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@0xDigitalOil invented a tool that can predict the future
Recorded: Dec. 21, 2023 Duration: 1:38:12Space Recording
Full Transcription
All right, what's up everyone?
Emmett Akin just sent you guys the co-host invites.
We've got Akin up on stage.
Our last nifty noon of the year.
Emmett, are you able to join?
Oh, he's up here.
Hello.
Cool.
And now we just need to get digital oil in here.
Very excited about this one.
Yeah, should be interesting.
How have you guys, have you been?
Emmett, we literally just spoke earlier this morning.
I know.
I finally escaped the strange piano music that is continuing to play in this house that I'm visiting.
Yeah, still have no idea how to turn it off.
But I found a room where it is not in the background of my microphone.
So here's digital oil.
Awesome.
So I'll let you guys kind of take things away and I'm going to go circulate the link.
Cool.
I will do the same.
Good to have you on, digital.
How's it going?
Doing great.
Great to meet you guys via voice.
Yeah, same here.
I think we'll maybe wait, you know, for a minute and just see who starts streaming in.
And then we'll probably start at 1235 Eastern.
So let's give it a minute and a little bit.
Sounds good.
I'm going to go ahead and share the space.
Yep.
Yep.
We'll probably all start the same chats, but we'll get that point across.
Yeah.
I'll share my post again.
Cool.
So, yeah, I mean, in the meantime, is there anything you guys wanted to talk about?
No, not really.
I mean, broadly, there's been a lot going on.
I mean, it's sort of, on the one hand, it's a little bit quiet in some quarters because of the holidays.
But in terms of what's going on in the market broadly, like...
It's insanity.
I mean, it's still at like $90 right now.
Yeah, $91, $91, $92 on some exchanges.
So I think we're sort of getting to this potential parabolic run, right?
But I don't know.
It's crazy because you talk to, you know, maxi-leaning ETH holders, and there's still a lot of coping going on.
And there's still a lot of, well, you know, bringing up all the old stories about why soul isn't it.
And so you're still seeing a lot of that.
I do think that, honestly, and even just thinking about that and having this conversation, I think a lot of those opinions and most of what we read on the timeline is going to become increasingly irrelevant.
Because the nature of the size of capital that is now at least aware or increasingly aware that there's a legal framework in place that gives you exposure, that, you know, once the system starts accepting, right, it's like a slippery slope, what's going to be next, right?
There's going to be just this momentum towards greater and greater legitimacy.
And I think once that capital starts flowing in, like, it's not really going to stop till, you know, people feel like they have the right allocations.
And I think ultimately the signal is going to become just being really, really focused on, you know, the data and focused on the decision makers who, and that's the thing people need to recognize.
The majority of America's money is not managed by individuals, it's managed by intermediaries.
And so it's going to matter what the intermediaries are saying, what they're doing, which, you know, the data is out there.
It oftentimes isn't so easy to find, but it does exist.
And you need to be looking at those data points, not necessarily listening to folks on the timelines and, you know, uninformed opinions.
So I think it's going to be really interesting to see how this transition kind of takes place.
And I think we're going to continue to see people shocked as to, you know, what's driving allocation decisions by the large pools of capital.
Anyway.
So I, yeah, I think, I think we can kind of start on the main topic.
We have digital, I'll just kind of give at least a little bit of a background of my understanding of who he is and just really briefly and then let him kind of take it away.
But I think as a, as a headline, you know, you know, you know, he invented the guy who invented a tool that can predict the future.
I mean, from my perspective, I think digital oil is probably the most engaged person or informed person as relates to checks, checks, compositions.
And, and, and essentially the game of composing checks, right.
And, you know, creating this deflationary, you know, every time you compose a check, you're kind of merging two or more into, into one.
But he's probably one of the most informed people in that activity in the early days in the discords.
Like that, that was a lot of the conversation around and it makes sense that he's, he's sort of built this tool that lets you sort of, you know, play the game with a little more information.
And so I'll leave it at that and we'll get into the details, but digital, like, yeah, it's come up.
Like, who are you?
What's your background?
How'd you get into crypto?
How'd you find your way into VV and checks?
Like, what's your kind of origin story?
All right.
Sounds good.
I'll try to be as encompassing as possible without, you know, and, and, and staying brief as well.
So crypto way back in 2014, read the Bitcoin white paper.
I have a technical background, so I really enjoyed it from a technical perspective.
Um, I just thought it was a beautifully written paper algorithm and I was just amazed by how, um, how it was possible for the first time to have the centralized electronic money.
So I, you know, so I bought some Bitcoin and got into that and, uh, and then in 2017, got a bit into Ethereum, um, just started doing like proof of concept type stuff with solidity.
Didn't go too deep.
And then in 2020, when I really got really deep into investing in crypto and, and understanding fundamentals much more deeply and coding more.
Um, then, uh, then, uh, then I started a business that I'm still building, which is called Nifter and Nifter is, is kind of like the ENS for NFTs where you can name.
Name, it started out as being just a place to name your NFT on a decentralized platform and, you know, via smart contract.
Um, so you could refer to NFTs by human readable names instead of contract address and token ID.
And then it, it's kind of evolved into this more encompassing platform where you can message from NFT to NFT.
Um, you can launch a token bound account associated to your NFT and send NFTs and ERC twenties between NFTs using these token bound accounts.
But anyway, that's a, that's a kind of a subject for another day, but that gives you a little bit of, of kind of who I am.
Um, and then as far as visualized value, I started following Jack or visualized value way back when he was just doing, you know, this conceptual, conceptual images.
Um, but I wasn't too close of a follower, really.
I just, uh, it was just kind of there on my timeline.
I really enjoyed his intellect, um, and his taste.
And, and then when, when they, when checks was launched or being launched, a friend that I coincidentally met at a conference through another friend, um, you probably know of him, checky check, Jackie moon.
He, uh, you know, I, I, I was lucky to meet him at that conference because he kind of tipped me off and checked.
He was the first guy to, to, you know, there was really vociferous about it.
Um, and for some reason I, I just fell into the rabbit hole and I wanted, wanted to understand everything about it and try, I was trying to predict, uh, what Jack's next step would be.
Um, and I would kind of just post my predictions and follow along.
And I, I, I, I got a bunch of checks, um, early on.
Um, a lot of them I ended up burning for my one check on day one.
And, and then I got into a pepin with a lot of, you know, a lot of the checks profits, um, of stuff I had sold.
And I got really deep into a pepin and then you can't, you guys can't know the rest of the story from there.
We're still living it.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, that's really interesting story.
I mean, your story is, is very similar to mine to some extent.
I think I happened upon Jack a little bit after clearly you did.
Um, I only, I only found out about Jack, uh, maybe a couple of days after checks was launched.
But like you, um, what really grabbed me likewise was a stark difference in his approach.
Right.
So a lot of the conversation was more intellectual and kind of really thinking out loud about a number of concepts that really appealed to me.
Um, and the fact that you can engage in those conversations on the timeline with other people of like mind was very, very interesting.
And, um, so yeah, and like you as well, right.
I had a bunch of checks, um, and eventually got into a pepins as well.
Um, um, eventually, um, maybe not as quickly as, as you might have, but, um, can you kind of expand a little bit upon, you know, what kind of got you really, really interested in, you know, composing checks?
Like what, what, what got you interested in that sort of game, you know, why have you sort of gravitated towards that?
And how did that lead you into like building this new product that, you know, would definitely like to learn more about?
Yeah, sure.
So, so first speaking briefly about Opepin, um, I was, I was lucky to get into Opepin early on, not as early as maybe I could have, because it was, it was still, it still felt like a really big degen move at the time.
But a lot of people were insisting in the checks chat, you know, you should digitally, you should buy Opepin, you should buy Opepin.
And then after a while, uh, once you get one, um, then you go down this degen rabbit hole and, and you buy, and you buy so many of them.
And, and, and, and the reason I'm going to, I'm speaking about Opepin is because I want to kind of give checks the spotlight, because I think checks is kind of the base of everything.
And it's, uh, and it's, everything comes back to checks basically for me.
Uh, I think it's like the deepest of anything that, that Jack and Jaleel have built, especially if you read the contract, uh, you it's an, it's an piece of art in and of itself.
Right. But Opepin is this ever evolving collection that just gets better and better with time because Jack and Jaleel learn more about us, about web three, about how, how the ecosystem is evolving.
And they kind of, and Opepin is a narrative of what's going on.
Right. So, so I think Opepin is, they're both interesting, like in, in, in completely different ways, but at the end checks, like I said, everything comes back to checks.
It's, it's in Jack's mind, I think the, the base of everything, right.
Um, the, the kind of core concept of decentralization personified via art.
