Scaling Sorare's NFT Platform with CEO & Co-Founder, Nicolas Julia

Transcript

foreign bankless Nation Happy State of the nation this is an episode where David do I a deep dive on a topic that's been making headlines recently David I feel like we are on a Redemption ARC today because uh we are notoriously not into sports at least we haven't provided good sports coverage on bankless in the past uh but today we are talking all about sports and the blockchain sports and crypto I can get behind so I at least I can get behind fifty percent of this but we know there are a ton of sports fans in the bankless community how do we know because you've pointed out our mistakes and you've told us this is an episode on

the future of on-chain sports with I think an organization and a project that is doing more in crypto Sports uh than anyone else uh these are the folks behind so rare they started with with football uh in the EU and there'd be soccer for for us Americans and have since expanded this is recent news to the NBA this is a recent announcement from them also to Major League Baseball so David what are we going to be talking about today I think this is going to be part of the overarching story also timely with the whole Reddit um phenomenon where I read it put like the nfts into 3 million people's hands how did they do that and so it's a story I think of ethereum of blockchains layer twos nfts finding their ways into

communities that are like outside of crypto Twitter outside of just like these deep nft d-gen communities and are more mainstream right sports are mainstream and so rare unquestionably has discovered product Market fit at the intersection of sports and crypto which seems like you know a cursory glance a weird intersection right Sports crypto what does this have to do with each other uh and so we're going to answer this question as to why so rare has found product Market fit here in the intersection of the Nerds and the jocks if you will and like what it really takes what's the secret sauce Behind these things and what lessons can we pull away from the product Market fit that so rare has seen we usually do disclosures at this point in the episode

disclosure there are no disclosures David nor myself own any Equity or tokens in a so rare cars I don't even know own a server fancy card there's a there's a sad story behind that in that um I I was actually offered the opportunity to be an angel investor and so rare and guess what I turned it down because I didn't know enough about sports so my uh Sports you know lack of knowledge ignorance has hurt me a lot over the years apparently as well David before we get into this episode let's give a shout out to our friends and sponsors over at push this is a super neat protocol it gives you on-chain

notifications David I'm showing the interface what sort of things can you use push for just to get notified of stuff going on on ethereum on the world of the metaverse whatever that may be is your ens name expiring soon oh well you gotta go you gotta go fix that like oh is your Vault about to be liquidated oh you should go go fix that but Ryan like I know I know because you're you know a normal person well you actually do an AI but uh the first thing you do I bet when you wake up in the morning is you check your phone and if you want events that are going on in crypto to show up on your phone you need push whether you are a consumer of those notifications or you are actually an application pushing these notifications out to your users either way you need push there is a link

in the show notes to go get started getting notified about events in the metaverse that's really cool I mean earnify gives you the ability to get notified for airdrop opportunities you might be eligible for that's just one of them Ryan is leaking some Alpha here you can just you could just sign up for all of these anyway opt into these there's a link in the show notes all right David what should people look out for in this episode I know this is partially a story about product Market fit and crypto but I also feel like there's a layer two story behind uh so rare what uh what are some of the things people should be on the lookout for yeah so I want to ask uh Nicholas about just the usability in ux and how like in the world if you go on to Reddit right now and you go like I

like nfts you get 10 000 downvotes so I want to I want to learn about like how the word and nft in crypto has been accepted by this community that is seemingly outside of the crypto Community how far outside the crypto Community is it and what is the secret sauce behind why product Market fit has happened has been seen at sober and what can we what lessons can we learn to apply that to other fields so like there's one there's one part a layer two conversation there's one part in nft conversation there's one part a gamification uh uh part because that is what sober is it is fantasy it's a fantasy game built on top of actual real Sports and so how did all of these things come together and how can we leverage these the secret sauce to to

apply to other projects out in the crypto space so that's the thing to pay attention to right definitely a lot of lessons for us here guys we'll be right back with Nicholas Julia who is the co-founder and CEO of so rare but before we do we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible arbitrim1 is pioneering the world of secure ethereum scalability and is continuing to accelerate the web 3 landscape hundreds of projects have already deployed on Arboretum one producing flourishing defy and nft ecosystems with a recent edition of arbitrum Nova gaming and social adapts like Reddit are also now calling arbitrim home both arbitrim1 and Nova leverage the security and decentralized of ethereum and provide a builder experience that's intuitive familiar and

