Yo-yo, yo, what up? What up EMGMEM?
Today is Thursday, May 23rd, 2024.
Look at that. Another beautiful day to have a
beautiful day. All right, enough of the fro
compression here today it is me, Tyler D.
They gave me the keys to the FOMO our show, and I'm bringing
along my old pal Sam. He he was formerly NFT stats.
Now he just goes by stats to cut the NFT part out of it for me.
I think Sam quick intro. He is the the single best follow
up for NFT in crypto analysis from my perspective, meme land.
They saw that they picked up on him.
Sam, Jim, how you doing? Then tell us about this rebrand.
I'm, I'm throwing that mirror right back at you 'cause 'cause
my account's basically just aren't retweeting you.
So it's good to, it's good to be here.
You know, I'm not gonna lie. I woke up like at 4:00 in the
morning. It's 8:00 now.
I was hurting but I'm having some coffee 'cause I'm on FOMO
hour and we're gonna go all out. Well, Sam, we're so happy you
could join us here today with Mando out along with Feroc.
But we've got Sims. He is the best producer in the
world. He's also super close to all
these markets. Sims, how you doing him this
morning? Pretty good mate.
Pretty good morning to everyone else as well.
Just making sure we're all good because we've changing up the
audio slightly. So we're making sure everything
is good to go. But we've I'm, I don't want to
say I'm surprised, but we've, we've managed to nail it first
time. Touch wood, Touch wood.
I think we're doing OK. We've got the video rolling,
we've got the the the audio on the space is rolling.
So I think we're OK. We'll get that stream pushed out
here in a minute. To those of you who want to see
our bright and shiny faces, folks, what are we talking about
on this special episode of the Foamer Hour?
We're going to start with the quick market report.
We got to talk about this crypto bill.
This was the single biggest story in the entire space
yesterday. Everyone was celebrating across
the timeline. We're going to talk state of
NFTS. We haven't been talking to NFTS
really at all, and probably rightfully so, but we're going
to do 1520 minutes on the state of NM TS.
Just how bad is it? We're going to talk about Blast
with Mr. Blast. People have called him Blast.
That's no one's reporting more closely on this than than Sam.
And then we'll end the show with a little bit of talk about Meme
Land, Pixelmon, and more. But before we jump in, do you
want to give out a special shout out to our sponsors?
So our monthly partners here for this month, Moonpay and Fairside
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All right, we're going to get into it here with with Sam in
just a minute. I'll start us out with just a
quick market report here. So so in summary, the big things
I'm looking at crypto majors are chopping ahead of the ETS.
The decision day is today. It looks like ETH well, ETH was
leading. We saw ETH Touch 3950 here this
morning. It has since dipped.
Everything has dipped a bit here in the last 30 minutes or so.
We've got CNBC talking about Solana calling it big three and
then asking is an ETF coming for Solana next?
So that was interesting. We got meme coins pumping across
chains, Pepe leading the way close to $6 billion for Pepe.
That's almost double what with is, so it is clearly leading.
We've got NVIDIA crushing earnings in Tradfi.
They announced the 10 for one split.
The stock's over 1000 bucks. It's 2 1/2 trillion dollars in
market cap basically even with the entire crypto sector.
So thought that was notable and NF TS mostly chopping across
chains. We've got meta mass talking
about adding Bitcoin. Pixelmon announced its tge event
and fancy top added a couple new tourneys.
So that's a quick rundown of the the biggest headlines that I'm
watching. I I want to just briefly get
into the top story of yesterday. This fit 21 bill and I'm curious
for your thoughts on this, Sam, I'll give us just a quick intro
from the newsletter. I did cover it this morning in
the morning minute. Go subscribe to that if you
haven't already. But folks, basically the story
here, the US House of Representatives, they did
approve the crypto Fit 21 bill with a resounding 279 to 136
votes. So bipartisan, huge majority on
this. The, the bill itself, if you're
not familiar, it's going to establish a team to regulate the
US crypto markets and consumer protections.
It's going to define responsibilities between the SEC
and the CFTC as the new late leading regulator of digital
assets. It's going to more clearly
define whether a crypto token is a security or commodity.
And then it's going to require digital asset developers to
provide some disclosures and informations about the projects.
Similar for exchanges as well. I had a phone call there.
Apologies for those of you on the spaces.
The the bill passing is already considered to be the biggest win
ever for crypto policy in the United States.
This is the first time a major crypto bill has passed in
Congress. Many are celebrating.
I'm going to read a couple quotes here, Brian Armstrong,
CEO of Coinbase. This is a resounding win in the
house for clear crypto rules and a complete rejection of the
nonsense being spouted by those who tried to kill this
technology. Voters will not forget sensible
regulation of crypto. Just took a big step forward.
Next step is the Senate then totally Co founder of Solana.
He weighed in. I am so bullish on the USA right
now. Bills don't have to be perfect.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
Pass, iterate, accelerate everything.
We also saw Chris Dixon at a 16 ZI think he weighed in with a
fairly balanced take here. It's an important step in
providing long-awaited regulatory clarity for crypto,
protecting US consumers and promoting American innovation.
It's also a big step for holding bad actors accountable, which is
good for everyone. So some some pretty positive
notes from some serious thought leaders and builders in the
space. I think to cap it all off, we
saw the Biden administration put out a statement that it's going
to work with Congress to create a balanced regulatory framework
for digital assets as well. So it just seems like a huge day
across the board, one of the biggest wins in Washington that
we've seen. I'll, I'll pause, Sam, any
reactions to this? Any, any chatter in your
circles? How?
How are folks receiving the news here?
I mean, I just, I, I guess I just iterate every or reiterate
everything that was said. I think one, it, it feels like
crypto is just kind of having this happens in American
politics sometimes where, where something starts controversial
and then just kind of moves towards the opponents realizing
this is not worth our energy. This is not something we really
want to fight against. And then everything shifts.
I, I think we saw it a little bit in marijuana legislation,
you know, and that's good too. I mean, one issue what happened
was gay marriage, like in gay marriage in 2008, Obama ran on a
platform of not allowing gay marriage.
And suddenly it just became a consensus kind of bipartisan
thing for a while. You know, like sometimes
American politics just have big shifts.
And I think that that's what's happening right now with crypto,
where the opponents are realizing this is not a good use
of our energy. And the proponents are very, I
mean about it. So it's just I, you know, I, I
think the, the people who oppose it have other things to worry
about that that are, that are more important than this one.
So I, I, I don't know, I think it, it feels like the tide has
really, really turned over the past week.
A lot of it due to, you know, I, I think it all kicked off with
the D Gods guy with Malcolm, a friend of mine, Malcolm asking
Donald Trump, will you accept donations in currency and crypto
over time, like it just became clear that this was something
Trump thought he could kind of have a big leg up on.
And then Biden's like, is this where I really want to lose on
opposing crypto? So that's one view.
And then the second thing is kind of exactly what Chris Dixon
said is like this. Maybe I think a lot of crypto
currencies kind of do look a little bit like like stocks
there. I think there are somewhere that
is the case, but that framework of forcing them in that in that
in that category wasn't working. It's been failing and the result
is that, as Chris Dixon said, like there's no regulation to
hold anyone accountable for anything.
So I think the idea, OK, that's not working.
