Bang big one coming up next is a debate about NFTs to moderate and introduce the members of this debate is managing editor and head of features at Cointelegraph with an MA in political science and classical Philology she is passionate a passionate communicator promoting innovations Translating them into simple language and helping visionaries be heard Put your virtual hands together for managing editor and head of features at Cointelegraph Christina corner Christina the stage is yours Hi, everyone. I'm Christina Lucretza corner, and we are here at blockdown conference for an exciting debate about NFTs and We have here with me the Elliot trades crypto youtuber and a co-founder of an NFT platform superfarm. Hi, Elliot Hi, thanks for having me. You will be I suppose today NFT beer. No Okay, dokey, so here we are at Manchester professor of corporate law and finance I suppose in some different interesting serious institutions and also Famous no-coiner so we have here today a very interesting situation talking about NFTs in the context of a More general picture of the economics finance and law So guys, okay NFT boom We we all know that like Google search for NFT in the last month's like I don't know. It was like 600% more We had all in sundry who launched their NFTs Some incredible sums of money spent on NFTs. We all know about the people Everyday's etc. Etc. Why now in your opinion guys? So what is what is it happening? Is it a natural development or is it just a hype that actually Circles down all the next launches of NFTs and How will it develop in the next well month or so? Like will it be keeping going as as it goes now or or not? Okay, let's let's start maybe with Elliot Who I suppose is Following and was expecting this NFT boom to come Yeah, thank you for that absolutely the NFT the interest in the NFT industry has exploded and I believe that you know it is a symptom in some cases in some senses of a larger macro bull run in cryptocurrency where you have a tremendous amount of New wealth that's been developed in the crypto industry and you have an audience willing to speculate more read more readily on higher valued assets and For the most part you've seen some astronomical eye watering valuations on some of these NFT assets and a lot of those have certainly drawn headlines shock Amazement excitement and I think that's all part of what you know You can be described as a first rush a first moment of notoriety for NFTs Obviously if you are a huge follower a devout follower of crypto for years You would have remembered a short moment in 2018 where crypto kitties sort of took the stage But this is really what I'd categorize as the first time that NFTs as a piece of vocabulary has made its way into the sort of mainstream Lexicon and I think that that came with a lot of discovery not only on price But a lot of discovery on how to use this and what you're seeing is really just the first toe dip the first Sort of bit of exploration and experimentation by mainstream audiences Into this new type of technology and that's what's made it so exciting is a lot of new a lot of unknown And then of course what we saw which was a lot of sort of celebrity and mainstream crossover Which always tends to get the the media riled up and gets the general public riled up So that's what you're seeing right now is really people who have never heard of this before Starting to learn about it and that comes with a big dose of you know dopamine release a lot of excitement And quite a bit of price discovery Well before Edmund you you will you will take the floor I just want to disclaim that it's not that I'm biased toward any bullish markets here And I'm honestly really interested in learning your both inputs guys because I I haven't yet decided for myself Honestly, what what what to think of this and you you just told alliot that there are a bunch of people Who don't know what actually this digital assets are and for me. This is actually a point to work some Telecute negative Reception of this phenomenon. So Edmund, what do you think also? Maybe this boom is related to the whole Digitalization that is happening during the pandemic Do you think it's a hype? Do you think it's something natural and well, how do you evaluate what's happening in the markets now? So I think Christina you asked earlier where this market is going over the next year or so and I have absolutely no clue, right? I think nobody has clue The problem for someone like me who is Perhaps naturally more skeptic Is I need to understand what exactly it is we're talking about so what do NFTs actually do in order to form any view as to their usefulness and so I think there are a bunch of different types of NFTs and Everything I've seen so far Leads me to believe that it has to be a hype at least in its current form simply because Every single type of NFT I've looked at so far falls into one of two categories It's a pure object of speculation with no intrinsic value and I Explicitly mean Enjoyment value here. So not just, you know, there's no physical asset tied to it I just don't see any enjoyment value in the first type of token and What do you mean by enjoyment value? So I've heard a lot of people Present an argument that is structured more or less as follows Some artists scribble something down on paper that a four-year-old could do But because they're famous people will pay millions for it. This is irrational So don't tell me NFTs are irrational because this is just as Worst case it's as insane, right? And so when I talk about rationality, I look at it slightly differently because there is nothing there There is no way of assessing the rational value of art Other than just looking at how people enjoy something and they may enjoy all sorts of things and I'm certainly not the kind of person who understands what people enjoy and why, right? I think there is some research on that But I think very few people can claim that they fully understand that so that's not what I'm talking about What I'm talking about is If you ask people what they want from that token What the NFT actually gives them? it's very rare that you get a coherent answer and That is true for for the kind of token that is kind of metaphorical ownership of some form of art And then there are other types of NFTs that have a more ready readily understandable utility in-game assets tokens that are connected to Electronic, you know downloads music kings of leon or something like that, right? The NBA stuff where you have Ultimately some legal rights some legal relationship or sometimes a quasi legal relationship and the NFT is part of that Ecosystem and I think there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that what what what makes me Worry about this market is simply that there's no technical reason why we would need NFTs for that Every single example I've seen It's fairly obvious how you can use non blockchain solutions to achieve exactly the same and so Obviously an album download can have value an in-game asset obviously can have value But unless there's a clear explanation For why you need this particular technology? I think any hype or any excitement that is connected to the technology itself rather than to the actual thing that we're talking about is hype In my view almost by definition I like the point about like this Rationality behind in my opinion more or less everything that is related to finance is like imagine order And then it's actually us who attribute value to everything that is happening in the markets So Elliott, what is the value of NFTs for you? Why do you support this idea and Well, do you agree with what adam just said? Yeah, you know, I think what's really important to understand is that With any hype or any period of, you know increased attention that happens So exponentially there's