UFO

Rafa is a web3 creator, writer, and operations specialist. Crafting lore and exploring web3 collectives, combining org design theory with digital community building. Most recently he worked at Mirror as their Community and Growth Lead.He's the founder of Folklore, a community exploring long-form articles related to belonging, lorecraft, human relationships, and digital realms.He’s the Co-Founder of Local, working with artisans in Puerto Rico on a project that offers a space to collect NFT art that’s redeemable for high quality artisanal craft, experimenting with a more sustainable and just model enabled by NFTs.Since soon after the launch of UFO in September 2022, Rafa has been in the loop as a creative thinker, someone to jam with about ideas on strategy and community formation as we experiment. He helped our team with the launch of the UFO Genesis Pass with a subscribe to mint on Mirror in November with over 7800 NFT mints in 3 days.In this episode, we go right into these topics of web3 media and communities, the creator playbook, about NFTs as unlocks, earning ownership in protocols and DAOs through participation and effort.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyzYup is the best of web3 all in one feed. Aggregating content across Lens, Farcaster, Mirror, NFTs, and Crypto Twitter. Search across platforms, customize your feed, and show off your NFTs and POAPS on your profile. Visit yup.io

Dutchtide is an independent artist, designer and founder based in the Netherlands. Creator of the NFT collection ~ Midnight Breeze, released in late 2021.Illustrations inspired by 90s vaporwave and the Japanese word Ma ~ which translates to "space" but can be interpreted many different ways. In this case to space in-between spaces. Midnight Breeze is a project about a lonely road. A road where you the viewer are the last one awake, the last one to see the night. A moment of stillness, all around you fades to a haze and you are lost to the midnight summer breeze.In this episode we go into the inspirations of Japanese art and culture and its influence for his art practice coming from a Dutch style of colour, light, composition and architecture. His earlier days in NFTs including the life altering sale of a Beeple work which funded his own projects and secured a CryptoPunk.Experiences with Midnight Breeze as a community of collectors has grown up around the works. And what their team has been busy doing ever since the initial drop to create a second version in which the collection is being reimagined in a time intensive process, evolving from still image into fully rendered animation.The world of Midnight Breeze is coming to life.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyzYup is the best of web3 all in one feed. Aggregating content across Lens, Farcaster, Mirror, NFTs, and Crypto Twitter. Search across platforms, customize your feed, and show off your NFTs and POAPS on your profile. Visit yup.io

losingmyego, 0xTranqui and Salief Lewis are founding members from Public Assembly. A collective of web3 developers building dev tools and educational materials ~ libraries and repositories of information.Public Assembly launched on Nouns Builder on December 3, 2022 ~ leveraging the unique physics of the internet to create what’s missing as fast as possible. Bread crumbs to leave in the dark forest of crypto.In this episode we go into the origins of their project which began as a four-week creative sprint and evolved from being anti-DAO to in fact launching a DAO of their own. We talk about the philosophy of co-creation, open source, and the types of communal environments we create together on the internet.How things change when your working group becomes a DAO and shifts to a new mode where anyone can buy an NFT, join the DAO and start making proposals for initiatives. Decentralized governance with a collective treasury, in action.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Jihad Esmail is a core contributor at Forefront - proliferating collective creation. He’s a researcher at Other Internet, an applied research organisation studying social technology. Key author for Tokenized Communities Year In Review ~ the third edition was just released.Forefront has arguably the single best crypto newsletter in the game. Their products including Pulse and Terminal are geared towards supporting the ecosystem of tokenized communities. Forefront Membership Pass is a recently launched NFT for community access. They’ve been out here shipping for the ecosystem since 2020. Building up a network, resources and tooling via their contributors and community.Jihad is highly active in the Nouns DAO community, one of the most fascinating things happening in the crypto space as its evolved since launch in 2021. In this episode we go into all things governance, memes, NFT memberships, onchain media and trends seen over recent years for web3 communities from ERC20s and social tokens to PFP NFT collections, web3 social and the emergence of nounish projects.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Scott Moore is the Co-Founder of Gitcoin, the community of builders, creators, and protocols at the centre of open web ecosystems. He's also the Co-Founder of Kernel which is an 8-week, invite-only program for people looking to build relationships, products, and companies in web3. Its core intention is about learning together and many of the brightest builders in crypto have joined Kernel since it began in 2020.Scott is a steward for core infrastructure projects like ENS, Gnosis Safe, and Optimism. Through his work with Gitcoin and their DAO, they have been thinking a lot about regenerative structures, and are keenly focused on funding public goods.In this episode we’ll talk about the ideals of solarpunk, aiming to build towards a techno-positive future, what it means and how this ties into recognising web3 as a counterculture movement.About the origins of Gitcoin and what they’ve discovered along the way. Thinking about funding public goods like a subway system that produces value for a whole city ecosystem, for the people who live there and all their activities.And we talk about the nature of web3 projects like Nouns DAO, formed in a memetic way, almost entirely from the grassroots as people try to collectively figure out what this meme is and what they’re trying to do with it.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

