We have Carolin Wend, the CEO of Mintbase with us today. We're excited to ask her some questions from the community and actually some from our team. And I’ve been watching a lot of your videos, your outspoken individual, and actual role model to a lot of female entrepreneurs, Caroline. So, thank you for what you do.
How did you get into blockchain? How did this all happen?
I used to work in the festival sector and am originally from Germany. I attended one of the festivals and met the founder of Vida Mural in Berlin. It started when he said “Hey Carolin, in the future, there will be no ticketing companies, no banks, just all of the transparent on the blockchain, there will be no intermediaries”. I was impressed and began researching Ethereum and blockchain. And did not own any tokens at that time.
Before entering into blockchain, I was a technology spokesperson, writing speeches and keynotes for a politician in the German parliament. During my course at the German parliament, I met Nate, the founder of Mintbase at one of the events. About two years ago, he introduced me to NFTs and I found it to be very abstract. I got onboard and six months later, I transitioned and quit the job at parliament.
How is Mintbase Positioning themselves?
We work with Vandal DAO records to integrate audio NFTs and all the NFT pilots are stored on our wifi.
What was it about NFTs? What made you make that jump in?
It’s the vision that it can really change the world and make the world a better place. Nate used to work for a company called Bump where they try to fractionalize ownership of shares and that is where he saw the vision of the future in the world we live in. Because we don’t own shares, tickets or music. There is no ownership on the internet.
With NFTs, you can fractionalize ownership. On the new Mintbase on Near blockchain, there is a split revenue model. So everytime an NFT is purchased or sold, the artist can decide the allocation of the percentage of the sale and who it will go to.
The theory can stay forever with the royalty function and it is really fascinating that you can really take control and monetize your content as a creator. We have friends in Berlin who are DJs and they have 1 million streams a year and they only get a thousand Euros for it. We aim to push people to become their own independent platform. Although we are a platform but as NFTs, you can move your NFTs wherever you want and it does not need to stay in the Mintbase ecosystem.
With NFTs, you can fractionalize ownership. On the new Mintbase on Near blockchain, there is a split revenue model. So everytime an NFT is purchased or sold, the artist can decide the allocation of the percentage of the sale and who it will go to.
The theory can stay forever with the royalty function and it is really fascinating that you can really take control and monetize your content as a creator. We have friends in Berlin who are DJs and they have 1 million streams a year and they only get a thousand Euros for it. We aim to push people to become their own independent platform. Although we are a platform but as NFTs, you can move your NFTs wherever you want and it does not need to stay in the Mintbase ecosystem.
Marketing your NFT
NFT applies to any kind of sector, eg. art sector, ticketing, music and even healthcare records.
There is a gap whereby it is really difficult for many NFT creators to market themselves, so most people market their NFTs on Twitter or in virtual galleries, like on Cryptovoxels or Decentraland. So it’s completely different. If you are willing to learn and you just do something great, then I’m sure you can also market your product. We are right at the beginning of all these.
The Future of NFT Royalties, Trademark, Intellectual Property and Legal Structures. The Blockchain and Intellectual Property Rights
It’s just the next evolution of the internet. And I just cannot believe it right now. What is happening around us like a year ago or two years ago, we really didn’t see this coming. We thought that it would be in 5 or 10 years, like people will wake up to the concept of NFTs and use them, but it’s happening now. This is crazy.
What to Look Out Next in the NFT space?
The first phase was cryptokitties and collectibles, and the second phase was more like music and different types, but now it’s all about NFTs that have real world use cases. You can redeem an NFT as a digital piece for a pair of sneakers at Nike. Nate has also commented that you can use NFTs at an actual festival where you can create massages or beer, etc, as an NFT that can be redeemed and gain some value out of it and also some fractional ownership to the NFT itself.
NFTs empower creators and you could do so many fun stuff with it. I am really excited about NFTs being purposeful. I could foresee having an NFT that I actually like at the festival and have access to backstage to meet and greet my favorite artists or access different content on their website.
Because the token is the API and it really depends on what the creator wants, but he can open up so many worlds with his NFT and it’s all transparent on the blockchain and there’s no lying anymore. You cannot say, we sold out of tickets. You can just look at no, it’s not true.
NFT use cases
We are very focused on real-world use cases. As I already presented at the talk, we are working on a hybrid festival in Somnium Space and Cryptovoxels for the metaverse, and an actual location in a Berlin tea house.
We’re calling it the NFT house and inside we’ll have Moroccan carpets where you can drink tea, but where you can also learn about NFTs. You can scan QR codes which then redirect you to the virtual world. When you walk around, it’s also in the virtual world where you will steam into the festival and see what’s going on there.
