Townhall April 2023 Transcript

TRANSCRIPT Q2 ROADMAP TOWN HALL

00:04:33:06 – 00:04:47:07

X1
Thank you, everybody, for joining us is our first Twitter spaces with our road map and the road map update. Now, we did make some changes to the way that we’re doing the roadmap. General Mort, actually, do you want to go over the change we’ve made for quarter two real quick and then we’ll we’ll jump into it.

00:04:48:03 – 00:05:08:00
General Mort
Sure. Not too much to say really at a high level. Basically, we’re just we’re starting to do the quarter, the road map update at the beginning of the quarter versus the end of the previous quarter. So that means that this Q2 road map update will basically, you know, each quarter coming forward. Well, we’ll do it at the beginning of the quarter to talk about kind of what’s coming up and then do a recap of the previous quarter as well.

00:05:08:00 – 00:05:32:00
General Mort
So with that, we’re changing things with the you know, we used to do the AMA and update kind of together, we kind of separated those things is another video review. That’s excellent. And I did that you guys can go watch on the upland YouTube or you can find it on the blog and then we’ll follow it by this community townhall where we kind of just leave it a little bit more open for players to ask any kind of questions that they want with regard to the road map.

00:05:32:00 – 00:05:46:11
X1
So and with that, let’s do some introductions. Let’s start with Dirk and then we’ll go to Idan. Dirk and Idan, if you guys want to introduce yourself and then list maybe one or two things that you’re most looking forward to here in quarter two.

00:05:46:11 – 00:06:14:09
Dirk
All right. Yeah, well, what can I say? Right. So Dirk came up with the idea. I think most of the listeners probably know us, right? So what I came up with the idea with Idan and Mani a few years back. Time flies. Obviously. You know this year you know we actually will we have our fifth anniversary in terms of when we incorporated upland. That’s actually in July 2018. So it’s incredible.

00:06:14:09 – 00:06:43:17
Dirk
Five years. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Anyways, so yeah, and looking at the roadmap, so super excited about maybe just looking back, you know, I was you know, what I really liked, you know, when we had our first really, you know, immersive experience with Manguira. So that was, you know, the first thing we’ve seen. There was something which I really enjoyed the last quarter and this quarter, first of all, again, you know, great things what Mort has done because he was so responsible for it.

00:06:43:17 – 00:07:03:14
Dirk
Right. The you know, the whole new onboarding was very, very important for us. Right. Which is, you know, it was more like, you know, a necessary feature. But what I really also sees, you know, what you know, you know, we’re going to continue to working on that onboarding. Of course, we started last quarter, but now this quarter, you know, we will do some more stuff, improvements.

00:07:03:14 – 00:07:26:09
Dirk
We’re learning more testing and so on. So I think this is very important for Upland in general and what I’m really looking forward for for this quarter is also everything social. I think, you know, let’s see how far we get with the cafes right this quarter or next quarter. Right. So but I think this is so important because, you know, the community being together, having places where they can go hang out together.

00:07:26:09 – 00:07:42:19
Dirk
So that’s my one of my I mean, everything’s great on the roadmap and the cafes are the social stuff is what I’m looking for.

00:07:42:19 – 00:07:48:01
General Mort
Allright, thanks Dirk, and Idan, how about you? What is the or are you most looking forward to in Q2?

00:07:48:20 – 00:08:13:07
Idan
Yeah, So I mean, it’s really hard to to choose only one because everything is super exciting. I really, you know, echoing and sharing here the, you know, the junction between immersive experiences, socializing, wearable, you know, cafes, metaventures, everything comes together in that one junction, which is really exciting progress, I think to make everything around user generated content.

00:08:13:08 – 00:08:33:02
Idan
Like we are starting to see the genesis of user generated racetracks. And so, you know, very soon we’re going to have some player agency within the races. So again, everything kind of comes down to the fact that there are more and more things that users can create and utilize in new ways to engage and also to earn and uplift as well.

00:08:33:02 – 00:08:41:12
Idan
So really exciting stuff. And I think probably the most thing I’m looking for in this quarter is Genesis week. It’s always my favorite week of the year, so looking forward to it.

00:08:41:12 – 00:08:45:12
General Mort
It’s going to be a good time. Yeah, you guys don’t have tickets. Now’s the time.

00:08:45:12 – 00:08:51:24
X1
Yeah. Genesis week is always exciting. Looking forward to seeing everyone there again. General Mort, I actually don’t think I got to ask you, what are you most looking forward to in Q2.

00:08:51:24 – 00:09:13:00
General Mort
I mean, obviously there’s a lot of great stuff on the roadmap this quarter, but personally for me, definitely the onboarding stuff and the mission system that’s going to be coming later in the next couple of months, I think it’s going to be a really great tool for us to kind of help users get started in Upland, learn how to play the game and just generally be a part of the ecosystem.

00:09:13:05 – 00:09:23:07
General Mort
And also karts. I think karts are going to be awesome. I think just giving players kind of that, you know, creative expression is going to be really fascinating to see what cool things they bring, they come up with.

00:09:23:07 – 00:09:30:06
X1
Yeah, I agree with you karts. Every time you say karts, I think of Mario kart for some reason. I don’t know why that’s seems fun like that.

00:09:30:16 – 00:09:55:11
X1
Let’s jump into questions if you would like to jump on the stage here and ask a question about the quarter two roadmap and Upland, please raise your hand and we will get you. We do have IMP4STA who we’ve just added to the stage. IMP4STA. Thank you for thank you for being here. What is your question?

00:09:56:07 – 00:10:16:12
IMP4STA
My question is really simple. I’ve been asking it for a while now, but when are we getting our dark mode? It’s really hard on my eyes. It’s the reason I ask. It’s hard for me to treasure hunt. It’s just so bright. The blue in the white.

00:10:17:23 – 00:10:38:22
Idan
I can tell you that even internally it is one of the most like you know requested feature in our team and people are really excited to want to work on it. Unfortunately, we have to always prioritize, right? And it’s kind of like it’s not yet to the point where we get to the top of the list in terms of priority.

