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🚨 Special Guest @9gagceo on Coffee w/ Captain from @dGenNetwork
Recorded: Jan. 2, 2023 Duration: 2:46:51Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you. very best content in the NFT and cryptocurrency space. Please visit DGEN.network and check out our other great shows.
That's DGEN, D-G-E-N.network.
Welcome to the future.
GMGM, welcome back.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Welcome back, Steve.
What a day.
Kicking off the New Year with, as the kids would say, a banger.
Yeah, exciting times. I don't know if you can hear, by the way. I am. My head cold is through the roof right now.
I've gotten sick like, I would say, 50% of the New Year's over the last like 10 years, for whatever reason, has become a theme in my life.
Right around New Year's, I get like this wicked sort of cold last year it was covid previous years it's been the flu it's just
i always get something and i woke up yesterday and my head was in a vice and i just like so
we're gonna play through the pain today but um i'm gonna mute as much as i can i apologize if
anyone hears me blowing my nose because the level of congestion and sinus pressure is off the fucking charts soft steve today um i kid i'm hope you're feeling
better here soon do you think it has anything to do with your travels or just just coincidental
yeah i don't know i mean like it could be travels it could be a combination of things but like
i don't know i just kind of chalk it up to my bodies on this weird clock um because like I said I mean last year was COVID I can't remember I think the year before I had the
flu year before I had I think COVID before COVID was a thing and then and this is all around the
New Year's time frame and then previously um I was like healthy one year And then I would have like a massive cold But like it's a thing
Like I'll end up home on New Year's
Like 50% of the years
For whatever reason
It's a very strange thing that my body's on
It's certainly possible
I mean I was on a cruise
I was traveling
So it's possible
I ended up home on New Year's by choice
I was
Enjoyed the downtime very much
And actually
Not that I'm in
I'm hesitant to
say anything because i know i'm not on the levels of the pros but um like my morning routine has
shifted i'll just say that my morning routine where it used to be you know my you know first
hour of the day was catching up on email discord uh maybe doing ootp sim before i headed to the gym
uh that has been replaced with uh well
depending on the day but we'll say today was fortnight finished third in a battle royale
uh had some fun over the weekend with mackie and mark and uh crypto paint shout out to mark by the
way i don't know if you saw steve had a pretty pretty rough uh automobile accident um he and
his girlfriend and dog, fortunately everyone survived and
made it through it. It just puts a lot of
things in perspective heading into the new year.
It was
just a good weekend altogether.
Not to bring everyone down with that, but I see
Mark out there. Glad to see you
out there and hope you and your girlfriend
are recovering well.
Shout out, Mark. Hope you're doing alright.
I missed that
just because i've been playing catch up figuring it out but uh shout out mark hope that uh hope
that he's doing all right but yeah i mean it's um it's definitely been an interesting couple of
weeks listening there's so many times i want to jump up when i've been listening uh when i was on
the high seas uh on my dis. People like Spicy Cap, apparently.
Yeah, I almost came on and tried to find a way to nonchalantly ask you
about securities and NFTs and being like,
I feel like nothing Larva Labs puts out is a security.
Just to see how you would react, like if I could sort of play dumb.
But no, I was listening and it was
the right tone. I did hear if you put
the IP, the art, into the public domain
if you CCO the art, it
is the get out of all security jail free card.
That's the magical. Yeah, as long as you CCO the art.
Not a security, as long as you CCO the art.
You can actually literally pay dividends.
Yeah, no. Literally
can pay dividends and
do stock buybacks.
We're kidding, by the way, this is not accurate, but this was a take of another show that we're
named nameless that I used to be an ambassador up now.
I've become the anti-ambassador.
So I'll just leave it at that.
But yeah, GM, everyone.
And then, I mean, just talking to the new year before we kick it around in some hands.
I mean, I did have a lot of thinking time personally
while I was on this cruise.
What I found is a couple of things.
I found one, I am not at a point in my,
a chapter in my life where I'm comfortable
unplugging from work, which I think is okay.
I accept that.
I know that's not always the case
and that won't be forever,
but at the moment, it doesn't feel good. So that's something I ran case and that won't be forever but at the moment it doesn't feel good
um so that's something i ran into a little bit which again i i think that that will change i
think it's just now the building phase of my sort of like new career i think i think it's a i think
it's a strength in my opinion i think it's a positive uh characteristic or trait uh it can
be frustrating at times maybe if you're not enjoying what you're doing but similarly if I'm like checked out like I can
you know for bits like short stints like I can go play a video game for an hour
but then if it starts getting too long I start like a little anxiety sets in like okay
what am I supposed to be doing right now same thing with like vacations and stuff it's hard to just really truly check
out it's good to check out work on yourself your business whatever the case may be
but I struggle the same when I'm in a mode where it's build mode and hard to really, truly just check out.
So I can relate.
Yeah.
Hopefully you've recharged the batteries a bit, though.
Yeah, a little bit.
I mean, it was good.
I took one day off, a total day off where I didn't do work.
And I had mentioned this in a tweet, but it was my first time in probably two years that I've taken a full day off without working, including weekends,
just because since I've started in Web3, even before I was full time in Web3, it's just,
you know, every day was something trying to build towards something, work towards something. And
when I was at my sort of Web2 job or my, not even my Web2 job, my Nestle job, I was
working towards, you know, doing Nestle during, I was working towards, uh, you know,
doing Nestle during the week. Cause I wasn't going to slip up there. Cause that was my primary source
of income. Then the weekends were a lot of times when I was able to do web three stuff and work on
writing and creating content. And then when I went full-time in web three, it's just been, you know,
there's really not Monday through Friday, nine to five type stuff. It's just you work when you need
to work. And so, um, so it's been, it's been a lot like it's been, it was an interesting, like
self-reflection about me when I realized, like, I used to love the unplug when I would
leave for, um, my corporate job.
And I think part of that was, I liked my corporate job.
I didn't love it as much as I'm doing now, but I mean, like, even when I was on, uh,
you know, on the cruise, I cruise i mean i i would spend a
few hours writing scott and i turned our first draft to our editor uh yesterday officially
yeah like full congrats probably i mean we did it in word so like it's not an exact one-to-one
so it's probably like i'd say somewhere between 150 175 pages of content so that was good and
like yesterday going through it was so rewarding
as I'm looking through and I'm like, oh, I remember this part was we were stuck. And then
this is how we got out of this knot and untied this knot. I remember when our editor gave us
feedback here and we fixed it to this and then we changed to this. And, you know, this is the
point when she told us no more digital monkey pictures and try to make them more relatable
concepts. And we were able to stretch ourselves and we had to do research here. And, um, you know,
up until yesterday, I mean, yesterday was yesterday was probably I mean I probably worked nine hours
yesterday on the book but it was great I mean it was like but but the point is like to your point
cap it wasn't like I looked at it like it was work I was excited to open up my computer and work on
it and do it so like that was that was really nice so we'll wait for our next steps from our editors
I'm sure we'll have a lot of back and forth and more to do.
But yeah, I realized this point in my life.
It's like, that's not healthy for me.
Now that said, and I was actually texting with Punter about this over the weekend.
I have figured out that there are certain things I do need to do to make sure my cup
is filled more on a daily basis.
So look, I'm sick.
I feel like I want to rip my sinuses out of my face, but I did wake up
this morning at, you know, uh, like 5 45 AM, got down, did a lift, walked my dog in the
morning because I realized that I'm going to have to start setting some healthy routines.
I didn't do everything I'd programmed.
Cause I programmed this whole thing with like running and lifting and other things.
And I, I just don't feel like doing cardio.
I'm giving myself grace this week while I'm sick. But I don't know, it was something where it's like, I realized that along this
journey, for me to like, maintain the right balance of feeling healthy in myself, there are
certain boundaries I'll have to create and certain things I'll have to do. And similar to you, I think
I've always been a morning person. I've always been a good sleep person. I've always been a wake
up seven hours of sleep, go to bed early. And that hasn't been happening the past
couple of years. And so I decided I'm going to try to give it a reset. I think the new year is
a great time to do it. I think people who say, Oh, the new year is just another day. What are
you saying? I think those people are assholes because I think it's a nice time to reset and
really reevaluate yourself. Um, so, uh, so yeah, so I'm, uh, I am, I am figuring that out. So it
was a nice trip my my my new
year's alpha is i fade the gym i go to the gym five six seven days a week most of the year except
for january 1st second i might get it back i might pick it back up tomorrow uh probably next tuesday
when the new year's resolutioners fade out i will uh i'll pick it back up but um and if i do go it's
like i slept in a little bit today it's gonna be like a 5 a.m start to beat the uh the resolutioners yeah no i i i get that i think uh the i'm i'm in a unique
situation where i have not the best home gym but like i don't have like equipment or anything like
that but i do have some good free weights i do have a treadmill i do have a spin bike
so i have enough that i can create myself a good exercise routine that gets the job done.
So I'm starting with that for now just to do it.
But yeah, I want to quickly call attention
to the chat and the comments, GM everyone.
Special love to Vaughn Fronten and Dow Jones
for calling out the flu game, Steve's flu game.
But as Dow points out, he wouldn't appreciate the MJ flu game.
So it's more like LeBron on the bench with his whining that he's got some cramps.
But I digress.
GM, everyone, welcome back.
We're grateful you're here this morning.
We're excited about this show.
We have Ray, the CEO of 9Gag, joining us here in a bit.
We're going to be talking meme land and captains and everything else related to Web3 NFTs.
I'm really excited about this one.
Not only a successful Web2 founder, already had tremendous success to Web3 NFTs. I'm really excited about this one. Not only a successful Web2 founder
already had a tremendous
success in Web3 and even more so
before the success as a Web3 founder
was in the weeds with all of us. Whether
you knew it or met him or not or interacted
out there grinding, I think, I don't know
the exact amount, maybe we'll ask him this morning, but
put a substantial amount of skin in the game
from personal holdings and
spent a lot of time
learning the space. And then I think took a really creative approach to Meme Land and the
upcoming captainsmen here. So excited to get into that one. If you're new here, if you just found
us, thanks to 9Gag, Steve and I run this back every Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. Eastern
time. We usually start the show similar to this with our cold open talking somewhat of nonsense, but we usually find a way to tie it back into Web3 or NFTs.
Always a community show. If you have something to add to the conversation or later you have
a question for Ray, throw in a request because of the show and special guest today. We appreciate
everyone's patience hanging out. If we get a backlog in the request, but certainly throw up
requests. Or if you don't want to come up, drop a drop the question in there in the little purple or blue box to the bottom right.
Even a GM this morning is greatly appreciated.
And he still feels so inclined to share the space.
It is linked up above.
I think I don't know.
Do you know what time Ray will be joining us here this morning, Steve?
I told him closer to 9 a.m. Eastern time.
So he'll be up probably sometime between 845 and 9.
I am very excited after, you know, chatting with him a little bit
and then kind of doing more research because I was very –
I had said this in my DM to him.
I was an uncultured swine when it came to meme land,
and I now am, like, up to speed on it.
I'll confess to him.
I actually, for the longest time, probably until this weekend,
I actually thought it was the Captain Z Mint, not Captain's Mint.
I'm a little older than the average demographic of this space,
so the Z didn't just ring off as Captains,
plus probably a little bit in my own head with the CaptainZ.eth
in my ENS domain.
So yeah, I thought it was Captain Z Mint, not Captains.
But I don't know if I'll share that later or not,
but I am not afraid to admit i
was not one of the cool kids like like sugar shane and several others that have been uh on nine gag
and stacking these potatoes for several months so uh but steve while you're out we had a phenomenal
run last week of co-host uh punter goody uh they both did a i'd say an okay job filling in you no
one can fill your shoes um and i only say
okay it wasn't their fault it's just that i was certainly exposed uh last week by you not being
here um they're great they're they're great co-host it's just i don't think there's another
person on the planet that can can uh read me telepathically through the twitter spaces lines
and know when i'm either taking the dog out or gathering another coffee or uh it's it is like
it's somewhat magical and I didn't quite realize until I didn't have you for a week someone even
said we didn't realize how much you miss someone until they're not here and I think we were all
missing you a little bit last week so appreciate you really looking forward to running back another
year of coffee with you and uh glad you glad you enjoyed the show but yeah can't uh would be remiss
if I didn't thank punter and goody and everyone else who helped with the, uh, the conversations last week.
Yeah.
Thanks to the community.
I mean, we've said before, especially if you're new here, like we said, this is a community
show.
So, you know, once we start getting through the news of the day, which is about right
now as we hit the, uh, um, the eight 15 hour, but once we get into the news of the day,
it's, it's, you know, really the community that brings insights and values that help
us change our mind and see things.
So, um, you know, the fact that people like Punter and Goody can step up into the co-host spot and, you know,
help move things along while I plan to be here. I plan to wake up. In fact, my eight-year-old son
on Tuesday said, are you going to do coffee with Captain this week? And I said, yeah, I am. And he
was like, cool. Like, I mean, they're totally cool with it. They know it's part of the routine that
I do. And even if I'm on vacation, my family tends to be a little later starters which works in my favor
because I'm the early bird so I can get up and and do it when we were at actually Disney World
for people who were listeners back then I was doing like laps back and forth to Disney from
our hotel underneath the monorail so I had to mute every time the monorail went over but like
you know I walked like four miles while doing coffee in the morning, you know, going back and forth and had planned to, but the wifi on cruises, not great. That was
the one thing we rated them low on. Um, if we could have graded them on other passengers,
most were pretty nice. There were a few kids that were mine. I was like, am I in the beginning of
fucking Willy Wonka? These kids are awful, but most of them were pretty good. Um, so yeah,
good, uh, good overall trip, but let's start running through some hands. I saw Busy and then Goody in that order. And then we'll keep moving it around. Good morning, GM. Busy.
So really quick, Steve, I actually shot you a DM because you're not feeling too well.
There's a couple of things that I feel like I would recommend.
I'll be entirely honest with you.
I try to stay away from like typical medicine to make you feel better.
So some of the things that I typically like to try, oregano oil, bioactive silver, they
sound really strange, but I promise you if you take them, it'll help you. No, bioactive silver sounds they sound really strange, but I promise you, if you take them,
it'll help you. No, bioactive silver sounds like I'll get fucking superpowers. That sounds awesome.
You don't have to sell me a bioactive silver. That sounds great.
No, trust me. I used to get sick a lot as a child and like have had struggles with my immune system
for years. Um, but those two are like gold. So I highly recommend it, especially for someone who gets sick every New Year's.
That's not fun.
And also a comment,
and I wanted to kind of extend on what you said,
that I also had a struggle this year,
kind of disconnecting from the space
and from working in the space.
But for the first time in years,
it's because I realized that I do also love
working here in the space and just meeting people and just kind of vibing.
So I wanted to also tell you that you're not alone in that and just, you know, just tell you guys how excited I am.
And just it's been a pleasure just slowly meeting you all.
And I'm fucking excited.
I'm sorry.
I just have to let you guys know that.
No, appreciate the kind words. And definitely I'm filling up a diffuser right now and seeing
if i have any oregano oil so just so you know i was going to toss some hinoki in there and
some other things so we'll get this sucker going here my brain went elsewhere when you said diffuser
oh different type of uh throwing back to college i haven't used a diffuser in years um but no yeah
i uh i'm getting ready to fire up the old diffuser
and toss in at least some Hinoki and a couple other things.
If I can find some oregano, I will.
But Mrs. NMT Bark very well might hear it, have some,
and she may even hear this and run downstairs and give it to me.
But, yeah, no, it's, you know, definitely something that I appreciate you stopping by.
Appreciate getting to know you in the last year.
And, yeah, I'm looking forward to the year ahead.
I mean, we are starting off the year with a couple of great guests.
You know, Ray is really dynamic with a great history,
and he's really thoughtful about the space.
So looking forward to getting him on.
And tomorrow we have Ryan from Polygon, CEO of Polygon Studios.
That should be good.
But let's keep running hands.
We got Goody, Goody Punter Susan, and 1701.
Let's go in that order.
Goody GM.
The boys are back in town.. Let's go in that order. Goody GM.
GM, GM, Steve, how's it going? It is really good to see you back.
It was it was weird last week with you gone but it was still a fun time and spicy cap whoa spicy cap is the meta for 2023 i think that needs to happen at least once a week
uh if not fud friday then he needs a thirsty thursday or something to let loose on because
that was just the perfect end to the week.
I could get down with the FUD Friday bit.
We're looking for who wants to sponsor our FUD bit.
That's what we should do, Steve.
Who is what brand out there?
Actually, this might be a nine gag sponsorship. I think this could this could play out well today.
There you go.
That's that's something you should pitch to them.
The nine gag sponsor for FUD Friday.
I like that.
I like that a lot.
No, I was I mean, this whole weekend was still a crazy pump in the NFT space and all sorts of things flying.