Right. So, so that, that, and then at the same time for some unexplainable reason, like I enjoy the, the visual aspect of checks.
Uh, I really can't explain it. It's just, it's, there's something beautiful about the gradients, the colors they chose, um, how they, how they built all these really cool features into the art in so little time.
It's, uh, just also technologically interesting, which is a big thing for me, like art in and of itself is sometimes not enough for me.
There has to be kind of a more fundamental aspect to it.
And I feel like the, the technology of checks is, is, uh, is what kind of makes it, you know, over the top interesting for me.
Yeah. I mean, that that's, yeah, I definitely relate to that, you know, and to your point, like I kind of see it now as.
I think oftentimes when you, when you start somewhere, right.
When you think about checks as this, in my view, almost the ultimate end point in the VV ecosystem.
If you're thinking about, you know, walking down a path where you might buy trademark because it just looks pretty.
Like, I don't need to know anything else, but, Oh, this is just really pretty.
Oh, it looks like a squiggle. Oh, it's right. Right. Color spectrum.
And you could stop there or you could say, okay, what is a pep and like, it's this repeated thing.
It's art. It's a bunch of other things.
And you can kind of walk down that path with, which ultimately leads to checks, right.
If you keep going down and you appreciate the spectrum that goes from, you know, something that's mutable to something that's immutable. Right.
And you sort of, it's almost sort of like, it's a pathway that at every juncture, you learn a little bit more about decentralization.
You learn a little bit more about immutability and basically all the various like levers, so to speak, that you could pull with blockchains, right.
Or particularly decentralized blockchains and all the concepts around it, concepts of ownership, concepts of, you know, intermediaries and right.
And so there's so much there. And I think you're right, you know, to a large extent, it ultimately gets you, if you keep walking down that path to checks.
Yeah. So further to the tool and kind of maybe going down that rabbit hole around checks, like, can you tell us a little bit more about this tool you've built, you know, how you, you know, what was the thought process?
You know, how did you get from initial thinking to actually this fully functional fledged out tool that you're now put out there?
Yeah. So to give just a little bit of background on kind of the philosophy and the, and the story behind what inspired me to look more into composites and then, and therefore the tool, I feel like, like this, this ecosystem, at least for me, is about two things.
One is about like, for a lot of us, it's, it's, it's, it's our job in a sense, and it's about making money, right.
Um, it's about abstracting, uh, alpha when, whenever there's alpha, et cetera.
But at the same time, it's about enjoying having a good time.
Right. And the funny thing is that, that at least historically in crypto, it's easier to make money as a degen sometimes than when you look at fundamentals.
I mean, and, and, you know, you were talking about ethereum versus soul a little bit ago, and, and, you know, we could go down that, uh, that's a discussion for another day, I guess.
But also with checks and open, like when, when we were really early and we were degen and we didn't know what Jack was going to make, but we kind of smelled a bit of fundamentals, but they weren't there yet.
That's when we made all the money, right. As D gens. And then now it's, it's kind of evolved into like this, this beautiful art.
That's full of, uh, fundamental innovative technology. Um, that's, you know, being invented for it.
And, and now it's more difficult to make money. Right. So now we're like in the enjoyment phase.
Um, so, so I'm in the enjoyment phase for checks and I feel at the same time, there's this, this thing going on with where it's deflationary.
Like the more interesting it is, the more burns there will be, the more, the, you know, the, the, the, the more deflation occurs, the more interesting it also gets economically.
Right. So there's this kind of dance going on this tango between these two like economics and fundamentals and enjoyment. Right.
So, um, so yeah, so, so for some reason, I've always wanted to be able to, so checks, checks to me is about.
This is just, you know, very personal.
It's about beautiful 80 checks, beautiful 20 checks and the one check, you know, everything in between, um, is a means to an end, um, in my mind.
And then, you know, on rare occasion, you'll have an amazing 40 check, an amazing 10 check and so on and so forth.
Right. But really it's about eighties, twenties and ones.
So I have, I had this kind of obsession with, with obtaining, obtaining nice twenties, but it was really difficult because you couldn't see two, two steps ahead with the current tools that have been built up, built out.
And, um, you know, there, there had been some conversations, conversations around, um, what it would take to make such a tool and so on.
And then all this time passed and nobody had made it.
So, so I kind of said, uh, you know, there's all this, there's all this, uh, alpha, all this discovery to be made.
Um, so I decided to make it for myself.
Um, I wanted to have say an advantage in the market and being able to, as you say, predicting the future, right.
Seeing two steps ahead, which opened like a whole new optimization space, um, in terms of aesthetics.
So, so I built it for myself.
Um, and then I started, you know, I, I, I kind of got obsessed with it, with, with, with the tool, because once you, once you can see the future, as you say, then a bunch of possibilities, you know, pop up new possibilities.
So I, I started trying to look for patterns, um, you know, potential patterns in 20 checks, because 20 checks, or you can divide, you know, 20 check, uh, art, I guess, into, into two possibilities.
One is gradients and the other one is interesting patterns, you know, kind of characters drawn on this 20 check canvas.
And that requires a foreground and a background to kind of be able to have good contrast and, and distinguish these patterns or characters.
So I came up with, uh, actually asked, uh, GPT to generate, you know, it, it, it took some back and forth, but in the end, GPT generated, you know, say hundreds of patterns of possibilities, plus signs, digits, letters, um, minus sign, you know, like diagonals, any, anything you can imagine.
Um, boats, cars, um, and I started playing around and searching the space.
You know, I ran hundreds of thousands of runs of 20 check simulations with checks.
I had checks that were for sale, a mix of checks that I had and were for sale.
And, you know, eventually this story kind of, um, reach the climax when somebody suggested online.
I think it was Varun who suggested that the grail of grails of a 20 check or a check in general would be a check made of checks.
Right.
And then I searched the hundreds of thousands of checks I generated to see if it was possible to make.
And one possibility came up, which is the one that eventually got made.
And then there's a whole story around how I tried to find a second one.
Um, and how I'm colorblind and that would look better and so on and so forth.
But in the end, we found the check of checks.
And, you know, once I had, once I had kind of reached, um, the climax of possibilities, which is, you know, this just for checks piece, I thought, you know, what else can I make?
Uh, it was really difficult to make in terms of like, um, you know, hunting for the right checks to be able to make it and negotiating and dealing in the drama.
And, you know, so many times I thought it wasn't going to be possible to, to make, um, and then I said, you know, it's, it's really difficult to make these, these pieces and I can't do it all on my own.
Um, and I've already kind of reached the climax in my opinion.
So why not start spreading or sharing the, sharing the, the utility around.
Right.
And that's how the, the idea for the tool came up.
Um, yeah.
So that kind of gives you some background.
Yeah.
So, I mean, there's a lot to unpack in that and I'll try to sort of maybe touch on a bunch of things that really stood out to me.
Um, I think fundamentally, right.
You were talking about, you know, doing it for the love of something, of something that kind of attracts you such that regardless of whether you've made a bag or not, it helps to have made a bag.
Um, you can really focus on other things that appeal to other points of value.
Right. So you talked about enjoyment, you talked about, right.
This, you know, process of discovery and trying to find things within the code.
And then eventually, right.
You got to a point where there are conversations around, you know, and, and just to maybe step back a little bit, right.
For those who might not be aware.
So with checks, what you do is you have to bridge the checks additions.
You have to bridge them, which is essentially like a burning process to checks originals.
That process is sort of random, right.
What you get from that is randomized, right.
You can get gradients, you can get different things of different rarities, but like the process of bridging is random.
But once you've bridged over and you have these checks originals, like relatively early on, people created tools where you could basically, you know, take any combination of two and see what it's going to, was going to produce, um, into a 40 check.
Um, I did what I was saying.
The 40 checks are probably the least visually appealing, just from my opinion.
And so you kind of want to get to 20, right.
The eighties look cool.
The twenties are actually really interesting as he was saying.
Right.
And so being able to actually see beyond the forties to the twenties, being able to do this, like, you know, four way composition and all the machinations is really key because with that, you pretty much know what two steps down looks like.
And then you can go fish out and find, right, those tokens, whether you own some, whether they're on sale, whether in some wallet somewhere that some guy doesn't really care about and see if you're going to extract that out.
Right.
And so in that process, a couple of things also come out.
There's got to be some sort of innate desire to want to play the game, to want to interact beyond just these things as stores of value.
But there also has to be, at some point, a juncture where you have to take things into your own hands.
And I think that one big aha moment for me in the ecosystem was realizing that, like, in most spaces, there's a lot of talk.
There are lots of ideas.
Very few people actually make the next step to execute.
And I actually find that it's also very difficult, right, if you want to go down a certain path in a certain way.
