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Phunky Phridays - Presented by GlobalStake - Ep. 2 - Rahim Mahtab
Recorded: Sept. 12, 2025 Duration: 1:01:39Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion, Ryan Hizinski of Global Stake and Rahim explore the evolution of community in Web3, highlighting the launch of innovative projects and partnerships aimed at enhancing user experience and fostering growth in the crypto space.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Why did my volume go up again?
Give me a second.
Okay, we are good.
Ain't it, volcano?
Ain't it, volcano?
Ain't it, volcano?
Ain't it, volcano? Ain't it funky now? Just to give you a little bit of information about Global Stake, we are your enterprise-grade, institutional-focused, SOC 2 Type 2, fully-owned bare metal blockchain infrastructure provider.
I'm the host of today's show, Funky, aka Ryan Hizinski. I'm the head of Protocol Partnerships at Global Stake.
If you're just tuning into the space or the live stream, please give us a like, give us a comment, give us a repost, get this out on the timeline, get some more people here.
I think this is going to be a fantastic conversation today.
I'm really looking forward to, and of course,
I still don't have sound on the space.
My wife just texted me and said she can't hear.
So I don't know what's happening, of course, but it's okay.
We're all good.
We can just focus on the stream.
Someday I'm going to figure this out,
and I'll be a real pro like Bea and Legendary from Modern Market. But for now, I guess we'll just on the stream. Someday I'm going to figure this out and I'll be a real pro like B and legendary from Modern Market.
But for now, I guess we'll just do the stream.
This is all good either way.
But thanks so much for being here, Rahim.
For those of you who are watching on the stream, thanks for tuning in.
This is what I like to call on Funky Fridays the digital version of Touching Grass,
where we talk a lot more about life, a lot less about markets and everything else,
just to get to know people, get to know their backstories, what brought them to Web3.
And I have so many questions today for Rahim.
I've really been looking forward to this conversation.
I know I had to miss last week.
So Rahim, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for being here.
And I'll just pause for a second and let me catch my breath and grab a drink of water.
How are you doing today?
GMGM, Funky and everybody else. I'm doing fantastic. I am taking a bit of a break,
not a break per se. I'm in Amsterdam right now. I'm working remotely. Just needed a change in
scenery for a bit, but I'm excited. I'm rejuvenatedated i haven't taken as much sun in a while like i've
i've been like working in the sun and for those of you who don't know i'm based out of dubai
and uh yeah working in the heat in the summer can be a bit of a challenge just a tiny bit so maybe
directly not in the sunlight but it's good to be here and honestly i'm super looking forward
to our conversation.
You're obviously like one of my favorite people in this space.
I always value all like the kindness and wisdom you bring.
So I'm excited and I am honored.
Well, likewise, my friend.
In fact, I want to just say the first time we ever met at NFT Paris last year, or gosh,
that was this year.
The crypto time warp, man, it feels like
it was forever. Obviously, we've known each other for longer. You know, you're the sort of Tuesday
co-host that comes on to Modern Market. And, you know, but when we met, the one thing that I felt,
literally, in a very palpable sense, was just how much you and I are on the same wavelength.
Like, we saw each other, we immediately recognized each other,
gave each other a hug.
And I was just so, you know, and we only had a few minutes to chat,
but I just remember walking away from that conversation thinking,
man, I'm so really glad, like I got to meet him.
Like I, you know, didn't run into a whole lot of people in Paris.
In fact, Steve, I think was there and Chris from Coffee with Captain
did never ran into them at NFT Paris, but I was so glad to run into you and you know, and shout
out to, you know, the board API club community because that ape installation was probably one
of the best things at NFT Paris that year. And just in terms of the vibe was awesome. You know,
the people that were walking around, it just seemed like it was sort of the hub in all of the NFT Paris stuff. So, and I know
you're a big fan of the community. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that a little later,
but I want to go back to the beginning in the sense that one of the things I've never, you and
I have not had the opportunity to talk about is that you were some sort of forensic scientist,
right? Like you've mentioned it here and there a few times on modern market, but I I've never had
the opportunity to talk about like how you got to this space, right? You know, everybody knows you,
you're a legend and we'll talk a little bit about some of the things that you're doing now that I
absolutely love, but let's go back to the very beginning. Like, how did you get to Web3? What brought you here? And especially I really want to hear about sort
of the forensics background, because that's so interesting. Cool. Yeah, I have like a very funny
story. So my original background is in forensic sciences and molecular biology. I've always been
into the medical space. There was a point I wanted to be a doctor, but I was very practical oriented when it
comes to like the science side of it.
So really enjoyed pursuing forensics.
That's what I studied.
That's what I did through college.
And I worked with the Dubai police for a bit where I was essentially working in the morgue.
bit where I was essentially working in the morgue. And as exciting as amazing it is when you watch
like TV shows and movies, when you are like a CSI and like a forensics guy and like, you know,
it's all cool and stuff. It's really not. Not only is it like gruesome, it's smelly,
but it's also like traumatizing. Like it is not easy because I used to work in the morgue. In fact,
I worked in like probably like the most trickiest sector in forensics, but I worked in the morgue
and like essentially my mornings would start with essentially the night shift leaving us people who
essentially had passed away the night before. So this would be like accident victims or whatever
it is. So yeah, I did that for a couple of years but it
really got to me because I feel like when you get into industries like medical sciences like you
know when you're a surgeon when you're a doctor when you're in forensics you need to have a
sense of detachment from these things for it to not affect you but yeah it was something like
would affect me a lot. Like when I would
start my morning, I remember this was early years in my career, right? So I had all my friends who
were excited to start their day of work and they would be getting Starbucks and getting dressed up
really well to go to work. As for me, I would dread going to work in the morning just because
even though I love my job and I loved science, it's just that I was the youngest employee at my department.
So it was my job to open the lab.
So I would literally be the first person to see all the essentially like the deaf people
that were there in the mark.
So yeah, it was definitely not easy.
It's a very different aspect of my life.
