MOCA LIVE

Today's podcast mines the nitty-gritty of the entire AI revolution —from its economics, to its decentralized use-case, to the way data centers operate, and more— with two of the best quarrymen in the business. MOCA Chief Technology Officer joins Max, and both welcome Founder and CEO of Comput3AI, Nedos, to fill in every possible blank about the world's most important industry. This is a conversation between technical heavyweights (and Max), and surely an episode of MOCA LIVE not to be missed.

Andres del Vecchio and Anubis3100, besides being unbelievable craftsmen and artists, are brilliant critics, crypto art sages. These two join Max to discuss Andres' "DYBBUK MASQUES," a series of 1/1/x works that might very well portend a change in crypto art's very market dynamics. Or it could just be a marker of Andres' unique talents. "Artist-led PFPs" redefined, connecting with collectors, the appeal of digital avatars, and much more await you in today's episode.

On this week's episode, Max and Rene are joined by the co-founders of Cyberbrokers, Drifters, and the greater Paradise Lost universe, Josie and Ben, on how their projects have uplifted, personalized, and deepened the Metaverse experience. From the origin of Cyberbrokers, to the boldness of bringing assets on-chain, to community-building during the Metaverse's death knell, all on the doorstep of Drifters, the Cyberbrokers team's next big flourish.

In the dark, away from attention, the metaverse grows, thrives even, with the introduction and assistance of AI. AI agents peopling metaverse worlds. AI-generated avatars. But one of the most interesting possibilities of an AI-integrated metaverse is AI architecture, not just for the speed with which virtual 3D structures can be created but the newfound intricacy. It's an entirely new avenue for artistry, both in 3D worlds, and also full-stop, a new frontier. Today, Colborn and Max talk with MOCA’s resident Metaverse architect, Untitled,XYZ about UnMuseums, a collection of AI-generated architectures and his final flourish for MOCA ROOMs. The nitty-gritty of process, conception, outcome, and consequence, expect all of that and more on today’s episode of MOCA LIVE.

MOCA is evolving, and we want you along for the ride. 2025 is a year of great change for your favorite crypto art museum, and in this episode, Max and MOCA's co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Reneil1337, dive deep on all the exciting changes. A 10,000-piece PFP turned Agentic AI deployment interface? Supporting ai16z and Hyperfy in all kinds of creative ways? A new vision for $MOCA token? We reveal all that and more. Come find out what's got us all so jazzed up.

The U.S. Presidential election ends, and all sorts of new questions arise. Ours? Just how influential is PolyMarket, the crypto-based app that brought election betting to the general public? Max and Colborn talk PolyMarket's origins, its seed investments, its political inclinations, and most importantly, its effect (if any) on the elections it revolves around. What does PolyMarket's rise tell us about the electorate? Can betting on election be ethical? This, social media's forcible politicization, the future for crypto in a second Trump term, and much more.

Today, Max and Colborn look into the vociferous response to former minting platform, Foundation, realigning itself as a social-media-based business (and one that looks a whole lot like the site our own Colborn helped to build), and try to tease out its meaning. Is a slow rug inevitable? Are all remaining platforms doomed to grasp at any nearby straw? What does a business need to survive in crypto art, and more importantly, how do the rest of us build-up the kind of crypto art we want to see? Can we reestablish a middle class through force-of-will alone?

Today, a conversation all about conceptual art with the conceptual artist, essayist, and AI dilettante/explorer, Kevin Esherick. Having tackled dense conceptual topics in AI, generative aesthetics, things relating to life and the self and the spirit alike, Kevin is the perfect person to discuss making conceptual art communicable online, the way inspiration affixes itself to a certain medium, ambition, effort, AI, and his latest project, I'm With You, releasing soon. Find Kevin here: https://x.com/kev_esh And learn more about I'm With You here: https://x.com/kev_esh/status/1838950210669580396 https://verse.works/series/im-with-you-by-kevin-esherick

Today, Max and Colborn begin by breaking down a few of the elements that led to the previous week's worldwide economic bludgeoning, and why bad economics might be useful for crypto art's revolution. Then, the two discuss the motivations for crypto artists in a financialization-less ecosystem, the rise of free mints, the value of ubiquity, and what's left in crypto art when all the attention, the funds, the perception of "value" has gone away.

Today’s podcast takes a long, frank look at the foundation, the uproar, and the ultimate downfall of the “Metaverse,” as we knew it. Metaverse architect maestro, Untitled,XYZ, joins Max and Colborn to talk about the Metaverse’s early moments, its final moments, the fall of the Metaverse studio, Polygonal Mind, videogames, AI, and what Metaverse might rise from all these ashes.