It's oftentimes difficult to try to bring people along with you at the beginning.
You almost always have to start it by yourself.
Right.
And as things begin to emerge, maybe others might come along.
But, I mean, that's just been my experience in general and even in particular in the VV ecosystem.
Right.
So if you think about those points, right, there's got to be something beyond just like this financial value.
Right.
There's got to be other utilities you're getting from it, enjoyment, whatever it might be.
And at some point, right, there's got to be a desire to say, all right, if I'm going to go and take this desire further, I have to figure out a way to, like, build a tool myself, build a group myself, like, whatever it might be.
Like, you have to lead that.
But in that, right, that's where all the, you know, that's where all the value actually lies, frankly.
In that, you know, on the surface, we're looking at these things as assets we're trading and we're trying to flip and trying to make money.
And that's fine.
Like, those are the easiest games to play.
Those are the apparent games to play.
And to me, but those are short term games.
Right.
But the long term, in my view, and I think Digital has highlighted, is there are other games you can play that are actually more optimal in the long term and has very little or fewer competition.
So, you know, Digital was the only person who took the initiative to go build this tool that looked two steps deep.
And now he had information that basically only he had.
And he can now leverage that information to create value that basically for time, only he could create that value.
And only he could actually understand the value of some random check that's sitting on the floor that is the critical piece that goes to compose a grail that is like a one in a million.
Right.
And so I think that's a very remarkable story and thing to think about.
Right.
And, you know, that's kind of what I've discovered as well, in that the knowledge, right, whatever drives you to want to sort of interact and learn and like those things you really need to think about, because in the long run, right, in my mind, I mean, I'll give an example.
I think we're at a point even with checks where, as Digital was talking, like certain things are no longer possible because those checks have been burned.
Right.
And so it's almost sort of like I won't say there's a race, but they're like checks that could have been made that never will be made again because someone burned it for, right, something trivial.
But now with this tool, it's like, oh, my gosh, like we could have done some interesting things that now have been burned away.
And it just goes to show in my mind that being able to take that initiative and be true to sort of yourself and figure out ways to kind of go further down the rabbit hole is really interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have a comment around that, Digital?
Yeah, I think that was really well said.
I think that it's also interesting that there's this immutable piece of code on the blockchain, which is the checks contract.
And in doing, you know, in putting it there, there's all these some intended, but some unintended consequences.
For example, like maybe it was unintended that 40 checks are not that visually appealing.
Right.
So you have to get, you know, you're kind of in search of these 20 checks because of that.
And because we're in search of the 20 checks, then we need this tool.
Right.
And then this tool is is built, which which accelerates, hopefully.
Well, I don't know if hopefully, but but accelerates, interestingly, further burning of checks and the use of Skittles, which were kind of just seen as as belonging to the floor.
Right. Whereas now Skittles can be like you said, they can either be used very strategically or they can just be used as fuel to get to a 20 check instead of burning a more valuable, you know, aesthetically important check.
So and and and this is this is this ever evolving thing, even though the contract is immutable, where some other people come up with some other ideas and some other tools for sure.
And and and kind of add to this really interesting story that we're all living.
Yeah. So I know Emmett is chomping at the bit to jump into this, but I'll make a last comment and let him let him jump in.
But there are a couple of things that I remember reaching out to you when I heard about this tool and DMing you and saying, hey, what's this thing you're building like?
What's going on? And you're like kind of like, oh, yeah, I don't know if I'm going to release it yet.
Like I'm still kind of playing around with this. But two things occurred to me.
Well, one thing really occurred to me. So that was one interaction.
And then the second interaction was when Bored, Elon Musk, who's the largest holder of Pepin's, when he decided to buy one check, when he started understanding that, OK, the checks is really interesting.
I haven't dug in. Right. Those two things kind of got me to say to myself, like, oh, my gosh, like Skittles, you know, Skittles are the most undervalued asset in the whole of the ecosystem.
Because if folks like Bored, who are fairly intelligent and already essentially red pilled about Jack, I haven't even dug deep enough into checks to understand it.
But the one thing I knew was that once folks like him figured it out, they'll kind of be where we are and they'll start accumulating.
That was one thing. But the second thing I said to myself was when you release this tool, which essentially gives everyone superpowers to be able to do this composition,
then unleashes also eventually, right, the ability for people now to not only compose faster, but value individual Skittles in a certain composition even higher.
And so it was very simple for me. I had to start buying. Right. I had to start buying Skittles because I knew that as people became more and more conscious of this,
as the boards of the world who could basically like, you know, sweep a floor and go make a one check, start figuring it out.
Like these inputs will just start disappearing. And so that was my initial response to it, frankly.
Like buy now, figure it out later. Right. Accumulate now, figure it out later. And ultimately, if I'm starting getting bids or like ridiculous bids for Skittles.
And OK, someone has more information than I do. Let me go figure out like what the value of this particular thing is to them.
And I think those tools just sort of begin to fill the gaps where, you know, some of this information can be easily acquired.
And ultimately, I think the value of these assets will increase as people understand that.
So anyway, Emmett, it's your show now. Jump up.
You know, I can nerd about this all day long. And I love that this is a Skittles space now because I am a proud owner of a Skittles.
But I think just kind of going back, thinking about like my own sort of like personal history with with Chex and Opepin, like Opepin was like the first thing that got me like super excited about this space again and really brought me back into like I'm an artist, but like sometimes just like staring at a blank canvas or a blank page was like difficult to deal with.
So being able to like react and respond to something like Opepin, like sort of provided me that that jump off point.
So I like initially it was just in Opepin, like I didn't hold any, but I was like doing like different iterations on the project following other people like in this space, you can see like Doys in here, Ondi's in here, got a bunch of people in here who are doing amazing projects.
And it was just like super inspiring. So I kind of just ignored Chex because again, like there's so much detail and research really that you have to do to understand it and like digital oil, like, like Akin said, like you're probably the one of the, if not the like leading thinker in the, in this, in this space, like on, on Chex.
And I finally like dove deep into it and, and I started talking to Akin and he reached out to me and gifted me a Skittles. And I was like, wait, hold up. Like, and I was like, so thankful for that. So my 13244 is my token ID. And like, I never want to get, like, I never want to get rid of that token ID because I was so appreciative and like, like happy about the fact that Akin just gifted me that because I was curious enough about this project and this space.
And what's going on in it. And so like, again, like I don't ever want to get rid of that token ID, but it is a Skittles. So it's like, it doesn't have a gradient. It doesn't have, you know, a low color band. Like it's never going to, well, actually with your tool, we can discover the unique sort of outputs that could come from it potentially.
But I just went in and I finally, I burned another 80. I finally got, I bought an 80 check for my birthday. I merged the two, kept the 13244 ID. And then I started playing around, not with your tool. This was before yours came out.
But with that, the sort of prediction website where, and I just kind of picked up on like things that you're like looking at and what your tool really provides is like each, each individual check has like the inherent DNA that is always going to stick around.
And that's a question I have for you after I finish up my long-winded dialogue. Like I started to notice and what my PFP is, is what my 20 checks will look like.
If I keep my token ID 13244. Those five checks that you see, the other ones are gray because those will be sort of mutated and changed along the way based on what I end up ultimately merging with to make a 20 check.
But that, the three on the left and the two at the top are like always there. And I thought that that was so interesting that I have this sort of like lingering checks, like the sort of dominant checks within my composition.
And I'm curious, like, and that's why that's my PFP because I'm just like so excited that I now know that that's sort of always going to be there.
And that's like my, my Skittles, like ultimate narrative is, is, is embodied by those five checks that are within that composition.
And like I said, like there's sort of like a sentimental value there in the fact that I was gifted that check and I love it and I want to keep it.
And I think it just kind of shows like by utilizing the tool that you've built, like people who own just like Skittles, like they just want to get into the ecosystem and start playing around with the functionality and, and merging and burning and compositing that Skittles do sort of have like their own individual sort of sub narrative within like built into that composition.
So that sort of leads into my question for, for you digital is how, how do those checks, like those five that are in my PFP, like what makes those stay there?
Like, why are they always there? And it's like the, the pink check within the blue check that you made, like, how did those ultimately stick around?
Like, that's such a curious, I'm so curious about it.
Yeah. So that's a, that's a, so it's, it's really tough to explain in detail, but I'll try to, I'll try to grow from high to low.
Okay. So, so first of all, what determines the, and I might, I might, I hope I don't make mistakes on the way because doing this without looking at code is sometimes, you know, there's a lot of stuff to think about.
But, but, but basically when you, when you, when you, when you're generating the colors for any check, there's two possibilities.
So there's, there's kind of two, there, there, there, there's two ways to look at the genetics of the, of the check.