You can join the metaverse, AND also the festival. Talk and get to know people, exchange things, etc… It will be mind-blowing for many people because there will be something for everyone. NFTs which attract creators, the festival which attracts the young people. You can even take photos and tokenize the festival photo with your friends, all in a super-easy way.
Mintbase Use Case That Could Go Mainstream
Follow up links would be shared on what we have been working on. We just had a call with a festival and it is really nice to see how the two worlds could come together. For every person who has a ticket to the festival, he will be given a Near wallet with some tokens in it. He can then spend it on NFTs at the festival or before the festival at a virtual gallery and support the artists they like. And by doing so, we could onboard artists who are participating in the festival and also create NFTs by having a virtual exhibition.
Mint an NFT
Top Upcoming and Ongoing Projects to Look for
One of our team members, Louis, is building his own super cool Metaverse. The project is called Web XR. Whenever you mint an NFT from Mintbase, you will be able to click on a button and then you fly into the world in Web XR. And you can walk around and see your NFTs. Because right now, creators have to first purchase a passer in Cryptovoxels and then build up a gallery which is really complicated and expensive to have the art put up. But with the integration of Web XR, you do not need to do anything as a creator, except with just a click of a button and it automatically appears. So I am very excited about the Web XR project. I am also excited on other metaverses like Somnium space, Cryptovoxels, Decentraland and it is so exciting to see how NFTs and the metaverse will mix up.
Scaling Mintbase with Near Protocol
Near Protocol is not very aggressively marketed and they need help with their design. The technology is good and that is what counts. Near has just launched their rainbow bridge so users will be able to buy Near and NFTs on Near with nDAI and nETH. So it’s really cool that they have the Ethereum compatibility.
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Show Transcript
Mint an NFT
Ivan Kan: We have Carolyn Wend, the CEO of mid based with us today, we’re excited to ask her some questions from the community and actually some from our team. And I’ve been watching a lot of your videos, your outspoken individual, and actual role model to a lot of female entrepreneurs, Caroline. So thank you for what you do just to kick things off. How did you get into blockchain and, and how did you, well, I guess it kind of transitioned into, but mid base. How did, how did this all happen?
Carolin Wend: Definitely. So I’m originally from Germany and I used to work in the festival industry. So I had many clients, many customers, and one of my favorite festival is called mural and Berlin. And the founder told me one day, Hey, Carolyn. And the future, there will be no ticketing companies, no banks. Well, just all of the transparent. Yeah. On the blockchain, there will be no intermediaries. And I was really impressed. And I read about this weird thing theory from and blockchain and yeah. So just RET you know, did my research, but actually didn’t own any tokens. And then through my research, I got a job in German parliament for a technology spokesman. And then I actually wrote speeches and keynotes for a politician.
And then why is I was working at the German parliament. I went to several events in my role. And then I met Nate, the founder of mint base. And at that time he was in Berlin because he won the Def con for hackathon in Prague. And everyone told him you should go to Berlin. So he was there and I was there and then we met and I was fascinated. Yeah. What he was building. And two years ago, he was already talking about those weird NFTs and I really found it very abstract, but yeah. So then I got on board and six months later, I, yeah, so positions and human face and quit the job at parliament.
Ivan Kan: Wow. And you had a really interesting, and I imagine this has a lot to do if we’re mint based is positioning themselves kind of the, because I read, you know, you’re the first to integrate with audio integration and really catering for a music producers. And imagining that came from your background.
Carolin Wend: I mean, mostly it should be honest from people just asking us, Hey, can we use NFTs for, for music? So there was one person in particular Vanda dowel records, and he pushed us to integrate audio FTS. That was last year in May. So we integrated audio NFTs and all the NFT pilots are stored on our weef.
Ivan Kan: Oh, I saw that. And I actually read that article by Nate on medium, on choosing near. And he really dives deep into, in an era of even some of the, the tech behind it. But I’m really curious. So when you met Nate, what was it about NFTs? And, you know, I know you researched into it, but what really made you make that jump? Because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs in the same scenario where you are, where they’re familiar with, they did the research and then, you know, now they’re seeing it everywhere. What, what made you, and what convinced you to make that for jump in.
Carolin Wend: So all about it’s the vision that it can really change the world and make the world a better place. I know it sounds very cheesy, but yeah, I really believe in it. And Nate actually like saw the vision and he used to work for a company called bombs where they try to fractionalize ownership of shares. Because if you think about the world we live in right now, we don’t really own chairs. We don’t really own tickets or music. It’s, there’s no ownership on the internet. and with NFTs, you can not only own stuff, but you can even fractionalized ownership. So what, like, you know, now on the new Mia mint base, we have a mint based on near blockchain. We have like the split revenue splits, right? So every time you purchase on your salad NFTs, I don’t know a musician you can decide, okay. I want to give 10% to my grandma and 20% to my mom or whatever. And it’s.
