Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
ETH Denver 2025 Recap with Hats Protocol, Unlock, & Decent DAO
Recorded: March 28, 2025 Duration: 1:33:47Space Recording
Short Summary
At East Denver, industry leaders discussed the maturation of the crypto space, emphasizing partnerships, project launches, and the importance of community engagement. The event showcased a growing trend towards responsible innovation and collaboration, highlighting the need for ethical practices in the evolving blockchain ecosystem.
Full Transcription
Hey, everyone. Welcome to this really great stream, I hope, for everyone. We're going to recap today with all of you East Denver and our experiences that we had at the conference.
Wonder Woman code from, well, my DAO.
No, just kidding.
From Unlock Protocol DAO.
It's really great to have you with us
so we get some more voices.
Also coming into the live room just now,
Rachel on chain.
Hey, can you hear us?
Rachel, you here?
I think Rachel is still figuring out audio.
Let her figure out audio.
That's fine.
We have time for that.
So I wanted to move first into introductions.
So everyone knows everyone.
Before you guys actually share your experiences, felt like more intimate approach to all of this.
So Aaron, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself, what you're doing at DecentDAO and what brought you to East Denver this year?
Yeah, absolutely. I am actually relatively new to DecentDAO. I just joined about three weeks ago.
And my first introduction to the team was actually at East Denver. That's part of what brought me to the conference.
Obviously, I was going to the conference because it's an amazing event every year.
I love it.
It's a great way to connect with people, sort of refresh your attitudes.
But I'm the head of marketing at Decent.
We're building still so far the only end-to-end operations platform for Web3.org. So we make it easy to decentralize, run a DAO,
launch a token, manage your community, run streams,
and organize your structures.
And so, yeah, I've been sort of getting onboarded
in the last three weeks and drinking from the fire hose
and having a great time.
But yeah, it's great to be here.
Thanks for the invite. MARIUSZ GAS for the invite. That's great you guys made it, because thanks to HATS protocol, which Nick is from,
we all were brought together at the HATS and Friends event, right? This is what kind of
brought us together and also inspired doing this stream. So giving it off to Angela next,
Angela next and after that maybe Nick you guys want to introduce yourselves
and after that, maybe Nick, you guys want to introduce yourselves?
yeah I am Angela Steffens Wonder Woman code in all the places and I you know
was on the unlock core team for a while and then moved into working in the Dow
which has been a really fun experience to work with Stella to help with decentralization and really be at the foundation of us seeing a
DAO through. And it's been a really fun process. ETH Denver was amazing. I met so many really great people. We were, I was also there with my co-founder of Mold Technology,
introducing, you know, the new platform that we're building to people.
And that was really great too.
Eat Denver had such a great vibe this year.
Like, it was wonderful.
Yeah, no, that's great to hear.
Okay, Nick, go next.
Roll.
Hey, everyone.
My name is Nick Naragi.
I'm one of the co-founders of HATS Protocol.
HATS is the first protocol for coordinating work on chain,
and we help to articulate specific roles with responsibilities
and authorities connected to various smart contracts
or various web2 permissions controlled by token holders or foundations in a decentralized way
super excited to be partnered with everyone here to create the future of the internet and
and the future of crypto.
the future of crypto really excited to sort of be building this movement together
I'm really excited to sort of be building this movement together.
That's about right, isn't it?
The movement.
Let's try and keep it alive.
Sounds good.
Rachel, you joined.
What's up?
We can't hear you.
No, we can't hear you.
You don't have to go out though I think
if you click to the little arrow
next to your microphone button
I think this is how you get it
all that microphone but no sound
yeah
Moondog has sound so let's go
awesome
yeah great to see everybody
my name is Parker
I'm the co-founder and CEO of Decent Labs.
We've been building on Ethereum for the last eight years.
First as an agency where we worked on dozens of projects in the space during the ICO bubble,
the crypto winner, the DeFi summer, the second crypto winner, the great thaw.
The DeFi summer, the second crypto winner, the great thaw.
And now I'm hoping that this age of the DAOs and the regenerates is truly upon us.
And really excited lately to see so many projects with meaningful social and or environmental
impacts being made as a result of leveraging this technology and taking a more holistic
taking a more holistic view of organizations. Really excited about DAOs as a potential vehicle
view of organizations.
to take the best parts of democratic systems like governments and hyper-effective action systems
like corporations and perhaps combine them into something new and exciting. And yeah,
I also feel a lot of love for everybody on this call. They're all people that have inspired me or helped me in some way.
And older new friends that I really enjoy talking to and spending time with.
So I'm excited to be here today.
And I guess we're recapping on September.
I can't wait to get down on that too because I have opinions on things.
So good to see everybody.
Someone is eager here.
Rachel, are you with us now
can you hear me yay we can hear you introduce yourselves
i'm sorry what'd you say
i said introduce yourselves to the few people on the internet who don't know you
awesome hello everybody my name is rachel on. I do business development at Decent Labs.
I work here with Parker and Aaron and yeah,
had a chance to connect with many folks on the Unlocked team.
I actually did a podcast with Jillian and Chris for OnChain Media.
I've connected with Will. Shout out to Will who's listening.
You're watching right now. Stella, Angela,
every single person I've met
on the Unlocked team has just blown me away.
It's been a breath of fresh air
and I'm so excited to be here today.
Also, Nick, thank you for hosting
the Hats Protocol event during ETH Denver
where we all got to connect.
It was super fun.
Everyone just hanging outside.
Even after the venue closed, I heard,
everyone just continued to hang out
because the vibes are so high.
And yeah, that was kind of the gist of the experience for me. And yeah, excited to be here.
And maybe this is actually the first and best thing to start with, right? So Heads Protocol,
I remember reaching actually out to David in December and saying, hey, should we do something
for East Denver together? I don't know what, but maybe we should do something.
Because it always feels like we talk about, you know, connecting the Internet, right?
This is what we always talk about.
But what about connecting the people and the projects that try to exactly do that?
And so, you know, someone in January was like, yeah, you know what?
We thought about this.
We're going to do this. You want to chip in? You know, someone in January was like, yeah, you know what? We thought about this. We're going to do this.
You want to chip in?
You know, so that was great.
Can you tell us, like, how this actually went down behind the scenes?
Yeah, we love bringing people together.
And Dave is actually, that's one of his greatest strengths is he wrote this book called Impact
Networks, and he's got 12 years of what he calls network weaving.
So I highly recommend the book.
It's got basically his whole playbook of how to facilitate in-person events
and build the connection points between a network,
kind of what to expect in a decentralized network format.
And he's taught me so much about what's necessary to make that a
success. So that was the spirit of the way that we've organized our DAO and our community. And
then this event as a microcosm of that practice of being together, creating a sense of belonging,
creating a sense of interconnectedness. And then it's just about finding great people, great projects,
people who have big hearts, big ambitions, and bringing them together.
And then the magic happens almost automatically after that
if you have the right people in the room.
So I'm super glad that everyone here could co-create that magic together.
Thank you, Nick.
Yeah, I know everyone here,
I think, I don't know if you guys answered,
but I think everyone felt the same.
The event was really one of my personal highlights.
Met the coolest people over there.
I'm not as outspoken as a German citizen like Rachel is,
but I really, really appreciate that I got to meet all of you
and connect with
you in real life. So anyone wants to share maybe some more details about their personal highlights?
Maybe it's totally fine also to mention some other highlights from East Denver that are not
directly connected to the Hats and Friends event, even though we all know that was the starstruck event who wants to go first um i i i love that event it was so
great i mean the the energy being so great that when the venue shut down everybody was still just
chilling um in in in the outside area having conversations and continuing to talk really deeply about
a bunch of different topics that night, which was really great.
Made some connections with people I had, you know, known online for quite some time that
never met in person and got an opportunity to meet some new people.
to meet some new people. There were like so many other groups that are, you know, interconnected
with everyone here. That impact network is definitely working. There was Raid Guild,
there was Green Pill, there was a whole bunch of other people there that are, you know, doing some of the other
really impactful things in the space. And it was, it was just the right vibe to have all the
conversations. And actually so many of those conversations turned out to be even deeper
things that happened after the event, which that's the magic for me when those things happen,
right? Like it,
when it snowballs, when it snowballs into the next thing and the next thing.
