#113: What are NTF's (non-fungible tokens) and How Can They be Used?

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Today’s guest, Jesse Krieger, is the co-founder and Chief Content Officer of PowerFan.io where their mission is to empower authors, creators, and fans to connect and conduct commerce in valuable new ways!

Jesse brings a great deal of experience with content creation to his role at PowerFan, having signed two publishing deals on two different continents and navigated the world of becoming a bestselling author twice. It has been his honor to work with 500+ authors to achieve their dreams of writing and publishing a book, and he is now excited about helping content creators leverage NFTs and blockchain technology to better reach their audience.

In this episode, we’re discussing…

[1:31] NFT’s background and what they are

[3:13] How it has proof of ownership and authenticity

[5:34] How normal people/listeners can use NFTs

[10:06] Where PowerFan.io comes into play and his transactional model

[12:03] Bitcoin miners, blockchain, and crypto process

[14:27] NFT’s government regulation so far

[17:22] The surge of NFTs due to our lives have migrated online in the last 18 months

[19:00] How NTFs will be an important part of the future for investing and how people will use it in real estate too

[22:26] What are the risks with NTF’s

[26:36] How PowerFan.io can help on your project and the creation NFT’s webpage available for sale and profiles

[30:30] Jesse has a gift for our listeners

Resources from Jesse

PowerFan.io | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

+ Read the transcript

Mike Stohler
What if you could be doing something smarter with your money that creates income. Now, if you're wanting to get ahead financially, and enjoy greater freedom of choice, if you want a comfortable retirement, and you know you'll have more choices, if you can do more with your money. Now, if you've wondered who else is creating ways to make their money work for them, and you want actionable ideas, with honest pros and cons, and no fluff. Welcome to the Richard geek podcast. Where you here helping people find creative ways to build wealth and financial freedom. I'm Mike Stohler, and in this podcast, you'll hear from others who are already doing these things, and learn how you can too. All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the richer geek podcast. Today's guest is Jesse is Krieger Kriegers it all right, he's the co founder, Chief Content Officer of power fan dot I O. Their mission is to empower authors, creators and fans to connect and conduct commerce in valuable new ways. Specifically, NFT's. So what we're going to be talking about how you're doing, Jesse,

Jesse Krieger
great to be here. Thanks for having me, Mike. And excited for the conversation.

Mike Stohler
Yeah, so NFT's have been in the news a little bit. You know, you hear of authors, music, people, artists, they're selling their stuff via NF Ts. Can you explain a little bit about NF T's? You know, the background? What are they?

Jesse Krieger
Sure, Good place to start? So, most people probably have heard of Bitcoin and Aetherium. Bitcoin is the first cryptographic currency, easy to transfer anywhere in the world. You have custody of it very secure. Aetherium is the second gen. It's like a global supercomputer. So the Ethereum blockchain lets you create an NFT or a digital asset. An NF T means a non fungible token. And the simple way to think about that is like, I've got $1 here, right? I could have $2, I could have half $1. But it's the same currency, right? You can have more or less of it, it's interchangeable. $1 is worth another dollar. But an NF T is a unique singular asset that is not does not have a one to one exchange with anything else. So it has its own value. So as a concept, what you're doing when you create an NFT is you're minting a digital assets onto the blockchain that can then be bought and sold and transferred amongst crypto wallets, namely Metamask, Coinbase, wallet, few big ones.

Mike Stohler
Now, I know that basically NF T's it's a computer file, right? Is it sort of like it's, it has proof of ownership authenticity, but it's basically computer files. Is that right? Or is that kind of?

Jesse Krieger
Yeah. So like, the more tech, technically oriented way to look at it is the Aetherium. Blockchain exists everywhere, like you can't get rid of it unless the entire global internet went down. So it exists in a cloud. But it's accessible from any device, any mobile phone with a crypto wallet, any browser that has an extension of a crypto wallet. And so the NFT is held in a private wallet as opposed to on a centralized server or on a corporate server or exchange, or even like on a stock market or in a bank, you you custody your funds with that institution. But the hallmark of crypto and the the foundation of web 3.0 is custody of your own assets and interacting with crypto commerce enabled websites without depositing funds or sending your money to third party. It's a one to one exchange between buyer and seller, through these exchanges and on these platforms. Okay, and so in such a way the NFT is a I was really thinking about that. Is it a computer file? It's a it's an entry on the blockchain, specifically tied to the owners wallet address. And that you can see from the time it was minted the entire transaction history and change have ownership timestamp down to the second of the whole history of that asset. So there's one one component is minting it. So it exists. That's the Genesis minting of an NFT. But then if I sell it to you, Mike, and then you sell it to Linda, now there's a record of those two transactions when they took place what value is exchanged for the NFT. And in such a way it exists on a public ledger, as opposed to in a private, corporate computer server somewhere right.

