This digital creator has a hot tip for crypto neophytes

NFT artist Emily Yang has raised millions of dollars. This is how she did it. #Cannes2022

Transcript

00:00I was just really surprised that so many people are willing to spend so much money on digital assets.

00:05But then I look at people who are spending $40,000 on a watch,

00:09and then I'll think, okay, it's actually not that ridiculous.

00:30I basically got into 3D animation when I watched WALL-E for the first time when I was in university.

00:42And I decided that this is what I wanted to do as a career.

00:44I've been working in the visual effects industry for about six years before I started working

00:50in cryptocurrency.

00:51And then, you know, sort of in the early 2021 days, NFTs really started taking off.

00:58And so I guess my magnum opus is probably when I had my first NFT auction and it sold

01:04for over half a million dollars.

01:06But all of it went to charity because, you know, I think I realized that through the

01:12efficiency of crypto crowdfunding, we could really put that to good use and sort of disperse

01:19these funds to people who might not have access to the same resources and tools.

01:23How did you get into the crypto space initially?

01:25Yeah, it's actually really funny because I think it was around 2017 when I had saved

01:30up a little bit of money and I wanted to invest it somehow.

01:34And I asked my parents, who are more investing in traditional finance, but I don't understand

01:40traditional finance at all.

01:41So I don't understand buying bonds and stocks and what that means.

01:45And then so I started going on Reddit to look at how to invest my money as a young person.

01:52And then they basically, I stumbled upon the cryptocurrency subreddit and then people there

01:58were saying, you know, how to basically invest your money with cryptocurrency.

02:02One piece of advice that I learned from Reddit, which is never invest any more money than

02:07you're willing to lose.

02:09And then with that being said, I think if you haven't sort of lost any money, then you

02:14have not been fully initiated into the world of crypto and investing, right?

02:18So, yeah, you just learn by just doing.

02:22What are you personally most excited about?

02:25Well, right now I'm building sort of this decentralized video platform because I'm personally

02:32really passionate about filmmaking or longer form content as well.

02:35And I feel that the current state of NFTs has been a little bit stagnant with just,

02:41you know, JPEGs, still images.

02:43And also if it's a maybe just like a five second animation that's looping and, you know,

02:47I shouldn't say this because I'm an artist, but I really believe that the future of NFTs

02:51is not going to be focused on art or anything.

02:54It's going to be so utilized in so many aspects of our lives.

02:57For example, like birth certificates or driver's licenses should be NFTs.

03:02Tickets to events should be NFTs and so forth.

03:06Yeah.