our NFTs. You just can't do that in the real world. So there's definitely challenges and that probably explains why it's been a little slow getting off the ground and getting something working. But yeah, it's exciting. Once it comes, it'll be an absolute monolith.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ed. I think that's a really great place for us to end here. It's been an excellent interview. I mean, it was really enlightening just to hear how a large organization like Carpe Diem operates. And really taking the long view, right? Which is saying that we don't have an opportunity to, or that with the wallets that we have, we don't get to think about that that much. So it's awesome to kind of hear that different way of thinking and talk about some of the artists that we enjoy. So yeah, I mean, let's wrap it here.

Speaker B: Sure. And thanks to both of you guys and just this show in general and other shows out there like podcasts that Ken does. So much value And I've learned so much from it. I know a lot of other members have. So huge thank you from Carpe Diem to you guys and everything you do for the space.

Speaker A: WaitingToSign.test is the donation wallet. But no, you know, you've donated your time. That's, you know, that's more than enough.

Speaker B: Well, we're just going to keep— we'll just do floor sweeps on the Waiting to Be Signed FX Hash collection.

Speaker C: Yeah, sounds great.

Speaker B: Every now and then.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, awesome.

Speaker A: Thank you again. I hope everyone enjoyed. This is a really great interview, and we'll see you all next time. All right, later. Bye.