One is, is it, does it have a gradient or not?
Basically. Okay.
If it has a gradient, then you, then you need to, you look at the check's color band because it's also going to have a color band and you roughly, you know, selected random, one of the colors from its color band.
And then the gradient kind of takes it from there. So it's really simple. Okay.
So everything else is colored just from that initial color, depending on the gradient.
That's kind of a simplified explanation, but that's one possibility.
The other possibility is if it's not a gradient, if it's not a gradient, it gets way more interesting because you have to go up its entire family tree.
So if we're talking about a 20 check, you'd have to go back through the 40 checks that are the parents of this 20 check, and then all the way to the, to each of the grandparents or the four grandparents.
Okay. And then you select colors for that 20 check.
Possibly, you know, every check in the 20 check is possibly selected, you know, from one of the four grandparents.
Okay. Now, which grandparents you select from, some checks have more say than others.
So principally, the check that is the one you keep and you don't burn in the process down is the one that has the say along the way.
Okay.
So basically the genes of that check, which are, the genes are literally a, a, a pseudorandom number.
It's really long number that gets hashed and modded and so on and so forth until you get to a color, until you get to an index actually.
And that index is what determines which grandparent you're going to select from.
So I hope I haven't gone too deep, but in the end, what happens is since some of the checks have more say than others,
you can recognize a pattern in a 20 check and you can kind of looking at the grandparents, figure out which grandparents are being used for every one of the checks.
You know, if the colors are distinct enough and then you can, you can, you can swap checks in and out in the grandparents to check,
to change the color of the pattern.
So there's, there's some really cool playing around where you can recognize a cool pattern and then, oh, I like it in another color.
And depending on which are the dominant grandparents, which you kind of have to recognize visually, you can switch,
you can swap checks in and out and change like, change a plus sign from a purple to a red, for example.
It's more difficult to change the background because, well, for, for more deeper reasons, but that kind of gives you a,
I hope I didn't confuse you too much, a high level overview of, of how it works.
Okay.
That was perfect. Yeah. I've always been curious about it and it really does get complicated.
Like there's a complexity there that, again, I think like in the beginning, I, I sort of faded checks.
It was like, there was like open edition things happening.
Like Atkin has a story where people were like talking about open edition season being over.
And like, it's yeah, like I was kind of in that camp because I was just being overwhelmed by so many things.
And I was like hosting a space and I think I mentioned this at one point on, on a space, we were playing a game called burn, flip and hold where you have to pick a project that you'd, you know, keep hold forever or you'd burn one or you'd flip one.
And, and I always burn checks. And now ironically, like I want to keep burning checks, but like in that way, I was like, no, I don't even want to be involved with that.
I don't care. I'm like totally disinterested. And I've come like full circle from there.
And I think so many people have that relationship to the project because again, like you, like it's like going to a museum and seeing, you know, a minimalist painting or something abstract that's, you know, not quite easy to understand and, and, or comprehend and just putting in that effort.
And I think, I think a lot of what Jack is doing, and I see him in the audience on there, shout out Jack is doing is like prompting people to dig deeper into something that is seemingly simple or potentially obvious, or even something that's like unassuming.
Um, but checks is, has sort of created the, an interest for me, like beyond just visuals, um, like the, the technical aspect of it, like that I don't ever really think about that in terms of like NFT projects, like any other NFT projects I've been involved with.
Like, I don't really care about what's going on on the backend. I just care about what is on the surface and what, you know, I'm presenting to the world as something that I've collected.
But with checks, it's like, you have to like dig deeper into the backend of things, which, you know, again, like I, I said, a lot of projects don't, don't highlight that component to it.
So I think again, like we've talked about this before, like people are going to finally like dive into, and that's why I want to have these spaces because we want to highlight what's going on in checks and how complex and beautiful it is from a visual standpoint, but also a technical standpoint.
Yeah. Yeah. There are a couple of things I want to kind of highlight quickly. Sorry, digital, but like there's a couple of principles, right. That I think are really important to make a distinction about.
And I think one is, it's really hard to straddle approaches. What I mean by that is, with checks or Pepin with visualized value, right, Jack and Julio have a point of view, right?
And they have a point of view on what they're trying to do, how they want to engage and what they're building towards. But they also have a very, very low touch, right, in terms of the community in that all the infrastructure you see, right, that is community based is community developed, right?
So there's a community discord. There's a community space led by someone else. Board of Pepins started the, you know, Board of Pepins, which has now become VV.
Like a lot of the community related things, the tools, everything, right, was built by the community.
And I think it's a very important distinction to make because I believe, and I've come up with my own perspective that, you know, projects that sort of take this Web2 approach to the structure, right?
So there's a team, the team is delivering something, dev, go do something, dev, go make me money.
Like, you would attract people or, and well, you'll retain people that want you to do something for them, right?
Over time, those who are attracted to want to build things, they either get drowned out or they eventually leave to go find something else.
And I think that's an important distinction to make because I do think from a culture standpoint for a project, the more you're dependent on a team to do all the work and deliver and to do things for you, the more, the less likely you're going to have a lot of builders and builder types stay and go want to build it.
And frankly, we saw that with the punks, right?
The guys who launched Prinko just kind of launched this thing.
They had some things there and they just kind of were like, all right, that's it.
And the builders there now said, oh, okay, like, all right, this thing is valuable.
Like, what can we do?
Some of them probably started engaging in conversations.
They formed groups.
They started businesses.
They built new things, right?
Because there was no dev to kind of like, right, at least with Chex.
There was no, once Chex was done, there was no dev to kind of like, right, hey, go build that.
And in fact, the dev just became another builder in the space, right, building the interfaces and stuff you wanted to do.
And I think that's a very important note because those cultural seeds get ingrained over time and it's very hard to pivot away from that.
And we see a lot of products in the space suffering under this burden of a team being expected to basically create miracles.
And it's just, right, the expectations never, you can never meet up with those expectations, right,
if the community has made these assumptions.
And I think that's a very important thing to note that I wanted to kind of double click on.
Digital, you had a comment?
Yeah, I just wanted to make a quick note to Emmett, which, you know, he probably already knows.
But just in case, since he's enamored to his token ID that you gifted him, Aiken, you can build, you want to keep that token ID, you can build an amazing 20 check, for example, that maybe you're looking for and you can sacrifice it into the token ID that you were gifted.
If you want, you know, if you're not just enamored by the Skittle itself, but by just the token ID, then you can always do that.
Oh, and the cool thing, too, sorry, Jalil, for jumping for you.
The cool thing, and I think Jalil says this quite a bit, you know, checks never really get burned.
Like, they still exist.
They're just, right, in the contract, right?
You can, and even if you look at the visual and you look at the checks website, you can see the whole family tree of every check.
Like, you can see all the things that not only, you know, all the sort of ancestors, so to speak, but I also believe you can see sort of like the pathway.
So you can see basically which ancestors' DNAs got carried over by just kind of scrolling back.
And I think that's a magnificent thing because I think what ultimately happens, just extrapolate out in the future, is there'll be other ways to sort of unearth this relationships.
There'll be other complex ways to make these linkages.
There'll be, you know, increased improvements in the UI that lets you know exactly what the story is of a particular check.
And, you know, what, you know, there'll be language that goes along with it.
And I think that's the thing.
Those are the kind of things I think about long term, where by the time all this stuff is basically fully accessible at your fingertips,
and it's literally just push a button and you get, right, some AI basically telling you the whole story of a check in whatever voice or accent you want,
with any backgrounds and visuals and videos or whatever animations, you know, generating the background.
By the time we get there and it becomes fully apparent what this is, you know, the value of the assets will be, you know, in my mind,
clarity through the roof and inaccessible to most.
And because I believe we have a community of builders like digital and others who will eventually build out these things,
who will eventually incentivize to build them, I'm pretty confident we'll see very remarkable things down the line
in terms of, you know, UI and storytelling and things that, you know, we can't even imagine today that will come to bear.
Yeah.
Did we have – wait, so, Emmett, do you have further questions or do we want to open it up to others to jump up?
Yeah, I'm in the DMs right now with Warren.
I don't see him on stage.
He says he's on his desktop.
Do you see him?
I do – wait, hold on.
I see Warren as a listener.
Let me see if I can invite him.
Oh, he's saying one sec.
Does he want to be invited or not?
He can be invited and he can just be quiet on stage.
No, I think he wants to say something, but I'm putting him on the spot.
But, yeah.
Yeah, I invited him up, so he can make that choice.
Cool, cool, cool.
But we have other folks on stage, GM3, Ed.
Anyone else who wants to kind of come up, has questions about whatever, right?
I mean, ideally, if it's, you know, towards digital, that would be ideal.
