Dec. 10, 2024

Real vs. Fake: What Drives Value in Crypto? 💥 - Interview with Trireme Trading

Real vs. Fake: What Drives Value in Crypto? 💥 - Interview with Trireme Trading
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Real vs. Fake: What Drives Value in Crypto? 💥 - Interview with Trireme Trading

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In this episode of The ChainStories Podcast, we dive deep into the real value in crypto with Jenite Rajendra from Trireme Trading

Are dormant Bitcoin wallets and OTC deals reshaping the market? What role do meme coin cults, tokenomics, and $155 billion in upcoming token unlocks play in the future of Web3? 

We break down the $155 billion in upcoming token unlocks, the challenges of crypto UX, and why the best projects focus on building true utility over hype. Whether you’re curious about the secret to successful tokenomics, or Apple’s surprising connection to Bitcoin, this episode has it all!

🎧 Tune in for an unfiltered look at the forces shaping the next wave of crypto!

🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/BlockchainEdu
👤 Jenite Rajendra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeniterangel/
🎙️ Our Host on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/cryptoniooo

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Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.530 --> 00:00:07.040
Welcome to the Chain Stories podcast, the podcast that celebrates disruptors who defy convention.

00:00:07.490 --> 00:00:14.650
Here we dive into the bold stories of trailblazers who turned audacious ideas into billion dollar ventures.

00:00:18.307 --> 00:00:22.628
Hey everyone! Today we are with Jenite from Trireme Trading.

00:00:22.638 --> 00:00:23.818
How are you doing, Jenite?

00:00:24.498 --> 00:00:25.608
I'm doing fantastic.

00:00:25.608 --> 00:00:26.228
How about you?

00:00:26.878 --> 00:00:27.457
Doing great.

00:00:27.777 --> 00:00:29.807
Thanks for accepting for the podcast.

00:00:29.847 --> 00:00:34.597
It was great to meet you this past weekend at Crypto AI Con in Lisbon.

00:00:34.597 --> 00:00:36.408
It was definitely a good event.

00:00:36.438 --> 00:00:37.567
What were your thoughts on it?

00:00:37.790 --> 00:00:38.621
I quite liked it.

00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:42.430
I was a speaker there, managed to actually build some meaningful relationships.

00:00:42.470 --> 00:00:49.201
Sometimes these smaller conferences are much better compared to the big ones, for example a token 2049.

00:00:49.470 --> 00:01:02.661
Sometimes I feel like a lot of BDs, they come and just say, Hey, Can I get your telegram and then next one and no one really build a relationship and I'm like, oh man, come on at least entertain me right entertain me before I give him my telegram.

00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:09.460
But the AI conference was a smaller one managed to speak with people actually understand what they're building.

00:01:09.941 --> 00:01:11.180
Overall, I think was great.

00:01:11.641 --> 00:01:22.990
It's actually pretty cool that we have such a strong city as our home country that has so many Web3 events, and you see so many people coming here from all over Europe.

00:01:23.570 --> 00:01:34.590
I was for a certain period thinking about living in Eastern Europe, like Estonia and even in Lithuania, but the crypto scene, they're just non existent almost.

00:01:34.891 --> 00:01:37.641
And I was like, no, let me go back to Portugal.

00:01:37.650 --> 00:01:43.441
Cause since there's a community, there's people out there and so much we can do network and learn.

00:01:43.820 --> 00:01:47.501
Do you think people go to Lisbon because of the taxes?

00:01:47.930 --> 00:01:50.620
Because let's just look at everything in Lisbon.

00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:52.251
One part you have the taxes, right?

00:01:52.441 --> 00:01:55.590
So for me and you, we have a program called return to home.

00:01:56.355 --> 00:01:59.715
And I think we need to pay somewhere close to 20%.

00:01:59.885 --> 00:02:04.236
Doesn't matter if you earn 50,000 to a million, it will be taxed 20%.

00:02:04.516 --> 00:02:12.066
But let's say someone from Australia or UK, if they move to Lisbon, I don't think they normally pay taxes, at least for crypto.

00:02:12.066 --> 00:02:12.675
I'm not sure.

00:02:12.675 --> 00:02:13.605
Don't quote me on that.

00:02:14.045 --> 00:02:14.675
That's one part.

00:02:14.675 --> 00:02:15.725
So you have the taxes, right?

00:02:16.075 --> 00:02:17.135
Then you have the weather.

00:02:17.346 --> 00:02:20.945
You have better prices compared, for example, I'm based, in UK, in London.

00:02:21.575 --> 00:02:24.846
But the prices here are quite high, right?

00:02:25.066 --> 00:02:27.786
And the taxes are quite high, like around 45%, for example.

00:02:28.205 --> 00:02:34.306
But then in Lisbon, you have good food, good taxes, good weather, great people.

00:02:34.645 --> 00:02:39.455
And I think anyone that is working in crypto definitely would look at Lisbon as a great hub.

00:02:39.506 --> 00:02:45.895
I think Balancer is there, there's some people from ICP, there's some people from CoreDAO as well, from Banker.

00:02:46.126 --> 00:02:57.260
So I think it's quite interesting to see how Portugal, in terms economically, was just a normal country, now to see most of remote workers, especially in crypto decided to move to Lisbon, right?

00:02:57.270 --> 00:03:03.040
Even us, where I work for Trireme, me and the CEO, Nick, we were thinking of should we move to Lisbon?

00:03:04.086 --> 00:03:05.996
Yeah, so some food for thought, right?

00:03:07.186 --> 00:03:07.936
Yeah, for sure.

00:03:08.415 --> 00:03:11.295
So I'll give you my opinion.

00:03:11.425 --> 00:03:18.996
And for those listening to podcasts, I'm not a lawyer or a tax expert, but I do know a lot and I'm very comfortable.

00:03:19.466 --> 00:03:30.135
So for those listening, if you're Portuguese, and you've been away of Portugal for more than five years, and your residence was changed in the IRS, you have the right to come back.

00:03:30.165 --> 00:03:58.020
And for five years, you don't pay taxes on foreign source income or up to 20%, but also crypto if you're not a US citizen or a citizen of Eritrea and you're a citizen of anywhere else in the world, you can come here and set up your home base and you don't pay taxes if you hold crypto more than a year than if it's less than a year, you're going to pay 28% is going to trigger capital gains.

00:03:58.610 --> 00:04:09.360
So I think that was one of the reasons, but also before this year, Portugal had a very appealing law, which was the non habitual residence.

00:04:09.820 --> 00:04:12.461
Cause you could come here, set up your residency.

00:04:12.691 --> 00:04:15.860
You only pay 20% if you have income from Portugal.

00:04:16.151 --> 00:04:21.120
If you don't have income from Portugal is at 0% and no capital gains.

00:04:21.161 --> 00:04:30.701
If you're not a US citizen and you'd have a bunch of other privileges in terms of buying real estate, selling, etc.

00:04:31.250 --> 00:04:33.360
And this was a law that came out in 2009.

00:04:34.401 --> 00:04:35.440
And many people don't know.

00:04:35.911 --> 00:04:46.105
It only picked up later in the last bull run, like in 2021, when a lot of crypto people saw Lisbon as a great place to go for events.

00:04:46.596 --> 00:04:48.235
It's cheap to throw an event.

00:04:48.266 --> 00:04:49.375
There's good margins.

00:04:49.665 --> 00:04:55.966
So we saw an influx of companies and where the tier 1 companies like Solana, Near, etc.

00:04:55.985 --> 00:04:59.725
coming in because I want to host my event in this city is good margins.

00:05:00.105 --> 00:05:03.576
People love it, it's nice, and it's abroad.

00:05:04.245 --> 00:05:15.225
Plus on top of that, we saw a max exodus of the United States from talent and capital because people are like, the SEC is terrible.

00:05:15.516 --> 00:05:16.646
There's terrible laws.

00:05:17.396 --> 00:05:18.815
And why are we all here?

00:05:18.826 --> 00:05:25.225
Why don't we just go over to a country in Europe where the average salary it's 20K or 30K.

00:05:25.326 --> 00:05:27.216
We have a way higher center of living.

00:05:28.005 --> 00:05:29.096
And we all move there.

00:05:29.096 --> 00:05:31.165
We all build what we're building from there.

00:05:31.846 --> 00:05:33.396
And that's what we saw in Lisbon.

00:05:34.286 --> 00:05:47.805
And this brought a lot of problems to the local Portuguese people that I don't want to get into, but it was very interesting also how the Portuguese government did not capitalize on this because you'd have this massive influx of brain talent.

00:05:48.216 --> 00:05:50.295
Also on top of this, we had the war in Ukraine.

00:05:50.485 --> 00:05:52.685
A lot of talented people from Ukraine came over.

00:05:53.276 --> 00:05:59.396
And still to this day is rare to see any companies in this space, they're incorporated in Portugal.

00:05:59.786 --> 00:06:00.086
Sure.

00:06:00.105 --> 00:06:12.846
Me as a person, I'm incorporated here and I can come here for those resident benefits, but I think they missed out on a lot of things that they could have captured from the brain talent coming in.

00:06:12.846 --> 00:06:16.276
But to your question, it was the taxes.

00:06:16.766 --> 00:06:17.805
It was the weather.

00:06:17.865 --> 00:06:21.071
It was the lifestyle, right?

00:06:21.141 --> 00:06:25.500
It we're in November and it's last weekend, I was here by the beach.

00:06:25.550 --> 00:06:30.540
It was still sunny and you could see so many people from Germany, France, etc.

00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:33.920
just coming over a year and just trying to escape those countries.

00:06:34.341 --> 00:06:39.701
Plus, if you're a European, you can come here and set a base and you don't pay taxes.

00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:43.271
I know Germans they have a very high tax on crypto or France.

00:06:43.766 --> 00:06:45.206
So that was very appealing.

00:06:45.206 --> 00:06:48.245
I keep seeing people over all over Europe move the year for that.

00:06:48.636 --> 00:06:51.966
And also the prices, it's one of the cheapest countries in Europe to live.

00:06:52.266 --> 00:06:59.735
I think if we go to Paris or Berlin or London, what is the average lunch in a restaurant and what is the average food quality?

00:06:59.786 --> 00:07:01.766
But then there's that question.

00:07:01.855 --> 00:07:03.485
Would you go to Dubai or would you go to Lisbon?

00:07:03.696 --> 00:07:07.526
There's a lot of people trying to decide, should I go to Lisbon or should I go to Dubai.

00:07:07.980 --> 00:07:10.151
No, not in income tax.

00:07:10.471 --> 00:07:22.610
So you just there and apparently don't quote me on this again, please check with the lawyer, but I think if you create an entity there as long as you make less than a million dollars you don't need to pay a corporate tax, right?

00:07:23.071 --> 00:07:24.500
I have some friends living in Dubai.

00:07:24.550 --> 00:07:28.221
And I think in terms of network Dubai, it's great, but it's quite expensive.

