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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;29
Chris
So, we're all riding highs from the no permit, which is probably going to mint out while we record this podcast.
00;00;22;01 - 00;00;24;19
Pri
I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually minted out right now.
00;00;24;23 - 00;00;29;08
Aaron
Now, I just checked there's eight remaining there. Nice. There's some really beautiful ones. And in there.
00;00;29;12 - 00;00;37;24
Derek
Yeah, I will say I'm into to. I really, really like this drop and I'm a little bit bummed just looking at this tick down and not being able to mint more.
00;00;38;00 - 00;00;44;00
Aaron
I felt the same way. I was not in love with my mint, although they're all great, but just looking at the other options, there's.
00;00;44;00 - 00;00;47;27
Pri
Some listed on secondary right now that are pretty nice. I might add.
00;00;48;00 - 00;00;54;01
Aaron
I don't disagree. I like this kind of like esthetic. I feel like it's like clean and modern. He's got a really good eye. Yeah.
00;00;54;01 - 00;00;55;00
Chris
He does,
00;00;55;02 - 00;00;57;02
Pri
Reminds me of my, like, Florida life.
00;00;57;08 - 00;01;05;24
Aaron
Yeah, it's kind of like a neo 80s esthetic is that I'm trying to put words. Words to it, but there's something to that.
00;01;05;26 - 00;01;12;01
Chris
There is like a sunny Crockett staring out at Biscayne Bay vibe to some of the sets, wondering where it all went wrong.
00;01;12;08 - 00;01;34;24
Pri
It kind of has, like you know how like 824, like loves Florida and they have that like book on Florida and it's very like Florida lawn chair office space, cloud waves like esthetic kind of also just has like that overlay of a specific like type of like film and framing. I feel like that's what the set captures to me a little bit like it feels a little bit.
00;01;34;28 - 00;01;37;27
Pri
Yeah. It feels very like Florida. I don't know, I can't describe it.
00;01;37;28 - 00;01;47;27
Aaron
Yeah, that's a great description. It's also has like that slight glitching to it, which I think is yeah, it kind of like embodies the time I guess. We are living in Florida as America now, all of us.
00;01;47;29 - 00;01;49;09
Pri
Oh my God. It's a good point.
00;01;49;14 - 00;01;55;00
Chris
Yeah. He's he's down in Saint Pete, so he's he's near your people tree. Maybe that's why you feel it so much.
00;01;55;06 - 00;02;08;14
Pri
I know well, I'm like I was actually looking at some of the frames thinking like, maybe I recognize some of those places, but I need to spend a little more time with the full set. But it's super interesting. Yeah, I need to hit him up. Got that Saint Pete connect that.
00;02;08;14 - 00;02;14;11
Aaron
Just what is his background? I didn't dig into that as much, but who is an over? So he's in he's in Florida.
00;02;14;14 - 00;02;45;03
Chris
Yeah. We had a one's faces yesterday. Really, really nice guy. He is, he's he's down in Saint Petersburg. Grew up there, spent his life on the water, did, some skating, skateboarding, art photography. These are all, you know, things in his background. And then in his professional life, he worked in a marketing company. And a lot of this, the set, actually, he was developing kind of, you know, in the background of his work also.
00;02;45;03 - 00;03;16;05
Chris
Well, rendering out video for four hours straight, he would kind of flip over to this. He's also done a bit of commercial production work, especially for musical acts. He did no doubt set at Coachella, when they had Olivia Rodrigo come on, he in the background for all that? He's he's done a bit for Future and Metro Boomin, but he really wants to be an artist, wants to have the time and the space to air it out and translate the world as he sees it through the magic of AI.
00;03;16;06 - 00;03;37;03
Chris
He's a big, comfy, comfy UI. Guy. Can't remember what other factoids about life and nobody he shared yesterday. This problem with hosting these things is, you know, you're busy making sure you're you're moving things along and, you know, fully absorbing everything. But, he was a great guest and really happy that we got to work with him, for this letter drop.
00;03;37;05 - 00;03;47;28
Pri
Yes. I'm. I'm also really looking forward to the. Andrea, undress and Andrea drop coming up, too. I think that'll be great. And probably, you know, equally well received. So I think those will be awesome.
00;03;48;01 - 00;03;52;21
Aaron
It's a great trilogy. I'm looking forward to the guy some guy. Someone personally.
00;03;52;23 - 00;03;55;07
Chris
Yeah. We're all huge guys and stand.
00;03;55;09 - 00;03;57;06
Pri
Ethan for the win, as we say.
00;03;57;09 - 00;03;58;01
Chris
There you go.
00;03;58;01 - 00;04;19;03
Pri
Cool. Well, maybe we kick off the pod guys. So as you guys know, this is net society. We have Derek, Chris, ER and myself on. We're here exploring the world of digital art, crypto, AI tech, bringing you deep insights, fresh perspectives, hitting on some of the themes that are explored in some of the Dallas and beyond. I think the intent is really to have like, free flowing, wild, fun conversations together on a weekly basis.
00;04;19;03 - 00;04;37;10
Pri
So yeah, it's good to go in. I feel like there's definitely a lot in the water right now. You know, speaking of water biology, connecting the dots, do we want to start with D side? Because that's definitely in the meta. Right. And I feel like there's this larger conversation of it being a meme or real. I'd be curious like, do we want to kind of tee up for people?
00;04;37;10 - 00;05;04;01
Pri
What do you say is DSA literally stands for decentralized science? But, you know, the the core idea is that this is a movement and an idea that really leverages blockchain and crypto to make scientific research and biotech IP, you know, more democratized, democratize and accessible. And, you know, giving all people the ability to influence the outcome of health care, medical research, so on and so forth.
00;05;04;01 - 00;05;08;16
Pri
So there's like a lot to talk about with DSA. Who wants to kind of kick this off?
