What are those people who spend millions on "pictures" thinking?

Whether you pay attention to the cryptocurrency industry or not, everyone must have heard about the millions of dollars in an NFT image. The NFT pictures that were originally hyped in the encryption circle reached their climax at the end of August. The top NBA star Curry spent 180,000 US dollars to buy a picture of a monkey, and showed his new Twitter avatar to tens of millions of fans around the world, directly detonating the Internet. The avatar quickly spread to the entire Internet, and monkey avatars can be seen everywhere on Douyin, Weibo, and Station B.

For most ordinary investors, or people outside the industry, the story of NFT seems A bit abrupt, while everyone is still immersed in DeFi applications, NFT seems to have transformed into a brand new concept and gameplay. Why are people willing to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for these seemingly "average" pictures?

As a "long-term bitcoin holder" and "industry leader", Shenyu certainly participated in this Shenyu participated in the whole wave of NFT, from encrypted artwork to NFT avatars, to the new paradigm NFT LOOT.

At 19:00 on the evening of September 6, Rhythm BlockBeats invited Shenyu to participate in the "first show" in the metaverse world "Artistic Life", enjoy the world of Cryptovoxels with Shenyu. Appreciate Shenyu's favorite collections in the Metaverse Pavilion, and at the same time, chat with Shenyu about what stories NFT is telling now.

 

I believe that Shenyu’s thoughts on the current avatars and Loot products, as well as its outlook on the metaverse track, will give readers They bring new perspectives of thinking.

Replay of the "First Artistic Life" event in Shenyu Yuanyu World

 

Rhythm organized this interview.

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Rhythm BlockBeats : Welcome everyone, there are a lot of people in CV today. I am very glad that Shenyu took us to visit his collection today, and we will also have a relaxing conversation with Shenyu while watching and chatting.

Recently, Shenyu has also participated in the NFT field and has become a collector of many famous NFT works. With the entry of many sports and entertainment stars such as Curry, NFT is no longer just a hot spot in the encryption field. Today we invite Shenyu to talk about our views on NFT. Please say hello to everyone first.

 

Shenyu: Good evening everyone, I’m very glad to be able to communicate with you on the CV and talk about the Metaverse and NFT thing.

Rhythm BlockBeats: Shenyu is no stranger to users in the encrypted world. In our opinion, Shenyu has many labels, " "Mine pool leader", "Bitcoin long-term holder", "DeFi mining giant whale", "Cobo wallet founder", etc., but these are all external comments. How do you define yourself, Shenyu? Which label do you think is most suitable for you?

 

Shenyu: You may have labeled me a lot based on many things or historical events. I have been in the industry for more than 10 years, and I think it may be more appropriate for me to describe myself as an observer of the development direction of the industry along the way.

 

I have been observing that the financial industry initially focused on the entire blockchain or the entire digital currency technology. I am full of interest in the future development, and I had a lot of discussions with many friends in the early days. In 2012 and 2013, we had a lot of great ideas. These ideas have been realized to varying degrees in the past 10 years, so basically every time there is a paradigm shift in the industry or a major inflection point event in the industry, I will basically observe the development and development of the entire industry from a relatively cutting-edge position. The direction of future trends.

 

So I think this label may be more accurate, because if you look at it purely from the perspective of events, you may have done Many things, or some products have been made, and then it may be more of a discrete point, but if it is connected from this perspective, it may be a continuous thing.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: You just mentioned a new label, the leader or frontier observer when the industry situation changes. That is to say, you will not miss a hot spot or trend. The recent NFT is definitely a hot spot in the industry. Then how did you pay attention to this field?

 

Shenyu: In fact, the concept of NFT has appeared in 2017, and we have also paid attention to it. There was a lot of excitement in the industry when CryptoKitties came out, and I was a part of it. The emergence of CryptoKitties has made everyone see new possibilities. In the early days of the blockchain, Bitcoin was to solve the problem of double spending and ensure the uniqueness of the problem. CryptoKitties allows everyone to discover the possibility of on-chain storage and NFT. It has many different characteristics, and each cat has its own genes. At the end of 2017, there was a wave of "raising cats". We also spent a lot of ETH buying cats, trying to breed different cryptokitties, etc. So in fact, we have seen the possible development and some possibilities of NFT at that time.

