Highlights
Lyss opens the show.
Lyss frames the Space during NFT NYC week — "you heard the buzz, you see the timeline" — and sets up the session as a deep dive into what the Blokyz team is building.
UJ's origin story.
UJ shares his path from nearly a decade in consulting (a director role, financial-services operations) into Web3 in 2021, when a client building a DeFi loan protocol led him to download MetaMask, fund stablecoins and settle a cross-border payment in seconds for cents — a jarring contrast to banks spending $300M a year on operations. He quit Deloitte in 2022.
Why NFT-first, not token-first.
UJ explains the cultural thesis: tokens get speculative fast and communities churn when charts dump, while NFTs create a stickier identity bond as people wear them as PFPs. He credits meeting TMA in April as the moment the NFT space "opened up" for them.
The designer-collectible thesis.
Monk lays out the four collectible categories and argues designer collectibles (Funko, Bearbrick, Kid Robot in Web2) are the open lane in Web3. His personal thesis: as tech advances, the time for a collectible to go from experiment to dominant product keeps shrinking — and blockchain rails can compress it further.
Unpacking the $65M raffle.
UJ says they expected to do well given their unique position bridging NFT and token audiences, but modeled for maybe 10–20x, not the final result. He walks through the on-chain algorithm hashed before entries opened — designed to handle extreme outliers (a hypothetical two-million-dollar entry in the last five minutes) and to make wallet-splitting yield worse-than-pro-rata rewards without tying anyone's hands.
Jed gives UJ his props.
Jed credits UJ's year of one-on-one founder and collector calls for building the trust that let people put $65M through a raffle, noting he rarely puts his name behind projects but did here.
The multi-phase reveal.
Monk details the plan: everyone minted a box mirroring the physical Blokyz shipping box; the boxes upgrade to reveal era and faction, rarity odds get published, then the full set structure, six eras, archetypes and trait logic are unveiled before boxes finally open — so collectors understand what they're holding.
The accidental warehouse reveal.
Monk mentions 70 physical blockies are sitting in UJ's home right now awaiting shipment, prompting UJ to laugh that Monk just told everyone his house is a blocky warehouse.
Why they skipped TCGs.
Asked why they avoided trading-card games, Monk says he won't do "collectible TCGs" — if they ever do one it'll be a playable game in the Azuki mold, but for now the crowded TCG market versus the empty designer-collectible lane makes the choice obvious.
Lyss's closing case.
Lyss nerds out over the Turbo collectible (Fallout Vault-Tec Funko energy), then rattles off the traction — shipped to 20+ countries, 9,000+ active members, partnerships with 15+ top Web3 brands — and confirms tomorrow's Space runs on her account so Jed can go scoop blockies.
Topic timeline
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 0:25–7:35 | Room fills, music, warm-up |
| 7:35–9:22 | Intros: UJ, Monk, and TMA's role |
| 10:02–15:11 | Founder backgrounds & Web3 origins |
| 15:11–18:00 | The co-founder team & IP roots (incl. Sculptor) |
| 19:18–24:26 | Designer-collectible thesis & normie distribution |
| 24:31–29:56 | The $65M raffle: expectations, algorithm, trust |
| 30:00–35:04 | Multi-phase reveal, leaderboard, physical drops |
| 35:46–39:07 | TMA news, comics team, and the TCG question |
| 39:58–45:08 | Lyss's take, gratitude, closing thoughts |
| 46:05–48:50 | Traction recap, tomorrow's plans, sign-off |
Notable quotes
That cultural bond that the community creates is different. People put them up as PFPs, they become a part of their identity.
Our goal is to build like a modern-day Bearbrick.
I realistically thought we would hit like a 10 to 20x. So I think we did another five, six X on top of that.
I was just laughing at the fact that you told everyone my house is a blocky warehouse right now.
If we do TCGs, it will be more like how Azuki has done it… playable TCGs, and you start collecting them because you love playing the game.
In my personal experience… people in NFT are some of the warmest people we've worked with.
Who said what
- Jed (@jed_131), host — Ran the room, drew out the founders' backgrounds and thesis, repeatedly vouched for the team, and framed the reveal as a rare "here to build, not extract" case.
- Lyss (@Lysss302), co-host — Opened and closed the show, surfaced the raffle-transparency and TMA posts on the nest, and delivered the traction numbers; confirmed she'll host tomorrow's live-reveal Space.
- UJ (@Ukj1111), co-founder — The finance/strategy voice; covered his consulting-to-Web3 arc, the NFT-first rationale, and the raffle algorithm's distribution safeguards.
- Monk (@OriginalBlokyz)* — co-founder — The creative/IP and product voice; explained the designer-collectible thesis, the multi-phase reveal, physical-collectible logistics, the comics roadmap, and the deliberate TCG pass.
Worth a full listen
- 19:18–24:26 Monk's full walk through the four collectible categories and the shrinking timeline from experiment to dominance is the intellectual core of the pitch, and his answer on converting normies via "blockies they understand" doesn't compress well.
- 25:35–29:56 UJ's explanation of the raffle algorithm — modeling last-minute whale entries and making wallet-splitting self-defeating — is the technical heart of how $65M got handled, followed by Jed's genuine props to UJ.
- 30:12–32:18 Monk's step-by-step reveal design (box → era/faction → full set art → open) is best heard in his own sequencing.
* some voices are identified from context; those names are marked as likely.
