Speaker A: All right. Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode. We are here with renowned Collector, Lonliboy. Trinity's here as well. Trinity's back from vacation. It's her triumphant return as well. It's been a while. How's it going, everyone?

Speaker B: Well, thank you for having me on, Waiting to Be Signed. Thank you, Trinity. Thank you, Will. I'm doing well. Would love to hear how y'all are doing.

Speaker C: I mean, I'm doing well. I'm happy to be back on the show and just reclaiming my rightful place on the throne. Is that, is that the terminology we use here?

Speaker B: Let's go. Yes.

Speaker C: Yeah, right.

Speaker A: You've got the golden mic back. I mean, I don't think you lost your place at all.

Speaker C: We had some great fill-in hosts, but no one can replace Trinity that I love to hear that. And, you know, also obviously I'm thrilled to be speaking to Lonliboy virtually, not really in person, because we talk so much like throughout the day on Discord and being actually able to verbalize a conversation is, it's amazing.

Speaker B: We're all fam here for quite a minute now too, so it's very cozy.

Speaker A: We've probably been talking about doing this episode for 6 months now, 8 months. It feels like it's been a very long time and it's always kind of been like trying to figure out the scheduling and then we would disappear. And then we'd come back and then we would disappear. So thank you for your patience on it. But this feels like the perfect time. Honestly, it worked out right because like so much is going on with you right now. But before we jump into all of that, just in case there's anyone who really doesn't know who you are, let's get some of your background, who you are, who is Lonliboy, how did you get into art and NFTs and generative art? How'd you find FXHash? Like, just give us the whole story.

Speaker B: So I am Lonliboy. My name is Ivan. The story kind of starts. with me making music on SoundCloud, roughly 2013, 2014. I found out about chillwave, the genre, like xxxyxx and Ground Is Lava, and the community was burgeoning inside of that era of time. Artists were just releasing songs every day. The copyright was open on a lot of the tracks, and there was lots of remixes being put out and things like that. So I started making music as well and putting it out. And I found a community very quickly of like-minded musicians that, you know, were just wanting to try out new things, experiment with new forms of music. That essence is incredibly important to me. I hold that very dear to my heart growing up on SoundCloud, growing up with the community of musicians that I did. So moving forward a bit, kind of became a film composer's assistant. After meeting a film composer, their name was Brian Senti, in China, and ended up working for them in LA after that. Did a year or two of that sort of work, and then COVID happened. I had to move back home. Then I started doing TV editing, but then I realized, you know, I wasn't focusing on my solo identity as a musician, and I kind of felt like I was running out of time to be able to gain traction within that. So I started trading crypto. I had known about crypto since like 2017, had bought Ethereum here and there, never really managed to make any sort of financial gains from trading it. So kind of the way I started was I had a little bit of life savings, I put it all into Dogecoin, and I pretty much lost everything. It went down incredibly quickly. I was down to something like $1,000. Then I started trading coins on like Uniswap, got it back to $5,000 and said, you know what, I can't deal with this stress. I'm unhappy. I'm like shaking every morning and every night because I now don't have my life savings and I am desperately trying to gain it back through basically gambling. So I looked on Twitter because I've been on Twitter for years now and I've been following artists and musicians for a while and I saw that NFTs were gaining traction and I saw a couple of friends that were making them and things like that. And I saw Rarible. I used whatever crypto I had and I bought Newman UK's Gumbos and I bought Bitbirds, all that sort of collectible-centered art. But truth be told, the process of collecting collectibles never really made me happy either. I again felt like the main purpose of this was to gamble, to try to make my profits back from losing my life savings. That's kind of how I found Hic Et Nunc, which is pretty much what I point to my start to my passions within art to begin with. Hic Et Nunc kind of started in, I guess, March of 2021, and I had been following John Carroll for years because an artist named Lund had used John Carroll's work as album covers. And that's how I found out about John Carroll very early on, like 2015, 2016, sometime around then. I saw he was releasing quote unquote clean NFTs on the Tezos blockchain for 5 Tez. And when I had joined, they were still on primary. So I started buying them, started talking to collectors of collectibles like Debussy early on, and we ended up doing a collaborative tweet about the history of John Carroll, and that kind of set a lot of things in motion because he had his group of friends that he knew and was around in on Twitter. I was just starting pretty much, and he, and he basically wanted to help out because he knew I had some kind of knowledge about artists. So that's kind of how I started out collecting. Then I very quickly realized a day later that artists like Mario Klingemann And Helena Sarin and Diane Drouvet was on Tezos. And I started doing a lot of research, figuring out, you know, why are so many incredible artists on this platform that is kind of janky to begin with, putting out art in low editions for 1 to 5 Tezos? And it kind of blew my mind because they're physical pieces, pieces that they had sold at like Christie's or Sotheby's and places like that, or just in general through galleries. The prices were much higher than $1 to $5. So kind of something clicked in my head being like, even if there is no secondary market here, even if there is no super active community yet, it was a community of mainly artists. And that really excited me because all the tweets I saw were about art, were about the process, were about the narratives of it. So that's kind of how I started getting into collecting. And then we had early events like the Hickathon, And then we had like the HEN 1000 or HEN 10,000, where it was like you had big editions, like 100, 1,000 for free from artists. So it would be a way for artists to swap art with each other. And I was in there. I was collecting that kind of art. I was talking about it daily on Twitter. It was a very special time, definitely. And then Hic Et Nunc went through tumultuous periods. I don't know how more to describe it. The site would sometimes go down. Then we had moments where the site would be completely almost offline for like a month. And then OBJKT came into play. They kind of ported over Hic Et Nunc, and I started collecting there very heavily because I love the community and I was there from the start and I just wasn't willing to let go from the sense of connectivity that I found again, much akin to SoundCloud. through the Tezos community. I started collecting a lot of generative art, even though I didn't know what generative art was to begin with. I looked at it and then somehow it just connected with me. I liked the atmosphere within it. I liked how linear certain things could be. But then when I figured out that it was art made with code, something clicked in my brain that was like, wow, this is a new era. You know, not being someone who is a historian or art educated, I hadn't known that code-based art was around for a very long time. So that starting point where I had an ability to gain an interpretation from myself, not knowing what it was, then learning what it was, then researching and learning the histories about code-based arts, it made me fall into a very deep rabbit hole of passion to learn about, like, how did this start, foundationally speaking? And during that period of time, as I was collecting pretty much thousands of pieces and selling a few here and there so I could keep collecting lots of pieces daily, I would be on, you know, online 12, 14 hours a day looking at the NFT Biker live feed. Just any piece that would go through that live feed, I would look at it very quickly, do some research, you know, buy a piece immediately if it spoke to me. And then I would do my deeper research to learn, like, you know, what are you about? What are you saying through your art? So because I had amassed a collection of a lot of, I would say, early generative art, like the second mint ever by Matt Dazzle and having like the second mint ever by quibibi, having bought those very early on, I started doing fun work for collectors that didn't have the time. To research about the Tezos community and the art coming out on blockchains inside of a community that wasn't Ethereum. And that was really exciting for me because it gave me kind of an opening to do a lot of research and to kind of curate based on what they were looking for. And that kind of, in general, has branched out to consulting with hundreds of collectors, pretty much. When I get a DM, I always like talking about things, you know, learning about what someone is really wanting from the art that they're collecting, for what reasons that they're collecting. And a lot of the funds that I had worked for haven't even listed pieces. That used to be a very firm rule for me, that if I was going to be collecting for you, collecting for your collection, that there would be a time span where you would simply hold the works. And I found that to be incredibly important. There are lots of dynamics when running a fund that you notice, like people copy trading you immediately because they recognize that this is, you know, an account that is quickly amassing a lot of works, a lot of culturally punchy works. And it almost becomes like a signal at times, which I found incredibly interesting. I still remember buying Zancan's work, either the Genesis or the piece right after that, for like 10, 15 tez. Being able to get multiples of them from various funds that I had been running. Sadly, because I was doing the fun work, I was never able to catch the pieces in quick enough time to put them in the Lonely Garden, which is my collection. It's interesting how everything has kind of transpired in the last almost 3 years of collecting. Lots of ups, lots of downs, but it's been a beautiful exploration of just seeing so much more awareness to digital arts than ever before, and not even necessarily in an institutional sense, but in a social sense. With the connectivity of Twitter, it has accelerated how fast you can see a piece, how fast someone can share it, how fast their group of friends can see it and see if they relate with it. It's been a beautiful time.