00;05;08;17 - 00;05;43;17
Derek
I can add a couple notes. I think there's I mean, you guys are very, very close to this where we're tracking closely and are participating in a couple of these organizations. But I mean, functionally, DSI, like you said, pre it maybe to start with the problem statement, the idea is that like today, scientific research and the commercialization around scientific research is very clunky, very opaque, not very efficient, both between like the funding of this stuff, the tracking of the stuff, the data sharing of this stuff, the actual commercialization and approval process and blockchains are really good at turning inefficiency and opacity into kind of like very clean, transparent, official systems.
00;05;43;20 - 00;06;07;14
Derek
We did it with commodity money. We're doing it with finance. We're doing it with art, collectibles, gaming and culture and social and all these other things. And the thought I think, you know, a few years ago by folks that were at the bleeding edge here was like, okay, what can we imply apply like the same core value prop of what makes blockchain and crypto economic incentives disrupt these other systems to science and scientific research and addressing some of these challenges.
00;06;07;14 - 00;06;27;15
Derek
And so that's really what desires you can think of it as just like trying to improve and operationalize the way innovations hit the market in terms of, in terms of like scientific progress. Now, there's a lot of flavors to how that's being approached. There's folks that are working at the at the bleeding edge of like the systems to create that kind of flow of traffic.
00;06;27;15 - 00;06;52;03
Derek
There's other folks that are kind of working at like the IP level and trying to, you know, figure out the it, figure out and invest an index across like categories of, let's call it scientific research on blockchains. There's others that are maybe a little bit less, science heavy, but more, funding and commercialization heavy that and platforms to support some of that experimentation and, maybe that's just how I would kind of, like, tee up and frame the opportunity.
00;06;52;06 - 00;07;11;15
Aaron
Yeah. I think you guys both did a great job teeing that up. And this is just something that the members of our DAOs have been very interested in for quite some time. They helped launch and and support a Dao called Picador, which has been exploring this for, I think, a year, year and a half. So kudos to all the members, those as that kind of saw that opportunity off the bat.
00;07;11;15 - 00;07;34;26
Aaron
I think it's it's super interesting just to see the development of DSA. I think the first time I heard it, I, I was supportive personally, but also skeptical that this global network of capital and people would be able to begin to self assemble and form and actually fund core scientific research. I've kind of changed my tune a little bit and see that opportunity space a bit more.
00;07;34;26 - 00;07;53;27
Aaron
I think a big reason I believe that is just simply seeing the growth in crypto capital that has been happening over the past couple of months and frankly, the past decade. And just thinking about what impact that will have on broader society. And it just seems like this is going to be a good place for that. I don't know if you wanted to expand on that, Chris.
00;07;53;28 - 00;07;58;01
Aaron
I think you've articulated that really well in other and other channels.
00;07;58;01 - 00;08;27;23
Chris
Sure. So I did not have any hesitation around this. I saw it and was immediately geeked out on it. That's because I had some adjacency to the problem areas way back in my my university days, where I did spend a year down at the research facility, the marine biological lab, and I did a lot of work with graduate students, postdocs, PhDs, and, you know, got first hand exposure to the problems and challenges people who want to do science face.
00;08;27;23 - 00;08;53;21
Chris
And there's two big areas, you know, that really stood out to me, which was one funding and into the, the hierarchical organizational model that goes on in these labs and in these organizations, where in a lot of instances, researchers are at the mercy of the head of their lab, the professor, in terms of what work gets approved, what levels of support is given.
00;08;53;21 - 00;09;13;23
Chris
And, you know, I had friends down there who fell out with their professors or the direction of the research that they wanted to pursue didn't align with the labs. And those people ended up out on an island, you know, they were in a tough spot where you have to find someone else to want to sponsor your project and, you know, sit underneath them.
00;09;13;23 - 00;09;48;13
Chris
And if they can't find that, they really do end up in a no man's land. And so, just from my personal perspective, you know, as it relates to this, I think it unlocks the ability for people to get out there and do their own investigations to find, you know, people who want to support that work and give them that capital formation, coordinate and, and community building apparatus that they can't find within, you know, perhaps a traditional research environment or in the, pharmaceutical industry and the drug development pipeline.
00;09;48;13 - 00;10;07;21
Chris
And so one one way I like to think about this is, is simply there is a ton of talent in this world that's being held back because they don't have the money and support they need to go out and do their work. One of the most famous examples of this was, the woman who developed, Crispr Cas9.
00;10;07;21 - 00;10;32;05
Chris
Her ideas at the time were considered very maverick, very radical, and she languished for a while. And, unfortunately, I can't remember her name, but she ultimately won a Nobel Prize. And her techniques for gene editing are now unlocking this whole set of ways for us to move forward. But that's an instance where she couldn't find the right footing within the world.
00;10;32;05 - 00;10;52;08
Chris
And it's a real struggle. I mean, I didn't end up in the sciences. A lot of it was because I had to make a living and I couldn't find the avenues to do it. You know, in my field of study and so that's one reason, I'm really, really excited about this. But I do think, you know, it extends beyond that, right?
00;10;52;08 - 00;11;17;01
Chris
Like there's the practical application of improving people's lives, improving the world we live in. And then there's additional layers that, you know, desire starts to extend into, which makes it a much broader and more interesting category than perhaps people are aware of at a surface level. James Brody, who is in our house, who, you know, work in, drug development for, you know, over a decade.
00;11;17;03 - 00;11;38;26
Chris
He's one of the people who really has been leading the charge around DSI in our space. And he made a really good point, which is DSI is consumer crypto, that a lot of these, projects are creating consumer goods in the health area that are kind of come to market faster than, you know, maybe some other areas of consumer crypto.
00;11;38;26 - 00;12;09;04
Chris
And so, you know, you can almost think about like design as part research, consumer goods and in the health and wellness areas. But then it also it extends into lifestyle. You know, if you really open your mind up and take a broad view of this, this is this is an area where a lot of the people who succeeded in crypto, who are, you know, well, past solving for basic needs, are now looking for like meaning and actualization in their lives.