But if you have other questions, probably about the space, and, you know, he can comment about that, too.
I'm into the space, unfortunately, but I'm here.
And me being, oh, I do see Warren.
I'm not sure if he's going to want to jump in quickly.
No, it's all you, Ed.
It's all you.
I had some technical difficulties.
Can I have a rundown on, like, the digital oil or, like, a refresh?
A refresher for those?
Okay, yeah.
So I'll do a quick refresh for those who sort of got midstream.
So digital oil, you know, so he built this tool.
Well, so let me go back.
So checks, as a game, basically, or what some of us call an infinite game, is a process where there are these checks additions that you could basically migrate from this mutable form, right, that the devs can kind of play around with, change the metadata.
You can migrate them into a new contract where you create a check original.
And those come out as 80 checks, what we call 80 checks.
But you can compose 80 checks from 80s down to 40s to 20s to 10s, 5s to 1, and then eventually a black check by basically combining them, right?
So you combine two 80s, you create a 40.
You combine two 40s, you create a 20, and so on, right?
And so to get to one check, you have to combine 64 in total.
And then to get to a black check where there are only three that are mathematically possible, I think it's 4,096, something like that.
So 4,000 and something, basically, right, to kind of get that ultimate black check, which is basically where the game is supposed to go, right?
Finality of the game, like mint this black checks.
They become these very, very valuable assets, blah, blah, blah.
So what Digital Oil did was it created a tool, right, that allows you to say, hey, I have these four checks.
If I combine them in any sort of way, shape, or form, and the four checks have to be on the same level, right?
So if I have 480 checks, right, you combine 280s to get, you know, you combine them to get 240s, and those 240s create a 20, you can actually see what you're going to get based on the way you combine those four, right?
So you can see what we call two levels deep.
And the importance of that is there are all sorts of variables that kind of go into play.
There's rarity, right?
There's all this stuff in terms of how they're combined.
And ultimately, right, there's not just visual rarity.
There's also mathematical rarity.
And, okay, how rare is a combination based on a number of variables?
So Digital, as one of the connoisseurs of Chex Composition, eventually goes out, builds this tool, which he recently launched.
People can subscribe to.
I think there's a period where, which is still open, where you can kind of use it for free.
But at some point, there's going to be some sort of, like, you've got to pay to access it.
So that's kind of where we've gotten to in terms of the tool.
And Digital's background, he kind of spoke to, you know, he was early into Bitcoin at some point, kind of was in and around the space, eventually learned about Jack, you know, kind of in terms of just, like, observing Jack on the side on timeline.
Eventually, Jack launches Chex, he meets a contact who says, okay, you've got to really look into this.
He kind of buys into Chex, eventually gets into a pepins and kind of goes down the rabbit hole.
So that's kind of like a really quick and dirty summary.
And so we've kind of gone through the discussion, and now we're just doing Q&A around the tool, around Digital and his background, but just also at this point generally about the space.
I'm sure Digital will have answers and thoughts and comments about, I mean, anything to do with, you know, Chex or pepins, visualized value, or just in sort of open Q&A at this point.
So with that, I mean, who wants to get a crack at the next question?
Hey, I'll just jump in.
I just wanted to say big ups, big ups to Digital Oil for creating this.
It reminds me of the concept of epigenetics, except not for your body, but for aesthetics.
Last year, I kind of dove down the Joe Dispenza rabbit hole, which is kind of all about how you can literally, you know, by changing your environment, changing your inputs from like a future perspective, you're able to, in the present tense, you know, evolve kind of in a more directed fashion.
So, I mean, I think that this just totally unlocks another level of Chex, and the fact that he's not hoarding it and keeping it private, which would just be a total asymmetric advantage for him, and the fact that he's actually opening this up to the community, to the, you know, to the culture.
It just says a lot about him, and it says a lot about the types of, you know, individuals who are attracted to VV and Chex in the first place.
So, I mean, I'm just, you know, just, you know, flowers to Digital for doing this.
And, you know, like me, I got a Skittle that's, you know, an 80 check that has the token ID number 29.
So it's like, obviously, if that was like a one band, that would have been ideal.
But now it's like looking into the future, it's like, I definitely want to convert my, you know, number 29 ID into, you know, the goal is a single check.
But getting, you know, if it can't be a single check, then I might as well use Digital Oil's tool to figure out how to create something totally unique that differentiates itself.
And I think that the more Chex that become unique in that sense, whether they are used with this, I don't even, it's like, you know,
this is like the godlike technology that, I forget the name of the author that you talked about, you know, to the extent to where, like,
when you do create something that has like a emotional, sentimental value, that check is going to be a lot harder to pry off of that collector.
So, I mean, ultimately, it's like, this is what Anthony talks about so much is just like the intrinsic value of these things,
these tokens, this, this art, et cetera, et cetera.
I think that this is just an unlock that is going to, you know, especially for like folks like Schmripto or whoever has a ton of checks that are,
you know, currently in Skittle form.
There's going to be some really incredible outputs that come out of this that I'm sure will be in museums one day.
So that's all I wanted to touch on there.
Yeah, I mean, one of the interesting things I was thinking about you were talking is, right,
there will be a scenario potentially, at least visually, where there will be some 20 checks that are actually rarer than one checks.
Right?
Simple.
I mean, because, you know, there are only so many colors.
I mean, there's a spectrum, right?
So, like, no, I mean, there are a couple of orange checks, but they're kind of like maybe a little bit different in the color spectrum.
But visually, right, from a distance, they kind of look more like the same.
But you'll have, like, you know, the check of checks, for example, which is such an unlikely thing to actually compose that it ultimately becomes this really, really, really valuable check, right?
And over the long term, you know, how do people actually ascribe value to that versus a one check versus something that is emotionally, they're very emotionally attached to?
Right?
And those are some of the reasons why I think getting to these black checks is going to be really difficult.
Because along the way, there are attachments that get built.
There are all these other things that people might value way more than being part of a club that creates even a black check.
Or value even more than just holding a one check.
Right?
And that's part of the game, right?
Unearthing how people are making these decisions and why.
It kind of goes beyond rationality.
And it actually goes beyond, you know, a financial viewpoint.
Like, it's a lot more complex than that.
And that ultimately, for me, is one of the things that attracted me to checks in that, you know, it's going to be an interesting study of human behavior.
And I actually thought to myself in one of my early tweets, right?
I'm like, I think, I don't know if it's Jack.
I don't know if it's Jack and Jalil.
I don't know if it's, you know, the community.
But I think in this overall construct, the Nobel Prize could be won.
Because it's really hard to document.
And I mean, I have a degree in economics, right?
It's not because a lot of this information will be on chain.
You know, some of this information will sit on Twitter servers, right?
And hopefully they kind of, you know, retain some of this and don't kind of destroy it.
But, like, there will be data sources where people could do really, really interesting research around just these dynamics, right?
And it will be remarkable to see what sort of, like, research comes, you know, way down the line as a result of some of these activities.
I think it will happen.
Anyway, so any other thoughts, questions?
I see a few more people came up.
Andrew, Ed, you know, whoever else.
Questions, comments?
Go ahead, Ed.
I guess my question is kind of a weird question.
I'm not too sure.
But I guess I'm not in checks yet.
And, you know, having conversations with those who are in checks and all.
But I guess my question is, one, why is this?
Like, what is the importance of this?
How can I find this to be important?
And then also for those that are not in checks but would want to, why is this important to them?
Or why should they find this to be important?
I'll take a stab at that and let others jump in because they may have different viewpoints.
I think that's an impossible question to answer, right?
I can only give you my own personal view.
But as has been said, to a large extent, it kind of is whatever you determine it to be.
So my last statement about taking an economic viewpoint, markets, human interaction, human behavior, decision making, that's a lens or that's one of the major lenses through which I look at checks and why I engage in the first place and why I continue to sort of retain and engage.
Digital oil has talked about this idea of actually getting to the code, what you can build, what you can compose, right?
He has coding skills, right?
And so he's built something and gone down a rabbit hole which appeals to him much more than appeals to me, frankly.
But now that the tool is out there, I'm like, wait a second.
This is going to have implications to the economic game itself and how I observe that game such that now I have to sort of maybe make new decisions or change, you know, how my perspective is on how things might transpire.
So now what he's done independently is now affecting my game and it's now affecting my perspective on what's possible.
So all of a sudden new input, right, I can take that and filter it through my own viewpoint, right?
So and ultimately, right, I think the biggest thing which I think is and why I actually respect the construct that is checks and what happens and a lot of what Jack does is it rewards those who have curiosity and who follow down that path, right?
No one can necessarily tell you, oh, this is what you're going to get from it because you're at it and you might have a different viewpoint of what's interesting.
