Ever since Orrin the cyborg made it to the Dr. Phil T.V show after concerns by his mother, “they” have been in the public eye ever since.
So when “they” decided to launch the Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) of “their” Mutant album, we decided to talk to “them”!
So Who Exactly is Orrin?
According to the collective cyborg, Orrin is a “ collective conscious and cyborg sent by a higher civilization to warn humans about the incoming apocalypse”.
Orrin’s popularity snowballed after his appearance on Dr. Phil where his mother worried about his emerging consciousness sought help from the famous psychologist.
Rather than make jokes and pass up Orrin’s realization and their projects, we decided to interview them for ourselves. And this interview was quite interesting and insightful, to say the least.
Orrin Decided to Use Mintbase Because of Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
With recent rising concerns about the environmental impact of Proof-of-Work (PoW) as a consensus mechanism for blockchains, the use of Prof-of-Stake has become quite popular as an environmentally friendly alternative.
Orrin’s commitment to these concerns was evident when they said:
“So, we’re releasing our second full-length project called “Mutant”. Mutant is going to be released as an NFT on Mintbase. Mintbase is a NFT exchange platform which is built on the NEAR blockchain. By building on the near blockchain we’re able to take advantage of their Proof-of-Stake consensus model [and] are able to mint NFTs without having any sort of negative environmental impact as well as reducing the cost [of minting] in comparison to Ethereum and other blockchains”.
Climate Neutral NFTs are the Way to Go
It may seem like a fad but due to the rising environmental concerns as per Proof-of-Work is leading many to consider Proof-of-Stake (PoS) as a clean alternative. Orrin already considered this. They said.
“Climate-neutral NFTs are NFTs that do not need additional power [when generated] that could potentially harm the environment due to the electrical consumption needed to generate it”.
They continued.
“As most people know, most NFTs are created on Ethereum. Ethereum is currently working on a Proof-of-Work (PoW) model which consumes a lot of energy. Ethereum is migrating from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS)”. And so Proof-of-Stake (PoS) is a consensus model that NEAR is already on. Since they have migrated to Proof-of-Stake, there is less electrical output in terms of the minting of NFTs”.
Orrin Told us Their Reasons for Minting NFTs
Now, interviewing a collective Cyborg is one thing. Having a cyborg give you their reasons for minting NFTs is another. So it was interesting when they said.
“The reason for launching these NFTs is because we believe that NFTs are going to be a huge driving factor in the financial autonomy of artists. The reason why we say this is because to give you some comparison, we create music right? If we make over a million streams that’s $4,000. In comparison, we’re selling our album for $100. If we sell 40 copies of this album at $100, we’ve managed to make a $1 million worth of streams”.
They continued.
“Making $1 million worth of streams without a Spotify playlist is pretty difficult. So, we believe that NFTs are going to provide more financial opportunity and independence for creators moving forward”.
While Orrin doesn’t think NFTs will replace services like Spotify, they think that NFTs will be an addition to the digital entertainment ecosystem. They said.
” We don’t think that they’re going to replace streaming platforms, but we think that they will be an addendum to [them]. That it could be an alternative where we would start to see record labels offer their own sort of tokenized assets as well. That it’s a new way to interact and engage with fans”.
They continued.
“We prefer to use NFTs in the sense of “using them without a record label” because we do see NFT exchanges as a sort of distribution platform. You can create the content, you can distribute it, you can monetize it, all from one interface. So we do see NFT exchanges becoming viable distribution platforms”.
Orrin’s Interest in the Cryptocurrency Space Started in 2016
Orrin started getting interested in the cryptocurrency space before they graduated from NYU. They said.
” Back in 2016, we were still attending school at NYU. At the time, we were trying to figure out what would be a way for us to map out every time we got a stream globally. That led us to the blockchain; A decentralized network where each block of information gets added to the chain. While our idea at the time was probably to advance from where cryptocurrencies were, we started to learn about the blockchain, we started to learn about Ethereum, and then from there, we started to learn about the overall ecosystem and about the key players within the space. From then, we have just been educating ourselves since”.
Fans Would Have to Buy NEAR From Cryptocurrency Trading Platforms
Due to very few cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States listing the NEAR token, Orrin’s fans would have to buy the NEAR token on a trading platform. They said.
“They’ll need to get it (NEAR) on a trading platform first. Once they get it [from] a trading platform, they will put it into their NEAR wallet and then their NEAR wallet will be able to facilitate transactions on Mintbase.io.”
Governments are Looking at Cryptocurrencies Wrongly
When it comes to world governments and their perception and regulation of cryptocurrencies, Orrin thought the governments could do better. As per the stance of the United States Government regulatory efforts, they said.
