Off The Chain: Blockchain // Web3 // NFTs: Recent Episodes
Dylan Hattem
Off the Chain is the backbone for storytelling across builders, creators and collectors across Web3. Each episode dives into how these technologists use the power of blockchain to build businesses and foster creativity.
Scott M. Lawin is a Co-Founder & CEO of Candy Digital, Inc., a next-generation sports and culture digital asset platform, providing authentic objects and experiences that deepen fan engagement and connect people to their passions. Candy Digital is an official digital collectible partner of Getty Images, Major League Baseball, Netflix, the Race Team Alliance, and the WWE. Candy operates digital collectible ecosystems where fans and collectors are able to purchase, trade, and share authentic digital collectibles to deepen their love of the sports, media and culture.
Before launching Candy, Scott founded Parametric, LP, a private investment and advisory firm focused on early-stage opportunities in blockchain, fintech, art, and real estate. From 2010-2017, Mr. Lawin was the Chief Operating Officer of Moore Capital Management, a $15bn global alternative investment management company. Prior to joining Moore, Mr. Lawin served as Chief Operating Officer of the Liquid Markets business at Fortress Investment Group following a 12-year career at Goldman, Sachs & Co.
In this podcast, we cover:
- Scott’s jump from a storied career in finance to NFTs
- Pandemic conversations with Mike Novogratz that led to Candy Digital
- The difference in the change of pace between finance & Web3
- Why the market slowdown hasn’t affected Candy’s pitch to potential partners
- Mapping out fan experiences that are relevant for each community
- Breaking down the paths that brands & IP owners can take when licensing off their IP
- A dive into Candy Digital’s recent fundraise and Fanatic’s divestment from the business
To follow Candy Digital on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/CandyDigital
Matias Dorta, is the CEO & Co-Founder of AssetDash. What initially launched as a product to track all stocks, cryptos, NFTs, DeFi, and private equity investments in real-time has continued growing with the release of new products to incentivize users further to participate with the platform.
Most recently, they launched DashDeals. DashDeals applies the concept of ‘AMEX Rewards’ to the ownership of digital assets. With DashDeals, investors can unlock hundreds of deals based on assets that they own, and brands easily get their products in front of the Web3 community.
In this podcast, we cover:
- Launching an investment tracker for crypto and non-crypto based assets
- The opportunity for building a product that targets both Web2 and Web 3 consumers
- The introduction of Dash Deals, where you can earn rewards based on your investments
- Next up for AssetDash - their ‘Learn’ product
- The idea of blockchain-based loyalty programs without brands/merchants having to be ‘on-chain’
To follow Matias on Twitter head to: https://twitter.com/mattdorta
To follow AssetDash on Twitter head to: https://twitter.com/assetdash
Shannon Snow is the Chief Operating Officer of World of Women, one of the world’s leading NFT brands with over $400M in trading volume. Prior to joining World of Women, Shannon led the Entertainment division at Meta, helping entertainment, media and sports companies move into the metaverse. She spent over a decade at Google building and leading teams. She angel invests in female and diverse founders with the goal of empowering the next generation of tech leaders.
Since WoW launched in July 2021, their team has built a roster of celebrity holders (Reese Witherspoon, Madonna, Eva Longoria), brand partnerships (Hasbro, House of Harlow, Billboard Magazine), entertainment partnerships (Guy Oseary, Hello Sunshine) and a community passionate about WoW’s mission to build an inclusive Web3.
In this podcast we cover:
- Having the conviction to leap from working at Meta & Google to a startup
- How Shannon views the responsibilities of a Chief Operating Officer
- The importance of building an inclusive future
- How to align internal resources across an array of business opportunities
- The playbook to bring World of Women to a global audience
- The healthy pressure of managing holder’s expectations
- The decision to not receive venture capital funding (yet…?)
- Where the internal team’s attention shifted since the bear market
- The wonderful philanthropic efforts of World of Women!
To follow Shannon on Twitter head to: https://twitter.com/shannonsnow_sf
To follow World of Women on Twitter head to: https://twitter.com/worldofwomennft
Gary Vaynerchuck, aka, Gary Vee is a serial entrepreneur, CEO of VeeFriends, Chairman of VaynerX, CEO of VaynerMedia & 5X NYT Bestselling author.
He has been a leading voice of Web3 technology, with a goal of getting its capabilities into the hands of billions of people across the world.
While I've known Gary for a few years, getting him on the podcast to share his POV on the industry was an honor.
