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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;21;23
Chris
Welcome to. We refuse to talk about Botto and are leading off the show by talking about ball.
00;00;21;25 - 00;00;22;21
Aaron
There we go.
00;00;22;24 - 00;00;29;13
Pri
Crazy auction results, right? Like what? I kind of don't have the words.
00;00;29;15 - 00;00;32;19
Chris
The network is permissionless, free. It's true.
00;00;32;21 - 00;00;47;00
Pri
But it's this. This is clearly just, like, a bit, right? Like. I mean, like. And it's all over the timeline. It's getting meme like. I'm kind of. I'm done looking at it. I don't need to see the draft for elephant anymore. Big fan of Barreto. Not so much that piece.
00;00;47;03 - 00;00;57;12
Chris
I feel like we're like, in in Groundhog Day now, where every week you go into the show, you're like, God, can we not talk about Botto? And then Botto forces insist upon itself.
00;00;57;17 - 00;01;02;03
Aaron
By naming itself into existence. Chris. One giraffe at a time.
00;01;02;05 - 00;01;22;04
Pri
You know, it's funny. I feel like we talked about it before. Like bottles kind of appeal to this, like early audience. And the mechanics are it's like the style and the mechanics are a little not complicated, but like, you know, your average DJ isn't like, wow. Like, this is such a fascinating project. It's kind of appealed to a specific cohort of people in the space.
00;01;22;04 - 00;01;44;03
Pri
And I feel like now this they're kind of trying to appeal to almost like that Gen Kevin audience or it's like, hey, yeah, look, look what Barreto can do. It can like stretch across the, the meme audience, like the gen audience a bit, too. I don't know. I feel like people are, like, calling it, like, performance art and historic.
00;01;44;06 - 00;01;46;20
Pri
It's just like it's a little too much for me.
00;01;46;22 - 00;02;00;29
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, that actually is a good take, Bri. I didn't think about it that way. I think that is I mean, the NFT ecosystem does need, like, a little bit of fun. I think, Chris, you were even using on that this week, right? Like the seriousness, like the readiness. That's kind of the space. It's like a little bit overwhelming sometimes.
00;02;01;01 - 00;02;23;17
Chris
Yeah. No, it it seems like every once in a while I'm trying to express something via a Twitter thread, and it turns out everyone's feeling it. But why so serious? You know, definitely is is an expression that NFTs used to be fun. They used to be interesting. You know, we back in the day, a lot of times we go in minting something, not knowing what it was.
00;02;23;17 - 00;02;51;07
Chris
And the surprise and delight was, you know, come seeing it manifest into whatever the hell we signed up for. There was a joy discovery in the act. Now everything is very carefully choreographed, announced ahead of time, you know, presented, and you know that that's falling into 1 or 2 camps, right? Like, one is like, hey, we got to sell you on the seriousness and the importance of this art.
00;02;51;09 - 00;03;05;18
Chris
Or the other is, hey, we've got a product launch coming up on plushie chain, and we need all the good penguins to fall in line. You know, it just takes the fun out of everything that you know. We used to be a more interesting space than that.
00;03;05;20 - 00;03;07;08
Pri
I tend to agree with that.
00;03;07;10 - 00;03;08;14
Aaron
Yeah, I agree too.
00;03;08;16 - 00;03;21;13
Pri
How do we bring that, like, joy back? Is that just something that happens when like, you know, prices go up and people decide to experiment again? Because I feel like there's a lot of grasping I'm saying right now.
00;03;21;16 - 00;03;44;11
Chris
Yeah. There's no easy answers to this. Right. Because a lot of those quirky, interesting projects were a result of like, people could take that risk knowing that there be support for them. And so if you really want to break the mold nowadays, you got to be content knowing you're doing this entirely at your own risk. You may not get remunerated for it.
00;03;44;18 - 00;04;05;20
Chris
It can mentor it. It can do very well and still not return a living wage to you. You know, Sergeant Slaughter men was probably one of the one of the more ambitious, you know, artists this year that I'm not good at computers job. I thought that was absolutely fantastic. You know, it was done on base. It was done at a low price, but got good participation.
00;04;05;20 - 00;04;28;08
Chris
But it wouldn't surprise me if he broke even or, you know, lost money on that. That's one of the problems right there is we're just we're not in an environment that can support that level of work. And so yeah, you're really sort of seeing like, I don't know, war time releasing coming out and we're rationing the, the scope and creativity of what the space, is producing.
00;04;28;10 - 00;04;36;04
Pri
But it's just like, it's not even like really like creative. It's just like jokey, almost satirical, like whimsical.
00;04;36;06 - 00;04;38;23
Aaron
Yeah, it's a little whimsical. It's the right word.
00;04;38;26 - 00;04;52;27
Pri
Like, I guess that is art, obviously, but it's also just not that, like, it's like, okay, cool, got the joke. I'm over it within two seconds. Like, I want something that's like, if it's going to be funny, it's got to like, have some evergreen like level of material.
00;04;52;29 - 00;05;11;10
Aaron
Yeah, I applaud the effort. Hopefully we get a little bit more of that. I do think maybe people just need to push more and show some of the creators that there is demand for that. Chris and Perri, I mean, because that Sergeant Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter House was forget, but those were melon, Swat, slaughter melon. That's it. They're great.
00;05;11;12 - 00;05;14;24
Aaron
Like I remember those from last year and that they're super cool.
00;05;14;26 - 00;05;25;27
Pri
Well, speaking of, just, I guess performance art and vibes. We're at East Denver right now. We're in Denver. Should we talk a little bit about, like, what we're seeing and, you know, the events and the vibes here?
00;05;26;00 - 00;05;28;12
Aaron
Yeah. What do you think? How are they for you?
