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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;10
Aaron
Can you guys, believe this Quine drop on Art Blocks? It's, really ratcheting up, and it's like this.
00;00;22;10 - 00;00;24;22
Pri
Covers it up. Now let's see.
00;00;24;25 - 00;00;29;19
Aaron
4.4. There's about 22 minutes left as of this recording.
00;00;29;21 - 00;00;36;03
Pri
I naively put in a bid for two yesterday, thinking that would be appropriate.
00;00;36;06 - 00;00;42;14
Aaron
I mean, it's kind of encouraging, right, that there's still demand. It just kicked up to 4.5. What do we think this lands.
00;00;42;15 - 00;00;53;27
Derek
We've got 22 minutes left. I think we clear 70s. Maybe 7.5ft is my my my gut. With that right now.
00;00;54;00 - 00;01;00;04
Aaron
So that's about 500 works, right? So that's a healthy amount of eath. It's.
00;01;00;04 - 00;01;07;00
Pri
Good to know that, Ethan, they're couch cushions that they could pull out, like, for all these people.
00;01;07;03 - 00;01;15;29
Derek
But I had to rob Rob banks. So, you know, this is, I think the the people, the people have spoken. They want the they want the lava labs.
00;01;16;02 - 00;01;19;13
Pri
I will say I very much enjoy the outputs of that.
00;01;19;14 - 00;01;24;23
Aaron
I think it's there. Maybe I'm going to say something controversial, I think, but I'm.
00;01;24;23 - 00;01;25;18
Derek
Going to say it's their best.
00;01;25;18 - 00;01;28;17
Aaron
Work. I think it's their best work. Esthetically.
00;01;28;19 - 00;01;29;25
Pri
It's really good.
00;01;29;27 - 00;01;50;26
Derek
I think the genius of lava is that they always have. They're very good at like looking at the the design of the space as it is in that moment and saying like, here's how we can push things a little further. And I think, yeah, the genius of Cryptopunks was like, hey, can we even get, you know, even if we generate these things off chain, can we put them on chain?
00;01;50;26 - 00;02;22;12
Derek
And then with all of us is like, hey, how much of the art can we actually store in chain? And then with me bits, it was like, oh, you like, What if we made 3D, you know? Voxel brigade, you know, objects and and really kind of, like, created this, this concert of, like of generative art and, and 3D voxels and gaming and then now with our blocks, it's like, okay, can we basically play with this concept of, of generative art to have self-executing objects like programs that run autonomously and create outputs.
00;02;22;12 - 00;02;34;01
Derek
And I think that's I think visually I think you're the stuff they always make is so there's so much taste there. But, yeah, it feels like the right project for them at the right moment in time.
00;02;34;02 - 00;02;52;27
Aaron
Yeah. And I think, you know, there are other work as amazing. So it's like picking between a bunch of winners. I just think it kind of a feels like where esthetics are going to go a bit more like the color choices and like the finer grained pixelation. It kind of like just thematically like a like.
00;02;53;01 - 00;02;56;26
Pri
Ascii kind of. Yeah, exact energy of it. I love that.
00;02;56;28 - 00;03;08;18
Aaron
I just you can definitely see this like on people's, you know, walls and institutions. It just feels like they really just like hit it out, hit it out of the park with this area.
00;03;08;20 - 00;03;13;13
Derek
I really like as we were talking, it just kicked up to almost five. It's been a bad show, man. You know.
00;03;13;16 - 00;03;14;25
Aaron
Where are we going to go, guys?
00;03;14;27 - 00;03;17;13
Pri
Priced out over here.
00;03;17;15 - 00;03;24;18
Derek
Yeah. Oh. Oh, sweet summer child with your two. Bad.
00;03;24;20 - 00;03;25;13
Pri
Eyes.
00;03;25;19 - 00;03;26;05
Aaron
That was big.
00;03;26;05 - 00;03;26;24
Pri
Spender.
00;03;27;00 - 00;03;35;16
Aaron
But I was looking at the the eons, and it was like, poured out. Eve putting in, like, a 0.15 or whatever the minimum was.
00;03;35;18 - 00;03;39;03
Derek
Yeah. Listen, you know, sometimes you just gotta do it for the culture.
00;03;39;05 - 00;03;44;01
Aaron
Yeah. It's cool. I mean, it's great. It's great to kind of see, see things moving a bit.
00;03;44;05 - 00;04;07;00
Pri
I like it. This is such a nice, like, cap to AB 500, I think, as well. Like, I think it's perfect. I love it. I was actually thinking their last work. Public work? I mean, I know they did something with merch as part of, like, the LA wildfires. Like doing those in addition. But then right before that, is there lot was their last work me bits.
00;04;07;02 - 00;04;11;28
Aaron
But I think wasn't there's the the proof. There was a couple like.
00;04;11;28 - 00;04;13;19
Pri
Proof o the product glyphs.
00;04;13;25 - 00;04;15;12
Aaron
The proto glyphs. That's right.
00;04;15;14 - 00;04;16;24
Pri
Was that proto were after me?
00;04;16;24 - 00;04;21;06
Derek
That was more kind of like a retrospective object because like, that work had already been created.
00;04;21;07 - 00;04;22;02
Aaron
That's true.
00;04;22;05 - 00;04;34;09
Derek
Yeah, but but I think oh, they they did do. Sorry. I maybe wasn't putting the pieces together. They did do that. You know the Los Angeles Fire Project in March. I think that's what he was saying.
00;04;34;12 - 00;04;35;18
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00;04;35;20 - 00;04;36;23
Derek
That's right. Okay.
00;04;36;25 - 00;04;39;17
Aaron
But that was not like, I mean, that was.
00;04;39;19 - 00;04;41;06
Derek
Like, it wasn't a major work. Yeah.
00;04;41;06 - 00;04;44;28
Aaron
It was it wasn't a major work. It's a nice way to describe it.
00;04;45;01 - 00;04;52;07
Pri
Yeah, it's super exciting. I'm pumped. And then we get to hang out with, like, everyone then. And and all you guys next week, which it's going.
00;04;52;07 - 00;04;53;03
Derek
To be fun.
00;04;53;05 - 00;04;54;12
Pri
It's going to be. Yeah.