So that was really fun because like I met the guys from Green Pill and now we're working on
an AI agent for Unlock together and, and we're like, you know, working on all kinds of initiatives that actually came from meeting people there.
And it's like that that's the things I love to see happen.
Yeah, those are great examples.
Anyone else wants to share their highlights before I get to the part why everyone is actually watching this live stream?
The ugly part.
Yeah, I mean, I'd love to talk a little bit about the HAT event and as like a microcosm of like the space in general. So the HAT event was really interesting because, well, let's start outward,
right? Like I think Eat Denver, our industry industry and just the individual people i know are all maturing and
sort of like growing up and whether by choice or by force and i think some are very like reluctant
to that i'm very excited about crypto kind of growing up because i think we're in this place
where like you know the counterculture movement
that was bitcoin many many years ago was sort of you know um you know composting and at that point
to me it's like there's no there's no reason not to progress and and you know riding this like
roller coaster over the years of like every time our space grows to this point
of screening, reaching escape velocity,
there's the scammers and the pump and dumps
and the greed and this stuff that just seeps in
and ruins the party for everyone.
And I, for one, am sick of that
and just don't want it anymore.
And what was really cool is how he tender as a conference and as a social
hub and a very important part in ethereum's culture and of you know the the culture of what
we call web 3 now um has matured and changed and some in some ways you know good or bad not sure
but but it's different and change is a lot for people to handle and what was cool about the
hats event was like i had people there that i consider friends that were sort of all operating
on these different levels of that of that transition i had i have friends there who are
like strongly resisting uh this you know maturation or like evolution of crypto into an industry
right as it has become one and I had friends
there who are uh on the totally other end that are like facilitating that evolution um you know
so it was really cool to be like jumping from conversation to conversation for people that are
like you know really committed and fighting for the grassroots of crypto and really committed in fighting for the grassroots of crypto and really committed in fighting to expand our industry and make it something that's safer and more stable, but maybe isn't as fun or charming as it once was.
So it's a bittersweet change, and I think the HATS event was a very personal microcosm of that change for me that was really special to be a part of.
Honestly, kind of piggybacking off of that from a slightly different angle, I saw a lot of...
Okay, so I live in Denver, and I saw my city change for this event, right?
And I took a lot of Ubers that week, and I met with a lot of friends, and I met a lot of strangers as I was going out and walking the streets. And a lot of the recurring feedback I heard was that people were kind of
impressed by that maturation of the industry. They didn't realize, I had one Uber driver tell
me, he's like, man, I didn't realize crypto was more than just XRP, which killed me. I cackled
and he was like, what did I say? And because a lot of the messaging out there is, right, buy this token, invest in this.
Should I invest in crypto for a lot of people who aren't, you know, super involved in the industry?
And he was like, I've, you know, I've given several rides to some really intelligent people who are telling me all of these things that they're working on.
And it all sounds so interesting. Right.
And so it was really encouraging from that perspective, sort of to see the outsiders notice the maturation of the industry and say, hey, there's so much more depth here than I was aware of.
And like, how do I start looking into this? How do I start getting involved?
And so, yeah, Parker, what you were saying just kind of resonated with me and called that memory back.
But yeah, I think it's a net positive as well.
Absolutely. And just to share some of my thoughts, I would say that the energy was electric at
East Denver.
But another thing that I noticed is that decentralization is starting to happen in the community.
I don't know if you guys picked up on that, but there were more side events than ever
this year.
And I think that people are really starting to find their needs and that's okay.
Right?
Like we're all into like Dell tooling and governance and like,
um, you know, ownership. And I think that that's okay.
Like everyone's starting to like find their, uh, their, their home,
if you will. Right. And, uh,
the side events were just as many more than ever this year.
So, uh, that was just one observation I had.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. I observed us that as well like even in you know in advance to east
denver looking at crypto nomads at like all of these pages that just you know list all of the
events and i was like oh wow this is you know this is becoming huge but at the same time i think for
like if i would have to do a recommendation to other communities, I would say like let's always do something that heads protocol did this time.
Right. I think that was a very, very clever move because it brings aligned projects together.
So it's more fun for us because we can also, you know, cross pollinate.
But at the same time, it also offers a little bit
of a better experience to visitors because visitors who are interested in unlock might feel interested
and hats might feel interested in decent right and and lma and and tally so uh bringing these
bind them together makes it easier for the visitor. Because for visitors, it can turn a little bit into a nightmare
having to put like, you know, 20 different events per day on their calendar.
That's kind of a nightmare to do to them.
So I thought it was a super smart move.
And like I would, I know UnlockDAO.
So when I say I, I actually mean UnlockDAO would always want to do this again, right?
Because it just makes sense.
And it preserves a little bit the energies of visitors
because I don't know how you felt after the conference,
but it took me to a week.
And I finished my report to the stakeholders
and then I crashed.
Like so bad, I haven't been crashing in years like this.
Right.
So yeah, that's it.
Well, Stella, I had the same.
Yeah, it took me a week to put together my gigantic notion doc.
It's, you know, running down everything.
It's a work of art.
But there's lots of emojis.
But hey, and also let's not forget Carrot Castle.
So like this is what's so cool
to me, right? So like yeah, ETH Denver this year was like the Super Bowl. That's what
I always tell our teams. Like this is a Super Bowl of appearing. And it was super commercial
and we got rid of hundreds and hundreds of hats and hoodies and we should have gotten
thousands. I had no idea what to expect. And then, you know, all of a sudden like I wake
up one morning, and
I drive like 25 minutes away from the conference to a house. And there's like eight people
in the room that Stella and I are speaking with. And like, this is the grassroots emergent
fringe of crypto where there are people who are like, really sort of like, building or
even just like philosophizing around like, what is this supposed to be? And like, and what is the, again, like,
what is the improvement as like a society
and as a social like network that we are still seeking out?
And so, you know, that's what was cool to me.
It's like that fringe in open source and crypto,
like that will always be there
if you like look for it and find it and so
i almost felt like like stella like that day right like with carrot castle being in this like super
tiny little like grassroots group of people who are in it for the love and then we were in hats
which is sort of like bridging this gap and then i like go to the conference and it's like bright
lights and action and i'm on stage and there's there's all this stuff going on and it's all there.
You just have to look for it.
So that made me really happy.
I felt like I got a really complete experience that week.
Honestly, it reminds me of South by Southwest or Art Basel or something like that.
And like the Grand Resquina things where you have have this major event but that wasn't really the point yeah this event for me was really different because like usually
i am you know tied to a booth and um you know very much like have a very strict plan i follow
um you know when i was doing developer relations on the core team of unlock, you know, there's,
there's the, the hackers I've got to, you know, mentor and, and everything else at these events.
So this time I got to just float around and have really meaningful conversations with people.
That was a really just amazing experience for me. Um, and I too have that like ginormous list
of follow-up. In fact fact there are still people on my calendar
this coming week following up from from ETH Denver because like it was such a deep list
and and I can't believe actually how much activity was spawned from just this one event. Like I always get a significant amount of activity spawned from
these events. But it seemed like this year that was, that was like 10x what I've seen
what I've seen at any other event, any other, you know, type in years past. And I think,
you know, some of it has to do with some hype stuff. But actually, I think what,
you know, a few others touched on earlier about maturity in the space is really the reason.
Like we're finally getting to this point where we can actually take it a little bit more
seriously.
We're figuring out some of those really important questions about how do we work together in
these really unique organizations and how that can be a real thing and not just
an experiment anymore. How we can actually produce value for the world through these,
how we can, you know, replace broken systems with DAOs that are doing really meaningful things, whether it be fostering open source projects, or doing
community impact projects, or even replacing systems that through typical corporate governance
are really not well served. And I think that that is like a theme I kept hearing over and over again, like regular
corporate governance structures don't necessarily serve certain types of organizations well.
And, you know, we had been so limited in the way that we were thinking about organizations
that we, it was, it was like such a binary thing, like nonprofit or for-profit, what are you?
