Transcript:
This podcast was transcribed through a third-party application. Please disregard any misrepresentations.
Mark Eckerle:
Hello, listeners, welcome to this episode of Cryptonomix. Before we jump into today’s discussion, please keep in mind this recording is for general education and is not intended to constitute investment advice. Any opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily represent those of Withum. Hello, listeners. Welcome back to another episode of Cryptonomics, brought to you by Withum. I’m your host, Mark Eckerle, and today, I welcome to this show, a good friend of mine, Justin Mellilo, CEO and co-founder of Mona, who’s essentially building out the metaverse. And we’re going to take a deep dive into what that really means and what that is. But before we do that, welcome to today’s show, Justin.
Justin Mellilo:
Thanks so much for having me, Mark. Thrilled to be here.
Mark Eckerle:
Awesome. Awesome. So let’s, let’s get right into it, right? So can you tell us a little bit more about what Mona is, what you guys are building, and kind of the experience that you’re
delivering to users ultimately?
Justin Mellilo:
Absolutely. Yeah. So Mona is really the premier 3D world-building platform and web3 social network for the Metaverse. Our mission is to empower millions of people to be able to build high-quality metaverse worlds for millions of people, to collect those worlds as one of one unique NFTs, and then empower users to explore and share these worlds together with thousands of people running across these different worlds, all accessible through web browsers.
Mark Eckerle:
So, when I think of the Metaverse, right? I mean, I…I play video games. I think of it as just basically an online gaming community, Roonescape, World of Warcraft, something like that. But I feel like there’s, there’s other ways to almost perceive this, right? From whether you’re, I mean, a lot of places now, there’s accounting firms that own space in the metaverse, there’s retailer industries and consumers. You can go shopping and basically view your products. So I’m, I’m curious to get your thoughts on almost the, the long-term play of the Metaverse because I feel like you can go a thousand different directions, but what do you ultimately see as the ultimate use case or the, the best one in your opinion? Obviously, I think there could be many, but just curious to get your thoughts there.
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah, yeah. So I, you, you mentioned some, some of my favorite games, uh, there, and I, I think, you know, the metaverse too many people really is sort of like, can be viewed as a game or an interactive experience. Um, really for us, the Metaverse is really this interconnected network of virtual worlds, right? And these can be virtual worlds that are super immersive or actual 3D worlds that you can immerse in. Some people call the Metaverse, you know, uh, virtual rooms that you’re inside of Discord, interacting with others on. And, you know, I, I think taking a step back, you know, the idea of connecting and exploring and, and playing together in these virtual immersive settings, um, you know, when you really look at it, it, these virtual worlds when you’re considering sort of that 3D metaverse or gaming metaverse, um, these are actual 3D assets, art pieces that are created by really incredibly talented designers, 3D artists, architects, game designers, animators.
Justin Mellilo:
And, you know, for years they’ve been creating these incredible worlds that we’ve been playing as games or, um, uh, that we’ve been immersing ourselves in, you know, VR, VR headsets. Uh, but up until this point, those creators have really been locked out of a lot of the profit sharing that’s been happening. Typically, they’ve been working at game design studios where they’re working, you know, to serve that larger purpose of shipping this game. Um, and similarly for users who are taking part in these games with their own game economies, you know, for example, Fortnite, where a Fortnite made 50 million selling one avatar skin, you know, from a creator side, the creator of that skin, you know, they don’t get to share in any of those profits, really. It’s owned by that company, you know, owned by Epic, they work for, and then for a user buying that skin, um, sure, like they, they own that skin as it’s tied to their user account, but if they ever get locked out of their user account or if they go make another account, um, or if they wanted to take that skin and use it virtually anywhere else, it’s, it’s impossible.
Justin Mellilo:
You know? So really, does the user actually own anything? And now with Web three and NFTs, uh, the ability to actually verify ownership of a digital asset publicly, uh, this is a really revolutionary concept specifically for this use case for creators who are digital artists who want to create a 3D sculpture and say, this is, there’s only one version of this sculpture that will ever exist, and this is it, and you can own it. And then if you buy it, you can see, and it’s public, public record that you actually are the one true owner of that sculpture. And then if you sell it, there’s that chain of ownership that happens, that provenance that can be established to a, a virtual item. A huge, hugely revolutionary concept. And this is what originally got me excited about, uh, web3 and about, um, you know, really what motivated me to start Mona.