00;04;54;15 - 00;05;02;25
Derek
We've got some fun stuff planned for, the final exhibition on Saturday. I'm really excited for folks to see it. It's going to be so nice.
00;05;03;02 - 00;05;04;27
Aaron
Don't ruin the surprise.
00;05;04;28 - 00;05;15;27
Pri
Yeah. So I assume based on numbers, do you feel like it's going to be more people this year? Or like, what does it feel like? I mean, I don't know if you are closer to it just because, like, you see and talk to people because you're obviously hosting, but.
00;05;16;00 - 00;05;31;11
Derek
I think it's going to be slightly larger than last year. Okay. And I also think, you know, last year was the first year where things started to satellite up in a really meaningful way, like there was events at different buildings. And, you know, I remember I was hanging out with you guys and we were kind of like walking around.
00;05;31;11 - 00;05;50;25
Derek
We saw clown on them show. We went and recorded a podcast. There was, you know, a couple of satellite buildings. We always obviously used to have a glitch. Then the Roblox house and it felt more sprawling last year for the first time, which was awesome. I think that is definitely I think that is definitely happening again this year.
00;05;50;25 - 00;06;10;00
Derek
And maybe even a little bit more even even a little bit more than last year, which I think is cool. I, I personally love the idea of I love the idea of like this becoming like a, a town wide event every year instead of just like, you know, 1 or 2 locations. It's just more fun and makes the city more fun.
00;06;10;02 - 00;06;32;17
Derek
Folks are walking around. I'll also say the little, you know, to kind of work with that. And we we actually have less programing by number this year than we have in previous years. Intentionally because like, you know, there's so many new things popping up, which I think is awesome, but we went a little bit further with each programing than we have in previous years, if that makes sense.
00;06;32;18 - 00;06;53;28
Derek
So like trying to like make things a little bit more produced and more fun and, you know, more interesting for the, for the, for the slightly less events that we have this year. A glitch, for example, which I think mostly because like we want to accommodate lots of other events popping up and people doing fun things and letting the schedule breathe a bit across all of these locations.
00;06;53;28 - 00;07;10;11
Derek
So it'll be I'm excited. It's a it's always fun. It's always a like it's I'm sure you guys feel the same. It's like we're all heads down and working hard, you know, just powering through. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of nowhere for a week and it's like, oh, yeah, this is fucking awesome.
00;07;10;13 - 00;07;12;21
Derek
So I'm excited to get out there with all you guys.
00;07;12;23 - 00;07;22;19
Pri
I feel like for like sounding like Burning Man people right now, but like, just like, tune out from the noise and celebrate the art and humanity out.
00;07;22;22 - 00;07;24;21
Derek
Have you guys been to Burning Man?
00;07;24;24 - 00;07;38;27
Pri
No, but I've actually always wanted to go at least once just to kind of, like, actually see for myself what people talk about. And I feel like there's a lot of people that I trust and like that have been going for a very long time, and they really like it. Yeah. And so I'm like, you know what I like.
00;07;39;00 - 00;07;48;16
Pri
But then you hear like all the memes and people drag it a lot. So part of me is like, I also see that vantage point, but I kind of just want to get a sense for myself what I.
00;07;48;16 - 00;08;10;08
Derek
Yeah, I went to Burning Man one once. I went to Burn Man once. This was about 7 or 8 years ago, and I will I probably won't be back. I think it was around the time where things started to become I wasn't. I've only been once and, I think it was starting to become what happened to Coachella a bit.
00;08;10;10 - 00;08;45;18
Derek
So I grew up going to Coachella, and I'm, I grew up just outside of Palm Springs and Los Angeles, and it was kind of our music festival, you know, growing up in, in high school. And what Coachella ended up becoming was very different than what it started out as. And I think the year I went to Burning Man, the sense that I got it was it was starting to become a little bit more like what happened to Coachella, which was like this very Instagrammable event, more like a social rite of passage than like, I think maybe some of the ethos of why Burning Man started in the beginning.
00;08;45;20 - 00;08;56;23
Derek
That might not be true, but I think that was the reflection I heard from long time burners. Who? Yeah, who? I think we're more and more committed to that event, but do we? I don't know.
00;08;56;26 - 00;09;17;08
Aaron
Do we think, that happens to, Marfa and Artbox? That's a good question. That turned into like, like if it continues to grow. Right, like, let's just say like in five more years and it compounds with growth, like, is that it does, it does. Does that sell out too? That'd be kind of sad. But I guess that's kind of the nature of of growth, right?
00;09;17;10 - 00;09;31;01
Derek
Yeah. Kind of feels like that's got to you guys are the ones that turn me on to this article. Or maybe it was Chris, which was like a few years ago, and I think we brought it up on Flamingo. The what was the words you guys used? It was like the dorks or like the.
00;09;31;01 - 00;09;32;19
Pri
Geeks, mops and sociopaths.
00;09;32;20 - 00;09;34;16
Derek
That's a geek. Swaps and sociopaths.
00;09;34;17 - 00;09;39;22
Aaron
Shoot is something sociopathic into Marfa. Oh, no, that's going to be bad.
00;09;39;25 - 00;09;41;28
Derek
What? Yeah. Well, what's your guys's take on that?
00;09;42;00 - 00;10;02;03
Aaron
I mean, I remember just like the first couple of years, and you know, Kevin Rose, who, I think folks know from proof awesome in birds and who spent a lot of time just watching some of these other communities grow. I remember him using that. It felt a little bit like South by Southwest, West to him, which obviously is massive now, just just the kind of the energy.
00;10;02;05 - 00;10;23;21
Aaron
But I do think, you know, there's a committed base of people that, you know, want to collect and, you know, cherish these objects. And it's such a great place to to kind of go. And so I, I just don't see that dulling. Right. I just think that's going to expand over time. So I don't I don't know, maybe the distance and its remote remote ness like you know, militates against that.
00;10;23;21 - 00;10;40;23
Aaron
But you know, that being said, you see Burning Man is, counterexample there, right? Super hard to get to super challenging conditions, etc., but it still attracts a lot of people to it. There's like a humanity related to it, but we're up to 5.5 on those guys. Wow. Yep.
00;10;40;26 - 00;10;43;28
Pri
Derek, you said like seven, right? You're probably pretty close.
