Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisn't Palal, And I'm Tracy Halloway. Tracy, we've
Speaker 1: obviously done a lot of episodes about crypto, probably doing
Speaker 1: more and more to say the least, but there's still
Speaker 1: big aspects of the space, like it's so sprawling and
Speaker 1: broad and maybe ill defined that there's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff we have yet to cover. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's new stuff happening every day, but certainly one of
Speaker 1: the big things that has been going on recently is
Speaker 1: this whole idea of web three Web three point though
Speaker 1: n f T s, the idea of actually building new worlds,
Speaker 1: new spaces, new identities on blockchain technology. Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1: So we've done a lot about defy in the past
Speaker 1: ust and maybe maybe not crypto will have some disruptive
Speaker 1: effect unclear. But then there's this whole other aspect and
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, like n f T S and taws
Speaker 1: and identity and de facto social networking, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are excited about some alternative to
Speaker 1: I guess what I would say is the web two
Speaker 1: point oh tech giants, Like there's this anxiety about the
Speaker 1: power of a centralized company like Facebook or Twitter, and
Speaker 1: maybe some hope, even if it's still perfectly articulated, of
Speaker 1: how something that's decentralized and based on crypto or ethereum
Speaker 1: specifically could create new spaces, new forms, new ways for
Speaker 1: us to interact in a social manner that aren't tightly
Speaker 1: controlled by one one uh one entity. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's right, although I think there's still attention there which
Speaker 1: we can discuss. But the idea of being able to
Speaker 1: have your identity on the web somewhere, or have your
Speaker 1: assets in a wallet somewhere, and then be an absolute
Speaker 1: control of them in the sense that you know, you
Speaker 1: can move them, they're portable from one wallet to the
Speaker 1: other without actually having to necessarily like interact too much
Speaker 1: with the platform that you're using. Like, there is something
Speaker 1: that is very attractive in that proposition. No, it's super
Speaker 1: cool and like you know, the idea of say, being
Speaker 1: able to log into an app or website without saying
Speaker 1: a password or user name, just connect your wallet, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It feels like really powerful. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: like I guess I have to say, I have a
Speaker 1: hard time getting to okay yeah, but when does this
Speaker 1: become a sort of genuine social interaction, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't tweet and web three point o
Speaker 1: yet as far as I know, no one else is there,
Speaker 1: Like there's a bunch of social things that I do.
Speaker 1: That's when everything becomes real for you, right when you
Speaker 1: can tweet it. Yeah, that's basically the question. No, but literally,
Speaker 1: like all my friends are in web two point oh,
Speaker 1: and I get in theory that there's some web three
Speaker 1: point of stuff that would allow us to interact, but
Speaker 1: like I don't know what it played, Uh what it
Speaker 1: what it looks like? What what social relations look like
Speaker 1: in a web three point oh based uh world or whatever? Yeah,
Speaker 1: fair enough, anyway we have. I'm very excited about our
Speaker 1: guest today because I think he is someone who talks
Speaker 1: a lot about crypto. He's in crypto and explores crypto
Speaker 1: from this angle of like these tacit or de facto
Speaker 1: social networks, and he's thought a lot about this is
Speaker 1: a company that is building in this direction. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be speaking with Mike de m Ray, the
Speaker 1: co founder of Rainbow dot Me. It's a crypto wallet
Speaker 1: and built around all this stuff built for this stuff up. Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. What's up, Joe?
Speaker 1: What's up? Tracy? Big fan of the show, excited to
Speaker 1: be here? Except how many? How many duncans have you
Speaker 1: had today so far? I'm on my second duncan right now,
Speaker 1: feeling good. I feel it's a good number. You know,
Speaker 1: this is pretty early for me. I'm normally, you know,
Speaker 1: still up at the five am what I'd missed tweet?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Normally I'm the first reply. Yeah, right, so,
Speaker 1: uh you know this is big, you say, GM at
Speaker 1: one in the afternoon, Yes, exactly, GM. So in all seriousness,
Speaker 1: you know what I think. I don't know if anyone's
Speaker 1: made this analogy before, but I kind of feel like
Speaker 1: Rainbow Rainbow dot me your company. It kind of feels
Speaker 1: like the Tumbler of Web three point oh, or like
Speaker 1: because Tumbler is like all the cool Brooklyn hipsters that
Speaker 1: was like this very design oriented ease of use social networking,
Speaker 1: making blogging this thing, and it's like, rather than installing
Speaker 1: some boring WordPress template, just have this fun pool way
Speaker 1: to interact and social media. Then you know too, pretty well,
Speaker 1: I guess it got bought up by Yahoo. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that analogy? Yeah, I definitely think so.
Speaker 1: I think other people, you know, sometimes they say, oh
Speaker 1: it feels like Snapchat or um, yeah, Tumbler as well.
Speaker 1: I think that. Yeah. I think that Rainbow stands out
Speaker 1: for being obsessively focused on on fun and delightful experiences
Speaker 1: and yeah, we're really a design first company. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely see the analogy. For sure. All the hit
Speaker 1: kids are on Rainbow, that's my impression. Yeah. So when
Speaker 1: most people here, you know, it's a beautiful app, I
Speaker 1: think like they don't necessarily get the importance of that
Speaker 1: or why you're so focused on the design aspect of it.
Speaker 1: But my understanding is you're very focused on it because
Speaker 1: in a world of wallets, in a decentralized world of wallets,
Speaker 1: where people have the option to easily switch from one
Speaker 1: wallet to another. So you know, I use Meta mask,
Speaker 1: but if I wanted to, I could easily transfer everything
Speaker 1: over to Rainbow right now, then, like the thing that
Speaker 1: you're offering is basically that design experience. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Is that like the right way to think about how
Speaker 1: you're differentiating yourself in this market? One? What's crazy is
Speaker 1: about like with Web three, there's just simply no user modes.
