JAMIE SMYTH
“You have to show up every day. You have to network every day. And just be kind, and nice. It’s not hard, just helping people and being nice.”
Jamie Smyth has genuinely got to be one of the most likable guys in the NFT art world right now. Once a man with a need for speed – he was a professional racing driver of GT cars – he now promotes the work of NFT artists he likes because he can – and because he believes in them.
Jamie has a fascinating background as a collector, first as a kid and then as a career buying and selling movie and TV props via a website he and a partner built in 2013. In November 2020, he got into NFTs, buying his first Crypto Kitty in early 2021. As an avid collector of things, he has zero interest in cryptocurrency, only in art.
For someone who raced cars at high speed, he is now quite risk averse and spreads his portfolio over a number of ledgers. In real life, his props are stored in a number of different warehouses to mitigate any risk of everything going up in flames in one go. Jamie is a cautious man these days.
It is as a reviewer that Jamie is now gaining a larger following. He no longer has the need to collect ‘stuff,’ saying that objects do not buy happiness. He shares: “I just decided to start reviewing artists, and I had quite a good relationship with a lot of them. So now I’ve turned to doing art reviews and just promoting artists, and I’ve never been paid for any of it.”
Jamie’s reward comes from the artists themselves: “Sometimes you’ll get a message a day later saying, ‘I can’t thank you enough. I’ve sold three or four pieces.’ And that, to me, is worth the world really.”
Jamie would love to get to the point where he’s the go-to person for artists looking for help, and where he can be a broker in digital art between artists and collectors.
“You have to show up every day. You have to network every day. And just be kind, and nice. It’s not hard, just helping people and being nice.”
Like we said, one of the real gentlemen of the NFT world.