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The Future of Frens lives in Telegram
Recorded: Dec. 15, 2023 Duration: 0:35:28Space Recording
Full Transcription
GMGM, everyone.
Hopefully you can hear me.
It seems like our Twitter music has rocked for the day, but our space is up, so this
is a step better than we had last night.
Twitter is not being our friend recently, but super excited to be here because we have
lots of exciting content to go over today.
We have on the stage here, Joe, who is with Alpha Growth and helping Collabland to lead the marketing
and kick off TeleFriends, our new social fi bot.
We also have Flame Cryptos on stage, and Joe and Flame Cryptos, let me hand over this stage
to you fellas and kick it off here.
Thank you, Candy.
I'm really excited to have this conversation today.
If you want to start out and just give a super quick introduction, or it doesn't have to be
quick.
We can spend all the time in the world, but we'd love to hear just a little bit about you
and so everybody can get to know you a little bit.
Thanks, Joe.
So my name is Flame Cryptos, Flames or Ben.
I'm a UK-based DGEN crypto trader.
I'm in 10FTs and crypto, mainly DGEN crypto trader, a lot of shitcoin trading, etc.
I've been in crypto for many years, starting off in doing mod work and then moving forward
to doing cold work and cold management and other bits in between, including ghostwriting
for companies such as LimeWire.
I'm pretty well-versed in crypto.
I do literally live in the crypto world.
I work full-time in crypto, so it's something that I like to think that I've got some knowledge
But obviously, as everyone in this space, there's always something to be learned.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, that's why I'm so excited to talk to you about this, because I know you live and
breathe it.
I would love to really dive in.
First, I want to know your origin story.
How did you get red-pilled into this industry?
How did you get here and why have you stayed?
Originally, and this shows my age, I was actually offered Bitcoin at stupidly low prices, but
I was young and stupid and too busy partying to care about crypto.
I got into crypto properly in 2015-ish.
I was monitoring for numerous projects, starting my first investments, investing in small projects
and getting into it from there.
Personally, I believe crypto is the future of monetary systems, hence why I've stayed.
As I'm sure everyone's aware, CBDCs are coming and they're coming quickly.
Most central banks are looking at bringing out their own central currencies of one description
or another, which will obviously be part of regulation and part of everything that I think that's
happening pretty much worldwide at the moment.
Cryptocurrency obviously is intriguing from the point of view that it started off as a
de-gen practice and it is going mainstream with the CEO of BlackRock, Larry, stating that
it is the future of value store.
There are a lot of undercurrents in the crypto world.
There's a lot of darkness to it, but it is also where we see the innovation come in.
We all are well aware of the scammers and the issues, but whilst I'm not condoning their
behavior, they are actually a lot of the leaders in the technology.
And it's then turned into effective use for the others to use it to be safer, et cetera.
So it's quite interesting to see how the scammers do things because it's how we end up safer.
Regulation will obviously bring that to an end.
And whilst it is needed and it is something that will be coming, I am concerned about the level of knowledge
that will leave quickly because developers, et cetera, will not want to be doxxed constantly,
which I think will be one of the side effects of regulation.
But I'm interested to see how it plays out over the next year and several years after that.
You make a really, really good point.
I've never really thought about it that way, but the scammers show us what we need to fix
and what we need to improve.
I really like that perspective.
Okay, so tell me then how would you say, what would be your favorite and least favorite part
about being a thought leader in this space and having a voice that gets heard?
I think I know your answer to what your least favorite part is that we talked about a couple weeks ago,
but would love to know your favorite part.
And then feel free to share your least favorite as well.
Obviously, being able to show people safe ways of doing things, how to do degen trading and notice scams.
There's always ways to notice things.
If you go in a Telegram room, if you've got 10K members and there's 150 people online,
the chances are you're looking at a botted account.
It's not going to be a Telegram that is active and nine times out of 10,
you can see warning signs from that.
Least favorite, obviously, is being responsible when something goes wrong.
I always say NFA and to be careful because I am a high-risk trader.
I don't tend to follow the rules that well myself anymore because I prefer the high-risk trades.
It's the high ROI, but it is not something that I advise anyone to do when they are not aware of the games or the warning signs.
I still get burnt to this day.
