How to get started in NFTS with Amy Stroud
Spotify Podcast Episode: How to get started in NFTS with Amy Stroud
In episode 1 of Freedom with NFT’s, our guest Amy Stroud shares with us how to get started in NFTS.
In this episode of Freedom with NFT’s Amy Stroud shares with us:
* How to Get Started in NFTs
* How to Create Connections in the NFT Community
* How to Stay Safe in the NFT World
How to Create Connections in the NFT Community
About Amy Stroud:
She has 15 years of experience in Tech space and was recently appointed as clinical operations and chief operations officer for a multinational IT company. Outside of her work, Amy has been involved in cryptocurrencies since 2021 and has been a Twitter space host on the topics of crypto technology and NFTs since April 2021.
In this episode we will talk about how she started her journey in Crypto way back in 2012, different platforms to check out when you are still starting in NFT’s, what makes NFT appealing and so much more!
[00:00:00] Lauren Turton: Welcome back to freedom with NFTs. On today’s episode, we have Amy Stroud who has over 15 years experience in the tech space, holding numerous positions and works with clients across the globe in medical construction and corporate sector. Amy has most recently held the position of chief of clinical operations and chief operations officer for a multinational it company, as well as founding multiple companies.
In addition to her technology background, Amy has extensive marketing sales, health and medical experience, including attending Oceana university of medicine medical school and previously being the marketing director for a private hospital system. Now outside of work, Amy has been involved in trading cryptocurrencies since 2012 and has been a Twitter spaces hosts on the topics of crypto technology and NFTs since April 2021.
Welcome Amy to freedom with NFTs.
[00:00:46] Amy Marie Stroud: Thank you so much for having me here, Lauren. It’s really nice to be here.
[00:00:48] Lauren Turton: It’s an honor to have you on this episode today. So let’s dive right in. Tell me about your professional journey that has led you to where you are today.
[00:00:54] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So I have been working in so many different fields as you kind of heard in my intro, started out working in technology when I was straight out of high school.
And I used to actually work for one of the largest telecommunication companies in Australia in retail sales and marketing. And from there, I kind of just moved up and went through a few different pathways and took a bit of a right hook into health care and went and studied health sciences that university, and eventually went on to medical school during that time as well, I continued working in IT and specialized in medical and construction IT with one of the companies that I work with now have through that I’ve worked up the ranks as well, and now I’m quite a senior member of the team and yeah, so coming into NFTs and crypto was almost something that I was destined for. I’ve always been interested in the latest technology that’s coming out.
And as part of that, we all kind of got into cryptocurrency when it was first starting around 2012, looking at mining it. Learning about how it works, what it could be used for in the future. And even now we find that it is being used a lot more in technology for medical records. So even one of the people that I actually consult with is a group in America who’s actually building out a medical record system that will be relying on the blockchain to help distribute medical records securely and freely.
[00:01:51] Lauren Turton: Wow, Amy. My biggest takeaway from your reply was how multi-faceted you are and how you are involved in so many different worlds yet these different worlds linked together.
And I think that’s great for our audience to hear because people are coming into the NFT space from so many different worlds and avenues. So could you dive a little bit deeper and how you actually manage all of the different projects that you have going on.
[00:02:12] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So for me, time management is key. I find that I am always blocking out blocks of time throughout the day to do work on certain projects to me as well, because there was a lot of projects that I had that went based, not in Australia.
I did have to actually shift my time, schedule back a little bit. So I actually get up at midnight every day to get on top of everything. So my first thing I do every day is on my exercise bike, or my treadmill, get that done. And then I can sit, get focused. I usually find that I work out a lot of problems when I’m exercising as well.
So I kind of plan my day while I’m exercising. Then I will go through my checklist of most important things that need to be done every day. That’s the biggest thing that I do every morning is sit down and work out exactly what needs to be done, prioritize it and put it in order. I also work on call. So I have people hitting me up all day on demand on my phones and my mobiles.
So it’s really important that I actually set aside some quiet time for myself, which allows me to work on projects or even just unwind and have a little bit of time away from technology each day.
