The pseudonymous NFT collector WhaleShark explains how to judge a project, what it takes to run a social token, and why the best art to buy is art you want to live with.
Interviewed by David Cash. Book David to host, moderate, or speak: https://davidcash.ca
WhaleShark is a pseudonymous NFT collector and the creator of the WHALE community and social token. Recorded in summer 2021 over a video call, with WhaleShark appearing as an animated avatar in a top hat, steampunk goggles, and a long beard, the conversation with David Cash covers the move from Bitcoin to Ethereum to NFTs in 2019, the checklist WhaleShark uses to judge a project (the team, a precedent in the physical world, and financial runway), and being a "use case maximalist" across Ethereum, Flow, and Matic. They also talk through the work behind a social token, WHALE's AMA exchange with Friends With Benefits, the metaverse fashion project E1337 and admiration for RTFKT, giving up an Oculus headset over data concerns, Brendan Dawes and what really counts as generative art, NBA Top Shot, Pascal Boyart's Sistine Chapel piece, finding Ali Sabet on Clubhouse, and why staying anonymous matters.
Chapters
- 00:00 Opening
- 00:18 Three proudest accomplishments
- 03:28 What separates the projects that last
- 07:44 Blockchain agnostic: a "use case maximalist"
- 09:30 Advice for building a social token
- 12:31 Trial and error, WHALE's plans, and the FWB AMA swap
- 16:28 E1337 and fashion for the metaverse
- 21:18 RTFKT and the perfectionist streak
- 24:16 VR, the Oculus, and owning your data
- 28:02 Favorite artists and Brendan Dawes
- 32:13 CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, and real generative art
- 37:09 NBA Top Shot and the Sistine Chapel NFT
- 43:11 Clubhouse and discovering Ali Sabet
- 46:21 Buy art you want to live with
- 48:13 Superpowers and staying anonymous
Speakers
- David Cash, interviewer and editor-in-chief, NFTS.WTF
- WhaleShark, pseudonymous NFT collector and creator of the WHALE community
Key topics
- From Bitcoin to Ethereum to NFTs, and holding through the price swings
- How a long-term collector vets the team, the product, and the runway of an NFT project
- Ethereum, Flow, Matic, and Immutable X from a "use case maximalist"
- Social tokens as a multidisciplinary effort in economics, game theory, marketing, and community management
- DAO-to-DAO collaboration between WHALE and Friends With Benefits
- E1337, avatars, and a social token model for digital fashion
- RTFKT and the early metaverse wearables scene
- Data ownership, VR headsets, and Cryptovoxels, The Sandbox, and Decentraland
- Market depth and liquidity in CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club
- Brendan Dawes and data-driven generative art
- Clubhouse as a discovery channel for NFT artists in 2021
- Collecting art for love and buying what you want to live with
In their words
"I'm a use case maximalist." WhaleShark
"If you're looking to invest in art as something that will give you a financial ROI, then you're probably doing it wrong." WhaleShark
How to cite
APA: Cash, D. (2021). WhaleShark on social tokens, crypto art, and collecting for love [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/CzKyELKgo_c
Chicago: Cash, David. "WhaleShark on Social Tokens, Crypto Art, and Collecting for Love." Recorded summer 2021, video call. YouTube video, 51:13. https://youtu.be/CzKyELKgo_c.
About NFTS.WTF
NFTS.WTF was a Web3 culture publication and interview series edited by David Cash. It covered artists, collectors, and builders during the 2021–2022 NFT boom. It ran for two years and closed after a board decision by the NFTS DAO, which left many of its interviews unpublished.
More NFTS.WTF interviews: [playlist link pending]
More interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@davidcash888/playlists
Recording details
Recorded summer 2021 over video call. Original release: NFTS.WTF, July–August 2021, in 14 parts. This edition: the full interview in one video, edited for pace, in the NFTS.WTF split-screen format with chapters and captions, 2026.
Transcript
Machine-transcribed and reviewed. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.
[0:00] My advice to a lot of people is if you're looking to invest in art as an as as as something that will give you a financial ROI, then you're probably doing it wrong. In your eyes, what are some of your favorite accomplishments, or if you have a favorite accomplishment? I just don't want to pitch it to you. Hey, no worries. So, I think, so accomplishment-wise, I mean, from an investment perspective, I've done extremely well in the space, and it's while I want to take credit for everything, I do think it's always a tiny bit of luck, right, or quite a bit of luck. So, I guess my very first accomplishment in the crypto space would actually be buying Bitcoin in 2012, and then selling it all for Ethereum in 2015, you know, buying Bitcoin at $200, selling Bitcoin at $1,000, buying Ethereum at $8, and then selling at $1,400, and getting it to NFTs in 2019, right?
[1:09] Because when I entered into the space at that point in time, there was a lot of ambiguity regarding the future of crypto as a whole, as well as the ups and downs of the rollercoaster that is the value of crypto, and, you know, just being able to buy and to hold and to continue to accumulate, it probably took every fiber of my being, because again, the pricing rollercoaster can really take an emotional toll on a lot of people. But yeah, I think I've done relatively well by, I guess, being very thoughtful about the way that I've invested money, about the way that I've grown this empire crypto, as well as investing in a lot of leading projects within the crypto space as well. So I think that would probably be one of the achievements that I'm very grateful for over the past couple of years. The second, I guess the second achievement or accomplishment that I'm very proud of is the relationships that I've built up with artists in the crypto community.