María Paula is the retired founder of the Department of Decentralization which organised the ETH Berlin hackathon events.Trent Elmore was working in DeFi before teaming up with María and Sam Spike as co-founders of JPG. A platform and infrastructure to promote and preserve the NFT ecosystem's cultural objects via exhibitions and canons.JPG's Exhibitions allow users to curate online NFT exhibitions, which are stored on Arweave in perpetuity. JPG Canons are community created and governed lists of NFTs, designed to index a new contextual data layer for the ecosystem that will map relational networks and improve discovery, context, and searchability.In this episode we’ll talk about the origins of JPG, community co-curation for the Dynamic and Conceptual Art Canons, and observations from earlier years in Ethereum through DeFi summer and the NFTs bull market up to present day.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Matto is a generative artist, audio, code, and visual. Managing Director of Thousand Ant, creative studio based in New York.Lead for Hypercastles in mid-2022, a community project to build a Unity game engine based 2D and 3D explorer of the Terraforms on-chain NFT megastructure by Mathcastles.His latest Night Run is a conceptual art project with three parts: A motorcycle game where you look at art in a generated city space; An NFT collection with imaginary fashion houses; A series of videos with commentary.UFO art director Ivano Salonia collaborated on creative and design, including for the Night Run logo and designs for imaginary fashion houses you’ll hear about in this episode.We also explore the NFTs ecosystem that Matto has been interested in over the past couple years, with a few highlights including Terraforms, Blitmaps, Loot, Toadz and Nouns.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Benny Giang is a product marketer and creative thinker in UX design, growth and community.Co-founder at Future Primitive where they work on experimental creative projects involving NFTs and DAOs such as the Stapleverse with Jeff Staples.Team member #13 at Dapper Labs and a co-founder of the iconic CryptoKitties early NFTs project in 2017. Later working on NBA Top Shot before departing from Dapper in October 2021.In this episode we talk about the origin stories of NFTs and creating the first ever NFTs discord community for CryptoKitties, a group chat including founders from Dapper, Axie Infinity, OpenSea and many others.We explore new creative experiments Benny is working on with Future Primitive, including BEEP3R ~ a hackathon project from ETH Global making nostalgic 90s pager NFTs that can communicate onchain via XMPT.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Black Dave aka Dave Curry is a music artist, producer, rapper, photographer, and innovator in the realms of web3 music and NFTs.He’s a contributor at leading music DAOs such as Water & Music, and shares ideas about crypto and music at blackdave.mirror.xyz. He helped to found a collaborative music project Amethyst from his hometown in Charleston, South Carolina.His latest release Black Dave Token is an audacious project which aims to support his musical journey raising 250 ETH with 1 million NFTs.In this episode, we talk platforms for minting music such as ZORA, Catalog and Sound. Dynamics of scarcity in music NFTs ~ 1/1s as fine art and editions as building blocks for communities. And his belief that we should value artists by their potential, not their present moment.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Anna Bulbrook is a musician, multi-disciplinary cultural curator, creative producer, and director. She is the Music Curator at TED and has played violin for artists like Perfume Genius, Beyoncé, Vampire Weekend and Spiritualized.Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He’s the cofounder and director of Metalabel, cofounder of Kickstarter, and cofounder of the artist resource The Creative Independent.Together with the squad at Metalabel, their ideas are collectively coming into focus with their latest release, After The Creator Economy.In this episode we talk about two new articles published by Yancey ~ ‘Reinventing The Record’ and 'The Onchain Era' ~ and the importance of directly valuing the creative work you love.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Nicolas Sassoon is a Franco-Canadian artist using early computer graphics to create a wide array of pixelated forms, patterns & architectural structures. His works are published on SuperRare, Foundation, and Objkt, having been collected by some of the most notable NFT collectors in the space.Sam Mason de Caires is an engineer who’s into generative art. Presently at Syndicate DAO, and previously at Foundation and Rainbow.Together they are 2/4ths of Gossamer. Along with their friends Tim Smith and FEELS, they are a collective who are collecting art together as a DAO. View their collection at gossamerdao.xyzIn this episode we talk about art and the web3 space. About Nicolas’ artistic practice, and how he makes his works. How technology is enabling new ways to create, collect, and support artistic expression. And what kinds of art Sam and Nicolas are interested in for Gossamer.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Martí Ruids is a musician and sound artist. Professor and researcher in the sculpture department at the Universitat de Barcelona. With more than a decade of experience with sound sculptures and working with masters in Japan.Member of Híbrida, Nen i Cavall. Part of a duet band RIUH with Raquel Cruces performing traditional folk music from the Iberian Peninsula. Member of Pangalmelan, exploring gamelan music from Indonesia, using pots and pans to create unique instruments, rhythm, pitch and percussion, achieving trance like states.We met in July in Barcelona in fortuitous circumstances, on the way in to see Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s new band ~ The Smile at Pablo Espanyol.In this episode we talk about experimental music. Sound and resonance. How it effects consciousness. The very nature of reality. Martí's work reviving Baschet Sound Sculptures with concerts in Japan. And exploring the realms of traditional music from Iberia, across places in Catalunya, Basque country, and Portugal.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