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development environment go beyond the limitations of the evm if you want to learn more there's a link in the show notes to see how you can get involved with a fuel Network all right guys we are back with Nicholas Julia he's the co-founder and CEO of so rare they are building the next generation of sports games where fans can play with skin in the game this is a mix of fantasy sports and also nft Collectibles sort of tokenized cards that you can actually own Nicholas welcome bankless how you doing man thank you thank you Ryan for having me very excited to have this chat with you today me too do you know it was uh you tweeted this out right before and this was a memrad for forgotten this email right before we started this is an email that you sent me I think like is it four

years ago now yeah and this is when you first started getting into nfts this was an email you sent me you said hey Ryan I just read your Tweet storm about nfts this was back in 2018 and I guess I was tweeting about nfts yeah um we had we're just kind of conceptualizing them I feel like as an industry and you said you're excited uh about it at the debate to determine which underlying protocol is going to win the nft war remember this era of crypto where we thought a single protocol would win the NFC war huh yeah yeah and then you said you're fully dedicated to crypto you had some ideas on it uh and my how far you and so rare have come since then um can you just take us through the last

four years of what you've built and what's so rare has accomplished maybe some of the stats and tickets from this conversation all the way so rare today no of course I mean when I was you know like uh starting to look at nfts or early 18 and end of 1798 and I was sorry I was fascinated by them the fact that they're gonna bring digital property to the web and you know I I I was I I I was I keep on digging digging and I was uh looking at this cool feature on which is digital scarcity and what it could bring to collectors and uh you know human beings have been collecting in the in the physical space for centuries and uh

I was convinced that this behavior is going to apply to the to the web I'm a massive sports fan so I was dreaming to bring all the accessories and teams and leagues on top of it and you know like develop officially licensed nft guns representing the players the teams that we love and um look I was convinced that Justice would be 10 times bigger than physical collection because it's it's you know you have approvals constitute for ownership uh it's easier to trade it's easier to show to your community there's many many reasons why I was thinking about that but uh I I was also thinking that for for that to be huge really mainstream and reach hundreds of millions of fans across the globe we

would need to bring a usage value that is beyond collecting right so that's one of the fantasy game or the game uh uh pillow is coming from having away a cool way for fans every day every week to engage with the car so we got started at this intersection of you know this emerging technology nfts official Like official Partnerships with the top IP no other sports and then gaming uh so got started with uh with Socom as you said uh and uh and uh you know now we have like more than two million two million new zones and close to 2 million users yeah half a million active uh on a monthly basis so that's wow that has been a strong start I would say yeah can

I can I ask by the way because um uh are they still active like have they felt this like bear Market at all yeah user base so how does that how does that look these days versus like a year ago when the crypto Market was booming no I think I think that if you look even at crypto Islam or any nft tracker right you would find that uh um you know at uh before the beam Market we want like in terms of sales volume like we want somewhere between the 15th and 20th position with all the profile big nfts being you know talking is this list I think if you look at the last week uh if you are not at the top uh so that's today I think that we are looking if you got the top you can you can a bit we are above above that uh yeah higher

if you look at seven days we are we are the top uh and uh and I think that speaks to the fact that uh we we kept on uh we kept on growing during this Beyond Market uh if you look at all the metrics like a new user sales and and so on so uh that's I think that's encouraging uh and uh that that speaks to the fact that uh when you when you do something uh Beyond collection Beyond trading uh I I think you you you are more resilient uh because people have fun people Express their passion their Identity or sports fans and and and and and they you know they they keep on using and playing with the guns uh they speed the fact that the markets are going on so I just want for

folks that are listening to this maybe can't see we are on a website called cryptoslam that is tracking uh nft collections by various metrics and in terms of sales in terms of transactions and this is so rare on a seven week uh or seven day period of time leading the pack in terms of sales volume yeah sales volume nine million in sales volume but also completely dominated on unique number of transactions coming in at 154 000 transactions over the last seven days in comparison to board Apes coming in at 78. yeah gauzen chained also kind of in a similar category versus a collectible that I would say a similar category versus us over air 177

000 transactions and then down to crypto punks where you see 44. so you can really see the division of the categories here yeah I I was I think like one important one like one important Point here is that this uh this is only tracking our secondary transactions uh and so that this uh there's a significant volume of transactions uh and sales that is coming from the primary Market the the cons that we sell for the first time as well uh and that that's also only tracking the the paying you zones that are engaging with nfcs uh but we we are we have a significant number of users that are engaging with the free to play game uh and engaging with the fantasy uh this this way what I think is really neat here is because

um you uh software has not suffered uh a decline in the way that board Apes has or even crypto punks have because this is sort of a a real world fan base that is not as tied to like crypto speculative markets and so we talk so often about in in crypto about uh real world use cases you know that like normies would have actually use well this is one of them guys like people who are into sports which is basically everyone that you know like you know is into some uh sport right all of the normal people that you know so even your favorite podcast co-hosts well but you know what it's the only reason David and

