Welcome everyone, please share the space so we can get started soon.
Welcome everyone, please share the space so we can get started soon.
Welcome everyone, please share the space so we can get started soon.
Let's go retweet, comment, like. We're going to get started in one minute.
What's up, beautiful people? Welcome. We've got a super fun show tonight. I'm buzzing.
We've got Luca from Pudgy Penguins coming to talk NFTs, brand, and IP building. We're probably
going to keep a tight panel for this show since we just want to get into a conversation and
answer all the questions we have. So if you have any questions for Luca about NFTs, brand
building, anything, Pudgy's specifically, go ahead and leave it in the comments. I'll be
reading the comments and I'll make sure to bring everything up. But we made it another
week. Congrats to you. Congrats to us. But Aaron, how you doing? Do you want to give
us a little TLDR of crypto market before we jump into it?
Hey, what's going on, Tina? What's going on, Luca? What's going on, everybody? Yeah,
crypto market is in consolidation mode, but those of us who follow the market every day,
those of us in the know, I think there's plenty of reason to be bullish. Let's see.
Bitcoin halving about three weeks away. Sandbankman freed 25 years. So on like two sides of
the spectrum there, we got some of the not so good being flushed out and some of the
good on the horizon, not to mention everything that's going on in altcoin land and the NFT
space. I mean, there's so many different verticals of cryptocurrency right now. Really
looking forward to chatting with Luca about what he thinks. Much respect for what he's
built, but let me throw it back to you, Tina. It's a tale as old as time, but when
Pudgy Penguins were at like 5E, Aaron and I were talking and he was asking what I'm
bullish on. I was like, Pudgy, I think we should get something. We never did. We
faded and now we cry every time, but I'm going to pass the mic to you, Luca. You can
introduce yourself to the audience. Welcome to our space. Is your penguin you
and your penguin? My penguin is definitely me and I'm definitely my
penguin. I just wanted to say thanks for having me. I don't know if you guys knew
this, but I'm actually on a spaces hiatus. Kudos to you guys for getting me
out of the borough and doing, I think, what might be my first space in
probably three months. I was doing them quite frequently and I'm kind of
just trying to recharge for, I think, a couple big sprints here over the course
of the year, but excited to chat and talk all things NFTs and crypto. Wow,
honored, honored. I know when spaces first came out, I was never a big fan of
them. I was like, why don't I just shout on the side of a corner? I might reach
more people, but now I totally get why spaces are popular. All it
takes is one person to join, then another person joins and just a good way
to connect. I guess, Luca, how's it going, man? What are your thoughts
on the state of the crypto market today and the NFT space? Yeah, it's
going well. It's a beautiful night here in Miami. I'm actually outside, so I'm
enjoying myself. I think the crypto market, NFT market, is an interesting
one right now. I think things are happening a little bit sooner than I
think I anticipated, but the market always kind of optimizes for what I
like to reference as Max Payne, and I think Max Payne, when the market first
started heating up, was people were really forecasting late 2024 or
middle 2024 post-habiting for things to really start to heat up. This is my
third cycle, and so it's actually shaking out a little bit different, a
little bit more similarly to I think 2017, so kind of have to dig into the
memory bank and try to remember how things kind of transpired then. But it's
an interesting market to say the least. I think one that is going to yield a lot
of excitement, and it is going to be really interesting to see how it kind of
shakes out over the last six to twelve to eighteen months. I think on the NFT
side, one thing that I'm working on is kind of a joke internally,
but we're kind of working on something called Project Save NFTs. I think NFTs
right now are always kind of always catch their run towards the middle to
later end of the cycle. The idea is when you make all your amazing
magic internet money, you kind of want to put that into some sort of status
symbol, or Vblin good, and NFTs typically tend to tick off that box. But
regardless, I think if I were to just peel back at the greater NFT landscape,
I actually thought to myself three weeks ago we had a team stand up, and I said,
as a trader, there's not much to be excited about in NFT land, and that kind of led
to how to, as now leaders of the space, I think we have a responsibility to kind
of lead the charge and what the next narrative and what the next meta is going
to be, and to really bring that excitement. I think prior to I think the position
that now Pudgy Penguin is in, we always were catching the tailwinds of what
others were doing, and I think today our positioning has changed, and with great
power comes great responsibility, and so we don't take that lightly, and I think
our focus right now is project save NFTs, and how do we just bring more
excitement to the greater NFT space? If I look at it from a trader and a
collector perspective, I look around the horizon, and there isn't really
anything I haven't seen already. There isn't, you know, for me, I'm like, well, who's
going to do something that hasn't been done before, and what is that going to look
like? It's actually easier said than done because, you know, doing things and
making sure that they're right things is also really complicated and hard tasks,
but that's kind of my outlook. I think I'm really excited as a crypto and NFT
holder that the market has turned around. Obviously, this is a lot better of a
scenario than it was 12 months ago, and it's really beautiful to see, you know,
community members, peers, colleagues, you know, have fun. I personally have been
having fun. I think it's kind of important for me from a leadership
perspective to keep a finger on the pulse, and so I've been doing that 15
minutes before I go to bed. I'll go to my local Jupiter or radium and one of
my local MetaMask and, you know, trade some shit coins and see what people are
doing, and I just bought a recent NFT mint that happened today, so it's an
exciting time. Obviously, this is the moment we all have been waiting for
during the depths of the bear, and I'm excited to be building in my first
bull market. This will be the first time I've been full-time building towards an
end vision while the bull market is transpiring, so definitely a unique and
different approach in the bear market. I'm actually pretty surprised by kind
of like how I think of things, but I knew this was coming, so excited overall.
