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Ape 101 TW x Memeland
Recorded: March 28, 2023 Duration: 1:06:10Space Recording
Full Transcription
certain benefits when they go questing,
they will have a better chance
to get better resources and stuff like that.
I think those are the things that we want to try.
And that's why for captains,
I can, again, neither confirm or deny
there will be any special utilities and stuff, right?
But I just feel like, yeah,
I think we keep observing the situation
and keep thinking about, oh,
will that make the whole things cooler
or more interesting or more awesome or more fun, right?
And it really is, right?
Then we try it.
So somehow, sometimes I don't really know the answer, right?
Because at the end of the day,
everything moves so fast in Web3 and we try to catch up.
That's why we also try to kind of like introduce
a new and interesting thing from time to time.
Okay, got it.
So people maybe will,
will people just use their imagination,
try to imagine what could possibly be,
but it's really exciting.
Like you don't have a set answer for life.
So people will be looking forward to see
how this collection will evolve.
Maybe sometimes I just don't have the answer, right?
I mean, for people who say that they have the answers,
usually they don't know shit, right?
I think most of the time,
I would say that we have the direction, right?
I think our vision is pretty clear.
We want to bring ownership to every community in the world, right?
But how we go there, right?
How we reach the goal,
it can be quite flexible.
Because at the end of the day,
it's not like a strict path, right?
That's why even in the very first meeting,
when we launch our collection,
we always think that having a roadmap is kind of like,
I would say, too old school,
because there's no roadmap.
Because you don't even know whether there's a road, right?
I think it's better to only have to go,
and then you're just trying to navigate,
and then avoid obstacles,
or overcome obstacles, right?
And then to go there.
That's why I think it's important to have a destination.
Yeah, but I think the road or roadmap doesn't really matter.
Especially when Meme Land is like using a private theme, right?
There's no road at sea, right?
So then we don't have any roadmaps, yeah.
But at the end of the day,
we feel like we have to learn,
and we have to unlearn, and we have to keep learning.
Because there are so many new cool things
by all kinds of creators,
and all kinds of projects every single day.
Yeah, and that's why we just learn from the best,
and then keep improving ourselves.
That's our goal.
Yeah, I definitely agree with you,
because I feel like we are still so ahead right now.
We're very new and very innovated.
So it's really hard to find it ahead.
It's not like people have done it,
and proven history, like track of the seas.
And so I feel like it's definitely like believe in the people who are creating it,
and believe in the community to build something great,
and has the same value aligned.
Yeah.
Okay, so I'm probably going to delete all the questions about asking like,
when will we build what the trade is going to be,
and what are they going to translate into sort of token amount,
and all the questions like that.
Okay, I'm going to jump to the next question.
Are there any plans on uniting all like the mainland holders around the world,
like a real-life event?
Like any upcoming events locally, internationally,
like NFC Hong Kong, Taipei, for example?
Aren't we in metaverse, right?
Why do we still have to have real-life events?
I think that's always kind of like funny to me,
because when we spend so much time online,
and even buy expensive JPEGs online,
and then we still want human touch,
we still want to meet people face-to-face,
but whenever we meet people face-to-face,
it's only like 99% are guys, and then only 1% are girls, right?
I will never go to a party like that.
But somehow, people enjoy such kind of NFT in real-life meet-ups and stuff like that.
Anyway, I always find it quite interesting.
Now, I'm not saying that is wrong.
I just find it interesting, right?
That's why I think we support our community to hold meet-ups and stuff by themselves, right?
I think for official meet-ups and stuff,
we haven't really spent too much time thinking about that,
because we have so many things that we haven't finished, right?
That's why in real-life meet-ups, we let the community to take the will right now.
But at the end of the day, I think it's great to encourage deeper connections between the community.
At the end of the day, hopefully, we are not here just for the profit, right?
We still want to meet some friends.
We still want to meet some cool people.
And I think those are things that we encourage.
