#69: Michael Stockwell on Bitcoin Billionaires NFTs and Blockchain Gaming Studios

Michael Stockwell is the Founder of FizzPow Games and Creator of the hit Bitcoin Billionaire mobile game, now launching their very own Bitcoin Billionaires NFTs.

In this conversation, we discuss:
- Blockchain gaming studios
- AAA game studios dabbling in crypto
- Bitcoin Billionaires growth to 10 million downloads
- P2E gaming
- NFT utility
- Bitcoin Billionaire NFT Pre-sale
- Building community in Discord
- Daily routines and rituals

Bitcoin Billionaires NFT
Website: billionaires.io
Twitter: @NFTBillionaires
Discord: discord.gg/BillionairesNFT

Michael Stockwell
Twitter: @akaSurreal

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Transcript

Matt Zahab: 0:07

Ladies and gentlemen, it's your host Matt they have and we are back with another incredible guest on the crypto news podcast. Today's guest is Michael Stockwell, the founder of fizz pow games, and the creator of the hit Bitcoin billionaire mobile game and founder of Bitcoin billionaires NFT. Michael is a serial entrepreneur and software developer who discovered the crypto slash blockchain space in 2014. Buying his first Bitcoin and eath in 2015. Wow, what a treat that must have been. This might also be the first time that doctors themselves the first true public appearance with a first name and last name for our guest, Michael stock. Well, without further ado, I'm very pleased to welcome to the crypto news podcast Michael stock. Mike, welcome the show.

Michael Stockwell: 0:55

Hey, Matt, thanks for having me. Appreciate that.

Matt Zahab: 0:57

Super excited to have you on today. The docs part I know before the pods that we're shooting this shit a little is this really the first time that the your Doc's and yourself?

Michael Stockwell: 1:05

It is it is, you know, we had a lot of discussions on our end on whether or not we wanted to try to stay anonymous or not like many other NFT projects have been doing lately. But I kind of realized that if we wanted to bring the credibility of our existing history and experience that I kind of needed to put myself out there.

Matt Zahab: 1:25

It's, I've been public since day one. So I don't know what it feels like. But it's crazy, this whole phenomenon of going of not going with being a non and crypto. And then Doxxing yourselves. I know, I believe it was loon Dart and I forget the other gentleman's name, but there was that huge crypto boxing match in Dubai a couple of weeks ago that raised I think, a couple 100 grand for charity, and was the first time they doxed themselves. People only knew them from their anon name, you know, their handles on Twitter, Telegram discord, so on and so forth, and their NFT profile pictures, so I'm excited to see more people like you Doc's themselves in the future.

Michael Stockwell: 1:58

Yeah, thank you, it is kind of a strange space we're in where that is almost the norm, you know, to not to be anonymous, which is it is quite strange.

Matt Zahab: 2:06

But that is true. Now you have a really cool and interesting background. Most of the time, when people come to the space, they usually come from some type of finance background or, you know, tech related no matter you fall into the tech related part. But I'd love if you could tell our listeners a little bit about about your background as a game developer and how you got into the crypto and NFT world.

Michael Stockwell: 2:27

Sure. You know, like many people, I think, I grew up just enjoying games, video games, and I always thought it would be amazing and fun to you know, work on them and make my own games. And so even as a kid I kind of played around with making little fun projects on my own and just sharing it with my step brother and friends. But I started taking that a lot more seriously. And I think it was 2008 or nine right around when the Apple iPhone App Store launched. And I kind of realized there's such a huge potential there to reach a different kind of audience and a different kind of platform that wasn't so saturated at least at the time of course things have changed now. And but I've always just had a real you know, place in my heart for gaming most of my life I guess to some degree or another and and as far as the blockchain space goes, I think just being a tech nerd. Most of my life I've always been super interested in what's coming what's next. And you know, when I first learned about Bitcoin, it just sounded like this amazing new technology that fixes so many can fix so many problems with our financial structures in the world. And so when I was trying to come up with a name for our last game, Bitcoin billionaire, it just made sense to play off of you know, Bitcoin and try to give it more exposure that was kind of part of why I wanted to use that name was just to get more people thinking about it.

