Motley Fool Money - Crypto Crashes, Bitcoin’s True Believers, and Web3

Episode Date: June 12, 2022

PJ Vogt has been following Bitcoin since it was worth $10. Maybe less. He didn’t buy in, and is more than happy to keep following the story. Vogt is the host of the new limited-series podcast “Crypto Island” and before that, you may have heard his voice on “Reply All”. Ricky Mulvey caught up with him to discuss: - The recent crash in crypto - What the “financialized version of the internet” can tell us about people - What happens when internet strangers try to operate a McDonald’s Cryptos mentioned: BTC, LUNA Host: Ricky Mulvey Guest: PJ Vogt Engineers: Dan Boyd, Tim Sparks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. But you had all these people who were kind of saying, like, on some level, don't trust the existing financial system. Don't invest your money there. Put it here.

And then wandering the floor, just talking to the conference scores, it really felt like people were there because of FOMO. People were there because they felt like they'd been dealt a bad hand in the American economy. I think they understand they're at a casino. But they don't feel like this casino has rigged. And they think they have a chance of that. I'm Chris Hill, and that was PJ Voigt, describing his time.

at a Bitcoin convention. Hoyt is the host of the limited series podcast Crypto Island. Before that, you may have heard him on the podcast, Reply All. He's been someone who can help make sense of things on the internet that are a little bit outside the mainstream. Ricky Mulvey caught up with him to talk about the recent crash in crypto, understanding Bitcoin's true believers, and what happens when internet strangers try to operate a McDonald's?

Hey, Fools. I'm Ricky Mulvey, a producer for Motley-Fault. money. Joining me today is PJ Vote, the host of Crypto Island, a limited podcast series about crypto. He's doing shoe leather reporting on Crypto, Web 3, and for me, a way that's refreshing. Welcome to the show, PJ. Thanks for having me. So for the uninitiated, what do you think the story of crypto has been for the past six months or so? So I've been, my limited series has basically started over the last six months, which has been a very interesting time in crypto. When I got in as a reporter,

It was a bull market. There were a lot of people who would, you know, like, I like to cover both the skeptics of crypto and the evangelists. And the evangelists were minting huge amounts of money. The skeptics were saying it was going to crash. And the place where a lot of the money was coming in was this new stable coin called Terra and it's sort of twin currency, which I can already feel the jargon pile up. But basically, there's a new cryptocurrency.

People were making money on it. Lots of money. And then in the last month, that cryptocurrency exploded, taking tons of value out of crypto, making a lot of people experience pretty significant bear market. And now the story of crypto has been people preparing once again for what they call crypto winter, where prices will be down for a long time, and a lot of people will probably leave. Let's talk a little bit about Tara and Luna, specifically. It's founder, Doe Kwan.

the idea was that you had this coin that was going to be easy to transact because it was backed by an algorithm, but it kind of got caught with its pants down because it didn't have the assets necessarily to back it up. So if you had more money, you were able to take down the stable coin, if you will? Yeah. So crypto folks are really into this idea of stable coins, which are basically, you know, the price of different cryptocurrencies tends to be incredibly volatile, which makes it interesting for people to trade. It makes it difficult for people to actually transact with. And so rather than holding the money they want to later trade in dollars, a lot of them want to hold them in cryptocurrencies that are designed to equal, usually one US dollar

per coin. One way you can do that is by collateralizing it, which there are both coins that do that. There are coins that claim to do that, and people have questions about whether they're actually collateralized. An algorithmic stable coin, the idea is, It's supposed to always be worth a dollar, but it doesn't have traditional assets collateralizing it. In this case, instead, it was like, hey, we have this stable coin, a type of money we've invented, and the thing that is going to back its value is another cryptocurrency that we have also invented.

Surprisingly, it did work for a while. And I do want to say, you know, there's lots of things in crypto that sound a little bit ludicrous at function. And so I think for a lot of people, it's interesting. There were people in the space, like legitimate, respected people who were pointing at this subtly and not so subtly and saying, you know, that Jenga Tower is very wobbly. But I think that for a lot of people was like, well, it's working. Maybe it'll keep working. And it has stopped working.