I were like uh David used to be who'd you say like you're you're a big sports fan like oh yeah man like Seattle Mariners been 1999 to 2001 2002 yeah so I grew up in Canada in the Toronto area huge trauma police fan I used to follow it like like my entire childhood up until like uh you know I was out of college and such and I just haven't had time lately because like crypto is kind of dominating my life so anyway tons of sports fans real world use case uh and it does well even when crypto prices are down this is quite a testament and look at those transactions right we'll have other questions about how are you actually scaling this but I just want to uh folks to see kind of the volume and the level that's going on in the nft

world and all of this has happening kind of behind the scenes quietly yeah and Nicholas so I want to parse out two or three things that I think that you definitely noticed very very early things like that you picked out earlier than than most other people and that was uh nfts into 2018 nfts were a theory not practice uh and then but also scale and I'm pretty sure uh so rare started off understanding that yo the ethereum layer one is not going to do it for us and then also extra crypto communities and so you've kind of slammed these three particles together nfts uh a English a community that's outside of crypto calls

the Sports World the sports community and nfts and maybe there are some other things as well but I really think that's what some of the secret sauce is behind so rare success is that it identified these three things and the potential here way ahead of schedule back in 2018 2019. what about those three things were obvious to you like what did it did it feel obvious at the time or just can go through the thought process as to kind of how you put all these things together yeah I think I think from the very first day I was like because I remember in 17 18 like uh the very small NFC Community was there was a debate was oh we should you know like uh simplify the user experience or keep this clunky

experience of you know like sitting setting up a wallet and like this I don't know if between 15 and 20 steps before you can buy a crypto plan right and and so part of the community was thinking this is education like when the users need to go through it it's a feature not to Burger all of that and I was like no I think uh I think you know if you want to really like uh reach like Millions dozens of millions of users we need we need we need to abstract the complexity and deliver the benefits of nft collective bonds to to the mainstream and so and and so the benefits for us you know in our case or like the digital sponsors or the collectibility uh due to ownership the fact that you can you know sell your account freely the fact that you can

move it to other games and outside of the platform and so on so people need to fans need to feel it you know and and and and not go you know for different steps or to a q a to understand this like they need to feel it through designs through the user experience through copywriting whatever but but really feel it right so so that that has been like very important in the way we architect it and build um the the products and and then like our conviction was uh baked in the fact that we are answering like uh uh human needs that are like very very deep right like uh uh expressing who you are your identity for us cross fan like it's it's

collecting plays a big role uh and nfts are enabling Digital Collection right so we were like in into this track uh we were also into the track of like uh um you know like kind of uniting sports funds or or enabling fans to connect and obviously connecting is also something that is very important for us as as human beings and and so enabling there's there's funds to play against each other uh with the bragging rights that come with it to meet uh more people also was something that that was that was very very important to us so um so so yeah we we were like very convincible like the the the huge potential uh uh at this intersection of

collecting and uh and playing with your friends basically uh and and for us nfts just happened to be the perfect technology uh to uh to unlock this potential uh and uh you know the market feed was such uh you know such abuse that we haven't you know like made any bad marketing so far like we haven't spent money on marketing so everything that happened so far um has been organic like with the referral program and so on around the world cup so in a couple of weeks we're going to do a fast marketing campaign actually uh so so we're gonna start you know putting the brand out down in the US notably well I think there's this uh you know tremendous

potential for us uh and so um and so no I believe that the product is getting closer you know to the to the to the state I wanted to be in to start like uh you know spreading the world uh and uh and yeah there's still like some steps to remove the frictions that I like us to do but we are getting close on to to you know to to show this product to Big audiences so for the bank list listeners that aren't actually familiar what so rare actually is uh like what you do with these nfts it's kind of like a it's a fantasy game where you have these nfts that represent real players the football players that soccer for the American people uh baseball players basketball players kind of like kind of like a

baseball card kind of like a basketball card um yeah and then there's points that if the the player in real life in a real game does something uh in their game that will be that would score points for people that have these cards that have selected these cards to be in that fantasy game for that week or something uh and so uh the idea is you collect the cards they have a real link with a real player that player scores points in the real life the points are scored in the fantasy game be and you can only get those points if you have the card that Associates with the player uh Nicholas how much overlap is there between crypto people like me and Ryan who don't know who uh Raphael Federer doll is or whatever the tennis players and the

people that are on so rare like all right to what degree are these crypto people or are these just mainly like sports players how much overlap is there between these two communities so yeah we you know like as for any like uh consumer product that aims to to reach like a very very big audiences like you you start with an early community of early adult dance so for us it was crypto enthusiasts with an interest of sports and even nft enthusiastic in the early days with an interest in sports so let me tell you it was very like a couple of hundreds and a couple of thousand people like very limited uh segments uh and then like we grew to people uh you know with with an interest in sports and uh spending money

