Bankless - SotN #51: Pioneering Crypto Culture, with Michael Wong

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Bankless has TWO big announcements... - Big Merch Drop out of Bankless DAO. Sinjun Wesson, Design guild over at Bankless DAO, comes to show us the apparel he's outfitting us with. GET YOUR MERCH: https://cryptoculture.substack.com/p/paying-homage-to-cypherpunk-history - A BRAND NEW SHOW, with a BRAND NEW COHOST out of the Bankless Ecosystem! Don't miss it! ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/  🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/  🎖 CLAIM YOUR BADGE: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/-guide-2-using-the-bankless-badge  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 💰 GEMINI | FIAT & CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/go-gemini  🔀 BALANCER | EXCHANGE & POOL ASSETS https://bankless.cc/balancer  👻 AAVE | LEND & BORROW ASSETS https://bankless.cc/aave  🦄 UNISWAP | DECENTRALIZED FUNDING http://bankless.cc/uniswap  ------ 📣 Ledger | Securely Exchange with Paraswap https://bankless.cc/LedgerYT2  ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures 

Welcome Bankless Nation to a very unique episode of State of the Nation. I am joined by my buddy Michael Wong while Ryan, Sean Adams, takes a very well-deserved vacation. So we got Chief Culturist over at Bankless LLC, Michael Wong, taking the shoes of Ryan while he is taking that well-deserved vacation. We are happy you are joined. We are joined by you, Michael Wong. And again, we are very happy that the Bankless Nation is once again,

watching the state of the nation. Michael Wong, how are you doing today? What's up, Bankless Nation? I'm doing good. This is my first time using a mic like this. So I'm going to try not to talk like this into it. But nice to be here. Thanks for having me. If this is your first state of the nation, we are coming at you live on the YouTube every Tuesday at 11 a.m. PST, 2 p.m. E.T. And then it goes out on the podcast Wednesday morning. We are talking about what's going on in the world of crypto, talking about what's going on in the new cycle and what's going on in current events, except this week is a little bit different because we have two surprise announcements. One of them is why Michael Wong is here in the first place and another

announcement out of a designer from the bankless Dow. And so our announcement with Michael Wong here is going to come in the second half of the show. In the first half of the show, we're going to talk about how bankless Dow is propagating crypto culture with apparel and really changing what it means to participate and proliferate crypto culture. Like a Wong. Tease the first half of the show for us a little bit. Listen, guys, this dude, Sinjin we got on here for you. You've never met someone like this before.

By the way, his name is Sinjin. If you're in the Dow, you know the boy I'm about to bring on here. And you guys are about to hear from the horse's mouth what culture sounds like and going to look like in crypto moving forward. We're all part of it, right? If you're listening to this, you're part of making crypto happen. or sorry, excuse me, crypto culture happened. We're just putting it into threads and pixels and stuff, you know what I'm saying?

So I'm excited to show you guys who Sinjin is and his background. This is how we bridge the real world with our crypto world, right? Until they're all one copesthetic world. So, yeah, excited to bring Sinjin on, excited to talk about what's going on in the second half as well. Yeah, the second half of the show, I think, is going to really change the game with regards to crypto content, but I won't tease it too much here. Before we get into it, we want to let you know about Ledger has recently integrated a paraswap

through the Ledger Live app. And so Ledger is continuously equipping the bankless nation with financial tools. It kind of feels like a Tesla where Tesla's, they get software updates and the car actually gets better. Well, Ledgers, the Ledger hardware wallet allows you to be self-sovereign about your money and finance, allows you to live a bankless life and now has the power. of pariswap, which is a defy aggregator at its at your fingertips. And so not only do you keep custody of your money, but you also get the best rates in defy. So if you don't know about paraswap,

it's a deck to aggregator that allows you to exchange all the Ethereum native tokens at the best rates and compares rates across all decentralized exchanges. Your private keys never leave your hands when you exchange your crypto assets. Self-sovereign financial assets with defy power tools at your fingertips. Check it out. If you have not used the Ledger Live app before, it is continuously becoming more and more powerful as Defi becomes more and more powerful. Michael, since I am in Ryan's shoes and you're in my shoes, I'm going to ask you a question. And your apartment. Your old apartment. My old apartment. If your bagless watchers hadn't clued into that yet. I'm going to ask you the question that Ryan asks me every single episode.

Michael Wong, what is the state of the nation today? Oh, guys, we are coping right now. I'm just joking. The state of the nation is propagating, folks. The state of nation is propagating. It's spreading. If you could feel the culture right now, it is changing under our feet in the best ways.

People are asking you about crypto. Your Uber drivers talking about crypto. And they're excited about it, too. They're not as destitute as some of us. So it's propagating, guys. And we're going to talk to you about the different ways we're helping make it propagate and permeate into this world. All right, guys, we are going to get right into what is coming out of Sinjin and Bankless Dow

just after we get to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Guys, we've entered a bull market. Now is the time to start building your crypto empire, and you should do it on Gemini. You already know Gemini is the world's most trusted crypto exchange, but now you can do even more than trade. You can earn. You can take one of your crypto assets and park it in an interest. earning Gemini account where you can get up to 7.4% annualized. There's nothing more satisfying than

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flexible and powerful platform for asset management and decentralized exchange. Dive into the balancer pools at pools. balancer.exchange today. All right, Bankless Nation, we are back with Michael Wong and Sinjin, who we are going to get to in a second. Just for those who are a little bit confused in the YouTube chats, no, Ryan and Sean Adams did not go anywhere. He is taking a well-deserved week off. a family, dog. Yeah, you're doing family stuff. Doing family stuff. For what it's worth, the bankless world has never missed a podcast or state of the nation. And so Ryan gets to go on vacation and we do not miss in the world of bankless. And so the show must go on. Michael Wong is

filling in for Ryan's for this week. But next week, Ryan will be right back at it. He's not going anywhere. But also, Michael Wong isn't going anywhere either. And so we will, that is for the second half of the show. But for the first half of the show, we have Sinjin here. Michael Wong, tee up Sinjin. Okay. Who is this guy? You know what? I was wondering the same thing about two months ago.

