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Coffee with Captain from @dGenNetwork
Recorded: May 1, 2023 Duration: 2:43:03Space Recording
Full Transcription
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Yeah, I like that one.
I'm about to get that.
Crash that whip for the drumsticks.
Whiplash.
I'm about to get them all.
Are you with that?
In a white boat.
Surrounded by blue.
I want one, but I got a cop too.
I want to fly high in the sky.
Arms out wide.
Trying to soar.
More birds I feel.
I'm on fire.
Ricky.
Bobby.
Cracking the pavement.
Whitney.
Bobby.
I'm a Saki.
Bomb.
Hiroshima.
Nagasaki.
Bruce Wayne been a dog.
And I keep it one hundred and one.
Cause I'm feeling kind of spotty.
Sipping on some rock and I'm sipping out octane.
The only thing around my neck.
Started off with a bitch.
Now I got coins.
I see where y'all go.
Been popping since web one.
Hella hooked on web two.
I was living the dream.
Now I'm on web three.
And it is what it seems.
Topping the pyramid schemes.
I'm telling you.
I sell you a percentage on Nebula.
Shout out to Viz.
Yo, set it up.
NFT, Twitter, blockchain.
See them with the ghosts and we bought them like the bronze eggs.
Crypto, crypto.
We can make a trade, get the memo.
Reviews not falling for the FOMO.
Listening to Coffee with Captain.
You know we weren't by day loco.
I ain't never gonna stop rapping.
Orlando, yeah, we working magic.
We rocking Ethereum entities.
I just went and got me a half bass.
Man, I got a shout out before they leave.
Now I got coins.
I see where y'all go.
Been popping since web one.
Hella hooked on web two.
I was living the dream.
Now I'm on web three.
And it is what it seems.
Topping the pyramid schemes.
I'm telling you.
I sell you a percentage on Nebula.
Shout out to Viz.
We'll get rolling here in about 30 seconds.
Go ahead and drop us a GM.
Give us a retweet if you'd like.
We'll be right back.
Even though it's hard to pick.
Eeny, miney, moe.
Soda on the mix.
No biting lips.
It's time to go.
Index number one.
No thumbs up.
You got to scroll.
Looking at the ghosts in studio.
It's time to go.
Had a helmet on by myself until I met a mask.
Dad wanted to have a face off.
Had to bring my chainsaw.
Full ticket cash and a bribe with my brakes off.
I'm A1 but a different kind of stakes off.
This episode is brought to you by DGEN Network.
The only community-based web three media network.
Bringing you the very best content in the NFT and cryptocurrency space.
Please visit DGEN.network and check out our other great shows.
That's DGEN.network.
Welcome to the future.
GM, GM.
Welcome.
Happy Monday.
Hope everyone had a great weekend.
Steve, I'm going to cross my fingers.
We're going to do a quick mic check in hope that I can hear you.
Can you hear me?
Hey, we are live and rolling today.
The week's off to a great start.
We've got full audio.
We are, it only cost a new iPhone, but we are.
I finally pulled the trigger.
I went from this whole time, was it an iPhone 11 Pro Max, I think is what I've had.
And finally pulled the trigger on the upgrade this weekend.
First GM from the 14 Pro Max.
Boy, this camera is big.
I can't wait to actually, Steve, guess what the very first picture I took on my new iPhone
was.
It occurred this weekend.
You're a DG.
You're a DG.
You're a DG.
Close, close.
That's a good guess.
We will get into that this morning.
We're just going to queue up our weekend topics with what did Cap take a photo of first thing
on his new phone.
I may have alluded to it.
I can't even remember if I mentioned it in the war room or not.
Definitely some weekend activity.
Took multiple pictures, actually.
But if anyone else has any guesses, drop those in the GM, or drop those in the chat.
What was the first picture I took on the new phone?
Yeah.
It was an activity.
An activity that I participated in.
An activity you participated in.
Let me think.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
I was going to, I mean, I was going to, did you play pickleball or something?
I have no idea.
No, no.
Something I won.
Oh, wow.
Just a little bit of a low-key flex.
Yeah, I won.
I bought a new iPhone 14 and I took a picture of it.
Yeah, that's.
Something that, no, after the flex, it's going to be the self-own because I will, you'll guess
it on this one.
It's something that your son probably does and doesn't even take a picture of.
Oh, you won, you won a battle royale in Fortnite, huh?
That was picture number one.
One, two this weekend.
One, two out of three.
And then the one after that finished second.
It was my first time ever going for the, I'm going to drop the ball here.
I don't remember what it's called, but after you win one, if you win the next one, you get
a crowned victory royale or something.
So I almost pulled off the back-to-back finish second, got a little, got a little overconfident
with the kinetic blade and should have just took a rifle shot to take out the last final
opponent.
But yeah, I'm, I'm running pure on a Fortnite getting feeling, feeling all the feels for,
for the next other side trip and, uh, and, and, and mini game.
Yeah, it's exciting.
It's a, it's, it's funny.
Cause I was looking through, by the way, GM at one, as always, as Cap said, drop us a
jam in the comment, give us a like or retweet if you're feeling so inclined.
We see you out there.
Dow Jones, uh, at a, uh, J brush, uh, John Dort, Randall, one in a million mayhem, uh, Brendan
Ryan out there, uh, Dillo, uh, good seeing y'all out there this morning as we get this
Monday morning, uh, started and kick things off.
Um, yeah, no, I mean, there is a lot going on right now.
So you have, I mean, I think we'll get into all of this and, and it'll be sort of a choose
your own adventure as we, when we get rolling, but we have Adidas and token proof and they're
quick, quick, which we hit on a little bit last week, but they're quick delivery.
This is the way like quick.
Yeah, this is going to be a playbook.
People are going to talk about, I think that's, that's the whole experience was first in class,
right?
Like there was no, so many, even just like quick delivery, Steve, double tapping that.
Sorry for your interjection, but no one, like not enough people are talking about it where
so many other times in web three, there's a drop and we get something six months later
or, or haven't yet, uh, to have this in a day or two and, and just the, the, the ease
of transaction.
Like there was no, I didn't feel any sort of restrictions.
Actually, this was a, the, uh, a pure prime example of where web three was additive to
a, a limited edition sneaker drop.
Like I, this arguably, could you say this is for, for a drop of around 2000, maybe the,
the, the smoothest sneaker drop of all time.
Yeah.
I mean, I, it's, it's, uh, I, I'm not a sneaker head, so I couldn't tell you about overall
sneaker drops, but I will say it's, it's exactly, I mean, I was saying this to somebody over
the weekend, it's exactly in their core business model, right?
They have drops, they do limited run partnerships with, um, whether it's a celebrity or a particularly
passionate group that was this, it was sort of that board ape crew, uh, punk's comic
crew, uh, G money crew with Indigo Hertz.
So passionate individual group, limited run drop.
I'd be curious how many actually sold because, um, you know, I know people who went on way after
the fact and bought, and there's, there should be in theory more, um, more than 2000 people
who could have bought.
I will say the one thing that they're going to have to work out is getting to that whole
burn phase and going through it.
Unless you had somebody like when I asked you how I get my, you know, punks, my, my, you
know, into the metaverse to burn, I would have probably just had that for this drop be the
one that was token gated.
Cause I had to go through the process.
I had to burn, I know it's a longer term play if I were them, I might've waited till
it was easier doing well in their defense.
I think this is where they're there.
They want everyone to get to this.
It's not like they just dropped this, this burn for the all that's been out for a while.
We just, we just were the ones who weren't, wasn't it?
I believe.
Yeah.
Um, maybe it's been out for a little bit.
It wasn't, it was before this though.
So I think like this, you know, maybe that part of their strategy is like, let's now that
we've done this, let's, let's give everyone an incentive to follow this path.
Like this is, it seems like the path they want.
They're collectors to follow.
And, uh, yeah, I don't, I didn't see any issue with, I mean, at some point they had to do
And if, and if we weren't motivated to get our phase one all avatar or like this was the
way to do it.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, but, but yeah, that would, that was a little clunky that, that piece,
like going from phase two to, to the all, not the, not the smoothest, not the, not the
most seamless, but once, once you've got the all like the ability to, or just like now
that like we've, you've downloaded the confirmed app, if you hadn't done that previously for
going from there to connecting to your token proof and that step forward was 10 out of
Yeah.
And I'm more just saying it as a, uh, a person who is like, like not like even critical,
but like, if they didn't sell a ton of shoes, I could see that being the reason, right?
It's like, because people had to go through this burn process.
And, you know, again, this is Monday morning quarterback, but if you're Adidas and you
expected something like this to happen, once you had that into the metaverse to swap, it,
I don't think into the metaverse to maybe that got you that physical or that, um, uh,
metaverse wearable, that big pillow thing I had, but it was like, could that have been
Or could you have again done a pretty quick, fast follow on the burn after that?
Because for me, it was like, oh, they said something's coming, but I'm not sure you get
tuned out of it.
You have a lot going on and I'm not saying they didn't communicate it.
I mean, they did NFT NYC and other things, but like, to me, it was like, that would have
been the one step that probably kept some people as a barrier to entry.
Cause the amount of time, like sort of like finding, cause like I was able to set up, um,
they're, uh, they're confirmed after really quickly.
I already had it.
I was able to set up my, uh, account in there.
That was very slick, single, uh, social sign on, or I think I used, uh, you know, email.
I was able to connect the token proof really easy cause I had already connected on my phone.
So it was about two clicks.
And anytime I want to re-update it, I just too quick, verify it again.
Very simple.
It was the NFT itself, but, but that's, that's the dream, right?
I mean, we saw it with, it's funny because.
You know, the book I'm writing is meant to be more evergreen, right?
It's not meant to be like a moment in time.
Um, but in this framework that we're giving where we want like, you know, 10 years from
now, someone's creating an NFT program.
They can still follow these steps that you want it to like hold up.
Um, I always use the example of jab, jab, jab, right hook.
Gary Vaynerchuk still holds up.
Even examples are dated contagious.
Jonah Berger, same thing with this one.
It's like, we have this framework and like, as we're giving examples, we're updating them
as we go.
And I added Adidas in this weekend, uh, as I was working on some stuff, because, you
know, we're talking about ticket master and sort of the gated drops they've done a little
bit and how that's an obvious use case for NFTs.
And Adidas is another one.
It's like, again, this is one of those things where it's not for everybody.
It's like when somebody comes into the Starbucks Odyssey discord and says, I don't really drink
Starbucks or coffee.
It's like, well, this probably isn't the place for you then, because the goal here is not,
you know, go to the moon number, go up.
It's come in here, do a gamified sort of coffee drinking Starbucks experience, get a reward
and choose what you want to do with that reward.
And Adidas very similarly, it's like, you know, somebody holding this Adidas, like those
shoes I wear, Adidas All Star, like I wear those shoes.
That's the type of shoes I, I wear, especially because Nikes tend not to fit my feet because
I have big Frankenstein feet.
So like me owning this makes sense.
The Pharrell shoes look really cool.
So I'll probably grab maybe a bright orange pair of those.
Um, I like bright things.
And then these shoes, while I wish I could have bought two pairs, cause I would actually
wear one, you know, I'll bust them out if needed.
I, this is a logical thing.
If I want to get these sneakers and Nike, very similar dot swoosh.
How do you start to find ways to token gate to your most passionate fans?
So very logical use case technology, very smooth.
And again, what cap said at the top delivered in two days like that.
Again, I know that that seems very obvious in today's day and age.
If we said it to somebody like my kids or somebody outside of web three, but the
fact of the matter is I went to redeem my Budweiser world cup merch and it never showed
Like the world cup has been over a long time.
Still haven't gotten it like long before I picked Belgium and Belgium was out of the
first round.
I'm like, ah, I guess it doesn't really matter whether I'm getting this stuff or not.
Keeps go.
It's like, like my Budweiser hats, like the beer dot eat hat.
It's like forever to get.
It's like all of these things have long redemption windows.
Adidas thing shipped in two days, which meant they were ready.
They're warehouse.
So shout out to them.
I mean, even the Adidas into the metaverse original line, it took a really long time
to get.
We saw someone at VCon last year wearing the sweatshirt and we're like, hey, where'd you
get that?
Turned out they work for Adidas.
So, um, so yeah, so I agree with you.
I think Adidas and token proof, great example of a logical, practical use case of NFTs.
And I think that that's good that we're starting to see these come out because now that they've
done that successfully, everybody else can refine it and keep moving it.
Um, similarly, just, you know, running around the market horn.
Again, we can go any direction as people are, uh, are interested.
Um, doodles launch studio.
We can talk about that a little bit.
Um, mechs are coming in May.
So we know that those heavy metals are going to, uh, come over in May.
Like you said, you're getting excited for that.
Um, diamond re-roll coming from the, uh, proof, uh, uh, diamond nest exhibition, as well as
a metaverse they're working on.
Uh, Zuki's got their June 23rd Vegas party.
And of course, pudgy penguins, uh, look like they're starting to enter stores.
I don't have all the details on that, but I saw the physicals over the weekend.
So I say that just to say, I felt at the beginning of the year, and we had this discussion
that 2023 was a year when we started to see some separation from the well-funded, the,
um, you know, the ones that were really kind of building and had product.
And I think we're starting to actually finally see that.
Uh, and of course, you know, VCon again, I don't want to leave them out.
I think I take for granted that Gary's not going anywhere.
Um, you know, VCon in a few weeks.
So all of these things are happening in the next, you know, you know, weeks, months.
And now we're starting to see these native brands and non-native brands actually execute,
um, on, on what they're, Starbucks has had their first benefit selection period.
And so these, these things are starting to happen in web three and we're starting to
see the technology move.
Um, and then last note, I'll leave it on just kind of my stream of consciousness and I'll
kick it to you cap to take it any direction is one of the cooler things I've, I've started
to see now is, you know, Yuga labs being able to experience from the beginning.
Cause a lot of times, even when we hear about startups early, we hear about startups when
they're, you know, when they're, when they're like a little bit of ways along watching Yuga
labs go from launching board API club to becoming not just a NFT project, but an NFT company,
and then turn into a just regular startup and actually create this whole new paradigm
of shareholder, or I should say token holder value and community value.
Plus a business model has been really frigging cool.
And I feel like we're now entering this phase where it's time to look at them as a scrappy
startup that is actually coming out of this and not just sort of not even an NFT company.
Um, it's like, they are what, uh, like a real sort of global company.
So I don't know, cap, lots of stuff there, but doodles.
Um, I didn't even mention Pepe, but doodles, Diamond Nest, Azuki, Pudgy.
I was going to say, that's probably the lead.
I don't know about you.
Actually, I do know.
I think you said something in the war room this morning.
This is one of those like, Oh, I can't, it can't 10 X again.
Oh, it can't, I mean, how many times have I said in the last probably two weeks, like
I've got, and I've got some, like, if not dry powder, the ability to, to make some moves
with size.
And I'm just, I'm still on the sideline and it just keeps, keeps running and running and
running and running and running.
So the big question is, do we see any of these, the, you know, this new generational wealth
find its way back into NFTs and, and, and blur season two is officially over or ends
today waiting, anxiously awaiting what is next for the, the blur farmers and whales, including
some, uh, you know, a few in particular, there was a Sam NFT statistics put out a, uh, some
details on a pretty massive whale that's, that's, that's farming.
I think doodles clone X and maybe moon birds.
I think there's a third that when you're talking like over two, 300 of each, uh, known
for, uh, you know, this blur farming tactic of, of buying them up, putting up a bid wall
to incite others to, to put up bids.
And then once the other bids are established, dumping them all into the bid selling for,
for a gain.
So be careful out there at any of these collections, especially if you're looking at like momentum
and, and look one step further because back in the day, you know, momentum,
was, was something that, you know, you, you could take confidence in when, when getting
into a project, especially if it crossed certain levels.
Now momentum is, is, especially if you're looking to flip, uh, momentum could be a very
much a trap, but, um, I don't know.
I mean, doodles is unique as it did touch like a, I want to say bottom ish type number in the
low twos.
And I, you know, it, it'll be interesting to see, you know, maybe we're all wrong and
maybe this, this, this Blair, Blair farmer has decided to, to pivot and will, uh, will
just accumulate and become a long-term holder.
But that, that hasn't been the case historically here, at least in recent history.
Yeah.
I think both things can be true actually, which is probably my hot take of the morning for
the doodles thing is that it was hilarious seeing people saying like doodles launches
launch studio and now they run.
Um, and then seeing, you know, Sam NFT statistics saying, actually, when you dig into the data,
there are, um, some people, uh, who are, you know, there's this person who is a notorious
pump and dumper whale blur farmer who is buying.
So it is funny when you see that sort of stuff and like, you want to correlate the doodles run
to like the work they're doing, but you don't know.
But I actually think it's possible for both things to be true.
I think it's possible to say doodles may have found a bottom and this blur farmer is actually,
you know, any whale who's spending that sort of money, isn't trying to lose millions of
dollars unless they know they're getting it back.
So unless they are competent, it's coming back in the blur farming, it's entirely possible
that this is a moment in time that doodles go up even, you know, half an eighth or whatever.
And this person makes a tremendous amount of money, um, because they are starting to execute.
So I think actually both things can be true.
They can find a bottom and the whale could have artificially bumped up the floor.
And that also could change people's point of view.
I mean, that happens with whales where the whale's objective is to make money, but that
doesn't mean that the whale doesn't have a thesis that they're going to buy this blur
farm and also see the token go up.
Like they specifically are probably buying ones they see value.
And like you mentioned, Azuki, uh, doodles, uh, moon, like whatever it is, if you are a
whale trying to make money, whether you're blur farming or not, you still want number to
go up, whether you're the one influencing it or not on that.
And yes, dumping them all on the floor at once will crash a floor.
But at the same time, you probably are trying to sell them above what your original buy was.
So, you know, and, and the whale may not care.
They just wanted to go back down, but it's possible to say both things are true or they
feel that doodles has found this sort of true bottom as they work.