 

After CryptoKitties, in the early 2018 wave of NFT craze, I have participated in many projects that crypto users may be familiar with, such as Crypto Kingdom, Ethereum Town, etc. I have participated in all of these declining NFT projects. Probably at that time, it was also the beginning of early NFT, and the popularity lasted for half a year.

 

In fact, this year, with the entry of traditional industries, such as Sotheby’s and other auctions, the market has become hot again burn up. So this year, basically starting from the beginning of last year, the entire industry has entered the focus of NFT, and there have been more rapid iterations and changes on the main line of NFT, and those very classical ones in 2017 and 2018 NFT projects, already have some distinct elements.

 

Thoughts on the works I bought and industry hotspots

 

< h4>Rhythm BlockBeats: There are many works in your own collection in this museum. Let us take a tour and tell the story of you and these collections. Let’s first look at this work of FEWOCiOUS.

 

 

Shenyu:This is a work of a very talented girl, about 18 years old. This is a T-shirt co-branded with SuperRare. Her style is relatively uniform like this.

 

At that time, NFT was still an era of a large number of IPs outside the circle. It was when Beeple or NBA games were very popular. People are still in a state of discussion. Everyone also thinks that this kind of work is too expensive, and they will measure and think that this IP is not worth so much money.

 

But then everyone understood one thing, that is, the tokens of these NFT distribution platforms can be purchased, which is similar to It is the same as how traditional capital viewed the blockchain world around 2013. Everyone felt that they could not understand the projects in the blockchain, but the trading platform existed before, and its attributes can be seen very clearly.

 

This is also a work I collected in the early stage. This is also my thinking logic at the time. I think the trading platform issued Whether it is T-shirts or other joint works, there should be a relatively high appreciation space, and this artist is also very representative. So I spent about 80 ETH to purchase this NFT work.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: Let's look aside, this is a work by Beeple, can you briefly introduce this work?

 

Shenyu:This work is actually It's pure FOMO, it's boring at home in May. It just so happened that Beeple launched a spring auction. His work is a Package, if you are in the top 10 of the Dutch auction, you will get this work.

 

The first few works were shot from May 1st to May 10th, but the first few works have been We didn’t get it, and we remained in the top ten during the filming of the last work. Because Beeple was quite popular at the time, I was in a Fomo mood at the time, so I photographed this part of the work. In terms of US dollars, this work is about 300,000 US dollars, but it is a series, and it still has several collections.

 

But in fact, I think these works have their own IP. Compared with the original works in the industry, they may The emotional value or social value to us, or this derived value, is not that great. In fact, maybe everyone has short-term Fomo, or some understanding and cognition of art, and then they will buy similar works.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: We saw that the work next to it is a Punk, so why did you choose to buy this work?

 

Shenyu:Punk I actually follow There are a lot of them, and I have offered prices, but collectors don't sell those rare Punks, such as zombies. I have given out up to 1288 ETH, but the holder did not accept it. Later, I observed Punk, and I found that the liquidity at the bottom is very sufficient, because everyone’s consensus or recognition of a work is actually not that strong, but everyone wants to own it, so basically they buy the most cheap.

 

Based on some observed rules, we need to buy some more recognizable ones, such as some accessories such as eyes, hats etc. So I bought a bunch of Punk around the floor and this is one of them. This one cost about 120-130 ETH.

 

The floor price of Punk will be relatively high, its liquidity is too good, and the consensus is too strong. People will immediately choose to buy when they see the low price, and there is no wear and tear after buying, so everyone's transaction frequency and turnover rate are still relatively high.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: The avatars are very popular recently, especially the leading CryptoPunks and Bored Ape, but obviously you don’t want to change your avatar, because compared to those Punk, your avatar is now noticeably more recognizable. What do you think of these NFT avatar assets, do you agree with the story of social capital?