00;10;44;00 - 00;10;47;08
Derek
I think it gets me, I think gets around seven, seven and a half.
00;10;47;10 - 00;11;02;13
Pri
Dang I think my for me it may it may take a while, but I think maybe it does. It could it could get huge. I remember when Kevin said that too. He's like this reminds you of like early South by life where it's just like, I remember the first Starbucks even. I mean, you guys were all there. It was like 100 people.
00;11;02;13 - 00;11;04;29
Pri
Like, it didn't even feel that big. Maybe it was like a hundred.
00;11;05;02 - 00;11;07;18
Aaron
It all fit in the backyard of, our blocks.
00;11;07;21 - 00;11;29;12
Pri
Yeah, like it was pretty small. And so obviously it's scaled up a ton even in the five years. So, you know, if you look at the next five years and if digital art becomes more common and accepted and more institutional and there's more collectors that come into the space, I would imagine that it only gets bigger and bigger.
00;11;29;12 - 00;11;53;21
Pri
But I don't know, even if it gets like so huge, I think it still would feel a lot of pride in that. Like, I don't think I like because I it's like Burning Man. If I went, I wouldn't feel like I was an early person in it. And I feel like we're with our blocks and that whole community, even if it got like enormous and, you know, there's a lot of memes around our books weekend and it being kind of like this thing that could be perceived as like, not positive.
00;11;53;22 - 00;11;57;25
Pri
I don't think I would really care to be honest. Like, I'm thinking about it and I think it would still be.
00;11;57;27 - 00;12;19;07
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I just feel like if people can kind of see the energy that this community's created and it hits scale, like I'm going to be excited about that. It's kind of like watching your favorite musician or group or DJ or whatever your musical persuasion is, just kind of make it huge. It's kind of hard. You like, feel bad about that a little bit, but it's hard to kind of hate on it too much.
00;12;19;10 - 00;12;40;03
Pri
When did, like, the tech community start in Burning Man? Because like, didn't I mean, Burning Man's like the whole community was it was like OG San Francisco like it was like that Baker Beach community. But at some point it became more like got not like co-opted, but like a lot of the early internet people even cypherpunk adjacency to Burning Man.
00;12;40;03 - 00;12;54;00
Pri
And then obviously now it's like just everyone in. It's like, obviously still tech has a big stronghold, but it's just also across like other industries too. And just people from it's kind of a music festival at this point.
00;12;54;03 - 00;12;54;26
Aaron
I think it's sort.
00;12;54;26 - 00;13;02;24
Pri
Of that shift in the way. Yeah, yeah. No, no, I mean, it started a while ago, but I wonder, like when it just became like huge. Was it like after.
00;13;02;26 - 00;13;03;08
Aaron
Like.
00;13;03;11 - 00;13;09;06
Pri
The tech community? Like the tech community kind of like dominated it? I don't know.
00;13;09;08 - 00;13;24;13
Aaron
I think, you know, like my understanding was like, you know, it really started to kick up in San Francisco, like in the late 90s. And then by the 20 tens, it was like selling out, but it really was like a 20 year journey or even longer than that.
00;13;24;16 - 00;13;28;24
Pri
So I'm like on the Wikipedia right now, it was like 1986.
00;13;28;27 - 00;13;30;06
Aaron
Yeah. Which is wild, right?
00;13;30;08 - 00;13;36;10
Pri
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's it's almost 50 like years, which is crazy.
00;13;36;13 - 00;13;49;02
Aaron
There's just going to be huge statues of coins in 50 years. And it might affect it because we already have the squiggle statue in front of our gallery. So it's only, only a matter of time till there's more.
00;13;49;05 - 00;13;49;27
Pri
Yeah.
00;13;49;29 - 00;13;54;06
Aaron
So Derek's locked in his bidding. I can I can feel it. I can feel his, energy.
00;13;54;11 - 00;13;57;17
Derek
It's. You're not wrong.
00;13;57;19 - 00;13;59;19
Derek
You're not wrong. You're not wrong, dude.
00;13;59;21 - 00;14;00;23
Aaron
It's like this.
00;14;00;23 - 00;14;02;18
Derek
Thing's getting a living.
00;14;02;20 - 00;14;04;17
Aaron
Breathing stuff around to make sure things get.
00;14;04;17 - 00;14;06;20
Derek
This thing's getting away from us. Yeah.
00;14;06;23 - 00;14;08;11
Aaron
He's selling his home.
00;14;08;13 - 00;14;11;06
Derek
Dude, it's already been mortgaged three times over.
00;14;11;08 - 00;14;13;27
Pri
It's okay. Rates are going down. You got this. You can refi.
00;14;13;28 - 00;14;15;24
Derek
There you go. There you go.
00;14;15;27 - 00;14;45;07
Pri
I'm, like, literally looking this up, but it looks like the late 90s and early 2000 is when the Bay area tech workers and new media started going. And then like 2001, Google founder Eric Schmidt and went to Burning Man, before hiring him. So the famous Google story of Google's founders taking Eric Schmidt to burning them for hiring him shows it normalized tech burning man link in the early 2000 and then 2013 to 14 inflection point and like VCs, CEOs, luxury camps and Sherpas.
00;14;45;07 - 00;14;50;28
Pri
That's when that happened. And now it's like Silicon Valley elite. So it's kind of interesting.
00;14;51;01 - 00;15;10;02
Aaron
Yeah. And it's not even just fucking the parallel to South by Southwest just to pick up on what, you know, what Kevin said, I think it was kind of a similar story. Right. Founded in late 80s, expanded in the 90s, kind of broke out in the mid not 2000. So I do think it's kind of take a while to, to expand.
00;15;10;02 - 00;15;32;18
Aaron
But but I think that's right. Yeah. But it's it's pretty cool. I mean and I do think there is like a cycle with crypto there's like bigger and bigger crypto conferences. And this is the the place for the positive creative artists and and collectors. It really is special. So I'm, I'm I'm obviously looking forward to it. I think we said that every single week.
00;15;32;24 - 00;15;35;20
Derek
You know I think there's a lot I am also looking forward to.
00;15;35;20 - 00;15;41;22
Aaron
It at 6.25 guys, five minutes left. Let's see if Derek's right. Let's see if Derek's right on top.