Matt Zahab: 3:59

I love every name that you know, whether it's an actual person's name or in this case, the name of a game Bitcoin billionaire first letter of first name matches first letter of last name I love that. Now I personally you know, don't mean to be selfish and bring it back to me I'm hooked. Because when I have kids and I do want to have a couple kids but my last name is Ahab so what do I need my kids right if I have a boy I can name it maybe Zach or I don't know a lot about a girl Zara but like I'm pretty limited so

Michael Stockwell: 4:29

that is that is a more difficult letter to play with refer

Matt Zahab: 4:31

it is it is but the Bitcoin billionaire does sound great. And did you and your team ever think that you'd have the success of getting 10 million downloads like this just a fun little game that you guys did in your spare time? Turned out that absolutely popped off and here we are 10 million downloads later.

Michael Stockwell: 4:46

Well, to be to be fair, definitely was not a it wasn't actually a spare time project. I put quite a bit into that project for about six months. Now, with that being said, No, I had no extra But it was going to turn into that that has become for sure. I think I remember at one point, me and some of the people I was working with at the time, thinking that how amazing it would be. If we could just get people to even play it for a week and how, you know, satisfying that would be. And obviously now we have people have been playing it for years. And that's been really rewarding.

Matt Zahab: 5:25

What a treat absolutely incredible. Again, you know, you don't often see games get get that many downloads. Now, for those at home, I just want to give a quick explanation Bitcoin billionaire is an idle mining game is all about earning virtual bitcoins through fast tapping, smart investments and cool upgrades. And realistically, it allows you to go from rags to riches as you upgrade and unlock new items and time travel the distant past and far future, you can do it in a comfy chair, literally, all you need is is a hand I guess, if you are super savvy you can do with your feet, too, if you're into that. But yeah, you just got to tap the screen works magic mind some virtual bitcoins and increase your wealth. And fast forward to 2021. And you are on Yahoo along with the team Yahoo Finance. And they're quoting you as the top 10 upcoming NFT drop, according to a survey of 500 NFT experts, tons of hype behind this. Tons of momentum. I'd love if you could talk about the NF T's they're about to pop off as well.

Michael Stockwell: 6:22

Yeah, sure. So as many will know that I've played the game, I'll see some obvious inspiration in the new project, the avatars and some of the desks and the computers and some of the objects are all kind of either inspired from the game or taken from the game and modified to be used in like this new format, we just thought it was a perfect way to give something that was a little different than just the standard profile picture. And FTE collections that are the norm right now. The other thing we kind of realized pretty early on as we were putting together these compositions was by having that desk and computer or other objects on the desk, it created more of a storytelling aspect when you look at them. And so we've really been trying to emphasize that as we move forward, is you know, as soon as you look at your billionaire, it kind of creates a story for you. And so that's a piece about the composition itself and what makes it unique and interesting.

Matt Zahab: 7:25

And in regard to the arts. Again, I love the art I've purchased probably too many NF T's myself, the first thing has to be the art you know, the art kicks off and you check the team check the founders, the dev team, who can really move the needle and make that happen then you look at the community check out the Twitter's the discord, you guys have all that. But for those at home who can't see it, like I'm looking at it in front of me. Can you explain the art as best as possible?

Michael Stockwell: 7:49

Well, sure, well, first of all, it is definitely a kind of an eight bit pixel art aesthetic. It's not perfect. And we've taken some liberties of foreigners using way more colors than ever existed back in the days of eight bit. But the composition is, is a character or avatar would whatever you'd like to call it. That is sitting at a desk. The desk has we have a lot of different desks that are, you know, everything from like, normal desks that you'd see in a typical office up to desks that are made out of pure light or made out of a turtle shell or all kinds of crazy things. And then same goes for the things that go on the desks, whether they be computers or major servers or creatures. And a bonk you know, we're just we have all kinds of fun things. And it's kind of this nod to, you know, all of us aspiring crypto billionaires in our journey,

Matt Zahab: 8:50

that the art of the art is incredible. I think one of my favorite ones is the dude with massive looks like the classic, you know, 42 inch curved screen that's only about you know, 1415 inches tall, but just so wide covers a whole four foot desk. Yeah, a legit four foot desk. I love that one because it literally looked like one of my close friends has a you know, the beautiful curved Samsung monitor and it looks exactly like that. It's, it's, it's clean and sexier. Now on the utility side, everyone's always asking, Okay, you know, Mike, this sounds great, but what's it going to get me and and I'd love if you could explain what the billionaire's club NF T's entail?

