Speaker A: All right.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode. We're joined today by Valérie Whitacre, Head of Art at Trillitech. Those of you listening might be saying, what is Trillitech? And that's something that we're gonna get to the bottom of in this interview. That's why we have Valerie on. Of course, Trinity is here as well. How's it going everyone?

Speaker A: Good. Great. Thanks for welcoming me on the show.

Speaker C: I think this was pretty much enabled by the lovely folks over at fx hash, and I'm sure we'll start talking more about like some of that relationship and that connection. But I'm curious, just as a, a quick first Question before the question, Valerie, is how did you get connected with the team there? You came at very high recommendation of Paul, who we all love. He's a great guy. How did you guys meet?

Speaker A: We met almost exactly a year ago, actually. I had just started at Trillitech and my first big sort of orientation to the ecosystem was Basel in June, where different members of the ecosystem were being showcased. But primarily, FX Hash was definitely the star of the show and the artists there. I think at the time, it was also one of the first times certain creators were meeting. So for Paul and Ozzy to meet me for the first time, there was also this kind of beautiful moment where you hadn't really put a face to a name yet. I think at the time, they were also wondering, what is Trillitech? Who is Valerie? Why is she here? What's her deal? That was the first time we met, and I have to say it was also a moment of huge catalyst for me because I hadn't really yet met the creators. You know, the creators of the Tezos ecosystem, as well as its collectors, are really the entire reason that I'm here, the entire reason that there is an art vertical, that there was this legacy of hard work and passion and endurance and ambition that came before me. And to To hear about it is a completely different thing than to actually witness it in front of you. And I really did feel like there was a transitional moment in that meeting and also at that fair in particular, where some, some people were meeting each other for the first time.

Speaker B: So Valérie, what is Trillitech? To the extent that you can encapsulate, we want to know mostly about you, but to help everyone understand, like, what is Trillitech? How is it related to Tezos and the Tezos Foundation? Then please introduce yourself. Who are you? Who is Valerie? What is your background in art? And like, how did you end up in Trillitech? Did you have a history in NFTs, crypto? Like, what is your story? How'd you get here?

Speaker C: We want to know it all.

Speaker A: Just going to lay bare. No, so Trillitech is a hub of the Tezos ecosystem. I do work very closely with members of the foundation. In London, we have located most of the heads of the verticals, including my colleagues Fern, who is head of sport, Jeremy, head of gaming, Michael, head of DeFi, and Amar, head of VC, who's helping drive forward investments. So there's a very big BD component here at Trillitech, but we also have some of the core protocol engineers who make up the team. We are a fluid community, constantly engaging and working together. The amount I learn about the protocol, about different products being built across the ecosystem that have nothing to do with art, is one of the most fascinating parts of Trillitech. Others in the community might already know about Nomadic Labs, for instance, or TZ APAC. But really, there's a really fluid engagement across different ecosystem entities and hubs and also just passionate partners. We have a gentleman named Guilherme in Brazil who runs Tezos DAO Brazil, who is just a real passionate Tezos enthusiast and who does a lot of his own projects on Tezos. And whilst we liaise with him and we do a lot of creative projects that we're aware of and that we celebrate, there's no official relationship there as such. So without going into particularities, I hope that kind of sums up the simplicity as well as the complexity of the ecosystem itself. We're all talking to one another and people that are building and people that are evaluating and kind of trying to learn and help develop and mature the Tezos ecosystem, whether they're part of an entity or a hub or not. There's a really vibrant conversation going around. But effectively, I work as a business development head leading what is the art vertical. Many of you will have worked previously with my colleague Diane Drubet, who's now leading almost exclusively the Web3 Arts and Culture program. But I also work very closely with David and Natasha in TZ APAC. I'm in touch with the BD team at Nomadic Labs in Paris about regional France and Benelux projects in arts and culture, everything from the Musée d'Orsay to the French Ministry of Culture being interested in blockchain. You know, Varun Desai is someone that you might be familiar with at Tezos India, and we're in constant contact So it is complicated. And the answer is not, I would say, a bullseye one. But the point of my answer really is that regardless of the sort of paperwork or the location of the entities, it is a really, really decentralized and very active conversation that's going on from across the world. So my leading the art vertical is really just to make sure we coordinate those conversations and that we're all leading on the same objectives and key results. To get us there.

Speaker C: Being organized, planned, and not just having 50 disparate efforts that may or may not be aligned. Okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, attempting that. It has been a year now, a year and a few days since I joined Trillitech, which at the time I think only had like 10 people in the office, and now we're upwards of 50, if I'm not wrong, or getting close to that. We do have organizational structures and we're trying to lead in best practice in terms of making sure that we have really defined priorities, but also, you know, that we get to celebrate success a little bit more. I mean, I'm still sometimes finding out a week after a drop or a week after an exhibition that it was on Tezos. And, you know, we really need to solve for that problem so that not only can our marketing teams really galvanize together, but really so that the entire ecosystem isn't learning about it 3 or 4 days later. Now, admittedly, part of the reason I'm a little delayed is that I'm not as active on Twitter and I'm not on Discord, which are 2 things I hope to regulate this year. They're personal ambitions of mine. But arguably, I'm in service of trying to maintain that organization. I'm trying to take a very cautious approach to both channels.

Speaker B: So, Valerie, I think that is a decent top-level explanation of Trillitech. And I want to drill down on some of that stuff with you. But before we do, what is your background in art? And how did you come to crypto? And how did you come to Trillitech to begin with?

Speaker A: Great question. And I always enjoy answering it because it has maintained its level of consistency for the past year. But it's also been fleshed out a little bit more since I've entered the ecosystem. I spent the last 15 years as an art gallerist, primarily in photography. I worked for a 19th century collector and gallerist. I've worked for the auction houses. I've worked on private collections. And my last role was at effectively my dream job. I mean, I can remember walking into Hamilton's Gallery back in 2008 and thinking to myself, this is the photography gallery that I want to work at. And that's never changed. In fact, I'm looking forward to the Avedon Centenary they're putting on tomorrow evening. And, you know, going back into the history and roots of photography is part of what brought me to crypto. into blockchain. But effectively, when COVID hit, obviously the gallery wasn't making that many sales. We were somehow entirely remote, whereas we really did rely, you know, majority in IRL, in-person meetings, lots of lunches, lots of meeting at art fairs, going to events, going to exhibitions, helping to sponsor exhibitions. And suddenly all of that was ripped out from underneath our business plan and our business model. But perhaps more impactfully, The rest of the art market was also driven online, and when I say the rest of the art market, I mean primarily fakes. And photographs are arguably one of the easiest things to make fakes of. There are simple ways to identify fakes, and certainly reputation of the gallery you're buying it from is one. But several sellers started to appear on pretty prestigious e-commerce platforms, you know, Artnet, Artsy, 1stdibs, who were blatantly selling things that I knew were wrong, and they weren't just selling them to enthusiasts of photography who might have just been hoping to decorate a wall. They were selling them to collectors who I'd spent, you know, 10 years or 5 years even helping to develop a concrete collection of fairly high-level stuff. So I got a little angry, and being a Virgo, when I'm angry, I delve into minutiae, and I discovered a little bit more about who was doing this. And it's now an open court case in California, actually, about the main offender on the photography front. But that is what actually made me discover blockchain as a technology rather than just, you know, the hype around cryptocurrency, which of course hit everyone between 2015 and '17 at some stage. And I really just became overnight a victim of the Alice in Wonderland effect of blockchain technology and the artistic community and the NFT wave. You know, I've seen hype a lot in my career in the art world. I've seen fads, I've seen things come and go. I've looked at 17-year-olds being put on auction house walls with no primary market whatsoever and known that they would disappear. But this, even though it was based on hype and a lot of the narrative in the media was entirely hype, I really felt like there was legs to this technology and to the creative community that was being built upon it. Somewhat serendipitously, I almost want to accuse this recruiter of having hacked my computer because I don't even think I told my partner I was researching this, but I got a call about this position. And previously to my career in photography, I had spent a bit of time in economics and strategy. I had a position at one of the top 5 consulting firms back before 2008 for a brief moment, and it sort of became clear that my expertise in arts and culture, my expertise specifically in the traditional art market, as well as my strategy background, might work for this role. And after What I think was probably only several weeks, but what seemed to be many, many weeks of studying and of talking to industry experts and interviewing and meeting the Trillitech team and the wider Tezos ecosystem as well, I started a job at Trillitech as Head of Art.