It stopped working very suddenly. The founder of the coin is this guy, Doe Kwan, who I wrote a story about. He's a very, he's like if Elon Musk was less polite on Twitter, he's sort of constantly fighting with people. He was constantly explaining that anyone who doubted his coin was an idiot, that they hadn't done their research, they should have fun staying poor. And so part of what I find interesting about crypto and was interesting about the fall of this currency is that these are really stories about people. And in this case, I think it was a complicated financial instrument. A lot of people who were participating in didn't really understand it.

But the thing they had faith in was this person and his confidence. And it turns out that faith was misplaced. That does seem to be one of the driving themes of crypto is just like, If I don't understand this, I'm stupid. And if you're not investing in it, then you're dumb. But if you are investing in it, then you're smart and you see the future. That is certainly... So my thing is, like, I just have a hard time with anyone who comes down too hard on any side. So I would say, like, there's certainly a large and loud group of people online who are like,

this is smart, this is the future. If you don't understand it, you're missing on a chance to be very wealthy. There's also people who are happy to tell you you're an idiot. if you participate in it at all, or if you have any curiosity, or you think there's any value there. What I like about crypto, honestly, as a person who spent a lot of time reporting on the internet, is this is a place where all these arguments people are making, some of them actually get settled. Like, someone will make, for instance, there was this sort of investor, analyst guy who went on a podcast and said that he thought that Tara and Luna were great

investments, that they were reasonably risk-free, and that it made sense for people to put a lot of money yet. That turned out to be bad advice. And crypto Twitter has been having a field day just playing those clips with classical music underneath, like putting the clips on a chart of the price to show exactly when he said that, exactly when it dipped. To me, there's actually something refreshing about a world where sometimes, unlike most places on the internet, where people argue, but you never really get closure, there's a bit of closure in crypto in terms of how these bets get settled. There's some, yeah, that makes sense. I know you're following this as a reporter,

but do you personally invest in any cryptocurrency, NFTs, that sort of thing? I don't. I'm actually working on an episode about the ethics of it because the ethics are sort of entertainingly complex. There are people in crypto who say, if you're not even investing a little bit, you won't understand these products. That because it's a financialized version of the internet,

not investing or owning crypto is similar to, like, not using Facebook, but reporting on Facebook. Similarly, there's people who are like, if you own any of it, it'll corrupt you terribly. I've found so far that I think I cannot own it and understand it pretty well. And I want to approach it with an open mind. And I feel like if I own it, I need to disclose it. If I tell people I own this stuff and I'm open-minded about it, they could see it as like that I've been compromised.

And so I feel like for me, the best choice has been not investing. Makes it easier as a reporter. Yeah. When you started your journey, you began with more of an idea than a place. of the actual idea of Crypto Island. You can probably set this up better than me, but it's essentially, it was this 10 minute or so animated video that was about building a private island retreat for cryptocurrency investors, and it was an investment group that maybe had run some scams in the past, and that they had planned on buying a private island. We have a little bit of clip describing

it. We organize a number of different crypto conferences and meetups year-round. Lots of crypto VIPs. coming tomorrow. You can feel the entrepreneurial spirit here. You can work, get coffee. And when you get stressed, you can hit up the de-stress room. The de-stress room? Yeah, the de-stress room. A pool full of coins? That's insane. Don't be shy. Go ahead and try. Everybody loves it. If you like this, just wait until you see what's next. So this is a lunatic. This is a lunatic video. crazy video. Yeah. I was going to say to set it up a little bit, I should probably said there are two characters speaking in that. There is a cryptocurrency investor who has bought a plot of land in this island. And there is also Connie the coin who is leading him along, showing him the different

retreats in the Scrooge McDuck-like de-stress room where you can jump into a pile of money. Yeah. So it's a talking anthropomorphic, weirdly lascivious coin, who is, explaining to this person why they should absolutely want to live on essentially a desert island with other people who also fervently believe in crypto. I saw this video and just felt like I get a lot of joy out of bizarre, ludicrous internet ephemera, as same as anybody else, I guess. But this one, I just really felt like it was so clearly aimed. It was like watching a commercial for a product.