00;12;09;05 - 00;12;36;14
Chris
They're choosing to support, invest and, you know, take on like DSI as a lifestyle with meaning for them. And it's not too hard to look at like surf culture or snowboarding or, you know, some of these niche things decades ago that then blew up into these huge lifestyle movements and industries and see, you know, longevity, health, wellness as emerging out of, desire as well.
00;12;36;18 - 00;13;01;09
Pri
I totally agree and totally agree with the problems that too. I think those are really good points, Chris. I think the other thing which I found compelling when, you know, Beaker had a bunch of early like the hair now folks and other people, how much of all this is dictated by incentives and funding? And like a lot of the incentives for pharmaceutical defined pharmaceutical industries to find cures to certain things is incentivized by profit and, you know, market opportunity.
00;13;01;20 - 00;13;29;09
Pri
So it kind of leaves the leaves certain segments unveiled, to, to get that research. I think they get the research and the expense to actually do the R&D around like drug development, because it's an extremely capital intensive process. And so if you're able to make it such that a group of people want to do that through something that looks similar to an ICO, that's going to changes the incentive a bit, even if it doesn't necessarily lead to some cure of some sort of.
00;13;29;09 - 00;13;57;01
Pri
I think the other thing that was interesting to me is just government, NIH and other research funding. Biomedical research funding is done. It's it's usually leans towards like safe sciences. So certain categories that tend to get funded continue to get funded. So it also kind of shoehorns a lot of the scientists and others kind of what you were mentioning to focus on specific areas of medical research or drug development, because that's where the funding comes from at a federal level.
00;13;57;01 - 00;14;18;25
Pri
So it's just created these like worked incentives for people where if you kind of democratize it and a bunch of people, for example, care about hair loss, and they can just create a Dao and, and fund that and, and decide to do like their diligence as they see fit. Find a researcher or university professor out there that's researching it, purchase that, put the IP on an NFT and create a marketplace around that.
00;14;18;25 - 00;14;49;13
Pri
Or, you know, have the funding for that research to the token. I think like that kind of mechanic is super compelling and different, and it feels like a great use case for crypto. Like I, I think that's the kind of stuff that gets me excited as well. So I'm totally with you. And from like a trend perspective, which you were kind of getting at at the end of what you were speaking to, is just I think that there is just like a more global awareness and desire to care about longevity, health, you know, process.
00;14;49;15 - 00;15;13;17
Pri
Food's just what people are actually consuming. There's some sort of global like desire to to get back to a point where we're like eating things that, you know, have names of, chemicals and such that we actually recognize, and people are starting to care more. You see that over like the last five, ten year trend line. And people like Brian Johnson are becoming more I mean, he's he's he's becoming more of an icon.
00;15;13;20 - 00;15;32;06
Pri
You know, he has that Netflix stock that's coming out. I would not be surprised. At some point he becomes like he's going to be walking down like the run like a Balenciaga runway. Like I think he's going to be a cultural icon at some point. And so like where we're heading to from, just like a trend perspective, is the amount of money effort going into, you know, what people's vitamin stocks people have every day.
00;15;32;06 - 00;15;46;23
Pri
These things are something that younger generations are starting to pay attention to and have become. And like the knowledge base has just grown. So much that it's becoming actually cool to take care of yourself and want to live forever, which I feel like before potentially was like a little taboo.
00;15;46;27 - 00;16;11;16
Aaron
Yeah, those are great points, especially as a thought man. I can understand why people may want to solve that, or have concern over it. I think also for me, it's it's just this idea of like crypto folks wanting to build institutions and where are they going to build it. And I think, like, Chris, you did a great job kind of articulating the problem set like this gap and funding, you know, the biases they're not necessarily nefarious or just existing institutions.
00;16;11;16 - 00;16;31;20
Aaron
And then I think you did a great job kind of outlining some of the potential for this space. But I think the big meta trend that I find the most interesting is this notion that all this crypto capital is going to want to build global internet native institutions. And some of the first institutions that they may want to build is around science, which kind of makes sense, right?
00;16;31;20 - 00;16;45;04
Aaron
Like a lot of the folks that have been in this space for a long time love technology. They may be like a little bit dorky and geeky, may have like a science or technical background, and like, this is how they want to improve the world in like a positive way. So excited to kind of see that moving forward.
00;16;45;04 - 00;16;54;13
Aaron
And I think that there's a lot of interesting and, and hopefully impactful work that comes out of DSI over the next couple of years and hopefully even decades after that.
00;16;54;13 - 00;17;02;12
Pri
The network state longevity DSI, Venn diagram is like very, very much overlapped. I feel like there's that's a really good point, Aaron.
00;17;02;12 - 00;17;34;18
Derek
Yeah, I'll add one note, which is like, Aaron I think you are like me in that I think when you first heard about DSI, I think there was some like very clear skepticism in terms of just like how you can bring these systems to like, mix and match with, like these on chain ingredients in a way that was consistent with how laws have been created around, you know, things like data and GDPR or like the legal gray area of of liability with within these structures, or how you can actually enforce the rights of I call it like a DSI IP in a place where like these tokens are bearer like.
00;17;34;24 - 00;18;01;29
Derek
And I think these are still legitimate questions that need to get sorted. But the thing that you said there at the end, which really resonates with me, is just like the capital and the wealth that's created in this space is going to continue to flow to these sectors in ways that are kind of like native to kind of like how the next generation of this technology is getting built across law and science and politics and gaming and culture and art, and it's you know, I mean, we've seen this as we've kind of run through the sectors and the categories of crypto over the last 15 years.
00;18;01;29 - 00;18;23;21
Derek
It just like this money finds its way into these new categories and builds these new systems because they're native to this space. And like you can get the general trend direction correct, even if the details still need to get sorted out and kind of refined and optimized. I'm also optimistic, even in light of kind of like the the logistical or like the technical challenges required to do a heavy job like this.
