The future of digital collectibles is here!
During the latest episode of AfroTech’s Black Tech Green Money, Will Lucas gets the scoop on all things digital by way of sports broadcaster, former athlete and heavy digital collectible head Rosalyn Gold-Onwude.
Gold-Onwude is a sports broadcaster for ESPN and a former Stanford college basketball player, who also took her talents to Nigeria to join their women’s national basketball team. As someone who believes in the power of digital technology, she breaks down an introduction to the space of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
“I started in January to be honest, right at the beginning of 2021,” she explained during the episode. “The spaces move so fast and I have picked up quite a lot of knowledge, but I’m learning. I cover the NBA, but somehow I have found myself emerging at the intersection of sports and crypto and entities, which is actually exploding because like an artist who creates art, athletes are also creators and we’re all creators and thus NFTs are quite empowering.”
NFTs Are The New Normal
Much like the rest of the world, Gold-Onwude has been curious about what exactly NFTs are and what they do. Luckily, she used downtime during the pandemic to become well-versed in the space.
NFT art is not always about avatars and pfps. NFTs can also be very intimate. 1/1 pieces of art. A story shared and immortalized on blockchain. Here’s a thread on a personal piece I worked on w/ one of my fave digital artists: @Yosnier_ ❤️ https://t.co/Lze3Bh19Uc
— Ros Gold-Onwude (@ROSGO21) August 23, 2021
“My reason for getting into this space was because literally, during the pandemic, everything was exploding,” she explained. “People were exploding and stock people were making money in crypto. So, I literally had enough people around me that were aware of crypto, but I was intimidated. I felt like ignorance was bliss and it wasn’t.”
She continued: “So, I challenged myself to just try to learn all that there was to know about it.”
Thanks to Gold-Onwude’s curiosity in learning and spreading the wealth about NFTs, Blavity co-founder and CEO, Morgan DeBaun, would soon come on board to learn more about the currency shaking up the digital space.
“We were talking a couple of months ago in LA and she was telling me about her NFT portfolio and I was asking a bunch of questions, but just did not have the capacity at the top of this year, or even really last year to learn anything new,” DeBaun explained. “We were already learning new things with COVID and pivoting the business and AfroTech into this metaverse experience that we had last year.”
Staying Ahead Of The Curve
For DeBaun, although she did not fully understand how NFTs worked at the time, she trusted Gold-Onwude’s judgment and decided to dive in and learn more.
“One of the things I love about AfroTech and just technology in general is that there are people who are ahead of the curve and pretty much anyone who’s watching or listening to this right now is ahead of the curve,” she continued.
To stay ahead of the curve and learn more about all things NFTs, digital collectibles and more, listen to the full Black Tech Green Money episode below.