00;05;28;13 - 00;05;53;16
Pri
I think like, just like setting. I mean, so setting, I guess the table or whatever. I feel like East Denver is probably one of the largest and, you know, well-attended crypto conferences in North America. I can't really think of another one. Like, maybe, I don't know, I actually can't think of another one, but it's obviously pretty well-attended. You're seeing people from all over the U.S. and beyond come in, and it's been great to see a lot of the Dao members, too.
00;05;53;17 - 00;06;08;25
Pri
Like, I saw cable and I haven't seen it in a really long time. So so it was really great to like, see those people. I feel like leading up to it, you had like Kevin Milwaukee and others like on the timeline and kind of just musing on the fact that maybe East Denver has changed. And you know, Kevin, we know Bitcoin.
00;06;09;00 - 00;06;34;10
Pri
He's an OG. He's been basically around since the launch of Ethereum and called it like a shell of its former self. I was even looking to the events calendar just like a couple days before I arrived, and I was like, wow, there's like it was so much going on. Like I kind of don't remember all the stuff and everything from Cardano to Polkadot to Solana, like everyone, it's turned into, like obviously something that's much bigger than Ethereum.
00;06;34;10 - 00;06;44;20
Pri
And my understanding of the actual conference is that it's like, not even as well attended. I haven't been yet, though, to be fair. And that was also, I heard that from like Tuesday. So I think it gets a little bit more crowded.
00;06;44;21 - 00;06;46;18
Aaron
I think it got more crowded yesterday from what I know.
00;06;46;18 - 00;07;05;01
Pri
Yeah, I think it did too. At least that's kind of what I heard. But it's just funny. Like a lot of these OGs are kind of like, like if Denver is not what it used to. I also think Kevin being like a Denver native, and he kind of made it Denver a thing early on, like he probably has, you know, some attachment to it being his hometown and like helping kind of manifest East Denver early on.
00;07;05;01 - 00;07;12;19
Pri
So I came in seeing all that on the timeline. I think the first event I went to was like, bear a palooza, which was like the Bear Chain event.
00;07;12;25 - 00;07;15;02
Aaron
What did you think of the bear chain ecosystem?
00;07;15;02 - 00;07;24;14
Pri
Pre is really interesting, so I thought it was actually pretty good. I guess one thing, just to even note, I don't really even understand the proof of liquidity barrier chain mechanic.
00;07;24;15 - 00;07;27;15
Aaron
It's I think I finally got it I got it.
00;07;27;17 - 00;07;43;17
Pri
Yeah I mean, you could talk about that, but like, yeah, I don't really get it. So I'm like, okay, who are these like people that are like really into this proof of liquidity thing? I would say everyone there was relatively young. You saw a couple more glasses. Definitely like people who this guy was wearing like a hat that was like a giant broccoli.
00;07;43;17 - 00;08;03;26
Pri
So a lot of like the Harry Potter Obama swag. I actually met the team at that event there too. And like this product crew. So it kind of felt like these young people that came in really like the last cycle, and they're just like loving beer chain. You had like the puff PR guy, you know, everyone's like vaping using that puff puff thing, which is like smoke to earn or vape to earn, whatever.
00;08;03;28 - 00;08;20;24
Pri
So it felt like like I saw a lot of people I knew from previous cycles and stuff, but it felt like a very fresh new young crowd. There's also like more women, I would say at that event than maybe your typical event. And I think they have like this bear of baddies thing and that, you know, the woman who heads that up, what's that?
00;08;20;27 - 00;08;22;09
Aaron
What's the bear about is.
00;08;22;11 - 00;08;39;11
Pri
It's like a group of women that are kind of like a part of the Barrow chain community. So they've like, kept. That's cool. Yeah. Like and there's funny there was like a meme about people saying that they're like paid by bearer chain to be there, but they've, like, the baddies have actually leaned into that mean as kind of like a joke.
00;08;39;13 - 00;08;53;03
Pri
And so it's it's like playful and fun. And, you know, I actually thought the event was like, really? Well, like it was crowded, well-attended. Yeah. I had I don't really have any notes. So it's definitely like an interesting observation, different from like some of the other events I went to.
00;08;53;05 - 00;09;10;28
Aaron
I think somebody mentioned this, which I thought was a really great observation, which is the beer chain community feels like the crypto folks that just want a fresh start, like they want just something new. I don't think there's that much that's new and novel under the hood related to it maybe a little bit around this proof of what's it like?
00;09;10;28 - 00;09;29;26
Aaron
The liquidity is that what they're calling it? I think so, yeah. The idea is like if you're validating on the bare chain blockchain, then you can kind of allocate some portion of your rewards to projects that you like, or there's some dynamic between projects and validators, which they are hoping aligns incentives a bit better.
00;09;29;29 - 00;09;31;03
Pri
It's like.
00;09;31;05 - 00;09;50;00
Aaron
Yeah, there's maybe something related to that, but I actually went to that event too. I mean, it definitely had like a younger vibe. Chris, I will I'm happy to report I haven't heard that much about real world assets here this week. People are very, very excited about the intersection of AI and crypto. I'd say like that is definitely the meme that's coming through last year.
00;09;50;00 - 00;10;08;12
Aaron
It really was meme coins. So, I wonder if we're going to just see a lot more kind of in that category this year. So I think the vibes have been pretty good. You know, there's definitely people that are trying to understand Ethereum's role in the future and like what crypto kind of looks like. There's definitely people that look pretty beat up.
00;10;08;15 - 00;10;17;25
Aaron
Given the movements in the markets and lots of folks here, they're very active in the markets, it feels like. So there's some of that kind of floating around. But overall the vibes are pretty good.
00;10;17;27 - 00;10;21;03
Pri
Denver City clear. Yeah, a lot of people here.