Speaker C: Sounds like a match made in heaven, to be honest.

Speaker A: If he wasn't hacking my computer, then it absolutely was a match made in heaven. I don't know what other source might have made that happen. Astrology, heaven, whatever one believes, but it was Really, it was shocking. And I, if I'm not mistaken, I accused the recruiter of being somewhat a bit mad when he kept insisting that we have this phone call. So good thing I didn't listen to that initial fear. And I think there is a lot of apprehension around this space. You know, tech in general is not something I ever thought I'd have a place in. And I think that what blockchain is enabling is actually a completely different form of, or definition of, what is tech. Am I working in tech? That's a really good question. I don't really feel like I am. I feel like I'm working in a new movement and a new wave of an art market and also of artistic mediums. And that's really where my relationship with Paul and Ozzie and Ciphrd and the entire fxhash team kind of stems from, is that fascination around generative art as a medium that, whilst historic, certainly has found its voice in blockchain and in the Web3 movement.

Speaker C: So you've already talked a little bit around some of like the organizational practices that you're looking to bring to Tezos in particular. particular around like rallying around art releases, community events, all that fun stuff, which is honestly, you know, Will and I, we keep talking about how Web3 is the least organized space of all time. If you are planning something 2 weeks ahead of time, like you're doing really well. It's just such a chaotic free-for-all. So that's amazing bringing that organization. We love to see it. A really good question is why art on Tezos? What are the goals that Trillitech might have around promoting the art space here? Especially at the same level and like with the same priority as let's say DeFi or gaming, which are both verticals that are known to have large audiences, attract a lot of attention. Art is much more on the cultural side of the things rather than the financialization side of things.

Speaker A: So actually it's a little bit reversed within the Tezos ecosystem. If one looks at the Dapp Radars or the DeFi Llamas of the world, the art community on Tezos is by far the most active and activity is as valuable, if not more valuable, than onboarding new wallets and new audiences. And I think where the value of the community, the value of all of, again, the hard work of these creators all the way back from Rafael Lima onwards, that's the proof in the pudding, is that the activity is there, that the loyalty and the engagement that ensures the sustainability of the Tezos blockchain really is within the arts community. And so When one asks the question, why art? I mean, if I look at the order in which the heads were hired, you know, I was number 2 of the group. Fern was here almost, I want to say about a year, a year before me in sports, managing the partnerships that were established there, which were very much more on the awareness side and on the applicable fandom technology, which, you know, in arts and culture also exists and is really translated perhaps more as patronage models.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Rather than fandom, but it's a little bit the same. So number one is that the community has done all the hard work, and I want to make sure that we acknowledge that. You know, the Brightmans have built and created a sort of environment which enabled that, and the protocol and its security, its sustainability, its upgrading, all of those things are paramount to the future, present and future, I should say, of the Tezos blockchain. But when it comes to art, directly to your question, the answer is Because you all built it. And I think it's a really important shout out to make. In terms of what are our goals, my comfort level has always led me a little bit more towards what I call the legacy market, just because I try to avoid getting snapped up in the word trad. But I am fully aware that this wider Web3 movement, they need to know about what's happened here. I'm not even sure that creators and collectors know quite historically how significant what has been built really is in the history of art, in the history of democratized exchange of creative output. I'd love at some point to work with someone at the Courtauld or even the Cambridge programs to really get like a PhD thesis just out there on quite how significant this is. So the goals are really split across legacy art world success, as well as making sure that the entire Web3 creator and collector community, but also other fringes, are aware of what's happened and how they can engage. We would call that maybe conversion rather than onboarding. There was a moment during NFT NYC where we had this competition, for instance, and there was a profile picture component. We did see a bit of an uptake in terms of people from the ETH and Polygon and Solana, not that there's much of an art community on Solana, but a couple of them come on board to try and experiment to see if they could win this competition. And we do want to see that. We do want to make sure that the door is open, that we enable moments where creators from across all chains are enabled the opportunity to feel welcome and to also learn more about Tezos. And sometimes that does take things as perhaps as trivial as a competition, but we are building out on models like that to make sure that there's further engagement, but also, you know, celebrating success within the ecosystem. You know, we are working with our marketing teams to do a better job of really highlighting what's happened both historically as well as just in certain moments of pure success, whether it be an auction or whether it be an exhibition, you know, the acquisition of the John Gerard piece that was on fx hash by the Centre Pompidou, fantastic. These are historical kingmaking moments, as it were. On the legacy art side, that is a longer conversation, and Diane Drubay has done an absolutely excellent job with the Web3 Arts and Culture Program to make institutions from that space feel comfortable talking about this. And there's 2 components of the legacy art space, I think, that become a big challenge in that particular goal. One is, the market itself. Galleries have absolutely no incentive to give up their commission. They're paying rent, by the way, so, you know, 50%, just historically, I can say I don't feel like I was cheating anyone. Paying rent and getting the marketing fees out does cost money. But it is also a contractual relationship that can inhibit creativity and innovation because you're constantly doing things for your own audience. And they have no incentive to engage in a transparent market either. I joke sometimes that we have this illusion that each gallery has its own client list. It's like, of course they don't anymore. I mean, the art fairs, the international art fair circuit has completely decimated that illusion, but there's still something about it that galleries find really kind of safe about what they're doing. Only they can talk to a certain person about a specific artist or a specific price or whatever it might be. But equally, the museum side, the cultural institution side, perhaps less than the entertainment side, I think, Movies, music, immersive experiences—all of that arts and culture side, I think, is already starting to really see the benefits on a commercial as well as an infrastructure level. But museums are archaic institutions. They also suffer from a barrier to entry that's entirely a regulatory issue. It's not often that I've ever had to go into a meeting, and the question is not: Should I do this? It's well. We don't own the artwork. The artwork belongs to the state or the artwork belongs to the people. And different countries and different regions think of acquisition and ownership, as well as provenance, in completely different ways than blockchain assumes that they might. And so these sort of philosophical and regulatory conversations are starting to emerge. And I think we will have to push the boundaries a little bit. It's only through innovation that regulation changes and adapts as well. So it's important to kind of realize we can't chicken and egg that too much. But yeah, hopefully just to give you a sense of how we're segmenting it, the third element of that, of course, is the existing community. We need to make sure that we're communicating a little bit more outwardly. So thank you again for inviting me onto the program. There is a priority across everyone who's contributing to the arts vertical to make sure that we're being a little bit more loud and proud and showing up when we can. You know, as online as this entire movement is, as much as The community might operate exclusively online. There's something about showing up when you can that's incredibly meaningful and gives further fire to everyone's ambitions. And so we're really trying through the regions to make that a priority as well.