Like one or the other, like that's, that's the choices you have. And then maybe you have some
sort of breakdown in, in, you know, share structure. But aside from that, that's, that's
like not a lot of, a lot of inventive structure.
So it seems like the experimentation of DAOs in general
have just brought up all these new different types
of ways to organize people that become so much more flexible
for the organization itself and allow it to grow
and mutate as it matures in a way that I've, you know, haven't
quite witnessed. And I've done startups before, you know, taking them from tiny to big. So it's,
you know, it's really amazing to see because also the level of coordination it takes to,
to, you know, coordinate hundreds and sometimes thousands and hundreds of thousands of
people around the globe is, is, is immense,
but like we're actually doing it and that's so cool.
And there's Parker.
Oh God.
Yeah.
One of my notes and notions said to do my hair and stand up straight.
By the end of the week, I was a grease ball.
It's so tough.
It's so hard to get through the week.
It's like a marathon.
Oh, there's the Hats event.
Yay. We had so much fun
rachel you want to just walk us through these events real quick and like yeah
if you want to if you want to go from the top i can kind of i can uh give some narration here so
yeah we have this amazing video uh with parker. So this was actually at our booth at ETH Denver.
Parker loves this video, you guys.
So yeah, this is our video we got recapping ETH Denver.
You guys can check it out on the VsynthDAO Twitter.
And if you scroll down.
All right, let me quickly,
I can actually share here in the thread.
So let me share the link with the guys out there.
Okay. Yes. And yes and then yeah that was
at one of our airbnbs all the team having lunch together we actually had a team off site where
we met and talked about our goals as a team and that was really awesome and uh yeah we also spent
a very long time organizing all of our hoodies um i actually have a video you scrolled out i think
it's on this bread uh where it showed the boxes of hoodies
we had to go through for this and the hats there.
Oh, that was Pizza Castle.
Yeah, Pizza Castle.
Pizza Castle was awesome.
It's where I met all of you guys.
Shout out to Humpty,
to Snacks, to everyone that was a part of
putting that event together. One of my
favorite events, Snacks and I had a call
a couple years ago and we were like, wouldn't it be awesome if we had an event um at the sports castle where everyone's
like super nostalgic uh from the old eat denver days and yeah we ended up putting the pizza castle
event together uh really great turnout this year really good vibes we ate pizza we talked about
decent um yeah a friend from superfluid there. And then, yeah, we also...
Pizza Castle is how I got as greasy as I was in that video.
Pizza's to blame.
Yeah, we also...
We did some stuff on the educational side as well.
We were a Cypher sponsor of Eat-Themper this year.
So that's our CTO, Johnang uh giving a talk uh yeah about decent
and then uh oh that's nicholas um so he gave a talk during camp viddle about visual design um
seriously i felt like i was in a college classroom during this it was really good
um and then yeah also announced rachel you were you were literally in the college classroom. That's why he felt that. Yeah, I mean, I guess it was just very educational is what I'm trying to say.
Today was day one of Eat Them. Oh, sorry. I did not know this comes with sound,
but there is also cool video people can watch.
I mean, this was the main event, right? The Hats event. We just had so much love here.
I love how we're calling that the main, this was the main event of ETH.
It was, it felt like it. It was a great night.
We had hats on hats, literally hats on our hats.
You guys are so cute.
Now I regret that I came so late.
Now I regret that I came so late. I feel like I missed all the good stuff.
I feel like I missed all the good stuff.
Oh, Parker, you should cover the on-chain legal summit as well.
That was awesome.
Yeah, so this was really cool.
And I mean, talking about the maturation of our industry, right?
So this was something I have wanted to do for a very long time.
Actually, I can shout out NFT nft mommy staff if anyone knows her
um because she actually i was talking to her about a year ago about how frustrated i was at how long
it was taking cryptocurrency to um be taken seriously and my fears that like as our work
is kind of you know reverberating in the world that it's going to get,
you know, watered down and turn into something
that we don't want it to be.
And she was like, well, why don't you go to DC then?
And I still haven't been to DC,
but what you're looking at right here is a picture
of a policy expert from the Blockchain Association,
the largest lobbying group on behalf of our industry
in the country.
We're looking at an independent
director of Cayman Foundations who works with dozens and dozens of DAOs to keep their founders
and contributors safe. We're looking at some of the most forward-thinking and visionary lawyers
in the space that are doing extremely creative work to make what we're doing possible.
And it was just awesome.
We all got together on stage and I learned some really cool stuff.
One of the topics we covered was that in the United States,
there are currently laws being worked on that will include decentralization
as a key factor in what makes a token different from a security.
And that's been the goal all along.
It's like, let us do this
the way that we think is right. Let open source be disclosure, right? Let permissionlessness be
information transparency and access. I mean, if you build a system in the image of Bitcoin or
Ethereum, I would argue that it's certainly operating on a moral high ground to any corporation
or the requirements of corporations to IPO.
And that was really a lot of what we talked about.
It's like we can actually set the bar higher.
And as a result, I think we'll end up in a place where even in the United States,
we'll be able to do what we want as long as we're like sticking to the ethos.
It was just a beautiful thing to see and a beautiful thing to be a part of.
And it was just a beautiful thing to see and a beautiful thing to be a part of.
So I was really happy.
So I was really happy and it was kind of a bucket list item for me to just like, you know, me a lowly autodidact developer talking to the bigwigs.
It was pretty cool.
Also, the turnout was great, which shows me, I think like Parker was saying earlier, the sentiment is shifting towards maturation in our space, right?
People wanting to learn how they can start a
project compliantly, legally, and with respect to the regulatory climate. So we definitely saw a lot
of interest during that. And yeah, Parker loves this one. So yeah, this was actually our fireside
chat at ETH Denver we did as well. Parker, do you want to touch on that?
Yeah, we talked on stage it's cool
and then yeah i want to dig in a little bit more on maturation um i think i would love to get into
some of the insights um from like this era of crypto.
But I don't want to interrupt the stream.
If you guys feel good on the photos and stuff,
it's awesome that you guys documented it so beautifully
and you guys were super successful with all the events
and really bringing people together.
Just, yeah, I want to unpack maturation, right?
Cause everyone here has referred to it a bit.
And, you know, Parker, you already alluded to some people resisting it.
And obviously, like, regulatory clarity is so amazing to sort of be positioning toward.
The idea that we're not going to feel like criminals because we're writing code
to help people coordinate. We're not really doing anything wrong, but there are other people who
have taken advantage of the way that things have gone. Or the fact that we feel like we can actually
innovate, like America is so focused on innovation and creating new things, and it always led the way on that.
And now we actually feel like we can continue that thread.
And sort of alongside that, over the last few years,
we've seen various different regulatory
and compliance strategies, various different actors
at different places in the stack sort of being extractive in ways that
model the sort of systems we're trying to replace. I think about Ethereum as a tool for
disintermediation of corrupt systems and the idea that we could create decentralized finance,
DeFi, and create permissionless merit meritocratic, and fair systems for everyone
in the world to use is part of what excited me and brought me into this space in the first place.
So as we mature, as we get regulatory clarity, we have to also be considerate of regulatory
capture. And as we mature and attract traditional finance into Ethereum rails, like we've seen BlackRock is now in the space deeply,
Coinbase has a very mature centralized entities deeply into the space. The ways that these
organizations are bringing their culture and their ways of operating and their profit
maximization strategies into Ethereum, frankly, as a E a Denver lover and, you know, sort of friendly
guy, festival goer, getting steamrolled by some of these other techniques, I think there's
maturation at the individual level. And I also think there's something to be protected that was
good about the permissionless vision that we had been co-creating. So we'd love to just hear like
some pros and cons of maturation and what we can do to really stand strong in our values as we
continue to build permissionless infrastructure for the next era of humanity. Yeah, a lot of that really resonates with me. I, you know, I, I've been like a libertarian socialist since college, like really identified with that sort of, you know, place in the political spectrum.
And it's a really interesting place to be because people, a lot of people don't understand.
