The Wolf Of All Streets - Our Crypto Strategy | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Crypto Town Hall is a daily X Spaces hosted by Scott Melker, Ran Neuner & Mario Nawfal. Every day we discuss the latest news in crypto and bring the biggest names in the space to share their insight. ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. USE CODE ‘2MONTHSOFF’ WHEN VISITING MY LINK.  👉 https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker  ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEK DAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/    ►► OKX Sign up for an OKX Trading Account then deposit & trade to unlock mystery box rewards of up to $10,000!  👉  https://www.okx.com/join/SCOTTMELKER ►►NGRAVE This is the coldest hardware wallet in the world and the only one that I personally use. 👉https://www.ngrave.io/?sca_ref=4531319.pgXuTYJlYd ►►THE DAILY CLOSE BRAND NEW NEWSLETTER! INSTITUTIONAL GRADE INDICATORS AND DATA DELIVERED DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX, EVERY DAY AT THE DAILY CLOSE. TRADE LIKE THE BIG BOYS. 👉 https://www.thedailyclose.io/   ►►NORD VPN  GET EXCLUSIVE NORDVPN DEAL  - 40% DISCOUNT! IT’S RISK-FREE WITH NORD’S 30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY! 👉 https://nordvpn.com/WolfOfAllStreets    Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker   Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io   Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe   Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c   #Bitcoin #Crypto #Trading The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor.  Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

i made co-host i made co-host i made co-host i made it i'm the co-host it's you launched gummies like holy this guy knows what what the he's talking about then you do the tucker carlson project like okay holy he's earned it he's earned it you're welcome back to the show it's a pleasure to have you how are you i thought i told you i was traveling to i told you i was traveling last week you know you know what you forget is that I live very far from everything. So when I travel to Miami, for me, it's like 30 hours of fucking travel. So I spent like 30 hours to get there and 30 hours to get back. Did you do – is the panel done?

I did the debate. The debate was fantastic. Really, really good. Very hard to moderate. Very, very, very hard to moderate. You got Narelle rabini and peter schiff which are very strong personalities and then you had scary merchies with the italian fire in him and eric so it was quite a tough debate to moderate but i think net net the result was

very good uh the debate got a lot of views a lot of views i mean just on our channel we've got over 150 000 and then it was also on zero here that was very big yeah it's zero has a great way did you what location you do it we were in West Palm Beach we were in a studio in West Palm Beach nice yes if anyone doesn't know zero hedges a you know what he did so one of our largest investors our largest investor is a big fan of zero hedge um and they they started doing more panels kind of debate panels bringing both sides together on different topics and uh you know covering everything from from wars to us politics to obviously in this

case crypto and they've been great panels i think the production is great the speakers are great um and and uh they said that they said that i was the best debate moderator they've ever had they said i was even better than mar Nortel, which is like, I was like, why are you surprised? Yeah, I didn't pay them enough. I didn't pay them enough. Yeah, so I'll be seeing you next month though, no? In June for the Killer Whales again.

Yeah, Killer Whales. I think we're both flying out to Killer Whales in June, to LA. That's again, that's another 36 36 hour flight for me to get there i'm flying 36 hours to be there for 72 hours to fly home for 36 hours i'm flying 72 hours to be there for 72 hours crazy um and um talking about flying scott is on a plane as we speak by the way i had one of the the biggest this i was speaking to them and they're just responding now. The biggest, a big journalist in crypto reached out to me to discuss the whole KOL. You know how KOLs get these deals

behind the scenes and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but there's a structure where KOLs get access to deals at a good price in return for promoting a project. And they wanted to kind of understand it better and do a piece on it which i think is a great idea not sure what your stance is on it ran but i think more

transparency on that is needed i think look i think uh i think if you the way the way that i see it is simple right like kls have media channels right like whether your media channel is twitter or youtube you have a media channel and to get featured on the media channel there is a price now you can either be paid in cash or you can be paid in tokens or you can be paid in a discount which is equivalent to two things but i think the big rule the the the most important rule is that chaos actually discloses and i think in traditional markets you know like i think if you don't disclose it i think in some countries it's a it's a it's a offense and i think the big problem that we have in crypto is that most people don't disclose it and so they land up shilling tokens now like we at banter we've got

you know mamaria because we've spoken about this in the last couple days where people have made office to me and i said like i literally can't accept them but we're not allowed to accept free tokens we're not allowed to we're not allowed to um if we if we accept a discounted token it's going to be disclosed and it's going to be disclosed as a sponsor because it's almost in lieu of payment for sponsorship um when there is a sponsor all the sponsors are highlighted in red and you have to say this is a sponsor so i just think that i think there's a bit of cleanup that's required in industry because i think a lot of people a lot of kls you know land up shilling without without disclosing that they have these deals and i think that that's people a lot of kls you know land up shilling without without disclosing that they have these deals and i think that that's for me that's toxic it's bad for the industry and i think

that usually those kls don't last more than one or two cycles so like i think if you if you if you show undisclosed you probably won't last more Your life cycle won't be more than one or two cycles. Yeah, I think the main issue, Ryan, I think the model itself has flaws, but I think transparency is the biggest problem and lack of education. So I think first I want to kind of shout out the reporter after we do the piece. I asked him, maybe we'll do a space about it as well to just bring more awareness. Just... Mario, I can't hear you. I don't know if anybody else. Can anybody else hear Mario? Can anyone hear me now?

Now we can, Mario. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. It's odd. Yeah. So what I'm saying, I think the model itself is, by the way, if it goes quiet, Matthew, Dan, William, just jump in,

because obviously my mic wouldn't work and I wouldn't know if no one jumped in. But what I was saying, Ryan, I think the issue is mainly transparency. I think the model is not perfect but the main concern that i have is just lack of transparency the thing me and ran were debating and we're pretty transparent about these things and like we always talk about them in the open is that you guys have a model where you don't offer so when we when you invest in projects you don't offer like you don't do it you're like hey we'll invest x, and we'll include ABC in it. So essentially, you kind of draw that line.

If we invest, we invest normal like a VC, no media exposure, no marketing done on the side. And then if you want to do the media side, we charge for you. I could be wrong in this, but that's how you do it. And our model is a bit different. I'll let you talk about your model. Our model is like most of the projects we invest in, we're almost all of them. And we do a deal where it's an investment plus media exposure plus market incubation.

We specifically the opposite. We invest, but we make it very clear to the project that just because our fund is invested doesn't mean that they're going to get any airtime on the channel. In fact, when we sign any kind of SAFT, we also make them sign a document that they are fully aware that there's no misunderstandings afterwards. They can't withhold

tokens, that they're not guaranteed any kind of exposure on any of the media channels. The only thing that I can say is just generally when we invest in something, it's because we've done the research and we like it. And if the team carry on delivering it, then we usually talk about it because that's the stuff we're looking at. That the stuff we like um but we don't we never ever ever invest in return for airtime and the reason why is because if we did i believe that people would look at our channel and they would say well is he talking about this because he's invested or is he talking about this because he actually believes in it and so that's the that's the difference for us you know that we don't do any investments with any strings attached um we rather we're a bit we're a bit different can you hear me fine now

can you hear me now ryan okay hold on let me just check out blue all right now i think the headset is wrong so you couldn't even. So we're a bit different. So we come in the project and we say to them, so whenever we work with a project, whenever we invest in a project, these will believe in the project. Obviously, it's a different level. Some we've got high conviction for. We invest a bigger ticket, longer vesting periods.