00;10;21;05 - 00;10;25;01
Chris
You know who not there. You may.
00;10;25;04 - 00;10;26;07
Aaron
Have you ever been here?
00;10;26;09 - 00;10;29;17
Chris
No. All right. So I have never been to Denver.
00;10;29;20 - 00;10;34;06
Aaron
I don't mind Denver. Denver's kind of nice, Chris. I think you like it said lovely city.
00;10;34;08 - 00;10;38;28
Chris
I'm shocked. I've never been to Denver because it is a telco hub. And, yeah.
00;10;39;00 - 00;10;39;24
Pri
Yeah, I know.
00;10;39;26 - 00;10;57;18
Chris
At some point in my life I should have gone there professionally, but, I've been to Boulder, I've driven across the state. I've never been to Denver, which obviously means I've never been to East Denver. No, I don't know. It's just the idea of, like, going to Denver in February when you don't ski is just never to go to a trade show, you know?
00;10;57;21 - 00;11;15;29
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I think and that's Kevin's kind of critique. It's starting to feel a little bit more like, you know, CSS or South by Southwest or something that's like a little bit more corporate, which just happens. Right? We kind of know as things scale, some of the rough edges get, you know, kind of shot off. So it feels like a little bit of that has happened.
00;11;15;29 - 00;11;23;20
Aaron
But that's been the trend for the past couple of years. It's like surprisingly warm here. And it it usually is. It's usually like in the 60s, 50s, the.
00;11;23;20 - 00;11;42;13
Chris
60s. You know I all right now I'm realizing why I like kind of avoid it Denver is yeah I got into the Ethereum states. It's what 2020 or just before Covid and I watched from afar like ETH Denver be like a superspreader event multiple, multiple years.
00;11;42;16 - 00;11;43;06
Pri
It has been.
00;11;43;12 - 00;11;51;09
Chris
And this. Yeah, it definitely does. Yeah I don't know. Look I, I will eventually get to Denver, possibly for Denver.
00;11;51;11 - 00;12;09;29
Aaron
The first time I actually heard about Covid and was, you know, like in a substantive way, like people being worried about it was actually at ETH Denver because it was right before a lot of the lockdowns happened, and some people didn't want to shake hands, and they were like trying to distance themselves. I was like, oh, wow, this is like more serious than what I thought.
00;12;09;29 - 00;12;12;01
Aaron
I kind of discounted it to to begin with.
00;12;12;03 - 00;12;34;08
Chris
Yeah, actually. Yeah. Now that I think about it, like I'm coming up on the five year anniversary of like the Covid revelation, we were a book club that night and it was the, the night were in the bar. They got the TV up front in and that was the Tom Hanks, the NBA, the stuffing. Incoming flights from Europe, like all of those broke one after another.
00;12;34;08 - 00;12;40;08
Chris
And like within like the span of an hour. And then it was just boom. That was what, like mid-March.
00;12;40;10 - 00;13;02;00
Aaron
Or it's always been like late February ish. But, you know, because yeah, I think like Balaji and like some of the like, Technorati were starting to talk about Covid as it was like moving out of China into other parts of Asia. And they were worried about it. And, you know, folks are so online in the crypto community that I think some of them saw it beforehand, to their credit.
00;13;02;00 - 00;13;18;27
Aaron
And I was like, really? You're not going to check? Like I was thinking to myself, at least, like, you're not going to shake my hand at the time. That completely reasonable to be worried. But the vibes are good. I mean, I think, you know, I know the markets, at least as of when we're recording. They're definitely moving. But it does seem like so hard.
00;13;18;27 - 00;13;26;12
Pri
I like haven't been able to like understand what's happening. Like Nvidia earnings are okay like I what's going on. Is it just like tariffs stuff.
00;13;26;18 - 00;13;38;09
Aaron
I think it may be some of that to be honest. Like some broader concern about the US economy. You know you've heard like some hedge like some bigger hedge fund managers express concern like or like our boy Stevie. Chris he's he's a little worried about the economy.
00;13;38;12 - 00;13;40;24
Pri
So strong. Pillar two I saw that like exchange.
00;13;40;29 - 00;13;57;23
Aaron
So maybe it's some of that I mean I just think the last couple of months just on the liquid token side with memes was pretty gross. So maybe folks are just sobering up from that. I mean, even people's like weighing in on it, but I think he called it what, the meme Coinbase or something like that. He had something that was pretty dramatic, really.
00;13;57;23 - 00;13;58;17
Chris
Oh yeah.
00;13;58;20 - 00;14;04;00
Pri
There's like a bunch of it was a bunch of I feel like there's a bunch of bears eating like the pumped up fund pills or something.
00;14;04;03 - 00;14;05;25
Aaron
And it was it actually was pretty good.
00;14;05;27 - 00;14;13;19
Pri
Yeah. It was really funny. Yeah. The other thing that I've been hearing a lot of people talk about a lot more than anything is stablecoins.
00;14;13;27 - 00;14;17;28
Aaron
Oh, really? Yeah. Who are you hanging out with? I haven't heard about stablecoins at all.
00;14;18;01 - 00;14;33;07
Pri
I feel like I talked about it with like, Gabe's. I talked about it with the Z Prime loopy at at Z Prime. We talked a little bit about it. I don't know, like even I went to like that Igen brunch thing and like people were talking a little bit about just like what's going to happen when stablecoins come through.
00;14;33;07 - 00;14;45;16
Pri
Like I feel like a lot of people are kind of excited about stablecoins because that's going to be a huge onboarding. And I think like Stripe and Bridge, I didn't go had an event. But like I think there is some stablecoin chatter happening at eight Denver.