A lot of people in America don't understand is what I should say.
Because I actually, you know, in speaking to people all over the world, I think there's
people in other places that understand much better where that's coming from, that you
can couple different types of economic systems and make participation in economies a choice and not a requirement.
And that there is a place in the world for that sort of thing. don't need to be singular for a people, however they're grouped together, whether that's, you
know, online or in a state or whatever that might be. And it's, for me, it's like bringing some of
these ideas forward, weirdly, like almost maturing with my life, right? Like, a lot of these came from, you know, a natural process of learning
in college through, you know, my early days before I changed my major to computer science, when I was,
you know, going after sociology and interested in political science.
And, you know, I think that part of that was like
that transition from sociology to computer science
sort of like helped me have like a foundational understanding
of how these things could be done.
And like blockchain technology and distributed networks gave us the physical substrate, so to speak, to make these things come to life.
They're people, not just technology.
And I think that's the thing that a lot of people lose track of in some of this.
They start talking about it from only the
financial perspective and not the human perspective. But, you know, along those same
lines, like some of the, you know, positive some things that I saw come from East Denver even
was like, I, you know, I was, I was joking the other day, I had to fly to Denver to meet somebody in Washington who
could open a Green Pill chapter with me.
It was like, because I just so happened to bump into somebody from Everett, Washington
while I was there.
And having things like that happen where we can like continue pushing things forward and
thinking about organizations in a different way. And now I have somebody to work with me to start
lobbying at the state of Washington since I live in the Capitol here. And that was like,
some of my goal is to say, how do we move these things forward? Not just talking to the federal
government, but start smaller, start in my city. It's a capital city. So,
you know, start here at the capital city of the state and then at the state level,
and then go up from there and sort of make it inevitable that it happens the right way.
Because the grassroots of it just won't allow anything else and i think that's really important and it
as opposed to trying top down like growing things bottom up um yeah i think it's really interesting
how what moondog said about you know how carrot castle was inspiring events because it was so
grassroots then nick concluded and said hey know, with maturity also comes essentially responsibility,
and then you're confirming this, and I will just connect to the same threat. I think what was,
what inspired me to actually go much deeper than just being a user of DeFi or like, just,
you know, lightly participating in this ecosystem was an event that happened throughout my first East Denver that I attended
in back in 2021, I believe. And it was something that pushed me to study with the Token Engineering
Academy. And if you guys have ever, you know, learned anything about this academy, what they
go by is this like, really nice flower symbol, right right of token economic system in the middle but then
it's surrounded by these leaves these petals that build the different perspectives right and i feel
the same that um when a moon code brought up just now sometimes it feels um there is only an
engineering perspective to things rather than an omni perspective.
And then the true power of a token economic system actually gets lost because, yes, we build trustless systems.
We build permissionless systems.
But at the same time, people, therefore a social layer, is going to interact with them.
Right. So user experience is important.
It's important to review a system from different angles, just one. Anyone wants to pick up on that? Be my guest.
you know so i also was um i was on boarded to crypto via the silk road marketplace many many
years ago and through there i started to read in the silk road forums um you know borderline
manifestos you know uh espousing libertarian principles as like the solution to so many of
the problems um in my own community and the collective community at the time.
And that really resonated with me at the time because I felt that most social systems were
very gate-kept with me.
You know, I didn't go to university.
I spent most of my life without health insurance.
And I liked the idea of a competitive meritocratic system as a means for me to prove my worth
to the world and earn a place in it as a result you know I and and and how
is that perspective change as a result of the experiences I've had in this
industry and as a leader so last night I was having a conversation with a friend
of mine who reminded me that my responsibility as a leader is to expand the space and the area of safety around me
for others.
And over the last eight years,
I mean, some of the moments I've had
as a result of this industry,
like when the markets crashed,
I've had to lay people off
while I'm trying to build a company.
I've had to lay people off while I'm trying to build a company. I've had to,
you know, lay people off into environments where it was really hard to find a job. I've had to
stop working with people who had families or people that were close friends to me and people
that I cared about. And I've dealt with like an enormous amount of responsibility trying to
protect the people around me that, you know, chose to follow me in the battle, so to speak.
And when I look back at those times, most recently, the 2022 disaster of Celsius and FTX and Three Arrows,
I mean, in that time, it wasn't just the fact that I was unable to keep everyone on board on the team
and protect them from the economic dynamic they were experiencing. fact that I was unable to, you know, keep everyone on board on the team and like protect
them from the economic dynamic they were experiencing.
But, you know, Celsius was as an agency, they were like one of our crown jewel portfolio
brands.
Like we would, you know, brag about how we had worked with one of the largest consumer
brands in crypto.
And the worst part was like this moment where we're all sitting down going, wow, I
have lost sleep, sacrificed so much and put so much of myself, all of myself into this
thing for years based on this dream that I was sold. And what was the point? Like, where
are we? And that's how I felt a few years ago. I was like, where are we? And then, and I can blame, you know, central operating structures for what happened with
those three companies.
But I mean, let's look at, let's look at MEV and the fact that in crypto we have, I can
sit in the room and we're all here looking at the same tech and the same concepts.
And on one side, we have people who think about progress at any cost.
You have the accelerate crowd, you know, progress, as long as you win, who cares how you get there?
And it's a competition and we're gonna fight for it.
And then in the same exact room,
I have people who are like,
they're thinking about mycelial structures
as inspiration for how we can get things done together.
And we're thinking about how to create
like a universal positive some environment
and an environment where beneficiaries and recipients of services
are involved in their design and this
amazing thing.
I've thought about
this and Nick mentioned something
about regulatory capture
but also this feeling of being
steamrolled by the bigger
guns or perhaps the lower
mores of these other people
who are willing to do anything
in the way of progress. And I've come to the conclusion that like if we sit and wait for this
future state that we're all hoping for to happen, then like we will get still. And that's not what
I wanted. Like none of this is what I wanted when we got into crypto. I loved the idea that we could circumvent law and regulation
and any concept of what was allowed or not using technology.
And you'll always be able to do that with privacy technology.
But I also realized that the perspective I brought in at that time
was like the perspective of the child.
And now I really look at it as a call to action.
The easy thing is complaining about this.
Like the easy thing is sitting in a corner and tweeting and, you know, contemplating
on what's right or wrong.
The hard thing is to study policy and law.
The hard thing is to sit across the table from someone that you're told you're supposed
to hate and understand their way of thinking and potentially change their mind or more
likely just like collaborate and learn to coexist you know the hard thing is to accept that like we aren't reinventing
the world here like we are innovating and so we need to find a way to bridge that gap
and i view that if you're a person whose life has improved as a result of your involvement in
cryptocurrency like myself and i think so many others I know,
then we have a responsibility to level up and to take our power, to take our agency,
and to create that future that we want because no one's going to do it for us.
And those people that Nick's talking about, they're around and they're fearful and that
makes them reactive and it makes them really really crazy and they do this crazy
stuff and like we have to stop it you know we have to do our own things so that that's that's my take
and like i think that it's a more responsible route to accept the fact that like we're not
we're not going to steamroll them you know they have bigger machines that's the big that's my biggest personal takeaway from eath
denver is that we have so much work to do and it's really hard work it's a it's this problem of
being in the world being in the market and needing to create um we have amazing tools at our disposal. We have the ability to rely on the
world's computer, running our code, and being able to create hard mechanisms that can reshape
the economic incentives of the world. And we need to build the right ones and then communicate why
they're valuable and spread them widely. And we can reshape economic systems to be better for everyone and up level the global
economy by doing that.
But we have not done it yet.
We have not succeeded at this vision.
And when we're talking about Celsius, talking about FTX, talking about the current situation of meme coin extraction and other forms of extraction are happening right now.
We have not yet accomplished this.
And that to me, I agree with Parker, is this is a sort of wake up call that calls me into the next level of my journey in this space,
which is like, oh oh man, like no,
no one is coming to save us. We have, we have to figure this out.
