Lab Summaries - The Current State of the NFT Market with Garyvee

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The current NFT market is challenging, but it is also a builders market for serious NFT projects with a long term focus.

Gary Vee's current goal is to build Intellectual Property (IP) with his NFT projects, and use them to bring positive impact on society.

In this episode summary, Gary joins the Bankless show to share more about his views on the current state of the NFT market, how he thinks of other NFT projects, and buildooors.

For the unfamiliar, Gary is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of VaynerMedia, a global media agency. He is also the CEO of VeeFriends, his NFT project around meaningful intellectual property and an extraordinary community.

Challenges of NFT projects in the current market

In this market, we also see many projects struggling, and rugs becoming commonplace.

In this climate, we are reminded of Gary’s poignant quote:

However, when asked about these NFT projects, Gary rightfully pointed out that it is too early to judge these NFT projects.

When we look at NFT projects as businesses, they are essentially very early stage startups but are now evaluated like publicly traded companies due to the open nature of crypto.

Evaluating NFT projects

When we think about evaluating NFT projects, the first thing that often comes to mind is the project’s Floor Price.

However, Gary does not see floor prices as an indicator of the project’s success.

Short term greed and flipping is now prevalent in the NFT space, overshadowing the technological aspects and other potential utilities of NFTs.

Teams also care too much about floor prices rather than building the actual project. As such, they start making short term actions that might adversely impact the projects in the long run.

As such, Gary is more focused on the talent, the people and processes behind building the projects.

Value of NFTs

Another common topic of discussion about NFTs is its value - does it really have any sustainable value in the long run? Gary believes it does.

However, brand building takes time. Similar to how even the Marvel Cinematic Universe and franchise took over a decade to build, NFT collectible value is also going to take a long time.

Gary aims to build affinity in his NFT characters (brand building through toys, books, cartoons), while also building the technological and utility aspects for NFTs.

As this is a long term endeavour, in the shorter term, utility can also build value for the NFT projects - through exclusive access, events, community and others.

Things that still needs to be built out

For future mass adoption, Gary believes that we still require many things that eliminate friction for newcomers to step into the space, through Web 2.5.

This can include tools such as warm wallets and NFT readers, among others.

Enjoyed this summary?

You can watch the full episode of the Bankless interview here. You can also find out more about Gary's NFT project, VeeFriends, here.

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