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All Roads Leads to YES: Behind the Curtain of Launching a Memecoin
202 Plays5 months ago
We speak with Mightysol, the founder of the Chads NFT collection and now $YES memecoin to talk about what it was like launching an NFT collection on Solana in the fallout of the FTX collapse as well as what goes into the planning of a memecoin launch.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introduction: Mighty Sol
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Decrypting Crypto podcast. I'm Matthew Housebarbie. And today we're talking to the founder of Chads, the NFT project that's been on Solana now for, you know, the best part of 18 months. And they recently just launched their meme coin. Yes.
Launching Meme Coins & Chads NFT Project on Solana
00:00:35
Speaker
And the reason why we got the the founder here, Mighty Sol, on the podcast is I think there's a lot of discussion around meme coins over the past few months, and we're not necessarily gonna dig too much into just like wider meme coins here, but what it's like to actually launch a meme coin, what goes into it, what are the considerations, and learning a little bit more about this project that I've personally found very interesting. I've been digging into the this this space quite a lot over the past
00:01:10
Speaker
a few months and bought up a few of the Chads NFTs. I thought it was kind of just a fun, casual project and was interested to see what they've been doing. So I've been following their journey and spoke to the founders and said, hey, you know, it'd be great to have you come on the podcast and just talk about the crazy experience of launching a token, launching
Creating Community-Focused Projects in Turbulent Crypto Times
00:01:34
Speaker
a project. They launched the NFT collection like in the fallout of the banking crisis last year they've been building right before that and all the way through the FTX collapse so they've seen a few things and I think it gives an interesting perspective especially when the the meta recently has been
00:01:55
Speaker
ah bunch of these kind of just low effort, largely pump and dump celebrity tokens that I have personally not been a big fan of to see what has kind of gone into cultivating a real community and still launching a meme token in the Solana ecosystem and going through the highs and lows of that along the way. I think this is going to be an interesting episode for you. I had a great conversation and gives you a chance to peel back the curtain a little bit on on what goes into some of these projects. So without further ado, let's jump right in.
Mighty Sol's Decade-Long Crypto Journey
00:02:42
Speaker
Mani Sol, great to have you on the podcast. Appreciate you taking the time out of your your busy meme coin schedule ah right now. I know things ah things are pretty chaotic. Why don't we jump in with, maybe you can give a bit of background into the Chads project. We'll jump into the Yes token a little bit later, but we'd just love to hear you know what what inspired the launch of Chads and what's been the journey so far. Absolutely. and And thanks for having me on. Super excited to you to chat with you today. we've We've had to move this around a few times, I guess, just because of the the crazy schedule that that we've been trying to work around over the last couple of weeks. But yeah, super pumped to be here. um you know ill I'll give, I guess, maybe ah a bit of a
00:03:30
Speaker
background in terms of how how we got here. And it's it's ah it's a long-winded story, so I'll try and keep it as as concise as possible. but um But yeah, I've been just some background on myself. I've been around you know kind of the the crypto space broadly for for probably ah over a decade now, got in in like 2013. ah during that kind of big, ah big first cycle that got mainstream attention back when you know Silk Road and Mt. Gox were kind of the most interesting things going on in the space. And it was really mostly just Bitcoin and and kind of some some random other new things were starting to emerge. um you know've i've I've touched different parts of the ecosystem. I work in the ecosystem full time, have been since late 2016. And last cycle,
00:04:21
Speaker
I actually faded NFTs very hard early on. and and And I think because a lot of it really, a lot of the attention centered around, you know, Beephole and, you know, some of the more kind of more one of one type pieces of art that were coming on, coming out during like the, I'd say probably like the back half of 2020. and yeah and And so like yeah it it was interesting. It was kind of fun. yeah know You see people post about it on the timeline, but it wasn't something that I was engaging with you know
Community-Based NFT Collections: Market Dynamics
00:04:50
Speaker
tremendously. And i just I didn't really see the value, to be honest.
00:04:54
Speaker
But towards, I'd say, probably towards ah the middle of 2021, we started to see a lot of like collections come out. right So less of these like you know one-on-one pieces and and more of like actual collections and communities started to form. And and and yeah and and my background is really kind of in the trading and infrastructure side. so you know So I have a very keen interest in in how ah ah crypto assets trade, whether it's tokens, and you know now it's NFTs. And so it it became very clear that there was there were markets forming out of these communities. And and and it was very interesting to watch that kind of flourish across different ecosystems.