And I'm so glad to be amongst you all because I see you as allies and
collaborators and this journey. But I,
I honestly left East Denver feeling that the burden is the large burden that
there's a,
this is a heavy weight on our backs
that we are trying to carry and we have a lot of work um to do to accomplish it
everyone everyone feels what they just said sorry
i left in denver knowing that if you don't figure it out you will and if you don't figure it out
that our other friend will and if they don't figure it like, you will. And if you don't figure it out, our other friend will.
And if they don't figure it, like, for so fucking many of us now
on the right side of things, like, we aren't going to fail.
That's not going to happen.
And we just have to watch each other's backs as we go through.
Not alone in it, like, was a really good feeling from ETH Denver.
Like, Alex and I came to ETH Denver because this idea that if nobody else was,
we need to do it because if nobody else was, because Alex and I were working on some other
crypto and AI systems together and realizing how dystopic that could possibly be.
realizing how dystopic that could possibly be.
And we were actually searching for some sort of framework
to evaluate the systems for safety, for security, for alignment.
And what we were finding is that there wasn't anything comprehensive.
And Alex comes from a completely different place than I do because he's an HCI researcher
and I'm an engineer.
But what we ended up doing was a year's worth of research while I was at home and back and forth to the hospital, because my son was ill and I
had this opportunity to just dive in deep on research. And we came up with the human
alignment framework, which is a framework for evaluation of these types of systems for security, safety,
dark patterns, like it goes pretty deep. So socio issues, psychological issues. So all these things
that can, you know, these systems can have a significant impact on and how do you like,
a significant impact on and how do you like ensure that you're thinking about them ahead
of time so that you create the least amount of negative impact on humanity and that you
create them in a way that's also flexible enough, realizing that not all humans are
created in the exact mold of each other. So, you know, it's, it's about, we quite literally named,
you know, our company mold technology, because the idea was, you know, molding technology into
something that fit humanity, and not having technology, you know, have the sorts of impact on humanity that has been
negative that we've seen come from things like social media and the grifts in blockchain
and so many of the other, you know, negative impacts of technology that we've seen pop
up. And as these systems get more complicated, we need, you know, larger and
more comprehensive frameworks for evaluating them. And so, you know, that's sort of like where we
started. But the whole goal was like, hey, how can we think about these things up front?
How do we accelerate, but do it in a way that's towards humanity?
how do we accelerate, but do it in a way that's towards humanity?
So, like, because I want to...
Angela, I...
Sorry.
I just got all excited.
So, I am completely convinced at this point that with those systems that, like, and that's above my pay grade,
but the systems of coordination and, like, actual, like, being designed and like, you know, like different types of like voting and different
types of, you know, democratic decision making.
So I'm convinced now that the only way that we experience real world adoption of these
systems at like scale and in commercial environments is if we use them ourselves to build something
of notice.
Like, I think for a long time, we've been expecting that because it's so obvious to us that a Fortune 500 corporation,
eventually someone will find this format and go,
oh, that'll be cool.
But this is for them.
This is we're actually taking away power.
We're taking away some degree of agency.
A great example, I have two wonderful examples for this
that mostly just have to do with the environment.
One, Patagonia, many people don't know,
is largely responsible for the conversion of cotton farming
to organic cotton in the world.
Patagonia was only able to do that
when they became the largest customers of cotton
from a bunch of notable cotton farms
and when they became one of the largest clothing retailers
and manufacturers in the world.
And so they used their weight as this commercial entity.
And by the way,
they got there through conventional farming practices and conventional manufacturing practices
to then say, hey, we're not buying this anymore. If you don't convert to an organic practice,
it doesn't decimate the land that you're operating on. It doesn't result in this chemical runoff
into the water systems around you. And only then were they able to force, right, using the power of capitalism,
they were able to force a positive change in the world. Another example, I remember once seeing
someone, a friend of mine, when I lived in Miami, who made fun of me, I'm an avid waterman, I love
diving, boats, surfing, whatever, who made fun of me for how much I cared about coral reef
cared about coral reef house and water system house and blah blah blah and he was drinking a
houses and water system houses and blah, blah, blah. And he was drinking a liquid death,
liquid death you know the the canned water company and liquid death is so awesome because they
marketed an alternative to plastic water bottles to a category of people who generally don't care
at all about reducing plastic consumption in some cases because of the politicization in front of
it and so like now there's there's these's two great examples of brands who like basically have like
snuck in an environmental impact into the world but only because they were able to sell it and
only because they were able to succeed on the traditional rails first so i would say like the
day that we see a corporation about the dow format is when we have one that we've created ourselves that is notable enough that they go i'm scared we have
to do this you know they're like our biggest customer is a dow and they just told us today
that if we're not on chain that they're not working with us anymore when that happens the
adoption will happen right yeah i think you're right this is also why um uh it is one of the reasons that i got out of fashion is exactly
that right i was part of the system and i worked in first i worked actually in haute couture this
this was my dream i always wanted to do this right this is why i went through so much struggle to
actually get accepted at the university that i finally got in was because I knew I had to be among the best
to get to that point.
Then I worked in Haute Couture and guess what?
No one pays you.
If no one pays you, you cannot make a living, right?
So eventually over time, you start to think more realistically and you're like, okay,
fine.
Then I got offers from private clients.
from private clients.
I was like, okay, I accept some private work, right?
And I was like, okay, I accept some private work, right?
And eventually it put me in contact
with an agency from Munich and then I worked for them.
And that was obviously fast fashion work.
And because I'm not so terrible with communication,
I speak three languages now.
I was the one who got sent to the manufacturers.
And just FYI, these factories are super well maintained they're
super clean they're super highly efficient that's not the problem but you know what stunned me was
this pile of neon pinks jeans probably like 20 000 at least that is how i felt and in my mind
i just went in and i was like who the hell is gonna wear that next year when no one gives a crap anymore,
excuse my language, you know, about neon pink jeans.
And it just hit me, you know,
I've become part of a system that I never wanted to be part of,
part of an organizational structure that I did not appreciate for anything.
And this is when I, I guess I encouraged my first midlife crisis.
I was like, hell,
what am I doing here? Right? Like this, this just doesn't feel right from any point. And this is what eventually, slowly, I think paved the way into crypto. Of course, there was like a financial
component. And the more I learned, then I founded my own community. I was like, this can drive change. If we start doing it,
if we start connecting with people who do similar things, have similar beliefs, this is how we can
change, right? Kind of like a silent revolution that's like happening on the underground is
getting ready while the world burns. At least that's the visual that I like to think about to keep myself calm in everyday life.
I think this is how we accomplish it.
Another thing, another takeaway I had from after East Denver was we need to connect more with, I think Rachel brought this up before, with, you know, governments on location where we are.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
Right. know governments uh on location where we are right so yeah right recently um unlock actually presented you know certifications uh in the peruvian congress this is a this is a very you
know it's it's a tiny success right but maybe it's a stepping stone maybe it's a stepping stone
because there are still enough people also in the Peruvian government who don't believe corruption is great.
Right.
So there are those people.
So finding those people, aligning with them and educating them slowly about what blockchain tech can actually do for them and their constituents.
I think it also has a lot of power.
So it's more about like reaching out to them,
I feel than them reaching out to us
because they're super scared, right?
They don't know.
I would say how good of people we have here.
They don't really know.
But showing them reaching out,
I also believe it can do good.
Yeah.
And I just want to comment there a couple of things
because you got me excited now.
I want to give a shout out. I see some comments from people coming in.
I want to shout out to the creators LLC.
This is a quote from him that has really resonated with me.
We were talking on a space the other day.
He said, we are the people we affect and we are the causes we spend our time on.
And that really that just resonated with me because I think about the things that I show up every day and do
and like what I'm spending my time on.
And I feel like now is the time to really align with the groups
who are making an impact, who align with your values.
And Stella, I want to also bring it back to what you were saying
about activating in your local community and government.
I mean, some of you know the reason that I'm in Berkeley,
I actually started working with the vice mayor and city council
and actually created this study showing different cities around the world
using blockchain and gave my recommendation to the city as a legislative aide
on how the local government can apply this at the municipal level.
It's honestly, if I can do it, it's like anyone can do it.
If you raise your hand in your local community and you want to get involved, it is possible.