Speaker C: That's quite the story, I have to admit. You know, I don't think that we've spoken to anybody yet who's quite so deep on the fun side. As you happen to be. I mean, maybe it makes sense just to talk about that for a little bit because, you know, when we are in our little fx hash community, it's about, oh, here are the things that are coming out, here are the things that we like. And it's very much more often long to medium-term speculation for people with mostly smaller wallets to work with. What are some of the mentalities that come with the funds that you work with? What are their motivations? What are their goals? What are some of the reasons that they're really getting into the space?

Speaker B: It's interesting because when I had started collecting for funds, I kind of wanted to see if big collectors on Ethereum would be interested in the Tezos community. So I kind of thought that if I could find the people who were buying Manaloid pieces on Feral File, and it's an edition of 80 for something like, you know, $24,000. $44,000. And then I could explain to them, you know, I know you like Mana Lloyd, and on Tezos there are highly more affordable pieces than $24,000 and smaller editions. So I did a bit of research and a bit of deep diving to find the collectors that were truly spending a lot but didn't have their own time to really go on deep dives and find the art that they were looking for. for quote unquote affordable prices. That's how I personally got started with fun work. I had recognized that there were certain artists that were very quickly gaining social traction, and I just reached out to collectors that were interested in the work, but also wanted to jump into Tezos and found a value in also collecting Tezos works. Because back then there was major division of people who thought Tezos wouldn't last for long, Tezos pieces don't go up in value, all those sort of things. But the mentality point is interesting. A lot of funds do want to sell eventually, but the endpoint is that they want to sell for a higher price than they bought in for. And when you have a collection of that size, it's almost immediately in a sense of stewardship that you can hold these pieces. You've bought them for certain amounts, you hold them, and without selling for a very long amount of time, you in a way signal like, these are pieces that shouldn't be up for sale. And if they do come up for sale, there is a feeling of, wow, wait a second, that hasn't been up for 3 years, 4 years, and now finally they're interested in the idea of selling. I'm not sure of any fund I've worked for personally has the mentality of full liquidations of art. They very much so do print out the pieces that I have acquired for them. They very much so display them in beautiful displays. And I love when I get pictures back from where they're displaying the art, when I can see it in their house and they're enjoying the art that has been collected. A lot of the funds that I've personally worked for were very focused on generative art. code-based art and abstract art, particularly on the Tezos blockchain. I've never personally ran any fund on Ethereum myself. The only thing I have noticed is that after the initial crash of Tezos from $9 to $2, it threw a lot of funds that were interested in spending higher amounts— it kind of threw them off. Because when the token is that shaky, And that volatile, it makes them worried about the pieces that you own in the end, because you become uncertain of, you know, will this blockchain even last in the end? So sometime around 2022, I had pretty much finished all fund work and I decided primarily to focus on my own collection. The focus was always to tweet about art, share about art, broaden the awareness of digital arts. But in 2022, that kind of got a bit more focus, primarily from me at that point. FUD work is not something that I, I don't think I would do it again, necessarily speaking. I'm just interested in different ways now to steward art and to advocate for digital art in general.

Speaker A: A lot of what you're saying actually mirrors the way the traditional art world, especially at the high end, thinks about collecting and placing pieces and putting like requirements on that. And it's like, no, I don't want you to take one, I want you to take 3. And one of these has to go to a museum and one of these has to be donated to something. And then you have to commit to not selling this. Like if you get marked as a flipper in the traditional art world, people will not sell to you.

Speaker B: That's very true.

Speaker A: And it's kind of interesting that you, I take it, kind of arrived at that conclusion either naturally out of your own ethical or just personal positions about art and your love for it, or if it's just something that you arrived at because it's like, yes, it is better for an artist, especially someone, you know, like a quibibi or, or a Zancan who has a lot of one-of-ones and like older works, that those don't come up on the market frequently because then they feel hard to get and that confers value onto their more liquid pieces and higher edition pieces.

Speaker B: 100%. I've always kind of had the thought, and even psychologically speaking, I think that the ratio of things that are listed in general to a community show, well, if there are 100 one-of-ones listed from a series of 300, it shows that the community is more interested in flipping and making money than actually enjoying the art that is in their hands at the current moment. I know this is incredibly divisive and many people would say otherwise, you know, and maybe we're just at a point where a lot of collectors, flippers, traders To continue collecting, they need to sell because at this point we've bought so much art, we've honed in our tastes, we've learned about art at the same time while doing it. There's only so many hours per day that you can be collecting, being part of a community, researching heavily the art that you're collecting, and also the history of the medium that you're collecting. So As time goes on, we kind of run into these scenarios where I feel collectors are realizing certain things about what they've collected. And when that ratio gets incredibly high, to me, it's always been a telling sign. I think it's personally important to pay attention to it. In the traditional art market, scarcity and pacing has always been very important. And there's a reason why the traditional art market still exists to this day. Because it worked to some extent. A lot of other things did not work. A lot of other things really made it hard for artists to find a living and find connectivity because of the way certain galleries work or the way that art connects in a physical sense. So for the funds that I was collecting for, many times we would buy 1 to 3 editions, maybe sometimes more than that. Because I did have a skill set without botting to catch things on primary, mostly because I had done it so many thousands of times for myself or for others that I could catch pretty much any piece that would be released. It didn't really matter by who. It didn't matter if there were bots on it. I always caught what I felt I wanted to catch for a fund or for my personal collection. And a lot of those editions have never been up for sale at this point from any fund that I've personally worked for. So it feels good. It feels good to know that a lot of the work that I've collected for others has been respected and admired and loved. That really makes me happy when I think about it.

Speaker A: This all sounds like a very good transition point to talk about some of your personal collecting. But before we do, in case the story hasn't gotten out there, is there an origin to Lonliboy? that you want to give us all? Is there any story there?

Speaker B: It's a little bit embarrassing, but—

Speaker A: It's like an Xbox gamertag or something from way back in the day.

