MoreSignalLessNoise
Installation view of MoreSignalLessNoise’s virtual gallery. Featuring the works of Gina Guilmore
Early NFT collector and Tech professional MoreSignalLessNoise, talks to Dahai about his collecting process, the position of the Metaverse & how he came to own the world’s most expensive bed sheets.
Installation view of MoreSignalLessNoise’s virtual gallery
You were an early collector with Dahai, I wanted to ask what attracted you to the site?
It all started from my research into the cryptocurrency ALGO and the Algorand technology. I was immediately attracted because of the team's credentials and seemed very intriguing from a technology solution perspective. It is not as mature as some of the other crypto projects people regularly hear about, but the way they are going about creating their ecosystem seemed very purposeful and logical. Any time I buy some "crypto-currency" the first question I always want to know is what the hell can I do with this? What is the utility in the ecosystem? Luckily, I came across Dahai very early. They were the first NFT marketplace using Algorand as the base currency for purchasing digital art other than a small group of ALGO holders trading jpegs.
What is Dahai doing differently?
Right now, anyone can be an "NFT artist". Dahai's approach is to curate their space and artists - more like a gallery than an open market. I liked the idea of taking fine art from the physical world and moving it onto the blockchain. The term "Metaverse" has recently entered the global lexicon as a place to purchase and utilize digital goods. I think limited digital art editions digitally signed by well-known artists will be a prominent "highbrow" feature of the Metaverse in due time. Just before this interview - even with you in Europe and me in Texas - we took a walk through my private gallery where I could explain what I like about each piece, artist, or collection. That's like taking the globe and shrinking it down to a screen. I think as we get more environmentally conscious and traveling becomes more expensive, people's travel will be limited but it won't limit business or ideas or the appreciation of fine art.
Is that where you bought your first NFT?
Well, I started with Ethereum based NFTs but the transaction fees and energy required to secure the chain were outrageous, plus I was really not interested in collecting spinning coins and pixel artwork - not even the more digital native art. So when I looked over and saw what Dahai was doing, unifying the physical and digital sphere, its technology and the way it had been set it up - it all just checked a lot of boxes for me. When I saw Don Perlis minting his work art on Dahai and Dahai using Algorand, I could tell the project had roots in the contemporary fine art world and all on the most modern and environmentally friendly blockchain technology.
So you had bought some NFTs on Ethereum but for you Algorand’s near non-existent carbon footprint made a huge difference?
Absolutely, I think pure proof of stake, as a mechanism for securing a blockchain, is one of several evolutionary enhancements that have been made to Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper on Bitcoin. In an imperfect world this is the closest to perfection you can get in a solution and the environmental impact is extremely low. Right now, entities with the most tokens are still controlling the technology through a governance voting process. I think the concept of governance will keep the utility of the ALGO token relevant for a very long time and eventually become more broadly distributed across millions of token holders around the world.
Installation view of MoreSignalLessNoise’s virtual gallery. Featuring the work of Don Perlis
You strongly believe Algorand can take over?
The state-of-the-art today is Algorand and I believe it will take over several blockchain use cases. You hear a lot about the ALGO in the echo chamber of the internet, but you don't find a lot written about Algorand in the larger crypto websites or mainstream media. To be honest, I think a lot of other blockchains fear Algorand, the ALGO, and the team behind the technology. It kind of messes up their marketing narrative. Algorand embodies the "MoreSignalLessNoise" ethos. I strongly believe Algorand technology is going to bridge traditional finance and the crypto-centric "decentralized finance" or "DeFi" platforms. They pride themselves on results and not hype. I like that approach, but it does not always capture the imagination of the general population. A phrase I grew up with was "speak softly but carry a big stick…"
What is this “big stick”?
The technical design of Algorand is just better than other chains, that's it. They built a better mousetrap. Let's say you want to buy an NFT, or any other Algorand based asset, from me. Using Algorand I know exactly what it costs to make that transaction any time of day or night with anyone anywhere in the world. If I send you an NFT right now it would take around 5 seconds and the whole asset transfer would cost less than a penny and is immutable and public to anyone that is interested. The Algorand chain does not split like other chains creating multiple records of the same transaction and the general cost to humanity is almost non-existent. That's revolutionary in comparison to Ethereum and Bitcoin and other blockchains out there.