uh in in games uh where they they could have like skin in the game right uh and know we are exchanging to a new user segment so people um uh playing fantasy sports uh free to play fantasy sports notably and also collecting in the physical world so we are moving from Sigma to segment and make and you know evolving the product to cut down to this to this to these new segments uh and uh and right now most of the users that are jumping in they don't even know you know that there's a lot option behind and you know it is it's an NFC all of that uh they you know they don't they don't know about that right so they but they understand the benefits they get it and and at some point in their Journey they understand uh what it is and most of the time they change

their mind by the way uh about about nfcs because the perception of energy is in sports right now in Europe in particular it's not that good right like because you know like during the bull market we've seen so many like um you know like cash grabs and and so on that you know it kind of uh undermined the perception of the of the fans um and hopefully we we are trying to do things the right way anyhow um and and build uh the best product for for the fans and I think so yeah the way the product wants is you you put it very very well like it's it's a mix between uh collection and playing fantasy so you would you know collect and ft guns representing the playoffs that you love uh and you know some player some people

just engage with that part right I just collection and all those uh you know like uh then they are composing a team uh with uh with displayers and engaging with the fantasy game where they can progress and win rewards uh and and so yeah that there's already the two pillars uh and so yeah put it another way I would I would um I would I would present it as you know uh collect like collecting uh on steroids like the uh owning this officially licensed nfts uh open uh a new world of things that you can do so engaging with the fantasy game and winning rewards uh but also accessing physical experiences so we were starting to reiterate and okay you

own this nft you can go to this game you can meet display on you can access this training ground uh so all these things that we are doing in collaboration with our panels uh all the top uh you know sponsors in the world uh and uh and athletes like we have uh Serena Williams as a board advisor uh as a you know investor an ambassador and and in the basketball world and many others that we're going to announce in the coming months so so this this bridge between the digital and the physical is also something that we are very excited about and so what role does money play here because we're looking at everyone's screen as he's navigating and you can buy these cards one card you can buy for four dollars and 44 cents another card

you could buy for 213 dollars like when people hear nfts they kind of think you know speculative asset Collectibles that go up and down are price what role does speculation play in owning some of these cards and also like can you as a player of so rare NBA so rare MLB so rare rare football can you like make money playing this game is that like a core part of it or is the money more of an afterthought yeah I think uh like uh another way to think about the product is like in the physical world like when you think about like an NBA team for instance like you have different roles that you can play uh you you could be a team owner right uh making decisions on what players to

buy you can be a sport director trying to find the next star and Scout for the next time you can be a coach like thinking about what players to put on the chords uh for the next game and you can be a player obviously and I think what's amazing with this product with with surround here uh because we're talking about this is that you can play all those roles like there's four runs like team like oh no making decisions on what to buy uh and uh being a sports director or Scout being a coach being a player you play all the roles and so and so that's amazing to get back to your question I think that there's different motivations uh for different people uh on the product like people engaging only with the collecting part people are engaging only with the trading part

people engaging on you with the fantasy parts so there's all different motivations uh and uh and uh yes uh some people are making uh money by reselling a car like they would do in a physical world with top scouts or planning accounts or any collectible right uh but uh but but I did score it's is a new way to engage with uh with the passion right like and to express who you are to be with your friends to meet your friends and and that's I think what's uh what's really exciting Nicholas um I'm just kind of scrolling through this uh the seizure interface here and I think you said it early is um did I catch you right and a lot of users don't even know that they're using nfts basically or that's not what's material

you know to them the nft itself like the uh what's impressing me most as I'm scanning through this interface is like it doesn't feel like a blockchain it feels very much like a web 2 app and yet there are so many things that like I'd recognize like oh the ability to kind of transfer Fiat from moonpay or ramp um the ability to add if my wallet and I can bid on each of these players and I can bid directly from my credit card or in eth right like all of this feels so familiar to a crypto native but also um like the user experience here is like there's a wallet behind the scenes here but it's just it's not clunky there you don't even it doesn't feel

um like all of the the crypto interfaces that that I think crypto natives have experienced in the past um can you talk a little bit about this like so uh this had to be hard making this making this happen and smoothing out all of these these rough edges um how did you get to this point look you know it has been like uh first of all as a as a as I said it has been like one of the key principles that uh I I give as a product direction to the gym like me like obstructing all these complex City so that we can deliver the benefits to the to the funds I think that's the the first uh the first thing to say I think we went through phases I I don't know if you remember Loom