ATARA, aka Johannes Saam, is an Academy Award-winning creative technologist, futurist, and web3 artist.With two decades innovating in visual effects and film, raised by 80s and 90s movies and video games, he's an explorative creator of generative art, and most recently as co-founder of a new NFT collection ~ DALL-E Punks.Reimagining the iconic CryptoPunks through a visual AI engine stack to create a new interpretation, reflecting the traits of the originals, such as hoodies, cigarette and eye patch ~ only that each image is now totally unique, and the eye patch prompts turned into pirates.In this episode we talk about his visual effects career in the film industry, exploring creativity through coding, mathematics and technology, the latest from AI generative platforms such as DALLE-2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and we go behind the scenes for the creation of DALL-E Punks.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you’ll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Peacenode is a designer and graphic artist at Seed Club and Songcamp.Seed Club is the leading network for DAO builders and operators, with an alumni of DAO projects including Cabin, Poolsuite, Water and Music, Metalabel, Krause House and many others.Songcamp is a music community focused on collective creation, who recently staged CHAOS ~ an experiment with 77 collaborators forming a headless band outputting music NFTs, with revenue going out to artists via split contracts.In this episode, we talk with Peace about his origin stories in crypto, background in the music scene, about creative practice and making poster designs for over 200 days straight, how he got involved at Seed Club and Songcamp, and a jam about projects we’re into like Nouns Builder from Zora.__SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.io/~Lens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. With Lens, your followers go with you to whatever application you want to use. The last social media handle you’ll ever need to create.Visit lens.xyz