[2:08] So, again, I know everybody has a lot of different preferences for the type of entity that they buy. It's no secret, and I made it very public that I'm a huge fan of crypto art and a huge fan of the digital art scene in general. One of the most enjoyable things and one of the largest accomplishments that I feel that I've made is the ability to forge these very positive and very beneficial relationships, particularly for artists within the space and to see them grow from selling their art pieces for hundreds of dollars to many who are actually in the WHALE portfolio now, who actually sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions. So I think that's another accomplishment in itself. The last accomplishment, probably that is most near and dear to me, was actually creating the WHALE community, right?
[3:00] So basically taking that entire NFT collection, sharing it with an NFT community and seeing that community grow from 500 people to the world's largest general collector and creator, this community with over 20,000 members, right? And, you know, that's been a wonderful journey. It's a lifelong pursuit of mine. And, you know, the WHALE, the WHALE community is going to last for as long as my last of my lifetime and beyond. So I'd say it would be those three. Amazing. No, I definitely I'm touching on all three of those points in more detail. I think I think your journey in crypto thus far has very much been a playbook, more or less in terms of at least one way to go about it very successfully from, you know, beginning to where we are now. And one thing that you touched on that I want to is kind of leads in perfectly for the next question is, you know, being able to select projects very specifically and ignoring a lot of the fun that's come out around the space, especially when you started getting into NFTs in 2019.
[4:00] I think it was all fun, more or less in terms of the press around the space. So you mentioned in the past that 99 percent of projects fail. So to you, what differentiates a valuable project from the rest of the projects? So in my previous professional life, I did do a lot of market analysis, company analysis, opportunity analysis, whether that be within categories or whether that be within certain categories of products or whether that be categories of companies. So, you know, I think it was very serendipitous when I entered the space and, you know, you had a lot of collectors who didn't have that background. So I was actually able to develop and apply an investment matrix to really understand, you know, which projects I want to hold for the long term. Now, given that you say that, I mean, it's very kind of you to say that, you know, my journey through crypto has been very much a playbook.
[4:53] There's a lot of money to be made both from as a long term investor as well as a short term trader. Right. But for me, I just don't have the ability to short on the on I don't have the ability to trade on the short term. So my investment thesis is always based on a longer term horizon. Now, you know, what differentiates the one percent or the zero point zero zero one percent from the ninety nine point nine nine percent is really the stability and the pedigree of a project. So what I do, as you will see any VC or any investment manager do when they look at a project is the first thing I get to know the team extremely well. Right. I get to know their background. I get to know their expertise. I get to know their wealth of knowledge and really understand how adequate and how adept they are in terms of being able to run a business. It's a little bit difficult in the crypto space because we do have a lot of first time entrepreneurs.
[5:48] But again, among those, there are some that are extremely talented and as an investor or as an investor, you know, what I can bring to the table usually is that business discipline and knowledge that they might not have been able to accumulate over the course of their experience. So I look at the team. One thing that is extremely important to me and, you know, again, it sometimes it does preclude or exclude some opportunities that are extremely innovative. I actually like to look at things that have escalated in value in the traditional and the physical world. And it's very easy to draw a parallel into the digital and really understand, hey, if baseball cards. So, for example, if basketball cards escalated in value in the physical world, you know, it's very likely that its digital equivalent is going to increase as well.
[6:39] So looking at the product, just making sure that, you know, again, there is a previous case whereby there was a successful case study and it could apply in a digital manner. I think the third, there are a lot of other things that I look at, but I think the third most important thing that I look at, and again, I think a lot of investors in the space look at this as well, is really, you know, what is the financial health of these projects? You know, I, you know, you want to make sure that a project can run through the cycles. And we've seen NFT cycles in terms of bull and bear runs run roughly about anywhere between three to four months each time. You don't want to invest in a project that's going to go bankrupt in three months, right, due to poor money management or due to lack of capital. So what's very important to me is looking at these projects, understanding how long of a runway they have and understand how disciplined they are in terms of managing that cash flow.
[7:34] So I look at a lot of different points. I probably look at about six to seven points for each project, but those are the three main points for financial viability that I look at for investing in anything. Thank you for that. Thinking about your massive collection at this point, I'm wondering if you only, just because I couldn't find any specifics on it, you may have already mentioned this in an interview before, but do you only buy on ETH or do you have any thoughts about projects on Matic, Tez, WAX, other allchains? So I am blockchain agnostic, my friend. So a lot of people, I mean, you have people who call themselves Bitcoin maxis, you got Ethereum maxis. I'm a use case maximalist. So essentially I move to the place or I move to the blockchain that shows me that they have the most use case or the best use case for a certain project. If I was a maximalist, you know, again, I wouldn't have been able to transfer out of Bitcoin all the way into Ethereum.
[8:28] So I do believe in keeping an open mind and prepping, I guess, my additional comments with that, I actually not only buy on ETH, I also buy on, I also buy on Flow quite a bit. And I'm very excited to see some of the blockchains that are growing, you know, native to NFTs. For the time being, what I really enjoy is I enjoy all of the NFTs on Ethereum. I enjoy all of the NFTs on Flow. I really enjoy what I'm seeing from the two sidechains or layer two. So enjoying what I'm seeing on Matic with the with the reduction in gas fees as well as instant transactions. Also really enjoying being the largest holder of Gods Unchained, which recently unleashed Immutable X, which again is another component that will allow people to have instant and low fee transactions. So I think, you know, as the future moves forward, you know, I will go where the best products and where the best creations are.
