Fractional NFTs with Loren Dealy Mahler

george grombacher 0:00
Come on let’s go. This is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest strong and powerful. Lauren. Delia Mahler. Lauren, are you ready to do this?

Unknown Speaker 0:18
I am. Thanks so much for having me on today,

george grombacher 0:20
I’m excited to have you on Lauren is the CEO of Jupiter exchange, they’re an alternative asset exchange using fractional NFT technology, making it possible to own a piece of the most wonderful, brilliant things on the face of the earth. And potentially one day maybe even space Lauren, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves, tell us a little about your personal life’s more about your work and why you do what you do.

Unknown Speaker 0:44
Oh, sure, happy to. So we’re really excited about what we’re doing at Jupiter. And for me personally, it’s, it’s always fun to be on kind of the the front end of something and creating something new and building something new. And it’s it’s kind of a common thread throughout a fairly diverse career path that I’ve taken myself. And so was excited to be able to jump in with his team on this idea and build things. So I’ve worked with a lot of startups and companies and new organizations and created new positions and roles and things throughout my career in a bunch of different areas, from national security, to cybersecurity and environments, all kinds of things, for different companies. And I have been so fortunate to always get to work with clients and companies that I love and that are doing things that I really care about. And when you get to do that, and you’re building something brand new at the same time, it’s the like a perfect storm of just fun things to jump into. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here. We’re, we’re taking something that’s been around a really long time, and then the alternative asset market, and we’re combining it with this new technology that even the people who say they really understand it don’t necessarily yet really get the full potential of what we can do with it. And we’re combining those things together to to drive something completely brand new.

george grombacher 2:15
Exciting, terrifying, absolutely. All

Unknown Speaker 2:17
of the above, on any given day, moment to moment. I mean, that’s, that’s traditional startup world, right? If I if I didn’t tell you that it was both exciting and terrifying. At the same time, I don’t think I’d be completely honest.

george grombacher 2:29
So are you also a so Jupiter exchange, give us an example of, of, of maybe a really practical use case?

Unknown Speaker 2:41
Sure, absolutely. So my my go to and kind of explaining it, because the the process that we’ve set up makes a lot more sense when you talk through with something specific. So my go to is always a Picasso, because everybody understands the inherent value of a Picasso. And yet, not everybody who loves that artist in that work is going to have you know, millions of dollars laying around to go out and buy one and hanging on the wall. Sure. So you can love it, you can appreciate it for both the art and the beauty that it captures as well as the investment opportunity that it represents. And so the majority of people who can understand that have no access to that actual thing. And so that’s really what we’re changing. So the really high level version of how this would work is someone who we work with asset owners or with studios who have relationships with asset owners, and say someone has a Picasso and they would bring that to us. And we would go through our process. figure out okay, the value of it. And we would take that single work of art and basically turn the ownership of that asset into an NFT. And then we take that NFT, and we fractionalize it to $5 $10 value fractions. And we make those available for people through traditional sort of financial subscription model, kind of I refer to it as I’m making air quotes here for those of you who can’t see me a little mini IPO, if you will, for that assets and subscribe to it at that amount. And then all of those fractions are available on Jupiter exchange on our own exchange to buy sell trade and change in value over time. So if you are a collector and you’re looking to add something to your collection, potentially or diversify your art collection in a way that is a little more accessible, then now you potentially can own pieces of that Picasso or if you’re an investor looking for something different is something a little new diversifying the portfolio, you can invest in that as well. And it injects a lot of liquidity into traditionally fairly illiquid market. You know, it’s not every day that you can go out and just sell your Picasso again, because it’s not every day that someone has several million dollars around to buy it from you. And it also, one of the things that for me, personally is kind of one of the cooler parts about all of this is that we’re opening access to this alternative asset market to people who were never permitted into it before it’s it’s becoming a public market. That is, you know, there’s no, no gatekeeping of, do you have enough money to get into this auction to try and buy this thing, it’s anybody can can participate, which again, for me is is kind of a really cool, fun, new thing. That may not tie level, I may have jumped into a few more details than then you had asked for, but it’s just it gets very exciting when we kind of talk through the process and all the fun benefits that come along the way.

george grombacher 6:03
Yeah, I think it’s super exciting and interesting, and all those things. So the, the wins are for a regular person like me that, you know, maybe one day I will be sitting at a Sotheby’s auction with the whole stick thing in my hand and making bids on Twitter

Unknown Speaker 6:21
right out of the gate, right there. Yeah, you know, you flash your your flash your card, and all of a sudden, it’s yours, you own it, congratulations.

