Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been all the rage in 2021. If you’re not sure what they are, an NFT is a “one-of-a-kind” digital asset that is bought and sold like other pieces of property.
Vancouver-based
Looking Glass Labs Ltd. (NEO:NFTX,
Forum) is a newly listed, publicly-traded company that specializes in uNFT architecture, which takes NFTs to the next level with added utility and usefulness in the metaverse.
Stockhouse Editorial’s Jocelyn Aspa recently had the opportunity to catch up with Looking Glass Labs’ CEO Dorian Banks to discuss what the company’s been up to and all things NFTs.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW
SH: Can we first start off with you providing a brief overview of yourself and the company?
DB: Looking Glass Labs is a parent company of several NFT brands, the premier brand being the House of Kibaa, which formed early in 2021 primarily doing NFT drops and then working into building a metaverse. I'm CEO of Looking Glass Labs and I'm responsible for the overall company, new acquisitions, hires, and overall future strategy of the company.
SH: For anyone in our audience and I that are new to NFTs, what can you tell us about them? And please also explain the difference between NFTs and uNFTs.
DB: NFTs, non fundable tokens, are pretty much generally known as what they would call 2D art. That's the most popular category. That would be like Bored Ape Society, Bored Ape Yacht Club or Gutter Cat Gang type images, which people collect one of 10,000, or one of 3,000 of, for instance. They are literally just digital art pieces. Just like you'd have a regular art piece on your wall, this one just happens to be digital, and the ownership and provenance is proven via blockchain. You can prove that you're the owner of that particular one via the blockchain. uNFT or utility NFT, as we've coined it, are NFTs that may be an image as well, but they also had some utility. They might be an event ticket, or they might provide you with VIP access to a DJ set, if you can prove that you own that NFT. They also might provide you with future NFTs. If you own that one NFT, you might get other ones in that collection for free or get the first chance to buy ones in the future. Think of a uNFT as an NFT that comes with an added bonus.
SH: In addition, what is a metaverse and why have I been hearing so much about the topic lately?
DB: Metaverse is basically — think of our world that we live in the real world here, except a virtual one either via a computer screen, or a headset, or a VR room, which you might stand in. It's a whole other version of the world and it could be a sci-fi world, it could be old Western, it could be anything you really want it to be, and your character can be anything you want it to be. All of the items in that metaverse, that new world, that digital world, can be anything you want as well. It's basically almost a real-world with limitless possibilities. You can run around as an ape, or a cat, or a dinosaur, or yourself. You can wear branded clothes or wear just fur, whatever you want. Drive a fast car or fly a crazy helicopter. Meet your friends there and go to meetings and have parties and go to DJ sets. It's basically a massive new world, I would put it. It's been in the news lately of course because Facebook changed their name to Meta, and they showed a very interesting, detailed, reel of their version of their Metaverse coming up.
SH: What drew your interest to the NFT and metaverse markets?
DB: I've been in crypto since 2012, and that was kind of like the lead up to NFTs. NFTs are similar to cryptos, in that they're on the blockchain, except instead of it being like a valuable token on a blockchain, it’s an actual item, like a piece of art or a utility based NFT. It was a natural progression for the blockchain. I believe what's happened is with work from home during the last couple of years, it's accelerated that movement. I didn't expect it to happen for another couple of years, and with everyone being at home, having virtual meetings and having meetings with colleagues and friends and family that they haven't seen in a long time, you really picked up this virtual meeting aspect. As we know, video calls have been a very commonplace the last couple of years and that's accelerated this movement towards - how else we can advance this zoom call kind of concept, into something more personal and something more inclusive of maybe an entire company, in one area in a metaverse and so that's the progress, it’s crypto to NFTs now to this virtual world concept.
SH: In October the company ‘dropped’ an NFT offering for $6.2 million in 37 minutes — can you walk us through this and how significant this was for the company?
DB: Very significant, we have a very strong community, which is everything in the NFT world. Basically, your followers are another way to put it. We sold a Genesis membership, which is kind of like an all-access pass, so to say, in the spring. We had sold 809 of those and those people have become kind of our core audience, and we have this extended audience beyond those people. We sold 10,000 3D avatars, very sci-fi looking, I would say robotic looking, but everyone is different, all 10,000 and like you said, we sold $6.2 million of those in 37 minutes. That just shows the demand out there and the desire for people to collect these NFTs. The difference with ours though is, compared to almost all others, in fact almost literally all others, is ours are fully 3D articulated, metaverse ready.
As opposed to a 2D image of a monkey or something like that, ours look 2D when you look at them on the screen as when you purchase them, but the entire 3D fully rigged articulated object is behind it. You can actually use that - it's metaverse ready, so to say, nothing else is required. That was quite successful for us, and we will have future drops coming up, especially as we move into Q1 next year and it's going to only accelerate really.
SH: More recently, Looking Glass Labs announced that its flagship studio, House of Kibaa, listed all 10,000 of its GenX NFTs on Rarity.Tools, which is the leading global index of NFTs — what should investors know about this milestone?
DB: Well, Rarity.Tools or other rarity ranking sites - basically, what they do is they look at all of the traits of a particular NFT within its catalog and they say, okay, of the 10,000, this is the 19
th rarest one or the 487
th rarest one, and in a way, collectors’ kind of put value on that. So, if you can add like the number two rarity, it might be an extremely valuable NFT within that collection, and that just kind of happened organically. I would say that people want the rarer ones, obviously, so getting on Rarity tools is great. It's pretty much inevitable for any collection these days. You have to get listed on a rarity site, so that collectors can easily determine which ones they might want to purchase or sell.
SH: The company has also announced some interesting partnerships lately, so please tell us about those clients and the significance of those relationships for LGL going forward?
DB: The one we're worked on latest is Gutter Cat Gang. They have 3,000 x3 avatars that they've sold to their community, and we've been working with them on converting those from again, that 2D image to a fully articulated 3D character that you can use in the metaverse. You can run around as your ‘Gutter Cat’, or ‘Gutter Dog’ or ‘Gutter Pigeon’, as they call them and we've worked with them to develop those for their community and those are again metaverse ready, which is the key.
SH: What have been some of the other major highlights for the company so far this year?
DB: We have definitely started working on more metaverse items. We recently also dropped, again, 3D metaverse ready art galleries to our original Genesis members, that became members in the spring. They all got a fully rendered art gallery for themselves, that they can use in our metaverse or other metaverses this year. That allows them to display their NFTs in their own art gallery in a metaverse of their choice, hopefully within ours. We gave all those out for free, to our original members and they were ecstatic, and I know they're very excited to deploy them when metaverse is ready in 2022.
SH: What will be some catalysts investors can look forward to this year?
DB: Well, we have some big surprises coming up. Ones that I think are unprecedented, especially in our metaverse announcement that's upcoming as well as partnerships with major brands and people out in the real world. I think that it's really going to catapult us into the top tier of metaverse and NFT companies globally.
SH: Is there anything I’ve missed that you’d like to touch base on?
DB: Not at this point but I do really encourage everyone to stay tuned, sign up for our newsletters, our announcements, maybe even grab an NFT because it'll get you indoctrinated into this new world that we're entering, which is only going to expand and encompass all of our lives, whether we want it to or not. We'll all be involved with NFTs at some point, so best to start early and get your learning curve going.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.