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00:00:01
Talkin' Apes w/ Tan Ha
104 Plays2 years ago
Dylan & Steve chat with their friend Tan Ha about Bored Apes, Yuga Labs, and why they think greedy people suck. Dylan giggles, Steve goes off on a tear, and Tan plays along smoothly.
Join the Nervous Discord server: https://discord.gg/6btBJAWwKu
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Transcript
Introduction and Tan's Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Dylan. I'm Steve. And I'm Tan. And we are nervous.
00:00:39
Speaker
So, Tan, that was our great plan, was to see how you would react if we did the intro that way. And you did a fantastic job. I'll go along with it. I can play along. So, Tan, thanks for coming on the show. We're excited to have you on our second episode. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:00:59
Speaker
So, Tan, tell us a little bit about, don't get too far into NFTs because that's going to come up in a little bit, but tell us a little bit about yourself so people know who you are aside from one of my good friends that I met because of NFTs.
00:01:12
Speaker
I met Dylan at work at Vayner NFT, now Vayner3. By the way, my opinions don't reflect Vayner3, they're my own. I just have to say that. But currently, I'm an associate creative director, so I work on the creative team on Vayner3 to just help brands stay relevant with Web3 tech. But prior to that, did a lot of video work, worked for Gary Vee.
00:01:36
Speaker
And then now I'm just in Portland enjoying beer, enjoying coffee, hanging out, taking it easy. Moved away from New York a couple months ago, so that's a little bit about me.
00:01:49
Speaker
Well, cool. So Tan, a couple of questions we wanted to ask, and we're trying to ask more people this than just you, but it depends on your answer. If your answer is shitty, we probably won't ask anybody else, but just cut it out. Just delete this section. We're going to go to straight to episode three. So two will be the last episode. It would be on the extended edition DVD of our life.
Investing in NFTs and Lessons Learned
00:02:07
Speaker
Um, so what brought you into NFTs? Like, how did you get into NFTs in web three?
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, I bought ETH in 2017. I was traveling that entire year, but I was in Argentina. And if you ever visited Argentina, every Sunday people line up to go to the ATMs to pull out cash because usually by Monday or Tuesday, they'll run out of cash.
00:02:32
Speaker
Get the fuck out of here, seriously? Yeah, so from the crypto side and buying ETH in 2017, I kind of understood what people always talk about with crypto, which is like the decentralized part.
00:02:47
Speaker
hedging it against centralization from the most abstract level. But that's personally how I got into it. I heard about CryptoKitties. I didn't go that deep into NFTs and CryptoPunks at that time. And there was a bull run and then I just held and it crashed. But I joined Team GaryVee and
00:03:07
Speaker
Gary texted the team, like get educated on NFTs. And it was right before he was launching V friends. And that's how I like, I got reintroduced to it. I already had each set up. I had my wallet set up and it was just a matter of playing. Um, so that I started buying, uh, around like 2021. So like that beginning of that bull run. Um, but that's how I got into it again. So how'd you get your ape?
00:03:33
Speaker
How do I get my ape? It's transparent, right? I spent 50 ETH on it. Yeah. And I got lucky. I worked at an Israeli startup. It went public. I took that money and then I funneled into ETH and I bought the ape, which technically it's paid back in ape coins. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's so fascinating for me though, because when the apes were launched, my brother and I were hanging out talking about NFTs. I just started really getting into it.
00:04:01
Speaker
And a friend, Sean Bonner, told Harper and I to go buy Apes. Like it was on, she's like, you guys should buy Apes. We didn't fucking buy Apes. I had no, I had no liquid E so I couldn't just do it. I just quit my job and was trying to do this new crazy thing. So I couldn't be like, honey, I need to spend a hundred dollars on a cartoon monkey for reasons. And then Harper was just like, oh, I don't want to do it. I don't like the art, whatever. And then like a month later, we're both like, we're so fucking dumb. We are so dumb. And it's one of those things where like,
00:04:31
Speaker
I don't have a lot of regrets in my time in web three, but that's one of those times where I'm like, it was like, it would have been like, I think it was like 79 bucks at Mint. I would have bought like one. I would have been like, cool. I'm good. But instead I'm like, well, that's nice. Enjoy your fucking ape, you dicks. So yeah, no, it's definitely funny. So now, now whenever Sean tells me to buy something, I still don't buy it because I'm lazy, but I'm a little bit more like, I hope I didn't just fuck myself again.