Michael Stockwell: 9:29

Sure. So I think, you know, jumping to probably the end of the, of the list that we have on our side of our roadmap. I think the thing that people are most excited about, and the thing that's unique to what we can bring to this project is our ability to develop games. So what we want to do is create games that cater towards a few different player profiles, whether you're kind of a puzzle solver, skill based player or a great Reinder and so eventually we are going to create multiple games that as a holder of a billionaire, you would then be able to play these games. And the games would have either a play to earn component, or they would have prizes that you could win by playing them. And that is a piece of the utility. For sure, I think, probably the most fun piece of the utility. But I do want to say, we can also talk a little bit about longer term plans with a Dow and some of the defi kind of prospects that we're considering.

Matt Zahab: 10:33

So it sounds like a 360 degree no get everything involved get the video game built of the Dow mixed in sounds like probably a coin to sort of be the the economy and and the governing body of the project sounds like it could be in the works too. I want to go back you said it grinder. i My apologies. I forget the other two,

Michael Stockwell: 10:54

puzzle solver skill player and grinder.

Matt Zahab: 10:57

What is a grinder I've never heard I know what that means in like hockey and sports, but I've never heard that. And now in regards to grinding gamer a grinder.

Michael Stockwell: 11:04

Yeah, so people that basically just like to kind of grind in a game. So they're doing something that's probably not taking a lot of skill or thought, but it takes a lot of time and patience. And so those kinds of people will I mean MMOs if you've ever played any of those, I think a lot of MMOs are kind of fallen to this basket. Because it's not necessarily that it's super hard for you to go out and kill those, you know, 20 orcs or whatever you've been assigned to do, it's just a matter of going out and you know, grinding through all these quests. And so we kind of want to award people that are just that kind of player, they don't want to necessarily be like a super fast, you know, Twitch streaming kind of headshot person, but they want to be, you know, something they can just have some fun with. And if you think about our game, Bitcoin billionaire, being an idle game, it is very much falls into that as well where you're kind of just constantly rewarded with putting time into it.

Matt Zahab: 12:02

So in essence, you want to give pretty much anyone with an Internet connection and who has the motivation to get into crypto, you want to give them access to make a little, you know, passive income within the BB ecosystem.

Michael Stockwell: 12:16

That's definitely the idea for sure. And as you said, you know, potentially there could be a governance token and some other defy, staking type aspects coming. The thing I want to say about that, though, to be clear, is that we are definitely very much aware of some of the potential regulatory issues around some of these things. And so we are consulting with attorneys around this, and we just want to be sure that we're doing this in the way that is, you know, aboveboard as possible. And I know, projects like board, ape, have announced that they're going to be doing something like this as well. And they're doing a similar process of making sure they dot their i's and cross their T's because we have seen some projects run into some trouble otherwise,

Matt Zahab: 12:58

yeah, you got to make sure you are not a securities or else the SEC and Miss Janet Yellen will be knocking on that door here. I want to go back to the play to earn movement, I guess before the play to earn movement, very unique talking to someone who has experience in a game studio and who has built video games before I am beyond bullish on the Plater and movement within crypto, I think that that will be the catalyst that sort of onboards the non crypto native people into the crypto verse. Similar to how like, you know, myself as a 26 year old right now, born in 95, when I was growing up, it was Diems. You know, I obviously I wasn't emailing when I was a kid, MSN didn't really start until you hit like grade seven and eight and start realizing girls are pretty and you know, it hadn't been shot with your boys, but it was games like Club Penguin, and ruin scape and stuff like that, that really got you into it. But with that being said, How important are video game developers right now? And are we going to keep seeing the big conglomerates like Animoca, who just is fresh off a couple of billion dollar raise part partly from from Ubisoft? Are we going to keep seeing just this this exodus of traditional gaming studios go into crypto?

Michael Stockwell: 14:10

I do think so actually, I'm not going to say it's going to happen overnight. But I do think a lot of people are seeing this as the future and want to get in early right now. Because I think it's it's just a matter of time. Before probably all games, especially any game that has like an online or multiplayer component will eventually be using some kind of blockchain technology and NFT technology because it's just so much more superior to what we've had before and enables them to do things they couldn't do before.