[00:02:55] Lauren Turton: Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I think it’s very important what you hit on in regards to physical movement.
Also taking time for yourself. I know that in the technology space that we can get so enthralled and wrapped up into what’s happening on our devices. So truly taking that time to separate and to give space for ourselves to relax, unwind. And to decompress from what it is that we’re working on. So Amy, I’d like to dive a little bit deeper into why did you actually get started in crypto in 2012?
[00:03:20] Amy Marie Stroud: So originally one of my boyfriends at the time was mining cryptocurrency, and that’s kind of where it started. So I’d say it was running on the computer and then I had my computer, so I started running it on there as well. And yeah, like it was one of those things we just kind of sorted and I was like, okay, let’s give it a go, like what’s the worst can happen.
So we were mining back then. And from there, I kind of went and learnt more about the actual technology by myself and started trading it. So I bought Bitcoin back then I think it was ridiculously cheap, really wish I had it still. So I’ve been in and out of cryptocurrency three of the years, like I’ve brought back in and probably 2014.
I had some in 2016, 2018, like I just went in and out of various cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ethereum, lightcoin. I’ve held dogecoin for like four years as well. So yeah, I’ve had a couple of quiet, longer hold but a lot of it has been, you know, trading in and out over the course of a couple of months.
And then that kind of led to the last, probably two years, I started doing futures trading as well, which is where you actually state and it’s re using leverage. So it is very dangerous. So it is a more high risk one where you have to really focus on technical analysis and fundamentals and look at the sediment of the whole market at the time. And so I found that was a really good way cause I really do obviously coming from a tech background and having scientific background, I really love all these sort of numbers and analyzing things. So that’s where it kind of came in for me was I would sit there and actually go through everything and I just wanted to learn why things were happening, the way they were happening.
[00:04:25] Lauren Turton: For someone like you who’s been in the crypto space for nearly a decade, for anyone who is looking to get into crypto now. What advice do you have for them?
[00:04:33] Amy Marie Stroud: Absolutely. When it comes to cryptocurrency, I know everyone says, do your own research. I think that is really important to go out there, but there’s a lot of great assets that are available when it comes to cryptocurrency.
For regards to learning, you can actually go to most exchanges will have their own academies. So like finance academy is great. Coinbase has one as well, and I believe Gemini too. So those are great starting point. Once you want to dive a little bit deeper, you can go on to things like the trading channel on YouTube, or you can also look at Investopedia, but it’s very text heavy.
So that’s one of those difficulties. But when you’re actually that’s, if you want to kind of go the trading route, if you’re going to just be holding than doing something off the exchange is more than sufficient. So just kind of get you that understanding it’s really important to also interface with a lot of communities.
Twitter is a great place for that. You can actually go into rooms that is around specific cryptocurrencies and stock, and actually just see what the community is like, get to know them and see if there’s a community you want to be a part of. Because I think when you’re holding a cryptocurrency or a stock, you’re kind of buying into that family.
Like when, even when it comes to stock and things like that. If I don’t like the vibe of the people investing, I may be less likely to invest, even if, you know, I might be missing out on really obvious profits. It’s one of those things, if I’m going to hold it for more than a week, then I want to know what the company and the community is all about.
That’s a really good starting place.
[00:05:26] Lauren Turton: I’m so glad that you touched on that in regards to community and staying in alignment.
With what you vibe with. Could you touch on that a little bit more? Because I know as someone new into crypto, they can get overwhelmed with there’s this going on? There’s this going on? This is exciting. And all of these things are coming up and there’s the emotional aspect of it. So staying in integrity with a vibe or a community that you align with, talk a little bit more about that please.
[00:05:50] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So it’s really important not every community has good actors. Like sometimes it will be those outliers of bad actors. If they are outnumbering the good, then it’s probably not a great community. So for me, I always find that I want to go in, see if people are helping each other and basically not indoctrinating, but welcoming to new people.
I think that’s really important. There’s always going to be kind of like spammy sort of messages in most of the communities. Cause they want to get out there and get the name out there. And the more that they’re seen, the more likely people are to invest. And that kind of makes it a bit harder. I try to stay away from communities that spam and use too many bots and things like that.