Max and Colborn welcome the curator and critic, Eleonora Brizi, back to the podcast for the 3rd time (!!!) to dive deep on crypto art's many problems with criticism. The three will tackle the lack of criticism in crypto art, and what has in many ways replaced it. They'll go into the difficulty of creating criticism while honoring crypto art's values, the trouble of artists being trapped in their own styles, whether criticism can ever be properly incentivized, and much more.

Today's episode is all about bots: automated programs, AI agents, procedural scam artists, if it's performing an action without direct human intervention, we're breaking it down and talking about why it's important. Whether bots are used to juice follower numbers, mislead investors, or create artificial cultural ephemera, there's no denying their outsized impact on every crypto-adjacent. Max and Colborn dive deep on different kinds of bots, how they affect crypto culture, and whether crypto art can ever escape their influence, especially since the internet at-large cannot.

Today, Max and Colborn welcome a crypto art legend, and one one of the founders of Async.Art, Conlan Rios, to talk innovation in crypto art: Can innovation occur sustainably from the business end? How can a business survive sustainably in crypto art? Drawing from three years running AsyncArt, a leading creative crypto art plaform, Conlan dissects the legacy of his own project, what lessons are applicable to all of crypto art, and the nasty era of un-innovation we (perhaps unavoidably) find ourselves in.

On today's episode, Max and Colborn dive headfirst into the noxious swamp that is crypto art's business environment. They trace crypto art businesses from early years until today, discuss the difficulty of running a sustainable business in crypto art despite rising crypto prices, wonder whether our values are incompatible with survival, debate criticism, and field a whole host of questions and comments from a rollicking chatroom.

This week, Max and Colborn welcome the remarkable cloud artist and crypto art historian, Martin Lukas Ostachowski (MLO) to the podcast to plumb through the past for the values that crypto art holds dear, if there are any. Join us as we go back to the cypherpunks, through the creation of Bitcoin, back and forth through many years of crypto art to see what crypto art values, when those values were traded away, how data scientists and AI models might provide new hope for unearthing crypto art's actual history. Read "Crypto Art - A Decentralized View" by Massimo Franceschet, Giovanni Colavizza, Tai Smith, Blake Finucane, Martin Lukas Ostachowski, Sergio Scalet, Jonathan Perkins, James Morgan, and Sebastian Hernandez here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.03263

In a crypto art world always on the edge of flaming-up into fury, Max, Colborn, and special guest ROBNESS spill a bunch of gasoline everywhere and light a match. The three will vent their deepest grievances about collectors, generative art, AI, art contests, and much more. Listen now...if you can handle the heat.

On this week's episode, Colborn and Max (Cohen) welcome the OG crypto artist Max Jackson to MOCA LIVE for a discussion of, not art necessarily, but all those who love it. Audiences is the day's topic, and the three discuss the best (and worst) ways of finding an audience, what having a crypto art audience even means, the death of Twitter's reliability, the birth of new models of audience-seeking, and whether any such model can survive long-term.

On today's podcast, Max and Colborn welcome the legendary collector, writer, thinker, and crypto art forefather, Artnome, for a conversation about all things collecting and crypto art history. Beginning with the question "What do we do with art we no long like?" and opening up into a discussion of good vs. bad art in general, the trio eventually come to question and retool Artnome's foundational "What is Cryptoart," article from 2018. We somehow avoid talking for too long about the Boston Celtics. "What is Cryptoart": https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/1/14/what-is-cryptoart RightClickSave: https://www.rightclicksave.com/ ClubNFT: https://www.clubnft.com/

Max and Colborn are joined by the OG crypto art collage artist George Boya for a podcast about collaborations, free artistic spirits, and creative processes. Inspired by George's recent series of collaborative pieces, Partners in Crime, the three go in depth on the importance of collaborations in crypto art culture, why the collabs suddenly ended (Artblocks, we're looking at you), what the process of creating collaborative artwork is like, how AI and derivatives factor into the collaborative ecosystem, and much more! George Boya: https://twitter.com/BoyaGeorge Partners in Crime: https://foundation.app/gallery/cultishnya Through Time and Space (artwork mentioned during the Pod): https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/through-time-and-space-15473

Max and Colborn are back (with sound effects!) to assign archaic denotations of value to the biggest recent news stories (and end up spiraling into head-scratching discussions). This week, it's Yuga's questionably-illegal reverting of Moonbirds' commercial rights away from CC0, Latasha using Zora incentive fees to help recoup the losses from a wallet hack, the best way to honor traditional artists who have recently passed, crypto artist identity crises, and an existential economic moment.