[9:26] And I'm definitely not close minded and just tied to one sort of blockchain. Amazing. I think people are going to be very happy to hear that as well. And that's excellent. I love the I just wrote it down because I think it's excellent being a use case maximalist. I love that. Very much. Now, moving on to a little bit of conversation on some of your current projects, I would love to hear more of a WHALE. So after building your WHALE community and token to such success, what advice do you maybe have for other community leaders in the space looking to add more utility to their communities through tokenomics, as you did? Gotcha. So I'm going to preface my answer by saying that, you know, a lot of social tokens and a lot of communities powered by social tokens have sprouted up over the last six months. Right.
[10:17] I do adamantly believe that after NFTs, a very good use case of crypto is for the ability of community managers, of influencers, of creators to incentivize and to drive their community by giving them something of tangible value. So I personally think that, you know, social tokens are the next wave and the next wave of innovation that will go into the mainstream. And I've actually spent a significant amount of time by investing in the space as well. However, what a lot of community managers or creators and influencers don't realize is that you can't just have this fan base, create the social token and expect it to fly. When you create a social token, it's very much a multidisciplinary effort in economics, in game theory, in monetary policy, in marketing, in branding, in event management, any community management.
[11:17] Right. So I think there are about seven to 10 different disciplines that you need to have. And on top of that, you also need to be extremely active. I can tell you that within the WHALE community itself, our total team is about 12 people and they are online every single day from 24 hours a day because we're on different time zones. But over that course of time, we are continually having events, continually having discussions, continually creating new experiences so that the community feels engaged all the time. And it is very, very labor intensive. So I think that's something that a lot of people who are entering in the space really do need to consider as they're going through this. Yeah, in addition to that, I mean, from a tokenomics perspective, you know, make sure you have a very, very solid plan in terms of, you know, how the tokens flow, how they're given away, what can people do with them?
[12:14] But at the same time, you also have to have a very flexible mindset in terms of understanding that you can try things. But you are going to need adjustments. I can't even tell you the number of adjustments that we've made to the tokenomics in order to fine tune it to where we are today. Absolutely. It's definitely a journey. And I mean, you've done incredibly well so far. I think you've kind of set yourself as an example to other DAOs and other organizations of how this should be done. Because it isn't just so cut and dry as some people, you know, chalk it up to be. And I think that that's, you know, really important to share with people. A lot of trial and error, my friend. I wish I could have thought. I wish I could tell you that we got it. We got it perfect from day one. But it's been a lot of analysis, a lot of trial and failure. And, you know, again, try fast, fail fast, right?
[13:05] And then after that you succeed. So it's a continuing project. And again, WHALE for me is my final project for my lifetime. So I have, I hopefully will have a very, very long time to be able to find tune it. And it should be very, it should be a very interesting journey. I had an optional follow up question, which I think I'm going to use for this. So thinking long term, since obviously you are with this project, what are your community building plans? Maybe just some key points. And specifically, like, how do you see WHALE DAO interacting with other DAOs, and maybe such as WTF James project? Gotcha. And you are asking this question at a very opportune time, because I actually just sat down with my head of operations at ESA in Hong Kong yesterday that actually goes through what we're planning for the rest of the what we're planning for the rest of the year. So, you know, from a community perspective, what we are looking to do is number one, we are going to be looking to increase membership.
[14:00] And the way that we're actually going to be doing that is we are going to be increasing the number of events as well as the number of interviews as well as the number of engagement activities that exist within the community. In addition to that, what we're also going to be doing to increase that content and engagement is we're going to be doubling down on crypto art and we are going to put a greater focus on the development of metaverse based galleries just to make sure that that experience can run across, you know, all aspects of the digital eventually moving even into the physical. So that's something that I've been very interested in since I started WHALE and even when WHALE was, you know, 25 cents, right? Something that has always been very interesting for me is is it possible to use WHALE to bridge the traditional world into the digital? So that's something that we're going to do.
[14:52] We have about five different pillars in terms of how we're going to move forward. But, you know, I mean, probably the next and the other most important thing that we're going to do is we're also going to broaden the level of our strategic partnerships. And, you know, when we talk about the level of our partnerships, we're talking to people within the space. So crypto native companies, we're talking to crypto art, native, native companies and organizations. We're talking to some of the representatives from some of the world's leading art institutions and museums. We're talking to exchanges. We're talking to everybody and anybody, my friend. And, you know, I think that there is a huge opportunity for communities as you brought up to be able to interact with each other, especially down based communities. The very first interaction that we've already had, actually, is with FWB, Friends With Benefits, which is the second largest social token within the space.
[15:53] And, you know, we had an exchange whereby I went across the FWB and did the AMA. And then after that, we had FWB come across to our server and do an AMA. And we capped everything off with a token swap, right, between WHALE and FWB, which should not be very beneficial for both parties. So I think there are a huge number of ways for social token and for DAOs, for DAO communities to interact. And, you know, I think over the next six to 12 months, we're really going to see that space blossom and we're really going to see that interaction between different organizations happen as well. Amazing. That's perfect. And I love that you're talking about strategic partnerships because that's the conversation I have every day. You know, being such an open source place, I believe we all have the ability to collaborate and help each other win. So I'm glad to hear somebody in your position also preaching that gospel.