00:04:56
Speaker
Damn, Dylan. That's okay. It could have gone multiple ways. I feel like you guys strike at the right time and place to build out their ecosystem. Yeah, I think they definitely struck at the right time to build something that no one expected, I think, including them. Right. And I think that's what's so interesting. And because of them, so many people entered this space thinking they were going to be able to get rich.
00:05:23
Speaker
Well, one of the interesting things for me, like looking at the whole phenomenon of Yuga is that like those guys didn't have a fucking plan, you know? And in the space right now, nearly every project, their plan is we're going to be the next Yuga Labs. And the problem is, is that these people do not have the vision, the intelligence or the fucking wherewithal
00:05:50
Speaker
of Yuga, they just don't have it. Like there's an awful lot of things that you sort of need in succession to become successful in this world. One of them is luck. One of them is timing. And one of them is just being fucking interesting, intelligent, amazing person. And you've got all these projects run by like, just boring dipshits, you know? So it's one of those things where I'm like, yeah, of course this is all going to go to zero. Look at the people in charge.
Yuga Labs' Strategy and Community Building
00:06:18
Speaker
Well, I know that when
00:06:20
Speaker
after apes happened and then we did atom bomb squad and that sold out so fast. I was getting calls from people and I was on probably four calls two or three days after ABS dropped people being like, yeah, we're going to be the next apes, but cooler. And I'd be like, well, what does that mean? And they're like, you know, like the art's going to be better and all this stuff. I'm like, that's not why it was successful. It was successful because it was at the perfect time and place. Like it had nothing to do with the artwork.
00:06:47
Speaker
They had a roadmap, roadmaps are their fault, but it was still like this thing where it was like, they started, this is like almost a joke. Like, hey, I drew these fucking cartoon monkeys. We should make NFTs, fucking done. You know, magic happens. I love it. Yeah. Also makes me mad, but I love it.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think Steve is right. I think Yuga did really well in propping with their community. They, they struck at the right time, you know, that April period, they inherited a large community relatively in the East space at that time. But even like with Kennel and all the next drops and bringing value back to the holder at the right time before that became like a tactic, I felt like they improv very well with their existing holders and they kept expanding out of it.
00:07:33
Speaker
What I think the thing they did to which a lot of communities and NFT projects still fail to do is they've held like their core holders, the core ape holders are the most important holders. So if you hold an ape, you're more important than someone who holds a dog or just has some land or has ape coin. And so they're always rewarding from the top down. And I think it's almost trickle down economics. People at top get stuff and it slowly gets down to the rest of us poor people.
00:08:02
Speaker
But I think that's the thing is that it, because they've done that, people who have apes are super loyal. Right. And so they're going to participate in what they're doing. They're going to talk about it with people. And that's, that's something that they've done such a good job of so many other projects in order to get more people, they just try to release more products without thinking about how it's going to affect the original holders.
00:08:25
Speaker
The question is, we're still young in the space, right? The question is like, how long can they hold on to this? Even that recent stat with what's called Dookie Dash, it expanded their ecosystem by 40%, which is significant. And if you look at, you know, 8 coin being like the easiest way to enter and then Dookie Dash, other side, it's kind of insane how they're doing both now in terms of rewarding OG holders, but also expanding their ecosystem.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. And now it's written off brand, like if they can hold their brand and be that Supreme. Yeah. Well, I think they're in that lucky spot where they're such an early, early person, early company in this space that they are helping kind of write the map on what either brands can do or other bigger collections can do, because so many bigger collections or older collections have gotten stagnant. And you guys had this nice drip feed of new features that have happened.
00:09:22
Speaker
Totally. Well, all right. So Steve Dylan, you all have ran like projects, launched successful projects and so on. If you inherited the Yuga ecosystem and you like Elon Musk it like Twitter, what are you doing in the next 12 to 24 months with it? Because gaming is a direction right now, right? But you can pivot that.