Mike Stohler
Now, how do you get that asset? You know, for you, one of the things that comes to mind is, you know, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, he sold the first tweet that Twitter ever did as an NFT. I think it was something like $3 million dollars for that first, was this like 3 million? How do you get that tweet, you know, or, you know, if an artist sells something, how does you ship via FedEx? Here's, here's that asset, or here's that thing, you know,

Jesse Krieger
I mean, that would be the offline equivalent. Think of it this way. Like, I see, you've got like a Steelers poster, imagine that was signed by the whole team. And it was the only one in the world signed by the whole team. So that would if that was represented as an NFT, you could say whoever buys this NFT is going to receive this signed poster, right. So you can think of it as a certificate of authenticity, a proof of ownership, it can be connected to a physical asset. But the streamlined use case is transferring digital assets and digital ownership. But also, we can go deeper into this. But the NFT itself can just be a key that gives you access to a community, the bonus content, to exclusive experiences to one on one interaction with the Creator, to access to a live event. And in such a way, like if you've got, you know, like a conference badge from an event you had attended, you can now have the NFT representation of attending and being part of an event that itself can unlock the content of the event. So after the event, you could access all of the recordings, all of the talks that were part of the event via the NFT and an online content repository.

Mike Stohler
How can normal people use NF T's? Are there? You know, I'm thinking CEO, you know, the artists and rock stars and things like that, how can I use it or someone that's listening? How can they use NFT's?

Jesse Krieger
Sure. I mean, we really started to, to really empower creators and fans, so audiences and, and, and, and experts of some kind, to have that connection. So to enable that. So for example, as a podcast, each episode of the podcast could be an NF T. And it could be an NF t that includes a bonus gift from the cast. So say if we were to turn this episode into an NF, T, one lucky listener could get it and the NFT includes, you know, 1000 P fan tokens or hands on training to launch your NFT collection. So it's a way to deliver bonuses, prizes, incentives, but instead of just saying, Hey, you won. So book, your call here, you actually get this certificate, this ownership asset of the NFT. So anyways, that's one use case we're exploring with a few podcasts, right? Like yeah, turning the content you already create into an NF T or, or a series of NF T's. Another approach would be, you could do a richer geek NFT collection, and have artwork from guests good ideas, listeners, and do a whole collection of different imagery or art. And everybody who holds one of those get some privileged access into the deeper into the richer geek community. So that's a mastermind call if that's bonus resources or free technology or discounts to popular companies or vendors. You could create any any amount of incentives and then bring people together around an offer where the NFT is the ticket into that community of shared interest or, or shared economic purpose shared in many cases, charitable causes are being funded, like lavishly through this technology to right now.

Mike Stohler
Is that where power fan comes in play? Do you help with that? That transactional model? Yeah,

Jesse Krieger
yeah. So I mean, for people that have some experience with NF T's, you can go to power fan.io, create an account, start minting NF T's and sell them. You don't need me or our team ball. But for people that we are making offers to partner with creators, work with them to create a cool, valuable NFT collection, build the marketing strategy around that and the community engagement around that and take it, you know, manage the launch. So once and we do that on a 7030 percentage, provided it's the right fit 70 for the Creator. But once so here's an interesting thing with NF T's once they've sold into the market, each subsequent transaction can flow a royalty back to the Creator instantly and automatically. So like, you know, for anybody that's had waited on payments from vendors or made a sale or earned a referral commission, and then 60 days later, you get paid out when an NFT transacts. If it's programmed in the royalty flows up, in our case, up to 50% can flow back to the Creator. And other platforms only have up to 10%. But it's my sense and what our focus is by having a higher royalty. That's what really empowers creators to bypass more of the entrenched infrastructure of publishing companies, record labels, distribution outlets, if they can reach their fans and audience, then they can deliver a full experience without many intermediaries. I'll pause there.