Matt Zahab: 14:40

When What do you think we're gonna see the first sort of first person shooter game built on the blockchain? Now? Those when you think of the most popular games, it's like, yeah, you have your sports games, but a lot of the most popular games, whether it's Yesco, or your cod, or fortnight like they're all pretty much first person shooters. When when's that gonna pop off in the crypto space?

Michael Stockwell: 15:03

I can't tell you but I feel like somebody is working on it right now probably for sure. I would be surprised if there's not at least a handful of teams working on something like that. I think the bigger question might be, when are we going to see like, the first triple A, you know, first person shooter in the blockchain space.

Matt Zahab: 15:20

Once that happens, that's like, that's just domino effects city. Like if you're a call if you're a cod fan, and and you finally have the opportunity to make some residual income and earning media cod token or something of the like, without being a professional eSports gamer like cheese, the ways that just floodgates open and turning back?

Michael Stockwell: 15:39

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know, I read something recently about, you know, people asking epic to make fortnight have some kind of NFT or blockchain integration. And I think they did put out a an official statement saying they were not going to pursue that at this time. But I really think it's only a matter of time before something of that magnitude does jump on on this man wagon, because it's going to be something where I think the first person that does it, like you said, it takes off to the level that I think it will, then everyone's going to be scrambling to catch up.

Matt Zahab: 16:11

I wholeheartedly believe that could be, you know, a trillion dollar opportunity in the future. But did you hear the news about steam as well steam, you know, one of the biggest, I guess, I wouldn't even really know how to classify that almost like the, you know, a marketplace for games kind of thing. But steam said that no blockchain games will be on their platform, whereas epic came out and was like, you know, we're not going to roll it out just yet.

Michael Stockwell: 16:35

Yeah, no, I did. I did see that. Apple. I don't think Apple has made it official. But I've been reading that Apple's also kind of been banning, or, you know, not approving projects that have NFT integration on their app store either. I think they both have similar reasons are worried about regulatory issues. They're worried about not getting their cut, because it kind of bypasses their payment systems. And we know that epic has been kind of fighting apple on that as well recently. It's hard to say if Epic is being genuine to me, just because I think that they're kind of in a place of wanting to be the contrarian to anything steam and Apple does at the moment.

Matt Zahab: 17:13

Gotcha.

Michael Stockwell: 17:14

But I still am happy that we have, you know, multiple platforms and that they're going to push ahead with that. I hope they do. I really do. Because I think they're going to be rewarded for that even if they're maybe doing it for other reasons at the moment.

Matt Zahab: 17:27

No, I totally feel you there. Folks, we do need to take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by our dear friends, our incredible friends at prime x PC. These guys and gals have been partners of crypto news.com for years and are always extremely excited about the products they have to offer. As you've heard me say many times I've been using prime HBT for the last couple months and absolutely love it, as they offer a incredible trading system for both beginners and professional traders doesn't matter if you are a rookie or vet you can easily design and customize layouts and widgets to best fit your trading style. Prime expertise also running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the pod after making your first deposit 50% of that deposit that is five 0% will be credited to your account as a bonus that can be used as additional collateral to open positions. The promo code is crypto news 50 That is crypto news five zero all one word to take advantage of this incredible offer. Crypto news 50 to receive 50% of your first deposit credited to your trading account. Go check out prime x BT absolutely incredible. You will definitely love them. And now back to the show with Michael Stockwell. Michael, I got to ask you about open tea. I can hear the discord notifications buzzing in the background? You must be a big NFT guy. I know you're a big NFT guy. What are your two cents on FTX? Launching a platform Coinbase launching a platform? What is the future of the NFT landscape look like in your eyes?

Michael Stockwell: 18:52

Yeah, well, I've been open see differently has the market share at the moment. But yeah, with big players like Coinbase and FTX sushi swaps got their own. There's a number of big players coming in with a lot of money. I think it's definitely gonna spread things out a bit soon, which might be a good thing as open See, I think has been struggling a bit to keep up with the demand right now. It will be interesting because like, for example, in our collection, and anyone that's in our situation, we are very much relying on how open see works and how the royalty structure works and all that kind of thing. I think there's some questions for how our collection might work and live on some of these other services. But I would assume they're going to try to be competitive and offer similar features for content creators.