I think every person in the space does get burnt.
But that is part of playing high-risk, high-reward games.
It's hard when something goes wrong and you get blamed for something and you don't mean for anything to go wrong.
But when it goes right, it's always nice to see people get good returns.
In the last ball, I had someone message me and they'd made a substantial amount of money off one of my calls.
And that was a really nice feeling to know someone had made those level of gains.
Same issues, unfortunately.
I've had people message me and say they've lost money, which is hard to listen to.
But that's one of the reasons why I say to people not to follow everything I say
because everything I say is how I play my crypto.
I don't expect people to play with the same risk that I do.
A hundred percent.
And I think it's fair to say that it's fun to play with fire at the end of the day.
That's why we all do it.
So I'd love to know, you know, you've obviously been around for a while
and you know a little bit about what Collabland is building with TeleFriends.
But I want to stay a little high level and talk more about SocialFi
and your opinions of SocialFi, how you see it coming in, how you've seen it in the past.
Just, yeah, run with that.
For me, the issues with SocialFi in the past have been a lack of understanding of people
and the exploitation by scammers of the social element of DeFi.
However, one of the things that projects completely underestimate
and so do Coles and so does most people actually do not do not actually realise how important the social element is.
SocialFi will be much bigger with regulation coming because people will be able to be held accountable.
You take things that have gone on in the, that caused the last crash, celebrities shilling things like FTX,
because the money they were offered, let's be honest, if you were offered 30, 40, 50, 100 million dollars,
most people are not going to turn around and think about what they're shilling.
However, the social element, when regulation comes, will allow for closer scrutiny.
I think that what Telefrens is building now will build safer communities,
people that know they can trust things because there will be the social element and the discussion of alpha,
of issues they faced with certain devs, certain teams and I think that it will actually allow more scammers to be outed a lot quicker.
Yeah, fair enough and I really hope that that rings true.
What would you say then, the social utility that is greater than just speculation,
we've seen some of these with, you know, Frantech for instance,
what is the greatest utility outside of speculation when it comes to the future of SocialFi?
The ability to bring groups together, to invest in sound projects,
to share alpha on teams that have continued to build throughout the bear,
that have built a good reputation.
We all know of teams that have worked hard.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of a brain drain during the bear market,
which we're starting to see some of those devs return now.
And I think that's what SocialFi will bring massively back to the space,
is the ability for those discussions to actually say,
that team's safe.
But be careful, that one's definitely rugged a couple of projects previously.
SocialFi will enhance DeFi on a level that I don't think people are able to yet comprehend.
The ability to discuss and have the social element is key to any project's success,
but it's also key to having success for the users as well.
Having that access to discuss and utilize SocialFi will make DeFi safer,
and it will make people make larger amounts of money.
And what is, what do you think, I know that it's quite clear that it is not easy to comprehend
what the future is going to look like, but in your eyes, what does that,
for instance, the use case that you gave of,
yeah, this developer team has built this amazing protocol in the past,
therefore we should probably trust them to build another amazing protocol
and not rug everybody versus a totally fresh, anonymous developer
coming out of left field, probably not going to want to invest in something that he's building.
What does that look like in your eyes?
What do you think that's going to look like?
Is it just soul-bound profiles that transcend all the different networks?
In your eyes, what do you think that's going to be?
I think that soul-bound NFTs are something that will come in hard this bull market.
I am actually not so negative towards new devs.
I actually feel that one of the biggest issues that we had in the last bull
was it was only the same teams, which leads to a lockdown of technology
because it's kept within teams.
It also allows for market manipulation.
When you have the same devs working with the same people day in, day out,
working the same alpha groups,
there is an easy way to pre-pump projects
to the point that it becomes a Ponzi scheme.
New devs are needed because that's where innovation comes in.
It's where new ideas are brought into the system.
One of the things which I'm sure everyone is saying is the issues that occurred yesterday
with the ledger attack, et cetera, which affected numerous different projects
because it was a case of keeping the same technology going.
It's the same as I'm not sure if anyone's actually seen the old Bitcoin wallets.
There is a issue within the wallets that when they were created,
it's actually got not enough security around it because of the way that the program was built
and because we all use the same technology to build those wallets.
