How did the non-fungible token (NFT) wave start? A conversation with tech venture capitalist Bill Tai on investing in new technologies

Everyone is talking about non-fungible tokens (NFTs), but what are NFTs actually and how do they work? How does an investor decide to provide early support for new technologies when so much is unknown? What future technologies can be seen on the horizon?

On Friday, April 16, Sanjay Patnaik, director of the Center on Regulation and Markets (CRM) at Brookings sat down with tech venture capitalist Bill Tai to discuss these questions and more. Tai has been funding startups since 1991, and 22 of his startups grown to become listed companies. Since 2010 he has been backing companies with his own capital; among other hits, he was the first backer to commit to the seed of Zoom Video, now a $100 billion company, and is also an angel investor behind Dapper Labs, the market share leader in NFTs with NBA TopShot. From his seeds have grown BitFury, Canva, ColorGenomics, Hut8 Mining, SafetyCulture, TweetDeck /Twitter, and Wish.com.

This event was part of CRM’s “Reimagining Modern-day Markets and Regulations” series, which focuses on analyzing rapidly changing modern-day markets and on how to regulate them most effectively.

Viewers submitted questions for speakers by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter using #FutureTech.