WEBVTT - The Time One Of Our Co-Hosts Launched His Own Cryptocurrency 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.600 Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.640 I'm Tracy Alloway and uh we have a very very 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.360 special episode for you today. Many of you will have 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.920 been following what's been happening in the cryptocurrency market, where 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.720 a bitcoin recently dipped below six thousand dollars per coin. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.839 That's down from a record high of I think it 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.280 was eighteen thousand dollars back in January, and of course 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.320 lots of people scratching their heads trying to figure out 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.280 what to make of the recent price movement, and lots 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.280 of people trying to figure out still what to make 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:54.000 of cryptocurrencies in general. So today we have a treat 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.480 for you, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to be talking 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.480 with two people who set up their own crypto currency, 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.760 and one of them happens to be my co host, 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.160 Joe Wisenthal. Joe Say, Hi, Hi Tracy, thanks for having 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.960 me on on launch today. Yes, a little bit of 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.319 a role reversal for you there and your partner in 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.800 this cryptocurrency endeavor is also a previous guest on The 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.119 Odd Lots Podcast. It's Gwan Yang. He is a data 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:28.120 scientist edit tech startup Hi Kwan Hi Tracy. So in 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.800 that brief intro I mentioned that you had set up 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.319 your own cryptocurrency. Do either of you want to sort 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.319 of set the stage for when you did this and 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.760 why you decided to do it, well on what year 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.840 was that it was in in Januar. It was a 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.720 time when it felt like everyone was setting up there 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.800 on cryptocurrency, and a lot of these were vanity currencies. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.800 There was do you recall Coigny a West, which didn't 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:57.400 really gets actually launch. And as I remember the story, 0:01:57.600 --> 0:01:59.760 I was on vacation Arizona and you d n me 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.920 and and said, there's all these people setting up their 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.280 own cryptocurrency, and there are journalists doing it, and you 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.519 know this is a big problem because you wanted to 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.919 be the first. Yeah, I don't remember. I remember like 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:20.120 over over over New Year's vacation, around the end of beginning, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:23.760 I had this idea, is like, oh, I should launch 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.639 a cryptocurrency. And then I thought, you know who would 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.320 be really interested because he's really fun and he has 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.280 a great sense of humor and a say yes to 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.919 new projects. Jouis Devive would be guant. So I message Guan, 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.560 I said, Guan, let's launch our own cryptocurrency, and we 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.840 did it. We did yeah, and I think we got 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.919 ahead of at least the other other cryptocurrencies and in 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.399 media at least go on. As soon as you said 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.480 that Joe needed to be first, Uh, I started laughing, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.240 because that's the Joe that I recognize. Okay, So you 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.400 make this decision to do it, but it can't be 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.359 that easy, right You have to actually figure out how 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.960 your cryptocurrency is going to work. So how did you 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.400 go about doing that? So at the time in Janu 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.880 there were actually people trying to make it easier. I 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.679 found this paid service and actually paid them amount of 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.600 bitcoin that would probably be worth thousands today. Uh, I'm sorry. 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.040 And it was like a cryptocurrency as a service, you know, 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.919 you paid them some bitcoin, you put in the name 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.040 of your cryptocurrency and the way they would work, and 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.160 they would create it for you. It turned out that 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.160 it didn't work that well. So, you know, like like 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.200 any good artist, I decided to steal something that already existed, 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.800 and the most obvious choice was the scryptocurrency that was 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.560 quite popular back then and it's still pretty popular I think, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.160 called dogecoin. That how you would pronounce it change. Yeah. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.600 Dog Coin is um based on a meme of of 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.000 this particular sheep. But you knew that's kind of a 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.080 fox like Japanese dog breed. That's like the Instagram version 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.880 of a Corgi becoming more coin in the US, by 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:05.320 the way, and there was a particular Japanese sepa named 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.240 Kabosa who became a meme. They were all these captions 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.360 like wow and such something very something moon exactly. Yeah, 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.440 And obviously when that happened in someone had to create 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.839 a cryptocurrency based on this poor dog. Well, and the 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.680 other thing is you mentioned stealing, But like all these currencies, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.800 the code is open for the most part, so Bitcoin, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.039 light Coin, doge Coin, which I think is based on 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.040 light Coin. All you have to do in a way 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.680 is copy and paste the code and then change a 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.599 few parameters, maybe change the name, and essentially they were 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.760 everyone's kind of copy off of them. Yeah, and until 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:46.960 a couple of years ago, all of these cryptocurrencies were 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.599 almost all basically copies of Bitcoin. Dots Coin is Space, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.400 and something called light Coin which changed some some key details, 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.880 but the basic architecture, if you open up the software 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.760 on your computer, they all sort of looked the same, 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:00.720 and in the case of dos coin, changed a lot 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.920 of the menus and the branding to be more mimi. 