The Pomp Podcast - #898 Understanding Ape Coin & The Latest NFT Projects w/ Jason WIlliams

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

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What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now, let's kick this thing off. Jason Williams is a highly successful entrepreneur and investor. In this conversation, we talk about Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, talk about Bored Ape Yacht Club and the new ApeCoin, and we also talk about self-custody. I really enjoyed this conversation with Jason, as always, and I hope that you enjoy it as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by OKCoin. They are my favorite place to buy, trade, and stake crypto. They're the fastest growing US-based exchange serving

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We have Jason Williams. Jason, what's going on? Hey, what's going on, fellas? Not much. How are you? just hanging in there uh doing my thing uh not talking to you as frequently as i like to but uh other than that everything's good we just need to bring you on the show once a week and let you explain what's going on in the world i love that i don't even understand what you guys are talking about these inflation numbers are way too low what do you think inflation is no it's it's definitely double digit and i when you put out that tweet uh initially i said it's more like 15 percent

Yeah. Maybe higher than that. Real inflation. We were just talking about the price of a new home in America now is five hundred and eleven thousand dollars. That's up 25 percent over the last year. And how much of that is a better indicator of inflation than CPI? No, I think it's a great point. I mean, if you follow the materials that need to go into building a home, you start to really get a sense of real inflation. I mean, if you're out here building things like I am, we already started getting contracts renegotiated from the subs to the GCs. They even trying to lease properties. Everything was being if there was an escape valve in a contract, it was being hatched. And it sucks. Like we've seen solid core doors for our properties be

unavailable lead times of like four weeks, six weeks, 18 weeks, some electrical equipment unavailable. Some things have gone to 52 weeks in terms of lead times and the prices are just exploding. Like everything's up 30%. So don't talk to me about inflation at 7.9% stupid. All right. What I do want to talk about is you woke up, was it last week? And you had a bunch of ape coins what the hell is ape coin and what is going on with this this this whole thing it's like one of the things people have been asking the most about uh that i've seen on twitter etc so i figured you could help explain it because are you like a ape coin whale now i wouldn't call myself an ape coin whale but uh you know i i did have uh four board apes so i've been holding those

for a while and i had a few mutant apes and some of these mutant dogs as well so um you know you Yuga Labs created ApeCoin, and I think it was they distanced themselves from the project a bit and launched it under the ApeCoin DAO. And I think that happened around March 17th. The token launched at about 40 bucks, then dropped to like eight bucks and is sitting between 13 and 14 dollars right now. So the holders of Ape, Bored Apes, received this Ape coin in their MetaMask wallets. And it's pretty significant. To each Bored Ape that you own, you were entitled to 10,000 Ape coins. And how much was it when the coins first got airdropped?

How much were the coins? Well, it initially spiked on some of the trackers to $200. bucks, but it pegged at 40 bucks, pegged at 40 bucks. So basically you, so you got, what is that? $400,000 for every ape you owned. Okay. That's wild. But some people got like a million dollars if they sold it at the top. That's correct. Yeah. I mean, this, this thing was, uh, again, when I, when I, my, my, my bag was worth 8 million bucks. So anyway, I didn't sell, I didn't sell because there was a lot of interesting things here. Again, I dove deep into play-to-earn strategies.

I saw some of the things that even Gemini, if you guys, do you know Gemini has a credit card product? Yep. You can choose to earn your interest payments when you use that credit card and get paid in ApeCoin. I'm not going to do that, but that's interesting. It's interesting. ApeCoin already has some built-in functionality in the play-to-earn environment. There's a company called Animoca Brands. It's backed by Ubisoft.

