In this episode, we give the true definition of a token, we talk about how tokens have evolved over time and where they now have a valuable use and are not just an add-on to a piece of digital art. We also discuss how you can start thinking about ideas that will enable you to tokenise your brand.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
CryptoPunks – https://cryptopunks.app/cryptopunks/forsale
Flyfish Club – https://www.flyfishclub.com/
BAYC – https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/
World of Women – https://worldofwomen.art/
Veefriends – https://veefriends.com/
Fern – https://ffern.co/
As the season turns podcast – https://open.spotify.com/show/3679Kdoi71lsV4YPUQma9q?si=dc3e6115d17e41b5
Grow, cook, eat, arrange podcast – https://open.spotify.com/show/4CH4wQcyQ0yYWlWT07B51B?si=f843e5def1d94cf4

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Gary Vaynerchuk – https://twitter.com/garyvee

We hope you enjoyed the show and it helped you to gain more clarity and give you lots of ideas as to how you can use tokens for your business.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE
This podcast is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not give any investment or financial advice and we strongly recommend you to always DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Show Transcript

Cheryl00:03

Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. I am Cheryl Laidlaw.

Angela00:08

I am Angela Harkness. We have been and are still on a journey to discover the Metaverse, Web 3.0 NFTs and anything that we are required to know to join this world.

Cheryl00:21

From this podcast, we will help you to unlock how the metaphor is going to impact your brand.

Your business and even your personal life.

Angela00:30

Join us as we take the mystery out of this new digital universe.

Cheryl00:37

Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. In this episode, we are diving into tokens. We talked about doing this episode a long time ago. In fact, if we had stuck to the plan, it would’ve been one of the very early episodes, but until now, we struggled to get our heads around.

How we wanted to tackle this subject. The idea came about because we listened to a podcast and the guest said to the host, I am waiting for you to tokenize this podcast. We are intrigued that one question has taken us on a bit of a journey. With each release of an episode. We have learned so much more, but also this digital universe moves fast.

There are always news about how other companies have used tokens in an incredibly unique way. So this episode has taken its time to emerge, but we feel that it’s the right time to talk about it,

Angela01:39

and we finally found it. We found it. Brendan Schwab is an American comedian and a podcast. It was one of the first people to tokenize his podcast.

Now we’re not gonna talk about his comedy and his background cuz he’s a little bit controversial figure to some. We’re simply talking about the mechanism of him tokenizing his podcast. If you purchase one of the tokens, you get access and control of a unique episode of his podcast. His reason for doing this was he wanted to create more rights to the earnings and rights to his own content.

The clever part is that there will be a limited number of tokens available. Ring scarcity, which we’ve talked about before, which is an incredibly powerful business strategy if done right, what we are struggling to find out about, there wasn’t a ton considering was such a unique move. There’s not a ton of information about what rights you have as an owner.

Obviously, they have the rights to listen to and sell the podcast for which Brendan will. Additional income, another advantage of tokenization. But do they have the right to cut up the podcast and use it for their own potential gain? We couldn’t, we just couldn’t find this out. But again, it could be something written into the smart contract that he could earn additional income from.

So, Cheryl, this all important question. Do you want to explain what a token is?

Cheryl03:12

It actually took a long time to find a good definition, and we came across a website called Liquid. A Coin is something that operates on its own blockchain. So Bitcoin sits on the Bitcoin blockchain. Ethereum on the Ethereum blockchain, a token.

Is anything that does not have its own blockchain and therefore has to use other blockchains to function the most common at the moment being the Ethereum blockchain. What then defines the token is the smart contract that’s attached to it. There are actually a number of different types of tokens, tangible, fungible currency, utility, and security.

But the most common token for the majority of us, which we have discussed at at least 50% of the episodes that we’ve released are NFTs. It is there in the name non fungible token. The most common use or how most of us have been introduced to NFTs is a digital piece of. If you wanted one for your brand, you could create a piece of art in Canva or Photoshop, or even PowerPoint if you wanted to upload it to Open Seat, which uses the Ethereum blockchain and set your conditions in your smart contracts such as how much you want to sell it for and how much commission you want every time it’s sound.

But in this episode, we want to go a bit deeper than the pieces of art because we are talking about tokens as having a function

Angela04:57

first. I think what we’ve discussed so far with all our episodes, like what is crypto punk, which was our last episode. Yeah. What is Board eight Yacht Club and World of Women is they create a collection.

That then have this function attached to it. Well, in fact, crypto current crypto punk had nothing did they? They just released the pieces of digital art. Whereas, Yeah, whereas, and then they, then people have added membership clubs and all sorts of things, and I think we’ve discussed, haven’t we, where sometimes it’s a bit, it’s not very well thought through.

It’s just, Oh, we’ve got this collection, we now need to add something to it. I think that’s what’s happened so far.