going to be irrationality and you know, I guess you could unwind and say that, you know We're looking at digital stores of value here Really as one of the first times in history. We've used this, you know If we extend back more than, you know, 10 years and most stocks on the stock market don't entitle their owners to anything other than to sell it Most of the stocks don't actually entitle them to Actually have any impact on the actual underlying corporations For the most part you're seeing the stock market behave as a bunch of digital stores of value as well Yes, they are loosely connected to earnings reports and stuff But I do believe that with NFTs in specific To address the point about why these shouldn't be or can't be addressed with non-blockchain solutions is that when you have a digital store of value a digital asset and it's not protected on the blockchain Time has shown that at some point this digital asset will be exposed to thefts and that that theft Can't be protected against even by the powers such as sovereign nations or the world's biggest banks Information cannot be protected without really a decentralized network to enforce That protection and to ward off bad actors And so that's why the blockchain is so critical and as we look to store more and more important assets within this digital space, which is Undeniable as a trend to try to deny sort of digitization. I think is is a weak argument So over time we have to concede that we're having more and more digitization across our lives And in this world what we're looking to create here with NFTs or crypto in general Is the concept of property rights in the digital age and property that cannot be taken from you And can be uniquely possessed by you as is commanded by the code And hopefully over time smart contracts and code will become more intertwined with real legal systems We can discuss that probably a little later down the down the debate But right now what we're looking at is the first time that you can truly protect and own an asset in a native digital space And so while there might be a chance to replicate some of these activities in a non digital space The value of knowing the security that comes with the blockchain adds to the the speculative value and just to unwind again You know digital stores of value are everywhere around us And I have to agree with edmund. I'm not an art collector So who am I to really judge what people do or don't pay for art? In fact other you know, there might be an art collector of contemporary art Who looks down upon a modern art collector and doesn't value it within the art world There's certainly no clear rules of the road as to what something should be valued But I think it's really important to underline what edmund said Which is that when assets have utility and that programmable utility in the blockchain space just continues to grow and blossom over time That's where you see the speculative value. That's what people I believe are buying into is the programmability of the assets the unique authenticated time stamped ownership That that capsule in time which can't be authenticated and proven and on blockchain solutions quite the same as it can Within a blockchain solution. So that's where I think you're seeing the speculative value creation is within the true ownership within the digital programmability and of course Um, you know, what you're seeing is just the beginning really the beginning of this experimentation which comes with its own value, right? This first wave approach So for you potential financial return is the basic motivation for investment in NFTs It's not the idea of like Ownership over collectible or exclusive Talking it's it's more about financial return I wouldn't say that that was the summary of what I said. However, it's the last point No, it's it's undeniable that people are speculating and that's that's nothing that I think should be denied people are speculating And they do I think at one point want to sell them just like when they buy a baseball card. They're speculating on the value They're not buying it for its raw material value. Um, and I think that that's normal. However, I also think that you know, for example There are a lot of ecosystems where the NFTs are actual access cards and unlock Different features and parts of platforms Within the crypto space and that's where you're starting to see people actually buy them for the benefit Not for the collectible value or not for the underlying asset value But for what they can do with it and for the features they can unlock with it And that's where things get really interesting for me And something that has been sort of the focus of the last few years of my life with with game creation and platform creation is You know, what is the higher quality of life that can be accessed? For the owner. What is the owner entitled to and I think that's where things become very very interesting in NFT land I mean, um, Christina if there was a lot in what earlier just said as a as a corporate lawyer, I cannot Not comment on your view of the stock market, right? I mean, it's it's It's not true that you are not entitled to anything as a as a shareholder. Obviously you are you have significant both control and cash flow, right?  You're not going to vote out the The board of apple, right? That is absolutely true But they are very clearly defined property rights attached to the share and corporate Law rights that are attached to what happens in the corporation and how cash flows can be Distributed to shareholders. So I think that's that's that's not true what now I think we need to to be precise in Defining what kind of NFT we're talking about. So if you say There's an access token or there's an in-game asset anything of that sort I think my my response to that is What you define as, you know, the sovereign blockchain secured ownership Is really of no value in that area Because ultimately the value of whatever you buy the value of your NFT is tied to an ecosystem that you do not control so But isn't it the same with the art market like traditional art market because in the end the the value of any Art object related to the fame of the artist, etc Is just a question because I also want to understand you're right But that's that's exactly why I want to separate those two types of tokens, right? So if I if I buy a Picasso, I don't buy a Picasso as you know an entry ticket to a VIP area in a club I may do so kind of metaphorically to a certain extent, but it's not that I use my Picasso, right? So I just want to to spend a moment on the kind of utility type NFT Where I get a download I get to use a special sword in my video game or whatever it is now the problem here is that whatever the video game is the value of the token will depend on how that video game is constructed improved and What the rules are how scars is this object? So I get I don't know a special weapon that special weapons value Is ultimately a function of what else happens in that game Maybe the creators decide to make a more powerful weapon tomorrow or to give every player a shield so they are no longer This weapon is no longer valuable, right? So I'm already exposed to What you could call kind of counterparty risk, right? And you can't you can't solve that problem by putting it on the blockchain. I mean Christina, you may know that I'm not sure if Elliot knows it in Europe there is This tradition for typically young children and teenagers to collect stickers Of football players. It's always around the world.  