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Daniel Killeen & Dominic Carbonaro Of Ava Labs On The Art Of Creating Avalanche NFTs With The Future-Proof Blockchain Built to Scale
Ava Labs has been making waves in the digital community. They are the team behind Avalanche NFTs, the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry today. This open program for decentralized applications is surprisingly fast, eco-friendly, and low-cost. Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger dig deeper into Avalanche with Daniel Killeen and Dominic Carbonaro of Ava Labs. The two explain how they push for NFT’s integration in the enterprise and art spaces, giving founders and artists a brand new landscape to showcase their skills. They discuss why they focus on NFT opportunities that may not be considered exciting or sexy right now but promise outstanding long-term impact. Daniel and Dominic also talk about Ava Lab’s Core web, which aims to eliminate Web3’s two-dimensional clunky interface and create a seamless experience.
Listen to the podcast here
Daniel Killeen & Dominic Carbonaro Of Ava Labs On The Art Of Creating Avalanche NFTs With The Future-Proof Blockchain Built to Scale
Stay tuned for this episode and find out how Avalanche is creating the bridge to easy onboarding for Web3.
Also, why NFTs will take new and interesting forms in the very near future.
Find out why chickens are still the most interesting thing in NFTs all. All this and more on this episode.
Don’t forget we put together a gathering at NFT LA that brought out thousands of the world’s most innovative doers in the NFT space. Head to NFTLA.live to get tickets to our bigger, bolder, better, but also as intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles, March 20th to the 23rd, 2023. See you there.
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This episode features Daniel Killeen and Dominic Carbonaro of Ava Labs, two members of a world-class team of experts building Avalanche, known as the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry as measured by time to finality. Avalanche is blazingly fast, low cost, and eco-friendly with a mission to digitize all the world’s assets.
Dominic is the business development lead focusing on NFT and arts and Daniel is a business development associate for NFTs and Culture. Avalanche is the future-proof blockchain that’s built to scale. You build anything you want and any way you want on the world’s most developer-friendly layer, one. Ava Labs team has collective experience from leading Fortune 500 finance and tech companies to high growth blockchain companies.
They are passionate individuals creating a frictionless world by redefining the way people build and use finance applications. There are three main use cases leveraging the high-performance capabilities of Avalanche, decentralized finance AKA DeFi, institutions, enterprises, governments, and digital collectibles. Their community is expanding and growing, supporting fifteen plus languages now. Daniel and Dominic, welcome to the show. It’s good to have you here.
Thank you. I’m super excited to be here.
Thanks a lot, Eathan and thanks a lot, Jeff. I’m looking forward to this.
Welcome and there’s a lot to talk about so we’d love to dive right in. Before we get too deep and have a lab side of things, we would want to know about your journeys to Ava Labs. How did you get there as team members and arrive to where we are now?
In my previous life, I was working in educational technologies, mostly working with instructors on a one-to-one basis like convincing them to use different textbooks and softwares. COVID happened and I couldn’t execute on my job anymore. Most of my job was at college campuses meeting with teachers and so you can imagine March of 2020, there wasn’t much in person going on. I had a ton of free time.
I got into crypto through some friends and I’d found Avalanche pretty early on and went back to school to take some courses to figure out how to run a node. October of 2020, I had to take some community college courses while working full-time and eventually got a node spun up and was very active in the ecosystem, and from there I been pretty much all in on crypto. I had known some of the employees at Ava Labs and worked out that. I’m in this position now.
I was on the other end of that equation. I was a PhD student teaching statistics and I remember those folks like you like visiting and say, “Here’s your textbook for the year. It’s a software. Make sure you utilize this. Do you want to add this here?” That’s great. I’m passionate about education and I’m sure that’s probably part of what brought you to the domain and integrating tech into it. It’s a lot of what we are doing here with the show. It’s educational. Daniel, how was your way towards Avalanche?
