BitClout Profile 1: William Laurent
The following is a profile on William Laurent: an artist, writer, and scientist with a fascinating background and journey onto BitClout. This ‘interview’ was conducted over email. My questions are provided in bold with William’s answers inserted with light editing. All inserted media and commentary in bold is also my own.
William’s Bitclout: https://bitclout.com/u/WilliamLaurent
William’s Website: https://williamlaurent.com/index.html
Brief summary of your career and upbringing:
I was raised in a family of artists, actors/actresses, and musicians. My mom was a professional artist and remains a talented pianist, while my father is a fantastic writer. I have cousins that are semi-famous actresses; another cousin that was the bass player in a band (which I won't name here) that was signed to Warner Brothers, an uncle that was really the first true Christian Rock star; my grandfather and grandmother used to direct off-Broadway productions, and it goes on and on. I don’t want to bore your readers.
Having read this my thoughts were two-fold:
- If this bores my readers, they should stop reading
- What a fantastic confluence of factors to create a life-long artist with a unique perspective.
I was classically trained in piano, voice, oboe, and music theory and composition: however, sometime in high school I taught myself guitar and became interested in punk rock because it seemed like a better way to express my angst and sovereignty — and I did not have to spend hours a day practicing my instrument to gain acceptance into this new cool world.
Rock and roll and punk were as accessible as I was lazy.
What an exceptionally powerful yet concise way to express what punk represented.
In the last few years of high school, I started to get into graffiti art and became part of the graffiti art scene in New York and Philadelphia. I wound up producing a lot of art and tagging a lot of walls for the next several years, through college and graduate school. My college years were a blur, but I can tell you I had a blast and got into a lot of trouble — good and bad. I even wound up in the USSR for a little while before it became what is known today as simply “Russia”.
In 1993 I realized I needed to move to New York City for good. So I learned to code, put my art career on hold, and went to work in Finance. It was a smart move for me as I was drifting more and more into trouble and hanging out with the wrong crowd back in Philadelphia. The tech world was good to me, I was able to earn a good income, start a few companies, have time enough to publish a book, write hundreds of magazine articles, record music, and travel the world.
But I neglected my painting. I simply had other priorities.
Let's fast forward. A few years ago I finally moved to Tokyo, which was not that big of a deal for me, as I studied Japanese in college and had visited Japan for work and pleasure at least 50 times before. Living in Tokyo has changed my perspective and priorities. I am pursuing painting again with a dedication I have not had in almost 30 years. What you see on Bitclout is a lot of my new artwork and writing, which I often pair together for maximum effect.
What is your history with blockchain generally?
When I first heard of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, I thought it was ridiculous. I knew that fiat currency was mostly crap, but I was buying gold and silver stocks as a hedge. I never thought Bitcoin could achieve any widespread adoption. The coworker that told me about Bitcoin was a buyer, this is when it was under 100 dollars per coin. I am sure he is quite well off today.
What was your first impression of Bitclout?
I follow Sheldon Evans on Youtube.
I tuned into a Youtuber’s show that was having him as a guest. Before Sheldon came on the show, they were talking about BitClout. I was intrigued and knew I had to check it out. I went and read the white paper on BitClout and figured I should join up. After five minutes I realized the potential of the platform. After 15 minutes, a whale bought up a huge number of my coins. After one hour I was addicted. I did not sleep that night, and very little in the following weeks.
I think many of us can relate…
When you first signed up for Bitclout, how did you think you could use it as a tool professionally/personally within your world of art and creative writing?
I implicitly understood from the first five minutes that my life was about to change. I had been telling everyone — especially the students in my data analytics classes that I was teaching in Tokyo — to get off of Twitter and Instagram, and social media in general for years. (The exception to this was LinkedIn, which has been super important in my professional life over the years. ) But here was something new.
I had found a platform that could finally give me the voice I needed to go full-speed, or at least medium speed, back into my art and writing career.
How has your experience of BitClout changed your initial expectations? What has surprised you about the community?
Frankly, I am surprised that there has not been more of a mad rush into the platform. Pullbacks in the price of Bitcoin have affected this, of course, but I think that right now is the calm before the storm.
To point: the people in my orbit are highly intelligent and motivated individuals, and when they finally see what BitClout is — they are going to ape in hugely.
What do you see as the future of BitClout? What features do you think could be game-changers? What dynamics do you see changing as we scale?
The game-changer for BitClout depends on what happens with development on their nodes. It all comes down to the nodes. The monetization aspect of BitClout is fun, but the ultimate value will come with giving more power and autonomy to the creators on the platform. But on the monetization front, I expect various OTC exchanges to spring up with a lot of different derivative instruments that invest in tranches of creator coins and use different leverage strategies against them. It's going to get wild.
For me personally, a priority is to get officially verified on the platform.
William’s book, “A Path Forward,” is “a unique and compelling digital picture book, which addresses topics of personal growth, positive thinking, and individual responsibility in a concise and meditative format.”