Happy for everybody. I think everyone should be excited and excited to see
what the future looks like. So you said this is the first bull market where
you're building, because it's, do I have this right that you bought the pudgy
penguins, was it in 2021, for like two and a half million dollars? Yeah, so the
two-year anniversary is actually a week away, so it will be officially two
years since we bought pudgy penguins on April 4th, and basically two years ago
today was pretty much the beginning of the bear market. I mean, we probably entered
the bear market late April. It was probably when the market took a turn for
the worse, and so all I know is building in a bear market, but now I'm learning how
to build in a bull market, and it's interesting because I've told the
community this a ton of times. You have to adjust your strategy based on the
arena in which you play, in which you fight, or in which you compete, and the
arena shifts and differentiates with market cycles. Now, it's important you
don't get confused and distracted. There's a lot of really shiny objects, I
think, and things that you can do, and decisions that I think you could make in
a bull market that might not be advantageous or support the greater
vision. That's just the nature of it, things are moving faster, attention is
swaying quicker, but I think you still have, you have levers that you can pull in
a bull market that you can never pull in a bear market, and how you strategize
that, and how you supplement for those opportunity costs, elephant in the room,
you know, your community has that when they're holding an asset, is an
interesting one. So it's, I think people underestimate the amount of critical
thinking that I think goes into, you know, building a business that has a
tokenized asset that people from all over the world can trade, because, you
know, one decision can be monumental and one decision could be fatal, and in a
bull market, also doing nothing and being stagnant and doing the same thing,
I think, also can be fatal, and it's probably the most fatal approach that I
think most take, and so there's this really interesting balance where you have
to be on top of mind, keep the integrity of the company and the vision, and not
create liabilities, and that is very much a chessboard with a lot of
complexities, but if you make the right decisions, then the rewards for your
community and for your company can be monumentous, and you have the
ability to capture a type of momentum that you can't capture otherwise without
these type of market conditions. So a lot of variables, a lot of thinking, a lot of
strategizing, now I think we're kind of in execution mode, and we think we've kind
of figured it out, but it's an interesting landscape to say the least.
Totally, and I totally relate to like building in a bear and starting in the
bear, we started Altcoin Daily the very beginning of 2018, and little did we know
it was just just the very beginning of a deep bear market, but it allowed us to
get in our 10,000 hours in, and you know the people who you know subscribed to us
and we're in our community at that time, you know they stayed, and then it
turned into a bull market, and we're like oh this is so much easier, but you
know you talk about your next steps, and you know reducing liabilities, and
tweaking the business model, and I'm curious to find out what the business
model is. I'm familiar with you know NFTs from being a community member, I bought
all the ones that people don't know about, but you know I know you guys are
you know congratulations on Walmart restocking the pudgies, and I think you
guys have a great like Instagram account, always see those cartoons, but
like what is what is the business model enlighten us? They made it on the TV again
too, I saw that. TV? We do a little proliferation, we do a little TV, yeah I
don't know exactly what you're referencing Tina, but we do we do show
up on TV. It was like the best toys for the spring season one for the
plushies. Oh wow. Yeah we do we do a little news networking, I think to answer
your question Aaron, you know above all else the North Stars, how do you create a
brand that tens of millions, and hopefully one day hundreds of millions
of people know and love. Caveat is really loving the brand, and loving the
company, and loving the character. I think if you can actually achieve that,
everything else works itself out, right? The beauty of NFTs is they're kind of
a finite resource, and in Pudgy Penguin's case there's only 8,888 of them,
and then you know under that there's the little pudgies, and so in total you have
about 30,000 NFTs, which if you have a brand that actually has tens of
millions of people that know and love it, you don't have enough you know
digital collectibles to supplement for that demand, even if you kind of do the
math on you know people's disposable income, and one percent of that being
in the bracket that can be able to afford these things. I think the
math kind of shakes itself out in that respect, but there's more layers
to it than that. I think what we've learned over the last year is
ultimately you have to create an ecosystem within that, and that ecosystem
isn't predicated on more IP or more characters, but on infrastructure to
actually supplement for a vision that is when these people know and love your
brand, you have the opportunity to bring them in as an ecosystem user and
actually bring them on chain, right? So you know on its face you know Pudgy
penguins wants to create a global legacy IP that is known and loved, but under
the hood we really want to distribute and onboard people you know into web 3
leveraging IP to do that, and so I think today and our focus really for the last
two years has been you can't work on the other stuff if you don't really
necessarily put yourself in a position to actually achieve what is the North Star
which is creating that brand that is known and loved by tens of millions of