Let's move forward. Let's figure out how to clamp
down on scams, how to clap down on insider trading, how to clamp
down on on pump and dump schemes that like probably aren't
healthy for the consumer like and create some framework for it
like this. This is kind of, to me, this
feels like a bit of a step in that direction.
So yeah, those are those are a bunch of thoughts.
I think it's something that we've chatted about before,
right? It's that like in crypto, like
we celebrate the, the freedom aspect and the freedom aspect is
huge. But I think for builders to move
forward, you need to have these frameworks.
And then also like with respect to the, the bad actors out
there, like there's this, it's, it feels so unchecked.
And now it feels like, and that's why I included the, the
Chris Dixon comment. That's a big step for holding
bad actors accountable. I think most folks, most
reasonable folks, would applaud that, right?
Yeah, at some level, you just need, you need some.
I mean, you need some sort of framework if this is all gonna
fit into like, like something that works for people.
You know, Carly, Carly Riley's one of my favorite commentators
and she's just always saying this like she's just saying the
fact is like everyone's just guessing because there's no
framework. And the black and white approach
at the SEC took led to 0 progress towards any framework.
You know, and hopefully this is like the start of something, you
know, I clearly it's not going to be a free for all.
And I think there are people who want that free for all, like for
people and, and, and so for some people this isn't great, but I
think by and large progress towards something that's kind of
at least creating a bit more of a of a understood kind of
framework is, is a good step. Now it hasn't passed, you know,
that's the other piece, but. That is the other piece and a
lot of folks are saying it's not going to pass, which is I'd be.
Surprised about that. I mean, I, I'm not one to
disagree with political consensus because I pay zero
attention to politics ever. But how did 30% of Democrats
kind of move over in in House and you're you're not going to
get a couple in Senate that like that just feels a little bit
off. Yeah, I feel like it's going to
pass. And I've also seen it's become
popular to be to not celebrate this and say that this is a bad
step for crypto. And I saw a lot of takes about
that, but I mean, I keep coming back to, I mean, what, what
Tolley said, I, I feel like it's just so resounding in the fact
that, yeah, like this bill is, is probably not perfect, but
it's the first major crypto policy that's ever been approved
or even really talked about in Washington.
And it, it just, it's it's laying a foundation and then we
can iterate and make it better. I I think it's hard to argue
with that. On a lighter note, like, is Mack
to God's just like a, a, a celebrity now?
So like, have you been chatting with him?
I didn't realize he was your friend.
We kicked it at East Denver. He, he works very closely with
Frank. So he, he and Frank were hanging
in East Denver and we kicked it and I think, I think we got a
telegram together. So I've, yeah, I've known him a
little bit and he's, yeah, he's, he's definitely having a moment,
that's for sure. The thing I'd say about people
who say like that it's a bad thing like at the end of the
day, crypto's gonna do crypto no matter what the rules are like
that's one thing that is entirely clear is that this
industry is going to March to its own drummer, which is why
historically like I think the ETH NFT news is almost like and
it I'm sorry, the ETH, the ETF news, it looks like chop chop
kicks in. The comments said it was
postponed, but like, you know, I, I almost feel that's a bigger
deal than this bill because it looks like I don't get too
downtrodden when politics work against crypto, like crypto
finds a way to happen regardless.
And I don't think politics can sway it too far in either
direction because this industry just kind of marches on and it's
bigger than politics. You know, Uber, when I worked in
Uber for eight years, it was the exact same way.
And it still is that way in a lot of countries where it's
illegal, but it is a massive business.
So I, I don't but, but at the same time, you know, I, I, I
don't think, I think it's hard to say this is going to be worse
than the Sasquo. And yeah, it's not going to be a
free for all. But I think at at least
providing some framework where you don't have this environment
where founders are moving to London if they want to launch a
token like, yeah, I think that's probably a good thing.
Yeah, I think crypto is bigger than the United States, but the
US, the folks in the United States are playing a huge role.
And I think that's can't be argued.
Sims, you know, curious for your for your thoughts, you know, a,
like looking at what America is doing from the outside here or,
or B, did we get the breaking news?
Is the ETF postponed? Did that just come across?
I'm I'm looking heavily at it. I don't see it.
I did see it in the chat, but I've not seen it anywhere else.
Like I'm checking all the main ones that usually report on this
and I don't see the instant report.
But BTC did shit itself a little bit.
But we are, you know, ETH still looks to be trading above 3800
like we were always due a bit of a cool off anyway.
We can't always have opponent late.
At the end of the day, I'm not seeing any final decision and
I'm looking at the main places where it would be.
But to answer your question, yes, look, America does play a
huge part and a huge role in all this.
I, I often have the, the comment of Euro post thrown at me plenty
of times on the morning when things get up and do start to
dump. It's, it's kind of still been
the Wild West, right? We do need legislation, we do
need regulation. You will always have this side
that wants full freedom, freedom to transact, freedom to do
whatever we want. But at the end of the day, if we
want to go to that and it's kind of just mirroring you guys.
But if we want to move to that next stage, if we want to bring
in that industry wide level and, and be something that is open to
everybody, there has to be means and ways and staircases to do
that right? And to put those procedures in
places we need something like this first we need to be able to
the FC CS just been playing cowboy and doing whatever they
want right there. There's been no direction.
Gary's an idiot. Everything just it, it feels
more like a self self opinion rather than the opinion of
looking after the the general US person, which is what their job
is to do with the FCC. They're there to look after
people's interests. I don't think that's what it is.
Gary's just been out an all out war for himself.
So this is the big step. If these changes can come in,
it's good for everybody, especially getting more people
easily and more accessibly involved in crypto, then that
should be the end goal of this. Also, Tyler, I wasn't saying
that the US is important. The US is tremendously
important, but, but even in the absence of a lot of this stuff
being quote, UN quote, or, you know, kind of being positioned
as securities and whatnot, like the US is huge.
You know, people just use VPNs where they need to and do what
they have to do. That was more my point.
It's, it's not that the US doesn't matter, it's that
regardless of what the rules are, like people find a way to
be involved in the space no matter what.
So it's, you know, they, you know, I, I always think of Uber
'cause I, you know, I got arrested twice when I worked at
Uber. Uber is still illegal in Hong
Kong and that business is massive.
You know, there's a difference between legality and
enforcement. Yeah, totally agree.
I do think it's harder to see the path to a $10 trillion
industry without, you know, more of a push in in the US But you
know, I think we're all in agreement.
Huge news. We will continue to track this,
the ETFs here if that is actually being postponed or not.
I think a lot of folks have called for potential
postponement. It seems like it's a done the
other gun together. Is it going to happen today or
did they have time? They were rushing to get the
paperwork out. The fact that they were all
doing the paperwork and seemingly working around the
clock. I took as a signal that it was a
done deal. But but we will certainly see
and if that news breaks, we will certainly report on it.
I I do want to shift gears. I want to talk state of NMTS.
We haven't talked to NMTS really much at all and I'm going to try
to fire up my my screen share here.
This is this is going to be first time on on four more hour.
Let's let's let's try this. There we go.
All right, it's not it's not cooperating.
So we're just going to chat through it.