george grombacher 6:28
But we fast forward, you know, six months or a year, and I can go on to duper exchange and buy a piece of a Picasso for a certain amount of money for you know, $100, whatever, whatever it might be. So that’s super exciting. So that’s a win for me, as as a lover of of the thing, the when you mentioned liquidity piece, is that a common challenge is that a common desire, I assume that it is for the actual owner,

Unknown Speaker 6:56
being able to, it depends really on the individual it is it is a win. Absolutely, if that is something that an asset owner is looking for, you know, you always have someone who might buy a work of art and has no interest in looking at it as an investment. As much as now I have this thing on my wall, when I can show all my friends, excuse me, and for those who have these assets, and you have these objects and are looking for that liquidity event, this is a much simpler way to achieve that.

george grombacher 7:30
Got it. And then who actually owns or holds the piece of art.

Unknown Speaker 7:36
It stays with the, the the custody, the actual possession of the item stays with the original asset owner, because we talked about dividing into those fractions, the asset owners will maintain a majority of the fractions and determine what is available for, again, making air quotes to the to the parallel universe of the public float of fractions that are available for for subscription and then trading.

george grombacher 8:04
Nice, cool. So as you like the idea, I totally get that. But then how do you actually put it into practice? What are the regulatory agencies, if any, that you deal with? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 8:21
So the the practicalities and the specific details of how all of this works. That’s the part that we’re really working through right now. But our intention is to actually do it in a fully regulated way to actually embrace the existing SEC regulations for an exchange to register the exchange, and then to actually register the assets, as well. So again, the devils in the details and, you know, some some very close personal work together with them and pay them lots of money, legal team is working through all of that with us to get to that place. But that’s the objective is to actually be fully regulated at the end of the day. Because, as you know, and as, as your listeners know, this is a very gray area space that’s very fuzzy out there right now, when it comes to all the words that everyone throws out with a lot of of intangible understanding of how the regulatory space is going to shake out eventually, when we’re talking about crypto when we’re talking about NF T’s are these securities, are they not? What is what isn’t, especially in the fractional space? It’s a little clearer, but the actual specific regulations around those areas are still so fuzzy that we’re saying okay, well, let’s take an existing regulatory structure and let’s just apply it to the space and make it go. So that’s that’s the plan and the specifics of all of those details. Again, like I said, that’s kind of the the stage that we’re we’re in the process of working through right now. But at the end of the day, that’s what we’re gonna end up with

george grombacher 10:00
Nice. And along the way you are paperwork along the way, you are counting beans and dotting I’s and crossing T’s. And I mean, what the other side is you need to have the inventory to then turn into NF T’s.

Unknown Speaker 10:20
How is that process? Much more fun to try things that actually exist? Right? So, that process is actually another really kind of fun piece of all of this. And, you know, I, I always say things are fine, and then I pause for a second and go, Okay, wait, they’re fine for some of us. Some of us think they’re fine. That’s why we’re doing this. But we have existing relationships with a number of asset owners and a number of NF T studios in that space who have relationships with physical real world asset owners. So we are not when people hear NF TS you know, they think all the digital art world which is amazing and is doing its own thing and taking off and we are not in that version of the NFT space we are in backed by real world tangible things. space. So when we talk about our assets, they’re they’re actually owned physically by people. And we have relationships with a number of asset owners and a number of other really interesting partnerships and relationships in the works that we we hope to be able to talk about soon.

george grombacher 11:33
Nice. And you could tell me that you know that you’re not going to answer it or just down and I’ll move on. But we talked about we talked about paintings, but I also said that there’s going to be memorabilia, and I can probably at some point buy a fractional share Michael Jordan sneakers from whatever. And what about intellectual property like a song? Am I close to my far?

Unknown Speaker 11:56
So one of the fun things about again, I keep using that word, one of the fun things about building this out is that we are stretching across multiple verticals, we’re not focused on just art, or just cars, just memorabilia sports, or movies or Hollywood or music or whatever that may be. There’s a lot of different areas where alternative assets exist and are traded and our own right now as investments. And we are looking to touch on a very large number of those. We like to say basically anything but real estate, because I’m not touching real estate,

george grombacher 12:40
that’s a whole nother

Unknown Speaker 12:42
that’s a whole that’s like four cans of worms. And you know, we’re doing just fine with our own cans right now,

george grombacher 12:48
like three or four too far,

Unknown Speaker 12:51
exactly that I’ve drawn the line of four, that’s enough. But the the different types of verticals, you You are correct, in what you’re looking at. So things aren’t is always the easy kind of go to most obvious example, because everyone understands, it’s basically anything, I describe it as anything that you look at, and the majority of people see it and they understand what its inherent value is, if I have to really explain to you why this thing is really important, then it probably doesn’t necessarily meet our qualifications, we get to curate what is on the exchange, we get to choose what we list, it’s not an open process. So we can be as as picky as we’d like, which is again, fun. And things that fall into those inherently valuable categories that capture that. That beauty that just comes from throughout history and throughout culture that people have always created and captured in these actual physical objects. It’s anything in that world for us.