00:09:45
Speaker
So by Elon Musk it, do you mean like run it into the fucking ground and then cry about it on Twitter or do you know, like go crazy with it, bought it, bought it. Do a first thing I'm going to do is get myself a punk.
00:10:02
Speaker
That's it from the Treasury. Where does embezzling fall off? I think if I had like the reigns of Yuga Labs for 12 months, not knowing really anything about what they already have on the pipeline is I would spend time trying to
00:10:22
Speaker
do callbacks to some of their other smaller things you know like the kennel club and even like the other side to where like the gaming part of it is taking place within like the other side even if it's not the same you know it doesn't have to be like in the metaverse all of that stuff but just has to be kind of
00:10:40
Speaker
inclusive of so if you have an other deed you can you know game on your land kind of thing to make it so it becomes this more it's kind of like how disney disney has what five different lands disney four different lands you were there last eve is it four or five
00:10:56
Speaker
um well they've got magic kingdom they've got epcot they've got oh no no i'm talking within just disneyland like the disney park so there's oh future western um new orleans usually for some reason i don't know but they have like four or five lands within the one park and each of those areas does its own thing very well but it's also tied directly to the other thing
00:11:21
Speaker
So you know, like apes are like the, I'm rich and it's tied to everything, but then you have like the other deeds, which people don't have to own any other Yuga product in order to have their other deed. And ape coin is the same way, but make it so everything's just a little bit more like, to use a term that I hate, a fucking flywheel, to get people to interact with more parts of the Yuga experience. And then I'd also find an easy way to onboard people at the very beginning.
00:11:49
Speaker
Like the gaming is like the best way to do that because we're all trained to game, even us 40 year old men. What about you, Steve? I mean, here's the thing is, is I'm not in their ecosystem. So for me, like my first order of business would be to just spend a lot of time listening, you know, like just spend a lot of time like talking to people and listening and trying to really get a bead on
00:12:17
Speaker
try and really get a beat on who's there already. You know what I mean? I feel like one of the mistakes that a lot of projects do is when they're trying to onboard shit ton of new people, but they don't even really understand their current customer base yet.
00:12:30
Speaker
So I would, you know, before I go fucking around with, you know, me and my brilliant ideas that I want to like start smearing my thumb prints all over everything. Like I want to make sure that I fully understand the people that are there already, the existing customer base, and make sure that I'm, I'm in a position to meet those needs first before I start trying to be clever on top of it. Oh, sure. Be responsible.
00:12:56
Speaker
I mean, that's me. Well, that's why you're the idea guy and I'm the spreadsheet guy. Yeah, it's true. What about you, Tan? What would you do?
00:13:04
Speaker
Well, I don't know. That's, that's the question I am posing here. Um, like what is their North star? Is it, I think the gaming route is, is a window into what they want to do, which is like world build and build it the biggest brand through like this emerging tech. But, um, I think currently what they do really well is switching between digital and IRL with eight best to, to bring the brand into real life. But the question is.
00:13:33
Speaker
How long can they keep doing like first mover advantage tactics until they fully build out like their own ecosystem? And I like what Steve said, I think at that day, like what we've learned from web three is you build a community first and you build a product for that community, which you guys done really well. I think exciting things that they could do is start buying
00:13:58
Speaker
existing tech companies. Oh, that would be amazing. Yeah. Because I do think they have what it takes to build their own, so to speak, Disneyland, but for whom? Is their demographic too old? Yeah.
00:14:13
Speaker
It would be interesting if Juga started doing a lot of like heavy investments in like not just like Web3 tech but also traditional tech and started kind of creating this brand that almost became like synonymous with Web3. You know it was like the Kleenex of Web3 where everybody just knew Ape and that's how they did it but they were also had their fingers in you know
00:14:39
Speaker
tech startups everywhere, you know, like you go lab buys Instagram from Facebook, you know, like that kind of shit would be like, what just happened? Okay.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think it validates them way more because right now they're heading towards gaming, right? And that's like their main biggest indicator, but they're also playing with new tech. They it's oddly the UGA labs have played out what I feel like larva labs always wanted to do because they have way more of a treasure chest of money. Yeah. They have a war chest for sure. Right.