00;14;45;20 - 00;15;06;21
Aaron
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I actually went to some NFT events, Chris, and I'm happy to also report that people still like the NFT pages have had a number of events here, and they're very well attended and almost beginning to, like, tip my hat to them. They really are kind of pushing through, and they do a good job with, the stuff that they attempt to do.
00;15;06;24 - 00;15;08;27
Aaron
Gotta give them a little bit of credit related to it.
00;15;09;00 - 00;15;17;08
Chris
It congrats on go and, character it development boot camp for. And there's the line for your plush toy.
00;15;17;10 - 00;15;32;22
Aaron
You know, they didn't do it like that, corny. They just kind of put up like, decals of the pages. And I think the more you see them, like, they're kind of cute. Like, actually, I can see that to myself. I've never been the biggest pudgy fan, but I don't know, I can kind of see it. They're trying to keep it a little bit lighter and whimsical.
00;15;32;22 - 00;15;46;01
Aaron
Still, and the vibes were good. You know, people are just happy just and enjoying it. You know, some people had pudgy penguins or the pudgy token and they just were all there to kind of have a nice time together. It felt pretty.
00;15;46;01 - 00;15;51;13
Chris
Nice. That's because, like conferences in our industry are almost more lifestyle than their business.
00;15;51;15 - 00;16;12;29
Aaron
Yeah, it feels that way. There's definitely like that element with some people. Like that's why they like crypto gives them like freedom to move around, to be like a digital nomad of some sort, to connect to folks. Then there definitely are a lot of people that are not from the US that come into this. So, you know, folks from London, you know, folks from parts of Asia, that big contingencies related to that.
00;16;13;02 - 00;16;36;10
Chris
Yeah. Sometimes I talk to people about, you know, these trade shows, these conferences, and my perception of what, trade show is, is entirely different. Yeah. I used to have to go. I went to many of them in a former life. I never want to go to one again. And it was all like, high pressure or you're just aimlessly roaming around doing BD.
00;16;36;12 - 00;17;04;01
Chris
But like, none of it was particularly fun. I mean, look, I've had some great times. I nearly killed myself at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It took me two days to recover from that bender. But from what happened? Oh my God, I went out with, like, some, Brits in the. Oh, no. Sorry. And look, let me just tell you, the payment industry is a euphemism for, adult entertainment in the UK and telecom circles.
00;17;04;03 - 00;17;07;29
Chris
And, you can have a good time in Barcelona.
00;17;08;01 - 00;17;10;10
Aaron
So good to know. Good to know. Yeah.
00;17;10;16 - 00;17;12;19
Pri
And I have to take that one offline.
00;17;12;21 - 00;17;33;01
Chris
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, like, it was like restaurants and clubs and bars and shit. I mean, my wife was with me that weekend, like it wasn't it wasn't any of that part of it, but, you know, okay, some people go hard and we went hard and like, yeah, I definitely was apologizing in broken Spanish in a nightclub at six in the morning.
00;17;33;01 - 00;17;54;24
Chris
Being like, you know what? I got to go home. Like, I'm going to get my ass kicked if I keep bumping into people like this. So anyway, yes, trade shows conferences can be fun, but I don't know. I think in crypto, a lot of it really is just an extension of lifestyle, because the pace at which people go to these things like it is really like you said Aaron Lee.
00;17;54;24 - 00;18;02;26
Chris
I'm also like this digital nomad circuit. You know, like these guys are everyone. There are travelers just working a lifestyle.
00;18;02;28 - 00;18;24;15
Aaron
I mean, a lot of them that what their work is, is something related to crypto, right? It's like either just straight up trading, which, you know, I guess is filling enough for some people or they're, you know, working remotely for some company. It definitely does. Does feel like there is like some this may be how parts of society or or organized like going forward.
00;18;24;17 - 00;18;44;04
Aaron
The other things like at least I've heard outside of stablecoins, a lot of people very interested in kind of network states or some of those elements. Maybe it's because it's that audience. Chris. They like that idea of being able to like, kind of roam from city to city with other people that are similarly situated and definitely a ton on, you know, I agents like there's.
00;18;44;06 - 00;18;44;22
Pri
Tons.
00;18;44;24 - 00;19;04;08
Aaron
A ton like it's really hard to kind of describe like how much enthusiasm there is related to that. And it kind of bridges the different camps, like for folks that are more based in Asia or Southeast Asia, you know, they they like love this stuff. The DeFi folks like, love this stuff. It's just kind of everywhere. It's pretty surprising.
00;19;04;10 - 00;19;08;10
Aaron
I knew people were kind of geeked on it. On Twitter, but it feels like a lot louder in person.
00;19;08;14 - 00;19;15;09
Pri
A lot on like ZK to like lately, feel like there's been a lot of a lot of the ZK projects and stuff, which is great.
00;19;15;15 - 00;19;20;06
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, that stuff's all coming this year. Vibes are strong. Ignore the markets, I guess is the answer.
00;19;20;13 - 00;19;26;01
Chris
I don't know. I love is the $12.
00;19;26;04 - 00;19;27;19
Chris
I already know that.
00;19;27;20 - 00;19;32;28
Aaron
They'll get you off here, get you out of the sidelines. Chris when hits $12. Oh, man.
00;19;33;00 - 00;19;39;26
Pri
I was actually thinking if it does go below 2000, I like I like might actually have more. That feels like wildly low to me.
00;19;39;29 - 00;20;02;02
Chris
Do you remember a year ago when everyone wanted to borrow against their NFTs and stables by year and just be like, oh, well, each is going to be at 6000 bucks next year. It's the, you know, it's the easiest trade on the planet. We in our Dow has had to do a little, spreading the word around risk management and not getting into exotic strategies.
00;20;02;03 - 00;20;09;23
Chris
And I'd be curious as to what the actual volume of people who made that trade was and.