And they've got a bunch of games coming out that you can use ApeCoin in. And there's selective merchandise that you can only buy with ApeCoin. So again, there's all of these different gimmicks and, and, and, um, opportunities to, uh, to use ApeCoin and monetize it. I'm not a, you know, I'm not involved in the project. I got some ApeCoin for free and we're only talking about it because you asked me, uh, I need, I need, uh, I need one of the Pompliano brothers to put on an HR hat whenever you and I talk so that, uh, I can stay in, uh, in, in, in, in the, uh, in the HR framework world. You know, I want to make sure I'm there with your dog yeah it's a fiduciary i'm i'm staying in bounds i don't i don't do anything

without uh talking to hr hr runs my life now that's hr to make sure that you stay in bounds yeah jason those are my favorite hand movements now you know you know those are whose hand movements are those jason i got a question for you regarding are you gonna are you going to are you going to stake any of your ape coin you know i i'm planning on just holding it i'm gonna hold it i'm just gonna hold it and i'm gonna watch i'm gonna watch and i'm gonna hold ape coin so how much money did you lose from the top down in terms of so it was at eight million and if it comes down then it went from 200 to 40 so basically uh yeah so you lost like a couple million bucks in in theoretical value of what it was worth that you got for free yeah yeah like

look i'm not a loser you know i mean looks like i you know i i and i i wanted to come on here and actually and say something very important today because can't wait yeah i have not been a drake fan and i've constantly kind of bagged on drake and i i just wasn't into it but i never really listen to drake all right so over the last day i've been listening to continuous drake on um on pandora and i have to say i relate to most of his lyrics and um i'm a big fan now like i'm i am i am drake's muse i want to know that uh did you like when you woke up and you realized that did you like message anybody? And you're like, yo, I just made millions off mutant dogs today.

No, I hit you up immediately. I was like, bro, this is crazy. I literally was like, wait, what? Yeah. Like it's just crazy, but I've been around a while. We've, we've had like the EOS drops, you know, I've got a wallet that's packed full of garbage and I've experienced the Bitcoin drops. You know, we've gone through that by being holders from Bitcoin cash to Bitcoin gold, the Bitcoin black. I mean, I can go and go on and on about, you know, airdrops associated with Bitcoin. We may even experience another airdrop if the Ripple galaxy brains are successful in getting someone to soft fork Bitcoin. We may get another. Yeah, I talked to Chris Larson. I say,

why don't you just fork the code and let the free market decide? Now, I really would like them to fork the code. But most people would think, oh, that's because you want the free market to decide. That's not why. Because when the fork happens, as you're alluding to here, you basically get the Bitcoin that you own. You just get a duplication of it on their new chain. And I think now most people have seen this play out a couple of times. They would not just say, screw it, let's see what happens with my new coins. They would sell it as fast as possible to buy more Bitcoin. And so it would be a new injection of capital into the Bitcoin market.

so increased demand fixed supply asset bitcoin's price probably goes up two anyone holding bitcoin would just have more bitcoin which would be cool and three is it would settle the free market discussion on like hey what does the market think about these two ideas but like it is interesting when you start thinking about the forks right there's not like true airdrops in the sense of like this ape coin etc but it acts the same way of somebody does something and you get more value in your wallet. I totally agree. We hadn't talked at all about this, but that's my perspective as well. Bitcoin cash, worthless. Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, lost. It solved a lot of things around Bitcoin. And here we go again with another attack on Bitcoin, proof of work. Let the free market

decide. Do a soft fork, whatever, and issue the tokens. I'll dump them as fast as I can and buy more Bitcoin. Yeah. I think that that's one of the big lessons from 2017, 2018 is that's probably the right strategy. When you think about playing in this whole NFT land, do you try to buy things where you think there's going to be a token or is that just like a gravy on top? Like what's your strategy, I guess, when you start looking at NFTs? You know, at first it was if I could buy an NFT that had a physical component associated with it, I thought that was really interesting. So like if I could get a real piece of physical art and an NFT and somehow create some arbitrage, sell the physical piece, keep the physical piece, sell the digital piece, you know, I'm an art collector. So that was that was really interesting. And a lot of the the big artists, Beeple included, had physical components to their art.