00:10:39:11 – 00:11:01:21
Idan
But, you know, I can share the passion for trying to get that to happen. The thing is that, again, changing the entire upland app to dark mode is more it’s a very heavy lift. So it’s kind of like you can’t go halfway. And I do know that it’s kind of like maybe seems like half way with the way we’ve implemented the Metaventures interface and some of the interfaces.

00:11:02:18 – 00:11:20:12
Idan
But it just requires a complete overhaul of the app to truly support Dark mode, which is kind of like it’s a big task and we are going to find the right time and resources to do it. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be in this quarter.

00:11:20:12 – 00:11:26:10
X1
IMP4STA Thank you for that question. Yeah, dark mode. Everybody loves dark mode, right? So thank you very much. IMP4STA.

00:11:26:10 – 00:11:32:05
X1
Upland Guide YK2012 is here on stage. Thank you for joining us UplandGuide, what’s your question?

00:11:32:05 – 00:11:58:14
YK2012
Hi X1. Thanks for inviting me on stage. I have one quick question and a little bit of a longer one. The first one regarding carts. Is this something that we will be able to raise on the existing racetracks or will there be racetracks only for cars and only for karts?

00:11:58:14 – 00:12:17:13
Idan
The only difference between karts and cars is that you cannot use karts for transportation between city or for cargo holding. So karts are only meant for racing and they will be traceable on any any truck anywhere strictly not.

00:12:17:13 – 00:13:01:22
YK2012
Okay, great. And my second question has to do more with map assets and the spark. There are a number of people who are able to create map assets, but when I’m starting to think of planning my manufacturing plant, I’m trying to think of how much spark I’m going to need in order to create each of the different assets, whether they be large in size or or smaller in size. And I’m trying to understand a little bit more about how much spark is it, how many spark hours specifically is it going to take to be able to build some of these assets? Is there any insight that you can give to how you guys are thinking about allocating the number of spark hours for each different types of asset?

00:13:01:22 – 00:13:32:19
Idan
Yes, absolutely. So when so we have an approval process for user generated content and when, you know, venture owners submit models for approval, that’s the phase where they also get priced. And when we were the team prices, the models they take into consideration both the size of it and also the metaphorical complexity of of the property of the model.

00:13:33:03 – 00:14:07:05
Idan
So while it is sort of like a subjective process, it sticks to current specific guidelines. Now the thing is, I’m not aware that there’s any public listing of kind of like models in their respective pricing that have been already approved in production. Maybe that’s a good idea to put out. So it becomes kind of like public information. I think the best way for you to move forward and to plan ahead is maybe if you were able to submit one model concept and kind of like get that in the queue of getting priced so you get a sense of that pricing.

00:14:07:11 – 00:14:19:06
Idan
Alternatively, we can look into sharing the already approved models and their pricing. So there’s there’s some benchmark that the community can kind of like count on.

00:14:19:06 – 00:14:46:17
General Mort
And we’ll be we’ll be expanding like that. Just to add, we did launch a new guide recently and part of our plan there is to also introduce some of these specs and stuff in that guide. So there’s kind of one location where you can read about all those things. Maybe it’s possible you can put some examples in there, spark our pricing with those, so at least there’s some context. I don’t know that revealed the full formula, but we can definitely do something to give you get some more some more help there. Yeah.

00:14:46:17 – 00:14:51:00
X1
We have IamGod on stage now. Welcome to the stage.

00:14:51:00 – 00:15:19:06
IamGod
thank you, sir. Hello everyone. Two quick questions which are kind of related. So same question I kind of has every time I get a chance to talk to you guys when Spark Life or whatever we call it token. The other part is species. When you click to connect, it kind of sends you to a blank email. What do you want me to say? Thank you for what you’re doing. Appreciate all you do. Bye, guys.

00:15:19:06 – 00:15:36:20
Idan
Yeah. So, okay, so with regards to species, again, I think we’re going to be in with the species website. You are able to kind of communicate only via email or via Twitter.

00:15:37:04 – 00:16:03:04
Idan
We have a handle for species from the ocean. It’s a species from its species standard, if I’m not mistaken on Twitter, keeping in mind also that the Species Foundation is a separate entity from Upland. It is a Swiss based foundation that has its own CEO. It’s currently being set up and we have just now started again. Upland is backing this initiative in.

00:16:03:04 – 00:16:33:19
Idan
I can take like 5 minutes to talk a bit about the concept, as I also talked about in NFT NYC yesterday morning and the whole idea was that, you know, you guys are well familiar with the fact that we’ve always wanted to introduce life into, into Upland. And as we were starting to approach kind of like working on this problem, it occurred to us that this is not something that one small, centralized team can achieve on its own with a good, robust outcome.

00:16:34:08 – 00:17:00:12
Idan
And we have basically came up with the concept of we wanted to, you know, so when you look at the metaverse, you know, ten, 15 years from now, you know, there may be different worlds like upland, different games. I mean, you can imagine things like zoo simulation games like zoo tycoon or some other metaverse and platforms. Some of them will want to introduce life improvements similar to how Upland does.

00:17:00:18 – 00:17:23:08
Idan
And it just doesn’t make sense that every centralized team will work on the same problem time and again to define those life forms. So we wanted to kind of like initiate a decentralized initiative with the purpose of mapping all species of life into digital form to create a unified repository that can then be adopted by any game of virtual world that is out there.

00:17:23:17 – 00:17:50:24
Idan
But one of the upsides for having these standards in place is that when all these games adopt them, suddenly they actually also become interoperable. Theoretically, because when I when we land these standards that you have, like let’s say one cat, right. But the cat is now a logical element, It knows how to manifest itself, let’s say, in for the realistic start like or in kind of like real world style, like in upland or maybe Voxel Star, like in Minecraft, right?

00:17:51:07 – 00:18:10:18
Idan
So now when you rely on these standards, you can suddenly say something like, You know what? It’s not just how the species of life appears, but it can also now maybe race. Maybe one dog from Upland can race the dog from Minecraft if both of these platforms rely on the same standard. Because now you know how fast can they run, who gets to win the race, etc..