00;20;09;25 - 00;20;10;04
Aaron
How they're.
00;20;10;04 - 00;20;23;06
Chris
Doing, you know? Well, I mean, it's down. And then, you know, they had a 20% cost on the trade, the borrow rate. And so, you know, that one wasn't a winning play.
00;20;23;08 - 00;20;47;03
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, debt and leverage is always killer, right? It's better just not to do anything with these things. In my humble opinion, it always feels like like it makes sense, but it's just super hard to predict the future. I mean, I am a bit surprised by this. I even saw some people musing about this. I mean, I think a lot of folks also just thought, because of the new administration, that things would just go up and to the right for a while.
00;20;47;06 - 00;20;49;26
Aaron
So I think it is a little bit surprising to some folks.
00;20;49;28 - 00;21;24;05
Chris
I think it's surprising to everyone, you know, like if if you thought you were going to get everything you wanted and, you know, from a regulatory, standpoint, and then we'd be in this situation. Yeah, I think it, almost everyone would be stunned. And so but the problem, this is the same problem we've been having for years now, which is there's a lack of like, incoming liquidity into the space, you know, capable of distributing through all these different assets, like, you know, if no one puts money and numbers don't go up.
00;21;24;07 - 00;21;43;19
Aaron
Yeah. And it just and, you know, that's what I really do think that there may be finally, because I've heard some people conceded that that meme coins were not good for the space. Hopefully like that shakeout kind of continues. I will say there's a lot of folks also very excited about playing around with unity for like multiple people have been talking about that.
00;21;43;22 - 00;22;11;28
Aaron
Oh yeah. And just like how that can hopefully solve some of these questions and issues, like how to actually release tokens that, are done in a fair, fairer way in ways that aren't, like, instantaneously rogue, that don't have the bad actors. I think we even talked about this last week, Chris, a bit and pretty like a I even have seen some tweets with Solana doing some soul searching or the soul like being like, hey, like we, we can't, we can't operate like this.
00;22;11;28 - 00;22;28;13
Aaron
So I found that a little bit encouraging too. And you even got from the SEC yesterday, pretty much a pretty clear indication that meme tokens with certain limited conditions are going to be fine and can be released and tradable. I thought that was pretty notable to.
00;22;28;16 - 00;22;40;08
Chris
God bless everyone who pointed out the last paragraph of that and just told the trenches. Just because the asset class is fine, that doesn't mean you can commit financial fraud.
00;22;40;10 - 00;22;41;22
Aaron
Yeah, completely.
00;22;41;24 - 00;23;06;25
Chris
It's just like, oh man. I mean, yeah, there's been some stats floating around about how few things are graduating on pump, and it really, you know, it did feel a bit like our gobblers over in NFT land. Like everyone, we sort of get these events where people suddenly have to slap on the reality glasses and, and realize like something's completely cocked and walk away from it.
00;23;06;25 - 00;23;38;01
Chris
But the memes keep coming back, meme going to keep coming back, to keep insisting upon themselves and the like. The, I don't know, the relentless resilience you know, of the category. I wouldn't count it out yet, especially, you know, whatever the heck does. Yeezy sold his account and is dropping a coin. Dang. Maybe that's on hiatus now that you know, the markets absolutely cooked, but it looked like we were shaping up for some sort of an outsourced Kanye coin to just rinse people yet again.
00;23;38;03 - 00;23;59;07
Aaron
Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's why some folks are chatting about uni before, because I think you can begin to prevent or potentially prevent some of that activity. So if people like the idea of social tokens or tying it to some celebrity or, other kind of experiments when it comes to tokens, I think that that's great to kind of see that.
00;23;59;07 - 00;24;15;03
Aaron
And it's nice to see that in the US we have a bit more flexibility to do that. But at the same time, you can't just make it a honeypot for these bad actors, right? Maybe you can balance the two. And that's kind of the sweet spot of of where we're going towards. And so like that's the next wave of that resilient asset class.
00;24;15;03 - 00;24;20;02
Aaron
Right. It's doing it better. Instead of this kind of death spiral. It's better.
00;24;20;04 - 00;24;32;05
Chris
And you hope so. We'll see. Speaking of, you know, terrible things in the world, we, we really kind of shrugged off the like to say vulnerability and biped hack. Oh, yeah.
00;24;32;08 - 00;24;32;29
Pri
Yeah.
00;24;33;01 - 00;24;40;09
Chris
I mean, is everyone just dead to the world? Is there, like, no news that can move needles or, you know, that people feel that, deeply.
00;24;40;11 - 00;25;04;10
Aaron
I think the devs definitely did. You know, I was talking to some, some folks that are a little bit more deeper in either wallets or other parts of the stack. And I think it felt like deeply concerning. It definitely pushed on the need to have more secure uses. And I think that that's the headline here. I think folks are going to focus a bit more on how to build and deploy security wise, to kind of prevent that from happening.
00;25;04;13 - 00;25;06;09
Pri
Do you know how insane that hack is, though?
00;25;06;12 - 00;25;07;09
Aaron
Yeah, it was a.
00;25;07;09 - 00;25;29;24
Pri
Pretty I mean, like literally like, okay, can we just talk about the Lazarus group for a second? Like what? How are they able to do that? Like they chose to attack by bit, but they could affect any safe. Like it didn't feel like it was. I mean, whatever, they fix the issue. But it's a little bit troubling that like, does anyone know how the Lazarus Group works, like where they trained or they trained in China by devs and then they go back to North Korea and like they're affiliated with North Korea.
00;25;29;25 - 00;25;45;19
Pri
Like, I'm very intrigued by how they're so good. Like if their devs are able to do that, like what does the CIA have? Like, I just don't understand the ability to be able to like, hack that much money. And, you know, I was looking at the Wikipedia actually yesterday. I was talking about it with someone here.