00;18;23;21 - 00;18;44;14
Aaron
Yeah. And I think to your point, because I think you're edging into it, it's kind of like Web2 really was platforms. And this is just another manifestation about how we're moving towards networks. Right. And this is network science, right? Just like we saw networked gold and then networked other commodities. So now we're thinking about how to build network native systems off of that.
00;18;44;14 - 00;18;52;15
Aaron
And it seems like sys one of the first ones out of the the gate to explore that in a different category. It's super exciting.
00;18;52;16 - 00;19;05;13
Pri
I agree, I think the one thing because I feel like we all kind of agree with the, you know, the fact that there's a lot of potential there, but there is like this thought that there's a lot of it's getting willed into existence. It feels a little meme. It feels like a little memetic, you know, is there something real behind it?
00;19;05;13 - 00;19;21;21
Pri
I feel like there are some people on the timeline that definitely feel like there's a bigger case to be had. Do we agree that it like, probably requires a little bit more maturity and sorting through, but like there is something real here, as opposed to the people who are on the timeline that are just like super bearish, just, you know, kind of feel like it's meme coin ish.
00;19;21;21 - 00;19;40;03
Derek
Well, it's like it's very it's very similar to regulated assets on chain. I know a bunch of the people on this call have like thought a lot about that. It's there's no question that like we get tokenized real world assets and tokenized securities and heavily regulated off chain assets put into kind of like a new form factor using crypto and blockchains.
00;19;40;03 - 00;20;13;16
Derek
Like it's so obvious, like what you get when you when you start kind of rerecording all of that information into onto trust minimized databases. I think the bear case for me isn't that like that's where we're like, we're definitely going there on some timeline. The bear case is just like, there's a lot more that needs to get built when you start interfacing with the regulated sector and the and like implying these different touch points where like I've regulated categories like private data and information and and liability and creating kind of like this nexus between the thing that's off chain and the rights associated with like this thing that's on chain that can be globally priced
00;20;13;16 - 00;20;31;01
Derek
in a market. I think the only bear case that holds water to me is just like, that stuff is hard and it takes time, and you need smart people working through that and in the trenches, like building the pipes for that type of value flow to happen on blockchains. And I recognize that that is a much harder job to be done than putting crypto art on a blockchain.
00;20;31;01 - 00;20;34;18
Derek
That's really a it's like, this stuff's definitely. Yeah. And I think just yeah. Go ahead.
00;20;34;18 - 00;21;00;03
Aaron
Aaron I was just I completely agree. And it's raw. Right. And I think that's why it's healthy to have that skepticism. But I think we're seeing in a couple categories you're seeing that kind of like memetic will to like will something into existence around like decentralized AI, right. And compute in different capacities. And I think what we've seen is like things that start really raw when they're in this like networked state to start, they tend to mature over time.
00;21;00;12 - 00;21;21;08
Aaron
The interfaces with the regulated economy get sorted out. And I'm assuming that that's really what's going to happen in earnest over the next couple of years. I mean, I think people believe that it's going to be like a Wild West period for crypto just because of the administration change. I take like a slightly different stance, which is it's really going to focus in on what you just described.
00;21;21;08 - 00;21;47;07
Aaron
Eric, like, how do we attach these real world assets into traditional markets and traditional categories? And I think, you know, scientific research is going to be a piece of that. Right. Universities are a little bit stretched right now just in terms of allocating capital to core scientific research. I think there's a huge possibility that that continues or gets worse under this administration where funding is cut, there's demand to fund kind of core scientific research.
00;21;47;07 - 00;22;05;16
Aaron
And I think that's going to come in part from this crypto world that's getting created. And that's a good thing, right? Like, we shouldn't just be as an ecosystem, just about various different meme coins, like we should be making like a broader impact solving, you know, some of these capital gaps, like you mentioned before, Chris, in a way that it makes everything better.
00;22;05;16 - 00;22;22;21
Aaron
So I think there's a really optimistic case for for this. And at the same time, the the people that that had that have that skepticism. Now I'm sympathetic to it. I just think over time that that will get quelled and this stuff will just get installed more broadly across the world. And maybe they'll solve hair loss pretty probably be good for my kids.
00;22;22;21 - 00;22;41;26
Pri
Good point. Yeah. I mean, I think I think we'll see where it all goes. It's definitely fun to kind of see the different like I think bio exposure is a great platform where you're seeing a lot of scientific research starting to get funded already, like I mentioned here, no, but there's like a long Covid one. There's a that just you know, is about to do a launch.
00;22;41;26 - 00;23;05;07
Pri
And then, you know, there's quantum biology. There's, you know, it's a whole range of different areas of focus. So if there's like a specific, you know, scientific corner that is appealing to you to like, learn about or see how online communities are starting to rally around them, I feel like that's a great spot to to go. Like I oftentimes just like go to their website just to see like what new deals are, are getting formed and, and created there.
00;23;05;07 - 00;23;31;29
Chris
Look at you guys talking up your organizational model bags like that, pumping the Tribute Labs utility by expanding into the world of decentralized science. But that's what it takes, right? It takes a lot of contributions from people with different skill sets. It can't all be capital formation and writing checks to researchers. You need an entire ecosystem develop around this, as you mentioned, for it to be successful.
00;23;31;29 - 00;23;55;23
Chris
So I'm very excited about this. This is one of those, I think, few areas within crypto that you can just speak very, optimistically and positively about knowing that the net good of what's coming out of here should be indisputable to people, whereas, you know, so many other areas in our space, you kind of get ahead, hem and haw and hedge a little bit about what actually is going on.
00;23;55;25 - 00;23;57;09
Chris
This one is just super clear.
00;23;57;10 - 00;24;23;13
Aaron
Yeah, 100%. And I think it's going to be interesting to see what types of categories of health longevity therapeutics that it begins to address. I think a lot of things that kind of hit different people's timelines, like you were mentioning before about Brian Johnson. Longevity is really at the tip of the sphere. You know, there's so many people impacted by so many different unfortunate health related things that I imagine that these disparate groups, Chris, are going to start banding together to solve them.
