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Blending Blockchain Technology And Digital Objects With Timo Heuer From Mercedes-Benz NXT
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Blending Blockchain Technology And Digital Objects With Timo Heuer From Mercedes-Benz NXT

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Mercedes-Benz has been around for more than 130 years, constantly innovating and manufacturing better cars. With the rapid growth of the Web3 space, they have now decided to start using blockchain technology. Josh Kriger and Richard Carthon sit down with Timo Heuer, one of the co-founders of 0xNXT, the creative studio behind Mercedes-Benz Web3 initiatives under Mercedes-Benz NXT. He talks about blending blockchain technology with digital objects to vastly overhaul their portfolio and give users a refreshing collectible experience. For this episode’s Hot Topics, they discuss Forbes’ recent article about the future of NFTs and Backpack launching a cryptocurrency exchange based in Dubai.

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BlendingBlockchain Technology And Digital Objects With Timo Heuer From Mercedes-BenzNXT

I’m Timo Heuer, one of the Cofounders of 0xNXT, the creative studio behindMercedes-Benz’s Web3 initiatives where we innovatively blend blockchaintechnology with digital objects. I am here on Edge of NFT featuring theinnovators in the digital and physical art space. Keep reading.

NFT-curious audiences, stay tuned forthis episode to learn how a 130-year-old luxury auto company like Mercedes-Benzseamlessly onboarded their top car owners into the Web3 space and whatunexpected prized possession that lives in our guest kitchen has changed hislife. Lastly, Forbes now notes NFTs are alive again and growing over the nextfour years, but were they ever dead?

**It’s official. You can dive into thecaptivating world of artificial intelligence with the Edge of AI Podcast. Joinus as we explore the frontiers of AI and its impact on our lives. Subscribe nowon your favorite podcast platform and follow us on Twitter @EdgeOf_AI and LinkedIn forexciting updates and insights. You can also visit our new website, **EdgeOfAI.xyz.

This episode features Timo Heuer, one ofthe cofounders of 0xNXT, the creative studio behindMercedes-Benz Web3 initiatives under Mercedes-Benz NXT. Timo specializes inenhancing the collector experience. His previous professional experienceincludes innovation consulting boutique TLGG, a startup incubator, a corporateventure, and several creative agencies. The launch of Mercedes-Benz NXT is asignificant step demonstrating a long-term commitment to the Web3 community.It’s not just about making a statement. It’s about innovatively blendingblockchain technology with digital objects impacting every brand and product inthe Mercedes-Benz portfolio. It’s a pleasure to have you.

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasureto be here.

This has been one of those shows thatI’ve been looking forward to. I don’t know if you know the backstory, but I wasin Dubai and I had a one-hour cab ride with a gentleman that you know inGermany. He was so excited about what you all are doing that he introduced ustogether. He’s another journalist. He went all in on a print magazine, and Igot a couple of copies of those in German sent to me when I got back from Dubai.It’s cool to see the collaboration that you did.

Here’s a shout-out to Lucas. Thank youfor the introduction.

You got back from quite a road trip aswell. You were in Miami, LA, and all over the US. What inspired that trip?

We went to be part of The Gateway, whichis an NFT site event organized by NFT Now. We had a gallery space there andalso did a panel together with Ben Roy. We showed what we are up to and whatour ecosystem looks like at the moment and also gave a little perspective onwhat digital collectability in our view could mean in the future.

Art Basel is such a key part of the artscene. It has been great to see more emphasis there on digital art. Over thelast few years, the fine art side of Web3 has taken over that event, and it hasbeen a meaningful conglomeration of everyone who’s anyone in the art side ofthings, brands, and whatnot. It sounds like a lot of fun. Let’s start at thebeginning with this fascinating journey of Mercedes-Benz into the Web3 spaceand what inspired the next initiative, recognizing how important digital artand collectibles are to the online world. What made Mercedes-Benz get into thisspace? How did you fit into the equation?

The basic insight was that people spendmore time in virtual worlds or digital environments but also that the physicaland the digital realms are merging more and more. We were thinking about a wayto incorporate that in a company like Mercedes-Benz that is verytechnology-driven and innovative and wanted to participate in that developmentas well. That’s one side of the story.

