15 Aug 2024/37 min/Dave Krugman
MLow X Dave Krugman
An in person Brooklyn conversation with photographer and Allships founder Dave Krugman on community as the root of all value, mycelium networks, and the zero ETH listing MLow helped him survive.
Recorded in person in Brooklyn, this is the warmest episode of the run. Krugman, who grew up outside Boston, studied psychology at Boston University and moved to New York the second he graduated, opens with gratitude to the tool builders who made his career possible: Transient Labs (Ben, Marco and team) and Manifold, whose founder Richard sat with him on a two hour Zoom call in September 2021 minting his Drive collection piece by piece before creator tools existed. He rejects the idea that the two dev shops compete, calling it abundance mentality: when the frontier is this large, everyone is pushing into new territory for the whole space. His token gated Drip Drop print store embodies his yes-and philosophy: log in with your wallet, print only what you own, first copies embossed with the drip logo and his signature, NFTs and physical prints enhancing each other.
The core of the conversation is his economic worldview. Social media was playing for monopoly money, and converting attention to dollars required an extractive media layer where the creative keeps five percent; blockchain is a peer to peer value network moving real resources at the speed of light. His favorite thought experiment: given a billion dollars as the last person on earth, there is nothing to buy, because money is only a utility moving value within and between communities. Community is therefore the root of all value, a battery you charge by making yourself useful, and he tells MLow the interview series itself is exactly that battery charging. The episode also documents the zero ETH incident: while Krugman slept in Korea, a collector listed his first ever secondary at a zero reserve, MLow spotted it and alerted him instead of sniping it, Krugman broadcast the listing rather than hiding it, and Spartan Black bid it to roughly 5 ETH, near primary price in the depths of the bear market.
From there the conversation ranges across why he left no room for the traditional art world (before NFTs there was no such thing as a digital object, and he was renting his identity from Meta), his partnerships with Meta and Sony's Alpha Collective, and the framework he says has never failed him: building communities on the science of mycelium networks from Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life, where fungal networks are the Uniswap of the forest and an NFT is the mushroom, a beautiful spore packed bloom that propagates the network's ideas. He closes with the Storm Drain contract built with Transient Labs, a ranked auction won by staking drips, and teases Drive Lap 2 for 2024.
What this episode teaches
- Community is the root of all value
Krugman's thought experiment: a billion dollars as the last person on earth buys nothing, because money is only a utility that moves value through space and time within and between communities. Attract a community and the value is embedded in it, like a battery.
- Make yourself useful, then ask once
His advice to a creative with work but no audience: create a hub of value and help one person every day. When the day comes that you need amplification, you have 365 people with megaphones. His own career was founded on telling other artists' stories through Allships.
- Whatever you put out, you attract
The biggest mistake in online social spaces is projecting who you think people want to see, which recruits an audience attracted to a version of you that is not you. He names the danger precisely: the cognitive dissonance between who you are and who you say you are.
- Yes, and: refuse the divisions
He sees no split between web2 and web3 or digital and physical; blockchain is just another incredible tool added to the practice, like the improv line: yes NFTs, and physical prints. His token gated print store, and his Meta and Sony partnerships, all follow from that refusal.
- Broadcast a distressed listing
When his first secondary appeared at a zero ETH reserve, he sent it to everyone rather than hiding it: better to be bought cheap into a safe home than passed around as a weird artifact of the market. The public framing got it bid to roughly 5 ETH and produced a new collector relationship.
- NFTs capture relationships
He calls NFTs a capture mechanism for community capital: a little bucket that stores or solidifies a relationship. The token connecting him to the collector who saved his piece became the start of a friendship, not just a sale.
- Objecthood is the paradigm shift
Before blockchain there was no such thing as a digital object, only copies of copies, with originality tied to a rented social media identity that an algorithm change could erase. NFTs let a digitally native artist own a sovereign identity and issue distinct digital objects into the social fabric he spent his life building.
- Use tokens as incentives, never burns
Drips returned from Storm Drain auctions and the 20 Drive cars in his garage wallet become giveaway incentives: retweet the project, shoot a photo in the style of Drive, recommend an artist for Allships. The reward loop spreads the meme of the work while keeping the collection intact.
- Build like mycelium
He designs projects on the science of fungal networks from Entangled Life: decentralized, regenerating from any cut, trading nutrients like the Uniswap of the forest, and propagating through mushrooms, which map to NFTs as beautiful, meme ready blooms that spread the network's ideas. He says following it has never failed him.
The conversation, topic by topic
Brooklyn, Boston and New York roots
Krugman has lived in Brooklyn about 12 years after growing up in Needham outside Boston, studying psychology at Boston University, and moving the second he graduated, having fallen for New York while longboarding through Central Park on visits to his aunt. MLow shares his own story: born and raised on the Upper West Side, NYU, a New Yorker his whole life.
Transient, Manifold and abundance mentality
He credits Transient Labs (Ben, Marco and team) for the complex technology letting artists experiment, and Manifold for his career: when Drive dropped in September 2021 there was no creator studio, so Richard minted the whole project with him piece by piece over a two hour Zoom. He argues the two are not competitors but frontier pushers for everyone, and MLow reveals he found Transient through Krugman's Drip Drops and now works with them himself.
