The Now Podcast

Over the past year, Nadya Tolokonnikova, co-founder of the Russian punk rock activist collective Pussy Riot, has become an integral part of the NFT ecosystem. A long time critic of Vladimir Putin and major proponent of women’s and LGBTQ rights, she was jailed in 2012 which in turn bolstered her prominence as an artist. In this latest iteration of her career, Tolokonnikova has shifted gears, collec...

In this episode, the nft now founding team taps in to highlight key moments in an unprecedented year for NFTs in 2021, and what’s in store for 2022 and beyond. Join our co-founder & CEO, Matt Medved, our co-founder & president, Alejandro Navia, and co-founder & COO, Sam Hysell as they discuss… - Why was 2021 such an important year for NFTs? - What are some of the top moments that stood...

This week, we welcome Showtime Co-Founder and CEO Alex Masmej to the podcast. An early adopter of social token technology, Masmej has pursued an unconventional path to becoming a leader in web3. Even prior to launching his startup Showtime — which is a social network for crypto media and an endeavor to onboard the masses into web3 — the now 23-year-old creator had found success making his way into...

This week, we welcome Visualize Value Founder Jack Butcher to the podcast. Butcher is a seasoned creative director who has worked with some of the most successful brands in existence. After a decade of working in Fortune 100 advertising, Butcher completely rebuilt his personal brand and business model through productizing himself, and now focuses on educating those that are building in NFTs and we...

This week, we’re excited to welcome Dillon Francis. Dillon Francis is a chart topping electronic musician, record producer and DJ. Throughout 2021 Dillon has been experimenting with clever ways to engage his community and drive growth through NFTs, and in this episode we work through how other musicians can do the same.  In this episode we cover: - Why he feels NFTs are similar to the early d...

This week, we’re excited to welcome Andy Krainak, the president of VeeFriends, Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT project. The collection launched in May 2021, with the goal of providing a blueprint on how to add real value, utility and community to NFTs.  In this episode, we cover: - What VeeFriends is and how it works - The project’s core utility elements - How Krainak plans to keep iterating upon commu...

This week, we’re excited to welcome Richerd Chan, the co-founder of Manifold.xyz, a leading studio that creates blockchain products and custom smart contracts for artists. In October, Richerd made headlines when he displayed his diamond hands and turned down a nearly $10 million offer for his CryptoPunk #6046. “My punk is not for sale,” he tweeted at the time. “Don’t care what anyone offers me.” I...

This week, we’re excited to welcome Bobby Hundreds, an artist and co-founder of popular streetwear brand The Hundreds, which has collaborated with influential NFT projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Larva Labs, the company behind CryptoPunks. The Hundreds launched its own NFT project, Adam Bomb Squad, in August. In this episode, we cover: - How The Hundreds got into NFTs - What Bobby Hundre...

This week, we’re excited to welcome the pseudonymous GMoney, an influential NFT collector who was an early champion of CryptoPunks and has emerged as a respected voice in the space. Recognizable by his signature ape CryptoPunk, GMoney recently launched his own podcast, The Cutting Edge, which focuses on the intersection of culture and crypto. In this episode, we cover: - GMoney’s journey into NFTs...

This week, we’re excited to welcome Donnie Dinch, CEO of Bitski. The NFT platform — which connects communities, creators and brands — made news in May when it announced it had raised $19 million in its Series A funding round, with hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and tennis icon Serena Williams among its investors.  In this episode, we cover: - Bitski’s mission and its play in the metaverse - How Jay-Z an...

This week we’re excited to welcome noted NFT collector 0xb1 and Creative Artists Agency talent agent Tom Capone. The two made news recently when CAA signed the collector with the goal of monetizing 0xb1’s impressive NFT collection — which includes Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats and more — through brand partnerships and licensing opportunities. In this episode, we discuss: - How 0xb1 got into cryp...

In this episode, we’re excited to welcome Tommy Wilson, who pitches in the minor leagues for the New York Mets. Wilson, who currently plays for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, is not only an avid crypto artist on the SuperRare marketplace, but is also one of the first professional athletes to be active in the NFT space. He has also helped introduce fellow baseball players to NFTs, including Mets sta...

In this episode we’re excited to welcome Avery Akkineni, President of VaynerNFT. VaynerNFT, a subsidiary of Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerX, is helping big brands and talent tastefully leverage NFTs to drive community and business growth. Prior to leading VaynerNFT, Avery oversaw Asia-Pacific for VaynerX and has a long-standing track record of helping brands thrive in the digital landscape.  In thi...

