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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;16;00 - 00;00;17;18
Derek
GM GM.
00;00;17;22 - 00;00;18;19
Chris
Yo yo.
00;00;18;19 - 00;00;19;26
Aaron
Yo yo.
00;00;19;28 - 00;00;25;07
Pri
You are live from New York. We're all here. Four of us together, recording in person, just.
00;00;25;07 - 00;00;28;10
Derek
Like the good old days. So, like, was like a bull market.
00;00;28;13 - 00;00;29;02
Aaron
That is already.
00;00;29;02 - 00;00;31;03
Chris
Back. Yeah. You're going that far?
00;00;31;07 - 00;00;41;29
Derek
No, no, you definitely not going that far. I but I will say rain or shine Boulevard. The four of us have been doing this podcast for how many episodes.
00;00;41;29 - 00;00;43;13
Aaron
At this point? We're just over.
00;00;43;14 - 00;00;44;12
Chris
We're in the 70s.
00;00;44;15 - 00;00;48;13
Aaron
Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Yeah, it is, it is.
00;00;48;15 - 00;00;54;19
Chris
And this might be like our fourth all four live one. We've done two in Marfa. I feel like we've done this.
00;00;54;19 - 00;00;55;22
Derek
Our second one here in Brooklyn.
00;00;55;24 - 00;00;56;00
Aaron
That's.
00;00;56;03 - 00;00;59;04
Pri
Yeah. Yeah. I wish you could do more live.
00;00;59;06 - 00;01;04;27
Aaron
But do you guys actually think we are back? I can't I can't get my bearings. I don't think we're back.
00;01;04;29 - 00;01;05;14
Pri
You don't.
00;01;05;14 - 00;01;06;21
Derek
Know? I know when.
00;01;06;22 - 00;01;09;09
Pri
I was getting a tingly feeling of, like, positive energy.
00;01;09;10 - 00;01;11;03
Aaron
Do you think we're beyond bottom?
00;01;11;06 - 00;01;13;12
Derek
No. Well, I hate.
00;01;13;12 - 00;01;15;02
Aaron
To.
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Pri
Explain the logic.
00;01;16;03 - 00;01;18;03
Chris
But what's your forecast for Max pain, then?
00;01;18;05 - 00;01;31;25
Derek
I mean, like, nobody's all this to me. I'll just tell you what I'm biased towards. Yeah. I mean, you know what I would like maybe. Let's just do a quick around the corner. The water prices when we're recording this. What's bitcoin out. What's the what's the one to. What are some of the majors trading.
00;01;31;25 - 00;01;34;25
Aaron
I mean nobody cares about Solana anymore. Every time.
00;01;34;27 - 00;01;36;02
Derek
I.
00;01;36;04 - 00;01;38;00
Pri
Air doesn't care about salon anymore.
00;01;38;02 - 00;01;44;08
Aaron
Does anybody. It's it's a 2450 ish. Bitcoin's at 78.
00;01;44;10 - 00;02;09;06
Derek
Depends on 78 roughly. So here's my take I don't think we've bottomed. And I think listen I, I'm a probabilities guy like you never full stack in one direction or another. You have to really play the probabilities as best as you can. Of course I have. You know, I'm a investor, so I have long positions that I haven't touched for a very long time, but I will continue to stay long.
00;02;09;09 - 00;02;33;14
Derek
But if you were kind of put go ahead. Yeah, I look around our space right now and there's, lack of marginal buyers in size that I think can take us to take us out of like this range. I think there's enough momentum to get folks excited about the straight opening back up and maybe rates getting cut and getting pulled forward and people getting excited.
00;02;33;14 - 00;03;00;27
Derek
But the truth is, it's like crypto is firmly in a bear market right now. And what I'm looking for are narratives that can help pull us out of that. Or a rip the Band-Aid off moment where the buyers that step in our existing buyers who think that these asset prices are too low and they're willing to get, yeah, put, you know, deeper conviction positions on because, you know, the the asset prices across the space are too cheap.
00;03;01;00 - 00;03;11;02
Derek
I'm not seeing either of those two things. And I'm certainly not seeing marginal buyers from the institutional perspective. Get interested in owning Bitcoin or Solana or Ethereum or any of the majors right now.
00;03;11;05 - 00;03;15;04
Aaron
So are with that sort of stuff again. Yeah, just nobody interested and so on. Yeah.
00;03;15;04 - 00;03;18;09
Derek
So if I was just going to paint what I think the next six months look like.
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Aaron
You know, I think there's a.
00;03;19;21 - 00;03;44;19
Derek
Interesting rally here. I think we probably chip 80. Maybe we stretch to 85. Okay. But I'm, but I'm pretty sure we're going down another like, if I had to, if I had to really kind of like that one direction or another. The thing that I like to look for is the 200 week moving average. And and right now for Bitcoin that's 59,000 or so I think we have to get underneath that for a little that at a minimum maybe we even go a little bit lower than that.
00;03;44;19 - 00;04;01;08
Derek
And that's when folks get really excited about stepping in. But yeah I'm not I'm just not seeing the things that I would like to see for us to have a clear bottom. That being said, you know, I, I have long positions on where, you know, making private market investments in my fund and if things go up, then I'm a happy camper.
00;04;01;08 - 00;04;03;16
Derek
So that's how I like to think about stuff.
00;04;03;18 - 00;04;12;10
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I think there are marginal fires, right? Like aren't the ETF inflows at least over the past couple of months like pretty, pretty strong sellers buying. And then I think what's.
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Chris
Different I hope so.
00;04;13;18 - 00;04;15;09
Aaron
Yeah. But that's how the.
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Derek
Same as buying I think some retail is buying.
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Aaron
But like and I think you know like just looking at like the the institutional perspective I mean what front front page of the Wall Street Journal say.
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Pri
New York Stock.
00;04;26;21 - 00;04;52;23
Aaron
Exchange is all in on crypto and tokenization. So yeah, I think that that's what makes it feel like a little bit different is just like it's not sort of retail for like crypto OG movement. This is this is when kind of which ecosystem is kind of like moving a little bit beyond that. It feels like and I just think that my mind, it's like the scale of institutional capital is pretty hard to fathom.
00;04;52;25 - 00;05;00;03
Aaron
And I just think it's going to continue to like, melt into it. I think that's a kind of like post narrative, almost like it's just an asset class.
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Derek
The thing about stablecoin growth is it really is compartmentalize to stablecoin growth, like it's it's you know, I think the we can be so back in terms of like institutional adoption around stables and minting or stables and Clary getting passed, but like, are we so back because Bitcoin is like Bitcoin because I mean Bitcoin is going to ride all time highs.
00;05;20;00 - 00;05;45;15
Derek
Like this is where I'm a little bit more skeptical. Like I don't think stablecoin growth translates to risk on around commodity money on the internet. Know I think we're now at a point around this infrastructure where these things are starting to diverge a bit. I'll also just say, like it, there's definitely buyers. I just don't see the type of signs that I would like to see for the right type of risks to enter the market.
00;05;45;17 - 00;06;03;04
Derek
At a clip that I think would allow us to take things past like 85 K, but like, I think we're probably going to get stopped out around that. But, listen, we could be three weeks from now and blowing past all time highs. I which way you can say, you can stick a finger in my face and say, I told you said X, so I'll be I'll be happy either way.
00;06;03;04 - 00;06;21;19
Aaron
I honestly can't make heads or tails. I think it's kind of I hear both of them, and I don't see the other side of DeFi at this point. Like what? Like what comes next there? It seems like the regulatory clarity stuff is is coming in. We've talked up a lot about that, but it's still unclear what DeFi kind of looks like and what the appetite is for that.