Early Solana Involvement & Ecosystem Challenges
00:05:36
Speaker
I was very involved in the Solana ecosystem ah at at the time, and still am, obviously. But but we saw all these incredible
00:05:45
Speaker
ah projects come out, you know the the early mints, the DGNH, Solana Monkey Business, Galactic Geckos, and many, many others that people probably would have known from Solana Summer 21. It was a mix of like you know good projects, bad projects, but but there was a lot of it felt like there was a lot of like immaturity and You know, people were rugging and and not falling through on promises and, you know, just, it felt very like young and immature. And so really the genesis of this really is, is ah I saw all this stuff kind of take place and some of the art was also like super lazy. You know, people were hiring artists on like Fiverr, you know, i'm putting together these very low efforts.
00:06:32
Speaker
ah collections that you know you could tell were just money grabs and you know and people were they people had no intention of actually you know building anything with the IP. so but those But those low-effort projects, they gifted us treasures like Kevin from Pixelmon, so I'm forever thankful for those moments. Yeah, exactly. exactly so so i mean Listen, there there's a lot of lore and you know kind of background ah you know baked into into the arc of NFTs, but long to make a long story short, I you know i saw how some of the stuff was developing and and I figured like, listen, there's there's a lot of room to play here, right? ah but But it doesn't feel like there's a lot of experienced builders necessarily jumping into the fray. So I connected with my my now now current co-founders.
00:07:18
Speaker
and And so we started to, we basically for like probably about five, the first five or six months, we were just doing like discovery on like different characters on on different different styles of art. Like we, there was a whole period of time where we wanted to do these like 3D renders. Like, yeah, this is like super cool and no one's doing this. And, you know, and and yeah obviously we didn't go that direction because we ultimately decided on leaning hard into into memes, right? And so, you know i'm I'm a creature of the internet. I've been on Twitter since 2009. I grew up on the internet. And so especially on crypto Twitter, right like we have this have this universal meme, which is the Chad meme, which which by the way, isn't owned by crypto Twitter. it It actually kind of came out of other various subcultures on the internet. But but the Chad meme, right like the like the Chad itself, right like kind of the blonde hair blue eyed,
00:08:14
Speaker
You know, the the strong masculine ah affirmative alpha male. And then you have like the virgin versus Chad meme, right? We've seen so many different permutations of this. and And it's just like, it's such a universal thing, right? it And it crosses so many boundaries and cultures and, you know, and different communities on the internet. But but it's it's very much a staple on on crypto Twitter, and on CT. and and and within the ecosystem so we saw this and and i mean we've ah we've been making chad means for like five or six years now you know and in various forms and so i was like listen we're already like familiar with this with the structure we're familiar with the culture.
00:08:54
Speaker
Like, why don't we why don't we put our own spin on it?
Chads NFT Development: Meme Culture & Art Style
00:08:57
Speaker
And so, and so yeah, we decided to go in that direction, you know what ah had a few different death iterations of of the art and the design and the style. And and shout out to you know to our ah to my-founder and kind of our main artist, Chadroyd. He absolutely crushed it with like the the pixelated art and it just, it has that like very kind of throwback vibe, but it but it just but it but also but it also feels modern. um And anyways, we we we were we were building this for like, I guess almost like 16 to 18 months. and And yeah, and then like FTX happened and you know towards the end of 22 and ah we just decided you know going to 2023, we're gonna just launch this in the middle of the bear market and we'll see where it goes. And yeah, I'll stop right there.
00:09:45
Speaker
Oh, and it was a bold move to launch on Solana around
Solana's Recovery Post-FTX & Ecosystem Loyalty
00:09:50
Speaker
that time, right? I think for anyone in the crypto space right now, it's really easy to forget the dire straits that the Solana ecosystem was in back then. I mean, you know, and start of 2023, the Solana obituaries were out in in force. And I'll be the first to admit, I really didn't think that the Solana ecosystem and community was going to bounce back from the fallout of FTX and the collateral damage from what SPF kind of left behind. So it did did you ever kind of doubt deploying on Solana? Cause you would have had time to to change your mind on that front, right?
