The Breakdown - Rob ‘Crypto Bobby’ Paone and Preethi Kasireddy on fundraising, halvings, and the long steady slog of crypto

Episode Date: December 25, 2019

Rob Paone, aka Crypto Bobby, got his start as a popular crypto YouTuber and has gone on to help build a number of crypto companies before launching his own technical recruitment firm. Preethi Kasireddy is the founder of the TruStory debate platform. In two individual interviews as part of The Breakdown’s end of year extra, both argue that a big part of the 2019 story was the slow, steady slog of building, and that, in some ways, 2020 may be poised for more of the same. 

Welcome back to The Breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, crypto, and beyond, with your host, NLW. The Breakdown is distributed by CoinDesk. Welcome back to the Breakdown's end-of-year extravaganza. So today we have our first double interview. Well, actually, it's two individual interviews, but they had some common threads that I thought might work together. So the first interview was with Rob Payon, better known perhaps as Cryptobobobby, got his start. as a crypto YouTuber, has worked for numerous crypto startups, and just recently this year launched Proof of Talent, a technical recruiting firm for the crypto industry.

And then secondly, we have Pritha Kasseretti, who was X-Coynebase, hashtag Coinbase Mafia, and is now the founder of True Story, which is a debate platform that uses blockchains in interesting ways. So the common thread, I think, for these interviews is the idea that this year was a little bit subtle, a little bit behind the scenes, a little bit buildy, and that maybe next year might look something similar, right? It wasn't necessarily a big fireworks year. It was something a little bit different. So I hope you enjoy this interview. And if you do, please subscribe to make sure that you don't miss any of the breakdowns end of your coverage. I hope you're having a great

holiday wherever you are, and I will catch you tomorrow. Welcome back. We have here, Mr. Cryptobobobby himself. What's going on, man? Not too much. How you doing? I am well. For those of you who don't know, proof of talent, tell everyone quickly about proof of talent. I guess it's still a new project. It's probably been a year and I just don't even notice anymore because time is such a weird thing. Yeah. So back in June, I started a recruiting firm. It's a technical recruiting firm that works exclusively with companies in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. So work with about 15 different companies, primarily U.S. based, helping them to find software in general. engineers, biz dev, ops, kind of all, the whole nine yards from a talent standpoint, and just help them grow their companies.

Amazing. And so obviously, I know, you know, I know you through Twitter and through you've worked in the space for a while. And part of the, part of the reason that I think that it's going to be really interesting to chat with you about this, this kind of end of your idea is like, you know, looking across, you have to have kind of a breadth of understanding of what's going on and trends that are happening in the industry, right? I mean, obviously, you have the specifics that relate to what types of skills people need and which companies are hiring, which maybe suggests for what sectors. But just in general, you kind of have to keep a pretty big bird's eye view of things, it seems to me. Yeah, typically, I try to just overall,

like, watch the different narratives that are occurring, but usually a pretty wide scope of things. And for the most part, not too deep on a lot of topics unless it now relates to recruiting. But yeah, try to have a pretty wide scope of what's happening and understanding, what's going on within the industry. Yeah, I think it's super valuable to have, to hear also from folks who have that kind of, you know, breadth of view. So I guess like with that, let's just dive into the first of these two big, meaty questions, which is, what do you think, you know, when all is said and done, the story of 2019 was or,

you know, the narrative that we'll remember 2019 for? 2019 to me is it's an interesting year because when you look back, at least in my opinion, like when you look back a lot of the notable maybe events, I think it's almost a year of just static interest in a lot of ways. Like when you look at something like 2017, you know, it was the massive bull run. It was the ICU rush. I think a lot of people classify 2018 as kind of that crash down and associated with that. As far as the narrative for 2019, a lot of it to me just kind of seems like maintaining the status quo. Yes, there are a number of notable events that have happened. Yes, there's new regulation. There's been a lot of regulatory action and there's been

some projects that have succeeded and some that have fallen off. But for the most part, there hasn't been a just a ton of like mass movement, especially on the side of just like quote unquote adoption. I still feel like from from 2018 to 2019, the industry is still largely the same people kind of functioning within it. And it really hasn't been that much growth in 2019 to speak of. Yeah.