The Drip Drop print store
A token gated store where logging in with your wallet shows only what you can print, which is exactly what you own; the first copy of each drip is embossed with the drip logo and his signature. It is his experiment in the yes-and: a compelling physical product built on blockchain rails, and a microcosm of his goal to prove to creative kids that a comfortable living off creativity is possible.
Allships and the economics of attention
Allships, from all ships rise with the tide, is the umbrella for everything he does: dinner parties, events, concerts, and artist features. His argument: social media was monopoly money, likes and views, and cashing attention into dollars required agencies and banks in an extractive layer where the creative keeps maybe five percent. Peer to peer value exchange sends real resources across networks at the speed of light.
The billion dollar thought experiment
His favorite riff: give someone a billion dollars as the last person on earth and there is nothing to buy, proving money is only a utility that moves value within and between communities. Community is the root of all value, a battery, and he tells MLow the interview series is exactly how you charge it: platform people, add value consistently, and one day an army has your back.
Vibe as filter
Emulating someone else or performing for engagement attracts the wrong people, drawn to a false version of you; the gap between who you are and who you say you are is a dangerous place to live. The Allships vibe check is open minded, empathetic, kind, no drama for drama's sake, and he says the Art Basel messages he treasures are the ones saying the Allships party was the warm one.
The zero ETH rescue
While Krugman was asleep in Korea, a collector (Silver Surfer, per MLow) listed his only 1/1 secondary at a zero ETH reserve. MLow, who had watched the same wallet let a Jen Stark 1/1 go for nothing a week earlier, chose to alert him at 4am Korea time instead of sniping it. Krugman broadcast the listing to his community, Spartan Black of Hong Kong bid it to about 5 ETH, near the original primary in the depths of the bear, and Krugman holds no hard feelings toward the seller.
NFTs as community capital
The rescue's real prize was the relationship: he calls NFTs a capture mechanism for community capital, a bucket that solidifies a connection with a collector he had never met, who told him he had wanted a Krugman 1/1 forever. He says he has never had so much fun with art in his life, and MLow agrees.
Asia and the slow grind
Korea Blockchain Week reminded him of the US in 2021: nobody jaded, nobody dragged through the mud yet. He contrasts the American mood of holding on for a saving bull market with his own view that mainstreaming a subculture is always a slow grind, and argues regions trading energy, one up while another is down, is how a global culture actually gets built.
Why NFTs over the traditional route
Early movers like him had no place in the traditional art world: he was digitally native with audiences entirely on social media. Blockchain created digital objecthood where before there were only copies of copies, and it freed him from renting identity from Meta, where an algorithm change could cut access to his community capital. A sovereign, owned identity issuing digital objects was the obvious evolution of everything he had built.
Meta, Sony and how small web3 is
He partners happily with Meta (distribution, beta access, shaping the next internet layer) and credits Instagram for the ten years that built his career; Sony's Alpha Collective backed him among its first eight artists, now around a hundred. Working with global corporations reminds him how infinitesimal web3 still is: today he can DM any artist in the space, and MLow explains this is exactly why he is racing to record these interviews before the artists become too busy.
His own slow start
First sale November 2020, then not another until his May 2021 SuperRare genesis sold to 33NFT. In the drought he DMed every artist doing mind blowing drops just to talk, and by the time Drive (111 cars, all shot on iPhone) launched in September 2021, people fought to get one. His lesson for artists: become a bigger node, because the more information flows through you, the more value flows through too, especially as social networks become financial networks.
Mycelium networks and NFTs as mushrooms
He builds communities on Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life: mycelial networks are decentralized, regenerate from any cutting, and act as the Uniswap of the forest, trading carbon, phosphorus and sugars between trees and adjusting exchange rules to resource abundance. The mushroom, a spore packed sculpture optimized to spread, is his metaphor for the NFT: a beautiful bloom from the blockchain subscape whose memes propagate the network, citing Punk6529's Memes project as a memetic tidal wave for ideas like self sovereignty.
Storm Drain and Drive Lap 2
His Transient built Storm Drain contract runs ranked auctions where the only way to bid is staking drip NFTs; the contract self executes, swapping the winning drips for a 1/1 (Bryan Brinkman contributed a piece) and recirculating the rest, never burning. His own auction returned 14 drips he now gives away to incentivize retweets and artist recommendations, which is how collector DFins introduced him to Eva Eller. He keeps 20 Drive cars for style of Drive photo challenges, and teases Drive Lap 2 for 2024 with all the stops pulled out.
In their words
“I want to prove a creative life is possible.”
Dave Krugman“When you really boil it down, community is the root of all value.”
Dave Krugman“Money is only a utility that moves value through space and time within communities and between communities.”
Dave Krugman“The cognitive dissonance between who I am and who I say I am, that's a very dangerous place to be.”
Dave Krugman“I'd rather be bought for cheap and go to a safe home than just be passed around as a weird artifact of the market.”
Dave Krugman“NFTs are a capture mechanism for community capital.”
Dave KrugmanCite this conversation
Dave Krugman in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Dave Krugman," The MLow Show, 15 Aug 2024. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2024-08-15-mlow-x-dave-krugman.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.