00;06;21;22 - 00;06;43;13
Pri
Well, that's what I was. That was interesting. The point that you made, which I thought about two separately, was just like the stablecoin growth is sort of compartmentalized and carved out of just Erc20 and all the risk on stuff. It's, I mean, which logically makes sense. But you don't think like the gross, pervasive use of stablecoins will naturally lead to like some percentage of those heavy users?
00;06;43;16 - 00;06;46;16
Derek
I do I definitely do, just not in the next 90 days.
00;06;46;23 - 00;06;47;21
Pri
So okay. Yeah, this.
00;06;47;21 - 00;07;09;16
Derek
Is this is where like, yeah, I have to be very thoughtful about timelines because it's really important that, my view is not that stablecoin growth doesn't lead to a maturation of this asset class and more risk in the asset class that that is certainly going to happen. But if if you were going to ask you about these are for the next $90 over 20 days, I do not think that that's that those things change.
00;07;09;16 - 00;07;25;24
Aaron
Like, yeah, I mean, like I just I just pulled the Q4 2025 top ten institutional holders for Bitcoin, the Bitcoin ETF, and then also the eath one. So who do you think is the number one holder of the ether ETF.
00;07;25;27 - 00;07;26;14
Chris
Your mom.
00;07;26;19 - 00;07;29;11
Pri
Yes Dingding.
00;07;29;14 - 00;07;38;05
Aaron
That's Goldman Sachs who's the number two holder of the Blackrock ETF. Goldman Sachs sounds pretty awesome. Yeah I mean and if you look at it it's.
00;07;38;08 - 00;07;39;17
Pri
Just the clients.
00;07;39;20 - 00;08;06;29
Aaron
I mean it could be that because they could be dealing for it. Yeah. It's like hard to hard to kind of tell. But on the Bitcoin side it's clear street and market maker Goldman Sachs up near Susquehanna ish Jane Street Blackrock on the east side it's Goldman Millennium Susquehanna a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi Morgan Stanley Blackrock Dartmouth endowment Harvard endowment, Brevin Howard, Royal Bank of Canada.
00;08;07;01 - 00;08;19;00
Aaron
So like that's the capital flows I think at least as of the end of last year, there's a little bit of a lag on some of that stuff. And then Jane Street on the East side. So it feels like that's where the demand is kind of coming from.
00;08;19;02 - 00;08;21;18
Derek
Yeah. I think ultimately.
00;08;21;20 - 00;08;22;12
Aaron
Where.
00;08;22;15 - 00;08;40;10
Derek
Like that demand that the buyer could be switching, but like the price can still stay relatively stable until we see a couple of those things that I think usually trigger bottoms. So yeah, I don't I'm, I am excited about the new era of crypto. I'm just a little bit more skeptical. We're going to break the all time highs here.
00;08;40;14 - 00;08;42;25
Pri
Where we only the four year cycle. I can never.
00;08;42;28 - 00;08;48;16
Aaron
Remember for putting like Bank, which I think does a great job at this. And they bring on different folks and it's.
00;08;48;16 - 00;08;50;03
Chris
Kind of a cycle all it all just.
00;08;50;03 - 00;09;07;15
Aaron
Yeah I which it does feel like it's like it's kind of like male astrology. I feel like at some level, like a little bit, but at least, the couple folks that they've had on recently indicate that we're kind of at the beginning of things getting better.
00;09;07;18 - 00;09;09;05
Derek
So you can go up now.
00;09;09;07 - 00;09;18;15
Aaron
Yeah. It doesn't mean it's not rocket. It doesn't mean there's not pullbacks, but it feels like that's where either at the end of it, the last cycle or the beginning of the first one.
00;09;18;18 - 00;09;19;28
Derek
I don't remember. Yeah.
00;09;20;00 - 00;09;22;04
Chris
I wonder if, some way you sound.
00;09;22;04 - 00;09;24;02
Aaron
Like you sound like a scarred man.
00;09;24;07 - 00;09;45;05
Derek
Well, I just, I listen like I want to look at the stars and say, like, look up and say, we can go up now and respond to me. And that money flows like the Capistrano. But, I just don't think that that's what these markets look like to me. So I think more a little bit more pain, maybe a lot more pain, but at least a little bit more pain.
00;09;45;07 - 00;09;46;19
Pri
Just bear market as in, girl.
00;09;46;22 - 00;09;47;20
Aaron
I think you guys have.
00;09;47;20 - 00;09;54;02
Derek
Been through so many. I mean, we've been through so many of these at this point. It's like, you know, it's going to get better. We know I know, you know.
00;09;54;04 - 00;09;58;16
Aaron
I think what's different is it just it's the other side. I think it's.
00;09;58;17 - 00;09;58;26
Pri
The other.
00;09;58;26 - 00;10;18;11
Aaron
Side. I feel like it's a little bit like what happened in AI, where people didn't really go through that, really like TensorFlow. People just didn't know it was on the other side of that. Like, what were the use cases? What's the, what are things going to be excited about? Is it just like micropayments? Is it, you know, more ZK stuff?
00;10;18;11 - 00;10;28;25
Aaron
Is it. You know, I was so like all those answers just feel like kind of off today at some level. I don't know, it's it's a little bit.
00;10;29;01 - 00;10;35;23
Pri
Yeah. The other side oddly this time right. Compared to prior cycles feels much more clear. But we know what the other side still.
00;10;35;26 - 00;10;37;24
Aaron
Yeah. That's it.
00;10;37;26 - 00;10;43;17
Chris
Yeah. And you're just hoping there's something interesting to pop up along with the inevitable other side.
00;10;43;18 - 00;10;44;14
Pri
Yeah.
00;10;44;16 - 00;10;46;04
Derek
When this thing it could do.
00;10;46;07 - 00;10;47;29
Chris
Well machine payments.
00;10;48;02 - 00;10;49;04
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00;10;49;07 - 00;10;50;21
Derek
Agents doing things.
00;10;50;23 - 00;10;56;04
Chris
I mean I think that's like where you get the fun and the serendipity. I think everything else is just programed for them.
00;10;56;06 - 00;10;56;25
Derek
Yeah.
00;10;56;28 - 00;11;17;11
Aaron
I'll give you like, the machine payments thing. I think I'm beginning to see what the shape of that looks like. So I have a friend he built like this very advanced, a genetic system called soul PPC. We're still stone, and he has an agent named extra. He asked me to be an advisor, which I was happy to do for a long time.
00;11;17;14 - 00;11;39;03
Aaron
And so he had extra basically rebuild donkey side. And so I signed the agreements to it, did a great job, like doing it. But it occurred to me, if you sign, just charge like a postage stamp, amount, it would probably be cheaper than all the tokens he spent to rebuild donkey side. And so I think that that is what SAS will look like.
00;11;39;03 - 00;11;43;01
Aaron
They'll just start charging very, very small payments for different things.
00;11;43;04 - 00;11;45;20
Pri
Like versus subscription, which is going to be task based. Yeah.
00;11;45;20 - 00;11;54;12
Aaron
I mean like if they charge like you know, think of like a postage stamp, like there's no reason to refill DocuSign if they actually had a robust API and.
00;11;54;12 - 00;11;54;18
Pri
Kind of.
00;11;54;22 - 00;12;12;08
Aaron
Interface for it. But it's not that because there's, there's like a natural cost to like generating and stuff that cost could go down, but it's still time. There's still risks of bugs like why, why do that? Like every single moment. Like I don't think it's going to be like web sim, like all the way down. Yeah, yeah, it could be in like ten years.