00;24;23;21 - 00;24;28;02
Aaron
They don't need the legacy institutions to do that. They can build new institutions.
00;24;28;02 - 00;24;36;14
Chris
Just imagine if you could live another 100 years what the floor price of Cryptopunks will be by the time you finally say, I've walked this earth enough.
00;24;37;13 - 00;24;42;04
Aaron
You know, and I'm sure they're going to they're going to do well with my support without them.
00;24;42;04 - 00;24;43;20
Chris
But there you go.
00;24;43;26 - 00;24;49;08
Aaron
What else is been keeping folks out this, this week or so? I mean, there was some cool stuff on, I side.
00;24;49;09 - 00;24;49;26
Chris
Quantum.
00;24;50;00 - 00;24;53;16
Aaron
Yeah. The quantum stuff is really fascinating to me. What do you guys think about that?
00;24;53;17 - 00;25;01;15
Chris
You know, Aaron, I spent, two hours reading Twitter thread to become an expert in quantum chip design, and I go hours now. Are you.
00;25;01;15 - 00;25;03;04
Aaron
Ready? Are you an expert?
00;25;03;06 - 00;25;24;22
Chris
No, no, no, this one's out of my depth. I'm sorry. I find the quantum world to be fascinating and one of the last great frontiers for us to unpack and, you know, kind of open up. And once we do, I think there's going to be a whole set of assumptions that we took for granted to be, you know, completely upended just to tie this back to, like, d size for a quick second.
00;25;24;23 - 00;25;48;14
Chris
You know, quantum biology is a wild field that I didn't know existed until earlier this year. There's valid theories out there that smell, for instance, has a quantum element to it that the traditional, olfactory model of smell basically says it's the shape of the particle and how that shape attaches into, your olfactory system that triggers smell.
00;25;48;14 - 00;26;19;03
Chris
Except there's weird exceptions where you can have model molecules that have the exact same shape but have different, left and right hand properties to them. So they smell different, I believe, for instance, citrus and lemons and limes or oranges and limes. I can't remember exactly which one have the same exact molecular shape, but they smell different. And the theory is that it's not just the shape, but it's the vibration, the frequency of the vibration as that molecule travels through the air that dictated the element of smell.
00;26;19;03 - 00;26;22;16
Chris
And so that there's a quantum aspect to yourself. It's the.
00;26;22;16 - 00;26;23;00
Aaron
Vibes.
00;26;23;04 - 00;26;23;27
Chris
The vibes.
00;26;23;27 - 00;26;24;18
Aaron
The vibes.
00;26;24;18 - 00;26;27;03
Pri
There's a there is like a project. Osmo.
00;26;27;03 - 00;26;29;00
Aaron
Oh, the, I olfactory one.
00;26;29;00 - 00;26;35;22
Pri
Yeah. Which I feel like is adjacent to what you're saying. I mean, they're basically like particle izing smell to, like, create and smell. Yeah.
00;26;35;22 - 00;26;56;25
Aaron
I mean, Chris, I don't and I never would claim to understand any of this, but I it just feels like this stuff's happening. It seems like it's starting to pass that threshold where there's fundamental breakthroughs and it's probably just going to move faster over the next couple of years. So definitely an area to pay attention to. I'm excited to kind of beef up there a little bit, I think, for blockchains.
00;26;56;25 - 00;27;18;14
Aaron
But what is interesting though, is what happens if there are more of these breakthroughs, like does it impact the security of these ecosystems? Does it change kind of the fundamental crypto economic primitives that underlie it? And I think you can start to draw like some reasonable conclusions out of it. If quantum makes it easier to calculate things, what does that mean for like Bitcoin and and proof of work.
00;27;18;14 - 00;27;39;12
Aaron
And then there's like a lot of nitty gritty, nitty gritty questions related to how do you keep a blockchain secure via signatures? I think on the proof of work bet that's the most interesting. So you can imagine quantum break breakthroughs that getting commercialized and certain validators or miners beginning to adopt it. It's kind of a raises some questions just about the proof of work model.
00;27;39;12 - 00;27;59;19
Aaron
The natural conclusion there is Bitcoin would get even more centralized at the miner level, which opens up risks of like 51% tax. And like all these scary scenarios for security, I think that part's pretty pretty interesting to think through. It also means, by implication, like proof of stake systems would be a little less resistant to some of those concerns potentially.
00;27;59;19 - 00;28;12;11
Aaron
So it just going to really put to test like some of these core fundamental crypto, crypto economic assumptions that underlie some of the blockchains. So that part's pretty fascinating for you and for cakes out there.
00;28;12;11 - 00;28;43;17
Pri
I feel like for the audience, like it's funny. It's really weird. What hits like normal and my friends who aren't in the space or like even in tech and like the questions they decide to text me. And one question I got from like literally three different people, one of which I, you know, I feel like I don't even I have to actually respond to these because I'm like, I don't even know what to tell them fully is, if this quantum thing, like, kills crypto for whatever reason, that that's that's on the radar of, some people now do have you guys have like, a Eli five on on why this doesn't really affect crypto
00;28;43;17 - 00;28;45;25
Pri
to the extent that I think maybe the masses believe.
00;28;45;27 - 00;29;08;29
Aaron
I think the answer is it won't. It may require Bitcoin and the ether network to upgrade. A little easier to do that on the Ethereum side, just because they've done it more than the, the Bitcoin folks have in a while. Secondarily, it just introduces some security risks to Bitcoin just in terms of validator consolidation. Short answer yellow like five is should it break it.
00;29;08;29 - 00;29;23;10
Aaron
But we'll take some work to kind of address some of the technical points related to it. But I think the roadmaps there have been known by many folks for quite some time. So it's more kind of like an implementation type challenge more than like, oh, you know, the sky's type falling type of a scenario.