00:15:12
Speaker
And I think they, and one thing I think they did a really good job of, and I would love to find out who on their team is the listener who spent all their time just hanging out on discords and Twitter and just absorbing all that information to be like, we should go now. Because every single thing they'd done has been like at that perfect strike moment versus a lot of people are like, oh, we're gonna do this.
00:15:41
Speaker
Goblin Town was a great example of somebody who they came in at the right moment, did a free mint. It was for the lols. And then they did Goblin Burger, which was also for the lols. But very few collections have had that kind of luck where they just keep hitting. It's like Ugalabs is the Pixar of NFTs. Yeah. Not everything has been critically acclaimed, but nothing has been a flop.
00:16:04
Speaker
which is insane. It's insane. Like I, I love the fact that they've been able to do that. And it makes me angry that I didn't buy one stupid Dylan. I really, like I really enjoy listening to Wiley talk.
00:16:19
Speaker
about every aspect of things. And it's one of those things that my initial kind of introduction to Borde was douchebags flaunting them. You know what I mean? It wasn't positive at all. It was very much people in the space who felt like minting a valuable PFP made them somehow smarter than everybody else. And they sort of treated that, instead of treating their luck as what it was, which is luck,
00:16:48
Speaker
you know, right place, right time. Like it was just luck instead of just being cool about it. Like I got fucking lucky. That's great. And now I'm here and it's cool. Like they tried to, you know, cosplay as intelligent people. And and the result was that like it was I mean, it really turned me off like hugely. You know, I was like, I mean, can you pop that fucking collar any higher, bro? Like just stop. It's just awful.
00:17:15
Speaker
So my first intro to the whole you go labs ecosystem was like, I don't want to fucking hang out with these people. And then once I once they docked themselves and I started hearing Wiley do these podcasts and stuff and hearing him talk.
00:17:29
Speaker
I'm like, I want to go and have a beer and a fucking taco with that guy. It was one of those things. It was a huge turning point for me because I realized that he's one of us. He is one of those salty old punk rock guys who just enjoys building shit.
00:17:46
Speaker
And and that to me was like my turning point with board ape. And so for me, like that's that's the appeal of the entire thing for me is knowing that there's like a couple of salty old Miami punks in the back that are like, I don't know, dude, like fucking roller coasters. I don't know. What should we do? Like, what should we do next? You know, I don't know. Can we donate some money to Jane Goodall so I can meet her? That would be fucking dope.
00:18:11
Speaker
You know, like that to me is, is the appeal of it because I understand better the motivations and the, um, the style of the people behind it. So what would you ask Wiley if you could have a bear with him?
00:18:30
Speaker
Oh, man. First, I'd want to get his recommendations for, like, best Cuban places in Miami. Growing up in Florida, like, I mean, I live in Ohio now. I miss having good Cuban food at the ready all the time. So that would be first thing I'm like, dude, I need sandwiches. I need con leche. Like, let's go. Let's go do this. Second, like, honestly, I would just want to sit and talk to the dude about music and, you know, growing up a punk rat kid in Florida. You know, I feel like on that level,
00:18:59
Speaker
There's an awful lot that you get to know about somebody and their motivations by understanding where they came from. And to me, I'm here to make connections with people. I'm here to make connections with people who want to do things like what I want to do. Not the same things, but people who want to build and people who want to experiment and people who want to create and people who want to support creators.
00:19:25
Speaker
Like that's, that for me is, is everything. So, you know, having the opportunity to like hang out and bond with somebody who I feel is like, kind of like a kindred sort of spirit in this place. Like that, that's all I would want to do. Like I wouldn't expect or demand any more of him than that. Yeah, totally. Also, if you had any apes lying around, like, I mean, take some apes from. And I heard, well, I heard him saying on a podcast that like they don't even have any.
00:19:54
Speaker
Like they, he's like, yeah, I've got one that I had to buy because we didn't save any for ourselves. Yeah. That's not surprising that at that period during a lot of NFT projects, like creators weren't thinking, Oh, this could become a thing. They were like, I just want to sell these, get my art out there, you know, get some money, that sort of thing. And then when they sell out there like, well, shit, I got to go buy my own damn shit. Fuck. That's crazy though. So Tan.
