#ChauHighlights: NFT NYC 2022, Part 2

In addition to MANY, MANY satellite events, NFT NYC 2022 was officially hosted at seven venues in the Times Square area, including:

1. Radio City Music Hall
2. Palladium Times Square
3. New York Marriott Marquis
4. The Edison Ballroom
5. The Edison Rooftop
6. The Town Hall
7. Margaritaville Resort Times Square?

Dartmouth Blockchain Contributor Sunint Bindra attended NFT NYC with the aim to understand where crypto is today and where the headwinds are going.?He and others in the college club met with dozens of companies and attended many satellite events, including those hosted by Polygon, Ripple, Chainlink, and Tron.

"Many companies were keen to cultivate university programs and partner with Dartmouth Blockchain on research and development projects. ?Our group also connected with members of blockchain clubs at schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Northeastern, and Michigan State.? Being connected to the broader university crypto ecosystem gave us insights into how blockchain (both as a technology and cultural phenomena) is permeating across campuses all over the nation and the sorts of impactful work other university blockchain clubs are up to," said Bindra.? "There was a pretty big focus on?scaling, zero-knowledge proofs, and cross chain?solutions?during this bear market.? These?developments?will help make crypto more accessible and user friendly in the coming years. Broadly, the community seemed to be gradually willing to embrace mainstream adoption and impact from institutional players (investments, policy, etc), noting that institutional adoption will?accelerate crypto becoming a longitudinal asset class."

Photo of Dartmouth Blockchain provided by Sunint Bindra (Third from left)

"With crypto and NFTs?gaining mainstream adoption, there's a lot of signaling and noise within the space and in these conferences. We learnt the importance for us to develop broad knowledge, think from first principles, and have clear frameworks to evaluate ideas to identify and contribute to the valuable ones. There's?a ton of inspiring?and locked-in people that we met. From leaders at large protocols to fellow students at their?university?blockchain clubs, being able to witness that kind of energy in person is not replicable.? It's pretty important to have a core squad of people to navigate this space, as much of anyone's success is being able to jam on and battle-test ideas. It's pretty understated how many opportunities are unlocked by the people you know. A strong network is important and the conference is a good opportunity to flesh this out, as well as brand yourself,"?said Bindra. ?It's?an interesting?time to be in the space right now, during a bear market where companies are getting killed and being in crypto is now seen as a bit contrarian once again. This serves as a good reality-check on our ideas and research. Despite the bear market, the?passion and optimism?held by everyone at the conference?was inspiring and energizing."

Comic Book School Founder and Lead Educator Buddy Scalera was energized onstage (photographed above) and off. "I wasn't talking to bots. I was talking to people, and I loved that. My primary goal was to meet people and make friends in this space. This is a fun time in this space, and I wanted to build some relationships with people IRL. [My school has] been educating comic creators for 20+ years. We shifted recently to include education about Web3, NFTs, and what comic book creators need to know about these emerging platforms."

"I came to the show hoping to learn more about Coinbase and their Coinbase NFT platform. Their resources have made it easy for me to learn about crypto, so I wanted to see where they are going next. They had a nice setup, and I was able to speak with knowledgeable reps from the company."

Space Runners Marketing Manager Zach Soileau attended NFT NYC to co-host Web3 After Dark with Pantera, Mini Royale: Nations and NxGen. "Attending NFT NYC was a great space for making connections and meeting the rest of the NFT community. We are glad we attended and we’re excited to start delivering our metaverse and our second NFT collection... [We are] a fashion Metaverse project building the first end-to-end Web3 fashion ecosystem backed by Pantera, Polychain, Accel, Jump, and other strategic investors such as Yat Siu from Animoca Brands... Space Runners has successfully launched their Gen1 10k NBA collection with Kyle Kuzma & Nick Young on Solana and are preparing their Gen2 collection for Ethereum launch."

Soileau admires Shikigai for "their art which reminds us of Avatar the Last Airbender, but we also enjoy their approach to immersive storytelling. They curated a physical exhibition and environment for their community, albeit being in their pre-mint phase."

The Giving Block?PR Manager?Mariah Terry showcased her organization's new NFT Fundraising Report, which dives into the future of NFT charitable giving. Her team also asked?attendees to take the Giving Pledge, to donate a small percentage of their crypto gains to one of the nearly 2,000 nonprofits on The Giving Block's platform.

?The Giving Block believes that cryptocurrency is one of the greatest forces of good on the planet. Terry reports, "By providing nonprofits with the tools needed to effectively fundraise cryptocurrency, The Giving Block has helped facilitate over $100M worth of crypto donations."

Terry admires nonprofit organization Hope for Haiti's work to improve the quality of life for the Haitian people via an NFT drop filled with art created by Haitian artists. A percentage of the proceeds from the drop were donated to Hope for Haiti, while the other portion went to the NFT artists.?

Before my photoshoot with Peter Hurley, I unexpectedly ran into Future Center.Ventures Founder, Mark M. Whelan. We first connected via A Small World, circa 2010. He is currently running the world's first metaversity, an invitation-only collective that trains business leaders to become futurists. Their comprehensive curriculum teaches leaders to identify emerging markets, trends and technologies and explore outcomes.

"Our goals for attending NFT NYC: to identify and invite the leading futurists in the Web3 space to further discussions about the future of blockchain, AI, and how to grow on Kardachev's scale AND to find NFTs to exhibit for our NFT gallery on our digital spaceship," said Whelan. "In addition, we're looking for emerging assets by employing Coin Gryphon, an AI-assisted crypto-asset evaluation tool to determine the signal from noise and value from the hype in this busy space."

Whelan admires Over, an open-source AR platform powered by Ethereum. "The concept of the metaverse is in danger of being colonized by centralized Web 2 giants who will easily use the space to manipulate and socially engineer behaviors (see Social Dilemma for more background); Over is open source and Ethereum based, which means the community will regulate its growth and be able to respond to unintended consequences or abuses, furthermore, when “the Merge” happens ETH will become the most widely adopted blockchain ecosystem."?

Joshua Johnson (above, in the hat) is another person I connected with via A Small World, circa 2010. He and his Co-Founder Lian Pham hosted a dinner and demonstration of their company Play2Learn.

"NFT NYC needs more focus on education," said Johnson. "Thus why we are focused on it."

The official website for Play2Learn explains that the platform:

• Is student led: The company empowers children and teens to take charge of their learning and explore the topics they love through the power of play.
• Democratizes play. The DAO, dynamic teachers, and live, small group classes help students build genuine friendships.
• Is supported by brands. Marketers and educators exchange research and techniques to teach effectively

I ended my week at a brunch sponsored Google's Women Techmakers program. To my left, Senior Engineer Elizabeth Mezias wore a blockchain patterned dress for the occasion. She was happy about in-person meetings again, and to see NFT NYC happen despite the crypto winter.

Stay tuned for more?#ChauHighlights?:)