But also I had a few interruptions this week, middle week, so I couldn't really get, you know, some of the stuff done, kind of get around to, I guess, finding resolution to some of the reflections that I was doing.
But part of that includes looking at how I can leverage newsletters better. Actually, I think this whole industry is a little bit backwards, a little bit behind when it comes to kind of leveraging the communication tools that are available to us to connect with audiences that care about what it is that we're doing.
First of all, care about us as individuals, care about what it is that we're doing, building, so that we can make an impact on them.
And I've actually been on a few calls already this week with friends who are running projects with media platforms, both podcasts, newsletters, but actual distribution platforms themselves to try to see how we can leverage that to create a better, I guess, a more regenerative ecosystem of information.
So that's kind of been my, what I've been doing. God, that was a long, effing answer. Sorry for that, man.
No, brother, it makes sense. And as you were saying that, what I was thinking was that having like a, having like a, like a news, first of all, like, you know, that there's a quality material,
and having a consistent flow of those quality materials, and then having them from a, from a, someone authenticate, or someone authentic, or, or the material being authenticated, this is something which is a serious issue.
There's so much regurgitation, and there's so much non-verified information out there, then it can be misleading.
So first of all, having a mechanism in place to, to create something which attests identity, you know, reputation, and then from that identity and reputation, you create a value, which is content, valuable content.
And then with that valuable content, you can power, use the level, use the power of blockchain to, to, to add all three, all of three of these variables.
What is left is the content itself. And I think all of this like mixes well, very well together, if that makes any sense, Hamti.
That makes a lot of sense, Hamti.
Yeah. Sorry. I was, so, as you know, I have these two devices, right?
So I'm launching the space on my mobile, because that's just what Twitter prefers, or X prefers.
And then I log in on my desktop to speak as myself because, you know, I, I prefer to speak from kind of my own persona and not just behind the ontology PFD.
So while, what I did is I muted myself here, and then I walked over to the other room, because that device doesn't have a headphone, so they'll cause an echo.
So I muted myself here, ran over there to the other room to change the title name into something that I thought, you know, was more descriptive of the conversation that we're having right now.
As you know, I try to use that as a way to engineer more people to come into the space as the conversation evolves.
And so, yeah, I, excuse me, I did listen to what you were saying, and I think I agree with you.
I think that there's this thing that you've mentioned, and maybe we can touch on it a little bit.
By the way, I see my friend in the audience and I invited him to come up.
I don't know if he's in a place where he can talk as well, but that's Danny.
Him and I have worked together on projects in the past.
Really, really charming and intelligent person.
So Danny, if you're listening and you can come up, I'd love to have you on stage and chatting with us.
But yeah, this idea of authenticity, when it comes to speaking about, you know, I guess, specific topics.
I think that's kind of the, that's kind of what I've been trying to do here, right?
Because I think there's two things going on.
One thing is there are organizations like Ontology, right?
Let's just use Ontology as an example, who have been kind of building, you know, products, been thought leaders, you know, been tech leaders.
Ontology specifically in the DID space.
And they could certainly talk with a certain weight when it comes to, you know, topics about decentralized identity or, you know, blockchain and crypto economics and staking.
Like, sure, they could have that conversation.
But for most people, I don't think that I'm alone here.
And if anybody in the audience agrees or disagrees, raise your hand, I'll bring you up.
I just have to run to the other room to see if you've raised your hand so I can bring you up.
But most people, including myself, would prefer to read that from the perspective of someone, not an organization.
It just makes that much more of an impact on me because I go, oh, this person has actually made the effort to go and use something, a product, and has explored it.
And, you know, has digested maybe some of that really heavy tech speak that maybe an organization would use.
And then is sharing this information in a much more accessible way in a way that I, as a potential user of a product, would relate to it.
I'm not saying that an organization can't do that, but it's really difficult to relate on a human level.
And so, where I said that I was talking all week long to some of the friends that I have in the Web3 Media space, both creators and platforms, I'm saying, hey, platforms, how about you create a product that allows for better discovery of creators and creators?
How about you use these platforms to cross-promote information from one another, but also to be able to, like, you know, kind of generate value from existing content from brands.