You don't know what's in there and then you trade them and they're rare stickers and Very common stickers and it's really enjoyable, right now in a way the the ownership of the physical sticker is Not as important. It doesn't actually protect you even though it's absolute this ownership doesn't protect you against Opportunistic behavior by the company the company could release you know A special edition sticker and you don't have that and you're annoyed or they can release You know, they can start printing a lot of those rarer stickers. And so that develop devalues your investment so What that has in common, I think with with these types of NFTs is that you're already exposed to the risk of behavior that You don't expect from the other party. So that means you trust them already And therefore the blockchain element is an unnecessary complication and overhead that doesn't actually add anything because you you can't Code away that risk Yeah, no, I'd love to respond to this. I think that there's a few Points there about counterparty risk that I think are a little bit of an aside Because the the point of solving the point that you're solving with collectible ecosystems Well, there is some element of counterparty risk that you're solving What you're really solving is the concept of digital authentication So, you know, I can print a panini sticker And find those raw materials copy these sticker design and and create counterfeits You cannot counterfeit a blockchain asset because it's in the code and it's authenticated in a way that you cannot counterfeit it So there is a huge advantage to using blockchain even in your sticker example That I believe is a tremendous advantage for the consumer now what you're saying about What's inherently risky about each collectible and that one might be essentially printed ad nauseam and lower the value Well, yeah, that would be Something that in theory Could happen more in a physical realm than in a code driven realm where limited supply can be put into the code So there's various situations where blockchain is a significant higher protection a higher bar of protection for the consumer But more importantly I think it's quite foolish to say that any one sort or any one asset is guaranteed to have value because of xyz The point is that the blockchain allows the owner of that asset More ability to show its authentication to use it and and treat it like a true asset I can't you know for the most part Easily transfer show the like if I'm going to have a pokemon card I would need to go get it authenticated go get it rated keep it in a you know a Perfect sort of container and then find a find a party ship it to them If I was to have a similar asset again, I'm not here to defend collectibles because I'm not a big Collector of collectibles. I'm very much so more focused on assets with utility But even within the collectibles industry This is a huge step forward to have the authenticated version of this asset perfectly stored forever in a digital realm and protectable but still we have examples when like There were a lot there were nfts Based on stolen art because in the end you don't on the copyright of the art or collectible You do you do not get a physical copy and it doesn't stop anyone else or from copying and viewing it um, so just to wrap up this collectible part aliot Do you have something to to comment this Well lack of security in the end for for the real owners of the Of the art collectible whatever token I mean in the end, uh, there are you can counterfeit anything physical or digital What makes it special is the blockchain based authentication from the original artist And so if that's missing and someone's just putting up a piece of art Uh, then that doesn't make it authenticated just because it's on the blockchain So it makes it authenticated comes from the address the verified address of that artist Which can't be changed and you can't unless you hold that person hostage and force them To uh to create more then you haven't actually gotten the real value, which is the digital authentication Now what that work what that is worth to someone is going to be a hugely Variable factor based on the artist based upon the moment in time based upon the work itself Uh, and I believe that what you'll see over time Is the ability for the the owners of those nfts to actually have more Uh possession of copyright distribution of revenues for the ownership of that copyright I'm working with some really interesting projects to to help musicians distribute the copyright and future revenue streams for for their work And of course if you put up that song again and and put it on the blockchain That doesn't entitle you to those those revenues, but I believe that this is a you know Once again a symptom of how new we are, uh, and I do believe it'll become more commonplace over time For the owners of uh art pieces the owners of ip to ask, you know, what what are the property right ownership property rights ownership That comes along with this asset and that's what will really take this space Into the mainstream in in a massive way is understanding that when you own this piece of art You're actually entitled to xyz and some people might just collect it as art again I can't comment on the art market because I'm I'm not a big art collector myself But I respect that people do value this and I also respect that most likely these early digital artists will continue to grow in value because of their historic nature I'm sorry christine. I I think I need to respond to something earlier said earlier about the um the panini stickers I um, I don't I like this italian topic, you know, like from italy I don't see your point to be honest if you say Somebody could buy the raw materials and and forge those stickers What you're doing is you're comparing the blockchain solution a digital solution With something that exists in the physical world and there are a bunch of Differences there and I think, you know, whether or not people like it. Who am I to judge right? The question for me is different. The question is that let's let's accept that people want a digital collectible from a central provider of those collectibles because And we've seen that time and again If you have somebody who organizes the game these games are more fun more engaging panini Is a company for a reason, right? They know how to structure this game so I think the difference or the reference point is What else could you do as a the central organizer of a collectible game? in order to have people Enjoy those digital collectibles and you know, the answer is a simple database There's no risk whatsoever of forging if all you do is you have people go through your website And purchase the tokens you can easily allow a secondary market to evolve, right? We have that in multiple other areas The only difference would be that These assets are centrally managed and centrally stored By the organizer now, is there a risk? Yes, there's a risk that you know the typical, you know crypto Fear the central counterparty will you know Do whatever they at night they go in and change the database but That is exactly my point, right if you need to trust them to start with This risk is irrelevant If you need to trust the very party who organizes the game In order to enjoy your token, then it simply doesn't matter whether you have a blockchain secured version Or a database administered by the same people. There is no difference Yeah, well, I like the zalliott. What is blockchain versus centralized database? Right, I mean, I'm I'm not going to defend centralization here I'm just going to say that essentially what you're having Is a higher quality of life that's accessible by a token owner and let me explain why What we what you have is standard units that actually possess and wrap nfts And those standard units are being developed on by a global network of open source contributors Which allow for functionality to come to any of these assets now in your world You're essentially hoping that each and every behavior that I can do with my nft based on its, you know