Who is this guy? And if it looks like we got him from the forest and it's not, it's not a coincidence. Sinjin, awesome name Mr. Sinjin, we are so grateful to have him here and working for the Dow. He was connected to David and I before the Dow existed. And I'm going to let him give his own background here for a moment. but the things that this gentleman can do and the way he thinks totally aligns with, I think, the way you listener are thinking about how we need to be perpetuating crypto culture beyond crypto Twitter, beyond crypto YouTube.

Shingen is the guy. David knew it as soon as he saw his application in the email. He's like, we've got to get this guy on video. Now we're giving you guys the video of Sengen. I'm happy to hear Sengen and off of Discord. I'm happy to be chatting with you today. Man, thank you so much for that intro. and all the love. And thank you for having me on the show. It's been a pleasure working with you guys,

working with the Dow, working with the culture, building it. And you mentioned propagating earlier, man, yeah, we're growing, you know, I'm out here with the trees. We got that. Everything is growing. It's springtime. It's summertime. It's lush. It's, you know, people are popping off on all these new ideas, all this crypto that's growing around us. So it's good to be here. Thank you. Oh, we're happy you're here, man. You have quite. the background. And that's kind of my first intro to you was hearing like, hey, first and foremost, you guys should take me seriously because I am these things and I've done these things. And now I'm trying to do with crypto. So why don't you give us a little bit that background and give the

bank of station some color into your life. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So I started in design when I was really young. I actually wanted to grow up and be a cartoonist. Like Garfield, he was more edgy than Snoopy. ended up making my own clothing line while I was in high school and in a small town of Missouri. And I kind of like had a midlife crisis when I was 20. You know, I realized like if I stay here, I'm not going to be able to do the dreams that I want to do. And so that actually ended up leading me all the way out to Los Angeles where the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. And there I majored in apparel manufacturing management. Ended up getting student of the year for that work.

and while they're researched fashion in technology and like, you know, at the time there was this really cool project by Phillips called Luma Live and they were doing LEDs on on clothing. So if you could imagine our clothing evolving to having like, you know, wearable art that moves around is programmable. And like I saw this in 2007 and it's still coming guys. Like I don't I don't think people know like this. It's still just getting started in this world. So, and, and it's great to have like, like, there's so much resonance with bankless and

this merging of creativity, technology and creative expression and culture. So finding lots of resonance here. And yeah, if you'd like here, I'll, I'll do a screen share. Show us, dude. Some of the works. Yeah. And talk about, like, what you did right after Fitem. Yeah, that'd be dope.

Yeah. And just for context for the bankless list. We are talking all about culture today. And so, Sinjin, he's a designer. And while we typically talk about crypto assets, you know, decentralized money, internet money, capital assets, defy tokens, you know, exchanges, all these financial terms, what we want to do ultimately with crypto as an industry

and as a technology is change the world. We want to change the world. And it starts with technology and it starts with money. But if crypto doesn't change culture, and it doesn't change how we act amongst our ourselves and literally at some point in time, the clothes that we wear, then we won't actually change anything. And so the bullish case for crypto is that a new financial paradigm exists, but really the end result that I'm focused on is how do we change, how do we change the people

in the way that we engage with each other? And so that's why we've brought on Shingen out of the bankless Dow to just tackle the apparel side of things and the design side of things. And so So, Shingen, before we go into what you are equipping us out of the bankless style, talk us a little bit more about your work history and what you have designed in the past. Yeah, so I want to share this with you. When I was at Fidim, we did some research into this Phillips Luma Live technology. And so this is kind of what it is. You can see this on YouTube.

And like, imagine this evolved with, you know, much more modern technology and soft fabrics. and it's totally washable. So yeah. So that's kind of like, that's what I've been playing around with, you know, and we're going to be doing some really cool stuff. So I also started working with a screen printer

to understand like how graphics work on clothing. How does, you know, what are all the things that we can do? What are the limitations? I worked for this awesome company for many years called Life Clothing in Los Angeles. And, you know, we did all.

kinds of things, sublimations, collections, and lots of work for buckle, top shop, you know, Christmas, all your, all your like, you know, Halloween, costumes, all kinds of stuff. The bankless Christmas sweater. That's dope. Yeah, so logos, you know, all kinds of graphics and women's men's, you know, really paying attention to what's the pulse of the culture as large and how do we make meme worthy T-shirt graphics, apparel clothing that speaks to what is resonating with people. And this one right here, I want to highlight this one,

space flag. This was one I did for urban outfitters. And this was the top seller for a couple summers. And even at one point, we had like DJ Tiesto was like wearing that one. And I would go out on the streets and I could see random, people wearing it, you know, that I didn't even know. So yeah, there he is. He's like DJing with it.

And so, so like this is what I'm thinking too, you know, for bankless, you know, what can we do that is this like, you know, next level designs that you can wear that you, that resonate with the culture, you know? So this is, this is what we're thinking about. And, and what's great to working with bankless is like, it's not only myself. We have, you know, a mind and hearts of so many people. that are on the same and ready to create, ready to collaborate. And this was also another one here that I did for a company called Beta Brand. So the idea here was to do a, it's called Chalkboard Genius. And I took like the 10 formulations, the most popular formulations of science and put them on a repeating pattern.