00;15;41;22 - 00;16;11;11
Derek
So for, for the sake of me acquiring one, I'm gonna have to go. I'm gonna have to go. Pretty dark here. If it if I start to get any closer. I was just going to say, you know, I there's the the thing that I always reflect on, like, even within, even within, like, the crypto art space, like, it's so fragmented across so many different things you can do on top of this agnostic technology, even things like, you know, NFT strategy and punk stir, which I would consider to be like a crypto art protocol.
00;16;11;11 - 00;16;39;12
Derek
And as much as like a financial protocol, it's so different than like the behavior of like, collecting, you know, something that an artist made halfway across the world. And or it's like there's something really fun about, like one day putting on my protocol hat and like, really like geeking out over some really cool innovation that people is, you know, composing multiple protocols together and writing some really immutable, cool, immutable logic that will outlive us all.
00;16;39;14 - 00;17;03;28
Derek
And seeing how it kind of jujitsu use, you know, previous ideas and objects and contracts together to kind of create something new. And then the next day like, oh wow, that art slaps. I need to collect one of those. And I, I just like this is this space is so intoxicating in that way. It's just like endless, infinite kind of innovation and fun and collecting and.
00;17;04;01 - 00;17;11;15
Derek
Yeah, it's just it is, it's like the gift that keeps on giving, just like, very stoked. I get to be alive at this moment in time.
00;17;11;17 - 00;17;13;08
Pri
And no storage to worry about.
00;17;13;10 - 00;17;15;09
Derek
No storage to worry about, just keys.
00;17;15;09 - 00;17;16;23
Aaron
I mean, that's the trade off, right?
00;17;16;25 - 00;17;18;15
Pri
But yeah, it's true.
00;17;18;17 - 00;17;25;27
Aaron
I'm just looking at the bids, purportedly gods bidding on this one. So we're good to go. Conclusions.
00;17;26;00 - 00;17;27;20
Pri
Oh, is that shrooms?
00;17;27;23 - 00;17;28;13
Aaron
That's funny.
00;17;28;17 - 00;17;31;18
Derek
I think that actually, my patience is a good idea.
00;17;31;20 - 00;17;33;02
Pri
Yeah. Might be.
00;17;33;04 - 00;17;35;07
Derek
That could be. No.
00;17;35;09 - 00;17;36;06
Pri
That's funny. Well.
00;17;36;09 - 00;17;48;11
Derek
It's it's also always fun just to see the, the top couple of bids, just, like, throw down at the, at the very top of whatever. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'll, I'll come back in a couple of hours.
00;17;48;13 - 00;17;50;05
Aaron
I'm going to make sure I get this one.
00;17;50;07 - 00;17;52;25
Derek
Here's a cool 200 grand. I'll see you guys later.
00;17;52;27 - 00;17;55;01
Aaron
Yeah. Peace. Must be.
00;17;55;01 - 00;17;57;26
Pri
Nice. Must be nice.
00;17;57;28 - 00;18;04;24
Derek
Yeah, it's pretty fun. We might be entering some stupid season here pretty pretty quickly. I just.
00;18;04;27 - 00;18;06;10
Aaron
I don't I don't think.
00;18;06;10 - 00;18;09;29
Pri
So. I think it's, I think towards the end of the cycle. Derek you're confusing.
00;18;09;29 - 00;18;10;11
Aaron
Me. Derek.
00;18;10;18 - 00;18;12;07
Derek
No no no no no I mean the I mean that.
00;18;12;12 - 00;18;16;13
Aaron
We're in the grind. We're in the grind. This is just like grind tech.
00;18;16;16 - 00;18;23;25
Derek
I'm sure they talking about the there's no slow melt up happening in the thing I'm referring to, which is this Keene auction.
00;18;23;28 - 00;18;26;28
Aaron
Or at that was that was if I've been calling it the wrong thing.
00;18;27;00 - 00;18;34;10
Derek
I think maybe I can maybe I'm pronouncing it incorrectly. I've never used this word. It's not in my lexicon.
00;18;34;10 - 00;18;36;10
Aaron
Yeah, I don't even know what it means.
00;18;36;13 - 00;18;44;08
Derek
But, yeah, we're at two minutes and 30s left. Seven is minimum bid already, and I kind. I think that this thing hops up.
00;18;44;10 - 00;18;47;16
Aaron
It's like you. You predicted it. Oh, there it is.
00;18;47;16 - 00;18;51;09
Derek
I think I think it's a 7.1. It's I think it's going over my prediction.
00;18;51;09 - 00;19;03;22
Aaron
Unfortunately it just did 7.0625. So 7.1 man it's moving. That's fine. But it's good. I mean I'm glad that Matt and John also like tipped their hat to our blocks. I thought that that was nice.
00;19;03;22 - 00;19;04;22
Derek
Totally agree.
00;19;04;29 - 00;19;05;21
Pri
Yeah I love it.
00;19;05;28 - 00;19;08;26
Derek
It's like a very cool full circle moment for sure.
00;19;08;26 - 00;19;27;23
Aaron
Yeah. So I really appreciate that just because I'm obviously a huge fan of everything, Eric those guys does. Yeah. I'm excited to kind of see what like what happens next, like what directions people go into in it, whether it has more physicality to it with like generative goods or whatever direction they want to take it. I'm, I'm, I'm here for it.
00;19;27;23 - 00;19;28;14
Aaron
So yeah.
00;19;28;15 - 00;19;48;00
Pri
Same. Yeah I also think it's cool like just because this community in a way there's like so much overlap. It's like what's cool about our block seemingly like this year more than maybe the others is like folks, like people. Some like it's not. It's expanding beyond just like generative, you know, it's it feels like it's going into different circles of digital art.
00;19;48;03 - 00;19;59;06
Aaron
Yeah. Like some of the folks that either had their own platform or, you know, were big super artists. Like, they're all kind of moving towards this community too, which is great, but I need that.
00;19;59;08 - 00;20;03;17
Pri
Yeah. I mean, you saw that over the last couple of years, but it feels like more pronounced this year and like more welcomed.
00;20;03;25 - 00;20;05;16
Aaron
Yeah, thousand percent, which is good.
