Welcome, Scoops! How are you doing? 

Good! A chilly day here in New York, but I’m doing well. How about you?

The weather has also taken a turn for the worse over here in Valencia. It’s great to have you. Thank you for coming on. We ask each guest to leave a question for the next guest, so our last guest left this question for you, which is: How do you think blockchain will affect your life in the future?

I apologize, my screen glitched. That’s the technology we need to update! It’s already impacted my life. I didn’t know it when I first came into the space, I was just more curious about what crypto was, and then I discovered NFTs, but through that, I’ve now found a place where I feel like I belong on both a personal and a professional level. So it’s already altered the way my life is going, and I’m really excited to see what new things will happen in the future!

So what first caught your attention?

I was first hooked by crypto. I’d heard mention of some coins before and did nothing about it. But once I started looking into it and invested a little, I got hooked on this whole new world. Then coming across NFTs, I was drawn to the possibility of… Things are glitching, can you hear me?

Yes, I can. I think it’s my end. You were up to the NFT part?

Through discovering NFTs, I wanted to unleash my artistic side in that, and through that, because most of what I found is on Twitter, there is a huge community of just wonderful people that quickly won me over. Now it’s not so much about making money or art. It’s the people that have made me stay. There’s brilliance all around us. 

Totally agree. Now you’re more into the NFT side of things, do you have a project going on?

I do have a little project that I’ve been working on for the past year because several months ago, I started to release a few images of the artwork I was doing, but someone, as does happen, decided to save those images and post them as their own, with my whole story and everything. I took it down until I’m ready again to do something with it. That’s still to come, I’m still dabbling with other projects and helping them out, trying to bring my confidence back I guess.

What a shame! Most people in this space are a bit more altruistic and want to help each other, but there will always be a few foul players.

There’s plenty!

What’s your background, then?

Before this, I spent a good chunk of my life in education. I’ve worked mostly in environmental education, in the northeast of the US, in Rhode Island, basically 2,300 acres of forest. I’d teach science education. After that, I worked on some other programs and schools, customer care. I think the side of me that’s drawn to working with people and helping them and educating them really comes out in a new space like this where I can help bring people together and onboard them, educate them. So I’ve managed to blend that and bring it into Web3. 

Similar story here. What educational resources have you used to learn? Because obviously, it’s un mundillo as we’d say in Spain. There’s so much to learn. Where does one start?

Exactly. It’s funny, when I came into the space in February or March of 2021, there were quite a few articles on crypto and investing, but there wasn’t anything that really catered that well. And when it came to NFTs, there was even less. There was one article or a couple of blogs here or there. There wasn’t much at all. Now there’s an abundance of it, and you have to really filter through to figure out what is the fluff or what is a scam, and it’s quite a challenge. And now what I’ve realised for quite some time is that I think it’s the people around me that I’ve also learned to rely on. They provide so many resources depending on their skill set, that now if I have a question about wallet security, I don’t have to Google it necessarily, I can always go to my friend, who’s more or less an expert, and ask him. Surround yourself with smarter people and grow that way. 

It’s a recurring theme when I ask this question that people rely on their community. The more people you can ask! There’s no systematic way of learning everything because we all learn in different ways too. So you’d say you’ve met your community through Twitter or Discord?

Yeah, mostly Twitter. I did get into Discord, and there were a few months when that was the place to be; even though it was chaotic and everyone just felt burnout. Many people are drifting away from it now. I’ve met some brilliant people, and I’ve seen them start their own projects and be successful. I’ve helped out with a few of them, and I’m an advisor on some to help with diversity and inclusion, there’s so much out there, and if you look, you can find something.

Speaking of diversity and inclusion, why do you think it’s important in this space?

It’s important in any space because diversity brings different ideas, and different lived experiences. When we focus on one group such as white men, for example, there’s very little that they can tune into to get the right message across to the whole world. They’re not good at talking to individual people, but if you have a diverse team, you know the right paths to take or at least be better guided in how to be more inclusive or diverse. Web3 being such a new technology, there’s no reason we cannot start with it being diverse. Everything else in the world has been set to be one type of way, and we have to backtrack now to make good progress. I don’t want to backtrack in Web3, I want us to move forward together. And I think the only way to do that is to be as diverse and as inclusive as we can.

That’s great, that’s pretty much the crux of our philosophy as well, from the outset, have everybody here, having their say, and that way, we don’t make mistakes. How would you explain NFTs to somebody like perhaps, my mum, who would have no idea?

It’s so tricky because every person might have a different example that works for them. NFTs started out mostly as a profile picture, like if you collected trading cards, for example. You could trade it with someone else, but no two people would have the same card. Everyone would have their own verified ownership of it. I can have a magnet of the Mona Lisa on my fridge but I don’t own the Mona Lisa, and when you look for who does own it, finding the real one can be tricky because it was done hundreds of years ago, and there’s only a piece of paper that says who it belongs to. So this is all verified. Any transaction or action that we make, we know exactly what is going on, who owns it, where it’s gone, and how much it sold for, and it doesn’t just have to be about the art. It can be about the utility, the membership, proof of attendance to an event, it can be many things, subscriptions even! All kinds of things! It may not be the simplest way to describe it, but it’s one way of understanding it. It’s a way to own things better and to verify that ownership.

Good! What do you wish you had known sooner?

Probably how to control my emotions in this space. Things move so fast whether you’re into crypto and watching the charts pump and then crash, or if you’re into NFTs and you’re seeing a project that is about to be out of your reach, and you really want to buy in, so much of what we do in this space has been based on emotions of I don’t want to miss out on this. I need to make money on this. And a lot of us have lost money from that. Because we didn’t do more research into it. So I do think that knowing how to control your emotions earlier on and doing the research can really help create a better path.

