Devon Figures - Builder at White Walls

Can you imagine transforming your TV into a stunning digital art display? Join us on the latest episode as we sit down with Devon, a visionary in the crypto art world, to explore Whitewalls, his groundbreaking platform that does just that. With a passion for collecting unique items and a love for Pulp Fiction quotes, Devon takes us on a journey through the future of blockchain technology, emphasizing the critical role of interoperability, scarcity, and pricing standards across different chains. He also shares invaluable advice for artists on balancing scarcity and mass circulation, all while highlighting the importance of community in the digital art space.

Ever wondered how a creative agency owner transitions from the corporate grind to the vibrant world of NFTs? Discover how Devon's nostalgic love for collecting baseball and Pokémon cards, and unique items like the first-ever prototype of Rollerblades and a prized Pulp Fiction movie poster, led him to embrace the boundless creativity of the NFT space. Listen as we discuss the supportive community within Web3 and draw parallels to the early days of online friendships. Devon envisions a promising future for digital art NFTs, focusing on the mission to onboard more newcomers into this exciting realm.

How can transparency and data analysis on public ledgers build value models around digital art? In another enlightening segment, Devon delves into the significance of supply and scarcity in digital products, sharing his own collecting experiences and enjoyment of art beyond its speculative value. We also explore the dynamics of one-of-one pieces versus editions, and offer advice on persistence and overcoming fear in the evolving digital landscape. From the beauty of Texas Hill Country to the practicality of owning a Tesla, Devon's optimism and innovative ideas shine through, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of art, technology, and community.

https://x.com/devonfigures

https://x.com/whitewallsapp

Transcript

NorCal Guy: 0:00

Who is this? Who is this guy? Who is this guy, who is this guy, who is this guy?

Devon Figures: 0:06

Who is this guy? Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal and chill podcast. So it's chill time, norcal and chill podcast. What the sh-, what the sh-? Norcal and Shill Podcast. What the sh-, what the sh-? Norcal and Shill Podcast. So it's Shill time, norcal and Shill Podcast. What the sh-, what the sh-?

NorCal Guy: 0:32

Hey, everyone welcome to another episode of NorCal and Shill. In today's episode, we speak with Devin about his journey into blockchain and crypto art. About his journey into blockchain and crypto art. Devin shares his passion for collecting unique items and favorite quotes from Pulp Fiction. He introduces us to Whitewalls, an innovative platform that turns TVs into digital art displays. Our discussion covers the future of blockchain, emphasizing interoperabilityoperability, scarcity and Pricing Standards Across Chains. Devin explains how artists can balance scarcity and mass circulation to enhance collectors' experiences. We also touch on the importance of community in the digital art space, devin's optimism for onboarding newcomers and developing real world applications for blockchain technology. He stresses the value of maintaining a supportive community and living with art rather than letting it sit in digital wallets. Tune in for this great episode brimming with Devin's insights and innovative ideas to make art more accessible. Please join us today on NorCal and Shill. Hey, devin, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Devon Figures: 1:54

Hey, I'm well, Guy. How are you doing, man? Thanks for asking.

NorCal Guy: 1:57

I am good. It's been a little hot recently, at least where I am. I'm not sure where you're based, actually, but uh, it was like 115 this last week oh yikes, man.

Devon Figures: 2:10

Yeah, no, we're in uh, deep, deep south texas, so right on the border of mexico, so we're it's hot over here too, man, I'm sweating inside.

NorCal Guy: 2:18

That's how, uh, that's how it goes around here, man, we're used to it though yeah, do you guys have like a tropical storm coming soon or like is there one we did yeah it was supposed to hit us yesterday.

Devon Figures: 2:29

Um, okay, winds. Winds blew it a bit further north over, closer to like houston, so hopefully they're doing okay. We're about five, six hours south of houston, I think it's already kind of passed. I think hopefully it was a a little bit less intense than we had anticipated, but we had had just missed us by. We got about an hour of rain and that was it.

NorCal Guy: 2:47

Okay, okay.

Devon Figures: 2:48

Nice yeah.

NorCal Guy: 2:49

Nice. So wait well, okay. My dad grew up in Galveston Okay, sure, and then he spent a lot of time in Corpus Christi.

Devon Figures: 3:02

Yes, so that is yeah about well Galveston just south of Houston. Yes, so that is yeah about well galveston just sort of just south of houston. So that's about five hours out and corpus kind of right in the middle about two and a half hours. We're even further south than that. Like I said, just keep going down that tip until you get right there.

NorCal Guy: 3:16

All right, all right, that's where we're at yeah cool. So what were your first thoughts when you heard about this crypto art NFTs?

