Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Hallaway. So, Tracy, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about crypto cryptocurrencies on the
Speaker 1: show lately, um, but in kind of like a sort
Speaker 1: of like very limited abstract sense, and I think actually
Speaker 1: people are getting excited about different things that could be
Speaker 1: done with coins and token ization, etcetera in a lot
Speaker 1: more ways than just sort of like the redefining money
Speaker 1: or redefining finance concept. Yeah, I'm definitely starting to see
Speaker 1: quite a lot of more creative use cases. So there's
Speaker 1: a Barclay's note the other day that basically talked about
Speaker 1: using token ization to fix the repo market and try
Speaker 1: to make the settlement times more efficient. Uh so that's fun.
Speaker 1: But we've seen lots of different potential applications for tokens,
Speaker 1: including maybe token izing future income streams from individuals, yeah,
Speaker 1: token izing athletes. And this is also like are you
Speaker 1: you've always been obsessed with this topic and we actually
Speaker 1: like talked about it recently with music rights and I
Speaker 1: think years ago we talked about Bowie bonds. Like this
Speaker 1: is all like the idea of like owning, like the
Speaker 1: stream to a person's income or being able to invest
Speaker 1: in a person or a star has always been something
Speaker 1: kind of appeals to you, right, appeals to me, I
Speaker 1: think intellectually, yes, I think there are a lot of
Speaker 1: open questions about how exactly it works and whether or
Speaker 1: not it's good for society. But I think it's sort
Speaker 1: of anyone who's into or interested in securitization is at
Speaker 1: some point going to start thinking about whether or not
Speaker 1: you can apply the process to people and individual streams
Speaker 1: of income. I think Matt Leavin Wants described this our
Speaker 1: Bloom columnists Colleague Ones described this as like the classic
Speaker 1: sort of college like late night dorm um intellectual expercise model. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: talk about maybe after you've had a few drinks or
Speaker 1: something else. Can you actually sell stock in people? And
Speaker 1: how would you do it? Tracy? This is me. This
Speaker 1: is so much more than dorm room talking about. This
Speaker 1: is this is this is one other thing you know
Speaker 1: we're talking about, like the idea of like betting on
Speaker 1: a person or buying a sort of a stake and
Speaker 1: someone that you're really into. But uh, did you pay
Speaker 1: attention to the whole like NBA top Shot phenomenon a
Speaker 1: few months ago. No, and this is going to be
Speaker 1: an episode that comes with my standard sporting caveat, which is,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what's going on in the n
Speaker 1: b A. I am not an expert in the space
Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination, So go ahead and
Speaker 1: tell me what happened. Well, you know, you're excuses also
Speaker 1: that you're in Hong Kong. But a few months ago,
Speaker 1: there was this huge upset should with these like digital
Speaker 1: sort of like blockchain based basketball cards, and people are
Speaker 1: paying like tens of thousands of dollars for essentially like
Speaker 1: a playing card like of of a Star dunking or
Speaker 1: something like that. It's like a video. It kind of
Speaker 1: looked like a gift but collectible, one of a kind
Speaker 1: kind of things. It was this huge thing. It's kind
Speaker 1: of faded a little bit in the public's imagination, but
Speaker 1: as a proof of concept, people are just like really
Speaker 1: excited about the idea of like using token ization, digital collectibles,
Speaker 1: all kinds of new ways for fans to express their support. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: if you think about you know, we've spoken a little
Speaker 1: bit about n f T s on the show you
Speaker 1: think about n f T s, there's sort of natural
Speaker 1: application to sports collectibles, which have always been I mean,
Speaker 1: sporting fans have always been sort of interested in collecting
Speaker 1: things surrounding sports, right, base cars, Yeah, exactly right. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about our guests because we have of
Speaker 1: an NBA star on the podcast today. He is the
Speaker 1: co founder of the app Galaxy. He is a star
Speaker 1: player for the Brooklyn Nets. We're going to be speaking
Speaker 1: with Spencer Dinwoody as well as Solos, also the co founder,
Speaker 1: and they are you know, working on projects related to
Speaker 1: all this blockchain, interacting with stars, tokenization, new ways for
Speaker 1: fantasy to interact with the game. So I'm very excited
Speaker 1: about speaking to both Spencer and Solo. So thank you
Speaker 1: both for coming on. Thank you for having us. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it was on to be here. Thank you
Speaker 1: so Um Spencer, I mean, actually, Spencer, I'm sort of
Speaker 1: like familiar You've always been into like crypto stuff, or
Speaker 1: I know that like a lot of athletes are getting
Speaker 1: into it a long time ago, but I feel like
Speaker 1: you've actually been way ahead of the curve on this stuff,
Speaker 1: like thinking about blockchain and cryptocurrencies would get you interested
Speaker 1: in this world. Yeah, no, I mean I was. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to get into a big coin and
Speaker 1: other cryptocurrencies and early seventeen, you know, a buddy of
Speaker 1: mind the finance industry, uh, you know, told me about
Speaker 1: and unfortunately I didn't get in. Uh yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I wish I had it. You know, you know, might
Speaker 1: be retired right now, honestly. Uh. But but no, I
Speaker 1: mean I was fortunate up to get in seventeen. Um,
Speaker 1: my experience about the rise and the crash. Um, it's
Speaker 1: sparked kind of an education process, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: learn about it. And as my my pursuit of knowledge
Speaker 1: start started to open up a new world. Um, I
Speaker 1: started just trying to apply it to you know what,
Speaker 1: what's familiar in my life, which is the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: And you know, fast forward four years and Calaxy is
Speaker 1: in beta and you know, uh, solo is is primed
Speaker 1: and poised to to lead us to heights that you know, no,
Speaker 1: no consumer practice really senior in the black chain space. UM.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is a good time for you to
Speaker 1: introduce yourself. What's the relationship here and and how did
Speaker 1: you get involved in the project? Yeah? Sure, most definitely.