00:18:11:02 – 00:18:31:18
Idan
So this is the basically the thought behind the species initiative. We take into account that these are the first steps toward implementing drive. So the reason why you’re not seeing these things, let’s say on the roadmap, is because again, these are this will take time. This is not this is not the future Q3 thing. We are backing this initiative.

00:18:31:18 – 00:18:53:07
Idan
So we so kind of like the world or whoever participates in this massive decentralized effort can start creating those lifeforms. So then we are starting to poised that so Upland will be able to adopt. And by the way, Upland would be one of the first worlds will adopt the standard. We’re hoping to be able to adopt the first species of life in 2024 in Upland.

00:18:53:07 – 00:19:39:03
Idan
But again, this is not something that’s going to entirely depend on on us because there is a decentralized third party that will lead this initiative. At the end of the day, we truly believe that taking this path would lead to a much better outcome. Also for for Upland and the whole, you know, player experience in upland in the way of like how versatile and how kind of like high quality life can be then in Upland the benefits that great and I can show like a small maybe example of like vegan probably all seen right like when when we relied on our own team to create things like structures for example.

00:19:39:03 – 00:20:08:18
Idan
Right. There is some kind of limited way that we can introduce these types of structures into upland. Our hope is that by relying on a decentralized effort to create species, the richness and the quality of that of that library to be introduced into upland would be just much higher and I’ll take a stop here and I think that answers both of your questions. Or maybe, maybe I missed something.

00:20:08:18 – 00:20:27:21
IamGod
No, you answer both questions. But you did bring up another that sparked out of reading navigating the metaverse or just thinking about Web three in general. It always encompass both blockchain technology as well as A.I.. With the advent of a lot of the technologies, people are shifting from Metaverse. At least they’re claiming to A.I..

00:20:28:03 – 00:20:38:03
IamGod
Where do you see them conjoining? Because I’ve always, you know, saw Web three as a group of technologies converging for one functionality.

00:20:38:03 – 00:20:49:02
Idan
Absolutely. That’s a that’s a fantastic question. That’s always in my mind. And I don’t know, maybe, Dirk, if you want to chime in, because I know this is a passion of yours

00:20:49:02 – 00:21:16:11
Dirk
in terms of A.I. integration to our. That’s the question. Yeah. Yeah. So what do we see it merging with blockchain technology or even upland in particular? Yeah. So when you, when you think about it and you know, we can say that we already have started experimenting right, with I mean I it’s fascinating. It’s very broad. Of course it’s very much hype with, you know, with now being out there.

00:21:16:11 – 00:21:34:23
Dirk
I mean, it’s it’s really fascinating to see. However, you know, we all have to learn we have to be careful of all the results that producers or editors just take it for granted. But what it throws out that is everything is true in there. So I’ve read a lot of examples, right, where they were sort issues. So but overall, it’s a fascinating road.

00:21:34:23 – 00:21:55:02
Dirk
But when you think about it, especially since we are, you know, be creating all of these assets internally. Right. I think we’re probably going to use some of our generated free AI to help us, you know, create assets faster that, as you know, we have a big designer team. So this will be, of course, you know, what are we going to do internally?

00:21:55:02 – 00:22:13:11
Dirk
We’re going to use it probably also for coding, you know, will you know, can we use it? Well, I cannot promise that we will use it, but we’ll look into it. Right. Does it make sense? Right, to to do to be faster, you know, to produce more more output in terms of coding. Right. So there’s a there’s a few things, right.

00:22:13:11 – 00:22:37:02
Dirk
And then when it comes, then but that’s something you won’t see, right? Because obviously you’re producing it loaded, you know, behind the door. So. Right. So but when it comes in for, for the users, I see lots of also, you know, as we know we’re moving more and more to to users seizures of generated content. I see clearly you know that people will be able and be looking currently actively into companies doing stuff right.

00:22:37:02 – 00:23:01:02
Dirk
But you know, of course not everyone is very versed in Photoshop and Blender. And however, I bet everyone can maybe just say a few words, right? Draw me a, you know, good looking deckchair in yellow and whatever. Right. So, so these kind of things, you know, which of course makes completely sense. Right. And of course people have to learn the prompting and how it’s produce good output.

00:23:01:02 – 00:23:24:01
Dirk
Then we also have to have some quality control that comes into it. But this opens up much more capabilities for for, you know, all users to create content and then obviously to run it through them adventures and to sell them to others. So that’s that’s one aspect and one of the things which is around 3D. And then and the other thing is then, you know, when it comes to and as you know, we have avatars now, right?

00:23:24:06 – 00:23:42:05
Dirk
We have to think about, okay, what what does this mean? And I’m not saying that we’re implementing anything, but we’re looking at systems right now. Ultimately, you know, started looking at those. You know, when you when you say when you go into a 3D room, maybe there’s an avatar. Right. Who answers your questions, Right. Of what you have.

00:23:42:06 – 00:24:03:16
Dirk
And I see a huge potential. You know, we’re early at this to the space mentioned, you know, the the improving the onboarding. Right. I clearly see maybe one day you have some kind of a, you know, system when the user comes on board. Riding is with you. Right. And you know, it’s very you know, he’s very, you know, conversational how he helps, you know, to to get onboarded and to upland.

00:24:03:16 – 00:24:18:21
Dirk
Right. But it could go even one further, right. Maybe in a matter of inches. Right. So you run a metal venture and now you have someone you know have bought their rightful response to the questions because you as a metaventure operator, you cannot always be in there. So I mean, I can go on and on and on and on.

00:24:18:21 – 00:24:46:08
Dirk
Right. So definitely we are looking into that right. And how we can, you know, improve the overall user experience and become more efficient, more productive, you know, and and at the end of the day, also cost efficient. What it means really for the blockchain intersection and I there I haven’t seen yet good examples but I’m always, you know if you have stuff you know you know I was free forever shared with general mort with X1 right.