Um, but yeah, I don't know.
We'll, we'll have to see what, what that looks like.
But I, um, I did see that and that, and it's, it's just market dynamic, right?
Market's going to market.
And for me, I've, I've said before, like, generally speaking, my bags are packed, right?
Um, I've got, um, oh, and, and, you know, on chain monkey also with ordinals.
I know Mike said he might stop by this morning.
So that's another discussion point.
But for me personally, I feel like I've largely packed my bags from 2021 through 2020, end
of 2022.
And from here on out, it's just sort of, I don't know that I guess cap, that'll be an
interesting discussion to have at some point.
We don't need to have it now.
Cause I know Jack's up here and he's got his hand up, but it's like, forget what would
get you to deploy new capital in the marketplace.
Cause I think like, that's a little bit of an easier question where it's like, if you got
excited about something moon birds were doing, if you got excited about something that doodles
were doing, if you got excited about something Yuga was doing, you might deploy more money
into the market.
Like that I think is an easier question.
I think the bigger question is what would get you to buy something brand new if it came
out?
Like it would almost have to have a clear value, a clear business model, something you clearly
wanted to do, which I actually think is good, um, for the ecosystem that we're now paying
attention to not like, you know, Pepe is the opposite of this, right?
It's like this sort of like non useful non utility token that is, is jumping.
But as we're looking at NFT projects, it's like, why am I buying this and what am I getting?
So I think that's actually a good thing is that we're being more critical of the goods
and services we're buying instead of just buying something because it's hyped up.
So, um, I don't know that that's a bigger question for me is what would get someone to
buy a new NFT project.
And I think it has to be very thoughtful about what it's doing.
Um, Jack, go ahead, Cap, and then we'll go over Jack, I think.
Apparently we are also burying the lead, not toasting chamber.
Who's, uh, also on a little burner this weekend with another meme coin that we'll, we'll let
him, we're not gonna, we're not gonna hear pump, pump meme coins this morning.
So we'll let that one stay in the war room.
But, but congrats, uh, congrats on the, uh, the nice day for, for the legend chamber when
he doesn't move often, but when he moves, it's usually a W.
I feel like.
Yeah.
Either that or he's holding like 150 futters, one of the two.
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a really, it's one end of the stream extreme or the
other with chamber for sure.
Um, Jack, we, we, we have a lot of stuff potentially on the agenda this morning.
And as always, as we say, do us a favor, hit us with a, like a retweet.
If you're feeling so inclined and don't mind a GM, all of those things help us get the
space out there for other people and, uh, getting, uh, those discussions for Von front.
And I saw Von front and comments in the comments.
Am I advocating for the return of the roadmap?
And I, yes and no, I'm advocating for a business plan and a business model and not vibes.
I was talking to this, uh, Scott about this over the weekend, actually, it was the same
thing.
It's like, I, I need a business plan.
Yeah.
And I'd say even beyond that, like, it's like not knocking, knock a moat, knock amigos.
I'm happy for everyone that's having fun and, and found a new community.
I'm not looking for any more communities at this point in my life.
I'm I've over communities.
I'm, I'm grateful for relationships, but I'm at the point where still needing of a cleanse
in terms of discord and Twitter.
I just, I, I don't, I Twitter DMs, group DMs, that stuff is what I mean.
I, I, I am very, um, I'm missing like important conversation and value add stuff because I'm
just, I just, I have too much.
And that's, that's a good problem to have, but I'm not looking for new, new community
or new vibes or connections, networking, any, any, anything like that.
And it's in the form of a, another NFT project.
Um, what I'm looking for is integration of, of web three from existing brands, or it could
be potentially startups that are looking to disrupt, uh, the, the incumbents, but, but
in particular, you know, we were talking Adidas and, you know, what, what's, what, you
know, form three and, and you guys are doing it, it, uh, with Starbucks, uh, from the loyalty
reward program.
I think that is the sort of thing I'm going to be not, not, I guess that doesn't answer
your question for putting new money into, cause in most of those cases, it's, it's, it's,
it's just really loyalty being rewarded, not necessarily making purchases, uh, for the
most part, but those I'm, I'm very excited about.
And then the other, as far as a talk about fresh dollars, yeah, it would be some sort of a
business where, uh, I'm excited about the brand, wouldn't want to support the brand,
uh, can play a, a semi-active role in, in developing it, uh, whatever product services
they may be offering.
And, um, and, and then of those ones that come with some sort of tangible in real life,
good product service that, that I think we, that also, again, like the other leverages
the web three tech to, to where it's additive, not just slapping on, you know, web three and
blockchain for, for buzzwords and a, and a pitch deck, but rather actually is enhancing
something existing or, or bringing something new to market that is, is beneficial for operating
on these rails.
Uh, that's the kind of stuff I'm, I'm looking forward to and, and would move money into,
even if it's not so much as looking for, you know, asymmetric returns.
That said, while I haven't chased Pepe or any of this other meme coin stuff, it has given
me the itch to get back a little more active in the trading game, uh, whether that be on
the NFT side where there really lacks volume today.
So I don't even know where to go, but it doesn't really excite me, um, or, or look at, uh, other
avenues, but probably where it lands is, is just some liquidation to be ready for the next
opportunity as opposed to chasing this one.
But, um, yeah, looking, looking more, if you're talking fresh dollars would be, uh, things
that, that have viable businesses called a roadmap called a business plan, whatever you
want.
Uh, but, but some actual business around it.
Yeah.
And, uh, and by the way, I brought up DJ and so add them as a host when you get a chance,
but I, um, yeah, I guess to me, and it's funny, this is the only time my kids actually
got in trouble and lost, they lost screens for the day, which is also always devastating for
children who spend their lives on screens.
So my, my children, but the only time this phone is going to be used today is for the
DJ and handle to be up here, uh, as the co-host, but no, I, I agree.
And that's, that's it.
Like I was talking to Scott over the weekend about a couple of NFT brands we like, some
of which we have friends at, right.
And, you know, I, I get some shit sometimes because people say that, you know, I like
certain team members of certain various teams, whether it's like doodles or moonbirds or
even you can, they say, Oh, you're just giving them a pass.
It's like, no, like I like teams that have, you know, well-built teams with business models
and understand kind of what they're doing.
I have friends on teams that we don't talk about on here who have created an empty projects
that have not done as well.
And the reason is they came on, they ran things on sort of vibes or community, which was very
popular at the time.
And they didn't have a plan to actually do anything.
So then they're like, well, maybe we can do this.
Maybe we can do this.
And I think one of the famous examples we've talked about is like, you know, on this, which
I will mention, I mean, I like the people, but it's like, you know, gutter cat gang ran
on vibes and community for far too long, you know, hypothesis, they tried to sell at some
point.
And instead they've, you know, ended up finding themselves in this situation where they went
to their community.
They're like, what should we do?
And it's like, you don't, you shouldn't be asking your community what they should do.
They should be additive.
They should be modifying your plans.
They should be a council of people advising you.
They should be helping you evolve.
They shouldn't be giving you your plan.
And then like they launched something to help utilize gutter cat IP.
It's like, it is the year 2023.
Like this is a discussion we were having in 2021.
So again, not trying to like come down hard on them, but it's one example of like, I like
them, but like they ran on sort of vibes and community and that can only get you so far
and having an actual plan.
You could pivot into gaming very quickly and sort of that club membership, right.
That they were doing, like that was one.
And they made their club membership where they wanted to be, you know, doodles clearly
knows where they're going from a media brand perspective.
Uh, you know, proof that was leaning into art.
Um, you, and you start to see pudgies going into stores.
You start to see these things emerging.
So, um, there's only room for so many communities.
I think you nailed the cap when you're like, I don't, I love communities.
I don't need any more communities.
I have too many communities.
Um, but let's kick down to Jack.
We've covered a lot already this morning, Jack, uh, GM, sir.
How are you doing?
GM, GM, sir.
Yeah.
Good.
Can you hear me?
Okay.
The wifi was playing up a little bit this morning.
Sound great.
Awesome.
Yeah.
They're the Steve's kicking in.
So I've got my Steve's on right now.
Um, what, one thing I really want to say, like whilst we're talking about Pepe is like
just a announcement that that thing has got 420 trillion with a T, um, potential supply.
So for people who are, you know, doing quick napkin math on the fact that if this thing
gets to one cent, then I'll be a millionaire, just realize that that would essentially mean
that the market cap on that coin would be about seven X what bitcoins currently is.
So, you know, just, just be careful out there.
It's already at half a billion.
Um, how much further it can run?
Like I am definitely, I bought a bag pretty early.
I'm doing okay.
I haven't sold any, but I just want to really put that announcement out there to say that,
you know, um, if you're doing that napkin math, maybe reassess and just, you know, look
at taking profits at maybe a billion, um, look at Doge coin and see where that is and realize
that, you know, there's, there's elements, this place, this thing could run.
Um, and like, I think the meme ability on this coin is second to none, um, but you are
paying ridiculously high gas as this thing becomes more and more successful.
So for the average, you know, consumer or the person who's buying these meme coins and
they're not used to that.
And that's, that's the bit that gets me is like, I'm not sure how this has got to where
it is, but I'm loving every moment of it.
But that's just one thing that I think people should be aware of.
And then we touched on Blair.
And, uh, I guess for me, I've seen a lot of people with a lot of hopium on the timeline
about like, what this is going to mean for season two coming to an end, um, and like
what they're going to do going forward.
Um, they are not going to go like, there's been a bunch of things where I've seen people
say, or maybe they'll really start pushing towards enforcing royalties.
That's not going to happen because they're a trader platform.
So, you know, royalties in instantly mean that like every trade you do is, is much more
complicated when you've got to take into, you know, 10% extra profit, um, just to, you
know, just come up evens essentially.
So that's a no.
For me, I think the most likely scenario right now will be that they will do some sort of
incentivizing around, um, trait specific flaws.
So they will try and incentivize like pumping back into like this rarity narrative because
they've, they've essentially, um, according to my timeline, at least destroyed it.
You know, there's a lot of people blaming Blair for a lot of things.
And the rarity one seems like the clear, obvious impact that that has had.
Um, and not to say that they should have seen that coming, but I wouldn't be surprised if
they make a change there.
Um, and then final thoughts about what you and, uh, Cap have just been talking about,
Steve.
I think, yeah, the, the idea that we are in too many communities, like I have, you know,
really stripped back, uh, the NFT projects that I've been involved in.
I think that's definitely somewhere where we're at.
And especially the idea that we have to, you know, basically please everyone when you've
got a 10,000, maybe 30, 40,000, um, person collective at this point, you know, like there's,
there's that many AFTs and maybe there's 20,000 holders of those like 40, 50,000 NFTs.
We have seen a Zuki.
We have seen captains.
We've seen a bunch of projects that are actually, um, trending upwards at the moment and reduce
holder count.
And that is because these wiles are coming in and sweeping because they can see the long
term or the trading and they just can see it pumping short term.
Um, but the one thing that's clear is pleasing everyone isn't a narrative that is gonna please
anyone because like, it's gonna impact your floor in the negative way because it only takes
200 people out of those, you know, 50,000 holders right now to be very, very vocal on the
timeline for the perception to be that you are fucking this project up and for really throwing
other people away from that project.
So the idea of the 1,000 true fans, I think bring that back to a hundred true fans.
And we've seen Frank on the timeline today ask about getting like a very exclusive group
of beta testers within the community.
Um, and the thing that really like really resonates with me is a, when I've stripped back the amount
of NFTs I've held, the idea is with the ones that I have continued to hold, I'm ready to be a very
active member within those communities. And I do mean like hours of my day, if they will have me
to contribute to what I think will be successful, to give them feedback on stuff. If they did want to,
you know, give information out like prior to giving it out to the rest of the community,
yes, that's going to rub people up the wrong way. You even saw it with the council that there was
still an element of why isn't this person in here? That sort of thing, which, you know, I think the
council members from Moonbirds are a fantastic group of people and I knew every name on there.
So I'm not sure where that came from, but it comes from somewhere and it comes from just that
expectation that everything that a community is going to do, i.e. diamond nest, like, you know,
they, they did mess that up, but also the idea it was going to successfully, you know, give either
generational wealth or like make everybody happy who got a drop when there's 10,000 of these things,
obviously not, not going to happen. So we really need to draw that back in. And final example I'll use
is Steve Jobs was notorious for holding something called his 100 employee retreats. And this was a
thing where with those 100 employees once a year, they would go out to, you know, somewhere in
Silicon Valley or somewhere like exclusive five-star hotel and bring 100 employees. And they weren't
necessarily executives or even managers of it. Like it was literally who is the most, who is the most
successful person within this team, who are the people who are capturing our attention as a business
right now. They would bring these people to exclusive resort to show them like the Apple,
like the iPod before anybody else had even heard of it outside of the team, actually building the thing
and get that feedback from those employees. And with Web3, you have that ability without even paying
these fuckers a salary because they're that, like, they are that in with these projects and financially
motivated to be in as well because they want to see their bags go up, that you can actually create this
sort of environment without even hiring these people. And there's some big brains in this space who are
just big holders. And I think that's, you know, my final thoughts is, yeah, you just don't need to please
everybody right now. But the people you do want to please is those like 100, like main holders who
are actively contributing via tweets, via content, via holding and just huge bags, like whatever that
might be. And make sure that you're taking their sort of, you know, feedback on board and giving them
like some extra access maybe and just not worrying about the rest because that will come. And we've
seen D-Gods do it well. We've seen Azuki do it well. We've seen Captains to an extent as well with
their, like, their top tier collection doing very, very well when you've always got that,
oh my God, what about the rest of the holders? But when you look after that group, it seems right
now, at least in a bear market, to be the successful sort of narrative that I am seeing actually play
out with a positive impact to the floor. I'm done talking. Well, to your point, I mean, you do
absolutely see that with, you know, other things that we've made the analog with, right? Like you've done
the sports analogy. I've done the sports analogy. If you're trying to have a better fan experience
in stadium, you're probably going to care about your season ticket holders before you care about
the person who couldn't name the starting lineup, right? And I think similarly, you know, it's okay
to say we're listening to our most active people. And if you're not one of our most active people,
you don't like the direction we go, too bad, so sad. I mean, that is how it goes sometimes. So
I don't think you're wrong in that assessment, right? I mean, I think that that's something that
these brands need to be doing. So I think it's okay. And it's okay to be passive. Like,
I would say I am passive in the Utes and Degods community. It doesn't mean I don't believe in
Frank. It doesn't mean I don't believe in what they're building overall in, you know, Kevin.
And I love them, right? I love what's going on. I think that community is so fun. And I love being
involved with them. It doesn't mean that I'm there every single day. You know, I find my active
communities and I tend to hang out there. And like a lot of people know, like that's become more
proof and moonbirds for me, mainly because when I travel to an event, I have the most fun. When I
talk to the folks there, I have the most fun. The team is the team that I enjoy the most. The group,
the group of people I talk to as holders are the group I enjoy the most. So like, it's just that
tends to be where I hang out. It's not to say that I'm like, you know, like a maxi or anything like
that. It's just, you find your community where you hang out and it's okay to have other ones that
you're interested in. It's the same thing as most people have one favorite sports team in their
town, right? Like some people like one sports team better than the other. That's okay too.
It doesn't mean you're not a fan of the others, but to Cap's point, I've been ratcheting those back.
Let's run down to, I think Ben was next and then Mackie and then NFT for two after that. Ben, GM, sir.
GM, GM, guys. Thanks for having me here. Yo, so hard to go after so many great points by you,
Jack and Captain. But yeah, I agree with a lot of what you guys were saying. I think it's,
it kind of gets to a point where you start questioning, do I need to be part of more
communities? And I think the answer is kind of depends on who you are and what you're trying
to build in Web3. For instance, going back to Captain who said that he feels like he needs to
do some sort of purge because he feels like he's in too many communities, too many discords.
That's totally reasonable. Why? Because like, for instance, you guys already built out here a media
platform and you both belong to the community with the highest reach in the NFT space right now,
which is the basis, unarguably. So like, it makes a lot of sense for people that already are super
established to stick to what works already. And you guys don't need to go through so many things
unless you personally like to. But also, I like the point you made that you identify a lot with the
people in the Proof and Moonbirds communities. And you have some awesome conversations. So I think
like internal bonding within the community, it's also important besides like the outwards reach.
And we can also see that there are people that love to write like trends. For instance, like we see a lot
of beans and mutants PFPs. I think they are still dominant, if I'm not mistaken, on Twitter.
So for people that are trying to build on that direction, for communities that are the most
represented on Twitter, I think we can definitely like see other different ones. But yeah, I guess
you get the point. But in regards to Doodles and Moonbirds, I'm not gonna lie, I'm super excited
about what they are doing. I saw a video about the Monoburg. I'm not sure if it was you pinning that up
on the Jumbotron in the last space. But it was super amazing. Like it looked pretty much like a
metaverse in which they show that they want to start hosting events there and having more fun and
interactive environments to look at things and talk about stuff in general. I'm not gonna lie, that made me
more bullish on Moonbirds recently, although I don't want anything. I think it's super cool because like,
it's taking that step forward to innovate and bring us closer to this metaverse like experience on a digital
environment. And in regards to Doodles, I was actually wondering what they would do with the Doodle
studio. Because to be honest, like there is a crazy problem with IP. Like, because for me, IP is super
cool. I think it's interesting. But I know the statistics that 70% of that fails. And I don't know what to do with
IP. Like, unfortunately, I'm not an artist. I'm not, I'm not, I don't have that sort of talent to
create. So I would definitely need some sort of support to do something with that, right? Maybe I
would invest on an artist that helps me create my branding around my IP, something like that. But
never to monetize it unless I had a business, right? So I think it's super cool that with the Doodles
thing, we are seeing like, people like Pharrell using it, and hyping up the community about a
Doodle studio. And I saw him hinting possibly on a Doodles Adidas partnership, because he drawed
himself wearing an Adidas sneakers. I thought it was a great teaser. I'm not sure what the Doodles
will do. But I'm also bullish on that. So let's see what will happen. But yeah, great point, guys.
