Mike Anderson and Ovie Faruq have gone from ordinary collectors to community builders noticed by the likes of Snoop Dogg and Raoul Pal. Today, they’re the founders of Degenz, a market analysis community, and Canary Labs, a web3 fund and consultancy.
Known respectively as Mando and OSF, they’re former traders who began experimenting with NFTs and collecting in early 2021. As Mando says, “there was a global movement towards NFTs and the metaverse; if we didn’t join, we would live to regret it.”
It’s been a bumpy ride, but now Mando and OSF lead one of the largest communities in web3. They sat down with Signal to understand the secrets to their success, what happened to the 150 Bored Apes they minted, and what they think is missing from the NFT space.
Our favourite quote? “We thought the rektguy collection would settle at 0.4-0.5 eth, but it catapulted price and volume after Snoop bought. We realised that the opportunity set was more extensive than we initially thought, and we needed to figure out our next steps.”
After a career in financial consulting in London, Sig directed her attention to blockchain technology and spent some time as a Solidity developer. Her work focuses on web3 because she believes in the opportunity for curious individuals to unlock their creative potential. Away from her computer she is passionate about long-distance running.
