After eight years of helping businesses with cloud migration and customized app development, Matt Wursta is positioning himself for what he sees as the next chapter in digital transformation — non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Wursta, the founder and CEO of the eponymously-named company Wursta, opened the doors last weekend to the WRST NFT Gallery, a 3,500-square-foot space next to the Wursta office at 1021 E. 7th St.
The gallery is part of a new venture that Wursta and his wife Deanna are undertaking called WRST Collabs, which strives to push Web3 innovation through collaboration with other NFT thought leaders in the area.
The WRST NFT Gallery hosted its grand opening on June 10 and 11, which coincided with Coindesk’s Consensus 2022 Event. The gallery grand opening hosted an estimated 150 people over the course of two days.
Now that the grand opening event is over, Matt Wursta said they are already planning future events, such as happy hours and co-working sessions, that will bring local Web3 thought leaders together to share ideas.
“We’re using it as a place to really bring thought leaders together to celebrate art and technology and the future tech that we think is going to eventually come into the broader business market, the enterprise and corporate space,” he said.
Matt Wursta estimated that more than $10 million worth of artwork was displayed at the grand opening event. The gallery showcased a total of 480 images, with each of the digital screens displaying new images every three minutes or so.
Visitors who provided their NFT wallet information while registering for the grand opening had their NFT profile picture shared on a screen at the entrance of the gallery.
The gallery featured artwork from the Wurstas’ NFT wallets and nft42 founder Jimmy McNelis’s NFT wallet. The gallery also showcased art from three of Wursta’s partners: round21, ETVerse, and the Be A Good Human Education Foundation.
While most of the images were digital, there were also a select few physical pieces of artwork from artists such as Brooklyn-based NFT artist Blake Jamieson, who is known for his sports-themed artwork.
McNelis spoke at the event, along with ETVerse co-founder Jalin Thomas, nameless.io co-founder Collin Woodward, Katana Capital founder Kuntal Shah and Nice Kicks founder Matt Halfhill.
While some of the most-coveted works in the NFT world are images of cartoon monkeys, Matt Wursta said he believes NFTs will evolve beyond monkey pictures to find more practical uses that harness the utility of smart contracts and other blockchain technologies. He believes the latter could be used to build engaging brand identities and decentralized identity models.
“This whole way that marketing is done is going to get toppled, in my opinion,” Matt Wursta said. “It won’t happen tomorrow. It may not even happen in two years, but it will happen. I can’t see a world where enterprise doesn’t end up there, and we want to be well-prepared to help our customers navigate that.”
The WRST Collabs team, which consists of engineers, artists and product-focused individuals, aims to develop future Web3 applications for a wide range of business benefits, including brand building, luxury designs and “unique, individualized forms of identity,” according to a news release.
Wursta has 73 employees and is actively hiring for several open positions on its website.