And we made a button up print with this. And I actually seriously got out a chalkboard. And I literally, you know, did every one of those. in a chalkboard. So this is like the level. I just want to show like the level of quality of what we're trying to do here. We're not just trying to like open up Canva

and take an icon and you know, throw it on there and that's the end of the day. That's what I did for the bangless shirt, bro. Don't hate. The bankless box love is sick though. Yeah, I appreciate that. Singe. Thank you so much, man. Yeah, I'll tell you what.

Back here. Yeah, I'll tell you what, guys. When I saw Shingen's work for the first time and what he's doing for urban outfitters, Tilly's buckle, I was like, hey, this is the bridge we need to cross right now. He was talking about, can we throw an NFT on the like inside the jeans and stuff like that?

And I was like, hey, let's get this guy in the freaking Discord right now. He's talking about the right stuff. So when I hear Shingen talking about culture in general, I like the idea that he's just using apparel as a vector as a vehicle to kind of propagate the cultures that he's working with. So him jumping into the bankless cohort, that's where your guys that are in the Dowell. that have seen the designs that Shingen's working on and that we're releasing today, by the way. They're different. They're huge.

They're pushing the boundaries. They're helping people understand crypto in a different way. So thank you for that, Sengen. I think, Dave, what do you think about showing the shirt that we're dropping today? First, let's get into a conversation around the intersection of crypto values and crypto tools and apparel in the, you know, tradfi apparel, if you will, or legacy apparel. I think both of you are pretty privy to some of the problems, I would say, about the legacy apparel world, which we are now trying to infiltrate as a community. And so, Michael, maybe you could teach us and Jen up as to what we are trying to fix in the

world of apparel. Yeah, good question or good point. So we hate H&M. We hate Forever 21. Fast fashion is clothes that are ruining the environment. This does not go with our ETH II clean, you know, philosophy in the world. So, you know, as far as people aligning ourselves with that vision, trying to do apparel, that's why Shingen's helping us figure out, okay, what's the most sustainable way to make

this stuff happen in ways that aren't creating a lot of waste, right? So first and foremost, I'll let Sengen talk to some of this. He's helping articulate some of our ethos around, you know, printing on demand. People are talking about the quality of the bankless box logo that they're just receiving now. Listen, he's about to talk to you guys. This is not the guy putting Gildens on your back right now, okay? we are working hard to try and find the best quality stuff. And we're scaling up.

I'll put it that way. So for our listeners, can you define fast fashion as well? Because I think that does a really good job of illustrating what the problem really is. I'll let the fit him guy do that. Go ahead, Cunin. Yeah,

thank you. And I'm really glad that you're speaking to this. I read your first post about bankless apparel. And this was, I think it was around the time I sent my first video over to you. And I was just really impressed by your articulation of this issue. And, you know, even even noticing it because a lot of people don't. You know, a lot of people are just trying to make much, you know,

items and money as fast as possible without really thinking of the long-term consequences. And we, you know, we're actually trying to do something next level that is sustainable, that is long-term. And so with fast fashion, yeah, fast fashion, you could call it the race to the bottom. It's really like the cheapest price and like the lowest quality you can get away with and charge the most for. And this has been an ongoing thing. There's also like been the people are owning and purchasing a higher number of clothing items per year than ever. If you go back to like the 1920s, 30s, 40s, people bought less clothing items, but they actually spent more money on them compared to their overall budget because they lasted longer.

You know, it's fine to wear that same awesome win. winter coat for six years because it's quality. And that's like things were made to last. And we've gotten away from that because it's all about, it's called neomania. This, this like, oh, it's new, so it's better. And that's not always the case. Like new isn't always better. And so, so we're, we're trying to actually speak to that. And, and like one thing that can be sustainable is making something really high quality, you know, regardless of whether it's like organic or polyester or recycled polyester, whatever, like, if you take that same item, you care for it and you treasure it and, you know, you wear it multiple times over years, that is like, that's way more sustainable than

buying, you know, a new organic shirt every time you put one on. You know what I mean? Like, so, I really, you know, like a lot of people don't catch that, that that sustainability is also like the quality. It's not even, sometimes it's not even about the organic or, you know, what it's made up, but it's like, you know, or it's like taking your jeans and you don't have to. to wash them every time. Sure. But we're trying to create something that's quality, long lasting, long term. And fast fashion is like, it's really the opposite of that.

And how do you think that of all of which you just mentioned about fast fashion, how does that go along with your ethos as a designer? I think we got a little bit of that when I first met you with David. Just speaking about your ethos at a designer to produce unique quality peril that is not wasteful. Yeah. And I think that comes to really making something that resonates that hits, you treasure and that you want to keep and, you know, rep and wear many times.

You know, that's like kind of the North Star that I try to aim for. And yeah, this is a very important point. There's much to evolve on this topic. I used to also volunteer with a company organization beyond the label. And if you guys ever, if you're interested in this topic, watch the documentary true cost. And they'd spell all this out. And it's like a whole world in front of your eyes that you don't even know exist with fashion.

But you never see it the same after that. So, you know, we're trying to solve a lot of things with crypto and DNA. And like it should be part of everything that we do. And so that's why it's in, you know, the apparel that we're doing. That's awesome. Yeah, let's talk about the overlap between crypto, scarcity and the apparel that we're producing. Right. Bitcoiners are actually.

I got to give credit where credit is due. Bitcoiners are really tapped into this conversation. They talk about long-term time horizons, having low time preference, and as in it's basically another way of saying delayed gratification, right? But they also talk about the way that Bitcoin dematerializes a lot of the value in the world, because when you have scarcity, when you have hard money that's hard to print, all of a sudden you have a lot more of incentive to hold on to your money. which means that you are, it's more difficult to, you know, part with your money because you have harder money,

which means that if you are buying something, you are buying something that you definitely absolutely want because you are parting with your bitcoins to get it. And it's not the same as parting with your dollars because a dollar today is not the same thing as a dollar tomorrow. And so the very cerebral, the very brainy type of thought or, you know, the Bitcoiners are really good at this. They will connect the money printer, the printing of 29% of all US dollars came out in 2020, and they will connect that to fast food, fast fashion, just what they call fiat goods, like goods that was made in China and it breaks after three uses.