I, I posted a thread last week, Sam state of NFTS where I kind
of went across the around the horn, I talked ETH, Bitcoin,
Solana and Blast and gave them a health rating, talked about
momentum. But in, in general, I think my,
my final like overarching thesis is that it's opportunity cost is
just too large right now for folks to deploy into NFTS and
that I think we're going to continue to effectively chop
consolidate until the next major catalyst comes.
And then I did list out what I thought, what could be some
potential catalyst. I'm curious for your thoughts,
high level, what you know is happening, why aren't we seeing
movement? And then we can go into more
specifics in in each of these different blockchains.
Man, I mean, they're just such FOMO driven momentum assets,
right? So once you start seeing things
like supply pick up once, you know, I mean, it's been, it's
been down only broadly speaking in NFTS with like a couple
exceptions, you know, obviously pudgy Penguins, obviously
Milady's been, you know, relatively strong, But aside
from those, it has been down only for 15 months.
I think there's so much supply that's concentrated still, you
know, from AirDrop farmers on, on blur.
Like, I just don't feel like there's any feeling, at least on
the ETH blur ecosystem, like these are NFTS that you have to
own. I, I, I think if you look at
Solana, you know, Solana had a ton.
I mean, Solana was entirely dominated by tensor farming and
what ends up happening when you when like the tensor farmers or
any farmers dominate the entire transaction flow and are going
after token as opposed to NF TS is supply shifts hands to a
bunch of people who don't want it.
And it like, and we're just in like, I think a three month law
after of all those people who ended up with a lot of supply
who are like, OK, well, I got my token and I, I feel like for
whatever reason, the tensor AirDrop like did not do the
intended effect of getting people more amped about farming
and being involved in that ecosystem.
So all the main players like I have been exiting and just, it's
been an absolute bloodbath over in Solana.
But then you have other stuff where there's no farmers, you
know, you have like like the art blocks market, you know, we saw
Fidenza sales and of course Ordinals and you know, it's just
very low momentum right now. It's just things are going in
the wrong direction. People want to use their money
elsewhere. I don't think it's about
opportunity cost. I think it's about the fact that
the price is going down, Yeah. It's like the opportunity cost
would be nothing if the opportunity cost didn't matter.
During E Denver, when node monkeys were going from .3 to
.9, farming was big, then meme points were big, then no one was
talking about opportunity costs. You just had momentum and this
is just a momentum asset. When that stuff reverts, people
are very slow to want to get back involved.
So it's I don't know if that's a boring answer.
Just like the moment it's it's a momentum based FOMO based asset.
And when you start seeing supply accrue, you know, people FOMO
goes very low and people back away.
So. So let's get into that.
So like, what could be the catalyst to bring FOMO back?
Do you feel like, I guess a big one that I'm calling out is the
potential end of blur farming? Hey, I'm curious, do you think
blur farming will actually end on June 26th?
And then Part B in that question, do you think that
would actually be a catalyst? I don't think it'd be a positive
gas. I I just like at the end of
Tensor wasn't I always say, you know, all this AirDrop farming
that's happened is like drugs like it's not good.
It's not healthy for anybody. But it's also hard to to
withdraw, you know, because you get so unique because you have
so much supply that gets like transferred to the farmers and
they're still passing it back and forth like they're still
bidding and dumping on each other.
So it's not like, you know, so you kind of get these grinds
lower, but that all evaporates the minute this ends.
And I don't know who's you know. I don't know who's going to pick
it up. And I think also I think a lot
of these brands just aren't in the best shape.
I you know, a lot of the utility of NF TS is price go up.
So when that reverse, when that reverses, when it it loses its
cool factor, it loses its status symbol.
It loses like the pride people have in wearing it as their PFP.
So a lot of the benefits you get when NFTS are going up, like
once they go down, you know, this is kind of the definition
of a vetbling good. So I, I don't know if the end.
I, I would think that, like I said, I like I said, I think I
think of like someone withdrawing from drugs, like it
ain't easy. Even when it's over, it's you
know, so it kind of gives you a chance to reset and restart.
But I think a lot of these brands are going to have a hard
time bouncing back. So it's hard to say.
I think, you know, maybe we need some new projects and maybe we
just need time to pass and kind of something to work and, and,
and the FOMO to come back. But you know, yeah, it's, it's
it's hard to say. Which phrase do you think are
are holding up the the best? And let's put punks aside
because I do want to talk about punks here in a minute.
I guess I'll, I'll go 1st and like this is I don't really have
huge bag bias. I've got one pudgy Penguin.
It it's my PFP. What I will say is like, if you
if you do the network map of people in different sectors in
crypto who are rocking pudgy Penguin PFPSI think it's
probably the biggest who's who list.
Perhaps punks is maybe above that.
I don't even know. So I when I look at that, that
aspect of the pudgy brand, it feels it it still feels pretty
strong and I think Azuki's probably still fairly strong
there too. But like, I don't I don't want
to lead you. I'm curious for your thoughts on
the brands here. I know it's a little bit you
know, of a of a special spot for you as you know working for meme
land, but but curious for your take.
No, I mean, I, I think meme lands kind of in a different
category, to be honest. I I think with pudgy Penguins,
yeah, I mean, pudgy Penguins are kind of still, I mean, if you
exclude that run, they had to like 23 ETH.
They're still kind of close to all time highs.
You know, I mean, obviously take away the past six months where
he went to 23 then Beth, but but they're doing very, very well.
You know, obviously they're lower than Bourdais Bachlu, but
Bourda Bachlu came from 150 ETH to 12 ETH, whereas pudgies were
at like 5 ETH for most of blur season 2 and now they're at 11
ETH. You know, and I think that there
is a pride around that because they're the ones that are on the
up and up, relatively speaking. I think that makes them a more
positive status symbol. I think the timeline, broadly
speaking, is very positive about pudgies.
I think they're at the right point in that in that cycle.
I think there's a sense that something's coming.
You always feel like this team is working on something.
They're good at keeping keeping that to themselves, but there's
a feeling that something's coming.
I always say that anticipation is the oxygen of NTS and I feel
like with pudgies you have anticipation like so I think
that pudgies kind of have everything going for them for
where they are in this moment. The obvious other one is milady.
I mean milady, you know, it's it's just very effectively
creating the culture of what it does.
Like it's creating something where the group as a whole has a
ton of pride. They represent a certain culture
and you know, and what are they like?
You know, 6-7 thousand, I mean, probably 505,000 holders.
You don't need tons of people to love your culture for that for
it to be positive for prices. And I think there are enough
people who really identify with the milady brand.
And then there are also a lot of the big hitters in crypto and
they're bringing air drops to to the collection.
So that's that feels like the second one that that that kind
of keeps the mojo going. Also check quirky quirky's is
still above 1, even overall magic Een.
I can't believe that one. But but yeah, who knew?
I'm not. I'm not going to put quirkys in
in in the bucket with those two. I think there are other like
little pockets of culture that are thriving.
But when I think of the big names, I have a harder time
getting. I mean, Azuki has anticipation
for sure. They've been very open about a
token coming. And I think that that keeps that
one doing pretty decently well also.
But yeah. I'm surprised there has been
more chatter around this Azuki token because we we do know that
it's coming at the Pudgy token we all think is coming.
But you know, there's also the huge camp to say that will
scream that you're an idiot for, for even talking about it or
thinking about it. Though it does seem like a
preordained outcome, I do think that is a potential catalyst
down the line. I have no idea when that's going
to be. I think with pudgies, you just
know they're cooking. Yeah, you can call, you know,
it's like they're always cooking.