I really enjoyed it in some ways.
Obviously, I love science.
I love the investigation side of things,
although I was mostly on the lab side rather than on crime scene. But I would occasionally do some
stuff. I did some, I did like an internship in Milan, actually. So that's where I worked as like
a CSI under a captain. So that was my original background. I decided to step away from it when it got too dark.
And I was like, okay, let me stick around in the science field.
So I kind of worked at like a fragrance company as a lab tech.
But eventually I started to pursue my passion for photography and filmmaking.
It was something I was always interested in through college.
And what I essentially did was on weekends I would like
reach out to Instagram models like influencers and being like oh can I film for you can I shoot
for you so essentially I got into that and basically like I started to build a love for it
and the aha moment for me was I was it was one of the times when I was like okay maybe I'm I can be a lot more
natural at this is I was sitting with a friend of mine who was doing an animation of a logo but he
had to essentially bounce uh the dot on the eye and he was struggling with it and I was like hmm
I don't know how to use the software but I know the physics behind it and I was like okay is there
a possibility for you to put your formulas in and he was like I'm not sure behind it. And I was like, okay, is there a possibility for you to put your
formulas in? And he was like, I'm not sure. We Googled it. I essentially gave him the formula
and he was able to do something that he was struggling for a week in like two minutes
because of like the formula I gave. And that's when it occurred to me. And I was like, okay,
wait a second. One of the things I've always said in life is I feel like everyone tries,
tried to like box me in life,
whether I was a left brain person or a right brain person. Right.
So because like I was always into the science side of things.
So everyone would also classify me as a left brain person,
but I was also into music. I was into dancing. I was into theater.
So I was always like a creative person.
That moment felt like the perfect intersection
of it so I was like okay I want to focus on it more and more a couple of years down the line
I decided to quit my job I actually was yeah I quit my job and then I decided to essentially
pursue this filmmaking and photography did that a couple of years and I actually got into web3 as an artist
a lot of people don't know that but I essentially had some like digital art I'll just make for
fun of it just because this used to be my industry and this is right around end of 2020 start of 2021
when the Beeple sale happened so I was like like, you know what? What the hell? Let me put some of my artworks out.
And yeah, for some reason, people decide to buy it.
Before that, I had one ETH that I bought in like 2017, 2018.
So that was my only crypto exposure.
But essentially coming as an artist and selling five to six pieces was essentially my kickstart to Web3.
Wow, super crazy.
I want to go back just a second, though,
because you kind of glossed over it,
you know, as if, oh, no big deal.
In Milan, you were a CSI guy.
Like, what was that like to work?
Like, were you working,
you said you work underneath the captain.
Were you going to crime scenes?
Like, what was that?
Like, was it a big transition
from what you were doing before
when you were in the morgue
and showing up and sort of being
that first lab person there versus like,
how did they get, I kind of just want to dig a little into that part of the story.
Yeah, no, for sure. I should have anticipated that and not glossed over it.
I'm always like worried about like, Oh, how much detail someone wants to go into it.
So my apologies for glossing over it. So yeah, like, so one of the things,
one of the things when i was working as a
forensic scientist or when you're working in the medical field is throughout like life everyone
tells you that it's okay to make mistakes in these two industries and maybe in aviation and a couple
of others you can make mistakes because one mistake can essentially like ruin someone's life
or like set someone free that shouldn't be free so my job
was usually in the lab which is like testing stuff and like analyzing things which is something that
you have like your own time to do it you have like a certain procedure to do it xyz the thing is when
you are a csi there are such random parameters that you're always dealing with that you just don't know
what happens when. And if you just make like one single mistake, you could essentially,
essentially like throw out a case. I'll tell you this one case study of like a case that I worked
on. It's probably one of the most gruesome one. So like if anyone's like not okay with it, maybe,
I don't know, I'll try to like not get into like
disgusting details i guess but there was a particular case that i worked on which essentially
was they found a body that was like submerged in the pool for like a couple of days so um we were
there so like you know there were there was this excavation team that essentially like pulled out
the body from the pool and when
a body is submerged in pool so when your body starts to decompose you essentially have like
gases that like leak within your body because this was submerged inside the water they were
not able to escape so you essentially become very bloated you essentially look like an alien you
you have like green and purple like discoloration all over a body it looks
very not good and it smells awful essentially they pulled him out and the thing that i had to do was
essentially get this person's fingerprints to id him when you're bloated you don't want to make so
the thing is like you have so much pass and like gases and water under your skin that like if you end up rupturing the skin, you might damage the fingerprint.
So my captain comes and he gives me a very simple solution.
He's like, here's what you do.
You wear a couple of gloves, take a slicer and essentially like a scapel sort of a thing.
They call it slicer.
Cut around his like hand. Take it off like a scapel sort of a thing. They call it slicer. Cut around his like hand.
Take it off like a glove.
Put your fingers inside his skin.
And take the fingerprint.
And I was like, huh, interesting.
Like my immediate reaction, I wasn't like super disgusted.
I was always like a bit, I guess like, you know, a bit okay with things like that.
But I was like, okay.
My biggest concern was, I think, even before the disg disgust what i was worried about is if i ripped the skin
in the wrong way we could lose the fingerprint and things like that so i was like super worried and
okay i put on like two pairs of gloves and i put on like i put his i put my finger inside his finger. I take the fingerprint. Somehow I get it right.
And then what happens is I can't get the smell out of my hand.
And it's like, like, if you've never smelled a decomposed body,
you don't know what a bad smell is like.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to say this out.
Even if you think you've smelled some disgusting shit in your life.
And I went to my captain and I was like, I have like a headache.
