Speaker 1: Where the market is really largely based on, um, visual, beautiful artwork, but mostly visual based NFT projects that are largely designed around Tomic and they typically sell quick and provide, um, a great return. Um, these projects are not without community, but we find that the storytelling is a second thought to the art and the, um, the return on the projects and the, and the projects investments, which are not bad things. It's just not what we need to promote projects like legends of cipher that are heavy in story heavy in lore, deep universe building requires more attention, more time and more energy from our audience than your typical NFT project.

Speaker 2: Welcome to story first, a podcast where we shine a light on the web three Mavericks that are leveraging the power of narrative to create immersive NFT worlds. We investigate the art and science of story building through insightful interviews with creators, collectors, and investors. For those who seek a richer NFT experience, this is your portal to a vivid new am fiction Story. First is a production of story. Prema dad, whose mission is to encourage the growth and success of story focused NFT projects Through research, education, and project incubation story. Prema dad brings you the blockbusters of tomorrow.

Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the first hashtag story. First podcast, a weekly show where we talk about web three NFT projects that are focused on storytelling. We represent an organization called story pre Medo, and we believe Laura heavy store refocused NFT projects are built to last and will form the foundation of a new breed of hugely influential properties in gaming entertainment, art, and beyond the hashtag story. First podcast highlights the Mavericks who are leveraging the power of NFTs to tell the blockbuster stories of tomorrow. My name is Evan Sawyer, and I'm joined by my esteem colleagues co-host and co-founders James Devon and Barry Donaldson together. We make up three quarters of the origin team for legends of cipher and story prima do, which are the two topics we'll be discussing today. But before we jump into those topics, let's start with some introductions. Barry, let's start with you. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Speaker 3: Hello. Hello. Uh, my name is Barry. Uh, I currently live up in Alaska. Um, I'm a rider. Uh, it's primarily what I do with the two projects, focus on fiction, um, education and fiction philosophy. Uh, I love to get outside. I love to travel. I love to live in other countries, experience new things and try to change my perspective and just see the world a bit differently. So, yep.

Speaker 1: Awesome James in the beautifully lit room.

Speaker 4: Hey guys, my name's James ever. Um, if you can't tell for my accent, I live in Scotland. I have been an artist. I've been a trader, um, in my spare time, I like to read, like to learn and I like to get out in the mountains of this beautiful country and take my dogs. And that's about me.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, you dev thanks guys. Yeah, yeah, me I'm uh, my name is Devon. I live in Canada, just outside Toronto. Um, I'm an ex finance executive, um, traditional finances we say in web three. Um, my air areas of expertise who are marketing branding, and e-commerce did that for two decades. About two years ago, I fell down the rabbit hole, um, working in web three and I've been full-time, uh, in the space since last summer. Um, and like my esteem colleagues here, um, uh, uh, co founder and, uh, contributor to both the story pre Medo and legends of cipher two topics for today. So we're gonna start with, um, introducing our audience to the story pre Meow. Uh, what is it? It's a decentralized autonomous organization with the mission to accelerate growth and success of story focused and NFT projects through media research, education and project incubation.

Speaker 1: The origin of story pre now actually came from our own efforts to launch our own NFT project, legends of cipher, uh, where we found it difficult to create awareness in the community, the market, where the market is really largely based on, um, visual, beautiful artwork, but mostly visual based NFT projects that are largely designed around to omics. And they typically sell quick and provide, um, a great return. Um, these projects are not without community, but we find that the store telling is a second thought to the art and the, um, the return on the projects and the, and the projects investments, which are not bad things. It's just not what we need to promote projects like legends of cipher that are heavy in story heavy in lure, deep universe building requires more attention, more time and more energy from our audience than your typical NFT project. So we've launched story prima as a way to create a market and create a space for those projects to flourish and create a media arm through distribution channels, such as this podcast. Um, so that's my spiel on story prima. Uh, but crayons, uh, in your words, tell us your thoughts and feelings.

Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, so the idea of story at first is to me is so as a writer story first is easy to talk about cause you literally write stories. Uh, it exists, I think in all, all art forms, whether it's any sort of visual arts or music, uh, or anything you can come up with. Um, but it's the idea that you give the story, the art, whatever it, to fulfill the vision, or to make its best self it's, kinda like the art exists in and of itself and to create it, it, uh, it needs, it needs all the right food and the right sources and just no compromises basically. So that story first to me, um, then if you extrapolate that out into story Prema data, how it's the idea that you can find projects that are story focused as opposed to profit focused? It's not that profits are bad, but story to me story is more important. Like obviously I would like to make money and make a living and whatnot, but creating the art is the most important thing. So I look for projects that have that same mind and try to help them, uh, in whatever way they might need it, whether it's technical expertise marketing, um, maybe they're just looking for fans. So that is, I hope what story Prema Dow can do, um, find little projects or big projects, whatever, any project that is, story focused and help them. So,

Speaker 1: Yeah. Great insight, James, what would be, uh, some thoughts for you on story prima? What is it and, uh, why do you think it's important?

