Welcome to this beautiful Friday. It's a cent episode 209, and we will be talking about whatever happened yesterday with the undead Mint and all the other news of the day.
But first of all, I'm joined today by my dear co-host Attaberg. How are you doing today, bro?
GM GM brother. Thankfully, I am well happy Fridays to everybody. Thanks God. It's Friday again. I'm having a nice day. It's okay. It's the sun is shining. So not feeling like shit today.
I have to say first off, thank you all for joining. It is at 209. And yeah, before before we move further, I would like to pass the mic around for a small round of GM's and then we'll be proceeding further.
Yeah, GM. And what's up, brother? My guy, it's me, Jim. I don't know. I woke up super late today. Yesterday night I'd been around grinding until ungodly hours. But, you know, it's always a pleasure to be with us. And so good morning.
Good morning. It's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much. Davinci, welcome. I see you shaking your head. How are you?
GM GM 209 shout out to Stockton. Let's go. I think there's a 50% chance this app crashes while I'm on this basis because it's been going pretty slow all morning. But we're going to take our chances, guys.
Sounds good. We are also taking our chances since Elon Musk decided to add a couple features while actually disturbing or making other features that already exist worse.
So basically every day we are gambling if the already created and scheduled space will start and work flawlessly or maybe it can rag and so on. So yeah, the level of stress here is off the chart. Sorry.
Donna, sister. GM, welcome. How are you on this beautiful Friday?
Good morning, Atterberg, Carlos, Estetica, Davinci, Patryx, Goranaz, Sonia, Fabio, Linhayo and DMC. Yes, I'm doing great. I hope you're doing great too.
It's Friday. We don't complain on Fridays and the weekend would be here soon. So let's go.
Let's go. I like that mentality. We don't complain on Fridays. Sounds good enough. I see Sonia shaking her hand as well. Sonia, welcome. And finally, let me pass the mic to Patryx. Welcome, Patryx. How are you?
GM, GM, guys. Sorry for the background noise. I'm in traffic. I'm playing a delivery guy today. The weather is shitty, but at least it's Friday and we're good to go. So GM, guys.
Where are you from, Patryx? Romania. You're from Romania, right? The land of opportunities and corruption. It is? Oh yeah, the second I know, the first one. I didn't know. Good to know.
There is a beautiful blonde in the listeners called Nazla, my girlfriend. She is also from Romania. So I have a thing against Romanians, I might say. So just be careful out here, Patryx.
And as Don also said, we don't complain on Fridays. So yeah, you shouldn't complain. It's Friday. So thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, for joining. You're with Ascent, a marketing agency, an attractive media platform and a lovely community.
And before I move on to news, I have to say today's space is sponsored by none other than Degenerates. And Degenerates is a Solana PFP project that is hand-drawn by an artist that has more than a decade of experience and you know it. It's aesthetic. The bold, cool, good-looking guy right here at the top right of your phone.
And we can also say he's a seasoned Degenerate and a member of the Ascent community. Degenerates is also all about top notch artwork and giving back to the community. And all you have to do to stay tuned for more information is following Estetica and following Ascent.
So with that being said, Carlos Brother, if you have no other things to say, I can move on to the daily headlines.
It would be my pleasure if we move right to the news and then start the discussion afterwards with the whole community, because as we know yesterday, a lot of things happened and there is a lot to talk about. So please go ahead, bro.
Yes, sir, with pleasure. So headlines of the day in 69 seconds. We know it and love it. To start with the NFTs, we have Yuga announcing that they're going back to basics with their new revamped site.
I think there's too much to talk on this and definitely we'll be diving deep into this, not only their website, but the entire way they operate and they have also promised way too many things for this year.
And they're starting to hype the community up. So yeah, we'll be diving deeper into this for sure.
Then we have a buyer grabbing three golden pudgies, spending $400,000. Then we have Donald Trump.
He says that he will be releasing one of one Bitcoin ordinals collection. I think he also smelled the hype going around with the spot Bitcoin ETF being approved.
So yeah, sounds like a blast. Sounds like 2024 will be a roller coaster ride for sure. Then we have ex-OpenSea manager denying insider trading on NFTs, which I think is also very interesting.
And I also want to dive deep on this and also take your ideas on how positive or how negative it is to actually start having these conversations on a space.
And by these conversations, I mean all types of insider trading and abuse of power. So for the final news on NFTs, we have Coinbase launching their instrument AI for digital asset creation, which for sure is interesting.
And any of these, you can check them out by clicking the tweet above. They're all pinned by none other than Carlitos himself.
So if you're also interested in any of the resources and so on, please make sure to check it out. And for the newsletter, all you have to do is click the link tree that is in a sense profile.
You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter. And if you miss any of our daily spaces, you will have a brief summary on all that's being talked about on that day's space.
So it will it will make you feel like you haven't even missed the space. Hopefully, that's what we try to do. And to pass on to crypto side of news, we have SEC delaying Fidelity's Ethereum ETF decision.