I like it to be really organic and be able to actually be to speaking to people. So discords and things like that are a good, a good signpost for it. Staying true to what you believe in is very hard when you’re investing, because you can sometimes say that there will be great money in something that is just completely outside of what you are willing to except, and that’s what you kind of have to decide. This there’s a couple of factors from me it’s will get what I’m willing to compromise on for profit or potential loss. Cause it can go both ways. It’s not only your morals that you are going to have to kind of match up with the company and see what you are willing to compromise on.
It’s also your risk. So everyone has different risk portfolios that they are willing to put together at different stages in their life. So, if you are looking at something like someone who’s really young, they willing to take bigger risks. So they may be willing to put a bit more of their morals or beliefs aside in order to try and get those bigger gains.
Whereas when it comes to someone who’s maybe a little bit older, like I’m in my mid thirties, I’m starting to take less big risks just in case because I don’t want to start compromise my retirement for a potential gain. You have to balance all of those sorts of things. And it’s really important. You can actually find out a lot of information just from company websites, and it’s the same with cryptocurrency.
You’ll be able to see those sort of information that we’ll be able to give you enough background to kind of figure out is this a company that’s working with me. Always go and check the news on Google as well to see if there’s a lot of negative press. If there is then kind of get a deep dive, why are they trying to do something good. And you know, other companies aren’t liking it or is it that it’s actually something that they are doing wrong and that might give you pause.
[00:07:28] Lauren Turton: Thank you so much for that. My biggest takeaway from your reflection was really taking a look at where you’re at in your life. And doing a deep dive and analyzing and having conversations about where you’re at.
Like you said, you’re at the point in your life where you’re not willing to risk retirement, whereas someone who might be 17 years old in the space, they have more that they can risk. So I really appreciate your reflection. I want to pivot into NFTs now. So tell me, when did you first get involved with NFT?
[00:07:50] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So I’ve been in, into NFT for a couple of months now, probably may. I started to kind of get a bit more interested into them. So it’s been yeah, about four or five months. And for me it kind of snuck up on me. So the first things that I saw was I had friends who were making NFTs and they’d be sharing them with us and through Twitter spaces. And it was great because we kind of get to see the art, get to meet the artists. And it was fantastic from there. I started actually investing. Like I started out with a couple of pieces from friends, and then I started going with bigger projects that started to come out with avatar projects.
And I basically watched the Bored Ape Yacht Club and all of those blow up and was really mad. I didn’t put my money into them at the time. Like everyone else who didn’t. But yeah, it’s been it’s such a wild ride every week there’s something completely different that you would never expect. And every day there’s at least five or 10 new projects so you have to kind of review and go over. And gosh, it’s NFT has become a full-time job for me. I honestly don’t think I’ve looked at my crypto portfolio. Other than to say how much eth is worth in maybe like two months really.
[00:08:38] Lauren Turton: So you’ve really gotten into NFT. So tell me when you’re looking at crypto versus NFTs is what is so appealing to you about NFTs?
[00:08:45] Amy Marie Stroud: I like this usually a story behind the project and the person. So you’re actually more investing in a person a lot of the time with these, especially when I go more of my, one of one artwork, when I’m doing avatar projects, I do like to get to know who was behind it. It doesn’t mean sometimes I won’t just jump into something blind because I’m like that looks cool. Or I think this could make money or it’s got the right people promoting it. You know, some of those things do come up, but a lot of the time, a lot of the pieces that I have in the collections of people who I’ve gotten to know, and I’ve met through Twitter spaces or occasionally I’ll just go shopping and I love shopping.
So it’s really easy. I can go in and jump in there. I went, I did a shopping spree on hen the other day, which is one of the alternative platforms. And so I got, I picked up a bunch of great, you know, like space art, which if it didn’t give it away, I do like space. So things like that, I got to a bunch of cyberpunk sort of rock and rolly pitches. Then in my main wallet, I have a lot of like classical photography. I’m starting to pick up nails. So I’m actually getting a lot of, one of one pieces of work that I plan to hold for a while.