Speaker 1: So my name is Solosi, say, co founder here at Calaxy. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Spencer. Spencer is a very interesting guy. So he's
Speaker 1: actually one of a you know, a close friendly friend
Speaker 1: of mine. As you guys all know, he was one
Speaker 1: of the first people, if not the first, actually to
Speaker 1: tokenize himself. UM. And so he's actually you know, a
Speaker 1: good family friend of mine. My brother actually put us
Speaker 1: in contact a number of years ago at this point, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, mentioning that you know, whatever it is that
Speaker 1: Spencer aspired to do with his contract and tokenizing himself, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, and all of those conversations didn't really make
Speaker 1: much sense. But UM it made equally no sense to
Speaker 1: whatever it is that I did for work. So I
Speaker 1: was a securization investment banker previously, UM and so we
Speaker 1: started having those conversations about what the future of UM
Speaker 1: fan engagement looks like, but also the idea of montensation
Speaker 1: and democratizing you know, oneself, UM in order to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, profit off of you know, you're like this
Speaker 1: in a way that you can you know previously UM.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of you know, the impetus of
Speaker 1: what Calaxy the modern project is um. You know, we're
Speaker 1: really excited to you know, take a take a stab
Speaker 1: at changing you know, the creator economy and changing uh,
Speaker 1: you know, using crypto um as a means to get there. Spencer,
Speaker 1: what don't you or either one of you really? But
Speaker 1: what do you sort of describe the basic galaxy? What
Speaker 1: is it? What is the model? Yeah? Sure, so calaxy
Speaker 1: stands for the creator's galaxy and essentially we are at
Speaker 1: one stop shop for a creator to monetize themselves. So
Speaker 1: if you think about the creator economy currently, there is
Speaker 1: a number of different social media platforms that exist out there,
Speaker 1: and you know the power of influence and the growing
Speaker 1: of the creator middle class. You know, nowadays you can
Speaker 1: walk on the street, um, you know of New York
Speaker 1: and walk by somebody that has you know, two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand followers that's looking to monetize and connect those fans,
Speaker 1: and so you know, those guys are often found exactly right,
Speaker 1: those guys are often found on a number of different
Speaker 1: platforms looking to monetize and have those authentic experiences that
Speaker 1: their fans are quite honestly looking for. So what we've
Speaker 1: decided to do is create a platform where all of
Speaker 1: that could be hosted in one space, giving these people
Speaker 1: the autonomy to really you know, dive into monetizing their
Speaker 1: fan base in a way that makes sense for them. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, so a you know, a celebrity chef might
Speaker 1: monetize their fan base differently than a star running back,
Speaker 1: like differently you know, monetize their selves than a reality
Speaker 1: TV star. And so Calaxi is meant to host all
Speaker 1: of that all of one place. And then we obviously
Speaker 1: have the crypto and you know, blockchain architecture to be
Speaker 1: able to benefit, um, you know from things like entity
Speaker 1: s and really helping you know, introduce that to you, um,
Speaker 1: the masses in a palatable way. Sorry, can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the differences in how different
Speaker 1: celebrities would actually monetize their income stream? So how would
Speaker 1: a chef do it? That's different to you know, what
Speaker 1: a basketball player would do or a reality TV start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most certainly, so like to to to dive into it. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the way the app works is that each creator has
Speaker 1: their own cryptocurrency, and so we're creating personalized cryptocurrencies with
Speaker 1: instant utility, and what we mean by that is um
Speaker 1: in order to buy you know, Spencer Dean Woodi's token. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you would buy that and you would be
Speaker 1: able to redeem it for an interaction with Spencer, so
Speaker 1: be a video call, FaceTime call, you know, directly within
Speaker 1: an app. Um, you know, whether it's access to exclusive content,
Speaker 1: you name it. You know you're able to essentially use
Speaker 1: that as a form of currency to redeem those, um,
Speaker 1: you know, interactions. So it's really monetizing someone's time versus
Speaker 1: kind of their income screens, right Like, this is distinctly
Speaker 1: different than you know, securitizing your own you know, NBA
Speaker 1: contract for example. UM. You know that's something that speaks
Speaker 1: to you know, the masses of influencers, right like, not
Speaker 1: everybody is signed to the Brooklyn Nets for a luquidid deal.
Speaker 1: We all wish we were, but we're not. But you know, somebody,
Speaker 1: like a celebrity ship might want to offer cooking classes.
Speaker 1: They might want to offer you know, you know different
Speaker 1: you know products that makes sense for their communities. And
Speaker 1: so in our platform, you're ablet's turn on and off
Speaker 1: different things that makes sense for your fan bases. UM.
Speaker 1: And then obviously you're also able to set your pricing,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. So UM, you know, if you know
Speaker 1: you set your price at when you know at one
Speaker 1: point and you know more, you know, competitive influencers. That's
Speaker 1: very similar to you. And you know, in a perfect market,
Speaker 1: you know you might lose your fans to go there, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, we're all about community building and
Speaker 1: all those things, so um, you know, quite honestly, it's
Speaker 1: usually not a zero sum game. But that's how the
Speaker 1: act works and how the ecosystem functions. Especially you know,
Speaker 1: you've been in the league since so uh seven years
Speaker 1: and from a sort of technology social media and obviously
Speaker 1: anything related to cryptocurrency, that is a lifetime, just seven years.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit just about like how
Speaker 1: the fan player relationship has been changed by technology over
Speaker 1: that time. Oh man, it's funny. I mean I feel
Speaker 1: like basketball, the entertam industry, technology, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: dog years. You know, everything's just so accelerated. I mean,
Speaker 1: to give you a basketball dotch. I mean when I
Speaker 1: got in the NBA, a lot of teams still had
Speaker 1: too big in it, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: it was right right before the kind of Golden state transitioned. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, shooting threes and there was still a big
Speaker 1: question marks on if you could win the game shooting threes.
Speaker 1: I mean, now we're talking about you know, NBA Top
Speaker 1: Shot and then they're being you know, virtue v our components,
Speaker 1: you know, to to the NBA and it's viewing experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you've seen through social media where platforms
Speaker 1: like Instagram had become content distribution on a wide scale,
Speaker 1: not just for individuals and creators, but but also for
Speaker 1: you know, these brands as well. You know, the NBA
Speaker 1: does a great job of sending out Instagram posting and
Speaker 1: videos and things like that promoting games. I mean, we
Speaker 1: we played in Milwaukee Bucks tonight, and I'm sure if
Speaker 1: you go to the NBA's the timeline right now, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be honest highlights and Katie highlights. Obviously capitalizing on
Speaker 1: YouTube and and and having highlights that distributed there more
Speaker 1: freely than some of the other leagues. I think that's
Speaker 1: something that you know, NFL kind of missed the boat
Speaker 1: on at the start. And then you know, also having
Speaker 1: a shoot the Twitter Live show that I participated with
Speaker 1: Taylor Roads and Channing Fry and Isaiah Thomas and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, where you're where you're getting some of that
Speaker 1: live streaming and commentating from uh you know, not not
Speaker 1: just the the telecast crew, but also some more maybe
Speaker 1: familiar personalities and maybe arms and length personalities. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, like a Channing fry. All these things
Speaker 1: that I've I've referenced are just part of that dramatic shift.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, as these uh social media's
Speaker 1: and as uh these technologies come that that decreased the
Speaker 1: barrier between fan and and and player or fan and
Speaker 1: product necessarily, I guess, and I know it sounds terrible
Speaker 1: to call us products, but you know, the content that
Speaker 1: we produced, the basketball game we play is is like
Speaker 1: weaving a one of a kind of you know, our
Speaker 1: piece every night, and that's what the fans want to
Speaker 1: be attest to and a part of you know, it's
Speaker 1: all about kind of decreasing the friction for for the
Speaker 1: fan to be able to interact and consume the content
Speaker 1: that they love. Well, this is something that I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about. Actually, So, Joe and I just
Speaker 1: launched a subscriber only platform at Bloomberg, and I've been
Speaker 1: sort of struggling to come up with stuff to write
Speaker 1: for it. So do you find it difficult or do
Speaker 1: you feel pressure to produce content suitable for Instagram or
Speaker 1: suitable for you know, selling for extra money to fans
Speaker 1: in addition to being an athlete, because it's I mean,
Speaker 1: everyone takes it for granted now, but it is kind
Speaker 1: of a big shift over the past five years or so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think to sell those points. When he
Speaker 1: kind of referenced each creator, each demographic, each subsection of
Speaker 1: this entertainment industry has their ways to monetage. You know,
Speaker 1: TikTok stars are going to do a pletely different than
Speaker 1: a YouTuber. It is gonna do a different than a game,
Speaker 1: or it's gonna do a different in bassement player um
Speaker 1: or member. Like all the kintent that I produced still
Speaker 1: has to abide by a certain I would say, unwritten
Speaker 1: code that the NBA kind of represents, right, because you
Speaker 1: never sacrifice your main check to like go grab small endorsements,
Speaker 1: right like this this summer I should sign you know,
Speaker 1: a contract that's north of let's call it sixty million dollars,
Speaker 1: right if I could pick up another one to two
Speaker 1: million dollars and endorsements or whatever it is a year,
Speaker 1: it still wouldn't just it would take me thirty years,
Speaker 1: you know, to satisfy my you know, abbreviated NBA contract.