00:10:31
Speaker
we did have other we We did have conversations with other ecosystems and actually in 2021, we were looking at basically all the options, even though like i'm i I'm extremely bullish on the Fauna ecosystem and I'm native in this ecosystem and you know obviously now I have very good relationships with a lot of the builders. and you know and and and and and and a lot of the entrepreneurs and and people that are actually doing things here. but you know I thought it would be wise for us to explore all the options and you know spoke to Avax. We actually spoke to the Luna Foundation back in the day. they you know if If you recall, they did have a small budding ecosystem. We looked at Aptos. We looked at Polygon. The reality is
00:11:22
Speaker
like you can You can probably make a case for trying to go to some of these other ecosystems, you know perhaps maybe to get a grant or something from the foundation or you know or to try and to try and be value extractive and you know and launch you know a collection and then just leave. But like that wasn't our intention. and you know and and we also like <unk>re We're very much like salon and native builders and it's a very specific culture here And it's just you know it at the end of the day like we we didn't spend too much time on this like we probably spent like a couple weeks just like talking to some of the other some of the other chains and And and other marketplaces and whatnot, but it it never made sense right like we have the conversations, but it just
00:12:03
Speaker
It never landed anywhere um productive and so I i kind of just like made a decision to, despite you know all all the chaos in the market broadly and and certainly within the ecosystem, it still made sense. and you know Part of the logic was, you know if you're an outsider, I could see how you know, looking at the events of, uh, you know, the post collapsed, how things would be not so attractive. But the reality is like, there's, we knew a lot of the builders that were staying. We knew a lot of the builders, uh, you know, kept charging forward and we wanted to be part of that cohort. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And I think it feels like from the outside looking in the Solana is.
00:12:52
Speaker
really aligned with at least like the Chads community culturally. I i would i would go as far as to say that the Chads community definitely has one of the, if not the best, meme game I've ever seen, on certainly on CT. so it's It feels like that and then you you know we've had this comeback of liquidity coming into the Solana ecosystem, the resurgence of NFTs on Solana at the end of last year. So how how have you felt that since launching the project, how has it performed? what's what What are kind of the
00:13:29
Speaker
the main measures of success for for you kind of coming in the run up to now, what we'll we'll talk about shortly, which is like the token launch that that that you've kind of begun and everything there.
Initial Challenges & Competition for Chads NFTs
00:13:40
Speaker
Like what what are the what would you say is like either like being a big success, things that you wish had gone a bit better? Yeah, it's a good question. And I mean, the the reality is there's been there's been a lot that's happened since launch. And I guess maybe maybe I'll give some background on launch. We we we went live on 4-20, 2023.
00:14:01
Speaker
and and And, you know, we launched same day as MadLads. And, you know, and shout out to those guys and Tristan Armani, you know, love those guys, love the backpack team. And they, you know, they're they're they're obviously a staple in the ecosystem. But but yeah, it's been, you know, it was a tough launch because we were competing with the liquidity and attention. from those guys. so you know we We definitely had a bit of ah a tough start from there. and i mean Listen, it's it's a free market. It is what it is. People want yeah whatever they want, ah but we decided to like not change course and continue. right we have The collection itself initially had about 10,000 pieces, and we ended up cutting the supply in half because ah just yeah the demand just wasn't there.
00:14:43
Speaker
and And that's fine. you know you have to just You have to adjust it to go along. But um but anyway, we minted at two sole. We had that like initial pump up to like five or so. and and you know And then things kind of just like plateaued and and and we're very, very quiet. for I'd say probably like, you know, three, four months in terms of price action. And, you know, mind you, this is like, you know, this is like spring going into summer of last year and the salon. That was just after all the banking collapse and everything that happened. Right. So exactly that was not a fun time.
00:15:20
Speaker
No, and and it wasn't even just like, hey, like we don't know what's going to go on with the flood ecosystem. like People were like, yeah, what's going on with the whole ecosystem, right? And then like you know they you had the SBB collapse, and Silvergate, and then they called it the question, other macro issues. and And so, like, anyways, putting all that stuff aside, the reality is, like, you know, we launched, and and and I think the hardest thing to do for any project, whether you're a meme point or L1 or L2 protocol or an NFT collection, the hardest thing is just to get the launch, right? Just, like like, get the thing across the line, right? It's, you know, and it's a lot it's a lot of work. It's a lot of moving pieces. There's a lot of coordination, right? And, and you know, it's... It's a heavy lift and you know what we got to that post launch phase now which we're kind of in now with with the meeting which will talk about um we we you know we we realize that there's.