Others, we know it's higher risk or a bit more cautious, smaller tickets. But generally, any project we invest in, we believe in. um so on that front we believe that if we speak about them and we disclose like hey we invested in this project we have a deal as well a media deal a package to do shows as well um as long as that transparency is there should be fine um and it makes um for me just makes no sense not to do media or marketing for a project you're investing because you believe in that project anyway you wrote a ticket for it um so that's how we approach it i think there's no right or wrong way but i think any model you use that transparency is really important so anyone

listening if you don't offer that transparency it will backfire on you um and anyone's been in crypto for a while we'll we'll see that and ryan you've been you've been in the media game for a lot longer than i have so i'm sure you understand the importance of yeah i made i made a lot of i made a lot of mistakes in the first cycle in the second cycle where you know like you know i had the exposure and i did those deals and to be honest i learned and i would rather i'd rather stay keen to be honest i would prefer to be clean and to say you know what like my media station is credible and independent and we also have a fund and you know the two don't meet um yes you yes, we do tend to talk a little bit about projects that we're investing, that we like, because we naturally gravitate to doing more research on those projects. And we're naturally in touch with them.

But we certainly don't offer any guarantees. In fact, we're inherently against offering guarantees. And to be honest, like I've lost millions of dollars because of protocols that wouldn't let us invest because we wouldn't guarantee them anytime. And that's just the price that we pay for our ethics policy. Yeah. Let's get into the discussion. So I want to go back and forth with you just for the panel to kind of be prepped. Because when I looked at the agenda for your show, you talked about some of the social

media metrics like YouTube views, the touch are going down and that being an indicator that retail isn't here is kind of slowing on that front. But then you said the time for altcoins is coming. I think you expect a lot of inflows for altcoins coming in soon. So I was a bit confused on why the metrics for views, etc. subscribers have gone down, which is an interesting metric that not many people talk about. Yet you're still pretty bullish on altcoins despite that. So generally, what people don't realize about a bull market is a bull market,

specifically this part of the bull market is not up only. Basically, you go up, you get a consolidation, you go up again, you get a consolidation. In the consolidation, sometimes you go slightly down. But generally, the latter is moving up. It's like you go up consolidate move slightly down go up consolidate move slightly down go up consolidate move slightly down and that's what a bull market looks like a bull market specifically in the early stages of the bull market is not really a straight up bull market now the problem is that this consolidation has been going on for about 70 days so for 70

days we've been chopping sideways and what's happening is you're getting retail investors losing interest because the sideways is not sideways enough but sideways and down because it's a bullish pattern you know bullish pattern is sideways and down which then breaks upwards um and so what you're getting is because of like the length of the 70 days and the sideways and down movement you're effectively getting retail being flushed out at the same time though you're getting a whole lot of new projects which are being launched and these projects are like high uh ft high value projects high ftb projects now if no new money is coming in and lots of projects are launching and investors are investing in these lots of projects which are actually investors are investing in these lots of

projects, which are actually launching. What you get is you get a debasement of all the other projects in the market because there's no new money coming in. There's more projects falling into the bucket. And now investors want to have exposure to all these new shiny objects, but they don't want to let go of the old shiny objects. They don't want to let go of the Solanas, the Arbitrums, the whatever else. And so what lands up happening in this period is that the alts land up bleeding.

And I've seen this before. It happens for a while. The alts bleed so much that you actually think there's never going to be an alt season and you should pivot back into Bitcoin. And then that minute that you do pivot all your money back into bitcoin is when the old season actually starts and then what you realize is just how little needs to move out of bitcoin for the old coins to have an amazing run because like you know drop in dominance from 55 to 53 which is just like a two percent drop in dominance that's a massive move for old coins that feels like old like that feels like you're surfing old season again you know what i mean so i'm not going to fall for the same trap again i fell for it in my first and

second cycle in crypto i'm not doing it again i'm going to be accumulating old coins in this period not dumping old coins in this period um yeah and just just i'm going to make sure you're going to make sure you survive and you accumulate all the old coins that's pretty much what this next period is about and we did it we had a discussion yesterday as well uh with um robbie from from animal card a few other guests regarding um i think robbie brought up nfts as well nfts have been doing well recently now you've been pretty skeptical of nfts to say the least especially in the bear market mean you had a lot of debates what's your stance on nfts now and and also what's your stance on NFTs now? And also, what's your stance on meme tokens? I'm becoming more

and more bullish despite the correction. And the concept of a decentralized community is getting more and more exciting to me. Has anything changed from your perspective on both these asset classes? So, meme... NFTs, I don't

like NFTs unless they actually have a use case so when i say use case an nft of a ticket to a concert i love uh nfts that can be used in games i love but nfts that tell you that you're part of the community just because you own the nft i have a severe allergy to those and the reason why i think i have a severe allergy to that is because they're not an inclusive community they're an exclusive community so the way i say the way i see like if crypto punks if i can't afford to buy crypto then i'm out then that's like a real exclusive it's almost like if you can't afford this you're not a part of it and i think that that's been replaced by meme coins,

where meme coins are kind of saying, look, I don't care how much you want to invest, whether you want to invest 10 cents, 20 cents, you can be part of this meme coin community. And I ran a poll on my Twitter a while back. I remember we spoke about that poll where I asked people, do you feel more attached to your meme coin community or do you feel more attached to your NFT community? The numbers were overwhelmingly towards the meme coin community.

So. But that's a ridiculous poll because I said that last time. I agree with everything you've said. Actually, I don't agree with the whole community aspect, but that's a ridiculous poll because meme tokens are pumping, NFTs are not. I mean, Scott mentioned that in the last space. So, of course, everyone's going to be very happy with their meme coin community because that's making them money.

And that's where it blurs the line between a community that cares about the narrative, that cares about the story versus a community that cares about their wallet. Well, I don't know. The way I see it is like the whole community narrative should be inclusive, not exclusive. I think there's very rare times that you need to have an exclusive community where you exclude people that can't afford to buy an ape or can't afford to buy a punk. I think the better and more fun version is the version where we

can all rally together and we can all be part of a community together. And I think that NFTs have got a new world and that world is they've got to have utility in a game, in a a you know like is it a ticket to a game is it a ticket to a concert so i think i think look i think nfts are going to be a multi-billion dollar industry definitely they really are multi-billion maybe even trillion

dollar industry but there's going to be use cases for the nfts so so let me ask you let me ask you before i go to dan matthew and william let me ask you one one more question and that's another point we were discussing behind the scenes and again i enjoy these spaces because we just everything we discussed we had we talked together a lot more on these spaces than we do privately um so the your strategy when it comes to token launches i know me and you are both very active i think we we're a lot more active, a lot more bullish on private rounds and investing in those token launches. But your strategy, again, correct me if I'm wrong,

but your strategy seems to have shifted where you don't think that this cycle will be as bullish to token launches as previous cycles. Now, me and Robbie were talking about OTC deals as well that Animoca does. And I was speaking to Animoca privately yesterday as well. And that we do where you go to a listed token because there's so many good projects already listed from the previous cycles. And I just do a deal where, hey, we will invest OTC. We'll get X amount of discount and we get vested for that period of time. So it's almost like a private investment.