[16:44] That's excellent. David, I am, I can tell you, usually on any given day, I'm probably I'm probably stacked with about three to five strategic partnership discussions. There are so many opportunities in the space. There are so many wonderful people in the space. You know, I think, you know, when you collaborate, the opportunities are limitless. They're endless. Absolutely. And I totally agree with you. That's been my one of my favorite parts about this space overall. Just to touch on another project that I know you're currently working on, and I don't want to totally butcher the name. You probably already know what I mean. But E1337, or is there a cool way to pronounce it? So I think it was my attempt to be young and cool, but forgetting that I was young and cool 10 years ago. So E, so back in the day, back in the day.
[17:36] So is it elite? Is it elite? Like like they used to do on calculators? Yeah, so it's elite speak, actually. So it's a speak for the hacker community. So, you know, 1337 is pronounced elite, right? So and it refers to elite. What I did was just added an E behind it so that it was a little bit more palatable for the mainstream. No, I love it. I was and I was trying to figure it out like in the like right before the interview. I didn't want to completely butcher it. But I love the wear. I love the wearable space. I'd be really curious to hear about E1337 and what you guys are interested in wearables in general. And sorry to butcher the name. No, no, not at all, bro. And again, I need to do. I think again, it's a very it's a it's a fledgling project. It's a it's a starting project. And, you know, there's a lot more marketing that needs to go to it. You know, E1337 for me is a very long term play. You know, very much the way that you and I. Are speaking on Google Meets today.
[18:31] I do believe that as we move into the future, you know, it has to transition from Google Meets and Zoom to more of an immersive environment like the metaverse. So, I mean, if we did it, I mean, if we look two years ago and said everybody 80 to 90 percent of your meetings is going to be on Zoom and on and on and on Google Meets or Google Hangouts. You know, people would have thought that you were crazy, but, you know, due to certain, you know, due to COVID, due to certain changes in the world, we're finding that more of our lives are moving on digital all the time. And, you know, when I think about what is the next step forward after video conferencing calls, it really has to be a more immersive experience, which would be VR and the metaverse. Now, when you talk about the VR and the metaverse, essentially people are going to need to find a way to express themselves, you know, through avatars.
[19:29] And, you know, my my thought process through E1337 is really being able to start really early, gain a lot of the competencies behind doing that and be able to be a longstanding brand and a successful brand within metaverse fashion. So we started off E1337 with a lot of due diligence on the gamerspace, simply because gamers are the people that are mainly using the metaverse at the moment. And what we've done is we've continued to create a lot of designs and a lot of a lot of avatars and a lot of wearables that will be interfacable and that will be integrated within a lot of the more popular metaverse platforms today in the very near future. At the same time, you know, I'm always thinking about how do you disrupt things? And when you look at the traditional business model for wearables or for or for clothing today, essentially it's I have to use fiat or I have to use a general currency and then I purchased that wearable.
[20:27] I started thinking about a different different and then after that, so the company basically earns money by selling and buying. I started to think about a different model and said, hey, what happens if you created a social token? You made that social token the only way to be able to buy these wearables. And the company succeeds by the demand of the social token and the price of the social token rather than the constant flow of money between buyer and seller. So it's very much an experiment in digital fashion. It's very much an experiment in metaverse based metaverse based lifestyle. And it's also very much a experiment in economics in general. I mean, it's hard for me to recollect any projects in the space right now that have given up on the buy and sell model and said, we're going to earn money by creating an economy all by itself. That's amazing.
[21:22] That sounds like a really valuable venture for the community. And yeah, no, it's so cool. And I also have to say just like I have a bunch of things I actually want to follow up on that I didn't write down, but I will say that generally speaking and this is something I've mentioned a lot of different brands. I have a master's in art direction from some fashion school in Italy. And I always used to say that I love brands that you don't initially pronounce correctly, because I think it actually adds a level of cool factor that, you know, you have to know to know. So I actually I have to say, like in upon thinking about it, I really, really love this. Thank you very much. That was really cool. And I think you're coming. You know, this is the perfect time to be entering that space. I love, you know, having a lot of conversations about the metaverse and doing a lot of work with Decentraland and a lot of new metaverse, you know, pop ups. I'm sure you are, too. And upon, you know, when you've been delving into this ecosystem and, you know, pull and seeing what's currently available and obviously you're innovating something now that doesn't really exist at the moment.
[22:20] But I'm wondering, are there any current wearable designers or projects or companies that you are impressed by at this point? My favorite wearable company in the entire space is RTFKT. So they have another. So they have another brand that's hard to pronounce, right? So RTFKT is pronounced R-T-F-K-T. And, you know, it took me a while to get it as well. Right. It's a beautiful name. RTFKT is an amazing project. It's basically run by three founders. One founder used to be the chief marketing officer from from one of the world's largest esports teams in the entire world. One founder is one of the most renowned designer of CS Ghost Kittens. Right. Very famous. And the other one is a very famous sneaker designer and influencer, you know, who's very well connected in the space. Those three guys are my heart.