So, it's trying to create, like, this regen ecosystem of information for Web3 because, by the way, the people that are writing, and all of this, by the way, is informed by, like, headlines that I'm reading about crypto.
Leave it to SBF to still cause, like, negative headlines because, like, SBF, like, he's not crypto, but there's negative headlines about crypto because of his story.
So, I think that us as people who are building in this space and do believe in the technology and the, like, philosophical implications of this should be working together to promote this in a positive way, in the way that it has impacted us.
I'm going to leave it right there because I know I can keep going down a tangent and a rabbit hole here.
What do you think, Polaris?
And, again, anybody else who wants to come up, come up to speak.
But now the question is, like, how do we, like, how do we actually, like, amalgamate all these concepts into something which is doable, you know?
Like, for example, a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, we had a conversation about, like, me traveling and writing information about, like, you know, crucial information, which I find when I go to a place, for example.
And then everyone knows who I am, like, you know, in this space, and it would be interesting that, you know, if Polaris was to come with some sort of travel blogs, which are not only just designed to tell you about the area, but it's also about, like, you know, dissecting the economy, how the problems are, people are dealing with, like, you know, everything which I'm about, like, the way I look at things.
So, but I certainly, like, you know, according to how the conversation is molding towards that angle now, that I've actually had problems, like, as a creator, creating things, because I know that, you know, it's going to end up getting copied, or my reputation is going to, like, you know, the information on who I am, what I'm all about, that is going to get used by someone else.
And it's happened in the past, in terms of, like, you know, I've been in a, back in the days, I'll give you an example.
I used to be in a, in a gym, you know, I used to hire a place in the gymnasium, and I would teach my martial arts over there, and I was, you know, I created my own, like, training style for people who weren't interested in martial arts,
to be able to get the maximum out of their body movement, without actually being exposed to martial arts, like, if that makes any sense.
So, like, you know, all the training was converted into movements, which were converted into, like, you know, which didn't actually relate towards martial arts directly,
but indirectly, but indirectly, it was basically the same thing. But because I've been doing it for 34 years, I could do that.
But then we had people who just, like, you know, was, used to, to watch me do those things, and then they would end up copying them.
But then they would end up seriously injuring themselves, because the, the, the, the very important things, the crucial aspects,
which knowledge and wisdom, and, and, and being in the, you know, industry, or being in the, in, in, in the sport,
or being in the movement for so long, you know, they missed out on all of that.
So, now, this same situation can be, you know, utilized, can be looked at from a different, from, from, from this context,
which we're talking about in terms of content creators, you know, and other people, like, into them using it,
and then just, like, you know, twisting their words and stuff.
And then as a result, people just, you know, they, they can't be asked creating stuff anymore.
Because, like, what's the point? Someone else is going to utilize their, their hard work.
And also, you know, there is a chance that they would end up misrepresenting that information as well,
because they truly haven't experienced that.
So, there's a lot of different nuances which we can concur from all of this, you know.
But moving forward, as I said, when I started this statement, that, like, we need, we need,
you know, all of these concepts and ideas to be amalgamated into one,
where, where, whether it be, like, you know, a newsletter, whether it be a travel blog,
whether it be a DeFi newsletter, or whether it just be a podcast talking about crypto in general.
All of these concepts need to eventually convert into something where reputation,
identity, content, it's verifiable nature.
All of these things can be converged so that the content creator can benefit from it.
And the people who are utilizing that content, you know, they can benefit from it as well.
It's similar to, to what Twitter is doing.
But, I mean, sorry, similar to what X is doing.
But, I mean, if you think about it, it's a, it's a, it's not a cryptographically secured organization,
or the way the whole thing is, the data is, it's like a centralized approach.
The same way everything else has been done.
We are trying to, like, we are trying to champion,
and we need to understand why we are championing, championing cryptography.
And, and if you look into, like, the, the reasons behind why cryptography is so important in the quantum era of, uh, computing.
And then, why content needs to be placed into a cryptographic rabbit hole.
I don't know what the hell is happening here, but, but yeah, the vibe is crazy.
So, obviously, all these words are coming out from nowhere.