The older wallets pre-March 2014 are actually pretty insecure,
which is not something anyone wants.
So that's where new technology actually needs to come in and be shown quicker.
If we hadn't had that, if we'd had more people in, maybe that issue wouldn't be there.
I've seen, been keeping up with a company that actually managed to recover someone's Bitcoin
due to that flaw in the Web3 wallet JS software.
So when you were moving the mouse around the screen on a browser,
it was not changing the security key enough.
So you can actually hack them relatively easy if you know what you're doing.
It's quite a big concern.
So from that point of view, I'm actually quite a big fan of new devs bringing new ideas to the plate
and giving them a chance to actually showcase their work.
I think that SocialFi, again, will allow people to bring those ideas
and people to be able to scrutinize them much like you would in Web2.
So when someone has an idea and is looking for investment in it,
people go to banks or angel investors, et cetera.
And those investors scrutinize the project first and the idea.
And I think that's one of the things that SocialFi will actually bring to the whole DeFi landscape
is the ability for a new dev to say, hey, I've got this.
I think it solves X, Y or Z because I can do A, B or C.
And for a group to be able to say, OK, we like what you're saying there.
We don't like this aspect of it.
And actually build technology that will allow us to go to mainstream
and stop a lot of the issues that we have within DeFi with hacking,
with protocols being drained due to flash loaning, et cetera,
which I think could be stopped from new technology being brought through by new devs.
I'm right there with you with, you know, the new blood coming in is what really brings new perspectives.
But there is definitely a balance between, you know, having net new people come to your party
and people that you've already met before, right?
You're never going to make any new friends if you don't invite anybody, you know,
and tell people that they can bring a friend.
But at the same time, you don't want strangers in your house.
So there's definitely a fine line, but a lot of the benefits of new perspective
and innovation will come with new developers.
So I'm curious that you have definitely some opinions on SocialFi as a whole.
Have you ever used any of the other SocialFi platforms?
I was looking into Frentech.
I have a few friends who were using it.
I never actually got fully into it personally.
I was very hectic with some bits and pieces.
I was working on a project with a friend.
I was doing some dev work for him.
So I actually didn't get into it myself, but I have looked into it previously.
And I think it's something that had some great ideas.
Unfortunately, I don't think it was the right time to release a project like that.
Whereas this being released now, I think Telefriends has actually managed to pick the opportune moment with the halving coming
and the general feeling in the crypto world at the moment.
I think that we will find that Telefriends will find success where others have failed due to the timing of the launch.
This new blood that's coming into the market, this new way of things being looked at.
I'm sure everyone is aware that we're looking at January time for ETFs to be approved.
And obviously subject to the SEC doing what they're supposed to do rather than being paying.
But from people I know who work in certain firms, there is there is a lot of reason to believe that the end of January through to the end of February,
we will see a bull market commence that will eclipse others.
And I think Telefriends will be able to ride that very nicely and make quite the impression for that start of that bull run.
Well, we sure hope so.
I love your optimism and I really hope you're nailing it.
So other than timing, do you think there's any reasons why Frentech is not really still big today?
Too big, too quick and not with a sustainable plan.
Again, it goes back to it was launched and I don't think they were ready for it.
Whereas when you've got a team like Collabland behind Frentech who have been in the space for a long time,
I think anyone who is into NFTs knows Collabland, knows them well, knows the team.
It aren't a fly-by-night team.
They are a team that have built something that is used on a huge level.
When you look at token gating, I don't think there's many other token gating services that people can pull off the top of their head,
except for Collabland.
I was speaking with a client one time about it and he mentioned another firm.
And I said, why?
You're not going to have the same level of trust that you would if you were to use Collabland,
because that is what people know when they are used to using a service.
People trust it.
And it's one of the reasons why I think it will have the benefit of having that team build Frentech.
They've got the trust that they've already been token gating.
Let's be honest about it.
Ginormous projects in the NFT scene.
And that is something to be trusted.
Yeah, and we're so grateful that after all this time, we've been able to make such an impact.
And we're so happy to still be here.
And that's why we're pumped about this whole suite of products that's going to be launching.
But, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I kind of want to go back to what you touched on about sustainability.
And what might be a way to increase and enhance the sustainability of a SocialFi platform?