What kind of research are you referring to specifically? Would you be happy to maybe share a mistake you made and what you wish you’d looked up?

For example, if there’s a new coin that’s going to be dropping, and people want to buy that token because there’s been some hype around it, big names have mentioned it. It’s going live tomorrow and you feel like you’ve got to buy in, of course, a lot of people have intel and know what that price can do, and they know that the initial hype will increase the price, and then it will drop. I think having the research into knowing that when something is released, prices tend to go up because people want to buy in, whether it’s an NFT project or a coin. But then often, there’s that moment when the price drops. There’s that correction because of people selling to make a profit, and knowing something as simple as that, controlling the emotion and the research of knowing that watching the price go up doesn’t mean I’m about to miss out, it means I’m likely buying the top. Then it’s going to go back down. And I’ll be stuck holding this until the price comes back up. So I think looking into things deeper that way can help. And I think with NFT projects, as well as anyone who’s building a token, look into their team. Look into who they are. What they’ve done before. Look at what their roadmap could be. There’s so much that can tell you if they’re good or if there are red flags. Don’t act on impulse. Take some time and read into things. 

Dzhuliana, another guest on ChainChat, recommended something similar. Always go and read the whitepaper. Pretty good advice. What kind of projects or protocols have you seen that you’re excited about? 

That right now is a very interesting question because the bear market has hit, a lot of people have left, and a lot of projects have jumped ship as well. So we’re in a time where I think it’s good to watch those that are quietly building. Not the ones that are bragging about still being here every day but the ones who are bringing some value to things. There are a few projects out there that funnily enough, are more affordable because men don’t like buying things that aren’t made by men a lot of the time so most of these projects are women-run, and a lot of those are doing good things. In the NFT world, for example, MyBFF or World of Women, Women, and Weapons, strong women with great ideas. We’re lucky to have the prices be as affordable as they are right now because I do think they’re going to make huge waves in the Web3 ecosystem.

We’re back! It’s when it rains in Valencia my connection goes to pot. Is that a thing, or is it my imagination?

Oh yeah, I was born and raised just south of you in Alicante, and whenever there was a drizzle, everything including roads would shut down.

You were saying, it did cut out a little due to the rain (ahem) about the future of NFTs. I’m quite interested in how you think they might evolve or change. Any predictions?

There will always be some hype bubbles that make things look like they are the future, but a lot of the time it is just people trying to just make quick money by waiting for it to go up, and then they sell. Stand back from those things that we think are skyrocketing. What else is happening? Because as I say, it’s not just the art, I think subscription NFTs are something that will be coming into play. I’m not on the tech side of a lot of these things, but seeing a few people, I think there are some really interesting concepts there. Going as far as souvenirs. You go and attend an attraction and you can get your NFT souvenir from that. It can be any kind of thing, the new platform is the thing that’s different, but our need as human beings to own and subscribe and verify ownership is the key, and that makes it limitless.

Couple more! What’s your next step?

I’m going to continue to do what I do, which I found just casually. I’ve found my place on Twitter, where I’m helping to uplift and highlight projects, so that moving forward we can have as much accessibility and inclusivity as we can. With all kinds of people, not just based on gender or skin tone, but also on any disability, or location, or anything. I’m sticking with that. I can expand in different ways, as I said, I’m on a guild for diversity and inclusivity for a project, I’ve helped advise others that have questions about things so anything to make the space more welcoming for people that aren’t your typical users. 

Any other… you mentioned the guild for DEI, any other diversity and inclusion insights or ideas or steps that people can take to be more diverse and welcoming and inclusive?

There’s always steps to take. Even myself, I’m not an expert, I just try to approach things with an open mind and an open heart and a willingness to learn and grow. I think we all need to do that. I think the one thing a lot of us do is when we encounter something that’s a little uncomfortable or that we don’t know about or that’s awkward, we tiptoe around it. We need to stop doing that. Because otherwise, we don’t address the problems or how to better solve them in the future we just kind of acknowledge it at best and move on. We need to get uncomfortable. Sit with our discomfort because we will all have our own privileges, or maybe we’ve realised that we’ve caused microaggressions towards certain people. No one likes being told that you’ve done wrong, but when it’s unintentional, we need to address those things. And more of us need to do that especially coming into a space that’s so global and brings all kinds of people. I’m working on myself, and I encourage people to work on themselves as well. Put yourself somewhere among people that you don’t relate to. Just sit and listen.

Good tip! Is there anything else you were hoping I would ask you?

Not really, they’ve all been very important questions that are different to everyone, and I just believe that everyone’s different experiences is what builds our own knowledge and understanding of people around us. Nothing I had prepared. I could talk about any of this for any length of time…

And we can bore some of our friends to tears with these chats, so it’s nice to be able to share!

Yes and as they come into this space they will come across some of these conversations and see the human behind it. We have our own struggles, our own obstacles, I’m queer, and I’m non-binary, but I’m also white and male-presenting, so I know that I have some privileges, but I know that I’m held back by others, so I think that what you’re doing is very, very valuable.

Thank you, I also really enjoy talking to lots of different people from all these different backgrounds. The last one is for you to leave us with a question for the next guest!

Because I’m all about the diversity aspect, I’d like to ask what they are doing to help onboard marginalised or underrepresented communities. Not what their thoughts are on being an ally, but what are you doing specifically to help onboard them? I’m always curious to know what people are up to.

Alright, I will leave you there then. Thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us so openly!

Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.