00;25;45;22 - 00;25;46;27
Aaron
What did it say?
00;25;46;29 - 00;26;10;05
Pri
It's just like interesting to I mean, the, the history of hacks there and like the, the level of training and it's interesting like, are these all North Koreans or these like other people who are this sophisticated, you know, developers like, I mean, it's been around for obviously a little bit and like they hacked like a bank in Bangladesh previously and they've this is probably the most monster kind of, attack.
00;26;10;05 - 00;26;36;02
Pri
They've, they've done. I mean, obviously everyone knows about like the Sony Pictures hack and all of that, but I just like I'm very intrigued by this group of people and how like the DOJ and our intelligence hasn't been able to intercept it because it's like pretty tremendous what they've been able to achieve. Like, it's fascinating to me. And, you know, I, I just understand where they're trained and how they're able to get this good.
00;26;36;04 - 00;26;47;03
Pri
This is a little bit of a tangent to the actual I have hack itself, but like, I've never really looked into that group that deeply, although I've heard of the major hacks and I kind of don't understand it.
00;26;47;05 - 00;27;07;09
Chris
Yeah, they, I wish I could dig up this article. I read it a few years ago that kind of walked into walk through, like how they operate. It was interesting. They mostly work out of China. They're in, you know, houses or apartment complexes where they're all, you know, grouped together. So, you know, just picture like private dormitory style living in China.
00;27;07;09 - 00;27;14;20
Chris
And then they have monthly numbers, like they have quotas. They got a hit. And I imagine, you know, there's going to be like degrees really in.
00;27;14;22 - 00;27;18;09
Aaron
They have quotas like there's OKRs and and KPIs.
00;27;18;16 - 00;27;21;01
Pri
I'm sure they're grinding like crazy, dude.
00;27;21;03 - 00;27;38;00
Chris
I mean you got to earn your keep, you know, like stealing for country doesn't come for free. But yeah, I don't know, I, I wish I had like a this is a little fresher and I could give you more details, but I read this couple of years back and be, you know, who knows how they actually work, right?
00;27;38;00 - 00;27;59;16
Chris
I mean, we're literally talking about an elite group of hackers who of if we had like, look at the crypto hack top scores and on an arcade, you know, it would be like one, two, three, four, five all over the board. And so look, they're deep pocketed. They're patient, they're very sophisticated. And they're just so many different attack vectors here.
00;27;59;18 - 00;28;07;20
Chris
Yeah. And it's a bare asset right. There's no do overs. There's no have backs. And so it is an extremely attractive target.
00;28;07;27 - 00;28;22;00
Aaron
Yeah. You know and I think it just those vulnerabilities get patched up right. I mean and then it makes it safer for everybody for the less elite hackers to be able to to engage in this type of shenanigans.
00;28;22;02 - 00;28;25;21
Pri
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's battle testing, which is, you know.
00;28;25;23 - 00;28;43;12
Aaron
They're kind of almost like pirates, though, right? I mean, with the dollar amounts and they just they really are kind of a roving band. I do wonder if they're even part of a state or if internally, if we had a purview that they would view themselves as a state actor. Or maybe they're really kind of like a non-state actor at this point.
00;28;43;19 - 00;28;45;12
Pri
I think they are a state actor.
00;28;45;14 - 00;28;55;08
Aaron
I know that they that's the that's how the US visit. But I I'm I'd be curious internally to actually view it that way but I guess we'll never know.
00;28;55;10 - 00;29;16;18
Chris
I mean they they have to operate under multiple layers of protection. And so first and foremost, the North Korean government, right. If you're a member of the Lazarus Group, you have family back home and that family is vulnerable and reachable. And so that's that's one way, you know, you can be kept within the herd. But then, you know, the next is we haven't gone after Lazarus Group because they're operating out of China.
00;29;16;18 - 00;29;41;11
Chris
And therefore, you know, like China knows what goes on within their borders. So I imagine, you know, there's some form of like an underground economy there where, like, Lazarus has to pay rent to be able to operate under the protection of China. I mean, I think we've shown that when people steal money and crypto and they go to places where, like, you know, international authorities can get Ahold of them, aka dough, can they get Ahold of them?
00;29;41;13 - 00;29;57;13
Chris
You know, there's definitely something a little more unique about Lazarus is operating circumstances because we do have a demonstrated ability to get people who flee jurisdictions or, you know, who operate, you know, these sort of running gun operations.
00;29;57;16 - 00;30;00;25
Pri
Yeah. Honestly, excuse me so much anxiety allocate this.
00;30;00;27 - 00;30;22;27
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, this is the type of stuff that just makes the space brutal, you know, and I think it does force people to want to use more centralized services. Right. But even then. Right. You see with a large exchange I never used by bet, I have no reason to use their service. It seems like it was a pretty big enterprise, out of Singapore.
00;30;22;29 - 00;30;23;20
Aaron
So it's just.
00;30;23;24 - 00;30;24;20
Pri
I, I don't know.
00;30;24;28 - 00;30;32;20
Aaron
I think they're organized in Dubai, but I think their market is mostly in Asia. That was my understanding. But maybe I'm wrong about that.
00;30;32;22 - 00;30;35;06
Pri
Anyways. Yeah, it's a big one.
00;30;35;11 - 00;30;42;09
Aaron
Chris, you're going to play around with, GPT, the new GPT. It's got personality. How are we thinking about, AI's with personality?
00;30;42;11 - 00;31;04;05
Chris
Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's not. You know, like, with all personality. Sometimes you're in the mood for them, sometimes you aren't. I, I told her I was grok a little bit this week, and it definitely has a bit of, you know, a character. It's very, you know, sort of in that superlative. I'm with you, vibing off of this.