Speaker 1: Right So in the in the past, like the recent
Speaker 1: you're you're using Facebook is because the network effects that
Speaker 1: Facebook is built up. You know, all of your friends
Speaker 1: are there, and it's really hard for a challenger to
Speaker 1: come in and compete with those network effects. But with Ethereum,
Speaker 1: you know, and and the portability of your of your
Speaker 1: of your keys, a user can eject from a wallet
Speaker 1: and start using another wallet in moments and there's nothing
Speaker 1: locking them into a particular product. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: our belief that basically the product itself, which to us
Speaker 1: means design, is really the core differentiator between these products
Speaker 1: and really the only way to actually retain users. So
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone who's interacted with crypto apps, whether
Speaker 1: they be wallets, whether they be exchanges, whatever they are,
Speaker 1: like there is not a ton of design sense in
Speaker 1: the space right now. To say the least. I think
Speaker 1: people complain about usability a lot. It's really scary you
Speaker 1: like click one button and you're worried you're gonna lose uh,
Speaker 1: you know, expose your private key to everyone. What do
Speaker 1: you talk to us? Just like step back like what
Speaker 1: do you see as like what's your design philosophy, what
Speaker 1: do you see as the failures of the existing crypto designers?
Speaker 1: And then what do you see as like how you
Speaker 1: think about solution. Man, it sounds so so cliche, but
Speaker 1: I think that people have been stuck in kind of
Speaker 1: an old paradigm of thinking, where like, you know, they've
Speaker 1: been used to the existing crypto products, and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone in this space is such a big nerd that
Speaker 1: it's hard for them to you know, imagine new styles, right,
Speaker 1: new new styles of products. What I mean by that
Speaker 1: is like you know, Meta mask and other wallets kind
Speaker 1: of are all following the same like almost like utilitarian
Speaker 1: approach to the product, and no one has really tried
Speaker 1: to imagine it differently. It feels like, you know, there
Speaker 1: just hasn't been a real attempt. It's so cliche. I
Speaker 1: think that the example I always point to is you
Speaker 1: all remember like Windows mobile phones. I think like it
Speaker 1: was like with the style is with a little start menu.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you can say that that's a smartphone,
Speaker 1: but really, like you know, the iPhone came around and
Speaker 1: even though on a on a a speck list, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it looks like it hits all the same
Speaker 1: specs as a as a Window Windows mobile phone, but
Speaker 1: in reality it was like the design of the iPhone
Speaker 1: really unlocked this new type of products, right, it was
Speaker 1: like there's a fore and after moment um, And we
Speaker 1: sort of think about Rainbow in the same way. It's like, functionally,
Speaker 1: you know, similar or nearly identical to other wallet products
Speaker 1: and its capabilities, but the way that the product is packaged,
Speaker 1: we think it's it's more you know, fun and accessible
Speaker 1: and you know, less scary. But yeah, I mean, the
Speaker 1: way that we approach design in general is first and foremost,
Speaker 1: we are trying to make something that that my little
Speaker 1: brother would use, is always my example user Both my
Speaker 1: co founder and I have little brothers, and very much
Speaker 1: Rainbow has been designed to kind of be something that
Speaker 1: they vibe with. So that's always been our gut check.
Speaker 1: So now that we've talked a little bit about the design,
Speaker 1: can we talk about what's actually on Rainbow, or rather
Speaker 1: what you can actually like store and buy and trade,
Speaker 1: because like, obviously you can buy cryptocurrency, but you're also
Speaker 1: offering um, you know, digital collectibles and n f t
Speaker 1: s and things like that, So what's the thinking behind that.
Speaker 1: Rainbow is an ethereum wallet, and it supports all of
Speaker 1: the different types of assets that can exist on Ethereum,
Speaker 1: so that can be everything from e r C twenty tokens,
Speaker 1: some defy governance tokens, things like that, stable coins, things
Speaker 1: of that for I D as well as n f
Speaker 1: t s And additionally, it also surfaces defied positions that
Speaker 1: you might have. So if you go and to deposit
Speaker 1: your money in one of these platforms, we recognize that
Speaker 1: and essentially, you know, throw a custom interface up that
Speaker 1: lets you, you know, see more information about those particular positions,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's like when you actually deposit your
Speaker 1: assets in these defied protocols, your assets are technically they
Speaker 1: leave your wallet, so it's like, you know, meta mask
Speaker 1: is unaware of your money when you going to posit
Speaker 1: it into one of these defied protocols. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's happened to me on my first defied trade,
Speaker 1: Like it just disappeared from metal Mask, and I only
Speaker 1: you know what, I only like rediscovered it today and
Speaker 1: I'm very very happy that I managed to fire you rich?
Speaker 1: Are you rich? No? I only make it. No, I
Speaker 1: was no, I was just trying to learn a little
Speaker 1: bit about yield farming. So I think I put in
Speaker 1: like a hundred dollars and got two hundred dollars out.
Speaker 1: So no, sadly I haven't made it yet. You're gonna
Speaker 1: make it well. So that behavior is exactly what we
Speaker 1: think more people should be doing. We think that like
Speaker 1: the best way to learn about the stuff is to
Speaker 1: honestly just play around. The product Rainbow has been designed
Speaker 1: honestly to encourage that. So I want to go back
Speaker 1: to something you said comparing the Windows phone versus the iPhone.
Speaker 1: So the Windows phone essentially started from the premise. I
Speaker 1: think that the things that you would do on your
Speaker 1: computer you could do on your phone, just smaller, just
Speaker 1: with the smaller screen and to sort of crap your keyword,
Speaker 1: and but you still do the same thing. You send emails,
Speaker 1: maybe you try to like zoom in on a spreadsheet
Speaker 1: and serve the web or something like that. With the
Speaker 1: iPhone on paper is kind of the same thing, except
Speaker 1: the design of the iPhone opened up these new worlds.
Speaker 1: And we obviously know that in the iPhone era, we
Speaker 1: started using phones fundamentally different new things emerged, and I
Speaker 1: thought that was interesting way you stated, what is this
Speaker 1: sort of like new forms of interaction that can emerge
Speaker 1: or that you envision or how people use it when
Speaker 1: there is a sort of design and user friendly wallet
Speaker 1: that people that actually brings delight. We actually think about
Speaker 1: crypto today as being really like a trojan horse forgetting
Speaker 1: um public key cryptography into the hands of regular day
Speaker 1: you know, average people. So right now, it's like the
Speaker 1: things attracting people to crypto is kind of you know,
Speaker 1: speculative finance, and there's that's nothing wrong with that. That's great.