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, um, personally, it's, it's a, it's a meeting place for people who believe that story is important, right? It's always been important to human beings for millennia. All of our information comes through story and its symbols. So for those who seek a rich NFT experience, this is for you ought to be, um, it's always a, it's also a vehicle for change, I suppose, the, uh, the way that artistic types, um, you know, creators writers make their living is largely through centralized systems. Okay. Publishers and, uh, galleries and, uh, even, you know, streaming, uh, websites and they don't get the sort of support that they need really directly from the community. Okay. So if, if we have a large community and we can bootstrap these projects and then the community get the return instead of the centralized system, then that's, win-win for the artist and the fans.

Speaker 4: Okay. So, um, and I think that's fair. And then lastly, yeah. And then lastly, um, in this NFT market, in this, uh, in this web three ecosystem, it's a new idea cuz like you guys were saying NFT projects just now, even if they are beautiful, um, in, in artwork they're mostly focused on either utility or um, um, maybe, uh, um, what's the word I'm looking for rarity and there's few that are focused specifically on story. There's few that have the patience to watch story play out over a long period of time. Some do, and uh, I'm a member of those communities, but we would like to try to bring all of these communities that are focused on story into one place where they can discuss and look for other opportunities. So then we can bring more artists in and we can grow and grow as a community. That's what it is to me.

Speaker 1: Love it. I like

Speaker 4: It.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that. I, I, I think the change is a big one. Um, you know, a lot of what web three is bringing is disruption. And you know, I, I don't want to say that we're here to disrupt. That's not the goal or, and, or objective, but certainly when I think about the way stories are created to your point, James and his centralized fashion, you know, I think of a Marvel studio. And I imagine what if Marvel studio was run by the fans and the artists working together to create what it is they wanna see what stories they want to tell, how do they want to tell them what sort of art and, um, and music do they wanna see come together? Um, I think that the greatest story telling in a decentralized fashion, um, by the community for the community will bring about the greatest stories ever told. Um, they'll be less manufactured and more grown organically, um, through the, through directly by the individuals who have the ideas. So, um, love what you guys are to say in there. And, uh, yeah, I think story prima that mission is really to bring those stories to light for the world. So awesome. Part, part of what it

Speaker 3: Does, is it, it being NFT, uh, blockchain, web three technology, all that stuff. Part of what it does is in almost bypassing those central, like the Mo uh, movie studio, the big movie studios, production studios, the big music labels, uh, it, those, those are almost gatekeepers. Um, yeah, almost those are gatekeepers. And so that tech, that technology, the internet in general, and then the new stuff as well, allows us to bypass those gatekeepers and allows artists to find their fans without, uh, almost in spite of those groups. Like, I'm not saying they don't have those labels are important. They do amazing things like the mark marketing with nothing else. But, uh, it's be interesting to interesting to see how it plays out people trying to kind of end around the, uh, the giants.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 4: Giants, you know, they, they gate keep the, the archetypal stories of, of, of our, of our history, right. Them. And they tell them again again, in, in different ways and they put SLS on them and it's not manipulative, it's creative, but what it does is it conditions us in ways of thinking, right? So everyone knows what all romance is and lots of people expect this in their life. And that in turn has an on whether we feel satisfied or not. So a decentralized storytelling platform would be truer to what people are really feeling, you know, and it would let the new, the new stories come out. It would be a, um, a way of guiding our own minds and guiding our own futures.

Speaker 1: Wow. I love that. I want to close the conversation on story prima right there, cuz I think that is the highest level mission for us. You know, um, something we should probably write a blog about or have a piece about cuz I think it's an important and probably the most important part of what we're doing. James, I'm really glad you brought that up. And what a great segue to talk about legends of cipher, which is our own story and the first project that we're incubating through the story prima Dow. Um, so I'll start with a quick intro to legends of cipher. I'm just gonna read it right for, from the website and then I'll pass it over to my colleagues here. So led decipher is a multimedia project, tells a story of a future human civilization fighting for individual freedom. Um, on one side you have hash and his gift to technology that can free humanity from the, the of an, an empire known as cent opoly, which is a central cracy that essentially runs commerce through technology and a power called the metric, which everyone in the cent monopoly aligns to. Um, and the main character on that site is malaria, who is a high ranking agent of this interplanetary empire cent opoly, who will stop at nothing to prevent hash and his allies from giving humanity it's Freeman it's freedom. Um, so there's much more to be said about legends of CI for what it it is, is a story. Um, so let's talk about it guys. Um, Barry, our writer and residents for legends of cipher, what his legends of cipher and why is it the coolest story on the planet?