Cheryl05:42

Yeah, and it can definitely, There’s definitely more to it. Yes. For example, in episode 21, we talk about the fly fish club, which with his three other partners is Gary Vaynerchuk’s Club or restaurant.

You can become a member through the purchase of a token. The image that comes with the token that says your membership card. But it is the utility of the token that is important part, and that is written into the smart contract, which is that you have a lifetime membership. You can access the restaurant, the cocktail bar, and other areas.

You can bring guests. You can lease out your membership for a month, and if you sell your membership, the holding group will receive a certain percentage of the

Angela06:28

sale. I think Gary Vache was the ones that kind of flipped the tokens, wasn’t. Because even with Be Friends, it was more about what was attached to the The NFT rather than the NFT itself.

Yeah.

Cheryl06:44

And he actually calls him his NFT collection

Angela06:47

tokens. Yeah, you’re right. You’ve said that before. Yeah. Yeah.

Cheryl06:50

Which other, other people, They call him NFTs, but he calls ’em

Angela06:55

tokens, so Yeah. Cause there’s likes so much to, Yeah, there’s so much to his. Definitely. Cause there’s so many D. Utilities to the tokens.

And we did a whole episode on vivre so you can

Cheryl07:09

Yeah. It’s very interesting. He, some of his, uh, tokens run out after a certain amount of years. Yeah. And, uh, whereas others, I don’t know, he’s just thought about it a little bit more. Yeah.

Angela07:19

Check out. Yeah. He gets it. I think that’s, that’s the thing he gets, doesn’t he?

Cheryl07:24

Yeah. So what does this mean for your brand? How could you tokenize your. Angela, do you have any ideas?

Angela07:33

I do. . . Okay. I came across this brand the other day that I showed Cheryl, and the company is called Fern. This to me is a genius brand. It is a perfume company that releases four perfumes in a year in line with the turn of the season.

And I’m gonna read directly from their website cuz they just explain how it works perfectly. To receive a bottle of Fern, you must first join the Ledger. The Fern Ledger acts as our guide. Each season we make one bottle of the fragrance for every name on our ledger. No more working This way allows Fern to remain true to traditional small batched production processes and by being so tightly controlled to minimize waste.

The idea is simple. We keep a small list of clients the. We make our perfume exclusively for these clients. Nobody else. Once your name is on the ledger, we’ll blend you one bottle of perfume for every season of the year. We’ll bill you in advance of the release and aim to have the perfume with you by the relevant Solstice or Equinox state.

I just love this so much, , but in line with the purview, they have a podcast called As the Season Turns. That is released on the first day of each month, which outlines the coming month. And then to add to that, they work with artists each season they ask one artist to respond to the seasonal fragrance. We talk about this brand because this is a perfect small brand that you could tokenize.

And at bear in mind, we have not talked to fun. We just like to find brands that we can come up with ideas to speak about on the podcast. So, for example, the ledger is perfect for tokenization. Instead of adding your name to a mailing list, it could become a token. They could then have a system as the fly fish club where you could sell your season, which creates an additional stream of income for burn.

The artists they use could create NFTs from the art, both attached to the perfumes and as a separate offering. So one of the tokens could be to get the original piece of. They could tokenize the podcast. So part of your package could be to receive a special episode of the podcast, or special additions of the podcast could have its own token.

And on the podcast, they took a lot about old English and British festivals. They could release special edition perfumes or via tokens for each of these festivals. So you’ve really f bought this through Angela. Oh my God, I love this brand so much. I could just, I could just tell everybody about it. I think it’s amazing.

So, what else? Cheryl?

Cheryl10:28

Tokens are ripe for small businesses. There are several advantages. The transactions are immediate, so there’s no chasing for payment. Also, as we discussed in. 24. How can authors use NFTs? Taking payment over the blockchain doesn’t have to be done. Just using cryptocurrency, smart contracts can make it much easier and more secure to sell products internationally.

We’re going to leave a link to the on the show notes for a video that talks through very simply all the layers that make up a token and why they are so secure and efficient. The smart contract defines what you are selling and the rights of those buyers. The contract, because it sits on the blockchain, is indisputable and cannot be lost.

There could also be the added advantage that the need for the expense of a solicitor could be produced. This is not to say that solicitors will miss out. There is a meant to be made by understanding and creating smart contract. Or transitioning current contracts into smart contracts. Smart contracts are definitely something that is on the radar.

The Law Commission, which covers England and Wales, publish is its advice to the government in November, 2021, stating. Legal framework is able to facilitate and support the use of smart

Angela12:05

contracts. I was really surprised about this when I saw this because I think if you, I think if you speak to most people, people think all of this is in the future.

Yeah. And when you actually do the research in the background, this fact that the law commission are talking about the fact that we potentially start using smart contracts, that we can start using smart, smart. Shows that actually the use of them is so much closer and a lot more people will start to use them, I think.