But Sartoshi coming back was probably one of the more exciting things from over the weekend.
Like the NFT space is hot for the start of 2023.
Between this nine gag mint that's coming in two days you've got the
general market pumping sartoshi back jay releasing bitboy jay releasing a degen project at one in
the morning that uh has some gamification features to it like all sorts of fun stuff is going on in the
nft space today speaking of gamification you can't you can't speak of gamification in the weekend
without talking drunk santa steve i don't know if you've even caught any of the drunk santa with
your i saw what was happening and i had so much fomo just because you know obviously crypto painter
richard's my guy and uh totally missed uh missed out on it because I wasn't doing much at sea
as far as that goes.
That was certainly a bummer. That was a tough one to
watch everybody else doing.
I dropped
a thing up above. You can still get in on that
Steve. It's a summary.
You can still play the game.
I'm having a blast. Shout out to Richard.
Someday. I'm not going to put him on the spot. I tripped it to do it
twice last week, but whenever he's ready, would love to talk through this i think it's
i can see this being the meta of 20 we were talking about po apps and and we talked a little
bit about manifold mints last week and this is just like you know it's not just certainly with
art in motion everything's going on the the gaming side really pushing the space for but it's this
sort of creative fun that um and
incorporating the community i hope other artists are paying attention and watching what what crypto
painter is doing with drunk santa because it is this is in my opinion it's like it's the ethos of
web3 yeah well and like i think i think that's fun and i think goody you brought up a really good
overarching point there which is it's really interesting. One of the things I've thought is that we are not moving into a macroeconomic bull market.
We really can't see a true run in sort of a lot of this ETH-based Web3 market slash, you know, a little bit of soul.
And obviously now like polygons in the mix, which is interesting.
That was it's crazy to think it seems like decades ago that the last show I was running around in the Orlando airport, staying in a hotel in the Orlando airport.
I didn't even know they had a hotel in there.
And I was like running around trying to get reception as we talked to, you know, talk to Kevin from DGods.
But knowing the ETH, Solana, and now like even Polygon to some degree ecosystem, I always felt like we're not going to get a huge, huge pop outside of individual spots, right?
Like separators from the market.
So like Bored Ape Yacht Club will probably pump as we lead in to this trial of Jimmy the Monkey.
Because I've said this before with Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Every time they do something like this, it feels like, whether it is the case or not,
but it has been the case with most of their drops,
tonight, you might be a millionaire if you own one of these things.
Like, it's crazy.
You look at the Mutant drop, and you look at all these different things that they've done over the years. The other side
drop with CODAs. Like, you had the opportunity to make a lot, a lot, a lot of money. So I have a
feeling those continue to pump into that individually. But I didn't think we were going
to get a market pump until the macroeconomic situation improves around the globe. But here
we are at a good point. I feel like we're starting to see some upticks in volume.
We're starting to see some,
some,
some good projects start to separate,
start to execute.
And I think in fairness to those projects,
we were being really hard on some of these projects,
like even doodles.
Like I get people get really mad at doodles who has been around for just
over 18 months or just yet.
Right.
Not even 18 months,
actually.
I don't think.
And everyone's like,
where's the product.
And next year they're talking about shipping doodles too and all in genesis boxes and
everything coming through trial the jimmy of jimmy the monkeys coming up hold on hold on can i get
your take on on poopies uh i i think it was a troll troll comment i hope i hope he's not planning
to troll the haters for one hour a day every day this year but any any comments on that i thought it was pretty not a great tweet yeah i mean that's that's sort of that's sort of jordan's got that sort of edge
to him he's got like a little bit i would say jordan has a solid amount of frank in him um
as far as like that sort of like vibe sometimes and so i i would have never thought that and and
if that's the case maybe let's see a little more of it then. If that's his style, then maybe this is okay.
Maybe I will take back what I thought was not a great tweet.
Yeah, no.
I had not got that impression.
So if that's the case, maybe lean into it then and be that person.
But it felt off.
He had this – you remember he had the tweet when people were like,
where are you tweeting?
He's like, we only tweet fucking bangers, right? He was like arguing with
Tropo Farmer and they
had some back and forth. So it's not quite
to that extremity and Doodles puts a little bit more
of a lid on things, but
Jordan is a smart guy, he's thoughtful, but he does have
a little bit of that. He's always the one who's
a little more vocal on spaces than say
Evan who's a little more reserved.
Julian is sort of like,
he's this buttoned up CEO professional.
So I'll be interested to see, you know,
if he does this and what that looks like.
But I don't know.
I'm excited for like 2023
because it feels like a lot of the things
that these projects that got funding
need to want to deliver,
a lot of the stuff they have planned for 2023.
So it's like, to us,
it may seem like a really long time.
But in the real business world,
Bored Ape Yacht Club is not two years old. And think of everything they've executed from like
Mutants to Ape Fest to the mobile game competition to, you know, the various drops to frankly,
things they don't even get credit for like the integration of Coinbase onto a website to buy
merch with a native fungible token token which we had not seen really anybody do
successfully up until that point so they've done a lot in less than two years um and so this is an
interesting year to follow as they start to come through and execute on a lot of these things and
i've been a little more patient than most totally get people who maybe aren't as patient because
you know maybe they bought a little higher or whatever um and then obviously mythics coming
out for moonbirds and a lot of that coming through.
So we're going to see that ecosystem build out.
High-rise starting to come to fruition.
So a lot of these big brands are starting to really build stuff
as well as some of the smaller ones.
But with that said, let's – so it's a really good point there, Goody.
Really good thought starter as well.
Let's run the puncher, then we'll go to Susan.
GM, welcome back, Steve.
Happy 2023 to the Coffee with Captain family.
Really looking forward to the new year.
2022 had its ups and downs, right?
So I think everybody's ready to sort of turn the page.
But just wanted to say, Steve, very psyched to have you back.
You know, Captain, for those who ever get the co-host seat, Captain's amazing.
But I think the best thing Steve does is, like Cap said,
he knows when to step in and sort of run the show and take over.
And that's why you guys make a great tandem.
But really excited for Ray from 9Gag today.
For those who haven't heard him speak, he's just so down to earth.
He will say whatever comes to mind.
And those are the kind of leaders we need in the space.
So I think we're going to get 2023 started off with a bang.
And I can't wait.
So I just wanted to throw in a couple comments.
Thanks.
Right on, Punter.
Appreciate the kind words.
Again, happy to be back.
And yeah, I mean, at some point, probably nobody here cares.
But I'll definitely give people downloads on the cruise.
Because it was my first cruise.
And it was definitely an interesting experience. We care we definitely care 200 people want to hear about your cruise
experience yeah exactly exactly the uh i i sense the dipping start the dripping sarcasm which is
why i'm holding back um but yeah it's definitely was an interesting uh you know interesting time
going on the first one making it in 26 minutes minutes and not talking about that final kick of 2022.
What's that?
Well, either the last kick of 2022 or the first kick of 2023.
I wasn't going to go into great detail, but I'm assuming you watched the...
I don't know if you could say it went wide left.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. the, uh, I don't even if you could say it went wide. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
that's,
I have no look.
I mean,
I'll give you a high level on it.
you know,
my feelings for those who don't know CJ,
CJ Stroud redeemed himself.
Day still needs fired.
The running play call was the worst call I've ever seen.
One of the worst.
It was,
it was,
it was on par with the Seahawks throwing it with,
with Marshawn Lynch back in the Super Bowl you know
like first and goal from the one or whatever it was um it was it was about that bad of a of a play
when they like this isn't the even in the NFL you're not gonna like okay we're content with a
49 yard field goal like that was just it was very piss poor management by Ryan Day but shout out to
Stroud he redeemed himself and I think earned the number one pick next year. And I hope he does well. But yeah, tough, tough one to see get away.
No, no, no.
I'm with you.
And you know my feelings in general.
For those who don't know, Cap and I both went to Ohio State.
We're both Buckeye fans.
OSU, their coach was born on third base and has completely basically crashed his dad's
Ferrari, for lack of a better term.
So dude still probably needs fired.
When he loses to Michigan next year, he will get fired. And and then we can get back but he's had nine games that matter
in his career and he has three and six in them and uh yeah no like CJ Stroud was playing an
unbelievable game and you're like you know what let's run the football to get a 49 yard field
goal when we're in this good spot which was unbelievably stupid so it was a um I mean look
the targeting call should have stayed like the guy
lunged himself like a missile at at marvin harrison jr and i'm just trying to wrap my head around how
someone ends up in the concussion protocol without getting hit in the head um still don't quite
understand that one um but yeah it was a uh it was a it was a it was a tough game and uh yeah it
ruined my new year's my other take on that is they need to move these fucking bowl games because for me, like
those, that hours of eight to 12 is like the magical time with my family and friends and
celebrating and getting ready for the new year.
The fact that the new year happened during that time out before the kick was like, it's
such piss poor planning that they can't even like back it up an hour.
Literally after that, I'm just like sat there in silence for a little bit and then went to bed
because it sort of ruined the new year for probably millions of people who
are watching,
right?
If you had several million people watching half them,
theoretically we're rooting for one team,
half them for the other one.
And they get new year room for them.
So shitty,
shitty planning by,
by them definitely wasn't good.
And yeah,
Ryan day is just,
just the part that actually drives me nuts I'll go on this
one last tangent then I'll keep going to Susan for hands but like here's the thing like Ohio
State fans what worries me about how far Ryan Day has already set the program back is that
your job as a coach is to beat Michigan win the Big Ten and then go to the national championship
in that order he hasn't beaten Michigan in two years. He hasn't won the big 10 in two years.
And the expectations where I see Buckeye fans being like,
he coached a hard game.
It was close.
It's like,
we're taking moral victories at Ohio state.
Now.
Like we really are a second tier program.
We can't win our own program.
We can't win our own conference.
And we're taking moral victory laps over losing close to a team.
Like that's not what you do at Ohio State.
So anyway, I'll leave it at that, Cap.
But that's my rant, and we can keep moving.
I just told Dow in the DGN worm I take the blame on this one.
You were ready to move on, just fly past,
and not even paid any attention, and I had to go there.
So my apologies, everyone listening in that did not care
to hear any Ohio State football talk this morning.
The cruise would have been more interesting.
That's troll farming.
Cap, that's troll farming.
Bunch troll farmed you and sent you that tweet
that you wouldn't have seen from the Bankless guys last week.
Sometimes you've got to throw something in front of somebody's face
to get them fired up.
This is true.
Spicy Cap wouldn't even happen last week
if Bunch had not sent me a 5 a.m. text or something
that got the blood flowing first thing in the morning.
It's like one word I had to mention.
I didn't even have to say Ohio State. I just said
the shank. It took a minute to click, but
once I said the shank, it set
him off. Bunch, GM.
I blocked it out. Yeah, go ahead, Bunch.
Or maybe not.
Let's go to Susan. Susan, GM.
Yeah, how's it going?
Happy New Year.
I only have a half hour.
I got to jump off the meeting after that, but I couldn't
not stop in.
First of all, I feel like we had the exact same
time, Steve. I was not on a cruise.
I did that over the summer. I could not
shut down at all. I kind of did, but I was
kind of on Twitter all the time. I kind of talked about
shutting down, but I want to echo
what everyone's saying. When you're enjoying what you're doing,
it's just, you know,
I get up with a bit of a burst of energy
to see what's going on and want to talk.
And I don't know.
I feel like that's not a bad thing.
It probably is.
But maybe it isn't.
And I also get sick.
Like, I finally tried to shut down
for the first time in the year.
And of course I got sick,
which is my idea of saying,
so it's bad.
But, yeah, I just wanted to say I'm so excited to be back.
I'm so excited to get back in the same spring.
We've got COVID coming really soon,
so it's going to be a really crazy month for me.
I just want to figure out how many of the energy we get through here.
Excuse me. We're starting to lose you there a bit, but I think I cut most of it.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I don't know if it's a bad connection or going in and out but uh we are uh excited for the year as well and i know we need to get you on here talking petiverse soon
um especially now that i'm back in the gaming the gaming streets and i'm uh uh i'm up to
level 18 fortnight for all you keeping square at home we'll uh we'll track this throughout the year
um that's exciting um yeah two things we totally we need to i would love to get on here and talk about
pedagogy totally set it up because we are like imminently doing our drop which is you know we've
spent two years building to this point so it's pretty exciting and terrifying all at the same
time and we have to talk about play to earn too you know our twitter sat the other day about that
we should completely find a time to dig in on that one, too.
Yeah, this was, if you missed the, not that we got a back and forth spat by any means,
just a respectful disagreeing without disagreeing, being disagreeable via the Twitter thread.
And just, I think the concept of play to earn, I absolutely understand where Susan's coming from, that it goes away.
I think the phrase, it's kind of like nfts like i don't think we're going to be saying the word or the
phrase nfts in a few years i don't think i also don't think we'll be saying play to earn it'll
just be game and it'll just so happy happen that you'll be able to own assets and majority games
you play and you'll be able to sell those assets on the secondary marketplace and things will be
interoperable and i think that we just eventually get there um I guess the crux of the discussion, though, was the...
Like someone like myself, I was saying earlier, it's hard for me to check out.
It's really difficult for me to get into a video game unless there is some potential for economic reward.
It's not like it's going to replace my primary income.
replace my primary income but i feel i think why i have a i was attracted to zed and also while i
continue to go back to that almost every day is a i did enjoy the strategy part of the game i enjoyed
the the racing and the predictive analytics component and the breeding elements but it was
really at the end of the day it was i enjoyed it because there was a potential for for economic
reward and i don't if that didn't exist i still wouldn't be playing the game. And it's not that the game is less fun.
It's my time.
I feel my time is valuable.
And I'm going to have,
in my personality,
I'm going to have a lot more fun
playing something
if there is the potential for some rewards.
I think that economic reward,
that play to earn component,
I think it is very important
for the future of blockchain gaming.
I just don't think it shouldn't
i agree with you it should not be it should not be the lead it should not the game has to be fun
and then these other pieces just need to be that they need to be pieces of it not the uh not the
end-all be-all lead component susan we'll go back to see if we got you out of the submarine and then
we'll we'll move through hands here i can't i can't yeah you're maybe maybe try jumping out and coming back and we'll
come back yeah try popping back in here but um cap to your point um you know i think the uh
the idea of like play to earn i think it's just gaming like nobody nobody like plays draft kings
for example or gambles online and they're like this, this is a play-to-earn game.
It's gambling. They enjoy it. It's something they do. It adds a little bit of stakes to a game
you're watching. You have fun. You watch the game. You have certain aspects that you're interested in,
and I think it's no different. I mean, Zed is literally a horse racing game. It's a gambling
track, and it's fun because it's a beautiful product. There's a lot of different dynamics
to it, and you're trying to figure out the different ways that the algorithm works.
But at the end of the day, it has to be fun.
And it has to be something you enjoy.
And, you know, I'm a casual when it comes to Zed.
You know, we breed horses with my family and we race them.
And it's fun.
But at the same time, like, we celebrate and we win.
We get excited.
We enjoy the product.
And so it has to be something that's enjoyable in order for it to succeed.
So I don't think it's necessarily play to earn.
I think it's just,
there's probably going to be an earn option where most people don't win and
that's okay. Instead of sort of like a, Hey,
if you grind away on this thing, sort of like the acting infinity model,
you get more token, which continues to dilute the token. So I think, um,
which actually served its purpose, but, um, you know, I think that's where we go.
But let's run down to Jack,
and then we'll come up to Vicky.
Jack, GM.
GM, GM.
Welcome back, Steve.
It's good to have you.
I've got two things.
A, Captain, when Twitch livestream of these games,
because I can't picture you playing them.
You didn't.
So we actually were talking about this while we were playing uh fortnight over the weekend much respect to the
streamers i don't know how it's possible like as if you listen to this show i struggle to
multitask by talking and and responding to a to a chat i have no idea how someone could play these
games that are very intense. They require focus.
And then you're also talking and chatting with an audience at the same time.
It is like I pride myself on my ability to multitask.
That is like mind blowing to me.
I truly do not know how the streamers do it.
It is a very incredible specialized skill set.