00:20:18
Speaker
You gave us a challenge there.
Vision for Ideal NFT Projects
00:20:21
Speaker
What is your ideal NFT project? If you were going to design an NFT project, what would you want it to be? I want a real business behind it.
00:20:35
Speaker
on the lines of what we're talking about the UGA labs and all that and I love that Steve really talked about like founders and their ethos because I think like culturally where they come from will influence how they push the current tech, right. I think with all the fud with even like UGA moonbirds recently and all that.
00:20:52
Speaker
I think I'm curious if there's a way to build an ecosystem with all merch, entertainment, and all that for NFT holders and make it free for the holders for life, whoever holds it, but charge people who want to participate in it outside of there to generate revenue.
00:21:10
Speaker
basically create a brand, direct to consumer, and then charge people who aren't in the NFT space if they do want to participate in the IRL aspects of it, but really reinvest that money into what Steve talked about the most, which is the tech side of it. And I think what Moonbirds is doing that's interesting is it's a tech company, first and foremost, before an NFT company. So I'm really curious about that side of it.
00:21:39
Speaker
But yeah, I think the answer is I don't know Dylan, but the components would be obviously like IP and also like figuring out how to like really extra reward the scarce like original holders. So how do you feel about projects that launch an NFT collection and then try to build a business off of it versus businesses
00:22:07
Speaker
that launch an NFT collection is a way to build a community around their existing business. Like something like Deadfellas versus ABS.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well, ABS, it's in their identity to reinvent themselves, right? So it's amazing that they've always put brand first and then, you know, then they happen to be like a t-shirt company. They've always been like a media company first and then they happen to be X, Y, and Z. So I think ABS like did a great job adapting and I think they always will, considering like Bobby and the team.
00:22:40
Speaker
I think I'm always bullish on the native people and new tech. If you look at Uber, Uber couldn't exist without iPhone and Android being dominant on top of GPS with Google Maps and so on. So it was a native mobile experience app that just ran with it. Obviously, there were legal challenges.
00:23:04
Speaker
I'm always bullish for natives because they don't see the friction of reinventing themselves and getting pleasing like their old community and then pleasing the new community. I think there's a lot of friction and baggage there. I think that's why Yunga Labs is really, really successful. I think that's why Larva Labs was able to like really spark the 10,000 number, which was enough online people to hang out and create that what we call community. All of that was unknown. They were like venturing the dark.
00:23:34
Speaker
But I think the natives will define the space the most. And I think that's why
00:23:40
Speaker
That's why I think the proofs community is the most interesting because yes, Kevin Rose has, he's from the VC world with Google Ventures and all that, and he's launched Digg and all that, but he's like taking that experience, cut it clean and started his own thing, which I think you get the best of both world of what the two scenarios that you outlined, Steve, I think that's the interesting part, but I still think that the natives will win the best.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think I agree with that. I think it is an interesting thing where we have people who are like the traditional tech people who have a hard time adjusting to the world of Web3 where everything changes every day. Everything is made up and the points don't matter. And we're still trying to figure out what the points are. And so many people, especially in old tech, have this feeling of they know how things are supposed to be done.
00:24:34
Speaker
And they're running headlong into people who maybe have never worked in tech before or have never worked in that kind of an environment, who are like, well, that's not how we do it. We do it this way. And it works. And the old tech people are like, wait, what you can't do? No, what? And so it's that kind of trade and attitudes that I think is going to be interesting to see the people who have no idea why they shouldn't be doing something a certain way versus the people who know how to do it right and then which one is able to create the new norm.
00:25:04
Speaker
I think is where we're at right now.
Tech Challenges and Opportunities in NFTs
00:25:07
Speaker
Well, you look at the marketplaces, right? With Blur, OpenSea back then looks rare. You can fork features like that because everything's on the blockchain. I think the part that people haven't wrapped their head around, because it's not tangible yet, is Yuga's ecosystem is a good example. It's a community that ties all the wallets together. And there's no tech behind that. You can't fork that. You can FUD it, you can sue it, the company and all that.