00;12;12;08 - 00;12;19;02
Aaron
But I think we are kind of at that now. So the machine to machine payments I feel sorry. I feel like I could see that work. Yeah.
00;12;19;08 - 00;12;30;23
Derek
We've done some work on the MPP and authority stuff. The volumes right now for agents, you know, pinging APIs and paying for things is like pretty well. It's the yeah, I don't know, 150 K last month. Yeah.
00;12;30;23 - 00;12;31;23
Aaron
Oh wow. But like.
00;12;31;23 - 00;12;46;26
Derek
You can blur your eyes a little bit and see how more people create interesting payloads behind APIs. And more agents want to pay for those things using stables and, you know, denominations of like 0.0001 cents and and.
00;12;46;26 - 00;12;47;07
Aaron
Like.
00;12;47;07 - 00;12;54;09
Derek
Yeah, I think like things can start to happen. It's so early, you know, but like I kind of weird there and it's like that feels direction like where things are headed.
00;12;54;15 - 00;13;02;15
Chris
I will say, guys, you haven't lived until you've worked in triple low pricing levels. It's really like a special sort of, business environment. Beautiful thing about.
00;13;02;15 - 00;13;06;10
Derek
Agencies. You don't have to worry about that. Deal with that.
00;13;06;13 - 00;13;09;22
Aaron
I was did you play around yet with, 4.7? Chris?
00;13;09;24 - 00;13;35;27
Chris
I, I had a, I had working yesterday. I got to do I'm doing a lot of data, remodeling and rebuilding my graph this week. And so I'm doing a lot of, like, natural language processing work. And I think one of the one of the, like, my little light bulbs yesterday was like, you can gain expertise over certain areas through this combination of, like, just having problems and getting better models.
00;13;36;04 - 00;13;56;17
Chris
Yeah. Like, this is the fourth time I've had to rebuild this part of my world. And every time I do it right, like I have new techniques to bring to bear, and then it can riff off of those. And so, like, I'm slowly but surely like without actually knowing a damn thing about NLP. Like gaining like this really insane skills at it.
00;13;56;19 - 00;14;17;00
Chris
Which leads me to believe, right? Like in terms of overall AI progression, it's almost like your ability to abstract a thing is going to become the new gate, right? Like, and what I mean by that is I have to have the ability to conceive of a need for like natural language processing in a, in a product and system building.
00;14;17;03 - 00;14;34;14
Chris
Right. Like that. Like I have to be able to think at that level to want to have access to this, but then I don't really have to do anything beyond that other than like shape of my problems and, you know, interact with it. Right? Like, I don't even know the technique I don't like, but I just need to have that, like intellectual bar to get to that problem set.
00;14;34;14 - 00;15;01;02
Chris
And so, you know, if you start playing that oh, right. Like that's when we're going to start seeing like real separations, or like parallel returns between, different AI users. And it's just going to be about like, what degree of problems are you tackling? Because the machine's, like continually better and better at those harder things. While they're going to stay flatlined on the oh, I solved how to do an e-commerce a, you know, like nine models ago.
00;15;01;09 - 00;15;07;02
Pri
Yeah, I'm actually I agree with you. I think I'm like convinced the models are good enough now. It's just people don't know how to build the machine.
00;15;07;02 - 00;15;08;24
Aaron
I think people are just not ambitious enough.
00;15;09;01 - 00;15;09;27
Pri
That's I think that's.
00;15;09;29 - 00;15;14;22
Aaron
It's like rock, you know, like just like, why can't we be louder? Why can't we make this bigger?
00;15;14;29 - 00;15;15;18
Pri
So why.
00;15;15;24 - 00;15;16;11
Aaron
Can't we play.
00;15;16;11 - 00;15;17;17
Pri
This? How to tackle it?
00;15;17;17 - 00;15;18;28
Aaron
Using it. This is why I'm.
00;15;18;28 - 00;15;19;28
Pri
Just like, no one knows what they're.
00;15;19;28 - 00;15;22;06
Aaron
Doing. Well I'm sure.
00;15;22;06 - 00;15;44;00
Derek
Yeah, I think developers, I just think I think that's right. And I feel like people are so used to working in these team formats to build complex products that, like, once you've brought everything in yourself, it becomes really difficult to to not know what you don't know about product design or, you know, building the best UI or, you know, building the back end for something.
00;15;44;04 - 00;15;51;05
Derek
I just think, like people are struggling with the full stack gift that they've been given. And I also think it's an interesting thing, too.
00;15;51;06 - 00;15;57;06
Aaron
I think I think it just like ambition, they just don't know. It's kind of like they don't realize that they can that they can do all this stuff. So.
00;15;57;06 - 00;16;14;00
Pri
The question I keep asking myself is like, how do you train the population to like either be ambition or know how to, like, do it like, I'm really Jason Company. It's like, whatever you think of him. But he said something somewhere once that was like before attempting any task. He was like, go into the machine first. Like, is that how you just do it?
00;16;14;00 - 00;16;15;08
Pri
It's just do like.
00;16;15;10 - 00;16;20;01
Chris
I don't care. It's not. It's not ambition. No. Like it's, I mean, it seems like one of the.
00;16;20;06 - 00;16;39;01
Pri
But you have to like, kind of like the reason I feel like I'm like so into it and I'm, like, constantly talking to machines because I finally realize the possible, like what the actual possibilities are. I had a friend come in a month ago because she's like, can you teach me how to use this for my job? Because all she doesn't pay for it, you can teach, you just uses it for search free GPU, which is crazy to me.
00;16;39;03 - 00;16;54;21
Pri
So I'm like, you're using the words models and and she's like, well, how do she's like, what should I use it for? And then like my question to her, it was like, well, what's your biggest problem at work? Like describe it to me, whatever job. But I mean, like, that's the that's most people said, oh, but I don't think I, I see that all to say.
00;16;54;22 - 00;17;02;02
Pri
It's like, how do you actually get them? I was like, maybe I just need to like, sit on it and like, use it for everything that you can understand the full potential.
00;17;02;02 - 00;17;17;25
Derek
Yeah. I'll say I want to give a course say about this, but but I'll say on that point, you know, I've bought people into ChatGPT before and it's like they have no idea what the hell 5.4 is or opus or why what inference I'm thinking. And they have.
00;17;17;25 - 00;17;20;20
Aaron
No, you're saying it's very San Francisco based.
00;17;20;23 - 00;17;35;18
Derek
And I'm just saying it's like it's like a cert. It's like a search party looking thing and a very simple UI and like a dropdown and like, people are just like, I don't know, this is too much like or too little. I can do anything with it and then I can do anything with it. I don't know what you're paralyzed.
00;17;35;21 - 00;17;58;10
Derek
Paralyzed with like the optionality. Yeah, I think there's a piece of that. But I think it's a different market than the one I think we were actually started with, which is just like people who are building five foot slab right now. It's just like, yeah, it's it's hard to build a fucking great product. Yeah. Period. It doesn't matter if you're having synthetic humans help you or five members of a crack team.
00;17;58;10 - 00;17;59;08
Derek
It's just hard.
00;17;59;10 - 00;18;10;18
Aaron
I think that that's the real answer is it's just about building products now. And. Yeah, and like most software developers are not that good at building. They're not product people. You know, they're. Yeah.
00;18;10;20 - 00;18;12;11
Derek
They've not they work for a long time.
00;18;12;13 - 00;18;13;28
Chris
And now they're about to learn.
00;18;14;00 - 00;18;15;07
Derek
Now they're also very, very hard.