The jury, you know, this is a very like hard thing to prove. Is there an actual connection here? But I'm 100% behind this idea that like poor quality money, generates poor quality goods in a society. And that's how crypto culture and the value of and just appreciating scarcity as a part of your life can actually change the way that you live. Shingin, anything you want to add to that? Yeah, that's a great point.

And I think that goes back to how fashion before it was fast fashion. It was more scarce. There were less items made, but they were higher quality. and and you know it just having having a closet with more items but lower quality you know it creates more more trash you're spending more money and you're getting less in the end you know because you can't wear that item multiple times you can't pass it on you can't recycle it the same way yeah and I and I think that's a point in the apparel sustainability that doesn't get a lot of focus but it's it's really vital and I think it's it's growing we're figuring it out more so um yeah thanks for bringing that up it reminds me of

you know this intersection excuse me it reminds you of unisox yeah like this is this is um crypto users native crypto users cluing into the idea that they're scary there's a peril uh obviously drawn in by the fact that there's a token behind it and they're in a bonding curve but similar ideas, right, where I'm trying to tap in, me, Shing and David here, we're trying to tap in to what's going on there. Like, people want to rep this stuff. I mean, think about like Supreme. If you're listening right now and you understand the streetwear, streetware world, sneakers, Supreme. That's artificial scarcity, right? Like, they only want to release so many so that the resale price goes up so that, you know, so that they have a brain around scarcity, right? That's not necessarily

what we're trying to do, right? You know, by, you'll see when we talk about the drop layer today, We don't want everything to be super available because, you know, we're all on this philosophy, this ethos of valuing scarcity. But also we want to, like we said, we want to propagate culture, right? So there's a lever to pull where maybe some of the shirts that we release are open to everybody, but some of them are a little bit more scarce. And then people will seek those out that are interested in those. So I think there's a, if you're thinking about unistox, if you think about the get coin hockey sack,

even crypto punks crossover with some of the merch that they have or wearing your own board ape on your chest. That stuff is right here where we're talking about. We're just getting started on the bank side of it too. And as somebody who saw multiple people wearing uniswap socks at Bitcoin Miami, it was it was hot. Like everyone knew who was wearing the uniswap socks, right? And so if you actually added some scarcity into your apparel, you actually open up a complete design space of just to some degree like gossip or just like chit chat or just open conversation about like, yo, that person's wearing unis socks like those those are 60,000 dollar socks right there like what the hell's going on yes it's pretty it's it's a flex too right if and also if you see me wearing my bankless shirt

outside you're you're like no right and then we want more of that as we get to the 10th 12th 20th drop there's going to be a lot of that going on right or oh he's wearing the defiant shirt even just give a shout to whoever it is doesn't even need to just be bankless right like I want to see more of that on the street. Just like people who wear Supreme or sneakers, they do that with each other. Like, oh yeah, or even a Rolex or he got a Rolex, same vibe. Let's put that into the stuff that we're putting on our backs, which is also scarce real estate itself, right? Absolutely. All right. So, should we actually go right into exactly what we are dropping today? Because if we haven't said this enough, we are actually dropping apparel today. And so there is a drop of three units going out.

I've already bought mine because the bankless Dow gets early access to this. Michael, can you share with us a little bit about the sale details. Oh, dude, I'd like to do that right now. Let me share my screen. Take a look, guys. Payne homage to cypher funk history. Off the bat, if you're thinking right now about the box logo t-shirt that you saw, saw me wear, bought, saw somebody else buy, that's fire.

That's iconic, right? We did no cap release on that. We sold hundreds of units of it. And I'm happy about that. I want people to be able to have that. If you're wondering, first and foremost, yo, Mike, why was that $90? Like, I got the shirt.

It's a great shirt, but why did you just, I don't know if it's $90 with the shirt. Hey, it's not about $90 with the shirt. It's about the fact that you want to, that you are now part of that iconic piece of history that we have. And only a couple hundred people, a few hundred people have that with them. Think about that as I show you what we're doing here.

I'm not asking every single person to buy these things, but if it's interesting to you, you better do it because there's only, a few of them. So first and foremost, we have the cipher funk shirt. I'm going to let Shingen give some color here, but I'm going to quickly show you the three things we're dropping. And we're going to do this once a month. If you remember, last month, we did the box logo shirt. Thank you for everybody who got one. And I'm sure you're stoked about it. This time, we're doing three completely different things. Two of them are capped. One of them's open. So everybody will have a chance to get one of

one, but the other one, you better act fast. I'm about to press publish on this thing during this live stream, right? So first and foremost is this cypher funk shirt, which pays homage to all of our founding fathers and folks. For those that listening to the before Bitcoin podcast that we did about two months ago, where I read the before Bitcoin series from Peter Pan, this was largely inspiration out of that series from Peter Pan, who I also consider this. This is a sit engine original, by the way.

Sorry. Sinjin original. Shingen original. I'll let him give some color there. You're going to get a floppy disk with this thing. What? You're going to get a floppy disk with this thing. I'm not even going to tell you what's on that thing.

Let's Shingen do it. All right. So, Cypherfunk shirt, cypherpunk shirt with the floppy disc. Bra. Check, check this tapestry. I wish I could zoom. This is a velvet tapestry.