george grombacher 13:55
I think it’s super exciting and super cool. Obviously, there’s an investment aspect to it, where the the the fractional NFT that I buy of, of the of the painting can certainly go up in value. So there’s that and it’s the love. And the reason people collect things is because they like to do that. And it’s something that makes them happy. So it brings them joy. And just from watching TV and movies, I learned that a lot of the time the actual painting hanging on the wall in somebody’s home isn’t the real painting. So I imagine that if I buy a fractional share, I can then put a copy of the thing on the wall and say I actually do own a piece of that.

Unknown Speaker 14:39
You know, that’s a that’s a funny question. I haven’t had anyone who said Oh, can we do that? But

george grombacher 14:45
sure, not it’s not right.

Unknown Speaker 14:49
Exactly. I mean, if if you wouldn’t go out and make a copy of something and you own a piece of it and tell everyone this is it. That’s the piece. I mean, you know, I don’t think we run into problems there unless you’re trying to pass it off as the real thing, but part of our process and part of the details that we are working through in the beginning as an asset goes from interest to listing part of that process is all of the all of the details around valuation and provenance and all of the authenticity elements that come with it as well. So that’s part of the curation process, if you will, for us, is to make sure we’re, we’re not going to be listing something that’s a really neat photocopy of something that’s actually real hanging on someone’s wall. And that’s, that’s a big piece of this, as well as to eliminate some of those challenges, which are being dealt with in a lot of different ways in the NFT. market now, where it’s there’s a lot less control over those pieces,

george grombacher 15:52
fascinating. Layers upon layers upon layers.

Unknown Speaker 15:55
Absolutely. That’s, that’s what makes it so fun. If it was if it was one single layer, and it was just we’re doing this and everyone knows how to do it, we’re just doing another version of it and trying to make it a better version, then that wouldn’t be nearly as exciting, that wouldn’t be nearly as compelling of a thing for us to be spending our time on. But the fact that we’re layering so many different pieces of things that exist now, in a way that creates a whole new thing at the end of the day is is what makes it both exhausting, exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Oh,

george grombacher 16:29
well, Laura, the people are ready for that different speaking tip, what do you have for them?

Unknown Speaker 16:33
So for me, I am all about diversity. I’m all about diversification, I am all about anything that is a little bit different. You know, I I come from a family with a you know a lot of colloquialisms. So we’re all about don’t don’t put all your eggs in one basket and that kind of thing. But I think that, particularly with a lot of the uncertainty that is going on now both in the economy as a whole. And also especially in the crypto space and in the NFT space and all of that, that any places where you have an opportunity to try something new, invest in something new. Diversify, what you’re already doing, potentially in a new way, is going to have value in the long run. Especially for people who are looking to ride out those markets and see where they end up on the other side. So my I don’t think my different fingertip is that unique, but I think it’s worth really just emphasizing and doubling down on at all times. So whether it’s something like a fraction, Jupiter, which you can’t really buy and invest in anywhere else, or it’s, you know, looking into a different type of investment, a different alternative asset. And another way I think that right now, particularly at this moment in time, taking an eye towards that sort of non traditional investment space makes a lot more sense.

george grombacher 18:05
Well, I think that is great stuff that definitely gets caught. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they get involved with Jupiter exchange?

Unknown Speaker 18:15
Absolutely. So Jupiter exchange.com. That’s the hub of all the things and that site will be expanding as we bring the Exchange Online as we bring the different catalogs online in the coming weeks and months. So stay tuned we have a waitlist where you can sign up and make sure you never miss a fun, new drop a new listing, regardless of what vertical you may be interested in. But that’s a good way to make sure that you’re you’re not going to miss any of the things that we start out with.

george grombacher 18:51
Love it. If you enjoyed as much as I did show, Lauren, your appreciation and share today share with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Jupiter exchange.com and check out all the cool stuff that they’re working on and get on that waitlist. Thanks again lOn.

Unknown Speaker 19:07
Excellent. Thanks so much. I appreciate it and have a good one

george grombacher 19:10
you as well. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight is we’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai