21 Jun 2024/56 min/Defiance Works
MLow X Defiance Works
Never-published interview with collector Defiance Works (Eric Witschen), a 13-year Wall Street technologist on unsystematic collecting, rare Pepes, L2 caution, and why Blur was doomed.
This never-published Google Meet conversation is with Eric Witschen, who collects as Defiance Works. His path: baseball cards in the 80s without caring about sports, then art once he started earning, spending whole bonus checks at Christie's works on paper auctions on two lines Picasso put on a piece of paper. Professionally he spent 13 years in Wall Street technology, building derivatives risk and trading systems and leveraged loan settlement plumbing, with inside views of Goldman Sachs, Apollo, and secretive shops like Renaissance. His verdict on traditional finance is blunt: extractionary and terrible, and crypto is the answer. He was into Bitcoin in 2010 and 2011, drifted away, and came back for DeFi in 2018 and 2019 after leaving Bloomberg to build a data company. Pepes with jpegs in tokens made instant sense to a lifelong collector who already understood provenance; he gives the tour of his Pepe room on camera, including Rare Scrilla hand-drawns and a Vandal Bitcoin piece with the Fed blowing up in the background.
He collects with no system by design: not traditionally studied, not regimented, he sees what he likes and buys it if he can afford it. His favorites run from Grant Yun's My Terminal and multiple XCOPYs to Die With The Most Likes, ACK's color study set, a ripcache piece he stares at endlessly, and Life in West America, which he bought in the depths of the bear and predicts will be the cornerstone of collections someday. He argues the term crypto art does the work a disservice: the blockchain is a world-changing provenance tool, but the mechanism is not the art, and the two do not always need to be connected. On memes, he calls them some of the best art that exists, credits the Counterparty, Rare Pepe, and Fake Rares crowd as the backbone of the space, names the SHITCOIN card and UFO Pepe as favorites, and admits he has probably lost entire Counterparty wallets to bad opsec.
The market takes are the sharpest part. L2s are on training wheels, centralized sequencers and all: use them as training grounds for volume and onboarding (he buys on Prohibition on Arbitrum) but mint the work you believe in on Ethereum mainnet or Ordinals. He is skeptical of Solana as a place to mint art, though he thinks good art there will eventually be valued, and he predicted the ETH ETF would launch in early July and refocus institutions on Ethereum. On Blast and Blur he is scathing: a washing machine of OGs, a PVP game whose farming washes out real holders, extractionary and headed for a dramatically awful death, because stripping the jpeg out of the token just leaves worse shitcoin trading. His long view: Sotheby's and Christie's leaning in will bring collectors who do not care about crypto, the crypto rich are not real rich, and when actual billionaires arrive the whales get bigger, but only spend what you can watch go to zero.
What this episode teaches
- Unsystematic collecting is a legitimate system
Eric is explicit that he has no rubric: no favorite style, no favorite artist, not regimented. He sees what gives him chills and buys it if he can afford it, a deliberate counterpole to collectors with ordered criteria.
- Separate the mechanism from the art
Blockchain is a world-changing provenance-tracking tool that lets collectors assign value to digital art, but it is not the art. You can be passionate about the technology and the art without forcing them to be the same thing.
- Use L2s as training grounds
His advice to artists: mint volume and experiment on L2s where it is cheap, then put the work you truly believe in on Ethereum mainnet or Ordinals. L2s run on centralized sequencers and their long-term permanence is unproven.
- Follow the TVL
He treats DefiLlama's total value locked as the tell: money on a chain is what eventually funds art purchases there, the way you buy a Picasso at Christie's, not at a regional auction house. Blur's declining TVL was his evidence people were opting out.
- Financialization washes out the owners
Points farming pushes prices past what real holders who care about the image will pay, leaving traders stacking hands on top of each other. When selling starts, the would-be owners rarely come back. Borrowing and lending against NFTs will survive; trading games on illiquid tokens will not.
- Fair games attract players
His read on meme coins: no team, no vesting schedule, nobody sophisticated enough to dump on you, so it is a casino that is fairer than Wall Street and fairer than Vegas. E-Trade threatening to shut off Roaring Kitty proved the old game is not fairer.
- Do not right-curve the product
He reframes the mid-curve meme: smart people fail by being too far right on the curve, building things nobody understands. Unless you wrap Robinhood-easy UI on crypto, average people will not use it, and putting yourself in the average person's mindset is the superpower.
- Only spend what you can watch go to zero
His smartest advice for the space: it is speculative on many fronts at once, and you do not know whether even the Roblox generation will value this work the way you expect.
- The crypto rich are not real rich
Today's collectors have a couple million in crypto and spend 150 to 200 thousand on art. Traditional collecting has billionaires. When they arrive, aggregate value and whale size grow, though he doubts routine nine-figure sales.
The conversation, topic by topic
A collector's iterations
Eric traces his path from 80s baseball cards to Christie's works on paper auctions in New York, where he would spend an entire bonus check on a few Picasso lines on paper. He collects everything from sculpture to the stained glass behind him, and calls collecting his hobby, not his profession.
Thirteen years inside Wall Street
He built derivatives risk management and trading systems and leveraged loan settlements, working inside Goldman Sachs, Apollo, and secretive funds like Renaissance. He rates his own knowledge of asset classes and market structure top five or ten on Earth, and concluded the system is extractionary: crypto is the answer.