Reka is a co-founder at Guild, the ultimate tool for platformless memberships and quests for internet communities.Guild expands the creative possibilities for assembling as a group. Helping to drive the web3 space forwards with tools which allow DAOs to evolve beyond financialised token communities as the only available option for managing access and participation in projects.Reka writes about communities, DAOs and internet culture and has just dropped a new series on Mirror - chaos is a public good - co-written with her friend, LDF from DISCO.In this episode, we talk about the origin stories of Guild, how their team came together, what they’re focused on building, new integrations with projects such as Otterspace, and Reka’s interest in Jokedao and $JOKE race.__SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.io/~Lens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. With Lens, your followers go with you to whatever application you want to use. The last social media handle you’ll ever need to create.Visit lens.xyz

Alexander Guy is head of marketing and growth at Zerion, a Smart, Social Web3 Wallet. This is a place to manage your crypto, DeFi and NFT portfolios. Trade across multichain and connect to any decentralized application.In this episode we get into the crypto lifestyle. Why we think it’s a compelling space to be potentially looking to join a company or create a project. We talk about common pitfalls of the crypto lifestyle like FOMO, always being on, stress about security, excessive time on social and information input, and challenges in getting up to speed when you’re new and joining crypto.Meeting the Zerion team at ETH Barcelona in July, Alex was telling me about their new mobile crypto wallet and how the platform is extra helpful for web3 citizens. People active in DAOs, token communities and NFTs. I was preparing UFO for launch at that time, and we created a collaboration with Zerion as a sponsor of UFO.__SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.io/~Lens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. With Lens, your followers go with you to whatever application you want to use. The last social media handle you’ll ever need to create.Visit lens.xyz

Austin Robey is a member of the founding squad at Metalabel. An assembly of founders, creators and producers emerging from the web2 economy, now helping to amplify the meme of the metalabel. Imagined as a release club where groups of people with shared interests create and release work together.Sometimes it’s more fun to create things as part of a collective, and often you can have a stronger cultural impact by working as a group under a collective banner or label. A metalabel allows groups of people to join together, and pool their skills and resources and audiences in support of a larger vision or purpose. Creativity in multiplayer mode …Austin is a writer who explores ideas about collective internet culture for publications including Forefront, and Friends With Benefits, and most recently for Metalabel’s brand new publication, PUBLIC RECORD. The article is ‘Evolution of the solopreneur’, examining examples such as Water & Music, Song A DAO, and Songcamp with their 77-member band, headless CHAOS.__SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.io/~Lens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. With Lens, your followers go with you to whatever application you want to use. The last social media handle you’ll ever need to create.Visit lens.xyz

Nyx is a co-founder of Crypto Coven, focusing mostly on art, code and lore for an NFT collection of 9999 witches created by five friends. A compelling force of storytelling which sparked a community to expand upon their world.In 2021, Nyx and her friend Alethia, both artists, had been in lockdown together and decided they wanted to create a pfp NFT collection. One that was female forward. They were intrigued by what was happening in NFTs, but didn’t identify themselves with the various ape and cartoon characters that were happeningAlethia suggested they create a project around witches. A group formed to bring the collection to life. Joining Alethia and Nyx were Xuannü, Aradia and Keridwen. Within 2 months, and many nights of art, design, coding and storytelling, everything had come together.In this episode, we talk about all the ins and outs of a project like this from the inside perspective. The power of lore, storytelling and world building. And what can be accomplished in smart contract design and doing creative things with the tech.__SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.io/~Lens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. With Lens, your followers go with you to whatever application you want to use. The last social media handle you’ll ever need to create.Visit lens.xyz

Charlie Waterhouse is a co-founder of the Art Group and Media team at Extinction Rebellion based in London. He’s Creative director of This Ain’t Rock ’n’ Roll, and a director of the Brixton Pound.In this episode, we talk about the origins of Extinction Rebellion, a global movement using non-violent direct action to persuade governments to take action on climate, and inspire public consciousness to the cause.We explore how design and art played a part in its formation. And direct actions such as the recent protest at the House Of Commons in the UK, in which activists glued themselves to each other around the speaker's chair.We also talk about learnings that may be taken from web3 and DAOs, and lines drawn between 60s counterculture, punk and current day social movements.__SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.io/~Lens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. With Lens, your followers go with you to whatever application you want to use. The last social media handle you’ll ever need to create.Visit lens.xyz