But, yeah, I hope I make sense for going further deep into the rabbit hole.
We need to come up with, like, and I think we, we are moving towards that direction, you know.
We are moving towards that direction where people are beginning to understand the vulnerabilities from the industry
in terms of what we're experiencing, as you mentioned, like, you know, different nuances.
But the centralized, uh, way of things have done to us.
And we just, like, you know, we've got to find the middle ground here, moving forward, utilizing tech.
Yeah, I think, I think you and I are maybe the best or the worst, uh, hosts because we tend to have some really, really long tangents.
But maybe that's a good thing.
It keeps, it keeps the, uh, the airways full of, of, of noise instead of gaps of silence.
But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think what I took away from what you were saying, and you could correct me here if I'm wrong,
but I think what you were saying was we need to productize, uh, you know, this content.
And I think to some degree, yes, I think we need to do more of that.
But I, actually, I think that there's platforms that exist already that are actually doing a really good job at productizing content.
And I, I mean, I think that's kind of one of the main value propositions of, you know, NFTs, in my opinion.
Uh, not necessarily just on the, you know, on the, on the art side of things, but on the media side, where you look at, like, uh, collectible newsletters, for instance.
So I use this product called Paragraph.
Paragraph is, for all intents and purposes, a newsletter platform, um, which functions as a blog, but you can send that to your, uh, subscribers to their, to their mailbox.
So, you know, again, that's why I said, for all intents and purposes, a newsletter, um, which has a collectability function to it.
You can collect these, these, uh, these posts that you make on this platform.
So there's a way to monetize and create ownership of that content to your audience, right?
But also gives you a way to connect to that, uh, community, to engage with the people that are actually collecting your content.
There's a way to measure what content is making content is making an impact because assuming people are consistently engaging with your content as NFTs, then you can say, okay, there's certain content that people are resonating with more and, uh, collecting, right?
Because that's the action that shows someone going from being just a listener to someone that's actually invested into your product, right?
Invested into your ideas.
You go, hey, I'm going to support this creator.
I'm going to buy, you know, one of these, um, issues, right?
Uh, because I, I, I, I not only like who this person is, but I like what they've said here and it resonates with me and I, and I might even agree with it.
So I think that there's platforms like that.
Then there's platforms like mirror, which I think, you know, also, uh, they came in a little bit earlier.
And in terms of just like collecting content, I think that works well.
Um, there's platforms like lens, which you can collect, uh, you know, audio content, video content.
I know that crypto sapiens publishes on lens.
We've done a terrible job, uh, on lens, but I don't know if that's a us problem or a them problem.
But what I, the reason why I bring all this up is to say that there are platforms that have productized content,
but there's still a huge gap between the content, the product, the consumer, the collector, um, in, in, in that there's ways to create much more synergistic relationships between all, all four of these or all the stakeholders,
because I'm sure I didn't name all the stakeholders in this, um, relationship, uh, or in that process.
So that's the reason why I've been on calls, uh, all week, because I am trying to rethink personally how I can communicate some of these ideas that I have, uh, how I can amplify the voices of the projects and people, uh, with whom I have a relationship, ontology included, um, you know, through media and how I can benefit.
Other creators, both by sharing their content to my community, but vice versa, my content gets shared to their community.
And I don't think Twitter is it.
And I'm going to call it Twitter because you know what, we're talking bad about it right now.
Anyway, anyways, uh, in terms of like crypto content, I don't think Twitter is it.
I think that there's much more powerful ways of going about it.
And I think it's really about creating an ecosystem of interoperability of content and synergistic relations between all stakeholders.
So I don't know, maybe I, maybe I answered, maybe I set up a question there.
I'm not sure, but if you wanted to carry on with some of your ideas there, Polaris, we could, if not, we can continue.
Um, yeah, you can carry on.
I'll, uh, I've got a few ideas, but yeah, I would love, love to hear what you have to say, bro.
Well, I mean, that's what I had to say, but you can, you know, let me not interrupt your dancing.
No, I thought you said you wanted to carry on.
Oh, no, I said I can, I can introduce another topic or we can, you know, you can continue this.