[23:11] I love speaking to them all the time. And, you know, they what they've been doing in the space of wearables is simply just freaking amazing growth. Absolutely. Steven's actually speaking on a panel with me on Saturday in Decentraland. That's the only speaking with you guys. Yeah. And I think I think two of them are I don't remember. I think you might be bringing one of the others, but Jamie connected us and we're going to be doing a cool panel in Decentraland this weekend. But yeah, they're amazing and everybody's pattering themselves after them right now. So I think that's excellent. They are. They are. The thing I love most about creators within the space is I love creators who seek perfection, right? And I look at projects, you know, back to your earlier question, when I look at projects, I really look at the founders and see if they have that perfectionist streak in them. And that, you know, again, bodes well for a business project or bodes well for crypto art, right?
[24:03] You know, just see people pursue perfection and making sure what they launch is quality. Even though the market might not be mainstream and where we are right now, you know, that streak of perfectionism is really going to help them in the future. So I'm a huge fan of RTFKT. Amazing. The follow up question I was discussing is more specifically to do with the metaverse, because I'm curious, because after we have these questions, I can tell you about a couple of even brief things that I'm working on. They're very specifically in this niche. But I'm curious if you have if you personally use an Oculus headset or if you're only mainly currently interested in like XR experiences or if you are embracing both at this point. So I was a very early adopter of VR. I own the Oculus one. The only reason why I did the Oculus was because of the and you might guess this, you know, given that I'm crypto, given that I'm from I'm from a decentralized generation.
[25:04] I wasn't thrilled about the I wasn't thrilled about the change of the login, right? That you had to have a Facebook account because I I deleted all my socials ages ago, my friend. Right. I do prefer to be on a anonymous and low key. So, you know, I was a little bit upset about that. So I actually gave away my Oculus to the Salvation Army a couple of months ago. I love that. That's amazing. That's a great quote. And, you know, it's a shame, right? Because I really enjoyed it. I was playing poker on VR. I was I was in the metaverse on VR. I was playing all these games on VR. And, you know, it was a really awesome experience for me. I had been lately thinking about getting the Oculus 2. And I know I'm a little bit late again to the party for the upgrade. But again, it's very difficult for me to wrap my mind around why I should let big corporations have my data and benefit from my data when the only benefit that I get is the ability to use a proprietary system that, you know, again, that, you know, I'm paying for.
[26:09] Right. So it's very difficult for me from an ethical standpoint to understand why I should buy into that. Now, given that, again, I'm always on the lookout for the latest and greatest headsets. I'm very much a technophile. So I love trying out new things all the time. But at some point in time, I really do want to delve in with the VR headset. I mean, I used to go into Cryptovoxels with the VR headset quite a bit as well. And, you know, again, I you know, my three favorite platforms usually Cryptovoxels for digital art, Sandbox for games and DCL for the social element. Right. And I think those three platforms are going to do stunningly well over time. And I think that's those are very, very good points. And, you know, I experienced DCL I think a year and a half ago for the first time with the VR headset, because, as you know, they came from VR into this experience. And I think, you know, you're touching on a really important point that, you know, this decentralized community isn't really open to these huge, these these huge centralized companies.
[27:09] And that's kind of our core ethos. So why would we kind of sway to that just if you are work when there is an alternative such as XR at this point in time kind of until that happens? So that's excellent. I cannot I cannot wait till we get to the time. And I know that a lot of people are trying to tackle it. I know that big cloud tried to tackle it with social media. And again, they're they're they're very well funded. And I mean, I'm actually heavily invested in big cloud as a as a platform right to disrupt social media on the longer term. But I can't wait to the point where, you know, you and I really own our data and, you know, these guys aren't selling that data or are using that data to affect, you know, again, what we want to see, how we want to see it and monetizing that data to the point where they're the only ones that are benefiting from this. I think that if you and I are willing to share data, you know, you and I should be the main beneficiaries of that.
[28:05] And that's the that's the I think the core is so happy to hear a testament to that. Thank you. Maybe just on the purpose of wrapping up, just the general questions, I have three more questions just to wrap this up and then we can keep chatting for a moment as well. I don't want to take up your entire day. But I'm wondering, you know, to think about your collection and think about some of the people you're really excited about right now. I know you collect everything from, like you mentioned, sports cards, you know, digital sports cards to traditional artists or semi-traditional artists such as like Brendan Dawes and some real killers of the space in the art world. So I'm wondering who are some of your favorite artists at the moment that you've recently discovered? Gotcha. So I think you actually brought up the name straight off my straight off my tongue. You know, I haven't, you know, again, when you're looking at the market right now, I mean, you see and to your earlier point about all of the pump and dumps, I mean, you're seeing a small group of people trading these crypto portraits or these, you know, these these these these generated and generated art portraits and honestly, I haven't touched a single one of them.
[29:17] Over the last two months, I want to say that I've only purchased maybe about three to five NFTs, which is a huge stark contrast to what I was doing last year, where it would be maybe 200 to 300 NFTs in any given month. Now, given that, again, I do look for a strong amount of quality. And at this point in time, I'm a really huge fan of what Brendan is doing simply because his generated art style, I think is very representative of a good bridge between the traditional art world as well as the digital art world. And, you know, when I speak to some of the world's largest traditional art collectors about Brendan and about showing them his work, you know, they tend to fall in love with what he's doing as well. And, you know, again, you know, when you're talking to some of the world's leading art collectors, it's very it's impossible to sway a decision or impossible to influence someone, you know, just by showing them a piece.