I have a picture of the actual thing. But just imagine this being a, velvet feeling tapestry can go on your wall, can go on your couch, your body, wherever you're feeling like you need to put this tapestry. It's very soft. Okay,

so this tapestry is going out, very limited. And then the t-shirt I'm wearing right now, this bankless tattoo, that's, look at that design, dude, pretty fire with the,

with the lightning bolt, the little bang situation, hit the back, hit the front, long sleeve. So year-round, especially if you live in Sokow and want to wear the Oakley's with it.

All right. Sinjan, tell us a little bit about the cypherpuncture? Yeah, the cypher punks, like David said, totally inspired by the people who created the technology that's at the foundation of blockchain that we use every single day. And this is our call, our kind of flag that we're planning saying, like, look, we're about culture. Like we are doing bankless logos, you know, bankless inspired designs, but we're also doing

designs for the whole culture. And this drop right here, this design, cypherpunks, these guys Helmut Diffy, Merkel, Finney, Cohen, Gilmore, Chom, I highly recommend to listen to that podcast where David read the Peter Pan article, read the Peter Pan article, we've got a link to it there. I mean, that could be like an entire Hollywood movie right there. Just the story of how this stuff is made.

And, you know, these cypher punks, like, they went up against the U.S. government to really stand and say, look, we want the public have access to these encryption technologies. And the, you know, the public key encryption that we use today at the root of all blockchains is made possible by these guys. So we can't pay enough respect, you know. And they always say, like, you know, we stand on the shoulders of giants. And like, these are the giants that we're standing on. Tell us about the floppy disk. Tell us about the floppy disk.

This floppy disk is actually the original PGP software that they used. Like they had secret meetings and they'd all have this floppy disk like handed out and it would have this PGP software. And it was this encryption software. And this is what we're literally taking floppy disks. We're going to send them out to you. If you purchase this shirt is going to have PGP on it. I swear, if you get a USB floppy reader, which you can get online, get one, pop this in, get an MS DOS emulator, and you're going to be able to pull it up on your computer.

Yeah, this is Shingen, guys. I told you, I ain't putting Gildens on your back. This is the guy I got breaking his shirts for us, and we're so excited. Thank you. He even had the bankless Dow on that joint. Bankless Dow, you've seen this. I hope you're buying this right now. You have the early wings.

If you're part of the bankless Dow, you have the early, you have the early links. Why you tell us more about the... If you zoom in on those... Yeah, if you zoom in on the design, on the numbers, those codes there, that's going to be... Yeah, those are actually public key encryption taken from old cypherpunk emails. Brah.

So they've released, they have docs where they've recorded like the first years of the back, like emails going back and forth about developing this technology. And those numbers, just random. They're actually taken from, those original emails from the 90s. Thank you, Shingen. Thank you for doing that on the shirt.

We appreciate that. You guys talking about Gilden in the Discord right now. Don't buy it then. Somebody else, I swear to God, somebody else is going to buy this. This is great. Appreciate this, Stengin.

This is dope. Let's look at this tapestry real quick. I told you I'd have the image. You can see the velvet situation going on, right? I think you guys, you're going to want this on your bag. This is by Twisted Vacancy. Twisted Vacancy. Great work.

Thank you so much. much for this super dope um this is a huge wall tapestry okay um but right here is this bankless tattoo long sleeve situation it's on a heavier shirt than the one i'm wearing y'all like we we got a bunch of samples in from meta factory wanted to make sure it all felt good on on every part of the body um this we're asking for heavier items more premium feeling things so this is going to be available for everybody today after i press published on this thing awesome guys and so the reason why we are talking about this, in addition to getting into the details of what bankless Dow has been up to, we want to also talk about what it's like to work for a Dow because this is coming out

of the bankless Dow. And so, Syngen, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your experience, your experience being somebody a part of a bankless Dow and working with the Dow to produce some of these apparel. Also, if people don't know, this apparel is being worked in collaboration with bankless Dow and Metafactory Dow, which is a... a subject I also want to get into. What's it been like to be a Dow to Dow, like collaboration environment? But first, Ingen, I think people want to know what it's like to work for a Dow. Can you kind of share your experiences with that? Yeah. I was thinking about this, like, what my experience was like, and I remember first coming in and like realizing I've never

experienced anything like this is literally like a beehive. I don't know. Like there's all this chaos. There's things going on every channel and like all this like bubbling. action, creativity, ideas. And like, honestly, at first, like, for me, it was a little like, woo. Like, I was like standing, you know, like almost nauseous because like there was so much. But once I started to like tune into it, I could figure out like the potentials here are unlimited. Really, it's been cool because like I've been able to talk about my ideas that I want to do. People listen. People are like the initiative. Like we're really in there just creating. whatever we want really whatever ideas are best is what wins it's like a real meritocracy um and

so yeah from the beginning we started with uh when when i joined um there was much more like openness kind of like chaos and it's become like more organized into different projects there's some really awesome uh nfti projects going on uh and this apparel with metafactory working with third Dow, things get done and move really quick. There's like multiple eyeballs on things, multiple ideas. So I could wrap on that for a while. It's like there's there's there's a lot to speak about it's like trying to talk about a 4D object and you only have 3D words. That's an interesting way, way to put it. That's definitely been my experience as well is that the the Dow world seems to be people think that decentralization is slow and it is right.

like Bitcoin is a slow, a slow way to send money around. It takes, you only have so much block space. The through line of decentralization is things slow down. But what's really been amazing for me is in the Dow, with like the segregation of talent into different buckets, some things move really, really fast. Like we got a guy to make a, just a design for an interim period between a live stream, just a 20-second graphic in five hours, right?