The other side of the story is a verypersonal one. How I and the team, which has three more cofounders of ourcreative studio 0xNXT, ended up there is through passion. We became NFTcollectors in 2021 with one of our cofounders a little bit earlier than theother three. We loved collecting NFTs, exchanging on Discord, and being part ofthe community.

The discussion within Mercedes-Benzstarted also way before that even though, as always, there were these smallpockets of activity before the creative studio was founded, but when thediscussions within Mercedes Bank started, we were there, and we took it up. Inthe end, we founded what is now the creative studio 0xNXT and the brand that isMercedes-Benz NXT. It is a vehicle to make this iconic brand part of thiscultural development that is digital art and digital collectibles. We do thatfor Mercedes-Benz but also other brands, AMG and Maybach.

Mercedes-Benz has been around for over130 years, constantly innovating and making better cars. To see the Web3 spaceas an opportunity and to do something about it is cool. The fact that you’rebeing a part of this and getting to lead this is so awesome. How isMercedes-Benz NXT translating its rich legacy of collectibles into the digitalspace?

One that’s the most obvious is ourcollection called Mercedes-Benz NXT Icons, which is a journey through themore-than-300-year-old history and the heritage that comes with it.Mercedes-Benz is a company founded by engineers and very rooted in designs,many of them icons. It felt natural to us to celebrate this heritage withdigital collectibles, but there are many more things we can talk about later.We are doing in-car stuff as well. There’s a lot where the heritage translatesinto digital art and collectibles, but what is behind me is the most obvious.

I’m excited to get into that. Let’s startby walking us through your three core collections.

We started in June 2023, and the firstcore collection that we did was Maschine. It was acollaboration with a renowned artist in the crypto and digital art space, Harmvan den Dorpel. We did that together with Fingerprints DAO, which is acollector’s DAO. They have a huge collection of Autoglyphs, for example, one ofthe OG projects in the crypto art space. That’s the first core collection.Maschine is code-based. It’s generative. It covers and explores topics likevelocity, emotion, and movement. It ties to a company that is about movement,Mercedes-Benz, but it is not the typical branded projects that other brandswould start with. That was the first thing that we did.

The second core collection is called Eternities. There, we specifically target the topcustomers of Mercedes-Benz to onboard them into the NFT space. How we do thatis we came up with a customized user experience because we thought that theymight not have a wallet, but we want to include them and give them a key to ourecosystem.

Edge of NFT Podcast | Timo Heuer | Blockchain Technology

Blockchain Technology: We specifically target the top customers of Mercedes-Benz to onboard them into the NFT space by coming up with a customized user experience.

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We came up with a customized solutiontogether with a startup from Berlin where we designed these ship cards as acredit card would look like. These are hardware wallets with an NFT shipinside. When you tap them against your phone, a wallet is created automatically.You can do things like seed phrases and extracting NFTs later but at thatstage, the wallet is created and the NFT is automatically dropped into thatwallet and shown within the app.

From a user’s point of view, theexperience would be you get the card and tap it against the phone, and thenthere are technical processes happening in the background but you would seeyour NFT on your screen. Gorden Wagener is the Chief Design Officer ofMercedes-Benz. We designed digital jewelry or digital diamonds. That’s whatthey look like. Each is numbered, and they’re unique. They are dropped in thenewly created wallets, and then you can do whatever you want with them but youcan also get a mint pass for our third core collection with it.

One more thing to mention is that thereare only 1,886 of these Eternities collectibles because first, the number isthe year the first Mercedes-Benz car was patented, and secondly, we wanted togive it to the top-of-the-top customers. We are going to do that and we alreadydid at a few events. We are going to do that at events. That also helps us inonboarding these top customers because personal interactions are always easierthan purely digital experiences.

It’s like giving them the keys, and theyturn on the car. It’s a pretty seamless experience. I’m curious how theyreacted to getting their first NFT. What were some of those moments? It soundslike you experienced them in real life, which is cool. I would want that. Ifyou spent all this time and energy creating this incredible onboardingexperience, you have to see it for yourself. What was it like?

It was nice. We also have a box. It has anice packaging. The first event that we did was in Singapore, and everybody wastech-savvy there. Everybody knew how to tap something against the phone anddownload apps. That was a very smooth process, and the directions were good.Let’s say some of them have more than ten cars. That was something special tohave. The reactions couldn’t have been better.