Speaker B: A little bit different. So I had a solo alias called Tulpa, which means imaginary friend, I think, in Tibetan. And I never sang. I never made music with my own voice. I was always a chillwave musician or a pianist, leaning more towards composition early on. And one day I decided, you know, I want to try singing some indie songs. I wanted to try singing, so I created an alias called Lonliboy, and I started releasing songs here and there. Please don't check out that SoundCloud. It's incredibly embarrassing. I honestly should delete it. But it's been very Interesting to see that an alias that never really caught on as a musician in the Web3 space has caught on some way because I suppose the branding of it, or I don't know why. But in general, I do feel like a lot of sensations of loneliness pretty often, and that's been spanning for a lot of years in general. So it's very on brand in the end. When anyone sees @Lonliboy and would think, oh, this is just an alias, like, that is something that I go through. So why not use it as my actual Twitter handle? That's as relatable as I can be, basically. There really are no lies behind it. It's a full truth.

Speaker C: You've already talked a lot about how you collect on behalf of funds and some of the priorities that they have, but you are also really well known in this space for getting excited about work. Collecting the work, you go really deep on artists, you go really deep on pieces. Like, I think you're one of the top collectors of like concrete of all things, for example. Do you have any particular theses on how and why you collect, what you like to collect, even getting into some of the nuances around static work versus animated work? Do you buy the artist? Do you buy stuff you like? What's your take on all of it?

Speaker B: I think the philosophy of collecting I like to give it the freedom of ebbing and flowing. When I started, I obviously started on Ethereum, and my primary focus at that point was profits. With Hic Et Nunc, there was no secondary market when I started. You couldn't even list things for sale. So having that history and being slightly conditioned into it early on, I naturally gained the mentality of, well, you know, If I'm collecting art on here and I just want to be part of the community, I'm just going to buy things that I like. And that's kind of a loaded statement in a way, because it's like, what does someone like and for what reason do they like those things? For me, when I had collected an early Mario Klingemann work, what really swayed me was the wallet address would be placed over an AI base painting. And the concept, when I had read about it, would be, you know, through time, if enough collectors purchased this piece and enough wallet addresses in black lettering came over it, the piece would eventually become fully black. It would just lead into quote-unquote nothingness. And I found those kind of concepts incredibly interesting because I was collecting digital art, and it— never in my life have I thought something made as much perfect sense as that. Works like that really gave me a passion for, wow, there's a lot of artists trying out lots of ways of making art, having different concepts and narratives towards it. Like, what does it mean really that so many people bought a piece that now there is just a black layer over everything. And leading forward into my history as a collector, a lot of it in the beginning was just to support the community. I would buy pieces of every sort of genre, form, medium, narrative, basically. And I was just interested in being part of the community at that point. Thousands of pieces because it was so affordable at that time. Like 1 to 5 TES per piece is something that I'm not sure the next time we'll ever see something like that ever again at the kind of mass scale that it was on Hic Et Nunc and early OBJKT. That was a very special moment. I know that now you can still buy pieces for 1 to 5 Tez, and I still do, but the whole culture of giving works away freely and then seeing works for 1 to 5 Tez and then seeing the artists that had released works for those kind of prices end up absolutely going supersonic like Iskra. Iskra's one-of-ones early on were 50 Tez. Marcelo's one-of-ones early on were something like 100 Tez, and the editions were very affordable. He had released works for HEN thousands, and those were free, you know. So to me, what is important about art is that I can find either a connection with a community and feel like I am part of something, or I find a connection with myself through art. When I see a piece like, let's say, Fields by Erik Swahn, and it makes me remember things from my childhood, and it makes me remember a dream that I had not remembered for a very long time that I had as a kid, and I'm just sitting there like, this is not a coincidence, you know? It can't be that I'm looking at this piece right now and I'm thinking about moments that I have haven't thought about for a very long time. To have those sensations come back through art is such a special gift that we are so freely given through the expression of art that artists make. That is down to the bone what matters to me, especially now. At this point, I need connectivity through the art that I'm collecting. I will always continue supporting the community, and I want to see artists grow and develop and expand on their narratives, on their styles, on their forms. But the art that really hits me, I will just simply not stop talking about it because I love it. It truly means a lot to me. I mean, I look through my collection every single day. I know there's thousands of pieces and it's hard to see everything. But every single day I look at my collection and I smile because I know I'm surrounded by pieces that remind me that I'm a human, that I have went through so many ups and downs in my personal life, that I do have love around me, that I do get angry at things, you know, like the social commentaries and being able to stay cognizant of what's happening around the world and see that mirrored in art is a beautiful feeling. So my personal mentality has always been, does this actually hit me in the core? And especially now, that is so important to me to find a connectivity through the art that I collect.

Speaker A: But there's another side to it, right? Which is that when you have a collection that's so big and you only have so much money and maybe you can't afford to bring new money in, So at a certain point you have to sell. And I know in particular you've received some, maybe the most polite way to say it is some friction. I don't wanna lean all the way into saying that you've received some hate, but maybe it's gone that far over the reality of managing a collection that is extremely large, where maybe you have realized some very big returns on pieces that maybe you don't connect with as much anymore and it's time to uproot them from the garden and make room for something new.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: I know for a fact, because we've talked about it, it can sometimes be very surprising or feel very dissonant to the public who observes you because of the positivity with which you approach your collecting and how much you'll champion an artist or a work and talk about it and your just involvement all over the space. So what is that reality of it to you as someone who is young, who lost a bunch of money in Dogecoin, who might need to sell work from time to time, right? Like, I guess the question is, like, given that we're talking, what do you want people to know about what it means when you sell to you personally, to your collection, into your life, right? Because we all do it, but for whatever reason, when you do it, it seems to be a tougher pill for people to swallow.