00;31;04;05 - 00;31;22;25
Chris
I'm getting excited about what you're asking me. You know, I think people like to call it the horny robot personality. And we saw this with Claude, you know? But then Claude gets into that neurotic tailspin. I mean, some is fine. Too much is too much. I haven't I haven't touched, 4 or 5 yet because I think I only got it yesterday.
00;31;22;25 - 00;31;41;03
Chris
So I will check it out because I've heard that it's writing writing capabilities of leveled up. And so having done a lot of like editing and writing with for, you know, I do feel like I'm in a good phase to, you know, be able to gauge that part of it. Yeah. No, I haven't really been in the talking to labs side of the world right now.
00;31;41;03 - 00;31;43;02
Chris
I've been more in the,
00;31;43;04 - 00;31;47;05
Aaron
Music making v. Yeah. How's that going? What are you learning there?
00;31;47;08 - 00;32;09;16
Chris
And video production is really where I'm spending a lot of my time. I'm, like, trying to get my head around resolves and how to edit and do cuts, and then you layer down from that. It's really. I'm playing around with the generative video right now. You know, what I'm discovering like is the image, the video models and stuff like killing a very good in their adherence.
00;32;09;19 - 00;32;46;20
Chris
But their ability to do like fast motion isn't, isn't good. So like you're very limited in terms of like what you can develop. But Alibaba just pushed out I think it's called links that I haven't been able to get my hands on that one yet. But you know, I think that's starting to overcome it. And so I'm sort of in a spot right now where I think really like my play is more around, okay, focus on getting a good handle on the video editing stuff, work within the constraints of what the models can do today, knowing that, you know, it could be as little as next month where you can actually, you know, there's
00;32;46;20 - 00;33;12;08
Chris
only so many, so much like wanting to have someone walk in a video because you know, they're not capable of moving their hands quickly in a realistic manner that like, you can get away with. And so, I don't know, that that's what I'm up to is I'm making music videos so that I can really get my head around, like full stack AI video production, from the images to the shorts to the cutting of it, but it's still montage, impressionistic.
00;33;12;08 - 00;33;24;06
Chris
And, you know, like my goal of, like, narrative storytelling. Like, we just gotta let the video models get a bit better, but it's super exciting. Like just to compare right where we were a year ago.
00;33;24;08 - 00;33;40;25
Aaron
Yeah. You know, it's funny because I see obsessive people just like tripping on Twitter that they feel like the models have not gotten better, that there's. And I'm just like really like to me, it feels like they really have started to cross the chasm, whether it's in writing and I haven't had a chance to play around 4.5 coding.
00;33;40;25 - 00;34;03;06
Aaron
Definitely. And it feels like the audio, the audio and video stuff is almost there. Like, I, I think I was like tricked for the first time by like an AI image. Like I was just scrolling my timeline quickly and I was like, oh, like something caught my attention. And then they noted that it was completely fake. And I was like, oh, I didn't catch that, you know, before I felt like I could generally catch it.
00;34;03;06 - 00;34;09;20
Aaron
But I feel like now it is starting to get like a little bit blurry, which is interesting and weird. I don't know how I feel about it yet.
00;34;09;23 - 00;34;26;12
Chris
You know, where, there's a lot of excitement and some that I'd like to return to is, I guess, both 4 or 5 and Claude three, seven. Their coded capabilities have gotten a lot better. And so people doing work with shaders are really excited about like, yeah, to level up, these new models are allowing.
00;34;26;20 - 00;34;47;06
Aaron
Yeah, you definitely can can do that Chris. Like if you it's worth your time to play around with it like Cod 3.7 is really good. Like the last 3.5 is really good and 3.7 is even better. It just every month it feels like it just gets smoother and smoother, better and better. It just it's it's delightful. Like and I think that's the right word for it.
00;34;47;08 - 00;35;04;13
Aaron
Like it's not perfect, but it just really it makes programing fun. And even if you wanted to build a shader, Chris, you can and you can really just be like, I don't like the way this looks, or change this or add this color and you can do it. Same thing with like P5 jazz. And you know, a lot of WebGL stuff too.
00;35;04;15 - 00;35;20;10
Aaron
It kind of gets me bullish about the metaverse, because I feel like that's what people need for to build more immersive worlds. Like, you kind of need a bunch of folks that know how to build more complicated, you know, visual, visual based code. And it feels like this stuff's gonna make that a bit.
00;35;20;13 - 00;35;42;22
Chris
Yeah, it's definitely on my to do list, because I had a lot of fun with that. With web sim around, like last April ish, you know, was doing a lot of, like, rudimentary, like, shader stuff with Claude. And then at a certain point, I found the boundaries of which it couldn't pass. And it was very much like small repetitive refinements, even to get to those point.
00;35;42;22 - 00;35;54;15
Chris
And so if it's faster, more responsive, more powerful, that's really something I want to jump back in on. But like shaders, let's get some shaders out there. Let's move there. Pretty.
00;35;54;18 - 00;35;59;25
Aaron
Yeah. Let's move past P5. Let's get more joy in the NFT space.
00;35;59;28 - 00;36;20;11
Pri
Well, welcome to Net Society Welcome Home, a podcast where we discuss digital art, crypto, AI, tech and more. It's me, Chris and Aaron. Today we bring you deep insights, fresh perspectives, and hitting on some themes that we have explored in many of the DAOs and the timeline and beyond. Just as a quick disclaimer, these thoughts are our own and not of our employer.
00;36;20;13 - 00;36;22;05
Aaron
And are not financial advice.
00;36;22;07 - 00;36;24;08
Pri
And not financial advice.