I share that sentiment. I would haveloved to have seen that in real-time and see that experience. We always want toencourage you to check us out on YouTube because there are some cool things thatyou’re going to be able to see like the background that Timo has showing someof the various NXT Icons series. Can you give us a little bit more insight intothe releases of that series? Right after that one, I spent a little bit of timeon the newest token-powered project called The Era of Luxury. Tell us a little bit more about that aswell.

That’s the third core collection out ofthe three that we have. It’s called Mercedes-Benz NXT Icons. It’s the closestone to the core product. It is a journey through the design heritage ofMercedes-Benz. The way it is released is in seven chapters, which we call eras.Each chapter or era is its own drop. It started with the first era, The Era ofLuxury. The mint was closed at the end of 2023. In early 2024, the next era,The Era of Technology, will be able to mint. Each era has a specific timeframe.For example, The Era of Luxury was the current production cars, the models thatyou could still buy at your Mercedes-Benz dealership, and The Era of Technologyis everything from 2000 to 2017.

They were designed by the same people whodesigned the actual cars headed by Gorden Wagener. It’s the Mercedes-Benzdesign team that is responsible for all of these. They have different traits.For example, we have six models in every era. There are forefronts andbackgrounds. There are a lot of cool Easter eggs like the Erlkoenig pattern,for example, which is on new cars that you don’t want any photos where peoplecan see the details of, and also stitchings and fabrics that are in the realMercedes-Benz cars are part of the traits that we have in the collection. Itincludes Mercedes-Benz cars but also AMGs and Maybachs.

That’s exciting stuff. What’s the nextmint all about? Where are we in this evolution of this digital collectionrelease roadmap?

The next mint is going to be the secondout of the seven eras, The Era of Technology, and that is dropping very soon.You can follow us on Twitter to stay up to date for the actual release date.

Have you found that these collectionshave brought new folks into the Mercedes ecosystem?

We have our Discord, for example. We areactively engaging with these new collectors there or the new brand fans butwe’re targeting the traditional brand fans and collectors of physical cars aswell. That’s why for the next mint, The Era of Technology, we also worked onour website a lot. We will have credit card payments instead of only ETH in thefuture. We will have a wallet-as-a-service solution where people can create awallet very easily with their social or email logins. We are always working onmaking the experience smoother for people to be collectors.

You’re working with some interestingonboarding technology. What was the process like in terms of deciding whetheror not to build that technology in-house or find partners? Were you surprisedat the options that are out there to support onboarding?

We are always looking at a variety ofoptions and then pick the one that we feel fits best to our needs. For creditcards, wallet-as-a-service, but also when we designed the NFT-enabled hardwarewallet cards, we looked at a lot of different companies. For us, these servicesdon’t need to be invented twice. We try to partner with the best out there andthen have a user flow that feels coherent.

For us, everything starts with the userexperience. When we designed our website and the minting experience, for example,we started with what would we want in terms of a good minting experience. Wehad a Dutch auction for the first drop, for example. We also have a fixed-priceoption. We started to design from the user experience first and then looked atall the options that fit there. We’re happy to partner with a few greatcompanies. One is Youba whom we did this card together.

Any brand can succeed by designing from the user experience first and then looking at all the options that fit there. Click To Tweet.

You’re going to have so many more amazingpartnerships in the future. Going back to Mercedes as a company, there are twowords that I want to spend some time on for you to unpack. The first iscollectability, and that is a key concept about the intrinsic value of digitalobjects with the physical that is Mercedes-Benz, and then full transparency,always. That’s a principle that’s very vital to Mercedes-Benz. Can you spendsome time on the collectability side of things and then also how fulltransparency, always correlates to the message that you’re trying to bring withdoing this?

In general, collectability is inherent toNFTs, and it’s also what got us started. We are NFT collectors ourselves onvarious chains and different projects. I started with a lot of Art Blocks backin the day but we have a lot of PFPs also from back in the day includingCryptoPunks on the collectible side. There are a lot of use cases for NFTtechnology but for us, collectability felt like a natural fit for a brand likeMercedes-Benz that is known for being collectible. There are a lot of classiccar collectors in the world and a lot of people who also collect memorabiliafrom old posters and other stuff. That felt natural to us.