Devon Figures: 3:28

Oh, man, got to think back right. I think that we've all had such such crazy journeys since since getting involved here Now always, I think, been like on the earlier side of the adoption curve, I guess, as it related to tech. As a product guy, I'm always just kind of a constantly trying to look around, see, see what's out there, see who's innovating on what. And so it was, yeah, 2015, 16, maybe I forget the year, but that was kind of when we got pretty heavily involved in blockchain and just started trying to analyze it for what it was and think through use cases and try to tell my parents about, you know, this could be beneficial for this. And it was just like really trying to wrap my head around this tech that we were like so sure was going to be something incredible, that it was going to be transformative in the future, but like really the only way to interact with it was just to invest in it. And so I started investing around that time and then sort of went on the back burner, continued you know, work and life as usual until late 2020, early 21 was, you know sort of that, I think where when most of us really kind of realized, oh man, there's something brewing here and of course, not the very beginning of that adoption curve, but right as it starts ramping up is where I always find myself. We're just a little too late to be the one that you know really did it, but like, you're right there and you can say, you know, know, you were still sort of early, um, and so that was, that was me.

Devon Figures: 4:46

It was this, I guess, like with some contextual background um, you know my day job, I run a creative agency. So, like I said, we've been, um, you know, building products and platforms and things for people on the corporate side for so many years. Um, and, and we try to be really creative in everything that we do. And, um, I think that when we found NFTs, it was like, oh man, it's this kind of juxtaposition of this incredible technology that we knew, we believed in, that we were like begging for a great creative use case for.

Devon Figures: 5:16

And then, just like we started seeing these projects that were just doing these infinitely creative things where the sky was no longer the limit, this kind of soul sucking corporate creative work we had been doing, like, we saw like maybe there's an out here in this space where we can just be purely creative all the time and it was the meshing of those two ideas incredible tech, limitless creativity and I say we, myself and my business partner, are kind of the ones who really jumped into it, you know, head first together. But yeah, for me it was this eye opening moment where I was like maybe this is, this is where I need to be, and from that moment forward just have been in the trenches with everybody else, you know, every day, just trying to learn and see and do, and you know every day is a crazy day here.

NorCal Guy: 5:57

For sure Sure, so did you collect?

Devon Figures: 5:59

Did you collect anything before NFTs like baseball cards, art, so when I was younger, my uncle owned a card shop, which I thought was really cool, and so I played baseball my whole life growing up. So baseball cards were definitely something I was really interested in, and he'd always, you know, have new cool cards. Again, Pokemon cards, right, I mean, just like that was one of those ones where, like, I barely even played with them because my dad was like those are gonna be worth something someday. You better hold on to those. Um, and sure enough, I mean you know those have been turned into a great investment.

Devon Figures: 6:32

Um, I had a couple other sort of like funny or like funky little collector things that I have. Um, I actually told this on a spaces the other day. Um, and some people have seen that I posted about it maybe a year ago, but I actually own the very first ever prototype of Rollerblades, which is sort of like a prized possession of mine, which is pretty neat. Again, that is a longer story, we don't need to go into the whole thing, but it's kind of cool. I like that. And then I have one of the first prints of the Pulp Fiction movie poster I bought from Miramax. That first prints of the pulp fiction movie poster I bought from Miramax. That's another one of my favorites in my home office.

Devon Figures: 7:06

Yeah, just huge, huge Quentin Tarantino fan. So little stuff like that. Every once in a while I find something that just has this cool, significant value to me and I'm like I've got to have that. But I guess, like collecting has never really been in my DNA, I think there's people that, like you know, collect model cars or whatever it is and like that can be this really easy gateway into NFTs. It definitely wasn't that for me. So yeah, collector spirit maybe not super strong in me, but when there's something cool you just kind of got to have it Right, right, sure.

NorCal Guy: 7:34

What are the best things about Web3 today?

Devon Figures: 7:39

Man. I mean, I love this space that we all choose to call home, right? I think that that's a conscious decision and choice that we all have to make every day and many of our friends have, you know, one day to the next, decided that it wasn't their choice anymore, and then they've bowed out, and that's completely understandable. There are a million, you know, reasons why people stay or leave from this space. Stay or leave from this space.

Devon Figures: 8:08

My favorite thing I think about, about Web3 and about this space, is like I almost like equate it to like back in the day when I was younger and like the AOL instant messenger days, right, where all of your friends were like online friends and you know whatever and I make this joke to my wife all the time I'm like, oh, what are you doing on your phone?