Do you think Ethereum could disappear?
No. Ethereum will find its most appropriate use cases and there will be several different protocols in the market serving different needs. I have friends who are big into Ethereum and we all agree that the world is a big place and there is room for a lot of protocols to flourish and bridge with each other. Sometimes we joke that each chain is like a nationality…there are Etherians and Algorandians, etc…and they all have their own dogma and cultural norms. But, at least in my circles, we are all just eager to learn from each other as much as we can.
What do you think is the appeal of NFTs?
Well let's say I am a young guy and I put $10,000 on Ethereum five years ago, all of a sudden I have all this money. What can I do with it? How can I "flex" online?
Installation view of MoreSignalLessNoise’s virtual gallery. Featuring the work of Gina Gilmour
Flex?
A "flex" is like showing off your wealth. In real life you buy a Louis Vuitton bag or a Lamborghini to show your wealth, but how do you flex online? How do you flex in the Metaverse? You buy an NFT representing ownership of a unique cartoon picture of an ape, you can spend $1 million worth of Ethereum on a jpeg image you can use as your profile picture on Twitter. That's the flex, to be a part of an elite club of people who can afford to spend that much money on a jpeg.
When you buy work on Dahai is that a flex?
Not really. I consider them a purchase of something I appreciate as art vs. something I hope will appreciate as an investment or status symbol. I especially enjoy the works of Don Perlis and Fred Gutzeit. They speak to me on several levels, and I especially like what Gutzeit did with his "SigNature" series, how he's engaging with originality by taking a persons' signature and converting it to a physical piece of art before then applying his signature digitally in the form of an Algorand address. He is taking a Metaverse position on his own signature by minting his limited edition digitals.
I will perhaps never own a physical Don Perlis, but I can say I own a token of a limited edition digitally signed token that gives me the right to this picture, this asset. That's huge, it goes far beyond the Iguanas and Ape NFTs because this is fine art and Don is a traditional master painter. I see Algorand as being part of the artwork and through that medium, an artist can transcend space and time. The digital editions from these artists are fundamentally different than the physical works they represent and are unique and scarce assets.
So you are saying that the fact it is made on Algorand is a core part of the artwork itself?
Yes, because the chains cannot split or "fork" into multiple chains. Silvio Micali, the founder of Algorand, says there's only one Mona Lisa. If the registry or ownership forks and there are two, which is the real one and who is the real owner? We see this in the art world where a reproduction or fake can sometimes have a better story than the real artwork and can even be worth more. In the digital world, anything can be copied, a copy-paste of a picture is simple. There's no sovereignty to it. But the token can only be owned by one entity or group at a time. I am hoping my collection is something historians can look back at and see these world-renowned artists having discovered a way to transcend and maintain their identity as a physical artist as well as enabling their audience to collect their work online in ways that physical art is not capable of doing.
Do you have screens at home to show the work?
I do have a couple of digital frames, but it is not the same. My collecting style on Dahai is for the "Series" and not usually for the individual piece. So I have tried to take an artist and buy at least one edition of each piece in the "Series". Because you really can't appreciate it without seeing all the pieces in the series. If I look at Don Perlis' Trumpworld, you get to see all the different ways he captures the theme. Normally you can only really see that in a gallery with all the works up and that's the real utility of these NFTs is that you get to see the whole series. Who has enough wall space to show all these works at home? So I am not limited by the physical with these and I can buy a piece from the whole collection, they are all relatively inexpensive. I also find it very interesting which pieces an artist chooses to list with Dahai and how many digital editions are minted, etc… For instance, in a collection of maybe one hundred physical works by Fred Gutzeit in his SigNature collection, why did he choose only 8 for Dahai? What is the significance of those 8? Why only 10 digital editions of each?