No, I think it's like it's for sure been a more quiet year. you know, in some ways. I feel like if you, you know, like even within the context of like individual project communities, I feel like a lot of, uh, of these communities turn inward a little bit and focus more on, you know, trying to build what they wanted to build or, you know, bringing people into the fold to, you know, to, to really get them in deep rather than, um, just kind of trying to, you know, make announcements about announcements and things like that. Yeah, absolutely.

And like, when I, when I look back at things, I think ultimately, 2019 has been a good year for the space because there has been a lot of infrastructure that's been built out. It's just, it's a more concrete space than it was in the past. I think there's, there's been a lot of improvements that have been made, whether it's on the quote unquote institutional side or more on like the retail consumer facing side or just like with the with the tech in general and the usability of a lot of it in general. I think there have been a lot of improvements. But like with that said those improvements have mostly, and it's to your point, in some cases,

either falling on deaf ears or have just largely gone on, unrecognized for now, which I don't think it's bad. I don't think it's good. It's just the industry is just kind of chucking along this year for the most part. I think you're right. And I think you see that too, even in sometimes in the sentiment.

Like one of the things that I thought was funny is, you know, basically ever since we like, you know, raced up to like 14, it's been like these periods. of, you know, resetting to some new level and they're just hanging out there for like three weeks. And by the time we've been at some price level for three weeks, even when it was like 10,000 and

like a month and a half earlier, it had been, you know, like way less than that. People get bored, you know, and they're like, oh, this is stupid, this industry's bored. They start to pick fights and stuff. And I think there's a, there's definitely a little bit of that sense of just like, the slog to it, you know? Yeah. And I'm still at the point. And I don't think I'm necessarily, in the minority when I say this, but I still think that the killer use case for the industry at large is still and will likely remain for the foreseeable future to be speculation. And when there is a period of low volatility and there's not much to speculate on, you see the community kind of just eat each other and attack, you know, attack everybody from kind of different angles,

which can I think for a lot of people get frustrating as well. There's a lot of infighting and you have a lot of people asking questions like, we're never going to grow the industry if we're just sitting here yelling and fighting at each other back and forth. And a lot of times it does feel like that. But then to the other, you know, to the other side of the coin with that, I think that some of the interactions and some of the hubbub that you see on social media and Twitter and that type of thing, a lot of times, there's a whole large group of people that just don't consume that and really don't care about it. So I think we have a tendency to overrate that sometimes as well. Yeah, I agree. I think that we,

we we overestimate the significance of it sometimes, even if it's reasonable to be frustrated and want less of it, for sure. Okay, well, so I think, you know, this, the, the segue then, or the, the question is, if this has been this sort of, you know, building year and, you know, just chugging a long year and kind of behind the scenes year, what do you, what are you looking to 2024? What do you, what do you think happens next year? I think that what, I mean, the big, the big event that a lot of people are pointing to, and I'm sure it's been spoken about on your, you know, on your podcast before is the Bitcoin having. And I am paying attention to just the narratives that develop around that. I think in the past, you've seen the, in the past, the narrative was always the having is the most

bullish thing that's ever going to happen on the planet. And, you know, just kind of looking at what's happened previously and you see all these charts and you see all these things that make it seem like the second the having happens, it's going to be sunshine and rainbows forever, basically. But you're starting to also see some people counteract that and now debate that the having is actually either not going to be some type of bullish catalyst or even on the flip side. I've seen people to start arguing that it's actually a bearish scenario. So I'm really interested in what happens with that. I don't necessarily think that the having, as I've kind of looked at a bunch of components

and just examined other people's research, I'm maybe more moving to the middle ground where I don't think it's going to be this instant bullish catalyst. It's going to take longer to come into effect. But I also don't necessarily think it's going to be some type of bearish hindrance to the industry because of miners overall. Yeah, that's kind of where if I had to bet right now, because I was just, I think Joe Weisenthal from Bloomberg wrote a piece about this on, you know, his markets newsletter the other day. And so people were talking about it. And I did a poll on Twitter where I asked people, you know, is it going to be kind of a number go up thing, a number go down thing? A doesn't matter, doesn't make it a real impact thing. Or, you know, something that's a positive force from a price perspective, but over a longer period of time. And my guess is that whatever the impact is will be over a longer period of time. So it's almost more of a question of how people respond to their not being a clear movement either way right away. And it's almost like, I feel like to some extent it's good to have some of these debates now because

