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<\/a>NFT:\u00a0king (002)<\/a>. Courtesy Alexander Yolevski \/ tdotcondos\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nMaybe you first heard about NFTs (non-fungible tokens) through the $600,000-sale of the Nyan Cat meme<\/a>, or in the form of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey\u2019s first ever tweet<\/a>, which was purchased for $2.9 million in March. If you haven\u2019t been introduced, now is a good time, because NFTs have made it to Toronto\u2019s new construction condo world.<\/p>\n This week, a limited collection of condo-themed NFTs launched on OpenSea\u2019s digital asset marketplace, called tdotcondos<\/a>. The stylized image collection depicts six of Toronto\u2019s iconic new construction projects, including Art Shoppe<\/a>, One Delisle<\/a>, Nobu Residences<\/a>, The Goode Condos<\/a>, King Condos<\/a> and The Capitol Residences.<\/a><\/p>\n\n The tdotcondos series was launched by local marketer and creator Alexander Yolevski, who runs Yolevski Creative Media<\/a>. Following a career as a food writer and marketer for restaurants, Yolevski slowly moved into the new construction and condo marketing realm, experience that alongside his ongoing interest in Toronto\u2019s growing landscape, became the inspiration behind this real estate-related NFT launch.<\/p>\n Livabl<\/em> spoke with Yolevski to learn more about the NFT world and the launch of tdotcondos.<\/p>\n Parts of this interview have been edited or removed for clarity and brevity.<\/em><\/p>\n I think for me, what makes the most sense of what NFTs are, they are digital assets. Thinking about NFTs as a digital asset is probably the most easy and simplistic way to think about it. An NFT is a non-fungible token, [which] is what it stands for. And basically it\u2019s the ability to own something completely unique online. It can come in the form of art, of images, of music. People even turn their own Tweets [into NFTs.] They\u2019ll take a screenshot of their tweet. For simplicity reasons, just think of it as a digital asset that you can own. It\u2019s the digital version of something that you can own online.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s just stick to visual art, because that\u2019s what is really becoming popular here, and it\u2019s the ability to just collect. I think if you think of NFTs in a form of collection, the reason why you would want an NFT or to buy an NFT, starts to make more sense, because there\u2019s trading cards that people were into, like Pokemon cards, the physical things. It\u2019s the idea of just being able to collect them all as part of a collection and you can sort of either get obsessed or interested in it, and it\u2019s really cool to see a bunch of similar items together in one collection.<\/p>\n I think condos because of the relevancy, just [with] what\u2019s been happening within the city, and also because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve worked with, what I\u2019ve been exposed to. And there\u2019s always a certain type of marketing that I love that revolves around these projects. It\u2019s not just, \u201cOh, there\u2019s a new building going up.\u201d It\u2019s everything from, \u201cWho\u2019s the designer? What neighbourhood? How will it change that neighbourhood? What\u2019s going to be the architecture of the building?\u201d<\/p>\n It just seems that every time you see a certain type of condo come up, it creates this amazing transformation and you\u2019re always excited. There\u2019s always a lot of hype around it. You\u2019re always excited to see what the renderings are going to look like, what\u2019s the kind of style that they\u2019re going to go with and the amenities that are involved and that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n It\u2019s getting more and more exciting. The condos are getting more and more expensive, but I think there\u2019s a lot more detail and a lot more world-wide attention being spotlighted on these projects coming up.<\/p>\n I think they\u2019re the most exciting in the form of what I hear about something new being built in the city, I\u2019m always interested in, \u201cWho\u2019s the builder? What\u2019s it going to look like? How tall? Is it boutique-style? What neighbourhood and how is it going to transform it?\u201d I try to choose what I find [to be] architecturally-iconic type of buildings, or at least very different buildings. I just try to choose these iconic buildings I think people would just love to be a part of.<\/p>\n Some of them I just loved what the renderings look like. Just visually, I thought this would look beautiful, and obviously if you\u2019re going to create a collection where the idea is for people to bid on them and purchase them and what to actually collect them, it needs to be something that is visually appealing and looks good and is something that people get excited about.<\/p>\n When I finally started to figure out what NFTs were and started getting excited, what I noticed was a lot of the popular ones, and a lot of these headlines and these NFTs that were selling for millions of dollars and the communities [that] come together and collect so many of them, a big similarity was this idea of [that] the images had been altered in some way. Like a pixel version.<\/p>\n So I did get some influence from that, but at the same time, I didn\u2019t want to just copy that. So rather than going for that sort of original Nintendo system type-of-look these pixel blocks, I thought it would be a little bit more sophisticated to go along the lines of the branding of tdotcondos and just the buildings in general [with] more of a crystallized [look]. But it\u2019s sort of a take off of that pixelated artistic style I guess, which is more crystalized.<\/p>\n I try to do a lot of things publicly on Twitter, but also on other platforms like LinkedIn, Discord. And I am part of these communities where people are sort of helping each other learn about NFTs [and] creating visual stuff online. I have shared the sort of process of doing this, and obviously because of my background of digital marketing specifically within real estate in condos as well, I have a lot of people on Twitter that are within that industry.<\/p>\n So when I\u2019m talking about and thinking about creating a collection that is related to owning digital real estate in Toronto, I\u2019m getting interest from different developers, real mortgage brokers, real estate agents and people in the industry that think that the concept is really great.<\/p>\n At the same time, it\u2019s sort of funny because people would say it\u2019s getting super expensive to buy real real estate in Toronto, so why not use the opportunity to just be a part of what\u2019s happening in Toronto and sort of collect these digital items, which are obviously much cheaper. But who knows, maybe if they start going for what some of the other NFTs [are worth,] that would be pretty funny.<\/p>\nSo what exactly is an NFT?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>NFT:\u00a0goode (005).<\/a> Courtesy Alexander Yolevski \/ tdotcondos\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nWhy did you pick Toronto condo art to make as NFTs, as opposed to landmark city buildings?<\/h3>\n
And why these ones in particular?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>NFT:\u00a0one delisle (001).<\/a>\u00a0Courtesy Alexander Yolevski \/ tdotcondos\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s with the pixelated design of the NFTs?<\/h3>\n
How did the launch go NFT? Who is interested in them?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>NFT:\u00a0nobu (004)<\/a>. Courtesy Alexander Yolevski \/ tdotcondos\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nBuying real estate has become more difficult in Toronto. Do these NFTs give people a similar or more attainable ownership experience?<\/h3>\n