I can't like breathe
properly like it's like disgusting like what can i do and he's like oh how many pairs of gloves did
you wear and i was like two and he was like oh you were supposed to wear like five and i was like
oh shit what am i supposed to do now so like he gave me like some like you know there are some
solutions that you wash your hands with it didn't work and then essentially what he asked me to do was put a wear a regular glove and put garlic inside it so the idea was let the garlic
clad the smell so essentially i put a glove put a clove of garlic inside it and he was like you
would rather want your hand to smell like garlic than a dead person and i was like fair enough
and did that so yeah like that was like kind of like a weird story that i always like sharing
with people so is that what made you quit like is that what made you quit then is that what
actually was like okay this is too much i can't do it or is it you know later on after you know
this was this was actually way early on because this was my internship this was right after college
so after that i ended up working at like dubai police it wasn't just like i wouldn't say it was the act of the gruesome side of things or like you know when the doctor
would be doing the autopsy like would i be disgusted by that it wasn't that to be honest
it was more about like just like seeing people have their lives ended in a fraction of a second
like when i would be in the morning you would see people like who are
going to like school who are going to college you would see like little kids who died in like car
accidents because the person in the next car was like on on a phone call or something whatever
i feel like the idea of like okay i'm it just felt too heavy for me to be the first person
to see them every single day and almost felt like,
like, how do I carry the Lord of these people's stories on my shoulders?
Even though it was not my responsibility and it's not like they didn't have family members or whatever,
but it just felt like it was, it was too much of, yeah, I guess it was like too much of a burden.
It just felt like they all had stories that just came to an end and I will
never know.
And their loved ones will never know.
And how do I deal with this?
Like every single day and like normalize this and go back home thinking that,
you know what?
Just another day of work.
I just couldn't do that.
Yeah.
That's gotta be tough.
Especially as someone you are very much like,
I don't mean this,
this is probably not the right word,
but a sensitive person that you're empathetic, right?
Like you're somebody who is very driven by feelings and emotion.
And that probably speaks a lot to your creative side, right?
Because I think you're someone who, who, like I said,
when we first met you immediately, like, I could just tell,
like literally it was probably as close as you could be to be like a palpable
feeling of just good vibes.
Like you are that embodiment in terms of just your smile, the way you carry yourself, like all of it.
So I could totally see that how it'd be very difficult to continue on in that work.
But I just, I've always wondered, it just struck me as so fascinating because you're just like, oh yeah, by the way, it's like a forensic scientist.
And it's like, because immediately I just started thinking of like CSI Miami and all these things that when I was in college were super popular, or even before.
We used to have classes where we would just like watch an episode of like CSI and just like
discuss it later on. It was like, I had a great time doing it. Like, you know, I'm keeping all
the gruesome stuff aside. It was a fun thing to study and a fun industry to work in. And I'm glad
I did what I did,
to be honest. No, that's awesome. Well, one of the things, because you mentioned the Dubai police,
and, you know, I think most people realize that you are, that you do live in Dubai,
you do a lot to sort of recruit people to come to Dubai, especially who are in the Web3 space.
But if I remember correctly, you're Dubai native, right? Like, aren't you from there?
Okay, this is going to be a very interesting question.
Interesting answer for you to hear as an American human being.
So I was born, so my parents are from India.
I am born and raised in Dubai.
The thing is, in Dubai, you don get citizenship, even if you're born there. So like
on, on, on paper, essentially I'm still Indian. Like my credentials are all like, I hold an Indian
passport. Uh, but on like, I guess like culturally, like I'm way more native Dubai than I am Indian,
I guess. Well, the reason I asked that specific question is, you know, I was in my various different subject areas that I taught as a teacher for 20 years in high school, one of which was social studies.
And I did that for probably eight years or so.
And six of those I taught AP Human Geography.
And I remember showing, you know, and so we're talking about 20 years ago.
Right. And I remember showing videos to my students right around the time that they started talking about Dubai.
Because for those who are watching or listening, and if you don't know anything about Dubai, it is sort of a place that literally sprang up out of the desert in the last few decades.
And so just knowing your particular age, what was that like to see such a radical transformation? Because obviously you were born there. I'm sure Dubai looked nothing like it does today from when you were a child. So what has that been like and how has that impacted you and the way you look at the world and the way you feel about Dubai?
the way you feel about Dubai? That's a great question to ask. So just to maybe like give
everyone context and like a more zoomed out perspective, UAE was formed and essentially
Dubai was named as a city in 1971. I was born in 1993, so I'm 32 years old. Just putting that
into perspective so you realize what the time gaps are. dubai has changed a lot culturally over the years i always say this and i
don't mean this in a negative way that dubai does not have a culture of its own because dubai has
so many different cultures it hasn't like picked up anything from one particular
geographic location and adapted it like okay like this is your straight up plain dubai culture the
only few things i would say so the area essentially the the uae area used to essentially come under
india before so there are some things like if you talk about emirati food or emirati like drinks and
stuff like they're very close to indian cuisine uh then the rest of the arab world for example like
usually when people talk about Arab food in Dubai,
they talk about like Lebanese food or Egyptian food.
They never mean Emirati food.
So in general, like, I feel like I always say this,
Dubai has had like certain events where like a lot of like the culture changed.
a lot of like the culture change so let's let's talk like early uh years so my dad moved to the
So let's, let's talk like early years.
ua in 1989 uh 1987 or 1988 something sorry something around that time and at that time
like a lot of the region was packed with people from uh south asia which was like india pakistan
bangladesh shulanka and a lot of uh arabs as they started building more and more so you have
to realize that a lot of like emirati culture essentially comes from like them being bedouins
which were essentially like a tribe that lived in the desert so they they were more mostly into
like trade and business and things like that i guess like when when dubai had its version of
like industrial revolution i guess that's when like they started bringing a lot of people and inviting a lot of people from the west from asia to
essentially like start building because they needed technical people whether it was engineers
whether it was like architects whether it was builders because this was like an a class of
people that didn't locally exist so it evolved like a lot dubai is like way more
multicultural than people realize so much so and i get like you know it's not like london isn't
multicultural or like a lot of other cities aren't but the thing is like dubai celebrates
everything to its extreme like even like different cultures and different religions like i'll give an
example we will celebrate christmas like crazy
even though like dubai is like a muslim country and we will a city and we will also like celebrate
like eid and ramadan like crazy so it goes like on different uh spectrums after covid dubai changed
a lot because dubai was one of the first cities in the entire world to open up uh we didn't really
struggle with it other than like people losing their jobs obviously people didn't really struggle
with like groceries or like amenities like I was watching on on television in the UK and in the US
things weren't like that for Dubai so a lot of people and considering Dubai does not have like
income taxes so a lot of people in the west they were have like income taxes. So a lot of people in the West, they were like, wait, this does not make sense.