00:16:10
Speaker
There's only one focus, right? And and the the focus is just to make sure that we're fostering and building a community that is not just strong, but also aligns with kind of our our core thesis and ethos and a community that's going to stick around for the long term. And you know and and you know obviously massive, massive, massive shout out to all the guys that have been rocking with us since day one. there's There's so many, too many to name. um you know Everyone from like all of our honorary chad holders, right guys that we made custom chads for to you know everyone in between yeah to just like the you know the the average you know the average buyer who maybe doesn't even work in the space. like a lot A lot of folks have stuck around. A lot of folks have been you know key members and have created content and brought ideas to the table and you know have rallied and yeah and and just like you know acted as a community member.
00:17:04
Speaker
ah that's That's been, I would say, the strongest part of of of how this has played out, and you know all illll ill I'll take a bit of a side tangent here, and I'll tell you the story about Breakpoint last year, which was actually kind of the turning point for us, because ah coming out of summer last year, our floor price was like, it was basically at zero.
Breakpoint Event & Boosting Community Engagement
00:17:27
Speaker
It was like 0.5 or 0.4, something like that. And like once once you cross below that one sole floor price threshold, you're basically at zero, right? At least in my books. So so you know i I got together yeah with with the other co-founders and I told them, like, listen guys, I was at breakpoint you the year before and you know I saw there's a lot of cool activations. and
00:17:52
Speaker
yeah and And some projects came out, and it was very interesting to see you know how how people showed up. yeah So I told them, like, listen, we have to go to Breakpoint, and we've got to do something you know for for the conference, and we should do like a big activation. So I reached out to our contacts at the Solana Foundation, and you know shout out to ah to Pedro and and Banana who was there at the time. They they helped set us up ah with their events team and you know and then they helped us coordinate this amazing activation that we did in collaboration with TipLink. So we basically created these custom Halloween Chads right because Breakpoint was taking place on the Halloween weekend and um there was about eight of them and and these were like custom assets that we created outside of the main collection.
00:18:36
Speaker
ah you know, like Aliens and Frankenstein and Ghost Rider and this type of stuff. And it turned out so sick. They're like some of my favorite assets that we've ever created. And and we basically, we we ah we made like thousands of these compressed NFTs with those assets, right? Like thousands of copies of each. And then we we made these posters where you can like scan a QR code and and just claim them instantly via template. and And so we showed up in Amsterdam. We yeah we flew halfway across the world. yeah Most of us are based in North America. And and we we plastered these you know Halloween Chad posters all over Breakpoint. And yeah and the whole time, the yeah the the full three days, people walking around, you know scanning the codes, trying to collect them all. And and so and so you know I think for for kind of the average ah attendee, we yeah you know we we made a splash. And then beyond that,
00:19:30
Speaker
you know we yeah We threw two events. We threw one big party on the last day at Breakpoint. and Then we had like a private dinner with some of our whales. and and yeah and and people People showed up, both from our community and from from other communities. and yeah just People had no idea that we existed. and and and They had a good time. They got to meet the team. We got to you know we got the hang out IRL. and and I think people really got it from there. and And it's been yeah it's been a ah pretty wild journey since. And I'd say the the other major inflection point ah that we had during last year's run was you know after breakpoint, like we skyrocketed to like you know between like four and eight soul or something like that. And then and then I got a text i'm at my dinner with my dad one day. And I got a text from from Arthur Hayes. and And he's like, hey, did you like ever send me that that honorary Chad that you made?
00:20:22
Speaker
And I was like, no, I don't think so. you know we like you know Things just got lost in the shuffle, whatever. like you know Drop me your address. and And so I sent it to him like right then and there. And I go back to dinner. And then immediately, my phone is blowing up. And I'm like, what's going on? like Who died? what's What's happening? Is the market crashing? And and and I see Arthur change his PFP on Twitter ah to his custom chat. And and and people saw it. And and it just we we went from 8 sold to 18 within like a matter of a couple of weeks. and And it was just like it was it was bananas. and And obviously, shout out to Arthur.
00:21:00
Speaker
um you know Arthur's, you know, been very supportive, you know, and you know, he supports in the ways that he can, which are, you know, obviously, very well respected and appreciated. And, you know, it he, he did us a solid. So, you know, yeah appreciate it. Well, I think, you know, that I think that goes to kind of show in, in most NFT projects, that I think the toughest thing is maintaining momentum.