Speaker C: Absolutely. I just want to dig into one particular thing, the use of the word legacy versus traditional. Obviously in this context, they are talking about the same exact art market, the exact same group of people in the same ecosystem, but legacy really does imply that something that is out of date, it's something that is no longer the way forward, you know, and something that in a way should be deprecated in favor of these new and novel technologies that are coming out. Is that kind of the way that you're thinking? Is Web3 the way forward for all art markets moving into the future? Is that going to be the new norm or should it be perhaps?

Speaker A: I love this question because it comes down to an analogy. I speak a lot in analogies, so everyone must forgive me if They're a little bit cheesy. My last boss used to call himself a dinosaur, and I used to joke, you know, that's not true. Of course you're not a dinosaur. You're still relevant. Like, you know, every— and the gallery itself is still relevant. The art, the artwork, and the people who are experts in that artwork will always be relevant. I don't think that that is going to go away. But I've since challenged him on this dinosaur thing, and what I think it is, is I think galleries in the current way that they exist are more like alligators. And I've made this analogy before, so anyone who's already heard it, please bear with me. But you know, an alligator, it's not changed much in the last however many millions of years. Its preference is to lie in wait and snap at prey. And around it, things evolve. You get different songbirds and you get different mammals and different fish and different, even different reptiles and different, you know, sea creatures and bacteria. And I think what we're looking at here is, yeah, an alligator art market. It will still exist. It will still operate within the confines and the particular parameters for which it was set up to succeed. It was made that way. And simultaneously, I think we're going to see a much wider, a much more, of course, decentralized, but also diverse, inclusive, and international market for what I call creative output. And I don't mean to diminish artists who consider themselves artists, but having come from the photography world, especially, not all of my photographers consider themselves artists, and not all of my artists considered themselves photographers. They were all just using a camera. So a lot of this is really just to make sure I'm encapsulating a wider group of people so that creative output and the exchange and collecting thereof, I think, will belong to that wider ecosystem that the alligator is watching from its little place in the river.

Speaker B: I love that. I can see the episode title already, Legacy of Alligators. I want to follow up on something you said about the legacy space in general and their lack of incentives. I was actually planning to ask you about that because it's something that we've heard theorized from others. who don't come from that world that, oh, like these galleries will never want to get into the crypto space for exactly that reason. But I wonder then, have you tried going the other way, like getting galleries interested in some of the art that's already tokenized? Do they like it? Do they hate it? Do they just refuse to regard it at all because it's crypto-associated or NFT-associated? And what about artists? You know, is there any opportunity there? Or have you had any conversations with artists that's like, hey, like, why don't you subvert this whole gallery model? Like, You can sell it yourself. We have all these platforms. It's frictionless. There's no gas expenses even. Like on Ethereum right now, if you want to upload a project, it could cost you a couple thousand dollars. That could be backbreaking for an artist who is just getting their start and kind of a lot there, but however you wanna approach the answer.

Speaker C: And also just to piggyback and add like one other nuance about the gallery perspective is that Web3 lets them scale across all sorts of price points. It's something that you set up, it's online, you're not paying rent on it. So why is it not a yes and?

Speaker A: So I'm going to start with the first part, which is like, am I going to individual artists to tell them to subvert the gallery model and to, hey, you've been selling at X and X gallery and they've been taking 50%, why don't you try this? We've seen artists from the legacy space try this. Not going to name names again, because I care about them deeply, but I would argue that frictionless is also not an accurate term for where the legacy artists are coming from. Twitter is not a native space for creative artists who have only just figured out Instagram, by the way. And I'm not talking about people above 50 or 60 years of age. I'm even talking about people my age, mid to late 30s. There's a lack of comfort level there that I would argue is not as frictionless as maybe in principle it is. So the artists from the legacy space who I have had conversations with, frankly, are just not inclined to learn that new skill. I think other artists within this space who are native to this space would argue the same. I've certainly heard Misan Harriman say something similar around the fact that we absolutely adore and revere artists for their creativity. And it's fine when we watch a documentary about Pollock and he's getting, you know, he's showing up drunk at 9 AM at Peggy Guggenheim's or Van Gogh and he's cutting his ear off. But these are not people that should be their own marketers. They rely on some sort of infrastructure support, right? Very often someone else is paying their rent. Very often someone else is managing their studio, whether it's their business partner or life partner or otherwise. I would love to see a world in Web3 or an emergence in this community of people who have organizational skill sets, who believe in sets of artists, who enable them without paying rent to participate in this space. And I think when we start to see those agencies come up, And I've seen a few of them. I mean, Melissa from Lily and Piper is ambitious in this space and she wants to increase that conversation. There's got to be a moment of enabling or of just saying, hey, listen, you give me 20% or 10% or whatever it might be, and I'll facilitate the backend. Give me access to your Twitter account, Discord, et cetera, et cetera. It's hard. And everyone, I think, in this space who's had any measure of success or not and is just really trying their damnedest, will find it tiring and 24/7 and exhaustive. And I find the collectors often have to do a significant portion more work than they normally would in the legacy space too, participating to get on reserve lists. And there's a lot there to manage and to kind of— I wouldn't say it needs course correction, but I do think we need more mentors in the space as well as agents. And I'd absolutely love to see more. On the other side, on this, why would galleries eschew crypto-native artists or digital artists in general are still very underrepresented in the traditional space, there's not really much of an excuse. The transparency aspect is certainly one, but I remember what it was, 2009, when some of the first online e-commerce platforms for art were first emerging and everyone was having a conversation about it and no one thought it would work. No one. Everyone was like, oh, this artsy, paddle late, first dibs. There's no way people are going to buy art online. Absolutely no way. And 5 years ago, we started, 30% or 40% of the sales at some of the galleries that I was seeing were happening purely on these e-commerce platforms who were relying on advertising and much stronger networks and being able to frankly leverage those client lists. That happened and there's no way we can deny that happened. But this further leap, I think, is still— I think the alligators need to taste it. There is a little bit about dangling the fish in front of the alligator and waiting, but I think the bigger question is how can we show them it's unavoidable? And this is happening on Tezos. The collectors and the creators and the platforms, whether it's fx hash or whether it's any of the marketplaces, are really showing that you can't stop this. If you choose not to participate, a gallery will need to make an active choice not to participate and to understand that that's foregoing an opportunity. To one of the last points that you brought up, surely it's an income driver and allows for that sort of vertical expansion across price points. Yes, but even that traditionally galleries have been very wary of engaging in. Certainly in some of the galleries that I've worked at or shopped with for clients, They make it a big deal that they don't sell anything under a specific amount. And that does, whether it's right or wrong, appeal to a certain type of legacy art collector, a certain type of advisor who can feel like they belong to that particular community. Nothing wrong with that per se. Certainly there's enough people from that community who are now also participating in this space and who've already seen it. That's that second level. Again, we show people that it's unavoidable. We show the quality, we show the level of engagement.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The different types of innovative creations that are being made, collaborations as well. I mean, something that previously was only ever done between an artist and a musician or a fine artist and a fashion brand, now artists are working together. This is, it's incredible. And we're seeing so much success off the back of it. So that, that's, I think, how we win in the market space. You know, you gotta dangle it in front of them.