Justin Mellilo:
Um, but really kind of now, when you’re looking at this concept in the metaverse, this is such a, a powerful concept that you can actually say, you know, I own this virtual asset. I own this virtual world. And for us, and everything that we’re doing at Mona, you know, as, as we spend more and more time in these virtual worlds over the next decades to come, um, it’s super important to be able to, for a creator, uh, to have that sustainable revenue stream, to be able to be able to publish a virtual world of the highest quality in, in any visual aesthetic they want, uh, and be able to then sell it just as they would any other asset or just as any other artist would be able to. Um, and then likewise for a user, you know, for the metaverse to, to truly grow, um, you know, for users to be able to verify that they actually own this unique world or these unique assets, um, it’s, it’s gonna be really, really important.
Justin Mellilo:
Um, so those are kind of like the building blocks that we’re, we’re, we’re thinking about when we’re kind of considering where we’re at with the current state of the metaverse and kind of how, you know, we see things growing and evolving and, and really, um, it’s, it’s based on this, this concept that Web three really is the future of the internet, and the future of the internet is, is 3d. You know, you’re able to, with Mona, uh, jump right into an immersive 3D world straight from your web browser, and that is an actual, those 3D assets, you know, they are tokenized, they’re decentralized, uh, and you can actually own these spaces that you’re, you’re traversing across. So, yeah,
Mark Eckerle:
I, I’m curious for the average consumer, right? If I wanted to jump in, right, I signed up on Monet and I wanted to create my own metaverse, do I need to have like a developer’s degree or some computer engineering, or do you guys offer almost like an out-of-the-box solution where I can pick and choose certain landscapes and things like that, where it makes it very user friendly to someone that doesn’t know code, essentially?
Justin Mellilo:
Absolutely. Uh, user experience is, is of the utmost importance for us. And I think in order to really accelerate adoption of, of both Web three and the metaverse, the user experience really has to be super easy for any user to get onboarded to. So that’s why for us, you don’t need an engineering degree. You don’t need to be your 3D designer to start, uh, participating in the Mona community and, and the Mona network. Um, again, you can join any of the spaces and start exploring just with a URL link to sign up for an account with Mona, which you don’t even need to do just to start exploring. It’s, it’s totally free and open for anyone. Um, but if you want it to sign up, it’s a very easy wallet, uh, sign-in link. Um, but, but again, you know, you don’t need a user account to start participating in, in Mona, and I think that’s really what’s key is like having a really smooth on-ramp for users to get them really enamored with this idea of exploring these virtual spaces is, is really, really important.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah, and I think, I mean, I mean, you be taking a step back just to almost crypto as a whole, that was one of the things that helped, or I should say deterred most people from getting into the space because it was the user interface, right? Like people didn’t understand what a paper wallet was, right? Right. So having the, almost the, the, the ease of use when you think of what a, a Coinbase platform or Gemini offers where it just basically looks like your bank account essentially, then more and more people get on board and then they start educating themselves. So I think that definitely helps, um, basically just educate the masses and bring more people on board into this space. But you mentioned earlier about kinda like the, the VR play, and I feel like that’s been almost a, a buzzword or a hot topic for almost a decade now, like that this is the next big, big trend is vr.
Mark Eckerle:
And I really think that this space took basically the next step when NFTs became hot, right? Because the metaverse actually became a thing. And that, when you think of what NFTs can offer, right? The cross, the cross chain, the, the interoperability of basically taking your assets out of a closed system like Fortnite, for example, right? Your, your skin’s locked up in that ecosystem. I can’t transfer to my Call of Duty avatar. Um, so can you, can you talk about that and how that almost parlays into what we think of when you, when the current gaming system is pretty closed off? How does that look like when you’re, you’re in the metaverse?
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah. Yeah. I think like, you know, each of these, like the current gaming sort of ecosystem, you have these silos of these different game experiences where all those assets are really locked to each experience. And, you know, in some cases there are very good reasons for that to be the case. You know, like, you, you might not want as a creator, you know, your Fortnite skin to be able to be used in a Call of Duty game, but I think what it comes down to is really that ownership over that item. And really, um, again, just the idea of like, if I can’t take it out of the game, do I really, do I even really truly own it? It’s all dependent on that Fortnite game continuing to survive, you know? And if it doesn’t, then all that value, you know, that I’ve plugged into, like all the, the thousands of dollars I spent on skins, it’s lost if that Fortnite game ever ceases to exist.