Speaker 1: So it wouldn't make sense and be nonsensical for me
Speaker 1: to start posting elaborate or disingenuous or you know, explicit
Speaker 1: content or just anything that would violate that NBA code.
Speaker 1: And so all my social media posts have to kind
Speaker 1: of flow in that line. Now, I wanted to be authentic,
Speaker 1: and so if you look at my social media, specific
Speaker 1: my Instagram, it's typically me working out as I'm coming
Speaker 1: back from a c I kind of showing my progress.
Speaker 1: So it's very authentive in my life that I live
Speaker 1: every day, you know, multiple work scouts, uh, at different
Speaker 1: times and and maybe you know, you might see a
Speaker 1: smoothie or something like that because I try to eat
Speaker 1: healthy things of that nature. But you know, I can't necessarily, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it just would be remissing me to post
Speaker 1: like alcohol in large quantities or something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: And I mean I like wine, but I don't drink
Speaker 1: obviously hard liquor and large quantities and things like that.
Speaker 1: But I just couldn't do that and still expect to
Speaker 1: maintain the type of conducive image that that represents kind
Speaker 1: of the shield well at the same time, so each
Speaker 1: person and that's the beauty of social media. It's it's
Speaker 1: such an individual experience that you kind of have to
Speaker 1: attack it in the manage that's best for your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think on that point too, like you know,
Speaker 1: just to try and men see we've uniquely identified that
Speaker 1: in terms of like our broader vision for the Calaxy platform,
Speaker 1: and that you know, each creator like this, like Sensor
Speaker 1: mentioned and like you know, we spoke about a few
Speaker 1: times now, is that you know, they all have different
Speaker 1: revenue streams, so like you know, things like you know,
Speaker 1: paving way to see the future where you can not
Speaker 1: offer securitization as that potential your you know, liquidity event
Speaker 1: for you know, an NBA player or an NFL player, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like having the rails set to be able to do
Speaker 1: something like that might make sense. And then you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know when you think about what's much larger is
Speaker 1: that you know the creator economy, right, like you know,
Speaker 1: like going back to my example before, you know, the
Speaker 1: need for monetization is you know quite great in that set,
Speaker 1: you know, in that creator middle class, like right, like
Speaker 1: you know, to Spencer's point, you know, he's just talking
Speaker 1: about signing you know, lucrative NBA contracts. But there are
Speaker 1: people you know that got a million followers that you know,
Speaker 1: really need to know monetize because that's their lifely, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, Spencer makes money playing basketball, but like
Speaker 1: you know, some of these people don't necessarily make money
Speaker 1: out and you know a ton of followers on Instagram
Speaker 1: and so their price, um, you know per you know,
Speaker 1: unit of effort or or you know, however you want
Speaker 1: to think about it is probably lower, right, And that's
Speaker 1: the beauty of our happen. You know, setting your price,
Speaker 1: you know, you're able to really take ownership and talk
Speaker 1: and like have autonomy over what your time is worth. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: And that's something that's you know, really important necessary when
Speaker 1: you think about how you know, traditional legacies, so show
Speaker 1: media platforms exist where you have you know, tip talks
Speaker 1: or youtubees are bigger, you know, larger organizations are deciding
Speaker 1: how much these people are worth based off of the
Speaker 1: follower accounting traffic that they bring. Um, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole idea of centralization and defy and I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: get into a lot of that you know later on
Speaker 1: in the conversation, but you know the idea of being
Speaker 1: able to have that autonomy and be able to monetize
Speaker 1: their time as you see fit is you know, really
Speaker 1: the key. I think this is super helpful for me
Speaker 1: and Tracy as we think about sort of balancing social
Speaker 1: media against our sixty million dollar contract. Something that I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in is like I'm curious because you know,
Speaker 1: like Tracy and I, you know, I'm forty. I don't
Speaker 1: know all Tracy is. But you know, it's like we
Speaker 1: didn't grow up with all this stuff, things like tokens
Speaker 1: and buying cryptocurrency is like related to a star. It's
Speaker 1: like still like very like awkward for me. What is
Speaker 1: your experience with like this sort of like the current
Speaker 1: generation of fans and just their level of comfort with
Speaker 1: say like the idea of like buying a star token
Speaker 1: or a creator token in some way and and understanding
Speaker 1: interacting with that. You guys are probably older generation, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's actually that um, you know, unfamiliar
Speaker 1: for you guys. You guys traded basketball cards, baseball cards,
Speaker 1: things like that, which is you know, a kin to
Speaker 1: top shot Oie bonds came out, you know, a long
Speaker 1: long time ago um. And that's something that obviously my
Speaker 1: tokenization is similar to. I think people throw around the
Speaker 1: word cryptola, throwing on the word token, and people get
Speaker 1: a little bit gunshoting because they feel like, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's a whole new world now. To a certain extent,
Speaker 1: it is, right, but we're talking about units that can
Speaker 1: be more effectively moved. Right, what does the black team
Speaker 1: really do? It gives a trustless trust later, right, Like
Speaker 1: I don't have to trust you, Joe, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like I can just simply trust the ledger.