One that I think it takes years of a learning curve would be my guess i don't
i honestly i don't think i could do it or if i did it would be like i would just play the game
i might be able to talk but i would just completely ignore chat chat before before jack answers can i
get an honest honest question are you be honest here are you good at video games or not what do
you mean by that like are you like normally are you that guy and
your friends who can pick up a video game be competitive like i'm that guy pal you know what
i'm that guy so like i'm curious if like this on the game first person shooters is not was not my
thing i was probably i don't know three or four years i was like a just a sliver too old to catch
the first person shooter explosion so like to give
you an idea I think I said on here before it was like when I was in college it was all about
uh goldeneye and I just didn't I didn't have a was that on the dreamcast I did I never got the
dreamcast and I was 64 I was okay it was 64 yeah so I did not have the n64 and i feel like that was the birth of of the first person shooters
at that time i was in the dreamcast world the playstation i was we were we were playing like
we were playing tiger woods golfers you know some pretty serious skins matches or or madden
tournaments we were betting on the sports side of the game so i could pick up a controller and be
okay with like madden um or or any of those games first person shooters I am definitely going through my learning curve right now but I would like as a kid I was a very
competitive gamer before gaming was a thing and then I just stopped playing like I truly hadn't
picked up a controller to play games for like 20 years and so now I'm I'm like just now starting my
my learning curve but I'm such a competitor that's why that's my struggle is getting through
getting my ass kicked by 12 year olds and and getting through my learning curve it really is
a challenge to pick it up at this stage of my life and it i feel like every game out there is
a first person shooter now is that is that an accurate take yeah well i mean that's the not
entirely but that's sort of the meta but no i was just curious you're gonna have like it's gonna be
interweaved in in some game like it may they may be slightly different but it's just like i feel like it's
a different skin a different brand and it really by my desire here was i want to i'm trying to get
through the learning curve before the other side and so i've been based on the feedback i've gotten
from others i feel like fortnite is probably my best training for other side that way when i and
i'm not that i'm going to be a streamer or be some expert other side gamer but at least i want to be able to speak intelligently about it i want to be able to
play the game and go have fun without you know getting my ass kicked by 12 year olds there is
part of you that dreams of being really good though i could tell but like 100 but no if i
if i could if i could live if i would have been born five to ten years later i may be a professional
gamer like i enjoy it i love that element of it's a way to like you know get that competitive fuel and and
just by you instantly right and i don't know it's just like that deep down like regardless what i
am an entrepreneur but it really if you ask me i could describe myself in one word it'd be i'm a
competitor imagine if coffee with captain was just us casually talking while we smash noobs that would
be that'd be great. But that's no,
I asked cause that was my,
that was my premise.
Like I was,
I was,
I mean,
I played everything.
I was just a very obsessive video game.
It's just,
it's funny because I,
I wonder,
so as you always talk about Fortnite,
I wonder,
has my eight year old put you in the ground on Fortnite yet?
It's certainly possible.
Like run into each other.
and in fact,
likely,
but,
let's,
let's run to a Jack as I get my second green tea going for the morning.
So basically, Captain,
everything I've just heard there
is just another reason
you should definitely set up a Twitch account
because if you're just going to be struggling,
if we get spicy capped
because, yeah, you're trying to speak,
but then you're getting shot at.
Nothing about this is telling me
this is going to be bad content
just because you're not good at the game.
So I'm just throwing that out there.
Does anyone do this?
There has to be the joke of a gamer.
Does anyone have this bit?
Does anyone own this in the gaming world?
Is there any boomer gamers that just aren't good
and their whole audience just tunes in to see how bad they are?
Their brand is embarrassing the shit out of their kids, basically,
because they're just terrible online and throw fits at age in their 40s. their 40s that would be amazing if there isn't you yeah we need this i
think it's spicy cap i think it's 100 spicy cap this is gonna start it's coming it's coming uh
my my second point which was um i really want to throw this idea out so this is we're talking about gamification in NFT space. And my take is I want a NFT trading gamified app where you don't actually have to spend your real money.
But it's based on the open sea. It's based on, you know, everything out there in terms of the marketplaces that we have.
And you're just trying to make a bag. So for people who've seen the Nifty Portal,
like nearly a year ago now,
they had like the one ETH challenge.
And it was some really good YouTube content.
They basically, you know, they all did terribly.
I don't know if any of them,
they started with one Ethereum
and the idea was to trade it up
and whoever was on top at the end would win.
And I think the person on top was like 0.9 Ethereum.
So they basically just
they were a negative but it was just who was the most negative and but i do think that gamifying
trading nfts a it would really help us um you know maybe mitigate the fomo just a little bit
and just you know also just see are we ready for world? Are we actually traders or are we here to create content?
Because I think some people learn that lesson by hemorrhaging ETH and Sol and other.
It would just be great if we could actually learn that lesson by just opening a trade account.
And I know there's versions of that for the stock market, but I think in the NFT space, it could be just so much more fun.
So, yeah, that would be my piece.
If anyone wants to build that, because I definitely am not going to,
then please take that away.
Our friend Ledger's been on the show before.
He's behind Flip, Flip.xyz.
I'll tag it in the chat.
If you're saying this already, I'm very happy.
Yeah, it exists.
It's a fantasy Flip on Flip XYZ.
Check it out.
They call that paper trading in the financial, like in the stock market.
That's like a paper trading account.
But I don't know if you want, I don't know if we would want to call it that, right?
Because of all the negative connotations around paper in this space, Jack.
Yeah, I'd stay away from paper trading, 100 yeah basically don't lose your eath trading
i'd call it i would just call it just call paper hands might be the alpha after the the weekend we
were uh i was going back and forth with nft god and i think we we came to the realization that
he said he he traded in a house for he diamond handed a house into a camry last year i might
have did that two or two or three or four or five times last year. So paper hands aren't necessarily bad.
Yeah, I was going to say this one would be – it's not as eloquent of a name.
We'll have to workshop the name, but just losing a shitload of fake money
would be what this one is on that.
But yeah, Ledger Status, if you don't know him, he was on the show,
Up Only podcast, sort of a little bit of a legendary guy in the crypto world,
and he started that. So give it a check out jack and i think like cap said he's pinning
something to the top for you to give a look but um let's give uh let's give susan another try to
see how her uh how her audio is and if it doesn't work we'll uh we'll punt for the morning because
i know you got meetings yeah you are not you still sound like you are in a shoebox that was thrown into the seat. It's not great.
Almost sounds like she has like a full face
mask on and she's going to rob a bank potentially.
Susan, are you down at the corner?
Actually, it's a bank holiday. Yeah, Susan, first,
are you robbing a bank? Because yeah, banks
aren't open right now, so I don't know if that would make it a good
move or a bad move. Yeah, maybe go to
the 7-Eleven or the Circle K. You might
have a better... 24-7, i went home with a kid on fortnight i think that's what's going on
you guys can't hear me no it's it's super muffled yeah bluetooth headset if you got a bad headset
connection i don't know but yeah steve's trick here is the the wired uh apple earpods yeah wild
let's get to the rest of the hands here and keep things moving.
I know Ray's going to join us soon. I want to make sure we get to everyone.
Yeah, let's go Vicky, and then we'll go Blockchain Ninja, and then we'll go down to Mr. Benjamin.
Good morning, everybody. Happy New Year.
Just a couple of quick things.
I do have a Twitch account, and I am planning to stream when I get my other side land so that everybody can –
it would be more of a comedy show, I believe, with me trying to navigate with everybody typing in a chat bar what I need to do.
Are you front-running me on this?
Do I hear competition in the Twitch streaming realm for the jokesters of other side?
Oh, I'm well ahead of the curve.
Don't forget, it's oh i'm well i'm well ahead of the curve don't forget it's like i'm
well over 50 so as well as having a twitch i used to do uh before periscope launched and there was
an act called meerkat it's just live stream 18 hours a day 18 hours a day oh yeah i remember
meerkat hell yes that's a throwback i haven't they like i did the sort of star wars meme right
now there's a name i haven't heard in a long time.
Meerkat.
Yeah, we ended up streaming 18 hours a day.
We made t-shirts for the Meerkat team.
Like, so, yeah.
So, yeah, that was a kind of unexpected kind of thing
that we ended up on the leaderboard with Gary below us
and then you two and Madonna fighting to go past us on the world leaderboard.
So that's a really random, weird throwback.
But what I was going to say was, and I don't know if anyone else has noticed this,
I woke up on New Year's Day to discover that I was getting lots of comments
from people I had never, ever heard of that have followed me.
I don't even know when they followed me.
And today has
been exactly the same it's like elon has done something with the algorithm to cause just i
don't know they're just i don't know if anyone i thought it was just me i thought it was just me
my my tweet yesterday my gm happy new year's tweet it cooked and it was not it literally was
like gm gm happy new year excited for the show tomorrow and it was picture my ape and it did like i don't know well over 50 000 impressions and i thought the same i was like, GM, GM, happy new year, excited for the show tomorrow. And it was Picture My Ape, and it did, I don't know, well over 50,000 impressions.
And I thought the same.
I was like, wow, that caught lightning in a bottle.
But maybe there was a little week.
Does Elon like the GMs?
Is that what I'm hearing?
I don't know.
It's just weird.
I've even had a couple of people wish me happy new year in my DMs.
I don't even know who they are.
And I'm like, okay, am I being kind of pranked?
But I say I wasn't sure if it was just me
or it's happened to everybody else
that he's kind of moved.
I don't even know if they're all NFT people.
That's probably what scares me more.
You're like, who's this person with a picture of the South?
This will probably be my first tweet of the year.
It may actually end up looking like
it's going to be like a top three tweet from last year.
Like, true, that was all. I'm going to tag it in the chat. It said, GMGM, happy new year. Looking forward to the first copy of the year may actually end up looking like it's going to be like a top three tweet from last year like it true that was all i'm going to tag it in the chat it was it said gmgm happy new
year looking forward to the first copy of the year tomorrow that was it it's got nearly 2 000 likes
and i'm not like a i am not an influencer that does numbers like this so it's like yeah something
is something is uh elon is pumping our bags to start the year well thank you elon we'll take it
um real quick before we go blockchain ninja
just keeping themes as we go on with the new year
and I know we have tomorrow as well
and we have Nightgag coming on
we have Ray coming on from Nightgag, Ray Chan pretty soon
but wanted to, Vicky
2023 in Web3 will be the year of blank
take anything, I'm putting you on the spot
the year of what, what is going to be the year of?
I chose my word yesterday I chose a word and I chose
the word intent. So for me, my mantra is obviously
going more into the art and I spend a lot of time doing
stupid shit. So I'm going to have more intent to make sure I'm
moving forward in obviously doing the art, which I absolutely love. So that's
my word intent
it's a very personal answer i like that yeah i love it and steve that's that feels like a your
word you've talked a lot about these founders doing things with intent and i think it sets
up the conversation today very well i've not yet spoke with ray but i've heard a few interviews and
it seems to me as someone that's a founder that's making moves with very much so very much intent and thought and
planning very thoughtful execution I feel yeah you kind of hit my two favorite words there which
I've been almost turning into a into a if you're writing an AI robot tweet for Steve as I as I
pray certain projects to me um thoughtful and intent are the two words I look for like I want
thoughtful intentional leaders that know what they're doing.
It's one of the reasons why we were really excited and we got Kevin on,
you know, within probably 12 hours of him announcing the Polygon move
and D-Guides to ETH because we wanted to know what their thinking was.
And again, they spent 24 hours going on spaces and explaining the
thoughtfulness that went into the move, the intent that went in the move. And, um, no,
I agree with you. I mean, I think that's an important thing to be paying attention to,
uh, from founders because then, you know, they're not like, yes, I want to do experimentation.
Uh, there's a difference between experimentation and just throwing spaghetti against the ceiling
and seeing if it sticks or comes back down. It's, you know, trying to make sure that what you're
doing has an actual thoughtful theory
behind it.
You can fail and you can pivot.
And I trust the best leaders to, you know, pivot if they fail.
But because I always, you know, since the beginning in this space,
and I'm not going to stop, you know, early on, I bet on teams.
And then, you know, now it's easy to bet.
And then I bet a little bit on funding and, you know,
but I think at the end of the day, teams is where, you know, know a good team that's well funded are the ones that are going to get to try
what they want to do but let's go uh let's go down to a blockchain ninja gmgm uh captain steve
nice to have you back it was really weird listening to him try to ping off of uh the
stand-in co-host it was good but just but I agree with Captain. It just didn't have that same zing
to it.
Two things real quick, and I will
be very quick because I have to help Drew Barman.
He apparently got overcharged by
Discord, and he's asking me what the hell's going on.
Gotta look
out for Drew. I love Drew.
This is such a Drew thing to do. We'll be getting overcharged
by Discord. Dude, he got charged
like 500500.
I was like, whoa, what the...
What? He's like, I only intended
to pay for the $425 a month.
Yeah. He's tossing
out the nitro to everyone. Yeah, I'm
so confused, so I'm going to look into that with him.
But before I do that, so I do want to do a
giveaway.
I got into the Savage Nation
NFTs, and I made my money back and I have two left.
So I'd like to do a giveaway either today or tomorrow on the DJ Network show.
Just kind of bless someone since I already made my money back.
And secondly, if anyone, literally anyone listening is in Brussels, please reach out to me.
I need a contact in Brussels to take care of something.
That's all the details I can kind of give on live air,
but it'll be worth it.
It'll help everyone in the space.
Just know that nothing shady.
But yeah, if you're in Brussels, please reach out.
Sounds like you are also robbing a bank.
That is the second robbing a bank we've had up here.
Okay, so let me add some clear it's nothing shady uh so we've handed a file a packet if you
will off to the belgium police uh both this sounds like i've also been playing uh call of duty this
sounds like some call of duty uh uh modern warfare stuff here well belgium is where monkey drainer is
the guy that's actually
behind monkey drainer so we need someone with boots on ground to push this to the police there
to be like hey do your damn job this dude has gotten the whole community for hundreds of millions
so if we could have somebody on ground there pushing ninja out here being the vigilante we
all need in 2023 not vigilantism but at least pushing the packet over and over to the police.
Be like, hey, do your job.
Like, this kid is scamming people out of millions a day.
So anyone in Belgium, reach out, please.
We would love to get this taken care of.
It would make the whole space safer.
So please reach out.
That's a bit wacky.
All right.
I did not.
I mean, kudos to you for the investigative work.
I just didn't expect Jack Bauer to stop by this morning.
That's awesome.
Let's go down to Mr. Benjamin.
Then we'll come back up to Goody.
Mr. Benjamin, GM, sir.
Jack Bauer or Jack Ryan?
Who's your favorite Jack?
Jack Bauer.
I love 24.
Jack Reacher.
Ooh, I'd start to go Bauer.
Reach out. GM, guys'd start to go Bauer. Reacher.
GM, guys.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Also, my favorite Jack is actually Jack GK, the blockchain buster, who shows up to the
show Coffee with Captain every day.
Go ahead, Mr. Mendridge.
No, I love how he was just like, it's totally nothing shady.
And then he dropped the police.
Hold on.
This whole time, I thought Jack was actually blockchain barr barrister i thought it was a play on coffee with
captain so or or not even coffee i just thought it was blockchain barrister uh mr benjamin back to
you no worries man um yeah no just curious uh i don't know if anybody else here has like a little
routine they do for the new years but i was curious if you guys have like anything you guys you know do in the first day of the new year or something like
i don't know like every new year i wake up i get a haircut i clean my house and i clean my car
like detailed detailed and like that's how i start the new year
well i was feeling pretty good about myself until i just realized i was a
waste yesterday and didn't do any of those things i i just played fortnight that was my that was my
no i love it man no i was just curious if anybody was like me i just had like a random routine that
you start the new year fresh no but i do always i like to audit go ahead go ahead
cab i'd love to hear yours i want to see if we're lined up on this no i um i guess i'm not one so
much for like new year's resolutions or like new turning new things i i attempt to front run it and
start you i usually like the last couple weeks of a year to get you know outside of the weeds get get out of
the business or whatever i'm doing and work on my life at more like the 10 000 foot view and and
start looking ahead into the new year um not so any not so much anything like specific on on the
day i'm a pretty pretty by nature pretty by habit individual and so my my like my morning routine
is pretty pretty dialed in
um so i don't necessarily make any changes rather just use the last few weeks of a year to
to look at where i'm at and and kind of do some more higher level planning uh and and course
correct if i'm not not heading the right direction but i love it i love where you're
heading i i'm being a creature of habit i think it's awesome
and uh if you've not done any of that like you this is as cheesy as it gets like i make fun of
the resolutioners at the gym uh this is an easy time to just use it as an anchor in your brain
whether it's the uh the lemon salt water in the morning to wake up or don't don't go to coffee
first thing just little things like that pick one thing and start there and do that for a month and
see what happens wait lemon and salt water?
What is this?
What is that?
This is the magic morning cocktail.
If you haven't caught it yet on coffee, before you go to your coffee, before you start drinking caffeine, most of us get dehydrated at night.
We sweat out nutrients and we dehydrate ourselves.
And the very first thing a lot of people do when you wake up, you go chug a bunch of coffee
bunch of coffee and caffeine that further dehydrate you so hold on the coffee and when you first wake
and caffeine that further dehydrates you.
