Review of Special Interview with btcflower <IC Lounge Hours with Lydia>

Something write down the beginning.

Need to comfirm about the voting power part if it incouding ICP.

The following article is a paraphrase transcription.

Lydia interviews the Btcflower team.

Lydia: Thanks for joining us. We invited Btcflower TEAM for a special interview. Btcflower is the most popular NFT on internet computer, so it’s an honor to have Ludo and Andrew to talk to us. So how about you guys introduce yourself :

Andrew: I go by Andrew, I’m a big collector of Ludo art for many years. And excited for the whole community.

Lydia: That’s great to hear, how about you Ludo?

Ludo: yea my name is Ludo, and I have been working as an artist for 20 years. Before I was into commercial advertisement and direction for videos. Then I decided to switch to my own art and lead from that. I did some nice collabs and shows. I studied art and digital Communitication in Milan. I then saw this opportunity with blockchain, so I decided to evolve into the digital space. And not be shy about producing digital tools. In traditional art it’s frowned apart. But now we can use whatever tool to achieve whatever we want.

Lydia: Thank you for your introduction: I have a question. Your btcflower NFT has 2009 unique NFTs, why that number.

Andrew : the 2009 represent the creation of bitcoin in 2009. That’s the symbolism and for ethflower we will match the year and same for ICP.

Lydia: Oh that is great. I’ve seen your art before,Ludo, and you have a lot of flowers and butterflies. Green is also one of my favorite colors. What is the meaning behind this?

Ludo: yes when I started I wanted to go very natural. I always been interested in the sense of respect of nature, respect your neighbor and religion. This is why I use big flowers , to remind us how small we are compared to surrounding elements. Humans usually feel strong and powerful but we are all the same. That is why I always use nature for sense of respect. I created my own green to highlight visuals in my work. I don’t use color, I use materials to create something very unique. Sketch, to drawing, and back and forth. I use a mix of greens, so you can’t find it. For me it’s more like a game, and when it’s cool you highlight cool things like with a highlighter in a book but I do it with green.

Lydia: Okay got it. I think I understand that point of green and nature. Especially since Covid, when we go separate form nature.

Ludo: yea totally because I think there is a lot of greed and trying to cash out money. That’s why I always think about respect and are fully into our community. It’s more than hashtag, it’s about building together. We will build together.

Lydia: Yes I think why people admire your artwork, because they can feel your respect. And it’s very beautiful.

Ludo: yes thank you. I see maybe moritz can talk about technical aspects . This was important not to just keep throwing NFT projects over and over again. Apart from DAO and community, the art is also there and changing everyday. Because there is hype they want to do the same. That is why meta is changing everyday on the NFT.

Generation of these flowers which you can’t do in physical space. For me I can do skeleton or something but we took 6 months to develop what we have.

Lydia: okay. I understand. What are the process to make digital and physical connect. Any technical problems?

Ludo: If it’s digital it should have a reason to why it exist as a digital. Something else but we can’t talk about yet . But there are ways to make it digital and what’s the story between physical and digital. Are you really ready to build a project and not only about art. Like mortiz developing a DAO. And are you really going to spend time and money to make a project. If your project is new, or are you just a copy cat of an existing project?

Andrew: yea Ludo work is before the NFT craze, and an uplifting piece during bear markets and to have such an original piece surrounding with a good community is great.

Ludo: yea back in the day, there was no pressure of making anyone happy. I wanted to make a physical piece. I wanted to send a sense of peace and equality , maybe I am naive. I’m sorry. But this evolved into a digital piece.

Lydia: yea I saw the street art, it’s very impressive . People really respect btcflower because of that and your team has put a lot of effort into the project as well.

Ludo: yes. and we have been very honest. It’s all fiat and honest. We didn’t know the flowers and it’s rarity. We didn’t keep flowers for ourselves. We actually had to buy them but I personally couldn’t even buy cause I was driving and I had to buy on secondary and the first time I bought my own art.

Lydia: hahaha, yes this the first time where artists started they buy their own art. How does that make you feel?

Ludo: yes after the flowers were all out and not the seeds. Yes I bought a couple.

Lydia: that’s great to hear, I wanted to buy a btcflower but I was busy and I couldn’t buy it and I missed the launch. Now it’s too expensive. There are other blockchains , why choose icp for btcflower?