And we also include media exposure in those deals. Are you less bullish on on token raises is that just temporary based on market conditions or do you think that entire cycle will not be friendly to uh to vc funded projects why token raises were so good token raises were an absolutely amazing thing because if you could have exclusive access you could get in before everybody got in at early evaluations. Then the token used to launch at 10x. And you used to have a vesting schedule which gave you 10% on launch and then 10% every quarter, whatever the vesting schedule was.

And so you managed to de-risk yourself very much in the first part of the launch, right? So, you know, if you've got 10% of your tokens being listed or given to you in the first month, the token project does a 10x on launch, you've effectively de-risked yourself or de-risked a large part of your portfolio. Now, right now, when I look at some altcoins in the market, there's so much good value on altcoins in the market. And the new launches, because there's no retail good value on altcoins in the market and the new launches

because there's no retail buyers to actually buy this these tokens up i don't see a reason why i need to lock up money into these long vesting schedules of one two three years so you know if i can take a thousand dollars and i can invest a thousand dollars today into roon or or like i don't know our weave or any of my hype conviction tokens and i've got a list of high conviction tokens are we've i'll read them quickly to you there's 12 of them are we've solana telegram near ruin suey phantom pendle based gearbox tucker gummy if i can invest in those tokens off the market today at good valuations and have it completely liquid to exit whenever i want why in god's name would i lock up money for three years

in some vesting schedule for some ico so there are situations where i will do that the situations where i will where i will do that are where i think the project is really, really, really A grade. In the old days, when I used to invest in those projects, I didn't do as much due diligence as I needed to do. And the reason why I didn't do as much due diligence as I needed to do, and I was much more like, easy to spend is because I kind of said to myself, well, you know what, these things do 10x on launch anyway, I get between five and 10x percent of my tokens on launch. I'm effectively 95% de-risked within the first month.

So the rest of it's like easy money. But now that's not the game anymore. Now that's not the game anymore. Now the game is a much different game where you've got to be like, if you don't identify the real big winners and you're not buying them really early,

you have to buy stuff on the market. Like if you're buying on the secondary market winners and you're not buying them really early you rather buy stuff on the market like if you buy if you're buying on the secondary market if you're buying a protocol the secondary market and you're not getting in it on the on the primary market and you're not getting in at like a 30 million dollar valuation on a protocol that you think is going to launch at 300 million and you're going to be locked up for three years, to be honest, best just buy a listed project on the market. Yeah, because just a reminder, I think not many people have this as their first cycle, but anyone that's new to crypto, you're seeing the bull market now,

kind of the early stages of a bull market, but you don't understand how brutal bear markets are. So corrections, when you see 10, 100, 1,000 Xs, the corrections are 99.9%. And that includes quality projects that still survive and do well the next cycle. So when you see VCs de-risk

their investment, now you're giving an extreme example where you get like a 10X on a 10% unlock, where essentially your risk is zero. But if you get, even you cover 50% of your investment and the rest vests gradually,

that doesn't exist in the traditional world. So I think what you're saying, Rand, is that the model now, and that's a positive thing, is that the model is more fair where these VCs and even, you know, influencers and VCs, so people like me and you that have media reach, but also invest privately, Rand, you've got a hot mic. We have to be more careful whether we want to or not. We just have to, financially speaking, because we don't have that ability to do risk really early, which I think is a good thing for the industry. And I think we've been very critical,

and Ryan, you've been very critical in the previous cycle of the model, the big unlocks at the beginning. I think we've covered it. I had one more point, but I forgot what it was. Let's go to the panel. Dan, Matthew, William, and Dave as well. Good to have you guys. I'll go what it was, but let's go to the panel. Dan, Matthew, William and Dave as well. Good to have you guys. I'll go to Matthew first.

I'll go to Dan and William. Matthew, we'd love to get your thoughts on the back and forth. We've covered a lot of topics from social media metrics and the sideways movement, the choppy movement. I'm not going to discuss the SEC too much because I think we've kind of butchered that.

The SEC hates crypto full stop. There's not much more. The elections are coming. That plays a role. We've talked about this enough, but we'd love to get your thoughts, obviously, on the markets, but the back and forth that me and Ran had. Yeah, thank you so much again for having me. Great to be here. Good morning, everybody. Two real quick points. The first on the NFT side

versus sort of the NFTs and altcoins. Definitely have to agree with Ran here that NFTs that don't have a use case now are pretty much just art. And if you're buying NFTs for art and hoping that art appreciation, you know, price goes up, I think you're going to have a pretty bad time. People tend to forget that these NFTs have such, such small holders, like the holder count, and then the actual tokens for distribution are pale in comparison to the multi millions or hundreds of millions or billions of tokens that trade for a typical currency so your liquidity is going to be massively easier to to exit if needed and and there's not really a there's a use case that's required but it's a much more inclusive community so of course people are going to say that they vibe more with pepe than they do with the pudgy

penguins because there's only a handful of people who have pudgies versus a much more, I would assume, a higher population that has Pepe coin. The other thing too, just to make a note on the back and forth between early liquidity and tokens that have been on the market, I think that you really hit that on the head here because it's really, really difficult for people now. You might be able to get in early, have a quick pop and be able to sell. But if you can't sell a majority of that bag, which is, again, what they're trying to prevent, this is essentially kind of what we went through in 2017, where you're seeing these just sort of massive hype cycles of projects that sound like they have really amazing use cases, right? Like, I remember back in 2017, every token came out and you're like, man, this is the future of DeFi. This is the future of DeFi.

This is the future of how we're going to transact. My credit is going to be online. This is amazing. And none of that stuff has actually happened five or seven or eight years later. So you have to be really worried or cognizant about the fact that things may sound very, very cool today. But in two or three months, nobody's going to care. The attention economy in this space is very, very important. And that's what we are saying. Memes are for me memes are a

game, which is a cultural if you see memes, you got to see memes. Let me maybe break down a piece of you guys. So in order for any protocol to be successful, the protocol has to have three things, technology, religion, and casino. Now, you have to have at least two of those to be even mildly successful. So if a protocol launches with good technology, but they have no community or what I call religion, and they don't have the casino element to it, ain't going to work. If a protocol has casino and community, but has no technology, it can still work.

And I'll give you an example, right? So you think about memes. No meme coin has ever survived more than one or two cycles unless it's pivoted into technology. So if you look at the old meme coins that are still around. Doge. Doge started off as a meme coin about a dog and then became a technology that may be integrated into twitter shiba shiba started off as shiba the dog and then shiba became a layer two and shibarium and all the other shenanigans floki floki became a use case bonk bonk bonk is bonk bonk bot there are very few vanilla memes that are memes that remain memes for multiple cycles.