But what I will tell you is that if you're curious enough to come to a position of discovery, just have conversations.
Listen to these chats.
Listen to why people think things and how they value it.
And over time, if you start digging into the information, then you come up with your own viewpoint and you can determine if it's, like, for you, not for you, right?
And that's just kind of, like, in my view, what I've seen, right?
I don't know if other people have other thoughts.
I'm sure they might.
But, you know, what's your take on that, Digital, on that question?
Yeah, sure.
And back to one of the things Emmett said, where for him, it was always okay to just look at the art and be happy with owning an NFT because he liked the art.
For me, it's been a bit different, actually.
For me, I've always been about extremes with NFTs.
Like, the three collections I've really gotten into are all, have extremes in some, and with this, I'll also answer Ed's question, by the way.
So, one is punks.
What is, how is it an extreme?
Well, it's, you know, what they did technologically when they built it was first of its kind, you know, first kind of PFP collection.
It's historically an extreme, right?
And then the other one has been nouns, where they invented this new class in Web3 of how to use NFTs to govern, where they came up with this one NFT per day and all the mechanics that came out of that and all the huge innovations that have come out of nouns.
And then the third one is visualized value in general, but specifically checks.
Because, why is it an extreme?
Because, contrary to what Emmett was describing, it's not just about the art.
It's not just about what you're seeing.
It's all the stuff that's underneath.
It's how it became what it is.
It's how, like I said earlier, the contract itself is a piece of art.
Its fundamentals are unique in the whole NFT space.
There's nothing, in my opinion, that I've seen that has such strong fundamentals, you know, technologically mixed with artistically.
So, as I said, I've always been attracted to these extremes, because I feel like if you try to cluster NFT collections, you know, all the NFT collections that are out there, I feel like nouns, punks, and checks, and also Pepin, in its own sense, kind of don't land in any of the clusters.
They are completely unique, you know, historically, artistically, technologically.
And that's why I would say that checks is something worth paying attention to, because those extremes are the ones that, in my opinion, tend to hold value in the long term, and also are enjoyable not only visually, but also intellectually, simultaneously, which is, you know, mostly what I'm into.
Because I think it always has been interesting that NFTs, pure art NFTs, where it's just, you know, an image, and that's it, are interesting enough that they have a place in the world because of the whole, they're cryptographically signed by the artist, you're always going to know it's an original.
So, you know, the way liquidity works is also really interesting, but if you can go one level deeper and add more fundamentals to what's behind the image, then, you know, then why not?
And that's what Chex has done.
Cool.
Cool.
So, anyone else have any thoughts about that question or any new questions?
Please come up.
We have a little bit more time.
Oh, actually, let me ask, Digital, like, what's your time look like in terms of...
I actually have to run right now.
Okay.
Yeah.
But it's been so much fun.
Yeah.
I really, you know, really feel honored that you invited me, and thanks for all the stuff you guys are doing.
Yeah, thanks a lot, man.
I mean, I learned a lot.
I loved everything you said.
Yeah, we learned a lot.
It was good to kind of hear your voice and kind of put a voice to the PFP.
Hopefully, one day, we'll get to put a face to that.
But, yeah, like, thanks for definitely hopping on.
I think, you know, we might keep the space open for another few minutes if people have other questions that are broadly about.
The topics today or, you know, just anything around the VV ecosystem.
I'm willing to kind of hang on for a few more minutes and answer some questions.
Anyone else?
Yeah, and I just posted to the top – I probably should have done that at the beginning – but posted Digital's new product that people can test out, and there's an actual visual of what we've kind of been talking about here.
Because he discovered the check within the checks, and you can be the next one, too, if you play around with that tool.
I just wanted to share that.
I shared it to the top if anyone wants to play around there.
But, yeah, we were talking on Spaces on Tuesday, and we didn't, you know, have a guest.
So we kind of just wung it, and we didn't end up talking about number 26, that 026.
And I was curious, Akin, have you been digging deep into what's going on there?
Yeah, so it's funny.
I saw – so maybe there was, like, a tweet maybe a day or two ago about 26, which was just very high level from Jack.
And it's funny, I saw someone in a Discord kind of say, oh, like, nothing happened to the Peppens, and, like, oh, like, maybe the mystique is over.
And I'm just kind of like, ah, Jack is cooking something much more complex than this.
This is just a first album.
And so I haven't had time to actually dig into it.
Like, I've actually – I've browsed through the tweet thread, and, you know, on the surface, like, this is also another, like, expansionary drop.
Because it does seem like individual holders will be able to actually make some decisions.
And I saw a bunch of letters, you know, spelling out words.
But it seems like there's an additional component where individual winners or holders of, you know, those reveals have a say in what gets revealed,
which I think is – it's like a – it's another dimension, another unlock.
So it'll be interesting to kind of dig through it later on today.
And then I'm sure tomorrow on board space, you know, we'll definitely have the chance to –
and board of Peppens space is at 1230 Eastern tomorrow.
And so I'm sure we'll have a chance to really kind of dig into it then after people have gotten to digest.
Because I think it's still ongoing.
I don't think Jack has finished talking about what this thing is.
So it might make sense to kind of reserve it to them.
But this looks really, really interesting on the surface.
And I think for me and I'm sure for others who are really into a Peppens, it's going to be a good one.
Yeah, I agree.
I was doing a little digging into it and looking into the history of where it was coming from
and the idea of the letters and the languages and the sort of rarity.
I never even thought about that ever.
It was like the rarity of occurrence of like the letter Z in our language or the letter N.
And there's like sort of a sliding ranking scale there.
And I know, Warren, you get super into this stuff.
It gets pretty intellectual and high level.
And I'm curious if you did any extra digging into what's going on there.
Man, I mean, we use language all the time.
Especially, you know, English is objectively the language of business.
It's what contracts are written in.
You know, they say if you're from like a country that doesn't speak English to learn it
so you can participate in international business.
But I think ultimately it's just like in terms of questioning like our most fundamental aspects of social life
that we kind of all unconsciously agree on.
You know, we all agree, right, that there's 26 characters in the English language.
So if everybody agrees that everybody agrees that that's true,
then it just becomes something that becomes fixed and almost very rigid.
And, you know, a lot of this idea...
That's a framework, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So like a lot of this idea about like the 27th character of the alphabet becoming VV,
that idea stems from Wittgenstein's quote,
the limits of my language are the limits of my world.
So if our language has limits, then our world has limits.
So we could expand our world by expanding our language.
And it might seem like just nonsensical or funny, punny, but there's an actual...
I don't know if it's intellectual or not, but there's an actual practical reason for incorporating VV as a W or as a V.
You know, if you say like everyone, instead of one V, you could add two.
You know, it's like we're living and I pinned up that quote about the problem of humanity.
We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and this godlike technology.
So getting back to the, you know, Ed's question about checks,
I think that the main thing that checks solves is as we shifted from an era where verification was top down,
you needed to get your name in a Yahoo article to get a blue check.
You had to hack something to get a check on Instagram.
When that paradigm flipped, it's like now it's kind of like a free-for-all where now verification is something that is bottom up.
But now that creates another difficulty, which is, you know, who has authority?
So I think what checks does is checks gives anybody the opportunity to assume a decentralized authority that's based off of merit
because you're not going to participate in checks unless you understand it.
Well, I mean, some people participate without understanding.
But for people like Digital, Schmripto, Akin, Emmett, you know, people, you know, there's too many to name.
People who really understand the bare bones of checks, break it down.
It's like as we continue to go into the future, you know, how is authority determined?
And I think that one good way that, you know, a brand could kind of establish a form of authority would be to own a single check.
And that would say something about that brand in terms of they get it.
And then, you know, as of right now, not everybody gets it and not everyone's supposed to get it.
And that's why there's still a lot more work to be done, you know, on a lot of these fronts.
But kind of getting back to the idea of the 27th character, it's like, you know, when I read something where someone uses it,
it's just like embedded in a tiny bit of text is the entire VV ethos.
And it just basically connects to, you know, all the visuals, all the wisdom, you know, it's infinite, basically.
The amount of, like, wisdom that has been distilled by Jack over the past four or five years is literally, like, endless.
Like, you could look at the same visual and see two different things based on where you are in life.
Like, I mean, I'm kind of, you know, to tie this up, though, it's just like, you know, with all the with the major transition and communication going from more like verbal voice to more text base.
And now we need to have emojis and stuff and emoji reactions just to kind of supplement the lack of body language.
I think that, you know, it might we're going to have to hit a critical mass with VV as a 27th character.
But I think just in terms of, like, the culture that's building, you know, I don't know.
I mean, it's fun.
It's but it is ultimately practical, I think.
Yeah.
I mean, I think.
Yeah.