not only would you never want to buy, you could never imagine anyone else who wanted to buy it. Like, even the people I know who invest in crypto don't want to live on an island only with people who invest in crypto. But it was so self-confident in its pitch and so dense in its jargon. I felt both like it was funny, but also I really wanted to understand it. And then I launched my series with a little sort of prologue about that video because I thought it was emblematic of something that I see happen with crypto a lot, which is that someone tries to do something relatively goofy. The crypto community thinks it's goofy. But when those stories hit the mainstream, they get treated as sort of like, this is what these guys think. This is what these guys believe. This is the future

these guys want. I don't think that most crypto people want to live on a desert island. I think every six months, for whatever reason, someone tries to create a business plan where that'll work. But I don't think they want that. But it really really, made me want to know, like, what do these people want? Like, why, besides the desire to get rich, what is this movement, technology moment really about? It's so easy to dunk on the video. And I mean, there was a part where it seems the animation budget went out at the, uh, there's like an arcade slash casino, which does strike me as a pretty, not, not unfair representation of crypto. And, uh, yeah, they actually had to put it.

footage of an actual pinball machine. You can see exactly where they run out of money. This insane animation project. But I think it's difficult, too, because there's a part of my brain that goes, why is, you know, people spent, I think it was $500 million on virtual real estate in 2021, which are these just like, it would be like an apartment you found in Grand Theft Auto that you trade cryptocurrency for. And people spent like $500 million on that.

That's cool, but Crypto land is, or Crypto Island is a step too far. Yes, I know what you mean. You know, it's interesting. Like one thing that I spoke to somebody pretty early on who said to me, you know, like, most of the critiques you would have of crypto, there are people in crypto with those critiques. You know, it's actually a pretty tribal world. And so, for instance, there's lots of people who are like, digital land doesn't make sense. NFTs don't make sense.

This is crazy. But, you know, you should buy Bitcoin or whatever they think. I don't know. Like, I genuinely, part of me believes that I, huge part of this is certainly just pure speculation and people thinking if I buy it for this, I can sell it for that and sometimes being right. Part of it, another way I've had it explain to me is you can think about this moment as sort of like the sort of dot-com boom, but instead of betting on companies, people are betting on protocols. People are saying like, you know, the bet between

say like Ethereum and Bitcoin or Solana is like betting on Java. JavaScript versus, I don't know what opposed JavaScript. But these are people saying, like, I think this architecture is what will survive. And so I want to put my money on it. But what's interesting about it and what we can't know is nobody was betting on protocols. And what is complicated here is that you have speculation kind of in front of usefulness. And while there are some things that are useful, just the pure casinoness of it is very, it makes me feel dizzy, honestly.

And the classic investor point of view is, how can you invest in something that doesn't generate cash flow? And therefore, it is not like a stock bond, that sort of thing. And that's where the comparison breaks down. And it's a very important place where that comparison could break down. Yes.

I don't know what you call it. Like, investment doesn't necessarily feel like the word. Gambling also doesn't necessarily feel like the word. I read a great piece I thought by, you know, Tyler Cowan. I do not. He's an economist. He used to have a blog. I think he still has a blog called Marginal Revolution, but he's just like a very eclectic

thinker. Like he just sort of like looks at stuff from a slightly different angle. And he wrote a piece for Bloomberg last week where he said that he thought that the appeal for investors in cryptocurrency, they were not investing despite the volatility. They were investing because of it. that there's just, which I guess as I say it, it sounds kind of obvious, but like, I think there are people for whom, I think there are some people who buy it because they really have this political idea that the world should be different. The world will be different when everyone's,

you know, using Bitcoin or selling each other NFTs or whatever. And they just want to like usher in whatever future they see. I think there are other people who are just like, you know, the stock market, there's one school of thinking that I always understood, which is that if you have any money, you put it in an index fund, and you leave it alone. And there's another school of thinking, which is like, what if I buy an obscure cryptocurrency and Elon Musk plugs it on Saturday night live, and all of a sudden, it goes to the moon. I am not, do not have the risk profile for these trades, but I have friends who do, and I understand why they enjoy it. They tend to lose money. I think that's an important note. So I really listened to your reply all episode back in