Codebase would then be replicated by each centralized developer, which we know is not going to happen Even if they enable secondary trading, I'm not going to be able to go rent my asset I'm not going to be able to go get a loan against it. I'm not going to be able to have complex DeFi behaviors with it and that's because you're you're essentially going back to a centralized model where you're you're taking what's fed to you And is it the case that in this particular sticker example that that would be happy for 99 percent of people Most likely but the reason why you're seeing something like a quid, which is an app for digital collectibles Which are centralized versus and panini is actually a member of that and licenses their their work to quid We're actually partnered with quid and bringing them to blockchain on super farm The reason why you're seeing elevated price points within the blockchain realm is because of the inherent freedom of ownership That comes with these assets and the speculative value that people are putting on being able to actually take these assets Into other facets and and do more things with them now Am I justifying that some of these cards are going for two million dollars in the blockchain space? I don't put I I'm not a big collector of basketball cards to begin with So it's hard for me to comment on whether that's undervalued or overvalued But I do believe that the possession of a token of a standard unit of code is a significant quality of life improvement over a centralized database Totally ignoring the security potential risks that come with the centralized database I usually try to move on. I mean, I I I think the security element Is is um completely overstated. It's much more likely that you will lose your nft Because somebody makes you Enter into a transaction that you don't want to hacks your device or whatever In an unrestorable way Then that somebody hacks the database of a collectible producer or organizer In a way that cannot be restored Sure again security was not my main point Security is definitely an advantage and you're right. There's definitely growing pains on user experience But what what what my main focus is is that there's a higher quality of life for the token owner A higher freedom of of movement and and interaction with that asset Christina, do you want us to discuss this point further or did you want to move? Well, I like this point because in my opinion blockchain is like either for people who do not trust Others or who like don't want to think about trust, you know, like blockchain is just trust and blockchain It's two separate things and and it's it's actually depends whether you like you prefer to trust people or not also In terms of seeing value in the technology my question to you adamant like I mean Do you imagine some prerequisites that will make you see a value in nfts in the future? Like what what what could should happen? some application something so I think I mean eliot Mentioned this before so Elliot talks about ownership, but of course There is no legally Relevant and recognized ownership that is connected to you know artwork or something like that Traded by way of an nft I think there are ways In which you could design legally design legally engineer an nft Such that you can reliably tie to it IP rights or some other Related legal rights and I think to the extent that you can do that NFTs could have intrinsic value and then I don't see a problem with people buying them, but in this case, I think Again, the question would be what more does it give you than what we already have and I simply I I don't accept The point that there's something inherent in blockchain technology that as eliot says makes your life better In an environment where you are dependent on the other party anyway Because the other party can actually see what you do the other party can Not accept not grant you the access that you expected to get If you behave in a way that they don't want you to behave right so this whole Freedom and trustlessness Is Is really just a consequence of you behave you expecting The organizer to behave in a certain way take take a an in-game asset, right? I can have an nft in-game asset But whoever the game developer is they can decide That they are not going to grant me the access I want Going forward because they don't like people who lend their Swords to you know this guy or who use their Sword as collateral for a flash loan, right? So they There is this problem and I think you can't To me, it's very you know hand-waving to say well, but blockchain secures it. It doesn't really well, so to to respond to that, um, I think a really good example is in-game assets because let's say you are buying an in-game asset and You actually get you know, for example with the case of fortnight say you Use some kind of software to help you aim better and then they actually ban your account Well, you didn't actually own any of those assets to begin with you owned a license to them And you're no longer allowed to actually access those However, if I owned the token even if my account got banned by the centralized party I would still have that asset and I would still be able to Yes, you would it would be in your wallet. It would be in your wallet, right? That's that's something that cannot be removed, right? But I mean, that's like saying I took a screenshot before they banned me.  But you can't use it But well, you can sell it you could sell it on the market to someone who can You still have the actually value of that asset. How do you think that the token? So the token the token ceases to exist because one account gets banned Even though that asset is still valuable in the game, so you think they would blacklist your single token The asset can be banned That's it's trivial technically if but that's not that's not how they that's not how game developers ban They ban accounts not assets Because we don't have nft assets at the moment. Of course, so you're speculating on a behavior. That's never happened I'll give you a scenario. Okay. So You have some bad actor who hacks the accounts of the top five players in a new game that relies on nft assets Now these in-game assets are being sold on a platform And you think that the developer of that game will look at this and say well, it's a blockchain asset. What can I do? They will just say these nfts No longer work in our game. You want them in your wallet. Of course keep them in your wallet Just like I can keep my screenshots in my inbox or whatever But they can't be used anymore.  I'm trying to stop the behavior, which is the the cheating now in the event that someone's account gets hacked Most likely they still wouldn't have free flow of the assets because that would be in their blockchain wallet Which is not a direct connection to the account yet another layer of security So I think the description of the situation you get you've given is something I see as a very very low likelihood though possible And I think the much higher likelihood is that the blockchain asset provides a huge amount of financial security for the person collecting these in-game assets Whereas the banning of the account is an outright existential risk For any person who might offend the terms of service The idea that that game would then blacklist their assets seems to me almost Emotional and salty and vindictive more than it is Trying to protect the community and so I think that the game would be very much so More likely to ban an account than to then try to ban individual assets So in my opinion, this would be a huge protectionary measure for the The account holder that would potentially risk getting banned by the game instead of your argument here. It's simply I trust The game developer not to do this because I would not like it. You have absolutely