So hold on the coffee.
up drink a warm room temperature glass of water with lemon juice and pink himalayan sea salt the
sea salt is loaded with nutrients and minerals that and it basically replenishes rehydrates from
everything you've lost over you know while you slept and the um the lemon juice will also add
some i'm not explaining it the
scientific way very well, but it will, it basically slows the metabolism of caffeine
somehow, uh, to where it's just a, um, I don't know, it's something I got turned on two years
ago and it's a good little Kickstarter in the morning. Also get out and get real sunlight.
Can't, uh, don't forget your symbiotic clock, but, uh, yeah, get up, get outside and drink some
water, drink some lemon water outside and drink some water.
Drink some lemon water with pink sea salt.
Never heard that before.
That's super interesting.
One thing I just want to touch on,
you guys were talking about the gamification NFT stuff.
I don't know if anyone here has looked up Wilder World
or what they're doing over there.
Really cool project.
Can't wait to see.
But they just dropped a teaser yesterday
of what their kind of game will
look like similar to the other side,
but I would definitely check it out.
Yeah,
we'll give it a look.
I mean,
I think other side has sort of this cache to it that I'm super interested
to give a play to.
And just so you know,
nine gags at me and DM and said,
probably joining shortly after nine,
he's,
he's finishing up some work.
I mean,
what does he have like a big drop this week or's finishing up some work. I mean, what?
Does he have like a big drop this week or something?
No, I kid.
Looking forward to having him on.
But just for people to update, we will be having Ray, the NineGag CEO, on Ray Chan pretty soon here.
Just as soon as he pops in.
So excited to get him coming in.
Let's go actually back to – let's actually go to Goody, then Busy, then we'll go back to Jack.
Hey, Steve, real quick. Goody, then we'll go back to Jack. Hey, Steve, real quick.
Goody, I'm sorry.
So the DGN Network post about Ray coming on,
if everyone, anyone who retweets that,
they'll be entered to win that NFT.
So I figured it'll help you all out.
I don't care about followers,
but that'll get DGN Network some more.
No, I appreciate it.
Pin it to the top.
Very generous, yeah.
Pin it to the top very generous yeah pin it to
the top and just make sure we got the uh the right one going and uh make sure call attention
once you have it up there which one for people uh to retweet and grab appreciate that um let's go
i don't even remember because my brain is now i think just to just to be sure i think he's the
it's uh one from the right all the way way to the right is the link to the space.
And then one from the right is it's actually a post by Chamber.
This is actually perfect.
Chamber deserves the retweets.
This might be his most retweeted tweet of the year.
So yeah, everyone go up there.
Smash that like button on Chamber's tweet.
He just replied to the space.
It's got the DJ network.
MemeLand's captains have landed.
Yeah, go smash that.
Go retweet it.
Any retweets of Chamber's tweet go retweet it any any retweets
of chambers tweet or retweet of chambers reply here we'll get entered into uh win that savage
nation nft from blockchain uh blockchain ninja and this is this is i haven't looked but it was
it's been quite the quite the cook of the weekend no yeah yeah it's doing good it's up to 0.35 this
morning it's awesome very generous and really up to 0.35 this morning.
It's awesome.
Very generous and really appreciate it. I ended up actually revealing a rare of that one.
And I sold the rare after I revealed it and was really happy with my flip
because I sold for like 0.88, like way above floor at the time.
And now they're above 1 ETH.
I think those rares are like 1.3 at this point, 1.5.
So I'm a little bit sad.
I'm a little bit sad now.
I was actually going to ask, keeping on the NFT theme
until our 9Gag guest arrives,
I was going to ask if you guys had any opinions
on the return of Sartoshi over the weekend or yesterday, the post on
the new account and the subsequent pump of the end of Sartoshi open edition and the fact
that that's going to be a mint card for his new artwork that's coming up and all of that
good stuff.
So I've yet to get into the MFers.
I saw I came back.
I'm not one to provide the most educated take
or response on this.
Steve, you?
I'm also not an MFers.
I will say, look, the MFers are a good fun group.
When he handed it over to the community,
they handled it well, and they always knew that was sort of the intent and how it was going um
so you know what like he had this open mint where he grabbed and people called it like
cash there were people who said it's a giant cash grab rug um you know at the same time it
you know he was very honest about what it was and there was nothing promised so having something
tied to that that's good um i do get like somewhat frustrated is not
the right word but it's like like the surprise utility stuff like i get it sort of on one hand
there's a fine line between rewarding your supporters and like being like this is nothing
don't expect anything i'm just putting this out there and being like, this is a mint pass to something that could be worth a lot of money. Um, I don't know like that.
That's a fine line for me to walk as far as like, I like, I mean, we just talked about founders,
thoughtful founders with intent. And like, I think what Sartoshi did with him efforts was fun.
I think the community took off and like, I really do think the community is a large reason for what makes that so successful.
You know, coming back like cool.
Like I think that's totally, you know, fine.
You know, he had his RIP day and then he had that mint.
I don't know.
Like I do like when it's a little more thoughtful and intent, but it's also fun.
Like good for the MFs.
I hope they have fun.
But I get a little bit like, i don't love the coming back by the way if you
minted this thing which understandably so people who didn't mint it being like this is not
you know this is not something i should mint because it's just an open edition that i'm
going to be able to buy in secondary for less money it's not doing anything and then
you know for them to be like oh yeah this is going to be a mint pass i'm back now just
it feels a little bit like whiplash to me, but like,
I think the MFers are really happy about it because I know they're
dedicated and minted.
So I'm not going to yuck anybody's yum in that situation.
It's just not my bag personally,
but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate it and respect it.
62 minutes into the new year,
we get yuck your yum.
How is that not on the bingo card?
How is that?
I got it.
We got to work that out.
But yeah, I think it's a good question, question goody as far as like what's going on i'm looking forward to discussing the logan paul stuff uh probably wednesday i would say
because i think he's gonna have his response on wednesday or maybe thursday
as well just because it's weird it was like even though like things are running
the big news is what's going on with meanland uh and everything so um let's go to busy and
then we will actually i think uh ray just joined us let's go to busy and then we'll bring ray up
for the uh for the interview so now i feel like my comments are completely underplayed but on um
what mr benjamin was asking um and i was actually going to ask you, Captain, a specific question, but would definitely want to respect the time here.
But Mr. Benjamin, in regards to just something that I personally do, is I actually like to juice like turmeric and ginger and kind of like make fresh shots to kind of consume first thing in the morning.
That's kind of something I do, Captain.
And I also do like some warm water with lime.
So that's also a nice take as well.
But just wanted to throw that in there.
I will probably ask you the question I had maybe separately, probably in a DM, but definitely
again, wanted to respect the time.
No, great take.
I will co-sign the turmeric and the ginger.
I don't do it every morning.
Usually I just do the lemon salt water, then black coffee with honey until probably one
o'clock or so.
Not really planned, but it just works out to be like some intermittent fasting.
And then occasionally I'll cycle in bulletproof coffee or upgraded coffee, which is black
coffee, unsalted grass-fed
butter, and I will
with MCT oil, and then in my
bulletproof coffee, I actually add
turmeric and ginger. Sometimes
I'll throw a little cayenne in there. That's where the spicy
captain came from, but
no, the ginger and turmeric are
two great herbs to
I guess it's turmeric and herb.
Whatever they are, I would cosign adding them to your morning routine.
Cap, I don't think I have anyone that puts honey in their coffee besides me, so I'm really happy that you said that.
There's three of us then.
I do it too.
I don't know what you guys are doing then because I own a honey brand and you guys don't have my honey. So this is a problem.
I need some.
Yeah, let's we actually I saw that over the weekend.
Appreciate the Mr. Benjamin's a real one.
By the way, if you're not following, give him a follow.
He helped us out with our our POAP design where we did the crossover show with Ryan Carson and the Daily Dose.
He actually also did the daily the POAP design for the Ryan show that he did with with ray and uh and and nine gag a little bit back
uh that's in the chat down there below and uh actually uh steve we haven't talked about this
yet but but my uh uh my very talented daughter has made herself personally she she made the
decision herself that she's ready to to enter this wild and crazy world and uh uh mr benjamin
saw a tweet over the weekend and got in the DMs and has actually already made an introduction to someone working with Super Rare.
So really just top, top class, first class individual.
Really grateful we connected last year, Benjamin, and grateful for all that you do.
That's incredible.
Looking forward to this year.
Yeah, that's incredible.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what your daughter builds out.
And hopefully it's in my price range because I would love to pick up a piece.
But with that said, very excited for this guest.
So when I sent the DM to Ray Chan, CEO of 9Gag and founder of MemeLand,
I mentioned I am an uncultured swine who knows nothing about MemeLand.
So I spent the weekend researching both Ray, Nine Gag and meme land.
And I feel even more in culture now because of how incredibly thoughtful,
interesting, and actually smart Ray is the way that he approaches the space.
So Ray, first of all, welcome on.
And thanks for joining us this morning for people who don't know about your
web to success, where you effectively solve
a problem sort of any efficiency missing in the market can you talk a little bit about what you
did kind of your background and then how you got to nine gag before we get into meme land and
everything gmgm happy new year gm thanks for joining yeah thanks for having me. Oh, talk about NIGA, right? So we have to go back to 14 years ago.
Yeah, I was a law student, but I didn't really study.
That's why I didn't become a lawyer.
And then after working at a few jobs, I feel like, hey, those jobs are kind of boring.
And those are not the jobs that I want to do for life.
That's why until I joined an internet startup.
At the time, my boss was very young.
I think he's like a few years older than me.
And then I thought, hey, he's smart, but not really, really that smart.
If he could start a company, why couldn't I?
That's why in the time, I found my younger brother and some friends.
And then we started to work on some projects.
And NIGET was one of the projects.
We didn't expect NIGET to become big because, I mean, we were crazy but not that crazy.
Because who would have thought about sharing funny pictures and memes and stuff could be a business.
That's why we didn't really put a lot of effort into NIGET until in 2011 we joined Y Combinator and 500 subs and then all those
mentors suggested us to focus on NIGET and then yeah that's others are just history and we started
to look more into Web3 starting from last year and that today we are meeting captain in a few days. So time flies.
It's so interesting because I think about the NFT world and how it's such an attention economy.
And the fact that you've done that already in your previous life
makes a lot of sense coming into Web3.
I guess one of the questions I have, again,
before we get all into meme landing captains is,
what are some similarities and maybe some differences
you see between building a highly successful web 2 brand and a
highly successful web 3 brand because you've managed to do both already i think there are
tons of different web 2 brands of business businesses right but the thing that i get um
is doing i would say that it's like 90 similar to to what most NFT projects are doing. Basically, it's about sharing memes and funny content to get attention
and then build a product that works to solve problems for millions of people.
And then also try to build and manage a community.
These few elements are basically the same.
It's just that in Web3, the business model is different.
And then the speed is also different.
And so the demand of the audience, of the holders,
are also very different.
So those are the things that we have to learn
and try to unlearn and relearn all this year.
The thing that jumped out to me is,
obviously 9Gigs had a lot of success.
I think it's something, correct me if I'm off here, but like 200 million active users.
How are you able to capture such sustainable traffic and attention in what seems to be a very competitive world of meme sharing?
And, you know, it's great content, but how are you able to catch such, when it's
extremely competitive, what separated 9gag from all the other Web2 competitors?
I think, to be honest, first of all, I don't think 9gag is really a success.
I mean, we make a decent living, but it's not like, oh, one of the game-changing websites on Earth.
For example, like today if Furnos
removed NGAT from the world.
I think
some people will feel sad
but the world continues to move.
But I would say that
I mean, to be honest
I think running any business is challenging
especially internet business
because as you mentioned the entry barrier is very low.
That's why there are so many competitors all those years.
I think there are a few things that we do quite well.
Number one is we always keep a pretty small team.
We prefer to hire talented people, pay them higher salary instead of hire a lot of people.
Because at the end of the day, it takes a lot of troubles and also thoughts and money to manage people.
That's why if we can have a small team of very talented people,
it's easier to work and it's easier to pivot or it's easier to make changes and stuff like that.
That's number one.
Number two is we try to give before we take,
and we try not to take as much as we can.
For example, if you check out most of the meme sites out there,
I mean, there are tons of ads, pop-ups, and then pop-under,
and then stuff like that.
I mean, for meme sites, the CPM, the CPI is low.
That's why we still have to have ads on the website.
But we try not to affect the user experience too much.
It's still not ideal.
But we try, we do our best.
I think that's number two.
Number three is we keep embracing the change.
That means we always keep improving.
For example, we started NightGap with our website.
And then iPhone comes, smartphone comes.
That's why we launched our mobile app.
And then Facebook and all those social networks
started to pop up.
That's why we have our Facebook page,
and then we have our Instagram page,
and then right now we have our TikTok page,
Pinterest page, Twitter page, and stuff like that.
We try to go to where our audience is,
instead of just, hey, we run our website, we just we just stay there yeah i think these three are the main reasons why we we survive
why we uh haven't died indeed the web free adventure is is is basically an extension of
what we've been doing uh all these years
no i love that you talked about concentrating on user experience it's very like and i know i i
know you're being humble about even even nine gag but being such a large community and bringing
such joy to so many people i think it's you know i think it's it's been great and it actually your
your perspective actually mirrors what i remember when i hear jeff bezos talk about
you know being obsessed with actually the customer and what they want versus
trying to monetize and do a lot of things there. And so I think that makes a lot of sense.
You know, you have this joke earlier, we were talking about play to earn,
and you have this joke with your community, I'd love for you to explain a little bit,
where you talk about you didn't play to earn, you paid to earn. Can you talk about your journey
into Web3 as you were getting ready to start and make this jump? Because you actually invested your
own money.
And actually your first NFT, if I remember,
if I heard correctly, was a board ape.
Yep.
Yeah, basically, if I can use one word to summarize,
my NFT journey is a joke.
Because, I mean, at first I thought,
hey, oh, we should start something related to Web3 and NFT.
And then I thought, by getting a board aid, I become cool.
Because this is one of the top collections already.
If I can join the big boys club, maybe the big boys will recognize us.
Maybe the people in Web3 will recognize us.
That's why we feel like it should be a no-brainer for us to be big.
But after buying the board aid and then trying to talk to our users on iGAD via social media,
we found that there's a very, very big gap between Web2 and Web3 audience.
Web2 audience feel like, hey, oh no, iGAD, you go into the dark side, you try to scam people's money.
But meanwhile, on the Web 3 end, we also have a lot of
criticism. Because a lot of NFT degenants will think that, hey,
NIGAD, oh, just another old Web 2 brand trying to cash grab,
trying to extract value from the Web 3 ecosystem. So basically, we didn't get
any support from Web2 and Web3.
So at that time, we started to rethink the whole strategy
because I feel like it shouldn't be like that.
If Web3 is going to be the next big thing,
I think the Web3 participants should be happy
when there are more existing brands trying to join Web3.
How come there's such a bad impression of Web2 brand, right?
Then we started to dig in more.
After, for example, buying into a lot of NFT collections by myself,
I started to understand why.
Because most of the Web2 brands, when they launch a Web3 or an NFT project,
basically, they didn't know
how to do so.
Yeah.
And they also do it in a very bad way.
Yeah.
So it leaves a bad taste in people's mouth.
And that's why I love Web3, the gens, they hate Web2 brands when they go into Web3.
And on the other hand, I also try to understand more why Web2 audience hates NFT, hates Web3.
Because when you talk, when you discuss with people in our nft community right
they they only talk about the four prize they only talk about the so-called alpha they only talk about
how to pump and dump and stuff like that right they don't really talk about some long-term vision
and stuff and that's why if you are they exceed liquidity of course you would hate it right and
then after one time two times three times you
lose a lot of money that's why you leave uh web free and then you tell your friends in web today
this is just a trap right all those uh quote unquote inference basically they use you as an
exit liquidity right i think that also leaves a bad taste in people's mouth that's why we feel
like hey maybe we should uh uh do something uh by ourselves, do it in something different so that we can,
I wouldn't say we try to change the impression,
but more like, hey, maybe we can become a different force
or different types of projects that people will believe in,
people will trust, and people will buy and hoard.
That's what we feel about Nygate and also Meme Man.
And for me, the joke that I mentioned to our holders and also in a lot of spaces is people pay to earn.
I pay, P-A-Y pay, and then to learn, L-E-A-R-N, because I barely sell.
And basically, my bet is down maybe 50% or 90%.
I spend like 2,000 ETH personal money to buy NFTs.
But I learn a lot.
That's why when I talk to some friends,
I also talk to some Web3 founders.
They are usually quite amazed.
Hey, Ray, how come you learn so much about Web3,
learn so much about DGEN, learn so much about NFT?
Of course, when you spend
or waste 2,000 ETH, right?
Of course, you have to learn something.
Yeah.
Otherwise,
this is like a super expensive lesson
that I didn't learn.
Oh, go ahead, Cap.
I just, it just, it's so,
it shouldn't be this way, right?