 

Shenyu: In fact, my avatar It is also an NFT, which may be earlier than Punk. It was a work I found an artist to draw for me a long time ago, and it cost $100 to customize. At that time, there was no NFT concept, but after the NFT concept came out, I Mint this avatar. Now strictly speaking, this avatar is also an NFT work.

 

Speaking of the attributes of Punk’s works, I actually think that in the craze of avatars in the past month or so, there are people like Punk The asset is the superposition of multiple attributes. First of all, it has a good historical value. The real development of NFT started from the innovative development represented by CryptoKitties in 2017. Although there was no ERC-721 standard before CryptoKitties, there were many early explorations. Punk was one of the very early explorations. A work that came out in about May of 2017, so it first has a strong NFT historical precipitation value, which is unique in this regard.

 

The second point is that Punk is easy to create a legendary story, and it was distributed for free in the early days. Many people sent a lot, and some people lost their Punk. In this process, a consensus is gradually formed. The consensus needs time and history to settle down. It has also been gradually settled down step by step over the past few years, and a broad consensus has been reached in the industry. After everyone recognizes the value of Punk, the price will gradually rise, and finally rise to a seemingly outrageous price. This shows that this NFT has passed the inflection point, and a large number of people have recognized its value, or a large number of people who hold Ethereum bought it with real money.

 

In this process, because it has the precipitation of history and the formation of consensus. Coupled with the influx of a large number of such giant whales on the chain, it has superimposed many attributes. For example, it has social value. Everyone holding Punk has become a consensus or a trend. In this process, there will be a community. Only users with Punk avatars can enter. There are also offline activities or airdrops, all of which are Punk. to obtain. Then in this process, an attribute such as social capital is slowly formed.

 

Mainly hold the attributes of the Punk group, because these people have witnessed the early development of the industry and also witnessed the NFT The rise and fall of the market condenses emotional value in the process.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: So do you like stories like "Avatar"?

 

Shenyu:I think this has been A consensus in a small circle has been formed, and it has a certain degree of recognition. At this level, everyone sees that you use Punk now. Maybe the current social software is not so developed, or there are some types of social software, which can only use this avatar after you sign the name. So it has a certain degree of recognition. I think this story can be developed within a certain range, or it has the attribute of such a social capital.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: Next, let’s look at the painting next to Punk, which is a work of Arts Block, can you introduce it?

 

 

Shenyu: This is a work of AB, It is generated by an algorithm. This work is actually very regrettable. I didn’t recognize the value at the time. NFT is too hot. Many works are sold in the middle of the night. Because of jet lag, I didn’t sleep well so I didn’t have time to check it out. its underlying logic.

 

But I got this work very accidentally, I found someone auctioning it on an NFT fragmentation platform The work of AB, when AB was not very popular, I took this set of works casually. At that time, I didn't recognize the value of this work. This work is one of a set of works, so I just hung up a price at random.

 

Not long after the result, Su Zhu (founder of Three Arrows Capital) bought another The series of Arts Block NFT, someone bought my work at a low price after the news broke, so now this NFT is not mine, which is a pity.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: Next, let's appreciate the last collection in the Shenyu Pavilion. Many people should be very curious about what God Fish thinks about Loot. Tell me about the story about the purchase of this work. What do you think of the Loot project?

 

Shenyu:This is not my earliest I bought Loot one night at around 12 am. The founder of Loot tweeted that more Loot would be released, causing many people to panic and sell Loot. I think that although there are additional issuances, the value of the early Loot for the entire community will not be diluted that much. It will instead lead to many new users joining. So I searched for some Loots with better properties on the Internet, and then bought them at very good prices.