Speaker 1: But in the future, what you can do once you
Speaker 1: have keys in your pocket, ok, like a wallet in
Speaker 1: your pocket, is do more things like use it as
Speaker 1: your identity to various degree is UM. So some of
Speaker 1: the more exciting things happening with that right now is is, yeah,
Speaker 1: like using your Ethereum wallet as a log in. You know,
Speaker 1: if you've ever logged, you know, if you've ever used
Speaker 1: unit swap, you'll notice that there's no log and experience,
Speaker 1: you're simply connecting your wallet. That's been taking off, that
Speaker 1: user flow has been taking off a lot lately via
Speaker 1: this concept of token gated communities, which is something popping
Speaker 1: on Discord these days. So you know, on Discord you
Speaker 1: can have a channel where you know, people can join
Speaker 1: your channel only if they hold a token of a
Speaker 1: certain type. So whether that's an n f T, whether
Speaker 1: that's uh uni socks, whatever. Basically you can have communities
Speaker 1: online now that you have to the contents of your
Speaker 1: wallet or your ticket to enter the community. So the
Speaker 1: I'd say the best answer to your question is, yet,
Speaker 1: while it's kind of being used more and more for
Speaker 1: closer to the concept of keys, are we going to
Speaker 1: see in your view things that resemble what we think
Speaker 1: of as social networking in this model of my only
Speaker 1: login is my wallet? So maybe something that represents a
Speaker 1: photo sharing app or something that represents chat like what
Speaker 1: does because I think people intuitively, like I said in
Speaker 1: the beginning, they like this idea of social interaction that's
Speaker 1: not on some centralized company of servers. But can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about what you envision that
Speaker 1: looking like, Yeah, I definitely think that it's gonna be iterative, right,
Speaker 1: I don't think that cryptocentric social networking is ready to
Speaker 1: go right now. Where we're at is basically people are
Speaker 1: really loving this idea of portable social profiles, which I
Speaker 1: guess is really a subset of social networking. Right, so,
Speaker 1: you don't have your entire social graph today on ethereum.
Speaker 1: You don't have all of it, you know, friends and followers, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But what you do have is essentially a user profile
Speaker 1: that you can share across applications. Right, so you can
Speaker 1: have your avatar, your user, your user bio, you know
Speaker 1: relevant links that you have, your Twitter, your get hub, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You could fill that all in once on your E
Speaker 1: N S name, and any application that would like to
Speaker 1: is able to then respect that data, right and essentially
Speaker 1: use that as the pre filled data in your profile
Speaker 1: on all of those various sites. Social networking will begin
Speaker 1: begin to get eaten away by crypto. But I do
Speaker 1: think that there's fundamental things that need to happen before
Speaker 1: that's like really viable. So I have two questions on this.
Speaker 1: But you know, if if I if I have Tracy
Speaker 1: Alloway dot eath, and I have this identity that's tied
Speaker 1: to ethereum, how portable is that if say, you know,
Speaker 1: suddenly Salona or I don't know, doge coin or something
Speaker 1: like that become is like the de facto blockchain that
Speaker 1: the entire Internet is using, Like is my eth identity,
Speaker 1: my ether identity suddenly useless? And then secondly, I get
Speaker 1: that decentralization and portability is like one of the big
Speaker 1: offerings of this technology, but on the other hand, a
Speaker 1: lot of it is still going through a platform of
Speaker 1: one sort or another. And I just saw right before
Speaker 1: we started this podcast that um open Sea, which sells
Speaker 1: n f T s, it just took down like some
Speaker 1: sort of all right n f T that someone had
Speaker 1: put up there. So there's still some sort of censorship
Speaker 1: and control because these things are still going through a
Speaker 1: platform of some sorts. So I guess my question is
Speaker 1: how decentralized is this? Really great question, So to the
Speaker 1: first part of your question, what happens if ah, you
Speaker 1: know a contender blockchain you know on ceas ethereum, and
Speaker 1: how what happens then? So that's a good question. UM
Speaker 1: E n S, which is really what I guess the
Speaker 1: community is rallying around and has seen the most adoption
Speaker 1: so far. It's actually designed and implemented in a way
Speaker 1: that is an agnostic to ethereum. So yeah, so basically
Speaker 1: Salana could read that data off the Ethereum blockchain, and
Speaker 1: even today with with e n S, you are able
Speaker 1: to configure essentially any blockchain's address and have it attached
Speaker 1: to your e n S name. So e n S
Speaker 1: is actually less hyper Ethereum centric as it might seem.
Speaker 1: But in the end, it's our belief that Ethereum is
Speaker 1: here to stay, whether or not other platforms continue to
Speaker 1: see growth. That's that secondary that we think that Ethereum
Speaker 1: is here to stay, and therefore, you know, building a
Speaker 1: profile on Ethereum is you know, the most like conservative,
Speaker 1: long term centric place to do it. The second question
Speaker 1: is as far as like, you know, how decentralized is
Speaker 1: this what's nice about e n S and this whole
Speaker 1: concept of Ethereum as a log in is again it
Speaker 1: puts the control in your hands. And whether or not
Speaker 1: a third party application is actually decentralized or neutral, etcetera,
Speaker 1: that's up to them, and you as a user can
Speaker 1: choose to use that platform or not. Right so open
Speaker 1: ce definitely has taken a strong approach with you know,
Speaker 1: d m c A takedowns and I guess you know,
Speaker 1: moderating the content on open c But in that in
Speaker 1: no way does that actually take away from the power
Speaker 1: you have as as a as an e n S user. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so the data on your e n S name is
Speaker 1: actually decentralized and immutable. So what you can do is
Speaker 1: even um, you can configure your e n S name
Speaker 1: and actually destroy the ability for that data to ever
Speaker 1: be updated into the future if you'd like. Right, So,
Speaker 1: what that actually means is that you can confu can
Speaker 1: kind of like set it in stone and truly make it,
Speaker 1: you know, unalterable if you if you so like. There's
Speaker 1: a number of these platforms and they're you know, you know,
Speaker 1: open ce also has their own profile system, right, they
Speaker 1: have their own user name system in their own biosystem.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if they're the best example of
Speaker 1: a compatible platform with this portable profile concept. I'd say
Speaker 1: like Mirror and unite swap are better examples of applications
Speaker 1: that you know, are more tightly integrated with this idea
Speaker 1: of a portable profile. Can you actually explain Mirror a
Speaker 1: little bit? And so, I mean, you know, we're I
Speaker 1: get we're not even talking about Rainbow right now, but
Speaker 1: I feel like, because the idea is that you want
Speaker 1: to be someone's entry way into this sort of decentralized
Speaker 1: Do you like the term web three? I forget, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the web the term web three was a
Speaker 1: brilliant idea. UM. I don't have any issues with it. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's fine. Honestly, it's pragmatic. You I think
Speaker 1: that perhaps to a certain demographic, certain you know, nomenclature
Speaker 1: maybe has been tainted right by bad preconceptions about you know,
Speaker 1: use cases, etcetera, right like as crypto just for drugs
Speaker 1: and terrorists or whatever. And and that's you know, obviously
Speaker 1: a poor framing because it's that's just not the reality.