00:24:46:17 – 00:25:11:08
Dirk
You know we always tend to look out you know as you know, we always want to innovate. We want to be cutting edge. Everything we do, you know, stuff we’re doing right now with species, by the way, also two species, we’ll have the opportunity to, you know, implemented with generatie AI. you know, we send it to us and we’re have to take a look at, you know, you know, there’s so much going on right now, but, you know, happy to talk to you know, to to learn also.

00:25:11:08 – 00:25:19:09
Dirk
But this whole new space is going to give us. Thank you very much. IamGod for the questions. General Mort, did you have anything to add to that?

00:25:19:09 – 00:25:49:24
X1
I was just going to say in terms of like how, you know, I and blockchain might intersect. I think just one of the goals for Web3 is is ownership and user generated content. And I will significantly scale, you know, normal people’s ability to create their own content. So that’s kind of where I see those things intersecting, at least in the short to medium term. It’s people allowed to create their own stuff and then actually own their creations that they, that they manufacture on the blockchain and then sell them, distribute those however they want.

00:25:51:03 – 00:26:00:13
X1
You know, great conversation. Again, thank you very much. I am glad for for that. DeSjaak is now here on stage with us. Welcome DeSjaak to the stage.

00:26:00:13 – 00:26:29:24
DeSjaak
I had a question about surprise surprise user generated content. I was wondering the way you’ve set up the royalties and the manufacturing right now it’s very much so that the people who own a lot of spark cannot use their factory because most of them don’t have the skills for creation.

00:26:30:22 – 00:26:59:19
DeSjaak
And at the same time, the a lot of the creators cannot get the credit they make because the royalties go out to the manufacturer and not to the creator. And I feel it’s kind of like not like Web three should be. So I was wondering if you have a Yeah. Plan on doing something about that or changing that. And I also have another question, but maybe this one first.

00:26:59:19 – 00:27:23:17
Idan
Yeah, I’ll take this one. So, so absolutely. Just agree with what you said and we have absolutely thought about this problem and what but what we wanted to do was take the first step to towards royalties. And in that first step, we don’t distinguish between the creator and the manufacturer.

00:27:23:17 – 00:27:58:03
Idan
That means that the manufacturer that is not the creator, basically that they commission the basically the creator, they will need to figure out how to split the royalties then after they are dispersed. But again, this is the first step. So in the future there may absolutely be a way to basically separate between the manufacturer and the creator. But again, we just wanted to make sure that we deliver the very first genesis of royalties in a way that is implementable for us relatively easily, and that was that first step.

00:27:58:11 – 00:28:25:06
Idan
So hopefully again, that helps. Now creators that are manufacturers and maybe creators that are manufacturers that are not creators will figure out a way to split it. And in the future we’ll figure out how to evolve that system to also make it easy for manufacturers to actually split the royalties with creators as well. And then, sorry, you said you had a second question.

00:28:25:06 – 00:28:52:21
DeSjaak
Yeah, I hope I hope it comes soon, though, because otherwise creators now don’t have ownership over what they make only on the agreement they make for now. But of course, you don’t know for how long this goes on and we all hope goes along for a very, very long time. But the other question I had is that we don’t really see anything on the roadmap for this quarter or after that that involves building a utility.

00:28:53:05 – 00:29:16:15
DeSjaak
So a lot is aimed at Metaventures, but that’s actually atr like those are different types of buildings and of course are the neighborhood ratings. But there’s no real reason to own a lot of properties in Upland right now and on the lot of buildings right now. So we were wondering like what on the long term would be there for this part of Upland?

00:29:17:04 – 00:29:43:11
Idan
Okay. Yeah, I mean I would, I would tend to not fully agree with the fact that there’s not. So I think everything in the roadmap at the end of the day serves for utility. And I’ll give several examples. Right. We have recently announced, you know, wearables and the way that we are integrating and is upland with, with the 3D avatars.

00:29:44:01 – 00:30:12:06
Idan
So by introducing and working on things like cafes that give people the opportunity to open, you know, local places where people can congregate and immerse in 3D and use things like spatial audio. But then that also gives utility to the wearables because again, you can’t have wearables without having places where you can show those wearables as well, similar to Metaventures, right?

00:30:12:06 – 00:30:40:04
Idan
Metaventures by on their own, they give utility to properties and to structures. The recently introduced Speedway metaventures right? It not just gives you an opportunity to utilize the property for the launch point of the race, but it also gives agency to players that own properties along the racetracks. Now they have the right to basically launch a racetrack where they own properties.

00:30:40:12 – 00:31:01:17
Idan
So that was the thought behind, okay, the reason why you would want to own properties along the racetrack since you want to create. So that’s another form of of utility. Again, when we talk about things on the road map like racing with clear agency right now, there’s going to be more ways for people to race, reasons to race, and also ways to race to earn.

00:31:01:17 – 00:31:31:20
Idan
These gives utility to both cars and properties. When we introduce things like travel between cities, again, that’s another form of utility. And I can go on and on. I think like utilities is a big word and for us as a team, everything we plan for is in the mindset of at the end of the day, bring it together, everything in one cohesive way that brings utility to the entire digital existence that people spending offline.

00:31:32:04 – 00:31:52:23
Idan
And it may be slower than everyone would have liked it to be. But if you look at kind of like the direction you can see that everything converges into giving utility to digital assets in offline, I hope that somehow answers the question you have.

00:31:52:23 – 00:32:34:20
DeSjaak
I think I understand. But yeah, I think it’s for a lot of people it’s they’re worried because it’s so far away from being a property trading game and because we don’t get a lot of information in a long time, it kind of feels like it’s just selling logistics or selling wearables instead of like building up the space. So I think it has to do a lot with information, but that’s not just with the metaventure,people have been waiting for half a year and like that kind of creates difficulties understanding what it’s being worked towards.

00:32:34:20 – 00:33:01:06
Idan
Yeah, I totally understand. But I also want to say again, like at the end of the day when we talking about wearables and 3D avatars that directly tied to utility to properties, because hopefully soon people will be able to turn their structures and properties into places where players can converge and congregate to meet together there.