people, but I think we've kind of created the enterprise machine where that
part of the business is slowly but surely becoming autonomous and a self
fulfilling prophecy, and so now we're starting to think about you know what
are those infrastructure layers and what are the problems that we need to
actually solve to do the second part of that vision which is bring people on
chain, right? Because tens of millions of people know and love my brand like
that's great and there's demand around the NFT and I do believe it works
itself out, but you can increase that conversion substantially if you
actually build a tool in infrastructure for people to make that conversion. I think
right now that conversion is probably abysmal and for good reason because the
onboarding flow from brand lover to NFT collector there's significantly too
much friction for the average day user and so you know examples of solving
those problems might be you know custody wallet solutions we personally
made one in-house or another problem could be you know an interface where
people can interact and collect that's fun and kind of predicated around
gaming. It's a it's an interesting you know kind of goal but I think it's
important for us to stay true to the roots which I think at one point
probably a year a year and a half ago I started to feel myself drift away from
the crypto-nativeness of this company and so we kind of reeled ourselves back
in probably eight nine months ago and said you know the end mission here we
believe in our ability to create a brand that tens of millions of people know and
love that I don't think is rocket science for us. What matters is that
conversion for people on chain so that we can uplift and grow the industry not
only for pudgy penguins in our ecosystem but for for the rest of the industry as
well and so I think I think that's kind of our focus and our priorities today
and I'm gonna make some big sprints in that direction here shortly. Alright like
I I see your brand everywhere like obviously I'm in crypto and crypto
Twitter and I see it but people sharing the gifts I mean you guys like really
have like broken through in the brand and as you're saying it's like you got
that under your belt you know focusing on other verticals but level with us Luca
it could have been any IP rights like really what's special about this company
is you and your team could have been a different character and you could have
built that up. I don't think so I don't think so I think I think people are
underestimating the power of the penguin the the penguin though it was
created by some 18 and 19 year olds in their college dorm basement actually I
think is some of the most important pieces or piece of IP that I've seen
during my life and and and that might be extremely biased coming from me and so
you can take that with a grain of salt but I believe that with every bone
in my body I really do it's it goes down to the first time I ever bought a
penguin and I was actually talking to somebody who's in this group chat I you
know my whole NFT journey stem from a group chat called NFT degenerates and I
just got added it via added to it via iMessage about two and a half three
years ago and or three years ago and they were all calling NFT as you know
we were buying we were flipping them we were having a great time and the only
NFT I ever called in that group chat was a pudgy penguin at point zero five
Ethereum because my gut instinct told me when I saw the penguin for the first
time that this one was it and had that it factor and my depth of knowledge is
really predicated around mass I've really been a mass guy so I I've I've
been pretty clear on my superpower for a long time and it's pretty my superpower
since I kind of broke through to my professional career which is my ability
to get millions of people to see something and how that virality
interacts and kind of spreads like wildfire that is really what I think I
know how to do best outside of all of my skill sets it's the one thing that I
think I really understand and prior to me even ever considering buying pudgy
penguins just from a straight collector natural instinct when I saw the penguin
for the first time the the group chat is filled with a couple a pretty affluent
group of people and so I you know you don't really want to call things and
they go to zero so you're like at least from my perspective I was always pretty
sensitive as to like what I shared in there I knew those guys had a lot of size
and when I told him that you know when we said to buy something or somebody said
to buy something you know it you know a lot of money was being moved around to
buy that thing and it was the only thing I decided to ever call in that
group chat and I can't it wasn't predicated on utility or team it was
predicated on the fact that the moment I saw that penguin I knew that
this had the potential to be the most viral and to be the most appealing and
most adopted character in the space at the time I felt that now when I
purchased that it was because I felt like I had the skill set to do what my
initial instinct new pudgy penguins could be but that that is true to the
core so much so there's not that many people in that group chat but one of
them recently stayed at my house for a night and I said you know most people
listen to that story and they probably think I'm full of shit but remember when
I did that and he's like yeah dude I remember I bought like 30 of those
things and I said yeah I know man it's crazy how kind of life worked out and
you can you can take two sides of the story you can think I'm full of shit
or you can believe me it neither matters to me but that's the truth you
know I I naturally instinctually believed in that penguin and some force of
nature bigger than myself brought me on this journey with these Arctic animals
or South African animals however you want to define them and brought me here but
but I don't think so and and the proof is in the pudding because a lot of