Long before Ethereum became ground zero for the current NFT craze, Joe Looney was helping lead a 2016 crypto art revolution on the Bitcoin blockchain. As the founder of Rare Pepe Wallet and co-founder of Rare Pepe Foundation, he developed the first on-chain art exchange that helped Counterparty Protocol’s Rare Pepes trading card series scale into a full-blown crypto cultural phenomenon. In January...

Krista Kim is a contemporary artist and founder of the Techism movement since 2014, promoting the confluence of art and technology, and technological innovation as a medium to further the development of digital humanism. She believes that artists must participate at the forefront of technological innovation in order to contribute to the creation of future culture during this pivotal period of inno...

In this episode we’re honored to have Ronnie K. Pirovino. Ronnie is a widely recognized art collector, curator and appraiser; his pursuits encompass entrepreneurial projects including NFTs. Notably, after his collection grew to prominence, he departed a successful career in digital advertising to focus on his passion for art. Pirovino has partnered with Christie’s on an ongoing series of auction s...

Tom Bilyeu is co-founder and CEO of Impact Theory Studios, a revolutionary digital-first studio that produces wildly entertaining, original content focusing on themes of empowerment. The company has grown 400% in the last two years with over half a billion views on YouTube alone and over one billion social media impressions. Prior to Impact Theory, Tom co-founded billion dollar brand Quest Nutriti...

In this episode we’re honored to have the OneOf founding team. OneOf is a new NFT platform built for the music community to connect fans and collectors at all levels with their favorite artists. To date they’ve raised over $60M and are quickly emerging as a leading platform for music NFTs. We are joined with Lin Dai- CEO, Joshua James-COO, and co-founder Adam Fell. Individual Bios: Lin Dai is the...

In this episode, we welcome Ed Young onto the nft now podcast! Ed Young is the CEO and founder of https://nft.hiphop/ and one of the co-founders of influential hip hop magazine, “The Source”. He recently partnered with https://near.org/ and the Universal Hip Hop Museum (UHHM) to feature 47 hip hop legend NFTs in honor of the 47th year anniversary of the hip-hop era. These 47 NFTs feature musical i...

In this episode, John Crain joins the nft now podcast! John is the Co-founder and CEO of SuperRare, one of the earliest and most acclaimed crypto art NFT platforms that launched in 2018. SuperRare recently announced its 2.0 platform update, including the $RARE curation token, SuperRare Spaces, SuperRare DAO, and sovereign smart contracts initiatives. SuperRare has done over $90 million in volume s...

In this episode we’re honored to have Devin Finzer, the Co-Founder & CEO of OpenSea — the largest secondary marketplace for blockchain-based digital collectibles. As of August 17th, OpenSea already had over $1 billion in NFT transactions in the first half of August alone and has become a go-to destination for NFT enthusiasts. OpenSea recently closed a $100M Series B fundraising round, which va...

In this episode we’re honored to welcome Noah Davis, the NFT guy at Christie’s, and more formally, the major auction house’s AVP Specialist, Head of Digital Sales, Contemporary Art. He’s a futurist and a true NFT lover at heart and has used his role and platform at Christie’s to uplift the industry as a whole. He has been at the helm of the 255-year-old institution’s most notable NFT auctions, inc...

pplpleasr is an artist who first rose to prominence in the crypto space due to her viral animations for popular DeFi protocols like Aave and SushiSwap. Her breakthrough ‘x*y=k’ NFT featured an animation of a Uniswap unicorn adventuring through a symbolic DeFi landscape to the “Ethereum promised land.” The auction caused the spontaneous creation of pleasrDAO, a collective of 23 Ethereum addresses,...

In this episode we’re excited to welcome Jasti. At only 15 years old, he’s one of crypto art’s youngest rising stars. According to cryptoart.io he’s sold more than $220,000 worth of NFT artwork and is helping lead a new generation of digitally native artists and creators into the world of NFTs. He’s collaborated with the likes of Fewocious and has plenty of projects in the works. In this episode w...

Based in Vancouver, FVCKRENDER has emerged as one of the most successful 3D artists in the NFT space. At the time of this recording, he’s ranked #14 on CryptoArt.io with $5.8M in sales and multiple six-figure 1/1 sales, including a recent $107K sale at Sotheby’s ‘Natively Digital’ auction. He’s also collaborated with Zedd on his Nifty Gateway drop and has enthralled fans and collectors with the ex...