Announcer: Wall Street Unplugged looks beyond the regular headlines heard on mainstream financial media to bring you unscripted interviews and breaking commentary direct from Wall Street right to you on main street.

Frank Curzio: How’s it going out there? It’s October 27th. I’m Frank Curzio, host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where I break the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets.

Frank Curzio: David Evans is the CEO of TCG World. If you’re familiar with TCG World and Curzio Research, made its largest investment in the company’s history, purchasing $5 million of commercial real estate in TCG’s metaverse. I’ve now taken on a much bigger role with the company because I truly believe that this will be the premier metaverse since it’s an open metaverse, meaning open source. And when the ability to create, and more importantly, own their own digital content, own their own ideas, buildings, creations, which can then be sold on secondary markets through NFTs, which is not what you’re seeing today at Facebook and Roblox, since they’re closed metaverses. It’s a very, very big difference. The graphics are 100 times better than Decentraland and Sandbox. Those are the two early adopters. It’s built up a massive team of developers, which includes working directly with Unity, with the best video game software development companies in the world. If you notice, they power most metaverses since it is open source technology.

Frank Curzio: Last time I interviewed David was five months ago, and a lot has changed since then. Major partnership announcements, upgrades in management, more real estate sales, hiring a really, really, really smart and good looking guy to their executive team. So, I want to bring David on again to talk about everything metaverse and also give us an update. And we really are going to talk about everything metaverse. It’s not going to be a layup interview and, “How are you doing TCG? And who have…” No, no, no. We could talk about the state of the industry because everyone is shitting on a metaverse right now, especially Facebook, who has spent more than 5 billion thus far and has seen little profits. Also, seeing graphics for existing metaverses are still crap even though 170 billion is poured into this industry in the first nine months of the year. But you have a lot and lot of doubters out there.

Frank Curzio: It’s exactly what you like to see if you’re a pioneer and entrepreneur. Hey, for me, I hate coming up with an idea and everyone’s like, “That’s awesome. It makes sense. I got to do it also. This is great.” No. You want people to say, “What are you, absolutely nuts?” Think about over a decade ago. It’s over a decade. Elon Musk, “This is going to be a full 100% electric car and it’s going to go 200, 300 miles. You charge it. It’s the future, and we’re going to become the biggest auto company of the world.” People laughed at him. They laughed at him because it was more than 50 years since a US automotive company went public when he started that journey. He went to SpaceX. You could talk about Jeff Bezos and them making fun of him and saying, “It’s never going to work. You’re never going to compete with big box retails, all of…” That’s what you want to hear. You want to hear the pushback. You want to hear everyone just going against you.

Frank Curzio: That’s why I love what I’m hearing right now, actually, with Zuckerberg. “He’s nuts. He’s crazy.” Same thing with Instagram. Same exact thing. Go back. Go back. Please go back. I was watching it, and it was incredible how they destroyed that guy. “1 billion. Why 13 employees, Instagram? He’s nuts. He doesn’t have the experience.” How did it do? $100 billion business today. He even have to sell off. That’s how much his gross worth. Not a bad investment. And when did they make that? 2012? So in 10 years, not bad. Pretty good. That’s a pretty good investment.

Frank Curzio: David’s also got to come with some of the challenges facing the industry, like how to actually buy virtual real estate, which a lot of people don’t know how to do. How to hook it up to your wallet and how a person… And this is a big deal because I get this question a lot with little developer experience, that how do these people get to build it? How do they build on this? It’s hard. It’s a learning curve. If you look at it, my kids could build it in two seconds and have fun. And that’s a generation that’s growing up. Gen Z, millennials, they’re growing up 100%. Developers. They’re developers right now. They’re going to Roblox. They go to Fortnite, build these things. It’ll cover a lot and lot of things. The positive, negatives, and where this company is headed. So, it’d be a great, great interview, and let’s get to it right now.

Frank Curzio: David Evans, thanks so much for joining us on Wall Street Unplugged.

David Evans: Thank you, Frank. Great to be here again.

Frank Curzio:

Wow. The last time I interviewed you is five months ago. You believe that’s how long it was?

David Evans: A lot has happened in the last five months. It’s crazy. The crypto space just doesn’t stop.

Frank Curzio: It doesn’t stop. But I could tell you when I look at Facebook, I feel like Zuckerberg is getting destroyed right now for this metaverse initiative. There’s 170 billion that’s flowed into the metaverse this year alone, where you’re seeing no SPACs, no IPOs, really, just a few here and there. But there is money flowing into this. But there is uncertainty because I think people are just so used to, especially when it comes to social media and technology and TikTok where you want instant gratification, it’s here. This is that. What do you say to those naysayers? Because I know your platform’s different from what when it was closed, or open metaverse. We’ll get to that in a minute. But what are your thoughts on that? Because right now, everybody’s, I don’t want to say it but I am going to say it, they’re shitting on Facebook and saying, “Wasting all this money, and the graphics aren’t good when it comes to Decentraland.” What are your thoughts on this as someone that’s creating one of the premier metaverses out there?