Um, so I want you to learn more about these, these platforms you're talking about, you know, are they like, uh,
in terms of, are they like utilizing, you know, there was something called PoEps, if you remember, um,
which are, which is being used, like, you know, it was a big thing using the NFT technology to reward people for, for, um,
utilizing attendance and stuff like that.
Do you think it's something like that?
Like, dude, yeah, I love PoEps.
Um, I think, you know, I think PoEps, one of the reasons why I think they were,
why I think they were so successful is because they were such a simple to understand and use primitive, um,
you know, PoEps kind of were NFTs before NFTs were cool, to be very honest with you.
Uh, because what you were doing is you were collecting these, uh,
NFTs on a very cheap and obscure blockchain, uh, at that time called X-Ti, uh,
which eventually became Gnosis, right?
Which is a very cost effective blockchain.
There's a lot of different projects that operate on top of X-Ti or Gnosis now.
Anyways, um, what was I going with this?
PoEps, I think, so if we were to learn anything from PoEps, I think it's like simpler the better.
The other thing that I thought was really cool is you didn't need a wallet to get a PoEps.
You could just send them to your email, right?
And I think, by the way, one of the coolest things that I've seen as of late,
which I think is going to make like what PoEps did scale to the next, you know, factor,
So now I can have someone sign up to my platform via email.
A wallet is created for them, right?
It is from that seed and which is unique.
And then, um, a user could eventually, if they wanted to, they cared about it,
claim their wallet, right?
Get their PK or their seed phrase.
So they can log in from any other non-custodial wallet and everything that they've collected
But for the time being, everything exists in your email.
So much simpler way of like engaging non-crypto natives, right?
So people who have no idea and probably don't care, but they like this idea of like proving
that they were somewhere.
There's a stamp of record, digital stamp of record that says Humpty was at this meetup.
Here is your badge that exists in your wallet.
You could also show it off to your friends on this website, website, because you have
a gallery of all of these, but at no point that you have to sign up, sign in and sign
up with a wallet or pay anything to be able to, uh, claim these things.
So maybe there's something there in terms of that, in terms of po-apps and media, but I
do know that when it comes to like content, like AV content, video content, for instance,
it's much more expensive, obviously, than storing a very, very small, like 14 by 14 pixel image,
which, uh, on Gnosis, because that's cheap.
I know I've personally stored stuff on Lens, which is using Polygon, uh, or no, excuse me,
they're using RWE for storage.
And it usually costs me, let's, well, when was the last time I uploaded?
I think I, I spent 26 Matic or 28 Matic to upload a full episode, which was roughly about
45 minutes long, um, to RWE.
Matic at the time was around 80 cents on the dollar.
So, I mean, you do the math.
I was spending about, let's call it $18.
I'm not, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to math here, just going to spend a number.
Let's call it 20 bucks to upload and store my content, uh, on a decentralized, uh, storage
so that I can share that as a collectible.
Is that worth it for me as a creator?
Probably not because I can go to YouTube and do it for free, right?
So how can we reduce costs also as part of the efficiency process?
Um, that's a separate conversation though, I think, but at the end of the day, I think
it's about discovery and it's like at, on the, on the platform level and it's about synergies
and, uh, uh, I guess, cross promotion between creators to raise awareness about the content
that others are creating, maybe about topics that they have in common.
And I have ideas on that too, but I'll pause there.
So with all of this information, the way my brain is processing it is like, you've got, uh, the
co-app success and you've discussed the reason the co-apps were a success.
And also I would like to mention about how Reddit onboarded thousands of users onto the
blockchain using their, uh, NFTs, you know, uh, which were known as digital collectibles instead.
So they changed the name and so what we're trying to like concur from this is that, that maybe
like moving forward, we would need to use other layers on top of the main layers of blockchain
blockchain to create content, which can be cheaper, uh, and, uh, like, you know, in terms
of like credibility, in terms of viability, in terms of all of that, it can be better.