00;20;05;16 - 00;20;11;02
Derek
.25 we got 50s left. So seven points I'm nervous. 0.4.
00;20;11;08 - 00;20;14;14
Aaron
Oh shit. We're going to eight guys.
00;20;14;16 - 00;20;16;15
Derek
We're definitely going to eight here.
00;20;16;18 - 00;20;19;09
Aaron
It's just the flying in 1900 bids.
00;20;19;11 - 00;20;24;22
Pri
I hope a bunch of dumb asses bothered it so I can buy on secondary.
00;20;24;25 - 00;20;27;21
Derek
You. You think that this single down.
00;20;27;23 - 00;20;31;26
Pri
I don't I don't know I don't but that is like my secret hope because there's a lot of idiots out there.
00;20;32;02 - 00;20;35;00
Derek
So there are. But I don't think it will.
00;20;35;03 - 00;20;38;04
Aaron
Yeah. 7.56, 7.6.
00;20;38;04 - 00;20;40;12
Derek
How much do you think this thing jumps?
00;20;40;14 - 00;20;43;27
Aaron
7.75 it's gonna. But it's going to clear out I bet.
00;20;43;29 - 00;20;49;03
Derek
Oh man, really think I oh man, I'm still breathing here.
00;20;49;03 - 00;20;57;13
Aaron
I'm 7854321 dunzo.
00;20;57;16 - 00;20;58;05
Derek
How much.
00;20;58;07 - 00;20;58;27
Aaron
Point six.
00;20;59;04 - 00;21;00;11
Derek
Oh my God.
00;21;00;13 - 00;21;00;22
Aaron
Right.
00;21;00;28 - 00;21;03;11
Pri
7.078 wow.
00;21;03;15 - 00;21;07;26
Aaron
You're close to Eric. Good job on the class for telling that.
00;21;07;28 - 00;21;14;03
Derek
Pretty while I was guys. Good for good for the duo. Yeah but for the duo completely.
00;21;14;10 - 00;21;31;04
Aaron
But I also like that there's still creating you know, like which you just never you know, you seen some artists just kind of, either leave or, you know, having produce work at a steady cadence. I think they kind of nailed the cadence where they overproduce work, you know? But it feels like Matt and John just have a really, they seem.
00;21;31;05 - 00;21;35;15
Pri
Pretty sophisticated, sophisticated in that regard. I feel like.
00;21;35;18 - 00;21;39;11
Derek
What's the number you guys are seeing as the winning bid on your screens?
00;21;39;13 - 00;21;47;04
Aaron
So 7.8. Yeah, I did that advantage. I revised down to 7.56. So maybe maybe the transaction didn't get committed.
00;21;47;07 - 00;21;51;09
Pri
So now I'm seeing 7.5625 wild.
00;21;51;12 - 00;22;00;09
Derek
I love doing these. Good. Very good times and good times for for Matt and John and 25% going to the node, which I love.
00;22;00;12 - 00;22;02;28
Pri
Oh, really? I actually didn't even clock that. That's amazing.
00;22;02;28 - 00;22;06;24
Derek
Yeah. 25% going to the node, which is awesome.
00;22;06;27 - 00;22;14;15
Pri
Dude. Do you know what they're going to do with the eight, punks IP? Is it going to go like more merge direction or just like something? Is there even an idea? I heard it's been published.
00;22;14;15 - 00;22;22;08
Aaron
I heard Mickey, on a podcast, and I think he's it sounded like he's still figuring that out.
00;22;22;11 - 00;22;23;06
Derek
Yeah.
00;22;23;09 - 00;22;32;08
Aaron
And I think he's he was like, pretty much like asking or just, like, projecting that, you know, they're going to be respectful but also try to push a little bit on it.
00;22;32;12 - 00;22;37;01
Pri
I think it'd be kind of cool. Like I actually would welcome that. Like I don't I don't know.
00;22;37;03 - 00;23;02;08
Aaron
Yeah. I just I think, I think it's in a good spot just because Mickey's in many ways such a big believer in all the digital assets and seems to have his heart in the right place just in terms of, you know, collecting, you know, from a point of intrigue and interest. Totally. And he's also, you know, it's not a, corporation or an entity which I think can be fine, but there's just weird dynamics at the edges of that.
00;23;02;10 - 00;23;10;03
Aaron
So it's nice to have somebody that, you know, doesn't have to account to other, other parties in an organization.
00;23;10;09 - 00;23;21;23
Derek
So I'm doing the math right now. This looks like it was at current eath prices of 4100, a $15.2 million sale. And wow, I think that's right. And that's.
00;23;21;23 - 00;23;39;02
Aaron
Huge. I mean this is why I don't I still I do think that there's been less interest from creators in NFTs. But when you see these numbers, right. Like I still don't even post royalties. Like how are we not continuing to kind of get the the best creators and artists like diving into the space.
00;23;39;04 - 00;23;39;29
Derek
Now it's a good point.
00;23;40;02 - 00;23;45;25
Aaron
The speed to get to those numbers. Like if this was in Christie's or Sotheby's, that'd be eye watering, right? They be.
00;23;45;28 - 00;23;46;17
Derek
Oh yeah.
00;23;46;23 - 00;23;49;04
Aaron
Back flips internally due to protocol.
00;23;49;04 - 00;24;08;20
Derek
Did this a protocol totally just did this. Yeah. From start to finish. And I just think that there's something so awesome and elegant about offloading all of this logic of or coordinating global capital and also generating the artworks. Yeah. To an algorithm like that is so fucking cool, guys.
00;24;08;22 - 00;24;30;11
Aaron
But I think it's even I've been thinking a lot about exit this past week. And just like how all these digital systems kind of create like Rites of exit, you know, like Bitcoin was an exit from traditional like central banks like to a certain degree, you know, Ethereum really did that more broadly for all the finance you see, like network states that are trying to do that for like politics, like writ large or even locations.
00;24;30;11 - 00;24;53;06
Aaron
And I do think like NFTs do that for the traditional art medium. And I just think that that's important. Right. Like that's a competitive lever. It's not denigrating the existing systems. It's just a parallel system that hopefully makes everything better, like off the board or off the bat. And I feel like particularly today, in today's world, it's just harder and harder to find points of exit.