Speaker 3: uh, so legends of cipher is a science fiction universe. Um, that's trying to highlight or illustrate or bring to light some truths, uh, about the world we currently live in. Um, but in my opinion, any good story draws parallels between like the real modern day world or, or it could be later day worlds as well. It could be universal truths as well. Right. I think like mark Twain is still applicable 150 years later. So it was Homer like thousands of years later. Anyway, uh, so our story is highlighting through these characters, malaria and hash. You mentioned highlighting some of what's wrong and right with the world we live in. Um, so our characters are fighting for individual freedoms for, or to kind of throw off the yolk of centralized power. So people making decisions for you that maybe you don't like those decisions, but you don't have much power to fight them. Um, so in creating these characters in this universe, uh, trying to bring that to light and that to me is less, that is the legends of cipher. That is the mission of the story. So just bringing that to life. Yeah.

Speaker 1: James, you wanna build on that?

Speaker 4: Yeah. Um, uh, to me it's, uh, and I didn't even realize this until we start getting into it. To me, it's a thought exp okay. Because I don't know from one day to the next, what side I choose. Right.

Speaker 3: Yeah. That's a good story.

Speaker 4: They, they both have their, and they both have some strong upsides and you're right, Mario. That is, that is what makes a good story. Oh, for sure. Um, and when we, when we add the, um, when we add the archetypal personalities to it and, and we add the, uh, you know, Elon's old, um, conflict, then it makes even better. And it's so much fun to write. Um, and from an artistic point of view, I get to, we all, do we get to think about, what's it gonna be like 11,000 years in the future? You know, what are the technology gonna be like, how are people gonna be flawed? How is everything gonna work? So we have to take, you know, incremental steps from now through to then, and extrapolate these flaws outward. And it's just so much fun to try and think of what things will be like, then, you know, it's a CR it's such a creative process and you can go, you can go wrong a thousand different ways, or maybe you can't go wrong. Right. Um, I just, uh, Until it's done, I suppose, I won't know what it is yeah. But we'll let, we'll let our readers be the judge of what it really is.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a big part of what we've set out to do, you know, in the kind of web three NFT decentralized context, you know, we do hope to have, um, engagement from our fans in this te storytelling process. You know, we've got a pretty good idea about the infrastructure of the universe and the foundation is set. Um, we've spent nine, nine months on that and many, many, many hours in discussions and debates and writing historical documents and all the, the art that we've created to shape the universe, which has all inspired us to further it. Um, yeah. You know, having the fans help us evolve, the end of the story is gonna be very important, but I think you made a great point, James, in that it's, it's a bit of a thought experiment, you know, well, you both made the point and it's a philosophical discussion.

Speaker 1: I like to think of the context of, you know, to your point, James, about which side should I be on? You know, I think of the cent opoly as imagine the empire wasn't evil. Imagine the empire, there was a massive return on investment for everyone involved that they created a, this metric that allowed everyone to understand where and how they fit into the empire and had a prosper in the empire and that they made it really easy to prosper. Um, and that's what the Cento does with the metric. It makes it very easy for individuals to participate and the prosper, the prosperous nature of the cent opoly Theopolis dedicated to human progress. So it's really hard to fight, but what, you know, the tension we're setting up is that at what point in time does human's attention to his central, um, authority, albeit as good as it may be, start to erode our freedom, um, and our real freedom of choice and so hash and the saurians are bringing that element into story to say, well, there is a different way.

Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be the way of the cent. Please consider a different way. And to your point, James, it comes with its own downsides. Right. Um, I think it was crayons who coined the phrase, um, um, you know, the Cento, um, dulls the edges of life, um, yeah, as much as it creates prosperity in doing so it's not truly living and to choose hash on the siphon is choosing a, a harder way of life. It'll be a struggle. Um, but you're not focused on that one central thing. So yeah, I think we do a good job of maintaining that line between the two choices so that our audience can hopefully rides across the middle with us and, and understands and participates in, in the discussion about the good and the bad on both sides. But ultimately it's a act of a lot of fun to create a science fiction story in the future.