Devon Figures: 8:20

I'm just talking to my you know my online friends, I think I guess, just like, my favorite thing is just that you can come in here with positive intentions and you can make lifelong friends, and I think that that's really cool and a majority of us are here for the same thing. A majority of us, I think, are here for the right reasons. Of course, there's bad actors everywhere, but if you align yourselves with the right people, I think that you can really get a lot out of this space if you put a little bit of effort and love into it. I think that's my favorite thing is it's a community that keeps on giving. There's a lot of shiny object syndrome and a million things to look at and a million different directions, but if you can navigate it and find some friends to navigate it with, you're living the dream man. I think it's fun.

NorCal Guy: 9:06

That's awesome. Do you have any? Where do you see digital art NFTs in five years, since you're on that dev side, it's interesting to hear that point of view.

Devon Figures: 9:18

Yeah, I mean I think looking to the future, I mean I don't think I'd be building in the space if I didn't see a positive future. So maybe my idea is biased, because I'm trying to build something for the space and then that I hope is heavily utilized in five years or something transformative for many people. But, taking away that bias, I think that we're gonna continue to see new adopters as people continue to build things that people can get excited about and we can start onboarding more people, and I think onboarding is the goal of every company. I want to onboard the next million people or the next wave into Web3. And I think it's a well-intentioned approach. But as long as we can continue to bring more people in than we lose, I think that we can continue to see that ramp up and it's going to be, like I said at the beginning, part of that adoption curve. I don't think we're here right now. I think we're here and still working our way up and I think it's just going to take a lot of dedicated builders and a lot of really committed people to stick around um and will be, I think, all collectively considered the crazy ones who we gave it a shot and stuck around for in five years, for there to be more tangible use cases for things in the real world that you know.

Devon Figures: 10:38

I think a lot people talk about, like, how do we mask the blockchain features to make it this really web to native experience, where you can get the benefits of blockchain without being, like, encumbered by the, the inherent, like security concerns or the, you know just the, the learning curve and all that stuff. So I think, the more that we can do that, the more we can onboard people without, you know, even needing to use that terminology, and I think in five years, there's going to be a lot of real world applications for blockchain that the average person probably doesn't even realize is supported or backed by the technology. Um, right, I think that's gonna be a really good thing, um, because it is, it's transformative in so many ways and and if it takes five years, if it takes 10 years or 20 years, um, I think that that it needs to keep creeping and crawling into into things, um, and so I don't know. As far as digital art goes, I mean I love art.

Devon Figures: 11:33

I think we are all here because we like art in some capacity, and I mean art is something that will exist forever, and so many incredible talented people here that if in five years that's all irrelevant, I would be entirely mind blown. It wouldn't make any sense to me. So my hope is you know I'm not a believer that the number only goes up. I think that after so many cycles and waves it's silly to believe that. I mean, I think you know we all want the number to go up, but we're going to continue to ride this wave and in five years, hopefully, there will be more of us riding the wave together.

NorCal Guy: 12:07

Ah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the crypto art space?

Devon Figures: 12:16

Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the crypto art space? I mean, maybe more positivity on the timeline. You know what I mean. No, I think there's a lot to criticize in this space. There's a lot to criticize in anything in the world right now, and it's becoming just wildly apparent that, you know, the timeline is a place to whine and complain and criticize about anything, and that's people's prerogatives. So I guess if there's anything I wanted to see more of, it would just be, you know, unwavering positivity, which is a really tough ask of people when their bags are down and the market is red, and so I understand it's a crazy ask, but maybe that's the one thing I'd I'd love to see more of.

NorCal Guy: 12:55

and I don't know, maybe it's a pipe dream, yeah yeah, man, I mean yeah, it seems it definitely is like when it's up then it's positive, down negative it is right.

Devon Figures: 13:09

It's like I mean, we've already rode the wave so many times, like we know where it's going. We know we're here, we're going to. Let's just keep the vibes positive. At least that's my, you know, if I was to rule the timeline it would be positive vibes, but alas, I am but a small fish in a big sea.

Devon Figures: 13:27

I guess that's the difference between, like traders and people that are long-term type of of view um right long-term time horizon, so but yeah, it's tough to get people to, to to see the distance, um, but yeah, I don't know, maybe that's it, I don't know, maybe that's a good answer, maybe that's a terrible answer, I'm not sure.

NorCal Guy: 13:48

Yeah that's good. So does one e equal one E Such a good question, such a tough question to answer.

Devon Figures: 13:58

I think, like the answer that people want to hear is yes, I think Right, I mean, let me okay, I'm going to flip this on you real quick because I'm genuinely curious to know I mean, you've asked this question to so many people what is like? What side do most people fall on? And is it like? Artists believe this, collectors believe this? Like?

NorCal Guy: 14:19

what is the? I'll give my answer.

Devon Figures: 14:20

I have an answer for it, but I just am like it's such an interesting debate, I don't know.