00:33:01:13 – 00:33:35:20
Idan
That is fantastic utility. I think in my mind that would bring neighborhoods more alive and that’s where we’re working towards, right? So it’s not just about selling wearables, obviously. Yes. Like we want players to create wearables and to sell them, and we want to have, you know, wearables that have IP with partners. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t work if you don’t have the virtual spaces to actually utilize those wearables and these tie in applying directly to properties.

00:33:36:00 – 00:34:06:12
Idan
And I think also that’s what sets Upland to be the part from there’s a lot of, you know, 3D immersive experience platforms to be out there, but I don’t think any of them have the context that Upland can give them with virtual localities. And this is the magic in Upland, so I’m super excited to see that developing. And in my mind that is amazing utility that is being introduced into virtual land, in Upland in the end of the day.

00:34:07:06 – 00:34:19:14
X1
Great, great discussion. Thank you very much, DeSjaak for your questions and for joining us here on stage. We also now have stones interiors here on stage with us. Welcome Stonesinteriors to Twitter spaces. All right.

00:34:19:14 – 00:34:28:12
Stonesinteriors
Thanks for having me on, guys. I’m going to go a few points. A lot of what I want to speak about was what DeSjaak just brought up in terms of for utility.

00:34:29:04 – 00:34:36:10
Stonesinteriors
But I want to start with, guys, when are you going to get London open?

00:34:36:10 – 00:34:54:13
Dirk
No comment. Isn’t there a big event happening in London this year, although I think for May is the coronation, right? Are you’re from London?

00:34:54:13 – 00:34:57:11
Stonesinteriors
I’m not, I’m from the West Country, which is the opposite side of London. But you can open a second city there.

00:34:58:06 – 00:35:22:21
Dirk
But you can open up. So you got to keep in mind, as we are always very careful. Yeah, so. So wait and see. Wait and see.

00:35:22:21 – 00:35:31:08
Stonesinteriors
Wait and see is not good enough gents. It’s not good enough. Come on. There’s millions of people over in Europe waiting, waiting for this product

00:35:31:08 – 00:35:38:14
General Mort
So all we can say, unfortunately, we’ll just have to wait and see if there is.

00:35:38:14 – 00:36:16:21
Stonesinteriors
Okay. I want to talk about growth. I want to talk about what item was touching on about about utility. I want talk about user utilities. And I’m struggling. I’ve got metaventures, I’ve warehouses and showrooms built that are completely empty. I’d like to see the option of you guys being able to offer a rental option so we can rent these properties out to users that have the product in them. For one, but also for us to have and create our own products and self right or ventures.

00:36:16:21 – 00:36:37:04
Stonesinteriors
So that would be, you know, where everyone can participate. It might be girls creating their own artisan products for them, just create direct links or certain physical products and services and just basically, you know, give us for utility where we can sell our products instead of having to, you know, subjected. So what you guys give us to then sell amongst each other.

00:36:38:09 – 00:36:42:05
General Mort
What sorts of products are you are you speaking to if you don’t mind me asking?

00:36:42:05 – 00:37:13:21
General Mort
What people you know, what other people do in real life? You know, I do a lot of crypto products outside of what I do, but I can also introduce my real estate portfolio into it and been able to sort of offer people with tokenizing assets just like lost a lot of it I do on algorand where they tokenize property they’ve got on their portfolio to users, but then there’s a lot of entrepreneurs in this product that has invested an awful lot of money and they’ve had the same vision from the very start.

00:37:14:10 – 00:37:28:19
Stonesinteriors
What we saw in the roadmap, I’m quite not seeing here today, because for me it was all about the property and the value of property. And I think if we can give our properties for utility, then somebody does value, right?

00:37:28:19 – 00:38:04:19
Idan
Yes. So this is absolutely what we’re working toward. And again, trying to I’ll try to lay out kind of like the vision of how we how we get there. And hopefully, you know, it’s not going to be too much of a long pathway. So, first of all, with NFT that are in Upland, you mentioned kind of like, you know, we don’t want to trade, you know, the the NFT that Upland is producing. We want to create our own. So every NFT in Upland will have a pathway to get to a point where users can generate their own.

00:38:05:04 – 00:38:45:07
Idan
And we’re talking about we are seeing it already with map assets, we’ve just launched it now with structure ornaments. You’re going to see it now starting with karts and eventually also with with cars. And it’s also going to be the same with with wearables as well with wearable digits that users will be able to create their own. On top of that, Again, I know this has been a bit delayed, but there is still the full intention of being able to import NFT from outside of offline through the NFT portal and being able to get the spectrum into top ability is essential.

00:38:45:07 – 00:39:13:11
Stonesinteriors
I mean, Uplands is like way ahead of any metaverse in the blockchain right now. It’s still got one of the biggest day to day users by far, but I just feel as though where they are at the moment and where we could be are we’re getting left in the dust in terms of how these guys are literally struggling into interoperability across every EVM, Opensea, Solana, every marketplace they can trade all our nfts on, whereas we’re a little bit sort of stuck in Upland right now.

00:39:13:11 – 00:39:45:24
Idan
Yeah, I agree that we are stuck, but you’re going to start seeing that, you know, traffic jam getting undone. So we are hoping to see to make further progress. I know kind of like this part of it has been delayed. There were several reasons, but we are actively working to deploy the first iteration of of downloading. So being able to both take and assets move them off to places like Ethereum and then also being able to reclaim them back to offline.

00:39:46:09 – 00:40:07:09
Idan
And this one is going to be the first thing we’re going to see. And again, the bidirectional portal is still fully on our roadmap and we have full intention to execute on it. And at that point what you’ll be able to do is also utilize your properties in offline to run in galleries where you’ll be able to trade those items that have been brought into into opening.

00:40:07:09 – 00:40:33:05
Idan
So we’re going to see the first, you know, sort of interoperable entity in between blockchains happen with Upland and other blockchains as well. So I fully agree with your observation that it was stuck, but we are actively working to to make progress there. Well, that’s great news. You know, that’s what I came into the product for. I saw the, you know, the vision from five years on beyond.

