A conversation with Adam Lavine, Co-Founder of Particle Collection
Insights about a company bringing together traditional and digital art
First things first … I’m aware it’s not Friday.
But today is my birthday, so I get a free pass for not sticking to my usual schedule. I thought what better way to spend the day than celebrating something I love: art.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Adam Lavine, Co-Founder of Particle Collection, a company that is revolutionizing the way traditional art interacts with the growing NFT space. In this interview, I was also joined by Mikaela Li, a fellow Duke alum with a passion for art.
It was a pleasure speaking with Adam about Particle Collection and working with Mikaela on this newsletter. I hope next time I will be able to do a podcast with Adam, so you can hear directly from him. For now, please enjoy reading about this fascinating company.
See you next Friday (for real this time).
-Katja
A conversation with Adam Lavine, Co-Founder of Particle Collection
A little bit about Adam
On the Particle website, you’ll find…
“Adam Lavine is an entrepreneur who has jump-started various ventures that have generated over $1 billion in consumer revenue including Infini-D, Wallpaper Universe, Marvel Digital and Chiquita Minions. He is currently a General Partner at Emerald Ocean Ventures. Prior to that Adam helped form and structure Voyager Digital and served as their Chief Strategy Officer for a year, as well as co-founded Ethos.io alongside his son Shingo. Adam has extensive knowledge and experience in business and licensing, having secured large licensing deals with the likes of Marvel, DC, and Disney. Leveraging that experience, Adam is key in Particle’s legal and corporate structure architecture.”
But, as Adam described it, before crypto, his work revolved around distribution, cash flow, and bootstrapping. Because of the nature of his previous careers, he learned to work in a tough business environment. He became interested in crypto through his son, Shingo. As their first venture into the space together, they built a crypto wallet that was all about simplifying the user experience. This business ended up merging with Voyager, which has become a supporter of Particle. Adam and Shingo were eventually invited to join the founding team of Particle Collection.
As with any early start-up, everyone wears many hats. Although Adam’s main focus is strategy, he works with legal matters, structuring deals, finance, content and messaging, and metadata. He is also currently working on an upgrade for the community by optimizing Particle’s Discord for engagement.
Particle Collection
Particle’s mission is to make fine art more accessible to a wider range of people. To accomplish this, it runs on three core pillars: digitization without destruction, democratization, and community.
As discussed in a previous article, there are several tactics that artists have used to tokenize physical artwork. One of the ways that became most common involved taking a photo of the work (which would become the NFT), and then destroying the physical art.
Being an artist myself, just thinking of burning or destroying artwork hurts me. Not only is it sad (and ridiculous), but it takes away a central element of an artwork: it’s physical presence. Take the Sistine Chapel for example. No picture in the world can evoke the same sense of awe and amazement as walking through Michelangelo's paradise.
That sentiment fueled Particle to come up with the idea of “digitization without destruction.” Once Particle Collection acquires an artwork and takes a photo of it, it passes the work to the Particle Foundation. This Foundation is a non-profit that is responsible for safeguarding the physical works of art. Because of the bylaws of this Foundation, it cannot sell or get rid of the works. Essentially, it “legally destroys” the art by making it impossible for it to re-enter the art market circulation.
As for the NFTs, Particle developed the idea of fractionalizing physical artworks. Fractionalizing art (also known as the Particalization Process) means taking the work’s title deed (proof of ownership document) and dividing it into a grid where every piece (“Particle”) will become an NFT. The first piece, Banksy’s “Love is in the Air” was split up into a 100x100 grid, creating 10,000 unique Particles.
In a way, this process reimagines the idea of art ownership. Owning art brings a different enjoyment and pride than just seeing a work of art. This may be because collecting art is a tool for self-expression, similar to the fashion choices we make every day. In the past, ownership of art came as a privilege to the elite. Particle is changing that. Fractionalization gives the average collector an opportunity to own a piece of a great work of art as well as become a part of a community around the art.
Some highlights from the conversation
Speaking with Adam, it’s evident that the community is at the heart of what Particle does and will continue to do. Everything from preparing the initial mint and launch to future plans of voting rights in the Particle Foundation seems to put the people at the center of the mission.
Creating a presence in an industry that is still nascent comes with its own challenges. Adam reflected on some of the lessons he and his team took away after their first launch. The main lesson came from the frictions of the purchasing process. In the future, Particle wants to reduce the issues associated with selecting people for the whitelist, preparing those individuals for launch, and watching for different market conditions.
He noted that people are patient when it comes to great works of art. Particle is currently negotiating for future art pieces (something Adam seemed very excited about) and is receiving offers from individuals who own such works. Adam did not have a timeline for Particle’s next artworks, but hopefully something will come sooner rather than later due to the persistent excitement over the company, concept, and community.
Returning to this point around the community, Adam discussed the potential of a Particle DAO. The company tries to give back to its community through direct interactions on Discord (and other socials) to giving individuals a say over how Particle Foundation handles the physical works. Therefore, it seems like the logical next step to adopt a more decentralized governance structure.
It seems like Particle is thinking seriously about this, as long as they can create the right structure for the DAO to exist. The main barrier to achieve it right now comes with reconciling a DAO with the legal structure of a non-profit. Besides a DAO, Particle does have other short and long-term plans.
The first step would be growing the collection and, therefore, the museum (both virtually and physically). In addition to this, Particle may want to focus more deeply on the education side of crypto and NFTs. They want to make this technology more easily accessible to a wider range of people. Adam views Particles as an onramp into the industry, but the technical frictions still deserve some attention and actionable solutions.
The final question I asked Adam was: what advice would you give someone who wants to participate or enter the space but doesn’t know where to start?
Besides the typical answers like tread carefully, don’t spend what you can’t afford to lose, and diversify, Adam offered (what I consider to be) one of the most undervalued pieces of advice for getting into the crypto world.
As Adam said, “get involved with projects you believe in.” Check to make sure a project has values that align with yours, while also considering the potential that the project has. If you are lost about where to begin, then start with evaluating what you care about and find a space in the crypto community that cares about that same thing. Committing time to something you value will never feel like a waste or a drain, and, more importantly, it will allow you to learn.
Banksy’s “Love is in the Air”
To read about Banksy and this work, please visit the Particle Collection website here.
Podcast worth listening to
Mikaela and I had very limited time with Adam, so there is still so much left to be discussed about Particle. If you’re interested in hearing more about the company, you should check out this podcast that features several of the other co-founders.
Links
Particle Collection:
Adam’s Twitter
Bonus content
Check out this interesting article Adam shared with us: “All of the World’s Money and Markets in One Visualization”