Matt Zahab: 19:44

What what part of the royalties, or is you at all? And can you just give our listeners a brief overview of you know, 2.5 to sort of 7.5% that the creators of NF T's get on every single sale every single kickback I'd love if you could just give our listeners a quick explanation of that,

Michael Stockwell: 20:02

right? Sure. So anytime you sell your NFT, on open sea, the creators of that project can set a royalty number to whatever they want it to be. And like you said, it's generally between 2.5 to 7.5, I can tell you that ours is going to be 5%. And the, that percent then is collected by royalty and given back to the creators, and the creators use that in different ways. Some projects, use that to fund future project development or, you know, their Dow, or you know, things of that nature, and we're going to be doing something similar, we're going to be using portions of our royalties to be awarded back to players, we'll be using those to kind of fund the some of the play to earn mechanics and the rewards from our games.

Matt Zahab: 20:51

So Mike, when you're spending time on open See, like me personally, when I'm looking at a new project, I usually do you know, my my DD, depending on how much time in the day I have, how much time I can allocate. But the things I like to go over are the art, the team, the socials, kind of buzzes there, has the momentum looking the price action, and then I sort of make my decision. And if I'm, you know, if I'm pretty positive, sort of above that 65 66% Mark, I'll usually by two or three, and then let the rest take care of itself. And if I'm not, I won't, maybe I'll throw a couple of Hail Marys every once in a while. But that's sort of my workflow. What does yours look like? What do you look for when you invest in NFT? Project?

Michael Stockwell: 21:33

I would say it's not much different than yours, I'm definitely going to look at the art first. If I'm not feeling the art at all, then I'll pass and part of that is because I feel like you know, say, worst case scenario, this collection does not do very well it does not ever kind of go up in value, or at least I'm, you know, owning a piece of art that I like in that case. And if once I get past that, though, right, I would say the next most important thing to me is trying to gauge its momentum. And you can kind of tell those things probably from you know, looking at their socials, looking at their discord hanging out in their discord really gives you a lot of sense of like how their community is doing, how active it is, you know, what the vibe is there. I think that actually the community aspect plays a bigger role in the value of these NF T's and probably almost anything beyond the second to the art. And then I would say lastly, I then look at of course, the roadmap, I want to make sure that there's something coming that's interesting and exciting and that the community is looking forward to that and they're excited about it.

Matt Zahab: 22:41

See, I don't know if I'm such a big roadmap. I've just I've seen so many projects that have almost blue ocean syndrome. They're promising the ocean, the world or planets or stars and some and it's like, okay, like, fellas, let's let's just be realistic here. Do you really think all this is going to happen? Do you? Do you ever feel that way about roadmaps like I don't know, I just I feel like the more versed I am and the more reps I get in the space. I feel like the roadmaps are just more of a dog's breakfast.

Michael Stockwell: 23:09

No, I absolutely agree with you. It's one of the reasons why we've been really trying to push our kind of history and game development out there. Because we want people to know that we actually have the you know, the the resources and the knowledge and the experience to actually create games and deliver them.

Matt Zahab: 23:26

Now that's, that's absolutely massive. That's, that's, you know, what I started my spiel off with is vetting the team moves mountains, if you don't believe in the team, like heck, they're not going to do anything. It's the same as sports and business. It's the same as anything else in life, relationships, sports, business, you name it, if the team isn't intact, like you're not getting anywhere.

Michael Stockwell: 23:44

Absolutely, absolutely. I've been involved in a lot of NF T's this year, I'm still holding a lot of different ones that I hope, you know, come around, but a lot of them definitely have failed to deliver on their roadmap or the delivered something but it wasn't, you know, something people were very happy with. And so, I agree that that has become a less and less role of my choosing with NF T's except for in the cases when I really believe in the team like you said,

Matt Zahab: 24:10

Yeah, I want to I want to bring this conversation over a bit your personal life now as someone who has experience in building games and now your identity sort of was not sorted but will definitely be NFT related. A lot of people in the space I have some friends who have made just an obscene killing made millions of dollars and literally all they do they wake up they get big, they chill, you know, maybe go for a walk, get a nice lift and get more baked and just MFTs and get more bait all they do is smoke weed and, and make millions of dollars on NF T's now again to each their own. But for someone like me who is way too busy to do that. I have my morning routines, my nighttime routines, my rituals throughout the day, but I'd love to get into your head. I'd love to know if you have any incredible rituals or routines that really helped move the needle and keep you productive.