[30:21] But Brendan's art tends to do that. There's something magical about how he's bridging information, how he's bridging the generated art process and how he's bridging his very good approach and strong approach towards his towards his marketing activities as well as towards his gallery showings. So I'm a huge fan of Brendan at the same time, in terms of new creators, I'm always on the lookout for I'm always on the lookout for new projects. And it's just there's a lot of noise in the space right now, right? There's a lot. There's a lot of noise in the space right now. I think the other probably some of the other artists that I've collected are Gabriela, who does some amazing illustrations and she's been, you know, she's been she's been an award winning illustrator and designer, including some for Hallmark, which is which is absolutely fantastic.
[31:20] You know, seeing some of these new artists coming in with with music based NFTs, art based NFTs, I've dabbled a tiny bit in those as well. But for the time being, I think I'm just keeping my eyes really locked in and really looking for, you know, those creators, whether they be project or whether they be artists who are not only who not only create things that I really enjoy, but also have a really strong chance of breaking through mainstream and becoming extremely large. I think that's excellent. And this isn't one of the written down questions, but I think it's really important to just reiterate that, you know, you invest in the artists, not necessarily the project, because I think that's part of, you know, that's part of NFTs, is you're actually you're almost buying like people describe it in a very simple form as buying stock in an artist. And I really love that concept. And I think you you definitely speak to that, which is excellent.
[32:16] And and also just comparing it against all these generative projects, which obviously is so popular. But I think comparing Brendan's generative work and actually did a talk with him on Clubhouse, I think just last week, because we're doing some work together for his Institute Project coming up in September. But, you know, his generative, his idea of generative art versus, I guess, the community's idea of generative art is so different. And I would I mean, just not to hammer it home, but I would love to hear some of your thoughts, maybe just on a very surface level about like maybe Apes or some of these who are or, you know, the punks or some of these huge projects that obviously most collectors have. But yourself being one of the big, the biggest collector in the space isn't. So that's really interesting. I think that's very cool. I think so. I think there's several things. So I have several points. I mean, the first point is that I miss out on CryptoPunks, right? And I think CryptoPunks have a significant amount of historical value.
[33:09] For disclosure, I don't own a single CryptoPunk. And, you know, again, that's simply because I entered late into the space. So as an NFT collector, I do think that CryptoPunks have a historical value of being honestly the world's first NFT, right? When NFTs weren't NFTs, CryptoPunks were the NFT. So I think there's a certain amount of historical value there. However, the issue from the economic standpoint that I see when I look at CryptoPunks is, you know, and my team has done a little bit of a deep dive into the transaction history. You know, over a certain period of time, you just have five people trading those CryptoPunks at high values and driving the value up, right? You know, how how do you have a project whereby, you know, you only have a small segment of the community that's really driving that value.
[34:02] So you got high prices without any liquidity. Now, for me, you know, I tend to worry when I see signs like that. When I'm looking at other generative, when I'm looking at other generative projects, and I'll give you an example of why they don't interest me at all whatsoever. You know, we can look at the last seven days of all of the projects that have been launching, right? And when you look at when you look at something like Axie Infinity, right? You have, you know, over the last seven days, you had seventy five thousand buyers. When you look at NBA Top Shot, you have something like thirty seven thousand buyers. When I look at Bored Ape Yacht Club, you only have four hundred and twenty five, right? You got four hundred and twenty five buyers and you only have four thousand six hundred holders versus NBA Top Shot, which has five hundred and thirty thousand.
[34:54] From an economic standpoint, when I'm looking at this, I get worried because, you know, you have you have all of these insanely high prices, but really no depth to the market. And what that indicates to me as an analyst is that there's a lot of insight in there's a lot of in community trading, which is not bad, right? But that in community trading is not necessarily going to expand and reach to a mainstream when you have the rest of the population entering into NFTs. Now, could I be absolutely wrong? And five years down the road when NFTs are something that is absolutely predominant throughout society and people are clamoring for board eight could be right. But when I'm looking at the data right now, it just doesn't make sense to me. To my last point would be to Brendan to Brendan Dawes.
[35:50] I mean, what I love about Brendan is that, you know, he's not just doing artwork with generative traits, right? What a lot of your listeners or audience might not know is that I've been in artificial intelligence probably for about five years now, right? And, you know, some of these generative art processes, they're not even based on artificial intelligence, right? It's just generative art, right? And you're just piecing different traits together. It's a simple algorithm, yeah. Which could be low effort. Brendan actually takes real life data and he takes real life data and then after that, he doesn't. And then after that runs through a variety of generative processes to be able to ensure that that data coincides, correlates and becomes something visual that is very representative of that data, right?
[36:46] It's a much more intensive process. It's a much more custom process and it's something that takes a lot of effort as an artist to be able to do something like that. So I think you and I are driving well on you know, what truly is generative art, right? I don't think piecing together different different eyes and different noses or different assets can be considered generative art. I love that. And I think that that definition is important to make because people in this community, people in general love buzzwords and love just assigning like a term to something, even if it's not correct. So I think it's really important. And, you know, when I have the Clubhouse with Brendan, we actually have to make the definition, you know, I asked him a similar question. I was like, why do you think that people call their work generative art when you also call your work generative art? You know, he had a whole opinion on it, too. I would love to maybe get the two of you in a room or in a conversation at some point, because I think I would love that.