2018, you guys did one called the Bitcoin Hunter. And essentially it was, it now almost, and it now feels like quaint and fun, which was this idea that like, hey, this reporter had tried to buy drugs on the internet years ago, thought she had some change in this Bitcoin wallet. And now it would have been worth a lot of money. I'll spoil it if that's okay. That's completely fine. Yeah. She thought she had more pocket change than she did. And now it just, it feels like Bitcoin, crypto, it was more fun. And now it just, it just, just seems significantly more serious and divisive. Have you seen the landscape shift in that way in your years of covering?

Absolutely. And I'm not exactly sure. I can give you theories about why. But yeah, I think cryptocurrency, like almost everything else in America, whether it's something like, I'm not even going to give examples. Like everything in America becomes a culture war. Every single thing in America, some things that are really important, I think to their detriment become culture war items,

and some things that feel a little bit trivial become culture war items. And I think I would put cryptocurrency, not that its impact is necessarily going to be trivial. I don't know. But the idea that part of how you decide what kind of person you are is what your stance is towards decentralized Internet money feels like a little bit silly to me. But it definitely is happening.

And I think that part of that, but part of why I think it's, so interesting to think about is there's one way you could look at crypto and you could say like, well, the idea of generating lots of wealth in a way that is hard for the government to tax, it's kind of a libertarian idea, it's kind of a conservative idea. I went to this Bitcoin conference where Peter Thiel was talking. And there's a way where that makes sense and you could be like, okay, this is kind of, this is like a right wing thing. But crypto is also about, you know, giving people like sex workers and drug dealers a way to transact outside the government.

Like it's also about people who don't believe in institutions, which is sort of a lot of Americans for a lot of different reasons. And so I've been surprised as much as crypto itself is divisive and some people don't like it because of what it represents to them. Inside of crypto, I found like a greater diversity of opinion and belief than I really would have expected, which I think is part of why I find myself sticking around. a reporter. Just that question of what do people want out of this turns out to be super complicated. I think FOMO's, I would add to the list of one of the reasons people are interested in it. Yes. When you were reporting at Bitcoin Miami, listening to the interviews, was that,

do you think that was one of the driving forces of the people you were speaking with, were these stories where, hey, you know, I sold Bitcoin back in 2011 and, you know, that could have been hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars that I could have now? I think it's a huge part. And I think it's also, I mean, actually, to go back to your earlier question about, like, why is this divisive? There's political reasons. I think the simpler reason is the idea, I think FOMO is a huge driver for why people get in.

I think weirdly, FOMO is a driver for why people stay out. Like, I know personally, I've been covering the Internet since 2009, basically. So, Bitcoin was on my radar. Bitcoin at $10 was on my radar. Bitcoin at $100 was on my radar. Bitcoin at $65,000 was on my radar. And so I think at a certain point, not only might you find the environmental effects of it troubling

or the people annoying, it's also like an investment you didn't make or a road you didn't go down. And I think, yeah, I think FOMO is like, sometimes I think I forget to talk about it because it's so at the core of what drives crypto. And everybody I talked to in the space, it's like one of the quickest ways to have a conversation

is to just say, what was the worst trade you made? And the people lost millions of dollars or made it, but held onto it for too long. It's like a very, the roller coaster of it is thrilling to watch would be terrible to participate in. The culture around Bitcoin is particularly interesting to me. And I think it was really well displayed in your Bitcoin Miami episode.