Speaker C: There's definitely, from like a brand strategy perspective, or I guess from a gallery perspective, art can be a luxury good. It is a luxury good, right? Even us who are participating in this relatively low Tezos ecosystem with, well, we're buying art that is thousands of dollars or art that's fractions of a penny. It's still a luxury for us to be in this space. I don't know where I'm going with that. It's just a thought about one thing might not be the right position for every gallery or every entity, but it could be the right position for some.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And I do think that we're getting to a space where that conversation is being had. We can't forget also that a lot of regulation has actually hit the art world recently. It just happened to occur right before COVID shut us down in the UK that the 5th EU Money Laundering Directive came into force in January of 2020. And suddenly, if you wanted to buy an artwork or 2 artworks or 3 artworks that added up to over €10,000, I had to ask you for a passport and a proof of residence. All of those different layers that have hit the art world recently, I think, also make it a little bit tougher for them, for at least the commercial art market, to get their mind into adopting yet another potential learning curve. And this, of course, democratizes that and enables a lot more. It actually frees it up again in many ways. But as much as commercial art galleries need to adapt to trends and fads and markets and rises and falls in values of artwork and to be kind of on top of trends, they themselves are actually legacy infrastructures, just like the museums, just like cultural institutions in general. To address the luxury side, I would argue that even with the opening up of what we've seen on Tezos, saying to someone, "Oh, you're an artist," does actually kind of imply something. It is a loaded word versus "Oh, I make music," or even "I code." I code, and it like kind of gives a different. There's a different kind of signifier there, and certainly, I hope no one would be offended to hear this, but there are definitely crowds. Where if I'm at a dinner party, I don't say I'm head of art for a blockchain. It's like suddenly, you know, for 45 minutes, that's all anyone can ask you about. And it's not the most polite way to start a dinner conversation by usurping everyone's time. You know, I very often say that I help to lead strategy for art with a tech firm, and I leave it at that because all of those different aspects, they come with certain suppositions, at least from a Western community. I can't say that that's the case in India or that's the case in Latin America. That might be different. I don't have the context. for how loaded the word artist might be. And certainly it goes back all the way to, you know, the original debate between what is craft and what is art as well. I do think that if we really anchor this debate around what can we consider art, what is creative output on the blockchain, it really goes all the way back to the ancients. It'll be a really interesting history to read when someone writes it from start to finish.

Speaker B: When you bring up that dinner party example, that conversation of like, I lead blockchain art, Tezos. Is it that people come at you like, wait, crypto is bullshit, it's all a scam, like NFTs, like it's all a Ponzi scheme? Is it because of that association and not wanting to have to answer 45 minutes of those questions? Because that's another thing we've talked about on the show a lot with people who run platforms and have also tried to bridge over into the legacy space and get that attention, is that the conversation tends to end at NFT. What is your experience there? Like, we've talked about their disincentives for joining the space, but is there also just like a good chunk of people who are like, No, it's a scam. You're trying to get us to participate in a scam.

Speaker A: I don't ever get the scam accusation. I think actually, perhaps, I guess maybe now because I'm within the space, it's hard for me to say whether or not this is true of those who are not participating. I'm not sure that that's the current debate in the NFT space, or at least within the creative NFT space. What I do get a lot, and it's the same debate I got in photography, was how can that have any value if there's no object, or if it can be infinitely reproduced. And, you know, part of the other reason I did get so obsessed with this world, and perhaps the primary reason that I fell into the rabbit hole when that recruiter first called me, was the similarities, the sort of parallel history that I see going along of photography, you know, invented in the 1830s by a couple of rich white guys in Europe who managed to just have some chemistry knowledge, who knows how. Somehow a market developed nearly like 100 years later, but people were commissioning photographs that represented their families. They weren't thinking about this as an art acquisition. And suddenly you have people commissioning landscapes or people traveling the world and taking pictures of buildings that might not exist anymore for us. And do we consider that art or documentary or archive? For better or worse, or however you define it, they are theoretically infinitely reproducible things, objects, or representations, however you want to consider it, whose market has developed to a certain extent because there is some scarcity, but also because we invented the market structures. You know, editioning photographs, editioning most things wasn't popular until the 1980s. That's pretty late, right? And so the market structures that NFTs have found of comfort really are within that sort of infinitely reproducible medium structure that I come from, that's sort of the photographic element of my blood. So the question that ends up getting asked is, one, what are you acquiring? And 2, how can you put a price tag on it? And I often will go back to not just photography, but people like Rodin, who extraordinarily was like, I'm going to cast my sculptures. I'm not just going to, you know, get one big block of marble and only make one for the Pope. Like, this has been happening in different chapters over time. And so my comfort level, and really I'm glad to only be asked that question as opposed to the stronger, perhaps more vehement, disruptive comments around the economics of it, goes back to just art history in general, and that we're having to repeat this debate, frankly, because it opens it up to more people. And to see Web3 as perhaps an extension of a longer history of democratizing creative acquisitions and creation in general, I think is a really interesting way to open it up. But at dinner parties, people are very confused, and I don't like to generally make people feel like idiots. I mean, I feel bad even bringing this up, but, you know, 2 weeks after I joined Trillitech, I went to visit my parents who were in France at the time, and, you know, very, very smart people. Surgeon, teacher, degrees. My dad's taking courses in Hittite and Aramaic and stuff now. I mean, really, really educated individuals, and he built his first computer in 1979. You'd think that he'd have all these questions for me. But they didn't once ask about my new job. And it's because they were afraid of feeling stupid because they didn't know how to talk about this space. And so that's kind of where I cut off the dinner party conversation is really around the structure and what is it.

Speaker B: That's so interesting because I feel like the whole idea of blockchain is that it proves the ownership and it proves the scarcity, right? Or at least when it comes to these NFTs. And so it's like solving the very thing that they're potentially critical of.

Speaker A: You're absolutely right.

Speaker C: The question at this is art on the blockchain is something that we don't think is going away. It is the way forward. It is how markets can move faster in a more egalitarian fashion and just at scale. That said, do we need to reposition our way strategically from the term NFT? Is that becoming too loaded? And what other sorts of mechanisms should we be looking towards or could we be looking towards? Verse as a platform, I don't know if you're familiar with it. And they do a lot of great work on the art side. They're trying to make it easier on traditional or legacy collectors by, A, having custodial wallets. So it's kind of that merge of Web2 and Web3. And it's all about art. It's not about NFTs. I don't think the word NFT shows up anywhere on their homepage. Is that something that from a branding perspective we should be looking towards as an overall community of people who value art in this ecosystem?

Speaker B: And to add quickly as well, they also do a fair amount of physicals in conjunction with the tokenized product.