Speaker 1: So Web three is nice in that regard. So what
Speaker 1: are we gonna do with Web three? Because like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm aware of like mirror and it kind of seems
Speaker 1: like a little bit like medium or substat but with crypto.
Speaker 1: But you know, medium and substat seem to work well.
Speaker 1: And they people are making money and finding ways to
Speaker 1: get paid and not have to be on you know,
Speaker 1: work for some major news operation. What is the what
Speaker 1: are we going to get out of Web three? So,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a couple of things right now. Web
Speaker 1: three is about having fun. It's about having fun. The
Speaker 1: same way that playing around on the early Internet was
Speaker 1: very fun. It really sparks your curiosity and it and
Speaker 1: it kind of yeah, it's right now Web three is
Speaker 1: about like remixing and having fun. Now broadly, I would
Speaker 1: say the big difference, uh is the ability for content
Speaker 1: creators to to monetize directly with their audience in a
Speaker 1: super streamlined and undisturbed way as far as like there's
Speaker 1: no middlemen. What is mirror? Mirror is a like a
Speaker 1: content platform. It's similar to Medium. In the beginning, it
Speaker 1: was essentially kind of gated where it wasn't open to
Speaker 1: everybody and it was instead something that you had to
Speaker 1: use tokens to vote on which writers. You know, we're
Speaker 1: able to actually write on the platform. So I think
Speaker 1: that I don't know Web three. I'd say it's one.
Speaker 1: It's kind of this like fun living kind of like
Speaker 1: democratic experiment in a lot of ways. So it's it's
Speaker 1: as a user you're able to kind of it feels
Speaker 1: like you're participating in every step of the way. Can
Speaker 1: I ask another late technical question, just going back to
Speaker 1: the notion of identity and you know digital assets which
Speaker 1: are yours and tied to your wallet. My understanding is
Speaker 1: that you own the token, right, so you own basically
Speaker 1: a database entry that is somehow connected to a jpeg
Speaker 1: or somehow connected to your identity. How do you link, like,
Speaker 1: how do you actually link those two such that they're
Speaker 1: immutable and incontrovertible without having a third party have to
Speaker 1: do it? So you know, if I buy I don't
Speaker 1: know one of those like APE n f T S,
Speaker 1: I know it's an APE n f T because it
Speaker 1: was listed on open c or whatever. But once I
Speaker 1: own the data entry, what actually proves that it goes
Speaker 1: to that particular jpeg. Let me think there's there's two
Speaker 1: approaches to n f T s and the way that
Speaker 1: the data is actually stored. So there's one path in
Speaker 1: which the content itself, right that whatever the graphic or
Speaker 1: media is, so that that can actually be stored directly
Speaker 1: on chain using s v g S. So you know
Speaker 1: SPG as like an image format. You know, it's similar
Speaker 1: to pn g S, except it's uh like lossless. So
Speaker 1: examples of n f t s that are completely on
Speaker 1: chain with s v g S are things like loop
Speaker 1: or blit maps, you know, Ava stars, And that's ideal
Speaker 1: because those are the most immutable and the most permanent.
Speaker 1: The other path of for storing n f T data
Speaker 1: is essentially keeping a record on ethereum that points to
Speaker 1: the the third party location of where that n f
Speaker 1: T data is stored. Right, So, you know, for example,
Speaker 1: Crypto Kiddies, one of the original n f T the
Speaker 1: data for the Crypto Kitties images are actually being stored
Speaker 1: on something similar to Amazon Web Services. Right now, that
Speaker 1: might seem problematic, but in fact there's actually a number
Speaker 1: of ways that that's really not that problematic. So say
Speaker 1: the crypto Kitties community, you know, so they all love
Speaker 1: the kiddies. Everyone is obsessed with the kiddies. If Dapper Labs,
Speaker 1: the creator of Crypto Kitties, went out of business tomorrow
Speaker 1: and stopped paying their AWS bills, the community itself could
Speaker 1: easily recreate the entire thing. Meaning as long as one person,
Speaker 1: where a couple of people have essentially like you know,
Speaker 1: mirrored or you know, archived all of the images and
Speaker 1: the associated token ideas that they're matched with, it would
Speaker 1: be pretty trivial for the community to reboots the storage
Speaker 1: of that of that media type. Right, So, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that as far as like the permanence of that data.
Speaker 1: That's something that people are very, very interested in, and
Speaker 1: there's a number of you know, novel improvements that people
Speaker 1: are working on right now, you know. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing kind of like R and D effort.