network uh I do I remember so I think I remember you came back um yeah well it's a 2018 2019 you're like Hey we're not sure how to scale this thing I'm looking at Loom and at the time this was like plasma Layer Two was the promise yeah tell me where that ended up yeah I know so so no long story short like uh it has been painful right because we moved from uh layer one to lay onto we've learned to layer one again uh because Loom disappeared at some point and then again moving up uh to lay on two with uh with Stockwell uh and uh and we but always with this go on to abstract uh the the complexity and uh you know have something that is secure

uh that is capable obviously um and uh and uh and so yeah we went through different phases no we are we are happy with um with the outcome that we are we still have you know like some steps to to go to really like uh reach the agencies we want to reach uh mobile is an issue uh so uh we we have good conversations uh you know with Google with apple because right now you you know the problem better than I do but it's it's not possible to sell this digital Collectibles uh on the Upson uh and I've seen like uh recent news like uh on you know like uh terms on the App Store you know it's it's not really like NFC friendly right now so uh that's that's uh there's still some you know

some conversations so to be to be had and and some uh and some progress uh that we we should all do for the space I guess yeah seeing where this app has come just excites me so much because I think um you know so many critics particularly of crypto but then in nfts they're always asking so where are the use cases when is this going to go mainstream right and here's a perfect example of uh so rare which is scales of real world use case I mean this is not using uh like Ponzi economics in order to scale can you imagine it's it's just real demand from Sports enthusiasts for recognizable real world assets and they built it uh well um you know doing doing

so within the kind of the constraints of of crypto uh but like smoothing out all of the rough edges from a ux perspective and I know there's still work you you want to do there so you're probably seeing some of the imperfections but I'm seeing like how far we have come uh and like this being a use case it doesn't use Ponzi economics smoothed out all of the rough edges and it's actually like scaling on Layer Two so this is these are real nfts secured by ethereum and and and settled at the base layer that is pretty damn impressive and honestly I think that um probably the so rare team um does this use case doesn't get enough credit in crypto circles uh it's kind of sports we're like oh yeah I forgot about

sports I I just think that's part of it part of it and bond of like we are we are you know we're reaching a community that is well you know like uh they're very different from crypto Twitter for instance and but they agree ran with with your point uh like we we like when you look at crypto Twitter like this uh we are not really prison there that's that's that's yeah yeah it's it's so great to see and actually this is probably going to be one of my favorite kind of real world use cases next time is Skeptics like what is that what do nfts actually accomplish from people one last question I have for you and then uh we do need to uh break and come back we got a lot more to cover but how in the world did you get organizations like the

NBA the MLB and some of the original football organizations uh in Europe to sign on to this project get that licensing set up because that's another feat of magic Wow you actually got like like licensing rights from some of these major organizations and I guess as particularly the early ones they took a bet on a startup doing this weird crypto nft thing how did that happen yeah I mean that that has been like uh yeah like like that that has been very long um very long process with lots of uh education and efforts uh because you know you you have seen probably like uh lots of Partnerships between crypto companies and spawn sticks uh and so you have this partnership category where you

know you use uh sponsorships and leagues to bring awareness to your crypto product but what we are doing is different uh we're gonna have some marketing and we're gonna start using it and with the leagues and the teams but at its core it's licensing using the IP meaning the players uh and the the name of the teams and the league to sell products so you have the IP on the products and their IP is is in the the the biggest asset that they have so they are very conservative and what we've done in football like bringing all the streams and links together there's probably two companies that have done it in the last 60 years uh Panini in the world of physical collecting and electronic arms with the FIFA franchise the video game right so it's not every

year or even every decade that uh you know there's organizations decide to partner with company like us uh and and give their IP um so so uh so so in in order to get down we like our strategy has been to start uh small and through the model so we started with the Belgian league and then adding like little by little league so the clubs and proving that you know it was it was the future of sports gaming uh it was walking you know it was it was a legitimate use case and it was engaging sports fans in a sustainable way um and uh also proving them that we are building uh you know like a world-class uh consumer experience right and because

because they care so much about their IP they care about the quality of the experience and so this is something that we spend lots of effort also and so then we we you know we move to this place uh in football with you know millions of users and lots of Engagement and uh uh you know like uh huge sales volumes and so on and so leading creating these new category these new markets uh we we were in the best position to convince then U.S leagues uh to jump in with us like being the category Creator uh so they believe that we are the best blast uh the best position sorry uh to you know to to develop this category for them um and um not only to be a newborn

stream uh and they are interested in this of course but also help them to reach new audiences so Renault like the the MLB the India are very excited about the potential that we have to to grow the sport with them uh in Europe in Asia and in geographies for they want to develop outside of the US basically right so uh so it's very exciting because we're going to Purdue pie for everyone we're gonna help the football the soccer teams and leagues to grow in the US with the IP that we've applied here and we and the other way around we're going to help us take to grow uh in other parts of the world uh with this Vision that you know this is going to be uh the marketplace where you're going to be able to trade your