A little also unconventional. I’ve been around crypto since 2010. First time I have learned about blockchain and Bitcoin. My hometown was very early. A lot of people from where I’m from livings New Jersey, either work in crypto or own crypto early on. Avid follower of the space very into the Ethereum committee or ETH. I was very active in that subreddit for a long time.
I did University of Colorado blockchain, not a founding member but one of the earlier members and when I started that was like a 6-person club that I’m on Reddit and now it’s like 100 plus people that has sponsorships from both the engineering and business schools. I’m proud of that journey career-wise was always going to be civil service, public policy, wanted to be in communities where the crypto ethos ties in.
During the pandemic, I was a first responder. I was a 91 operator during in Hudson County, New Jersey, which is the six most densely populated county in America. Experienced intense amount of 91 call volume. I got pretty burned out and said, “I want to go do something else.” Crypto DeFi Summer was picking up at that time all of my friends were doing well.
Luckily, I stumbled at 3:00 in the morning while doing some job resume work Ava Labs in the middle of June, July of 2020 before the protocol went live, and then I said that’s a North star and I did everything I could to work for the company and here I am now. I’ve been with the team now for over a couple of years. First started as a contract employee and now a full-time hire. Again, it’s awesome to be speaking with you guys and love what Dominic has been helping us out.
Things are working out. That’s a good sign when they bring you on as an employee. Also, another connection there, I went to Rutgers for my undergrad, so not too far from Livingston. We know Avalanche. It sells itself as an open programmable smart contract platform for decentralized applications, but you encourage people to try for themselves and watch that it should outperform its competition. Where does Ava Labs see the future of NFTs and the way that Ava can support that?
There are a lot of pathways for how we see NFTs developing. There’s that renaissance moment of people understanding what NFTs are as a technology component. We are going to start to see more integration in use cases of NFTs as it’s a technology in the enterprise area. Things like ticketing or diplomas where people are using the baseline technology and saying, “This solves a fundamental business use case for us and it makes it significantly easier for us to operate using the technology of NFTs.”
That’s going to be one vertical and we are excited to see. You could think of a lot of different things, reward points for major airlines, and things like that. There’s going to be a lot of growth in that area. In the other area which is what people normally associate the term NFT too, which is like the Bored Apes. A lot of people who have maybe very little exposure to this space think, “I think of a NFT, I think of a picture.”
What we saw was in very similar to like 2017 ICOs. NFTs as a profile picture we think have strong validity in the sense that it’s a form of digital identity. As we move more towards a digital space, people want a way to identify in that space and we think profile pictures will primarily dominate that realm. You can think of things like having a digital Lambo or a digital Rolex. Your profile picture becomes a flexing status.
Where we eventually see those things going, they will merge towards being a physical identity component and then becoming some brand. Whether those end up being luxury brands, fully digital brands, whatever it may be, the profile pictures that we feel will survive and continue will be the ones that then continue to switch to a brand.
Probably most of them are going to struggle to make that transition. We feel like the future will hold the ones that have emerged and are strong and the ones that continue to enter that profile picture space as brand component with an identity, some type of long term like roadmap for building on a digital brand. Those will work.
We also see the primary growth happening over the next few years is going to be an NFTs in a sense like an art component. What we mean by that is digital art but more towards individual artists building a brand for themselves and communities around them. What we have saw a lot of in the boom of NFTs was, the reason people bought them was because the price of them went up, and that’s not necessarily something that can be sustained forever. As we all know, price eventually goes down.
What we are starting to see emerge is loyalty to a creator and that creator building a community around them and continuing to grow out that brand. Them doing an NFT on a weekly basis that’s auctioned off to their community. Those are sustainable things that necessarily don’t require the number to go up, but it’s based in a creator in a creator economy.
I wouldn’t want to say a lot of our big bets, but what we envision it going towards is emerging of the physical art world, which we already know is a $60 billion space and this NFT space merging into that. New creators, artists, and mediums are emerging from that and those two things becoming one. That’s where we want to be on the front lines. We want to be onboarding a lot of those creators and creatives into that specific vertical.