David Evans: No, it goes back to what we discussed early on in our conversations, that it takes time to build out the meta… Zuckerberg is obviously releasing material and information before it’s ready, and nobody really understands what the metaverse is or is going to be at this stage because it’s going to continually to evolve and develop. And even with TCG World, once we launch at the end of this year, that’s just day one of the metaverse. Then every month, there’s going to be continuous new updates, community engagement, community involvement as to how that is going to shape and look the metaverse over the next 1 year, 5 years, 10 years.

David Evans: It’s not a product that’s just going to be released as a single game like you would with GTA or Warcraft. This is something that people are building their businesses and their lives inside the metaverse. And it’s going to evolve, it’s going to change, technology’s going to improve. And over the next few years, more and more people are going to come into the metaverse and actually understand the concept behind it. At the moment, they look at it as potentially Facebook collecting data and information and it all being about advertising. Whereas in fact, the metaverse is supposed to be about people coming in, having social interaction, having fun, having business opportunities, be able to be content creators, and really build out their own experience within the world.

Frank Curzio: Now, talk about some of the recent news that’s been going on with your company. Because when people just read the stories, people, especially when you have social media platforms or platforms in general, they always want to report the negatives because people are going to read that much more often. And they’re saying how land values are declining, and feel piece of the graphics aren’t good, whether it’s Decentraland or Sandbox, and how come they’re not better with all the money coming into it. What are some of the things that you’re saying? Because one that I noticed and why I partner with you guys is the graphics are incredible, the experiences are credible. Talk about some of the news. You see more people sign up to your site or see more people buy land. What’s going on within TCG?

David Evans: Yeah. So look, there’s several sides to this. The business opportunities that are coming to us at the minute are just insane. We’ll say we’re a fairly small company, but some of the partners and agreements we’re setting up are just insane. Obviously, you’ve seen the announcement about Netflix going into WhiteBIT. WhiteBIT we’re the first exchange that we signed up to come into the metaverse to provide education, to provide experiences within TCG World. Now, they’ve signed a contract with Netflix so people can pay using their native token for Netflix subscription, and this is the early phases of mass adoption.

David Evans: You’ve seen a recently Coinbase have partnered with Google. Then we’ve just signed with EpicVerse over the last few months. EpicVerse is a huge company that works with different brands globally. The first one that they’ve bought to TCG World is Triller. That gives us access to Triller Fight Club, Triller Music, Verzuz. So all of a sudden, the experience for our users, instead of just being a game where you run around the game, now you can go to concerts. Now, you can go to events. You can watch fights, whether that’s live, pay per view, or whether that’s pre-recorded. We’re still to establish. But just having that ability within the metaverse to come in with your friends, socialize, and actually be able to watch entertainment is where we start to revolutionize the gaming industry.

David Evans: Then you’ve got the GGtoor. So, the eSports side of it with GGtoor. The vision is instead of sitting in front of your computer and watching Twitch on your own, now we can livestream Twitch into the metaverse for eSports, for events. Then, all of a sudden, you can meet with your friends to go and watch an event that you may not be able to in real life. You could have friends in Australia, UK, America, and you all want to meet together and watch an event. You can do that now within the metaverse rather than having to fly to meet with everybody to do it. So, for those that can’t necessarily travel for any reason, or don’t want to travel for an event, you’ve now got access to those events with your friends from anywhere in the world.

David Evans: We’ve also… I can’t announce the name just yet, but today, we’ve just agreed the second brand coming into the world with EpicVerse, which is another music-related brand which is going to provide a lot more entertainment and content for our users.

Frank Curzio: Talk about Triller, that people might not be familiar with. You have your social media, you’re young, you’re familiar with it. But now, we’re talking about you getting to the level where you’re seeing lots of big investors are going to want to understand this. And even people that I talk to on Wall Street and my clients listen to this podcast because that’s a massive music platform, where I believe it’s Lil Wayne, Marshmello invested in it. But it’s really, really a big deal, this signing.

David Evans: Yeah. They’ve got 350 million downloads. They’ve got 65 million active monthly users posting content on their platform. Essentially, it’s the US version of TikTok, but enhanced.

Frank Curzio: I’ve been a part of this company. We made it a large real estate investment, virtual real estate investment. Full disclosure, 5 million that we bought commercial real estate, which we’re very happy with that. And we’re seeing a lot of people come on board now. What’s the next step for you? Because when I look at the difference between open and a closed metaverse, and a closed metaverse is basically set up for the company, they’re making all the money, where it’s not open where you can create your own products, your services, NFTs, and everybody benefits tremendously. But yet, when I see the closed end, what they have, I feel like is they have these massive audiences. But then you have Decentraland, where I see the graphics aren’t that good. And when I look at your graphics, they’re a million times better.