Speaker 1: I can trust the ethereum blockchain or the their hashgraft
Speaker 1: blockchain it self. I take out the you know, counterparty
Speaker 1: risk in that sense, right, because the ledger is the
Speaker 1: baseline and and something that I know to be true,
Speaker 1: right because it's been it's had verified trade x for
Speaker 1: however many number of years, etcetera, etcetera. So it's more
Speaker 1: so utilizing the trust layer, the speed right to handle
Speaker 1: these kind of exco system transactions, these smart contracts. So
Speaker 1: I don't look at it from a standpoint of, you know,
Speaker 1: necessarily reinventing the wheel. And that's why I said I
Speaker 1: was trying to apply the technology to the entertainment industry,
Speaker 1: um in ways that I thought it's solved issues and
Speaker 1: solve problems, right Like Bowie Bonds was something that that
Speaker 1: was effective, but a little bit outdated, right we look
Speaker 1: at kind of even the owners have talked about they
Speaker 1: want liquidity in teams, they want financial obligation, but they
Speaker 1: want to Hunderson control. Well, how are you going to
Speaker 1: get that? It has to be from the fans. No
Speaker 1: other billionaire's gonna say, hey, I give my money, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to board. See, I don't want executive
Speaker 1: decision making. I don't want to look into the financials.
Speaker 1: I don't want to That's not gonna happen, right Like,
Speaker 1: but fans will buy in because of their emotional talk
Speaker 1: of the experience. It's the same type of thing with
Speaker 1: contracts and other ill liquid assets such as intellectual property
Speaker 1: or time for example. You know things that are hard
Speaker 1: to distract value from. We want to kind of put
Speaker 1: it on this blockchain. Right, So you take out the
Speaker 1: fear of not trusting this person, and then you you
Speaker 1: you set the playing field level and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to interact or you want to buy
Speaker 1: a piece of the team or you want to buy
Speaker 1: a piece of a contract or whatever it is. And
Speaker 1: we understand some of these things are uh securities and
Speaker 1: some are non security. So I'm not saying Calxum handles
Speaker 1: all this right, but just in terms of blockchain is application,
Speaker 1: that's the way we viewed it and the way we
Speaker 1: kind of go about applying the technology and scaling Caxium
Speaker 1: to the future. And obviously, of any of these ideas,
Speaker 1: the Caxie doesn't do if somebody systems to the podcast
Speaker 1: take it wrong way, and I hope you make you
Speaker 1: know the dollars with it um. So, so I want
Speaker 1: to press you on this point. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with a kind of weird anecdote. But seven or
Speaker 1: eight years ago, I was living in New York and
Speaker 1: I was going to um a gym. I think it
Speaker 1: was like a New York sports club gym or something
Speaker 1: like that, and there is a manager there who had
Speaker 1: an idea which was basically to start something very similar
Speaker 1: to like Patreon or Cameo now and to have fans
Speaker 1: pay in order to get specialized content from their favorite athletes,
Speaker 1: their favorite stars. And this was seven or eight years ago.
Speaker 1: He told me the idea, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds really interesting, and he was sort of asking
Speaker 1: for media and legal and financial advice and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if he ever got it off
Speaker 1: the ground, but clearly he was directionally right because we
Speaker 1: have all these platforms now, I guess my question is
Speaker 1: what differentiates Calaxy from the other things that are out there?
Speaker 1: And you've given it, You've given me the sort of
Speaker 1: um the case for crypto here, but there are other
Speaker 1: platforms doing this that do not use the technology and
Speaker 1: seem to be achieving the same thing. Yeah. So I'll
Speaker 1: take the first piece in terms of broad vision, and
Speaker 1: then I'll dedicate the solo for the comprehensiveness of Calasi.
Speaker 1: You know. On that note, when you talk about looking
Speaker 1: into the future and him seven eight years ago talked
Speaker 1: about the cameos and things of that nature, it still
Speaker 1: came down to decreasing friction, right, because people want to
Speaker 1: be tied to what's innate the special I use this
Speaker 1: analogy a lot when when discussing this kind of broader topic.
Speaker 1: If you took the Brooklyn Nets lego and you dropped
Speaker 1: it in the middle of you know, times square or
Speaker 1: wherever people probably stop people take pictures. Um, it would
Speaker 1: be somewhat of an event. It would kind of be
Speaker 1: a little you know, like, oh what's going on here,
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't stop traffic. Right if Lebron James right
Speaker 1: now tweet it out, Hey, I'll be at Times Square
Speaker 1: at you know, twelve pm tomorrow. Everybody is showing up
Speaker 1: to Times Square COVID or not. It doesn't matter like
Speaker 1: they're showing up. They're going to be there, whether they
Speaker 1: have to take their picture from you know, ten yards away,
Speaker 1: or they actually get to meet them and have a conversation.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, Everybody showing up, and so it speaks
Speaker 1: to what's actually special. Like a long time ago, people
Speaker 1: thought of this more in the uh you know college
Speaker 1: way right where there's all this uh you know, school
Speaker 1: pride and program tradition, and they thought it kind of
Speaker 1: applied to the to the professional realm. But it doesn't.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a there's a reason why McDonald's goes
Speaker 1: to a Lebron or Katie or whatever ask them to
Speaker 1: endorse their food, you know what I mean, because people
Speaker 1: want you know, that that that access to that person,
Speaker 1: Like the Golden Arches are nice, but I'm much try
Speaker 1: to talk to Katie, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: you know that's where it's going. It's not going to stop.