And I think I mean, those are great points.
Right.
And I think just to that, to what you've just said, I think, you know, so we talk about, you know, people talk about NFTs or this attention economy.
And they talk about it from a concept of you have to get and retain attention.
But the vast majority of attention in the space is fleeting.
It's like you get some attention for a while and the attention wanes.
That's why you see people release tokens.
The value goes up.
The value goes down.
Right.
And the attention goes away forever.
They never retain enough to sustain it.
And to a large extent.
Right.
You hear a lot of complaints.
Right.
We hear complaints about from projects, from creators, from all sorts of people in the space who say, OK, that's an issue.
That's a problem.
But the irony is that they feed that beast.
Right.
You feed that beast when you're like, hey, I'm going to drop a 10,000 NFT collection.
But you don't have a community built around it.
You haven't built the infrastructure that will sustain that.
Right.
And so you hear a lot of these, you know, sort of complaints and like issues.
And I'm like, well, but everyone is complicit to a large extent.
And I think I say that to say, to what Digital Oil was saying, he made a point about the contrast and the extremes.
You know, Chex or Pep and VV is extreme on the other end where those who really engage and come to a place where they value the community, they value the conversations, they value the exchange.
Like, I mean, you can see people on board spaces and you can see a core that's there every week.
Right.
And even within VV, those are the people who have transcended, oh, the asset holds value, the asset is something I hold, because they've realized that there's actually value in the exchange and conversation.
And someone was asking me at Basel or the members of the community was asking, just kind of a question around, you know, my participation or why I participate.
And I'm like, look, I get a lot more from those spaces than people realize, because, and it's funny, like, I realized this, because I saw a tweet from Naval, where he said something to the effect that, you know, you need to, like, you need to come up with insights in when, like, your insights come when you're actually having conversations with others.
So, like, literally, your insights should come in the audience of other people.
And I think that was so apt, because it was like an aha moment for me, where I said to myself, now I understand why I'm drawn to these conversations.
Why?
Because for the very first time in those spaces, I'm saying things that I'm hearing for the first time.
And some of the reasons for that is, you know, vocalizing things kind of brings things out a different way.
But beyond that, there's some insights I can never get to on my own.
And we're just building upon each other's insights, right?
Because, as was said, different people have a different perspective.
So, when I hear Warren speak, he's saying things that I've not even thought about.
And I'm like, oh, wow, that's interesting.
Oh, wow, that's really interesting, right?
And all of a sudden, I walk away realizing that checks or Pep and VV, the spaces are part of the product.
The people are part of the product, right?
It's not just, right?
And the problem is, until you get to that space where you actually ascribe the right value to those things, you just miss it.
Because it just looks like, oh, it's only four cubes.
Oh, it's just like, oh, it's pretty, but my five-year-old could have done that.
Oh, I can't...
That's true.
I mean, I think...
Well, let me finish, let me finish, let me finish, let me end.
Where are you going with it, though?
Because I don't agree with that.
Well, you don't have to agree, but let me finish my point, and then you can speak.
Okay.
So where I'm landing is that it's very difficult oftentimes for people to articulate what the value is, because the value goes well beyond the image, well beyond the price, because there are a whole bunch of other things that they value as members of the community, as interactions that happen on an ongoing basis.
That not only retain our attention, but they retain our attention because we think those things are valuable.
And unless you actually interact with those things, no one can convince you of those values or why those things are valuable if you don't partake.
And that's part of the design.
So I'll stop there, and you can kind of chime in.
Okay, I agree with you with that, but I don't feel like that's different from any community.
And any community that has, like, any project that has a community that is there believes in something that's a commonality, and that's why they're there.
I don't think that is any different from any project that has a community that feels impacted by a leader in general.
And I don't think that's exclusive to what Jack has going on.
I think Jack has that, and the community of Czechs has that, but I don't think it's only with that.
No, definitely not.
I never said it was exclusive.
But with that being said, I do think having conversations regarding it was like, oh, why is this happening?
Or why?
Like, for me, immediately, yes, art is what I love to see.
But I know right off the bat, what I see with art may be different from somebody else.
But I love the conversation of that.
But I would want the space to have the conversation.
And that is where I'm like, okay, this is great.
Like, if I'm going to be able to have a community where we can talk about the art, that's awesome.
And that's usually my first step in.
If we have other conversations, absolutely, sure.
I'm fine with that.
If it's more, if it's technological, sure, I'm about that.
I think what needs to happen, though.
Like, I'm definitely, I think how, I like how Jack moves.
But before I even buy a check, I want to talk to Jack, which I'm sure I'm going to do.
But, like, that's something I would need to do.
Because for me, it's not only so much about how the community runs as well.
Like, I love how the community, I think I love how the community, what Jack has when it comes to the community.
I love the, I would say, the belief that you guys all have together.
It's very, there's a commonality there.
But I do still want to know, at least for me, when it comes to, like, a leader, like, I want to know, what is your purpose?
And that is for me, like, and what, like, for you, like, what is the goal with this?
And to really get a clear understanding from the leader, which is what I do from any project, whether it's a Kevin Rose or whatever, I always want to know that.
Because that's how, that's really what I want to, like, that's usually how I'm impacted.
Yeah, that, wait, can I make a, can I respond to that point?
No, I'm not done.
I'm not done because I'm petty.
Okay.
And so.
I don't get it.
I am not done.
Yeah.
So I think to that point, right.
And this is how I'll answer that point about talking to the leader.
I'll answer it in two ways.
In the event that you don't actually get to talk to Jack one-on-one, like, literally read Jack's timeline.
90% of everything he thinks about, how the concepts have been arrived, are there, right?
And even, like, how he's moved, how he's made decisions, where things have kind of fallen awry, what they did, like, that track record is right there on the timelines, right?
That's one.
I think the second thing in terms of if you want to talk to Jack, like, I said this term, I think, on one of our spaces, and maybe at Basel, you know, I think, you know, part of what I think is extremely interesting and valuable about this community is that the people who have understood and distilled certain things to values, right?
And so, wait, Jack does this, why?
Jack took this approach, why?
There are a whole number of values in this space that we kind of reiterate to ourselves, right, building in public, right?
A lot of the genesis of the conversation of how checks came to bear and Opepins wasn't just Jack, you know, sitting in this, you know, ivory tower and coming up and conjuring these ideas.
A lot of people provided input.
We had discussions about Opepins and should it have a body or should it not?
I didn't like the body in the initial and I made comments about that.
You can see my tweets, right?
A lot of these conversations are out there.
And I think it's important to note that the outputs that we all see are a product of a leader starting a conversation, but a community building it and feeling like they've contributed to the value and have ownership.
And I think that's one thing that, you know, is not necessarily unique exclusively to checks and VV, but it's extremely rare in the space.
And we've talked about that in different ways along this, right?
And so this is not sort of like, and just as a wrap up this line, this is not about, oh, you know, you know, checks or VV, like, you know, Jack is like this only person.
Because I'll also have you know, right, along the way, we've made all these linkages to realize that, right, when we're talking about DNA, a lot of the DNA that you see within checks and VV and building out platforms and doing certain things in a certain way, Jack and Julio learned from other places.
They learned it from punks. They learned it from squiggles, right? You can see with a Snowfro drop of Opepins 25, like Snowfro wrote a fairly, very, very well thought through thread on his perspective on what the relevance of Opepins are.
Like, I couldn't have written that. Like, literally, like Snowfro's point of view, right, was very, very unique based on his site and based on what he thought. Those things have value, right?
You don't think you have a conversation with Jack at all?
No, they've had multiple conversations. I know that for a fact. Like, and in fact, some of those conversations have happened on Twitter, and we've seen them, right? So early on, Jaleel gifted Snowfro. I believe it was a check, right? We know that, you know, Jaleel and Jack are punks. They've definitely had interactions. So there was an understanding and a knowledge of who these people were. But when I spoke to Snowfro, and I'll land here, when I spoke to Snowfro at Basel, and I asked him, I was asking him a totally different question.
And somehow I'm like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm part of whatever, VV. And he's like, oh, wow. And he now said, how couldn't I allow, and I asked him about kind of his role in developing 25, Opepins 25.
And Snowfro said, oh, like, yeah, like, I've been watching these guys. I know the end of blah, blah, blah. Like, I just let them kind of access, I like Jaleel access the code and do what he wanted.
Like, Snowfro had, oddly enough, very little input. Like, he opened the doors and the keys to the kingdom. I think it was the first time anyone was able to kind of play around with and remix Squiggles, right?
And that led to 25, and Jaleel can kind of dispute that if I'm wrong. But that, to me, was extremely powerful, right? Because it just said that he's recognized and seen something in these guys that is worthy of letting them do and touch some of his most valuable assets.
