Primer: Managing your NFT assets across wallets and blockchains is difficult. Enter NFTBank, a NFT portfolio management service that also doubles up as an accurate NFT valuation service. In this episode of Zima Red, Andrew Steinwold speaks with Jen Kim of NFTBank, delving into the details of the platform.
Background
Joined NFTBank a month ago
Before that, she was at Facebook for 7 years, focusing on small/medium businesses
While at Facebook, she worked with product teams to create a “Brain of Facebook” — a source of truth for how businesses can get value from the Facebook platform
Getting Into Crypto And NFTs
Jumped straight into NFTs rather than into crypto
Being in Silicon Valley, she has heard a lot about blockchain and crypto, but it never occurred to her that it would change our lives in a meaningful way
When she heard about NFTs, she saw how it could be used to change things (e.g. brought meaning, scarcity, and ownership in a tangible way)
Dove into NFTs and went through the learning curve to grasp what it is and how it’s going to extend into the future
Biggest Difference Between The Crypto And NFTs Worlds
Biggest differentiator is the level of involvement needed:
For cryptocurrencies, you can kind of stay back and follow the news
For NFTs, it’s more community-oriented
Are There Any Particular Asset Type That She Prefers?
Don’t have anything in particular
Excited to see how profile picture collections will evolve
Initial Entry Into NFTs
NFTBank, the company that she joined, was the one who introduced her to NFTs
Went through the entire lifecycle of purchasing a NFT
Made her dig deeper into NFTs (e.g. Twitter, Discord, Zima Red Podcast)
NFTBank
A portfolio management service
Features:
Provides valuations on NFTs
Provides portfolio management
Their valuation engine predicts NFT prices at an accuracy level of 80-90%
Portfolio management in the NFT space is fragmented and complex — many different types of NFTs, NFTs on different wallets, NFTs on different blockchains
NFTBank is able to provide a solution to the problem, especially for the gaming space. Scholarship managers have to manage hundreds of assets and wallets
Valuation Service
Have a dedicated data science team who only looks at modeling
Have a baseline model that allows them to scale how we value individual NFTs
Takes past sales into account, but doesn’t solely rely on it. This is because the NFT market is very illiquid
Adds the different combination of traits of the NFT into their model
Traits are more important in determining NFT valuation
Portfolio Management
Solves users’ pain point in bringing all their wallets together
Scholarship programs are a good example where group portfolio management makes a lot of sense
Useful for DAOs — vaults need to be well-managed and transparent
Section On Revenue And Total Spent
Revenue is based on actual sales
Analytics Tools
Will have more tools being released
They have a weekly newsletter that signals how well your investment in a particular NFT collection is doing, what the market trend is, volume of bidding and buying, etc.
Types Of Newsletters
Offers different types of newsletters:
Weekly newsletter summarizing how did the reader did for this week — ROI, revenue, spending, etc.
Followers performance newsletter — summary of how well your followers have performed over the past week
Another newsletter focusing on individual NFT collection
“I think the most inviting title that we have is when it says I'm someone that you follow made like $3 million last week. And like you get to see like how they made that in our newsletters.”
- Jen Kim
Tax Filing Product
Was recently launched
Solves one of the biggest pain points for customers
Provides customers with a spreadsheet where they can easily import into the existing tax systems
Making Money From Insights Gleaned From NFTBank
Two main ways:
Their portfolio management system allows users to analyze their performance and what strategies have worked well for them
Allows users to see how others are performing and to learn from their strategies. For example, Pranksy’s portfolio is one of the top most-followed portfolio
Users can also identify arbitrage opportunities through the difference between the price indicated on their valuation engine and the market price
Determining The Accuracy Of The Valuation Engine
Valuation is based on real data
Real data is continually fed into model
If the model provides an inaccurate prediction, it takes that piece of information into account and iterate to improve its accuracy
Any Interesting Stories To Share?
Recently did a targeted airdrop project, where people have to show their portfolio to qualify for the airdrop
The team found large investors from Korea who had very mainstream NFT collections
Have They Thought Of Launching Their Own Investment Fund?
Has received this question a lot
Wants to experiment how they can enable existing funds to leverage their platform first
Believes that anyone who can generate good ROI can become investors and fund creators
Wants to help people who have a good ROI in a particular field of NFT to come together and then form a fund
Short-Term Roadmap
Further invest in their engine and to fine-tune their core competency
Developing more social features on their platform
Their Team
Consists primarily of engineers and data scientists
Looking to get more product managers, engineers, and data scientists
What Will NFTBank Look Like In 5-10 Years?
Vision is to become the J.P. Morgan of the Metaverse
Her view is that people are already living in the Metaverse to some extent
The Metaverse will continue to grow, with NFTBank becoming the source of truth for NFT valuation
Estimates Of Wash Trading In The NFT Space
Haven’t focused on wash trading yet
Her gut feeling is that wash trading is increasing
Why Did She Decide To Join NFTBank?
Have two main reasons:
Always had a fear of being tied down with golden handcuffs. Her family/husband supported her decision
Wanted to minimize regret. In Korea, there’s a tech conglomerate called Naver. The founder used to work at Samsung and left the company to start Naver. He probably invited many of his friends to join him. She put herself in that position of those friends and realized that she did not want to be regretting like them
“And I put myself in that position and like, what would those friends have in mind today, and they would have so much regret, and I didn't want to be that people. So I was like it's actually not that high of a risk. Like worst case scenario, I get really amazing learning in this industry that's going to become our future.”
- Jen Kim
Thoughts On The Current NFT Market
Overheated to some extent
Which Sector In The NFT Space Is She Most Excited About?
The gaming space is taking off right now
Korea is a game-heavy country, so they are focusing on that sector for the opportunities
Which Categories Of NFTs Will Expand The Most In The Future?
Gaming will get larger
The virtual land area will grow as an extension of gaming
Grand 5-10 Year Vision
Hard to detach her personal vision from her company’s vision
Want to deliver value to the users of their product
Single Favourite NFT
One of her first purchases from Shabeen Blue
Bought it for sentimental reasons
If She Had 10 Billion Dollars, What Would She Do?
Invest in the future
May not even need real money at that point because the token economy is growing tremendously
Most Controversial Thought On NFTs
NFTs are going to be the future
People who are not in NFT communities would find it controversial
If She Could Improve One Thing In The Space
Reduce friction for people to get into the NFT space
NFT Ecosystem In 3 Years
More large companies will enter the space
Time will tell whether the large companies or the crypto native, community driven efforts will prevail
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