00:07:28.321 --> 00:07:33.841
But then you compensate because you don't pay any income tax or corporate tax to a million dollars.

00:07:34.170 --> 00:07:45.886
So it's interesting mix and it's interesting how crypto is slowly moving the world, where people start to look at these countries, these cities, for a different perspective, a different hub.

00:07:45.985 --> 00:07:51.105
For people that don't know much about Lisbon, people just go for Lisbon because of holidays.

00:07:51.146 --> 00:07:54.675
It's cheap, it's great people, good food, and that's it, nothing else.

00:07:54.966 --> 00:07:57.925
But now people are looking at Lisbon, as a financial hub.

00:07:58.125 --> 00:08:04.045
I'm not sure if you know this, but I think there is a part of Lisbon, they just building just buildings after buildings.

00:08:04.125 --> 00:08:07.156
And I think CV Pad, they are on that area as well.

00:08:07.576 --> 00:08:08.786
And I think slowly is growing.

00:08:08.836 --> 00:08:13.026
According to the Portuguese government, 70% of the revenue comes from tourism.

00:08:13.365 --> 00:08:21.255
So this country sold itself to the tourists, but going to your point about Dubai, and it's my personal opinion, I have lived there.

00:08:21.255 --> 00:08:22.016
I've been there.

00:08:22.016 --> 00:08:23.665
I feel it's very fake.

00:08:24.295 --> 00:08:24.466
Yes.

00:08:24.696 --> 00:08:32.495
And it was something I didn't resonate with the lifestyle, but also I'm a US citizen and US citizens, there's no benefit per se, right?

00:08:32.535 --> 00:08:33.645
Still pay taxes.

00:08:34.346 --> 00:08:36.395
Because we're taxing the worldwide income.

00:08:37.056 --> 00:08:41.505
And if I don't pay taxes in a company in Dubai, I don't need to be there in person.

00:08:42.125 --> 00:08:54.770
And if I have set up a structure where I can just live in a major European city, I think it's so much more appealing as Lisbon can offer you a more organic lifestyle, then in Dubai.

00:08:54.770 --> 00:09:06.488
Another very interesting point is recently Galaxy Digital launched a report and the report outlined the outflow of venture capital into the crypto ecosystem.

00:09:06.927 --> 00:09:09.717
And the United States still takes the lead on this.

00:09:10.008 --> 00:09:15.418
So I think this also is important as we see a lot of American expats coming here.

00:09:15.977 --> 00:09:17.998
And yeah, I'm still a VC.

00:09:17.998 --> 00:09:19.488
I'm still investing in this space.

00:09:20.087 --> 00:09:27.217
But there's no interest in either going to Dubai or other jurisdictions as I don't benefit from not paying taxes.

00:09:27.217 --> 00:09:42.067
So I might as well just do Lisbon because as a city, it's still way cheaper to live versus Dubai on average Dubai just starting salary for you to get a residence, it's about 5,000 5,400 a month.

00:09:42.077 --> 00:09:48.857
And Lisbon is much lower than that, especially if you go outside of the city you can have a very affordable cost of living.

00:09:48.898 --> 00:09:51.442
I think with 2,000 euros, you can do really great.

00:09:51.442 --> 00:09:58.769
The other thing I want to talk with you is have you realized that there is more LPs doing OTC deals compared to before?

00:09:59.201 --> 00:10:10.100
I had a conversation with my friend at Galaxy and he mentioned that most of what's coming through the desk now is dormant Bitcoin addresses and there's a lot of OTC deals.

00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:11.669
It's possible.

00:10:11.740 --> 00:10:20.820
There is a lot of demand for that, especially we're in a market that's quite saturated with a lot of altcoins and they've been around for some time.

00:10:20.830 --> 00:10:34.210
So people might want to liquidate, which I don't think they probably want to liquidate their altcoins as it's still not even altcoin season, but we did see the trend with Bitcoin, especially in a lot of trading desks.

00:10:34.230 --> 00:10:34.440
Yeah.

00:10:35.215 --> 00:10:56.575
We currently have some OTC offers on the table, and I think it's quite interesting compared to a couple of years ago, but not just that, also I've seen some deals where they want to do OTC deal, let's say with the 25% discount or 50% discount, where you would come in, put the capital, but on top of that, you also have a consulting view on the project.

00:10:56.605 --> 00:10:57.575
So you help them.

00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:03.090
Refine the product, understand what the community really feels, what can be improved or not.

00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:08.289
And then you see, okay, there is that delta, I understand, but there is money there, right?

00:11:08.610 --> 00:11:14.269
Another point I also see, just moving a bit, is I see Spartan doing mergers and acquisitions lately.

00:11:15.450 --> 00:11:17.220
Which I think is interesting.

00:11:17.220 --> 00:11:22.087
It's okay, so we now bring more to try to find structure and what are your opinion on that?

00:11:22.607 --> 00:11:31.807
I think it was something that didn't exist in 2016 or 2021, but we spoke early about this actually, there's someone called Max Keiser.

00:11:31.837 --> 00:11:33.697
I think a lot of early Bitcoiners know him.

00:11:34.148 --> 00:11:44.597
Max, he worked in TradeFi and he always said, it's just a matter of time until the markets mature and they start mimicking what happens in traditional markets.

00:11:45.043 --> 00:11:58.182
And things will keep moving in that direction as Bitcoin's market cap goes over a trillion dollars, two trillion, which by the way, is still a fraction, like just the US alone, the NASDAQ is 55 trillion.

00:11:58.582 --> 00:12:21.498
So we're still in very early days, but as the market matures, you'll see more capital inflows, more merger and acquisitions, more behavior from traditional markets, which can be good and also can be really bad as this industry was founded on the principle of the equal right for everyone to come in and have access to xyz.

00:12:21.788 --> 00:12:30.298
We're starting to see the first monopolies and oligopolies I would say in this space, which is quite interesting, but also frustrating in a way.

00:12:31.082 --> 00:12:35.602
And I think that's also part of why we have this meme coin mania going on.

00:12:35.602 --> 00:12:36.932
That's what I wanted to touch.

00:12:37.883 --> 00:12:47.352
So often meme coin represents crypto, the crypto space really well, because sometimes you look at some projects, there is no real value there.

00:12:47.413 --> 00:12:48.633
You probably don't need a token.

00:12:49.202 --> 00:12:51.182
Let's look for the past 12 months.

00:12:51.182 --> 00:12:56.143
So we know that around 1,2 billion dollars were lost from retail trading meme coins.

00:12:56.533 --> 00:13:01.543
But then there is no new users coming to the crypto space and then we see the money being recycled.

00:13:01.763 --> 00:13:05.508
And trading meme coins if you really look at it's a zero sum game.

00:13:05.567 --> 00:13:07.418
Some people win, some people lose, right?

00:13:08.258 --> 00:13:12.307
If you are selling and you are in profit, probably someone is your exit liquidity, right?

00:13:12.668 --> 00:13:25.847
But the reality is I think meme coins probably can, now touching a bit here on VCs, especially also with Berachain, we'll start to see more DEX launches.

00:13:26.207 --> 00:13:27.508
Forget about the centralized exchanges.

00:13:27.508 --> 00:13:30.128
Let's do a fair launch on the DEX and that's it.

00:13:30.583 --> 00:13:31.894
What is your opinion on that?

00:13:32.274 --> 00:13:34.714
How do you think like exchanges should adapt?

00:13:35.073 --> 00:13:39.874
I've seen some projects and some moves from a couple of exchanges, but I want to pick your brain on this.

00:13:39.923 --> 00:13:41.884
I actually spoke about this on LinkedIn.

00:13:41.903 --> 00:13:43.734
I'm going to pull up here, the posts.

00:13:44.004 --> 00:13:46.744
This was a report from Binance.

00:13:46.844 --> 00:13:53.644
So they did the research and they said there's about 155 billion worth of unlocks coming in the next five years.

00:13:54.073 --> 00:14:00.653
So what does this mean that VCs are still waiting on these unlocks to come into the markets?

00:14:01.443 --> 00:14:04.423
And how does retail feel about this?

00:14:04.423 --> 00:14:08.004
Because we had retail coming in really hard in 2017.

00:14:08.604 --> 00:14:16.708
And a lot of people sold their houses and cars and completely lost, got burned last run, I think quite the same.

00:14:17.298 --> 00:14:23.188
And a lot of what failed in this industry was, where is the actual utility?

00:14:23.249 --> 00:14:25.359
It feels like sometimes it's just vapor.

00:14:25.828 --> 00:14:27.798
Sure, a lot of altcoins have utility.

00:14:27.958 --> 00:14:37.589
I'm not picking in general, but we are at over what, 30,000 on CoinMarketCap, and a lot are just vapor.

00:14:38.078 --> 00:14:44.558
And this is the market self regulating and creating itself is just capitalism in its way.

00:14:44.808 --> 00:14:47.288
The weak players or the demand and supply.

00:14:47.339 --> 00:14:50.538
But what is interesting is meme coins have a fair lunch.

00:14:51.469 --> 00:14:57.698
And what we saw this narrative or the cycle was a lot of retail got in.

00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:06.443
And even today, there was a kid in high school that traded a meme coin and erupts, while you're doing a live stream, right?

00:15:06.443 --> 00:15:16.783
He made over$29,000 and there's a video out there and that's when you see that retail comes in and then they post these screenshots that go viral.

00:15:16.783 --> 00:15:19.053
I made 29K or 2 million dollars.

00:15:19.573 --> 00:15:21.514
And then, Oh, this is seen as a fair lunch.

00:15:21.543 --> 00:15:27.014
And in crypto, that was the same thing that started ICO mania back in 2017.

00:15:27.313 --> 00:15:35.764
Was the fact I couldn't get in on early deals and I could just come in and buy directly or invest directly in a project.

00:15:36.004 --> 00:15:50.589
And then the SEC came in and cracked down on that and meme coins it's a Trojan horse in a way that allows attention and projects to come in and ensure it's fair, but at the end of the day, I think it's just not going to last very long.

00:15:51.208 --> 00:15:59.418
It's fun and it captured a lot of attention and it seems fair, but there's no utility, no really intrinsic value.

00:16:00.499 --> 00:16:02.078
What is it producing for society?

00:16:02.239 --> 00:16:02.688
Sure.

00:16:02.979 --> 00:16:04.619
Nothing, not really anything.

00:16:04.828 --> 00:16:09.269
There's the counter argument by some people in this space that meme coins are a cult.

00:16:09.308 --> 00:16:14.119
People want to be part of a cult in a time of a digital age where everyone is separated and away.

00:16:14.668 --> 00:16:18.599
Sure, but can this last for decades?

00:16:19.129 --> 00:16:19.788
Probably not.

00:16:19.839 --> 00:16:24.359
Bitcoin has been around for a decade and it's censorship resistant money and these are store value.

00:16:24.359 --> 00:16:25.349
It's very clear.