I mean, yes, I'm speculating. Of course, I don't know exactly what they will do But I think you should be you should be taking the position that What the NFT does is it relieves you of that speculation because the other party doesn't even have the power But now your position is I just don't think they will do it because it would not be good And I just don't don't don't see the the logic behind that. It's Do you play games? Not really, you know, I think it's not fair Elliot like we are talking about something that is your like Let's imagine some other application of an NFT something that will I don't know. Um, recently we had an in an interview with um, David Schwartz and he uh, he proposed this, uh, idea that NFT eventually could be applied to Uh, all the music and movie content That could permit you when you like lose or just want to Unsubscribe from your Netflix Disney whatever like you still On a token that is the movie or I don't know series that you like and you can watch it whenever you want um Edmund Will it be something that Could convince you to invest into one NFT like what could convince you to invest in an NFT? Look, if somebody were to promise that Ownership of that NFT will give me access rights or any other right that I value Right, of course, I'd invest. I mean if you if you sell me an NFT and the NFT Represents my right to enter the coolest club in london to go to a theater show or something like that Of course, I would buy the NFT It's just that I wouldn't buy it because I love the technology or I think there's anything special about the technology I would buy it for the very same reason that I would buy a ticket that is printed on pink paper Not because I like pink paper. I like what it gives me I'm not sure actually so eliot. I The question will go to you, but I think actually there were some NFT applications for like tickets of online events And again, like it's gonna be huge. What would be the difference between well because well I had some experiences when my tickets like to a concert or whatever like was copied by someone hacked etc How ticketing is one of the ticketing is one of the absolute best examples for an NFT Because it completely removes fraud and it gives the venue and the original creator Issuer of the ticket access to secondary market sales as on royalties So it's going to be one of the biggest applications for NFT and and I completely agree Here with eminent that the the thing that the NFT gets you is what matters I do disagree still obviously that that the end that the in-game assets will get banned Because in the end those assets will make their way to non-band users and the game Would be penalizing non-band users who purchase that That asset and I think that it's to me once you enable the blockchain flow of assets It's it's hugely pro player And that's that's sort of why we built this company over the last three years. So you're it's a topic I feel pretty strongly about However, as far as the actual actual applications for utility There there many and varied and and ticketing is a phenomenal example where you can eliminate fraud with easy Verification of the asset you can always check if this thing is legit Because you can track it back to the original contract issuer and then the the the venues You know mark humans talked about this a lot recently How he's going to make all of his tickets nfts because of course it protects his venue And his team by getting access to secondary sales with royalty. So it's it's a huge huge step forward for the ticketing industry Look I can see the idea with with the ticketing again, you have a situation where that Ultimately what matters is your relationship with the venue Or with the organizer of the event So you need to trust them because no matter what the blockchain says they may still say, you know, I don't like people in I don't know Gray hoodies and so I won't let you in and you say but but this is secured by blockchain and they say please move on Right. Okay, but that's the same of any ticket, right? Exactly. Exactly. So The problem is the same as in the in-game Example that is that you already have a trusted counterparty And that is whether you like it or not the organizer So the blockchain element of it doesn't actually solve anything that needs solving Yeah, I think you're I think I think that's unfair to say that it doesn't solve anything just because you have to trust the Venue so what you have to trust the venue you have to trust people in life Who are selling you products that you then have to use their services that doesn't solve everything in life What it does solve is verification secondary sales. Those are the things that it solves completely Exactly. And so if you if you trust the the organizer of the event You can have them Do exactly what the blockchain does which is keeping a database of ownership I envy you really can trust a person like blockchain But like you trust you trust the person today and then tomorrow He or she disappoints, you know Okay, that's not I mean you're you're you're looking at if it was so easy for a centralized database to handle these Why haven't ticket issuers use that system? The reality is is that the blockchain could easily Accelerate this to a point where it was protecting consumers and giving those venues access to secondary market sales extremely Efficiently and so just because then you have to trust the venue doesn't discredit the other benefits So I think it's important to identify the benefits that are created by blockchain and nft in specific for each use case And just because you then have to trust a service provider doesn't then take away those benefits Say i'm a service say i'm a say i'm a venue and i'm selling tickets and then just refusing people to let the minute Will that's a bad business decision But that doesn't mean that my decision to use nfts isn't still better for the consumer And the venue later for the consumer if it solves something that cannot Otherwise be solved at lower cost and so when you say Why haven't venues done that well presumably because they're not very interested in it Right, so why wouldn't they be interested in secondary ticket sales? I can print out my ticket from a centralized database and then uh and then sell it on to someone Yeah, of course, but you can do that You you can never fully Prevent people from doing that that is just not possible because you have an event Where no matter what technology you use ultimately you need a quick and easy way of verifying That the people the person in question has the ticket and so there are numerous ways in which For centralized and decentralized assets. It is possible for you to transfer to somebody else The access the physical access rights without letting the venue have a cut Sure, but in this particular case, uh, this technology can and will and and mark my words this will happen Ticketing will get completely revolutionized by nfts And it's one of the easiest industries to solve And I think one of the clearest benefits on both sides for the for the issuer as well as the consumer Now one of the reasons why we haven't seen it in gaming so far Is that the benefits to the actual game creators are less clear and the game creators are making At the high end billions of dollars a month Licensing digital pieces of art to their users. Whereas, you know, in this particular instance with the ticketing The the benefit is clear because they'll get gain access on on a fixed commission To the secondary market and that's what they really really are interested in Okay, Elliott, do you agree with the following statement? If I have a centralized database then One problem with the secondary market is that I could just say to Christina Here you have my access details My login for that particular website And rather than