Ludo: well I’m quite new to internet computer. But Andrew and I talked about it. And he said I should check IC. And how useful it is. Then Andrew connected with moritz. Every tool is amazing. And everything we achieved on icp. I did a project before on etheruem but I felt bad about the gas fees. So here you can buy a seed for 100$ but gas fee could be $300. I feel bad for ppl that have to do that.

Andrew: yes there was a an article where someone had to spend 27 ethereum for a contract and 1 megabyte of data. We did that for a few dollars on ICP. We are looking for something that is going to last a long time, and no bizarre prices for core team.

Moritz: yea no gas fee for buyers and we can do everything on chain.

Lydia: yea gas fees are very hindering, this is why I like ICP. You don’t need to pay a lot of gas fees for the interactions. So I understand.

Ludo: yea it’s fast, it’s easy. So very easy.

Lydia: I have a question from community members. What’s a good point and bad point when you make NFTs?

Ludo: just in general NFTs?

Andrew: yes so the bad and good of NFTsin general, right Lydia? We came out with a fully doxxed team. Ludo is one of the best artists in the world. I’d like to see going forward is doxxed teams. So people don’t walk away going forward.

Ludo: the good things about NFTsfor me is having a visual. I see really that NFTs provide good visuals. But what is behind the visual. If there are amazing artists, and good artists to make it interesting: the flower power DAO is great, and we want to build a curated market place. That’s the good thing about NFTs. Just building with NFTs. With this you can share a vision, and build that vision all together. That’s the NFT and blockchain possibilities. The bad is just random people doing the same copycats, and stealing money from people. That’s the bad part.

Lydia: Thank you. Ludo. I have another question. I’ve seen your other work, why choose sunflower for the base?

Ludo: well I don’t see it as a sunflower but just a flower.

Lydia: hahaha alright. Well tomorrow you will release the ETHflowers. And the pineapple punk. 3 sets of those NFTs. Do those NFTs relate with each other?

Ludo: yea they are like a trilogy like the metrics. The only 3 and the only ones to give you access and power votes in the DAO. I have these pineapple punks. Idk yet the edition. But maybe in may. So all of our related and connected flower elements in the punks. We are very fresh and chatting with a company we all know in the space, but we can’t say right now. We are trying to figure out how to connect your flower to your punk. So basically your punk will have a flower necklace. I can’t say what company but we can’t chat about it. We have to chat with the punks in our DAO. But yea I have several books about punks and the references I used for some art. I want punks to have voice in DAO. btcflower is golden key, but I want the punks to have a voice and I want them to change the system. We also have collaborations with other artists. So yes everything is related and connected.

Lydia: so do you have btcflower, you can become DAOs membership?

Andrew: yes only btcflower, ethereum and ICP, will have voting rights in DAO.

Lydia: btcflower and etheruem will have voting rights and pineapple punk?

Andrew: no pineapple punks. will only be apart of community but no voting power.

Lydia: okay so only btcflower and ethereum flower, and icp.

Okay, sorry I just want the community to know exactly.

For voting rights, is btc or eth more powerful?

Andrew: yes for btcflower, it will be 2 votes and eth and icp flower is 1 vote. Btcflower is the genesis, that’s why it gets 2 votes.

Lydia: the community members are very curious about this part.

Ludo: the DAO will be ready after ethflower. Moritz will have everything ready.

Moritz: yes we will have it ready after April, and everyone can vote and make proposals. We also hired another developer that is helping along the way.

Lydia: do you have a roadmap for the flower power DAO?

Andrew: yes tomorrow we have ethflower. We have discord votes right now while the DAO is prepared.

Ludo: the ethflower was shaped by the community. Like the tombstones with the message. It was all directed by the community.

Lydia: that’s really cool if it’s from the community, community driven DAO that’s cool.

Andrew: yes the roadmap with the DAO. Then the pineapple punks. And a partnership with zken for physical product. We have partnerships with music artist and Ludo is working on that , and many moreX it’s exciting .

Lydia: that is amazing. You mentioned music NFTs, can you share more info on that?

Ludo: it’s a collaboration with a producer named white shadow. And we really wanted to do something with music. We had a call and asked him what he wanted to do. So he is walking on a bunch of sounds and link with the flowers. These sounds will be linked by suggestions of dj white shadow then suggestions will be voted by DAO and then wits decided.

