Exclusive Interview with DEGODS & YOOTS Founder Frank DeGods | KBW 2023

[Music] I think overall most of the crypto Market is extremely globalized and so I think the for people in South Korea looking to get into crypto I think it's important to try to meet the market where it's at a lot of it happens in English there's obviously hyper localized stuff here in Korea I think that the goal for anybody that's getting deeper into crypto is to always recognize hey there's people all over the world that are interacting with this and we live in a more and more globalized society and so because of that the focus should always just be on understanding the full spectrum of it like I don't think borders exist as deeply as they do in uh crypto as they you know in in many other Industries and so I think that should be the the focus [Music] there I think the only thing that gives nfts value is the fact that people value them like you know at the end of the day if people decide to stop caring about nfts which is what in part we're seeing today that's ultimately what drives the prices down that's ultim drives excitement and engagement around these things down and so it's the network of people that share this uh belief that cartoon jpegs have value that actually give them value and so to me you know people that are entering the market or entering the industry today might have this idea that oh it's actually the tech or oh it's actually the pictures or it's actually this or that but it's like no all of it comes back to people find this thing valuable people find it interesting and we have to always remember that as a space like it's a deeply human driven space it's not always rational it's oftentimes irrational and so listening to people and listening to community especially people that hold our nfts has been our biggest Edge and um always the strategy we want we want to continue to use I think you know in a lot of ways when we started this year we were probably you know in the top 20 project projects in in the world and now we're like number two which is pretty exciting I mean I think we made a lot of progress I I don't think it went perfectly I think there's a lot of things that we didn't do well but yeah I mean overall I think 2023 has been pretty incredible I mean we weren't on anybody's radar Honestly by at the beginning of the year in the broader nft space and broader crypto space and now it's like you can't have a conversation you know about the top nfts without talking about the gods which is pretty exciting I think that the youth is the future of the space like uh for me I'm on the younger side and on nfts I'm never questioned whether or not they're going to exist I think there's a lot of older people that are like oh this is you know a fat this is going to pass all these different things which is old people's job at the end of the day is to always say the new thing is going to pass for me it makes a lot of sense that I could go buy a Rolex I could go buy you know really expensive shoes or a nice car or whatever it is all these kind of status symbols but I spent so much of my time on the internet as I know a lot of younger people do today and it makes more sense to buy and invest in things that are going to augment my online identity help me meet people that I wouldn't otherwise meet and uh just create something that is digitally native at first so my advice to younger creators and people in that interested in the space is one you know think about it before you drop an NFC project I think it's like a probably not a good idea 99% of the time but if you really want to you know embrace the youth and embrace the fact that you have grown up on the internet and make things that feel internet native and digital native I think that if you look at a lot of the top projects in the space today it's honestly a bad example clearly people are upset at nfts right now so I think people are hungry for something new something that feels fresh and so I think that is my advice I think youth should not listen to all the negativity in the space and try to make something that they think is actually cool and pursue it with that youthful hunger and vigor uh and intensity I think anything that Embraces the social element of crypto is going to have a much bigger tendency to do better and I think a lot of people are at this point disillusioned by all these kind of algorithmic promises that this thing just going to keep going up and like it's this crazy D Ponzi or whatever I think people need to see just common sense applied to a lot of the things that got popular when things were euphoric so I think social everything is probably going to get bigger I think that nfts as a concept when they first started out honestly were rewarded for doing less right nfts that like kind of have kept this Allure and mystery around them and honestly just let the community pump the [ __ ] out of them or whatever um I think like that was the first wave I think the next wave is going to be a lot more active and projects that are putting out interesting content all the time engaging with their Community all the time are more likely to be the the type of nfts that people want to buy and spend money on in the future and that's just like basic human nature you know um so yeah I think those are the two big ones to me I uh obviously think institutional adoption around broader crypto is really a huge positive and that's been the funniest part of this bare this bare Market is in while everyone is getting all doom and gloom you're seeing the biggest institutions in the world move further in that direction and so that's what gives me confidence um end of the day is I think there's a human nature element that drives people towards crypto and web 3 broadly and uh I think it just keeps getting better and better even if the market fluctuates