Mike Stohler
Yeah, no, I mean, it's very interesting. And it for someone like me that, you know, I'm still trying to wrap my head around, you know, my head around cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. And it sounds like mining NFT's is a lot easier. You know, I hear about these crypto mining, factories, you know, and people are mining these things. 24/7. And you have to find these things. And it looks like with the NFT's you just go on your website, mine it create it,

Jesse Krieger
then you got to sell it. And then you have to sell it. Yes, yeah. So with the mining with mining, it's maintaining the blockchain operations and earning a fee, denominated in that token. So Bitcoin miners help validate transactions that are entered to the blockchain. And they receive a amount of bitcoin for their efforts. So that's actually quite that. That's an important process of blockchain and crypto. But creating an NFT is way simpler, and we're lowering the tech, you don't have to have, you don't have to write a line of code to produce an NFT with us just a few minutes to get it all set up. And when it is, you've got a permanent URL that you can start to share, and anybody can come connect their wallet, bid or purchase. And, and then that transaction takes place. So think about the the entrenched like payment processing, infrastructure. If I start a business, I need a need to incorporate I need a bank account, I need an EIN number, maybe some other stuff, a business license, I need a merchant account, I need to get set up with a checkout processor. And then maybe just then somebody can give me money with an NFT. I could go on create an offer. So you're gonna get this, this, this and this, and hit publish and then share that link. And minutes later, somebody can connect their crypto wallet, send me their funds and receive the NFT. Trust lessly meaning nobody's approving or denying it. If you buy it, the transaction takes place. And there's no returns, there's no reversing a blockchain transaction.

Mike Stohler
So interesting. How has the regulations as far as the government been kind, are they starting to pay attention to the NF T's? You know, because it is a not really a monetary transaction, but it kind of replaces monetary? How's the how's Washington feel about these?

Jesse Krieger
You'd have to ask them, but what I observe is that the main issue is with issuing tokens or anything that acts as a secure already, as long as you're not replacing currency or offering securities, like, Hey, if you own this, then you're gonna get a proportional share of the proceeds from something. That's the issue. Nf T's. It's totally green. Right now, there's no restriction there's visa purchased an NF T for I think three quarters of a million dollars. MasterCard did the same. This is their way of showing we're, we're in the game, we're processing transactions for NF T's. And that's very different than you can't, in many cases just by cryptocurrency with a credit card, except on a select number of places. But with NF T's. It's fair, it's fair game. So they're viewed as a collectible. They're viewed as memorabilia. Fan Club memberships, not a currency replacement or a security. So that's the main distinction. And yeah, I mean, NFT is, you know, last year, I think total sales volume was quarter million, or sorry, $250 million or so of NFT sales. And this year, we're into the multiple billions of dollars. So if you just look at like growth industries, we're in a massive growth wave. It's gonna continue into next year, some of the biggest players like Nike, two weeks ago or less announced their Metaverse, they bought one of the biggest, you know, virtual clothing companies. They're going all in on this stuff. And Disney Marvel, they've now released their IP to become NFT's and collectibles. So you've got big companies and big known brands that are getting in the game. Plus the whole game, quote, unquote, grew up from this underground crypto culture and artists and, you know, it's it's converging now into the mainstream, in a pretty cool way to be honest. But it's still new to a lot of people. But you know, this should age well listen back to this in three months, six months. And if all this sounds crazy and new, see how it sounds six months from now? I'll listen to it myself and good play that same game?

Mike Stohler
Yeah, well, because I know, NFT's have been around for a couple of years. And we're just now starting to gain traction, or it's getting more mainstream. Do you think it's because of the pandemic? You know, the people are just kind of sitting around, we're more aware? Because it seems like this the surge of NFT's been in the last year or two. Is that fair?

Jesse Krieger
I do think that there's some correlation for sure. Like, you know, say what you will about the last 18 months, but a lot of our lives have migrated online. And there's NF T's there's a way to get absorbed in digital worlds and digital experiences, that's flourished in that same timeframe. So it's not just NFT's like Netflix, Disney plus streaming, all of these content providers are exploded over the last time because people are home, spending more time online, consuming more content, which is, to me the absolute gold rush for content creators. This is the time when people are online looking to discover and engage with digital content. So if you're out there and available, then you can get into that momentum, I'd say.

Mike Stohler Yeah. Do you think that NFT's? Would you say that they're the future of digital asset investing? Do you think or is there going to be another? You know, this seems like the NF T's is kind of like the modern approach to investing.

Jesse Krieger
I think what I think NFT is will absolutely be an important part of the future of both finance, art. But also real estate is just begging to be registered on blockchains and transacted securely. So there's people already chipping away at that. There's music and musicians like Kings of Leon released their latest album as NFT and had a whole contest around it where if you got one of the golden ticket and FTS, you got front row seats at every concert for life. So there's people that are embracing NF T's and what's possible with them, in my opinion, are getting ahead of the curve and will ride the wave and then there'll be others that maybe are on the sidelines that are on the fence that will then like get in when they see that it's got staying power and Then there's new people or the bigger percentage of the populace that this is all brand new. And it's going to filter into their awareness the same way that internet technology and browsers and dial up modems is that is the most recent tech equivalent for a really game changing technology that has myriad implications.