We know it's been delaying for a while, but we also know that the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF was also positive for Ethereum's ETF news.
And we also know CEO of one of these big asset management companies, investment companies, also said that this approval of spot Bitcoin ETF could pave the way for other ETFs, other cryptocurrency ETFs, mainly Ethereum, of course.
Then to pass to the second one, Bitcoin is now the second largest US ETF commodity. And that is huge news. That is huge news. And I believe you'll also talk about this further on passing silver to become the second.
Poof. I will also give numbers when we dive deep into this on the assets under management for these ETFs. Then we have South Korea urging FSC to reconsider anti ETF stands on Bitcoin.
I believe we are seeing and we'll see more of these ripples going all around the world that tries to change both investors and managers or decision makers.
May I say stands negative stances against Bitcoin ETF. But with that being said, I have another thing, which is Vanguard prohibiting their clients from investing in Bitcoin ETFs.
I wish we could spend clown emojis right here because that's what I want to do. But I can't. So I'll just have to laugh.
Then finally, we have Jim Cramer, of course, commenting on every different reversal scenario that is every single day.
And he's saying, actually, we are far from the bottom in crypto, which translates to we are actually far from the top if you have never followed Jim Cramer.
I know it won't make sense, but just listen. And for the final part of the news, macro news, we have X rolling out audio and video calls on Android.
This is also important, I believe, because we are seeing different news left and right that X is doing things, adding features and so on to get one step closer to his dream to make X the everything gap.
Then we have community notes now being much faster. And finally, X updating its ad policy in regards to adult content.
And I almost forgot the fake news, which is also a very important part of my day, which is Jim Cramer buys 69 punks because he's bullish on the collection.
I'm glad that it's fake because I like punks. And if this was real, again, for the ones who don't know Jim Cramer, the punks would be gone, vanished in the span of a month or so.
So I would like to pass the bike to my beautiful host and brother Carlos. Do you have any comments on the things that we won't be doing a deep dive rather like Jim Cramer?
Yeah, no, I don't have much comments on Jim Cramer. I think we all know by now or hopefully we should know what to do whenever the guy speaks.
What to me is the most interest of today's topic is definitely the spot Bitcoin ETF surpassing silver and becoming the second biggest or most traded ETF within the US.
I think that's a significant milestone and will definitely push the space forward. And I'm also eager to see what other cryptocurrencies might receive approvals in the future from the SEC and other similar departments.
So very bullish on that part and also while bullish on the crypto side of this, it makes me slightly sad because silver is also one of my favorite investment asset classes.
So that being said, it's a win for the space, I believe. And I think that a company like Vanguard actually prohibiting its customers to invest in Bitcoin has reasons beyond the easily understandable, if I can phrase it,
like this. So there must be a policy from top down within Vanguard that is basically advising everybody in the company to behave in a certain way.
We can think about that as we like. I see you guys laughing already. But that's my very short take on the news of the day.
I think at one point today, we also have to talk about the undead mint and how people liked or did not like the art. I'm not going to comment on that yet.
But that's it briefly. I don't know if you want to jump in right back or if we should go to the hands, your call.
Well, I'll be passing it to Estetica very soon. But I want to comment on this Vanguard thing. And then after, I'll be commenting on this crypto on this thing before we proceed to the deep ties.
So as much as I recall, it was also prohibited to give financial advice. And since the spot Bitcoin ETF is out and is completely legitimate and legal, I think what Vanguard is doing is basically giving financial advice against people investing in Bitcoin ETFs,
which smells to me like after all these years in crypto, another trial at market manifestation. And we're seeing too many of them lately.
So I have to say I'm a bit numb to them, but I can definitely smell some shady things going in on the background. Just one piece of information for you.
For Vanguard to have a Bitcoin ETF, they had to have an investment in Bitcoin because they had to have some Bitcoins for themselves so they could let their investors actually invest in the ETF itself.
So very, very interesting thing for sure. Estetica, please take the mic.
No, yeah, it's me again. So I was thinking, ETF is so interesting. I have a question, you know, actually about X and how the guys are operating on the platform.
And this is a question for someone that maybe is more knowledgeable than I am. So basically everyone on the matter.
So I see this happening all the times, you know. X or Twitter, it's a very old social media. It's around for 15 years almost, I would say. I don't know exactly, but whatever.
So and there are some features that works, works very well. And some others that are crap, like the chat, the chat on X, it's horrible. It's horrible.
There are some, you know, it's not as snappy as social media like can be, you know, an Instagram or compared to Instagram or TikTok.
And my question is, and this, I want to know what you think about it.
Why they don't start by fixing what's not working and they keep introducing shit that doesn't work either, you know, they keep introducing features from for spaces and spaces are not working the majority of the times.
They keep introducing features for video content and the quality of the videos is shitty, because they introduce the 1080p, 1080p and whatnot.