We have had a lot of these conversations about digital identity, what that means, and how it’s identity. We are talking digital identity. It’s not that. It’s merging everything together. We are early in that process, but that’s the direction we are going. There are so many interesting things that’ll evolve from that. Whether it’s like the more mundane stuff like your driver’s license and these things like this existing in the digital world or some of the sexier stuff, it’s interesting how that path is emerging. It’s like the train has left the station.
Around that, you guys are developing a ton of different products and you have core web which you released and the idea here is a Web3 user experience. It starts to integrate a bunch of these different components we were talking about. We had this quote from your head of product which was saying that core web is the perfect example of a product focused on human-centered design and the principles of providing users freedom, flexibility, and efficiency of use. It’s a pretty solid quote. I like that. Tell us why is this a great way to connect with Web3? What’s special about it?
That mainly helped out with a lot of integrations with getting people onboarded into core, especially DAP level. Core Web is a probably a big step forward for all Web3 as a whole to have a command center, a base to start interacting with ease, simplicity, and elegance. You could do everything from swaps all within browser to seeing your collectibles to eventually integrating with full suite of DAPs. Long term for C core as potentially being a landing page for when people want access Web3. Bold statement but you know how there is now Safaris, Chromes, and Mozillas of the world. People will start with opening their wallet first. Interfaces are two dimensional in a sense and they don’t give you the full traditional banking experience or traditional finance experience.
What a core does is letting you move again seamlessly through all Web3 within one experience, and then the big component which is going to be necessary is thesis of application specific blockchains, which is what Avalanche owns with subnets. Core allows you to integrate and work with a wide variety of different blockchains with a few clicks.
It shouldn’t be login in out of this or that. Put your private key in here, put your C phrase in here. Now if you want to go to another blockchain, it’s click, simple and seamless. If you want to transfer assets between different chains or if you want to see units of values go across different chains, it doesn’t have to be a complex experience. Refreshes and reloads instantly and, again, is posted direct down chain. The beauty of all Avalanches with instant finality is you see it happen in real-time.
You are not seeing a loading or a waiting, which we have seen a lot of Web3 experiences before. I call Web3 clunky right now, but core is a big step to making Web3 less clunky. It might not sound sexy like you use the word sexy, but it’s a necessary step because, for me, UI and UX adoption are as important as critical mass as the rest of the pie. If users are not feeling comfortable, if it’s something that my mom or your dad could adopt, then we are making progress, and that’s the core what does efficiently.
Avalanche NFTs: Web core is a big step to making Web3 less clunky. It might not sound sexy, but UI/UX adoption is as important to the critical mass as the rest of the pie.
That easy button needs to be there for people and that sounds like that’s a great step forward.
Clunky is interesting. It’s funny the media consumption around Web3 for me is like we are right inside of it. We talk about the Metaverse on these shows too and stuff like that. There are a lot of integrations there. I saw a mainstream thing about the Metaverse where they had some personality from CNBC or something. You always see, “I’m trying out a Metaverse,” and they ask the guy who was guiding them, “Where are we at with this technology?” He said, “We are at like dial up.” Even with the Metaverse which has been around for years and years, but it’s a great analog for what’s going on with Web3.
Meaning not that you can’t reach a good stage of performance but that in the development of the technology, there are still leaps and bounds to be made in various directions. That’s because I could see you guys taking it on. When people think about Avalanche for NFTs, I’m curious what they think of or what you guys want them to think of. Any interesting examples or thoughts in that domain?
When I started, we didn’t have an identity. When people think Avalanche NFTs, what do they think of? I don’t even necessarily think that that’s been established yet. People still are like, “I don’t know.” There are pros and cons to that, but I do think the big pro is that we get to help establish what that narrative is going to be.