Justin Mellilo:
So I think that’s really the bigger concept there. Um, and the reality is, these 3D objects, um, they really are inherently interoperable. You know, as a 3D designer, when you’re building, um, you know, you’re building in a tool like Blender or Maya or Cinema 4d, and, you know, each of those file types like a a a A dot blend file or a C4D file, inherently, you can’t open ACE before defile instead a lender or vice versa. But you can export those files, uh, in, into interop interoperable formats like fbx or glb or G ltf is a big one, um, because a gb file can actually easily be read and, and loaded in, uh, into JavaScript through the web browser for WebGL, basically. Um, so by harnessing these interoperable file types, you’re really to, you’re, you’re able to establish a really powerful paradigm with these 3D assets being able to travel across the metaverse, where now you can create a game, uh, that is built on NFTs, built on Web three, and as a user, if you purchase one of these assets as a part of that game, not only can you use it in that game, but you actually own the 3D file.
Justin Mellilo:
You actually own that IOP interoperable format, which now it’s up to other platforms to make easy on-ramps to be able to plug those files into their platforms as well. But it all comes down to that being able to verify that ownership of, of that actual asset and having the, the 3D asset also be decentralized, by the way, too, not stored on centralized servers that the game company owns. So these are all really, really core concepts to like Web three and decentralization as a whole, and kind of just like the very beginning of, of seeing how powerful this can be, um, when you kind of consider this larger landscape of many different sort of immersive experiences popping up, being able to share these 3D assets across each one.
Mark Eckerle:
Th that’s a perfect segue into my next thought about, and I wanna get your thoughts here, because I think to anyone coming new to the space, right? They’re, they’re like, what is the metaverse? Where does this live? Right? So if I, if I wanted to create my own, ultimately, where is that, where is that living? Is that centralized? Is that decentralized? Is that all my own personal hard drive? Like I, I, I’m curious the ownership there, because if I’m transferring my NFT into that metaverse do, is it ultimately transferred? Is it living in my self custody wallet? Where if that platform goes down, do I still own that nft? Or is that kind of, I I’m just curious the, the inner workings there,
Justin Mellilo:
Right. Well, so for example, with, with building on Mona, if you wanted to build your very own metaverse space or your own metaverse world, um, actually when you upload those assets to Mona, we, you’re essentially uploading them to ipfs, which is kind of like a decentralized aws, it’s a decentralized cloud storage system. So with Mona, when you’re building with us, uh, those 3D assets are actually decentralized, which means that if, you know, if Mona were to ever go down, you know, your assets will still be alive somewhere. You can still use them. Um, I think like a great, a great example of of something that happened recently, or maybe not so recently now, was when a really popular platform PicketNook went down. Um, but all of those 3D assets, it, it basically was a marketplace, but all those 3D assets or um, 3D n 2D assets that artists had been minting, they were able to go on and survive, and someone was able to spin up a new type of marketplace where you could plug in those assets.
Justin Mellilo:
So I, again, really, really powerful concept. The, the idea of being able to decentralize the actual storage of these files, and especially when you sort of now come coming back to the Metaverse and kind of our mission, uh, which is to grow this, this concept of the open metaverse one that is accessible for anyone that anyone can participate in, uh, where users and creators have ownership over the things they make and what they do. Um, it’s so, so important that these 3D assets are decentralized, which is why we partner with ipfs. Um, you know, just again, uh, because it, it’s, it’s super important that not one platform really has ownership over how those assets are stored and how they’re used. Really, the power is back in the hands of the creators.
Mark Eckerle:
Now, now, this might be getting a little technical, but if I have, if I, if I built my metaverse on, say, the Ethereum blockchain mm-hmm. <affirmative> does that, I guess it would be on a company to create the interoperability, like almost cross chain, right? Because I’m trying to think if I, if I wanted to interact with a Metaverse that’s built on Polygon or mm-hmm. <affirmative>, some other blockchain out there, what would that almost look like? Is that closed off, or is there just gonna have to be some type of bridge to connect the two?