[00:09:30] Lauren Turton: Amazing. And so for anyone who’s listening, that is an artist who is curious about getting into the NFT space. Can you share about the different platforms that they should check out?
[00:09:37] Amy Marie Stroud: Absolutely. So the one I usually get people to start with is OpenSea and that is an Ethereum based platform. It is probably the largest platform right now and it’s reasonably priced. So it’s only like 2.5% fees to sell your artwork, which is pretty reasonable across the board. There are other ones like mintable and rarible which have really low mint fees, which is the actual putting your artwork on the blockchain. Foundation is seen as a very elite platform because it is currently invitation only.
But that is very expensive when it comes to phase it’s around 15% fees which is huge, but you will find there’s a lot of high-end collectors just stuck on that site and they will not leave it. Then you can go to your more alternative platforms. So hen is a tezo spaced network, which is a different cryptocurrency altogether.
And that one is kind of a bit more rock and roll. A lot of the artists are across all of these platforms and they will be on that platform showing some of them are alternative world work, or maybe they’re testing out to see if what they want to try next is going to work. So I find that it’s a really good entry point for people who are wanting to buy is to go and try out something like hen, because you can pick up pieces cheaper there’ll be often be. It won’t be necessarily one of ones. It’ll be like, you know, 50 of the same ones. It’ll be well like prints, but I think that makes it a little bit more accessible for people. There’s a lot of video on there as well. And they’re starting to get people starting to bring out music and everything as well, which has been great.
There are a lot of others they’re more marketplaces coming every couple of weeks, especially on alternative platforms like polygon and well, which is matic and kadena so they’re all coming all the time, but OpenSea is kind of good. You can, you don’t have to just use the Ethereum at work.
They do have other options. Like they use polygon as well. So that means that you can avoid things like high gas phase. Okay. Thank you.
[00:11:17] Lauren Turton: So for those who are new to the space and might be a little overwhelmed with what you just shared, what is the first step that you suggest that they take?
[00:11:28] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah, definitely. So we have to put together actually an NFT 101 course that’s completely free.
And that’s available through my Twitter bio, or you can also go to who I actually cohost or my Twitter spaces who’s at like 360 on Twitter as well. So either about bios will like leads straight to the NFT 101 course. And that’s great whether you’re an artist or a collector, or you just want to know what the hell and NFT is. It’s a really nice short course. It’s done in manageable bites, little three to five minute videos, and we kind of just basically go through what’s an NFT, how you can make one yourself, how to mint it, how to sell it and buy.
[00:12:00] Lauren Turton: Amazing. Thank you, Amy and Amy on Twitter is @amy_stroud.
So now I want to get into the current communities that you’re holding space for right now. Tell me about that.
[00:12:12] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So every day we host between six to eight hours of Twitter spaces. So we do one, we kind of run off Pacific time. So we usually have one at late morning and another one that early evening, or we might, you know, depending on what is going on. So we host about six to eight hours of Twitter spaces every day. And we usually run one in the morning and the evening on LA time, pacific time. And those are usually focused around NFTs. So we’ll have artists coming in.
Sometimes we’ll do ones where they can promote their projects or come and show their one of one artworks. And we might have collectors in the audience as well. We have pitch on those. We have a tech base interviews like yesterday, we were interviewing Brian from brave. Who’s one of the senior executives over there.
We’ve had other ones. We’ve had actors come in and we’ve been able to interview them, NFL players, major collectors, all sorts of things. So we try and change up who’s in there. We’ve also have we give space for people who are trying to learn from collector a standpoint as well. So we explain if people having problems, you know, getting started, or they don’t know where to start, and they’re just feeling overwhelmed.
They can come in. But my, honestly, my absolute favorite space that we do every single week is on Sunday mornings and we do a mental health space and it’s open to anyone, but it is, we do kind of focus on the NFT community because that’s obviously who we spend a lot of our time. But yeah, I always loved those sessions because it’s, you know, whether it’s, I guess a little bit about me sometimes or about someone else, I feel like we’re all helping each other. And we kind of remind each other, especially in everything that’s been going on for the last two years that there’s people out there that care and that are here to help. And I really liked that.