Yeah, the logic can stay forever with the royalty function, or you can just set it for, for the first time sales. So that’s really fascinating and you can really take control. You can monetize your content. And as a creator, I mean, it’s a really time to, to change something. Because if you look at normal Musicians, like we have many friends in Berlin who are DJs and they have 1 million streams a year and they get like, maybe, I don’t know, a thousand Euros or something. This is crazy. And they are the people who create value. It’s not the big platforms. And we are actually like pushing people to become independent of platforms. Although we are a platform, but you know, you can move the NFTs wherever you want. They don’t need to stay in the mid base ecosystem.
Ivan Kan: Wow. And just to, just to give some context, you know, that, that way of, you know, separating the, let’s say if it’s a referral or giving royalties to somebody that has never been available to the, you know, startup creator or just, you know, they, they would be done through like rights trademarks and these complex legal structures that most startups are actual creators. They don’t have access too. Right. And I know as more and more creators are getting younger, just because they’re learning how to do it on YouTube, just as though they, I was watching a DJ, just, he’s just making funny,kind of content and videos. And now he’s featured in all these radio shows and, you know, he may or may not have, you know, big corporations or labels behind it. But now with, with mint base, you know, you could do it.
Carolin Wend: Yeah, you could do it. I mean, it’s obviously like completely new this world and NFT supply to any kind of sector, like art sector, ticketing, music, you know, even Paige, like healthcare records and stuff. So yeah, it’s, it’s really fascinating, but also it’s kind of a new world. So it’s really difficult for many NFT creators to market themselves, but it’s definitely a different world. So most people market their NFTs on Twitter or in virtual galleries, like on crypto voxels or decentralized. So it’s completely different. But yeah, if you, if you have.
You know, if you are willing to learn and you just do something great, then I’m sure you can also market your product. We are right at the beginning of all of this.
Ivan Kan: Exciting times. And I know, cause we had Mikko Matsumura one of the keynotes and one of his big themes was the NFTs could potentially swallow up all the IP. You know, not just, not just music, not just art, but even to pull it as far back as IP. And let’s say someone invented some new, I don’t know, let’s say instead of Moderna figuring out the RNA, what if somebody figured it out, put it on NFT and every time a vaccine was made, you can get royalties from it. So it’s very.
I just, I just see this as like, we’re just at the beginning and it could change the way we fundamentally look at creators. Right?
Carolin Wend: Exactly. Yeah. It’s just the next evolution of the internet. And I just cannot believe right now. What is happening around us like a year ago or two years ago, we were like, you know, we really didn’t see this coming that it’s. I mean, yes, we saw it coming, but we saw, we thought like in five or 10 years, like people will wake up to the concept of NFTs and use them, but it’s happening now. This is crazy.
Ivan Kan: So, Carolyn you’re literally at the forefront year in the driver’s seat at this innovation jump. You know what what’s, what’s your thoughts on working? Go next. And what’s your favorite, you know, what’s your favorite thing about this whole transition right now?
Carolin Wend: Yeah. So the first term, like the first phase was crypto kitties and collectibles, and the second phase was more like, okay, I don’t know music and different tire types, but now it’s all about those NFTs being used in the real world. So you can, I don’t know redeem NFT, like digital piece against the shoe at Nike, or you can yeah, exactly. That’s like native saying the festival, Or you can use NFTs at an actual festival. You can like, you know, create, offer massages or beer or whatever, as an NFT that can be redeemed and maybe it like gains value or your pack, some fractional ownership to itself. You can do so many things with NFTs and empower, empower creators. And yeah. What are we going to see is it’s just really going to be fun, but I’m really excited about.
NFTs being used and purposeful NFTs, just really seeing, not only like, okay, I have this NFT, it sits in my wallet done, but like having an NFT that actually like at the festival, I can go backstage and, you know, meet my favorite artists or I can access like different content on his website. Or maybe I can get reduced scarf with his logo of whatever, like all those creative things, because the talking is the API and it really depends what the creator wants, but he can open up so many worlds with us NFT and it’s all transparent on the blockchain and there’s no lying anymore. You cannot say, okay, there are only like, you know, we sold out of tickets. You can just look at no, it’s not true. Yeah.