Speaker 1: So you just mentioned crypto kitties, which reminded me of
Speaker 1: gas fees on ethereum, because I remember back in the
Speaker 1: olden days, crypto kitties used to like clog up the
Speaker 1: entire chain, and this is still an ongoing issue for
Speaker 1: anyone who's actually doing stuff on defy or trading, and
Speaker 1: you know, you might put in a trade or you
Speaker 1: might say that you want to buy something and then
Speaker 1: suddenly your gas fee goes up, and that's not much
Speaker 1: fun for everyone. So I'm wondering, given that your goal
Speaker 1: is basically to create an enjoyable wallet and to make
Speaker 1: the Internet fun once again, how much of an impediment
Speaker 1: is the gas fee issue. Yeah, it definitely sucks how
Speaker 1: expensive gases these days, So it is an impediment. It's
Speaker 1: like meaning, you know, not everybody. If everyone in the
Speaker 1: world used Ethereum today, it'd be bad, right, So it's
Speaker 1: almost like it is inherently not ready for everybody. There
Speaker 1: are a number of solutions, um that are very exciting
Speaker 1: that we think, you know, we'll largely solve that problem,
Speaker 1: you know, And and the timelines on those things are
Speaker 1: anything from six months to a year and a half,
Speaker 1: right um. In the meantime, though, we really think that
Speaker 1: it's okay that you know, gas is expensive, and we
Speaker 1: largely view this as perhaps a little bit of like
Speaker 1: a luxury experiment, right that this is really like, this
Speaker 1: is experimental stuff. Maybe it's a little a little bit
Speaker 1: of a luxury good as far as like the affordability
Speaker 1: of playing around with these things, it's our strategy to
Speaker 1: really focus on creating the most unbounded feature full product
Speaker 1: kind of at the expense of the affordability um. And
Speaker 1: the reason why is because once these technologies come along
Speaker 1: that allow Ethereum to scale more affordably, our product will
Speaker 1: be able to easily adopt those things, right um. Whereas
Speaker 1: if we focused exclusively on making gas fees cheaper in Rainbow,
Speaker 1: it would actually mean that Rainbow would have an extremely
Speaker 1: you know, small subset of its current features because only
Speaker 1: so many things actually work on those uh you know,
Speaker 1: layer two's, et cetera. So where of the belief that
Speaker 1: it's okay that you know, gas is a little expensive
Speaker 1: and that we would rather have, yeah, like as many
Speaker 1: cool things to do in Rainbow as possible, you know,
Speaker 1: and if if that potentially limits it's it's immediate user base,
Speaker 1: we think that's okay. We've been here for years. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's blown my mind the you know, the interest that
Speaker 1: Rainbow has gotten over the last year. Um, and we
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have expected this, this you know, level of
Speaker 1: adoption to have happened so soon. So honestly, if anything, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we're excited and this is going, you know, way
Speaker 1: better than we thought. So the gas fees, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll go down for sure. So I have a question
Speaker 1: about n F two. Is so like, I'm a boomer
Speaker 1: obviously and buy and large. When I look at, uh,
Speaker 1: when I look at like various n f T projects,
Speaker 1: I guess, in some sense, the idea of like buying into,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, some collection of art and then
Speaker 1: having like a gateway to a discord where maybe I
Speaker 1: could talk to people or do stuff with them. Like
Speaker 1: I guess maybe it kind of seems cool in theory,
Speaker 1: but in practice I have to say, none of it
Speaker 1: appeals to me, And I'm not a n f TY either,
Speaker 1: And I'm not like, oh, I'm just gonna like right
Speaker 1: click and say that, like I get, okay, you own this,
Speaker 1: but like I don't care about the apes. I don't
Speaker 1: care about the kiddies. I don't care about It's not
Speaker 1: my thing. What is going to be like a type
Speaker 1: of n f T thing that, Well, what am I
Speaker 1: gonna like, like, when's the thing gonna When is there
Speaker 1: going to be something that sort of appeals to normally
Speaker 1: is like myself. So I think that, Yeah, n f
Speaker 1: T s, it's either you kind of get them or
Speaker 1: you don't. I think that, Well, Joe, are you a
Speaker 1: collector of anything? I guess or identify as a click? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the thing. Yeah, so it's an n
Speaker 1: f T I think that. But I like the idea.
Speaker 1: But but I but I like the like when when
Speaker 1: people talk about like a community or it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you buy this and you're part of some scene, like
Speaker 1: I guess, like you know, like oh, the apes like
Speaker 1: they hang out with each other ira all. Like I
Speaker 1: guess I kind of get that theory. I don't like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not they're not my scene. That's fine,
Speaker 1: it's a different scene. But like you know, I don't
Speaker 1: hate the idea of like a scene per se or
Speaker 1: like buying into some community. I just haven't seen anything
Speaker 1: that like. It looks very fun to me. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that n f t s are just like crypto
Speaker 1: in general, which I find to be an asset that
Speaker 1: almost comes with that scene built in, right, Like from
Speaker 1: the beginning, crypto assets tend to kind of evoke almost
Speaker 1: a religious zeal from people right where it's like you are,
Speaker 1: now you've bought into this thing, and you have this
Speaker 1: vision for the future of that thing, and you know
Speaker 1: it comes with it, you know, ideology, it comes with it,
Speaker 1: whatever belief system. And I think the n f t
Speaker 1: s are largely similar to that. N f t s
Speaker 1: will be a part of people's lives, whether they realize
Speaker 1: it or not, in the sense that you know, the
Speaker 1: e n S names that we were talking about before, Um,
Speaker 1: you know those are actually n f t s. That's
Speaker 1: that's how they're That's how they functionally work, is that
Speaker 1: they that they are n f t s. You know,
Speaker 1: whether or not, Joe, you'll be collect doing cartoons, you know,
Speaker 1: who cares? Right, Like I think that other. So there's
Speaker 1: other things you can do with n f t S
Speaker 1: as well, purely from a functional perspective. For example, there's
Speaker 1: like Rainbows interested in UM potentially doing you know a
Speaker 1: k y C n f T right UM where essentially,
Speaker 1: once you've been ky ced, you know, to access our
Speaker 1: fiad on ramp, we we could issue an n f
Speaker 1: T that says, hey, this is a real human who
Speaker 1: has gone through the k y C process UM, and
Speaker 1: third parties could use that token UM or the existence
Speaker 1: of it, for example, you know, to unlock further functionality
Speaker 1: in their app. Right. So you might have some feature
Speaker 1: in your app and you really don't want it to
Speaker 1: be bodied, right, you don't want it to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, someone in an automated way to take advantage
Speaker 1: of it UM, and you could use the k y
Speaker 1: C n f T to to only let you know
Speaker 1: humans through right. That whole concept was really you know,
Speaker 1: pioneered by this company Wire a few years ago, but
Speaker 1: no one ran with it. N f T S. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you really have to be a collector of something to
Speaker 1: really get them. I think UM or at least in
Speaker 1: the current trends. So what's the deal are people really
Speaker 1: paying a hundred and five thousand dollars for a pair
Speaker 1: of Yeah, I mean people are paying a lot of
Speaker 1: money these days for the uniss You can you explain that.
Speaker 1: Why is the price of unisocks? What is it and
Speaker 1: why is it a hundred and five thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: a pair of socks? If I'm reading this right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So unisos are somewhat similar to n f T s
Speaker 1: and really they're collectibles, right, Really, that's what an n
Speaker 1: f T is, and that's what unisos are. Unisos are
Speaker 1: instead what's called an e RC twenty token, so they're
Speaker 1: more of like, you know, a currency than uh an
Speaker 1: n f T is um. But yeah, what unisox are
Speaker 1: was this really silly experiment done by the unie Swap
Speaker 1: team back in um as a demonstration of the unit
Speaker 1: swap protocol. Uh So, what unisox are is basically like
Speaker 1: merch for unit swap. The company it's it's branded socks.