Speaker 1: Um, and I love that as a team, we really challenge ourselves not to fall into science fiction norms, to only challenge what we believe, where we believe the world's going, but also the way science fiction is told as a narrative we're challenging those narratives and everything from the words, the characters and the artwork, um, while also really respecting, um, great storytelling from history. Um, you'll see lots of elements of other stories and narrative show up in ours that are, that are, uh, fun, fun to bring to life in a different way. So, yeah. Um, and I love collaborating with you guys on it and I can't wait till the community gets more involved in understanding it the way we do. Cause I think, uh, it'll really scale the fun.

Speaker 3: I agree with you once people get, once, once people it start to consume it, it, uh, it kind of gets your hooks in you a little more like any, yeah. Anybody that's read Maru, like the short story, like everybody's like it so far, like, oh, that's interesting. What, is there more? Yeah, so it's just a, a matter of time.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's a good, good point. And, you know, to put a finer point on that, cuz we're Ru 36 is like, um, kind of the origin. It's a moment in our history that creates the space for the poli to emerge. And R 36 is a story of a, what is it a nine year battle,

Speaker 3: 90, 90 year,

Speaker 1: 90 fricking nine decades.

Speaker 3: The synthetic war,

Speaker 1: The synthetic war is a nine decade war, um, where humanity has decided it's a civil war amongst humanity because mm-hmm, humanity decided we became too dependent on artificial intelligence. So, you know, we've got one narrative which is central authority, central control, freedom, um, and a decentralized context. And this whole notion of what is a, an inevitable reliance on artificial intelligence for the progress of humankind. So, you know, we really tackle those topics head on, um, and rule 36 is a critical point in the, in the history of our universe, um, which is why we chose it as the first NFT for sale. So shameless plug right there, um, route 30 free to read route 36. So you can really check out the story and by the NFT, um, which as you will learn more about is, uh, a way to get into the story. Do, um, story prima, do tokens, um, more to come on that, but I did wanna make that plug. So again, legends of cipher.io, um, you could check that out. Um, well guys, I think that wraps the first episode of hashtag story. First, we talked about story PRMA did a good introduction there, um, website for audiences, story, prima.io. Um, we made a good introduction for legends of cipher, which is the first project to be incubated by the story prima. But, um, yeah, I I'll wrap there. Um, but any closing thoughts from you gentlemen, before I,

Speaker 4: I would just like to, I'd just like to, um, you know, welcome anyone in, who, who is interested in this kind of thing who wants to be more involved in storytelling wants to have a, a, a richer NFT experience, um, just come on in and, and check out the, the websites that Devon mentioned, come and hang out with us and discord, you can come join a disc group and we hang out there and we chat and, um, you know, just look forward to this sort of thing is gonna, is gonna really take off in the, in the near future. I'm, I'm certain of it

Speaker 1: I'm served as well. Barry.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, one thing I wanted to mention, I don't, I don't think we touched on it. Um, the, the idea of story prima is to help artists, uh, but while they receive help, whether it's funding or technological or, or whatever else it might be, they, they retain control and ownership up of their projects. It's not like we're buying a piece and then we tell people what to do. It's Hey, here's basically no strings attached help in whatever form it takes. And I, I think that's a pretty important distinction. And as an artist, that's very important to me. If somebody offered me a lot of, a lot of money, it's like, but we're gonna tell you what to do. I'd be like, mm. Uh, no, thanks. So I just wanted to make that point.

Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think

Speaker 3: It's important for our future audience.

Speaker 1: A hundred percent. I made the reference to Marvel studios in contrast to that, you know, we're not, we're not looking to influence, um, the story or the intellectual property. We're looking to empower individual who has

Speaker 3: To

Speaker 1: Idea and the inspiration to see it through and run it. Um, we just want to help, help bring it to life and provide I media platform to create awareness and fans. So, you know, we can all get together and, um, help each other progress our projects, um, and using story prima as a vehicle and a vessel to do that. Um, so I'm glad you made that point. Um, so with that, I'm gonna close our first hashtag story. First episode, it will not be our last, um, you build to check out the website story, prima.io for upcoming episodes. We are working on the schedule and we are lining, but lining up some great guests as we speak. Um, and as I said, check out legends of site for.io, where you can, uh, deepen your knowledge of the universe we've created there, um, and buy some NFT if you, to like to get involved. Um, so with that, I'll say, thank you, have a great day or great evening as it may be good morning to you all. Cheers.