Michael Stockwell: 24:58

Yeah, well, I think I do and I think that they're not super surprising kinds of things though, like, trying to get enough rest and some exercise every day if possible. You know, those things definitely helped me become way more productive when I'm doing good at them. As far as like are you asking like do I have a routine as far as looking at certain websites or open sea or those kinds of

Matt Zahab: 25:27

things? Do you have any like what like your tech stack like for me you know I'd be toast without my without G Suite I got all my info at the various companies that I work for all my info is on G Suite multiple email boxes I love notion for keeping all notes in one space whether it's personal work related, for podcasts use Riverside it's incredible. I love open C for discord. Mme or, and discord Metamask. My baby makes everything 100 times easier in the crypto space. Those are sort of, you know, my big ones that I use every single day. And Twitter of course, what about you?

Michael Stockwell: 25:57

Yeah, if you look at my I mean, I got three screens in front of me right now. And I can tell you, you know, one screen has my Discord and telegram are the two messengers I use the most. And I have another screen with a bunch of pinned tabs, I use Trello for tracking a lot of my tasks. And same with my team. I have actually used notion in the past. I've liked notion a lot. But there's something about the simplicity of Trello just being what it is. And it's just these cards you can drag around. That seems a little easier for me to onboard other people that work with me. And then yeah, I don't know if this counts, but I definitely watch a lot of YouTube. I have always kind of been a big YouTube fan. There's definitely some channels that I like to follow in the crypto space and I'm starting to watch Twitter a lot more I have to say than I used to. Because crypto Twitter and crypto Twitter NF T space has kind of just where the action is now, for whatever reason Twitter's become that place. And so I've definitely been on there a lot more than I used to be, especially since starting this project.

Matt Zahab: 27:06

There's a lot of alpha on Twitter too. Crazy Alpha.

Michael Stockwell: 27:09

Definitely. And the Twitter spaces are really getting more and more interesting. So I've definitely been lurkers in a lot of Twitter spaces lately as well.

Matt Zahab: 27:19

Are you addicted yet? Like full disclosure, the only two things I'm addicted to I probably coffee and Twitter.

Michael Stockwell: 27:25

I don't think I'm quite there yet. Luckily, and I'm trying to maintain I think my level of busyness probably keeps me from becoming too addicted.

Matt Zahab: 27:34

Yeah, like I just, I don't know, I used to have Instagram and I was never really addicted to Insta just because everyone's not gonna say one so fake, but it's just you're showing sort of the best, your best life. And I don't fully fully agree with that. I also believe that that has a direct correlation with a lot of the Mental Health waves that are going on right now. But with Twitter again, I'm sure I can spend a better chunk of my time not on Twitter, but it's like, you don't have five minutes great for open Twitter and just learn so much whether it's crypto and fts. You know, Fitness, Health, wealth, happiness, sports, politics, world news, you name it, it's there. And if you spend time creating a feed, it's just oh, it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant.

Michael Stockwell: 28:16

Yeah, I would totally agree with you i i probably think I need to work more on curating my feed. But if I did, so I think I'd end up even more addicted so you know, I have to decide which is which is worse.

Matt Zahab: 28:29

It's bad. I have my list I have my fitness list my you know health wealth happiness list crypto blockchain NF TS sports news popped off it's, it's it's not good. But it's, it's good to know that I'm not the only one. And I do apologize in advance if you keep spending more time on Twitter. And if you put some effort into into curating that feed you will also be toast. I do want to go back to Bitcoin billionaires. The Bitcoin billionaires NF T's are launching their presale on October 27. And the public sale on October 28, which will be tradable on the one and only open sea. The Discord is absolutely bumping Twitter's making moves right now as well. But besides that, are there any other tidbits or any other pieces of advice that our listeners should know before going out and minting one of these bad boys?

Michael Stockwell: 29:17

I think one of the only other things that we haven't probably touched on that I think a lot of people would be excited to hear is that one of the things I did pretty early on was I bought a few very high profile and FTS that we are going to randomly AirDrop to some of our holders after the sale. And those are a boarded Kennel Club Dog, a board ape and a crypto punk. So the combined value of those as you may have guessed, even if you're just looking at floor pricing is you know over $500,000 USD and all you have to do to qualify for one of these is be holding a billionaire. When we do these snapshots post launch

Matt Zahab: 30:00

I'm going to definitely by myself as well, I do believe in this project. But if you see, you know, at Matt's Ahab, feel free to throw that crypto punk over to over to his eath address, that'd be a treat. If you don't want me ask him, when did you pick up the the board ape, the kennel and the crypto punk.