It seems like such an obvious path
for any Web2 founder
that wants interweb
3 to take to get in to learn the space but it actually is surprisingly almost polarizing
different than many we've seen that come in they they do they simply go a similar route but instead
of getting in and actually rolling up their sleeves it's just simply they they buy the board
ape they make it their pfp they they send out a tweet a follow-up and then they use it just simply for
clout to get a following to it's almost like a fake entry into the space whereas to me it's it's
just hearing your story and you know obviously you know you could see it in your your your holdings
but it's it has been a it's like the opposite of a hype i'm gonna go buy an nft just so i can get
get some clout and get some eyeballs it's rather really does feel like a genuine learning experience for yourself.
And the word was said earlier before you joined us,
like the intent that you've taken about with,
with meme land and captains,
it's it's it shines through just hearing you talk and your approach to the
space.
So on behalf of everyone listening in and the community at large,
I appreciate it.
It's,
it's refreshing to see a successful web2 founder come in and
and and actually learn the space not just buy an ape to you know gain some new followers and get
that fake cloud i guess if that makes sense yeah i i think the biggest i wouldn't say issue right but
um why it is like that it's because the whole setup is favorable to that kind of action.
Because most of the PFP that people buy right now, most of the NFT that people buy right now is PFP.
And for PFP, people use it on Twitter.
And to be honest, when you use an A, the main function is the cloud.
And if you attract a lot of people who care about the clouds,
it's very likely that
they just pay the money
and didn't do anything.
Not all of them,
but a lot of them,
especially when people
who have a kind of successful business
and they are not the one
who runs the Web3 arm.
That's why a lot of the brands,
they hire someone who didn't even know about what
NFT is, or maybe they just hire a so-called Web3 studio to help them to build a collection.
In such case, of course, it is like very detached into the Web3 space. It's not surprising
when you understand how it happens. It's just that it should not be like that,
but turns out it is like that.
And I believe that with more legit companies
trying to learn more about Web3
before starting to do something in Web3,
I think the whole situation can change.
Real quick, you talked about the difference
between Web2 and the skepticism Web3 people have
around Web2 and vice versa.
Did that go into your decision?
Because one of the things I noticed as you were building out MemeLand is you have Holders.com, which has all your MemeLand stuff.
And then you have 9gag, which is completely kind of separate.
Did you bifurcate those with the idea that you want to keep these things separate for now?
Do you think they'll ever come together?
Do you ever think you'll bring people from 9gag to meme land or vice versa like curious your your thoughts on philosophy
kind of an add-on question from roman in in the comments is asked is he has a question or
is the web 2 community of nine gag bullish on nfts or they just don't care i think most people
don't care right i mean web now i get audience is kind of like the normies of normies. It's people who love to have memes and then sharing funny stuff, right?
I'm not saying that it's bad.
It's just that it's like 90% of the people in the world.
And I think Nygate is like a mass social media.
That's why people are kind of like that.
Definitely, there will be some people who are into NFTs.
When we launch our potatoes, we give free spots for our loyal NIGET users.
And I see a lot of them were very excited.
That's why I know that there were some people,
there are some people from NIGET that are very excited about our meme land, about NFT.
It's just that this is definitely not the majority.
And back to the questions about the Web 2 and Web 3, whether we merge them and stuff like that.
To be honest, when you look at Web 1, Web 2 and Web 3, after some time, basically, they merge together.
It's not that much different.
Because for Web 1 company, if they don't change, basically, they will become obsolete and then they will get outdated.
They will get outdated. Yeah, they will get outdated.
And for Web2 company, if they understand the power of Web3,
I believe that they will probably also go into Web3.
So the boundary between so-called Web2 and Web3 will be very blurry.
That's why right now, maybe this is not the best time for us to,
oh, just shove the NFT or token and stuff like that to our naked audience.
But down the road, it's just web. It's just internet.
Although there will be blockchain, there will be fungible tokens, long fungible tokens.
But at the end of the day, the common denominator is there are human beings.
There are users, there are holders, whatever you call that.
And that's why I feel like it's just a matter of time. And to be honest, I think a lot of our
holders are very bullish in mainland. It's because they know that we have experience in running
one of the largest online communities for decades. And on the other hand,
that large online audience is also something that most web-free brands don't have.
A lot of web-free brands or web-free companies, when they launch a project,
they always talk about, hey, we want to bridge web 2 and web 3.
But the thing is, on web 3, they're not even huge.
On web 2, they don't have anything.
How can you bridge something when you don't have both things?
And for NIGAT, we are not as big as facebook or tiktok instagram but
at least we have 200 million audience and that's already pretty huge so when we say that we want
to bridge web 2 and web 3 the web 2 part is actually quite solid and if we can build something
web 3 loves and also are needed in web 3 then we can actually bridge or make the make the bridge
and bridge the gap yeah so um that's that's why we right actually bridge or make the bridge and bridge the gap.
Yeah.
So that's why we right now we separate the stuff.
That's why we have the MemeLand brand.
But down the road, definitely, they are just same thing.
No, I love that.
I love that perspective.
And sort of, again, one of the things we talked about early on was thoughtful, intentional founders.
I was going to ask you about MemeLand, but I saw Punter's hand shoot up.
So I'm going to let Punter go ahead and get a question.
And then I'm going to dive into MemeLand and the various levels.
But go ahead, Punter.
Hey, Ray.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Appreciate you joining us.
I got to hear you on Ryan Carson's space when you spent some time over there.
And I did check you out earlier last week when you were on with the Gutter Guys.
So I appreciate you giving us some time this morning. And I always love to hear you chat because there's really no bullshit when you were on with the gutter guys. So I appreciate you giving us some time this
morning. And I always love to hear you chat because there's really no bullshit when you come
on the stage. And I think that's so refreshing from a founder. You've spoken a lot about how
important community is to you. And I've always been a community, Maxie, because to me, at the
end of the day, it's not necessarily the price of the NFT that should be the true value,
but it should be the people you surround yourself with
and how you identify with that.
Can you speak a little bit about how Captains is just going to,
how the upcoming Mint is really just going to help
the community sort of coalesce and solidify?
And I'd love to hear you talk about that
because it's always inspiring.
Thanks.
Yeah, thanks for your kind of work.
I mean, Web3 projects or NFT talk about community all the time.
But the fact is, when you look at most of the projects out there,
community is like a two-sided sword.
That means, oh, if your project is doing very well,
of course, all the holders are very happy.
That's why you have a happy community.
And when it doesn't work, basically people jump ship all the time.
So the elements of community sound great, but actually it's pretty weak in Web3 because money is involved.
When you look at BoardApe or YugaLab assets, how come the community feels so strong?
It's because they are one of the top projects out there.
Not one, but they have a few top projects out there.
And most of the people, hopefully, make money because of holding their NFT.
That's why they feel happy.
That's why I feel like, hey, this is a good community that I want to be in. It's kind of like when you work at Google or Facebook and you got good salaries and good perks and stuff like that.
You love to be there.
But the thing is, some people still hate it and then they will quit, they will leave.
So I feel like on one hand, we want to focus on the community.
But on the other hand, we don't want to be driven by the community.
Because at the end of the day, most of the community members,
they don't understand or they don't care or they don't even care
about their long-term vision of the project.
That's why as a founder, as a team, we probably have to be more informed
by community, but not driven by the community.
That means we listen to the community on one hand, but we also don't get kind of like swing by the community too much.
That's why I think some of the concepts of a community is great.
For example, hey, if you launch something, you can try to explain to the community first
so that they can act as your focus group so that when you launch it to the mass public, it will be better.
And the better thing is this focus group, you don't pay them, right?
They pay you.
But at the same time, we also have to understand that there will always be some tension and
conflicts between the team as well as the community.
And that's the thing that as a team, as a founder, we have to understand it clearly
so that, hey, from time to time, we have to stand firm and tell why we have to make this change for the greater good, for the projects,
for the collection, for the company in the long run.
And those are the things that would be the testing moment, whether you have a good community.
It was just in passing, but I got to double tap.
I actually wrote it down and I don't take many notes on these, but you were talking about talking, comparing it to a focus group.
But the difference is we don't pay them, they pay us. And just that, it was a simple statement, but it was profound in my mind and thinking of how I think many founders and leaders struggle with exactly what you just said do they want to listen to the community but sometimes they don't listen at all other times they go too far and it lets they let
the community basically run the business and that's probably not in their best interest but
but rather looking at the community like a a focus group that's maybe more vested you're good you're
going to hear their feedback you want to hear their feedback but at the end of the day it's
it's still your company oh totally um in fact, when you look at community, especially NFT community,
maybe it's like a few hundred people, for example, like some other groups,
or like a bigger community, like 10K people in your Discord and stuff.
And the thing is, they come from all kinds of backgrounds.
They have different purposes in buying NFTs, and they also have different preferences And the thing is, they come from all kinds of backgrounds.
They have different purposes in buying NFTs, and they also have different preferences or priorities in life.
That's why their purpose is not the same.
I think the one thing that they share in common is, at that moment, they believe in you and they hold your collections asset.
So I think that part is key.
That part is something that we need to understand.
But when we try to extend it to bigger, for example,
when we look at how to run a school or how to run even a country,
for example, like a democratic country like the USA,
to be honest, if every decision has to be made by a public vote,
it probably doesn't work. It would be the worst-run country in the world.
So that's why we have to have a Senate,
and we have to have a Congress,
and then we have to have a President and Secretary
and stuff like that.
So at the end of the day, we have to be very careful
whenever we talk about the term maxi,
Bitcoin maxi, ETH maxi, community maxi, or Web3 maxi, maxi only works when it is like a maxi pad.
But maxi pad doesn't even hold maximum blood and stuff.
So we have to be very, very careful when we use this kind of term.
Because at the end of the day, the things that work the best is usually not the extreme.
It's usually somehow in between.
So when we look at different matters in running a community or running a company,
we have to understand why we want to do what we do.
And then we tell our community, we tell our holders why we do it.
If they believe in it, then they continue to hold, they continue to follow.
If you do well, then they get returned.
Otherwise, people just leave.
I think this is one thing that I love NFT and also I love Web3
because the feedback loop is so short.
And then when you make a good decision, it almost reflects immediately at the price.
And also the community can give you feedback.
And if you really love to run a community,
I can't find any better platforms to do than running an NFT. Because even when you have a
personal Twitter and stuff, or you do a poll and stuff like that, there are still bots and stuff.
But if you have NFTs, at least those people, they pay you. That's why their thoughts or their
opinion may be closer to what you think
because at least they are your stakeholder.
They're not just random people on the internet.
And those are the things why I feel
NFT definitely will be big
because it creates a fairly effective mechanism
and probably the best way to run a long tail business.
If we believe internet has changed that,
NFT and Web3 probably is like internet on steroids.
Yeah.
No, you're preaching to the choir.
It's funny.
That's sort of literally the concept of we were talking.
I just turned in our first draft of the book
that we're writing about NFTs
with a target of sort of Web2 businesses
and traditional people, the average everyday person to be able to pick it up and say,
I understand this. And here's a framework to make it work. And that focus group part, I think,
is so salient, where we talked about the focus group, actually may give you the questions instead
of you asking them the questions. And we actually juxtaposed it with, I mean, anybody who's ever
been to a focus group, you probably got paid or a gift card for something that maybe you didn't care about versus something that you invested
So I love that analogy.
I want to pivot over into Meme Land a little bit because I could actually listen to you
talk market all day.
But I know you have the Mint coming up, and I want to make sure that people get to learn
about this project, which I think is really, really cool.
So you sort of have three tiers, as I understand it.
You have the Real MVP, which didn't initially sell out it was an expensive mint but given that it's 42 plus east now i think
it's doing just fine um you had potatoes which i i want to talk a little bit about some of the
potatoes prizes in a minute because i'm very excited about here to talk a little bit about
those but then you have captains and as i understand it captains is sort of the sort of
not the real mvp tier if the real mvt were like, I don't know, like a Bored Ape, it's more like that's sort of your mutant.
Or that's sort of like your Captains, or Captains might be like your Moonbird to your Proof Pass.
One, is that accurate?
And two, talk about the ecosystem a little as you're building it.
Yeah, sure.
Sure. I would say that Captains is more like board 8 level.
I would say that Captains is more like Bored Ape level.
And Uderu MVP is kind of like, oh, if Golden Corner and also Eucalapse are issue of underpass,
and that would be their Uderu MVP.
And Potatoes is kind of like mutant level.
So at least that's our positioning.
And indeed, when we thought about the whole thing, as I mentioned in the beginning,
we learned from a lot of projects
because we are not the early mover.
We are kind of like maybe like second early
or even third early mover.
That's why we have the chance
to learn a lot from different successful communities.
For example, like BoatApe, like Moonbergs,
like Kaiju Kings, like Gattakegan, like CyberKongs, right?
And I hold all of their NFTs.
And that's why i have a chance to
look at how they run the project look at how they run the community uh uh uh in the in the front
front seat yeah and and the the thing that there are something that we want to change is is because
uh because we are kind of late and that's why we have to do something different.
Otherwise, hey, if you just copy pasta, why would people buy your project, right? Maybe there will be some pump and dump because you're shielded by some influencer.
But at the end of the day, we are not just trying to launch our NFT collection.
We actually want to build a web-free company.
That's why we have to think more long term
and and at least have a better strategy that's why when we launch i think uh we launched our
uwmvp in june yeah that was like two months after moonbergs was launched and um we launched it at a
pretty bad time uh luna and ust uh exploded and then the three arrows just went under and then we had a blind auction on our Discord
we were so naive that we trust our Discord members and then the blind auction price was 5.3 ETH
now we tried to mint 300 and then the whole collection size is 420
turns out only 200 people pay and a lot of people didn't honor that bit and that that
that is like a wake-up call for us on one hand don't trust verify right it's not just about
talking about your your coins or token your nft it also talk about how you run a community when
people say that they will pay you uh if they don't pay the deposit right if they don't pay your money
pay the money first they that's that's not a done deal.
That's one of the lessons that we learned from you, the real MVP.
But we were so lucky that we didn't have a lot, but we have like 200 crazy people.
Believe in us.
And that's why we work with them and try to learn from them.
Because no matter how many NFTs that I buy, it's only my personal experience.
I need to make our teams try to understand from more perspective.
And to be honest, I'm not a traditional NFT buyer.
That's why when I buy, I don't really care about whether I can make profit and stuff. That's why by talking to our MVPs, by learning from their experience,
I try to learn more about what are DGEN things,
what are successful DGENs think about.
And that's why we launched our Potatoes in July.
That was like a month later than Goblin Town,
as Goblin Town kick-started the free meme meta.
And unlike Yuga Labs,
or unlike most of the collections out there,
we try to launch a lower tier collection first.
And we make it a free mean.
There are two reasons behind that.
Number one, for free mean, because no matter how big a community that we run in Web2 with Nightgap, we never run a big NFT community before.
NFT community before. That's why we want to do it for free so that we have a real or actual
opportunity to learn how to run an NFT community. And when it is free, people's expectation was
supposed to be lower and that gave us a lower, I would say, burden when we run the project.
And by having a full means and then run the community, the full experience, we started to have better grips of how to run an NFT community.
And that's number one. Number two is we've been having the Discord for six months already at the time.
And most of our holders, at the time, I think we have close to more than 100k Discord members.
Most of our members, we know that they come from different parts of the world.
And a lot of them may be from Nygad and they may not have a lot of money, like most of the people who buy NFT.
That's why we want to reward them by launching a free meme first.
Because if they believe in us, then they can be part of our community without paying us.
If we are lucky, we can make their collection a pump, then they can sell it.
And maybe they can use the money to mean our main collection.
So it creates a positive loop.
And we can also help our early members to try to get benefited from the ecosystem before anyone else.
And that's why we launched the potatoes.
I think it's one of the, if you look at the top 200 or top 150 NFT collections on OpenSea,
I think we are two of the free mints that go in there.
Maybe two to three of the free mints that go in there.
Number one is CryptoPunks. And then number two should be Goblin Town and then Potatoes. of the free means that go in there well maybe two to three of the free means that go in there number
one is our crypto punks right and then number two should be goblin tongue and then potatoes number
three and right now we probably have a higher price i haven't checked by the way i'm a goblin
tongue holder yeah that's why i i learned a lot from goblin tongue shout out to the team they're
really really good yeah and and and that And that's how Potato works.
And then after learning more from the Potatoes,
we started to feel more confident
to launch our main collection,
which is a paid collection.
That's the captains that we are meeting in two days.
And that's our journey so far.
That's the positioning and stuff.
Yeah.
I was going to say, I love how you almost use the free mint
because with free, there's not as much expectation there.
Unfortunately, we're friends with AJT and Goblin Town
and that team as well.
And they've seen some community expectations
that have bumped pretty heavily.