Speaker A: It's a platform I admire very much, and I always love my conversations with Layla and Mimi. Yes is the answer. I think we need to distinguish, first of all, what the art is versus what the NFT is critically. And I mean, we see Club NFT doing this, making sure that people understand that the file is different from the token. That at its base is an educational thing. But I think on the marketing side, absolutely, I take a position of trying to reduce using the word NFT unless I'm referring specifically to provenance or traceability. It doesn't always solve the problem. I think one repeating a certain marketing message doesn't always increase the adoption of that language and therefore the network effect sort of loses its impact. But hopefully, I'm not going to say hopefully, I think there's other members of the ecosystem that are also of the position that there is a difference between crypto art digital art using the blockchain. And it's similar, you know, again, in the photography world, like whether you're an artist using a camera, whether you're a photographer who happens to sell fine art prints, or whether you're, you know, an artist photographer or a commercial photographer, these are all things that have become distinguished for various different reasons over time. But really, the message around what's been created within the Tezos ecosystem, I don't think actually needs the word NFT. I think it needs the word artist. I think it needs the word creator. I think it needs the words musician, animator, generative artist, and it needs the word collector or enthusiast or whatever it is that you want to use. And that would tell the story with almost 99.9% accuracy, as long as you refer somewhere to the fact that there's a token traceability asset. What's going on now, I think, still kind of needs the word NFT to make sure everyone knows that we're on the same page about what the subject matter is. But I don't think it's helpful in a specific marketing context, unless what you're referring to is tokens that have utility that cultural institutions can adopt. And that's where we're also seeing new words like memento or memory. Even people are saying you can collect a memory, and that memory might unlock some patronage level for you. And that's okay. I don't mind. I think one needs to be as specific to one's own audience as possible. And over time, through mainstream media, but also through Web3 media and platforms like RightClickSave and yourselves waiting to be signed, we will come up with a system of best practice and best terminology that really fits for the space overall.

Speaker C: One follow-up to that, you made me think about this because there's this ongoing conversation, at least within the generative art space. I don't know if it's across other parts of Art that is released on the blockchain. And that's this idea of what is the value of art that is stored on-chain versus art that is on IPFS. The people who are ETH maxis will say that on-chain is the only way. If it's not on-chain, it's doomed to fail. And that being a really big hit against a lot of what's released on Tezos, just because most art isn't released on-chain. It sounds like you don't think that matters because the on-chain part is the provenance, it's the token, it's not the art. Any thoughts or, you know, additional things that we might, that we should be thinking about in that regard?

Speaker A: I think the conversation matters and I think consensus around it matters. Just by way of comparison, it's a little bit like saying, you know, if I see an installation, whether it be going to a Richie Hawtin concert or seeing a Refik Anadol piece at MoMA, those installations matter and they aren't on-chain. They might be the source of what ends up on the blockchain, but inevitably there's a step in the creative process to get there. And similarly with things like digital fashion, a lot of digital fashion is right now just animation, but you acquire it because there's a sense of technological innovation or there's some sort of exploration around what fabric can appear like in a digital space. Does that creative output need to be on-chain? I don't think so, but I do agree that there is a value in certain instances for things to be on-chain if they can be. I thought it was a really creative insistence of, I don't know if you know the platform 8BitDo, the little pixelated platform that was a sort of insistence that everything be on-chain. And maybe that doesn't need to be, but to have that as a principle of the platform, as a principle of the way going forward, at least you can see that that's what's happening. It's a little bit like being an expert in a space or even the conversation around AI. Yeah. As an expert in photography, I can look through a loop and I can tell you if it's a platinum print, I can tell you when the paper was made, I can identify if it's pencil or pen or stylus or whatever. These are things I've been trained to do over time. And similarly, I think what we're going to find in this space is there's going to be experts that help to identify on-chain art, off-chain art, AI art. Is this purely digital animation or is there a physical part to it? And we'll be able to see the layers of that somehow. I'm not technically expert enough to tell you exactly how that would happen, but I do think we're going to have experts in this space who over time see not just through rarity and scarcity, but also through skill and the craft and the technique of these different types of work, whether they be on-chain, off-chain, blockchain art, crypto art, how much metadata is embedded, how deep we can go with the cataloging for something that might be on-chain or off-chain. All of these things will have their own value sets along the way. So it's less that it doesn't matter, and it's more just that I don't think we can assess the history of where everything is going to sit in the future. But I definitely don't think we should be looking at any creative piece that could be exchanged using blockchain technology and say no, just because someone doesn't have the coding knowledge or the medium doesn't work.

Speaker B: This is going to stay related to art, but to shift the conversation a little bit to Tezos and Trillitech again, and also just the greater ecosystem and And what you do. I guess there's kind of 2 parts in terms of like growing art in Tezos. One of that is increasing adoption and getting new people in. And the other is attracting people who maybe are ETH only or Solana only and getting them to accept Tezos and come over here. From your perspective, which is the greater priority? I know, I know my answer. How do those goals maybe oppose each other or conflict at times? And how do you approach them in your day-to-day? What is it like to try to bring someone over from ETH versus trying to introduce someone new?

Speaker A: I feel like I was able to separate both of those things out early when I started, but actually the momentum has been insane the past few months. And when I say the momentum, I mean the opportunities coming our way. And I would, I would say that right now, the projects I'm looking at, the relationships I'm looking at, and the partnerships that I'm exploring or even manifesting as we speak, are people who started their career on Ethereum, who have seen the value of Tezos, and who also have legacy art collectors or enthusiasts or fans. That's where I'm finding the sweet spot. You have to meet people where they are. And even a legacy art collector, if they find that someone that's in their collection or someone they've been following for a long time is making art on the blockchain, regardless of what chain they're on, they're going to read about it at the very least and maybe explore acquiring something, which in most instances is less expensive than trying to buy the original piece or an original. Perfect example would be Nadia and Unicorn DAO's exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch last, what was it, in January, right? Working with Shepard Fairey to make an open edition of all things. I mean, this was a really, really unique moment, perhaps not unique, but certainly a special moment in the calendar for us. And to see 2 of these creators, 2 of these ambitious Political, loud in every good way possible creators. I'm doing something so impactful with such determination and for such a good cause, in my view, at least. Finding projects like that and relationships like that, which cross over both, I think is where I'm really concentrating. But you're absolutely right that there is a tension between the two of those things. Having conversations with the team over at World of Women, whose project I think is absolutely amazing, and it's no accident it's on Ethereum, but there's absolutely no reason that we can't strike up a conversation around what can we do for the Tezos ecosystem, how can we ingratiate all of these, these creators, and certainly what I found to be a much more gender-equal ecosystem than any other. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. I think it's less about where I was 8 months ago and that tension that I was finding, and much more about what I'm seeing now. And again, a lot of that is because the community has built such a special place, and it's driving people here. It's driving other Web3 creators from different ecosystems, and oftentimes who have a voice or at least a leg in traditional culture spaces or conversations.

Speaker B: What is that push like when you're talking Tezos in particular to people? And I imagine the community is a big part of it. But from a technology side, like, I think this is probably shamefully the place that like we know the least about, like, you know, our show, we cover art, we try to focus on Tezos as much as possible. There does seem to be like a very entrenched group who think that Tezos is doomed, it's a ghost chain, ETH is going to be the one and only layer 1. What are some of the things that you talk about, like when you're out there kind of pitching Tezos either to someone who's considering blockchains, like an institution that's just looking at a bunch of options, or who's already on Ethereum? We no longer have the environmental edge that used to be. And I think that's actually what helped build the community that's here now, not just the low cost of transaction, but there's so many artists—

Speaker A: I agree.

Speaker B: who said that it's green. Artists are very thoughtful people in that sense. So yeah, like what are some of the talking points that someone said to you? Like, well, is it gonna be around in 2 years? Like we know that ETH, you know, just look at price. Like there's just so many things that people might, might bias against. So what—

Speaker A: 100%.

Speaker B: Yeah. What are those conversations like?