Speaker 1: And what they did was they created five pairs of
Speaker 1: socks and then five hundred socks tokens um and put
Speaker 1: them on unit swap, which is a decentralized exchange. Then
Speaker 1: anyone in the world can buy and trade the socks token,
Speaker 1: and at any time you can take one full socks
Speaker 1: token and redeem it, meaning it gets burned, and then
Speaker 1: the unit swap team will mail you a pair of
Speaker 1: the socks. So that whole system ends up with something
Speaker 1: looking like kind of the way that you know, it
Speaker 1: essentially creates something close to Yeasies, right, or kind of
Speaker 1: like Supreme, where you have this limited edition run product
Speaker 1: that you know, it's like, yeah, it's it's like, you know, memorabilia.
Speaker 1: But what's cool about unisox is like, instead of you know,
Speaker 1: buying you know, Yeasies and then sitting on them and
Speaker 1: hoping that the price appreciates and then like having to
Speaker 1: mail the physical box, what's nice with unis oxes you
Speaker 1: can just trade the token back and forth, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're there to purely speculate on the price of
Speaker 1: that thing. Instead of having a custody the box, you
Speaker 1: can just trade the token back and forth and the
Speaker 1: box sits you know where it is, right. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting experiment in kind of like bringing
Speaker 1: markets or making markets more efficient, uh, in you know,
Speaker 1: non traditional markets, right. I think the closest analogy to
Speaker 1: unisox is like high end steakers in that whole culture.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's something that crypto o g is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, us as a status symbol. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So just on this note, I saw a really great
Speaker 1: description of n f t S today and I wish
Speaker 1: I could remember where it was from, but I've forgotten.
Speaker 1: But the basic argument was that like forever or like
Speaker 1: throughout all of history, there have been rich people who
Speaker 1: have a lot of money that they can spend on
Speaker 1: whatever they want, and traditionally those things that they've been
Speaker 1: buying happens status symbols like I don't know, watches or
Speaker 1: sneakers or fancy clothes or bags or whatever. And now
Speaker 1: there's a whole different class of people who have a
Speaker 1: lot of money, who've made a lot of money out
Speaker 1: of the crypto space, and for them, the status symbol
Speaker 1: is now n f t S, Like that's the thing
Speaker 1: that shows that you know who you are and how
Speaker 1: much money you've made, and it's basically sort of like
Speaker 1: digital bragging rights for nerds. Does that make sense, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very much. Yeah. I mean it's similar to I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like you meet a hipster and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that band five years ago, right. And it's
Speaker 1: like if you own some of these n f T
Speaker 1: s and you've had them for years, I mean you
Speaker 1: could have bought Crypto Punks a few years ago for
Speaker 1: like a hundred dollars, right, and they're now I don't
Speaker 1: even know, like sixty or something. You know, like Joe,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting you know, my day is mostly sitting on Twitter, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, how do you express yourself on Twitter
Speaker 1: or in these digital places? And U n f T
Speaker 1: s are a really great way to do that. I
Speaker 1: don't exclusively tie them to like wealth or status. I
Speaker 1: think of it more as self expression to a degree.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I think I think honestly that
Speaker 1: they're just like fun collectibles. Um, you know, some people
Speaker 1: collect anime dolls or you know, baseball cards like whatever,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, n f T is just like are
Speaker 1: a new thing. So speaking of n f T s,
Speaker 1: and this actually relates to Tracy's question about you know,
Speaker 1: will ethereum be the chain that wins out? Literally, while
Speaker 1: we were recording this episode, I see that, uh, former
Speaker 1: First Lady Milana Trump is launching an n f T
Speaker 1: project and it's on the but it's on the Salanta
Speaker 1: block chain. And also I saw last night Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: and his son they're also launching some sort of like
Speaker 1: fan experience n f T thing and on the Salanta blockchain.
Speaker 1: And I guess the current temporarily at least, you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned like gas fees on Ethereum, like you think
Speaker 1: it will be solved, but temporarily, other chains like Salana
Speaker 1: are much cheaper. And furthermore, I think like if you're
Speaker 1: like just like a Jordans fan or on your Trump fan,
Speaker 1: you probably don't care too. You might not be that
Speaker 1: much interested in, like you know, various aspects of decentralization
Speaker 1: and other pluses and minuses. You just want to like
Speaker 1: have a cheap way to buy something from a celebrity
Speaker 1: that you like. How much of a threat it is,
Speaker 1: like you know, all these people are just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's just put it on the cheap chain. How do
Speaker 1: you think about like that competition and the sort of
Speaker 1: like threat that poses to Ethereum as the scaling and
Speaker 1: as the layer two uh solutions. Uh, you know, there's
Speaker 1: still not really still not really built or widely available.
Speaker 1: Yet There's has been some interesting traction happening over in
Speaker 1: the world of Salana. One of the things to consider
Speaker 1: when assessing one of these chains is simply the ecosystem itself.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest values about you know, Web three,
Speaker 1: and so it's like I have an ethereum wallet. The
Speaker 1: nice thing about an ethereum wallet is that it's compatible
Speaker 1: with so many different things. It's like all of the
Speaker 1: assets within it are interoperable with each other, and all
Speaker 1: of the applications um, you know, targeting ethereum can interact
Speaker 1: with those assets. And you know, if most of your
Speaker 1: assets are over here in ethereum, but then you wanted
Speaker 1: to go by that Michael Jordan's n FT over on Salana,
Speaker 1: that actually creates this like weird fragmentation where now it's
Speaker 1: like you have assets over their assets over here that
Speaker 1: are incompatible with each other. I think that there's there's
Speaker 1: an appeal right now for these systems that have cheaper
Speaker 1: gas fees. But you know, it's not truly just about decentralization.
Speaker 1: That's not the like, you know, the only trade off.
Speaker 1: There's like the reliability aspect as well, and you have
Speaker 1: to think, like, you know, which one of these systems
Speaker 1: will will definitely exist in five or ten years from now.
Speaker 1: I guess as you sort of applied also the interoperability,
Speaker 1: so that in theory you want different n f tw
Speaker 1: s on the same chain to create the possibility that
Speaker 1: somehow they could interact with each other or work, and
Speaker 1: so there's sort of like a correct network effects. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's a network effect there. And um, I'm not a
Speaker 1: crazy maximalist or anything. If anything, I honestly kind of
Speaker 1: consider myself, like you know, approach this stuff pretty conservatively.