00;29;23;12 - 00;29;49;27
Derek
Yeah, I'll just I'll 100% agree. I think the only thing I would add is just, I think on some timeline call it like ten, 15, 20 years obviously like quantum, and, and and it's, quantum computing is application to and like advancements here does pose some threat to like the security systems of like these blockchains. Now I think Bitcoin's encryption so Sha 256 or mining and ecdsa for private public key pairs.
00;29;49;27 - 00;30;10;28
Derek
I think, these things are vulnerable. But I would also say known. And I would say for virtually every other major chain, like thinking about quantum has been on part of the research roadmap since as long as I can remember. This is like, clockwork. But like every part of the cycle where momentum starts coming back into the space, like there's some quantum threat that gets introduced and like the same conversations recycle.
00;30;11;00 - 00;30;29;29
Derek
And I think Aaron's spot on, which is just like the stuff these risks are known and there are migrations, from a technology perspective, to be able to incorporate some of, like this quantum resistance into like the core mechanisms. Bitcoin is the one I'm a little bit more shaky on, mostly because like, there's such an aversion to changing the core protocol in any meaningful way.
00;30;30;00 - 00;30;52;15
Derek
But I will also say like this is a social technology first and can I'm just presuming that, like, you know, most folks want to push these things into kind of their the best versions of their networked self. And I'm, I guess I'm just like less concerned knowing how, how social and getting consensus around like, these upgrades, can be over time even for hardened, hard, hard lined, core protocols like Bitcoin.
00;30;52;15 - 00;31;14;28
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I think like on these types of issues, like that's where the core devs and supporting ecosystem will probably push to have upgrades. I actually think this has been underexplored a little bit, but the quantum stuff actually is much, much worse for legacy financial infrastructure because they're going to have to go through that same upgrade and coordination around that upgrade, which is going to be easier, not blockchain based network.
00;31;15;01 - 00;31;15;20
Chris
It's true.
00;31;15;21 - 00;31;35;08
Aaron
They're going to be able to like upgrade and account for this when it's going to be harder for all the different actors and players to do that in the traditional systems. So their security is equally probably even more so compromised. I wouldn't be surprised if in the long run this just benefits Bitcoin and Ethereum even more, which is will be classic crypto like no other way to describe it.
00;31;35;08 - 00;31;53;00
Derek
No it's true, I'll just say like this stuff is so plastic, like we're dealing with zeros and ones, and as long as like there's social consensus to to move to higher ground, which there always is around this stuff, then these core protocols like can get reshaped and reconfigured to like to kind of, represent kind of best in class technology.
00;31;53;04 - 00;32;15;15
Derek
And we've seen, I mean, going from east to east 2.0 to dumping proof of work and moving to proof of stake. I mean, we've seen versions of this over time. These migrations are difficult but always achievable. And for some, for for such a known event and for for as much conversation as, as quantum has had on this technology for I'm basically 15 years, I'm it's not I'm not losing any sleep right now on the quantum stuff.
00;32;15;18 - 00;32;36;06
Aaron
Yeah. But that's the advantage to like blockchain network, right. Like once the network upgrades and deals with that security, it gets propagated through all the applications, services, businesses built on top of it. That's why I always think one of the core things people miss about the tech is that it fundamentally is like security. That drives a lot of the value that these networks, you know, have provided and will provide.
00;32;36;08 - 00;32;56;21
Aaron
And we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg and what you can do if you provide a secure network for the financial system is we see a little bit of it in the media category, but I think it's going to be everywhere just because of these like very, very basic ways that you can, through social coordination, easily upgrade to deal with emerging security threats in a neutral environment.
00;32;56;24 - 00;33;01;15
Aaron
Super powerful, super boring. But I just think it's going to become more and more important over time.
00;33;01;18 - 00;33;19;22
Chris
Can we use that as a transition point here? You mentioned media and the tip of the iceberg. I would like to talk about who's Project Dqg and what one can do with 1100 and some creative system design in the AI space. Did you guys get to play with that?
00;33;19;22 - 00;33;28;14
Aaron
Yeah, no, I actually didn't. As much as I wanted to, Chris. So I'd love to hear Kanye read on on that project and experiment. Big fan of pools and other creative stuff coming out of him.
00;33;28;14 - 00;33;36;25
Pri
He get a great recap thread today too, but you should definitely, teed up because I thought it was like one of the coolest things I've seen happen in space. Like actually got me excited.
00;33;36;28 - 00;34;16;12
Chris
This is a project that it got really good participation, but I think its importance or its relevance will be far more significant in hindsight. Agenda like AI and like system type design certainly migrating into the world of media and we start seeing new forms of media. That's one thing that really got me excited about. This project is right now, because generative AI is still in its infancy, everyone treats it like this black box phenomena in which there's this underlying set of data and all you really care about is the outputs and the transformations that take place by tapping into that data.
00;34;16;12 - 00;34;44;03
Chris
And one of the interesting things about this project is it did reverse that flow in terms of like a community came together and populated, a vector database, right, by minting NFTs with, 28 characters of text just to, like, zoom out for a second. Basically, what was going on here is you went to the site and you minted stars and stars represented this text string.
00;34;44;03 - 00;35;11;19
Chris
You know, that basically was like 4 or 5 words, for every NFT and all of those NFT then populated, like, you know, this constellation or, you know, the sort of like solar system, they were grouped together by likeness. So, you know, if you, you wrote, you know, baseball as one of your stars and then someone else wrote one said, or let's go met this thing sort of clustered together because they're all like, like minded concepts.
00;35;11;19 - 00;35;33;14
Chris
And so I think he ended up having like 40 to 44,000 of the stars minted. So there was a lot of different data floating around out there. And then another aspect of it is every time NFT was minted, it gave an agent whose job it was to explore all, explore and interpret all of this, you know, universe, five seconds of life.