LeBron James against your Killian mbappe or the original Macy right uh I think this is something that's very unique that we are doing well you know it's it's one product right and so with one wallet with one new when it comes you can play different games different spawns and move across them and I think that's that's pretty amazing so you want to collect all the sports then NBA yeah MLB soccer football that's kind of the start but there are a few other sports to collect yeah we're interested in all the top spots in the world with global audiences um and so yes we have two of the three major U.S bonds we have football uh with billions of funds across the globe and

that's a very nice sauce and we are like let's have focused on delivering for this response right now uh but obviously like we we will look uh to expand at some points in the future yeah amazing yeah Nicholas I think uh it's unquestionably that so rare kind of knows what's up uh and so as somebody that has uh taken a product into product Market fit uh and now is in a post product Market fit world that makes you like one of the few right and so I want to pick your brain a little bit in the second half of the show about like just advice and perspective that that we could give other peoples who are also still on this path of maybe they're working in nfts making their maybe they're working on mainstream apps uh

just as somebody who's gone through the Dark Forest of building a product for non-crypto people and that product be successful I just want to pick your brain a little bit about how any advice that you might have for the people still working towards the past so all those questions and more coming up in the second half of the show right after we talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible sequence is the all-in-one developer platform you need to build web 3 games and applications for your users sequence is a smart wallet and it's the easiest most intuitive onboarding your users will ever experience and comes with all the features users need to feel empowered in the web 3 world multi-chain support nft display and users can buy sfts nfts and crypto directly with a credit or debit card for developers sequence is the Plug

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opportunities and portfolio tooling explore the diverse Financial opportunities available on truefly or launch your own portfolio at trufi dot IO and we're back with Nicholas from so rare Nicholas like I was saying before the sponsors I want to pick your brain a little bit and just like give some advice to the bankless nation but but first what's next for so rare what's on the horizon uh it's a bear market now uh so what are you guys doing during the bear market and overall can you just like kind of tease like what's next on the frontiers of silver no look uh you know it's going to be interesting because during the bull market we have been quite quiet on on marketing uh as I was saying earlier and um and uh we you know we we know we're gonna we're gonna start I know uh Around the World Cup in

a couple of weeks um marketing aggressively the product and uh I'm very excited to see to see this results so the World Cup in itself is uh is the biggest sport event in the world right so there's gonna be lots of attention that's bigger than the Super Bowl for all you Americans like it's a lot bigger than the Super Bowl right let's begin I think yeah yeah exactly uh so you're gonna you're gonna start marketing like silver has not gone and started marketing you're going to start marketing at the World Cup of football soccer globe's most viewed sports event that's when you're going to start that's good it's coming it's coming so no I'm very excited it's going to be our first brand

campaign so we have lots of initiative around that so I'm very excited by that um so it's not only marketing it's also product Evolutions to get on to broader audiences uh so I cannot forget everything it's gonna come in coming days but social features collectible features you know Renault our product is really around fantasy uh and uh and uh we we you know we have a lot to do to improve the collectibility of this course and to improve the the social features uh of the product and so we have like a couple of amazing lunches uh that are lined up for the for the World Cup in the coming weeks so so I think that's number one in what's next um obviously number two is uh growing

aggressively our U.S sports that we we've just launched so we you know we are very excited like the early results are amazing and there's there's much much more uh we can we can do for them so uh we're gonna keep keep on like uh growing growing those products and listening to the community and improving the product every week as we've done with um we've still got in the in the early days so I think I think that's uh that's number two and uh yeah number two is in number three is keep on growing the gym right like it's a 160 people right now uh split between Paris and New York uh and so yeah we we brought amazing people like uh people leading design at Spotify engineering at snap like we have really like amazing leaders

uh uh like uh with us right now uh people that that have seen scale uh with web 2 companies right and that are uh bringing this knowledge uh to to us and uh you know I I want to stay true to our uh crypto DNA uh but at the same time benefit from like uh you know like people that have seen scale uh in in the in the previous wave of uh of tech companies and and this is something I'm very excited I've spent a lot of time having the best talents uh and um onboarding them and um and yeah that that's something I'm spending I'm very excited about it oh yeah so Nicholas this is so cool and I feel like there's an element to you whichever which I

