Pete's Poems NFT

DJ: You're listening to Think Blockchain.

Jerry Cuomo: Hey everyone, Jerry Cuomo here, and welcome to this bonus episode. As many of you know, Think Blockchain is a podcast that is inspired from my book of the same name. One of the motivations for me to write the book was an invitation to teach a cybersecurity and blockchain class at North Carolina State University. Well, the first semester just wrapped up, and after 16 weeks of class and a final project, I must say how it was both a terrifying but ultimately a delightful and rewarding experience, and I can't wait to do it again soon. It was terrifying, because I soon realized that the book didn't teach the class by itself, and that I had to create a curriculum to go along with it. And once I got to know my 35 students, I realized I had to be on my A game during every class. These folks are brilliant, and many had laptops opened during my class, and were fact- checking my lectures along the way. Again, on your toes might be an understatement. And there were so many rewarding parts of teaching. And I have to say that I probably learned as much or more than the students did. I'd love to see their reactions to my lecture content filled with duck pictures, of course, and hear their feedback and interpretation on the topic. But the part that I have to say I enjoyed most, was grading their final reports. You see, each student was asked to describe a new and unique NFT, that demonstrated many of the key properties that we talked about during the semester. For example, proof of ownership and originality, provenance of transactions, the token economy, and how to use cryptography to make sure the token was cyber secure. Well, as I graded their work, I was thrilled to see the creativity that they brought over this topic. So much so, that I thought I must share one of them with you here on this podcast. Today, we are privileged to have Anna Hagendoorn, North Carolina State University senior and computer science major. And she is also the innovator behind the NFT collection called Pete's Poems. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome Anna to Think Blockchain. Welcome, Anna.

Anna Hagendoorn: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Jerry Cuomo: Oh, it's great to have you. It's a thrill, in fact. Anna, let's jump right into it.

Anna Hagendoorn: Okay.

Jerry Cuomo: Who is Pete? And tell us about this awesome NFT collection that you created called Pete's Poems.

Anna Hagendoorn: Of course. Pete is actually my dog. I rescued him early November. He was actually dumped around State's campus, and a friend just kind of knew I was one of those people, if you call me and say there's an animal, I'm like, " Okay, where at?" So I went and got him and was just going to foster him, but fell in love, and here we are three months later and he's living with me forever now.

Jerry Cuomo: Okay.

Anna Hagendoorn: So, yeah.

Jerry Cuomo: I guess that's the way it goes. I'm a dog lover too, so I completely get it. So around the NC State campus, Pete was found, and there it was. Love at first sight.

Anna Hagendoorn: That was the end of the story. So when we got the NFT assignment, I was racking my brain for a while about what I wanted to do. I was like, " I could do something basic and do Web3 domain tokens, something like that." But I was like, " You know what? No. I'm going to make it about my dog." I just kind of decided, he's so full of personality, a picture wasn't going to do him justice. So my boyfriend, who basically is a salesperson for ChatGPT you would think, he's obsessed with it, was like, " Oh, you can make him little poems." And so I was like, " Okay, cool. That'll be it." And so I decided to use that, and now he is a picture paired with a poem, and each piece is unique, each poem's unique, and each poem goes along with his picture, and tells a little story about what he was doing.

Jerry Cuomo: I love it. Can you give a couple examples of Pete's Poems NFTs?

Anna Hagendoorn: Yeah, of course. So I only made three the first time, and I have some more upcoming. There is Pumpkin Pete, which is him basically in a pumpkin costume, with a little poem about how he's dressed up in the costume and everyone loved it.

Jerry Cuomo: Can you just give us maybe the first couple lines of the poem to see what-

Anna Hagendoorn: Yeah.

Jerry Cuomo: So Pumpkin Pete... So picture, folks, Pete dressed up in a pumpkin costume around Halloween, I guess.

Anna Hagendoorn: Yes.

Jerry Cuomo: And ChatGPT did what?

Anna Hagendoorn: It printed out Pete the dog in a pumpkin suit, waddling around looking quite cute. His fur is all hidden, no longer in view, but his tail wags fiercely as he knows he's a hit, it's true. Yeah, it's perfect.

Jerry Cuomo: It goes on, but that's pretty cool. What else do you have?

Anna Hagendoorn: I have Ice Cream Pete, which is when I learned he will absolutely devour a spoon full of ice cream if you'll give it to him. And so this one starts off, Pete the pup, a dog so sweet, loves nothing more than a frozen treat. Very true. And then the last one is Golden Hour Pete, it's essentially exactly what it sounds like. It's Pete at golden hour, and it talks about how he's a model, so Chic can sleek.

Jerry Cuomo: That is just priceless. So can you tell us a little bit how it works, and what did you do to mint these tokens?

Anna Hagendoorn: I used OpenSea. I connected it to my MetaMask wallet, and I minted through OpenSea on the Ethereum blockchain. And the premise behind mine was, I was going to do a buy or trade functionality with it. Because I'm a college kid, I'm basically broke, and I thought it would be nice for if anyone who's a dog lover wanted to be able to have their dog featured as a token but wasn't able to afford buying one, they could trade. And if they traded one of a picture of their dog or another dog or whatever, then I would create another token out of that, and they would get whichever one they traded for originally. And so that was kind of my thought process behind that. Or you could buy them for however much they... And maybe we'll get famous and they'll go for a million dollars. You never know.

Jerry Cuomo: And have you sold any so far?

Anna Hagendoorn: Yes. I actually sold one to a kind of random person, and another to a friend who wanted to have Pumpkin Pete.

Jerry Cuomo: All right, folks, just in full disclosure, I am the proud owner of Ice Cream Pete. All right. You did a wonderful job on this project. Very creative. So what does this NFT represent in the end? Why does it make you smile? Why does it make others smile?

Anna Hagendoorn: My main thought was just, people will pretty much do anything for their pets nowadays. It's basically for anyone who loves their dogs, or just poetry, and wants a unique thing that they know is theirs, maybe they'll accrue value, you can trade them or sell them later on, and even just for someone who wanted to have a digital record of their dog with a cute poem for all time, that's a great way to remember them.

Jerry Cuomo: Yeah, thank you so much. A very creative use of blockchain technology, of NFTs, and just bringing it home to something that... I think many of us are pet fans and love our dogs, and want that digital token to remember them forever. Or just a cool picture of a dog eating ice cream, having it smeared all over their face with a fun poem to go along with it. So very creative. Thanks. With that, I do want to just pause and say congratulations for putting up with me in class. And thank you for that, and thank you for joining us here on Think Blockchain.

Anna Hagendoorn: Yeah, of course. Thank you so much.

Jerry Cuomo: Well, this bonus episode is a wrap. Folks, thinking about Anna's work on Pete's Poems makes me realize how best of breed technologies like blockchain and generational AI in the form of ChatGPT can come together and do some amazingly creative things. It's also refreshing that her use of technology bucks a trend around NFTs being used for questionable good. After all, creating digital assets whose authenticity is provable with a creative use of AI to capture and create something digitally unique, and as a fan of many things, including dogs, the example of Pete's Poems further inspires me to look at creative applications of NFTs for business. Well, hope you've enjoyed this episode, and it's also got you creatively thinking blockchain. This is Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow and VP of Technology at IBM. We'll see you again on an upcoming episode.