Frank Curzio: I see Facebook, but that’s a closed ended metaverse, where all the money’s filtering to them. They’re just finding a way to control your data even more, which is not what the metaverse actually is. It’s totally the opposite of metaverse. Even when Disney says it, “Oh, this way we could track people,” it’s not about track people. So with your process, where you have these good graphics, you have a great site, how are you getting… You’ve seen the deals. It’s the next step is really getting the people over to this platform, getting them to hang out. They’re getting them to see it. Because I feel like once they do that, they’re going to say, “Holy shit, the metaverse is real. I’m starting to get it now.”

David Evans: Yeah, exactly. And it’s all about providing the experience for those users coming in. What we want is obviously events, concerts, gameplay, so that as you bring more users in, this is something for them to do. We’re in early alpha at the minute where our community are going in and giving feedback. We’re adjusting the mechanics of the Sprite Capture system so that… One of the revolutionary things that we’re doing is people can play the game, capture a Sprite, and they actually get that Sprite minted as an NFT to their watch.

Frank Curzio: What is the Sprite?

David Evans: A Sprite is one of our creatures. Similar to Pokemon, we have our own range of creatures that Mike Miller from Marvel Comics started to design the first range of creatures for us. And the idea is through gamification, through things to do within the world, it gives users the ability to make profit by collecting these NFTs. And then, each NFT that they own within the world has a limited rarity. So, as more and more users come on board, they can then trade them on the marketplace for a profit. We’ve also got vehicles. One thing that we try to do differently to a lot of other metaverses is make everything that’s in the world have a utility. So, if you buy a vehicle or a boat, you can actually use it. Now, we’re ready next month to start our vehicles, where people can buy a vehicle, use that within the world. Then, when we’re done with it, they can list it on the marketplace.

David Evans: So, this is one of the problems in the gaming industry that we’re trying to address and solve, where people actually have ownership of assets or digital assets that they use within a game. For an example, Fortnite. If your kids are buying V-bucks, and then they’re spending their V-bucks on skins, avatars, weapons, they are tied to that single player account. Whereas now, everything within TCG world and other NFT games is a digital asset stored on the blockchain, where once you are finished with it or you want to change it or upgrade it, you can list that item for sale. It’s not tied to your single account, which hopefully long-term, all of the gaming companies will start to understand and to see the benefit for the users as opposed to benefit just to the company.

Frank Curzio: Now, talk about developing. Because I think one of the problems that I see is people have bought in, we’ve raised money to purchase the 5 million sneaker in TCG World, which is commercial real estate, virtual real estate. The problem is okay, we’re not develop. We don’t know how to do this. And it’s funny because millennials are now 40 years old. And everybody younger, my kids are like developers. They’re on Roblox, they’re on Fortnite, but they’re building things like crazy. I’m like, “Holy cow.” They’re just taking designs. They have the iPad and going on their computer and building these massive, beautiful homes and all kinds of stuff, which is crazy. But what about the generation that’s not familiar with that? How do they do that? Because they’ll go in, they’ll buy land. And they’re like, “Okay, what do I do with it?” And I think-

David Evans: What is it?

Frank Curzio: Yeah.

David Evans: Exactly. That’s that.

Frank Curzio: The value comes with all these people being able to develop this, and you have millions of people with their own creativity just going, “Hey,” unleashing this. But that process doesn’t seem like it’s that easy for all metaverses yet.

David Evans: No, and this is one of the problems we’ve tried to solve, where we’ve… When I was a kid, I used to play Sims. You would spend hours building in Sims, but all those buildings you build are just assets within a game. You don’t own them. Now, we’ve actually built an in-game builder where you can go and build your own building using the assets within the world that we’ve created, and we’ll continually add to that catalog so that every building then becomes unique. The furnishings are unique. Then, you can mean that as an NFT, so you can resell your land with a building or you can resell the building separately. That’s step one.

David Evans: But then, as you said, there’s millions and millions of content creators around the world. We’ve actually just partnered with Sandstorm as one of our new partnerships, and every week for the next year, we will run a building contest where their community can create content that we can then use within the world. Last week was the Sprite contest. This week, we just launched the builder comes. Each builder can then produce homes that we can then give to our community, resell to our community that gives people assets that they can purchase for their lot. And again, everything will have the rarity.

David Evans: But then, stage three is where we’ve opened it up for content creators to create their own content in Blender or other 3D modeling software that we will have the ability to import them into the world. So, we’ve set out our guidelines on how the build must be structured, and it’ll take a little bit of trial and error for everybody to get used to it. But the vision is then, you’ve got content creators in Third World countries or even Second World countries that can create content and sell it on a global marketplace. So, somebody in the US sees it like, “Yeah, I want that house,” and they can purchase it. So, you’re creating opportunity then for creative minds to create their content and sell it globally.

Frank Curzio: Now, when people look at the metaverse, they’re saying, the naysayers, “I’m never going to be in the computer all the time. I’m never going to do this all the time.” And I could see it where there are certain things that you just wouldn’t do. However, there’s clear applications where this is going to be massive, and I think it comes to music as one, casinos, but even the music and the Triller announcement that you had.