Speaker 1: When we started Rainbow, people were trying to pay us
Speaker 1: to integrate various chains, right like why don't you support
Speaker 1: e O S, why don't you support tsos, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: it would have been a bad idea to have supported
Speaker 1: those things out of the gate, because you know, it
Speaker 1: comes to the detriment of the product, right, it's just
Speaker 1: like additional scope that you have to have to add.
Speaker 1: It takes away from your focus. There's other chains that
Speaker 1: are cheaper that are more compatible with the theory, um,
Speaker 1: right that actually that that like you know, respect the interoperability,
Speaker 1: so things like polygon, things like arbitrum, etcetera, and that
Speaker 1: we think that that's where a lot of this like
Speaker 1: more like, you know, low value type of activity is
Speaker 1: going to happen. When I say low value, all I
Speaker 1: mean is like you know, low dollar amount right where
Speaker 1: you know all of you know, if you're paying half
Speaker 1: a milli million dollars for a crypto punk, the transaction
Speaker 1: fee is really not something you're you're thinking about. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you're talking about you know, and f t s
Speaker 1: from a major brand that you are a fan of, um,
Speaker 1: you know that activity, we see that more likely happening
Speaker 1: on Yeah, one of these chains with cheaper fees. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're just really big believers in the network
Speaker 1: effects of Ethereum, which is something that I feel like
Speaker 1: is under discussed. Yeah, I mean, all these other chains
Speaker 1: like Salana are really starting their network effects from from zero,
Speaker 1: which is you know, totally fine. It's just that it's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot for these other competing platforms
Speaker 1: to really build up the eCos the same like you
Speaker 1: know level of ecosystem that Ethereum has, right, Like how
Speaker 1: many Salana wallets are there? Right? Well, in the world
Speaker 1: of Ethereum, it's like, as a user, you can choose
Speaker 1: from ten wallets, right you know, obviously Rainbows number one,
Speaker 1: but you actually have a number of pretty solid alternatives,
Speaker 1: whereas some of these other chains, you really don't have
Speaker 1: anything to choose from. Right, there might be only be
Speaker 1: one platform for you know, buying and selling n f
Speaker 1: T s, right, whereas an etherorium there's like already a
Speaker 1: competitive you know, ecosystem. So yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think that like big brands are attracted to some of
Speaker 1: these other chains as well because of like their ability
Speaker 1: to handhold them through the experience. So you mentioned before
Speaker 1: the amount of interest that Rainbow has gotten, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious how much interest you've gotten from venture capital and
Speaker 1: potential funders, because like it just feels as if there's
Speaker 1: so much money pouring into the space right now, and
Speaker 1: it almost feels like people are keen to buy anything
Speaker 1: related to the crypto market, um, you know, regardless of
Speaker 1: how well it's designed or how usable it is. So
Speaker 1: has that been your experience, Yeah, they are very thirsty
Speaker 1: right now. There's been a lot of attend and I
Speaker 1: think that all of a sudden this year, people who
Speaker 1: hadn't been paying attention realized that the stuff is real
Speaker 1: and not going away. You know, people are you know
Speaker 1: I got vcs in my d MS, you know, pretending
Speaker 1: like they're willing to quit their job to come join
Speaker 1: the Rainbow team. But then you know, halfway through the
Speaker 1: conversation they switched it up and they're like, hey, actually, nah,
Speaker 1: can we invest? And I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean there's a lot of VC attention.
Speaker 1: What's crazy though, is that Rainbow in particular, we had
Speaker 1: very little interest from kind of the crypto o g
Speaker 1: money right, Like the big crypto funds really didn't understand
Speaker 1: Rainbow and broadly have like misunderstood the wallet product and
Speaker 1: the wallet opportunity. So Rainbows raised money mostly from consumers
Speaker 1: social investors. But yeah, I mean the space is definitely
Speaker 1: heating up. I think that, like, you know, people are
Speaker 1: trying to get us to raise more money right now. Um,
Speaker 1: we're not interested. People that you know are trying to
Speaker 1: acquire us right now, We're not interested. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's definitely a good time to raise money, I'd say,
Speaker 1: so can we just go on this further? I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting what you said about vcs who want
Speaker 1: to invest pretend that they want to be employees of
Speaker 1: Rainbow and then then they changed the conversation. Is this
Speaker 1: like a sort of broader phenomenon where startups or projects
Speaker 1: in the crypto space find themselves more starved for labor
Speaker 1: than they are capital ergo the way to get your
Speaker 1: foot in the doors to pretend to be a worker. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that this experience is pretty unique to me
Speaker 1: because I've kind of, uh, you know, part of my
Speaker 1: recruiting tactics has been to you know, to really turn
Speaker 1: it into a meme. I think that that's kind of
Speaker 1: what's happening here is you know, I do think that
Speaker 1: labor is the bottleneck and not capital. Honestly, there is
Speaker 1: an abundance of capital, most of it is undifferentiated capital. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from you know, the labor side of things, there is
Speaker 1: a huge talent drought UM. But more and more people
Speaker 1: are jumping ship from fang and you know, joining the
Speaker 1: space um, which is really exciting. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that I kind of asked for this whole, like you know,
Speaker 1: VC trickster games. I kind of brought that upon myself
Speaker 1: with my recruiting memes. I was going to ask when
Speaker 1: you tweeted that you were looking for like CIA agents
Speaker 1: UM with psychological warfare experience because you want them to
Speaker 1: be able to create high potency memes. How serious is that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I don't know. I heard Reality
Speaker 1: Winner is out of jail or whatever, so you know
Speaker 1: she's looking for a job. She can hit me up. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I think that memes are fundamental to crypto.
Speaker 1: I think that it's honestly what keeps people involved is
Speaker 1: just like it's crypto. Twitter is one of the funniest places.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean we have somebody on the team
Speaker 1: today who's title. You know, it's like our official job
Speaker 1: offered them. Their title is memes et cetera. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's like memes are a super vital part of building
Speaker 1: in crypto. Um, it's essentially our flavor of marketing. Whether
Speaker 1: you know any CIA agent is, you know, looking to
Speaker 1: leave the agency for a career change, I mean, we're
Speaker 1: more than happy to talk. It's like, memes are a
Speaker 1: skill you have to be good. And uh, some people
Speaker 1: out there playing some real good four D chess and
Speaker 1: with the memes, and you know we respect that. Yes,
Speaker 1: so if you've got the skills. So I have two questions.