really like is that that's just very understated for the amount of progress that you guys have made like it's just absolutely incredible um and um so so we're at you know 1.5 million or so um users of so rare today and I I was wondering and this is before you've actually turned on kind of the the marketing engine it's a crazy done it's called cup before you've done all of these things can you give us a sense for the uh the total addressable market for like uh sports fans like so how big is sports but let's say like I mean like the World Cup alone I mean how many how many football fans do we have and I'm talking about European football when I say football right and so like what is

like do you see a world where maybe 10 of the sports uh communities are kind of actively have some sort of you know so rare type of collectible and what kind of numbers are we seeing yeah you guys are maximally successful here no I think it's uh it's an interesting question um so like football fans there's billions of football fans so then it depends on you know like what's really fun and like do you are we chatting someone engaging like you know like once a month a week yeah but there's billions of people in in the world who declare interests uh for for football and they Club themselves as fans I think uh I think that uh when you think about the most

popular uh games uh in the in the world of soccer uh we are talking a couple dozen million uh people that are engaging with uh the product my aim uh is that we reach hundreds of millions of people with this product and I'm gonna tell you why I'm very convinced that we're going to we are going to do this um the first reason is that it's much easier uh to engage with this game than a video game you don't have to buy your PlayStation and to install a game and and to learn like how to play the game all of that is much easier right like it's a casual game yeah it's casual you buy your car you compose your team like even you know you you can engage you know we within 25 like 30 seconds you

can get the basics right so so I think that's reason number one is easy to access easier to understand number two uh is that we are tapping into something that like we are tapping into like behaviors that are existing right like uh uh like this need to collect and express your identity this needs uh to connect and socialize with people this need to have fun uh and to connect with your passion so we are tapping into uh there's existing behaviors but with this amazing thing which is owning your game right like owning your assets and be be with the you know the freedom to do whatever you want with it and and and you know when people get it like when people understand that they truly own

part of the game it's it's you know it's the it's crazy they understand that yes you know I can I can resolve this item yes I can move design item into a side game yes I can reuse this item for the next fourth season as opposed to being forced to play again something that I don't own right so so it's really like a shift uh from a world where people were buying stuff and you know in video games they are close to 100 billion dollars spent every single year uh you know from from fans being stuff that they are not owning and that they are forced to Bear again next year right so and I mean and and so when you move from here to a

world where you give control back to your fans to your community whether truly you need they can keep it and so on uh when when this is going to to reach you know broad audiences this is going to be crazy so yeah so speaking of broad audiences Ryan I've got the 2018 FIFA World Cup numbers in front of me and the reason why Ryan you might not know this Ryan but I do know this is that the FIFA World Cup only happens every four years so the last one didn't know that okay [Laughter] we know we got some sports uh so the last FIFA World Cup 2018 uh 3.5 billion people watched at least one minute are you kidding me one minute

that is half of the globe watched at least one minute of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and it's estimated that the the full game was watched by 1.1 billion people viewers worldwide saw the World Cup on a screen for at least a glints uh during 2018. and so yeah I'm looking at this upcoming World Cup uh and so Jenny and fantino who's leading FIFA is projecting 5 billion so he's leading my God five billion people wouldn't have ever heard of a metric like that yeah that's um I mean how many

multiples of the total number of crypto users is that so here's my question so you're saying when you have numbers like 3.5 billion and 5 billion and and you're saying you think that's so rare could get you hundreds of million of users guys what that means Bank list listeners is we're talking about an onboarding mechanism to crypto wallets uh for things priced in Fiat but also priced in eth to hundreds of millions of people okay those cards that were on sale were denominated in eth that we saw on your screen yeah this is a crypto onboarding mechanism and it blows my mind if just to all of the metamask users right now 30 million or so that's what they have in terms of like uh I think like month

monthly actives 30 million right and we're talking about one single app being able to potentially onboard hundreds of millions okay so my next question here uh Nicholas is can we handle that kind of scale right now are we going to go kitty it or do you have a way to like uh make this thing scale look look um CTO would be better place to answer this one uh I think from the latest I've found that uh you know he's very confident obviously the numbers we're discussing right now um you know it's gonna be like and it's going to be phases right like we are very confident for the next uh the next phase of course you know moving from Millions dozens of millions we are very

confident about this um but uh yeah just to touch on uh you know like what you were saying before like this uh unrump uh for mainstream people mainstream fans into uh into the web free world I think this is something that is important to me as a Founder right and so when I was uh when I was starting this company um uh I was thinking about nfts as a way to educate people at some point and to you know to put digital Assets in their hands and at some point they could also like look at other uh cryptocurrencies and so on obviously they are they are they show lots of properties uh with cryptocurrencies through ownership portability all of that uh and and I