Lydia: that’s great that the original NFTs will be binder by the music NFTs.

Ludo: it will be great. The sounds are great actually. It’s new and unique : moritz has started to work on it. Generative art with music, nothing like that on icp. It will be amazing. We had a chat with Christopher who is an amazing photographer. So we had different approach to how he can build a project. We talked about the color gradients can be changed in real time into the photography. So yea very interesting.

Lydia: This question is from a community member: is there a collab with a top football club?

Ludo: I can’t mention their name because of contracts. But yes it was easy to get because I worked with them before, we are going to do something with them. It will be shown at art Basel this year. I can’t confirm dates, I don’t want to get in trouble.

Lydia: yea I understand. People asked questions few days and I did research on you and the team. However you have done a lot of art shows around the world and people ask questions because they have hope that you will bring people to icp ecosystem.

Ludo: haha thank you. We are not sharing names or anything just to move the floor price. I just connect with my old connections to make new collaborations. I want to involve these people into our space. The icp space. People love the project and idea. Linking flower with a club activity. They don’t care if it’s on ethereum. They just want to connect with the community.

Lydia: that is really cool.

Ludo: that is why we are developing the DAO. The idea to create a community created place. I get quite sad when I see people brand project to IC. If your project is good. Just give it a real name. This space is unique tool and we want to do unique projects.

Lydia: yes I wish more projects and artist come to icp, thank you for doing that for our community. How can we help you and other artists, anything we can do from the community side?

Andrew: I think community just being supportive, and being requiring a fully doxxed team and a high level. We set the standard of how things should get done. A fully doxxed team and no roadmap is no good. We are happy the btcflower community is active. And that we all stay together.

Lydia: yea I think we should support high quality NFTs and artwork. I posted Ludos home page and what he has done. Check his page and Instagram. He has many followers, this is how you support to his pages. Anyone want to ask a question? I see many btcflowers so please come up and request.

Attendee: Wanted to ask about the bridge to eth and solana, wouldn’t it be wise to have our presents on those marketplaces? Like an opensea verified account.

Andrew: well we are on the ground level for icp. We believe this is the best solution. The bridges being built are great but for now we are focusing on icp. But later on as a DAO we can discuss.

Mortiz: we do have a collab with an NFT project so we will have a connection to ethereum community.

Antendee: I’m really impressed by the team and what art should be. I got two question is: how do you see this project over the next 2 years? Second question is, how do you think about the flower power DAO store? To buy t shirt and all those things?

Ludo: that’s funny because we spoke with Andrew about opening a store. So that might happen. For the first question, we are still building, the next month. We want to build the community and marketplace, from the art point of view, I would love to be there just to create. And help other artist and other projects. Btcflower is key to enter.

Andrew: we are actually going to have an exhibition in 2023. We are constantly thinking about 3–5 years out. Like the MOMA. And we’d like to see the flowers in these high end places. We want to see this art because it has inspired me and others. We’d like to see the world have these flowers.

Moritz: in the long term the focus will shift in the flower power DAO. The plan is to onboard new artist and build out flower brand and DAO.

Ludo:: we will like to build a whole ecosystem. And community focused. Like opening a cafe, will be community driven cafe.

Attendee: I have a question: Im a fan. But in flower DAO, we have the btc eth and icp coming soon, is there any other benefit outside the ICP? Like governance token?

Moritz: yes we are thinking about special perks, and other artists so that we are like a launchpad. We have technical power to do that, and flower DAO will decide whether to add an artist or not. Flower DAO will vote, and then DAO is given whitelist spot and more things.

Attendee: thank you, perfect.

Attendee 2: yes I have question like will there be like a party for everyone to meet?

Andrew: yea definitely: depending on what icp or dfinity is doing an event and we can do it there but we will figure something out.

Some can do their own chapters. And do like a nice little london.

Ludo: yes we will do shows like next year I have one in Paris. With my digital art, and a special room with all flowers in one room, pre opening for community, it will be in Paris. And invite the community and you have a flower, you have a ticket.

Attendee: thank you for great effort. In IC ecosystem, we really need a marketplace to dedicate to art? Do you have the plan? Like foundation.

Ludo: yea totally. We have that idea. We spoke about the garden. A curated marketplace. The DAO will be a community curated marketplace and the team will support the artist. It’s not just an idea. It’s something being built. This why the DAO exists.