So what a meme coin actually is, is saying, look, we know that you need three things to succeed. You need technology, casino, and religion. Memes start off with two of the three automatically. They start off with two of the three automatically. They start off with religion and with casino, and then some of them move into actual use case and the rest of them die. And effectively, then what you create is you create a roulette or you create a cultural casino. And what the cultural casino game is, is where are the bees going to go to next? Where are the masses going to go to next? Is it going to be Biden, Biden or Trump? Is it going to

be dogs or cats? Is it going to be hats or no hats? Is it going to be gummies or cigarettes? It's effectively, effectively, the amount of attention is not going to last there for a long time the meme coins role is to either say okay cool i'm part of this game or to say when i have the attention i know how to um uh um i know how to um convert the attention into something that's stickier than attention. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, and I do want to say, first, I want to disagree with the first point that memes are a game. I think it can be a game, but I think it's just,

I don't think we understand what memes could develop into. William, I know you touched on that previously. I think we're experimenting now, but I think the potential is a lot more than just people in a community based around a narrative or a story. And so, Ryan, again, I've become very excited about the concept of meme talkers. I'm talking about the ones that have $100 million plus market cap made

or $50 million plus, including some in the top 10, top 15, because I feel like they've crossed the line of being, so first they need to be decentralized. Second, they've crossed the line of the risks of them just dying within days. But moving away from that point, and Matthew, I think you were talking about comparing to the 2017 bull market where I always use the example, and I used it a lot in the last cycle. I said in the 2017 bull market,

everyone got excited too quickly. Everyone, you know, people overestimate the short term impact of innovation and underestimate the longterm potential. And everyone like, Hey, we're going to tokenize Uber. I remember that was one of the best example.

I even lost that Decentraland back then I was presented with investing in Decentraland. The website was shit. I'm like, fuck that. He's just way too early for this. Obviously Decentraland backfired on me, but the Uber one, you know, ended up, I'm glad I fuck that. They're just way too early for this. Obviously, Decentraland backfired on me, but the Uber one ended up,

and I'm glad I didn't invest. But what we're seeing is a lot of these projects continued building. Decentraland's being a great example. And some of them actually took them a few years, but they're getting there, and they're getting the traction they deserve. And that's why we talked early, and we talked, me and Robbie from Animoca yesterday, about OTC deals. I think this is something that anyone in the audience that has capital to invest privately, I think you should go to projects you like and go to them and say, hey, I really like

what you guys do. I want to invest, but I'm happy to lock up my money. I'm happy to lock it up for three months, six months, 12 months, or linear over 12 months, whatever it is. We can do a whole, if you're interested in this in the audience, just put it in the comments, bottom right corner, we might do a space on this. I'll try to convince Scott to do it because he doesn't like talking about DJ and stuff too much, but I'm happy to kind of dig into a bit more on how we do it. And that's a great strategy. I think you should go to a project, say, Hey, I believe in what you do. I want to invest at a discount. I'll lock up my money. And if you have, if you're an influencer, you have some sort of media reach, you can even put in a media package, say,

I'll talk about you as well. As long as you disclose it. Um, and, uh, and, uh, and,

uh, yeah. And then you'd be part of your journey. So I think there's a lot of potential, as Robbie said, from Anamoka, a lot of great projects that have already listed, because this is not our first cycle.

This is, uh, I'd say our third major cycle of startups, you know, coming up, you know, raising money and trying to develop their ideas and innovate. But let me go to Dan.

Dan, we'd love your thoughts and we'll go to William afterwards. We'd love your thoughts on the back and forth. It's a pretty broad discussion on our strategy and our expectations moving forward. Your thoughts and your position on these various topics. Yeah. Thanks guys. Good to be here.

A couple of things that kind of jumped out to me is that quite often when projects go through big drawdowns, they don't come back. So through multiple cycles, I think Ram was saying, or maybe he was saying, even good projects can go through massive, substantial drawdowns. If you look at projects that did well in the 2016-2017 bull run and then get big drawdowns, they very rarely come back. Look at the projects that were big in 21,

again, very rarely come back. So I think that's, you know, some caution there. It is to do with the kind of meme economy. Once the attention's gone, it's very hard to get that back. And there's a lot of people that, you know, are trapped in the position where they bought them much higher.

And then, you know, there's a large amount of sell kind of demand there. I don't do very much in terms terms of investing myself i'm mostly bitcoin but have done a few things um a couple of bits of advice i would guess would be one of the good projects that i got into was imagine ai um and that would that had just been featured on the joe rogan show very briefly i looked at it and it had about a three million dollar market cap so when you put those two things together, that was very obvious that was going to see a big run. And then more recently, I invested in Truflation. That's everywhere all over Twitter, you see a lot of big people pushing Truflation, their dashboard or whatever,

to get a chance to get in on their private sale. And the valuation there was very low. I think the FTV was about 30 million. So it's, you know, if you have mainstream or like big, um, attention on a project and a very low market cap, but particularly a very low FTV, um, that's something that's worked very well for me. Yeah, we know the, I don't know about imagine AI, but we know the true fashion guys very well i think we invested i'm pretty confident we invested in true inflation love the team there oh you invested as well nice um william uh hi yeah i so i wanted to react to uh durant's comment uh regarding nfts uh ran have you

uh heard and i wonder what you think of the sports fantasy segment of NFTs usage as one of the use cases? That's not maybe been so visible lately. I was wondering specifically, there's one called Silks, Game of Silks, silks.io. Disclosure, I'm one of the top owners of horses in that game. So there's there's that one there's this crown, there's a crown, the token crown, it's it's a don't know what the name of the platform is, but the token is called crown. And again, they're what they've done is they've emulated horse racing

games, horse racing, they've emulated real horse racing with NFT. So basically, kind of i mean i'm going to dumb it down slightly but effectively what happened what happens is you're racing nfts of horses um and it's called it's called photo finish that's what the game is called called photo finish um you're racing nft horses now again for me anything where where you're racing, where there's a use case for the NFT, I think is amazing. I think NFTs that just make you NFTs so that you can feel part of a community, waste of time. Yeah, I think that was just really for the audience.