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.880 Of course, the Stalwart Books was a clone of doge coin, 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:09.840 which was a clone of light Coin, which was a 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.360 clone of Big Yeah, we would say a fork right, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.600 and Stalwart Bucks for those who don't know, Joe's handle 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.640 on Twitter is of course the Stalwart So you named 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.080 it after yourself, even though Guan was doing all the work. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.040 Of course, have you ever told this the origin story 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:26.760 of that name? Oh? Yeah, I don't know. I feel 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.120 like I might be an unreliable narrator on this. What's 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.520 your recollective of the origin story? I don't really know. 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.440 You had a some kind of stock tips blog with 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.520 this name or I don't. I don't know what the 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.280 reasoning was. It sounded pretty goofy, like Stalwart Bucks, like 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.000 maybe like some sort of like fake courtesy you would 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.520 get in an arcade or something like that, like that 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.200 you would only be able to use to play video 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.240 games or something. I think, in retrospect, though it may 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.880 have been our first error is not giving it more 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.359 august and serious sounding there. And I think that that 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.279 right off the bat may have said a song the 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.279 wrong the wrong fund. Yeah, you know, it was that 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.520 like many startups, it was like that rushed to launch. Yeah, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.200 it's not always a good idea. Okay, so we have 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.880 a little bit of foreshadowing there of what's to come. 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.320 But you know, you mentioned star wart Bucks is a 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.000 clone of doge coin, which is a clone of light coin. 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.640 And this is a question I always have about cryptocurrencies, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.800 which is that anyone can launch these things, and so 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.960 in order to be successful you kind of have to 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.479 focus on either first mover or advantage or adoption. So 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.400 what was your big plan to get people on board 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:36.000 with star war Books. Well, so this was actually the 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.320 one idea that I think we were pretty legitimately ahead 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.640 of our time on. So obviously the trend in was 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.720 initial coin offerings, and the premise would be that of 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:49.960 many of these coin offerings that the token has some 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.440 sort of redeemable value. So for example, some projects are 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.400 we've seen like, oh, you could use this token to 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.680 buy storage space on people's computer for data or something 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.360 like that. And we are the idea that every month, 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.240 Guan and I would host a dinner among journalists or 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.400 among people, and we would like get together and talk 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.160 about economics or cryptocurrencies, and that to come to the dinner, 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.920 you would have to pay install wart books and that 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:18.880 that would sort of set a floor for the currency. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.120 So if it was really desirable to come to this dinner, 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.280 then people would have to bid up for the currency 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.600 to get it. One of the first currencies I think 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.360 to attempt to underpin the currency with real world value. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:31.880 You did have to pay for the food separately, right, 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.640 So it didn't get the currency, didn't even get you 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.160 the food. It just got you the ability to come 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.360 to the dinner the honor of being there. Okay, so 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.280 how many of these dinners did you actually hold and 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.480 what was adoption? Like, I think we've had about ten, 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.040 ten or eleven so far over the course of we've 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.680 had we've had I think we've had more than that. 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:55.840 I bet we've had close to twenty and we still 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.520 have them. But even starting from the first one, I 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.840 think we were never actually able to convince people to 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.840 actually use the currency to come. So we insist that 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.960 you and I think at the first dinner, maybe about 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.680 half the people at the dinner actually paid the required 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.840 fee in stalwart books and and lately it's been a 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.600 lot less than that zero. Wait, so how did people 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:28.080 actually go about acquiring stal Wart books? So there were 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.320 basically two ways, and one is that you could buy 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.960 Stalwart Bucks from someone who already had them, or you 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.280 could get them and I would often just give them 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:41.000 out free just for for fun. And and like most cryptocurrencies, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:42.640 the other way that you could get them is by 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.920 mining them by solving this this computational problem, this math 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.120 problem basically, and the blockchain, the software would then award 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.880 you some Stalwart bucks as as a reward for for 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.480 spending some you know, some time on your computer and 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.480 some electricity to solve this problem for us. And people 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.760 were mining them, right, people, you were probably the biggest miner. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.959 But what's the history of the mining. I think that 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.240 you and I only control that ten or fifteen percent 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.040 of all the star wart Bucks in existence, So I 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:13.920 would say the vast majority of the star wart Bucks 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.600 were mined by other people who who are not sitting 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.120 in this room. Right, So how many star wart Bucks 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:24.680 are in existence? Now? This is a good Yeah, there's 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:26.320 a lot to this. So if you you know, if 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.120 you if I check in the database, it's uh it's 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.800 it's it's about ten or fifteen ten and fifteen billion. 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.280 But then also another error that we may have made 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.000 in terms of serious adoption is didn't we make it 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.320 so that they were mined and increments of one or 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:47.040 like that each coin, each allocation was then from the 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.480 moment you started, you were everyone the moment they acquired 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.080 anything was a stalwart boxing billionaire. Do you want to 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.559 explain that? Yes, so that that was the original goal, 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:57.600 that you know, you would be mining increments of a 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.400 billion or maybe ten or or a large multiple of 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.560 a billion. Unfortunately, the bitcoin Slash light Coin slash dosecoins 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.120 software that we used, the field that they used to 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.840 store how many coins you have was not big enough 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.000 to both be mining and increments of a billion and 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.679 and have a reasonable amount in existence. Right, So this 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.640 was like the really where the user experience in my 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.480 recollection broke down because you would instantly when you would 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.760 first get them, you would immediately get like a billion 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.320 or actually several bills, but we would just label them 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.679 as a billion stalwart bucks in the software, so when 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.679 you looked at it, it would look it would say 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:38.160 you know, and then we would wrote write b sp x, 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.480 so was was getting those? Sorry, was mining those? And 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.400 increments of a billion? Was that supposed to be a 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.480 gimmick just to get more people on board so that 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.760 they can say that they're star wart Bucks billionaires. Yeah, 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.760 I think you could say that that was a gimmick. Okay. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.800 And the amount of Stalwart Bucks in existence, I mean 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.000 crypto proposed. It's often talk about how bitcoin is sort 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.000 of self limiting, there's a limited supply um in existence 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.120 and in essence the thing is kind of deflationary. Was 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.400 that the same idea for Stalwart Books as well? No, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.959 we decided not to limit the amount of listens. No, 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.400 it just keeps going. But it's growing very slowly now 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.840 and now it's a thousand per per mining. So it 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.760 does as it does decline on a predictable schedule. It's 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.080 just there's no hard limit, there's no limiting. It'll go 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.320 on forever, unlike say Bitcoin, where eventually you're gonna keep mining, 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.720 but there no new bitcoin will be created. At some 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.760 point in fact, bitcoin will be destroyed as people lose 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.040 their their passwords and so forth. So do you have 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.160 any idea of who else was mining or even buying 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.040 Stalwart Books? So? I think most of the miners sort 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.080 of in in headcount, or people who knew about it 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.000 from the finance Twitter community, like a few though, like 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.520 on Twitter, who from crypto I think the early crypto 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.200 Twitter from back then, I think we would see people 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.560 tweeted about mining it from time to Yeah, but yeah, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.240 they're also people just sort of from the broader crypto 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.240 community who already had a big mining rig and who um, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:15.720 I don't know if anyone really took it that seriously, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:17.800 but who took their big mining rig and said, you know, 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:19.640 for the next couple of hours, I'm just gonna mind 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:24.600 stalwart bucks. Why not? I think at the time. These days, 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.240 I don't think anyone who actually had any significant hash 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.559 power or mining rig would waste their time on something 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.000 like that. But it's still in twenty In early it 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.920 was still like mostly weirdos and hobbyists, and even judging 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.080 by the seriousness with which we took this project, no 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.800 one knew that crypto is going to be as big 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.280 then as it is now obviously, so I think maybe 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:50.760 it was a little bit more of a tolerance or 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.880 interest and sort of quirky projects like this just for 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.080 the fun of it, wouldn't you say, yeah, I think 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.079 none of the cryptocurrencies that people talk about now are 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:06.559 or even mean based at all. That's really sad, right. So, 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.000 one of the pervasive problems in many parts of crypto 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.719 land right now is this idea of crypto whales, or 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:18.560 people who own big proportions of a certain coin, notably 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.480 Bitcoin for instance. Do you have any suspicions that there's 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:28.080 someone out there who, given possibly the limited participation that 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.079 you had in stalt Wart Bucks. Forgive me for saying so, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:33.720 do you have any suspicion that there's one or two 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.719 people out there who are holding a big chunk of 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.440 the market besides Guan, Yeah, besides squad and yourself. I 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.200 don't think there's anyone who's both a Stalwart Bucks whale 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.640 and remembers that they have Stalwart Bucks. But didn't you 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.719 say that one point you're surprised to see that there 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.680 was one other, like pretty significant minor in this space. 