You know, that team is not is not taking any time to take a
breather and and you know, and something's coming.
So I, I think that that's, I, I, I think that's something, I
think that's certainly the sense I get from talking to folks.
I think Izuki, it's just like, look like their last drop that
everyone got so excited about ended up hurting a lot of
people. So I just don't, yeah.
And I think that they're going to have to.
So I think they have to prove themselves here, you know, so I,
I, I think that people are kind of like we, we got hurt last
time. A lot of whales spent a lot of
money in elementals and, you know, went below mint price
pretty quickly. I think broadly speaking, it
wasn't as great of a brand event, but look for there's
still a lot of people who love their Zuki's.
Like it's still, I think the brand is still strong among
their core holders, as you know. So I, I think they have a lot of
good things going and that's, I think that that kind of pro and
con is why they're kind of kicking it in this like 5 eighth
range, which for this market is nothing to scoff at.
Yeah, it's pretty damn good. And I, I feel like we're
starting to forget about elementals.
Like I, I, I forget that the, the cash grab the elementals was
and the, the massive damage it it did to like the entire market
at at that point in time. And it's hard to state, but I
guess the only thing that's going to heal that is time.
And guess what? Like what?
We're almost we're nine, nine months out now, maybe close to
10. I think the big thing that's
going to hold it is like this token going well or that's going
to that's going to heal it. You know, time can can do so
much. I think right now there's a
little bit of like, you know, I remember so well, you know,
March to June of last year where everything was dumping like the
market was, I mean, I was at proof at the time, like
Moonbirds went from like 10:00 to like two like everything.
And that's, we won't go into that shenanigan, but like,
everything was getting absolutely crushed.
And Azuki was going from 13 to 18, and it was all in
anticipation of Vegas. Everyone was so pumped for Vegas
and then Vegas. Yeah.
So I do think that memory is still real.
And I think the way that they are going to win everyone back
is by doing what they're doing, by being consistent about what
they're anticipating. And then whatever this token is,
whatever it ends up being, for that to deliver.
Yeah, and people love their their PBTS, their physical back.
They're doing something on Bitcoin.
So we'll see how that goes. We got to talk punks Longs was a
huge story. I feel like it would have been
the story of the week had it not been for this, the ETF
bombshell. So back in the news after super
punk world. We don't even necessarily need
to get into that. We can if you want.
I'm looking at the punk floor right now.
It is 33.99 ETH that that certainly is down.
It is trending down this year, but that but it's $130,000.
So it's 130 thousand U.S. dollars to buy one of these
things. And then if you look at the
floor like it still feels thin ish like if you really are
shopping for your forever punk, there's not a whole lot of
options below 50 E. So that always that's something
I check when I do look at the floors like how how good is the
floor, though it seems like some better ones are starting to pop
up. But I I posted this question.
I'm curious for your your thoughts on it is who is the
incremental buyer of of punks right now?
And my my thoughts when I shared it were that the old guard has
their punks already. And it doesn't seem like most of
the old guard are adding to their punks bags right now.
And the folks making money in 2024, which is, I mean, the
reality is it's it's largely the milady culture and and and
others as well. But the monies are a huge part
like that cohort doesn't want punks and I'm not even sure like
the the the the guys that I'm training with who aren't in the
milady cohort, I'm not sure they want punks either.
So I'm curious for your thoughts on who is the next buyer?
I mean, I think the way that punks have always worked is
that, you know, it's there's always a few sales a day, you
know, you have somewhere between 3:00 and, you know, maybe 0 and
15 sales a day. Like they're incremental.
Like they're incremental sellers who are like, yeah, you know,
I'm ready to, to get some get some ETH back and exchange for
my punk. Then you have incremental buyer
like you always just have a little bit of both.
And I think that the Super World event, what you know, whatever
it was that happened earlier this week, like just created an
outsize number of sellers. And for this space, an outsize
number of sellers, there's like 20 new people.
Like that is more than the demand can handle on a normal
basis. And then you start getting into
the into the kind of momentum aspects where people are looking
around being like, wait, more and more stuff's getting listed.
I don't need to buy now. And I'd be like, things just
grind lower in that environment. I mean, punks have been grinding
lower for a couple years. Yeah, they've been very, very
flat for for certain periods. But as far as who the
incremental buyer is, you know, I do get, I don't get this for
any other NFT, but I do get a few people, yeah, every month
being like, hey, I want a punk. Like it's my goal to own a punk.
And, you know, I've had three people talk to me about that in
the past few weeks. Like, you know, which one do you
like this one? So I think there I, I do think
there are people out there who are like, you know, when I sail
off in the sunset, I kind of want to have a punk with me.
Like, that's not, you know, that's something I'm interested
in owning. But none of those guys have any
urgency. None of those, you know, and the
only thing that I think would get them to buy is price going
up. It's it's a bit of a chicken and
egg thing. Like you start to buy when
you're like, holy shit, it's getting away from me.
I had this opportunity at 33 ETH.
Now I can't buy them anymore. Fuck, I've always wanted to own
a punk. I miss the opportunity.
That's when people start to buy, you know, and that's the
opposite of where we are right now.
You know, there are there are people who talk a lot about how
you know, well, punks have held this 100,000 U.S. dollar floor.
I'm not a big believer myself in U.S. dollars as like the proxy.
I think I think most people in this industry do think in terms
of ETH. But from AUS dollar perspective,
there is a certain thing where where the floor has been
relatively stable. But as I said, that's never the
way I personally look at it, but it's something I hear people
talk about. It's.
Funny, the FOMO factor is real. It's like I'm fortunate enough
to to finally be in a position where I could buy a punk if I
wanted right now. And I, I've chosen not to.
But a part of that is because like I I'm not worried that the
four is going to be 45 ETH next week.
I don't think anyone is. If there was a circumstance
where like that I thought that was a real reality, I think
perhaps I would start thinking about it again.
The the two things that I think could happen, like the two
things I think would be positive for this let's go three.
But I think, I think, I think the person who's just going to
randomly sweep 20, I think that person is out of the game 'cause
that, that that's been happening on and off for the past five
years. And it, you know, but I think
the two things, one, you know, the big bull market of 2021 was,
you know, there are a few catalysts, but one of the major
ones was visa buying a punk. And I think now, like you get
all these institutions kind of getting into digital objects,
getting into, I think if you start seeing like, hey, Franklin
buys one or, you know, some of these, some of these Vanek, you
know, whoever, some of these bigger organizations that have
that, that are kind of trying to show that they're into digital
objects. Like I, I, I said like maybe a,
a couple buys from some of that could start to be like, could
set off a little bit of a FOMO cycle where guys like you who
are like, yeah, maybe I wanna own one, but I certainly don't
need to buy one now. Like like, holy fuck, maybe it's
time. I think that could be one thing.
I think Yuga selling it. I think I just, I personally
like yoga. I have nothing against yoga, but
they're just so polarizing and I know people from all sorts of
communities, like from the D5 community who are just annoyed
by the attention that apes got for crypto from the art
community, from like the really like the art community who think
like, you know, apes pulled the attention away from, from the
art that was in the NFT. I, I just know people from so
many sides who are just so like negatively disposed to them.
