Joe: Alright Lewis, I'm going to say a book title, and you give me your gut reaction. Ready? NFTs Are a Scam / NFTs Are the Future. Lewis: My gut reaction is that the author is trying to sell two different books to the same person. Or maybe he just couldn't make up his mind. Joe: (Laughs) That's exactly the point! The author is Bobby Hundreds, the guy behind the iconic streetwear brand The Hundreds. He's not a tech bro; he's a cultural entrepreneur who built a massive community from the ground up. Lewis: Ah, so he's seen a hype cycle or two before. He knows what it's like when something is suddenly the coolest thing in the world, and then suddenly it's not. Joe: Exactly. And this book, NFTs Are a Scam / NFTs Are the Future, is his personal diary from 2020 to 2022, chronicling his dive into the deep, murky, and sometimes brilliant waters of Web3. It's a fascinating look from someone who is both a true believer and a deep skeptic. And that duality is the perfect place to start, because the book kicks off with this wild comparison that perfectly captures why people are so divided.

Joe: Hundreds opens the book by drawing a parallel between two seemingly unrelated moments in history: the end of the 1960s hippie movement and the recent crypto crash. Lewis: Hold on, the hippie movement? That ended with Charles Manson. Is he saying Web3 is headed for a similar dark turn? That feels a little heavy-handed. Joe: It is, but the connection he makes is surprisingly sharp. He talks about the 60s as this period of incredible idealism. Peace, love, breaking down old structures. But it was also vague and naive. There was this void of authority, and into that void stepped Charles Manson, a charismatic grifter who exploited that idealism for his own horrific ends. The author quotes Joan Didion, who said that after the murders, "The paranoia was fulfilled." The dream was over. Lewis: Okay, I can see the shadow of that. So what's the modern equivalent? Joe: Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX. Here you have this utopian vision of Web3, this idea of decentralizing finance and empowering the little guy. SBF was the poster child—the quirky, brilliant altruist who was going to use crypto to save the world. And then, boom. It's revealed to be a massive house of cards built on fraud. Billions of dollars vanish. The trust evaporates overnight. For the Web3 world, it was their Manson moment. The paranoia was fulfilled. Lewis: Wow. When you put it like that, it's a powerful metaphor. Both were movements promising a better world, but their lack of structure and their blind faith made them vulnerable to total corruption. Joe: Precisely. And it’s that vulnerability that fuels the "scam" side of the argument. The book is full of examples of this, not just the big ones like FTX, but smaller, more cringeworthy moments. He tells this story about the Bored Ape Yacht Club, probably the most famous NFT project, trying to do a marketing stunt in New York City. Lewis: Let me guess, it didn't go well. Joe: They hired a marketing company that went around stenciling the BAYC logo on sidewalks. But one employee, completely oblivious to street culture, painted over a memorial piece for a legendary, deceased graffiti artist named NEKST. The graffiti world erupted. It was this perfect microcosm of the NFT gold rush: tech money, culturally clueless, stomping over something authentic and respected without even realizing it. Lewis: That is painfully awkward. It’s like a tech startup trying to be "edgy" by opening a pop-up shop in a punk rock squat. It just screams inauthenticity. Joe: And that's the core of the "scam" argument for many. It’s not just about the financial risk; it's a cultural one. It feels like a hollow imitation of real culture, powered by hype and greed. The book got some pretty polarizing reviews for this reason; readers who are already skeptical of NFTs felt he didn't go hard enough on the scam side, while the believers thought he was too critical. Lewis: So I get the 'scam' part. The space is full of grifters and cultural missteps. But the other half of the title is 'the future.' Where does Hundreds see the promise in all this chaos?

Joe: This is where his background in streetwear becomes so crucial. He argues that we're in the middle of a massive shift in what we consider valuable, and NFTs are just the most visible symptom of it. He tells this fantastic story about the artist Maurizio Cattelan at Art Basel. Lewis: The guy with the banana? Joe: The very same. He duct-taped a banana to a wall and sold it for $120,000. The art world went nuts. But what were people actually buying? The banana would rot in a week. They were buying the certificate of authenticity. The banana was just the vessel; the certificate was the proof of ownership, the story, the status. Lewis: Okay, I see where this is going. The NFT isn't the JPEG, it's the certificate. Joe: Exactly. The JPEG is just the banana. The NFT is the provable, unforgeable title deed on the blockchain. And he argues that younger generations intuitively get this. He talks about his own kids at Christmas, getting piles of physical toys and then immediately going back to their iPads, asking him to convert their Christmas money into V-Bucks for Fortnite. Lewis: That makes so much sense. I've seen people line up for hours for a pair of sneakers they'll never wear. It's not about the shoe; it's about being part of the club, having the rare item that signals you're in the know. So NFTs are just the next-gen version of that? Joe: That's the core argument. Streetwear, he says, was the training ground for NFTs. Brands like Supreme mastered the art of creating value through scarcity, storytelling, and community. A Supreme box logo hoodie is, materially, just a piece of cotton. But it’s a cultural artifact. It tells a story. An NFT, he argues, does the same thing in the digital realm. A CryptoPunk on your Twitter profile is a "digital Lamborghini." It signals your status, your taste, your entry into an exclusive club. Lewis: So the value isn't in the pixels, it's in the culture built around the pixels. Joe: Precisely. And when it's done right, it can be incredibly powerful. He interviews Betty, the co-founder of an NFT project called Deadfellaz. They built their entire project around a culture of inclusivity and creativity. They made their zombie characters gender-neutral and focused on empowering their holders to use the art. They built a real community, a "club" that people wanted to belong to for reasons beyond just the floor price. Lewis: That’s a much more compelling vision than just a bunch of people trying to flip monkey pictures for a profit. It’s about identity and belonging. Joe: It is. And he says that's the future. The projects that treat NFTs like a new form of streetwear—as a cultural signifier, a community pass—are the ones that will last. The ones that treat it like a get-rich-quick scheme are the ones that end up feeling like a scam. But building that 'club' is where it gets incredibly difficult. And this is where the book gets really personal and raw.