people today and I think rightfully so because pudgy penguins has seen so much
success has kind of led the charge in the NFT space there's a lot of projects who
drive a lot of inspiration from what we do but they don't find necessarily the
same success that we do and I think that's predicated because our IP is
sticking versus theirs I don't think is sticking as much now does that mean you
can't do what we do and be more successful you probably can or you
probably couldn't that's yet to be proven I think until proven otherwise I will
believe that the power of the penguin is hugely responsible for the success
that we've seen today I have to agree I mean it's so cute and it's such a
universally loved you know art and I've always set for mass adoption you know we
can't just keep putting the tech in front of everybody's faces they don't
care they simply just don't care and you guys I've always said you have to embed
it within their daily lives and you guys have done a beautiful job of doing that
I mean like Erin said you have the gifts you know girlfriends boyfriends are
sending it to each other then you touched on the kids with plushies so
like everybody in the household kind of has an interest in pudgy penguins and I
think that's an amazing thing that you've done you talk about other
projects and you know different approaches and everything who would you
say right now is your biggest competition in the NFT space crypto punks
and there is no other competition respectfully oh really why do you say
that I mean like you say crypto punks why is that and why not board apes who
you recently flipped on floor price yeah I think I think all I think anyone
building in the space is great and I think all communities deserve their time
to shine and they all deserve to win and I don't say that disrespectfully it's
important that that connotation doesn't get misinterpreted I I genuinely believe
that what NFTs to me have become is not what I initially thought they were I
initially thought NFTs were utility and value and a ton of different things that
I don't believe they are today I think today NFTs are and have to be to see
long-term success culture identity and provenance and really what you look at
what we're doing at pudgy penguins you you might misconstrue that and say well
you're doing all of these things but everything that I'm doing is to bolster
those three initiatives right when I go to Walmart and we do collaborations and
you know we're trying to build the brand I'm trying to cement pudgy
penguins into the nostalgic nerve of everyday people so that ultimately one
day it becomes a part of culture when I'm doing gifts and we're doing Instagram
and we're marketing the penguin what I'm really doing is I'm proliferating the
identity of the penguin so that eventually when tens of millions of
people know and love it those that where it is as as the PFP where it is a
status symbol amongst this community of 10 20 30 40 million people right like
what is a status symbol to a hundred thousand people right a Veblen good that
is you know an expensive profile picture to a hundred thousand people versus 40
million people one yields significantly more status than the other and so my job
is to proliferate the penguin get people curious about the penguin educate
them on the penguin so that they eventually you know see a penguin and
they say wow that guy's got one of those and ultimately provenance right and
I think all of the culture and proliferation ultimately bolster the
provenance and so it's really important to me that pudgy penguins leads the
charge on you know executing on a lot of these initiatives and breaking barriers
and pushing boundaries because ultimately I think it builds and accrues value to
the provenance of the NFT ten years from now when NFTs are you know an anchor
in everything that I think goes on in the digital world which I truly believe
that there's going to be a lot of things that people look back on in
reference as to how the space came to where it ultimately came to be and I
think a lot of what I want that future to look like I want to shape and be
the first and also the leaders in doing those things and so when you when you kind
of look at the playbook and look at ultimately where we're going I think
punks to us or at least to me and I say us meeting the team and I think
ultimately I might probably speak for the community in this respect is the one
that I think has achieved these three facets incredibly well now there's
others that have also done it I mean elephant in the room is I'm personally
not running this business if it isn't for you go labs and board apes and all
the amazing things that they did but I don't know if they're tackling or
looking at it the same way that I'm looking at it and if we're not build
if we're not fighting in the same arena or or building for the same end goal then
I don't know if you were competition right so I don't I don't think you and I
are or board apes and penguins are directly competing against each other
because I think there's different visions here and so when I look at well
who is the creme de la creme of the vision that I ultimately want to pursue and
I ultimately want to take the penguin to be at that status I'm ultimately driving
and pushing for the penguin to be one day its own version of a crypto punk the
same way that the punk is so impactful because everyone saw what the punk did
and basically copied it to a T all the way up until today and they'll do it
all the way until probably the the end of the NFT space at that time ever comes
is the same way that I want to build pudgy penguins when I want people to you
know start NFT projects and to build NFT projects I want them to build it with
with pudgy penguins is the North Star right the same way that when crypto
punks did what they did that became the North Star for everybody else and so
that would be the the answer to that question and it's important to me it