00;18;15;07 - 00;18;24;09
Chris
The reckoning is upon them. Derek, what I was going to say is, the old axiom, you can't teach tall, you can't teach smart, you know, and,
00;18;24;11 - 00;18;26;06
Derek
Axiom. Right.
00;18;26;09 - 00;18;27;11
Pri
Is that from Boston?
00;18;27;11 - 00;18;28;21
Chris
I have an idea.
00;18;28;23 - 00;18;32;09
Pri
That's like Irish Catholic, like hard core.
00;18;32;11 - 00;18;36;28
Chris
You maybe you haven't played enough youth hoops or something. But you can't teach tolerance.
00;18;36;28 - 00;18;40;13
Aaron
YouTube smart for beats the crap out.
00;18;40;16 - 00;19;04;12
Chris
Go for the crap out. He doesn't say shit like that, and he just beats the crap. Yeah, but, you know, I mean, you have to have that spark, that curiosity. But you also, they building products a skill just like anything else. Right? And you can't just walk in like the same way you couldn't walk into a gym and just like deadlift 400 pounds, you know, you can't walk into a team.
00;19;04;12 - 00;19;08;06
Chris
I coders and, rip out something, right? Yeah.
00;19;08;09 - 00;19;22;23
Derek
It's been fun to see, folks. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, I think a lot of people are struggling with this and coming to the same conclusion, which is like this idea of the one shot product that just go, wow, 8 billion people on planet Earth never going to fuck around.
00;19;22;26 - 00;19;27;28
Aaron
Yeah. That was that was I mean, if you've used any of these systems like, that's super obvious. The fact that.
00;19;28;03 - 00;19;32;28
Pri
What's the one what's the one guy with this problem that started that like marketplace.
00;19;32;28 - 00;19;34;11
Aaron
That shitty peptide.
00;19;34;11 - 00;19;36;25
Pri
One that was like he was making a billion.
00;19;36;27 - 00;19;43;02
Chris
Yeah. But no, that was like super friendly. I think that was like Forbes 3530 standards and reporter.
00;19;43;03 - 00;20;03;17
Derek
I want to say it was because of the good website. It was it was the peptides that was driving a lot of that cultish. But but it's I take your point. Yeah, it can help unlock these things, but I don't think on their own. No, no, the software here is just kind of like, yeah, well, people, let's hear you're good at what you're doing and spending a massive amount of tokens and.
00;20;03;21 - 00;20;04;14
Aaron
The right intelligence.
00;20;04;14 - 00;20;05;10
Derek
To build these things.
00;20;05;10 - 00;20;18;21
Aaron
Yeah, but I think you can. You don't need to if you're good at I think it's going to be more like Hollywood. I think Hollywood teams are not the same size and software teams, you know, like there's definitely hundreds of people that work on a big movie production, but it's not 30,000, right? That's a.
00;20;18;21 - 00;20;19;21
Pri
Good analogy.
00;20;19;24 - 00;20;27;21
Aaron
And I just think that it's going to be like that. And then like, I know we saw this in crypto, but maybe the the shelf life of software just gets shorter and shorter.
00;20;27;26 - 00;20;47;01
Chris
So speaking of the shelf life of things getting shorter and shorter, foundations back in the news that have the platform that will not die and seems to be tearing at some subset of people's hearts. And I don't know, Derek, what's your what's your take on, the never ending goodbye foundation?
00;20;47;04 - 00;20;50;20
Aaron
Yeah, I but why are they back? I missed the story because.
00;20;50;20 - 00;20;53;13
Chris
A sale to their acquirer fell through. Yeah.
00;20;53;13 - 00;20;56;09
Derek
Do you want to pretty light up the background here?
00;20;56;12 - 00;21;05;26
Pri
Basically it's like. God. Okay, so I'll try, but I feel like I don't know how every single detail. So please fill it into, like, the required lack of that kind of fell through.
00;21;05;26 - 00;21;07;18
Aaron
It was blacked out. That's so there's a.
00;21;07;18 - 00;21;10;02
Derek
So yeah, there's a frame coming out of the.
00;21;10;04 - 00;21;25;18
Pri
They like took it offline and then all these it's like all these NFTs I went down lost. Yeah. And then it created this whole kerfuffle on the timeline. And now people are like reaching out to try to acquire foundation. That's kind of like what I've been for. Yeah, I think there's a lot more.
00;21;25;18 - 00;21;33;13
Derek
I think I think this yeah. So I haven't been following this about like as closely as one should. If I want to talk about this, but.
00;21;33;15 - 00;21;36;07
Chris
Oh, but this is our special. Yeah, yeah.
00;21;36;09 - 00;21;36;19
Pri
Let me.
00;21;36;23 - 00;22;12;13
Derek
So basically there's this hardware coming to Call of Salvation basically reached the end of their runway and they realized, like they were a resource that could continue production of their products. And so they found a soft landing, I'm assuming, through through this lack of team like to mix hardware. I think maybe they make a little bit of software and maybe they saw the foundation thing is like, okay, we're going to absorb all of this, that like, you know, we have to pay money every month to pin our files on IPFs, and maybe there's some software costs that we need to do to maintain and make sure I'm, I'm certain, you know, crawling out as people
00;22;12;13 - 00;22;32;25
Derek
continue to use this thing. And but for the most part, maybe we have this new distribution channel to kind of bring artists and collectors and maybe do drops and bring people into our hardware ecosystem. I think that's probably what they've done for whatever reason that, you know, deal was done, the assets were handed over, but nothing was signed because, you know, like, there's nothing good deal happening in principle.
00;22;32;25 - 00;23;14;00
Derek
And it takes time to kind of like do technical diligence after these things come to terms. And normally that, you know, is done in good sense. Right. Like there's an intent to acquire, the diligence process, you know, is done in a way with the intention to ultimately, like, sign in and contract your side of the bargain. But it feels like what lot of really did was take these assets, take the Twitter, and kind of take the software and basically, just, like, not in good faith, pillage all of these, the intelligence, the emails, you know, Twitter followers, you know, hijack the, you know, the social assets and, and basically just, you
00;23;14;00 - 00;23;29;27
Derek
know, take it for all it was worth it or they thought it was worth. And then at the end of the diligence process, like basically said, we don't want it and give it back. And I think that put foundation in a tricky spot, which is like they've already shut down the team. They've really about people go, people are working on other things.
00;23;29;29 - 00;23;48;14
Derek
I'm not an investor or anything, but like I can imagine for Kayvon is like, well, you know, I have already moved on from this. Like, I don't want to continue to invest my own personal resources. There is no more company. It's been dissolved or it's on the way to the solution. And so you're you've got these assets, that are kind of like stuck in no man's land.
00;23;48;17 - 00;24;03;22
Derek
And meanwhile there's a bunch of art that exist within these assets because they're required. This is the dependencies thing that I've been shouting about for many years. It's like when you have these external dependencies, there's always going to be surface area for problems or yeah.
00;24;03;22 - 00;24;06;18
Aaron
Like even if it's not today, 20 years.
00;24;06;18 - 00;24;06;22
Pri
Or.
00;24;06;22 - 00;24;08;09
Derek
Yeah, or whatnot. Exactly.
00;24;08;09 - 00;24;09;19
Pri
And so that was the worst.
00;24;09;19 - 00;24;10;13
Aaron
Part about it.
00;24;10;14 - 00;24;11;04
Chris
It's unfortunate.
00;24;11;04 - 00;24;13;19
Derek
Because like you basically are you know.
00;24;13;19 - 00;24;15;15
Aaron
And they they had some great stuff on it.
00;24;15;21 - 00;24;16;24
Derek
I mean it's amazing stuff.