Thanks for having me here again. So I don't know if it's an official partnership or not. But yeah,
the Doodles Adidas thing is very real. If you go to the confirmed app, you can set a reminder for
those shoes, and they come in, I don't know, like five or six different colorways. I think the green
are the rare ones that he has going on. And those are the ones I think you win the physical of
from the Pharrell pack, which if you did certain activities, you're entered to win one of 300 Pharrell
packs. So yeah, I mean, that's, it's all good points. And I think that that's, you know,
sort of, you know, noteworthy to see, like, where these brands are going, and what's exciting you
about them. And I'm totally agree. I mean, I think that those are not everything is going to excite
everybody about everything. And that's okay. Like, I think a lot of people look at this as like,
where are my gains verse? What do I enjoy? And what do they want to do? And, um, you know,
we'll go to Von Fronten in a minute. But it's like, the point being, like, look, when I talk about,
like, wanting to see, like roadmap or a plan, I want to plan, like, I want to know what these
brands are doing. I did from the beginning, like, early on, like, the tech excited me. And like,
new tech innovations got me pumped when people are trying new things. I feel like we're a little
past that. Now we're like, what are you doing with the tech versus just how cool is the tech? So,
um, makes sense. Yeah, totally. Because like, uh, for instance, like,
that's kind of, uh, what we were talking about a couple of spaces ago with the, with the Starbucks
thing. I think we, we, we're going to find a middle ground in between like using the tech in
a very thoughtful way to empower the, the, the community and the audience that loves the business
the most and what the business is trying to create versus, uh, web three, uh, native businesses
that usually are born, uh, through hype and then figure out the product market fit and how to,
to become a company that, that, that can, uh, evolve without running other means. Right. So
I think we're going to find a middle ground in between these two matters throughout this year.
And I think it's a net positive for the space because we, you can only run so many means before
you start losing credibility and people don't want to invest on you no more. And, and people
start flooring in the community dies. And I think we've seen too much of that throughout the last
year. And this year, I don't think that's going to cut it. I think people are going to cut their
losses way earlier. So projects do need to come up with business models, just as you were saying.
And if I don't know, I never seen nobody come with a business model publicly, but if anyone did,
I think that would be super bullish because experienced people like you and others that
are super seasoned in this space and also on web to understanding business would then give,
give them the support and that could be big, but it's also a high risk play. I'm not going to lie.
How would you feel about that coming out with a public business model and build on top of it?
No, I think, I think they, I think we should see it. I think that we're at that point now where it's,
and the other thing that I think is important, and then I'll, I'll toss to Mac and then we'll do
the sponsored update from Mintify. And then we'll keep running around the horn to, uh,
NFT for two and Montfronten is I like the other thing besides a clear business model is actually
selling to your fans. This is something again, that I'm not just trying to like pump Starbucks
bags when I say this, but when they did the last mint and it was token gated to own two token,
then it was one mint per the fact that this mint went for 24 hours and it went up until the last
minute. And there were people who probably didn't have any, who were saying, you know,
regular Starbucks customers who aren't DGEN FOMOers who said, Oh, you know what? Um, that's right.
I need to do this by today. Here's my reminder. I'll go buy it. And they were able to go buy it.
And that 24 hour window means that somebody who's been active in the program has at least two stamps
and is, uh, you know, potentially a Starbucks fan that didn't FOMO in is buying it rather than
a mint from Starbucks selling out in five minutes to the DGENs and then them using the actual
Starbucks fans to exit liquidity. That's not what this should be. Right. And, and, and so I think
like a business model plus actual fandoms, fandom being utilized, like it was this eyeopening moment
for me where I wasn't thinking about it that way, but by making it one per and token gated to two
tokens, um, you know, my thought was like, Oh, the site won't crash and it'll make it a little
easier and whatever, you know, but the fact that the real fans got to actually mint is what I think
is interesting about this and the thing that we should be thinking about. And that's another thing
I'd be doing if I were, you know, a big brand, if I were Apple or whoever I was coming into this space,
I would be thinking about how I make sure that people who want to do it, it's, you know,
are actually buying these things, right? Like how do the people who actually want to get their
hands on these going, going to be able to get their hands on these? Is it easy to buy?
Can I use a credit card? Do I need to set up a MetaMask? Do I need to, you know, do it? Is it
going to crash? Am I going to have time? Like, am I actually a fan who's buying this thing? All of
those things need to come into play because again, if you want your floor price to go up, number one,
that's actually a good methodology, but number two, it's the right thing to do if you want this to be a
viable business model and not some short-term pump and dump. Because if you sell to NFT
degens who are just ahead of the game and attack, then all you're doing is letting us cut the line,
like high-frequency traders, crank the gas, buy what we're buying, and then dump it on the actual
fans. And the actual fans have a bad experience. They watch that price go down and they say,
but I bought this thing for like $1,000 and now it's worth like $100. I never want to do NFTs again.
So agree with your points, Ben. Good points. Let's kick it over to Mackie and then we'll go to
Mintify for the sponsored update right after that. Mackie, GM, always good seeing you up here.
Oh, I am so happy to be here today, Steve. Hi, everybody. I'm making an intentional effort
to spend time on spaces again because I clip them all the time. So I'm like on them,
but I'm not actually on them. So being on them live is something that I'm trying to get back into
because I've just been working so much lately. But number one, if you have profits on Pepe,
probably time to sell. I hate to be the person to pop the excited bubble when the time comes,
but good entries are a lot easier than good exits. That window is going to close quick.
So if you are up, it might be time. Just really, really think about it. I've been there. I've missed
the exit. It hurts. And you think about it for years. So please, please do yourself a favor and
at least take some profits. Number two, though, what was number two? I have a list. I got to get
back into the practice of remembering what I'm talking about while listening to other people
speaking. But the too many communities thing, this is exactly how 99% of NFT projects fade to zero.
There's just not enough attention to go around in the space right now. So I've been purging my
communities for months now. My Discord has never been cleaner, at least not in the past year and a
half. But still, I still have tokens that I can use to access these Discords. And I just don't spend
time on them because I find myself doing something else. And that's okay. But yeah, so I really,
really, really like what everybody's saying this morning is all I really had to say. Happy to be
here. Love you guys. Very excited for VCon. That is kind of where my energy is focused right now. But
yeah. Cheers.
Yep. Very excited to meet in person. Agree. And yeah, I mean, I'm in a lot of these Discords
specifically, because I have the ability now to, you know, learn my updates. And that's it. Like,
that's it. That's it. It's there for the updates. It's there for the announcements. Oh, look,
there's a little one next to, I mean, look, I love doodles. Like doodles, I'm a big fan of,
but like, I don't hang out in there a ton. I'm like, Oh, okay, there's a one next little one,
number one next doodles. That was the announcement. Um, you know, that that's why I have it.
So yeah, so that's, that's, that's the, that's what I think we're, I think we're currently at
in NFT land, which is like, fine. Like, that's great. Um, to me, that's a, uh,
you know, that's again, it's like passively keeping up with a company you like, right? Like
if I, you know, if I'm a fan of like really any company sports team, whatever, it's like,
if I get a push notification, you know, on my phone, if you scroll through your apps,
you know, maybe you have a, you know, I'm like looking through my apps. Like again,
the Adidas one is coming to mind or the Nike app, or, you know, maybe the Barstow sports app is like,
Hey, we're boosting the odds on this. Like those push notifications tell me, Oh yeah,
I should head over there and check it out. But outside of that, I'm not like overly involved.
And I don't think NFTs are that much different than your app activity on your phone. In that sense,
it's like, you're going to, you know, you're going to, you know, pay attention to some,
you're going to use some as, and that's one of the reasons why, you know, something we've talked
about is the daily active users. It's like, I know what's going on in pirate nation every day,
because I have a reason to go on and click a button every day. And when they have updates,
I know because they push them in the app, they push them in the platform when I go on to do my
daily sort of like quick, you know, mindless clicks. So that's opportunity. With that said,
let's kick it over to Mintify for our sponsored daily update. Exciting weekend, Mintify. Looking
forward to what you got cooking today. GM, how are you doing today, Jake?
GM, GM, I'm, I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. The market has had some fun over the
weekend ranging, not too unexpected for crypto. It doesn't really, usually doesn't really like to
break out over the weekend meet rather just hold a range. But Pepe has had some real fun really
rallying off of that. Okay. Exciting. I'm not sure how necessary it is to really go over that too
much. But meanwhile, NFT is mostly unexciting in terms of, in terms of floor price, but there were
some significant updates from projects and the greater market that we'll, we'll touch on.
Starting with the, the top trending, nothing too unusual, really. Mutant apes, 10.5 ETH floor price.
Board apes, 47.3, losing that 50 ETH again. And Izuki down to 14.76. Followed though by captains,
which is impressive considering how few are frequently listed, right around one and a half percent right
now. Then Pludgy Penguins and Doodles, which is trying to reclaim the 3 ETH floor price. It's just
below. The top trending by sales, Doodles Genesis Box, 0.09, down 36%.
Nakamigos, 0.227, down 21%. And Opepen, 0.23, up 6%.
The biggest winners, Mongs, 0.1, up just about 100%.
Xenu's Zombie Mob Secret Society. Never heard of this one, but it's been around since I believe
March of last year or so. 0.1 ETH floor price, up 49%. And Deep Black, 1.29 ETH floor price, up 36%.
So let's touch on some of these market updates. MemeLand captains can now raid,
opt in to participate in raids to steal maps from other captains, although this does leave you
vulnerable to other captains raiding for your maps. Yuga hires Mike Seavers, who previously
worked at Epic Games and Riot Games as the company's new CTO, definitely signals some big
moves from them after their recent hire of Daniel Allegri for their CEO. 12-fold ordinals will have
12,000 by 12,000 pixel format and 144K resolution available to collectors. I was looking at pictures
of those, absolutely stunning. Digidaigaku Genesis holders will have a snapshot today for the upcoming
Chibi Bitcoin ordinal eligibility. Doodles revealed, of course, the Farrell Pack, where holders meeting
certain criteria will qualify for an airdrop. I believe they're only making 300 or so of those.
Jack Butcher announced an Opapen opt-in mechanism for drops 001 and 002.
Creature World Chapter 2 Open Edition burn was announced and it will begin on May 3rd. I believe
there are three phases for that, depending on how many you want to burn. And for some greater market
news, JP Morgan will acquire all of First Republic Bank deposits and the majority of his assets in the
third banking failure of 2023. An executive from JP Morgan also said that it would be naive to think
that this is an isolated incident. MasterCard is creating infrastructure to verify blockchain
interactions. They dubbed the MasterCard crypto credential. And Jack Dorsey's block has completed
its prototype design of a new high-performance Bitcoin mining ASIC, filing Intel suspending
production of theirs. So maybe an opportunity for them to step in for that. And for the market stats,
global crypto market cap, 1180.07 billion. Bitcoin dominance, 46.9%. Bitcoin open interest popping
back up over 8 billion, 8.04. And fear and greed at 63. With Bitcoin 28,590 down about 2.3%.
Ethereum 1850 down about 2.75%. And the S&P right around 4188, mostly flat, 0.01% up.
That is all. Thank you very much.
Yeah, it definitely always a, it's interesting to sort of track what some of these, like you said,
doodles up on the Pharrell trying to rain gain that, you know, floor. And I think part of the
thing right now going on as you give that update, you mentioned Genesis boxes and where they're priced.
And it's like, the challenge is, I think for a lot of these brands, this is the challenge when you
don't set your own market price. Like we love it when it works for us, but when you don't set your
market price on your product and there aren't market makers, like, you know, Anthony, I think
it brought up this idea of like, at one point of like, you know, an exchange effectively buying and
being a market maker for some of these brands. When you don't have that, you end up in this scenario
where others make the price for you and nobody knows that they can buy. So like Genesis box is
a great example. Like people bought them at half an E, people bought them around, you know,
the, I forget, like the, the Dutch auction price was like half an E, I think when they finished out
over half an E, then people bought them at like 0.2 and they're getting ready to crack. Now it's
like they're half that. And now that they're half that, it's like, if you are a person looking
to get into doodles, what is your motivation to go buy a Genesis box right now? Or are you worried
it's going to be 0.02, 0.01? And I think that I love doodles and I love what they're building.
And I think long-term it'll be pretty fun, but like I, you know, my Genesis doodle is my,
my grail in that sort of collection, right? That's going to get me to a, you know, that's going to be
the ultimate access pass that they've, they've said as much, they said, they're always going to kind
of look to drive value back to those people. Right. I mean, that's, that's the way that they're
going to want to use their OG doodle. So that's the case. What is my motivation as a doodles to
holder to say, Hey, I'm going to go out and buy a Genesis box, which is, you know, again, you don't
know if it's a falling knife at this point, you know, or, you know, do you think it'll eventually
be worth it? Is it worth buying supply and holding it right? Like you can get, you know, you used to
get two of them for an E, now you get 10 of them for an E. So I just think like, or you didn't even
get two of them for an E, you got like one and almost two. So that becomes a concern, I think, where
again, we love the market when the market is setting itself up and we're like centralization
and the market price and the market decides the market, but it's not as fun when it's
going down. It's a whole lot of fun in the bull market. It's not quite as much fun in the
bear. So that's something I take from that update is I think about listening to the doodles
thing and knowing that they're making real moves with, you know, they're, they're getting
ready to roll out real products, both physical and digital. They are having real partnerships
with real celebrities. They're going to have real IRL eventually, but what motivates you
to make that buy? So Mintify, I'll let you pop back in here with that.
Yeah. You know, I think that people, the space in general really needs to detach the value
of the, and it sounds silly to say, because, you know, the majority of people here are here
to make money. But in order for the space to really grow, at least in terms of these kinds
of projects, people kind of need to, you know, detach the value of these things from the experience.
Because, you know, I think doodles is definitely building site cool, like, you know, really cool.
They have lots of really good partnerships. They're definitely solidifying themselves and
have solidified themselves as definitely, you know, a very big player. But as you said, you know,
when the market starts going down, people stop having fun. The, you know, the value of the
experience that you're getting from it shouldn't be so tied to the value of the actual asset.
And that's obviously something, you know, very difficult to detach at all. But when that does
happen, if it does happen, that would definitely set the space up to onboard new people, you know,
outside of, outside of the current space as it is.
No, I think that's a good take because I've had that conversation with, you know, people
where the only one, I mean, I've done that. It's funny you say that because you're like,
it sounds crazy to say, I don't think it's that crazy. I can say personally, that has been my
experience with, I would say, probably Proof and Board Ape Yacht Club. And I know Board Ape Yacht
Club obviously has been a meteoric rise and has done well. So it may sound silly to say, but like,
I mean, I could have sold, you know, for four or five X where we're at now. And I never think
about that with Board Ape Yacht Club. I always just think like, man, I've had a really good time so
far. And I enjoyed this. I enjoyed it. And to your point, like, I think that that's sort of where
we're at as a NFT community is that if we want to create, if we want, if you need to, you need to
look at like what you're, what you're trying to get out of it. And for me, it's like, I bought my
moonbird very high, but I found a community I vibe with. I found a team I vibe with. I found all these
different things that I enjoy. And similarly, like with Board Ape Yacht Club, like, yeah, like it sucks.
I didn't sell when it was like, I might've been able to get like half a million dollars for my
ape, which sounds wild to say, but it's like, I was never thinking about it that way. And because
I'm never thinking about it that way, it sort of puts me in this position where you don't feel like
you're losing when the floor is going up or the floor is going down. So I just think your point you
make there, it's like very astute and fair. And, uh, I don't know. I totally get it. Um, with that said,
let's go NFT for two GM, Andrea. GM, how are you doing? Doing well. How are you? Good. Happy Monday.
After a crazy week at consensus with, I'm sure other people experience flight delays and all the
things, but back at it and ready to go. Um, I am going to go back to the point that Jack made because
I, I thought he was, um, you know, spot on. I think right now in the market in particular, when we look
at communities, it's absolutely about quality over quantity. And when we think about some of these
larger collections that when you include companions in the brand, you're at 30, 40 K, those were built
for a much larger space, right? Like the number of active wallets, I think last week, someone said
it's between 7,000 and 10,000, maybe mintify can let us know what that number is accurately, but it's
hard to fathom building out a collection. That's that size for, for the number of participants we have
right now. Um, it's obviously something that's near and dear to my heart with what we're building
at the colony and creating this sort of burn mechanic so that new projects can very quickly
figure out the people that want to be there versus the people that are buying into flip.
I think that whether it's a post mint burn mechanic or earlier on in the lifespan, it's really important
to do right now. If you're either a collection sitting around 10,000 or you're thinking about
putting a collection out that's, you know, close to those numbers. Um, but I will say that, you know,
distilling down to the people in the community that want to be there is obviously going to drive the
assets value up on secondary, and that's going to make a lot of people happy. But you know, the other,
the, the double-edged sword of that is you also have to address that there are people in the market
that are trading and there are flippers and communities and brands that need to get creative
to sort of feed them as well, because they exist. They're here. Most of us are here to make money in
one way, shape or form. And to find the balance between those two things is, is difficult, not
impossible, but absolutely something that every brand creator person that's trying to launch or has
launched in this space really needs to do. That's it. You need a product people want to buy.
Right. I mean, that's, that's what it comes down to. You need something people actually want to own.
I think it's as simple as that to some degree, because it's like Nike has a flipper market in
the sneaker market. The sneaker market is a flipper market. The high-end clothing, high-end sneakers,
these are all flipper markets. People buy stuff, limited, people buy Supreme stuff and they flip it.
Like this is not new, but selling the product that people want to buy first is how you make it. So
it's flipped, not because somebody wants to buy something because they think it'll go up eventually.
Like that's why you need a product and a plan. And I think that that's, to me, that's, that's the
difference right there. That's the nuance is like, you need to create something people actually want.