00;35;33;17 - 00;35;59;05
Chris
And so, you know, you multiply 42,000 by five, you end up with like almost three days of exploration. And so there was this unnamed agent who went around and just looked at all these things. And as I was looking at them, translated that into like, you know, thoughts or formed this little narrative, and that narrative generated a five second video, and then all those videos got stitched together in a Twitter live stream.
00;35;59;05 - 00;36;20;00
Chris
And so you could follow this journey, through like a visualization. And it just generated some very wild and interesting results. And it was completely fascinating. I found myself just having it running in the background while I was reading or cooking lasagna. Like, to some degree it was like people who, like, listen to Lo-Fi audio while they study.
00;36;20;02 - 00;36;30;01
Chris
It was a similar sort of companion, but more in like video form. Going through these weird latent landscapes and other worlds through the through machine media. Yeah, I.
00;36;30;01 - 00;36;56;07
Pri
Thought it was amazing. That was a great synopsis, I feel like of the project too, and the fact that you're able to it was like adding all these elements. I feel like we hear a lot about what it's like the, you know, there's an NFTs, but there is the AI video aspect, the agent aspect, different corners of both crypto AI that I think people are fascinated bringing it all together and then you also have almost like a communal element to it as well, where you had like it was really fun popping in the discord.
00;36;56;07 - 00;37;20;12
Pri
People are commenting on what echo the agent was, was saying. They were, you know, screen grabbing parts of the world. I that part I felt like was it felt like a net new media format. Kind of to your point, Chris, where people are creating the world through these events in real time, keeping this, this character alive, watching it kind of float through the universe together in these different world.
00;37;20;12 - 00;37;41;27
Pri
There's something about that felt pretty special. And, and, you know, there was probably like towards the end, I feel like the, the life of an echo, it was like there's like 5 or 6000 people that tuned into that. So even if you didn't necessarily participate in the mint or anything, you still were able to be a part of the life and story that was happening with this character.
00;37;41;27 - 00;37;45;29
Pri
And I thought the visuals were really well done to I will say, it was fun to watch.
00;37;45;29 - 00;37;56;29
Aaron
So playing it back, it was Afirmo media powered by NFTs, which had kind of gamified, gamified elements towards it. And the net result is new media, right? That's pretty.
00;37;56;29 - 00;38;23;01
Chris
Cool. Yeah. You got bottom up emerging art world building. You know, this is a totally different model than, you know, say, we have in scripted narratives where a writer has to produce an ending before they could even make the show or video games, right, that have to be meticulously designed. And they can't have like even a single little loose end to them because that could potentially, you know, undo the entire mechanic and ruin the experience.
00;38;23;03 - 00;38;49;07
Chris
This approach really was like exploratory, emergent, interactive. It it merged the concept of actor an audience into, you know, this one, this one blended form of participation. And it did, have some surprises to it. Like echo was supposed to die Tuesday, 6 p.m. eastern time. I had to go drop my son off at practice, and I was like, oh my God, I'm going to miss it.
00;38;49;07 - 00;39;10;04
Chris
And then I came back and like, people minted a ton more NFTs to keep it going. And so we got this, like, reverse time rug phenomenon that extended the life of it, and it kept running till quarter two that morning. And so I think there is that aspect of it as well where like participation is driving the experience.
00;39;10;04 - 00;39;26;22
Chris
That is really a fundamental flip from I'm going to sit on my couch, I'm going to turn on a program. The program has a defined runtime and a gazillion people already know how this is going to end versus, you know, this is happening and we don't know where it's going or what it's going to produce.
00;39;26;22 - 00;39;46;10
Aaron
Yeah. And then that's all going to get cheaper and cheaper to do. Right. So you get broader and broader distribution of these types of events. You can record what's happening and people can tune in and watch later if that's their preference. Right. But you could imagine just 100 x that experience and 100 reduce the cost by 100 X and improve the AI by 100 x.
00;39;46;10 - 00;39;57;17
Aaron
And that's probably what media looks like in the future, right? It's super cheap. Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions people participate in hyper realistic AI engines powering it. And it costs nothing.
00;39;57;23 - 00;40;13;14
Chris
That's the hope. That's division. I see. And it's worth noting, like this was an experiment. Like poof! Didn't know if anyone was going to give a shit. They didn't know if they would be able to pull it off. And so I think we saw a very primitive version of this because it was trying to test some very basic assumptions.
00;40;13;14 - 00;40;39;07
Chris
Once you start getting more confident and that there was a demand for this and what this platform or what this approach can actually do, you're going to see far more sophisticated versions of this that get into elements of storytelling or more evolved dynamics and mechanics going on. I think we really are just scratching the surface here. And, you know, DxO G was one of the first people to plant their flag in this space.
00;40;39;07 - 00;41;04;07
Pri
Yeah, I hope I'm excited for the future experimentation there. And I think when you're thinking about world like world building and lore and storyline, like I think it could even get, it shouldn't just be like way more interesting, I think to like you could this is again like an experiment, but you can imagine a world beyond and like, I love the idea of it just running 24 over seven or, you know, for some amount of time either way, but you can kind of tune in when you want to, which is also sort of interesting.
00;41;04;07 - 00;41;18;15
Pri
It's a little bit different experience than like watching just a TV show, you know, from start to finish. It's kind of reminds me of, I don't know if you guys read that like article in The New Yorker. I was like, I also love the people. Like, I don't know if you've read that, like New York Mag article or like New York article, but and I'm sorry, I just did that.
00;41;18;15 - 00;41;35;17
Pri
But about like ambient television, like I almost feel like a lot of that to your point earlier about it feeling like background white noise or, you know, whatever. You know, before I felt like it was very ambient TV where like, I would I would be like looking, reading something and then I would like look to see what's going on with echo and then like, do something else.
00;41;35;17 - 00;41;46;25
Pri
And I just think there's also something about like ambient television that has been growing a little bit. And this is like a great vector for ambient television too, which yeah, I just want to note that too.