Speaker B: The process of collecting sustainably, when one's focus is to continue amassing and supporting and broadening on a kind of larger scale is very complex. I quit my job in TV editing that paid me semi-decently at that time period to collect art, and the only money I have made in the last almost 3 years now has been through selling pieces here and there. Now, here is the harder reality that is sometimes lost in the mix of things. A lot of pieces that I have collected have went up in value in a very exponential manner, and I'm 24. I don't really have savings anymore because pretty much every single penny that I've had is in art. That is just how I live. Collecting, it's an obsession for me. So the big downside that comes with collecting this heavily and being able to realize some of the profits from exponential gains in pieces is the tax scenario. It is critical to realize this at a certain point when you have collected works that go up in so much value and you keep buying more works with those profits. When you just don't stop doing that, your tax bill is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. That is something in 2021 that I had not noticed and not realized, whether because I didn't pay attention to it or I thought, you know, this will be okay, this will keep going up forever. And that may have played in a part to some of my immaturity of just believing that the space would be quote unquote up only. The reality is a 6-figure tax bill for 2021 A high 5-figure tax bill for 2022. And Tezos has went down exponentially from $9 to almost $0.73, back to like $1.20 now. And also a lot of the pieces at this point, throughout a lot of Tezos in general, have not sustained value after 3 years. So that puts a collector that spends a lot of time collecting, a lot of time sharing work, thinking about work, researching it. It puts me personally in a very precarious position in my personal life. I rarely see this talked about on social media, and maybe others have done it in a more sustainable manner, but when I sell, a little bit at this point has to go to taxes. of a tax bill for 2 years now. So that is over my head personally. And at the same time, I just can't stop myself from collecting more work. Like, I really just want to keep collecting. I want to keep going. That's kind of the position that I am in personally. I don't want to be selling works. If I was rich enough to just keep collecting with no care in the world of any other repercussions that happened in my personal life, I would be doing that. I would be collecting constantly, every day, all day. But the only reason I've gotten to a collection of this size was because of selling here and there. And I really, really try my best never to quote unquote sell off an entire collection by an artist. that is in the Garden. Furthermore, it's impossible to do that, especially at the current market that we're sitting in. It's very hard to do that. fx hash has had a bit of a severe low point, way less public tweets even talking about art that has been collected on there. So for the people who collect very heavily and flip to continue collecting more, We run into a position where it's just hard. I know I've gotten a considerable amount of flak in certain Discords, where I sit back and I think this seems a little unfair because when I do sell, it's usually at way higher points. So I personally have never viewed it as quote unquote pumping and dumping at all. A good scenario of this was when. I had started collecting Septembers by Tyler Boswell. We had done a panel at Bright Moments together, and I'm super excited about the piece. Love how it looks aesthetically. Love how it makes me feel. It makes me feel refreshed. It's like eating 5 gum. It feels good, you know? And I had bought some on secondary. I had bought, I think, 1 or 2 on primary, and then As soon as I sell, when it goes up 3 or 4x, I'm considered as I'm dumping it. But Septembers kept going up in value after I had sold. It wasn't like I'm trying to bomb a market. It was just at that point in time, the profits were so high that I needed to sell 1 or 2 so I could keep collecting. Otherwise, the Lonely Garden would not be getting bigger. I would not continue being able to collect art, share the art that I've collected, continue supporting with personal stake coming directly from me. Some of the best curators in the world have bought art by the artists that they have curated in their exhibitions and shows, and at later points they would sell those pieces because bringing people together and the broadening, the profits of those traditional pieces has went up so high That while they're not getting paid a lot as a curator, and that's a very common occurrence inside of the world of curation, being able to have a few pieces that you truly believe in, that are culturally punchy, where you're able to digestibly talk about them, that's how you can make it work in some way. I've definitely gotten hate for it, but nowadays I don't, I don't really pay attention. when someone has negative to say when I sell a piece, because they are not going through my life. They don't have to personally deal with this kind of tax bill from literally supporting art, basically, and selling to support more. And that's my personal position on it. It's very transparent. I don't think I've really talked about this publicly before, but Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, then it's transparent now, but it—

Speaker B: Yeah, wasn't transparent.

Speaker A: I think that's part of the problem, right? Which is that I'll tell you personally, before this conversation, or I should say maybe before, like a few months ago, as I got to know you more, from the way that you tweeted and collected, I assumed that you were probably some like early ETH buy-in millionaire type. You see a lot of those archetype collectors all over the place, people who probably bought a bunch of ETH or a bunch of Bitcoin early. got crypto rich, and they're just treating it as, as just free money now. And they're buying all these NFTs, and they're splashing around, and they're talking about it. And they can afford to do crazy things like spend $1 million on a piece of animated art, whatever, right? So that was my first impression of you, by the way, that you tweeted and behaved. So you're painting like a very different picture here. And so like, I think it's good for you to talk about it and probably to talk about it more off the show too, and paint a more human picture of who you are and what you're doing, because this space does have a lot of cheerleaders in it who are bag pumping, who are already rich, and just here for very cynical reasons when they're collecting NFTs.

Speaker B: Yes, there's definitely a lot of very wealthy individuals that have hundreds of thousands of followers that are definitely pumping their bags in a way. I never was that lucky in a way to even be rich to begin with. Like I said, this has been all I've done in the last 3 years is collect art, share about it, sell here and there, and collected much more. But also, I would say on the @Lonliboy Twitter itself, I went through a period where I would tweet about prices very often. And now that I've had time to really think about it, I don't particularly want to go down that direction. I almost feel like bringing up prices doesn't matter. I think when you can connect with someone because you're sharing personal stories and it actually manages to latch onto a community, that is worth more than the hype-based factor of talking about prices. It took me a while to learn that, and I even had some personal friends that called me and recently were like, you know what, I like what you're doing now. That's more in line with how you started. Oh yeah. Hic et nunc, six months ago, seven months ago, talking about prices all the time when they were going up, and I had not sold many pieces in that time period. When I could have made a lot of profits buying way more art at this point, I decided no because I was scared what people would think about me. But I reached a critical point where the tax bill is here, and there are legal repercussions since I filed. So I don't want to be talking about that on my account. That is not what I'm interested in. I'm way more interested in talking specifically about art at this point. Obviously, I'll have a few tweets here and there because it's big news. You know, when Zancan buys a pink Garden Monolith for 44,000 Tezos, that is a sentence that you put into the world when you do something. like that. It sets a sort of precedent, a way of thinking that you can look into and understand about an artist. So sharing things like that is interesting at times, but I'm really trying to lean away from that and kind of share just more personal stories of connection, more oral histories going forward that I'm having with artists daily. That's kind of my focus now.

Speaker C: It's definitely a hard line to straddle, I would say, especially in your shoes when you do a lot of collecting, both on your behalf and behalf of others. My mind goes back to Perpendicular Inhabitations, Studio Yorktown. Yeah. When you're clearly invested in a piece, you know, to me, I miss September. So September is dead to me for now and forever.

Speaker B: I've still got 3 in my collection. Like, I didn't dump anything. I'm still here.

Speaker C: Oh, I know. I know. I, I, what I'm just, I'm trying from like the point of view of disclosures. You can be excited about something, but how much of that bag are you holding, right? It's always a tricky game to play just in terms of what is the public sentiment? Does that sentiment matter? What is your responsibility as, you know, a public figure? That sort of thing. I think that another interesting avenue to discuss, and I think going back into the early days of Hic Et Nunc, is When we're talking about community, when we're talking about culture, it's much easier to do that in a less financialized space, if that makes sense. When everything is between 1 and 5 Tez, people aren't selling things for exponential prices.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: Do you have any thoughts on how the community has changed as this world has gotten more traction and prices are going up and it's less accessible? to newcomers as it might have been 2 or 3 years ago?

