Koa Smith Is Going To The Moon

Remember when people made fun of the internet?

Sounds crazy, but in 1996 there were smart people who said the internet would be as “revolutionary as a fax machine” and laughed at the idea that anyone would ever spend time online.

Who’s laughing now? Well, everyone that bought into Amazon, for starters. 

New technology takes time to embrace. It’s easy to poke fun at things we don’t understand. Like Crypto Punks. Or the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Who the hell is paying six figures for a jpeg? And what the hell is an NFT? 

NFTs — or Non Fungible Tokens — are more than just pixelated jpegs. They’re a way to take ownership over digital property. For the past 20 years the internet has been a wild west in which basically everything has been copied, shared, swapped, and stolen. From songs on Limewire to movies on The Pirate Bay, it’s been impossible to really “own” anything online. Until recently. Thanks to blockchain technology, which is essentially a digital ledger that can’t be hacked or changed. 

Andre Mataele and Conrad Carr saw what was happening with the NFT craze and came up with the concept for Surf Punks — 500 unique digital characters that can be bought, held, and traded on OpenSea.io’s NFT marketplace. More than just a jpeg, owning a Surf Punk also grants access to a day at the BSR Surf Resort, and that’s only the beginning. To hear more, we rang up Andre, along with one of the Surf Punk’s — Koa Smith — to hear more about the project and its future. 

What was your introduction to the NFT world?
Andre Mataele: My introduction was through Conrad Carr, my partner on the Surf Punks project. He got into Crypto early on, so he’s been in that world for a long time. NFTs just came into the picture in the last couple of years, with Crypto Punks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club gaining a lot of attention. Conrad approached me with the idea of doing Surf Punks, and we took it from there. 

Koa Smith: Along with a lot of the world, I saw the NFT thing blowing up, even though it didn’t really make sense to a lot of people. I talked to Conrad about how cool it would be to do a Surf Punks collection, and next thing I know Andre is sending over early renditions. It came together pretty quick, really. 

There’s a general misunderstanding of what an NFT actually is. A lot of people think it’s just a jpeg, when in reality it can be so much more. When people ask, how do you describe a NFT?
Andre: There are projects that are strictly images, like Crypto Punks. With them, it’s just been supply and demand that’s caused them to skyrocket in price. But, as the NFT space has evolved, you’ve needed to create utility and real-world value for the holders. So that’s what we’ve done. The best way to describe it is digital art with real life incentive. 

From a technical standpoint: What went into releasing an NFT collection like Surf Punks?
Andre: I designed all the Surf Punks, and then on the dev side we needed guys with crypto experience to write up smart contracts for each NFT. In layman’s terms, it’s like if you have a Picasso painting, and you own the original, it comes with documents that guarantee its validity. You own its rights and you can sell it. With an NFT, the smart contract stipulates the same thing: The dev guys put each Surf Punk image on a blockchain network — in our case Ethereum — and when you purchase one, you own that unique digital copy and that smart contract. 

What’s the value of owning a Surf Punk? 
Koa: The cool thing Surf Punks is doing is getting a surf community together. We’re having exclusive events at wave pools, as well as access to a pretty rad community with meetups around the world. On the Discord chat you can ask Nathan Florence questions, or ask me questions, and it’s really evolving as we go. 

Andre: In the Surf Punk community, you already have tech guys, business guys, surfers, and all these people that want to be a part of the project. To own a Surf Punk you have access to this exclusive community, and all of these events throughout the year, but that’s just the short-term play. Already, Surf Punks have been selling for double, triple, and in a few cases quadruple what they originally sold for. The goal is to keep building this community and in a year, hopefully they’re worth five or 10 ETH minimum.

How many were originally minted, and at what price? 
Andre: The mint price was .15 ETH, which was approximately 600 to 650 bucks depending on the price of Ethereum. When you first purchased one, you got this generic picture, so no one knew which Surf Punk they got. Once they all sold out, the reveal happened. The crazy thing is people were selling them for double the price before they were even revealed. Now that they’ve all sold and have been revealed, some are selling for as much as 1ETH, so the demand and buzz is definitely there. 

Koa, you are a Surf Punk, yeah?
Koa: Yep! There are a bunch of random Surf Punks, but actual people are characters as well. 

Do you own yourself? 
Koa: Yes, at least for now [laughs]. But I have myself listed for 69 ETH, if anyone wants it. 

Andre: I wouldn’t be mad if you sell yourself for 69 ETH [laughs]. But yeah, Koa is correct. There are 135 iconic Surf Punks, some surfers and other iconic figures, and the other 350 or so were just designed by the team. 

Owning a Surf Punk grants access to a day at the BSR Surf Resort. How will that work?
Andre: We wanted the first event to be at a place where all the holders could come together. Waco was the best venue, because they can accommodate a really big crowd. If you own a Surf Punk you can come, and it’ll be surfing, music, food, and a really fun event where everyone can meet one another in real life and hang with guys like Koa. It’ll be in March of 2022. 

There’s a recent article in The Atlantic that talks about how a 23-year old from France “tokenized” himself to raise capital to fly to Silicon Valley and start his own business. By selling himself, early investors could then reap the benefits of his success. Can you see that working for professional surfers?
Koa: That’s the exciting thing about this NFT space. Nobody really knows where it could go. It’s kind of up to the imagination right now. But, tokenizing yourself could replace sponsorship. With sponsors disappearing for most surfers, it could turn into a thing where people fund your career based on the returns and perks you’re offering. That seems totally realistic to me. It’s exciting. We are so ahead of our time right now. We’re just doing what we can, and it’s about to evolve so quick. 

Andre: Totally agree. I would say a quarter of the people that have bought these NFTs don’t understand what they are yet. But, the community is really supportive, and I think people are really trying to educate each other on what they are, what they can become, and the financial gains they can make. We’re also learning a lot from the community and evolving as we go. 

How can someone buy a Surf Punk? 
Andre: OpenSea is essentially the website where all the NFTs live once they’ve been minted. Each owner sets their own price, and they can be bought and sold with Ethereum. But, anyone that’s interested should check out the Surf Punk Discord chat room, there’s a lot of good information there. 

Any other big plans for the Surf Punk community? 
Andre: We’re actually sending one of our digital Surf Punks to the moon. We’re partnering with this foundation called the Space Arts Mission — they’re partners with SpaceX — and they’ve put digital copies of things like encyclopedias in time capsules on the moon. They’re about to put NFTs on the moon, and Surf Punks is going to be one of them. Which is really funny, since “to the moon” is such a big thing in Crypto. But Surf Punks is actually going [laughs]. 

Does that mean Koa gets to make a moon landing? 
Andre: [laughs] It’s up for discussion as of right now. 

Koa: So, you’re saying there’s a chance. 

Andre: Yes, there is definitely a chance.