00;41;46;25 - 00;41;54;08
Aaron
And it's like millennials reviving their Tamagotchi passions from their childhood now through AI powered systems.
00;41;54;08 - 00;42;02;26
Chris
If your art doesn't have 1001 hundreds slaving away in the background, you're nowhere now. It's the new standard.
00;42;03;00 - 00;42;05;00
Aaron
How do we get all those h100? It's, by the.
00;42;05;00 - 00;42;25;18
Chris
Way, a little hook or by crook. But, he was using some of the cloud providers had to, you know, I think there was a certain level of these that are pretty easy to gain access to, but to get up to 1000, he had to do a little scrambling and it was delayed by a day. I think he needed to harness some more, some real resources, and it's expensive as well.
00;42;25;21 - 00;42;45;18
Chris
Now, one of the nice things about this model, right, is every time you mint an NFT, you're basically covering your cost of goods and you're extending how long you can own these machines for. And so it does create like this, first of all, model for the teams where as there is demand, there's also more money to be able to buy more machines.
00;42;45;18 - 00;42;53;17
Chris
Right? This is like capital is labor in pursuit of entertainment, which is, you know, it's own set of interesting dynamics as well.
00;42;53;20 - 00;43;12;16
Aaron
Yeah. There's I was going to ask what the business model for this looks like, but you could easily see that. Right? You bake in like, I'm assuming the cost of AI compute will go down over time. Right? Then some margins baked in. You get why distribution is participatory. You all come with like a token or some badge and you participated in it.
00;43;12;20 - 00;43;20;13
Aaron
I guess the question is whether or not that has some independent value over time. Maybe. Right. If it's tied to like a persistent character or some sort of super fascinating.
00;43;20;13 - 00;43;29;26
Chris
It was a nice level up after, getting nothing but chat bots for six weeks. So someone's pushed, pushed us through. And, you know, we're just going to see more and more.
00;43;29;26 - 00;43;49;17
Aaron
The chat bot stuff is I think it has a similar feeling to like DSI or some of these other categories where the tech doesn't feel fully baked, but it is kind of notable. I don't know if you guys caught this, but I think A16z was like the number one trending repo on on GitHub, which is, you know, has a pretty broad based tech appeal.
00;43;49;17 - 00;44;09;24
Aaron
So I do think that there's some interesting bits that are emerging around, hey, like how do we build like open source agent technology? Like how does that fit in the future? Like, I don't know if this is the project that's going to nail that completely. It looks like there's the commits into that repo or not. Not necessarily easy to do, but not necessarily like the the hardest, hardest stuff.
00;44;09;24 - 00;44;29;00
Aaron
But this idea of like an open source AI agent framework, I think is pretty fascinating, kind of builds on what we saw last year with that agent GPT, baby, GPT and related projects. So another cool category to pay attention to, even though it may be a little bit overhyped, which I know is going to be shocking to everybody here.
00;44;29;00 - 00;44;30;26
Aaron
Something in crypto getting a little overhyped.
00;44;31;00 - 00;44;53;26
Chris
Never. I mean, we'll also have like composability between these sort of systems, right? Like right now we're a little dogged by chat bots because they tend to live on Twitter. But you know, what do you turn them team. And you know, Lord of a few is doing like loaf is very active, in the Eliza world because he wants to get these agents into the world of realms.
00;44;54;00 - 00;45;22;20
Chris
Right. He wants to have sort of like zero player agents running around performing useful functions within, you know, the the game of turn them. And so we're we're maybe a little bored with them right now because they're, they're stuck on the feed, but they're not going to be stuck on the feed for, for long. And once they start interacting, you know, with stuff like what proof was doing or, you know, fully on chain games, all these things are multimodal and they can travel through different environment.
00;45;22;20 - 00;45;34;29
Chris
And right now we're at a point where each one of these things is just taking their own baby steps. But pretty soon they're going to be playing together and they get a talking together, and it's just going to open up massive amounts of, Greenfield.
00;45;35;01 - 00;45;54;09
Aaron
Yeah, completely. I mean, that's the power of open source, right? The power of coordinated networks in different ways that may use these tokens, still feels are probably still a couple of years away. Maybe it's a little bit like DeFi, right? Like the second kind of swipes at the Apple or a little bit more firm, like, early dexs or directionally.
00;45;54;09 - 00;45;57;07
Aaron
Right. But it kind of took like a Uniswap team to pull it together.
00;45;57;21 - 00;46;12;12
Chris
We'll get there. It certainly exciting. I mean, we kind of went through, a year and a half, two year period where a lot of things were just hitting their ceilings and now they they're breaking through them. And we're getting new, new toys to play with. And so the future looks bright.
00;46;12;18 - 00;46;29;13
Aaron
Yeah, completely. That's why I personally think the market over kind of the next cycle really started a month or so ago as opposed to we're kind of like mid cycle and and that's like a different conversation. But I feel like all this stuff's just going to move faster and faster and faster because at the same time we're seeing this innovation right.
00;46;29;13 - 00;46;42;26
Aaron
Like all the AI related innovation just getting better. Like it's getting so easy to to write software, I just can't I just don't see this stopping anytime soon. Like software advancements, not necessarily the crypto stuff. That's a little bit different of a question.
00;46;42;26 - 00;46;44;04
Chris
Let's accelerate.
00;46;44;04 - 00;46;44;25
Aaron
Let's go.
00;46;44;28 - 00;46;48;07
Pri
We're so early. Yeah, but this is a good one guys I had fun.
00;46;48;10 - 00;46;48;29
Aaron
Yeah me too.
00;46;48;29 - 00;47;01;00
Chris
I didn't. All right. Target time. Oh please. Yes. No no no. Today was fantastic. So. Well we call it there. And, we'll do it again next week. Have a nice.
00;47;01;00 - 00;47;02;11
Aaron
Weekend, guys.
00;47;02;13 - 00;47;20;26
Pri
I know there.