And that's going to come for, the Stanford Dow summit that is coming on the bankless stream on the 30th next week. So stay tuned for that. And then also as well, working with Metafactory Dow, Bankless Dow couldn't produce this stuff without Meta Factory Dow. And so there's a lot of Dow to Dow collaboration that is adding new value into this world. And we as Bankless Dow feel very aligned with Meta Factory Dow because they are also directly going after culture and saying, hey, crypto is tight.

and we're going to change the world of culture. Yep. Yep. They want to put NFTs in your jeans, guys. And you know, it's cool. We had this twisted vacancy, whoever did the artist who did the velvet tapestry design that you all saw. That artist came through us through Metafactory.

So that was another doubt like, hey, we have this talent over here. Someone made this for you guys. Boom. It's like it's a drop for us. Are you a designer that, are you listening to this right now? Bankless listening to And you're designer and you can do something like and you don't really,

you're just learning about crypto and you're like, well, I don't know how my skills work with the crypto world. I don't really know how to make smart contracts or anything. Are you seeing what we're doing right here? Like we need you too. Like you can find a spot at any of these, at any of these protocols that you like, they want this to.

We want this to obviously. We're doing it super hard right here at the Dow. So yeah, I want you to, if you're listening to this and you have skillsets, especially in design. You make pixel art. You make art. You paint. Let's figure out a way to make it happen.

Right? Let's propagate the culture together. Yeah. This is about a movement. This is about creating a culture. And that's everybody. And you know, the finance part is one piece of it.

I literally just did my first uniswap just like last month. And I'm still like learning so much. So, you know, yeah, if you're a designer, you feel like you want to contribute to this, jump in.

We have a space for you. we can, we'll create something together that hasn't been created before. All right, guys. And that was the apparel side of the show. And we didn't name it, but all of the revenue from the apparel shows that actually goes to Bankless Dow. We're a big fan of on-chain cash flows. And then there's also token sharing between Meta Factory and Bankless Dow.

We get the robot token. So Dow to Dow token swaps, absolutely crazy. We're on the absolute frontier of what's going on here. So, Shingen, thank you for coming on and showing us how you are going to outfit the bankless nation and the crypto industry at large with some dope swag that really changes the way that the world approaches apparel. Guys, we are going to be back with the second half of the show where Michael Wong and I debut something brand new on the bankless show. But first, before we get there, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. AVE is a borrowing and lending protocol on Ethereum and just recently released Avey Version, which has a ton of cool new features that makes using AVE even more powerful.

With AVE, you can leverage the full power of Defy Money Legos, Yield, and Composability all in one application. On AVE, there are a ton of assets that you can deposit in order to gain yield, and all of those same assets can also be borrowed from the protocol if you have deposited collateral. Here you can see me getting a 200 USDC loan against my portfolio of a number of different defy tokens and eth. I'll choose a variable interest rate because it's a lower rate than the stable interest rate option, but I could choose the stable interest rate option if I wanted to lock that interest rate in permanently. One of AVE's V2 features is the ability to swap collateral without

having to withdraw your assets. Trade them on uniswap and then deposit them back into Avey. Avey does all of this for you all in one seamless transaction, so you don't have to repay loans in order to change the collateral you have backing them. Check out the power of Avey at Avey. That's aavee.com. Bankless is proud to be supported by Uniswap. Uniswap is a new paradigm in asset exchange infrastructure. Instead of a cumbersome order book system where trades are matched with other humans, Uniswap is an autonomous piece of software on Ethereum,

which is what Ryan and I call a money robot. No human counterparties or centralized intermediaries, just autonomous code on Ethereum. Input the token you want to sell and receive the token you want to buy. Something brand new in the Uniswop ecosystem is the Uniswap grants program is now accepting applications for grants. We have been saying this for a while and we'll say it again. Dow's have money and they are in need of labor. If you think that you have something to contribute to the Uniswop Dow, apply for a grant to Uniswap.

Just look at the size of the Uniswap treasury. It's almost $3 billion. This mountain of capital is looking for labor. Do you have something of value to contribute to the Uniswap Dow? no matter how big or small your idea is, you can apply for a unigrant at unigrantz.org and help steer Uniswap in the direction that you think it should go. That's exactly what we did to get Uniswap to be a sponsor for Bankless, and you can do the same for your project.

Thank you, Uniswap, for sponsoring Bankless. All right, guys, we are back in the second half of the show, where we have something brand new out of the Bankless ecosystem. But before we specifically go into it, we know that out of bank lists we produce an absolute mountain of content sometimes it's even hard for me to keep up with uh the defiant produces content the block write articles coin desk write articles you know if you want to get ahead and stay ahead in this industry to some degree you have to consume as much content as possible people actually like inform

themselves and consider content work in this space where if you're not listening to podcasts if you're not reading articles you're actually falling behind and you know to some degree that that's actually a really interesting thing about this industry is that we are a industry of blogs, articles, and podcasts and YouTube videos. But that's also, I can imagine, extremely tiring. And we don't really have it as an industry have a way to unwind. We, Bankless is very proud to be an informational leader in this space, but it's also time to expand crypto content onto new frontiers in the same way that we are changing the game of a apparel, or at least we're trying to, we also want to change the game of what crypto content

is like. Cryptoculture is being established under our very noses, and it's time to produce content that allows the crypto community to turn off, relax, and be entertained. And so Bankless is not only on a mission to inform you everything you need to know about Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Defi, but we are also on a mission to establish crypto culture. And we are doing that with a brand new show. Michael Wong, what is this brand new show? Hey, everybody. The show is called Top Signal. Top Signal.