So in your opinion, you know, in your opinion as, you know, software development or social media development, why they do this, you know, because I saw this in gaming too.
For example, you know, I give you an example of that. They release a new title. They release Diablo 4 now.
And before they did the same with Diablo 3, why they don't start from the point where they left in Diablo 2 that was widely successful and they want to reinvent the wheel and create something that doesn't work.
Why, you know, companies do that. I don't understand why people does that. It's nonsense to me.
You know, maybe somebody knows. I don't know. That was my question.
I have to say that is a very valid question because I'm actually, I have been actually wondering the same exact thing, right?
So first off, for what you said about Diablo, I think coming from that there is a general fallacy that is in these people's minds.
Like if we create something brand new, if it's completely different, this will be a hit. It will be even bigger and better than the previous one.
And there's always this aim of making the new thing much bigger and much better than the previous one.
And when you look at it, it's a noble cause, right? It's a good goal. But what happens is the way they operate towards this goal is the problem in my head.
And to pull things over to X, what happens is, yes, they want to be everything up. Yes, they're collecting money transmitting licenses, you know, and they're bringing these calls, futures and so on.
But like you said, there's so many things that happen. But I think there is a general idea of growing as much as possible and then fixing their backs, fixing their own backs, like on the go.
And I think that it's problematic because the real user base, the real audience, people in the creators and people who very continuously use this app, they don't appreciate this way of working, right?
And we don't go and start calling our mothers from X's video calling feature as fast as it comes out, right? Because we have another thing we use for that that we are used to, that we like.
But there are a couple things that we use in here that we're used to and that we must also use without option to be able to operate, create and socialize in this app.
And those are the parts that are lacking. But yes, but I have one simple question and I will be very fast.
If I buy a house and it's a very old house, everything is wrong. From the foundation to the roof, it's wrong. Everything is faulty.
I don't start by choosing a new carpet. I start by fixing the foundations and then I start and then I fix the walls, the windows, the fucking doors, the roof.
And then I choose the carpet because I'm very bullish on the future. But this way of operate, it's weird as fuck to me.
You know, it's kind of it's kind of it's so weird. I don't know. Sorry. I didn't want it to interrupt.
Nowhere is whatsoever. I would actually be finalizing my words and you gave me a very perfect example for that.
So in this case, the house is actually burnt and the homeowners just want the house to look good.
And they think it's much easier and cheaper to buy new carpets and a couple of candles and so on to make the house look good rather than tearing a couple of shit down like the walls, the counter and so on because it requires more money and more work.
And I believe in this scenario, the problem is Elon Musk knows he had taken over a mess, right?
There were so many secret codes running in the background suppressing some types of content, boosting some types of content, which were malicious, you know, those how can I say nudity, aggressiveness and so on and so forth.
So I believe they think it's much easier for them to ship brand new content and build on top of the existing infrastructure without trying to change or fix much of that because I believe it requires hell of a lot more time and money to fix what like the real problems that are underlying the infrastructure.
Davinci, please take the mic.
Yeah, I was going to Ross Atterberg on something he said earlier, but this is a serious question, a very well phrased question from Aesthetica, which I agree with, so we'll get a serious answer from me.
I liked Atterberg's response. I would add that this is speaking from Elon's perspective and it is more of a postulation. I can't really point to hard facts for this.
But I would say that if I were in his position, right, some of his moves make sense from the perspective of someone use the house analogy, right?
Well, you can only afford one house. Where are you going? There's nowhere to go. And one of the major aims of social media apps is to grow their user base, right?
So he's very much aware that he can take liberties, for want of a better word, with his current base because they have two modes.
You have the very strong network effects, right, on X or your friends on X. You can take CT, for example, everything around CT revolves around X, right?
So there's nowhere really to go. And then secondly, they have now the free speech mode, right?
There's not many other apps, I guess, maybe Rumble on the video side of things.
There's not many other apps that give you as much freedom of speech as X does.
So if you want to express yourself, this is becoming that common public square for ideas, right?
You know, if you go to YouTube, if you go to all of these other apps, they are censored to one or another degree.
So this means there are no real options. Now, if you're Elon, what is the ROI or fixing what is currently wrong here?
And where is your priority list? Where does that reside?
You know, so for someone of his business mindset, it makes much more sense to firstly prioritize,
try to steal market share from the likes of YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, whatever that may be, right?
Rather than focusing on, or focus all their time on fixing the current problems because regardless of what problems there are here,
99% of users have nowhere to go and definitely will not leave the app.
So I believe that's why he has that motivation.
I do agree as a user, I would much prefer he fixes this at first.
And he's made a number of what we would term no-nos in business, right?
Where he throw away brand equity by switching the name in from Twitter to X.
And then he's also not really as focused on customer service and the happiness of his existing users.
And I know he's done a few things with, you know, given some financialization in terms of content, et cetera.
And he's done some slight tweaks to the UI UX.
