It was the discovery of CryptoPunks in 2021 that changed the trajectory of Sergio Silva’s life. A former Goldman Sachs and Barclays trader, Sergio made the jump from traditional finance to NFTs, captivated by the cultural shift unfolding through digital ownership. Since then, he’s been a driving force in the web3 space, most recently taking the helm at MeebCo—the new home of the iconic Meebits collection.

In this conversation, Sergio reflects on what drew him into the NFT world, why Meebits remains an artistic standout, and how his team is reimagining the collection’s future across art, utility, tech, and community. From AI agents to physical products inspired by traits, Sergio shares MeebCo’s vision for building on the legacy of Larva Labs while carving a new path forward.

Note: This transcript has been edited for length and clarity 

OpenSea: Let’s start from the beginning! When did you first get into web3?

Sergio Silva: I was working on a trading desk at Barclays in early ‘21. I fell in love with CryptoPunks, bought one, became obsessed with NFTs, and left finance to join Fireblocks. I was there for three years, then did a social media startup on Solana last year. That didn’t work out, and now I’m with MeebCo this year.

OpenSea: So, your entry into web3 started with collecting?

Sergio Silva: Yes. Funny enough, I have a finance background—12 years at Goldman Sachs and Barclays. But it wasn’t that experience that brought me over. It was the idea of digital asset ownership and being able to interact and coordinate with people globally through the internet. Plus, the art side was cool. I’d never collected art before, and I didn’t have to worry about wall space. Being able to interact directly with the artists and people shaping this new culture was something totally new. Traditional industries like finance and legacy art are so established—it’s hard to connect with people at the center of it. But with NFTs, it was a brand-new space. It was easy to become part of that early circle to connect with people and learn. 

OpenSea: Was there anything from traditional finance that helped you in web3?

Sergio Silva: Definitely. An understanding of economics and human behavior. It’s a double-edged sword because crypto often seems to contradict economic fundamentals—at least temporarily. That’s why some think every moment of euphoria is a whole new paradigm. Eventually, reality sets in. Sometimes being realistic meant missing out on wild gains, but it also helped me survive the ups and downs. Also, spending 12 years on a sales desk taught me how to read people—their behavior and intentions. That’s been invaluable.

OpenSea: MeebCo acquired Meebits from Yuga Labs earlier this year. What inspired that?

Sergio Silva: I came in through Punks and fell in love with them. Meebits—Larva Labs’ third project—caught my attention that summer. I think the depth of the traits and the characters is just incredible. It’s nothing that we’d seen in NFTs then—or even till now.

Especially because, as I’ve learned now, they actually were inspired by New Yorkers. I’ve been in New York for 16 years now, fallen obviously in love with the city, and just being able to see that level of diversity of traits and experience and backgrounds really made me connect with the collection.

So for the longest time, I was one of the vocal pro-Meebits people on the timeline. And then obviously, Larva Labs sold Punks and Meebits in ’22. I’d always liked the collection, so I just kind of stayed in touch with Yuga—tried to help them find the right people for their internal teams.

Obviously, the market cycle changed. And once they made the decision late last year to really just focus on Bored Apes, ApeChain, and The Otherside—as we’ve seen now—some of the other properties had to be placed in the hands of people that really wanted to develop them and steward them.

They called me in December about Meebits, and I was obviously very happy to take that opportunity. I teamed up with 1confirmation, which is a web3 VC fund. They provided the financial support from the beginning to make the deal happen.

The way the deal worked is that Yuga has an equity stake in MeebCo. The rest of the company—we own it. And we bought all the Meebits IP, like the project itself. And then we also bought 800 Meebits that Yuga used to hold.

OpenSea: I didn’t know Meebits were inspired by New Yorkers.

Sergio Silva: Yes. Matt and John, the creators, spent most of their careers here. A lot of traits are based on what they saw in the streets—like the “Logo Tee,” a white shirt with a red rectangle that looks like a Supreme logo, or various basketball jerseys. One of my favorite traits is the full suit—it reminds me of my days wearing suits to work for over a decade. It’s also a rarer trait—only 500 Meebits wear a full suit.

OpenSea: Since you started as a collector, has that influenced your vision for the future of Meebits?