Lewis: It sounds like a tightrope walk. You have to create culture, but you're also dealing with a market that's basically a 24/7 digital casino. Joe: A thousand percent. And Hundreds documents his own journey walking that tightrope. He has this incredible line in the book: "Building an NFT collection is like building a company in reverse. You collect all the money upfront and then you spend the rest of your life proving your worth to your customers." Lewis: Wow, that sounds brutal. So your customers are now your shareholders, and they can yell at you 24/7 in a Discord channel. That's a nightmare. Joe: It was. He describes launching his own collection, the Adam Bomb Squad, and the immediate aftermath. The project sold out in 40 minutes, which sounds like a huge success. But then the real work began. His community of fans transformed overnight into a community of investors. They weren't just buying a digital collectible; they were buying a piece of the brand, and they had expectations. They demanded utility, a roadmap, constant communication. The pressure to keep the floor price up was immense. He talks about the mental and emotional toll it took, the sleepless nights, the feeling of being beholden to the market's whims. Lewis: That's the dark side of "community ownership," I guess. The community owns a piece of you, too. Joe: Absolutely. And this all came to a head in this dramatic showdown with OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace. In late 2022, marketplaces started to question whether they should enforce creator royalties on secondary sales. This was a huge deal, because royalties were the revolutionary promise of NFTs for artists—the idea that you could get a cut every time your work was resold. Lewis: Right, that was the whole pitch. Finally, a way for artists to get paid in perpetuity. Joe: And OpenSea was about to cave to the pressure and make them optional. Hundreds got the call while he was at Disneyland with his family and other NFT founders. He describes this surreal, tense meeting in a hotel lobby, realizing that the entire foundation of the creator economy in Web3 was about to crumble. Lewis: What did he do? Joe: He, along with Betty from Deadfellaz and other creators, decided to take a stand. They organized, they spoke out. Hundreds publicly announced he was severing his partnership with OpenSea for his upcoming drop, just days before it was supposed to launch. It was a massive risk. Lewis: That takes guts. To walk away from the biggest platform in the space. Joe: It does. And it worked. The community rallied, and the pressure was so intense that OpenSea reversed its decision. They agreed to continue honoring royalties for all collections. It was a huge win, not just for him, but for all creators. It showed that the community, when united, could actually shape the future of the space. Lewis: That's an incredible story. It brings all the themes together—the chaos, the community, the high stakes. Joe: And it leads to his final, most counterintuitive argument. After all that pain and struggle, he concludes that the only thing that can save NFTs is... more NFTs. He argues that the scarcity model is a trap. To build a real, sustainable ecosystem, you need to be like Nike with Air Jordans or Supreme with their weekly drops. You have to keep creating, keep innovating, keep building the world. That's how you create lasting culture and nostalgia, not by guarding a single, static treasure chest.

Lewis: So, after all this, where does Bobby Hundreds land? Is it a scam, or is it the future? It feels like he’s arguing both sides so hard he must have given himself whiplash. Joe: He lands exactly where the title suggests: in the messy, uncomfortable, and deeply human middle. He argues the underlying technology—provable digital ownership, a direct connection between creator and community—is absolutely revolutionary. That part is the future. Lewis: But? There’s always a but. Joe: But the human layer built on top of that technology is filled with the same old greed, hype, tribalism, and foolishness we've always had. The scams are real. The collapses are real. The cultural cringe is real. His point is that the 'future' part isn't guaranteed. It has to be built, thoughtfully and with an eye on culture, not just on code. The technology is a tool, like a hammer. You can use it to build a house or you can use it to smash windows. Lewis: So the tech isn't the scam, but people can be. And the book is a call for the builders, not the window-smashers, to win out. Joe: That's it perfectly. It's a plea for patience and intention in a world that rewards speed and hype. It’s a time capsule of a chaotic moment, but also a blueprint for a more interesting future, if we’re willing to build it. Lewis: It makes you wonder, what other things in our lives derive their value not from what they are, but from the story we all agree to believe about them? Joe: That's a deep one. From art to money to brand names. It's all a shared belief. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What's your take on NFTs? A scam, the future, or something else entirely? Let us know. Lewis: This is Aibrary, signing off.