The newest show, crypto comedy show, variety show from bankless. It's an experimental show, though. I just want to make that clear. It's experimental. And I want to define it once again. It's a variety comedy show in the style of like Jimmy Fallon, Sports Nation, if you remember that show. where we're going to bring on you the top crypto personalities on stage and allow them to

kind of take off their builder hat and put on their shit posting hat for everybody to enjoy. It's when I say variety, that's kind of what I want people to think about. I want people to think about there being different types of segments. First and foremost, there's no fact checking on the show. Me and David, we're not going to be fact checking on the show. Yes, we're going to have sponsors and sorry sponsors, thank you sponsors, but we're not going to be fact-checking. This is about not about Alpha,

more than it's about talking about crypto. It's where we're going to go. You ever seen Ryan Ashon Adams' cope on state of nation? No. He might do it on stop signal, though. He might do it on top. We're going to talk about the state of our zapper. You know what's going on.

We'll talk about some of the stuff going over. But I want to talk about why this is important. I don't think there's a place, and you know this bankless listener. There's no place for us other than the Friday live stream with SaaS. crack open a beer to kind of like, you know, lean back. I don't want to talk about what's getting pushed next on the on the sushi swap roadmap. But I do want to see OXMaki do some funny computer games.

And I think we all would like to commentate on that. So that's the idea of top signal, you know, cultures are priority, not the markets. We're trying to engage with a cast of special guests, people that you all love, especially from crypto, Twitter. in an ever-changing variety of sketches. And I think that this is really going to help people understand there's more to this crypto thing, especially on the YouTube side. There's more to this crypto thing

than just a bunch of dudes trying to make money, toxic energy. I mean, it's not going to be not toxic, but it's going to be fun. It's not going to be about money. So that's Thompson, guys. I hope you want to come tune in. If you are on crypto Twitter

or you are inside of discords, in my opinion, we are really a really funny industry or at least maybe I'm just patting myself on the back as part of this industry and a content producer. But no, I think we have some of the best jokes in the absolute industry. A lot of it is on crypto Twitter. And we want to put some of those jokes into a YouTube form, into a comedy and entertainment-focused show. So we have little bits and gags lined up.

One of my favorite gags that I think we're going to get into is pitch to me a 2017 ICO. And Michael Wong and I'm myself as the Drew Carey of the show, we shall award points. or not to the best 2017 ICO pitches. We also have some one-off special shows coming up as well. We are talking with Alexandra Botes, the chess streamer, who is now producing Ethereum content. And we're going to see if we can rally the four best chess players in the crypto world to take on Alexandra, who's absolutely going to wipe the board with us.

But it'll be fun every step of the way. We also have trivia lined up and ready to go. And this is a way to actually play. trivia on your phones with an app and actually play trivia on the actual stream. It's going to be actually fantastic. But the cool thing is, this is another product out of the bankless Dow is the bankless Dow is going to get access to the Zoom webinar. And so the link will go into the bankless Dow.

So if you are a Dow member, you get to be a part of the audience. And so when we call on the audience for inputs or just for prompts or participating in trivia, that's going to be a part of the bankless Dow. So Dow members get access to the stands, to the audience, and get to direct some of the direction of these shows. Yeah, let me add some color to that one. David and I were thinking about how can we get the Dow involved, and he had this brilliant idea of like giving the Dow the front row seat in the Web, in the Zoom webinar room. That's the only comment section we're going to be involved with pretty much. I know a lot of you're going to be chirping in the Twitter comments and the YouTube comments, I'm laser

focused on Dow stuff. So if you are a Dow member, we're trying to create more value for the Dow, just being part of the Dow, right? Not only for all the revenue that's going to help fund the Dow Treasury from the apparel side, but also creating clout around the membership, around being a Dow member by having a front row street to top signal. It's going to be super fun. And it'll be the number one show to be on in the audience of at least in crypto in crypto land that's for sure let me hey Dave should I introduce myself real quick just I don't think people know sure I am my name is Michael Wong you might have seen me on Twitter probably not I'm obviously friends with David here my claim the fame is I hired David into crypto old man style I this was in this is back in 2017

and that's how David and I came to be friends and came to be working in crypto and It was at an ICO firm and David was the only one who was just talking about the entire time kept his eyes on the prize and thereby helped me figure that out too. So thanks, David. I've been in the game for as long as a lot of you, shorter than longer than some of you. But you have never heard me talk about crypto on this podcast, but you're going to hear me talk about it on top signal. We're going to have fun, though.

I'm going to have fun. Obviously, if you can't feel my vibe right now, I'm trying to have fun. I'm not trying to get bogged down in market stuff on a Friday night. I don't think you are either. So that's the kind of vibe that we're bringing. David Zeddy's trying to play chess with Alexandria, Botez. I'm trying to play like, you know, kick-tac-toe with Vitalik. You know what I'm saying?

That's the kind of vibe. Where are you going to see that that happened other than Top Signal? That's the place, right? Let me give you another example. David's talking about crypto comfort food on top, on Top Signal. This is stuff that's easy to take in. Again, easy to cope with, easy to have fun with. Imagine a veteran police sketcher, okay, for a moment.

Imagine a veteran police sketcher, 25 years in the force drawn perps. All right? We're going to bring dude on. And we're going to have them draw your favorite anon crypto Twitter's accounts. We're going to have them draw DGen Spartan, bro. Just based off the feet. We're going to figure out who DGEN Spartan is. And we're going to draw little breadcrumbs and tweets all over the place.

We're going to take it, get a police. sketcher to figure us out who this guy is. He's going to be so shocked by how accurate it is that he's going to come live on Top Signal to corroborate it for us. That's the vibe. That's the top signal vibe. Come watch it. We have our first show almost lined up making sure that I got the schedule down. But we have Kevin O'Waki, Anthony Sizzano and Defi Dad, coming a week from today. Hitters. Tuesday night for the first ever Top Signal show. We are going to generate a fantastic agenda where the bits are going to come hard and fast and they're going to be funny. And then we are also working with Ledger, Cryptobobobby, and Udi Wertheimer.