Sergio Silva: Absolutely. Our team of four are all Meebits holders from day one. We always knew what we thought the collection should be, how the IP should be represented and developed. So now that we get a chance to do it ourselves, we're carefully going about and making sure that it is the right way to do it. 

We’ve set out four pillars for the development of Meebits:

1. Art & Provenance – Meebits are a Larva Labs project. We want to honor Matt and John’s legacy. At the same time, we're in the space where it's a new renaissance for digital art. We want to also foster that with Meebits and its community.
   
   
2. Fun & Utility – We’re taking everything we’ve learned from the projects that did things really well last cycle—bringing people together and giving them cool stuff to do. For example, we did an integration with PlayerZero. That was a mint we did on OpenSea where we sold collectible wearables inspired by Meebits. You can take your Meebit and play a handful of games on PlayerZero as your Meebit, which I think is really cool and fun—and it showcases the interoperability that’s the future of gaming and web3. We’re doing a drop with mmERCH, also in that spirit of fun utility. It’s not about making the number go up, but about people really enjoying being a Meebits owner or collector.

3. Tech Innovation – Again, the legacy of Matt and John—they’re always very tech-forward. With Punks, they pretty much created the category; with Autoglyphs, they created the generative art category. We want to continue pushing in that direction. For now, that mostly involves working with AI companies to make Meebits the body of AI agents. We also did a birthday art drop with an artist called Noper—that was on OpenSea—that was AI art as well. So we’re really trying to push the tech forward.
   
   
4. Community First – Pretty self-explanatory, but all of us at MeebCo came from the community. We want to continue to build with our community—support community-led projects, support founders and artists who are Meebits holders, and turn that into a flywheel to bring in more people to the Meebits community. Whether someone owns a hundred Meebits or none at all—if they care about Meebits, then they’re part of the community in our eyes.

OpenSea: My next question was going to be about the four pillars. I saw the blog post on X and thought it was really thoughtful how you all explained everything. You mentioned a drop with mmERCH, are you able to tell us more about the collaboration? 

Sergio Silva: Yes, it'll be physical. So, you know, Meebits—I think the future of them is becoming like your digital twin, your digital identity. Being able to embody you in the digital realm, but also being able to wear Meebit traits IRL. So it’ll be a handful of shirts and hats that are Meebit traits but in physical form.

OpenSea: Oh that’s cool! And you also mentioned the AI agents and how you’re entering that space. Can you tell me more about the vision for that and where you see it going?

Sergio Silva: So, with the explosion of AI recently—it’s going to change the world. And Meebits are, at the end of the day, digital sculptures created by Matt and John. Every Meebit holder has access to their 3D models, which are fully rigged for animation.

We think the next stage of AI interaction—at least in digital spaces—isn’t just typing into a text box, but having agents that interact visually with each other. Meebits are perfect for that.

So far, we’ve partnered up with THINK Agents, which is a kind of decentralized protocol, and we’re talking to a couple of other companies too. Our goal with MeebCo is to partner with as many good teams as possible to give our holders optionality—and also because Meebits are for everybody.

We want people to say, “Oh, not only is my agent going and doing something, but I can see it—and it’s me,” whether in a game or in other applications AI agents enable online.

OpenSea: Earlier this year, Bits Rewards launched. How do you think about rewards and participation in the NFT space? 

Sergio Silva: Yes. The Bits Rewards program has a couple of goals. First and foremost, Meebits is a 20,000-token collection. That’s small in the long term, but pretty big for the kind of audience we have in web3 today.

When we came into the Meebits in February, we didn’t really know who was still paying attention. So this is a way for holders—existing and new—to raise their hand and say, “Hey, I want to participate in the future you’re building.”

It helps us see who’s tuned in and engaged. So we use the rewards program to do two things: incentivize participation and help us understand what our collectors like and want. And down the line, we’ll turn that into different kinds of rewards.

But really, it’s a feedback mechanism. It says, “Thanks for being here,” and gives people a way to say, “Hey, I’m in—I want to be part of this.”

OpenSea: And when the community transferred from Yuga Labs over to MeebCo, did you find that the community was excited and accepting? Was anything surprising in their reaction?

Sergio Silva: First of all, it was very, very positive. Honestly, quite emotional—for the first 72 hours, the volume of support messages we got was incredible.