But he's not really as focused on the existing user.
And again, I agree with Atterberg when he said it would also take more manpower to try and figure out what's going on with the legacy code.
He's also fired a number of legacy devs, et cetera.
So you're trying to figure out what controls already exist, this, that, and the other.
And that will take a lot of manpower.
And it's not going to give him the tangible upside in users that he's looking for.
Sorry, that he's looking for the short to medium term.
And I think that that is Elon's main concern, right?
It's like risk to reward ratio or how can I say, investment to reward ratio when he looks at this.
And like you said, we are not going anywhere anyways.
Yes, we are unhappy with the current situation regarding some of the features.
It's not bad enough to basically convince us to search another option, right?
Because already there is not much place to run to.
So the situation is not bad enough then for Elon to think about fixing it.
Another quick take for me.
Yeah, Elon knew from the beginning that meta was the percentage that he was going after.
Crypto Twitter, as we love to call it, is a percent of a percent of a percent.
Sorry to spoil it for you guys.
But we are dwarfed in comparison.
Normies dwarf us on Instagram.
I'm talking about dwarf 10.
10 million or 10 billion or some shit like that threads and threads did in like in four days.
This is fucking hilarious.
When you guys set up your your marketing schemes, make sure you're funneling people to come
All of my sites have been up and going again.
Twitter can close tomorrow.
Would you fucking me a thing?
I wouldn't I wouldn't skip a beat.
I know I would probably miss a couple of you guys's jokes on spaces, but there would
be another one to take over almost instantly.
Discord would fill in the fucking quicksand gap like you guys wouldn't even believe
There'd be something up within minutes of Twitter announcing that they weren't doing
what they're doing anymore, but they've always been stealing trade secrets.
Elon is he's another one of those guys.
Oh, let me put my name on it and I'll make you pop.
Let me fire everyone or half the people that work for me and make it better.
And you guys believe that shit.
I say you guys because I know it's not you.
You know, that's just my take.
Yeah, yeah, I have to say very fair take as well.
I just want to highlight the positive side of this, which translates to whatever
platform you're actually active in.
The platform in the end is not totally yours, right?
So if you have a website, if you have a newsletter, if you have any additional
different platforms that you can funnel people into, do it because in Ecom,
we had an understanding that if you sell something to someone, yes,
of course, it's positive.
But if you don't have their information, their email, their phone number and so
on, which basically means that you'll be able to market to them for free
whenever you want to in the foreseeable future, right?
If you don't have these types of information, they were not your customers.
And basically, the cost you have paid to acquire those customers were
actually kind of wasted because you paid some money to acquire those customers
and you only sell for them once, right?
Which is a big no-no, like Bavinci says in that world.
So let me let me switch a bit to the UGA Labs story, right?
So UGA Labs actually announced that they are going back to basics,
whatever that means, by the way, I'm very curious on your comments as well
about what back to basics mean.
And they revamped their website.
They said that they are making sure the club is at the heart of everything
they do, and they have also partnered with blog survey to actually prove this.
They said we want to receive your unfiltered thoughts and comments, right?
And again, for the cherry on top of all this,
they also said that they have a lot planned this year.
And I have to say, as a non-ape holder myself, even,
I'm expecting a lot from them, especially on other side front, right?
Before I pass the mic to Bavinci, my very short take on what I believe,
what they mean by going back to basics.
So two years ago, apes were cool.
They were a symbol of prestige.
The community was the number one thing to them until it stopped being cool
because there were many, many other different additional collections that came in
and said, yes, we are all for community, we are a cult, and so on and so forth.
And for the latest news from UGA, for like last six months, I might say,
the general notion was UGA Labs doesn't do much currently.
They don't care much about their ecosystem.
They don't care much about their holders.
I won't comment on this general narrative,
but I also have to add that this could have been also another strategy
because we have survived a very ruthless bear market
where everything that was shipped out, everything that was published,
everything that was built had a very, very strong world in front of that.
So maybe for a time span, doing nothing and expecting nothing
might have been a strategy that they employed.
This is just a thought and a thought only.
Bavinci, please take the mic.
Yeah, actually, I should have actually gone later
in case I have to change my opinion if everyone else has an opinion on one side.
So I think UGA gets a bit of a bad rap nowadays.
I mean, expectations are through the roof.
And obviously, as a market leader, and I guess with some of the perception,
the web free space have been looking for their downfall.
Very interesting timing for their updates and going back to basics.
I know pudgies are right up behind them now,
and it looks at the flippinings of possibility, right?
So that could be part of it.
If I was to look and analyze them, let's say the business strategy,
I don't blame them too much, guys.
I think there are only a few options.
You have to remember, they embarked on the gaming strategy
when floor prices were around 100, 150 ETH for a board ache, right?
So when your NFT is that high, it's valued around 300, 350K.
The only handful of utilities you can provide
are going to justify that price and above, okay?