And then the rest sort of takes care of itself because you'll have people who actually want to own
something. And then you'll have people who just want to buy and flip it. And then you'll have
people who buy because they want to own it. And then say, you know what? Like, I think at this
point it's past, you know, the money that I wanted. I mean, more than enough on this, or I have more
than one, I'm going to sell it to somebody else who wants it. And it's like the board of yacht club
model has worked. And I get like, I know like floors are generally down across the board,
but like spoiler alert, like at least so far, and maybe this is the leg down that everyone's worried
about board apes have traded between 80,000 and $120,000 at a USD floor price, basically for a
year. So it's, it's like, at this point, the market has decided that is roughly a six figure asset
worth roughly $100,000 to people. That's it. Now, is it, you know, could it go up? Could it go down?
It could. I'm not saying like, it's definitely stuck there. We only have a couple of years of data,
but half that data would tell you, we know what it's worth. And so if half that data tells you,
we know what it's worth, believe the data and just say, okay, like that's probably where it's at.
And so people have decided that when board of yacht club gets to a certain point, it becomes an elite
club that people want to get into for whatever reason, you know, and they end up going and buying
the floor. Simple as that. So I think like that's something that maybe people don't necessarily think
about is like creating that product that someone wants to buy. And then when somebody buys it,
that new person, and by the way, like you said this before, short-term pain, which we're still
feeling from people like Franklin, liquidating their apes, that's tough, right? But long-term,
if a bunch of people buy that and it's their one ape instead of somebody who owns 72 apes,
well then that's, you know, we're 40 or whatever it is. That's actually a good thing for the brand
long-term because those people are going to think about when you have, you know, your psychology,
I'll go back to you in a second, Andrea, I promise. But it's like, when you have,
people talk about the rule of threes when we were buying NFTs back in the day.
One to pay per hand, one to sort of, you know, sell on the run-up and then one to hold.
Once you got down to that last one, you did a lot more thinking before you made that sale.
So it's like, if you have people who are buying one of something and saying that I like that one
of something, they're going to think twice before selling. I'll kick it back to you.
Yeah, I will partially agree. I think of course, you know, in general, you need a product that people
want to buy, but I think it's really hard to compare collections that have launched within
the last six months, you know, or even year to a board ape in this space or, you know, a newer
designer coming out and trying to compete with Supreme. It's just in a different league.
I think for newer creators that are trying to get their foot in, it's, it's really hard. And it's,
you know, even if you have the best team, a great product, you know, all the boxes are checked,
there's still a real chance that you get wrecked on the secondary market because of the trading and
the flipping and people sort of undercutting their way down. So I agree, but I also have real empathy
for, you know, the people that are building right now and trying to figure out what's the right number
for their community. You know, how do we, how do we exist a month post launch because it's, you know,
finding the balance now where we are with the number of active users versus a year, two years
ago, the right number for their collection, you know, what's viable is really, really challenging.
No, I agree. Like, and that's a tough market dynamics, gauging product demand, gaining,
you know, how much, like what's too much supply? What's too little supply? I would map that back to
what I was saying at the beginning, which was like, you need to sell to the people who are actually
fans of your product. Like, you know, again, like that's one of the things that, you know,
these gated drops when Ticketmaster is selling NFTs for specific bands and that gets you access to
their drops. Like it takes a scalper market that is, you know, that one Ticketmaster didn't see
tastes of. So even if scalpers are getting the NFTs, they're now getting paid on them. So that's good
for Ticketmaster. But generally speaking, like it takes somebody who says like, hey,
I am the biggest, you know, somebody who's in the, like if people in the Taylor Swift fan club,
they take a snapshot of email addresses by a certain date. So it's not like they're doing,
you know, they're doing this by, you know, hey, sign up for the email by this date and the flipper
sign up. People in the Taylor Swift fan club, they do a snapshot and they say, if you had an email in
the fan club by this date, you are signed up for, you know, getting this NFT, you will get first access
to our drops. You will be able to casually buy. We will never over allocate or whatever. It's like,
you know, and because you've entered your information, like, like you can do things like
enter your location to make sure you get like the best deal. So people enter where they're
located or whatever. You could literally geolocate specific accounts by email address and say,
you know, these tokens. Okay. You got a Nashville token. You got a Ohio token, whatever,
by state even not over allocate and have people buy by certain places, have certain limits,
and they could keep it so that the right people are buying the product. It's like,
there are ways to make it so you have the right audience. It's not, I'm not saying it's an easy
conundrum. I think it is the next frontier for a lot of these brands is how do you ensure your
NFTs get into the right hands so that it's not just exit liquidity. But again, I go back, you know,
it's, I go back to that Starbucks example. The fact that it was active people in the program who have
two or more stamps and you had 24 hours to mint and people were quite literally minting the day,
like up until the mint closed meant that there were the casual sort of like people like my,
you know, you know, 60, you know, 68 year old mom who was like logging on and saying,
oh yeah, that's right. I got to go do this. I'm going to go do this now and hitting the button.
So I think you're right. I'm empathetic to that challenge, but my, I think that's where the
challenge to me if I'm them is find the right people to buy your product. And then you won't have
to worry about like an extensive flipper market, even if that is good for secondary royalties.
But I think what you're saying too makes sense where it's like, all right, if you've gone down
that route and you've launched and you have way too much supply, how do you reduce it and provide
something in a way that makes it better? And I totally understand where you're coming from there
as well. So it's a good take. Let's go Von Fronten. Von Fronten, I know you, you've been up here a while
waiting. We'll go Von Fronten, then we'll go Joey, then we'll go back to Jack. Von Fronten, GM, sir.
GM, everybody. I apologize for the background noise. I caught men in a layover here.
So hopefully there's not too much airport noise behind me here. No, I want to get back to this
point around building a product that somebody wants to buy. And I think the conversation,
you know, earlier when I made the joke about, you know, is, you know, is Steve advocating for
the return of the roadmap? I actually don't know if I see a right or a wrong way to build in all of
this. I think what we're starting to see is segmentation of the market. We are still so early.
And even though we are in a room here with whatever, 200 people, we are still in a very,
very tiny corner of the internet with a bunch of like-minded people who have been on this journey
largely a similar amount of time as each other. So I agree. I don't need another Discord community
to jump into as well. I've got my couple that I spend most of my time in. The rest I also look at
for product, project updates, make sure I don't miss a claim or a drop or things like that.
But I also look at, okay, well, that market's now evolving. Cap wants to go and get in real life
benefits, whether it's events or shoes or whatever. And Steve is looking for a business plan in order to,
you know, build out a bigger brand. Someone else may be looking for, you know, the ability to flip
and get profits. But there are still the 99.9% of people out there who have never bought their
first NFT who are maybe looking for that Discord community the same way that we were a year to two
ago. And I say this coming off of a conversation I had last Thursday where somebody who is like 20
years younger than me could not believe that I was an NFT. It just came up. I think I mentioned my
artifact shoes that I'd gotten. They're like, what, dude, you're an NFT's? I was like, yeah,
no big deal. And they had never gotten into it. So we probably spent maybe five, 10 minutes talking
about what I do and all those kinds of things. And the fact that they were like, I never have
anybody to talk to about this. And that right there, I was like, holy shit, you are where we were
two years ago, where we were all kind of finding each other for that first time to come talk about
this new cool thing that we all got excited about. There are people who have not yet gone on that
journey yet. And yes, their journey will look different than ours because there will be a more
established market to come into. And there will be different offerings like Starbucks or Nike or
Doodles or whatever that didn't exist when we entered into it. But I think there's a market for
that. So I think I agree wholeheartedly with Steve's point. Find a product that people want
to buy. I think it's let's understand, though, that what people want to buy is going to vary
different person to person, market segment to market segment. And I'm going to be done talking
and pump the volume up. So I know Joey Valls is going to come up here soon. So I'm done talking.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. But I think like what we're saying is kind of the same thing in
different ways. Like when I say I want to see like a business plan and see what they're actually
building, because I don't think you can purely build on vibes. I would say at the moment,
DGod's sort of the last to do that, but they are working on some product. But I don't think
you can purely build on vibes anymore, at least not in this market. What I'm saying more is I
think we're saying the same thing in different ways. We're saying product market fit. Cap and I
may want something very different, but we both need to have a product. But you need to have a product
market fit for both of us, just as you or anybody else might. And, you know, are you solving a market
failure that exists is a question I tend to ask, generally speaking with NFTs? And again,
I always think brand focused a little more. So maybe I'm biased in that sense. But do you solve
a market failure? Do you have a product market fit? If you don't solve a market failure, if you do,
is it better than the current one by enough orders of magnitude that people are willing to adopt?
Because even the NFT world, we don't like new shit. I mean, like we don't go around like
buying, I don't know, like we don't, we don't like go around like, oh, like, like blur jump.
Yes, some people jump the blur. A lot of people are like, I don't need another platform. You know
how hard it was to get people who are using ETH to use Solana, even though it was just setting up
another wallet? It's, people are resistant to new things. And on a macro level, that's what happens
in the general, you know, general world too. It's why things like the internet are seen as,
you know, a fad or video games are seen as a fad because people don't want,
I remember having discussions about email with my dad who like didn't want to use it because
that was so stupid and it didn't really solve a problem to him. It's like the David Letterman
interview where he says, oh, you can listen to a baseball game. Haven't you heard of radio?
It's like, you can listen to it anytime. He's like, haven't you heard of tape recorders? It's like,
this is better David Letterman. I know you're a comedian, but come on. Um, so I think product
market fits important, um, to the point of making people want to actually adopt. The other thing I think
to your point though, like, or kind of going to that point is like, I don't know that
we need infinite more web three native brands, right? You can use the technology for all sorts
of stuff, but community and brand, there's only so many. It's similar to social networks. Like,
you know, and I know I've made this point. So people are probably who listen every day,
it'll sound like a broken record, but like there were tons of social networks that came out during
the, during the web tube. Their daily photo, I thought it was going to take off Instagram.
One, my space seemed like it was a juggernaut. Facebook one, you know, you can go down the list
on and on. I mean, people will tell you about Meerkat and Periscope versus, you know, uh, you
know, other, other, you know, YouTube and other platforms or video. By the way, it doesn't mean
that a new one can't emerge. Like I'm not saying that five years from now, a new web three native
brand won't emerge. Look at, you know, Snapchat, look at TikTok. It happens. But I think like
there are going to be established brands that come out of this world that have a product market fit
or solve a problem. Short form video, the connectivity of it, uh, Snapchat being more
instantaneous and disappearing. All of those things solve the problem that people got into
and became more of a tipping point, especially as the olds like us take over like other social
media platforms. So, so new ones could emerge, but I just think out of this one, we're going to see
like, you know, Yuga, Proof, Doodles, Pudgy Penguins, Utes, like a few of those that come
out that are native web three brands, maybe pivot into a product. And then I think we're
going to see brands like Starbucks, Nike, Adidas, who know how to use the tech in their
own way, shape and form, which there are a million ways to do right. Travel, uh, loyalty
like Disney, like you name it. Like one in a million was asking about Disney. It's a great
example. So I think like, I don't think we're seeing different things. I think you need
product market fit. I think web three native brands more can emerge. My space was
early. Who knows? Maybe you will be my space. We'll see. I don't think so. But like, I just
think that like, you do need to make sure you're thinking about what market failure you're solving
at this point versus, you know, in, you know, 2021, when it was like vibes, the community
is the best. Let's go Twitter raid. Like, I think those days are done. Um, at least largely
and the ones that organically Twitter raid, like a Utes and a D Gods, they need to fumble
the bag to piss their community off to make them not do it because they have that going.
So, um, I don't know a lot there, Von Fronten, but that's kind of my take on that. Um, you
talked about pumping it up. So let's go down to our man, Joey, before we keep kicking around
Joey GM. It's Monday, people. New week, new goals, time to crush it. Where's that energy?
Throw those fists in the air.
You've got to pump it up. Don't you know? Pump it up. You've got to pump it up. Don't you know?
Pump it up. You've got to pump it up. Don't you know?
Good morning, everybody. I hope you all had a beautiful weekend. Excited as always to
be here. I, um, heard a couple of things that I wanted to comment on. And it's interesting.
I always, I always say this, the universe works in, in such fun ways over the weekend. There
were some tweets that came out for some people literally on some of the same things, like
probably the exact same things we're talking about now. So I've been like prepping myself
essentially for, for this moment by commenting on some tweets from over the weekend, but a tweet
came out this weekend where somebody, um, NFT God put out a tweet where he has like his fancy
little graphics with like, you know, a graph. And what one said, if your project focuses on floor
price, it's going to do this. Right. And then if you focus on community, it's going to do this.
And I commented and I said, to be honest, neither are important. I like, I don't care about floor
price and I don't care about community because if you build a legitimate business that offers
a viable product or service, both of those things will go up. And I think, and that's exactly what
everyone's been saying here. We are so focused on like, let's look at Nike, Steve, you made the comment
of Nike has a, an economy of flippers. Right. But the reason why that community exists is because
Nike developed an amazing product that people wanted to collect. I mean, with the help of
Michael Jordan, of course, and you know, other famous athletes and the community got built around
that product. Right. The same could be said about Starbucks. They're both a product and a service,
right? So Starbucks built, let's be honest, it's not the best product, right? They don't have the
best coffee in the world, right? You would argue that there are your local coffee shops and you
know, that probably have better coffee, right? But what they've, the product that they've built
and the service they offer has created this incredible community. So I think, and I'm just,
again, echoing some of the points you guys said, which is focus on building a legitimate product or
service. It doesn't always have to solve a problem, right? Because we see all the time people come out
with a better wheel, but instead of focusing on, you know, your floor price or your community,
focus on actually building something. And that goes back to the point that Mintify made about doodles.
And I, I disagree with the whole, like, you know, um, the price, you know, like your experience
versus price or whatever. Like I buy things, the price that I buy things at, I buy them based on my
expectations of value. So like, I still have no, and maybe I'm wrong. I still have no idea what
doodles is doing, right? Like this whole new, like you can build your own doodle outfit and whatever,
but for what purpose, right? Like, am I going to, you know, like if you look at American doll,
American girl dolls, right? You could go into an American girl doll store, buy different shoes,
different socks, different dresses, right? Like you build your own doll, but then you take that
doll home with you. Your daughter plays with it. She gets a little, you know, uh, she gets friends and
they have a tea party and whatever. Doodles is essentially doing the same thing, right? You build
your own doodles, shoes, hats, shirts, clothes, whatever, but for what purpose? So if I'm looking at how
much money I'm going to spend on a doodle too, and building out a doodles too, but to what end?
So I look at the same, like video games. When I buy a call of duty game for $80 and then I buy the
battle pass and then I buy skins and all that stuff. It's because I know that I'm going to spend
hundreds of thousands of hours, maybe not thousands, that's probably excessive, um, playing call of
duty. I think the problem right now with all of these is we don't know what the end game is.
And yes, it takes a long time to build a business, a year, two years, three years,
five years, and we want stuff done right now. But then to go back to what Jack was saying and
what you were saying about roadmaps or I call them business plans, right? I would love to know
what is the end goal here? What am I going to spend money on? Because that's why I'm not spending
money on any of these projects. To be completely honest, I have no desire to buy a D-God,
a U, uh, a Doodle, uh, a Yuga asset, unless I'm flipping because I feel like, Hey, there's
going to be an announcement coming and I can make some money, but no one's accurately told
me why I need to be collecting, buying, or holding these at this point. And that's my struggle.
Yeah, I think like, I mean, to me, it's like Doodles is creating a media brand. They've talked
about that since the beginning and they've been thoughtful in hiring similar to how Yuga
hired, you know, two separate people from major video game companies across the world. Um, what
you see is you see like a, you know, Doodles, uh, hiring, uh, Julian, who was the president of
Billboard, who's always been ahead of the curve technologically. They, they're, you know,
they have Pharrell because they want to make music. They have the Doodles. They acquired
Golden Wolf because they want to make cartoons. You know, they're building a powerful, uh, media
brand. Now, does that succeed? That's, that's for other people to decide the gaming aspect or the
sort of more passive Roblox metagaming aspect, I think is an interesting one in how they're using
Doodles too, to, to customize and create, you know, I see it with my kids and Roblox all the time.
Uh, adults like to customize things. I mean, look, I customized my GTA character to make him look
completely ridiculous. Um, so I think the customization within video games is there.
It just, they need to actually have the applications, right? Are they going to have
an open API that allows this to connect through to, uh, video games, right? Are they going to
have an open API that somehow allows us to connect? And I don't even know if that works,
or can these be portably taken over to other blockchain based games? Is that what they're
betting on? Are they betting on it going to places like Roblox? Like that makes a lot of
difference because then all of a sudden these things become a lot more desirable. If you buy them
on this decentralized marketplace and then you can portably take them from, you know,
Roblox, Minecraft, and there's different ways that the, uh, you know, different metaverses,
et cetera, that works there with your Doodles too. Um, what they do with Doodles too matters.
So I think that that you're right about that, but I think that that is the, at least I see
directionally where I see like a Doodles going. Um, and I agree, like, that's it. It's like a business
plan. Like, what is your business plan? And not even asking like how they're going to make
money, which I think they should, but it's like, do I want to participate in this product?
Does it matter to me? Um, because at the moment that's, that's what I'm looking for is I'm
looking for ones where I actually want to hang out and do stuff. Cause it's, there's,
you know, there's not, um, there needs to be a motivation for me to buy. And it's changed
a lot in the past couple of years. Um, you know, but I think your point about like understanding
what they're doing is important, which I think, I think there's probably a little more clarity.