[37:40] It's a great, great subject. So well, sometimes even when we're having like a discussion on the WHALE server, I could speak to that. I could speak to him. I could speak to that guy for hours on end. He's lovely. I just love what he does. He's so lovely. And I enjoy it as well. And, you know, also just wrapping it up because I don't want to keep you for again too long. But with Brendan in mind with some of these other projects you've invested in mind and now I remember what I was about to say that, you know, I think it's really important also that you preach, maybe preach is the wrong word, but, you know, support a lot of these larger projects that have really strong use cases, such as Top Shot, such as Gods Unchained, etc. Then maybe some people in the like really niche NFT or like NFT Maxi community might discount because they're like, you know, their companies and their projects. But at the same time, they're the projects with probably the best and most legitimate use cases. So I think it's important that you're supporting those and being an advocate for those.
[38:35] So maybe with that in mind. And I know you already touched on this in our first question. But what has been your most successful investment monetarily and separately or in tandem? Do you have a favorite purchase that you've made? So my so my most successful investment has been NBA Top Shot. Essentially what happened was I invested a total of one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars back in, I want to say July or August of last year. The total value of that collection today can be anywhere between 30 million to 80 million dollars, depending on the day, right? Because the cards get traded is isn't an immense amount of speed. And, you know, from a monetary perspective, that probably has been from a size perspective, that probably has been one of the largest gains.
[39:27] I do want to say that I've been very, very well from a crypto art perspective as well, being able to identify very early creators who have gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars of art. I've been a very early collector of Hackatao, XCOPY of Twisted Vacancy, of these artists. When you look at the sales that they have, you know, again, I was very lucky to not only be able to collect them very early, but also to be able to build some astounding friendships, amazing friendships with them. But, you know, purchasing from a monetary and financial perspective, supporting their earlier career, being able to purchase a lot of their pieces in the hundreds or the thousands of dollars and being able to see them, you know, reap an immense amount of financial success today has been absolutely amazing.
[40:21] You know, to your point in terms of large companies, you know, again, you want a project that has longevity, you want a project that has a strong team, you want projects that are managed professionally. And at the same time, you really want to have projects that have a long runway and a lot of money in the bank so that you don't need to worry that six months or 12 months down the road. That team is going to go bankrupt, disband, and all of the assets that you bought are now no longer useful. Now, when I look at the space itself, you've got a lot of you've got quite a few of those companies which are which are amazing. You've got Immutable with Gods Unchained, Axie, Axie Infinity has a very as it is very well funded and is doing extremely well. DCL, Sandbox, even CV to a certain extent. Again, they have a strong revenue model and are able to do those sort of things. So, you know, I think those are those are the reasons why I tend to sway towards larger projects and NBA Top Shot, you're talking about Dapper Labs, which is now valued in the billions of dollars.
[41:21] Right. Dapper Labs isn't going anywhere. Right. And, you know, that gives me peace of mind and allows me to sleep at night because I know that that team is well funded, well managed and is as well is as well as well structured out to your fight to your question that you asked just now in terms of my favorite piece that I've acquired. I, you know, I love every single thing that enters into the vault. Right. I love every single thing that I've purchased and I've entered into the WHALE vault. Probably my favorite that I've purchased. And this is interesting because I actually purchased it in the summer of last year, but only received it about three weeks to a month ago was the Sistine Chapel NFT done by Pascal Boyart or Pboy. And, you know, Pascal Boyart is really one of the very first street artists who entered into the crypto space.
[42:17] And, you know, he's very famous for doing these murals and adapting traditional art pieces onto street murals and actually having a QR code where people can donate Bitcoin to his wallet for his art. And what he did was he transformed a previous metal foundry, I believe, and he hired a complete media team to look at the process to videotape everything. And he did a crypto adaptation of the Sistine Chapel. You know, I was more than happy to support that work in today's value. I think up front one year ago, I in today's value to the peak one year ago, I provided about anywhere I think 70, 60, $70,000 for it to be created. And I can't be happier for Pboy, you know, with the launch of this and looking at how much mainstream media attention he's getting for it.
[43:14] That's so cool. And, you know, being somebody who's been in our world for so long, I really appreciate you taking the time to appreciate artists for their craft. And I think that's really something that should be said. And I don't have this question written down, but it just made me think about it. On top of, you know, you seeing these use cases and being an educated investor within the world of NFTs, which a lot of people cannot say. And I think, you know, within that thought, I think that people should start taking these larger companies, these successful companies that have a track record and using them as companies out of themselves after if they want to appear or want to be legitimate in the space. But also, you know, you did mention finding some of these really successful artists early on in their career, only because this is where I where I come from as well in this space, at least more recently. And I'm just curious because I know a lot of people in the community are very well aware of you.
[44:09] How has maybe Clubhouse played a role within your rise and benefit space? And have you discovered any artists there? I love Clubhouse, right? I have not spent a lot of time on it recently, but I can tell you that in February, March and April, I was I was on there. You know, I wouldn't say at least two to three hours every single day. Sometimes I would be on there 10 hours a day, right? It really became a central hub for being able for being able to communicate about NFTs, learn about NFTs and share the knowledge on NFTs. Now, I know that recently the hype on Clubhouse has recently dipped a bit. I always log on every single day to check out, you know, what's the situation? What are the discussions on NFTs going on? And really can't wait to see that start to grow again. Now, I made a lot of friends on Clubhouse, my David.