And that speaks volumes to me, right? I mean, I didn't necessarily have to talk to Snowfro to understand how I value Jack and Jaleel, but that confirmation is just also good to know.
And so the last thing I'll say is, like, if you want to talk to Jack, right, talk to Warren, talk to me, talk to members of the community, because ultimately, a lot of us have taken those values and moved forward with it.
And OX Digital was kind of, like, the perfect embodiment of that. He saw a need. He got frustrated after, like, a lot of conversation and no action, and then he went to build it, right?
That is not unique to Chex and VV, but it's actually fairly rare in our space, and at least that has to be acknowledged.
I'll talk to you and Warren and everyone, all of y'all. I've also spoken to Jack before. I'll just talk to him again.
But, yeah, do that. I mean, it's up to you. Like, figure out the path you want to take. Okay, Warren has a question?
Nah, man. I'm at the end of my quest, bro. My question has kind of been answered, so I'm ready to share the answer here.
So, you guys are familiar with the concept of read, write, own, as described. Ed, can you hear me?
Can you guys see if Ed could hear me or no?
I don't know. I can hear you. I think he's having some connection issues.
He dropped down, so I invited him back up. I think he said, I'm rugged, and then I was coming back up.
Yeah, but I think, you know, we'll wrap up with this statement from Warren, since we're at the top of the hour.
One sec.
Yeah, so I put, I don't know how many hours into thinking about this, but if you take read as the web one word, write for web two, and own for web three, then what's web four?
You know, for a space where we want to be futuristic and see beyond the horizon, you know, it's like, certainly we're not going to stop at web three, right?
So, I've been thinking, like, what would web four be?
And basically, like, the conclusion I came to, with the help of a friend who questioned, like, you know, what do you mean, web four?
Like, isn't this the same thing as web three?
Basically, how I would imagine web four, the word that would be linked with it would be value.
And the reason why is because we don't own things for the sake of owning things, do we?
Do we buy a car for the sake of owning the car?
Do we buy a house to say we own a house?
No, we buy these things to use them.
We buy these things for purposes.
So, this is where it's like the utility layer.
And it doesn't need to be a utility in the common context of when utility is this, you know, are we going to have airdrops attached to it?
It has nothing to do with that.
It has everything to do with utility in quotes, as in, look at these spaces that organically formed, bottom up from the community.
You know, like, if you look at boards, you know, like, when he was just purchasing Opepin en masse, you know, for the longest time, it was like he's accumulated a position in which now he has a significant input and influence into the project as a whole.
And that just is kind of like the two sides of top down leadership and controls versus bottom up influence and, you know, not even persuasion at that point.
It's more so like, what's the word?
It's not persuasion.
It's like more like, you know, suggestion based where it's like taste based maybe.
But the point I'm trying to say is like, you know, if we look at like a lot of these assets out here is like, why is this picture of a penguin worth 11 ETH?
You know, 20 something thousand dollars compared to a domain that costs 14 dollars.
And I'm not, you know, so I mean, it's just like value and price are extremely dislocated at all aspects of the market.
And that's why when you have volatile, you know, markets, whether it's for PFP, you know, whether it's for NFT projects, ETFs, whatever it may be.
Nassim Taleb kind of highlighted this, which is volatility is actually a sign of health.
You know, if you have if you have a chart that just doesn't move, there's no life there.
So, I mean, volatility presents an opportunity.
And aside from just trying to buy these things just to flip them or just looking at them from a purely financial aspect, if you focus on the value layer and understand what do these things unlock?
What is owning this thing do?
What can I do with this?
And I think that, you know, it's like digital oil in this space today.
It highlighted it perfectly is like the next layer, the next level is the value layer.
And I have a lot more to like articulate and I have to get my thoughts together on this.
But I just wanted to introduce you guys to Web4 today.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, thanks for that.
I mean, it kind of almost took me back to Econ 101 and how, you know, price is a really poor approximation for value.
And for those who sort of like, you know, you know, I have a degree in economics.
Like you talk about utility a lot in economics.
What's the marginal utility?
What's the value?
You know, because utility is this sort of like unquantifiable term that embodies so much more than a number.
But unfortunately, right, you have to figure out ways to leverage numbers because principally, right, a number is something that people can understand.
You have to find ways to, you know, use numbers to approximate these other things that are hard to measure.
Right.
So which is why, like with econometrics and when you're doing statistics, they're trying to use these numbers to tell you something about human behavior.
But they're always going to be incomplete because they're the reaches of human behavior that cannot be analyzed or rationalized.
Right.
And that ultimately is a failing.
Right.
It's kind of where economics kind of starts falling apart, where some of the assumptions are about people as rational beings in certain cases where in actual fact, we're not just making these rational decisions.
We're making emotional ones, and they're really hard to quantify.
But I want to end with this, if I may, you know, because it was a point I was thinking about and wasn't able to get out prior.
You know, one thing I've learned quite a bit, you know, you know, kind of checks and Opepyn reminded me was around, like, the decision to go from just being a checks holder to an Opepyn holder.
And I realized at some point that Opepyn was also a derivative of conversations that were happening in checks, right?
Checks' decision making was about immutability and this sort of extreme, so to speak, on how do you create this sort of immutable game and then leave it in the hands of, you know, people to sort of play the game over time.
But in those conversations, too, there were these tradeoffs between, you know, immutability and mutability.
There are all these other conversations and things that got left on the floor, quote unquote, which found their way into Opepyn, which kind of sits almost at a slightly different extreme, right?
And once I recognized that, it was like, oh, okay, like, Opepyn is checks to the extent that a lot of the thinking around the conversations on checks actually, right, led to the other side of it, which became Opepyn.
And I bring that up to say as well, that it was very instructive for me at a very, very particular point that was important, but I've also leveraged that concept to realize that we as human beings have these shortcomings where we anchor towards our bags, to where we have value, to the things we know, to things we've seen before, right?
We anchor towards, okay, this is the world view.
This is what is art.
This is what good art looks like, right?
And frankly, at the end of the day, those are just opinions, right?
They're not facts, right?
And I say that to say, as I walk in this space and I continue to move forward, and you continue to see these other bigger debates around that will clearly become even bigger around, oh, what chains are what?
What product is what?
What is Bitcoin?
What is ETH?
What is Solana?
You know, the fallacy in some of those conversations and why certain people will hedge along their bags is it removes the level of objectivity.
It kind of oftentimes removes this view of curiosity.
And we almost have to work against those tendencies in ourselves because I've seen that tendency in myself to say, okay, I have an opinion.
That's one thing.
But an important question to ask is why does that person value that thing?
What's in their thinking?
Like, and it's less about my opinion in that case, and it's more about discovering why someone values something a certain way.
And I think the more we sort of interact in that kind of behavior and discourse, the more, you know, we open ourselves to learning.
And the more, right, the more we don't end up being late to new trends or new things or, right, the things that actually got us here in the first place.
It's like, it's like everyone starts out with this open mind and invariably you become a maxi if you're not careful.
And so how do you counteract that behavior?
Anyway, I'll leave it there.
Thanks, everyone, for coming.
Thanks again for OX Digital who signed off, had to go early.
Thanks for the questions, all the folks that came up.
So, you know, for those who are here and who are available tomorrow afternoon, board space is at 1230 Eastern.
Again, you'll get probably more of the gang, more of the Pepin and Chex gang there.
And we'll probably talk quite a bit about, you know, the new 26 drop then.
So we'll love to see some of you there tomorrow.
Thanks a lot.
Emmett, last words?
Yeah, just thank you to Digital who popped up here and explained his new product to us and his history.
Super appreciative.
And thank you, Warren, for hopping up here, too.
We always love having your takes.
I'm going to send you a DM.
We'd love to have an individual sort of interview space with you to learn more about your backstory and everything you've been working on.
But I'll leave the last word to the Nifty Noon account.
But, yeah, thanks, everyone, for hopping in here today.
Yeah, appreciate everyone taking the time.
You know, Emmett Akin, it's always so great to learn so much about the VV ecosystem through you.
And you both have definitely pilled me pretty hard on everything.
So I don't know if I told you guys, but I'm actually a pretty big bag holder of Oviators right now.
But, no, but, yeah, anyway, I appreciate everyone taking the time to come up here.
We host these spaces every Tuesdays and Thursday at 1230 p.m. Eastern time.
But we are taking a one-week break for the holidays.
So I think our next spaces is actually going to be on January 2nd.
And that'll be with Jared Paz from 8NAP again, just to talk about all things generative art.
So thanks for your time.
Appreciate everyone coming around.
And, yeah, hopefully we'll see you on the 2nd of January.
Happy holidays.
Bye, y'all.
Bye.