00;24;16;24 - 00;24;18;22
Aaron
There's like and I think their product was quite nice.
00;24;18;24 - 00;24;40;29
Derek
There's tons of artists. Yes. Beautiful beast software, you know, that worked well for a time. And amazing artists that are minted on the contract. And it's unfortunate that collectors and artists are kind of collateral damage here, as far as I understand. Things have just progressively gotten weirder over the last few days. Like the black dev team is continuing to tweet these things out from.
00;24;41;01 - 00;24;42;15
Chris
From the Foundation Foundation.
00;24;42;16 - 00;24;46;02
Derek
Account, but they're also saying that we're not bringing anything back.
00;24;46;04 - 00;24;50;25
Aaron
And meanwhile, they're calling for like class action lawsuits. Yes, artists arms are up and.
00;24;50;27 - 00;24;51;24
Derek
Exactly up in.
00;24;51;24 - 00;24;52;02
Aaron
The air.
00;24;52;02 - 00;25;08;23
Derek
And also like you've got great artists like Julian and Jack or like, you know, we're just going to fucking pen this shit ourselves. And so they, you know, I think have been going through an indexing all the artwork and have are starting to pin all of the files on IPFs themselves and pay for it and not exactly sure what's going on there.
00;25;08;23 - 00;25;16;09
Derek
Need to catch up with this guys. But the community is stepping in to help out where they can. So yeah, it's just, you know, bear market things maybe.
00;25;16;16 - 00;25;19;02
Aaron
Yeah, there are market trauma and there are, you know.
00;25;19;04 - 00;25;19;16
Pri
A lot more.
00;25;19;16 - 00;25;24;00
Aaron
About that. There's related bear market drama and the tensor content ecosystem. Two right now.
00;25;24;00 - 00;25;25;00
Derek
Man you want me to go there too.
00;25;25;06 - 00;25;27;11
Pri
Yeah we know we haven't finished on the bull.
00;25;27;11 - 00;25;32;23
Chris
Yeah I was ready to go to the world of on chain gaming, which also had, lattice lattice.
00;25;32;23 - 00;25;34;18
Pri
And stuff. Is this a graveyard?
00;25;34;21 - 00;25;35;19
Aaron
Wait. Are they.
00;25;35;22 - 00;25;36;06
Chris
Yeah.
00;25;36;09 - 00;25;37;20
Aaron
Oh, well, I missed that one too.
00;25;37;20 - 00;25;41;03
Chris
Yeah, yeah. So let's start with how we'll work our way through the, he should.
00;25;41;03 - 00;25;43;03
Derek
Have a segment that's just like. All right.
00;25;43;05 - 00;25;45;23
Aaron
Okay, so radio to Dracula for.
00;25;45;25 - 00;25;48;15
Derek
To our homies. There are six feet under the shoe.
00;25;48;17 - 00;25;50;15
Pri
I feel like that to this episode. Yeah.
00;25;50;17 - 00;25;52;12
Aaron
Is the graveyard. Yeah.
00;25;52;15 - 00;25;54;04
Chris
So why is tied down?
00;25;54;07 - 00;25;56;18
Derek
I'll say a couple of things. So there's value.
00;25;56;20 - 00;26;09;19
Aaron
Here. Let me let me frame it. There was some, subnets and folks that were working on that. We're worried at a high level that there's too much control by. It's not true. Okay. This is this is that. Yeah.
00;26;09;21 - 00;26;11;06
Derek
This is the surface.
00;26;11;07 - 00;26;12;11
Aaron
I'll tell you what actually happened.
00;26;12;15 - 00;26;17;00
Derek
Is I follow this stuff way closer than I should. I love a good piece of drama.
00;26;17;02 - 00;26;17;21
Pri
So.
00;26;17;24 - 00;26;18;26
Derek
So basically, maybe.
00;26;18;26 - 00;26;23;08
Aaron
Just the script can't deliver on the, on the narratives. It can deliver on it. Right?
00;26;23;08 - 00;26;45;28
Derek
Exactly. I love the child, baby. All right, so there's this subnet called Templar, and Templar does what's called distributed training. That's basically taking, you know, right now when we do training runs for models, we do it at co-located data centers, Templar and a number of protocols in the previous, like, what if we just distribute the GPUs that would do this training and like distribute the workloads across the internet?
00;26;46;01 - 00;27;03;19
Derek
And Templar has basically. So Templar was created by the founder of the tensor. I got him cross and his idea was like, let's just try and use the bit tensor incentive mechanism to do distributed training, and I'll set up the miner validators system in the game. We'll do these small runs and let's see how goes. He did it.
00;27;03;22 - 00;27;14;12
Derek
It was working. He got a bunch of participation. And so they started to train larger and larger models. There's this guy in the community named Sam. And Sam always it's always a.
00;27;14;12 - 00;27;15;21
Chris
Sam Sam I am.
00;27;15;24 - 00;27;36;16
Derek
Sam was basically like, I love what's going on. The tensor, you know, I have some experience tangentially about some of these ideas. I'd love to come in and run have one. So const gave the distributed training subnet to Sam and gave him a bunch of money and some stake and basically put Sam on to use the Gen Z terms like this is a guy that's going to run with the distributed training.
00;27;36;16 - 00;28;04;06
Derek
Some of the subnet did very well, and to the point where they about a month and a half ago, they trained a 72 billion parameter, model all over the internet using retail computer GPUs, went down to GPUs, would slot in, and there was no like there was no, disruption in the training process. It got so much attention that the All In podcast talked about it with Jensen at, at at one of the events, like a month, I can't remember which one GDC, I think it was.
00;28;04;13 - 00;28;04;24
Aaron
Right.
00;28;04;25 - 00;28;26;12
Derek
And so then all of a sudden, like, Templar has become this, like, knight in shining armor for the tensor ecosystem, I was like, wow, so far it's like the first use case, the first summit that's breaking up. All right, so that's the back story. About a week ago, this guy Sam, just immediately just one day wait weeks out script.
00;28;26;14 - 00;28;32;24
Derek
She's like chooses violence and sells $10 million out of the subnet. Well.
00;28;32;27 - 00;28;35;04
Aaron
The atoms that were dumped, right. That's what jumped.
00;28;35;07 - 00;29;03;17
Derek
Immediately. $10 million out of the subnet. And then post this letter on Twitter saying that the tensor centralized and like cost has his arms and everything. And you know, minute he's changing things like the emissions. So all of this stuff is not like us. What actually happened was this dude was like in the discord trying to delete messages in his channel on like the tensor discord and he had and constant, a couple of other folks were like, hey, you shouldn't be doing these messages.
00;29;03;17 - 00;29;26;08
Derek
They should remain up for everyone to see. Like, we can't get in the habit of like deleting things and so can't change the permissions of his discord channel has nothing to do with methods or protocol. So to stop this dude Sam, who was running the subnet from deleting the messages, Sam I think freaked out, felt like he was like breathing down his neck and like had too much control over what he was trying to do with this community.
00;29;26;11 - 00;29;48;19
Derek
And so full stack that left his team holding the bag left his whole his entire community of Templar in the bag. He published this letter that's a bit tenser, was, you know, centralized and all of these things. And because Templar had risen in popularity, people had like kind of anointed it as like the subnet. And so he carried all this cache in this way.
00;29;48;19 - 00;30;11;23
Derek
When that letter was posted, which then went with people who are very close to this, like freaked out. And it's the best performing subnet is leaving. Like, why, why should we be underwriting this ecosystem? So here's why. My think there are a million ways to migrate off of a of a network. You could, for example, take a snapshot and like start a new network and make that transition very easily.