When people think of Avalanche NFTs, we want them to think of art, creators, value, things of quality, and things that are going to have lasting impact, things that are sustainable and will be here. Those are things we want to support. When we look at our NFT ecosystem, we are thinking about this in a 3 to 5-year vacuum of who is going to be here 3 to 5 years from now continuing to create content, continuing to build their community out, and continuing to onboard new users in? Those are the things we are supporting.
They may not be the sexy things right now. They may not be the things getting all the volume that everyone’s paying attention to but that’s not necessarily our goal to look around and tell you, “This is working right now. Let’s go do that.” We want something that’s going to be here. That’s our identity and that’s what a community is tending to gravitate towards.
TapTapKaboom is a recent artist in our ecosystem. He’s done tons of mints that continue to sell out. He continues to grow his brand and his audience. Gabe Weiss is a pretty prominent NFT artist. He did a mint on Avalanche. He did very well. Not only is our community responding well to this and in consuming this, but we have very high faith that these artists will continue to be here in continuing to make work and create and grow up our identity and our ecosystem.
I have seen some tweets out there describing Avalanche as an art chain. Having art, the capacity to be showcased specifically here a fully customizable gallery spaces for the Avax community, decorate hanging NFTs on the walls, hanging out with friends plays or avatar was like the vision of this tweet, but it’s interesting to see right and see that develop and appreciate that as someone coming from a creator space and a musician as well that thoughtfulness put into wanting to be affiliated with great art.
On the NFT front, what are some of the more interesting ones? What are some of the sexier ones that are in your orbit right now within your ecosystem that stand out to you, some of the more fun stuff? I feel like there is a meta-purpose of things that are purely fun. Maybe there’s other utility as well, but there’s something there and that is to bring folks into the space to get excited about it, to have that enthusiasm. Is there something like that in your orbit that you could highlight for us?
One of our main marketplaces is called Joepegs. It’s from our leading decks, which is a decentralized exchange Trader Joe. They made a NFT marketplace Joepegs. With that, they launched Joe Studios, which is they are like Web3 studio brand-like building projects. We have seen some cool projects come out of there.
They have Rich Peon, Poor Peon which is a play on Rich Dad Poor Dad. There’s a whole mining component. A big rock component. It’s a very fun project but it also has a legitimate team that’s building a whole story behind it. We have even seen like even funny NFTs like we have chicken also, which is based off of a chicken and a rooster and there’s farmland. The chicken lays eggs and you have to feed the chicken to get it larger and to get more eggs.
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There’s a whole community and component and those have done extremely well in terms of price and where they are at now. The things that we have and we are focusing on are legitimate projects with real communities behind them. I would say those two are great landing points if you are looking at fun stuff that has good communities around it that have been here and have been tested and we’ll continue to be here.
Are you aware of the Krapopolis NFT project from Dan Harmon and Fox Entertainment? We had them on the show. It’s a pretty big serious project. Fox Entertainment, this blockchain creative labs that they have going on. Dan Harmon created Rick and Morty Chicken NFTs. They lay eggs. We have at least one, I don’t know how many. We maybe have a hen house full of chicken NFTs, and apparently, we are brimming at the seams with eggs that we have laid. Fruitful concept.
You all have some chickens?
With those chickens. We got some of your chickens too, but we do have some Krapopolis chickens.
Our chicken is a first mover came out. That’s real recognized.
There’s room for lots of chickens. They are fun. That’s part of it. It’s a good time and appreciate the example and I always want to remember that too because I feel like in many cases some of the more fun projects the interesting ones do catch a various time for whatever reason. The fact is there’s got to be fun. There’s got to be interest. We got to get out there and enjoy ourselves in what we are doing and carry the space forward. It’s an important part of the puzzle for sure.
The campaign starts there. Chickens are cool.
Yes.
Dominic, how about you?
How Jersey is that? That’s awesome.
Your forever house.
Do you have a location in mind?
Daniel, how about you?
Hold on. What is macha then?
I don’t know.
That’s a whole other level.
Daniel, how about you?
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