Speaker B: It's a lot less accessible. A lot of primary prices are much higher these days. Also, the output amount is much higher these days, especially when you look back at the history now that certain artists have had in the last 3 years. There are now thousands of pieces in 3 years. You know, this is not a culmination of one's life's work at this point. This is 3 years and certain artists have thousands of pieces out. I think that collectors are realizing that and they're also realizing, hmm, I'm spending a certain amount of money. I'm going to analyze what happened through various other collections that artists have put out. And they're going to realize certain things about the dynamic of what it means to put out 400 edition 1-of-1 series once a month. I think that the community, especially on fx hash, ran into a very serious problem with bot farms and bots and insta-listing, and that burned out a lot of people. It burned out me for a period. I had to pay 10x on secondary for a lot of pieces I genuinely wanted. You know, perpendicular inhabitation. I have one listed, but I own, I think, 10 or 15. And the one I listed is for half of what I bought most of mine for. This is what I'm saying. I can be incredibly invested and love a piece, but what happens to you as a collector when you have to deal with a market not sustaining? You have to deal with that. That's on your personal life. And I think a lot of collectors have realized that they have fallen in love with collecting. It's become obsessive for a lot of people. They stay on the chats every day. They stay on live feeds, or they're just always checking the explore feeds for places. And then when they look back in their collection and realize, wow, very little is sustaining, we run into a problem. I think we've been running into this problem for a minute now. And I've tried to stay very, very positive through it. I've tried to focus on the collections I really love and talk about them a lot because I'm realizing no sustained commentary and the massive amount of pieces that are coming out is a recipe for collectors to basically own a lot of pieces that are sometimes 50% less than they bought. And if you add in the Tezos volatility, sometimes it's even more when you're talking about USD value. I'm seeing a lot less collecting just to support an artist's progression these days. And it's really sad, especially from new collectors. Like when I joined in, it wasn't about flipping. It wasn't about profit when I got on Hic Et Nunc. So when new collectors jump in, And they see pieces that do go up 5x, it conditions them to think, you know, well, maybe I can be making money with this at the same time that I'm collecting things I may like or may not like, you know. So I think we're in a very precarious position when you have a large community that is buying one-of-one outputs and they're going up in value and there's new collectors Sometimes coming in and they see the dynamic, it makes it feel more like a marketplace and less like you're buying from a gallery. It doesn't necessarily connect one-to-one at this point, which I don't know the answer to this. I don't know what can help or alleviate these sensations. I still bought Rev's Param's release. I collected a Lorna Mills piece the other day. I still very actively want to be supporting, but I've also realized that being able to buy a piece, eventually sell it, and buy more— that is just not really happening much these days. It's going to be interesting to see how going forward I can make collecting sustainable for myself. In general, I have a lot of works listed because I do need to tragically be pay off this tax bill. So it hurts. I've been here for so long. For 2 years, a very large amount of pieces were never listed in the Lonely Garden itself. Like, FXHash is one thing. I have something like 600 pieces there. Object and Hic Et Nunc, I almost had no pieces listed there for 2 years. So for me to have to let go of pieces That are now part of my life. It sucks. It doesn't feel good. And to know I have to do it because of a government aspect basically really hurts because it has nothing to do about art on that side. It's just you are a part of society, so you have to pay your dues. With the mentality now, I think a lot of people that are jumping in want flips. They're very interested in that, and I'm not seeing enough actual art commentary, personal stories, connectivity through a lot of new collectors, which is sad to see. I think it's quite obvious that sustained commentary is what brings more and more people to view an artist's work and fall in love with it. We don't have that, then people are just going to keep releasing and going into this cycle You know, of I just need to keep up until the market burns out. And that's not sustainable. It just doesn't work in the end. And I've been trying to say this in a lot of chats for a long time now. You know, commentary is one of the anchors of art. We just aren't seeing it that much these days. It makes me sad personally, and I would very much so wish to see more people talking about their personal stories of how they connect to a piece. I would like to see them talking about art in digestible ways because that's how you get people who maybe didn't even like art to begin with. You know, when they see their friends or someone they know on Twitter talking about why something means something to them, you can find a connection through that. You get people excited about the digital art movement through that. But we're seeing less and less of that because the profits are less and less these days. And I think it's telling that there's a correlation between this. It really shows that the market is still a very huge driving factor. So yeah, it does make me sad because it's not like what Hic Et Nunc was about initially. That is not how I joined into the space. I wish I had an answer, really.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think a lot of what you're saying speaks to the cohort of people who are here collecting though, because I think a lot of us, you know, Trinity and I included, came into this accidentally through crypto. You just were here and you were already kind of into whatever was going on with crypto and you fell backwards into FXHash or HEN or whatever, right? So it feels like there's very few people who actually have any kind of art background to speak with confidence. I mean, on our show, like, I don't often feel like I'm speaking with confidence about A piece, we're just kind of winging it, right? Like, that's it. Like, we don't have extensive art history backgrounds. We can't talk about the content unless the artist writes a lot about the piece. We're kind of like, don't even know what to say about it sometimes. Like, this is a this, you know, this is a that. So it's— I think it's very challenging, and it speaks to the greater issue of how unsuccessfully we've crossed over non-crypto people into the space to kind of provide that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And maybe also that it's uncomfortable for artists to talk about other artists' work, maybe? Because a good portion of collectors here are also making art. And you would think that they would have the background and the knowledge to like jump in and provide commentary, but they don't for the most part, right?

Speaker C: Is that on the collector base or is that on the artists themselves? Because I think that we also have an influx of people who are creating art and selling art for the very first time. Right.

Speaker A: I think there's just an unwillingness to upset the boat, right? Like, I mean, there are some artists out there who are like OGs, like, you know, he's not on Twitter anymore, really. So like someone like Atoxy is not afraid to say like, hey, a lot of the art that's being made right now sucks. Or like, we were doing this 10 years ago, like you're just retreading what we've already done. Like there are vocal artists out there, but then they tend to get a lot of hate because I think there's like the collector base doesn't like it because they're uneducated. And they're like, hey, like, don't say that. Like, those are my bags, bro. Like, don't tell me my bags suck. You know, like, that's the art that I've collected. And I didn't know that it was a retread because I don't know who you are. So I don't know. There's just, there, I think there's a lot of unwillingness to do anything other than say a piece is good without going into any depth on it. Like, that's been my general observation. And even us, I think we've held back sometimes on pieces where we were like, this isn't really interesting. Why do people like this? Like, all we can kind of do is say. Well, you know, it's not for me. Like, you can't be like, this is stupid, it's not palatable.