00:25:37
Speaker
And so I think I'm really excited to see a gigantic Ugalabs competitor. Right. For someone to come in and be like, someone to come in directly to compete with Ugalabs, not none of this. And they're going to have to have such a war chest to come in and be able to just throw their weight around enough to get it to where they're an actual competitor. It's kind of the
00:26:02
Speaker
It's going to be interesting to see if you can hold on when someone comes at them like that, or if they become like the friendster in my space where they have like hardcore followers until they die and then maybe they come back again. Um, but yeah, it'll be interesting. That'll be, that'll be fun. It'll be Disney. Yeah. I mean, it would have to be, I mean, because realistically, like it doesn't matter. I mean, the, the war chest, like from a logistical standpoint, yeah. Okay. That's going to matter. But mostly.
00:26:30
Speaker
Like who's going to come at Yuga with enough style and charisma to be able to engage people's imaginations the way that they have. Right. That's going to be a much harder get. Like there's any number of companies out in the world that have enough money to fuck you this day up. You know what I mean?
00:26:49
Speaker
But like there's not a whole lot of like legitimately creative, interesting, engaging people who are willing to like sit in discord and do the work to build that community. And honestly, that's where Yuga has a massive headstart, money aside. But Disney, if you're listening, call us because we will definitely help you do NFTs.
00:27:13
Speaker
do it. I highly recommend it. Just like last episode when I told someone to call us, we don't actually have a phone. So you'll have to probably hit us up on Twitter or something. I don't know. No, I do think it is interesting. And I think the reason I think Disney would be the people who could actually provide decent competition for any of the big NFT projects is that they have worldwide brand awareness
00:27:37
Speaker
across all ages so it's not like you know yuga their demographic is skewed what like probably late 20s to early 40s with some young bucks in there you know whereas like disney is like three to a hundred
00:27:54
Speaker
You know, and so there's a lot more income in that 97 year span than there is in that 20 year span. So I think it'll be interesting to see if, if Disney ever decides to do that. I doubt they will because web three is not necessarily family friendly, but they own enough companies, enough properties that don't necessarily fit into that umbrella anyway, that they could probably be fine. But I think they would be the one to do it. And I would love if they did it stealth mode, like just a project launched with like Supreme marketing and like that sort of thing. And then it came out that it was Disney all along.
00:28:24
Speaker
Right. Do you think we're too early to ask the scaling question of like a big brand entering and scaling it out though? Like until we talk about the tech rates until like wallet integration.
00:28:36
Speaker
through token-proof, token-gated sites, when that gets bigger and bigger and bigger, where Dylan, Steve, and Tan sees the internet differently because we can walk down different alleyways, both digitally and virtually, and in IRL. That's when a brand can really enter and do meaningful damage. Because I think we're still early with the tech. The tech is still emerging.
00:29:01
Speaker
a lot of things that need to add up before NFT can really plug in too. Yeah. I mean, the tech is garbage. Like, let's be super honest here. Like it is, it is all duct taped together and held together with hopes and dreams. Like, I mean, the, you know, Dylan and I have been talking about this a lot. And one of the things that Nervous is working on is we're trying to figure out like how, how do you put together a pretty easy to implement loyalty program?
00:29:30
Speaker
using NFTs as the base tech layer. And the first hurdle we've already hit is that wallets suck. They're terrible. They're absolutely terrible. And getting somebody to set up a wallet is needlessly difficult. And all of the options to, you know, do like wallets by, you know, email everything. It's like, OK, so you've got to sign up for the enterprise plan.
00:29:56
Speaker
And you've got to pay $10,000 a month in order for them to do this massive blast. So there is no punk rock way to do this. You either have to do it at enterprise scale with enterprise budget, or you're sitting back like us and just like, what does this mean for a band? A band wants to issue a token for their outlet. Let's say that rent hot water music.
00:30:25
Speaker
Gainesville bands, decent size following, but certainly not like a household name. Hot Water Music wants to release a deluxe digital version of their album. And it's downloads and a bunch of demos and stuff, and also comes with a token for that album. And then they want a token gate, a whole bunch of bonus material specific to that album just for that album, just with that release. How do they do it? It is fucking impossible for a mid-level band
00:30:55
Speaker
to be able to actually implement all of that stuff without paying more money than they're going to make off the release of the album to hire a company like us who are not even on the high end of this shit to sit down and custom build all of this infrastructure out. Like the technology doesn't fucking exist for average people to just build on it yet. So until we until we hit that point,
00:31:20
Speaker
until we hit that kind of like that that tipping point where like anybody legitimately anybody can just go and use this tech and build on it, then it's all just pie in the sky bullshit. Like we're all just sitting around crossing our fingers, you know, hoping that Starbucks is going to blow up the NFT space, bro. Like, I mean, it's it's just so it's such bullshit right now. And it drives me. It drives me insane.