You can use two or three solutions to save, uh, save the content on blockchain so it doesn't
block, uh, or, uh, you know, it doesn't cause, cause a throttling of the network in terms of
the main layers and also by incorporating methods, which utilize the technology rather than the
actual, like, you know, the hype aspect, like for example, the way I mentioned Reddit collectible
avatars, you know, and how they onboarded millions of users just on the fact that like, you know,
they could create ownership. They could have ownership of this. So what I'm trying to get
it, uh, get at is like Humpty is like, I feel like there's this, this, this area or this
like, um, gap in the market or the industry, which, which, which needs to be filled and it
needs to be filled in such a way that we approach it from, uh, from the front end, but rather than
the back end, does that make sense?
Yeah, I think so. Um, to the point about Reddit, you know, I think that they have,
they have the ability to do what most individuals or small products cannot. I think they have quite
a large user base that, you know, has invested a long, a lot of time on building out their own
personal brands, right? On that platform, because of that, they've, they've generated reputation,
um, on that platform and, you know, through the form of badges and whatnot, maybe even bought in
through some sort of economic system. Uh, most, most projects in web three are, are nowhere,
even the most successful ones. I don't think are anywhere close to what Reddit does. Um, I think most
people would agree, but that's not to say that, you know, that, that they don't have their own set
of problems because they want to make sure that they're not going to alienate that crowd by
introducing web three in a way that is so, uh, that has tons of friction. They want to create a
more frictionless, um, system. And so I think one of the things that they did well was, you know,
the way that they integrated, uh, you know, polygon to their ecosystem so that these things could live
on chain without necessarily having to, um, kind of force the users to kind of relearn the way that
something works. I think we've also seen that success play out with Frontech, uh, where again,
similar to what I was saying before, you don't have to necessarily create a wallet with a private
key and sign in and pay gas fees. All of that's being done on the backend, right? Uh, where you
can create an account with, uh, with an email address. So it's abstracted, that account is
abstracted away. Um, then you still have to move some, uh, you know, eat, uh, into their platform.
I think that could be made more simply. You look at what Farcaster is doing. They went
permissionless yesterday, the decentralized, sufficiently decentralized social platform, which I'm a big
fan of, and I'm on probably more than here. Um, they have integrated Apple pay where if you're
creating an account and you can just swipe and pay with your credit card, right? And that's how you
gain access. So you don't have to necessarily create a wallet, uh, in the traditional sense. Um,
you know, when you're, when you're setting up an account. So I think that's really cool. Um,
I had a point to make here when I started talking about Reddit. Um, but I have since forgotten.
That's what happens when I go down a tangent. Did you want to add anything else to that? Maybe that'll
help tickle my memory. Yeah, sure. I was just going to mention about Reddit that even though it looked
on the, it looks successful and I think they pretty did, uh, pretty much did a good job in terms of like,
uh, uh, making it a success for the, for the person who's not acquainted with Web3.
But I, like, you know, I, I participated in the first drop, uh, the first season, the second one
and the third one as well. And, you know, it's been a, it hasn't been a nice experience for what I'm
used to. Like, for example, I remember like I purchased something for 200 pounds, one of the
NFTs. And, uh, I think I made like about 13, 15, 1600 pounds worth of purchases because I went on that
frenzy mode. Like, you know, there was like literally two or three hours left and some
clothes which were very sought after. And there was this, uh, artist called, uh, what was his name?
Folks, folks or something. Anyways, uh, so I ended up like, you know, buying all these NFTs at that
point and the transactions went through and I got them on my Reddit account as well. But when I
transferred them onto my personal, uh, like, uh, wallet, I only received like three of them
and the rest of them, we're still like trying, they went down into the abyss. So we're still
trying to figure out what the hell happened to them. What I'm trying to say is that from a,
from a Web3 user who's like, you know, used to like being involved in like mints and DeFi and,
you know, everything which Web3 has to offer. For me, that experience was a rotten experience.
I'm still like getting my money back because I never got NFTs transferred and it's not showing
on my account as well. And, uh, but for, for a new user who has not, who hasn't been to,
to, to, who hasn't experienced Web3, you know, for them, it was a very safe way of dealing with it.