Speaker 1: And so you know, on that note of sale shifted
Speaker 1: to two solo one black cockxy help staff. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think you know to to figure back off
Speaker 1: that you and like you know, I think in general,
Speaker 1: the answer has a lot to do with the idea
Speaker 1: of just customizability for each person's you know, intended audience. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like if you think about Cameo, right, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I love Spencer to death, but like you know, he
Speaker 1: may not be the type of person that makes a
Speaker 1: killing off that platform, right based off of who it's
Speaker 1: or even better, you know Patriot, right, he's not a
Speaker 1: content producer. He's not gonna have and you know in
Speaker 1: you know, in exclusive you know, documentary series or documentries
Speaker 1: like some athletes do. But like for him personally, that's
Speaker 1: not how he spends his free time, right, Like, so
Speaker 1: in order to monetize that or like the reward of
Speaker 1: you know, being on a platform like that, that becomes
Speaker 1: a lot of work, right, Like when you were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, at the beginning, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: minimize the friction, right, Like, we keep coming to the
Speaker 1: same idea, right, you know, take that example and apply
Speaker 1: it to you know, an Instagram model, or to apply
Speaker 1: it to a you know, a YouTuber, right Like, there
Speaker 1: are people who are on YouTube who are not famous,
Speaker 1: but they're famous to somebody, right and so like when
Speaker 1: you think about that idea, right, there definitely is a
Speaker 1: need for a platform that can meet the needs of them,
Speaker 1: and they all exists in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of unique interest gacies about Galaxy
Speaker 1: that don't you know, you can't really find elsewhere. But
Speaker 1: like the idea of doing a video message, right like,
Speaker 1: are doing you know calls or you know, exclusive content
Speaker 1: that does exist as to your point um, but you know,
Speaker 1: in order to you know, monetize your fan base in
Speaker 1: a holistic manner, you have to be on all these
Speaker 1: different things and they might not even fit or suit you, right,
Speaker 1: you know, depending on you know, who you are as
Speaker 1: a person. If you're a YouTuber and you've got seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand followers, like I'm sure of those seventy five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, there's a thousand people who think you're the
Speaker 1: greatest person in the world, But like, are you going
Speaker 1: to make a killing on cameo? Probably not when the
Speaker 1: rock is offering the same thing, right, And so like
Speaker 1: I think when you think about like our platform, you
Speaker 1: create this sort of ecosystem, not to mention, you know,
Speaker 1: the idea of the added benefit of integration of blockchain technology,
Speaker 1: and you think about n f t s and you
Speaker 1: think about the idea of ultimately tokenizing a person and
Speaker 1: having them listed on in exchange one day, like that
Speaker 1: future and that architecture is so innately important and like
Speaker 1: our d NA, can you just talk briefly about your
Speaker 1: technology choice? What platforms blockchains did you use and what
Speaker 1: is the what was the thinking behind it? You know,
Speaker 1: so when when building this platform and understanding that to
Speaker 1: kind of future proofing in a sense, that's why we
Speaker 1: use blockchain. I mean, you spoke about the cameos, and
Speaker 1: you know only fans, patreons, etcetera. They don't, but you know,
Speaker 1: we we view a you know, an ecosystem and environment
Speaker 1: where not only are you showcasing n f t s,
Speaker 1: but also you're gonna have kind of fluidity of these
Speaker 1: these tokens in terms of the secondary market structure. You know,
Speaker 1: and to do that efficiently and effectively, blockchain was was
Speaker 1: going to be something that would would greatly help us.
Speaker 1: So with that being said, you know, we started talking
Speaker 1: layer ones and looking at which one has had the
Speaker 1: most robust infrastructure to support that. You know, obviously Ethereum
Speaker 1: comes up first because it's it's by far the biggest
Speaker 1: smart contract layer one. They could do smart contracts, obviously,
Speaker 1: but we we knew that crypto kitties had once kind
Speaker 1: of throbbed in at working and fees were very high.
Speaker 1: So you know, that wasn't gonna be appealing because if
Speaker 1: we were bringing on people such as myself, Razcue Elliott
Speaker 1: or you know, we just got a TikToker. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: excuse me, I don't know if TikToker is the right
Speaker 1: normal clature, but somebody that is famous on TikTok has
Speaker 1: about eight million followers on TikTok you know today we
Speaker 1: just signed him up to Uh, if we bring all
Speaker 1: those followers, right, we didn't want to throttle the the
Speaker 1: app nor the etherory of network. We didn't want feat
Speaker 1: of skyrocket and becoming usable, so you know, we figured
Speaker 1: that probably wasn't gonna work in its current State. So
Speaker 1: looking at other layer ones, whether it be Tesso's algorand
Speaker 1: um just just several flow wasn't quite out of uh
Speaker 1: you know, it's baita yet, So we we didn't choose them,
Speaker 1: although I'm invested there. Uh, and we still don't have
Speaker 1: their hashgraph. The reason for that, if you're looking at
Speaker 1: their hashgraph, they have you know, a council with fortunate
Speaker 1: companies that we had to pitch and get a grant.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's there's incredible reputation Chris management to
Speaker 1: be aligned with, you know, people like Google and and
Speaker 1: LG and IBM and d L A. Piper and Deutsche Telecom, uh,
Speaker 1: to name a few. On top of that, they're they're
Speaker 1: kind of considered the next generation blockchain. They technically aren't
Speaker 1: blockchain shipping. They actually are hashgraph technology literally. UM. The
Speaker 1: only one that comes to uh, you know, a complete
Speaker 1: finality Asyncer in his busy team fault tolerant UM. So
Speaker 1: it's the highest level of security. That it was created
Speaker 1: by a guy that used to be a part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense. You know, you look at the
Speaker 1: other projects they that they're networks just out racially robust
Speaker 1: and so you know, when when when choosing a layer one,
Speaker 1: like why not align yourself with some of the top
Speaker 1: companies in the world, Like, you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's an honor to for when their hashcraft puts out
Speaker 1: you know, their partner's list to see Google, IBM, Coxi,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, it's pretty killer. And
Speaker 1: granted our balance sheet doesn't necessarily look like there's as
Speaker 1: of now, but to be in that same breath at
Speaker 1: this early stage, you know, is both humbling and instrument
Speaker 1: and aspiring. So you know, for the to get their
Speaker 1: standpard approval and all that stuff, it seems like a
Speaker 1: no brainer for us. So I know you're still in beta,
Speaker 1: but what have you learned from applying blockchain technology so far?
Speaker 1: Because one of the criticisms of blockchain is this idea
Speaker 1: that it's sort of a solution in need of a
Speaker 1: problem and that real world applications actually either you know,
Speaker 1: don't exist or there aren't that many of them. So
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, like, as you roll this out, what
Speaker 1: have you discovered about the benefits or drawbacks of blockchain? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think from my side of things, what
Speaker 1: you know, what we what we discovered. I guess like
Speaker 1: from our side of things is that you know, there
Speaker 1: are you know, there is a big need and and
Speaker 1: a big want actually to to understand this technology. Right Like,
Speaker 1: we're not the only ones and Spencer being you know,
Speaker 1: one of the trailblazers in the entertainment industry to really
Speaker 1: be one of the early adopters of it. Like you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people followed suit, right, you know, we
Speaker 1: you know, we're actually you know, really close as Matt James,
Speaker 1: the most recent Bash learning that he you know, it's
Speaker 1: very much so involved in you know, learning more about
Speaker 1: the technology himself and so like in this process of
Speaker 1: onboarding different creators and things like that, you know, the
Speaker 1: blockchain thing wasn't something they shied away from quite honestly,
Speaker 1: it was something that they leaned into because they saw
Speaker 1: the future, They saw a lot of the benefits. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think one thing that we wanted to
Speaker 1: be absolutely deliberate on and you know, very clear, um,
Speaker 1: you know on was creating a product that was out
Speaker 1: of something that made sense and something that wasn't going
Speaker 1: to confuse you know, the average person you know in
Speaker 1: Middle America a right, like when it comes to creating
Speaker 1: something that, um, you know, is highly functioning, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, something that's easy to use.
