Primer: In this special episode, Andrew Steinwold and Josie Bellini reveals that they are married! They candidly share about their background, how they got to know each other, and their couple's journey into the cryptoverse. Don't miss out the surprise at the end!
Scope Of Episode
Andrew and Josie got married last October
This episode covers:
Their backgrounds
How they got to know each other
How they got involved in crypto
What they are building today
Why did they not go public about their relationship at the start
Meeting One Another
Met around 5 years ago. His friends' group and her friends' group decided to go to Mexico together
Was trying to flirt with her but she would have none of it
"Andrew's like, I don't know if he could say pickup lines, but he was like, so have you heard of Ethereum? And I was like, yeah, and was just so confused." - Josie Bellini
Decided to approach in a different way by talking about Ethereum
"All girls love Ethereum. So I knew if I brought that up, then you know, I would get her heart." - Andrew Steinwold
Started geeking out about crypto together and it spiralled from there
Introduced her as his future girlfriend to his friends and his persistence paid off
In 2017, they moved in together and they called their place the Crypto Castle
Josie's Background
Was working in finance
Decided to work in the crypto industry
Left her job to wait on tables in the West Loop while attending a coding bootcamp at Northwestern
At that time, CryptoKitties has just been released. Tried to get her friends to buy and trade CryptoKitties, but no one did
Did not love coding, but loved the design aspect of it
Beginning Of Josie's Crypto Art Journey
One of Josie's friends texted her about a painting that Josie made for her
Andrew was wowed by it. Encouraged her to use her artistic expertise in crypto
She went into finance as artists don't make much money
In 2017, she started working on Genesis
"After I saw that [Genesis] piece, I was totally blown away. I was like, this is insane. I was like, more people need to see this in the community." - Andrew Steinwold
After Genesis was completed, Andrew posted it on the Cryptocurrency subreddit. Was on the top page for 3 days
A company wanted to buy the piece for 2 Bitcoin, which was $30,000 at that time. Had student debt to pay off, but did not want to sell this piece because it became really special
The community was asking for prints and wanted to help her to produce them. Realized that she could create crypto art for other people
Bought a huge printer that was bigger than a couch. Lived with that printer in their room
Attending Meetups
The 2018 bear market was brutal, but Andrew was more interested in what he can build in crypto
During Jan/Feb, the meetups were packed with people because of the highs
As the bear market progressed, euphoria turned into cope in these meetups
Started a home meetup in 2019
Started the Chicago chapter of CryptoMondays in 2020
Met Disruption Joe at a meetup. He started a blockchain conference in Chicago called Voice of Blockchain. Josie did the design for everything in the August 2018 conference
Was a huge fan of Marguerite/Coin Artist. Met her at the conference. Coin Artist loved her work and invited her to present her art in the Bitcoin Art (r)evolution Exhibition in Paris
Bitcoin Art (r)evolution Exhibition
Pascal Boyart hosted the event to celebrate the 10th birthday of Bitcoin
The art that she shipped to the exhibition arrived 1 week late.
Paid for the best shipping but bad weather delayed it. Was stressed out by this experience
While in Paris, they were trying to find a print shop to print her work
The printed product turned out to be nothing that she wanted
Was very upset. Ended up with posters, but Pascal Boyart was totally fine with it
In the end, people still loved her art
Andrew's Crypto Hedge Fund
Launched a crypto hedge fund with his partner, Dan Patterson, in July 2017
Was doing well compared to the market but underperforming their peers
Instead of being a generalist crypto fund, they decided to focus on a niche within crypto
Knew about CryptoKitties and Art, but couldn't understand how they could become much larger
Josie convinced him that NFTs will be huge. Went to NTF NYC in Feb 2019 and spoke to the people there. The experience totally altered his view
Met Jin (@dankvr on Twitter) who scanned their booth with his iPad and created a 3D render of it. Was mindblown by it. Jin introduced Josie to Cryptovoxels and sold Josie her first Cryptovoxel plot
Andrew realized from Jin's sharing that:
NFTs are going to change the world
This is a market that no one's looking at
"And god like he [Jin] was like living in a totally different realm from us. I was like fully enthralled with everything he was telling me and like we were talking about it, it was before Cryptovoxels had really like no galleries, no art. It was all black and white." - Josie Bellini
Started Sfermion, his firm, in September 2019
Knew that it would take a long time for people to understand NFTs. Started the Zima Red Podcast and newsletter to tell people about this industry
The Zima Red name was inspired by Zima Blue, an episode from the Love, Death & Robots series
Why Did They Not Reveal That They Were Together?
After the conference, Andrew wanted to go full force into this space
At that point, Josie already had a following and a community
Did not want to enter the space by riding on Josie's coattails but wanted to start out as an independent individual
What Did Andrew Do Next?
Started diving deep into Cryptovoxels
People were moving from Decentraland to Cryptovoxels
Ben Nolan, the founder of Cryptovoxels, was working on the project part-time. Everyone was trying to help out. There was a small community of 20 people in the Discord
The ecosystem allowed him to learn a little bit about everything rather than just one vertical
Yours Truly By Josie
A puzzle created by Josie in Feb 2020
Was inspired by Cryptovoxels
Approached Neon District as Marguerite and Ben had expertise with puzzles
Collaborated with a large group of people to work on the puzzle for this art piece
The puzzle was built in Cryptovoxels
A group of 5 guys ended up solving the puzzle and they became friends
"That was another big moment of just combining everything in the space. And not just keeping it to art or whatever. And bringing everything together. That was super, super exciting for me." - Josie Bellini
Josie's Genesis Collection
The last 2 pieces of her Genesis collection (Filter and Thankful_For_Today) will be released very soon
After the Genesis Collection, the rest of her work is not in a particular collection
Andrew did not get any special treatment for any of her drops
Raising Capital For His Funds
In summer 2020, he started to reach out to crypto people to chat about NFTs
Had a really tough time raising funds
In September 2020, NFTs got really hot in crypto as the DeFi crowd was looking for the next market to enter
The DeFi crowd realized that their quantitative skill sets did not suit the NFT markets, which was more qualitative in nature
Launched his first investment vehicle in Jan 2021
Change In People's Perception Towards NFTs
In 2019, people were creating NFTs because it was something that they were passionate about. They were not expecting to make thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars
At that time, SuperRare was finding artists who had no idea what crypto even was
Prominent crypto podcasters would laugh off NFTs. These days, they say they love NFTs
CyberBrokers
An NFT project she created
Consists of 10,001 collectibles. Pays homage to CryptoPunks
Her projects all start with the number zero. Hence, the selection of the number 10,001
Wanted everything to be on-chain. Worked with Ben Heidorn, the CTO and Co-Founder of Blockade games
Will be launching very soon
They Are Becoming Parents!
Having their first child in December
Trying to get their son to have the initials NFT
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