I think Doodles could be more forthright depending on what they're building, but I don't know what
sort of like, you know, tie downs they have. Um, but to my understanding, they definitely
have some pretty big partnership plans and some, um, you know, some use cases and they're
trying to build a media company again, does it succeed? Who knows? Right. That, that, that's,
that's the bet you're making. Um, and you're also making the bet that their Genesis token and
their Doodles, what they said will be your access pass. So if they have IRL going to get me into
that in some capacity, if they have, you know, merchandise or exclusive things that come out
similar to like the Adidas drop, you know, holding a Doodle is going to get me that first bet. And
they're betting that if they're a mega brand and Pharrell and all his, you know, celebrity friends
are going around rocking Doodles gear and it becomes like a lifestyle brand. Then when that drop happens,
if I'm one of 10,000 tokens that has the opportunity to buy something, but there's millions
of people demanding it, that's an opportunity. So I think that's what they're talking about a little
Joey, but I agree with your overarching point. I don't disagree.
I think the struggle for me right now though, is looking at like these Genesis collections,
like you mentioned board a, you know, trading at anywhere from, you know, 75 to 125,000. Right.
I struggle with, and I've asked multiple board a holders this. I've had multiple calls in the last
month with board a people. Would you buy another board a right now at the current price? And,
and I'm not saying this is, it's only been like three to five that I've spoken to. If I remember
correctly, they've all said no, because before, before you say that though, here would be my
pushback before you even get into it. There's Karen Feinerman who is on, um, fast money has this
comment where they say, well, did you buy anything? Do you sell anything today? And she goes, well,
I didn't sell, which is the same as walking in today buying, because you've made the decision
that the opportunity cost of that money is not above the opportunity cost of holding. Now,
whether they would buy another one today is a whole nother question because there's a lot of
financial dynamics. I wouldn't buy another board a today, but I also don't have, you know,
you know, 90, a hundred thousand dollars of disposable income sitting around, but by not
selling, I'm effectively buying. Correct. But what my question was like,
if you were not a board a holder, right. As somebody who is a board a holder and understands
what's in the ecosystem and all that stuff, would you encourage somebody to buy today at the current
price? And all of them said no, because they don't know how at any, like, so for example,
you bought a board a today at a hundred thousand dollars, let's say, right. What do you, what do
we know? And the same could be said about doodles. I would say, I would ask the same question to
doodles holders. And I would ask the same question to D gods and youth holders. If you're not speculating
on price, if that's not the reason why you're buying, if you were to convince somebody you should
buy one because in the next one, three, five years, this is what's going to happen. Right.
I don't see. And from all the people I've spoken to in all these communities, I don't see how I will
ever. And these people said the same thing, spend $75,000 on a board eight today and ever see any type
of financial return from it, because we don't know what any of them plan on doing in the future to
reward you. Now, if you minted a board eight or you bought it early on, you've made a hundred X over
with mutants and dogs and ape coins. Same can be said about doodles, right? You got airdropped
Genesis boxes and all this stuff, and you could have sold them all and whatever, whatever. Right.
But at this point, based on what we know about the future of these businesses, and we'll go back to
doodles and how they're, they're trying to be a media brand. Okay. Being a media brand. Great. But then
why do I need to go out and buy doodles too? And all these different boxes and all this clothes,
how does that, what, what am I, what am I doing? Right. Like, what is the point? And that's where
I think there's a lack of clarity because none of these businesses, and I know we're echoing the same
point, but none of these business have explained to us, what is their path to, to like, what am I,
what is the path to doing something with these assets? Like we know with Yuga, maybe other side,
you're going to be able to play as your ape and bring your heavy metal in with you.
And there could be a game. So there's a little bit more clarity there, but what everybody else,
what we have no clue what, all we're doing is speculating price. We live in a casino, right?
I like, I just jump in real quick, Steven, then I got to pivot, but the,
like the easy answer is yes. I would say yes to, to purchasing a board ape or a crypto punk there.
Every, a, it's different for each individual, a, what their net worth is,
what their disposable income is, what they're looking to do over the next four to five years.
Is it an individual? Is it a brand? Are they looking to establish or build a brand?
Or are they looking to build something entirely else different in the space?
But as far as just, just talking about the answer, your first question is, would, would you
recommend someone to invest six figures on a board ape today? If that person is also considering
joining a country club, I would say yes, without a doubt, a hundred percent put your, your,
you're going to see a far better return in much more greater frequency of networking opportunities
in, in business building in that social interaction. If that's why, you know, if you live in like New
York or probably any major city, you're probably, maybe it's not a hundred grand, but you're probably
looking, I would guess 50 to a hundred grand on average, just an initiation fees, not, not talking
about greens fees or ongoing annual fees, just, just to join the club. You're probably talking
close to the price of a board ape. And in my experience, I think, yeah, you'd have a far greater
return on joining the board ape yacht club, just if it was off the social club alone, forget about
any speculation about what the asset may do in the future. To me, access is worth the price of admission.
So then, then, then you could come back with what you can get that same access for, you know, a fifth of
that price with a mutant. Possibly. Yes. I would say what's, what is the unspoken or, or like the,
maybe it's not clear the inherent value to, to those that aren't, um, on the inside would be
those, those side groups, those, you know, I'm in probably, I just mentioned many, many need to
clean up my, my, my Twitter DMs, my group DMs. I'm just in far too many, the ones I won't be leaving.
There's probably three or four that are just, you know, side communities of, of the board ape yacht club.
It's some of the most powerful networking I've ever experienced in my entire life. And it's not
even close. Double tap that. I was going to actually say a similar thing cap, and I'll even build on it,
which is again, I'm not telling someone, I would never give someone financial advice to buy any sort
of six figure asset. Cause I'm not a person who was ever in a position to do that. But what I would
say is like, is the value there? Yeah. Like, I think it's also thinking I, to me, like, I think probably
makes sense for your point, Joey, personally, like if I were, if I were, you know, pushing back on your
point, I would make the point of separating Yuga from everybody else, including board apes and
crypto punks, just because I mean, a board ape yacht club has not only returned value, but continues
to return value. I know people who bought after the ape coin drop, who feel like they've gotten
relatively sufficient value, whether it was, you know, selling for, because, because at any given
time, the market has decided their assets are worth money. And so you're either going to bet that the
market is going to change its activity over the past two years, which is not just the Yuga market,
but the general market in general, people who are seeing interest in these things. It doesn't
change the fact that you have the network, you have the celebrity buying, you have sort of the
cache, you have a unicorn valuation with massive funding. And what I tell someone to buy a six
figure asset to cap's point, if someone was considering joining a country club, ROI and a board
ape to me is a lot better personally, especially with us being, you know, at home, depending on where you
live, I mean, I live in Ohio, it's gray and 30 something today. It's disgusting, right? It's
like, I can't go play golf. And so I think that there is not only a community value that is very
real in the board apes, and I have seen it myself. And I can tell you that I've seen it play out in
my career period. But I can also say that there is actual dollars and cents value because every
execution they do comes with assets that have a passionate community behind them buying them.
And so like, I think we had this with board apes where, and again, I'm not like trying to like
come down on your foot, but like board apes is a great example. When mutants drop, people said,
why should I buy a board ape? Now I got the view. And then when, you know, ape coin drop,
why should I buy it? Now I got the other side drop. Why should I buy it? Now I got the other side.
And then there was the dookie dash. Okay, well now dookie dash happened and it's over.
I think calling the end of like the financial gain is probably premature, but also the other things you
get out of it. And that's sort of the point is you are buying into a more close net community,
close net community. If you want to interface with Kevin Rose, you have that opportunity. If
you are have a moon bird, is that worth it to you? Like, are you going to make the most of it?
And not just that the general community there in general, we've said is a very high quality group
of people like doodles, very similar, but with a different group of people and what they're doing.
So I think it's like, if you've seen what doodles is executed on IRL, and you think you want to do
that, if you think that their digital media brand is going to be interesting, then that's another
potential buying point. Like, I think everybody has different buying points. I understand what you're
saying. I think Yuga is probably the most exception to the rule based on what we know to be true about
their gaming, what we know to be true about their financial gain, what we know to be true about
their networking. So I would push back particularly on Yuga. And I think, I think it's sort of a
misnomer to ask people at that point, like, would you buy back in? Because everybody's different.
But I'll tell you, for example, if I had the, you know, two, three ETH lying around right now,
and I didn't have a moon bird or a doodle, yes, I would, I would buy one. And so like, to me,
like, the answer is actually yes, for both of those. And those are ones that are more down
for a board ape. It's probably no, just simply because I couldn't afford it. But and it wouldn't
be the use of my money. But I know other people who would use it for their money. Like, I don't
think I'm a typical person who would be buying. I'm not a typical person who buys $100,000 asset
of anything, like outside of my house. It's like, I don't think I've bought a asset that is above
and I don't I didn't buy a board ape. But like, it's like, it's like a big asset I own,
right? I have savings and things like that. But like, I just think that there's a different,
it's a different scenario. So I think it's like, it just depends. Like, I get the point you're
making. But again, I would, I would double tap on the fact that if you don't sell, you have made
the opportunity cost, which is why it makes like NFTs. One of the things I think a lot of brands
are sleeping on is people who own NFTs being a major marketing opportunity. Because if you have
the choice not to sell $1,000 asset, you are a cap, you're beeping. There you go. Switch phones.
Um, if you have the opportunity decision not to sell that asset, then you made a decision to hold
it, which means you did not sell it and you effectively bought it. But I'll go back to
you, Joey. Go ahead. No, I think you go, you all make great points. And I, I completely agree
with a lot of them. My struggle just with Yuga is what we've seen is every asset has a, a decreasing
value attached to it. Right? So the more assets, but that's not true. That's not true. What do you
mean? How are you saying? What do you dogs were worth less than the sewer passes when they
came out and sewer passes are one of the most recent assets? The, the anomaly assets are
even worth more where you have the lottery opportunity at the same time where like, you
know, someone with the sewer pass and a skill-based mint made over a million dollars. The sewer
passes in general, we're going for more than dogs. Uh, eight drop. It wasn't, what was
the, the kennel club floor price was over the, the, the sewer pass floor price, maybe like
tier two. Uh, I mean, tier, uh, three, the top tier was going for 10 eighth. The next
tier was going for like. Point is, these are incremental, incremental drops that are free.
They're not. No, of course I might, but, but what I'm saying is, okay, let's, I, I agree
that there's opportunities still with Yuga to make money. I just think that people coming
into the space and saying like, Oh, Yuga is the bit, like, let's say you're new to the
space and you're like, Oh, everyone talks about Yuga lags. Let me go look at an ape. And
you're like, Holy shit, a hundred thousand dollars. Right. And it's like, if I, how am I ever
going to, because these are investment vehicles to turn that a hundred grand into 250 grand
and apes, probably not the logical starting point. If you're looking to join, what's the
best club to start networking. If you're thinking like, okay, I'm going to go join a country club
or I'm going to get into web three. I do think there is value in the quality you get that comes
with the Yuga asset. It's just not like, if you're looking at it purely as a, I want to,
I want to 10 X this money. Yeah. That's just, it's way harder to do that with a higher floor.
But Joey, before you put it again though, but even to Cap's point, I would actually even push
back on Cap's point that like Yuga is the best financially supported asset in this whole ecosystem.
Like I have a friend who only got in at Dookie dash and he's already made plenty of money between
other side Dookie dash sewer passes, like, and, and, you know, and a mutant that he got in on.
Like, I would argue like that the way you're describing it is almost as the way the NFT space
works today. Like, Oh, we're going to make, buy a hundred thousand dollar asset.
And is it going to be worth $200,000 in 10 years? The question to me would be,
is this thing going to hold value or do you think it's going to continue to drop? Because
let's say you buy a Yuga asset for $80,000 and you're an investor.
Like let's take your just pure financial look at it. Well, like any stop along the way you've
bought it, you've made tens of thousands of dollars and can sell it for as much or more than you bought
it for. So like, yes, maybe a Yuga lab asset isn't going to go from 75,000 to 150 overnight.
Like the current NFT space used to be back in the day, but you probably have a good chance of
seeing based on historical value, crypto punks are going to hold value without even adding utility.
Yuga lab is going to drop you assets that are worth tens of thousands of dollars and hold their
value. Like, I think if you asked any sort of investor, like, Hey, if you could buy a stock
that stayed at the same price, but delivered you tens of thousands of dollars over the years,
would you do it? I think they probably would. So that's, I'd push back there.
So I think the point of what I was saying is kind of being lost. It's not about the asset itself.
It's about what the future of the business is, right? Like if I'm going to buy a hundred
thousand dollar asset, I want to know what the future holds more. That's, it's not so much that
I'm speculating on the NFT. I was more attaching it to that. A lot of these projects haven't explained
what's to come. And that's where I struggle. Not that I want to buy a Yuga asset for a hundred
grand and hope it goes to 200 grand and flip it. I'm saying, if I'm buying in for a hundred grand,
what does my future look like? What are, what are we building towards? What are we going for?
Right. And I think there's so much uncertainty still with all of these projects. That's where I
struggle. So maybe my, maybe it got the, cause it was, it goes back to the point where we started
with, which was building products and services that people want. Right. So maybe it got a little
lost, but that's what I was trying to tie the value to is we don't know what's coming. And that's the
struggle with spending that kind of money. Yeah, I get it. And again, I'm not like doing a push
back. I'm not trying to pick on you, but you did. No, it's okay. I don't mind. I love the
conversation. You did kind of mention, you're like, how am I getting my value back out of that? Like
what, how am I going to get, like, how is that ever going to be worth a hundred thousand dollars is
kind of one of the points you're making. So I guess what we're saying is like,
I, I, again, I would say making this point about some of the other NFT brands, I fully agree. I
think Yuga is not only the most baked out as far as the direction they're going, you're getting into
a club. It's virtual. It's digital. They're building an IRL clubhouse. They run a music
festival once a year called eight best. They have a game that they're building online that you're
going to get to help participate and build. And you're going to get assets dropped along the way
that you could choose to hold that are worth money or sell. I think their business model and what
you're getting for that money is actually the most clear, which actually is probably why they
hold from that sort of 80 to $120,000 range, because people know what they're getting into
and can make that decision to buy, sell, or get in at any given time. So I actually think they
are the most clear. I see what you're saying. I think related to doodles, your question is very
logical words. Like, where does this go and how does this work? And like, that's the bet you're
making is that they're going to build out the brand to make it be worth that. Right. And they're
going to build out the access. Like, I think the doodles point makes sense. Um, you know, I,
but I think even like proof has been pretty clear about where they're going and they're kind of
telling you. So I think with some of them, you, you have more of an idea, but I think you go,
like, you know, and again, this is probably just getting stuck in the Yuga, but like,
I think they are the exception to the rule where like they're not only are they telling you they
hired a COO from Activision Blizzard and then they just, you know, hired a CTO that is, you know,
major gaming, you know, people. So they're telling you gaming, music festival, access,
online access, assets being dropped to you. It's like a very clear value proposition. Um,
and so that's why it's like interesting when I, and that's why I was kind of pushing back on like,
would you buy it today? I don't have the money to buy you guys today. I mean, I took a massive,
you know, people have misnomer that you're rich in this world. Like I have a massive pay cut to
work in this world. Like for considerably to where I was before, I just enjoyed doing it. And I get to
do cool shit and talk on spaces for a couple hours every day. But like, I guess like to Yuga though,
it's like, I could very clear, like when my friend who I would give financial advice to ask me about
buying a mutant, I told him to buy a mutant. He bought a mutant. This was pre-ApeCoin drop even
announcement, bought his mutant for $30,000, got $30,000 worth of ApeCoin, sold that $30,000 worth
of ApeCoin, paid off his boat and still has his mutant and has continued to do drops and play the
game since. Similarly, my friend from college who was asking about like what he should get into when
he initially got into the NFT space, he was kicking around with some like, you know, kind of scrappy
smaller projects. And I'm like, dude, just get up into Yuga. He since has gotten to him. He has
gotten into it. So like, I guess my point is to those people I have given financial advice to that
I'm comfortable saying, I know your situation. I know your budget. I know your ability to do this.
I've absolutely said, go get a mutant. And my friend who was a mutant wants to get an Ape.
So it's like, I get the, I get the perspective you're bringing overall. And I think your point
is sound about like, I similarly to you want more information about what we're buying. It's why I
think that argument holds strong and I won't go down this rabbit hole again, but I think that
argument holds stronger for like a Coda, for example, where it's like, you know, I've had that
before. Cause I think the exact point you're making is the point I make about a Coda, which is
I know that a Coda is a asset that doesn't have, I try to like reconcile what the value of it can be
and other side to make it work. And we don't know what it does. And I want more information.
Are they changing it? You know, I think most NFT brands fall into that. And I think your point
about wanting to see a more of a business plan is, is, is what is my point? Like when someone buys a
doodle right now, I think your point just to like bring it home to what you're saying,
what am I buying when I buy a doodle? Because before I was buying for a community, I love the
art. I know they're building a media brand. I think that they have a plan out in front of them,
but like, do I know what the IRL is going to look like outside of the events they've done
that are pop-ups? No. And they haven't had permanent. Do I know what the media is going to
look like? And the music is going to sound like no doodle studio is awesome in the arts. Good. Do I
know what we're going to do with those? No. So I think your point there is like, could we get
clarity on what this is so that we can decide if we want to buy or not?
So I think that's more of the point you're trying to make it. So I know we got pushed
back on the Yuga a little bit, but I think Yuga is just, I mentioned earlier at the show,
Yuga went from an NFT project to an NFT brand to a just regular startup company pretty quickly
about as meteoric as we've seen and completely reset a different paradigm that we've never
seen before. So there's just such an outlier to a conversation like that, if that makes sense.
I agree. And, and, and I would like to yield to somebody else since we've been talking for so
long, but I agree with a lot of what you're saying. And yes, I think Yuga is an outlier.
They are completely outside the bell curve. And to your point, yes, what do Codas do?
What are like Mara's and, and all these other things, like there's still so much to, to,
to figure out. And that's where I think my web to brain is like, Hey, when I buy call
of duty, I know what I'm getting right. When I sign into fortnight, I know what I'm getting
when I, so I think that's for me again, doodles, all of them doodles, uh, cool cats,
Utes, D gods, all of them. Listen, they're, they're all, they're all very young businesses.