Frank Curzio: But when you look at Travis Scott and you look at the… Remember, these are big influencers. They have tens of millions of followers every place. Travis Scott does a concert in the metaverse of Fortnite, and there’s 27 or 24 million people, and he generated $20 million. Put on perspective the biggest entertainers in the world, the Madonnas and Lady Gagas. It’s probably $5 million, and they have to perform the whole time. This is it was less than 45 minutes, the show, but you were able to do it from your house. It was unbelievable. It was an amazing experience, 24 million people. Where how many people go to a venue? You’re lucky if you get 30, 40,000, depending what venue it is. It could be 50, 60, 70,000. But when every single musician sees those metrics, they’re like, “Holy shit, we got to go into the metaverse.” Now, you’re seeing actors and you’re seeing Snoop Dogg and all these performers. That’s an application. I feel like casinos is a massive application where I’m seeing them push into the metaverse as well.

Frank Curzio: What are some of the things that you’re seeing that are surprising? Where maybe not from the investment side, people might be like, “Well, I don’t know if the metaverse is for me.” Maybe that has the developers, but there’s clear application when a metaverse makes so much sense even throughout social media, right?

David Evans: And that’s it, it’s providing the user experience the entertainment. Triller announced they want to have 2,000 metaverse-based concerts in the next year. You imagine that’s five per day going into different metaverses. All of the users of all the different metaverses can see which concerts and events are happening, go and attend them. But then adding the education side, so we are looking to provide education globally through universities, qualified professors that can then educate people, whether it’s in India, Africa. Given access to that kind of education where they don’t have it, where you can go and get English education, science, maths, whatever education people want to provide within the metaverse, we have the ability now to do that on a global scale.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. And I’ve seen even attending your conference in Vegas and so many other conferences at the metaverse were school. Why not teach this through the metaverse, where you make it fun and educational? Where look, school is, it’s a broken system. It really is a broken system when you look at schools and education.

David Evans: And I say, there’s so many countries that just don’t have access to it. So now, as long as they’ve got a computer, internet, phone, where they can actually attend these lectures and classes, then I think it really helps everyone around the world come together in a way where education should be accessible to all.

Frank Curzio: Now, if someone wants to go to you, they can go to your site, TCG World, what would be the step for someone who doesn’t know anything about the metaverse that says, “You know what? I want to see what these guys’ about.” How do they do it? Could they get into your world yet? Go through that process. Even if they want to buy land and develop it because again, 98% of the people in the world don’t know about this. And 1% or 2% is actually like me and you are, are just fascinated.

David Evans: It’s more like 0.01% at the minute. It’s crazy. The adoption is coming. The bigger businesses are coming in. The different experiences are coming. But people just need to understand it, People need to try it and come in. We’ve actually got our alpha open to our landowners. So, anybody that goes to tcg.world, they create a profile, just a name, just an email address. They connect the wallet. They can purchase land on presale, which is 1 BNB for the smallest plots, which is currently just under $300. That then gives them access to come into the world and start exploring being part of our community testers. They’ll get first access to capture some Sprites, they can practice building their homes, and they can also meet with our community and learn more about the metaverse. So, we’ve got a really, really active community on Telegram, Discord. We’ve got our Twitter. We’ve got our Facebook. All of our socials are really active.

Frank Curzio: And when are you planning to is the official launch? I know you’ve been working out, still you’ve been doing a whole bunch of stuff.

David Evans: End of this year will be the public launch, but we started letting the public in. But that’s just day one. Once we launch, we want every month to add new content, new experiences, new creatures so that the world is constantly evolving. If you go into a game and it’s just one aspect of the game, after a while you need something new to keep you engaged. So, what we want to do is plan out one year, three years, five years of new content, new additions, new businesses, newcomers, new user experiences coming into the world so that every time you come back into the metaverse, there’s something new for you to do.

Frank Curzio: I’m glad you’re saying that because sometimes, they call people pioneers and you’re first to the party. And with Decentraland, Sandbox, and what they did is incredible. That was an introduction. But now, you see all the flaws. When you go in there, you’re not going to be in there for longer than 10, 15 minutes, which is it’s a cool experience and the graphics aren’t that good. And you building this, seeing then understanding what people need to see in order to be there, in order to hang out. And the gamification, we talk about the metaverse and application. How important is gamification, where it is really fun going in there no matter what you’re doing? If it’s for business, or if it’s personal, or if you’re capturing things, or if you’re just driving around.

David Evans: Yeah. For me, from day one, as soon as we started the whole concept 18 months ago and then the design and the build out of the metaverse, to me it’s providing the experience. So, to bring mainstream users into the world, they need the gamification to get used to it, to have something to do, activities, whether that’s driving your vehicle, whether that’s meeting at a club with your friends or capturing Sprites. And I think the mixture of gamification with social and economic is what brings the metaverse together rather than just having it as a tool to go in and have a business meeting. Now, you have interaction. You have users coming into the world, grinding. Gamers will happily play if they’re earning rewards. And this is one of the things behind it, that the gamers is in order to get them into a metaverse, they need to play a game. They need to have something to do to earn rewards within the world.