And I always use the example of moonbirds as the corollary
where they were worth 100K and then they dropped socks and a fanny pack
and that killed the whole hype, killed the dream, et cetera.
So I think the gaming, the metaverse angle
is one of a few things they could do where if they are successful,
it justifies really high prices for their original assets.
And I think one of the issues they didn't foresee firstly was blur
because with blur and their increased liquidity and financialization
of NFT assets, it actually means that your dev cycle is now much shorter
because previously NFTs were more liquid,
so it took longer for major changes in price, right?
You list on the floor, it's harder for it to be purchased, et cetera, et cetera.
But blur kind of supercharges movements both ways,
you know, to the downside and to the upside.
So if you analyzed and thought you had three to six months
to bring out a tangible development to keep your community happy,
right now it's reduced to a month or so, right,
in terms of the attention cycle and the way prices move
and how communities panic when their NFT prices are dropping.
And I think that messed them up a lot
because once you say you're going to create the other side,
which is basically a fortnight competitor as a metaverse,
that's easily a five to six year dev cycle.
Like for any company in Web 2 or Web 3, whatever the funding,
they're not going to be able to spend that up in two to three years,
but they knew they had to give something to the community in the meantime
And that's why we got Dukey Dash
and that's why we got the other two games,
which weren't as entertaining, we say, right?
But it's kind of like they're forced to put something out there
to keep their community engaged.
To round it up, I think the mistake,
okay, I don't know if it's a mistake because I'm not within the team,
I don't know how much capability they had,
but if I was there, I would also have had a dual pronged strategy
of continuing to push the brand and IP.
You know, they have the Made by Apes
and I feel like they thought maybe the community
could carry this themselves,
but I think they should have continued to push that
whether that's through more songs
like they had with Eminem and Snoop Dogg,
whether that's through, you know, clothing, being a clothing brand,
et cetera, et cetera, or whether that's through franchising,
you know, open up a select number of bars
and what have you across the country.
I think they should really have continued to push
to be at the forefront of web-free culture, you know,
and I think they made a bit of a mistake there.
That is one thing that scales very nicely
and you knew your core community
were already fully brought into that.
You know, the other issue they have is fragmentation
where a number of people in the community,
they didn't buy in for a gaming NFT project, right?
They bought in for that brand and the IP
and a little bit similar again to, let's say,
Moonbirds when they went CCO,
you fragment your community when you made that sort of change
because some of them, I don't know what percentage,
they didn't buy in for that, you know, for that E4.
So they then feel alienated, they decide to leave
and that also tops your floor points.
That's a brilliant take, DaVinci.
Thank you very much for sharing this with us
and I think it's the nature of every company, right,
that rises to the top that you get attacked,
that you are the target for everybody else
and everybody else tries to get to your position
and meanwhile, you explained it perfectly.
So I think the whole team of UGA Labs knows
that they need to deliver a lot of stuff
within those five to six or seven years
before the metaverse is fully built and ready
and that itself is something that you also touched upon
with the example of the Moonbirds
and I've seen this in many other projects in the space
that you buy in with plan A
and then after you bought in,
hey, we don't like plan A,
let's come up with a completely new plan and roadmap
and I hope you like it while you are on the road
and this is something that is like, huh, what?
How do you run a business like this
and how do you expect everybody that bought in
in the first place to remain a loyal investor
if you change the plans mid-course?
So I agree, it is difficult
and I'm not sure that actually,
even though the pockets are filled with money
from all kinds of VC guys left and right,
I'm not so sure that they will succeed
because it is a hell of a long time
and it is extremely difficult and costly
to develop a functioning metaverse
like Roblox, like Fortnite, like all of this.
So let's give them the time
but let's also have an eager eye on them
while they build during all these years, I would say.
So thank you very much for sharing that, Davinci.
Carlitos, how are you doing?
Good to see you guys, I'm not working today
And I was like, hey, this space, let me jump in.
It sounds like you're standing 10 meters from your mic.
Maybe you can pause the hummus making
and can get closer to your mic.
Can you hear me better now?
Not very much, but a bit better.
I'm going to take off my AirPods.
We always have our collection.
Now that we're chilling on a Friday,
I'm not working so I can get involved a little bit.
About, I'll just go straight to the point
there, you guys, I think it's something
you can do with any of the Web3,
the version can be created irrelevant.
Can you start over, please?
No, I can hear you, but you got cut
Abi, my friend, you're having connection issues. You were cut in half. I'm not sure if you
It's the darkest one, his bow.
Let me know by talking to myself.
No, we couldn't hear the last one or two minutes. So I think you need to step down and then come
up again and share your wisdom on your free day. I'm very much looking forward to that.
And I hate those connection issues. So maybe somebody can Diam Econ to fix this, please.
So, okay, while we wait for Abi Ataberg, bro, what's on your mind?
So me personally, I had something that stuck in my head after DaVinci gave his stake, right?