But what it does is you effectively use that as a,
like you said, almost a focus group
and a beta testing group.
You learned alongside with your body.
See, this is what I love.
And again, when you talk about great founders,
like what I'm hearing is went and bought
and played with your own ETH,
learned from a lot of communities,
used sort of that potatoes mint
as a sort of almost like a beta testing group
to see how they reacted to various things.
And now it feels like you are comfortable
and excited launching your product,
which by the way is like,
this almost seems out of order
based on how a lot of NFT projects do,
but I really liked the way you're thinking about it,
where I feel like a lot,
it's like you launch the main,
then you launch the companion,
then you launch the companion
to the companion or something.
And you went, you launched the main,
then you did the
freemint and now you're doing sort of this other one learning is that sort of the the way you
approached it yeah i mean when we started to to to to launch our projects right the landscape the
fair market has already started that's why we know that the way that companies or projects build in the bull market probably doesn't work.
I mean, just like any business in the world, the strategy that you use in a bull market is probably very different from the strategy that you use in a bear market.
That's why we sit down and we think about how we can make it a successful start by being more thoughtful, by being applied to what we learn.
To be honest, I think a lot of people make NFT sounds like a very mysterious thing,
but it's not. It's probably the most straightforward stuff.
If you can create value for people and if you can communicate that clearly,
people will buy in, people will hold.
It's super, super basic. It's almost like back to business 101.
It's just that people talk to you very quickly
and then they keep shouting in discord
and then you have to kind of like ignore them.
Yeah, and because they pay once,
they are not the one that will keep paying you.
That's why the way that you treat your holders
are a little bit different
from how you treat your customers.
Yeah, so they are kind of like, on one hand, they are a stakeholder.
But on the other hand, they are also annoying little bitches, right?
Because they keep shouting for, kind of like asking for unreasonable demand all the time.
For example, even for free mean, even they just keep holding it, right?
From the get-go, they will still keep demanding.
Because the moment that they decide not to sell when it
pumps to like one if two if three if they feel like they have invested one if two if three if
into your community already yeah then in such in such case uh uh uh that's why i thought uh that's
why i said oh a free was supposed to to lower the the the the expectation but turns out it doesn't work that way.
But the good thing is
how we position the whole potatoes
and also our ecosystem
is we don't mind giving more first.
Because just like any Web2 business,
basically you have to give a lot.
That's why most Web2 business,
they have to raise funding from venture capital.
It's because they haven't figured out how to make money. And somehow coming from a Web2 businesses have to raise funding from venture capital.
It's because they haven't figured out how to make money.
And somehow coming from a Web2 background, we don't mind.
For an IGAT, we didn't make any revenue in the first three years.
And we only pay it out of our day job salary and stuff.
That's why it's okay to give first.
And when we have that kind of mindset,
we don't feel that bad when people keep asking and stuff.
And we can have a very strong stance to tell them,
shut the fuck up.
We have been doing our best.
If you don't like it, you just sell.
And we don't have to kind of listen.
I mean, we still listen,
but we don't get bent by the holders
or get emotional bad mail and stuff like that.
And to be honest, we keep telling them that, hey, if you believe in us, this is the way.
One story from one of our MVP, Vosso Blaze, a shout out to him.
He's like the craziest guy in NFT that I've met.
He bought five MVP when we mint at five on free ETH.
He is one of the kingpins that i met at gutter cat gang right and then he bought five right and right now he's
like a legend right in in the meme land community and stuff and to be honest when we talk about oh
the mvp4 price become like 40 eve and stuff to be honest he i i think he doesn't he hasn't thought
about selling right he just keep buying more potatoes, trying to meet captains and stuff.
If every holder were like Vosso and all our other MVPs,
probably it would be easier to run a community
because our goals are very aligned.
We want to look for the big win in the future,
but not just a short-term like 1e for even 0.1e yeah but
but to be honest i think this is like the outlier this is not the law right that's why we still have
to do some very degen stuff trying to oh place mysterious storytelling and then i keep keep
having a carrot in the in the future right mean, if we can be totally honest,
that would be great.
But if we are totally honest,
we would be fucked.
That's why we can't do it
because we understand how DGNs think.
So when people keep asking us,
hey, can you tell us more?
Can you tell us more?
We can't.
Because if I tell you more,
basically, you will just...
It just never ends. That's if I tell you more, basically, you will just, it just never ends.
That's why I always,
I always tell people,
hey,
roadmap is fucking stupid
in Web3.
Because if you follow the roadmap
and you do it,
people will say that,
hey,
there's no surprise.
And then,
they won't hold your collection.
If you don't follow your roadmap at all,
then why bother to have a roadmap?
the way that MemeLand does this, we tell is we tell people what we want to build in the future.
We want to become a web-free focus venture studio.
We want to focus on social-fi product. We want to focus on community product.
And then we will do it with NFT. We will do it with a fungible token.
We will also have products. If you believe in us, just keep holding. And so far, after six months, seven months,
I would say that we have a pretty good start
and continue to work hard is the way to go.
Yeah.
Now, you talked a little bit about the mystery.
So is that why we had a...
I mentioned, I know I mentioned this to you in the DM.
So DGN Network, we have this community on the side.
It's a gated community.
And the war, the DJ Network War Room, which is our crew, is obsessed with Meme Land.
They love potatoes.
They love Meme Land.
And one of the big discussions that's been talked in there by our guy Phonix, who's a
big supporter, is why hasn't there been a preview of the captain's art yet?
Now, is that kind of that give people a little bit or have them on the edge?
Or what's, what's the thinking behind that?
I keep,
whenever I show up on Discord,
on MemeLand Discord,
basically every day,
people keep asking us
for sneak peek
and sneak peek
and sneak peek, right?
I mean,
before they asked when means
and also when price, right?
What price?
Right now,
they keep asking for sneak peeks.
And then we keep kind of like ignoring them, right?
And we always just say, hey, when the times is right,
then we will show.
This is one of the experiments that we are running right now.
By the way, I love what a friend D got on his Twitter, right?
He learned to try some shit, right?
And then try some new shit and stuff like that.
I think this is the way to go.
Yeah, I mean, how to try shit that doesn't pee off people.
I think that's very challenging.
But for this kind of experiment, I think it's worth trying.
because by not leaking any artwork,
Because by not leaking any artwork,
people are willing to spend more time
to understand what you are trying to build.
It's kind of like dating, right?
For example, like Tinder, right?
What do you look at?
You look at the photos, right?
Do you look at the text?
I bet maybe the next or the third step, right?
You probably swipe the photos
and then see if there's any sexy pictures and stuff, right?
Before you look at the interest of the person and stuff like that.
So what we try to do is,
can we make people focus on what we try to build first?
Because at the end of the day,
we are not an artwork project, right?
And we don't even think PFP is that important.
This is like the first phase of NFT,
where people focus a lot on what they can see right now.
I think the real phase of NFT, the real bull run will start
when people started to understand, hey, NFT is more about ownership.
It's less about the artwork.
It's less about the picture.
And if they can understand that,
then they will be willing to hold more, hold longer.
Because it's easy to pump out a new collection every single day.
Just hire an artist on Fiverr.
Then you can launch one collection, one day a new collection.
But it's harder to build an actual valuable ecosystem.
And that's the thing that we want people to see.
It's kind of like, hey, we are going on a blind date.
And then,
but the blind date,
no, not blind date,
but more like the Netflix show,
Love is Blind.
I don't know whether you guys
have watched that show.
Basically, you don't see
the other person.
You keep talking to them.
By talking to them,
you try to understand them more.
And by understanding them more, it feels like you are more connected.
And that probably builds a better relationship.
Of course, you can't be too ugly, but I believe that we are not ugly.
That's why we are willing to spend more time to talk.
And then in such a way, people may have more confidence.
Of course, maybe 50% of our holders are still trying to flip our projects and stuff.
But if we can have 1%, 10%, that's already a good start.
Because you don't really have to make a product that millions of people loved in the beginning.
Only 100 people, only 1,000 people is a very good start. And these 1,000 people, they are the ones who pay us,
and they are the ones who are on the same boat as us,
same ship with us.
And that's already a super, super good beginning for a company.
Yeah, I also want to, you talk about doing things a little bit differently.
I'd love for you to talk about your philosophy of some of the things that you gave, gave
away to the potatoes holder.
So obviously, you know, iPhone, I believe 14s, that was a, you know, an item that was
a, was a hotly discussed item.
But the thing that I saw get the most discussion was a year of free McDonald's.
Can you talk about the philosophy behind that?
Because that not only did it crack me up, but it's something that brought it to my attention
and something that I saw get discussed
and have a lot of variety to it.
What was the thinking behind those sort of two prizes
or other prizes you've given away?
Because most just give away more NFTs.
No, I mean, most of those projects, right?
They give away merch, right?
Yeah, they don't give away NFTs. And when they give away merch right yeah they don't give a they don't give away nfts and if when they give away nfts they usually give away other projects nft or maybe
white list and stuff right i mean i mean the way that we think about probably because i buy a lot
of nfts and i don't flip projects that much that's why the way that i see projects is a little bit
different yeah and there are a few things that most projects will do when they want to please their holders.
Number one is merch. It's easy to make merch.
Just go to Cafe Press or maybe just go to a local factory.
Then you can make good merch.
Maybe you buy some better merchandise and then you print the logo on it.
It's super easy.
Another way that people love is holding in real life events.
That's why when there's NFT NYC,
you see tons of companies throwing money out there,
create a very cool experience.
But the thing is, I live in Hong Kong,
and most of our holders are all over the world.
I think no matter whether we do merch
or whether we do the real life events,
that would be a pain in the ass to do that.
That's why you think, hey, our holders are all NFT lovers.
Why can't we just give them NFTs?
And instead of give NFTs of other projects,
why can't we just give our own NFTs?
As long as we can create value for our NFTs.
And when people talk about that hey they talk about
oh this is a ponzi and shit right but but i think they have to google what ponzi means before they
they fold away terms like that yeah the thing is what we try to do is we pitch the vision of what
we plan to build and with that we just add a little fun element in it that's why we have a weekly
prize draw we give away 10 to 20 memeland
nfts for example today we just run our last pie draw last prize show before the captain's mean
we gave away uh 40 potatoes that's like worth 130 eph at the current full price yeah so people
happy because they you buy nft and then you get more nft and then if you are uh super lucky right
then you probably recover the cost already yeah and that's the the first part yeah meanwhile for mcdonald's and also we also gave away iphone
we also gave away jim stipend and stuff like that basically we look at what what people are talking
about now remember our backgrounds and i get how we make money so we work with friends and then we
find creators to create content for the brands that's why we have to master a little bit skills of social media marketing and for social
media marketing it's i mean it's it's like art and science right but i'm not saying that hey you do a
globally viral campaign it's more like you have to make a thousand uh ten thousand people happy
this should be quite easy
yeah relative comparing to to our to a global campaign by coca-cola or madonna's right so we
look at the the our holders and see what they like iphone when apple launched iphone 14 hey we gave
away i forgot how many iphones yeah and then we gave them away mcdonald's uh uh two mcdonald's some meals that you can eat for free
for a year because because nft the gens talk about oh i have to go back to to work at mcdonald's right
then we think hey this is like a cultural relevant to to the gen to nft that's why we gave away
uh mcdonald's right and then after give away mcdonald's we think hey that seems super fat if
you if you eat uh madonna's for a whole year maybe we should uh create a more healthy lifestyle
that's why we give away 69 69 gym stipend and and it's basically try to uh we try to build a
framework to see how can we add more fun to it yeah And our price draw is not just an other silly mechanism
trying to attract people to buy.
We actually want to build a new distribution channel
for brands who try to go into Web3.
For example, more and more brands,
they try to target the NFT holders
because they know that most of the nft holders
they um i'm not saying that they're stupid right but they're willing to spend money right and that's
the best customers for most of the brands yeah in such case when they launch something new
especially web3 related of course they want to target those users but most of the projects out
there they don't do advertising right then what is the smooth
or seamless way to to promote web 2 products to web 3 audience that's why we have the price draw
mechanism and work with brands to to bring in interesting products that they want to target
our holders for example we work with a gaming device, a brand called Cooler Master
and then we gave away the gaming chair that's worth like $2,000
and we gave away keyboards, we gave away mouse and monitors and stuff like that
This is like a testing because whenever we think, we don't think about something that is for short term use
We always try to integrate product with some business in it so that the whole design
looks natural this is this is the thing that we couldn't do with nike because people didn't really
want to pay and stuff but when we are doing work 3 now that we are like 10 years older hopefully
10 years wiser then we can think of something that is more I would say that is smarter yeah and that's why
we have the price draw and stuff and and and and so far I think our holders are quite happy yeah
no I think that's I think that's great I have one more question for you then I want to let the hands
get a couple questions if you have a couple extra minutes just because this has been really really
insightful um one thing you brought up a lot,
because you're obviously very thoughtful about the market,
is the meme token, or one thing that I've heard you mention a lot.
The meme token and how that's going to be earned
through the various sort of levels of utility.
Do you have concerns about the regulatory environment
that's coming around sort of the fungible tokens that we're hearing?
Because we've seen Guttercat gang pull back.
We've seen some other ones pull back. Obviously, Yuga's leaning into it, but there's someible tokens that we're hearing, because we've seen Guttercat gang pull back. We've seen some other ones pull back.
Obviously, Yuga's leaning into it,
but there's some question marks that we're seeing
with how they even have their staking mechanism
not available, at least officially,
through some of these, some major countries.
What are your thoughts on sort of the state of the state
when it comes to fungible tokens?
Yeah, this is a good question, right?
But I want to kind of like go one step back
on why we want to have a fungible token first.
First of all, when you look at the top NFT projects and when you look at the top 100 coins on CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko, right?
Even the shit coins have higher market cap than most of the top NFT collections.
Why?
It's because when there are a lot of
people can hold your token yeah uh even like one dollar two dollars right but you can get a ten
a hundred thousand holders right that is like a significant amount of value that can be created
right then we thought oh maybe maybe fungible tokens and non-fungible tokens they have different
roles in our ecosystem.
I think I shared that with our community before.
Basically, we see NFT as a way to build community.
Because as a community, as an NFT holder, you're willing to spend time on Discord or maybe some future tools that we will build.
and try to talk to people.
And try to talk to people.
And that gives you a sense of belongings.
And that gives you a sense of belongings.
And that's something that you can't really get
when you just buy ETH or buy Bitcoin,
unless you're the early holders
or you're like a developer and stuff.
And that's something that is valuable
because at the end of the day,
we don't just buy stuff for investment.
Sometimes we buy things
because we want to get closer to people.
We want to kill time. We want to get closer to people.
We want to kill time.
We want to meet friends and stuff.
And NFT is really the best to do that.
That's number one.
Number two is, oh, if we want...
NFT is for community, right?
Number two, fungible token is for value creation.
Because if you can kind of link NFT with fungible tokens,
basically, your holders don't have to sell the NFT.
This is some really dumb design of the so-called current state of NFT.
That is, if you really, really love your NFT,
but if you really need to take profit, then you have to sell your NFT.
So this is like, oh, I i really love you but i have to break
up with you now because i want to make money right i mean this is kind of like counterintuitive
yeah that's why when we uh because my first projects that i bought was a kaiju kings and
also my friends who got me into the rabbit hole of nfc account right uh um it's like a call maxi
right and then and then we learn from it is oh they have
uh nfc on one hand they also have a fungible token on the other hand and then the holders don't really
have to sell the nft they can continue to be a core member of the community but if the fungible
token is valuable then they can kind of like have a passive income and stuff. And that's why we think that, oh, this is a very good way to reward our holders
without them selling their NFT.
That's why, as I mentioned, fungible token is for value creation.
But the problem is, oh, after having so many tokens, what's the point?
Even for ApeCoin right now, other than buying some merch and stuff,
or maybe pay some burgers and
stuff right what's the use case of ape coin right when ape coin is trying to to to become the like
the currency on the internet yeah and and that's why we try to focus on what we do best is we want
to focus on the the social fi the social media stuff yeah and that's why we mentioned that hey
meme coin uh we hopefully uh it will become
the default currency for creator economy for attention economy yeah because this is something
that we know what to do i'm a big believer in warren berford's circle of competence that's why
we try to do something that we know how to do it and um and by doing that we have to launch some
products that actually we will kind of like as a token sink where people
will buy the coins and use the coin instead of just speculating the movement. When you look at
when you go to Binance or Coinbase, most of the coins out there, they say that they have a vision.
They say that they have a lot of developers, but actually no people really use them other than holding them. And I think that is why most people still feel like cryptocurrency is just like a big talk,
because they don't really find a lot of actual use case in real life.
And for us, we try not to be super ambitious in the sense that, oh, we want to become the Ethereum killer.