What we mean by collectability is thetechnical production is high-class. It’s craftsmanship. It feels authentic tothe brand. It also has a storytelling universe around it, for example, becausecollectibles and comic books work like that. You are part of a larger story inthe end. They’re also part of a cultural development that we actively look intoand seek. For example, what we are looking at in the future are contexts inthis cultural environment where to put the Icons next.

Gaming, for example, is a veryinteresting topic to us. XR is an interesting topic. When you look at what’sgoing to happen with the Apple Vision Pro that is hopefully likely coming outin January 2023. It’s gotten a little silent around it. When you look at theMeta Ray-Ban, for example, it’s interesting what’s happening there. We are alsoalways looking into how we can be culturally relevant with what we do. Thesefactors in the end make an item and also a digital item collectible.

The other part of the question was aroundtransparency, always, which is something that was part of our strategy that wedeveloped quite early because when we were asked by Mercedes-Benz to developthe strategy, we asked ourselves, “What would we want as collectors from alarge brand entering the space?” We looked into what others had done andwhat works in the space. In a market that is very hype-driven and all aboutFOMO, we wanted to be a little different. I also didn’t want to talk peopleinto buying something that they may later regret.

That was one of our key principles fromthe beginning. We asked ourselves, “How can that work?” We developedthe framework that we are still using. That consists of different layers thatare a little bit like a hierarchy among the collections that we are doing. Forthe core collections, we already talked about the three that are out there,Maschine, Eternities, and Icons. That’s the top tier. They are part of acoherent story. They are planned and developed by us. They are in a way allinterrelated.

There are satellite projects, which are alittle bit more fun. They can be more experimental. They are more one-time andunique ideas but they also have a right to exist. We wanted to make it clearthat there are different kinds of NFT collections that we are launching. Thereare peripheral projects because, as you can imagine, a brand like Mercedes-Benzalso has a lot of things that could in the future, for example, be NFTs thatare not 100% our own. That’s third-party brand usage. For example, in a gamewhere there’s one Mercedes-Benz car, that would be a peripheral project.

That is a framework that we developedquite early to give transparency and also to make people do good business orbuying decisions because we believe that the community thrives when people wantto be there, and when they don’t just FOMO into something and then a few monthslater regret it. That’s what we mean by full transparency, always. In a lot ofcases, we will overshare our thoughts.

By being transparent with your business, you help customers make better buying decisions. A community thrives when people want to be there. Click To Tweet.

We are very cautious in some of ourapproaches but this also leads to communication of the roadmap. There is aroadmap, and a lot of the roadmap is already communicated but we don’t have aroadmap like, “On day X, this will launch in three months.” Whilewe’re working on a lot of these things, we feel like we want to communicatethem when they are ready, safe, and bulletproof.

It’s a great amount of responsibility torepresent this critical and iconic brand in the right way and release thingswhen it makes sense to release them. I would be remiss if we didn’t talk aboutthe idea of an NFT technology related to the actual car usage experience. Whatare your thoughts on that? There have been ideas tossed around in this spacefrom having a digital twin to the car that you own and using NFTs to capturedriving data and personal data around preferences. What are you thinking aboutNFTs when it relates to the cars that folks own?

We’re thinking about the mentioned abovethings as well. One thing we have already as a pilot in the new E-Class is anin-car app where you can show your NFT collection. That is something that wewill in the future further develop. I cannot comment on the other ideas.

That’s fine. I do have one more questionfor you, and then we have another segment that we’re looking forward to doingwith you. You’re taking a look around at what’s going on in the Web3 space.You’ve started as a collector. What are some of the projects in the space thatyou’ve been personally following that you’re excited about?

The first thing that comes into my mindis Bright Moments because it’s a community that we did anexhibition in Berlin with but also that I was following way before that. I lovewhat they’re doing, especially in live minting experiences. It also inspiredour live minting experience with the cards and doing that at events. It’sBright Moments. Here’s a shout-out to Seth and the team. It’s a community thatI like and follow.

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Here’s a shout-out to those guys.

I appreciate that. I like it.

What was the most recent thing youpurchased?

It was an Apple Store gift card.

Curiosity.

It’s all the scenarios in your head.

What are you going to do next after theshow?

This rice cooker gets a lot of usage.

Rice Cooker: A Love Story.

Let’s see how it goes.

They do love cars over there. That’s forsure.

That’s also very true.

My parents.

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