Ease of access.
One of the biggest things that I find in Web3 when you're bringing new blood into it is a lack of ease of access.
People find Web3 confusing.
Sometimes I'm unsure why.
I think that they just work it up in their heads.
But ease of access.
Anyone can use Collabland easily.
Anyone can use things that are simple and laid out for them in a way that makes it accessible.
One of the things that Web3 has to adjust to is allowing new blood, both young and old, to enter the scene.
You cannot expect large sums of money to just come from young blood.
A large amount of investment will come from the older generations.
So when it's not easy to access, that's the issue.
So take Apple.
Apple built themselves around the fact that they were easy to use.
It's one operating system.
It's smooth between all their systems.
So you've got Macs, you've got iPhone, you've got iPads, and they all work seamlessly.
They built a brand, which is why, to this day, they are still as big as they are because of it being seamless.
Collabland building something that's better than Frentech, IntelliFriends,
which will be easily accessible because it's on Telegram, which is over a billion users already
and has a very easy-to-use mobile and PC stroke Mac program,
will allow Telefriends to grow in that way that Apple did because it's seamless integration.
So that ability for people to pick it up easily is where it will allow Telefriends to grow,
where Frentech didn't because it wasn't seamless.
It was a whole different platform.
It was something else for people to learn, and it puts people off, unfortunately.
I totally agree.
And what if I were to tell you that even beyond that, to make it even easier,
within Telegram, people will be able to use Fiat to get involved.
I don't think there's another social platform that has ever offered Fiat onboarding.
It's another reason why we're very excited and think that this does have the potential to kick the bull here.
But there is one thing that I wanted to bring up that I'd love to get your thoughts on,
which is the balance between making friends and making money in SocialFi.
As of, you know, let's just use Frentech, not to talk down on them.
They're an amazing team, amazing product.
But one thing that is kind of problematic is, you know, let's say you come to me and say,
Joe, buy my keys, buy my Frentech keys.
First of all, of course, I'm going to, because you're my friend, and I'm going to do that.
I'm going to support you.
But I can't also have the expectation of making money, because if I am truly your friend, there's no exit, right?
There's no way for me to monetize my support of my friend.
So how do you think we can combat that moving forward?
So with SocialFi being the way it is and the way that TeleFriends is set up,
because it is not a case of being able to get friends to buy keys,
and I saw it happening regularly in private groups I'm in,
that they were just buying each other's keys just to raise the floor price up.
But I think that it causes, much like everything else, a fake illusion.
It goes back to the thing I was saying about teams creating a Ponzi scheme.
Very easy to raise the price of something, whereas TeleFriends is more balanced than that.
You can't manipulate it as easily.
You know what you're going to be paying.
It will be set out a lot easier.
There is not the manipulation that is the same way that it was able to be done with Frentech.
And I'm not slating them.
I'm not trying to talk them down.
I just had my issues with them due to the way that I saw people playing game with it.
They were gamifying the keys to raise the floor prices,
and it just didn't sit right with me personally.
Sure.
And at the end of the day, you know, I think unless we use WorldCoin or some soulbound verification system,
there's going to be some degree of botting and, you know, sniper bots, etc.
So, you know, at least for now, there's no silver bullet solution.
But it is great to think about these things.
And there are some things that we're working on internally about the potential to borrow against your keys,
borrow against your passes, and, you know, even earn yield on the bonding curve itself.
There's all sorts of different things that we're exploring.
And then, of course, the utility inside of a TeleFriends group, for instance,
the product that everybody's very excited about being the copy trading links, for instance.
You know, Flame, I want to give you money to invest for me, but legally that's kind of a gray area.
So instead, what I can do is we can make it very, very easy and offer copy trading links based on trades that you're making
without you even having to tell me what you're doing.
And for that, I'm very, very excited.
And I hope you are, too.
The copy trading side of things is a nice way of being able to show people what you're doing.
And then it's on them to make that risk because they are copying your trades.
That's up to them to choose what they do thereafter.
As you say, it's a gray area.
In the UK, where obviously I'm from, almost certainly the FCA would have a major issue if you try to give me money and ask me to invest it for you.
I'm pretty certain I would do quite a large prison sentence for that because I'm not a licensed financial advisor and unable to give financial advice.