I'm personally not and who don't like them owning.
So I don't think Yugo wants to own them anymore.
Like they can't. Like they get attacked anytime
they try to make money. It's a cost Center for them like
that. I don't think they're selling
their punks because I think they're worried about
reputation. So I don't know if they want it,
like why would they want to own these things?
And I think Yuga wants cash. So like I could see a world
where that moves on. Now, the obvious question is my
sense of punk owners. And it's actually not punk
owners. It's the crypto community that
speaks on behalf of punk owners. The punk owners are actually a
lot more subdued. But the crypto community that
likes to dunk, I don't like, I think they're going to dunk on
anything that happens. And it's a very hard
disposition. But those are a couple of the
potential things I could see that could turn that one around.
So it feels like so many folks just hate yoga at the helm of
punks like Phantom Scribbler. He's one of the folks that
follow. He he rocks the punk with the
Autoglyph background. And he I think he tweeted this
morning that yoga acquiring the punch was the single worst thing
that happened to the project. And like you just see those
takes like once a week. Well.
They're just such bad takes honestly.
Like because these people don't remember how toxic punks were
before Matt and John sold. Like it was like, like I know, I
know Matt and John and they were like they were attacked so
aggressively nonstop. And a lot of it like because
they wouldn't, I mean, Matt and John kind of stuck to their guns
that they didn't want to give up all IP Like they wanted it.
So if, if, if, if someone with a hoodie punk was in the KKK and
said like, punks represent the KKK, here's my punk.
That's our symbol. Like Man John held on enough of
the reins that they could actually say, no, that's not an
okay use of our IP. Whereas at the time you go
saying it's your IP, you can do whatever you want, you can sell.
I think it was really like a big nothing story.
But like, man, John, like, no, we're going to hold a little bit
just to protect our reputation. And you had a firestorm because
of that. A lot of the biggest holders
rage quit. You know, 4156 had the famous
sale, which it wasn't a rage quit.
He sold his eight punk for $10 million.
That was massive. The way they handled V1 punks,
V1 punk where like they were getting absolutely destroyed.
And I think Matt and John were just like, we can't take this
anymore. Like the animosity towards them
was much more aggressive. I mean, Yuga basically has done
nothing like they've held this thing for two years until this
thing, which is the first thing that like just really kind of
misvibed the community. But like they did the Tiffany's
necklace. They've done a bunch of
brunches. They created a book, they made a
poster or a print with a Avant art that sold for 1000 bucks and
within days was selling in secondary for three ETH.
Like they've really done basically nothing.
And then they did this one thing that was off 5.
But it anyone who says like that was the worst thing ever does
not remember what it was like before they got sold.
But the problem is like you can't even if you don't like you
them selling, it is also just a massive risk, right?
Because now you have the the new owner and all the potential
execution risk. Like is there even a good buyer?
Like like is there anyone that you'd be happy with?
Like if they acquired? I feel a little uncomfortable
even talking about this because I have no idea if they even want
to sell. And like, I don't represent you.
I've never worked for you, for a dad.
I've never talked to Garga. Yeah, I've had a couple
conversations with Gordon. I've already spoke with Garga.
Like, what do I know? But yeah, you know, it's it is a
risk. And that's the problem.
You have 5000 holders and a community full of people who
know better who are going to criticize pretty much anything
that happens. But I do think you could find
something which isn't as polarizing as unfortunately Yuga
has become. Very fair.
Last week, yeah, I mean, I looked at how much all their,
they own like 300 punks or something.
I think they're worth like 30 to $50 million.
That's that's a lot of money. But people buy Alien punks for
$16,000,000 and just get one of them.
You know, I like if you look at it's not like it used to be
where the stash of punks that was owned by the founder.
I mean, they own Punk 0 through 999.
That was what, that was what Matt and John kept.
Like they do 0 royalties, free mint.
The only way they pay themselves was by owning punk 0 through
999. That was like a huge lift right
Now they own 300. And I mean, I guess they own
some V ones too. Like, you know, I, I, I think
there might be numbers that could work, but this is just
total speculation. I have no idea what I'm talking
about. And I hope that no one from
Coindesk writes anything about this.
Well, I guess last question, with the caveat that you you
have no idea what you're talking about.
When people come to ask you or talk to you about buying a punk,
you tell them it's a good time to buy.
I think it's hard because I think people right now like
owning punks honestly has been kind of boring and I think a lot
of people want to be efficient with their east and it's very
hard to. It's to predict what could
change what's been a two-month, A2 year trend.
I personally like owning punks. I still think that like in 10
years, this is an asset that could be worth a whole lot of
money in 15 years. I feel like this is just like a
great asset to own for the long haul.
I think it has serious provenance.
I think that that people broadly agree on that, that like this is
the one collection that really has like stay power in a
different sort of way. I think NF TS are a little bit
like wine, you know, the longer it survive, the better it is,
you know, the the older the better.
So I think there's a lot of things about this that are about
these assets that I personally really enjoy holding.
But if you want to be, you know, farming blasts, you know, then
you're probably going to make more money over the next three
months if you buy a punk with, you know, 35 ETH.
So it just kind of depends on how much money you got and what
you want to do with your money. I think it comes down to that
specifically for punks and I do believe the Blast TG will be a
catalyst. We'll talk about that here in a
second. But we we got to talk Bitcoin
NFTS quickly, just for a couple minutes.
Were we all full of shit talking about the great paradigm change
that that was ordinals and coming on spaces.
I'm guilty of this myself and just slamming the table on the
the puppets and the node monkeys.
Are they are they truly different?
Do you feel like they're just in the same bucket of Ethan at
Tees? What's your kind of read on the
the the huge run up we saw and then the the large crash back
down? And prices are brutal.
We have puppets at .16, no monkeys at .23 down from point.
Everything's down 70 to 80% right now, just to set the
backdrop. I always thought everyone was
full of shit on this one. Like I, I could, I could
understand the narrative of and the provenance of being on
Bitcoin and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, it's
about people forming a relationship with a JPG that
they really like. And it's about FOMO.
And those dynamics I always thought were very similar to
Ethan FTSI. Like I already said, I kind of
like punks. I think they survived the test
of time. I kind of like from that lens,
I've always kind of liked node monkeys.
I've I've thought like, you know, these survive the like,
like there's, there's I see a case there that these survived
the test of time as well. You know, node monkeys are
probably the one that I would buy.
You know, I think Orno maxi biz is clearly cooking like the
team. There is extremely aggressive,
extremely big personalities making big statements that
holders can resonate with. So and, and those are similar
traits that would make an ETH NFT do well also.
So, you know, I don't know, I, I, I think this is kind of like
the newest generation of NFT projects with big personalities
with kind of provenance stories. And I think a couple of them
will do well. But at the end of the, the day,
I, I don't think the core, the core situation of these being
momentum assets where people buy them because of FOMO, you know,
and the, you just have a pretty interesting narrative on
Bitcoin. But at the end of the day, like
that, hasn't the the, the, the FOMO kind of reversed pretty
aggressively? Well, yeah, that can happen and
it's painful when it does. I think some of the narratives
were were clearly wrong. And I'm a narrative guy just
because I talk for an hour or two every day.
So you have to come up with stories to tell people.
But I still as a, as a trader wearing my trader hat, I, I like
the ability to, to go, I view entities and tokens as levered
bets on the underlying currency on those block chains.