 

Back to Loot’s own story, NFT we played all the way, from very early 2017 and 2018 may be early During the formation of the NFT standard, everyone also had some early explorations, and then in 2020 and 2021, the early cross-border IP triggered a wave of overlapping inside and outside the circle. In June and July, these avatar NFTs with historical value and social value became popular again. However, the emergence of Loot is actually a paradigm shift, allowing NFT to change from an audio and video presentation method alone, because it defines an underlying framework, and then makes NFT not only limited to the specific form of presentation, but also enables more More people enter and spontaneously make secondary creations on it, and then it may make the entire NFT ecology have the characteristics of scalability and composability, and have stronger imagination.

 

So many people say that the avatar NFT we played before is Bitcoin, which proves that this thing is feasible, but he No other better attributes. Then Loot appeared like Ethereum, with a wide range of feasibility and programmable and scalable capabilities.

 

This is how we look at Loot and think it may bring about a big paradigm shift in the NFT market, and even The combination of the future and the metaverse and the combination of games may bring about a wider range of bottom-up innovations. Loot may have opened such a new door, so we also think it is very innovative, and try to hold and collect some of these early products.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: There are also some news about Loot this weekend. For example, some new games that AC is making seem somewhat similar to Loot, and Multicoin Capital chose to buy Loot when it first invested in the NFT field. What will the future of the Loot community look like?

 

Shenyu:I think the whole The Loot community is still very early. Everyone is still crazy about Folk and issuing similar assets, but the discussion on community governance has not yet been widely formed. In fact, the more important thing is how to reach a consensus and iterate on a set of standards to make scenarios. In some communities, we have seen dozens of similar products, or some are based on Loot, some are based on non-Loot, and some are on different chains, but the most important thing is the emergence of CryptoKitties or Punk, which promote NFT forms the emergence of a new token standard protocol.

 

The emergence of Loot may lead to a new standard protocol for NFT. Framework, and not only rely on a public chain, it may even be a cross-chain asset, everyone can use the same set of frameworks between different chains, so in this regard, I think it may be more innovative or disruptive in the future.

 

Thoughts on NFT and metaverse stories

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: Were you a collector before? Or is there collectible interest only on the blockchain? For example, would you buy paintings in real life before?

 

Shenyu: I come here strictly Speaking of which, I'm not a collector, and I don't know much about buying paintings, but I will buy some strange things, for example, shells. I don’t think it is very suitable for collections, such as avatar NFT assets in the industry at this stage, and I have repeatedly emphasized in the community that the current NFT is a kind of consumption, not a collection. I also tried to use collections to buy high-priced NFTs, but I found that NFTs are not very liquid, especially when NFTs are combined with DeFi, they are not suitable for collections.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: Do these avatars, or this JPG, have to be attached to the blockchain to be so valuable? If it is in real life , is it impossible for these pictures to evoke such emotions and values?

 

Shenyu:Maybe. Let’s talk about it in several ways. There must be similar things in the real world, such as antiques, which may carry a lot of historical value. But the more difficult thing is how do you prove whether this antique is a counterfeit or has a real historical heritage, so it is best to have historical proof.

 

Another point is that on the blockchain, it is better to let the value circulate, and it is better for everyone to Form a trading market, and then do better trading transactions. In the traditional world, whether it is the number of people covered by your works or the cost of doing transactions, it is very high. So the bottom layer of the blockchain is to let this thing prove that there is such a thing, and its ownership and copyright are clearly traceable.

 

And with the development of DeFi on the chain, the liquidity of the entire market and its transaction convenience are developing, and will To form such a secondary market and a primary issuance market, it is better to carry out value retention and flow.

 

Third, and more importantly, the community proves that NFT collectibles are different from works of art, and they are also quite unique One point is that there are more communities, everyone has formed a consensus in the community, and then there is a strong social attribute. This may not be available in traditional collections.

 

So looking at it today, we think that NFT is actually if you want to rely on the blockchain, the first is history It proves that NFTs like Punk have a strong historical process of forming protocol standards on the blockchain, through which we can see the development and changes of the blockchain in the past four or five years. This is the first proof of history. In this process, some NFTs are native to the blockchain, which may represent certain cultural communities, so there is a cultural proof. The third and more important is a community proof. It represents a part of the consensus of a group of people or a part of people on this matter.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: There seem to be many opinions that NFT will be more popular than Bitcoin. Do you agree?