On this podcast we cover:
- Gary's take on the current industry sentiment and how to reverse it
- How to continue onboarding new people into the industry
- Advice Gary gives to brands to get into NFTs (that was different from 12 months ago)
- The idea of using blockchain tech for brands to build out first party data
- The different ways a brand can structure their teams to win in Web3
- Taking his gut intuition to drive the future growth of VeeFriends
To follow Gary on Twitter, head to https://twitter.com/garyvee
Cofounder and COO of Zora. Prior to Zora, Dee worked at Coinbase launching brand partnerships and influencer marketing programs, including the first brand partnership between Coinbase and the NBA
Zora's mission is to make it easy for anyone - artists, creators, writers, developers - to bring their creativity onchain. Zora has built many easy-to-use tools (like Editions, Drops, the Zora API, Nouns Builder) to allow anyone to not just buy and sell NFTs, but launch entire NFT collections, independent marketplaces, and branded experiences. Zora has helped artists earn millions of dollars from their memes, music, photography and art using NFTs at the core - some exam[ples include Vic Mensa, RAC, Disclosure, Toro y Moi, Mick Jenkins, Pussyriot, Andy Warhol Foundation, the first TikTok NFT, and James Jean.
In today's podcast, we cover:
- The deep toolkit of on-chain infrastructure that Zora offers
- The making of the strong design approach of Zora’s brand
- Building the right tools for their target audience (hint: it’s a wide range of creators)
- Where Dee’s interest in DAO’s comes from, and his POV of how they can be more effective than a traditional LLC/Corporation
- Hesitations Dee sees people having before feeling comfortable enough to start a DAO
- The idea of using NFTs to drive profitable marketing initiatives
To follow Dee on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/dg_goens
To Follow ZORA on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/ourZORA
Dr. Giovanna is a Senior XR and Metaverse Producer at Decentraland Foundation and Head of Metaverse Fashion Week. She has more than a decade of experience in digital design and the XR industry. Dr. Giovanna led the production of MVFW22, which hosted more than 70 global fashion houses, designers and artists and was one of the platform's most successful virtual events to date.
In this podcast, we cover:
- How her experience with connected worlds and getting her PHD prepared her for decentralization
- The ideation that the metaverse is a work in progress
- The power of bringing 70 brands together for Metaverse Fashion Week 2022, which included over 7 billion impressions on the event
- How fashion and the metaverse complement each other
- The trend of fashion houses seeing the metaverse as a marketing tool versus integrating it into their larger brand strategy
- Bringing the metaverse into physical channels
- How a brand can immerse itself into the metaverse for the first time
- Brand’s appetites for metaverse activations over IRL now that the world is opening up from the pandemic
To follow Gigi on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/ggcasimiro_
To follow Decentraland on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/decentraland
Amanda is the Culture and Community Lead at PROOF. After 10 years in a public sector communications career, she left to pursue her passion – community building. She now has the privilege of working with the best community in web3, PROOF, working on developing its culture and putting community-led initiatives into action. Amanda is also the Co-Founder of The Token Club, a community set out to empower marginalized communities to participate and succeed in Web3 through alpha and networking.
In this podcast, we cover:
- How Amanda's background in communications and emergency management helped her transition into her current role
- What the word community means to Amanda
- How the PROOF community continues to evolve
- How effectively managing a community has changed since Amanda took her role at PROOF
- How to stay ahead of community needs, while also being flexible and adaptable
To follow Amanda on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/akastevey_
To follow PROOF on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/proof_xyz
Tara Fung is a Co-Founder & CEO of Co:Create.
Co:Create’s mission is to help Web3 projects scale beyond the drop by allowing businesses to create, manage and monitor native tokens using configurable smart contracts and an easy-to-use dashboard. In addition to providing the tools and infrastructure for Web3 brands to issue native tokens, Co:Create aims to manage and engage communities through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) while incentivizing the growth of dApp ecosystems around their collections.
Co:Create recently announced a $25 million seed round, led by Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from VaynerFund, Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Capital, FTX’s head of ventures and gaming Amy Wu, RTFKT and fractional.art.
In this episode, we cover:
- Managing token policies - from designing to launching and then managing tokens post-launch
- Web3-based rewards programs
- Finding product market fit amongst Web2 & Web3 based companies
- The core differences between fungible tokens and non-fungible tokens
- What’s keeping Tara motivated
- The current inflection point within the world of PFP collections
To follow Tara Fung on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/nonfungibletara
To follow Co:Create on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/usecocreate
Matt Smolin is an entrepreneur, and is currently a Co-Founder & CEO of Hang.