We are not trying to be like, for example, like Polygon
that try to change everything in L2 or L1.
We just try to focus on greater economy.
And I think there will be different places
for every specific use case of tokens.
Because at the end of the day, with the ERC-20 standard,
every token basically is like inter-exchangeable.
And that's how we think about the nfts for community uh uh fungible token is for value
creation and then social product is for the is for the um actual mass adoption that's why we will
build uh holders.com a required trip advisor forJourney. And then we will also have GMGM.com. We jokingly call it Web3 OnlyFans, clothing required.
And other social-fi products that we may build with our partners and stuff.
But that's the whole roadmap.
Okay, back to the question.
Whether we have any concerns about the regulators and stuff.
First of all, we're based in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong right now is super crypto-friendly.
The government tries to make Hong Kong
to become like a web-free hub in the world.
So I think we are pretty safe if we are based in Hong Kong.
And of course, the US government, super powerful, right?
Basically, it can kind of like,
not control the world,
but more like,
they can continue to sue people
over the world right i think in that case we are very thoughtful in the sense that on one hand uh
we don't disclose too much too many details because sometimes it's all about the details right if we
say that this is the way but we don't exactly talk about the details then we can always change it
according to the change of the the rules change right so we are trying to be thoughtful that's why
although captains is definitely related to meme coin but we don't say that oh you will get meme
coin right we only say that oh you will get a treasure map and there will be different varieties
of treasure map or maybe some of them is related to meme coin.
I think by the time that we launch the meme coin and stuff,
probably the regulations and stuff will be more developed
or at least clearer, hopefully.
And I think then we don't have to postpone it.
Because we never announce a day, then there's no delay.
This is one thing that I learned from NFT is don't announce a day, then there's no delay all right this is one thing that i learned from nft is uh
don't announce a day then there's no delay yeah i think get a kick in as a as a kingpin myself
i feel the sentiment uh of the community because oh they mentioned that oh it should be on in
q3 and then push to q4 and then still haven't launched and i think that is the that causes
and then still haven't launched.
And I think that causes the so-called dumb, right?
But I mean, as a holder, yeah, I understand.
As a holder, I fucking hate that.
As a founder, I understand that.
So for me, I tend to be more patient
because if a team is willing to come out
and explain why and then get fucked by the community and then they continue to build,
I think that's at least a little bit bullish than just ignore it and then no communication and stuff.
But somehow for tokens and stuff, on one hand, because of where we base. On the other hand, it's because we try to leave a lot of room so that we can wiggle just in case there is any changes in regulation and stuff.
But down the road, I think as long as we try not to position ourselves as like a normal currency and stuff, I think it's safer.
like a normal currency and stuff,
I think it's safer.
As long as we focus it on
becoming the default tokens
for greater economies,
then how is it different
from all those gaming tokens
that's in Web2
or all those virtual goods
in Twitch and stuff?
Basically, it's the same stuff.
Then in that case,
I think we are safer
than most of the tokens out there.
We had a thought or an idea last night.
It was actually, we ended the year talking Friday
on the idea, the concept of 2023
being the consumer economy,
being consumers getting rewarded
to show up and consume and participate and engage.
Do you have, I love the idea of the vision
of the meme token becoming the social currency of the creator economy.
Any thoughts or takes on that?
Do you plan to reward or have you thought about rewarding the community,
those that show up and contribute by whether it's engaging on whatever that live show might be in the future?
Any thoughts or takes on that?
This is indeed a good question, right?
I think this is definitely the way,
because as a business,
I mean, as a web tool business, right?
If you know how to do targeted ads,
probably you make a decent amount of money, right?
I have some good friends,
they run for a successful
company like uh for example one of my friends is uh is the ceo of caseify right they make the one
of the best phone case in the world i think they're really good at marketing uh getting
influencer and also doing facebook ad and stuff like that right but the thing is what's next right because if you are only able to target uh buyers and influencers other brands
can also do it how can you make or turn your customers into your ambassadors right into your
your your stakeholders right i think that is the next challenge for for most of the brands out there
and i think web3 creates a new way for them.
The challenge is whether the team,
whether the company understand that.
Because the Web3 evils is a little bit different from Web2.
For Web2, it's every money belongs to me.
For Web3, it's let's make money together.
How can we do that?
Are we willing to share 50% of the so-called revenue,
but we make our holder base or customer base 3x or 5x bigger,
and we are more defensible because our holders actually believe in us
instead of, oh, they will just switch to another brand
just because
of some price cut and stuff like that yeah so i think um how can a brand navigate that i think it
goes back to the question is whether they believe in give before you take give before you get yeah
if they can do that probably they can have a good start in web 3 and once they get a good start in
web 3 they can probably attract more talent to join them
to further develop their strategy.
And I think, I mean,
regardless of the artifact and stuff like that,
at least Nike is kind of understand that
because, oh, they get artifact.
That's why when they launch their dog swoosh,
probably they launch it better than other brands.
And I think those are the things that you have to give first.
Yeah.
And in 2023, when some people talk about Web3,
what they want on one hand is,
oh, whether we can flip for profits.
On the other hand is whether there's anything
that I can actually hold for long
because i know that the value in the long term is is better i think some bigger brands they
they they may learn how to do it yeah i'm quite bullish on starbucks right uh the the digital
collectibles or nft products down the road now because at least from my Web2 experience, Starbucks is indeed pretty good in social media.
And I think Web3 is just social media reinvented.
And instead of just buying fake fans or bots from Pakistan or India,
actually, you get people to buy your NFTs
and then you can track them on blockchain and stuff.
And same goes for any brands and any creators in the world.
For example, like DGEN Network, right?
If you are like a traditional podcast,
other than looking at the statistics of Spotify
or any platform that you use, what's next?
Maybe you can do a better targeting.
Maybe you can test out different topics and stuff
and then to see whether they like it.
But what's next? But if DJ Network or like other shows,
if your holders is actually your stakeholders,
you can directly get feedback from them and they're willing to share that feedback
because they feel that they are like a stakeholder.
And that will change the total game.
It's like, oh, you have like 10,000 co-founders, right?
And those guys are becoming your marketer.
And that gives a DGEN network a good way to disrupt the traditional podcast or similar business.
And that's why I feel like any new change in technology or improvement in technology,
there will be a new kind of companies that can disrupt the existing business.
So that's why I'm bullish in Web3.
It's not just because, oh, there's token, there's NFT, we can make money.
No, it's because we can disrupt the status quo.
I don't think that Nightgad will have a chance
to disrupt Facebook or TikTok or Instagram in Web2.
But if we do, we play our cards right in Web3,
maybe we have a chance.
Maybe we have a chance to become
the leading social fire companies in the world.
That is huge.
Because by doing that,
it's more like, oh, if we can reach like Facebook scale,
right,
but we give away
50% of our revenue
and we provide
the same service
that Facebook did
and we don't sell
their data,
probably people
are willing to use us
because they can make money,
right,
and also they can enjoy
the same service.
And by going into
this kind of thoughts,
how can you not
bullish about Web3?
Yep. No, first of all, real can you not bullish about Web3? Yep.
No, first of all, real quick, you are appreciative of the choir,
not just in the DJ Network, which we appreciate the shout out and the analogy there.
But the guy behind the DJ Network handle, Joe, one of our DJ Network co-founders,
is actually his company that he co-founded is bringing Starbucks into Web3
because they went to native Web3 people to do it.
So I appreciate the shout out and your bullishous on Starbucks because a few of us are working
on that as well.
Joe's leading.
I'm helping out a little bit.
But so you're making us feel good.
But I asked for free macchiatos.
Yeah.
But let's let's let's let's get a couple of hands in real quick because I know we've
had some hands that have been patient for quite some time.
Let's go Goody.
You were up really early.
Let's go Goody Jack and then puncher for uh for ray yeah no ray i appreciate you you coming on and and giving all
this uh amazing information and insight it's exciting to have this mint coming up and it's
what everybody's talking about for the first you know mint of the the year that everyone's
speculating on um couple questions but one of like the main ones that's been on my head the whole time is like we talk a lot in this space about advice for young startup founders.
And we focus a lot, especially in the last like quarter of the year on the young startup founders of the space like Frank.
And I think you're really highlighting like you're a person to highlight in the sense of like the more established Web2 person coming into this space.
And I'm wondering kind of like from the horse's mouth, what you would say is like your number one piece of advice or like roadmap for established brands, for established people, established business people to get into this space, to get involved and to get active and kind of follow the
roadmap that you set out for yourself in the learning aspect without spending maybe, you know,
thousands of ETH worth on that education. I'm curious what you have in terms of like a guideline
for people that are kind of in your bracket in terms of getting more involved in this space?
I think it goes back to what I just mentioned, give before we get.
I think, for example, let's take one thing which everyone knows in NFT, for example, Grindr.
People who grind for whitelists.
Basically, what they do is, oh, I make a fan art for you.
Oh, I buy an ad billboard for your project.
Actually, this is like give before we get.
And we get the whitelist only.
We still have to pay.
But somehow, this is like the web-free thing where you try to give first.
And also, for example, when a project meets, you also give your if first.
So somehow, the whole thing is very much similar to give before you get.
Then, even if you don't have any money or any special skills, you can still give.
For example, in our meme land, a lot of new joiners right they come in and ask
well hey what is uh uh what what does uh potatoes do right what what does it do if i have free
free potatoes right we have a lot of holders trying to explain to them answering their questions right
whether they are they are whether their answer is correct sometimes right but but at least they're
willing to help and by helping people by giving your time by giving your time, by giving your knowledge,
you started to build up your so-called credibility, your clout.
And I think a lot of the NFT, Twitter spaces, hosts, they were nobody before NFT.
But right now they have like 50,000 followers, 100,000 followers.
I read it in any box where I don't comment.
But somehow they started from nothing. Of course, they can I don't comment. But somehow, they started from nothing.
Of course, they can't be too stupid.
They have to have some skill set and stuff.
But even if you don't know anything, even if you are just a nobody,
you can still stay in a discord and then answer people's questions.
Not just to say GM, but actually create some value for other members and by that you probably can meet a better person
better people and also come across more opportunities down the road for example one of our team members
his name is his twitter no his discord name is manbypoco i met him in kaiju king discord yeah
i didn't know where he is based i didn't know whether he or she is a guy
right but i see that oh he keeps uh animated kaiju kings for free yeah and uh because kaiju king is
like um it's like a static uh image right and then he changed those kaiju kings to be like
keep bouncing so it becomes animated and then he keeps uh doing it for free and then i reach out
to him and say hey oh this is actually
good right what do you do in real life right what do you do for a living and stuff and then he told
me oh he's like a art director at a web one uh merch company and stuff and then we talk more and
then we talk more and then right now he joined our team and then he become a full-time artist and
art and marketing manager right so so this is like how Web3 works, yeah.
And if you are new into Web3,
I think you can't find a better way
because on Web3, people don't care about your skin color, right?
They don't care about where you are based.
As long as you can create value, they like you, yeah?
I think a lot of the big name holders and stuff, right?
They're not Americans, right? They're not, sorry, they're they're not white people right i'm not saying that white people are bad
and stuff but by definition people are less racist on web3 because they can't see your race yeah of
course when you look at the nft collections right the floor collection is always the the dark skin
also the female nft i think at the end of the day we are just human beings right
so i think it takes time for us to change but somehow if you talk about individual level i
think people don't care about where you are who you are yeah so i think um just give before you
get and i think uh uh people of different ages they compete with different things right i mean
on the 4th of january right i'm like
39 years old it's like fucking old in nft right but it's still fucking young right in the business
world when you look at richard branson right when you look at jeff basil right i'm fucking young
right comparing to them i bet they don't know where free we are fucking young i'm i'm taking
this i there's been a lot of a lot of quotable clips today and i'm gonna i'm taking i've been
twice recently being grouped into 50 to 65 year old age bracket and we're not there we're still
fucking young ray and i'm exactly exactly yeah exactly right and and and and for people who have
who are more let's let's don't call it old right let's call it mature who are more mature you
compete with your experience right you compete with your responsibility how you are more like understand the business etiquette for example when you
promise to show up at your show right you show up on time right these are something that we think
is it's like common sense right but when you when you join some uh twitter spaces right by by some
younger host right maybe they delay right maybe they just can't
show up every morning right because they have a very happy night's life right unlike we are old
people right we just go back to sleep early right and then we wake up at the same time every single
day yeah so i think for people who are more mature they compete with an other uh other kind of skills
that meanwhile for people who are younger for for example like friendly gods right he shows up on every comment and shit right i just don't have that much time
but he shows up there and then he replied to those guys and then he can make fun right and then he's
like always super pumped right i mean this is also great because no no older guys can compete with
your energy and stuff of course there are some weird not weird but more like special people for example like gabriel right from digital kaku right he's like
kind of old yeah not old kind of more mature right but he also shows up a lot right i think
if we can kind of like merge two uh uh skills then we become superman right i think uh uh uh
i think web3 or basically internet business we can compete with our own strength.
And I think we have to understand that so that we don't kind of like get envy to younger people
or we get envy to older people who have a deeper pocket.
We all have our strength.
And I think those are the things that is extremely important uh when we evaluate
ourselves otherwise uh if we keep competing or comparing ourselves with all other people out
there right i would feel like oh i'm not as energetic as frank right his twitter engagement
is like insane right then i would be super unhappy but right now hey i just do uh what i do and then
on twitter right i just post and then post baby pictures right and i feel happy as well so i think um yeah just find our own path yeah one more follow-up
question uh and like kind of along the not that vein but in terms of the project so meme land or
potatoes has seen like a massive run-up in the advent of this mint and the come up to this mint and everything like that.
Are you looking at all about kind of like the what to do with the potatoes after for everybody?
Like people are buying in right now because there's the speculation on what the opening price of,
you know, the captains is going to be at the, after it mints and everything like that.
And based on that speculation of the opening price action
and everything, people are, you know, aping into these potatoes because you need three to be able
to mint, et cetera, et cetera. So do you have plans or, you know, thoughts about what potatoes
is going to look like after the mint and the inevitable or what we expect is the inevitable
or usual kind of decline of the post-mint, post-whitelist
kind of hype from this
for potatoes itself?
And do you have plans in the future
for potatoes and everything as well
to keep that action
or to keep that interest going there?
Yeah, sure.
I think there's one thing
that a lot of people
who don't understand NFT from the team standpoint,
the value of an NFT collection is not kind of like one-off.
It's not determined by the market.
If the team decides to keep adding value to the collection, it will continue to have value.
I mean, let's not talk about potatoes
right let's talk about yoga labs right when you look at the dogs right and then you look at uh
mayc look at bayc all right why how come they have value because whenever yuga launch something new
they try to benefit the the the older collections holder right maybe the bot a maybe the mayc maybe the docs right then in such case
oh docs will become valuable again right i mean if you are really really good trader of course you
can kind of like buy low sell high right but sometimes you just miss it right maybe if you
really believe in the ecosystem you just hold because you probably understand the most about
that right uh to be honest i think uh you don't really have to keep flipping for profits right you just buy and hold a few key
collections and you are you are coochie right look at look at franklin right look at all those
guys right to be honest are they really good flippers i don't know yeah but but at least i
think a lot of them they they are kind of like rich. It's because of ApeCoin, because of the bought Ape in value.
Of course, there are not many Yuga apps out there.
But hopefully, MemeLang can become like on par with Yuga down the road.
I think for Potatoes, back to the exact questions.
I think I explained that like a thousand times on our Discord.
Do you think I'm that stupid that we will kind of like,
oh, spend so much effort to
make a collection free means and then have staging review and then have did so much artwork and then
we we treat it as a condom just use it as a mean part right i mean we're not that stupid yeah because
at the end of the day if you hold potatoes you you are part of the very limited NFT holders of our ecosystem.
In such case, we would definitely reward you because we want to make sure that you feel treated well in our ecosystem.
That's why, on the other hand, we also have very, I would say, specifically designed mechanics.
So I try to navigate the so-called pros' benefit, thumb.
That's why in captain's sticking, we call it questing, right,
each captain can go to questing with three potatoes.
And by going with three potatoes,
you can enjoy the maximum benefit of the captain's questing.
Then it's like very easy math, right?
I'm an Asian.
Of course, I'm good at maths, right right but assume normal people still can do the maths 10k potatoes 10k captains if 10k captains
one captain can compare with three potatoes that means it's like a one to three uh um demand for
potatoes right for people who are really bullish in the meme land ecosystem,
they will probably grab the time
to sweep some potatoes
for questing and stuff.
Will there be price fluctuation?
Definitely.
Just like any projects out there,
whenever there is some news and stuff,
they will pump,
and after some time,
they will dump for some time.
The biggest question is,
has the team considered that?
Has the team figured out some mechanism
at least to, I would say, lower the blow, lower the impact?