And but I'm also, I'm not AA10X leverage currency trader.
So like my only way to make more Bitcoin right now as I view it
is to to trade NFTS or to trade runes.
And I do think there is a cohort of of people who who share that
minds. I do think that is it's still a
potential driver and catalyst for these two categories.
And when we think back to the ETH NFT ecosystem, we kind of
talked about this there. There really hasn't been any new
shiny objects. There really haven't been any
big new NFT collections. We got some big exciting new NFT
collections on Bitcoin. Of course, part of the
excitement is was was number go up and you know, folks feel like
it's it's going to be the new stuff that outperforms in the in
the next cycle versus the old guard.
And we kind of saw that. So that is a part of it.
But yeah, I mean, maybe it just all boils down to we got a
little too overexcited. But it was nice to hear you say
that, that no monkeys might still be on your list.
Yeah, no, I love no monkeys I but I look, I think the the
other piece is like it's easy to forget this now.
But you know, there was a stretch there where ordinals
weathers were getting like, you know, 4 figure air drops every
day, you know, so it's easy to forget how much money people
made during the during the moment.
And you know, Akin, who comes on your show a lot made that point
a lot. He's like, don't even think of
these as NFTS Consider this the insider movement of the up and
coming, kind of like, you know, activity on blockchain movement
that's happening. I'm sorry, not a blockchain.
I'm Bitcoin movement that's happening.
And I think also like ruins was a disappointment.
Like, you know, I just people thought there was something
crazy that was going to happen and at the end of the day, like
it, it was fine, but it wasn't this thing that changed
everything. And I think that whole narrative
of like all the building that's going to happen on Bitcoin, we
have the we have the front row seat to that.
We have the access pass. I think that with runes not
changing the paradigm, I think a lot of that narrative started to
kind of go in the background a little bit.
That doesn't mean it's over a lot.
I like none of these ordinal teams, like, yeah, we're done.
Like they're all still deep in this game and believe deeply.
It's just, it's, it's in a lull right now.
It's so funny to hear it call a disappointment because, and I
think that's the, the consensus view that runes are
disappointing. But let's just look at it on
paper. So the dog token is sitting at
400 million RSI CS at 200 million, Pups is at 200 million.
So we've got 3 runes tokens that are 9 figure tokens within of
the runes launch less than two months.
So I guess six months ago if I'd have told you runes are going to
launch on Bitcoin, we're going to have 3-9 figure coins within
a month. Is that a?
Is that a disappointing outcome? Well, we're not six months ago
if you bought a node monkey, you'd be up right now.
Like the delta versus 6 months ago is still fantastic.
Like you know, you, if it weren't for you know, you six
months ago, your Bitcoin puppet didn't exist, right?
So like and right now it's trading at, you know, .2
Bitcoin, the number that would have been celebrated.
The reason people feel bad is because we're doing poorly
relative to two months ago. So like, yes, I think like it's
a good six month outcome, but you know, two months ago you did
start seeing pups hit, you know, hit hit hundreds of millions.
You did start seeing, you know, our, you know, our sick in in
Wales market people looking at a billion.
I I just think there became this narrative of every like we have
to be there, like ruins are what's going to change
everything, and I don't think that's what happened.
I, I think that they, you know, but like, it's not nothing, you
know, but I think like, I just don't think it changed the
paradigm in a way that like that matched some of the like month
in advance, two months in advance anticipation.
Very fair 30 minutes on MTS, good chatter.
I want to talk blast a little bit and we can maybe talk the
the Mt component in this as well.
But I do want to switch gears a little bit.
So a couple big topics I want to touch on.
I want to talk jackpot, but maybe just start, maybe let's
talk your approach to to farming blasts.
I think you wanted the latter voices talking about this
ecosystem. You've been talking about it for
quite some time. I think you did share a tweet
from your account of your which dapps you've been earning the
most from, which was kind of a guide of of how you are
approaching it. But for those who maybe haven't
seen that, I am curious kind of walk us through how you have
been looking at this farm, what kind of stands out as the, you
know, the best opportunities here?
Yeah, so I moved a lot of money over to Blast on like day two,
you know, so I've been like a blast bull for a long time,
largely because, you know, I was very critical of Pac-Man during
a lot of the Blur era. And but and, and, and I stand by
not, I mean, I don't, I'm not critical of him personally, but
of some of the impacts that that Blur had.
But as an analyst, you just can't like I got to know the
AirDrop farming community well and they made a ton of money.
They made tons of money and you know, and I was like pack like
this team is very good at making these tokens work.
And that was when he launched the L2.
I was like, all right, I'm like, I've learned my lesson.
I'm going to go big here. So I put a lot of money in.
I'd say my farming, a lot of my farming is just moving that kind
of what I call lazy money into different, you know, into
different platforms like Wasabi or Juice or in it or Bloom which
got hacked or, you know, thruster LP's.
Like most of my it is pretty lazy 'cause I have a full time
job. It's just, it's just been hard
to dive too deep. That said, those, those, I mean
the real, the real gold has been in, in Jackpot and I think I
think guys like Mooncat have been actually pretty good at
anticipating where Jackpot's going to move.
So that's been one case where I think that you make real money.
The other thing is that tweet, the reason I published it is
because the ones that have made me the most money actually were
not the ones that were lazy money.
They didn't require that much capital.
It was stuff like blaster NFT perp, I mean NFT perp.
I'm probably using three ETH and that one that was one of the
absolute biggest ones. Blast.
I mean blaster. I set up my own NFT project, so
that's not something that like I probably recommend for other
people because it's a lot of work.
Yolo games like Yolo games. I was doing a few ETH of kind
of, you know, Yolo games is kind of one where I think it's EV
positive overtime to gamble. So like the stuff that I the
stuff that I made real gold on, we're not the ones that were
just like dump, you know, tons of money into something and let
it cock. So that was a little bit of what
I was trying to get across with that tweet.
Yeah, well, thanks for walking us through that.
I think a lot of folks still wonder, you know, how can you
play the game with with low bank rolls?
So you called out a few apps to do that.
I want to talk jackpot a little bit and I'm not one to shy away
from hyperbole, but is, is Blast Jack jackpot the most important
thing that's happened to to this L2 or perhaps even the broader
theory of EVM landscape And I think.
Blastjack. That's the most important thing
to happen in finance in 2024. I just can't explain.
Look, it's just I mean the numbers are crazy, right, PAC
Moon and you know, thruster is the is the most heavily gold
awarded DAP on blast and you know, Jack PAC moon got more
than thruster got in a week. Now thruster has gotten more
since then. But I think I think that's where
like the people like it's, it is hard to predict, even though
every time something happens like, oh, that was obvious in
hindsight, like it's, it's not easy to know what's going to
come, but I think people are putting in like .5 eighth bats
and getting enormous amounts of gold in return.
I got to give a shout out to one guy.
I mean, the one thing I would say is I'm not that deep in the
farming game right now. So I don't actually know where
the hot pots are right now. Like, and and the problem is
that the people who do know don't tell you because it really
is deluded to tell people. But one person who does tell you
is ICO Beast. Let me let me figure out what
his handle is. It's either Beast ICO or ICO
Beast. And I think he's really, yeah,
Beast under score ICO. And he's taking the old school
kind of web to influencer model of like, I'm going to tell
everybody everything I know and then hope they use my referral
code. Remember, like I'm going to give
you a full blog here. I'm going to recommend all these
lawn mowers. Just go to this link when you
buy it on Amazon and I'll get paid.