00:16:25.558 --> 00:16:28.678
And Ethereum also has a very clear value proposition.

00:16:28.678 --> 00:16:32.038
But meme coins, when you're doing it, it's very high risk.

00:16:32.038 --> 00:16:35.928
But I guess that's what retail has demand for.

00:16:35.979 --> 00:16:41.198
It's being part of something, this community that's fun and it's a frog, or it's a cat.

00:16:41.335 --> 00:16:49.870
And this is actually something that, it's a very good point because a couple of days ago, we had Coinbase listing a frog meme coin.

00:16:50.179 --> 00:16:58.888
And then you go on Robinhood, one of the largest retail apps in North America with Axals where most millennials have access to capital markets.

00:16:59.307 --> 00:17:07.248
They also are doing the same thing versus listing maybe a project that has a true solution to a problem or use case.

00:17:07.258 --> 00:17:14.057
So this is quite oring because it's really fueling speculation, which at the end of the day, these exchanges want.

00:17:14.438 --> 00:17:19.097
And that's what they're looking for is they're incentivized by making money on trading fees.

00:17:19.097 --> 00:17:22.018
You mentioned ICO and I have a good friend of mine called Amzur.

00:17:22.067 --> 00:17:25.508
They come up with a new term called IMEO, initial meme offering.

00:17:25.998 --> 00:17:27.417
I think it's just great.

00:17:27.448 --> 00:17:28.258
It's just genius.

00:17:28.428 --> 00:17:30.198
And I hope people start to pick up this.

00:17:30.428 --> 00:17:31.468
Just think about it.

00:17:31.678 --> 00:17:32.867
Initial meme offering.

00:17:33.228 --> 00:17:34.018
It's like the ICO.

00:17:34.718 --> 00:17:42.268
Now touching on the Binance listing to be honest if you look at the statistics now, most of the Binance listings are meme coins.

00:17:42.458 --> 00:17:47.907
And I understand why because there is that bid there is that volume because Binance makes money on the maker and taker fee.

00:17:47.958 --> 00:17:51.617
And anyone that is in the industry, they know, to get listed on Binance is not that easy.

00:17:51.718 --> 00:17:58.637
So on Binance, you either like a first mover, you have a really strong cap table, really strong community, really strong on chain activity.

00:17:58.938 --> 00:18:00.448
You need to be a tier 1, right?

00:18:01.018 --> 00:18:08.403
Like LayerZero, EigenLayer you need to be like a project that everyone is talking about and if you are that project then great.

00:18:08.573 --> 00:18:10.093
You're probably going to get listed on Binance.

00:18:11.073 --> 00:18:16.942
If not, best case scenario ByBit, OKX, then you have MEXC, Gate.io, or KuCoin.

00:18:16.962 --> 00:18:18.153
I think KuCoin is quite great.

00:18:18.252 --> 00:18:20.178
But then let's look back.

00:18:20.228 --> 00:18:22.778
What are the famous model in the previous cycle?

00:18:22.917 --> 00:18:24.097
Low FTV, low float.

00:18:24.788 --> 00:18:26.627
Because then the token will perform.

00:18:26.847 --> 00:18:28.988
Apparently we assume that the token will perform.

00:18:29.095 --> 00:18:34.311
VCs ended up making money, advisors, KOLs, all of those guys start to make money.

00:18:34.352 --> 00:18:34.711
Perfect.

00:18:34.731 --> 00:18:35.682
They have the multiple.

00:18:36.122 --> 00:18:39.801
And then slowly you start to open the flow, right?

00:18:40.632 --> 00:18:43.731
But now we start to see that, look, Hey, let's stop with that.

00:18:43.951 --> 00:18:46.152
Let's just do fair launch.

00:18:47.061 --> 00:18:49.336
Supply is in the market and that's it.

00:18:49.336 --> 00:18:53.037
Probably that's the retail say, look, let's stop this.

00:18:53.037 --> 00:18:54.676
Let's just be fair value.

00:18:55.482 --> 00:18:56.252
To a certain degree.

00:18:56.252 --> 00:18:57.002
Yes, I agree.

00:18:57.938 --> 00:19:01.518
But then I think there's should be a middle term here.

00:19:01.567 --> 00:19:05.837
The reality is like a lot of projects look at the token as an only source of revenue.

00:19:05.857 --> 00:19:07.667
Which is super wrong, right?

00:19:07.667 --> 00:19:13.988
You shouldn't just look at your token as a source of revenue, you should look at your token as utility, but also to build a community.

00:19:14.067 --> 00:19:18.800
And then you also have great business and I think like the best business in crypto is B2B.

00:19:18.851 --> 00:19:20.661
Let's say Consensus.

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:21.941
Consensus doesn't have a token.

00:19:22.340 --> 00:19:24.580
And they really don't need to have a token, honestly.

00:19:24.790 --> 00:19:26.280
Although everyone is waiting for the airdrop.

00:19:26.340 --> 00:19:28.070
But Consensus is great, right?

00:19:28.590 --> 00:19:30.280
Tell me who doesn't have a MetaMask account.

00:19:31.101 --> 00:19:34.040
Then you have, let's say, Token Terminal, Messari.

00:19:34.411 --> 00:19:35.861
Everyone uses those platforms.

00:19:35.901 --> 00:19:36.070
Why?

00:19:36.070 --> 00:19:40.391
Because Crypto2Crypto, DeFi Llama, great as well.

00:19:40.830 --> 00:19:43.270
Another thing we should talk about is valuations.

00:19:43.346 --> 00:19:47.767
So I was working with the client and the client was like, I really don't know what should be my valuation.

00:19:47.817 --> 00:19:54.207
I look at this, I see, Pump.fund, charity X amount of revenue, but the valuation does not make sense.

00:19:54.467 --> 00:20:00.267
Then sometimes people just say, look, whatever revenue you're making, multiply that by 50.

00:20:01.132 --> 00:20:01.981
And that's your valuation.

00:20:02.011 --> 00:20:06.102
I actually don't agree because that's just inflated.

00:20:06.811 --> 00:20:15.511
Then there is people that keep saying, look, if your project is valued at 15 million, probably your real valuation is 1.5 million.

00:20:15.682 --> 00:20:17.162
And I'm already being optimistic.

00:20:17.991 --> 00:20:21.352
So what is your idea and opinion?

00:20:21.352 --> 00:20:22.412
Because you're a VC, right?

00:20:22.471 --> 00:20:23.241
I used to be a VC.

00:20:23.251 --> 00:20:25.352
Now I'm incubator and a celebrator.

00:20:25.862 --> 00:20:28.112
What is your opinion on the valuation that you see in crypto?

00:20:28.721 --> 00:20:33.102
First of all, there's something you mentioned about token being the product.

00:20:33.882 --> 00:20:42.152
And I think this is something that actually was forced to happen because of the SEC and really forced the market to be where it is today.

00:20:43.332 --> 00:21:03.392
And touching on that, what I mean is, so in a traditional company, you're entitled to, to receive dividends, or there is an effort by the board to give you dividends, and in order for a company give you dividends, as an investor, you need to produce, you need to create revenue.

00:21:03.392 --> 00:21:07.362
You need to do a value add service for society in some shape or form.

00:21:08.082 --> 00:21:18.352
And then every crypto was trying to avoid becoming a security, becoming, threatened by the US and being chased by the SEC.

00:21:18.531 --> 00:21:22.011
And the only way was the token is the dividend in a way.

00:21:22.511 --> 00:21:24.402
So there is that obsession.

00:21:24.402 --> 00:21:31.251
There is that point, there's a lot of pressure because you cannot create another mechanism of distribution.

00:21:31.942 --> 00:21:41.757
So this sort of forced the industry to be into a funnel where, how can we inflate and make the token price as high as possible.

00:21:42.047 --> 00:21:50.967
Sure, VCs wanna ROI in their investment, like any traditional company, but then the founders, then the community, everything was just so forced there.

00:21:51.557 --> 00:21:55.406
And it was so interesting because only the cycle and still in the previous one.

00:21:55.842 --> 00:22:03.551
We saw the KOLs becoming a thing and being so important and everyone's just so focused on the token price.

00:22:03.622 --> 00:22:04.791
KOLs are a community.

00:22:04.862 --> 00:22:05.372
Think about it.

00:22:05.432 --> 00:22:16.612
KOLs, if you really look at the KOL, it has so much power because you actually cannot advertise on Google, on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok about crypto, right?

00:22:16.642 --> 00:22:17.412
At least you couldn't.

00:22:17.912 --> 00:22:19.912
So then you are reliant on KOLs.

00:22:21.132 --> 00:22:25.241
And it's fun because KOLs are right in the middle, right?

00:22:25.281 --> 00:22:29.148
So projects normally reach out to those guys, but then also you have the stakeholders here, right?

00:22:29.148 --> 00:22:38.118
So you have projects, you have VCs, market makers, marketing agencies, everyone that really cares wants to work with projects.

00:22:38.169 --> 00:22:48.598
At the same time, and everyone depends on the KOLs because if a KOL likes your project, then there's a higher chances of you're building a strong community, right?

00:22:48.638 --> 00:22:50.648
It's a business at the end of the day is really a business.

00:22:51.348 --> 00:23:02.838
So I think KOLs itself, they become a really important part of crypto and definitely is a commodity, that people sometimes don't respect, but I think slowly, but surely everyone understands that.

00:23:03.499 --> 00:23:07.519
I work with VCs, market makers, founders, marketing agencies.

00:23:07.884 --> 00:23:11.824
Anything that you can think of and everyone respects KOLs.

00:23:11.824 --> 00:23:15.094
And the KOLs now, they've also become VCs.

00:23:15.683 --> 00:23:16.693
They ended up invested.

00:23:16.693 --> 00:23:18.213
That's the way the famous KOL round.

00:23:18.894 --> 00:23:20.594
You don't have that in traditional markets.

00:23:21.324 --> 00:23:22.023
Why you do it here?

00:23:22.023 --> 00:23:23.243
Because they are so important.

00:23:23.534 --> 00:23:31.124
And most of the time, if you look at the KOL round, it's two months cliff to unlock at TGE, and then two months to six months investing.

00:23:31.384 --> 00:23:32.463
That's the best terms.

00:23:32.644 --> 00:23:35.814
Way better than any VC, basically.

00:23:36.693 --> 00:23:40.253
They do get the best terms and the most access to liquidity.

00:23:40.534 --> 00:23:44.124
And I think at the end of the day, it's actually not the VC, the bad actor.

00:23:44.144 --> 00:23:48.953
It's probably more towards the KOL as I keep seeing more stories.

00:23:49.443 --> 00:23:54.134
And at the day, the VC is vested along with the founders in the same terms and conditions.

00:23:54.463 --> 00:24:05.582
And there is the fact that you want to try to do the best possible tokenomics, the best possible revenue, the best possible XYZ, so the project actually performs.