00;36;24;10 - 00;36;34;18
Chris
Well, I give financial advice everything just goes the other direction. Does anyone really want financial advice called like hunker down and take your beatings?
00;36;34;20 - 00;36;55;15
Aaron
And I mean, or they just take the long view. You know, I didn't that's a healthy thing to do. And just I don't know, I honestly, I feel super optimistic. Just about everything. It's really like one of the few times I feel misaligned with the rest of the market. Either I'm missing something there or it just waiting it out.
00;36;55;15 - 00;37;14;07
Aaron
Chris, sometimes that's the best thing. I feel like the Bitcoiners kind of learn this, you know, just like, yeah, they can just be like comfortable and chill in their position and they kind of know the world is bending, you know, towards the, at the laser eyes. And it feels like that's the case. I feel like there's just like a quiet confidence in that.
00;37;14;07 - 00;37;30;06
Aaron
And that's kind of what the eath and frankly, like for even the NFT community just needs to do. And just it gives a lot more freedom to run around. You don't need to try hard and build like really thoughtful art. You should just release a sub doc, right? It's kind of what you were saying. I think you're spot on on that.
00;37;30;08 - 00;37;51;15
Chris
Every once in a while. Like, we need some absurdity. We need some joy. We need some variety in life. We need to scratch our heads and say, what the fuck is this? And not not scratch our heads and say, why the fuck are people paying this money for Botto, right? Like we need cheaper, more abundant, curious things that we can all scratching our heads over for like 100 bucks.
00;37;51;20 - 00;38;02;18
Pri
Can I just share a headline that I just saw speaking of is Trump Organization Plans a metaverse, an NFT platform with the new trademark let's go, I guess for the metaverse.
00;38;02;21 - 00;38;07;24
Aaron
What is it? Mar-A-Lago? Mario. Meta. Meta Lago. Oh, man, that a Lago.
00;38;07;27 - 00;38;09;19
Pri
That's actually a pretty good name.
00;38;09;22 - 00;38;25;20
Aaron
I you know, I think people are like a little shell shocked, to be honest, after the last four years, and they don't realize that there is like a bit of a phase shift. And I feel like I feel like a lot of the ETH community just needs to go back and build what they wanted to build in 2021 because people liked it.
00;38;25;20 - 00;38;47;10
Aaron
It was it. It wasn't perfect, right? But I think you're right, Chris. Like, people wanted to like, have fun together with people on the internet. And like, that is not this current wave of meme coins. Like, that's just, you know, something else, something a little bit darker to me. And I think it's even on the other earlier bits, like a I think people way back in 2016 wanted to play around with tokens.
00;38;47;10 - 00;39;10;10
Aaron
And the government at this point, at least in the US, is saying, sure, do that. If you're not a bad actor, right? With other limitations, and obviously you want to talk to a lawyer about that. But I feel like a lot of that, like bravado and energy that was in the space in like 2016, people have just been so beaten down that they've kind of forgot that they just need to go back and think about that and rebuild some of those really great ideas.
00;39;10;12 - 00;39;23;04
Aaron
And I'm hoping that that's what happens, whether it is a metaverse in Mar-A-Lago or, or a dumb internet character. Like, I think we should press on this stuff a lot more. I hope we do.
00;39;23;06 - 00;39;46;17
Chris
Yeah, white knuckling it and then jumping out into, you know, the most volatile stakes possible. Yeah. On the off chance that, you know what, you're the one who, reaches escape velocity and wins it all. That's that's no way to list. I mean, well, people have been living that way, and they've been dying that way, and then they've have resuscitating themselves, you know, it's like that.
00;39;46;19 - 00;39;55;18
Chris
Oh. That movie out right now, the, is it 17 with your man, James Garfield there, or there's a copy of him, and he he keeps getting killed.
00;39;55;20 - 00;40;03;02
Aaron
Oh, really? I didn't even hear about that. I thought you were going to say the brutal as Chris. It's three. A three hour slog of brutality.
00;40;03;05 - 00;40;07;06
Chris
You know, Adrien Brody, he's got an AI assist on this. And Gary, an action on that one.
00;40;07;13 - 00;40;25;11
Aaron
There we go. Let's go. We did. Just builds kind of internally. It's proof of concept. We're going to show it. But you can really start chatting with these agents pretty easily even that's that coming together. It's pretty wild. I mean you really could have made some of those early NFT projects where they wanted to have, like talking characters or storytelling characters.
00;40;25;11 - 00;40;40;02
Aaron
Like, a lot of that stuff feels like it's there. That's why I was curious if 4.5 actually had a personality, because if it does, like some of those thoughts and ideas, I think we can finally bring bring to life. I really can't believe that Trump is going to build a metaverse platform that's wild.
00;40;40;04 - 00;40;43;16
Chris
Like Meadow Lago. My god.
00;40;43;19 - 00;40;47;09
Aaron
Is that the title for this week's episode? I think so,
00;40;47;11 - 00;40;49;06
Chris
Yeah, I definitely.
00;40;49;06 - 00;41;06;24
Aaron
I meant to mention this Chris DSA and a lot of the kind of like decentralized inference and compute stuff. Also lots of interest related to that. And a lot of the good builders and other folks in the space are are here. And, you know, they're convicted. It's kind of nice to say.
00;41;06;27 - 00;41;22;14
Chris
Yeah, you need those fresh waves of people with fresh use cases to keep getting out there. But I don't want to hold you. You get over to the Denver Western Beef Slab Stockade and Convention Center or wherever the heck does things out. And you know.
00;41;22;17 - 00;41;24;12
Aaron
Yeah, that's exactly what it is. You nailed.
00;41;24;12 - 00;41;35;03
Chris
It. All right, I, man, have a good one. Bye.
00;41;35;05 - 00;41;45;05
Chris
For.