Launching Yes Token: Liquidity & Community Engagement
00:21:24
Speaker
And it's rarely the It's very rare that you'll see a project just kind of continue up and to the right, right? Especially NFTs. I mean, this goes across the board, but liquidity is a lot more fragmented. It's much easier to drop lower, but also get that nice quick rush of momentum when people see, you know, major influences, KOLs like, and just, you know, leaders in the space being part of this thing. And I think,
00:21:54
Speaker
It's it's been interesting to to watch that with with Chad's in particular and I guess talking about momentum right let's let's shift into the token launch because the this is obviously a really delicate balance that you have to strike when you're ah when you have an NFT project and then you launch a fungible token alongside it. You've got the liquidity dynamics between the two, but even just getting word out and getting something that's just two very different kind of muscles and vehicles. So I'd love to hear your your your story on why did you launch the yes token and what do you guys have have planned and how does it fit into the the kind of wider CHADS ecosystem?
Yes Token's Meme-to-Earn Model & Strategy Adjustments
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, great great question. So I think just just to provide some background on on the token itself, like it's been always on, you know quote unquote, the roadmap. like It's been on our website since the first day we launched it. and But you know to be fair, we had a very different idea for what we wanted to do with the token. So ah you know originally, when this whole thing started, our the big thing we wanted to build, ah which we have, you know I guess, two prototypes of now, that never made it and made it you know into the market. is We had this meme generator that we're building, which we fully still intend to ship. But we we had all sorts of ah all sorts of kind of setbacks and and and issues was getting getting it to the place where we wanted to, to release it publicly. And you know we yeah to be fair, and not to throw anyone under the bus, but we got rugged by ah two of the devs we worked with. and
00:23:34
Speaker
yeah it just It created a whole whole number of problems that um that yeah that basically led us to to to to shelve it for a while until we kind of got to the token launch. but Originally, the the token was supposed to be kind of this like utility play within the meme generator. We were trying to do this meme to earn model right where we would you know we'd launch the token, but we'd keep some supply for people that are using the generator to like reward them. for activity and we're going to create kind of this kind of more more so yeah know like at like a meme social network type thing, which you know we still think is ah is a pretty interesting idea once the dust settles from ah you know from this from this launch. but But yeah, but we switched gears and and we we realized like, listen, why don't we take a step back you know from from the the meme generator? Why don't we just like reassess what's going on? is And especially given all the ah yeah given all the
00:24:27
Speaker
the the craziness over the last six months with meme coins in the market, yeah um you know we participated obviously in a bunch and you had some wins, had some losses, but you know ultimately like you look at how these things act and behave and and it's not that different from NFTs. In fact, I would actually go so far as to say that like a lot of the meme coin activity right now very much mirror mirrors how NFTs used to trade and at the height of the market yeah in in the last cycle and yeah people just like flipping and rotating and kind of just jumping from one thing to the other. and yeah A lot of these things are obviously flashed in the pan. A lot of them don't really have much staying power. and and you know and like I have this famous line that I've been kind of just saying over the last few months, which is that you know we we'veve we've we've done this analysis on ah the the top mean points across various ecosystems.
00:25:17
Speaker
and you know there's not a lot that are There's a very small number that are over that $100 million dollar market cap. And the reason I use that number is because yeah it's a nice round number to really indicate you know ah the level of like community formation and liquidity and attention. like If you cross the $100 million dollar threshold, like that thats i you know the the the big milestones are $110, $50, and $100 million. dollars like those are those are In my mind, those are the big kind of markers, but once you get to pass $100 million, dollars like you are an established meme coin. You probably have an established community, you have an established presence, you know no matter what ecosystem you're from. And like man, it's really fucking hard to get to that point. like You need oh yeah oh you need a lot a lot to get there, and you need ah yeah and part of that is you need some luck.
00:26:05
Speaker
um but But the one thing that a lot of these coins have in common is like they've actually formed like not like lowercase community I mean like uppercase like legit community where people show up or people you know are like aggressively posting on the timeline and they're bought in and you know people are owners of the the project and the IP or they act like them you know at least and And that makes a difference, right? and and And that's also very hard to sustain over, you know, months and certainly years. But, you know, we we saw this and and we took a step back and we realized like, listen, we have some of these ingredients.
00:26:40
Speaker
um you know, just looking at our community. We have a lot of these ingredients and and we have a pretty strong holder base. We have a pretty strong, you know, kind of like foundational group of people that are, that that have been rocking with us like, you know, coming up on like 18 months now, ah some people 20 months. So it's, it looked like we had all the right pieces in it and I definitely still think we do. And so, you know why not why not take a stab at this, right? And and and even more so in the light of these shitty D-list celebrity rugs that keep coming out.