00;30;11;26 - 00;30;36;16
Derek
You could, you know, wipe it down or you could, you know, that other people sell and you don't sell. Because if your principles are that strong and you know, you should let other people at your team or others have advanced warning as to what's going on. There are so many different ways to do it. Full stacking at the freaking top, and let everybody that had trusted in you as a subnet owner, like, completely get evaporated is not it makes no sense.
00;30;36;18 - 00;30;43;29
Derek
And so it's hard for me to take a guy like this seriously when his behavior was so poor. And yeah, what do you think we like?
00;30;43;29 - 00;30;49;25
Aaron
Some of these types of issues may mean that there's like a, like an eath to like big tensors.
00;30;49;27 - 00;30;51;25
Derek
Bitcoin in the in what sense.
00;30;51;25 - 00;31;03;24
Aaron
Just like as a second system that maybe has a couple different design decisions that maybe make this stuff, you know, I think harder to do or better or I think is or it's a good question.
00;31;03;27 - 00;31;16;25
Derek
I think what bitcoin got right or wrong depends where you fall. It's like that protocol became so ossified that even the idea of like changing something in the protocol remember bigger blocks. Yeah, it was just like it was it was.
00;31;16;25 - 00;31;17;08
Aaron
That was the.
00;31;17;08 - 00;31;18;23
Derek
Drama. That was the it.
00;31;18;23 - 00;31;19;09
Aaron
Dropped a bit.
00;31;19;09 - 00;31;37;01
Derek
It was like, this is like it was just never going to happen. Prevent one. It was never going to be able to kind of like enshrine these protocol decisions to change the thing. And so the theorem actually was it was created in that shadow, which is like, let's actually be very dialed on making these protocol upgrades. Let's not be so ossified.
00;31;37;04 - 00;31;55;09
Derek
There is a middle ground. And I think that tensor is actually more like Ethereum than like Bitcoin, which is why I don't think that all is lost. I think immediately you're seeing this within the the community stewards, people are jumping in and saying like, how do we prevent some owners from taking advantage of information asymmetry in the future?
00;31;55;09 - 00;32;10;04
Derek
What can we do to like, you know, make the protocol a little bit more robust or give a little bit more signal, or put a cooldown period if a sub an owner wants to start selling, what are the things that we can like bake into these, into the subnet architecture to kind of like prevent that behavior.
00;32;10;04 - 00;32;11;15
Aaron
So yeah, I don't I.
00;32;11;15 - 00;32;19;19
Derek
Don't know if it means we need to that a competitor should just, you know, fork in and make these changes and do something differently.
00;32;19;19 - 00;32;32;03
Aaron
I think what sounds like that, I mean, that's one of the risks, right? Yes. Like the, you know, somebody feels like they've done a ton at the tensor and they want to exit in some capacity. And I think people should always.
00;32;32;03 - 00;32;53;09
Derek
Be allowed to exit. Yeah. And I don't think you should that, that but I do think that exiting while simultaneously flattening the information asymmetry is a worthy pursuit. Like I don't think what happens is a good thing. I think, something are going to crash out and just steal everyone's money. I think that's something we should engineer against.
00;32;53;11 - 00;33;14;02
Chris
So I'm just hearing this story for the first time, but I would, I would say or ask you, isn't this more a matter of like, they should have done more diligence about this person and entrusted them with fewer things less quickly versus, you know, a reactionary, pursuit of, oh, we have to like code is law, tighten this whole thing down.
00;33;14;02 - 00;33;16;24
Chris
Like the problems seem to be coming in the door, not going out.
00;33;16;24 - 00;33;42;12
Derek
It's a great question. And I'm not part of the core team. I'm just, mere observer. But, I think that is a mistake. The const gave him a lot of this responsibility. Probably wouldn't make it. Yeah, I think he's probably learned his lesson on that. Yeah. Giving people who are, you know, excited and smart and in the community without doing proper background checks, the kind of attention and responsibility that was given to them.
00;33;42;14 - 00;33;59;08
Derek
But the truth is, just like building a subnet is no, I mean, like anybody can do it, right? I think the error was not that this guy's allowed to have a subnet because it is permissionless. The error was in cost kind of anointing him with his something. Yeah. And responsibility that entailed.
00;33;59;10 - 00;34;01;14
Chris
Well there you go. So.
00;34;01;14 - 00;34;02;23
Aaron
What's happening with lattice.
00;34;02;26 - 00;34;25;01
Chris
Now? It's the same old song and dance, you know, they've come to the end of the road and they couldn't find, you know, they were working on it for five years, right? They delivered mud. Did you ever do redstone? Yeah. And there was just there was zero traction. Right. And I, I feel bad for chain gaming because the premise of it, I think was incredibly strong.
00;34;25;03 - 00;34;47;06
Chris
And also the attraction, like on chain gaming, was such a catnip to a certain type of person. And so the amount of talent it pulled in, you know, it was just incredible. And then, you know, none of them had like that product magic or the conditions. Right? Like, weren't there weren't enough people involved in order to reach a critical mass.
00;34;47;08 - 00;35;05;15
Chris
And so with lattice, you know, it just looked like they saw the writing on the wall and they didn't want to go any further with this. And then what came out after the fact? You know, there was a few few people who were building on their who, you know, basically, said, look, the team was a little high and mighty, a little arrogant, play kingmaker.
00;35;05;15 - 00;35;28;04
Chris
I mean, they definitely, you know, they certainly always had that hotshot attitude, you know, come out of Oak Park and look, a lot of the shit they did was just justified it. But at the same time, you know, I think that's another problem around the whole on chain gaming world is like your relationship to some of these, you know, things where it like, it takes two, right?
00;35;28;04 - 00;35;49;01
Chris
And so, like, you kind of want to get the word fuzzies, you know, from people, who are, you're building on their stack or, you know, you want to see the continued support in the case of like, star player, you know, which, you know, look, it's just a hard environment overall. And I suppose it's much, much better that you have these sort of, wind downs.
00;35;49;01 - 00;36;12;16
Chris
You know, which is we tried we really did try and like, look, we're going to be grown ups here versus your towers, your foundations. You know, the childish part of it to me, I think the real like the question here is just when does it end? What does it take to get crypto into a good place? And I don't mean on like, the Larry Fink RWA side of the world.
00;36;12;16 - 00;36;16;10
Chris
I mean on like the side we actually find interesting. You know, because.
00;36;16;13 - 00;36;18;24
Aaron
I think any of the users, it's just not that users.
00;36;18;26 - 00;36;22;06
Chris
I don't think it's ever going to have a dude like C CB radio.
00;36;22;08 - 00;36;31;27
Pri
I really don't think so. You don't think like, this is like the stable point. I, I feel like naturally, some of those people who become more familiar with like a wallet and stuff will naturally gravitate towards some of these consumer.
00;36;31;29 - 00;37;01;14
Chris
Yeah, but if your exposure to that is via tempo and, and SDK and a wallet product and you're using it to buy, pizza, in Dumbo, right. Like it's, you never actually touch crypto. That's true. That means like, you're never going to get into the weird ass shit of, like, on chain gaming or the high school drama of we all thought we were art people and collectors, and now we're just squabbling and stupid and, you know, like like that whole world was cut off to you.
00;37;01;16 - 00;37;21;15
Chris
And I just like. I don't see any, any way. I mean, yeah, there's a million possible ways, but like, you know, if, if this was a prediction market of like, how does the cool side of crypto get attention again? Like, I wouldn't place a single because I wouldn't know where to start. Like I certainly hope it happens, but it's just like, how does it where does it come from?