00;24;53;08 - 00;25;14;10
Aaron
Maybe that's because we're all online and connected. There's lots of data that's getting collected and, and used. And, you know, there's algorithms that are coordinating things like more robustly. So it's just like harder to get that exit. But you kind of need that, like people have always needed that in some capacity, like in many ways. Like even America was an exit, right?
00;25;14;12 - 00;25;20;10
Aaron
It was an exit for political and religious dissidents. So yeah, I think I think it's healthy.
00;25;20;13 - 00;25;39;18
Pri
That's a cool framing of it too. And it's also like, no better time than now. I feel like people's faith in a lot of the institutions have just gone down. I would say as like 15, 20 years. So, you know, financial institutions, you obviously had Bitcoin. I don't, I don't think there's maybe like a lack of faith in maybe existing art institutions and all of that.
00;25;39;18 - 00;25;46;08
Pri
But people want alternatives that maybe are less get get kept. And this is one way to do it.
00;25;46;12 - 00;25;50;24
Derek
Yeah, I like the exit framing too. I think that's cool. So technology slaps guys.
00;25;51;01 - 00;25;58;22
Aaron
It does. I know you're you're you're did you get in there Derek? Did you get get in on this one?
00;25;58;25 - 00;26;03;23
Derek
I, I can make it for I cannot confirm nor deny, but I may have slept in.
00;26;03;25 - 00;26;19;19
Aaron
All right. Well, I'm glad you slept in. Have you guys notice, like, Zcash is, like, on this run? It's, like up 500% and. Yeah. Does anybody know why that's happening? Like, it's a obviously it's super interesting project, but like what is this interesting. It's kind of.
00;26;19;21 - 00;26;25;23
Pri
Do you think it's a cultural counter to to stablecoins and like central big I don't know seeing that.
00;26;25;26 - 00;26;34;02
Aaron
Yeah I mean it this I mean it's been around I don't remember when it launched, but I think it was like roughly 2016 ish. So it's been almost I'll give.
00;26;34;02 - 00;27;02;04
Derek
You we ended up not taking a position, but we went through this on our investment committee after it had gapped up from like 35 to 60. We evaluated up pretty close. I'll give you my take. I'll give you the the bull case. There's definitely bear cases, but the bull cases, we're entering a new we're entering a new paradigm where I think enshrined privacy is, is something that I think people are going to care about.
00;27;02;07 - 00;27;19;24
Derek
I think that was always the thesis was Zcash. But I think we've entered also a regulatory climate where allowing for that enshrinement to happen at the protocol layer is like this is the right environment for a product like that to take off, whereas previous environments may have been a little bit more hostile to that idea. I think that's number one.
00;27;19;26 - 00;27;52;15
Derek
Number two, there's 21 million Zcash from a commodity money perspective. It's a hedge against Bitcoin. You know there's a very similar monetary supply. It has this unique feature of you know being a product leader around zero knowledge proofs, which is a very robust tech. That's kind of a layer on top of that commodity money story. I think the next part, the big knock against Zcash, you know, six, seven, eight years ago, was it it didn't have the same sort of like launch dynamics as Bitcoin.
00;27;52;15 - 00;28;29;08
Derek
So even if you were trying to create this commodity money story, it felt off because the distribution of that was so heavily favoring the team and the foundation and early holders. Whereas at this point you now have five, six, seven years of this of emissions and distribution of this asset that now is much more widely held and much more distributed and much more from a commodity money perspective, like quote unquote decentralized, which I think allows for, you know, an environment to exist for that story to now persist around true commodity money.
00;28;29;10 - 00;28;50;02
Derek
Something that I always like to look for when like underwriting some of, like, these more public projects is like the founder story. You know, Zuko was a very early Bitcoin coiner, very early. And, you know, the story of digital cash and, and internet based mining. He's kind of seen as a pioneer around zero knowledge, technology.
00;28;50;05 - 00;28;51;01
Aaron
Yeah, definitely.
00;28;51;09 - 00;29;12;11
Derek
He is like a I don't want to call him like the Satoshi of xQc, but like, he's somebody who's very well respected in kind of encryption circles and, internet mining circles. And so he's kind of like this flagship founder around this project. And then, you know, the the last part is more of like a technical analysis part, which is everybody is offsides this trade.
00;29;12;11 - 00;29;44;21
Derek
It's like, you know, something I love to see is like, what is what is non consensus when when you're underwriting kind of another leg around a project because it just ends up meaning that like capital needs to squeeze into the story in a short amount of time to kind of drive price up. And this was maybe one of the most non consensus offsides trades that it like that matched a lot of like the profile of the the the the big Tams that I just described around privacy and regulatory climate and and commodity money and founder journey and all and all of these things.
00;29;44;24 - 00;30;07;29
Derek
And so yeah, I mean we we looked at it very, very closely and in in my fund but ended up not taking a position just slightly out of scope. But it's not surprising to see this thing have legs. And I think a lot of folks are pretty excited about it. And, and kudos to the, the Zcash community for, you know, for really rallying around this thing and being there to kind of champion it for this next stage.
00;30;08;01 - 00;30;28;04
Aaron
And also, just like the Hodl thesis is like just holding, if you do have it. And just letting that roll is just the best strategy in many ways. Like if it's a good subject, like if you if it had good bones, like what you were describing, which is this project does, you know, you just hodl and forget about it.
00;30;28;04 - 00;30;39;20
Aaron
You just throw in that 2525 eath bid on the, the the client Quinn, however you want to call it so and just walk away. It's kind of like almost the best way to do it.
00;30;39;23 - 00;31;02;14
Derek
Dude, I the store value outcomes are going to be so much bigger than I think people recognize they are this idea of like, I, I honestly it's a I'm going to meet myself at this point. But this idea of like no external dependencies are on a networked fixed supply ecosystem or object is so killer. It's such a killer combo when we're talking about this technology.
00;31;02;14 - 00;31;27;17
Derek
And so things like Bitcoin or the Earth or Zcash or Cryptopunks or, you know, very scarce fine art that becomes very networked. Yeah. I mean, these outcomes are so, so, so large. Yeah. You're there is there's no execution risk. These are these are stories around wealth preservation that will persist in all of us. And I think that's yeah, that's a pretty killer use case around this technology.