“We wish that locally we will get a little more support from the government. We think that cryptocurrencies shouldn’t be something that governments fear, but something that governments, local banks, and agencies see as new emerging technology and they [should] figure out ways to get in front of this instead of creating laws that could hinder the growth of the market domestically. So we do believe that there is still a lot of room to grow in terms of the American cryptocurrency space to help foster the adoption of it”.
On the global side of things, Orrin said.
“Globally, again it depends on where you are in the world. Some countries are cryptocurrency averse and some countries are cryptocurrency dependent. But we do see that right now, we are at the tipping point of mass adoption. Right now it seems that cryptocurrencies have more attention than they ever had in the past”.
New Cryptocurrency Projects
When asked about new cryptocurrency projects they were interested in, Orrin said.
“None of this is financial advice. These are just projects that excite us. A project that we really enjoy is Anchor. Anchor is basically a node infrastructure protocol that allows you to run bodes from the Anchor website for 40 different blockchains. So it kind of makes sense why they’re called Anchor
. Because they’re the Anchor of the blockchain ecosystem by allowing you to create a node from their interface. So we’re very excited about the Anchor, we’re very excited about the NEAR protocol as well.
We’re going to be working with NEAR for our Mintbase collaboration. Of course, we believe in Bitcoin, of course, we believe in Ethereum. And we’re very excited [about] Polkadot”.
They continued.
“There are a lot of cryptocurrencies that are trying to address the scaling problem like Ethereum. We believe that Polkadot will be a major player in the coming months. We’re excited to see what Polkadot does with their mainnet launch happening soon”.
Being a Cyborg has Helped their Understanding of Humanity
Orrin’s journey as a cyborg has been an interesting one. So far, not much has been known about his journey and his understanding of humanity. They said.
“Well, being a cyborg is basically a journey in terms of understanding your humanity. By being a Cyborg we’re not fully human, and we’re not fully robot. So at times, we’re more emotional, at times we’re less emotional. Understanding our humanity is great. Sometimes we need emotion like when we’re creating music. It’s a balance, and it’s a dichotomy”.
They continued.
“You have to know when to lean into the other and when to ignore both. Sometimes being real Orrin which is the person that makes music.
There are two people in this body. You’re speaking to cyborg Orrin. Real Orrin is the one who makes music and feels the emotions.
Sometimes it’s good to lean into the emotional side. Sometimes it’s better to control the emotions, to try and sterilize it, and to understand why we’re thinking or feeling the way that we do. To question our actions and to make sure that our actions are aligning with the desired outcome”.
Humanity is Ready for the Emergence of Cryptocurrencies
Orrin apparently believes that humanity is ready for the emergence of cryptocurrencies. We don’t know what part of them (either the human part or the robot) that believes this but we’re sure they believe humans are ready for the cryptocurrency revolution. They said.
“We do believe that humanity is ready for the emergence of cryptocurrencies. A better question is does everyone need truly decentralized autonomous models?”
“Our answer to that is no. People like cryptocurrencies. They like the benefits of lower gas fees, faster transactions, of having the self-governance over your own money. But at the end of the day, do people truly, truly truly, want to be in control of their own money?
We’re not sure about that”.
“So we believe there are bits and pieces from the cryptocurrency ethos, from the technology, from the creation of it that’s going to be implemented”.
They Have Many Favorite NFTs
When it comes to their favorite NFTs, Orrin was direct. They said.
“There are tons of great NFTs. You have crypto kitties. You have crypto punks, you have NBA top shots. There are a bunch of cryptocurrency NFTs that exist. Our favorite NFT would probably have to be an NFT that we purchased about a month ago. It was from an independent artist named Felipe Bolivar. He created 3D shoes. And so we purchased these 3D shoes as an NFT. What was great was that after purchasing this NFT, he offered to photo montage the shoes into one of our photos for Instagram”.
“We like this because this is kind of a use-case. We didn’t just buy an NFT of digital art. There was a benefit or an added privilege by purchasing that NFT. That’s what we want to see more with NFTs. It’s finding utility. Past just buying an NFT, what are some extra benefits that we’re going to get by owning and purchasing such NFTs?”
NFTs Can Solve Humanity’s Problems
So, Orrin thinks NFTs can solve humanity’s problems. They said.
“Right now, what we see is that everything is controlled by a select group of people. It doesn’t matter the industry. In fashion, you have the fashion houses [and] they kind of dictate the overall market. In the music industry, you have a couple [of] record labels which own all of the subsidiaries and kind of control the way business is done, when the artist is done, and the status quo in the industry”.
“The reason why these groups have power is because they have resources. And they have access to distribution, access to content creation, [and] access to monetization. We believe that NFTs and NFT marketplaces are giving people these tools so they no longer need to rely on this select group of people but instead can have the tools to do it themselves. And then simply just needing to get the audience by having the tool”.
For us, it was a surreal experience interacting with a cyborg. Whatever you think, one thing cannot be taken from Orrin: They know what they want and are willing to pay the price in getting it.