Fuocious did the same thing. And you're seeing it over and over again in the rare Pepe and even in the in the real Pepe movement where artists are making physical, physical pieces associated with the digital pieces. So I like that a lot. I'm really interested in rights associated with these NFTs as well. So, you know, you and I have talked about Bored Apes, and I've been really interested in them because I think it's an additional branding opportunity for businesses. and I sent you some information on Black Rifle Coffee and how they took a Bored Ape, they bought one and then they did some merch associated with it that I think is really cool. I like Black Rifle Coffee anyway and I thought it was really interesting

that they were using an ape to do some marketing and I've done the same thing. I have a fund and we own an ape in the fund and we use that ape as our representative, as almost anonymous fund managers. When you get communications from our fund, they come from this ape who we've, we've taken some creative license with because we own the rights of the image. And people get a kick out of it. You know, we put some glasses on and put a

suit on it, a Mark Yusko suit, you know, the little tie and the cuff links and stuff, you know, how Mark Yusko dresses. To the nines. Yeah, to the nines and the cuff. He's a banker, you know, he's got the got all the stuff. And, you know, so does our board A. So when you think about this, what exactly is the like long-term goal? You build up a brand around it and then eventually that becomes kind of like the IP or the mascot of whether it's a fund, a business, whatever. Yeah. It's, it's just an opportunity to create some brand differentiation and some talk. If you, you know, I, I, we're building a surf shop and a coffee shop and in a community I'm in, and we have a board ape associated with that as well, you know, to, to make some hoodies

and t-shirts with this board ape or, you know, call it a, make a surf club with this board ape on it. I just think it's interesting. It's not the whole thing. It's just part of the thing, but it connects to a space that I love. You know, I love Bitcoin. And I love this kind of technology that we're, we're, we're playing around with and to be able to create brands and connect crypto, bitcoin board ape to whatever i'm trying to uh market is is just really interesting to me so i'm suggesting it to people there are 10 000 of these apes 6 000 something holders of these apes and you own the rights and privileges to monetize that image and protect it i think that's really cool you know they're really defensible you're gonna have to spend some money do you think that

they'll be the winner over the long term like is it just a is it uh maybe not winner take all but winner take a most in one of these uh kind of pfp type communities or do you think that uh there could be 10 different winners and it's kind of like maybe like video games oh i like playing madden my brother who's not good at madden likes playing you know something else yeah i think there's your brother's not good at madden i got that there's gonna be there's gonna there's gonna be og um like long-term winners in the space and then there's gonna be fads um but you know when i look at v1 punks v2 punks board apes um rare pepes i think the market as it matures they're they're going to want to collect these or have a position in them and as the wallets and the

opportunities to display your your pieces of art improve like i've seen some super cool um digital frames uh i'm i've got another place uh i'm furnishing now and i'm putting up some of these digital frames to display digital art in it. I think it's really, really cool. So yeah, I don't think this is going away. I said to you guys many, many months ago that this is the fourth greatest innovation I've seen in my lifetime. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Joe, what do you got? What are the other three greatest innovations that you've seen? Well, it was FastMed, you know, the business I started, the internet, Bitcoin, and NFTs. And I took a lot of heat for putting NFTs on that list. But on the back of saying that, you know,

my concept was co-opted by Gary Vee and he makes $70 million on Vee friends. And then Web3 has come around. So I don't think NFTs are going away. Jason, what other NFT projects are you looking at currently? Whether you own them already or you're looking at purchasing one maybe? Man, there's so many different projects in the play to earn space that I couldn't even list them. So, you know, play to earn is big. Um, and NFTs are an integral part of, uh, of owning kind of assets in a game that are tradable, valuable, collectible, transferable, um, and you can prove ownership. So it's just not going away.

I love play to earn and, uh, making a lot of investments in that space. Gotcha. Have you looked at, uh, there's a person on Twitter, uh, Frank de God who keeps hitting me up and telling me, uh, D gods on Solana. A lot of the things you're talking about are on Ethereum. How much of this is Ethereum-based versus Solana-based? And like, does that matter? No, it does.