It's called Genesis. So let's play a clip of your time at Bitcoin Miami, specifically at this music festival that is dedicated to money. Walking in for the last day of the Bitcoin Conference, they've turned it into a music festival against everyone's better judgment. Outside on the big lawn, warmongering and crypto-shilling have given way to a music festival. Steve Ayoki is playing later, but verse, several hours of warm-ups. I am seeing the most motionless music festival I've ever seen in my life. Somebody's DJing, white guy in a white t-shirt, CJ on stage.

And no one is moving. They're just like some people sitting. Oh, one woman. They found one woman dancing, and they've immediately put it on the Jemotron because she's a kind of miracle. Yeah, there's a whole culture around it. But it's not necessarily a rich culture.

No, I mean, it's interesting. There's a lot of... How do I put this? Well, so first of all, I should say, Bitcoin within crypto is very much its own thing. And it's sort of like, I think a lot of the critiques that people have of crypto or like crypto bros, while I think crypto is complicated and Bitcoin's complicated, I think you find more of that in Bitcoin. It is sort of like libertarians preparing for the end of the world.

A lot of like, it's just like the hardcore. It's the fundamentalist. And yeah, it's a, I kept, it's so weird being there because it's like they are trying to definitely build a culture around money. But like, how do you do that? It's not like you would have Woodstock for the U.S. dollar. It's not like everybody would gather to like discuss the dollar or have a party for the dollar. And so when they do, it's interesting.

You know, like the music element of it, not great. There are no Bitcoin comedians. There was an art gallery of like some very interesting Bitcoin art. It's a mix of like, you know, some pretty paintings of like the Bitcoin symbol. And then kind of the most esoteric, internet conspiracy portraits I've ever seen where it's like Marina Abramovich and like Dave Chappelle conspiring together to bring about the New World Order or whatever. It was very interesting. But yeah, it's a it's funny like who it unites. It's funny for me what was so

interesting about that conference was on stage you had you know Peter Thiel who's like one of the most powerful right wing funders in American politics but also Serena Williams who was there you telling people to invest. You had athletes, but you had all these people who were kind of saying, like, on some level, don't trust the existing financial system. Don't invest your money there. Put it here. And then wandering the floor, just talking to the conference goers,

it really felt like people were there because of FOMO. People were there because they felt like they'd been dealt a bad hand in the American economy, and this was a way to kind of, I think they understand they're at a casino, but they don't feel like this casino is rigged. They think they have a chance in it. And I think it is important to note that a lot of those celebrities have been noticeably quiet lately. Yeah, there was actually a great Times profile where, you know, during the Super Bowl, there was like all this advertising for crypto and all these celebrities in very, very explicit ways saying,

you know, not just this is a thing you can investigate, but like essentially the message was, you're stupid if you're not doing this. Yeah. And the Times were for his name, I'm forgetting. He just called a bunch of those celebrities for comment, which I thought was really smart. None of them seem to want to talk. Yeah. Covering the internet, covering internet culture, I think one of the main driver in the interest here, too, is this real need for community, which in my mind, like, is impossible to create as long as generational wealth creation is at the forefront of what you want? Yes.

And I mean, have you been seeing, in your reporting, have you been seeing people creating genuine connections in crypto and Web3? listening to your series, there was a Dow set up to buy the Constitution. So that's like a decentralized autonomous organization. And it seems that in that kind of scenario, people can create these genuine connections, but it's hard otherwise. Yeah. I mean, it's tricky. People in crypto use the word community a lot. Oftentimes it is when someone is trying to convince someone else to give them money. I think anywhere online when you hear that word, you should certainly, it should just alert you that something might be going on. That said, I do think there's a lot of community in crypto. I think some of those communities are predatory, you know, people being scammed, people being tricked, people following each other in bad directions.