That's the ICO beast model, you know, And he's telling people
everything he knows. And the one thing you can do to
thank him is use his referral code when you join these
platforms. And he's a he's a really good
follow. A lot of people, the ones that
the real insiders know, I'll be honest, Captain and Co Captain
and Co is the one that like you see guys who have like 50,000
gold and aren't like OSF who just have who, who bridged over
1008. Like those guys normally are
pretty deep in Captain and Co. A lot of them are deep in
Cambria. They're probably doing, I mean,
they're they're probably doing a little bit of maybe fantasy top.
I'm not sure, but that's an expensive entry point, you know,
relatively speaking. But those are the names I'm
seeing these guys talk about. And I'll, I'll throw kettle in
and I think Cyrus talks about kettle and just, you know,
these, these watch these luxury watch boxes.
It's not, that's not a cheap entry game, as I understand it.
I think you got to show up to the to the table with some
serious capital. Yeah, Cyrus is spending money,
money. But you know, I mean, you know,
look, Cyrus is the GOAT. Like he doesn't, he doesn't do
these things if he's not going to make money over time, but
he's definitely, and he's making real gold.
But you know, he, he, he, he's calculated though.
He's the type of guy who'll be like, I can lose 5 grand on this
if it makes me five, you know, 10,000 gold, I'll do that 100
times, you know, a day, you know, so but but if there is a
bit more of a capital buried entry to some of those
strategies. But that bet does require a a
number tied to blast gold and your your latest revised
estimate $6 per gold. What what would have to happen
for you to revise that demo? Do you think that's the final
number now that we are, we're we're almost exactly one month
out a month and three days, What would have to happen for us to
go lower than lower than six? Three things or three
possibilities for what would make it lower than six.
One is 1 is that they'd extend it longer.
You know, so for some reason this June 26th thing doesn't
work. You know, I, I, I do believe
that they're pretty dialed in on that.
On that date, they came out pretty aggressively swinging.
This is the date, but that'd be one thing.
A second thing, you know, maybe I guess included in that bucket
is giving out more gold than I expect, which I don't really
think is going to happen, but we'll see.
Their next distribution will be interesting.
If they're like we're giving out 20 million gold, then my
estimates need to get revised because I have 15,000,000
predicted. I like and that's possible.
That is very possible. That's one thing.
The second thing is like kind of in the I have no idea what I'm
talking about campus, what's the valuation going to be like?
Markets are very hard to predict.
I personally think that my 10 billion estimate is
conservative. A lot of people think I'm
aggressive, but I think that is conservative.
If you look at optimism Arbitrum, like those are eleven
$12 billion tokens right now, especially with this run up.
But you know, if it's I talked to a blast founder yesterday
from one of the biggest projects who thinks it's going to be a $5
billion token, I don't think these guys know what they're
talking about. That would put the market cap, I
think, below Blur, but that would be the other thing.
And then the third thing would be if they just completely nerf
the amount of token they give to people, But I think that that's
also more likely to be a surprise in the other direction.
Yeah. And, and those all feel like
low, low likelihood outcomes. So it does feel like 6 is the
bottom. And I think $10 or 10 billion is
conservative. And you are and you've said it
yourself, I think we can definitely see it open higher
than that. So I'm still leaning bullish.
But a part of this, a part of the calculus is like what's
going to be around in Q4? Like do you think that the
primary dabs that we're using on blast right now, are they still
going to be in our conversations in November of 2024 or or do you
think some of these are just total flash in the pans like
what's how, how are you looking at the longevity aspect?
I mean, the elephant in the room is fantasy, right?
And you know, it's I don't think that's I don't think that's
going away now, since I think like the core use case of people
betting on people's tweeting like that can kind of keep
going. It doesn't need a whole lot to
keep going, you know, so that'll be an interesting one to track.
I don't know, I bought like you have apps like juice, like
juice's like entire purpose is to farm blast gold.
You know, like it's like, let's get you, like maybe you can get
you're paying interest to get like leverage exposure to golden
points, you know, so something like that, I think is I'm sure
Eric's going to come up with ways to keep this as a long term
business, but the use case right now I feel is very reliant on
the farming meta. But you know, we're 18 months
right now after blur launched and farming hasn't gone away at
all on blur and it looks kind of similar to when it started.
So, you know, these, at least in the blurry example, the
longevity I think is much longer than anyone anticipated a year
and a half ago. Yeah.
I think people keep discounting that when they think about this
ecosystem. So I think what for your
estimate, you're assuming 15% of the tokens are unlocked at, at
TGE for the AirDrop. So I guess it following some of
my, I don't know if you recall the tokenomics off the top of
your head, but like what, what were the the next series of
allocations? Was it like 30% for the next
one? I'm not sure.
If you recall for blur, oh for blur it was they gave.
Blur. Well, Blur started with Blur
gave 51% to the community. I think they gave 12% in the
first one. I don't remember how much they
gave for season 2, you know, but I think I don't I think you, you
need to give a lower. You don't need to give as high a
percent when you have an actual liquid token that people can
equate with real money. You know, I think one of the
divides I'm realizing exists out there is people like you and me,
like we did a new show every single day throughout the whole
blur existence. Like I did a daily YouTube show
analyzing everything that happened there.
You wrote a daily newsletter like we've to us, this is
obvious that points become money.
And then this happens in season two.
I think like 95% of people just have no kind of map in their
heads for what Blur actually look like.
I think there are literally like 100 of us who do, and we talk
about this stuff like it's obvious, but to a lot to other
people, this is so foreign that I think once you actually get
the real dollars out there like you need, you don't need to give
away as much because people aren't taking that leap of faith
from gold or points to redacted to money, you know?
Yeah. And even if you don't think it's
going to come out at 10 billion, like let's say it comes out at 6
billion, which is lower than both you and I think it's going
to come out. There's still so much money left
on the table for for season one, for Season 2 of Blast.
So it's hard to imagine these things are going away.
Yeah, I mean, if it if it comes out at 6 billion, yeah, like
what would that market cap look like?
I mean, the market cap would would be well below a billion.
You know Jasmine token, Sandbox token, marinade Steaks sold
Gate, Chili's safe. You know NEO, AXI Infinity,
though, that's just like a laundry list of tokens that are
worth more than a billion in market cap.
That's why I don't buy it. So 1010 billion is fun.
We've got a couple minutes left in the show, Sam and.
I just want to talk Matt. There are a couple questions in
the comments. IKB Ebrink Yeah, I love IKB.
What are my estimates for fan? I don't have estimates for fan.
Why do I estimate gold price and not price per point?
I think gold is easier to back into than than than points are.
But I did I did do a thread about about price for points.
Is this a stats alt account? Know that YouTube or that
YouTube and that's actually punk 9059 my other punk, which is my
YouTube avatar. And then someone said what do I
think about the Fidenza sales? I mean those things have just
grinded lower for so long and someone wanted to buy friend
tech immediately and sold. So sorry, I didn't mean to
interrupt. Just wanted to go through the
questions and the comments here. Oh, thank you for doing that
quickly on the friend tech thing.