Yeah, that's why we hire one of my friends, Cha.
He's really good at collaboration.
He's really good at building community, right?
Especially in Web3.
And with his help, we can probably figure out something cool, something good for our community,
instead of having me to lead the community effort.
Because at the end of the day, why I love to spend time on Discord is somehow because I hate people, right?
I hate to meet people offline.
Not hate, right?
But I don't feel very comfortable to meet people offline, right?
That's why I like to spend time online.
And if you ask a guy who doesn't really like to go out that much to organize in real-life events,
it seems like you asked the wrong person.
Yeah, that's why we need to find a guy who is really socialized, right?
He really enjoys meeting people to lead the effort.
And I think we have our community.
We have a few good persons to help us to work on that end, yeah.
I really like your example.
I can totally picture that because I do went to the real-life meet-up.
And yeah, it's like not only like most of the people are guys,
but I feel like people are kind of shy or not a little bit awkward.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like expected, right?
I mean, the guys who buy NFT, right?
NFT is so hard to use, right?
You have to understand how to use metamask.
And basically, they're all nerds, right?
Or geeks, right?
I mean, I don't say it in a bad way.
I'm saying nerds in a way that, okay, they spend time to understand tech and stuff, right?
I think geeks are kind of like that, right?
So probably they are not super sociable when you meet them in person, right?
But I think the good thing is if they are willing to go out,
I think there's a good chance for them to kind of like practice their social skills, right?
At the end of the day, you can't eat food in metaverse, right?
You can't make babies in metaverse.
So somehow you still have to meet real-life people out there.
I think this is healthier so that we can kind of like touch grass,
not just the grass that you smoke, but actually touch grass and meet people.
I think that's a good thing.
Okay.
So maybe not asking Ray, but someone from the community will organize such events.
Pardon?
Sorry.
I mean, like maybe because you don't really like the real-life events,
so maybe someone from your community will organize such events for you.
Well, yeah, sure. If they organize, right? I may go, right? If I'm free.
Yeah.
I mean, at the end of the day, I think the goal for me to go to a lot of conferences and events
is not because I like to travel. It's not because I like to go there, right?
It's more about, oh, if the company needs me to be there, I go there.
This is like part of my job, right?
And to be honest, I think even though I say that I kind of like hate to go to events,
but it's always good to meet some good old and new friends.
For example, a few days ago, a few of our MVPs, they flew from Singapore to Hong Kong
to join some conferences and also have their family trip.
And then I met them up for dinners, right?
I think it's a good, fun dinner. And then we drank and we talked shit and stuff like that.
I think that's fun, right? That's why I think I'm like a troublesome guy in a way that
I say that I hate people, right? But when I meet people, I actually like to meet them, right?
Except when meeting stupid people. I think, but most of our holders are super handsome and super
pretty and super beautiful and super smart. That's why I don't mind meeting our holders as well.
Okay. Okay. Maybe you can start a metaverse and we all join you for the metaverse party.
Yeah. I mean, metaverse party is kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of, I mean, yeah,
I have to mind my own works, right? Because I usually talk a lot of random stuff that will
kind of like buy me back. But I think having metaverse party, I think, unless you can create
a unique experience, I think otherwise it's really hard. Because right now, after the bear market,
I think people have more expectation and more, I would say, realistic expectation towards what
metaverse is. And I think that makes the whole things a little bit hard for metaverse to do really
well, right? Unless you make it like a game or make it like a fun experience, like the other side.
I think that works. Otherwise, I think if you just, okay, launch an online party,
just playing some music together. I think it feels a little bit silly these days. Yeah.
But to be honest, maybe someone will figure out how to do it, how to launch a cool metaverse party
in the future. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
Yeah, I definitely agree. Still a long way to go. It seems still kind of awkward having a party on
metaverse, like a pub in the sandbox is pretty empty, like no one really goes there.