NorCal Guy: 14:26

I mean, it's like a. Sometimes it's based on when you got in to eat, right? So if you got in early, then yeah, 1 ETH equals 1 ETH, because you want your dollar value and that's ultimately what it comes down to is the dollar value. But I think most of the time 1 ETH does not equal 1 ETH. Like if you bought something for 1 ETH back in the day or you used to sell for 1 ETH and ETH goes to 10 grand, are you still going to be selling for 1 ETH back in the day, or you're used to sell for 1 ETH and you know ETH goes to 10?

NorCal Guy: 14:55

grand you know? Are you still going to be selling for 1 ETH or are you willing to take it at 0.5 ETH?

Devon Figures: 15:02

Right. So my take here, I think, is just about, like, the interoperability of things as we continue to move forward. And it's like you know, I think, that as we move forward, there's going to be a lot of blurred lines between not even talking about fiat but talking about, like crypto. If I want to buy something on each chain, I want to use Bitcoin to do it. There's ways to do that and I think those ways will continue to evolve and grow and, like, the interoperability of everything, should get better and better over time.

Devon Figures: 15:30

And so, at what point, then, does that just mean that we're forced to look at the fiat value inherently, because this has gone up and this has gone down today and there's volatility on both ends of that transaction, and so the constant there has to be, let's say, us dollar or whatever the fiat equivalent is.

Devon Figures: 15:49

So I don't know, man. I mean, I'd love to say that it is, and I think, in a lot of scenarios, one eve is one and, and that's fair to look at, especially in like the micro swings, you know, it's like let's not worry about it too much, um, but again, if we're looking five years in the future, 10 years into the future, and and we're running this bull case where eth is you know 25 grand now and bitcoins, you know you know a couple hundred thousand. If I take the ultimate bull case, then no, I mean it's really tough to continue to draw that parallel. But I see it more of, like I said, an interoperability thing where it's like you know, the tools are going to be so easy to swap and exchange and move things from this chain to that chain, to you know whatever, and then at that point there's only one value to look at.

NorCal Guy: 16:37

And it chain to, you know, whatever. And then, at that point, there's only one value to look at, and it's, you know, it's the one that all things can equate to. So right, um, maybe that's an answer. No, I, I definitely agree on that, because I mean, since soul has become pretty popular these days, um, you know, like, how do you price your work across these different chains? You know you're going to have to have like a standard somehow, and you know, and I think when you're able to, it's going to be even better. When you're going to be able to buy, like, oh, I want it on this chain, but I want to pay with this money, it's going to be better, for sure.

Devon Figures: 17:00

Yeah, I think it just again comes in time and there's so many use cases that people are building for and a lot of those use cases are super helpful for people right now and some of them are like really long-term thinking into the future. It's like this will be really beneficial when there's a hundred million more people transacting and this makes so much more sense and whatever, and so I think it all just sort of depends on on you know where that heads and goes. Um, yeah, I don't know right, so does supply matter.

Devon Figures: 17:32

I think that it does. I mean, inherently in this space, you know, with the transparency of the ledger and just you know how, you know all the information is publicly available. I mean, there's just ways that you can really look at that data and analyze it and you can build models of value around the scarcity of products, and I think that that's important, like, from an artist perspective. I think it's entirely up to you who you want to be. So I think that if scarcity is your thing, then hell yeah, dude, lean into the scarcity route and drop a total of 50 pieces throughout your entire career as a digital artist and play into that. Um, but the tools are becoming very enticing to. To mint low-cost, uh, larger editions. I mean we saw, with the manifold rise with two years ago now or whatever, the open edition meta, right, I mean we saw most of those artists that had previously made scarcity their their thing kind of jumped in and, you know, for whatever reason, um, I think, uh, that that's a good thing, right. I think that you know, art is meant to be shared, it's meant to be viewed, it's meant to be appreciated, um, and so if you can bring good art to more people, then I see value in that, but yeah, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure thing here.

Devon Figures: 18:58

The tools exist. You're an artist, you want to make a digital product or digital good or something incredible. Well, you can distribute it how you see fit. And if scarcity is your jam, then head down that route. Go for you know, higher value sales and try to find those like really dedicated individual collectors. Um, but if you're looking for more exposure or if you want to bring your, your work to the masses because it means something to you, if it's about the message or if it's about you know, whatever, and there's more value in mass circulation, then those tools are available to you as well. Um, so I think scarcity is only really going to matter in the end for the artists who directly choose to make scarcity their primary value proposition. And outside of that, I would use the tools and integrate further into the community and whatever. That's just me.

NorCal Guy: 19:51

Right, right. Do you have any thoughts on? And that's just me, right, right? Do you have any thoughts on like one-of-ones versus additions, using?

