Primer: Leandro Bellone and Nahuel Cirocco are the builders behind multiple successful projects in the NFT space. In this Zima Red episode, they share with Andrew Steinwold their creations: (1) CryptoMotors, the first luxury car brand; (2) Pixelchain, an on-chain pixelart minting platform; (3) Voxel Architect, a metaverse architectural company; and more.
Origins
Leandro:
Industrial designer. Studied a bit of mechanical engineering as well
Specialized in 3D car design
Moved to Germany in 2014 and worked as a contractor for the BMW group. Has a long history making cars
Discovered crypto in 2017
Nahuel:
Software engineer since 2007
Worked with a lot of different businesses
Knew about bitcoin but did not get into it. Started looking into smart contracts and enjoyed developing them
What Attracted You To Crypto?
Leandro
Working in a co-working space in 2012. Every Friday, they had bitcoin talks, but he did not look into it
Only started trading a bit in 2017. Cryptokitties caught his attention
Connected the idea of digital asset ownership with his own expertise and began going deep into this rabbit hole
Nahuel
Leandro introduced him to the crypto space and shared with him the Crypto Zombies tutorials to get into smart contract development
"And I went to the [Crypto Zombies] tutorial, and I was like, really excited to see this technology of how to write smart contracts in Ethereum. Like, it's so different compared with, like, let's say traditional programming languages that you write a piece of code, it's immutable." - Nahuel Cirocco
How Did You Know That NFTs Are Going To Be Important In The Future?
"The soul of every project nowadays starts digital, so why not just stay in digital, you know, I'm putting the value really into the more important part, which is the digital part." - Leandro Bellone
Recognized the value inherent in digital assets through his work (e.g. the real car is based on his design of the digital car)
When they saw the Movie Ready Player One, they already had the idea of CryptoMotors
Why Did Nahuel Lean Towards NFTs Instead Of Cryptocurrencies?
He is a gamer. It's in human nature to collect things and NFTs provide real ownership of digital assets
CryptoMotors
Introduction
First 100% digital car brand. Design and create cars for the metaverse
Can collect, trade, and enjoy them like a piece of art
Each car comes with its own statistics. A "Stat Game" takes place every 2 weeks where players can race to win WHALE tokens
Is present on each metaverse. Each of their cars has a high-resolution model, a low-resolution model, and a voxel version to make it compatible with the various metaverses
Different Tiers/Rarity of Cars
Three cars from Generation 0: Sport Coupe, SUV, and Sedan (ordered in decreasing rarity, with Sport Coupe having the highest rarity)
Designs for Generations 1 and 2 come from their public design challenges. A professional 3D model of the winning design will be made
Genesis founder edition for the first believers in CryptoMotors
Release Schedule
10 cars are released every 2 weeks
Stat Game
Browser-based game on their website
Has 3 race tracks. Each track has features that would benefit cars with certain stats
In the future, car parts will be introduced to add another layer of variation
An Upcoming New Game
The game title is not finalized yet
A driving experience where players can compete with other players
Releasing some VR experience where people can walk around/enter their cars
PixelChain
Introduction
A platform to mint 32 by 32 pixel art with up to 16 colors
Expanded it to 64 by 64 pixels with up to 32 colors
Doing some more tests to bring it up to 500 by 500 pixels and up to 255 colors
Usage
PixelChain has a canvas and anyone can draw on it and save it on-chain
The bigger the size and the more colors used, the more expensive it will be
How Does Nahuel Feel About On-Chain And Off-Chain Art/NFTs?
Depends on the context/use case of the NFT
For CryptoMotors, the value is not in the image of the car but how the car is used
For PixelChain, the value is in the art itself. Hence, it needs to be on-chain to ensure that it can be accessed forever
Voxel Architects
Introduction
Metaverse architectural company
90% of their work is done in Cryptovoxels. Has also built-in Decentraland, Somnium Space, and the Sandbox Game
Extension of Leandro's freelance career that has turned into its own company
Some of their works: Metalympics campus, Metakovan's HQ
Upcoming Voxel Asset store
Cost To Hire A Voxel Architect
Depends on the parcel. Neither expensive nor cheap
Other Projects You Are Working On
Leandro is a partner in E1337 (Elite), an eSports premium apparel brand by WhaleShark. Involved in the digitalization of the products
New collectable game project called Rarigotchi. It is a digital toy that contains a digital pet. It comes in limited quantities
Their Team
Team Strength
CryptoMotors: Around 20 people
Rarigotchi: Leandro, Nahuel, and some other guys
Pixelchain: Leandro, Nahuel, Santiago and Alegria
Voxel Architects: Leandro, George, and 3 other guys
Raising Of Venture Capital
Raised a fair amount of capital in 2018. Used their own funds which they have earned from their clients
Firm Structure
CryptoMotors will remain its own brand
Other products will go into another holding company
Favourite Projects
Nahuel: Pixelchain. Like the challenge of putting everything on-chain. Wants to try to store music and voxels on-chain
Leandro: CryptoMotors
"My baby is CryptoMotors. I make cars, I did cars always, and I will keep doing cars." - Leandro Bellone
Which Of Their Businesses Holds The Most Long-Term Promise?
Leandro: Everything. Voxel Architects if the metaverse keeps growing. CryptoMotors is the first luxury car brand. Pixelchain because it revolutionizes the way we store data
Nahuel: CryptoMotors. Because they put in a lot of effort into ensuring their cars are used in as many places as possible
Any Upcoming Products?
Pixelchain:
Building assets like music, graphics, 3D models on-chain. For music, they will be using the MIDI file format because it is very small relative to the MP3 format. Will use the same technology that they have used to compress pixels on MIDI files
Implementing animations
5-Year Vision
For CryptoMotors, they will implement a more open design process. They will expand their presence in the metaverses. They will also produce some of their cars in the real world
Pixelchain, Voxel Architects, and Rarigotchi will all go under their umbrella company
Single Favourite NFT
Nahuel
Pixelchain art "Shadow on the Window" was done by Marko Zubak. He received it as a present for helping Marko with some issues with Pixelchain when they first launched
Leandro
Pixelchain Punk and Dead CryptoPunk
What Would You Like To See Happen To The NFT Ecosystem?
Leandro:
More mainstream adoption, more things on-chain, and more interoperability
Nahuel:
More things on-chain. If companies start closing down, the images will be gone forever if they are not stored on-chain
"I think it's really important that companies really pay attention to how to make their tokens be alive, even if the company is not there anymore." - Nahuel Cirocco
Largest Barriers To NFT Adoption
UX needs to be improved to onboard more people
NFTs In 3 Years
Nahuel:
Hope that there will be more NFTs on-chain after Ethereum 2 launches and gas prices have reduced significantly
Leandro:
Optimistic that the space will go mainstream. People will spend more time in the metaverse and will want to own more NFTs
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.