Frank Curzio: What’s the next steps for you and where do you see your company? Because you’re going to launch, say, six months from now. And say, keep it simple, two to three years from now at the metaverse. And you can throw in Facebook in there too who’s going all in. But again, wearing headsets, it’s more of a closed metaverse where everything’s Facebook. It’s not open where you just describe where you could own your own content, own your stuff and resell it, which I think is massive. But where do you see the industry go? Six months, a year or two years? If you could just, that far away.

David Evans: The next six months, we’re going to have more and more businesses coming into it trying to understand it. We’ve met with marketing companies that are trying to get into Web3 and present to their clients, but they just don’t know how to do it yet. So, we need to provide education. We need to provide use cases for NFTs. A lot of people look at NFT and say, “It’s a JPEG. What’s the use of it?” But now, as you go into the actual utility, that JPEG is yours,, and it gives you an item within a game or a world that you own, and you can transfer that and then you can evolve that through dynamic NFTs. All of a sudden, the old still image of an NFT is an actual drivable vehicle in a metaverse. It starts to provide more utility.

David Evans: But we can’t have mainstream adoption until we have education. Everybody needs to learn about blockchain, the technology behind it, how it works, so that they’re safe and they feel secure. A lot of users that are new don’t understand crypto. They don’t understand blockchain. So, we’re providing them with the tools to understand it easily. It opens us up to more global adoption. A lot of people see the scam side of crypto and the dirty side of it, but it’s now educating people about the good side and the use cases. You’ve got governments announcing that they’re going into the metaverse. I think Norway today announced they’re building a headquarters within a virtual world. As in the parlance, started building out in a metaverse. So, as you get more and more global acceptance from governments, from institutions, that then filters down through everybody.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. You’re seeing 8 out of 10 people who have been in a metaverse purchase something. That’s why you’re seeing Walmarts, you’ve seen almost every major retail getting to this. They don’t talk about that. They’re talking more about how is this going to happen, how I don’t see myself in this metaverse. But there’s a reason why people are going in there. That experience is providing people with, I guess, a much better experience compared to just going to stores. But they’re actually buying stuff within the metaverse.

David Evans: And then I’ll say, there’s a lot of VR and AR capabilities within the world where if you don’t want to go to a shop and try on all these outfits, why not go into a metaverse as an avatar, see the outfits, and just have fun with it. It’s like GTA. When you used to go into GTA-

Frank Curzio: That’s awesome.

David Evans: You go to your wardrobe, change your clothes. But now, you can create your own avatar in your own image, go and have fun, do a bit of virtual shopping, and it’s different. I’m a guy. I hate shopping. I’ll go to two shops and that’s it, I’m done. So, to be able to go through the metaverse and go, “Oh yeah, I like that T-shirt. I’ll order that one,” and then have the NFT version for your avatar as well as the real-life product shipped to you, it provides another level of experience.

Frank Curzio: Now, talk about how many developers that you guys have. Because you have developer background, which is why I think I love this project so much, because I think you never looked at it as, “Oh wow, I want to make a shitload of money off of this and this is a good idea. Let’s do the metaverse.” You’re like, “I want to build something fantastic that’s awesome that I think I could do based on everything else I see.” But you guys have tons of developers. Even partnerships with developers, right?

David Evans: Well, and that’s it. We’ve got 30 developers in house that are a mixture of Unity, 3D modelers, frontend, backend, blockchain guys. But now, we’ve extended our relationships with other architects. We’ve met with metaverse architects that are real-life architects that want to bring in their designs into the metaverse. Obviously, we’ve partnered with Sandstorm. They have a community of over 2,300 content creators. And the idea is that then, you haven’t got one single studio coming up with all the different ideas. You’ve got multiple people creating. So, the look and feel of the world is created by the content creators.

David Evans: So, we create the landscaping, the biomes, the road networks. But then all the buildings and experiences within the world are either from different development studios, different teams, or ultimately, the community. And the number of submissions we get from community members learning about Blender, going in and testing it out and making their own creations. And the vision is that long-term, everything is shaped by the community coming in and building their homes rather than us just building out the whole world.

Frank Curzio: Now, having a developer background and being a good, good CEO of a business, and I’ve learned this the hard way because I’ve made this mistake where you micromanage, but you want to do what you’re great at, which is developing, but yet it is a business. So, talk about the management team that you brought on. Because it seems like for you, in order for this to work, you want to unleash your creativity. You want to go crazy with developers and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, you do have marketing, you do have accounting, you’re hiring new people, and you want to get this message out, have presentations and things like that and pitch decks, right?

David Evans: Yeah.

Frank Curzio: So, what have you done on the management side and how has that helped you? Has it helped you even focus more on what you’re great at?

David Evans: Yeah. Obviously, we brought you on as president in the last couple of months.

Frank Curzio: That is me. Good, good.