And if you're in our industry,
I feel like the people in those rooms need to hear from us
to take us more seriously.
We need to be involved and actively participate
in our government and be a part of it, I feel like.
And another thing too, I'd say is organizing.
I see a bunch of comments.
Just organizing in your local community.
It doesn't have to be at the government level.
If you want to do a meetup, like I just did an event with Stan with Crypto in San Francisco.
It's like anyone can just step up and do something and activate. So yeah, anyway, Stella got me excited.
Quick prompt.
I know that we're running out of time here and i would really
stella just inspired me because i have seen 20 000 neon pink dreams in crypto and it's broken
my heart yeah not to get dark here but perhaps as some inspiration and some fuel could i could
i prompt each of you to tell us, when have you had that normal fear?
When have you seen the 20,000 neon pink jeans in our space?
Because it's happened to me, and it took me a year or two to recover, to be honest.
Should I be the courageous one and go first?
Fortune favors the bold.
Everyone's going to drop off right after yours.
So something that I think none of you really know,
maybe Wonder Woman Code knows, but I actually, I was invited to write my PhD
about 10 years something ago,
and I ditched it, right? because I felt like I didn't have something
really good to say like valuable enough to you know write like a masterpiece about right
and so I ditched it and then recently I picked it up again because I felt like
actually I have a lot to say now uh through all the experiences through all the work that I've done so far in this space and I feel there is value in it that could you know have this like
you know branch effect to the outside world right because I would not be writing it for the Ethereum
Foundation obviously right so yeah I think my moment was last year when I saw, I started to see very, very visible signs around the world of something that is called democratic erosion.
And I think democracy, even though not perfect right now, it is the best foundation we have.
There is no other foundation that gives the many as much attention as democracy does. And
I really want to figure out in what I aim to write, how can we do it, right? How can we bring
people on board to find a way to rule ourselves how it was always supposed to be, right? Democracy
was always meant by the people for the people.
Now it's by a few people for everyone else.
That is just not good enough.
We have now technologies that make that possible.
So we better figure out how to do it.
And the other component of that is that we also need to take people with us, right?
So what we've always been forgetting
when inducing change is
that not everyone is as fast as us.
Hell no, right?
Some people are slow.
Some people need time to adjust.
I think Nick said it before.
Change is not always easy
or actually Wonder Woman Code said it, right?
Change needs time.
So Web3 is also about,
and this is why I'm personally not a huge fan
fan of magic wallets by the way it's also about learning understanding that you have to become
more self-reliant and self-responsible to be a responsible member of society be it on chain or
off chain doesn't matter right and so yeah anyway this was last year and like seeing really
crass signs of democratic erosion that was my wake-up call i was like okay i gotta figure this
out somehow and with the help of obviously all of you sorry you befriended me now you know you're
gonna suffer with me now we're in trouble now we're in trouble thank me. Now we're in trouble. Hey, real quick.
I know that Nick has to jump too.
If you wanted to say his piece before we jump.
Oh, for me, I think it's been death by a thousand cuts over the last few months.
Building through the bear with the hope that there would be a really good bowl. And then watching the way that the beginning of the bull here played out with
max extraction.
I mean,
the little kid flipping off the camera,
20 bandos thing was like stabbed to the heart.
And then Trump token was a big one.
That was really hard.
And the Argentinian guy.
And then.
Libra.
Yeah.
And then some of the stuff that's been happening with ENA has been really tough.
You know, sort of like, OK, you know, ETH is the ultimate settlement layer.
We're going to do it.
It's going to be the thing.
And then watching Securitize just go off
and be like nah like we make our own what are you talking about you know it's like oh god like
it's rough you know it's sort of rough out here but um i didn't have a single uh come to jesus
moment with pink the pink pants but i i can imagine you know there's so many things that
happen um and that's all you know looking back looking back to Celsius and FTX, obviously, that's a whole another one.
But yeah, not to end on a bad note, I'm still optimistic about the possibility space that we have here.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
I think it's incumbent upon us as visionaries
and as people with strong values
to continue to build the mechanisms
that we think the world needs
and to publicize those and open source them
and distribute them and get them out there.
That's great.
Thank you everyone.
Mic drop.
This is such a special group of people here, you guys.
For those of you watching, like, yeah, this is awesome.
I can't think of anyone who gets me going more than Nick.
Yeah. Like, Nick met me at the bottom trough of my depression post FTX Celsius
when I was just, like, building out of obligation to our community
and to our investors and to our investors
and to our team, and my heart was just not in this anymore. And to see somebody as intelligent
and visionary as he working on the same problems, it gave me hope when I had very little. So thank
you, Nick. My pleasure. Yeah. On the positive side of what Nick said, like, I've been trying to remind myself of
what comes from all of those disasters.
So like, you know, Mt. Gox, like, sort of got the ball rolling in a lot of people's
minds on decentralized exchanges.
And, you know, like, every time we have a disaster, it feels like as a community,
we all sort of like, okay, well, how do we solve this problem so it doesn't happen again? And then
we see more infrastructure being built and experimentation around solving those problems
when they come up and as opposed to just accepting that they have to be. So that is what I keep reminding myself of when we have these
moments where you just go, oh, man. Oh, man. Yeah, it doesn't have to be that way. Like,
okay, oh, man. But like, I know that there's like plenty of other people,
you know, like here on this stage and out, know in the world like working on solving all of this
and that like makes me super hopeful every day sometimes i go for it sorry no it's actually a
question to everyone um sometimes i feel um we don't have a good system yet to understand who is building what, right?
So unless you're a part of the space for quite some time, so you know some of the bigger names or the names that have been around for longer.
And thank you, Nick, for joining.
Totally fine.
You got to drop.
We will miss you, though.
Bye, Nick.
Bye, Nick.
Thanks.
I just wonder how can we make it so that,
so for example, with Unlock, right, it's open source,
and technically you can embed it in whatever type of membership system
you want to build into your platform.
I just wonder how can we bring more people's attention to that,
or how can we find a system almost similar to Wikipedia, right,
where people can just find those tools.
And yeah, there are some websites out there, but they're usually paid and they're not decentralized either.
So this is something that, you know, just, you know, with what you've been saying, I was like, how can we do that?
that so people are more aware. But yeah.
So people are more aware.
But yeah.
Yeah, discovery is a large part of what we're really trying to accomplish with HAP and doing
Yeah.
that in a more gentle way through user research that allows us to get insights to how to,
you know, make sure that we're giving people what they want in terms of an experience online, but also giving them the subtle hints without being massive advertisements that are in their
face and disrupting their lives, that there are other options available to them, and that there
are benefits to those options specifically, and getting to know them well enough to know what those benefits are for
them instead of screaming at them. Because I think that so much of that bombardment
makes people numb to hearing messages. And when instead you can really actually get to know a person better through, you know, deep analysis of their patterns, especially with an AI that's been trained to do nothing but be aligned with a human.
Like, then you have an opportunity to bring forward those things that will actually enhance their lives instead of just trying to show them.
Yes. Oh, my my god it's so true
i've been reflecting on that a lot lately like we really need to start meeting people where they're
at not just people organizations projects like how are we actually solving tangible problems for
them like we just can't assume that everybody is gonna want this thing in fact there's like
usually a lot more steps and friction involved with what we do.
So like, I think we really need to start simplifying and meeting people where they're at.
Okay.
Sorry.
I just saw a comment come through.
I do want to say like for our agenda today, we do have a portion where we want to open
up for Q&A.
So if there's anyone watching or listening right now that has a question we can see all the comments coming through so if you want to share or ask
anything if anything has piqued your interest uh feel free to drop a comment or a question
um and then aaron i know i know you wanted to share something as well i just wanted to to further
the points that everybody was making and really latch on to what you were saying angela that like
i think it all kind of starts and ends with our communication. And I'm biased as a marketer,
as you know, someone who works at a DAO, like, I am, and not to get I know, a third of us have
already dropped off. And so they won't even hear this, but I'll make them go back and watch it.
watch it. But I am in awe of and inspired by and encouraged by the ethical fiber and the
human-centric stances that you all hold and the work that you do. And it's been really refreshing
as someone who had a hard time with this industry with MEV and all of the just problematic things that are
going on. But I think it like these stories need to be told, right? DAOs were created as a way to
protect personal autonomy and agency in a collaborative setting. And so it bridges the
gap between structures and organizations and the individual centric, the human at the core of it.
and organizations and the individual centric, the human at the core of it. And so if we're telling
those stories well, I think we can start to inspire and encourage people that there are
better options out there and they will be willing, I think, to take on the task of education.