Speaker A: Of course we see what certain individuals and, and groups are, are saying, and I can't speak for the Tezos Foundation. I'll speak purely for my own motivations and my understanding of the technology. First of all, I wouldn't want you to grill me on smart contracts. But most importantly, I think there's a few buckets. One is, of course, that affordability. You're absolutely right that the clean NFT movement and the sustainability of the Tezos blockchain is certainly what was part of the conversation, and I think it was a huge motivating factor. But when you're looking at creators in the Philippines or in Brazil, I'm not sure they had much of a choice, and that affordability was really what drove those communities forward. And that's not to be disparaging to anyone's income level or ambition, Tezos was the most affordable chain on which to, A, experiment, and B, potentially be part of a wider community across the world. And that was just the conditions that were created and met. On the sustainability side, 2 things. One is, of course, the merge happened. We understand that. Even that moment to me was a demonstration that ETH didn't seem to have future-proofed the thought process around digital assets. Because you wake up the next morning and there's a proof-of-work chain and there's a proof-of-stake chain. And for a minute there, there was a little bit of confusion about what we're supposed to do with that. And any sort of confusion around provenance, traceability, and ownership, I think completely breaks down the entire digital asset value proposition, even if that's not how it works. And I understand, I've had coders tell me like, oh, but Valerie, there was a certain rule or whatever it is. That's less of the issue for me. It's more that For a minute there, people were a little confused. And for us to be put in a position in a wider market where people have their livelihoods, let alone their assets, I think showed a little bit of a lack of foresight. And that brings me to the third and most important point, I think, for me, which is the scalability and the upgrading model, the governance model around Tezos. You'll see, I think, shortly a lot of different records coming out around speed and optimistic rollups and this scalability that is very useful for gaming, very useful for DeFi, ideally useful for massive events and things like that. But more importantly, the governance model is extraordinary. And perhaps I'm biased being— most of you can probably tell I have an American background. And yes, I did live through the Trump administration. And yes, I was also in the UK when Brexit happened. And this kind of derails from technology, but just from a purely operational perspective, I have seen the 51% to 49% 99% majority model cause violence. I've seen it cause completely unreasonable and irrational decision-making, division, bias. The list goes on of the consequences of that kind of proximity in decision-making. So looking at Tezos and seeing how detrimental forking can be for digital assets, for collectors as well as for creators, and seeing what the Brightmans have put in place and what the protocol developers are still operating on, to me, there's a level of security there when it comes to, you know, we all acquire things and we make things because we love it. And at the end of the day, of course, this is a technology, it's an infrastructure. Yes, there's a cryptocurrency associated with it. There's all sorts of, I would argue, more boring conversations that are super, super important to have. But when you're acquiring or creating something essentially purely because you're human, and it's part of your condition and your nature to want to make beautiful things or controversial things, or to acquire those things because they represent part of your personality, it causes me deep anxiety to think that I'm working within an infrastructure that doesn't respect the continuity of that. Not that I think there's people in Ethereum's back office making decisions that are meant to disrupt the collecting economy or the creator economy, excuse me. But it was meaningful for me to see that. And I think from a future-proofing perspective, from an adaptability perspective, it's one of the most important attributes of the Tezos blockchain.

Speaker C: One of the things that came up, and I definitely don't have enough information about this, I don't know if you can give a dumbed-down version of what makes governance on Tezos better than or greater than governance on Ethereum. One thing that comes to mind with like an issue with Ethereum around gas prices is that Bakers or not bakers, what stakers, validator validators on Ethereum have no incentive to like vote to do things that would decrease gas, right? Because they're making money hands over fist. What makes governance on Tezos, like, how does it work that makes it better than?

Speaker A: I definitely don't want to go in like to too much detail because I know I'm going to trip up if I go into the minutiae.

Speaker C: For us idiots out here.

Speaker A: There's an upgrade every 3 months. So there's an actual like target that the protocol developers work towards, in which all of the bakers and stakeholders, I'll call them, are aware of. And there's several rounds of voting. There's proposals for upgrades. There's feedback that gets incorporated. There's a minimum number of people that participate in the voting rounds that are required before it's considered to be onto the next round. And then there's, I believe it's just the final vote, but I could be wrong on that, that there's a supermajority model of voting, which I believe still sticks to 80% having to say, yes, we can proceed. Otherwise, it doesn't happen. That's the very simple supermajority round model kind of description. I take it back to my own experiences with living in a nation which was then only 350 million people and seeing the struggle of just 2 options. And it's, one is lesser evil than the other, which doesn't actually really drive any quality candidates, right? And I get that that's a different discussion than blockchain technology, but I think there's an important analogy to make around what these kind of participatory models bring to life. And it really is things like, how do we make sure that this is going to stick around? How are we going to make sure that this can adapt quickly to changes, to new innovation, to things that we're seeing in the market, to things that we're seeing are required, whether it's speed, scalability, whether it's changes to how we're inputting different information on the blockchain. I mean, there's, there's so much that I think is going to change in next 2 years that we have to be adaptable like that. And, you know, with Ethereum taking, what, 4 or 5 years to make the merge happen, that concerns me too. I'm sure there's going to be so much hate around the simplicity and perhaps like slightly—

Speaker C: No, it's good because I think most people don't know how it works. I don't know how it works.

Speaker A: It's super fascinating to watch. And I actually, I should really defer anyone who's interested in this to the many talks that Arthur has done himself or that Kathleen has done that you can find on YouTube. Really, they speak about it with such eloquence and, and much more authority than I do without overcomplicating the matter. I think going to the source, you'll really be astonished at what you can learn about what they've built.

Speaker B: We endeavor to have someone from the Tezos Foundation, Arthur or Kathleen, maybe on at some point to talk more because it sounds like the next upgrade is going to— we don't have to get into this, but like start working towards potentially bridging or interacting with ETH, which is interesting.

Speaker A: There is discussion and I think there might even be a prototype at this stage, all things that I should absolutely know. But the volume of inbounds in the art community and a 3-month upgrade cycle, I do struggle sometimes with the particulars. But yes, there is an EVM discussion happening right now.

Speaker B: It's very exciting, the potential for Tezos to be tangentially involved. And I think that will help defeat some of the arguments around Like, it does feel like we're not just going to be in a monolithic, like, layer 1.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think there's also a sense of, like, there are so many good projects that are built on Tezos as a layer 1 as is. The question for me isn't, is introducing the EVM bridge necessary because people are going to use it, or is it necessary because it gives people a sense of flexibility? I have a sneaky suspicion that it's going to get it's not going to get used as much as it's desired. And it's a little bit of a checklist thing. You want to make sure that your gym has a weights area and that it's got enough cardio equipment so that after work, you're not struggling for a machine. Just very practical decisions. And I can understand why big brands, why businesses that require significant infrastructure changes to incorporate blockchain would want to have that as a box to tick, 100%. But I'm not sure that everybody's gonna, like, jump on the bridge, as it were. But yeah, we'll see. I mean, I could be entirely wrong.

Speaker B: To kind of stay on that topic, you know, multichain, the virtues of Tezos, and people like us just not really knowing much about Tezos and what's going on. I think the other side of that is the opacity of the Tezos Foundation. The fact that I could probably jump into the fxhash Discord and say, we're interviewing Valerie from Trillitech right now, and people will say, like, Like, what's Trillitech? Like you said, there's, you've hired like 50 people in like the last 6 months or a year. So there is like a big institution and a growing institution around expanding Tezos and getting it out there. So that's all a buildup into what the community does know, I think is actually very critical. And so when it comes to like the Tezos Foundation, people are never like, we love them, they're doing great stuff. It's always like, why are they doing this? Like, what is this? Like, how? Because I think we often don't see the effects of things and like not to incite you to talk about your colleagues, but like looking at some of the sports stuff, I think the average Tezos user looks at that and says that's wasted money. They don't see where that adoption has come from. They don't see those people. Like, I've never talked to someone who says like, oh, I found fx hash and art because of race cars. You've got colleagues who are doing sports stuff, you've got colleagues doing gaming, DeFi, you've got yourself doing art. What is the future like? What's the push like? What are you looking forward to? Like, what can you get us excited about?