Speaker B: I'm not an art critic, so I don't feel it's my place to ever have a strong opinion of, you know, when I dislike something personally. What I do feel I have a strong opinion on is when I like a piece and I research an artist, I look back into their career, see what they've done. It's more easy to speak confidently about it. But also, in general, I don't really mind if people have opinions on my memories in my life or things like that. When I share them, it's because it's me. That's as transparent as I can be. I think criticality is important, but if you truly like something, I always think just scream about it. But like, obviously it's hard to tell anyone's intentions in Web3. Like, we don't know, you know? I mean, you can kind of tell after like you see their wallet transactions and things like that, you know? But I think in general, it was sad when Toxy got attacked for being honest and transparent from the FX Hash community that claims it's a very positive and art-centered place. That was honestly disrespectful to the fullest extent. I think we can be completely honest about that. Especially considering Toxy's contributions to the entire codebase space and to a lot of how digital art looks today when it comes to generative systems. It goes to the point of toxic positivity in the space. And even myself, I feel I've contributed to toxic positivity, but I want to be honest about it. I'm not an art historian. I fell in love with certain works that, sure, were a bit rudimentary, And I may have screamed very loud about them. So moving on, I think being transparent about that we're learning, you know, there's a generation of people who have fell in love with art but did not go to school to learn about it. I think just being honest about being people like that is important. I try to bring it up pretty often that I don't know anything, you know.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: I like to learn about art. I love when Elaut shares so much knowledge in PD chat. It's incredible. They really put us on within that chat about history in general. And it's interesting to see that that kind of discussion is not what latches on for most of the community. There's like a few people that will get the conversation really rolling, but it's not like the whole community is paying attention to that Particularly. So it's interesting that new pieces get way more attention and loudness than simply learning about the history that is foundational to where we're at right now, today. I wish we could go back in time when Toxy was being transparent about what was happening, because it's true, a lot of what he said was one-to-one the truth. And I wish I had known enough at that period to have been vocal about what was happening. And I've went back recently and been like, hey, let's not say this didn't happen because it did happen. If we want communities to grow, then we need to be humble about our misgivings of the past. I've messed up many times. I try to be pretty honest about it. And I feel like that's partially one of the reasons why in general the Lonely Boy brand has kind of grown on Twitter. Like, I made a lot of mistakes early Hic Et Nunc. I said things that I did not know what I was talking about, and I said it confidently. But when you're taught something and you can understand that you were wrong, to be honest about that, that is a more human connectivity to that than just being confident and not knowing. Others love to see growth in someone, and I think that's important. I feel like communities can grow in that same way. So yeah, I mean, this is a very complex discussion that we're into now, but I think that there is a need to talk about it because at times I see that it's just like, oh yeah, bring it up. We won't— like, we see that, but we're not going to talk about it. And then if you tweet something different or you say something different that does gain attention, then it's like, oh yeah, let's talk about that instead. So it's been very interesting to see the mentality of criticality not be weighted for a very long time in the Web3 space. And I think that we are in a growing period. I think the hype cycle is over. I think it's done for, honestly. I really do. I think the era of style over substance is coming to a close in Web3. I think there are thousands upon thousands of one-of-ones. I think collectors are realizing, wow, the world of art is bigger than I had initially thought. And when that realization comes, that is how we can grow, not in the sense of ROI, but in the sense of How is art culturally important to us? And I'm excited for that period. I'm very excited to be growing and learning in that lane of thinking going forward. I've been trying my best to learn these last couple of months because I fully realize I don't know much. So I think that's important to just keep growing, be willing to learn about what you're collecting. And not just be like, oh, that's pretty, I'll buy it. I won't research it. I won't do anything else except try to hype it up in the same community that I'm in. I think that that is important. We need to grow from that mentality.

Speaker C: I think that is an excellent answer and also an excellent segue into the exciting news that you've had in the last couple of weeks, which is that you'll be working with Verse full-time, presumably, because, you know, when you say the hype cycle is over, it's all about substance, it's about collecting responsibly, producing work responsibly. Where do you see Verse fitting into all of that, especially as we move forward and into potential bear markets, if that even matters, and just into the solidification of art and generative art within this digital space? Also, congratulations.

Speaker B: Thank you. I'm very, very excited to finally be part of a team on a digital art platform. I flew to London. I was invited out to meet with them, and through that first 1-week period, I saw people who love art genuinely. They know a lot about traditional art. They have a burning passion to be connected to the digital art space, that makes me really excited. Verse in general, when I first flew down here, I got to see the Imperfections show, and I've been to a lot of NFT galleries where it's mostly screens. Screens that are just, I would say, poorly positioned, and nothing really has an atmosphere of elegance or anything like that. It feels more like a techno rave than than a showcasing of art. So to see a beautiful space like where the Imperfections Gallery was, and to see art that was not on displays but printed and well-framed, there's a certain atmosphere to seeing generative art that, you know, is code-based. But seeing it on paper, there's this physicality to it that is like you can almost taste it. It's so powerful. Like, I saw Fields by Erik Swahn, and I just stood there for like an hour. I think it's life-changing, you know, being someone who has collected Erik's work for years. I'm talking since 2021, for either myself or for funds, to be able to see a platform that pays attention to the atmosphere and to exhibiting in a very quote unquote fine way. It's almost hard to describe it in words how much it means to me to be working with a platform that has that kind of attention to generative art. And I think that's important. I think that we've all been collecting art on the internet for a few years now, and it's in our wallets and displays are expensive. Having prints shipped out, framed, behind nice glass is expensive, but to be able to go to freely open public shows, no token gating, none of that, where you see digital art represented physically, that feels special to me. And I really like that about Verse. On my end, I'm going to be putting together more exhibitions focused on celebrating and acknowledging artists who are historically foundational with their contributions to code-based art. And that will be the first exhibition that I am planning and working on very heavily sometime around either September or October. And I'm very excited about that. I can't really say much more on that end. A lot of it for me is doing a lot of oral histories, talking with artists that I've known for years now, And others that I've not known but highly respected in a very conversational way to learn each individual's lens of perspective of how the movement actually unfolded. I think that's important. There are such major contributors that are alive with unwritten histories that may or may not have been well documented throughout time. So to be able to talk with artists like this is such a joy. Like, I wake up and I feel blessed because doing something like this has been on my mind for over 2 years now. I've always thought in the back of my head as a collector, you know, I would love to be able to put together exhibitions or shows or, and, or work together with artists to see how we can format installations in physical spaces. So to be able to do that with Verse. It's a joy. I'm just very excited for this new chapter. Another big focus for me is talking about histories in a digestible way. A lot of the ideas, philosophies, and narratives are so technical. They're so packed with value and knowledge, but it would be hard for, let's say, someone who doesn't know anything about code-based art to fully understand it. So a big focus for me is to find ways to talk about these histories in a very digestible way, to talk about why they're important to where digital art stands today. It's a massive mission, but I'm fully dedicated to it, and I'm really excited to see how it unfolds.

Speaker A: At the same time though, right, some of what you've been talking about with the space and the growing pains and The lack of criticality from collectors. We've seen an issue, at least recently, and maybe this is just a surface-level issue and I'm not sure, but certainly something that we've talked about a lot, including with Jamie, is kind of about the general fracturing of the space. Artists releasing on all these different platforms, jumping over to other chains. Like, I'm sure you've seen recently, for whatever reason, like, people just deciding to go release on Solana after they've just put all of their work on ETH and Tez. What do you kind of make of that fracturing? Like, do you view it as just a short-term problem that we're going to get over? There's going to be a consolidation? I think we're personally bullish on Verse, but every platform is kind of fighting with each other to cannibalize the current user base here, and you need fees to sustain. How do you view the ecosystem holistically right now, and what do you think is going to happen over the remainder of the year, 2 years, 3 years? Like, Is there going to be a reckoning?

Speaker B: I think there's already a reckoning occurring. I think that since fx hash had a major down period, a lot of artists became scared to release on Tezos and are moving on. And maybe when the market comes back up, they'll have pieces ready to release again on fx hash. But I do think that artists are looking for different sorts of opportunities, whether it be physical exhibitions, integrating with new communities that they weren't a part of, like Solana. There's clearly liquidity there, and there's, from what I have witnessed, because I did buy a Fract by Leander Herzog, I'm not going to not follow someone like Leander that I've supported for a long time, flew out to Switzerland and spent time with him. I am not going to not follow an artist simply because of the chain that they're on. But maybe that's my mentality from being someone that loves art. I'm not really that interested in flipping that piece. You know, I just desperately wanted a fract. But what I have noticed is the community on Solana is indeed interested in learning the history of generative art and of code-based arts.