I mean, for us, we have some measures towards that.
Whether it works or not, the market will tell us.
But from the potatoes a review mechanism right
the saying is oh before an nft review it will pump after review it will dump right for potatoes
we do gradual review so your so-called uh very smart uh observation that oh uh review dumb right
it never happens in potatoes yeah then i would say that oh maybe potatoes
may will not dump right maybe it will have some price correction and then it will bounce again
right so i think most of the problems in this space is people are too judgmental because everything
everyone thinks that they are an expert and then that's why they they they name themselves alpha
caller when they are just like beta as shit
and they don't know so much,
but they somehow kind of like,
oh, I've seen that, right?
That's why you are a cash grab.
I mean, I face that kind of criticism all the time.
Yeah, when we just launched our MVP and potatoes, right?
Right now, we are certainly the hot guy in town.
But to be honest, we have always been doing the same thing.
It's just that people's impression and people's expectation change.
So I would say that if you believe in MemeLand,
I would say that this is just like day one of what we are trying to build.
We haven't even launched any tokens.
We haven't even launched our products.
If you believe that, oh, we won't reward our potato soda you are stupid as fuck yeah that's what i i can say right now
with that said punter go ahead uh jump in here i i told you guys that uh ray doesn't pull any
punches and and ray i just wanted to say like uh i appreciate you just no bullshit when you come on
stage you tell it like it is.
And also, like, hearing the history of how you've gone through the Web3 space, it sounds like you sort of fucked around and found out.
And I love that approach, you know.
And it sounds like you're going to continue to take that mentality as you go forward to try different things and not be afraid to fail and see how it goes.
And I think that's the best way to do it. Just a question
that I would have for you real quick is, as you build it out, it seems like you have a unique
opportunity to do the so-called onboarding, which I think is a bullshit term because onboarding
really just meant we wanted somebody else to come and buy our bags off of us, right? So do you see
yourself positioned to sort of bring more people into Web3?
Or do you just think if you do what you have to do
and your team does what they have to do,
it'll just be a natural thing that happens
and we won't have to sit here and talk about onboarding,
which, like I say, I think is a bullshit term.
That's a good question, right?
And I think people have expectations
that now I get to onboard people to Web to web free i mean the best way to onboard
people is to build good products that people will use right it's not about oh i try to i mean you
can also do that you can give tutorial you can give education right but i think for us after running
nighet for for 14 years i understand that the best way to engage people is to give them benefit.
And if you can give them benefit and tell them why this is the way, then they are willing to learn.
I think all of the listeners here, either you learn from your friends or you learn online.
Of course, you get rub tools from time to time.
You got trained from time to time.
But somehow, why do you do what you do right now?
Because you believe that this is the future, right?
There will be benefit.
Maybe not right now, but down the road.
If we can actually build a legit company in Web3,
people will come to us.
It's not, I mean, we still have to make some products
that is targeting Web3 people.
That's why we want to launch Holders.com
because that's one of the biggest issues that i had when i first started to to buy
nft the question that we try to solve is which project should i buy how how can you how can how
do you answer this question right now right now what you do is oh i ask my friends right but your
friends whether they are really your friend maybe they show you the project and you become the exit liquidity, right?
So I'm not saying that your friends are all bad, right?
I'm just saying that
your friend's comment may not be the best comment, right?
How come when we go travel,
when we go to our restaurants,
how come we don't just believe in our friends?
How come we also go to a TripAdvisor,
or OpenTable and stuff, right?
Or Hotels.com.
Why do we do that?
Because we know that through crowdsourcing, the review, crowdsourcing, the comment,
it may be more believable than just my friend.
Because my friend's taste, my friend's preference may not be my preference.
That's the premise of Holders.com.
That's why we say that
we want Holders.com
to become the trip advisor
for your web-free journey.
Because I feel like
each NFT collection
is kind of like a destination.
Whether you like Grand Canyon,
whether you like Hong Kong,
maybe you like different stuff.
But we have a chance
to have a place for people
to tell you the experience.
Because with some basic tracking, wallet tracking and stuff,
I know that whether you're a holder,
I know that whether you just try to pump your own back.
And for the ex-holder, I can understand why you're so angry with that collection.
Because, oh, we can show that you are an ex-holder.
And then how long that you hold.
Right now, there are, I mean, this is kind of like a no-brainer,
but there are no tools to do that, right?
At least not a famous tool to do that, right?
I think there are a lot of tools trying to do on-chain analysis,
but there is no, I would say, community-focused tool for that.
And for Discord right now, it's very token-cated.
It's kind of like an insider community.
And then for Twitter, before or after Elon Musk bought it,
it's still the worst place to have,
I would say, more structured information.
No matter how many threads that people write.
Most people write threads that no one really see.
And even with the current impression and stuff,
you can see that the first post get the most impression
and then if you have like a 15 uh post thread basically at the end no one really reads it
right but those are actually good information how why can't we have a place for for a depository
for that kind of info right that's what holder.com want to build that's what we want to reward the
writers right the commenters the committee members of that and maybe if we if we do it right we can
kind of like replace certain function of discord because right now after launching our meme land
i feel like oh it should not be that difficult to launch uh nft project oh you have to in discord
you have to set up all the boards and then you
get hacked all the time and there's tons of channels that no one really talked there right
and then you only have people scam you and shit right but the the discord tool is too powerful
for most of the projects out there maybe holders.com can also solve that problem yeah so um
yeah so i think onboarding people in web3 is i wouldn't say it's
bullshit but it's more like if web3 is going to be uh improving i think more and more people
will be using web3 because they will feel like oh there's the opportunity out there yeah because
i mean technology uh advancement this is like unstoppable, right?
Yeah, so even my mom knows how to use Facebook.
Then in that case, I would say that,
oh, maybe someday, right, 60-year-old guy,
he or she will know how to buy NFT.
I think it's just a matter of time, yeah.
Great answer. Let's run down, let's run down and Ray,
just let us know if you need to take off at all.
We have a couple more hands if you have time. Um, let's go to, uh,
let's go to Jack and we'll go to fart. Uh, Jack, get in here.
Oh, thanks Steve. And yeah, thank you so much Ray for all of your time.
This has been just tremendous,
tremendous masterclass on how a bit web free business can just you know focus on
sharing a bit of the profit pie by the sounds of it you know terrible expression there um but
yeah i basically i'm still trying to collect myself from how hilarious you are and as the
ceo of nine gag i suppose i shouldn't be that surprised but especially referring to potatoes
and how you're not going to treat them as condoms literally had me thinking oh please Steve you know go to somebody else because I cannot speak right
now I was in tears so thank you so much for that I guess yeah firstly feeling very very
underexposed as I'm pretty sure 90% of the spaces if not 100% of the spaces is you mentioned that
you you know being a little bit older you just haven't
got the energy of frank um and as a fan of frank if you can't tell by my pfp um i just want to tell
you right now you 100 have that energy and like i'm feeling like i can run through a brick wall
right now with some of the stuff you've been talking about sorry captain stealing that expression
my specific question is very much around like what you've just discussed around how you're really focusing on your holders and how you can share that profit with your holders in some extent, if I'm not summarizing too much there.
previous businesses like you've been bringing brands in and that's what nine gag do how do you
feel like you're going to be able to sort of portray that web free outlook of sharing that
value to some of these brands that you know traditionally um my term i guess is like they
release perishable products you know the iphone you're gonna have to replace it every two years
and just because you owned the previous iphone you know fuck does that mean that you're going to have to replace it every two years. And just because you owned the previous iPhone, fuck does that mean that you're going to get any sort of real percentage drop?
I think they may chuck you like $50 if you've had the iPhone,
you've just paid $2,000 the year before.
But outside of that, they are very much focused on products that you just keep buying.
And just because you've been buying the iPhone, in my case, since the 3GS,
doesn't mean that you're going to get a
penny off the new iPhone. How are you going to bring those brands on board in the same way and
make sure that they understand what they're doing by entering that web-free space?
This is indeed a good question. I think every brand, they sell different products. So the way that they go into Web3 may not be like the traditional way, right?
They may not launch an NFT.
For example, for Apple, right?
Whether they launch an NFT, it doesn't really matter.
But they can support crypto payment on iPhone, right?
They can stop charging Coinbase 30% for any transaction that it does, right?
I think there are different ways
that brands can go
into Web3.
Meanwhile,
for some brands,
maybe they can do,
for example,
like media brands.
Instead of subscription,
instead of supported by ads,
they can definitely
do an NFT,
just like Ruck Radio, right?
That's just like
a nifty portal.
Yeah, I think those guys are setting a good example.
Whether that will be the end game
or that will be the final form, I don't know.
But I think that provides a good experiment
to try something new.
And that's indeed great
because if you are like a pioneer in a tech
and with some existing background in other areas,
probably you can bring some new energy and new innovation into the space.
And I think that's extremely important.
Because if we only do things the old way, the bigger companies always win.
Because they enjoy the economics of scale.
And the thing is, for bigger companies,
usually they move slower
because they have to get
certain level of approval
because, oh, they say that,
oh, let's go ahead and launch an NFT.
Right now for MemeLand
or for Nygate, right,
when we launch an NFT,
what it takes is,
oh, I say, oh, let's do Web3.
Let's launch an NFT.
And then we do it.
So I feel like big or small guys guys they can compete on different things just like old and younger guys
they also compete on different things but at the end of the day i think each brand they may have
some value that is kind of like unique in in web3 and even back to the apple example their biggest
step in the web3 would be support crypto payment.
Then in such case, people will probably stop using MetaMask.
They will just use Apple because maybe their user experience is better.
And just like when you look at Solana, before the FTX stuff, they launched a mobile phone.
Why? Because they also want to go into web too so that it makes the whole experience
more seamless so i think when we think about that we should not limit ourselves to the existing
nft pfp or artwork and stuff like that there are always there are many different ways and angles
when we think about blockchain technology maybe fungible token maybe non-fungible tokens maybe
just a better experience maybe just i don't know just a cooler app or maybe they just support it.
That would be huge because if Apple is willing to support crypto payment and also maybe take a small fee,
I think this can onboard billions of people already. So I think when we think about answering that question,
we should not just apply the same template to every Rep2 company.
Instead, we should ask the company,
what is your strength and how can you give value to the referee or to the people?
Then in such case, maybe they have a better understanding.
And even if they they don't
they can't figure it out just launch a free mean and then make it kind of like a thousand or maybe
like ten thousand and then you actually talk to people out there just like for example like uh
one of our investors and i get uh team ferris right he launched the cock punch right this is
like a new kind of storytelling and format i don't know the full price right now but definitely that's the way to do stuff you just launch it and then to to learn from the
holders and then as long as you don't ditch them you don't rub through them then i think
it's it's a good way to start something new yeah and i think web2 brands should move faster and
and try to embrace that yeah Yeah. That's great.
Let's go down to FartFartNem.
We've had your hand up for a while.
Feel free to get in here and ask a question to Ray.
Yeah.
Thank you for having me up on stage.
I go by BrainFart.
It is just like I'm trying to mix emoji with words.
So this is just something personal.
I don't really have any particular question for 9gag CEO.
I've just been an OG 9gag user since 2012.
And I've been trying to get meme lists really bad.
So it's sort of like a question,
am I able to get a meme list for the Captain's Mist
if it is not too late right now?
The thing is, in Web3, anything is possible.
and I've been hearing you talk for a long time,
And I've been hearing you talk for a long time.
so I just wanted to try it out and see if anything can be done.
Simple answer is that ship has sailed.
We are launching, we are meeting in two days.
I think we stopped giving out meme lists like five months ago.
And then we have a news holder and stuff. We have a way list, but we also stopped it like five months ago. And then we had a warehouse and stuff.
We had a waitlist but we also stopped it like two days ago.
So I think the only way that you can get into our ecosystem is...
I mean, if you don't mind, you just join our Discord.
If you want to become our NFT holder, just buy on the secondary market.
I think even just the potatoes would give you a good entry into our ecosystem.
That's how we position the different collections.
We try to be more accessible to people with different financial resources.
Right now, when you look at potatoes, I think it's like free ETH.
It seems very expensive and it's also very expensive.
To me, if you tell me, hey, I have to spend like $3,000, $4,000, right,
to buy a J-pad, J-pad potato, right?
I think you are crazy.
But I think down the road, if we can actually execute what we plan to execute,
then it's not expensive.
It's not financial advice, but you can make your own call.
Yep.
No, no no definitely definitely
uh thank you for the honest answer and uh and yeah i will be finding ways to get into the ecosystem
thank you ray you've been super generous with your time uh going on almost two hours and honestly
at least for me and i think i'll speak for, I will speak for Captain because I'll just quote Captain from our DGEN Network war room, our gated community, where Captain said,
in 90 minutes, Ray has become my favorite CEO in Web3. So that's a good indicator of sort of,
I think, my feelings as well from just hearing about the overall project to the market commentary.
As I mentioned, I was doing a ton of research this weekend, and the more research I did,
the more FOMO I got. So very much appreciate very much appreciate you ray coming on the show and even more than
that being a leader uh in this world cap i don't know if you have some other other thoughts before
we uh uh send ray on his way you're you're like always you're almost completing my sentences or
vice versa it's great to have you back and my thoughts were about the same i really appreciate
the leadership and your candor your passion uh ste Steve's not kidding. You did become one of my favorite, if not my favorite,
CEO in Web3 in about 90 minutes or less. And I just, it is, I said it earlier,
but the word refreshing comes to mind. I just, it is really refreshing to hear this no nonsense,
no BS approach to where you're, they're're so often even if they mean it genuinely some some
great leaders they come across as like just saying what would they think we want to hear or it just
feels a little disingenuous at times or it just feels like they just they're they're playing the
game and and something i said earlier is if people want to drop a project or start a community or copy pasta anything in 2023, go back and listen to this recording and copy pasta right?
Like this is several times we've heard today, whether it was in Discord or on the stage here, like a master's class in Web3 leadership.
And I just I really appreciate you're extremely generous with your time this morning.
You dropped an incredible amount of knowledge.
And I am.
I actually want to retract.
I think my first question was how did 9Gag separate themselves in a very competitive Web2 world.
And now after hearing you, and I even listened.
I listened to the Proof podcast.
I thought that was a great interview with NFT statistics.
But my aha moment today was it's very
obvious why nine gig's been so successful it's great leadership and great people and i know
that's been steve's and i's investment thesis in this space is it's not just about number go up but
supporting the people we want to support and and those that want to build with the community while
knowing they don't have an obligation to listen to anything
we say or ask or want, but also respecting that if we can, you know, if we feel vested,
if we feel like we're part of it, we're much likely to stick around for the long, long haul
and become those ambassadors, those raving fans. And yeah, you just, it has been, you know,
we've been very fortunate to have a lot of incredible guests. We've been running the show
over a year now. And I mean, no disrespect to any of the others but it's we couldn't have started 2023
off on a better note this has probably been my favorite coffee of all time and one that i will
uh i'm actually looking for it i know steve listens back sometimes i usually don't get the
chance to do that but i will be going back and listening to this one i just there was so much
wisdom and knowledge and uh it's not even takes takes aren fair. Cause they're not even hot. It's just,
you're just spitting facts all morning and I really appreciate it.
Yeah. Thanks for calling.
I am going to officially change my ENS domain this whole time.
It has been captain Z dot ETH going forward.
It'll be known as captains dot ETH.
There you go. That's, that's the alpha right there.
Ray, thanks for joining us. We appreciate your leadership.
Thanks to everybody else who came by the space this morning.
We really appreciate it. You could have spent your morning anywhere.
You spent it with us. It was a great way to kick off the new year.
I know we started off with us talking about my annual holiday sicknesses and cruises
and all those other things kind of kicking into the new year.
But wow, what a way to finish with just an amazing, amazing leader in the space.
Tomorrow we have another leader in the space.
So if you found us today, we appreciate it.
Come back tomorrow.
We run this back every Monday through Friday at 8 a.m.
Tomorrow we have Ryan Wyatt,
the CEO of Polygon Studios coming by.
Polygon's obviously been kicking up real big things lately
between, you know, you talk about Starbucks.
We talked about it earlier and, you know, Disney and DraftKings and all the other big brands.
On top of that, you know, Polygon got got used over the holiday.
So really big, really big one. We're looking forward to talking to Ryan.
He's somebody that is long overdue to have on the show for a while.
So really kicking off with a couple of big leaders in Web3.
So thanks for dropping by this morning, everybody.
Looking forward to seeing everybody bright and early
at 8 a.m. Eastern time tomorrow.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day, everybody.
This episode is brought to you by DGEN Network,
the only community-based Web3 media network,
bringing you the very best content in the NFT and cryptocurrency space.
Please visit DGEN.network and check out our other great shows.
That's DGEN, D-G-E-N.network.
Welcome to the future. Thank you.
