Podcast

Jeff Holmberg: Immersive NFTs and Beyond

In this episode, Jeff Holmberg, the Chief Strategy Officer at Terra Virtua discusses how they’ve developed an ecosystem for collecting digital goods and NFTs. He goes into detail about the company’s collaboration with HashMasks.com and describes the platform’s showcasing capabilities for collectors.

What is Terra Virtua?

  • What is Terra Virtua: Terra Virtua is an immersive collectible company focused on NFTs, 3D VR, and AR. Their collectibles are on the Ethereum chain. They’ve worked with Paramount Pictures and Netflix and have several new releases coming out including Godzilla vs Kong. They recently had a collaboration with NFT owners with the Hashmasks.
  • Jeff’s role at Terra Virtua: Jeff and his partner Ash focuses on strategies on what and how to launch products. CEO Gary Bracey has been in the gaming industry for over twenty years. The team is working on creating relationships and partnerships.
  • What brought him into the NFT space: Jeff’s background is in traditional finance. He describes his past role as “a robot” at Goldman Sacks and Merrill Lynch on Wallstreet. He later entered the blockchain space and eventually moved to Terra Virtua to run strategy for the company.    

Quotes

“Art belongs on a wall with proper writing, and it should give you an important feeling when you’re walking through this art gallery. That’s why we built it as so.” (Timestamp: 7:15)

 “One of my favorite words for NFTs is utility. It’s a lot of fun to be able to buy something and be able to view it in our collectors’ room or art gallery, and also use it in augmented reality.” (Timestamp: 9:37)

The Terra Virtua Platform

  • Platform: There are three parts to the platform, their flagship is the Fancave. You can download it when you visit the website terravirtua.io. Its built-in unreal engine for high quality. They are also exploring web-based options for the future. The Fancave is a collectors’ room. They also have the Terra Dome which serves as a hanger for larger collectibles. The third side of the platform is the art gallery. It was built using Unreal Engine and gives artists and collectors a “landing zone” for digital art. It even acts as a storefront for digital artists.
  • Landing zones: The platform spaces are for standard ERC-721 tokens. They started as a wall-mounted NFT system (wall garden) but the technology will soon change. The company expects to have full interoperability within a week or two. The ecosystem will let in other entities and collectibles. They anticipate doing testing, for example, to see if older and larger items can be brought in.
  • Augmented Reality: For Augmented Reality (AR) Terra Virtua has a live mobile app available for Android phones and IOS will be available soon. You can log in through the mobile app and see items there. They can use them in augmented reality. Users can record videos or take pictures from inside the app. With Godzilla-Kong, one user had Godzilla overlooking Hong Kong. Another user put Godzilla in a wrestling ring and him doing a ninja kick on him. There are a lot of creative options for users.

Integrating social networking and real life

  • Virtual Reality: VR would require a headset. They are working on and testing the ability to pick up the items with your hands in virtual reality. Collectables are designed in 3D and can be turned upside down, spun 360 degrees which enhance the experience. This would be a bonus for people to have a real-life experience inside a digital space.
  • Use-case for digital art: NFT can be enjoyed on the digital side of the metaverse. Another use for digital art is that you can take pictures or videos and send them to people. You can put a piece above your desk in the physical world. Terra Virtua wants to extend these use-cases and consider what other utilities and extensions an NFT has. Showcasing is a big part of that. They are always thinking about what users want.
  • Social Integration: They are working on a social integration feature inside the platform. Users would be able to create their profile which they could set to public. This would allow visitors to go through their collectibles, walk through the Cave-dome gallery and experience someone else’s collection. Most collectors enjoy the chance to show off their NFTs. Curating a collection takes work and showcasing it is part of the fun.
  • CryptoVoxels: The rise of spaces like CryptoVoxels makes it exciting to explore and see what others have curated. Terra Virtua wants to create a similar experience for its users.   

Collaboration with Hashmasks.com

  • Hashmasks: Terra Virtua has developed a partnership with Haskmasks. Hashmasks is a digital art collection of over 14,000 pieces. It features hidden secrets in them like symbols and styles. The company offers full commercial rights to the artwork. For example, you could use it on a T-shirt or other item and sell it.
  • V-flect digital robots: The two companies collaborated to build v-flect digital robots in the style of the Hashmasks artwork for the owner. They have a royalty system for the owners where they received 15% of the sale and a secondary royalty of 10%. Users can profit $4000USD from licensing their NFT. There are a total of 73 v-flect NFTs created and two have been released so far.
  • NFT ecosystem: These collaborations create a great ecosystem where owners are getting paid for the ownership of the NFT, and collectors are getting cool NFTs through these v-flect Hashmasks which work in AR and ER and inside the Fancave.

What’s next for NFTs?

  • A Growing Community: The platform has thousands of daily users signed up. Demand is outweighing the supply. Terra Virtua is growing fast, and they want new users to get involved and engage with the items. They offer items as low as $8 to make them accessible.
  • People that might not understand blockchain can use a debit or credit card and pay with USD currency. To retain new people it’s important to get them involved. The company also takes community feedback into consideration.
  • Endpoint: What Terra Virtua wants is to be the endpoint for what’s next in NFTs. Once you purchase them, what do you do with them? How do you showcase them? The company offers a solution to that and makes it interactive.
  • Custodial Wallet: When users sign up for a Terra Virtua account, they can use a wallet address of their choice. New users can also be assigned a custodial wallet and can transfer assets back and forth between wallets. Maddock.eth is an inexpensive option for transferring digital assets and the company will stay on the Ethereum chain for now.
  • Go to Terravirtua.io to visit the marketplace to find links to their social media, discord, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Visit the company’s telegram and discord channels to chat with an admin.