I think some of it's not. I think that there's both the places where I see it where I think it does seem, for lack of a less judgmental word, like a healthy community. most of people deciding where they will send their money in crypto, the people who seem to be doing it successfully, there's a lot of back channel talking. There's a lot of discords. There's a lot of telegram groups. There's a lot of like,

I guess probably the way people trade stocks. I don't do that either. But it's a lot of like, well, my friend's dad says this and blah, blah, blah. And like that seems to happen. And for some people seems to work. And then the other place is just like with this story

at a constitution doubt where like you said, these people had basically formed, it's almost like a temporary corporation that raises money, and then the members get to vote on how the money spent, and they wanted to buy a copy of the Constitution. There's ways in which I think crypto allows strangers to, like, raise and direct money to affect things. So far, the most successful ways they've done that have been jokes. You know, wouldn't it be funny if? I don't think it's crazy to imagine that the next sort of round of that might be more serious. To me, that looks like community. The other last thing to say about crypto and community is it's one of the first places for me personally. I've been online in a while

where a lot of the people with tons of power and money are pseudonymous. Like they have aliases. You know their reputation, but you don't know their real name. And it's, I don't have a strong opinion about whether that is good or bad. I think it has, you know, you could argue it either way. But it's just interesting. Like, it's interesting. One of the big crypto Twitter accounts is a, I think it's called like, bored Elon Musk, but it started out as an Elon Musk parody account. Now it has like, I think, half a million followers. And the person seems to be like pretty invested in the space, like as an investor. And so it's just interesting watching some CEO of a crypto company get into an argument with, you know, someone with like a Guy Fox mask or whatever.

that everyone's taking relatively seriously. It's incredible. And I think there's a certain amount of delight in seeing what happens when the internet is allowed to build communities with money. Sometimes it's high stakes, buying the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes it's a little bit more on the surface practical. You were tuned into a Discord where there's a gentleman, a few investors were pitching this fast food franchise. And then they opened it up to a Q&A. and you had a great clip from a guy named Andy.

Yeah, what other plans do you guys got for the future? And what about some wild stuff, like, making it free or hiring like ex-felons and such? You know, just to do like a one-sentence chill, my idea is for a free restaurant via some art that's going to have like crazy models in it and illustrations and stuff. So I'd like to help y'all and continually, subtly and appropriately show for mine too as we go.

Thank you. I can walk you through it. Go for it. So they're having, they're fundraising crypto because they think it would be a funny idea to get strangers' internet money and buy up a bunch of local fast food franchises. Like buy a single McDonald's in Brooklyn and have it be run by internet vote. That's what they're trying to do. And so they're having to do an open Q&A with their like possible investors who are just

random people. And this guy's suggestion was that they should make the restaurant they buy free. They should staff it with, initially he says felons, and then he changes it to ex-felons. I think he's saying like not people who are in jail right now. Which I say in the story, like, great, I agree with that. Then he says very bizarrely that the restaurant should be funded by pictures of models on the wall, which is not making sense. And it's not clear if he means like swimsuit models,

or like mathematical diagram of a Rombus. But in the real world, a person who's making a suggestion that is that unusual is not invited to like the investors meeting. But in crypto world, they are and they have to be kind of like treated a little seriously because you need to get everybody on board with the project. And just as somebody who's kind of a student of democracy and the internet and how much of a joyful mess those things are when they knock into each other.

I think moments like that are part of why I really enjoy reporting on the space. That token, by the way, the fries down token is one of the few things that survived with the crash. They've been doing fine. I mean, it's something that would generate like cash flow, which is a fast food restaurant,

but it also strikes me as like they talk about how you need outsiders essentially to run the day-to-day operations and that there's more of a backseat. And then at that point, why not just by stock in McDonald's or any other franchise fast food restaurant. There's a lot of that in crypto where you're sort of like, yes, you could do this this way, but why wouldn't you do it the traditional way? Sometimes they have a good answer.

