Laurence Fuller’s Outlook Towards NFTs on Tezos
Looking through the lens of select artists using Tezos as their platform of choice for minting and distributing various artworks.
We’ve seen heaps of artists from diverse backgrounds beginning to flock towards Tezos with many even going as far as calling it “the art chain”. I had the chance to sit and chat with Laurence and discuss what drew him to Tezos and some of his views on NFTs as a whole.
In this post, we’ll share Laurence’s views and dispel some common misconceptions towards NFTs at large and Proof of Stake, for that matter.
Meet Laurence Fuller
Laurence is a man of several hats. By trade, he’s an actor who has had lead roles in films like Road to the Well, Apostle Peter & The Last Supper, and others. Laurence is also a writer and producer. More recently, he’s begun to dive head first into the NFT space, creating several works and collaborations amongst other well-known artists.
How has your journey been so far with NFTs?
Basically, when I got into NFTs at the start of last year, my medium was poetry and animating paintings. I was kind of making films out of these paintings. That was something I’ve actually been doing for awhile, combining my passions for cinema, art and poetry. But, there’s obviously no place for that in any traditional gallery or streaming service. Nobody does that.
There’s also no way to turn to it to an asset and obviously NFTs solved that problem. The Ethereum NFT ecosystem is something I still participate in and obviously there’s a lot of established communities and people on the Ethereum network. So, I keep my foot in there but when HEN came around I found it so easy to use, accessible and flexible. There were a lot of options for creators and I started off just using it as an experiment.
The community was a lot smaller back then, I even got a little bit of HDAO for being involved pretty early. I feel like anyone who got a bit of HDAO is pretty much an OG of HEN. But, I really found HEN so much fun and collecting on it very fun. I just started minting more on there so I could collect more on HEN. I think at this point I have something like 2,700 Tezos NFT’s. My NFT journey also took me into Tezos DeFi, I’m mostly into Plenty currently. These two things have helped fund my living and NFT collection.
It’s really been a great journey so far.
What are some pros and cons you’ve found with Tezos as compared to other platforms for NFTs?
In terms of NFTs, what I think has been really fascinating to see is that Tezos is emerging as people have called “the art chain”. I feel that I’m at least partly responsible for that and for some of the talent that’s been attracted. It’s been really quite easy to bring in really great artists because of the people we have minting today on Tezos. Obviously artists want to be apart of a group that they feel like others can look up to in that group.
My focus has been centered around traditional and 3D artists that look cinematic like Ruben Fro, we’re actually collaborating together on something that’s coming up. It really fascinates me how one person can make these types of things like Ruben Fro and others. I actually work in Hollywood and people will spend tens of millions of dollars to an entire department of people for what someone like Ruben can do by himself with maybe a few weeks and a computer.
A lot of 3D artists of his caliber were naturally going towards platforms like super rare and getting onboarded to the curated platforms on Ethereum. I never really asked Ruben what his motivations were but he basically just went straight to HEN. So, seeing artists of that caliber and doing so well on HEN I think is just attracting more and more talent.
For my part, I make the same amount when I mint on HEN as I would on Ethereum or anything else. It used to be a point where you’d have to take a sacrifice and mint your work for cheaper, that was one of the early tradeoffs. As time went on I found that wasn’t really a rule on Tezos and you can actually mint the same amount. To me, that also attracts a high caliber of talent because if they opt to sell for 10 ETH, this can be done today on Tezos if they have the HEN community behind them. That barrier is essentially gone.
This can really help attract more people to HEN and other Tezos-based marketplaces. The upcoming Coinbase NFT marketplace also excites me.
What do you define as the “metaverse”? How do you see public blockchains like Tezos playing a role in defining that?
Well, I think right now we’re defining the culture and what exactly the metaverse is. Personally, I think the metaverse encompasses anything digital. Twitter is a kind of metaverse if you think about it. Independent artists like Beets are creating metaverses and metaverse experiences. These people are really helping to define what all this can be.
There’s obviously bigger projects like crypto voxels where you can walk around and say well that’s a metaverse. That said, I think viewing an art collection in a 3D museum of our own will just be normal. I’ve collected a lot of traditional and physical art. A lot of this is unfortunately stacked up because I don’t have the wall space for it and when I do, I get to enjoy it everyday. That’s fantastic and the reason I bought it.
But who gets to see it? I can’t show it off to friends, etc. It just doesn’t have that same social function. So, I think the metaverses that will be created to house art collections are definitely going to be very impressive. I think as soon as next year we’re going to see some amazing metaverse experiences for art collecting and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
What other stuff have you been up to?
I just did the Digx metaverse experience on Twitter. People had to figure out clues to where the drop was, a total counter intuitive move to something where you’re just supposed to crazily promote it. I don’t think anyone will probably ever attempt that again haha. So, that may end up being the first and only secret drop of a series. Ten artists collaborated alongside myself for this though.
The collectors ended up getting behind it and that was nice to see. After that finished it made me want to take a break and focus on bigger projects. I’ve done about ten in a row now on HEN. I’m in talks with further collaborations with pretty well-known artists on HEN and those in a traditional setting. These collabs I expect to take what I’ve done so far to another level again.
An Energy Efficient Alternative
Quite frequently, we’ll often come across NFTs and the thought that instantly resonates into a non-native NFT collector or of the like is — “NFTs are killing the environment”. What’s not fully grasped exactly is the platforms and their various mechanisms that preclude an accuracy to the statement above. Make no mistake, there is a lot of energy that can be spent in better places.
This environmental impact is negligible on Tezos. Tezos is a Proof of Stake based blockchain network. Under Tezos’ unique implementation (Liquid Proof of Stake) the environmental and even financial costs of minting and distributing NFTs can exert the same amount of energy as sending a tweet from your phone.
For contextual purposes, this is an order of magnitude that is more than 6 times more as compared to networks like Ethereum. This is due to the fact that Ethereum is based on the Proof of Work consensus mechanism. Under this mechanism, miners secure the network and use electricity, an energy intensive process.
There are alternatives that will allow you to participate and become closer with your favorite artists, collectors, sports teams, and more within today’s NFT movement. Learn more about clean NFTs here.
Looking Forward
With NFTs becoming increasingly more used and appreciated by collectors, fans, artists, brands, and more — as the traditional art world begins to merge with what’s being created today, it will be interesting to see how the two amalgamate and form web3.
The internet was most certainly not meant to be something used to track and profile you as many household name companies have made trillion dollar business models based on. For the first time, we’re seeing a cultural shift towards empowering the individual and the ways in which they interact, connect, and digitally socialize.
Where this path leads us is open for interpretation/thought. But, with Tezos rapidly becoming a platform of choice for artists, creators, collectors, brands, and more — it would not be unwise to consider a future where it is heavily ingrained in today’s movement towards web3.