 

Shenyu:I agree with this View. But at present, I think GameFi is more out of the circle than NFT. GameFi has brought many new forces to the industry in the past year. Many post-00s have entered the industry through game-related GameFi and own their own digital assets.

 

NFT currently has strong speculative attributes and is very expensive. Not many ordinary people can quickly enter the industry through NFT. However, in the future, NFT may have some common attributes. Whether it is game assets or social assets, the final possible presentation form and carrier are all NFTs. Therefore, in this broader scenario, NFTs may become growth Entrance of volume users. But at the moment, I think the NFT money-making effect is more obvious, and this kind of GameFi that does not require early investment will bring more new growth.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: How do you view the current development of NFT? Is this level of development what you expected before?

 

Shenyu:I think this time NFT development may be divided into several stages. The first stage is that there are a large number of traditional industries, or these non-native assets have IP and consensus assets, and a large number of them have begun to adopt blockchain technology to turn them into NFT assets. This kind of development is predictable, intuitively or logically very reasonable.

 

In June and July, there was an upsurge of avatars, or the upsurge of blockchain retro, everyone go When looking for NFT, will you observe whether it has historical value or commemorative value? At this stage, we can also see the value of this "antique" from the perspective of logic or bystanders.

 

However, in the past two weeks, the appearance of Loot has opened up new possibilities for the development of NFT, which may jump out of the past For a long time, everyone's speculation and expectations on the development path of NFT have undergone a typical paradigm shift.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: How do you think about the development behind the NFT market? In what direction will NFT develop after the bubble bursts?

 

Shenyu: I think the final The scene must still be the online universe, and then use it in the social scene. But in the short term, I think NFT has some problems to be solved. First of all, it needs to be combined with DeFi to improve its liquidity, because if many such NFTs are trapped, it is difficult to get rid of them, and there are no buyers. But DeFi naturally has the economic model and incentives of liquidity pools.

 

In the past period of time, we have seen the emergence of NFT fragmentation platforms, some NFTs are more expensive, and the threshold is lowered after fragmentation Everyone has the opportunity to participate.

 

Another direction is whether NFT can be used as a mortgage loan, and its value can be converted into a part of liquidity, which may have my unique The emotion is inside the NFT held, don't want to sell it. But when I need a share of funds and liquidity, I can obtain liquidity in this way, so this is also one of the important directions that the industry is exploring.

 

And I am also looking forward to the future development of the Metaverse, including this kind of virtual space that may be online, such as It is said that a scene such as the virtual office launched by Facebook can actually use underlying assets such as NFT.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: The Chinese team Guojian has also recently released a series of NFT collectibles, and the current performance in the secondary market is also very good. I also plan to create a Metaverse, what do you think of this Chinese team? Compared with the DeFi field, domestic projects do not seem to be fully recognized by the market. At present, most of the hot NFT projects are foreign. Will there be a market for NFT with Chinese characteristics?

 

 

Shenyu:The most important thing about NFT is that it has community proof, and everyone has different consensuses. In fact, the differentiation is quite serious. Many foreigners don’t understand traditional Chinese culture. For the National Construction team, foreigners find it a bit baffling to see the Qingming Riverside Map they made. Unlike our Chinese users who understand history and culture, they can understand it. historical. So it has some characteristics of traditional national culture. For another group of people, they may have some cultural differences and obstacles that cannot be overcome in the short term.

 

So in the short term, I think these Chinese-style and traditional-style NFTs may only have a market in the East Asian market Opportunities, such as Japan and South Korea, can actually understand these cultural points very well, and they will also translate these works with Chinese tradition and even Chinese painting style.

 

I think the Guojian team is one of the few in China, and it is very suitable for traditional Chinese culture, especially A team that develops within the world of the Metaverse. They are more widely known for building some of these models of ancient Chinese buildings in "My World", which are very realistic and vivid, and many children are also participating in it.