Mike Stohler
How are people using it in real estate? Are they you know, instead of giving me X amount of dollars as an investor to get into it, are you giving me X amount of NF T's? Or am I selling NF T's as part of the investment? How are the real estate? How do you see it?

Jesse Krieger
Sure, I mean, NF T's are going to become a bigger part. But there's a number of brokerages, and that will accept cryptocurrency as payment for property. So if you take into context that there's already people buying a house with Bitcoin, buying a house with Aetherium, like they're not converting it to dollars, and then transferring it, they're sending Aetherium. And that's their deposit payment or their purchase price. So then there's an easier step to NF T's where the house or the title or the deed, or you know, some something that officially certifies ownership gets validated, like notarized onto the blockchain, and then can exist and be much more, it'll unlock a massive amount of value, like just picture of my home, my house here, which I own was represented on a blockchain, I could borrow against it in seconds, like collateral. If I were to sell it, it would be a much more streamlined and secure transfer of ownership, I mean, officially transferring the record of ownership, and in the same transaction receiving the purchase price. So for my view, somebody that's not vested in traditional financial structures or institutions that much, I'm excited by what the technology allows. But it's, of course, will the entrenched players get on board or fight it? Or do a little of both and then capitulate? And that's going to, in turn drive more mass adoption and use cases?

Mike Stohler
What would you say? Are some of the, you know, there's risk for everything? What are some of the risks with NF T's?

Jesse Krieger
That you lose all your money? That's the biggest one. Not sure. If you're buying, like, in my view, if you're buying an NF t, because you see there's a craze and you don't really know, but you just want to grab a few and see. Sure it could make money, in which case it'd be luck. Or you could lose all the money and that would also be typical. But to get exposure without guessing is this a good NFT is that a good NFT is looking at the technology platforms where people mint NF t so they're one year ago approximately I got tuned into engine en je in Mana decentraland Sand sandbox TV que Terra virtual collect rari rare trouble I knew about all these over a year ago, and they've since gone up 15 to 20x. And so if you just bought the platform tokens for the blockchains that allow people to create and sell NF T's that's your safe, safe exposure play. Rather than, you know, it's like if you get into so many analogies, right? Like rare books or rare art. If you just come in totally blind, you're like, That one seems popular. I'm buying it, that one looks cool, I'm gonna get it. That could be worth something, it could be worth nothing. But if you get in no the players see the direction that projects evolve. Tune into the like, just join some of the communities and chat with people that are in this space. I admin a group called NFT universe on Facebook, we can put an invite link, it's free to join and get talking to the people that are active in the space. That's always I think the best way to like quickly start to see where the opportunities are. And transparency. It's the same thing I do. I mean, I talked to everybody I can get I can talk to and that's how I learned what's going on in the space and plan how we're going to grow power fan accordingly.

Mike Stohler
How can people learn a little bit more about NF T's? What are some of the resources just to learn you know, just to dive in just to see if it's something that someone wants to do

Jesse Krieger
Sure, yeah, I mean, as far as us, like, check out our site or blog, or socials, our community. We're almost all education based in terms of coming on podcasts, I come on and do events like this, to help get the word out, so that we can educate people. So we've got a lot of resources beyond just power fan. You know, look at read coin desk, read, you know, a few of the publications online that really track NFT sales and projects, look at open sea and look at the top 20 NFT. Projects, then go and take a look like what are they doing? Why is there why is there a quarter billion dollars of transaction volume on this collection of apes? Why is this pixelated image of a dude selling for a million dollars? The funny thing is, there is a reason it's not some idiot says oh, I'm going to spend a million bucks. And if you can understand what the rationale is behind why people are doing these seemingly crazy amount of purchases, that's a clue for what's going on in the space. So

Mike Stohler
yeah, it's just it's amazing. And, you know, for us laymen. It's, I think we would need some help. Now I know that power fan.io, you have what's called the white glove service. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah,

Jesse Krieger
so we partner with creators, artists, authors, so that they have a no tech solution to bring their NFT collection to market.

Mike Stohler
And creations and.