Devon Figures: 20:00

them together. Yeah, like I said, I mean I think it goes back to the same thing. Right, the tools are there, let's use them. I mean, I think that additions are incredible. I think that you know, like base as an L2 has been like wildly transformative to the ability to collect, the ability to distribute, and so I think that you know, as this tech continues to get better and things become more accessible, editions are wonderful. As a collector, nothing beats a one of one, right? And yet there's still that, oh, I own a one of one from X artist artist, and like that feels way more powerful or more impactful, or like you're a part of that ecosystem in a more wondrous way. Um, rather than like, yeah, I own a one of one of 50 or whatever it is. Um, yeah, I think they both have equal place.

Devon Figures: 20:51

I have been a huge fan of of additions lately. Um, just because you know, we've been doing this whole mint to display thing with white walls and it's um, which is a ton of fun, like I'm just looking at it differently and I'm like I don't care who the artist is, I'm not buying for speculative value. I'm starting to just like what do I want in my home? What do I want to vibe with and live with? And then I'm able to, like, pick up these low-cost, no-cost additions and vibe with them and enjoy them and let them, you know, affect the ambience of my space, um, and then I go and look at who the artist is and I, and I see what they're, you know what they're up to. Um, it's a scarcity additions, one of ones. I view it all as tools and then I think that it's like, you know, these are the pickaxes and the shovels, and the artists are the ones who get to go use those tools to make gold, and I think gold comes in a lot of forms I like that, I like that.

NorCal Guy: 21:39

So what's the best piece of advice you've been given, or do you have like a mantra that you kind of live by?

Devon Figures: 21:46

man, that's such a big question. Um, best piece of advice that I've been given, I don't, I don't know. I think it's probably just like has to like be surrounded by, like the stick-to-itiveness Stick-to-itiveness, I think, that's how you say it.

Devon Figures: 22:03

Um, you know, just like you know what it requires to be I mean, as it relates to this space, right, like I said, up top is so many things to look at, so many things to do and participate in, and you can get burnt out really quickly. And so I think one of those things that I've always lived by is keep on keeping on, and it's just if you look at every day as a new day and, again, try to keep things positive. I always try to maintain a positive outlook and I think that's one of the things that I've always tried to do. That makes it easier to circumnavigate this space or really any part of life. So I like that. And then my business partner likes to say you know, the best things lie on the opposite side of fear. I think that's what it is.

Devon Figures: 22:38

I probably might have butchered that quote, but he's looking at me, I think I nailed it Good, and I love that as well, because you know, in this space you have to take leaps, and whether they're financial leaps, and you know, we've we've all had our fair share of those in this space and, uh, you know, won't tell you which side we're on right now on how those are going, but then we can all take a guess, um, but more just say you know leaps of faith in different ways, whether it's, you know again, building something or, um, you know integrating something or whatever it is you know um. So, yeah, I, I like both of those pieces of advice as they relate to kind of you know sticking with it here and just keep on keeping on man I like that.

NorCal Guy: 23:19

If you could live or move anywhere, where would you live and why?

Devon Figures: 23:27

so I live, like I said earlier, uh down in the rio grande, which is like the deep southern tip of Texas. I moved to Texas just over a decade ago, originally from Minnesota. I love Minnesota, lived on the west coast for a while in California, came down to Texas, love it. Now I'm married kids the whole nine.

NorCal Guy: 23:48

So this is where my life is, you know.

Devon Figures: 23:52

But we've talked a lot about you know, maybe this isn't like the craziest answer, like I want to go to you know wherever, you know Fiji, or whatever. It's not going to be that exciting of an answer, but we really love like the Texas hill country, like the little sparse areas between Austin and San Antonio or just north of you know, like an hour outside of a city is beautiful, like get some land, have a nice view. Um, I still love Texas. I mean, I've fallen in love with this place, um, and we go up there every summer. That's where we got married is, up in the hill country. So a lot of positive vibes there and I think I would do really well like being out of the city for a while. I think I could use it, um, and so that's probably my best answer right now is like just to get a plot of land somewhere a little more remote than I am today, but then just keep on business as usual.

NorCal Guy: 24:41

I like it. I like it. It is a nice area out there. I mean, I grew up like every summer going to Canyon Lake and New Braunfels area, so yeah, it's awesome.

Devon Figures: 24:50

Yes, I love it out there, man. It's a such a like a tranquil, chill vibe and like we go to dripping springs. I don't know if you've ever been in dripping I haven't been there. It's like there's like three different like vodka distilleries and like 10 whiskey distillers. I'm like you're talking my language now like this is like a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. That's like alcohol tourism. That's always fun, um, but it's just beautiful, and like you can go sit down and have like a whiskey tasting for lunch. And I'm like, again, I could use more of that, um, and I don't know. So, like those areas, I think they're just like little hidden gems and I'd love to make it out there one day yeah, for sure.