00;37;21;15 - 00;37;22;21
Chris
We we have no clue.
00;37;22;24 - 00;37;43;09
Aaron
It's a good question. I think it comes this way. Roles come in place, wallets are fading into the background, or they don't need to be installed in the browser. They're just like in the browser or on a phone. In some capacity. The user base increases, like there's 50 million people that are executing transactions. That needs to go up to 500 million or so.
00;37;43;09 - 00;38;01;19
Aaron
I do think that this apocalypse is going to be a piece of it. And so maybe like even some of these, like very early ideas in crypto could become more fashionable again. So like if you could put $3 into your Gmail account and never get another spam message because there's like micropayments for the internet, I think more and more people may decide to do stuff like that.
00;38;01;26 - 00;38;20;25
Aaron
And a lot of it, I think, is at that infrastructure layer, like when it gets embedded into different systems and abstracted away. So I think that that's when a lot of stuff comes back. Chris, I'm pretty, pretty hard. And but I think that the demand to do that is, is going to increase over the next couple years. And so that'd be my bet.
00;38;20;28 - 00;38;29;20
Aaron
Even financially this thing. But like if you if it's all right. Yeah. But like if you know, if it's bundled with your sign on. Right. Or in a more Apple Wallet type way.
00;38;29;22 - 00;38;39;28
Pri
But he's basically saying the, the opposite where it's like when that when it's so abstracted, like, how do you have exposure to this more like niche. I'm taking it. You're not.
00;38;39;28 - 00;38;51;18
Aaron
Really. I think you would log on to like a system, just picture like steam and and then when you log out and you have a wallet, kind of related to that, and it's embedded in a bunch of the games, because they want portability kind of.
00;38;51;18 - 00;38;52;16
Pri
Related, I guess what you're saying.
00;38;52;22 - 00;39;09;22
Aaron
And then that probably will have like a new player who is into that and does that better. So yeah, I'd imagine it kind of looks like that at some level, like the transaction throughput in the costs or kind of there. It's really like then you get on board and off on ramps and off ramps that are that tricky as pieces of this.
00;39;09;24 - 00;39;27;03
Pri
Do you think users care though, like, let's say I, I was wanting to play a game. Do you think that they're going to choose, even though the the user experience to start playing the game could look exactly the same? One is on chain, the other isn't. Do you think that I think you could take that on if you.
00;39;27;03 - 00;39;40;26
Aaron
Could take you. Yeah. If you could take they're not they don't care about the engine but they care about the portability. You can take your Robux and put that into another game. I think a lot of people do that. Yeah, I think it would take their like bundle of assets and then they would just play another game. Right?
00;39;40;26 - 00;39;46;02
Aaron
They want to move that to Minecraft or, you know, some future game. I think that that's that would be very appealing.
00;39;46;08 - 00;39;49;01
Pri
That that part I think is the interoperability.
00;39;49;08 - 00;40;01;06
Aaron
Yeah. I think all that is, is reason the compelling I like lattice. I wonder what they do next. Well, the Eye of Sauron, I just continue to absorb everything. Are they out of.
00;40;01;06 - 00;40;05;08
Derek
Money and and and stopping or hitting?
00;40;05;11 - 00;40;21;27
Chris
No. They're done. They're done. I don't know if they're out of money or they just. You know, I saw the writing on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they they were a very well supported organization, you know. And so I'm assuming they're doing this is because they've come to the end of the road in terms of looking for product market vet.
00;40;21;27 - 00;40;27;04
Chris
So sad. But such is life. It's almost like being, a New York Mets fan.
00;40;27;05 - 00;40;30;29
Aaron
And there's no light at the end of that tunnel. Chris.
00;40;31;01 - 00;40;33;19
Chris
Oh well, the light at the end of the tunnel is it's early.
00;40;33;21 - 00;40;36;02
Aaron
Look at Derek. You know, I cried just sitting there.
00;40;36;02 - 00;40;42;14
Derek
I went to a Yankees game the other night was really good game. Just hit a couple homers. They won 11. The Italians, the angels.
00;40;42;16 - 00;40;47;29
Aaron
That's nice. Yeah. I was going to beat up your, Dodgers the year. California.
00;40;48;02 - 00;40;52;11
Derek
I don't mind. They're going to take the angels. That no skin off my back.
00;40;52;13 - 00;41;03;04
Chris
Yeah. The angels are a really funny thing because, Really, I think the only people who, like, really care about the angels are, like ten year old boys in Anaheim. It's suburbs.
00;41;03;10 - 00;41;06;02
Derek
It's it's 100% sure I can confirm.
00;41;06;04 - 00;41;08;24
Chris
So yeah, that was lived out in L.A. Rebranded.
00;41;08;24 - 00;41;14;20
Derek
Didn't work like nobody actually believes the Los Angeles Angels are Los Angeles. They're Anaheim.
00;41;14;20 - 00;41;36;00
Aaron
Yeah, they're. Yeah. I think it's interesting this week that like, it feels like peptides are moving back into the like the forefront. They got like reclassified by the FDA in the states. And it just feels like that whole category is continuing to open up. It seems like there's at least rumors that the existing pharmaceutical companies are trying to, like, block it or something.
00;41;36;00 - 00;41;38;03
Aaron
A little bit of drama around that too, which.
00;41;38;03 - 00;41;44;02
Pri
Is super like they're just trying to get like ahead of it. Like, I think you I always trying to like get ahead of Rita.
00;41;44;04 - 00;41;49;29
Aaron
I don't I know I was reading that that they're like actively lobbying to get it reclassified into other things.
00;41;49;29 - 00;41;52;22
Derek
What does that sound like to you? Sound familiar? Yeah.
00;41;52;24 - 00;41;55;05
Chris
You know, we don't know the IP. So therefore we got.
00;41;55;05 - 00;41;56;11
Aaron
Around that issue.
00;41;56;11 - 00;42;01;27
Derek
That you can think of kind of let me and these incumbents out here in 2026.
00;42;01;29 - 00;42;02;29
Aaron
Thinking they own the place.
00;42;02;29 - 00;42;04;15
Derek
Thinking they own the place or they kind of.
00;42;04;15 - 00;42;09;04
Chris
Do. Hey, look, you'll be able to pump your own gas in new Jersey. So like change does count.
00;42;09;06 - 00;42;10;14
Derek
There you go.
00;42;10;16 - 00;42;14;23
Chris
You're going to go to your, your ancestral homeland and pump some gas there and wait.
00;42;14;26 - 00;42;15;27
Aaron
You have to pump your own gas.
00;42;15;27 - 00;42;19;10
Chris
No, not in Jersey. I think they're, changing. You're finally going to be allowed to.
00;42;19;10 - 00;42;21;29
Aaron
Yeah. And that's that's a bummer. I like the. Yeah.
00;42;22;04 - 00;42;23;03
Chris
You like the service?
00;42;23;03 - 00;42;25;24
Aaron
Yeah, the service is great. I thought that was a classy part of new Jersey.
00;42;25;28 - 00;42;45;16
Pri
And there's one thing I wanted to say, actually, I just came back. Oh, yeah? This is like a total pivot from new Jersey. But have you guys noticed on the timeline that a lot of, like the people building. Most interesting I observe by coding or just like talking about this stuff have been like, I'll go to their profile and there's no semblance of crypto, but then I'll see their handle and it's like.
00;42;45;18 - 00;42;48;17
Derek
Oh dude, I, I have a huge thesis on this.
00;42;48;17 - 00;42;50;11
Pri
I do a huge thesis on.