Speaker 1: When you think about like kind of Apple and like
Speaker 1: creating a project, you know, a product that's you know,
Speaker 1: supremely capable, but at the same time you don't know
Speaker 1: how it works. It just works, right, UM. And so
Speaker 1: when we think about you know, our product and stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, we found that you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people have been really excited. Um. You know, not only
Speaker 1: for solving the real world issue about there needs to
Speaker 1: be some sort of one ecosystem to develop you know,
Speaker 1: a fan base or community, but then also you know,
Speaker 1: creating the opportunity and the we know path to be
Speaker 1: able to kind of help educate and you know, teach
Speaker 1: um and bring crypto you know, very similarly to the
Speaker 1: you know, to our partner, you know, to uh you know,
Speaker 1: to the Flow project, and you know Rohan is you know,
Speaker 1: an advisor to our project, the CEO of Japper Labs, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in their whole ethos about kind of bringing
Speaker 1: crypto ites and the masses through games. You know, very similarly,
Speaker 1: we're trying to do you know, a very similar thing here,
Speaker 1: um with creator economies and social media and so um,
Speaker 1: you know, from our side of things, it's you know,
Speaker 1: we've learned a lot um, you know, and we've been
Speaker 1: able to iterate and continue to grow and build a
Speaker 1: product that's you know, truly and organically felt like it's
Speaker 1: been built by the creators, you know, center and influencer himself.
Speaker 1: He goes in Brooklyn nets like behind this, we had
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, great information that a couple
Speaker 1: of dudes in Silicon Valley with a similar idea may
Speaker 1: not have had, just by the fact that like, you know,
Speaker 1: our network, our friends and family, like the creators that
Speaker 1: we've on board so far, our personal relationships and um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's starting to get a lot of inbounds obviously,
Speaker 1: but you know, kind of the initial cohord that we
Speaker 1: started with um, you know, helped us you know last
Speaker 1: as beginning points. So the last year has obviously been
Speaker 1: incredible for all things crypto. Obviously, the big coins had
Speaker 1: an incredible year, and top Shot became a phenomenon. Uh spencer.
Speaker 1: You know, we were talking about the beginning. You're you're
Speaker 1: very early on all that stuff. I'm curious, like what
Speaker 1: you've seen, like in the locker room and so forth
Speaker 1: as other players have like do they turn to you
Speaker 1: to like help help them like understand and navigate all
Speaker 1: this navigate all this stuff. Uh yeah, a little bit,
Speaker 1: I think. Um, for me personally, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: It's it's much better being asked questions and being laughed at. Seen.
Speaker 1: I was definitely laughed for sure. Laughed, sure, for sure
Speaker 1: laugh that. But no, in all seriousness, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, overall, since I've been in the league, I
Speaker 1: think people have spoken about the shift that's happened since
Speaker 1: I would say probably to go on in ten and
Speaker 1: now on we got it in the fourteen, but the
Speaker 1: the education process of the athlete as a whole. I
Speaker 1: think guys are much more involved in their finances. I
Speaker 1: think we have a lot of brilliant guys, um um
Speaker 1: that are that are looking to form generational wealth, whether
Speaker 1: in whatever avenue that is what it's real estate, traditional
Speaker 1: you know, stocks and equities and things, or now in
Speaker 1: emergent technologies. And I know BC was kind of the
Speaker 1: wave right before blockchain really kind of took over. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's been fun to get asked those questions. UM.
Speaker 1: I actually shy away from from offering explicit advice. I
Speaker 1: mean I discussed my partners all the time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: discussed my partners all the time. As financial journalists, this
Speaker 1: is one area that maybe we could actually genuine related.
Speaker 1: Tracy and I have a lot of experience and being
Speaker 1: asked financial questions from friends and family to buy anything,
Speaker 1: to which we have absolutely no good advice. We're just
Speaker 1: like you buy an index fund or something like that.
Speaker 1: I tell them, I tell them, you know, I personally
Speaker 1: invested in bigcoin. I tell them that my my platform
Speaker 1: is built on hash draft. Two of my main partners
Speaker 1: are are Flow and chain Link, and other than that,
Speaker 1: I would encourage you to do as much research as
Speaker 1: you possibly can. That's the biggest start I can give you.
Speaker 1: And that's just from a transparent place and something that
Speaker 1: you could read online. So obviously I'm gonna be invested
Speaker 1: with my partners, and and saying I'm gonna support a
Speaker 1: bigcoin is no no secret at all. So you know
Speaker 1: that's what I'll give you. Um, if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about the big picture and where I think distributed technology,
Speaker 1: distributed ledger technology can kind of take markets in a
Speaker 1: comprehensive fashion, I definitely have to do that and I
Speaker 1: can talk to her off all day, but but explicit
Speaker 1: investment advice I definitely shot away from because I don't
Speaker 1: want to be the guy that says, you know, do this,
Speaker 1: and you know you lose some money and now you'm
Speaker 1: ad at me. Yeah, that's good advice, and that that's
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I think anytime someone asked me a question.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to cost anyone their money now,
Speaker 1: and then you're not welcome back for Thanksgiving dinner. Um,
Speaker 1: there was something I wanted to ask you that Joe
Speaker 1: and I sort of alluded to in the intro, and
Speaker 1: it was this idea of, I guess the moral dimensions
Speaker 1: of selling some sort of financial interests that is tied
Speaker 1: to people. Um. Obviously, when you say a sentence like that,
Speaker 1: it tends to make people squeamish. And I remember after
Speaker 1: the two thousand eight financial crisis, when there was so
Speaker 1: much criticism of the process of securitization in itself. Every
Speaker 1: once in a while, there would be like an idea
Speaker 1: that would pop up about securitizing people's future income streams,
Speaker 1: Like maybe you sell a student's future income and they
Speaker 1: use that money to actually go to college or something
Speaker 1: like that, but every time the idea came up, people
Speaker 1: would sort of instinctively feel uncomfortable with it. It feels
Speaker 1: like things are changing a little bit. People you know this.