The one, I don't know if it's Florida Finish or another one that does the same thing, but I remember doing a space on them like two years ago in the bear market. And essentially what they do is, let me know if that's the one you're talking about, Ran, without mentioning project names, but the concept is, and it applies to different sports, is that the NFT represents the real-life performance of that, let's say, player or that horse or whatever it is, let's say basketball. So if the player does well or wins an MVP in real life, if you own an NFT of that player, then the value of your NFT goes up. So essentially there's that connection between the real world and the NFT. And then

there's competitions of the NFTs that are also impacted by the real world. So yes, for me, yes, for me, what the Holy Grail is when it comes to this specific narrative, right? So you think about people that race horses, for them, it's a culture it's a religion it's like a like race horse people like like people that are mad that are crazy about football right um uh those those people are completely obsessed now for me the holy grail of this is when you take real horses you put them onto an nft you get the ai to watch every single race and use all the data points for every single race once all data points you know how thick the grass is which jockey is riding them what the wind is on that day what the altitude is you put all the things into the data model and combining ai with nfts what you create is you create 24 7 of horse races

so effectively you almost think of it like fantasy league but of ai driven nft horses now i know that a lot of protocols are actually developing this and to be, it's not a very hard thing to develop. You just need to combine the AI with the NFT. And then what happens is you land up with an amazing game that these people who are trying to

who are completely addicted and can't wait for the weekend. I remember when I was a soccer fan, and I'm not a weekend right like i remember when i was when i was a soccer fan and i'm not a soccer fan anymore but when i was a fan i couldn't wait for my team to play every saturday i was like like man it was like seven more sleeps six more sleeps couldn't wait for that adrenaline rush now the horse the horse racing people are are even much more addicted than than the normal than the normal people they're like You want to talk about adrenaline junkies

and degen gamblers, the horse racing people, they're basically the winners. They are basically the winners. Now, if you can create NFTs of the horses, create AI that basically emulates real performance, in other words,

wind to jockey weight, altitude, whatever else the factors are. I'm not a horse racing person, so I can't tell you what the factors are. If you can create that, you basically win. If you can create 24-7 real horse racing, you basically win. Ran, there's a project called Spoiled Banana Society that does this with NFTs that are for fantasy football. So they're all representative of players in the same sense but it's only available during the season of football so i like what you're saying from an ai perspective that you could generate 24 7 races but don't you think that people would be not i mean like it seems so lame to play with ai horse racing that's

just like gambling without fair dice like it feels like just so lame to have ai horse races that you can't even see in real life like do people really want that you'll be surprised you'll be surprised how loyal these you know let me let me make it simple for you how many people play fifa you know the game fifa which is a which is effectively a um a fake version of fifa so you select your team which is either man Man United or your country or whatever. It depends whether you selected, I don't know what the FIFA version is of the British Premier League.

So you play Man United against Manchester City. How many people sit there and play those games all day fucking long? And how many people would- But they're actually people though. Don't you think people want to see people or actual horses race like what's the fun in watching ai battle ai because the ai are you but you better hold on but you battle you battle ai when you play it not against the person when

you play against a computer team whatever when i used to play fifa whatever 10 years ago i wouldn't always play with people even before the internet was there you'd play against the team and you choose the difficulty level so ai just said i think he's saying that in that case you're actually playing uh but remember in in in in the real world in the real world um uh uh people are betting on horse on horse racing so i said okay so the point he's asking is that who wants to watch AI play versus AI? Why not? Like, I don't know why not.

It sounds even more interesting. I'm sorry. Who cares about the human element? You'll see. I think, Matthew, I think what he's saying is ridiculous now as it's becoming the norm. People are dating AI in some context.

In Japan, there's that story of that person dating AI. To be honest, there's a logical argument for that. It's like you can optimize that. Obviously, I'm not going to date AI, but you can optimize the AI to fit all your requirements. I think just the analytical aspect of it, because you remember AI right now just sounds like robots, but when you start being able to analyze them

and determine different skill sets and stuff. I think it's different. I think when you move up the realms of sport, there is a hierarchy in terms of what the most bet on sports in the world are, right? So just instinctively, i think that there's more betting on horse racing than there is on golf and this is complete complete instincts right um and so what i think is that there is a massive market that just want to bet and if you give them like a bet if these guys are betting at the racetrack on saturdays and you can let them bet on the same horses on a Wednesday and a Thursday online while they're messing around, they're there for the adrenaline rush and they will land up betting.

We've seen it. We've seen it. We see how people bet slot machines. You know what I mean? So we've seen how this thing works. We've seen how this thing works. We've seen how this thing works. They they looking for they're looking for something to bet on or better than anything, anything that they can get their hands on to. Look, I agree with you. But the challenge what you're talking people want to bet when they

think they have an edge. If people think that all the AI technology is going to be colluding together to you know, what if they all finish at the same time, all these horses are so brilliant, and the AI is so perfect that all the horses just photo finish at the same time. But they won't. Well, you don't know that. They won't. Sorry about the back of my mouth. I was just watching a tweet by my team about humanoid factories. So it's like a factory trying to create robots, apparently. I was just looking at that since we're talking about the future. But Matthew, you're saying that all AI will essentially be optimized exactly the same way that the MLM will be identical, ai comes in and regulates all this stuff it just

makes it all the same so my point is there's no edge and what people gamble on is having an edge and if you take away the edge it's not interesting yeah but there's bots training right now are you saying there's no edge of one bot versus another? Or are you saying eventually the efficient market hypothesis will eventually kick in and they all get to that same level? The reason that there's an edge with AI now is because not everybody uses it. So if everybody in the ecosystem were to use the same tool, then the efficient market hypothesis must be true. But then you're essentially, but then, but that comes under the assumption that will be like one AI that rules them all, one form of intelligence that is the most intelligence that we all use, which is a pretty dystopian world. Well, don't you think that all AI would then learn from itself

to get better and better, all to some seemingly singularity AI that does make all this? But this is my answer to this is like, this is, I think it's a very valid point at point that I don't want to have nightmares tonight. I already have sleep apnea. So I don't want to have nightmares tonight. I think it's based on our investment thesis right now.

It's too early for that long-term. I'll avoid another sleepless night, but I think it's a very valid point, by the way, maybe we should have you come in one of our AI shows that we do and kind of brainstorm it there. I do want to a very valid point, by the way. Maybe we should have you come in one of our AI shows that we do and kind of brainstorm it there. I do want to go, Matthew, just back to the title, the space. It's like the strategy moving forward.

I'll go to Dave and then back to you, Matthew. Now, Dan, what is your – oh, Dave just dropped out. It's been glitching for him for a while. So I'll go to you, Matthew, since we're going back and forth. Then Dan and William, what is your strategy moving forward? Looking at the markets now, it's been choppy for the last 60 days. We've seen retail interest diminish or, as Rand said, being flushed out based on social media metrics, among others.

We've seen, you know, we're talking about private rounds that haven't been performing as well. Meme talks are still pretty solid. NFTs have done well based on Robbie's discussion yesterday. And Bitcoin is where it is, like, I think, pretty, pretty healthy position to be in the Bitcoin ecosystem is getting a lot of interest. What's your stance on the market? So what's your strategy moving forward? I think one of the things I really try to remember is how much, like, how sad I feel inside when the market goes and completely rips faces off, because I'm all of a sudden realizing I'm not as allocated as I want to be. And I think to myself, man, I wish it wouldn't do this so fast. I wish it would just slow down a little bit and just chill. And then I guess for 70 days, I've had my wish. So it's been really nice to dollar cost average, find the projects that I've liked and double down on them. When I look at projects now, it's very hard for me to

look at new projects and say, this is going to be, I was so, so heartbroken in 2017 to think that there's projects I think now that are going to exist six months from now with the same, you know, market fervor that they have currently. So something like Jupiter is a great one to call out. Like I love a DEX, I love the ecosystem on Solana, but it is, you know, it's something I'm interested in holding, but like, I wonder where this is going to go from, from, you know, a year from now or six months from now or whatever the case is. So I like to look back at projects that have sustained community and sustained value over at least a cycle, if not two cycles, I'd like to see them as old as 2017 or as old as 2020, just from a dollar cost average perspective as well.