 

We are also looking forward to them building some works with Chinese characteristics in the Metaverse, and the Heli they launched The People series is also very interesting. They have puzzle attributes in them. They need to gather some characters in specific scenes, and finally spell out a set of Qingming Riverside Picture, which also has a certain degree of playability.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: In CV (Cryptovoxels), we see that your pavilion has already taken shape. You seem to be very interested in the metaverse, such as the O3 incident. You said before that you will erect a monument. As a big miner, I think it is easier to understand to record on the chain, but why did you choose to record in the CV?

Shenyu: We have mines Pool, so we used to write a paragraph in the block of the Bitcoin blockchain to commemorate some days or fun things. For example, Satoshi Nakamoto also wrote the famous newspaper headline in the block.

 

But in the block of Bitcoin, although these content presentations or these storages are also eternal, but its The form is relatively simple, it can only be a short sentence, and there are not many visual methods.

 

The emergence of platforms such as Metaverse or CV allows everyone to record in a more readable and visual way And present many things, whether it is from sculpture or video and audio materials, it is better to let everyone have a sense of immersion, and then observe and view this matter through the senses.

 

So after the O3 hacking incident, we felt that this incident was very alert to the development of the entire industry. It is a very good opportunity for reflection for industry participants, so I think such a monument should be built. One is to be vigilant, and the other is to record and thank the friends who have made a lot of contributions in the process of solving the hacking incident.

 

In the selection of recording platforms, we also chose several different platforms. Finally, according to the market activity, we chose to build the monument in CV. It can be revealed that we have also found some contractors, and some plans are in the process of discussion.

 

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: So what are your expectations for the Metaverse? Will this be a trillion-dollar market size?

 

Shenyu:I think there may be more than Trillions of dollars, it may be the communication and entertainment of the next generation of the entire human society, and even many future humans will spend a lot of time developing on it. So it will form an open approach, so there are still a lot of underlying technologies and dependent soft and hard constructions in this direction that are not so perfect. But his future is sure to be very bright.

 

Rhythm BlockBeats: You also talked about DeFi just now. We know that Cobo recently launched a DeFi fund for overseas institutions because Cobo has a new strategic layout?

 

Sacred Fish: Yes. For a long time in the past, our customers hoped that the bottom layer could build a blockchain middleware, that is, to connect the bottom layer and upper layer applications of different blockchains. We put some blockchain bottom layers in a middle layer Complex functions and technologies are packaged into standard interfaces for users.

 

So for example, the first product we provide for institutional users is called "Wallet as service", which is a Very simple and easy-to-use enterprise-level wallet service, you can basically connect to dozens of chains through our API in half an hour, and then send, receive and store assets on the chain.

 

At present, many trading platforms of this kind have adopted our set of services as the bottom layer. During this process, we have accumulated There are a lot of underlying technologies facing different blockchains, and they are constantly learning and strengthening in terms of security. So with the rapid development of the DeFi industry in the past one or two years, the security of the DeFi industry has become increasingly important.

On the other hand, "Wallet as service" is somewhat different from our previous products in that it is not simply To store assets on the chain, you need to interact with the contract.

DeFi is developing very rapidly, with TVL exceeding 150 billion US dollars. Mainly, more than 90% of them are such users, and the small amount of funds can obtain benefits in DeFi, or the cost of participating is still very high. Therefore, with the development of the industry, the demand becomes more and more professional, so Cobo launched DeFi products for institutions. DeFi is also the first way in the past 10 years to allow assets on the chain, especially some deflationary assets, to better obtain passive income, and the current asset scale is also very large.

Rhythm BlockBeats: Okay, thank you very much for showing us your exhibition hall today, and many users participated with us The overall feeling of this conversation is very interesting. There is some metaverse social feel, which feels very different.

Shenyu: In the future CV There may be roles such as tour guides appearing to take everyone to visit together.

Rhythm BlockBeats: Okay, I am looking forward to the development of the Metaverse. This is the end of our interview, thank you Shenyu for sharing and everyone's participation.

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