00:40:33:05 – 00:40:56:21
Stonesinteriors
So because, you know, sky’s the limit inside this world. And I think what you guys have developed is fantastic. And, you know, it’s it’s there’s there’s a lot of lot of great entrepreneurs out on the sidelines at the moment ready to explode. And I just feel, as I would say, to sort of get going soon. They’re going to lose. They’re going to lose interest in Upland itself, and then they’re going to start to look across web3 to find alternatives.

00:40:56:21 – 00:41:15:19
Idan
Yeah, that’s what also just want to come with one final thing or maybe two things. You mentioned renting and renting. Again, it’s been on. Yes, it has been on our minds. He does not just been, you know, highly prioritized as compared to other tests.

00:41:15:19 – 00:41:35:13
Idan
So but it’s definitely something that we would happen at some point in Upland You be able to rent your your it would like to be along but I would like to be a virtual landlord. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is, again, we need to execute on it and it’s every like every test. It competes with other tests that we want to make progress with.

00:41:35:22 – 00:41:57:24
Idan
The other thing I would say that one thing amazing about Upland is going to be that when you want to become an entrepreneur in the metaverse, right, and you are going to have your either your own creations or creations that are being brought in from outside of Upland, you’ll be able to also complemented with third party experiences that bring those creations to life.

00:41:58:11 – 00:42:23:13
Idan
And I think that’s something that is very, very unique to Upland that basically is going to be one of the winning points in favor of the platform. It’s not just about creating NFTs, trading them, it’s about the utilities. You can give them beyond what Upland gives them natively by expend. Absolutely. To get some third party apps. Absolutely.

00:42:24:07 – 00:43:03:24
Stonesinteriors
Okay, one more question, gents. I want to talk about the the the off ramp you’ve got on the USD, which is great. It works for certain people. But no, no, I invested every single penny I’ve invested in Upland through your crypto onramp using hold, which would be Utrust the company which occurred or like it does that you trust spoke. And quite a few times I see what they’re doing. They’re fantastic and you use one of their widgets for your crypto onramp. No where where’s our option to be able to crypto off ramp into a stablecoin.

00:43:03:24 – 00:43:42:12
Idan
Yeah. So I’ll take that one as well. So we today with our off ramp, we use a third party service and that third party provider does not offer the the route for people out front. And this is something we’ve been talking with them since day one and unfortunately it’s not up to us to deliver. It’s on them to deliver and I can that that is the best answer I can give you as of now. You know, maybe in the future there will be all of the providers we can look into that we’ll offer that offer and it just doesn’t work.

00:43:42:12 – 00:43:49:02
Stonesinteriors
Well, you’re currently using you’re currently using Utrust. So on ingestion, they can set you up. Well, similar product.

00:43:49:02 – 00:44:25:19
Idan
Utrust is the onramp. The thing is that one thing that makes upland against special and the different in the ecosystem is that we are able to serve both serve and hold proceeds for players all around the world, but also in the US. And you know, as you know, the US is a highly regulated place where again the option for us was if we were to kind of like go strictly with crypto, we may have not been able to easily service the US based individuals and the same goes do so.

00:44:25:19 – 00:44:57:23
Stonesinteriors
But being able to give to crypto users or those that are coming from the crypto side that the opportunity to be able to offer for crypto as well. Because you know, web3 and decentralization is all about doing away with the middleman, right? Where would a problem start? And then you’ve got your feet and then you’ve got your fees attached to that. So I just feel like by the time we do offramp one of our assets certain price, because the shore is at certain price in some cases and whatever, we’re trying to sell that by the time we do get back into a physical dollar, you know, we’ve lost quite a lot on it in terms of fees, I 100%.

00:44:57:24 – 00:45:16:11
Idan
We’re fully agree with what you’re saying. Unfortunately, there’s no like short term solution for us on the roadmap that we can implement. But I definitely I’m on the same page with you that this should be something we are working to. We will work towards and try to figure out how to do.

00:45:16:11 – 00:45:20:08
Stonesinteriors
Fantastic gents. Thank you very much for your time, and keep up the good work.

00:45:20:16 – 00:45:28:11
General Mort
I’m like I said, it’s some you know, it’s the long term vision with me with this product. So you know, I look forward to it.

00:45:28:11 – 00:45:42:23
X1
Yeah. Thank you very much stones interiors for joining.

00:45:43:06 – 00:46:03:24
Idan
Just so maybe the group of listeners here, as you know, we were actually we had come up with the idea and co-founded it. And as you know, I’m currently chairman of the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web three OMA3. So we’re we have now companies like Animoca and there’s something sandbox Decentraland, my neighbor So it’s a few companies out there in there.

00:46:04:06 – 00:46:22:14
Idan
Actually, we have over a thousand companies who have signed up for it. I mean, from day one, we always said we want to have everything interoperable, right? Some of the things we can do by ourselves, but some of the things we need to do, all in coordination with all the other world. So definitely we’re completely committed to interoperability and the metaverse.

00:46:22:22 – 00:46:36:20
Idan
But, you know, devil’s in the details. There’s always some, you know, something need to coordinate with others or set certain standards. So not everyone is doing his own thing or her own thing. And then it just doesn’t help anyone.

00:46:36:20 – 00:47:05:02
X1
Yeah. Thank you very much. Again, Stones Interiors for joining us on stage. We are running up to time here, guys. We’ve got about 10 minutes left, so we’ll try to get as many questions in as that time as we can. This is being recorded, so you will be able to go back and listen to it. And then we also do plan on putting this up on YouTube as well. So you’ll be able to listen to it back there. With that, we do have upland travel to the stage. Welcome, Upland travel. Thanks for being here.

00:47:05:02 – 00:47:30:02
Upland Travel
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Great questions so far and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in Vegas. First question, when should we expect details on what type of factories required for car manufacturing and or will current factories work, say, like a medium or large? And then the second question I’ll ask after. Thanks.

00:47:30:02 – 00:47:45:13
General Mort
I will definitely be revealing those details in the coming weeks. We are obviously working to just finalize all those things and then we’ll like once we open up applications, you guys will have the complete details about what factories will work for parts and you know.