Dan, let's say, I'm sorry, Dave, you're back, Dave, that same question to you. Not sure if you heard it. Because I know glitched out. Yeah, no, I heard it. It's Yeah, it's been a great space. By the way, I just want to compliment you and ran while you have divergent approaches. I thought the conversation and the conclusion of the need for transparency is absolutely great. And I love the religion, you know, the religion casino and technology. I'm going to plagiarize that.

I'll just warn you now is I think that that's quite brilliant. And I do have a comment on gambling. I think that I agree people gamble, but this whole notion that people gamble with an edge. I mean, my grandfather was a bookie. I knew what a vigorous was when I was three years old. That's that's a bunch of happy horse shit. All you have to do is walk into a casino and see idiots putting money into into slot machines all day long, sitting there getting their free drinks and knowing they're giving up 16 percent, 7 percent, whatever the number is, edge to somebody else. I think that I think you're right, Rand. I think whatever the number is, edge to somebody else. I think you're

right, Ran. I think people will gamble on anything they think is exciting. But don't underestimate the value of live sports. The fact that people wear jerseys of their favorite athletes, I don't think people are going to be wearing jerseys of their favorite AI. I agree. I agree. But I want to just tell you something. You know what the fastest growing sport is at the moment? Esports. Esports. And what is esports? what's the difference between esports and virtual horse racing it's one is two gamers one guy sitting in korea and one guy sitting one team sitting in korea and one guy sitting in philippines and the person betting on the esports is sitting in the

united states he has zero control over the game and let me and dave let me add one more point as well he said no one's going to wear a jersey of their favorite AI. Well, there's AI influencers right now with more following than all of us combined. Yeah, well, that's true. But that's because they're hot looking, right? You know, I mean, let's face it. I mean, we all know sex sells and there's a large part of it. It's not an act.

I don't. You just said, hold on. You said AI, you just said AI hot looking sells, but we won't wear a t-shirt of it. Oh, I didn't say you won't wear a T-shirt of it. You see that we're going down a – People want to emulate athletes. The reason I'm late today is because the Rangers were in double overtime last night winning. I mean, you know –

Hold on. Wait. My thing is that we actually do emulate athletes. So, again, just to be clear, I think the winner is the person who takes real horses, converts them into NFTs, and then the AI watches every single horse race that that horse race that has that horses ever run. And then the AI effectively knows, I'm giving it to you simplistically, but knows how the horse performs at certain altitudes, how the horse performs certain lengths of grass certain winds certain weights of a jockey etc etc so the ai has all the data inputs and then what happens is the races are created and i say to you okay horse named uh japanese musketeer i don't need the horses are the crazy names is running in on the kentucky field and the jockey is this guy. And that becomes the horse race. Now,

based on everything that you know, you got to decide whether or not this horse is going to win. Now, I mean, isn't that effectively like it becomes a game of saying, oh, wow. I want to be clear. I agree with you on the gambling nature. I mean, look, if people are willing to sit there while they're eating whatever in the buffet and play Keno in Las Vegas and watch numbers come up and bet on it, they're obviously going to be willing to bet on something

that looks real and is cool and like a game and gives them that adrenaline rush of watching the horses move. I think you're right. I just think that, you know, and we talk about efficient markets. I mean, boy, that's a whole, I think it was Matt that was going through that. I would love to have a conversation about efficient markets and quantitative finance, because I can remember, believe it or not, 30 years ago, having conversations with a couple of UC,

University of Chicago professors in behavioral finance, talking about their vision of efficient markets playing out because it'll all be bots trading against each other and i think we have a long way from that i think yeah i think i think we'll never i think that we'll never reach that stage until and if you and matthew agree but i think until um as long as humans are the the the the leading form of intelligence i think we'll never reach an efficient um efficient stage. But as soon as that flips, then it becomes a different paradigm. Mario, I so strongly agree with you. All I could tell you is I run a company, CoinRoutes, that what we do is, and this has happened many

times, is we provide people buying cheaper and selling more expensive when they've reached the decision to buy or sell. And every time we've been benchmarked against an internal system someone's developed, we beat it. And beat it by a lot. Yet, not everyone's banging down our door because people like to do it themselves. People just like to do stuff. I mean, the markets are inefficient. If anyone wants to trade better, I mean, obviously you can look us up. But, you know, that's important.

But I want to get back to the more important thing up. But, you know, that's important. But I want to get back to the more important thing, which you're talking about is the market. 70 days of chopping, all I could say is the longer we continue to chop. And what you see is this is not a low volatility chop like we had in the fall. Although that was, you know, because back then, you know, we were seeing two, three, four hundred dollar days in Bitcoin. I mean, yeah, OK, it was a third the price. But, you know, even today, you know, we've had a thousand dollars in movement while this space has been going on. And that matters.

And so, you know, when there's movement and it's range bound, you get a lot of people, a lot of money cycling around. It's building strength. There's no, you know a lot of money cycling around. It's building strength. There's no excessive leverage in the system. It's there. And it could continue for a long time. You know, as for the all season narrative, I mean, I just look at the ETH Bitcoin ratio bumping right now at the bottom. I mean, 0.048 or thereabouts or where we are is pretty close to the bottom, meaning that Bitcoin is as dominant vis-a-vis ETH as it's been in this cycle. And that's generally not indicative of when you're seeing Bitcoin falling because people are siphoning money off to go into alts. Now, maybe Ether

is losing to Solana and maybe that's what's going on. I don't think so. The truth is, is that there's a lot of internal dynamics. I think that the market is setting itself up for some interesting moves. Those interesting moves might be two months away, might be four months away, might be two days away. But I think there's a lot going on underneath the surface. Yeah, I think one thing I want to do is have more speakers come on and kind of tell us about their strategy. I'll talk to Scott about this. And I also like how me, Ran, and Scott, we're a different spectrum of how degen we are, what our risk appetite is.

I think I still, even Ran, your involvement in gummies and Tuca Carlson, I still think I'm more degen than you. I think you're in the middle, and I think Scott is the least degen. He's the most conservative, in my opinion. Not sure if you agree with that. But I think we take higher risks, and we're a bit more degen than you. And I appreciate the panel as well. We have people that all they do is Bitcoin to others that go pretty damn deep

and more degen than all three of us combined. So I want to have more of these discussions. And let me go to Dan and William. Guys, I'd love to get the same question to you, Dan, is what is your strategy moving forward? It could be just, hey, it could be as simple as DCA into Bitcoin and that's it. Or, you know, there could be other strategies you haven't disclosed yet. Yeah, sure thing. So, um, I'm, I'm almost entirely Bitcoin, um, do a few things here and there. Um, my strategy for the

year, I mean, I started this on the 1st of January was I placed the largest ever, um, options trade I've ever placed a place to very long, um, December date, the options trade on Bitcoin. Um, that's some kind of decent volume, the biggest size of it. Um, I don't know what the price of Bitcoin is going to be. Um, at the end of the year. Um, one of my favorite sayings is sayings is price predictions are like nipples. Everybody's got one. I don't know what it's going to be,

but I know it's going to be higher. I think it's quite likely to be substantially higher. So that was the basis behind the options trade. Other than that, try not to overtrade. Try not to chase things that are already running. I have played around a little bit with some Solana meme coins and that kind of stuff, but that's more just really for fun.