Okay, so our next questions are finally pretty interesting. Someone asked, what is the intention
of Minglan buying captain's trade of boar ape? We want to make money. So someone actually noticed,
oh, you want to make money? I thought you guys don't want to make money. I mean, there are many,
there are many ways to utilize the asset, right? I think at the end of the day, it's all about
storytelling. And I think it makes sense for the private and also versus the Marine. I mean,
all the apes that we got, right, they all have the Marine's traits or the sailor traits. I think those
are the things that can be quite interesting down the road. And at the same time, I think we also
explain that to our community, right? Because right now, most of our treasuries are in ETH. I think
having some treasuries in apes and also in ape coin, I think this is like a certain kind of a
diversification, right? And at the end of the day, I think it's also a good way to interact with more
projects, right? Because at the end of the day, I think somehow I feel like most of the NFT projects,
they kind of build it in a silo. That means, okay, the community, okay, I'm from this community.
I kind of hate your community, right? And I want to flip your project. Our four prize is going to flip
your four prize, right? I mean, this kind of against a mentality, I think it's kind of like against
Web3, right? Aren't we saying that we are trying to build Web3 together, right? We are all going to
make it, right? Why can't we interact with more projects down the road, right? That's why I bought
a lot of NFTs from different communities, from different projects. And for MemeNet, because we need
to use our treasury more carefully. That's why for us, okay, this seems like a good addition to our
treasury. That's why we got the 10 apes and also we got the ape coins and stuff like that. I think
those are things that we want to try because we feel like, okay, how come no projects are trying to
do that? I mean, there are a lot of projects. They try to use the ape IP, right? To launch their own
business, like Boat and Hungry, and then maybe Kingship and all other kinds of Boat-Ape IP play.
Why can't an NFT projects, right? Or another IP to interact with the Boat-Ape IP? I think those are the
things that no one really has make it really, really successful. Then why can't we try it?
I think at the end of the day, most of the time, we don't even know why we do that until we do it.
And then we figure out how to do it, right? That's also the same reason why we beat on the
Dookie Dash, the key, right? I mean, we fail, right? At the end of the day, we couldn't get it.
But this is also a fun experience. I think somehow, sometimes we have to make some fun. We have to do
things spontaneously, right? Because otherwise, life would be super boring, right? And those are,
yeah, this is how we operate at MemeLand.
Yeah, definitely agree. Like, no roadmap. And I'm glad to hear that Boat-Ape is
mainland-approved collection and probably will be making money. That's why you guys invested in it.
Is there anyone who buys NFT, doesn't approve Boat-Ape? I mean, there may be people like that,
right? Two years ago. But right now, I think Yuga is basically the leader in NFT. I'm not saying that
MemeLand can't win. I'm just saying that at the current stage, Yuga Labs is obviously the leader in
NFT. And that's why I think, why can't we just work together? Why can't we just learn from Yuga and
also other good projects out there? I think we need to have a more collaborative attitude towards
other projects instead of, okay, I'm trying to flip you, right? That's why I think,
and this, I mean, one of my personal experience about this kind of flipping
way is when Yuga bought CryptoPunks, right? I think that's like so ironic and also iconic,
because people always talk about, oh, whether Ape flip Punks and stuff like that, right? And then when
now, they both belong to Yuga. And somehow, it shows that, okay, if you can make it work,
you can actually work together really well. Because at the end of the day, there are so little people
in NFT right now, in Web3 right now, we should work together instead of work against each other.
That's very true. It's just like right now, all the layer ones, right now,
like so many new layer ones develop. And we're aiming for like a multi-chains ecosystem,
instead of just focus on one or two blockchains. So it's similar to like the NFT world. It's like
many different NFT like partnership with each other, like collaborate with each other. So it totally makes
sense. That's the only way we can grow the Web3 community and let more people know about it.
So it's kind of lead naturally lead to our next questions. So given how the current Web3
infrastructure is still relatively not user friendly for the mass market,
many projects like clam to be bridging Web2 to Web3 have failed. Oops. So how do you overcome this high
friction of onboarding new users onto the Web3 platforms that Ming Lan is building?