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah. Yeah, it would just be like, sort of like a bridge to connect the two. Um, right now with Mona as a creator, you can actually, you have the option of minting on either Ethereum or Polygon, and the user experience is seamless regardless of where you mint. So when you jump into a MONA space, um, there’s really no difference from a user experience standpoint, um, in, in regards to like which chain the world was minted on. Uh, you know, that’s why we’re looking at actually enabling creators to mint on other chains as well, like Aand. Um, and really, you know, that’s, that’s kind of like the back end of things. And, but for the, the user experience that doesn’t change, it’s still a, a seamless experience jumping from world to world regardless of whichever chain they’re minted on. Gotcha.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah. Cause I think that’ll definitely help just open up more avenues, right? Exactly. More and more possibilities as long as be, because what you think of, like, to the, to the point earlier, right? If I have a Fortnite skin, it might not, the creator might not want that to be on Call of Duty, but I feel like within, within just the crypto community as a whole, right? We’re we, everyone’s very welcoming and you almost want to figure out a way to open up more and more possibilities so everyone can join in as a community. You’re not really, you’re not really trying to close the door as much. So I feel like everyone, there’s somewhat, and I’m not really sure what it’s, but there’s an incentive there. It’s like inherent incentive just to keep building and keep opening the door for more and more people.
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah, I mean, I just think, you know, you open yourselves up to, uh, such a wide, a wider range of possibilities, uh, for experience when you kind of like open up your ecosystem to builders, developers to come and, and build alongside you, um, you know, you can just achieve so much more by trying to attract this like, diverse ecosystem of, of other creators and developers.
Mark Eckerle:
Now, now, kinda one of my earlier questions just about like the retail perspective, right? Do you see any long term play there as, so online shopping’s a thing, everyone does that now, right? No one Christmas shopping, black Friday, no one hardly anyone goes in person unless you want something that day or there’s some insane deal. Yeah. But with the Metaverse now, is that, is that gonna transition the entire shopping experience, right? If I want some designer clothes, I don’t have to go to Paris to get those, I could do that in the metaverse, wherever that designer’s living. Do you see that actually becoming like an experience, like becoming a thing? Or is this just a fad?
Justin Mellilo:
Oh, it’s definitely becoming a thing. It it is already a thing in some ways. Um, I think think you’re gonna see like a wide range of sort of like a hybrid of these experiences. Um, I think, you know, people will always like have physical items and shop in person for like physical things. But what we’re seeing more and more of are sort of these, these brands entering the metaverse space, offering digital equivalence to physical goods. They’re also selling, um, you know, you have luxury brands coming in selling a digital shoe that is the counterpart of like the physical shoe, where if you buy the NFT of the shoe and you get the virtual version in the metaverse, but you also get like the real version that’s shipped to your house, right? So I think you’re, you’re gonna see more and more of these kinds of like hybrid, uh, functions between digital objects and the physical counterpart where it basically like unlocks that, that sort of like physical, uh, piece that you get by buying the digital NFT as well.
Mark Eckerle:
It, it’s really been a crazy two years because with, obviously with the pandemic and everyone’s now remote work, right? A lot of people wore remote work before that. Like, everyone’s got a computer so anyone can plug in and, and work from wherever. Yeah. But I, I, I feel like that almost just put the wind at everyone’s back to help kind of this, I don’t wanna call it alternate reality, but there’s not that much face-to-face anymore. Right? And I, and you spoke on a great panel at Consensus 2022, about the real world, obviously not going anywhere, right? There’s always gonna be a need for the face-to-face interactions, but it’s just anyone can do anything anywhere, almost, right? That, that there’s so many possibilities that you don’t have to be restricted or so just tied down almost. And I think that’s where the Metaverse helps come into play a little bit more is right, just a, it’s another world. Whether it’s for entertainment, it’s for work, it’s for pleasure, whatever it may be. People have kind of endless possibilities there, right?
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah. I think it comes down to just being able to foster those human connections across, you know, geographical boundaries, right? Um, the pandemic, as you mentioned, uh, it really made this work from home thing a viable solution for a lot of companies realizing like, Hey, you know, we actually don’t need to require everyone to come into the office every single day. Um, you know, you can get just as much work done, if not more work done just by, you know, having a few Zoom meetings every day. Um, but I also think it, it has opened the doors to different types of experiences and different, I think the need has arise for different types of experiences, uh, to bridge that sort of like, gap across a virtual space. Cause I, I think, I don’t know about you, but I, I certainly was feeling a bit of Zoom fatigue where, you know, you’re just on these flat kind of, you know, uh,
Mark Eckerle:
Calls just to have calls, calls, calls, just for the calls.