Michael Stockwell: 30:17

So we do have a public wallet. It's actually Bitcoin billionaires dot eath that anyone can go look at where they can see that we already own these, whereas some projects claim they'll buy one after the sale. But we we actually have them already. Some people do get a little confused with the punk because it's not the actual NFT. It's a punk token from the NFT X vault. So anyone that's familiar with how that works, people can put a punk in the vault, and they get a token back a punk token, and they can then redeem that for a punk random punk from the vault anytime they want. So when we go to do that, AirDrop, we will probably be doing a live stream where we show the punk get redeemed because it'll be totally random. We won't know which one we're going to get. And then send that off.

Matt Zahab: 31:04

Wow. So so there's there is a chance that you could be getting a punk that as well about floor,

Michael Stockwell: 31:09

potentially I will say though, if you go look at the NFT X vault, I think most of those are pretty close to floor. I think there are a few exceptions.

Matt Zahab: 31:17

Okay.

Michael Stockwell: 31:18

Oh, and you asked when I got them. So the board ape. So I did a few things with this board. I actually ended up buying for apes back when the floor was around. Point 7/8. So I was very fortunate to get in pretty early.

Matt Zahab: 31:34

But what can you give me what month that was?

Michael Stockwell: 31:37

You know, I don't know, I'd have to go look in my logs. But it was months ago for sure. Early 2021 kind of thing? I'm guessing three, four months ago, something like that? I don't I don't remember exactly. And what I ended up doing was we so the AIFF that we're giving away is not actually one of those original ones. What I did was I ended up selling a couple of them, and then buying the one that we have now because we wanted a specific look for the one we're giving away. And that's for there's there's a reason for that, that I can't disclose right. That will be kind of a surprise to people once the sale launches.

Matt Zahab: 32:15

Gotcha. Fair enough. And, and, and the candle.

Michael Stockwell: 32:19

Similar, same situation, I actually bought it to have a matching dog that kind of looked similar to the ape. So when I sold these apes in the past to buy the ape that we have now, I also bought the dog at the same time to have kind of a matching dog to go with them.

Matt Zahab: 32:36

Love that. And might this been a treat of conversation? I'm having a blast here. A couple more questions before we wrap up. Again, you obviously know your stuff when it comes to NF Ts. If I was a beginner, and I'm listening this episode, give me your best shot. You got a couple minutes. Tell me what you tell someone who wants to get into the space?

Michael Stockwell: 32:55

Well, I think I would, I would listen to that part where we both talked about, like how we research projects. I think that's pretty important. I think understanding the importance of community to a project is probably the the biggest thing I would tell somebody new. Because there are projects that have amazing artwork that still don't do very well, because they have not built a strong community. And vice versa. I've seen some projects that have not the most impressive art but are doing very well because of their community. So that's probably one of the biggest things I would say is look for the community look for the communities that you think are going to stick around long term, and then help bring value to that project.

Matt Zahab: 33:36

Well said totally makes sense. And any questions for me? I throw throwing you on the spot here.

Michael Stockwell: 33:44

I do not have any quite well here's here's one actually, if you want to answer this, what have been maybe your top three best successes in NFT so far.

Matt Zahab: 33:54

Oh, well, again, anyone can check out my wallet as well. But definitely the cool cat that might do everything sort of dropped a significant amount but not as high. That was a what 13 14x So that that was a nice one was a pretty penny very grateful for that. And then one was a wicked ape bone club. It was one of the original it was the wicked apes are sort of a derivative of the board APR clubs. I wish I snagged on those but I was a little late to the party. And it has the trippy skin which is like the rainbow type skin which is very rare. I think it's ranked like 600 out of the 10,000 collection. And then I was also fortunate enough to snag two lazy lions which again, you know, got those at like point one I think point one five and point one apiece and now they're worth about two or three so Yeah, a couple nice ones. I have some losers too. Right? I bought a Shibu town he knew because I was it was when she was bumping Sheba universe bumping I was like all everyone's gonna be on this You know, tons of buzz in the discord. I buy it. I think I bought it for point two Etherium ripped up to like point three, five, you know, two days later and then now I think it's worth point 001. So that'll be just keep it maybe maybe give it to a friend as a 50 $60 present just who gets into NF TS as a welcome. You know, it's not a great gift, but 50 bucks is better, nothing kind of thing. But yeah, definitely have some losers too.