I feel like it potentially helps minimize the chance of deflated expectations, you know? Like, it would be really easy to see a scenario where even if it was the positive force that everyone thinks, you're not going to see it for a meaningful amount of time after it actually happens or, you know, whatever that interval is. And people are so anticipating it that when it doesn't happen, they just get frustrated and that, you know, sends the price down or whatever. So, you know, maybe having some more rational expectations about it will help, you know, will help defray that a little bit. But then again, that might be a lot to ask. for. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it'll be really interesting to watch in general, I think, because there are,

it's one of the few scenarios, I feel like, where there actually is historical evidence to look at things in the past, but, you know, in the past few years, since the last having, things have obviously changed quite a bit. Um, so I'm curious to see how the changes in the, you know, in the mining ecosystem and the trading ecosystem, because yes, it is a, you know, it is a supply shock, you're reducing the daily supply of a Bitcoin that's hitting the market, that presumably some aspect of that is going to be sold by miners. But then those aren't the only people that can move the price of crypto assets and just Bitcoin in general. We've seen that over and over again. So I don't think it's the only factor, but it'll be interesting because there is a lot

of good research on both sides of, you know, on both sides of the coin with this. So I'm excited to see how it ends up just panning out in the long run as far as like a definitive statement on my end. I certainly don't have one because I'm not smart enough for that, but I'll be keenly watching it. Yeah. Well, listen, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I love getting your perspective as always. And for folks who want to follow you, where can they find you? Yeah, absolutely. My Twitter profiles at Crypto underscore Bobby, if you're ever looking for an opportunity or hiring in crypto, you go to proof of talent.co, and happy to see you there as well. Right on. Well, thanks so much and I hope you have a great holiday. Yeah, thanks a lot for the time.

You too. Welcome back. We are hanging out today with a very special guest. Preeti, tell you're working on a really, really cool project. I've had a chance to hang out with you a little bit. And it's evolved a lot in 2019. I would love to just start by hearing how the project has evolved over the course of the year. True story, you mean? Yeah, yeah. True story. It's a platform for its debate and basically we use crypto incentives to incentivize productive debate and it's been an interesting evolution and we've noticed that the crypto incentives actually are a very powerful way. way to drive behavior and we're excited to keep experimenting in that regard. I think it's really cool. So one of the things that's really interesting is if you kind of look

back, like, I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I think there's a lot of pent-up energy around wanting to do experiments with crypto incentives and actually see if some of these thesis and suppositions around how you could organize networks differently and coordinate behavior differently. Like these things that were theoretically and intellectually talked about during the ICO boom, but got so sidelined just because of the mass influx of, you know, capital and energy and attention. I feel like there's a lot of folks who are looking to the next couple years to actually be able to experiment with that. But maybe that's a segue for, you know, we were just kind of starting to talk through this. And I'd love to hear what you think.

What was 2019? In the historical arc of crypto, you know, what is the significance of the last year? What do you think people will tell, how do you think people will tell the story of the last year? Sure. I think 2019, from my perspective, was a big part of what I focused on, was like really seeing out how the IEO model plays out because we saw in 2017 that the ICO model was kind of the first generation of trying to introduce tokens, incentives, fundraising. Like, we didn't really know, even know what this token thing even meant. But then we got a little bit smarter in 2018.

and 2019 was the year of the IEOs where people are kind of figure out more sustainable, realistic ways to launch and distribute a token. And finance was a big player in this, and I think Coinbase is going to get into the game as well. But I still don't think we're there yet. I think there's still a lot to be figured out of how to actually structure these tokens, how to distribute them, how to launch them, how much to raise in each round. because right now we're still kind of like halfway between the ICO model and what I think is the ideal model. So I'm excited to see over the next two to five years of where we go in terms of how we think about launching and distributing a token. And to be honest, I think the biggest hindrance in this area has been like regulatory hurdles. Because the regulators have honestly no idea what they want to do with tokens and how what they have no.

idea like how they want to regulate it. So they have given entrepreneurs and builders no clarity. And as a result, it's much harder for entrepreneurs to experiment with different kind of token ideas and token models. So I think that's been a huge hindrance for the space. But hopefully over the next couple of years, we'll start to see a lot more clarity. And then we'll sort of see the realistic way to actually launch and distribute a token. Yeah. The IEO thing was really interesting because I think that at the beginning of the year, Some folks, a lot of the leftover, kind of the leftover ICO investors in particular were really hoping that it would be ICO 2.0 and would create, you know, alt season or whatever the meme is, you know, returned. And it just hasn't, you know.