[00:13:23] Lauren Turton: That’s amazing that you hold space, especially for mental health. Again, we touched on it earlier in the show, how. In the technology space, we can get sucked in to what it is we’re working on, and time doesn’t exist.
[00:13:32] Amy Marie Stroud: Oh, it really doesn’t like you have to be on all the time. It’s not like with normal stocks, it’s between 10 and four and it’s fine. You just, you done or your normal work day, you can go home at the end of your shift.
This is, I feel, I almost like in doing crypto and NFT trading and, or even just being in the spaces as to being an entrepreneur because I’ve been doing that sort of thing for years. And I’ve been in high level positions for years. You don’t get to switch off. These markets are trading 24 hours a day.
There are NFT drops at two in the morning, and that’s not even my two in the morning. I wish that would be so much easy for me. But a lot of them, like it’s always something is happening. And lot of people and I, even myself, I find if I go to sleep, am I going to miss something. And it’s trying to remember now you’ve got to have that self-care and take care of yourself and make sure that you actually take the time, because if you don’t, you’ll burn out and then you’re not any use to anyone in your real world, you definitely not any use to anyone online. So you need to make sure that you take that time and just take deep breath, go okay. The world’s not gonna end if I miss a trade, the world’s not gonna end if I miss a drop, like, there’ll always be another project.
So it’s, I think everyone is at, they’re looking for these really quick, get rich. So these get rich quick schemes and don’t get me wrong. We’d all love to be rich, really fast, but sometimes we just have to realize that someone will win the race and I just do this stuff because I enjoy it. Not because I’m trying to make money out of it. Money is a nice byproduct, but to be honest, you know, it’s not the end of the world.
[00:14:43] Lauren Turton: Yes. Thank you for that. I think that’s so important. I’m so glad that we dove a little bit deeper into the mental health of the crypto and NFT space. Now I’m going to switch gears a little bit pre recording, Amy and I were discussing if ethereum gas prices. So I’d like to dive into with the ethereum gas prices being consistently high. Is it time to start considering other platforms?
[00:15:01] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So it’s definitely time to start considering them ethereum is probably going to be king in this space for a really, really long time. And there’s not a lot that we’re going to be able to do to kind of knock that off their perch. Cause it’s the easiest one to interface with. It’s easiest to purchase as well. And you just kind of get used to it. It’s a complicated thing to actually purchase NFTs right now. And until someone comes into this space and really provides a really simple way and a simple way to do it from your mobile phone, there’s really not going to be too much competition.
So there are newer networks coming out like the polygon networks, solana, kadano and they’re all trying to replace ethereum. Whereas right now I think what they need to do is focus on providing a good service and meet the gaps that have been left by ethereum, because, you know, it’s great to address the fact that gas phase are really high. And so to actually transact on Ethereum is incredibly expensive, especially when there’s a big drop. If you drop that 10,000 on there, sometimes you can be paying, you know, an Ethereum to buy something that costs 10% of an Ethereum so it doesn’t. And then you have to try and factor that in, and, you know, you can lose a lot of money through transaction fees on Ethereum.
Whereas we’ve a lot of these other networks, they’re either very minimal and they don’t have these massive fluctuations that Ethereum does, or they don’t have transaction fees at all. So it does make it a bit more difficult as trying to figure out. But right now everyone’s very focused on Ethereum and it’s going to be that way for a really long time.
Unless we see someone like Robin hood come in and they back one of these smaller blockchains. I don’t see us completely shifting away from ethereum and probably for at least a good 12 to 18 months, if at all.
[00:16:12] Lauren Turton: Okay. Thank you for that. Very helpful. Now let’s go into staying safe in the NFT space. There are a lot of scams out there.
We were speaking about a scam prerecording. So as someone who’s new to the space, how can they stay safe in regards to scams?
[00:16:24] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah, definitely. So it’s really easy to fall for some of these, cause you say cool artwork. And you’re like, yeah, I just want to own that piece. And you can see it and you kind of may have red flags and you still buy it anyway.