transferring In the database I transfer to you my access details Right So I could do that. I could if the venue says you can transfer the ticket to Christina But in order to do so you you need to pay us five pounds or five dollars or whatever I could just give her my access details my login my password and then she would have access to the ticket Now the same the very same thing can be done with NFTs Right, I can write your solution is to give your login to a stranger Well, that is not the problem as you know with NFTs Right, what do you mean? That's not a problem with NFTs Well, I can have a wallet that only contains the NFT and I can write a smart contract that allows me a secondary sale of the password of To to that wallet Without having an on-chain transfer of the of the token itself Well, I think now you've just unwittingly Underlined a better value for blockchain, which is that on centralized servers It is almost 100 percent the case that one person cannot possess two accounts And so that's because that's usually to stop one person from saying buying up the whole supply of one event Right, they don't want that They don't want one person to have undue influence in a centralized offering And and that's a very common practice to stop people from having multiple accounts Now a blockchain you can easily spin up multiple accounts And so that's a fantastic reason to have a decentralized wallet So exposure to civil attacks is now a feature. I don't I don't understand I mean look at it from the venue's perspective venues Know exactly what they're doing because they've been doing that for Centuries they have an interest in getting a specific audience in there. They are not maximizing revenue as such So of course, yes, they do place restrictions on who gets to buy how many tickets But the reason for that is that it's very boring to go to, um, I don't know Kings of lian concert that is populated almost entirely by a hedge fund Managers it's boring there. So what do they do? They price the concert at too lower price to make sure that people other people also go there And have fun and make it fun for everyone So yes, it's in the interest of the venue owner to ensure that you cannot Create a million accounts and and buy up all the tickets. So I think I don't see that as a feature that would convince any Any venue and of course in at the moment in the traditional market I can have hundreds of accounts with a centralized server and people do that How many gmail accounts can you can you create hundreds is absolutely not talking about gmail We're talking about the specific example that you outlined, right? And and so the book of World Cup people created dozens of accounts each And also, I think you're making the point that the venue owners are not attempting to maximize profits Which is from a game theory perspective a bad assumption to make you should always assume From a game theory perspective that everyone is trying to maximize profits and that all Participants would want to benefit to the maximum degree in a one short game. Yes But the idea is and I mean that that is unquestionably the case Why do you think so in if what you say were true Then you should not see any cues for the next whatever kings of lian concert, right? You would just price it at the clearing price. There shouldn't be any cues You know the ticket is two thousand pounds and everything's fine Why are they not doing that because it's boring and because they know nobody will go to the next concert That's the same probably because it's a kings of lian concert Well, I have no idea. I'm sorry I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding that respect to kings lian. I'm not very connected. So I I always want to say Britain is that this would probably so The point is no people do not maximize the revenue that they Earn on a specific event The the whole idea that's true for every nba game for for every large event people price those tickets And sell those in a way that gets them the audience that in the long term gives them higher revenue It's just boring to go to two places that are priced at the clearing price. That's just reality Yeah, I don't know I I would have to disagree unless we saw some data from a from a concert venue But I think we can move forward. I disagree that venue would would not try to maximize profits I I think that there would be many venue owners that would disagree with that But we can move forward because and without we have five minutes guys Yeah, like uh, let's reverse the reflection a bit. So alit imagine that like well, I suppose that if in I don't know Year five years 10 years, uh, you see that nft boom is like is keep keeps going But still people like admin are not convinced like it will be a disappointment for you. I suppose um As an advocate of the market What are what are the prerequisites? you think For people like admons to be involved in the market Yeah, I think the beautiful thing about uh, the entire crypto space and the entire growth of this nascent industry is that not participating is the punishment, right? And so when when you see the growth and and you know admin strikes me as an intelligent individual I'm sure he's going to be successful. However, you know, you have Assets and growths of marketplaces based upon people being able to predict Uh, certain movements of economic and technology trends now If nft keeps growing and blossoming then edmund's lack of participation would be his punishment and Him in not participating wouldn't make me or anyone else who's inside the industry sad It would just be something that he might want to you know, investigate himself, right and say hey Well, maybe did I miss out on potential upside? Did I miss out on potential? Access to things that I would maybe enjoy that's a personal question for edmund. Um, however in the end the the Disruptive nature of this technology and the higher quality of life the higher Financial quality of life and the greater access that it provides and security Those are the things that will end up being the benefits for the people who choose to adopt these technologies And those who choose to overlook them. I believe will be foregoing not only, you know, access and utility But also financial gain and so that's that's really the disappointment would would not be on our part because we would be enjoying that part So, you know, whether or not buying right now with with extremely, uh, you know, many of prices Uh, is not what i'm saying, but i'm saying of the course of the long term I do believe that you'll see a lot of financial gain success An economic activity from the sector and that it's a very smart thing for people to get involved with Edmund if all the people who are around you will invest in NFTs in in a year Will you be disappointed and will you change your opinion? and try to invest I want to be absolutely clear on on What else you just said it's not that I would not buy An NFT if it were the right way the cheapest way to give me access to what I want That would be ridiculous. I have no emotional attachment to oracle Right, but and I simply don't care. I don't care what back end software somebody uses When they want to sell me something I ask myself, do I want or need what they have for me? Right, so if I want to go to a concert or to the opera and they want to sell it to me as an NFT I would make the same decision that I've always made I will check what the price is and whether it's worth it for me So I have no particular aversion to buying an NFT. I wouldn't mind, right? When it comes to investing with A view to making an investment gain I personally wouldn't do it for the simple reason that I don't think that Beyond accessing something that you want or believe other people will want That there's any fundamental value in there and so Um There