[45:02] You know, I, you know, I used to hold AMA's and sessions whereby I got to know every single artist on there. And it was amazing to see the number of artists entering into the space back then. You know, I did. So I would say the one artist that I identified through Clubhouse and got to speaking. And again, I really do appreciate his work is Ali Sabet, right? Again, I know that there was a little bit of controversy regarding the supply side of his artwork. But it's something that I just really, really enjoyed, right? And it doesn't affect me because, again, I'm collecting out of the love and I'm not collecting predominantly for financial value. And I may be looking at pieces and saying, hey, do I want to look at this every single day? Do I want to hang it above my fireplace? Do I want to hang it on my on my corridors?
[45:54] And I really loved Ali Sabet's work, right? So, you know, again, Sabet has been Sabet has probably been one of the major purchases that I made at that point in time. I think I've probably purchased about 20, 30 each of his pieces. And I still admire them and love them today. So I think Clubhouse is a wonderful conduit to be able to funnel that knowledge and introductions. And I honestly can't wait till it starts to rise again. And those conversations start to happen again. Yeah, and Sabet is definitely a community member. You know, I'm part of the tips and NFTs.tips group. I'm one of the now they call us founding members. But yeah, no, just so nice to hear that. And, you know, Sabet was doing live art at one of our events and, you know, to hear him being touted as, you know, one of the leading people in the space, which I also believe he is is excellent. And I think that's Sabet.
[46:46] Sabet is amazing. I still, you know, his his his first piece that I purchased from him still gives me chills. And I've heard that it's one of his favorite pieces. I remember I think I read through the background of it. I think his his wife wanted a piece to hang up above the piano in his house. And that was the piece he created. It has a lot of flowers, floral designs on it. And it was very representative of his artistic style. And again, you know, if he added in anything more to the piece, it would have taken away from the piece. If he took away anything from the piece, it wouldn't be the piece. Right. Right. So I absolutely love what Sabet does. And again, I understand that there was some controversy regarding the supply side. But at the end of the day, my advice to a lot of people is if you're looking to invest in art as an as as as something that will give you a financial ROI, then you're probably doing it wrong.
[47:38] Right. Because, you know, what you want to do is you want to purchase art that you want to see for the rest of your life in your house, on your screen, on your monitor and not really be, you know, just looking at art as a financial vehicle that that really destroys the concept of why artists create art to begin with. And I think you're making a really important distinction between art and collectibles within this space, which I think is very important, which is maybe not made very often or often enough. I don't want to keep you all because I think you've spent so much time with me and I really appreciate it. I enjoyed. I really enjoyed speaking with you. It's a pleasure. I love the conversation. It's a pleasure. I have one kind of cheeky closing question if it's all right. Just out of sheer curiosity, if you could have one superpower, what would it be? Surprisingly, I think about this quite a bit. I'm glad.
[48:30] You could write him come from left field or you might get actually one of the. So I have trouble going to sleep at night, right? So clearly because I just have a very, very busy life. So this is actually this is actually one of the one of the questions I think about quite a bit. So OK, so let me give you let me give you let me give you a rundown of three that I thought about, right? So I think from the very fact that you can see that I like to remain anonymous. I enjoy being a wallflower. And despite many people thinking I'm an extrovert, I'm actually when you actually look at the at the Myers-Briggs test as my success, I'm actually an extreme introvert. So I think invisibility has always been an extreme top at that list, right? Despite the number of interviews that I do and stuff like that, I actually do very much enjoy, you know, doing my own thing and being and being being discreet.
[49:26] So invisibility definitely on the top of that list. The other thing that I would really love to do is teleportation, right? So, you know, the ability to the ability to be what to be at one place at one time and that can be across the world at another. I think teleportation could be a lot of fun. So I think those are my two favorites. I completely agree with both when I toy between the two all the time myself. I am I am very much like an extroverted introvert, so I totally feel you. Sometimes I want to be there, but I don't want to be like, I don't want anybody to talk to me. You know, that's ridiculous. But yeah, I absolutely feel you. I mean, I I told I said it on Clubhouse. I think Faroq Faroq actually asked me that question in terms of, you know, why are you anonymous? And I think my answer to him is that, you know, I know that a lot of a lot of collectors have already come out, right? You guys all know Pablo. You guys all know Medeco. Then, you know, crypto 88 hasn't come out yet.
[50:20] But, you know, you guys know all you, you know, those major collectors you see in their face, you know who they are. You know, for me, I want to be able to wear my shorts, wear my flip flops, wear my, you know, wear my tank top and go down to McDonald's and be able to get a Big Mac without people asking me about NFTs. You're like, I need five minutes. Like, please. It's totally valid. I totally feel you. Oh, I think privacy, privacy is something privacy and security is something that you just can't buy with money, right? Absolutely. I was living in Florence, Italy for the past year. So no matter, even if I did get famous, nobody would ever know who I am. So I'm back in Toronto now, but I love being in anonymous locations. So I absolutely feel you there. Those are all the questions.