doesn't get misinterpreted but that's that's ultimately the lens in which I
kind of look at this stuff I like it I like it and I want to kind of like pick
your brain on two different things one practically speaking what rights I
don't know if that's the right word but what rights do like holders have like
you know the board apes famously you you know got the IP for that specific
ape and you could like put that on different things and sell them
practically speaking what rights and also it's a little bit even like a
different question I've heard that you're not gonna release like a second
collection like the like the board apes have the mutants and the pets and
everything any purely business oriented person on your team would tell you hey
it's hot right now the markets up people want that second collection why not do
yes so to answer your question at least the second one first is just because you
can doesn't mean you should and I think that's been something that's plagued the
NFT space for a while and it just comes down to the to the model that I will
stick by which is supply and demand now it's important to note that a mint
can be a huge net positive to an NFT project I would argue mutant apes were a
huge net positive to you the lab's ecosystem huge I think it's one of the
only exceptions where they actually time supply and demand correctly because
there was clearly overflowing demand for board apes and you know at that
point the price had become unattainable for most and so they opened
up the ecosystem and expand the community with mutants you know the
truth of the matter is is yeah we could probably make a ton of money from a
business perspective minting pudgy bears but at what expense at the expense of the
people who believe in us up until this point is our ambitions really to just
make 30 40 50 million dollars I mean sure never like you as you said
sometimes it can work out and I and I and and and there probably will be a
day where that comes but the the overflowing demand needs to be present
that is the caveat there needs to be overflowing demand to yield a liquidity
event and my thesis is is 10 years from now you won't be able to incubate IP
fast enough based on the demand that will that will be here so the question
that we tell ourselves at least internally at the company is like which
game are we playing are we playing the short-term game or are we playing the
long-term game because if I'm playing the long-term game my objective is to win
and to be the number one NFT projects in the world for as long as I can and to
lead by example and to push boundaries and to break barriers and once we do
that and if we can do that for an extended period of time the making IP
and there will be a moment where overflowing demand will be evergreen it
will be it will be consistently present because if you believe in the idea of
digital ownership then NFTs are that medium and if you believe that the world
is going to come even more digitized then there will be a huge need and and
desire for more of these characters and more of these universes but that time
is clearly not today right and so from our lens is yeah elephant in the room
is there probably will be a day where we incubate a new character or incubate a
new universe but that day is so far removed from today because one I think
NFTs need to prove themselves once again and then I think probably you go into a
third cycle and maybe a fourth and then and then these things don't even
become secular anymore they become you know present in people's everyday lives
and so I think from us it's really just a time horizon thing sure we can you
know optimize for short-term gratification and compromise long-term
success and that would work and we can make a ton of money I mean at the end of
the day I could tell you there's a you know I am eternally grateful for the
sacrifices made by people on the Pudgy Penguins team there's a lot of people
that are critically underpaid and they would love you know a raise and for us
to have the resources to do that and me from a competitive landscape I would
love to show the world what we could do with forty or fifty million dollars I
think I could totally shake up the industry in a way that nobody's seen
before because what we've been able to achieve is basically been by the strap
of our boot and you know a nine million dollar seed round but that's not
even competitive to what the next guy has so I would I personally would love
that but I know that the math ultimately won't shake out the way that
I want it to and it ultimately today will hurt the business more than it will
help it and ultimately hurt the community more than it will help it and so sure
that time will come and never say never you know the idea is that we win and we
get to earn the right to do that and I think it would be a net negative when
that moment comes but or a net positive when that moment comes but that moment
is not today or anytime soon Aaron just wants to know if we're gonna have a
chance to get in at launch this time but for my question I kind of want to know
so you guys have the plushies but I want to know how the toy line is
connected to the NFT holders so are they are you making the toys from kind of
existing art held by the community members are they from reserves please
tell us how that works yes we basically license the NFTs from the
holders so all the toys that we make we basically go to the holder you know get
some sort of licensing agreement together and then annually every January we pay
them out their distribution and so you know what we paid this January but it
was in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars and hopefully this year the
plan is to pay out millions of dollars that's actually awesome that you guys
you know involved them in the process of that that's really cool but what other
IP rights does an individual pudgy hold their own like what can they do anything
with their art monetize or any brand building around their underlying artwork