00:24:05.692 --> 00:24:07.471
So we get access to the unlocks.

00:24:08.082 --> 00:24:33.521
And it does take a lot of work and it's sad to see projects where even sometimes I know stories where the VC becomes the actual director of operations, the actual BD, etc., trying to do the work in the trenches and you have to give away token to the KOLs and on the first day, on the first hour, on the first candle, they immediately come in and drop millions of dollars worth of tokens.

00:24:33.886 --> 00:24:45.586
And it's extremely hard to see these charts going back up as the token was just completely dumped, the liquidity was taken, and this really hurts the project.

00:24:45.757 --> 00:24:55.932
Especially the investment as well, because as a VC, let's say we used to write checks of hundred K to hundred K, sometimes half of a million, sometimes more depends.

00:24:56.132 --> 00:25:06.132
So at Crypto.com capital, they have a half a billion dollar fund where they focus on AI, the intersection between AI and blockchain, DeFi and gamify.

00:25:06.182 --> 00:25:09.402
The reason of that is because Crypto.com really focus on the user base.

00:25:10.612 --> 00:25:14.402
The user base of Crypto.com is so strong, when it comes to gaming.

00:25:14.561 --> 00:25:18.301
Before you deep dive into that, do you want to just do a super brief intro for the listeners?

00:25:18.519 --> 00:25:24.491
So my background slash experience is really similar to yours to a certain degree.

00:25:24.701 --> 00:25:38.626
So when I was in Portugal, I always wanted to go to US or London, just because I believe that there's a lot of opportunities, so what I decided to do is, we have the A levels in Portugal, which is really hard, you really need to study.

00:25:38.987 --> 00:25:47.537
Managed to get the A levels I want, I went to London, studied economics, applied to maths, and by the time, when I was finishing university, I bought Ethereum at$7.

00:25:47.856 --> 00:25:50.116
I looked at Bitcoin at 800 or something.

00:25:50.537 --> 00:25:52.366
Thank God I bought a bunch.

00:25:52.557 --> 00:25:54.037
I still have some of my Ethereum.

00:25:54.067 --> 00:25:56.297
Bitcoin, I sold a good percentage of that.

00:25:57.007 --> 00:25:58.287
Which I regret massively.

00:25:58.487 --> 00:25:59.787
Honestly, I regret a lot.

00:26:00.166 --> 00:26:11.507
But then going back to the point, I used to work at Tradefi, work in a family office around real estate with commercial and residential real estate, work in some trading firms, mainly on the FX side.

00:26:12.166 --> 00:26:17.997
But the part is, we realized the volatility of crypto is so high, so we started to build some models.

00:26:18.606 --> 00:26:25.876
And it was fun because we built some models in the market that it's not really professional, doesn't have that, talent yet.

00:26:26.037 --> 00:26:27.396
This is back in the day, right?

00:26:27.396 --> 00:26:30.797
So you would just do normally arbitrage position, right?

00:26:30.817 --> 00:26:33.416
So you would buy Bitcoin in one exchange, sell in another exchange.

00:26:33.416 --> 00:26:35.336
That is always a massive delta.

00:26:35.507 --> 00:26:39.666
And we just leveraged that to a point that, I actually become quite bored.

00:26:40.041 --> 00:26:41.902
And I decided to join PionX.

00:26:41.902 --> 00:26:45.731
PionX is basically an exchange in APEC region is one of the biggest exchange.

00:26:45.731 --> 00:26:51.392
And the model they have is they build algorithm trading, features for their users.

00:26:51.402 --> 00:26:55.321
So let's say if you want to trade the momentum strategy, you can do that.

00:26:55.362 --> 00:26:58.122
If you want to trade the grid strategy, you can do that.

00:26:58.132 --> 00:27:01.152
I remember so well, for example, Chainlink normally trades in the range.

00:27:01.342 --> 00:27:05.051
So if you apply a grid strategy, you possibly would do really well.

00:27:05.152 --> 00:27:13.031
Then I worked there was a actually great time because I was building product, but at the same time working as a BD to a certain extent.

00:27:13.912 --> 00:27:23.344
Then I joined Cronos, where, I worked at the incubation and to be honest, I really loved it because you work with pre seed and seed stage projects.

00:27:23.753 --> 00:27:25.433
I worked with the project called Innerworks.

00:27:25.463 --> 00:27:29.644
We raised from A16z, Google Ventures, Tim Draper.

00:27:29.703 --> 00:27:35.421
Tim Draper said that Innerworks could possibly solve the bot problem on Twitter.

00:27:35.421 --> 00:27:37.046
And I was like, this is amazing, right?

00:27:37.115 --> 00:27:39.806
Then we went to raise with Katango Digital as well.

00:27:39.816 --> 00:27:44.566
Great VC, they tend to focus on AI, also work with Lilius.

00:27:44.605 --> 00:27:47.685
Just to give you an idea, Lilius, they had partnerships with Samsung.

00:27:48.096 --> 00:27:55.756
So if you had the Samsung watch or the Samsung TV, you actually could go and use Lilius, which is like a fitness app, similar to Nike.

00:27:56.455 --> 00:28:03.695
And the best part is these guys managed to close every single major Olympic athlete to build their content.

00:28:04.046 --> 00:28:07.346
It's good to see what the founder goes through.

00:28:07.346 --> 00:28:08.385
You are a founder, right?

00:28:08.615 --> 00:28:09.965
And I've built some projects as well.

00:28:10.306 --> 00:28:11.895
Being a founder is not easy at all.

00:28:12.105 --> 00:28:14.185
So you go through a lot of pain.

00:28:15.270 --> 00:28:21.550
Sacrifices hopefully to build something that you believe and I have the most respect to any founder.

00:28:21.601 --> 00:28:30.580
I was close to build my own incubator, but then I managed to get introduced to Nicholas focused on building treasuries.

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:32.290
He worked at DAO Maker.

00:28:32.851 --> 00:28:34.171
One of the best traders I've seen.

00:28:34.211 --> 00:28:36.441
And we use a model that is really sustainable.

00:28:36.701 --> 00:28:40.540
And that's what kind of made me decide to go to Trireme.

00:28:40.570 --> 00:28:48.310
So as a result of that, I told Nick, look, if I come to Trireme, I want to build incubator the way that I believe, right?

00:28:48.411 --> 00:28:53.780
The way that is, look, let's do the workshops, the demo days, but let's be really hands on.

00:28:54.030 --> 00:28:55.721
Let's not do a really light support.

00:28:55.721 --> 00:28:57.560
Let's be super hands on.

00:28:57.641 --> 00:28:58.490
Let's build a tokenomics.

00:28:58.750 --> 00:28:59.861
Let's build a go to market.

00:29:00.201 --> 00:29:02.250
Let's help them for a race, right?

00:29:02.721 --> 00:29:04.661
Let's do the TGE strategy.

00:29:04.661 --> 00:29:06.701
Let's help on the negotiation with exchanges.

00:29:07.181 --> 00:29:14.121
And he really liked that, plus his model, which is really sustainable focus on be fair in the market.

00:29:14.161 --> 00:29:18.580
So as a result of that, I'm the head of incubation at Trireme and it's been great.

00:29:18.651 --> 00:29:22.211
I'm working with Moonberg, which is an amazing project.

00:29:22.590 --> 00:29:30.070
Contracts, Paddle Finance, we closed a couple of projects, Olivia AI that won a couple hackathons and competitions.

00:29:30.364 --> 00:29:35.763
But my approach is I like to work with not too much projects, like around 8 to 10 maximum.

00:29:35.763 --> 00:29:39.213
So I really can dive deep with that, provide that support.

00:29:39.534 --> 00:29:43.469
So we incubate slash accelerate those projects, and then we take them to market.

00:29:43.558 --> 00:29:47.878
And my goal personally is always focused on product, than go to market.

00:29:47.898 --> 00:29:50.359
So how can I make these projects great?

00:29:50.730 --> 00:29:53.089
And I need to be in a fun, right?

00:29:53.180 --> 00:29:54.029
I really love it.

00:29:54.630 --> 00:29:54.980
Cool.

00:29:55.059 --> 00:30:11.869
I wanted to say, or ask you, what is something you think on this journey and particularly into the micro level of things that you think you really learned that you can leverage in your day to day in analyzing the market, in analyzing a project, as an investor.

00:30:12.329 --> 00:30:14.480
You're like, okay, is it the team?

00:30:14.529 --> 00:30:15.809
Is it the valuation?

00:30:15.829 --> 00:30:17.130
Is it xyz?

00:30:18.029 --> 00:30:21.079
This they're going to do well, or is it where they built?

00:30:21.309 --> 00:30:31.180
Because you were working at a place Scripts.com that is probably all the infrastructure and the resources, especially with so many retail users that they could deploy their project to.

00:30:31.779 --> 00:30:36.859
What is it there in the secret sauce that you feel like they must have this to do well?

00:30:37.263 --> 00:30:39.253
I think it's all down to the founder.

00:30:39.544 --> 00:30:40.314
It really is.

00:30:40.564 --> 00:30:44.983
If the founder is a great founder, I'm telling you that project will succeed.

00:30:45.523 --> 00:30:49.173
So that's interesting because you said founders and you respect them a lot.

00:30:49.763 --> 00:30:52.173
And I was writing about this on my blog.

00:30:52.433 --> 00:30:55.453
There's a book from Ben Horowitz from A16z.

00:30:56.054 --> 00:30:59.134
And if you guys are listening to this podcast, this is a really good book.

00:30:59.223 --> 00:31:01.374
The hard thing about hard things.

00:31:01.673 --> 00:31:08.233
And Ben says for you to be a founder, you're like the 1% and founders are completely crazy.

00:31:08.634 --> 00:31:10.223
Why would you start a company?

00:31:11.398 --> 00:31:12.378
You know how hard this is.

00:31:12.429 --> 00:31:16.348
It's a lot because I don't think people really understand.

00:31:16.909 --> 00:31:17.949
Fundraising is hard.

00:31:18.048 --> 00:31:24.048
You probably jump on, I don't know, many goals, try to raise, try to convince people, you are wearing so many hats.

00:31:24.598 --> 00:31:25.838
You need to build product.

00:31:26.278 --> 00:31:27.598
You need to be able to go to market.

00:31:28.298 --> 00:31:29.857
You need to fundraise.

00:31:30.239 --> 00:31:31.808
You need to be able to negotiate.

00:31:32.469 --> 00:31:36.888
You need to be able to build relationships because the reality is relationships are really important.

00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:41.469
But more important, I would say, look, I would say founder, product.

00:31:41.909 --> 00:31:43.078
Product is really important.

00:31:43.541 --> 00:31:46.422
I've seen some founders, they build projects and no one really asks.

00:31:48.142 --> 00:31:51.672
But they just want to be a founder because Elon Musk is cool.

00:31:52.961 --> 00:31:54.136
And I don't want to work with that.