That’s kind of way you go. Okay. You need to that one was on you, but there’s a lot of people out there who are using false artwork or trying to claim that the artwork is theirs or trying to use things that kind of blatantly skirt copyright. So there’s quite a lot of really famous projects out there.
Like obviously the Bored Ape Yacht Club is iconic in NFTs, so there’s a lot of people out there now doing ape based projects and they’re basically using someone else’s ape that they don’t own. So they don’t have the rights to mess with it and making derivatives of them. So there’s a lot of derivatives out there.
The problem with days at any time, they can get a DCMA order so they can get pulled down and your money will be gone, your NFT in the artwork that said it will be gone and it just is done. That’s it. There’s no refunds. There’s no anything. So it’s really hard to like to say those sort of things happening. So a really good feature that OpenSea has is they actually have verified check marks. Now, often that does mean that the verified check mark will mean that that person has at least shown that they’ve stuck around for a certain amount of time or that they’re a valid project or that they’ve had a certain amount of turnover and they have confidence scores and things like that as well on OpenSea that not, I haven’t seen on any other platform.
So it can kind of give you that warning as to whether or not this is a scam or anything like that. When it comes to projects that you’re going to mint live. So you don’t have the benefit of seeing it already on OpenSea what you would need to look at then is try and say other developers and the people who are founding that project public with who they are.
And that can sometimes say quite often they will still be an avatar, but they may be using their real name or they may have at least shared their real name through websites. They’re doing that, that’s usually a pretty good sign. It’s another thing to keep in mind is how were they interacting with the community?
Are they in talking to people in rooms? Are they sharing information about the project? Are they cagey about the project? Because if they’re kind of trying to hide information, I always think that’s a bit of a pretty big warning for me. So there’s a lot to kind of look at and to consider it’s if you just want to buy artwork cause you like that artwork, that’s fine.
But if you’re looking at it from an investment standpoint, Try and do your due diligence. Look at the projects, have a look at their roadmaps and really try and say who these founders are before you jump in with any of them.
[00:18:14] Lauren Turton: Oh, thank you, Amy. That’s so helpful. I know so many people right now who are just getting into NFTs and they’re like, what do I do?
What do I buy? I want to get involved. And I like what you said about, yes, you can just buy artwork because you like the art.
[00:18:27] Amy Marie Stroud: Absolutely. Like, everyone’s kind of focusing on what’s the utility of this now, because that became kind of a buzzword a couple of weeks ago. Cause everyone’s like, oh, well the price of this has gone down.
Like, what’s the point of it? They’re like, oh, well, you know, there’s X utility to it. Sometimes you can just buy the artwork because you like it. And the utility in that case, is the artwork. It’s good for your eyes. It doesn’t have to do something for you, but a lot of the projects that are coming out now they do offer something.
So whether it’s community can be a utility that you can also have that it’s gives you a membership pass to something or a ticket to an event, or, you know, access. There’s lots of different things that are coming out now that I’ve come with some of these projects and that’s why going to their websites are really important.
You might not be able to speak to the founder, but you might be able to speak to other admins and get into discords and say what’s happening in there. A great example of a team that’s done it really well is the lazy lions. So those guys they’re based out of Australia. So I am biased to them anyway, but we got a chance to interview them and they were amazing.
So Asher and nine lion, they built this incredible community on the discord has something like 15,000 people in there. And it’s, everyone’s so helpful. You can go in there anytime and it’s quiet ever. It doesn’t matter day, night, anything. There’s always people that talking ready to help and it’s amazing.
It’s and they do all these like Twitter raids and things like that as well, but they actually have roadmaps planned out. So they’re still giving more back to the people. Other than that original artwork and I have big plans for the community and that they’re very open with what they’re trying to do, which I think is great.
I’ve seen other projects where, you know, there’s a lot of rip off projects out there. Like I said, with people taking the bored apes and then there’s like, you can go onto OpenSea right now. And there’s more than 200 and something punk projects. And they almost look identical. And if you’ve heard about the crypto punks, then there’s like ones where they’ve spelled it slightly different and you could easily purchase it. But it’s not the real thing. Cause those things like crazy amounts of money.