David Evans: The vision with you is-

Frank Curzio: Sounds like that’s self-loaded question, but actually, it’s not. I swear to God it wasn’t. That’s just not.

David Evans: The vision with you is obviously to help with the Wall Street side.

Frank Curzio: Yes.

David Evans: So, there’s a huge connection that’s going to happen between crypto and Wall Street, and by merging that bridge between the two, this is what we want Frank doing. This is what we want you going out to all the bigger companies, explaining your passion for the metaverse and bringing them in. So, whether that’s Wall Street companies, big US corporations, we’re meeting with shopping centers and things like that, it’s deciding who’s going to be the right fit to come into the world. And by having you and your experience there, that really helps.

David Evans: And then obviously, we’ve brought on Justin as the vice president, and he’s been doing amazing work. He’s just taking so much of the corporate paperwork and the setup side away. So, we’ve got now a really strong structure. And then, obviously, we’ve got Javier, Andre, Eric, Ryan, Tyler, Paul, Cris Barrios, Jace PJ, John, all on the management team. I think we’ve got 17 members on the management team at the minute, and all day every day, it’s just new ideas, new content. What can we do? How can we make things better? What’s the next stage? And literally, because everybody’s all around the world, it doesn’t stop. I wake up in the morning to hundreds of messages. You’ve seen the messages.

Frank Curzio: It’s killer with us. They’re killing with us. Where are you right now? Where are you doing the interview?

David Evans: I’m in the Netherlands now, so it’s 8:00 PM for me. So yeah, it’s just nonstop 24 hours a day. And literally, if you could stay awake 24 hours a day, there is things to do 24 hours a day.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. Because I’m on some of these chats too, and it’s all day. It’s like 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in the morning because people are just all over the place. You want to come and stick some more, see where are you going even.

David Evans: You have to learn to keep your phone on silent.

Frank Curzio: Which is crazy. So, I guess last question here, which is probably the most difficult, how hard is it to manage business with family? Because you, like me, have a family that you’ll love to spend time with, but yet, you have a great business that’s thriving right now and not say, “Oh, but the business is thriving.” But every time we talk, with the hour difference, with the time difference, we’re like, “Oh, I’m on my kids. I’m picking up my kids. Oh, I got to go to a basketball game.” I guess those off hours, right?

David Evans: Yeah, I know it’s tough. I’ve got four kids, so obviously, they all have different needs, different sports, different timeframes. I find I’m literally running from meeting to them, running to pick them up to go the football, pick them up from football, come back and then jump on a call with you. It’s just finding the balance to spend as much time as possible with the kids. But my working day is 8:00 AM till midnight, and then you claw back times in between where I can have an hour and go out with the kids, I can go watch their games. You’ve just got to balance it, and it’s a tough balance.

Frank Curzio: It’s always a tough balance. It’s always a tough balance. So, if someone wants to learn more about TCG and get into it. And guys, look, I’m not talking… I’m one of the biggest investors in your company. I’m all in here. I love interviewing you, and I have a lot of people that actually want to speak to you personally and buy real estate. But if someone wants to purchase real estate or get in touch with you or go to the site, what’s the easiest way for them to do to learn more about TCG?

David Evans: Yeah, so tcg.world is the website. And then on the website, we have all of our social links. We have our Telegram links. And look, I’m active in the Telegram, with the community in there every day. I’m always open to people coming in, chatting with me and the team. And I love Zoom meetings. So, if anybody does want to jump on a Zoom, just drop me a message.

Frank Curzio: That sounds great. David, I know how busy you are personally. I definitely know how busy you are, but I really appreciate giving us an update, especially to a lot of my followers who are starting to purchase land. And I believe in TCG, so I really appreciate it, man.

David Evans: Thank you, Frank. I love it on your show.

Frank Curzio: All right. I’ll talk to you soon, buddy. Thanks.

David Evans: Thank you. Cheers. Bye.

Frank Curzio: Okay. Obviously, I lied. I’m not good looking or brilliant, but yes, I’m on the executive team at TCG now as they named me president a few weeks ago. Don’t worry if you’re a shareholder in Curzio Research. This is a consulting agreement from our side, still fully engaged running the show, Curzio Research. We set time commitments in there. I made sure I said, “Listen, this is the amount of time I could allocate to this. If you want it, then do it. If not, I can’t.” And he says, “That’s what I need.” It sounded perfect that we signed an agreement, and that’s cool because it’s totally agreement from our end. I am still fully engaged all in, but it’s nice to be close to the company considering TCG is our biggest asset, which I truly believe could be worth three times our entire market cap right now, at least.

Frank Curzio: As you see David, he’s a great guy. He’s a family guy. And a lot of my followers bought land at TCG, playing $300 for our plot, so do so. It’s 300 bucks. Do you experience the metaverse? You have a learning curve there, how it operates, how it works, feedback. Start getting involved. Shouldn’t be a lot of money to any of you listening to this. And if you’re wrong or if it’s terrible, if it’s shitty and you’re like, “Ah, forget it,” you could sell in a secondary market once they officially launch. When you’re looking at TCG and Decentraland and Roblox, it allows the other places that closed metaverses or those that don’t have the great graphics, but a lot of them have the people. I see what David’s doing. I love what he’s doing here. He understands the gamification.