And I think you and I have talked a little bit about this. You know, everything other than Bitcoin in the Bitcoin space or in crypto right now, it's a massive part of the market share, the overall market share of crypto. and the diversification of real projects on top of these other chains have created a bit of a cornerstone moment that's taken some of the volatility out of the space. So, you know, Solana, there are so many projects and NFTs built on that. You know, I'm an investor in a company called Star Atlas or a project called Star Atlas and, you know, in full disclosure, and I'm a holder of Solana. Inside the HR framework there. Good job. Yeah. I want to make sure that we all

are okay. Yeah. So I think that this isn't all about Ethereum anymore. And I think there's a maturation that's going on both in everything other than Bitcoin and in Bitcoin. I'm watching Bitcoiners not go hungry and not live without chairs, but actually think about buying homes and how do I custody this stuff? And can I borrow against my Bitcoin? Do I need insurance to back Bitcoin? You know, so if God forbid something happens to it, I'm protected. You know, how does my wife and family deal with my estate? If my estate holds Bitcoin, can I transfer and donate bitcoin to universities or you know all of these things are happening now because bitcoiners are getting older they're maturing and it's not just about like uh you know buying drugs or video game

stuff what do you think about uh majority of bitcoiners actually hold other coins or hold equity in companies that support other coins there's even uh without saying any names uh companies that hold themselves out there as bitcoin companies but they either uh support the buying and selling of other coins or helped their customers buy other coins? How do you think about that stuff? Yeah, I mean, there's probably three flavors of participants, market participants right now. There's the anon, like toxic Bitcoin maximalist that I killed in 2021, and I continue to slaughter them in 2022. Then there's the fake Bitcoin maximalist that holds shit coins, all kinds of

other projects and is trying to capitalize on what they missed in 2017. So a lot of them saw the issuance of ICOs, which were unregistered securities. They recognized it. They avoided it. But a lot of people made a lot of money and that left them with dyspepsia. And so they don't want dyspepsia. So now they're participating in NFTs and these other projects in a very discreet way. And stacking more Bitcoin. And then you have, you know, these third parties, like you said, that are that are out there raising capital and buying up lots of Bitcoin. So there's probably three flavors of it. All right. Last question is, I saw you posted on Twitter that you were taking Bitcoin off of exchanges. What's your general feel about self-custody versus the exchanges and all that? And like, what's your strategy there? Yeah, look, you know, I think it's really important that if you're not actively trading Bitcoin, so if you're not buying and selling Bitcoin, that you don't leave it on exchanges. It needs to be custodied. And it's a good practice to learn how to do that and to maintain whatever cold storage devices or system you have.

make it redundant, think about it, and protect it. This asset is an extraordinary one. It's a pristine one, and it needs to be treated elegantly and with intention. Beyond that, whenever the price gets a little toppy, I like to take Bitcoin off of exchanges and participate in not your keys, not your coins. I think Bitcoiners need to get their coins off of exchanges. It's a good signal to the market that uh you know there if there's demand and there's no supply price goes up right that is very very true which i think is what we're seeing here now as doquan uh does this three billion dollar bid i mean it feels like uh some bitcoiners may not like it but uh it's no different than uh other companies or organizations or individuals doing it i totally agree pop yeah

Yeah. That's all right. Where should we send people to find you on the internet or go check out anything you're doing? Man, I'm just out there. You can find me at Going Parabolic. I've written a pretty good book that people continue to like. Number one bestseller in macroeconomics and international finance. Very good. Seven or five star ratings. I take my book out. Other books run. I bring it around safety. Off he goes where'd safe dean go i hear his little feet just all right my friend thank you so much for joining us should have sold the top you didn't hopefully you get back whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa market ape coins 14 bucks i'm gonna come back and we'll talk about that all right

when it comes back we're definitely gonna have you come back on and you can come on and say that you sold $10 million for the ApeCoin that you got from your mutant dogs. And now everyone else who was yelling and screaming at you is an idiot. Yeah. Sorry, Drake. Trophies.

Later, buddy. See you, Jason. See you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you're subscribed on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition

to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to palmscryptocourse.com. we've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry it's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period go to pompscryptocourse.com to learn more and i'll meet you guys for the next episode