[00:19:56] Lauren Turton: It’s like when people make a knockoff of designer brands.
[00:19:59] Amy Marie Stroud: Exactly. And that’s a place that NFTs actually could help that you can, what you could see in the future in some of some brands are starting to do this as you’ll actually have like a little QR code on your product, like inside your product on a little tag, and you could scan that and it would verify that you are the owner through the blockchain, or that at least it is a verified piece of, you know, whether it’s a Louis Vuitton or a Birkin bag or anything like that. You can literally check that it is a legitimate one through those sort of means.
[00:20:20] Lauren Turton: Incredible.
This technology is absolutely incredible. So where do you see this technology going in the next year, five years and then 10 years?
[00:20:29] Amy Marie Stroud: In the next year. I think we’re probably going to say quite a ramp up because there’s a lot of people who’ve been working in this sort of field for a long time. It’s starting like even my mom’s starting to know about it.
And she is the least tech person I know. She usually knows stuff from me. So if she knows about that, out there in the media. So it’s, I think in the next, probably 12 months, we’re going to start to see a lot more people coming in who have just sort of familiar with cryptocurrency. And so it’s going to be the people who are crypto adopters, who will be coming over in the next five years, probably in the next two to five years, I would say that it’s going to go very mainstream and that’s what we’re going to see a lot of this retail investors come in and that’s probably where we’re going to have massive spikes in potential profits for people who’ve started out earlier. When we get to that sort of 10 years, I would say, we’re going to say that it will be deeply ingrained in our lives, like in the blockchain will be a standard.
You know, our people won’t be transmitting data in the same way they used to, it will be transmitted through the blockchain. It’ll be used for medical records. You’ll be using it to hold the data of your house, all of these sort of things that we’re just starting to see, it will be commonplace then, we won’t even think about it.There’ll be a new technology that will be rising. That’ll be coming up to steal from it as well.
[00:21:22] Lauren Turton: That’s so exciting to think about, especially for those who are just getting into the space now. It’s like when the internet came out.
[00:21:27] Amy Marie Stroud: It really is like right now, anyone who’s really in the NFT space, they’re pioneers for this time. This is, we are very, very early.
[00:21:32] Lauren Turton: Amazing, amazing to think about. So Amy, tell me, are there any projects that you’re working on right now that you’re excited to share with our audience?
[00:21:37] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah. So obviously we’re doing Twitter spaces all the time. We also have recently just launched our podcast, which is currently found under the Lucas Freire audio experience on apple, Spotify, and Amazon music. And we’re also in the process of launching a new website it’s blackshapewanted.com and we’re helping with NFT consultancy and also providing marketing assistance for anyone who needs help in that field. And we’ll also be probably expanding our courses as well in the coming weeks.
[00:21:57] Lauren Turton: Ooh, that’s so exciting. You are the one-stop shop for anyone wants to get into the nFT space.
[00:22:02] Amy Marie Stroud: Yeah, we’re trying to be at least, you know, we want to help as many people as possible.
[00:22:04] Lauren Turton: Amazing. Anything else you’d like to share today with our audience?
[00:22:06] Amy Marie Stroud: No. I just think, it’s a great time to be getting into these sort of things.
And I, I highly encourage anyone if you’ve got some time go in and have a look at the, you know, crypto Twitter, NFT Twitter, and also just jump into OpenSea and have a look at some of the amazing artwork that is there, because I’m really excited for that sort of stuff that’s coming. Like I really want to, probably one of my biggest goals in the next 12 months is to start having some of these sort of artworks taking, being displayed in places like the metaverse like Decentraland and things like that. So these are all cool, little like things that are, we’re going to basically be building ready player one in real life very soon.
So I’m really excited to see all this sort of technology coming and yeah, it’s getting in and have a look. You don’t have to jump in with heaps of money. You can, you know, you can even just be looking from the sidelines and learning right now. That’s where we are. I always encourage everyone. If you, never put in anything, you’re not willing to lose, but you can start with as little as, you know, if you’re starting on Tez, you can start with $30.
