This year’s Art Basel was great. Miami turned up in style for nft now and Mana Common’s The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis, a five-day activation of art, performance and panel talks by some of the biggest names in Web3. On Wednesday, we brought you a roundup of some of the highlights from dozens of event talks, showing what the most prominent developers and thought leaders in the ecosystem had to say about the future of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. But to do justice to the many fantastic panels from the week, we’re replaying the rest of the hits: a part two, for you.

FaZe Banks, co-founder of Faze Clan

The co-founder of the Los Angeles-based esports and entertainment organization spoke about the future of Web3 gaming on Wednesday:

“I see a world where if you spend 8 hours a day playing a game, there is a place for you in the Web3 economy to build a place for yourself and a career for yourself.”

Lee Trink, CEO and co-founder of Faze Clan

During the same panel, Faze Clan CEO Lee Trink also offered his thoughts on how blockchain-based gaming can impact the broader NFT ecosystem:

“My hope through Web3 games is that we have a new period of renaissance, one where more artists can support themselves. [by] making his own art.”

Ana María Caballero, co-founder of theVERSEverse

Speaking of the often overlooked category of literary NFTs in the Web3 space, poet Ana María Caballero took the stage with fellow literary artist Sasha Stiles to address how Web3 technology can help change the way the world views writers and poets, enabling them to sustain themselves financially through their work in ways previously thought impossible:

“Even Nobel Prize-winning poets cannot hope to hold [themselves] like poets. There’s always a side run… what we’re doing here [with NFTs] that is to say that poetry has value.”

Frank DeGods, Founder of DeGods

During a panel talk titled “Why Community Is More Than a Buzzword in Web3,” Frank DeGods, Alex Zhang, BLOND:ISH, and Lin Dai discussed how NFT project teams create (or fail to create) value. and meaningful missions for their communities to rally around.

“On any random day, is a project doing anything worthwhile? Is it worth talking? If not, then naturally people are on 10, 15, 20, 30 different projects. What quickly happens is that when they aren’t doing something worth talking about, people are less interested. It’s just the nature of the game. There is an oversupply of NFTs.”

Alex Zhang, Mayor of Friends With Benefits

“I think that great communities, in the beginning, have to start with leaders. Any great community leads by example. It has leaders who step up, whether they are explicitly elected or organically raised up.”

Lin Dai, CEO of OneOf

“Many projects quietly disappeared because they could not meet their [community] promises.”

BLOND:ISH, DJ and Web3 advocate

“The way that I have found a way to bring people into this space is to give them something that they want. They want concert tickets. They want to be behind the scenes. So this is how I get people in the community. Keeping it really simple. You just have to define what is value in your ecosystem and then you can align incentives around that.”

Micah Johnson, creator of Aku Dream

The well-known former professional athlete turned NFT enthusiast and founder of Aku Dreams visited The Dupont Building last Friday to talk about how brands build their image in the digital age. This is what he had to say:

“I fell in love with blockchain technology and how it can innovate in creative media. A photograph now has a completely different meaning than a simple photo on a wall. It is programmable.

“The copy-paste thing, we saw a lot of that in 2021. If you did it, you could make money, so innovation stalled. For the NFT industry to grow, we need to get back to innovation.”

Julie Pacino, filmmaker

Filmmaker Julie Pacino joined JN Silva, Nelson G. Navarrete, and Isabella Montoya for a discussion on the state of cinematic NFTs. A significant portion of the conversation was also devoted to the importance of royalties and how they offer artists valuable opportunities:

“That is what happens with this space that I think some people have confusion, that it is something easy and we appear and we are millionaires suddenly. And it’s not. You still have to show up every day. You have to grind. You have to represent your own work of art and talk about it. These are all things that we like [artists and filmmakers] We’ve been doing this all our lives. But the difference is in [the NFT] the space people are listening.”

“I think [the NFT space] it clicked for me when I understood the power of being able to track who owned your digital asset and it meant being able to connect directly with your collectors and of course the royalties which are extremely important and should never go away.”

“[Royalties] they are important because they give us the means to keep this afloat and to give back to each other, support and encourage each other.”

“[Royalties are] exciting from a collector’s point of view, because if I (the artist) am selling you a work and then I move in a hurry and raise my value, then you are [also] He’s going to benefit from it.”

Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay

Ivan Soto-Wright and MoonPay are on a mission to become a dominant force in the world of Web3 payments. Having recently announced that they will bring WeatherThe company’s current president, Keith Grossman, to help the company in the role of president of Enterprise, Soto-Wright took the stage Thursday to talk about the company’s growth strategy and its role in supporting artists. from Web3:

“We see ourselves building the next American Express.”

“We have to tell the story of the creator. NFTs wouldn’t be where they are today without them. […] We’re looking to elevate those names.”

“I think it’s important for creators to be able to enforce their royalties. That’s full stop.

“Right now, we are trying to build a private company that is iconic. […] Obviously, there’s a lot of maturity that we need to do within MoonPay. […] We’re going to do what’s right for the company. We are going to focus on growth. […] maybe when the time is right [we’ll IPO].”

RTFKT Co-Founder Steven Vasilev

RTFKT co-founders Chris Le and Steven Vasilev gave audience members a sneak peek at their upcoming Cryptokicks line of smart footwear featuring Farokh on Thursday. Here’s what the two had to say about the launch:

“It’s basically RTFKT’s smartwatch in a sneaker,” Vasilev explained to the room. “In terms of functionality, they have accelerometers, automatic lacing and lighting. They have everything you can imagine a shoe can have in terms of haptics and vibration.”

“These are the first Web3 shoes that merge the digital and physical worlds.”

Chris Le, co-founder of RTFKT

“This is the storytelling phase of RTFKT. It’s probably an exaggeration, but I really think we’re going to crush the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. We’re going deep and we have really great story writers. We’re making sure all the plot holes are filled because we’re trying to set the tone and setting for our community to jump in and add to the story.”