00:47:45:13 – 00:47:57:12
Upland Travel
So great. So someone that’s looking forward to that should kind of hold off on manufacturing to a factory now, just in case that you’re going to do a special structure or should we?

00:47:57:12 – 00:48:08:18
General Mort
I don’t believe yeah, I don’t believe it’ll be a special structure. It should be one of the factories that already exists. My guess would be medium plus, but I don’t know. Do we have any details on that yet?

00:48:08:18 – 00:48:24:21
Idan
Existing factories, for sure. I don’t want to be put on the spot for the exact size because, again, the team will need to deliver this information, but it’s not going to be dedicated structures of space, especially for karts. It’s going to be existing structures.

00:48:24:21 – 00:49:03:15
Upland Travel
Great news. Awesome. Second question, I know you don’t have it on the roadmap for you two. Last Genesis, we talked about transportation, more specifically terminals, metaventures, structures, you know, being an owner and there’s many of us, when should we expect some sort of update or can you speak to that at all? And thank you. So specifically, you’re asking about the terminal fees like being paid, the terminal fees as a terminal owner? Well, last last Genesis, it was discussed that there would be structures for terminals, there would be metal ventures or terminals, and thus far, almost a year end.

00:49:03:15 – 00:49:27:03
General Mort
We haven’t heard any updates or seen anything of that sort. So, for example, you have a terminal but you can’t have a metaventure on it because you don’t have a structure. But we don’t have a structure because we don’t have a structure type. So we need all those steps done in order to facilitate utility at those locations unless there’s a different way to do it.

00:49:27:03 – 00:50:06:09
Idan
Yeah, so we are working on it. The I’m just trying to put it in the best way. The challenge there is that we want to strive for sort of. So what we want to do is we, we want to we’re looking into the options that when you when we build these terminals, we want them to look like terminals, right?

00:50:06:10 – 00:50:28:07
Idan
We don’t want suddenly to have like an apartment building up there. We want to make those into special locations. So we’re looking at the best ways to execute that. I think it’s yes, it is absolutely overdue. But these terminals are absolutely destined to be places that you can run metaventures from.

00:50:28:07 – 00:50:51:05
Upland Travel
Would one consideration being to kind of speed up the processes, even if it was like a dev shop or a small structure just to be as a placeholder for now? I mean, does it have to does it have to be a structure or can’t can something be done, you know, not another 12 months from now but sooner than later to give anyway. You understand what I’m saying.

00:50:51:05 – 00:50:58:05
Idan
Yeah. I think that’s a great and valid point and I absolutely will take that into consideration.

00:50:58:05 – 00:50:59:07
Upland Travel
All right. Thank you very much.

00:51:00:00 – 00:51:42:13
X1
I thank you very much. Upland travel. And we’ve got about 8 minutes left or 5 minutes left. Will Power is here on stage. Welcome will the boxer Thanks for being here on stage here. Yeah. There’s listed as a speaker will have boxer there. I will just remove him We’ll go to the next person here on second. Roxanne is coming to the stage and this will probably be our last question here.

00:51:42:13 – 00:52:16:17
X1
Everybody. Thank you again, everyone, for joining us. While we wait for for him to jump on the stage, Roxanne, you are on stage. Welcome, Roxanne. You are muted. All right. We will go to to the next one. I know this guy is here. It’s it’s happymfr, happymfr is officially here. Welcome. Happymfr. It’s good to hear from you.

00:52:17:22 – 00:52:48:16
Happymfr
Yeah. Hey, thank you guys for holding this space. You know, I think one of my questions kind of really pertains to, you know, being able to travel in the game with our cars to cities, you know, that aren’t going to be travel able with any other form of transportation is that you know I think I heard General Mort say that was coming. And then also about direction being able to have some kind of control with the vehicles will drive it.

00:52:48:16 – 00:53:00:02
General Mort
yeah so I know we talked about that in the past and obviously this is something that’s been on the roadmap a couple of times now. It’s just cars and transportation in general. You know, things change and we have to change priorities sometimes.

00:53:00:02 – 00:53:24:04
General Mort
So it’s something that has kind of been left aside, but we’re definitely looking to pick it back up very soon. I believe the first functionality that will deliver is going to be that traveling between and within cities. And then after that, you know, stuff like cargo and you know, ride sharing, that’s things of that nature. So, you know, right now we don’t have any cities that of course are only traversable via car.

00:53:24:04 – 00:53:50:19
General Mort
But once that functionality delivered will certainly look to actually open up some more exclusive cities the players can only get to by traveling via car. So I don’t have any specific details on the mechanics right now. You know, I’m not the one designing it, but that’s absolutely unwrap execute soon something that we’re going to be actively working.

00:53:50:19 – 00:54:10:09
Happymfr
I have another question kind of pertaining to and I know this is like completely out of your guys’s control, so to speak, because it is a market controlled by the players. But do you have any I mean, does it does it bother you at all that the floor prices in a lot of these cities are like 30% below mint?

00:54:10:23 – 00:54:48:11
Happymfr
You know, like we’re talking more than we’re I mean, like you can buy properties USD, you know, at 30% mint a lot of times. I mean, does that bother you guys at all or does it really 30% or 30% under mint, 30% mint? I’m seeing properties in some cities, L.A. in particular like 40% mint on average. If not, it’s like 42%, you know, And then I mean, it really is just the bigger cities, you know, And I almost you see it as a supply issue where you have so many properties and then we have so many people that are just basically I mean, it really shows you how desperate people are for money right now,

00:54:48:11 – 00:55:13:06
Happymfr
for one. But, I mean, you know, is that is there any way to combat that? You know, because there are those of us that, you know, you feel like, hey, if I just put 100 bucks in, I bought $100 worth of UPX, I go and I mint properties I mean, like, of course, you shouldn’t expect to immediately pull your money out. Right. But I mean, you’re losing 60% right off the bat. You know, it’s that’s going to drive a lot of people away.