If you want to do something like OpenSea you’re probably going to need around a hundred fifty, two hundred to get in the door, but yeah, it’s sort of those things. And I think the most important thing is the first artwork by making sure it’s something you loved because you might be holding onto it for a very long time.
[00:23:00] Lauren Turton: And that’s such an important thought as people are looking at this new technology, a new industry to get involved in, is how to actually approach it. I know for myself when I first started exploring NFTs, which was only a couple months ago, I did my research and then three weeks ago, I decided to take action on being an artist, which then led to me being a collector with happy land gummy bears.
From there I realized, all right, Lauren, something special is happening here. You’re getting involved with this industry at a very unique time. What skills do I have that I can bring forth? And although I’m not an expert in NFTs or crypto, I have public speaking skills and I have wonderful networking abilities.
So I thought to myself, why don’t I start a podcast and bring on experts so they can share their expertise and provide value. And then I can be the one behind this podcast that’s promoting it and letting people know. If you need support in this episode, we cover A, B and C, so be creative. And how it is you approach the NFT space, there’s avenues and space for all types of industries and expert.
[00:24:15] Amy Marie Stroud: Absolutely. Like, so anyone can come into this space. We’ve got people who are in here who are, you know, that I think I’ve seen some NFTs done by like eight year olds. And the parents are the ones out there helping sell it. You know, we’ve got some really established artists that are under the age of 17, who are doing incredible things.
Then one of the regulars new spaces, I think he’s in his sixties and he’s been an artist for years and is just starting digitizing his work. So, you know, there’s a space for everyone. If you’re a traditional artist you’re used doing canvas work and things like that, that’s fine. Take a picture, sell the picture NFT, you know, we have so many people who are that sort of traditionally trained or people who’ve got no training. I’ve made my own NFTs as well. I did a bunch. I did a series on iconic space images, and I made the more vivid I applied with them. I did all sorts of different things to them. I also, it’s so silly. I went through and just did, like, I loved paint by numbers because I’m not a very creative person, but I find it really relaxing.
I went and re digitize them and actually re-painted them by hand. And I had a pace that I painted like 10, 15 years ago. I found while packing my house, I took a picture of it and I re-painted it and I made that as an NFT. So I’ll have that in my wallet forever. It wasn’t for anyone else. It was for me, you can use this sort of like if you really want to, you can even have like family pictures, if you really want to made as NFTs and you can hide them from the public, but they’re in your wallet and you have a copy.
So there’s a lot of this so much you can do. You don’t have to like, I’m actually a sound engineer. I try and do the sound engineer out of high school so I could make audio based ones. You could do audio books.
You could have mostly in comic books. I’ve seen a cooking book NFT, which was incredible. It made me so hungry. I wanted to buy it immediately. So it’s, you know, there’s a lot of different ways you can do this. It doesn’t have to be, oh, I’m not a traditional artist. There is a spice for pretty much everything NFTs, right.
It’s already in NFTs right now. So it’s just find your niche and work with it. And I’m sure pretty much anyone can bring something to the table and in NFTs, even like, so for me, I am obviously very technical minded, but I’m not creative. So I love looking at the artwork, but I know I can’t create it. So I host Twitter spaces because I can help educate people.
And I love talking to people, especially, you know, with everything that’s going on. I need more humans to interact with. So it’s a great thing. And I’m very lucky, I really good friend that I host with and we get to speak to some incredible humans, every single day hear about these amazing projects from all over the world.
Like there’s, it’s incredible how far each one has right now for being able to communicate with people and it’s the same with podcasts. You’re able to communicate with people. You wouldn’t have been able to engage with otherwise, and also they get the access to you. So I think it works for everybody, really.
[00:26:28] Lauren Turton: Amazing. Well, Amy, thank you so much for your time today. Make sure to give her a follow on Twitter @Amy_Stroud and bookmark in your browser, blacksheepwanted.com. When they launched, they’re going to have incredible offers that will support your NFT journey.
That’s all for freedom with NFTs today. We’ll see you on the next episode.
Connect with Amy Stroud:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amy_stroud
Connect with your host, Lauren Turton:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenturton_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelaurenturton
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenturton/
Website: https://freedomwithnfts.com