yeah they can I actually got in an argument with somebody who was trying to
do a deal with us the other day and they were like what's this pudgy
product on Amazon doing what we want to do and I said well look you know
the community members have the right to take their IP and make their own
products with it there there is a stipulation in the you know in the terms
of service when you purchase a pudgy penguin which is really there to have
major brands not circumvent working with us which is you can only monetize
your penguin up to a half a million dollars a year but I told the
community this and my stance on this is pretty open which is you know if you
want to make more money on your penguin than that then we will easily extend
the license and let you do that that provision is really there so that if I
work with a major toy company you know last thing I want is you know a toy
partner to buy a bunch of pudgy penguins remove us from the equation and
just start selling toys right at the end of the day you know a half a
million dollar stipulation is not enough for them you know to go and try
to circumvent us you know molding and all the initial costs to kind of
stand it up would kind of you know cut the legs from underneath them and so
that's kind of how our how our IP agreement is structured yeah cuz I was
thinking you know you're working with big institutions like are you ever
worried that you know somebody's gonna do something with the art that's gonna
hurt kind of the image or the business model but I guess I want to know
what do you think about Bitcoin NFTs have you ever thought about releasing an
ordinal collection they're doing pretty hot this season so we want to know
yeah I actually believe in in ordinals I believe in the long you know the thesis
is pretty apparent you know being able to collect you know things on the the
ordinals maxis call it the mother chain I think it's pretty funny I believe in it
I think it's gonna work out I think at the end of the day the medium for
trading on aetherium to me is still better obviously there's you know some
mechanics in place that would make others argue the contrary I think what
that future really looks like over the next 12 to 18 months is really going to
show us you know what is going to stay in the test of time versus what isn't
and so I actually firmly believe that some of these mechanics that are in
place on aetherium that most claim you know hurts the NFT and in times of
turmoil and times of distress it's easy to think that and I'm guilty of it
sometimes I've also thought that as of recently there was a you know an
aetherium lone contagion I was like wow here we go another variable we can't
control you know affecting our progress but there's another argument which I'm
actually really excited to see which is a lot of these mechanics are gonna
bolster the the growth of these things in a way that we've never seen before
and Aaron you might appreciate this as somebody who's been around for quite a
while you know I think kind of what's happening is very akin to what we saw
with 2017 coins I kind of repeat this little anecdote like a like a parrot but
I think I'm gonna be I'm really interested to see if it shakes out the
way that I think it will which was if those of you guys are not familiar with
what happened in 2017 you had you know a top 10 or 15 of the coins you were
bullish on all of them all of them were going to Valhalla you were stoked you
know you try to diversify in as many of them as you could and then you know
came the the bear market and of the 15 you know three or four remained or I
think four or five remained in the top ten and the rest kind of withered into
nothingness and then when defy summer came around it unlocked a lot of
mechanisms that current weren't currently present and so another anecdote
while I give the main anecdote was I recently went to dinner with a guy who
had seen huge success in crypto he actually ran one of the biggest
protocols of all time and he said the whole world runs on leverage I was like
that's really interesting is like she was explaining to me why the the ETF unlock
was so big and how people could basically take their hundred billion dollar
portfolios even if all that money was tied up take a loan out on that
portfolio via margin and they know can park that money into the ETF the the way
that traditional finance works there's so many trillions of dollars sloshing
around the US markets that it's a huge unlock and we saw that with crypto
during defy summer what a defy summer really accomplished it unlocked a huge
set of capital because you know leverage and loans weren't really present in the
first cycle and so what kind of has happened with NFTs is I think NFTs in
2021 had their 2017 moment you had you know ten to fifteen projects that you
thought were gonna win the race they were completely capitalized at
everything going for them they basically own the top charts you know
had amazing builders and entrepreneurs building some of these businesses and
over the last two years you've kind of seen a lot of them wither into nothingness
and what we've seen on the background at least from an infrastructure side is
we've seen a ton of developments on being able to unlock you know more
liquidity for these NFTs so you better loan mechanics call options actually
being able to leverage trade them in a positive way and when the when the tides
are against you the unwinds and the and the pressure make it feel like these
mechanics suck but when the tide turns the other way these mechanics actually
can take you to heights that you don't even think these things can go and I
really believe there will be a couple if or PFPs in general that will surpass you
know 2021's PFP height and I believe that because of these unlocks and the
access to liquidity but it works both ways so when the tide is against you
like I think it is you know now and it has been for what feels like the last two
