Having recently celebrated its fourth year, NFT.NYC is an annual event in Times Square as the world’s leading Non-Fungible Token event committed to giving a voice to the growing NFT community.
To learn more about the event we recently caught up with Publicis Groupe Thailand’s Titipun Tubthong. Tubthong is an NFT artist known as ‘Taitern’, and Executive Creative Director at Brilliant & Million, which is part of Publicis Groupe Thailand.
This year he was invited to attend NFT.NYC to give a talk called: “Love as an NFT Strategy?” It didn’t quite go as he expected. We asked him what it was like to attend NFT.NYC, which this year was attended by 15,000 people from June 20-23.
NFT.NYC has been called “the Super Bowl of NFTs” or a modern-day Woodstock. What was it like?
Most NFT projects are based in the digital space: creators talk to other artists and followers mostly through platforms like Twitter and Discord.
So, attending a physical event: it did seem like the Super Bowl or Woodstock – the energy of having so many people all focused on NFTs at the same time, and having many projects and creators with new things to reveal, and the opportunity to attend parties around Manhattan or see NFTs displayed around Times Square – it was pretty amazing.
What were the biggest trends or talking points?
Everyone talked about Web3, the next generation of website development and usability. In the future, NFTs will have a bigger role and more utility and more than just art or design collectibles. We’ll see a lot of interesting non-visual NFTs, like in the music industry.
NFT creators are not only artists or designers anymore. There is a lot of opportunity for everyone.
Image via Taitern
What did you talk about?
My talk was called: “Love as an NFT Strategy? Creating a Collaborative Culture that Becomes your Competitive Advantage”.
There are a lot of stories that took place behind stage. I finalized my topic with the organizers. Then, on the day I flew to New York, they emailed me that they would like to elevate my show from an individual talk to a panel talk with two CEOs of NFT projects from the USA on the main stage instead.
“NFTs seem to be the leading factor in the era of digital properties: a digital world where people can live their life and have their own ‘communities’. This could be an alternative to centralization, but we have to ensure there is trust.”
I was in the Bangkok airport when I saw the email; there was not much time to decide because I would disappear for 26 hours during my flight. So, I answered “Yes”. No need for a deck anymore. I thought, “It’s just a bit of pressure since it’s my first experience of a non-familiar place, language and culture. But… I’ll be fine.”
On the big day, my schedule was to be on stage at 4:05PM. At about 12:45pm, one of the panel members withdrew. Around 3 PM, another panel member’s flight was delayed, so she couldn’t get to Times Square either.
I had to prepare my own talk with one hour left! So I went on stage solo, without preparation, no deck, just a little notebook where I arranged my speech backstage.
How did your session go after all that?
In the end, everything went well, the audience got my thoughts, they clapped after I finished and some of the audience followed me to talk more.
The key takeaway of ‘LOVE’ as an NFT strategy is: You have to be in LOVE with your NFT project.
L – Long-term strategy, it’s not about hurrying but about sustainability
O – Optimisation mindset, because everything moves and changes so fast
V – Make your project have a “Vibe”
E – Experience is a great value that you have to plan for.
Were there any NFT creators that caught your eye?
In the arts space: GHXST, traditional drawings by Taiwanese artists. They had a private party and exhibition for their NFT holders (I’m holding some so I could join). I love this project because it’s still 100% hand drawn among all the AI generative pieces of other projects. Apart from art, they keep expanding their utilities into areas like clothing and comics as well.
Ghxst 066 pic.twitter.com/rVN13DbEWL
— Ghxsts | NFT Collectibles (@Ghxsts) August 14, 2022
Doodles came with news about their expansion to animation production. I love this because they started with collectible NFTs. It’s a new way to do production and funding.
Doodles 2… coming soon. https://t.co/8gw3OeeQfs pic.twitter.com/c33BB0GLqP
— doodles (@doodles) June 22, 2022
In the tech space: STYLY launched their XR asset marketplace, a digital asset marketplace for not only 2D or 3D works but new experience assets. In future there are many opportunities for both creator and creatives to find Experience Reality (XR) assets just like we use photo and video stock libraries now.
Are NFTs really leading to a new era of decentralization? Are they living up to the hype? What does the future hold?
People who are involved with NFTs are not so strict about decentralization, which is the utopian idea that NFTs and blockchain will democratize the world and avoid having to deal with the usual chains of command.
They focus on its utilities and emotional value. Decentralization is a plus, but if centralization can help to expand the value or utilities of NFTs, collectors are still happy to buy them.
“NFT creators are not only artists or designers anymore. There is a lot of opportunity for everyone.”
NFTs seem to be the leading factor in the era of digital properties: a digital world where people can live their life and have their own ‘communities’. This could be an alternative to centralization, but we have to ensure there is trust.
Now that you’ve been to NFT.NYC, how does Asia’s NFT scene compare: how far ahead/behind are we? What can the rest of the world learn from Thailand’s NFT community?
Since it’s a new format, a new platform, and a new generation who are involved with NFTs, the difference of place is no limit or condition to the success of NFT projects. Of course, some countries are not too open, like Thailand, ha, ha – we cannot even buy cryptocurrency with a credit card.
But my opinion is that Thailand’s NFT community –since we have just begun and are still small– we are united with each other. That creates a great power to shine in the global market.
See Taitern’s ‘Flipped Face’ collection here, or check him out on TikTok.
@iamtaitern