00;42;50;13 - 00;43;11;21
Derek
So I have a handful of 4 or 5 something to have a ton of success in the AI space, and a lot of what I was planning on, like putting some notes together and like actually formally introducing this. But I'll give you guys the teaser, which is a lot of how crypto protocols were built were always around like the same set of ingredients.
00;43;11;22 - 00;43;42;06
Derek
It was like built builds in public, be very transparent about what you're doing. Makes parts of the stack open source or be open source. Leverage the network, to kind of like, skip ahead of the line. And what we're finding is that, you know, as this barbell starts to happen, where I happen where, like the largest labs in the world are able to raise an immense amount of capital, there's this whole other side of the barbell that is looking to find advantages of, like, sticking out or building interesting things or taking out wedges.
00;43;42;11 - 00;44;07;09
Derek
Yeah. And a handful of my portfolio companies have done an amazing job, building a public. But the bias towards open source, being completely transparent, living on the internet 24/7, using Twitter as the battleground, and having the network be kind of a core part of the proposition, along with other thing, other ideals like, you know, local focus or more privacy or whatever it may be, depending on where you're going in the stack.
00;44;07;12 - 00;44;34;24
Derek
And these things are doing very, very well. And so like a couple that, you know, just a, a handful of like the three of the top five GitHub star products right now are Dota two built for brands? Is building paperclip Hermes Asian by the news research. Yeah. And and Prime select which is building like this RL lab and like these are all folks who came out of the crypto space and in the Ethereum network or have been tinkering around crypto for a very long time.
00;44;34;26 - 00;44;55;24
Derek
They were doing crypto gaming. They were doing, you know, crypto bio. They were, doing crypto. Are they? These are folks that understand the ethos of why things stick out and how you can grow quickly when you're composability. Exactly. Composability and open source and focus on networking and transparent. And it's not a shock to me to see that lane start to get.
00;44;55;24 - 00;44;57;07
Aaron
Dominated by this DNA.
00;44;57;09 - 00;44;57;18
Derek
Yeah.
00;44;57;18 - 00;44;59;02
Aaron
So it's kind of like reminds.
00;44;59;02 - 00;45;00;02
Pri
Me a lot of.
00;45;00;04 - 00;45;14;16
Aaron
Like the early peer to peer file sharing thing is like that turned into like Skype in the next wave or Spotify. So I, I think there's definitely a it's a good crop of builders and their skill sets will continue to kind of mature. And that was like.
00;45;14;16 - 00;45;16;01
Pri
These elements are like permissionless.
00;45;16;01 - 00;45;16;12
Aaron
Yeah.
00;45;16;14 - 00;45;17;13
Pri
So even if people.
00;45;17;15 - 00;45;30;04
Aaron
Even if you just double down and like the the PDP file sharing founders. Yeah. And or had the ability to do that like across like the entire web2 growth like period. It would have been a great bet.
00;45;30;07 - 00;45;31;06
Derek
I'll give you one more.
00;45;31;06 - 00;45;36;12
Chris
I wanted to invest in Sean Fanning's wedding in Big Sur.
00;45;36;15 - 00;45;57;18
Aaron
I mean, maybe another one, right? Like, not Sean Parker, not fanning. Okay. Yeah, but Sean Parker, like, crushed it right there. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I think if you dig into the roots of a lot of the web two founders, you find like a peer to peer angle or to the point in their lives. So, I think it's going to be the same thing crypto as I just think the world is.
00;45;57;18 - 00;46;19;14
Aaron
Crypto is always ahead of the curve. Yeah, there's more narratives like you're describing. The software is moving faster. We've been kind of collectively trained to deal with the ups and downs of that, which I imagine, you know, if you're building like a wonderful SAS app five years ago, you didn't have to deal with that trauma. So you're like, kind of like, spot.
00;46;19;15 - 00;46;25;01
Aaron
The crypto folks are like, we're like Spartans, that we can just train our image verification overload.
00;46;25;01 - 00;46;30;27
Pri
Like all like, get all these messages, get all these emails, different things and like, look at friends are like, are you? Or I'm like, not.
00;46;31;00 - 00;46;49;23
Aaron
That's because you can even harden hyper. But you're also like then I think the problem is that you always want to solve. Now more people have those problems. They turn to actual markets. So yeah. Which I think is maybe what, what happens here or maybe some of the crypto mechanics. Yeah. And fold it into some of these projects.
00;46;49;25 - 00;47;06;17
Derek
I do think they do. You guys we talked about this before the recording went on. But I think as you are. But one of you asked me, you know, like you saw me doing more deals that were just like IDLES recently. And the truth is, is like a lot of the founders of those projects are actually crypto founders.
00;47;06;20 - 00;47;31;11
Derek
And the payload that they're leading with our AI protocols are software hardware. But in my view, it's like if you have if you understand how important these blockchains and crypto can be towards these networking jobs, it's inevitable that they start to make their way back into these products eventually. And so I'm still very much a crypto investor. Everything I do is a bias towards crypto, but doesn't necessarily mean that the product.
00;47;31;13 - 00;47;32;19
Aaron
Needs to be crypto.
00;47;32;24 - 00;47;33;08
Derek
Yeah, I just.
00;47;33;08 - 00;47;55;02
Chris
Think and it won't be a while right now like I, you know, I met you on Wednesday and you're like, well, you know, what about this and that? And I was like, is relate to my own product. It's like it can only slow me down, right? Yeah. You know, and so like I think that like interop friction is just going to get kicked down the road, especially when like all the advantages right now are like you and the machine going as hard as you can.
00;47;55;02 - 00;47;55;09
Chris
I think.
00;47;55;09 - 00;47;55;22
Derek
That's a great.
00;47;55;22 - 00;48;02;19
Chris
Point. But they'll be they'll come a time when the priority is going to shift and then network distribution.
00;48;02;21 - 00;48;03;06
Derek
You got it.
00;48;03;08 - 00;48;17;29
Chris
Yeah. You know, marketplace activity like all of that will become more important. And, you know, maybe that will, come along with your forward to your agenda payment at the same time. Right. And then the light bulbs can start to go off.
00;48;17;29 - 00;48;19;22
Derek
I think that's like a writer announcing.
00;48;19;25 - 00;48;42;09
Chris
The like, timing is everything and understanding, you know, when what to give your attention to when, when to poke your head out, you know, versus when to hunker down like, that's I mean, a lot of that instinct, a lot of that skill, some of that just being around. But like the time right now is like you and the machine and just going as hard as you can and, you know.
00;48;42;15 - 00;48;43;24
Aaron
Machines.
00;48;43;27 - 00;48;44;28
Derek
And machines.
00;48;45;01 - 00;48;58;10
Pri
Just talk. And it is so funny how like my experience, like my interaction with my computer is so much different now, just like me with multiple browsers talking to the machine, like I said, I just used to interact with you and I'm like.
00;48;58;13 - 00;49;00;18
Derek
Yeah, I'm not actually here right now. This is a.
00;49;00;18 - 00;49;01;29
Aaron
Hologram.
00;49;02;02 - 00;49;03;22
Pri
So in avatar.
00;49;03;26 - 00;49;07;08
Chris
It's getting better and better. All right. Should we,
00;49;07;11 - 00;49;07;28
Aaron
Draft here?
00;49;08;00 - 00;49;08;15
Pri
I know.
00;49;08;19 - 00;49;09;19
Derek
Episode guys.
00;49;09;24 - 00;49;33;11
Pri
Hey, everyone, welcome to Net Society. It's me, Chris, Aaron and Derek today discussing all things crypto, AI, tech, culture and more. Just as a quick reminder, these thoughts and opinions are our own and not of our employer. And none of this is financial advice.