Speaker A: There is a wider effort on the marketing side to make sure that there's clearer communication, at least in channels. I mean, that's not to say that I imagine the Tezos Foundation is going to publish a strategy report every quarter for the community, but you can certainly read the biennials. You can certainly see what's happened and get a sense of the trajectory, but those are very cumbersome documents and we are trying to do better at making sure that there's very direct and open communication, that there's also a little bit more clearer messaging from just real people without these entities and hubs and ecosystem partners being confusing from a branding perspective or a sort of office location perspective. That's all to say that, you know, we're really wanting to push the conversation forward and make sure that we can bring some insight to the community. But equally with the verticals, you know, whether it's sports or gaming, like, we're now in a position, especially with my increased relationships and trust with people like Paul at fx hash who introduced me to you, or with Brian and Tim over at Object and many other ecosystem players, to be able to say like, hey, how can we use some of these partnerships to your advantage? And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna give hints on too many of the collaborations that we're seeing coming out of the woodwork. But there's a few. Very cool discussions that we've got going. I think as a side note to that, I'm very aware that saying something like, hey everybody, do you want to do a collaboration for a grappling team in the United States, risks offending many creators. But it also might provide an opportunity for somebody who actually secretly loves grappling and who would absolutely love to do an animation of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, for a company. The legacy fine art world has always been intertwined with commerce and with partnerships and with branded opportunities. And I would say that whilst I know that people have very strong opinions about the other partners, both within art as well as the other verticals, there is an opportunity there for some of the community to benefit, even if it's not you. And we're really at a point now where we're trying to leverage that and the other verticals are starting to learn learn more based on our inter-entity communication around what's possible and what's really happening in this space to make those types of things happen. And I think that's gonna be really exciting across the board, not just for artists we recognize, but for people we haven't heard of yet.

Speaker C: Beautiful. I have one more question, I think, that's kind of related, and then I think, you know, maybe we can talk about the future. Obviously, I assume that the goal of Tezos, capital T, Tezos, like the foundation and the groups, not to be overly top-down when promoting different platforms or hubs within the overall community. That said, we are still seeing like a concern, at least within the generative art space, has been the proliferation of new platforms and everybody kind of running between them, following the same set of artists and not necessarily allowing a single one to capture enough fees to stay solvent. I don't know what the question is. I don't know what the issue is. I don't know what the Answer is, but it seems that there's something to be said about how do we enable any of these platforms to ultimately be super successful to kind of keep that momentum going. You know, obviously we want to see new players come into the space, experiment, succeed, fail either way. But ultimately, if there's just kind of split attention across dozens of different platforms, none of them will really truly reach that forefront within like the collective mindset outside of Tesla.

Speaker A: I really do hear you. And I think that the argument sort of does go both ways, right? There's also an equal number of people who are very aware that sometimes our defaults overly prioritize things for reasons that aren't necessarily justifiable. And we have tripped over ourselves a little bit in the past for that, oftentimes just because we're trying to make things as simple for new users as possible. And I can think of a couple of different things that are coming up that I know aren't going to make everybody happy. But really is about just like getting something out there and then we can build upon it. To address this sort of like over-diversification, it is a concern I have. Obviously, I would never point at someone and say like, you shouldn't build this thing. One never knows where true genius is going to come from and where it might provide the perfect opportunity for either a subset or an as-yet new user community that could really bring value to the ecosystem. Yeah. On the other hand, the art vertical does need to maintain focus. We know what the platforms are that everyone is really naturally gravitating towards across, you know, 5 or 8 different marketplaces, different tools. And I strongly encourage and try to work with those marketplaces and tools to make sure that they're adopting features or designs or even adding you know, some educational content to make sure that they can benefit from my insight on a net new user side. Equally, I have also seen some rival platforms that are really interested in coming onto Tezos. And the question then becomes, is it worth integrating a new platform that is going to compete with our existing successful platforms? How is that going to shake things up? And will it shake things up in a positive or a negative way? And sometimes we do need shocks to the system. You know, competition is an important driver for success overall. But without going into individual examples or to even say that there's a distinct strategy per se, it is a really important question that we ask ourselves. I should also mention that the art vertical makes it sound also like it is top-down when actually really it is as diversified and potentially confusing as the wider Tezos ecosystem. There's a lot of different conversations that happen before things get approved or denied. And, you know, I have the insight from engineers, I have the insight from former accountants, from general counsels. A lot of these decisions may seem quick, but they're really just quickly executed upon. They involve a lot of different voices, and that is a conversation that's happening very actively in this space as we start to platforms from other ecosystems or net new, very well-financed platforms who do offer features that we know would be important. And do we support those or do we leverage expertise in the space to help our existing platforms develop? And there is always going to be a tension there, but it is, it is something that we take careful consideration of in the discussions we have.

Speaker B: There is one platform that notoriously, I don't know if this is True or not, but then notoriously it was given money to integrate Tezos and still hasn't done it. I'm sure you're aware of which one, but—

Speaker A: Yeah, we'll just, we just won't say it and we'll see who discovers what it is along the way. Maybe we'll give a prize.

Speaker B: It comes up on Twitter. Arthur's not shy about retweeting those things.

Speaker C: Yeah. Right now it's no secret that we're in a bit of a bear market from a crypto perspective. You know, we'd like to think that Hey, that's DeFi, that's whatever, that's not the art market. But obviously we're seeing across the board a huge downturn in volume, both in the volume of transactions in Tezos as well as just the number. So what should we be looking to do as we focus on continuing to scale with conversion, adoption, and just keeping people in the space?

Speaker A: Oh, wow. Am I allowed to put a wish in there as well as a request? Yeah, of course, always. Slow down. Slow down and take stock of what you've done. Celebrate what you've done. Decide where you want to go next to make sure that you're nurturing your own collectors, your co-creators. I would never put the responsibility of mass adoption on the Tezos art vertical or its participants, but I think the success of The Tezos art scene relies on what's going to come next, and more of the same because you can is not the way forward. I'm not saying that you shouldn't create stuff, and especially given the affordability of Tezos, it is a great place to experiment, and I highly encourage that. That's not what I'm saying. But I do think taking a month off for summer vacation wouldn't be the worst thing for the Tezos art community to come back in full force with amazing projects.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Projects that totally— there's a French word, in English it kind of translates as overwhelmed, qui me bouleverse, like just that literally blow my mind, which I know would blow the mind of people across other ecosystems and commercial galleries and other creators who are like, wait, what is that? How do I contact that artist? How do I figure out how to work with them? Or luxury brands or sports partners, you know, whatever it might be. However we can expand on our current network, that is going to take careful consideration. So that's my wish. It's my wish for the Tezos ecosystem. Not that I think you should all flee on the same month all at once. That would not be a great look. But maybe, you know, roll out your holidays. But I do think that just as a word of wisdom in having witnessed everything that's happened in the past year at Trillitech, of really seeing the hard work going on behind the scenes, I would say be confident in how many people are behind you. The protocol developers, the product team, the people trying to roll out different ideas that will be useful for the community. This is happening. It's happening behind the scenes. You might not be hearing about it loud and proud, but it's happening. I see it every day. I see people coming in at 8:30 in the morning and they don't leave till 7 o'clock at night. And Lord knows I see them answering messages till 11 and sometimes on the weekend 2 or 3 times as well. You know, that might not seem like a lot, but these people have families, they have livelihoods too, and they're working extremely hard to make sure that within this wider ecosystem, there are extras that appear along the way and new opportunities that hopefully with a little bit of R&R, everyone's ready to take advantage of. I can't mention specific things really right now. I wouldn't wanna give away the surprises really. There's a lot going on. And you know, that team of 50 isn't our vertical marketing team, as you likely could see. It's It's people making things for everyone. If that's an optimistic note on which to end, you rightfully said that there's a comfort in distinguishing the bear market itself from the community activity and also the quality of the technology, which I think is very much revered in this space. It's not that you have to ignore it. I think we all need to recognize that whether it's within the Tezos ecosystem or whether it's people outside that are approaching us Great things are being built to make sure that there's a future for both the art community as well as other communities across the verticals on Tezos.