Isn't it fun? It is fun. Yeah, it is fun. Would you rather go to a movie with your wife or sit at home and DJ on Solana shit coins using Birdseye, to be honest? Yeah, well, I mean, I'd have to find a wife first but um yeah it's fun i mean it's fun just in terms of like getting wins like the dopamine hit like when the guy the casino the slur casino burn all the slurf tokens right and we're like what a moron well

like that's attention so me and my buddy uh we're out like yeah we just throw a couple of slimes it it's more fun it's not really for kind of like making money. It's more of a hobby. I think more fun. I need to ask you a question. I need to ask you a question, but be honest. What's more fun that or sitting in front of a slot machine in Vegas? Be honest. Oh yeah, for sure. That's way more fun. I mean, uh, trading, trading on a shake coin is way more fun. That's it. That for me, you know, you think of all the infrastructure and all the profits that the casinos have been able to gather in an algorithm that is designed against the player, right? So let's just be clear. One of the biggest industries in the world is playing a casino where the odds are designed against the player. Now, I do think that with meme coins, still the odds are designed against the player. Now, I do think that with meme coins,

still the odds are designed against the player. But I think meme coins are becoming a cultural roulette, a cultural casino. And so I think it's as much fun. And I think in time, the rules will become more fair. And when the rules become more fair, there's not going to be a house anymore. And effectively, it becomes much more fair,

much more fun gambling. Yeah, I agree.'s not going to be a house anymore. And then effectively it becomes much more fair, much more fun gambling. Yeah, I think, um, yeah, I agree. I just want to say one final thing, um,

about leverage. Um, I've been trading Bitcoin for six, seven years now, seven years, I guess. Um, if you've never been,

been blown out and been liquidated, then, you know, you haven't really been pushing it hard enough. I think everyone's been liquidated at some point. Um, but with the most recent price move, someone said something to me and i think it really stuck quite well um if you got blown out in this latest kind of price route then you were overly aggressively allocated if you

felt basically nothing in this recent kind of pressure then you were under allocated what you want to be when you have a 20 drop or something like that is you feel something like you go yeah that, that kind of sucks, but it's not catastrophic. And I think if you're in that space, if you're in that kind of level, then you know, you're probably the right amount allocated. But obviously, absolutely be careful with leverage. If you have a hard time sleeping at night, you're over leveraged. Testing. All right, cool. So I wanted to mention, agree with one thing that Dave said. All right. So Ryan, you're just choppy. Dave, you said one thing is that, I think it was you that said it,

you or Matthew, you hate when the market is just pumping like crazy and you just feel, and we said on this space, like you feel like you haven't prepared enough. It's like you can never prepare enough. And then, yeah, Matthew, I think you said that. And when the market is chop, like you feel like you, you haven't prepared enough. It's like, you can never prepare enough. I think, yeah, Matthew, I think you said that. And, um, and when the market is choppy, like it is now it's a perfect time to regroup with everyone say, all right,

guys, make sure that Ryan is muted. Uh, uh, host Nassau, Romy, whoever, just make sure Ryan's really, he's got a hot mic. It's glitching. But, um, when the market is, is this kind of, he starts to go sideways. Yeah. I bought shit. We weren't prepared. Let's start, you know, we know where the market is heading. We know, at least in my opinion, the cycle is repeating itself. And let's, you know, in my opinion, even over allocate. That's how bullish we are. So I think I like when the market is as choppy as it is now.

And yeah, I think it's obviously if it continues being choppy for way too long, it's like six months of choppiness, it's a different discussion. But if we get another couple of months of this level of choppiness, it's great for us to kind of prepare for what we consider to be the inevitable, um, you know, new all time highs and that kind of craziness we've seen in previous cycles.

Even though I do agree with speakers from yesterday that it will be, it will be different in some ways. It will be more mature. It will be like we talked to me and Ryan, like the unlock schedules of these project launches have been more, um, uh, you know, more fair and still has a way to go. Um, so I kind of wanted to agree with that point. Also, I, I am Ryan, is your mic working? No, I'm not sure if Dave or William or anyone would say,

do you guys remember the, I'm not sure who has them hot mic now. I think it's William. All right. So do you guys remember and I I'm not sure who has the hot mic now. I think it's William. All right. So do you guys remember, and I want to kind of wrap up the space, and this is not a sponsorship, even though we're invested in POG. I saw you guys request. So we talked about the utility of NFTs. Does anyone else remember these POGs? Like I come from a poor country and that was like my biggest passion. I was obsessed with them as a kid. Okay. Matthew, do you remember those POGs?

So anyone that's young in the audience, how would you describe POGs, Matthew, or Dan? Like those little circular anyone that's young in the audience, how would you describe pogs, Matthew or Dan? Like those little circular, it's like collectible card, but it's like a circular thing. And I'm not sure if you also played with it where you actually, you compete with someone, you have to hit them on the ground. If they flip, it means you win and you take the ones that flip. Did you do that?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're like little cardboard discs, right? And you stack them up. Yes. You throw like a big plastic one on top of it. And the ones that flip over, you get to keep. And then you stack them back up you throw like a big plastic one on top of it and the ones that flip over you get to keep and then you stack them back up again and the other guy has a go um i don't know some kind of collective delusion i guess yeah there was i was obsessed with those the piece you use to throw on top of the pogs like it was it was always like the the kind of

the big dick thing in the room was like who had the heaviest slammer they called it a slammer right and this thing could be like half an inch or a full inch like people had like brass knuckles as these things like it was amazing and they had sleeves people collected them they were like pokemon cards it's fantastic yeah so so the reason i brought you up pog is again it's not a sponsorship so i don't want to say they're talking about what you guys do even though it's fascinating and relevant more i, I want to kind of link it to first the feeling of when I first got the team sent it in the group, no one in my team knew what it was, except me.