Speaker A: It was just an example because I'll say from, at least for me personally, I don't really understand the strategy of an artist to jump chains like that. From a game theoretical standpoint, it feels like you're gonna always lose people who aren't gonna follow you because like for someone like me, like so much of my time is taken up with the show and focusing on fxhash and Tezos that I'm not gonna go make a Solana wallet and figure out what this new site is and try to think about, is there a community here and does it make sense? Like I have a job, I have a baby, you probably hear them right there. So it's like, Yeah. I'm not gonna manage like and more wallets and more platforms and chains, because an artist thinks that maybe there's like a little more opportunity to go over there, and maybe I'll get some new fans, and hopefully I can drag my current collector base over with me. Like, it feels like it creates a lot more uncertainty. I don't know, it just feels like it'd be better to coalesce around a certain few platforms and a certain few chains and try to make sure that they sustain and exist.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Than to just go like, oh, there's a new platform, and they offered me me to do this, so I'm just gonna do it. If I had more time, I'm sure I would just follow certain artists. Like, we, we love Leander, we had him on the show, but it's just like, I don't have the capacity to take the time to do it.

Speaker B: I think that what Code has to offer is the Solana community. What they're doing is not really that different from any other long-form platform, so I can see why artists would want to try it out, see if their art can relate with the Solana community, and then see How the liquidity plays out in that regard. Verse, on the other hand, in my opinion, has a very clean UI. It feels fine when you're buying art on there. It always has, in my opinion. It's not like you're seeing a Hic Nunc piece next to Smooth Steps by Andreas. When I see that, it makes me feel bad. It really does. The way you show art matters, especially when your collectors end up spending thousands of dollars, and especially when pieces start gaining a lot of secondary traction and a lot of money is being spent. Now it matters how that art is represented on a platform. So I can see why artists are trying out new communities, new UIs, new platforms, because in a way we are still very early. I mean, sure, I've spent a lot of money For the last few years, but I still feel like we're very early in this. I don't think any platform has perfected what it means or what it should, quote unquote, look like to release art at the current moment. God, I love fx hash, but I don't think I've ever been a fan of the UI personally. I can't get into it. And I've been, I've been honest about this for a very long time. You know, like, it's not like some— something I've hidden behind.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It just, it works. FXHash is simple, it works, and it opened up a completely revolutionary mechanism for inclusive minting of code-based systems. But I think artists are looking for different things now, especially ones that have released and done well. They want to branch out further than just selling pieces, to be able to Do journals and have curators do journals with you and talk about your work, to be able to be part of physical exhibitions that are well documented. Like, these things matter in the end because art is not just about the marketplace community. It really isn't. It's easy to get sucked up into that kind of mentality, but in the end of the day, that's not all art is about, is just buying and flipping and seeing that it went up in profit a bit and then selling, buying more. I like to experience art. I like to meet up with people in person and talk with them, you know, about the art. When I go to a gallery and I meet with people, I'm not talking about the price of the piece. I've never done that. I talk about the art when I'm in physical spaces. So yeah, I think artists are just branching out. I think it's wise to, honestly. I mean, sure, it sucks when, you know, an artist that you've supported so much on FX Hash tries out new places and you don't want to see them leave because that means less sustained commentary until they put out a new piece that can then affect old pieces. And this is talking about market dynamics. We just went through an immense low point. on fx hash. I think it scared a lot of people. It's confusing to know where to go forward. I mean, but params is here and hopefully things pick up again.

Speaker C: It's just such an interesting interconnected conversation around all the things that we've been talking about so far, where it's the art, the story behind the art, the history of the art, the theory of the art, the community, the liquidity, the returns. So to speak, where those latter 2 are very kind of gauche to talk about in connection with the art as a broader social movement, capital A Art. But I also find that a lot of the community wouldn't exist without that financialized nature if people weren't able to remain solvent with their collecting. If everything is just, you buy it and it maintains price at the primary cost. How is that going to sustain the movement moving forward? It's going to require additional liquidity coming in unless it's just artists exchanging art, you know, basically at cost. So there's an interesting balance to strike there when it comes to making sure that things are priced appropriately and also making sure that there's enough excitement and momentum within the overall community to make sure that the space can keep going. Or else we're not early. We're just late, actually.

Speaker A: I think to add to that too, right, for platforms, for all platforms, not just fx hash, but for Verse and for Code Canvas and all the others, like there's a new like fx hash, basically like open long-form gen art platform on ETH that just launched too that we haven't talked about yet. And we don't need to get into that, but every single one of these platforms relies on fees to sustain. This is something that we talked a lot, actually, like half the interview with Jamie was basically him being like, what can we do to get more secondary? Because I need to make money, like, to run the platform. I agree in spirit with a lot of what you're saying, like, and I think what Verse does is awesome. Like, I love how so many of the pieces come with like a lot of extensive writing. The way the site looks is so premium. But they really aggressively priced that InProfessions exhibition like low for ETH, right? Which is what it was on. Like, some of those pieces were like $40 US, and they didn't get crazy flipped. And I don't think that they collected nearly the fees that they were expecting on secondary by making a swing like that. And so it's not just fxhash, right, that's feeling it. Like, the Marcelo piece on Verse hasn't even come close to minting out.

Speaker B: The release of the Marcelo piece, 3 ETH, I think at the current moment is a very high price. For any piece of art that is a 1-of-1 that's a set of 1-of-1s. I don't think it's on anyone besides the market dynamic in general kind of tanking. It's bad everywhere. Secondary is not alive on fxhash really, so why would it be alive on other places? Even Art Blocks can't sell out pieces. It's not just Verse at the current moment that is dealing with these pain points. It's a market-wide issue, which is why I personally appreciate that the prices were low, because people who are interested in buying art and collecting it can get those pieces at accessible price points. And that gives me a feeling more of like what Hic Et Nunc was about. You know, we look at, let's say, the Sarah Ridgely piece. There's barely any listed. It didn't sell out all 444. But the people who bought it, I have to assume, want that piece because there's barely any listed. And this is the case for a lot of collections on Verse. There's quite a handful that just don't have anywhere near as many listed as on Art Blocks. Code Canvas already has a lot of listings. FXHash stacked, absolutely stacked now at this point. It seems there's just an avalanche of people trying to get liquidity out because they're scared of what the market looks like right now and fearful of it. So even if secondary isn't a-booming right now, and I can't really flip things to keep buying art at the pace that I would like to because it's just not possible right now, you know, I think that accessible price points, it's just good to see. It feels good to be able to buy art in these kind of uncertain market times and not have it like destroy our wallets. It is an interesting point though, like the Thomas Noya piece was, I think, $40 USD and the floor went to $100 and it's at $80. So I would assume at that price point there'd be more pressurized sensation for actual flips in secondary. But are we going to see Zancan put out a $300 1-of-1 for $40?

