Sep 11 2023 ------ On Episode 8 of ZEROPOD, Toady Hawk and Cardno host the one and only Jack Butcher, founder of Visualize Value and the man behind the Checks and Opepen art projects. We learn about Jack’s childhood in the UK, how he ended up Stateside, and all about his journey as an artist and a creative. We then delve into the ethos behind Checks and Opepen, the importance of CC0 and permissionless protocols for solving “The Cold Start Problem” for artists, and much, much more. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did, and please LIKE, COMMENT and SUBSCRIBE if you do! --- Timestamps: 00:00 - Teaser: Jack’s advice to aspiring artists 1:12 - Intro 2:00 - The Jack Butcher Origin Story 3:00 - An impactful internship 5:12 - Civics Lesson 6:16 - Another internship 6:45 - New York New York 7:35 - The Welsh Connection 11:23 - Family Lore 11:55 - “Fixing it in post” 13:03 - The NYC Agency Grind 15:20 - Striking out on his own 19:05 - Visualize Value: The Business of Distillation 22:18 - Jack’s Crypto Journey 25:20 - Foundation-al beginnings 28:01 - Double-posting to Ethereum 30:58 - The Modem Moment 32:24 - Ethereum as an art authentication machine 33:23 - “Provenance is Cumulative” 37:47 - In our post-cringe era? 39:00 - Checks Genesis 42:00 - Meaning is reduced to zero 43:17 - Let him cook 44:42 - Mutable vs Immutable Checks 47:47 - Invisible Blue Check 49:30 - The Persistence of Symbols 50:40 - Let’s talk Opepen 52:39 - The Power of the PFP as a Platform 58:45 - The Nouns AI Platform & Opepen AI 61:01 - NPA (Not PFP Advice) 64:00 - The Cold Start Problem for Artists 68:00 - Jack on Nouns 71:00 - Noggles as a Powerful Memetic Icon 73:00 - Jack on CC0 80:00 - “We’ll make art until there’s nothing left to make.” 80:50 - Community Questions: VV Training Bundle 82:00 - The Success Case for Opepen 84:45 - Physical Claim Opepen Set? 86:27 - What’s next for Jack? 90:19 - Have you read any good books lately? 94:00 - Alpha? Connecting the dots with Ethereum 97:00 - Crypto is for Collaboration 100:00 - Jack’s advice for artists --- Podcast recorded and edited by Toady Hawk. Hosted by Toady Hawk and Cardno. Music by SuperTightWoody. Zero Rights Reserved, please remix and reuse our content in any way you like! Produced by The Noun Square onchain media collective. Follow @thenounsquare on Twitter for daily content about Nouns, NFTs, Ethereum and more or visit tns.wtf to learn more.