And after reaching a certain floor price, you know, after going to our 100K, 150K for
like one NFT, then actually you don't have much that you can give, right?
Because there is no utility in the world that you can basically say, hey, we are doing this.
And that is why NFT from our project cost you around three hundred thousand dollars.
The only thing I can think of was if I had the real estate, a castle in Spain, you
know, a village in France and so on.
And I fractionalized that.
And then I was like, OK, I have 10 NFTs that costs three hundred thousand dollars each.
But then you'll be able to come and have a vacation in this place for like two weeks.
And you have, you know, some rights to that property and so on and so forth.
Like other than that, there is nothing that can actually encourage people to still go
on to keep their NFTs and so on.
So that entirely becomes a construction upon the general community, the holders, to
agree that that NFT, that project is worth that amount of money.
Right. And when you don't have your scope on all of those people who actually agreed
upon that that NFT should be worth over a hundred thousand dollars and you have to keep
You have to keep them content so that that agreement doesn't fall.
Right. And I'm talking I'm saying these outside of the market circles and so on, just purely
And I believe that was the mistake that they've actually did, just missing out the scope
and trying to justify three hundred thousand dollars worth of a GPA with with bullshit narratives.
Ali, please take the mic again.
Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now, Kelly?
Oh, perfect. Great to see that you're here.
I love everything you said.
I love everything everyone says.
I've got two points I want to make.
What I'm going to I'm going to address what you just spoke about now.
And I'll tell you the problem with NFTs.
The problem with NFTs is that in reality, they're nothing.
They're just a collectible.
There's nothing there's a real, real value.
If you look at all the big projects, yeah, you're part of community.
And yes, there are some kind of utility here and there.
But in reality, if you bear it back, they're just collectibles.
Right. Now, the problem is that I think everyone in this group and most people in
this space are here to make money.
We don't really care about collectibles.
There are times where, you know, you say you come for you come for the community
and, you know, you get you come for money, get stuck with community and it's cute.
And it's, you know, it's snazzy line.
But reality is, if none of us are making money, the last 12 months, we'll all
been crying, right? It's all bad.
It's better than I was making money.
Now, the only way to make money is by flipping.
Right. Let's let's call a spade a spade.
The only way to make money is buying an NFT at cheap and selling at expensive.
That business model is non-existent.
It doesn't survive long term because if everyone's looking to make the money,
then everyone's just going to sell.
Eventually, everything's going to crash.
So long term, it's not a feasible system.
The only ones that are surviving are the big, big ones.
I mean, like, you know, even even take someone at Paddy Pango's floor is 18,
It's only it's only that high because everyone must be involved in the hype.
But in real value, there's not that much getting there.
The only way it can survive is being used as as as a technology, as a system
I mean, crypto punks are going to stay hundreds of thousand dollars forever
just because no one's interested in selling.
That's the only way it can survive.
Now, when you go now, take that theory over into Metaverse,
we were talking about before.
I think the mistake that many companies are making is that they're
they're connecting Metaverse together with Web3 and it could go together,
We've struggled in the last 10 years, if anyone remembers the Sims game,
which is a bit similar to what Metaverse is.
We've struggled to make to onboard masses into virtual reality.
Companies in the last 10 years have done it with glasses.
We've tried everything and talking about all different kinds of technology.
For some reason, I mean, I can give you reasons, but the many reasons why
population in the world, the main parts of the world has not become adapted,
has not adapted to that kind of technology.
So the struggles of the Metaverse, I never remember,
it's like two, three years ago, it's ready to explode.
And everyone was buying real estate in the Metaverse and Facebook
and everyone was going crazy about it.
It struggles, has nothing to do with Web3.
I don't think there's anything to do with Web3.
The struggles of Metaverse is I don't think anyone has come yet
with a viable solution of how to onboard masses in a very simple way.
I remember, I remember I used the what's it called?
The one with art, there's a Metaverse with art, I remember the name.
It was that it would kill my phone.
I was on it for like half an hour.
Or you have to get glasses.
These are not viable options in the modern day world yet.
So the struggles of Metaverse have nothing to do with NFTs.
And it doesn't even need it.
I mean, NFTs is cute to make it go, talking them and
to make, you know, all different kinds of technology to take advantage of.
But reality, I think the struggles of Metaverse and the company
who manages to create a Metaverse
that will be adopted by the masses can then bring in Web3 and NFTs.
I think one of the biggest people that might be able to do is Amazon.
Simply, I don't know what they're going to do, but simply because
so many people use them or, you know, that kind of world.
And then maybe adapt that into other sectors.
But that's why that's why that's why I think the struggles of Metaverse are.
I agree, especially with the examples you provided.
You can definitely say that these things are currently not working.
Right. That is a problem.
And a major company like Amazon, like the example you gave
is like one of the few big enough ones that can actually solve this,
I believe, and I'm all for and I'm here to to to actually see that
because conceptually, I think it has a lot to provide to us.