So I'm like, shit, we're hiring the right people, young people that don't know what pogs are. Because they're all young. But I was obsessed. And I think either we're about to invest or I think we invested already. But I have a feeling we already did. But the question I have for you is the other narrative that was gaining a lot of traction in the last cycle, and I don't think has gotten that same level of traction this time around, because it's

a lot more complex than people make it out to be, is Web2 companies moving to Web3 or Web2 asset classes being decentralized. And it kind of goes to the horses thing. And in a way, like the horse, it's a Web2 horse, a real life or physical world horse, and it's replicated into an NFT. What are your thoughts? We'll probably do a whole sponsored space on this, I think. But what are your thoughts on the concept of a Web2 asset class

or Web2 business going into Web3? Well, imagine if you could tokenize nostalgia. They say that it's subtle, but it's powerful. So if you could tokenize nostalgia for 200 million people around the world who collected these things across 40 countries, 10 billion of these things sold, I think that would be powerful. And then if you turned it into a game that people could play at any time, the way rand's talking about i think it becomes something magnificent we just had an olympian play our game yesterday he won 100 he won 1100 in two minutes uh and so we're putting that out but you know i think so do you have the but do you have do you have the same concept of like you hit it on the ground and it flips

wins like you're you're replicating the whole thing yeah dude so we've got four games but that's the first game. You bring your pogs, I bring mine. We had a tournament on Solana. We had 1,200 people qualify. We had 4.7 million pogs flipped in five days. It was $1.2 billion worth of collectibles being played with. Jesus. And so that's the power of the 30 to 45-year-olds if you tap into their nostalgia.

But the fact is, for these Web2 brands to be successful in Web3, they have to come from a native thought process. They have to come from somewhere, somebody who is Web3 native. I've been mining Bitcoin since 2012 on Butterfly Labs, ASIC rigs. I've watched the whole industry. I mean, I lost hundreds, I lost millions and millions of dollars in the Mt. Gox hack. And that's what moved me from banking to Google. I built the first machine learning team at Unity with the now head of AI at Google, Danny Lang, and researched blockchain in 2017, 2018 at Unity. Just got done helping build Rivian over the last two and a half years. And then

as we IPO'd, I moved over back to POG, to the blockchain. But the reality is we've worked with a number of Web2 brands that are trying to make this transition, and they have no idea what they're doing. You can look at Dolce & Gabbana. You look at how Nickelodeon partnered with Berker and then Rugged a year later after they brought $40 million out in the market. It really has to come from a Web3 native who understands and believes in this technology and is pushing it to take advantage of every piece of the blockchain. Our co-founders include, last thing I'll say, our co-founders include the head of collectibles at eBay

and the head of gaming at Solana Labs. We really are bringing the best of Web3 and the best of Web2 together. Yeah, I think, first, we're happy to be an investor and love what you guys are doing and love pogs, be honest but um i think that the whole in the last cycle there was a really sexy narrative of any company like web 2 going to web 3. it's like a massive thing because we felt like we still felt in the web 3 ecosystem we still felt like these guys on the side that no one cares about we're like we haven't been validated yet but i think that the feeling of validation's kind of passed with the etfs and the amount of inflows we're seeing now and the narrative changing.

And I don't think now Web2 getting into Web3 is not as exciting. If anything, it's more of a concerning point because figuring out the tokenomics and the strategy is really, really difficult. But I also think that if you figure it out and do it properly, Telegram being one example, I think they're still doing well, but Telegram, I think they've done well in that sense, is very lucrative. William, maybe getting your final thoughts on that strategy of Web2 moving into Web3.

Yeah, so in my opinion, Web2 companies are not very good at experimenting with new business models, but they are very good at copy pasting in new models that have been already proven and have a known playbook. So I think we need to wait to see more visible Web3 models to show the way and then the Web2 companies will come in.

So I think this is more of a 2025 forward. If you take the example of the Telegram, it's not a proven thing. I mean, they've they put in a token instead of messaging app. I can't even tell if it's successful or not with the uptake. But they've done, they've also done NFTs for handles. I'm not sure if you've seen that. Yeah, but I mean, so it's difficult to tell really the pickup and the actual traction. So I wouldn't call that as necessarily the model per se.

But it's like i'm puzzled that but i think i think what's more interesting though sorry william that question i'm gonna leave that to question i think a web 2 company shifting to web 3 is difficult and not as proven but someone getting ip from the web 2 world and turning it to web 3 is a lot more proven and a lot more uh i think the playbook is there for that strategy do you agree? Just the IP kind of tokenizing the IP, leveraging the IP and building out an ecosystem around it but not shifting a Web2 company to Web3

like getting something like Pokemon and then the Pokemon goes out and does an NFT collection with a game a Pokemon game, I think people will just imagine playing Pokemon which I used to be obsessed with as well, like genuinely obsessed playing Pokemon and then being able to make money on winning competitions or whatever it is or collecting some sort of Pokemon. Yeah, but this is not innovative. This is copying.

I think we're going to see the opposite happen, which is Web3 companies showing off some Web2 features to bring in the Web2 users. Because behind the Web2 companies, there are Web2 users. There are 5 billion Web2 users, but only a fraction of Web3 users. So take the example of Warpcast or some of the other Web3 apps, the ones that are easier to come in and that look like a Web2 interface, but hide beneath that Web3 features that are optional. I think that will be more of the playbook going forward

because these companies are innovating. They're not just copying things. Yeah, Dave, i have a question for you david i think i'll wrap it up after this one have you noticed a pattern day whenever scott can't join like he's on a plane now and he's flying back home whenever he cannot join his space we take advantage of that we go down the dj path it's like he's like he's got one more gorilla for it or get pissed off from the back channels so not only is he is he not uh joining us he cannot even listen to the space from the plane.

So I took advantage of the opportunity and wanted ZGen as possible. It does tend to move in that direction. I mean, the thing is, is what you call ZGen, though, really, I mean, I know I'm going to sound obsequious here, which for me is so not my personality, but it's not really ZGen. What you're really talking about is innovation. And there's all sorts of different ways of being innovative the casino aspect of it which ran highlighted yeah sure that's the degen part and but but it one of the things that people don't have and i think that everyone should understand

this shit's been going on in different ways in traditional finance for forever right you know whether it's otc you know trading that's on pink sheets, or whether it's the way VCs do all their crap. And then anyone who watched or just look at the WeWork saga, and how the valuation kept getting bumped and bumped and up with the idea that you're going to basically have retail holding the bag at an IPO. I mean, you know, no matter how you want to look at it, investing is always people want to get in early and in front of other people. Everybody always wants to get an edge. So is that a degen thing?

Well, I mean, yeah, but it's natural human nature. The difference is in what you're talking about, Mario, it's much more democratic. I mean, sure, there's still advantages, but it's much more democratic. It's much more egalitarian. And I think that that is not an insubstantial, it's not an unimportant point. Yeah, I think it's a good discussion. And I think we should do more of those. Let us know in the comments.

Maybe the audience didn't enjoy it, which I disagree. But I want to show the comments to Scott so we can do more of those without him attacking me. So let us know in the comments if we should or shouldn't have those discussions, kind of discussing our strategy and discussing various asset classes beyond the markets and just the regulatory environment, which we should also discuss because at the end of the day, we're all, you know, Bitcoin is still king and what the SEC does will impact all asset classes.

Bitcoin drops, we're all fucked, no matter what asset class you're in, at least for now. But do let us know in the comment section, what type of spaces you want us to do. But it was a great discussion. I enjoyed it. We'll see you again tomorrow. Scott will be here.

So we'll probably be talking about the SEC again. We'll see everyone tomorrow. Thanks a lot, everyone.