This is indeed a good question, right? I mean, I've been working in tech industry for 15 years.
What I see is user experience is always improving, right? Because I think that's almost like the
easiest way, the easiest area to improve. Yeah, I think technological breakthrough is indeed very,
very hard, right? But user experience can indeed be improved quite easily, right? When you spend enough
time, spend enough resources and get enough talents right on it, you can actually improve it.
So I think that's why I find it quite silly when people say that, okay, the biggest blocker is UI,
UX, right? I don't believe that. I think the biggest blocker is you can't show people why
or what is the value of having this NFT or using this crypto, right? Or putting your stuff on blockchain.
I think it's more on the why, it's less on the UI or UX. Yeah, because at the end of the day,
you can just change the UI quite easily, right? But I think back to the question, oh, how can we
bridge people to Web 2 or Web 3 or the other way around? I think this is also a wrong question
in a way that people feel like Web 2 and Web 3 is a big gap, right? But no one is actually
Web 3 native, right? No one is even Web 2 native, right? I mean, we all just learn, right? Unless you are,
you were born on blockchain. Otherwise, you are not Web 3 or Web 2 native, right? Anyone who use
Web 3, basically, they used Web 2 before, right? So I feel like we just have to make sure that we can
create enough value and communicate really well to tell people why you have to own this, right?
Instead of just right click and save. I think when we can do that, I think we can easily onboard a lot of
people, right? Because I think people are, I mean, people are kind of like slow to changes, right? And
to be honest, I think that's a good thing. Otherwise, if everyone is so fast to change,
then how can you win, right? That's why, I mean, for us, for all the holders, for all the people who
listen to this, to this space, we are early. And that's how we can kind of like grab that value,
right? Because we are, we are willing to spend our time to learn so that we can help to build the next
big thing. And I think those are the things that can actually attract more talents to join the ecosystem
to build. And at the end of the day, I feel like this is like a convergence in a way that Web 3 will
be more and more so-called Web 2 friendly. And meanwhile, more Web 2 companies, they will be launching
or leveraging more blockchain technology or using semi-NFT, semi-NFT, something like that,
to reach more people. And also, they will also accept cryptocurrency or Bitcoin or Ethereum or
meme coin, right, in their daily business. So I think it's like a convergence instead of like a bridge.
And to us, for meme men, right, I think what we try to do is, with our background in social media,
with our huge audience in Web 2, I think we kind of understand what people need and what people want
in social media. And that's why we want to build out good products that people will use, and also
better products than existing Web 2 products, right? I think the biggest attraction is, in the past, you
don't own any of your content on social media. You are just like a user on social media. But right now in
Web 3, you can be actually an owner, you can even make money, right, from your content directly. And you
can, if you are not a good creator, maybe you can bet on a creator. And then when that creator becomes
famous, right, you can sell the NFT that you buy for that creator. You can support the creator very
early on. I think those are the things that is impossible in Web 2, right? For example, this is like a
Taiwan AMA, right? I remember when I was in high school, I was like, I forgot how old I was, right? And
Jay Chow first released his album, right? And then I told my band classmates, right? And then,
oh, oh, that guy is pretty good, right? And then, and oh, I listened to his first CD. I bought his first
CD, right? But right, but there's no way that I can prove that I actually said that, right? There's no
way that I can prove that, okay, I'm that early. Even though I get an OCD, an OCD out, it doesn't show
anything because I can just buy the CD from the internet, right? Something like that. But with
blockchain, you can actually prove your provenance. And then you can tell the world that you support
that creator from the very, very early day. You're like the first guy who minted BAYC, right? You're
the first guy who minted the MVP and then hold on to captains like potatoes. I think those are the
things that blockchain can do, but no other thing can do. And with this kind of proof of provenance,
I think that opens a lot of opportunities for businesses, right? Because for example,
one of the projects that we are building, we call it pfb.com, it stands for proof of fandom protocol,
right? With blockchain, we can prove that you are the biggest fan of BTS. You are the biggest fans
of Blackpink, right? Without blockchain, you're just one of the millions of followers of BTS and Blackpink.