Ivan Kan: I just, we just finished the interview with Sebastian from the sandbox. And it’s so interesting because he kind of sees the future of NFTs in a very similar way, but of a different light because he’s in gaming. But the whole concept is now it’s not just a thing. It’s something that you can use. You can play games if you can put it on your avatar and in your case, it’s like things can, that can argument your real experiences, real life experiences, which is extremely fascinating. I don’t think people are talking about this yet, but.
The potential is immense.
Mint an NFT
Carolin Wend: Definitely. Yeah. I mean, Sebastian is focused on gaming. We are very focused on real world use cases. And I already presented at the talk, but we are doing a hybrid festival with a remover. What the guy who actually got me into blockchain. Right. Because he told me about it in 2017. So he’s really up to create this hybrid festival. So we are building currently building.
In sodium space and crypto voxels, the festival, and then at the actual location in Berlin, they are building a tea house. We call it the NFT house and inside the house. Well, it looked like it would look like, you know, you have Moroccan carpets and you can drink tea, but you can also learn about NFTs. You can scan QR codes, which redirects you into the virtual world. And then maybe you walk around and it’s also like from the virtual world, there’s a stream into the festival where you can like, look, what’s going on there. So you can join like in the metaverse, but also at the actual festival. And, you know, like talk, get to know people, exchange things. So I think this will be mine, like really mind blowing for so many people who never like, because NFTs are really good for creators and creators and like,
You know, the young people are going to festivals. So this is exactly like, kind of, we want to like show them, Hey guys, you can really use those NFTs. You can go on the dark room and then you can take a photo and tokenize the festival photo with your friends. And it’s super easy. And yeah, I’m just very excited for, for this event or for the events because they have high festival additions this summer.
Ivan Kan: Wow. Have you already put, put any press out there or any announced dates and times that we can also share? It’s all, it’s all coming up.
Carolin Wend: It’s coming up. Yes. But I can share like what we’ve been working on and I can send you some, some follow up links. And today we had just had a call with a festival and it’s, it’s really nice to see like how the two worlds come together and every what we would do as well. Like every person who goes to, who has a ticket to the actual festival, he will get given like a Neo wallet.
With some tokens that he can spend on NFTs, like at the festival or before the festival and the virtual gallery and support the artists that they like, like by the, and also we onboard the artists who are actually going to the festival to also create NFTs at the virtual exhibition. And yeah. So it’s nice.
Ivan Kan: it’s a beautiful combination of all, all, actually a lot of your, your history and your experience too. So that’s very exciting. Okay. Onto some of the final questions that our community has been asking, you know, a lot of our community is also investors and entrepreneurs, and they always want to hear the insights. You know, you’re, you are at the forefront of NFTs. What are some exciting projects outside of mint base that you’re looking at investing in, you know, this isn’t financial advice, but just, just to give some insights, like what are, what are the exciting projects that you’d like to share and talk about just really briefly.
Carolin Wend: Definitely. So our team member Louis, he’s building his own metaverse, which is called web XR it’s like super cool. So I don’t want to, to do some too much self marketing, but what we will actually be offering is whenever you mentor NFT mint base, you just click on a button and then you fly into the web X, our world from, from Louis, from our team member. And you can walk around and see your NFTs because right now, what creators have to do is they have to first, they have to buy a passer and crypto boxes. Then they have to build the gallery, which is really complicated by the way, then they have to put the art up and it’s expensive. But with this integration, you don’t need to do anything as a creator. You just click on a button and it automatically appears down. So I’m excited about Louis web XR project. I’m also excited about.
Yeah, I’ve a metaversus mostly like, you know, sodium space, crypto voxels decentral and it’s so exciting to see like how NFTs and the metaverse will, will mix up. And then apart from that, what other projects near obviously, and, and like, yeah, it’s a great blockchain and just develop, seeing how, like our team is developing the NFT standards alongside the near team. Yeah. It’s really powerful.
And a few other projects, but not spontaneously come to my mind right now.
Ivan Kan: Those are some great ones and yeah, near, near protocols, a lot of our community has been looking into and actually investing in because now a lot of projects are picking it up as a good platform to run on.
Carolin Wend: Exactly. And you know what, like Mia is not very good with like self marketing, to be honest, like a design really is not good, but the technology is good and that is what counts. And they just announced that rainbow bridge. So you will be able to buy like Mia, like NFTs on Neo with N di and N E. So that’s really cool that they have this Ethereum compatibility. So yeah.
Mint an NFT
Ivan Kan: Yeah. That cross chain is still important, especially when there’s so many pieces of the ecosystem combining, but Carolyn, thank you so much for your time. It was very insightful. And thank you for sharing.