00:27:17
Speaker
Like, come on, like yeah we don't need the 50th washed up RMB artist token on the market. like We all know that this is negative EV and it's value extractive, despite everyone wanting to like you know pump the bags and get a quick 10X or whatever. right This shit is not great for the ecosystem. um And you know and weve we figured like as as a contrast to that type of stuff, you know it would be a good time for us to launch this. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's, um, I, first of all, I completely agree with you on all of these like really shitty celeb tokens that are just the most telegraphed cash grabs that I think you you can ever see. Um, but that, that to one side, you know, your point around getting to some of the milestones like 50 million, a hundred million dollar market cap, the,
00:28:08
Speaker
this This is a huge challenge, right? And I think it involves, but ah it's easy for people on the outside to dismiss meme coins as this like kind of dumb thing that um is just, you know, like people gaming the system, a a cash grab, banding everything altogether. If you can get a meme, according to close to $100 million dollar market cap, that is a ah a serious challenge right that that you'll overcome. And it's about you need to cultivate a huge community, just the actual sheer size and number of unique holders that you require to be able to get to that stage.
Fair Launch Strategy for Yes Token
00:28:46
Speaker
And to avoid all the whale games that happen, so much of it ends up having to be out of your control at that scale. And then you know it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. You have the volume to then get ah central exchange listings. You you build up like so many so much more buy orders and like liquidity across the the board that then you kind of scale up to to new heights. but it In many cases, right you have to like shed your skin from even just some of the early community that you're holding, it comes up against different odds there. So I can definitely see how challenging it can be. And that's why I think it's interesting, you know starting with an NFT community,
00:29:26
Speaker
doing your best, it seems to have a ah fair launch on the token. um And I'm curious kind of now, the tokens launch, you did a, you'd ne'er drop to all of your Chad holders, I know, and a few other of the the major Salama communities, I saw that, which was really cool. What's, what's next? What's kind of the the the plan for the next kind of six months? Yeah, yeah so you know actually let me let me take ah a minute to talk about the tokenomics. i think I think it's an important piece that um that that you know we should probably underscore. so yeah the the idea ah The idea was to to do this like fair launch. right and the The reason we wanted to do this is because you know we saw the mechanics of how
00:30:13
Speaker
Others have launched and and like almost every coin that goes into the market is manipulated or exploited in some way, shape or form. so if this yeah This takes you know many forms, but like for example, I'll give a few. so you know If you're launching on Pump.fun and this is nothing against them, I actually you have a lot of respect for the team and I love what they built. But if you're launching on Pumped Off Fun, right like there's there's there's a very very high chance you know you're there's going to be some sniper bots or people that are going to yeah that that are running MAV to try and front run and buy up a ah big so big portion of your supply.
00:30:50
Speaker
um And so and it also, the same thing goes for people that are launching just straight into like Radium or Orca pools. right Because you have these yeah these people and and these bots that are running scripts you know for new token launches where they'll just spray and pray a bunch of soul and buy up a little bit in soul terms, but a lot in terms of the circulating supply of a coin. and And if you're launching directly on chain, like you literally have almost no way to protect against that. And this goes across the board. And I know i know a lot about this stuff in the salon ecosystem, but also happens in almost every other ecosystem as well, not just here.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, so even like MEV on like Ethereum. right like And I think like that that still gets people ah pretty pretty heavily as well. So there's a lot that's just ultimately and and and worth underscoring here that's out of the team's control as well. 100% and this is the thing where this is where we spent a lot of time to try and figure out like what's the how do we how do we not just protect, you know, the supply but how do we make sure that you know if we do want to be
00:31:59
Speaker
you know this community coin, which which is exactly what we are setting out to be. And and if we want to like make sure we can preserve this narrative, how do we create mechanics that are safe enough and provide you know not just our early holders, but anyone that wants to participate a fair chance at getting you know a good price? and And so we went through a bunch of different options. um And ultimately, you know we decided to work with the Meteora team. and shout out to Ben Chow and the rest of the Meteor team for for being great partners. they They developed actually right before the launch, they developed this new new piece of other platform called the AlphaVault which works, it works something like this. like You have like two ways to do it. There's a first come first serve model, there's ah then there's a pro router model and so the way this works is that
00:32:49
Speaker
You know, they've they've built into this. um It's kind of like, I don't want to call it a pre-sale, but it kind of, it's kind of like a quasi pre-sale structure where, you know, you get it. The vault has a ah max cap of of tokens and and you essentially you give access, you know, to the vault to people who you think are going to be long-term holders early on. And there's a lockup period in the vault. We chose a two week lockup with the three day vesting ah period. And so the idea is that like you know because a lot of these bots and snipers are their mercenary capital, meaning that like they'll they'll deploy quickly and then they'll take profits quickly, the assumption was that you know no mercenary capital wants to lock up their soul for for a long time. So we figured yeah two weeks is a good enough deterring factor to keep these people out.