How is it that these people are not paying taxes and they were able to get back to life?
Whereas for us, it was the other way around.
So Dubai had like a massive liquidity event, as I like to call it, which is essentially from a lot of like the West.
And then during the Russia-Ukraine war, a lot of people moved here.
So you see like, you see like a lot of people moved here so you see like you see like a
lot of like different communities move here so you had the european and uh american and british
community move then in like 22 23 you had a lot of the a lot of the russian and ukrainian community
move and now because of like web3 and ai a lot of like people from different industries are
essentially like now it's become
like a global thing so dubai is i always say that for someone to be like oh i don't like dubai
culture is kind of like a statement that does not make sense personally to me because you can
experience dubai in so many different ways if you are in like that bougie luxury, Lambo, let's go out drinking lifestyle, you can live that.
If you want to live a very South Asian, underground music sort of a thing, you can live that.
If you want to live a very conservative Arab lifestyle, you can live that.
If you belong from like the West, literally there's this whole place called Irish Village.
Literally, you will feel like you are in the country.
So I feel likeai gives you like
a spectrum of like ways that you can live uh whether it's like the most bougiest bougie or
like the most simplest simple and uh yeah dubai can become like a fit for anyone at least that's
what i like to believe no that's super interesting and when i started laughing because of when you
said you were born and we were just chatting the other day about how you don't think I'm as old as I am.
You said you were born in 1993.
I started laughing because that's literally the year I graduated high school.
You couldn't have picked a better one out of the air like 1993.
I'm like, dang, I graduated high school in 1993.
That's insane.
So, yeah, so I could technically probably be your dad.
Anyhow, that is super interesting, especially just hearing that.
And I will be the first to admit, honestly, Rahim, that I first, first time in Dubai was, you know, just just recently.
And so beautiful city.
It was really amazing.
It drove me nuts that I felt there was no real public infrastructure.
You know, like it seemed like you had to Uber everywhere because it's hot as blazes, right?
You can't just like, oh, I'm just going to go walk there. Like I remember Beach X hotel was probably
couldn't been a mile and a half away. And then almost any other city be like, oh, I just don't
my backpack. I just go walk to meet Beach Xicek right and there was no way I could walk there literally from the fact that it almost necessitated getting on some sort
of freeway and then getting off some exit to get some to some other place and and I think I maybe
was too harsh in my judgment of Dubai because I just felt as if, not that it didn't have a culture, but it just felt
the only thing I could think of, the only analog that I could give it would be Vegas
in the sense that it's just this massive city that just popped up out of the desert.
And it doesn't, and inauthentic is not the right word either.
It just feels, and soulless sounds too strong. But like, I just felt like
there wasn't some sort of like in geography, we call this sense of place. And I felt like that
was the one thing that Dubai lacked. But in the same breath, I mean, you're talking on a first
opinion, and having spent four days there, half of which I was jet lagged for and trying to like,
get my bearings and keep up and, and do business and run to side events. So it half of which I was jet lagged for and trying to like get my bearings and keep
up and do business and run to side events. So it's not like I was there for vacation,
which was interesting because I did learn and a shout out to Dubai for this.
I was super impressed by the level of English speaking. Like it almost struck me as a prerequisite.
If you're working in the service industry in any way, shape or form, like in a hotel, any hotel I went to, everybody spoke perfect English.
Right. And I learned that the biggest driver is tourism and it comes from primarily United States, UK and Canada.
So it makes tons of sense. But otherwise, like the people are super, super friendly.
Very like I had I had great experiences all around when it came to interpersonal reactions
with anybody that I like talk to. So I should probably give it another visit. And especially
because you're there, right? Like and I'm finding more and more friends who are either moving there
or are considering moving there. And I felt like if I go to Dubai, I probably need to give it like
a proper like I need to be there for a whole week or more and actually spend some time and see some of the other sort of cultural highlights beyond just running around the side
events and doing crypto things, right? You know, like really touching grass in Dubai,
or touching sand, whatever, because there's just, there's probably a lot to do. Like I see
when you post things, you know, you know, the city, you know, the place like, oh, you know,
you might be posting just like some coffee shop that you're at that you really like or. And so I've always found that stuff interesting.
We're halfway through our time. I can't believe it's already blowing by so fast. We're 87 people
watching. Thank you so much for tuning in today for episode two of Funky Friday is presented by
Global Stake. This is a shout out again. If many of you are crypto folks who are watching the
conversation or listening in
global stake is an enterprise grade bare metal staking service provider so if you have some
solana or eath you want to run a validator we are sock two type two certified really meant for
institutions we are permissionless in the sense that we can accommodate people who are just in
the space and maybe self-custody and have always been curious about how to earn yield by running
infrastructure but happy to have that conversation dmss are always open. So thank you for tuning in.
Thank you for sharing the show and everything else. So let's move on a little bit because I
want to dig into your creative side. One of the things that I honestly love so much, and I probably
even need to do a better job about going to find them because I'm usually when I'm posting, it's, you know, like if you're looking right now at my iMac, I have all these windows open.
I have Telegram open. I have Discord open. I have like all these different things going.
And I'm just like flitting from one thing to the next. I probably give myself I probably made my ADHD that much more worse working in this industry.
or worse working in this industry. And one of my favorite, favorite things when I catch it,
because a lot of times I don't have time to scroll and like look through the feed.