Obviously, it's important to have more user friendly things, to have better onboarding,
to have all of this infrastructure to support. But I think it all comes back to communication.
You know, one of the things that that always bugged me about working in tech and startups is that in all of the marketing and all of the the communication oh my gosh that is a cute
dog um you know he was he was eating a plant behind me i had to i had to intervene stay healthy
little boy um but yeah like one of the things that bothered me about working
in tech startups was a lot of the communication comes back to users, right? It's like we have X
users or we do this for our users or we enable users to do X. And that's just, these are people,
right? Can we switch our language, right? Can we start talking about people? Can we start talking
about humans who have real problems, who have real concerns, who are telling their own stories about their lives? And can we
connect that to our mission, not as a way to extract value, but as a way to solve real problems
like Rachel was saying? You know, I think we need to be telling the stories of DAOs and telling the
stories of ourselves and our concerns and make ourselves human, and then make our users human,
right? And in our own organizations, I think the way that we communicate internally, the way that we communicate externally,
it all has to come back to that reminder that this is a grassroots movement. And the only way
we make it to the top is if we bring everyone up with us. I think we forget that the users, the humans, the humans, you know, are just like us. Like, they don't have necessarily
this time in their day, though, to like, dive in and consider all of these things. It's a lot
of overwhelm for most people. And I'm reminded on a constant basis that like you actually don't need to have an understanding
top to bottom of all of the technology that you use in order to make the right choices.
What you do need is transparency in a way that provides you with the information that
that provides you with the information that you can trust.
you can trust.
So that you know that there's a cohort of another set of experts
who have said, yes, we verified this information,
that it's done in a way that's so transparent
that it cannot be really gamed.
And the interesting thing is like gaming the systems is exactly how we
harden these systems against, you know, the ways that humans, interestingly enough,
figure out how to game them. So like understanding those mechanisms through the experiments that
we've done over the years. Because I've been part
of, you know, some failed DAOs that had some really great ideas. I think multiplayer DAO is
like a really good one as an example, because everybody in that DAO was actually, you know,
ethos wise, very aligned and experimental and happy and trustworthy. We had a trust chain of an NFT that we
passed around so many times because it was mutating one. Quite literally, it was just
like a spreadsheet and we just had to hope that the people would keep passing it around.
and we just had to, you know, hope that the people would like keep passing it around.
But and they did. And it came back to me like like in the end.
And then, you know, we said, well, let's create a DAO around, you know, interactive NFTs,
you know, ones that actually, you know, had some some sort of interaction that you could do.
And how do we, you know, do that? Well,
we didn't know. So we just like created a multi-sig wallet and like stuck some of the
interactive NFTs that we had in it and created treasury. But ultimately it wasn't really well
organized and we didn't have the tools. They weren't very mature at the time. And we were
all busy with other things and we didn't really know how to foster it.
So that was like a failed experiment. But there was also so many learnings that came out of that. Alexi, who had started in Tropes, ended up building an EIP out of that. That was like EIP 5050 for interactive NFTs. It gave me a bunch of ideas of ways that I could use
unlock NFTs to make them become interactive. Danny in Unlocked Out ended up building this
fun little game on EIP 5050 using unlock tokens. Like it sort of just like snowballed
into a bunch of other things, even though it was like ultimately a failed experiment.
So like if we keep just working on these things, some of them are ultimately going to fail and
that's okay. Like it's what comes out of them after that, like the learnings that that happened
and examining what those are
and just being really honest about them.
Like we're honest about the bad things that happen
in the space that we learn what the next step needs to be.
Yeah, too true.
Makes sense.
So there was a request from one of the viewers,
which was like, hey, why don't we go back to the cringe stuff?
So I think we're kind of owed this to the audience
because I promised in the beginning.
Now I'm sorry, you three are stuck here
to take that burn on.
No, I'm just kidding.
Everyone's just dropping out in like seconds from now.
All right, time to go.
Yeah, tell me like your most like cringe thing that happened East Denver
and it doesn't have to do anything with the event itself.
Maybe an experience that you had where you're like, what, what the hell?
I thought I was in a good space here.
So, uh, who wants to go first?
Most cringe.
I promise.
You got one?
Something I know, it's not that cringe,
but it's something that gets on my nerves like so much.
And I might be taking this prompt the wrong way,
but something you see in Silicon Valley a lot
and like the Bay area is all these billboards
by institutions like,
and they don't make any sense to anyone
who doesn't know exactly what the language is.
And so it's like you know the best b2b sas cloud computing infrastructure and you're like i'm
driving by this jargon jargon jargon what does that mean and i there's a billboard here downtown
denver still up a month after eve denver uh or three or so weeks, yeah, four weeks,
still there right in the center of town. That is, I'm not going to name names, but there's an EVM
chain that bought a billboard for this prime real estate. And it just says the most efficient
EVM development environment for Web3 coders.
And I thought, or like something along those lines.
And I thought, you know, that's great for your target audience while they're here.
But also this was your chance to speak to everyone in Denver about what you're about.
And you're an EVM, you're a chain.
So you have so much going on in your ecosystem.
You can onboard, you know, like this is an opportunity to speak to the world.
And you used it to get people to like scratch their heads and kind of like wave it away and and so i i i don't want to name names because i know everybody's doing their best and it's hard out there you know marketing
stuff um but to me i just i cringed when i saw it because i was like man only like four people are
gonna understand what this means you couldn't unsee it after seeing it and now you probably have to pass it multiple times
so it's even harder i got you i hear you about this happens all the time and stands out to me
too rachel what's your uh yeah i have a moment and i'm trying to figure out the right words to
explain it it was it was pretty rough i just uh messaged park about this. Okay. So yeah, I was listening to our CTOs talk
in the Biddle Hub building. And someone came up to me and Parker was nearby.
So you're Rachel on chain. They're like, I'm working on this meme. And I'm not going to say
the name of it, but basically ended up walking, Parker and I ended up walking with them. They gave us a gift box. And basically the meme was a parody of, yeah, I don't even,
I got to find the right words for this. It was just an interesting moment. Basically some
inappropriate parts of Elon Musk. And they gave us like this blingy gold chain and a t-shirt of it. I can't even go into all the details here, but an interesting moment to say the least.
This sounds super cringe, even though you're not telling us the whole thing right now.
He's your imagination.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a moment where Elon Musk is on Joe Rogan's podcast. So it's a parody of that mixed with parts.
Oh my God.
That's all I'll say.
Oh my God.
Oh, you're so good.
I got to unhear this now.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
You have.
You have.
That's the most great check.
I've probably got like two things that really bothered me.
I think I went to one event with, um, Captain Southall
with Alex and I, we, you know, walked in and I won't name names, but, um, the event was,
energy was kind of a little dead, honestly, but there was still a lot of people there. And there was a Lamborghini that was just like, for no reason. Like, like, it literally had no purpose to be there except for to be flashy.
know, at one point during, you know, somebody talking, there's like an engine revving in
the car driving away slowly. And it was sort of like, very performative in a way that felt
like excess performative though, like, like just for the sake of being, you know, flashy
and showing off something very expensive. And I'm like, what message is that sending?
Like, that's what, and I was like, that's not the message I came here for. This was a side event,
by the way. And then secondly, like the way there's a lot of waste, like, and that bothers me a lot.
You know, maybe it was my like, because I grew up, you know, in the Pacific Northwest.
And, you know, not with a lot of wealth.
So like, well, you know, wealth from a global perspective, but not from a U.S. perspective.
And I so when I see waste, it really bothers me. But it also bothers me because I understand really deeply living where I live.