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: We're not gonna see that, you know, and I think that it's always on an artist-to-artist basis. A community has to gather around an artist, find connectivity with it, and have sustained commentary. So it's very interesting to see how the dynamics are playing out across the board right now. I mean, Art Blocks pieces at the moment do not have sustained commentary, more so because when a piece is too high, And this is kind of a major point for me. When a piece's price is too high for the current market and it doesn't get into enough collectors' hands, who is going to be talking about it then? Will there be a network effect then? The answer is no. And we're seeing that happen in live time right now, where if the pieces aren't priced affordably to the ebb and flow of the market, collectors are just not going to talk about it. Because they don't own it, and collectors love talking about what they own. That's like rule number one almost. So I mean, I very rarely see collectors talk about pieces they don't own. That is not the norm at the current moment, and it makes sense. You bought something, you support an artist, you want to talk about it. So yeah, I think that more accessible pricing at least can get pieces into collectors' wallets, and they're excited to talk about the pieces then because they own them. It's a pricing issue. The market is not like it was in '21 or '22, even at certain points. It's at an extreme low point. So for artists to work with the market right now seems like an easy way to kickstart commentary again, because when things start rolling, those pieces on secondary will start a-booming. But right now the money's not there, the liquidity's not there. So why not work with the collectors that do want to support you, may or may not have, you know, a massive stack of crypto that they're sitting on, but want to support, you know, like accessible price points right now I don't see as a bad thing.

Speaker A: It wasn't a criticism, it was more just pointing out that the low price points I believe were designed to encourage more secondary market activity for the accrual of fees, which platforms need to sustain. It didn't really play out. That was the observation. I loved the low-priced ones because I collected a bunch from that exhibition.

Speaker B: But the secondary fees aren't even high that most platforms take. So that's another thing to add to the equation is like, how do you sustain off of secondary? It's very hard when the Yeah, it's volume.

Speaker A: And that's why it works for fx hash in theory, because it's an open platform. So anyone can come in and mint and it doesn't matter which projects take off, whether they're good or bad, whether they were zero test mints that flipped or 100 test mints that flipped. But we gotta figure out how we're going to end this, Trinity. What do you, what do you think? I don't think we're going to do rapid fire. So how should we—

Speaker C: What are your favorite music recommend— okay, no rapid fire.

Speaker A: What do you think, Lonli? Like, how should we wrap this up? Like, maybe do we invite you to ask us a question or maybe make a suggestion about what we could be doing on the show? Like, I don't even know if you listen that often.

Speaker B: I've definitely listened to a few podcasts. I mean, you, you got people on that I absolutely adore and love, so hearing them go into their perspectives is always amazing. I'd love to ask just like, who are the artists you're excited about right now? You know, that you truly are connecting with and that are moving you internally. I love learning that personally.

Speaker C: I guess I can take a stab at that first. You know, I've always loved the work that Jacek has done. You know, I'm a huge fan of Unbuilt, of Hollow, these architectural pieces that also kind of speak to the soul and also like the history of humanity. Those are works that I just think kind of transcend time. Yeah, I'm less into the most recent project, which was the 5.136 degrees. I forget what it was called. It was—

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I was less into that one, but the ones that more speak to the architecture and the history of the world are awesome. And then I know I'll, I'll steal one from Will. Jeres, obviously, you know, I, I love the story behind Glossolalia. I just think that he has such an interesting perspective in terms of the use of brightness of color, of all that really great stuff.

Speaker A: And exposing their own personal story and how it connects. Like, I guess, plug for that interview that went live today with Jerez. Looking at some recent stuff in my collection that I really liked that I don't know if it necessarily hit with everyone, but the Luis Fraguata piece Serendipity vs. Consequence.

Speaker B: That's a great one.

Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting piece, and he did a really good job explaining it because it's a piece that needs explanation for people like us too, which I thought was super helpful and helped me connect to it. And it's the same reason I think I connect to a lot of the Jeres stuff recently too, is because they put in the effort to like handhold you into understanding where the emotion in the piece is beyond just the fact that like the colors are really nicely composed, you know. Hollow. I mean, I agree with Trinity, like Hollow is a piece I really personally connected with. I also really like a lot of I mean, I talk about him a lot on the show, but like a lot of Alex Grasser stuff.

Speaker B: Alex Grasser is amazing. Rausch is really a hitter right there.

Speaker A: Yeah, they both went hard on that one. But that is— I can't explain what about it feels so interesting to me. There is just something about it that I want to own like 10 of them. I just, every time I see one, I'm like, oh my God, like that one's so cool. Him in particular, he's just like very, very good at designing pieces that like make you want to investigate further. And Flynn's a bit too. I mean, Flynn's is someone who I've talked about a lot on the show, and I really liked their last release, 300. So many of those compositions felt like they couldn't possibly have been made by code. Like there was just something about them. Like they felt like so human designed. And I mean, you can see, right? Like it's obviously made by code, but he did a really good job, I think, in that piece in particular, imbuing a human quality to them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That I was just like, this is crazy. That's just a few from, I guess, this year.

Speaker B: I love it. Every time I learn about what pieces really hit someone, I feel like I know them so much better, honestly. Like immediately too. That's an anchor for me with art in general. Even if I connect or don't connect with pieces in the same way, it opens up the door of understanding one another. That's the juice, in my opinion.

Speaker A: We got the Lonliboy seal of approval there. Trinity, ask your usual question. That's a great place to end it.

Speaker C: Possibly last question. Who do you think we should interview next? Who would be on your wishlist for us?

Speaker B: There is thousands of people.

Speaker C: Let's stick to 3 or less. Top 3, let's go. No pressure.

Speaker A: Uh, whichever you think. Yeah.

Speaker B: Have y'all done, uh, Talk with Sir Mad yet. No, Sir Mad. I would love to hear speak. I would also love to hear Horn Dog. I would love to hear Horn Dog speak too. And have you had Anna up yet?

Speaker A: Anna Lucia.

Speaker B: Anna the the economist.

Speaker A: NFT economist. No, not yet.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to hear Anna Grace B on the artist side. I would absolutely love to hear. a podcast with Erik Swahn. I would love to hear Bruce Yorktown. Honestly, would love to hear one with Luis too.

Speaker A: Frank Guada.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, like 100%. They've been putting out incredible codebase art and animations for so long, and it'd be awesome to hear their perspective on everything that's going on.

Speaker A: Lots of good recommendations there. All right, well, I think I will just try to haphazardly wrap this up here. Definitely one of our longer interviews for sure, but so much to talk about and dig into.

Speaker B: I talk way too much.

Speaker A: It's perfect. We love that. Thank you very much, Lonli. It was awesome to finally get you on the show. Big congrats on the role at Verse, and like, it'll be very cool to see that show hopefully manifest towards the end of the year. And I think we're all going to learn a lot from it if you can deliver on getting a lot of these historical artists together and Hopefully there'll be like a lot of cool like audio or video components to that. I mean, all of us can stand to learn a lot more about the space. So much appreciated. Hope you had fun coming on.

Speaker B: Oh, I had a great time. These are a lot of questions that I don't have a chance to really speak to many people about, and they're kind of more loaded than I would usually speak with in a public setting. So I mean, this has been a learning lesson for me. Thank you so much for having me on board, and I hope y'all have a great day.

Speaker C: You too.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you again. All right everyone, that was Lonli. Huge props to him for coming on. It's been a long time in the works. That's it for this one. Hope y'all enjoyed. We'll be back again soon with another episode. Bye.

Speaker B: See ya.