00;31;27;20 - 00;31;45;05
Aaron
So what else do you think people are offsides on like, I personally, I mean, I'm going to say something. I think you guys agree, but I think a lot of folks are still offsides on digital art or scarce digital goods, but I'm in the sympathetic audience. I think some of our listeners may agree with that too. But what else?
00;31;45;07 - 00;31;47;02
Aaron
Like what are people offsides right now?
00;31;47;04 - 00;31;48;05
Derek
What do you think, Perry?
00;31;48;07 - 00;32;15;15
Pri
I was thinking, as you guys were saying, like, it really does feel like Bitcoin all the way down. I would agree with you, Erin, that I don't think NFTs have quite been. It's like this core community and sub unit of people within the crypto community that really love this, but it hasn't broken out beyond that. But the zcash, the Zcash thing though, like don't you feel like to some extent like the store value there is more just the memetics around what it stands for as opposed to the use case itself, like similar to Bitcoin.
00;32;15;21 - 00;32;27;23
Pri
That vantage point, I think maybe some of like these like decentralized AI tokens like Tor or something could also fit into that. Like if I had to really dig deep and maybe even some of the DSI tokens actually.
00;32;27;26 - 00;32;51;24
Derek
Yeah. So I do think Zcash works. It's, it's especially around like this idea of like shielded addresses and shielded transactions like that technology is pretty robust. And is the whole world doing it right now? No. But, the technology does work and it's, I would say the longest running product that's proved out, that model. I actually don't think the zero knowledge component is the store value story, or at least if it is, it's the story.
00;32;51;24 - 00;33;28;18
Derek
In part, I actually think it's this fairly distributed commodity mining story, around 21 million. And, the networking that's happened around that story, as time has gone on, the Zeke, the zero knowledge stuff definitely helps. But I, I continue to believe that these things that have very, very interesting networking flywheels and the privacy story, I think is only just getting started and Zuko's story is only just getting started and, and sit on top of this idea of like a fixed supply economy, or at least an economy that's not inflationary or if it is inflationary, programmatically inflationary.
00;33;28;18 - 00;33;58;22
Derek
That's far less than the demand to interact with that network. I do think that that tension is the holy grail for value capture in our space. Like if the network can grow more and more on top of it, because people believe in this idea of of synthetic intelligence for better answer, or privacy for Zcash or hard fixed money for Bitcoin or programable environments in Ethereum, or, you know, fine art with like punks and squirrels and all of us and things like this.
00;33;58;24 - 00;34;28;20
Derek
Then I think the fact that these things remain so static in their availability, but that network has a story to kind of like really inflect and go exponential. That all gets bottled up in price as time goes on. Which is like this the killer use case for, not crypto, but for wealth preservation. And that is a job to be done that that is required by, you know, seven, 8 billion people on planet Earth and in the future, much more than that.
00;34;28;23 - 00;34;50;13
Derek
And so, yeah, I think to your point, pre this idea of of store value and networking, that store of value can happen through a number of different lanes. But I think the obvious ones today are these ones that, you know, have these either fixed supply or very low inflationary economies where there's a huge amount of networking that's happening on top.
00;34;50;14 - 00;34;58;14
Pri
That's, that's fair, but wouldn't they just use like, whatever stablecoin that exists, or do you think that they would choose to use something like cash instead?
00;34;58;16 - 00;35;16;28
Derek
I don't think it's mutually exclusive. Like I think stablecoins are like people store value in dollars today. And that's what I mean for for stablecoins. That's what they are. They're just, you know, digital dollars. And that point to an off chain US dollar. I will also say people also store value in gold and gold. It's ripping right now.
00;35;17;02 - 00;35;35;23
Derek
And so they store value in real estate and they store value in fine art. And which is, you know, a multi-trillion dollar market. And so, you know, these things are hedges against one another. It's not like, okay, we we have these, you know, certified certificates for a digital dollar for, you know, these US dollars that are in this bank account.
00;35;35;26 - 00;36;02;23
Derek
That's where I'm going to store value for the rest of my life. It's like you're hedging against that idea with things like, hard metal or fine art or real estate in a very hot location. And I see the the same thing with crypto assets where we're running that same idea to it's to it's end here with things like fine art and things like private cash and things like I commodity money and things like, you know, things like that.
00;36;02;23 - 00;36;10;07
Derek
So yeah, I don't think these things can compete as much as they, you know, network with alongside one another.
00;36;10;12 - 00;36;39;19
Aaron
I, I'm curious if, the AI plus crypto stuff needs to go through a little bit more of, like a winter there for it comes back like, I, I just was, popped into good or good old friend GPT five. Like, what were big things in 2015 and it was Bitcoin eath, ICOs, stablecoins, oracles, privacy tech. Right. Like Zcash, DAOs, decentralized storage and compute and cross-chain interoperability.
00;36;39;19 - 00;36;49;29
Aaron
So I the one thing that I never hear people talking about is really decentralized storage. So I wonder if if eventually that has its kind of moment like in some capacity.
00;36;50;01 - 00;36;53;02
Derek
Yeah I think it probably does. I think all of this stuff.
00;36;53;05 - 00;37;04;04
Aaron
Yeah. But it's just like when does it happen? Right. Yeah. But that was such a huge that was a huge thread like a decade ago. Like a lot of file coin. Yeah. It wasn't the only one that was Sia.
00;37;04;04 - 00;37;05;07
Pri
There was a wave of.
00;37;05;07 - 00;37;09;09
Aaron
Others or wave came a little bit after. But yeah, I think it's probably part.
00;37;09;09 - 00;37;38;02
Derek
Of the you know, sometimes it's like the, the, what is that expression? It's like the master will appear when the student is ready, kind of a thing. It's like, to me, the product may finally appear when the market is ready. Right. Like I think with Zcash, you know, like the market really didn't care about privacy or it didn't there wasn't the right configuration for the market to be ready for that with decentralized storage, just like we have centralized digital storage solutions that just work great.
00;37;38;02 - 00;37;55;00
Derek
And they're cheap and they're inexpensive. And it's like the market doesn't really care about, you know, making sure that that optically, that stuff isn't exposed to any possible breach or whatever, I mean, or at least not enough to kind of like, switch behaviors. You know, the story of internet money took forever, right? Like the earliest examples were in the 90s.