And I'm not saying that we need an answer right now because it takes a long time to establish a
legitimate brand and business, but it would just, I would prefer to see people building
in public and being more open with what their end goal is versus like, we've got cool stuff
coming. Don't worry. Yeah. And then, you know, that's it. No, it's fair. And that's, I think
that's the thing that I think a lot of people get hung up on is like, like you have to like trust a
team sometimes without them telling you. And like, when you hear them saying, trust us, it's going
to be cool, but you're like, okay, but what's going to be cool. It becomes a lot more challenging
to say, yeah, we're buying what you're selling because you just don't know. You just don't know
at that point. Right. Like, I mean, that is the challenge that you're running into is
like, it's like trust is going to, it's like, we talked about it earlier with like gutter
cat King as an example, again, not trying to pick on them, but it's like, it seems like
they didn't know what they were doing and they were just running along. And it's like, does
your team, it's like, you ask yourself, does this team know what it's doing? The reason
why I last thing I'll leave it on the reason why I'm a little bit more of a believer in doodles
and I know it happened during a hot market, but when you get that much funding at like
whatever they were like a 450 million valuation, 70 million funding, I forget. I think
is the number I might be messing that up. They had to present a plan to, I know people
like, I know people who work at like a 16 Z and some of the other firms and you have
to present a plan and a op and some sort of profitability and a business plan in order
to get that sort of money. So it might be somewhat blind faith. Look, all startups that
get funded don't fail, don't, don't succeed. Many, many, maybe even most fail. But my point
just being like, look, like that's probably where I place probably maybe the unfair faith
in like a doodles versus some of the other ones. I'm like, okay, well, they've gone
out and someone has paid them money to, to do this. Um, which means that they have some
sort of a plan. So 54, 54 million out of 704 million valuation. Oh, see, I had my numbers
backed up instead of the 500. It was 54 into 700. It's a lot. And real quick question to
everybody who wants to answer. Do you guys think people like doodles and cool cats, even
Yuga Labs missed an opportunity to partner with somebody like Roblox or Minecraft during
the bull run to get their assets into their games because they were more focused on doing
their own thing? I don't know if those, if those brands were ready yet. I don't, I don't
have any inside knowledge. It's just my take, but real quick to answer your last question,
both yours and Steve's that will end on the topic of Daniel Legre. This will answer your
question and also equally not answer it because he was asked, what is a coda? And his response
that consensus last week is a coda is something you must have. Well, and like, oh, financial
advice from Daniel Legre. Um, no, but I agree with you to some degree. Like I think they
could have here, two things, board apes didn't have to, because number one, it's not necessarily
on brand with their mission and purpose, right? They're talking about fuck it, tweets, monkey
key and monkeys, assholes and all that stuff. Right. So they're a little bit of different
brand, but also board apes were in Roblox. Anyway, my kids would show me things regularly
in Roblox. Like, look, I see a board ape in there. And so people actually integrated
them into the, into the platform in various ways without them having to do it. So that's
like best of both worlds without them having a partner. I would say doodles probably a missed
opportunity. Um, for sure. Uh, moonbirds probably a missed opportunity if they were able to do
it. Right. Cause it's already voxelized, which makes a lot of sense. So I do think there's
a potential missed opportunity, but it also matters with product market fit, you know, especially
like you look at moonbirds, if they're going to art collectors, you know, my, my eight year
old's not collecting art. So I think there's, I think you're right that there's potential
missed opportunities in there, uh, that I see from like integrating with those larger
brands to get out there a little more versus, you know, doing their own thing and being
like, we're building the metaverse. Um, there could have been some partnerships there for
kids to notice and a sponsor, like a spot, like almost like a sponsored spot, like work
with someone who's really good at building the Roblox games. Um, you know, integrate with
their squid games platform. When the kids were playing that at the time when doodles was
really hot in the streets and be like, Oh, there's doodle. I need to doodle. So I think
the pop culture opportunity there is for sure. Again, probably not Yuga, but the other ones
I would say, I think there's missed brand partnership. I do end of 2021, early 2022.
I was screaming that these NFT brands should be partnering with real life brands because
they need the blockchain help and they have the devs and ability to do it. So I agree with
you. Um, let's run over to Jack. Jack, a lot has been discussed before we go back to
Andrea. Jack, uh, get back in here. GM, GM. Yeah. Yeah. That was a great topic. Uh, I
definitely actually started writing some notes before that even started. And ironically, this
sort of leans into that. So yeah, Joey and Steven Karp, I think did a great job navigating.
Thanks Jack. Sorry. I made you wait. Oh, never, man. Never, man. Love it. Look, you've, you've
heard me rant on this show. I can never, ever give anyone shit for making me wait. Um, uh, look
that I think with all of this, uh, and yeah, there's a, there's a huge lean into the idea
that when we are buying into these projects, the speculation is part of it. And, um, the
idea that a project comes out and announces a hundred percent of their roadmap and what
they have in mind, it just, it's very unlikely to work out. I think we've even seen some projects
fall flat on that. Um, even when they hit those markers, it's like, sometimes there's
a project, even I've seen proof do it where they announced something I'm super bullish on
and it still has a negative impact on the floor because the floor was based on speculation.
If you really want to go like 10 X on that, look at goblin town and the fact that people
thought they were lava labs or Yuga, um, at eight Ethereum floor. And then now sat up, I
believe below like, you know, 0.5 ETH. So, um, even when the team, when you went to NFT NYC
that year, everybody knew how great that team was. Like people were, that's all anyone talked
about was the fact that, you know what, though, these guys are awesome and they definitely
have the right players to do very well in this space. And then you still, that, that
speculation game, they just gave too much out and it was, it, it didn't, you know, it
didn't pay, pay for them. So one thing I think a lot of people including founders, uh, but
you know, uh, I think a lot of people haven't unlocked yet where I'm, I'm starting to unlock
this. Um, basically through pure anger, like why aren't these projects going up is the fact
that I think people actually perceive they're part of the team. And when I say that, I think
there's like a psychological impact to NFT space where when you are a holder, especially like Steve,
you mentioned before, like you, you, you have the proof team and sorry, the proof ecosystem
with Moonbirds where you like to get into that discord, you like to be a bit more of an active
participant. I think you could look at the DJ network and you know, people are really, really
heavily, um, what's the word? Like really heavily, um, attached to the idea that, you know, we want
to see the, this group of people succeed and we'll give time to like feedback why, like how
that is going to actually come to fruition. But generally I think there's this idea that
when you have that a hundred, one thousand like true fans with the NFT space, you have that a hundred
slash a thousand true non-employee employees. And with that, there is this like element of people
who will give significant amount of time. I think of it as like a second job where you have that, um,
you flip the nine to five to five to nine, you have people genuinely prepared to commit that five
to nine to a project just based on their financial incentive to the floor of a single NFT. And when
you use that to sort of try and consider, okay, so how does this project, you know, get around these
sort of expectations that there are people who are holding this project who believe that they're almost,
you know, you could say shareholders because that has an element, but you know, almost they feel like
they own as many shares that would get them a seat on the board. And they feel like they need to be
heard whilst being on within that board with having that like same level of, um, uh, yeah, of like
seniority or that same level of like, people are going to listen to me because what I have to say is
both of value. I have experience, but also because I have like financial stake in this project and
people really do unlock that. And the best way to explain it, because I don't think I've done too
well here. Um, but the best way to explain it would be during NFT NYC, there was a bunch of stuff
that D gods did very well. Um, they have the 10 X club and the idea being that these people who own
10 D gods, which now, you know, is, is equivalent of a board ape, um, maybe even a little bit more
at this point, you know, you've 8.5 Ethereum. So yeah, 85 Ethereum. Um, they had like multiple
events, but the reason this like club really set off is because there were points where I don't know
if people have seen poopy. He owns like a incredible amount of these things. There were little like
pieces of content that hit Twitter where like 20 to 30 of these members at two o'clock in the morning,
we're talking about comms, talking about what the project needs to do next. And like so heavily
involved in the outcome of this project that they will never sell. Like as long as they feel like
they're being heard and that they're contributing to this thing, like they believe they are tied into
the success of the project way, way more than just holding it. And that having an impact,
even holding the 10, the 100, whatever these whales have, there are people who genuinely believe that
they're part of this, like this whole thing. Um, and I, I think that's something that really needs
to be looked into that psychology of like, okay, well, if that is true and you have like a hundred
people, a thousand people, whoever it might be, who genuinely believe they're actually almost part of
the team and that they should be heard. How does a project lean into that well enough that that will
actually, you know, favor incentivize other people trying to be part of that group who are seen by
the team as somebody to go to, whether it be through high volume of holding the NFT, whether it be
because they're contributing clear value to Twitter through content, like look at whale.swoosh, perfect
example of how that one played out. There's these levels that are coming into play and people who want
to be within this group. And I think if you build enough FOMO around that idea that there is this group
that exists without necessarily announcing who they are, this is a big unlock for the current
bear market and the ecosystem as a whole. And I think, but they did it very well to begin with
and still continue to do, you know, they had people just jump out and say, I'm going to push this brand
further. And they had discords and sub discords and even, you know, they had a bunch of different
WhatsApps and all this stuff going on where they were like, how do we get this project to be the number
one project? And there's other groups out there, but the team just haven't leaned into like how to
completely unlock that. And, and that's, I'm done talking, but that's sort of, I'd love to hear
more thoughts on that. Yeah. And I don't even know that people were saying Bored Apes be the number
one project when we did it. We were just kind of enjoying the new networking club that we had and
finding ways to connect with each other. And like, to your point, like the team, I think a lot of brands
wanted to be Bored Apes and their holders wanted them to be Bored Apes, but the holders didn't want to do
what Bored Apes did early on. And Bored Apes were an anomaly, don't get me wrong, but I remember
filling out a fucking air table about my skillset and my background and like these discords. And,
and then people were putting it on Twitter. And the reason was people wanted to find us
so that if we could work and collaborate on things, we could. I met Bunchu, who I founded DJ Network with
in a private Bored Ape discord, because we were talking about a completely unrelated business and
decided to found DJ Network before we, you know, brought in, you know, other, everybody else and,
and kind of continued the team rolling, right? Who made sense. Like, that's an example, right?
And what is that, you know, when we talk about, like, to almost touch on Joey's point about the
value of this, these things, I met Bunchu in a discord. We founded DJ Network. I'm the community
leave at Starbucks because he's bringing Starbucks to NFTs. Like, that is a indirect value that people
aren't think, don't think about with these clubs and how to utilize them. Um, and the opportunities
that come with them. So it's like, you know, I, I don't know, or even just like opportunities to do
things you never would have otherwise done. I was hanging out with people at three, like two in
the morning, like while he smoked a cigarette and he was showing me him playing Mario Kart in his big
ass studio, which is like perfectly on brand. He's like, yes, he's big studio. Um, because I'm in
proof and I've been active in there and I've made the point of getting to know people in there.
Like, and it's not disingenuous. It's me just being myself and finding my tribe, but like those things
lead to one another. Um, I want to read a quote from a, um, I'm going to sound like an asshole from a
certain Harvard business review article that gets to your point, Jack, which is there's a
Harvard business school business article. Yes. Yes, sir. It was the first one on NFTs. And I will
say, I rarely give myself credit. I don't like to say when I'm proud of things or whatever. I
very, you should totally boast about that. You know, how many people get a Harvard business school
article like published? Come on. Let alone like the first ever on a topic. Right. So it's like,
it's pretty cool, but like we had written this and Scott mentioned that he still uses this line
in his presentations to this day when he talks to people, my coauthor, the line is thus owning an
NFT effectively makes you an investor, a member of a club, a brand shareholder, and a participant
in a loyalty program all at once. This is November, 2021. So ahead of our time. Right. But like,
it's almost gets to the point you were making Jack, that all of those things are merged into one
new asset, which is why it needs to be defined differently by the government. Um, the things I
want to hit on before I go to Andrea, cause you had a lot of really good points in there. Um, I think
what you get from that thing that I just read, I'll read it one more time. Thus owning an NFT
effectively makes you an investor, a member of a club, a brand shareholder, and a participant
in a loyalty program all at once. What you get from that is you get a lot of feedback. I was in
a managerial positions. I was a people manager, a people leader, uh, which I always love people
leader because anytime I hear it, it sounds like I say I'm a people eater, which is disgusting,
but I was a people leader in various organizations for many years. Right. And I can tell you,
like, I got tons of feedback on my employees and I had to parse what was valuable and what
was not. So it is the job of an NFT brand to take those people who are in that position,
toss it down and say, this makes sense. These are the themes. These don't. I agree. Apes
were really good at it. Ape Fest was an idea that Josh Ong and Peter Fang and some others
came up with. And the ape said, you know what? We did just have the, um, the, the mutant
let's do it. I will say that, um, you know, there's other, two other parts you brought in
there. When you talk about increasing the value of the brand that really gets back to the house
analogy I always make, which is if you rent a house, you're probably not going to upgrade the
kitchen. If you own a house, you might upgrade the kitchen because you get to enjoy it and
increases the value because you don't have to worry about your landlord kicking out your money
going to waste. And even if you did leave, your money goes to waste. Right. That's sort of why you
want to increase that value. It makes sense. Um, I also think the feedback from community
leaders again, Seth Godin has a book called tribes that talks about the need for non, uh,
I I'll, I'll mess up the quote, but essentially non, uh, team member community leaders to help,
uh, be effectively the people within the community as a tribe grows in size. I think a good example
of that is Jeremy from V friends who was that person. And guess what? Now he's part of the team
because they saw value in him as a community leader. Um, last thing I'll say is like your point
about them feeling that they're part of team or giving feedback. I think that's a competitive
advantage. And I actually think that's a feature, not a bug in the sense that parsing that
feedback is important, but you know, again, I've said before, like focus groups are a great model.
Like I know people who work in market research. It's awesome. And you go to your target market
and do your best. You have a focus group who will bring the questions to you. There are things you
won't even know. I've had conversations with teams and brought things up and they're like,
Oh, I didn't think about that. And that's because you effectively are a focus group who is most close
to the ground on this thing. So I made a lot of responses to your point there, Jack, but that's sort of
my, um, that's sort of my, uh, and by the way, if people actually want to read that article,
cause I am proud of the fact that it held up and I don't say I'm proud of myself very often at all.
Um, it's called how NFTs create value is from November 10th of 2021. So it's a couple of years
old, but it, um, it stands up with what an NFT is to this day, because we were trying to think of
it in an evergreen sense, not in the sense of like what an NFT is during the vibe clubs today. So,
um, and that's kind of where the book go in that direction, but Jack, go ahead and get back in here.
Yeah. Final thoughts on this, Steve, and a quick one, but, uh, I touched earlier on Steve jobs,
you know, the hundred, the, the idea of, I know there's a lot of new listeners in here right now.
So the idea that he had this one, one off one annual a hundred employee retreat. And within that
retreat, those a hundred employees, they basically got, you know, new ideas, sorry, new information
around tech that was very, very secretive to literally the people working on the tech, um,
and literally got to feedback criticism, like ideas in a way where no matter who you were,
were within that, that company, if you were selected within this a hundred employee group,
and it could literally be anybody and often wasn't, you know, the people you would expect it to be,
i.e. the directors, the like senior management. It was very literally just people who had ideas
during book boardroom presentations, whatever that might be. And they were very secretive
about the selection process. Um, but when these people were selected, there was this huge,
um, net like something only Steve jobs could do, which was this huge negative reaction from these
senior partners and employees where they were just like, what are you doing? Like we are obviously
the people who need to be at that retreat. What do you mean? You know, my employee is going to this
thing and not me. And I think there's a level within that where you can unlock that with the
holder base. And when you do that with the holder base, you're going to have the same reaction of
what do you mean? This person contributes more than me or this person, I hold 50 of these things,
that guy owns one, like, why are they getting in there? But then you have like content contribution,
idea contribution, people who just, you know, feedback in a different way or add value in a
different way. Um, and I think this is still an unlock that people haven't quite, you know,
outside of board eight, but even they, that was so organic. It didn't really, you know, it didn't
come because of the team, the team supported it and definitely, you know, added fuel to the fire
with like announcing these things. And you saw big, big board eight names, like get like huge
followings around Twitter based on that. And now we have that ecosystem built in and the idea that
if you buy this NFT, you will get a higher follower count and you will be taken more seriously when
you hop into spaces, et cetera. But this all came back to this like fundamental idea that people can
contribute in a way that is almost an element of the team, almost a part of the tribe. And when you
get that and you unlock that entirely, and I think that idea of like having your hundred biggest
advocates and maybe not telling people who those hundred people are just saying, I've got this
group of people. This is a hundred people within our community who we will give information early
to, who we will seek feedback to. You've got the council, that's one element, but then you have
this like this group of a hundred people who add value in their own unique way. Nobody is allowed to
tell you who they are. Like if you are part of that group, you shroud that in mystery because that's
what the space needs. But outside of that is just this idea that everybody else who isn't in that
group needs to be in that group. And it incentivizes this idea of I have to be in this. I'm going to
hold my NFT. Maybe it's because I need to hold multiple NFTs. I just think this is like a huge
thing that people have like semi-unlocked and it's went right the way back to Bordeaux
Yacht Club. There's other groups who are getting frustrated because the team aren't seeing that
now, but they can't vocalize that experience. And I think it all boils down to this idea
that people genuinely think they're employees of a business that they're not employees of.