The Pepe room
On camera he shows the office he is assembling: a Nicolina piece bought at the Art Basel show where Pepenardo showed his McAfee painting (he underbid on that one), a Vandal Bitcoin Grand Rising piece with the Fed exploding, Rare Scrilla works including hand-drawn rare Pepes, and more still on the floor.
Bitcoin early, DeFi later
Into Bitcoin in 2010 and 2011, he lost touch, then returned when decentralized finance emerged in 2018 and 2019, leaving Bloomberg to build a data company. Seeing Pepes put jpegs in tokens fused his two lives; he had already fallen for a Banksy at the Princess Hotel in Bermuda and bid on it unsuccessfully.
What crypto art even means
He argues the term conflates a provenance mechanism with the art itself. His Vandal piece with the Fed blowing up is unambiguously crypto art by subject; Pepes cross over, since Pepe predates crypto but became its mascot. MLow notes artists debate whether subject or chain makes something crypto art.
Memes as art and the Counterparty backbone
Memes are absolutely art, some of the best that exists. He credits the Rare Pepe and Fake Rares communities as the backbone of the space, loves the SHITCOIN card as an embodiment of value-free pumping he watched in DeFi, cites UFO Pepe as possibly the first GIF on chain, and confesses to losing whole Counterparty wallets of rare Pepes and Fake Rares through terrible opsec.
Meme coins and the fair casino
He rejects the idea that rebranding shitcoins as meme coins matters: people play because fully released supply and weak teams mean no vesting overhang, making it fairer than Wall Street. His favorite meme is the mid-curve bell curve, which he flips into an argument that builders right-curve products past usability.
L2 caution for artists
L2s are still on training wheels: centralized sequencers, no proven permanence, questionable long-term value. He buys on Prohibition on Arbitrum because cheap onboarding is real, but urges artists to move signature work to mainnet or Ordinals, and hesitates on Solana as a minting venue while expecting flak for saying so.
Multichain drops and TVL gravity
MLow cites Patrick Amadon's Disobedience selling a few hundred on ETH, 20 or 30 on Bitcoin, and about 15 on Arbitrum. Eric loves such experiments and the Wormhole Portal bridge, is no chain maxi, and even doubts Ethereum's lead in ten years, but says money follows TVL: you walk into Christie's for a Picasso, not a regional auction house. He also predicts the SEC launches the Ethereum ETF in early July, guessing around July 2, refocusing institutional attention on Ethereum and its L2s.
Blast, Blur, and the washing machine
He calls Blur a washing machine of OGs and a PVP battle to get out alive, predicts a dramatically awful death, and notes DefiLlama showed TVL dropping since the initial spike. Farming incentives wash out holders who actually want the jpeg, and stripping the image from the token just recreates shitcoin trading with extra gas. Not a net positive for the ecosystem; the real teams are Layer Zero, Offchain Labs, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base.
When art comes back
The first wave was bought with crypto-native money and will not repeat the same way. He gives the art side about another year, expects Sotheby's and Christie's involvement to bring collectors who do not know or care about crypto (the less the better), and warns that a less speculative audience means more scrutiny of story, history, and proof points before five-figure sales.
Favorites and the gallery
My Terminal by Grant Yun, several XCOPYs, Die With The Most Likes, ACK's complete color study set, a ripcache piece he stares at endlessly, and Life in West America, bought in the bear, which he calls a future cornerstone collection. His Twitter gallery is his real list, and he feels guilty about every piece left out. MLow plugs Roope Rainisto's Vacation and the 5,000-piece Smile collection on Solana at 30 to 50 dollars.
Bridging traditional and digital
MLow highlights artists who crossed over: David Henry Nobody Jr, Rebecca Rose, Pindar Van Arman with his own AI system and museum placements, and Grant Yun's physicals and Avant Arte work. Eric recalls a second Miami fair alongside Art Basel where Tyler Hobbs showed machine-drawn Fidenzas at one lonely digital stall at the height of the boom, evidence of how much room remains, though gallerists may be protecting their bags by rejecting digital.
The tip of the spear
Closing thoughts: public visibility of digital art may add a flywheel to value or subtract mystique, his nine-year-old daughter's Roblox and Minecraft life makes digital ownership feel inevitable, and blockchain will distribute art ownership more broadly than ever. But he is genuinely unsure the top end reaches repeat hundred-million sales, and notes there may always be more artists than collectors.
In their words
“I'd spend my whole bonus check on two pieces of lines that Picasso put on a piece of paper.”
Defiance Works“I'm not very regimented when it comes to collecting. I see what I like and if I can afford it, I buy it.”
Defiance Works“It's just basically extractionary and terrible, traditional finance, and crypto is the answer to that.”
Defiance Works“L2s are still on training wheels.”
Defiance Works“It literally takes the picture out of the token. What's the point? At that point just trade coins without jpegs, and that's exactly what happened.”
Defiance Works“Only spend what you truly can watch go to zero.”
Defiance WorksCite this conversation
Defiance Works in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Defiance Works," The MLow Show, unaired recording, 21 Jun 2024. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2024-06-21-mlow-x-defiance-works.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.