CoinGeek Weekly Livestream: Eric Bernhard talks FabriikX, Fabriik Weave and NFTs

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The latest CoinGeek Weekly Livestream episode came on the heels of CoinGeek New York, with Patrick Thompson jumping in for CoinGeek’s Chief Bitcoin Historian Kurt Wuckert Jr. as the host. Eric Bernhard, the general manager at Fabriik, joined the livestream to talk about how he got into digital currencies, building a better financial future with Fabriik, and NFTs.

Bernhard first got into the industry at the height of the 2017 ICO fever, investing in a few projects as he endeavored to learn about the industry. He would then get invited to CoinGeek London where he listened to Dr. Craig Wright talked about his vision for digital currencies.

“I believed in what Craig was saying, and I still do. Crypto can offer the ability for people to access a financial system that isn’t flawed,” he stated.

At Fabriik, Bernhard is leading a team, alongside his brother Roy Bernhard, that’s building a unified platform to handle all digital currency needs. In addition to the products they already offer, including Money Button, the Simple Fabriik Protocol, a trading desk, and a trading API, the company is still working on new products. At CoinGeek New York, it unveiled its latest offering—Fabriik Weave.

“Fabriik Weave is a simple and seamless crypto exchange. It allows you to go from one crypto to another, really easily and at market rates,” Bernhard said, noting that the platform comes with an easy-to-embed widget as well as an API that can be integrated without any Fabriik branding. Weave is available globally, except in sanctioned countries. In the U.S., it’s available in all states except New York.

The team is also at the cusp of launching FabriikX, an NFT marketplace “that’s different because it’s expertly curated.” Acknowledging that the NFT market is becoming a bit saturated with all manner of items, Bernhard noted that FabriikX is onboarding experts in different niches to determine what’s most relevant for the users.

For the Bitcoin niche, Bernhard has asked CoinGeek’s Chief Bitcoin Historian Kurt Wuckert Jr. to become a curator, essentially determining which items and moments in the history of Bitcoin are most relevant.

Still on NFTs, Bernhard observed that he believes that politics and sports are two of the sectors that will be best served as they have some of the most iconic moments that can be immortalized on the blockchain.

For months, a debate has raged on about what gives an NFT real value. To some, NFTs are just expensive JPEGs that rely on the ‘greater fool theory’ in which you buy purely to sell it to someone else at a higher price. To Eric, it all has to do with cultural relevance, just like in contemporary art. Scarcity is just as important, he added.

“If you can grab it off the Internet in one Google image search, chances are it doesn’t have a massive amount of value.”

As with art, NFTs have to strike a balance between promoting the titans whose work has great relevance and newcomers who have the potential to become legends. Bernhard believes that FabriikX will solve this issue by bringing on curators who have insight into where a certain niche is headed and pick the best projects for it.

Fabriik has a lot lined up for the future as it seeks to meet all digital currency needs in a unified platform. For Weave, the focus will be on giving users the best rates and raising the purchase limits, Bernhard said. Fiat onramps will be next as it diversifies its services.

“We want to definitely broaden our community for people that have never seen or had access to crypto. We want to make sure that people understand the power of BSV and why it matters,” he said.