Daft Punk meets CryptoPunks as Novo faces up to NFTs – Cointelegraph Magazine

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Daft Punk meets CryptoPunks as Novo faces up to NFTs – Cointelegraph Magazine

Just recently, NFT collector CryptoNovo was posing for hundreds of photos, taking meetings with top tech companies and attending scores of invitati


Just recently, NFT collector CryptoNovo was posing for hundreds of photos, taking meetings with top tech companies and attending scores of invitation-only parties across New York City.

Today, the former-schoolteacher-turned-Metaverse-mascot is raking leaves in his suburban Illinois front yard.

“Dude,” Novo remarks excitedly as he works, “That just happened.”

That would be NFT.NYC, the early November conference/gathering/bacchanal that represented a coming-out party of sorts for the nonfungible token community.

While NFT.NYC 2021 was the third event in what will almost certainly become a series of (at least) annual affairs, it represented an explosion in popularity over the 2020 offering. Ticket sales jumped. Additional days were added. NFT.NYC ballooned to a four-day extravaganza at which Quentin Tarantino, Chris Rock and The Strokes, among others, made appearances.

Among the big names, NFT enthusiasts and curious passersby crisscrossing Times Square that week, CryptoNovo stood out. Many NFT initiates knew who he was, and while NFT novices had no idea who he was, they seemed to instinctively understand that even at this event, this guy stood out.

 

 

Crypto Novo
Novo holding a rake outside his home in the Chicago suburbs. Source: John Lacombe (Full disclosure: Novo does not, in fact, typically rake leaves while wearing his mask.)

 

The collection

CryptoNovo holds a collection of NFTs that is currently valued at $4 million. Meebits. Bored Ape Yacht Club. Adam Bomb Squad. World of Women. Many others. And, of course, CryptoPunks.

Novo owns nearly $2.5 million worth of CryptoPunks alone. One of them, however — CryptoPunk #3706 — stands out from the others.

Not because of its monetary value, but because Novo actually uses it as his face, strapping an LED digital mask to his head that completely covers his actual features.

For Novo, NFT.NYC was yet another leg in what has become the ride of his life.

“I had friends come out to New York with me who didn’t even have any NFTs,” Novo recounts. “They figured they’d sleep on pull-out couches in my hotel room and maybe come around with me and see New York. Suddenly, they’re on this million-dollar ride, this Entourage-type situation. We’re getting into clubs without paying a dollar. All of the access is based on NFTs in my collection.”

“We’re rubbing shoulders with famous and semi-famous people who love us for the stake of value that we put into the community. When it was finally time to take off the mask and get on the plane home, it was weird.”

We may live in a world in which Elon Musk named his child “X Æ A-Xii,” but CryptoNovo is not, in fact, Novo’s real name. What began as an online handle has evolved into, well, a full-blown persona.

The story behind that persona begins with Novo’s journey to the world of NFTs, which he considers to be a typical one.

“It goes back to toys for me. When I was a kid, I didn’t get toys all the time. Birthdays, holidays — that was it. For me, toys were something to keep track of and protect. As I got older, that evolved into collectibles.”

 

 

Collage of photos from NFT.NYC. Source: Twitter

 

 

The collector

Novo collected rare comics, unopened Star Wars Lego sets and everything in between. Like many collectors, he viewed the emergence of cryptocurrency with less skepticism than most: Here was something that, in addition to its intrinsic value, could be valued, bought and sold the same way a baseball card could be. One day, during a cryptocurrency conversation in 2019, a co-worker mentioned NFTs. That was all it took to get Novo hooked. “I realized that we were looking at a new frontier, not just of currency but of collectibles.”

Novo threw himself into the NFT space with fervor, becoming a fixture on NFT Discord and surrounding himself with, as he puts it, “the smartest people in the space.” Noted ground-floor NFT collector Tony Herrera taught Novo NFT basics such as getting a MetaMask wallet, transferring ETH into it, getting an ENS name, and actually buying NFTs and posting them for sale. Novo met NFT creators such as the influential artist and collector Pranksy. Novo asked questions, took notes, and offered help and input whenever he felt that he could.

Eventually, Novo arrived at the moment that he is perhaps most well-known for in the NFT world: his rags-to-riches purchase of an NFT known as the “Pranksy Hoodie.”

novo punks
Novo’s collection of CryptoPunks. Source: OpenSea

“I was a teacher,” Novo begins. “I didn’t have money to be dumping into NFTs left and right. I set aside one paycheck to invest, and I couldn’t really go over that. I couldn’t afford an Alien, an Ape or a Zombie

, I couldn’t afford a Beanie, etc. So, I started looking at another class [of CryptoPunks]: the Hoodie. There were more of that class, but they were statistically still pretty rare. But I wasn’t interested because of that. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and I liked the…



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