And then those are the things that we believe that with blockchain, it can solve, and also it can
attract more people to buy in, and also to understand the value of blockchain and NFTs.
Guy, that's very nice. You brought up a lot of really good points. You said that UI is the easiest
thing to change. I feel like I totally agree with you when you say it's really the motivation of why
people want to use those. Because like, I am very bad at any tech, I'm like very bad at computer. But if
I know, like I learned how to use a meta mask, I can make money out totally span a day just to learn
how to use it. And that totally makes sense. And what you mentioned in the end is pretty interesting.
You mentioned about pfp.com. It's actually one of my questions. Like, why not the audience mentioned
that you guys purchased the pfp.e, the address, and asked them, what's the use of this? So you
kind of give us a little brief introduction of what this website is about. Can you just elaborate a
little bit more about it? Yeah, sure. We bought pfp.com, and we also bought pfp.e. I mean,
for .e, it's because I believe in the future of Ethereum. That's why I want to own the ENS.
I think for .com, it's just like a personal choice, because I believe that why there are so many scams
in Web3 is because tons of projects, they are not using .com, right? Because I still remember,
right? Okay, if you own a proof of collective parts, right? It's like proof.xyc, right? Then
what about proof.io, right? What about proof.com, right? I think those are the things that,
that's why there are tons of scammers. They would just launch and buy a similar domain,
and then to try to scam people off of their precious ETH and NFT, right? That's why when we launch
our project, especially Web3 project, we try to get the .com, yeah, if possible. Yeah. And to be
honest, right, we are kind of rich, right? I mean, rich in a sense that are in resources, right? So we
try to spend the resources to focus on getting the asset, because a good domain is also a good asset.
And if we talk about building brands, I think a good domain is also a good branding tool. That's why we
invest in that area as well. And back to the question, right? I mentioned that PFP stands for
Proof of Fandom Protocol, right? Fandom, F-A-N-D-O-M, right? That means, oh, how can we prove that you
are a fan, right? And for protocol, because we want to make it like a tool for everyone to prove it,
right? We can't release too much detail right now, but the goal is, can we bring in more IPs,
more creators, more influencers, more artists, right? And so that they can launch their,
I would say, NFT on VFP.com, and then they can use it as a tool to prove their fans,
actually, their real fans, right? It's not just saying, oh, I buy your CD and stuff like that. Okay,
because there's no way to prove that you bought the CD, but there's so easy to prove that you own
the NFT. I think that creates a new way for creators and also for IPs to identify their
highest value customers and holders and fans. And in return, they can easily give out more utility
for their fans as well, right? I think that sounds like a loyalty program or membership and stuff like
that. Yeah, but I think the way that we do it, hopefully, is something that can be interesting to
the brand and also interesting to the Web3 and Web2 audience. Yeah. And that's the overview
of PFP.com. Yeah, we're still developing it, so it takes some time. But at the end of the day,
I think the goal is, how can we leverage NFT or blockchain tech in a way that people don't need
to understand the tech, right? It's almost like when you go online, when you go to browse the internet,
right? You don't even know how you get online, right? You just click the button or you set up the modem
and then you go online. I mean, most people, they don't understand what is CCP IP, right? But you can
understand how you browse the internet. I believe that PFP.com can be that kind of tool for the IPs and
stuff. It also echoes your previous questions, right? Oh, so many Web2 companies and brands,
right? They launch in Web3, but they fail. It's because they didn't spend enough time to understand
what Web3 is, right? They just see Web3 as a cash grab. And that's why they fail, right? And I mean,
when it's bull market, it's okay. But when it's like bear market, people are more cautious in Web2 and
stuff and less speculation. And that's why it's a good time to build. And it's also good for us to actually
as the first, maybe one of the very first Web2 brands that continue to have like a large existence
and presence in Web2, but also have a great presence in Web3, right? It still takes us some time so that
we can catch up with Yuga, right? But somehow with Web2, we actually have a better reach than Yuga Labs,
right? So how can we apply what we've learned in the past 15 years so that we can help our existing
fans and also a bigger audience understand the awesomeness of Web3, the awesomeness of NFTs.