Lydia: awesome thank you. Next question.

Attendee: For artist who do art illegally by putting art on public places. Do you feel this btcflower being a thing about bringing down the institution, do you feel you will compromise?

Ludo: we never compromise, we do have a political and banking message. But we will focus on other messages as well. We are from people to the people . It’s a message of respect. You mentioned legality. It was all street art, our opinion , we wanted to do it and built a community.

Attendee: thank you and keep it up.

Moritz: I have to leave now but thank you for hosting.

Lydia: thank you!

Attendee: How can we built Nigerians shirt with btcflower. We have a lot of fans over here.

Andrew: swag for t shirts? We partnered with euro Paris. We will subsidize some of the cost but if you are holder you can get.

Ludo: first hundred are free.

Attendee: can you use your own flower for your own purpose?

Ludo: as long as you don’t sell it, it is fine.

Lydia: if you have btcflower holder you will have those benefits. But did you sell out the btcflowers?

Andrew: yes we sold out in seconds. And that’s why we are doing a good airdrop. And we had a lot of hype and success because we did everything well.

Lydia: yes because I saw only few listed,

Ludo: yes that’s only the amount of ppl willing to sell.

Lydia: if there are any more questions feel free to ask.

Andrew : thank you everyone for your translations. And thank you for hosting.

Lydia: thank you, any more questions?

Attendee: do you plan on having any one of one?

Ludo: not really at the moment, depends on the exhibition. Might be some collabs coming up. These will be unique pieces, it depends for what and for where. If you understand.

Attendee: okay thank you. That’s cool. Yes selling directly on icp.

Ludo: We don’t have much or any of that on icp. Idk where on entrepot it would be to be honest.

Attendee: if I hold both eth and btc what are the benefits?

Andrew: yes we didn’t officially lock it down but having both will have more benefits and special benefits for each.

Attendee: when is the day for the punks?

Andrew: we will most likely do it with white shadow later on.

Attendee: looking forward to what’s to come. Thank you for letting me speak.

Lydia: thank you.

Attendee: what would you say to artist that don’t understand NFTs and how do you convince them to join NFT space?

Ludo: I mean everything we use is the same compared the blockchain. Everything uses power consumption,

Attendee: thank you guys.

Lydia: do you guys have any plan for a token?

Andrew: we haven’t discussed anything like that. Our main focus is bringing the community together. But no specifics on that.

Ludo: we thought about it for sure, like staking the flower. But we won’t to be like the other projects who want to offer the token. Maybe in future but right now no point.

Lydia: thank you for that. Many people ask that right now. Because of other projects.

Ludo: yes apes are almost a year old.

Andrew: we will see in the future the utility. Then We can have a discussion about it. But right now art is our main focus and flower DAO.

Attendee: I’m cupcake thank you for letting me speak. Love the collection.

I’m curious how your life has changing since this and did you expect the success?

Ludo: Um no , Andrew did your life change?

Andrew: no I’m just having fun,

Ludo: we are just stressed, everyday because we have to communicate always with community.

Andrew: yea it’s just very rewarding but stress is there.

Attendee: thank you Ludo and Andrew.

Lydia: thank you for the question cupcake. Do you have a last word for community?

Ludo: everyday we feel super grateful, honestly the difference between traditional art and this space is the communication. I wanted to be journalist but I’m bad at writing so I decided to draw. The boundaries in general art is very hard to connect with people. In this space it’s great to chat with everyone. Everyday it’s something new, thanks everyone for everything.

Lydia: I recommend everyone here to follow Ludo Instagram, and it has a lot of info about his artwork. It’s very impressive. I look at his artwork and I feel freedom and that have meaning.

Attendee: if the team could work with anyone, who would it be and why?

Andrew: I’m happy to work with the community, Ludo creative direction. Is being all together is amazing.

Ludo: good question, maybe focus on people doing something for people. Giving back to the community and charities. Work more with charities. Not just the the skills and talent but also what you can bring back to your community.

Lydia. Thank you. Andrew something else to talk about?

Andrew: today we will release a blog. We will have the appropriate links. Good luck for the ethflower. I hope everyone gets one. I appreciate this Lydia.

Ludo: thank you Lydia for the questions and for doing this. This is our first time doing this.

Andrew: yes it’s was great, have a good day.

Lydia: thank you and have a great day everyone.