Sometimes they don't. I think sometimes the answer is, well, we think it's more interesting to do it this way and we'll attract more capital because people want to participate in the experiment of it. But there's a lot of that where you're like, couldn't you just buy McDonald's stock? In your reporting, I think there's a lot of things to dunk on, things to be pessimistic about, but what are you seeing that has made you optimistic about the future of maybe not just crypto, but Web 3, the future of the internet? I would say, what I say to my most skeptical friends, if they're like, make the case for me, then what I say is, you know, if no one has made a single valuable thing in crypto,

if it's all just like a bunch of hogwash, there's still trillions of dollars and a lot of smart people who have money to try to build something, and you could make a bet that by the end of this, something will get made. I think the slightly less pessimistic thing is just, I do,

I have an appreciation for their critique of the internet as we have it. Like, as someone who grew up online, I've watched the internet become sort of heavily surveilled, ad supported, highly monopolized. A few platforms get more and more power. And these sort of like power laws where the biggest fish accrue everything. And while I think people should ask questions about whether crypto is actually a solution to those problems, I like the critique. And it makes me, I think how you feel about it is. sort of partly based off what just happened.

You know, a bunch of tech people showed up and said they were going to change the world for the better. And I think very few people think that that really happened, or at least very few people I hang out with. So while I understand people being like, why would we trust these guys? They're the same as the last guys except they're selling us like monkey JPEGs. I don't know. I don't know what it says about me that I'm like, well, I'll hear them out. It's the promise of ownership.

And, you know, sometimes those monkey JPEGs can get stolen and ruin you. your television show. Yeah, I think it's also just find it all very funny. I find like these new problems very interesting to think about and funny to document. As we wrap up, I got one serious-ish question and then one hopefully fun question. Recently, Reply-all announced that it was ending the show. And you were there for some incredible episodes. You built it. Boyant photo, long distance, Snapchat thief. Any reflections on your time there in the end of the Reply-All era? Yeah. What can I say? It's really sad that it's ending. It's sad sort of how it ended. It's like not the end of

this story you would want. I feel really proud of the stories we got to tell and the work we got to do. I think I've loved so many publications and radio shows and just projects made by people that ended. And it always broke my heart. Having been inside one, it's still heartbreaking. I think the one thing I used to tell myself then that I tell myself now is like all those people will continue to make stuff and you know in different configurations and with different teams but a lot of the magazines I love that ended those people went on and started new magazines and those magazines were great too and like new voices showed up and I hope I hope that there's stuff we did that people can take the ball and run with and like just like we imitated and ripped off

and made hopefully made some things our own I hope people do the same thing to us. Yeah, you guys did some incredible stuff. Anything delighting you? Maybe a random internet rabbit hole right now. Ooh, a lot of things have been delighting me. A lot of them are pretty deep on crypto Twitter. You alluded to it, but I, there was this whole the Seth Green thing I really enjoyed. He, famous actor, very into NFTs, bought a bunch of board ape yacht clubs. And one of the things about these particular monkey JPEGs is, If you own the rights to the image, you own all the IP and derivative rights. So a celebrity could buy a picture of a monkey and then create a fast food restaurant or a television

series or a musical about that thing. And Seth Green is the first person I know of who's really tried to do it. And he has, you know, a trailer for a television show that's sort of like cheers except for half the characters are NFTs. And then someone stole his NFTs. he got fished. And so there's this sort of huge thorning legal question, which is like, what happens now? And no one knows.

He tweeted that he's in negotiation with the person who ended up with his NFTs. But it's just so complicated. I really just enjoy it. And I've been kind of like, I actually had an interview today with somebody who had done some, he's a professional investigator, not normally interested in crypto, but he sort of had followed the chain of theft and had made some headway into how it had happened, which hopefully will be an episode. I'm looking forward to listening to it. How can people follow your work and support it? Crypto Island. You can listen wherever you listen to podcast. If you want to support it,

I have a newsletter as well at pjvote.com and I take paid subscribers, but honestly, people just want to listen. I'd be happy. BJVote, thanks for joining us on Motley Full Money. Thanks for having me. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.