Frank Curzio: You go to Decentraland. Again, pretty cool. They are pioneer. I’m not trashing them. They have a ton of major companies, a ton of major companies on their site, a ton. But you’re not going to be in there that long. There’s no gamification. It’s not fun. There’s not anything to really do that makes it fun, makes you want to stay in the world, continue to explore.

Frank Curzio: And Grand Theft Auto, you could do certain experiences. You could drive into people. You could shoot people. You could rob cars. You could pick up hookers. Whatever you want to do, you could do. You could become a cab driver in the game. It makes it fun. It makes you want to continue to play. It’s why Grand Theft Auto is still to this day generates one of the biggest revenue generating properties for Take-Two. And the last time that game was launched, I think was eight years ago, the last version of it, because it’s fun. You could do so many different things. They keep updating it.

Frank Curzio: But imagine everything you buy, everything you do, you get to own. You get sell. You have ownership. You don’t have everyone tracking every single thing that you do, everything. That’s what the internet was supposed to be. But David definitely has a vision. I’m glad to be part of it, taking on an executive role. But truly think that they’re sitting on something really big. If they get this right, they’re going to see tens of millions of dollars pouring into the company. And I know that I can make that happen as long as they continue to grow, sign the right partnerships, market the idea correctly, because the hard part for me is done. A lot of people have this idea and they have a vision, and I talk to so many entrepreneurs who have no idea, especially within the metaverse, Web 3, in the conferences we attend. And everyone’s like, “This is what we’re going to do. This is what we’re going to do.” It’s like the cocktail napkin. “This is what we’re doing.” “Well, you generate…” “No, we don’t have a built yet. We got to get developers. We have the…” The hard part is done.

Frank Curzio: They built the world. They continue to build it, continue to update. This has been going on for a year now. They’re fully funded based on real estate sales. So, I don’t have to answer to any hedge funds who came in early that they gave stock to and venture funds. And a lot of these guys, I learned this from people that have helped me running this business, but we did have people that wanted to give us money and raise money. And it could have been a few million dollars, but they wanted to own my stock at a dollar 50 cents. They’d be blowing out of it at $2, $3. Instead, at 6, we came out at 7. We’re probably outperforming the entire market right now with our security token, which is CURZ trades T0. You get equity stake in our company trade just like a stock.

Frank Curzio: When you’re looking at these hedge funds, venture funds and a lot of them, they’ll say, “Oh, invest 10 million here, 5 million here, 20 million to this site,” they’re not always a believer in the long-term vision of a company or an entrepreneur. They want to get in and get out. Quick return. “How do we do this? How do we make the most money by paying the least amount down? How do we do that?” If you look at Peter Thiel, he did the same thing with Facebook. He was out pretty early. Didn’t stay in when the thing became a trillion-dollar company. He was out pretty early. Look at Chamath. Chamath isn’t part of his company’s long-term. He’s in and out, venture. In and out. Started SPAC, “I’m good, I’m out of here. No longer SpaceX. I’ll be collecting that money. And everyone else, you’re screwed.” Welcome to the world of venture funds, hedge funds. Money, money, money. As quick as possible, as quick a return.

Frank Curzio: That’s why the SPAC revolution came to be. It provided a way for the insiders to get out much, much quicker at a much, much higher price by fucking over the retail investor. And it worked. And retail investors got stuck holding the bag when a lot of these things traded 3, 4, 5, $6 when you bought at 15, 20 and these guys sold them at 30, 40, 50. Selling you this whole dream. They’re out of the company. I mean, Chamath’s complete out of most of his companies, most of the SPACs. I know he canceled a few SPACs. Pretty crazy when you think about it.

Frank Curzio: But they don’t need any money. They don’t need any funding. They’re good. So, that’s why I’m taking a bigger role in this company, show Wall Street big investors why the metaverse is for real. It’s not the BS that you’re seeing. And man, you watch TV. They just destroyed all day. And I get it. I get why. Some idiot was comparing Facebook, “If you were a startup and you lost 5 billion…” Facebook’s not a startup. What the… What are you talking about? They could afford to lose $5 billion. Not only that, their core business is getting destroyed and is in a secular decline, which means you better change your business model. Which Google did a little bit, which they’re getting into cloud. And again, getting more and more into cloud. They’re not into cloud like Amazon is or Microsoft.

Frank Curzio: But you got to be willing to change your business model, especially since this, advertising and social media where you can’t steal everyone’s data and give it to everyone. Those days are over. You see revenue continue to decline across these industries. It’s not the recession. This was happening before the Fed decided to go nuts and reverse and raise interest rates to the moon and they don’t know what they’re doing. You saw this decline in Facebook. You saw this decline in Snap. You saw this decline happening in all these web properties and ad-based businesses. You saw it before this happened. This is just accelerating it, but it’s not going to get better. It’s not going to change. You’re not going to suddenly be able to share everyone’s data again. They don’t have the policies. Apple doesn’t have the policies in place.