But obviously the, I think Reddit, Reddit wasn't used to like maybe dealing with someone who's
going to like degen in so extremely, uh, and maybe, I don't know how the, how their mechanisms
work, but you know, it, it, it wasn't a nice, nice experience. Um, so there is a gap. What
I'm trying to get at is that there's a gap, right? Which Web, uh, uh, Web3 and the rest
of the industry, which is not, non-Web3 native are trying to figure out and they still don't
understand it. So, um, we're getting there, you know, it feels like we're getting there,
but there's still like a lot of like, even though like we can see, even though it feels
like it's like a successful mint, uh, or it feels like it's a successful approach, but
if you go deep into it, you know, there are some issues. So, um, I just thought I'd mention
that because like, you know, that was something which I experienced personally. I think it's
valuable for other people to know. Yeah. I mean, accessibility, security, education,
like that's all important, obviously. And I think that again, if anything, that just reinforces
kind of the statement I was making at the beginning in terms of needing to manage, I guess, the PR
strategy for crypto as an, as a, as a community. Right. Um, and part of that PR strategy includes
education for new users so that they don't have a bad experience from the get go. Um, I don't even,
I don't, I don't know if it was because I was early enough. I don't think so. You know, I, I didn't
come into the space in 2008. I came into the space in 2016. Um, and I'm sure there was tons of
scams happening, but my goodness, was I maybe in a good community when I first came in because I did
not have any issues security wise, um, when I was getting started and I knew nothing about crypto and
private keys and seat phrases and, and just, you know, just ledgers even. So I think that it is,
what am I trying to say here? I think it may be, may, maybe that I just got very lucky or I just
was around really good people, but that's not probably wasn't the case for many other people
that were experiencing web three at that time or crypto as it was called. Um, whereas I feel like
it's much more rampant now, or maybe just because the value of things wasn't so inflated, like nothing
in your wallet probably cost $200,000. There was no NFT in someone's wallet that costs that much
money at that time. Maybe that was the difference. Whereas now the incentive to, uh, you know, hack
someone is much higher because the likelihood is that your payoff is going to be, you know, exorbitant
sums. Whereas before you had hack me, you probably be getting like 13 bucks, you know, because things
weren't that valuable at that time. Um, with that being said, again, I'll just kind of repeat what
I said earlier is I think it's on us to fix web three media as the title says here and educate
one another and amplify the, the good narratives, the things that are actually meaningful in this space
rather than allow those narratives to be built for us a hundred percent. I agree. And, um,
I think like having these calls is, uh, is an excellent way of like, you know, bringing these
narratives and bringing them forward and like keep working on them. So I appreciate, uh,
ontology for like giving us a platform to like brainstorm about all these things and like,
you know, see how, how, how we can bring a positive approach to this technology and how
we can use it in a context where, you know, we can, we can facilitate the way we do things.
Bringing us back to, um, uh, what I asked that, uh, I had like two or three points, but there's
so much noise here that like, you know, I keep forgetting about them. And then by the time
we start talking about something else, you know, something else pops up. Nevermind. Um,
what are your plans for this week? What's been happening in terms of, uh, you know, what you've
been doing lately? How's the Crypto Sapiens podcast going on? All of that stuff. Let's hear that.
Hello? I'm TK. Can you hear me?
Sorry. I've been talking this whole time on mute. Oh my goodness. How embarrassing.
Um, I was going to say, or what I was saying this whole time on mute was actually, I think
this might be a good stopping point. Uh, it doesn't have to be a full hour and I don't want
to dilute the topic because I think this has been a really good one. And I know that ontology
normally takes these and puts them on Spotify. So anybody who's listening, I don't want them to
get confused. Uh, so I really want to keep them spot onto the topic. The one thing that I will say
is, uh, to, to add here, anybody who is new here and wants to learn more about what ontology is,
ont.io, definitely go check them out right there. If you want to learn about decentralized identity,
they have a separate website called ont.id. I would highly recommend you go to check that out,
learn how to own your digital identity, uh, on chain. Uh, and with that, check us again next week.
We'll be here same time, same date, which is Thursdays. I believe it is, uh, 200 UTC. I don't
know. It's 1 PM. My time. I'm in Pacific time. All right. Bye everyone. Bye-bye.
See you later, everyone. Take care. Goodbye.