But anytime I see your smiling face, and you're doing one of your little daily videos,
I always stop and watch it. Because I really enjoy those. So those if you if you're if you
If you don't know Rahim, how can you not know this legend first and foremost?
don't know, right, I'm how can you not know this legend, first and foremost, give this man a follow.
Give this man a follow.
But go check out his feed.
He's on like day what?
64 or 5?
Today will be 65.
Perfect.
So for two plus months straight, Rahim's just jumping on and does this really great sort of impromptu talk about whatever's on his mind.
And I think that they are very valuable nuggets of wisdom.
You know, a lot of times talking about, you know, various things that are going on in the space or
what have you, but you had one that really struck a chord with me. And I promised you that we would
dig into this topic a little bit, because I think it's something that many people struggle with,
especially if they're new to web3 and coming to the industry.
You talked about imposter syndrome.
So imposter syndrome, if you've never heard that phrase before, it's just when it's a psychological condition that probably everybody experiences at one point or another or maybe continually to varying degrees where you feel like you've gotten into a place in life or maybe a station
or a job or whatever the case may be, and you feel like you don't belong.
So why don't you talk a little bit about, you shared your thoughts on imposter syndrome,
and then I want to tell you my personal story and we'll kind of just riff on this for a few.
Yeah, for sure. I just feel like people have built this idea that they need to get rid of it. And I believe it's one of
those things you need to rather harmonize yourself with it, accept it and kind of like, use it to
your advantage, maybe. Like I remember reading this book called The Motivation Myth. And in that
book, there was this gentleman, he was interviewing someone who had been like a public speaker has done
like 100 plus keynotes. And he goes up to him and he goes like oh uh how did you stop getting like stage fright like how do you how do you how have
you gotten over like your nervousness and he goes like wait a second who told you that because i'm
still nervous i'm still nervous i've done it a hundred times i'm still nervous the difference is
i've done it enough times but i've come out of it knowing that nothing happened. Then now I'm like, you know what?
I'm ready for it.
So it comes from like this idea of like acceptance.
And I think it's the same with like imposter syndrome.
It's like, you know, almost everyone talks about it.
There are countless case studies.
In fact, and this is so horrible because I'm blanking all their names.
But if you just go to YouTube and type imposter syndrome
and TED talk there are two TED talks that come up at the top of your list one is by this lady and
the other one is by this guy both are super nice they essentially talk about it from different
lenses one talks about it from a relationship lens one talks about it from a career thing
but I just don't think like people need to shy away from it because a i personally
think it'll always keep you humble i think imposter syndrome for me always keeps me humble
because it always makes me think that oh i need to always like educate myself more there's always
someone who could know more about me i need to brush my skills but my brush my value in fact
that in the tedx talk the the
the woman who was essentially talking about it from a relationship point of view
she brings up the argument that even in a romantic relationship having a degree of
imposter syndrome is actually good for you because then you wake up every day thinking
how can you be a better version of yourself to your partner so i'm like
a big believer of like living with it in harmony and uh yeah that's how i operate over the years
i've kind of become accepting of it so maybe it's like a time dilution thing that needs to happen
for everyone uh but yeah that's what i personally believe no i love that and one of the things that you know i in fact uh this was interesting because i'm a 16 year
meditator and uh this morning on insight timer is a timer that i use when i do my daily meditation
early in the morning and this kind of dovetails nicely with imposter syndrome and it was a quote
from soren kirkegaard very famous kind of early existential philosopher. And he said,
anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which I feel like is a good kind of proxy for imposter syndrome
because you are genuinely anxious. Like you worry, like I don't belong here. How did I get here?
I'm not worthy. You know what, all these things that are flying through our heads,
when we have sort of that, that negative voice in our our in our mind telling us that we don't belong.
And I suffered from it tremendously when I joined my organization.
You have to imagine I'm someone who 20 year high school teacher.
yeah I'm a total nerd I bounced around and just kept getting different certifications like I
Yeah, I'm a total nerd.
shared with B-Check a couple weeks ago and just kept switching subjects from English and social
studies to mathematics and then you know by the end I was doing international baccalaureate and
teaching theory of knowledge and every time I just thought like oh this is this is you know
something new but I quickly was able to settle in because I had a set of skills that I knew I was just applying in a different domain. That was not the case coming to Web3 where, you know, I had after COVID and I left
teaching at first, I worked as a recruiter for about a year and a half, but it didn't really
have any kind of imposter syndrome because it was, yes, it was a different career path,
but like, I just felt like I was still using the same skills, but then I come to
web three and all of a sudden given this role where I'm, you know, my original title was director of
protocol relations. And then it's since been like a promotion entitled to head of protocol partnerships,
just really sounds more official. But when I first joined the organization, I was literally
the third person hired or second, really technically speaking. And I'll never forget like the very
first meeting I'm joining a startup, right? It's a very risky venture. And you know, this is three
years ago and my co-founder rich. And one of the very first meetings, like we need to scale now.
And I'm thinking like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing here? This is crazy. Why did I take this job? I
took a pay cut to come take this job and start out and be at a startup. And this is nuts. Like, I don't belong here.
I've started freaking out.
Like, for six months, I dealt with the worst imposter syndrome ever.
And it was only until, believe it or not, it's sort of ironic because you're in Amsterdam.
I was in Amsterdam about six months after I had started.
And I was with my friend and one of the co-founders, David, which which you know, David Chapman, you've seen from Silvermind Capital on Modern Market.
And he comes up to me and he pulls me aside. We're walking through the streets
and he just starts telling me what a great job that I'm doing and like how I've blown away
everybody's expectations. And he tells me that, Hey, we're giving you a big raise.
We're actually going to give you equity in the company.
You know, we didn't have any expectation.
We didn't know what we were going to get.
And now three years later, I feel like my role has the level of trust that I'm given,
the autonomy, you know, like I went last week.
That's why I couldn't have Funky Friday last week because the co-founders are like, hey,
you and Jordan, who is the head of
institutional partnerships, come up and meet with us, the three co-founders, and we're going to
have a strategy session for 2026. So I went from having crazy imposter syndrome to thinking,
like, I don't belong here. I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm going to get fired at any
moment to you're a critical person in the company. We take your
advice very seriously, your perspective, your opinion. These are really, really important to us.