Because the ability for people to copy within a social fly program, they will actually also get to see who is a true trader, who is actually making money and not just blagging their stats, which, again, is an issue with copy trading at the moment.
And I was talking with another project who do a copy trading within their system.
They're a Chinese-based team.
And there was no doubt in my mind that some of the coals within that were manipulating their stats because they were just too perfect.
We're talking 100% hitting on the nail on the head every time.
And there is no trader.
Well, not no, but very few traders that are able to do that.
Talking about someone like Larry from BlackRock.
Yeah, he seems to be able to, he's a genie.
He seems to know everything that's going on and he's able to predict markets in a way that most people aren't.
However, the majority of people would not be able to get 100% trading correct at all times.
100%.
And then you've got other issues with TradeFi, such as, let's take Jim Cramer, for example.
I'm not sure if he's too hot over in the U.K., but he'll get on TV and he'll shout stock picks from the rooftop.
And sure, when he tells everybody to invest in a stock, 150,000 people are going to go buy that stock and it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
However, in the back end, he could be sponsored.
He might not even be putting a dollar of his own money behind some of these picks that he's shilling to everybody else.
So, the concept of wallet watching and public trading, I think, is a beautiful thing that crypto is allowed.
And especially now that if you have an influencer or a KOL come out and say, hey, buy this token.
You know, I've kind of had this philosophy where I don't tell anybody anymore what to buy.
If I'm looking at a stock, if I'm looking at a cryptocurrency or an investment opportunity,
I don't want anybody to do it unless I'm also doing it, right?
Because I would feel so horrible if I ever told somebody to buy something that I wasn't a part of and then it went down.
You know, there's no skin in the game.
So, I think these, you know, wallet watching and copy trading, I think, is a beautiful opportunity to fight a little bit of that problem.
My issue is when problems go.
I have a guilt complex when things go wrong.
I never want people to lose money.
I've lost substantial amounts of money myself from making wrong decisions.
I've made substantial amounts of money from making right decisions.
Last ball, I was very lucky to make some massive calls, some of which I posted, some of which I didn't, one of which I didn't.
I made a lot of money overnight one night.
I stuck $500 in and walked out with significant amounts more than that.
I was very, very lucky to do so, but I happened not to post that one online.
But people losing money is nothing, is something that I would never want to be stuck with.
My father actually is a financial advisor.
These days, he doesn't so much deal with that side of financial advice.
He deals with a much higher level.
But he has said it himself, even as a financial advisor.
It is very hard when someone loses money.
You feel personally responsible for their funds.
Despite it being, this is not a guarantee.
It is very hard to watch someone lose money, especially when they then say, well, that was everything I had.
It's very hard not to feel guilt complex over that.
Well, I'm sure glad you're a good person, man, because I think there are some people out there that don't have that same guilt that they would feel.
So that's why we like you, man.
So thank you for that.
But I want to give an opportunity if anybody else wants to come up and share their thoughts, ask any questions while we're up here.
And whether or not it's about telefriends and social fire or just about their weekend plans.
But I really appreciate you coming on here and taking the time.
It's been a fun conversation.
And feel free as well, flame if you have any questions for the team here.
And I'd love to love to tackle anything.
Obviously, I've been very lucky to do quite a lot of your time recently, Joe.
We've spoken for hours on end about this and multiple other things, as you're more than aware, because our first initial appointment when we spoke for 45 minutes well into your next meeting that you were supposed to be in.
And then we've had to have subsequent ones because every time we talk, we end up on a tangent about something else.
And we end up and then a tangent from a tangent from a tangent.
So I've been very lucky to steal a lot of your time.
But, guys, if there's anyone who wants to jump up, otherwise, I will be coming back regularly to support the team.
I think a lot of Joe and I think a lot of the team.
So I'll be here in a lot of their spaces going in the future as well if anyone ever wants to jump up in the future.
Seriously, man, we really appreciate it.
You can steal all my time that you need.
Well, thank you, everybody, everybody for coming and rock on.
We're super pumped about the future.
We're going to have quite a few more of these spaces as we get closer to launch here.
Have a great day and a great evening, Joe.
And take care, guys.
Thank you, Flame.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, everybody.