Trying to corral those boys into another show as well. It's going to be a good time. And I'm actually really stoked for trivia personally. I have 40 questions, 40 trivia questions, hard questions, not easy questions. And we're going to figure out how to source a prize for the winner of the trivia game. Again, only accessible if you are a bankless Dow member because that trivia room is going to fill up very fast. There's only 50 slots. I think there's 300 slots in the Zoom, but 50 slots in the trivia.

It's going to be first come, first serve for Dow members only. Yeah. See, guys, who knows what's going to happen next week? That's what you should come to feel about with Top Signal. Like, holy moly, that was wild style. I just watched Hayden Adams do some crazy stuff on Top Signal. What's going to happen next week? That's the vibe.

content no matter the weather. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's a great way to put it. And if we do our job, we can host an environment where it took us forever to get Hayden Adams on. And we have absolutely zero conversations with him coming on top signal. So do know that. But it took us forever to get him on bankless. But what happens when the top signal vibe is just like, no, you don't have to come as Hayden Adams,

the founder of Uniswap. You come as Hayden Adams, the shit poster on crypto Twitter. Yeah, dude. No alpha. Hey, I don't want the alpha, bro. Like, okay, sure, give me the alpha. But I'd rather see you acting a fool for everybody because we're having fun. That's the Jimmy Fallon vibe, right?

Somebody will come on Jimmy Fallon or whatever the late night vibe is, have fun. And then the last thing they'll do is, hey, guys, like, you know, we're shipping XYZ or my new movie, right? So that's the vibe of Top Signal. You don't need to be freaking 300 IQ to understand this stuff either. You know what I mean? You don't need a debrief episode. Hopefully there's no debrief episodes about this. stuff, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, that's, that's hopefully the vibe is connoting over the,

over the mic. We're going to open up with the same intro every single time. There is no fact checking on top signal. Everything is a superposition between a shippost, sciops, a factual statement, just deadlines or the world's greatest alpha. We don't know. It could be all of those things at once. That's not the point. And so you do not come to Top Signal to find out what to invest in. You come to tie top signal to turn off and chillax and have a good time because crypto is hilarious. We just need to find ways to broadcast that hilarious. Hilarious city. That's not a word. I'm not saying Hayden Adams is not going to come on to announce a V4. That's just it could happen, but you're not coming on to find out if that's happening or not.

And I think this is definitely a time in the market where people kind of need this content. We are going through, I think, a large number of people's very first emotional roller coaster when it comes to financial markets. Like, I remember you and I went through our first, you know, episode of pain when Ether dropped from $1,400 down to $660. And I'm like, guys, I'm going all in. And then this was in 2018. And then the next stop for Ether was $80.

I do not at all think that we are repeating that in any way, shape, or form. I think just the market right now really wants to take people for a ride. And so I think people could use some content that, you know, still allows them to talk about their favorite subject, which is, of course, crypto. But again, it allows them to relax and turn the charts off and turn top signal on. Yeah. It's hard to be down 60% and then try and learn about minor extractable value.

I get it, guys. I get it. So let's, I've been there. So let's try and figure something else out. I want you to find out what Hayden Adams eats for lunch. I'm just going to stop using his name, but I'll stop invoking him. But listen, guys, it's going to be a good time. I want to go through old Facebook photos and tag photos of Vitalik's Facebook.

Like, I'm going to help us figure that out. We'll find out. If you want to see what's in between the lines of crypto, in between the charts and what goes on past that kind of stuff, come watch Top Signal. We'll figure it out. And who knows, maybe some good insights do actually come out of Talk Signal, no guarantees. But the show is called Top Signal after all. It's called Top Signal for a reason. Absolutely.

Let's see. Michael Wong, anything else we want to share about Top Signal? Or shall we wrap this up? Yeah, no, I'm excited for you guys to, thank you for having me on to talk about it. You guys got to see this show. You got to be inside of the webinar room if you can, figure out how to get part of the Dow, if not. But yeah, I'm so thankful for the opportunity and excited about Top Signal. Come join us.

And this show is an experiment. we are kind of flying by the seat of our pants. We have our things are really, really good ideas. But we'll see how they actually land. But I also think there's a ton of talent in this space. Kevin, there's a member out of the Uniswap, Uniswap Dow that hit us up and say, hey, I used to do stand-up in a previous life to bring me on. So we got people like that.

Once again, invoking Hayden Adams. Hayden Adams is a rapper, first and foremost. If we can get Hayden Adams to wrap on. top signal. I will call it a lot. I freestyle quite a bit. I will freestyle with Hayden Adams. I will do whatever. He can beat me Eminem style. I'll be the other guy. Um, however you want to get done, Hayden. I'm excited. Well, it's a talent show. We'll have a talent show one week, bro. Come on and do your, do your silly little talent. Well, I want to see someone knit something live on top signal. That's happening. You know what I mean? So thank you for the idea. It's a good one.

I think you guys are already getting a little bit of a taste as to what this show will look like. what happens when Ryan is out for the week. We go rogue and we launch a new show. Like I said, Ryan will be back next week for next week's state of the nation. But I think people kind of wanted to get a different vibe because the market is giving us a different vibe right now. And so we also want to give a different vibe to the listeners of Bankless as well. Yeah, it's going to be fun.

And it's been a crazy month. And I'm happy you're still listening and with us. There's a lot more to come. Let's buckle down and learn some of my stuff. learn some stuff. All right, Bankless Nation, that is it for the show today. As always, Ether is risky, crypto is risky, Defi is risky. Top Signal, hopefully, it's funny.

It's very, very risky, though. Very risky. You could lose what you put in. We are headed west. We are on the frontier. It isn't for everyone, but we are glad you are with us. On the Bankless Journey. Thanks a lot.