are multiple assets that you can buy just You know, I can also go to the casino. I'm not doing that because I for me. This is gambling and I can't see the vision that will give those assets value long term without them being tied to any Utility that people actually value Well, I think the ideal moment will be when like both of your Opinions will come in one combination when nobody will know that what we are using is actually based on blockchain And here I think both sides will win Guys any any final thoughts Uh, yeah, thank you so much Edmund. It was really fun debating. Um, I think that it's really early in the life cycle of nfts And I think that uh, over time the benefits will start to show themselves Uh, again, you know, uh NFT wasn't a word that anyone knew about two months ago So I think all of this attention has been a big win Um, and that over time, you know, I sincerely hope uh that these the utilities of these assets really shine And I think that's where we can agree Yeah, and I mean also, thank you to you I I enjoy talking about this and I have to say after I'm kind of taking an interest in this Um, I've received so many emails and phone calls from people. I know who wanted me to explain it So, I mean, I can I can confirm that there's growing interest. I just think, you know, if we want a sober um discussion about this Technology or phenomenon and we just need to be very clear. What what exactly do we expect here? Um, what do we expect when we buy something an artwork? Um, what's the benefit of using that compared to other technologies rather than just comparing a world Where everyone uses digital apps with a world where nobody uses a computer and then just say, you know Blockchain is great because it's more modern And so I think as long as we have this kind of sober sober discussion, there may well be applications for NFTs That are more engaging for users and I mean if that's the case fantastic But I think this has to come first. It has to be Something that is actually demanded rather than something that is conjured up Primarily as an object for speculation Thank you very much guys. That was really a very insightful interesting Discussion and thank you everyone who watched us. Please leave your comments. I'm really interested in learning Are you NFT bearish or bullish yourself? Thank you very much and have a great weekend everyone Thank you Take care


So now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Lauren Griffith. She's an associate professor in the Department of Health Research Methods Evidence and Impact at McMaster University. She holds the McLaughlin Foundation Professorship in Population and Public Health, and she's a co-PI of the Canadian longitudinal study on aging and the lead of the Hamilton data collection site and Privilege to work with her and her research interests include physical functioning frailty and aging as well as the harmonization of longitudinal data. Lauren, please Just make sure I know how to use this. I didn't realize when I Made my talk that I was going to have the feel-good talk of our panel talking about COVID-19 impacts on community living older adults, but I think one of the things that is Important in this talk is thinking about this evidence base to help inform moving forward And I think studies like the CLSA are going to be extremely important in that regard So I'm going to talk about the CLSA talk a little bit about it as just a brief introduction of the of what it is I'm going to talk about the COVID studies that were embedded in the CLSA and primarily a survey study And then I'm going to just hit on some of the findings that we found that I think are Important and these are findings from our entire research group and Marla presented some today But I think they're really important things in terms of understanding COVID So I'm going to be looking at symptoms mental health and frailty So just in terms of the CLSA as a research platform We call it a research platform because it really is we collect the data But it's available to all researchers that want to study health and aging There's over 50,000 people that were recruited at baseline They were 45 to 85 when they were recruited and then about 40 percent of them were a random sample from the 10 provinces In Canada and they provide data through telephone interviewing and about 60 percent are from more geographically restricted areas around 11 data collection sites across Canada and they provide their data very similar questionnaire data in in-person interviews But they also come to one of the data collection sites like the one here at MIP and They provide clinical measures as well as conduct physical tests They provide blood and urine and here you can see we started recruitment in 20 to 20 or 2010 to 2015 But every three years we start a new wave of data collection and of course in the middle of follow-up to is when COVID happened and One of the things about CLSA that actually Helped us in terms of COVID and adjusting is that there was a really robust IT Infrastructure and there was a lot of accommodation strategies already in place So we were able I think within two weeks to start collecting data again but the other thing was this opportunity to Actually understand the importance of having these population based Based data and these pre-existing cohort in terms of understanding COVID and So we launched a COVID survey study This gives you an idea of what they what the actual study looked like But I think as Parminder mentioned yesterday within a month of COVID happening we were launching our survey study So we had two longer Interviews we had a baseline interview where we collected kind of socio-demographic some socio-demographic information information on symptoms and COVID status and but a number of other things like social variables lifestyle variables population the public health impacts and and and and as well looking at You know healthcare Access and things like that and then then there was the weekly bi-weekly surveys Those were mostly just kind of looking at symptoms and outcomes along the way and then we had another similar exit interview where we had a number of things that were from the baseline but we also introduced some things like loneliness and Symptom persistence things that we kind of learned that were important along the way and that happened at kind of end of September to the end of December 2020 so the first study I'm going to talk about is COVID symptoms and why is it important to to look at COVID symptoms in terms of in a population-based study and one of the things we could do here is we know a lot about the symptoms people were Presenting with when they had COVID but we don't really know necessarily what the background rates were what we would expect in the in the Community if we didn't have COVID so we were able to look at that and we were also Able to look at persistent symptoms. So we were able for the people that had COVID We were able to look to see what were their persistence or how often they had persistence of symptoms what they were and As well, what were the pre-pandemic factors that were associated with symptom persistence? So the pre-pandemic factors were from a follow-up one for me, and then the symptoms were from the COVID exit survey So here it's a bit of a busy slide, but I think it really shows you in the in the community So to the right side are the symptoms that we saw and people that reported having COVID The left were the burden of symptoms and people that did not have COVID these symptoms that were related to COVID and Clearly you could see the dark part of these lines are people that had reported either severe or Moderate symptoms and so clearly there was a lot more symptoms reported in our COVID group and a lot more in terms of the Moderate and severe