think this is this is something I'm very excited about uh and uh I I think it's uh uh yeah it's uh it could be like huge uh for for the space in general so Nicholas uh there's so many reasons I mean in hindsight it makes sense uh Sports billion person fan base uh there's I really liked what you said about you're tapping into behaviors that people already know uh Fantasy games collecting Sports uh money like throwing it all into a single app and again in hindsight it seems to make sense why so rare has done what it's done what do you have any generalizable lessons for other people nft Builders defy app Builders like what lessons have you learned that

are perhaps less so rare specific and more Timeless and Universal that we can all anything just really stand out to you like what life advice do you have to give us as crypto people no yeah I think um I think what what we've done in terms of um uh in the in terms of like testing into reaching is that like Prof we a couple of values or principles um listen to to your core Community uh and uh on a weekly basis uh prioritize and move fast to improve the product uh uh and and ship it with uh what they want I think I think the velocity is really key uh uh like to to make your product evolve and more importantly to

learn what's working what's not working right uh and uh it's better to have something that is shipped that something that may be better in a couple of weeks right so I think that that that was that that that's that's like something that that has been very very important for us um and um uh I I think uh yeah probably like uh uh like another one has been to focus on the right uh metric and to be very deliberate about what you are optimizing for uh for a very very long time we we've never and instill a case actually we we are not optimizing for revenue for instance right we are I mean we are lucky to have been profitable

since the very early days we raised six 680 million dollars series B uh but since the very early days we were focusing on how do we retain the users how do we engage the usones uh and and this kind of this kind of metrics while we're driving uh our earphones uh more than short-term uh things that are maybe pleasing the investors uh our bond short-term but our hearts in the company longer time one example that I want to give we would have done an ICU and have our own token or whatever but that was not a line with the goals of you know like uh deleting the U zones retaining the users all of that and I was thinking

that would that could be um that could haunt us in our way to reach hundreds of millions of few songs and so uh because of uh you know all the risks that we all know about about this and so uh so so so so yeah that that's another important listen I think well I've been uh observing Nicholas so where from afar from the the stuff yeah I would love to have been closer retrospectively but like I I can I can I can't say enough about um what you guys have built and something I think that the crypto Community can take away from what you just said is um you guys didn't take any shortcuts you just built a fantastic product for your community you

had a vision and you executed execution execution execution this is the common denominator that we see in successful um crypto projects that are able to last from cycle to cycle and uh congrats for to you guys for doing it Nicholas thank you so much for joining us I have one last question for you and this is a question related to uh the nft market I don't know if you uh if you kind of dabble or look in kind of The Wider uh crypto nft Market or if you're just so heads down focused on what so rare is doing kind of the you know the fantasy sports in the sports team that you haven't looked but what do you think of the current nft market in in crypto you know the board Apes the crypto punks all

the gaming nfts all of the stuff that's going on do you have any thoughts on are there any projects that you really like do you have any wisdom to leave us with no Luke I think uh during this bull market we've seen lots of projects that were focused on extracting value on the short term uh and that you know that that that thing cuts the overall space um I think that uh that there's lots of building all done with uh you know like a a long-term Vision uh I'm sure we we like lots of you have seen like what Vegeta has been doing with the digital Collectibles as they call it recently I think that's uh you know that's that's that's that's that's a good way to again

show the benefits of owning an nft without you know like uh um having to explain or educate or like you know users just Fitbit right and I think that these are the these are the projects that uh I'm really excited about uh and I'm not I'm not you know I I'm not like um I think Forest usage value and uh building a game has been like uh you know a key to our success and uh I think that's amazing because then you read the news on then you bring them every week and so on but I also think that this amazing use case is uh just around collection and art and all of that and so I I I hope to see more of them as well uh and uh and I hope to

keep on seeing more and more artists uh you know like uh developing the audiences and uh and diversifying the way they they make a living right so uh so so so so yes that's uh yeah I don't have any specifics I I don't spend uh like uh the time I I would love to spend like uh uh looking at at a new uh new projects but uh but I think what they see is that there's lots of buildings in gaming in particular uh you know like world-class people coming from the video game industry notably that that are quietly like building the future of this space um and uh it takes time because we're doing a good game takes time but uh but it's coming

absolutely it is coming all boats rise together Nicholas uh keep building man it's great to have you thank you so much risks and disclaimers guys as always gotta mention none of this has been Financial advice hasn't been Sports advice either David and I are not in a position to give either of those two things never do uh so our nfts so is crypto all of Defy is you could definitely lose what you put in but at least you can own it at least you can own your own Collectibles we're headed west this is the frontier it's not for everyone but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey thanks a lot foreign