The FinTech Report Podcast – Episode 12: Interview with Tim Lea, Walking Between Worlds
How NFTs and Programmable Money (Smart Contracts) are revolutionising commerce and fintech
Interview with: Tim Lea, Founder, Walking Between Worlds
Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/1643860/9422039
According to blockchain and NFT expert, Tim Lea, the popularity of NFTs in the art world will spread to other sectors – having important implications for fintech brands, as NFTs can be used for many purposes; from loyalty schemes to gamifying services to alternative asset marketplaces.
According to a recent article in The Economist, cryptocurrencies and other digital assets are worth over $2 trillion dollars. To put that into perspective, the global gold market is estimated to be worth $10tr. The value of transactions on one of the most popular crypto platforms, Ethereum, reached $2.5trn in Q2 this year, around the same sum as Visa Card processes.
And there is a new explosive trend that is adding even more to the value of the market – Non Fungible Tokens – or NFTs. An NFT is a digital asset that represents a real-world object like a piece of art or music. They are bought and sold online and stored on blockchain platforms. NFTs are like physical collector’s items, only digital. So instead of getting an oil painting to hang on the wall, the buyer gets a digital file instead. NFTs are gaining traction because they are a great way to establish ownership, buy and sell digital artwork, and leverage ownership into other commercial activities, such as licencing.
In March this year auction house Christie’s sold a JPG file from digital artist Beeple for $69m – the third largest sum paid for a piece of art produced by a living artist. In June this year, another auction house, Sotherby’s sold a crypto punk digital artwork for $11.7m. This is a pixelated image of a punk that was given away free of charge as part of an experiment on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017.
The largest NFT marketplace, Open Sea, has seen an explosion is sales with over $3.4bn in August 2021 (compared to $6.2m the previous August).
There are some ‘rocket ship’ growth numbers on the value of digital assets. What’s going on why are we seeing this massive growth and adoption?
In this episode of The FinTech Report Podcast, Tim Lea discusses:
- Why NFTs matter (ownership can be easily identified; rights established, assets traded etc)
- Why does the art world (& media) love NFTs? Recurring royalty structures for NFTs – impact for all fintechs here
- Why will brands like Taco Bell use NFTs? (Loyalty schemes)
- How will sectors like gaming be transformed by NFTs?
- How do I buy and sell NFTs? (Tim’s discusses Opensea, Metamask)
- Is DeFi a replacement of traditional banking?
- So what are NFT’s – in plain English? and why are they so important?
- Who will use NFT’s ? (publishers, influencers, sports clubs and brands already exploring them now )
- Tim discusses his new indigenous art project; Walking Between Worlds
Tim Lea has been in the Blockchain space since 2015, he is the author of “Down the Rabbit Hole”, a book about Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, and is about to launch his “Walking Between Worlds” project to enable Indigenous communities to capitalise on the NFT revolution.
You can contact Tim Lea here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timlea/
Or via twitter: @TimothyLea2
The FinTech Report Podcast would like to thank Australian FinTech and Envestnet | Yodlee for their support.
All of the FinTech Report Podcasts are available here: www.fintechsummit.com.au/the-fintech-report-podcast