but one thing about having CLSA is we have a very large sample size too so we can dig down a little bit deeper and Look at what those symptoms looked like by age and here you could see I think we keep hearing the things about the the age effect in COVID it was in terms of the people getting it was more common in the younger age groups But here you can see the symptoms were actually the burden was higher in the younger age groups But in the older age groups you could see that there was more times Moderate or severe symptoms, so we can start understanding this a little bit better And in terms of persistent symptoms, it's actually interesting in our community base survey We found similar prevalence of Persistent symptoms as we were seeing in the hospitals at the time so people that had less severe cases We're still having these persistent symptoms And so it was about two-thirds of the people had symptoms at one year or sorry one year more than one month and About half the people reported having the symptoms more than three months later And again, it's a bit of a busy slide, but for both one month and three months We had the female sex was related to so the females tended to have a higher risk of having persistent symptoms in males both at one month and three months and As well having more chronic conditions was associated with have more likelihood Higher likelihood of having persistent symptoms, but when we looked at the three month Time having persistent symptoms for more than three months It was also this subjective social status that came in and that's kind of an interesting measure This is one where you you picture a ladder people are asked to picture a ladder that have ten rungs That is really representing the social standing in a committee in your community And the tenth rung is like the highest social standing the first rung is the lowest So we asked people to put themselves which rung are you on and what we found that an increase of one rung Was actually associated with about a 15 percent decrease in the risk of reporting Persistent symptoms at three months. So again having this rich contextual data outside of COVID actually helps us to understand some of these things better and So in terms of mental health, we looked at depression that was led by dr. Raina and Loneliness which was led by dr. Kirkland from Dalhousie and here again We were able to actually look at trajectories because for depression We had data from baseline to follow-up one and then COVID the first COVID Interview and then COVID exit and for loneliness that was introduced a little bit later So we had the follow-up one and the COVID exit And what we found this is a Globe and Mail article that is reporting on Dr. Raina's nature aging paper, but some of the things that we expected to see here Clearly you could see that the the first column the kind of burgundy one is the pre-covid The kind of greenish one is at the beginning of COVID and the more salmon-colored one is at the exit Or sorry at the one-year point and here you could see there's a big increase in the prevalence of depression from Pre-covid to the beginning of COVID and again There's a bit of an increase for some groups, but not quite so high in terms of between the the spring and and the end of year one for the pandemic But what we found were things that we thought would we would find in terms of living alone was much more It was important. There was a higher prevalence of Depression and females had a higher depression prevalence of depression than males But one of the kind of interesting things was when we look at income so total household income Clearly the prevalence of depression Is highest for the people that had the lowest level of income But you can also see the impact from pre-pandemic to pandemic was much greater for the people that had higher levels of income but one of the other things that came from this article is the strong association with pre-pandemic loneliness and depression and so We dug a little bit deeper into this in our loneliness study and again. This is a Figure that's looking at the predicted probability of loneliness. It's adjusted for all sorts of other factors and What we see here is again the black squares of the pre-pandemic the red circles are At the end of the first year and we could see that there is a big increase in terms of loneliness for all groups, but it tends to be a Bigger step like we saw in depression for those with high income But one of the kind of interesting things here is if we actually look it seems that The age effect which again we found the highest levels of loneliness in our our youngest age group, but you could see the Association with age is much stronger in the low income group than in the high income group and again having these large sample sizes allows you to Sort some of these things out So the last thing I'm going to present is Looking at frailty in health care access challenges and one of the things we were interested in doing a lot of the public health Directives and and as well even thinking about getting vaccinations. It was all age-based But we were kind of interested in looking at frailty because we know that even in older adults It's a very heterogeneous group. So we wanted to take a look at that And here we use the frailty index as described earlier and we looked at people who reported having Challenges with access to health care. So specifically, I'm just presenting the primary care specialist care Diagnostic diagnostic tests and screening But again, we were able to look at pre-pandemic levels of frailty and the other other variables that we adjusted for and then looked at What they reported in terms of access challenges And what was kind of interesting is that we found Overall that people with higher levels of frailty had more reported challenges with access to health care Which in ways make a sense because you would think that there's a higher need for health care as well But when we broke this out then by age We found that the oldest age group actually had the least Impact in terms of frailty. So here we looked at frailty quartile So four would be the people with the highest levels of frailty and you could see the younger age groups With the highest level of frailty were the ones that were actually reporting the most most challenges in terms of access and in primary care There was there was a clear divergence between the oldest and the other three age groups but you can really see in terms of specialist care and As well diagnostic tests and screening tests that there's really this difference in this youngest age group. So here we're seeing that age may in terms of level of frailty actually was associated with getting less Having more challenges with access to health care and this was after adjusting for all sorts of other factors So I want to just end with This advertisement slide because I have to because permanenters here and but essentially I I really think data sets like the CLSA are going to be critically important in terms of Understanding COVID now tracking things as we move forward because as we've been talking about It's not just a thing that was where it's going to happen here And we're just going to move on these are things that we need to be able to track over time and for the long term and Having data like the CLSA are critically Important in being able to do this so we have our questionnaire survey that I described today we also have a seroprevalence study and There are the data will be available to all researchers so if you're thinking about Projects and thinking about better understanding things that we can use for knowledge translation the next date of the Data access application deadline is September 14th So I encourage you all to think about things that we can do to inform our way forward