Hang, the first Web3-powered membership platform that supercharges loyalty and reinvents how brands interact with their customers. Hang’s membership platform offers brands an alternative path, a path to building long-lasting relationships with their customers in a more sustainable, economic, and modern way. That’s because membership programs built with Hang take advantage of two core features of NFTs that enable new paradigms in customer incentivization and engagement: liquidity & Interoperability.
Hang recently announce a $16M Series A round of financing led by Paradigm. As part of the round, they are also proud to be partnering with Tiger Global, Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures, Mr. Beast’s Night Ventures, Tiffany & Co.’s Alexandre Arnault, Green Bay Ventures, Shrug Capital, Good Friends (Founders of Warby Parker, Allbirds, and Harry’s), Alt & Lob’s CEO Leore Avidar, Roger Ehrenberg/Eberg Capital, Bomba’s CEO Dave Heath, Scott Belsky, Impatient Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, K5 Global, and several other amazing VCs and entrepreneurs.
In this episode, we cover:
- Pivoting a business during COVID
- How NFT loyalty best engages customers through interoperability, liquidity and incentives
- Using membership programs to lower CAC
- NFT-based brand memberships becoming one of the largest onramps into crypto
To follow Matt Smolin on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/estimatted
To follow Hang on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/hangxyz_
Jim Daily is a Co-Founder & CEO of LinksDAO. Jim is a seasoned ad-tech exec with scaling companies to hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and overseeing hundreds of employees.
Post leaving the ad-tech industry, Jim changed course (no pun intended) to develop LinksDAO, a global community of golf enthusiasts in web3 reimagining the modern golf and leisure club.
Links has been considered one of the most important & largest utility-based NFT projects in the space and we're eagerly awaiting their continued steps towards the ultimate goal - buying an actual golf course.
In this podcast we cover:
- Jim’s executive background
- The decentralized nature of LinksDAO
- Treating the holders of the Links NFT as advisors
- The process of buying a physical golf course
- How Jim & his team are planning to use Web3 tech to reinvent the golf world
You can follow Jim on Twitter @JimDaily
You can follow LinksDAO on Twitter @LinksDAO
Sam is the author of Crypto Clarity. He publishes in-depth research on protocols and crypto market developments. He takes a seasoned investors' approach to crypto. Sam previously spent 8 years on the investment team at BlueMountain Capital, a $22 billion hedge fund.
Over the weekend, Sam went DEEP into the downfall of FTX, SBF & Alameda - providing a comprehensive overview on What happened, how it went down, how it ends for all parties.
I was so intrigued by the thoughftfullness of his writing, I asked him to join Off The Chain to discuss his findings.
In this podcast we cover:
- How 48 hours changed everything
- The basics of what FTX & Alameda do
- How the two became so intertwined
- The precarious nature of Alameda Research’s balance sheet
- Why Alameda holding so much of FTX's token, FTT is a major problem
- The role that CZ (Founder of Binance) had in the downfall of FTX
- What the next few years look like for those looking to get their funds out of FTX
You can read more of Sam's writing on Crypto Clarity
You can follow Sam on Twitter @samuelmandrew
Jeff Kauffman is the founder of Parachute and creator of JUMP, a tokenized web3 community for those in the marketing and advertising industry. Every week, the community co-creates an industry brief and publishes it to JUMP's Newsfeed within jumpcommunity.xyz.
Prior to JUMP, Jeff spent 15 years building digital and social strategy services for global brands, giving him the expertise to build community & see the opening for how brands could enter into this new phase of the internet.
On this podcast we cover:
- Jeff's love for building communities
- How tokens organize people on the internet that an email list can’t
- Jeff's vision for how Web2 marketers should be using blockchain tech
- What brands will need to focus on to meet these visions
- What element of blockchain tech marketers are focused on in November '23
- JUMP's world tour!