Yeah.

Cheryl12:38

And Rishi Soak is a, um, waiting flag for crypto currency as well. Yeah. So we will see what things he puts into place to help us along this journey that we’re on. Okay. Angela, what about some more ideas for small brands?

Angela12:55

Okay. One of the things I find frustrating for small brands, and Cheryl, you must have been through this, although probably less now, is when somebody wants a particular service or product, they want gold standard, They want everything, but then adding at the end, they always say, But I don’t want it to cost the earth one in particular.

That comes up a lot on forums. I dunno, why is cakes, people wanting a birthday cake, but then being outraged because it costs more than 20. I think independent bakers cake designers tokenize what they do, sell tokens that entitle you to either a particular design or a certain number of cakes a year. So it would limit who buys from you, which is an advantage because from the start it is only people who are prepared to pay what you are charging.

The smart contract could outline exactly. They are getting, and there is no need to go backwards and forwards on the phone to someone who wants a life side postman pack cake for the same price as calling the caterpillar cake from m ands . It’s a lot on mum’s net. This happens a lot on mum’s net. Also, I have been thinking about honey and beekeeping.

I dunno why. I just think this would be a lovely, peaceful hobby to learn how to bee keep, I don’t know. My old age, I guess , but if you run a company that sells honey, you could tokenize that raw, organic honey. It’s like wine. There is a limited batch and you could sell that via tokens rather than the traditional way.

There’s so much stuff with this, with food and wine and whiskey, isn’t there? Well, I loved

Cheryl14:36

the What Fern does, where, Oh my God, waste. And this would eliminate waste as well. Yeah. It’s all, there’s only 20 tokens available. You can only purchase or have, you know, whatever ingredients you need for those 20 tokens.

Yeah.

Angela14:54

And there’s no stopping people releasing more tokens, but it’s more, it’s like a pre-sales thing, isn’t it? So if, if though, if 20 tokens. Um, purchase really quickly. You could, you could issue another 20. Absolutely. At least you know how many people are gonna buy. So all these kind of artisanal small brands that purchase, that, not purchase, that produce all of these things, like whether it’s food or beauty products, whatever, they could use that type of tokenization.

Cheryl15:27

Um, yeah, create fomo. Check out our gamification episode. That’s one our. Definitely

Angela15:35

I, I think it’s a really smart way to start to think about how you could sell your products.

Cheryl15:41

Tokens are not just for companies that produce physical goods, though companies that sell content or products that support the administration for brands.

For example, we have both worked with a company called G D P R Advisors. This company works with businesses to ensure that they are GDPR compliant. Not only do they produce legal required documentation such as privacy policies, but they have also produced a lot of online training content to help small businesses reduce the costs of understanding and being GDPR compliant.

GDPR advisors could tokenize a lot of the product. Particularly anything that is sold or used by an affiliate or partner because it is the utility of the token and what is written into the smart contract that will provide them with an efficient method of increasing the extent of their reach.

Therefore, generating more sales. A lot of large coaching online course companies use affiliate partner methods to increase their. To tokenize this process is an efficient way to reduce time and reduce costs, but we will also see an experience in time. Other big purchases becoming tokenized like houses in America have already been sold via tokens.

It would definitely happen in the uk. Cars, holidays, lights, the list is endless. So an Angela, do you want to finish us off with a few more ideas?

Angela17:21

Let’s just finish off back to podcast because this is where it started for us. I love the idea that Burnt had a releasing a product that relates to the brand, and I was listening to another podcast yesterday, Sarah Ravens and Arthur, Parkinson’s Grow, Eat, Cook, Arrange.

This would be perfect to tokenize special episodes of this that only a few could hear, but influences even either special podcasts or blog episodes. Could be something they could. We talked in previous episodes, particularly about my loathing of content for content’s sake, but I think through the element of tokenization, there is a real way to create valuable and meaningful content that people want to watch or listen to.

Cheryl18:07

There’s one thing that we wanted to end with. There are not many brands doing this, but there are a lot of investments being made into tokenization. There are a lot of investment firms create investment packages relating to tokens, and it will trickle down. Don’t wait for other small brands to jump on these opportunities.

Start the process yourself. Mm. Particularly listen to Gary Va. He has an endless source of ideas. Do your research and don’t be afraid to make the first step. We at Women of the Meta First will be cheering you on. Yes, we are every step, by the way, . So if you decide to take the step, we would love to know about it and we will use our platform to talk about it.

We just hope that you have enjoyed this episode. Join us next week and we’ll continue our journey into the meta. And now

Angela19:03

bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Women of the Metaverse.

Cheryl19:11

You can find all information, links and people we talked about in the show notes on our website. If you

Angela19:18

have enjoyed this podcast, please comment and subscribe.

Cheryl19:22

Join us again in the next episode as we continue this exciting metaverse journey.