Frank Curzio: But see what the metaverse truly is. What I’m seeing, the entrepreneurs, it’s incredible. It’s about the ownership of your digital property for the first time in history where it’s not owned by five or six major companies that control the entire internet. And that’s where we’re going. I think TCG is going to be a leader here. It’s something different. It’s big. I think it’s going to be life changing, and it’s why. You know I’m not bullshitting here. I made the biggest investment in our company’s history into TCG. So, I don’t want to say, “I hope it works out,” and that’s why I took more of a management role to make sure it does work out, to make sure these guys focus on what they’re good at, and I’ll help them raise money and bring in money once they’re ready, once this thing launches, which should be in January. Very excited to do so.

Frank Curzio: I told you earlier, if you’re going to buy real estate, don’t do it yet. Don’t buy any a real estate and TCG world. Hold off for a few days. I’m working with David that he’s going to provide a buy one plot, get another one for free just before the opening, and you’ll also get a free Dragon Castle NFT. He wanted to do this offering for the first 250 people who purchase. I said, “Bring it to my file first. These guys are big fans of yours because of me. They know I made a big investment.” I know I’ve gotten tons of emails from you saying, “How do I buy real estate?” I told you to hold off. I want to provide a good experience, a good deal with you. And the only thing I ask is we come on this special offer, and you like the experience in TCG is that you tell your friends about it. That’s it. If not, you could sell it, whatever, in the secondary market when this opens up, whatever. You can trash and do whatever, but if it’s good, that’s all you need to do. Just tell everybody else.

Frank Curzio: Okay, it’s not a lot of money. It’s a couple hundred dollars. But buy one, get one free. Wait a week, don’t email me. I’ll come on my podcast next week. I’m going to set up and try to set up all the links and make it easier. This way, I don’t have to talk to 250 people individually. This way, I’m like, “Here’s a link. Go there.” You click it. Boom. And then you’re locked in, and you know exactly who to talk to. I just want to make sure it’s fulfilled. So, I don’t want to make… You go in there, and you pay, and you’re like, “Oh shit, what do I do next?” You hate that feeling. I want to make sure that on your end, you’re going to get the real estate. You’re going to actually know what to do with it. You’re going to get to hook it up this way. You get to the alpha version of TCG. You get to play around with it. You get to build. When are you going to get that, your Dragon Castle and stuff like that.

Frank Curzio: The fulfillment is really important, especially since a lot of you, it’s going to be your first experience and I want to make sure that they’re going to do this. One of the things I’m bringing along, the experience of TCG. I don’t want you buying it and like, “Frank, what the hell do I do?” Because otherwise, that doesn’t make sense, and you’re not going to go into TCG. The point is for you to get in there to experience a metaverse, experience something different, and then feedback. How do you make this better? This would be cool. Not every business is going to be for the metaverse, but I could tell you, music is going to be massive. Casinos are going to be massive. Gaming, obviously, that’s the entry way.

Frank Curzio: But if you’re looking at these massive forecasts for the biggest Wall Street firms, that represents 5% of the total market in the metaverse. A lot of it’s going to be retail, retail companies. Being able to create where things within the metaverse and also be able to buy them through their stores and through their shops and unleash creativity, it’s exciting stuff. It’s just the way they explain on TV and, “Oh, you’re going to spend your world on a computer? And you’re just going to go around and do…” You do that now on your mobile phone. It’s just providing a much better experience where you actually own all the shit you create. But you’re doing that right now on your phone.

Frank Curzio: When you go to TikTok, when you go to all these freaking sites, you’re doing that. You’re living your life in that virtual world as it is. It’s the same thing except providing a better experience. TikTok provided a better experience and look who they’re putting. I mean, YouTube, YouTube revenue down 2%. Snap, engagement down incredibly. 5% less people are spending on Snap, 5% less time. All that’s going to TikTok. So, if you provide that great experience, something that’s really cool, and couple it with ownership of your own content, holy shit. You know why this is going to be so big. It’s going to take time. But there’s a lot of money coming into this field. And I love the fact every time I watch TV, they’re destroying the metaverse and saying it’s shit, it’s garbage, it’s nothing. That’s what you want. That’s what you want to see when you have ideas early. You want people to shit on it because the time they start investing in it is when you are going to be getting out when you’re worth an absolute fortune. That’s the goal. Hopefully, that works out for us and for all our shareholders.

Frank Curzio: Anyway, hope you liked the interview. Questions, comments, I’m here for you, frank@curzioresearch.com. It’s frank@curzioresearch.com. I always say this, and I mean it. I really appreciate all your support, all listeners. Really, I do love you, guys. I’ll see you next week. Take care.

Announcer: Wall Street Unplugged is produced by Curzio Research, one of the most respected financial media companies in the industry. The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its host and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money and your responsibility.