Jesse Krieger
Yeah, correct. So from creating the concept and the direction for the project, like, how many NF T's what are they? What's the imagery or the visual design being used? Okay, then what are the bonuses? Are there different classes, like, there's 50 of this NFT, but 10 of that one, and only one, totally unique one. And we help create this launch, we create the collection with the Creator, once we know what it all is, then we build the site program, the NF Ts. So the result is you've got a Featured Creator page, you've got a profile where all of your NF T's are available for sale. And then the Creator just shares and talks about their project. So white glove service is the same as like if you're going to launch an online course or do something else where a company is taking you through the whole process without you learning and doing it yourself.

Mike Stohler
Yeah, you know, I was looking online a little bit, and I don't know who people is. But I mean, my God $69 million for you know, something that that that people did, you know, on the MFL collection or EMF collection? And I mean, there are just some crazy numbers out there. For creators.

Jesse Krieger
Yeah, I mean, beep. Here's an example of like, you'll see the big number you see the headline, but that NFT that people sold for $69 million was a montage of art where I think he had created art every single day for 1000s of consecutive days. And so it's not just oh, I put a JPEG online and made 69 million. It's his community that followed every single day for years. Now, there's the big headline. So right overnight success years in the making. Well, I mean, there's so many cool examples, like there's an electronic Mutis electronic musician Blauw three L. Au, local Vegas artist, but he launched his latest album as an NF T. And you could bid so it was an auction, and the top 11 bids won the super exclusive NFT. But the number one bitter one, co producing a song with the artist, and then jointly releasing it as an NFT. And as a record and song that's available everywhere. So here's an example of, you know, a genre of music that's fairly tech savvy, right electronic music and that, but then his fans that wanted to break into the music industry. Hey, if I bid enough, I'm co producing a song with a Grammy nominated artist, right? Yeah. And so it allows you to collapse the distance between where you are now and the access you can get that quite frankly, I don't think it's ever existed before where like, could you know back in the day if your football fans could Joe Montana, go online and in five minutes auction a dinner with him and get a half a million dollars or whatever. That's what's becoming possible if somebody makes an NF T eyes offer, and then some superfan that's got plenty of money just wants to go for it.

Mike Stohler
Yeah. Yeah, that's, you know, it's amazing. It's fascinating. I appreciate you coming on Jesse. And, again, everyone that's up power fan.io For everything you want to learn and know about NF Ts, and we have some exciting news for everyone that's listening. Jesse has a free gift for our listeners can explain that just?

Jesse Krieger
Yes, definitely. So we've talked a lot about NF T's. And I talked about the cryptocurrencies that help power NF T's and how those can be a good investment will power fan we have our own cryptocurrency called the P fan token. And we'd like to give 100 P fan tokens to every listener here that wants to claim it. And one lucky listener will win 2500 P fan tokens, and hands on support to do your NFT launch. So if you're hearing this, and you're like, oh my god, I have to do this. Make yourself known. That's why I'm here too. But for everybody else, enjoy some p fan tokens, check out the platform, and hope to educate you and get all your questions answered.

Mike Stohler
Wow, Jesse, you know, we really appreciate that everybody, this is your opportunity to up why not? It's free tokens. And this is the you know, the best way to learn and you know, just kind of dabble you know, but, but the biggest thing is I think once you start doing it, you'll get hooked, especially with all the information that you can get from power fan.io. Jesse, I appreciate you coming on and have a great night.

Thanks for tuning in to the richer geek podcast, where we're helping others find creative ways to build wealth, and financial freedom. For today's show notes, including all the links and resources from our show, and more information about our guests, visit us at www.therichergeek.com/podcast. And don't forget to jump over to Apple podcasts, Google Play Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts and hit the subscribe button. Share with others who can benefit from listening and leave a rating and review to get the podcast in front of your eyes. I appreciate you and thanks for listening

The information, statements, comments, views, and opinions (collectively, “Information”) provided in this podcast are not intended to be and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, accounting, tax or other advice. For our full disclosure, click here.

ABOUT JESSE KRIEGER

Jesse Krieger is the Chief Content Officer of PowerFan, an NFT Minting Platform for authors and content creators to create and sell exclusive content directly to their audience and fans. The PowerFan Content Library & Exchange are Powered by The PowerFan Token (PFAN). PowerFan empowers authors and creators by helping them get paid directly and instantly from their fans using blockchain technology. Fans can access content by staking or spending their PFAN tokens. Authors and Creators can mint custom NFTs that provide exclusive content, personal access, valuable training, and anything else their creative minds can come up with! Anyone can stake their crypto and earn interest and PFAN that accrues to them, and can also be directed towards their favorite creators.

Passive InvestmentsNichole StohlerMay 4, 2022podcast, season 1