00:33:40
Speaker
and and so So yeah, so that's that's why we did the Alpha Vault. To be fair, we had a false start. We wanted to do it first come, first serve. And then, you know unfortunately, that got exploited on yeah this past Sunday. And so we we immediately you know corrected course and went to the pro rata model. And you know and look, theres there's there's also ways to gain the pro rata style launch because it's kind of like it's it's open to whale manipulation. right So like people will people can send in as much soul as they want into the vault.
00:34:10
Speaker
and then you know, you get a proportional, you get a proportional carve out of how much you sent in relative to the whole pool. And, you know, and like, listen, we we also we got a little game there as well. And, you know, and and that's always gonna happen. Right. I think this is worth knowing. In in many cases, I don't want to say it's like picking the least worst option, but launching a token, we've seen so many different ways of this being done, right? Just like from
00:34:41
Speaker
the ICO days into just like the community full air drop into now like things like yeah like these alpha vault like pre-sales liquidity bootstrapping protocols like all of this stuff Dutch auctions they come with trade-offs and I think you just you gotta just accept at some point both as someone who is participating and then running a running a project like this you are not going to be able to stop people trying to gain the system. You just got to limit the upside for them, right? And and flush it out as quickly as possible. Yeah, exactly. and And you know, I've tried to do my best to communicate this to
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, to everyone as openly and transparently as possible and that like, you know, there's, there's no bulletproof, perfect way to do a fair launch. Like it just doesn't exist unless you're doing like a full presale. Uh, and you know, and that and and that in itself has other. you know other issues, but you know but we wanted to do this as like
Balancing Exploitation Risks During Yes Token Launch
00:35:43
Speaker
cleanly as possible. and you know we look you you nailed the yeah You nailed the point you know very correctly in that there's no there there's no way to do this in a perfect way, but it's just trade-offs. You're just trading off yeah you know one maybe aggressive form of exploitation for one that's you know maybe a little bit less aggressive and more fair.
00:36:04
Speaker
yeah And and and that's that's just what it is, right? Like we we operate in this very, you know, adverse environment where, you know, like there's like, there's financialization of assets here. And so there's profit motives and... you know People are going to do things in their best interest and yeah it's all very adversarial, but but the reality is like there you can do some things to at least try and you know preserve you know the fairness of a launch. but but anyways we we actually you know we had price targets for like
00:36:35
Speaker
$2 to $3 million is what we thought we'd get into the alpha vault. And we actually got in $10 million dollars within two hours um into the vault, and which was insane and and like fully like blew um everything every expectation out of the water. And and I think that's that's definitely a testament to you know how much attention and you know and hype and and interest the the project has garnered. And and and so it's yeah it was it was very impressive for us to see that. but But yeah, i mean after the alpha vault, the actual token went live trading about an hour post vault. And even then, even excuse me even after the
00:37:16
Speaker
the token went live. like We still got hit with snipers, right? like we We have like one or two guys that came in and they were able to gobble up, like I think between five and 10% of the supply that was was unlocked at TGE. Man, i can't like we can't do anything about that. like that it's just like It's on chain, right? like People are scraping the meteor pools. People are scraping the contract address and yeah and seeing where where the flow of funds is. and it's just It is what it is. like yeah i just I don't know of of a bullet proof way to do it. but
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah, but we we tried this this model and you know and ah also like I tell people, like we're ah we're also just like we're learning as we go along and this is just a big experiment for us. right like We try and bake in assumptions that we think are are fair and are reasonable and then we just have to adjust as we as we move. but um But yeah, so that happened and then you know we've we've Airdropped 40% of the supply, which is 400 million tokens, ah to childs holders, to madlads holders, klanos, tensorians, galactic geckos, and and a bunch of other communities that we're super close with and that we yeah that we respect and that we want as our holder base.