00:31:54.457 --> 00:32:06.346
I had an interesting interview with someone actually did that he just likes to solve that problem so much that he just simply says, Hey, this is going to take 10 years, but I don't care.

00:32:06.406 --> 00:32:07.136
I'm out of here.

00:32:07.156 --> 00:32:09.497
I'm building, I'm having fun.

00:32:09.497 --> 00:32:10.707
I'm not for the money.

00:32:11.336 --> 00:32:16.547
And I was like, Oh, this is inspiring and fascinating.

00:32:16.606 --> 00:32:30.207
Yeah, you believe in your ideas so much that you're willing to sacrifice a job at a fortune 500 company, potentially sacrificing a marriage, relationships, and even the quality of life to just go on and pursue this endeavor.

00:32:30.257 --> 00:32:31.787
It's quite something It's something.

00:32:32.106 --> 00:32:39.817
But again, I think the secret sauce is, he is a great founder that is passionate about the product, but also realistic, right?

00:32:39.866 --> 00:32:41.386
And the personality, you can feel it.

00:32:41.416 --> 00:32:49.912
I'm telling we wrote so many checks, and still I write checks for founders that I believe that they can do really well.

00:32:49.971 --> 00:32:54.442
For example, you can imagine sometimes we have so many calls with so many founders, right?

00:32:54.771 --> 00:32:59.642
Sometimes we invest sometimes we don't, but for me, I have a couple of stages for me to give a check.

00:33:00.571 --> 00:33:01.912
If the founder is great, perfect.

00:33:01.922 --> 00:33:04.182
Second stage, let me look at the project.

00:33:04.461 --> 00:33:07.301
And this is where I feel a lot of founders fail.

00:33:07.961 --> 00:33:13.082
A lot of founders, they come with an idea and they expect us to just to deploy.

00:33:14.047 --> 00:33:15.886
Because we will deploy in my work.

00:33:16.017 --> 00:33:22.237
No, my friend, you need to have a product that is working at least as some small traction.

00:33:22.866 --> 00:33:25.136
You just generating some revenue.

00:33:25.616 --> 00:33:28.757
My capital will go there to make sure that we amplify that.

00:33:29.394 --> 00:33:31.144
And I think founders need to understand that.

00:33:31.554 --> 00:33:33.673
I see founders just raising with an idea.

00:33:33.834 --> 00:33:36.703
A founder can raise with an idea because you are a second time founder.

00:33:37.223 --> 00:33:48.104
Or third time founder and everyone respects you and the community, and the space know that what you are capable of doing, for example, let's say that Vitalik right now says I'll start a new project.

00:33:49.003 --> 00:33:55.723
I'm telling next minute, he probably have a hundred million dollars in his bank, just to people that want to be involved.

00:33:56.233 --> 00:33:57.403
That's quite fascinating.

00:33:57.554 --> 00:34:08.239
And I don't think many people listening know about this, but early days when Vitalik was pitching to investors at Miami at some events, the rooms were like half empty.

00:34:08.418 --> 00:34:11.559
Everyone was like, who is this weird kid that just ears speaking?

00:34:11.878 --> 00:34:18.289
I actually have a friend that has a video from back then from him pitching and he's just, he's awkward, he's weird.

00:34:18.289 --> 00:34:20.148
And sure, it's just another guy talking.

00:34:20.648 --> 00:34:26.369
But what are the odds or the chances you winning a million to create that reputation?

00:34:26.369 --> 00:34:42.829
And sure, once you make it, you can always raise or be a reputable voice and that's the society we live in and going back to your early question I think it's important to discuss this is valuations, according to the business book, how do you calculate a valuation?

00:34:42.838 --> 00:34:47.528
There is over five metrics, especially in traditional finance and venture capital.

00:34:47.708 --> 00:34:54.309
It goes from discounted cashflow analysis, market cap, enterprise value, price to earnings, asset based valuation.

00:34:55.478 --> 00:34:58.018
So how does this even occur in crypto?

00:34:58.393 --> 00:34:59.123
It doesn't.

00:34:59.403 --> 00:35:01.043
Many don't have even revenue.

00:35:01.083 --> 00:35:03.494
Many don't have assets or liabilities on the table.

00:35:03.494 --> 00:35:06.164
These are software companies, not even SaaS.

00:35:06.204 --> 00:35:07.474
There is not even revenue.

00:35:07.523 --> 00:35:13.204
What I have seen is here is the sort of average valuation in the market.

00:35:13.273 --> 00:35:25.384
Let's say AI at the moment, companies coming in at a valuation of 200 mil, 300 mil, or for example, ChatGPT raised, or is raising at the moment at a 49 billion valuation, I believe.

00:35:25.943 --> 00:35:32.028
And it's sort of by the market average, and we're raising X at this val.

00:35:32.509 --> 00:35:38.998
And then as soon as you see a name investor, tier one or tier two coming in, that valuation is confirmed on the table.

00:35:39.028 --> 00:35:42.168
And that's pretty much how the game works.

00:35:42.768 --> 00:35:46.588
Funny enough, today I was speaking about this with a product.

00:35:46.818 --> 00:35:49.398
His team has an amazing background.

00:35:49.858 --> 00:35:51.358
One of the best backgrounds I've ever seen.

00:35:51.418 --> 00:36:01.869
People from Binance, Kraken, Unilever, the best teams that you can think of, and he was like, Jenite, look, I look at these projects and the valuations does not make sense.

00:36:01.869 --> 00:36:06.789
And I said, look, I think one thing you need to understand about crypto is the perceived valuation.

00:36:06.978 --> 00:36:08.329
That's the real valuation.

00:36:08.659 --> 00:36:11.329
That is the perceived valuation by the crypto space.

00:36:12.358 --> 00:36:12.748
Okay?

00:36:13.309 --> 00:36:17.958
And I think that's super important to people understand the perceived valuation is the KOLs.

00:36:18.809 --> 00:36:19.989
The tier one VCs.

00:36:20.318 --> 00:36:22.608
The right narrative at the right time, the right moment.

00:36:22.719 --> 00:36:23.789
AI is booming now.

00:36:24.469 --> 00:36:35.588
So anyone that has an AI project, the chances of succeeding at the TGE or even raising, it's much higher compared to a project that has a dead narrative.

00:36:36.449 --> 00:36:41.059
I was speaking with a founder and this is a lesson for me.

00:36:41.309 --> 00:36:44.478
This was an AI project, and the founder was just pitching.

00:36:45.289 --> 00:36:52.759
And the guy said, the founder of Coinbase investing in us and he really believes in what we're doing, but I said, look, how involved is it?

00:36:53.539 --> 00:36:53.659
Yeah.

00:36:54.228 --> 00:36:55.728
Some calls here, some calls there.

00:36:56.278 --> 00:36:59.418
When I look at the project, I was like, I don't understand why you have a token.

00:36:59.418 --> 00:37:05.088
I don't understand what is the purpose here, but the narrative is so hot right now.

00:37:05.548 --> 00:37:06.978
And I look at the price.

00:37:07.403 --> 00:37:12.204
I was speaking with some of my colleagues and they said, look, I think we made a big mistake.

00:37:12.443 --> 00:37:14.184
We just lost in a massive game.

00:37:14.474 --> 00:37:19.204
And again, the perceived valuation, what people really think.

00:37:19.554 --> 00:37:22.523
And to be honest, I think meme coins is a great example of that.

00:37:23.253 --> 00:37:27.847
And I'll love to see someone running a case study where let's say you build a project.

00:37:28.237 --> 00:37:45.507
all of the biggest tier one VCs, you get checks, let's say half of a million for every single VC, all of the KOLs just that alone, you already built a narrative, an image that everyone wants to trust and invest.

00:37:46.117 --> 00:37:47.126
But what are you building?

00:37:47.586 --> 00:37:50.617
Don't know! Too complicated for you to explain.

00:37:51.786 --> 00:37:54.577
I think that's where we have judgment days and judgment days.

00:37:54.577 --> 00:38:00.347
I call it bear markets because everyone down to earth, but in financial markets is normal, right?

00:38:00.376 --> 00:38:02.626
We have the dotcom bubble with the insane valuations.

00:38:02.996 --> 00:38:07.407
Now we have the AI bubble with all these valuations going on.

00:38:07.972 --> 00:38:09.371
And sure.

00:38:09.371 --> 00:38:10.181
What are you building?

00:38:10.382 --> 00:38:34.322
Anything with AI agents, and there's a very good podcast actually, we brought on someone that spoke about the difference of an AI agent or a bot, and they're actually honest about them building that or not, because it's very easy to just put AI agent, but the amount of complexity that adds for you to do that, or does it even make sense to do that?

00:38:34.981 --> 00:38:39.021
But yeah, it's narrative fuel, these trends.

00:38:39.021 --> 00:38:50.782
And if you have the right resources, you can go to the market and raise and stay afloat for the next 10 years with, sort of a, we call it vampire projects that just, yeah, it's just there.

00:38:50.782 --> 00:38:57.561
There's the cash on the balance sheets from VCs or the raise from the community and there is just nothing else.

00:38:57.592 --> 00:38:59.981
And there's a lot of that going on in crypto too.

00:39:00.012 --> 00:39:13.271
People that raised in 2017, in ICOs that promised the next L1 that promised the next XYZ, I don't want to name any, anything specifically, but yeah, they just fade into oblivion.

00:39:13.621 --> 00:39:22.141
And only very few we see delivering, and I can name a project that I think it delivered something quite substantial with the amount they raised was Cosmos.

00:39:22.641 --> 00:39:26.061
Sure, the token did not do very well due to a flawed tokenomics.

00:39:26.396 --> 00:39:40.027
But for a 7 mil raise initially to create such an ecosystem of projects, it was really interesting compared to what others did at the time that raised a thousand times more probably, not picking names.

00:39:40.077 --> 00:39:42.876
I think I know some names, which I don't want to mention.

00:39:43.626 --> 00:39:55.867
Look, let's talk about airdrops, If you think about airdrops and the airdrop farmers, a lot of VCs got burned, because with the airdrop, and if you do the quest, one, you're going to get the social metrics that you need, right?

00:39:56.762 --> 00:39:58.771
Then you're gonna get the on chain activity you need.

00:39:59.041 --> 00:40:01.431
Probably the VC will be, I see some traction here.

00:40:01.641 --> 00:40:02.061
Perfect.

00:40:03.012 --> 00:40:09.552
Then you go to a centralized exchange and you look, Hey, I have the social metrics, I've the on chain activity, I have my VCs here.

00:40:09.882 --> 00:40:11.021
They're probably gonna list you.

00:40:11.831 --> 00:40:15.862
And then when you see a TGE boom, the price goes down.

00:40:16.481 --> 00:40:26.052
So even if you already come with a valuation of$10 million and the public is, I dunno,$25 million, or let's say$30 million, even your multiple are public.

00:40:26.976 --> 00:40:30.476
With the price going down and crashing, the VCs just lost so much money.