Like it's, it's to that level, but an employee of a startup, not like, you know, you have a
thousand person team that people are just cashing a paycheck. The people who are prepared to stay up
all night working on this company because they believe in the mission, the culture and the
business entirely, like your Apple's early days, like you maybe even Twitter now with Elon when he
did that war cry and it, you know, half the people left, but the people who stayed were prepared to give
everything. So yeah, I'm done talking and yeah, can't wait for the other speakers to chime in on
this. Yeah. I think what you described too is not like, there's a couple of things there. There's
knowing who the people in your community are, who you value their point of view, because you think
that they're closest to the product and understand it. Right. And we've heard this with proof where
proof has said, Hey, I know these people are upset who don't normally get upset. So that means that
we've really done something wrong. Like these are the reasonable people. So we know that this happens
with, with various communities. Another example of that before we go to Andrea is I would say,
uh, Ed Catmull, who is the, uh, co-founder of Pixar was a book called creativity. And he talks about
how, when they did Pixar movies, new Pixar movies, every new Pixar movie had this table. They would
get with people from around the company called the brain trust. And it wasn't the same group of people.
They actually like rotated the brain trust. And they said, come in, give your unabashed feedback.
Don't be nice. Tell us what's missing. Cause we want to make this better. What they would do is they
actually referred to every movie. I believe Ed Catmull's words are every movie starts off as an
ugly baby and eventually it becomes sort of beautiful. Right. And he talks about, I think
he gives the example of, I want to say the Incredibles that he said, like, wasn't good for a couple of
reasons. And there's entire characters they've added, taken out things they've missed based on these
brain trust meetings where they have people come view these movies early on, excuse me, and give
feedback. And so creativity Inc is another great book that you could read that gives you an example of
like this in practice. Now it's much bigger than that. Obviously there's crossover because Steve
Jobs is obviously the crossover there. Disney is a crossover there. There's so many crossovers
in creativity Inc that you could see from like greatness all coming together. But you know,
to your point, it's a good example of like getting outside perspective that, you know, can be honest,
raw and help make a difference in your company. And I think that that's what, um, you know,
a lot of these NFT brands should be craving. And if they're willing to take the feedback,
the feedback is certainly out there. But again, as I mentioned earlier, it's like being a people
manager. It's like separating the signal from the noise to ensure that you don't just listen to
people who are upset because their bags are down, but you listen to people who are saying,
Hey, this is like good examples. The other day, outer lumen isn't like talking about moon birds
because she wants to sell her back. She's like, Hey, what if the diamond nest mechanic had this
mechanic instead? And Justin was like, took that note down because it was just another example of
somebody who was like, she wasn't giving feedback because she wanted her bags to pump. She was giving
feedback because of what would be more fun. So I think that that's just an interesting,
um, you know, way to approach it. And I agree. I think great companies do that. And great leaders
like Steve jobs, even though, you know, for all his faults as a human, in some degrees,
like great leaders, like him and Ed Catmull and others, they're going to, uh, crave that feedback,
get that feedback and find it from the right places. Um, let's go down, let's go back NFT for two.
Then we'll go up to loop and then back down to Joey, get back in here.
Okay. I'm going to be quick, but Joey sort of summoned me when he said the word roadblocks,
because I, I have real insight into what's going on there with this like 15 and under generation and
how it can be really impactful for the brands in this space. So I agree completely what you're
saying with Yuga. It's not the place for it, right? It's not necessarily on brand, but if you are a brand
in this space and you are leaning into having cute IP, which we know that there are definitely
some leaders that are doing that and you're not tapping into some of these worlds, like adopt me.
And you know, where you're really getting that under 15 crowd that are.
My daughter loves adopt me.
Okay. So imagine now a pudgy penguins that gets released and adopt me. These kids wait for the
minute it gets dropped. It doesn't have to be on chain. It wouldn't be on chain, but what it does
is it gives brand recognition outside this space. Like that's step one. Then you release your toys
and everything else around that. But you, you have to start looking at how you're going to generate
revenue from not just the people that are currently in web three, right? Beyond this space,
what can you do to get brand recognition, to generate revenue and to look outside this,
this pot of ETH that's being recycled over and over and over again. And, and that's the low hanging
fruit, right? These kids are on screens. They're looking for cute little pets to keep in their
stables or their house. They build on roadblocks, whatever. Then they say to their parents, Hey,
go on Amazon and look up this toy for me. You're not just going on Amazon, looking up a cute penguin
toy. And I, you know, I love what Luke is building. I'm not trying to like fund them at all. I think
it's massive and amazing, but I do think that if, if, you know, you're thinking on the like
collectibles, you're still looking for revenue generation from people that already know the
brand. I'm going to quote my friend critique at one point said, you know, you need to become
a brand that has an NFT, not an NFT brand. And you're, unless you're thinking that way,
you're not going to be here in three, four or five years. And I just feel like roadblocks is
such a great starting point for, you know, these brands that just there's, again, there's kids that
are already on screens. They get digital assets, they're collecting them, they're spending money
on it. We don't have to make it cute and be on chain. It just needs to, you know, have some
recognition on, Oh, this is a pudgy penguins, or this is a doodle or, you know, whatnot. So that's
it. I'm done talking. I'm, I'm already late for a call, but when you start talking roadblocks,
I've got real conviction there. And I had to jump in. No, no, before you go down, I just want to give
you flowers because like I 1000% not only agree with you, if I was a brand, particularly a voxelized,
but even if I'm not voxelized, giving a voxelized version of it, I would pay an ungodly amount of money
to be the most, one of the rare pets and pet simulator acts because the desire ability to
own that. And then people wanting to buy it on the secondary market, like you're unlocked. There
is so brilliant in the sense of like, it's not, it is a marketing tactic to get to a sale. If you
are selling physical pudgy penguins, as an example, and a pudgy penguin is there's, you know, three pudgy
penguins, a more, a common one, a rare one, and a super rare one, like Epic or a, or a giant or
whatever, you know, my, my daughter's going for nowadays, I can't quite keep up. Um, or any of
the updates that you want to do club Roblox, be the next sponsored update. When club Roblox does
updates, there is a group of people standing around like us idiots waiting for a gas formant,
like waiting for the page to go live. My daughter sits there and waits for it to go live. She has no
incentive. She can get this thing at any time, but she wants to be there the second it goes live.
And then the thing comes out and she's like, Oh, it's a bed set. But then she'll be like, Oh,
it's this, like, you know, be that brand. And then that leads to them telling me go on Amazon
and buy this. Right. So I think that that's an interesting sales lead tactic you were saying.
Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I mean, I just, I want to bang my head against the wall because
I'm not seeing anyone do it. And it just feels like the natural evolution to me. And maybe,
you know, there's probably behind the scenes discussions, but I don't think you have to go
as big as Nike did and create your own world. You need to go in worlds where the consumers are
and start utilizing that. And again, they don't need to do it as like a revenue generator in,
in the world. They should potentially be paying to put their own, you know, pudgy penguin in the
world or doodle or whoever, but you're, that's how you think long-term, right? These are the people
that are going to be buying those NFTs. Maybe their parents would buy it for them right now if they
already have some understanding of the space, but you know, it kind of gives me a sense of who's
thinking short-term, who's thinking long-term and potentially who's not really thinking.
Um, but you just, it's, it just makes so much sense.
Yeah. Great point. I may thread or write a DJ article about this and just tag you in it. Cause
it's got my wheels spinning. Cause you're so right. You're so right. You're so right.
A pet simulator expat, if they could do it, like my kids would be, my kids literally buy
pet simulator expats and have me buy them on, uh, you know, forget the Roblox by like on Amazon,
like the amount of Roblox stuff that my daughter has now and my son for that matter, like the
various, like the new characters and all of it's, he has so many. So I just think that there is
way big of an opportunity where it's like my, you know, they'll ask me for a specific character in a
specific game, which sometimes you can't find. So imagine having that lore around what you're
doing. So amazing. Great point. I'll let you get to your call, but that was a, uh, I'm glad you,
I'm glad you jumped in, um, jumped in on that particular, um, point. I do want to let Outer Lumen
respond because Outer Lumen said she specifically wants to respond to this point. And then Joey
will go down to you. I have a call too. So I just want to say thank you guys again. Um,
as always for an awesome show. So I also have to jump to a call too. And what I was going to say
wasn't that important, but I just want to, I don't like to just like leave stages. I feel like it's
rude. So no, appreciate that, Joey. Have a great day. Thank you too, buddy. I'm sure I'll see you
tomorrow or Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. Love you guys. Have a great day.
Appreciate you. It is crazy to think about that. You, the people you talk to literally every day
are your, uh, you know, are your spaces people. It's like, you think about your friends that you
text with every day. I made a point, like I had a friend who passed away a couple of years ago.
And even though we didn't hang out like as much after we stopped going to the same gym,
we literally texted every single day. And I'm like, uh, someone, I part of my daily routine,
I was a daily active user of texting my friend and that has ended. Right. And so,
oh, uh, RIP jam, by the way, speaking of which pun, not intended RIP jam who definitely tried to hit
the heart and accidentally hit the laugh, which I've done a million times. The anxiety that goes
through my body when I'm trying to hit the heart and I hit the laugh when someone's saying something
sentimental is the worst, but, um, that said, I'll kick it over to outer lumen. I know she want to
respond specifically on the Roblox point. Hey, jam jam. Thanks for having me up. Um, I just want to quickly,
it's so funny how anti clubhouse what Joey just said is because you never want to announce you're
leaving a stage. Cause that's actually rude. Like don't interrupt what's happening. So it's
so interesting to see like the opposing view on that. Cause in clubhouse, like, yeah,
leave quietly. There's a reason for that. I feel the same. Cause I, someone else said it before I
didn't know. And I think maybe once I announced I was leaving and then like the same week as someone
actually brought up as, as proper etiquette, Hey, if you're leaving, just bounce. Yeah. I do a wave
is a wave appropriate. Like if I have to leave, I'll throw up like four or five waves in a row
and then I bounce. Is that, is that acceptable? Is that proper etiquette? Yeah. So with you on that
captain, but like I said, I'm from clubhouse, not, not fudding Joey, not fudding Joey, but I thought
funny that he brought that up as like, I don't want to be rude. And it's just reminded me of clubhouse
where like you would get totally blasted if you announced that you were leaving. So it just made me
laugh more than anything. Um, I wanted to respond directly to what NFT for two said just because,
and what you were talking about Steve, cause I have a kid who also, uh, not, he graduated from
Roblox at this point. Um, he'd like just turned 12 and got like a gaming PC and he's now playing
like, you know, whatever, but Roblox was a huge part of his life. And to some extent he still hangs
out there, but two things on what you said, I wanted to give an actual example in our space where
our kid was aware of NFTs and excited about NFTs from Roblox. And many of you may or may
not know this, but I thought it would be really interesting to bring it up exactly to respond
to what NFTs just said. So our kid is really aware of, of, of dying cat, neon cat, like Chris's
project, the, you all know, but the balloons and the pixelated, like everything. Yeah. So,
so Chris, the creator of neon cat, um, has been around like forever creating that cat. It's a huge
meme. It's super popular. And so Roblox has a ton of neon cats planted like everywhere. People,
you put them in all the time. You can create outfits around them. Like it's a thing. And so
what was hilarious is that I found out through my son that like, I, I showed him, I think I was on a
space or somehow he's like, Whoa, cause he saw my space and he's like, that's that, that's, that's,
that's neon cat. And I'm like, wait, you know what this is? Cause I only know it from the NFT side.
And he's like, Oh yeah. And he showed me a bunch of Roblox games where you could just see this cat pop up.
And I thought it was the coolest thing. Cause I'm like, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
That's like crazy brand recognition for my kid in Roblox. So I let him know that he can own this
stuff on chain. That was his gateway into finally being like, okay, I would like an ETH address and
I would like to collect some of Chris's stuff because that he valued the idea of being able to
collect it in the same way that my partner and I collect things on chain because he didn't realize
that he could do that. And so he was super excited when the balloon thing came out and yeah.
And I mean, it got to the point that I became like the coolest mom ever because I ended up talking to
Chris. And so he was just like super excited about it. And Chris sent my kid a couple of things in
the mail, which was amazing. So like, he's just like obsessed, but that is completely what
NFT mentioned in that, like the only reason, like my kid was not like, Oh pudgy penguin or whatever
other NFT that we all know, right? Because those are not there or at least not in a way that was
exciting to him. But the lore of Neon Cat absolutely is so prominent in that meme culture and in that
age demographic that that was his kind of gateway to being like, whoa, okay, this is really cool that
I can now collect this on chain. Tell me how this, this works because I would like that. And then
finally, I wanted to mention Pet Simulator X because our son was also super into that. Also buying
rare stuff. And then because of some server issues on their end, he got completely rugged and all of
his shit was just like gone. All of his rare stuff, everything to have this bank thing. And it just
completely was like just bad devs. Anyways, he was like crying all day. And so I realized that through
that experience, he was onboarded into Web3 pretty easily because he can handle anything after like
having basically his wallet drained. Like that is the equivalent of that, right? Like to have all of
your precious rares just gone in like a second and be devastated about it and living through the
feels of that. Yeah. Needless to say, he's never played that game ever again. But you know, that's
sorry for another time. But imagine though, to your point, if he could collect those things in a way
that it was not centralized, right? And that's kind of the thesis of what we're talking about. But yeah,
Roblox is huge for like, it's just so primed to, I think, go in that direction, just because of the
way that there is that currency involved. There is the idea of personalizing an avatar. I mentioned
before that the avatar goes into every game where they create that, like, you know, ability to have
your chosen kind of aesthetic in there. So it's, yeah, it's a really, really interesting thing.
But specifically, I wanted to bring up Young Cat because that blew my mind that my kid was telling
me about something that I only knew from Web3 that he knew about in popular culture only through Roblox,
which I thought was absolutely interesting. So I wanted to share it. Thanks for thanks,
Luke, for letting me go ahead of you. Yeah, and that's, um, I think that that's the exact sort of
like, you know, idea that you're, you know, that Andrea is bringing up to your point. And I think it's
a really good, like, you know, sort of extension of it, which is like, imagine if, again, pudgy penguins,
as an example, like, or sappy seals, or some sort of cute NFT, it's like, these are the ones that
have the most upside from being in a Roblox or a Pet Simulator X, because you have a potential
product market fit with people like, you know, your son, my, you know, my daughter, my son, it's
like, all of these are their potential product, potential customers. And they're sitting here
selling to NFT G gens, and, and, you know, banging their head against the walls are like,
oh, my God, these people don't care about our product. They're just kind of like, you know,
selling our stuff and waiting for it to go down in price. And it's like, all they need
to do is, you know, get into the mindshare if you are a cute NFT of, you know, kids, and
they will, again, I can tell you can't tell you how many sort of Roblox, Minecraft things
I bought online, because my kids play with them online, and they have an emotional attachment
to them, you know, point blank. And so I just think there is a big opportunity. And, you know,
the idea of like Roblox, I think it's just a really smart integration. So I love that. And
great add on. And I, I have that I've had similar experiences where we have paid for things through
Roblox, or my kids have worked and grinded to get things. And they have disappeared because of
glitches or other issues. And it's like, it's a very clear NFT use case where it solves a problem
where my children are losing things versus if they were on chain. So I totally agree with you.
Um, let's go over to loop loop. Thanks for your patience. As always, GM, sir.
Yo, GM. Happy Monday, everybody. What's? Yeah, I think it's weird how kids are ingratiated into
collecting things so early in life. Like when I was younger, it was like, you know, baseball cards,
football cards, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, Pokemon cards, like even, like even as a young kid playing Pokemon,
you're collecting Pokemon and out like throughout the game. Uh, and it just comes so naturally.
Like I, my, my younger cousin, uh, bought like $1,500 worth of Fortnite skins on his dad's credit
card. And his dad didn't even know, like it just like came, the bill came like a month later and all
of a sudden he was like, wait, what is this? Like Fortnite, like Epic games.com. Like, what is this?
And all of a sudden just had $1,500 worth of like quote unquote collectibles. Uh, but like,
it comes so easy to kids, which is crazy. Uh, and like, honestly, I think kids are like the,
the best customers for web three, uh, which is weird. Cause it's like, you know, a kid obviously
is not going to buy a hundred thousand dollar board ape, but I can see like where web three
kind of needs to dive into the less expensive areas. It's almost like, you know, when car companies
start, they start with like a super luxury car that is for really expensive. Uh, it's, it's really
expensive for this was like high value market. And then, uh, everyone loves the car and you get
these thousand true fans and then you slowly bleed down into like a lower and lower price points,
which I kind of see as like potentially a good, a good thing for, for NFTs to do. Um, but
well, not just real quick, not just that car companies and car insurance in general started
off as a thing for rich people, period cars, period. We're like this big rich person luxury
item, not just car companies, but you're right. Like even the Tesla model, it's insightful that
you're, you're aware of that. Cause I didn't know that. And we had, we, we had done some,
we were working with Tesla when I was at progressive and the, the, the people who were
like in charge of their, you know, people who are sort of in charge there, uh, not like Elon,
but like some higher ups came in and we're like, this is great, but like, it's so expensive.
Like what, why you're, you're not approachable. And they made that exact point. They're like,
this is pretty normal for not just cars in general, but like particularly cars that are pushing
the boundaries on things is you need to go to a luxury model first for a cost perspective.
And then you get fans who are really interested and then you create almost to your, like to
use the term here, almost like some FOMO hype cycles. And then you end up selling it. So
anyway, I just want to say like, it's interesting. You brought that point up. Cause that's one
I hadn't thought about in a while.
Yeah. And the, what, what I think is so interesting that I actually, I just realized this is super
applicable to NFTs. Um, and I think every founder should kind of be thinking about this if
they're, if they're thinking about trying to start in kind of the luxury market and then dip
their way down, which I, you know, uh, uh, uh, penguins are trying to do. Uh, you, you,
you, you know, have your first model has tons of features, which in NFTs we call utility,
all of these different things that you can have everything under the sun. Uh, you have like seat
coolers, seat heaters, backseat coolers, everything, uh, weird trailer hitches that nobody needs.
And then you have all this data on what people want after they buy your car and they never
use, you know, this feature or this feature, this feature, they don't care that the seats
are made of like fake diamond alligator skin or whatever it is. And then you slowly start
taking those parts away, uh, into the lower models. And I think like as NFTs, like if you
look at board eggs, for example, uh, what is, what is the utility that everybody loves?