Speaker 1: One is very short and one is a little more substitutive,
Speaker 1: The very short one is are you sitting still on
Speaker 1: the stalwart dot Ethan Tracy Halloway dot you do? You? Do? You?
Speaker 1: I have both of those. Oh yeah, you said you
Speaker 1: would send it to me, you know, Tracy, I gotta
Speaker 1: get my assistant to get that over to you. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but yes, I have been keeping those safe
Speaker 1: for you guys for a long time. I knew that
Speaker 1: some day you would want them. Thank you. I do
Speaker 1: want one, and I do too. The other more substantive
Speaker 1: question is, you know, there's this other question about Web three,
Speaker 1: and I've seen people debate it, which is like, whether
Speaker 1: all of the services that we sort of think about
Speaker 1: with respect to Web two will eventually be like on
Speaker 1: a blockchain like Uber on a blockchain where it's a
Speaker 1: dow and there's a token and no company or Airbnb
Speaker 1: you live a token, etcetera. Is that something that you envision?
Speaker 1: I think in the far off future that it's definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, an inevitability. I think that the biggest obstacle
Speaker 1: there is actually regulation. Personally, I think that that stuff
Speaker 1: is is a little bit of a pipe dream today
Speaker 1: for two reasons. One is technical and the second is regulatory.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of improvements needed to
Speaker 1: the tooling and infrastructure available to dows to actually enable that, um,
Speaker 1: Like using a doll today is pretty clunky, um and
Speaker 1: would not scale to the size of like you know,
Speaker 1: imagine if every Uber driver wanted to vote on some
Speaker 1: sort of company policy today, that would be really difficult
Speaker 1: to do via a DOW. But I think that there's
Speaker 1: merits to the idea of new corporate structures enabled by tokens.
Speaker 1: That's honestly how I've thought about this from the beginning,
Speaker 1: Right It's like, there can you know, this technology can
Speaker 1: honestly enable like a new renaissance in capitalism where there's
Speaker 1: all entirely new corporate structures available to everybody. Right So,
Speaker 1: whether you're a small business, um, whether you're trying to
Speaker 1: create some sort of like you know, large network like Uber,
Speaker 1: there's advantages to the flexibility of like you know, it's
Speaker 1: like remixing your corporate structure with a click of a button, right,
Speaker 1: Like doing that today is incredibly difficult, Like you know,
Speaker 1: changing around how you know your corporate structure works today
Speaker 1: is like difficult. It requires lawyers, And honestly, if you're
Speaker 1: like a small business, you don't really know how to
Speaker 1: do that. So I think that that that is definitely
Speaker 1: within our future. But I think that, you know, our
Speaker 1: politicians don't really know how to use email today, so
Speaker 1: I think that in reality, their knee us to be uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to take some time for regulatory
Speaker 1: clarity to happen on kind of like real world dow
Speaker 1: you know experiments. Mike, that was awesome. That was really fun.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to having us getting our done you
Speaker 1: handles and h thank you for coming on out. Love.
Speaker 1: Thanks Mike, that was fun. Gang, Thank you. Have a
Speaker 1: good morning GM. GM. You know, Tracy, I really like
Speaker 1: that conversation. I was thinking about a recent episode that
Speaker 1: we did with Matt Wong of Paradigm, and I do
Speaker 1: kind of think that like the more compelling crypto visions
Speaker 1: that you hear are sort of like what I see.
Speaker 1: The parallels that I see is like organic and unique
Speaker 1: to crypto in other words, like the models where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to replace X or Y or you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like defy, like I don't know whether
Speaker 1: that's what's going to happen there. But the idea of
Speaker 1: just like things that are like totally new to crypto,
Speaker 1: like some sort of like token gated community, even though
Speaker 1: there's not any community that I really want to be
Speaker 1: part of that I've seen, or something related to interesting
Speaker 1: art with n f t s Like I have to say,
Speaker 1: like the idea of like new stuff new is like
Speaker 1: is uh seems compelling to me, even if I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is. Yeah, I think that's right. And also, um,
Speaker 1: Mike's idea of like just making the Internet more fun
Speaker 1: once again, I think I think that's a big part
Speaker 1: of it, because I think there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are maybe in their thirties or late twenties now,
Speaker 1: who can remember what it was like, you know, when
Speaker 1: they first started going online. Um, maybe they were on
Speaker 1: something like a o L or Netscape or whatever, and
Speaker 1: it was it was genuinely a fun time and you
Speaker 1: were discovering new things, um, chatting with new people. Remember AOL? Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm getting my timeline mixed up. I
Speaker 1: remember AOL. But anyway, I think, like, I think what's
Speaker 1: nice about Mike's approach and others like him is they're
Speaker 1: not taking it so seriously as some of the maximalists
Speaker 1: who are like, we're creating a brand new financial system
Speaker 1: with its own ideology. This is about actually creating things
Speaker 1: that people want to use. Yeah, And you know, I
Speaker 1: loved his point in the beginning about the difference between
Speaker 1: the iPhone and the Windows phone, and it's like we
Speaker 1: didn't really know, you know, it's like the first iPhone
Speaker 1: like didn't like there wasn't even an app store at
Speaker 1: the time. But I think everybody sort of intuitively recognized
Speaker 1: that because of this new like highly usable phone, it
Speaker 1: would like open up these new possibilities, like it would
Speaker 1: create eight new things. And so I sort of see that,
Speaker 1: Like what he's saying is like if you get designed
Speaker 1: right and if you um create this sort of like
Speaker 1: just a better experience, then maybe like these new things
Speaker 1: that people want to do that aren't the same as
Speaker 1: just like over like shrinking a spreadsheet with the Windows phone,
Speaker 1: like that will that will open it up in some way? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Or just being able to see where you're like defy
Speaker 1: etherorium has got to that would be useful and in
Speaker 1: a decentralized identity, like the idea of like you know,
Speaker 1: we both like sort of played around with, you know, swap.
Speaker 1: The idea of being able to log into an app
Speaker 1: with a wallet as opposed to I'm gonna like set
Speaker 1: up my name and password and mother's made name and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. The idea of just being able to
Speaker 1: do that with a name or a dott Eth handle
Speaker 1: or a wallet is like pretty interesting and potentially it
Speaker 1: seems like powerful and I could see that actually appealing
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Yeah, I agree. All right, Um,
Speaker 1: well that was a fun conversation. So shall we leave
Speaker 1: it there? Yeah, that was good one. Let's leave it there. Okay.
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe wi Isn't though. You could
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