What effect will it have over the so-called legacy art world?
And that's the worst thing for me, that some of the best masterpieces ever made stay in storage for most of their lives. Sometimes for their entire existence. These works should be consumed and appreciated, some people just buy for the asset value instead of appreciating the artistic value whereas I can do a digital gallery whenever I like and show my friends and walk them through it.
Installation view of MoreSignalLessNoise’s virtual gallery. Featuring the work of Ed Smith
Some people say that NFTs will become more expensive than the physical?
Yes, I believe that the actual digital works will flip the physicals in several situations. Someday I believe people will see my collection and say that the digital collection is worth more than the physical because it is complete, is unique in its groupings and it allows whoever sees it to appreciate it as a whole. Not to mention, these are very early works in the evolution of the blockchain, NFTs, and galleries and platforms like Dahai. Even the fact that they were listed and sold on Dahai and purchased with ALGO makes them all the more interesting as art.
Would the sudden explosion in the popularity of NFTs be explained by the fact it is the first time you can really purchase something on the blockchain as a luxury good?
The NFT space has been a proving ground for the technologies as they are applied to different use cases in the real world. You start to build trust and then you realize, wow! I can use this for other things, I can buy all sorts of assets now, there are sites where you can buy fractionalized real estate. What is the difference between that and a real estate investment trust or fine art fund on the general stock exchange? I can choose what properties I put in my portfolio and I can choose to get in and out of assets, so I feel more in control.
A lot of people are buying NFTs are buying for investment, does the potential rise in value appeal?
Well, it would be amazing to sell one of the collections I don't appreciate as much and pay for kids to go to college, that's a sacrifice I would make. But I collect because I appreciate it and this is something I do because I appreciate the technology and the art and Dahai is the platform I use.
The NFT market is establishing how efficient and effective this form of trading and collecting can be, I would imagine this will have huge ramifications.
Simply put it is asset management. These tokens on Algorand are called Algorand Standard Assets (ASA). Anything you can own as an asset in theory can be tied to a blockchain. That's everything: land, housing, art, contracts, mineral rights, at some point even your DNA can be on the blockchain, you own it and its unique to you and if someone wants to use it they must compensate you.
[Installation view of MoreSignalLessNoise’s virtual gallery. Featuring the work of Gina Gilimour] (media:443)
Are you interested in swapping or trading your NFTs?
I have in some cases, if I have purchased more than 1 of the same piece because in my collection I want the whole collection. If I have one of each then I buy a second or third and I would offer those up for sale. I have only the complete collection of one artist piece because I bought all 10, that way I have the complete digital collection. So no one else has it.
You bought all 10 NFTs of one artwork?
Yes, I have the "only" complete collection of works by Gina Gilmour that I really liked.
I wanted to ask, how did you get into Crypto?
By training I am a technologist and I've always been about translating technology to people who don't understand it. Technology moves very quickly and I have to keep up with it and in 2016–17 blockchain hit a peak and I started evaluating it for different use cases, and the cryptocurrency component on that became interesting. And like any good scientist, I bought some to find out what I can do with it. I did buy some Bitcoin, not a lot but a bit and now I am the proud owner of the world's most expensive bed sheets - because once I figured out how to spend it I bought some sheets. I don't have a large position, I am certainly not a whale.
You seem very optimistic about the crypto world, why is that?
The interesting thing about this space is that I don't see competition but collaboration. Everybody is trying to mature technology and the space to grow it, because it just makes it bigger for everybody. We are not competing for a limited resource at this point, and so as the economy of the blockchain grows with every interaction, it is to the betterment of the population that's involved. It is going to create jobs and create wealth for people who don't have a wealth creation mechanism available to them. And if regulation is done right to not stifle innovation, then the control can be there to protect and not prevent. I was in tech in 2000 with the dot-com bubble. Now not everyone is going to make it but it is all going to build up. Tech is very layered, if you think about it money too is an early technology. Now energy and money are coming together and the nexus of that is unifying and we are no longer constrained by the physical world anymore. That is fascinating to me.