I think those are the things that is kind of like unique for us because I spend so much time and so
much ease to pay to learn, right? P-A-Y, pay, right? To learn what Web3 is. And hopefully with our
community, with a more experienced buyers and collectors in our community, we can actually
build some tools, build some platforms, build some products that are actually Web3 so-called native,
right? But also can apply to a bigger audience, to a bigger user base. And I think this is quite
unique for us because other than Niagat slash MemeLand, right? What are the big Web2 companies
actually have a good presence in Web3? I mean, maybe Reddit, right? But Reddit do it in another way.
They have their own NFT. They are on Polygon. They have their own wallets and stuff. They are kind of like
unique in their own way. But if you look at the current so-called NFT, ETH, PFP space,
I mean, the existence of MemeLand and Niagat is kind of unique. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. I know not only MemeLand and Niagat have a lot of experience.
And I know a lot of experience with Web2 companies, like the big brands. So it's really to
understand your market. And while you're just talking about the PFP.com, the concept sounds really
interesting. I can definitely see people want to use it. The fans want to use it. They want to prove
that they're the first supporter, like the biggest supporter. And definitely like brands will want to
reward those royal like supporters. So we're super looking forward for this project, be paying close
attention to it. And it really comes to tonight's last questions. And the really big questions.
What is your point of view toward the trend of NFTing the future?
I don't predict the future. I make the future. I mean, that is like a cool quote to end the space.
But actually, when I look at NFT, I feel like the current form of NFT is not working so well,
because it would have the mass adoption already. But there are so many great things and great
experiments that we have tried in the current Web3 that we can apply to the next step, to what we are
going to build. I mean, it's not just for MemeLab. It's also for Yuga Labs. It's also for other projects
as well. And I think there are a few things that I observe. We should not just focus on the money
making aspect of NFT. I mean, I understand that most people in NFT, they try to make money,
because we talk about flipping, we talk about the top traders, we talk about how much profit that you
take and stuff. But at the end of the day, when you look at an industry, if 80% or 90% of people
in that industry only focusing on flipping, that industry can never grow. And right now, the NFT is
kind of like that. But if you look at other industries like luxurious watches or supercars or
handbags and stuff like that, I mean, there are still people trying to trade and flip. But I would say
the majority of the community there is actually using the product. I think we kind of have to
figure out a way to make more people to use NFT, to collect NFT, instead of flipping NFT. If we can
figure that out, that would be like a billion dollar business. And I think for MemeLab, we hope to be
one of the companies that can actually participate in solving these big questions. But at the end of the day,
I think no one really can predict the future. But somehow, the more, the longer that we work on NFT,
we work on Web3, the more problems that we see. And if we keep solving problems every single day, I think we can
make the whole industry, we can make our company, we can make our community better. And since then, when we look back,
we have created a better future already. Yeah, that's how I see that. That's how I would answer your question.
Got it. So we cannot predict the future, but we can follow the right person.
So I hope you guys really enjoy Ray's AMA today. And I feel like MemeLab is a super promising project. So
maybe if you don't have that much money to buy the NFT right now, and they will have tokens that's
coming up this year. And so everyone will get a chance to participate.
Yeah, well, thank you so much, Ray, for coming in to speak with us. And I feel like I'm letting
everyone on the holder gain more understanding of the mainland project and your visions. And thank you so
much for coming out. Thank you. Thanks for giving me the airtime. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Good night,
everyone. Good night. Bye bye. Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