I think the most, the best utility is the networking aspect, uh, or like when you, when you hop into
the, the board apes, uh, uh, uh, discord, you're with some of the best entrepreneurs and, you know,
most famous people in the world, uh, or biggest art collectors, whatever it is. And then, so you take
kind of those core aspects and you keep those, but then you take away everything frivolous, uh,
which is, is like kind of what pudgy penguins is doing a little bit. Uh, and like, you know,
you see, you see little pudgies, um, or some of these like derivative, uh, not derivative,
but like secondary collections have, you know, kind of the same, just a little bit less, but I don't
think anybody's done this like really skillfully. Um, and then you also see a lot of companies,
they just start with the very cheap NFTs. And I think that's probably a bad business model because
then you're just kind of seen as like the Walmart of NFTs, which is kind of tough. Uh, you can't
really ever change that. Um, and like, you know, even Fortnite has golden skins that are,
you know, worth tons of money. Um, so yeah, like, I think it's kind of a cool model to, to follow.
So I have to ask, and cause in case I missed it, have you written a thread on this or we sort of
like, like, it's like when a comedian has their workroom that they do, where they like start by
offering, like kind of talking to like one audience, they're like, all right, that didn't
quite work. Cause that's a really good point. And I, I'm, I feel like you've been like, you know,
wrecking it on the threads lately. And I didn't know if this is something you have actually talked
about yet, or if this is like a new thought that you're kind of like just working through
in spaces as we go, it's like sort of the comedian workroom. I'm just curious which it is.
Yeah. I've not written a thread about this. Uh, so maybe, maybe this is my next one. Uh,
yeah, honestly, uh, like started to, was going to talk about something completely different.
And then I was like, Oh, this is actually interesting. And just, just kind of pulled that. So yeah,
maybe I'll, maybe I'll write a thread about this. Sorry. I, I, I double tapped. So I almost
didn't come off mute. No, it feels like a good thread or, you know, again, this will always be
my, my shameless plug. Uh, it's not like the most fruitful thing in the world, but if you ever want
to write a DJ network article about it, let us know. Um, cause like stuff like this is super
interesting. And I think like, this is the type of content I like to get excited and read. It's why I
love your thread so much is I think it's like thoughtful kind of comparing current business examples
seeing what we can learn from those and then extrapolating those out into like the world
as we see it today. I think that that's really interesting because you know, it's that whole
history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. So, um, it's a great one. I love it. Um, I look
forward to reading that thread on it because I totally, absolutely 1000% will. Um, so dig what
you, uh, dig what you came up with there. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to, uh, love, love writing
articles. I think I'm going to write one for NFT evening, uh, as well. Uh, they have like a
newsletter. Um, but yeah, like, so I, I've, I've said this like kind of from the beginning, but I
don't think many people know this, like the, the reason that I'm doing that I, I try to dive so
deeply into different NFT topics and kind of like NFT meta topics and, uh, comparisons to other,
other, uh, you know, businesses. So like, I'm a founder at heart and I'm, I'm, I'm an entrepreneur
at heart. And what I'm trying to do is like be super transparent. Like everything that I'm digging
into and learning, uh, as a founder, like everything that I have to do, because honestly,
like this, this stuff wouldn't be interesting enough to me if I didn't have to be doing these
things. Uh, like if I didn't have to dive in. So like, I, I need to be a subject matter expert.
So what I'm doing is like trying to dig down rabbit holes that I think are interesting and
important for, for other founders to do, um, because I'm doing them myself and then trying to share
that. Cause I think what, what happens is you get, you know, these, these people who are
successful and they're, they're, you know, these founders that have billion, billion dollar companies
and then they make, they give you this advice. That's terrible. Like, honestly, if you, if you
think about all the advice that a lot of these founders give, like, it's like, they forgot what
happened throughout the trenches. Like, like when they were really doing it, they just forgot. And I
think that's so, so I was like, you know what? I really would love to kind of document my,
my entire journey from the start. Uh, so yeah, hopefully, uh, people, people enjoy that. Uh,
but yeah, it's like, I think it's so funny. It's like, sometimes people are like, oh yeah,
you just have to, uh, get lucky. And you're like, really, is that, is that the only thing that you
bring from like 20 years of being a billionaire or a founder of like, I don't know, Apple? Like,
like, I honestly think sometimes it's just like, they forget. Uh, so I'm trying to,
try to do a little bit more of an active approach. Yeah. Your journey is very similar
to my journey in how I, um, how I approach things is like, I, I am an enthusiast at heart
and also like an entrepreneur. I didn't realize, I mean, I've always had entrepreneurial tendencies,
but it was never encouraged in the way I was raised and grew up, which is, you know, another
discussion altogether. And it's not like a knock on my parents or anything. It's just not
the way they knew the world to be. And I was like, oh, my parents are right. And I'm wrong.
But like, with that said, like, you know, your, your point about like, yeah, like documenting
like your experience, you go along. It's one of the reasons why some people get, some people
like check in on me when, and I know, like, I try to be acutely aware of like how my, how
I'm doing from a, you know, mental and physical health perspective. Um, but like, you know, when
I tell people like, yeah, I worked 25 hours this weekend and like Friday I shut my computer
at like, I don't know, like 845 or something. And I was up at like 5am. It's like, and people are
like, oh my God, like, are you okay? And you need to do this for yourself. I'm like, no, no, no. I know
I need to do space and I know I need to be thinking about how I'm approaching things. But like, at the
same time, what I'm trying to let people know is I don't want to get lost in the shuffle, what my
process is, because I don't want to be one of those people who like, like I, Tim Ferriss is a great
example where I love Tim Ferriss. Um, Tim Ferriss taught, I've heard Tim Ferriss talk about like
how he would have changed what he did. And I believe he's smart enough to make these assessments.
But when I hear him talking about like changing for more balance and whatever, when he talked
about his nutrition company, all these different things, it's like, well, that's great. But like,
you wouldn't have been successful if you didn't work yourself to the bone to begin with,
because that's part of what it took. And people like Gary Vaynerchuk are very transparent about
that. They're like, yeah, you're going like, like my background on my phone. There's a reason why it's a
Gary Vaynerchuk quote that says work. That's how you get it. And it's just, it's just how it is,
you know? So like, I try to be transparent along the way with process like that. And again, people
will like check in on me and be like, are you okay? It's like, no, I'm good. I'm just like making
sure that people don't know that, like, don't think like this was all an accident or don't like,
I don't want to forget personally when I'm reading back on those tweets. That's right.
I worked, I had a light week, uh, work week this weekend. And this weekend, I think I worked,
I don't know, like 12 plus hours between the two days or something. So I don't know,
something like that, but it's like, it was a late work weekend, but that's part of being
an entrepreneur. And I don't want to forget it. I don't think it's going to be forever,
but when people come up and they're telling me about it, I don't want to be like, make sure
you take time to do this. And it's like, people need to do what's important for them. And right now
I'm acutely aware of the balance I need in various places. I have my non-negotiables and I work
from there. And so very similar speaking, like, I think it's important to document the journey and also be
honest about it because I do think people forget what it's like. And I see people coming up who
are content creators and I'll explain to them kind of what I did and how I did it and be like,
it's up to you if you want to do it the same way I did. But here's what I had to do. I went on every
single space. Before Coffee with Captain existed, I was on every single space you could find. And I
would go up the stage. I would wait my turn. I would make a point. I would get down. I would pick up
like 20 followers when I was on that space. And then I would go to the next one because I was trying
to build myself up as somebody who can create content in the space. There was a time when
DJ Network didn't have writers that were like wanting to write articles for us even when we
were paying. So I wrote like, I think seven articles over the course of like, like one day
where I just blocked the day and wrote seven evergreen articles that we could post at various
times. Like that stuff sucks sometimes or it's hard, but like that's part of what it is. And I think
documenting like what that is when I see people who are trying to like, like I hear people who are
like, oh, like your Twitter space, it seems to have a lot of people and it does really well. It's
like, well, number one, I've gotten better as a host. I sucked as a host when I first started,
even though I've always hosted and emceed things. Like I wasn't good at hosting a social audio space.
You learn the nuances. Number two, yeah, we haven't missed a weekday between Captain and I
in, okay, like what is it? A year and a half now? 18 months? Zero weekdays missed since December 3rd,
2021. So like, yeah, like it sucks, but it takes consistency. And guess what?
Space's algorithms suck right now. So I have to deal with the fact that instead of seeing
1,000 to 2,000, 1,500 people a day in a space, I'm seeing 600, 700, 800, but the quality matters.
And I have that vision back to Gary Vaynerchuk when he was on a wine library TV and he's like
10 views, 15 views, 30 views. He has this like time-lapse on it. And I just always let loop
back to that for personal inspiration or remember, this is the journey I'm on. This is what I'm doing.
But to your point, like, I think a lot of founders forget what the real advice, the real things
they're looking at are like what it really takes to get here. And, um, you know, I just try to pay
attention to that. So I have a very similar approach to you and I appreciate you saying that. And it,
you know, again, obviously sparked some creativity in my mind there.
Did you say loop back to that?
I know. As soon as I said it, I'm like, look what I just said. How about that?
Um, what a line there. Um, but no, totally. So like, yeah, so I appreciate your approach because
mine is very similar and it's just a matter of being very honest about what's going on.
And, and some people don't like to hear it or they're like, oh my God, check on this,
whatever. Um, so anyway, that I, I'm, I'm, I'm in agreeance with you in, in documenting
the process and what it's like so that people understand. And like anybody who's listened
to this space or followed me, it's like, if the book does well, or I, I'm not saying I
will, maybe I'll be successful. Maybe I won't. Like, I don't, I don't know what that looks
like. Right. Like my wife was trying to like, talk me back yesterday when I was like, she's
like, you don't seem impressed by the things you do. I'm like, well, I'm not like, I just,
I'm not like being humble or humility. Like if anybody, I'd be honest with my wife. I'm
like, I'm not, she's like, but you've like never taken piano lessons. You can play piano
songs. I'm like, yeah, but a piano player is better than me. She's like, right. But
like the average person I'm like, then she's like, but you spoken at like Harvard, like
four times and you wrote this article and you're writing a book and you founded a network and
you're working with Starbucks. I'm like, I guess, but I just don't see it as, so like, I
don't know how I define success or when I'll potentially see whatever that unachievable thing
is. But if I do, I just want to know, like, it wasn't an accident and that's not me being
like, Hey, I'm cocky or whatever. It's me saying like, I'm working every day. I'm showing up
for three hours every morning. So, um, anyway, I know Art of Lumen want to talk specifically
about a thread. So I want to kick it over to Art of Lumen and then we'll go to gym and then
probably finish out here.
Hey, thanks Steve. Yeah. Actually, I just wanted to encourage Luke to like really do some deep,
deep diving for threads just because I definitely had a really good laugh at a recent thread that
you had where you posted a PFP. I think, I don't remember exactly the context, but it
was around this idea of like best start and attempt at like not looking at art objectively
or rather like not doing it subjectively. And, uh, it was just funny to me because it
was, I think like the idea was like, wow, this is like such cool traits, but yet like it
was exactly something that Chris Wall drew for a pixel vault, like a long time ago, like
literally two traits paired together that are like quite evident in that collection. So, and
I'm like not calling out it in a bad way. Cause I think I actually love your threads, but
I just feel like maybe just, yeah, definitely, definitely deep dive, even maybe deeper than,
than you deep dive. Cause I think at least for me, I would definitely appreciate that even
more. Um, yeah, just because I, I value that kind of thing. And so it's to your point about
how, like, it's, I think very easy to not do those kinds of diligent deep dives and then
put things out as like factual information and people will just pile on top of that.
Um, and that's something that actually quite bugs me when you're, when, you know, you are
a keeper of knowledge, whether it's in, you know, about founders or about traits or about
whatever it is. And you see that kind of stuff and you're like, Oh, okay, I have to go open
C now and pull this damn trait and respond to this so that you know that this isn't actually
that innovative. Not that it's a bad thing. I love that it's in there. I think it's amazing.
Those are like some great combos of traits, but that's kind of just something that I think
would be super awesome to see. So yeah, I definitely, you know, didn't want to like call
you out on it in a bad way, but just in like an encouraging way, if that makes sense. And
I'm always around if you're doing stuff on traits to respond to you, like by all means
reach out. If you're not sure, I'm happy to support you in a way where you're posting
information that's like full on based on, on data, like so happy to do it so that stuff
like that doesn't happen.
I am a one who actually it's funny. Like I've gone from personally, I used to like,
and it wasn't meant to be hyperbole. It was in my knowledge scope where I would say things
like, Oh, like this has never been done before. And, uh, I've been more like saying things
like to my knowledge or when I feel pretty confident being like at scale, because I found
that like, there's been times when I've like thought something never been done before.
And like, inevitably I will have the person in my mentions who will tell me when it has
been done before. And it's fair. They're correct. They're not wrong. But then I'm sitting here
like, okay, like, let's just go with at scale then. Because like, it's like when you could
do certain things like that have never been done before, people will be like, Oh, well,
it's been done before. You guys just copying. It's like when people talk about like certain
phone manufacturers or other manufacturers and they're like, Oh, they've never done before.
I'm like, let's just say at scale. Because like, I've had those things where I like,
whether it's at scale or that I've seen, um, you know, it's like, it's like the way certain
things are done. I'm like the scale in which you need to execute something can certainly
affect the outcome of it. So it's like, you know, like, it's like when the mute, when
mutants came out, had something like that happened before? Like, sure. I mean, burning
mechanics existed. One-to-one trait matches probably existed. I don't have like the full
back knowledge, but the scale in which they did it was, was larger than anybody else and more
under the microscope than anything else. And I think stuff like that's something I always try
to pay attention to, but it's weird. I've, I've stopped speaking in absolutes. Cause I
have had people who have come to me who have said things at like, you know, they'll, they'll
basically bring up something from like, you know, literally 2020 before I was in, you know,
kicking around the NFT streets and there'll be like, this happened here. Or like, so I think
that those things are, um, always interesting to kind of go over, but, um, let's throw over
to jam and then we will probably wrap here so I can get to my meetings for the day. Jam, GM.
Um, GM, uh, so unfortunately I thought I had my hand raised earlier and no one was calling
on me because I didn't have my hand raised. So what I have to say is not relevant. It was
going to be a little bit more about, uh, how founders are building out the digital world.
And I was going to make a parallel to Warcraft and Starcraft about how one building or access
point gives you, uh, gives your community or you, you know, the, uh, the village that you're
trying to build, uh, access to other things. And it keeps growing. I thought it was a great
analogy, but here we are not anywhere near at that point of the conversation. So, um,
maybe, maybe tomorrow's spaces, we'll talk about that. Um, but, uh, I did want to draw
everybody's attention to a lunar society, uh, centric spaces that drew Barman is holding
at noon today. Uh, unfortunately it does compete with the, um, afternoon lunch break for DJ network.
So I apologize for that, but I'm going to ask all the moon birds to show, show up. I'm going
to be talking about, uh, my lunar society proposal for co-creation contracts. Uh, so yeah, I've
really, this is a call to action. I'm, I'm, I really am being quite direct here. I'd love
for everybody to show up, hear about it and then vote. And obviously I want you to vote
in the affirmative. So I'm going to tell you why you should do that. Um, and yeah, that's
it. Um, thanks Steve for giving me, uh, just a little bit of time to talk about that.
Yeah, for sure. Good luck with that. And look, I mean, things happen. I sometimes,
you know, all sometimes end up on competing spaces to DJ network. So I've definitely been
there before where I've, uh, you know, done, been doing a spaces at 4 PM during, you know,
mint condition or, or, uh, uh, alpha afternoons, or, you know, I've gone on things that are new
and there are only so many hours in the day. So totally cool. Uh, good luck with that. I already
voted with my, uh, tiny little vote. I don't have the, uh, the most robust voting, uh,
power in, um, in, in the lunar society, but, uh, did vote in favor for you. So hopefully
we, uh, we can help get you over the goal line and, uh, good luck with that. I appreciate.
And I also appreciate that you care enough to campaign, um, you know, versus some of the
other things, which I think maybe, you know, not, not saying it's, it's that, that it's
bad that any, any proposal is bad, but, um, you care enough that you want to make sure
that it passes because you've, you've put in for it. So appreciate the perspective there
and, uh, wish you the best of luck with the, on that. Um,
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for voting in the, yeah, no, thanks for voting the affirmative
and, um, yeah. Uh, shit. I was going to say something else. It doesn't matter, but thank
you so much. Uh, and listen, it's just a one-off space. So yes, go to, go to the afternoon
lunch break always, but, uh, I'd love to see you at my space today at noon.
It's awesome. Yep. And you can always listen back on replays as long as it's recorded too
for both of those. So if you feel like you're making an impossible decision, you're trying
to plan out your day of, uh, degen talk radio, so to speak this, uh, you know, you can, you
can figure out both of those, uh, you know, there's an opportunity of attention to do both.
Um, all that said, uh, I am going to go ahead and wrap it right there. Thanks to everybody
who came by this morning. Awesome morning talking through a variety of topics. So many ideas
and things that I've been writing down that I want to write articles and threads on now
and actually might have a chance to start writing some degen network articles here pretty
soon. Cause I'm getting close to being done with at least the next draft of this book and
getting it going. So, uh, um, hopefully that'll give me the opportunity to write more. Cause
I want to write more about degen. I, I, it's been, it's been a while since I've written a
real thought provoking article, which is my favorite type of article versus a sup ducks are going
to the moon article, which, uh, um, at the time, like the article may have been accurate,
but in the long run did not play out. Um, thanks everyone for stopping by this morning.
Always good chatting. Um, we will be back up bright and early 8 AM tomorrow.
morning. Have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day, everybody.
This episode is brought to you by degen network, the only community-based web three media network
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