I'm like surrounded by a bunch of environmentalists and ecologists and stuff.
So I have an opportunity here on a regular basis how those like minor things that we do every day to create extra waste in the world, like Stella was saying about the pink jeans, actually is enormously impactful on the environment.
At the same time, I'm going to say that, but I'm also going to say like when you compare that to private jet flights,
it's pretty much a drop in the bucket.
So we should keep doing these events, be conscientious, but remember there's still people flying
alone in a private jet somewhere.
And that is like some of the worst ways that we have in terms of, you know, environmental impact, we need to start
talking about, stop, stop saying that's what we want for ourselves and start talking about what
that means for our children and for the next generation and for even us at the end of our
lives, because that is so, you know, it's so much closer than it, than people realize. And every time the
scientists are confirmed, it's not just that they're confirmed, but the timeline that they
were originally espousing is short, much shorter than they thought. So we definitely need to pay
attention to those things and not be scared to continue standing up against the people who tell us that otherwise those are the things that we should be fighting for.
And you know what?
I'll take mine if it comes my way.
But I'm also going to use it with every inch of my life to do something better with this world because I'm not five kids.
I care about this stuff.
They need a world to inherit here.
I don't want to rant, but it's not even that it's in the future because the global
south is being impacted by climate change right now.
People are being displaced.
People are suffering.
Not to get too on a horse about it, but it's now.
You're absolutely right.
People are in India, Africa, Polynesia, all over the place.
People are being impacted.
Even California.
We have been absolutely ravaged.
France.
Pakistan.
It's happening.
I think we are already
very impacted by it, to be honest.
Even when I was in
Delhi, mid-December of mid-December, right?
Mid-December, yeah.
I mean, it's crazy, you know?
Even when you're on one of the highest places in that city,
you can just oversee the smog, right?
And you can feel it.
Like walking through the streets of Delhi is exhausting
because you're always short on breath
and it's not because it's on a high plateau right let's be real about it. Stella I felt that in
Bangkok during DEF CON I felt like I just I felt like I could breathe better in my hotel room um
when I was out in the street I did feel like you know I actually watched this documentary Stella I
feel like you would really like this it's called buy Buy More. It's on Netflix. And it kind of goes into, I feel
like, yeah, you're like speaking from the movie. So yeah, it kind of talks about how
we like a lot of the manufacturing to other countries like that. And yeah, being in a
country like Bangkok, I could like feel it in the air. So yeah, it's definitely time
to start taking this stuff more seriously. I agree.
And Angela, really great point. This was the year of the regenerates.
I really feel like that should be a topic,
a discourse that we're having with each Denver openly.
That's actually a really good point. And I would love to, no,
I'd seriously love to talk to their team and see how we can constructively
approach ways. Cause 20,000 people coming into Denver,
yeah, that's something to think about.
Like that's, yeah.
Yeah, it creates impact, you're right.
Okay, I'm gonna share my cringe moment,
bringing yet another topic on the table,
what we haven't yet touched,
which is the horrifying underrepresentation
of females at East Denver.
It's crazy, right?
I mean, we are half the population and the percentage.
Like, I would be surprised if we would reach 10% this year.
Like, I would be honestly surprised, right?
And, I mean, we had a really nice panel here.
We actually showed the world how it's done.
We had three women, three men. Right.
And hopefully next time we get more minorities in as well, that would be great.
But I think that that really like it stood out to me.
I'm not going to lie. I was volunteering also on a Saturday at the hackathon.
also on a Saturday at the hackathon.
And again, it stood out to me.
And again, it stood out to me.
And before people out there even go to the argument
of people are not interested in blockchain
or women are not interested in blockchain,
yo, that's not it, I promise you.
And this brings me to my cringe moment
where I was participating in a private event at East Denver.
And I was openly hated on as a woman in
blockchain. And my place to be at, right. And, you know, honestly, right? Like, I traveled from South
America, I'm German, even if I would travel from Germany to East Denver, it is quite an expense,
right? It is not something that I don't know, I'm not a trust fund, Denver, it is quite an expense, right?
It is not something that, I don't know,
I'm not a trust fund baby.
I don't rip this out of my pocket.
I'm like, yeah, here you go, right?
So there is a true invest for that interest and the interest of connecting with other people
who think like me, right?
And so you pull out that expense and then even though you had so many great events,
and we reflected a lot on those, right? Because we had also collectively great events. We also
did a team dinner with Unlock Protocol DAO. It was a lovely event, same as Decent DAO did.
And I would bet Hats did something similar. But what sticks with you in the aftermath of the event can often be the one
thing that was not so great, right? And it keeps bugging you in the back of your mind. It keeps
bugging you about, should I have said something different as a comment? Should I have maybe made
more of an effort to educate that person, right? When you always come to the same
resolution, there is no space to educate because there is no will to be educated. And that's
something that's quite frustrating because, you know, you think we're all about positive change
and impact, but then it turns out that sadly still not all of us. It's hopefully the majority,
but it's not all of us. And with, you know, this is
actually, we should have, you know, we should have probably
closed on a high note, but the high
note is still, I'm so excited
that I got to meet Rachel and Shane in person.
Angela, we've been,
you know, colluding on the Unlocked
Discord over here.
It was the first time we met,
right? Aaron, really fresh face
to me, so thank you for being such a cool dude.
Love Moondog, love Nick.
So yeah, that said,
anyone else who wants to say some final words
or are we gonna put it down?
Yeah, I got something.
Rachel and I met on a panel.
Yeah, I was gonna say that.
Oh my God, Angela,
we have photos from like the hacker house
in the Bay Area. And I wanna say that. Oh my God, Angela, we have photos from like the hacker house in the Bay Area.
And I want to say that never underestimate the power of having a moment with someone, shaking their hand, getting to know them,
because that might be a singular moment, but I promise you this space is small and it'll come back around full circle.
Like it always, even Aaron, like Aaron and I, we like kind of of we're almost on the same team there for a minute.
And yeah, now full circle, get to build a relationship and work with Aaron.
And yeah, so just very, very stoked, Angela, that we had that moment back in the day and we're reconnecting here.
I know. Right. And it was it was an all female panel, too, at Eve Denver the year before.
number um the year before oh yeah actually two we had two so like and then and then yeah and then
Oh, yeah. Actually, we had two. So like and then.
at locker house later and it's like having those interactions with other women in the space
actually and continuing to like be hey every time makes it you know okay well at least i'm not alone
in this process of you know learning to encourage women into the space and making the space safe for them and
reminding them that, you know, if they do have those experiences that, like, they're not alone
in trying to change them and that we need, you know, all of the good men in the space to, you
know, help us out with that process and to also, like, help protect the rest of the marginalized people in this space,
the minorities in the space, the trans people in the space, you know, the people that come from
different religious backgrounds in the space. You know, it is so diverse. That's the one thing I
really like in general because it's global and it needs to be more diverse and actually reflect
the entirety of the population from, you know, that perspective. But at the same time, like
overall, there is a lot of diversity. I think we see some of the worst of it here in the States, unfortunately, when it comes to some of that imbalance.
I've been working in tech for almost 25 years now. I will continue to fight for women coming
into technical spaces for the rest of my life, if that's what it takes. And it might.
Look at She-Fi. If you're a woman watching this and
you don't know about shefi check them out because that is the one event you can go to and female
are actually the majority there yeah and if you're a man watching go and support because
what are you doing exactly oh so true uh thank you guys uh for joining i think this is this is where we end this really
great stream that should never end i guess i guess we should just go for days to come
yeah and i have actually i i'm the host and i have to i have to be at an onboarding event for East Cinco de Mayo soon. Wow.
I just can't stick around.
But this has been great.
And I would really hope that we keep doing things like this because we have, as very evidently proven yet today again,
we have some very aligning messages for the outside world.
And doing it together is like doing it through a megaphone
instead of just a mic right so yeah let's keep rolling with this thank you guys for joining
uh you you guys in here you can stick around for a second don't just drop out but all of you out
there have a nice day have a nice weekend and yeah give some things a thought that everyone
said here right bye yeah happy friday everybody
