 Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's extended coverage here at the Yacht Club here in Monaco with Prince Albert and theCUBE. Great coverage, big gala event around blockchain and crypto. We're here with Tally Friedman, creative director at NFT Basel, great to see you again. Great to see you again, thank you so much for having me. So what's going on, what are you doing here, what's up? So I am here helping put together this incredible event, helping to raise awareness, spread education about all the amazing innovation that's happening in the tech and the NFT space, hoping to encourage mass adoption and bring more passionate and talented minds to the space and that is my main goal, everything that I do. What are you going to appreciate the agenda here, all the influencers, top dogs and finances are here, entrepreneurs, but big metaverse vibe, obviously NFT's kind of bundled in because NFTs are becoming quite part of everything. And as a creative director, you've got to love the creativity coming out of the metaverse right now. You know what, it kind of feels like anything is possible and it's someone who has that ability to contribute to a space and directly see the impact that the work you have has as an outcome on not just the industry, but the rest of the world and to have the ability to start creating a legacy that other people will soon follow suit on is has been pretty incredible to experience, I must say. I think it's been a cultural movement as well. A lot of the younger generations, a lot of Gen Z wants this. I mean, I could see that in alignment, but certainly true. I mean, you can see nobody wants the old way, inadequate, antiquated ways of email and web surfing, web pages, social media. The funny thing about the metaverse is, is that it's actually existed for quite some time. I'd say the term has almost resurfaced in popularity in association with the blockchain. So now when we think of the metaverse, it's obviously associated with Web 3, cryptocurrency, NFTs, but the original term was actually coined in a 1980s novel about, it was a science fiction novel and it's funny to see how that term just really encompasses everything that we've predicted and I have this thing with science fiction where I think humanity almost reflects our fears but our hope simultaneously when we talk about dystopia. It's what we're seeing unravel before our eyes and what we predict and almost know will be the ultimate outcome, but because there's so much uncertainty, what's that gonna look like? How's that gonna affect our day-to-day lives? And I think we're witnessing right now the, you know, all the incredible directions. Telly, have you dabbled in some of these metasphere environments because there's bars, people are playing music, people are getting together and there's quite the self-expression. Absolutely, so I plan a lot of events in the metaverse. I'm a metaverse event planner. I helped build our NFT gallery for NFT Basil in the metaverse. I think it's really interesting to bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds and when we host a physical exhibition, simultaneously host that metaverse exhibition for people who aren't able to attend in real life. How do they do that? Is it software? So for the most part, yeah, for an event, I work with Decentraland a lot. I find it has the best user interface for people who aren't so familiar with, you know, setting up a wallet, getting onboarding onto web three, using cryptocurrency. For newbies, newbies. Exactly. So I can't fly the event, but I wanna experience the event. You type the web address into your browser, nftbazzle.xyz. You can walk around and explore, create your own avatar, have fun. It's gamified life. What's the feedback been from some of the attendees? What do they end up doing? What's the pattern? They end up chatting or mingling or does it match like life or they just kind of high-fiving each other? Is there a lot of chitter chatter, smack being talked around? So I think the thing with the metaverse is that a lot of people who are critical of the metaverse are saying, why would I replace a real-life experience with a digital one when I can talk face-to-face like we're doing right now? But I think the purpose isn't to replace physical experiences because there's nothing quite like, you know, having an in-person interaction, but it's about enhancing the digital experience. Well, but here here, we're face-to-face. Okay, we're having a first-time experience together and it's lovely. I have friends, you have friends, we have social-graphy people who are instantly online. Why can't there be a first-class citizen connection between our metaverse and maybe a friend pops as a hologram right here and chance to chime into the conversation? That's not far away. It's happening right now and the beauty of metaverse events and hosting metaverse conferences is an event such as the one today requires so much coordination. People flying in from all over the world, booking hotels, changing time schedules, jet lag. There's so much that goes into it when you can connect people and have such a similar level of immersiveness and if not more immersiveness than you would in real life, you have audience members who are able to actively engage with what you're doing, ask questions live without having to raise your hand and come up on stage and without the technical barriers of... And being part of a group. I mean, community is everything, it's everything. Lights and organisms, connective tissue, it's not a software mechanism. It's a group thing. All right, so I gotta ask you, what's the coolest thing you're working on right now that you can share with folks? I am so passionate about what we're building out in NFT Basel. I could talk about it for hours, but we really specialize in transforming luxury one-of-one physical assets into digital NFTs. And I think it's a different approach than most people take to Web3 in the NFT space because when you think of NFTs, you think of generative drops, PFP projects, but we're taking real-world tangible value and enhancing it through technology. Awesome. Tali, thank you for coming on, dinner's being served with the Prince. Thank you for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Okay, we're here at the extended edition of CUBE Coverage late night now, the dinner with the Gala event, theCUBE and Prince Albert here in Monaco for an exciting evening. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. Thanks for watching. Thank you.