And to have that from great mentors and people who you trust is just incredible. And it's solidified
the belief in myself. And so if you are anybody who's watching or listening to this right now,
if you have imposter syndrome, we all deal with it at some point in our lives.
Believe in yourself, lean into the skills that you have and just be the best version of yourself.
You, I swear it'll all work out in the end, but it really hit home when you, when I saw you
talking about imposter syndrome in the video. So if you guys haven't checked out some of these
videos that Rahim is putting out there,
just go through his feed.
They're all super short.
They're really, really good, super cool stuff.
And I really just as someone who loves to express gratitude, I think what you're doing,
honestly, Rahim, is a huge service on the timeline because, you know, most of the stuff
we see on a day to day basis in our little corner of Web3 is, you know, shit posting or talking about tickers or whatever.
And I think I probably need to do a good job about going back to just dispensing wisdom, sharing things.
You know, 50 years old, I've gleaned a lot from life and I feel like I have a lot of value to share in that regard.
So thank you for taking the time to kind of dig into that because I did want to talk about it.
But let's again, going back to your creative side that's why i played james brown for you in the
beginning i keep loading up my roadcaster with with with more good stuff in fact i have my good
god now which is my favorite um but like i i wanted to play that very specific james brown
intro for ain't it funky now because i i think you're such a musically talented person.
Like every time I see you, it seems like you're in front of a new instrument.
I'm like, what?
He plays guitar?
What?
He plays drums?
What?
He's playing piano?
You are really a multifaceted and super talented human being.
faceted and super talented human being and and like this as as a fellow aspiring renaissance
man which clearly you are this is a huge gap in my lifelong journey like i do not know how to play
a musical instrument and it's something i promised myself that when i have more time it's either
going to be piano or drums because i feel like i'm a was born a percussionist somehow i'm always
tapping and moving my head and whatever um but like
is that what made you and this will give you a little bit chance to expand on art style
as a creative person was it the music and you also talked about in the beginning of our
conversation like you came to the space as an artist you did some art pieces nfts um what was
it that made you want to establish art style and let's talk about Artstyle a little bit more
because I think people don't realize what it is
and all the cool things that you're doing with Artstyle
to help welcome people into Dubai
who are coming in from other parts of the world
and they're just Web3 denizens themselves.
So I guess let's dig into Artstyle a little bit
and your love of music and art and everything else yeah on the music side i would especially if so
if you believe that you have you are like you have like a knack for like drumming you're always like
tapping your hands and legs because i'm like that the maybe the one instrument you should look at
is look up a handpan um because i'll send it to you what it is but handpan is
basically it's it's it feels like a very meditative instrument and it has like seven notes on it so
it's like a mixture of like a lead and a percussion instrument but because everything is in one octave
there's no way for you to play the instrument wrong and it's basically percussion based and
stuff i think you will love it it's very it's
very like the only there's no there's no proper way to even play it it's such a new instrument
that came out in like the last 10-15 years even though it might look like it's like an ancient
instrument that it has like a very easy like a learning curve as long as you're able to get
the way that you're able to hit the hand and it makes a sound you'll get used to it i'll send it
to you later but i personally think everyone should like learn to play some sort of like a music instrument for like a couple of
reasons a the way it'll build so it's funny because i'm not like i'm not technically trained
everything i play is by ear like i've learned it by myself through youtube videos uh a lot of it
is just like natural so i've like never taken classes per se funny enough it's something i want to get into more and more but like a couple i personally think everyone should learn to play a
music instrument because a there you cannot game learning an instrument because you need to build
muscle memory and that's something that you just can't game whether it's with like your drums whether
it's with like guitar whether it's with piano so i think it's like a great discipline exercise for
you to be like,
oh, I need to play this exercise over and over again,
build kind of muscle memory.
But like my favorite thing ever,
I have a very deep relationship with like music.
I always say that music has always been like a person in my life
that it's able to like respond to me the way I've always wanted to
ever since like I was a kid.
But if the one of the most beautiful feelings in life
for me is when you're playing music along with someone and you're just jamming and then there's
this like euphoric moment where you play something and they play something and it's going so well and
it's almost like your mind frequencies are like synchronized like i can't tell you i i have a friend of mine who runs a
fintech startup in web2 him and i every time we played music in a high-stake situation so
when we recorded like some music back in college when we played on stage there would always be
this moment where he would improvise something on stage or at the studio and i would end up
improvising something on it and oh my god and I would end up improvising something on it
and oh my god it would be like my favorite part of like the night so music in general has been
like a big part of my life like when I'm retired I essentially just want to like play at like a bar
with like two or three friends of mine if I have five people in the audience who are enjoying it
like that's that's how I want to die like you know like I've mastered life and stuff uh but that's a bit on the music side
the art style side i see essentially it comes more from like my love for human connection and
my belief that like the value of like sense of belonging like a quick tldr is so essentially i
started art style with a few friends of mine back in 2021 uh it's funny because we ended up meeting because
of an art auction on foundation i was bidding on a piece and this person was bidding and i ended up
winning and we eventually met the next week and we were like oh let's bring people together but
what happened was in 2021 this is way before nft nyc existed there was no such thing as nft events
we realized that some of the biggest collectors in the world were living in Dubai. These are like punk holders, ape holders, the guy who was buying all the
Meep Zone Foundation. He was based out of Dubai. So we just started putting events and six people
became 15 people, 15 people became 30, 30 became 100 by 2021 November. And then we did this like event with like artifact clonex where we knew about 20
clonex holders in dubai we put out the poster online and we got restarted by 80 other clonex
holders the thing is like you have to realize this is like not like a main event this is no
like nft nyc where the world has come so that's why like the coincidence of like people being in
the same city is high there were like 80 90 clonex holders and this is like early 22 so we're like okay let's throw an
event at this event the doodles team was there they loved what we were doing so they were like
let's start that so one thing led to the other we just like initially started doing these events
and essentially what happened was because majority of these people were based out of dubai
they started building a sense of belonging so it wasn't that oh i know what funky does for a living i knew
funky's dog's name like you know his family's name or like you know what are the small things
like where did he go to like school or whatever so i feel like the the community became like
super close we started doing like you know we would do fitness mornings we would do like christmas
dinners together and like you know it became like very much on the wholesome side of things.