It has the potential to fix a lot of problems, but in its current state,
I think it's it's how can I say it's not enough, right?
It's not sufficient and it's not able currently to solve our problems.
Thus, it cannot be and should not be for that matter.
And just as a reminder for me and for all of you,
I have still haven't given my opinions on crypto on bed,
but I'm keeping it for a later time because I see so many heads.
I see Choen was first, then DaVinci, then Patricks and then DJ Choen.
Hey, hey, guys, thanks for having me here.
And OK, I put my hat came on.
OK, accidentally, I didn't know that I pressed the request button,
but what might as well, because I do have a response to other gentlemen.
I'm not sure who it was who was saying something about this.
This off tipping and all that.
I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, go ahead, sorry.
OK, that was a bit confusing, sorry, OK.
Can you let the woman talk, brother?
Yeah, you guys can can go on like this, and this could be a comedy show as well.
It could be like a strip show.
I could do that for you guys, too.
But I'm not here because you have to visualize it in your head.
And I'm afraid that most of you may just imagine me, I don't know,
as something else that's not me.
But that can be fun as well.
But anyway, my name is Choen, sorry for not introducing myself.
I am an artist in this space and I have been
exhibited worldwide and what else?
I am one of the top 10 finalists of the 14th Florence Biennale open call contest.
And one more thing that I really wanted to bring up is because you guys kept
saying this is about flipping, not community, but that is not true, because
In the third quarter of this year, there would be a NASA mission
called the Blue Ghost Moon Lander Mission One.
And it's going to be launched into space and onto the moon because they are
testing out the new moon lander, the Blue Ghost.
And one of its payloads is 47 artworks, artworks, 47 of them.
And this is the first time that mankind would be bringing artwork up to the
Mine is going to be one of them.
And this came about because of this NFT thing.
Yeah, it's not flipping because no one's buying anything.
We just use it to, you know, basically to lock down information, to have it on
the blockchain, to make sure that everything is there.
Most of the artworks going up there is going to be digitized and then they're
going to engrave it onto a piece of ceramic because that's the payload, you
know, and these things can last.
And, you know, if the moon landers do explode in space or something, it's
probably quite cheap for them as well, cheaper than it was, no, not quite
true because I checked on their mission and they do have a primary mission,
primary, other primary missions.
And this payload thing is this one of the tests that they want to find out if
they can do this in the long term.
And so, yeah, there can be that.
And then, of course, the whole art thing as well.
I mean, it's coming from my point of view as an artist, I was shown in 35
shows last year and most of them is because of NFTs and stuff like that.
So it can be done and don't just buy fucking PFPs, they're fucking
shit, most of them by art, but by the right ones, don't just buy tits.
I believe you have laid out basically very, very bullish reasons why NFTs are
actually, NFTs matter, might I say, and I have to say also, congratulations for
all the success because it sounds to me like it's a massive win on your side.
It's a massive win on your side and I love to see this.
So thank you so much and thank you so much for your comments as well.
And sorry for that small thing in the beginning.
Let me pass the mic around because we have still so much to talk
with so little time, so I don't want to drag anything further.
Da Vinci, please take the mic.
Yeah, apologies for that interruption.
It's an inside joke because on my UX with spaces, I can't see who's speaking.
So I'm the individual that usually goes, I don't know who spoke last, who's
speaking, et cetera, et cetera, and they make fun of me in the group chat.
Art over most PFPs are a hundred percent.
In relation to Avi, that was a while back now.
I agreed with, um, some aspects, but I do think NFTs are required when
we look at the ownership layer.
So if you want to assets, I'm not sure how else you would.
Da Vinci, I believe you are right.
And now you completely lost you there.
Oh, I hate starting over.
So I don't know if they had a showing bit and who's speaking apologies
for that as an inside joke.
Avi, um, I wanted to respond.
I do agree mostly with what he said, but I will say that for a true
metaverse NFTs are required for that ownership layer, right?
To have true ownership of said asset, which allows for these, uh, major
valuations, it's much more difficult to reach that sort of valuation
and have that sort of trust in a centralized company.
It's also easier for numerous different companies and, uh, individuals
to build stories, uh, worlds, um, games within games, using NFTs as the
And we've seen that a good example would be mutant hounds, you know,
utilizing, um, the mutants, the mutants, uh, within the board ecosystem.
Uh, aside from that, I'll keep it pretty brief.
I do think that, uh, with NFTs, we also do get a lot of positives
without around integration and interoperability.
And, uh, I had other stuff to say, but I'm going to keep it a hundred
having to repeat myself as literally taking my enthusiasm.
So, um, I'm interested in hearing some bombastic takes from, I guess, DJ and
Well, let me really swiftly pass the mic then Junior, please.
Junior, we can't hear you.
No, I think, uh, you should speak louder.
So if you heard Avi before, it's the same issue with you.
It sounds like you're sending a kilometer or a mile as you're American
So if possible, please move closer.
I guess he will come back in a minute.