years you don't see that right but I think the second the tide flips in the
direction that we wanted to flip it's gonna be interested to see what these
mechanics can actually do and and that's currently where I think the stage we
are in the market and I think we're on the precipice of NFTs having their DeFi
summer moment now when that time will come I don't know but I think it will
come at some point during this cycle and I think the growth that you will
see will be explosive and like nothing you've ever seen before I love it and I
totally relate to what you're saying with 2017 you know I asked somebody back
then what's gonna be the top project maybe they would have said oh Bitcoin
and then EOS because EOS is gonna flip aetherium and then you know you just had
the things that to shake out and you had to see you know which which
projects rose to the occasion we have about 13 minutes left
and Tina and so let's get our final the questions were chomping at the bit to
talk about but uh I guess you know you mentioned kind of what you're doing
going forward at the beginning but give us well you briefly you know remind the
community we've done this this and this this is how we're you know making it
happen but like the real question is what comes next is it to be bigger and
better we're killing it we're you know a top project we're just gonna get bigger
and better or is it totally different things you're working on I think
obviously bigger and better you know is the goal I mean you know we have a
robust strategy as to how we got here and the plan is is to double down on
that strategy into Excel but you know I kind of referenced you know earlier in
this conversation when when I sat there and I was critical of the entire market
I was also just as critical about our positioning and where we were and I knew
this coming at the end of the year I told the community look what we did last
year can't be what we did this year the thing is I thought I had a little
more time to kind of flesh it all out and strategize it and then you know we
had like a couple weeks of like God candles left and right and then I was
like okay well our timeline is significantly accelerated but it's
important that we are not predictable it's easy today if I were to put myself
in a holders position it's like okay more toys more expansion more partnerships
more billions of views all of these things are amazing but where are the
variables and what are the things that are gonna get me to be like what these
guys really did that because that's some of the most beautiful you know that's
my responsibility as a founder I think the beauty of tokenization and what
tokens do is we have a wide incentives and everybody in the community has their
own responsibility my responsibility I think is to create excitement to make
noise and to drive attention but I I don't want to be the one trick brand
pony and though there's a lot of tricks that encompass the brand sphere it's
important that we keep things exciting and we remain unpredictable but those
unpredictabilities have to be net positives and so I know how people are
gonna react to toy expansion and more partners and more partnerships and more
billions of views we have that again pretty much in a system that I kind of
references like a enterprise machine it's pretty much almost there but where I
think we we we've been thinking these last couple of months is you know how do
we do something that is how do we set a meta how do we create a new narrative how
do we do something that is unpredictable and exciting and and and bullish and
people are like wow they're they're doing it it kind of comes back to what I
said earlier we have to lead the charge that is the position that we're
in and doing the same thing over and over again though I know it's
impactful and I think our greater community knows it's impactful being
predictable can almost be a mental model for some or at least outsiders of like
progress but stagnation or not necessarily the progress that they want
to see so there there's this really interesting balance and and tightrope
almost as that I as I like to reference it that like we're gonna cross here
pretty soon that is obviously like okay we have the pudgy penguins playbook this
brand is winning this brand is succeeding all of the things that come
with that and there's some really big things that we still haven't done yet or
unlocked yet that I think could be monumental and huge for the space and
but but like I said we have that part down pat what are the layers and what
are the levers that we can pull that make this that much more exciting is the
part that I'm really looking forward to this year and so we have a couple of
them that we have planned and that we're working towards and those entail a
ton of different things that we won't take a deep dive into it is sometimes I
like to ramble and I give things up that I'm not supposed to so I'll stop
there but that's kind of top of mind for us please give them up we love getting
alpha here but thank you so much and honestly we're rooting for you but for
those thinking about launching an NFT project today first of all should they
and also looking back what is the one thing that you wish you had known before
launching your project that you would tell others now please understand this
before doing it yeah my understanding of NFT today again it's been a it's been
a huge shift I think this idea of utility is futile I think it's futile
because you can always put a ceiling on utility and so I always just think to
myself well like how do I create value value value value and the value thought
was very transactional is very like do a equals B or you know you know a plus B
equals C and and and try to think as many you know things I can supplement
for A and B to kind of create you know that value for the community and
ultimately that kind of thought creates again what I call liabilities and the one
thing you don't want to do is create put yourself in a web of liabilities that