To follow Jeff Kauffman on Twitter, go to, https://twitter.com/jeffkauffmanjr
To follow Parachute on Twitter, go to, https://twitter.com/parachuteXYZ
To follow Jump on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/jumperstweeting
Alex Salnikov is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Rarible. A blockchain trailblazer and an active developer in the crypto space since 2012, Alex previously served as the chief technology officer of CoinOffering, the first company to offer its shares in the form of blockchain assets. https://rarible.com/ (Rarible) is a leading community-centric, aggregated marketplace for NFTs. The marketplace also hosts multi-chain NFTs for those directly listed on Rarible.com. Rarible offers a platform to artists and collectors looking to create, collect, and trade digital collectibles from multiple chains. In this podcast, we cover: Why Alex left the finance side of crypto to dive into NFTs What the average Rarible use profile looks like Where new user growth comes from BUILDING in a bear market How Alex & Rarible think about their competition Rarible's new products: The Aggregator + The Locking & Rewards Program
To follow Alex on Twitter go to: https://twitter.com/insider0x To follow Rarible on Twitter go to: https://twitter.com/rarible
Richerd is the co-founder of manifold.xyz. Manifold builds products that empower creators in the evolving world of Web3, and have been critical to the growth of the ecosystem. Richerd and the team at Manifold believe creators should not only own their work but they should have access to the tools to create new experiences for their audiences. Since their inception, they have pushed the technical boundaries of what NFTs can do and harness those advancements into products for artists and developers. Clients and partners include ThankYoux, Ness Graphics, Fewocious, Mad Dog Jones, Shopify, OpenSea, Rarible and many others. In this podcast, we cover: Richerd's POV on the movement towards 0% royalties The evolving product suite of Manifold The differences between building in Web2 vs Web3 The importance of creative sovereignty & expanding the reach of Web3 3 core parts to an NFT project Art being the highest level of human endeavor
To follow Richerd on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/richerd To follow Manifold on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/manifoldxyz
Unless you have been off-grid for the past 10 years you have surely come across Nyan Cat, one of the world’s most recognizable memes. Chris created this character exactly 10 years ago as part of a charity drive, and most recently sold it as an NFT for 300ETH. While the word ‘meme’ is linked with “internet jokes,” this conversation with Chris clearly describes how memes are in fact units of cultural transmission, and have become embedded in our daily lives. In this episode we'll cover: Nyan Cat's origin story The importance of artists in today's world How memes move financial markets CC0 vs public domain & other forms of licensing rights Future drivers of NFT adoption The future of memes
To follow Chris Torres on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/prguitarman
Andy Chorlian is a Co-Founder & CEO of Tessera. Tessera is the place to own and govern NFTs, together. More specifically, the focus is to fractionalize ownership of an NFT, lock it up in a smart contract and allocate tokens that represent ownership of an NFT. The team's vision is to help build a world where anyone can have the opportunity to collectively own and govern things they value, without reliance on central gatekeepers to execute decisions and actions on their behalf. Prior to Tessera, Andy was a blockchain developer at MakerDAO & Hydrogen. In this podcast, we cover: Tessera's current product suite What's on the horizon for V2 of Tessera Navigating the legality around fractionalized NFTs Separating signal vs noise How Andy keeps up with trends (Hint: Dune Analytics)
To follow Andy Chorlian on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/andy8052 To follow Tessersa on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/tessera
Julien Genestoux is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO at Unlock Protocol. Prior to Unlock, Julien built Superfeedr, the leading RSS feed API for both Subscribers and Publishers, which was acquired by Medium. Unlock is a protocol developers, creators, and platforms can use to create memberships & its goal is to ease implementation and increase conversion from “users” to “members,” creating a much healthier monetization environment for the web. In this episode we cover: Moving away from the attention economy, into digital inclusion and curated content Time-based NFTs The idea of memberships shifting away from being siloed across a collection of disjointed platforms The problem with royalty-based revenue models How media companies can work with Unlock Protocol
To follow Julien Genestoux on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/julien51
Wil Lee is a Vancouver based entrepreneur, and currently the Founder of NFT Project, The Littles. Since selling out the collection of 10,000 in the first two minutes, The Littles has continued their incredible growth. Most recently, TIME Studios, the Emmy Award-winning TV and film production division of TIME, announced an original children’s series based on the brand. For Wil & his team - the larger vision of The Littles is to become the Mario of Web3, and is focusing the brand's efforts on animation, gaming & merch. In this episode we'll cover: Building the Mario of Web3 The 3 pillars of The Littles - animation, gaming and merch Leveraging the marketability of The Littles to find unique intellectual property opportunities Managing a 5-10 year horizon in a short-sighted industry Wil's Vision of NFT 2.0
To follow Wil Lee on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/wilxlee To follow The Littles on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/thelittlesnft