00:38:31
Speaker
ah We airdropped $2 million, dollars you know, notional value of our token to about 19,000 wallets. and so And so, yeah, we're... on the end And the airdrop value, I think, from like a, you know, so full disclaimer, I am a ah very happy chat holder and have been for some time now. And um i I personally felt that, you know, the value of tokens um compared to, say, the the market value of, let's just say, a single CHAD MFT was really, really high proportionally. I thought it was a ah really good airdrop categorically. Thank you. um yeah and and you know And I say that way less through the lens of, hey, that's great. like People are making money. And more so,
00:39:20
Speaker
actually you you're putting value into the hands of the community, which is the goal here, right? And I think that's what's good to see. Yeah, exactly. And and and look, our our whole ah thought process around this was like, you know first and foremost, you know yes, it's the people's coin, but also and it's a coin that's been brought to life you know through our project, through our community, and through the people that have been supporting us. so the first thing we have to do is reward the people that have been here since day one. um And so, you know, we are dropped 25% of supply of child's holders. And also we know that, you know, because a lot of these guys have been here through like the worst of times and the best of times, you know, they're actually
00:40:06
Speaker
yeah on on the margin, they're less likely to sell and they're more likely to you know to rock with us over you know over the course of the project. So it was a complete no-brainer. We wanted to just like get it out there, get it into the get into the hands of our people that are also gonna, they're gonna be aligned long-term with this and and they're gonna help make this project a success. and you know and And honestly, shout out to all the guys in you know in our inner circle. like We have our core team, but we also have like ah inner circle of, you know, we call it our gigachat and cabal and many guys on our team, you know, shadow to dog into moon to float ah to Nemo, crypto fungus, like all these guys have been very instrumental in helping to kind of like
00:40:51
Speaker
weave and craft a narrative to create amazing content, ah you know whether it's you know our little video compilations and GIFs and you know just static memes. and yeah and they're just They're driving the conversation in ah in a way that like you know one or two people just can't right because you know it it really it really takes a village. Yeah, and it and it and it seems that way from from the outside. I think you know it's all very lighthearted, but there is a huge amount of of content. I enjoy it a lot. I think you've all done a ah really a really great job from from certainly my perspective, um which is really cool. And listen.
00:41:29
Speaker
that Thank you so much for the time today. we're're We're getting up to time now, but where can people find out a little bit more about kind of what you're building? How can someone become a chat ah when they that they have had the aspiration to for many, many years? How do they finally make that happen? Yeah, I love it. um Yeah, so obviously, you know, check us out on on Twitter at ChadsWTF. That's the main NFC project and and and the the token is called Yes, the Yes token. It's at Yes Yes Coin. um you know we got and We got a lot of cool stuff planned.
00:42:04
Speaker
And we're going to be rolling it out over the next couple of weeks. So you know yesterday we announced a partnership with Asset Dash. ah So we know're we're live on the platform now, and we're running a little promotion for people for people that are using the the swaps on the platform. We're going to be announcing a sole casino partnership. So you're going to be able to use the yes token on the platform you know ah to you know to gamble and use any of their games. um And we have a lot of other really, really cool stuff that we're working on over the next next few weeks and months. and you know Listen, this is going to be a journey. it's like you know the I think the general theme for
00:42:40
Speaker
all of our projects so far has been, yeah you got to take the long view on this. And yeah and that's that's what we've always done. And we realize, like yeah even now too, like you have to think about, like we're like in the doldrums of summer where yeah people were kind of people were kind of depressed and in the dumps about the price action for for quite a while before we you know things have turned around recently. And and I really think that like the the closer we get particularly to the election, yeah right like The closer we get to September, October, things will turn around. right Liquidity is going to start flowing back into quality projects and and quality teams. and you know there's There's something to be said for just like sticking with it and and making sure you know we're we're on the right path for for the long term.
00:43:23
Speaker
yeah not just being this like you know Flashing the pan project that like, you know is here today and gone tomorrow sort of thing. So and So yeah, um check us out.
Engaging with the Chads Community & Exploring Projects
00:43:32
Speaker
we're're We're live We're live on on meteor on Jupiter um You know on deck screen or bird eye decks tools all the kind of big and popular um Trading pop meme trading platforms and yeah, we'll hopefully roll out some centralized exchange listings soon as well And you know, we can really get the party started All right, I love it. Keep up the good work. We'll be ah obviously watching from from the sidelines and I'll be ahll be a happy ah Chad and Yes holder for many, many months to come. So yeah, excited about what you guys are all building. Thanks again for coming on the pod. It was great having you on. Awesome. All roads lead to Yes.
00:44:32
Speaker
The contents of the Decrypting Crypto podcast should not be used and are not intended as investment advice. Please do your own due diligence before making any investment, cryptocurrency or otherwise.