you can never get out of them and then ultimately you're just consistently
chasing the liability and you either have to do two things nuke the liability
and fall on your sword which can only do so many times or just let the
liabilities destroy you and so I think my approach here for those that are
interested in building in the NFT space one I highly recommend it I think the
unlocks that you get from building in web 3 versus building you know maybe an
IP traditionally in web 2 are so substantial and so much more impactful
to the growth and the speed in which you can grow and so I'm just a huge
web 3 you know NFT aligned incentive maxi I just I just believe that that is a
better way to build the brand if you know how to do it but but I think the
approach this cycle and I think hopefully the the the meta is moving
forward moves away from these transactional relationships that I think
people think they want but I actually but they actually don't want like what
people want is they want to feel smart they want their NFT to you know
appreciate and value and they and they think that these certain levers may do
that but I think the ultimate levers is what I kind of alluded to and what
we're optimizing for which is culture proliferation and provenance and that's
what you have to lean into versus this idea of you know creating some sort of
transactional utility that is here today and gone tomorrow or has very little legs
to stand on and ultimately creates liabilities that end up crushing the
business and the community right like you know utility is very subjective
because if you miss the mark on utility not only does it create a ceiling as to
how far you can go it ultimately can leave a lot of room for resentment if you
don't execute it appropriately and so the risk-reward just isn't there and so
anybody building in the space I would I would encourage you to focus on three
things which is you know culture proliferation and provenance and if you
can succeed at those three things I believe you will have a community and a
project that will stand the test of time and we're in such the early stages of
this thing that those that survive time the gravitational weight that simply is
time in a world where we believe in a digital future and in a world where you
believe in digital ownership the identities and the characters that will
survive the turmoil from now until then will have unlimited upside and unlimited
rewards for everyone who who stuck through it and believed I am a firm
believer in that and so only time will tell but I'm pretty convinced that this
is the most sustainable thesis for long-term success and and the one that
will ultimately be written in the history books I love it guys everybody go give
Luca a follow and follow pudgy penguins accounts just a couple more lightning
fast questions and we're gonna get out of here in three minutes um what's your
personal favorite underrated trait for the pudgy penguins just in a sentence
or two underrated would be the cross eyes okay but you're never gonna put
the cross eyes on like a toy right oh I totally would why wouldn't I I don't
know how do you pick the cutest ones or I used to be a cook in the kitchen and
now I just let one cook in the kitchen decide all of that and so our chief
creative officer just handles that stuff from start to finish I've learned
the hard way that if I try to get involved I have too many subconscious
biases and so I just I just I just let him do his thing I see I see smart
then finally Tina will be heading over to NFT NYC she's never been before you're
probably a you know that's probably the conference for NFT people go how should
how can she best I don't know just do you have any advice for somebody's
first time at NFT NYC well Tina you're invited to the pudgy penguins events
and I'll be at the door so just say your name and I'll let you write it oh
awesome thank you that's super nice I am excited to meet IRL and connect with
you and you know we really appreciate you making the time today and coming out
and you know the people want to know it's a silly question but Luca if you
were to look at your playlist right now what are some of the songs in
rotation and please don't say march of the penguins it's actually pretty funny a
song called sweet victory which you may or may not be familiar with TNT by
AC DC and actually a song I hadn't heard in a while that I heard that I
started listening to again a paralyzer it's a it's a finger 11 finger 11
dude that you could not that was like the early 2000s but that was I got the
I got the boulevard of broken dreams Green Day and there's kind of like
sparked a nostalgic nerve and I was like okay let me let me go into the
the treasure chest here and see what others are similar and then 50 cents been
on a tear lately so I've been listening to a lot of 50 cent just because he's been
a great entertainer on Instagram during the whole Diddy crisis so for sure for
sure and I recently had a paralyzer finger 11 on my playlist like just like
a month or two ago so that's crazy and yeah but anyways man thank you so much
for coming on much respect for what you're building thank you for you know
enlightening our community and you know sharing your alpha that's it man final
thoughts for the altcoin daily and Twitter community well my final thought
is I'll be ending the spaces hiatus pretty soon I've got a little bit of a
world tour that I'm going on and then after that we're gonna start making
some some pretty meaningful noise in the space and so I'll be back in the
spaces circuit pretty soon I know a lot of community members outside of
inner igloos haven't really seen me around it's for good reason sometimes
you just have to get in the war room and and prepare for a big moment so project
save NFTs is coming here pretty soon let's see yeah let's see if we can
pull it off I love it guys go give Luca a follow go check out pudgy penguins
thank you everybody for attending um guys stay bullish