Speaker 1: I guess our familiarity with content creation now maybe has
Speaker 1: sort of changed that equation. But I'm just curious how
Speaker 1: you're thinking about the moral to mention of all of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, on that note, I think you're test on
Speaker 1: something that's good. Content creation is much more prevalent. But
Speaker 1: but the two factors that I think make this an
Speaker 1: actual functioning ecosystem. And this really has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with technology, but it's the reason why, like it's gonna
Speaker 1: be easier for me to secure something versus like a
Speaker 1: college student. You need somebody that's has, you know, semi
Speaker 1: public to public cash flows so that it's not a
Speaker 1: situation where they can really high and divert money and
Speaker 1: try to screw their investors. Because you know, in more
Speaker 1: normal situations that wouldn't be too difficult to try to
Speaker 1: try to do. But if you know, obviously I'm in
Speaker 1: the NBA and my contract is public, that I can't
Speaker 1: And then other than that, I would say, you have
Speaker 1: to have the incentives be aligned. You know, it can't
Speaker 1: be a situation where I some entire contract and then
Speaker 1: if I play really bad, you know, nothing matters, and
Speaker 1: so I can take an injury and just sit down
Speaker 1: and whatever it is, and you know, and just put
Speaker 1: not only myself, put investors in kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: less the advantageous position. It has to be a situation where, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the incentives are aligned. You make it so
Speaker 1: there there's hopefully some some promising returns for the investors
Speaker 1: of course, but also you know, it encourages the athlete
Speaker 1: to continue to play well and win games and do
Speaker 1: right and and all that stuff. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think from my side of things too, like as
Speaker 1: a you know, the securitization banker in a previous life. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think when you think about kind of
Speaker 1: the unit recession of two thousand and eight versus kind
Speaker 1: of now, I mean, I think, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different points, you know, places that you can
Speaker 1: point to, uh, you know, where you think that there
Speaker 1: are inequities in terms of the education level that you know,
Speaker 1: people might have investing in these sorts of things. And
Speaker 1: you know, obviously this is some thing that you know
Speaker 1: we've touched upon, you know immediately in day one, is
Speaker 1: this something that Calexy is really looking to you know,
Speaker 1: commercialize as a business. Not exactly, Um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: definitely a part of our bigger macro picture that center
Speaker 1: you know has put together and his thoughts and stuff.
Speaker 1: But when you think about, um, you know, just general education, right,
Speaker 1: Like the barriers to entry to trading are couldn't be lower, right,
Speaker 1: Like people are getting you know, five ten dollars to
Speaker 1: open up brokerage accounts and start trading on different platforms,
Speaker 1: and you know there are a lot of people what
Speaker 1: do you think about like game stop and you know
Speaker 1: AMC and different things that you saw this year, and
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of you know, people a wanting
Speaker 1: to take on their own personal finances. You know, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, it wasn't the case that the average
Speaker 1: Joe was traded, um. But you know that's not the
Speaker 1: case now and that's distinctly different. And so you know
Speaker 1: to your point, you know talking about you know, securitization
Speaker 1: and how it's had this stigma around it. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different areas within the financial
Speaker 1: industry that you know, obviously require a little bit more
Speaker 1: you know, education around the ways in which that you
Speaker 1: can use this you know access for you know quite
Speaker 1: great wealth creation and building over time. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about the idea of you know, securitizing
Speaker 1: a person, you know that ultimately, you know, is the
Speaker 1: is the way in which that you think about the future.
Speaker 1: Right Like if you're Lebron James or you're somebody with
Speaker 1: a very you know, large empire, there should be different
Speaker 1: means and alternatives for financing outside of just you know,
Speaker 1: going to a bank for a traditional law especially you know,
Speaker 1: as Spencer mentioned, if you have public you know cash
Speaker 1: flows because you know, outside of that, there are people
Speaker 1: you know taking out I can't remember, you know, it
Speaker 1: might have been a year ago, it might have been
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago that since they're not this conversation,
Speaker 1: but there are you know, people that take out egregious
Speaker 1: loans to be able to you know cash advance their lives,
Speaker 1: right Like they'll take out loans that you know crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, when there could be a lot
Speaker 1: more you know, efficient ways to to to finance your life,
Speaker 1: especially if you you know, have the you know, the
Speaker 1: validity behind it. Spencer, you might if I just ask
Speaker 1: you if you general not specific blockchain related questions, like
Speaker 1: real quickly, a little quick like lightning round of other questions,
Speaker 1: how would you summarize why it feels like NBA is
Speaker 1: just on such a better job. So many people I
Speaker 1: know are so into the NBA. They like talk about
Speaker 1: the NBA, They like talking about the players of the NBA,
Speaker 1: like yourself, in a way that I don't see with
Speaker 1: other leagues. Like what do you think it is? That's
Speaker 1: like the NBA has really like figured out something culturally.
Speaker 1: I think the NBA has embraced emerging technologies UMAN and
Speaker 1: this is a complete non blockchain techt thing I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: like streaming of YouTube highlights making easily accessible. I think
Speaker 1: you know they didn't put they didn't try to block
Speaker 1: like the copyrights USA. So you see all these comedian
Speaker 1: things happen on your highlights, and the shoulding this content
Speaker 1: and repersing this content, and so you try to be
Speaker 1: fans right, especially in uh, you know, foreign countries when
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to watch the games live. I think
Speaker 1: another component of basketball that that makes it very attractive
Speaker 1: to fans. You can see our faith, we seem like
Speaker 1: human beings. Um, this is uh no shot to football
Speaker 1: anything like that. But obviously they have to wear howmets
Speaker 1: we're protected, right, But you know, you don't necessarily know
Speaker 1: the person behind the mask unless he's the quarterback. Like
Speaker 1: quarterbacks take off there comes all the time, so you
Speaker 1: know him. But other than that, I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: the linement if you walk down the street, the fact
Speaker 1: that he's probably you know, outrageously you know musket right.
Speaker 1: Basketball players are recognizable, not just in terms, not just
Speaker 1: from the standpoint of seeing our Facebook also obviously statue
Speaker 1: you see the sixth stight person walking down the street
Speaker 1: and his face is familiar or probably think he's a
Speaker 1: you know, a brooken net player. So so just thinking
Speaker 1: that nature allowed a lot of innvati scale just familiarity
Speaker 1: and fans minds, um allowing players to be more vocal
Speaker 1: about you know, issues, whether it be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: social or economics or you know whatever it is. So
Speaker 1: so that kind of broad ranging where you have outspoken
Speaker 1: people you see they're facing the recognizable um. Allowing your
Speaker 1: content to be repurposed and used for fun, for business,
Speaker 1: for whatever it is. It just creates a kind of
Speaker 1: wildfire type of distribution. So what do you do? You mentioned,
Speaker 1: if someone sees you walk around in Brooklyn, they probably
Speaker 1: might guess you're a basketball player. What's your what's your
Speaker 1: off court life in Brooklyn? Like, what do you like
Speaker 1: to do? Oh? I mean before I started playing, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I would just kind of I mean, I
Speaker 1: wear sweats, hoodie, you know, stuff like that every day.
Speaker 1: So I'm a very chill person and were vans every
Speaker 1: day before I started playing. Well, you know, people might
Speaker 1: like catch a glance and then if I make eye contacted,
Speaker 1: like are you I mean, I don't know, maybe you are,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of keep walking and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Now obviously you haven't, haven't played better and things like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm more immediately recognizable. But you know, in
Speaker 1: that respect, I take it in strike and I actually
Speaker 1: enjoy it just from the standpoint off. I understand where
Speaker 1: it's like to be on the other side of that,
Speaker 1: and I understand the fans create this ecosystem. I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest benefits of building app and
Speaker 1: going through the tokenization and exploring entertainment isstueing and learning
Speaker 1: how the NBA was built. You know, on a non
Speaker 1: profit system at all, just a bunch of different things.