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.400 There was. Yeah. I don't think we ever figured out 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.160 who that was. It was traded at one point, there 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.320 was an exchange the story with that, do you remember, 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:03.560 I don't really know the backstory. We didn't have any 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.439 contact with them back then. There were lots of crypto exchanges. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.760 Mount Cox was still in existence in the but there 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.480 were tons of other exchanges that were trading all these 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:18.040 weird cryptocurrencies like black coin and dochecoin, kitty coin and 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.160 all these others. And the one that we got listed 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:24.880 on was called cryptocode dot i N So cryptocin end 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.040 is India, but it's not necessarily in Indiana. Yeah, I 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.640 don't think they're actually based in India. Yeah, but if 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:34.280 I recall, the only it was traded on this one site, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:39.720 and the only pair was stalwart bucks to dogecoins exactly, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.520 so there was at one point on an exchange you 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:47.360 could trade the doge sp x pair. And so to 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.320 figure out how much is stalwart bucks we're actually worth, 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.280 you had to figure out the stalwart bux doze exchange 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.640 rate on just one exchange, and then the doge to 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.760 bitcoin exchange rate, and then of course the bitcoin to dollars. Yeah, 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:05.480 and as I recall, the maximum market cap and dollars 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.840 was about fifty dollars. Is that incredible that at one 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.360 point in theory, all of the stllar bucks that existence 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.560 on this very thinly traded exchange, And it's very tenduous 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:24.160 exchange technically was worth about fifty dollars. You got, you 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.320 guys created a fifty thou out of thin air. That's 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.040 pretty amazing thin air and some electricity. Yeah, that's true. 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.880 So you mentioned price discovery there, Joe. So with without 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.800 the exchange, would there have been any way to figure 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:42.360 out what a star wart book is actually equivalent to 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.760 in fiat currency or other cryptocurrency? I mean, I guess 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.360 you could the only other way to do it if 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.400 you don't have exchanged b OTC trades. In other words, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.520 someone sends Gland a dollar for ten billion starward Bucks whatever, 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.360 and those exist in cryptocracies today, those kind of trade, 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.960 but there would be no transparency or real like market 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.880 price discovery. Back back in there was actually a pretty 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.600 active bitcoin occ market. There were these internet chat rooms 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.680 on on I r C where you could say, you know, 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.320 I'm based in New York, I would like some bitcoin 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:18.720 at this price, and then you would you you would 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.200 either pay Pal them some money, which PayPal wasn't happy about. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.240 You might meet them at Starbucks and in exchange dollar 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.960 bills and they would transfer some some bitcoin to you. 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.840 I kind of feel like that's gonna be the future 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.360 of that. Eventually the crypto market might go back to that. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.000 It's totally plausible to me to see one day regulators 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.760 be like, you know, we don't want banks to be 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.640 dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges in the future for whatever reason, 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.320 And it's totally plausible to me that the crypto market 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.720 could once again return to people trading bitcoins for cash 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.240 on Starbucks is again. Yeah, they even had this complicated 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.240 reputation system where if you'd completed a successful transaction, there 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.240 was a bot would keep track of your reputation. And 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.040 there were some scams on on that channel too, as 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:13.159 I recall scams with crypto shocking. So, you know, you 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.840 mentioned that you were acting a little bit like a 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.960 sort of tech startup at the beginning. Were there any 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.400 disagreements that you two had along the way in terms 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:26.119 of how you were actually constructing or deploying stal Wart Books. 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:31.720 I don't think so. I think the biggest regret is 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.080 rushing to market, because I think we got the whole 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.000 project done in like three days, and I think that 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.000 if we had waited even like six days, we could 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.680 have made a lot of user experience tweaks that might 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.080 not have saved stalwart Bucks, but at least given it 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.119 a slightly better shot like we used. I think we 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.359 just used the existing dogecoin wallet, and that had a 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.680 lot of like the doge memes, like the dog pop 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.440 print on it and stuff like that. Probably that would 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.359 have been a tweak. Rethinking about how conversion it would 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.280 be to denominate everything in billions might have been helpful, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:12.879 So a few things like that. I don't think rushing 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.080 out that fast was probably the best move for market adopted. 