00:40:30.927 --> 00:40:37.967
Then we just had a conversation and we said, look, if the airdrop it's around 7% is something that we need to be careful.

00:40:38.496 --> 00:40:43.516
I think 3% is okay, on a token supply, but it's something that we need to be aware.

00:40:43.817 --> 00:40:50.891
I've seen some projects, where look, you have the airdrop, but if you wait longer you have a higher percentage of that drop allocation.

00:40:51.121 --> 00:40:54.202
If you just do it now, you lose 50 percent of your allocation.

00:40:54.791 --> 00:41:00.311
I think that's interesting, but you also need to understand, you can either penalize or you can incentivize.

00:41:01.351 --> 00:41:05.561
How can you really incentivize people to say, look, Hey, don't sell this token.

00:41:05.581 --> 00:41:08.981
Instead, just hold the token and you need to give the second conversion.

00:41:09.777 --> 00:41:11.217
Would be stake the token.

00:41:11.226 --> 00:41:12.797
There is a incentive here.

00:41:13.257 --> 00:41:19.047
Could be a return here and there access to specific features could be so many things, right?

00:41:19.556 --> 00:41:25.637
But I think it's some food for thought and I would like to know your opinion on this because you invest in projects that had like massive airdrops.

00:41:25.836 --> 00:41:32.976
I think airdrops from a business standpoint of view can be plugged into user acquisition cost, marketing.

00:41:33.496 --> 00:41:34.327
Makes sense.

00:41:34.737 --> 00:41:44.726
But then a lot of founders hit the metrics, all the check marks, and then they forget to ask this question, where does the buy pressure come in?

00:41:44.757 --> 00:41:46.487
Where does the buy demand come in?

00:41:46.907 --> 00:41:52.327
Cause sure, everyone wants free value and you see everything exploding on Twitter, Discord during airdrop.

00:41:53.501 --> 00:41:57.661
But then, how do you sustain this growth or how do you retain the users?

00:41:57.692 --> 00:42:03.132
Is there an actual utility for the token or something that can keep this afloat?

00:42:03.442 --> 00:42:12.652
And I think founders, when they're designing tokenomics and something that actually, I can quote Nick on from your firm saying is supply and demand.

00:42:12.731 --> 00:42:15.561
A lot of people forget about generating the demand.

00:42:15.911 --> 00:42:17.242
And that's very much true.

00:42:17.742 --> 00:42:20.811
And seeing all these massive airdrops.

00:42:21.317 --> 00:42:24.606
And there's airdrop hunters out there to just do this for a living.

00:42:25.396 --> 00:42:28.836
And then they just dump on the project and that's it.

00:42:28.836 --> 00:42:29.746
And then they leave.

00:42:30.376 --> 00:42:38.996
I think a way to combat that is look at projects that did it successfully without airdrop, like Bitcoin, let's say.

00:42:39.336 --> 00:42:40.157
Bitcoin is a cult.

00:42:40.887 --> 00:42:42.086
And there was no airdrop.

00:42:42.677 --> 00:42:50.047
I would normally like everyone, a lot of financial planners, advising to buy a percentage of Bitcoin of your overall portfolio.

00:42:50.056 --> 00:42:54.577
You have massive fund managers to start to deploy more.

00:42:54.586 --> 00:42:57.556
Today, that was not early days.

00:42:57.567 --> 00:43:02.177
Like when he came out, people that were in it was because of vision and mission.

00:43:02.617 --> 00:43:04.456
And it's sort of like creating a company.

00:43:04.456 --> 00:43:08.617
You want your employees to really see the vision and mission of what you're building.

00:43:09.016 --> 00:43:19.217
And Bitcoin was early anarchists, early open markets, people that were like, this is how we can purely transact without government interference.

00:43:19.217 --> 00:43:23.947
This is how I can store my funds and have proof of keys.

00:43:24.717 --> 00:43:25.657
And it was a cult.

00:43:25.726 --> 00:43:30.472
It was a very strong set of principles that I'm never going to sell.

00:43:30.512 --> 00:43:38.442
And these are my values and I believe in it, and I'm running a full node to back up the old network and you see these coming through.

00:43:38.972 --> 00:43:45.632
And if you as a project do an airdrop thinking, yeah, now I have all these users that are here for the run.

00:43:46.152 --> 00:43:51.722
I don't think those are the right users because they just come in to extract value from your project.

00:43:51.871 --> 00:43:55.371
Maybe it's better having 10,000 followers on my Twitter.

00:43:55.842 --> 00:43:58.692
But they engage, they comment, and they believe.

00:43:59.092 --> 00:44:02.382
Then this, and you can see that with meme coins, they are cults.

00:44:03.141 --> 00:44:08.112
On the sense of believing I'll become richer with this meme coin and selling it to the next person.

00:44:08.527 --> 00:44:21.086
But it builds that organically and through word of mouth or people just posting screenshots of their gains and showing that transparency, it builds that following that natural, organic way.

00:44:21.197 --> 00:44:30.757
I don't know of, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, if many successful meme coins done airdrops, but I only see mostly VC backed projects doing airdrops.

00:44:31.387 --> 00:44:34.257
And we had quite big ones over the last year.

00:44:34.686 --> 00:44:36.907
And I remember I lived through the Arbitrum airdrop.

00:44:36.907 --> 00:44:42.237
They dropped thousands of dollars and I'm actually not even a big airdrop fan.

00:44:42.376 --> 00:44:43.626
I haven't even done one.

00:44:44.206 --> 00:44:47.637
Just lack of time and just not very attractive.

00:44:48.536 --> 00:44:50.007
The demand needs to be there.

00:44:50.007 --> 00:44:56.746
And a lot of founders don't think about that on the tokenomics and then the reality reflects on the charts.

00:44:58.186 --> 00:44:59.246
I agree, honestly.

00:44:59.706 --> 00:45:02.416
The airdrop is a conversion mechanism, really.

00:45:02.672 --> 00:45:13.202
And then your goal would be to understand, okay, I brought a bunch of users here, how can I convert, think about the funnel, and then you only going to convert if your product is quite good.

00:45:13.811 --> 00:45:18.032
Then there is Cookie3, which I really want to test.

00:45:18.581 --> 00:45:22.782
I was listening to the CMO of Cookie3 and she said that they have a new feature.

00:45:22.992 --> 00:45:32.476
She said they launched a new feature that protects the projects from airdrop farmers by collecting the data from wallets and so on.

00:45:32.527 --> 00:45:35.856
Then we also run an on chain workshop today.

00:45:36.597 --> 00:45:37.237
And the reality is.

00:45:37.851 --> 00:45:40.081
You can fake an on chain activity.

00:45:40.782 --> 00:45:48.081
Only a real data analyst that someone really understands on chain activity can understand like, Hey, is this real or fake?

00:45:49.012 --> 00:45:53.931
What happened through the bear markets, a lot of the chain was just fake or a lot of duplicates.

00:45:53.931 --> 00:45:58.472
Like how could you keep all these tremendous volume on your exchange or in your wallet?

00:45:58.831 --> 00:46:00.061
There's no new users.

00:46:00.061 --> 00:46:03.492
There is extreme friction to onboard retail.

00:46:03.501 --> 00:46:07.592
Who's using these DeFi lending protocols or using these DEXs?

00:46:07.612 --> 00:46:10.942
Like even myself, I've been in this space for over 10 years.

00:46:11.322 --> 00:46:14.021
I don't even use a lot of the bridges or wallets.

00:46:14.092 --> 00:46:16.032
I don't have enough time and it's complex.

00:46:16.981 --> 00:46:17.672
A lot of friction.

00:46:17.762 --> 00:46:28.782
When you talk about complex of our friction, one of the teasers that I have, and I really look for projects that build AI agents that focus on improving the user experience in crypto.

00:46:29.822 --> 00:46:35.387
The reason of that is because if you look at Web2, the user experience it's just so much better.

00:46:35.956 --> 00:46:41.467
And if you look at user experience on Web3 is horrible, let's face it is horrible.

00:46:41.476 --> 00:46:48.356
Just go and tell a normal person that doesn't understand about crypto, go and create a wallet, then bridge here, then provide liquidity.

00:46:48.666 --> 00:46:49.577
You do this, do that.

00:46:49.577 --> 00:46:51.277
It's horrible, right?

00:46:51.617 --> 00:47:10.356
So if there is any project out there that is building something like an AI agent that collects the data from the wallet and based on that data, improve the user experience or refine the strategies or facilitate the interaction with Web3, please let me know, reach out to me.

00:47:10.356 --> 00:47:12.876
And I probably would write the ticket because think about it.

00:47:12.896 --> 00:47:24.856
You go to a L1 or L2 and you just say this, look, I'm looking for based on my activity, the best games in the platform, and they just gives you the best games based on your activity.

00:47:25.246 --> 00:47:32.456
Let's say that, look, I have a bunch of EQ in here or a bunch of a specific token, and I want to increase my yield here.

00:47:32.916 --> 00:47:44.347
Can you look based on the risk parameters that I set up, can you look and build a strategy that can get around 7, 10 percent and then the AI agent just look at all of the ecosystem.

00:47:45.161 --> 00:47:48.661
And build a strategy in one click you just have all of that transfer.

00:47:49.052 --> 00:47:49.422
Imagine.

00:47:50.192 --> 00:47:54.442
Not shilling, but one of the projects we brought here on the podcast was Axal.

00:47:54.552 --> 00:47:55.601
And they do that.

00:47:55.612 --> 00:47:58.202
They rebalance your yield portfolio.

00:47:58.672 --> 00:48:06.342
They put on a strategy on the table for you to have the AI agent, at least try to get your XYZ gains in a very simple UI UX.

00:48:06.612 --> 00:48:10.802
And A16z actually led the round coming out of Harvard accelerator.

00:48:11.112 --> 00:48:16.702
So I did thought that was interesting, but I wanted to also touch upon something that I taught on the airdrops.

00:48:16.751 --> 00:48:32.612
And I think a lot of founders should know this or see it this way is what was Bitcoin's first airdrop or how was the way that Satoshi designed it and not on Bitcoin, because I'm not a Bitcoin maxi, but I lived through this early days, so I think it's a good experience.

00:48:33.161 --> 00:48:37.552
The way that the airdrop worked was it should be a win-win relationship.

00:48:37.891 --> 00:48:42.041
So Bitcoin airdrops at the time was not called airdrops, it was called mining.

00:48:42.322 --> 00:48:52.931
You would run a node, do a full copy of the network, provide your energy, your internet at home and security, and in return, you get rewarded 5,000 Bitcoin.

00:48:53.791 --> 00:48:58.552
And that incentivize a lot of users to come in, run a node and protect the network.

00:48:59.052 --> 00:49:04.362
So it should be more something tangible where users can have a win-win relationship.

00:49:04.452 --> 00:49:12.331
Let's say I receive your tokens, but I run a node or I stake it, and I'm able to use it on XYZ.