00:55:13:06 – 00:55:32:15
General Mort
Well, potentially, yes. Potentially no. Like on the one hand, in the in the example that you just gave. Sure. But let’s say you invested your $100 worth of UPX into, you know, so many properties and then six months go by and you’ve generated a hundred thousand UPX, now you’re spending, you know, additional UPX that you’ve earned on those properties.

00:55:32:15 – 00:56:01:08
General Mort
So it’s a little bit different. I understand what you’re saying, but, you know, it’s hard for us to control the price values, of course. And you know, one thing that we obviously want to look at was stuff like this is like how much updates are players earning? Because that certainly affects things like for prices for U.S. dollars. So, you know, changes that we do to kind of mitigate over earnings definitely are in line with that logic and trying to protect, you know, prices for properties and stuff like that.

00:56:01:08 – 00:56:03:23
General Mort
But I don’t know if you guys have anything to add to that.

00:56:03:23 – 00:56:51:13
Idan
Yeah, I think I could do that, I guess I’ll start I think like going back circling back to the original question, does the economic performance of our plan, do we care about that? Absolutely. Yes. This is one thing that we currently hold position of kind of like the central bank, and we are responsible for both supply and demand issues, but also things like, you know, engagement factors and kind of like, you know, how to best give the experiences for for the participating community to keep engaging with the game and find interest in it as well.

00:56:51:23 – 00:57:03:05
Idan
But yes, the macroeconomic condition of the economy is absolutely something that is on our mind. To your question, I don’t know Dirk, if you want to add to that.

00:57:03:05 – 00:57:18:11
Dirk
You know, as we always say, it’s all, you know, stability and it should not mix up market developments with stability. Right. In view. I mean, first of all, you have a lot of external factors which are coming in, as we all know, like a year ago, a little more than a year ago.

00:57:18:11 – 00:57:42:08
Dirk
Right. Everything was much more, you know, driving much faster in the crypto space in general. But in the economy as well as in the gaming space and so on. Of course, this doesn’t go, you know, just pass us by us as such, right? So that’s something we cannot really influence. Then I think what also to be clear is when when you are you know, of course, there’s this overall economy of upland.

00:57:42:08 – 00:58:01:00
Dirk
No, of all the cities. But going forward, you know, eventually we’re going to going to open up more cities. Right? It’s going to be. But I think we’re going to have you know, it’s the wrong word to say no micro economies right? It’s not really the right word for it, but there will be different economies in different locations.

00:58:01:00 – 00:58:20:07
Dirk
Also, it’s going to be the overall economy. But there might be some cities, you know, which are just more seek for. They develop great communities there. They attract users because at the end of the day, it’s up to for the community or to attract the users and this these these communities and these cities will be in high demand and this will drive prices up.

00:58:20:16 – 00:58:38:01
Dirk
And that’s exactly what we always wanted to to we wanted to mimic in a certain way the real world. And when you think about it, you know, I’m in New York right now. I mean, it’s a really expensive what it is, right. And everything sold out here, basically. And it’s and in Detroit and in real life, it also looks different.

00:58:38:01 – 00:58:55:17
Dirk
So I think, you know, to me, I think from that very much. And I think when you’re a player, right. And as we said, we never give any strategic advice. But you have to say, okay, you know, think about, okay, where do I put my whole base and where do I, you know, where join a community? And then it’s up to me, you know, also to develop that community a little bit further.

00:58:56:00 – 00:59:17:04
Dirk
But of course, as upland, we all have to want to contribute to it as well, you know, by providing more engagement points and, you know, acquiring more users and everything we can do in our powers to to help you supporting, you know, that you know that you enjoy upland, you know, from from from that perspective as well.

00:59:17:04 – 00:59:37:22
X1
Thank you very much Happymfr, appreciate it and great questions, great discussions today. And thank you everybody for joining us. Let’s let’s go Idan, Dirk. And then General Mort, just final words again, closing thoughts, things you’re looking forward to most in quarter two. And where we will be after this quarter,

00:59:37:22 – 00:59:55:23
Idan
I hope, to see everybody on this Twitter space in person in Genesis week. Hopefully we can make that happen. And if you can get there, you know, definitely worth everybody’s time. I’m always excited and happy to meet everybody in person, so looking forward to it in a couple of months.

00:59:55:23 – 01:00:10:20
Dirk
Well, exactly the same thing. Right. And I think, you know, we we always get new ideas from you guys, although, you know, for Genesis, we do know how to improve our city openings and all that. Right. So please help us to to give us your input.

01:00:10:20 – 01:00:36:14
Dirk
As you know, we always I think Idan said it earlier, rugby always in conflict. But I mean, there’s so much things we can do and we have to somehow prioritize and certain things, right? We believe. But you know, you know, at the end of the day it’s all about the community and helping us building Upland to where we want to go, you know, and not just, you know, next month, next quarter. I mean, this is the approach, I guess we all know.

01:00:36:14 – 01:00:50:16
General Mort
Definitely. Yeah. For me, it just obviously excited with Genesis week coming down and all the other cool stuff that we plan to deliver in Q2. And just want to thank everybody here for coming and sharing their thoughts. You know, we do we do listen to you guys.

01:00:50:16 – 01:01:09:00
General Mort
We do take your feedback into consideration all the time. So just appreciate you guys sharing your opinions and your thoughts. And obviously, we don’t agree on every single thing, but I think it’s a valuable to have kind of this open discourse and just allow for everybody to kind of express their own opinions and thoughts. So appreciate everybody here joining us on that offer.

01:01:09:24 – 01:01:49:23
X1
Yeah, thank you again, everybody. Remember, this is recorded so you can go back and listen to it any time. Please share it with anybody who may have missed it. We will also be uploading this later on YouTube. And I do want to shout out everybody that asked a question today, IMP4STA, Uplandguide, IamGod, DeSjaak, Stonesinterios, Upland Travel and Happymfr. Thank you guys for jumping on stage and for participating. We appreciate you. And that does us for Roadmap quarter two Town Hall. Have a great day, everybody. We will see you next time, you guys. Thanks, everyone.