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.760 And the person they were rushing to beat was Alex 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.760 Hearn of The Guardian, and I don't think he the 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.639 hern coin ever really took off he used, didn't he 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.560 use the third party service? I don't remember. I think 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:30.480 he did. I think I we were so focused on 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.000 beating other people, and of course our project went further 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:36.480 than everyone else's because I think those were just like 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:38.920 one day jokes. But if we had put any sort 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.520 of serious planning into it, who knows what's gonna happen. 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.400 There was a coin that launched a couple of months 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.959 later in Marchen called arts Coin from from the Arts 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.040 Technical Fox, and they put in more than more of 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.439 an effort to create tools for it to be useful 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.879 to to a normal user, so they had instead of 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.000 having to download this complicated software, you could have an 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.440 account on a website sort of like a bank and 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:05.680 store your art coin there. But it hasn't thrived, has it? Well? 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:07.440 That I guess that makes me feel good because it 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.000 means no matter what we did, ore Is probably wasn't 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.320 gonna thrive either. Yea. And what's the big takeaway that 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:19.199 both of you learned about either cryptocurrencies or normal fiat 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:23.760 currencies based off your experience. I'll be honest, I'm still 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.520 kind of upset that we were like launching a currency 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.200 and are not insanely rich. Like I kind of feel 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.240 like if we had taken it a little bit more 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:36.320 seriously or a lot actually a lot more seriously, and 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:38.560 you never know, like it could have been the next 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.040 light cone coin or even like doge coin. I think 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.440 at one point this year had like a total market 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.720 cap like close to a billion dollars. So if you 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.480 have like ten or five or even one percent of that, 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.160 that is really an extraordinary amount of money. And does 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.040 coin has really outlift the doself? Yeah, it has so 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.480 in retrospect, I think like you have to be pretty 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:04.879 impressed with anyone who is into crypto and launching their 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:10.200 own coins who is not now like incredibly loaded and 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.880 necessarly weird to think about. Yeah, I would agree. I'm 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.440 also very upset that Joe and I are not insanely rich. 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.159 I think one another sort of sad aspect of this 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.439 is that the so the original concept was that all 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.920 these dinners would be at Korean barbecue restaurants, and the 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.680 one that we always went to, Kang sue On Street, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.359 is now closed in all of Korea. Town is you know, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.720 still thriving, but in a very different form with with 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.680 no more mom and pop restaurants. Yeah, but I will 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.399 say on the plus side, you know, we continue to 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.840 have these dinners and if there are any odd lots 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.159 listeners who want to come to the next one, they 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.760 should shoot me a message. We've met a lot of 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.000 people get those dinners, and we've made like some good 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.520 friends and we always have a good time, and we 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.440 usually I think we have like like four or five 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.919 a year something like that. We've probably had about four 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:06.240 or five a year since early So something lasting and 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:08.840 good came out of the project. And one thing that 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:12.040 I strongly feel about all cryptocurrencies is they are sort 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.600 of like de facto social networks. They only have value 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.800 because people decide they have value, and the ones that 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.879 more people decide have value tend to accumulate more value. 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.720 So we sort of got the social networking aspect right, 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.840 just on an incredibly uh micro scale, right, You just 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:35.400 need a bigger social network there, Joe, Yeah, exactly. Well, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.879 that has really been a fascinating discussion. I'm going to 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.920 bring Joe back in as a co host because I 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.560 feel very uncomfortable doing it on my own up. But 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.520 Kwan Yin, thank you so much for joining us again 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.760 on the All Thoughts Podcasts. Really fun episode. Thank you 0:21:50.800 --> 0:22:04.719 for having me uh so show. I know you were 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.480 just talking about this, but one thing that I probably 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.080 am taking away from your experience is the importance of 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.280 the crypto exchanges when it comes to price discovery for 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:19.480 crypto and sort of legitimizing these things. And to your point, 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.720 I do think the exchanges are really really important to 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:25.440 what we've seen over the past year or so when 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:30.760 Bitcoin and other coins were really going gangbusters, reaching eighteen dollars, 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.520 and I wonder what that market looks like if you 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.040