We did these two events, which were called the Artstar Fest.
The direction for me was always like, I feel like a lot of these events in crypto are,
sometimes I struggle to understand who the target audience is for these events.
Like, you know, if you have two people sitting, I i don't know talking about like erc 721 contracts this is too basic for someone who is already in the space
and way too complicated for someone who's like never been in the space so i'm always like the
that like we need to be very mindful of that so the first art stuff fest we had like zero panel
zero discussion it was all about art and music and culture it was a web3 fest for web3 people
it was an internet culture festival for the web2 audience we marketed and the next year when we did
was uh there was a lot of quirky things i did at this event that a lot of people don't know
i ended up doing um i ended up setting debates but the debates were done in like a very funny
way what i so i used to i used to do improv theater
until last year on a very regular basis and i hired one of my improv friends to play uh instead
of a moderator play an actual judge so i got him a wig i got him a gavel and i was like okay
i prepared some topics so the topics were like uh is decentralized is our meme coins uh good for
onboarding or they make us look like a joke
or are etfs uh a slap in the face of decentralization or they're important for adoption
things like that topics that you could argue from both sides so like we did these debates and he was
like being like funny in the center but the it was like a lot more engaging of a conversation so
anyways uh we did like a lot of like culture focused things and now essentially what we are building is we are building um a clubhouse so think of a soho house but through the lens of
web3 and the whole idea is there are so many people who are moving to dubai like we felt that
we art star has built a family over the last few years and now it's time to build a home so it's
like if funky moves to dubai he's like you know he's in his 50s he
doesn't have his family he doesn't have his friends he's not grown up in this city he doesn't
know the nuances of it he's looking for that sense of belonging and i want art store clubhouse
to be that sense of belonging so not only from oh why don't you like sit here co-work together
like let's all build together learn learn together, degen together,
trade together.
But it's also like,
there's a lot of like social activities
that want to do that.
We're going to have a restaurant inside of it.
I want to focus a lot on fitness stuff.
I want to do music jam nights.
I want us to watch,
I don't know,
the UFC or football.
Like the whole idea is like,
you know,
let's bring a like people,
a sense of belonging.
And this kind of alludes to like,
you know,
when I do my videos, you can clearly tell like, there are other things that I'm interested in. let's bring a like people a sense of belonging and this kind of alludes to like you know when
i do my videos you can clearly tell like there are other things that i'm interested in and i
fundamentally believe a lot of people are like multi-dimensional like for some reason oh like
the way social social media algorithms work they say that oh if funky is in crypto this dude needs
to talk about crypto he needs to breathe crypto that's when we'll push out his content and like if he does anything else we're gonna de-boost his content and what happens
is over time you end up building this this identity for yourself that oh i'm a crypto guy
and i need to do that and i at least for me i'm not that person i'm i'm personally very
multifaceted and i just can't accept the idea of like people being like single
dimensional. So my whole idea is just because Funky's in crypto doesn't mean he doesn't like
Michelin star nights. He doesn't like fitness. He doesn't like watching football. He doesn't
like to enjoy music. And that's what essentially we are doing with the art style clubhouse.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that that's actually going to be a physical place because this,
you know, has been an idea. I remember when we were in, I think it was at the Modern Market Breakfast and you were telling me that you were like going to go forward with this whole idea of actual a physical place.
And one of the things, too, I remember you said in that conversation we were having was that even beyond the physical place, there's like a whole directory for people who belong to ArtsDAO.
So that way you can also network with others that maybe are in similar verticals in the industry and stuff like that, too.
I mean, have you already, I'd assume, because didn't you just recently announced that you have found like the physical place?
Like, can you kind of give us an update in terms of is the place up? Is it running?
Or are you guys still putting it together? Like, what's that directory look like and how does it work those kinds of things yes absolutely so
we got the physical space it's like a massive beautiful villa it's right next to the beach
it's in the middle of the city so it's like accessible to everyone right now we are doing
a lot of the interior design and concept work for it because there's food and beverage there's going
to be like a podcast room like the way we are designing it is again like the reason i use the word web3 soho house is it's not
going to be like a corporate looking like a co-working space it's going to be like a very
lounge style idea i want to make sure the space has a lot of soul because i'm very cognizant of
the fact that what is it that would bring me there every single day. And if I don't find,
if I don't think that there is something to bring me every day,
I can't expect anyone else to be there.
So right now we're essentially building out the interior.
Our goal is to have that essentially live by end of November, start of December.
So hopefully if you're visiting Dubai slash Abu Dhabi
during the Binance Blockchain Week,
the Bitcoin Mina event, Solana breakpoint
that you should be able to catch the clubhouse. But obviously, like you can follow our socials
to keep tabs of when it comes live. And the directory side of things, this is something
I'm actually like very excited about because it feels like I'm surprised that like a lot of people
haven't looked into doing this in like a structured way in like web three today. You could, I don't know, join the punks discord or like the punks telegram
and be like, Hey guys, I'm funky. I'm building this. I'm doing X, Y, Z and stuff with global
stake. I would love to connect with someone. Uh, please DM me. I can bet you no one's going to DM
you. You're going to feel like awkward doing it. There's a good chance. Maybe you're like
introverted and you're like, I don't want to like say this in front of like 200 people and like my
whole idea is that what essentially needs to happen is that when someone joins art style even
without having a conversation they should be able to go somewhere and be like okay this is who funky
is this is where he's based out of this is his experience in web3 this is the companies he works
for these are his interests so that like not only can you reach out to them like by yourself but it also like gives people who
maybe want to move to dubai to kind of get like a taste of what that dubai community is like
like you know you jump you come out of the plane you step out of the plane and you're like
yeah i see this dude named rahim on the timeline he keeps saying like dubai is alpha like where
the fuck is this alpha?