NorCal Guy: 25:29

So if you were an animal, what would you be and why?

Devon Figures: 25:36

yeah, yeah. Um, I feel like I'm gonna have like such a stupid cliche answer to this one. It'll be like it's gotta be a bird so that I can fly and see things from a new view. I'm sure that's gotta be the right answer. Um, I like being a human a lot.

Devon Figures: 25:55

This is a really shitty answer for this. I really enjoy being a human and using my hands and thinking through things with a really logical thought process that is maybe less primal or whatever, and so maybe this is like the anti-answer. But I guess, if I had to relate that to an animal, wouldn't it be like a primate of some sort, right, like a, like a cool ass monkey or something, and I can't you know. Spend some time in the trees, get away a little bit, but then come back and at least have some semblance of the same. Maybe that's, uh, maybe that's it, I don't know, but a bird flying though that's tough to beat, so sure I don't know. And then, how do you like classify what sort of birds you're gonna be? I don't want to like have the biggest ego in the world and say I'm like a bald eagle, you know, and I'm the pretentious guy that thinks he's the bald eagle.

Devon Figures: 26:44

No, I'm not like a raven you know, so like you gotta think about what birds you're gonna be, if you're gonna pick a bird, so I don't know. Can I ask you this question? I feel like you have to have a good answer for this question.

NorCal Guy: 26:54

I go with the octopus.

Devon Figures: 26:58

Ah, okay, fuck, that's actually a really good answer. That's a good answer. I like the octopus Very nimble, very agile. Yeah, I like that. That's a good answer. I'm taking that. I'm going to be an octopus guy Fair, fair.

NorCal Guy: 27:14

Do you have a?

Devon Figures: 27:16

favorite movie quote or song lyric? I mean anything from Pulp Fiction, like I said up top. I mean, it's just like I'm a big Quentin Tarantino fan and Pulp Fiction was my dad's favorite movie, so as a kid I probably watched it when I was like maybe a little too young to watch it, but it's always just become like that cornerstone for me of like a time and a feeling, and so I like to rewatch that one once or twice a year. Um, so I mean really anything from samuel jackson and pulp fiction I think is probably got to be up on top for me fair, fair.

NorCal Guy: 27:44

What's the best thing and the silliest thing you've spent money on?

Devon Figures: 27:49

oh god, oh man, oh man, I guess like tangible, I love my car. I mean, I bought a Tesla a couple of years ago and I enjoy my car. I think that's a really practical answer for this and so I think that's a positive for sure, I really enjoy my car. It makes commuting pretty easy and haven't had to go to the gas station in a long time, so that's nice. So I'd say that's probably one of the better things I've bought, at least recently. Worst thing, man, I don't know, dude, go through my wallet, dude, there's some stuff in there that you look back on and you go boy, what was I thinking? That didn't age. Well, you know, definitely kind of caught the picot top of a couple PFP projects in 22, and so that's probably up there. I'd say it's fair. Yeah, I'm just going to leave that there without going into more specifics, but I think that, yeah, we'll cap that.

NorCal Guy: 28:55

If you could commission a piece and have two artists collab on it, which two artists would it be?

Devon Figures: 29:05

I told you, this one's a tough one for me. I've been peeking behind the curtain, I've been thinking about this one all day, all day, and I still have no good answer for this.

NorCal Guy: 29:14

That's all right.

Devon Figures: 29:16

Yeah, I think it would be really cool to collab a photographer I really enjoy and then a digital native artist that I really enjoy to bring a photographer's vision to life through the brushstroke digitally. I think it's the best I've gotten. So I had like what I thought was like a really good example of that would be like summer wagner, whose photography I absolutely love, and then like pairing that with like sam sprat, as like his unique style for illustration, like something like that right or like or pick something.

Devon Figures: 29:54

That's even more abstract than like the digital side, but like, yeah, taking something through a lens and then bringing it into digital, whether it's through brush stroke or through vector illustration or whatever it is. I think that that's the best answer I've got so far and I think that maybe there'd be something really cool there.

NorCal Guy: 30:12

Yeah, I can see that. I can definitely see that coming together. What is one interesting fact about you that people may not be aware of?

Devon Figures: 30:23

I think a lot of people that listen to any spaces that I do or know me on any personal level would know this, but anyone that doesn't might be surprised to know that I am a father of five. So I have a very active home life. I do. I have five kids kids. So that's maybe the most interesting thing about me. I to give context I suppose married my wife coming on five years ago now. She had four children from her previous marriage, so I got married and became an Insta dad of five who we have essentially pretty close to full custody of.