Speaker 1: You understand, at the end of the day, fan make
Speaker 1: this thing work. If fans spend their money, we all
Speaker 1: have jobs. If they don't, then we don't know. What
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that kind of drives that simple? Like
Speaker 1: from an economics perspective, No bid, there's beuying an NBA
Speaker 1: team if it wasn't a revenue generating entity. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, that's where it is. Whether whether
Speaker 1: the stock goes up or you actually a cash for
Speaker 1: a positive one of them has to happen for for
Speaker 1: a being there to want to, you know, dive into
Speaker 1: this business. And so you know, I try to be
Speaker 1: as uh cordial, as inviting and as appreciative to the
Speaker 1: fans because they allow me to live it like that
Speaker 1: that I live it, you know that. And as long
Speaker 1: a thing approached me with common curacy and respect, you know,
Speaker 1: then then why would I approach them like there're any
Speaker 1: less of that same human being? We're all humans. Great?
Speaker 1: Great answer. Final final question were recording the June seventh,
Speaker 1: As you mentioned your team, the Nets are playing the
Speaker 1: Bucks tonight in the playoffs. You're injured, right now, so
Speaker 1: you're not participating. What is that like sort of like
Speaker 1: as you like watch those games from the sideline. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's like brutal not being on the court
Speaker 1: and supporting your team. But how do you how do
Speaker 1: you deal with that? It's tough. I've had, you know,
Speaker 1: two main injuries in my life. One was a c
Speaker 1: on my left knee, was my right knee. You know,
Speaker 1: when when you when you're on the sideline, it's kind
Speaker 1: of an introspective experience. I would say it was weird
Speaker 1: watching this season just from the standpoint of you saw
Speaker 1: the bubble, then you saw this season where we played
Speaker 1: in arenas with no fans. But I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: with these fans back, with the energy in this playoff atmosphere. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the age to play has gone to you know,
Speaker 1: through the roof. It's it's it's at ten times what
Speaker 1: it was during the regular season. Just keeping up with
Speaker 1: the guys now now to the level that's like me,
Speaker 1: I need to get back out there. It's it's a
Speaker 1: need at this point. I just at wance, so you know,
Speaker 1: I missed it in and I can't wait to play
Speaker 1: some All right, Well that was that was fantastic. H
Speaker 1: Spencer Solo. Thank you both so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Fascinating project, and uh appreciate you coming out outline. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you appreciate it. Thanks so much, guys, Trazy, that
Speaker 1: was a really fun episode. I feel like that's actually
Speaker 1: like a whole different dimension of the crypto conversation that
Speaker 1: I think is actually really important and kind of totally unexplored,
Speaker 1: totally something we've under explored. I guess the thing that
Speaker 1: stood out to me was just how much, um the
Speaker 1: fields of sports have sort of changed in this idea
Speaker 1: that athletes need to be content producers, or if they
Speaker 1: can be content producers, then they have potentially another stream
Speaker 1: that they can monetize. I guess. I guess to some
Speaker 1: extent that was always the case in professional sports. People
Speaker 1: would always have some sort of sponsor sponsorship deal on
Speaker 1: the side. But it just feels like we're in a
Speaker 1: whole new at a whole new level in many respects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess what I mean by like, I mean I
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you. The way to contextualize that
Speaker 1: is probably more within the realm of new ways that
Speaker 1: celebrities and athletes are monetizing their famed in crypto. I
Speaker 1: guess like what I was thinking is like when I
Speaker 1: think about like crypto, I think about like these hardcore
Speaker 1: sort of like distributed tech systems that are designed to
Speaker 1: be censorship resistant and designed to be you know, sort
Speaker 1: of like powerful computer science ideas. But the idea that
Speaker 1: like another application is it's just fun to like buy
Speaker 1: a token that's sort of related to um A A
Speaker 1: a celebrity, like is actually like a pretty huge use
Speaker 1: case for all this stuff that probably doesn't get talked
Speaker 1: about enough in that context. Yeah, and actually people like
Speaker 1: to talk about tokenization while we just did. Those people
Speaker 1: talk about tokenization as this brand new thing all the time.
Speaker 1: But actually, like I don't know, I guess baseball cards
Speaker 1: were the original tokens, or maybe at least a d
Speaker 1: R s were the original tokens for stocks, Like there
Speaker 1: are examples of tokens out there that have been successfully
Speaker 1: deployed and they weren't like an earth shattering financial systems
Speaker 1: threatening thing. It is funny, like I guess because I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, old, and like it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: like wrap my head around like n f t s,
Speaker 1: but like what is the difference? Roy between an n
Speaker 1: f T and of like a basketball card, Like it's
Speaker 1: really not the different, Like it's like when I was young,
Speaker 1: Like I could understand basketball cards or baseball cars, but
Speaker 1: this is a piece of cardboard. Yeah. The other thing
Speaker 1: I liked about that conversation that it was actually the
Speaker 1: discussion of applying the technology to a specific use case,
Speaker 1: because I feel like we don't hear enough about that.
Speaker 1: So this idea that you know, they couldn't do Bitcoin
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. They looked at ethereum, but they were
Speaker 1: worried about the costs the system getting clogged up, and
Speaker 1: so they settled on an alternate technology. I think it
Speaker 1: speaks to probably that point that you made in your
Speaker 1: gigantic five thousand word posts about this idea that you
Speaker 1: can't look at crypto as a monolith because different technologies,
Speaker 1: different cryptocurrency slash tokens, have different use cases. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is interesting to like I remember the crypto kitties phenomenon
Speaker 1: in and that just like brought the entire network to
Speaker 1: a halt. And so you do see like this use
Speaker 1: is like, well, let's just use a different chain that's
Speaker 1: maybe more optimized for some other use case. So I
Speaker 1: don't be fascinating to see where it goes. And I
Speaker 1: feel like especially seems to have a particularly like, really
Speaker 1: good intuition about where this is all going, and he
Speaker 1: sort of demonstrated that over the last several years. Well,
Speaker 1: he's definitely a perfectly placed for that effluence of I
Speaker 1: like that on that one point, we have something in
Speaker 1: common with him, which is we do not want to
Speaker 1: give financial advice to our friends and family. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think that's the only thing we have in common. Probably,
Speaker 1: all right, Um, shall we leave it there. Let's leave
Speaker 1: it there. This has been another episode of the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway and I'm Jill wi Isn't Though. You can
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our guests
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Spencer din Witty, He's at as din Witty Underscore,
Speaker 1: as well as Solos He's at Solo Sees, and follow
Speaker 1: our producer on Twitter, Laura Carlson, She's at Laura M. Carlson.
Speaker 1: Followed the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesco Levi at Francesco Today,
Speaker 1: and check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg. Onto
Speaker 1: the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening, O