And like, that is what I want.
Like I want for people to be like, okay, you know what?
I'm still on the fence.
If I want to move there or I don't,
I don't even know what the bet three scene is like.
My thing is like, join us, look into the app.
Like, you know, maybe you don't even have to move here to get into that network.
Like I fundamentally believe that crypto markets have like different pockets, whether it's the Asia market, it's the Middle East market.
Get into it, understand the nuances, understand what people are building here, what's lacking, and then maybe use your judgment to join or move here.
So, yeah, like that's basically the vision for the app.
Awesome. And I have to ask because ask because i mean obviously you're very
and i've referenced this at the beginning of our conversation you're a very proud
board api club member and you know you rock you rock that as your pfp shout out to cap i know he's
listening in as well so um and one of the things that i've always been impressed with and i'm super
and as a pudgy holder i i would have to say I'm also super impressed with them in terms of just the community build that they do.
But like, was it the being part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club early on and seeing how they rallied around and created a sense of community that helped you with what you're building with ArtsDAO and trying to bring this together for people in Dubai in a very real way in real time on any given day was it
what was it that kind of gave birth to that was there any kind of connection to just like the
community that you saw and sensed when you became a board ape holder uh well I would say maybe it
fueled it like the thing is I've always been about the community side of things like me and my brother
we used to like run like
the music community like we started like the music community back in dubai many years ago i guess like
it was mostly my brother i was like part of it because i was like younger and then i told you
i used to do improv theater and like a lot of the theater community is like kind of like it's very
small because like the one thing that i don't think dubai has reached to the same levels that
you have in the west is essentially theater and acting.
But like I used to love doing improv theater.
So we were part of that community.
We used to do free community theater shows.
We used to help out sometimes off stage, on lights, on like backstage and everything.
So I feel like I was always into that world and I realized how valuable communities are.
into that world and I realized how valuable communities are.
But like the board ape community definitely like fuel that for me because,
because I was into it like almost like a week after it minted out and like
everyone's idea getting into it was like, there was no reason,
there was no financial reason.
A lot of people were getting into it at that point.
I remember the only reason I wanted to buy it.
I was like, Oh, I saw some of my friends, whether they were Iranian,
whether they were American, whether they were like from india they were all like identifying themselves with this like digital
this persona and like that idea just like piqued my interest because and maybe this is like a bigger
conversation that we can have like some other time but like i've always said is i love the idea of
digital identities because it's almost like you're getting rid of
the baggage of history that like surrounds us from regardless of who you are where you are from like
like just to be like very frank like no matter what happens at the end of the day i will always
be for example like a like a brown person and stuff it has its ups it's had its downs and stuff
but like a lot of like the world revolves around like a lot of
the baggage that comes around like history that revolves around this race or like someone's
religion or someone's gender and this and that i like the idea of us living in digital worlds
and almost like building digital uh like having like digital baggage and stuff so like you know
oh you belong to the board community you belong to the punks community so all like your baggage was like very native it didn't matter how old you are what part
of the world were you from everything just like seemed it was very much focused on oh if you're
a board ape holder doesn't matter like all those things don't matter and i really like the concept
of it i have talked about it ages ago maybe i should do a video on it i talked about how the next phase of human evolution
might be through digital identities by us getting rid of the baggage that has like held us
from like different things and maybe this is like a deeper topic but essentially that just like got
me like really excited into it and the wordip community is like way more wholesome than people
realize like i really hope that at some point everyone gets to visit A-Fest once in their life
because you don't know what that sense of belonging is
until you go there.
Like the fact that last year
there were about five to six people
who got their moms and dads as their plus one
is just like something you would never ever see in crypto.
It's super like wholesome.
You see people like, you know,
bringing you like gifts with like their IP,
bringing you like chocolates and like their ip bringing you
like chocolates and snickers and yeah it's just like something else for me and uh it definitely
fueled that a lot that sense of belonging for me 100 in the space well in my mind ryan you're just
a wonderful human being period regardless of brown skin whatever any of that like and i i feel that
this what i do love about web three
to just broadly speaking, even beyond these sub communities, whether it's board apes or pudgy
penguins or what have you, it is very by and large egalitarian. It's a place where people
can just bootstrap themselves, meet the right folks network and kind of continue to build up meaningful relationships.
And, you know, I think Aaron sometimes struggle with, you know, she's like, you don't even
know these people because you could just talk to them online.
But there's there's a weird thing about just Web3 and how though you might not be in physical
physical closeness with somebody, you know, you meet these friends halfway around the world.
closeness with somebody, you know, you meet these friends halfway around the world.
When you are together, like the relationship and the bonds become very strong regardless. And then
when you're together, it just makes those moments so incredibly magical. And on that note, this has
been a one hour magical moment for me, Rahim. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to be
here. And I would love to have that second deeper philosophical conversation, maybe a few months down the road, as I get more
guests on, I can imagine having sort of follow up conversations with people and just finding out
where they are and where life has taken them. And you would certainly, of course, be on that list.
So we are at the one hour mark. For those of you, we have 108 people watching on the stream.
If you've tried to, you know, I'll figure out the space audio at some point one day.
But thank you so much for being here, Rahim.
Thank you for those who have tuned in.
Again, this is Funky Friday is presented by Global Stake, your institutional bare metal
blockchain infrastructure provider.
If you're someone who just is an investor in the space, want to learn more about Global
Stake, hit me up in my DMs.
If you're a blockchain team looking to build on institutional, highly secure infrastructure,
please reach out to me as well.
It's gotten a little too funky in here, so I will close out with that particular gem.
And thanks so much for everybody tuning in today.
And thank you so much for being here, everybody.
Take care.