00:31:47
Speaker
But we also love it and please hire us and NFTs are bullshit and Steve's been drinking a lot of coffee and we got to go. NFTs are great. NFTs are great. Here's the thing. I legitimately love the technology and the possibilities there. It's just that it's all still so, so larval form right now that it's so fucking hard to navigate. It's so hard to do anything. And it's, you know, like, like it's hard for me to get my wife to sign into her wallet.
00:32:15
Speaker
and like log into perk shop to claim something. And that is, you know, for those of us in web three, like logging into your wallet, going to perk shop, claiming something from BFF, like that is an incredibly easy, like little two step process, right? That is as simple as it gets. Getting her to do that is almost fucking impossible. So like for me, like I've, you know, I sit and watch like these constant hurdles to just everyday people doing everyday shit with tokens.
00:32:45
Speaker
And that's what we need. That's where we need to be. Every day people doing every day shit that just happens to use tokens. I think this is exciting, though. I think what Steve is saying is completely correct. And I think that's where the opportunity lies for anyone in the space, whether you're a builder, creator, artist or even like a consumer of it. Right. You look at Amazon when they first launched on the Internet.
00:33:08
Speaker
there wasn't cookie technology readily available to have the address there, have their name there, the shipping address, billing address, and so on. They had to patent one click to buy. They had to really build out the things that we take for granted today to really seamlessly purchase from an online site. And then people were skeptical putting their credit card on there. So I think that is a good state of the union compared to where we're at here. You look at Reddit.
00:33:35
Speaker
Reddit is such a good example, and hopefully there's a decentralized version of it. But the wallet is abstracted away, but the main value point of wallet interaction, which is the activity behind it, if you can measure that, you can build loyalty or reward behaviors. And I think that's the exciting part about where we're at today and what we can really build out tomorrow. Who knows if it's 12 to 24 months or even five years, but I think
00:34:05
Speaker
I think it's a massive opportunity based on like what Steve is outlining as a state of the union. Yeah, I think this is all very
Future of Web3 and Supporting Creators
00:34:13
Speaker
true. I think the hardest thing too is because this is new technology, it's going to take someone not native to the technology to bring it to the forefront and like force that adoption like Amazon did with online purchases.
00:34:30
Speaker
You know, we need it like we really do need someone. Some either has to be a big enough company that people know who it is and care. But it can't be so big that they ruin it for everyone because that's that's the fine line is that like if Amazon would have come along and been put together by like Barnes and Noble or another big bookseller at the time and then fucked it up. Right. Amazon would not have been successful. Online shopping may not have been as successful. So we need someone who to come along and say,
00:35:00
Speaker
Hey, like fucking AMC theaters, fucking we're doing NFT movie tickets. And if they did that, that would get enough adoption and it would force many theaters to do it and people get the idea. And it's like, oh, and you can also use your AMC crypto wallet to, you know, buy this at this store, you know, or whatever. And it's something like that that needs to happen to get the adoption to happen.
00:35:24
Speaker
in a normal setting because that's that's so many of these things and like stuff we worked on at V3 tan were so niche and not normal settings that it became really hard to figure out how you're going to get normal people who have not experienced this to do it. Like you were saying, Steve, with the perk shop, like it's easy for us because we do it all the time, but someone who is crypto adjacent is going to be like, I don't know.
00:35:49
Speaker
All right, Tan. So we had one more question. Steve's going to lead off with it. I'm ready for it. So you told us about how you got into Web3. Now here is our closing question for you. Why are you still here?