00:49:12.672 --> 00:49:13.862
So it gives continuity.

00:49:14.387 --> 00:49:20.947
And that's how Bitcoin took off with those early evangelists and build that cult around it because it was so tangible.

00:49:20.947 --> 00:49:23.407
It was pretty cool that you get that experience.

00:49:23.606 --> 00:49:25.047
What am I running this for?

00:49:25.516 --> 00:49:32.577
And Bitcoin as a protocol benefited from the security and you setting up a node, but at the same time will reward you.

00:49:32.737 --> 00:49:59.387
And sure, now it's super centralized and you have all these miners running it and benefiting it from these airdrops, we can call it mining rewards, but, I think it should be more of something projects can think of ways the user can keep interacting with your token than just holding it in a wallet after the airdrop and waiting for the price to go up or waiting on a DeFi protocol for the price to go up and then massively selling it.

00:49:59.436 --> 00:50:08.297
I think there's a lack of use case or cool functionality or utility that we could do with these tokens than just speculating.

00:50:08.391 --> 00:50:11.190
I completely agree with what you just mentioned.

00:50:11.581 --> 00:50:14.141
So what is your opinion on a node cell?

00:50:14.420 --> 00:50:16.771
Because I think node cells are becoming quite popular.

00:50:17.510 --> 00:50:18.311
Node cells?

00:50:18.760 --> 00:50:19.451
A node cell.

00:50:19.840 --> 00:50:25.201
So if you look at the data, a node cell, the valuation is more sustainable.

00:50:25.865 --> 00:50:27.755
The emissions is quite sustainable as well.

00:50:27.755 --> 00:50:28.706
It's not done in blocks.

00:50:28.706 --> 00:50:34.266
It's a linear, and the race sometimes tend to be much bigger compared to a token cell.

00:50:35.416 --> 00:50:39.356
And what you really doing is running a node, get some rewards, which are the tokens.

00:50:40.016 --> 00:50:41.846
You are incentivized based on the performance.

00:50:41.846 --> 00:50:50.896
You run the node, you have some, you are penalized if you sell too early, but the end of the day, as long as you run that node, you are generating some income, right?

00:50:51.356 --> 00:50:58.815
So I know people that are making around$3,500 every month for I think 18 nodes.

00:50:59.266 --> 00:51:04.695
They raise around 140 million dollars with impossible finance and a lot of partners that we work with.

00:51:06.775 --> 00:51:07.976
What is your opinion on that?

00:51:08.255 --> 00:51:12.085
Because the reality is this a lot of people are invested generating some capital.

00:51:12.175 --> 00:51:19.146
But they are incentivized to run that nodes that builds also that community there because Bitcoin is people believe in something.

00:51:19.521 --> 00:51:29.030
Yeah, I'm actually not very familiar with that model as I never really took a deep dive into it, but I'm familiar with running a node or validator.

00:51:29.831 --> 00:51:47.201
And I think as long as there is a win-win relationship there and the user actually could provide real value to the network, like Ethereum, you run a node or you validate the transactions, you provide security, it's a win-win, which to this day, since Ethereum was launched.

00:51:47.496 --> 00:51:51.976
It's extremely frustrating that we are not able to run nodes as an average user.

00:51:51.976 --> 00:51:54.255
And you have to use a cloud based node.

00:51:54.255 --> 00:51:55.036
I'm using Envato.

00:51:55.036 --> 00:51:56.356
Do you know Envato?

00:51:56.516 --> 00:51:57.385
Envato network?

00:51:57.675 --> 00:52:02.135
I bought one actually, and it still was hard for me to set it up and end up returning it.

00:52:03.791 --> 00:52:04.440
Other question.

00:52:04.451 --> 00:52:06.550
Do you think Ethereum is going to reach$10,000?

00:52:06.871 --> 00:52:08.581
Which is a psychological number.

00:52:09.030 --> 00:52:11.530
I actually always thought it was going to 15,000.

00:52:13.050 --> 00:52:27.411
Surprised it hasn't surpassed Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is a store of value, but seeing so much innovation and all these total value locks and everything has happened on Ethereum, I always wondered like, why hasn't it surpassed?

00:52:27.420 --> 00:52:29.201
There's just so much being built here.

00:52:29.501 --> 00:52:33.291
Whereas Bitcoin was always more conservative and sure store of value.

00:52:33.291 --> 00:52:35.170
It's a very tremendous use case.

00:52:35.791 --> 00:52:40.201
And it's pretty cool that you can run a node for Bitcoin on a Windows client.

00:52:40.221 --> 00:52:42.391
I think you could not anymore.

00:52:42.431 --> 00:52:44.481
I remember I still run one.

00:52:45.025 --> 00:52:49.135
Just download the executable file from the Bitcoin website and you run it.

00:52:49.385 --> 00:52:58.596
But something very interesting is if you do it on your Mac, Apple deletes the app automatically after a couple hours as is malware.

00:52:58.996 --> 00:53:13.389
And in your windows, you also run into problems, which to this day it's so fascinating to still see this happening, but you can, it just takes 600 gigs of space, which was pretty insane, but you download the transaction since 2009, which is really cool.

00:53:13.389 --> 00:53:14.429
And you have all the copy.

00:53:15.110 --> 00:53:16.269
I'm not sure if you remember this.

00:53:16.269 --> 00:53:24.769
I think when the new Mac was released, apparently there is like a specific file talking about Bitcoin.

00:53:26.030 --> 00:53:28.365
I saw on Twitter and I think it went quite viral.

00:53:28.755 --> 00:53:36.626
So apparently some of the guys from Apple, so you've bought, let's say, the MacBook, the M1 or M2 back in the day.

00:53:37.175 --> 00:53:44.786
If you go to a specific folder, then that folder and folder and here and there, you'd find something saying Bitcoin is great or something like that.

00:53:45.405 --> 00:53:47.556
I think you should go and check on Twitter.

00:53:47.945 --> 00:53:54.706
I am actually looking at right now, but nothing is coming up as I just type Mac Bitcoin file on folder.

00:53:55.246 --> 00:54:00.485
I don't think they'll be on the best interest of Apple to have that on the Macs and they probably took it down.

00:54:00.596 --> 00:54:02.615
Oh, I think it was a Bitcoin white paper.

00:54:02.615 --> 00:54:03.945
Oh, I found it.

00:54:03.945 --> 00:54:04.726
OS daily.

00:54:05.076 --> 00:54:11.545
So the Bitcoin white paper in there, even in macOS, this was July 4th, 2020, 2023.

00:54:11.565 --> 00:54:14.235
I can pull it up for those viewing on video.

00:54:14.856 --> 00:54:15.976
Let me see here.

00:54:17.675 --> 00:54:18.615
So there we go.

00:54:19.655 --> 00:54:24.476
Someone at Apple appears to be a Bitcoin enthusiast, or at least intrigued by the tech.

00:54:26.536 --> 00:54:26.865
Okay.

00:54:26.865 --> 00:54:28.425
This is a way of how you access.

00:54:28.425 --> 00:54:31.346
You're going to see some library image capture devices.

00:54:31.905 --> 00:54:36.186
I actually wonder if this is still on a Mac device.

00:54:38.076 --> 00:54:41.936
Should we give it a test just for the sake of this?

00:54:43.945 --> 00:54:50.655
Look, you have Apple doing this, but you also have Doge recently Elon Musk was assigned by Donald Trump, right?

00:54:50.655 --> 00:54:53.686
Then they created that Doge and the price of Doge just went ballistic.

00:54:54.007 --> 00:54:58.963
I'm actually trying to open up the directory right now, but, yeah, it's not pulling off anything.

00:54:59.413 --> 00:54:59.862
Really?

00:55:00.282 --> 00:55:00.563
Yeah.

00:55:01.083 --> 00:55:01.382
They removed it.

00:55:02.132 --> 00:55:03.382
They used to be there.

00:55:03.382 --> 00:55:10.402
They probably, yeah, they remove it, but I think a lot of people start to understand and catch up and then, yeah.

00:55:12.523 --> 00:55:19.342
But that will be hilarious actually to force every Mac with a Bitcoin white paper is like a hidden tip for those that are curious.

00:55:21.052 --> 00:55:38.106
I wanted to ask you a final question for those in Portugal that's never ventured outside, that have been touched with inspiration by other crypto people that have come to Lisbon with all their ideas and other raises and theories, etc.

00:55:38.567 --> 00:55:41.516
What would you tell them in terms of advice?

00:55:41.527 --> 00:55:45.407
Should they go on and quit their job and pursue a path in crypto?

00:55:45.697 --> 00:55:51.936
Should they go on and get a plane ticket and go to London or Asia or the US what is your advice?

00:55:52.907 --> 00:55:54.367
People that want to enter in crypto?

00:55:54.976 --> 00:55:55.306
Yeah.

00:55:56.487 --> 00:55:58.347
I'll say scary, right?

00:55:58.467 --> 00:56:04.947
If you like stability and you don't like to take risks and that's your way of living, that's completely okay.

00:56:05.226 --> 00:56:09.527
Probably crypto is not the best place because, everyone is nice.

00:56:09.527 --> 00:56:09.737
Great.

00:56:09.777 --> 00:56:12.197
Everyone talks about crypto because we are entering the bull market.

00:56:12.646 --> 00:56:15.936
But I'm sure when we enter in the bear market, a lot of people will get laid off.

00:56:16.097 --> 00:56:17.197
They were going to lose their jobs.

00:56:17.956 --> 00:56:19.467
I want to be realistic here.

00:56:19.577 --> 00:56:22.806
I'm not saying they will, as long as you are talented enough, you probably won't.

00:56:23.527 --> 00:56:28.246
But the reality is I want to really give a serious advice here.

00:56:28.277 --> 00:56:30.297
I don't want to just say, Oh, come to crypto.

00:56:30.387 --> 00:56:31.056
Everything is great.

00:56:31.286 --> 00:56:37.137
I would say is if you understand crypto, and let's look cycle here, right?

00:56:37.507 --> 00:56:39.686
Or road map or like something.

00:56:41.086 --> 00:56:43.356
People that join crypto, they interested about crypto.

00:56:43.916 --> 00:56:45.876
They ended up making some money out of crypto.

00:56:46.217 --> 00:56:50.047
They start to engage with the community, be part of a couple DAOs.

00:56:50.626 --> 00:56:55.672
And then slowly, either they are hired by the DAO, or they get a job in crypto, right?

00:56:55.711 --> 00:56:59.251
But this is someone that's been in crypto for a couple of years.

00:56:59.302 --> 00:57:03.762
You just don't jump from a normal position to crypto.

00:57:03.802 --> 00:57:05.311
I think that is a process of learning.

00:57:05.702 --> 00:57:11.052
I do see a lot of students out of university coming to a crypto firm.

00:57:11.431 --> 00:57:13.251
And I come from a traditional background.