DJ, we'll pass it to you in the meantime.
I just wanted to give flowers to, uh, to the chosen.
How do you pronounce that?
Um, I mean, I'm just going to explain my name.
It sounds like the street fighter character.
If you can remember her, that's how I sound like.
No, but I mean, can you pronounce it for me?
No, no, uh, I can be Cohen Lee as well.
I mean, uh, a little dating myself, my mom got selected to be one of the teachers
Guys remember the one that blew up, uh, that had the teacher on it.
My mom was two selections away from being on that, um, something about space travel,
something about going where no man's gone before, something about, you know,
being a part of something bigger than yourself and being a part of the collective.
As far as exploration, uh, you know, you, you're either an explorer or you're not
clearly, uh, your art will explore.
Your art will be left where no one will even talk about the people that know about
the people that know about the people that are involved in this project.
So, um, but yeah, kudos to you.
I'm bullish in how I knew instant follow.
Lovely words and since junior is here and we have a little time,
I would like to check in with him again.
Now we can give you much better.
I just come up to say I have no idea what this space was about.
I have no idea what y'all was talking about.
Uh, but the first thing I heard was, uh, Vinci speaking and I kind of tuned out.
So I don't know what's going on and I apologize.
So let me very briefly give my opinions on crypto.
That's like totally unfiltered, but this is of course, totally subjective.
The project was hyped full disclosure.
I also tried my best to get some wireless collaborations with ascend didn't work.
I was positive and I knew that it would do at least a five X.
And I believe I was pretty clear on that on the ascend group chat.
But the thing is, after reveal, I have to say the art looks like shit.
And I don't know if the market is okay for the time being to let a project right to $2,000,
$3,000, $5,000 floor price, just because again, they are a quote unquote cult.
And I have to say I'm disappointed for all parties that are actually interested in.
And since we are just over time now, let me go over what we have for the other details
regarding the insider trading case on OpenSea.
I can say Nathaniel Chastain, who was OpenSea's former product manager,
was convicted and sentenced to three months in prison.
He has now appealed that conviction.
The problem was, so the entire backstory of this was, he was in a position to decide
which NFT collections would be featured on the website, on the main page.
And he would purchase those NFTs or NFTs from those collections
before they were actually published on the site.
And allegedly, he carried out this exact scheme on 45 plus collections to make profits.
And I have to say, that must have been a lot because 45 collections,
if they actually went on the top page, and if they were actually successful,
must have made them some money, definitely upwards of that $50,000 fine.
Just one thing, it might be weird, but it is making me happy that we're actually seeing these
types of dirty plays, because this means that there is actually some life, or there was,
in that time, in the NFT market.
I, of course, hate all these types of malignant operations,
especially people in power abusing their power.
This is a no-no, but I think this is just another sign to why we need more regulation,
more control on things that would benefit the community in the space,
but also people who are the ideal customer personas for the space.
That means the people who can really get in this bubble and trade them.
Why? Because it will provide extra liquidity.
But the most important thing is, the more legitimized cryptocurrencies become,
the more legitimized and safe NFTs become, the better it is for all of us without over-killing
in the rules and regulations department, of course.
Then, for the spot Bitcoin ETF, it actually surpassed silver ETF,
and it became the second largest ETF commodity in the United States.
We have seen incredible volume in its first three days of trading.
We have actually sent that out with the previous names of that.
Now, it's become the second biggest ETF, and that basically proves that there is huge demand.
Since it's also very new, and its legitimacy is still questioned by some investor communities,
I can say I believe there's more to come.
For more in-depth information on the fund, the spot Bitcoin ETF fund now holds
approximately 647,651 Bitcoins, which translates to $27.5 billion.
And for the first place, of course, it goes without saying, gold is the top ETF with
combined assets under management of $96.3 billion.
And as a final note on this, even though some investors see cryptocurrencies as risky,
the growth of Bitcoin ETF could definitely pave the way for other crypto ETFs such as Ethereum.
Yes, the expectation is there.
For the other crypto news, Vanguard openly telling their clients that they are not allowed
to invest in the Bitcoin ETF products, just another type of market manipulation at this point.
There is definitely something going around in the backside of things.
I can definitely feel that this narrative disappearing from Vanguard's side,
but that you'll have to wait and see.
And for the final macro news, X announcing that they're actually rolling out all during video
calls on Android, we have definitely spent the better half of the space actually pondering on
this and the entire way X operates.
But just as an additional note, I have to say at least,
testers have commented that quality of audio and video chat was amazing.
And that is at least a positive side.
So thank you so much, everybody, for listening, for joining,
for participating and reaching the conversation.
Thank you to everybody in the speakers panel.
It's been my pleasure and honor to co-host with my co-founder and brother, Carlitos.
Much love, much respect to you all.
You have been with Ascend, a marketing agency,
an attractive media platform, and a lovely community.
Much love and see you tomorrow on Drunk Space.