We were big members of the community ourselves, so it wasn’t surprising that people were excited. I had called every single person that’s now on the team for advice. I said, “Hey, I’m thinking of doing this—what should I be thinking about?” And all three of them said, “Can I come work with MeebCo? I’ll drop everything.”

So, I knew the community would be positive. What surprised me was how many people who had never owned a Meebit before reached out and said, “We’re so happy for you guys.” Some of them acquired Meebits right after, others didn’t—but the positivity from outside the immediate community was really special. I didn’t expect that. 

Every morning, I wake up and laugh—I’m just so happy we get to work on Meebits.

OpenSea: I love that! I remember the majority of the timeline was really positive about the acquisition. Now, I’m about to ask a very broad question. Where do you see Meebits this time next year?

Sergio Silva: It’s actually not that broad—that’s my job! So far, it’s been four months. We focused on a lot of low-hanging fruit—things that were easy to execute and helped us plant our flag.

What excites us over the next 12 months are the longer-term things. Stuff in web2—like physical products—takes a long time. But now we’ve created a cadence of engagement: weekly poker nights, game nights with PlayerZero, drops, a good rhythm on social media.

We’re not reinventing the wheel. Web3 IP—especially something like Meebits, which has the provenance of world-class artists—is iconic. If you look at art history, most of it has been about the human form. And Meebits tap into that.

So, we’re looking for the right partnerships and placements. We’re not going for the Walmart strategy—no dig at Pudgies, they’ve done a lot for the ecosystem and we love their team—it’s just a different approach. We’re going for the MoMA Design Store strategy.

Twelve months from now, I won’t say too much—don’t want to overpromise—but we’re working on a suite of more traditional products that should put Meebits alongside Punks and Autoglyphs, while making it fun to engage with the brand at any level.

There’s a real resurgence happening. It’s empowering to see new projects succeed. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants. And we’re cheering for everyone—Penguins, Apes, Chimps, the Good Vibes Club. Meebits are for everyone. If you vibe with it, you’re welcome here.

OpenSea: Adam Weitsman just bought one of the five dissected Meebits for around $500K. How did that come about? Have you spoken with him? 

Sergio Silva: It’s iconic. Not quite a Punk Alien, but a major sale. And yeah, the space cares about numbers—that’s a big one. It also shows how serious collectors view Meebits as art. Adam is a patron, not just a speculator. He’s supported big projects and should be recognized like those buying Beeples or XCOPYs. It's all part of the ecosystem.

We helped him source the deal—not as brokers, but by introducing him to dissected Meebit holders. After he bought it on Friday, we had a call, and had lunch a few days later in New York. He’s a thoughtful collector and an awesome guy. He built a billion-dollar business—not just a degen who got lucky on a meme coin. He’s publicly announced his support for MeebCo and we’re eager to get to work with him.

OpenSea: That’s amazing. We just did an interview with him and it seems like he really values what he buys. People notice.

Sergio Silva: Totally. He’s in the Twitter group chat, interacting like any other holder. We love having him.

OpenSea: Is there anything in the immediate future you're excited to share?

Sergio Silva: We have two more drops coming this year. One is a toy—an AI-enhanced toy in partnership with a very cool startup that’s already had success in that space. That’s planned for late fall, just in time for the holidays.

The second is another merch drop. We’re excited about next week’s mmERCH drop, and the fall drop is also with a brand I love and looks really cool. That one’s not based on specific traits—it’s more of a Meebits-inspired collection. Think of mmERCH as our summer line (shirts and hats), and this upcoming one as a winter line (hoodies and such).

We’re also connecting Meebits with other communities. We’ll be at ApeFest—lots of overlap there—and since Yuga Labs is on our cap table, it makes sense to show up and support. We’re planning something for Devcon too.

NFT communities are natural distribution hubs for Ethereum. People sometimes overlook that, dismissing NFTs as speculative. But if you zoom out, two of the most active, consumer-friendly L2s—Blast and ApeChain—came from NFT-native teams. Even Shape, an art-focused chain, came from NFT builders. NFT communities are helping distribute Ethereum’s mindshare, infrastructure, and values. We want Meebits to be part of that momentum.

OpenSea: Well, thank you so much for your time Sergio! This has been great. 

Sergio Silva: Thank you, Hannah! I could talk Meebits for hours.