Devon Figures: 31:01

And so we're, you know, busy, busy house. Those kids are all between eight, soon to be nine, and 14, going on 15. So getting into the teenage years and all that. And then we just had my first biological child a little over a year ago, and so it is between one and 14 we've got now. So we all walks of crazy youthful shenanigans happening in our house and we live in a super cool neighborhood. Everyone's got friends, and so our house generally, at the end of any given day, has, you know, eight to ten kids running around it. And yeah, those are, you know, some of the coolest kids I know. Man, I love my kids, I love my family Very much a family man. But yes, maybe that's the most interesting fact about me, and people always go holy shit, yeah, I got five kids running around the house. There you go.

NorCal Guy: 31:55

Prayers for you, man. Prayers five kids running around the house. There you go. Prayers for you, man. Prayers for you. Oh, thanks, guy. Do you have any questions for me? You got any kids?

Devon Figures: 32:07

I got three kids okay, well you're, you're getting there, man, what's, what's? A couple more dude, you can do it too old man once you get through. Once you get through three, I feel like you know, the rest is just copy paste. Actually, we found that it's so much easier having so many older ones now that we have the young one right because we have built-in babysitters for everything.

Devon Figures: 32:28

My two oldest girls are at camp right now for the week and we're like putting out fires because there's you know, less people helping us with the baby and you know, and so it's. Anyways, I recommend it. Go for it now you can do it. Um, no man, no other other questions. I think, um, yeah, this is cool. I love some of the, the questions that were more out of the box, ones that you don't really typically discuss in right in the web three kind of podcasts and make you think more laterally about things, because it's all creative at the end of the day and that's who I've always been is a creative person and I like to pursue that with different, you know, endeavors, whether it be through thoughts or through you know, parts or practice in some sort. Um, but this is fun. I like this.

NorCal Guy: 33:11

Yeah, this has been a great. Do you have any hot takes?

Devon Figures: 33:22

I try not to like said man, I I think, uh, I think that it's good to have them, and then it's equally good to like discuss them in private or just really bottle them up. You know, um, that's fair. No, I think I think that the world has enough hot takes for all of us. They can, they can take mine and someone will.

Devon Figures: 33:36

Someone will shout it from a rooftop without meaning to do much, so I just try to keep my mouth closed most of the time so tell me about any projects you you are working on like to discuss yeah, cool, um, well, um, not sure how familiar you are with white walls it's the, the platform that we've been working on and building, and I say we it uh, it was myself and my business partner kind of started this, uh well, started a few years ago. We had this kind of thought as we started really getting heavily involved in in digital art and nfts and we were trying to, you know, rally our, our whole creative team behind you know, understanding blockchain and trying to you get them excited about the future, because we were trying to kind of transition our agency into working more in Web3. And so we were like the best way we could do that is inspire them by showing them the cool pieces that we've got. So we wanted to show it in our office and we had all these great TVs in our office space back when we had our larger office, and we found very quickly that there's just no, you know, easy way to bring digital art into physical spaces yeah, aside from, you know, buying expensive hardware frames, which there are plenty of companies that are doing a really good job of that. And so, again, we're ideas, guys, we build products for a living, and so we did a quick little brainstorm with the team what would a product look like if we were to have, you know, digital art appreciation at scale, at scale? And so we like to do these exercises where we kind of come through ideas.

Devon Figures: 35:00

And the big idea was we already have these large format displays in our homes and spaces and there are TVs, and so it seems crazy that we can't activate these TVs as a digital art display. And so we ideated it for a few hours and then we're like, all right, that's great, it's an awesome idea, someone will build it soon, I'm sure. It's the market's too hot, it's too low hanging of fruit, it's. Someone will build it and activate TVs in a meaningful way. And so then a year later, no one had done it. And we kind of look back at the idea and we're like, should we do this? Should we, should we be the ones that kind of evangelize this thing? And another year went by and it hadn't been done yet, and so that led us to about 10, 11 months ago or so.

Devon Figures: 35:40

We started putting resources onto it on the design side and it kind of all came around this idea that we think that the end point for digital art kind of sucks. We spend a bunch of time and effort and energy and money, of course, in this space that we all call home. And, at the end of the day, we get to look at our assets on our phones and you know, in our personal devices, and it seems like this art is trapped right, and so that's kind of the thesis of everything, and so we started building White Walls. It's a super simple platform that turns any TV into a digital art display. It's cool, man. We're excited.

Devon Figures: 36:17

We've been building it for a while now. We started officially developing it about four and a half, maybe five months ago. We've got an incredible team that we've been building around it and, yeah, we're hoping to kind of democratize digital art appreciation by bringing a scalable solution into the home where you can mint a piece, you can instantly put it up on your display, enjoy it. Coexist with creativity is something that we say, and I've got a million more thoughts behind all that, but I'll. I'll stop there for now. But that's what we're building. It's called white walls and we're, uh, yeah, coming into a public beta starting here in a couple weeks oh, awesome man, that's great, is it?