Speaker B: What a good answer to kind of wrap the interview there. I think that is such a great sentiment. We usually ask a couple rapid-fire questions. We've gone long, but I think there's one that we'd especially like to ask you because we're looking for so many different ways to expand, like, who we talk to on this show.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker B: We like to ask guests at the end, who would you like to hear us interview? Anyone that you can suggest that would be willing to come on the show? Like, I'll tell you, we've had, not that we've reached out to many, but it would be great to get some people from the legacy world who are skeptical of NFTs on the show to talk to us. If you have any recommendations there or just anyone within the Tezos Foundation side, just, yeah, who would you like to hear us talk to?

Speaker A: I can think of like 3 top curators off the top of my head. I mean, his time is utterly precious, but Hans Ulrich Albrecht of the Serpentine Galleries. Definitely a good person to hear his perspective on. I'm not sure if you've spoken to Misan Harriman yet. Misan is not just an excellent communicator and deeply, deeply much more knowledgeable than I am in this space, an advocate of Tezos, but also someone who has found his community in this space. And that's a very unique thing for someone with the sort of VIP status that he has in the legacy art world as well. I think speaking to Nina Rohr's at the Kunsthalle Zürich. She was responsible for the Do Your Own Research generative art exhibition at the Kunsthalle last fall. Definitely want to speak to her. I guess if I picked a last person, I recently had a conversation at NFT NYC with Shiv Jain, who is part of Champ Medici's team and who's incredibly passionate about blockchain and music. He's, to my knowledge, not a generative art expert, but I think there's a huge conversation to be had around the technology Not just blockchain, but also generative music and what can be done in that space.

Speaker B: Amazing. You'll have to send us those in the WhatsApp group.

Speaker A: I've got all the intros.

Speaker B: Cool. Trinity, you have anything before we go? Should we wrap?

Speaker C: I think I'm good to wrap. Valérie, are there any questions you have for us?

Speaker A: Maybe I can reverse the question. I had the pleasure of speaking to Marissa True from Tez Talks, Now Yourself. I'm going to be attempting to do a little bit more creative content here in the Trillitech podcast room, or media room, I should say. Um, we use it for more than podcasts, but I guess maybe if there's other, whether it's audio or video platforms or places that I can help to bring some clarity to the community, or that eventually our, our community associate, I hope, can do the same. Yeah, it would be really good to know where else I should be.

Speaker C: The big one that comes to mind is, uh, every month fx hash has a, a community talk. Um, it's hosted in Discord and released later as a podcast called FX Fam. The 4th one is tomorrow. And so I think that would be a really great way to actually connect with the broader community within the fxhash ecosystem itself. I think that would be awesome.

Speaker A: Awesome. I'll definitely sync with Paul on that, 'cause I think that's— might not be able to do as early as tomorrow.

Speaker C: No, tomorrow's already planned, but next month.

Speaker B: They locked in the schedule yesterday. So, you know, 2 days, 2 days notice is about what, what you'll, you might get for participation.

Speaker A: Damn. I've really lost all my VIP status, haven't I?

Speaker B: No, no, no. I'm sure they would love to have you on at some point, especially around any of these secret initiatives that maybe you've hinted at, that if any of them involve fx hash, I'm sure that would be like a great opportunity to have you on to talk.

Speaker A: I'd absolutely love to. It's taken me too long to get to this point. But we're on the mend when it comes to making sure that we can be a little bit more vocal. And not that there was anything preventing anyone from the arts team from being vocal before. I think it's more just I'm a little bit camera shy, but I'll get over it.

Speaker B: Other shows that come to mind are 2 Bored Apes. Okay. So Zeneca and Jamie both came from like the PFP space, but have kind of shifted their focus towards art, I would say, more recently. They're primarily on the ETH side, but both of them also collect on Tezos, on fxhash, and they might be very interested to talk to someone like yourself at some point. And then if you can, if you can swing it, we haven't swung it yet, but like getting on Proof with Kevin Rose would probably be the biggest in terms of audience, getting kind of just more of a general message about Tezos and art out there.

Speaker C: You'd have to arm yourself for a debate on why Tezos.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's where I'm definitely, you know, Arthur's probably better equipped at that particular part of the fight. We might have to go in hand in hand. It's unusual for me to say that I have a belief in a technology. It's a somewhat deluded statement to make without qualifying that I believe in the principles behind it. And I think that what's happened from Hic Et Nunc onwards— I really mean it when I say it's historically significant. It's not just something that we should be shouting loud and proud about. Like, someone needs to write a book about it. There needs to be a movie or something that brings to light what's happened here, because I honestly don't think, as an art historian, that it's ever happened in the history of art.

Speaker B: And that's enough to make That is like low-key one of the goals of the show is to be like the weekly record of this whole entire, you know, we didn't start in Hic Et Nunc. We started actually like right at the end of Hic Et Nunc and the rise of FXHash. But in 20 years when they do the documentary, we hope this serves as a record.

Speaker A: Let's get the people in it now. I mean, I think the, I wouldn't want to tell the story before it's over, but I also just think that there's, there's such a huge value to making sure that people are aware of this. And just so you are aware, I lecture at Sotheby's Institute. I've done some stuff for Christie's Education as well. And there's huge interest in the academic side now of telling the overall NFT story. And people are recognizing Tezos as being part of the, I would argue, maybe legitimate isn't the right word, but we'll use it for lack of a better one at the moment. They're really seeing that. It's pretty—

Speaker B: It's special. It's a real thing.

Speaker A: It's special. Yeah, it's special. I hear a lot of like terms in this space like magic or beautiful, and I'm like, ah, no, I can't use that. But it is special. It's certainly distinct. And I think in addition to the arts team needing to be a little bit more vocal so that everyone on a practical sense knows what's going on, I really hope that we can start to bring in some voices from outside who recognize what's happened, that people start to realize that they were part of something. I mean, rock and roll was probably the last time this happened, and that was in just music, in just one little corner of the Western world. So yeah, it's a pretty, pretty great thing. And I really appreciate you guys bringing me on. Thanks a lot.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Valérie. It's been amazing to have you on the show. We've learned so much, and I'm confident in saying I hope we talk to you in the future. I feel like you'd be a great recurring guest to come on and keep us updated on what's going on. So we really appreciate all the time you've given us. We hope everyone enjoyed learning about Valérie, learning about Trillitech, hearing some positivity about what's going on. At or near the top of the whole thing. That's it for this one. Hope you all enjoy it. Bye.

Speaker A: Always lit. We're waiting to be signed.