Justin Mellilo:
Exactly. Yeah. Um, and so I, I think that this is also where the metaverse and, and where Mona poses a really fantastic solution in that, uh, because you can connect with other users with voice chat and text chat all through the browser, uh, you can actually have a more immersive and a more engaging meeting or, um, meetup or hangout in these immersive virtual worlds and settings. One where you can actually customize your avatar so you don’t even have to be on camera anymore, and you can just customize your avatar to wear those, you know, virtual Gucci shoes that you bought so you could flex, uh, you know, those, those different items that you’re able to, to have. And I, yeah, I just think like, you know, the metaverse like, yes, it’s a, a place where you can play games, but it’s a place where you can experience art, where you can have work meetings where you can attend virtual concerts, shows, events, a virtual TED talk. Um, really we’ve seen what we’re doing with Mona, the fantastic community that we’re building around it. A lot of our community members have really described Mona as the, the future of Discord, where instead of even meeting in these static, you know, 2D kind of voice channels, now I can actually build my community in a, in an immersive virtual space where we can all hang out with thousands of other people. So yeah, I, I think the metaverse, uh, poses a a really great opportunity to just foster even better connections, uh, across distances.
Mark Eckerle:
Uh, you, you basically took the words outta my mouth for one of my next questions I wanted to ask. Being a builder, being all in on this space, have you had any work meetings where it’s not Zoom anymore? It’s in the Metaverse? Yeah.
Justin Mellilo:
Oh, yeah.
Mark Eckerle:
Where everyone has their habitat. Yeah. What is that like? 100%. Please tell me.
Justin Mellilo:
It’s great. No, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. Yeah. We, we do partner meetings in there. We do our, our company meetings in there. Um, we, we actually closed our series a round of fundraising a couple of months ago. We raised 14.6 million, um, from a, a, a number of really fantastic investors, including Protocol Labs, archetype and collab and currency. Um, and, you know, some of our investor meetings we were actually having inside of our Mona spaces that we were showing off. So, yeah. Um, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s been a really, really exciting time and, and, uh, you know, it’s a great way for us to, to alpha and beta test all of our features as well.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah. I mean, that, that’s something I, I need to check off my list. Yeah. Because I hear more and more people doing that. It just sounds so neat. Yeah, yeah, right. Just kind of Absolutely. It helps to get away from, again, the zoom fatigue, the, we use Microsoft teams, so just getting out of what we’ve been doing for the last two and a half years and just mixing things up.
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah. Yep.
Mark Eckerle:
Um, no, so I mean, that’s, that’s all I have today. I’m, I’m curious, where can more people learn about you, hear about, you kind of start their own spaces where, where can people kind of get in on Mona?
Justin Mellilo:
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you know, if you want to, to join our community, we would absolutely love to have you. Uh, you could start by following us on Twitter, at twitter.com/mo or at metaverse. Uh, definitely join our discord at www.monamervse.com/discord and most certainly dive in and check out any of the hundreds, uh, actually thousands now of spaces that creators are, are uploading to the Monaverse by this visiting [email protected].
Mark Eckerle:
Awesome. And I gotta give, I gotta give a shout out cause I, you’re too humble to say it, but if you follow Justin on Twitter, he is very active in Twitter spaces. Yeah. Always, always giving, I, I wouldn’t say giving presentations, but just speaking out on, on kind of bringing this space forward, educating the masses. So, um, definitely tuned in there. I’ve, I’ve tuned in myself. So those are fantastic presentations. Um, thanks. Definitely keep up the good work. I, I always appreciate it.
Justin Mellilo:
Oh, thanks so much. Yeah, I remember seeing you in there and even like checking out our I R L event too in New York. I mean, yeah. You’re, you’re awesome. Thanks so much for being a part of our community.
Mark Eckerle:
Always, always here to support the growth. Yeah. Well that wraps up today’s episode. Justin, thank you so much for joining us and, uh, yeah, again, we glimpsed the surface today, so we’ll definitely have to have you back and kind of take a deeper dive and hear more about the exciting things that Mona’s working on.
Justin Mellilo:
A hundred percent would love that. And thanks again for having me, mark, really a pleasure to be here.
Mark Eckerle:
Awesome. Thank you. Thanks. All views expressed in this podcast by Mark Eckersley or his guests are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Withum. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