00:36:04
Speaker
Uh, it's, it's simple. I mean, you've seen it in early web two days, whenever there's a fast growing tech, it's exciting. The people it brings, um, you both are in, you know, NFSC non-fungible social club. And it's just a fun community. People are chatting every single day. And although I can't always keep up with discord, I think like inherently people are more optimistic whenever, uh, a piece of tech can really offer at least potential.
00:36:33
Speaker
And I think that's the most exciting part from the top level. Why am I still in it? Maybe it's sunk costs. I bought a bunch of NFTs. I'm in it.
00:36:43
Speaker
But no, I I'm enjoying it still. And it's even if like people get NFT fatigued, you can take a break from it, but I'm still enjoying it. Why are you both still in it building to more skin in the game than me? I mean, I think, you know, you said optimistic and and I think for as much of a pessimist as I am, like I am really, truly optimistic about it. Like I really do.
00:37:09
Speaker
You know, I'm very critical and I'm very quick to get angry, honestly, about a lot of what I see as like bullshit in the space and a lot of just the rampant greed and everything. Because for me, I see a technology layer that could become another great equalizer.
00:37:25
Speaker
You know, I see in the same way that the internet was, you know, all of a sudden you have this tech stack where as soon as we can start to make this available to more people to use in a low key, everyday useful kind of way, I think it's going to dramatically help an awful lot of people and an awful lot of creatives. So for me, that's why I'm still here. I want to bring this technology to people in a meaningful everyday way.
00:37:53
Speaker
where this is no longer speculative assets gone amok, but just everyday tooling to make life better. Amen. Same. No, I think for me, the reason I'm still here is a lot of the reason that I got into NFTs, I feel a little bit like this is my like Tron, like I fight for the user. I feel like so much for me with like around NFTs and Web3 is making sure that people
00:38:22
Speaker
who are creating content or creating art or creating anything are getting paid for the work that they're doing and not paid in a here's $5, but paid in a here's $5 and then here's another dollar and now here's $10,000. And like, as your, you know, renown grows, you start to receive more income based on the work you did, instead of it being the kind of current way, I feel like a lot of the artistic work works where it's, you know, there's the kings and there's the serfs.
00:38:50
Speaker
And the kings make all the money and the serfs do all the work. I would much rather it be a little bit more of a, you get paid for the work you're doing. And if your work is successful, you continue to get paid for that work. And I think that to me is why I got started in NFTs was because of the way it's made to support artists. And I think for me, that's where my focus tends to be is how does this new part of this technology benefit the artists?
00:39:17
Speaker
and the people creating versus the people who are speculating.
00:39:21
Speaker
Right. I'm excited to see all of this compound as in like when artists get paid better, when you can measure trust better because you have a wallet and you can see like who's supporting who. Yeah. I'm excited to see what kind of behavior hits at scale because I think social media sites will look completely different. It's what you do, not what you say. And I agree with Steve, like it's great that we have people like Steve and you should be critical of the tech because otherwise like
00:39:51
Speaker
Facebook meta became an accidental government through moderating. And I think you should be critical as we're building this. You should have ethics as we're building this. You should tear it apart. But I agree with you. I think the potential outweighs everything. And I think that's the most exciting part. And because we're all willing to try and fail and get our hands dirty, the people you meet is going to be the most interesting and fun right now at this given time. It will change when there's more and more people here.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah. And I do think that's actually another thing you just touched on a little bit that I think is one reason why we're all here is it is the people, you know, like this is not a technology currently that is made by the technology. It's a technology that is about people and focused on community. And so we're all fairly social people who like people. So it makes sense that we all kind of hang out in this weird spot. Emphasis on fairly, right?
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing I wanted to say, and I meant to say this earlier, is none of this is financial or legal advice.
00:40:52
Speaker
Good call. Don't listen to us. Yeah, don't listen to us. For entertainment purposes. Yeah, this is for entertainment purposes only. And because we like to talk about this shit. Well, cool. Well, Tan, thanks so much for coming by and hanging out with us. Thanks for having me. We're in the same room. No, it's exciting. And I'm excited to see you both build out Nervous. I think you all are going to be important players in the ecosystem. So I'm excited to see what you all bring to the table as you build out your product.
00:41:20
Speaker
I don't want to be important. I just want to be awesome. There you go. We got to end on that.
00:41:51
Speaker
Bye!