00;37;55;00 - 00;38;14;03
Derek
And then it's totally cracked it. And then we had 2008 in the financial crisis, and people were like, hey, this is a better system. Like, I want to exit out to use Erin's language and start participating in this network. And so I think that probably happens with a lot of these other categories. It's like the experiments can get fine tuned and optimized and run through.
00;38;14;03 - 00;38;25;09
Derek
And eventually the market's like, yeah, I actually care about this shit. Like I'm opting into this. And I think I think that's probably what happens with a lot of these other categories like storage or, or AI or some of these others.
00;38;25;12 - 00;38;45;05
Aaron
Yeah. I wonder if like honestly, there's the left hand side of the bell curve is just choose whatever was big ten years ago and just double down on it because it kind of feels like that's what's happening. So by like 2018, that's when we'll get like STOs and DeFi 2.0. So maybe we're we're kind of starting to edge towards that.
00;38;45;07 - 00;38;54;18
Aaron
That'd be kind of wild of that, that like that's the case. You get just a ten year delay until it, it really gets, massive and hits scale.
00;38;54;22 - 00;39;01;20
Derek
You know, what's interesting is, there's this you guys, are you guys familiar with Robin Hanson, the economist? Yeah.
00;39;01;23 - 00;39;02;16
Aaron
And of course.
00;39;02;18 - 00;39;04;00
Pri
So you turkey food turkey.
00;39;04;00 - 00;39;04;17
Aaron
Yeah.
00;39;04;20 - 00;39;28;20
Derek
But not just for turkey. Like he wrote these papers in the 90s. One of the papers he wrote ended up giving the idea for Poly Market. One of the ideas ended up giving people the the idea to build a protocol for a few turkey. You know, there's a there's a couple of other papers he's written that have inspired a lot of the founders in this space to operationalize and build a crypto protocol for it.
00;39;28;23 - 00;39;54;02
Derek
And it kind of is to Aaron's point, which is like these, these ideas maybe circulate for decades before somebody sees it again and is like, I know how to now operationalize this. And like the idea can finally reach its corpus in like this. And if you get the right founder and the right team and the right execution and yeah, I don't know, and the right technology stack appears to be able to do this stuff.
00;39;54;02 - 00;40;11;05
Derek
So, yeah, it's not a bad idea to just like, you know, draw a line from like, what people are excited about, you know, five, ten years ago and track those things closely because at some, at some point, those ideas are just floating around in the wind and some somebody gets it right and is able to build the right thing.
00;40;11;08 - 00;40;27;28
Pri
That's like largely like the investment thesis. I feel like it's just like looking back, running back old ideas and like a lot of these ideas, even thinking about, like, even thinking a lot about like social communities like FWB, that were pretty, that are still successful. And, you know, we're successful all the time. But like, how does that change with AI?
00;40;27;28 - 00;40;34;07
Pri
How does that change with like new crypto dynamics? Like there's probably like if you were going to reinvent FWB today, like what does that look like?
00;40;34;10 - 00;40;42;01
Aaron
Well, it sounds like you should reinvented in a 2031 and use the the tech that's out there. At the time.
00;40;42;04 - 00;40;50;23
Pri
I just I asked ChatGPT what a Robin Hintz is, a Henson's idea. So yeah, well, we'll just make an investment thesis around that.
00;40;50;25 - 00;41;13;06
Aaron
No, but Derek, even just going back about ten years ago. Right. That's when you had augur. You had fairly which became gnosis, like there was a lot of early prediction market projects like about a decade ago and Poly Market is having its, you know, growth, growth, curve right now. Right? I mean, I know they they started a little bit later than some of the earlier projects, but they're like concepts.
00;41;13;06 - 00;41;33;01
Aaron
The first substantive stabs at the concepts related to it probably happened about a decade ago, too. Yeah, totally. And now it's like, you know, that that headline actually was super surprising to me. I would you know, I've always been pretty intellectually interested in prediction markets. It was fun to kind of see it really manifest during the previous, election cycle.
00;41;33;05 - 00;41;56;09
Aaron
But just seeing like kind of Wall Street or traditional actors and Wall Street, just like absorb that so quickly is super fascinating to me. Like, I can't tell if that's like, is it like a Radio.com type moment where they know it's coming and maybe there is like, like another version of a prediction market? Or is this kind of like prediction markets, like taking over or an increasing slice of Wall Street?
00;41;56;12 - 00;42;20;17
Aaron
I do think a lot of like the meme coin stuff is better kind of situated inside of a predict a prediction market to the extent that people are doing it to like not for casino purposes, which I don't really love, but more like predictive purposes, like internet trends, etc.. Yeah. I mean, if you guys haven't heard the news, the New York Stock Exchange is parent company, which is called Ice or the International or Intercontinental Exchange.
00;42;20;17 - 00;42;39;20
Aaron
It will invest up to $2 billion in prediction market, which is valuing it at like 8 to 9 billion, which is which is pretty, pretty big, right. It will be interesting to kind of see if that was a smart bet. Or is it, you know, kind of like a Radio.com moment. It feels like to me at least it it should be a smart bet, but only time will tell, which is pretty wild.
00;42;39;20 - 00;43;01;29
Aaron
So like in three years from pretty much getting the holy blessing of the CFTC, the US's, one of the US's financial regulators to today, it's really been pretty, pretty cool to watch. And it's pretty cool that it's been sticky too, right? Like it wasn't just around elections, which some of the earlier, prediction markets only really had volume or interest around elections.
00;43;01;29 - 00;43;03;29
Aaron
So it's it seems like something change.
00;43;03;29 - 00;43;07;26
Derek
They're completely they're cool guys. Good convo today Chris. We missed you.
00;43;08;02 - 00;43;10;29
Aaron
We always missed Chris. Do you want to inshallah pray.
00;43;10;29 - 00;43;56;08
Pri
Oh yeah. Yes, yes. Welcome to net Society. Today you have me, Aaron and Derek. Unfortunately, Chris is not with us today. The first episode that Chris is very sad. This is a podcast where we discuss digital culture, art, news, AI and more. These thoughts and opinions are our own, not of our employer and not financial advice. Let's get it going.