00:57:13.641 --> 00:57:20.452
I feel that it's important to go to Tradefi or to a normal Web2 job to learn.

00:57:20.987 --> 00:57:23.396
Then go to crypto because crypto we still figure out.

00:57:24.056 --> 00:57:25.266
You don't have process.

00:57:25.586 --> 00:57:27.666
You don't have that structure yet.

00:57:27.907 --> 00:57:42.257
People are figuring it out and you see that and I think it's in my opinion, don't quote me here is I think you see really great founders and really great decision makers in the crypto space that have amazing background from Web2.

00:57:42.601 --> 00:57:46.222
They've done really well on Web2 and then they went to crypto and they become leaders.

00:57:46.641 --> 00:57:53.541
The reason of that is because you just have a lot of experience in a work environment before coming to crypto, right?

00:57:54.391 --> 00:57:58.371
If your first job is in crypto, and crypto is still figuring it out.

00:57:59.282 --> 00:58:02.981
Depend on you, of course, if you love crypto and you are great, just come.

00:58:03.271 --> 00:58:05.121
I think it's important to have some experience.

00:58:05.282 --> 00:58:12.172
But if you want to join crypto, I'd say study, understand what you're going through, become valuable, and then join.

00:58:12.231 --> 00:58:14.331
Because the market goes through cycles.

00:58:14.882 --> 00:58:20.922
And you need to strategize how you're going to go through those cycles because everything is great at the bull market.

00:58:21.021 --> 00:58:28.291
Everyone is printing, but during the bear market, you really have need to have a strategy on, okay, this is will be my strategy here.

00:58:28.711 --> 00:58:32.081
How are you going to maneuver that part?

00:58:32.282 --> 00:58:34.961
And if you understand that, yes, please come to crypto.

00:58:36.681 --> 00:58:42.981
If that's too dangerous and too risky for you, probably keep studying, but crypto needs great people.

00:58:43.063 --> 00:58:45.873
As long as we have great people in crypto, we're going to do really well.

00:58:46.563 --> 00:58:52.182
And touching on what you mentioned about the bear market, was that something you experienced on the job you had at the time?

00:58:52.213 --> 00:58:58.902
Because I know on major exchanges at the time was quite hard because they laid off people at the hundreds.

00:58:59.222 --> 00:59:01.063
Especially after the FTX collapsed.

00:59:01.753 --> 00:59:02.882
I was lucky.

00:59:03.592 --> 00:59:06.063
Another advice, make sure you build a really good network.

00:59:06.873 --> 00:59:12.733
Don't be a dick, really provide value, build a really strong network and really build a relationship.

00:59:12.782 --> 00:59:14.583
Just don't go and ask me for the telegram.

00:59:15.052 --> 00:59:16.603
That's not the way you build a relationship.

00:59:16.922 --> 00:59:22.322
If you build a relationship and you really provide value, people will respect you and they won't have you on your team.

00:59:22.688 --> 00:59:30.469
Sometimes I have some offers just because of the work that I've done with some founders, or I am an advisor and then they want me to run the company.

00:59:31.438 --> 00:59:33.009
So I think that's important.

00:59:33.969 --> 00:59:34.929
I was lucky.

00:59:35.523 --> 00:59:46.063
And I didn't go through that, but I've seen a lot of people that were making so much money throughout the bull market, then the bear market, they would lay off and then was a problem.

00:59:46.114 --> 00:59:48.074
Some of them, they went back to Web2.

00:59:48.094 --> 00:59:50.054
Some of them found another job.

00:59:50.164 --> 00:59:52.213
Some of them just went to Web3 again.

00:59:52.764 --> 00:59:56.568
So I think it's important to be aware of this, be realistic.

00:59:56.668 --> 00:59:58.039
Just be great, don't be good.

00:59:58.079 --> 00:59:59.639
There is a great book, Good to Great.

01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:01.329
Don't be good, that's not enough.

01:00:01.539 --> 01:00:01.958
Be great.

01:00:02.958 --> 01:00:04.759
Go and study and try to become great.

01:00:04.858 --> 01:00:06.528
And, I think you need to love crypto.

01:00:06.929 --> 01:00:09.778
Because, personally, I do a lot of hours.

01:00:09.818 --> 01:00:14.528
But, I don't look as a job, I look at it because I love what I'm doing.

01:00:15.389 --> 01:00:17.568
so I think it's important to have this perspective.

01:00:17.708 --> 01:00:19.938
Because everyone say, come to crypto, we're doing this, we're doing that.

01:00:20.039 --> 01:00:22.778
But sometimes it's important to be realistic.

01:00:22.778 --> 01:00:24.068
What is your opinion, Tony?

01:00:25.179 --> 01:00:30.688
I think if you're in crypto or if you're thinking about it, be prepared.

01:00:31.228 --> 01:00:33.449
It's a very niche industry.

01:00:34.048 --> 01:00:35.878
It's completely out of this world.

01:00:36.469 --> 01:00:41.338
And if you have a stomach to get it, strong punches come in.

01:00:41.338 --> 01:00:47.778
I have seen in this industry, life's been completely changed.

01:00:47.793 --> 01:00:56.273
With financial returns, but also due to that, also life is being completely destroyed and even losing friends.

01:00:56.994 --> 01:01:06.813
Because I think people fantasize the fact of being part of this industry because of money or acquiring large sums of capital and changing their lives.

01:01:07.193 --> 01:01:12.914
And sure, that can unlock a lot of things and it's good, but also can unlock a lot of bad things.

01:01:12.914 --> 01:01:27.684
And I have seen that dark side of the story or the game and sometimes it's better to have a stable job, a nine to five and commute and be happy in the bubble of the Truman show.

01:01:27.853 --> 01:01:28.864
Let's put it that way.

01:01:29.603 --> 01:01:35.974
But if you really want to be on the verge and try something insane, join the space, quit everything.

01:01:36.713 --> 01:01:58.393
At the event that we've met, and I'm not sponsored by anyone or shilling anything, I actually saw a lot of students from a very talented university, which is technical is like top one school in Lisbon going on and building on ICP and it was pretty cool seeing some of the kids early on and if you are a student or in university, like that's when you should take these risks.

01:01:58.423 --> 01:02:01.153
Like it is not when you're my age or later on.

01:02:01.793 --> 01:02:06.204
Because you can afford to do so, try go into hackathons.

01:02:06.204 --> 01:02:13.764
Like for example, a lot of Web2 people at the hackathon from in Lisbon were like, whoa, I never seen such a large prizes.

01:02:14.173 --> 01:02:24.103
I never seen so much demand and Pantera Capital is raising their fifth fund and they come in with a report that says we only have 100,000 active developers.

01:02:24.384 --> 01:02:26.623
Over the next five years we need more 10 million.

01:02:27.324 --> 01:02:29.293
There's a tremendous demand for developers.

01:02:29.563 --> 01:02:41.454
There's a lot of opportunity to go on and build and you can just like free flow or think about what you want to do and apply for grants, apply on hackathons, have fun, meet friends.

01:02:42.103 --> 01:02:45.923
And disrupt traditional finance, which I think it could be really cool.

01:02:46.074 --> 01:02:49.134
And there's up in traditional finance is just one vertical, right?

01:02:49.134 --> 01:02:50.153
There's thousands.

01:02:50.164 --> 01:02:58.318
There's so many, I don't think anyone is really understanding the importance of real world assets, but believe me, if you look at the major institutions, they are there.

01:02:58.389 --> 01:03:06.949
Go to realworld, rwa.a16z, not xyz, and you really can look at the data and see that real world assets.

01:03:06.978 --> 01:03:09.728
It's a sector that is growing and will grow.

01:03:09.958 --> 01:03:14.389
And I agree with what you said, like crypto, if you have the stomach, definitely come to crypto.

01:03:15.188 --> 01:03:24.668
I know people will hate when I say this, but I love the bear market because that's where you find the right deals, as a VC, if you're a VC, if you have capital to deploy.

01:03:25.829 --> 01:03:27.978
The valuation, the terms are great.

01:03:28.518 --> 01:03:29.969
I have a funny story about that.

01:03:29.969 --> 01:03:36.838
I had founders pitching me a company and then they accidentally put the bull market valuation and they switched the deck on the call.

01:03:36.838 --> 01:03:37.898
And I'm sorry, this is wrong.

01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:39.416
This was the bull market value.

01:03:39.416 --> 01:03:40.469
I was like, what?

01:03:40.548 --> 01:03:42.818
You went from 100 million to 20.

01:03:42.889 --> 01:03:43.639
It was insane.

01:03:43.849 --> 01:03:44.809
I remember that today.

01:03:45.824 --> 01:03:55.213
The bear market is where I like to deploy most of our capital by deploying that capital, then you have better terms, real projects, better valuations.

01:03:55.603 --> 01:04:00.713
And by the time bull market starts, Oh my God, it's amazing.

01:04:00.954 --> 01:04:02.543
So that's some alpha here.

01:04:02.594 --> 01:04:07.034
And again, you need to understand before, if you come to crypto, you need to be able to navigate the bear market.

01:04:07.643 --> 01:04:11.713
And if you are able to do that, Oh my God, you're going to do really well in the space.

01:04:12.563 --> 01:04:13.034
Makes sense.

01:04:13.344 --> 01:04:22.233
All right, Jenite, if listeners want to follow you, stay in touch, where they can reach out to you or follow what you're doing slash building?

01:04:22.244 --> 01:04:23.563
Oh yeah.

01:04:23.563 --> 01:04:31.083
So any founders that they're looking for, an incubator accelerator can reach out to us at Trireme.com.

01:04:32.190 --> 01:04:39.528
I'm not really active on Twitter, but the guys from Lunar strategy, they told me like, Hey, you should probably be active on Twitter sometimes just give some alpha here and there.

01:04:39.528 --> 01:04:41.478
And I think you should share with the public.

01:04:41.478 --> 01:04:42.659
So I probably got to do that.

01:04:43.309 --> 01:04:44.898
Actually They can follow me on LinkedIn.

01:04:44.898 --> 01:04:45.768
Jenite Rajendra.

01:04:45.768 --> 01:04:49.829
All right, ladies and gentlemen, this was another episode.

01:04:50.018 --> 01:04:56.148
And if you're looking for a crypto job, not sponsored, but actually I've found a really good resource over time.

01:04:56.634 --> 01:04:58.833
Check out cryptojobslist.com.

01:04:58.994 --> 01:05:05.384
They have pretty good deals there and yeah, we will keep in touch and stay tuned for the next episode.

01:05:06.034 --> 01:05:11.184
Thanks for tuning in to the Chain Stories podcast, where disruptors become trailblazers.

01:05:11.463 --> 01:05:17.583
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01:05:17.873 --> 01:05:23.043
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01:05:23.204 --> 01:05:27.554
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01:05:27.844 --> 01:05:28.454
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01:05:28.643 --> 01:05:34.273
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