Jonathan Moore is an investor at TCG Crypto, focusing on the firm’s investments at the intersection of consumer and crypto. TCG Crypto is an early-stage fund with investments in Rabbithole, Hume, Flamingo DAO, Arkive, Medallion, Altered State Machine, Draup, Tribute Brand and more. Jon's investment career started relatively early: He co-led an impact investing fund group while attending Emory University and worked at a bank afterward. He then heard about TCG on a podcast and pitched the idea for the firm to launch a crypto fund, believing the intersection of web3 and the creator economy could tap a generation of untapped talent. Since launching the fund in September 2021, he has closed over 20 deals, including Dapper Labs, OpenSea & Zed Run. In this podcast, we cover: TCG Crypto's fundraising thesis Jon's main passions within Web3 What "practical" means in Web3 How due diligence for investing in Web3 compares to due diligence in Web2 How founders can develop relationships with venture capitalists
To follow Jon Moore on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/jonmoore202
Some know Franklin is Bored as a Structural Analysis Engineer, most know him as the owner of 60 Bored Apes (yes, you read that right) & and an expert NFT trader. With the least expensive Ape going for roughly $130,000 at the time of release, you can take a guess at the value of NFTs Franklin has amassed. Whether you’re a small-time flipper or want to get into the mind of how the top trader makes his moves, you’re going to enjoy this episode. In this episode we'll cover: Franklin's trading philosophy Franklin's introduction into Bored Ape Yacht Club The psychology behind owning 60+ Bored Apes The Future of the Yuga Ecosystem Collection's Franklin would diamond hand if BAYC didn't exist
To follow Franklin on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/franklinisbored
Jess Sloss is the Chief Instigator at SeedClub. Seed Club is a DAO that builds, supports, and invests in tokenized communities - providing mentorship, thought leadership, and programming to help communities bring the future value of their collaboration, creativity, and connection into the present and turn their social capital into digital assets. Jess is not only informed on the role DAOs play in today's world, but gives an honest look at the growth of the space, along with its limitations. In this episode, we cover: The many facets of Seed Club Navigating the weird and wild world of tokens, crypto, and web3 People capturing profit, not platforms The Seed Club Community Playbook Contribution within DAOs Why DAOs are increasingly distributing non fungible tokens versus fungible tokens
To follow Jess Sloss on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/thattallguy To follow Seed Club on Twitter, go here: https://instagram.com/seedclubhq
Vinnie Hager is an American artist and designer, focusing his efforts across all mediums, including, of course, NFTs. His journey began in Maryland, and his work is now recognized across the world. In this episode we'll cover: Vinnie's traditional art background The merging of physical with digital art Vinnie's NFT Project, Letters Future use cases of NFTs in the art world
To follow Vinnie Hager on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/vinniehager To follow Vinnie Hager on Instagram, go here: https://instagram.com/vinniehager
Chris Maddern is a serial entrepreneur, who is currently building Floor, a tool to make NFTs understandable and accessible. With a recent fundraise of $8 million, led by 6th Man Ventures (Mike Dudas, Serge Kassardjian), joined by B Capital, Worklife Ventures, Collab+Currency, Hannah Grey, Crypto.com Capital, Exponent Capital, Eberg Capital, Floor offers NFT portfolio tracking, real-time price alerts, live activity for collections and multi-wallet support. Prior to Floor, Chris was the founder of Button, a NY-based startup building a marketplace of connected apps, and led mobile engineering at Venmo. In this episode, we'll cover: The journey of a serial entrepreneur Products for the current NFT User The future of Floor as a soft onboarding versus a deep analytical tool Community driven marketing Building a sustainable company
To follow Chris Maddern on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/chrismaddern To follow Floor NFTs on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/floornfts
Dave Krugman is a New York based Photographer, writer, and cryptoartist, as well as the founder of ALLSHIPS. He is deeply passionate about the interconnected ecosystems of web3, and how these systems hold potential to unlock endless possibilities for people who are inclined towards creative careers Through his unique artistic perspective and ability to create both digital & IRL communities, Dave is well on his way to using NFTs & Web3 technology to building his vision of a better internet. In this episode we'll cover: Differences in being an artist in the Web2 world versus an artist in Web3 Getting out of the circadian rhythm of having to rely on Instagram and other social media platforms as an artist The power of owning a digital identify & digital assets Why NFTs are so much more valuable than physical prints Dave's NFT collections: DRIVE & Drip Drop Working alongside Transient Labs
To follow Dave Krugman on Twitter, go here: https://twitter.com/dave_krugman To follow Dave Krugman on Instagram, go here: https://instagram.com/dave.krugman
On this podcast we’ll be talking about digestible use cases of the blockchain and how it fosters new business and creative ideas. With this new technology, and what we now call, Web3, comes stories from a new generation of builders, creators collectors and investors across the industry - all using the tech in different ways to build their version of the future. Whether you say GM 5x before you have your coffee, are crypto-curious, or just want to see if this tech has real staying power, this is the show for you. Join me as I bring up the leaders of the industry to deep dive into their POVs and what the future entails. Before we kick things off, make sure you hit the subscribe button and follow me on twitter @dylan_hattem.