Hey, I mean they're down because the friend is down sadly.
And I, I still have a fairly large friend bag which I haven't
unloaded. What's interesting when people
just nuke the Fidenzas into bids, like do they not know that
the lending market exists? Like you could get a much higher
LTV loan and then you could just default them alone, but you
still have somewhat control the assets.
That's always what surprises me. But I mean, OSF did it for with
and then he made 10 million bucks.
So we're going to see people continue to do it.
Never question that people are like on drugs or on coffee or
just need a dopamine hit immediately.
Like it is hard to figure out Gandhi.
I'm sorry. It is hard to figure out Arcade.
I've like spent time on those. It is not.
You list it. You get a whole course of people
who bid on it. Like, I'm sure it's easier than
that, but I I think people are just like, fuck it.
Like, I need this, and I need it now because my brain is
literally spanning in circles. And yeah, you're right, there's
a lot of uneconomic behavior that goes on out there.
And that's how the arbitragers in our space make so much money.
I I certainly understand being impatient and that's how I am
with fancy top where I just nuke my cards into bids whenever I
need any free cash to to make my next move.
Sam a couple minutes left. I guess on the mean land.
The the big news this week was Pixelmon.
We don't have to go super into detail.
I'm curious if you can share maybe any insight into what the
team looks for in in partners. So like what?
What would make Pixelmon a good partner for for your stakeland
aspect of the of the company? I think a lot of it is just
who's front of mind for the world right now.
You know, it's like, I think Pixelmon is something that like,
like they've just done an insane job going from what was the most
memed launch of of the entire year to actually being like,
actually there's kind of some interesting IP in there.
The meme is interesting IP kind of because it's a meme.
Let's turn this into something, you know, that one of the
founders has been a, a holder of, of MVP since Day 1.
So it's a, it's a team. We know a lot of community
overlap. Like our community is out there
being like, this is a project we want to work with.
And then they also just have a ton going on really kind of
interesting. I mean, one thing that's cool is
they're given 30% of their token to Pixelmon holders, you know,
30%, you know, 5% of TG and then 25 will be a drip over time.
But they're really hooking up their NFT holders.
You know, their YouTube account got a shout out from the CEO of
YouTube a couple weeks ago. Like they built out an
incredible social media platform.
I mean, they just have a lot of a lot of a lot of sticks in the
fire where I, I think there's a lot that can go right for this
great set of investors. Like aggressive terms.
I think investors were, I think, I think some of the rounds were
as high as $300 million for FTV. Like there's just like a good,
good list of investors. I think you kind of put it all
together and, you know, we want to work with like one partner a
month, maybe two sometimes like, and I think all those things
also fit with Arsic, who is our last partner.
You know, the, the, as I said, the rune story didn't pop off,
but Arsic was complete. Has has always been completely
friend of mine. For Ordinals, this was the
hottest narrative we got who we thought was arguably the top
player, certainly one of the top three players in that game.
A-Team. We liked our holders, had a lot
of exposure. So those are kind of recurring
themes for for what we look at. I like it.
I think you have to be excited about that as a meme holder, as
a meme line NFT holder, just having access to these products,
you don't have to go out and do your own shopping.
You effectively had the team bringing them to you and then
you can go on quest. So I love the model.
I'm a fan of it. I guess before we wrap up any
surprises, you're you're what, three months in to meme line?
Is it? Is it more than that?
Honestly like it. It's the reason I joined Meme
Land is because they are good people who work there.
Like Ray is someone I've been friends with for 12 years.
He's a religious guy. Like he takes being a good
person very, very seriously. He's been through a lot in his
life and he's out there. Like, you know, the, the one of
the most surprising things I talked to was, you know, our
first conversation, my first conversation with our market
maker is they said this is our only client that doesn't sell
their own token. You know, like, because Ray's
like, no, I don't really want to do that.
You know, we, and we do sometimes we'll sell the token
by captains, like do things like that if we see like a value
misalignment or if we want to invest in another project or
something like that. But broadly, like they're good
people. One thing that surprised me
honestly, is like Ray is a better CEO than I expected, and
I expected him to be good. I think he's a really talented
guy. And Char, there's a guy named
Char who runs our business development side.
I guess we call him the chief growth officer.
I call him the CGBO, the chief growth business officer because
everything's a meme at this company, but he, he's one of the
best deals guys I've ever met. You know, he's just, and he's
also just a truly good person. So like, it's just been a fun
team to work with. Like, and they do good things.
And you know, overall I've been, I've been pretty happy with how
it's gone. Love char love love Ray 9 gag.
It just seems like the the team is clicking on all cylinders.
So super happy for you over there and the impact you've
made. It's going to be fun to watch.
Yeah, I mean, if I if I'm not going to only like just be like
a total fanboy. Like the other thing that I do
know is also is it's like Web 3 where you're constantly kind of
changing things. You're constantly trying to
figure out what's next. Like that is real, you know, and
that was more so the case that proof.
But here it's like you kind of have to keep up with the
narrative and move incredibly quickly.
You know that it like if you know, if, if three months ago
were like, holy shit, ordinals are hot, you know, and then you
and you come up with you like you have to adapt your narrative
for the moment. And even things that are obvious
aren't don't always go the way you expect.
And like that part is something that we're constantly adjusting
to. But it's a really good team.
The holders are great, like the you know, the holders, like any
discord, like the holders, you know, have mixed views at all
times. But after going through proof, I
think every discord is like the opposite of fun.
So by and large, you know, it's it's been a great company to
work for. Fair assessment and you have to
you have to keep iterating and moving and shifting in web three
because our attention spans are about 30 seconds long at at this
point in time. So you, you got to keep things
fresh and innovating. Well, Sam, this has been
fantastic. I want to be conscious of your
time. We are over the the hour mark.
Thank you for joining us. This was such an incredible
insight and the NF TS blast meme land and and the team over
there. So really appreciate it folks.
If you're not already, I'm sure you are, but go give them a
follow at Punk 9059. Go check out meme land, go check
out steak land. See everything they're cooking
with Pixelmon. Pixelmon.
Shout out to them. They've got their tge coming
next Monday. But Sam, thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much for having me. You're you're you're the best in
the biz of what you do. So always, always happy to chat
whenever you ask or, or Amanda or, or Firoch.
I've I was thinking the other day I came out in one of my
first, when I was first building this account, they invited me on
the show and I was thinking how how nervous I was before I went
on that show. It must have been 2 1/2 years
ago and it went really well and all that stuff.
But now it's just so fun 'cause you guys got a lot of the best
minds in the space. So I was happy to come on.
It's funny you say that. I remember that show and that
was the first time I'd I'd heard from you.
I was like, who is this NMT stats guy?
And it was from that show. So it worked.
And I think that kind of kicked off your your meteoric rise, so.
One, one step at a time. Man.
What really kicked off my meteoric rise was I want.
We'll save that for the next. Show we'll do that.
Yeah, we got back on maybe with Farok and Mando so we can really
chop it up but folks, we're gonna go ahead and wrap things
up for this episode of the FOMO, our episode 123.
Thank you for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow.
I will be back, but Farok and Mando will be back catching you
up on everything macro. Hopefully we've got that ETF
news by then, but till then, let's make it a great day.
See ya.