Gary Vaynerchuk, the outspoken CEO of creative agency VaynerMedia, checked in with Cheddar before the weekend to share his views on the biggest stories this week.
On creating jobs in the digital economy post-COVID:
"We've seen this before. When there's huge technology advancements, things evolve," he said.
Rather than focusing on the jobs being lost to technological changes, Vaynerchuk emphasized the "millions" of jobs being created around capturing and producing online content. He pointed to the emergence of “non-fungible tokens” or NFTs, which are digital certificates on the Ethereum blockchain that authenticate ownership of a digital asset and can be bought and sold.
Digital economy evangelists such as Vaynerchuk see NFTs as crucial to monetizing the web.
"It feels like a sea change: the blockchain, the ledgerization [or] digitalization of all goods, the way music is distributed, books, the way art and collectibles are sold, the way season tickets can be sold."
The goal, Vaynerchuk explained, is for the NFT market to set prices for the online economy.
On the possibility of new regulations for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies:
"Regulation is the elephant in the room," he said.
On the one hand, he said bitcoin has gotten "over the hump" of gaining legitimacy with the general public, but that it now presents a challenge to sovereign nations on what steps they will take to regulate the cryptocurrency, and how those actions could impact its long-term success.
"I think it's going to be extremely interesting over the next half-a-decade to a decade to see what happens, and how much momentum will that currency, that community have versus what happens if it gets overregulated," he said.
On the upcoming direct listing of Coinbase, a digital currency exchange:
"You don't see companies doing this level of revenue profitably before an IPO, with a trend that is so macro that they're dominating in," said Vaynerchuk, who disclosed that he invested in the company back in 2014. "So, I'm just very curious what the market is going to do with it, but they have a lot of good math on their side."
Memorial Day rang in the unofficial start of summer here in the United States -- and with it, the unofficial start of summer travel. Whether consumers traveled by air or by land, they probably experienced some form of frustration over the weekend. Flyers faced delays and cancellations, and drivers faced the most expensive gas prices ever recorded on Memorial Day. Zach Griff, Senior Aviation Reporter for the Points Guy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-generation gaming ecosystem Joystick recently raised $8 million in a seed round and is in the process of raising a $110 million Series A funding round. Gaming ecosystems are a relatively new type of platform in the Web3 space, allowing users to maximize their play-to-earn gaming opportunities, exchange crypto-currencies, and sell their digital assets. Joystick says its platform is flipping the current model on its head by giving players the opportunity to keep 100% of the revenue they earn. Robin Defay, co-founder and CEO of Joystick, and Michael Le, co-founder of Joystick and TikTok content creator, join Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Abe Stein, Head of Innovation at Sports Innovation Lab, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he explains why the top four spots on his company's 2022 list are European soccer clubs and discusses Sports Innovation Lab's plan to publish data on women's pro sports teams in the not-too-distant future.
Joel Birch, Co-Founder and CEO of Stacked, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he explains why he doesn't see any new catalysts that would lead to a Bitcoin rally at the moment. He also reiterates that now is a good time for long-term Bitcoin investors to buy low.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
The holiday weekend saw Disney+ and Netflix competing head-to-head for streaming views as the Disney behemoth kicked off the unofficial start to summer with its release of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" and Netflix responded with the first part of "Stranger Things" Season 4. The streaming giants caught the eye of Wall Street, and Seth Schachner, the managing director at consultancy Strat Americas, joined Cheddar News to break down the heavy hitters. "This is a very tough, competitive game, and I don't see it getting any easier," he said. "I think you'll probably see more consolidation."