NorCal Guy: 36:54

so it's just like an app, basically you upload, or download to your tv and then or use on your phone and then to like, update what you want to display on the tv type thing or yeah, exactly.

Devon Figures: 37:07

So your phone is sort of your controller for the tv, um. So if you can see behind me, I'm sure people see the video here. These are all just regular old samsung tvs that are all running white walls right now. So we've got the awesome May case by Jeremy Booth, we've got a rotation of Pepe Denza's coming in, and then we've got a grant you in here on the other side, and so the phone app is a progressive web app, which is just a fancy way of saying it's not a downloadable app.

Devon Figures: 37:33

It's remember FriendTech was like an add to home screen type of thing and so it's like that. So it's just you go to the website. It's a web-based app that runs kind of like once you make a bookmark out of it. It's a really cool thing. A lot of people are working on great PWAs right now. It's cool. You can do some really neat stuff with them. So it's a web app that runs mobile on your phone and what it does is it verifies your assets across all major chains and so you're able to really safely verify that you own a wallet. Of course, it has delegate integrated so you can access things in your vault super safe and secure and you connect all of your wallets. So right now it's Ethereum mainnet plus about six or seven L2s base Zora Optimism Polygon, that type of stuff about six or seven L2s base Zora Optimism Polygon, that type of stuff. Very soon we'll unlock Solana Ordinal support, which we're really excited about, and then Tezos as well, so you'll be able to view all of your assets across all major chains and then you have like an assets tab and you can start your favorite and sort things and you get them all put in the app and then you're able to then push one or multiple of the artworks to any of your paired displays. So that brings us to the Smart TV app, which right now runs through Apple TVs. So Apple TV Box is our beta product. Eventually we'll roll it out to all native TV app stores, so it'll be on the Samsung App Store, the LG App Store, et cetera, but right now it's. Apple TV box will allow you to get the application. You get a little pairing code, you pair that to your device and then you can push art instantly directly from your phone to your display.

Devon Figures: 39:06

And the cool part about it my favorite part really was the thesis that we wanted to answer in the beginning Can we make a storage-less solution that quite literally streams the blockchain. It was like this buzzword we use the moon. We're trying to find a developer to come on and help us build it. That was like our keyword. It was like we want to stream the chain, whatever that means and however it's possible, like we just need to make that happen, and so we're super excited about it.

Devon Figures: 39:30

So what literally happens? I click a token on my phone and I go to push it through to my office TV. It's scraping the metadata, grabbing relevant points of information, grabbing the highest quality version of that file that exists within, like the token URI, and then it's pushing that to the TV. So there's no saving happening, there's no backend storage. So you know, anytime you save something and repush it, you're getting a loss of, you know, compression and things like that. We're literally pushing from the chain to your living room and it's this super awesome, instantaneous thing that happens where you're able to. Essentially, the higher quality your TV, the better quality you're going to see the art in the end and it's uh, it's fascinating, it's really fun, oh, wow.

NorCal Guy: 40:12

That's awesome man. That sounds great I oh wow, that's awesome man.

Devon Figures: 40:20

That sounds great. I'd love to have a solution for TV in my house.

NorCal Guy: 40:22

I look forward to jumping in. I don't have an Apple TV, though, so when we get beyond, that We'll get there.

Devon Figures: 40:30

We're working on it. We're working on it. We've got some definite ideas. We'll make something happen. I like it.

NorCal Guy: 40:35

We'll get you on board one day yeah, man, well devin, thank you so much for coming on the show today, for, uh, letting me learn a bit, a little bit, and uh, our guests are our listeners. Learn a little bit about you and uh, and you're the project you're working on, because it is pretty awesome and it makes it so everyone can have it within their reach, to have it on their walls at home yeah, no, we're super excited about it, man, hopefully uh becomes something that people kind of can start to standardize and use.

Devon Figures: 41:06

We want to get art off the timelines and get it out from, you know, collecting dust and inside of our wallets. It's time to start living with it. So hopefully we're able to make a small dent in that. And yeah, but either way, man, thank you so much. This was fun. It was really cool to answer some of those questions. Hopefully I provided some level of insight. I don't know how I did, but hopefully it was good. But yeah, thank you so much, guy, I appreciate it. Who is?

NorCal Guy: 41:30

this. Who is this guy? Who is this guy who?

Devon Figures: 41:35

is this guy? Who is this guy? Norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal and chill podcast. So it's chill time, norcal and chill podcast. What the fuck. What the chill? Norcal and chill podcast. So it's shoo time, your cow and shoo podcast. What the shoo, what the shoo.