But at the same time, it's like it feels like still a nascent experiment. And in some ways, almost about like the other part of the story of IEOs is just the continued evolution and iteration on the part of the exchanges themselves as they figure out like what the business model for this industry is. Yeah, exactly. Like you don't, I mean, I think even a lot of the IEOs, like you said, they've been, you know, they've been able to raise a decent amount of money, but they haven't really performed that well. And I'm trying to figure out, is it just that the crypto market is just not there yet in

the sense that the demand for these tokens and all that is not there? or is it that the projects were not reputable or is it some mix of both? And I think it's some mix of both, obviously. Because I took a look at some of these projects that did IEOs. And honestly, if you probably put these projects five, 10 years ahead, they'd probably be do really well. So I think my thesis around why some of the IEOs haven't really fully matured is because I think we're just a little too early. and some of these things just need to, the consumer mindset is not completely there yet.

And I think we're kind of two steps ahead of where the world is when it comes to some of these innovative crypto ideas. So we'll see how it progresses. Totally. I think timing is everything, right? But I guess with that, like, you know, so we've talked a little bit about 2019. Now let's jump ahead. when you survey what you think is to come, what are your predictions for 2020? What do you think is going to happen next year?

In this regard, in terms of kind of tokens and crypto fundraising or in any other topic, I guess, related to the industry. Yeah, I think like my, I could be totally wrong about this. So my gut says, I don't think we're going to have a boom yet in 2020. Like, I just don't see it. I think there's still a lot to be built in the crypto space. And I think 2020 will look honestly a lot like 2019, where people are still trying to build and kind of build the foundations,

get a lot of regulatory clarity, get all the building blocks and bridges in place before all these innovative ideas can actually like really take off. So I think 2020 will be another experimentation year. And we just have to admit that crypto is, we're in experimentation phase now, and we're not going to get to like mass consumer scale. unless, you know, Facebook or one of these other big companies launches their project and really gets distribution right.

But I don't think it's going to be a crypto-native project that gets that type of distribution natively yet. Again, I genuinely have spent enough time in the space now that I think we are still at least two to five years away from any kind of big thing happening. Yeah. Listen, I think that our sense of timing and how fast things should move was totally warped by ICOs, right? And totally, like, that was almost in some ways like an accident of history about how that all came together. And I think that 2019 has just kind of reinforcing a lot of your points been a year of almost accepting that we are at this building phase and that there is so much more to be built and that it is going to take a long time. And I tend to share your instinct that at least as it relates to, to a lot of these crypto products and breaking outside of the actual kind of market of early adopters

and testers that we all represent, I don't see where that happens. Now, that's not to say that there can't be some breakout use case that we don't know. And I also think that there are segments of this market that are poised to obviously be hugely influential, right? Like the whole space around central bank digital currencies is going to be a bigger and bigger topic. But in some ways, that's almost this totally separate thing from, you know, a crypto project. and projects that use, you know, crypto-driven incentives to organize behavior in new ways. So it's a, I feel like I, it's going to be really interesting to see just, you know,

one, is there any catalyst for real shifts or, you know, to your point, is it those that look kind of a lot like this year? And two, you know, whether that's actually an okay thing because we just kind of need the time to keep building. Yep, absolutely. And I think my recommendation to entrepreneurs and builders in the space is like, you know, like a lot of these projects failed not because they were bad ideas or the incentives were bad. I think, again, it comes back to timing. So one way to think about how to launch an experiment with crypto is instead of reinventing the entire incentive scheme, maybe, you know, do layers at a time.

so like introduce small, like have the project be mostly Web 2.0 or whatever and then have like a small layer that's crypto. So you can start testing the incentives and introducing it slowly rather than, you know, completely going decentralized, you know, gung-ho. Because I don't think the users are there yet in terms of like, yeah, like I can, I'm willing to sacrifice my convenience and all that to get into this decentralized future. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with 2020. the future. I love it. Well, great predictions. I'm excited to look back, you know, 12 months from now and see to see how this all played out. But for now, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I know the end of year can be super busy. So thanks for sharing your insights. No problem. Thanks.