Michael Stockwell: 35:25

I've got quite a few. Luckily, I can say that my winners have outweighed my losers but I'd got class you

Matt Zahab: 35:30

that's that's the trick with the NFT game as long as you have a couple whales and it's it's mind you. Personally I just find that the upside and potential is almost a asymmetric like when you buy an NF t if you can even meant one. You say you meant it for point 05 eath couple 100 bucks. It's like okay, can most people afford to lose a couple 100 bucks if you're in the NFT world? Yes. And what is your ceiling? Like it could be the next crypto pump so is always make sure that you have you're available to lose the money that you're putting in because at the end of the day, it is a gamble. And if anyone says it's not they're full of shite, but you know where

Michael Stockwell: 36:07

Yeah, I would definitely agree with you. That's kind of a blanket statement for NF T's and Kryptos is only invest what you can afford to lose

Matt Zahab: 36:13

and then let the rest take care of itself. Miko, this has been an absolute treat I really appreciate you having on full disclosure to the listeners. I will be mentoring one I'm not gifted on by the team or anything like that, but I will definitely be mentoring. The mental take place on the presale is on October 27. If you got to billionaires.io Great. Holy crap great domain by the way, too. How much did that cost? Can you can you disclose that?

Michael Stockwell: 36:37

Billionaires the IO? Yes, I will tell you that the owner gave me a deal because I promised to give them a few MFTs as part of the package. They still I still paid over 2000 USD for it plus some NF T's but I think it's been well worth it.

Matt Zahab: 36:55

Oh, that is a phenomenal domain. Wow. Yeah. When I saw it, I was I was in awe. That um, again presale on October 27. public sale October 28. I will be minting very reasonable mint prices. Well, that's billionaires.io. Mike, absolute pleasure appreciate you having on before we let you go, can you please tell our listeners where they can find you and Bitcoin billionaires online and on socials?

Michael Stockwell: 37:17

Yes, for sure. Well, as you said, billionaires.io that links to everything that links to our Discord that Twitter tells you everything about our project has an FAQ on there. But the best place to really get involved is our Discord. And again, it's linked there, but it is discord.gg/billionairesandftinrtwitterisat It's kind of the flip of that is at NFT billionaires. But again, if you just go to billionaires.io that links to everything shows our Twitter's discord and it shows all the team Twitter as well. So please join us. We'd love to have you.

Matt Zahab: 37:50

And what's your Twitter?

Michael Stockwell: 37:52

My personal Twitter is at aka surreal and that is also the username I use on our Discord.

Matt Zahab: 37:59

What's the what's the SOC behind that?

Michael Stockwell: 38:01

You know, I've been using that for so long. I think really what it came down to I've always been a fan of surrealism, the art form. And so I just kind of picked that name many, many years ago and been sticking with it. And I put a K in front of it because too many times the just the word surreal was taken and I was sick of that. So I just put a K in front of it and it's worked.

Matt Zahab: 38:24

I love that I actually do not know what surrealism is in regards to art. You just gave me some homework. I'm going to do that as soon as we wrap up probably

Michael Stockwell: 38:32

the most famous one. You can look into Salvador Dali is working very well.

Matt Zahab: 38:37

Okay, I would check that out. Mike, really appreciate having you on a great time. Definitely round two in the future. And thanks again. Appreciate it.

Michael Stockwell: 38:44

Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.

Matt Zahab: 38:45

Folks. Hope you enjoyed this episode with Michael Stockwell from Bitcoin billionaires NFT and blockchain gaming studios great episode learned a ton. Wow. A lot to take in. Mike appreciate it and we'll definitely have him on again. If you enjoyed this episode, and I hope you did. Please do subscribe, it would mean the world to my team and I. With that being said, I want to give a shout out to my incredible team Eustace our sound editor guys broke class and everyone else like crypto news cannot do it without y'all. Folks, stay safe. Keep growing those bags be happy and Mondays and Thursdays we're always dropping your episodes gonna be doing some traveling in the next couple months. Hopefully I can see you in Dubai for the blockchain Expo and hopefully I can meet you guys in New York City as well for NYC NFT. That wraps up this episode. For all those bags stay safe and keep on kicking. Bye for now.